tablet – Cubicgarden.com…

My weird lucid dream: Google’s relaunch into tablets?

I had a strange dream last night… No not that kind of a dream!

I have been doing a number of sleeping/dreaming tests during the pandemic including trying build back up my ability to lucid dream.

With that, I had quite a amazing one last night (Wednesday 2nd Feb 2022)

I lucid dreamed I was seeing the Google’s new attempt at the tablet market. It was different size tablets, from 7inches to 13inches. I assume it might have been the news about root access to the remarkable 2 earlier the same day, which got me thinking. The noteworthy part of the dream was the sales room was in a traditional Japanese wooden house (complete opposite of apple’s white and glass stores) a distance from the centre of town, surrounded by lots grass and water. Plus the tablets were housed in wood rather than plastic or metal.

There were many pastel colours from yellow, purple, red, greens, browns and blacks. The tablets were quite thin but comfortable to hold. The tablet supported both finger control and a thin pen like stylus. The screen had some different kind of technology, like colour ink but a more vivid. I expected to see a new futuristic version of Android to be installed on picking one up. But instead was greeted with Fuchsia.

Other features? Multiple day battery, Google tensor chip, light to carry, usual wireless connections including bluetooth, wifi, nfc, 5g but no cameras and not waterproof only dust proof. All for 349 pounds?

Later the same day I heard the news story that Google is rethinking tablets again. Honestly had no idea but I don’t think for how great the tablets were I was dreaming, google is going to do wood tablets… or will they *wink*

Do I like my Likebook Mars ebook reader?

I recently bought the Likebook Mars ebook reader to replace my ENERGY SISTEM ebook reader. Why did I do this?

Well I liked my energy sistem as it was my very first android eink reader and fore-filled almost everything I was wishing for in a ereader. Its a great device but I found my reading habits changing. I mainly consume longer media content via audio or video rather than textual. I like text for reference, storage, retrieval and share ability. But my consumption was mainly aural. The Enegry sistem has no audio support at all, meaning I would use my phone for audio and occasionally look at the eink screen.

If I could have a ereader with audio too, that would be great for syncing and keep a track of things. Hence when I saw the Likebook (yeah I think its a silly name too) I consider it and bought it a few months later. Of course I’m selling my old ereader on ebay if interested.

After my research I knew I could do everything my previous one could do but also with the updated Android 6 operating system and more power might be able to run some apps which didn’t install or run previously. Its a very good device and the audio is spot on with my bluetooth headphones and a fallback analogue audio jack. At first I had some difficulty getting the google play store working but before I checked out the tutorials, I stumbled on the right settings, logged in and that was that.

The next problem wasn’t to do with the ereader but wallabag, which returned a error every time I synced. Finally after exporting then deleting a lot of archived pieces. This took a long time to diagnose and get sorted hence the long silence during the start of December on this blog.

Google play store on the likebook

Finally its all running correctly and I have almost everything on it.

I really like the fact there is now a lock screen because the previous one didn’t and I had to restrict a lot of its operations just incase. For example I disabled Gmail & Gdrive on it just incase. I know some of you will scream its running Android 6, so its game over anyway. But the previous one was running Android 4! I have taken care with the likebook but feel better about drivebys (as such). The amount of internal memory really helps as I can now stick ebooks and audiobooks on the same drive. Theres also a SD slot if more memory is ever needed. I can even put my VPN apps on it which is fantastic news.

Its a good device and now its settling down to its weeks of battery life after all the wallabag syncing.

IMG_20191220_191755

The only thing I miss really is the size of the device is 7.8 inches instead of 7 inches which makes it too big for my pockets including my jacket pocket. Weirdly enough, it almost fits in my headphones pouch, providing some protection from scratches in my laptop bag.

I like it so far… not quite over the mars about it but its growing on me.

Android eink tablets are a dream reader?

Energy Pro HD 6 vs Amazon kindle paperwhite 2

I recently bought a Energy Pro HD 6 inch tablet from Amazon (oh the irony) to kind of replace my Kindle Paperwhite 2.

