Life before and after smartphones

Ok. I've had this smartphone just over a week, and I've got a pretty good feel for the 'vanilla' Android experience, if that's what it is (it's Android 2.3, with HTC Sense 2.1, and it's not exactly clear what's Android and what HTC and Verizon have added).

Shortcomings

• Time input in Google Calendar SUCKS. (PHOTO TBD) It's like a digital clock. C'mon, gimme something quicker and less precise, like an analog clock? Plus a text input where I can type the time if I prefer...

• The soft keyboard is so-so. Calibrating it and disabling autocorrect helped, but... (1) A numeric keypad (and hex keypad) would be nice. (2) Typing symbols is awkward: you press and hold a button (long press) until a menu of alternate symbols pops up, then drag your finger to one of them and release. I'd rather just press and drag (quickly) to do that. But no. Say I press 'F' and drag my finger to the left a little, it types a 'D', so you can correct mistakes. But that's useless for fast typing.

• The default Twitter app (HTC Peep) is fine, unless I want to see a conversation thread or view a link without the tweet and retweets taking up half the screen. But I can just go to twitter.com to solve those problems. Perfect example of web apps beating platform apps.

• I can't put shortcuts to web apps/sites on my home screen? Nevermind, I just found it, under the "Personalize" menu. And there are folders too; that's the other thing I was missing.

• Moving icons around is a PAIN IN THE ASS -- press, wait a second, drag to edge of screen to scroll, wait a second. I wonder if I can get an app to improve that, or is it baked into the UI?

• The worst part was choosing and purchasing a smartphone.... arguably worse than buying a car or a house! Mainly because of the dysfunctional US telecom market and the shaky OS/platform landscape, what with all the patent bullshit and the fiascos at RIM, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft, etc ad nauseum.

• 2011-12-02 addition: Battery-sucking, privacy-compromising crapware like Carrier IQ preinstalled on most phones: Android, iOS, Blackberry, you name it. CIQ doesn't seem to be on my new HTC, but there's other crap. I could root my phone and install a clean copy of Android or B2G, but I really don't want to void the warranty - this thing ain't cheap. I was well aware of these concerns, of course (that's one reason I held out so long) and I made a privacy/convenience tradeoff. And I don't feel any more violated than I did 20 years ago: it's safe to say that Verizon, Google, NSA, Mossad, Chinese govt, etc are spying on everyone to some extent. But I would like full control over my own damn phone!

Good parts

As expected, this smartphone is handy for reading email, quick replies, texting, checking my schedule, reminding me of appointments, maps and GPS, and reading websites (especially with Instapaper). It's so good at these things, in fact, that I prefer it over a big computer... I can just lean back and relax with my pocket computer, like I'm reading a book. Now I'm only using my 'real computer' for 'real work' -- programming, graphics/audio editing, writing long emails, using big websites, etc.

The camera is pretty darn good, and convenient when it comes to emailing/posting photos. This phone is also a sort of electronic swiss army knife -- flashlight, timer, stopwatch, alarm clock, FM radio, music player and recorder, etc. I'm sure I'll augment it with more apps, like a metronome for example. (Every musician should have a smartphone!)

I haven't been tempted to play with my phone all the time; it's sufficiently awkward that I have no desire to use it as much as possible. I need breaks from it. The battery needs a break too (even the big fat extended battery is only good for 1 day of heavy use). This isn't just a toy, it's my primary means of communication.

What's next

I'm not gonna go crazy with apps. As a programmer, I should have a Terminal/SSH app, maybe a file browser and text editor, and an open-source soft keyboard that I can customize. I'll probably get a few music apps. Maybe the occasional game. Maybe an alternative web browser like Firefox or Opera.

2011-12-02 edit: Maybe I don't want SSH... whether or not my phone has CarrierIQ, phone OSes don't feel secure to me. The risk of hackers compromising all my servers probably outweighs the benefit of being able to login anywhere, because the touchscreen is pretty tedious. Simply having email anywhere is a much greater benefit to me as a sysadmin.

I'm still gonna carry around pen and paper for note-taking and sketching.

I'm gonna focus on writing HTML5 web apps, not Android apps. The former is just as good as the latter for simple practical apps, it works for iPhone/etc users too, and the overhead costs (time, if not expenses) are a heck of a lot lower. Although it'd be neat to write little OpenGL games in C/C++ and ARM assembly :)

Well, I'll have to revisit this later, maybe when I'm deciding whether I really want to renew my wireless contract in 2013...