If you’re plotting and planning your way through Smartphone waters, trying to get your grubby hands on the latest, hottest phone and mobile OS, you’ll need to be very strategic. Either that or willing to drop some dough.

At this point, in order to feed my gadget-habit, I’m carrying two wireless contracts. It’s not cheap, but I see it as a business expense so I can stay on top of and write about new tech.

Thankfully, I’m in a position to do so (I own the company and sign the expense reports).

As an iPhone owner who wanted to be the first on the block to try out the Android 2.0 operating system, I had to bite the bullet and sign up for Verizon.

Now the Google Phone (Nexus One) has hit the scene and it looks like they will be a GSM phone launching on T-mobile. Another network. Another contract. Another termination fee.

The good news is that Google’s also talking about making an unlocked phone available. (This is huge, more on that below.)

In the US, there are two major cell phone network technologies, GSM and CDMA. The phones that operate on them must support those networks, and generally it is either-or.

Verizon and Sprint have CDMA networks
AT&T, Cingular, and T-mobile are on GSM networks.

Beyond that, most phones are “locked” into a single provider. So even if you have a GSM phone, if it is locked, you may only be able to use it on one network. The networks can unlock it for you, but they may only do that after your contract is up, if at all. And what good is an unlocked phone that’s two+ years old?

The Google Nexus One will be a GMS phone. So even if I can get an unlocked phone, I will not be able to use it on the Verizon account.

I may, however, be able to use it on my AT&T account by dropping my iPhone’s SIM into the Google phone. If this is possible, I bet this is the crux of their strategy for releasing an unlocked phone. Contracts are the big reason people don’t switch phones as it is painfully expensive to break contracts and switch providers.

Google doesn’t have much hope of getting millions to pay AT&T $175 for nothing and switch to another 2 year contract at T-mobile. Never mind ending up with expensive iPod Touch.

But I can see millions of people picking up an unlocked Google phone to try out with their existing AT&T service. I know I will. Talk about driving a wedge into the iPhone’s user base.

If all that happens I’ll probably drop the Verizon account and pay through the nose a termination fee for the privilege of owning the Droid phone. The cost of being a hopeless geek.

Got Droid Envy?

If you’re already a Verizon customer, and you love the device itself, go for it.

But if you’re more keen on the Android OS than the device itself, given the Google announcement, I’d say hold your horses. You likely won’t be able to use the new Google phone on Verizon.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droids, Google Phones, Contracts, and Termination Fees: What’s a Geek to Do?

Now that I have pared down my twitter list to a small enough number of people I’m following so that I can actually pay attention, I saw this come across the twitter stream this morning.

My friend Todd Crawford wants to break his old iPhone 3G so he can get an iPhone 3GS…

There’s a place in your life for two iPhones, especially as someone who travels as much as you do. You can keep the second phone as a battery backup… with a phone attached to it.

Now I’m sure YOU know how to do this, but I’ve spoken to several people who didn’t even know that the iPhone had a SIMM card. So here’s how quick and easy it is to swap between iPhones.

How to Switch SIMM Cards

Post from: Jangro.com

Use Your Old iPhone as a Backup Phone

I got a nice surprise today in my mailbox.

That box on the lower right contained a nice long-sleeve T-shirt that says, “Droid Does” on it.

I’ll wear it with pride, glad that I got my little bit out of Verizon’s $100 Million Droid Ad Campaign.

Yes, those are two iPhones. One of them is green with envy.

Where’s the Droid? Taking the picture.

In an iSpy fashion, there are some other interesting things in this picture. can you identify them? (I’ll label them on the picture in Flickr.)

Update: Here’s a great looking guy (however scruffy) modeling the shirt. No, Verizon, you cannot use this in your ad campaign. I don’t care how many millions you have left.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droid Does T-shirts

I know you’ve been hanging on the edge of your seat about this one.

A week and a half ago, I posted a video on how to fix your loose droid battery cover.

It has actually turned out to be quite a heated issue amongst Droid owners with discussions popping up in several Droid forums and blogs, including Motorola’s own support forum and Dave Winer’s droidie blog. Dave’s post has a funny comment that starts out like this:

I think this article is a special moment in technology journalism.

For 3 years I have been listening to people whine about the iPhone’s lack of removable battery, storage, and mechanical keyboard, while the whole time I’ve been 100% satisfied with my iPhone’s battery, storage, and keyboard.

Now Droid has arrived to show us iPhone users the error of our ways. Except that Droid’s removable battery falls out. And you can’t put apps on its removable storage, so you are limited to 200MB of apps, which means there are thousands of iPhone apps that simply can’t fit on Droid, even if they were ported. And the mechanical keyboard is too flat to type blind.

though you should read the whole thing.

Resolved

After all that angst, Motorola jumped on that thread in their forum just in time before the entire world ended in a cataclysm started by several of us starting simultaneous fires by inserting a highly flammable paper shim to snug up the battery door. (yes, there was a guy in that thread who warned us.)

