Android – Donich Website https://www.donich.co.uk Argyll wildlife and nature as seen on the banks of the Donich Water Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:56:19 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.4 Hello my love, Hello…. https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/12/21/hello-my-love-hello/ https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/12/21/hello-my-love-hello/#respond Mon, 21 Dec 2015 13:56:19 +0000 http://www.donich.co.uk/?p=5225 Some time ago I wrote a blog post about how I was trialling out using an Android phone instead of a Windows phone (Goodbye, my love, goodbye….). You can see from the title of this post what has happened about that…
I realize that it is my own fault, but not being overly keen on Google as a company, I removed standard Android and put Cyanogen Mod on it. This was a bad plan, because although I am somewhat of a geek in most respects, with regard to my phone I just like it to work. And minus any of Google’s service, Android is not a fun experience. You can’t just install apps from a store, you have to think about where to get APK files from. And this being Android, a really, really good way to get malware on a rooted phone is to go to random sites and install the crap you find there… So every app that you want takes a degree of research, which you don’t want to do when (for example) you are on a train in Belgium and want to look up train times.

But the worst thing of all was that what I really like doing with my phone is taking pictures with it and putting some of them on this blog. Windows Phone auto-uploads these to my One Drive, and then when I am sitting writing a post, I can just upload them to WordPress. I wouldn’t deny that Android does this too; but whilst WP uploads a small version of the image, nothing I could do could induce Android to do anything other than copy the full sized image up. And I can’t put this onto my website because a) it takes ages to upload and uses up our very limited bandwidth, and b) for anyone with a slow connection it slows opening the website posts to a crawl. I know this is a #firstworldproblem but having to go and get a cable, copy the files off the phone, resize them and then manually upload them, removed my enthusiasm for writing posts which I normally do at the end of the day when I’m tired and not up for a load of faffing about. Finally, I have to say in all honesty that I greatly prefer WP from the point of using it; it is fun and different and I can’t say that for Android.

So when I was in Belgium I had reverted to using an old WP which I had in the house for testing purposes (my Lumia 1020 had already left for its new home), and yesterday I finally gave in and reverted my main number to it. The Moto G will have to be used as a camera when it is wet and to use the Viewranger app – basically when R and I are out in the hills.

Please, please Microsoft – bring out a waterproof Windows Phone….

]]> https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/12/21/hello-my-love-hello/feed/ 0 Goodbye my love, Goodbye…. https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/10/22/goodbye-my-love-goodbye/ https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/10/22/goodbye-my-love-goodbye/#respond Thu, 22 Oct 2015 16:43:53 +0000 http://www.donich.co.uk/?p=5090 About five years ago I left corporate life behind, and with it my two mobile devices (one iPhone 4, one Blackberry Bold). After a very brief and very unsuccessful attempt with an early Android phone, I acquired my first Windows Phone (a Lumia 800 on WP7), and I have been on the platform ever since. In fact I have loved it almost every step of the way, and been one of its biggest evangelists.
Which is an introduction to saying that I just kissed the platform goodbye and gave my beloved Lumia 1020 (“Griff the Griffon” for reasons too long and complex to explain) to my Mum. The reason is quite simply that living where I do and having the outdoors lifestyle that I do, there is zero point in having the best mobile phone in the world (and that was what I thought the Lumia 1020 was) without it being waterproof. I was waiting for Microsoft’s big announcement last week to see if maybe one of the new phones (950 or 950XL)would have this feature, but they don’t, and unfortunately the only phones that do are Android. For a long time I have objected to Google as a company as I do not like or approve of an Internet driven by advertisements, and whilst I am prepared to give my info to Microsoft on the grounds that I know what I am buying from them, I am not prepared to become the product in an advertising deal.
So I am trialling the Moto G3 with Cyanogen Mod and none of the Google features installed. Instead of using the Google Play Store I am working with a combination of Amazon, F-Droid (open source app store), and very cautiously downloading APK files (the Android equivalent of .exe files) from sites which may or may not be entirely safe. The penalty I will have to pay for having a waterproof phone without Google tracking me about is constant vigilance against malware – and this is one area where I would recommend that people do not try this at home. So far it is going OK and I am even quite liking some of the phone’s features, but I know from past experience (I lasted three days with Linux as an OS after the original Snowdon revelations) how easy it would be for me to lapse and end up buying one of the new WPs.

So please, Microsoft or someone – bring out a waterproof Windows Phone and save me from Android. Until then, I will post my progress with the new platform.

]]> https://www.donich.co.uk/blog/2015/10/22/goodbye-my-love-goodbye/feed/ 0