Android UI: instructions/review
Sep. 5th, 2010 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslFirst of all, the Motorola Backflip is a very impressive piece of technology, especially since it's only $350 (without a plan). The touchpad behind the screen is very clever... though there is no good reason to have a back-flipping, rather than a front-flipping phone. And the camera is 5 Megapixels (i.e. equivalent to 5000x1000 pixels!). The scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass is pretty cool too.
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As the first thing, the phone asked me to enter my Facebook information. I quickly regretted doing so, because I found my 700 Facebook friends cluttering my address book. But as I deleted the Facebook application (Settings > Applications > Manage), they went away.
I haven't downloaded any applications yet.
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It's easy to click on "Dial by Voice", which is annoying. I want to remove it.
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How to delete a single contact on Android: Home > Head on blue background (Contacts) > A-Z tab > Scroll to the entry > Backspace button > tap Delete
or, more awkwardly... Scroll to the entry > tap on entry > Menu button (4 squares) > Delete > Delete
You cannot delete entries when the address book is called from other contexts, e.g. green phone handle (Dial). At the other extreme, in Windows, you can do all kinds of things from an "Open File" window, e.g. rename, move, delete.
Calling people can be done either from the Call context, or (with more difficulty) from Contacts, but the latter requires going into the contact entry and tapping on the phone number. Tapping on a field means "use this field", i.e. call/email/text. Editing is a special action, and requires pressing the Menu button.
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When adding or editing an entry, the Back button saves, i.e. they've implemented orthogonal persistence. I miss having a Cancel button sometimes (in Samsung and Nokia phones, I think PowerOff takes the role of ESC)!
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Like most Unix systems, there are multiple desktops, which is nice. You switch desktops by scrolling, so in a way it is a single desktop.
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I don't think they did a very good job with the buttons.
* The OK and CR (carriage return) buttons are mostly redundant.
* The Search button, in many contexts, brings up a Yahoo search field. But I thought this OS was Google! Is AT&T in bed with Yahoo? I can't see how to change this.
* There is an AT&T-logo button, which launches the browser at the Yahoo homepage (where to edit the URL, one clicks on the Search button). Fortunately it is possible to go to Settings and change the default home page to m.google.com.
* There is an Envelope button, which launches the Messaging center (which has a Universal Inbox beside the Text Messaging). This means one too many clicks to view my list of Text Messages.
The good thing about the messaging on the Android is that text messages are displayed as threaded conversations, just like emails in GMail. There is no more Inbox/Outbox/Sent, which is ok with me.
I cannot figure out how to modify the buttons.
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GoogleMaps is great, the GPS tells you where you are, and restaurants/clubs/etc are linked to review sites. Google Street View is also installed.
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Weather by AccuWeather.com is nice too, but doesn't have humidity information (but few websites do).
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There are many apps that I should have thrown into the trash bin rightaway, e.g. Playlist, Facebook, AT&T Navigator (they trick you into getting a trial that automatically switches to $10/month; and is probably redundant given that we have GoogleMaps). UPDATE: TeleNav alerts seems to be neat: it uses GPS to estimate and send ETA information to the person you're meeting. Could be useful if you drive.
This phone, as installed by AT&T, is a money-making scheme. Do not think that Android being Linux makes it non-commercial.
I would like to see a list of free apps, so that I can quickly get rid of the others, which are a liability.
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Sometimes, I miss analog devices, because they have essentially zero lag. For this reason, things like power buttons and volume control should always be analog.
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There is no way to tell if the phone is off or simply resting. If you actually turn it off and on again, it will boot very slowly.
---
Gestures (i.e. continuous input):
tap, double tap, tap-and-hold (e.g. for dragging an icon), scroll using the touchpad.
---
Amazingly, it does not come with a text editor!
---
Big minus: rooting your phone voids the warranty.
---
As the first thing, the phone asked me to enter my Facebook information. I quickly regretted doing so, because I found my 700 Facebook friends cluttering my address book. But as I deleted the Facebook application (Settings > Applications > Manage), they went away.
I haven't downloaded any applications yet.
---
It's easy to click on "Dial by Voice", which is annoying. I want to remove it.
---
How to delete a single contact on Android: Home > Head on blue background (Contacts) > A-Z tab > Scroll to the entry > Backspace button > tap Delete
or, more awkwardly... Scroll to the entry > tap on entry > Menu button (4 squares) > Delete > Delete
You cannot delete entries when the address book is called from other contexts, e.g. green phone handle (Dial). At the other extreme, in Windows, you can do all kinds of things from an "Open File" window, e.g. rename, move, delete.
Calling people can be done either from the Call context, or (with more difficulty) from Contacts, but the latter requires going into the contact entry and tapping on the phone number. Tapping on a field means "use this field", i.e. call/email/text. Editing is a special action, and requires pressing the Menu button.
