This time, I got a Nexus phone—the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. I’m just going to list the positives and negatives. These are positives and negatives for me. There may be things you care about that I don’t and things I care about that you don’t. Either way, you may find these lists useful in some way.

Positives

• Swipe-away notifications.
• Swipe-away recent apps list.
• Software buttons.
• Beautiful screen.
• Built-in screenshot ability without root (volume down button and power button together).
• Verizon LTE network.
• I have a Tasker profile that’s a tweaked version of what Juice Defender does. It’s either near-instant or only one second to reconnect when the screen turns back on.
• No shutter lag on camera.
• Camera photo quality better than most reviews would have you believe.
• Speaker is audible, despite what negative reviews say.
• No need to root to get vanilla Android.
• Will get updates to new version of Android before other phone models.
• Not much bloatware on here, but Verizon managed to squeeze a couple of useless apps on. With Ice Cream Sandwich, you can disable these apps even if you can’t uninstall them.

Negatives

• Headphones are noise-reducing ones, which are really uncomfortable for me. I know others prefer these. And I found an extra set of old headphones I can use instead.
• Autorotate is slow.
• The Android File Transfer app for Mac OS X needs the phone to be unlocked (makes sense, but confusing before you know it), and can transfer only one folder at a time from Finder.
• Even though speakers are audible, they are not loud, so you will have to crank them up to the max volume to get decent sound.
• Facial recognition to unlock takes too long. It has to load in a second or two before it even tries to recognize your face.
• Battery life is not good. The screen is huge, and in the battery stats it easily takes up more than 50% of the battery use. Fortunately I can make it through the whole day using my pseudo–Juice Defender profile in Tasker. I also bought an extra battery from Verizon for $20.
• The menu soft key (which is now three dots) is sometimes at the top of the screen and sometimes at the bottom of the screen.
• Keyboard autosuggestions is worse than the Gingerbread keyboard, which was awesome. I used to get four or five autosuggestions. Now I get only three and have to long-press on one to get more.
• Now that file transfer is MTP, I can’t use DoubleTwist as I normally would. Luckily, I could copy a ton of music and then use the AirSync plugin to finish the rest of the sync wirelessly. I understand why Google moved from MSC to MTP, but it’s also screwed things up a bit.
• The screen is large, which is beautiful, but it also means I can’t do one-handed WordFeud/Words with Friends while on the bus.
• If you use the slide-to-unlock unlock method, there’s no way to disable the haptic feedback on it.

Overall, despite all the cons, I love this phone. Ice Cream Sandwich has a beautiful UI, which is a joy to use. The phone is fast. And Verizon’s LTE is wonderful.

That was until I found Tasker.

It’s a relatively expensive app (currently US$6.49), but it’s totally worth it. It basically allows you to improve phone usability, automate tasks, and save battery life.

Granted, as you’ll see if you read the reviews, the interface isn’t the most intuitive. However, once you get the hang of it, it becomes quite easy to use.

Here are some of the cool things I’ve been able to do with Tasker:

