So I've had my G1 for a month now. It has been with me across the country and back now. So now I've had plenty of time to get used to and figure it out a bit more.
While in Washington DC with the phone I had intermittent data connection problems making the maps app and anything else like email that used the data connection entirely useless. Though when it was working it was quite snappy. The phone really does shine when its on a 3g market (no 3g at home yet).
That said battery life is still my biggest complaint. Though it is rumored that t-mobile will be sending out better batteries soon. Some of the other complaints like lacking the ability to save photos or content from an MMS message (without a 3rd party app) will be addressed in what is likely to be the next update, which might be coming as early January. The update should also allow stereo blue tooth headsets and video recording as well as a few other features.
As for only getting push email from gmail, I have setup my regular email to forward to gmail and setup gmail to send mail as my primary account. Which works but not ideal at least for me but I may change my mind.
In a few days we start a new year. Many people will spend time thinking and planning their new years resolutions. Things like lose weight, work out more, quit smoking, and all sorts of other self improvement junk. Personally I think new years resolutions are a sham. We are given new days 365 times a year. We have plenty of chances to make changes in our lives daily. Don't wait for a year to start on a goal start today.
I know I look forward to 2009 and all it may bring. 2008 was good to me and I hope it was good to you as well.
A few months ago I caught a commercial for the Lincoln MKS. There are a few adds for the MKS of them all pretty well done with good music. But one features Cat Power (aka Chan Marshal) doing a cover of David Bowie's Space Oddity. Well I want the Cat Power version and I want it bad. But it is not to be found anyplace. I'd pay far more than one person should pay for a single song. But Lincoln/Ford and or the Ad Agency or SOMEONE wont let me and the rest of the world have this.
It's 14 degrees outside. With a high of 29 expected. Sunday Night/Monday Morning dropped about 4 inches of snow on the Southern Willamette valley yesterday. Pretty much no snow melted off yesterday. Everyone got a call from work yesterday evening saying the site will be closed today and we would get another call today around 1pm with an update. More snow is expected Wednesday and Thursday which I hope doesn't happen.
Friday: Spent pretty much all day on a plane. Got on the plane around noon (pst) got off the plane around 11pm (est).
Saturday: Helped Cat's Boyfriend's Grandma with some Christmas stuff and had lunch there.
Then we visited down town Annapolis. Cute little down town area. Visited some shops and an art gallery. Cat and Brian also scoped a couple places out for their wedding next fall.
Saturday evening we hit a mall so Chris and Cat's little brother Kevin could play video games at Dave and Buster's. They decided not to play video games after all so we ate and wondered the mall for a bit.
Then we picked up Brian and visited Cat's Aunt and Uncle for a while before heading home for the evening.
Sunday: Waste of day thanks to Chris. We visited a civil war museum that was pretty damn small. Then wasted the rest of the day looking for a wreath to take to his future Aunt and Uncle in-laws and talk with them for a couple hours, while they were awesome, very nice, and had great stories it was annoying and frustrating to waste a day like that. The upshot to the visit of the future in-laws of Chris was they showed us where a great little Irish pub was for dinner that evening.
Monday We went into DC. We went to the Smithsonian American/National History Museum and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. Both pretty awesome. Then I took some photos of some of the monuments.
Tuesday Woke up around 3am (est) to catch our 6am flight. Got back to Sea-Tac around 11am (pst) then I vegged at the hotel while Chris worked.
Wednesday Chris worked for a few hours in the morning then we were on our way to his home (Vancouver, WA). Then I repacked and loaded my car and drove home to Eugene... The drive home seemed surprisingly short but I suppose so many hours in an uncomfortable plane seat will make comfortable seats and something to do (drive) make a trip seem faster.
Other: I don't think I will be traveling with Chris again every time I have traveled with him I have found my self very frustrated with him or the situations he creates. When it is time to go back to Annapolis for Cat's wedding I will likely fly with Kala or solo.
I'm on the couch at Cat and Brian's place. It's 11:22 here which throws me for a bit of a loop. Today we wondered about downtown Annapolis and a mall somewhere not too far away. I'm not sure what the plan is tomorrow and Monday the plan is Washington DC and the Smithsonian(s)...
I've taken a few photos. Hopefully a few will be flickr worthy. I plan to take more tomorrow depending on what we end up doing, but more on Monday for sure.
Tuesday may suck a bit with the flight out of here at 6something AM...
It's not the prettiest device. but I'm okay with utilitarian as long as it brings enough function to the table it. Which shouldn't be a problem considering the feature set and availability of software for it through the marketplace.
