The Eris Update

As promised, I’ve used my new Eris for a couple of weeks now and want to report on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good

See my post called Eris to the Rescue. Seriously – the location-aware stuff is supremely useful. I can’t wait until the Eris gets updated to Android 2.0 so I can download Google Navigator!

A bunch of apps, including:

• Apps Organizer – organize my apps into folders (the mornings, talk talk, locations, google, tools, and camera icons on the main screen on the right are all folders created in Apps Organizer)
• Seesmic – best Twitter client out there for the Android OS, as far as I’m concerned
• FxCamera – mess around with your photos, apply fun effects
• Google Maps – where are you? where do you want to go?
• Google Sky Map – what stars are in the sky tonight?
• GeoBeagle – integrates with geocaching.com, haven’t used it yet but looks very promising
• Places Directory – fire it up and it finds banks, bars, coffeeshops, gas stations, parking, restaurants, shops, and more near your location
• wpToGo – lets me easily update my Wordpress-based blog from my phone

The Android Forums. Pretty much every question I’ve had about the phone I’ve Googled and the Android Forums always comes up at the top of the search results. So I just created an account on the forums and have been poking around there to find out more about the phone.

Phone call quality is as good as it was on my non-smartphone. Not as good as my landline, but no cellphones have ever been that good.

The bad

The camera quality isn’t great, most noticeably in low-light settings. It’s much better in brighter, natural light. This means I’m still tied to bringing a camera with me when I go someplace where I want to take photos. Fortunately, though, I don’t need to do that on a day-to-day basis, which means my bag now weighs about .3 pounds less.

The battery doesn’t last quite as long as I’d like. I’m hoping that a few more cycles of charge-discharge all the way-charge will do the trick. If that doesn’t work, there are a million threads in the forums on how to increase battery life (one of which may be: bring my USB cable with me to work and plug the darn thing in during the day).

The ugly

I have a really, really hard time with the touch-screen keyboard after having used the more sensitive and accurate iPod touch keyboard for over a year. Does anyone who is an Eris/Droid/etc. user have a recommendation for a better on-screen keyboard, preferably free? Do I need to get rid of the screen protector?

So many notifications! I should probably uninstall a bunch of apps (hello 4 Facebook and 3 Twitter apps anyone?), which would definitely help in that regard. But I’m still trying to figure out which apps I want notifications for, and which I’d prefer to not know about. I also think the notifications are probably feeding into the afore-mentioned battery issues… So it’s mostly my own fault, but still. No centralized place where I can manage ALL my notifications is causing me some frustration and confusion.

Overall assessment

I’m happy with the Eris. Apparently there is going to be some big update on December 11 (rumors are about an upgrade to the  Android 2.0 operating system), but in the meantime I’m quite pleased with this phone on a whole lot of levels. If you’re new to smartphones, this is a good entry-level machine. If you don’t want to go to AT&T/iPhone, this is a nice choice. For those of you who have used the iPhone and/or Blackberry, I’d recommend going to someplace that sells the Eris and the Droid and comparing them and selecting the one you like best.

Eris to the Rescue

Two weeks in and I’m in pretty deep like with my Droid Eris.

Unlike on my iPod Touch, I haven’t downloaded any games yet. But unlike my iPod Touch, I’ve got all-the-time internet access plus GPS capabilities, and oh what a difference that makes!

Case in point: today we had to take 2 cars in to the city (6 adults do not fit in either a CR-V or an Outback, so 2 cars it was). First we needed driving directions. Google Maps – there’s an app for that, and it plots your location on the map while you drive. As soon as the Eris operating system gets upgraded past Android 1.5, we should be able to get turn-by-turn driving directions as well. Then we ended up getting out of the orchestra earlier than we thought we would, so we got updated driving directions to my folks’ hotel and sent Amy and her folks to our restaurant. While my folks were checking in to their hotel, Amy called and asked me to find them a bar by the restaurant that was open. I opened up the Places Directory and found a bunch of things, all of which appeared to be closed. Alas. Fortunately, they found a place. Phew! Then I needed to text Amy to let her know that her car had a dead battery and that we were waiting for AAA. When she called me back, she told me the magical secret to de-deading the dead battery. Yay Amy! If she were an app, she’d be number one on the popularity list, I’m sure of it! Then we got good driving directions to the restaurant, were able to get Amy and her mom headed home in the right direction, and were able to send me and my father-in-law back home incredibly efficiently.