• Adjust volume per app. Angry Birds volume tends to be a bit too loud. So with Tasker, I set up a profile that turns the media volume down whenever I launch Angry Birds, and then turns it back up when I’m done playing Angry Birds.
• Adjust mobile data type for weak signal spots. When I’m at work, the Edge signal is way better than the 3G or 4G signals, so I set Tasker up to see if I’m at work, and, if I am, to switch the phone to the Edge network only. Once I leave work, it switches back to 3G/4G preferred.
• Autorotate for select apps. I used to use a toggle button to turn autorotate off and on as needed. Really, though, the only app I use autorotate for is the photo Gallery app. So I set up Tasker to turn autorotate on when I launch Gallery, and then turn it back off again when I’m done.
• Conserve battery life. Before I used Tasker, I’d tried an app called Juice Defender. It was a good app and actually did conserve battery life. The primary way it did that was by turning mobile data off when the screen was off and then turning it back on again when the screen is on. The annoying thing was that if you had the screen off for only a moment, the data would turn off. In practical terms, that would mean that if I was looking at my phone to see when the next bus would arrive, I’d check it, turn the screen off, and two minutes later, I’d turn the screen on to check and have to wait about ten or twenty seconds for the data to turn back on. With Tasker, I can set it up so that the data will turn off if the screen is off… but only after five minutes. If I turn the screen back on again within five minutes, data will just be on the whole time. If I keep the screen off longer than five minutes, data will turn off. I’ve also set it up to switch from 3G/4G preferred to 2G only if the battery life is critically low. And I’ve set it up to turn on autosync every hour for five minutes and then turn autosync back off.
• Quiet camera shutter. At least on three Android phones (two that I’ve owned), the shutter sound when a picture is taken is way too loud. So I set up a Tasker profile for lowering the system volume when the Camera app is launched.
• GPS when needed. Yes, generally speaking, GPS on Android turns on only when you launch an app that needs GPS. There are exceptions, though. For example, at least with the version of Facebook for Android that’s out as of this writing, the Facebook app will turn on GPS when you launch it, even if you don’t want to actually share your location with Facebook. So I’ve just turned off GPS, and Tasker allows me to specify which apps I want GPS to launch for (e.g., Maps, Navigation, Yelp, Movies).
• Headphone volume. If I have my headphones in, I want the volume turned down—for music, for Netflix streaming, for phone calls. When I take my headphones out, I want the volume up. I have a Tasker profile for that, too.
• Silent for school assembly. Almost every morning, the school I work at has a brief all-school assembly. So I set up a Tasker profile to detect if I’m at school and to silence my phone during the hours of the assembly and then un-silence it afterwards.
• Longer screen timeouts per application. Generally speaking, I like the 30-second timeout on the screen. If I’m not touching the screen for 30 seconds, I want it to turn off to save power. Certain applications I want the screen kept on longer, though. For example, if I’m playing Words with Friends or WordFeud, and I’m staring at the screen for three or four minutes as I think of a move. I don’t want to keep touching the screen periodically to keep it on. With Tasker, I set it up so that the screen timeout is 7 minutes for certain apps and then 30 seconds for everything else.
• Suppress Notifications. If I’m listening to music, I don’t want notification sounds interrupting me, so Tasker lets me turn the notification volume off when I’m listening to music.

These are only the things I personally have set up Tasker to do. Others have set up a whole host of Tasker profiles. On the Tasker website, you can find many examples of profiles that may be useful to you.

If you consider US$6.49 to be an expensive investment sight unseen, you can try out a seven-day free trial of Tasker. Try it. You won’t regret it.

And, no, this is not just a matter of some geeky semantics.

The mass hysteria out there right now about Android malware reminds me of HIV/AIDS “information” back in the early or mid 80s. People were genuinely afraid you could catch AIDS from hugging someone or drinking from the same water fountain as someone who had AIDS. There wasn’t a lot of reliable and consistent information about how people became HIV positive.

Same deal now. If you read any mainstream press coverage of Android malware, you’ll see the focus is really on quantity (Android Malware Surges Nearly Five-Fold Since July or Android sees a 472% increase in malware since July) of malware instead of actual risk of infection. In typical pop journalism fashion, a lot of “news” articles are taking the “here’s one extreme, and here’s another extreme, so you decide” approach instead of actually informing consumers of the facts of how they can protect themselves from malware.

For example, Security Experts Concerned About Google’s Attitude Toward Android Malware makes it sound as if there is Chris DiBona saying Android malware isn’t a problem and then there are the “antivirus” vendors saying it is a problem. Same deal in Android Security: Threat Level None?

All these articles leave the consumer with is a sense of confusion, and no real practical steps to protect oneself. The former, for example, says:

Most malware researchers agree that the openness of the Android platform, which allows installing non-vetted apps, and more importantly the openness of the Android market, which lacks a strict application review process, contribute to its malware problem.

The latter at least hints that users could be responsible for malware proliferation:

Now that we have a few different views on this topic, who do you think is right? Well, there’s some truth to what the security vendors are telling us. Smartphones—and apparently Android devices in particular—can be infected with malware through careless use.

Careless use. Who is doing the careless using? Phone owners. Phone users.

That is the big difference between a virus and a trojan. The trojan you have to give permission to. You have to invite the trojan in. You know the famous story about the Trojan Horse? Yeah, that attack wouldn’t have worked if Troy had said “Yeah, fancy wooden horse? We’re not letting that into our city.” Same deal with malware. If you don’t install malicious apps pretending to be legitimate, you won’t magically get infected with malware. This is true for Android, Mac OS X, and Linux. I have never heard of any malware proliferating on any of those platforms that was not a trojan.

So if you want to protect yourself, don’t install “antivirus.” Install some common sense instead. Here is a great, step-by-step guide on how to do that: How to be safe, find trusted apps, & avoid viruses – A guide for those new to Android

You’re welcome.

