Android stuff

For anyone unaware AT&T announced they are suppose to be changing there policy soon and allowing apps to be installed from among other places the Amazon app store, hopefully in the very near future

 

I think my body is conspiring against me. I typed the comment about wanting to get back into the program and my tendinitis has been acting up all day. I suppose tendinitis in the wrist may impede push up success... Still, the program is downloaded and I shall attempt (if not today)

 

I've had all three at one point or another, but I never actually used them. Once everyone is set up, we'll have to start a dedicated thread and keep each other motivated.

 

one of the benifits of rooting my captivate, of course, I really don't use that all that much as nearly everything comes from the androind market or amazon.

 

I hear ya, I tried some pushups the other day, I'm gonna hafta tough it out through a bit of discomfort in my elbow still, but I'm committed

http://www.theshaveden.com/forum/group.php?groupid=15

 

I've been on vacation and not checking in so I missed this follow up post. I'm surprised, but glad, to hear you didn't have too many problems upgrading to 2.2. I'm shocked you didn't have any troubles though. My son actually still uses my old Hero and he hates it due to all the things I mentioned before. I guess you were one of the lucky ones who didn't experience all the glitches. Anyway whenever you decide to upgrade these new Android phones are quite phenomenal. I've already mentioned I use the Evo and love it. My wife has the Evo Shift and my daughter the LG Optimus. They are all great phones; very user friendly, fast, multi-taskers. Google hit a homerun as far as I'm concerned.

 

Interesting. After reading that link I went ahead and uninstalled my Task Killer by Adao. Seems unnecessary. That article further linked to this one:

http://lifehacker.com/5342237/five-great-reasons-to-root-your-android-phone

Basically a "Why Root?" article. Thing is the article is 2 yrs old now. So I have two questions. #1: Why is rooting necessary or desirable? The Evo works pretty darn fast w/out any of the lag issues mentioned in that article. #2: What if any are the good 'one click' root apps out there now? I have read numerous blogs about rooting and they always reference a confusing process of downloading files to the home PC, saving other files to the phone SD card, type this and type that. All very cumbersome and non user friendly. A one-click, do it for me program is much more desireable.

That is of course if rooting is even necessary at all. I can see why hackers and tech geeks would be into it, but for an average joe user like me??? Dunno.

Thoughts and opinions?

 

I originally did it to get 2.2 Froyo on my Cappy, unlock the restrictions and remove the bloatware force fed to me by AT&T. Now mostly I do it because I'm a nerd.

 

exactly. it's not necessary, and it's not for the average user, or even more techie/geeky user, really.
but for those of us that really like to tinker, necessary's got nothing to do with

basically "root" is to *nix OS what "administrator" is to Windoze. For 93.624% of the population, rooting their phone shouldn't be of any concern at all.

The draw of it, besides the power user feeling, is getting rid of uninstallable apps, tweaking system settings, and probably most popular, installing custom ROMs, like the popular Cyanogen ROM.
Basically, installing a different flavor of OS, or merely stripping down the Android OS to it's core, vanilla version (think original Droid).
Kinda (well, exactly, technically) like trying out different Linux distros.

But, as far as "needing" to do it...probably very few instances where it would be "needed"

 

Pretty much what I thought you'd say. I think I'll pass on rooting although it does peak my curiosity. There is a lot of stuff on my phone I don't use, but quite a bit of other stuff I do. Wouldn't want to throw the baby out w/ the bathwater so I'll stick w/ the stock OS I guess. Thx.

 

Honestly, that's the best option. Sure, most carriers put add some of their junk to the stock OS build, but sometimes those are useful/beneficial for being on their network, or at the least convenient. Usually it's a waste of space, but unlikely it'll ever bother anyone under normal usage.
There's plenty or rewards to rooting, but the level of risk is proportional to the benefits, as with most things in life

 

Just read on MSNBC that Toshiba will start selling a WiFi only 10" tablet running Honeycomb on July 10 with more models expected as the year goes on. $429. That will be worth checking out. Toshiba made some decent laptops and their TV's are rated pretty good too. A solid company. Lets see how their tablet fares. Price is right; I will be keeping an eye on user feedback after they hit market.

 

Yeah, I've been seeing stuff about Toshiba tablet on Engadget and Gizmodo.
I really like the specs of the ASUS Transformer, I like the style of the Acer tablet, and Samsung is pretty nice, now with the Toshiba coming out, and the rumored specs of the Amazon tablet (quad-core Tegra 3!), it' a waiting game right now

 

Agreed. Best thing about this Toshiba is the price. That's one of the cheapest I've seen. Presumably as competition increases prices should fall too...at least by a bit. I find it somewhat amusing that very few people have been interested in the 3G/4G subscriptions offered by the cell companies. Nearly everyone who buys an iPad or Android seems to be ignoring that and simply using them WiFi. That's what I'll do when/if I get one. I'm glad that bit of marketing has backfired. They just try to gouge you however they can and it's gratifying to see when consumers make a stand.

 

The ASUS Transformer is priced at $399 for 16 GB (if/when you can find it), only one cheaper than that is the the Viewsonic at around $300, because there were a lot of complaints/issues with it, primarily the screen at relatively low angles, so you pretty much have to look straight at it.

 

As an update to my earlier post I read a bit more about the Toshibas. It is to be called the "Thrive" and will be a 10.1" screen running Honeycomb 3.1. It will range in price from $429 to $579 w/ 8G, 16G and 32G models available. WiFi only I believe w/ no cell company data package attached to it as far as I know. Dual Core processor so should be pretty fast. The best thing (in my opinion) is it has all the ports the iPad and other tablets have left out: HDMI, mini HDMI, USB, SD memory expansion and card reader. So you can plug and play any other device out there you desire, add memory, store projects and so on. Battery life of 7 hours continuous run time and it can be removed and replaced. Front and rear facing cameras; 2 and 5 megapixels repectively. Interchangeable rubberized rear covers in various colors will be sold for $20. Looks good so far. As mentioned before we'll need to wait a couple weeks after launch to get a better feel for user happiness. I have high hopes.

 

Not to be pedantic, but most of the Android tablets have all those ports, though they may only have one or the other of the HDMI, not both.

Yeah, I'm excited about future tablets, they'll just get better. I'm expecting the Amazon tablet to be the real killer Android tablet, but we'll see. Several companies have had the opportunity and not taken it.
The Motorola Xoom really had a great shot, but they dropped the ball by bringing it to market before it was ready I think.

Funny thing is, I finally succumbed to the pressure to look at Craigslist for the first time, found a Xoom within 30 miles, 32GB, "barely used", for $400; that's pretty tempting.

 

I'll fall to tablet temptation eventually, but it's going to wait a few months until my loving girlfriend is hired on permanently to her new job and we've moved, so maybe October/November, at least most stuff should be available by then. One of the things I'm looking forward to the most is surfing the Den on Tapatalk on a bigger screen. I miss the smileys, but it has some really nice features that I miss when on the desktop. In fact, I think I do most of my posting from my phone now. When I go home in a couple of weeks to see my mom, one of the first things I have to do is teach her how to use her Xoom.

 

...AND now Woot has the Viewsonic GTablet for $269 today....dang that's get a stronger and stronger temptation...