• K-9 Mail
• Weather Channel app
• Greed
• Locale
• AppManager
• TasKiller
• OI Safe
• T-Mobile MyAccount
• FaceBook app.
• Twitdroid and TritterRide were on my phone for a while. But, as little as I use Twitter, I found it was easier to just put a bookmark on my home page and use the web site directly.
• Mobile Defense by Neevo.
• Cyanogen ROM image.
• Retro Clock and Retro Date widgets.

I posted this list last September. A lot has changed since then. For one, I dumped the Cyanogen ROM and when back to the straight factory issued 1.6 firmware. After several total reinstalls from scratch episodes, I decided I needed my phone to work reliably more than I needed the benefits of the alternative ROM. I do miss the ability to move apps to the SD card.

The Retro Clock and Date widgets are still here, front and center. Joining them on the home page is the Weatherbug widget. The Weather channel app really lost performance with the admob ads running. And the Weatherbug widget just looks and works better.

I’m still using the Facebook client. It seems to work fine, especially for as little as I use it. I’ve been trying out more Twitter clients. I’ve tried Seesmic, Swift App, and now TweetCaster. I like Swift App quite a bit, but TweetCaster has displaced it recently. So far, I really like it. Greed is still my Google Reader client of choice.

I am still running Mobile Defense, OI Safe, and T-Mobile MyAccount.

If I am actively buying, selling, or just shopping on eBay PktAuction is on my G1.

The most recent change is that I dumped Locale. I had been running a beta version for a while. It work well enough, but since it relied on the GPS, it was a battery hog. The beta expired, and Locale is now a pay app. Which is fine, but the price is $10. I really like the concept behind Locale, but it doesn’t work well enough to pay $10. And  reports on the new version have not been positive. So, I search for replacement, and found Setting Profile. It does basically the same thing, and costs $3. It does not rely on the GPS for positioning, but either on cell signal triangulation, a specific cell tower ID, or a WiFi AP SSID. Although none of these provide the precision of the GPS, they are more battery friendly, and less fiddly when going in and out of buildings. It has taken a couple of days to learn how to set up profiles, rules, locations, but it’s working pretty well. I recommend it as an alternative to Locale.

That’s the inventory highlights. What’s on your ‘droid?

Unfortunately, the upgrade didn’t go smoothly for me. I ended up doing a factory reset and am now running the stock Android 1.6. I’m going to run it for a while, before trying to ‘upgrade’ to the Cyanogen ROM. So far, I miss the small speed bump of the Cyanogen ROM. But, I do like the new market. Otherwise, I haven’t seen much different from 1.5 that impacts day to day usage.

After a brief time using the new Work Email for Exchange email, I went back to K-9 Mail. It does IMAP well, it has a good feature set, It keeps my email in sync with Exchange (which Work Email didn’t do frequently), and it’s free. If you have to do Exchange, do it with K-9.

I keep going back to the Weather Channel app. I’ve tried WeatherBug, Accuweather, etc. But, the Weather Channel app works the best. However, it now features adMob ads at the bottom. It doesn’t help performance.

I still use Greed regularly. I still like it. And the price has gone down, so it’s an even better deal.

Locale still works well for managing my ringer volume, etc. depending on my location. It’s a little funky to set up, but it works well when you figure it out.

I’ve been using AppManager and TasKiller for a few weeks, and I like both. I recommend both apps.

OI Safe still has custody of my passwords, but I’m looking at alternatives.

T-Mobile MyAccount is an app I don’t use a lot, but I like having it.

I’ve been using the new FaceBook app. I’m not much of a FaceBook user, and it works well enough for me. I’ve tried several Twitter clients. Twitdroid and TritterRide were on my phone for a while. But, as little as I use Twitter, I found it was easier to just put a bookmark on my home page and use the web site directly.

And lastly, Mobile Defense by Neevo. I like this app so far. I’m looking forward to the backup option and remote wipe. For free, it’s a start.

Probably the thing I use the most is the Cyanogen ROM image. It brings the MyTouch apps to the G1, including the very nice power control widget. Along with the CM Updater, it was worth the upgrade.

Oh, and I can’t forget the Retro Clock and Retro Date widgets. They bring back that 1978 vintage “digital clock” look. If only I could get that annoying “bleat” alarm sound for my phones alarm…

How?

By rooting it and flashing it with a modded ROM.

Why now?

I’ve been annoyed by how sluggish my phone has been responding. It has been slow to acknowledge touch screen input, and even the hard buttons. This has gotten worse as I have added new apps to the phone. Some of the apps are running background tasks that are sucking up CPU cycles, most are just occupying the limited memory of the G1. Less available memory, less performance.

There are a lot of articles/posts/etc. on the internet with instructions to ‘root’ your G1. This opened up all kinds of hacking opportunities, but doesn’t address many real features. Plus, the process was complex, error prone, and tedious. So, I stuck with my stock phone with the OTA updates.

A couple of days ago I ran across an article on lifehacker: Five Great Reasons to Root Your Android Phone. The number 1 reason? Performance boost. But, the best part was a link to blog post: How to Root a T-Mobile G1 and MyTouch3G Android Phone, which detailed the easy two step root method, as well as the traditional downgrade root method. The instructions were clear, complete, correct, and not written for a Linux kernel hacker.