I’m someone who likes to play Angry Birds, and I also like to flash new Android roms from time to time. Losing that game data (completed levels, high scores) would be sad. This app makes it very easy to back up Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio, and Angry Birds Seasons.

While I don’t get Android fanatics bragging about how great it is to have Flash on Android, it is nice to have as an option from time to time, particularly for annoying restaurant websites built on Flash or for watching Amazon Prime streaming movies. That said, I also don’t get iPhone fanatics complaining about Flash draining the battery. Every major web browser on Android plays Flash on demand by default (as opposed to automatically). Flash doesn’t run unless you want it to.

On computers, I find Adobe Reader to be a bit sluggish in launching. Oddly enough, it’s quite snappy on my Android phone. Great for PDF viewing.

Great VNC viewer. Does what it’s supposed to.

Yes, I don’t really game that much, but I’m addicted to Angry Birds (and Rio and Seasons).

AutoRotate is a nice thing most of the time. Every now and then you don’t want the phone constantly switching from portrait to landscape and vice versa. This allows you to bind the holding down of the Search key to toggling AutoRotate.

Speedily loads Microsoft Office documents for viewing.

Yes, I’ve tried Mirren, Opera, Firefox, Skyfire, Browser, xScope, and all the rest. I still keep coming back to Dolphin. I love the gestures, the tabs, the speed dial, the configurability. It just is a fantastic all-around web browser.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t sync automatically, but it’s still a good way to share files.

This is a great file browser, because it lets you browse files but also lets you switch to being a root explorer if your phone is rooted. If you don’t know what rooting is, don’t worry about it—ES is still a good file explorer.

If you use Facebook, the app will give you a better experience than even the mobile version of the website.

I actually think the Firefox Android app is terrible, but I keep it installed just in case it gets better.

Not great for editing. Still good for viewing your online Google Docs.

Unlike Facebook, this Google+ app appears to be designed from the ground up to be an app and not just an it’s-better-than-the-mobile-site app.

I actually like this Google Reader app better than the Google Reader website on a regular laptop. The next and previous buttons are conveniently always visible, and the feeds load quickly.

A very handy tool to do quick translations from various languages. I use it for Italian to English or English to Italian. There’s a convenient toggle button to swap the source and destination language.

I’m not going to lie—this app is terrible. Nevertheless, Google Voice itself is awesome. And the Google Voice app is still the best way to use Google Voice, so this is what we’re stuck with.

A simple and unpolished app that has a picture of a guitar and six buttons to press to play the sound of the E, A, D, G, B, and E strings.

At work recently I’ve been taking pictures with my phone and then emailing them to myself to document problems, and emailing the large files just takes way too long. For web quality, this app will make a fast shrunken copy to send via email, Dropbox, or whatever method you prefer.

If you like to read the Bible or just reference it, this is handy, as it allows you to quickly switch between translations and browse by chapter or book.

This is an easy way to see what’s opening, what’s playing nearby, and what gets good reviews.

Eh. I’m not impressed by the Google Music Beta service. As with Firefox Beta, I’m just checking this out to see if it gets better.

The app isn’t great. You can’t really check out reviews or see your queue by thumbnail. Still, if you’re stuck in an airport with a delayed flight, this makes for a good time-waster.

Before there was Angry Birds (and before I got my own smartphone), this is what I used to steal my wife’s iPhone to play. Mindless fun.

You need a rooted phone to run this, but it allows you to take screenshot by delay (instead of having to shake your phone to take a screenshot) or just by holding down the power button and then selecting Screenshot.

Skype video chat finally arrived for Android. Yay. It saved my butt when I had to have a remote conference and wasn’t near a computer.

Navigating a computer remotely with a tiny phone screen isn’t ideal, but for quick checks or small changes, TeamViewer is great to have.

My math skills have deteriorated over time. I can’t do 15%, 18%, and 20% in my head, so I have this. It also gives you the easy ability to split the check among various people if you are eating in a large group.

Yes, I use T-Mobile. This helps me check on my data usage, which so far hasn’t gone far above 2 GB per month.

Actually easier to navigate than the real Twitter website. They also fixed the refresh so that it won’t push down what you’re currently reading (it’ll just make more available when you scroll up).

You know that extremely loud annoying camera shutter sound when you take a picture? This helps you turn down that system volume. I used to use Sound Manager, but it kept resetting back to the loud system volume. This app keeps the volume where you set it and allows you to lock it there.