I wrote about my thoughts previously in passing

I just discovered Wallabag to replace Instapaper. Before I was using readitlater which became Pocket. I switched to Instapaper because of the deliver a mobi ebook to kindle every morning feature (heck I pay for this feature). But since i’m considering a epaper display android tablet which means it could read anything including PDF, RSS, ePub and Mobi. Plus I wouldn’t lose my kindle books because the Amazon app will run on it too. Having a smarter epaper device will squeeze out instapaper and likely mean I will read even more than I currently do (well worth the investment). I still far prefer to read longer stuff on a epaper display.

but its time to dig more into it. Especially because there are quite a few people interested in a critical review

@cubicgarden oh my. Can I get a link, please? Or is it top secret, tester only hardware?

— Ben Gwalchmai (@BenGwalchmai) November 4, 2016

I heard about eink/epaper tablets running Android a while ago but hadn’t really done any more research. Then I saw a friend at work with one he just bought. I had a little play and pretty much decided I was getting one.

The tablet is multitouch (which is weird on a eink display), runs about the same rez as my kindle paperwhite. Its almost the exact size including the thinness. Unboxing was nice and you tell they had spent a little time thinking about that experience. Its also eink not epaper which most people won’t care about but eink is a registered product, and usually more expensive that epaper (which the Pebble watch for example uses).

Its battery life so far seems pretty good. I turned off notifications, turned on wifi and no shutdown mode which you can enable if you want stupid battery life. So as I write this, I have charged it once when unboxed and its on 71% battery and thats over 2 days ago. There is a standby mode it switches to after a while, once again this can be set and changed in the settings. The one thing which is a pain is you can’t set a actual lock, which is something to consider as you hook up your google account. I disabled my gmail and other things.

Putting in the google account details was a bit of a pain due to my very long password and 2 factor auth. I was tempted to put keepass on it but the keyboard is the default google jelly bean one and theres no auto suggest stuff. You don’t want to type a lot of stuff on this tablet, especially with the screen refreshing. Its good for short notes, but not writing a essay. If it had Bluetooth, you could connect a bluetooth keyboard but it doesnt.

That is the big advantage of the ereader/tablet. Unlike others, there is a massive store of apps which can be put on the device (including a lock screen I assume). Currently I have Wallabag, Instapaper, Greader, Tasks, Wikipedia, Simplenote, Google drive, Amazon Kindle and a couple more thing installed. It comes with a file manager, a epub/mobi/pdf book reader and few other things like a comic book reader.

I always wanted Kindle apps to take notes, etc but Amazon kept tight control over that SDK. Because of this the ecosystem of apps was super limited, making it almost useless. There are some apps which just don’t work on the ereader, mainly because they are built for Android 5.x (lollipop) upwards. The reader comes with a special launcher which is simple and mainly monotone, I can see it working for Android 4.4 (kitkat) but not Android 5, 6, 7 due to material designs user interface requirements. Not sure how security will work on this device, as Google isn’t doing patches for such old operating systems but thats another reason to keep it simple.

Another thing the ereader has is MicroSD storage. I threw all my ebooks on to a 1gig micro SD card and it indexed them all no problem. Sure I could put much higher storage in the device but 1gig holds a lot of ebooks, even PDFs. It also has the default Android mass storage file transfer and MTP mode when plugging in a MicroUSB cable for charging and storage. The backlight seems to be almost exactly the same as the Kindle paperwhite 2 with the same level of light but it seems brighter.

In the first few days of using this device, I’m amazed how useful it is and why I didn’t ditch my kindle earlier. Just the ability to read epubs on a eink screen makes it winner in my book. Actually reading books on it is simple and not much different that reading on the kindle. I did find the Amazon app painful to read with but its just the app chrome which isn’t setup to deal with eink displays. Greader and instapaper are almost perfect with the ability to use the volume buttons to control the page. The side keys on the device are really just volume keys, but the device has no sound at all. Having audio would be a massive plus agreed…

@cubicgarden Shame it doesn’t have headphone socket so you could seamlessly audible your kindle books.

— Brian Kellett (@Reynolds) November 5, 2016

I expect I’ll write another review in the coming months but right now I’m a big fan and can’t wait to drop this in jacket pocket instead of the kindle. Will have to think about who might want my 2nd hand kindle for xmas…?

Theres a much more detailed review of the Ereader vs the Kindle if thats what you are after right now. But expect a follow up…

Visual Calendar for Tablets

I have been looking for a way to combine calendaring, tasks and mindmaps. It just happened that I was searching around and found visual calendar for tablets.

