kate's infrastructure

Yes, these days everyone is talking about twitter.  If you’re not already a fan, it only a matter of time, so let’s just say you’ll need a good twitter client.  The website is fine, but when you’re not at a computer, sometimes you want a different experience.

Enter twidroid – available from the Google Market for free.  Being that we don’t yet have access to paid applications in Australia, free is rather important.

A view of twidroid:

Everytime it calmly syncs in the background, it downloads ~200 latest tweets from folks I find interesting.  So as a way to stay up to date with what’s going on in the world, or maybe I just have a pocket of entertainment.

Referencing the screenshot above, you’ll see you retain people’s icons, and the general layout you’d expect on the web.  There’s a few useful buttons across the bottom which cater for new tweets, replies, refreshes and direct messages.  Simple, useful, and what you’d basically expect from the client.

Ease of interaction

If you look to the far side of each ‘tweet’, you’ll see some easy ways to interact with that message.  You can reply or direct message the sender, but you can also “retweet” the message and broadcast it to your followers, with all standard formatting included.  Lovely.

Integration

Android seems to display an almost effortless cross-application integration which is impressive when you consider that each of the apps I use most are just developed by regular (brilliant) folks and aren’t a part of the core OS.  The best example of this is that I can take a photo, click on it, and select "Share with twidroid” which will let me automatically post the image to twitpic, then post the link to twitter.

Effortless, now I just need something interesting to twitter about.

I must admit that while I immediately loved my HTC Dream, there were a few things that took me a little while to work out.  I thought I’d document them here so that others may benefit.  Please excuse the quality of the screenshots, I didn’t want to install the SDK just to get proper screenshots (sorry).

Closing applications

I’m still not sure if I like this or hate this about Android, but it is what it is.  The short answer, YOU DONT.  As Android is a bit of a multi-tasking machine (unlike the iPhone), when you’re done with an application you can just switch to whatever you want to do next.  Sometimes this feels perfectly ok, and sometimes it is annoying.

An example would be the browser, which seems to behave inconsistently. 

If I launch a browser window, and I want it to go away, I can press the “back” button on the keypad and the browser window will disappear as though I’ve closed it. 

If I launch the browser window, then visit a few pages, then press the same “back” button on the keypad, it will act as though I’ve pressed a back button within the browser and take me to the last page I visited. 

Anyway, generally, just press the “HOME” button and choose the next application you want to work with.  Disturbing but true.

Where’s my stuff?

I’ll admit that for my first few hours minutes using Android, I couldn’t work out why it kept just casually warning me about stuff and not letting me take action.  It felt a bit like a string of hints like “Hey maybe you’re supposed to be someplace, maybe you should check your calendar or something.  But maybe you’re already late”.  Annoying.

That’s of course until I realised that the alerts were hugely useful, accessible and functional.  The top ‘status’ bar is a place for alert icons and basic info.  If you touch and drag it down you can get much more detailed alert info, and direct links to whatever event/calendar entry/sms or other item that caused the alert.  Simple and genius.

Heaps of apps use this feature too which can be pretty brilliant.

Within this drag-down status ‘blind’ there’s a clear notifications button.  Also critical, as Android seems keen on reminding you of stuff and then constantly mentioning it until you’ve explicitly cleared the alert.  Yes, I see the irony in complaining about missed alerts earlier.

Changing layout

After a no time at all with Android you will notice that all your installed applications get thrown into a giant bucket you can drag up from the bottom of the screen.  All well, until you install a bit too much and it makes things hard to track down.

You can move icons to any one of the three home screens by:

• Dragging up your applications screen;
• Touch and hold an application icon;
• As soon as you’ve held the icon long enough, your phone will vibrate and the home screen will appear;
• Drag the icon where ever you want on the home screen;
• You can use the same process to move icons around on the home screen.

To remove an application from your android home screen, just drag it back to your applications folder.  It will magically disappear from your homescreen.

