Sounds like some parity and stability is coming to the Android platform.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_15/b4223041200216.htm

Of course this flies in the face of all the hypocritical bullsh*t Andy Rubin, et al. at Google have been blabbing about for months.

I'd be perfectly happy if Google treated every manufacturer identically, as does Microsoft (according to the article, anyway), so long as all the manufacturer shovelware and phone carrier policing came to an end.

I'd also be happy if the carriers gave you an easy way to turn off their crapware. I have no idea why they think it's better to get their hooks deep into the OS and force you to use their stuff. It's not like the phone will cease to work correctly if I use plain Android. I played with a Galaxy Tab 7" in a retail store the other day for about 20 minutes just to check it out. The thing I find funny is that while nobody will be awarding Android for style, Samsung doesn't seem to realize that their design touches are horribly ugly. Google tends to use all white icons in their menus, but Samsung has ugly, color, clip-art-looking icons all over the place. Yuk.

It makes me wonder why they put their own take on these devices in the first place. I'd always assumed that it was a way for them to differentiate themselves in the mind of an average consumer walking into a phone store and seeing five Android phones in front of them. In fact, it seems the entire purpose of these alternate skins is to immediately signal to the user that it does not look like another company's Android phone.

It's understandable to differentiate, but when it starts hurting your customers, it simply doesn't make sense. You're going to end up with phones that are missing features from newer versions of Android, or even more importantly you miss out on security updates.

I honestly don't understand the manufacturer skinning. I simply can't figure it out. There are tons of alternate launchers in the App Market, and ever since Android 1.5, I've never had one crap out after an update to the OS. So why not simply create, for example, a Sense UI Launcher? They could make the phone default to the company's system applications like their own phone dialer. That way, it's riding on top of an OS that can still get updated.

Anyway, in the end I'm happy about this. Bruno, I think you're misunderstanding the meaning of hypocritical. This is giving up Google wanted to play nice, but they clearly grossly underestimated the manufacturers' ability to f*** everything up for no good reason. I'd be surprised if Google ever foresaw this situation, and if they had they would have come out with a different approach.

I have a hard time seeing this as not being pro-consumer.

Most likely it's because it's a bullet point on the powerpoint presentation of "why people may buy our product over [insert identical android phone name here]"

I suspect everyone is worried that ZTE will come along and push out a same spec (same qualcomm chipset) phone which is indistinguishable from theirs... except it costs less.

Matt, I think I know the definition of hypocrite:





Biggest bait and switch of the past 10 years, IMO.

I'd say that Google is responding to pressure from customers who want to buy "stock" Android. Also, Microsoft took noticeable pleasure in restricting its Windows Phone 7 vendors, as it also increasingly restricts Windows licensees (relative to the earlier days).

Frankly, I'd be perfectly happy for Motorola to use their stable of developers to debug the device drivers. I'm annoyed that WiFi doesn't work anywhere near as well on my Android as it did on my earlier iPhone. Bluetooth also seems more prone to drop the connection, particularly with my car. I'm sure some of that blame rests on Google (or on Linux), but that's where Motorola could really contribute. They know how to do real-world testing and could generate really high quality bug reports.

Likewise, if the hardware vendors focused their efforts on good hardware support, then presumably it would be much easier for them to port their changes forward to newer versions of Android, bringing newer versions to their customers sooner.

Oh well. I can always upgrade my Droid X to an apparently leaked build of Gingerbread (apparently an official build from Motorola that Verizon rejected, perhaps because it mentioned AT&T inside the tethering app... oops), using techniques that will brick my phone if I screw something up. Or I can wait. And wait.

Sorry, Bruno, I still disagree. I think hypocrisy implies a simultaneity. This is a company changing their minds, which is a minor but important distinction. Do you always view someone changing their mind as a sign of hypocrisy?

I'm not saying they're right, either. I'm just saying it's a reaction, not a malicious decision or doublespeak. They aspired to something and weren't able to make it a reality due to external forces. At the very least, I have every reason to think they're doing what they're doing for the good of the consumer. I really would like to hear your specific thoughts on why this is a bad move and what negative effects could result from it.

Uh, they're only restricting early access. It's still open source once it's released, and anyone can do whatever they want with it.

Although, I will say that there's no problem with fragmentation of Chrome or Firefox (okay, maybe a startup or two trying to fork Firefox), and for those we get nightly builds and real-time access to their source code repository.

Whatever Google's reason for not letting out real-time source code, it's got nothing to do with market uniformity. My guess is that it's instead about trying to kow tow to hardware vendors trying to keep things under wraps, like new hardware features for which Google might be building suitable drivers or applications.

But Google are stating that they have not changed their minds. That these rules have always been there, they just haven't been enforcing them.

They also continue to call out Apple and other "closed" systems.

There's a huge shitstorm brewing over this with manufacturers who feel like Google is pulling the rug out from under them.

It's only early access on the face. But they're manipulating what you can and can't do well beyond that. Not giving access to certain apps, the market, etc. The OS was created to generate ad revenue. If someone goes off an implements solutions using Google's competition, Google isn't really going to be too happy about it. And they haven't been.

I don't think for a second this has anything to do with complaints from individuals. Consumers are not Google's customers. We're more their assets. Their customers are their AdSense buyers. It's always been that way and nothing has changed in this respect with Android.

I don't personally think it's a bad move from a consumer perspective. It's bad for manufacturers, but I've been calling for this type of move for a long time. I just think that Google should have been more up front about this and enforced it right from the start, giving every manufacturer equal footing at the same time. Instead they've played favorites and participated in a big bait and switch, potentially screwing a lot of their manufacturing partners in the process, who have probably spent lots and lots of dollars developing their customizations - as shit as some of them may be.

In contrast, Microsoft was very up front about this for WP7.

Overall, I think Google stepping in to control Android a bit more is a good thing for end users considering my experience with the Captivate. For most of the Android fans out there, they choose a similar experience to what the Apple users do. A Google designed phone (Nexus One/S), with a Google (only) OS, and a Google update system. The rest of the Android market is made up of normal consumers who wanted a smartphone and simply picked what was available on their carrier, unaware of all the differences. Unaware that Samsung or Verizon or whoever was altering the "Android Experience" and hindering the speed of updates.

What does trouble me is most of what Bruno and others here have pointed out. Google is moving forward with these changes, while trying to act like they aren't changes. It's just enforcement of rules they already had in place, and they still hold dearly to the "Open" tag. (I want to revisit that thread soon, but specifically avoided going too far down the Android path there). The hardware manufacturers ended up with their own idea of what open meant for them, and they ran with it. Google went along with it too, certifying devices like the Galaxy S variant on Verizon even though it took out Google search and changed it to Bing. This set a certain precedent that Google is clearly trying to back away from, to the point of not allowing search to be changed on a recent T-Mobile phone. Google should have been more consistent with the enforcement earlier, denying the Google certification that allows the proprietary parts of Android to ship on a device if they weren't happy about something.

If they want to keep using the Open tag, they need to release source when they ship at a minimum. Most pure open source projects these days even grant access during development, with Chorme and Firefox being two notable ones pointed out by Dan. Linux, Apache, Samba, FFMpeg, VLC, Socorro, Wine and many others work this way. Does Google have to do the same? No, they don't. But they should't bash their competitors over the head with "Open" while intentionally restricting access. Honeycomb is not open to end users, and not open to any hardware vendor. It's only open to chosen companies, and may remain that way until Ice Cream. The next Google I/O should be interesting to see. If Google backs away from the whole Open description, then great, they are being more honest about their change in direction. But if they say similar things as last year, then yes, I can see the hypocrite tag fitting.

