Bri-B BloG

On Friday November 6, 2009 the Verizon’s Motorola Droid arrived in stores. Since that day I have gone through every feature and every app I could fine that looked interesting from countless apps on the Android Market. After all that, I have to say the biggest surprise I have come across is the number of things this phone is capable of doing and the lack of advertisement and web articles which give you a true sense of these capabilities. Now there are TV ads that address some of the Droids features and many web sites that point out general specs or how a particular apps provides a particular service. But whenever I show someone the Droid and point out some of the cool apps that really show just how many things this phone is capable of doing, no matter how much the person knows about the Droid, they are still surprised and impressed.

So with that in mind, I am writing this for those individuals out there that are thinking of getting a Droid and trying to research what the Droid is really capable of doing, beyond the current ads that are available on TV or the Internet.

There are many sites out there that go over the dry specs on this phone. But that really does not give you a good idea of all this phone is capable of doing. When you combine the Droid’s hardware features that are all accessible to programmers via the Android OS, with the variety of Apps that have been created thus far, you get an amazing number of features this phone is capable of doing. Features that even I was surprised by despite by research prior to buying this phone. I will not go into every app I have found in this article, but rather a select few that really show how the hardware in this phone can be utilized to produce some of the great things this phone can do.

If you want to see a full list of the Droid’s tech specs, it can be found on the Motorola web site:
Droid by Motorola tech specs

The first thing you do when you get the Droid is setup a new or your existing Google account. Right off that means your Gmail, Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts are synced with your phone. If you have been diligent at keeping your Gmail contacts up to date with phone numbers and addresses, you’re going to get this phone fully setup with all your contacts with little no to work on your part. One more quick note on contacts, if you have a Facebook account, you can set that up to sync any existing contacts in your phone who are also friends in Facebook. I was hoping this would sync more information than it does but it appears it only syncs your friends emoticon win Facebook with your phones contact image.

GENERAL

• Android™ 2.0 Platform
• CDMA 1X 800/1900, EVDO rev. A
• Display: 3.7″; WVGA (480 x 854 pixels); 16:9 widescreen
• Arm® Cortex™ A8 processor 550 mHz
• 2.4 in(H) x 4.6 in(W) x .5 in(D)

Some of the apps in the Android Marketplace were written for Android 1.6. In many cases they also work for Android 2.0 and the few that don’t or are buggy are quickly being upgraded for support on 2.0. Motorola did a great job with this 3.7″ display. I don’t think there is anyone out there that woud disagree about that one. Amazing resolution for such a small screen (480 x 854 pixels; 16:9 widescreen). The ARM processor is plenty for the Android OS. Even with a number of apps running the device is still very responsive.

Despite the larger 3.7″ display, this phone is still very thin and small. The same height as a number of phones out there and even thinner than most even though the Droid has a slide of keyboard. With a depth of only .5 inches (13.70 mm), the Droid is only about as thick as a retail DVD case.

DEDICATED KEYS

• Volume control
• Camera
• Back
• Search
• Menu
• Power/Lock
• Home

BATTERY

• Continuous usage time up to 385 min.
• Battery type 1400 mAh Li Ion
• Standby time up to 270 hrs.

My experience thus far is the battery does not last the day but in the batteries defense, I have not put the phone down for more than 15 minutes. So with constant daily use, it last almost the whole day. Now think about that. That is almost like being on a call, ALL DAY. That is amazing.

The Droid comes with a USB cable and an adapter to plug into a wall outlet. This lets your charge your Droid via your PCs USB port or a wall outlet. I also had an adapter for my cars cigarette lighter which allows my to charge USB devices, however when I plugged the USB cable into adapter, I was not able to charge the droid. This issue was easily solved by going to eBay and choosing one of the many vendors that offer car charges, cables and adapters for $5-$10. I was able to get cables for the car, desk, bedside, etc.

