Tag: mobile

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Now there’s timing: Just two days after I bought a G1, Opera has released a beta of Opera Mini for the Android platform. You can find it in the Communications section of the Android Marketplace. Amazingly enough, on its first day out, it’s already #2 by popularity.

For the most part I’m happy with the built-in browser, except as I mentioned for sites that don’t translate well to the small screen. Sometimes panning & zooming isn’t the best solution, but that’s the only solution on the default browser as near as I can tell. Opera Mini gives you the option of choosing a “Mobile view” which will reformat the page.

It’s a bit rough around the edges (but then it is still a beta). In particular, the touch screen sometimes works for following links, and sometimes I have to use the track ball. Also text entry is a bit inconsistent: when you navigate to a URL, you can finish by hitting Enter, but when you fill in a single-line form field (say, a username), Enter takes you to a new line. You have to hit the Menu button to get an OK/Cancel dialog. And passwords remain completely visible, rather than obfuscating to dots one character at a time.

Of course it’s always good to have alternatives, plus it’s got the mobile display option and it’s blazing fast. It was designed to deliver performance over slower networks, after all (by compressing the heck out of everything at a proxy), so on the 3G network it just screams.

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You may have noticed I’ve been looking for a smartphone for a while, and looking at the T-Mobile G1 more or less since it was announced. Well, I finally went for it. I was going through piles of papers on my desk and realized I had almost enough cashback bonus on one of my credit cards to cover the upgrade cost. And I was already seriously considering adding a data plan in order to put Opera Mini on my RAZR.

So I went down to the nearest T-Mobile store, asked about a couple of issues that hadn’t turned up in my previous research, and got the last one in stock. There was a couple there before me looking at them, but they said they weren’t ready to buy, just researching.

It took me about an hour to activate the phone, mainly because I didn’t have a data plan beforehand and it can take that long for a new plan to take effect. Once I did, I started playing around experimenting with it. (Unfortunately this meant a lot of the things I was going to do this afternoon…didn’t get done. Oh, well.)

Good Stuff:

  • I really like the keyboard. Even though I’m using my thumbs, just knowing where the keys are (and not having to do any kind of combos for letters & numbers) means that I can type much faster than I could on the RAZR. I’m already starting to get used to some of the secondary characters, like dashes and such.
  • Real web access! The web rendering is very nice. But then it’s WebKit, so it’s basically the same as Chrome or Safari, so that’s not a huge surprise.
  • Twitdroid (a Twitter app) and Quickpedia (an optimized front-end for Wikipedia) have impressed me so far.
  • There’s a tip calculator app called BistroMath. I had to pick it up or the name alone. (Sadly, it doesn’t seem to work as an FTL drive.)
  • I absolutely love being able to look things up online instantly!
  • Wi-Fi was easy to set up, including WPA2 security, so I can use our wireless network at home.
  • Wallpaper selection is very nice, with a built-in crop & resize function.
  • Plain old USB charging, which means I can still use the car charger I got for my last phone.
  • The WPhone alternate interface for the WordPress admin area, originally developed for the iPhone, is fantastic on the G1! (Too bad they aren’t developing it much anymore.)
  • The built-in calculator app includes limited scientific capabilities (trig, logs, roots, etc.)
  • My bank has an app that will look up the nearest ATMs or branches to where I am.
  • Scrolling by dragging the actual content instead of the scroll bar is surprisingly easy to get used to. Actually a lot of stuff about the UI is like that: awkward at first, but in just a few hours it becomes second nature.

Minor Issues:

  • Our apartment is right on the edge of a cell coverage area, so I haven’t had a chance to try it out on the 3G network yet. But that’s not the phone’s fault.
  • It took me a while to figure out how to sync transfer data via the USB cable, since they’ve changed the way it’s handled since the manual was printed. The manual lists it as a system setting, but it’s now an option that pops up in the notification area when you connect it to a computer.

Not So Good

  • The touch screen isn’t always responsive, but that may be because I haven’t removed the screen protector that ships with it. I wanted to pick one up that’s actually designed to be used before I pulled this one off. Update: After replacing the screen protector, it’s much more responsive.
  • The covers on the USB port and memory card feel really flimsy.
  • Battery life doesn’t seem to be terribly great. In fact, the clerk at the store suggested I charge it nightly.
  • I’ve only played with the camera a little but seems slow and isn’t great with artificial lighting.
  • Playing around with WordPress and Wikipedia shows how valuable it is to have a layout optimized for the small screen. The Android browser seems to rely entirely on zoom to handle large-screen layouts, and it would be nice to have something like Opera’s fit-to-width option. Update: It seems to ignore handheld stylesheets, which IIRC is true of the iPhone as well. When website providers try to help you with the small screen, maybe you should let them? *sigh* Need to see if it handles media queries, at least for screen size. Update 2: It does have a fit-to-width option, but I’m not entirely sure what it does, given that I keep running into layouts that end up scrolling horizontally.

Stuff I Have Not Tried But Intend To

  • Anything involving GPS. I’m inside right now and it can’t get a signal.
  • I don’t know how fast the download speed is over 3G. (Wifi is quite nice!) Update: 3G speed seems pretty decent, actually!
  • Map directions. But it’s Google Maps, and those are generally quite good.
  • I haven’t hooked up my Bluetooth earpiece yet. Update: Pretty simple. I just needed to remember how to put the headset in pairing mode.
  • I haven’t tried connecting to an open WiFi network/hotspot.
  • I need to do some more testing with the camera, see how it handles daylight, check out image quality, etc.
  • I haven’t really messed with voice dialing.
  • Email. It automatically links to your Gmail account, and has the ability to access POP and IMAP accounts, but I haven’t tried out any of the above yet.

