There's been pretty much no evidence, just a bunch of rumors from all over the place that don't even fit together, which means it's not happening this year. June 2011 is more likely, but that's a long way away and a lot can happen by then.
Google Android Personal Thoughts <a class="postlink" href="http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/01/09/google-android-personal-thoughts/comment-page-1/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/01/ ... nt-page-1/</a> Any thoughts on this from an Android user?
I have a Motorola Droid, and after using it for a month I love it. Everything he says in that article is bullshit, except for one small point. The ONLY problem I have with my phone is that when I'm in the browser, especially on a forum index page where there are a lot of links, there is a tendency for links nearby where I touch to be selected instead of the one I have my finger directly on top of. It causes me to spend a bunch of time going back and trying to click on that link again. So far I've discovered that it depends on the zoom level you're using, if I click up or down one level, it will work correctly. As far as all of his other points go, they're ridiculous. Yeah, there are situations where you can't cut and paste, but even using this phone extensively for work emails, I haven't encountered a single situation where not being able to copy and paste has been anything other than a minor inconvenience. Oh no, I have to spend 10 extra seconds typing that out on the Droid's nice physical keyboard. Big deal. He's seriously trying to say that people are more attached to their Blackberrys than their Android phones? I just turned down a free Blackberry from work because I would much rather use my Droid. As far as the marketplace goes, if you're looking through the free programs especially, there are a lot of really crappy ones. Several times, we had to try 2 or 3 different apps for a certain purpose before we found one that worked well. However, if you do a little bit of online research, you can find some amazing apps. My favorite feature on my phone? The integrated Google Maps GPS navigation. I've tested it side by side with other standalone GPS units while traveling with coworkers over the last few weeks, and their units have consistently given more "wrong" destinations. Tuesday night, I was the only person that found the restaurant we were eating at without calling for directions. 5 other various standalone GPS units could not find the restaurant, even when the exact address was entered. If you pay an extra 25 bucks or so, you can get a suction cup mounted car dock for the Motorola Droid. When the Droid is placed in the dock, it automatically enters a "Car Mode" screen that makes it easy to access any of the map/navigation/voice command apps. Now, I'll talk a little bit about my wife's phone. She started out with a Droid Eris, by HTC. It was running Android 1.5, compared to my phone's 2.1. The user interface was clumsier, there were a lot of features that just weren't there that absolutely SHOULD be. It had no alarm clock function, at least not that we could find. She had to download one from the marketplace. There were a lot of huge hardware issues right off the bat as well. The screen refused to turn on a lot of the time. That meant that the phone would ring, but there was no way to answer it (or silence the ringer). Even when she wanted to make a call or use the phone, she would sometimes have to press the button 8 or 12 times before the screen would finally come on. Those major problems, coupled with bad experience with my previous phone, an HTC Touch, led me to return her phone to Verizon and exchange it for a Motorola Droid. I know there are a lot of people that are HTC fans, but based on our experiences, I'll never consider one again. (My Touch had to be replaced twice because of problems with the Touch screen not working) To Summarize: My opinion is that the Motorola Droid is the best phone on the market today (I haven't handled a Nexus One yet though). In a lot of ways, the Droid vs. iPhone debate is a lot like the Mac vs PC debate. Do you want one focused more on design and "coolness," or do you want one that might not look quite as slick, but has better tools for non-artsy, business type stuff. The author of that article is obviously an Apple guy. I'm not. If anyone has specific questions about the Droid, I'll do my best to answer them.
I just got a new phone (LG enV3) and I want to transfer my contacts to it from my old phone (LG Voyager). My service provider is Verizon. I went into my local store today and asked them if they could do it, but apparently they don't have the device to do it with, because it turns out they all need to die in a fucking grease fire. I have BitPim, and it was able to retrieve my contacts from my old phone, but it won't allow me to transfer them to my new one. Anyone know any tricks?
I think his article was written with a gigantic apple-chip-on-my-shoulder. Making the claim that the phone is inferior because it doesn't have a cult following like apple is laughable. You can copy from websites and many other places, you simply hold shift. I haven't found a place where I wasn't able to copy that I wanted to. Calling bullshit here. Both google talk and Meebo IM are reliable instant messengers as well. I'll agree that if it had multitouch it would be a better experience. I heard that was an apple patent? If you want things like NES emulators and other games, and have an interface that works well 100% for all applications even if it means more of a pain in the ass, iphone is there. I value the openness (google voice?) and pure pragmatism of the device. I want to browse, get my email, calendar, watch videos, and other basic things. Games, hip designs and 'feels' and shit like that doesn't do it for me. Keyboard is a big plus for things like keyboard shortcuts, copy/paste, and typing non-trivial text. I'm looking forward to some ROMs once it's fully rooted and things like tethering, advanced vpn options, and a host of other things are opened up. It's a unix shell underneath, there should be tons of stuff you can do with it. You can also go to the android bug website, and see exactly which bugs are opened up, how many 'stars' or popular each one is, and what google's take is. I think that's a big thing for me that I never hear about anywhere else. In the mobile phone world, apple is the new microsoft (but with more sparkles). I'm torn between classifying android as the old mac or unix, but it's probably closer to unix.
