Android

From iPhone to Droid, Part 1: Top Free Droid Apps to Ease the Transition

18 January 2010 - 11:49am | Laura Scott

[This post appears on BlogHer.]

I did it. After months of bitching out loud to my friends and colleagues, tweeting about it and blogging it, I dropped AT&T (and thus the iPhone) and got back on Verizon with the Motorola Droid. I thought it would be a rough transition, but it turned out to be not so bad. In fact, the Droid is a pretty slick device. But, like any "smart" tech these days, it's not truly yours until you've customized it, put your mark on it. And on the Droid, like the iPhone, that starts with the apps.

Now, I've had my Droid – I've named her "Zora" (and you Blade Runner geeks can guess why) – for only a few days, so I haven't gotten far in the app exploration. I've generally avoided paying for most apps (which is why paid apps are the topic for a subsequent post), but there's a lot to be had for free.

Here are a few....

(Reader note: Search for these in your phone's "Marketplace" app. You can download them directly from there. [Note on the screenshots: Yes, they're photos. It seems that the only ways to take Droid screenshots from within are either via a Windows machine (which I don't use) or via apps that reviewers say are unstable. A little power-home method, as with the iPhone, would have been nice. Maybe in the next Android OS release?])

Voicemail

Google Voice

Forget Verizon's Visual VM. The reviews are pretty brutal. And Verizon charges you an extra few bucks a month for it. That's right, charges you each month!

You have a Droid. Embrace it! Use Google Voice for your voicemail! You can set conditional call forwarding for when you don't answer or are already on the line. Have calls sent to your Google Voice account ... and get your messages transcribed for you as well! (You can still play the messages.)

A dedicated Google Voice app gives you a very slick GUI to browse through and play your messages.

The transcripts can be rather odd, though. That's definitely still very alpha.

(Don't have access to Google Voice yet? Check with your friends. Every Google Voice user gets 3 [or more?] invites.)

Twitter

As with all of the apps here, I limited by experiments to apps that got 4 out of 5 stars or better from users. That left two main candidates for Twitter.

Twitdroid Twidroid

I like this one. Very basic. It makes me miss Twittelator Pro on the iPhone. But it suffices. And I can set my own notification sound if I get a message.

My main caveat, however, is that this app requires access to your email attachments. Why do its creators, zimmerman and marban, require this? What are they after in your email attachments?

Seesmic

This is a stable Twitter app. I just don't like it that it dumps you at the top of the Twitterstream. You have to scroll down to see what's new. That's weird to me.

And Seesmic requires access to your Contacts. Why, I have no idea, as it does not seem to integrate with Contacts. I can only guess it's the trade-off: hand over your data on your friends and in exchange you get this free app. Am I wrong here?

Music

Pandora

The Pandora app is very familiar, except it boots up with this dire warning about using up your data quota on your cellular plan. (Be sure to get the unlimited plan with Verizon. It's $30 per month, but worth it.)

Shazam

Again, the familiar app to identify tunes. Nice to have!

Amazon MP3

This is a nifty app just for finding music downloads. Since iTunes is out of the picture, and you can't play any DRM iTunes music on your Droid, this can be a handy app to have! Especially if, like me, you tend towards Amazon for your main music downloads resource.

News

AP and USA Today

These will appear identical to what you've been seeing on the iPhone.

Reuters

With a different interface – the sections are separate columns which you get to by horizontal scrolling, like switching desktops – it takes some getting used to. But it's good to get news from a source other than AP.

BBC News

Yes, they're on the Droid, too.

NY Times

Unfortunately the NY Times does not have a Droid app. (But there's always the website, and the iPhone app was always really slow anyway.)

Battery Management

There are a few key apps for ensuring that your Droid's battery runs the longest between charges.

Advanced Task Killer Free

This app allows you to selectively shut down apps that are running in the background. Those apps might be polling web services or calculating your GPS location – shut 'em down! This is the kind of tool that Apple doesn't allow on the iPhone anymore. Too bad. It's a great power saver, and also helps keep your phone running smoothly.

