chris moos’s blog

I picked up a T-Mobile G1 in December after my BlackBerry 8800 stopped charging (broken USB connector). After using it for the last ~6 months, I have to say that its one of the best phones I’ve owned.

Disclaimer: This isn’t a “why the G1 is better than an (iphone, blackberry, etc,.)” post, its just some things I really like about the G1.

This list is in no particular order, FYI.

1. Push E-Mail (via gmail)

This is obviously a standard feature among most smartphone platforms, but regardless, its something thats really important to me. I love getting my e-mail to my phone — especially without any silly polling of a POP/IMAP server.

2. Sky Map Application

I’m a total geek for space, and honestly, I have always hated trying to read those star/constellation maps. Well, thanks Google, for making an application that is just plain amazing for checking out stars.

Aim your phone up to the sky, and see a real-time, location based, map of stars and constellations.

3. Google Talk

Instant messaging on a phone is great. Although, it doesn’t always work that well. Network disconnects, battery draining, and bulky applications make the experience bad, fast.

Google Talk is nothing like that. It survives network disconnects, doesn’t hurt my battery usage, and its really, really simple. Oh, and you can connect your AIM account to it…nice.

4. Web Browsing

What is a smartphone without some good ol’ fashioned web browsing? Viewing web pages on Android is so easy, and being based on WebKit it can load just about any site. My previous phone, a Blackberry 8800, was just painful to browse the web on unless the page was text only — maybe a few images.

5. Open Source

The source code for Android is available for anyone to download, checkout, and modify. Do you have a great hardware design for a phone, but writing the software for it isn’t your forte? Design and build the hardware, then put Android on it. What does this mean for consumers? More devices, more selections, and more consistency. Okay, all isn’t perfect, there is some proprietary code on the G1, but you can’t always have cake — and eat it too.

Don’t believe me? Check out the android git repositories, and even build your custom Android OS.

6. The Market

It might be not be as good as the iPhone’s “market” yet — but its definitely getting bigger and better. Right now it’s pushing thousands of applications and millions of downloads.

There have been plenty of times that I’ve been waiting somewhere, bored, and I found a cool application or two that I could waste my time with. In my book, that’s a plus.

Continue reading ‘10 things I like about the T-Mobile G1 (and Android)’ »

I just made a simple Android app, using the new Android 1.5 SDK (Cupcake), that will show your current location using GPS or Wireless Networks.

For GPS, you can also see number of satellites, as well as fix time. There will be an update soon to show more information about the satellites.

Check out the screenshots:

The new implementation of the site is just about done. I am looking for people with BlackBerry and Android devices that are willing to help testing the new site and software.

If you are interested, please e-mail moostraxsupport@gmail.com

Also, the first version of the Android client is finished. It is now available on the Android market. You must have a MoosTrax account to use the application though. E-mail moostraxsupport@gmail.com for more information. Final screenshots below.

Yes, I recently made a post saying that MoosTrax will be going away forever. Due to all the comments and feedback, it is obvious to me that there are many people that enjoyed the service — so I’m going to bring it back.

I’m moving my database backend from CouchDB to MySQL, so my issues with CouchDB won’t prevent me from providing MoosTrax. I have been working a lot on migrating the site and fixing it up…so I really hope to have it up in the next week or so.

In the mean time, I’m also developing an Android client, so that those of you with a T-Mobile G1(myself included) will be able to use MoosTrax. Screenshot below.

After the site is up and running and the Android client is stable, I want to make an iPhone client the next priority. Also, if there are enough people that want a Windows Mobile client, I would consider that as well. Please e-mail moostraxsupport@gmail.com if you are interested in a Windows Mobile client.

I just recently replaced my BlackBerry 8800 with a T-Mobile G1. This means that its time to develop a MoosTrax client for Android devices. Right now I’m getting my Android development environment setup, with the insanely slow Java powered Eclipse. After that I’ll dig into the location API and get a MoosTrax client released.