Archives : android
Evolution of the Mobile Life: Part 2 – Day to Day
The honeymoon period with our Android based T-Mobile G1’s are now over. Sure, both my wife and I love the phones. They seem to work great, but was it really worth the money we laid out for them? What kinds of tools exist that will make our lives better in some way? Here I present to you some tips and review some of the applications that I use every day. Most of these focus on personal use, business productivity will be covered in a subsequent article.
Google Maps
First, there is Google Maps which comes preloaded on the phone. It integrates with the GPS already so finding where you are is easy. I needed to drop something off at one of my utility companies; however I had never been to the office and I did not recognize the address. Entering it in to Maps made it easy to find. The integration is very nice.
It also has some of the “cool” features like a street view that integrates with the compass/accelerometer. It actually changes the picture of the street based on the direction you are holding the phone. Not very useful, but neat. The directions and location; however, were very useful.
Quickpedia
The free application makes it easy to search and browse Wikipedia for articles, throwing in a few tiny twists along the way to make navigating, reading, and learning interesting tidbits a breeze.
I have to agree with their assessment and would add that the formatting of the data is by far the best out there for a mobile device. While other applications require you to flip pages or scroll endlessly, Quickpedia groups data into categories and lets you expand the sections you are interested in. It is very handy to be sitting on the couch, in a restaurant or at a friends house and be able to look up information on something rather than promising to yourself to find it later (which we always do of course, right?).
Movie Finder
I love the movies. I don’t go nearly as often as I like these days, but I still love them. I cannot begin to count the times we have been running around town and started talking about a trip to the theater.
Me: We have have a couple of hours before we have to pick the kids up.
Wife: Yeah? Let’s catch a movie!
Me: Sounds great! What’s playing that you want to see?
Wife: I don’t recall. How about you?
Me: Um…..
Wife: Hmmm
Me: Maybe next time.
Next Time
I hope you enjoyed some of these apps, tips and reviews. Next time I will relate my experiences with Android productivity, including applications that help me stay on top of both work and home life.
Evolution of the Mobile Life: Part 1 – The Move
Today, cell phones are commodities. We expect to replace them every 1-3 years, and the reasons vary from breaking hardware to desired new features. Recently I have went through this very process and want to share a series of articles with you detailing my experiences and observations of living in an increasingly mobile world.
Recently both my wife and I found ourselves with mobile phones that were having problems and, due to our cell phone company being acquired by a national provider, the phones would soon cease to work on the network. This time around we decided to shop for phones that fit us rather than settling for the phones available from our provider.
Decisions
My wife’s needs were simple, she wanted phone that was easy to use and she wanted to be able to get her Gmail on it. She did not care about Internet access, music or other advanced features. My needs and desires ended up being a bit longer list; however, the main feature I was looking at was stability. My previous phone was a Windows Mobile 5 HTC P4300. While it was a large phone, there were a lot of things I liked about it; however it required frequent reboots and I’d been forced to hard reset the phone about once every 3 months requiring configuration and reinstallation of all of the applications I used.
After looking at the phones available in our area from the various providers, we decided that we would both go for the T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream) running the Android platform. It seemed to encompass everything that we were looking for. We made the move and anxiously awaited the arrival of our shinny new phones.
Unboxing
Our phones arrived on a Tuesday night. After waiting the prerequisite time to charge them fully as directed by the instructions, we sat on the couch with our handsets and a quick-start guide. My first impression was that it was a very organic interface. All of the press goes to the ease of use on the iPhone, but in my opinion Android is just as natural. I came to this conclusion after a conversation about 45 minutes after the unboxing.
Wife: “I think I’m going to like this thing.”
Me:” “Oh? Why’s that?”
Wife: “Well, it’s much easier than my old ***** (bleeped to protect the innocent) was.”
Me: “Yeah?”
Wife: “Yeah.”
Me: “Really?”
Wife: “I’ve set everything up from Gmail, contacts and calendar already.”
Me: “Cool!”
Wife: “Oh, and I never opened that book once!”
Me: “Sweet!”
Wife: “I even found Pac-Man on the Market!”
Me: “Awesome!”
My experience was similar, I had my basic phone functions up and running in a few minutes and had already began using the browser to go through Google Reader’s unread list. Searching Google was effortless and viewing YouTube videos was almost faster than my laptop! All was looking well!
Next time
The first few days of course are the honeymoon and much joy is to be expected. In my next article I will discuss the experience of daily usage and begin talking about some of the applications that increase the general quality of our lives.
Smart Solutions RSS