REMOVABLE MEMORY
Comes with 16GB microSD card which can be expanded to a 32GB card. That is no small gift by Motorola and Verizon. At the time of me writing this article, a 16GB microSD goes for about $40-$50.

GPS
I have owned several GPS devices that are good at snapping to the closest road to your location. But this GPS seems to be so accurate, it tells which side of the street you are on. When I first bought it at Version and got back into my car in the parking lot, one of the first things I did was bring up the maps and overlay the satellite view. It showed me in the Verizon parking lot, and even showed correctly which parking spot I was in.

Google has written several apps that make great use of the GPS while used in combination with Google Maps. Their Google Maps Navigation app is one of the highlights of the Droid. It is an internet-connected GPS navigation system which uses your phone’s internet connection to give you the latest maps, satellite image overlay, terrain layers, street view images, upcoming traffic along your route or overlay locations from your saved Google maps. You can search for a destination or a new destination along your route by both text or voice searches.

Using the voice search, just say “Navigate to…” and say your destination. It will either pop right up or give you a list of possible destinations you may be looking for. Because you are using the Google supercomputer to do this text or voice search for you, can can even be somewhat vague. You could search for the King Tut exhibit and Google will figure out where the exhibit is and get the address. You will definitely not find that kind of functionality on any other GPS device. Considering Google’s Maps Navigation is still new, and completely free, I think the other navigation system providers out there are going to find themselves in trouble in the future.

Google My Tracks enables you to record GPS tracks and view live statistics – such as time, speed, distance, and elevation – while hiking, biking, running, driving or participating in other outdoor activities. Once recorded, you can share your tracks, upload them to Google Spreadsheets and visualize them on Google My Maps.

Remember the Milk is a web cased ToDo list with many features which now also includes an Android app which syncs your lists with their database. Among the many features is the ability to set a location for a todo item. When the Droid detects via the GPS that you are within a set distance form that location, an alert goes off reminding you about that todo idea, while your in the area.

SENSORS

• Accelerometer
• Proximity
• Ambient light
• eCompass
• Gyroscope
• Magnetic field
• Orientation

The various sensors in the Droid allow for a significant number of cool features and open up many possibilities for current and future apps. The eCompass will give you simple digital compass apps, and when combined with the gyroscope and orientation sensors, you can pan or tilt the Droid up and down or side to side to view Google Street View pictures that follow your movements. Google Sky Map also takes advantage of this ability. When set to automatic mode, you hold the Droid up towards the sky and the apps will tell you what stars or constellations are in that spot in the sky. Pan the phone around and it follows your movements. Layar Reality Browser, Wikitude World Browser, the list goes on, use these sensors along with the phones camera and overlays points of interest over the image as you pan around.

Smart Alarm Clock monitors your movements while you sleep, assuming you sleep with your Droid. It takes the recorded data and uses it to predict when you are in REM sleep and only allows the alarm clock to go off at the end of the cycle allowing you to wake up refreshed. Bubble is a simple but useful app that allows you phone to become a level. Either lay it out flat for on it’s side to make sure you have that picture frame mounted right on the wall.

Metal Detector is just what is sounds like. It uses the phones magnetic field sensor to turn your Droid into a small metal detector. I did not believe this one when i first saw it because I could not understand why the phone would have a metal or magnetic field detector in it. Turns out, Motorola’s docking station uses this sensor to determine when you are docked. When plugged in the phone senses the magnet in the back of the dock and knows to launch the docking station software. As a metal detector I can’t say I have found it to be terrible accurate, but it just goes to show how inventive some of these early apps are already.

The Droid’s proximity sensor is located right next to the ambient light sensor at the top left of the phone. The ambient light sensor is what gives you the light-responsive display. When set to automatic, the screen brightness will be set based on brightness of your environment. The proximity sensor can detect when you have the phone up to your ear during a call. As you put your ear to the phone it turns off the screen and prevents any accidentally button presses on the screen. As soon as you take your phone away from your ear, the screen immediately comes back on allowing you to turn on the speaker phone, bluetooth or access anything else on your phone.