They made good and shipped new doors to me and several others who requested them.

And what did the Motorola engineers do? They made the shim under the door thicker.

Or maybe they did nothing except hope that a new door will fit better. Mine is better.

So with some incredible photo-journalism, I present to you my old battery door (augmented) alongside the new.

They changed the font on the printer. And the date. I think that’s helping too.

It’s hard to tell with a picture, but I will say that black pad on the door does feel thicker on the new door.

Though my solution worked just as well.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droid Battery Cover Problem Update

Sometimes the easiest answers are right there under our noses, and what may seem obvious to some are complete unknowns to others.

Chris asks…

Hey Scott, just a quick question about some of your posts I have seen in the past. On occasion I have read something you’ve written about the iPhone and you will accompany the post with a screen shot of the iphone. My question is – how do you get that capture that shot of the iPhone screen so you can post in an article you are working on?

Getting a screenshot on the iPhone is probably one of the coolest secrets of the iPhone OS, since I think version 2.0. It really couldn’t be easier.

First, navigate to the screen that you want a picture of.

Second, hold down the home button (the big round button on the front bottom of the phone.

Third, while holding the home button, press the power button on the top of the phone.

You’ll see the screen flash white and hear a camera shutter sound. Mission accomplished. The picture of your screen will be in the camera roll.

You can get a picture of literally any screen on the phone. To the right is my locked phone and personalized wallpaper.

Post from: Jangro.com

How to get an iPhone screen shot

I’m 7 Days into using both a Droid and iPhone and my eyes are still wide open.

Despite what I hear from people like Michael Arrington that the Droid is the same size of the iPhone, I just don’t feel that’s the case.

So for the first time today, I really took a good look at the Droid side by side with the iPhone.

Here are two views that are pretty telling.

The length and width dimensions on the phones are nearly identical as you can see from the red lines in the following picture.

The rounded corners on the iPhone do take away from some of the heft and give it a much smoother and smaller feel.

The screen on the Droid is a bit longer than the iPhone screen (yellow lines) but the iPhone screen is wider by about the same amount. This picture is not an accurate view of the screen width since it is not a straight-down shot.

The top phone is an iPhone 3Gs with a Crown case on it.
The middle is the Droid (obviously) and the bottom phone is an iPhone 3G.

More than the width and height, I think the end-view is the most interesting, and illustrative of why the iPhone feels and looks so much smaller.

Again, left to right, iPhone 3G, Droid, iPhone 3GS with Crown case.

Not only is Droid about 25% thicker than the iPhone, the rounded sides give the phone a MUCH thinner feel. So even though the iPhone is fat in the middle, it feels and appears thinner even than it really is.

Even with the Crown case on the 3GS that makes them nearly the same thickness, it still feels much smaller with the rounded edges.

This is a technique Apple used very effectively on the MacBook Air.

I hope Motorola and the other Android Smartphone manufacturers can learn something from the Apple designers.

Because I absolutely love the Android 2.0 Operating System. The phone itself is nice, but it’s got a lot of room for improvement.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droid vs. iPhone Size Comparison

My Motorola Droid phone has a problem. The battery cover is too loose. The combination of a loose cover, rubberized backing on the phone, and my pocket means the cover frequently falls off.

I’ve seen a number of discussions in Droid forums about this, so I know I’m not alone.

Here’s a very simple solution that I’m using on my own Moto Droid. The cover hasn’t fallen off since.

And a little scotch tape makes it “permanent”…

UPDATE: Motorola will send you a replacement Droid battery cover.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droid-Paper-Scissors, How to Easily Fix Your Droid’s Loose Battery Cover

I’ve been using the Droid for almost a week now, and while amazing, it does make me appreciate some of the things we have going on with the iPhone.

Multi-touch – I still find myself trying to zoom in on the browser with a reverse pinch. The Android browser is perfectly usable with it’s double tab zoom, but the pinch wins. Unfortunately, Apple has a patent application in on that which may be preventing others from implementing it.

Byline – I use Google Reader to keep up on feeds, and the Byline iPhone app is an amazing iPhone front-end to Google reader. I like it better than Google Reader. There are some Android apps that uses Google Reader, but nothing blows me away. What kills me is that this is Google’s OS. How can they not have a GReader app built in, or at least available.

The home button – There’s something natural about hitting that big round button on the iPhone. I can use the phone in the dark. My three year old can use it. The Droid has four “buttons” on the bottom that are just touch-screen buttons, nothing tactile to center you without looking or fumbling.

Facebook App – The facebook app on the iPhone is better than Facebook itself. The Facebook app on Android seems like an afterthought they threw at Zuckerberg’s 14 year old nephew to pull together in case this Android thing takes off.

