Programming My Life

Last week, I decided to jump on board the Android bus and bought the HTC Droid Incredible. I haven’t had it long enough to give a full review, but I’d like to give a review of my first experiences with my own smart phone (I have played with other smart phones, but having one all the time for a few days is a different experience than playing with one even for an extended period).

Technically, my first smart phone was the LG Vu. I returned it within the 30 day return period because 1. I couldn’t justify the extra expense of the data plan 2. The internet and phone in general were sluggish and 3. The apps that currently make smart phones much more enticing were nearly nonexistent. The Vu was mostly just a touchscreen version of the LG Shine (which is the phone I ended up going with).

The Incredible’s 1 GHz Snapdragon processor along with the relative maturity of the Android App Marketplace take care of the latter two concerns. I have not yet felt as though the phone was slow to do anything. Snapping through the home screens and getting into apps are a breeze thanks to the processor. So far, most of the apps seem interesting, but I haven’t had reasons to use them naturally. I’ve opened them up and looked around, but I haven’t wanted movie times because I was going to a movie or looked for a specific youtube video using the app for example. I’ll get around to discussing those things when I’ve had a better chance to interact with those apps organically.

What I have had much more interaction with thus far are the widgets. These alone have nearly justified my purchase. The home screen widget from HTC gives me a large display of the time and the weather, which I would hardly ever check before I had this phone. I also have a habit of not checking my Google Calendar nearly as much as I’d like to remember important dates and events. I have been checking it more often now that it is more easily accessible, and I think I will be using my it more often now that I don’t have to go out of my way to see it.

The Scoreboard widget has also helped me out already. Friday night I had a bit of time to kill before leaving to meet some friends, and the widget reminded me that a hockey game was on that I wanted to see. Without that, I would have likely forgot and done something else. It is a quick and convenient place to check when my favorite teams are playing next.  It also send notifications for score updates for my favorite teams.

Also, during dinner Friday night I was able to use the internet to come up with some trivia my friends and I were debating (did you know John Milius directed Conan?).

The Facebook widget hasn’t really done much to change how I view Facebook. It scrolls through some of the most recent status updates, but if I really want to check Facebook, I will always open the full app to scroll faster.  The same goes for Twitter.

Another big upside to having a smart phone with a data plan is being able to take advantage of Google Voice.  One way to justify the extra expense of the data plan is using Google Voice to manage text messages.  While you can’t send to multiple recipients or send MMS messages, all regular texts are free and get sent to the Google Voice app.  The only difference between checking a regular text and one through Google Voice is which button you click to open the message.  Depending how much you pay for texts each month, this alone could justify the price of the data plan.  Additionally, I can’t stand that carriers see fit to charge for texts with a data plan.  There is nothing special about the data in a text.  It is simply a packet of data of predefined size that your wireless carrier charges you a special rate for because they can.  There are other advantages to Google Voice, but sticking it to the man is the one that matters most to me.

So while I am still getting used to having a phone capable of all this (as well as getting used to a touchscreen keyboard), I can’t see myself going back to a ‘dumbphone’.  I’ll get into any problems I run into with the phone in a post in the near future, but for now, I can’t come up with anything negative about this phone: it’s just too incredible.