Tom's Two Cents

Back in October 2008 I started using Google’s first Android phone, the T-mobile G1. By the end of January 2009 there were 800 Android apps compared to over 15,000 iPhone apps. Of course, the iPhone had been around for well over a year at that point. But I think 2009 will be the year that Google Android really comes into its own as more than a dozen new models of Android phones are introduced. There are definite pros and cons to going with an open platform like Android, and I hope I can offer a realistic view of the good and the not-so-good that I have experienced with my Android G1 phone so far.

New Favorite Apps

I am still very happy overall with my G1. Especially now that I have root access to my phone I can do even more, like tether my laptop to my phone’s Internet connection via wifi. At the 1-month mark I made a list of my top 20 Android apps. That list has changed quite a bit, so here is my new list of top 20 Android apps. Interestingly, only 5 of these apps were on my first list 9 months ago. They are marked in bold. All the apps below are free unless marked otherwise.

1. Where – Displays movies, weather, etc. based on your location. It also has voice recognition and Yellowbook search, which presents you with address and phone numbers of businesses based on your location which you can then call or look up on a GoogleMap with a click or two.
2. BeyondPod ($2.99) – A Podcast app that allows you to manage podcasts and even update them over wifi. (So iPod Touch, why can’t you do this?)
3. Sky Map – Allows you to see stars, planets, and constellations just by holding your G1 in the direction you want to look (including the ones beneath the horizon). The digital compass, accelerometer, and GPS to move your phone around and see different areas of the sky. A very cool example of what augmented reality (AR) apps can do.
4. Wikitude – This is another great augmented reality app, but this one lets you “see” cities and landmarks close to you by holding the phone in front of you and turning in any direction. Selecting the names on the screen pulls up the web page for that city or point of interest in wikipedia.
5. Places Directory – Google’s version of Where. I can’t decide which one I like best so I use them both. Places uses you location to look up restaurants, shops, parks, and other points of interest. You get addresses and phone numbers you can use to locate or call whatever it is you are trying to find.

   Read more…

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(This is an older blog post I finally decided to publish. Perhaps T-mobile’s VOIP @home system works now that it’s 6 months later. I guess this is the price you pay for being an early adopter — or at least with T-mo.)

OK, so I made the certification thing up. But I really think that anyone who has enough technical skill to set up T-mobile @home service successfully should earn a Certificate in IP Telephony Repair from ITT Tech. Here’s what you need to know to get your router working properly with Comcast (By the way, I am now an official, card-carrying member of the Linksys Support Forums):

The trick that fixed it for me was opening port 5060.
SIP uses UDP (and sometimes TCP) on port 5060. I believe SIP is needed for any VOIP calls. So the way to open port 5060 is to make sure that that port is not being forwarded to any IP. For example in Application and Gaming
Regards,
MrBinum

Hmm… UDP, SIP, TCP… Got all that? Good. So here is what you actually need to know in order to open port 5060: Assuming you have the standard WRTU54G-TM router, go to Applications & Gaming –> Port Range Forwarding. Then enter whatever under Application (I put “VOIP” but I don’t think it matters). Next enter “5060″ under Start and “5060″ for End. This is the port you want to open. Then put “both” for Protocol (both means TCP and UDP). Now enter your router’s IP Address. It should be 192.168.0.1. Finally, check “Enable.” This seems to be working for me now, but please correct me if my instructions are wrong. Hopefully this will help others to figure out how to get their VOIP working consistently. Tom

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I recently came across a couple of Android apps with huge potential. Here is a quick review:

Parallel Kingdom

Parallel Kingdom is a location-based Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMORPG) developed for Android. Parallel Kingdom uses real world prompts as its basis for the virtual world, giving users the ability to attack, dance, hug or team up with anyone around them.

Parallel Kingdom allows you to mine resources, build buildings, craft items, trade goods, meet new people, found kingdoms, lead wars, and explore the real virtual world around you. Here is a video review done by AndroidApps.com:

http://www.parallelkingdom.com/

City Audioguides

This one looks very interesting, but it appears that the project was dropped. If anyone has information about this project, please let me know. Here is some information on it:

By using the Android framework positioning tools and other technologies the developers City Audioguides are aiming to improve your travel experiences by delivering relevant audio content information for historical venues, museum, and any other location of interest.

“Turning streets into museums and creating an environment where it’s easy to learn and share and to get the most out of our travels. This project is based on the belief that access to culture should be freely available to everyone.”

“Bringing museum-like audioguides to a larger scope.”

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pounamu/

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It’s been a week now, so I am prepared to offer my opinion on T-mobile’s G1 Android phone. Overall, I am still glad I bought the G1. The HTC phone hardware gets a B, while the Android operating system gets closer to an A. Here are a few thoughts:

Battery life. As expected, the battery life on the G1 is pretty poor. After a couple hours of heavy use, only 25% of the battery remained. After talking to some of my friends the battery life seems comparable to the iPhone. Hopefully I will be able to drop a better battery into it as they improve.

Android Market Apps (with some bugs). The G1 comes with just a few Google-based applications plus calculator, camera, etc — but new apps are appearing on the Android Market every day. I don’t have time to go into all of the ones I’ve installed right now (I think I’ve installed a couple dozen at this point), but I like what I see so far. Many still have some bugs, but I was expecting that. Updates seem to be coming out regularly, and most of the popular apps are quite stable. All of them are free as of right now, so I guess you get what you pay for The top 3 apps on my wishlist are a flickr image uploader, a geocaching app that tracks caches offline, and a turn-by-turn navigation app. My top suggestion for the Android team is to allow a way to exit apps. But I’m sure someone will put out an application killer app soon.

That’s it for now. At some point I’ll review my favorite 3 apps, including one that could be the start of a really fun location-based game.

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