While looking through the instructions and checking out the links to other posts/sites, I found the 6th great reason to root your G1, App2SD. If you use the right ROM (Cyanogen!), and partition your SD card appropriately, new apps are installed on the SD card keeping your main memory on the phone free, which helps performance.

So, I charged my phone, gathered microSD cards, card reader, card adapter, usb cable, Macbook Pro, charger, Laz-E-Boy, and beverage.

I won’t go through the details. It went fairly smooth and fairly quick. Except for the ring tones. There was one. Apparently, the Cyanogen ROM does not include the original ring tones in the ROM, they have to be loaded separately. A minor issue, easily fixed.

So, the results:

It’s not a speed demon, but it is significantly more responsive. Battery life is similar to the original, so far. I haven’t reloaded all of my apps yet, so we will see how it responds. I am finally able to use the SD card for something useful!

I owned both a Commodore VIC-20 and C-64, worked in a computer store selling C-64s, C-128s, and Amigas. I lusted after the PET and the Amiga. And I made my first consulting fee writing software for the C-64. Even then I was starting my path in the cult of Pascal. First there was VAX-11 Pascal, then Kyan Pascal, MS QuickPascal, Turbo Pascal, and finally I entered the temple of Delphi. I’ve owned 5 different Palm handhelds. And, I just bought a new Ruby IDE (Ruby Mine) to go with that addiction. I also belong to the Linux, Mac, and Android cults.

Outside of IT, I’ve owned pretty much nothing but Canon cameras since my FTb-QL in 1977.

I think it is similar to the car guy who will own nothing but a Chevy or Ford. We all want to be right, and we hang out with those who agree.

So, what cults do you belong to?

1. Ring Control – This was the first app I installed. I am biased, a good friend of mine wrote it. It’s still one of the most useful Android Market apps.
2. Weather Channel – My current cable TV provider (AT&T UVerse) doesn’t supply the localized “Local on the 8′s” information from the Weather Channel. But, now I can just whip out the G1 and get more information without waiting 10 minutes. Very nice, my favorite app.
3. PAC-MAN by Namco – I was in high school when Asteroids arrived. I watched the rise and fall of the arcade era. This app is a faithful port of a classic, and it works well with the track ball.
4. Password Safe – It’s not as nice as eWallet on my Windows Mobile for Smartphone T-Mobile Dash. It works well, it’s secure, and it’s infinitely cheaper(free) than eWallet.
5. Quote Pro – Nice details, that are easy to get to.
6. Sky Map – Very cool use of the platform. It needs a setting to damp the movement, it can get jittery and not respond.
7. K-9 – An improvement over the default email app. Still not perfect, but better. We need an IMAP client that can set notifications when the screen is locked!
8. ConnectBot – On the rare occasions that I need to SSH into a server, and my laptop is miles away, this one works.

Ok, those are the ones I use regularly. This next list is those apps that are too new to have made the first string, or I just like having them around.

1. Handstand – Another app from my friend. I only installed it a couple of days ago. But, I have been using it more each day. This one will probably make the first string. It’s a good source of quick news.
2. handyCalc – I will always need to be able to do conversions and more advanced math functions. This one does it.
3. Life – What programmer hasn’t written at least one implementation of Life? My first one ran as a batch job with each iteration printed out on greenbar. This one is better.
4. Hold’em – I am a bad poker player, but I still like to play a quick hand or two online or against the computer, or phone.
5. ShopSavvy – Cool app. I have used it some, but not a lot.

Wow, that’s not even all of the apps. I guess there is a third list, apps I downloaded but have never used, but plan to someday.

I’ve been carrying a T-Mobile Dash smartphone for two years. It has been functional, but that’s about it. The hardware is decent enough, but the OS is atrocious. It has all of the worst of the desktop version crammed into a handheld. I still find it difficult to believe that I have to reboot my phone periodically (every few days) to reclaim the memory lost to memory leaks. It wouldn’t be so bad, except to get it to reboot in one try I have to remove the microSD card until it is up and running. Apparently, the 6.0 version of Windows Mobile for Smartphones has a buggy DLL that handles memory cards. So, the phone will go into a reboot loop until the memory card is removed. Nice. Enough about the past.

So, why a G1 and not an iPhone? As an Apple user (a Macbook Pro, and a Mac Mini), I am naturally drawn to the iPhone. It looks nice, the UI is nice, and it just works. But, I didn’t want to change carriers. I’ve been a T-Mobile customer for a long time and the service has been good and the prices are better than the competition. Also, one of the things like I liked about the Dash is the real qwerty keyboard. I just don’t like the touch screen keyboard on the iPhone. It’s too slow to use, and error prone. I guess the last downside of the iPhone for me is that it is an appliance. It’s a closed ecosystem. You must use it as it was intended. Sure, you can jail break it and load apps on it. But, it’s a running battle with Apple over control of your phone.

The G1 and it’s OS, Android, are a wide open frontier. At least compared to the iPhone. And, it has a real keyboard. I’m not crazy about sliders, but it’s an acceptable compromise. I’ve already downloaded the SDK and wrote the ‘Hello, World‘ for Android. It may rekindle my desire to write Java code again. I played around with J2ME in the past, but the phones were too limited and the development environment too compromised to be interesting to me. The G1 is neither.

My friend Kelly has been writing apps for his G1 for a month or two. So, I will have a local support group (of one) to fall back on when I get stuck. I can let him blaze the trail and clear out the brush ahead of me.

It’s all up to the UPS man now.