You can also create folders on your home screens by:

• Touch and hold an area of the home screen
• A context menu called add to home will appear
• Select shortcut
• Select folder
• You will then drag icons into the new folder as needed
• To rename the folder, touch and hold the folder title.

In case it isn’t blatantly obvious, no I never read any manual that probably contained all of this info, I just searched the internet like regular people!

A few points of reference that may be of interest to those setting up a G1 for an Australian network, and people seem to reach this blog searching for it, so I may as well provide the info.

The phone also comes with settings for Optus MMS, Virgin (an optus reseller) and Ideas.

To setup a connection to a wireless access point (e.g. your home internet connection), do the following:

• Launch Settings > Wireless controls
• Does the checkbox at the top of the screen have a tick in it?  If not, touch it now.  This will enable wi-fi on your phone;
• Touch the Wi-Fi settings sub-menu  – this allows you to setup a connection;
• Touch the Add a WiFi Network option at the bottom of the screen – You will be prompted for the SSID of the network.

Alternative store of the same info appears on an android site here.

UPDATE (15/06/2009):

See Optus MMS settings below

On Monday 16th of Feb I made the leap from Vodafone and a HTC Touch Dual (Windows Mobile) over to Optus for the new HTC Dream (Google Android).  I’ve been a windows mobile user for years, and a Vodafone user for ages, so I was a little hesitant about the switch.  Vodafone don’t even get to say goodbye and thanks for 12 years as the switch is entirely handled by Optus.  Best to keep emotion out of these things I guess.

The big killer for me on the HTC Dream was that it was basically an iphone without a few of the dealbreakers.  I agonised over an iphone purchase many times, but stuck with Windows Mobile because I liked the physical keyboard and honestly I just found it easier to use.  But now I’ve switched and I’m a week into the process, here’s what I think:

What I’ve liked

• The always-on connectivity (my phone alerts me to email or tweets before my computer has even realised there’s something to be excited about);
• It does everything and nothing.  Very intuitive, easy to use and extend;
• There’s an app for everything I really need;
• The web browsing experience over wi-fi is truly outstanding.  Saves me from opening my netbook on many occassions;
• Optus is surprisingly good, though I’m still not loving their website;
• GPS!
• Notification area on the phone is exceptionally well implemented;
• Dad now wants one.

What I don’t like

• The always-on connectivity (omg what about the cost);
• Where are all the homescreen widgets for me to download?  Is this the next step for iGoogle gadgets?
• Sliding the phone open doesn’t prompt me to unlock it;
• You don’t really exit most apps in Android, can be a bit disconcerting or annoying really;
• Battery life is appalling.  Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.  The price to address this was only $5 on ebay for a second battery and its own charging dock.  The phone is easy enough to open, so that seems reasonable;
• The placement of the ‘chin’ of the phone took some real getting used to.  I type at a reasonable speed now;
• Solid construction, but the handset is basically ugly.  I usually break phones so this is doomed without a doubt.

Essential apps

I’ll write some more detailed reviews of these, so here’s a quick list of my ‘must-have’ apps for android:

• Twidroid  - Twitter client 
• Greed – Google Reader
• TouchDown – Exchange sync
• NetCounter – tracks GPRS/3G traffic separate from Wifi
• PowerMeter – tweaks for battery life
• Useful switcher – easy access to key settings (e.g. wifi)
• Klaxon – Alarm clock (also a british band)
• PostBot – WordPress client
• Compass – Um, it’s a compass
• MyTracks – GPS tracker.  You know, for stalkers.

What’s missing

• An evernote client;
• A chat program like pidgin.  Meebo is setup and can log me on to multiple chat accounts at the same time, but I need to authenticate everytime.  Annoying.

I intend to revisit this idea at the 1 month mark, so we’ll see how my usage and needs develop.  I’m particularly interested in money hitting the Android MarketPlace.  Apps there right now are great, but I expect this will drive a whole new phase of development.  Because Australia is pretty well behind the curve on getting this one, it means that there’s a heap of useful applications already developed and accessories readily available on ebay.