While the phrase "Google is the next Microsoft" doesn't properly describe the situation, I do see some truth to it at least with Android. Google makes an OS that they license to hardware vendors, just as Microsoft did with Windows. Google allows vendors to make modifications, just as Microsoft does with Windows. On a technical level, yes the open source part is different then Microsoft's closed methods, but there are similarities. Dell is free to add programs before a system ships, and change some aspects of Windows. Same for Android. And much like Microsoft did in the 90s, Google will use threats like a stop ship order to prevent changes they dislike, even after previously certifying said changes. If Android becomes the dominant licensed OS for smartphones, Google is likely to have a similar focus on their activities as Microsoft had in the 90s. Such actions as the Skyhook situation jump from breach of contract issues, to potential anti trust issues. Especially when Google touts the "open" nature of the OS. Microsoft said OEMs were free to make changes, up until one of those changes was bundling Netscape as an equal choice to IE.

Ok, this thought I'll admit is way out in conspiracy theory land, but here goes. What if a reason Google is withholding Honeycomb source is due to them not wanting to have to compete with Amazon? There has been a lot of speculation recently that Amazon may look to build their own tablet to compete with Apple, and potentially the other Android tablets. This tablet could potentially run just the open part of Android, ignoring the proprietary Google parts. Out of the gate, there would still be a place to get apps (Amazon Appstore), a place to stream videos from (Amazon Instant Video), a place to buy music from (Amazon MP3 Store), a place to buy books from (Kindle Store), and a place to stream cloud music from (Amazon Cloud Player).

Amazon would be entering the field with an ecosystem that rivals, or even beats Apple's in certain areas, and also would be stronger then what Google offers today on the media side. Motorola, Samsung, and the other Android tablet makers have next to nothing when looking at ecosystems. This could do severe damage to the already slow start of Android with Google as a tablet platform.

My read is that they're simply restricting access to pre-release versions. Once released, it's Open Source, and same as usual.

Heck, call RedHat a "closed" company if that's how you think, because they do the same thing.

Cheers

That's enough to sink (bankrupt, completely destroy) some handset makers if they don't play ball. Starting development after a few other companies have already released their products isn't going to work for most of these companies.

How much lead time will "pre-release" offer? A month? 6 months? Maybe a year. I'm guessing between 6 months and a year myself.

Having the "open" version of Android come out "eventually" is perfectly fine for some companies. It would be perfectly fine for my intended use for example, but that version simply won't be useful at all to be competitive in the mobile handset space. It could even be fine for a company like Amazon who could use it to offer what ends up being their own platform without so much as a single Google mention. Now, if everyone did this, Google would be screwed - and they know that. That is the big impetus in controlling the release of Android versions, not what Joe consumer thinks.

I'll put it in plain English. Google doesn't give a rat's ass what the consumer thinks about Android fragmentation and extra UI bits from third parties.

Android's only purpose is to bring in money for Google. That's it. It's not about some lofty holy crusade against Apple and other closed systems. And there's nothing wrong with that. If everyone starts heavily customizing and dropping Google services that expose eyeballs to advertisements, then Google's suddenly running a charity. And the last thing Google is about is charity. Google doesn't do free as in beer.

I'm playing devil's advocate here, because as I've already stated, as a consumer, I agree with a tighter Android experience. But manufacturers have apparently already started the complaints to the DoJ about Google.

How long does pre-release last? The Motorola Xoom has Honeycomb on it, and has been in consumers hands for over a month. Either Google is admitting they ship pre-release quality products and charge people money for that, or Motorola shipped before Honeycomb was done.


Source for RHEL 6 was available when it went into beta, in April 2010. RHEL 6 was in pre-release mode until November 2010. Thats a window of 7 months where source was available before they shipped a final product. Big difference between that timing and the situation with Honeycomb. That 7 month window allowed CentOS, and Scientific Linux to also continue their work as normal. The community would have been up in arms had RedHat held back the code while shipping public beta versions.

Some insight into the Android changes, looks like Skyhook may have been the tipping point for this:

http://thisismynext.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-lawsuit-motorola-samsung/

One part of the article talks about the rumored Amazon Android tablet, and how a contract between Samsung and Google may hinder it, if Amazon was going to have Samsung manufacture it.


Google also confirmed at I/O 2011 that Honeycomb (both 3.0 and 3.1) will remain closed.

I repeat my statements earlier in this thread. The manufacturers are simply ruining Android. It's that simple. Here's an example (Bruno, you'll love this):

I have a new client with a small business who's email is done through a hosted Exchange account. This week she got rid of her old Blackberry and went with the HTC Thunderbolt because she's loyal to a Verizon franchise store, and because neither Verizon nor AT&T let their franchise** stores sell the iPhone for some reason, she went with the Thunderbolt. I probably would have suggested the same thing.

Well I certainly don't now.

Her Exchange account added just fine, and she can get her email and calendar items. The problem starts with contacts. MOST of her nearly 8000 contacts synced, but oddly some of her most-used contacts did not. Even with the ones that did, they were missing different pieces of info, like some would be missing one or all phone numbers, or a mailing address, and not a single one shows a second email address if it was entered.

Clearly, this is an enormous problem for someone running a small business who's making calls all day long. In addition to this, HTC has designed their dialer so that in order to call the person you want to, you either start typing their number or you spell it out using the 9-digit keyboard. That's right, it's a smartphone that came out this year that's expecting you to use a sort of T-9 system to find the contact you want to dial. What's worse? When you press the search hard button, it doesn't bring up a QWERTY keyboard where you can search for the person you want, no, it brings up instructions on how to use the 9-digit keypad to find the person. If it had been my phone I think I might have thrown it against a wall.

Now, just to make sure it wasn't a problem with the Exchange server or something, I decided I'd try it out on my own phone. I even went so far as to blow out my own contacts and stop all syncing so as not to risk any cross-contamination of data. I added her exchange account and waited an hour. Sure enough, the stock "Contacts" app (the HTC app is "People") was showing every single contact she was having problems with. It also showed every piece of information for every contact I looked up, including multiple email addresses, mailing addresses, and phone numbers.

In order to go back to my client tomorrow with all the information I could muster, I looked into rooting the Thunderbolt and putting a replacement ROM on it. Turns out it's one of the less supported phones out there, and while the rooting process isn't the hardest around, it's not dead-simple.

Thankfully, I was treated to an incredibly rude a-hole on the AndroidForums who basically said "here's a link to the 23 different ROMs out there." Nevermind they all have names that look like the names of hacker BBSs, and I have no idea which one would be best suited to my client. Cyanogen, sadly, isn't ready for this device.


After this, combined with Tom's experience with his Samsung, I simply can't recommend nearly all Android phones to the average consumer right now. The Nexus S is fine, and for more advanced users so is any phone that will take a stable version of Cyanogen. Otherwise you're dealing with s**t that manufacturers put on their devices in an effort to differentiate themselves, but ends up ruining an otherwise wonderful platform.

I can't tell you how frustrated this makes me. It also solidifies my decision to wait until a new Nexus device is released (there's rumors of one at the end of the year).


**"Franchise" might not be the right word here. I'm not sure what you call these stores, but they're usually family-owned. There's an AT&T store in my home town that used to be a general cellular phone store, but went exclusive with AT&T. The owner was seriously pissed when AT&T wouldn't let him sell the iPhone.

