More Power!

The G1 has something of a reputation when it comes to battery life, and the shortness thereof.
However compared with other devices with similar features it's not that bad, but I like to make full use of my hardware and I need it to last.

I was away working for 2 full (long) days recently and the battery made it through the full 15 or so hours of light use with still some life left, overnight charge in between (6 hours or so) and it lasted well.

However I also went out for a days intensive use as I was using the GPS alot to find the locations I had to shoot, as well as phone calls and alot of SMS, quite an intensive few hours and the battery went from 100% to 20% in 8 hours, acceptable but if I'd been out for longer, or a couple of days, i'd have been a problem. and I am often away for a few days with little access to power.

One way to deal with this is a USB charger, I have one that takes 4xAA or AAA batteries, I keep rechargeables in it (4x 2700mAh AA's) and it stays plugged into my PC's USB keeping them topped-up until I need them, then when I'm travelling a stationary-period such as an hour on a train I can connect my G1 and top-up the battery. A solution but not ideal.

So specifically for the G1 I have bought, 3 spare G1 batteries, a desktop cradle charger and a little pouch to carry the batteries around in. (the below photo taken from the sellers ebay listing where I bought it).



The cradle charger came from HERE (£18.44 including a battery, including delivery).
The other two batteries came from HERE (£6.04 for two, including delivery).
The pouch came from HERE (£3.99 including delivery).
The pouch is tiny, small enough to slip in a pocket, it takes three batteries easily (could take 5) and is a neat way of carrying spares.

Totalling £28.47 I can charge both my phone and the spare batteries on my desktop and I have around 4 days of use with me when I go out, longer if I'm not using the phone much.

G1: software I want to be using but can't find / doesn't exist.

G1: software I want to be using but can't find / doesn't exist.

I even downloaded the android SDK but there is no way I have the time to learn how to use it and write my own apps, so anyone out there wanting to make some pocket-money writing android apps, write these and I will be your first customer.

Notes that sync.
I like making notes on my phone, ideas, shopping lists, to-do lists etc. What I want is a widget/app that does this that is accompanied by a windows app that sits on my computers desktop and syncs between the two places.
Please make me an app that does this!

GPS Tagging.
I'm a photographer and often scouting locations, I'm sure this one is valuable for other people too.
I want either some software (if it can acquire it's location within 1 minute) or a widget (if it can't) that will save a location when I hit a button, this needs to be fairly quick as I might spot a location by going past it on a train, I want that location to be saveable to mymaps on google maps or just onto google maps on my phone for later review. if there was a way of attaching a taken photograph(s) to said tag on google maps / mymaps then we're onto something.
Please make me an app that does this!

Gmail.
I liked the widget that said how many unread email i had, only there were over 40,000 as I don't read them all on my phone and they are not marked as read on my PC via thunderbird. I want a widget that shows me how many emails have arrived since I last looked a the gmail interface, thus not including any I've decided not to open on my phone.
Please make me an app that does this!

Signal Widget.
I really like Batterylife, I want something similar, showing me the strength of my signal and type of connection (2G, 3G, etc etc etc) that ought to be simple. I want it sitting on my desktop as a widget taking up no more than 2 spaces horizontally (so it can compliment the battery widget).
Please make me an app that does this!

RSS
A simple rss app that will alert me when there is a new item and, when opened, show me either the headline or the whole shebang. running in the background using few resources and updating at customisable intervals. also as a widget that shows the last update and, when tapped, all of the last updates for different feeds or the last few if a single feed. please.
Please make me an app that does this!

notification light
I know that the notification light can be made to flash at different rates and different colours. I want to customize all of this, I want it to flash green for sms, blue for gmail and yellow for email,
I want it to flash red when the battery is low and constant red when charging and constant green when fully charged. I want it to alternate with all of those colours if I have emails, gmails, sms, charging etc so I know whats what even when it's plugged in.
Please make me an app that does this!

