Android Smart phones

[Klaus]

Gonna start this thread because I own a Motorola Droid and need a place to post likes/dislikes of apps etc.

Short review of Droid

I have had it for 5 weeks so far and love 90% of the phone. My simple reason for getting the Droid over say the iPhone was Verizon. I've had Verizon for the last few years and just can't go back to a shitty carrier like Nextel or ATT. I have a cabin in northern MN and there is no coverage for anything except Verizon within 30 miles. If I had ATT I would have an iPhone. It is the best phone out currently when you look at all other factors minus coverage. There are hundreds of reviews out comparing the two phones so I will just stick to what I like about the Droid.

Likes:
Physical keyboard - my last phone was the HTC touch a WM6.1 phone and while HTC kicks ass I just couldn't deal with typing emails on a touch screen. The Droid keyboard isn't perfect but I prefer it to the touch screen.

Android OS - Open source with 12,000 apps. I even found one that will turn my phone into a Wifi hotspot for my laptop. Porn too Windows Mobile was pretty good but finding the apps was hard to do - with the Android "marketplace" all the apps are in one place - did I mention no approval process...

Screen - Holy shit is this screen amazing! 480 x 854 WVGA resolution - I love to view full page websites on this phone. The HTC touch was less than half that and I had to zoom way in.

Multi-tasking - Really nice to be able to run 6,7,8 apps at once. Pandora and email while searching twitter.

Google navigation - Full turn by turn voice navigation with satellite view and street view... I have a Garmin and its been in my garage since I got the Droid. Traffic is free and so is the software.


Voice search - Google really has figured out how to get accurate voice search, voice navigation, and voice dialing. Hit a button on the home screen and say what you are looking for and i would say it's been 80% accurate. Pulls up the search in a google browser or in google maps or in your contacts. With WM6 you had to record you contacts names a few time before it would work - in Android it just works.

Google Voice - This integrates with Android really well. Voicemails are sent to my phone in my inbox to listen to and also transcribed.

Google Voice is the Internet based phone forwarding service by Google. It was previously known as GrandCentral. Google Voice is free except for international calls.
Google Voice gives you a separate phone number which you can give out as if it is your regular phone number. You can then change your settings to have calls forward to any of your phones.

You can forward to one group of phones during the day and another at night. You can have calls from certain numbers forward differently than calls to other numbers. You can block spamming callers and send some calls straight to voice mail.

You can send yourself an SMS message or an email whenever you get a voice mail message, and you can check your voice mail from the Web or from your phone.

Apps review
Facebook built in app - decent but not great. Sends you to the web version too much.

Google Goggles - pretty fucking cool.... You take a picture of something and it will try to match it with similar images. Bar codes work - logos work - some objects work - paintings and famous art will be recognized. It's in beta be I see a ton of potential.

Barcode Scanner - take a picture of a bar code and it will do a price search on the internet.

Various Twitter apps - most are pretty shitty but I have found "swift" is the best. Not like twitdeck on iphone but pretty good.

Google Sky map - stand in your yard and launch this app.. It uses the Droid's 3-axis accelerometer to display what you are looking at in the sky. Pretty cool in certain situations.

Will update this as I try more apps.

[Kyrillian]

I have to say my only real complaint about the iPhone is the lack of the ability to multitask. 90% of the time it doesn't matter as apps load pretty fast. It gets annoying when you're listening to Pandora in the car, you get a call, then after the call you have to restart Pandora. The whole process can take like 5 minutes and it's pretty annoying.

[Klaus]

I am guessing the new iphone will allow for multi tasking. The processor in the iphone and droid are the same so it can handle it. I have had to pull the battery a couple times due to hard locks when I launch like 10 thing at once - but it's rare.

[Klaus]

Pretty cool application that should start showing up for all platforms.

[Klaus]

Google Voice quick reference card:

[Klaus]

Pretty cool application that should start showing up for all platforms.

There is a unofficial beta of this out for android and it is f really coo
Really fast input method. should be on iphone soon too.

[Cake]

Wow swype looks sick! I'm really glad you posted this, im getting as new phone/provider next month and been really debating whether to go ATT for iphone, or Verizon for Driod. Almost positive im gunning for Droid HTC now.

[Klaus]

[Klaus]

Nexus One Gets Multitouch, Other Improvements
JR Raphael, PC World
Feb 2, 2010 3:53 pm
Multitouch support is officially on the way to Google's Nexus One Android phone. Google announced an over-the-air update Tuesday afternoon that'll deliver native multitouch functionality along with a handful of other software improvements and fixes.

Nexus One Gains Multitouch
The Nexus One update, set to start hitting devices as soon as today, will bring multitouch-driven pinch-to-zoom functionality throughout the phone's interface. According to Google, multitouch will be available in the phone's stock browser, photo gallery, and Google Maps applications.

Previously, the lack of native multitouch support had been criticized as one of the main weaknesses of the Nexus One and other Android phones. Google has not yet said if or when the multitouch-enabling update will reach other Android devices.

Nexus One: Other Changes
In addition to the multitouch addition, the Nexus One update will provide a fix for the 3G connectivity problems some users have been reporting. It will also include a preinstalled version of the Google Goggles Android application as well as an updated version of the Google Maps app.

Google Maps 3.4 will allow you to synchronize favorites between your phone and PC, search suggestions from your Web-based Google Maps history, and take advantage of a new night mode for Google Maps Navigation. The night mode automatically adjusts your screen for optimal viewing during nighttime hours.

As of the time of this publication, Google Maps 3.4 has yet to become generally available within the Android Market.

The Nexus One software update will be rolled out to users over the next several days. If you own the Nexus One, you'll receive a notification when your update is ready to install.

[Klaus]

Looks like PDAnet has some competition now. For the longest they have been the most popular way to tether your Android device without the need for root. Now enters EasyTether.


This tethering solution offers you unrestricted tethering for free. Unlike PDAnet who restricts HTTPS connections unless you pay a fee of $29. To get started scan the barcode, visit EasyTether’s site to download the appropriate drivers and you will be tethering to your hearts delight in no time. The only downside is this currently only supports Windows XP/7 and Vista 32 bit OS’s. But keep an eye out for them they are looking to make this compatible with OSX and all 64 bit Windows OS’s in the near future.