The Next Big Thing

I've been horrible about writing again. For this I humbly apologize. Here are some of the things that I've been up to with the phone.

The phone came in very handy while we were on vacation recently. We went to the store when we first arrived (using the GPS to get there), and by the time we were done there, it was dark out. My wife said that we didn't need the GPS to find the hotel since it was on the same road (we thought). After 15 minutes or so of fruitless driving, my wife turns to me and says, "Maybe we need to turn on the GPS." The Incredible, for the win.

I've found that I'm searching out new apps less frequently. I have my social apps (Facebook and Seesmic). I have my podcasting app (Google's Listen).  I have my game (Robo Defense). There really isn't a whole lot else that I need an application for at this point on the phone, so I'm not hunting. Maybe that would change if there was a better interface in to the app store. This is one way in which Apple does better than Android in being able to discover apps in a nice, desktop interface and then load those apps to the phone. doubleTwist is attempting to do something similar on their website, but there's much to be desired there as well.

Speaking of apps, I also haven't gotten any progress in on writing my own.  I was able to download and install all of the tools and in fact did the "Hello, World" example.  However, my laptop's hard drive crashed and I haven't gotten back to it. Trust me, though, it sounds really cool in my head.

Recently, there's been news that the Incredible is getting close to being updated. The update would be to the current stable version of Android (2.2) and will add some very nice features to the phone, including 802.11n wireless, an Amazon MP3 store, and wireless hot spot. The last one is the feature most interesting to me. There's been some speculation on if Verizon will be charging extra to make use of a feature that's built in to the operating system of the phone, but it remains to be seen how it will be handled. That feature is already available on the webOs Palm Pre Plus without any extra charge, so one would hope that there would be a similar thought for the more popular Android devices. We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.  One other thing with the update is that I've been hearing that Froyo (the code name for 2.2) includes some optimizations that make the phone a bit snappier and improves battery life. This is also a very good thing. I'm able to mostly work around battery issues with shutting off WiFi and leaving the GPS off unless I need it, but it would still be nice to not have to be so paranoid about it.

I've really like the phone so far. I think that it has been a good utility for us, and I think that I haven't been on it nearly as much as Tracy had feared that I would be. Maybe I'm finally starting to grow up.

No, that can't be it.