TechBait

The biggest news for many developers and users in the Android smart phone community this week is the rollout of the latest Android OS, version 2.2 or “Froyo”, and it’s support for moving certain applications, or apps, to the external SD card.  One of the issues that have plagued owners of the Motorola Droid and some other phones is the small amount of internal storage capacity that the phones have shipped with.  The Droid, for example, only provides a paltry 512mb ROM/256mb RAM, which sounds like a lot until you start installing large multi megabyte (20+ megabyte) game apps.  You can quickly run out of storage space.  Add to this the tendency for the phone dialer storage to fill with the increase in text and multimedia messages, you you have a recipe for frustration on the part of many Android users.

Well, the one caveat to this is that the apps have to be enabled to be moved to the SD card.  Google has left it up to the app developers to decide if this is feasible.  At first I thought this was bad, and I heard some chatter that the reason this wasn’t allowed is the fear of apps on SD cards leading to piracy, but the technical reason that this makes sense is that there are some apps that should not be moved since the SD card bing unmounted and removed could pose problems in some case.  For a list of apps that should NOT be moved to external storage, check this link.  Anyway, in searching I found a nice little article explaining to developers how to enable their apps for this handy feature.  If your app does not really need to be in internal storage, please enable it to be moved and let the user decide where they want it.  In time this feature won’t be as necessary as memory prices drop and more phone come with oodles of internal storage, but for now at least, having as many apps as possible allowing this feature is in the best interest of the Android user community.  Developers might also want to note that if they are stubborn in allowing this feature when there is no sound technical reason for not doing so, many users will just uninstall their app and look for movable alternatives.

Today my Motorola Droid greeted me with a system update.  The Android OS went from 2.1 to 2.2 in an almost seemless upgrade to the OS.  Some of my ringtones got messed up for some reason, but they were easy to reset.  Two more desktops were added for more application shortcuts and widgets.  The slide up app window was replaced with three buttons signalling instant access to phone, apps, or web browser.  The whole thing moves faster now, and there are many other improvements inside.  Lifehacker did a nice writeup on Android 2.2 new features.  I have to say that the best feature for me, being the owner of a Motorola Droid with sparse internal memory, is the move to SD card feature for the apps.  Unfortunately as of this writing, almost no apps have this support, including some vary large Google apps like Gmail and Google Maps and Sky, as well as large apps like Facebook and games.  Hopefully over time developers will enable this feature in their apps, as Google has left it up to the individual app developers.  Gizmodo also has a nice nitpicky general Android 2.2 Froyo review here.

I recently bought a Motorola DROID smart phone on the Verizon Wireless network.  The phone seems to be very durable, and the Android operating system is a wonderful competitor to Apple’s iPhone.  There are a growing number of apps available for these phones, with some notable ports of iPhone apps to the Android platform.  There are some weaknesses of the Motorola DROID phone that potential customers should know about.  The ones that I have stumbled upon are that text messages get deleted often by the phone, even when the auto delete setting is switched off, the fact that the phone has pathetically small internal memory for apps (about 256 megabytes, which is pathetic), and that multimedia messages take up so much internal memory that you might end up deleting apps just so that the phone dialer storage doesn’t run you into the wall when its growth runs wild, and vanishing bluetooth devices.

• Text message threads are set to auto delete when they hit a certain number of messages.  You can alter or turn off this default behavior in the test message app settings, but it will eventually delete them anyway.  It happened to me several times and it is happening to others our there.  The only thing you can do right now is to install SMS Backup, a nifty free app that will copy your text messages to your Gmail account for archiving.  It works, and there are paid apps that will also do this for multimedia messages (picture and video containing messages).

• The Motorola DROID has a pathetically small internal memory of 512 MB, half of which is available for apps.  To add insult to injury, Verizon is advertising that phone as having 16GB of memory due to the micro SD card that they ship with.  The problem is that Google has made it so that only internal phone memory is available for app executables, and most apps are made in a way that they use the internal memory for everything, so if you install many apps you run out of memory pretty quickly.  Regular apps are small, but install a few games or some data crazy apps and see how far you get.  Shame on Motorola for cheaping out on memory, Verizon for false advertising, and Google for not allowing some more leeway for using the SD card for applications, although they cite security and piracy concerns.

