last100 » Android Market

Three things that I hate about Android #fail

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:29:22 +0000

Let me preface this by saying that there is a lot to like about Android and that the smartphones being powered by the Google-led OS are going to get better and better. I’m especially excited by the UI customization that HTC and Motorola, for example, have been developing on top of Android, testament to the mobile OS’s overall potential and, of course, openness.

(I’m expecting a loan of the social networking savvy HTC Hero later today, thanks to UK carrier Orange. A full review of the Hero should follow shortly.)

However, having lived with the Vodafone HTC Magic for a few months now, there are a few things that really bug me about the standard version of Android. Yes, this is going to be a bit of rant.

1. Notifications and Gmail

Two areas where Android is supposed to excel: Background notifications and integration with Gmail. Firstly, I’m not a big fan of the notifications draw of Android as I find the “finger-friendly” target of the draw itself to be a bit fiddly to hit and drag open at times. And even though the draw is accessible no matter which app you currently have open or in view, dragging it down every time to view the full list of notifications or any meaningful info gets old really quick. That said, I can just about live with the notifications draw itself but the way Gmail alerts are implemented makes me want to throw my HTC Magic under a bus. Let explain.

I receive a new email and the email icon appears at the top of the screen.

Fine.

I click and drag open the notifications draw to read the first line of the email and who it’s from.

So far, so good.

I then click on the email, expecting to be taken to the Gmail app and to the full email itself, but instead I’m dropped into the Gmail in-box where I have to click on the same email again to read the full content. That’s right, the Google phone can’t do efficient Gmail notifications. The standard Android homescreen is also useless when it comes to email alerts, especially compared to my Nokia E71 or any standard Symbian S60 phone.

2. Third-party app updates

I’ve virtually given up updating the majority of my third-party apps that I’ve downloaded from the Android Market. That’s because every app update — these are very frequent, which is a good thing — involves at least two clicks for each app. First to initiate the update and second to, once again, give the app all of its required permissions. This is really tedious to do when you have lots of third-party apps installed.

In contrast, the iPhone and iPod touch gives the option to ‘update all’, a one-click procedure.

Of course, Apple has the advantage of vetting all apps in the App Store, presumably negating the need for the user to check the list of required permissions with each and every app update to see if they have been sneakily changed. But still, there must be a better way.

3. Android Market and Google Checkout

I haven’t bought a single third-party app for my Android phone. And believe me, I’ve tried. The reason is that the Android Market requires a Google Checkout account. Of course I have one of these but bizarrely it’s not accepted by Google’s mobile app store. When I signed up to Checkout, I used a non-standard Gmail address (instead, one powered by a “Google Apps for your domain” account), which works fine for all of my Checkout purchases elsewhere on the Web but not through the Android Market.

There you have it. Let me know your own Android gripes in the comments…

Image Credit: Notifications draw – Techradar.com

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10 best apps currently running on my Android phone (HTC Magic)

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:19:53 +0000

I’ve only owned an Android OS-based phone for a few weeks – the HTC Magic (see my review) – but even in this relatively short amount of time I’ve been hitting Google’s mobile app store, the Android Market, pretty hard in search for the best and most useful third party apps the platform has to offer. Overall, I’ve found that Android has a lot going for it in terms of third-party apps – the catalog is growing daily – but compared to the iPhone the apps themselves often lack polish and sometimes feel a bit unfinished. Having said that, there are in most cases, based on functionality alone, a comparable app on either platform. Here’s a list of the best 10 third-party apps (in no particular order) currently running on my HTC Magic.

iMeem Mobile

The Android client for Imeem (a music streaming service) is one the most polished apps on the platform. You may not be familiar with iMeem but it’s a great alternative to Pandora (which is blocked here in the UK) or Last.fm. Talking of the latter, it also offers a good Android app but I still prefer iMeem.

beebPlayer

Sadly, the BBC haven’t gotten around to releasing an official iPlayer app for Android (the broadcaster’s 7 day TV catch-up service) but an unofficial offering has stepped in to fill the void. It’s not quite as smooth an experience as official support would offer but it still works pretty well most of the time. As well as catch up TV (streaming only) you can also access live TV and radio on the same basis as the official site.

Movie Finder

Either via GPS or by manually entering a postcode (or zip), Movie Finder tells you what movies are playing at your local cinema. You can view either by movie theater or film to find out what’s showing and where, with full screen video trailers and other info from IMDB included.

Movies (Flixster)

If the movie info provided by Movie Finder isn’t enough or you want to delve into Cinema’s past, then the official Flixster client is a must. The app also offers a similar movie listings feature as Movie Finder, along with Rotten Tomato reviews, trailers and more.

StumbleVideo

The StumbleUpon video app for Android – StumbleVideo – is dead simple and replicates the functionality offered by the desktop or Wii-optimized browser versions. Random videos are displayed and you can give it a thumbs up or down after watching, and you can browse by category etc. It’s a great time waster and offers a really nice alternative to Android’s YouTube client if you’re looking for a more lean back experience.

