Draconos

Spring is here in the Midwest and as typical for our area its still cold as a witch’s tit out here. I swear there is only 2 seasons you can depend on in the Midwest, Winter and Construction season.

Google should soon be announcing what enhancements are going to Android 2.2 OS. Flash 10 is included in Android 2.2 and supposedly running pretty well on the Nexus One. LG will be releasing the LG Ally soon, rumors are it will be Verizon Network at the moment yet another temptation to replace my precious droid. Ally has a strong product tie in to Iron Man 2.

Droid Incredible by HTC was released at the beginning of May and brings a Nexus One equivalent to Big Red Network, which is good since the evidently the Nexus One will not be released on Verizon or Sprint Networks. Evidently the Incredible and EVO 4G have replaced it respectably. EVO 4G looks to be the smartphones of smartphones making the droid look like its bastard cousin too bad I’m on Verizon for the next 2 years locked in.

Lg Ally Homepage
Droid Incredible by HTC
HTC Evo 4G

Trying out a new free app from the android market place called wptogo allows you to post to your wordpress blog from your android based phone. Pretty cool little app, still no word on the ota for verizon wireless subscribers with moto droids for android 2.1. The sdk is out and I believe motorola is working on modifying it for the droid.

The android market just seems to keep going and going. Current count is around 20,000 apps with about 75% of the market being free. Not bad and it will just keep growing with the addition of droid phones next year will be interesting. Don’t know what Apple has coming down the line but its going to be kinda hard to hold off the droid armada especially since the AT&T 3G network isnt the greatest.

Speaking of apps, I would like to send out my support for a nice little widget that adds a bunch of functionality to the base home screen of the droid models, Beautiful Widget. Originally Beautiful widgets brought the HTC Sense screens to other droid models but HTC was not having that so the author had to change his design. Still a nice little design and it adds a lot of widgets that make the droid even easier to use. Only 1.99 on the market and well worth the price.

Beautiful Widgets adds widgets for wifi, gps, airplane mode, vibrate, bluetooth, and a home screen addition with a clock and geolocation weather. The author is very good at updating the application especially when problems are reported by the users.

Here is the application on Androlib:Beautiful Widgets

This week just a month after its release Verizon has begun pushing out the OTA update for the famed Motorola Droid. The update will upgrade the droid firmware to 2.0.1 and is being pushed out by verizon, so there is no direct way to download it, well there is but I’m not gonna tell let’s just say google is your friend. Couple cavaets for the upgrade, battery life for the upgrade without being plugged in must be at 40%, if your plugged in and charging then 20%.

Fixes are listed below:

• OS stability is improved.
• Battery life is improved.
• Camera auto focus functionality is improved, and time between shots is reduced.
• Enhancements for three-way calling.
• Audio for incoming calls is improved.
• When receiving a call on call waiting, the speakerphone now remains on.
• Bluetooth® functionality is improved; background echo is eliminated.
• Improved Bluetooth phone book transfer of contacts to in-vehicle Bluetooth solutions.
• After closing a GPS application, the GPS icon will now automatically be removed from the notification panel.
• Users can now receive SMS and MMS messages after an EMS message is received.
• SMS and MMS may now be sent to seven-digit addresses.
• Google® contact merging has been updated to accommodate seven-digit numbers.
• Visual Voice Mail notices now arrive instantaneously.
• The corporate calendar widget user interface is updated

Nothing majorly announced but there is improved movement in the interface so the droid is a little more zipper than before not that I had a problem with it. Also the battery life has been improved havent fully tested it as I just upgraded today to 2.0.1 . Here are some pictures I’ve taken one before the upgrade and one after. Note the last picture was taken through my upstairs windows to the outside and the first one was taken from inside a moving aircraft after.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box