[Cesc]

Originally Posted by shajufx

Vjoy and Amit, are you guys trying to compete on 'who writes more' ? I couldnt catch much of both posts, because it goes over my head !!

Can we have simplified discussion on mobile phones here ? May be I am far behind to understand a detailed discussion about gadgets.

No offence meant to either of you guys. Looks as if both of you have taken this a bit personally though. As is the case with technology each thing will have pros and cons and something will suit somebody to a T while somebody will find it downright useless. Let's get a move on from here.

As for me - I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about .

@shajufx - I think you got a great phone buddy. I had my eyes set on this for a while but am now waiting for Samsung Wave.

[pradipk]

Hey nice info Amit. But just for layman, can we say following is correct? (at least that's what I have observed from my experience with various mobiles)
1. Alarm will work when mobile is switched off - You switch off & again on if it doesn't ask you to reset date and time.
2. Alarm will not work when mobile is switched off - You switch off & again on if it asks you to reset date and time.

Pradip.

[shajufx]

Pradip, your post makes me think if the longest posts above were on an 'alarm' function thing !!

I am with the 16th phone in the last 9 years (last 7 are still in the house: 3 in use, 2 are back up and 2 are kid's toys now !!). Not a single phone in the whole group failed to give the alarm beep regardless of the ON or OFF status of the handset. The new Vivaz beeps the alarm when the phone is OFF and while stopping it will ask 'Do you want to turn ON the phone ?' Also it has many alarm functions like daily, workdays, weekly etc. 'set it once and forget' type.

[amitk26]

As some of you are bored so lets discuss something else

For Android ,Symbian , Windows and Maemo phone users here as you are car enthusiasts have you tried navit free navigation software ?

http://www.navit-project.org/

Try out and enhance the OSM maps the software is GPL and fully open source
so cheap alternative to MapmyIndia or satnav but may not be reliable as of now.

Originally Posted by pradipk

But just for layman, can we say following is correct? (at least that's what I have observed from my experience with various mobiles)

In laymans terms not mobiles are alike , This feature of Alram ringing when phone was off is availble in most phones for last 10 years but not in latest greatest smart phones :-)
About date reset thing is some of the cheaper phones once you pull out battery you need to reset dates in some other not so costly one date need not be reset manually after pulling out battery because phone gets date and time automatically from network ( NITZ info)

Originally Posted by shajufx

Pradip, your post makes me think if the longest posts above were on an 'alarm' function thing !!

I am with the 16th phone in the last 9 years (last 7 are still in the house: 3 in use, 2 are back up and 2 are kid's toys now !!). Not a single phone in the whole group failed .

Well Shaju you are correct but in last 9 years you might not have owned an unmodified windows mobile or Android phone.
I am really sorry about putting longish technical detail but that was just to explain how it works because someone asked how it is possible once phone is powered down.

May be you can request mods to delete all the Android nitty gritties and counter arguments for the same as they are irrelevant to end -user.

To an end-user what matters is that this feature does not work on Android phones available in market today , .I hope that words of the learned Android guru here are true that important bugs will be fixed by community and others unfixed ones no need to fix as community says so.

But still I do not think it is way off there are many on forum who perfectly understood what I wrote I would have loved if someone would have C&C on techincal matters rather then business aspects.

Any way lets close it ,

[shajufx]

Amit, even though it was hardcore technical topic for me, there will be many others who can understand whatever you posted earlier, so it doesnt matter. If my brain is small, I cant ask everyone else to type only the alphabets A to Z and in reverse all the time.

From your post I am curious to check an android phone and see how it differs from others. When it comes to user-group contributions in the updates and upgrades, does it exist like Linux thats regularly enhanced by a group of developers and users ? Please ignore if I am making no sense here.

[raj_5004]

Originally Posted by shajufx

The new Vivaz beeps the alarm when the phone is OFF and while stopping it will ask 'Do you want to turn ON the phone ?' Also it has many alarm functions like daily, workdays, weekly etc. 'set it once and forget' type.

So since the vivaz from SE does this & the X10 from SE does not, i believe it is mostly because X10 has android OS whereas Vivaz has symbian OS.

also just to point out, even the X10 has the same above mentioned features as in-
* everyday at the designated time
* weekdays which you can select
* just once

[Technocrat]

I am confused after reading your post Raj, does X10 have these features or not? your first line says it doesnt & 2nd says it does.

