Smart phone / OS / plans

[Caravan Ray]

I just saw this advertised:

http://techstyles.com.au/johns-phone-it ... ile-phone/

A phone!.. nothing else. With big clunky buttons for people with fat, clumsy fingers and a long battery life!

Perfect - I want one. Why hasn't anyone made one of these before?

[Lunkhead]

So I saw some grumblings on Facebook and was curious for an overall update on how your Android experiment is going, Roymond, especially now that the iPhone has come to Sprint. Did you find a music player app that was good enough? If not, I am starting to think that I should get to writing a direct knock-off of the iOS one...

If the longer lasting battery pack accessory is too big and clunky, here's a spare battery for $5 on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/HTC-Standard-Batt ... B003L2VERC

I'm curious what problems you're having with the Market, too, whether it's just the abundance of low quality apps or something with the Market itself or both.

[roymond]

Yeah, grumble grumble...Sam, sorry, you don't deserve my rant. I wish I was drunk right now so I could blame it on the alcohol.

Music apps... if you're so inclined, write an iPod knock-off (they now call it iOS Music, I think) and I'm happy! I bet others would appreciate it.

Gallery...browse, group, manage photos easily. This time, make it better than iOS's.

Dialer...I haven't attempted to replace the default dialer, but am astounded that I can't paste a phone number anywhere to dial it. If I am browsing a website and a phone number is displayed without tags to tell my mobile device it's a phone number, it's not a hyperlink. However, if I copy it and go to the dialer...there's no field to paste it! I have to memorize the number or write it down or flip back and forth between the two apps or create a new contact. OMFG! How did this ever pass any type of usability testing?

Contacts...I've struggled trying to import vCards, etc. from other apps and my iPhone. It's an absolute mess! Multiple entries for a single contact, missing fields, phone numbers aren't formatted. Again...who was sleeping? There was a time when websites would reject a form if you entered a phone number with hyphens or parentheses. Happily, most forms on the web now understand that when receiving phone numbers they should simply strip out any non-digit characters. And US numbers are ten digits, eleven if the user included a leading "1". However, if you're going to display a phone number, make it readable by adding those hyphens (and parentheses) regardless of how it was entered. Making it accommodate how people enter common data makes it useful. Making it difficult turns people off.

These are the kind of things that tell me either someone simply doesn't give a shit about this stuff, or it's just not part of the culture of Android. It doesn't give me confidence that Android should be a platform I am interested in because I bought a high end product on pretty good advice, and with highly positive reviews that in turns pales in comparison to to my 2 year old iPhone from a pure usability aspect.

MUNI and BART apps...yes, Google Maps now has train times, but there are some wailing iOS trip planners, and the Android ones suck. I find this is true for many categories of apps. I've installed lots of versions of various apps and haven't been too happy. Both the Android Market and Amazon are pretty disappointing. Lots of single 5 star reviews. Lots of crappy paid apps, and more crappy free stuff! Again, from my perspective, this is what Windows is like compared to Mac. I just don't get the argument that more is better.

With the exception of outlyers (ProTools, CAD) the overhead of dealing with a Frankenstein system that requires constant support and updates is time I don't have for work I don't want to do. I built my first PCs from parts, supported hundreds of heavy users, calibrated color printers and monitors, coded DAM and workflow solutions, and wired server rooms. I'm done with that shit. I want to make calls, read, write, crank music, watch video, surf for porn research online, and get from point A to point B. I expect a mobile device to know how to do things, anticipate what I'd do with a number after an incoming call, relate and/or successfully merge matches in contacts, fade the music out gracefully when I make a call or one comes in, then fade in again once it's over.

Many developers say that they can't make money on Android, and that iOS is a far superior marketplace for serious development. Some say that Apple's SDK and APIs are far deeper than the various Android offerings. Deep control over audio and media management, clear consistent guidelines on exception handling and other areas that help make apps more reliable. I've also been involved in a lot of device testing lately (mobile phones, receivers,TVs, set top boxes, automobile units, BluRay, DVRs, ebooks) and with the exception of TIVO and Apple, the interfaces to these things are just atrocious.

