Good question. I don't know, all I know is that all the UI for it was heavily Sony branded. It was a very, very odd UI, seemed to have been themed on those wacky Photoshop plugins from Bryce.

The main problems with Bluetooth, IMO have been the implementations, not the technology itself.

1. I don't think the technology was exploited or used as widely as it could have been given all the promised being bandied about before it was introduced.

2. Windows and WinCE and WinMo suck. Bluetooth on these systems is going to suck no matter who makes the device.

3. The Bluetooth problems I was alluding to when I first mentioned them were related to mouse usage. I've just not found that Bluetooth mice are as responsive as those using other (proprietary) wireless technologies. I've tried Logitech and MS BT mice on Mac OS and Windows (where, referring back to #1, I might expect it to suck).

4. BT keyboard usage on the Mac with Apple's BT keyboard has been great.

I was about to jump in and defend bluetooth, but I thought about it, and realized that I do occasionally get bluetooth flakiness and I simply tolerate it for the sake of the cordless convenience.

Bluetooth flakiness I have experienced:

- Mouse and keyboard for Mac Mini have range issues... My seat on the couch is just at the edge of their range.

- Mouse for Mac Mini, once in a blue moon, just doesn't register with the computer and then I have to re-pair it.

- Once in a blue moon, my Microsoft mouse occasionally drops its bluetooth connection to my laptop for about 15 seconds and then keeps working again as if nothing had happened. I think this is a materials/construction problem issue with the mouse itself and that what's actually happening is if I bump or jostle the mouse too hard its battery contacts get lost briefly.

Not exactly a limitation with Bluetooth though.

Well, technically, Bluetooth does have a range limit.

Still, that's like saying that it's a limitation that you can't fit your Cadillac up your nose.

Mmm.. Bluetooth..

Well, the two AIR-Cable bluetooth-to-serial adapters here are still the best serial ports I have for empeg kernel restores and the like. Those "just work" for me, pretty much flawlessly and without fuss.

And the Holex BT GPS gizmo talks with my Zire72 (PalmOne) gadget when I want it to, again without any unnecessary drama.

Beyond that, I've got a "flea" (tiny BT handsfree ear-set dongle), and it pairs/works fine with my primitive Samsung mobile.

On the other hand, I've never managed to get the Zire72 to use BT for syncing with my notebook. Ditto for the phone.

Hit and miss, I suppose.

Cheers

Steve Martin.

Bluetooth is much like USB. It works well if implemented well, and works hair-tairingly poorly if implemented badly.

Windows has been the common denominator in the worst Bluetooth experiences I've had overall, most likely due to Microsoft not getting around to supporting an industry standard until well after all the third parties added it to the OS for them.

Oddly, Apple is going backwards with Bluetooth support. In 2002, I could sync my T68i via bluetooth, and respond to SMS messages on my computer. In 2007, I bought an iPhone that couldn't do either, and now OS X even won't let me respond to SMS messages when the phone is capable of it.

Ah, yes! heh- missed that one.

Support hell for Google. Looks like they're experiencing the fun of direct sales and the associated support required.

Well, I'm typing this on my Nexus One that just arrived. I don't have my SIM yet, but most everything besides the phone itself seems to be working fine regardless. Google Voice won't start without a SIM, either. There might be a way around that.

The trackball is actually pretty useful for cursoring back to correct mistakes in text entry, which generally works pretty well. One thing I didn't realize is that you don't have to tap the suggested word to accept it; if it's the default suggestion, you can just press the spacebar. And it does the one nice thing that my Blackberry does, which is insert a period and turn on caps for the next letter when you press the spacebar twice. In reality, I'm already typing much faster on this than I ever could on my Blackberry.

So far, the biggest problems I have are that if I go too fast, it will miss keystrokes, there's not apparently any shortcut to switch to caps, and entering commas requires a long-press of the punctuation button.

Choice quote from Palm's Rubenstein in a recent interview:



Yeah, it shows in the quality of the Pre. If you don't know your competition, you don't know jack.

And of course:



I'm sure the stock holders don't feel the same way - the stock is trading lower now that it did before the Pre was released. I'm sure they also don't like the quarter over quarter losses.

Maybe it's time to pick up a few iPhones and Android handsets to take a peek at.

Woah! I had no idea that you were going to actually get one! Very neat!

Have you tried pressing the shift key twice to get all-caps?

There's no comma button by default? Hmm, that's an annoyance for me. I rely on commas (perhaps a little too much ).

For the most part, it sounds very similar to the iPhone virtual keyboard including how to deal with corrections. Good to hear, since standards in behavior will make it easier to switch, or borrow someone else's phone. And as far as the speed, that helps reaffirm what I suspected, that I'd be much faster on a decent virtual keyboard then a physical one on a phone.

A bit, though what I prefer is that in addition to the most likely suggestion you get a long row of alternatives, and often you can save 3 to 4 keypresses by selecting a word further down the line. Not always, but often enough. I just like having the option.

But I agree with your statement. That's partly what makes it easier for me when I type something out on my wife's iPhone [landscape] keyboard, that there's at least some familiarity.

It was probably a bad decision on my part, but, dammit, anything to get rid of this Blackberry. The thing that made me finally pull the trigger was that T-Mobile has a $40 unlimited data plan with 0 voice minutes. The per-minute rate is something astronomical, like 50¢ or something, but I really don't use much air time at all.

