Last week, I ordered the car dock and the desk dock for my Nexus One. The car dock is the typical universal disk attachment. I have a 2002 Chevy Blazer Xtreme. And yes, damnit, I am conscious of the badging when I buy used vehicles from friends! It doesn't have great places to mount gadgets, so I will probably go with the bean bag and put it in that giant front garbage tray.
The car dock works best when mounted in portrait mode. Incoming calls always display portrait even when the phone is landscape. For some reason, I'm partial to landscape for navigation, but I will try portrait out and see how it does. The dock lets you reorient easily, so maybe it goes default portrait and then landscape when i need to.
The car dock has a built in speakerphone. I tested with a voice dialed call to my Dad without the car running and he said it sounded great. The dock actually works via bluetooth, so you can't also use a bluetooth headset. The speakerphone seemed like it would be plenty loud with engine and road noise. We'll see.
The home dock charges the phone and connects the phone to an external amp. The dock uses Bluetooth to get sound from the phone. However, it still allows use with a Bluetooth headset. The home dock only accepts the phone in portrait mode. I haven't decided what I think about that yet. I have been using a cheap business card holder as my dock, which positions the phone in portrait position.
More on these docks as I have time to try them! Off to dinner. Maybe a report on the car dock later this evening...
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Flow
Another Android v.iPhone difference is flow. The iPhone is very modal. You start at your home screen. You go into an application. You do what that application does. You leave that application and are back at the home screen. On Android, by contrast, you dig in and back out. You jump between applications. You can back up to where you were.
Here's an example. Open up the Clock app. Flip the phone into landscape mode. Click the Music icon. Now you're in the Music app. Click back, you're back to the Clock app. Now wait for an email. You get a notification. Click the notification bar and jump to the email notification. You're in the email app. Read your email. Back button to the Clock.
That's flow. Android has it. iPhone dreams of it.
Here's an example. Open up the Clock app. Flip the phone into landscape mode. Click the Music icon. Now you're in the Music app. Click back, you're back to the Clock app. Now wait for an email. You get a notification. Click the notification bar and jump to the email notification. You're in the email app. Read your email. Back button to the Clock.
That's flow. Android has it. iPhone dreams of it.
Day 8
A week with the Nexus One, and the only thing I miss my iPhone for is the address book. In fact, when I turned on the iPhone today, I noticed that it needs to recharge again.
I've finally figured out the whole podcast thing. But first I'll make an observation about Android vs. iPhone. Pretty much all the built in stuff on Android is somewhere between 80% and 120% as good as the built in stuff on iPhone. So if you're just about the built-in stuff, you'd probably be fine with either platform. For someone like my Mom, there is no compelling ease of use reason today to switch a phone contract to AT&T just for an iPhone. The iTunes approach to music is different than that of Android, as I explained in a previous post. Syncing is a little easier with iTunes. Playlists are way easier with Android.
The big observation, though, is with a little research, you can come up with some interesting solutions with Android, even/especially with the built-in stuff. On iPhone, the built in stuff, like the music player, has been mostly if not wholly off-limits. This gets me to podcasts. I found an app called MyPod that can download my Jim Rome show podcasts, which Google Listen won't do because they are password protected. However, the interface for MyPod is quite cluttered and confusing. The controls are just a little too small. I've figure out how to make it download podcasts, but for the life of me, can't get the player to work quite right. I can't get the repeat play to turn off, which is a bit of a buzzkill for falling asleep.
I discovered that after mounting my Nexus One's SD card on my MacBook Pro that the podcasts appeared in the Music app after I unmounted. Looking around on the SD card, I saw where MyPod downloads them and noticed that it named them as the files were named on the server originally. Google Listen, by contrast, uses a mangled filename and no extension, so Music doesn't pick it up. But I couldn't figure out how to make Music app rescan the drive. It only picked up new stuff when I mounted the SD card on my MBP. So I looked through the Google Code forums and found a few people who'd asked about how to program that rescan. I learned that there is a process called MediaScanner that handles that. Finally, I searched the Marketplace and found a free app called SDrescan. If I use MyPod to download the podcasts, then fire up SDrescan, my podcasts appear in Music, where I can easily make a playlist or just play them.
