Android phones: Tips, tricks?

[Mercutio]

It's not difficult to get free copies of public domain literature in any format at all. I use H.P. Lovecraft texts for experimental purposes. The Baen Library has an awesome selection of material in a wide variety of formats as well. One of my first uses for Calibre was to convert all the stuff from the CD-ROM that shipped with the hardcover of the most recent David Weber book into epub files.
The only ebooks I've actually purchased myself have come from Baen.

It's also ridiculously easy to pirate ebooks. I was a little bit surprised at that. There's an 80GB torrent of 'em on Demonoid, for the day you want to say you have as many titles as your local library.

 

[BingBangBop]

Baen Free Library is a joy to use especially since they seem to specialize in SF/Fantasy which is my favorite escapism. Thanks for the link.

 

[Mercutio]

Baen actually slightly overspecializes in military SF that frequently has a libertarian bent. But they're very progressive about giving away their fiction and they strongly dislike DRM, which is one of the reasons I've supported the company.

 

[MaxBurn]

It's weird that we can talk about a type of CPU where Intel isn't the 900lb. Gorilla.

Yes and even more interesting how it is produced, one company sells the design for the core and many people take it, put some custom things in it and produce it in various fabs. Intel isn't nearly as flexible as that.

Baen Free Library is a joy to use especially since they seem to specialize in SF/Fantasy which is my favorite escapism. Thanks for the link.

+1, thanks I will check into it.

 

[Sol]

I'm not sure that article is particularly accurate. I'm pretty sure Medfield is actually Intels second attempt at a mobile SOC, it's just that the first one (Moorstown) was more like an SO5Cs and nobody ever actually put it in a shipping product. Even Medfield is more of an SO3Cs, and I doubt Intel will ever be able to supply the variety of on chip hardware that all those ARM licensees produce. Also while Medfield looks pretty good up against a dual core A9, it hasn't actually shipped yet, and it's far from sure that it'll beat Cortex A7/A15 devices to market, (And guaranteed that it won't beat quad core A9s) which should be both faster, and lower power (Although admittedly not at the same time).

I think when Intel scale down to smaller process nodes they could have some serious competition for ARM. But Medfield is more like Intels mobile John the Baptist than Jesus himself.

 

[MaxBurn]

I laughed.

Daring Fireball (@daringfireball)
1/17/12 4:00 PM
Headline of the Day: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/01/17/headline

 

[Santilli]

Mine is averaging two days with the new battery, easy.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm now the proud owner of two spare HTC Evos. One of them is going to be permanently installed in my car to act as a full-time media player. I guess I'll play around with third party Android builds on the other.

 

[Mercutio]

OK. I have this ipad2. Very first thing I'm going to say about it: The weight annoyance factor isn't as bad as it is on Android tablets. The ipad2 uses a 4:3 screen and it rally does balance better than 16:9 products.

 

[Will Rickards]

Let me know what you find with your evos.
I'm looking for a stable ICS build with wireless N support.

 

[Mercutio]

There's a whole lot of "You've GOT to be kidding me." as I look for the things that make the ipad what I would consider minimally functional. The app store search doesn't seem to understand anything but name searches, meaning that I have to go and google to find the tools that I want, then determine that I'd be charged a couple bucks to get functionality that's either included or free on Android (e.g. an SMB client), or that the functionality doesn't exist because Apple can't stand competition on its devices (Amazon Music).

It is still heavy, though better balanced for reading than a 16x9 tablet. It does still have a low-resolution screen albeit a nice, bright one. Reading comics and PDFs is a definite let-down. I do like the "tap the side to turn the page" feature of ibooks. My library did import just fine, though itunes omitted the .CBR files until I found a reader program and figured out how to import them separately. There's no question that I prefer an MTP device or some kind of network file transfer to move content onto a device; it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to move photos or comic book files onto my ipad, either.

I'm sort of left asking myself how the Apple tablet is actually better. Even if I put myself in the frame of mind of new computer user, it seemed like there were a lot of hoops to jump through just getting content on the thing. Between that and the fact that somebody wants $2 for everything I thought I might like my ipad to do, I'm more than a little underwhelmed.

