Tag: android

HTC Incredible is incredible

The story is simply crazy, a man (Garber) takes a stray bullet outside a club in illinois and instead of it hitting him, his phone takes the bullet. Believe it or not its a HTC incredible.

According to the Associated Press, Garber was working at Club Halo when two men were thrown out of the club. Police say that the men allegedly ventured over to a car, grabbed some weapons and began to shoot indiscriminately in the direction of the club.

One of the bullets went through Garber’s coat and was about to do him severe damage. Suddenly, it was intercepted by his HTC phone (yes, it was a Droid Incredible), which he had put into the chest pocket of his jacket.

Garber’s coat is now adorned with a bullet hole. The top left corner of his red cell phone battery now enjoys a dent that signifies it wouldn’t let the bullet through.

No one was injured in this shooting and police happened to be near the club and managed to chase down the alleged shooters, from whose car they reportedly recovered two handguns.

Garber told the AP: "It’s just one of those crazy things in life."

Virtual goods on display

I was talking to Si Lumb on one of our short get togethers (really need to get together more with him, as we always cover so much)

We got talking about many things including… [1][2][3][4]

ideas on how virtual wardrobes, bookshelves and DVD racks are an area ripe for a startup UIs for filtering, sorting and organising are in massive need of a makeover, as digital browsing is awful. where are the "experience" adventures, like the film "The Game"? Surely there’s a market? Why can’t movies make more of the "trial" approach – give away the opening scene instead of trailer lies

 How conditioning to multitask/multiscreen makes watching passively feel antiquated. Why Red Dead Redemption is an amazing achievement yet inaccessible to girls because of gunplay & controls. On game completion: why Portal is something you have to play the whole way through and deserves the time. TV box sets and why 6 seasons of 25 episodes is a real commitment – and is it really worth it?

In short we covered a lot including some of the thoughts we had on Digitalization of the DVD rack.

The problem is when you have mainly digital or virtual goods, how do you show and share your collection with friends and family?

I’ve been thinking about how to show my media collections in the real world. On XBMC, there is a great screensaver which shows all the fan art/backdrops on your machine as a slow slideshow. Great but I don’t always have my TV on and energy wise its hardly very efficient. So I’ve been thinking, since I learned about sharethe.tv. It might be possible to push this information to a digital photoframe.

In actual fact, I had planned to buy a special wifi connected photoframe today at the local currys/pcworld clearance centre to do the task. But forgot after my scooter ride turned very cold out near Huddersfield.

The thinking is I can create a feed (some how) which the photoframe will accept. In actual fact with a bit of XSL knowhow, it should be possible to create a combination of the information of the movie from IMDB with the fan art of TMDB.

Ultimately I’d like to experiment with a Android Tablet like the Samsung Galaxy Tab running a cut-down/custom Android XBMC remote. Of course I’m not the only one who is thinking this, other hackers have tried the XBMC remote on a android tablet. But no ones really developed a photoframe interface optimized for showing your collection.

A few things got me smiling the last few days

Google Docs are now editable on Android and iOS devices. This means I can finally go a head with my plans for a special niche type of service.

Paypal unveil Micropayments at 5% per 5cents. No idea how much that will be in pound but it doesn’t sound too bad. Of course Facebook have already signed up hoping to get some virtual good action

App sharing

Android phone

App referrer sends app links to your friends via qr codes via Lifehacker

We’ve all been in that situation: you’re sitting next to your friend, with both your phones out, and you tell them about this "awesome new app you found". Then he or she has to pull up the Market and manually search for the app ("What’s it called?" "Space or no space?" "It’s spelled with leet speak?"). There are a number of ways to share files and apps between phones, but App Referrer keeps it simple—you don’t need to set up any kind of connection between the phones, just open it up, tap the app you want to send, and it’ll generate a Market QR code that they can scan right then and there.

I stood up at Mix 2009 (the Microsoft developer conference in Las Vegas) and said to the Windows mobile team,

One of the benefits you have with Windows Mobile is the CAB format (Cabinet). You can share the CABs with friends over email, email, bluetooth, etc… Yes its not as sexy as the apple store but when you want to share an app it just works and you don’t want to give directions on how to download it on the app store. Microsoft should keep that format and allow people to share apps if there free on the app store.

Did they listen to me? No… They followed the Apple model and forced people to download from the app store. I told them they were crazy, people were using bluetooth to share apps and media. Anyway, I’m happy that I wasn’t the only one thinking this.

