Latedroid

JuicePlotter Changelog

2010-03-06T23:22:00.000+01:00

v1.1.1: ("it's like I cared more about my free apps than the paid ones" edition)
- WIDGET! It shows an accurate estimate of how long till your battery is fully drained or recharged
- the plot is now regularly updated in the background
- believe it or not, the UI is *really* much more responsive ;)

v1.0.1:
- fixed overflow bug that caused vertical grid not to be shown
- fixed bug that prevented the service to be correctly disabled
- added auto-restart to the service, should help minimizing "holes" in the graph
- much more responsive UI (really this time)!

v1.0:
- all limitations removed!

v0.9beta:
- UI much more responsive
- yet another fix for recorded network events
- tweaks in the graph
- slightly tweaked color themes

v0.8.1beta:
- minor fix in network events

v0.8beta:
- fixed slightly off screen/network/charging indicators

v0.7beta:
- fixed incomplete network event logging
- added first run dialog
- text scaling for high/low resolution screens

v0.6beta:
- added color schemes (UltimateJuice only)

v0.5.1beta:
- minor fixes

v0.5beta:
- first public release

JuiceDefender Changelog

2010-03-06T07:23:00.000+01:00

v.1.0temporarily-out-of-beta
- temporarily out of beta! ;)

v0.9.9beta
- added a tentative circumvention the OS-derived "freezing" issue
- minor UI tweaks

v0.9.8beta
- fixed widget and auto-restart broadcasts, now more discrete

v0.9.7beta
- added service auto-restart, should minimize instances of JD stopping working (because something kills it improperly)

v0.9.6beta
- fixed silent mode not always de-registering itself when disabling night schedule
- resuscitated the decent landscape mode
- UI tweaks

v0.9.5beta
- WIDGET! It shows a guesstimate of how much JuiceDefender multiplied your battery life over the last 48 hours
- minor UI tweaks
- possible fix for the AutoWiFi Droid issue - Droid users, why do you always show up to complain and rarely to help? :p

v0.9.4beta
- added Silence option for night trigger
- fixed a bug in night trigger
- JD will now keep APN/WiFi enabled during charge (as requested by Matt and Andi)
- tentatively fixed the occasional No APN found error
- something else I forgot :/

v0.9.3beta
- fixed the 0.9.2 bug (grazie Luciano!)
- somehow solved, probably temporarily, the FC on Droids (thanks R.!); it's a workaround, not a fix (yet) (also: if you are a Droid power user and want to save the world be my testing guinea pig help me, pretty please contact me)

v0.9.2beta
- removed (temporarily) the decent landscape mode
- introduced the (almost) most stupid bug ever (yeah, this release was pretty much a fail)

v0.9.1beta
- experimental Easy Mode UI
- added 'Send debug log' for straighforward troubleshooting (hardly necessary anymore, but...)

v0.9beta
- fixed a number of WiFi related bugs (thanks James!)
- fixed priority for screen trigger and low battery threshold (thanks Vladimir!)
- tweaked some log messages
- help, changelog and FAQ (new!) are now online

v0.8.5beta
- fixed disable APN for weird carriers (e.g. O2 DE - thanks Stephan!)

v0.8.2beta
- added check battery level at service start

v0.8.1beta
- fixed service stop

v0.8beta:
- added purging of 'forgotten' WiFi networks' locations
- fixed some edge cases for AutoWiFi
- completely skip regular schedule during night period
- fixed a minor bug on the very first run
- some UI tweaks
- decent landscape mode

v0.7beta:
- fixed skipped APN disable because of premature sleep (thanks Lorenzo and Shaun M.!)
- rewrote some internals of the service for more efficiency
- fixed a bug in AutoWiFi

v0.6.2beta:
- fixed FC on Nexus One ($#^% Google!)

v0.6.1beta:
- fixed MMS APN not found :(

v0.6beta:
- fixed the 'No APN found' bug (thanks Shaun M.!)
- improved APN enabling speed after screen on

v0.5.2beta:
- fixed a minor bug in night schedule

v0.5.1beta:
- fixed ANR dialog
- fixed always enabling WiFi in non-Ultimate

v0.5beta:
- complete overhaul of the UI
- added new 'night schedule' trigger
- added new 'AutoWiFi' feature
- added MMS APN control option
- rewrote the service for better handling of edge cases
- some minor bug fixes

v0.4beta:
- fixed a potential problem in the service
- fixed a bug that caused the activity log to grow indefinitely
- slightly improved log view
- fixed a minor cosmetic bug

v0.3beta:
- fixed a minor bug

v0.2beta:
- first public release

UltimateJuice promo sale!

2010-03-05T12:43:00.001+01:00

Tomorrow I'll be releasing JuiceDefender/UltimateJuice v1.0 temporarily-out-of-beta-edition.

