This is a cursory, “first impressions” post about the latest social networking craze, Google+.

Facebook should be very concerned.  So should LinkedIn.  Google’s latest foray into social networking has all the hallmarks of a Facebook-esque social network but with safety and security at the forefront of the user experience.  Maybe they’ve learned from the failed Google Buzz in this regard?

Then again, maybe not.

Here are a few things I just had to get off my chest:

Gripe one: Instant Upload.

I’ve loaded the Google+ application on my Android-powered smartphone. It’s nice and uncluttered, and easy to use. It looks a bit like this:

However, without informing me or asking permission, the Google+ application uploads any photo I’ve taken to my Google+ account. Granted, it doesn’t publish these photos or make them visible, but when I log in to Google+ I get a notification which alerts me to the fact that new photos are waiting to be published:

You can turn this off in the Google+ app, by going into photos, pressing Menu, and unchecking “Instant Upload”. The problem IMHO is that when it installs, it defaults to ‘on’.

This is a bit spooky, like the uncle you always avoided as a kid, that said inappropriate things at Christmas dinner. It just makes you uncomfortable, and there’s no need for it.

Gripe two: User Invitations.

Whenever you share something with a “circle” (in Facebook-speak, post something on your wall), Google+ defaults to asking if you want to “Also email 124 friends not yet using Google+” or however many friends are in the circle but don’t have a Google+ account.  My 124 friends are now complaining that I am continually sending them Google spam, because every time I undertake a task or share something new, all my non-Gmail friends get a Google+ invitation.

It might be more user-friendly to send an invitation to a non-Gmail friend as a once off, rather than every time I do something.

I understand I can just uncheck this checkbox, but again, I don’t think it should default to being ‘on’.  And anyway, a mouse click is a mouse click, right?

Gripe three: Duplicate Contacts.

This isn’t strictly a Google+ problem; but we all have duplicate contacts in our address books, and the problem is exacerbated by Google+ and its circles. If you create a “Tech Talk” circle for example, you might find you’re dragging Dr Ron into the circle three, four, or maybe five times, because of separate contacts you’ve saved for Dr Ron with different phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook accounts and so on.

This is where I think Android has nailed it, with its ability to link multiple accounts and address book entries. Despite five “Dr Ron” contacts, they only appear as one consolidated contact in my contact list. (Thank goodness.)

And seeing as my Android contacts are my Gmail contacts, and my Gmail contacts are my Android contacts, can we somehow get these links pushed into Google+?  Thanks, that would be awesome.

To be continued…

Otherwise, Google+ is working well. It’s also still in beta, and has a long way to go. But I think it’s got a lot more promise than previous social networking attempts like Wave and Buzz.

More soon.

facebook · google · Google Android · Google Phone · HTC · social media · Social Networking

In October 2005 I churned from Telstra to Three.

Telstra was no longer competitive.  At the time, Telstra wouldn’t sell me a SIM card for my brand new HTC JasJar.  They wanted passports, driver licences and credit cards to set up a new mobile account (even though I was already a Telstra customer), and everything was just too hard.  ”Customer service” just wasn’t in their dictionary.

The new Three network, on the other hand, was eager to build its customer base and go the “extra mile” to make and keep people happy.  Three offered free calls to other Three subscribers, and they offered the latest 3G handsets with progressive data packs that left Telstra for dead.

Telstra launched its NextG network in October 2006, which uses the 850 MHz radio spectrum, but customer satisfaction rated poorly for a long time despite Telstra’s technically superior radio network.

Things were going swimmingly for Three.  Sales were booming, they were shoring-up their own coverage through a roaming agreement with Telstra, and they were leaving the incumbent behind in a cloud of smoke.

It’s taken five years for Telstra to wake up, but slowly it’s coming around.  The Australian telecommunications behemoth has been listening to customers, critics, journalists and industry.  The announcement of recent data plans shows that they’re starting to get serious, as well as the introduction of competitive capped plans and slashed broadband prices.

The winner?  You and me.   With the end of my Three contract fast approaching, I took a look at these new Telstra plans.  On Three, I was paying $69/month for a $650 cap limit, plus $30/month for a “Blackberry internet service”.  I also had to pay to access voicemail, and I had a paltry 200 MB data included each month.

(The “Blackberry internet service” was a handset repayment charge.  Three thinks I was using a Blackberry on its network, but I wasn’t.  I sold the Blakberry early-on and used the proceeds to fund a new HTC Dream, which was the first Android-powered handset released by HTC.)

