Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Application Review: App to QR

qrcode
Another small and useful app in the android market. This application can give the searchable URL for any application installed on your phone or generate a QR Code that you can use to share via the camera with another friend. I have found it extremely useful. Use the QR Code on the right to go to this application.

Application Review : Ringdroid

qrcodeHere is an application that is available on android market for quite some time. I just never tried it primarily because my ADP1 just ran out of space for installing additional application. The application is called Ringdroid. The application can read any MP3 stored on your phone or you can record any sound and then it allows you to define the boundaries of what you want to set as ring tone.

Works pretty well and I found it useful. Use the QR Code on the right to jump to this application in the market.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Facebook App for Android

Finally after long time, a Facebook app for Android is in market. Since the benchmark app for Facebook on mobile devices seems to be one on iPhone, I thought let me compare how the current Android App stands up against iPhone App. Please note that I do not have a iPhone but a iPod Touch so my comparison is between those two.

Category
Android App
iPhone/iPod Touch
Main Screen
Six main icons, New Feed, Friends, Photos, Take Photo, Profile, Notifications
Nine main icons, News Feed, Friends, Photos, Profile, Inbox, Chat, Requests, Events, photos, Notes
News Feed
New Feed screens look very similar. iPhone has a + button to add comments while Android has long touch. iPhone also has a large Rolodex like menu which essentially maps to facebook menu where you can choose a filter for your feed.
Profile
Profile screen is almost identical in both the apps with tabs for wall, info and photos being on top on Android and on bottom in iPhone. Also relationship status on iPhone is better with the photo of the spouse being shown with the name while Android app just says that "Married". Android app also does not show the IM addresses while iPhone app shows them.
Photos is very similar with iPhone app having an additional album for Profile photos which Android app does not have.
Friends
Friends screen is very similar in both with Facebook app sorted on last name while android app sorted on first name. Also the first character selection on iPhone on the right hand side of screen is pretty useful to directly jump to a person whose name starts with a specific character.
Notifications
Screens are very similar but surprisingly Android app does not allow one to click on a name and go to his profile. Also number of notifications in Android app seems to be much less compared to what is there on iPhone. For example I could not find notifications related to people commenting on my status in Android app while these are there on iPhone client.
Photos
Very similar screens, similar functionality.
Events
Android does not this option at all
iPhone client allow you to have a look at events.
Inbox
Android does not this option at all
iPhone client shows the messages in the Inbox and lets you reply to them.
Chat
Android does not this option at all
You can chat with online friends.
Requests
Android does not this option at all
You can see pending requests and respond to them.
To sum it up, even though Android client is far improved compared to the last version, it still lags too much compared to iPhone client. Many features are really very important omissions. If I had any say in prioritizing these, I would put them in following order.
  1. Chat -- very important, many people are only available for chat on Facebook and can't get them on google talk
  2. Friend requests -- Very important option, since currently the best solution is to click on the email received and go to web browser and then accept/reject the request.
  3. Inbox/Event
  4. Catch up to other features that I have listed in the table above.

Motorola Milestone, Apps that I use

Here is a list of applications that I have downloaded from Android Market and use them.

  • Barcode Scanner -- Really essential app, can use the camera to scan any barcode. This app is also used by many other apps for that functionality.
  • Bubble -- A surface level testing application
  • Calorie Counter -- A client for weight losers' social network http://www.fatsecret.com
  • Cardio Trainer -- Can record your running sessions along with a google map
  • Compass -- A regular direction compass, has analog and digital settings. Pretty useful
  • Documents to Go -- Office compatible document reader and editing capability
  • Facebook for Android -- What would be life without facebook
  • Finance -- Client for Google Finance
  • Fring -- IM client for many systems, supports skype
  • Goggles -- Nifty app that can decipher things based on their pictures, Just point the camera and it would tell you what it is.
  • Voice -- Client for google Voice. I have it but can't use it in India
  • Layar -- Augmented Reality app, overlays stuff on google map. Pretty cool
  • Listen -- Podcast finder
  • Locale -- Very nifty app to change the settings of your phone based on time or your location.
  • My Tracks -- Records your movements. Very useful to share directions with others.
  • My Backup -- Backups all the user data on SD card. Useful when changing phones.
  • Places Directory -- Another cool app from Google, nice to find places around you.
  • Seesmic -- A twitter client
  • Shazam -- Can decipher song details by listening to it.
  • ShopSavvy -- Retail app, not very useful for India but apparently very popular in Japan
  • SMS Backup -- Backups all your SMS messages to your gmail account under a specified Label.
  • Toggle Wifi -- Does what it says, I place it as a shortcut on home screen to control WiFi
  • TouchDown -- Exchange App, I prefer it over what is already on the phone
  • Twidroid -- Client for twitter, I prefer it over seesmic
  • Unit Converter -- Converts pretty much any unit to any other unit
  • Ustream Broadcaster -- Broadcast yourself. Pretty good
  • Voice Recorder -- Record voice
Let me know you any of you people out there use any other app that you find useful. I can try that out.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Motorola Milestone, Review #1

