.::REALITYRECALL::.

Jeff Dickerson, a moderator known as gobluejd on AndroidForums, is a former BlackBerry addict gone Android.

So you are thinking of moving from a Blackberry to Android, huh?  Well it’s a scary journey, but once you do, hopefully you’ll never look back.

As a former Blackberry addict myself I knew there would be some hurdles and things I knew ahead of time that I might truly miss. Once you decide to take the plunge, there are some obvious understandings you’ll want to embrace. The 3 “biggies”:

1. Blackberry Messenger

   – This was hard to lose.  I miss the received / sent icons but after a month or so, Google Talk took over.  It’s just as good plus I can use it at any PC I am at as well.  I used Google Talk from the beta days, so it was already familiar.  The hard part was getting everyone else that I BBM’d to use Google Talk.  Most of them already had Gtalk installed on their BB’s so eventually they just started communicating with me this way.  Now a year later there is no problem,  I love Google Talk.

2. BB Holster Magnet

   – Yep I still miss/want it.  When you un-holster your BB, the screen instantly comes on, the call/email/etc is staring you right in the face.  With Android you don’t get the information staring you in the face but it is much simpler to access, you swipe down the notification bar, select the item and you are instantly taken to that specific app.  It takes some getting used to but if you never used the BB holster feature you won’t even miss it!

3. Security

   – If this is your personal mobile phone, you really have no worries.  If it’s a company phone more than likely you’re on a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and your IT department will have to okay the transition to Android.  Keep in mind if you’re on Microsoft Exchange, your emails are secure no matter what mobile device you’re on (Windows, Blackberry, Palm etc).  That being said, non-Exchange emails (Gmail and Blackberry Internet Server aka BIS) are secure from the server to your mobile device.  All other email is not secure no matter what the device.

Here are some quick pros and cons of each platform to further guide your decision/transition:

Performance

1. Blackberry – Quick and somewhat stable.  Typically I’d have to do a battery pull every few days.  The re-boot time is ridiculous – sometimes 8 minutes.
2. Android – Quick with no lag or hesitation.  I do not think I have ever had to take the battery out, unless swapping for another one.   Boot time is quick.

Battery

1. Blackberry – The battery life on a Blackberry is fantastic.  However keep in mind that it is not doing much.
2. Andorid – Not so good.  I can make it through a full day – sometimes.  However I find that I am doing A LOT more with my phone.  There are threads upon threads on Android’s battery issues.  It all depends on how you use the phone.  If you’re browsing the web for an hour or watching a video (something you would not typically do for long on a BB) you’ll certainly see the difference.  If there is something at which Android can improve, it’s battery life.

Email

1. Blackberry – This is what RIM / Blackberry is known for.  Gmail on BB is starting to improve but does not hold a candle to Android.  If you’re not on BES this really does not matter to you.
2. Android – So far email is pretty good.  Emails are almost instant with Exchange.  Gmail however EXCELS (of course, it is a Google!).

User Interface (UI)

1. Blackberry – Not much to say here.  It’s tried and true.  No glitz and glam.  It does what it is supposed to.  I now refer to this as the DOS phone.
2. Android – Wow!  What the hell have I been smoking that has caused me not to move us all over to the Android side?  Two words: Love it!

**Note – User interface really is a matter of personal preference rather than a question of better or worse.

Web Browsing

1. Blackberry – Painful to browse the web.  If you’re stuck with it, at least it accesses the web.
2. Android – This is where Android DOMINATES.  Web browsing is night and day compared to Blackberry… and by that I mean wonderful.

Apps

1. Blackberry – More and more apps are showing up, but the iPhone OS is keeping it behind.  It will be interesting to see what Blackberry can do to start competing with Android and Apple OS.
2. Android – Dominates again.  More and more apps that are loved on Apple iOS are already making their way to Android.  Android is right up there with iOS.

Well hopefully this information can aid in your decision making process.  I certainly had help from our forums, but collectively this info was not available in one place when I was in my decision making process.  A year later, I am now an Android addict and a proud member and moderator here at Android Forums. If you want to find me on AF my user name is gobluejd!

Posted by Tyler Odean, Google Cloud Print Team

Let’s say you need to print an important email attachment on your way to work so that it’s waiting for you when you walk in the door. With Gmail for mobile and Google Cloud Print — a service that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install drivers — you can.

To get started, you’ll first need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. For now, this step requires a Windows PC but Linux and Mac support are coming soon. Once you’re set up, just go to gmail.com from your iPhone or Android browser and choose “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. You can also print eligible email attachments (such as .pdf or .doc) by clicking the “Print” link that appears next to them.

We’re rolling this feature out in U.S. English over the next few days, so if you don’t see it right away please check back. In the meantime, you can learn more in the Google Cloud Print help center.