Dual microphone noise reduction
When you hold this phone up to your ear and talk, it is the clearest sharpest quality I have ever heard in a cell phone. For all the reason I wanted to get this phone, it never occurred to me to ask if it would function as a good cell phone. The call quality is just amazing. Who would have thought.

VOICE COMMANDS

The Droid also supports Voice Dialing and Voice Search. To dial by voice just say: “Call” and add the person you are trying to reach. Several examples: “Call John Doe”, “Call John Doe, home”, “Call voicemail”, “Dial 866 555 0123″, “Redial”. You can even open apps on your phone by simply saying, for example, “Open Calendar”. Voice Search is pretty much the same as Voice Dialing only search determines what you said and returns Google Search results. Also, it appears it is the Droid determining what you have asked for in Voice Dialing. With Voice Search however, your request is uploaded to Google and it is Google’s supercomputer and all its processing power that is determining what you said, not the cell phone itself. This dramatically improved the accuracy of the voice recognition. In addition, if your request is ambiguous, it will show a list and allow you to choose.

I have found some additional commands on the web that are theoretically supported, however I have not been able to get any of those to work as yet. They range from checking upcoming appointments on your calendar, playing music, general phone and status queries and the ability to change settings. Perhaps as Motorola rolls out more updates, more command will be recognized.

QWERTY KEYBOARD
This might be the only part of the Droid that I am disappointed with. One of the requirements I had in a new phone was a qwerty keyboard. I have tried several virtual keyboards, briefly played with the on screen keyboards on the iPhone as well, and I have never found a virtual keyboard I liked. So a qwerty keyboard was a must. However, the keys on this keyboard are hard to use. I do not have fat figures and even I have trouble not hitting more then one at a time. With some practice I am getting better at it but it is still a bit annoying.

VIRTUAL KEYBOARD
The Droid has two virtual keyboards for the two orientations of the phone, virtual or horizontal. To my surprise, I love the on-screen keyboards. I find myself going to those and hardly using the slight out qwerty keyboard. I am able to use those and I can hit the correct keys almost all the time. In addition, the virtual keyboards have auto complete, which I find to be a great help, but when you use the qwerty keyboard, it is all you. On a keyboard you would feel the click but a virtual keyboard you feel nothing. Well, they thought of this too. The Droid has Haptic Feedback which you can enable to cause the device to vibrate lightly ever time you hit a key. Give you the feel of something happening as well as seeing the letter appear on the screen.

TOUCH SCREEN
Works great, very sensitive, you do not need to use the tip of your figure or fingernails, just press normal like you would a key on a keyboard and it works great.

WIFI
Supports both 802.11b and 802.11g. Detects when a saved network is there and automatically logs you in. You can disable if you want. Smart enough to run only on WiFi if it is there and the 3G icon disappears.

If you are a fan of war driving, there are apps out there that utilize the WIFI and the GPS to collect information an wireless networks and their GPS coordinates and overlay them on a map. This data can then be uploaded to your Google maps account or exported to a KML file for import into Google Earth.

WiFi Analyzer turns your Droid into a WiFi analyzer. Shows the WiFi channels and signal strengths around you and helps you to find a less crowded channel for your wireless router.

BLUETOOTH
Stereo Bluetooth® technology v2.1 + EDR (profiles supported: HFP, HSP, A2DP, AVRCP, PBAP, and OPP for video/still images)
I paired the Droid with my PC and just like that I was playing music from my Droid through my PC speakers. I have multiple ear phones paired and can swap between them. As soon as the ear phone is on, it pairs and when a call comes in, turning on the ear phone answers the call. One thing to be careful off, by default my PC was paired with both music and phone services and when a call came in, I started hearing the caller over my PC speakers without answering the call. I have sense turned on the phone support in my PC paring.

HEADSET JACK
Finally a cell phone with a 3.5 mm, no conversion from 2.5mm to your stander ear phones like is required with most cell phones with headset jack.

