Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I log into forums, some people are having the same problem, some people aren’t. Some people had the issue before Cupcake, other the issue started after.

That sums up my frustration with this phone. Since the problems aren’t consistent, there is never a consensus. This is a major headache since the causes of the problems are hard to isolate and identify. Also this makes it impossible to avoid the problems.

My phone recently started to randomly shut itself off. Luckily it does not shut down when it is in use, but in sleep mode. Still, it would stink to miss an important call because the phone just decided to turn itself off. I searched and people are having varying levels of the same issue. Not one person (including me) can identify any conclusive repro steps. I called T-Mobile, and they are sending me a new battery. Based on my experience with it, and reading others’, I really doubt it’s the battery. But I’ll give it a shot.

Here are some other sporadic issues/problems:

• GPS doesn’t always “hone in” quickly on maps. But it does after a reboot.
• Compass, which had worked, suddenly is flipped (north is south and south is north)
• Battery charge percentage not accurately displayed. After charging for hours, it appears like it’s not fully charged. But then after a reboot, it’s at 100%.
• Camera crashes / loses “connection” to SD card. Fixes after reboot of phone.

I touched on a similar point about marketing complex products. Perhaps troubleshooting complex products has the same challenges.

Does the iPhone have these annoyances? I’m satisfied enough with the G1 to get my money’s worth out of it and honor my service commitment. I’ll have to see over time if future generations of Android phones have these kinks worked out. If not, Apple here I come. By that time I’m sure I’ll be tired of a work in progress (if Android isn’t perfected by then). There is something to be said about Jobs’ insistence on excellence.

Also, I’m surprised how many Google loving Microsoft hating people put up with bugs—when they are quick to call out Microsoft for their bugs.

I just noticed yesterday that the YouTube app now is linked to my live YouTube account. This is great. Before the app was a standalone, so there were different favorites on the phone than in the account. Now I can go to and manage my subscriptions, videos, favorites, and playlists right from the phone.

Well done Google.

I’ll follow up my last post highlighting my quick take on all of the improvements. I thought I’d take a moment and write about some bugs I see. So far I notice two.

First. The app Scoreboard has a number of issues. I’ll put this in with G1 bugs since it’s a native Google app. First the updating is sporadic again (it used to be like this, they updated it, but now it’s broken again). Also, the view of the day’s scores is all messed up. It’s not very useful at all in this state.

Second. In the Market under “my downloads,” all my installed apps are showing a status of “free” (or “purchased”) when they should be listed as “installed.” Also there are no alerts when the apps have an updated build to download. I read on the t-mobile forum that you should just “simply reinstall” all the apps. C’mon. I have over 40 of them. A few I updated, and they show right. I hope there is a fix on their end before I have to go in and reinstall all of them.

All in all I love the improvements. I guess there will be a constant ironing of issues. I’m going to keep updating this post as I find more bugs.

I finally got the G1 1.5 “Cupcake” update on Saturday. Here are my thoughts on all of the improvements.

I found a list of every improvement on T-Mobile’s message board:
http://forums.t-mobile.com/tmbl/board/message?board.id=Android_MR&thread.id=3

I copied and pasted all of the improvements below, and added my comments in bold, italic, & red.

User interface refinements

• System-wide:
• Refinement of all core UI elements
• Animated window transitions (off by default)
• Accelerometer-based application rotations

I didn’t think this would make such a difference. But I’m loving these improvements.

• UI polish for:
• In-call experience
• Contacts, Call log, and Favorites
• SMS & MMS
• Browser
• Gmail
• Calendar
• Email
• Camera & Gallery
• Application management

Like my last comment, these seemingly small tweaks make for a much better user experience.

Performance improvements

• Faster Camera start-up and image capture
• Much faster acquisition of GPS location (powered by SUPL AGPS)
• Smoother page scrolling in Browser
• Speedier GMail conversation list scrolling

I don’t see one single improvement in performance. GPS is still painfully slow to locate. The camera start up is much SLOWER if at all possible–but it does snap pictures faster if there is adequate lighting (still slow with low light). I don’t notice any difference in browser or GMail scrolling, although I never noticed them as being an issue for me (that’s good I guess).

New features

• On-screen soft keyboard:
• Works in both portrait and landscape orientation
• Support for user installation of 3rd party keyboards
• User dictionary for custom words

I don’t understand the craze. It’s ok, but my fat thumbs hit the wrong keys. I like the built in keyboard much better. It’s not that much extra time to slide the built in keyboard open to use.

• Home screen:
• Widgets: Bundled home screen widgets include: analog clock, calendar, music player, picture frame, and search
• Live folders

I like the Calendar widget, but it doesn’t have any customization features. The music player widget is nice too. All in all these make the phone that much more complete and easy to use/customize.