Quick Settings

A quick shortcut to the major power-suck features: screen, GPS, ringer, WiFi, mobile data, Bluetooth. Toggle them on/off as needed. Very handy for going into the movie theater!

Battery Refresh Beta

In the early going, it helps to train your Droid's battery – i.e., charge it fully and then drain it fully. Of course, it's not always convenient to let your Droid drain out its charge in its own good time. Maybe you're about to leave the house for several hours. You don't want it going dead on you while out and about.

You can use this app to drain your battery quickly. It basically fires up your GPS, brightens your screen, kills the screen saver, pings your cell service, all to drain your battery in a hurry. Bingo! Now it's ready for a new charge.

Games

Not much to offer you here. I looked for decent free apps for Hold'Em, Blackjack, Free Cell and Klondike Solitaire, and found two for Klondike. Both work alright, but one has larger cards that are easier to read.

Klondike Solitaire

The strange thing about this app (and the others I've actually tried) is that the deal deck is on the top left of the screen. Since most people are right handed, that means you have to reach across the screen to deal. More than once I've accidentally hit the home or menu button doing that. Why didn't they put the deck on the top right? I don't know.

Oddments

DroidLight

This nifty app uses the LED flash for a flashlight. No need to light your way via screen light.

Movies

Does for the Droid what OneTap does for the iPhone. And there's Fandango for buying tickets.

Google Goggles

Enhanced reality through your phone. Point the camera at a location and get Google info on it. Wow!

Google Sky Map

Point the camera at the stars and learn about the constellations!

PicSay

Add icons, hair, glasses, thought bubbles to your photographs. Silly but fun.

Owner

This is a nice app that displays a message on the phone's unlock screen. You can put custom text and select specific fields from your "me" contact card to display. This way if someone finds your phone, they know how to reach you.

Say hello to the Open Source Decade

27 December 2009 - 7:14pm | Laura Scott

Comic: XKCD #225.

Open Source has been around for quite some time, but odds are most people you ask won't know what "open source" is. This isn't because open source is obscure, but rather it has slipped into the mainstream, and unless you're already in the know, there's no real reason you will have noticed it.

But open source is here, and it's growing.

Linux maximus

Linux was written by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Linux itself was based on earlier incomplete kernels that themselves were available for reworking and building upon. When Torvalds licensed Linux under the GNU public license, there was mostly scoffing in the media, with a small minority of voices predicting widespread growth in the future. Now a majority of web servers worldwide are running Linux (see Wikipedia, above), and Linux dominates the supercomputer market and adoption in high-end special effects houses in Hollywood. Linux also powers auto electronics, weapons systems, and an increasing number of desktop, laptop and netbook computers.

My prediction: Linux distros will continue to gain desktop and laptop popularity as they develop more usability and visual style improvements. Ultimately, though, it will take hardware driver maker support (or replacement) to create the happy turn-on-and-use experience most non-geeks want out of a computer. Usability is a hard thing to design by committee, but once it starts kicking in, I don't see much of anything holding Linux back. (And no, I don't see computers going away altogether. The cloud is nice, but with all that local processing power there is a great opportunity for cooler, better apps that can leverage that cloud far better than a generic browser. [Not to mention privacy and security concerns that will always hound an open network.] I may be way off on this one, but I don't think so.)

Firefox burns

Last week Firefox 3.5 became the world's #1 browser release, edging out Internet Explorer 7. Of course, when you add in Internet Explorer 8 and the dead-but-not-buried Internet Explorer 6, Microsoft still holds the largest market share. Still, as ZDNet's Paula Rooney notes, open source has been putting the squeeze on IE.

The days of Internet Explorer’s dominance appear to be waning. Of course, Microsoft’s Windows operating system monopoly still owns the market, but we’re not sure how long that will matter, especially as software-as-a-service models take off and Google’s web-focused operating system is prepped for release.