CAMERA

• 5 Megapixels
• Auto focus
• 4x Digital Zoom
• Dual LED Flash
• Image stabilization, real-time color effects, scene modes, location tagging
• Location tagging

The camera app that comes with the Droid was recently upgraded and works a little faster now. It is simple and does the job. Used along with the GPS, latitude and longitude will be saved in the JPG file as metadata. As with everything else, there are several other camera apps out there to extend its abilities.

Aside from the apps that use the camera in combination with other sensors, there are apps that only need the use of the camera to be useful. Google Goggles, one of the newest items from Google Labs, is a visual search app. It allows you to take a picture of of an object and utilizing Google’s supercomputer, attempts to recognize the object and return relevant search results.

The dual LED’s used as the cameras flash are blinding bright and actually act almost like a flash on a camera. You will see that after image you get with a normal cameras flash after you take a picture of yourself with this phone. After the picture it taken, the Droid seems to do some post processing on the picture, clears it up, taking the blue out of the pic from the LED and brighten the image if needed.

Once again, developers find other unexpected uses for the Droid’s features. MotoTorch uses the phones LEDs to turn your phone into a flashlight. It allows you to turn on the LEDs or strobe them at whatever speed you want. You can even type out a message and get eh apps blink it out in Morse code. All of this does quickly drain your phones battery of course. But is short bursts, maybe trying to find something under the couch or some dark corner becomes handy.

ShopSavvy allows you to use the phones camera to scan barcodes of products and then searches the internet for the best prices at stores near to your current location.

My Coupons allows text searches for relevant coupons, scanning barcodes and displaying coupon barcodes you can then use at checkout. You can also print them or send them to friends.

Key Ring Reward Cards uses the barcode scanning ability to create a virtual copy of your reward cards for you favorite retailers. You can then bring up the barcode on the screen at the point of sale to be read from your Droid by the retailers barcode readers.

VIDEO CAPTURE RATE
DVD quality (720×480 resolution) up to 24 fps capture; up to 30 fps playback
Not great in low light but what can you expect. It is after all a cell phone. Might be app out that that lock on the LEDs to help. Video can be up to 30 minutes in length and can be immediately uploaded to YouTube.

I was looking for a decent app that would allow me to view live streaming video, such as NASA-TV, from the web. I was not able to find much out there yet, but during my search I did come across an app called Ustream. Ustream allows you to broadcast video live to the world from a computer. The Ustream app for Android does the same only now you’re not tied down to a Desktop PC. Using your WiFi or 3G network, you can upload LIVE video straight from your Droid to the Ustream servers where anyone in the world, or a select few if you so choose, can view what you are doing or what is going on around you from absolutely anywhere you have a cell hone signal.

When I found this app, all I was looking for was the ability to stream live video from the Internet. The idea of being able to stream live video myself is above and beyond. Incidentally, Ustream also has a player that allows you to view other streams from their site, however, I have had more success upload video to Ustream than I have had downloading other streams to the Droid. The Ustream viewer is still a work in progress.

As you would expect, the Droid has many options for communication. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace apps…etc. Use Google talk for live free chatting, no text message charges like some other chat programs on other phones. The Google Voice app gives you the option of making outgoing calls or SMS messages from either your cell phone number or your Google Voice number. FYI, the Google Voice text messages are unlimited and free.

As far as multimedia goes, you have a number of apps to choose from. A YouTube apps comes with the Droid. You can sign into your account and you will have access to all your videos, your favories, playlist and subscriptions. As mentioned above, when you take video from your Droid, you can immediate up load the video to your YouTube account. So far I have found the YouTub app to be very responsive and the video quality is amazingly good, assuming you choose a video of decent quality from YouTube.

If you are in to Podcasts, Google Listen will allow you to organize and download all the audio podcasts you can handle. Currently Google Listen does not support video podcasts. The paid version of MediaFly does support both audio and video podcasts.

