asciipr0n

I picked up the Android-powered G1 late last week. I like the phone quite a bit. Here’s a list of things about Android that stood out to me this past weekend, both good and bad.

• When you boot up the phone for the first time, it asks you for your Google account login. If you don’t have one, it will make you create a Google account. There is no doubt that this is a Google phone through and through. Oddly, when I entered my password incorrectly, it claimed to have network access problems rather than reporting bad login credentials. I tried to log in about a half dozen times before I realized I was entering the wrong password.
• There are two email clients on the phone: the Gmail client and a secondary email client for POP and IMAP access. The Gmail client is on par with the Gmail client that I had on my Blackberry 8100. However, the POP/IMAP client leaves quite a bit to be desired. Setting up an IMAP account is easy, but there are a couple things missing from the client. For example, while the total number of unread messages for an IMAP account is displayed, the number of unread messages per folder is not.
• I love the notification bar. Incoming emails, SMS text messages, IM messages are all slipped into a notification area at the top part of the screen. When they first appear, a quick preview of the message is also displayed on the bar. With a quick flick of the finger to pull down this bar, I am given one click access to these messages.
• Instead of using a numeric passcode to lock the phone, the G1 features a neat alternative. The “passcode” is a pattern drawn on a 3-by-3 grid. The phone is unlocked by drawing the matching pattern with my finger on the touchscreen.
• By sliding my finger along the desktop, I can switch between three desktop spaces. Shortcuts to commonly used applications can be placed on these desktop spaces. Applications are stored in a drawer that is opened by flicking on a tab upwards from the bottom of the screen.
• For better and worse, contacts are automatically synced from your Gmail contacts list. Gmail had harvested a good number of contacts from my email, so I had to do a good deal of clean up to keep my G1 contact list less cluttered.
• Up to six applications can be run at the same time. However, as far as I can tell, there is no way to explicitly close an application. As you open more, they are closed in a first-open-first-closed fashion. As my girlfriend noted, you can open the browser, switch to another application, then switch back to the browser without having to wait for the URL to load again (as is the case with the iPhone).
• The trackball is pretty useful when in the horizontal, keyboard-flipped out orientation. It helps me navigate through text input fields without moving my fingers up to the touchscreen. Also, keyboard shortcuts. Nuff’ said.
• Frequently accessed settings like enabling/disabiling wifi are buried a few levels deep in a Settings application. Fortunately, the AnyCuts application available in the Android Market makes it possible to place a shortcut to just about anything on the desktop.

All in all, I think the G1 is a good debut for the Android platform. There are a few interface quirks, but as in the case with AnyCuts, the open nature of the platform and the Android Market are already encouraging the development of solutions. I think this is promising and there is a lot of potential for the Android platform.

P.S. Someone please make a BART schedule application before I am forced to foist a half-assed one upon the Android world.