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Topic: Android! (Read 815056 times)
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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Fuck yes dude. I'm glad the phone is rocking it out!
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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Hows web browsing?
If it's good web-browsing I might consider it since Tmobile is ass here in central Jersey (20-25mi west of NYC). Must do research of their service in my area.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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It's fantastico.
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fuser
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1572
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It's fantastico.
Any flash support? If so what version ( tester here).
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I just looked up my Verizon contract, I can't escape until 6/09. I think I hate Verizon now. They havn't put out a cool phone in never.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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It's fantastico.
Any flash support? If so what version ( tester here). Not that I know of, I'll let Quinton answer about that though.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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So I hear good things from a few forums. However I need to figure out how good tmobile is near me. Also it's only 90 bucks to cancel my contract with verizon.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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So I hear good things from a few forums. However I need to figure out how good tmobile is near me. Also it's only 90 bucks to cancel my contract with verizon.
Knock yourself out.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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There's already useful stuff in the App Market, which unlike the App Store has lots of utilities and very few games right now. Shopping for toys at FAO Schwarz, I used ShopSavvy, an app that reads the bar codes off of products using the G1's camera, to find out that almost everything I wanted to buy was less expensive at Amazon.com. (Duh.)
This is awesome. From: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2331018,00.asp
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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ShopSavvy is fucking amazing. Seriously.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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Ok need to stop looking into this phone. I don't feel like spending money on it right now.
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MrHat
Terracotta Army
Posts: 7432
Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
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Ok need to stop looking into this phone. I don't feel like spending money on it right now.
Just steal bittorrent one.
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ahoythematey
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1729
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Damn you schild. I don't need a new phone.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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Yes you do.
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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The app market was seeded with a handful (50ish?) things, but Monday it will start accepting submissions from J Random Developer ( http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/10/android-market-now-available-for-users.html) and I bet we'll see a lot of fun stuff. However! We are *serious* when we say open. Don't like the market? Host your app on your website and users can click on it and install from there (you'll have to go to Settings / Applications / Allow Unknown Sources first). Hell, write an app that lets you download apps -- write a competing market. The system will still always ask for user confirmation before installing, showing you want privs the app desires (use the internets, make calls, read your address book, etc, etc) first. http://code.google.com/p/twisty/ - infocom/zmachine runtime http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/ - ssh client
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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Quinton, any plans from inside google for a flash app to support kongregate/newgrounds/armor games and such?
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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The barcode at the beginning of Chuck is nothing. >_>
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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Quinton, any plans from inside google for a flash app to support kongregate/newgrounds/armor games and such?
Unfortunately I can't discuss unannounced stuff -- there are, of course, a bunch of post-1.0 projects in the pipes but until official announcements are made or code shows up in the open source repositories, any discussion would amount to speculation about future features which makes PR and management unhappy. I *personally* think that you'd get much better performance in android games if you built a little engine that uses the hardware opengl|ES bindings available to java, rather than wait for somebody to do a flash port.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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The irony of performance issues is that the only place it's gotten crappy is in Pac-Man. It seems everyone on earth except Bandai Namco has heard of the word optimize. I'm sure that's not the case, but I found it... strange.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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Can you sell your phone stuff to Verizon please. You would make things easier on me.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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$90 to get out of a contract with a company with a shite network and no worthwhile phones on the horizon is pretty damn cheap. Considering the G1 is $360 for T-Mobile renewals and $180 for new customers, you're still ahead. By a good deal.
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Quinton
Terracotta Army
Posts: 3332
is saving up his raid points for a fancy board title
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So it's been a day now. What do you hate about it?
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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The battery cover is flimsy, but I'd rather have a battery cover than not have one. The joint feels solid but I fear I'll break it. Most of my problems thus far are with HTC and not with Android. however, it is the single best phone they have made, period. The Touch is nice, but it's just a shitty iphone clone and frankly I'm a little upset that the rumors about the next HTC/G2ish thing is buttonless like the iPhone. Tis weak. On Android: - The Marketplace needs options like a filter to get rid of things rated say, below 4 stars.
- More newspapers need to get in on it, the Telegraph is a piece of shit without a tech section. I'm almost tempted to make a game news app on it and restore life to a site I started a few months ago.
- Despite being a vastly superior OS to the iPhone thing, and being completely open, I fear it won't get the attention or respect it needs to throttle the iPhone back to the gimmick arena - much like the Entire Open Source Movement. tl;dr, Still seems like it's a neckbeard thing. This will probably solve itself. Maybe.
- Core functionality on the OS seems lacking in some strange areas, like Organization, etc - but I haven't messed with all of it (of it) - that said, I expect some kickass replacement skins for the things wanted - i.e. turning the pull up/main menu into a list.
