Dave, take a look at DoubleTwist.com for music transfers. Works with nearly any phone, except those that start with "i". ;)
Josh Turmel
· 1 month ago
Dave when you plug the phone into the computer, pull down the notifications shade and where it says "USB connected" click that, it will then ask whether you want to mount or not. Also like Kevin said, look into DoubleTwist, that's what I use as well.
dave
· 1 month ago
Thanks for the tip, now a dumb question -- where is the "notifications shade?"
I've been looking for that for other purposes.
Also how do I get it to stop chiming at me when an email comes in -- I get a lot of email! :-)
Erik Neu
· 1 month ago
Notifications Shade is the bar at the top, with little icons like the batter icon. Also the time in the upper right. It pulls down with a finger-swipe.
To turn off email notification, go into Settings-Sound
dave
· 1 month ago
Thank you! It worked. I can now see the DROID on my Mac desktop.
Ken Kennedy
· 1 month ago
If Settings in Android 2.0 are the same as 1.6 (I have a G1) ... open the GMail prg, and with the Inbox open (vs. an individual msg; context makes a difference), hit the menu button, and Settings should be an option. Choose Settings. Scroll down that list to Notifications, and choose "Select Ringtone", and choose Silent.
jmic
· 1 month ago
Dave, on the G1 when you plug the phone into USB, an icon appears in the notification bar asking if you wish to mount the card as a drive or charge the phone.
Matt
· 1 month ago
SD card is under the battery cover. You have to take out the battery to actually remove the card but you can see it just by removing the cover.
Check out DoggCatcher app for podcasts. It claims to be a RSS reader for all content but I find it is a great podcatcher but not ideal for other feeds. You can import an OPML and configure each feed to auto-download new items.
dave
· 1 month ago
I don't see the SD card. Here's a picture of the Droid with the battery removed:
Dave, I'm just shooting in the dark here, but what's that metal assembly at the top of the battery compartment? I don't have a feel for scale, but if the SIM card doesn't go there then it's gotta be for an SD or MicroSD.
malatmals
· 1 month ago
via @lukewdesign: Android OS supports multitouch but Google's Android apps don't but HTC can add multitiouch to the open parts of the OS http://bit.ly/4cYbd0 about 20 hours ago from Tweetie
Josh Turmel
· 1 month ago
Yes, for instance on my HTC Hero I can pinch to zoom in/out in the browser, but on my Google Ion I can't. I haven't tried pulling the browser app off of the Hero and putting it on the Ion but I might after someone successfully roots the Hero.
Erik Neu
· 1 month ago
The small keyboards are tough for those with adult-male-sized fingers. But clever virtual keyboards can mitigate in many ways. The default virtual keyboard is mediocre. The TouchPal (from the Android Market) is very nice, especially in "compact QWERTY" mode, where the buttons are decent-sized, and the prediction is pretty good. And the up-swipe, down-swipe and side-swipe features are really useful, something that can't be replicated with a physical keyboard. Also, swipe to scroll between compact and full QWERTY is another great convenience, one that is inherent to virtual keyboards.
Actually I'm really beginning to like the keyboard. I really like the way it suggests words, much much much better than the iPhone.
Joshua Lee
· 1 month ago
iTuneMyWalkman, despite the name, is another program that supports many phones on the Mac, and unlike DoubleTwist, it isn't spyware. (Read DoubleTwist's EULA!)
Mike Cane
· 1 month ago
What compelled you to buy the Droid? iPhone hatred? Apple hatred? I haven't seen anything of the physical phone itself that calls to me. I can understand if you're intrigued by the possibilities of Android 2.0 -- but still, other phones are coming that will have that. So why Droid? Impatience? Indulgence? Evil master plan?
What would really be nice is if a phone company would provide a truly awesome smart phone and not deliberately overcharge them for buying one i.e. charging a mandatory data plan fee for a phone even if you don’t plan on using the phone for data that much or would prefer to use the phones data capabilities via wi-fi only.
at&t should have at least given people the option. As it stands they can’t even handle the massive increase in data traffic that happened as a result of the massive influx of new iphone owners!
