So I bought my first non-WM smartphone. Below is documentation of my quest to replace, and surpass, the experience I was used to with my Touch Diamond 2 running Windows Mobile 6.5. I am what you would probably call a windows mobile 'power user'. I've been averaging about one new WM phone every 6 months since 2005, most of them HTC. But I always keep up on what the other platforms are doing. This is just the first time I've taken the leap, and I quickly became aware of what new doors Android opened for me in just the first few hours of using the Nexus One. The OS is nice, but like most people, it really comes down to the apps for me.
I was initially thinking I'd do a big blog review, but I've run out of motivation. There's plenty of info on the Nexus One hardware and Android out there, so I don't need to rehash that stuff. What I haven't seen a lot of, though, is detailed accounts of people switching and what exactly they found.
There remains a couple major things missing from Android. The lack of an OCS client is probably the biggest one for me professionally, but since it's a Microsoft product, I don't see that changing any time soon. That and the lack of xvid playback will keep me carrying around my TD2 as backup for the foreseeable future. But other than that, I'm extremely happy and will definitely be sticking with the Nexus for a while. The next post will be a comprehensive list of (practically) every app I've installed, what they do for me, and how they compare to their WM counterparts (if there are any).
On to the apps...
Android Apps I've installed and believe I will continue to use.
This is a bit of a brain dump, so I apologize for not editing more thoroughly. Hopefully it will be useful to some, and feel free to suggest other apps you think I should try.
Advanced Task Killer - List of running apps that allows you to easily kill unwanted tasks. Nice to have for an OS that allows background apps, but I don't actually notice it slowing down, it seems to manage memory and close apps as needed.
Aldiko (replacing mobiReader, much better) - eReader with nice UI and quick access to several libraries of free books. Found Doctorow's books right away.
Amazon store - really just easier than using the web browser, but it also does barcode scanning and some other useful stuff.
BeamReader (replacing Adobe's wm reader) - rarely needed, but have to be able to see pdfs on the go sometimes
Beelicious - direct (cached) access to my delicious bookmarks. UI could be better and it's a bit of a pain to wade through them all, but it's useful.
BeyondPod (replacing YomoMedia, HUGE improvement) - It took me years to find a podcast downloader for WM that worked at all, but beyondpod is amazing. The UI is superb and inuitive. The customization is great. I have it setup to download only at night while charging. It remembers my place in podcasts and creates 'smart playlists' to make it easier to start listening. It also integrates with google reader, which is hugely useful because I can add new podcasts I'd like to listen to anywhere from google reader and then import then very quickly into beyondpod later. Also worth noting is the homescreen widget, which gives me access to basic controls and status from my home screen, no need to always navigate back into the app.
Browser (replacing Opera mobile) - Really there's not much difference here. Neither android nor WM have flash or silverlight support yet (although you can sort of get it on WM through skyfire, but that's not performant enough to be an everyday thing). Usability is about the same, but since multitouch zoom isn't enabled on nexus yet (though the hardware can technically support it), you have to use the zoom in/out buttons. This isn't as nice as zooming on the TD2 (zoom bar) or the HD2 (multitouch). Android does links to outside applications better though. It recognizes when you are browsing to a youtube video or RSS feed and will prompt correctly.
Cab4me - Nice little app for finding nearby cab companies making it very easy to see which is rated best, has cars available, and place the call. Not a must-have, but it's one of the little things.
Camera - very fast, 5mp (same as on hd2 and td2 wm phones), the LED flash is certainly better than nothing. Geotagging is default.
Car Home - this is Google's navigation 'car mode'. I think is this very cool, but honestly I won't end up using it much because I have navigation built into my car.
Carr Matey - dedicated app for recording car location so you can find it again. Another little nice thing I didn't have before. Android is just so much better at doing location-aware apps right now.
Documents to Go (replacing ms office mobile) - I'm using the lite version, which does not allow editing, but I have just never had the need to edit office docs on my phone. Sometimes I get one in an email and want to read it though, and this looks to do that fine. I'm happy.
