Turning into an Android User…

I plan on updating this blog as I live out the life of a new Android user…

Give me a bit to get it initially populated….and check back often to see how it progresses.

My initial thoughts…if you like to tinker and customize and are somewhat savvy…this is the device for you. If you want plug and play usability, and don’t want to have to mess around a lot to get things going the way you want…I would go for the iPhone.  Just sayin’…it will take some work to get it just right.  The droid is still not perfect.  Sadly its almost like a beta release. I am tracking a list of gripes at the bottom of this blog.
The device:

HTC Incredible on the Verizon Wireless network.

 

http://hothardware.com/articles/HTC-Droid-Incredible-Review/

 

What I like:

Verizon Wireless – while maybe not better than ATT as a whole…they do have service in some places (for me) that ATT is weak.  Of course it goes the other way too.

Amazing 8 megapixel camera: Now you gotta admit…that’s not too shabby for a “camera phone” picture. Click the photo to see it full resolution.  Shutter is fast enough to catch water droplets fairly well.

Lightening fast 1Ghz processor

I really love the sleek look and small size.

FLASH SUPPORT!!!!

Super quick browsing

Home screen customization with widgets. 

Notification slider window is hot!

Easy integration with Google based apps (duh!) Sounds silly..but that is a huge benefit.

What I don’t like:

The jury is still out on the optical joystick. I do like having it…but not sure how much yet. (See gripes below – I think the jury may have come to a decision)

Must have Apps:

Bloo Facebook -> to get your FB notifications

Twitter for Android -> Not perfect…but pretty darn good.

Google Maps -> awesome GPS based turn by turn navigation

Astro -> file manager awesomeness.  Can open zip files, move/copy/paste files…the works!

Pandora -> The greatest streaming music app there is.

HomePipe -> Stream [non-drm] audio right from your itunes library, browse pics, view docs from your computer.

DailyBible -> Read from daily reading plan, have it read the Word to you when your too tired to focus. : )

 

BatteryTime Lite -> Useful to see estimated time left given certain usage (phone, internet, etc)

BlueRSS -> Great RSS reader

Dropbox -> maintain storage online…and always have access with dropbox.  Upload/Download syncing.

Barcode Scanner -> Identify products, import contacts, search for apps on computer, then scan bar code to access directly in Market from your device.

Google Goggles -> Google search from pictures…crazy cool what can be identified from a picture.

Layars -> find places to eat or shop…or whatever, with this virtual layer on reality. Overlays from camera views.

AK Notepad -> Simple notepad with reminder and sharing capability.

Shazam -> Let’s you identify music that you hear around you…like VZW Song ID.

WordPress -> I guess I have to add this…since I am editing this blog with it right now….

WiFi Analyzer –> Hunting down a network…

Advanced Task Killer –> Many will say this is a must have to maintain battery life. I don’t find that to be the case…but it is a useful app nonetheless.

 

ShapeWriter –> This is really quite amazing…and after just a few minutes of practice, I find it to be a very fast method of text entry. 

GoogleVoice –> No screen shot yet…sorry.  But here is a helpful hint. If you are having trouble setting up Google Voice on your Android phone, and you are getting an error like this:

"We have a problem. Your Phone number could not be verified, please try again".

You may be like me.  Google Voice automatically populated my account email address and tried to configure with some sort of default…then it would fail. I followed instructions I found here:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=4dcecef9811a056f&hl=en

and it worked like a charm!  Here are instructions (credit to mbligh):

“I fixed this. I think it’s Google’s "interesting" login management, where though you have one email address, it can be multiple accounts on the backend

If you’re foo@bar.com and it asks you which account you want to use and that’s one of the options, pick "other address" and type foo@bar.com again and your password. Now it works.

Makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but still.”

Worked for me!

Must have accessories:

Invisible Shield http://www.zagg.com/

Chargers, Chargers, Chargers : )

Doubletwist application for your computer -> iTunes for Android…and will let you sync itunes music and library.

Tips:

Menu -> Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Mobile Networks: Uncheck “Enable always-on mobile data” to give major increase in battery life.  So far has not affected my real time receipt of Google Mail, Twitter, Facebook, or SMS notifications.

Install Bloo Facebook — just for Facebook notifications, but use the official Facebook App for other interaction.  This is a good workaround for the broken Facebook notifications until they get that fixed.

Alot of people are confused on how to get custom ring tones and alerts. I was too.  Create a folder in your storage (I did this on my sdcard) and call it "notifications".  Any audio files you dump in here will show up in your notification sounds options list.  Do the same for "ringtones" and you will have custom ringtones.  Ta-da!  (See my picture above for Astro in the apps section to see these two folders)

Settings –> About Phone –> Battery Has some great info! Want to know what your uptime to awake time stats are, or which of your activities consume the most of your battery…

 

 

Gripes:

Gmail is truncating my outbound forwarded email

Facebook for Android notifications not working. (see tips)

So far I haven’t found a way to cancel a download. More than once I have clicked a link on my Incredible (to make sure it was valid) just to end up downloading a large zip file from my own dropbox.  I can find no way to cancel the download…and I am forced to wait for it to complete..just to delete the file. 

The optical joystick is beginning to drive me nuts…It is fine until I use it…then it is like it sticks and continues to scroll when I don’t want it to.  It’s becoming really irritating.  I have cleaned it and with no benefit.

The phone washes out bad in direct sunlight. The screen may as well be blank in bright light…cuz I can’t see it anyway.

It’s a little buggy still…random app crashes here and there…some are default pre-installed apps, and others are downloaded apps.

Okay folks. Battery life is horrid.  Even when I do my best to not touch the beautiful phone for most of the day…I don’t think I could go a full day without having it see a charger. It’s beginning to influence my use of the device, because I want to try and conserve the battery.  Seems like a waste of great technology to not use it ever time I want,  right?

I can’t seem to upload pics to twitpic using the Twitter app, even though the app us trying top do that for me. It just hangs and never completes.