It is hard to believe how fast 2009 flew by. This site started as a hobby and continued to evolve as the pageviews have exploded. I have never run a high traffic blog (so I’m not sure what is considered success), but I’m quite happy with the several million unique visitors we had this year.
For the most part I will admit we are still a little unorganized at times, but things are going to change in 2010. Check back mid-January for details on some paid positions we will be offering (Yes, we are in big need of help and that’s a good thing).
What stories captured your attention this year? Here are the Top 10 posts of 2009, by unique pageviews:
1. Beginners Guide For Rooting Your Android G1 To Install Cupcake – This was the first hacking guide I attempted to write. Back in the day, it was not as easy to root your phone and the information was spread across 100 page threads on XDA. I tried my best to simplify the process and shared my experiences I ran into when I first hacked my G1.
2. How to root a T-Mobile G1 and myTouch 3G Android phone – Three months later I saw the original guide was outdated so I attempted to re-write the entire thing and I added more pictures. The post was well received, but it also eventually became outdated. I now suggest that newcomers follow the CyanogenMod Wiki when first attempting to root their G1 or myTouch 3G.
3. Motorola Sholes for Verizon: New predictions and CPU specs – Over the summer, the Motorola Sholes became the hottest topic in Android land. In this post, I was the first to reveal that the Sholes (which became the Droid) would feature a TI OMAP3430 processor. I also speculated the Droid would launch with Android 2.0 and retail for $199, which both turned out to be true.
4. How to manually partition your SD card for Android Apps2SD – Noticing that hacking guides were becoming popular, I wrote another one to explain how to manually partition your SD card. It was a good learning experience, but I now suggest people use the Amon_RA recovery image which can automatically partition your SD card.
5. Google fails to address app storage issue with Droid and Android 2.0 – When the Droid specs were officially announced, I pointed out the device only featured 256 MB of space for users to store their apps. This post became popular when several iPhone blogs linked to it in order to bash the Droid. The upcoming Nexus One also features the same size onboard storage of the Droid, so either Google is not concerned with the issue or they have a solution in the works.
6. Robo Defense: 120 Levels of Tower Defense Madness – This one was quite a surprise. Robo Defense became one of the best selling games on Android and this was the only time we touched on the topic. The post was written by one of our early contributors Christopher Earle (who was awesome).
7. Root a T-Mobile myTouch 3G or G1 in 6 minutes and flash Cyanogen’s rom with Donut crumbs – I like to make videos, but we did not film too many this year. This video was shot the day the 1-click root hack came out and I wanted to demonstrate how easy the process had become. We filmed this video right before Clark smashed his phone.
8. HTC’s 2010 Android lineup revealed – When XDA user B3ler3fonte leaked the HTC 2010 roadmap, we received our biggest spike in traffic ever. All I did was take the images he uploaded and cropped them to fit on our site. We were the first blog to get the images up, which led to a lot of other sites linking back to us. We are still waiting to see if any of these prototype phones actually turn into real products that get launched.
9. Android 2.0 coming to T-Mobile – I hammered T-Mobile a lot asking if they would update their existing phones like the G1 and myTouch 3G to Android 2.0. They finally responded that they were “coordinating with Google to deliver Android 2.0″, but did not mention any specific devices. Maybe they were referring to the Nexus One or maybe the older phones will still get updated. We are still waiting to find out.
10. How to install Android SDK and play with Android 2.0 in the emulator – Another one of our contributors Justin Shapcott called out Google for not releasing the Android 2.0 SDK and then it magically appeared the next day. After the new SDK was out, it didn’t take Justin long to write a short guide explaining how to install it and run the emulator.
Conclusion
We broke a lot of exclusive stories in 2009, but many of our guides ended up being the top posts of the year. Look for expanded hacking guides and tutorials in 2010. This site will continue to shift into being a helpful resource for all levels of Android users.
Only one video post was ranked near the top, but we will be greatly expanding the use of our YouTube channel (subscribe now for lots of CES footage).
When it came to app and game reviews, we were sorely lacking. Additional resources will be brought on board to address those needs.
Finally, I have to give a huge thank you to all the loyal readers we have. I remember running contests when we first reached 100 RSS subscribers and now we have over 10,000. Over 11,500 comments were posted on the site and I personally read most of them. We love all the feedback, both positive and negative. Be on the lookout in 2010 for new and exciting giveaways across our network of social sites.
If you want to help us out, please tell us the areas we suck and your feedback will go into our 2010 roadmap (which I’m going to publicly reveal sometime after CES).
Thank you to everyone who made 2009 an awesome year for Android fans.
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- First videos of the Android-powered Motorola Opus One for Boost Mobile
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