Fun With Android

What Google should do with Android

2012-01-29T16:39:00.000-08:00

Just read a post, where the author talks about what he thinks Google should do with Android to make profits. In brief, he wanted Google to close Android and license it to companies for $10-$20....

God, what a terribly dumb idea :-(.

Reasons:

Android is based on Linux which has GPL license restrictions
It would be horrible publicity for Google - the PR losses will be real in $ terms
Samsung would be pissed enough to look more seriously at Windows Phone 7.x/Bada as its preferred platform. Other vendors who had a choice would, too. It would actually give an open source OS a real break!

Fortunately, Larry Page has better things to do than listen to him. Hopefully he will use his copious free time to take a look at these suggestions ;-).

What I would do if I were Larry Page and about to own Motorola (till I could sell it off):

Insist that Motorola run stock Android and commit to supporting upgrades to whatever the latest version of Android is for 3 years from the date of manufacture of the device.
Upgrade to the latest version within 1 month of a new version being available to it (subject to carrier restrictions in the US).
Allow Motorola to license software to improve Android functionality (e.g. to improve Outlook integration, enterprise capabilities), but only if that software doesn't require any weird changes to core Android. This might also be customized for carriers ie. let the carrier license third party software.
At the high end, require them to ship with better hardware than Apple (not sure if this will always be possible, just because of Apple's volumes).
Let the bootloader be easily unlocked by the user
Use Motorola to ship non-phone/tablet devices based on Android - e.g. Google TV, thermostats, etc.

Anyway, I do believe that in the phone market, if there is a first rate vendor who commits to shipping with and supporting the latest version of Android, this will force other manufacturers to do the same. This will allow users to choose the best device when they are buying a phone without needing to worry about upgradability. It would be completely in keeping with Android's open philosophy and Google's commitments to phone manufacturers.

One other thing Larry might want to use Motorola to do, is to design a reference phone that is also open sourced - this will let manufacturers in Taiwan/China make knock-offs at really, really cheap prices to flood the market. Will kill Nokia in developing countries and make Android the largest market for app developers - both for paid, ad supported or free apps - win the numbers game against Apple.

Personally, I think Google is taking a way longer view of things than Apple. They want to own the mobile OS platform - Apple wants to make as much money as it can now.

Any thoughts?

Why Google might be part of a group bidding for Yahoo

2011-10-27T11:37:00.000-07:00

There was this long article about why Google might be bidding for Yahoo

Wonder if the authors thought that Google might just want to bid up the price to squeeze more dollars out of MS or whoever actually buys it?

An unfortunate, but true statement.....

2011-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Great post http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support

Talks about how manufacturers don't support their Android phones much past the OS they release with. It needs people to root their phone and run something like CyanogenMod to get to the current OS....

Why don't manufacturers focus on making great hardware and just run stock Android? I am sure Motorola will start doing so once they get acquired by Google. How long is it going to take the others to understand that we buy their phones because of the hardware performance/features they can provide - not their silly UI modifications....

Google Acquisition of Motorola

2011-08-15T16:52:00.000-07:00

Google announced today that it was going to acquire Motorola for $12B+. I am reading a lot of speculation about why Google was interested and the future of Android, some of which appeared quite dumb, so let me, for the record, put in my predictions:

- Google mainly acquired Motorola for its patents and to stop Apple and Microsoft from slowing down the spread of Android.
- Google has no real interest in making its own phones/hardware devices. They benefit if a lot of hardware manufacturers adopt Android and have no interest in jeopardizing that. If they could have got the patents without the hardware business, they would have taken that route, but I am sure Motorola refused that deal.

Predictions
- After some futzing, the acquisition will be approved by the regulators. Google will be required to build a wall between the Android group and the Motorola group (a wall that already exists between Android and the rest of Google, just because Android is so hot (and snooty ;-) )!).
- Google will be happy to leave the Motorola group to its own devices. In a year or two after the acquisition, Google will try to sell off the Motorola part of the business to someone who might want it.
- Google will work hard to keep Samsung and HTC happy - it is more likely the the next few Nexus devices post merger will not come from Motorola at all.
- Google might use Motorola to design other, more experimental Android devices that it has a hard time getting other manufacturers to develop - e.g. Google TV players, Chromebooks, etc.

Comments?

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G+ and Blogger

2011-07-26T16:54:00.001-07:00

Interesting that my posts on Blogger (which is a Google company) appear on FaceBook, but not on G+.