Now I’m on a new Telstra plan.  This means:

• I’m $20 /month better off on a NextG $79 Cap Plan which includes a $750 cap limit and no handset repayment fees;
• I’ve got a nice shiny new HTC Desire; and
• I’ve got a whopping 2GB /month included.

The only down-side is that I don’t have free untimed calls to other Three subscribers.  However,  I think this is a small price to pay, especially since most people I know on Three are churning anyway.

It also means I’m on a technically superior phone network, and after nearly a week I’m yet to experience a call dropout (except yesterday afternoon when I was talking to a Three subscriber.)  I was really getting sick of hitting redial eight times in one half-hour period, trying to maintain a voice call on the Three network.  Since Three did a deal with Hutchison and formed the VHA conglomerate, and then announced in October that they were dissolving their roaming partnership with Telstra, Three’s network coverage has been on the down-and-down.  I’ve noticed a significant degradation in service on the Three network over the past few months.

For me, the decision was a no-brainer.  As the helpful Sales Rep in the T-Store said to me, “Welcome back to Telstra.”  The days of Sol Trujillo are gone, and David Thodey is now in the hot seat.  There’s no doubt that David Thodey is anxious to repair the image of a telco with a mobile network in this country second-to-none.  The decision to use Telstra should always have been a no-brainer.

android · churn · HSDPA · HTC · HTC Desire · HTC Dream · NextG · telstra · Three · VHA

Dear Microsoft,

Please don’t send ninjas to Adam Turner’s house, to abduct and torture him in some secret facility.

On Tech Talk Radio tonight I said something akin to, “Adam was in here a few weeks back, and had Windows Phone 7 and it was really cool.”

What I meant to say was, “My brain is switched off, and I’m talking on live radio, and what Adam actually had was a WinMo 6.5 device running HTC’s Sense UI.”

These are the show notes for the episode I was thinking of, which went to air on 2nd August 2010.

And this is a photo of Adam’s menagerie, taken by me on the night:

See… no Phone 7!!

Apologies to Microsoft, and to Adam. I’ve rechecked my medication, it’s all good.

As you were.  Carry on.

adam turner · awkward moments · conspiracy · Google Phone · HTC · Microsoft · Phone 7 · Tech Talk Radio · TTR · WinMo 6.5

Early January this year, international VoIP-provider Skype announced the release of Skype Lite for Google Android and other Java-enabled phones.

For Android-powered phones like my trusty HTC Dream, all I have to do is connect to the Android Market from my phone, search for Skype, select install, and Bob’s-your-auntie’s-livin’-lover.

This all sounds great, but (*sigh*) Google appears to be maintaining separate Android Markets for Australia and the rest of the world.

Searching the Android Market for “Skype”, “Lite” or “VoIP” reveals diddly-squat.

A media release which appears on many news services and blogs says:

The Android version of Skype Lite will be / is available through the Android Market.

Java-enabled phones, including those from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, can simply visit www.skype.com/m Skype website.

(Read more.)

Tech Talk Radio host Andrew McColm has Skype Lite working brilliantly on his new Nokia E61, and Hutchison 3 even offers Andrew and me “Skype minutes” on our current phone contracts.

But I’m faced with two problems:

1. International disparity with Google’s Android Market means that Australian users can’t download the application easily, if at all; and
2. Skype are not offering the application via any method other than the Android Market.

Bummer.  Come on Google, Skype, there are plenty of us waiting to chew-through those thousands of Skype minutes on our phone contracts which are currently going to waste.

android · australia · dream · google · HTC · lite · skype · voip

HTC is no stranger to the PDA market space.  The Taiwanese manufacturing juggernaut has been producing Personal Digital Assistants for Europe, America, Asia and Australasia for some years.  The popular iMate products, and the more recent Touch and Touch Diamond models have had a big impact on the local PDA market, with each version seemingly smaller, faster, lighter, more powerful and more feature-rich.

Enter the HTC Dream, now released in Australia: the first phone to run on Google’s Android operating system.

What’s a Google Android? Google Android is an operating system for mobile telephones and PDAs.  But not just any operating system.  This is the long-awaited open source solution from Google, which means developers have free and unfettered access to the nuts and bolts of the hardware it runs on.  Anyone from enthusiast to professional can write their own application to run on the Dream, and publish this application for download on HTC’s Android Market.  In other words, this is HTC’s version of the Apple Store.

Availability.