App referrer is interesting but one thing I noticed on my Android phone was an app (HTC or Orange) called App sharing. You can share via,

  • Bluetooth
  • Evernote
  • Facebook
  • My Friends Stream
  • MMS
  • EMail/Gmail
  • Text
  • Twitter
  • Read it Later
  • Delicious
  • WordPress

I guess when you do any of these it sends a APK file, just like I suggested to Microsoft back in Las Vegas…!

Fact is App sharing makes sense (specially when the app is free), why force people to the app store to get the same app as there friends…? Crazy! I swear theres some lessons which can be learned from the pirates dilemma.

Simple VPN – Hamachi vs Remobo vs Wippien

I use to love Hamachi, it use to simply work and it was very secure. The only problem is it got picked up by log me in and therefore hasn’t been developed in the way I would have liked. The Windows version has been developed but the linux and mac version are lagging behind in the lab. I also would like to see a Android app like how someone created a Windows mobile version.

So I looked into alternatives because to be frank, I still don’t really understand PPTP VPN or IPSEC VPN.

The two I’ve seen which are similar to Hamachi is n2n, Remobo and Wippien.

  • N2N – I just don’t quite get. It sounds fantastic but not at a mature enough stage right now. It requires a lot of manual effort to get up and running. And to be fair it didn’t work for me.
  • Remobo – Has a Gui but for some reason it won’t auto-loggin on ubuntu in so I have to enter the details each time I reboot. This is not great when you have it running on a server with limited access like no monitor. Once they fix that problem and finish the command line version, I may consider switching.
  • Wippien – Seems pretty good it uses xmpp to do the connection but you can’t join the network on the linux version because you can add new users. So unfortunately I wasn’t able to use it or test it. Very frustrating because I had high hopes for this one.

So right now, I’m going to stick with Hamachi but my eyes are certainly looking else where. Wippien and Remobo once mature and add real support for Linux, then Hamachi should be worried, theres some stiff competition coming.

The official XBMC android remote control

I downloaded the official Android XBMC remote a little while after using another android remote control for quite a while.

When I first saw it I thought whats so special about this remote which makes it the official xbmc remote?

Well that was before one day I was watching Breaking Bad catching up with the seasons and my phone rang but not only that the show paused and a little xbmc popup came up saying exactly who was ringing with a little icon. I was so shocked I actually missed the call. This was followed with a text message from my voicemail service saying I had a new message. It was so seamless and I had no idea the android remote had this built in, so I looked through the settings and found these interesting options.

  • Statusbar notification
  • Show incoming SMS
  • Show incoming calls

If that wasn’t impressive enough, the check list for features is something out of a dream. Here’s a couple of the most interesting ones.

  • Control XBMC’s volume directly with your device’s volume buttons
  • Manage multiple XBMC instances
  • On incoming call, display who’s calling on TV screen and pause video until call is over
  • On incoming message, display on TV screen
  • Setting that prevents your phone locking the screen. You can apply it either for remote control only or all screens (or disable it completely)
  • Cover art is shown where available
  • Play and queue albums, songs, genre selections and much more directly without having to turn on your TV. For instance it’s possible to queue/play all songs from an artist but of a certain genre.
  • Displays movie poster and actor thumbs where available.
  • Play trailer from details page where available.
  • Coming soon theres also some more really interesting features…
  • Boxee compatibility
  • Download media locally to device’s SD card
  • Stream media to device
  • Rating support in Now playing
  • Last.FM integration

All this functionality has really made me give up the wii-mote as the preferred method of controlling XBMC. I’d suggest a couple more things like trans-coding (so you can take away a copy which isn’t multiple gigabytes), send to xbmc (bit like send to xbmc or xbmcfox), a locale plug-in (might be handy), a proximity sensor option (if you walk out the room for example it will pause or even stop after a while xbmc) and the ability to see additional media or even fansubs on the device its self.

Welcome to Steve Jobs distortation field, where open is closed

infrastructures

Steve jobs is a tricky figure, theres no doubt about that. When he talks, you can feel the distortion field emerging from everything chosen word he uses. As I’ve always said Steve Jobs and Apple are against choice and therefore freedom. Evidence? Well theres tons this week…

Steve jobs slagged off Android saying Android is too difficult to build for due to many different types of handsets. He then said "Twitterdeck" (yeah I know – think he meant Tweetdeck, has he got any clue about social media? This wouldn’t be a problem if he didn’t use it as a example) was having a nightmare developing for Android.

