The lack of a LED indicator light stinks. It seems like such a minor feature to add. I wonder why they made a decision not to include one. The indicator is a feature of Android that they are ignoring.

The bloatware continues to stay on my nerves. Especially since they run in the background and use up memory. I want none of it. Not one of them I found helpful or I’ve found better apps in the marketplace already. Let the customer decide for crying out loud!!!

For the longest time I didn’t really understand the http://damnyouautocorrect.com/ meme. The G1 used Android’s standard keyboard. It would suggest words, but not automatically change or insert any. The basic keyboard was brilliant in it’s simplicity. Therefore, I found nothing but a headache with both the Swipe and Samsung keyboards. Son of a @$!^#! I finally found that turning off almost all of the AI crap works best for me. I spent more time correcting the auto-corrections than doing anything else. Chalk this up to another instance of Samsung insisting on things rather than giving the customer the choice!!!

There is a bug with the browser bookmarks. If you import bookmarks with apps like GMarks, they don’t get added to the browser bookmarks tab, rather they are added to the “most visited” tab. I don’t know if this is another instance of Samsung monkeying around with the base Android browser or not, but apparently importing with GMarks is not an issue for other Android phones. The reason I suspect they did monkey around with something is because the bookmarks preloaded on the phone could not be deleted from the browser. I needed another bookmark manager app to delete the bookmarks that I DIDN’T WANT!!!

Another issue is with the music app. Again I don’t know if it’s another instance of Samsung monkeying around with the base Android app. But the music app is inaccessible to other apps like CardioTrainer. One of the beauties of Android is having apps work together harmoniously. Here I found two cases where they don’t at all.

Bottom line is create the hardware and leave the operating system alone. Offer your own enhancements via apps, but don’t force them on customers.

All of that said, I’m still happy with the phone’s performance and storage space. I can live with the above, but I expected more. I know what to look out for next time. Next time I might splurge and get the latest Google endorsed phone (e.g. Nexus)–with no third party monkeying.

I went to the T-Mobile store with 2 phones in mind; the G2 or the Motorola Cliq. I thought I needed a physical keyboard since my accuracy using the G1′s virtual keyboard was abysmal. I really didn’t like either the G2 or the Cliq’s physical keyboards.

So I played around with the Samsung Galaxy S 4G for a little bit. I had no trouble at all with the virtual keyboard. I guess the processing speed and the screen’s sensitivity made a real difference.

I dismissed the Cliq pretty quickly given that I didn’t like the keyboard at all and I didn’t like the way it flipped open either.

It came down to the Galaxy S vs. the G2. The G2 was $50 more and had a slightly smaller screen. So I decided on the Galaxy S.

I think I’m still in the happy stage of the purchase and buyer’s remorse hasn’t had a chance to creep in yet… So here is my initial review.

Pros:

• It’s incredibly fast. Not just the 4G speed, but fast in loading webpages, apps, etc. The sales guy said that 4G vs. 3G isn’t very noticeable, but I’d notice the processing speed. That much is very true.
• It’s crisp and clear.
• It has Android 2.2–which I think all other “pros” can be attributed to.
• The keyboard is responsive and accurate.

Cons:

• No LED indicator light!! Had I known this before, this little detail might have been a deal-breaker. So I have to actively check the phone to see if I have new texts, e-mails, etc. whereas almost all other phones have a blinking LED light as an indicator.
• To wake the phone up, you need to do 2 separate actions. First, hit the power button, then swipe the screen. I much preferred the G1 where you simply hit the menu button twice. I like to judge the usability on how easy it is to use and navigate the phone one handed. This complicates that a little. It can be done one handed, but awkwardly. Also the power button is on the side, so if you have the phone on a desk, it’s a little awkward to hit the button on the side, then swipe the screen (whereas the G1′s menu button was on the face of the phone for an easy 2x tap if it was on a desk). I remember I bought Keyguard Disabler a while back, so I had to go and install it on this phone.
• You have to swipe the screen to answer a call. I much prefer a physical button.
• It’s loaded with a ton of bloatware that can’t be uninstalled. I HATE this. Let me get rid of stuff I don’t want!!! To make it worse, these apps can’t be moved to the SD card (feature of Android 2.2).  And to make it even worse, they run in the background and pop back up even after killing them. Needless to say I’m looking in forums to see if anyone had any luck removing them (without any crazy hacking).
• I don’t know if this is a feature of the phone or Android, but the auto-brightness feature was utterly useless and highly annoying. I had to shut that off. I don’t know what triggers it uses to brighten or dim, and I don’t think the programming did either. It was all very random.

By the looks of it, there seem to be a lot more cons than pros. But the speed, amount of space (internal and SD card), and Android 2.2 are keeping me happy at the moment. I haven’t been able to test other things out fully. I know the camera doesn’t have a flash, but I knew that I don’t really care. If I want to take better pics, I use a real camera.

More to come…

Smartly, I always use unique and highly obscure (with numbers, symbols, caps, etc) passwords for my highly valuable accounts like banking and Google.