• Camera & Gallery:
• Video recording
• Video playback (MPEG-4 & 3GP formats)

This is a welcome addition. Like the camera, the video takes long to boot up, which is ok. I don’t know if it’s my phone or not, but sound recording is horrible. Not only on this app, but other sound recording apps as well.

• Bluetooth:
• Stereo Bluetooth support (A2DP and AVCRP profiles)
• Auto-pairingImproved handsfree experience

I haven’t messed with Bluetooth yet.

• Browser:
• Updated with latest Webkit browser & Squirrelfish Javascript engines
• Copy ‘n paste in browser
• Search within a page
• User-selectable text-encoding
• UI changes include:
• Unified Go and Search box
• Tabbed bookmarks/history/most-visited screen

I can’t seem to figure out how to use the copy and paste. The bookmark improvements are nice–all it needs now is a way to better sort and/or label.

• Contacts
• Shows user picture for Favorites
• Specific date/time stamp for events in call log
• One-touch access to a contact card from call log event

The one touch access is a major improvement. Now I can save incoming call to contacts much easier than before.

• System
• New Linux kernel (version 2.6.27)
• SD card filesystem auto-checking and repair
• SIM Application Toolkit 1.0

I’ll take their word for it. I don’t know how to tell if this stuff improved the phone or not.

• Google applications
• View Google Talk friends’ status in Contacts, MMS, GMail, and Email applications
• Batch actions such as archive, delete, and label on Gmail messages
• Upload videos to YouTube
• Upload photos on Picasa

They had an app to upload to Picasa before, but it’s nice now that it’s built in. Like that you can upload straight to YouTube. I did a quick test and YouTube uploading is quick and painless. The improvements to the GMail app are great.

That’s my written immitation of the classic sound of a bomb dropping to earth, but turning out to be a dud.

That’s how I feel about the Android Market since paid apps became available. Other than one I bought (which is borderline worth it), and a host of pretty good free apps, the paid apps selection seems to be nothing more than dozens of tip calculators and fart noise apps.

Where are the good apps? Besides Telenav… If I drove more, I’d lay down some coin for Telenav.

That’s it though.

UPDATED 12/30/09: Since this review, the developer hasn’t updated the app once. I had uninstalled it a while back in favor of a more robust Documents to Go. I had hoped QuickOffice would update the app to work with Office 2007 and PowerPoint. Glad I didn’t hold my breath. Sad I wasted $8 bucks.

Since there is a 24 hour return policy, I went ahead and downloaded QuickOffice for $7.99.

It’s worth the money IMO just to be able to save .doc, .xls, and .txt files from GMail to the SD card, which it does. I have a few e-mails in my inbox with attachments, which I kept in hopes of saving to the SD card someday. Now I can.

Pros:

• Can save .doc, .xls, and .txt to SD card, which couldn’t be done before.
• Can view .doc, .xls, and .txt files.
• Can edit file names.

Cons:

• Minor. Can’t choose which folder to save to when downloading attachments.
• Minor. Can’t download right to card, rather you have to “view” file first, then save.
• Doesn’t support .docx or .xlsx. “Yet” anyway.
• Can’t edit the files. Again yet.

It appears from the description on their site that Office 2007 support, PowerPoint, and file editing are coming at some point.

Worth the money? Yeah I guess. I’ll keep it. I’ll only regret it if someone comes out with something better for less.

I wish I knew how to take a screenshot. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

So far, nothing looks worth buying. I have my eye on QuickOffice, but I wrote to them and have not confirmed if it allows you to save .doc and .xls files from GMail to the SD card. They are clear that you can’t edit for now (just view), which I can live with. But I’m not paying a dime if you can’t save from e-mail to the SD card.

This post will be a long one. Some time has passed since my last review. Here is what I have installed and how I rate them. These are apps in the Android Market, not the ones that come preprogrammed on the G1. Assume what’s not installed either 1) a duplicate of one I have installed, 2) terrible and has been uninstalled, or 3) doesn’t interest me.

AK Notepad
Simple note taker. Something like this should be included. Don’t like that it doesn’t have a “traditional” save or save as.

AndFTP
Simple FTP client. I really haven’t used it much. Or have a great need for it. If there was a html/text editor on the market, I guess I can use it to edit my websites. I kicked the tires on it, and it seems to work fine.

Any Cut
Used to create shortcuts. Pretty cool app and easy to use. For example I created a desktop icon/shortcut to call my house. And another one to open the browser straight to google reader. I like simple conveniences. This helps make conveniences conveniently.

aTrackDog
Love this app. It tracks all installed apps on the phone, and searches the market to see if there are updated versions. If there is an update, it links right to the new version to install. Before this, it was a pain in the neck to search each app one by one.

BistroMath
Tip calculator. Does what it’s supposed to do.