Take the phone back to the Verizon store and let the people there know that it sucks and that they should complain to corporate about it. Then see what other alternatives they have. Lastly, if that's not going to get a proper phone, just buy an iPhone online through the Apple Store for the Verizon network.

Android is likely to always have these problems, even with Google tightening down, I don't think they'll be able to fix all the cruft these second-tier manufacturers are dumping on there.

I can sympathize with the extra work and headaches you're having to go through here to support this customer. Ouch.

The thing is, this would all be moot if even one of these manufacturers changed one thing about their addons: make them optional. I can't for the life of me think of one reason, other than arrogance, why these alterations they make are so deeply integrated with the OS.

To begin with, there are only two reasons I can think of that they put these alterations to the OS:

1) To differentiate: clearly, to the average consumer in a phone store, if 6 different Android slate phones look the same, the one with the different home screen is going to stand out. Plus you can advertise your UI on the spec sheet. But that doesn't explain why you make the add-ons unremovable. Perhaps...

2) They honestly think they offer a better user experience. The problem is this is clearly bulls**t, they're just too proud of their own stuff to admit it's awful. Plus, they could still make the add-ons removable.

I will say one thing: HTC actually has very good customer support:

- Their free phone lines are open from 6am to 1am EST
- There are no prompts (you go straight to an actual person)
- The wait times seem very short (10 minutes this morning and almost instant last night around 8pm)
- The support technicians are far better than the usual tier 1, and the woman I spoke to even got a Thunderbolt, added the Exchange account, and waited for everything to sync while spending an hour on the phone with me

Too bad their software blows big time.


You'll like this, Bruno. On the AndroidForums, I said the following:

- That the rooting community, while doing a lot of good work, simply wasn't very clear on procedures for new users.
- Besides, it's not very practical to root a client's phone,
- There are no plain vanilla Android phones sold by Verizon anymore (the OG Droid was the last/only one).
- After this experience with Sense UI, why would I risk trying out a Motorola phone with MotoBlur?
- The only conclusion was to go with an iPhone.

You know what the a** "helping" me out then said to me? To paraphrase: "I should have known you were an iPhone troll." Yeah, he accused ME of that

One thing I find somewhat amusing about the situation is that you have a customer using Microsoft Exchange, and they were initially using a RIM Blackberry, before changing to an HTC/Google phone, with an Apple iPhone in the running. Really shows how far behind Microsoft has gotten on the phone side, unable to even take advantage of people leaving Blackberry devices.

If Android phones weren't freebies or heavily pushed/customized by the carriers, it would probably be in the same boat Microsoft is in right now. That OS has legs only because they're taking over from feature and feature-less phones. There's a very small percentage of customers who are moving to it from other smartphone products, but the big bulk of its numbers are simply people who want a new phone.

MS can go this route, but it's difficult to compete for phone models when Google's offering is close to free. If they want to make money they have to look at Apple and RIM for inspiration and change their mobile business to be nothing like their desktop business. Maybe then we'll start seeing the corporate world embracing MS mobile handsets.

You'd think that Win Phone 7 device would be a good competitor for Exchange integration.

I hadn't thought about that, but this is a funny thing. But this particular situation is a little different because Verizon, for all intents and purposes, doesn't have WP7 phones. I only see two, one is "free," and the other is $50, so they look like pretty crappy phones.


Well I'm back to not knowing what the hell you're talking about.

The entire smartphone market is benefiting from users getting their first smartphones. You seem to think that every single iPhone user was once a Blackberry or Palm owner, and that's simply not the case. If anything, the smartphone market share reports are showing a decline in RIM/Nokia, and a rise in Android, and if you wanted you could read that as more people switching from smartphones to Android than are doing so to iPhone. I don't necessarily think that, but I do think the entire pie is growing, and all these companies are getting new buyers.

What's more, I don't know where you're getting these ideas that Android is being carried by free/cheap phones. The biggest seller has been the Galaxy S line, which is the same exact price as the entry level iPhone, as is almost every Android phone that comes to market. I can't think of a single sub-$200 Android phone that has been a huge success (most of them are crap that sell terribly, like the Cha Cha).

Indeed. Oddly, they aren't that great with Exchange. While the basics work, they lack several Exchange features, including the ability to search all e-mail on the server.

This is another reminder I never did finish up my review thread of WP7. I did find I liked quite a bit of what the platform had to offer, but it's definitely not a great enterprise device. I'll have to wrap that up soon, before the experience fades.

Matt, look at the number of high-priced Android phones compared to the overall number of Android phones. Small numbers. There are over 100 Android handsets right now to put this into perspective.

The iPhone customers have come from everywhere, but my point was that most Android customers have come up from feature or dumbphones. Yes, it's great to have more smartphones around, but the Android brand is not the draw here. The simple availability and price and bundles from the carriers are what's pushing sales in the biggest numbers. And while this is the case, you're going to continue to see manufacturers and carriers re-branding the hell out of the experience to try and establish their own flavor as a premium item. It hasn't worked so far and I won't hold my breath for it to work in the future.

MS is suposed to be significantly improving WP7 in the next update, offering a number of enhancements changes specifically for the email experience. I'm eager to find out if this latest Nokia rumor is true. I think MS needs it for long-term success. I don't think they're going anywhere following Google.


Recent Android security issues (transmitting auth in the clear):
http://www.uni-ulm.de/en/in/mi/staff/koenings/catching-authtokens.html

How many products will ever get a fix for this?

Every platform is going to have security vulnerabilities. What's sad about Android is how many phones are running ancient versions. All of this customization crap slows down the rollout of security patches. Yes, yet another reason why the Android ecosystem needs to crack down on customization.

As to Exchange integration, I'm amazed it works at all. Android naturally works really well with Gmail because that's how everybody at Google uses it. Once you get away from that...

Sorry, I just don't know from where you arrive at this conclusion. You seem to be looking at the entire landscape of Android phones and not paying attention to how well any particular model is selling, when it's selling, and for how much. Sure, you could go buy an old Android phone for a nice discount, but you can do the same with the 3GS, and I wouldn't call that a crappy freebie (and I'd be amazed if people buying the 3GS now are current smartphone owners).

I think my problem with what you're saying is that you're arguing two things as a single, inseparable argument: that Android's brand isn't the draw so the platform is living on the sales of freebie/heavily discounted phones.

I agree that Android doesn't have the draw that iPhone does, but the most popular phones aren't the fee ones, they're the $200 ones.

To be honest, I couldn't actually tell you why that is. Up until the Verizon iPhone, it was clearly because Apple wasn't releasing on all carriers. But people are still buying the expensive Android phones, and given how crappy the manufacturer overlays are, I couldn't tell you why. My guess: you look at an iPhone screen and see the same boring grid of icons. You look at an HTC phone and see that super fancy weather/clock widget. As crazy as it sounds, that appeals to the typical consumer. Unfortunately they don't know what waits for them once they start using the thing...

And this new agreement among the carriers has truck-sized loopholes. The best one is "if the phone supports the update." What's to stop the manufacturer from saying it doesn't?

But you're right, the manufacturers are hurting their customers with unsecure old versions. Ugh.


