Android!

[Vaiti]

I always leave GPS on. Simply because I never notice a difference in battery life. It turns on when an app I'm using requests to use GPS, and turns off when not in use.

[bhodi]

How to use the map application.

1. hold the search button (magnifying glass) for a second or two, or tap it and then tap the microphone icon
2. say "navigate to <address>"

This is cool, I didn't know about the voice. I love navigation; it pretty much means i'll be an android lover for life. Google really needs to get that into a movie, where the guy just pulls out his phone says navigate to and then drives off. There's so many features even I as a power user don't know about.

Though, I don't think there's a way to get out to navigation once you've put in your destination in maps and hit the show map/direction list button instead of 'navigate to' button. I ran into this problem, and I figured there would be some sort of 'launch navigation' option but I couldn't find it. It would be nice if it was in the home menu.

Also, I still wish there was some way to easily transfer directions to your phone from your computer. Basically, there is no easy way to enable the scenario where someone emails you and says "Come over at 8, here's my address" without pulling out your phone and talking into it right there. Either having some sort of saved list of favorite destinations, a map bookmark list that's synced over, a QR code, or some way to easily transfer that info.

If the address is semi-complex, it's a real PITA; there isn't a way to get it into google maps while reading it from your phone, as you have to close the email reader and bring up maps or talk into it. Just small UI annoyances.

[Quinton]

How to use the map application.

1. hold the search button (magnifying glass) for a second or two, or tap it and then tap the microphone icon
2. say "navigate to <address>"

This is cool, I didn't know about the voice. I love navigation; it pretty much means i'll be an android lover for life. Google really needs to get that into a movie, where the guy just pulls out his phone says navigate to and then drives off. There's so many features even I as a power user don't know about.

Though, I don't think there's a way to get out to navigation once you've put in your destination in maps and hit the show map/direction list button instead of 'navigate to' button. I ran into this problem, and I figured there would be some sort of 'launch navigation' option but I couldn't find it. It would be nice if it was in the home menu.

Also, I still wish there was some way to easily transfer directions to your phone from your computer. Basically, there is no easy way to enable the scenario where someone emails you and says "Come over at 8, here's my address" without pulling out your phone and talking into it right there. Either having some sort of saved list of favorite destinations, a map bookmark list that's synced over, a QR code, or some way to easily transfer that info.

If the address is semi-complex, it's a real PITA; there isn't a way to get it into google maps while reading it from your phone, as you have to close the email reader and bring up maps or talk into it. Just small UI annoyances.

If you have the latest Maps app, you should have a Navigation icon in the all apps drawer that should get you back to where you were.  Also, while navigation is actively following a route for you, it puts a notification in the status tray which should also get you back there.

As far as maps locations, you can click on the star next to items you've searched for (both in maps on the phone and maps.google.com).  These items are synced between the two, showing up in the Starred Items list under My Maps on the web and the Starred Items menu option on the maps app on the phone. 

You can add addresses to contacts and create shortcuts to maps or navigation, etc.

[MuffinMan]

Basically, there is no easy way to enable the scenario where someone emails you and says "Come over at 8, here's my address" without pulling out your phone and talking into it right there.

Pull up the e-mail on your phone, hold your finger on the address and a menu comes up where you can select "Map." Voila?

[Quinton]

Demo of Voice Actions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZ56bIfWzI

[rattran]

Wow, voice to text sending works pretty damn well. Color me impressed. I always just used that for calling people and websearch

[Nerf]

Is anyone else in the Swype beta right now?  I'm having an issue with my HTC Incredible where Swype will stop letting me swype - it just blinks blue every time I try, no matter how short the word, and I have to hand-type.  Powering the phone off and on seems to fix it temporarily, but give it a few hours and it'll go right back to having to enter everything manually - wtf?




As for navigation, Google maps is incredibly easy to use, and I didn't even know about the voice navigation shit.  Now I get to use it and mock my fiancee' even more because her Hero a laggy piece of shit and only works 20% of the time.

I like the fact that I can open maps, voice search for whatever, have all of the locations pop on map so that I can just click on whichever one I want to go, click navigate, and done.

Still use the GPS most of the time though, simply because I like the speed limit/current speed display in a more heads-up format so I don't need to watch the gauge cluster except for random fuel/temp checks.

Google navigation needs to add that shit, and there also needs to be a GIANT FUCKING 'AVOID TOLLS' button.  Fuck you Garmin, fuck you in the ass.

[rattran]

I'm in the swype beta, I had that issue with the full install, uninstalled and reinstalled with the english/spanish only, and haven't had it happen in weeks. But I'm on a Droid, dunno what ui nonsense the Incredible has that might interfere.

[Nerf]

Fixed by longtouch on an inputtable box->interface->touch keyboard->longtouch->interface->swype

Who knows how many times I have to do it, if it keeps happening I'm going back to the normal keyboard.

