Comparing my old Palm experience with Android as it turns 4
Over the past weekend we heard that Android has officially turned 4.
For me it’s a little over 2, and it’s been quite the growth even in the half of Android I’ve seen. To commemorate this milestone I thought I’d take a look at how it’s grown and changed, and what I’ve done to adopt to the platform myself.
First off, how has Android changed? If you’re new, you probably haven’t seen much. If you’ve been in since the ‘revolution’ like me, then you’ll know how much it has.
Aside from the obvious hardware changes in the time span, there’s been some great user experience growth as well. Here’s a quick info-graphic I found the other day – which explains it well… as compared to the major competitor [I don't mean to poke... but...]
http://gizmodo.com/5851674/iphone-vs-android-who-aged-better
Screens have gotten bigger, the UI has gone through quite the overhaul over the years, while others really haven’t. I kinda miss the old pull up app tray, myself.
Okay, so going through my old posts I found when I had originally signed on for an Android. Well, there abouts. I posted on my personal blog on September 27, 2009 about how I was transitioning from Palm OS and how I was handling it.
I thought it was quite neat to see how the OS and the apps change, and our experience changes. Now, no way my last palm, the TX can compare stats-wise with my phone [and that's even 1 year old], so I won’t even try. [but, just so you know it was 312MHz, with 128MB memory and 32MB RAM] So, without further ado, here was my post back on 09/27/09:
Palm Software |
Android version {2009} |
Android Version {2011} |
| iSilo
|
compactReader
there is an iSilo version, but I just didn’t like it compared to the way it worked on Palm, so I went with this Works with TXT files, which is fine by me, but I’ll keep looking for something that’ll work PROPERLY with iSilo files as I have a huge database of books from my Palm. |
These days, I’ve been using Aldiko for my reading of books, or PerfectViewer for comics. |
| CheckBook
|
dgMoney
Only problem is that it can’t do automatically repeated items. Maybe I’ll keep searching, but I love it’s simple interface. |
You know what? I’ve stuck with dgMoney. It’s done a bang up job of being simple to use and actually works. |
| AutoBase
|
Mileage
|
Another tried and true app. I’ve seen Mileage go through some UI updates, but definitely the best I’ve had to date. |
| Blazer
|
Browser (came preloaded)Such an improvement! Can’t wait for multi-touch to be allowed. | Stuck with the stock browser, despite how there have been several other options, but why over-complicate?
Only issue has been on my tablet it doesn’t sync so well the bookmarks. |
| Core Player
|
no such version… the video player works, but only with a small specific list of file types – I’m just waiting for VideoLan to come to Android. | The stock video player on the Galaxy S has been good enough. Otherwise, on my tablet I use Mobo Player. Aside from that, there’s the youtube app, netflix, etc… to be able to watch movies. |
| Memos
|
NoteEverything
|
Can’t believe that I didn’t use Google Docs back then… well, there was no app then I guess. |
| pTunes
|
haven’t really found anything to replace. But then again I have my Zune to play mp3s lately. | Google Music has been a great alternative to the Samsung default music player, although has had some problem listening to music when I shut off data connection while I bike home. |
| Documents to Go
|
the same | I do like Documents to Go, but the phone Came with ThinkFree Office and the Tablet with Polaris. If it weren’t for the terrible editing capability of mobile Google Docs, I’d use it exclusively. |
| Explorer
|
Explorer
same name, but different obviously. |
Astro File Manager, despite how I’m not a fan of the new UI, it works. |
| powerOne
|
Haven’t really found a good replacement for graphing yet, but several good calculators. | I don’t find much use for the graphing calculator anymore, but for nostalgia I keep the Andy-86 available.
Hunh, it’s now changed its name to AndieGraph and no ROMs come with it. |
| 4cast
|
The Weather Network: Weather Eye
|
Stayed with the Weather Network - Weather Eye, as it’s been the only one with accurate Canadian prediction, and I like the widget and hourly option. |
| munduIM
|
MeeboIM
it even allows me to log into Fbook chat |
After much trials, I’ve given IM+ Pro my vote.
Did you hear they updated and have a sale on? |
| snapCalc
|
unfortunately this is the one let down that I can’t have a similar program that pops up while in one program to do simple calculation. This was indispensible on the Palm while entering some data. | Hrmm… still nothing quite like this available on Android. There’s some neat innovative stuff like the Wave Launcher, that could bring up on screen options of apps, but none that would sit as a widget overtop of the current app. |
And I’m not just writing this as we’re hearing about how potentially HP is selling webOS [but it would be a dream of mine to see those merge]. I’ve already said, it’s more likely somebody like Samsung would buy it to replace/merge with BADA.
Anywhoo… just my thoughts on where I’ve seen Android grow over the years.
What have you made of the Android? Did you switch? How was your process?
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