Seesmic have released their 'Seesmic Mobile' Twitter client for Android and Blackberry on their respective application stores. Available for download free of charge, the clients are slick, feature packed and refreshingly free of advertisements.

The Android client (pictured above) has a great design that utilises a standard tab-based user interface with a red accent, providing virtually every feature (bar multiple account support) that a Twitterer could desire. Included are the ability to scroll without limits back through your timeline, photo and video upload (either from your device camera or from the gallery) via a variety of online services, the ability to add your location to your tweet, URL shortening, saving tweets-in-progress as drafts, switchable full name / username display and very granular notifications.

The Blackberry application also features a native-feeling UI and adds lists and saved search support, albeit at the expense of video and location features.

If you give Seesmic Mobile a try, let us know how you get on and - of course - don't forget to follow @downloadsquad!

The SEVEN Beta setup is an interesting one.

As a company, Seven (enough capitalising already!) sell their excellent push e-mail products only via mobile operator channels, however their Beta program is an excellent way for users on unsupported carriers (that's likely you and I) to enjoy their software.

Available in a variety of editions on a variety of platforms, Seven's software allows you to receive push mail on your device from a variety of services - Exchange, Yahoo, GMail, AOL Mail, HoTMaiL and standard POP and IMAP services are all supported. A Beta release it might be (with the usual associated disclaimers), but the application is a supremely useful piece of software that i've been using for many years to push synchronise GMail with my Windows Mobile devices.

I happened to visit the Seven Beta site earlier today to download the latest Windows Mobile client and I was intrigued to notice that an Android download option had appeared. Obviously I had to download the application and take a look!

As expected, it's a Seven client for the Android OS that includes all of the goodness that i'm used to - push mail across a host of platforms, 'quiet times' when push can be automatically disabled, multiple accounts, server contact search, customisable notifications and more! Although the currently version of the software is missing a few features i'd like to see (primarily HTML mail), for Android users it can often be a trying task getting mail set up and working as desired if you are using something other than GMail, and Seven is making that story easier. I've been pushing an additional e-mail account and a HoTMaiL account all day without any issues!

If you'd like to try out Seven on Android (or indeed any of their other support platforms, which include WinMo Standard / Professional, Symbian S60, Palm OS and even J2ME!) then head on over to the Seven Community Forum to sign up for an account.

Bump, the impressive iPhone app that lets you trade contact info and other data by physically bumping two phones together, isn't just an iPhone app anymore. Bump for Android has arrived (so sayeth TechCrunch, at any rate), and it covers Bump's biggest weakness: you had to have an iPhone to use it. Between iPhones and Android devices, Bump now has the potential to become a common way of swapping contact info.

In addition to the Android launch, Bump also polished up its iPhone app. The new version, which is in the app store now, taps into Facebook to compare address books with your bumping buddies and see whether you have any contacts in common. You can also send either a message or a newsfeed post to yourself via Facebook when you bump someone new, so you can remember to get in touch with them later. These features haven't made their way to the Android edition of Bump yet.

[via TechCrunch]

Motorola's Droid is a sweet piece of hardware that's hyped to give the iPhone a run for its money, especially since it's running the new Android 2.0 OS, and works on the Verizon network in the US. We care about software here at Download Squad though, and there's some dismaying news about the Droid on that front: it has only 256MB for app storage. Seriously.

The Droid reportedly only packs a 512MB ROM (that's the built-in memory), of which only half is allocated for apps. There are some iPhone games that couldn't even fit in that teeny-weeny storage space! But at least it's expandable, right? Um, nope. Google doesn't support installing apps to the SD cards that Motorola relies on, so developers are pretty limited in terms of file sizes for their Android 2.0 software.

The Droid may have a solid CPU and GPU for gaming, but games that take full advantage of that hardware are likely to need 100 megabytes or more of storage space. That's going to make things pretty tough until Android 2.0 comes to a device with a lot more pre-installed flash memory.

[via Daring Fireball]

UPDATE: While it's true that the Droid only has 256MB for apps, commenters have pointed out that various resources for the apps (graphics, etc.) CAN be stored on the device's SD cards. It looks like the situation isn't as bad as the numbers seem to indicate at first.

With the release of the Droid and Android OS 2.0, Google has set up a head-on gadget war with Apple's iPhone. Even if they've got a comparably-cool piece of hardware and a nice OS, Android will have to compete with (arguably) the iPhone's biggest selling point: apps. If Photoshop.com Mobile for Android is any indication, Android will do just fine. The Android version of Photoshop.com offers everything the iPhone version does.