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Mobile goals:

  • Real web access.
  • Reduce number of gadgets if possible (combine with camera and/or music player)

Limitations:

  • Still have a year left with T-Mobile.
  • Not thrilled about AT&T, but resistance is softening.
  • No phone in existence has the camera capability I want.

Options:

  • Back in early summer I was looking at the Shadow or Wing from T-Mobile. Windows Mobile, so I could put Opera Mobile on it. Not 3G, don’t think they have WiFi, so they’d be slow. G1 sort of makes them obsolete (see below).
  • iPhone. Safari and 3rd-party apps. High speed: both 3G-capable and WiFi-capable. Requires switching to AT&T. Not quite big enough to replace my iPod yet (I’ll look again when they hit 32 GB). $200 + $130/month for the cheapest 2-phone plan, plus my wife would need a new phone whether she wanted it or not.
  • iPod Touch. Basically an iPhone without the phone. Big enough to replace my current iPod, plus give me Safari, but only at WiFi hotspots. (Would be perfect for Comic-Con!) But I’d need the 32 GB model, which is $500.
  • G1 from T-Mobile. Comparable to what I’d actually use on the iPhone, won’t require switching providers. Again, 3G and WiFi — and it looks like 3G coverage where we live is better than the standard coverage. AM is expandable via MicroSD card. Music player is MP3 only. $180 + $75/month (assuming I can just add a $25 data plan to our current 2-line plan.

That G1 is looking pretty good. I’m not prepared to be an early adopter, but it might be worth taking a serious look at it in a few months.

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The WaSP Buzz’ article on a new mobile web browser test made mention of phones that can read QR Codes—one of several types of 2-D bar codes that you see on things like shipping labels. In this case, the idea is that you can point your phone’s camera at the QR code and it’ll decode it and send you to the appropriate URL.

My first thought was that this was just like the CueCat, which was a bar code scanner that you could plug into your computer’s USB port, then scan bar codes in magazines, or on cans of soda, or whatever, and it would tell your computer to bring up relevant information. It was marketed in the late 1990s, during the tech boom… and it was a total flop. No one wanted them. The company went under and had millions of the little scanners sitting around unsold.

But now there are multiple schemes in use for object hyperlinking. In addition to graphical codes, there are RFID tags, GPS coordinates, and short text codes that you can easily type into an SMS message or a web portal.

So why is this sort of thing working now, 10 years later? Is it a societal change? Was the CueCat ahead of its time?

I think there are two reasons:

  • CueCat was a single-purpose device. All the applications listed involve smartphones or other multi-purpose handheld devices. No one wanted a device that would only scan bar codes, but a phone/camera/browser/MP3 Player/bicycle that also scans bar codes? Sure, why not?
  • CueCat was tied to the desktop. Sure, you could plug it into a laptop computer, but you’d still have to take the object over to your computer to scan the bar code. Unless you’re a lousy typist, swiping the CueCat across your can of Coke isn’t that much easier than typing in www.coke.com. As a home user, you’re not likely to be scanning a dozen objects in a row (unless you’re cataloging all of your books for LibraryThing).

All the applications listed on that page are mobile. A tagging scheme does give you an advantage when you’re out walking down the street and see something interesting. It’s much easier to punch in a short number than to try to type a URL on most phones, easier still to point your camera at a graphic, and dead simple to pick up an RFID tag or pull in GPS coordinates.

Update 2024: It’s funny: in the early 2010s I remember jokes about how no one outside of a marketing department had ever scanned a QR code, but now they’re all over the place, both for linking objects (a sign on a fast food door to go to their online ordering service, a code on an instruction manual to open a site with jump to a site with any changes since printing) and for sending data between devices (communications apps, 2FA apps, starting a download on a mobile device using a QR code shown on a desktop display).

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I want a phone with…

  • The basics: voice, text, picture messaging and voice mail. (check)
  • Bluetooth connection. (check)
  • Easily transfer files to my Linux computer. (check)
  • Working voice dial.
  • A real web browser (Opera, Safari, etc., not just WAP).
  • Wi-fi capability, at least for its internet access.
  • A camera with at least 2 megapixels of resolution.

Those I can get; it’s just a matter of shopping around.  (Well, looking at what T-Mobile has, since I’ve got over a year left on my contract) .  But I also want:

  • A camera that actually shoots good pictures.  At least 3 or 4 megapixels, optical zoom, and can pick up color and detail in different light conditions.
  • A music player with enough space to hold my entire music collection.

Admittedly, we’re getting into short skirt/long jacket territory at this point, but basically I want one device that can replace my phone, iPod, and digital camera.  I’m tired of carrying around all three.  At the moment, even the high-end iPhone only has 16 GB, which would just barely hold the music.  And while phones are cramming more and more pixels into their cameras, they’re still using tiny, fixed lenses.

I’ve said before that I think the iPhone, or a comparable device, will catch up to what I want in 2010 or so.  For now, I’ll have to raid the Batcave for a utility belt.

I can’t quite bring myself to get a Blackberry, but I keep looking at the T-Mobile Shadow. I’m a bit reluctant to run Windows on my phone, and really reluctant to run Internet Explorer, but it should be able to run Opera Mobile. And while the reviews seem to be good overall, they haven’t been impressed with the picture quality of the camera.

Well, one big purchase at a time. (It’s too early for me to get the full upgrade discount, anyway.) And who knows, a new phone that’s a better fit might be available in a couple of months when I’m ready to actually buy something.