1. Connect your G1 to your computer via USB.
2. Create a ‘Music’ folder on your G1′s memory card. This can be named any name that you like, but something that you’ll remember where your music is stored.
3. Open up iTunes on your PC. When open, select the playlist that you want on your G1 and select all the songs in your playlist (this can be done by CRTL+A).
4. Drag the selected playlist to your G1. It will automatically be added to the “Devices” section on the left-hand pane when iTunes loaded.
5. When this has done, right click on the playlist and select “Export Song List.” When prompted, select the XML option and export the playlist to the Desktop (or any fast, and easy place).
6. Exit iTunes and download an XML playlist converter. One that I recommend can be found here.
7. In the converter, where it says iTunes Song List to Convert select the XML file that you saved to your computer and click the “Convert” button.
8. When the file has downloaded, you will need to rename it with an extension of .m3u, because it will not create the extension on download.
9. Go to the ‘Music’ folder we created in step 2 and place the .m3u file in there.

You will now have your iTunes playlist on your G1. Please leave feedback how this worked for you.

With this in mind, T-Mobile will be issuing customers a new battery with 2400mAh which will replace the current G1 battery of 1150mAh. The new battery’s 2400mAh (milliamp hours) is over double the original battery’s life, and does not require a replacement back cover.

G1 customers should have already received a notification by snail mail and/or e-mail with additional information on acquiring the new batter replacement. Those who have not should contact their T-Mobile representative/location regarding the new battery for their phone.

If anyone has received their new battery, please feel free to leave feedback here with your experience and how it has improved the battery life of your G1.

In some sense, this is great competition for the G1′s arch-rival, the Apple iPhone as their line of smartphones and products are well-known for their white appearance. This statement can be translated to be that “white is in” as black has been a favorite for trending gadgets for the past few years.

What are your thoughts on the emerging white look to the G1?

Some of you (including me) did the manual update. It’s really not that hard, and when it’s done, almost everyone who does it is reporting that the phone, within minutes, will tell you that RC30 is ready to be downloaded. I did the manual update from RC19 (which is what most people have on their phone when they take it out of the box) and within about 5 minutes of manuall updating to RC29, I got a message telling me that RC30 was ready. So it seems that as soon as you have RC29, the phone “checks in” with the database, and promptly encourages you to install RC30 (which apparently fixes a security loophole of some sort).

So the question is – why doesn’t Google/T-Mobile set up something on their website(s) that would officially support manual updates of the phone? Doesn’t Iphone do that through itunes? I don’t see how hard it could possibly be, give the resources of both companies. Plus, it would quiet down about 95% of users who are rightfully past being patient in waiting for their updates.

On the other hand, officials over at the T-Mobile forums have said from the beginning that we need to be patient in waiting for the OTA updates for the G1 phone. I have to give them and Google credit, because I’m sure they’re doing their best in updating the phones in a safe and effective manner, but perhaps they overlooked the sheer amount of G1 users that they were actually going to have. Who knows.

As for the title of this post, I ask the question about what your experience is with the latest update, because I’ve literally heard everything from “It’s GREAT!” to “It bricked my phone!”, and everything in between. I must say that I’m one of those users that have had nothing but good experiences with the RC30 update, and it even seems that my battery lasts longer. Call it a coincidence if you want, but my G1 runs smoother than ever before.

Let me know what you think, what your experiences are with updates, and what you think of the updating progress so far. We’ll discuss in the comments below. Thanks!

You get to wait again for RC30!

Apparently a leet haxor was able to find an exploit in the current software version that allowed them access to the root level of the Android operating system. Although Android is open source, I don’t thing Google enjoyed the fact that people were now able to go through a “back door” (yeah, I hate saying that phrase) to access the lower levels of the virutal Android basement.

In any case, the new RC30 updates will probably be pushed out pretty fast, due to the sensitive nature of the security flaw. This is good news and bad news…as those waiting for the last update and finally got it will now have to wait for another, but, those that haven’t received the update yet will at least hopefully get it a bit faster now. We’ll see.

A statement from Google:

“We’ve been notified of this issue (Jailbreaking of Android) and have developed a fix. We’re currently working with our partners to push the fix out and updating the open source code base to reflect these changes.”

