ReneKMueller.com: Computer Diary *

Here my little rant and praise place, where the daily experiences of my programming work are expressed. I publish them with the idea that others might find it useful and benefit from it.

Tag <Gestures>

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2013/09/02
My Cellphones & Smartphone (2010-2013)
last edited 2014/07/13 06:34 (*)
Until recently I wasn't interested in smartphones and used cellphones only to call people and not really use otherwise as my desktop system gave me sufficient possibilities to communicate and work online - there was no reason for me to be online while being underway. Yet, finally I also purchased a smartphone, an used Samsung Galaxy S2 (GT-I9100) with Android 4.1.2 on an online auction site for CHF 230 (~190 Euro). So, I arrived at the smartphone age as well - and I am impressed just after a few days using it:

Cellphones 2010, 2011 Samsung E2100B and GT-S5320, and Smartphone 2013 Galaxy S2 GT-I9100

Advantages / Benefits

light and handy device, quite thin with apprx. 10mm with an additional hard plastic shell
I navigate information faster than on the desktop (surprising)
the overall user interface and experience is more intuitive than the desktop (Win7 or MacOS-X, or KDE/GNOME).
applications or apps are easy to install and deinstall; either via the smartphone itself or the desktop
syncing between smartphone and desktop is simple: G+ photos, Dropbox and BittorrentSync I use right now, and likely go with BittorrentSync: I take a photo or screenshot and it gets synced on my main desktop and/or server right away - no more copy or transfer by hand
notification overview is great, apps, emails and service notifications are summarized
found several options of off-line maps and for my bicycle travelings
GPS tagging of my photos, a feature which was most wanted to document my travelings better (e.g. automatically assign village names to photos)

Disadvantages / Annoying

battery life is not so great with about 5-6 hours (not even a day) with heavy usage (WiFi, GPS but not gaming); I getting a new 1600mAh battery and additionally a 3500mAh extra battery (update follows)
requires WiFi nearby as cellular data is still expensive and limited, average use per day is about 200-500MB to my own surprise

Overall

I still use the desktop to write emails, but with the Swype keyboard (already installed on the Galaxy S2) I slowly get more used to type on the smartphone. Viewing news (RSS/FB/G+) or photos I already prefer the smartphone as swiping up, down or left and right is faster than most photo galleries on the desktop with keyboard and mouse - you realize how often you switch between keyboard and mouse and with the smartphone you use your thumb to navigate; this leads to the idea to have a touchscreen desktop system, larger than a mobile tablet.

Application Examples

Google+

Facebook

Twitter

Google Maps

SSH

4th of 7 Homepage

Google Books not yet in Switzerland (2013/09)

Google Music available in Switzerland (2013/09)

Remote Control

XBMC on Android

Benchmarks

Problems

After a few weeks following problems I discovered:
updating apps (automatically or manually approved) + connecting the headphone and start radio caused two freezes and actual take out of battery to restart the device
updating apps give error of insufficient memory, yet, there is sufficient memory - reboot device, and update app succeeds
Google Play (Google's app store): search for an app, find it, often the input field with prior entered terms re-appear plus the keyboard filling up the entire screen, unable to get rid of both (pushing button to Home)
unclear state of apps when leaving the app; I do not know whether an app keeps running or not, e.g. I stream a radio broadcast, and while listening I like to surf the net, sometimes the audio stream remains while surfing the net, sometimes it stops.
music uploaded to the phone is not seen by Music Player, needs a reboot to rescan the 2nd SD card where the music is stored on.

Future Innovation: Gestures

Needless to say, the recent years the desktop innovation has stalled, the keyboard, mouse and screen combo was set; the useability was mediocre, and Linux Desktop until recently was a let down.
I have experimented with Kinect and gesture recognition for a touchless user interface for some contract work I did and found it interesting, yet, Kinect was a bit slow to recognize gestures accurately for a proper user interface interaction and a few times even interpreted gestures wrongly - not mature enough I would say, for gaming Kinect seems to be sufficient.
Tags: Cellphone, Smartphone, Android, Google, Kinect, Gestures, XBMC | Permalink

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