Google Navigator and Physical keyboard prompts switch to Android

Today I read an article by Stacy Johnson entitled "10 Tips for Buying an Android – From an Apple Hater." Source: Money Talks (http://s.tt/14oUY) Although I have never been what you would call an Apple Hater, this year I, too, switched from an iPhone 3GS to a Droid 3.

Two of the most important reasons? - Google's voice prompted Navigator system available and updated free for Android phones and a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard.

Google's Navigator sounds like expensive Garmin voice-prompted systems I have heard before but is based on Google Maps which is updated regularly at no charge.  My brother has a dedicated Garmin GPS and, although he's been quite pleased with its accuracy and convenience, he is not pleased now that it's prompting him to pay for an annual map update at a cost almost equal to the original cost of the hardware.

One caution to potential immigrants who want to switch to an Android-based phone.  I am using Verizon as my cell service provider and they load a "Verizon Navigator" on your phone in addition to the Google Navigator.  Of course, the Verizon Navigator costs you a monthly service fee if you activate it.  I removed the icon for it from my home screen (apparently you can't simply delete it!)  Another confusing aspect to the built-in Navigation system is that you must go into settings and turn on ALL THREE navigation locator options (at least on the Droid 3) - even the one that says use stand alone GPS and the one that says use Verizon location services.  This does NOT cost you anything and if you don't turn them all on the GPS services for the Google Navigator will give you an error message pointing out that you have to turn on GPS for it to function.  A service rep at the local Verizon store showed me how to do this since I went into the store complaining about the GPS error knowing I had turned on the Google GPS location services.  I actually think this is ridiculous.  The location services should all be turned on by default and if you are paranoid about your privacy, you should learn how to turn them off.  I'm sure the vast majority of Android phone users want to use the built-in GPS!

As for onscreen vs. physical keyboards, I have found that I just make too many typing mistakes with an onscreen keyboard.  I don't know if it's my aging vision or my pudgy fingers or that the touchscreen detection sensitivity on smartphones is not precise enough, but it's been very frustrating on the iPhone.  In contrast, although the keys are small on the slide-out keyboard of the Droid 3, I have no problem pressing the right keys and the "click" provides the auditory feedback I need to let me know the key was pressed hard enough.  As Stacy points out, it does add a little heft to your phone but not enough for me to be concerned with it.

I also like the microSD card expansion slot on my Android-driven phone.  With iPhones, you actually have to buy a different phone to gain more capacity if you discover that you wish to capture that spur of the moment video clip.  Now that smartphone cameras have the ability to capture 1080p HD video, you're almost forced to buy the much more expensive iPhone with larger capacity internal storage if you think there's even a remote possibility that you might want to use the video capability of your camera.  And, if you find yourself using that camera more and more, you must get in the habit of downloading those videos and purging the iPhone's internal storage if you want to keep recording more images.  With a smartphone equipped with an expansion slot, you can actually treat the phone like a digital camera and simply remove a full chip and insert an empty one.  Furthermore, if you have another Android device, like a tablet that uses microSD chips, you can swap chips with it if you have files stored on the tablet that you wish to share or edit on your smartphone.

As a photographer, I also like the Droid's 8 Megapixel camera.  It has both flash and zoom and I have even taken indoor shots without flash and the resulting images are sharp with very little noise.  I was also able to buy a lens kit ($49) for it from Photojojo.com that includes a 2X teleconverter, a macro closeup lens and a fisheye special effects lens for times when I don't have my full sized digital camera with me and need just a few more features than the default phone lens capabilities.  The kit lenses are attached via a small thin magnetic ring that is affixed like a sticker around your phone's camera lens so the kit works with just about any model of smartphone.  

From an application viewpoint, the Android operating system has built-in Speech to Text conversion so I can dictate book reviews and blog posts and speak destinations into the Navigator when I'm on the road and can't use the keyboard.

I didn't even have to give up one of my favorite casual games, iFishing.  Despite its name, this game by Rocking Pocket Games has been seamlessly ported to the Android.  I've discovered most of the applications I liked on the iPhone have been ported to the Android so I don't feel giving up the App Store in exchange for the Android Market was a sacrifice either.

The only thing I would caution a potential immigrant about is that you should first set up a Google Wallet or Checkout account so Google has a way to charge you for applications you select that cost money in the Android Market.  I knew there needed to be a way to connect a credit card with your Google account so the Android Market could function like the Apple App Store but I didn't know how this was accomplished.  I searched the web and found a reference to the Google Checkout account (checkout.google.com/)  then navigated to it and set up an account.  I thought it was strange that Google Checkout was not listed as an available service in my regular Google account profile options.

