Yikes - Android questions - so far to go...

[orangeusa]

I had an AT&T dumb phone in the past and thought I'd get into some of the newer stuff.

My GOAL was to see if I could basically get the functions I had in my good old Palm Pilot that I used 10 years ago. (I use Outlook all the time and it's basically a cleaned up version of what Palm did).
And the other goal was to fiddle with Android development (I'm a good old firmware guy..).

Anyway......

I bought both a HTC Vivid and a Samsung Galaxy SII + LTE, with no prior usage of Smart Phones... OMG - slide this, push that, rotate this, buzz, buzz... I'm not luddite, but most of the apps I just don't need....

The SII has the previous version of Android and the Vivid is running 4.0.3 (I guess that's ICECREAMSANDWICH - whatever).

I've never felt OLD until I started using these two beasts. They do a TON of things, and yet, I ended up with both to do what my good old Palm Pilot did 10 years ago.

What am I missing here?

I TRULY HATE the screen blank/power key lockout thing in these devices...

Be gentle, I'm an old school wireless guy..

And I've never used iPhone, but am not an Apple fan - I like Google's open source policy (until they change it...)

I reallly think app development will be easier than trying to figure out if the phone is OFF or ASLEEP, or how to dig down to turn off a feature..

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[the86d]

Many of us (gain) root (access, like Administrator on a Windows box...) our phones to remove the apps that are not standard on Android devices, AND for extended capabilities. You typically void your warranty on these if you gain root access and some find it hard to get it back to factory(/"Stock ROM", and sometimes can't very easily, FYI).

You can tether (for free if you root it), connect to your computer at home, run services (that you can access from home/WiFi, etc. Android does it all (Apple devices are more locked down, and when they do an update you have to re-jailbreak after every update on those [last I heard]), and Android is really a Distribution of Linux with proprietary hardware with a skin, you might say that is the screen (Linux which you can gain access to [but only if you root])!

Pretty much anything you can think of doing on a computer can be done on Androids(, and most iPhones can do MOST of it too). Hell if you wanted to, say at a public place, you could even kick all the iPhone users off free public/airport WiFi.

[orangeusa]

I've been writing firmware and doing hardware designs for almost 25 years and I understood about 1/2 of what you said.. haha

Yes, they are phenomenal from a hardware point of view. Pentium-3 power in a battery powered device with all kinds of interfaces - the screen, GPS, camera ect are cool, but have been done by iPhone.... not better, not worse...

But basically - the external link and treating it like a wireless network from your PC is a strength.

Open source seems to be the HUGE strength - in the long run. From my point of view - Android has one thing far superior to Linux in that it's a true real time operating system (at the core). Which is probably why you don't see many Windows CE phones anymore..

Symbian was not so easy to deal with wrt to custom apps. I just read that Nokia is going to WIN 7... Goodbye Nokia. Samsung has been kicking them and Ericsson out of the phone business for a while. Ericsson and Nokia are now strong base-station vendors... nuff nerd talk.

I was MAINLY complaining about the user-interface - which I still find overly 'fancy' and not all that efficient. Maybe that's the iPhone influence...

And I was at an Angels game recently and about 10-20% of the folks were dinking around with their smart phones the whole game...

It seems like they still haven't integrated the simple Palm/organizer concept with a phone that is easy to use.

I wonder if the iPhone kinda forced Android developers to copy every gee-whiz function?

Or - I'm just whining...
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[armygunsmith]

Well, the UI is highly customizable. Usually, the cellular provider will use their own interface. Some are OK and others suck. Just like the86d said, many Android users root their devices to remove any carrier apps(crapware) and even sideload non Android market apps. The beauty of the Android OS is that there are dozens of changes you can make to the UI via skins, themes, and widgets. take a look at the Android section of xda-developers for a ton of ideas. You should be able to do just about eveything you want with one device though. Good luck.

[Autarchist]

For the most part, smartphones and tablets are still simply grown-up "toys" with little focus on enhancing real-world productivity in a meaningful way.

[orangeusa]

I would agree with that. But IMO, there is no killer app yet. Nothing which makes me say - "MUST have it.".... And I'm not talking about speech recoginition or scanning some weird barcode.... or streaming audio, video, TV.

I've been fiddling around with it enough to understand that this thing has enormous potential. I didn't like the user interface. I'm getting over that - to some extent. But god forbid you press the wrong button and kill the app you were running. This is my 2nd complaint - you just get into something, and if you hit home (a big button on the bottom) by mistake, goodbye.

So, this thing (or any smart phone - until I get FORCED to use them) is not going to be my main cellular phone. Dumb phones do JUST fine in that capacity. Heck - dumb phones do fantastic for texting also!

The more I learn, the more confused I am about how much I like smart phones.

But I am ripping at the seams to write my first application... (Hello World?)

Just need to brush up my Java/Linux skills. lol.

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[wildhawker]

MUST HAVE: Shine Runner. It will change your life.

-Brandon