Hey John,

I was wondering if you'd be willing to comment on Android, being an experienced users. What do you like/dislike about using the OS? I'm very interested in discussing the software with a level-headed individual such as yourself!

A post from Engadget indicates that the next version of Android has been released (alpha?) and includes a slurry of new features including multi-touch, voice commands, and gestures. This makes for an even more compelling reason for me to get the X3 -- assuming that Android 2.0 is available on the X3.

Here are some links for anyone that's interested:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/07/26/e...running-on-g1/
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=540740
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=540881


YARR!
}:^)~
Capt'n Corrupt 2.0

Most "people" don't get their OS directly, but through a manufacturer or some other entity. and it is important to be open at that level too.

You're mistaking portability for freedom here. Some hackers made even WinMobile work on NITs, run MacOS X on non-original Mac hardware, etc. This does not relate to the *libre* aspect of those respective OSs in any way.

Except that in the case of those other OSes, they're violating licenses in order to do that. They're also working around the provided software to make it happen, instead of working in the spirit of that software's distribution model.

They're not violating any such license with Android. And they're downloading readily available copies of the software, provided by the maker for exactly that purpose. They're not "working around the provided software", they're working in the spirit of the provided software.

I don't disagree that the _hardware_ makers aren't fully open and free(libre), but so far, the OS is. And the mainline OS isn't limited (by license nor anything else) to those hardware instances. To say that the OS isn't fully free(libre) because the commercially available hardware that bundles it isn't free(libre) is rather disingenuous.

The OS isn't limited to that hardware in anyway. And just like other forms of Gnu/Linux, you can download it to put it on whatever hardware you like. It might take effort (just like early versions of Gnu/Linux did, and even still does when the hardware is new and not initially supported for Linux by the maker), but that doesn't contradict free(libre) nature of the software, if anything, that's part of what it means to be free in the libre sense - the BURDEN of being at liberty to use the software anywhere you like is that YOU may have to put in the effort of getting it to work there, if you're the pioneer of using the software on that platform.

Again, it's just like Gnu/Linux/X in the early days of Linux. There are going to be some who put non-Gnu software on top of it (X in the early days, for example, was licensed more like Apache and BSD than Gnu (and, as far as I know the original/main X distribution still is ... assuming it even still exists); and there were many commercial X environments, some based around Motif), and there are going to be hardware platforms that require hacking to get them to work (LOTS of hardware cards had cobbled together drivers, of questionable stability and quality, in the first 3-5 years of Linux). That doesn't change the libre aspect of the OS at all. Not with Gnu/Linux, not with Android.


(in fact, thinking more about X licensing, Benny's objections to the upper layers of Android being under an Apache license pretty much applies to X as well; several vendors have made customizations and optimizations to X, over the years, and not made their enhancements public (I don't recall Sun's hybrid X and Display PostScript engine (NeWS I think?) being open source, for example) ... this hasn't hurt the free/open versions of X at all, nor has it stopped Benny from being an X user and advocate, apparently)

It's not perfect ... the browser is sort of "mobile plus". Meaning that you get a lot of the same feature levels you'd get in the mobile version of a web page (Gmail Mobile, Google Reader Mobile, etc.), just with touch screen enhancements. So, for example, the Gmail "Send as" feature, filter authoring/editing functions, label creation/editing features, etc. are all not present in the built-in Android Gmail client. Nor in the browser (oddly, the Android Gmail application isn't the same as the Android browser experience for Gmail).

That's probably my biggest gripe. My G1 has a keyboard, but I can't use (full) Google Reader shortcuts with it, because it's Google Reader Mobile ... just with a fancier GUI than what you'd get on Symbian+Opera, or a WAP based browser (I can finger select articles and such, and finger scroll the list, instead of having to use number keys). I understand the desire to have a finger optimized experienced for those apps, but I don't understand why they didn't make their own experience with their own apps a bit more ... advanced. As it is, I don't fully read with Reader on Android. I mark as read anything I don't really want to read, skim the stuff I really want to read (and mark it "keep unread"). Then I have to do my real reading, starring, tagging when I get to a desktop.

(and, that's the kind of thing I would want/need to see fixed for Android on a netbook, but that's pretty much my ONLY objection to Android on a netbook)

There are other, similar, application layer annoyances. The IM app is similarly like a fancy-GUI on a typical cell phone IM client (only 1 active protocol at a time, only 1 active account in that protocol at a time, no where near as many protocols as Pidgin, and only 1 google talk account at all). I suspect that this one will get better as the ecosystem evolves, though. I can't be the only one who wants a better IM client for it.

And, no tethering support. But I hear that's more a carrier issue than an OS issue (they had tethering support in pre-release, but supposedly T-Mobile nixed it).

It doesn't have built-in access to the linux command line ... but I actually don't miss that much. The _main_ thing I used the command line for with Maemo was ... ssh to my desktops and servers. I can do that with ConnectBot (amazingly good ssh client ... orders of magnitude better than Putty on Symbian, for example). Though, I do miss an easily integrated VNC viewer (there is a VNC viewer, but I can't get it to work with ConnectBot's port forwarding AND do VNC passwords).

That's my negatives. On the positive side -- rich and growing application ecosystem. Lots of people working on access to the lower layers (but not yet an official 3rd party distribution, that I know of). Persistently connected device without having to carry two devices (though, that's as much the hardware as the OS -- if there was a Maemo phone, I'd probably be able to do that with Maemo as well).