The thing that kills me is that on my Nexus One, no joke, it works perfectly. Every contact synced with every piece of information. All 7000+ names in about 90 minutes. It's the sh***y HTC junk that acted all weird and wouldn't properly display or sync all the contacts it should have. It's extremely frustrating, and I spent two hours on the phone with HTC about it. It's aggravating that they can't give out any message other than "there must be something wrong on your end." Clearly, given that I've done every bit of troubleshooting possible and every piece of information points to the Sense app as the problem, it's HTC's fault. I don't know what I was hoping for. Maybe they'd give me a magic button sequence I could enter in the dialer that would unlock the plain Android OS on the phone

Slightly good news: it looks like there's a good app for Android that interfaces with Exchange servers and essentially replaces whatever else you're using on the phone for mail and contacts.

I wish it weren't so butt-ugly, but it's something. I'll also replace the completely absurd dialer with some other app...

At the big three carriers here in Canada you can't buy an Android phone for more than $150 unless you pay an unsubsidized price off contract. And that $150 is only at one carrier, the other two max at $100 (Atrix and Galaxy S for instance). And you can get them for as little as $0 advertised with a number of models at $75, $50 and $25-29.

There are plenty of other phones also available for $0 advertised. Most of those semi-smart and feature phones will in time all migrate over to Android, I'm pretty confident of that.

I've seen first hand at a number of phone kiosks people asking about "that iPhone" but not liking the price or contracts, only to be told by the sales person they could get this similar phone for $50 or this other one for $20 instead. I don't doubt for a second that Android handsets will continue to increase their lead in units, but they're already at the commodity level now. There's nothing premium about Android in general, and it's few handsets running Android that are premium product in their own right.

The problem with this mix of handsets at these manufacturers is product lifecycle and longevity. You're looking at anywhere from a few short months to 18 months tops for any hand set. Didn't we just hear recently that the software update lifecycle is supposed to be 18 months? Was it at Google IO?

The situation Matt had with his client isn't likely to change because of all this. It's why I brought this up in the first place. The race to differentiate and the short lifecycle of the Android products pretty much insures incompatibility and that problems will not be resolved, even long-term.

My deep hope is that Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is so achingly beautiful and well done that there's little room for vendors to improve it, and also contractually locked down by Google so that there's little ability for vendors to screw it up. We'll see.

That release will have to wait until Apple, MS and HP release their next OSes, otherwise Google will have no source material from which to draw upon for the improvements to their OS.

I was thinking about waiting for the Nexus 4G as well, but if the recent rumors about it being an AT&T exclusive are true, I think I'll have to pass. Plus, I don't think I want to wait another six months to upgrade, assuming it's on schedule.

My Sprint contract is up, so I can get a Nexus S 4G relatively cheap, but I don't like the lack of an SD slot and the relatively weak camera. The T-Mobile HTC Sensation 4G seems to have much better specs, but after reading your experience with the Thunderbolt, I'm worried that the bloatware would ruin it, and while I don't mind rooting and using 3rd party ROMs, I'm worried about what happens if the ROM developers decide to stop releasing for it when newer, sexier phones come out.

I guess I'll probably look at the Sensation 4G in a T-Mobile store once they start getting them in, then decide. Are there any other Android phones coming out between now and the end of the year that I should consider waiting for?

For what it's worth, a year into owning my Motorola Droid X, which looked great on paper, I wish I'd gone back into the past and told myself to just get a Nexus S or even a Nexus One. Then, at least, I'd know that any wonky behavior I was experiencing would also likely be suffered by somebody working at Google who'd be more likely to fix it.

As it stands today, with Gingerbread finally on my phone, the phone is oodles better than it was a year ago, but it still crashes and behaves weird at odd times. Under Android 2.2, the problem was that anything touching the GPS would have a non-zero chance of wedging the phone. Now, it's after the phone has been on for a while, it just stops being able to make phone calls and needs to be rebooted. Dollars to doughnuts, this boils down to crappy device drivers.

I pains me to have to wait until next summer before my two year contract with Verizon comes up for renewal. Who knows, maybe by then the whole situation will be better.

That's a great point, and one that really hadn't crossed my mind. Do people generally consider the Nexus S to be more stable than all of the HTC, Samsung, etc. offerings, or is this just from your personal experience with the Droid X?

I stopped by both the Sprint store after work today to get a quick look at the Nexus S 4G, and would have walked out with one were it not for Sprint's sudden love of surcharge fees for everything under the sun. I'm paying about $80/month after my employer discount now, but if I upgrade to a new Sprint smartphone, they're going to tack on ten bucks for the privilege. Then, the one that made my jaw drop was the wireless hotspot tethering fee: 30 bucks a month! Unreal.

So I walked out, and headed to the T-Mobile store down the street. The CS reps were mobbed, but I did get a look at the HTC Sensation, and even with just 5 minutes with the two phones, I got a good feel for why a lot of people prefer a stripped down true Android phone over the ones loaded with bloatware. The HTC interface has all this 3D spinning whiz-bang animation crap that totally turned me off. I'm sure I could eventually tweak it to make it more palatable, but it seemed to me that all the extra horsepower of the HTC's faster CPU would be eaten up by visual effects and crappy apps.

It's a bummer, because it looks like my monthly bill on T-Mobile would be significantly cheaper. They only charge $15 for tethering, and though the data service isn't "unlimited" like it theoretically is on Sprint, I'm pretty sure I'd be fine with the plan that gives you 2GB of fast data and then throttles anything above that. Sprint does have 7pm nights/weekends and unlimited calling to any mobile carrier, but I rarely use anytime minutes, so I think I'd be fine with calling.

So, basically, it looks like I want the Sprint phone with but the T-Mobile service. I guess the least bloated Android phone available on T-Mobile is the LG G2X, but I didn't get a chance to see that in the store today, and apparently they haven't rolled Gingerbread out to it, so I'm not really sure that's a great fit, either.

Sprint is seriously going to lose a ton of customers with their $10 smartphone and $30 tethering charges.

The Nexus S (non Sprint 4G) works on T-Mobile, and beyond supporting Wi-Max, the two devices are identical. Clean Google experience, and same Samsung Galaxy S derived hardware.

As for what the manufacturers are doing under the hood, it seems my experience with the Captivate only exposed part of it. A coworker has been rebuilding his phone from scratch, and discovered his stock ROM was using ReiserFS. Pretty crazy, and gives me a new view on why Google is trying to control things more now.

That might be a decent compromise -- I'm not sure if I'd miss the Sprint 4G speeds or not, as I've never experienced T-Mobile's data service (then again, I've never experienced Sprint's 4G either.)

It doesn't look like T-Mobile offers the Nexus S on their web site now, but it appears to be available at some retail outlets. I have a T-Mobile rep I can email through my employer's discount program, maybe I'll ask him about it.

Also, from what I can gather, the Cyanogen firmware for 4G phones is still in the early stages, so it seems like I might be stuck with the bloatware for more than a month or two if I decide to go with one of those.

It takes no time at all to remove all the visual effects and apps and just run a very lean one with excellent battery life. I have the older HTC Desire HD, and I get almost 2 days battery life under normal usage - no silly visual effects, no Sense UI (replaced it with the Go Launcher), no auto-sync, auto shutdown of power hogs (like phone, wireless, sat-nav etc) and it's smashing!

I can't express how interested I am in the new Nexus phone. All along my ideals for my next phone have been:

- plain Android
- dual-core processor
- decent resolution screen
- LTE

It looks like there's a possibility of having all my requirements met! I'm still not sure I'm digging the lack of buttons, but if I can get a phone with the specs they're talking about I'll live with it.

Tom, I really wish you could experience real Android. I don't fault you for not having done so, because it's so difficult to do. I'd be thrilled if Google tightened things down.

