Originally Posted By: tonyc
I'm really sad about losing the Touchstone capability, especially in the car. Guess I need to find a decent car dock to hold it for GPS use at least.

It turns out that I was so sad about losing the Touchstone that I spent some time tonight taking apart the back of my Pre and transplanting the magnets onto my Nexus S just to use the Touchstone as a magnetic mount for the new phone (without the charging capability.) I got the idea from some posts where people had modded Nexus Ones and Nexus Ses to use the Touchstone as a charger, but I don't have the balls to void the warranty on my $500+ phone, and have read reports that the Touchstone charging can't even keep up with the battery drain of day-to-day phone operation (that was sometimes the case with the Pre, but it usually kept up.)

There was some concern that the magnets would screw with the phone's compass, as I'd read reports of that, but I'm pretty sure I was able to position them in such a way that the impact is minimal or nonexistent -- it's far too cloudy here to test it out with Google Sky, but the cardinal directions seemed close enough to what the maps of my neighborhood show, and it seems to be finding the moon okay, so I'm pretty confident it's not screwing things up too badly.

It's not the prettiest mod in the world, as it involves a couple strips of electrical tape across the back to hold the magnets in place, but the net result is actually a stronger magnetic grip to my Touchstones than I had with the Pre, due to the Pre's slightly heavier weight and the replacement back panel of the Pre being significantly thicker than a piece of electrical tape. I might end up trying to locate a thin gel skin to put around the phone to protect the electrical tape, or I might just leave it as is and replace the tape if it wears down over time.

Other than the aesthetics, I'm really quite happy with the result. I still have to plug in a MicroUSB cable to charge the phone, but I can continue to use my Touchstone mount in the car to position the phone for navigation and speakerphone use, and I can continue to use the Touchstones in my house to hold the phone in place while it's charging. I think it's a good enough setup that I'd probably try to do the same thing in the future with other phones if it's practical.

I actually ended up buying a Nexus S car mount at Best Buy today on my way home, and I think I'll keep that for use in my wife's car, but I'm very glad that I will be able to continue to use my Touchstones with my Nexus, albeit not as originally intended.

Thanks for all the app recommendations, by the way. I'd already planned on installing Prey after seeing it at USENIX a few years back, but I hadn't yet discovered most of those other apps, some of which sound quite useful.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff