Spotify for Android preview
I rarely do app reviews, there are many other sites that does this all the time with nice comparisons and all. But, I’ll do one today since this soon-to-be update is such a leap forward.
If you’re a Spotify premium user you can get a preview of the coming app for Android, and I really recommend that you do. I’ve been having some serious issues with the “stable” version and app: just shuts down after login, playback stopping suddenly (my iPhone version does the same now and then by the way). Not every time but often enough to be annoying. That’s why I jumped on the opportunity to try the brand new before it being released on Google Play.
I absolutely love it. Except from working properly and being way faster there are a lot of nice details. So here comes a few!
Grouping of offline and online playlists, on my mobile device I’m less keen to stream so nine times out of ten I want the offline playlist - they should of course then be on top. Simple but lovely. Here’s the playlist view.
- Nicely grouped playlist view
The menu is collapsible from the left (just like some social network app you’d recognize, hmm...). Works nice and quick, much quicker then the official app from mentioned social network :)
They added some social sections here that works quite well and the app actually made me aware of a new album that I missed.
- Collapsible menu
Without knowing for sure, search must be improved. So much smoother and faster than before, with suggestions and a result view that makes perfect sense, at least to me. From there it’s a breeze to add your result to a new playlist. For some reason I can’t seem to find how to add anything to an existing playlist, hopefully they just forgot it in this preview because anything else would be plain weird :)
- Where's my add to...option?
Last but not least, the actual player looks better, never had any issues with the old one but this is more modern and fits into the Android 4.xx interface perfectly. It also has some smart shortcuts directly to artist, album, share and so on that I haven't noticed before.
- Neat shortcuts!
There are some issues, after all it’s not released yet. Besides the missing add to any playlist function I had one major crash requiring me to restart (when subscribing to a playlist while listening, haven’t been able to reproduce), it also seems to forget my settings for shuffle/repeat at almost every launch. There are certainly other things as well but I haven’t found them yet. Still, as I stated above: this is a huge leap forward!
Get your own copy here: http://www.spotify.com/se/download/previews/
By the way, album that shows inmost of the pictures, Linn Öberg - Parades, is so good that it requires a link of its own: http://open.spotify.com/album/5MpFqBFTUAj0Njdg2J1dcD
Windows 8 first impressions
Almost time for a new version of Windows! Microsoft has decided to stick to the numbering they started with Windows 7 so this time it's simply Windows 8. If the name is something along the lines what we expected the new interface however isn't.
I installed the Consumer preview a while back (perfect timing, the winter did an encore while my partner was out of town). Installation is really simple and you shouldn't need any instructions there though it might be worth mentioning that it will require you to reinstall all programs and possibly some drivers as well. Personal files will be left untouched if you choose it but make sure that you have a back-up just in case.
First thing that greets you when you start Windows 8 is a new login screen. A nice update that looks good but it's still just a login screen. What happens behind it is more exiting however. In Windows 8 you can add your MS Live account, just like you would add your Apple-account to your iPhone/Pad or Mac or your Google account to your Android device. This is actually quite cool and will probably do a lot for Microsoft in their struggle to have an eco-system just like Apple. Windows is the most installed computer operative system in the world and what they are trying to do (in my humble opinion) is to establish a feeling that you really should get a Windows Phone device to go with your computer (and a tablet of course...) instead of going to your local carrier and buy the new iPhone or Android. It's to early to predict exactly where this will lead but already in this preview you can start synchronizing settings, installed apps (from the Windows Store) and more will likely follow. Next step here can be very exiting with even more information being accessed in the cloud .
Now, the new UI: Metro. We can call it the new Start-menu but that wouldn't be enough, we could call it the new desktop but that would be very confusing since you still have a desktop. We should compare it to the UI on Windows Phone but since that won't tell you much (unless you happen to be one of the early adopters, it's interesting but not a big sale success yet). To me it's a logical evolution, from Windows Vista with the Sidebar, Windows 7 and its widgets, iOS app concept and Androids desktop.
You get a tile-work consisting of normal shortcuts and active shortcuts which works a bit like widgets, displaying information from the app (latest e-mail or message and such). This takes some getting used to and I still find myself looking for the start-menu from time to time when I want to launch something but as soon as I stop using an older version at work I'm guessing that this will change. It looks a bit more modern, should adapt very well to touch screens (tablets anyone?) and more than that: Microsoft actually tries to bring something new, they don't act on the competition from Apple by making glossy icons and changing the taskbar to a dock, they try to evolve how you work with your computer. Kudos! This won't necessarily give them praise from the standard customer but in the end it might be exactly what Microsoft needs to dodge another "but why should I have to update again" debate. Somehow there is still something missing, it feels not beautiful. Some work to do yet for Microsoft.
The new Metro UI
All in all, my first couple of weeks with Windows 8 has been quite nice. I find myself using small clever functions in the UI (like the Alt+Tab similar feature of the top left corner) that didn't thrill me the first time I found it. Much can and probably will change before Windows 8 is released in the end of 2012 but I already look forward to it.