That means you can crop, zoom and flip your photos, as well as adding filters and color adjustments. Black and white, sepia and soft focus are just a touch away. The app also plugs into Photoshop.com, so you can browse your photo library and upload new shots. The only difference between the Android and iPhone versions, as John Gruber pointed out over at Daring Fireball, is that the Android version includes a straighten tool for devices without multitouch.

[via AppScout]

By now, iPhone users who haven't jailbroken their devices have learned that they can't get an app unless it goes through Apple's approval process and reaches the iTunes App Store. A new eBook reader called Ibis, planned for iPhone, Android and Palm's WebOS, plans to get around Apple's restrictions. How? Simple: it's a web app. You can access the reader from your browser, and your books are stored offline using HTML5.

It doesn't seem like there's much Apple can do about that, unless they want to start blocking web apps on their device. Unlikely. So, you can enjoy your DRM-free books in ePub format to your heart's content, and even buy new ones from Ibis' bookstore. You'll be able to sync books and bookmarks across devices via the cloud, too. Ibis isn't launching for "several months," but it could be a real winner if it looks as good as it sounds.

[via Daring Fireball]

As if we weren't already excited enough about the next version of Google's Android mobile OS, Google has now announced that Android 2.0 devices will offer GPS navigation with 3D views and turn-by-turn directions. Google Maps Navigation looks great, and it's a smack in the face to Apple, who seem to been distancing themselves from Google after buying their own mapping company. The iPhone is cool, but it's hard to beat Google Maps at its own game.

It's especially hard when Google's offering practically everything you get from a pricey GPS navigation unit, right in your Android phone. 3D maps, live traffic updates, and voice directions are all included, along with Google's Street View and Satellite view. When it comes out next week, the Verizon Droid will be the first phone to support the new navigation features. For right now, it'll only work in the United States, but other countries with Google Maps should get it eventually.

Google is unveiling some of the features of its next-generation mobile operating system with the launch of an updated Software Development Kit. That means developers can already begin writing programs for Android 2.0 even though the first phone to run the operating system won't officially be launched until tomorrow.

So what's new in Google Android 2.0? Here's a shortlist:

• Support for multiple email Google and Exchange accounts on each device, allowing you to sync with multiple email accounts and address books
• Quick Contact feature that lets you pull up a contact's communication methods (email, SMS, phone, etc) with a single click
• Combined inbox with email from multiple accounts
• Search saved SMS and MMS messages
• Auto-delete old messages in a conversation after a limit is reached
• Improved keyboard with multi-touch support
• Dictionary automatically includes contact names as suggestions, learns from words you enter
• Web browser now includes web page thumbnails for bookmarks
• Double-tap to zoom in broser
• HTML5 support in web browser
• Infinite scrolling in the calendar
• Bluetooth 2.1 support

There's also support for digital zoom, white balance, and macro focus in the camera application. You can find a more detailed list at the Android Developers page.

You can also see some of the new features in action including a pretty nifty demonstration of how two Android devices can interact with one another in the video after the break.

[via Engadget]

In the mobile browser wars, Webkit-based browsers seem to be pulling away from the pack. Don't count Firefox out yet, though, because the CEO of Mozilla says that Firefox has put together "the most advanced mobile browser," and it's due to hit Android phones soon. Fennec, the mobile version of Firefox, is based on Firefox 3.6, which is a generation ahead of the current desktop version of Firefox. As CEO John Lilly told Om Malik of GigaOM, this browser does "everything - Javascript, CSS, Flash, SVG, video and audio."

Like the desktop version of Firefox, the mobile version uses the AwesomeBar, which provides quick access to bookmarks and browser history, right from the address bar. Mozilla also plans to support add-ons for Firefox's mobile version, which would make it the first mobile browser to do so. Add-ons might be the sole factor keeping Firefox competitive on the desktop. In the mobile space, they'd give it an edge. Along with Android, Mozilla is also developing for Nokia's Maemo OS, which isn't too widespread in the US, but is growing in global popularity.

When you hear that there's a new iPhone-killing Google Android phone that's coming to Verizon and has a name straight out of Star Wars - the Droid - it's easy to get so excited that you forget about the software side of things. Yes indeed, Android 2.0 is coming, and it has a spate of hot new features that might legitimately make iPhone users jealous. Gadget-blog Boy Genius Report ended up with a pre-release copy of Android 2.0 and posted a walkthrough of the OS's new features, including Facebook support in the address book, and a Car Home mode for drivers.

