Posted: September 9th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Lifestyle | Tags: Android, app, cellular, disorganized, facebook, g1, homescreen, htc, iphone, Mobile, open home, organize, palm, pandora, phone, pre, sense, shazam, store, t-mobile, twitter, ui, weather channel, widget, wxwidget | 1 Comment »
The problem of widget disorganization in Android has been approaching for some time. Now that many of the most popular apps come with widgets, I’m really beginning to feel the clutter on my homescreen. With today’s release of the official Pandora app and yesterday’s release of the official Facebook app, I now have two more medium/large widgets to deal with, and some reorganization to consider.
Pandora Widget, with some 2nd wave ska
I’ve reached the point where things have gotten ugly. With traditional icon-based apps, I can at least do a cohesive theme where everything is the same size and color and it matches the background. With non-themed widgets, though…I’m kind of at the mercy of the app’s designer.
Fortunately, I can add up to 7 more homescreens with Open Home, but anyone who’s dealt with a pack-rat will tell you that giving a hoarder more space doesn’t solve any problems, it just makes them harder to tackle.
I wouldn’t call myself a “widget hoarder,” but let’s see. In my “Add to Home Screen > Widgets” folder, I currently have: Analog Clock, Calendar, Facebook, Music, Open Home Big Analog Clock, Open Home Music, Open Home Setting Widget, Open Home Weather, Pandora, Picture Frame, Search, Tiny Clock Widget 2, Twidget Lite, Voice Text, Voicemail+ Large/Small, Weather Large/Small/Tiny, Weather Channel WxWidget Large/Small.
Do I really need SIX different weather widgets and three clocks? Not really, but you sometimes need to compare to get the best looking widgets that also provide the best results, plus it’s really only three in multiple sizes. The WxWidget actually isn’t my cup of tea, though it’s a super popular and handy app with more in-depth updates and alerts, but the Weather Widget by Lock2 is 100% better looking and gets the job done (I believe it’s designed after HTC Sense’s weather widget). It’s free too, but I highly advise floating a donation their way if you’ve got some change to spare.
Before I can even begin to think about organizing anything, I have to have a deep philosophical “chicken or egg” discussion with myself: Do services gain homescreen position because I use them more, or do I use them more because they’re on my homescreen? My homescreen is usually a bit of both. I use the weather widget a lot mostly because it’s there, not because I always care about the weather. Shazam is an app icon I feel like I always need on my homescreen, but I don’t use it nearly as much as, say, the Google Search bar, which I have relegated to a secondary screen. But really, I’ve started to feel like I don’t need app shortcuts any more with the way things are going. Everything I use pretty much resides in the “side drawer.”
It’s times like this that I wish there was a Widget “snap to” program, or a position randomizer, where I could just hit a button and have the widgets fit to a grid on my screen and I could decide if I liked it or not.
New Facebook widget with Twidget Lite
Because I prefer an uncluttered layout, I’ve switched to a five-screen layout where each screen serves a different purpose. The main screen has weather and calendar, the “music screen” has the Mp3 player and Pandora, the “feed screen” has Twitter and Facebook, the “utility screen” which right now only has the settings widget, and the “Google screen” only has the search widget right now, but anticipates the arrival of new homescreen toys from Google.
It’ll get the job done for now, but more widgets=more processes which ultimately means slowness. It’s running acceptably now, but we’ll see how things get bogged down in the real world. This is something we need to think about as Android users, since the elegant use of widgets is helping to make Android both stand out above icon-based smartphone interfaces, and run more efficiently for the user.
Posted: August 20th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, app, fun, g1, Geek, international, iphone, music, national, newton, npr, old, phone, podcast, pre, pri, public, radio, time | No Comments »
It took me a while to get into podcasts…like very long…like I had an iPod for 3 years before I even considered checking any out. And this is coming from a guy who runs errands on Saturday mornings just so he can listen to Car Talk, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, and This American Life in close succession. This is coming from a guy who would subject his bandmates to old tapes of Johnny Dollar and Nero Wolfe when on tour.
