That Google Android thread

[PhoenixMaster00]

Ok i just got my g1 and i have to say im very impressed at the amount of applications available already. So i thought i would make a thread for people to discuss what they enjoy what they dont and what they would like to see application wise in the future. And for people thinking about whether to get one or not i thought it would be a great place to ask questions. Ok so what do i enjoy?

-The keyboard is so easy to use
-How easy it is to use
-Choices available

What i dont enjoy?

-Scared of breaking it everytime i get the keyboard out (althoughit seems to be very durable)
-Having to have a gmail account

What i would like to see?

-A decent IM app
-More advanced Web browser, music player, an video player or at least better looking apps anyway.
-A good GBA emulator

And i cant think of any more atm...

[dannytatom]

Does it support watching flash videos & an you run multiple apps at the same time (browser, IM, etc)?

I've yet to use one, but I can say that I find the UI to be pretty ugly. :/

[PhoenixMaster00]

Does it support watching flash videos & an you run multiple apps at the same time (browser, IM, etc)?

I've yet to use one, but I can say that I find the UI to be pretty ugly. :/

You can indeed use multiple apps you can download an app that lets you easily switch between them bit like alt and shift does. As for flash only youtube so far i beleive since that has its own seperate launcher like the iphone/itouch does but i expect that to be remedied soon since the only thing stopping flash on the iphone is apple. (at least that was the latest last time i heard).

As for the UI.. Ive seen worse and hopefully themes will be aplenty in the future.

[trelirodia]

Hi,

I was just wondering, is there any way (hacks included ;-) ) to sync contacts, calendars etc without having to go through the google server ? I love the idea of the android, but having personal things online, is not something that I would be comfortable with.

Many thanks

[nowin4me]

Hi,

I was just wondering, is there any way (hacks included ;-) ) to sync contacts, calendars etc without having to go through the google server ? I love the idea of the android, but having personal things online, is not something that I would be comfortable with.

Many thanks

It's open source so you should be able to hack it... Maybe put the info on your own sever.

It's open source anything can happen

[teknotuck]

Hi,

I was just wondering, is there any way (hacks included ;-) ) to sync contacts, calendars etc without having to go through the google server ? I love the idea of the android, but having personal things online, is not something that I would be comfortable with.

Many thanks

I am currently syncing my G1 with Kontact via Google gmail account using a app called GCALDaemon, you can also sync using Funambol. Not bad to have 2 choices when it has barely been out 2 months and is Open Source. That being said i would also assume you could setup your own Funambol server and do it that way then the cloud your syncing with is one of your choosing and control.

Within another 6 months or so i would expect to see a couple of different choices emerge for syncing with linux, i would expect to see something come out of the kde-pim/kitchensync/opensync framework fairly soon too. Unless your getting the developer units your kind of tied to a gmail account and while i have never had much need for one myself so far everything has worked out very smoothly. Of interest today might be the fact though that the funambol client TODAY is only a beta and it also is only syncing contacts. Biggest problem i see with that is that the two systems have differing fields for a contact. The G1 is limited on the client side mostly by the existing limitations on the Gmail contacts side not having many (What i would deem almost required fields) of the same contact fields, IE Website and birthday. That compared to the very information rich mail clientside addressbook kaddressbook where you have fields for all kinds of things like geodata, spouse, anniversary and the list goes on and on much data will never be synced with either funambol or gmail simply because the fields do not exist on those sides. That is a serious limitation of both of those platforms from my point of view.

I also would like to see something that would put that cloud under my control and still retain all of the information kaddressbook allows you to retain and still have access to it all both online and from the phone directly, the first complaint i do have about the phone is the limitations of the addressbook simply because i do have use for all of those extra fields and having come from using a treo we did have a way although not perfect, to sync all of those fields. Granted it didn't really have a way to sync it back to any cloud at that time i am mildly interested in trying out GCALDaemon to see if it would provide that functionality now but really all its doing is syncing between kontact and whereever you point it, currently for me that is gmail. I am beginning to question of the best solution on that side might not be Kolab and its web interface with Horde. Horde is a very rich webapp and modifying it to support the rest of the fields might be the easiest choice, getting it into the main tree might not be quite as easy but hey, even if it only existed as a patch on top of horde i for one could live with that.
:popcorn:

[kript]

Hi there,

I'm looking at getting a G1, but I was wondering about the music sync options. I know Banshee 1.4 integrates with the phone, but I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried to use smart playlists, or podcasts, particularly those podcasts where the flag for remembering the position in the file has been turned on.

I listen to a greta deal of podcasts on my iPod and iPhone, and love the fact that I can sync a playlist of podcasts that remembers where I got up to in each file. Does the music player (or any of those in the Android Marketplace), support this?

I also make use of smart playlists and recording when a song has been played (e.g. I have a playlist that shows songs I've rated more then 3 stars, but haven't listened to in a month), so that the master playlist manager (iTunes at the moment) can rebuild the list once the iPhone syncs and tells it what its played since last sync. Plus Last.fm integration, of course.

Is this tight coupling possible with the current apps at the moment? I know it *could* be written (its open source after all), but I'm interested in whats availabe or in active development now. I'd be really interested to hear people's experiences with this.

Thanks!

[gnomeuser]

Does it support watching flash videos & an you run multiple apps at the same time (browser, IM, etc)?

I've yet to use one, but I can say that I find the UI to be pretty ugly. :/

As I understand there is an ARM processor in the G1. Adobe' Flash plugin does not run on ARM (yet.. it hasn't for years but they announced plans for a port). Swfdec I suspect will run on ARM but it is not a full flash implementation..

Thus without having a G1, I would wager that you cannot.