Visually link the things you plan to do, creating logical chains. Think Mind Map for your project turned into actual tasks and dates, or events and appointments from your organizer presented in an intuitive, task-oriented way.
You can easily see all your events arranged in time, prioritized with color and categorized with icons, linked together.
Events created in Visual Calendar appear instantly in your Google Calendar. If you already have something planned in Google Calendar, Visual Calendar will import that in on first launch.

Its £3.99 but the feedback isn’t too hot. And I’ve not even considered the lock-in and portability issues

I can only assume because its a new concept and the app isn’t too mature. But I was wondering if it would be possible to take Mindmup and combine it with Google Calendar or something else?

Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 or 7+

There is something funny going on with Samsung Tablets… I swear the 7inch Galaxy tab line up is almost exactly the same every year… Actually the only thing which seems to change is the operating system?

The new Galaxy Tab 3 has the exact same specs and screen resolution as the Galaxy Tab 2, and that is very similar to my own Galaxy Tab 7+

I’m sure my Galaxy 7+ running CyanogenMod 10.1 is the same as the Galaxy tab 3.

Android 4.2 here I am

Rooted my first generation Kindle Fire and installed an Android 4.2.2 ROM. It's like having a new device.

I had enough of waiting for Samsung to officially update the Samsung Tab 7+ to Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). So one night when not able to sleep I rooted my Tab 7+. Its very easy to root and with something like AirDroid (which I swear by since Android doesn’t support mass storage anymore) its even easier. Yes middle of the night at about 4am, I looked over and thought I reckon its time I just rooted the Tablet. Within a 30mins I had found the correct files and done the rooting. Then went back to sleep…

About a month later, Android 4.0.4 was bugging me, specially since I have Andorid 4.1 (Jelly Bean) on my HTC One X phone. What bugged me the most wasn’t the Samsung touchwiz crazyness, it was a bug in the copy and paste system which Samsung are not going to fix until the Jelly Bean update. The bug meant copy and paste failed to work at all!

So I found decent up to date instructions and went through the process and installed the latest and greatest… Thank you cyanogenmod for once again extending the life of devices. Crazy to think it shipped with Android 3 (Honeycomb) and its now up 3 versions to Android 4.2 already. Root your devices people!

Of course before my phone was ahead and now its behind, so expect there to be some midnight rooting once HTC Sense bugs me enough.

Pacemaker playback

Some of you may have noticed my tweets about finally getting a Blackberry Playbook.

Some of you maybe wondering why the hell I bought one of those?

Well the truth is the original pacemaker guys (Olof Berglof, Jonas Norberg and Willem Demmers) sent me one after my experience of the pacemaker app during Over The Air earlier in summer. Blackberry/RIM suggested they might send me one but after the blog post, they pretty much didn’t want anything else to do with me. Bear in mind, this was after I asked them to send me the playbook to test out before I got to Over the Air.

Anyway after the blog post, I shared it with the un-official pacemaker community which had started when Tonium wouldn’t answer any of the questions. This is where the original pacemaker guys (now free after Tonium) saw it and got in touch with me.

The guys admitted the version I was using was a early beta and it was a lot more stable now. We got talking and they agreed to send me a playbook maybe they felt it was the right thing to do or they wanted to keep me involved in the pacemaker community. Either way I’m happy to say I got one thanks to the Pacemaker guys! And its running the Pacemaker App Trial right now.

I won’t talk about my frustration with the actual playbook. Including how the mass storage mode failed to work on Ubuntu and how I had to transfer my music collection over wifi using Samba till I discovered this USB hack. Weird thing is it was just as slow. I won’t talk about the pain of trying to get the latest OS update but it not letting me till the battery was over 20% (I left it over night charging in the end). Finally I won’t talk about the pain of getting a blackberry ID.

The Pacemaker trial is rightly so much more stable than the version I experienced before. Its not crashed on me and it does seem a lot more together. But I have to say I still find some of the latency problems are still there (maybe Android 4.1 Butter is needed but you would have thought QNX would be ideal for this). For example don’t try and do hard cuts with the crossfader as you will be very disappointed. The layout makes a little more sense now but I’m finding lots of things are missing from the pacemaker device including recording, effects and of course external output to a mixer. The later means everything you do is played out over the headphones or split into mono.

