Moving to Android n00b questions

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Ijong

New member
My iPhone recently died beyond the point of resurrection. As I figure a new iPhone will come out in June I'd rather not get a 3G S now so I'm going to give android a try. I'm thinking of getting either a Motorola Milestone or a Google Nexus One, leaning more toward the milestone. I just have some n00b android questions.

As I understand it google gives android updates to phone carriers, who them push those updates out over the air. I am planing on getting an unlocked phone and using on a carrier that I believe does not offer an android handsets. I would assume in that google would not give the updates to all carriers just those that offer android phones. Are there other ways to get updates other than over the air?

Do Android apps, paid apps at least, have any copy protection or DRM? Can Apps and settings be backed such they can be easily restored if there is a need to?

Any thoughts on Milestone v Nexus One?

Thanks
 
Be CERTAIN your new phone has all the "smartphone" features you need. IMHO Android has been behind the curve. I can only speak as a G1 owner, but I was basically shocked that it lacked simple and features like auto-dialing, a pop3/IMAP email app that really works, the ability to transfer files to and from the phone via bluetooth, and a built-in Office app with PDF reader (all stock on my "old" N80 Nokia). I had to buy an office app; a bluetooth file app only works one way unless you are rooted; the market apps for email are semi-functional.
 
Uhh what? First off Gmail is God, if your not using it yet you should be. The default gmail client is amazing. Define autodialing. Android default has voice dialing and speed dial. Transfering files over bluetooth is easy there's tons of free apps that do it. Android by default doesn't read word, excel, powerpoint files. So go get yourself the free version of Documents to go.

Honestly, android is way more powerful then your think, I use it more like a computer then I do a phone. But it's not Apple so don't expect everything to be dumbed down easy to do.

Also all the apps are connected to your google account so anywhere you go they go, doesn't matter what phone you use. You put your google info into your new phone and it synchs everything. All you paid for apps show up in the marketplace app under the my downloads section. Though your free ones might not, but I have seen free ones there too.

If your worried about backing up your apps, use wave secure beta or my backup pro. Both do wonderful jobs at backing up EVERYTHING on your phone.
 
So, the Nexus has speed dialing (auto dialing) where you hold down a single number and it can be assigned to any phone number? Could not with G1. So, Nexus may, but Android across the board does not.

Voice dialing on the G1 is useless, as is well known.

Sorry, you may like Gmail, I may not -- but the point is, the phone was sold claiming they had a workable pop3/IMAP app, and it's also essentially useless. K9 & Seven (both still free I believe) are better, but have flaws, depending on your phone. K9 will not reliably deliver mail and Seven still won't allow down loading attachments.

Are you saying there are apps you can buy/add to the Nexus that makes bluetooth file transfers BOTH ways possible w/o rooting the phone? With the G1 (and others) you have to root the phone.

Sorry... but the free version of Documents to Go doesn't cut it, you need to buy the full version (which I had to do) to get full usage -- again, all the above were stock on the Symbian system for my N80.

No one doubts the Android system has potential... but it isn't there yet, but a lot of us really feel if we are going to be part of Android's R&R team, we should be paid. My advice is to go on a Nexus forum and ask questions before you buy.
 
To answer the original poster...

As you noted, there are variations on each version of Android that are mobile carrier specific. What happens is that Google hand over a given standard version of Android to the carrier, and they may choose to customise it, test it, and roll it out over the air. This is actually slightly incorrect, as it implies the carriers push the update to your phone. This isn't what happens.

Android runs a process called the Checkin service, which checks for updates for the OS every day. As a side note, it also checks for updates to your applications at the same time. The version of android that is currently installed has some information attached to it which is unique to that version. From this information, the Checkin service can look for an update that is correct for your phone. So, if your version of Android is version 1.6, for the G1, customised for T-Mobile UK, then the Checkin service will only inform you about updates specifically for that version of Android. Even though 2.0 and 2.1 is available for other handsets, you won't be informed about them on your phone.

You said you're getting an "unlocked" phone. Has this phone always been unlocked? Or was it tied to a specific network at one point? The difference here is that unlocking a phone that is currently tied to a given network doesn't change which updates you can get - you'd still only be able to get updates specific to that phone on that network. If the phone has been unlocked from the start (it has never been tied to a network, and is brand new), then it will have a non-carrier specific version of Android on it, and you will get informed of updates as and when they're released for that phone (usually before all the carrier-specific ones, as your version won't need to be customised by some carrier).

There are also other ways to update. Some manufacturers (HTC for example) put their updates on their website. You can install them by simply copying the file to your SD card, and holding down various buttons when you start your phone and pressing various keys to install it. Again, it will only allow you to install the correct version for your phone. So if you have a T-Mobile customised version of Android on your phone, and try and install the HTC version of Android, it'll not let you and give you an error. In this sense, whether your phone finds the update online itself, or you download it manually, it has the same restrictions.

Finally, you can "root" your phone, which means you get super-user / admin access. You can then bypass the security feature on your phone which normally prevents you installing any version of Android, and install a customised version (or in fact any one that's suitable for your model of phone). There are some minor pros (speed, additional features, more memory) and pretty big cons (invalidated warranty, risk of rendering your phone completely unresponsive, less protection against malicious apps that can then run in super-user mode) to this, so I'd advise reading up on this before trying it.

Finally, the Nexus One is way better than the Motorola Milestone (aka Droid), unless you absolutely must have a keyboard. The Milestone is currently the best Android phone with a keyboard. You may also want to consider the HTC Desire, which has an almost identical spec to the Nexus One, but has a few minor things better (optical trackball, quad band, Sense UI) and a few minor things that aren't as good, like the Nexus One's brilliant noise cancelling microphone and voice search.
 
Thanks for that. I have a couple of follow up questions. While I am intending on getting a phone that was always unlocked. If I got an unlocked phone that was once locked to continue your example lets say a G1, customised for T-Mobile UK, if a carrier-specific update was released would I still get the update if I did not have a T-Mobile sim-card in the phone?

As I am moving from the iPhone I comfortable with an on-screen keyboard and for most things I am interested in I think the nexus would be better but I am interested in trying out nesiod and other old school emulation. I have tried this on a jail broken iPhone but I found playing without physical button unusable and it seems that the android emulators need physical buttons as they don't display on-screen buttons, atleast that is what i have read. This may seem a minor reason to get the milestone over the n1 but it would be cool to have that on my phone. I am kind on the fence atm
 
Your phone will have a specific version of Android on it. By version I mean a combination of version number (e.g. 1.6), location (e.g. Europe), carrier (e.g. T-Mobile UK). Your phone (unless rooted) will only allow you to install an update SPECIFICALLY targeted at your Android version. In this example, it would have to be one customised by T-Mobile UK, and later than 1.6. The SIM question is hard to answer. I guess it depends whether the update is only available via the mobile network, or if you can get it via WiFi too. If it's only available via the mobile network, then you would obviously have to have a T-Mobile UK SIM in it, unless someone knows more than me? I've never been in that situation.

I would imagine emulators prefer real keyboards so that half the screen isn't taken up with the keyboard. Also, the virtual keyboards on Android don't allow multiple key-presses at the same time. So you can't press two keys at once without a real keyboard.
 
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