However, Metro is not without flaws and I have found myself quite annoyed a couple of times. One thing that bugs me is the decision to make the setting entirely context based. That means that depending on the app your in at the moment you get different options from the settings link. Just like when working on a mobile device. Not only a bad thing but even on my 13" laptop screen I can spare room for a link to the Control panel regardless of which app I'm in. By the way, you find it if you select settings in the "activation area" when your in the regular desktop.
The active area is shown on the right
Annoyance number two, the gap between desktop and Metro sometimes feels huge. Searching after the app or program you want to run is not very intuitive and finding the same app in the regular desktop as in Metro is not always simple. More than that, some apps can work differently in Metro and desktop for example Internet Explorer hides the address bar and navigation buttons in the Metro view. Not only that, IE will run in different instances if you start it both in Metro and desktop, Chrome also acts a bit weird and tends to start double instances now and then if I started it from Metro. So far I haven't found a lot of Metro-fied apps that works great with mouse and keyboard but that can change well before release.
A lot of first impressions :)
If you're running the preview and want the normal star-menu back:
Run -> regedit; HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer and change RPEnabled from 1 to 0
Electronic Arts: Keep fighting the dark side
Once again hatred is affecting the gaming industry. Since this is a blog about almost anything that could be considered IT/Technology I'll give a quick support shout while writing on other stuff.
In the game "Star Wars: The Old Republic" by BioWare there's apparently a gay romance in the story. Electronic Arts approved this and is now facing a anti-gay boycott.
I'm not very fund of hatred, specially not regarding love (feels kinda ironic in my humble opinion). I'm not into MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) so I won't buy the game in support but I can at least help spread this great campaign: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/theforce
Revival
I haven't forgotten about this blogg, I've just had a lot of stuff going on with higher priority.
I thought about what could be a fitting "first" post, now I found it.
The always kind Paul Wilcox asked me if he could link to my article about Android pattern lock. I of course said yes and since that article drives a whole lot of my traffic it felt suitable to start off with giving it some praise.
You can read Pauls very flattering public post on Google+ here: http://goo.gl/AeayV
(The original article can be found here: Unlock-Android-phone-after-too-many-pattern-attempts)
More posts coming :-)
Google+ in the wild, part 2
One post does not make a series so here comes part 2. More on actually using Google+, this time with a focus on those Circles that everyone keeps mentioning and how you can use them when posting. If you haven't read part 1 you can find it here.
Enforced sorting of friends and contacts
Do you remember the GMail slogan “Search, don’t sort”? Cool, now forget it. Google thinks that sharing and reading is better when your contacts are sorted in to lists, so does Facebook (if this was a scientific publication you would find a link to that Mark Z statement), the biggest difference here is that G+ has lists from the start. You will therefore be forced to place your new contact in at least one Circle, you could of course create one huge circle but no good will come from that so please don’t. Sorting people into Circles are surprisingly funny, it looks good, you drag and drop and get neat animations to keep you going.
As I should have mentioned last post but didn’t you will every time you share something decide who will see what. This is in my humble opinion very intuitive and I hardly notice doing it. Still it’s the same function that you have in Facebook with lists just enforced and more user friendly designed. This is how it looks (in Swedish, sorry bout that).
This post would be shared with “Circles” (that’s “Kretsar” on the left) and a circle called “Friends” (you guessed it, “Vänner” on the right). Note that since “Friends” is one of my circles, this post would be shared with them even without me adding it, I have already selected “My circles” where it’s included. So why did I bother adding them again? The little popup in the picture shows some settings that I can set for each circle unrelated to each other. This is very well though out if you ask me. It means that I can share this post with all my circles and it will show up in their stream (a.k.a Newsfeed if your that kind of guy/gal) but for the circle “Friends” I choose not only display it in their stream but also Notify them by ticking the check box. I can also select that for those in that circle that haven’t yet created an G+ account to get my shared post via e-mail. Nice! I’m guessing however that we’ll see some misuse of both these features so a quick pointer, don’t notify all your friends of everything you post. They will not be happy. Also, if your friend haven’t got G+, don’t e-mail share everything you post with them. They will not be happy. One could guess that Google are trying to draw traffic, users and continuously pulling you back...
Now it’s time to get into something very very important. If you don’t understand this you won’t understand Google+. Dramatic entrance eh? Plus uses what in fancy words are called “asynchronous friendlist” (I love that word! I’m using it several times a day right now). In simple words it means that your friends are not the same thing as people that are friends with you. There is no friend request in G+ you just add whoever you want. “What a!” I hear you screaming but hold on. What Google is trying to accomplish is a replica of the Twitter way of following people you find interesting, there is even a default circle called “Following”. If the person you found interesting enough to follow feels the same way about you, he/she can follow you back and put you in any circle applicable. So what does the following mean? Nothing really. Adding someone to a circle has two effects, you can easily follow any public posts they make and you can easily share with that person as described above. You will not see post with limited visibility (i.e. circles) and your posts will not show up in their stream. Your posts will instead show up in the separate “Incoming” feed for a person that you follow but that doesn’t follow you. Was that clear enough?
That’s part 2 folks, don’t know how many it will be but I have room for at least one more...