Interestingly, even though the documentation clearly says that it won't work on AT&T's network, I swapped in my Blackberry SIM just to see, and both voice and data work just fine. I'm only getting EDGE-like data speeds, but that's all I was getting from the Blackberry anyway. I'm sure I'm roaming, but my T-Mobile SIM is supposed to show up on Tuesday.


Yeah, that works. Not that that was what I meant. On the Blackberry, if you hold down a key for a while, it changes to uppercase, which is faster than shift+key, at least for me.


If you have the voice input turned on, but replaces the comma key with a voice input key. Turn it off and the comma comes back. I think I'll leave it that way. The voice input works reasonably well, but I can't think of many situations where it would be that useful.

If anyone's interested, Nexus One unboxing pr0n.

Oh, also, the earbuds that came with the thing are fucking enormous. I usually find traditional earbuds very uncomfortable, but these actually won't fit in my ear at all.

It says that in the documentation? Strange. I think it was clear all along that it works on AT&T's network, but it doesn't use the 3G frequencies that T-Mobile uses. It's the same case with my G1, which I had on AT&T until I ran my contract out and switched to T-Mobile. I'm MUCH happier now.



I think I'm confused now. It sounds like you mean that you're holding the shift key down as you press the letters. I mean that you tap the shift key twice in a row, then start typing to get all caps. I would think that's faster than holding it down...


Ah, I see. Yeah, I never use the voice input. It just doesn't work well in any amount of noise (at least in my experience), and the accuracy just isn't reliable enough. I'd much rather have the comma

Yeah, I may have misinterpreted the documentation.


Guh. I'm clearly doing a bad job of explaining this.

I'm not talking about capslock at all, only incidental capital letters, mostly proper nouns. If I'm typing "I saw Matt", when I get to the capital-M, on the N1, I have to press shift, then M. On the Blackberry, I also have the option of just doing a long-press of the M to make it capital, which I find more efficient.

Android uses long-presses to get to alternate characters. There's none for M, but if I wanted to enter "ó" I'd long-press the O key, and a submenu would pop up. So doing a long-press isn't an option, but it'd be nice if there was some shortcut available. Regardless, I'll get used to it.


Me too.

Not sure it works that way; the apps are stored on the "system" flash. This isn't RAM and moving apps out of there is only going to change the speed they load/access their app data. The partition they live in is not usable for swap (by default at least. swapping is a very bad idea on media with limited write endurance).

I say change vs speed up or slow down because it depends on how fast the SD card you have inserted is vs the eMMC or raw NAND you have installed internally. You could win, you could lose.

Possibly there are some second order effects if, say, the phone vendor decreed that the internal NAND was "fast enough" and didn't require linux to cache that FS, but the SD card did require caching... that'd then mean the SD card would always be faster. That bit is just speculation though.

2x early termination fees

According to the contract you sign when you get the Nexus One, you'll be liable to Google and your carrier for an early termination fee if you cancel before 120 days. So if you don't like the Nexus One then send it back before 14 days has elapsed otherwise you may possibly be stung with a $550 fee if you do it before 4 months.

Yeah, that's a big fail. Hopefully this is merely a case of Google stumbling a bit at selling their first physical consumer product, because they clearly have not handled it well. I may be a Google fanboy, but clearly they've pretty much bungled ever step of this process. Lets look at it:

1) T-Mobile users can't get the subsidized rate on the phone

2) 3G doesn't work because of a bad bug that T-Mobile, Google, and HTC practically ignored for several days, and users couldn't get heard because there's no support from Google.

3) If you don't like your phone, you might end up paying more for sending it back than you paid for it unsubsidized to begin with.

That's pretty much a failure across the board. I don't have a clue what they're doing, and clearly neither do they!

Voice dialing doesn't work over Bluetooth. They're apparently working on it, but that's huge fail.

The same is true for the Motorola Droid.

At least the bugs in Android are consistent cross-platform

Video review of the Nexus One at Uncrate.

This is what I got from the review... The phone is typical HTC. Nice looking at first glance, but with the weaknesses I pointed out before, especially that track ball. Android is at a level I would call beta. Serious pre 1.0 quality here, not ready for market IMO.

That guy's a douche.

There are some problems I have with the phone, but, beyond the handsfree voice dialing, nothing major.

The trackball actually works fine as a secondary interface. I use it very occasionally and it's useful.

The fit and finish on the phone is fine, but I wish it was more metal. Regardless, it has a nice heft. It doesn't feel cheap. The wake-up button is in the wrong place, though.

This is a bit off topic, but Bitt, what I like least about the text input is the dictionary on the auto-correct. I don't know why I can't edit it, and it's driving me mad. It's probably the biggest issue I have with Android right now. This might not be a problem with the virtual keyboard, though:

When I'm typing on the physical keyboard of the G1, and I type "im" and the space button, it will change to "I'm" as you'd hope it would. But when I type "ill" and hit space, it doesn't change it. Fine, I can understand that one to some extent. I never use the word "ill," but some people do. But why can't I have a choice? Why can't I tell the phone that every single time I type "ill" I want it to change to "I'll." It's annoying because this essentially takes TWICE the number of keypresses it could (I have to hit shift-I-alt-apostrophe-l-l instead of just i-l-l).

But the one that kills me every time is "I'd." It boggles my mind that for the few people who talk about the "id," I have to constantly adjust the case and punctuation manually