Although I’m not too frustrated by the upcoming update, I wonder how many people out there are starting to question the phone’s logevity with all of these security flaws and updates? Just remember, we WERE told from the beginning to wait, but one can only wait so long…

We’d love to hear from anyone that received the RC30 update or any other update experiences you’ve had. Just post in the comments below. Thanks!

Additional Note Of Interest – As reported in the comments below, it seems that the method below DOES work fine, as long as you use a different MicroSD card then the one that came with the G1 phone. Thanks to our readers for picking up on this – great information!

Further Developments……

According to “Will”, who is a T-Mobile forum moderator, there is some new information on this “manual” updating process that you need to be aware of (here is the original post):

I’ve checked with our Product Development staff and they have informed that this is definitely not what we want people doing.  The Updates are intended to be distributed to everyone via an Over-The-Air Update.  While I understand that many of you have downloaded this update and seem to have it working, T-Mobile cannot support you in doing so.  If you download and attempt to install this or any other update (regardless whether its from Google or not) to your device, and it is rendered unusable, you are out of luck.  Even if we do exchange it, you will be without a device for several days (or possibly even weeks).

The updates are being sent out to everyone.  We didn’t plan the OTA updates to be installed on a phone which had already been updated manually.  Hopefully the OTA installer is smart enough to realize the update is present, but who knows.  If your phone is ‘bricked’ due to the offical OTA being installed on a manually updated phone, once again, you are out of luck.

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So, you’re tired of waiting for the RC28 RC29 update for your T-Mobile G1 phone? Do you have a MicroSD card laying around?

Apparently, a lot of people were tired of waiting. The update was scheduled to take place over the air over the period of a few weeks, as reported by official T-Mobile sources. But like any good tech savvy gadget head, someone got cranky and decided to figure out how to do it on their own, and here’s the deal.

• Download the update from Google website: https://android.clients.google.com/updates/signed-kila-ota-115247-prereq.TC4-RC19+RC28.zip (even though it says RC28, apparently it is in fact RC29)
  

• Rename the file you just downloaded to update.zip

• Copy the file update.zip to the root of your micro sd card.

• Now turn off your phone and turn it back on while holding the home key.

• When you see a triangle with a exclamation sign and a phone, slide open your keyboard and press ALT-L to display the menu and then ALT-S to start the update process.

• Wait for the update to finish. If prompted, press Home + Back to restart your phone.

• Wait a little bit more and done!

After reading the comments of folks that tried it, they all pretty much said the same thing “Thanks, it worked great!”. But there were also plenty of people who were more content on waiting for the update to be delivered safely OTA. Updating via your MicroSD card, as stated in the disclaimer at the beginning of this post, should be approached with extreme caution, and plenty of bravery!

If you did attempt this G1 update – please let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear what happened!

(Image source: http://androidcommunity.com/update-your-t-mobile-g1-from-a-microsd-card-20081031)

As you read in our previous post about the G1updates going out over the air for the next few weeks, you were probably anxiously expecting to get it and see version RC28 after you rebooted your unit. But guess what? Some people not only received the update already, but they skipped directly over RC28 and actually saw RC29 when they rebooted their phone!

RC29, WHAT?

Yeah, a lot of people over at the offical T-Mobile G1 phone forums are going absolutely crazy (for no good reason, as they were told that the “rolling” updates would take a while to distribute) that some people are actually getting a brand new update before they even get what’s now considered “the old one”.

Why RC29?

Well, apparently there were some security issues, more specifically the rumors state that in the RC 28 update that the browser may be susceptible to keylogger viri (trojans, etc…whatever), and T-Mobile (must have) decided to switch over RC28 to RC29 effective immediately. So if you already received RC28 and thought everything was cool – it’s time to panic! No, not really.

Just wait patiently for another update, as I’m sure they’ll want to patch up all those RC28ers as soon as possible to prevent any bad publicity. They could probably do the damage control now before anyone even knows what’s actually going on. Good job, T-Mobile!

Of course, we’ll keep you updated with any late changing or breaking information on this.

It’s true. Confirmed by CNN (and every other gadget/mobile phone blog in the world), Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, will be selling the new G1 phone at a discounted rate of $148.88 – which is a $31.11 savings when you buy it from a T-Mobile store or T-Mobile retailer.