Battery and charging widget
I like the Batterylife Widget but would like a couple of additions, as well as / instead of a % how about a predicted timescale based on current average drain showing how long until the phone shuts down? and when it's plugged in, how long until 100% based on the current of the feed.
Please make me an app that does this!

Clock screensaver
I have seen clock screensavers, I want one that I can preset the brightness as standard and preset the brightness it jumps to when I tap the screen, and how long before it goes back again. also I want to be able to set the colours of the foreground and background including full black and full white. I want to have customizable information on there including the current time, date, day, battery state, number of sms, gmail, email, countdown to any alarm set.
and I want there to be two profiles, one for plugged in and one for on battery.
also preset orientation so it will stay landscape even when I put it down or pick it up at an odd angle.
tapping the screen lights it up to x brightness for x length of time. pressing menu brings up the unlock screen.
Please make me an app that does this!

I'd also like to add more desktops without having to go through the whole widget-compatibility-nightmare of changing to another home-screen system, so thats one for the android folks please, options for a couple more desktops.

And do something about that whole internal memory thing, either expand it (ok, hardware issue) or, like nokia, ask where apps are installed to, internal memory or memory card, and let us decide which need the read/write speed of internal memory and which will live happily on the sd card.

G1: software I'm using, not using, and why.

G1: software I'm using, software I'm not using, and why.
(G1 app reviews - all apps are available from android market, some are free, some charge. None are anything to do with me, I'm just a user passing on what I'm finding).

Lock 2.0, I loved the idea of this, a nice unlock screen which can have various skins appended to it and I can even make my own, or show the battery level on the unlock screen (as well as on the unlock screen when charging as standard) as a reminder of how much juice is left every time I pick up the phone to use it. a great idea, I bought the donate version, but it turned out it was the app responsible for making my phone a bit sluggish and I actually prefer the (implied?) security of the 9-dot pattern lock. no longer using Lock 2.0





NetCounter, one of the first apps I downloaded, on day 1, it records my data use via the network and via wifi (seperately) and I've set an additional record my monthly data use from the date of my account with my network with an alarm set at my limit of 1Gb, so it'll let me know, accurately within my account period if I go over my allowance (and thus risk a hefty bill). so far I'm not even close as I download most apps etc when sitting at home and thus via my wifi, but it's nice to have it there in the background, it doesn't reset on a reboot (as some do) and you can add and change the measuring periods as much as you like and it'll alwaysbe correct as it's not resetting anything, just reading the data form it's database. for anyone with any limit on their data usage it's very highly recommended. Still using NetCounter.

Opera Mini, Until firefox pull their fingers out and get something organised I'm liking opera about as much as the stock browser, it's pretty easy to use and quicker than the stock browser. Still using opera mini.

Twidgit Lite, Is there a better, full non-'lite' version? I don't know, I'll check it out if I find one. twidgit lite sits on the desktop as a widget and shows the last twitter post, tap it and it shows the last few and allows you to post an update. you can set it's update frequency, I set mine to 15 minutes, and it sits there quite happily doing it's thing not noticibly using up your sys resources. still using twidgit lite.

Locale is a great app, I loved it but for one thing, it really chewed up my resources, both the battery noticibly and slowed the system down, the former isn't for long an issue, the latter certainly is, it's a great app especially for free but I couldn't stomach the drag. no longer using Locale.



Batterylife is a widget and I have it sitting on the screen keeping an eye on my battery power, also showing the condition of the battery (will be more handy when I add three 'third party' batteries to my kit), also shows the voltage and temp (ditto re additional batteries), the battery life is shown as a coloured battery that 'drains' and you can customise the colours and colour-change levels, and it shows the %. Very customisable, very cool. Still using BatteryLife.

Get Me Home (London) a route planner for london public transport, as mentioned earlier I'm on-location every day, usually in London, this finds me routes. Not used it much yet, but is something I like to have. Still Using Get Me Home (London)



TubeStatus takes the information from the TFL website about london underground tube line status (open, closed, delays, suspended etc). the only gripe is when you open or refresh it it's not obvious if the data is current or the refresh has worked, so there could be problems showing that are no longer there, or there could be problems that are not shown. not cool. however I'm still using TubeStatus.



