So I bought the new http://www.google.com/phone, the Nexus One at 365.21GBP. Deep breath.

I'm still on the last couple of months of my T-mobile G1's 18 month contract. Nonetheless, I've sent my G1 to my sister in Germany and hopefully she will get some use out of it.

I plan to end my contract with T-mobile and go on some PAYG plan, hopefully with Vodafone. I bet you ending my T-mobile contract and porting my number will be an ordeal.

Talk about ordeals... the device took 16days to arrive, because Google's fulfillment house in Indiana accidentally routed the N1 to Hong Kong. Google's "Android support" customer services is absolutely abysmal. I contacted them three times via Google checkout to tell them they have screwed up the package routing. I basically only got through to them via an old University friend who now works at Google. Shame.

So the Nexus One(N1)! What do I think about it? It feels like a great upgrade over the G1. The 1Ghz Snapdragon amazed me awhile back on the Toshiba TG01, so at last I have it! However the battery performance seems on par with the G1. Sigh.

Despite a looming Nexus One update I though I'd rather be in control and hence I unlocked my Nexus One and "voided my warranty". I think it's a bit poor that I've voided my warrany because I want different software on it. I don't "void the warranty" if I put Linux on my Thinkpad, now do I?

Cyanogen's beta4 N1 mod is pretty wild. The USB tethering feature is a must for me and it works far better than Android 3G wifi tethering. Just turn it on, and ifconfig -a shows usb0. dhclient usb0 and you're surfing on 3G. Why do operators make it so hard?!

Since I'm into HTML5, I'm greatly enjoying using http://gmail.com and Calendar in the browser. It works amazingly well. I'm going to try avoid using the native Gmail client, though the native's 4 day background syncs are hard to beat.

I'm a little worried about the quality of the 3G connection. The 3G scare stories don't help, though tbh I think the connection is the same as the G1. It's just that since the phone is so much faster, the failings of UK mobile connectivity are even more clear to see.

You can upgrade your phone, but can you upgrade your connectivity? Well since my phone is unlocked I'll have to do some mobile speed testing again.

UPDATE: Checkout http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/technology/companies/13google.html

I also heard Google is giving out N1s at developer meets. Ah great, they know how to satify paying customers.

Whilst passing through Waterloo station, I usually buy some fresh fruit juice from the Marks&Spencers (M&S) store. This time I noticed my bottle had some sort of 2d barcode on it.

I spent a few uncomfortable minutes trying and trying again to scan the code with the "Barcode Scanner" application on my Android G1. Didn't work.

Later I found out that this a Data Matrix code and not a QR code. ARGH!

Unsurprisingly 'Data Matrix' support is 'alpha' quality according to the ZXing library powering the Barcode application on the UK T-mobile Android G1.

WAP is CRAP

In the small print it says WAP enabled mobiles only. Eh? Have I gone back in time 8 years? To add insult to injury there is a link to the T&Cs: http://www.mands.mobi/ftg worryingly using a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DotMobi address!

http://www.mands.mobi reveals some suspects to this crime: Incentivated

Welcome to Your M&S
Our new corporate mobile internet site is coming soon. Please check back later
Site built using Incentivated's WAPsite Publisher

OMG. How piss poor M&S.

2d codes suck too

Regular barcodes are OK in my book, because they have a human readable 13 digit fall back (036000291452) running along the bottom. I remember when 'Checkout dollies' (as we call them in the South West), typed in that that number in case the barcode failed to read.

Where is the fall back to 2d codes??

As a 2d-code fallback I suggest clearly printing a short (hopefully meaningful) URL e.g. m&s.co.uk/oj (12 characters) and markup your content in HTML5.

After rooting my UK T-mobile G1 and then flashing with JesusFreke’s ADP 1.5, I was able to install android wifi tether.

Previously I tethered using the adb forward tcp:1080 tcp:1080 socks trick, but that sucked because:

• DNS didn't work
• if it did, you could only use HTTP easily
• bit of a pain to setup

Ideally I would have liked to tether via a USB cable, though I couldn't quite figure out how to create a USB based network. Anyway a Wireless access point (AP) is better for sharing and being social, though it does need to be physically tethered to a power source since the device sucks battery juice whilst tethering.

Ad-hoc Wireless Networking Debian to the Android G1

This is a bit tricky, as I couldn't seem to get a DHCP IP over ad-hoc mode. So here I set up everything manually, after inspecting the device with adb shell ifconfig tiwlan0.

I added to /etc/network/interfaces:

iface wlan0 inet static
    wireless-essid G1mobile # configure this in 'Wifi tether' on your G1
    wireless-mode ad-hoc
    address 192.168.2.20
    netmask 255.255.255.0
    gateway 192.168.2.254
    dns-nameservers 192.168.2.254 # you need to install [resolvconf](http://packages.qa.debian.org/r/resolvconf.html)

And commented out the existing wpasupplicant configuration. Next sudo ifup wlan0 and you should be away.

