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Google Shoes

Google announced their “talking shoe” today at SXSW. Please remember this is all concept apparel and it could never make it anywhere. It aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. I personally do not find this better than Google Glass and really do not see how some people would; even if they can have their own opinion. I see more usefulness out of the Glass then Shoes, especially as far as what you can do with one another and cannot be compared.

Even with that all said, I still think it is cool but my guess it would need a lot of work for it to take off and probably would only be more active in certain and few markets of the world. When you think of all the data that can be collected and what other companies such as Nike can do with it and even go as far as using them on professional athletes either it be the NFL, NBA, Soccer and everything else it could provide to be quite useful and interesting stats.

I think similar products to this are cooler though, take for instance the Nike+ FuelBand. They also attempt to take a step forward with everyone becoming more social and encouraging others to set goals and what not. Which I understand is what Google Shoes wants to attempt at eventually doing. I have personally never tried the Nike+ FuelBand but would not be opposed to it if I were to get my hands on it especially if they ever did come out with an Android app as I believe it is still iOS only without further looking into it.

You can read more about it here at TechCrunch, with much more information and what not that I would rather not copy and paste.

Would you wear and use these shoes actively if it ever came out of concept and on the market?

My thoughts on “Google Play”

Around a week ago Google decide to rename Google Market to Google Play as well as other services such as Google Music to Google Play Music. I think it is one of the most ridiculous name changes I have seen especially in the longest time. It does not make much sense to me, other than the complete obvious.

What was wrong with “Market”? It is the most simplest name for anyone non-tech-savvy to completely understand where to get applications, games, music and much more from.

Then you also have the new icon for it; shown above, which I think is one of the most ugliest and hideous icons Google has ever given us too. I know this is my own opinion but I am sure there is at least a large group of other people out there that will agree with me on that too.

Why I didn’t get the Nexus S

I was really considering getting the Nexus S, even though I just bought the Samsung Vibrant back on its release date on July 15th, 2010. I usually don’t upgrade phones very often, I take very good care of them and only upgrade to phones I actually love and will use for a long time.

I really wanted the Nexus S but only prior to learning all about it and what it does not have which is really upsetting. One great point was that it was running 2.3 and that updates will come straight from Google themselves and I won’t have to deal with Samsung any longer. I have put up with them all this time, I constantly flash unofficial (or if ever, official) updates of rom updates to my Vibrant too, so it is not like I am running an outdated version of Android such as JL6-2.1. I am currently running the unofficial stock Froyo JK6-2.2.

Here are the reasons why I won’t be getting the Nexus S, and why keeping any Samsung Galaxy S phone (Vibrant in my case) is better:

  • No 720p recording — It IS a hardware limitation, it is not software. You won’t ever be getting it.
  • No Gorilla Glass — Why not have it? I take excellent care of my phones and their screens, however, mistakes happen, I love to know that I would have a great protective screen to protect me from most accidents (even if they are not mine).
  • No microSD card slot — I still have yet to exceed or need more than my 16GB + 2GB sdcard in my Vibrant, however, knowing I can always add more space and switch the sdcard is a plus with the Vibrant, the same cannot be said about the Nexus S.

Now the Nexus S also has the following over what most Galaxy S phones, including the Vibrant, do not have:

  • Front Facing Camera (FFC) — This is not a big deal to me, it would be awesome to have but it is not going to make me switch seeing as the top 3 above, concern me more.
  • NFC chip — I likely would only use this 1 time just to play with it and see how cool it is. However, not many places do this anyways plus I would likely either forget about it or just opt to not use it this way.
  • Flash — I wish prior to getting the Vibrant that it had flash, especially coming from a camera in the past that had it, but not my last camera, the G1. But seeing how great the night mode is on the Vibrant camera, and how rarely I take pictures at night, this is not a big deal even if it would be nice to have.

Froyo coming to Vibrant and Captivate mid-October

Normally I would not write on such a story that Froyo is actually finally even coming to the Vibrant but this is just one of those times where if you put all of the Samsung news, Facebook updates and official tweets together, that you just think that this is actually true and finally going to arrive for us Vibrant users on T-Mobile.

Now, before I finally get to this story that will make you further believe it, you may already know or not that 2.2 Froyo was leaked for the Captivate. However, you cannot flash this or other versions on the Vibrant, even if the Vibrant barely different than the Captivate. I recommend waiting for the official build, even if leaked before OTA over custom roms unless others have made aware that are safe to flash and no issues reported.

Before I get to the story, this is what one of the Official Samsung Twitter accounts tweeted:

T-Mobile & Samsung hear your questions about timing of Vibrant update. Look for more info on OTA next week. Thank you for your patience.

Scott Young from TalkAndroid made a post today stating that he had bumped into someone from Samsung and after a while of talking he finally asked when Froyo was coming to the Galaxy S. He stated “mid-October” for the Vibrant and Captivate. Though he pointed out that it will take a little longer for the Epic 4G and Fascinate to get Froyo because they have CDMA. On another note, 2.2 was leaked for the Captivate as I stated above if you didn’t know.