As Microsoft’s grip on the browser market loosens, opportunities for open source rivals are blossoming. It will be interesting to see which of the two top open source browsers benefits most in 2009 [sic].

My prediction: Indeed, 2010 will be interesting for the browser market. Firefox will continue to grow, but Google Chrome, especially with Google's banner ad-driven marketing push, could be #1 by 2011, pushing IE8 and IE9 out of any hope for the #1 release spot. And this will be huge as webapps and software-as-a-service continue to take up more of the usage market from desktop apps. In fact, this latter development will push Microsoft hard to fall in line with web standards and fight to keep up with the far larger open source development communities of its browser competitors.

Android joy

Android is the open source (Linux-based) operating system for handhelds that is powering a small but growing number of smart phones, including the Motorola Droid and the new Google Phone that was given to Google employees as a holiday gift. Forrester predicts Android smartphones will have 10% market share by end of 2010. I would be surprised if it's not more. (Want a Droid? I do!)

Katherine Noyes of LinuxInsider writes:

As for Linux Girl's hopes and predictions? Her eyes are on netbooks, Android and other portable devices as the area where Linux will continue to gain major ground.

The masses are getting used to Linux whether they realize it or not, even as the desktop begins to slowly fade away. Forget the Year of Linux on the Desktop, and get ready for the Year of Linux in Consumers' Hands! Can't ask for much more than that.

My prediction: Android phones will have the buzz at end of 2010. By 2020, Android will be around in some form, morphed to suit whatever devices people are using then, but I have no idea if Apple will be still rocking then. Maybe the iPhone will be seen only in museums?

Open but less known

Drupal drops up

Drupal has been around for almost 10 years, but this past year saw increasing adoption by high profile sites and government agencies including WhiteHouse.gov.

And Drupal is not alone in the open source CMS market. See Dee-Ann Leblanc on what's coming for Open Source CMSs in 2010.

My prediction: With the new Drupal 7 coming just around the corner, expect to see another spike in Drupal buzz and Drupal usage. And with the new features and structures in place, also expect the Drupal market to change in very interesting ways. (N.B.: [BlogHer.com, where I first posted this] has been running Drupal since 2006.)

MySQL is your SQL

This database that powers so many apps you can't even begin to count
CIO's Nancy Weil predicts that Oracle will make the open source MySQL database system a core part of its Unbreakable Linux package.

My prediction: If Oracle tries to clamp down on MySQL, one or two other open source database projects — including a new or existing fork of MySQL — will emerge and come to a rising market share within a year.

Inscape and Blender and GIMP (oh my!)

Open source design programs are just getting better. Inkscape does a lot what Adobe Illustrator does. GIMP is an open source photo manipulation program that will do what most people use Adobe Photoshop for. Blender is a respectable open source 3D animation program. These applications are not new, but I expect their use to only increase as they continue to evolve.

My prediction: Expect the predicted Adobe CS5 release in 2010, and its predictable (high) pricing, to drive more buzz and market to these open source alternatives. But Blender will need a high profile adopter to get similar buzz.

Open Office market not so micro

Open Office is the open source desktop software suite that comes close to replacing Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It's not perfect, but can fit the bill if you're finding Microsoft Office's pricing a bit too dear.

My prediction: Open Office will continue to eek out minor gains in the private user market, but will struggle to convince conservative and under-budgeted IT managers in corporations and government agencies to adopt a new, unfamiliar product. However, 10 years from now....? A lot can happen in 10 years.

Why oh why is open source so popular?

While open source software — or at least the most successful examples of open source software — is free, I don't think that's why this will be the open source decade. Rather, it's that open source is open.

Cost does come into play, but indirectly ... on the supplier side. Open source is disrupting many markets where scarcity enforced by proprietary software licenses drove up costs. With the commons competing in development, that scarcity is challenged, effectively driving down those nice profit margins that made people like Bill Gates rich.

And if there's interest to take it into a new direction, there's nothing to stop them. Forks happen.

So as long as there's community interest (read: demand) for the product, it's not going to die. This software is not going to disappear unless people stop being interested in using it.