[raj_5004]

i will clear it out, sorry for the confusing post.

what i meant in the first line was, the X10 DOES NOT automatically switch on if the alarm is set, which the vivaz can do. in the X10, you will have to keep the phone switched on if the alarm has to ring. this issue is not there in the vivaz.

In the second para, i said the X10 has the same features which are present in the vivaz, namely-

* everyday at the designated time
* weekdays which you can select
* just once

in the second para, i am just saying that the X10 has the above mentioned features (in quote) but not the automatically switching on feature from nokia phones or vivaz.

[shajufx]

Summary of the last 2 pages :
Android phones will not beep the alarm if its switched OFF. (Windows phones also ??? )
All other phones will beep alarms regardless of ON or OFF position.
Please correct if I made a new confusion here.

[Technocrat]

Thanks Raj, its clear now

[amitk26]

Hey just saw this great feature from an Indian company Intex on phone IN4420
They have application for fake currency detection. I have not personally tested but if it works then this phone is worth it's weight in gold.

I love to see such innovation for a pressing market need from a small player, if anyone has tried out this feature or it is available on any other phone post review please.

Another positive news Schnider electric organized a tech challenge and a student from Mysore named Neha won 1 lakh rupee prize for fake currency detection application.

21 year old invents a mobile detecting fake notes | | Insight | Bangalore | India

Again this is based on press release and I do not know about effectiveness or authenticity of this app.

Originally Posted by raj_5004

i will clear it out, sorry for the confusing post.

what i meant in the first line was, the X10 DOES NOT automatically switch on if the alarm is set, which the vivaz can do. in the X10, you will have to keep the phone switched on if the alarm has to ring. this issue is not there in the vivaz.

In the second para, i said the X10 has the same features which are present in the vivaz, namely-
in the second para, i am just saying that the X10 has the above mentioned features (in quote) but not the automatically switching on feature from nokia phones or vivaz.

@Raj and others you may find several anomalies in alarm behavior like not going off sometimes or alarm interval not being accurate these problems were pretty evident in earlier versions but little hard to find but still there in 2.1 .

@Shaju Android chapter is closed from my side on this thread. So no more Q&A to kindle the flame a little google search may give a lot of benefits of Android and may lead you to be a convert and you may even become evangelist, For drawbacks you need to dig deeper, deep below the surface then what a normal app developers usually go.

It was just a chance that I had personally looked at that alarm thing some time back and compared how it works in other platforms and someone raised it here , similarly I chanced upon too many other issues some of them I mentioned earlier and interested people can read.

About Linux it is little different and Android is not actually Linux, Though it reuses Linux kernel and large peace of software from there.

And I will stop at this lets discuss something else may be homegrown micromax, on how they became no 3 in India beating LG , SE , Motorola etc and plan to reach number 2 in an year.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Just to keep the android war alive - which Android phone, apart from the Samsung Ominia / Galaxy is available at sub-15K levels?

My XpressMusic 5130 has gone for service, and the service center has hinted that the repairs may not be covered by warranty. I should confess that I feel dissed off. In more than 7 years of mobile usage, I have used only 3 handsets - first was from LG, and was chucked since the battery was not available; second, a folding type from Samsung was stolen after 18 months of (ab)use, and third again a folding one from Samsung, was eviscerated by KV2 (Kid version2). All the three 3 handsets were treated as if they were toys / placebos by both kids, and they used to throw the phones around. Sometimes, the phones were on the wall, and kids would claim to be driving cars!!!

Wife has used only 2 handsets in 10 years. And both were samsung.

Problem with Samsung, however, is lack of PC connect applications for GNU/Linux, which is my PC operating system. With a phonebook containing 500+ entries, ability to backup the phonebook to a PC is very important for me.

The present handset, the 5130 XM, is my 4th, and it has gone bust in hardly 3 months of kid-glove use. I was using it more as a music player, than as a phone and was always either inside my pocket, or on a stand, high away from kids' reach. So, I am a peeved when the service center tells me that the kind of damage can occur only if the phone is dropped.

The damage is - a contact at the SIM card has come lose (was not there when phone was opened at the service center).

I need to wait till next week to know their decision.

IF the warranty is not honoured, I will go in for an android phone.

[vjoy3]

Android provides many forums to developers at various levels. While it is easy to dismiss others who disagree by labeling them as evangelists(do you really become one by web search?. Interesting)/ normal app developers and claim to know better, it would help appreciating the approach google is taking to build android with help from communities and the traction there is only proof of the openness. Some links below

android-porting | Google Groups
Android Linux Kernel Development | Google Groups
Issues - android - Project Hosting on Google Code
Android Developers | Google Groups

Yes android uses the best of both the worlds - Linux kernel, open forums to discuss & develop BSD licensed userspace and greediness of phone manufacturers to cash in their IP (hardware/technology) etc.,

As usual, expect experts hardwired against android to dismiss this as another PR (just like the news on android market share growing more than iPhone) ploy.

