DROIDICAL

I have been trying to figure out the cleanest Skype Out solution on Android.  The official Skype app for Android really only does IM and then uses your mobile phone (minutes) for outgoing calling. This is actually not bad if you can spend the minutes or don’t call frequently. I always thought it would be cool to get a ‘real’ voip solution using my existing Skype account (without spending on another VOIP solution like SIP or whatever).

The two best options I have found so far are Fring and Nimbuzz. I found Fring to be a little buggy and cludgy on the UI side of things. I liked the clean Nimbuzz approach. Easy to see the diff between your different IM accounts. For Skype out type calling I could only call land lines if they were in my buddy list… and if I ’showed offline contacts’ in the menu. 

The other advantage to Nimbuzz is after the outbound call connects it gives you a dialpad (going through an automated system) which is handy. The bummer is if you want to call someone they have to be a contact on your list… you can’t just dial a number like you can in your normal skype client.

I have read of people enabling sipdroid with Skype out info but it hasn’t worked for me yet.  Until something better I will probably use Nimbuzz (which also works well for multi-headed IM client)…. so if you know of a another solution let me know.

I would venture to say that many people buying a Droid have never  really delved into the online calendar world.  I use a calendar at work heavily but haven’t really done much personal calendaring.  Entering an appointment or event right on into the built in Calendar app is such a cinch I started doing it. Then comes the next question… how to view or sync this with your desktop calendaring software.

As many Androidites already know… by jumping into Android you are drinking the Google CoolAide for better or worse.  Your little calendar app automatically syncs with your Google account calendar.  You can view it simply by going to Google Calendar or by using CalDAV to sync with software able to sync with it Mozilla Sunbird and Apple iCal work well.  You can view and add to your calendar through these desktop apps….though I am finding I use the web based applications for most everything getting the same experience no matter what system I am on.

As I added more and more stuff to my new Droid I began to wonder how secure is this? A kid could figure out how to slide the unlock. Can I secure it with a password? Sort of. I found in the ‘Location and Security’ menu the ability to set your own ‘Unlock Pattern’ which to be honest I thought was a little weird at first.  I still wonder how secure it really is as it seems easy for someone to see me entering it (vs typing something on a small keyboard).  On the plus side, once I got used to it… doesn’t really take any longer than swishing the unlock in than in the ‘no pattern’ scenario.  My initial thought was that I would just set it to be required when traveling but may just keep it on.

The process was just like setting up password, but does feel like your missing something. Thought it might help to see it so here are the steps I went through to set my pattern….

As I said from the home page open the menu and touch the ‘Location and Security’

Select ‘Set Unlock Pattern’ which takes you to an intro page giving the steps coming

‘Next’ will open an intro describing how to create the pattern with four dots

The next screen allows you to record your pattern, letting you retry (reset) if you don’t like it.

Once you feel comfortable with this… touching ‘continue’ takes you to a pattern confirmation page, where you enter it again

After touching ‘Confirm’ it takes you back to the preferences screen with the ‘Require pattern’ set and ‘Use visible pattern’ set.

Now when I ‘locked’ the phone and tried to come back I was prompted to enter my pattern

One tricky thing I found was that if I opened with the slider… had to enter my pattern sideways (in a way), but got used to that pretty quick

Otherwise, you can still disable sound and go into airplane mode etc.

If your like me you have been looking at different accessories for your Droid.  The Dock is a cool idea.  I got to checking out the reviews of the dock and I agree with most people’s comments that it would be really nice if it had either audio out ability or speakers.  Still would like to have a nice alarm clock type functionality like that.

Dock Runner started floating around the interwebs yesterday (at least that’s when I caught it) so I gave it a try. It let’s me put my Droid into ‘dock mode’ giving all the same visual features… minus the plastic stand and easy usb plugin. You get a nice big easy to see clock, date, and weather summary (based on location which you can

override or change). It also gives you quick access to typical ‘by the bedside’ needs like the alarm settings, music, media and my fav the dimmer (light bulb).

I did notice that it is a little different from running other apps because it sets this ‘dock mode’ which bottom line means it is stuck in horizontal view no matter how much I rotated. If you click away to the Music or Media apps you will still be in ‘dock mode.’ Other typcical menu and touch options seem to be disabled, like double clicking the home button (love that one), but search still worked (can’t seem to get away from that thing). The only way to disable it is to click on the app icon again which will shut it off.

So if your willing to plugin the USB for charging and having a book or something to prop up your Droid (yep, times are tough) it pretty much does the same thing as far as I can tell.  It will be interesting to see if the Droid get enough base to entice third parties to build other hard accessories using these same features.

The Facebook app that came already installed on the Droid / Android 2.0 is simple and would seem to have everything you need.  The funny thing is that I find myself using the facebook mobile site available through the browser more.

On the positive side I like the simplicity, always wins with me.  In fact when my wife first saw it she blurted out that she wished Facebook on the web could be like that. There seems to be a tight integration with the camera and Gallery application which works nicely. It shows your update stream, friends, photo, profile, notifications, and let’s you take a photos for immediate upload to your profile.  For viewing friends status updates it works great.  I use groups on the web side so I can filter out my different types of ‘friends’ but this just takes the whole feed of updates together. Updating status is simple.