Steve Jobs’ amateur sleuthing last night brought up that gorgeous TweetDeck chart showing the vast variety of Android handsets out there, which the Apple CEO used to illustrate the "daunting challenge" he perceives developers have to face when creating apps that work across all devices and OS builds for the platform. Only problem with his assertion (aside from Steve calling the company TwitterDeck)? His opposite number on the TweetDeck team thinks nothing could be further from the truth: "we only have 2 guys developing on Android TweetDeck so that shows how small an issue fragmentation is."

Next evidence.

"Let’s talk about the avalanche of tablets. First, there are only a few credible competitors. And they all have seven-inch screen. This size isn’t sufficient to create great tablet apps."

"And this size is useless unless you include sandpaper so users can sand their fingers down to a quarter of their size. We’ve done extensive testing and 10 inches is the minimum tablet size."

"Given that tablet users will have a smartphone in their pocket, there’s no point in giving up screen size. Seven inch tablets are tweeners — too big to be a phone, and too small to compete with the iPad."

What a load of crap, if people want something smaller then the Android tablets are ideal to serve them. In Steve Jobs head, a 12inch tablet might be ideal but for the rest of us, its too big and too heavy to be really useful. Once again choice is the key word here. If you like the idea of smaller tablets, then Apple isn’t offering you the choice. Most iPad users I speak to wonder when the camera version is coming.

Even more crap…

We think this open versus closed argument is a smokescreen that hides the real question: What’s better for users, fragmented versus integrated?

"We believed integrated will trump fragmented every time."

"We are very committed to the integrated approach, no matter how many times Google characterizes it as closed, and we believe that it will triumph over the fragmented approach, no matter how any times Google characterizes it as open."

Android is fragmented, we all knew it would happen but thats not a excuse to give up your choice. I have friends who would like a physical keyboard why penalize them for this? For some people the touch screen isn’t friendly, but steve jobs doesn’t care about them. In actual fact its "Its my way or the highway!"

iOS is closed and google are right to call it so.

Finally in Q&A

One of these days we’ll eventually learn the Android numbers, and I imagine we’ll compete with them for a very long time. But we have very different approaches — ours is to make devices that just work.

Oh yeah of course just work? I’m very sure Android developers are thinking the same. Your not alone in that steve. No in actual fact your only interested in telling people through hardware and software how to live there lives.

Welcome to the steve jobs distortion field…

A great app that will never be on the iphone? Locale

In March 2005, Judge Robert Restaino jailed 46 people when a mobile phone rang in his New York courtroom and no one would admit responsibility.

So we invented Locale. Problem solved.

Locale in action

Locale was recommended to me by my good friend Sheila. And within a moment of playing with it I started thinking wow this app can do so much for me.

Locale simply makes the android phone do (setting) something when a set condition is triggered (situation). And thats about it. But this is the clever part, there are loads of plugins to make locale work in different ways.

One of my current favorites is the speak Text and Email setting which does just that. When I’m at home, I usually have the phone next to me on the sofa or on the coffee table. Using "say my name" it will speak the email or text out loud to me, so I don’t even have to look or touch the phone. Of course it also says the person calling if thats the case.

The problem is I don’t want my phone to read out messages when I’m in a public place. But this is easily solved with Locale!

I have a situation setup to say if the phone spots my ssid for wireless and/or its pluged in via usb and charging. Then change the setting to allow speaking aloud and reading my messages.

Its that easy!

One of the most common situations I’ve seen and setup myself is to turn on wifi when at home (once again using the SSID) and turn it off when your not near wifi again. I also added a setting to change the ring volume if I’m at home and when I’m not.

There are tons of conditions and sensors which can be bought and setup. From Battery, Bluetooth and Cell stations to Time, Orientation and SSID for the conditions. Volume, Sync, Brightness, Gtalk, Lock, Ringtone, Wallpaper, Wifi are some of the settings which can be tweaked based on the condition (and these are just the free ones).

I said a long time ago, (maybe before I started blogging even) that controlling your profile on the phone would be the key to mastering it. Problem was that changing profiles required too much attention. I mean who has the time or can be bothered to change the profile each time they walk into a meeting or get on the bus? Instead Locale does all the hard work by turning your phone into a series of cleverly thought out sensors…

…and this is just the start. I keep coming up with interesting uses for locale like for example if I was on Foursquare, gowalla or facebook places. I could tell my phone to automatically send a http post to a url when I’m in the location (by gps, 3g, ssid, etc) to automatically sign me in to a location.