[Vaiti]

That tends to only happen if Swype is stored on the SD card. Move it back to the phone if you moved it to your SD to save app space.

[Engels]

So, I played about with the google maps app on the android, and well, it is more feature rich than the apple, but its not as intuitive. Nothing that can't be figured out after a while. The speech search function is a bit wonky, since asking for 'university village' turns up a place in Chicago, whereas I'm in Seattle. If I say 'university village seattle', University Village shows up as the 2nd search result. Not optimal, since, well, you'd expect the search engine to look in your area first.

Unfortunately, it won't shut off after using the app killer if you are in 'navigation mode'. It keeps saying 'navigation resumed', even after a full task kill. Turns out, after fiddling, that you have to manually exit the navigation to prevent it from auto-launching.

Also, the triangulation with GPS & 3G is wildly inaccurate. When I turn 4G on, then it finds me, within a few blocks.

[ffc]

So, I played about with the google maps app on the android, and well, it is more feature rich than the apple, but its not as intuitive. Nothing that can't be figured out after a while. The speech search function is a bit wonky, since asking for 'university village' turns up a place in Chicago, whereas I'm in Seattle. If I say 'university village seattle', University Village shows up as the 2nd search result. Not optimal, since, well, you'd expect the search engine to look in your area first.

Unfortunately, it won't shut off after using the app killer if you are in 'navigation mode'. It keeps saying 'navigation resumed', even after a full task kill. Turns out, after fiddling, that you have to manually exit the navigation to prevent it from auto-launching.

Also, the triangulation with GPS & 3G is wildly inaccurate. When I turn 4G on, then it finds me, within a few blocks.

Something is up with your phone (maps/navigation version?) and/or GPS signal. I just did a voice search for "map of university village seattle" and maps opened this:

University District Bldg, Seattle, WA 98105
http://m.google.com/u/m/dMyriu

Didn't look right so I selected it, selected "search nearby" and said "university village," which gives the correct map:

University Village Shopping Centere
1 (206) 523-0622
2623 Northeast University Village Street, Seattle, WA
http://m.google.com/u/m/dwUgqN

Also doing a search of "university village shopping center seattle" would get you there.

After navigating there, I can exit navigation by pressing back or menu -> exit navigation. No task killer. If you don't exit then it keeps running in the background so you can multitask with a phone call, internet search, pandora, etc., and still get navigation updates.

And my GPS signal is accurate to which side of the street I'm on while using walking directions.

Navigation is still one of my thisissoawesome apps along with sky map, goggles, and my tracks.

[Vaiti]

Yeah, that is pretty much exactly my experience as well. Could just be your phone, or maybe your area. I don't know. But my GPS/3G/Wifi gets my location accurate enough that I have Tasker set up to have my phone automatically switch to Silent mode if I happen to be in the room that my class is scheduled to take place in during that classes time.

[NowhereMan]

I love the power of Navigate, used it when we were in France over Christmas since we rushed out the door at 6 in the morning and forgot to bring the Garmin satnav. Annoyances in this case was having to turn on the data connection to get any route information or maps, roaming charges for that weren't pretty (though not overly terrible since I only really needed it round the cities and Vodafone is looking to redo their roaming charges to actual reasonable rates, something I'm going to look into). Is there any way to change the voice on it though? That female text to speech voice is bone chilling.

I have had issues with the GPS before though, especially in London. More than once I've tried to use it and had to wait well over 10 minutes for the GPS to actually get signal (with wifi turned on) and a few times I've gone on runs and gotten back to find that RunKeeper hasn't actually gotten any route info for me because the GPS didn't work. It seems to have gotten better recently so I don't know if that was some software thing that 2.3 has fixed or similar or if I've just been lucky lately (using an N1). I don't use the voice commands much just because I've found talking to my phone makes me feel like an utter tool, using the auto send text message thing is something I desperately want to show to my friends though. Nothing like wasting a free text sent to someone standing right next to you just to show off your magic future tech.

[NowhereMan]

Despite my excitement over the voice command thing it doesn't seem to work. The 'navigate to' command will get me into the navigate menu but any others I try just end up with a google search for 'send text to [contact name]' I've got a Nexus with the latest updates and it sounded like I should be able to use them, the phone definitely picks up the words but just googles them. Like I said navigate is the only one it actually works with.

[Vaiti]

The voice thing has been around awhile, but I think the voice commands thing is a fairly new thing that came out either in the last or latest update. So could be your carrier hasn't pushed the update or, yeah, it just isn't working.

edit: derp derp, and if I had reread your post prior to this I'd have seen you have the latest, so it just isn't working as it should

[Nerf]

Mine was the same way on my HTC incredible, you just need to go the market and download the latest version of the voice search.

[NowhereMan]

This is on the latest version, even tried uninstalling and reinstalling. After checking more thoroughly it turns out that text messages aren't in fact one of the voice commands. Navigate, directions and call all work fine it's just that damn video with the texts that made me see magic.