Can you expand on exactly what kind of tools you think are available for the Droid that are not replicated on the iPhone platform? I'm struggling on trading in my iPhone 3GS for a Nexus One. The absolute primary reasons I want to do this are the integration of push Gmail without ActiveSync (i.e. multiple push Gmail accounts) and the integration of Google Voice. On the iPhone, GV is strictly mediocre. Without true integration into the phone, it works but it feels forced. I have to think before hitting a phone number and sometimes change the way I do that contact. GV Mobile+ is decent and the new Google web app is positively killer... for a web app. However, I'd say that there is little else that I can't do on this phone. For the two functions I gain above, I lose access to an app store that is orders of magnitude superior to the Android marketplace, and I lose universal multitouch which frankly is a really large usability concern. Hate on Apple all you want, the iPhone is a spectacularly usable device and a chunk of that is due to consistent and system-wide implementation of multitouch. Oh, and the limitation to the on-board memory is one of the most shortsighted, ridiculous decisions I've ever witnessed Google make. You can root the device to get around it, sure, but the reality is that this absolutely cripples the app marketplace. What kind of programmers are going to commit to producing beautiful, high quality, content-rich apps or great games when it's not useful to a large portion of the market? Someone deserves to be punched in the head for not correcting this prior to the Nexus One release.
Can anyone tell me the difference between the HTC Droid Eris and the Motorola Droid? Besides the obvious physical differences, is one phone better than the other? I'm looking into getting one for personal use only, so syncing with my work e-mail and calendar aren't important. Thanks in advance.
I believe the Eris is running Android 1.6 with Sense UI (HTC's User Interface) and the Droid is running Android 2.0. The big difference, I think, is that Eris doesn't have Google Maps Navigation currently. However, I've been told that the Sense UI is awesome. Go to Verizon and play with them. If you're going to use Facebook, Pandora, Twitter, etc then the Eris might actually be better for you. If you need Google Maps Navigation and/or a physical keyboard then you may want to go with a Droid.
If I go by the Eris that I bought for my wife, the big difference is that the Motorola actually works, while the Eris doesn't. The Eris is the second HTC phone that I've bought, the first was one I bought for myself, and had all kinds of problems with, like the touch screen not working. It's hard to use one of those when the screen doesn't work. It got sent back under warranty twice, both times I got "new" phones. My wife's Eris started having problems a week after we bought it. The phone would ring, the trackball would light up, but the screen wouldn't come on so she couldn't answer it. If she wanted to use the phone, she'd have to press the button about 12 times before the screen would come on, if it came on at all. I returned it to Verizon for a Motorola Droid. The interface on the Droid is better too, and it just seems like the programmers actually cared, where the Eris felt like it was thrown together at the last minute. The Eris didn't even include an alarm clock (at least not that we could find). Some people like HTC phones and don't have any problems, but I've had nothing but trouble.
First for me is that the Motorola Droid has an actual keyboard. I HATE using touchscreen keyboards when I'm trying to type an email. Second is push Gmail. I have my Lotus Notes set to forward everything to my gmail account, and gmail set up to show my work email as the sender. Third is Google Voice. I still don't like that Voice doesn't have push functionality, so my voicemails don't show up for 5 minutes unless I manually refresh it. It does seem to be integrated into the phone better than on the iPhone though. Fourth is Google Maps Navigation. Like all the other google apps, the integration into the phone is great. It also finds addresses more accurately than the GPS units most of the guys I work with use. I was the only person that found the restaurant we were eating at last week without having to call and ask for directions. Their GPS units were all off by about a mile. Fifth is the way the Droid interfaces with the car dock sold for it. When you place it in the dock, a special "car" mode kicks in, which displays all the useful tools you might need when driving, such as View Map, Navigation, Voice Search, etc. You can also access the car mode without the dock. I haven't gotten around to trying any of the apps for editing word and excel files yet, the default viewer on the phone lets me look at them just fine, and I haven't needed to change anything yet.