Ugly Scrabble game you can play with friends on other phones. Even though it’s ugly, it’s much better than Words with Friends. You can’t start a game with someone without her consent. You won’t accidentally start multiple games, and notifications tell you not only that it’s your turn but also what your opponent played and how much she got for it.

I keep this around for one friend who has an older iPhone and can’t install WordFeud. This is terrible for all the reasons stated above. The only good thing is that you don’t have to manually zoom in. If you are zoomed out and place a tile down, it’ll zoom in to where you’re placing the tile.

I’m debating whether this is better than the Yelp normal site or not. I stopped using the normal site because every time you go there, it’ll pester you to install the Android app instead.

Finally! It took Zipcar long enough to release an Android app. The iPhone has had this for years. Can’t wait to make last-minute reservations and unlock the car with my phone!

If anyone else is remotely supporting a rooted Android phone user and would like a screenshot-laden tutorial on the update process, here it is.

The first thing you need to do is download the latest stable rom from the Cyanogen website that is appropriate for your phone model (this assumes you’re using Cyanogen—if you’re using another rom, obviously you’d download the latest version of that other rom). Since you’re upgrading and not install a rooted rom for the first time, you don’t need to download the Google apps zipped file. Also, be sure not to unzip the .zip file after you download it. Just keep it as is.

When it’s downloaded, plug in your phone and copy the .zip file to the top-level directory of your mounted MicroSD card. In other words, it should not be inside of a folder on your phone’s storage.

After you’ve copied it over and turned off USB mass storage, you can begin the backup and update process. Now, I know Rom Manager comes with the ability to backup and update from within the rom, but I recommend the manual way outlined here, because there’s no risk of you trying to update files that are currently in use. There also may be some features that are available for only the paid version (which you may not have) of Rom Manager.

Open up Rom Manager, which you should have already installed if you’re using a Cyanogen rom. Otherwise, you can easily install it off the Android Market.

Select Reboot into Recovery

Tap OK

When your phone reboots, use your little trackball or whatever means you have to move the highlight up and down until you’ve reached backup and restore and then press the trackball or selection button to proceed.

Select Backup

Wait for it to backup. This could take several minutes. Be patient.

Now that you’ve backed up, go ahead and select install zip from sdcard

Select choose zip from sdcard

Find the file. If it’s a Cyanogen rom, it’s usually called update-cm-[version number-phone model]-signed.zip

Confirm with Yes

Wait for the update to install

When it’s done installing, press the Back button to get back to the main menu. Then select reboot system now

Then you’re good! You have an update to the rom, and you also have a backup in case, for some reason, the update is screwy.

Don’t bother with all the little things
So after I did quite a bit of research and found out task killers are not only useless but actually detrimental to the proper functioning of your Android phone, I read all sorts of tips espousing little things you can do to save battery: dim the screen brightness, turn off GPS, switch to Edge only (not 3G), turn off automatic syncing. Most of these things all help a little bit but not really enough to make it worth the trouble. And, in the case of GPS, sometimes they don’t help at all. GPS, for example, isn’t really on even if it’s “on” unless you’re using an app that actively uses GPS (e.g., Google Maps, Google Navigation, Yelp). If I constantly dimmed the screen and then made it brighter when I needed it and turned off syncing and synced only when I needed it, I could eke out maybe an extra hour or hour and a half of battery life. It seemed a lot of maintenance for very little return.

Use Juice Defender
It took me a year and a half of using Android before I stumbled upon and finally tried Juice Defender. This app easily doubled my battery life. I used to have my phone run from 7:30 AM to 11:30 PM at night but with only 15-20% of my battery left when I plugged it back into the charger at night. With Juice Defender, I had 50-60% of my battery left at night. There are a lot of things Juice Defender can do if you get the paid versions, which allow you to tweak settings even further, but on a basic level with the free version it turns off your data when your screen is off and then turns it back on again when your screen is on.

Even though I would highly recommend JD to anyone with an Android phone who also wants to get the most out of her battery life, there are a couple of annoying things with the program. Firstly, it insists on having a huge icon in the notification bar all the time. Well, there’s a setting to not keep it there, but apparently if you don’t keep it in the notification bar the Android OS might accidentally turn off Juice Defender to free up RAM. Secondly, it takes a few seconds for data to turn back on after your screen is on. This last little niggle led to me uninstalling Juice Defender and opting for another alternative.

