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"Last year's phone""Last year's phone"Posted May 16, 2012 4:00 UTC (Wed) by ewen (subscriber, #4772)In reply to: "Last year's phone" by thisisme Parent article: Tasting the Ice Cream Sandwich
Apple. iOS. In this case, an iPhone 3GS. (I chose "based on FreeBSD, locked in to vendor, data sync locally" over "based on Linux, nearly as locked in to phone manufacturer/telco, send all information to Google" as the lesser of two evils; I'd rather not give all my calendar/contact/etc information to any megaplex, kthx.)
Ewen
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"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 4:55 UTC (Wed) by thisisme (subscriber, #83315) [Link]
>I'd rather not give all my calendar/contact/etc information to any megaplex
Too true... My Nokia N900 has started to show signs of the infamous Micro USB port problem, and I have been really struggling to identify a replacement.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 17:53 UTC (Wed) by dsommers (subscriber, #55274) [Link]
Hear, hear!
I have an N900 which really begins to behave unreliably (had a nasty vfat failure, which wiped most of /home/user/MyDocs) ... since that, it has been rather unstable. I'll try to reflash it and hope it improves.
But I'm really struggling to find a *real* alternative. Nokia ditched the MeeGo platform, which could have been a real alternative. No way am I going to support Nokia by buying their devices when they're not committed to MeeGo or Tizen. And the only interesting Nokia device with MeeGo can't be bought in the shops even, the N950.
One of my requirements I probably have to forget about, is a hardware keyboard. As I'm using my N900 for a lot of SSH stuff, I can't imagine the pain a touch-keyboard would be. I hope an external bluetooth keyboard may become my "plan B". Motorola have a few models, which is not available in Northern-Europe, and then there's HTC's Desire Z which is outdated.
I considered webOS - but its future is also vague/unclear, and devices with the right specs isn't easy to come over where I live. And there haven't been much happening around Tizen either. So the most open alternative left is Android - which is really a big pity ... but I'd rather go straight for CM instead, as I don't trust Google enough. CM seems more like a more real Android community than Google's Android, no matter how oddly that might sound.
If just a device with specs similar to HTC One S comes arrive a hardware keyboard ... I would jump to that boat rather soonish. But I doubt that will happen. And I wonder how long I can keep the N900 alive in the mean time.
If anyone have some good suggestions, I'm all ears.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 17, 2012 8:56 UTC (Thu) by thisisme (subscriber, #83315) [Link]
> One of my requirements I probably have to forget about, is a hardware keyboard. As I'm using my N900 for a lot of SSH stuff, I can't imagine the pain a touch-keyboard would be.
Amen to that.
Given the sad fact that my N900 will eventually die, probably sooner rather than later, I won't have the option of waiting who-knows-how-long for Tizen / Boot2Gecko / a future open-source WebOS device. And of course there are no guarantees that any of the above three will actually materialize, let alone survive as a viable alternative in the long term. Let alone producing a compelling device with a HW keyboard, which seems to becoming more and more of a niche.
In my mind, that leaves Android as the only option, despite all misgivings I have about the Google mothership. Sadly, as you pointed out, there aren't many phones with a keyboard. I have sort of half-decided to get the Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro. It appears that it is possible to get the latest CM working on that, even though it doesn't appear on their "official" list of supported devices.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 7:43 UTC (Wed) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
> nearly as locked in to phone manufacturer/telco
Only if you choose to buy a subsided phone.. nothing comes free. Buy an unlocked android phone like galaxy nexus.
> the lesser of two evils
If you consider and 98% closed source iOS lesser evil than a 90% open source system...
> I'd rather not give all my calendar/contact/etc information to any megaplex, kthx.)
No need to: https://android-client.forge.funambol.org/
Even better, you can actually build your own galaxy nexus aosp build without any apps that talk back to the google mothership. meanwhile, your iphone is still sending all kinds information to apple..
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 8:27 UTC (Wed) by ewen (subscriber, #4772) [Link]
FWIW, the "lesser evil" was being locked in, rather than having data sync being via storage on servers out of my control.
Thanks for the pointer to non-Google data sync with Android. It's definitely useful to know that the situation has improved over 2-3 years ago when I was last making the decision (where AFAICT at the time it was "sync via Google, or no sync at all" -- neither of which was desirable).
Ewen
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 9:43 UTC (Wed) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
Again, this is simply not true. Data is local to the phone unless you give permission otherwise. The situation was identical 2 years ago when I bought a phone. The Google account part is strictly optional (although I expect most users to opt in, much like they are on Facebook).
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 9:58 UTC (Wed) by cortana (subscriber, #24596) [Link]
The Google account really isn't optional if you want to use any of the features of the phone. Just to install apps from the marketplace^WGoogle Play requires you to set one up!
- Sent with disgruntlement from my HTC Desire
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 12:25 UTC (Wed) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
"Any of the features on the phone" is simply not true. The only thing missing is the Play Store, and of course any attempts to sync, chat, email or locate friends using the Google apps fails (but that's what desired in this case). Everything else works perfectly.
You can still make calls, send SMSes, use the GPS, use the browser, and install as many third party apps as your heart desire. What else could you want? I know I didn't run into any other limitation.
The fact that Google requires an account to use for example Latitude or Gmail is not something you can hold against Android. They don't offer Gmail anonymously on any platform.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 12:40 UTC (Wed) by yaap (subscriber, #71398) [Link]
Having a Google account doesn't mean that all your information will be synchronized. You still have some control on what is synchronized and where. And depending on the kind of data, sync can use other services than Google's ones.
For example, my device is registered (for Market/Play access) but the only data seen from my Google account dashboard is the phone id and list of downloaded applications. There's no calendar information because I don't use Google calendar but my company groupware instead. Other services are equally blank as I don't use them either.
So there's some amount of granularity in what you want to show Google.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 26, 2012 17:41 UTC (Sat) by djao (guest, #4263) [Link]
Apple iOS is no better in this regard. It's impossible to install apps from the Apple App Store unless you have an Apple ID.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 26, 2012 19:12 UTC (Sat) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
It's actually a lot worse. Without iTunes you can't install apps at all on the iPhone. On Android you can at least install the apk-files directly from the web browser or a file manager. The only problem is getting hold of the package files, as many authors do not distribute their software outside Play, but for those that do (including all free software) it's totally painless.
"Last year's phone" Posted May 16, 2012 20:03 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
Hmm. There's the CalDAV Sync and CardDAV Sync programs that I've been using with my own davical install for a while. Email still needs to be migrated away from Google, but that's a larger issue than the Andriod side but K-9 is fine with IMAP sync. These apps work with my Incredible which is going on 3 years old now (though I now have/use a Galaxy Nexus).
Not without your permission! Posted May 16, 2012 7:50 UTC (Wed) by job (guest, #670) [Link]
No data syncs in Android without your permission. Entering your Google account at first boot is completely optional. In that case information is only stored locally on the phone and you have to use adb to backup.
If you want to sync calendars and contacts over the air to your own server, there is third party software available for this. It works beautifully.
I ran my phone without the account and the functionality loss I suffered was the Play Store. It's a pain installing software manually. There is multiple replacements, including F-Droid for free software, but none that come close in number of packages offered. Other services, such as Maps, works.
So "big G 0wns your data" is really a red herring. Android is perfectly usable without a Google account, something that can not be said about Apple, where the iPhone is pretty much an expensive brick without an iTunes account.
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