Come on Google

3G/4G Tablets

2011-07-26T16:53:00.000-07:00

If I were Verizon, I would offer a customer 100MB of data for free per month on their Verizon 4G tablets. This gets customers hooked onto using their tablets when they are roaming - and then Verizon can charge for any overages (by allowing the customer to pay for more data).

Feels like this fits in nicely with the freemium model that is so popular on the Internet.

Verizon isn't/doesn't need to subsidize the tablet itself (the ones with 3G cost more). Hopefully it earns something for retailing the tablet. It creates a new customer base of people who will use more of Verizon's data services....

Todays model, where a consumer spends more on a 3G tablet and doesn't get any benefit while roaming outside his WiFi area doesn't make much sense to me.

Any thoughts?

G+me

2011-07-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

Ok - this is not Android related, but is cool anyway!

Just found a great G+ plugin that runs on Chrome called G+me

Gives you a GoogleReader kind of interface with G+, so that you can quickly glance at your stream and look at the items you want to.

It allows G+ to serve as a Twitter stream very nicely!

Love it!

Getting NetFlix on your Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

2011-07-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

Finally Netflix came out with a version that runs on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. However (possibly for marketing reasons), they don't claim to officially support it - they only support the Lenovo tablets.

There were a few posts about where you could download the Netflix apk from, but being a paranoid security guy, I didn't want to pick up an apk from an unknown source. So here is what I did:

Downloaded the Netflix app on my NexusOne. Then connected it to my laptop and pulled the apk off the phone and then installed it on my Galaxy Tab.

Manual steps:
1. Download Netflix on your supported Android phone
2. Connect phone to your laptop via USB (I assume you already have adb working correctly - to verify, run adb devices and make sure your phone shows up)
3. On a command line, run:
adb pull /data/app/com.netflix.mediaclient-1.apk
4. Disconnect phone and connect the tablet (again, verify with adb devices)
5. On the command line, run:
adb install com.netflix.mediaclient-1.apk

If you do download the apk from another place, verify that the sum (using the cygwin sum command) is:
33864 7206

Enjoy!
A

Somebody else's post on what RIM should do

2011-07-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Check the last 2 paragraphs from this article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388432,00.asp

Mike Abramsky, a long-time supporter of RIM at Canadian financial firm RBC Capital Markets, suggests breaking RIM up into two companies; I think the result would be similar. One RIM would diversify into business software and servers to support multiple mobile platforms. The other would make powerful, enterprise-oriented Android phones.

Why don't phone manufacturers add real value?

2011-04-06T11:51:00.000-07:00

For the life of me, I can't figure out the logic that makes phone manufacturers put their own semi-crappy UI on top on Android phones.

Phone manufacturers are generally pretty bad at software development. HTC Sense, Motoblur, etc don't really add a lot of value to Android phones - they just delay our ability to get updates quickly.

Why don't device makers do what they do best - make great hardware. Let Google do the fancy features (unless are adding hardware that Google can't use).

And this whole discussion about Motorola developing its own OS to try and hedge their bets. That only makes sense if their OS is going to be dramatically better than Android. Not sure I see a huge chance of that happening...

What RIM should do

2011-02-12T18:04:00.000-08:00

Nokia just announced that they are moving to WinMo - which I think was absolutely the wrong decision (as, I guess does a lot of the rest of the web).

Big question is: What should RIM do?

I think the 3 huge strengths and one minor strength of RIM are:
- Outstanding exchange integration
- Great enterprise management app
- Phenomenal international roaming agreements, where you get unlimited international data roaming for ~$10 per month

The minor strength is BB Messenger, which for some strange reason my niece's just love.

The big problems they have are:
- Their developer environment sucks
- Hard to develop code that works across their phones
- Poor APIs

What I think RIM needs to do, is get out of the mobile OS business. If they think they are great at manufacturing (which isn't clear to me), then make hardware. Otherwise, let Samsung, HTC, Motorola fight that battle. Instead, get your phone make by somebody in China/Taiwan, slap Android on it and add the BB pixie-dust on top - the exchange integration, the enterprise app management and the roaming agreements. Call these the new Blackberries and sell them like crazy.

About BB Messenger: Not sure why some people love them, but since they do have a loyal following, port BB Messenger to iPhone and Android and sell them before somebody else does that (thinking Kik here).

Comments?

OWA doesn't let you mark messages as unread?

2010-11-02T23:38:00.000-07:00

This is a RANT - has nothing to do with Android

Unfortunately, my company uses Exchange and OWA for remote access to email.
OWA doesn't let you mark a message as unread (or rather requires you to buy a premium version to do so).

