I am fortunate to not have to drive to work. One of the benefits to living in beautiful Portland Oregon is our outstanding public transportation system. When I was considering buying an Android phone, one of the Killer Ideas I had in the back of my mind was an app that would integrate geospatial awareness (GPS) with Trimet's excellent scheduling information. When I finally got my Droid, I was pleasantly surprised that there were already apps implementing these ideas. My favorite quickly became Killer Robots LLC's "Portland Transit Lite". I found myself using this free reduced-feature version every day. I'm not wealthy, but I feel a distinct need to reward excellence. I consider the $1.99 price very reasonable. The Android system's integration with Google Checkout made payment incredibly easy (perhaps too easy!)
Perhaps not surprisingly, there are a several features that make the paid version even cooler than the lite version. My favorites - There is a "radar" feature that helps you find Trimet stops from where you are. Additionally, the incoming time information for each stop updates automatically, where on the lite version you must refresh it manually. All-in-all, a very worthwhile addition to my Droid.
Portland Transit's page at Androlib.com
Killer Robots LLC
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Couldn't wait for the OTA 2.0.1 update...
I followed the instructions from two sites to update my Droid to 2.0.1 -
http://android-devs.org
http://www.intomobile.com
I discovered two things. The links to the update .zip file are not the same, which if you are paranoid (i.e. remotely security conscious) raises concerns of possibly compromised packages. The two md5sums matched (not that that really means anything) and were reported as
3af35446905040a3123ec09195299596
Also, when you have to press Volume Up and Camera at the same time, don't freak out about doing it wrong, you can just keep trying until you get it right. You don't need to hold them down, either. Once you get it right, you will see the recovery menu.
Haven't had much of a chance to play with 2.0.1 yet. At first blush, the unlock screen has changed and the built-in Power Control and Music widgets all have a darker more Droid-like theme.
http://android-devs.org
http://www.intomobile.com
I discovered two things. The links to the update .zip file are not the same, which if you are paranoid (i.e. remotely security conscious) raises concerns of possibly compromised packages. The two md5sums matched (not that that really means anything) and were reported as
3af35446905040a3123ec09195299596
Also, when you have to press Volume Up and Camera at the same time, don't freak out about doing it wrong, you can just keep trying until you get it right. You don't need to hold them down, either. Once you get it right, you will see the recovery menu.
Haven't had much of a chance to play with 2.0.1 yet. At first blush, the unlock screen has changed and the built-in Power Control and Music widgets all have a darker more Droid-like theme.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Luke Wilson == AT&T's attack dog!?
I mentioned this in my earlier review, but a limitation of Verizon's 3G network is that you cannot make a call and use a data connection simultaneously. NB - If you are connected to a WiFi hot spot, you can talk and use data without any problems.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The *.ogg files
I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise, being an embedded Linux device, that my Droid plays all my ogg vorbis audio files just fine!
Friday, November 20, 2009
Droid Screenshots
Instructions here.
My desktop. Nothing special but I love that background. If you click on the image, the full size .png will give you a feeling for how much real estate the Droid's screen gives you.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
iPhone or Droid?
xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language, asks us:
iPhone or Droid?
iPhone or Droid?
How do I love thee?...
The Droid from Motorola
The Screen - Let me be blunt, it's OMFG gorgeous. With the BlackBerry Storm, my previous smartphone, I browsed the web but stuck solely to "mobilized" versions of web sites. With the Droid, a lot of websites are perfectly usable without any zooming whatsoever. Reading long emails are a pleasure as well. Reports with semi-tabular-formatted text that would wrap eye-crossingly on the BB come out much better on the Droid.
The Keyboard - I'm roughly 50% between on-screen and physical and I really appreciate that I have that choice. The only concern that I have is that the sliding design makes cocooning the Droid into a nice rubbery shell a difficult proposition. I had a silicone sleeve on the BB, and not only did it offer a nice bit of protection, but the slightly sticky consistency meant the BB was the only phone I have never dropped.
The ports - USB (micro) for data and charging, 3.5mm for Audio. Frankly, that's what God Intended (just kidding!) and I back his opinion 100%. No longer do you have to look for a "Motorola Droid" car charger - just ask for a "Car charger with a Micro USB plug". The standard size earplug jack means the whole universe of cheap to ultra-premium ear phones are at your disposal. I'm not a fan of Bluetooth headsets, so I'm happy to report that "Cell phone" earbuds, the kind with a microphone and a call-interrupt button, work fine on the Droid.
