Google’s Android OS is by far the closest challenger for Apple’s iPhone OS in this crazy mobile OS market right now. Although Android is the strongest challenger, there is still a huge gap between Android and iPhone, as iPhone has thousands of Apps, and Android only has several hundreds apps, which make users don’t like Motorola Droid as much as they would. To increase the market share of Android, ARM today announced the opening of a new resource called “Solutions Center for Android” to help Android developers. You might be wondering why ARM is doing such a good favor for Google. It is because Android is actually built to run on the ARM architecture. So, the more support ARM gives to Android, the more chips they sell to cell phone makers who manufacture Android-powered phones.

So far, there are 35 companies have signed up for the Solutions Center for Android and offer community-based support as well as technical documents. ARM said that they will provide developers access to all the tools they need in order to optimize their applications for the Android platform.

Verizon Wireless spokesmen today said that the Motorola Droid phone, Motorola’s first Android-powered phone, could be tethered (means users could use the Droid phone as a wireless modem for a laptop to browse the Internet) starting in the first quarter 2010. Wait a second. Before you jump and down celebrating, there is a catch for that. There is a $15 dollars fee for this service, and you could only get up to 5GB of data per month. Verizon Wireless didn’t say what is the penalty if you use more than 5GB of data per month.

Motorola’s first Android phone, Motorola Cliq with MOTOBLUR™, is available at T-Mobiel stores beginning today. The selling price for the phone is $199.99 with two-years contract agreement. Although the Cliq phone might have been overshadowed by the launch of Motorola’s Droid (Android 2.0), it is still worth taking a look at this Motorola Cliq.

“Smartphones are fast becoming the primary way many consumers engage with social networking services, e-mail and the Web, which makes the Motorola CLIQ with MOTOBLUR the right phone at the right time,” said Travis Warren, director, product marketing, T-Mobile USA. “T-Mobile continues to expand upon its industry-leading lineup of Android smartphones for the holiday season with the launch of the CLIQ, and we expect it to be very popular among our highly connected customers.”

I guess what Eric Schmidt said was right – Google’s Android strategy is ready to explode. In this month, we are going to see launches of several Android-powered phones right before Thanksgiving holidays. Here are the official launch dates compiled by our partner, Simplexity.

Google today announced that Android 2.0 OS is now available for developers to program their apps, a few days after Google released the Android SDK supports for Android 2.0 OS. New features of Android 2.0 OS include multiple email accounts (Google and Exchange), improved virtual keyboard, camera enhancements, and improved browser. Complete list is below as copied from Android website here.

Contacts and accounts

• Multiple accounts can be added to a device for email and contact synchronization, including Exchange accounts. (Handset manufacturers can choose whether to include Exchange support in their devices.)
• Developers can create sync adapters that provide synchronization with additional data sources.
• Quick Contact for Android provides instant access to a contact’s information and communication modes. For example, a user can tap a contact photo and select to call, SMS, or email the person. Other applications such as Email, Messaging, and Calendar can also reveal the Quick Contact widget when you touch a contact photo or status icon.

Email

• Exchange support.
• Combined inbox to browse email from multiple accounts in one page.

Messaging

• Search functionality for all saved SMS and MMS messages.
• Auto delete the oldest messages in a conversation when a defined limit is reached.

Camera

• Built-in flash support
• Digital zoom
• Scene mode
• White balance
• Color effect
• Macro focus

Android virtual keyboard

• An improved keyboard layout to makes it easier to hit the correct characters and improve typing speed.
• The framework’s multi-touch support ensures that key presses aren’t missed while typing rapidly with two fingers.
• A smarter dictionary learns from word usage and automatically includes contact names as suggestions.

Browser

• Refreshed UI with actionable browser URL bar enables users to directly tap the address bar for instant searches and navigation.
• Bookmarks with web page thumbnails.
• Support for double-tap zoom.
• Support for HTML5:
• Database API support, for client-side databases using SQL.
• Application cache support, for offline applications.
• Geolocation API support, to provide location information about the device.
• <video> tag support in fullscreen mode.

Calendar

• Agenda view provides infinite scrolling.
• Events indicate the attending status for each invitee.
• Invite new guests to events.

The struggling cell phone maker, Motorola, is rumored to release a hybrid GSM / CDMA android-powered phone in China. The codename of the phone is “MOTO Zeppelin”, which we doubt Motorola will use the codename as the official name of the phone. Besides having a cool name, the Zeppelin phone also has amazing features and specifications, including a 3.1-inch HVGA touch screen, 5-megapixel digital camera with LED flash, HDMI output, and Video recorder that record high-definition 720P videos. Besides that, the Zeppelin phone also has other standard smartphone features, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, Stereo Bluetooth, and 3.5mm headphone jack.

This leaked information is from Expansys retail site. According to the site, Sony Ericsson is ready to launch its first Android-powered cell phone, named Xperia 3. The phone has candy-bar shaped design and is equipped with a 4-inch full touch-sensitive LCD screen.

Features of the Xperia 3 phone include 3G connectivity (supporting 900 / 2100 HSDPA), Wi-Fi connectivity, aGPS, and MP3 music player. The most impressive feature of the phone is its 8-megapixel digital camera with autofocus, LED flash, face-detection, and smile-shot features.

Although the Xperia 3 phone is powered by Android, its interface will looks a little bit than regular Android phone, as the Xperia 3 will have Sony Ericsson’s 3D panel user interface. Price and availability of the phone is still unknown.