Just consider the number of bhpians thinking of android. Does that say something?.

[vjoy3]

Did I say one of the good things I liked on my N1 was the live wallpapers.

Like I was saying earlier, Froyo version of Android should be out late next week. As expected, N1 will get it first. And it will be faster than 2.1 - EXCLUSIVE: AndroidPolice.com’s Nexus One Is Running Android 2.2 Froyo. How Fast Is It Compared To 2.1? Oh, Only About 450% Faster | Android News, Reviews, Applications, Games, Phones, Devices, Tips, Hacks, Videos, Podcasts - Android Police

Hope this keeps critics of Dalvik at bay for time being.

Would not be surprised if JIT and lot more goodies are seen on Froyo.
So much for dooms day sayers, am already looking forward for the Sep-Oct 2011 release of Android Gingerbread...2.3 or 3.0 ?...whatever

Vijay

[amitk26]

Originally Posted by vjoy3

Android provides many forums to developers at various levels. While it is easy to dismiss others who disagree by labeling them as evangelists(do you really become one by web search?. Interesting)/ normal app developers and claim to know better, it would help appreciating the approach google is taking to build android with help from communities and the traction there is only proof of the openness. Some links below

android-porting | Google Groups
Android Linux Kernel Development | Google Groups
Issues - android - Project Hosting on Google Code
Android Developers | Google Groups

Yes android uses the best of both the worlds - Linux kernel, open forums to discuss & develop BSD licensed userspace and greediness of phone manufacturers to cash in their IP (hardware/technology) etc.,

As usual, expect experts hardwired against android to dismiss this as another PR (just like the news on android market share growing more than iPhone) ploy.

Just consider the number of bhpians thinking of android. Does that say something?.

A little correction first may be little OT the License is Apache 2 and not BSD the big difference is that Apache 2 is not as liberal as 3 clause BSD and makes disclaimers for patents , Also code can no be relicensed like in case of BSD 3 clause. While most communities using Apache use IP tools to seach for infringements before code release google remained silent and now you can see a can of worms opening up.


Now coming to the part not acknowledging the existing issues and brushing them under carpet stating the lies churned out by PR machinery is sign of evangelism, As for me you can say I was enthusiast , turned evangelist turned agnostic now.

There are many like me who do not hold any similar grudge against truly FOOS communities like kernel.org , GNOME or other similar ones.

Google deliberately introduced various incompatibilities like removing Sys V IPC for no apparant reason other then breaking the compatibility so that other FOSS code can not run. To top of it the whole model is geared towards google experience ( and thus their business) under clock of altruism.

You seem to fully belie about the greediness of manufactures, Through out this thread point after point you seem to come up with a single point of argument that manufacturers do not contribute drivers and below kernel code to android and that is the single reason for features not working like Alarm or poor UI response.

This is after ignoring the fact that google already has private GIT repositories for TI and Samsung processors not yet released in market and also the full kernel code is available in GIT repository of Kernel.org for released product.

In fact as the kernel code for S3C6410 and S3C100 was available it was possible to port Android on iPhone 3GS because it uses S3C100 from Samsung.

If you say hardware manufacturers are greedy , but any hardware is agreegate of licenced code purchased from so many small 3ed party companies like Audio Video Codecs , Many times implementation is free but there are license issues for example if you plan to make a product using MP3 you can easily pick FOSS Lame MP3 codec under LGPL license but still while productising royalty need to be payed to fraunhoffer institue germany as they are holders of IP rights on MP3.
Almost all AV codecs have this issue except FLAC , Orgs and Vorbis perhaps. So hardware manufacturers can never release some of the code.

But Is google not greedy by using community resources and preexisting code from other communities and then imposing their data mining of the users to further their business. I gave an example earlier

While people at kandroid,org are making good use of it somehow this single line is parroted again and again by evangelists and PR machinery.

While I can site penMoko as really open Linux based community , Maemo little closed control but still open , Android does not have same characteristic.

I hope that emerging regional communities like Kandroid and that in China can take it out from fist of google.

I just wish if some Indian companies and acadamic institutes can start Inandroid defining their own roadmaps minus the business for google.