Daily Phones|Najlepszy Blog o Telefonach Komórkowych i Smartfonach

I just downloaded the WordPress app for my T-mobile vibrant (galaxy) and am now writing this post with it.

So far, so good. Now my friend Nils should be much happier with me.

I’ll be experimenting with the app to see what the results are, including incorporating images and media from my phone. If it all works as advertised it could be a big deal for me in the future determining whether I use wordpress or typepad for blogs. There is no doubt that a handheld blogging platform would have some real advantages.

The app has a button to add media and when I pushed it, it allowed me to take a photo or record a video, which was pretty cool, so I took a picture of our cat. Now we’ll see where it places it in the blog post.

Source

I love gadgets.  You know, digital cameras, gaming consoles, minidisk players, electronic notebooks, remote controllers… all sorts of battery toys with buttons and screens and blinking lights and usually some way of producing sound to keep you entertained.  For a long time they used to come with a bunch of wires that you would use to connect gadgets together in order to achieve anything useful.  However, the newer gadgets can increasingly often interact with their kind thru electromagnetic radiation, hence needing no wires at all.  It is not very long ago that an average person would have thought of that as magic.

Just a few days ago I bought a new gadget:  The HTC Wildfire smartphone having Google Android 2.1 as its operating system:

I have worked for several years in a company that creates similar smartphone gadgets.  I have seen them evolve almost from the beginning, and I know what there is currently in the pipeline – what people perhaps call magic next.  I think I am saturated with knowledge of what to expect and what is possible because no new gadget has felt magical to me for a long time.  Having said that, I am incredibly impressed by my newest battery toy.

Another kind of magic also exists:  There is a way to turn certain categories of dumb battery toys into something that have a behavior and character.  This is called programming.  I have decided to use my own time for exploring how to make a magical device even more magical.  I will learn how to create programs for Android and I will document my experience in this blog.  Feel free to join the expedition!

There is an application out for Android called My Fake Location at http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.my.fake.location which a lot of people don’t currently know about and I thought I would do a quick write up.

My Fake Location basically is an application where you can falsify your current GPS location. You might want to do this for a number of reasons, e.g. whenever you take a photo it gets geotagged with your current location on it. You might also want to test a GPS application as a developer or a tester in another country and see that the Lat/Long coming back is correct. Or you might even want to fake your check in positions, e.g. if a geo-location application like GoWalla or Foursquare are showing your wrong position due to a problem with the GPS Receiver.

For whatever reason, there’s My Fake Location. Firstly you have to go into SETTINGS > | APPLICATIONS > DEVELOPMENT and then turn on FAKE MY LOCATION in Android. Then launch the app, you can zoom with the + / – buttons, pan around the map, once you have the position you want simply tap SET GPS LOCATION.

Now run up your GPS application and it will think it’s at this new location.

Now I wouldn’t suggest you use it for faking check-ins to geo-location applications like GoWalla or Foursquare but you could use it if you find yourself in a position that you can’t check-in to that all important building that you’re standing next to if you are not able to get a GPS fix at that moment in time.

If you are here, then i am sure that you must be the one with thoughts of playing with android next.

I am heading to explore the android next and on the way will write about my findings about it. Also, I will try to provide the steps followed from scratch just for the guidance for a few novice.

So here is my first in this series, Setup for Android.

1. Download the Android SDK.
2. Once you downloaded the zip file(in first step), unzip it in your development folder(For ex: C:\android) and execute SDK Setup.exe file. It will open “Android SDK and AVD Manager”.
3. As soon as you launch, it will start downloading packaging from internet. In case, it failed(like in my case), select “Settings” on the left panel and from the two available checkboxes at bottom, select “Force https…”.
4. Now come back to “Installed Packages” and click on “Update All…” again.
5. Select the packages that you want to work on(See list below for my choice). In case you are unsure, just click on “Accept All” on the right side of the window.
6. Now it will start downloading the packages required which will take a while.