So, long story short, it took me a while, but I eventually learned that I love podcasts. However, using mp3 players without their own wireless connection kind of makes the acquisition of podcasts a little bit tiresome…especially if you don’t use iTunes. So being able to get them wirelessly as soon as they come out is probably one of my top five favorite media conveniences. It’s definitely up there with Kindle whispernet shopping and Netflix Instant streaming. (I’ll think of a couple more later.)
I used DoggCatcher for a while when the app was still pretty new, but it really sucked the battery, sucked up resources, the interface was crap, and there was no easy method of content discovery. On top of all that, they started charging for the full version. It was at that point that I uninstalled it. I haven’t had a podcatcher on my phone since then.
check that out!
So I’m stoked on
Google Listen, the new Android-exclusive podcatching app in Google Labs. Like most of Google’s stuff, it’s simple and straightforward. You search for podcasts you already know, download them, subscribe to them, or stream them instantly. On 3G you can get a good chunk of a podcast listened to, but once you hit the spot where it would normally pause to buffer, it actually starts all the way over again and you can’t jump back to where you were interrupted. It’s an annoyance, but they’ll fix it…they’re Google.
You can also discover new content by browsing through recent and most popular searches, or by entering topical search terms. For example, if you don’t know exactly which show you want to listen to, but you want it to be about some current event, just type in the event or the date. It’s a good use of search. I suppose it may actually be more a search tool than a podcatcher, but I haven’t decided yet. I have only been using it for one day.
Like the title of this post says, if it’s made by Google, even as a Lab, you can expect a certain degree of awesomeness.
Scan this to download Google Listen!
Humorously, In the Listen FAQ, it asks: “Will Listen work on my iPhone, Palm Pre, or Newton?”
Jokes.
Posted: August 12th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, iphone, palm, pre, WebOS | 2 Comments »
I like the Palm Pre…Maybe it’s because I like crap.
Palm’s phones were killer enterprise demons before the world went iPhone crazy and every company had to release a competitor. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great phone and everything, but I can’t help but compare it to the BlackBerry Storm…another example of an enterprise heavyweight trying to make something for the fat-fingered consumer to smear with his jelly-stained digits.
Palm tried to break into the consumer market with the Centro and really scored a hit, but at $99, the Centro’s margins were paper thin and an iPhone Killer* was needed. So we’ve got the Pre, equipped with WebOS.
And What better way to celebrate it than by creating homescreen skins that copy the design? The iPhone’s got one, and Android’s got one.
Well, yeah, see…it won’t be for long Palm apparently hit the designer of the “Palm Pre Android Theme” with a cease and desist order , so naturally I ran over to the Android Market and grabbed it. It’s free, why not?
Better Android Palm Pre theme
So here it is, not too shabby, eh?
The theme’s designer posted Palm’s C&D order in its entirety, and within it, Palm said:
“Without further investigation, Palm is willing to assume that you did not use Palm’s copyrighted images or adopt the Palm Pre Android Theme name with the intention of infringing Palm’s copyright rights or trading on the goodwill that Palm has developed in its valuable PALM and Palm Prē marks. Palm would prefer to resolve this matter amicably and without the need to resort to other legal remedies. However, we must receive written confirmation by [date redacted] 2009 that you will cease using the Palm Pre Android Theme name, as well as any other Palm or Palm Prē-based names for current or future software products, and that you will cease use and distribution of the Palm Prē user interface. Your failure to provide the requested written confirmation of this request in a timely fashion would suggest your intention to willfully infringe Palm’s trademark and copyright rights and could subject you to significant damages.”
So I advise you to go and pick it up, it’s not even that great of a theme, really…you could do a lot better. But what the hell, it’s kind of funny, it’s most likely going to go away (at least in name), and it’s MUCH BETTER THAN THE iPHONE’S VERSION.
*If you’ve ever read my writings on Betanews, you’ll know that I fucking hate the term “iPhone Killer,” almost as much as I hate the terms “Kerfuffle,” and “Perfect Storm,” but I’ll be damned if this hasn’t been turned into the name for all touchscreen devices designed with high consumer engagement but low enterprise value.