SMS unread count widget sits on the desktop as a link to sms messages and when you have some unread it displays the number, simple and handy. still using SMS unread count.

gmail icon widget as above but for your gmail (though it takes it's info directly from gmail which I usually access from pop via thunderbird so I have 40,000 odd unread messages according to it, not sure how to get around that easily). due to the perpetual tens of thousands of 'unread' messages I've uninstalled this widget as pointless in my case. no longer using gmail icon widget.

Sticky Memo Widget Lite I am always making notes to myself, rubbish memory, this is a handy place to have them, right there on the desktop, post-it style. I love this app! Still using Sticky Memo Widget Lite

WeatherBug I like to be up to date with the weather as well as being able to predict it, after trying a few I'm using weatherbug as I like the more details when you click it as well as the desktop display information and layout. I now have two of these widgets installed side by side, one shows the weather at my home address and is fixed, the other shows the weather at my current location as supplied by the GPS, very handy indeed as the weather can be quite different just being at the other side of london never mind further away. each can be tapped to show more information and a forecast. perfect. Still Using WeatherBug.




AutoLock the pattern-lock thingy is nice and (implies?) security but it's a pain in the bum if you put your phone down for 10 seconds and then rtemember you have to do something else, even though I lock the buttons when I put the phone down, AutoLock doesn't engage the pattern lock for another, however long you want, 15 minuts in my case. handy. Still Using Autolock

Bettercut (there is a free version with less features) I've used this to apply custom icons and text to the icons on the desktop (not widgets, just the icons) so you can use icons form free icon packs for ahome or save some png's to your sd card and use those. I like making my phone more 'mine', still using bettercut.




CameraPro this one appeals as I'm a photographer, it's an interface with alot of options etc for the phones camera, it's at least as fast as the stock interface and adds new features, only been on a few days, see how I like it in a few weeks, for now: still using camerapro

Toggle Settings is a quick link to some commonly used settings namely:
Airplane mode, auto sync, bluetooth, screen brightness toggle, gps, screen timeout, silent mode, wifi, on the first tab.
2G/3G network, screen brightness %, ring+vibrate, screen timeout setting, volume controls, on the second tab.
it could probably use more and maybe some kind of automation but for what it is it's very handy. still using toggle settings.

PureRSS is a simple (supposed to automatically update but doesn't seem to unless running) RSS reader that I have sitting next to Twidget Lite to inform me of any posts on twitter @me. it's lack of auto-update almost makes it pointless but it's easy to open and update manually do until I find something better I'm still using PureRSS

Digital Clock is a screensaver looking thing that shows the time in a variety of colours with a variety of brightnesses, easily changeable. I tried it as a bedside clock and found it hard to set the brightness to exactly where I wanted it leaving me with either irritatingly bright or too hard to read. nice app but I'm no longer using Digital Clock



Digital Clock Widget is paired with the above clock, but is a desktop widget (tapping it activates the above app), the small widget is 2 squares wide and the large is 4 wide. Displays the time and date on your desktop nice and neat in Black and White. I'd have liked to have seen customizable opacity and colours, as it is it's taking up too much space for little (and ugly) benefit. No longer using Digital Clock Widget.

Profiles something thats missing from the G1, selectable profiles for ringtone volumes etc, something I used alot on my nokia to silence the phone completely, vibrate only, normal, quiet or 'outdoor' (loud). You can customize each ones settings and add additional ones, set an icon for each one which is displayed in the notification bar at the top of the screen, which you can drag down and tap to change to another profile, quick and easy. Still using Profiles.