No so wisely, but for ease, I used the same e-mail and password for a lot of other sites and services.

I knew there would come a day that I’d have to fix this.

I got wind of the hack fairly early and prioritized and started changing all of the logins I use regularly and are of high value (like LinkedIn). I’ve even started to close accounts and services I never use anymore–although I don’t think this is 100% safe either as the info is probably never completely purged from their systems. I’ll probably re-prioritize and redo this again at some point.

This was a real eye opener. I probably have hundreds of accounts set up on sites I have long forgotten about, which I signed up out of curiosity and never went back. Of course those don’t have any critical info whatsoever, but still…

I’m a fairly early adopter. Mainly to stay on top of and try new things. But things have to serve a real purpose for me. I don’t try something, then find a purpose for it. I usually try things that serve a real purpose. Wave alone, with no other friends using it, is useless. I assume my friends are like me and find no use for Wave. It’s a nonstarter.

When will it catch on?

I remember when I first signed up for AOL in the very beginning of it. At the time I felt like a computer geek for using it. I kind of was hesitant to tell people I went into chat rooms, because in the very beginning there was a negative stigma attached to it. Then one day I was talking to a friend who I least expected to use AOL, yet alone use a computer for anything. I thought right then, if this guy is on AOL then AOL is going to explode. And it did.

Similar “explosions” happened with other services and social networks I’m in. I can remember having a handful of LinkedIn connections and Facebook friends. Then suddenly, I was being bombarded with requests. They took off in my circle.

Some things will never take off in my circle. Wave is one of them. I wrote about adoption a while back. Wave is a communication preference in my opinion. A preference that relies on others adopting the same preference. If current communication channels (like e-mail) are working, then there is no reason to use Wave.

I foresee the same with Buzz. It’s a little clunky to use. It doesn’t fulfill a real need. My circle will probably not adopt it (rather they’ll stick with Facebook and Twitter). It’s just an extra. But I’ll be in there, to wait and see if it takes off.

It appears they are trying to create a device that’s everything wrapped up in one. And by the looks of it, they do a pretty nice job of it. But there are still limitations. Which will require you to still carry around multiple devices.

Will there ever be the perfect all in one device? No. Sure there will be all in one devices. Pretty good ones. But never perfect.

You can carry around a Swiss Army knife, which is great. But you need to break out a chef’s knife to cut up a rump roast. Right?

I think tech needs to go down the road of allowing multiple devices to share the same information/profile/settings/preferences. The closest thing I can think of is my beloved G1 phone. Since it integrates with Google, I basically carry around my e-mail, contacts, YouTube, etc. Which is synced up so I can access on any computer. Almost seamless.

IMO, the perfect tech would go beyond that, where multiple “all in one” devices share the same info and files. This way you can access a book or movie from anywhere on any device, but a better device for the specific purpose is always at the ready.

For example, I might watch a movie in transit somewhere on my little phone’s screen, but a better experience would be at home on my big screen (which should have access to that same movie).

Substitute movie for book, music, or any consumable media or even substitute media consumption with task, like recording videos, taking pictures, making phone calls, the list can be endless. Perhaps I don’t care for a certain feature/task, so I would not buy the device that’s geared more for that specific purpose.

I think the directions needs to concentrate on a software/operating system hub, with information stored in the cloud, which can be accessed and synced on multiple types of devices. Take a picture on your “camera,” then it’s available on your computer (but you can take a picture with your phone too!). Download music to your “mp3 player,” then it’s available on your phone too. Download a book to your e-reader, then it’s available on your phone too, or TV, or computer, or…

Is Android going that route?

I do have an undying love for MS Office though. Excel never ceases to amaze me. I just needed to get that out there…

Fair? Maybe. BUT a ton of other companies are given a free pass when things break, crash, or don’t work quite as well as they should. Granted Gmail is free, but it was down last night and is having problems this morning. I’m a big fan of Google’s offerings, but a lot of them have plenty of room for improvement.

The G1 phone has plenty of bugs (albeit minor), and even a security flaw, but they are given a free pass by fans. Actually, what’s funny about the G1 is that their uber-fans’ hatred is directed at the IPhone, not Microsoft per se.

Macs can’t do EVERYTHING, yet some shortcomings are ignored. The Microsoft hatred is blinding I guess.

There are a million and one products and services out there that are good, but not absolutely perfect.

What’s my point? Microsoft’s products aren’t THAT bad.

There are some pretty annoying bugs on the G1. Showstoppers, no. But they bug me.