For the occasion, UltimateJuice will be on sale at the promotional price of 0.99€ for the weekend - make sure to grab it on time!

(the exact times are yet to be disclosed, but an anonymous source says the promo will last "from when I publish the update on Saturday to when I change the price again on Sunday - times are in Central European Time")

For those of you who are beta aficionados: don't worry, next week I'll start working on some new, radically useful features. Back to beta business as usual!

An even better reason to celebrate is that Sunday or Monday will hopefully see the last snow of the season in Venice - it's so incredibly romantic that I'll be walking around ~~watching chick flicks on my Magic in tears~~ hand-in-hand with my girlfriend (that's the backup plan given that OpenEclair doesn't yet support video as of v1.2.2).

SeePU++ in the Market(s)

2010-03-02T02:19:00.000+01:00

I just published the paid addon for SeePU (SeePU++) on the Android Market and on AndAppStore.

If you grabbed it for free during the promo, just keep it installed. It will keep working through updates to SeePU - at least until my well-laid future-proofing plan will face some unforeseen circumstance.

Call for action

2010-02-28T17:49:00.001+01:00

In the last weeks I occasionally hinted at the revenue I get from this Android adventure - I finally decided to share some thoughts about the matter.

First, a disclaimer-of-sorts: do not take this as the trademark "oh I'm a poor independent developer struggling to make it while dev studios focusing their amazing skills on yet another iPhone fart app rack in cash by the millions" kind of post.

As a matter of fact, at this point of my life I'm moderately happy, and I consider myself quite lucky:

I don't spend my time coding flatulence simulators (or financial analysis software); hence my sense of purpose is certainly a dip higher than that of the abovementioned studios
I live in Venice (well, as anywhere else, it has its pros and cons, but my scarce sympathy for cars has a considerable weight)
I pay very little for my half of the room I share with my girlfriend in a very central (if dark) apartment - around 300€/month with energy bills; ok it's half a room, but it's still a steal.

So, what's the problem? Let's just say it straight:

The money I make out of app sales still doesn't even cover rent.

...and this explains the weird, almost unsettling (to me, at least) presence of that yellow button on the right.

On this upbeat note, the good news:

the problem is not that my apps suck - the feedback I get is overwhelmingly positive (well, Paperdroid does need some care - it was my first app after all; I'll get there, I promise!)
revenue is veeeery sloooowly, but consistently, going up

So the apps are good, and JuiceDefender in particular is potentially useful to a sizeable fraction of Android phone owners. Simple conclusion:

The problem is plain old lack of eyeballs.

Very few people know about my apps. Those who do, like them. So all I need is ~~love~~ a marketing effort.
Try as I might, I hate marketing - just the idea of it - so doing it myself gives me all kinds of spiritual pains. But a man gotta do what he's gotta do, right?

So here's the bottom line

I love to develop useful apps, and I would love to make it financially viable. Unfortunately, money won't last forever, so there's not much time.

If you would like to support me, you can help!

Spread the word!

Talk about the app(s) you love, tell everybody why you appreciate it or find it useful!
Tweet about it, post on Facebook, comment on blogs or forums you read.

And of course, if you can, consider a donation - let's be honest here, donations are not going to make a difference on my finances (unless Mr Brin serendipitously happens to be reading this with an urgent need of getting rid of some cash*) but they would surely help a lot in keeping me motivated.
Speaking of which: thanks Stefano - you're the first supporter of the Latedroid cause!

~~P.S.: SeePU! Update! And grab SeePU++ from the Market asap! It's~~ ~~free for a very limited time~~~~, hurry up! - and get ready for something cool coming up ;)~~

( * in case Mr Brin serendipitously happens to be reading this: hey Sergey, did you know that Google really needs to open a new, very tiny, very cozy, very affordable office in Venice? I could even work there! Isn't this an extraordinarily remarkable coincidence?)

SeePU Changelog

2010-02-25T19:03:00.001+01:00

v0.7.6beta:
- quickly fixed the first little bump in the future-proof plan of v0.7 (a problem with ++)

v0.7.5beta:
- some very cool new features! (++ only)
- historical plot of CPU, RAM and/or network usage in the notification pane
- one-click-kill of the app that's stuck in an infinite loop of 100% CPU usage, pain, regret and sorrow (yes, it's the humane thing to do, and I'd rather do it quickly)

v0.7beta:
- optimized the hell out of it - one day I'll write another post about my uberleet low-level byte-mangling skillz
- prepared a future-proof plan for upgrade routes with the upcoming paid addon
- some minor bug fixes

v0.6.1beta:
- fixed FC introduced in v0.6 :/

v0.6beta:
- added network usage graph! (for *all* network interfaces combined)
- UI tweaks

v0.5beta:
- decided it was after all better for consistency to include caches in the available RAM
- UI tweaks

v0.4beta:
- come again? You are what? Legend?