ChompSMS is an sms interface/handler a-la-iphone, I liked the look of it with the whole speech-bubbles thing but I saw no read-receipt settings nor any displayed, and thats a feature I like, also seemed to run slower than the stock sms handler. No longer using chompSMS


HandcentSMS is another sms interface/handler, has that iphone speech-bubbles thing going on but in a more customizable way, it does have settings for read-receipts, I liked it but after a days testing it, again, seemed slower than the stock handler. But I'm going to keep it for a while longer anyway as it ticks alot more boxes than it misses. Still TESTING HandcentSMS

Bubble is a three-plane spirit level, I tried another more complex one which wasn't free but was rubbish, bubble is free, neat, easy to use, easy to calibrate, it's just damn nice for those odd occasions when a spirit level would be needed. Looks like the one I saw on an iPhone ad once so probably comes from there. Still using bubble.

Mirror Screen Protector

When I got my phone (used) it had a screen protector fitted (badly) so I decided to replace it, ebay has alot of very cheap screen protectors and I was dubious about them and also fancied something 'better' or 'different'.
When I got my previous phone (nokia E51) it was just slipped in my pocket, with my keys, for the few days until the case arrived, in those few days the screen got chipped, I now take screen protectors more seriously.

here is a photo ripped off from a random site via google images -there is a view of the G1 with the screen switched on and switched off, when on it's transparent (in theory) and when off it's a mirror.

This is working in the same way a window works, if you are looking into a dark room through a window you can barely see in, just see your reflection in the window, when a light comes on in the room you can see just fine, same theory here just boosted with layers of 'stuff'.

I got mine here for just shy of £3. you get the film screen and a cleaning cloth.

The film screen comes with a layer and tabs on the front and the back, clearly marked, to be removed before and after fitting (rear as you fit it, front once it's fitted). I cleaned the screen with some glass cleaner to remove all traces of greasy finger marks that are a predictable side-effect of a touch-screen, the film was very easy to fit, and cleaning and fitting took no more than 5 minutes (hand as it arrived in the mail 10 minutes before I was due to go out).

Fitted it is indeed very mirror like, girls, it's make a very capable make-up mirror and negate the need to carry one in your handbags. Boys, it makes a very capable make-up mirror, if you are into that kind of thing.

A note on the packaging implied 99% of the light from the screen comes through, I think thats bollocks, 90% maybe, 80% more like. to be fair I was testing it on a very bright, sunny, cloudless day when sitting on a train, wearing shades, I was struggling to use it, put it in some shade and the reflection of myself was only marginally less visible than the icons on the screen. Later on the underground (duller and more consistant light, still wearing shades (so what?!)) it was easier to use. After a day of use I've pretty much decided to keep it on, though the screen brightness will definately be staying on max.

The touch-screen seemed to be exactly as sensitive as before fitting the screen, no noticable difference.

The one I have came from ebay (see link above) and I had no problems with the seller so I recommend that as a source.

google, google checkout and social networking

firstly, I like google, all my websites email goes through googlemail servers and it does a pretty good job at sifting out the crap, google calendar runs my work and private life with a neatness and easiness that is just a pleasure to use, and I have a G1 HTC googlephone that I just love

This particular issue started late last years, a couple of days after christmas, when my google checkout account was somehow accessed by someone, somewhere, with a liking for online games, and I was taken for a couple of hundred GBP. The google checkout folks sorted that fairly flawlessly, after which I didn't need google checkout again until a week or two ago, when I got my G1 phone, to buy apps in the Android Market (can only use google checkout to pay as it's integrated).

Google checkout was insisting that due to the fraudulent activity (as above, all sorted out by now) they needed to see some photo ID and address ID such as a utility bill, which is a bit of a problem, most of my bills are 'paperless' and so done online, those that are not are in my partners name... so I sent google checkout a scan of my drivers licence (which has my address on it) and my passport, explaining the issue with the utility bills, there response was 'no fella, you must play by our rules, we are google!' or words to that effect...