For example, just because Android was primarily developed by Google, it doesn't mean Android is dependent upon Google to continue to evolve. On the contrary. Just because Drupal was created by Dries Buytaert doesn't mean that, if Dries decides to quit software and go do pottery in Bali, Drupal will crumble. The Linux industry has grown way beyond the origination by Linus Torvalds or its corporate distribution by Red Hat.

What does this mean to you? Nothing, if you want to ignore it. But if you are paying attention, it could mean opportunities.

As a consumer, it might influence your buying decisions. For example, I would be much more comfortable buying an Android phone than a phone powered by Windows. I had lived for over a year with a Palm 700P, which ran the proprietary Palm OS, which was outmoded and little supported. I have no idea whether Palm will be around much longer, so I don't know if I would consider a Palm anything unless it was at least running an open sourced (and well supported) OS. Buy an Android phone and odds are you will be able to continue to buy phones in the future running Android, with the same familiar interface (albeit always improving). No company is going to EOL Android. No company can.

As an entrepreneur, open source might present a business opportunity. What? Without proprietary software? How is that possible? Well, let's look at other industries. Plumbing is essentially open source. There are no big secrets, just acquired know-how that comes from doing the work. And yet plumbers have businesses in every town with plumbing. Law is open source. The law is there for all to see. But if you learn it sufficiently, you can build a practice into a lucrative career.

In other words, business does not require secrets.

This doesn't mean that all proprietary softwares are going away. Not at all. But I do expect that in 10 years most people will have a pretty good idea what open source means to them, or at least will be pretty big consumers of open source products.

Mark my words.

This was posted on BlogHer.

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Is it a phone or a "smartphone"?

13 December 2009 - 9:44pm | Laura Scott

It's a simple question, really. What is your phone for? Making calls, or checking email/browsing the web/using apps/playing games/updating Facebook/posting to Twitter...? Of course, your smartphone should do it all, right?

But what if you had to choose?

I am ready to retire my iPhone. I love it to death. I check my email. I have apps that sync with my desktop. I have games that lull me to sleep. (Because that's what games are good for, right?) I check the weather. Read headlines. Set an alarm to wake up. Find out where the heck I am on a map.

But let's face it: The iPhone is pretty crappy as a phone.

I don't blame Apple, except to the extent that they made their initial deal with AT&T. I don't get much of any signal at my house. My calls are dropped so frequently – that is, if I can actually connect at call at all – that I have given up trying.

So I'm looking at that greener grass over the fence, over in Verizon land. I once lived in Verizon land. It wasn't so bad. I could make calls just about anywhere, even up in the mountains where nobody else could get a signal.

But in 2007, their phones sucked. I had a Palm 700p, which was my worst technology purchase ever (too). But I could make calls. I could receive calls. I could hear people in my phone conversations. They could hear me. Small miracles.

But now they have the Droid, and I am tempted, bleeding edge or no.

Barbara Barnett:

I admit it. I’m a middle-aged geek. I love my gadgets and toys. I was the first on my block to get a Blackberry Storm (big mistake). I got my Amazon Kindle the day after it was released (much wiser decision). And now I have my Droid. Actually, I’ve had my Droid for a month now, having purchased it on its release date. And a month later, I still love it. What’s a Droid? Thanks for asking.

The Droid is Motorola’s entry into the “Android” phone market. Sold exclusively through Verizon, it’s a (not too) distant cousin of the iPhone. Android phones are Google-connected communication devices. They do email, texting, Twitter, and Internet browsing; music, videos, and the usual calendar/contact PDA stuff.

I’ve been a Blackberry devotee for five years, and it was a difficult choice for me to jump ship. But after testing out the Droid in my Verizon store — comparing it to the Storm 2 and several other touch screen smartphones, I decided unequivocally to cast my lot with the Droid.

Oh, and she can make phone calls too. "Call quality is good," she says, and "the speaker phone is excellent"!

But Kara Swisher points out some possibly misogynistic aspects to the Droid ads.

