Rants of a mobile dev » android

Mxit Isn’t Android Friendly

drubin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 21:55:51 +0000

Today I tried out the official Android Mxit client. I was very very disappointed. The inability to press the “back” button upsets me. This button is always referred to as back back and never exit. It is part of the Android spec.

The reasoning is simple they don’t want you to background the app?: Pressing the back button asks the user “Logout from MXit” with the options “no” and “logout” neither were what I wanted to do.

Fear not Android users there is a work around. Pressing the home button will background the activity and return you to your home screen.

Mxit please fix your back button. Thanks

Setting Up MMS On Android

drubin — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:20:20 +0000

I have had my G1 for quite some time. When I first got it I added the APN settings for basic Internet. Over the last 2 days I have received 2 mms’s I kept getting “Failed to download” oops I had forgotten to set up the MMS proxy settings.

How to get there; Settings -> Wireless Controls -> Mobile Networks -> Access Point Names -> (Select One or create one via Menu->Add APN)
Correct APN settings:
Vodacom:
Name: Vodacom Internet
APN: Internet
Proxy: Leave blank
Port: Leave blank
UserName: Leave Blank
MMSC: Leave Blank
MMS Proxy: 196.6.128.13 (I had it as mmsc.vodacom4me.co.za but this doens’t work)
MMS Port: 8080
MMC: 655
MNC: 01
APN Type: Leave Blank

MTN(I haven’t tested these but they should work):
Name: Internet
APN: Internet
Proxy: Leave blank
Port: Leave blank
UserName: Leave Blank
MMSC: Leave Blank
MMS Proxy: 196.11.240.241
MMS Port: 8080
MMC: 655
MNC: 01
APN Type: Leave Blank

Hope this at least helps some one.

HTC Creates A Hero

drubin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:01:12 +0000

Htc announces their Hero specs on gsmarena.

From what I have seen this might be the most user appealing of all the Android HTC phones. It just seems more slick.

I read this from engadgetmobile. I had a good chuckle at their linked video

Best Alarm Clock Ever

drubin — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:12:02 +0000

I got a G1 a while ago. I have found the Alarm to be pretty lacking in the sense you can’t change the default Snooze time out from 10mins to any thing else. This is way to long I will have fallen fast asleep by the time the next one goes off and the first one wont have done any thing.

Luckily Android is open-source and some one modified the pre-installed alarm to create Alarming!.

This new-and-improved alarm functionality allows for a “Captcha on Dismiss” this sounds kinda scary but really it is amazing! Often I will press the dismiss button instead of snooze and over sleep this makes it much harder by having to press random buttons on the screen to deactivate the alarm. See the image one their home page.

Android Is Expanding

drubin — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:55:24 +0000

Android releases CupCake (1.5) with some major improvements.
Vodafone launches HTC-Magic in Spain.
Samsung launches their first Android based phone the i7500

I must say from the pics of the HTC-Magic it looks like it has quiet a aesthetic improvement on the G1 although I think my black version looks much better.

Android G1 Battery Calibration

drubin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:28:00 +0000

I mentioned a few days ago I had a G1 phone in there I mentioned the battery life was shocking . nabil2199 mentioned a battery calibration link it really does work.

That article wasn’t the most clear in the world of what you need to do to calibrate your battery.
1) Let it discharge completely(Even when it says it is dead carry on discharging, mine ran on 0% power for a good few hours)
2) Charge it fully while it is off.
3) Let it discharge completely again.
4) Charge it fully.

It seems silly but it does work, My battery life has improved so much since doing this silly thing.

I have An droid

drubin — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:07:25 +0000

I have been using/testing out the G1, based on google’s android coming from a hard core Nokia user it has been an very pleasant experience.

So far I must say I am enjoying it. The Google integration is flawless (What else did you expect). When loading the sim for the first time it asks you for a Google account a few seconds after authentication all your contacts calendar and emails are all synced down to the phone. The contact sync feature to me was the greatest since my old phone had gone to mobile heaven.

Their UI is by far one of the easiest to use and most intuitive. I have only tried out the Apple’s Iphone but so far the fact this phone as a qwerty keyboard makes it easier to use. This does take some getting used to I still feel I type faster on the standard 9 key mobile keypad then this smaller qwerty one.

Hopefully in the next while I will be able to check out their SDK and put together some sort of app. For now I guess I will have to just live with a super cool phone.

Word of note the the synchronization can kinda kill your battery life but all of this is easily turned off or configured to happen at a less frequent interval.