This is quite an interesting development, because with the combined marketing power of Wal-Mart, T-Mobile, HTC, and Google, if they haven’t sold a million units by years end, then something has gone terribly wrong. According to the CNN article, roughly 550 Wal-Marts nationwide will offer the G1 at the discount, and no word yet about potential supply/demand issues. Will the G1 phone reach Wii-like sellout levels? Will the G1 phone be the hot holiday gift ticket? Who knows.

It’s all going to depend on how hard they “pimp” this phone. Again, with the resources available (hell, just putting that one liner ad on the Google homepage is huge), they should easily be able to run a good turnout, potentially boosting accessory sales and giving T-Mobile quite the large spike in users.

The standard terms apply, meaning, you’ll have to agree to a new two-year contract with T-Mobile, or be eligible for an upgrade if you’re an existing T-Mo customer. After researching, there wasn’t any info available if Wal-Mart are going to also offer them at retail price. I’m assuming they will, but will they discount that too? Hopefully, but it’s anyone’s guess.

Starting October 28th, you can get your new G1 phone at your local Wal-Mart.

Courtesy Cnet.com

When a new device is launched into this shark frenzied consumer marketplace, especially a high tech device such as the T-Mobile G1 phone, you can expect feedback from the community right away, and a lot of times, that feedback isn’t exactly the kind of thing a manufacturer wants to hear, although it is necessary. In the case of the G1 phone, we’re talking about a list of fixes that need to occur as soon as humanly possible, and in case you didn’t read our last post about the OTA updates, here is some additional information put out by official T-Mobile spokespeople on the T-Mobile forums.

Many people have asked what the updates will take care of, and after a lot of poking and prodding, they finally assembled a very “thrown together” list of a number of issues the update should be taking care of, including, but not limited to:

1. Wrong field is focused when keyboard is opened in Messaging application: Now when the keyboard is opened, the focus will default to the compose (text entry) field.
2. Cannot associate with WiFi access point using shared WEP key: Should now be able to associate to access points with a shared WEP key.
3. Google Contacts/Calendar Sync (endless loop).
4. USB storage: Now a USB notification will appear in the notifications area when connected via USB. Users must select to use USB Storage if desired.
5. Email notification doesn’t disappear when the Email has been read (POP/IMAP Email client).
6. New Email notifications not received (POP/IMAP Email client).
7. Browser does not launch YouTube video when Settings > Enable Javascript is unchecked.
8. WiFi & Bluetooth occasionally disconnect while charging.
9. Support silencing of Email notifications (POP/IMAP Email client)
10. Amazon MP3 fix for files with underscores (_) in the filenames

So, the list isn’t exactly as detailed as some would like it to be, but personally, I think it’s explanatory enough for the average user that they’ll be able to get the general idea of what this possibly long awaited OTA update will entail.

Additional information will be added if necessary, and we’d love to hear your feedback on these G1 updates.

These days, whenever a new bluetooth enabled device such as the G1 phone is released, you just never quite know what’s going to be bluetooth compatible and what isn’t. You’d think everything would work in perfect harmony, because bluetooth is pretty advanced, but sadly, that just isn’t the case.

After doing some research and reading through forums, blogs, and other sources of G1 phone information, I found a list of devices that are 100% bluetooth compatible with the G1 phone. This list will obviously grow, but the gadgets you’ll see below are pretty popular ones, and as time goes on, I’m sure reports will come in about the lesser known devices.

Anyway, for now, here is a confirmed list of bluetooth compatible devices that work with the T-Mobile G1:

Bluetooth headsets:

Plantronics voyager 520 – (but no volume control)
Plantronics voyager 220
Motorola Stereo (S9) headset – Partial (works for phone functions but not music due to lack of 2.0 full API)
Jabra JX10 headset
Motorola H700
Plantronics Explorer 340
Plantronics 320

Automobile bluetooth:

Pioneer AVIC-D3 Nav system – (but contacts are not syncing to show on Caller ID)
MINI Cooper, 2007 factory system – Partial (Pairs OK, address book sync works sometimes audio does not switch to the car’s sound system)
Parrot evo 3k (parrot 5.11c) car kit – Works (Need to use the G1 to dial though)
2004 Acura TL – everything appears to work
Garmin NUVI 360 – perfect
2008 Honda Odyssey – perfect

This compatibility list will obviously be updated on a regular basis, so if you have anything to add, by all means, please leave it in the comments below or you can contact us as well. We want to make every effort to update this with as much information as possible, and your help would be great!