Mostly Harmless

Mostly about my amusement

Tag: Android (page 1 of 1)

January 31, 2015

Good product integration is important

My iPhone 6 arrived in the mail, a few calls later it was activated and my old Note II became a paperweight. It’s not that I dislike Android or Samsung products, it’s just that my latent Phone Curse™ kicked in. After 2 years it was time to retire the old one.

The old phone was getting long in the tooth. It’s been months since the camera could focus (that’s important, right? For a camera to focus?) I routinely lost my playlists and the built in keyboard code would crash all the time. Even after I factory reset the phone and formatted the storage. CRASH! Instant phone grief.

It’s not the phone. It’s me and it’s always been me. Any electronic device that is near me for too long loses it’s mind.

What I like about Apple products

Apple does something really well that is evil, persuasive and disruptive. Did I mention how EVIL they are?

Their phones work well by themselves or with other things such as Bluetooth equipped cars.

See what I mean about evil? With my Galaxy Note II I had problems getting music to play in my car. I would need to start the music app on my phone and cross my fingers. To sync my music (I use both iTunes and Google Play Music) I would try different applications such as doubleTwist’s AirSync but that was always hit or miss. Occasionally the sync would go spa and I’d have to use harsh language on it.

Using the Google Play Music app always worked provided I had good cell coverage. Listening to music while driving where it pauses is enough to make anyone start drinking. If the music is in the phone’s cache cool but if not it could be a long ride.

With my new iPhone I get into the car, wait for the Bluetooth to connect and hit play. If the car was set to the phone player already then music would just begin by itself. No muss, no fuss it just works.

Text messaging? Oh yeah, iPhones do that but they extend it into iMessage. When you log into Facetime or iMessage and you have a Mac you can continue to message via the Mac. It’s a smooth transition and I can pickup messaging without my phone. Same with Facetime and it’s not limited iPhones. I can use my phone to message or Facetime my daughter on her iPhone (she got Lily’s old phone with no service) from my phone or Mac.

With my old phone I never used a lock screen. The Note II is huge and typing the code was like walking across the room. On the iPhone the fingerprint reader is almost transparent in its use. Press the home button to awake the screen. Leave your thumb there a little longer and the phone unlocks.

While on the topic, iPhone apps can use the fingerprint reader too just like your iTunes account. I use 1Password and unlocking with just my thumb is amazingly cool. I’ve been playing with Clef and I authenticate to that service in the same way.

Again it all just works, the integration is seamless.

Yes, I can do most of that in Android with 3rd party apps

That’s where Apple extends their EVILNESS. It’s built in. The messaging and Facetime like experience on Android? Skype on your phone and Skype on your PC or Mac. There is no Facetime or iMessage for the PC that I am aware of and that’s not a mistake. Apple is in the business of selling their products, not PCs.

Same with the music sync and car integration. Apple works closely with car manufacturers so when I play music I see the cover art, time passed, time left, can select from playlists, scroll through songs, etc. With my built in Samsung music player I can see the song before, playing and next song. That’s it. The doubleTwist music player has even less functionality.

The Note II does not have a fingerprint reader but current models do. I’ll assume that they can be unlocked in similar ways but I don’t think the 3rd party app support is there.

I am not an Android hater

I like well designed products. And I did look at HTC phones and the current generation of Samsung phones. They’re really good but the integration problems I’m having are inherent to  the Android operating system. With the new Lollipop version that may have improved. With the Motorola line of phones running a “pure” version of Google’s OS maybe the integration with cars has improved.

There’s also the “change is good” factor for me. IOS and Android apps really are not the different anymore. With IOS you get less built in buttons (my old phone had a “go back” soft button, IOS has a home button) and once you change gears to IOS it’s all the same.

In another 2 years or so I expect my curse to kick in again. Maybe at that time I will switch back to a Google phone. Apple has a huge market and support but future Android phones might get the seamless experience I am looking for.

January 1, 2015

Thoughts on my LG G Watch

For the last 7 days I’ve been wearing my Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law: an LG G Watch. It’s a watch that runs Android Wear and works hand in hand with my smartphone.

As a watch

It’s very comfortable. The strap is rubber like and the holes take into account small wrists like mine. It stretches a little bit so I’ve got it on snug but it’s not cutting off my circulation. With my regular watch that’s not the case since I never added another hole in the strap and it’s always a little loose. I’m always aware of my Citizen watch but I can forget I’m wearing this one.