 

[MaxBurn]

I also don't like how they completely ignore disk access. If you aren't loading something via itunes you are working in a protected app sandbox that other apps can't see. It will take all your amazon music but you can't load it straight on the device, have to go through itunes. They really need to have some sort of shared pool of storage that all apps can reach and you can reach via USB mass storage.

They aren't locking you into their store but they are doing a lot to make that the easy path and make everything else hard to do. You only have to jump through hoops if you are going outside of their ecosystem then you need to deal with the dreaded itunes.

 

[Santilli]

Well, what can I say?

"I told you so!" does come to mind. ;-)

Or how about,
"Nothings changed."

I am wondering how you find the EVO's.

 

[Mercutio]

I already had one Evo. Now I just have some more.

 

[Mercutio]

At the end of my weekend with iOS, I don't really have anything more to add. Apple's default ebook tool did most of what I wanted and I was annoyed enough with the App store that I didn't go back looking for anything that I was missing.

Reading was just OK. I might be wrong but I think reading a .PDF hit the ipad's battery harder than a .epub. I didn't really notice that on the Android side of things and I'll admit that it's more of an impression than a quantifiable fact.

Something I also noticed was that Youtube videos were inconsistently available. I wasn't even really testing that, but I was sent a Youtube link only to be told that the video wasn't available... but it worked on my desktop. I played around with things for a bit and after 20 minutes of browsing I found six out of 20 videos that didn't play on the ipad. Just a matter of something not having an HTML5 version? No idea.

Regarding the Evos, I'm planning to look for an ICS ROM and a battery-saver ROM at the very least. The long-battery ROMs seem to focus on Android 2.3 rather than anything newer, which should probably tell us something about what to expect from newer Android releases.

 

[Mercutio]

Does anyone else here even have a tablet? What are you using it for?

 

[ddrueding]

I still have my ASUS transformer. I use it primarily as a digital knee-board for flying (charts, checklists, backup GPS, airport services directory, pilot's log, music, etc). I also use it as an e-reader from time to time.

 

[Santilli]

My gf has an ipad, first generation. Worked with it a bit.
No desire to own one.
Likewise the Samsung's from T-Mobile.

 

[Mercutio]

Samsung's

You did that on purpose, didn't you?

Nonetheless, I think the Samsung devices I've tried have had the best overall experience, even in spite of their goofy launcher and UI "enhancements."

 

[MaxBurn]

I had an ipad 1 but I gave it to my mom over christmas to replace an aging laptop. No real report on the success but I got some emailed questions and sometimes before I answered I got an email that said ok found/fixed that. I don't think she adapted to typing well on the touch screen, got some complaints on that. Might have to get a keyboard for it.

I haven't replaced it with anything, I was thinking ipad3 but got a laptop instead.

 

[ddrueding]

I have a housecall on Wednesday, a user that has no computer or dedicated internet connection; only an iPad with built-in 3G. The only issues she has had is using Skype for video.

 

[Mercutio]

Diagnosis: You need something better than crummy 3G for two way video.
Solution: Pay $30 a month for DSL and get a $50 wireless router.

That'll be $100.

 

[ddrueding]

Diagnosis: You need something better than crummy 3G for two way video.
Solution: Pay $30 a month for DSL and get a $50 wireless router.

That'll be $100.

Except that the only internet at her home is 3G or Satellite. Her driveway alone is several times longer than the allowable distance of either cable or DSL. Even the local wireless internet provider would require us to erect a 100'+ tall mast.

She owns a ranch. It is pretty big.

Edit: I suppose I could stick a T1 in there...but a dedicated T1 for an iPad is a bit much.

 

[Mercutio]

It was pointed out to me not long ago that the local price for a Primary rate ISDN setup was quite a bit lower than a full T1. Like 10%. There isn't much functional difference between the two things so I have no idea why there's a price difference.

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Except that the only internet at her home is 3G or Satellite. Her driveway alone is several times longer than the allowable distance of either cable or DSL. Even the local wireless internet provider would require us to erect a 100'+ tall mast.

She owns a ranch. It is pretty big.

Edit: I suppose I could stick a T1 in there...but a dedicated T1 for an iPad is a bit much.