Android/Android 2.0
Google Navigation - The voice instructions are sometimes unintelligible, but if you haven't ever used a navigation device before, you don't know what you're missing. Don't cause a major pileup trying to make that turn! It recalculates routes quite quickly! I imagine if you already have a Garmin or TomTom, you may not be 100% impressed, but Street View and Layers probably have no real counterparts in "disconnected" navigation devices.
Google Voice - Is it a Unified Voicemail Inbox or a way to get free minutes out of The Man? I haven't decided, but I'm happy it's there!
The Browser - The beautiful screen and fast GPU probably contribute quite a bit to the experience, but the Android browser kicks the BB browser squaw in the nuts. For the most part, I don't find myself missing "pinching". The browser has this weird ability to zoom precisely onto the column of text you double-tap upon. When you do need to pan around, it's smoooooth like buttah!
Backgrounds - I know it's silly, but I have about a gigabyte of desktop backgrounds in my collection and knowing I can just scale them down for use on the Droid is quite nice. I've already absconded with a nice "Pic of the Week" from Photo.net.
Folders and Widgets - Organize the UI the way YOU want it! Revolutionary! I only wish there was a setting to support more than three "screens" in Android. I've heard there are ways to get more screens via the apps from the Android Market. I will have to investigate.
The Notification Bar - Brilliant idea. Wonderfully executed.
The Android Market - I know the Android Market is woefully under populated compared to the iPhone's, but I haven't had the phone a full week and I've already got thirty apps installed! I'll leave app reviews to their own posts.
"The Stack" - I've made my living supporting Linux for the last few years, so it pleases me to no end to have a Linux Device with such great capabilities. Also, http://developer.android.com and http://source.android.com are super cool as well!
Things that aren't quite kosher compared to that other phone from AT&T
Simultaneous Voice and Data - This is not a limitation of the Droid or Android, but the way Verizon chose to implement their network. You cannot simultaneously transmit or receive data while talking on the Droid, or any other phone on Verizon's network. It is a real limitation in my view. Surprisingly, an iPhone user I work with wasn't even aware he had simultaneous data/voice capability!
Application Storage Space - Depending on which iPhone you buy, you have 8, 16 or 32 Gigabytes of room for apps (among all other things like music). On the Droid, you have 256 Megabytes for applications. Again, this is a real limitation, but one I think will go away (eventually). The iPhone can use all its storage space for applications, because its flash memory is non-removable. App writers on the iPhone don't have to worry about people removing their SD-card and then copying their paid applications to a friend's SD-card. Google doesn't want this scenario to play out on Android, either, but Android phones have removable flash! So we have an artificial limitation of on-board non-removable memory for Android applications. A limitation that is quite limiting! But eventually, Android will enable application writers to put large data files for applications onto the SD card. Not a perfect solution, but one I think is workable and will keep me from pulling my hair out in the future.
The Screen - Let me be blunt, it's OMFG gorgeous. With the BlackBerry Storm, my previous smartphone, I browsed the web but stuck solely to "mobilized" versions of web sites. With the Droid, a lot of websites are perfectly usable without any zooming whatsoever. Reading long emails are a pleasure as well. Reports with semi-tabular-formatted text that would wrap eye-crossingly on the BB come out much better on the Droid.
The Keyboard - I'm roughly 50% between on-screen and physical and I really appreciate that I have that choice. The only concern that I have is that the sliding design makes cocooning the Droid into a nice rubbery shell a difficult proposition. I had a silicone sleeve on the BB, and not only did it offer a nice bit of protection, but the slightly sticky consistency meant the BB was the only phone I have never dropped.
The ports - USB (micro) for data and charging, 3.5mm for Audio. Frankly, that's what God Intended (just kidding!) and I back his opinion 100%. No longer do you have to look for a "Motorola Droid" car charger - just ask for a "Car charger with a Micro USB plug". The standard size earplug jack means the whole universe of cheap to ultra-premium ear phones are at your disposal. I'm not a fan of Bluetooth headsets, so I'm happy to report that "Cell phone" earbuds, the kind with a microphone and a call-interrupt button, work fine on the Droid.
Android/Android 2.0
Google Navigation - The voice instructions are sometimes unintelligible, but if you haven't ever used a navigation device before, you don't know what you're missing. Don't cause a major pileup trying to make that turn! It recalculates routes quite quickly! I imagine if you already have a Garmin or TomTom, you may not be 100% impressed, but Street View and Layers probably have no real counterparts in "disconnected" navigation devices.
Google Voice - Is it a Unified Voicemail Inbox or a way to get free minutes out of The Man? I haven't decided, but I'm happy it's there!