Is increase in gaming popularity among females and older players attributable to minigames on mobile devices?

I found the following infographic very interesting.  Apparently I am no longer in the minority as an older female who enjoys gaming although I simply don't have the average 18 hours per week to spend gaming.  I think the motion aspect of the Wii accounts for not only the popularity of the Wii but the significant growth in attracting older players like me who are bored with traditional exercise strategies but easily lose ourselves in a game that uses body motion to accomplish game objectives.  This attraction is also reflected in the list of most popular games of all time topped by Wii Sports.

I do wish they would have included smartphones in the mobile analysis though.  I have probably spent more time playing games on my iPhone than on my Wii just because I am often stuck waiting in doctors' offices or similar environments and find the games on my iPhone to be just the ticket to make the time pass.  Although iFishing is one of my favorites, being raised here in the Northwest where I grew up fishing the streams along the Oregon coast and Pacific ocean as a child, I also like history-themed games and have been playing Slitherine's "The Tudors."  I also bought the Sims' World Adventures although I must be honest and say I get really irritated with having to keep track of the Sims needs to go to the bathroom.  I think that level of detail is more tedious than entertaining.  I also like hidden object games in historical environments too.  I love the visuals and the short mini-game nature of the challenge especially since I am using these games to fill a relatively small time slot.

It would be interesting to have a breakdown of the average 18 hours spent gaming to see if the types of games people are playing are more of the short term mini-game variety played intermittently through the week or whether more intricate complex games are being played in longer dedicated sessions.  I think this information coupled with a parallel analysis of age groups would be helpful to game designers wishing to address the maximum target audience.  I'm also curious about whether the introduction of minigames through app stores increasingly available through a plethora of devices is ratcheting up the gaming statistics in both females and the older age groups now.



Source: Online Education

Magazine publishers need to think beyond just issue sales or subscriptions to capture the digital market

I didn't realize that magazine publishers could not sell subscriptions directly on the iPad but were limited to single issue downloads and a ridiculous pricing structure to match until I read this article in the New York Times.  I did see that magazines selling subscriptions on android tablets like the Color Nook I received for Christmas from my daughter are trying to charge as much for a digital subscription there as they do for a printed and mailed edition which is also outrageous.

It never ceases to amaze me that after all this time, major content providers still don't try to innovate when they redesign their business models for the digital marketplace.  I also don't understand why they still haven't learned the lucrative lesson of offering content via micropayments either.

I severely reduced the number of magazine subscriptions I maintained long before the internet began supplying the lion's share of my reading content because I found bundled content to contain too many articles that offered little interest to me.  I don't mean to pick on National Geographic because it is a quality magazine but in the last ten years or so it got to the point that I was reading only one article per issue if that much even though I had subscribed to National Geographic for years.  Their content focus was changed by a new editorial staff away from archaeological exploration to regional travel/culture pieces that I really didn't care that much about.and it finally reached the point that I discontinued my subscription because I saw no reason to pay over $20 per year for five or six articles.

Having an editor/gatekeeper determine what I would receive is as galling as having to purchase television programming by channel or by satellite tier or having to purchase music by album or CD.  I realize the subscription model offers the most reliable revenue stream for publishers.  But how about marketing written content on the Netflix model?  A subscription across a collection of magazines that would entitle me to download and view content up to a certain number of articles or Mb of data per year.  Many publishing companies produce an entire stable of magazines including constellations of magazines around similar topics.  But publishers should also consider collaborative groupings with other publishing companies as well.  This could provide more attractive packages to niche readers like me.


Of course ala carte article purchase could also be offered for a reasonable sum of say 50 cents for an article up to 3,500 words or so.  I realize ala carte article purchase has not proven successful in the past, mostly because ala carte pricing has been so ridiculously high like $2.50 per article - the price of an entire printed edition in some cases.  Publishers should take note of the lessons learned about micropayments from the "app" market.  If you make the payment amount seem small and insignificant enough, even browsers with a casual interest are often lulled into making a purchase. 

Consider the recent article about the 14-year-old boy who taught himself to develop an iPhone app that has become the most popular app at the moment, being downloaded over 4 million times.  As one of the news anchors pointed out, if the boy had charged as little as 99 cents for the app instead of offering it for free, he could have been a millionaire.  I firmly believe micropayments and ala carte choice options are the key to a bright online publishing future!