I replied again submitting the passport and (ok, dumbass didn't think of this before) a screenshot of my mobile phone bill as viewed online, the only one of my bills that has an address on. Their reply was 'no fella, you must play by our rules, we are google!' seeing a bit of a theme here...

So I tried to phone them (and noticed their address in London SE1 and contemplated a 30 minute bus ride followed by some ranting), their phone number just says 'for this email here, for this email some other place', thanks for that voice-actor-lady.

Frustrated, pissed off and really wanting to try a couple of $0.99 apps for my phone, I posted a rant on Twitter.

There are some nice tools for twitter, and for google, that will email you when someone somewhere mentions, something, anything, I have it watching for my book titles being talked about and suchlike, guess what google watches for.....

20 minutes later I get an email, my google checkout is active again.

Now I'm not saying that google did pick up my rant, and I'm not saying that my rant was in any way connected to my checkout account being reinstated, but, erm, nothing else changed in that timeframe.

And in the mail today, which I finally caught up with after a postal strike in London and being away for a couple of days, two letters from google, one to me personally and one to one of my companies with some google adwords vouchers in.

Now again I'm not making any assumptions, I'm sure they sent adwords vouchers to everyone.

But cheers, Loving this social networking deal...

and I'm 100% sure google are going to see this blog, what with it mentioning their name a few times and they own blogger.com and blogspot, so hey google! nice work sorting that out for me, and I'd love a free t-shirt or bag or something, I'd even use them for work and stuff! honest!

First Post

This is the first post in my new blog, created to keep seperate any ramblings I may come up with about my phone, away from my other blogs.

Google T Mobile HTC G1 Phone

It's made by HTC, they call it the Dream, distributed solely by T-Mobile (and locked to their network), model name is G1 due to it's integration with google.



And I wanted one, but there were a few problems.
1) I have a contract with '3' and it still has around 11 months to run, and there is no way I'm ditching a network with as good a coverage as '3' and paying for 11 months of use I'm not using.
2) The G1 is only available on T-Mobile and is locked to their network.
3) The battery has the staying power of an anaemic flaccid monk.
4) M data plan with '3' has a 1gb per month limit.

The benefits to me of having this phone are:
1) a decent live email interface through gmail (all my mail is filtered through gmail).
2) a decent auto-sync of google calendar (I was using goosync on nokia before, which works but isn't pretty).
3) google maps with GPS and streetview (I am on-location most days and it's somewhere I've never been before, gps mapping and streetview are just so damn easy, a big step up from google maps on nokia and don't even get me started on nokia maps. and my GPS is too bulky for a non-car job (which most are)).
4) custom software apps, I like making my phone into a do-everything tool.
5) touch screen (sweeeeet) and a qwerty keyboard (had bad experiences with on-screen keyboards).

Solutions
1st stop, twitter, I found a friend who had one and asked him a few specific questions to clear-up it's capabilities and limitations.

2nd stop was a t-mobile shop on the high-street to get my hands on a phone and ask the nerd (helpful shop assistant) more questions and generlaly mess iwth it and see how it felt in the hands.

3rd stop was ebay, where I got one for £150, used but boxed and excellent condition (they will be cheaper in the future especially when everyone starts upgrading to the next model, at the time of writing that was a good fair price). Beware of shopping for them on ebay, there is a company in the far east churning out replicas, they look the same but lack features such as gps, 3g and even no bloody keyboard, tempting but don't do it, for 50% more you can get the real deal.

now what to do when you get it, firstly you need to have it factory fresh, this means it's either new or the previous owner has done a factory reset before sending it out, this wipes everything and allows you to start from afresh with your google account information, put that in and your email, calendar, etc etc are all set up and raring to go, but first, unlocking.

Unlocking: The phone comes locked to t-mobile, to unlock it you need the imei, it'll be on the original box with the barcodes etc and is on the phone under the battery, take this number to an online unlocker, I used unlock-googlephone.com cost about $25 USD and I had my code in about 30 minutes along with instructions. If your phone has been factory reset and you can get the imei code from the box or under the battery you don't need a t-mobile sim card.

