Humorous design decision of the day: Color coding titles

We are replacing a couple of spreadsheets with a web application. One set of spreadsheets had data separated/categorized into "orange section" and "green section". These were the background colors of the data in those sections. This data really belonged in a wiki, but that is another story. Anyway, everyone started referring to the data by color: like "Is that the orange data or the green data?" The users did not want to lose the distinction of the colors because now every one refers to the orange data and the green data instead of their proper names (which are pretty ambiguous). To keep the orange and green I made the background colors of the page names orange and green to match the spreadsheet. When we showed these pages to the customers they were very excited that we managed to incorporate their color scheme into the application. Sometimes it is the small things that matter the most to the customer.

XPRT tweaks

Coming from the HTC EVO to Motorola's XPRT has been eye opening on the differences in Android experience. It is completely different depending on vendor. HTC's Sense is pretty nice. My biggest complaint was the browser hides the notification bar. I really like to see the time while browsing so I know when to stop browsing :-) Everything else about Sense was great. If HTC makes a phone with a physical portrait keyboard I will go back. What I really want is the BlackBerry Torch form, but until HTC provides either of those I am sticking with the XPRT.

So, XPRT has a couple of "features" that aren't all that great. Here are the alternatives that I came up with to solve the "problems" that Blur has.

The calendar doesn't scroll and only shows three appointments. It resizes, sure, but there is so much padding around each event that you can only see five events at a time in a full screen widget. I needed a better calendar so I installed Pure Calendar widget (~$2) which doesn't scroll either but I get between two or three days worth of calendar events.

The next issue was actually more difficult to find a solution for. Sense allows you to create a shortcut to call a person with one tap. So on my home screen I had the faces of my family members and I could just tap the face and boom, phone call made. Blur only allowed you to add a link to the person's contact page, but from there you can tap on their phone number and it will connect you. I feel weird saying this, but that seems like to many taps. I want one tap calling! I won't give you the whole story about finding a solution to this problem, but there were at least three apps installed to solve this problem. I finally settled on One Touch Call/SMS (Free!) which works like a champ.

During my search for calendars and one tap calls I happened to install Launcher Pro Plus (Launcher Pro is free, to get some of the extra features you have to upgrade to Launcher Pro Plus which is ~$3). While playing with LPP I just found the calendar form that I have been searching for (scrolling agenda!) so Pure Calendar is about to get deleted. Anyway, Launcher Pro Plus has a couple of other fun features like a quick launch bar at the bottom that you can load with links to applications or contacts. It has snazzy transitions between home screens and a plethora of other features (including a calendar with an agenda!). One cool feature Blur and LPP shares is the ability to resize widgets. I highly recommend LPP.

Anyway, my XPRT is more to my liking now.

Posting eXPeRT

Yay! This is my first post from my Motorola XPRT! I have had the phone for a week now, and am thrilled to actually have a keyboard again.

I have to say, going from HTC Sence to MotoBlur hasn't been great, but the list of awesome features I gave up for the keyboard continues to grow. Several people expressed concern for my sanity over leaving my top of the line EVO for the XPRT but I assure you all, it is worth it.

The one thing that I wish that it would do but doesn't is autocorrect i and known contractions. The contractions are the worst because I havent learned where single quote lives on this keyboard. I have to search for it every time!

Also, I have enabled the mobile version of this site. It looks great. Thanks Google for adding mobile to Blogger!

Apple vs. Google == Consumer Wins

How quickly we forget. Robert X. Cringely states:

Having been shown the way by Apple, I expect Google to shortly do the same thing, adding automated backup, synchronization and migration to Android and Chrome.

Uh, didn't Google show off new hardware support for doing just that like a month ago? Chrome OS is completely networked. There's no local installation of anything. The next logical step for Google is to enable that capability on a phone. You login to the phone's hardware with your Gmail address and boom, the phone has your phone number, your apps, your music, all ready to go. Log out of that phone and into another one and all of the connections, apps, and data are there again. **Note** This capability doesn't exist, but it is what I believe to be the next logical step forward for Google.

Google and Apple are having some fun. Each are taking turns innovating solutions and improving existing interfaces. Apple's new notifications are an improvement on Google's notifications. Eventually, the two will drive each other to implementations that please their users. For example, I would love to see the notifications get screen realestate on the Android lock screen.

Google has the pieces to compete. It is just a matter of putting them all together in a cohesive way that improves the lives of their users. They have to figure out how to make it seemless. Apple has figured that out and shown their path forward. If Google hasn't already defined a path forward, they will be working on that now.

Apple's way forward is the most integrated and simple solution to a problem many people have. Everything they are doing with software and services sells more hardware. Giving the non-techies avenues to keep their data backed up and access it from anywhere will sell more hardware. The cost of the software is embedded in the hardware. Apple took the cellular industry's strategy, tweaked it, twisted it, and now are profitting like no one else.

From the phone

More than likely this will be my last post from my EVO. I am planning to get the Motorola XPRT and I will be able to post more since it actually has a keyboard.

The future looks bright!