The Apple way, if you have a problem, there is an app for that. Well, maybe, and probably not if it involves core iPhone functionality that doesn't meet your needs. The Android way, there might be an app that does what you need. Or there might be a set of apps that can work together to solve your particular problem. Things are tinkerable. You don't have to tinker, but you can.
I've finally figured out the whole podcast thing. But first I'll make an observation about Android vs. iPhone. Pretty much all the built in stuff on Android is somewhere between 80% and 120% as good as the built in stuff on iPhone. So if you're just about the built-in stuff, you'd probably be fine with either platform. For someone like my Mom, there is no compelling ease of use reason today to switch a phone contract to AT&T just for an iPhone. The iTunes approach to music is different than that of Android, as I explained in a previous post. Syncing is a little easier with iTunes. Playlists are way easier with Android.
The big observation, though, is with a little research, you can come up with some interesting solutions with Android, even/especially with the built-in stuff. On iPhone, the built in stuff, like the music player, has been mostly if not wholly off-limits. This gets me to podcasts. I found an app called MyPod that can download my Jim Rome show podcasts, which Google Listen won't do because they are password protected. However, the interface for MyPod is quite cluttered and confusing. The controls are just a little too small. I've figure out how to make it download podcasts, but for the life of me, can't get the player to work quite right. I can't get the repeat play to turn off, which is a bit of a buzzkill for falling asleep.
I discovered that after mounting my Nexus One's SD card on my MacBook Pro that the podcasts appeared in the Music app after I unmounted. Looking around on the SD card, I saw where MyPod downloads them and noticed that it named them as the files were named on the server originally. Google Listen, by contrast, uses a mangled filename and no extension, so Music doesn't pick it up. But I couldn't figure out how to make Music app rescan the drive. It only picked up new stuff when I mounted the SD card on my MBP. So I looked through the Google Code forums and found a few people who'd asked about how to program that rescan. I learned that there is a process called MediaScanner that handles that. Finally, I searched the Marketplace and found a free app called SDrescan. If I use MyPod to download the podcasts, then fire up SDrescan, my podcasts appear in Music, where I can easily make a playlist or just play them.
The Apple way, if you have a problem, there is an app for that. Well, maybe, and probably not if it involves core iPhone functionality that doesn't meet your needs. The Android way, there might be an app that does what you need. Or there might be a set of apps that can work together to solve your particular problem. Things are tinkerable. You don't have to tinker, but you can.
Looking forward to seeing this on an Android tablet
Wired has a story today on Apple's removal of the Scratch app. A year ago when I was telling my Mac friends that the App Store approval chokepoint for the iPhone platform was pure evil and that I wished Apple every conceivable bit of grief for anointing itself censor in chief, I could not have imagined a more perfect example.
The developer terms and conditions are just fine for approval into Apple's App Store, provided that they don't limit end-users' ability to install what they want. But they do, because end-users have no such ability, short of jailbreaking their iPhones, voiding the warranty and violating the terms they agreed to.
There's no reason for most of the restrictive end-user and developer terms in their respective contracts, other than to guarantee Apple unnatural secondary revenue streams over which it has absolute control. But hey, 12.9 million of you out there signed up to work for Apple last quarter. And I'll plead guilty too. Before they started acting belligerently with the rights they had reserved, I signed up for two of the damned things. My Mom still loves hers and my grandmother would like nothing more than to get mine as a hand-me-down.
The developer terms and conditions are just fine for approval into Apple's App Store, provided that they don't limit end-users' ability to install what they want. But they do, because end-users have no such ability, short of jailbreaking their iPhones, voiding the warranty and violating the terms they agreed to.
There's no reason for most of the restrictive end-user and developer terms in their respective contracts, other than to guarantee Apple unnatural secondary revenue streams over which it has absolute control. But hey, 12.9 million of you out there signed up to work for Apple last quarter. And I'll plead guilty too. Before they started acting belligerently with the rights they had reserved, I signed up for two of the damned things. My Mom still loves hers and my grandmother would like nothing more than to get mine as a hand-me-down.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Day 6 and 7
I ordered the home and car docks today. One thing I noticed on the order page was that a replacement battery is $25. And users can replace it themselves. Magic!