Yeah, yeah, I know this is all pretty standard fare for your average smartphone (or GPS, for that matter), and probably not all that exciting to most folks who have one. If a couple of my favorite iPod Touch apps would get ported over to Android (I’m looking at you, LoseIt, Sportacular, iBird Explorer, Dropbox, and Stanza) and if I ever took the time to figure out how to get music onto the Eric, I’d be off the iPod Touch for good. But yeah, I’m pretty happy thus far.

I got a new phone!

After four years of owning the same cellphone – the lovely little Samsung SCH-A950 – I finally gave in to smartphone envy. No, I didn’t jump ship from Verizon to AT&T for the iPhone. I’ve been tempted, but have heard way too much about AT&T’s annoying coverage gaps all over the country to feel comfortable doing that. Instead, I opted for a Droid Eris.

It’s about the same size as an iPhone, which I like. It’s got a camera, great connection to all the Google apps, and apparently is a pretty good phone. Since I just got it less than an hour ago, I haven’t had much time to play with it too much, but I’m really excited! I’ll be sure to report back in a few days once I’ve had a chance to get used to it.

Educause 2009 Link Love

Here is what I went to at Educause 2009:

General Sessions

• Lawrence Lessig: It Is About Time: Getting Our Values Around Copyright Right
• Brenda Gourely: Dancing with History: A Cautionary Tale

Other Sessions

• 2009 Campus Computing Survey
• Leadership Lightning Round: focus on budgets
• Change Leadership lunch
• Library Lightning Round: focus on information literacy
• Community Showcase (i.e. poster sessions)
• I’m Thin and Green: Reducing the Desktop Carbon Footprint While Offering Anywhere, Anytime Computing Services
• What Happened to the Computer Lab?
• Implementing a Cost-Effective and User-Friendly E-Mail, Calendaring, and Collaboration System
• Plug-in and Play: Teaching Research to the 21st Century Student

Take-Aways

Following the #educause09 twitter hashtag was a great way to get a sense of what was going on in each of the sessions. I hope next year the hashtag is shorter and each session gets its own hashtag. I propose something like: #ed10 for the main hashtag, and an indication of the day and session number in the others (e.g. #w2, #f9)

The iphone/mobile web interface for the sessions was significantly easier and faster to use than the “regular” web page. I used it exclusively, even from my laptop.

FYI, links will come later, as they are updated on the Educause web site.

Lawrence Lessig rocks my socks

I’m at Educause 2009 this week (with a horrid head cold, no less). Yesterday morning, due to said head cold, I managed to miss the keynote speaker Jim Collins. “Ah well,” I said to myself, “no worries, I shall watch his apparently awesome presentation online later since Educause is making a ton of presentations available online for free.” Then my friend Tim told me that I couldn’t, since for some reason (likely his contract), Educause was not allowed to stream or record it.

Oh, the irony of that after listening to Lawrence Lessig’s amazing talk on copyright this morning. He is one of the few people I’ve listened to who makes copyright fascinating – no small feat. Not only that, but he is a master with the presentation slides…

Anyhow, if you have any interest in hearing what Lessig has to say to an audience of higher ed IT/library folks about copyright and the open access movement and how he envisions things need to change in order for the world to continue to make sense, head on over and spend an hour watching and getting inspired. Then, if you are a creator or consumer of copyrightable materials, go participate in the Creative Commons movement.