Bookmarker
A little clunky UI, bit it helps manage bookmarks. Another feature that should be built in, but oh well. It helps overcome the phone’s shortcoming.

Chess
Played a few times. What can I say, it’s chess.

Countdown Alarm
Pretty self explanatory. No more burnt Ellios pizzas for me!

Free Dictionary Org
Another no brainier. I used it once. And only once. Worked though. So I like it.

G-Notepad
Simple txt editor. One one problem though. It won’t save. Perhaps it’s a bug. I’ll hold on to it for a while to see if the bug is ever fixed. Or until someone comes out with one that works. I like saving txt files over what AK Notepad has to offer. Only if it works…

Gmote
Turns your phone into a remote for the media on your computer. Lousy UI. I’m holding on to this until they either polish it up or something better comes out. It’s also a PITA that the phone has to be connected to the same wireless network as the computer. ‘Cause most of the time I don’t know what each is connected to.

GPS Tracker
This is pretty sick. Sick as in good sick. When GPS is activated on the phone, you can track my every move!
http://mattsoreco.com/where/

Here I Am
This is pretty cool too. Same idea as GPS tracker, only you can e-mail or text the coordinates to anyone. That opens up a Google map with your location. I guess it can come in handy if you are lost in God knows where and you need to explain where you are to someone.

imeem
Copied and pasted from my last app update: Streaming music based on favorites. I like it so far, I just need to play with it more and add more favorites.
I guess the downfall is the UI, or else I’d use it much more. Also, you can only skip 6 songs in a given time, so that’s a drawback.

Last.fm
Another streaming music app based on favorites. Picks up where imeem leaves off in terms of UI and unlimited skipping of songs. Only thing, it has some critical bugs to work out. It doesn’t play in the background (unless the app is open). That’s pretty stupid. It also hasn’t been saving any of the songs I “loved,” costing me 2 hours of my life on the weekend. It they work these things out, I’ll be ditching imeem for this.

OI File Manager
Simple file manager. Chalk it up to another feature that should have come with the phone. At lease all of these apps are free for now.

Picasa
Pretty cool add on that lets you sent to Picasa straight from the picture viewer.

PicSay
Lets you add captions and other cool things to pictures. I’ll probably never use it. I guess I want to be cool, so I’ll leave it on.

Pictorial
I actually just uninstalled this one since it appears Picasa mobile web version now lets you view all pics. There used to be a 50 or so pic limit per album. It was good while it lasted. It lets you interact with your Picasa albums.

QSearch
I guess the novelty wore off since my last post. A basic on screen keyboard which allows you to save milliseconds of life and time by enabling you to do Google searches without having to open the keypad.

Quickpedia
Basically wikipedia reformatted for the screensize. I realize how much I don’t use wikipedia since I used this once just to check it out. Good if you use wikipedia though.

Quote Pro
Stock quotes. Nice interface. I can see how much my 401k isn’t worth anymore.

Ringdroid
Haven’t used and probably never will. I’m happy with the funky default ringtone. Another app to make me look cool I guss.

Save MMS
Lets you save text message attachments. Another app that should come standard. Pretty useful given the phone’s lack of ability.

Scoreboard
“Live” sports scoreboard, which allows you to track your favorite teams (nfl, mlb, nhl, nba, et al). It’s also supposed to send you an alert whenever there is a score change during one of your favorite teams’ games. For some reason, for me it’s always late and I don’t get the alerts. I’ll hold for bug updates as this has potential.

Scrambled Net
Cool game.

Shazam
Identifies music playing (on the radio for instance), then lets you tag it, buy it, and/or look up artist. I’ve actually used it, so it’s not just to make me look cool!

ShopSavvy
Lets you scan a barcode of a product, then gives you comparitive pricing in the area. Good for an unsavvy shopper like myself. I haven’t needed it yet though.

Solitaire
Just your basic solitaire games.

Stopwatch
Yes, I’ve used this several times to see how fast I can tap start then stop. I don’t know how much faster you can get than 00:00.1!

System Monitor
I hate that memory numbers this shows doesn’t match up with what the default phone dialog shows. It might be on my soon to kill list.

Text Easy
Never used, but can come in handy for texting multiple contacts. I don’t text much, if you can’t tell.

The Weather Channel
Easier than looking out the window or opening the door to see what it’s doing outside.

Toggle Settings
Eliminates the PITA of having to navigate through settings to do basic things like turn on/off wifi, gps, ringer modes, ets. You can manage all of that stuff on one simple screen.

Video Player
Haven’t used, but it might be ok I guess.

Voice Recorder
I should probably use this more to capture thoughts. Simple to use, save, and send.

Yellowbook
I know where everything is already. Probably good if I ever traveled more.
I need a break now.