Now this is coming from me, but Samsung did promise to have 2.2 shipped out to all Galaxy S phones by the end of this year, so even if you had to wait another few weeks for you Epic 4G and Fascinate users, you won’t have to wait long as long as they fulfill their promise. I am sure they will.

Source: TalkAndroid.com

Remove Layar from Samsung Vibrant (or other devices)

I usually do not mind bloatware to begin with, and I almost never use them either anyways. But after a while, you just want a clean device after having a while to play with it. Especially a Samsung Vibrant for how great this phone is, not just the screen.

I just wanted to take the time and explain to you how you can remove Layar and other “bloatware” applications that either T-Mobile, AT&T or others provide to you with your Galaxy S phone (Vibrant, Captivate, etc) if you want them gone for good. Now you will need root to do any of this. Rooting your phone is extremely easy and safe.

There are many methods to root your phone, you can look over at the XDA forums for easy ways to do it for your device. One quick method to root is by using the One Click Lag Fix app found in the Android Market. Do not let the name fool you, and you do not need to use the lag fix to get root either. You can unroot with this app or any other app, at anytime. Though there is no reason to unless you are sending the device back to T-Mobile or your carrier.

You can remove most bloatware with Titanium Backup which is free in the Market. You could also use Root Explorer however that is not free in the Market. So if you are in this same scenario and do not want to pay for Root Explorer than this easy method will work for you. You can also back up all of these apps with Titanium Backup in case you ever decide to want to use these again and want them back.

When you are removing applications, make sure you know what exactly you are removing. I take no responsibility if you remove something you should not that could lend up to messing up your phone or bricking it.

Use Terminal Emulator if you do not already have it, if not, you can grab it from the Market. Then in Terminal you are going to type of the following:

su
rm /data/app/com.layar.apk
rm /system/app/Layar-samsung.apk

Then there you have it, you have successfully removed Layar. You can actually use this method to remove other apps as well if you are unable to uninstall them in Manage Applications in your phone or with apps such as Titanium Backup.

If you are unsure of the application name, you can use this ‘ls’ command to find it.

su
ls /data/app/
ls /system/app/

Gowalla going nowhere, fast

This will be a short post because I could rant on Gowalla, its staff and decisions all day long. Gowalla is going nowhere, fast. Here is just a brief reason as to why.

Earlier today Gowalla tweeted the following: (which are exact copies from FourSquare’s features)

More fun: you can now add notes & recommendations to spots in your trips, plus create twice as many trips as before!less than a minute ago via webGowalla
gowalla

Now, I do not care about the above features, nor will I probably ever use them. However, back on March 17th, 2010 Gowalla tweeted (and shortly later deleted) the following tweet. Which when they first tweeted this, I laughed to Michael about because 2 weeks is more like 6 months to Gowalla when it comes to anything on the Android phone. Gowalla puts their priority into the iPhone and fails hard with the Android. However, just recently, Android passed iPhone users. Will anything change though because of that? No.

Anyhow, like I said already, there is a lot I can write about Gowalla and will save that for another time. But if Gowalla wants to succeed, they need to start making such easy features more wildly available and ready right away, not months later. It took Gowalla way too long to produce a working Gowalla app, after many failed promises it finally arrived and was dreadful. The mobile site was much better than the first initial releases (before beta). Finally they have a working app for the past 2 months but it lacks many features and design issues that the iPhone clearly does not have.

Initial Snow Leopard thoughts

Well first off, you will notice a speed improvements almost everywhere as well as lots of saved hard drive space. After installing I gained around 18GB of space, yes, AFTER installing Snow Leopard from Leopard.

There are a bunch of “apps” that do not work for me. Most of this is because of InputManagers have been removed by Apple. It will be interesting to see what will happen from this and how, if ever, this applications will work again.

So because of InputManagers being removed, one popular app that no longer will work is PlugSuit aside with aFloat. This allowed me to keep certain applications on top of others no matter what. While I barely use this anymore like I use to for my own reasons. I will be able to live without this I am sure.

iStatMenus also does not work and no update has been released yet even after all this time they had to update it. They are working on an update (2.0) and it is in beta already and should be released in the next few days the developer says.

Chax is another InputManager application that does not work. But do not fear as it is its own app now with iChat inside of it. Chax Alpha 1 is out that gives you bare minimum of the Chax features. A lot that you will miss and have to wait for as the developer has time to code and release updates. [UPDATE] Alpha 2 is out and released more missing features that you may of used that I used such as auto-accepting features and bug fixes to some features that did not work in Alpha 1.

Okay, aside from those applications. I have not really had much of a problem with others or have had a lot of time to check all of what I have. Moving on though, I am absolutely still loving Snow Leopard. Expose got a HUGE upgrade that is 10x better than before. Expose now includes minimized apps and even a better interface than before. You will notice some menus like long clicking dock icons look more iPhone-like too.

Overall, I am impressed with Snow Leopard even if some applications need to be updated or may never work again because of InputManagers being removed. Maybe we will see something different with this in the future from Apple or not. I do recommend the $30 or less upgrade. If you are upgrading from 10.4, you can upgrade to 10.6 from 10.4 so do not cave in and pay the even more increased price and save money by getting the $30 version as they are both the same.

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