Here are my initial thoughts on Motorola Milestone.
  • I think it is a pretty good phone, I had been using ADP1 form last one and half year and the mechanical quality of the phone is pretty evident as soon as you touch it.
  • The slider is pretty crisp
  • GMail application now supports multiple GMail account which is a great feature addition to the phone since I (and many others whom I know) have a .gmail.com account and another account for their hosted domain. Earlier I had to access one of these accounts via IMAP which definitely is not as efficient as GMail since many of the gmail features like Label and Archiving are not available from IMAP.
  • The new maps is also pretty good, addition of layers and landmarks is better over the earlier version. The one thing is missing is voice navigation which supposedly is available on US droid but it missing in this one.
  • Keyboard take little time to getting used to but one gets used to it. The only problem is that for entering numbers one has to press Alt.
  • Soft keyboard is much better, for me the success rate is much higher compared to ADP1.
  • Browser has pinch and zoom but the maps does not. I am hoping that a future release of maps through the market may carry pinch and zoom.
  • There are many posts on internet that this phone does not allow protected applications download but I could download Calorie Counter from fatsecret.com which I know for sure is a protected application because I could never download it on my ADP1.
  • One of the downside of getting it shipped from UK was that the phone was missing the microSD card which should have been inside the phone and it did not have it. I am trying to follow up with vendor but I have very little hope that I will get it. Anyway I can pick one up here.
  • Gallery is much improved, pinch and zoom works on photos, even the gallery display is much improved with a good way to browse photos.
  • Facebook for Android application is still not available for Android 2.0, one can download Bloo which works ok and the web based facebook is also decent.
  • Twidroid and Seesmic clients work great for twitter.
  • Camera is not great but does decent job.
Overall a great device. Solved many of my problems, Facebook, Twitter, GMail and all other google services.

How to get Motorola Milestone in India

So, I waited and waited and waited some more and could not find anyway on how to get Motorola Milestone in India. There was no news from company so I decided to take matter in my own hands.

It was available on UK online retailer eXpansys on 10th of December 2009, so I decided to order directly from them. In the end, it seems to have worked out very well. I ordered and my order reached in time before they ran out of stock.

Since they were shipping outside EU territory, I did not have to pay VAT which was 15%. That saved me £59.56. I had to pay £22.95 as shipping (in place of £5.95) so I ended up paying £17.00 extra.

The shipping was through DHL international and they cleared customs and charged me Rs. 2002/- as custom charges. In the end I got the phone for a price way less than what I would have paid if I got it shipped to somebody in UK and asked him to bring back.

Total cost to me for the phone was around Rs. 33,500/-. The only downside is that in place of $ symbol on keyboard, it has £ symbo.l. I think I can live with that.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Installing Google Maps 3.3 on ADP1

Recently Google pushed Google Maps 3.3 to Android market. But due to a signature mismatch, you can not install it directly from market. It would give you signature mismatch error. If you are owing a ADP1, you should not have problems with getting your hands dirty. Here are the instructions that you can use to install new version of Maps.

Connect your ADP1 to your PC using the USB flashing cable and them perform following steps. Login into the phone using following steps.

  1. $ adb shell
  2. $ su
Now erase the old instance of Maps.
1) Mount /system read/write; as root on the phone:
    mount -o remount,rw /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

2) erase the standard system Maps.apk; as root on the phone:
    rm /system/app/Maps.apk

3) uninstall the Maps data; on your computer:
    adb uninstall com.google.android.apps.maps

4) Optional; You probably want to mount /system read-only again; as root on the phone:
    mount -o remount,ro /dev/block/mtdblock3 /system

5) You can install Google Maps from the Market as normal now.
As usual, standards disclaimers apply. Thanks to  Zinx at Google Forums for this post.