I am loving the Gingerbread Browser!

I was pleased to visit AndroidCentral today and see that a leaked version of Gingerbread for the Droid X surfaced this weekend.  I have been watching paitently for a while now, hoping for this to come.  So I dove on in, downloaded, and flashed my Droid X with Gingerbread!

The download was about 175 mb.  Took a little over 15 mins to get.  I had been playing around with other Roms lately so I had all the tools needed to load quickly. (If you are looking to do this, head over to AndroidCentral.com and they have all the info on how to load Roms.)  It took just a few minutes for me to wipe my phone of all info, and load the new Gingerbread rom.  After reboot, my Droid X was Gingrebreadified!

This new build for the Droid X is really nice.  I am not sure if this will be the build they roll out for everyone, but it seems like it could be a final version.  The overall snappiness of the phone is great.  It feels like a new phone.  One of the things I was waiting for is the updates to the browser.  After having the iPhone for a little bit, I noticed how choppy the Android browser was compared to Safari.  The Gingerbread browser comes alot closer allowing you to do pinch-zoom dragging!  I know this might not be a big deal to some, but without it, browsing just feels clunky.  I am very pleased to see it now on my X, and it works quite well I may add.

I am sure I will find many more things to like about Gingerbread in the next few days.  One thing for sure, it will make me play with the phone again just like when it was new.  I love updates.

If you want to check this out for yourself, hop over to http://www.mydroidworld.com/forums/forum.php

 

Holy Smokes! I’m Going back to ANDROID??? – See Ya iPhone!

Well that didn’t last long.

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I got the iPhone this weekend. I was so pumped! I held it in my hand and really could not believe that it was finally here. Then – I started using it…

First, let me say that the phone itself is a real thing of beauty. Really well made and looks fantastic. It seems to make great calls, and I did not have any issues with dropped calls at all. If I were just using it as a phone, it would be a great fit, but I have come to rely on my phone for much more than just making calls.

My first real trouble came when I found that there was no ‘real’ google talk app. I had to use Fring. I remember Fring from my Windows Mobile days, and while it would get the job done, it was not as nice or reliable as Google Talk. This was a little annoying, but I could live with it.

Second was the missing notification light. After I got my emails all configured, I would find myself always looking over at my phone looking for some kind of indication that I had an email waiting. Again – a little annoying, but I think I could live without this one.

Next – the akward email reading. I don’t know how to explain this one fully. Just the email part of the iPhone does not seem very intuitive. You cannot flag emails while you are looking at the email list and delete. You have to go into each email and hit the trash bin. Just little things like this make it a little weird. I could maybe get used to this.

Google Voice – Not as helpful on the iPhone. I used google voice a ton on my Droid to send SMS messages to people using my Google number. While you can do this with the Google Voice app on the iPhone. You have to go through a contact selection process to find the person you want. On the Droid, you can start typing the name of the contact, and the app brought in the number. This may seem like a little deal, but now things were getting out of hand.

I am finding myself really having to work at this relationship now. I still really want to make this work, but everywhere I turn this beautiful phone is starting to look ugly to me. Then it really hit.

I keep 4 email accounts on my phone, one work related and the others are personal. On my Droid, I had a specific notification tone for each one. I found the iPhone dinging the same for all of my emails. No problem, just go into the settings and configure correctly. Nope. Not a chance. Can’t find a setting like this anywhere. Well off to google I go. I found out that If I wanted to do this, I would have to get an app for that. OK I thought, I can live with that. When I went to the app store, I found that app – for $5 dollars! At that moment, I knew that this relationship was over. I didn’t have to look much further, I was done.  I was already finding tons of apps that used to be free on my Droid, now costing me a few dollars to have the same type of experience on my iPhone.  Not to mention stuff that was BUILT IN to Android will cost me $5 to use on what is supposed to be the best phone out there?

I just couldn’t take it any more.  It’s time to say goodbye to the iPhone.  I must say that I am really impressed with how far the Droid has come in it’s time.  It is an ever evolving OS that has so many neat things inside, I guess the old saying is true: You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone.   So now I am researching Droids on Ebay.  It was fun while it lasted.  I guess it is a rite of passage, I needed this.   I needed to know.  Now I am a better man for it.

If you are thinking about making the switch from Droid to iPhone even after this, drop me a line. We may be able to work something out!