v0.3beta:
- fixed some more the occasional messing up of the icon update - will auto-restart now (good, but why bother by the way? It happens once a day at most...)

v0.2beta:
- fixed (perhaps) the occasional messing up of the icon update
- some performance tweaks
- some UI tweaks

v0.1beta:
- ongoing notification

v0.0.0.0half/beta:
- first public release, EXPERIMENTAL

UltimateJuice

2010-02-20T13:52:00.003+01:00

UltimateJuice is an add-on to JuiceDefender that enables some advanced features:

WiFi control (with location-based AutoWiFi)
5 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours schedule interval
night schedule with optional silent mode
MMS APN control

Please note that it doesn't do anything on its own (doesn't even have a UI) - the extra features will be available from the JuiceDefender UI.

Find it on the Android Market or AndAppStore - if you have problems with the purchase process please see the JuiceDefender FAQ

JuicePlotter 1.0 - unlimited! (ooooh)

2010-02-12T19:49:00.000+01:00

That's right! Since I'm feeling somewhat happy about the tourist situation in Venice, I decided to remove the (admittedly arbitrary) limitations in JuicePlotter. Enjoy unlimited (and themed) plotting!

SeePU FAQ

2010-02-11T13:50:00.003+01:00

Technically-oriented answers about SeePU here.

KNOWN ISSUES

Sometimes when you turn the screen off Android will put the device to sleep without notifying SeePU. When this happens, SeePU will stop refreshing and won't have a chance to notice when you turn the screen on again. You'll need to manually restart it (just slide down the notification bar, tap on the SeePU entry and press BACK). I'm researching a possible workaround that doesn't increase battery consumption.

Update once a second?! Won't this slaughter my poor battery?

Not in the slightest.
How? Simple: when the screen is off, SeePU does absolutely nothing. When the screen is on, the only difference it might make is on CPU usage itself - see below for how ridiculously low this is.

I've been staring at my phone for half a minute without touching it, but my cpu bar always has some little sliver of green instead of being completely black.

Nothing to worry about - that just shows that CPU utilization is as low as it gets. There's no "0%" all-black icon - it's highly unlikely anyway for Android CPUs to be less than 1 or 2% busy when "awake" - well, unless you set the minimim clock speed over 1000MHz :)

My free memory bar never gets full! What should I do?

Android can function well with very little free RAM (it will reclaim memory on an as-needed basis), so this doesn't necessarily indicates there's a problem, especially if your device doesn't have much RAM to begin with (e.g. T-Mobile G1/HTC Dream); you will eventually use most of your RAM just by opening apps.
Consider the free RAM bar a hint of the performance you'll get when interacting with the device.

If, on the other hand, you see the memory bar constantly jumping from middle orange to low red and back, this might be a sign of a chronic low memory problem - too many background apps (or widgets) competing for memory. Use a task manager to see what's going on.

Right after [Task killer app name] does its job, the free memory bar goes up, but then comes down again quickly.

Task killers, generally speaking, aren't such a good idea - save for very specific cases. You should rely on Android's own memory management (customizable with MinFreeManager or AutoKiller, if you're so inclined) and the apps own settings - if you have an app that refuses to get out of the way while doing nothing useful for you, thus just wasting RAM, you should probably uninstall it.

What about resource usage by SeePU itself?

SeePU is optimized to use as little resources as possible. Many tricks are used to this end. But there's no such thing as a free lunch: the 0.5 seconds update interval will use some CPU (still very little) - especially on slower devices. So, generally speaking, don't use that - use 1 or 2 seconds, you'll hardly notice the difference in feedback time.
With a setting of 2 seconds or 5 seconds, SeePU is for all practical matters completely nonexistent, CPU-usage-wise.
BUT: anything you enable besides the basic CPU graph will inevitably increase CPU usage. In ascending order: RAM usage, network usage, network history plot, CPU/RAM history plot. If you actively use your device for extensive periods of time and are particularly concerned about your battery, only enable the features you need, when you need them (re-configuration is one tap away at all times, after all) - as always, it's a matter of compromising.

Why is there a 0.5 seconds update frequency, if you advise against using it?

Because it's really useful to me - I'm a developer and need that kind of granularity when testing apps.

I want it to show the current CPU frequency!

Lo and behold - it's already there (well, sorta), as Android scales the frequency depending on the current CPU load.

JuiceDefender FAQ

2010-02-09T17:16:00.008+01:00

Known issues and a list of questions about JuiceDefender (and UltimateJuice), asked for a period of 8 minutes every 30 minutes. Now comes with answers too!