Tony, I'd also recommend waiting until the Galaxy S II and see if a version of Cyanogen Mod comes out for it. Samsung sent a unit to a Cyanogen dev, so hopefully that bodes well. IMO, Cyanogen is the next best thing to pure Android.

I only have one complaint with stock Android: you don't get the magic Facebook contact integration with your Android contacts. Well, you used to, but Google is banning it in their war with Facebook. If you have a proprietary mumble from some other vendor, then you probably continue to have Facebook integration.

I have finally activated an original Droid yesterday. Sort of a birthday gift to myself. I've had it on wifi for a couple of months and was playing around with rooting and ROMs. It's running CM7. Now, as a phone, it seems pretty stable- although there are some issues with CM7 on D1 that I will confront.
My monthly bill will only be going up about $15 or $20 with the changes I've made to my account on Verizon. Should be under $70/mo.

Would I be correct in saying the phone is 'as unique' as the Nexus in terms of customization options?
Sure, it's two years behind in hardware...

The original Droid and the Nexus One were both in the hands of many, many genuine Google employees, at least back in the day when they were current phones. If you buy my theory, then a Droid is a reasonable way to have non-crap device drivers.

I'm just going to throw this out there as an AT&T user with grandfathered $30 unlimited data. In the past 6 months, I've used an iPhone 4, HTC Aria, Dell Venue, and Nexus S as my primary phone. Obviously, the iPhone 4 required jailbreaking to tether without a supplemental fee. The Aria was AT&T-branded, but I installed CM7 which included the stock tethering settings menu. The Dell Venue and Nexus S are sold unlocked. The Venue was purchased directly from Dell, and the Nexus is a Canadian variant that I bought from Negri for the 850MHz HSDPA support. Both these non-AT&T branded phones allow open use of the stock tethering capability in Android.

I don't tether much, but I like to have the option in an emergency. Paying full-price for a phone upfront is worth the freedom to me. Naturally, unlocked phones also sell for more money on ebay when I'm done with them. I've actually managed to make a healthy profit unlocking Android phones, installing CM7 and flipping them on ebay while I was working-out which phone to settle on.

FWIW, I settled on the Nexus S. I haven't even rooted it. I'm just that content with it.

I defected from the iPhone primarily for Android's tight integration with Google Voice. Now that I've successfully transitioned my contacts to dial my GV number, I'm free to dump AT&T and move to some other carrier without the worry of number porting. I'm currently still under contract with AT&T, but I plan to make a move to either Straight Talk (AT&T MVNO) or Simple Mobile (T-Mobile MVNO). Both have unlimited data at a reasonable price, and I doubt they will care if I'm tethering a few times per year.

At the time, it was impossible, since the Nexus One was discontinued along with the Droid, and the Nexus S was still a ways out. To be quite honest, Android is not for me, even if it is stock. The media features I use very frequently on the iPhone side simply aren't matched in the Android space without a lot of effort that I'm not willing to go through. I'm not, nor do I plan to be a GMail user, so that leaves me with the subpar stock IMAP client that people at Google don't care about. I've also come to appreciate VPN access from my iPhone, something Android currently can't do, as Juniper doesn't have a proper Android VPN client. As nice as free turn by turn navigation might be (my main interest in Android), it's not enough to offset the downsides for my use.

I had considered grabbing an Xperia Play just as a justification to have an Android device around to tinker with and use for games, but Sony (as usual) dropped the ball here. In the US it's Verizon only (so no SIM swapping for me), and even if I did get a GSM version, it's barley "Playstation" compatible. I was hoping to see PSP games make the direct leap over, and potentially slightly scaled down Vita games. But instead, the plan seems to be mostly focused around bringing back PS1 era games, to avoid cannibalizing any PSP/Vita sales. At the end of the day, $500+ for a portable game console I'll use infrequently is a bit too much for even me to justify.

Yeah, the more I look into this, the more I'm certain the Nexus S is the right choice, even if I have to settle for the non-4G variant so I can defect to T-Mobile.

I've always preferred physical keyboards, but none of the other Android phones in Sprint's lineup are a good fit. Either they're too bulky, too outdated firmware-wise, or bloated with crap. I'm actually pretty nervous about moving to a phone without a real keyboard, but hopefully I can adjust. If the Cyanogen mod was farther along for the Epic 4G or Shift 4G phones, I might give those a closer look.

The other thing I'll really miss from my Pre is the Touchstone charging. It's so elegant and simple, and works perfectly as a car mount for GPS usage. The Nexus S car mounts I've seen look flimsy and crappy, and obviously don't charge the phone without plugging in a cable. I'm frankly shocked that other manufacturers haven't licensed this tech from HP or integrated something similar -- it's such a nice thing to have. It looks like some modders have found ways to hack Touchstone charging into the Nexus S, but the results look very amateur-ish, and the mods aren't the kind of thing you get done in half an hour.

I've got an email conversation going with a Sprint rep now who's trying to put together an offer to keep me from leaving for T-Mobile. I did find out that I only had an 8% corporate discount on my account when apparently I'm eligible for 18% now, so maybe that'll make up some of the distance.

I've heard it's a little harder for people who have used physical keyboards to adjust, but not impossible. I can't provide any direct tips on the transition since I went from T9 (and rarely typed) to the iPhone keyboard. I will say one key thing though is learning to use autocorrect. Don't try and hit every key exactly every time when typing normal english, just go at a comfortable pace and let autocorrect catch the minor mistakes. Make sure you know how to correct the autocorrect system, so it can be tailored to you as you also train with it.

You also have the option on Android to try out a few other keyboards. Initially I'd say stay with stock, just to get a feel for it for URL entry and other non english pieces. Then once your fingers get used to the spacing, you can look at Swype for english text entry. In my short time with the Android phone last summer, Swype was something that did grow on me a bit after trying it out.

Yeah, the potential to use something like Swype (or that Blindtype thing if it ever gets released) makes me think that I could live with a touchscreen keyboard. There will obviously be an adjustment period, though.

One other wrinkle I just thought of with moving to T-mobile is their imminent acquisition by AT&T. I guess if I sign a 2 year agreement with T-Mobile, I'm agreeing to be an AT&T customer next year when the merger goes through, and I'm not sure if I can deal with that.

The Sprint guy told me that they're not actually enforcing the tethering fee yet, so maybe my best bet is staying with Sprint and using tethering sparingly, in the hopes that they don't release a firmware upgrade that blocks tethering unless you pay the fee (or that the modders release a firmware that works around it.)

Tony, I moved from the Blackberry to the G1 to the Nexus One, and was always a staunch physical keyboard guy. I took a big chance on the Nexus One because I ordered it (for $550+) without having ever held it in my hands.

Frankly, I don't miss the physical keyboard.

I do think the iPhone's keyboard is a little better for typing than my N1's, but being able to install others is a big help. Try Swype for a while and see if you like it. I never much liked it myself, but it's a subjective thing so it might suit you more. I'm personally a huge fan of SwiftKey, which greatly reduces the number of screen taps to get a sentence out.

At this point I don't suppose you have much to worry about with the merger. I think 2 years is going to be more time than they'll need to convert the towers such that you won't be able to get 3G on TMobile anymore. Just as long as you go into it knowing that your phone won't be desirable to anyone when you're done with it. That's what I'm facing with my Nexus One and why I'm hoping it'll still be sellable when the supposed new Nexus phone is released.

Thanks for letting me know about SwiftKey. That looks like it could be a real time saver and make me not miss the keyboard as much.