Contacts:
I had been planning on getting the G1 for a few weeks. So in anticipation of getting it, I had already synchronized my address book from my macbook with one of my Google accounts. So all my contacts were pretty much ready to go by the time I got the G1.
Main complaint is the images from the contacts in my address book from my laptop did not get sent/uploaded to my Google contacts so now most contacts are faceless, unless they have made one for them self on their Google profile or you do it your self, via the phone or the Google contacts web page.
Any entry from the address book on my laptop that were just for a company and marked as such showed up as only a phone number on the phone, if you opened the contact you would see the company it was but it did not show as the contact name. To fix this I went to my Google account and put the company name in the name field where as in address book it showed that as the name, same with my blackberry curve as well. This is/was just a minor annoyance, by no means a show stopper.
Messaging/Email:
Kala was able to pick it up and start messaging in no time flat. Which says something. Kala did get a minor tutorial to use the blackberry for messaging in mid November but once she got it she was good, and she would have figured it out on her own in fairly short time I'm sure. But the G1 seems to be easier and a bit more elegant for texting/messaging. It keeps the text/mms conversations in threads by contact rather than a mass of messages in an inbox.
No push email unless its from a Google account. Many already use gmail or can opt to froward their regular email to a gmail account and have the Google account send as if it is the other account.
I'm still getting used to the keyboard. Kala liked it better than the blackberry keyboard. I still prefer the tactile feedback and definition of the keys on curve.
Alerts and Notifications:
This has to be one of the more disappointing areas. Yes you can use MP3s for rings which is great and something too many phones won't let you do. But near as I can tell there isn't an escalating ring option. My curve let me pick a ring and it would vibrate a couple times then start playing the ring and it would get louder as it rang and rang. This is awesome cause it means if its on my hip I can get to it before it bothers someone, if its left in another room I've got a chance of hearing it. The G1 has vibrate, ring, or ring and vibrate which doesn't seem to get louder nor just vibrate first.
The text/email notifications are pretty much the same story minus the mp3 thing. Again the blackberry would buzz/vibrate a couple times then make a sound, if it was close at hand I could prevent it from making its audible sound. G1 same options, vibrate or not when you get a message and make a sound or not when you get a message.
Usability:
No equivalent of a today screen that I have found so far that I had grown quite used to on my blackberry and my windows mobile device before that. Sorry the notifications pull down isn't any close to the same.
Desktop sync must be done with 3rd party apps and plug-ins. Which is a bit annoying and could be cumbersome, I would have liked to sync it directly with the address book so the contact photos came over.
Other:
Personally I don't like the idea of syncing my stuff to google and not having the option to sync to my own server/systems unless I grow my own apps and servers to do these things. The iPhone, blackberry, and windows mobile all have enterprise integration options, the G1 is still lacking this which could be one of the larger windfalls of the device.
Battery life is less than awesome it's even less than good it's ok/pathetic. My The G1 does not sip it's electrons as sparingly as the blackberry curve did. Hell I'm pretty sure the curve is still on in my car and it hasn't been charged since last Wednesday. Where I suspect the G1 would maybe make it two to four days if left alone.
Dad called me Tuesday evening to tell me that I should most likely do Thanks Giving with my Mom this year as he would be going to Portland to have it with my step sister and what I assume was her boyfriend's family. I had already passed on doing thanks giving with mom as they were also doing a big to do with my other Step family that I really had no interest in attending.
So I packed up on Tuesday evening and left for Sacramento after work. Wednesday evening Kala, Stephen and I got drinks then did some mini golfing. I spent Thanks Giving with Kala after a long walk about town we had a great meal thanks to Kala's Mom. Friday Kala and I went to San Francisco and braved the crowds, by making fun of the masses and pushing our way through them without regard for anyone but our selves and this included getting mean comments from moms who managed to bounce their toddler off my self and not quite decipherable comments from bums in the way. On our shopping adventure I got my self a G1(more on this later). Kala got a new pair of super boots.
After the shopping we drove to the ocean and caught the last of the sun. Then we proceeded back into Sacramento for Bowling with Stephen, Conrad and Swaz. Swaz and I are not so good at bowling, I think its really we don't care. I was going purely for speed where Swaz was trying various techniques such as the fireball ala street fighter and backwards between the legs and the granny roll. Good times.
Saturday was pretty mellow just hanging out with Kala really. She made dinner we got cheese cake and wondered around downtown.
Sunday morning I proceeded to drive home.
It was my 1st Thanks Giving out of state. Also I think the first I didn't see any of my own Family. All and all it was a great weekend.