K-Squared Ramblings

G1: No Android 2 for You!

Okay, I get it. By buying the first device of its kind (i.e. an Android-powered smartphone), I’m an early adopter. In a sense I was helping out in a massive public beta as Google, mobile phone carriers, and handset manufacturers worked out the kinks in the design and realized things like, “Oh, we really do need more memory than that, don’t we?”

But it’s still annoying to read the early reports that Android 2.0 “Eclair” won’t fit on the G1.

We have done this dance before, when rumors surfaced that the G1 wouldn’t be able to handle Android 1.6 “Donut.” Fortunately, engineers managed to squeeze it into the space available, and T-Mobile sent out Donut as an OTA (over the air) update to MyTouch and G1 devices alike. But I’ve had time to think about the issue, and my thoughts basically come down to this:

• New software eventually reaches a point when it can no longer support old hardware. You can’t run Snow Leopard on a G4 or Windows 7 on a Pentium II.
• When the hardware is usually tied to a fixed-term service contract (in this case, 2 years), the provider really ought to fully support it for the length of that contract. The G1 launched 1 year ago with (in most cases) a 2-year contract.
• Even if this is the last major update, my phone is still better now than it was when I bought it.

It will be very nice if history repeats itself, and Google and/or T-Mobile finds a way to cram Eclair onto the G1. Even if it means dropping the convenience of OTA updates and instead requiring you to download it to a PC and update over a USB cable. More likely, though, they’ll freeze the G1 on Android 1.6 except for bugfix and security updates, and it’ll be up to unofficial distributions like cyanogen to bring a newer OS to the older phone.

Because I don’t really want to mess with rooting my phone and installing a third-party distribution, if this is the end of the line for the G1, well…Android 2 has some really nice features that I’d really like to be able to use, but nothing that screams “must have!” The only real worry I have at this point is that app developers might start requiring newer versions of Android.

The other option: buy a newer phone. I’ll probably want to do that anyway in a year or so, but I’m not there yet. It still feels like I just got this one.

Droidmark

I wonder if Lucasfilm will try to assert trademark over the Motorola/Verizon Droid? #

Misandroid

Oh noes! A computer environment designed for smartphones isn’t a good fit for a netbook? Stop the presses! #android #

Books on Nooks

With Barnes & Noble’s new eBook reader, you could read a Nook book in a book nook. #

SCOpe

• About time! RT @brionv: After 6 years SCO finally dumps the exec who ran Caldera’s Linux biz into the ground. #
• Doozy of an update in the copyright case over Shepard Fairey’s Obama “Hope” poster. (via @ThisIsTrue) #
• RT @sans_isc: Backed up, lately? #
• Found a pack of screen protectors while cleaning yesterday & replaced the one on my phone. HUGE difference in clarity! #

Android FTW!

• Wasn’t aware there was a Sidekick outage. My T-Mobile G1 has been working just fine. Score one for Android! #
• Wasn’t planning to have a donut today, but T-Mobile just sent Android 1.6 to my phone. #

I’ve had this phone almost a year now, and it’s actually a better phone now than it was when I bought it! How cool is that?

Smartphone Radiation

Wow! Glad I didn’t move to a MyTouch! The G1 isn’t in the Top 10 Radiation-Emitting smartphones list, but it’s not exactly low either. # The MyTouch, on the other hand, is #1.

Cliq & Shock

• Android phones: Motorola Cliq might tempt me away from my G1 if storage is good. 5-megapixel camera, headphone jack, still has keyboard. #
• Weird: Routine Coast Guard training exercise spooks press because it’s 9/11. #
• I wonder how many people were freaked out by the shuttle landing’s sonic boom because of the timing? #

Word, Fire, Borg and Spam

• RT @ThisIsTrue: AMAZING false-color NASA satellite pic of the damage caused by LA’s #StationFire. #
• Hah! Today’s flashback post is about the time I dreamed I auditioned for Borg: The Musical. (Sadly, I didn’t record any details.) #