Phone resale is definitely a concern with moving to T-Mobile, but it's also just not wanting to be an AT&T customer when the merger completes. I was a Cingular customer when they bought AT&T, and had bad experiences with them back then. My wife is still tied to an AT&T contract now on a family plan, and their deceptive billing and horrible customer service have been a nightmare to deal with. Basically, I'd pay a high premium to give any carrier other than AT&T my business. So, knowing the merger would happen during my contract term is a huge point in Sprint's favor.

Looks like I'll be pulling the trigger on the Sprint Nexus S 4G this evening. Thanks for all the help.

I have Facebook integration and I am running Cyanogenmod. Actually I think the Sprint stock image has the Facebook integration available as well. In any case I have one huge dealkiler complaint with Facebook integration. You can't put in phone numbers for your Facebook conatcts. So say if you learn someone's phone number that you were friends with on Facebook you try to put in a phone number for them in the Facebook contact. Nope doesn't work have to make a completely new duplicate Phone contact for it to work. Dumb.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Nexus S 4G last night. My hand was forced a bit by my Pre's battery going from "has trouble getting through a full day, even in airplane mode" to "has trouble getting through more than an hour or two."

I'm still finding my way around the phone, but so far, I'm impressed. It's definitely going to take me some time to get close to my old typing speed, but Swype seems to help a lot. The Netflix and Sling Player apps seem to work nicely over wifi, though I haven't tried them on 3G or WiMax yet.

What other apps should I try out? I found a free calendar app called Jorte that seems nice, and K-9 Email seems to be a better IMAP client than the stock one. What else do you guys use a lot? I'm working my way through the recommendations in Bitt's thread, but I thought there might be some new recommendations since that thread was active.

One app I could definitely use would be something like "Profiles" for PalmOS or "Mode Switcher" on WebOS. Basically, something to change phone settings (ring volume, vibrate on/off, etc.) based on time of day, location, etc.

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.

Get the Amazon app store everyday they have a free paid app. Many times they are crap but sometimes they have a good one like today it's Peggle.

And doodle jump is much better than abducted

Yeah. You get some good freebies on the Amazon Appstore. I acquired Plants vs Zombies via the Amazon Appstore for free by temporarily borrowing a US friend's Amazon account.

If you've ever played PvZ on the desktop then the mobile version seems to be pretty much identical in features. Only thing I can't find at the moment is the puzzles but that may be unlocked later.

It's not the most user-friendly app in the world, but Taskercan do absolutely anything that is at all possible on an Android phone. It can pretty much do anything based on anything. I know that's not very specific, but it really is a pretty incredible.

My current/recent favorite apps:

- Pretty much all the Google-branded stuff. If I'm running in an unfamiliar location, for example, I'll use Google's My Tracks.

- My-Cast Weather Lite to put the current temperature in the status bar and a brief forecast in the drop-down. I used to use WeatherBug, but it had a habit of slamming my CPU.

- SoundHound: pretty good at recognizing random songs.

- DoubleTwist: seems to be a reasonable media player.

- Photoshop Express: useful for fixing contrast/brightness on images from the crappy camera in my phone prior to uploading them to Facebook or whatnot.

- Prey (part of the Prey Project) to recover my phone if it's lost or stolen.

- Swiftkey (which I switched to from Swype) - awesome predictive keyboard.

- Amazon's App Store: good for the freebies.

- Seesmic: useful for quickly posting the same status update to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz in one go.

- RPN Calculator: free, does everything I want.

- Gentle Alarm: a freebie from Amazon, at one point. Very nice.

- PewPew 2: another Amazon freebie, at one point. Nice game.

- Galcon: addictive game (that I actually paid money for).

Root-only stuff:

- ClockSync: gets my phone on real atomic time, not whatever Verizon feeds me (which is often ten seconds off).

- Barnacle: tethering support.

I've been waiting for PvZ on Android for what seems like years. I can't stand how slow Popcap has been to adopt the Android platform.

iPhone PvZ players can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there are several things missing from the desktop version (which I played a long time ago and for which I unlocked everything). I believe the biggest differences are the puzzle games. They're simplified compared to the desktop version. Also, there are no survival modes or whatever they called that place you grew plants in (did they call it the greenhouse? I can't remember).

This deserves to be a new thread starter!


The Zen Garden? That's primarily a place to make money to spend at Crazy Dave's store, right?

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.

One thing I haven't seen in this or the other app recommendation thread is a ringing endorsement of any particular note taking app. Evernote didn't really wow me when I tried it a while back, but I guess I could take a look at the Android version.

On my Mac, I"ve always used VoodooPad for taking notes, but since it has no Android app, syncing it to anything on my phone would probably involve a cumbersome export/import process. So I'm probably looking at migrating to a new desktop client as well.

I took a look at the SpringPad Android app last night, and it looks okay, but I'd rather use a Mac native desktop app than a web app when I'm at my computer.

Any other recommendations? Or should I learn to love Evernote?

I finally settled on Evernote, but I agree that it's not great. In addition, syncing from the Android client to the Evernote cloud works poorly at best. I don't think I've ever had it sync anything successfully without me babysitting it, which is a huge pain.

I use Google Docs (which has an Android app). I used to be a profuse note-taker on paper, but somewhere along the line, in the transition to the digital world, I've lost the feel for it.

Evernote has a shite text editor that to this day has a lot of formatting bugs. BUt it's nearly ubiquitous, with support for it built into many other apps ("send to Evernote" and the like).

The Mac client, apart from text editing and a few niggles is also pretty decent in terms of layout, presentation and speed. It's much faster than many of the other similar apps I've tested over the past few years.

Its ubiquity is also a huge barrier to entry for competition. That part I don't like.

I keep a lot of stuff in Evernote, mostly put there from the Mac client, though it's also my go-to app when I need to document something on the road from my iPhone, usually by taking a photo and adding only a tiny bit of text.

I tried out Evernote, but for some of the reasons here I just never got into it. This was when the Android app was just released, though, so maybe some of my impressions were colored by the lack of polish on the app, but I also didn't like the desktop app for the reasons already mentioned.

I suppose I've cobbled together my own version of Evernote. For super quick reminders I have my much-loved "Email to Self" app, which fills my inbox with little notes to myself, and usually takes me approximately 5 seconds to do on my phone. For voice memos, I simply do a similar thing that's built right into Android. I hold down the search button until the voice prompt comes up, then I say "Note to self:" and then my message. It then sends me an email with the shaky translation of what I said, but also an attachment with my voice recording. Those two items are pretty similar, but I find I use them for different things.

For photo reminders of something, I merely use the built-in Android camera app combined with the Eye-Fi app. It sends all my photos to my desktop instantly, where I can check the photos later.

Lastly, if I'm going to take notes on something in a longer form, well, I've simply not done that, really. But if I do, I'm with Dan, Google Docs all the way. I freaking LOVE Google Docs...

To be fair, I just updated the Android client and the first thing it did was sync an assload of stuff. So maybe there was a sync bug that's now been fixed.

I mainly use Outlook (Yeah yeah. I know) with gSyncit to link to the Google web services which then gets synced to my Android. Its a bit of a long route but it works well enough for me.

The new Google Docs app covers everything I need for notes which I want to keep/save. If its just a quick note then I use ColorNote.

I'm a gsyncit user too with the same path using my work Outlook as the master for contacts and calendar. Haven't really used the Google Docs/Notes side of it though.