I bought the HTC Dream (known internationally as the T-Mobile G1) from a gadget store in Melbourne.  It wasn’t purchased on a mobile phone plan and it wasn’t badged as anything.  It’s “network unlocked” which means you can run the Dream with any SIM card on any network, i.e. it’s not locked to a particular carrier.  Consequently you may need to program the Dream with your carrier’s particular message centre settings.  Here are the settings that I got working for Hutchison 3.  Optus, and possibly reseller TeleChoice, are currently the only carriers offering the HTC Dream on mobile contracts in Australia.  I would hope that these are being sold with all the Optus settings pre-programmed.

Functionality: The Good…

Out of the box, presentation is excellent.  The Dream powers-up and the clarity of the 3″ capacitive touchscreen is very good indeed.  You can navigate around the Dream a number of different ways: by gently touching and dragging your finger across the screen; by using the mini track-ball to negotiate buttons, webpages and call logs; or a combination of these methods.  The “touch and flick” navigation system is easy to use and surprisingly accurate.  Some people have asked me if you can use the “Apple pinch” to resize photos and windows.  The answer is no, although this is more a limitation with Android than the HTC itself.  I’m sure we’ll see “pinching” and a heap of other things in versions to come.

Feature-packed. The Dream is an HSDPA 3G handset with Bluetooth, WiFi, a sliding QWERTY keyboard and a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus.  It’s a telephone, a web browser, a portable email client, a music player, an Instant Messaging client… the list goes on.

Gmail and Calendar integration. Automatic synchronisation with Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts works very well.  Update something on your Mac or PC and the change will be reflected on your HTC Dream in a few moments.  Listeners to Tech Talk Radio will know that I recently re-jigged my personal email to use Google’s Gmail.  I’ve set-up Gmail to POP in to my usual email server, retrieve my messages, then using IMAP I can access my messages on Gmail from the HTC Dream, as well as other clients like Thunderbird running on Ubuntu or Outlook running on Windows.  This takes a little bit of getting used to but seems to be working very well.

Combined with Google’s free SMS alert to Australian subscribers, the automated appointment notification is an invaluable tool, and all but kills 3rd-party UM and notification applications that big corporates have traditionally paid big bucks for.

Android Market. This is Google’s answer to the Apple Store.  The Android Market is awesome and contains a heap of free applications which can be easily downloaded and installed on the HTC Dream.  My favourite Android Market application is Shazam (Sony Ericsson calls this “TrackID”), which detects and tags music you’re listening to.  The Android Market home page has more information for downloading to Android-powered devices, and links to resources for developers.

Contacts. The contacts / address book is smooth and easy to use.  There is a setting in each contact called “send straight to voicemail”… why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?!  Awesome!  The usual thumbnail-contact-picture feature is there and works well, along with fields for heaps of contact numbers and personal details.  As you’ve probably come to expect, changes in your address book are automatically replicated to Google Contacts online.  Updates happen fast.  Very cool.

Music Player. The music player is functional and indexes music tracks based on track name, artist, album name or playlist.  Album art is displayed as a thumbnail in search results, or as a large image during playback.  The great thing is that you don’t need proprietary software to load music onto the HTC Dream!  Simply plug the device into your PC or Mac via a USB cable, and the HTC Dream appears as an external device which you can copy music to and from.  My excitement about this simple feature is stupid, because it’s such an obvious thing to be able to do, but sad because modern so-called “music player phones”, manufactured by big names like Sony, still require you to run their own special software to simply transfer music and data files.

The supplied ear-bud headphones are okay as far as ear-bud headphones go.  They plug into the HTC Dream’s USB port and have a control button for answering calls, pausing music playback and so on, as well as a volume dial which works independently of the HTC volume controls.

QWERTY keyboard. The 5-row QWERTY keyboard is revealed by sliding the screen to one side.  The keyboard works well and I think I’m used to it now, after a few weeks.  It’s small, and my personal experience is that two thumbs are faster than two index fingers.  It’s illuminated and has good tactile feedback when you press a key.  Don’t try to use it while you’re driving though, you need two hands, and anyway you shouldn’t be using a PDA while you’re driving should you?

Messaging in portrait mode, or landscape mode with the QWERTY keyboard.

…The Bad…

While I really, really like the Dream, and clearly have a vested interest in my new best friend, there are things which HTC can do better.  Here are some things which strike me as needing improvement.  You may or may not agree.