Tech

• Odd: the Weather Channel #Android app is 3 times the size of Sherpa. What did they do, forget to compress the graphics? #
• Never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of disks on the freeway. Or a pigeon w/a datacard. #
• Realized while writing “Go to Help…” that it would be easy to make a very unfortunate typo. #
• WTF? MS Word 2007 *still* has no keyboard shortcut for Find Next…and it’s not listed in the Customize Keyboard dialog! #
• Aha! It’s called “RepeatFind” even though the button is “Find Next” and DOES have keys…Shift+F4 & Ctrl+Alt+Y??? Standard is F3 or Ctrl+G! #
• Saw a good typo on a tech forum: Windows XP “Service Park 2″ #

Spam Silliness

• RT @lol_spam: Spam subject: “I have Salvia! Join me ” – I misread this as “saliva”…and almost did a spit-take (really!) #
• I don’t want *more* spam, but a wider variety would be nice. The funny stuff is mostly sex, drugs & watches w/occasional acaí. #

Immortal 3G

• Hah! “the only advantage of living forever is having the time to read all of TV Tropes.” #
• T-Mobile’s really expanding 3G lately. We’ve had it for a while, but can’t get a good signal at home. I think the building is a Faraday cage. #

G1 Nearing Upgrade Limits?

I love my T-Mobile G1, but it’s no secret that the phone has way too little internal memory. Now Engadget reports that the limited memory could prevent the G1 from running future versions of the Android operating system.

You can add plenty of data storage (images, music, app data) by dropping in any size Micro-SD card (IIRC it came with 1 GB. I’m currently running it with an 8 GB card). But the phone system, all the apps, and the cache for updates all have to share the measly 256 MB internal storage. Android and Me breaks down the partition structure, and points out that the current system, Android 1.5 “Cupcake,” already fills 99.5% of that space. Since software usually gets bigger with each successive version, it’s been challenging for Google to keep the OS within that limit.

It seems like it would be easy to just move the update cache to the SD card and double the size of the system partition…except that it would require reformatting the phone. Doable, but risky.

Before we get too gloomy, T-Mobile has stated:

We plan to continue working with Google to introduce future software updates to the T-Mobile G1. Reports to the contrary are inaccurate.

Now, this may simply mean that they’ll continue issuing bugfix/security updates. Or it may mean that they’re working out ways to squeeze newer Android versions onto the phone.

Now, Some Perspective

Let’s face it: the G1 is a first-generation device. It’s right there in the name (Generation One). All of us who bought it are early adopters, and that carries a certain degree of risk. Just like all those people who paid, what, $600 for the first iPhone only to see the price drop heavily less than a year later.

Even so, with Cupcake, Android is already quite a capable OS. Whether the G1 hits the wall at Cupcake, Donut, Eclair or Flan, the phone won’t stop working just because it can’t get major updates. Whatever happens, it’ll still be usable for the duration of a 2-year contract (and presumably beyond).

I do worry about incompatible apps, but that’ll start happening anyway as more devices with varying hardware specs appear on the market.

Really, though: this is the first phone I’ve ever owned that had software updates of any substance. I think one of the two RAZR variants had a bugfix release that came out before I even bought the phone, but that’s it. The fact that my G1 is actually a better phone now than when I bought it is pretty damn cool!

(via TMONews)

iPhoney

Two items from @ThisIsTrue on the iPhone’s app store:

• Apple’s new low: censoring a dictionary #
• Followup on the Apple dictionary story. #

Also, the webcomic Cat and Girl was Sent from my iPhone (via @brionv) #

Microsoft Stores, Sherpa, and Political BS

• Huh. Still not sure what the point of a Microsoft retail store is going to be, but they’re opening in Mission Viejo. #
• Why do some people feel the need to make $#!7 up to enhance political messages? Don’t they know it undermines their position when exposed? #

Sherpa for Android

• Trying out Sherpa. It thinks I’m still in San Diego. And local search turns up several places that have been closed for years. #
• Sherpa also has lots of miscategorized stuff. It’s a Grind as groceries instead of coffee? #
• Wow…Sherpa lists the “Irvine Meadows Amphitheater.” Where are they getting their data? #

G1, Costco, and SLIMEIT!