LAME!

Wonder what it will take my company to move to gmail?

Why don't the phone companies allow cheaper roaming for data?

2010-10-23T13:00:00.000-07:00

I was travelling abroad recently. What I love about Blackberry and hated about Android, was that with BB, I pay my phone company an extra $10 per month and they automatically allow me to roam all over the world with great data access.

For Android, the best my carrier would do, was kindly offer to charge me $15/MB - which basically means I need to be paranoid about data....

Why can't carriers do something similar to BB - charge me $10 per month and allow me worldwide roaming. They would actually make more money and I would actually use my Android phone when I was abroad.

Great article on how to specify whether you need some hardware for an app

2010-10-12T09:14:00.000-07:00

Love this article! Android has done it just right. Let me tell the OS what features I need and which ones are nice to have. Then let me dynamically detect what is available on the phone and degrade gracefully!

http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/10/five-steps-to-future-hardware-happiness.html

A

Installing the new Google CarHome and StreetView on CyanogenMod (CM6)

2010-10-01T09:33:00.000-07:00

Warning: Geeky entry - if you don't use CyanogenMod on your Android phone, please ignore

Have CyanogenMod 6.0 on my NexusOne. Heard about the new release of Google's CarHome app and decided I needed to have it. Tried installing it from the Android market, but got a signature failure. Searched around the web, but couldn't find instructions. Was impatient, so decided I needed to do this for myself.

Remembered seeing an earlier post on how to get Google Voice Search on CM6, so pretty much copied the instructions for that, along with this great post by Diane Hackborn on getting the package name from an apk, to create the following command sequence:

adb pull /system/app/ ~/Desktop/app/
adb remount
adb shell
cd /system/app
rm -f CarHomeGoogle.apk
pm uninstall com.google.android.carhome
rm -f Street.apk
pm uninstall com.google.android.street

You can create appropriate instructions if you don't have adb and just have Terminal.....

Apps I love on my Nexus One

2010-09-04T19:05:00.000-07:00

There are a huge host of apps I love on my Nexus One. I will just provide one-liners about the apps....
The ordering is alphabetical, because that is the easiest way for me to get through my apps....

I am running on CyanogenMod 6 (a modified kernel), which does change some of the base apps. Since I don't normally play around with a regular Nexus One, it isn't clear which things have changed with Froyo and which apps have been updated by CM.

adbWireless 1.3 - Geeky tool to allow adb to connect to your mobile wirelessly. By geeks, for geeks, about geeky things.....
Adobe Reader - to read PDFs
Antennas -geeky tool to tell you where the cell phone towers are
Bubble - cute app to tell you when something is level....
Calling Card - allows you to call international numbers through a calling card without needing to dial a whole jumble of digits. Love this app!
International Dialer - I used to love Calling Card, but then the author decided to remove the free version from the market, so I wrote my own. Allows you to call international numbers through a calling card. Can also remember which card you used for which numbers... Download it from https://market.android.com/details?id=com.malpani.dialer&feature=search_result and let me know what you think.
Chrome to Phone - allows you to send links/numbers/maps from your browser to your mobile
ConnectBot - let's you log onto your own phone and treat it like a computer. Also let's you ssh onto other machines!
Contacts Clean-up - reformats all phone numbers to follow a single format. I like +1.800.555.1212
doubleTwist - to get your music onto your phone....
Facebook
Gesture Search - Allows you to search for people/apps by writing the name rather than invoking the keyboard. Seriously - once you try this, you will have a hard time getting to people any other way (maybe voice search)
Google Translate - Cool way to show how cool your phone is. You can speak a phrase in one language and have the phone spout it out in another! Helps if you have a good connection!
GPS Status - Geeky tool that tells me where various GPS satellites are, my position, velocity, height, etc.
handyCalc - A dream calculator - would have loved it when I was doing engineering. Can draw graphs, solve equations - what more could you ask for?
Linda File Manager - Easy way to looks at the files on disk
Listen - Allows me to do Radio on Demand. I can download programs I like and listen to them at any time I like - e.g. I keep up with Marketplace like that.
Logger - Geeky tool to look at program logs. Used it to recently figure out why my daughter's phone was blocking calls from my wife's phone....
Mileage - Helps me keep track of the mileage I am getting from my Prius
My Tracks - Allows me to keep track of my pace, distance, elevation gain etc. during a run
PhoneFlix - Enables me to manage my Netflix account on my mobile
Places - To figure out the closest restaurants, gas stations, etc nearby. Is from Google
RealCalc - A full fledged calculation (would have expected the built-in calculation to have a scientific mode, but it just doesn't)
ShootMe - Let's you take screen shots of your mobile
Shopper - Nice interface for price comparisons
Timeriffic - Allows me set up time at which I want my phone to go quiet and when I want it to automatically turn back on. For example, I have set my mobile to neither ring for vibrate from 11pm-7am. Done. No more 3am calls from people who don't like to sleep!

