Hello Moto

I’ve been using the Droid on Verizon for a month or two now. Because I am much too lazy to write up an actually review, I’ll just sum up what I love, and what I hate, about both Android and the Droid itself.
Pros:

• Multitasking. Oh GOD multitasking. Opening Pandora and starting up some music, then opening the browser. While the webpage loads, I open up Messaging and send a text. As that is sending, I check up on Twitter, and then look at my Facebook newsfeed. And it all keeps going. The music plays, the webpage finishes loading, the message sends, and I update my status. I could most likely live without this, but that wouldn’t be so pleasant. Honestly, the main luxury of it is having internet radio or something of that sort play in the background. Also part of this is the notifications panel, which is a great way to make everything that is going available to you quickly.
• Open Source. At first I didn’t quite think I would find this so amazing. However, allowing develops to change how the system works can be great. Different keyboards and file browsers are pretty handy. If the OS doesn’t do something how you want it to, there is an app for that (sorry). That isn’t always the case with the iPhone (AHHH COMPARISONS). This ties into the notifications bar as well. Having WeatherBug always show the temperature is actually one of the best little things about the phone. Widgets are nice too, but more on that later.
• Facebook. I’m most definitely not talking about the app, but rather the contact integration. Scrolling through your contacts to see all your friends and their Facebook information is just awesome. And being able to see their profile in a tap or two is a nice touch. However, it does seem to have a problem with one of my friends, and lists their name as someone else. I’m sure a minute or two of messing with my friendslist on Facebook could fix that, but nothing on the phone would.
• Verizon. Call quality is great. 3G almost always works just perfectly, and I haven’t had any major issues with the network. Not much else to say about that.
• The Build. While I’ll touch more on this below, I am actually quite impressed with the Droid. Metal body, nice and solid slider, and best of all, it is heavy. This beast of a phone just feels like a rock. This son of a bitch makes me feel like I am carrying a powerful device.
• Navigation. I don’t really need to explain how great this is. It’s accurate, shows street view, runs in the background, and works quickly. Oh, and it’s free. FREE.

Cons:

• The Mixed Bag. If the platform as a whole has one major flaw, it’s that it has to adapt to so many different devices. 1.6 over here, Sense UI over there, 2.1 on the N1, 2.0 on the Droid, and quite frankly I think that it is a mess for developers and consumers. It’s frustrating to download and app and have it literally not display correctly or even work at all on your phone. When 2.1 comes to the Droid I am not sure how it is going to handle those live wallpapers— it simply doesn’t have the 1 GHz processor of the Nexus 1. I don’t have to explain where that will go. It just makes a mess. Frankly, I think Apple, or even Palm (at least right now), have it right: they control everything so that the experience is always as good as they want it to be.
• The Build. I said I’d mention more later, and this is it. I’m on my third Droid. The first one had dust under the screen. The second was build poorly, so much so that the keyboard would open in my pocket, and it also got some dust under the screen. This one, the third, is probably destined to end up with dust under the screen as well. No matter how well you build something, it has problems, but it is annoying to deal with all these issues. Luckily I haven’t had to deal with the infamous battery cover, but when I do, I can’t imagine I’ll be too thrilled to have to come up with some sort of fix. It might seem weird to say I love it here, and hate it there, but it’s true.
• The Look. When you turn on an iPhone, you just feel like it’s elegant. When you power up an Android phone, you are confronted with a crowded home screen and an ugly lock screen. That’s okay (and the home screen does look better in 2.1), but the UI can actually become a barrier. There are many situations when you need multiple taps to do something simple, and sometimes you simply cannot find out how to do something. It isn’t a huge issue, just an annoyance that could be straightened out. Way too much is hidden under a long press or in the second layer of the menu screen.
• Facebook. Okay, I said I loved the integration but had some issues. After some work I figured out what that was. If I sync my Google contacts with my Mac Address Book, along with my phone, it won’t update Facebook information correctly. My contacts stopped updating, and some of their names switched around. The only fix was to delete the Facebook info and start again. And did I mention that the app itself doesn’t seem to want to pull down notifications due to some error? It would be nice to troubleshoot this, but I can’t because the error message is just cryptic numbers and talks about line errors.
• Minor Things. Multitouch is the biggest annoyance to me. Just put it in. Zooming in and out on webpages can become time consuming and unweildly in certain cases. Maps desperately needs it as well. It would be handy in Gmail as well. While the Gmail app is fantastic at emulating the webmail experience and then some, it fails when it comes to reading HTML mail. The view is too zoomed in and you have to load pictures manually every time. Where is the option to have it done automatically for certain addresses? And one thing that annoys me about icons (besides their resolution being off in most cases), is that there isn’t enough room for characters on the home screen. While “Twidriod” shows up fine, when I bought the paid version, it now says “Twidroid P-“, with the P beginning to fade, because it can’t fit the whole “PRO” suffix.
• Open Source. It’s easy to say that all 100,000 apps in the Apple App Store aren’t exactly quality. It’s even easier to say that many of the 10,000 apps in the Android Market definitely aren’t either. It’s free to develop for. Really, you can just go ahead and download the SDK on the website and get going. That’s great for first timers or those willing to start up a new developing business of sorts, but it hurts the consumer in some ways. When I search something, I shouldn’t have to sift through three pages of garbage apps to find something worthwhile. At least you can return something within 24 hours if you don’t like it. Also related to the market: due to the fact that you are limited to internal storage for apps, many aren’t that large, and as such you won’t find any assortment of amazing games. That’s also related to some devices having limited hardware (see above). This is supposed to change in the near future, but remember that because downloads are over the air or wifi (there is no computer software, obviously), downloading some huge application could be troublesome. \
• Multimedia. I put two or three movies on my phone. Not the best idea. After waiting for the file to sync, then removing it because it wasn’t compatible, then syncing again, I realized that it won’t save your spot. And there isn’t really a video play as much as a plugin in the Gallery that lets you view movies. Oh and why did I say sync? You don’t sync. You copy, because there is no desktop software and everything is drag and drop. There is always something like DoubleTwist, but that doesn’t actually work all the well. It’s a pain. And if you take a cool video, good luck making it play on your computer. The weird file type wasn’t even recognized by VLC.