Qik

The Qik client for Android enables you to stream a live video broadcast to the web using your phone’s built-in video camera. Alternatively, videos shot can be uploaded to Facebook, Twitter etc.

AccuWeather

Borring I know but every mobile phone needs a weather app and AccuWeather’s Android app is a decent one. Once again, weather forecasts can be displayed via GPS location or a manual search, up to five days ahead.

TubeStatus

This one is only relevant to Londoners: TubeStatus gives you the latest info on any interruptions to the UK capital city’s undrground (metro) service, including scheduled closers and maintenance to lines and stations.

Twidroid

Twidroid is a fairly decent Twitter client for Android, although I wish you could increase the font size. Lots of functionality, including @ replies, DMs, browsing of profiles, TwitPic uploads etc.

Podcasts

A much needed and pretty robust podcast client for Android. It provides a podcast directory, along with the ability to manually enter feed URLs. And of course, video podcasts look great on the HTC Magic’s 3.2 inch screen.

I’ve only scratched the surface here and would really appreciate comments suggesting other apps I should check out. Thanks!

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Review: HTC Magic (Google Ion, T-Mobile myTouch 3G)

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:24:08 +0000

It goes by many names. The HTC Magic on Vodafone here in the UK, Google Ion, when handed out as a freebie at the search giant’s developer conference, and the myTouch 3G on T-Mobile in the states. But, whichever way you slice it, the second Android-powered Google phone, manufactured by HTC, is an improvement over the original T-Mobile G1 in almost every way.

Where the original G1 is clunky, in part due to its death-trap of a slide-out keyboard – OK I exaggerate but only slightly – the HTC Magic is relatively slim with subtle curves and a much reduced “chin”, which is a universal complaint of the G1.

Of course, without a physical keyboard, the Magic has to compromise with an on-screen QWERTY – more on that below – but doesn’t do away with hardware keys altogether. There’s call start and end, as well as ‘home’, ’search’ (it is a “with Google” phone after all) and dedicated ‘menu’ and ‘back’ buttons. These, particularly the latter two, when combined with the clickable BlackBerry-style scroll ball means that, for the most part, the Magic can be operated one-handed. This is something that I struggle with on the iPhone and many other touch-screen only devices, and the slightly narrower width of the phone – due to its smaller 3.2 inch screen – also makes it more comfortable to hold in one hand and that bit more pocketable, although, admittedly, this is very subjective.

On the Magic’s touch screen itself, it’s a joy to use. Like the iPhone, it’s capacitive rather resistive, responding to the natural electrical charges emitted by a finger rather than using pressure to register a touch. It’s bright with vibrant colors and, despite being smaller, the screen resolution also matches the iPhone’s 480 x 320. One thing I noticed, however, is that the touchscreen doesn’t seem quite as responsive near the edges. Finger smudges also quickly become an issue but this is common with all touch screen (and even some non-touch screen) models.

A few immediate complaints hardware-wise: The 3.2 megapixel camera is very average – and that’s being generous – and HTC’s insistence on omitting a standard 3.5 inch headphone jack in place of its all-in-one USB port used for headphones, charging and data transfer, makes a mockery of the phone’s media playback ambitions (the included buds are lousy). There’s also very little on-board storage, and although Vodafone’s Magic offering does come with a 2GB microSD card, it wasn’t long before I replaced it with an 8GB one.

On the software-side, and this is increasingly the battleground for today’s smartphones-come-mini computers, the HTC Magic uses the latest “Cupcake” 1.5 version of Android, which introduces a number of UI improvements, new features (such as video recording) and of course that virtual keyboard.

Talking of which, it’s pretty good as far as on-screen keyboards go (I’m not generally a fan). The auto-suggestion feature works well, offering a number of suitable choices in a strip just above and haptic feedback (a slight vibration) can be optionally turned on. When the phone is in portrait mode the keyboard is pretty cramped, switching over to landscape naturally works a lot better.

As you’d expect from a part Google branded phone, integration with the search giant’s own PIM apps is seamless. Just enter your Gmail credentials, and email, calendar and contacts are synced over-the-air, including their avatars, which show up in the Magic’s address book and caller ID. It works just like Apple’s MobileMe but without the cost. Updates can be constantly pushed to the phone in the background or can be toggled on or off on a per-application basis.

There’s also a very robust and feature-rich version of Google Maps, including street view and the location-aware social network Latitude. Using the phone’s built-in compass you can also operate street view as if you are there, which is fun if a bit gimmicky.

Photos taken with the phone’s camera can be uploaded to Picasa and videos shot, to YouTube. There’s also a native client for the video sharing site, with the option to view in low or high quality. The former is designed to conserve bandwidth when on 3G, the latter more suited to WiFi. All very nice, all very Google.

Third-party apps are a bit of mixed bag. There’s tons of potential and the Android Market, Google’s own app store, is really easy to use and has certainly filled up since I first looked at the G1. Having said that, I challenged my iPhone touting friend to pick 10 of his most used third-party iPhone apps and I’d try and find an equivalent on the Magic. For the most part I succeeded – streaming radio, podcast client, Twitter, London Underground status, cinema times etc. – but the iPhone choices are many and a great deal more polished.

