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cellioI'm typing this from my new Android tablet -- an ASUS Transformer with keyboard dock. It's quite spiffy! (And a well-timed gift, as I was still cogitating over my dead iBook.)
It works well as a tablet -- nice display, the apps work the way I expect, and it didn't take too long to figure out some of the interface quirks (which may be real or may be signs that I've used an iPad). The on-screen keyboard is "fat"; I don't know how else to describe it, but it works (and, not surprisingly, with better accuracy than my phone). The hardware keyboard is of course smaller than a conventional one, so currently I'm making lots of typos but I'm touch-typing. The keys are closer together than I'm used to and it feels like I'm hitting them harder than I'm used to, particularly the keys toward the edges (that are less likely to be struck "straight on"). I'm still faster with the hardware keyboard than the on-screen one, though, and it doesn't take up half the screen. So, bottom line, when I want to do extensive typing I can slip it into the dock, and otherwise its a nice 10" tablet.
Please feel free to tell me about all your favorite Android apps. I have an Android phone so I know a few, but tablets and phones are different.
Good news: somebody has ported emacs to Android and it's in the store (free). Bad news: it seg-faults for me on start. It's a known problem but the suggested work-around didn't for me. I've contacted the author.
The dock provides a USB port and there's a file-browser app. This is very promising.
How in the world do I get the Google+ web site to let me use the regular, not mobile, site? I know there's an app but I don't like it; the web site is just fine with the real-estate available on a tablet. But when I try to use it it forces me into the mobile version, which isn't as good. (Not as bad as the app, but not as good as it could be.)
The previous paragraph might describe a specific symptom of a more-general problem. General solutions also welcome. :-) (Stack Exchange, by way of contrast, uses the mobile site on my phone but the regular one on the tablet, so it's not as simple as checking for mobile devices.)
There are two browsers pre-installed, "browser" and Chrome. I wonder why. I wonder what "browser" is.
LJ oddity: I'm typing this using the (regular) web site, not an app, and when typing this text is a smaller variable-width font. When focus is elsewhere (like when I typed the tags), it changes to a larger fixed-width font (Courier, I assume). I want that all the time! (This is the HTML editor, not the rich-text one.)
I'm not very good at finger-based cursor placement yet. I wonder what typos Ive introduced while editing. :-)
More to come as I use it more, I'm sure.
It works well as a tablet -- nice display, the apps work the way I expect, and it didn't take too long to figure out some of the interface quirks (which may be real or may be signs that I've used an iPad). The on-screen keyboard is "fat"; I don't know how else to describe it, but it works (and, not surprisingly, with better accuracy than my phone). The hardware keyboard is of course smaller than a conventional one, so currently I'm making lots of typos but I'm touch-typing. The keys are closer together than I'm used to and it feels like I'm hitting them harder than I'm used to, particularly the keys toward the edges (that are less likely to be struck "straight on"). I'm still faster with the hardware keyboard than the on-screen one, though, and it doesn't take up half the screen. So, bottom line, when I want to do extensive typing I can slip it into the dock, and otherwise its a nice 10" tablet.
Please feel free to tell me about all your favorite Android apps. I have an Android phone so I know a few, but tablets and phones are different.
Good news: somebody has ported emacs to Android and it's in the store (free). Bad news: it seg-faults for me on start. It's a known problem but the suggested work-around didn't for me. I've contacted the author.
The dock provides a USB port and there's a file-browser app. This is very promising.
How in the world do I get the Google+ web site to let me use the regular, not mobile, site? I know there's an app but I don't like it; the web site is just fine with the real-estate available on a tablet. But when I try to use it it forces me into the mobile version, which isn't as good. (Not as bad as the app, but not as good as it could be.)
The previous paragraph might describe a specific symptom of a more-general problem. General solutions also welcome. :-) (Stack Exchange, by way of contrast, uses the mobile site on my phone but the regular one on the tablet, so it's not as simple as checking for mobile devices.)
There are two browsers pre-installed, "browser" and Chrome. I wonder why. I wonder what "browser" is.
LJ oddity: I'm typing this using the (regular) web site, not an app, and when typing this text is a smaller variable-width font. When focus is elsewhere (like when I typed the tags), it changes to a larger fixed-width font (Courier, I assume). I want that all the time! (This is the HTML editor, not the rich-text one.)
I'm not very good at finger-based cursor placement yet. I wonder what typos Ive introduced while editing. :-)
More to come as I use it more, I'm sure.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-23 11:08 pm (UTC)"Browser" is the standard, stock Android browser that's come with the OS since...well, a long time. The recent 4.x versions are pretty fast and awesome. Chrome is a port of Google Chrome, including the blazingly-fast V8 Javascript engine, to Android. You might, depending on proclivities, also like the Firefox versions (I use Firefox Beta), or the Android-only Dolphin Browser.
There are so many apps I love! And so many, like Glympse and TripIt, really only come into their own when travelling. I'd ask you for categories of things you'd like to do on the tablet, but one thing you might want to consider is the vast ecosystem of onscreen keyboard replacements. A top one is Swype, which uses geastures to type (and can be kick-ass fast), or the Hacker's Keyboard, which for an app like emacs might be critical, as it provides keys like Tab which aren't on any of the standard keyboards.
Anyway, hope that helps!
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-24 01:13 am (UTC)I know that Chrome is Google's browser; what puzzled me is that it's treated as a secondary browser on "their" platform. I may use the tablet as a convenient way to test-drive Chrome, since I haven't installed it on my desktop. (I use Firefox there.)
Here are some categories of things I'd like to do on a tablet (and sometimes phone) for which there isn't already an obvious app:
- Write in plain text (to facilitate cut/paste elsewhere later). E.g. compose LJ posts or email, take notes during presentations.
- (Phone:) grocery list. I've tested out a couple different apps for this but they want to organize my list for me. My paper list is ordered by sequence in the store; I want to preserve that concept. Ideally it will also store common items so I can just indicate "need more X" instead of typing it in again.
- Library management (books or music): to answer the "do I own that already?" question while standing in the store.
- SSH client.
- The following are special-purpose Jewish things: Jewish calendar including parsha and maybe daf yomi; siddur with Hebrew and English text; tanakh ditto.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-24 07:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-09-24 02:11 am (UTC)