There are a few games that I like to. I will just mention a small number - I am sure any dedicated reader will easily come up with a bigger and better list

Lights Out
Sudoku Free
Traffic Jam
Trap

Applications I used to like, but that aren't so important anymore

Advanced App Killer (not that important anymore, but I still like it)
Star Contact - Great way to find contacts on your mobile - I used it all the time till Gesture Search came around.
Toggle Settings (was great to change settings quickly, but with the Power Settings Widget, it isn't important anymore. Also, it appears like the free version isn't in the market anymore)

Update on 7/26/11 - Replaced Calling Card with International Dialer

GMail with Voice - did we forget about Android?

2010-08-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Now that Google has added voice capabilities to GMail, how long before they add it to Android? I have been waiting for a very long time for high quality VOIP to come to mobiles - all my telco is really providing me with, is a data plan - everything else is just data flowing over that plan....

If Google did that, I might actually be willing to give out my Google Voice number as my phone number to everybody!

iPhone vs Android - As a user

2010-08-12T08:55:00.000-07:00

I have a few friends with iPhone think they have the best device made since the printing press. There has been at least one effort I know of, where Ed Clark picks the top iPhone apps and tells you how to do the same tasks in Android.

I decided that there were things I like doing on Android that I don't know how to do on iPhone - tasks that don't necessarily require me to jailbreak my phone/run CyanogenMod (although some do).

So, without further ado, here is my list. If some iPhone user actually knows how to do this on the iPhone, do let me know:

Set my phone to automatically dial a calling card number before actually calling an international number
I call people in India quite often. Sometimes they are people I call quite infrequently. To make the calls more cheaply, I like to use RelianceGlobalCall, a service that lets me call all numbers in India at < 2 cents per minute. However, I don't want to copy the number I wish to call, dial RelianceGlobalCall and then punch in the Indian number. I want to choose the contact and let the phone do the grunt work of calling through the calling service....
This is exactly what CallingCard lets me do. There is also another app - PhoneCard Express, which has similar functionality.
A sister app is Contacts Clean-up, that allows me to clean up my contacts in my address book. It reformats all numbers, so that a number I enter as "408 555 1212" gets stored as "+1.408.555.1212". Now all my numbers have the + in front of them - makes it easier for Calling Card to do its job!

Easily Find Phone Numbers and Applications
Yes, Android has a similar way to find people as iPhone - you can swipe your way through a list. But I find that painfully slow - since I have a few hundred contacts on my phone. I used to use a program called StarContact, which allowed me to find people using a virtual numeric keypad and that was quite nice. However, once I found Gesture Search from Google, I stopped using such archaic ways of finding people. Now, I just trace out the name the first few letters of the persons first OR last name and find the person immediately! Because Gesture Search also indexes applications, I have stopped arranging too many apps on my home screen.

Free Navigation
I don't use Google Navigation as much as I normally would, since I have a nav system on my Prius, but it is useful when I am travelling.

Keeping Track of My Running Speed
While I hate running, it has been drummed into my head that I better do it for health reasons. Anyway, one app that I love to use while running is called My Tracks. Not only does it keep track of the total distance I have run, average speed, etc, it also tracks elevation. One very cool feature that got added recently is the ability to have it announce periodically (ever 5-10 mins) what your total distance covered was, average speed, etc. Future versions will be able to keep track of your heart rate as you run/exercise! It also lets me upload my tracks to Google, to save it for future use.

Making sure my phone doesn't ring in the middle of the night
I live in the US. My brother lives in India. For some complicated reason I can't quite understand, he never knows what the current time is in California. Anyway, he has called me a few times between 3-7 am, which really kills my sleep. So I was delighted to find this program - Timeriffic, which I have set up to automatically put my phone in silent mode between 11pm and 7am.