KNOWN ISSUES

The mobile data (APN) connection is not restored

It might happen (quite rarely) that the mobile data connection isn't restored, say after turning the screen on. This is not caused by JuiceDefender per se, as you can verify from the log (the APN gets correctly enabled) and in your APN list.
The problem is caused by the fact that the GSM cell refuses to reactivate the APN connection. I have very little data about this, but I think it's cell-specific and probably depends on how much that cell is under heavy data usage load.

Usually when this happens, putting the phone on Airplane mode and back is a quick way to get the connection back, as your phone will have to reconnect to the GSM stack of the cell, and the cell just cannot refuse that - this is often enough to also get the APN connection back.

As this is a carrier-related problem, there's nothing I can do to fix it - if you find it happens too often to be convenient, unfortunately you have no other choice but to disable JuiceDefender.

After several times WiFi is enabled/disabled by JuiceDefeder, WiFi will stop working until reboot

This is a hardware issue that seems to occur on a small number of devices. I'm trying to narrow down the cause, but have very little data. If you consistently experience this problem, please contact me!

FAQ

JuiceDefender seems very useful, but it won't install on my device!

Your device is probably running Android 1.5 (Cupcake). Unfortunately, some of the internals require Android 1.6 (Donut) or greater. On the bright side, pretty much every device will be getting at least 1.6 (most 2.x) quite soon, according to carriers and manufacturers.

JuiceDefender seems very useful, but I can't find it in the Market!

If your device is running Android 1.5: see above. If not: the Market has all kinds of issues, apparently - and there's nothing I can do - but do not despair! Just head over to AndAppStore - you'll find both JuiceDefender and UltimateJuice there.

I just installed UltimateJuice, but can't open it!

UltimateJuice is an add-on to JuiceDefender that provides additional features. It does not have a UI on its own.
Just open JuiceDefender - as long as UltimateJuice is installed, the extra features will be enabled.

I tried to buy UltimateJuice from the Android Market, but my card is refused

Some users have reported problems with the Android Market using American Express cards. Again: there's nothing I can do about it - I have no control whatsoever on the Market. You can always purchase via AndAppstore, it uses PayPal as a backend.

I've purchased UltimateJuice from AndAppStore, but I can't download it!

First and foremost, make sure you use the same email address for your AndAppStore account and for your PayPal account (you can have more than one email address associated with your PayPal account).
Sometimes AndAppStore marks transactions as invalid even if they went through fine. Please allow 24 hours for me to manually unblock your transaction.
If you still can't download after 24 hours, try uninstalling and reinstalling the AndAppStore Android client app - this will force a refresh of your purchases catalog and often solve the problem.
If everything fails, please contact me with all the details.

There are too many buttons! I just wanted to save some battery, what's with the messy UI? What if I break something?

Tap Help and then Revert to Easy Mode - voilà! It's a no-brainer to triple battery life, free!
For completeness, these are the settings for Easy Mode:
- Juice control: only APN enabled (APN and WiFi enabled with UltimateJuice)
- Triggers: Screen, Battery and Schedule enabled
- Schedule: 15min, Quick enabled

Will I still receive text messages?

Absolutely - text messages (SMS) don't use the data connection but the regular GSM stack, and JuiceDefender won't interfere with that in any way.

Why isn't WiFi enabled when it's supposed to?

JuiceDefender detected that at some point you manually disabled WiFi. In this case it will never touch it until you re-enable it again manually.
AutoWiFi is enabled and JuiceDefender thinks you are outside the known zones. This can happen even if you're in the location of a previously recorded WiFi network, if your device happens to be connected to a different (new) GSM cell. Just enable WiFi manually and make sure the device connects to the WiFi network - then (optionally) open JuiceDefender and close it to immediately add the new cell to the database.

Why can't I set my own schedule - every 20/49/73.14 minutes?

There's a good reason for the current schedule intervals; JuiceDefender uses an Android feature for elastic schedules in order to save battery - and that's all the app is about! As a matter of fact, if all applications used this feature the battery problem would be less dramatic. The 5m/15m schedule uses less power, taking all the interactions within the system into account, than a schedule of 5m/20m, and probably even a 4m/20m one.

I opened [online radio app/generic audio streaming app], started listening to a nice stream and went on with my business but the audio stopped after a while.

Currently this is by design; JuiceDefender will cut off data access after you turn off the screen (assuming your settings are the usual ones). So if you want to consciously engage in a battery-draining activity like listening to online radio on-the-go, you must disable JuiceDefender first (it's really quick with the home screen widget).
However, work is under way to address this and similar scenarios (large/long downloads, etc.) in a fully automated manner - so stay tuned, and keep your JuiceDefender updated!

I'd like to be able to customize [insert obscure, highly technical, or rarely-used-but-in-your-situation-critical customization here].