Erik Neu
· 1 month ago
With T-Mobile, it is actually possible to get a smartphone with no data plan. There is a lot of mis-understanding and flaming on the topic, though. See this link in the T-Mobile forums: http://forums.t-mobile.com/t5/Plans-Services-Fe...
Basically, nobody at T-Mobile will tell you this is possible. They will skirt the issue and claim that the phone simply will not work w/o a Data Plan. None of that is true, though. My son has a G1, and does not have a Data Plan, and it works just fine--anywhere, as a calling/texting device, and at home, as a Wi-Fi device.
Most of the people responding in the forums will say "why would you want a phone like this and have no data plan?". I don't understand why that isn't an obvious use case--haven't these people heard of the iTouch?
fiyahstotah
· 1 month ago
really, ok thats great to hear because i think t-mobile is getting the HTC HD2 and i really want that phone more than any other phone thats out there (if it turns out to be as good as they say it is) here's a link to the phone im talkin about:
> T-Mobile [...] will skirt the issue and claim that the phone > simply will not work w/o a Data Plan. None of that is true, > though.
Actually, it is true for some features. For example, on both VZW and TMo, Visual Voicemail is network-only. On the other hand, last time I checked, Amazon's .mp3 purchase/download service works on WIFI, only.
Josh Turmel
· 1 month ago
Dave in response to your second podcast and the notifications for SMS vs email, since each app/service is independently configurable for the ring tone itself, you could work around this by creating or finding a blank tone and using that for your email. Not the most elegant solution, but at least there is one. :)
One other side note, for SMS you might want to give chompSMS a try, in some ways it's better than the built-in one and the nice thing about Android is everything is intent based, so you can setup apps to respond to things like SMS and have it completely replace the built-in apps.
dave
· 1 month ago
Thanks for the tips.
Is there a good website or book to read about Android from a user point of view?
There's a lot of culture to absorb all at once.
A cheat sheet would be nice! :-)
Josh Turmel
· 1 month ago
I might start putting some of this stuff together in one location, so far it's just been helping people out individually on Twitter or replying to blog posts.
Were you able to get the HTC IME keyboard I DMed you to work? I haven't had a chance to try it on 2.0 since the Droid is the only phone with that OS so far, but it's definitely superior to the stock Android keyboard.
dave
· 1 month ago
If I started a Droid blog on wordpress.com, would you be willing to post that stuff there?
Oy. It turns out I need your email address not username. Sorry for the runaround.
Josh Turmel
· 1 month ago
jturmel [at] gmail [dot] com
dave
· 1 month ago
Thanks! I just added you as an author -- which means you can create posts and publish them. Please write some cheat sheets and howtos! I'll continue asking dumb questions. :-)
Joshua_Whalen
· 1 month ago
Does it support python? That is, can I write a simple little app using an AJAX gui and a Python back-end? This is, form me, the holy grail of smart phones. I realize you may not have gotten that far yet.
CoachDaBoss
· 1 month ago
You have to attach the USB cord, then on your notifcation bar, youwill see the USb symbol, drag the bar down, then click on USB conneted, it will ask if you want to mount to disk. Click mount, you can now use it as a removable disk. In windows i creat a shortcut to it and drag my files there.
michaeljung
· 1 month ago
Welcome in the Android World.
I wonder why the very first phone which came with T-Mobile had not THE buzz Verizon makes now. Android is +1yr old. Got many improvements over the time. But there is nothing revolutionary in the new releases imho that would deserve the buzz. The devices might be a bit better but ... I don't get it.
PS: I am Android user from day one.
dave
· 1 month ago
Buzz is a funny thing, it might have been luck or the ads or Motorola. Timing matters too and the sense that it's going to be a while before Apple ships an exciting new iPhone
Joshua_Whalen
· 1 month ago
TMobile is European based, so they're cheese eating surrender monkeys and don't get the hype machine going like a good old Murkan mega-corp does. The moral: Don't eat cheese. Also, don't offer customers the flexibility and cheap rates tmobile does. People might start to get the idea big business is supposed to work for them, and not the other way around.