Save Costs While Roaming
I am currently in Bangalore, India. Have an Indian SIM card, which allows unlimited data as long as I am in Mumbai. Love the Google Power widget that let's me turn off automatic data syncing of my chatty applications to reduce my data usage while roaming. Still get Google Maps, mail when I want it, but don't automatically check for market updates etc. while roaming. The Power Management widget also lets me quickly turn on/off things like Bluetooth, WiFi, etc. If only I didn't have to unlock my phone to access it :-)

Gas Miser
Okay, I admit it. I am a gas miser and a Prius bigot! Love my Prius and want to track the mileage I am getting very precisely. This is where Mileage comes in. Allows me to enter the amount of gas I fill into my mobile. Then shows me nice charts about my average mileage, cost of gas, etc.

Geeky Delights
Some apps I love that I can't justify to non-Geeky folks, but that I didn't want to ignore are ConnectBot, GPS Status, WiFi Analyzer and Antennas. ConnectBot let's me get a terminal window either onto my mobile, or any remote machine I might be using (as long as it supports ssh/telnet). I can then enter command line commands to manage the remote machine, start stop services, etc. GPS Status tells me why I haven't got my position data on Google Maps and/or what my current GPS coordinates are, where the GPS satellites exactly are, etc. WiFi Analyzer let's me walk around the house and see how strong my WiFi router signal is in different rooms. Antennas tells me where my carriers antenna towers are - not that there is much I can do about their location, but curious minds want to know :-)

Ok. That is it for tasks I find I do quite often on my Android phone that I am not sure I can do on iPhone. I am not stating the obvious list like changing my SIM chip when travelling and not being locking into a particular carrier....

I promise to do another post soon about "Cools Apps that I don't really use, but are great to Wow a crowd". Just for my information (or, if you are impatient), the name of those apps are:
- Google Sky Map
- Bubble
- Chrome to Phone
- Talk to Me
- Talk to enter text

Uploading videos to Facebook on Android

2010-08-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Why can't I upload videos from my Nexus One to FB? I can upload them to YouTube, mail them, etc....

Even if I start in the FB app, it lets me upload photos, but not videos.

Come on FB - fix the problem.....

Does Google have 86-90% of Global Search Market?

2010-07-29T09:40:00.000-07:00

I saw 2 independent articles that talk about Google having 86-90% of the global search market.
Anyone know if this is the commonly shared view?

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qptimeframe=M
http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/29/google-mobile-search-market-share/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Techcrunch+(TechCrunch)&utm_content=Google+Reader

First Chrome Extension!

2010-07-23T16:58:00.000-07:00

Ok. This isn't quite Android related, but didn't want to start a new blog just for this.....

I got sick and tired of the new Google News format with the useless 3rd column on the right that takes up a good chunk of my page.

Looks like Google isn't going back to its original format (I am not sure I understand why). Anyway, write a simple Chrome extension that kills the extra column. Hope to fix the extension to make it more flexible, but wanted to get this working now for people.....

You can get the extension here
Project sources here.

Please let me know if you like it!
Ambarish

I wonder what all the people whining about Android fragmentation.....

2010-06-18T15:43:00.001-07:00

..... have to say, now that they have to worry about the old iPhones, iPhone4 and iPad.

Android and Trust

2010-06-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

One legitimate concern that users/security folks have about Android is around the trustworthiness of applications in the Android Market.

Given that Google doesn't censor applications in the Market, how can a user be comfortable that an app she is downloading isn't malicious. Particularly given that the granularity of permissions still leaves something to be desired.

I wonder if it makes sense for Google to offer/contract out the job of testing 3rd party applications for security/privacy issues. Developers can pay for this testing. In return, they get a "seal of approval", which allows lay users to download and run them comfortably.

Anybody has opinions on this?

iPhone4

2010-06-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

Just saw Steve Job's announcement at WWDC about iPhone4/iOS4.0

Nice display, but otherwise I wasn't very impressed. Would still prefer my Nexus one (ideally with a keyboard).

Any Android users disagree?

Any iPhone users drooling for free turn-by-turn navigation, SkyMap, Gesture Search, Voice input, Voice translation, Google Goggles, Calling Card app (to automatically dial an international number through a calling card service - eg. Reliance, AirTel)?

Will Chrome OS support apps?

2010-05-21T07:29:00.000-07:00

One thing that turned me off Chrome OS, was Google's original statement that it won't support installed apps.

After Google's phenomenal presentation at Google I/O 2010, I am not so sure anymore. One thing that Vic talked about, was the ability to store your apps and related data on the web. So you can think of a machine with a set of local apps, as a cache of a specially configured web page (kind of like your My Yahoo page).

Allows you to have a Chrome OS with local apps, which are all technically, just a reflection of a machine that is on the web!

Of course, I still don't understand why I would call that OS Chrome OS and not Android.