The Pacemaker guys are going to put me on the beta list so hopefully I’ll get a feel for changes and progression soon enough. Right now, its a much poorer relation to the pacemaker device. There is no way I could play out with this, only have a play now and then when in the mood. Still early days and the pacemaker guys have done some great stuff, but I do wonder if it will get good at the point the platform goes away or dissolves. Of course the Pacemaker guys can’t/won’t talk about beyond the playbook but I’m already thinking of solutions around the dual stereo output problem involving usb sound cards or even 2 devices (phone and tablet anyone?)

I’m greatful to the Pacemaker guys for what they did, its really cool. Because although I was thinking about buying a cheap playbook, after my experience I was dead set against Blackberry and the playbook. Good to know certainly people can take feedback on the chin and move forward…

Replacement for those #kindle tweets

I use to tweet from my Kindle to tweet interesting things I was reading but people and followers complained there was no link to the actual article or post. And to be honest they were right.

Its frustrating that the Kindle can do so much but Amazon’s ecosystem refuses to support self-published content.

However I finally given up on the Kindle for tweeting interesting news bits. Don’t get me wrong, its still my device for long form reading – because frankly the e-ink screen is still the best screen to read text on for me.

This change was made easier with GReader and Plume Twitter client on the Samsung 7+ Tablet. Plume will hold the twitter messages in a queue till I get back online, which is usually at home or work. This also slightly eases the need to enable wifi teathering on my HTC One X (something I can no longer do, till I root it).

The only issue is, when I’m finally back online, all the tweets are posted one after another, which can look like a bit of a tweet flood to some.

I’m also thinking about paying for Instapaper because its rather handy for sending stuff to my kindle (I know I can do it via the free.kindle.com address but I quite like the fact it groups them and sends one a day when theres something new). On top of that Ars Technica’s subscription model isn’t so bad. And access to the full text RSS feeds would be very handy.

Over the Air on the Blackberry Playbook Live

Samsung Galaxy Tab 7++

I finally got a tablet from Samsung, the 7.0 plus. You may not know but I was holding out for a Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 when the 10.1 was released. I remember seeing the Motorola Xoom and thinking that it was a shocking size. Then Apple started getting itchy in the court with Samsung… Anyway after a few months Samsung announced they were creating a 7.7 version but once again it was like gold dust due to the (poor) Apple court case.

I’ve always liked the old Samsung Tab 7 but running Android Froyo (Android 2.1) was never going to be a goer for me. Even with the OS upgrades. Specially because I already have a Archos 7.0, which I bought a while ago for the sake of having a very nice XBMC remote. Even weirder, the Samsung Tab 7 always seemed to hold its value, even with the new Galaxy Tabs.

Finally Samsung upgraded the Tab 7 with Android Honeycomb (Android 3) to a dual processor, lots more memory and space. Then named it 7 plus to avoid confusion with the 7.7 which is still not available in the UK (as far as I can tell).

Long story short – I’m finally got it and am somewhat happy with it.

Everyday I kind of want to root it and put Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4) on it. Honeycomb is nice but I find the Samsung Touchwiz stuff painful. Even more painful than HTC’s sense. I’d heard bad things about Touchwiz but never experienced it till now. I assume it won’t be long till I root it at this pace.

The tablet size is good and fits nicely in the same pockets as my Kindle. Yes its quite a lot heavier but very comfortable to hold and use. Compare to my Archos, its runs super smooth. For what I need it to do, it works great. I also finally worked out how to install apps which I’ve already paid for, which is good to know.

I HATE the proprietary power/data connection. For years I’ve laughed at Apple iOS users for there proprietary connection and now I have to feel the same pain (thanks a bloody lot Samsung) I really hope they also have to do a micro USB dongle for the EU too. I’ve not really found a reason for the IR port yet, but I can imagine it replacing my universal and Wifi remote.

The tablet does sometimes reset its self but reboots quickly, I assume its something to do with Touchwiz personally. Generally the Tablet or slate as I prefer is great and I may have to loose my Archos Tablet to a ebay auction soon. It doesn’t replace my Kindle which still has that super light and amazingly readable screen. Actually its great to push stuff from the Tab to the Kindle for committable reading…

So generally I’m happy and making full use of it at work. Its good, ~~now if only~~ Samsung would bring Android 4 to it, ~~if not Cyanogen is my friend~~.

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