General Android-ness

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Inspector Sands
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Sput wrote:I tried the beta a couple of months ago by taking a picture of a pine table.
It gave me a picture of a beach.
I tried a very clear picture of a magnifying glass on a pine table.
It gave me a picture of a different beach.
Of course it's only for items which Google would have in it's database, you can't just point it at anything.

It's one of those things that never works when I'm trying to demonstrate it to people as is the voice search. That's an application in it's own right but also adds a microphone icon to the regular search boxes.
Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:I used it in Toys R Us a few weeks ago to see if there deal on something really was as good as they made out. Turns out it was.

It's quite handy as you can either scan the barcode or just the front of the box. I imagine it'd be good in designer outlet places, where they try to trick you into thinking it's a good deal because your in a designer outlet.
In this respect I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between Google Goggles and Google Shopper, they seem to overlap quite a bit. The same with the barcode scanner app and Goggles
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Inspector Sands
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Have you tried installing an app to the SD card yet, Gavin?

If so, how does that work?
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Ebeneezer Scrooge
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Inspector Sands wrote:In this respect I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between Google Goggles and Google Shopper, they seem to overlap quite a bit. The same with the barcode scanner app and Goggles
Likewise, there seems to be a few places where there are google apps which overlap, but could quite easily be integrated. Why can't My Tracks be absorbed into Maps? I'd rather have one goggles application that did shopper and augmented reality stuff than one app for each.
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Inspector Sands
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Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:Likewise, there seems to be a few places where there are google apps which overlap, but could quite easily be integrated. Why can't My Tracks be absorbed into Maps? I'd rather have one goggles application that did shopper and augmented reality stuff than one app for each.
My Tracks isn't a Google application though isn't it?

Overlap between third party apps is inevitable, but within Google it's odd. I assume it's because each is developed by a different team in Google Labs. AIUI programmers are free to spend a certain amount of their time working on their own projects.
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Ebeneezer Scrooge
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It says it's by the My Tracks team at google - maybe it's the kind of thing that could get integrated if it proves popular. It seems to work better than the open gps tracker, which would suggest it had a decent team behind it!
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Gavin Scott
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Inspector Sands wrote:Have you tried installing an app to the SD card yet, Gavin?

If so, how does that work?
Just for you I tried downloading a bluetooth file transfer app from the market - but didn't see an option to install to SD card.

Not sure how to do it.
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Inspector Sands
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Gavin Scott wrote:
Inspector Sands wrote:Have you tried installing an app to the SD card yet, Gavin?

If so, how does that work?
Just for you I tried downloading a bluetooth file transfer app from the market - but didn't see an option to install to SD card.
Not sure how to do it.
Aha, looking at http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... ?artc_pg=2 it would seem that it's up to the software writers to include it rather than being able to do it with any app, which is a shame.

However I did discover that I can copy (backup) apps to the SD card the other day which could be useful for saving space
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marksi
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On Friday I asked O2 (via Twitter) when Froyo for HTC Desires would be released.

They replied:
We're making sure that our 2.2 is fully ready before it's released - free of bugs etc. We never release until it's right
They released it this morning. Then pulled it when people started reporting their phones got to the O2 welcome screen and refused to boot up.

http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... s&attr=all

Well done, O2.
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cdd
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You got a response from O2's twitter?

I guess they just hate me then...
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Gavin Scott
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So, a couple of weeks into Froyo, and I've definitely seen an improvement on battery life - provided I'm within wifi at home or work, otherwise it drains really quickly. To the extent that, if my wifi falls over at home - even if I charge all through the night, I get up in the morning and the orange charge light is *still* on.

I honestly would have thought it would be the other way round, but I guess updating all those widgets n things is less battery intensive over wifi.

But what I have noticed is that, despite the increased battery life, when I look at my running programs in the advanced task killer app, there's something like 12 processes running at any time - things like stocks, Sky News, voice search and so on.

Occasionally I kill all the processes, but they come back within about 20 mins.

Another thing I observed is that Spotify continues to run until I tell it to exit (which I never had to do before). This may be a spotify update rather than Froyo, as I got both around the same time.
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Inspector Sands
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Gavin Scott wrote:So, a couple of weeks into Froyo, and I've definitely seen an improvement on battery life - provided I'm within wifi at home or work, otherwise it drains really quickly. To the extent that, if my wifi falls over at home - even if I charge all through the night, I get up in the morning and the orange charge light is *still* on.
I've got in the habit of switching off data connections unless I really need them - if I'm at work or home I turn them off - I have computers there instead!

What percentage are you getting when you wake up? Did you know that when you charge it and it reaches 100% it won't start charging until it's down past 90?
I honestly would have thought it would be the other way round, but I guess updating all those widgets n things is less battery intensive over wifi.
Wifi does use up more power than 3G and 3G uses more power than 2G GPRS/EDGE. However it seems to me that because the faster they are the quicker they do their job they use less power. For example if I download a 15meg podcast via 2G it could take 20 minutes, but only 1 min on Wifi but the latter will eat less of my battery.
But what I have noticed is that, despite the increased battery life, when I look at my running programs in the advanced task killer app, there's something like 12 processes running at any time - things like stocks, Sky News, voice search and so on.

Occasionally I kill all the processes, but they come back within about 20 mins.
According to http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... cks-713499 Task Killers don't work on 2.2 as it doesn't allow apps to kill other apps. I always have lots of items in my Task Killer that I haven't opened today but for some reason they are in use and taking up memory (although hopefully not battery).

I think that 'Stocks' is actually part of something else. In the same way that Google Talk is used for the Market... if you force close on Talk in 'Manage Applications' and then open the market it will appear again
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