Or just turn off data when you don’t need it
You kind of have to think about your own phone-using lifestyle to see what will make more sense to you—turning data off every time your screen is off (Juice Defender) or just manually turning off data when you don’t need it. For my lifestyle, it makes a lot more sense for me to turn data off manually. I’m grateful for the work the Juice Defender folks are doing in showing me how to save battery life, but the extra few seconds to wait for data to turn back on were just too much for me, the way I use my Android phone.

I basically have some periods in which I’m using my phone pretty heavily (but only in short spurts) for data and then longer periods when I’m not using my phone for data at all. So I have a power widget on my home screen for toggling data. When I’m about to use data, I turn it on. When I know I won’t be using data for a long period of time (2-3 hours or more), I turn it off.

I hope people have found these tips helpful. Post if you have any questions. (Any attempts to promote task killers will be immediately deleted as spam.)

Now, I’m always hesitant to try to fix people’s computer problems, and the same goes for Android phones (which are basically really small computers). On the one hand, I know their experience can be better. On the other hand, I know that a successful migration of any kind or major overhaul involves time and some testing. Most of the time, people want a quick fix. And if you tell them it’ll take a long time, they’ll feel guilty about using up your time and just say “Oh, it’s okay. Don’t bother.” Really, though, they’re still not happy with whatever situation they’re in. So I always try my best to find the balance between quick fix and thorough fix.

So I got her to promise me not to install Advanced Task Killer (which was probably responsible for at least some of the glitchiness), I backed up her bookmarks and apps, and then I began to root her phone. I tried to follow the Droid full update guide at the Cyanogen mod wiki, and I ran into a couple of bumps along the way. First of all, the sbf_flash file for Linux gave a segmentation fault, but the guide actually offers a separate download if that happens, so I used that. I also tried to flash the ClockworkMod Recovery, but when I tried to reboot into recovery mode, I got stuck on the Motorola logo, so I had to take out the battery, flash back to SPRecovery, install the Cyanogen rom, and then flash ClockworkMod again.

Immediately, she was impressed with the upgrade. I told her it was Gingerbread, and she had no idea what that meant. I told her it’s basically the next version of Android. She didn’t really seem to care. She just liked the cleaner interface. She liked the battery life displayed when she’s about to unlock the phone. She found it a bit more responsive. The only problem is I forgot to back up her Angry Birds data, so she’d have to play all the levels all over again. So I did a bit of Google searching and experimenting and found out I could get the data out of /data/data/com.rovio.angrybirds/files/highscores.lua, /data/data/com.rovio.angrybirdsrio/files/highscores.lua, and /data/data/com.rovio.angrybirdsseasons/files/highscores.lua. To do it properly, you have to beat at least one level in each version of Angry Birds. Then, instead of copying the file and changing permissions, you should cat one file into the next:

Overall, I’m surprised that she liked it. Usually I think of rooting as for power users who like to tinker with their smartphones. It’s good to know end users can enjoy the benefits of a rooted phone as well. Extra bonus is that when you boot up the phone there isn’t that annoying “Droid!!!” robotic voice announcing the name of the phone. And I know she can stay on Cyanogen RC 4 until Christmas when I see her next, and still be ahead of the OTA updates to the Droid. Or she may just get the iPhone 5 by then.

Common sense. Surprising.

For a while I was considering the MyTouch 4G, the Nexus S, and the (at the time upcoming) Samsung Galaxy S 4G. The Nexus S definitely appealed to me for being pure Google Android. No Zip Whiz bang my head non-Sense overlay. At the same time, it did, in fact, feel like cheap plastic. Its screen was a fingerprint magnet. And it was still 3G speeds, which is not that big a deal now, but as the T-Mobile network keeps growing, (what they call) 4G will be something I want to take advantage of. The Samsung Galaxy S 4G had potential but it also felt a bit light, and it had no flash on the camera and less internal storage than the original Samsung Vibrant.

I had heard quite a few bad things about the MyTouch 4G, too, though. It’s ugly. The speakerphone sucks. The battery life sucks. There’s too much bloatware and trialware. After futzing around, I finally went with the MyTouch 4G. Yes, I know there are crazy dual-core phones right around the corner, but Angry Birds was calling me, and I had to answer. Besides, the MyTouch has 768 MB of RAM. That’s four times what my old phone had.