But honestly, it's probably because once you get out of the city center, they don't have coverage worth a damn. I couldn't get any signal in Columbia County, NY, for example, and that's hardly the styx.
Colin
· 1 month ago
Use a program called DoubleTwist it allows you to sync you music photos and movies with your droid and many other smart phones.
All Comments
I've been looking for that for other purposes.
Also how do I get it to stop chiming at me when an email comes in -- I get a lot of email! :-)
To turn off email notification, go into Settings-Sound
Check out DoggCatcher app for podcasts. It claims to be a RSS reader for all content but I find it is a great podcatcher but not ideal for other feeds. You can import an OPML and configure each feed to auto-download new items.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scriptingnews/4080...
Am I missing something??
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/3434/droidsd...
about 20 hours ago from Tweetie
http://mondegreen2.blogspot.com/2009/11/why-i-p...
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=re...
suggests words, much much much better than the iPhone.
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/10/30/day-3-andro...
And some yammering I made about the Android approach:
http://the-gadgeteer.com/2009/11/05/android-liv...
I really like this phone, it is tempting me to terminate my T-Mobile account early.
http://www.moto.com/amp/amp_specs.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggD3Hr1rVyA
What would really be nice is if a phone company would provide a truly awesome smart phone and not deliberately overcharge them for buying one i.e. charging a mandatory data plan fee for a phone even if you don’t plan on using the phone for data that much or would prefer to use the phones data capabilities via wi-fi only.
at&t should have at least given people the option. As it stands they can’t even handle the massive increase in data traffic that happened as a result of the massive influx of new iphone owners!
http://forums.t-mobile.com/t5/Plans-Services-Fe...
Basically, nobody at T-Mobile will tell you this is possible. They will skirt the issue and claim that the phone simply will not work w/o a Data Plan. None of that is true, though. My son has a G1, and does not have a Data Plan, and it works just fine--anywhere, as a calling/texting device, and at home, as a Wi-Fi device.
Most of the people responding in the forums will say "why would you want a phone like this and have no data plan?". I don't understand why that isn't an obvious use case--haven't these people heard of the iTouch?
http://www.htc.com/europe/product/hd2/overview....
> simply will not work w/o a Data Plan. None of that is true,
> though.
Actually, it is true for some features. For example, on both VZW and TMo, Visual Voicemail is network-only. On the other hand, last time I checked, Amazon's .mp3 purchase/download service works on WIFI, only.
One other side note, for SMS you might want to give chompSMS a try, in some ways it's better than the built-in one and the nice thing about Android is everything is intent based, so you can setup apps to respond to things like SMS and have it completely replace the built-in apps.
Is there a good website or book to read about Android from a user point of
view?
There's a lot of culture to absorb all at once.
A cheat sheet would be nice! :-)
I just put one together for setting up tethering through USB for Mac. http://jturmel.blogspot.com/2009/11/tethering-y...
Were you able to get the HTC IME keyboard I DMed you to work? I haven't had a chance to try it on 2.0 since the Droid is the only phone with that OS so far, but it's definitely superior to the stock Android keyboard.
that stuff there?
I'll set the site up right now.
Dave
http://droidie.com/
If you have a wordpress.com account, let me know what it is and I'll set you up as a contributor.
I wonder why the very first phone which came with T-Mobile had not THE buzz Verizon makes now. Android is +1yr old. Got many improvements over the time. But there is nothing revolutionary in the new releases imho that would deserve the buzz. The devices might be a bit better but ... I don't get it.
PS: I am Android user from day one.
But honestly, it's probably because once you get out of the city center, they don't have coverage worth a damn. I couldn't get any signal in Columbia County, NY, for example, and that's hardly the styx.