Note taking apps

It seems strange to me that my Droid Charge didn't come with a note taking application.  I've been sending myself text messages instead.  Here is a very quick comparison of 3 popular note taking apps across several devices.

1. Post-it notes

I'll start with the most popular note taking application ever: the post-it note + a pen.  Prerequisite: knowing how to write.  Beyond that, learning curve = zero.

Now, lets see how that compares to the electronic versions...

Android battery life meter

Android has a really cool, very detailed battery life indicator.  As a software engineer, I have no idea how it is even possible to do this, so I question the accuracy.  Charting CPU use is just not enough to really do this.

To see it, press the settings button then select Settings - About phone - Battery use.  Screenshot below:

Battery Life Problem: Part 2

This is a follow-up to Battery Life Problem: Part 1.

After uninstalling Fring and rebooting, the battery life today seems good... a little too good.  Take a look at this screen shot:

How is my battery at full power at 5pm?  So I look at the system status screen (Settings - About phone - System Status) and the discrepancy becomes clear:

Aha!!  The battery indicator shows full, but the battery status screen shows 81%.  So the battery meter at the top is stuck.  A Google search reveals that I am not the only one to have this problem.  A forum post suggested I restart my phone, and while it didn't fix the problem immediately the next time I checked (15 minutes later perhaps?) the battery meter was working again.

Arrgh!  Another failure of the most simplistic functionality.  Ironically, I got the Droid Charge because the HTC Thunderbolt was considered "buggy."

I'll try reinstalling Fring and see if that is what killed the battery life.

Battery Life Problem: Part 1

Update: See part 2 of my battery life saga here.

Yesterday my phone's battery life suddenly dropped from about 30 standby hours to about 4 standby hours.

According to the nifty meter that tracks what is using battery life (how do they do that!?!?!?), the display was using 60% of it - even though it was locked the entire time.  Reducing the screen brightness was ineffective.  It just kept draining and draining.  Today, the phone made it to about 3pm and was at 18%.  This time it said WiFi was the culprit, despite not being in a WiFi area and not using the phone at all (up until the point that I noticed the battery issue).  I tried stopping applications, disabling WiFi and BlueTooth, but no good

I installed Fring about 3 days ago, and have not used it.  The phone claimed that Fring used 3% so that isn't the culprit either.  Assuming I trust the meter which I no longer do.

Lots of people have complained about battery life isssues, so this begins my search for the cause.  First two step: uninstall Fring, reboot the phone.  I'll update this entry as the experiment begins...

The calendar reminders are just wrong

I love the reminder options on my Android phone.  I would love them more if they worked.  My phone sends me reminders at seemingly random times.  Here is one example:

Android browser options: some good, some bad

Take a look at some of the options for the Android browser. 

Volume

The phone only understands one call volume which applies to the earpiece, bluetooth, and speakerphone.  This is silly.  The iPhone remembers each of these volumes independently.  With my Android phone, every time I hit the Speakerphone button I have to crank the volume up, then crank it back down when I switch back.

I think even my old flip-phone supported this.

Viewing pictures taken with your Android phone

Camera phones take pictures.  You should be able to view those pictures too.  For some reason this basic functionality is limited on my Samsung Droid Charge.  So far I found 2 photo viewers on the phone.  One good, one less good.

Yaaaay! Voice text messages! Voice *everything*

2 of my favorite iPhone features are voice dialing and Google's voice search.  Android has taken voice recognition to a new level, although the voice dialing has a nearly fatal flaw.

Conversation view

One horrible misfeature of the iPhone is that the iPhone does not always show the date and time of text messages.  It seems like if the messages are close enough together it groups them as part of a conversation, and it only displays the time stamp of the first one.  This has been a problem for years and is a constant unaddressed complaint. 

While this does save a bit of screen space, it is frustrating when someone replies with "I'm running behind, if you don't see me in 15 minutes just go ahead without me." and you didn't notice the message right away.  Apple deserves a smack-in-the-back-of-the-head for this one.

Fortunately, this is resolved on Android.  Every message shows the time stamp.  Comparison shots below.

(iPhone screen shot courtesy of tyler ingram's blog)

Pointless settings

I like options, but not pointless ones.  Here are a few on my phone:

[√] Voice Privacy
Enable enhanced privacy mode

Why would you disable that?  How about another one, with no description at all:

Noise reduction

Think about it this way.  Suppose the options were the other way around:

[√] Increase Noise
[√] Disable Privacy
Allow others to intercept your phone communications

Now, these options must be there because there is some disadvantage to them.  Perhaps the noise reduction feature causes your voice to cut-out more often.  Perhaps the privacy mode uses encryption that uses more battery life.  This is where Apple shines.  Apple would simply make an executive decision and remove these options.  If the noise reduction didn't always reduce noise, they would disable it.

Given the choice, I'll accept a few pointless options if it means I get the features I need.  But for more phoneaphobics, these options are obstacles.

P.S. Noise reduction defaulted to off.  A Google search reveals the opinion that the feature uses the dual-microphones to cancel noise.  Apparently noise reduction it isn't good for recording live music.

Check boxes

Quiz: Is the following box checked, or unchecked?

Accurate cursor positioning

I like the way they handle cursor positioning in a text box on Android.  The fundamental challenge here is figuring out how to position a 1-pixel wide cursor using a 40-pixel wide finger.

On Android, you touch a spot and the cursor goes there.  Then you get a little bubble that you can drag around for more precise positioning.  This allows you to be accurate without the bubble getting in the way.

On the iPhone, you touch and hold, which displays a magnifying glass showing you a blow-up of the screen.  The magnifying glass lets you see the cursor position more clearly.  The magnifying glass vanishes when you pick up your finger.  The problem I had was that after I released my finger the cursor would be one character to the left or right of where I was.

The magnifying glass isn't a general purpose magnifying glass though.  It only magnifies some parts of the screen while others are mysteriously blank.  The screen on my Droid is bigger, so maybe it doesn't  need the magnifying feature anyway.

Google Blogger does not work on a Google Phone

I was quite surprised to learn that Google's blogger.com does not work on Google's web browser on their own operating system.  Here is what it looks like:

 

It doesn't just look bad, the toolbar doesn't work.

Slide to unlock

Samsung unlock screen

Instead of "Slide to unlock" we get "fit puzzle to unlock" which seems like a way to get around some Apple patent.  It functions just like the iPhone except once you start to receive voice mails and text messages.  At that point, you get different puzzle pieces which unlock to various screens.  So you can go directly to the message screen, or the visual voice mail, or answer a call.  It makes total sense.

Apparently this is a Samsung thing, so good job Samsung.  So too is the screen shot capability I used here.  The Droid Charge lets you take screen shots by holding down the Back button for 3 seconds then pressing the Home button.  The screen shots get dumped into a ScreenCaptures folder off the root.  Yay for USB mass storage mode!  Apparently other Android phones require a bunch of downloads and installs to be able to take screen shots.  This earns Google a smack-in-the-back-of-the-head.

Since everything in Android is customizable, I assume there is some App to make it a Rubik's cube or a dancing Android or something.