Evernote (replacing Evernote) - I'm using this more and more as a dumping ground for everything that's not in email but I want to remember. This is what I use anytime I want to take a quick note (audio or text), or take a picture of a wine bottle or business card for later reference. It syncs with the cloud immediately and I can search that from anywhere.
Flashlight - not a big deal, but nice to have.
flickr droid (replacing shozu) - i like to have an easy way to upload a picture to flickr, this gives me that. I really like how android allows it to integrate with the normal gallery app. So after I take a picture I just have to view it, select 'share', and then select flickr droid (or other things like email, twitter, etc). It's more centralized than WM.
Flip2Silent and Vibrate During Meeting (replacing WM + HTC ringer management) - The ringer management on android is lacking as compared to WM. I used to be able to have my phone automatically go to vibrate during meetings, and silence the ringer after I pick up the phone (so it doesn't continue to be loud and annoying while I'm deciding whether to answer), AND there was a pocket mode to switch to vibrate and louder ring when the phone detected it was in a pocket. Vibrate During Meeting gives me back the meeting function, but it only works with the google calendar, not the exchange touchdown calendar in which all my actual meetings are stored. My work-around is to sync my exchange calendar with google via desktop outlook, but this doesn't keep it updated unless I have a desktop logged in. The good news is that the developer of this app says he'll look into touchdown. Flip2Silent gives me the option to just lay the phone screen-side-down to mute the ringer/vibrate functions. This will work while a call is coming in and I want to ignore it.
Foursquare - App for checking into various locations. It's treated like a game, you get points, but also get to see where your friends are and if they happen to be near you. Plus people leave tips for places.
g-backup and mybackup (replacing myphone on wm) - MS's myphone app on wm will automatically backup all user data (sms, mms, pictures, video, docs, etc) to the cloud every night. It can also restore these for when you get a new phone or hard-reset your current phone. I got used to having this. All my email and contacts are in exchange or the cloud anyway, but I don't want to lose these other things. MyPhone is also nice because all that data is accessible via the web. g-backup is cool because it will upload all this stuff to gmail, so you have it there, but it can't restore anything. MyBackup will backup and restore most things, but not pictures/video. So I'm using them both, but I'd like a more comprehensive solution.
Gallery (replacing HTC photo gallery) - The nexus gallery is implemented in 3d and is pretty cool, but ultimately it works about as well as the HTC version (which is also flashy). They need to add multi-touch zooming.
GCDroid (replacing gcz) - This is my geocaching app, but only until the official geocaching.com android app comes out (which is soon and it will be cool if their iphone app is any indication). Even though there isn't an official app for wm, the community created apps were pretty good. GCDroid is barely usable, but overall this category will be an upgrade over wm soon.
Glympse (replacing Glympse) - Something I'll rarely use, but it's cool when it applies. You can send a link to anyone that will allow them to track you via a webbrowser for x-minutes. So if you say you're on your way, they can actually see how far along you are.
Gmail (replacing hotmail) - both MS and Google have their email services integrated tightly with their mobile os. I used to forward all my gmail to hotmail so I could easily get it on my phone, so now I just flipped it. I like gmail well enough, and there are certainly features that are ahead of hotmail. I'm just happy to happy to have my personal email pushed to my phone.
Google maps (replacing google maps and bing) - This is definitely better than on WM, but ultimately it does the same stuff. It's smoother and a little easier to navigate (except, again, zooming is more difficult).
Meebo IM - nice to have an app that can log into ICQ, MSN, and GTalk all at once. Likely will rarely use it.
Messaging (replacing txt message HTC app) - this seems to be just what you'd expect. But at least it's very fast and predictable, unlike the HTC app which is sometimes laggy as hell.
Flixter Movies (replacing bing) - MS's bing app was good for finding local theaters and showtimes, this one does it with a bit more flash and some awesome additional features that i just found. It shows the rottentomatoes rating along with every movies. Plus, it has netflix integration, so it checks whether any movie is in my queue and lets me add it while browsing. It also has a list of recent dvd releases, which is great with the netflix thing. It also essentially serves as a mobile imdb. Very impressive.
