Hudey123

This is the kind of stuff that I hate from Apple. They have a gallery of HTML5 content on a page at http://www.apple.com/html5/. I use Chrome for Windows. When I click on one of the links on the page, Apple tells me that I have to download their Safari browser to be able to view the content. That’s not true - I just need an HTML5 compliant browser, which I do. Apple is just trying to bolster Safari downloads. I don’t want, nor will I ever want, Safari on my Windows machine.

Does Google have any idea how often Google Finance charts crash, even when using their own Chrome web browser? Amidst all of this Apple vs. Flash debate, and with Google even cuddling up to Adobe and Flash in it’s new 2.2 version of Android, the more pertinent issue to me is why the Flash plugin is constantly crashing in Chrome when I view Google Finance charts?

Normally I see Google as a company that jumps right on issues as soon as they surface. Maybe amidst their rocketing growth they’re not really seeing the forest for the trees any longer. I’m off to send a message to their support desk to see what they say.

I’m now a week into my switch to Android from Blackberry OS and it’s starting to scare me. Not in the ‘people under the stairs’ sense, but in the ‘this is revolutionary’ sense. I was reading a good blog post by Chuck Hollis at EMC aboutWhat iPads Did to [his] Family and it made me realize something. Android and the wonderful Incredible smartphone are doing the same thing to me.

I can be considered a diehard PC fan. I can’t get enough of the standardized component system, constantly tweaking and upgrading my desktop computer (or, more recently, fixing the problems caused by a poor choice of motherboard). What I’m realizing is that it’s now more fun to network (socially), listen to music, and watch videos on my smartphone. My desktop has slowly been giving way to my laptop, and now the laptop is slowly being usurped by the phone.

I am still going to have a bigger, more powerful machine around. But what does it mean that I spent 45 minutes last night playing Nintaii on the couch when I could have jumped into Dragon Age or Tiger Woods Online on my laptop?

I am already pondering buying a larger battery, good screen protection, a case, and a couple of desktop docks for my Android phone. I’m also yearning to see what a larger Android tablet could do for me.

I am pretty vocal in my dislike of Apple’s closed systems but after reading Chuck’s post and the comments following - then reviewing my own recent habits - I’m starting to think that Apple may have hit the nail on the head with the iPad. It just MIGHT be the device of future, displacing the larger computers in a majority of households that don’t need PC games, 3D rendering, or large-scale professional photography tools.

I even used Pandora on my phone to play some classical music to soothe my daughter Jane to sleep this evening!

Pandora app for Android is amazing. This is the tiny ‘widget’ version you can have playing in a background process. I’m still getting used to the interface, and getting frustrated typing - but it will all be over soon.

Well, in my first Aha! moment - three days into my switch from Blackberry to Android - I’ve come across a pretty significant piece of information. I took for granted that any of today’s smartphones would support Bluetooth headset voice dialing. Amazingly, Android 2.1 does not!

Issue 1412 for Android on Google Code has been gathering complaints on this issue since December of 2008 and as of today nothing has been done about it. I use my phone about 5% of the time for voice and 95% for data so this isn’t a deal-breaker for me. But there are plenty of upset people posting on the aforementioned page that they took their phone back to the store because of this singular issue.

In California,

 23123 (a) A person shall not drive a motor vehicle while using a wireless telephone unless that telephone is specifically designed and configured to allow hands-free listening and talking, and is used in that manner while driving.

I’m not sure if I take that to mean you can’t touch your phone at all while driving or that you just can’t talk on it while holding it to your ear. My first idea is to pick up a mount for the car that holds the phone up. This would offer the ability to touch the Voice Dialing application easily and also prep the phone to act as a GPS through Google Maps. I haven’t tried that feature yet…

I’m very excited to be moving from the Blackberry OS to Android this week. BB has been great but the sub-par web browsing experience went on for way too long. I was even an early adopter, ditching my Verizon-provided BB OS version for a beta version of OS 4.5 that didn’t really make much of a difference. A few co-workers even upgraded to 9000-series Blackberries (I am currently on an 8830) and that didn’t help either. While I’m still going to be tied into Verizon’s later than late update cycle with my new HTC Droid Incredible I’m still excited to get going with an open source operating system on my phone.

Apple may rule the roost right now, but Open is the future and I want to experience that future sooner rather than later.