HELP! Need to get G1 Working or Dieter Will Kill Me!

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 09:58 AM

Okay, so I've now put my beloved iPhone into carbonite freeze for 1 month while I give this Round Robin a whirl. First up for me is the G1. Is it the 'droid I've been looking for?

[Edited for greater general appeal!]

If you've got an Android phone, what makes it so great?

What should I look for? What can I do?

Can you recommend some must-have apps?

And if you don't have an Android, what would you like me to show you?

What comparisons would you like to see?

Help me fellow Androidikas! You're my only hope!

--
Temporarily dispossessed from the iPhone Blog: iPhone News, Reviews, and Opinion

This is an Official Round Robin Contest Thread. Replying in this thread automatically enters you for a chance to win a T-Mobile G1!

**Jeremy** · 11-14-2008, 10:08 AM

Hey... I know you I think...
Try the following:
apn:wap.cingular
proxy blank
port blank
username:wap.cingulargps.com
password:CINGULAR1 must be in caps
server blank
mmsc:mmsc.cingular.com
mms proxy: blank
mms port:80
mcc:310
mnc:41
apn type blank

**Jeremy** · 11-14-2008, 10:13 AM

One more thing, you will not have MMS what so ever.

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 10:13 AM

D'oh! Bad Ash is everywhere!

Problem: I have a Rogers SIM, not AT&T, so I need Rogers APN info.

Right now Android is not happy with me

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 10:14 AM

I'm used to no MMS

**Jeremy** · 11-14-2008, 10:14 AM

Oh Snap! I totally forgot where you are. My bad....

**Jeremy** · 11-14-2008, 10:15 AM

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 10:18 AM

Cool! That kinda works, but Android claims it can't read my phone number?

I can still make and receive calls, though, so at least I'm functional now. Thanks Bad Ash!

**Jeremy** · 11-14-2008, 10:19 AM

My pleasure.

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 12:31 PM

Okay, next task: Can I get my Exchange mail up and running? I'm guessing IMAP but not ActiveSync?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 12:54 PM

Yikes! Trying to set up AIM in the IM client, put in my creds and get this back?!

"Sorry, the phone number can not be read from your SIM code. Please contact your operator for help."

What's my phone number have to do with this? Shared with SMS or something?

Little help?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 01:15 PM

Got Exchange working via IMAP. Funny, I put in my creds and it auto-detected our sendmail server, so failed at first. I manually changed things to the Exchange addy, and it started working fine. Contacts are likely being pulled from Gmail, I think. (I use MobileMe for all contact management, but I think I have Google flagged in Address Book as well, which may be the transit point?)

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 01:46 PM

Er... Can has secondary/tertiary/etc. Gmail account? Can't find where to add multiple Googleness? Am I just missing something obvious?

(Not always intuitive what's hidden where, esp. menu button)

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 03:36 PM

I'm getting confused between the various input methods. Android will pop up fields in portrait mode with text input ready to go, but there doesn't seem to be a way to enter text without flipping open the hard keyboard. Is that so?

If it is, usability would seem to dictate not activating input fields when text can't be input, or am I missing something?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 03:40 PM

BLARG! How do I take screenshots? Need them to rant and rave on the blog later.

Any help?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 04:20 PM

Time to leave for the long commute home. Wanted to listen to SecurityNow podcast on the drive, so I hit the Market, found a podcatcher, and got ready to go download, but then got a warning saying I needed an SD card!

Wow, completely forgot about that!

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 07:39 PM

Gmail client is confusing the heck out of me. I accidentally deleted Crackberry Kevin's email, couldn't figure out how to undelete it (though I could unlabel it?), then succeeded only by spamming it, then couldn't unspam.

Moving back to the inbox took a while to find, and what's touch vs. what's hidden behind the menu button is near impenetrable to me so far.

Has anyone determined any conventions as to what does what? Any "rules" or an Android equivalent of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 09:12 PM

I've always found Google Contacts to be the weak link, the chink in the Gmail armor of goodness, and Android is quickly re-affirming that belief. Unlike Exchange and MobileMe, where I have very complete listings for all my baseline contacts, the Gmail contacts are polluted by addresses I guess Google chose to remember but without encapsulating information (i.e. tons of No Names to scroll through). To top it off, many contacts are missing numbers, or don't have properly identified numbers, making it almost impossible to use Contacts as a way to, well, contact people.