Mother TED - dedicated app for watching TED talks. It seems ok but not great.
Music (replacing HTC media player) - Nothing special here. I don't know that I'll even use it much since i mostly listen to pandora or podcasts.
OpenTable - for the rare occasions when I make reservations (especially last minute) this will make it easy to find a place with an opening.
Pandora (NOT ON WM) - this is almost a reason to switch by itself. I hate that this isn't on wm yet. Very nicely implemented on android because it has a homescreen widget. I get all the basic controls without even having to go into the app, and I can use other apps while it plays in the background. Sound quality is great too.
Dialer - The android dialer is pretty basic, but it seems to get the job done. At least you can add a pause (with a comma) so that dialing conference numbers is somewhat doable (but still WAY harder than it should be, they don't do any smart parsing in meeting invites). This is still hard on WM though too.
PhoneFlicks (replacing official netflix wm app) - This is barely a replacement. Netflix's own app was better, this one is slower and harder to use, but at least I can do basic queue management from my phone, which is really nice sometimes.
SeattleBusBot - This is SO cool, and something I've wanted but couldn't find on wm. Seattle has the gps info of its buses available publicly, but their website is basically unusable on a phone (even on a desktop). This app will tell you exactly when a given bus is going to arrive, not just when it's scheduled.
Seesmic (replacing m.twitter.com on wm) - really good mobile twitter app. There are plenty of wm twitter apps, and HTC even builds one into the os now, but they tended to be slower. I think the HD2 is probably just as good as seesmic.
ShopSavvy - barcode scanning that tells you the closest places to get the given product and for how much. Haven't had a chance to see if this turns out to actually be useful, but I like the concept and test scans in the house have been accurate (which kinda surprises me because I had heard that phone barcode scanning doesn't work, but maybe the 5mp camera and snapdragon is making it more pratical).
TorrentFu (replacing starting torrents via Live mesh mobile) - This is a major upgrade (and rejected from itunes if I remember correctly). I finally switched to uTorrent on my server so I could use this. It uses the utorrent webui to connect, but exposes all the functionality like a local app. You can see progress, search for and start new torrents, and pause/resume. Very cool.
TripIt (replacing tripcase kinda) - I've only started experimenting with these two services, and i don't travel as much as I used to, but they are pretty good at what they do. Just forward your reservation emails and they build up a comprehensive itinerary and keep you updated. having a native app makes using these that much easier. Tripcase is on wm, tripit (which seems to be the better service) is on android.
tv.com - streaming tv from cbs, showtime, and some others. Haven't used this much, but always nice to have some free content.
Google Voice - At first I was skeptical about this because I don't have a real need to create a central phone number that rings all my phones, which was what i thought this service was for. Turns out you don't have to use that feature, and they also provide visual voicemail on android plus they send you transcriptions of the messages to your phone. so you can see who left messages and what they said (approximately) without even listening. So I'm definitely appreciating this feature.
Wapedia - native version of wikipedia. Nice and quick. why not?
y5 - Battery - This app is genius in its simplicity and value. It simply keeps track of where you are when you enable wifi, and remembers that going forward so it can automatically re-enable it when you come back to the same place. The rest of the time, it disables wifi to save battery. The end result here is that I never have to remember to turn wifi on or off when i come home or leave the house.
youtube (replacing youtube) - works well. nothing special to report except google's browser seems to be better at realizing when it should forward you to the youtube player.
yxflash (failing to replace coreplayer) - The only android app that claims to do xvid/divx decoding. I tried it on an xvid torrent that wm's coreplayer had no trouble with and it choked pretty hard. It played, but with extremely jittery video and slow sound. Not usable yet, but at least i know I might get something soon.