I am cranky! and over thinking again...but with the backlash due to the Ritchie / Jobs death comparisons, I find myself defending usability and design. "Don't sell people on clock speeds and memory. Make them feel good about using your product."

I am obviously not the target audience. But I want to be.

[Lunkhead]

Wow, those are a lot of issues! Without more details it's hard for me to really speak to all the specific problems you're having, but I think there are a few main sources of friction. First, It sounds like HTC deserves a lot of the blame for doing a crappy job with their custom apps. (I can't believe you can't paste a number into your dialer, that's awful and not a problem with the default Android dialer.) And based on the vCards, and the fact that you were an iPhone user and are a Mac user, I'm going to assume that your were trying to export your contacts from Apple's desktop Address Book app into your phone. If so, I think maybe you could be having some issues due to the Apple "iWorld" (i.e. Address Book) and the Google "gWorld" (i.e. Gmail contacts) not playing nicely together. Ideally companies would use standard formats and protocols so that our data could be moved around easily but for whatever stupid reasons they never seem to be able to do that. Address books and contacts are a good example of this problem. LDAP and vCard are open standards, but Google, Apple, and Microsoft all implement and use them differently, so the interoperability just doesn't materialize. Lastly, it sounds like iOS was just a great fit for you, and probably nothing else is going to feel right.

If you're back in town some time and you still have your Android phone, I'd love to do some side-by-side comparisons of your EVO, my G2, and my iPod Touch and/or somebody's iPhone, so I could have a better understanding of the differences and similarities between them. My Android experience was a lot more limited than I really thought, and seeing Erin's phone and hearing about your experiences has been really eye-opening.

At this point I think Google could help the platform a lot by at least forcing the manufacturers and phone companies to make their overlays and shitty apps optional, so that people could opt to "downgrade" to just a common/stock/base Android experience if they wanted to (without having to root their phones). Until that happens I'm just going to try to warn people away from anything but the Nexus and "with Google" Android phones I guess.

Here's a really bad pic of my dialer. I can long-touch in the space between the keypad and tabs to paste a number.

[Lunkhead]

Oh, I'm also curious what BART apps you've tried. I'm currently using BART Usher, but all I really do with it is look up the real-time arrival/departure info at the three stops involved in my commute, for which it works great.

[roymond]

Drank a lot of wine this evening and feel much better about everything

[fluffy]

I like BART Rider and MuniAlerts.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I made the mistake of getting a new smart phone without flash for the camera. Not that I take pics in the dark, but that the flashlight app does me no good.

There are three things I want from a smart phone.
1. To receive calls.
2. To make calls.
3. A FUCKING FLASHLIGHT!

....my phone is dead to me.

[roymond]

Next question...rooting. I have this HTC EVO, it sucks sort of. I can't trade for an iPhone 4s, so I figure it's time to root. I suspect Fluffy is the expert, but anyone with experience ... what is your experience?

Things I want:
- faster performance
- more battery life
- delete the BS apps Sprint/HTC put on it (Nascar, football)
- control over the screens
- free tethering

Things I don't want:
- loss of phone (radio)
- Sprint to fuck up in any way
- a brick

How do I find the "quality" methods/root apps, guides? I've read a lot so far, but they all seem written by a 13 year in his bunk bed. Not that I don't trust 13 year olds with such things, but just asking...

[fluffy]

I just use the guides at the Cyanogen wiki. Don't confuse terseness with immaturity.

Try http://wiki.cyanogenmod.com/wiki/HTC_Ev ... date_Guide

[Lunkhead]

I don't really know anything about the process. You should be able to get rid of the carrier bloatware that way, I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure what you mean by "control over the screens"? As for faster performance or longer battery life, I would be surprised if those changed much, unless the carrier bloatware is regularly using the screen and/or antennae. If you're already making sure to enable the screen and GPS/WiFi/4G/Bluetooth only when you really use them (e.g. disabling GPS unless you're in the maps app, disabling WiFi unless you're streaming a video or downloading an app, etc.), you're probably getting as much battery life as you can.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/03/tips-a ... t-android/
http://www.androidcentral.com/evo-4g-root-instructions