• Impressed w/G1: restarted for system update & audio player remembered not only the podcast I'd been listening to, but where I'd left off. #
• Argh! Why is it that every time I plan a Costco trip I forget my membership card? #
• Why is so much spam sent to postmaster accounts? Seems counterproductive to target abuse contact–it's a topic, not an invitation. #
• Misread spam w/"SLIMFIT"-something-or-other in all-caps as "SLIME IT." I blame having watched Ghostbusters 2 this weekend #

Looking for a Good Android Twitter App

I’ve been having trouble trying to find a good Twitter app for my Android phone.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I’m extremely happy with Twidroid, which I’ve been using since I got the phone. The problem is that I need a good second app, because I have two accounts I want to use.

I ♥ Twidroid

I keep going back to Twidroid for two main reasons:

• It lets me do everything I want to do with Twitter on my phone.
• It makes the most common tasks as streamlined as possible.

That second item is really the key. Most other Twitter apps I’ve tried tend to get in the way. Want to post something new? Hit the menu button, then choose an item from a pop-up toolbar. Want to open a link? Press and hold, then select from a big long menu.

With Twidroid, buttons for posting a new tweet, showing replies, posting/viewing direct messages, and refreshing the view are right there at the bottom of the screen. One tap and you’re posting. One tap and you’re pulling in new messages. One tap and you’re looking at replies. And you open links by tapping a message, not pressing and holding.

It’s like the “easy button” from the Staples commercials.

Twidroid also ties in to the Android OS, making it easy to share a link directly from the browser, or share a photo directly from the image gallery.

Another nice feature is that it can break down background notifications by category. If I want it to check for replies and direct messages and sound an alert, but not worry about general posts until I look, I can tell it to do so.

I Tweet

I Tweet ($2.99) is very close, and I’ve been using it as my secondary app for several months. It ties into the OS, does photo uploads and URL shortening, lets me customize notifications, etc… but it has a tendency to get in the way. The user interface is pretty, but cluttered. The things I want to do most often require multiple taps (or worse, press-and-hold, like opening a link).

The worst part is that if I don’t let it check periodically for new messages, I can’t tell it to pull in new ones when I launch it… and it won’t always retrieve older posts. If I post something before hitting refresh (which is hidden behind the menu button), it won’t pull in anything further back than the post I just made.

Trial and Error

At this point, I’ve got my personal account @KelsonV set up on Twidroid. That’s the one I have linked to this blog and to Facebook. I’ve got @SpeedForceOrg running on I Tweet. I’ve been using it a lot lately with the lead-up to Comic-Con International, and those few problems have started really bothering me.

So I tried a bunch of others this weekend.

• Twitli – I used this one for a while a few months ago, but it was kind of buggy. The last straw came when I was trying to upload a photo during WonderCon, and I switched the account to Twidroid for the duration of the con. I only gave it a glance this time around.
• Loquacious – nice w/ multiple accounts & photo integration, but incomplete. No notifications, can’t share a link from browser — heck, no settings at all other than login+password and filters. Either that or the demo is crippleware in addition to being time-limited. Also, suffers from press-n-hold syndrome like I Tweet.
• Twitta – too basic.
• Twit2go – Photo uploads worked decently, and it was able to do notifications the way I wanted, but it didn’t hook into the OS as well as Twidroid or I Tweet. And it was yet another case of press-and-hold to open a menu that includes opening links. I decided to stick with it for a few days, though, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it did pull new messages automatically when opened, so I wouldn’t have to worry about missing anything. Gave up on it when I tried to retweet a post that ended up being too long, and rather than let me edit it down to size it just cut off the end…which happened to be the link.

So I’m back to Twidroid and I Tweet for now. I’ll probably end up swapping the accounts again and putting SpeedForceOrg on Twidroid, since that’s the one I’m likely to be using most during the con. *sigh* Why do I have to make things more complicated for myself than they have to be?

Update: A few months after I wrote this, Twidroid released Twidroid Pro, which adds several features on top of the free version…including multiple accounts!