Related articles

• Magazine Publishers Still Seeking Recurring Application Subscriptions for the iPad (slashgear.com)
• New Storefront Coming for Tablet-Based Magazines [REPORT] (mashable.com)
• Magazine publishers still not happy about iPad; iPad users prefer ads to fees (teleread.com)
• What Digital Publishing Means To Marketers In 2011 (socialmediaexplorer.com)

     

S-T-R-E-T-C-H-I-N-G iPhone Battery Life

Image via WikipediaI've never been one to chat much on my iPhone.  In fact, there are months when I don't use any of my available talk minutes even though I have used the data features.  So, unless there is a crisis of some kind in the works, when I travel a long distance I often turn my iPhone off completely to conserve its battery since I may not be able to recharge it until late at night or, in the case of overseas flights, until sometime the next day.   As a member of the baby boomer generation, I was not raised with cell phones so don't feel "disconnected" when I am not "available".  But for those of you who can't quite bring yourselves to sever your umbilical to your connected friends, family members and colleagues, this article offers other less drastic ways to help stretch the battery life of your iPhone, iPod or iPad.  I'm sure these techniques would also work with non-apple Smartphones as well.

Of those listed, I found the following most helpful to me:

Make Sure the Screen Locks Quickly

Even if you’ve adjusted the screen brightness, there’s still no substitute for having it turn off quickly when you’re not using it. Head into General -> Auto-Lock to set the screen lock to happen as quickly as your device will let you. This makes a big difference if you are always picking up your phone and putting it back into your pocket without turning the display off.

 I have mine set for 1 minute.

Use Airplane Mode When You Don’t Need Internet (iPad/iPhone)

If you’re busy spending the next 8 hours playing Angry Birds, there might not be a good reason to have internet access, so you can consider using Airplane Mode, which turns off both Wi-Fi and the regular wireless radio. Of course, this will prevent phone calls if you’re on an iPhone—but if you’re busy with Angry Birds you probably don’t want the interruption anyway.

 My grandson recently loaded Angry Birds on my phone but I much prefer iFishing, Spear Fishing 3D, Sims 3 World Adventure or Sudoku and I hate to be interrupted if I have a fish on!!

Use Wi-Fi Instead of 3G if Possible

According to Apple, the iPad will get 10 hours of battery life under regular use with Wi-Fi enabled, but will only get 9 hours using 3G—the iPhone gets 6 for 3G and 10 for Wi-Fi. Of course, if you’re heavily using the Wi-Fi, you’ll still be draining the battery—the point is under similar workloads, Wi-Fi is better than 3G for battery life.

I actually can't get a cell signal when I'm at home anyway so I always have my Wifi network configured to ON.

Reduce or Eliminate Mail & Calendar Checking

If you’ve got a bunch of email, calendar, or contact accounts configured, and they are all being checked and downloading email on a regular basis, you’ll be draining the battery an awful lot faster than you need to.
Head into Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Fetch New Data and change the setting to the least frequent check possible. If you don’t use it often, you can just turn Push off entirely and then manually check when you need to.

Now that I'm retired, I don't have to worry about someone other than me updating my calendar and I seldom use my iPhone to check mail.  Since I no longer have to worry about malfunctioning servers or frantic grant researchers who can't perform some technology function and are facing a grant submission deadline, I can usually wait until I'm in front of my regular computer to respond to email.  So I turned off the constant checking and will just manually enable it if I need to take a peek.

Disable Bluetooth If You Don’t Need It

If you don’t use a Bluetooth headset or keyboard, you should keep the Bluetooth radio disabled to save some extra battery life. Head into Settings -> General -> Bluetooth to flip it on or off.

Since I never treat talking on the phone as a priority I have never seen a reason to buy a headset so this one was a no brainer for me.

Probably the most important advice was at the end of the article.

Charge and Discharge Your Battery Regularly

Your iDevice needs to be fully discharged and recharged at least once a month to operate at maximum efficiency and keep the battery from dying. You’ll also want to make sure that you don’t store the device with a dead battery, as that can also cause the battery to lose charge capability—when your battery dies, make sure to recharge it quickly.

This one is hard for me since I seldom run my phone's battery down.  This also probably applies to laptops and serves as a good reminder for me since my netbook has only been recharged a couple of times since I returned from Rome in March of 2009.  I'll obviously have to be more dilligent!

Related articles

• Native Google Voice Returns To iPhone (informationweek.com)
• Apple iPhone 5 Specs Leaked (geniusgeeks.com)

     

Popular Science offers free archive of all 137 years of publication!

What a wonderful gift to anyone in the world interested in science and technology!  Popular Science Magazine has teamed up with Google to provide a freely available archive of all 137 years of its publication.  Each issue will include its original vintage advertising which will offer even more enjoyment.

I see they also offer a free iPhone app.  This is a publication that has obviously embraced the new distribution model offered by online access rather than fritter away valuable time trying to figure out ways to wring the last nickel out of the online public.  Kudos to you Popular Science!