The watch is rated to meet IP67 requirements which according to this Wikipedia page (I had to look it up too) it means it is dust tight and can be submerged up to 1M at “under defined conditions of pressure and time”. I took that to mean I can wash it under the facet if I need to and wearing it in the rain will not be a problem.

I’m not sure how strong the display face is. My Citizen watch has an “Anti-Reflective Mineral Crystal” and it’s tough. I bump into things all the time and I’m always amazed that 2 and half years later the face doesn’t have gouges in it. The LG G Watch may be scratch resistant but I would not want to test that.

Since it’s a smart watch you can change the face with a download and I currently like TextFace.

As a display extension for the phone

When I think “smart watch” I’m really thinking about a Dick Tracy radio watch. Dick Tracy never said “Oh no! I’m outside of cell phone coverage!” though he may have had to deal with Flattop jamming his signal. Android Wear devices are not that but they’re still pretty cool.

This watch connects with my Android phone via Bluetooth. It can run applications designed for it but the primary function is to be another notification area. It’s a place for your phone to let you know you’ve got mail, a text message, Tweet, etc. By default the watch will vibrate though that can be turned off.

The 400mAh battery lasts me all day and except for a friend favoriting 20+ my Tweets in minutes (and you know who you are 😉 ) I’ve not had any problems. LG provides a micro USB cable, A/C charger and a docking stand with a tacky (not sticky) bottom so it grips your nightstand or desk.

I did install a bunch of watch faces and the Google Fit app works well. But there’s not much application utility for me. I can hold my watch up and say out loud “OK Google. Directions to Pizza.” and that does work. The Google Maps app will fire up and I can select walking directions if I want to. But how often would I do that? It’s not that the watch isn’t designed well (it is) it’s just that the concept of smart watches and Android Wear is still developing.

That all said the watch is very cool and I like it

I keep my phone in my pocket and get all the notifications on my wrist. Those watch notifications can be ignored on a per app basis. I’ve gotten Slack notification on my watch and that feels like the Geek Bat Signal.

When someone calls me on my phone I get the option to accept or ignore them while getting caller ID on my watch. I occasionally get cold called on my cell and a quick swipe on my watch is a “Nope!” I don’t think I can talk to people via my watch but I’ve not tried.

I control my music playing  on my phone via the watch. This is the phone in my pocket. That’s just nuts. It’s in my pocket! That’s like using the TV remote to turn it on while the on button is 2 feet away from you. You could just reach out and push the button, but it’s still very cool doing things via the smart watch.

I’ll use it for at least 2 more weeks

I like my LG G watch a lot. But in a couple of weeks my cell phone contract is up and I decided months ago that I’m getting an iPhone 6. Not surprisingly, this watch only works with Android phones.

The watch is fun but I really want to switch to an iPhone. If Apple does it correctly this experience will lead to me getting the iWatch when it comes out. Maybe, I’ll want to see what others think about it first.

January 19, 2013

Just don’t use it one handed

note-ii-phone

I’m not sure how it happened but my blog has been possessed by Android smart phone posts. I’m pretty sure I have an add_filter('the_content' , 'my_function') WordPress post in my head waiting to get out. Or at least a post about a small plugin.

When is a phone not a phone?

After Lily’s Note II came back to life we realized that her phone developed an odd condition. It stopped being able to make or receive phone calls. To fix this we called up Verizon on Sunday and spent way to much time with some nice people trying to make it work.

Did you know that Verizon’s tech support can with your permission remote desktop into your Android smart phone? I had no idea and it’s weird seeing someone else run apps and make menu selections. That didn’t really solve anything and eventually Lily and I were told that they’re escalating her problem to engineering.

Me: Engineering? That’s great, let’s get them on the call.

Verizon Support: Oh no sir. They will call you back in 24 to 72 hours.

That went over well. I asked them to create the ticket anyway and to see if we could visit a local Verizon store and swap out the LTE SIM card as that was suspected to be the problem. That didn’t solve anything but at least we got out of the house.