Scott asked about the GPS. Just opened the Maps app and it had me within 4 meters after about 30 seconds. I hope to try turn by turn directions later this week when the car dock arrives.
Scott asked about the GPS. Just opened the Maps app and it had me within 4 meters after about 30 seconds. I hope to try turn by turn directions later this week when the car dock arrives.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Day 5 -- Music and Clock
I ended Sunday with 68% battery. But -- big but -- the phone was plugged into my computer for awhile Sunday, so it got to recharge some. With podcasts downloaded directly by the phone, I don't foresee syncing as often in the middle of the day as with my iPhone.
Before going to bed, I made a little playlist to listen to, then plugged the headphone into my iHome speaker. I plugged in the charger too. The Clock app makes a really neat alarm clock. I mentioned that brightness button previously. It sets the brightness of the screen very low. The screen will remain on when the Clock app is running the foreground and the device is plugged. It's very easy to read in the middle of the night. I tried to prop the phone up on its side -- what I really need is a business card holder, which I'm sure I have 20 of somewhere!
One thing I need to figure out is how to get the Clock to play its alarm through the headphones rather than (or in addition to) the phone's built in speaker. As nicely as I propped up the phone, it ended up on its back, so the alarm was muffled.
Another thing I miss from the iPhone is the timer alarm. My morning routine is (1) alarm at 5:15, (2) alarm at 5:30, (3) if I don't get up, hit countdown timer for 20 minutes. The problem with having a set alarm at 5:45 is if I do get up, then that one is going off while I'm in the shower.
One possibility I see here is to port my Alltock Procrastinators' Clock. Now that would be a kick-ass alarm clock!
Before going to bed, I made a little playlist to listen to, then plugged the headphone into my iHome speaker. I plugged in the charger too. The Clock app makes a really neat alarm clock. I mentioned that brightness button previously. It sets the brightness of the screen very low. The screen will remain on when the Clock app is running the foreground and the device is plugged. It's very easy to read in the middle of the night. I tried to prop the phone up on its side -- what I really need is a business card holder, which I'm sure I have 20 of somewhere!
One thing I need to figure out is how to get the Clock to play its alarm through the headphones rather than (or in addition to) the phone's built in speaker. As nicely as I propped up the phone, it ended up on its back, so the alarm was muffled.
Another thing I miss from the iPhone is the timer alarm. My morning routine is (1) alarm at 5:15, (2) alarm at 5:30, (3) if I don't get up, hit countdown timer for 20 minutes. The problem with having a set alarm at 5:45 is if I do get up, then that one is going off while I'm in the shower.
One possibility I see here is to port my Alltock Procrastinators' Clock. Now that would be a kick-ass alarm clock!
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Creating Playlists in Music app
I figured this was going to be a challenge. One thing I really love about my iPhone is the way it lets me create an "On the Go" playlist without having to bring up my media server computer in a Screen Sharing window, create the playlist in iTunes, add songs to it, then resync my iPhone. On iPhone, what you go is go to the "On the Go" playlist, then you enter an "add songs" mode where you pick out the songs that you want. You can't rename this playlist, and it gets demoted to "On the Go 1" (or "On the Go 29" eventually) after you sync. But you can really tell that Apple thought through how to make these playlists easy... back before the iPhone and iPod Touch.
In the Music app on Nexus One, as you're browsing your library, and you stumble on a song, you tap and hold. It brings up a menu, with an "add to playlist" option. You click it and then select a playlist, or create a new one. They even let you give your new playlist a name. Imagine that.
Another thing I discovered is that I can set any song to be my phone ringtone. Click the song, hold. select "Set as phone ringtone". More on ringtones later. I'm trying to figure out how to buy them from the iTunes Store </sarcasm>.
In the Music app on Nexus One, as you're browsing your library, and you stumble on a song, you tap and hold. It brings up a menu, with an "add to playlist" option. You click it and then select a playlist, or create a new one. They even let you give your new playlist a name. Imagine that.
Another thing I discovered is that I can set any song to be my phone ringtone. Click the song, hold. select "Set as phone ringtone". More on ringtones later. I'm trying to figure out how to buy them from the iTunes Store </sarcasm>.
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