Touchdown (replacing exchange activesync on wm) - Saved the most important (and expensive @$22) for last. Without this app I wouldn't be able to sync my exchange data (contacts, email, calendar, tasks) with my phone because Android doesn't support all the required security features by default. (our company, like many these days, will not sync data with a platform that doesn't allow them to force the use of encryption, pin lock, and remote wipe) Beyond that, without the recently added feature of allowing me to flag emails for followup, I would not be able to switch to android because this workflow is too important to my everyday life.
Explanation: I check email on my phone often, and if I can respond then and there, I do, but if I can’t and need to follow up for any reason, I flag it. This creates a task in outlook which I will see the next time at my desk, so i KNOW i won't forget about it.
But there is an additional, more subtle, benefit at play here. And honestly, it's a little unfair to count it, but it makes such a huge difference in my enjoyment of my phone that I can't ignore it. I'm speaking about how the previously mentioned pin lock for exchange only applies (on android) to the touchdown app. I am not required to set a pin to unlock the phone itself. Ever since they turned on that requirement I've been punching in a 4 digit pin every damn time I wanted to glance at my phone, check the time, or even change the stupid volume! Now I'm finally free of that because google didn't bother to properly build in exchange support at the OS level. NICE! seriously though, this saves me so much annoyance it was almost worth the $530 by itself.
For a true windows power-user, it's worth shelling out the <$10 for Remote RDP. It works incredibly well, even when connecting to my Windows 7 PC from 3G across town (or presumably, the world).
The ability to USE MY HOME PC from ANYWHERE WITH NET ACCESS...
Absolutely incredible for a phone..
EDIT: my home net speed is pretty quick, which owes to fast remote access. Wifi will always be fast, though, and that's what this app is really designed for.
Good recommendation. Just downloaded the Remote RDP demo. Seems to work well.
Thank you for the run down... I just made the switch myself and a number of the apps you mentioned helped me fill some of my void from WM. I'm still a little pissed about the exchange issues but the real truth is any company I work for issues me a blackberry and doesn't allow other devices to connect to thier servers. I worked for one midsized company once that let me and that was the only time I was completely in love with my WM device. Since my personal email is through gmail the nexus one is really amazing as my personal phone.
Good Stuff! I'm in the same boat WM to Android and no turning back I'll check out some of the apps u listed...
One thing I'm looking for is a widget with power/memory/storage/sd gauges.
Always had this on the wm home for reference & cool stats!
If you geocache then GeoBeagle is the other main geocaching app. I don't cache much any more, but I have tried GeoBeagle and liked it, though I can't compare it to GCDroid...
Wanted to say thanks for the excellent app list. Touchdown is awesome. A way for me to connect to work without merging my exchange contacts with the rest of my phone. Now thats a win!
@Seraph321 - want to add my thanks for your app info. i'll be getting an N1 soon and knowing there are options to some of my "must haves" apps/features/functionality (e.g., Exchange) will help shorten my learning curve. i'm not going to abandon WM because it will continue to serve as my work phone. the N1 will be my after work/personal phone until i'm comfortable tweaking Android. that's my plan, but once i have the N1 my plan may change!
Great write up, and welcome to Android
A few suggestions
Text Messaging
The two heavyweights are Chomp SMS and Handcent SMS. Both are considerably better than the default SMS app, it mostly comes down to personal preference.
Browser
Dolphin Browser is hands down the best browser on Android right now. Multi-touch zooming, delicious integration, tabs, themes, and much more.
Flashlight
Do a market search for Nexus One Torch. It utilizes the LED from the camera flash to use as a flashlight. Very bright.
Ringer Management
Locale manages your phone based off time and location. Never used it myself, but heard good things, and I believe it was and Android Developers Challenge winner or something.
Backup
I'm simple and only need to backup text messages (most everything else is stored via SD card or synced with Google anyway). I use SMS Backup to backup my texts to Gmail, and it works fantastic. Uploads directly to my mail account, archives the texts, puts them in threads according to contact, tags them, and marks them as read. I can then easily search my text conversations from my phone or desktop browser via Gmail, and don't have to worry about deleting conversations from my phone and losing something. I've never used g-backup, so it may have this function already.