- I'm worried that as the OS matures, so will phones, and phones like mine - the early adopter ones - won't be powerful enough to handle new apps - that said, Every Single Phone will Always have that problem. Odds are the iPhone will when the iPhone 2 comes out - but since that's a closed system, I'm sure major hardware revisions of the iphone (bandwidth not withstanding - edge/3g) will only happen once every 2 years, it's like the perfect time line for Apples bullshit engineering team, at the same time, the opposite - if Android gets huge - will be the case for this OS
- I repeat: The Marketplace is simply too simple, needs more rating options, more organization, more subdivisions, more - well - just More.
That said, it's the best phone I've had the pleasure of using, ever, hardware and OS problems aside - and as I said above, all of my OS concerns will probably be resolved by the open source community. Hell, there's already a video player out there that plays more formats than uhhhh Every Other Phone. Time to futz around with that. Edit: In other words, the phone is a joy and will easily live out it's 2 year contract and by then I suspect the options for Android on the market will be awesome. On that note, Android is an absolute fucking deathblow to everything except the iPhone - and even then, it's just a matter of the community catching up.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I need to run into a TM store and demo the phone sometime today/tomorrow.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I'm posting from a g1 now and its glorious
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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hahahahahahahah
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I demo'd it at the store. I did the math and it's about $180 to break the contract with Verizon (My Bill + $90). Then the cost of the phone ($180.00?) plus whatever fees associated with it.
$400.00 big ones I'm guessing when all's said and done. I have to sleep on it.
It's a fucking awesome phone though.
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ahoythematey
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1729
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Okay. Here's my big question. I already have a pretty sweet deal at T-Mobile for my current, non-awesome phone. Am I able to carry it over to this phone?
Goddamn you.
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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Yes, you'll have to pay $350 for the phone though and extend your contract, I THINK, how much time is left? It's prorated.
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ahoythematey
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1729
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My contract ends this month. Probably cheaper just to start a new plan, I guess.
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« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 04:12:37 PM by ahoythematey »
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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They might give you a break or they might not have any phones for a month or haiku.
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ahoythematey
Terracotta Army
Posts: 1729
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Hmmmmmm...it's on my future-list now, thanks.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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I think I may take the plunge tomorrow since my life is not complete without new gadgets.
Anyway, when I was demoing the unit today the only thing i didn't like was the web browser was a little slow when moving it around and zooming.
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Draegan
Terracotta Army
Posts: 10043
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schild
Administrator
Posts: 60345
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The phone itself is ugly and quirky It starts with that. You used it today. You should know if he's talking out of his ass. I could get 3G access on the sidewalk in front of my Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment building. It dropped to the slower EDGE data network when I entered the lobby, and the signal died altogether in my living room. Funny. I have not experienced this. Possible though, as with any phone. My Sprint coverage here was dick and their service area is basically THE US. but clips on both look blotchier than they do on a PC.) YMMV on what you're watching. I have to point out that the built-in trackball, which seems like an afterthought at first, is actually a huge benefit. It doesn't feel like an afterthought. It's brilliant, period. Note to Android software developers — Would it be so hard to add a touchscreen keyboard, such as the iPhone has? I know there are at least 3 in development. Who the fuck wants one though? For serious. This guy does. From Fox. Note to developers, part 2 — There's an accelerometer in the G1 handset. Use it.
Right now, none of the pre-installed applications change viewing format when the phone is turned sideways — but a beta-version video player I downloaded for free from the Android Market (Google's less-restrictive answer to Apple's App Store) does it automatically whether the phone is open or closed. Note to developers Part 2 - Use the accelerometer OOPS THEY ALREADY ARE? HOW WEIRD The drawback with that is that if you've got the file-transfer function enabled, you can't access any of the files on the MicroSD card when the cable is connected to a PC — and that means all your pictures, videos and music. Apple manages to get around this; why can't Google? True. But they don't want you fucking with shit while you're transferring. How weird. M4v-formatted video I'd ripped from a DVD played perfectly on the G1, and looked better than I'd expected since it was originally meant for a third-generation iPod Nano, which has half the screen resolution as the G1. "Video Player" is EXCEPTIONAL - I think it's like 15k and will only get better. That dev is a fucking winner. The G1 can also buy and download songs directly from Amazon's online music store, though as with the iPhone you've got to be connected to a Wi-Fi network rather than just the 3G cellular network. Album covers showed up fine using this method. Yes, Kindle style. (I wasn't able to compare the iPhone's Wi-Fi speed.) Strange considering he was able to compare all the other shit to the iphone. One caveat: Applications are saved not to the MicroSD card, which is reserved for media files and documents. Rather, they go to the phone's onboard flash memory, which has only 70 megabytes set aside for apps. That could fill up fast. I expect this to be fixed within weeks by a dev adding extensions ot the android code. His complaints have a lot more to do with T-Mobile than anything else. He's a dick without an eye for design combined with utility. And... He has a shitty, unkempt, probably can't make it look good beard. Don't trust him.
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« Last Edit: October 23, 2008, 08:11:38 PM by schild »
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