Facebook contact syncing is a pretty sweet feature on its own, but combine that with Android 2.0's new unified inbox – which collects messages from multiple email addresses (including Exchange accounts) and Facebook messages - and you've got a pretty sweet address book system. BGR says that Gmail accounts are handled in a separate app, which is presumably better able to support Gmail's many features. Car Home is a dashboard for using your phone in the car. It provides voice access to the apps you need when you're driving, so you can dial numbers or search for something on Google Maps without taking your hands off the wheel.

We won't know how cool the Droid is until we can actually touch one, but BGR reports that Android 2.0's software keyboard offers a nice haptic response – that slight vibration that lets you know when you're pressing keys. That puts it well ahead of other non-iPhone touchscreen smartphones (I'm looking at you, BlackBerry Storm), and I can't wait to give a Droid a try for myself.

After playing with Google Wave for about a week, I found myself wishing I could check my waves on the go. How is this thing going to replace email in the future if I have to be at my computer to use it? Well, it turns out that Wave does work on at least two mobile platforms: the iPhone and Google Android. Although the mobile versions of these browsers aren't technically supported - so you'll have to click through a warning to use it - the fact that they're built on WebKit means it's more or less Wave-ready.

There's even a mobile-optimized site for Wave, similar in design to mobile Gmail. Although there's no official Wave iPhone app, you can add Wave to your home screen on the iPhone for convenient access. Obviously, some of Wave's features won't work in the mobile version - dragging and dropping images, for example - but for basic reading and adding to conversations, it's fine. Preparing a decent mobile web version of Wave is certainly one alternative to going through Apple's app store approval process, especially after the infamous Google Voice rejection.

[via TechCrunch]

It's all over the place; Verizon is embracing Android. Google loving apologist geeks everywhere are heralding the 85 million new customers -- who are obviously ready to try Android, if only Verizon would let them -- as the beginning of a new era in mobile phone competition. The cries of panacea are all I've heard all day:

"It's going to be a floodgate of new users! "

"Death to the iPhone!"

And, as one particularly difficult to satisfy commenter on another blog wrote:

"Get over yourselves apple and make a new product."

I'll have to admit, as a current G2, and previous G1 owner, I was a little excited myself. Then I read one thing from the joint Verizon/Google press call which made me crestfallen.

"Verizon also has no plans to make any changes to the Android Market."

And with that, all my dreams of an Android controlled world ran away like so much sand through my fingers. This is an enormous mistake, Verizon. Care to know why? The Android Market is terrible. It's worse than terrible, it's horrible.

Horrible, and just a little bit dangerous.

I've got a list of five things Verizon must do to the Android Market if they're to have any hope of even modest success.

Astraware - long time software developers for Windows Mobile, Palm and more recently iPhone, Symbian and Blackberry - have now entered the rapidly growing Android software market with the release of two of their top titles - Astraware Solitaire and Astraware Sudoku.

Astraware Solitaire features 12 different single player card games in the one download, with the ability to customise each game to play 'your way'. A wide choice of card backs is included, together with an optional 'clear' card face. The application also features unlockable rewards.

Astraware Sudoku includes some great features including smart hints, pencil marks, hold-and-highlight to help beginners, a downloadable 'Puzzle of the Day' from the dedicated companion website (which also includes tips on solving techniques) and a puzzle solver to help you complete those troublesome puzzles in the newspaper!

Available for immediate download from the Android Market, both games are priced at $4.99 each and feature design and controls optimised for Android while still retaining an 'Astraware feel' that will be familiar to anyone who has used Astraware products before.

Here in the UK, there's phonecalls that are deemed 'national rate' - they're calls to a non-geographic number, and the cost of the call is a little more than you'd pay for a general phone call (as the name implies). The company which uses the 0870 number makes a small amount of money on every minute that you're connected to the number, and when you use an 0870 number on a mobile phone, the network providers add their own fees on the top of the number - making a £0.10 per-minute call into (for example) £0.35 per-minute. In short, it's a great big money-spinner for the service providers.

Since February this year, Android users have been able to use 0870, a free app that translates non-geographic numbers into their geographic alternative - allowing users to burn through their inclusive minutes instead of paying through the nose for 0870 calls. The application lets you enter the relevant 'national rate' number, uses the No To 0870 website to find a suitable alternative, and lets you call it.

Developer Simon Maddox has long hoped to build an iPhone version - and after over 400 days of back and forth (with Apple stating that iPhone carrier O2 had blocked the application) the app is now available for iPhone users too!

Both apps are free - the iPhone version is available here on the App Store, whilst Android users can simply search for '0870' in the Marketplace.

[Via The Daily Telegraph]