A future "customize-everything" version is already planned (but no timeframe yet, it might be weeks or months) - keep the suggestions coming so I can organize an efficient UI from the start!

Why there's no Airplane Mode option for night schedule?

Airplaning-at-night seems to be the latest craze in the Android world. However, if you have JuiceDefender, it's also almost completely useless: without a data connection, the total battery drain during the night is 1 to 5%. If you don't want to be disturbed during the sacred sleep, just enable Silent Mode.

AutoWiFi doesn't seem to work.

Your WiFi network(s) is in an area covered by a single ginormous cell tower. In Europe this is often the case especially for the 3G network, regardless of the population density. There are whole provinces covered by just one hugely powerful 3G antenna. You can try switching to 2G network only and see if that helps (if so, it's unfortunate, as having to use slow 2G speeds is not worth the feature - but now you know the reason).
The particular cell tower covering your home/workplace/StarBucks (or perhaps all the cells for your carrier) doesn't broadcast cell ID - no solution to this, as AutoWiFi can't tell the location without this information.
AutoWiFi registered many cells around your WiFi network, for example due to poor GSM coverage causing the device to switch frequently to different cells. Thus AutoWiFi will kick in only when you travel relatively great distances away from the WiFi location. In this case it might help to periodically clear the locations database by long-pressing the AutoWiFi button - a notification will confirm the operation.

I want the APN to stay always off unless the screen is on. I enabled the Screen and Battery triggers but the APN won't turn off.

All the Screen trigger does is to enable APN/WiFi when some other trigger disabled them first - see the triggers priority order. To achieve the desired behaviour, use a very long schedule interval.

What is that 'JuiceDefender shutting down' thing in the log?

It indicates that JuiceDefender stopped running at that moment. This is normal if you manually disabled it or when you reboot/power off the phone. However it might also happen in (very rare) situations of extremely low memory; if JuiceDefender isn't doing anything and you find that entry in the log when it shouldn't be there, it's a sign that there's a problem with your device. You should consider getting rid of some home screen widgets.

I don't want to pay three bucks for UltimateJuice. You are an unethical greedy monster that prospers on the misfortunes of Android users who don't have a choice but to live with crappy battery life.

Part one: John went to buy a car. After ten minutes of questions, the dealer said: "I think I got the perfect car for you. This one over here sports so-and-so engine, trunk, tires, safety features, gadgets. And it's just 26,000$! Unfortunately it will only go for 200km before needing a lengthy gas refill. Or, if you prefer, that one over there is the very same model but can go for more than 800km, and it costs 150$ more". Which car did John choose? (I used the Metric System in the story because Imperial is just an unbearable monument to nonsense)

Part two: the prosperity I'm enjoying isn't sufficient to feed my cat.

Part three: and by the way, WTF? The free JuiceDefender already improves battery life A LOT. Do I have to come paint your house to please you?

What happens if I uninstall JuiceDefender while the APN is disabled?

In this case Android might very well decide against notifying JuiceDefender of its imminent demise. The best course of action is to completely disable JuiceDefender (to revert everything to battery-draining-business-as-usual) before uninstalling it.

I didn't disable JuiceDefender before uninstalling and now I have no data connection!

Easy way: reinstall JuiceDefender, make sure it's disabled, and uninstall it again.
Slow, error-prone way: edit your APN(s) manually, if you know how to.

SeePU

2010-02-08T22:57:00.005+01:00

SeePU shows the current CPU, RAM and network usage in the notification area.

You can easily see whether your processor is being heavily taxed - and for example let it finish its job without burdening it further - or is sitting happily idle, ready for action; or the download speed of that large podcast...

There are three different styles for the CPU/RAM usage notification icon:

CPU usage bar
CPU usage bar/available RAM bar side by side
CPU usage bar with numeric indicator of available RAM in MB (requires SeePU++)

...and for the network usage icon:

Total (received+transmitted) data speed
Received data speed/transmitted data speed side by side
Total data speed with numeric indicator in KB/sec (requires SeePU++)

You can also choose the update frequency.

You can enable (requires SeePU++) the historical plots of CPU, RAM and network usage in the notification pane (the thing that appears when you pull down the notification "window-shade"); you can also configure SeePU so that when clicking on the CPU/RAM plot, it will ask for confirmation to kill the process that is currently using the most CPU (when an app is stuck in an infinite loop of 100% CPU usage, pain, regret and sorrow, it's the humane thing to do, and it's best done quickly).

SeePU is highly optimized to use as few resources as possible, unlike "similar" apps (for one thing, it disables itself when the screen is off) - see it for yourself and try it now, it's free!

To enable the advanced features, get SeePU++ from the Android Market or AndAppStore.

See the FAQ and the changelog!