Android isn’t bad. It also isn’t perfect. All of the problems I listed are really simple things that could be fixed with some software updates, and don’t seriously hamper the experience. For the most part, I can’t see that there is anything that would make me tell someone not to get it. However, anyone getting an Android run device needs to understand something. It isn’t an iPhone. You will need to change settings and get your hands dirty to make it work how you want to. As James DeBragga of Microsoft said, it’s like a free puppy that needs training.

The Decline of the Music Genre

When Guitar Hero came out in 2005, I remember reading a review in OPM, and not caring much, because it just wasn't my thing. Most critics at the time claimed that it was basically the Jesusgame, and you should bow to it, worship, and bask in its greatness. Of course, I'm certainly not disagreeing with them-- they were right. DDR had been the staple of rhythm games for years, but had, at that point, wound down to merely the big booth in arcades. Harmonix, though, had created something that had changed the genre into something not only mainstream, but something that you could relate to, and not embarrass yourself playing (for the most part).


I'm sure that somewhere on some corner of the internet, people were shouting that this would just be a fad. I'm also sure that those same group of people were shouting that while playing the game, and they quieted down once the sequel came out. People kept playing, and the game kept going, and regardless of developer changes and whatnot, it remained incredibly popular. Guitar Hero III actually managed to grab me out of from under my rock. Honestly, it was less of a rock and more of a place to hide from the noise. I played the game for a while, but when it came down to it, it lacked things that generally make me come back to games, and the controller has since gathered dust.


In the meantime, Rock Band came out, and the genre received it's final innovation, which, quite naturally sold enough copies to warrant a sequel. Then Activision decided it wanted to be popular again and said "OH NOW EVERYONEZ PLAYZ IN BAND IN OUR GAME TOOZ". I think it was something like that. That became Guitar Hero World Tour, and it came out the same fall as Rock Band 2. This seems normal, really, but then you remember that Activision released all of these (count 'em: 16) expansions and spin offs. See, now it isn't normal.

EA can release the same games every fall, along with numerous other publishers, for a few different reasons. Primarily, they actually put something NEW in the game. Yes, Need for Speed is the same formula overall, but it's slapped onto something different. The problem with a game like Guitar Hero or Rock Band is that the formula isn't just a template, it IS the game. You can change the backgrounds all you want, but in the end the only thing worth altering is the soundtrack, which is a problem in itself. 

There isn't much more to be said besides this: the music/rhythm genre is now in a corner. 

There are a multitude of metaphors, many of them terrible, that could describe what has happened, but overall, the originality has been rung out off the whole idea to a dangerous point. Business wise, it was a great new way to get people into gaming, and it became popular that even stubborn people like me HAD to buy a copy, and some people liked it and clung on. But, it's that group of people that are left now. You aren't getting me back, and you won't be getting back casual fans who have gotten bored. So now, all you're left with is a hardcore fan base, who eventually, like everyone else, will lay down their axes and move on to the next big thing.

Guitar Hero 5 might be a good game, and the next Rock Bands will be too, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean people will keep coming back. Thanks to Activision's spin-offs and cash cow mentality, the entire idea of music games has become something that looks like a fad, even though it is a lot better than that.

Welcome, or something like that.

    I've tried writing things online before, probably about 10 times.
    It never really works out.
    Most likely it is a result of me not following through, which I think is understandable because anyone can forget that they have some sort of responsibility to essentially no one. I mean in all seriousness how many people do you think might read something like this? Considering that's another subject alltogether, I'm just going to explain what this actually is. Primarily, I'll be writing about technology. If you don't understand what I'm saying, that's fine. You can ask if you want. If you don't really understand why I care so much about the business strategies of large corporations, that's also fine. You can ask that too, but I won't have an answer. 

    Everything published here will, most likely, originate on my Tumblr page, at ericbreese.tumblr.com.