DROIDIE

Unlike the iPhone, the Droid can run more than one app at a time.

iPhone users making the transition, like John Gruber at Daring Fireball, sometimes say things like this: “I have no idea how to quit an app other than reboot.”

Don’t despair dear Droid newbie, Droidie is here to help.

Personally, I use Advanced Task Killer app to clean out the apps I don’t want running.

It’s pretty easy to use. Uncheck the apps you want to keep and click the button at the top of the screen and poof they go to heaven until you run them again.

If you want to quickly see which apps are running, hold down the Home key at the bottom of the Droid.

There have been some complaints about the stock Android virtual keyboard. Fortunately, there are a number of alternatives on the market. People raved about the HTC Hero keyboard, which can be installed on other Android phones (not via the Market), but I have heard it has issues with Android 1.6. I personally use the TouchPal, and really like it. I actually think I like it better than a physical keyboard–there are things a virtual keyboard can offer that a physical one can’t. Ability to get nice big compact QWERTY buttons when you want them being one, ability of the buttons to better tolerate a partial hit being another.  Compact QWERTY is really nice–it makes the buttons useable in portrait mode. There is another one called Better Keyboard that has also received some good reviews.

UPDATE: I just did some research, and it looks like TouchPal is temporarily unavailable on the Android Market, but will be coming back, I think. So Better Keyboard is probably the best bet for now.

This brings another tip to mind–use a backup program to back up your apps. One reason for doing this is convenience. In the event you have to do a Master Reset, if you have a lot of apps, a Restore is far faster than re-installing them one-by-one. On top of that, you will restore your app configurations, a huge time-saver. Of course, for apps that store there own data, there is that eternal user concern to consider–namely, making sure you have your data backed up. Finally, if the app is pulled from the market for whatever reason–as TouchPal has been–this may be your only way to keep it (TouchPal was free, during its period of temporary availability, so there is no issue of breach of contract issue there, I guess.)

Update: The “problem” below was cured by using a different cable.Never mind.

This is a Nexus One question.

I can’t remember if it was a puzzle to figure out how to mount the Droid as a disk drive on my netbook. I just plug it in via USB and it appears. Any MP3 or AVI files I copy onto it show up in the Gallery or Music apps, ready to be watched or played. I’ve been doing that with the Droid since Day One.

Okay, now I want to do the same with my brand-new Nexus One.

When I plug it in, there’s no option to mount the device as a disk on my computer.

This may be a silly question, but isn’t this supposed to Just Work?

PS: The animated wallpaper is coool. I have the leaves-on-a-pond background. Very nice!

It can be tedious to enter GPS map points on a phone-size device, especially if you are on-the-go when doing it (e.g., driving). If you know your points in advance, it can be a whole lot easier to enter them on the full-sized PC, then let the tight integration with Google’s My Maps app take care of getting the points over to your Android phone. Here’s how to do it.

On Your PC

• Log in to your Google account
• Open up Google Maps
• Go to the My Maps tab
• Create a new map, call it Destinations
• Search for a location, click Edit on the point once it is found by GMaps, and select to Save it to Destinations
• Repeat for additional points of interest

On your phone

• Open up Maps
• Select Layers
• Select “More Layers” if you need to, then select the Destinations map
• Tap on a push-pin once to select it, which causes the label “bubble” to be displayed
• Tap the bubble to get a context menu, which allows you Get Directions, or go directly to Navigate

I was taking a bunch of pictures of sex shop and bong shop windows in the West Village yesterday. My companion asked if I was uploading them to the server, and I said God no, I’ll have to do that later. Too many steps. Way too many steps.

But then, this evening, I realized that it could be made much simpler, that the problem is easily solved, by adding the ability to program a few function keys in the camera app. Really just one would do.

You’d program the key to mail the photo that you’re currently viewing to a specified mail address with a title that’s determined algorithmically — perhaps a function of the location (West Village, New York) or the date and time. I don’t really care that much about the title. I can patch that later when I’m back at my desktop.