Is there a better Contacts app available, third party maybe? Or some way to "clean" Google's truth store?

(To make matters worse, iSync in now throwing up all over itself adding and removing contact info, and it looks like I'll have to waste a bunch of time hand preening my master list. Google -- Beta is bad enough, fix this pre-Alpha!)

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-14-2008, 10:56 PM

Got a podcatcher installed but it's whining like horror-victim about the lack of microSD card in the slot and threatening to futz itself if I dare to try and download anything. Off to BestBuy I go...

(Add onboard memory to the list of things I've learned to take for granted...)

**Dieter Bohn** · 11-15-2008, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by Rene Ritchie

Yikes! Trying to set up AIM in the IM client, put in my creds and get this back?!

"Sorry, the phone number can not be read from your SIM code. Please contact your operator for help."

What's my phone number have to do with this? Shared with SMS or something?

Little help?

Likely the IM client is the same as OZ on Windows Mobile in that it is partially SMS based. In other words, it will only work on T-Mobile.

Looks like it's time for you to go peruse the android market!

**Dieter Bohn** · 11-15-2008, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Rene Ritchie

Er... Can has secondary/tertiary/etc. Gmail account? Can't find where to add multiple Googleness? Am I just missing something obvious?

(Not always intuitive what's hidden where, esp. menu button)

You can't have multiple google accounts -- you'll have to set up IMAP in the email client. Annoying, but it works.

**Dieter Bohn** · 11-15-2008, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by Rene Ritchie

Gmail client is confusing the heck out of me. I accidentally deleted Crackberry Kevin's email, couldn't figure out how to undelete it (though I could unlabel it?), then succeeded only by spamming it, then couldn't unspam.

Moving back to the inbox took a while to find, and what's touch vs. what's hidden behind the menu button is near impenetrable to me so far.

Has anyone determined any conventions as to what does what? Any "rules" or an Android equivalent of Apple's Human Interface Guidelines?

LOL. Welcome to android, now in Beta, where the UI is different across each app.

You may want to check out our article on gmail shortcuts...

**Dieter Bohn** · 11-15-2008, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by Rene Ritchie

I've always found Google Contacts to be the weak link, the chink in the Gmail armor of goodness, and Android is quickly re-affirming that belief. Unlike Exchange and MobileMe, where I have very complete listings for all my baseline contacts, the Gmail contacts are polluted by addresses I guess Google chose to remember but without encapsulating information (i.e. tons of No Names to scroll through). To top it off, many contacts are missing numbers, or don't have properly identified numbers, making it almost impossible to use Contacts as a way to, well, contact people.

Is there a better Contacts app available, third party maybe? Or some way to "clean" Google's truth store?

(To make matters worse, iSync in now throwing up all over itself adding and removing contact info, and it looks like I'll have to waste a bunch of time hand preening my master list. Google -- Beta is bad enough, fix this pre-Alpha!)

I'm not a fan of google contacts either, but once you give up being OCD with your contacts it's actually sort of nice -- you eventually just 'trust' it and let it be a little messy.

As for "scrolling through contacts," the only people that I know who do that sort of thing are iPhone users. Everybody else uses the keyboard to autosearch.

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-15-2008, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by Dieter Bohn

Likely the IM client is the same as OZ on Windows Mobile in that it is partially SMS based. In other words, it will only work on T-Mobile.

Looks like it's time for you to go peruse the android market!

Ah, the power of an open system

Thanks much. Can anyone recommend a killer IM app? I use AIM the most, but have MM and gTalk as well.

Funny gTalk isn't built in? Jabber should "just work"?

**Rene Ritchie** · 11-15-2008, 04:35 PM

Originally Posted by Dieter Bohn

You can't have multiple google accounts -- you'll have to set up IMAP in the email client. Annoying, but it works.

Interesting! I can't add additional Exchange accounts on the iPhone, but it seems to let me add additional MobileMe accounts, which kind of scares me, actually, as "sync is hard" and I don't see how multiple truth stores on MM would co-exist... though AS and MM seems to co-exist well enough...

Setting up other Gmail as IMAP now...