JesusFreke just released version 1.4 of his rom. Included is the Multitouch patches I mentioned yesterday. Currently it can be tested using the default browser but anyone can write apps to take advantage of it now. Download the 1.4 update in the wiki. Read more about it at RyeBrye’s site and at LukeHutch’s Site.

Last night I was given an ultra-uber-top-secret image with multitouch enabled to beta test. I have been running it most of the day and so far the only bugs I have found were bugs that have been proved to already exist in the browser but were not as noticeable when you rarely use zoom. Overall it seems like multitouch is going to succeed on the G1. I have tested many sites and all seem to zoom fine. The main bug occurs when you zoom into a page and then transition to a page that does not allow zoom. This causes the unzoomable page to be zoomed in but unable to be zoomed out. Pinching and (spreading?) works great and is a much more natural method of making pages larger. Maps multitouch zooming is in the works and might not be available by the first release but we will see. Keep an eye out on xda-developers.com forums for the official release of a multitouch enabled rom any day now.

It would appear that Android has a thing for tasty sugar coated treats. From what I have heard the newest cupcake is not even a cupcake, but a donut! Word is flying around the underworld (freenode.net) about the latest buzz which is dubbed donut (sans frosting?). Hopefully this means that we will see a new word on the market besides cupcake for once

Android locale has a feature request (digg like page where you vote for requests kinda like our brainstorm site) page that you can submit your request to and pray the implement it. Locale is that program that everyone was drooling over before the G1 was released and was almost forgotten after the first week when it did not work. We all know most apps did not work at that time so now is the time to revisit. I redownloaded it tonight and it seems much improved. When I found this feature request site I was glad that I could finally request the one feature I had been waiting for (besides location situations to actually work). Please feel free (do it now!) to vote for my request (3 votes please) and check out the rest of the requests here. Help them make locale what it was hyped up to be!

P.S. If you care, they have been making regular updates and a very well hidden changelog has been placed on their site: http://www.androidlocale.com/notes.txt

I did not know much about the process but the more I see other sites having a store on Amazon.com the more interesting it looked. I decided to check it out and before I knew it I was selecting G1 accessories to add to the store. I was surprised by some of the items and prices. The case that I purchased from some stand alone store for $7 (which I thought I was stealing from them at that price) can be purchased for about $2-3 on this amazon store. I have added it to a frame so you do not have to leave the site to view it, but if you wish it can be viewed in a seperate window at store.android-dls.com.

I had been reading about calibrating your battery for a while. I had been putting it off for a while for no good reason but reading a forum post somewhere made me go for it. It started one day at work when I would turn on everything during each of my breaks and do whatever I could to wear the battery down. By the end of my shift I was about 7% and the phone kept trying to take a nap on me. When I got home I turned everything back on and went into power manager and watched the voltage drop till I was at 1%. After about 15 minutes at 1% the phone brought up a dialog about saving settings and shutting down. I first thought this was an odd way for a phone to “die” and was expecting more of a *poof*. At this point I did what the forum post said and I left the phone off while plugging it into the charger. I left it there all night and unplugged it the next day at around 10am. I did not power the phone back on until it had fully charged (this is the important part from what I have read). Starting that day I was able to use my phone lightly to moderately for 3 days straight.

I ended plugging it back in about 70 hours after its last charge and the phone was still at 58% capacity. During those 3 days I made about 5 phone calls, checked the market (on wifi or 3g) 2+ times a day and downloaded 1-3 apps each time I checked the market. I ran aTrackDog once during this and updated probably about 10 apps. I also used Gtalk about 2-4 times a day, played a few games and did some web surfing. During those 3 days I had wireless, cell location and gps all enabled (not using them all the time of course, but all were on).

Before the calibration I was barely able to get through my full 8 hour shift without charging during my breaks to keep the phone running the full day. This is such a drastic change that I thought I would let those who are experiencing the dreaded G1 battery life woes know that the calibration really does work. It is easy to do and does not take that much time if you kill it before you go to sleep and let it fully charge overnight.

A .nbh image has been released that will revert your RC30 G1 to RC29 which gives you the good ‘ole root bug. This will allow you to get root access and flash a modified image that will allow you to keep root without the bug part. For steps on doing this and the needed files, visit the >wiki page.