It’s all part of a Grand Plan, I’m just not privy to it

While at the Verizon store I took advantage of my upgrade option and purchased an iPhone 5. I then had them put my number on Lily’s not-a-phone Note II and she got the new iPhone 5. Seriously, that happened.

Lily and I commute into Manhattan together so as soon as she got her Note II smart phone I was playing with it. It’s got good battery life, the display is fantastic, and with a 1.6 Ghz quad core processor it is fast and zippy. I used it to tether my laptop during out commute and it worked fine. I told Lily that I’ll get one for myself from Costco.

Lily: That’s just not acceptable and we can’t have the same phone. Why don’t you get the iPhone 5?

Me: Sure I- What?? I’ll spray paint the back of it red. You’ll never mistake mine for yours. And I don’t want an iPhone.

Lily: You just don’t understand. Get the iPhone 5 and we’ll switch numbers.

Me: . . .

poor-marvin

I don’t claim to understand but years of conditioning have done me in. In another dozen years I’m going to be like Marvin in RED.

Monday morning I called Verizon back with “Nice one! Now when can you get me my replacement phone?” and on Thursday FedEx delivered it. This new one actually can makes and receive  phone calls.

Yeah but what about the Note II?

It’s a great smart phone. The one I had before it was an HTC Thunderbolt and it’s night and day in comparison. My old phone was giving me well deserved grief and was working very poorly. This one is fantastic and works like a charm.

There is one draw back though. This phone is ginormous. The screen is 5.5″ diagonally but that doesn’t convey it properly. Think of using the iPad Mini as phone  and you’ll get the idea. You have to operate it with both hands or you will either hurt yourself or drop the phone. It’s just too big and my hands are too small.

January 6, 2013

It’s the CURSE!

I’ve been complaining about my cell phone on Twitter and elsewhere for many months and have been contemplating getting a new phone. My choices have been narrowed down to the Samsung Galaxy Note II and the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx HD.

Lily got the Note II because she likes the big screen and battery life. I was leaning towards the Maxx HD (32 hour battery life!) but the Note II’s 4 core CPU makes the phone really zippy and the battery life is not bad even after abusing it.

So I took her phone with me to drop off the kids at Chinese school Saturday morning. That was her idea so I can see if it’s too large for my pocket (it’s not) and if I like using it (I do).

While there I saw a flower and took out her phone to take a quick snap. The Note II phone was dead. Dead as in 100% no lights, not responding, removing the battery did nothing. Naturally I did what most grown up men in my situation would do.

It’s important to appeal to the general public in case, you know, something unfortunate happens to me.

After getting home and apologizing to Lily profusely we found that removing the battery and SIM card (it’s an LTE phone and does have a SIM card) did bring it back to life.

he-broke-it

This is not the first time electronics have lost their mind around me but I wish my curse would remain localized to things that belong to me.

December 8, 2012

Maybe my phone problem IS my own fault

DSC_6302

I like to play with all of my toys and of course I rooted my HTC Thunderbolt phone long ago. I’ve done the whole gamut and have installed different ROMs including CyanogenMod, the unofficial ICS ROM from Team BAMF, and many flavors of Gingerbread. I’ve used apps that require root privileges, I’ve tethered and played with different radio code to get it all working well.

I’ve also created an unsupportable pile of poo that has been driving me nuts.

The damn phone loses data connectivity all the time. I have to baby it just to be able to read my Twitter feed. The battery life is embarrassing and I feel like my charger has become my lifeline. The phone crashes all the time and has spontaneously caught fire on more than one occasion.

That last part may have been an exaggeration but not by much. As sometimes it happens to people suffering in a crisis someone in my life intervened. Lily spoke those words that made me considered a new path filled with enlightenment:

“This happens to you with every phone you have. Maybe you are doing something wrong?”

She’s a smart woman. I’m lucky to have married her.

She is currently using an unmodified Samsung Galaxy SIII phone and except for the battery life not being as long as she’d like she hasn’t had any problems.

The real reason I hacked my phone (aside from the geek coolness factor) was to be able to run a tethering app. But now with the phone plan I have tethering comes with it at no additional charge. Instead of running a third party tethering app I can now just use the built in one from Verizon.

So last night I undid everything I did to my phone. I un-rooted it, I put it all back to the way it was from the factory and I’m now running the latest Verizon provided ROM on my phone. That includes the radio code as well and anyone looking at my phone would never be able to tell that I did anything to it.