Comparing England's T-mobile, Orange and Vodafone 3G

I borrowed a Vodafone SIM card, but I couldn't get it working until I manually chose the Vodafone network and setup the APN with wap crap: wap.vodafone.co.uk user: wap pass: wap

T-mobile don't use the loaded legacy wap word, but their APN is confusingly called 'general.t-mobile.uk'. User: 't-mobile', Pass: 'tm'. I need to experiment with APNs as I hope I get around content transformation and crappy looking images.

Orange nicely just requires 'orangeinternet' to hop on. They give Vodafone a run for their money from Guildford! Orange also don't seem to run content through any transformation on my test. So images look decent! Orange WINS!

Just 12 months of poor T-mobile service to go of my 18 month contract... then PAYG for me! PAYG deals for mobile data are getting seriously reasonable of late. So much so, I might switch SIMs where I know T-mobile will suck.

I'm not quite certain if the aforemnetioned APNs are HSDPA. The 3G icon is present on Android during all the tests.

Want prettier shortcuts or bookmarks to your favourite Web applications?

Checkout shortcut.dabase.com and the reasons why.

UK consumers are frustratedly waiting for the RC33 Android update. Featuring Latitude and voice search.

One can manually update, though I am unsure if this Google update is for the UK market.

Though, then again... WHY should there be a difference between UK & US updates? I'm sure there isn't different Iphone software for different regions of the world.

I lodged an email complaint with T-mobile and a "tech" engineer from T-mobile called me, despite requesting T-mobile email me instead.

He asked around and he says there is "no rollout in place" and he didn't know what I was talking about with RC33 and Firmware 1.1.

Furthermore he told me he personally hacked his. Unbelievably he was actually excitedly telling me I could downgrade to RC8 I mean... WTF is going on?

Do Google UK have a contact in T-mobile UK? Talk to each other. Give the T-mobile engineers some information. They actually seem just as thirsty for Android knowledge as I am.

UPDATE: wget --no-check-certificate https://android.clients.google.com/updates/signed-PLAT-RC33-from-RC30.f06aa9b3.zip adb push signed-PLAT-RC33-from-RC30.f06aa9b3.zip /sdcard/update.zip

I called up T-mobile and they sent me a Network / SIM unlock code via email after asking nicely.

So it is true. You can request T-mobile supply an unlock code after being a customer for 3 months. That's great!

Now when I travel abroad I can use a local SIM.

Thank you T-mobile for being sensible about this. This is the text version of the attachment I received:

Mobile number:   

Reference:             DOX/CAT/ 

2008 


Dear  

Thanks for your letter about unlocking your MDA ****. The unlocking code for IMEI XXXXXXXXXXX is XXXXXXXXXXX and the sequence is below. 

   1. Switch on the mobile phone with a UK non T-Mobile SIM.
   2. You will be prompted to enter the pin, after a few minutes.
   3. Then enter the pin code.
   4. Press OK.



The phone should now acknowledge the phone is unlocked. 

We always advise that you shouldn’t make more than two attempts to unlock the phone. Therefore, if you get any error messages at the end of the unlocking sequence, please give me a call on the number overleaf and I’ll certainly help you.  

I’m sure you can appreciate that as our codes are produced from the manufacturer of the phone, we can’t always guarantee that your phone can be unlocked. You also need to be aware that we can’t guarantee the mobile phone features for use with another service provider this is sometimes because other providers have different network settings. 

If you have any further queries regarding this, please contact me on 08454122754 (calls to this number are charged at local rates if you’re a BT customer, but if you’re with another provider it may cost a bit more, so please check). 

Thank you for contacting me about unlocking your phone CUSTOMERS NAME. I’m pleased to have been able to give you your unlocking code and I’m sure you’ll enjoy using your phone. 

Yours sincerely 



NAME

Customer Administration

8.30am – 4.30pm

Monday to Friday

Last Friday, the 30 of January Google Maps UK did work from my G1. Or that of another G1 device.

wget -q http://static.natalian.org/2009-01-02/2008-tmobile-data.txt -O /dev/stdout | awk -F, '{sum += $5 } END { print sprintf("%.2f",sum) }'
10.89

11GBP for 5 days in Germany? I didn't use data nearly as much as I would in the UK. Android has no data accountancy functionality.

A mobile phone that would detail accurate data roaming costs. Those are the sensible sorts applications that provide tremendous value. Not stupid bar code scanner applications.

The proprietary headphone jack

HTC use a proprietary ExtUSB interface for audio. You can get a Stereo Headset Adapter - HTC exUSB for 8GBP.

Do not write Dalvik Android applications

First I implore you not to write an Android Application. i.e. a Java dalvik .apk.

Most developers require Geolocation and you can easily achieve Geolocation in the Android browser. The Web on mobile is the future!

Other reasons not to develop Dalvik applications

• Google's Market has no upgrade mechanism. The Web has painless seamless upgrades by default. Why choose anything else than giving your users continuous improvement everyday?
• The Web works on more devices and computers than Dalvik ever will -- the Web is device independent!
• The Android market allows you to market your application to several certain countries. Choose a Web application and your market is the world!
• Want to create bookmarks to your Web application from the homescreen? Use the Gears shortcut mechanism! (disabled by Google in Cupcake)
• Choose from a larger pool of Web developers, to develop your idea for the mobile platform!
• Does the Web miss a critical device API for your application? Tell the W3C about your requirements.