Android in Canada Blog

Not much response here. I guess most people are on the XDA site.

I'll go ahead – I had a lot of connectivity and rogue app problems (2G didn't work at all, slow overall OS and particularly desktop loading that required constant flushing of running apps). Seems to be better now that I reset the device. I haven't determined what the rogue app(s) was yet (have been conservative with installs this time), probably the battery or memory desktop widget.

Comparing this device to an iPhone can be embarrassing. The iPhone is so much snappier, many of the apps are more polished (though the vast majority are pointless). Overnight with no apps running the iPhone battery is still at 4/5 in the morning, the Dream is basically dead. But Android has its own strengths, including multitasking and background apps, and some nice unique apps; it's fast enough most of the time and the battery will last through the day with occasional use.

I wonder if in the future Android will be a niche or dominant – it could be a big breakthrough for open source on the challenging mobile networks field, which is all very important in the future. But it's a lot easier for Apple to control the direction of iPhone than the herd of Android providers.

After the reset, my main issues are still what I'd anticipated – low quality camera, battery life, lack of a standard headphone jack, an underpowered device, along with the nit of there being no light sensor so the backlight has to be manually controlled. Multitouch doesn't mean much to me, I like being able to use the device one-handed. And a hardware keyboard is still essential sometimes, the track ball provides nice usability, and having a standard menu key for every app means less “clever” hiding of options, though clearly Android is an OS you have to learn rather than focusing on up-front intuitiveness.

I do think the Dream hardware was a bit outdated when released, I hope Rogers has a generous upgrade plan in a year from now for Android devotees.

Looking forward to an update, with a community developed open source distribution, but its not so urgent now that I've got Proxoid tethering and everything basically works. Rogers'/HTC obligation to release some GPL code is an interesting case that has only one outcome.

I have had a HTC Magic, for a few months now, and I like the phone, but if I will be keeping the phone remains to be seen, due to the recent phones HTC have been releasing, the HTC Hero, looks a better phone with it's sense UI, but as an existing customer, I do not receive perks like this this, why should i keep this phone, unless sense UI is made as an update for HTC Magic, weather its “with google” or not, i pay money monthly. i demand full use of the product I paid for. I am betting that for one reason or another my phone will be get the Sense UI update, maybe not even the 1.6 update, because I brought my phone too early and now the Hero is out, its better so, the rest of us are forgotten, and will just hope Android or HTC provide Magic users all the advantages the Hero has, otherwise, it will prove the Apple iphone is be the best phone in the world, and that Android/HTC does not care as much about it's customers.
thanks