I have an HTC Touch Pro 2. android handsets are not an option for me. Sprint got decidedly immoral and decided after the fact that us "old" users can no longer upgrade our hardware (even fully purchased ESN swap hardware) unless we "change" our accounts.
I pay $36 a month including taxes for virtually unlimited everything (500 daytime minutes but I never ever use them with 7-7 N&W and pick 3 and Google Voice)
so the most advanced hardware I get get is the Touch Pro 2 which is windows mobile 6.5
its not bad. especially with cookies home tab I rather enjoy it and it has the apps I want (which android is lacking but i hope that will change in time)
SO the community has been working pretty darned hard on something special. Getting android to RUN on the Touch Pro 2. it was finally advancing along enough for me to "try it out" and I am impressed.
not with android (more on that) but with the apps. the apps are amazing. its worth the headaches (which I am fixing bit by bit) just for those wonderful apps.
so I have Froyo 2.2 running on my boost TP2. A lot of this might sound like complaining (and it is) but its also part of the experience and I will include the solutions I found along the way
its the journey right
at first very slow very sluggish (no kidding right 528mhz) and android did some VERY annoying things. I mean STUPID annoying that made me mad.
for example No easy way to add wallpaper. I have to go through this dumb gallery thing and then edit and resave the pictures?? why make it complex.
WORSE when I went to find my wallpapers I made once i found out they needed to be 960x800 so I figured ok keep it simple. stick them into a folder on root of sd card called wallpapers.
8 minutes later I finally got to pick one. why? you see it did not pop up with an expected and simple Directory listing where I would just pick wallpapers.
no it showed me NO directories. it insisted on SCANNING my directories only display the ones with pictures AFTER it scanned them and worse it scanned ALL OF THEM. not just the root directories but all the sub directories as well.
the system almost PUKED IT GUTS trying to do this. any idea how many folders I have on my 16gb memory card and how many of them contain a plethora of "qualifying images" files
HUNDREDS. Hundreds and hundreds of them. 8 minutes latter it FINALLY got to scanning and displaying the ONE folder I wanted. wallpapers.
Ouch. while the apps are almost all pure awesome (they have annoying quirks but thats just an issue of adapting to the new system) the OS itself is lackluster it it fit and finish and performance and doing dumb things like scanning my whole stinking memory card when I just want one folder with 6 files in it.
so later I find out I can put a file called .nomedia into ALL of my folders I don't want this dumb media scanner messing with (I hate media scanners thats like ipods using ID3 databases instead of just looking at the stinking files and folders. I hate it its an extremely inefficient way of doing things. I prefer folder/name structure navigation.
now granted I am what one might call a "power user" I use my phone for a LOT of things and I mean a lot. its more a data device than a phone to me.
so maybe these aggravating quirks won't be an issue for the typical consumer ?? no idea.
so I put a .nomedia file in every folder but 4.
now the music player stopped showing my thousands of recorded calls and gps sound files etc...
but no not that easy. had to download devtools to "rerun" the media scanner. Grrr
but hey I got it fixed. MUCH better now. I wish I could just press and hold a jpg file and click "set as wallpaper" under a context menu from a file explorer like a sensible device hehe
and to be honest wallpaper is not something I mess with often so its not like it will annoy me often just a pet peeve.
Then I found I only had 40mb of ram free. well THAT explained the sluggishness for sure.
So I researched that and found out terminating apps is not a smart move under android/linux and it actually has a pretty robust memory management system (unlike windows mobile which is HORRIBLE in this aspect)
so I found Auto Killer Memory Optimizer. a program that tweaks androids built in thresholds and lets the OS handle the closures properly. I could never get more than 81mb free so I set it to 75mb.
WOW what a difference. completely changed the experience from a nich not sure how long I am going to keep this to HEY this could work !!
then I added the cpu overclock string to raise it to 710mhz (I knew from winmo side that 740 is safe and stable for my CPU)
again nice improvement. not wow incredible but once its loaded a lot of the "lag" is removed from the OS functions and loading is dramatically sped up.
I can live with this.
now lets play with the apps!! thats what I wanted to come to android for afterall
of course tried netflix first. it actually worked till I tried to play a video. loads the player then goes back to browsing. so its not quite there yet (at least not on my older hardware with hacked together android
Some of the apps that really impressed me.