Chrome: Adding extra features to Gmail isn’t a new idea, but Minimalist Gmail for Chrome is the best tweaker yet: You can hide items, add row highlights, and even change the five Google links at the top of the page. More »

The giant PC gaming rigs of the last decade are so passé. Hot this year are sleeker, more cut models, models like the DARWINmachine Hammerhead HMR989. It looks like a crazy casemod but it’s actually a custom-built rig you can order, priced at $2,899 and sporting a vertically mounted NVIDIA GTX460 graphics accelerator, a 2.8Ghz Core i7-860 processor, a combination of SSD and platter-based storage, and a power supply left hanging on the side. It’s all aluminum and resin sheets and lovely, though we could probably do without the blue LEDs.

DARWINmachine Hammerhead HMR989 gaming rig looks ferocious, can attack your desk for $2,900 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink DVICE  |  DARWINmachine  | Email this | Comments

Toyota sold 8.42 million vehicles globally in 2010, remaining the world’s top automaker for the third year straight despite recall woes in the key North American market.

Consider this little slice of photography uncorroborated for now, but we just couldn’t ignore a device that’s ostensibly running MeeGo software while sporting a bold Nokia logo front and center on its shell. This mysterious slate has cropped up over at the mobile-review forums, where amateur sleuthing has already noted that the landscape centering of the Nokia logo is atypical — both the N97 and N900 have it off-center — which may well suggest this is a landscape-centric tablet first and a phone second (if at all!). Assuming the brand name imprint is the same size as on the N8 (Nokia loves to standardize those), we could be looking at a 4.5-inch screen on what is either an internal test device, or, more optimistically, a prototype for actual hardware. It’s worth noting that the MeeGo seen on board is of the stock variety, whereas Nokia intends to ship its new flagship device(s) with an as-yet-unseen set of UI customizations collectively known as Harmattan. So we’re certainly not looking at anything close to a final hardware / software pairing, but we are looking at something.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Is this Nokia’s tablet-shaped MeeGo device?

Is this Nokia’s tablet-shaped MeeGo device? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Jan 2011 03:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An Italian team of researchers claims to have discovered cold fusion. It will either change the world or be another fruitless and premature “breakthrough.”

Wow, insider tipsters are getting efficient! Verizon appears to have only just added Minimum Advertised Pricing for the Motorola Xoom to its internal systems, but already it’s been leaked out by more than one source. Android Central has the damning evidence, which lists an $800 levy for any prospective owners of the flagship Android Honeycomb device. It’s accompanied by a listing of the HTC Thunderbolt at $250, with the logical conclusion being that the Moto tablet will come unsullied by subsidies while the HTC LTE handset will probably cost that much on a two-year deal. That makes plenty of sense to us — the typical smartphone price is $200 and Verizon can point to the 4G goodness the Thunderbolt brings as justifying its $50 premium, whereas the Xoom’s cost seems to be in line with the Galaxy Tab’s pricing. Now, how about some launch dates, leaksters?

Motorola Xoom priced at $800 at a minimum, according to Verizon leak originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might have stumbled across a story or two on the web today about Florian Mueller from FOSSpatents finding 43 more files in the Android source that look to be copied from Sun.  I know I did, and had a heart wrenching editorial all ready to go, all about Google's open source strategy in their fight against Oracle, how it might fail, and how I was going to shave my beard and cry.

Then I stumbled across Ed Burnette’s story on ZDNet.

All the fuss, all the hysteria, and most importantly all the cries against Google proclaiming them as thieves aren't what they seem.  There are two sets of files in question — a series of seven (PolicyNodeImpl.java, AclEntryImpl.java, AclImpl.java, GroupImpl.java, OwnerImpl.java, PermissionImpl.java, and PrincipalImpl.java) that contain proprietary code from Sun, and do exist, but they are in the unit test area of the AOSP source tree.  This means they are only used to test software after it's built, and before it's shipped.  To be clear — these files are not used to build Android, nor are the shipped with Android.  To take things a step further, these files were published by Sun on their own website to assist developers to test and debug — exactly what Google is using them for.

The other 37 files exist as well, but are inside a zip file in an area of the source tree used for one particular audio chipset.  These files look like they were uploaded by mistake, and also aren't used to build Android or ship with any Android devices.  These will probably just be deleted from the tree, as they don't do anything.

One more anti-Android story proven false and put out to pasture.  Let's get ready for the next one, because everyone wants to see some of those beautiful, green Android dollars. [ZDNet]

ref. links — FOSS patents; Engadget

Update: Before anybody starts nailing anybody to anything, please read Engadget’s excellent update on whole situation.

Copied code not in Android source after all (updated) posted originally by Android Central

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