I have also been turned off of HTC phones. I purchased an HTC Touch Pro in Dec 2008. The first problem I noticed was that the battery was a joke. If you didn't charge it every night you were in serious trouble the next day. I also hated the Windows Mobile OS. It frozen quite often, requiring me to take out the battery to reboot. Finally, the keyboard conked out on me. Keys would stick or just not work or there would be a significant delay. The only redeemable aspect of the phone was that it threaded text messages. All in all really not worth it. It was stolen however so now I'm back to the old Katana I had beforehand. I forgot how much I loved this phone. Simple and basic. I still want to get a new smart phone though. I'm kind of holding out to see if/when Verizon will be getting the Nexus One or iPhone.
Wow, I totally forgot about that. My HTC Touch froze ALL the time when I first got it. I'd get a call, the screen would light up, showing an incoming call, but it wouldn't ring, and wouldn't accept any input. Other times it would just freeze randomly, and I'd either have to drop the battery, or use the "soft reset" button on the bottom of the phone. You can't tell me the engineers didn't know there was a problem when they put a fucking reset button on the phone. Finally after a few months of getting more and more pissed off, I found some mobile phone forum post that had some suggestions on how to fix it. Turns out the software that Alltel bundled into the phone for email was causing the phone to freeze. I uninstalled it, and that fixed that problem (but not the many others). My battery sometimes only lasted 2 hours if I was on a conference call, and this was right after I bought it. I had to keep a charger at work.
So I know basically nothing about how this all works and different networks and all that. I have t-mobile right now and they haven't been huge dicks to me over the years so I am inclined to stay with them. Is there a way to get a Motorola Droid (which seems to have good features and I have friends that like them) and stay with T-Mobile? Generally speaking, is there a good beginner's guide to modern cell phone decision making somewhere? Thanks!
I know very little about all the different android phones and which will work with which provider. However, I do know that the new Nexus-One (the Google phone) will run on t-mobile. From what I have read, this seems to be the best of the breed, or at least at the top of the pecking order. I would want to play with all of them first hand before making a decision, but if I was going in blind, that is what I would probably choose, esp if I wanted to stay with T-Mobile (although other android phones work with T-Mobile, just doubtful that the Droid is one of them). I wish I still had T-Mobile. By far, the best cell phone service I ever had (that's not saying much). I am stuck with AT&T because I am too cool to use anything besides an iPhone.
I started to type a substantial response to this, including a primer to cell phone technology, but realized that there were gaps in my knowledge and I was leery of supplying you with incomplete knowledge. Suffice to say: Verizon runs on a CDMA network. T-Mobile runs on a GSM network. While there are a few phones that will run on both networks, that's not the majority of phones. The Droid is a CDMA phone and will not run on your T-Mobile network. The Motorola Milestone, available outside the US, will run on your network. You may be able to buy an unlocked Milestone off eBay but you won't get any real subsidized pricing or anything unless T-Mobile decides to pick up the Milestone. You will not get 3G, though, which (IMO) is half the reason to have a smartphone. As mentioned above, you can get a Nexus One on T-Mobile with 3G.
My phone battery has just about had it and I'm considering two options: 1. Buy a new battery for $30. 2. Upgrade my phone to either the Droid Eris or the Motorola Droid coupled with adding the $30 data plan to my service. I don't really need to upgrade right now, my phone gets me through just fine without internet. Plus I wouldn't really use it much in my mind because I have my computer and it still works. I don't need 24hr access to my email either mainly because no one emails me anything except family. Still it would be nice to splurge and get a nice piece of hardware. Maybe I'll save the money and get something for my car...a $100 phone bill doesn't sound too nice right now.
I can't possibly tell you how much I enjoy having a phone with perpetual internet access. I look stuff up all the freakin' time. However, I knew I'd do that before I got the phone. I'm inclined to be curious about a lot of stuff and want more information, so a way to access the internet wherever I am is extremely appealing. My family jokes about it - whenever we're get on a topic one of us is curious about they'll all laugh, look at me, and say "here comes the phone." But I love being able to punch in information wherever I am. I was at Wall Mart the other day looking for Tiger Balm. They didn't have it, so I looked up the active ingredient via Google and got the generic version. I think you've mostly answered your own question though. $100/month is a lot if you don't care about having constant internet access.
Thought about it a bit and just ended up buying a new battery, but apparently the shop doesn't have any of my battery type, so it's being mailed to me. I can't justify spending the $100 for a new phone, plus the $30 a month extra for the data plan. No mobile interwebs for me.
Are you are aware Sprint offers better plans than Verizon and ATT for a fraction of the price. Unlimited data, unlimited text messaging, unlimited calls to cell phones, 500 (or 700) minutes to landlines for $70 a month or less. Why anyone would rather take it up the ass from Verizon and ATT is beyond me. Their phone line up is nothing to be ashamed of either. Their network is simply flawless throughout California. Someone please enlighten me why you would rather pay $30+ a month.