Android!

[MuffinMan]

Sprint sent me something in the mail today telling me I could get get some money off an upgrade since I was one year into the two year contract. Went into two Best Buys, they looked up my account and said I was eligible for the standard upgrade prices. Both stores were confused on why I was eligible for a full upgrade after one year instead of two. I'm assuming this is how Sprint normally works and these employees just don't know what they are talking about?

I was on the fence between an EVO and the Epic that just came out. Left with an Epic since they were all out EVOs. A trillion times better than my Hero, no more laggy as shit phone. I'm not too happy about paying an extra $10 for 4g but it is a lot faster.

I still might get an EVO instead when they come back in. I guess it depends on how often I use the physical keyboard since I'm so used to an onscreen one now.

[KallDrexx]

Both sprint and Verizon let you upgrade after one full year on a 2 year contract.

[MuffinMan]

Android Notifier App. Can set it up to send notifications to your PC over WiFi, Bluetooth or to any IP for a desktop client to pick up. I've been wanting something like this since my phone is always on vibrate and I miss texts sometimes if it's plugged in and I'm at my computer. It doesn't look like it sends a notification that the phone is ringing though.



Also, accompanying desktop program here.

[Segoris]

I always leave my phone on silent after work and miss a number of calls/texts/emails, so will try that out. Thanks for that suggestion!

[Ozzu]

Sweet program. Had an issue with an error message about not being able to load the tray icon in Windows, but downloading 64-bit java fixed it.

https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_Developer-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=jre-6u21-oth-JPR@CDS-CDS_Developer

[Roentgen]

I have Sprint.  With the release of the Evo and Epic, the price of the Samsung Moment has come down drastically.  I found a good deal on it and picked one up.  I've never had a smart phone before.  I just want to say that I want to make love to this phone every waking moment of every day.  I hear it's never going to get Android 2.2 officially.  :(  Hope I don't brick it trying to get Froyo on it.

[MuffinMan]

I wish Sprint would let me opt out of 4g coverage somehow so I could not get charged an extra $10/month for something I rarely use.

[Roentgen]

I wish Sprint would let me opt out of 4g coverage somehow so I could not get charged an extra $10/month for something I rarely use.

That is exactly the reason I went with the previous generation.

[MuffinMan]

Has anyone ever tried to download an exe onto an Android phone? I'm trying to download a program on my phone and share it with Dropbox to get it on my work computer. It won't download the exe because it can't run it even though all I want is the file not to actually run it on the phone. Any way to circumvent this?

[rattran]

There was a setting in Astro File Manager if you have that to allow unusable stuff to download. Don't recall offhand, and doesn't seem an issue with the rom I'm using anymore.

[MuffinMan]

Hooray, Astro File Manager did the trick. How dare my work prevent me from downloading exe's!

[Draegan]

When is my DroidX supposed to get 2.2?

[Segoris]

When is my DroidX supposed to get 2.2?

Check for mods and root it to 2.2 if some you like are available?

[Draegan]

I really don't want to root the droidx.

[Stillwagon]

Looks like there may be no need to root.  Rumor (link) is that 2.2 roll outs begin tomorrow for Droid X.

FWIW, I'm not sure you can actually load mods on Droid X yet.  I didn't think anyone had managed to completely work around the encrypted bootloader.

[tazelbain]

My friend got a DroidX and I was surprised how much easier to use the touch keyboard was compared to my HTC Hero.  Is that a function of the device itself or the Android 2.1?

[Stillwagon]

My friend got a DroidX and I was surprised how much easier to use the touch keyboard was compared to my HTC Hero.  Is that a function of the device itself or the Android 2.1?

I believe that part of Motorola's custom UI is a keyboard replacement, so it's a function of the device itself rather than Android 2.1.  It could also be that the larger form factor aids with keyboard accuracy, but I've never used the Droid X keyboard so I'm basically just speculating here.

I have the original Droid and over the past couple of months I have become a huge fan of the Swype keyboard.  It's presently in beta for Android and I believe the beta is currently closed, but it seems to open up randomly from time-to-time.  If you can get into the beta, it's well worth a try.

[Quinton]

DroidX uses a *much* better touchpanel device than G1/Hero/etc.  That combined with a physically larger screen, and probably software tweaking, makes a big difference.

[KallDrexx]

Was bored and browsed the Market last night.  Found a new game on there called "Dweller - beta".  It's a pretty good roguelike.  It's a tiny bit buggy, and rough on the UI (hence beta) but overall I'm enjoying it.

[Zetor]

The market got expanded for 20 more countries. Sadly, that list doesn't include Hungary, so my options are still limited to rooting the phone or pirating apps. Actually I'll go with the third option -- ignore the paid-apps market entirely.

Next time, Gadget! Next time...!