Kindle plus Touchco could spell trouble for iPad

This item about Amazon acquiring Touchco caught my attention - especially when I read that the interpolating force-sensitive resistance Touchco displays can project color at a cost of only $10 per square foot (yes - that's right - foot not inches!).  I also was impressed by the image showing how thin and flexible the display could be!  Maybe my dream of a color-capable touchscreen reading/multimedia device less than the thickness of a thin section of a newspaper is on the horizon!

[Image courtesy of Nick Bilton/The New York Times]

I've read about the new iPad but, as usual, Apple is commanding a premium price for a very proprietary product and tying it to a very expensive subscription plan through AT&T.  I hope a totally new iteration of the Kindle would have the ability to download content from an App Store without an expensive cellular subscription (especially since my house is located between two range of hills that virtually blocks cell access) but with the capability to have a "go phone"-type pay as you go cellular access capability for traveling.

I would also love to play some of my favorite iPhone games on such a device.  I'm actually using my iPhone more for portable gaming while I'm waiting for appointments or an airplane than I use it for making phone calls anyway.  Although my iPhone worked wonderfully when I was in Italy to call home (I turned data access off because of the outrageous international charges), here in the States, AT&T's coverage is really spotty.  It really irks me to be required to pay $30 per month for data access when there's so many places here in the Northwest where you cannot get a signal or the signal strength is so low that you drop calls.  At the time I signed up for my iPhone I needed a phone I could use overseas and Verizon didn't have any at that time.  Perhaps by the time Amazon rolls out a new Kindle based on Touchco's technology, I can go back to Verizon for cellular functions and just use my Touchco Kindle for everything else.  Having everything in one device is convenient but you shouldn't have to pay such a high price for it.

      

Available Apps Driving Consumer Phone Choice

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article about the popularity of music games that are now available for cell phones. Today, I read a new article that pointed out how the availability of thousands of new apps is becoming the determining factor on which phones consumers ultimately purchase:

"...With the advent of touch-screen technology and faster wireless networks, the new competition and cool factor [for cell phones] revolves around thousands of fun, quirky (and even useful) programs that run on the phones.

The popularity of such applications for Apple’s iPhone, the leader of the transformation, is driving a fierce competition among the makers of the BlackBerry and Palm devices, and even Google and Microsoft.

It heralds a new era in the allure of a mobile device — the phone is no longer a fashion statement but a digital bag of tricks...

...Since July, Apple has posted more than 10,000 programs to its App Store; 9 out of every 10 iPhone users have downloaded applications — more than 300 million over all, though those include software updates and repeat downloads. Some applications are free (like Stanza, which lets you download and read books) while others typically cost $1 to $10.

Other applications help users navigate roads, find friends and local restaurants, and play odd games, including one called Sapus Tongue, in which the user swings the phone to see how far he can fling an animated monkey on the screen.

Recognizing the business opportunities, the other major cellphone and software companies are getting into the app act.

Google recently introduced the Android Market, selling applications based on Android, its operating system for cellphones. In the spring, Research in Motion plans to introduce an application store for its BlackBerry devices. Palm is thinking of retooling its software strategy, while Microsoft is in the early stages of creating its own store for phones running Windows Mobile." - More: New York Times

I liked the application called Shazam that "lets users hold the phone up to a radio to identify within seconds what song is playing and by whom — and then give users a way to buy it on Apple’s iTunes Store, of course." Google also offers one that sounds really helpful called ShopSavvy, "in which users scan the bar code of any product using the camera built into the G1 smartphone from T-Mobile. The application, which is free, then searches for the best price online and delivers the information to the phone."

As usual, though, especially with a predominately young audience, the most popular application is a wacky simulation of the sound of flatulence available for 99 cents. Hey, at least they keep us from taking ourselves too seriously!!

I see that cell phone application development is also starting to attract some serious venture capital money. Apparently, Kleiner Perkins operates a $100 million fund for iPhone application developers.

Music Games bring new markets to recording artists

By golly, I think the music industry, like the street wench of "My Fair Lady", is finally starting to "get it!" Unfortunately, I can't get an iPhone with Verizon Wireless, but I see that the iPod Touch can play many of the games designed for an iPhone. My old trusty video iPod can't hold a charge beyond about an hour now anyway and I have to plug it into the computer for a recharge after my morning workout. I know I can buy a third party battery replacement for it but maybe I should be considering an upgrade!

Tap Tap Revenge, a free game that challenges players to keep up with catchy tunes by tapping in the right spots on the phone’s screen, was available in Apple’s iPhone application store when it opened in July.