Doesn't sound like high pings would be an issue for her ...http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/08/viasat-residential-satellite-broadband-internet-hands-on-video/

She should be under the cap, unless she takes a liking to streaming Netflix etc.

 

[mubs]

Does anyone else here even have a tablet? What are you using it for?

I was eyeing one, especially because I drove a lot over the Christmas holidays and wanted to use it for navigation. I ended up buying a dedicated GPS device instead. In no hurry now, with the developments on the job scene. Someday guess I'll buy a Samsung. So many people gush about the iPad, but you don't seem enamored!

 

[Mercutio]

I actually asked the hand full of ipad owners I know what's so awesome about ipads. What I can say from that is that to a one, they consume streaming content that's available regardless of platform but they also participate in Apple's ecosystem for music and video, which of course is something that other devices just can't do. So for them, there is the ipad and there's only the ipad, because it's an Apple device in the first place.

That's circular logic if you ask me, but it's not like I'm going to change their minds.

 

[MaxBurn]

IMO my next tablet needs to be browser focused and a similar screen size to ipad only a higher resolution. There were things I hated about mobile safari before ios5 hit and now it is pretty good but still not up to the features available in say atomic browser or I think icab but I haven't tried that one. Needs much more ram so you can have more tabs open without need to reload also, that is frigging annoying.

I don't know that there is anything about the apple experience that would really hold me, other than it was a trouble free tablet that saw two major OS revisions on the day of release that brought big improvements in my time of ownership.

On android tablets are OS updates better as they aren't entangled with cell carriers? That isn't an angle I have been researching yet.

 

[Mercutio]

I upgraded my Xoom to ICS. It was uneventful.

I legitimately like the 8.9" Samsung Galaxy, which has very similar measurement, but it's also a limited device in that it has 16GB of fixed storage and no way to add more.

I'd like to see a 7" tablet with a 1280x800 IPS screen and at least an SD slot for expansion, or failing that another 8.9" tablet with a 1600x900 IPS screen.

 

[MaxBurn]

Nice, whatever gets more developers interested.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/01/23/cydia-style-app-store-for-android-coming-soon/

 

[Sol]

I'd like to see a 7" tablet with a 1280x800 IPS screen and at least an SD slot for expansion, or failing that another 8.9" tablet with a 1600x900 IPS screen.

Assuming you don't insist on full size SD the Huawei MediaPad seems to have you covered. In the US it's old as the T-Mobile Springboard. The inevitable catch is that there is no WiFi only version, hence T-Mobile (Or Orange in the UK) being involved.

 

[Mercutio]

I'd have to see one since I'm not terribly confident about the quality of the panel. They do claim it's IPS at least.

 

[Mercutio]

Why can't we get car stereo integration with Android devices? I've looked. It doesn't seem to exist. Boo.

 

[Will Rickards]

What type of integration do you want?

 

[ddrueding]

What type of integration do you want?

The same integration the iPeople get? Controlling music playback through the steering wheel controls maybe?

 

[Mercutio]

Even being able to control music playback on the head unit instead of the screen would be nice. I mounted an Evo in my car on a little arm to basically be a full-time music player but the only control I have without endangering everyone else on the road once I start it playing is volume.

 

[MaxBurn]

That thought has occurred to me before and showing my ignorance but on android is there one integrated audio player app that all the phones have? I sort of figured the answer was no and therefore a non starter for that sort of thing.

 

[Mercutio]

I'm thinking that it shouldn't much matter. DLNA magically supports control protocols across devices, brands and capabilities. How hard is it to implement a device interface that understands "pause" and "next track?"

Apparently I can get something better than what I have via Bluetooth, but IIRC bluetooth isn't exactly a quality audio experience.

 

[Howell]

Well technically a single digital player would not be necessary if there were an underlying control API with digital interface. Does the hard connector do anything useful other than charge?

 

[Mercutio]

Well technically a single digital player would not be necessary if there were an underlying control API with digital interface. Does the hard connector do anything useful other than charge?

It SHOULD since it's just a standard USB connection, but as far as I can tell, Saab is the only company that supports Android in its stereos. For head units that have USB support, the current capabilities are to treat the phone as if it were just a flash drive. No control capabilities.