---
When adding or editing an entry, the Back button saves, i.e. they've implemented orthogonal persistence. I miss having a Cancel button sometimes (in Samsung and Nokia phones, I think PowerOff takes the role of ESC)!
---
Like most Unix systems, there are multiple desktops, which is nice. You switch desktops by scrolling, so in a way it is a single desktop.
---
I don't think they did a very good job with the buttons.
* The OK and CR (carriage return) buttons are mostly redundant.
* The Search button, in many contexts, brings up a Yahoo search field. But I thought this OS was Google! Is AT&T in bed with Yahoo? I can't see how to change this.
* There is an AT&T-logo button, which launches the browser at the Yahoo homepage (where to edit the URL, one clicks on the Search button). Fortunately it is possible to go to Settings and change the default home page to m.google.com.
* There is an Envelope button, which launches the Messaging center (which has a Universal Inbox beside the Text Messaging). This means one too many clicks to view my list of Text Messages.
The good thing about the messaging on the Android is that text messages are displayed as threaded conversations, just like emails in GMail. There is no more Inbox/Outbox/Sent, which is ok with me.
I cannot figure out how to modify the buttons.
---
GoogleMaps is great, the GPS tells you where you are, and restaurants/clubs/etc are linked to review sites. Google Street View is also installed.
---
Weather by AccuWeather.com is nice too, but doesn't have humidity information (but few websites do).
---
There are many apps that I should have thrown into the trash bin rightaway, e.g. Playlist, Facebook, AT&T Navigator (they trick you into getting a trial that automatically switches to $10/month; and is probably redundant given that we have GoogleMaps). UPDATE: TeleNav alerts seems to be neat: it uses GPS to estimate and send ETA information to the person you're meeting. Could be useful if you drive.
This phone, as installed by AT&T, is a money-making scheme. Do not think that Android being Linux makes it non-commercial.
I would like to see a list of free apps, so that I can quickly get rid of the others, which are a liability.
---
Sometimes, I miss analog devices, because they have essentially zero lag. For this reason, things like power buttons and volume control should always be analog.
---
There is no way to tell if the phone is off or simply resting. If you actually turn it off and on again, it will boot very slowly.
---
Gestures (i.e. continuous input):
tap, double tap, tap-and-hold (e.g. for dragging an icon), scroll using the touchpad.
---
Amazingly, it does not come with a text editor!
---
Big minus: rooting your phone voids the warranty.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-05 10:44 pm (UTC)1. Just hold the call button to switch to call context, then contacts tab, and start typing the name
2. From the home page, just put their name into the search field and grab it from the local search results, hold to call.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 12:28 am (UTC)deleting from other contexts might be doable via long press? long press is the key to most everything in android. it's like a right click.
agreed about the power cycling. not being able to check if it's off without turning it on is dumb and annoying... but except for on planes, i never turn off my phone, so it doesn't much matter.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 12:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 02:10 am (UTC)Why'd you get a backflip instead of a Droid or something like that?
The OS is open sourced by Google. Vendors can do whatever the hell they want to it before reselling. It sounds like AT&T's version of Android on your phone is pretty bad. I don't have any of the problems you mention with my Nexus One.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 05:04 am (UTC)I insist on having a physical keyboard.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 03:11 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-06 05:48 pm (UTC)Also, the Droid also has a physical keyboard, though I think the Droid X doesn't.
Also, I find that I almost never use the physical keyboard - the on-screen keyboard is not quite as good as the iPhone one, but the autocorrect and word suggestion lists are so much better that it works out pretty well generally.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-09 10:55 pm (UTC)I recommend you check out the apps. Some cool things I found are the tricorder, google skymap, scummVM and heart rate monitor.
You can make shortcuts too, that say call someone or tell you how to get home via transit (using GPS for current location).
The facebook app I used put my facebook contacts with phone numbers in a separate app, so it didn't populate those in my contacts.
Also, for contacts you can manage them via the gmail -> contacts interface. It syncs nicely.
Oh, and some apps like say a text editor are not in the OS, you have to install an app - I had to do that for bluetooth file transfer.
-Leon
AT&T crapped all over my phone
Date: 2010-09-10 05:26 am (UTC)I was trying to change the default search to Google (rather than the bizarre choice of Yahoo), and ended up seeing this:
http://androidandme.com/2010/03/news/att-the-most-crippled-android-experience/
... which disgusts me :-P
I will consider rooting it if I can be reassured of having a working phone afterwards, and try installing things so that I can have something closer to a "Google experience".
I have to wonder if Google could have licensed Android in such a way as to make AT&T's actions illegal. Clearly they modified it for commercial purposes.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-10 05:36 am (UTC)I imagine I can use any Android phone (or any GSM phone at all), insert my SIM card and go. Maybe I can trade-in this phone for one with a good version of Android. Maybe I can reinstall the OS on this one.
Any thoughts? Does any of the above sound like a good idea?