“Should a phone be pretty?” it begins, using an odd series of images that is packed full of random misogyny. “Should it be a tiara-wearing, digitally clueless beauty pageant queen?”

Then comes all the manly imagery–a racehorse, a powerfully pointed Scud missile, bananas and buzzsaws to represent the Droid. A surging missile, as well as several creamy explosions too. Get it?

And let’s not forget the bunch of fey, effeminately-dressed mannequins, with one getting bashed with an ink-filled ball thrown by some tough masked thug with the line, “Is it a precious porcelain figurine of a phone?”

Then back to anti-women name-calling, saying an iPhone is a “princess,” unlike the Droid, “a phone that trades hair-do for can-do.”

Ugh.

Kristin Marshall offers some advertising analysis.

I’ll be blunt: Verizon is really overselling the Droid. I’m glad I don’t watch television, because the ads get on my nerves as it is. Storming the phone through brick walls and calling it a robot just looks like they’re trying too hard. You don’t want to overdo it with inflammatory ads that may alienate buyers.

It’s also not a good thing when advertising per unit is $100. And that’s if they reach the coveted 1 million units sold. With $100 million put into advertising this year alone, factoring in current sales figures, advertising cost per unit is sitting at around $145. That’s just short of the full price of the phone!

I understand that it’s an investment to gain momentum through advertising, but it needs to stick to succeed. Only time will tell, the Android platform has a lot going for it…

Hmmmmm.

Well, I don't like offensive ads — who does? — but I'm needing a phone-and-smartphone, not a phone-and-smartphone-with-admirable-advertising. There's just not much good out there when it comes to product. I can't shop according to ad ethics. And the Droid is running Open Source Android.

But wait — Is buying a Droid premature? What about these rumors that Google is coming out with its own phone?

Writes Sara Zucker:

Finally, Google is about to give the world an actual Google phone, running on the HTC G1 cellphone. The device will include a branded handset and includes free phone service. Though the G1 has already been (mis)identified as the "first Google phone," this new phone will be emblazoned with Google's company logo. It will feature Google Voice, the company's phone service, which recently overcame its FCC troubles, and connect users to that ominous (to some) Google Cloud. A touchscreen display and an extremely fast processing system, “far exceeding that of the iPhone 3G S” are also included.

The mobile dance for positioning has made for some interesting bedfellows, or maybe better, bed-frenemies. Motorola, Verizon and Google have partnered on the Droid. (Google has a lot of catching up to do after spending a reported $100M in marketing the collaboration). But with its free phone service, and patch-in to the full range of Google services, Google's offering could easily damage efforts by its Droid partners. Meanwhile, Apple's beefed-up iPhone, touted as a possible Droid-killer, will reportedly be available with Verizon service, putting Verizon on the possible outs with Motorola as well as with Google.

Motorola, the big winner of the Droid battle, may have the most to lose, since its 2010 plans include the release of at least 12 Android-based smartphones. These efforts are seemingly threatened both by the rumored new iPhone and by Google's go-it-alone launch.

MegC's post entices:

The Google phone, aka “Nexus One” is expected to be a big hit for Google. The Google phone will be sold by the Web site directly, instead of through cell phone providers. How the Google phone business model works out will be interesting, as many times phone manufacturers strike deals with specific providers who then use the phones to lure customers to their plans.

Take for instance the Apple iPhone. The iPhone has had the biggest hype up until the Droid was announced. The iPhone is available only through AT&T, and many people switched providers just to be able to have the exclusive phone.

On the other hand, the Google Phone Nexus One will be available to purchase and then customers have the flexibility to purchase whatever plan they desire. This is great for Google and great for consumers, as they will have the freedom to keep their phone and make their own choices.

What type of features will be on the new Google phone? So far, all that is known is that the Google Phone will feature a high resolution OLED display, snapdragon CPU, and microphone. It is rumored that it will run on the Google Android operating system.

Maybe I'll get the Droid, then when the Google phone comes out I'll weigh my options then.

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