Twitter
I've tried a couple Twitter apps (not Seismic, though I'll be trying that next) and have landed on Swift, which currently is the fastest, and the best looking Twitter app I've used. I'm not a giant twitter user, so I don't know if it supports all the features any other apps might, but it works great for me, and would recommend it.
That's all for now. I don't have my phone next to me or I'd give it a quick run through and suggest something you might be missing, but I'll have to do that another time.
As for getting multi-touch support in google maps, the browser, and gallery... just wait, it's been hacked in for the G1/MT3G, it will certainly be hacked in for the Nexus One.
I'm still up in the air between ASTRO File Manager and Linda File Manager, but a file manager is an important addition to your tools, if you plan on keeping a lot of documents/files on board. Additionally, I know at least Linda has the DownloadCrutch functionality, associating itself with every filetype so that the browser will allow you to download such. To me, this last bit is essential.
Great stuff, I think a lot of people will be going from WM to Nexus because MS have failed to deliver for so long & there is now a great alternative with an OS that can be modded and a really cool handset.
So far I am happy to leave the N1 standard (not rooted) and play with apps - it is a real joy to have so many available & a single source for them.
Never going back !
+1 for Dolphin Browser... definitely a big step up over the default browser IMHO
SpyderMS said:
Great write up, and welcome to Android
A few suggestions
Text Messaging
The two heavyweights are Chomp SMS and Handcent SMS. Both are considerably better than the default SMS app, it mostly comes down to personal preference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Personally, I find the text bubbles childish and cheesy. I much prefer the stock sms app with sms popup.
bofslime said:
Personally, I find the text bubbles childish and cheesy. I much prefer the stock sms app with sms popup.
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I tend to agree though why doesnt the icon to the app on my home screen tell me how many unread SMS there are?
The Jones said:
I tend to agree though why doesnt the icon to the app on my home screen tell me how many unread SMS there are?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SMS Count
ok, at work with nothing to do, so I browsed through my phone, and here's a couple Apps you may be interested in. Some of these are useful, some are just kind of cool
AudioManager Widget
Nice little app that lets you adjust all your volume levels easily and quickly.
AppControl - Full Version
Best app manager I've used. Really fast, nice interface, and lots of options.
Barcode Scanner
Barcode scanning from the phone is fantastic. It's very pronounced in the Android community as well. You'll see barcodes not only on these forums, but on App websites like AndroLib.com, which let you scan the barcode, and instantly be linked to a website or Android Market page. It's not only useful on the Nexus One's 5mp camera and 1GHz processor either. Worked great on my G1.
Google Goggles
Take a picture of just about anything, and Google will search for relevant results.
Google Sky Map
Virtual Planetarium on your phone.
Layar Reality Browser 3.0
Augmented Reality browser. Displays information about objects in front of you overlayed on the camera display.
Pkt Auctions for eBay
If you use eBay at all, this is a great companion tool.
Shazam
Lets you identify music being played around you by letting your phone listen to and analyze it.
Personally, I find the text bubbles childish and cheesy. I much prefer the stock sms app with sms popup.
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Click to collapse
handcent settings -> conversation style.
handcent has a ton of settings options, including different settings for individual contacts (conversation style, font, notification tone, etc)
Thanks for all the suggestions. I've already spent too much work time today finding and installing the ones I like.
I don't actually do THAT much texting, so I'm sticking with the stock sms app for now, but I did install sms popup and set my girlfriend to popup. That's convenient.
Someone mentioned SMS backup, and yes, g-backup does the same thing only for more data, but they both need a scheduling option.
I see the nexus one torch app requires rooted access. I'm no stranger to hacking my gadgets, but this app (plus tethering, and maybe installing to the sd card) are the only things I've seen so far that have me interested in doing it. Can anyone provide some examples of why they consider rooting a must?
