If you were a bit taken aback by the £40 ($59) monthly tariff required to take the G1 home for free, apparently you weren't alone. T-Mobile has hacked that requirement down to £30 ($44) per month, and while the carrier itself has said that it's not a reaction to poor sales, industry analysts are saying otherwise. In fact, a company spokesperson even states that it has chosen to "offer the device free with a £30 contract to make the pricing more competitive in light of recent device launches," even though it is "well on track to achieve [its] sales forecasts." Whatever the agenda, we're all about getting phones into hands for less, so three cheers all around. Except for you early adopters... bummer, eh?

[Via Pocket-lint]

The G1's got its fair share of accelerometers -- one need only pop open compass mode in Street View to figure that out -- but one thing it doesn't have is screen auto-rotation. That's where the ever-vigilant developer community comes into play, and Google's all's-fair policy toward third-party apps should guarantee that this nifty little hack will be readily available to anyone who wants it. Follow the break to see the keyboardless magic in action (hint: it works pretty much how you'd expect it to).

We've heard that it's been showing up on doorsteps and in stores for a few days now, but T-Mobile has just officially given the word that the G1 is now available in white to complement bronze and the especially personality-free black (not to say there's anything wrong with that, black G1 owners). The price, hardware, and software are all the same, so if you thought this release might somehow magically bring a soft keyboard with it, think again. Any guesses what -- if any -- future colors we might see on this puppy?

Perfect timing, eh? We're really not too concerned about the supposed browser hijack being reported on G1s the past couple days -- there's no proof at this point that it's actually a browser issue, and even if it is, we expect Google to be Johnny-on-the-spot with a patch -- but it's still cool to see a viable alternative getting developed in the form of Opera's venerable Opera Mini in its latest 4.2 beta form. We've played around with it for a few minutes and it seems to work pretty dang well, so if you G1 owners are feeling wild and crazy enough to switch up your browsing routine, give it a go -- it's free, after all.

[Via Phone Scoop]

Those crazy zzzPhone kids are at it again, and this time they're jumping on the open handset bandwagon. Sure, the whole thing has always seemed excessively shady, and as far as we can tell no one has ever received a one of these devices, but apparently the made-to-order cellphone is now "shipping" with Android. If the optional TV tuner, 100,000 candlepower flashlight, or solid gold case (decked out with one karat diamonds) wasn't enough to lure you in, maybe this new development will seal the deal for you. Of course we're dying to put the modular mobile boom box attachment through its paces, but not so much that we'll be sending our hard earned cash over to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone any time soon.

There's already been a G1 firmware pushed out to patch up a browser security issue, but you know how it goes with those -- two flaws seem to magically sprout up in place of every one that's snuffed out. It's unclear exactly what's going on here, but some G1 users are reporting that attempting to visit Yahoo!'s home page is intermittently redirecting them to a totally legit-looking page imploring them to download some bogus Microsoft AntiSpyware crap -- and while we're thinking that this fake site was intended to target slightly larger computers of the Windows variety, it's disturbing that this redirect somehow managed to filter down to Android. It could be a DNS hack or a problem with T-Mobile's proxies, in which case the G1's own defenses are absolved for the time being, but that's not much comfort for Joe Yahoo-User, now is it?

[Via Android Community, thanks Dooosthy]

When reviewing the G1 we found a lot to like, but a lot to dislike too. We knew that some of its shortcomings, like the missing headphone jack, were sadly permanent (free adapters notwithstanding), but hoped that it would just be a matter of time before some enterprising soul (with an enterprising compiler) would take care of another complaint: the lack of multi-touch. Lo and behold now is that time and Ryan Gardner is that coder, author of a little app that proves the inability of the G1 to accept a two-finger salute is not a hardware limitation. You can see for yourself in a video after the break, and once Ryan is done cleaning up his code he pledges to post that, too (don't forget those comments, man). Okay, so being able to cover your screen with red and yellow splotches isn't going to convert any spoiled iPhoners, but we're thinking the rest of you developers out there should be able to pick up this ball and run with it. So make with the running, already.

It's not going to somehow magically conjure a jack where there's currently nothing more than a sad-looking ExtUSB port, but new G1 buyers can take some solace in the knowledge that they'll be able to plug in, turn it up, and tune out right out of the box. We've received official word from HTC that 3.5mm headphone adapters for the ExtUSB port are now being bundled with the phone, meaning you won't be stuck with that janky (no, seriously, it's insanely terrible) headset with the special connector that you get free of charge; after all, when we're blasting the Jonas Brothers at full tilt, we need the kind of fidelity that only high-end earbuds can provide. What, you got a problem with that?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Oh sure, a few remarkably lucky and / or well connected individuals out there are yapping it up on a white T-Mobile G1 right this very moment, but for the bulk of us, coming across one is basically impossible; in fact, the white G1 isn't even listed on T-Mobile's website currently. TMO News has it that the lightest hue of the HTC-built handset isn't expected to ship until at least the US Thanksgiving holiday, meaning that you've still got some serious time to kill before wrapping your paws around the increasingly enviable mobile. Rumors have been rampant that a paint chipping issue is at fault, and while we've yet to hear any confirmation of that, we have seen problems with white paint throw a wrench in the production plans of other mega-corps in the past. There's always the black G1 + Colorware if you're really impatient, you know.

We'd already gotten a general idea about what Google's RC29 and RC30 Android updates for the G1 did, but if you're curious about all the little details, you'll no doubt be pleased to know that the Google Android Security Team has now finally come out and explained the updates themselves. As we had heard, the RC29 update fixed a vulnerability that could potentially let malicious sites take over your browser, but it apparently also fixed two other software bugs, including a universal cross-site scripting problem that could also give someone control of the browser, and an exploit that let folks bypass Android's locking mechanism by booting the phone into safe mode. As for RC30, it apparently not only fixed that little root access issue, but two other bugs related to WebKit, which could, again, let someone take over your browser, and access to the G1's memory to, for instance, read stored cookies and gain online privileges. Google has also clarified that it intends to wait until all users have access to updates before it discloses the full details about them, so it looks like this cycle of confusion is going to be a regular occurrence for G1 owners.

[Via Talk Android]

Teardown specialist iSuppli is at it again, digging through the G1's guts this time around in an effort to wrap its inquisitive brain around the inaugural Android handset's bill of materials. The result? $144, which naturally doesn't reflect HTC's R&D -- an additional expense that might have been unusually low for the G1 considering HTC's overwhelming expertise in manufacturing all things mobile. For the record, this is about $30 less than iSuppli's July estimate for the 8GB iPhone 3G, though the comparison isn't terribly fair considering that the G1 has a mere pittance of internal storage by comparison. There's no telling what T-Mobile pays HTC for each and every G1 it sells, but we pay $179 (or less) on contract -- so it seems HTC is making itself a nice little profit right out of the gate and customers aren't footing much of the bill. At least, not until they've gone a few months into their two-year agreements.

Are you excited? Giddy? You should be. The inevitable has occurred, and even though it's far from elegant (and far from guaranteed-to-work), tethering on the T-Mobile G1 is a go. According to a few users over at TmoNews, this particular solution enables owners to share the G1's data connection via USB, which -- for all intents and purposes -- is tethering. You're going to have to put in some serious days minutes to get everything up and running properly, but trust us, it'll be worth it. Navigate down to the links below for all the instructions you could ever need... hopefully.

[Via AndroidGuys]

Read - G1 tethering instructions
Read - TmoNews discussion