JuicePlotter FAQ

2010-02-08T20:59:00.002+01:00

A list of not-really-frequently asked questions about JuicePlotter.

KNOWN ISSUES

Sometimes when you turn off the screen Android will put the device to sleep before notifying JuicePlotter. When that happens, you'll see the plot showing the screen as on when it shouldn't. There's no known workaround to this that wouldn't involve higher battery consumption.
Sometimes (when available memory is very low) Android will kill the battery stats collecting service. The service will restart itself after a while, but you'll see a hole in the plot (at any rate make sure to exclude JuicePlotter from any task killer app you have installed, or you'll have lots of holes).

I don't see anything! What's the deal?

JuicePlotter starts collecting battery information after the first run (or device reboot, whichever comes first). After some hours you'll start seeing a small piece of graph being drawn.

The graph is too confusing! Where's the legend?

A graphical legend might come in a future version.
In the meantime, here's a quick description:

a whiteish band above the graph line indicates that the device screen was on
the colored bands below the graph line show the status of the various radio interfaces
a colored band at the bottom of the graph shows the charging status
the graph line color itself shows the battery temperature - the redder, the hotter

However, it's pretty easy to infer what the various bands mean - just drag the graph so that the spot you're interested in comes to lie under the middle line: the descriptive text at the top will show detailed information about the device state at that exact time.

This must waste a lot of battery!

Unlike similar apps, JuicePlotter does not poll for the battery status at fixed intervals, possibly waking up the device or other similarly nasty battery-draining activities. Instead it "piggybacks" over broadcasted device events who get recorded when the device CPU is already awake, and interpolates over them. This said, JuicePlotter will inevitably use *some* battery - albeit it's highly unlikely you'll ever notice the difference (conversely, try removing one of those other apps and replacing it with JuicePlotter - chances are you will notice the positive difference).

Paperdroid Pro now available for all non-Market folks around the world!

2010-02-02T16:01:00.004+01:00

That's right! Head over to andappstore now!

JuicePlotter

2010-02-02T11:15:00.008+01:00

JuicePlotter is a battery usage graph that combines full at-a-glance information about your battery consumption with sheer beauty.

The coloured bands along the graph show your screen brightness, radio usage, charging status and battery temperature. Just scroll around to find precise information and make sense of the different colours.

Drag the graph up and down to zoom in/out!

Long-press the 'Enabled' button to select another color scheme - or just rebuild the graph if it becomes garbled.

If you think your device is a little high on juice consumption, try JuiceDefender! It will put your device on a healthy juice diet - get it now from the Android Market, it's free!

Get UltimateJuice from the Android Market to see your juicy stats beyond 48 hours ago and enable other color schemes.

See the changelog and the FAQ!

JuiceDefender

2010-01-16T23:42:00.018+01:00

JuiceDefender saves battery power (lots of it!) by controlling the device data connection and/or WiFi.

You can schedule regular APN/WiFi activation to let background data sync occur and have APN/WiFi enabled while the screen is on. It also helps in minimizing distractions ;)

The Easy Mode is a no-fuss one-click way to let your battery last longer - much longer. Just enable JuiceDefender by clicking on the big button and you're ready to go!

If you want more fine-grained control, try Advanced Mode, where you can configure all JuiceDefender features to your liking.

There are 5 triggers for the enable/disable behaviour:
Battery - when battery level gets low (less than 15%), disable APN/WiFi, and re-enable them when battery level is restored. APN/WiFi will also be enabled while the device is being recharged.
Schedule - regularly enable APN/WiFi for a short period of time, to let background data sync occur (email, Twitter, Facebook, stock quotes...). If Quick is disabled APN/WiFi stays enabled for a longer period, useful if your data connection is very slow or you need to sync lots of data.
Night schedule (requires UltimateJuice) - disable APN/WiFi during night time; you can also optionally put the phone in Silent Mode.
Screen - enable APN/WiFi while the screen is on to allow browsing, tweeting, procrastination and general internet-powered enjoyment, regardless of scheduled events and battery level.
Location (requires UltimateJuice) - this trigger controlled by the 'AutoWiFi' button. It disables WiFi when the device is not in range of any known WiFi network. The location is determined via the cellular network, so it's usually quite coarse. It's a fully automatic set-it-and-forget-it WiFi manager!

The priority order of the triggers is 1) location (WiFi only), 2) screen, 3) battery, 4) night schedule, 5) schedule - this means, for example, that when the screen is on APN/WiFi will be enabled even when the battery is low, or that the regular schedule won't occur during the night period.

Note that triggers will only enable WiFi if you have explicitly turned it on - if you turn it off manually, your decision will be remembered and no trigger will turn it on again (until you re-enable it).