This reflects not only the success of Apple in attracting developers to the iPhone but also perhaps the different approaches the developer tools take themselves. Apple, I’m told, provides a lot more out-of-the-box help with UI / look and feel than Android does.

A few areas where the Magic definitely trumps the iPhone: The app store (Android Market) feels more open, so for example, there’s a BitTorrent remote control app that has the same functionality that got a similar app banned from the iPhone App Store. You can also bypass the store altogether and download apps from anywhere on the web if you’re willing to ignore the security warnings.

The Magic, when plugged into a computer can be put into USB mass storage mode so that the phone shows up as a USB hard drive for easy transfer both ways of music, photos, video or any other file type. In other words, you don’t need to be tethered to iTunes. Media playback is pretty much on-par with the iPhone in terms of file format support – sans DRM – and any MP4 video file I threw at it that had been formatted for iPhone/iPod just worked.

Sadly, though, you can’t transfer files via Bluetooth to a PC or other phone, one sign of Android’s immaturity as a mobile OS.

Multi-tasking and background notifications is another area were the Magic performs well, and prior to iPhone OS 3.0, definitely beats Cupertino’s best efforts. However, I’m not sure this is the case anymore. Although the iPhone’s ‘push’ solution is still a bit of a fudge for managing multitasking and notifications, judging by the Magic’s limited battery life – if background syncing is on for Google apps and third-party goodness, let alone home screen widgets that pull in data from the web – Apple could be right in limiting the way the iPhone handles its always-on connectivity.

I also think Android’s notification system is kind of inefficient. An icon appears at the top of the screen to indicate a new email, for example, but you still need to drag that draw open to view the first line and click on it to launch the phone’s Gmail app where you’re taken not to the full email message itself but to the in-box. Worse still, the Magic’s home screen doesn’t show the most recent emails either, even though there are numerous home screen widgets for almost everything else (weather, twitter etc.)

I’ve purposely left the best to last. The Magic’s Android web browser is closest to iPhone’s yet, although I haven’t tried the Palm Pre, which also gets favorable comparisons. Admittedly, there’s no multi-touch (pinch to zoom) or double tapping but the on-screen zoom in and out controls that appear when you move around the page work fine. You can also copy and paste links, save images, open multiple windows but, frankly, its the speed and quality of rendering and the fluidity when scrolling or moving around the page that impresses most.

Again, like the iPhone, Flash isn’t supported, although the included YouTube client and other available third-party video apps (StumbleUpon, iPlayer etc.) go someway in making up for this.

Bottom line: if you want a phone to surf the web on and can’t afford the expense of an iPhone, or are already overly reliant on Google apps (that’s me by the way), you won’t be disappointed with the HTC Magic.

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G1’s Android Market does a good job of copying the iPhone App Store [video demo]

Steve O'Hear — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:13:14 +0000

We already knew that the iPhone’s App Store has been a resounding success. And that’s before Apple began running newspaper ads boasting of 10,000 apps available and 300 million downloads since its launch just five months ago. Part of that success can be attributed to the way in which the iPhone as a platform has galvanized developers, while a second major factor is the simplicity of the App Store itself. For example, don’t underestimate the significance of having the store bundled with the handset, supported by over-the-air downloads. The result is that Apple has popularized the notion of third-party software on a mobile phone like never before — how many people do you know with a smartphone from Nokia, RIM or others, who haven’t installed a single third-party application?

While attracting developers is easier said than done, creating an App Store equivalent, especially in hindsight, should be a no brainer. Having spent nearly a week with the T-Mobile G1 — the so-called GPhone — I’m glad to report that Google has done a good job replicating the iPhone experience with the Android Market.

Check out my video walk through after the jump…

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What’s in a name? Google’s announces the Android Market, not the Android Store

Daniel Langendorf — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 04:04:18 +0000

The choice of name says it all: Android Market, not Android Store.

By design, Google is preparing the equivalent of an open-air marketplace for applications that will run on Android-powered smartphones. Google, which announced the Market late this afternoon through its Android developer blog, believes that developers should have an “open and unobstructed environment to make their content available.”

It’s a stark contrast to Apple’s App Store, where developers must submit applications for approval before release. The process has miffed many developers because their iPhone and iPod touch programs may take days, or weeks, before they show up for sale in the App Store.

Like a market or bazaar, Android developers can show up, set up shop, and sell their wares hassle free. Developers can submit applications to the Market using three steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe the content, and publish it.

No word, however, on the business or quality control side of the equation. Currently, Apple splits revenue 30/70 with developers. mocoNews.net says T-Mobile, the expected U.S. carrier, plans to base its revenue split on how much bandwidth the application uses.

The first Android-powered phone will be manufactured by HTC and is slated for release later this year. The first handsets will carry a beta version of the Android Market, with an update expected soon after the launch that will support downloads of paid content and additional features such as versioning, multiple device profile support, and analytics.

With the announcement of the Android Market and the imminent release of the first Android phone, Google’s mobile platform/ecosystem is no longer speculation. As we’ve expected all along, whatever Apple does with the iPhone, Google will do the opposite with Android.

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