Oh! Almost forgot, now days you can +1 on any post here in the blog. Exactly what it does is not that clear, it will show on your Google profile, it might affect my search listings (but I don’t know how...) and I will get a bit happier. I consider it a tip-jar that doesn’t cost you anything to use :)
Google+ in the wild pt. 1
Not tired of reading about Google+ yet? Since I’ve been using it for a while now I figured I could share some thought on how it works, what you could do with it and maybe most interesting what Google need to do to make it work. First up, the conversations concept.
"Real life sharing and conversations, rethought for the web"
Catchy? You bet. Does it really differs from other services? Sort of.
Google does it best to convince us that Plus really is different, not another Facebook, not another Twitter and most certainly, not another Buzz. The use of “Circles” are one thing that is a bit different. Facebook has list and encourages you to use them, Google instead call this circles and enforces it. When adding a contact you have to put them in one or more circles. Those circles are then the basis on who you share with, what you read and how private you want to stay. All to mimic how you decide what group of people to sit with at the party and what story you will share with them. This is not a major different, no matter how many times it’s repeated that people don’t use the lists in facebook. Some do (me included) and others could. It’s how those lists/circles are used that is the difference (and to some extent the creating of circles that really is simple and quite fun, yes I like organizing things).
Because the conversation concept doesn’t stop there, just like I can tell you a story that you later on will re-tell for another friend plus will let you reshare a post to any of your circles. This means that what was once a private conversation could go very public. Google just reinvented gossip. The nice thing with G+ gossip is that you will be notified and you can also do a “this is a secret don’t tell anyone” by disable resharing. So far Google hasn’t found a way to stop your friends from spreading it manually i.e. copy it or just use good old fashioned verbal skills. Google should make the share/gossip possibilities much more clear. Not only because it’s a very nice feature but also, like it or not people are used to facebooks way of (not) dealing with resharing, it doesn’t matter how much better this is. I’m guessing that failbook.com are just waiting...
People will of course be upset, I’m sure we will at one time or another hear a threat about a class action suite. In my opinion the conversations/sharing concept is great but it has to be made very very clear, we all know that people don’t read the instructions carefully and that will always be somebody else fault.
I think I’ll take a brake here and let this turn into a little series of post. Looking at one thing at the time is much more fun :)
“Straight Male Gamer” told to ‘get over it’ by BioWare « No More Lost
Sometimes we see companies taking a stand, sometimes to get good pr and sometimes because it's the right thing to do. I have no idea what's the case here but BioWare does it. As with any good initiative it should be rewarded: consider this post my reward since I'm not really into RPGs.
Via: http://www.nomorelost.org/2011/03/25/straight-male-gamer-told-to-get-over-it-by-bioware/
Update your Nexus with Gingerbread
It's time, took longer than I expected but now we have a link to get the GB update. So if you don't have the patience, this is what you have to do to get Gingerbread up and running:
Get the file (directly from Google) here (note, made for FRG83G). Make sure you have at least around 75% battery remaining, you don't want it shutting down during flash!
- Change the name of the zipfile to update.zip and put it directly in the root of your phone
- Turn off your phone.
- Press and hold Volume Down while pressing Power
- Choose the option Recovery (using volume keys and power to select)
- A screen with a Triangle and an Android will show up
- Press Volume Up and Power simultaneously
- Choose the option Apply sdcard:update.zip (using your Trackball)
- When its done, select Reboot
Welcome to a new updated version of Android :)
If you have a Nexus S it's almost the same. Get one of these files:
If you're running Android 2.3.1
If you're running Android 2.3.2
On Nexus S you don't have to rename the file, and you push [Volume Up] instead of down to boot into recovery.
Gingerbread!
Not much blogging going on here for a while. Finishing up one assignment, starting a new one and at the same time buying an apartment takes up a lot of energy. The good news is that my first post in a while can be the one announcing...Gingerbread (Android 2.3.3) is rolling out for Nexus One (and Nexus S). Announced by http://twitter.com/googlenexus.
They warn us that the roll-out might take a few weeks but we don't want to wait for that do we? Hang on for a couple of ours and I'm sure I can find you a direct update link. See you then :)
Original tweet
Nexus One updated again, nope not Gingerbread yet
My Nexus got a new two part update yesterday. I'm guessing that I wasn't the only one jumping up and down hoping for Gingerbread (next major Android version) when it arrived but it turned out to be bugfixes and probably some preparations for Ginger.
Read about it here at Android Central.
Google comments via RyGuy in the support forum here.
And of course, if you can't wait, get the file here (directly from Google) and update the same way we did last time:
Make sure you have at least around 75% battery remaining, you will not be happy if it shuts down during flash!
- Change the name of the zipfile to update.zip and put it directly in the root of your phone
- Turn off your phone.
- Press and hold Volume Down while pressing Power
- Choose the option Recovery (using volume keys and power to select)
- A screen with a Triangle and an Android will show up
- Press Volume Up and Power simultaneously
- Choose the option Apply sdcard:update.zip (using your Trackball)
- When its done, select Reboot
Then Tada! Nothing exiting happens. Your Android version is still 2.2.1 but your Build number changed to FRG83D.
@ETysen at Twitter
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