• The “phone dialer storage” app seems to store data of some sort on the phone, and it tends to runaway with itself as you create more message threads, especially those rich with photos or video attachments.  The obvious cure would be to delete the photos and other attachments or purge your text messages every so often, which works up to a point, but I found that my phone dialer storage held it’s data cache even after I purged.  The phone got sluggish and rebooted itself a few times too.  Finally after one spontaneous reboot, the cache was somehow purged.  Perhaps there is some internal software setting that does this, but it’s VERY annoying and not a graceful way to go about it.  The best thing that Android users who hit their phone’s memory limits can do in the meantime is to get an app management application which allows them to shuffle apps around from the SD card back to phone memory.  What this means is that you have to archive the app to the SD card and then uninstall it through the management app.  If you want to use it later you can reinstall it from the archived copy.  This allows you to archive those many megabyte game apps that you might not use everyday but don’t want to ditch for good.  It’s a compromise but it works.

• My bluetooth ear piece, a Samsung WEP470, occasionally vanishes from the phone.  Usually rebooting the ear piece fixes the problem, but I found that one time it did not.  Sometimes turning the phone’s bluetooth on and off would fix the problem.  One time nothing worked, and you could hear the incoming phone call beep in the ear piece but when the call was answered no sound came through the ear piece.  I thought the Samsung bit the dust and even started shopping for a new one.  I tried a shot in the dark approach of turning the phone off and removing the battery for a few seconds, about 10, and then powering it up again.  My bluetooth ear piece now worked fine again.  Go figure.

The Archos 5 is a slate computer that competes in the same market segment as Apple’s iPad and HP’s Slate computer which runs Windows.  The Archos is a nifty gadget because it is compatible with the Android marketplace apps and is essentially backed by Google’s massive software effort.  It is larger than a phone and makes for a great WiFi Internet device when home or have access to a WiFi hotspot.  As anyone knows, the small screens on most smart phones are woefully inadequate for real web surfing, and the Archos and other similar devices provide a larger screen and more memory for a fuller Internet experience.  While it is true that this device would be better if it had 3G capability like the iPad or other devices in this segment, perhaps the Archos makers know that most gadget freaks already have 3G smart phones and this is yet another tool that the true gadget freak will have in their technology bag of fun.

I agree with Google that the outlook for Android is VERY good since they are doing with mobile phones what Microsoft did with PC operating systems.  It’s funny that Microsoft was there first and failed horribly at the PDA/mobile phone OS market.  Android is one OS that is running on the devices from multiple manufacturers, and in time there will be so many more Android devices than iPhones.  It’s just the Law of Averages at work.  The article mentions that Microsoft is entering the fray by attacking HTC over patent violations, but another story states that HTC cut a deal with Microsoft, which would mean Microsoft sticking it to Apple by giving HTC a pass of sorts through a royalty agreement.  The software business is once again looking like a soap opera script.  It’s fun though.  :)

HTC is licensing Microsoft patents as they are facing patent lawsuits and possible injunctions by Apple, who wants the HTC phones banned from the US market.  Sorry, but IMO this is just another illustration how these micro patented features are just a bad idea.  It hobbles creative freedom and results in less choice for consumers.  If Apple’s iPhone is so great, then let it compete for the hearts and mind of consumers based on the whole Apple aura that surrounds it, rather than Apple using these patented features to force HTC to stop selling what seems like great phones in the US market.  This is just Apple afraid of Android, IMO.

The article also proposes a fun conspiracy angle claiming that maybe Microsoft is “throwing HTC a life preserver” in it’s pending battle with Apple.  i.e. Microsoft sticking it to Apple.  That is funny, and very possible.

Verizon is set to release the HTC Droid Incredible to great fanfare.  It figures that I just switched to Verizon from AT&T and got a shiny new Motorola Droid.  I wasn’t told about the pending release of this new HTC unit when I was at the Verizon store, so I got the Droid.  The Droid is a great machine, but the Incredible has twice the CPU speed and more main memory, as well as what seems to be a better camera.  The Incredible also comes with an OLED type of video display, which I read is not very good in direct sunlight, so maybe the Droid is better for me since I hate when you can’t read a phone display outside.  The Incredible does not have a real keyboard the way the Droid does.  When I was shopping for my phone I thought a real slide out keyboard was a necessity, but now I feel otherwise.  Most of the time I opt for the on screen virtual keyboard on the Droid.  It’s just easier and more convenient to use, and when I eventually upgrade the real keyboard will no longer be a necessity for me.