EBAY and GMAIL. seriously impressive apps. completely changes the user experience using those services "mobile" with those apps.
extremely well designed extremely convenient.
I LOVE that the ebay app pushes a notice when I have an auction ending in 10 minutes. WONDERFUL feature.
Wootwatcher. another great app that pushes when updates occur. Very very nice. love it.
small nice clean fast elegant apps. they not only do the job they do it REALLY well and very efficiently. Very impressed.
got ES explorer. its ok but missing a lot of the functionality I am used to from a file explorer (such as context menu setting of wallpaper and ringers) and its too "pretty" it wastes all that screen real estate I have (800x480) making big pretty icons.
I wish it at least had a smaller options with less fluff. ie I want MORE content on the screen and I want it faster. but its ok it works.
Some more apps that blew my mind.
Weatherbug. Talk about a WOW. now you have to realize something. I am used to weather bug in the past. where the word weatherbug was synonymous with VIRUS no joke. it was NASTY software.
but weather bug on the droid is SPECTACULAR. its a bit slow but the info is plentiful and GORGEOUS. (I like eye candy just not in my file explorers)
I could not believe the app was FREE. blew me away. its definitely in my "top 5" apps list.
Never thought those words would come out of my mouth. WEATHER BUG of all things.
Predict Wind. I have a site I goto to get "wind speed direction temp rain" graphs and charts hour by hour. (I fly gliders and rockets) I usually have to print it out the morning I leave.
this apps gives me the charts I love LIVE on my tp2. WOW. awesome app and FREE !!!
Sounds hound is improved although it went from free (wm) to pay (dorid)
Barcode scanner is nice and actually WORKS (never did get a working winmo version of this)
Slacker works but is a huge disappointment. they stripped away a lot of features that were always present in the free version AND the ads are no longer unobtrusive they are now vulgar and in your face. very annoying but its hard to complain about free.
Square. does not work for me yet but its one of the reasons I wanted to try droid again)
Bank/CC apps. nice but until I can get them ALL its lacks true usefulness since if I have to goto a computer for some I might as well do all from the computer.
the bank of america app is nice but its requires me to log in which is annoying on the keyboard. still nice though.
I am still discovering more cool apps in fact thats part of the problem. app overload. how to find the "good" stuff in all the flak.
so far I am both very happy and very impressed.
I look forward to good things from android.
I pay $36 a month including taxes for virtually unlimited everything (500 daytime minutes but I never ever use them with 7-7 N&W and pick 3 and Google Voice)
so the most advanced hardware I get get is the Touch Pro 2 which is windows mobile 6.5
its not bad. especially with cookies home tab I rather enjoy it and it has the apps I want (which android is lacking but i hope that will change in time)
SO the community has been working pretty darned hard on something special. Getting android to RUN on the Touch Pro 2. it was finally advancing along enough for me to "try it out" and I am impressed.
not with android (more on that) but with the apps. the apps are amazing. its worth the headaches (which I am fixing bit by bit) just for those wonderful apps.
so I have Froyo 2.2 running on my boost TP2. A lot of this might sound like complaining (and it is) but its also part of the experience and I will include the solutions I found along the way
its the journey right at first very slow very sluggish (no kidding right 528mhz) and android did some VERY annoying things. I mean STUPID annoying that made me mad.
for example No easy way to add wallpaper. I have to go through this dumb gallery thing and then edit and resave the pictures?? why make it complex.
WORSE when I went to find my wallpapers I made once i found out they needed to be 960x800 so I figured ok keep it simple. stick them into a folder on root of sd card called wallpapers.
8 minutes later I finally got to pick one. why? you see it did not pop up with an expected and simple Directory listing where I would just pick wallpapers.
no it showed me NO directories. it insisted on SCANNING my directories only display the ones with pictures AFTER it scanned them and worse it scanned ALL OF THEM. not just the root directories but all the sub directories as well.
the system almost PUKED IT GUTS trying to do this. any idea how many folders I have on my 16gb memory card and how many of them contain a plethora of "qualifying images" files
HUNDREDS. Hundreds and hundreds of them. 8 minutes latter it FINALLY got to scanning and displaying the ONE folder I wanted. wallpapers.