I'm not big on pocket media players ... though I did recently load the UMPCPortal podcast on my G1 and listen to it on my way to work, and liked that. But, that's the extent of my attempts to use the G1 as a media player. On Maemo, I sometimes used Rhapsody (but not often; I use it more on my desktop than on anything else). So, I'm not a good source of info about comparing them as media player platforms, nor am I going to be swayed in my preferences based on which one is a better media player.

If you can make it past those negatives, like if you're ok with the level of web browser it has, and you care more about "1 device in my pocket" than a fully accessible linux command line, or your CLI needs are met with the SSH client, and if you aren't fanatical about having X on your Linux ... then Android is probably a good solid choice. Otherwise, I'd probably recommend sticking with Maemo, Mer, or an Ubuntu based MID.


In an ideal world, I'd have a Nokia Mako (with tiltscreen and 5 row keyboard) or HTC Touch Pro2 (with dpad on the face), scaled up to a 4.1" or 4.3" touch screen (maybe with multi-touch, maybe not), 800x480, gobs of memory and storage, at least one accessible microSDHC, 3.5mm headset jack, Micro-DVI-I out, USB Host+OTG, USB client for charging and data mode, dual SIM cards, quadband GSM, Euro/Asian/NAM/T-mo-USA 3G, running Maemo ... with Dalvik/Android-runtime for the app ecosystem, both the Android browser and built-in apps, and a full (non-mobile) browser, flash, java, a VNC viewer that is well integrated with the SSH client (and works through port forwarding and fully compatible with VNC passwords), VNC server and/or ability to act as a Redfly handset, and the ability to act as a tethering source for BT DUN, BT PAN, USB, and Wifi.

But, no one makes anything like that. And probably never will. So, for now, it's a tradeoff between Android on a phone or Maemo on a non-phone. For me, that means Android on a phone. When I get a chance to see Maemo on a phone, I may (or may not) shift back to Maemo. But, none of the other current contenders (WinMo, Symbian, iPhone, etc.) have made the cut for me.


Those are features of Donut, I think... the pastry names for Android aren't the same as pre-release versions. A recent post on AndroidGuys said not to confuse "Donut" with being something like "Android X.0-alpha". There might be features in Donut that don't make it to public release (in X.0, nor maybe ever).

Though, if they do make it into a future major release, I expect it wont just be for the X3. They're part of the main Android development cycle, so I expect you'd see them on every hardware platform that is capable of supporting the feature.

This debate sure is interesting

Jesse~

What OS are you running John? My Magic gives me a full web browser, exactly the same as my desktop. (unless I'm reading this wrong) I'm running the Hero ROM(sense UI) now but the stock Rogers ROM was no different. (cupcake)


The Sense UI also takes care of the Tethering, I have the option and it works great.



Starting to sound like a broken record, but the Sense UI also has a great media play if that's your thing. It has a coverlflo type interface, it's actually really good. The best app that I found if you don't/can't run Sense is RockON very similar to Canola without the video player option.
The Sense UI also takes care of the Muti-Touch interface in the Browser and Gallery.

Clinton

Android firmware version 1.5 on a G1.

If you go to Google Reader, you get EXACTLY the same interface you get with Firefox on your desktop? And when you scroll to the bottom, does it dynamically load more items (like in firefox) or does it have a link that says "load more items"? And if you scroll to the bottom, does it have a settings link (instead of at the top, like in firefox), and if you click on it, does it have ALL of the Reader settings, or just the small number of settings that Mobile reader has?

Tethering isn't in the UI. It's deeper down. So while I have no doubt of your claim that it's on the Hero ROM, I doubt very much that it's in the Sense UI :-)

And it's not an Android issue per-se, as I said. It's a carrier issue. T-Mobile-USA has told Google not to allow tethering apps into the T-Mobile-USA version of the Android Market. And the regular/vanilla Android has some tethering apps (wifi based tethering), they're just banned from the market, and some of them require rooting the phone (something I'm not willing to do).

Which carrier are you on (and in which country)? If it's Rogers, they may not have blocked tethering features and apps from their version of the Android Market (Google very definitely has carrier specific versions of the Market).

And, back to the browser, the HTC version of Android (used in the Hero, but not on the G1) may have a different browser app.

I didn't say that it's bad, I said I haven't used it, so I can't go around saying whether it's good or bad compared to, say, using Maemo as a media player. Or compared to an iPhone, etc.

John, you can disregard that last post, I'm rooted and running the Hero ROM (Sense UI) from HTC. (also scales the CPU up to 528mz instead of stock 400mz underclock)
I wasn't bashing you about the media player just giving you my opinion on what I would use coming form the N800.

Clinton

Apart from them ditching the keyboard - me being a N810 user - I would say this is an awesome product.

That said, I may have been heard saying that I would not willingly support Sony's crusade against the consumers, ever again.

But yeah, this seems an awesome product. Surely makes the HTC wonders seem a bit underpowered and closedplatformed to me.

And all and any Nokia products outdated.

Y'all can discuss how open the Android platform really is compared to Maemo any day, I think to most consumers that's a theoretical issue not related to their buying decisions. Someone mentioned that Android has a lot of momentum now. Indeed. I think that means more to many. Nokia hasn't shown any much momentum lately. I think Android may just kill Maemo. Completely surpass it, in a year. Eventually, end it.

Sorry, I don't want to be right here. But I might just be.



...wait, hang on. PDAdb.net has it at a lowly 360x640 resolution. If that should be right, then I no longer think this product is all that :B