It still doesn't get my calendar completely right though. It has issues with timezones and single events in a series that are moved or deleted.

You can blame Outlook/Exchange for that. Their timezone support (and Windows timezone support in general) is a nightmare. You'll find times where timezone stuff gets screwed up even where nothing is involved beyond Outlook and Exchange. This all reared its ugly head when the US Government decided to change our daylight saving time rules a few years ago.

In keeping with the emerging consensus, Evernote seems to be the winner by default. I was hoping for something that would let me maintain a wiki-like structure the way I can with VoodooPad, but the only such animal I could find is TomDroid, which is an Android version of Tomboy. Unfortunately, it's read-only (I guess they're working on editing support), and the desktop app is written in Mono, so you get an ugly, clunky UI without native app goodies like proper clipboard integration for pasting in images and other media. The only native Mac note taking app that has a decent Android counterpart seems to be Evernote, and though there are many things I don't like about it, it's probably as good as it gets for now.

I'm very pleased with Android so far, and the Nexus S 4G in particular. I still miss the keyboard, but I'm getting to be pretty proficient with Swype.

The one thing I don't really get is why I'm seeing a bunch of background apps running, including ones I haven't launched since my device booted. Tasker (which is awesome, BTW) pops up now and then to tell me my memory is low, and when I look at what's running, I see a bunch of apps that I haven't launched recently and shouldn't really be doing anything in the background. Why are they there taking up memory? I know the OS will kill them, but why do they run in the first place?

Basically all IPC in Android is done via "Intents". The idea is that messages are sent through a middleware layer that's part of the OS and those messages are sent to every application that's registered to receive them. (It's more complicated than that, but that's the general idea.) The OS itself will send out Intents, and there are Intents for such events as Startup. So those programs probably registered themselves to receive startup Intents.

Generally speaking, you really don't need to worry about background applications. The general rule is that, while they are technically "running" and consuming memory, they're not really active. (There are exceptions, of course.) If the OS finds that it needs more memory, it will kill off inactive processes. Generally, letting the OS deal with this stuff works much better than trying to micromanage it. Sadly, the few places where you really do want to take over (for example, an application that wants to always be running that you never use and cannot uninstall — I'm looking at you, Amazon MP3), trying to do so is actually going to cause more problems than letting it waste your memory as it continually stops and restarts, instead of just wasting a small amount of memory.

I'm glad you like Tasker, Tony! I really need to install it again and see if I have any use cases for it. When I was using it I only had one rule set up and I felt like I was wasting the potential of the app There's a ridiculous number of things the app can do, but I was only using it to quiet my phone at night.

Still, it was nice to be able to set up a rule that said "if my phone is on its dock [specifically on the dock, not just charging], AND the time is between 11pm and 8am, mute the ringer."

There's another program on the market called Locale which was out first, but it always seemed to be geared towards location-based phone control, whereas Tasker takes action based on pretty much any cue.


Bitt has all the memory stuff covered. It really isn't something you need to worry about. I have all kinds of crap running all the time, but it hasn't slowed my phone down.

Yeah, Tasker is marvelous. There's a plugin that can configure Google Voice for you, so I have it disable ringing of my home phone when I'm at work and re-enable it when I'm home.

I also have one that puts my phone in airplane mode when I leave it face-down at work, which I use to save battery while I'm in a closed area where I can't bring my phone. I wanted to try to get speakerphone based on the proximity sensor working, but hadn't gotten that working yet.

There's a Cyanogen release candidate out for the NS4G, but people are saying it's still rough around the edges, so I think I'll hold off on upgrading the ROM for now. I did root my phone last night in anticipation of a stable ROM release.

Re: the memory stuff, I'm pretty sure I did notice it slowing down my phone a bit. I was seeing 25+ apps running in the background, and, yeah, they weren't using CPU, but the system was using CPU to manage all of them, and it felt like it was starting to drag things down.

A lot of the apps that run are things I do want to have on my phone, but don't want to use a lot, and certainly don't need in the background. I just don't see why the OS is wasting resources starting up processes I haven't run yet since it booted, killing them off, and starting new ones. What's the point of that?

Anyone used this before? Apparently it's a more effective way of fine-tuning what runs in the background than using a task killer, though it requires root access.

No, but it sounds awesome.

Ooo, I'd forgotten about that. I had a similar rule but I can't remember why I stopped using it. I think it's because I would forget about it, then just happen to put my phone face down and I'd start missing calls. Still, I'll have to load up Tasker again...


Also no, but it sounds appealing. I think I'm going to root my Nexus One, just because I feel like wiping my phone and I want to install Titanium Backup so I don't lose all my Angry Birds progress


For some reason, my Nexus One has lost the ability to enable bluetooth. It's highly annoying, and I don't know if it's a hardware or software issue. I'll enable it, it'll start thinking like it's going to start it up, and then it just fails and goes back to the off state. My hope is that if I clean it off the problem will go away.

Coincidentally, I remember having the exact same problem after owning my G1 for a while...

Along the lines of Locale, I've been running this oddball thing called "Auto Wifi Enabler" which keeps track of your coarse location (network-based, not GPS-based) when you're using Wifi. It then disables the Wifi when you're outside of those areas. This means, when you're randomly wandering around, you don't get bothered that there are open Wifi networks around and you save the power of searching for them. The downside is that Google Navigation wants to have Wifi on to augment GPS and get a better location, so then you have to go over and "force" your Wifi on. (Since I so rarely use Navigation, it's not a big imposition...)

I tried using Auto WiFi Enabler for a while and it worked really, really, badly. It seemed like my WiFi was always on when it shouldn't have been and was occasionally off when it should have been on.

It's clear that it hadn't been updated in a while, so it may have been the fact that I was running a newer version of the OS.

I currently have a problem with my HD2. Originally WM6.5 but the internet has figured out Android and for the most part it works very well (although I haven't used any other Android phones). I'm currently running the Hyperdroid GBX v12 build specifically for the HD2. Currently it's on Android 2.3.3

One scenario is this
1) Phone is in my pocket
2) BMW bluetooth has automatically connected when ignition is turned on
3) Phone rings and is answered in car via bluetooth
4) At the time the phone call finishes, the phone remains unlocked
5) Later the auto lock kicks in.

However I'm finding that the because the phone is staying unlocked for a period of time due to 4) and I'm making pocket calls. Likewise if someone calls me I have to remember to manually lock it before I put it back in my pocket.

Can anyone recommend an app(other than a very short lock time)? I don't see any setting that would prevent this in the normal configuration. I've not been able to find anything which suggests maybe I'm not doing something right.

I just wanted to post a few updates on my recent experiences with Android in general, and the Nexus S 4G in particular. I've had some time to put it through its paces, and I'm quite happy with how things are working out so far.

I'll start out with the main thing I don't like about the NS4G, which is the voice and data network reception. I've lost calls in areas that I didn't on my Palm Pre, and I've had poor network reception (either 1xRTT or none at all) where I would previously get a reasonably consistent 3G signal. Sprint has said the next update (due to start rolling out tomorrow, actually) addresses some of these concerns, so maybe this will get better.

The mobile hotspot, on the other hand, works beautifully. It was really nice to not have to pay $15/day for hotel wifi while on vacation. I do hope Sprint keeps it free, but I suspect some day they'll hit me with a surcharge.

The turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps has been nearly flawless. It was really nice to be able to create a map in Google Maps for various vacation destinations and have them in my phone for easy viewing/selection when driving around. The traffic data seems to be pretty accurate, and it's easy to call up an alternate route if I do hit traffic.