Ouch. while the apps are almost all pure awesome (they have annoying quirks but thats just an issue of adapting to the new system) the OS itself is lackluster it it fit and finish and performance and doing dumb things like scanning my whole stinking memory card when I just want one folder with 6 files in it.
so later I find out I can put a file called .nomedia into ALL of my folders I don't want this dumb media scanner messing with (I hate media scanners thats like ipods using ID3 databases instead of just looking at the stinking files and folders. I hate it its an extremely inefficient way of doing things. I prefer folder/name structure navigation.
now granted I am what one might call a "power user" I use my phone for a LOT of things and I mean a lot. its more a data device than a phone to me.
so maybe these aggravating quirks won't be an issue for the typical consumer ?? no idea.
so I put a .nomedia file in every folder but 4.
now the music player stopped showing my thousands of recorded calls and gps sound files etc...
but no not that easy. had to download devtools to "rerun" the media scanner. Grrr
but hey I got it fixed. MUCH better now. I wish I could just press and hold a jpg file and click "set as wallpaper" under a context menu from a file explorer like a sensible device
heheand to be honest wallpaper is not something I mess with often so its not like it will annoy me often
just a pet peeve.Then I found I only had 40mb of ram free. well THAT explained the sluggishness for sure.
So I researched that and found out terminating apps is not a smart move under android/linux and it actually has a pretty robust memory management system (unlike windows mobile which is HORRIBLE in this aspect)
so I found Auto Killer Memory Optimizer. a program that tweaks androids built in thresholds and lets the OS handle the closures properly. I could never get more than 81mb free so I set it to 75mb.
WOW what a difference. completely changed the experience from a nich not sure how long I am going to keep this to HEY this could work !!
then I added the cpu overclock string to raise it to 710mhz (I knew from winmo side that 740 is safe and stable for my CPU)
again nice improvement. not wow incredible but once its loaded a lot of the "lag" is removed from the OS functions and loading is dramatically sped up.
I can live with this.
now lets play with the apps!! thats what I wanted to come to android for afterall
of course tried netflix first. it actually worked till I tried to play a video. loads the player then goes back to browsing. so its not quite there yet (at least not on my older hardware with hacked together android
Some of the apps that really impressed me.
EBAY and GMAIL. seriously impressive apps. completely changes the user experience using those services "mobile" with those apps.
extremely well designed extremely convenient.
I LOVE that the ebay app pushes a notice when I have an auction ending in 10 minutes. WONDERFUL feature.
Wootwatcher. another great app that pushes when updates occur. Very very nice. love it.
small nice clean fast elegant apps. they not only do the job they do it REALLY well and very efficiently. Very impressed.
got ES explorer. its ok but missing a lot of the functionality I am used to from a file explorer (such as context menu setting of wallpaper and ringers) and its too "pretty" it wastes all that screen real estate I have (800x480) making big pretty icons.
I wish it at least had a smaller options with less fluff. ie I want MORE content on the screen and I want it faster. but its ok it works.
Some more apps that blew my mind.
Weatherbug. Talk about a WOW. now you have to realize something. I am used to weather bug in the past. where the word weatherbug was synonymous with VIRUS
no joke. it was NASTY software.but weather bug on the droid is SPECTACULAR. its a bit slow but the info is plentiful and GORGEOUS. (I like eye candy just not in my file explorers)
I could not believe the app was FREE. blew me away. its definitely in my "top 5" apps list.
Never thought those words would come out of my mouth. WEATHER BUG of all things.
Predict Wind. I have a site I goto to get "wind speed direction temp rain" graphs and charts hour by hour. (I fly gliders and rockets) I usually have to print it out the morning I leave.
this apps gives me the charts I love LIVE on my tp2. WOW. awesome app and FREE !!!
Sounds hound is improved although it went from free (wm) to pay (dorid)
Barcode scanner is nice and actually WORKS (never did get a working winmo version of this)
Slacker works but is a huge disappointment. they stripped away a lot of features that were always present in the free version AND the ads are no longer unobtrusive they are now vulgar and in your face. very annoying but its hard to complain about free.
Square. does not work for me yet but its one of the reasons I wanted to try droid again)
Bank/CC apps. nice but until I can get them ALL its lacks true usefulness since if I have to goto a computer for some I might as well do all from the computer.
the bank of america app is nice but its requires me to log in which is annoying on the keyboard. still nice though.
I am still discovering more cool apps in fact thats part of the problem. app overload. how to find the "good" stuff in all the flak.
so far I am both very happy and very impressed.
I look forward to good things from android.