Hopefully that gives you a better idea of how the hardware on the Motorola Droid is being utilized by various apps. But there are a number of other noteworthy apps which make the Droid so great that don’t necessarily used any of the unique hardware features.

Launch Shazam, click listen and the app takes a sample of the song you are listening to and tells you the name of the song, the artist, and with one more click you are in Amazon mp3 app and able to buy that song or hear samples of the other songs on that album or by that artist.

If you are like me and not very good about cleaning out your old voice mail messages in your VM inbox, Verizon as come up with Visual Voicemail which treats your voice mail messages almost like email in an inbox. You can jump to any message and hit play.

If you are concerned with security on your phone and how can access all your apps, you have the option of setting a password, or you can enable the screen unlock patter feature. When you turn your phone on or bring it out of standby, you must move your finger over the screen, draw a unique pattern to unlock the phone. It is much easier then typing in a password every time and the pattern can be as easy or complicated as you want.

There are several virus scanners out there for Android, one in particular is Lookout Mobile Security. This app protects you from mobile malware. It allows you to backup your contacts and photos on their servers, which protects you even if you loose your phone and allows you to access that data from anywhere on any computer. It also acts as a type of LoJack cell phone. You can login to your account on their web site and track the location of you Droid in real-time using the GPS.

Locale allows you to create profiles which can dynamically manage your phones settings (such as display settings, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, IM status, volume, ringtones, data sync, wallpaper, or send a SMS or tweet … to name a few) and change all these options based on one or a variety of conditions, (such as the state of your battery, your current location using GPS, are you plugged into a docking station or car dock, date or time, who is calling or who you are currently on the home with… just to name a few).

IP Cam Viewer allows you to view public web cams or control your own IP cams. View local traffic cams, in most cases through streaming pictures.

EStrong File Explorer is another file manager for the Droid but one unique feature is the ability to communicate with PCs or servers on a local area network via SMB (Samba).

Talk to me keyboard adds an audio icon to the top of the keyboard. No matter what program you are in, you click this button and the built in speech to text dialog pops up and the Google servers translates your speech into text. In addition, this app adds word completion to the physical keyboard. A really nice little nugget that was not implemented on the default keyboard.

A number of apps for free ringtones and wallpapers, Zedge appears to be the best I have come across. All the ringtones and wallpapers you could ever need. And all are free.

Evernote is a notebook app which allows you to take down a quick note, record an audio note, save a quick camera picture to a note or upload a file and save some notes about that file. What is really nice, and what’s unique about Evernote as compared to other note or memo apps is there wide range of support. Aside from an Android app they have Web Clipper plugins for several browsers including Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome and Safari, Mac OS X, iPhone & iPod Touch, Blackberry, Palm Pre + PIXI Windows Mobile and a much more involved Windows application. All this sync to the Evernote website so any entry on any device is immediately available from any other device.

G-Backup allows you to backup SMS, MMS, Call Logs, Pictures and Videos from your phone to your Gmail account. The backuped items looks like e-mails, are labeled, marked as read, threaded and have the date and time preserved. The backups can be set to occur, immediately, only when connected through WiFi or manually.

A number of apps have make use of Google’s API’s which allow programmers to plug into Google’s services. Several apps that make great use of this by creating a new note on your phone that is when synced with Google Docs and can be read or edited as a Google Doc.

A quick note on the price. Not many people I talk to know exactly what they will be paying for the Droid. In my case, the Droid purchase price was $99. That included my discount for signing into a new 2 year contract with Verizon and a mail in rebate for a $100.

Even with all this, I am only scratching the surface of the apps and features of this phone that are out there right now. Even as I was writing this, I was coming across more and more apps, features continued to change and be added and I found myself having a tough time choosing which apps I would mention and what features in the apps I would highlight. With time, more apps with be available and I am sure more creative ways will be found on how to use the unique set of hardware features that the Droid supports.