So why is this great application not available on the iphone platform?

  1. Well the iphone doesn’t have profiles!? Why?! I have no idea… I guess Apple thought they were being clever or smart
  2. And even if it did have profiles, would Apple allow you to screw around with the defaults? I doubt it…
  3. Even if they would, the apps don’t seem to work together like on the android operating system. For example could you write a app which will turn on and turn off the wifi?
  4. Oh and if that all works, would you be able to do real multitasking and backgrounding to allow locale monitor the conditions of the phone at all times?

The control of the operating system, is squeezing the innovation at the app level. Heck i’m not the only one saying this. And this level of control will ultimately be the downfall of the iOS platform (imho).

do you have a desire for froyo too?

Today my HTC desire made a weird noise and I looked at the screen to find it wanted to download a massive update and it was asking if it should use wifi or a combination of 3g and wifi. Looking at the update it was trying to download, I saw those magical word… FROYO!

Yep for ages I’ve been waiting for Froyo because although I love my desire phone, I keep running out of space. Which is stupid because I got a 8gig micro Sd card in the device but for some reason android pretty much ignores it. Froyo came out a while ago with the perfect solution for using the Sd card for apps, but I’ve had to wait for Orange and HTC to put up a update before I could upgrade.

Anyway time for the upgrade… i’ll let you know how it goes

If you want to upgrade yourself, there’s a quick and easy way to do it. (I wish I’d done it myself a while ago to be honest)

  1. Download the Android 2.2 firmware for the Desire – here is the link to download
  2. Rename the file update.zip and copy it to your microSD card via USB. [Note: make sure the file is named update.zip and not update.zip.zip.]
  3. Power down your Desire
  4. Hold down the “Volume Down” button as you power the phone back on.
  5. A screen should appear showing your phone’s system searching for various files. Scroll down to “recovery” and press the “Power” button.
  6. When you see the triangle with an exclamation point symbol, press the “Power” and “Volume Up” buttons at the same time.
  7. From the menu that appears, select “Apply sdcard:update.zip.”
  8. When the screen displays “Install from sdcard complete” select “reboot system now” and wait for the phone to power back up.

I can happily say I’m upgraded and enjoying Android Froyo, thanks Google, HTC and Orange.

The best phone I’ve ever owned so far…

HTC desire

So I finally got my HTC desire from Orange.  It took a bit longer that expected due to Orange changing the upgrade process but I finally laid my hands on this sweet handset.

I was comparing it to my old HTC Touch Hd 1 which also now runs Android thanks to the amazing job the guys at Xda developers have done. Although they have sorted out the scrolling issue and started to get the bluetooth working it good to finally have a real android phone. And you can’t go wrong with the snapdragon 1ghz processor, it really makes things go along super smoothly. Some more memory would not go a miss but generally its fine.

I can honestly say this is the best phone I’ve ever had. Its so good move away from the windows mobile camp and I thought I might have to give up some of the features like the usb tethering option but its still there thankful. Theres also a ton of tethering apps which I can use if it wasn’t included. I’m so glad I switched over as this operating system is something else.  My next step is to root the phone because I want to mess with the inners of the phone a little bit. So hopefully that will be a simple task….

I know the iphone4 was out at the same time but honestly I couldn’t buy one even if it had a better resolution than any other phone on the market. I did consider other phones but to be honest there was little else on the market to consider except the sonyericsson’s and samsung’s. The iphone4 may have the better screen but to be honest its a nightmare for a user like myself. The whole iTunes integration means the phone has no chance with my current operating system (Ubuntu) and why would I lower myself to that type of integration when theres a better way? I really did put my Apple hate to the back of my mind and reviewed the iphone4 on practical grounds and it was certainly not for me.

My own grumble about the desire is the USB connection which is micro USB instead of mini USB, which means I got loads of USB mini cables which are now pretty useless. I should get a few adapter because I got so many of them and only one Micro cable. Very tiny grumble but one never a less, at least its correct with the EU regulation now.

I’m looking to hopefully sell my old Hd1 but to be honest if the price is right I’ll sell it to CEX, although the idea of selling it as a android compatible device is a little far fetched for now. Give me a shout if your interested in buying it.