I’ll still beat it to death and see if I can my phone to misbehave. I’ll also still get a new phone when I can as I’m up for getting new one, but maybe I’ll learn not to poke or break the next phone.

November 6, 2011

Google is my co-pilot

Google’s car navigation for Android phones is pretty good.

The majority of my work is 9 to 5 weekdays but when I need to make (fully approved, vetted, it’s-not-my-fault-and-I-won’t-do-it-again) production changes I have to wait for after 5 PM. Depending on the potential impact, I have to wait until Saturday. This weekend the group I work in was doing Big and Potentially Terrible Things™ and I was part of that.

Yesterday I left the house at 5 AM, drove to Queens and Chinatown to pick up 2 co-workers, and drove 2 and a half hours to Princeton, NJ. I got home after 8 PM. And I used the Google Maps Navigation for Mobile Beta (GMNMB?) as my tool to get there. I turned on Bluetooth (I was in the car), Wi-fi, and GPS and plugged my phone into the car charger. The cup holder doubled as my GPS mount.

My phone has GPS, Verizon assisted, and Google assisted location services and I turned it all on. I did not expect wi-fi to work exactly but I wanted to use that to narrow down my position. It worked fantastically and suggested routes that I would never have thought of. Before 8 AM the drive was uneventful and except for my pal who knew better, the navigation worked well.

When I drove home, instead of suggesting the painful Holland Tunnel to BQE which it did on the way there, it lead me to Staten Island and eventually to the Belt Parkway. It took me just 2 and a half hours to get home about 100 miles away.

Yes, that doesn’t sound breathtakingly fast but I drove through New Jersey, Staten Island, and Brooklyn on a Saturday evening. Fellow New Yorkers who drive will know what I’m taking about.

The map data does not live on my phone and it’s all downloaded and cached from off of the Internet. This entire solution is dependent upon good connectivity. If I were driving to a desert in Arizona then I would use a Garmin or TomTom. But for driving in a metropolitan area this solution can’t be beat.

August 12, 2010

Android or iPhone 4?

Do I get an Android phone or an iPhone 4? I’m in no rush to get a new phone but I do periodically suffer from phone envy.

I am a fan of easy-to-use technology. I currently own an iPhone 3G with iOS 4.0.1 installed. My phone has been jailbroken not because I have a “SOFTWARE MUST BE FREE!!!1!” itch, but because I wanted to tweek my phone in ways that Apple doesn’t support for my hardware.

Cool Applications, not so cool app store

One of my favorite apps on my iPhone is Camera+. It lets me take photos, make adjustments, and share those photos online. All within the app and very easily.

The Camera+ developers came up with the idea of modifying the volume up button to be used as a shutter button. This re-mapping of the button would only be done while the user is in the app. It’s a great idea and makes using Camera+ easier.  But the idea was rejected by the app store, so the developers created a back door to enable that setting.

That’s a sensible work around because the app store was apparently afraid that re-mapping the volume up key while in the Camera+ app would create confusion. Since the end-user would have to access a specific application URL, they would have to know what they were doing.

But as expected the Camera+ app has been removed from the app store. Rules are rules, especially when they are arbitrary, imaginary, mostly made up, and not published.

Do I really want to continue using a product that fosters an environment like this? I know that the Android Market Place has it’s pitfalls too but the Apple App store is driven by incompetence.

Android is becoming more cool

I know two people who have Android phones from Verizon.  The first phone I’ve seen is the HTC Incredible.  The UI is easy to use and makes the experience fun.

The other phone is the Droid X.  The display portion alone feels like it’s bigger than my iPhone 3G.  It’s not a small phone in comparison but the display is fantastic. It’s not as slick as an HTC phone but it is close.

How would a Gorilla design a better Gorilla?

I’ve also seen the iPhone 4.  The display is phenomenal but it’s essentially a better iPhone 3GS. It’s more resolution, more memory, faster CPU.  But it’s still an iPhone and I already have an inferior version right now.

Why just get a better version of the iPhone 3G? Why not get a new phone and try out the other guys? If Camera+ existed for the Android phone, that would go a long way to hastening my decision.

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Jan Dembowski

Jan Dembowski

I am a software enthusiast who is easily amused and definitely mostly harmless.

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