Having data enabled 2 minutes every 15 minutes is sufficient in most situations. A longer schedule interval is useful to minimize distractions when you need to get something done ;)

There's a Home screen widget that shows how much battery life was improved by JuiceDefender over the last 48 hours - what's the best multiplier you can get?
It also lets you enable/disable JuiceDefender super-quickly (just tap on the glass of juice in the bottom left).

Please note that not all features are enabled in the free JuiceDefender. The free version on the Market can control only the data APN, and the available triggers are screen, battery and schedule with frequencies of 15 and 30 minutes.

To get complete control over your device juice consumption please consider buying UltimateJuice from the Android Market or AndAppStore - it will enable WiFi and MMS control, the location and night schedule triggers and schedule intervals of 5 minutes, 1 hour and 2 hours. You can make your battery last forever! (ok, that's an hyperbole.)

If you want to check how much your battery life is improved by JuiceDefender, get JuicePlotter now - the best looking and most informative battery graph out there! Free on the Android Market!

If you want to know more, please read the Known issues / FAQs and the changelog!

All your juice are belong to us

2010-01-16T23:28:00.003+01:00

JuiceDefender is in the Market! (Android-only link)

Now I can finally enjoy some relaxing reading.

Paperdroid FAQ

2010-01-15T23:15:00.000+01:00

We've got answers!

(or not?)

Who wants some spare juice? Or monkeys? Tears of blood? Anyone?

2010-01-15T22:24:00.003+01:00

I'm finally back from exile, not without a new app almost ready to hit the market!

It's called JuiceDefender (ain't it kickass), it saves your battery (well now, what a remarkable coincidence!), it's free (as in "Free Valpreda"), and it's in superquickbeta mode - you have 24 hours to grab it from andappstore, test it and report back! Execute! Dismissed!

(in other news: I'll soon push a Paperdroid update with some needed fixes and redesigned account dialogs - too many people seem unable to figure them out; any advice?)

I SAID DISMISSED! Meh.

(in even less relevant news: I'm still looking for a good hearted - mean spirited is ok too -
webdesigner

trained monkey
teleported goat able to randomly mash on the keyboard for a while then save the result with a .css extension and willing to thus put an end to the hours I spend crying ugliness-induced tears of bloodregretandsorrow whenever I have to publish a new post and - gosh - see this very monstruosity you're seeing now)

Is the Android Market headed for disaster?

2009-12-21T17:08:00.001+01:00

A fellow developer informed me that he doesn't see Paperdroid Pro in the Market app. I had no clue on why this would happen, so he sent me this very informative link.

The picture that emerges from reading that thread and the ones linked within it is grim. Briefly:

Paid apps are a no-go (in theory) on rooted devices
Carriers have the ultimate power in deciding what's in your Market and what's not

On the former: my rooted Magic shows me everything (in Italy, with any carrier; and Market Enabler works just as expected). This just proves even more that there's a lot of confusion out there.

The important point is the latter. Although carriers are just starting to implement it, it is clear that this is where the Market is headed. This poses some problems.

There are already confusing reports of people with the same (unlocked) device and slightly different firmware getting or not getting the ability to see some paid apps. Other unlocked devices have access to everything, others still have no luck at all. I wouldn't be surprised in the least to see that the carrier you happen to be on at the moment also plays a role in which apps you can or cannot see.

Let's try to stretch the imagination a bit and see where all this could lead:

the exponentially rising number of device/firmware/country/carrier combinations breaks any hope of having a way to predict how in each case the Market will filter available apps. Moreover the Market is already having serious trouble coping up coherently with new devices/firmwares. The frustration of developers and users shows a similar exponential increase.
given the rise in paying and licensing problems, some carriers decide to try to bring the mess under control by disabling the Market altogether when on WiFi ("these naughty customers are trying to circumvent the rules!")
the following logic step would then be to just have a whitelisted app catalog - I'm not talking about the already existing Carrier picks; I'm talking about "this is all you can get because we're f@#&^in' tired of those two customers complaining to us about apps they claim don't work (and we like licensing deals with major app vendors)". If you think that's impossible because (US) carriers are fighting a marketing campaign on the sheer number of available apps, go see the pathetic AT&T campaign and notice how after heralding the availability of a gigazillion apps on their handsets, they duly list, as examples, the usual four or five obvious tasks (and they seem to forget that of course there are already several Android apps covering each of those needs). Then add the fact that Google (rightly) is and will be unwilling to take any liability burden. Welcome back, walled gardens.

This is the App Store, with a worse implementation, an even more arbitrary (borderline random) functioning, and without the benefits of the massive scale because of the extreme fragmentation.

In the short term, all this, plus the increasing fragmentation in the Android world in general, only means trouble for developers and users.

In my opinion, though, Google is on the right path, long-term wise. By allowing carriers and manufacturers to pursue crappy strategies, it makes sure the ecosystem base stays open enough to allow for innovative actors (Google itself?) to easily raise the (very low) bar and drive dinosaurs to well-earned extinction.