[Nerf]

This is on the latest version, even tried uninstalling and reinstalling. After checking more thoroughly it turns out that text messages aren't in fact one of the voice commands. Navigate, directions and call all work fine it's just that damn video with the texts that made me see magic.

Text stuff worked fine for me after downloading the latest version from the market.  I think yours is just broken :/

[jakonovski]

I just ordered the HTC Desire HD, which is the updated euro version of Evo 4G. I've had a Touch Diamond for the last two and a half years, so I'm expecting great things from this new toy.

[NowhereMan]

Text stuff worked fine for me after downloading the latest version from the market.  I think yours is just broken :/

[ffc]

Try just saying "send text to" with no contact name. Does the voice edit text message window pop up? Can you use "send email to"? Or "note to self"?

The faster I talk the better it works. You can also set voice to learn the way you speak: settings > voice input > voice > personalized

[NowhereMan]

Saying just "Send text to" results in either a search for "send text" or voice search asking me if I meant "..." with a series of different options, all google searches and no commands.

Email and note to self are both out as well as commands. Is voice search the wrong thing to be trying this in or is there some magical thing I'm missing?

[Xuri]

So... It's now nearly seven weeks since a Google rep said that Gingerbread for Nexus One "should be coming in a few weeks". WTB Google's definition of "a few weeks" please!

[MahrinSkel]

So... It's now nearly seven weeks since a Google rep said that Gingerbread for Nexus One "should be coming in a few weeks". WTB Google's definition of "a few weeks" please!

Something less than 10¹⁰⁰?

--Dave

[Vaiti]

I've been running Gingerbread since mid December...

[Salamok]

My Motorolla Droid has been sucking the battery down about 2x as fast since upgrading to android 2.2.1, any suggestions?

[rattran]

I assume you've checked settings/about phone/battery use to see if it's a rogue app sucking down the power?

[KallDrexx]

My Motorolla Droid has been sucking the battery down about 2x as fast since upgrading to android 2.2.1, any suggestions?

My battery has been dying quickly lately on my Moto Droid 1 to the point where half a day with minor usage would show 20%.  I couldn't figure out why, but I fully reset the phone and now everything is working well.  Annoying that I had to do that though....

[fuser]

Dunno where to put this so i'll try here. Anyone going to Google I/O this year?

[Salamok]

I assume you've checked settings/about phone/battery use to see if it's a rogue app sucking down the power?

No I had not, but now that you mention it:
56% display
21% browser
8% voice calls
6% android is

Doesn't look like an app problem. Any way to do a full phone reset and save my settings?

[KallDrexx]

Depends what settings you mean.  There are various backup apps in the market that can help.  Google automatically knows your wireless settings, what apps you have installed, and some other various pieces of misc information, and all of that will be put back on once you re-activate. 

Anything else will have to be manually backed up.

[Sky]

So, rather than trying to reread this entire thread to figure this out - if someone was thinking of switching to an Android phone, which would folks suggest?  Carrier would be Verizon, because we've been with them for years now and are totally happy with our service.

We can't switch for a few months yet (early upgrades are in May) but I figure it's worth starting to look now.  He may want to stay on BB, who knows if Verizon's iPhone will be out by then and honestly, I stopped into a store tonight to play with the Droid phones and rather liked what I saw.

Looks like we're finally in the market, too. I got a laugh last night when she said "Did you know the iphone can scan barcodes!?" Now she wants an iPhone on Verizon. While I'm pretty sure the scanner app is around for everything (yeah?), her main argument for the iPhone is "I want iTunes!"

Whereas although I like apple OS, I'm not a huge fan of their apps. Safari blows with our IMAP, and I just like having a bit more freedom to choose apps, especially given the current move to google apps integration in the library.

Would like to have a decent camera and a solid enough computing core that I'm not hating it before the end of the contract. Good screen, the larger the better, multitouch. Solid gps with some good apps to support it (driving gps is cool but hiking gps is way cool). Not worried about 4g because we live in the 2nd world part of america. For her phone, a good tethering phone for her laptop, since that would be a big part of her usage (she doesn't have internet at home).

Bonus for a solid package deal where we could both pick up good phones without crippling hers too much. We can't go with a single unit because I'd be replacing my land line and she needs one for tethering at her house.

Also, holy shit the monthly fees are expensive for unlimited data and almost nothing else.

Are the Incredibles good? They've got a BOGO running for $100 @ verizonwireless.

[Oban]

Sounds like you are buying an iPhone, congratulations!

Why would anyone use an iPhone web browser instead of the pretty kick ass mail app to access IMAP?

[Furiously]

Sky, given your talking about being short money, I'd take a serious look at the Virgin Mobile plans and how their service is in your area, The Samsung Intercept isn't the greatest, I'm really not a fan of how small the screen is, but....it does everything.