1. When opening Gmail through the app, often times it opens up to a conversation that was deleted and purged days ago. I’m not sure why this happens.
2. Sometimes too, when the above happens, I don’t get notifications of new e-mails that come in.
3. Think about calling into somewhere with voice prompts, like any customer service line. When you call and put the phone on speaker, there is no way to keep the screen from timing out quickly. So when you have to wait to “hit 9 for other,” you have to hit menu twice and pop open the number pad quickly to do it. For some reason it goes blank in a few seconds. There should be a way to “lock” it open when on speaker or when using a hands free device. I’ve fumbled with this too many times, with the delay forcing me deeper into CS VoicePrompt Hell.
4. There is no way to edit recurring events in Calendar without crashing the whole calendar. You have to go to a separate browser to edit recurring events. And if you try, you have to clear out all the stored calendar data and resync to get it working again.
5. Since it’s Google’s own app, I’ll include it here. The Scoreboard app is always late with scores and never notifies me of anything until I go in and hit refresh in the app. Even after all of the recent app updates. The point is to pick your favorite teams, and have a notification after each score. I don’t need or want to constantly open the program and hit refresh each time. Plus the scores are always way way way behind the live score. It’s quicker and easier just to go to espn.com or something.
6. Even after RC33, the camera continues to blow. A few posters on the t-mobile forums reported an improvement, but I haven’t. It takes a good 5 seconds from the time you hit the button until the pic is taken, resulting in a blurry mess unless you are taking a pic of something completely still (e.g. not my 9 month old son).
7. Battery life! I’m throwing this down as a bug because the battery life isn’t too too too much of an issue with me as the inconsistency of it is. Sometimes I can get through a day of moderate to heavy use. Sometimes the battery just sucks itself dry in a few hours. I can’t figure out why. The peanut galleries on the many message boards are no help either. Actually they do more harm than good IMO with their harebrained advice. At least I found that a reboot of the phone seems to help this.
8. GPS is sometimes unreliable too. And just to make it clear, since my wife has a G1 too, I’m able to test things side by side. So I’m judging these things side by side under the same conditions. Just last week, my wife’s G1 was able to hone right in on a location, while mine kept getting stuck with the big blue radius. Mine seems to have worked itself out since, but it’s a mystery to me why this happens sometimes. Again the peanut gallery message boards are no help whatsoever.
9. Voice Search is an abomination. It has yet to even come close to what I say. It’s such a waste that I’ll never ever use it again.

Otherwise I love it. Don’t get me wrong, I think those things are relatively minor in my grand scheme of rating the phone on the whole.

This brings me to why I resent the message boards so much. Hence the peanut gallery comments above. I should have known this kind of dynamic would exist since I post to sports message boards. Well maybe not since I didn’t think there would be hardcore “fans” of the phone. On the boards, you are either a hater, or a lover and nothing in between. Nothing annoys me more than response from the lovers who say “then get a iPhone if you don’t like the G1” or “you should have expected this with a first generation phone” whenever anyone posts the tiniest complaint or concern. With the “lovers’” attitudes, you’d think the phone is perfect and in no need for any improvements whatsoever. See more about this in my Tech Fanboys, Workarounds, and Lay Users post.

Case in point… For over a year I had Google alerts set up to search for terms, then e-mail my Gmail, which I had set up a filter to send to my work e-mail. I had the rule for said alerts set so it forwarded the e-mail, then deleted it. Nice and clean. Then suddenly in November or so, it stopped working. I didn’t find this out for a while until I noticed I stopped getting the alerts. So I visit Goolge’s help forums. Many others had the same problem and were as frustrated with this as I was. This is where the tech Google fanboys dismissed this as not a bug (working correctly). And the “solution” is to take out the delete part of the rule. Um, NO, this is not a solution. It WAS working. Now it’s NOT working.

I see this more and more. Which brings me to the lay user, which is me. I’m not going to hack into registry files and what not to fix stuff that shouldn’t be broken. The SOLUTION is never a workaround. Especially complicated ones. If the thing isn’t working right, fix the damn thing.

That concludes my rant of the day.

Take for example Vista. I hate it. Why? Because XP was easy to navigate and find files, folders, programs, etc. So why mess with it? I think, and I might be wrong, that Microsoft modeled Vista and produced it with a heavy slant towards users who want a {buzzword alert} rich multimedia experience. I think the casual user, like me, was left out. And my frustrations are some very basic things, like folder structure. Suddenly I had to click 3 times where it used to take me one click.

Now take the G1. I’m a Google addict. I use almost every one of their products and services. So going with the G1 was a no brainer. In my opinion, Is the G1 perfect? No. But it met my basic expectations.

This brings me to the message boards and blogs. It seems G1 users are divided into pretty distinct camps that range from the extremely technical to the very casual. You have Android fans that don’t mind using the phone with a beta mindset to more casual users who demand a finished product.

Who’s right and who’s wrong? Can Google/HTC/Tmobile produce something to satisfy everyone? Consider the phone is being judged by the following:

1) Phone service
2) Text messaging
3) E-mail client
4) Web Browser
5) MP3 Player
6) Camera
7) Everything else from GPS maps to games, the list is endless.

I do take exception to a few notions. The phone is/was marketed to the general public, so the notion that customers should put up with bugs/annoyances to me is an unreasonable response to complaints. Also, a LOT of advice on both the G1 and Vista require technical modifications. This does not suit a less technically savvy user or those who don’t have the time or desire to tinker.

How does a company take all of these considerations and produce a product that’ll be widely accepted? Do they just aim for the middle?