Prowl and Boxcar – Boxcar is a great app that implements push notifications for Twitter and Facebook. Thankfully, Android apps can run in the background and can take care of their own notifications, and the twitter apps do notify on mentions, etc. I guess it’s just the Facebook notifications that I miss. Prowl will push Growl alerts from your desktop to your iPhone. It isn’t immediately obvious why that’s so great and you sort of need to figure this one out for yourself, so give it a try.

Ember – At my company, we LIVE in Basecamp and Campfire. Mostly Campfire. Ember is a kick-ass iPhone app for Campfire. No such app exists on Android yet. WHAT???

Audio books – Audible doesn’t support Android yet. boo.

Kindle – Amazon hasn’t build an Android Kindle app yet. boo.

Tweetie – There are plenty of Twitter apps on Android, but nothing comes close to Tweetie. I heart Tweetie.

the iPhone itself – when I go back to using the iPhone, especially after using something else for a few days, it is just so usable. The form factor, the buttons, the software interface, all of it. Amazing.

Now before you get all over my shit for comparing the iPhone and the Droid, let me say that there are at least ten things that I’d miss in the other direction. Much more significant and important things. But that’s for another post.

Have you switched from iPhone to Droid? What do you miss?

Post from: Jangro.com

Top Ten Things I Miss From the iPhone

Several people have asked me about the camera and video quality on the droid phone.

I haven’t done that much with either, but we did manage an impromtu video session last night.

Here’s my three year old son Alex who appears to be doing Gilly (from SNL) doing Riverdance. I don’t know why he decided to dance, but hey, that’s what kids do.

Is it better than the iPhone 3GS? I think maybe not. I need to do some more testing, but I feel like the quality has been better on the iPhone videos I’ve taken of my kids. Granted, maybe some quality got lost in the upload to YouTube. And the light was pretty bad.

The camera app does have a share feature that allows me to send the video directly to YouTube very easily.

Large videos require a WiFi connection, but the phone will wait patiently for a connection and upload it when it gets one.

The jury is out. I think a side-by-side test is in order.

Don’t tell Alex.

Post from: Jangro.com

First Droid Video. My Kids are Going to Kill Me…

Today was my second day with the Droid phone, my first full day. We’re getting to know each other, and like any relationship, time brings out the annoyances. There actually aren’t many so far, but here we go…

The Hardware

The droid phone is a little clunkier than the iPhone. At some point I guess I’ll stop comparing the two. But in any case, there are buttons all over the place. The power/standby button is at the top and isn’t very easy to locate without some practice. There is volume and camera buttons on the right side that just feel a little cheap. When handling the device, it’s easy to hit these buttons. Fortunately, they don’t do anything critical.

The biggest complaint I have is with the loose battery cover on the back of the Droid. It doesn’t lock very tightly and I’ve had it open up on me a few times caused by the action of putting the phone in and out of my jeans pocket. I’m afraid I’ll lose that cover.

Battery Life

Speaking of the battery, the droid takes a pretty long time to charge, a good deal longer than the iPhone. But maybe it’ll drain more slowly as well. Standard on the phone is a great battery usage app (buried in settings) that tells you what application and/or function used how much memory. Here’s a current screenshot from today’s usage. I got 7h 15m on a full charge down to about 10% left. That feels a bit less than the iPhone. But I guess that’s the price you pay for multi-tasking.

The good news is that the battery is replaceable. I can definiately see getting a backup battery for the road.

Screenshots

One of the things we take for granted on the iPhone (there I go again) is how simple it is to take a screenshot. Simply press two buttons and voila.

Not so much on the Droid, or the Android OS, actually. To get a screenshot like the one in this post, I had to install the Android SDK. Yeah, the Software Developers Kit. Hello, screenshot app anyone?

The good news is that the screenshot appears on my desktop, so I can easily grab it with Skitch and post away.

Music

You don’t realize how central music is to the iPhone until you use a different device. The music app on Android is almost an afterthought. There is an Amazon MP3 application that comes with the OS that allows you to browse and purchase music.

When you do, it is downloaded to the device and it appears in the Music app. But how do you get your existing music onto your Droid? This is where the Droid shows it’s geeky side. You plug the phone into your computer via the USB port and you mount it. Yes, mount it like an external disk. Then you drag and drop, yes, drag and drop media into the phone. Are you kidding me?

And if you’re an iTunes user, don’t even think about copying over the DRM protected music. It won’t work. So I just copied over stuff that I’d purchased previously from Amazon.

I did discover a great little desktop application called Salling Media Sync. It basically acts as a go-between from the Droid to your iTunes library and automatically copies anything over that you want it to, much like the iTunes interface (music, video, podcasts, etc.)

If you love iTunes, you’ll want to get this app.

The Droid Ain’t for Everyone

The title was a bit overstating things. I still love this phone. I think it might even stick.

I will say however, I don’t think the Droid will be for everyone. The 20-somethings and every-day-user won’t ditch the iPhone for the Droid.

The Droid definitely has geek appeal, which is why I’m enjoying it so much.

Post from: Jangro.com

Droid Annoyances, The Honeymoon is Over