Battery life. Sometimes I get a day from the supplied 1150 mAh battery, sometimes not.  If you don’t have access to a charger while you’re out on the road, this can be a nightmare.  HTC needs to address battery life urgently in the next version.

FM radio. There is none.  There are Android Market applications for streaming audio while you’re on the go, like Last.fm.  This is personal preference I guess but many people will be looking for a radio while they’re out and about driving; in the gym; walking the dog; wherever.

The camera. Comparatively low-res, 3.2 megapixels.  Video is not supported.  MMS is okay for still pictures, but not video.  No flash.  Also the shutter button has two positions: half depressed for auto-focus and fully depressed to take the picture.  Pressing the shutter button does not automatically launch the camera application, you need to find this through the applications menu.  Lag between pressing the button and taking the photo is quite distracting.  Images are generally good but don’t throw away your Pentax SLR just yet.

Microsoft integration. There’s no native syncing to Microsoft Outlook mail, contacts or calendar.  This is important to many people and probably needs to be addressed, although Google’s solution would be to use GMail which is tightly integrated with the HTC Dream.

File browsing. If you own a Nokia or Sony Ericsson phone, you will be familiar with a file explorer-type application, which lets you browse different file types and storage locations in the device.  On the HTC Dream there is no native file browser.  The Dream runs on a Debian variant of the Linux operating system.  To access data, such as photos, music and voice recordings, you need to launch the application that created the data.  For example, photos can only be accessed from within the “photo” application.  The file system is locked fairly tightly to prevent people doing stupid things, like deleting system files.  You get used to this fairly quickly, so it’s probably just a different way of doing things, not necessarily a bad way.

No native “notepad” application. If you want to scribble a note, reminder, password or anything else, there’s no native notepad-style application.  Again, you will need to download an application from the Android Market that does the job.

…and The Ugly.

Mini-USB. The mini-USB port for the Dream’s computer interface and battery charging is good… but not for audio.  The Dream needs a 3.5mm audio socket urgently for people hoping to replace their iPod.

Memory expansion.  The microSD card is tricky to get to, requiring removal of the back cover.

Google Latitude still doesn’t work with Google Maps.  This is ugly, ugly, ugly, and very disappointing.  If users of Nokia and Samsung phones running proprietary operating systems have access to Latitude, why doesn’t the first phone to be running Google Android?  This is more a criticism of Google, not HTC and it’s smartphone, but this noticeable oversight reflects poorly on the Google/HTC partnership.

Google Maps is sharp and accurate, but doesn't support Latitude

(Google Latitude is a new service which combines the power of Google Maps with ‘always on’ wireless and 3G phone networks.  Using Google Latitude, mobile devices can be configured to send regular location updates, and your position is plotted on Google Maps and can be shared with friends.)

Bill shock. The “always on” nature of the HTC Dream, and its regular data replication to Google, can chew-up valuable bandwidth.  This is fine if you have a 3GB data plan included with your mobile phone contract, but don’t try to use the HTC Dream on one of those old “$5 for 10MB” plans.  Also, be aware of your carrier’s data charges when you’re roaming on a partner network or if you’re using the device overseas.  Thankfully the HTC Dream has a “use data on home network only” setting which will be very helpful to many people.

Summing up?

In addition to addressing “the bad” and “the ugly”, it would also be nice to be able to add desktop shortcuts to frequently-dialled contacts, or access frequently-used system features like the wireless manager.  Currently the desktop is functional, but limited to only accessing installed programs.

There are heaps of other features I’ve glossed over or haven’t mentioned.  The HTC Dream is a robust, exciting new device from HTC and an excellent effort for “version 1″ of Google’s long-awaited mobile operating system.

Importantly, the HTC Dream is a serious contender to Apple’s iPhone, and Windows Mobile, Symbian and other proprietary smart-phone operating systems.  The HTC Dream is a fast, stable and intuitive platform and it’s my new best friend.  I can’t wait to see Android and HTC smartphones in one year from now.

android · dream · google · HTC

Here’s a sneak preview.

To answer some of your many questions:

• Yes it has a camera;
• Yes it supports MMS!
• It only supports 2100 MHz HSDPA;
• No it doesn’t have an accelerometer;
• It will support any type of POP3/IMAP4 email account, you’re not limited to using GMail; and
• No this model is NOT branded or locked with with any particular network!  I am using it on Hutchison ‘3′ straight out of the box.

Much, much more coming soon.

Need to sleep.  Work tomorrow morning.  Running out of stamina in my old age.

android · dream · google · HTC