Back to my tiny, utterly irrelevant world: it seems I'll have to publish Paperdroid Pro in some alternative market after all: andappstore or slideme?

On Paperdroid Pro without the (Google) Android Market

2009-12-16T18:19:00.003+01:00

UPDATE: Paperdroid Pro is now available at andappstore!

I've spent already too much time trying to figure out a way to get Paperdroid Pro to people without access to the Android Market (or its paid apps section). The alternative markets out there all require some sort of added infrastructure (and code), which would force me to maintain a separate Paperdroid Pro codebase for them. This doesn't seem worth the hassle, given the current and predictable amount of Pro customers (one day I'll share the laughs).

On the other hand the DIY alternative (Paypal + emailing of the app, some serious bleeding edge technology), while reasonable on the required amount of work, seems too much vulnerable to frauds or just any kind of headache (complains? cancellation requests? misaligned payment amounts?) that would immediatly make it inefficient.

If you have any ideas/remarks/insights on the subject, please share! I'm kind of out of ideas.

I'm really, really bad at writing changelogs

2009-12-05T12:12:00.003+01:00

The thing is: many updates went through; Paperdroid/Pro is now at ~~v1.1.1~~ v1.1.4.

The other thing is: I patently lack the willpower that is necessary in order to consistently write proper changelogs.
On these grounds, I ask for forgiveness about the following pathetic attempt:

fixed a number of bugs, most of them thanks to excellent feedback from users
added some long-since planned features
most importantly: added and tweaked stuff as per various user requests

Now, I understand that I should at least try to list summarily these new features; then again, I should also write some kind of easy-to-follow updated documentation and put it online. So, the official excuse is that I'm giving priority to the latter - which, requiring much more effort, will take a while to do, providing me some excellent extended excuse coverage.
If anyone among the countless legions of my readers happens to enjoy the art of ~~muttering nonsense while rolling one's forehead on the keyboard back and forth~~ writing: please share the brain patch - I know there's one.

Paperdroid Pro & free 1.0.5

2009-11-29T00:50:00.000+01:00

The amount and quality of help and feedback I received after 1.0.3 is astonishing. Thanks to the relentless help of Mario C., ggrell, Micah C. and probably somebody else I forgot (sorry, it's been quite an intense day email-wise), the problems with random and semi-random force closes should be fixed. What's even better, with the new catchin' 'n' loggin' infrastructure in place, and - more importantly - these fantastic users/testers I'm so lucky to have, any similar problems in the future should be fixed much more quickly.

Thank you everybody for the incredible support!

...time to code some long-overdue new features!

On the mechanics of the net society and apparently misleading headings.

2009-11-28T12:42:00.000+01:00

Pushed a quick 1.0.3 Paperdroid update, that seems to be able to intercept FC-causing errors and give the user a chance to send the log. I really hope it'll work this time.

Paperdroid force closing: a battle is lost, but the war continues

2009-11-27T18:25:00.001+01:00

There's an uncaught exception that is wrecking havoc (or, less dramatically, semi-randomly causing the dreaded Force Close dialog) among many Paperdroid installations. It seems to affect some G1s as well as many Droids; unfortunately my data on the matter is scarce.
In an effort to solve the mystery, I published Paperdroid 1.0.2 - which, besides a minor bug fix, didn't have any new features but for an attempt in getting these errors properly logged.
Now, after some days in which I had unrelated events to take care of, it is clear that the attempt failed miseramente - I'm getting exactly nothing.

However the priority is still to solve this bug; I'll try to fix the reporting issue and, it is hoped, will push an update tomorrow.
Anyway, if you are experiencing random crashes (or, on Paperdroid 1.0.2, probably the Application Not Responding dialog) and you know how to get a logcat, by all means send me the stacktrace (this requires 1.0.1, however). The
future of the universe
solution to this bug is in your hands!
But - do not despair. I'm confident I'll get to solve this thing soon, thanks to the efforts of the many people trying to help me out (I can't thank you guys enough) - then I'll be finally full-on putting new features in Paperdroid and, especially, Paperdroid Pro.

Paperdroid Pro

2009-11-18T21:35:00.004+01:00

At long last! The droidy link is the QR code on the right, while here's the Androlib link.

Paperdroid Pro sweetness:

fullscreen reading
customizable sync interval
no manual sync throttling, faster sync operations, unlimited background syncing
full HTML fetching of articles
fonts
AccelNAV for a tilt-based, touch-free reading experience
full fledged search capabilities - also available from the device Quick Search Box
Search&Save: even when offline, type in a query string to have it automatically googled and fetched on sync.

Planned additions:

text view with images

See the changelog and the FAQ!