All my notifications come to my GMail account so now those are popping instantly into my Android GMail app.  When I first started to get them I was flipping back over to the Facebook application to find the comment or message and reply to it.  It wasn’t easy to find… even using the Notifications tab.  I found that clicking on the link itself ending up redirecting me over to Facebook mobile site touch.facebook.com which seemed just as simple and yet have a little better set of features.

One important piece in particular that the stand alone app is sorely missing is my ‘Inbox’ where I can view direct messages friends sent me.  Besides that, going from GMail to facebook mobile site was much more seamless and a better overall experience.

May be I will introduce it to people who are getting tired of the cluttered web browser experience, but then they might miss their Mafia Wars.

Apps installed and kept this week

+ Animal Sounds – What can I say…my two year old loves it.
+ DailyDilbert – no explanation needed
+ Google Sky Map: so cool, waiting for a really clear night
+ Hellotxt: easy way to update multiple social networks at once
+ Hudo: puzzle type game
+ Pandora: Works as expected with existing presets and lets you create new stations.
+ Places Directory: finds cool stuff near you, view by categories
+ RingDroid: lets you take any audio file, cut out the part you want to use as a ringtone
+ Robo Defense FREE: hooked already I think
+ WP2Go: let’s you update your WordPress Blog posts

Aps installed and then removed this week

- Hi AIM Beta: didn’t seem to look correct on the Droid and Meebo beats it out on overall functionality I think
- Dizzler: music search and play from internet which works fine but need to at least stream a whole album
- Imeem: didn’t pick up my favorited playlists

What were my first impressions of the Droid after using it a week? Overall: still love it. Flaws? Of course there are. First week is still fairly honeymoonish. Playing with the new toy, liking the hardware learning the software, etc.

Connected to the Mainframe

It came to life after it first slurped in my Google account. It started talking. Since I was already using gmail for pretty much everything (but work) it brought the Droid to life. The gmail application is simple and works great. The other epiphany came when I started to check and make sure numbers from my old cell were in there. All my Google and Facebook contacts all sync’d from the get go. Looking for a friend’s number was bit overwhelming if you have a lot of emails and FB connections many of which you don’t really call regularly but thankfully there is a little feature to filter out contacts that don’t have numbers which helps. The amazing thing to me was how little I did to get this all setup.

Additionally I added the free Meebo app for instant messaging and hellotxt app for updating status across my social networks. Meebo is the cleanest of the free IM apps I tried out. Besides the clean UI I really liked that it seldom completely disconnected me if I started on wifi and then stepped out of range it would seamlessly switch to 3G. I found hellotxt app to be fine so far. I usually update through IM anyway so this is a nice step up.

It Knows Where It Is

As many reviewers have pointed out Android 2.0 is very much location aware. You see it below your google search box in the browser (with consent of course). GPS was not one of the things I just had to have, but it’s pretty darn cool to have it none the less. Maps is cool but the directions functionality available in the … ‘Car Home’ application (not sure if it’s just another part of Maps or a separate application). Just tell it where you are trying to go it searches for closest match lets you select and get voice turn by turn directions from where you are. I only played with it but thinking it’s gonna come in handy on our Thanksgiving trip.

Play Something For Me

Based the reviews out there I was assuming this would suck. There is no simple iTunes-like sync to/from your desktop (like contacts sync). This was the first ‘flaw’ or ‘not so user-friendly’ encounter I had. No clear obvious explanation of how to transfer songs to the card. When it was plugged in it showed connected by USB but it was only charging. I could not see the SD card mounted on the desktop. Opened the ‘Getting Started’ pamphlet (that you usually never read right?) and found in the last page ‘Other Tips & Tricks’ the very last tip #5… “Transfer files to/from your PC:” which tells you how to do it. If you click on the notification that the USB is connected … it will give you the option to mount your SD card. Once I got that I was able to figure out the rest. I would say this ‘works’ but isn’t really clean would expect that to work a little better. After I got some music on there I didn’t have any issues using the built in Music app or playing the songs uploaded (as some reviewers did). I found the interface to be nice and clean, easy to use… and sound quality is great. I also downloaded several apps for streaming the best of which so far is Pandora. I am hoping for Imeem’s to improve and let me play for my favorited playlists from Imeem.com (and not just songs).

Beyond Music I setup the YouTube app so I can plug in to my subscriptions and playlists. Nice. Search inside YouTube works pretty well. I also started browsing the Market Place for games that would interest me. HDOS and Robo Defense are definitely keepers for me personally.

Phone Home

For me the phone works great. Better signal and sound quality than my last one… just phone for phone. Contacts mentioned above works great for me. When I first started using it up to my face I assumed it did the screen lock which is good, but was surprised when it did the unlock as I brought my hand down (way cool). I was expecting I would have to unlock the screen to get to the interface so the first few times I was bumbling with it but then made sense and I just rolled with it. My only complaint about the use ‘as a phone’ is funny to mention, but I did notice it so I will say it. It’s been mentioned that the Droid is solid, made of quality indgredients… metal, glass, etc. which you can feel. If hadn’t been using my Droid for a while, like it was next to my desk, and I got a call… when I put it to my face it was (uncomfortably) cold. This could be just cause I am in the Pacific Northwest and the temps are cooler but I bet I am not the only person who notices that.

Not Recycling Yet

I am still within my 30 day return policy window but at this point I am still keeping it. As time goes on it will be interesting to see how things grow positively and negatively.  I suspect as time goes on it will be the Android OS that either wins or loses my loyalty and not so much the Droid device.