The View From Space

Checking out the new (at least for me) Twitter for Android App.  Interesting interface, quite different from the iPhone.  

Pluses:

- Option to animate screen (floating clouds).  Nice little touch although I dont use it.

- Allows you options to sync your twitter friends info to your contacts list (All, only with existing contacts, or none)

- Home screen has up-to-the-second trending topics being posted

Minuses:

- No swiping, instead there’s a pull down menu that has the standard, reply, RT, etc buttons. 

- RT, it’s the new style that automatically RT’s once pushed.  To add comments you need to Share then select twitter.  Not sure if I like that.  Twidroid (my current twitter app of choice) offers you RT or RT with comment buttons.

- Min update interval is 5 min

- Exiting app removes sign in data and requires you to re-sign in the next time you open

- Although able to select bit.ly as url shortening service, no option to enter bit.ly API key to access account

For the time being I’ll be sticking with Twidroid.  Whether it’s because of familiarness or it actually outperforms Twitter for Android, I’m not sure.  Need more soak time on Twitter for Android before I can make a final decision.

If you’d like to download the app go to the Market on your Droid or visit this link

My apologies, I’ve been semi off-line from twitter and blogging the past few days while flexing my rebellion muscles.

Now that AT&T has officially screwed over iPad customers with their “unlimited data” bait and switch tactics, many are looking for ways around AT&T’s misleading advertisements.  Earlier I wrote about evaluating a product called MyWi.  I recently purchased MyWi and have been using it to tether my iPad to my jailbroken iPhone on T-Mobile.  Problem?  Due to hardware limitations only Edge speeds could be achieved.  What to do?  Well I have a 3G capable G1 waiting in the wings.

So I went ahead and rooted my Droid G1 (akin to jailbreaking an iPhone).  This provides access to the Droid OS root and allows things like wifi tethering. Then found an app called Android Wireless Tether.  Right off the bat it worked seamlessly.  I now have a 3G WiFi connection for my iPad without having to kowtow to the AT&T behemoth.

Anyone need a jailbroken 2G iPhone? 

One of the reasons I moved this blog over to WordPress was the ability to write and post while on the road. Well, I’ve found another app that helps keep all my ideas, references, pics, etc. synced. I started out using Dropbox as my catch-all drawer. This allowed me access to my files from any of my platforms, it was and continues to be a simple way for me to share files and pictures with family members who are, how should I put it, not very computer literate. With Dropbox it’s easy to share folders and even easier to explain that it’s “just like a hard drive/folder you can access from windows explorer”.

The app I found recently while perusing the app store was Evernote. While similir to Dropbox in that I can access stored items from any of my platforms, it is a bit more capable in that it not only allows you to sync pictures and text, but voice notes and tweets. The tweet capture is neat in that you either reply or DM the tweet you want to @myEN and it shows up in your synced folder. This allows much more flexibility in how info is captured for later review. The only drawback? The free account allows only 40MB of data transfers a month and a limited amount of file types you can sync (image, audio, link, PDF) . For $5/month or $45/year there’s a premium service which allows you local storage on your iPhone/iPod touch (I’m assuming iPad too), 500MB/month of data transfers, allows you to sync all types of files, plus a bunch of other services. I’m just using the free service until my data needs outgrow the limit, then I’ll look into the pay for service option.

Found a great app for those looking for pictures, wall paper, etc. Photobucket for the iPad is a must for everyone. A free app that allows you to upload and share pictures from your iPad (500 MB of storage and 10GB of traffic per month for the free account). However, even if all you ever want to do with it is download pics this is definitely the app for you. There’s a great selection of pics available and the search function let’s you narrow your choices down considerably.
Will do more testing to flesh out the can’s and cannot’s of this app. Will also look at other picture services and see how they perform on the iPad.

Not being one to follow convention I recently began evaluating an iPhone app called MyWi. I’m looking to see how well it works off of an edge connection on my jail broken iPhone. Having used pdanet on my old G1 phone and a 3G network I wasn’t very hopeful. Boy was I wrong, I’m pleasantly surprised by it’s performance with Twitter, email and even the app store. In fact, this blog was written and saved to my web host using MyWi, the upload time was reasonable, even with an attached picture.

Simple web browsing was tolerable, but video streaming is definitely out of the question. YouTube pages came up quickly but the videos were too choppy to be enjoyable.

I still have 8 days of free eval time left, during which I will be putting it through the paces with as many different iPad apps as possible. Will have a wrap up report once the eval period is done.