HTC Sense on the MyTouch 4G: unbearable
I’d tried Swype before on the MyTouch 3G, and I was not enamored with it. It takes too long to drag my finger over every letter. I can use the Android regular autocomplete suggestions after two or three pecked letters, and it’s much faster and takes less concentration. I thought I could just select the regular Android keyboard instead of Swype. I thought Sense may be heavy but I can use ADW Launcher instead. I thought the bloatware is there but I can just not use it. I don’t need to actually remove it. I was wrong on all counts. The version of Android the MyTouch 4G comes with is terrible. I couldn’t stand it.

First of all, the choices of keyboard are Swype, Touch Input, and Dragon Dictation. If you change the keyboard from Swype to Touch Input, you don’t get the regular Android keyboard. Instead you get basically the same Swype keyboard but with no Swype. This keyboard is annoying because the autocomplete suggestions either are not there at all or are selected for you automatically. I don’t want the keyboard telling me which of the suggestions I want. They are suggestions only. I’ll decide for myself which suggestion is best. I tried to install the stock Android keyboard manually, but it would force close every time I tried to actually type something. After Googling, I found that force-close was a common problem.

ADW Launcher allowed my home screen to look relatively normal, but the app drawer and all the system settings interfaces still looked overly bubbly and cartoony.

And the bloatware was extremely excessive, to the point where I would have to basically have an iPhone-like home screen littered with all my app icons, since sifting through all the app icons in the drawer and skipping over the bloatware would take too much scrolling. Never mind that it was difficult to scroll left or right without accidentally activating one of the icons I was trying to scroll past.

Also, the so-called “Genius button” is basically useless and slow. I just wanted my normal search button back.

If I didn’t know anything about rooting, I’d have just returned the phone for a refund. This OS was godawful.

The rooting process: harder than before
When I rooted the MyTouch 3G, it was easy to find instructions that worked, and the instructions weren’t that intimidating. Not so this time. I spent a good chunk of the night and then the next morning doing trial and error and a lot of Google searching to figure out what really worked. The instructions on the Cyanogen wiki left me trying to adb and being told permission was denied. The Android SDK didn’t include adb at all initially. Some rooting instructions said to use Visionary to temproot. Others said specifically not to.

For the curious among you, here’s what actually worked for me. I’m using Ubuntu Linux, but similar instructions probably apply for Windows and Mac OS X.

Download the Android SDK and make sure adb is installed
Go to the Android SDK website and download the appropriate SDK. I’m using Ubuntu so I downloaded the Linux one. There is one for Windows and one for Mac. I also installed Java. Specifically, I installed the sun-java6-plugin package, but I’m not sure if one of its dependencies was all I needed.

Then I right-clicked the SDK download and selected Extract here. Using the terminal, I changed to the tools subdirectory and did ./android and chose to update all and that installed adb. Once I did that, I was able to ./adb whatever commands I needed.

Prepare your phone
Install Android Terminal Emulator, ROM Manager, and VISIONary.

Make sure USB debugging is on. Turn off the fastboot option in settings.

Download gfree and extract its contents into the android-sdk-***/platform-tools/ directory.

Doing the actual rooting
The full instructions (including a whole bunch of disclaimers and instructions for unrooting later) are on Xda Developers. Here are the highlights, though.

1. Plug your phone into your computer.
2. Using the Android SDK and adb, run the command
   adb push gfree /data/local

   (I had to actually run

   ./adb push gfree /data/local

   to get it to work).

3. Unplug your phone.
4. On your phone, run VISIONary to gain temporary root. To verify this worked, scroll through your list of apps. The SuperUser app should be in that list.
5. On your phone, open the Android Terminal Emulator application and type
   su

   to get root privileges.

6. After confirming root privileges is okay, type
   cd /data/local

   and then

   chmod 777 gfree

   and finally

   ./gfree -f
7. After a bunch of terminal output, it should be done.
8. Turn off your phone. Then while holding the volume down button, power up again. Double-check that s=off and the bootloader version is 0.86.0000. If so, it worked! You’re rooted.
9. Reboot and run VISIONary with temporary root but check to set the system to r/w afterwards. If that works, then run VISIONary to set permanent root.

Install the Cyanogen rooted ROM

1. Download the latest Cyanogen ROM (for me, that was Cyanogen 7.0.0 RC 1). Optionally, also download the corresponding Google proprietary apps. Put these in the top-level directory of your phone’s MicroSD card.
2. Launch up the ROM Manager application.
3. Click to install the ClockworkMod Recovery.
4. Once that’s successfully installed, click to reboot into ClockworkMod Recovery.
5. Once booted into recovery mode, select Wipe data/factory reset. Then select Wipe cache partition. Then Install zip from sdcard and select the Cyanogen ROM. Then Install zip from sdcard and select the Google Apps if you want them.
6. Finally, select Reboot system now to boot into the Cyanogen rooted ROM.

