I finally get to post the pictures I snapped in Malta. This took so long because in the process of this “holiday” I lost, among other things, my Nexus One. Yes that gadget which made me Android crazy and write up all those heart-felt blog posts. Sigh.
There will be a sense of continuation to the pictures and suddenly nothing, the reason for this being that both my wife and me fell sick – bronchitis with fever sick – for the last five days. We even had to delay our departure by two days. Without further ado:
Every once in a while something comes along that challenges the accepted way of doing things. One such example is an android app called 8pen, which aims to reinvent the smartphone keyboard.
The premise is that the standard keyboard layout was designed for a specific use, which became obsolete with the arrival of touch devices. It looks clever, and once mastered it should allow even typing without looking. Legal disclaimer: this is not an endorsement of using a mobile phone while driving. It is bad.
I’ll throw a few hours at the learning curve, see whether it results in a more intuitive typing method as claimed.
I recently came across an advertisement in the local papers calling for applications to the Abu Dhabi Through Your Eyes 2010 photography competition. The first thing that sprang to mind was an article that appeared earlier this year in The National:
ABU DHABI // An amateur photographer who said he was aiming for the perfect snap for a photography competition was jailed, relieved of his passport and yesterday fined Dh1,000 (US$270) for taking prohibited pictures on Khalifa Bridge. MA, 30, a Pakistani living in Sharjah, said he was taking pictures of the sunset for the “Abu Dhabi Through Your Eyes” contest, but he was accused of photographing Mina Zayed, which includes military facilities and docked warships.
In the age of Google Earth / Maps, where the lay of the land is visible to all and sundry, it is puzzling to see such outdated security principles still being upheld. What additional detail could the photographer have captured that is not visible in more detail in this map?:
My guess is that the authorities might be worried that the current occupancy of the base, rather than some architectural detail, would be monitored. But anybody wanting to do that would be perfectly capable using his bare eyes and report back to his spy masters without attracting any notice.
Would the Office of Brand Abu Dhabi put up notices delineating what is ok to capture on film and what is not? Or, knowing how they do things in Abu Dhabi, they could take it high-tech: (geek warning) they could take the concept of alternate reality layers (as already found in Android smartphones) and install them in gps enabled cameras so that when your viewfinder rolls over forbidden real estate, the camera will automatically not allow you to snap the picture.
Of course this incident happened in February, so it is not news, and things might have actually changed since then as no other such reports have been heard since (to the best of my limited knowledge). But any would be competitor had better do his / her homework and find out which areas are camera shy.
When it comes down to it there are basically two things that one can do with an Android phone:
1. Use it like any normal phone. Make calls, download apps, show it off, brag about it, spar with ifanboys, and/or
2. Open the metaphorical lid, thus invalidating the warranty, and customise the hell out of the thing. More correctly known as rooting the device and flashing a custom ROM.
Guess which one I did?
But first, a disclaimer. I am no phone hacker, nor will I ever claim to be one. I just scoured the interwebs for how-tos and tutorials, which are not that difficult to find. The task is finding the one that is applicable for your situation.
It is actually funny in retrospect because about a month ago I had commented to a friend that I wasn’t the type to mess with the phone, as it was “outside my comfort zone”.
So what happened? In my expanding thirst for Android gadgets I decided that I was going to get my hands on one of the tablets coming out in September / October. I was particularly ogling the Samsung Galaxy S Tab (take a look here). This would make my Nexus One semi-redundant (since I don’t use it for phone calls anyway), so I decided to step outside the comfort zone, unleash the wannabe geek in me and experiment with the thing.
Ironical side note: after I took the plunge, the pricing info for the Samsung tablet was released, and I decided it was out of budget. Since I intended to use it mainly to buy and read ebooks I settled for the Amazon Kindle, so I went ahead and ordered the 6″ wifi Kindle 3. It is currently out of stock, but if all goes well I’ll describe that process in a separate post. Actually even if it doesn’t go well, as I’d need to vent.
Back to the thread, what I did was very roughly as follows:
Backed up all my important stuff and downloaded apps.
Accessed the bootloader and unlocked the device.
Installed a recovery image, to be able to load the original software in case the device bricks (becomes as useful as a brick, maybe less so as you wouldn’t be able to stack them and end up with a solid structure).
Through the recovery make a backup of the entire current OS. You know, just in case.
Installed a custom ROM – in my case Cyanogenmod v6-point-something. Not that I knew exactly what I was going into, but it seemed to be the most talked-about and praised ROM.
Oh there were many in-betweens. One had to find the right site to install the Android SDK on the PC and hook it up via USB, download the recovery and the ROM, find the latest stable version, get blocked off the main Cyanogen site and thus having to find a costly roundabout way, find the right instructions / guidelines, none of which assumed my very basic level of knowledge so a lot of guessing was involved.
So why go through all this hassle? One thing is that the custom ROM takes the device and puts every setting at your disposal. This is not done out of the box to protect the owners of the devices by ensuring that it is stable and works well. After all tampering isn’t for everyone.
Performance is also greatly increased. Out of the box the software somehow limits the hardware’s performance, for whichever reasons (battery life, compliance with carrier restrictions, alien interference). After installing the custom ROM even the basic handling on the phone noticeably improved. One can also overclock the device, that is make the CPU run at faster speeds, but I haven’t tried that out yet. Actually at this point there I many things I have to try out, it is wide open: tweaks, themes, apps, whole new ROMs, etc.
Let’s set the record straight from the start: I’ve become an Android fanboy, joining the open source, community friendly, hardware superior side of the argument with the purchase of my Nexus One. Although to be fair I’m not familiar with ios4 so I can’t draw comparisons accurately, just from superficial general knowledge.
(Image credit n/a - it's open source demmit)
Where to start? From the unpacking of course. You can use an android straight out of the box without any itunes nonesense. Syncing it with my Google account and I immediately have access to all my contacts, no need to start from scratch or import.
Next, the software. Over the air, hassle free system updates – you don’t need to wait for the next phone model for the latest OS version. Greater choice of free apps, which now can also be automatically updated instead of going through them one by one. The app market isn’t as restrictive as Apple’s. There isn’t the fear of having your submitted app rejected by some mysterious review board. For those living in the states there’s also GPS guided turn-by-turn voice directions to drivers. Take that Garmin. A budding voice-to-text capability – any text input field can be filled in by voice, although the success rate isn’t very high and you still have to review the transcription. Then there’s Google Goggles, the awesome image recognition beta app. It allows you to shoot something and then returns search results based on what it recognises. Applications of this include: taking pictures of products in shops and then searching for information or other prices, shooting landmarks and having relevant information returned on the search, business cards can be scanned and entered directly into contacts.
Next, the hardware. Changeable battery, SD card support (on which you can now store apps, not just media), arguably faster processor, wifi tethering, noise canceling dual microphones, oh and no need for a rubber band around it to keep from dropping calls.
The only thing I’ll concede is that apple products and apps (i.e. the UI) are sexier design wise. But that’s what captivates the audience.
I’d say that the argument between apple and android is ultimately one of impulse/desire vs logic. And in the end, the fan bases on both sides are not easily convinced to switch. It’s like the point of contention is so close to heart that to concede any ground would be akin to admitting a deep personal flaw. Of course there are those well funded enough to be able to “try out” the other systems, only to to say that they prefer their previous phone and revert back to it (or the latest version thereof).
Update: this webcomic sums up nicely the apps possibilities of the two OS. If you don’t know what a custom ROM is, see my next post.