The Browser - The beautiful screen and fast GPU probably contribute quite a bit to the experience, but the Android browser kicks the BB browser squaw in the nuts. For the most part, I don't find myself missing "pinching". The browser has this weird ability to zoom precisely onto the column of text you double-tap upon. When you do need to pan around, it's smoooooth like buttah!
Backgrounds - I know it's silly, but I have about a gigabyte of desktop backgrounds in my collection and knowing I can just scale them down for use on the Droid is quite nice. I've already absconded with a nice "Pic of the Week" from Photo.net.
Folders and Widgets - Organize the UI the way YOU want it! Revolutionary! I only wish there was a setting to support more than three "screens" in Android. I've heard there are ways to get more screens via the apps from the Android Market. I will have to investigate.
The Notification Bar - Brilliant idea. Wonderfully executed.
The Android Market - I know the Android Market is woefully under populated compared to the iPhone's, but I haven't had the phone a full week and I've already got thirty apps installed! I'll leave app reviews to their own posts.
"The Stack" - I've made my living supporting Linux for the last few years, so it pleases me to no end to have a Linux Device with such great capabilities. Also, http://developer.android.com and http://source.android.com are super cool as well!
Things that aren't quite kosher compared to that other phone from AT&T
Simultaneous Voice and Data - This is not a limitation of the Droid or Android, but the way Verizon chose to implement their network. You cannot simultaneously transmit or receive data while talking on the Droid, or any other phone on Verizon's network. It is a real limitation in my view. Surprisingly, an iPhone user I work with wasn't even aware he had simultaneous data/voice capability!
Application Storage Space - Depending on which iPhone you buy, you have 8, 16 or 32 Gigabytes of room for apps (among all other things like music). On the Droid, you have 256 Megabytes for applications. Again, this is a real limitation, but one I think will go away (eventually). The iPhone can use all its storage space for applications, because its flash memory is non-removable. App writers on the iPhone don't have to worry about people removing their SD-card and then copying their paid applications to a friend's SD-card. Google doesn't want this scenario to play out on Android, either, but Android phones have removable flash! So we have an artificial limitation of on-board non-removable memory for Android applications. A limitation that is quite limiting! But eventually, Android will enable application writers to put large data files for applications onto the SD card. Not a perfect solution, but one I think is workable and will keep me from pulling my hair out in the future.
The BlackBerry is still a better Mailing Machine
Mail sync to Exchange just isn't as snappy as my previous BlackBerry Storm. When the BB went "ding" I knew to refresh my mail client, Entourage 2008 for Mac OS X. With the Droid, I sometimes see email in Entourage and then wonder, "Why didn't the phone go off?"
Filters - The BB had quite good filtering "on the device". I get quite a bit of automated mail from our servers and I've had to change how I work a little bit.
Notification - The BB had a bright red LED that blinked when you got email, texts, etc. The Droid does too, but it's green and not nearly as bright. This is one area the BB and Droid have it all over the iPhone! One other area the BB excelled was "notification reconciliation" - when I opened email in Entourage, the BB would eventually sync and turn off the notification LED. With Droid/Android, the LED always keeps blinking and the notifications increment, but never decrement.
Calendar - My Droid experience has been unsatisfactory. At first my Corporate Calendar wouldn't sync at all, I would get "Authentication Errors". After consulting The Google, I removed my "corporate account" completely from the Droid and re-added it from the Corporate Calendar app. Same exact settings, just different "entry point". Now I get calendar sync, but I'm getting TWO of every event... bah!
Contacts Sync - Mostly it worked just lovely. My brother and father share given names (the silly bastards) and getting the two of them sync'd just right took a bit of effort.
Filters - The BB had quite good filtering "on the device". I get quite a bit of automated mail from our servers and I've had to change how I work a little bit.
Notification - The BB had a bright red LED that blinked when you got email, texts, etc. The Droid does too, but it's green and not nearly as bright. This is one area the BB and Droid have it all over the iPhone! One other area the BB excelled was "notification reconciliation" - when I opened email in Entourage, the BB would eventually sync and turn off the notification LED. With Droid/Android, the LED always keeps blinking and the notifications increment, but never decrement.
Calendar - My Droid experience has been unsatisfactory. At first my Corporate Calendar wouldn't sync at all, I would get "Authentication Errors". After consulting The Google, I removed my "corporate account" completely from the Droid and re-added it from the Corporate Calendar app. Same exact settings, just different "entry point". Now I get calendar sync, but I'm getting TWO of every event... bah!
Contacts Sync - Mostly it worked just lovely. My brother and father share given names (the silly bastards) and getting the two of them sync'd just right took a bit of effort.
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