Gingerbread is sweet
Now I get the appeal of the Nexus phones. Maybe the Nexus S doesn’t have cutting edge hardware specs. Maybe the plastic feels a little cheap. Maybe it’s tough to see the screen in the sunlight. Maybe it’s a fingerprint magnet. But the vanilla Android is much easier to use than HTC Sense + Swype + bloatware. I’ve got my normal keyboard back. I’ve got not too many extra applications. The “Genius button” has changed back to a normal search button.

Thank you, Cyanogen team! I donated to you only once, but I’ve gotten more than my money’s worth back.

I’m presenting it in a bit of a more personal view—why the iPhone appeals to me (why I love using my wife’s iPhone), and why I still use an Android phone.

First of all, I want to say that I think arguments fangirls and fanboys have about Android and iPhone are usually stupid. They tend to be arguments about which platform is “better” or which is more popular. The problem with “better” is that it is a vague and meaningless term that doesn’t help consumers make a choice. The bottom line is that neither the iPhone nor an Android phone will be the best smartphone product for everyone‘s mobile lifestyle. iPhone will be better for some. Android will be better for some. And some will find both equally good or equally useless.

So I’m more interested in the practical. What are the kinds of things that are important to you in making a smartphone purchase?

What I like about the iPhone
I know a lot of people who have iPhones. I’ve played with my friends’ iPhones. I’ve seen strangers use them on the bus. I’ve played with them in the Apple Store. I’ve “borrowed” my wife’s iPhone periodically. Here is what I can tell:

• iPhones are sexy. The displays look good. The casing looks sleek. Even third-party apps generally tend to look better than their Android counterparts.
• The interface is designed with touch in mind. That makes sense, since it is a touchscreen OS. One hard button takes you to the home screen if you press it once and then to search if you press it twice. Everything else is through the touchscreen. Android has too many hard buttons (Menu, Back, Search, Home, a trackball).
• The touchscreen is very responsive (you’ll notice in a lot of YouTube videos comparing iPhones to Android phones that the reviewer often has to swipe or tap a couple of times for it to register on the Android phone). Pinch-to-zoom is a lot faster—there is no lag.
• Multi-tasking is not a priority. Yes, I know some people view this is as a con against the iPhone, but I view it as a pro. I agree with Steve Jobs that performance and battery life matter more than multi-tasking. I really don’t use more than one app at a time anyway.
• Here’s another one I like that I’ve heard many iPhone users complain about—notifications. I like that they just appear and then disappear. One thing I dislike about Android is that, to get rid of notifications, I have to swipe down the notification bar and then either click on the notification or click Clear to clear it. A notification should just notify me and then go away. I don’t need it lingering and requiring a lot of extra taps and swipes to remove.
• Updates come right away to all phones whose hardware can support the latest version. Don’t get me wrong—I definitely think criticisms of so-called Android fragmentation are exaggerated. Fragmentation doesn’t have much direct affect on the end user. But there is a real sense in which consumers just like to have the latest and greatest. If a new version comes out and Google says “Hey, it’s got this cool feature and that cool feature,” and you know your phone is powerful enough (enough processor speed, enough RAM) to support the update, it can be frustrating not to be able to install the update right away, and not everyone is geeky enough to risk a voided warranty to install a rooted rom (rooted roms can also be extremely buggy). With the iPhone, you just plug your phone into your computer, and iTunes will install the newest version of iOS as soon as it’s released.
• I may be the only Linux user who thinks so, but iTunes is a nice interface, and over the years it’s just gotten snappier in performance. I love the smart playlists and syncing capabilities. When it works, it works extremely well. Of course, I also know some iPhone users (particularly ones who have tried to use their iPhones with multiple computers) who have had a lot of bad experiences with iPhones and iTunes connectivity.
• Even with the growth of Android as a platform over the past two years, sometimes there are apps available for the iPhone that are not available for Android. One that comes to mind is Netflix streaming. The iPhone has had this many months now (almost a year). Netflix just has murmurings about it possibly coming to Android “soon” and then for only select devices. Edit (June, 2011): Netflix now has streaming on just a handful of Android devices.