It would work like the old PC products ProKey and Superkey worked. Or the Mac produvct QuicKeys. Okay they won’t let us have scripting languages for these things, at least give us simple hacks to customize these tools to make them work exactly the way we want so you can shoot pics up to the net without stopping and typing a bunch of stuff at the computer.

It’s exactly like the problem I outlined in 1999 in Edit This Page. Writing for the web, back then, forced you to be a book keeper. Now it’s the same with outdoor photography. And you really feel it walking around when it’s 18 degrees outside with a windchill fo minus 80 million.

I was taking a bunch of pictures of sex shop and bong shop windows in the West Village yesterday. My companion asked if I was uploading them to the server, and I said God no, I’ll have to do that later. Too many steps. Way too many steps.

But then, this evening, I realized it could be made much simpler, that the problem is easily solved by adding the ability to program a few function keys in the camera app. Really just one would do.

You’d program the key to mail the photo that you’re currently viewing to a specified mail address with a title that’s determined algorithmically — perhaps a function of the location (West Village, New York) or the date and time. I don’t really care that much about the title. I can patch that later when I’m back at my desktop.

It would work like the old PC products ProKey and Superkey worked. Or the Mac produvct QuicKeys. Okay they won’t let us have scripting languages for these things, at least give us simple hacks to customize these tools to make them work exactly the way we want so you can shoot pics up to the net without stopping and typing a bunch of stuff at the computer.

It’s exactly like the problem I outlined in 1999 in Edit This Page. Writing for the web, back then, forced you to be a book keeper. Now it’s the same with outdoor photography. And you really feel it walking around when it’s 18 degrees outside with a windchill fo minus 80 million.

It’s far too soon to say what it’s like, I’ve barely gotten started. But here’s a picture.

Next question. It doesn’t have a SIM.

Can I pop the SIM out of my iPhone and put it into the Nexus One? I have to investigate.

Well I searched all over the hotel room I’m in and there are no paper clips. So I won’t be swapping the SIM card out of the iPhone tonight. Probably for the best because I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow and I have to get some rest.

I wonder if Verizon would sell me a SIM to put into my Nexus?

Here’s the first picture I took withe the Nexus One.

Click on the image to see a larger size.

Just got an email from someone at Google saying that they just shipped a new phone to arrive at my hotel in NYC tomorrow afternoon.

They didn’t say it was called a Nexus One, but based on all the details coming out now in the tech blogs, my guess is that it’s pretty clear what’s coming tomorrow.

I really appreciate the chance for an early look.

I’m sitting on the BART going to SFO listening to Empty Pages on my Droid, and every few seconds the song pauses and my Droid says its name in a machine-like voice. This means a message has arrived for me, probably from someone very dear to me, or possibly from a PR person pitching me a product. Either way it’s kind of nice.

I switch over to the Maps app when I get a GPS signal so I can see where I am. For the first time I get an idea of the route the BART takes through SF. When I’m home I have other things on my mind but when I’m on the subway it’s interesting to me.

While I’m looking at the map, a signpost appears with the name of a nearby business. Presumably they paid Google to get some mindshare. Was it specifically for me? Certainly not. But some day they will probably sell my attention. Want to get a message to Dave while he’s on the BART riding under SF? $5. Want to get a message to him while he’s walking the tradeshow at CES? That costs more.

If you’re important enough you shouldn’t even pay to use the mobile device. They’re going to make so much money from your attention. If you’re really important, thinking Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mike Arrington, they should pay you — a LOT — to use their device. Wow.

That got me excited. That’s what they have to be thinking at Google. And why not Twitter. Trying to think of a title for this post, I came up with The Mother of All Business Models. This is as far as I can see. A new economy. Nobodies pay, but important people are paid to use your brand cell phone/mobile device. I’m sure that’s the future. Might be horrible but we’re already almost there.

Namaste y’all!