It quickly climbed the store’s charts, and more than three million downloads later, Apple declared it the most popular free iPhone game of the year.

“We went to No. 1 in three days,” said Bart Decrem, co-founder and chief executive of Tapulous. “Within a week, artists reached out to have their music featured in the game.”

Many software companies have jumped on the iPhone bandwagon, seeing promise in the popularity of the phone and the demand for programs for sale or free download through the App Store. They include Smule, a start-up that created a program that turns iPhones into flutes; and giant game publishers like Electronic Arts, which recently released a version of its classic SimCity game for the iPhone.

Tapulous, based in Palo Alto, Calif., was founded in January after Mr. Decrem, a Belgian software executive, and his business partner, Andrew Lacy, came across an iPhone game called Tap Tap Revolution. They sought out its creator, Nate True, and brought him on board as a developer. (A third co-founder, Mike Lee, was forced out in August after the men disagreed over the company’s direction.)

For Mr. Decrem, who earlier helped create a social Web browser called Flock, the low cost and fast pace of making software for the iPhone made it feasible to create a company that focused exclusively on the device.

“It took two years and north of $5 million to bring Flock to market,” he said. “In this case, the longest you spend building an iPhone application is three months, and it takes four or five people. There’s less risk in terms of betting millions and years on something that might not work.”

To keep its game fresh the company created Tap Tap Thursdays, when it releases new music from artists like Michael Franti and the pop singer Katy Perry. Mr. Decrem said those songs regularly inspire a million game plays — and occasionally a lot of music sales, because players can click to buy the song through Apple. In October, Tap Tap Revenge players bought 50,000 copies of the featured track “Hot N Cold” by Ms. Perry.

The popularity of the game led Tapulous to begin introducing paid versions for $4.99 each, aimed at fans of specific artists or genres of music. In late October it released a Nine Inch Nails edition, followed by a holiday version called Christmas With Weezer, for which that band recorded some carols. Tapulous plans to release one of these each month, including a special edition featuring the Dave Matthews Band.

Tap Tap Revenge is patterned after games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, which test players’ abilities to keep rhythm with popular songs. Those games have been hits on consoles like the Xbox 360, and strong sales of music through the games have given some hope to a beleaguered music industry. Harmonix, the creator of Rock Band, said last week that the game’s players had bought 30 million songs.

“The gravy train of the old days of having CD sales buffer you as an artist are gone,” said James L. McQuivey, a principal analyst specializing in media technology at Forrester Research. “Artists recognize that and are trying to be in more places at once.”

The British music label EMI, seeking a new source of revenue, collaborated with Tapulous on a version called Tap Tap Dance that includes tracks by Moby and Daft Punk.

“We absolutely feel these games could be the next big Rock Band or Guitar Hero,” said Cynthia Sexton, a vice president at EMI Music worldwide.

Ms. Sexton said she viewed the expansion into games and other outlets as a natural evolution of the music industry, though that revelation was not necessarily an easy one. “For a moment, we hid our heads in the sand and thought this was the end,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s really the beginning.” [FINALLY!!!]

Mr. Decrem said his company saw the opportunity in music sales. “We’re fortunate to be sitting at the intersection of a couple of powerful forces right now,” he said. “The iPhone is a device that is on fire, and artists are looking for ways to reinvent themselves.” - More, New York Times

HP Introduces mobile printing from cell phones

This development looks like it has potential - especially with the merging of PDA and cellphone. HP says its the result of thinking of ways to capitalize on the introduction of the iPhone but it basically provides usable functionality for any cell phone with Windows mobile installed as well.

"Hoping to alleviate a frustration of mobile computing, Hewlett-Packard has quietly introduced a free service designed to make it possible to print documents on any printer almost anywhere in the world. Cloudprint, which was developed over a period of several months by a small group of H.P. Labs researchers, makes it possible to share, store and print documents using a mobile phone.

The underlying idea is to unhook physical documents from a user’s computer and printer and make it simple for travelers to take their documents with them and use them with no more than a cellphone and access to a local printer.

The service requires users to first “print” their documents to H.P. servers connected to the Internet. The system then assigns them a document code, and transmits that code to a cellphone, making it possible to retrieve and print the documents from any location.

Later, using the SMS message the service has sent to the user’s cellphone, it is possible to retrieve the documents by entering the user’s phone number and a document code on the Cloudprint Web site. The documents can then be retrieved as a PDF, ready to be printed at a nearby printer.

The service will include a directory service that will show the location of publicly available printers on Google Maps. The system currently works with any Windows-connected printer. A Macintosh version is also planned.