[roymond]

I don't really know anything about the process. You should be able to get rid of the carrier bloatware that way, I'm pretty sure. I'm not sure what you mean by "control over the screens"? As for faster performance or longer battery life, I would be surprised if those changed much, unless the carrier bloatware is regularly using the screen and/or antennae. If you're already making sure to enable the screen and GPS/WiFi/4G/Bluetooth only when you really use them (e.g. disabling GPS unless you're in the maps app, disabling WiFi unless you're streaming a video or downloading an app, etc.), you're probably getting as much battery life as you can.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/03/tips-a ... t-android/
http://www.androidcentral.com/evo-4g-root-instructions

Yes, i switch things on and off as I need them. What a pain in the ass! For all the shit they get, that "evil" phone has fabulous battery control without having to worry about this stuff. Also, the "evil" phone has VERY good triangulation geo positioning capabilities without having to have GPS on. This phone...not so.

"Control over screens" means how to arrange apps, organize what is where and how the clock looks, etc. HTC / Sprint seems to have pretty much fucked that up on this phone. This has a name in Android land, I know, but it doesn't come to mind.

[roymond]

Thanks, guys. I'll keep reading the links...

[Lunkhead]

"Manufacturer overlays", in your case "HTC Sense", seems to pretty much "blow", so to speak. I'm really surprised you can't replace the built-in clock widget (assuming you're talking about the widget) with another one from the Market. That is super lame.

You don't need to have GPS on for location on Android, you can opt to use "wireless networks". Of course, you have to agree to let Google collect all your location data all the time to use that. I keep all that crap off and just live with telling specific apps where I am manually.

[Caravan Ray]

Next question...rooting. ... I figure it's time to root. I suspect Fluffy is the expert, but anyone with experience ... what is your experience?

Things I want:
- faster performance
- more battery life
- free tethering

Things I don't want:
- a brick

I can't believe I'm the only one here that knows how funny that post is.

Where are Denyer and Sausage Boy when you need them?

[roymond]

"Manufacturer overlays", in your case "HTC Sense", seems to pretty much "blow", so to speak.

check

You don't need to have GPS on for location on Android, you can opt to use "wireless networks".

Yes, my point is that it sucks on my phone. The evil phone's use of wireless networks to determine location is really good, and doesn't eat the battery.

Sorry, this whole debacle had made me very grumpy.

[fluffy]

So I got really fed up with both the Motorla Triumph and Virgin Mobile, and ended up switching back to T-Mobile. Now I'm rocking the G2x, which is a 'Google experience' phone, and I'm so very happy that I did. The phone is fast and responsive and usable, and the battery life is pretty dang impressive. I haven't even felt it necessary to install Cyanogen on it (even though I was planning on doing that right away, originally). I'll probably hold off until CM9 comes out for it.

[Lunkhead]

Ooh, I liked that phone. What do you think of the battery life, the screen, and the camera?

[fluffy]

Battery life is excellent (it seems to only drain about 25% through the normal course of a day), as is the screen. I don't really pay much attention to phone camera quality anymore but it's pretty fast, which is what's important in a phone camera, and the images it takes are reasonably good (probably better than the Nexus One, DEFINITELY better than the Triumph).

Oh, and the proper 4G data speeds are fantastic (5.5Mbps down, 600Kbps up in my apartment).

[roymond]

I've been driving around LA the last couple days and must say the Navigator on the Evo is a pretty damn good GPS. Just needs to be plugged in for power. Now, finding a car with USB at Avis is a joke.

I plan on rooting this thing soon, maybe this weekend.

[fluffy]

Yeah, every Android phone I've had tends to run down the battery in 1-2 hours in GPS navigation mode.

For USB power I use this thing.

[roymond]

Yeah, every Android phone I've had tends to run down the battery in 1-2 hours in GPS navigation mode.

For USB power I use this thing.

Yup, I got one of them things. But it requires you to actually remember to bring it with you, which is always a problem, even with the methylphenidate.