You mentioned Wi-Fi tethering already, but that reason alone is a pretty big reason. You may also want to theme your phone. Any kind of advancements that developers like Cyanogen come out with will require root as well. Cyanogen is known for pushing the envelope, helping to increase speed, and overall functionality of the G1, and other devices; not to mention you will get features from new versions of Android faster than those without root. I'm sure there are other reasons to, these are just off the top of my head. A lot of people are waiting until someone finds out how to reverse the bootloader unlocking process before they root, in order to preserve their warranty, and that's certainly a good idea if you don't have a lot of use for root at the moment. I did it, like most people that did, just because I can.
I'll make sure to watch the Cyanogen stuff closely. I never followed the G1 enhancements, so I guess I don't know what to expect. Sounds like it's likely I'll do it at some point though.
Is it easy to get all your apps, especially the ones that you paid for, back on your phone after rooting? Does the marketplace just remember it all and let you re-download?
I should just search for these answers.
I didn't find any topic about this. Excuse me if a topic already exists.
Name it as you want, but windows 8 allow us to split the screen and see two metro apps at the same time. I miss the windows' windows ( windows without windows is quite stupid for me ), but I like metro. Is there any way to split the screen many times, horizontally and with different ratios? ( not only 80:20 )
Many thanks.
Inviato dal mio HTC Desire con Tapatalk 2
It's been asked before, but nothing found. The official reason is that using a fixed-width sidebar mode allows developers to optimize their app interfaces for the width of that sidebar, but it would be nice to, for example, have two apps side-by-side in portrait mode on a 1920x1080 monitor (giving about 950x1080 each). I'm sure if such ahack is found, it'll be posted here...
GoodDayToDie said:
It's been asked before, but nothing found. The official reason is that using a fixed-width sidebar mode allows developers to optimize their app interfaces for the width of that sidebar, but it would be nice to, for example, have two apps side-by-side in portrait mode on a 1920x1080 monitor (giving about 950x1080 each). I'm sure if such ahack is found, it'll be posted here...
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Click to collapse
Right, many thanks for answering. I'll pantientiently wait. So sorry for useless topic.
Optimization or not, in Win7 I could have A LOT of windows on the screen at the same time. Falling back to 2 in the new version is very disappointing. Samsung smartphones have visual multitasking and my 1920x1080 PC can't have more than two windows? If it wasn't for performances of Win8, I would be on Win7 right now.
Win8 is capable of having an arbitrary number of windows open at once... I get almost no use out of the Metro apps and just do everything on the desktop.
GoodDayToDie said:
Win8 is capable of having an arbitrary number of windows open at once... I get almost no use out of the Metro apps and just do everything on the desktop.
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Yep, desktop is just like win7 desktop, so you can get unlimited windows. But Metro apps are quite integrated with everything and living without them is hard. And I can't see a youtube video while writing a document.
You can't? Word and a browser pointing at YouTube works fine for me...
Seriously, aside from mail (which I only use because it'll connect from outside work's firewall) and Skype (which works great snapped to one side), the only "Metro" apps I use are games (which I would have full-screened anyhow). The music, pictures, and messenger apps are crap. I manage my calendar from the phone and only "use" it on the PC to see and dismiss notifications. I prefer the desktop control panel and OneNote. The built-in PDF reader app is... not great, so I have Foxit. Metro IE is worthless next to the desktop version. Metro remote desktop is OK, but the desktop version is powerful and familiar. Start and the Store are both "metro" but aren't really apps in the usual sense. SSH and such are available on the desktop (I use Interix).
If anything, I'd say Metro apps are the opposite of "integrated with everything". They can't change system settings, and often can't even check them. They have very limited ability to talk to other programs, whereas almost everything on the desktop supports drag&drop, for example. They can't do anything requiring high privileges. They're terrible for browsing the filesystem. They suck for multitasking in general. They can't (officially) launch other programs. They might not be an evolutionary dead end, but they aren't an evolution I'm happy to see. Give me sandboxes, and maybe even a store, but let *me* control the sandbox and let me apply them to desktop software. Give me synced app state, but let everything use it not just the stuff from your store. Give me Vista's Windows Mail instead of this crap. Touch-friendly is great, but even on my Surface I don't so much except games with touch; give me traditional UIs too.