[Quinton]

http://www.squishable.com/pc/squish_android_15/Big_Animals/

[MahrinSkel]

Okay, I didn't pull the trigger on the LG Fathom on Verizon.  Now I'm considering the Samsung Intercept on Virgin.  I'm not so sure about the coverage, though.  Does anyone know:

1) Who actually provides Virgin's network? EDIT: Found the answer myself, they use Sprint and supposedly cover my neighborhood.

2) Can I unlock the phone and put it on Verizon if the Virgin network doesn't work for me?

--Dave

[Quinton]

Wikipedia says

On July 28, 2009, Sprint agreed to pay $483 million to purchase Virgin Mobile USA. The Federal Trade Commission later gave the go-ahead on the acquisition.  Virgin Mobile USA was originally conceived as a joint venture between Virgin Group and Sprint, and uses Sprint's cellular bandwidth in the United States. Sprint retained the Virgin Mobile name after the deal closed.

I would suspect transfering from VM to Sprint is possible, but to Verizon is not.  In theory you can build phones that work with either CDMA carrier, but in practice that's rarely done.

[MahrinSkel]

Thanks.  I'll probably do it anyway, I'm kind of pissed off at Verizon, and supposedly Virgin's "Unlimited" data plan really is unlimited (rather than soft-capped at 5GB).

--Dave

[Salamok]

Anyone tried the FF 4 beta yet?

[Jimbo]

I upgraded all three phones, Droid 2 (for my son & I), and a Samsung Convoy (for my mom & dad).  I love the new Droid 2!  The other girls @ work are amazed @ how much nicer the 2nd version is compared to the older version.  My son asked if we could take our old LG Voyager's and shoot them with the shotgun, set them on fire, then blow them up with some dry ice bombs.

Is there an application to play my iTunes music on my Droid?  I know I can rip them from iTunes to the hard drive, then hard drive to Droid, but would rather just buy the music on iTunes and be able to play it on my ipod or my droid.  I still like my ipod nano to work out with when I walk/jog/lift weights, the droid was too big to carry, unless I was carrying a camelback.

Anyone thought of making a translator program?  Something like they speak into the phone in Spanish, then it translates, and plays it in English, with the ability to have English-Spanish translations back and forth, would be awesome (I could use that @ work!).

[MahrinSkel]

Closest I could find only goes one-way: Talk To Me can go from English to various languages, but not the other way except as text (which requires you understand the language well enough to spell it correctly, or have the other person typing in the words).  It's a few months old, so I don't know what the current state of the art is.  Bi-directional speech translation is presumably on someone's radar, but it's not a trivial problem (speech recognition for English has barely gotten reasonably useful, other languages are lagging, and tonal Asian languages may be decades away)

--Dave

[Quinton]

Fresh coat of paint for the big bugdroid:

[eldaec]

Is there an application to play my iTunes music on my Droid?  I know I can rip them from iTunes to the hard drive, then hard drive to Droid, but would rather just buy the music on iTunes and be able to play it on my ipod or my droid.  I still like my ipod nano to work out with when I walk/jog/lift weights, the droid was too big to carry, unless I was carrying a camelback.

I'm entirely confused by this question.

1) Drag music from itunes folder onto your phone.
2) Play music.

I might be unclear on what you mean by 'rip them from iTunes to the hard drive'? Is your music not already on the PC hard drive to begin with?

Anyone thought of making a translator program?  Something like they speak into the phone in Spanish, then it translates, and plays it in English, with the ability to have English-Spanish translations back and forth, would be awesome (I could use that @ work!).

Google Translate does this.

[Draegan]

Where the hell is my DroidX 2.2?

Also, go to contacts, swipe left or right and you have every single call/txt msg/facebook whatever you ever sent.  Ever.  And you can't delete it.

[Yegolev]

Where the hell is my DroidX 2.2?

Manual update, I think.  My friend did not get it magically and had to go into the menus.

[Nerf]

Where the hell is my DroidX 2.2?

Also, go to contacts, swipe left or right and you have every single call/txt msg/facebook whatever you ever sent.  Ever.  And you can't delete it.

Where the hell is contacts?  I have people, call log, etc, and swiping left/right does nothing.

I'm pissed that all of my text messages got wiped a few weeks ago, just fucking gone, like they never existed.

Edit:  Quinton, anyway I can revive the old text messages in some way?  Apparently this problem has been going on for almost a year, theres got to be some nerd workaround to get them back by now.

[Nerf]

Is there any way to auto-upload pictures from my phone to my dropbox as I take them?  The dropbox app is a bit clunky and forces you to upload one at a time.

[Draegan]

Where the hell is my DroidX 2.2?

Manual update, I think.  My friend did not get it magically and had to go into the menus.

Settings > About Phone > System Updates :

Check for update was not available at this time.  Try again later. 

It's been like this forever.

[ffc]

I was doing voice searches for a few games and the phone understood "Castlevania."  Surprised, I tried "BioShock."  After that I looked up tricky names and successfully voice searched "BlazBlue Continuum Shift" and then "Naruto Shippuuden" which I'm confident I'm mispronouncing. 

I don't understand how this is possible but I like it.