Why I’m sticking with Android
I don’t get fanboyism or fangirlism. How can you think one popular product is superior to another in every single way and not acknowledge that people have different needs and preferences? How can you not even acknowledge that almost everything (if not everything) in life has both pros and cons? Well, I’m definitely an Android user, but, as you can see, there’s a lot I admire about the iPhone.

Nevertheless, I won’t be switching to an iPhone any time soon. Here are some great things about Android that keep me there:

• I love Google Voice, and its integration into Android is seamless. Back in 2009, they tried to submit an app to the iTunes App Store, and Apple rejected it (or just simply didn’t accept it, depending on what semantic backflips you want to employ). My guess is that Google then put zero effort into the iPhone Google Voice app for the next year and a half so that by the time it was released it was just garbage (I know because my wife tried it out on her iPhone). Maybe after a few updates Google Voice for the iPhone might be usable, but even then there are some levels of integration Apple simply will not allow. With Google Voice I get free, unlimited text messaging. I can block numbers. More importantly, I have one number I can give everyone, and it can ring my Android phone when I have my phone on, or it can ring my GMail account when I’m on the computer. Voicemail transcriptions are notoriously inaccurate (almost hilariously so), but they are still better than nothing.
• On a related note, Android has the ability (and has had this since at least Android 1.5, Cupcake) to send certain numbers straight to voicemail. So even if people call my real cell phone number (not my Google Voice one) as a wrong number, I can just add them to my “wrong number” contact, and I’ll never have to hear the phone ring again when they call. If they call my Google Voice number as a wrong number, I can add them to “wrong number,” and they’ll simply be blocked—they won’t even have the opportunity to leave me a voicemail.
• The keys on the iPhone keyboard are easier to peck at accurately, but I still prefer the Android keyboard for a couple of reasons. To sum up quickly, it’s the visual distinction between upper- and lower-case letters, as well as the autocomplete suggestions. You can read in more detail in my The Pros and Cons of the Android Keyboard entry.
• Occasionally we’ll rent a ZipCar and drive around some place we’re unfamiliar with. Turn-by-turn GPS navigation is really helpful during those times, and that comes with Android for free… even though the voice is a little scary. My wife and I call her the dominatrix.
• I don’t think it matters that the iTunes App Store has more applications than the Android Market has. Most of the important ones are present in both stores. More importantly, Google can’t tell you what not to install. Even if an app is rejected by the Android Market (which is rare), you can still choose to override that and install apps outside the Android Market (you get a big warning that is a security risk, of course). Now with the new web Market, you can install apps on your device remotely using your computer. Google also allows you to install various web browsers and email clients. There are no restrictions on apps with a claim that they duplicate core functionality of Android.
• In theory, at least, Android can use Flash in its web browsers. You have to have Android 2.2 or higher, though, and your phone has to have hardware that supports it. The ability to play Flash is never a con. Even if you don’t like Flash, you don’t have to use it, and as far as I can tell it is just Flash on demand anyway (you have to manually decide to play Flash to get it to play).

So should you get an iPhone or an Android phone?
Well, I don’t know who you are, but I will tell you that the iPhone world and the Android world are very much eco-systems.

If you want the best experience from an iPhone, you should have an iTunes account and use iTunes to manage your music. It’d be nice to have a Mac with Mail and iCal as your main email client and calendar, respectively, and to use iPhoto to manage your photos. Your music, mail, address book, and photos will sync up when you plug in your iPhone.

If you want the best experience from an Android phone, you should have a Google account and use it for GMail, Contacts, Google Voice, and Calendar. You shouldn’t mind dragging and dropping music files to removable storage (even from iTunes) instead of having things automatically sync. Ideally, you should actually prefer dragging and dropping to iTunes syncing.

Since I use Windows, Mac, and Ubuntu all regularly, drag-and-drop (as opposed to iTunes syncing) is ideal for me. I know that isn’t the case for everybody. And since I use three different operating systems, it’s nice to sync to “the cloud” my emails, contacts, and calendar, instead of to a single computer.

It’s certainly possible (and I know people who do it) to use an iPhone with a Windows computer and a GMail account. I just don’t think you’re getting the most out of it by doing so. Likewise, a hardcore Mac-Safari-iCal-Mail-MobileMe user who has no GMail account could use an Android phone but would also not get the most out of the phone by doing so.

I hope this has been helpful in some way. As always, use what’s best for you. There is no empirical “best” for everybody.