From the linked article:

Specifications for the HTC DROID Incredible include the following:

• Android 2.1 with HTC Sense experience
• 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor
• Integrated 8GB flash drive (6.6 GB usable) with microSD expansion card slot
• 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash for crisp, detailed images
• 3.7 inch WVGA (480×800) AMOLED capacitive touch display
• Optical joystick for smooth navigation
• Dedicated, touch-sensitive Home, Menu, Back and Search keys
• Proximity sensor, light sensor and digital compass
• Integrated GPS
• Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g)
• 3.5 mm headset jack
• Friend Stream for unified Flickr, Facebook and Twitter updates
• Leap view for quick access to all seven home screen panels
• Dimensions: 4.63 x 2.30 x 0.47 inches and 4.59 ounces

Ever wonder how to use your smart phone’s Internet connection as a modem for your notebook or laptop computer while unable to connect to another WiFi hot spot?  While WiFi hot spots are available at an increasing rate, sometimes you are in a place where an unsecured public access one just is not available.  Now, if you are out and about one might wonder can’t you just use the phone’s web browser to look something up?  Well, yes, to a degree.  Sometimes there is just no replacement for a full computer for your Internet needs.  There are several programs out there, and there are also methods that involve rooting your phone, but a non root convenient method is to use a nifty application called PDAnet on your PC and phone.  Simply install PDAnet to the computer and it will also install the driver.  Once you connect your Android phone to the computer via the USB charging cable, the phone side app will be installed and you can now use the phone as a modem for the computer.  You have to turn on USB debugging mode, which was already enabled on my phone.  Once everything is up and running, you will have full Internet access on the computer via the phone and your unlimited data plan.  I wouldn’t use it as my sole connection or to download vast amounts of data, but it is great in a pinch.  Case in point, you want to use your computer with Internet access at a friend’s house where there is no WiFi hot spot to connect to.  You need to show them something on the computer which requires Internet access.  This solution is the solution to that conundrum.  PDAnet has a trial period and after that you need to pay a modest one time $29 fee for continued full access.  You can continue to use it free of charge but secure HTTPS sites will not be able to be accessed from the free version after the trial expiration.  You can still use it for regular HTTP access however.

There are reports that Google is spending over $100. million to open source a video codec by ON2 in order to leapfrog a web video standards impasse.  As it stands today, much of the web’s video is encoded in proprietary formats like Adobe Flash, for example YouTube’s .flv video files, and that various browsers are set to use the Ogg Theora codecs while Apple refuses to use it due to an “uncertain patent landscape”.    Netscape accuses Google of sabotaging the standard because they use the Adobe formats for YouTube, etc.  Lots of infighting.  If you want to play the videos you need a third party proprietary plugin like Adobe Flash.  While this is free for the end user of an approved Operating System, it is very hard for device and software makers to create software and products around this without facing potentially huge licensing/royalty or lawsuit issues.  Having an open source alternative that is backed by such a standards setting monster like Google would take a huge step towards making this problem go away.

Ogg Theora is actually based upon an earlier open sourced version of the On2 codec, but it’s performance can’t match the newer versions or the non open sourced competitors.  The Register article explains the whole situation very well.  I’m linking to it in order to comment on it.  Google has become this 8000 lb gorilla on many technology fronts.  They wield enormous power due to their sheer size and domination of the Internet search and advertising markets.  One little change in their search algorithm or standard can shut down many people’s profitable Internet properties overnight, with no recourse.  They have become evil, ironic for a company who’s motto is or was, “Do No Evil.”

So, if they open source this video codec and make web video seemless and ubiquitous without the worries of patent issues, they would take a small step away from being evil.

The Internet online version of the Office 2010 apps will be available at no cost ala Google Docs.  Windows Live account users, Microsoft hosted Office Web apps, and customer hosted Office Web apps for Microsoft Software Assurance enterprise customers will all be free.  SMBs who decide on Office 2010 web apps instead of purchasing regular packaged (non online) Microsoft Office will have to pay  Estimate is perhaps a $50 price. We don’t know the price but like I said that is a guesstimate.

Office 2010 web apps will be a bit stripped down as compared to their full software versions, but they will be useful for many.  Let’s face it, honestly, how many of the features of full blown MS Office to you actually use?  I thought so.  One great feature of the Office web apps is their integration with SharePoint 2010, providing it with a full backend data store to organize and access Office files, and a SharePoint portal to boot!  Office web apps give SharePoint a clear edge when compared to many other competing Wiki solutions which rely on basic forms submittal and lacking in the rich applications interface.

Microsoft is offering a robust set of installed apps with web versions, SharePoint integration, a free Windows Live version.  Customers can even shoode a Microsoft hosted option or choose to host it internally themselves. Google’s office apps can only be hosted with Google, and they do not offer a SharePoint equivalent.  Microsoft’s web office will work under Firefox and Safari, in addition to IE, but NOT Google’s Chrome. (unsupported)

This is heating up to be an all out multi front war betweeen Microsoft and Google.

I like this!