The voice search and dialing is a lot more useful than I thought it'd be. It's great to be able to just say "Navigate to [local business]" when I'm driving. I'd say it guesses right 80% of the time, and if not, the thing I want to drive to is usually in the list of potential matches. I haven't used any of the more fancy voice actions like sending emails or texts, but for the basics, this is great to have.

Battery life is good. The things that seem to really drain it are having the display on for long periods of time, GPS navigation, or being in a bad cell/wifi signal area. I've gotten an hour or two of music from it with the battery only draining a few percent, and casual internet browsing / app usage doesn't seem to do much, either.

I was bummed by the lack of a car dock with a charging connection, but the home multimedia dock has one, and it's very nice for use as a nightstand dock. In the car, my Touchstone works great as a mount, but I still have to plug in a charging cable. If someone released a charging Nexus S car dock, I might use that instead of the Touchstone.

The camera takes very nice photos. I'm not ditching my Panasonic ZS3 any time soon, but when I forget to bring it, I no longer have the dirty feeling that I'll end up with crappy shots from my phone camera. Video is acceptable, but the lack of HD is a slight disappointment.

Hardware-wise, the NS4G is considered underpowered compared to current dual core models, but I haven't really noticed much slowdown at all, and on the occasions when I did, it was usually due to a misbehaving app.

Here are some app highlights that I don't think have been mentioned here yet:

• Go Launcher EX: I picked this one because it's free, and ADWLauncher costs $3 or so. It seems to have everything I want/need from a launcher replacement. ADW seems to have a larger theme library, but otherwise I don't see any reason to switch.
• Animated Widget Contact Pro: I like having my most frequently-called contacts as launcher widgets, and this does a great job, with little pop-out icons for calling a specific number for a contact, texting them, emailing them, etc. You can disable some of the gratuitous animation stuff if it bothers you.
• WidgetLocker: Lets you customize your lock screen. Here's mine, with sliders for opening the camera and TeslaLED (see below).
• TeslaLED: Simple flashlight app that I use a lot more than I thought I would.
• K-9 Mail: Best IMAP mail client I've found. The one thing missing is Exchange ActiveSync support, but they're actively working on it.
• D7 Google Reader Pro: Fast Google Reader client with a clean UI. Needs better offline support (right now you have to save each offline item individually) but by far the best RSS app I've found.
• Google+: The Android G+ app is off to a good start -- UI could use some polish, and it needs resharing functionality, but it gets the job done.
• IP Cam Viewer: I use it to view my own webcam at home, but it's also handy for viewing live traffic cameras (it's got a built-in directory of hundreds of them.) Wonderful app, well worth the $5.
• Miren Browser: I kept going back and forth on whether I needed a better browser, and I decided that I do. I've tried Dolphin and Miren, and Miren seems to be faster and less bloated, while still adding functionality above the built-in browser.
• NFC Task Launcher: It lets you read and write NFC tags. I bought a few for automated switching of Tasker profiles. I put tags in my Touchstone docks at work and in my car, with the work one changing my Google Voice settings and engaging airplane mode, and the car one putting my phone in car mode. Enabling NFC hasn't diminished my battery life in any noticeable way.
• Searchify: This expands the Android search to include things like Wikipedia, IMDB, calendar entries, etc. Brings Android close but not quite up to WebOS's universal search capability.
• Google Music: Having my entire music library streamable, and being able to optionally pin a subset of that music on my phone's local storage is basically the perfect setup for me. Google Music itself has some warts in its current beta form, but Google's overall approach is better for me than something like Spotify.
• Google Chrome to Phone: Simple app that lets you send links from a desktop browser to your phone. (Despite the name, there's also a Firefox extension that lets you do the same thing.)
• Logitech Squeezebox Controller: Self-explanatory. There are third party player apps, but all I really need is a remote control for my Squeezeboxes.
• My-Cast Weather Lite: I couldn't really fall in love with WeatherBug or any of the other weather apps I tried. I'm not thrilled with this one either, but it's the best I've found.
• HandyBank: Finance app for syncing and viewing of MoneyDance data.
• Eye-Fi: Lets your phone pretend to be an Eye-Fi card, uploading camera pics to your Eye-fi destinations. Also lets you do "direct mode" between an Eye-Fi card and your phone. Must-have for anyone who uses an Eye-fi.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a big bump in cell reception from the next Sprint update, but overall, I am very pleased with the phone -- there's no other phone out there right now, Android or otherwise, that I'd want to have on me now.

While we're at it, I love Expensify. If you have to track expenses for reimbursement, give this a try.

Tony, glad to hear you're loving your phone so far. I'd like to hear if that update fixes your reception issues.

I've also been dismayed by how poor the selection of weather apps has been for Android. It's always been something I felt was really lacking from the platform. I've tried a number of them and they're all terribly written, resource hogs, over-complicated, or all of the above. I'm not sure why, either. You would think a weather app would be fairly simple to design, and prime example of a mobile app category that some developer could do a lot with. Unfortunately, it seems the dominance of Weather Bug and the Weather Channel app have frightened off any potential competitors.

In the end, I've placed a shortcut on my home screen to Google's mobile weather site. It gives me the basic information I need, and if I ever need more, like a radar map, I reluctantly spend five minutes going through the Weather Channel app, which I really dislike.

i.wund.com

I pretty much just use this and the builtin Google News weather.

Raindar looks interesting.

I am using Google News and Weather too. I pretty much all I want is the widget on my home screen showing the temp. The thing that sucks is the widget doesn't refresh unless I click it even though I have the weather set to refresh every hour.

Are you running CM7? My news app does the same thing. I know for a fact that it didn't always.

No just the Zeam launcher and the stock rom but it worked the same way with the stock android one.

Looks like I'm going to be wanting to upgrade to Cyanogen myself pretty soon.

I'm actually surprised you haven't already.

It really is surprising how much better it is. It's so good I'm going to widen my potential pool of new phones from the single "rumored Nexus phone at the end of the year," to any decent phone that can have CM put on it.

Yeah, I've been waiting for them to fix a 4G toggle issue in the NS4G build. It might be fixed in a nightly, but I don't want to live that close to the bleeding edge right now.

I installed Cyanogen 7.0.1-RC1 last night. 4G works, but the toggle button in the notification bar doesn't, so no big deal there.

I really like that I can ssh/scp to my phone now, and add-ons like the DSP manager are really nice. There were some hassles with apps that didn't quite do the right thing with the upgrade, and a few things like my Google Music "pinned" songs going away that Titanium Backup didn't save me from, but nothing too bad.

My main reason for installing now was to take a look at what, if anything, I can do from the shell to make networking happen through the cellular data connection even when a wi-fi link is active. This would be so I can develop an empeg control app that uses wifi to communicate with my empeg through the wireless AP in my trunk. The wifi link wouldn't have a reachable internet gateway when I'm not at home, so if I can't find a way to tell my phone to use the 3G/4G link, I won't have any data service on the phone while the app is running, which would be a bummer.

On a regular computer, this is the sort of thing one would fix by tweaking the routing table to route local traffic through the "LAN" interface (in this case, the wifi) and internet traffic through the "WAN" interface (the cellular data connection) but I don't know if that'll work on Android -- I've read some things online that say it turns off 3G and uses wifi whenever a wifi link is active. Of course, I also saw something that said it'll fail over to 3G if the wifi link's DHCP doesn't give you a gateway and DNS servers, so I'll have to test that out tonight.