Setting up for your network: I use '3' in the uk, below are my settings for the phone, do a google search for APN for your network and your country to find the settings you need.

Menu button > Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile Networks > Access Point Names > Menu Button > New APN

Name - 3
Apn - three.co.uk
proxy - not set
port - not set
Username - not set
Password - not set
Server - not set
MMSC - mms.um.three.co.uk:10021/mmsc
MMS proxy - mms.three.co.uk
MMS port - 8799
MCC - 234
MNC - 20
APN type - not set

Thats it, you are up and running, but I did a little more.....

Accessories: Case, I like my phone in a case on my belt, it's safe, protected and easy-to-hand, and in a case that secures well to my belt, not just a clip and not threaded loops.
I bought one of THESE on ebay (if this listing has expired then either search for "Horizontal Leather phone case for T mobile G1 HTC Dream", the sellers name is "caseandpouch", don't let the price fool you, these are well made cases made from soft leather with a secure clip and loop and magnetic colsure, slim, safe and secure, I had one for my nokia (different obviously but clearly the same manufacturer) and it's still in great condition after 18 months of hard use.

Batteries, there are three ways of dealing with the battery issue,
1) your phone should last a day of morerate use so you just need to charge it at night.
2) buy a high capacity battery, this comes with a new read case as it's much bigger physically and you'll need a different case, but the battery ought to last more than twice as long, so thats like 2-3 days.
3) buy more batteries, this will be my approach,
I'm after a desktop cradle which comes with 1 battery and has a charging bay for it as well as the phone at the same time, and a couple of additional batteries too, this will give me 4 days of power (I use the cheap chinese 'pattern' batteries in my cameras and they are 99% of the time fine, similar working life etc so expect the same here).
I'll also be getting a car charger to top-up when away in a car, and the mains charger will go in the bag when I'm away too.
The charger(s) plugs into the USB port on the bottom of the phone so you can charge it from a laptop, power monkey, etc etc. just get 5 volts dc into it and you're away.

APPS:
Apps are downloaded (primarily) via the 'android market' on your phone.
They come in two 'flavours', a widget is something that sits on the desktop of th ephone providing information or some such, an app is just software, regular software.

NetCounter keeps a log of the data transferred to and form your phone via WiFi and Cell, this is handy to watch for ending up over your data limit, 1gb per month in my case.

Opera Mini nicer than the browser already on it.

twidgit lite for those who twitter.

Lock 2.0 a nice lock screen, very iphone, looks nice.

Locale amazingly free, I've set mine up so that when the battery is critically low it shuts things down and reduces screen brightness etc to conserve the last bit of power, also everything is quieter when I'm at home, which it knows by my gps location, and no matter where I am certain peoples texts and calls will still make a noise. you can set loads of stuff like that, love it to bits.

BatteryLife sits on the main screen and keeps me aware of the battery state moer clearly than the little thing at the top of the screen, and you can customise when it turns from green to amber to red (or whatever colours you want).

Get Me Home (London) a route planner for london public transport, as mentioned earlier I'm on-location every day, usually in London, this finds me routes.

TubeStatus takes the information from the TFL website about london underground tube line status (open, closed, delays, suspended etc).

SMS unread count widget sits on the desktop as a link to sms messages and when you have some unread it displays the number, simple and handy.

gmail icon widget as above but for your gmail (though it takes it's info directly from gmail which I usually access from pop via thunderbird so I have 40,000 odd unread messages according to it, not sure how to get around that easily).

Sticky Memo Widget Lite I am always making notes to myself, rubbish memory, this is a handy place to have them, right there on the desktop, post-it style.

WeatherBug I like to be up to date with the weather as well as being able to predict it, after trying a few I'm using weatherbug as I like the more details when you click it as well as the desktop display information and layout.


So far I'm really liking the phone. It does what I want and it's lasting a day of use. oh, and it makes phone calls really well too ;-)