Pros & Cons:

Pros

• Maps are downloaded directly onto your SD card so navigation features work     even without a wireless connection as long as GPS in enabled
• Multi-stop trips
• Lane assist eliminates confusion in unfamiliar multi-lane high traffic areas
• Additional maps are available for other countries such as Europe, UK, Australia, and more
• Route recalculation is quick and seamless Cons

• HUGE download. The North America region download for this app is almost 2GB stored to your SD card
• No voice search feature. One of the most used functions on my Evo with the 2.2 upgrade.

Features:

CoPilot Live is a great app for anyone who finds themselves using GPS navigation often. This, of course, coming from someone who uses Google Maps often, having the offline capability was a huge plus! CoPilot sets itself apart from other navigation software by simply offering many services you would normally find only on a dedicated GPS device. Even better, you have more than one voice to choose from rather than the standard TTS voice (which on long trips can get annoying and causes use of the mute button) your given using Google Maps. This application is available on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows Mobile. On your desktop, you can customize a variety of features for CoPilot Live using the free Windows software called CoPilot Central, also available from ALK.

There are several versions you can buy of this app (All available in the Android Market): North America, South Africa, UK + Ireland, Europe, and Australia. Using this app I only tested the North American maps in their most current form.

Key Features:

• Accurate navigation to either house number or street level
• Quick re-routing when needed. I’m no longer nervous about missing a turn!
• Several different views for navigation to choose from (2D, 3D, and Driver Safety)
• Enhancements such as speed limit indicator and lane indicator display just makes using this app that much safer
• Works in either landscape or portrait mode
• Thousands of POIs available for North America (almost too much to handle!)
• Share location via SMS. Cool feature to let your loved ones know where you are.
• Navigation available either by car, motorcycle, bicycle, RV, or walking. (I only tested the car method but feel free to send me a motorcycle or RV!)
• Download maps for several areas on one SD card
• Live Services (see below)

Pros

• Identify music by allow your phone to listen to it; you sing it, hum it, type it for voice search it!
• Get a wealth of information about tagged artists: bio, related songs, videos, purchase song options, lyrics and more

Cons

• Freebie on 5 listen, sing or hum tags a month… but that’s why you fork over the $5 bucks for an awesome app right?!?

SoundHound is an awesome app, very much like Shazam, which can listen to and identify music; however SoundHound goes a step farther by allowing you to identify songs by singing it, humming the tune, typing or speaking into the phone! Available for both Android and iPhone, once a song is tagged you get access to a lot of info about the artist including bio, related songs, and videos, option to buy the song with link to Amazon MP3 store, social sharing options, and lyrics if available.

The free version of the app gives you up to 5 tags a month when you allow it to listen, you sing or hum for identification but typing in or voice searching the song title are unlimited. Opting for the paid version, SoundHound ∞ (Infinity), is a one time free of $4.99 with unlimited tagging and no ads. You can download it at : www.androidtapp.com/soundhound/ (androidtapp)

Those on of you thinking of switching over from the veggiephone but worried about missing your Whatsapp, fret not there’s a Beta now.

Register it through the app and you get 3 months trial.

Tried on my Milestone Android 2.1 and its working fine.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1p8xw6gtwsqy6bn

After installing, you’ll be brought to a page, asking you to register your phone number.

Shortly after, you’ll receive a SMS with a verification code.

Next, they’ll ask you to key in a name to display you on Whatsapp.

If, on first try you are unable to get registered, try a half an hour or a couple of hours later.

*Please note Whatsapp and Advance Task Killer are not compatible. Run either one of them only.

But if you are adamant in using both, you can try uninstalling both apps first. Then install Whatsapp, then install ATK later.

Remember to put Whatsapp into ATK’s ignore list too. This method may not work for all.

For Android 2.2, visit the link below via your android device.

http://www.whatsapp.com/android/