It would sure be nice to also include text-to-speech. Then you could actually use it without having to get too hands on.
Even Android 1.6 has built-in text-to-speech.
Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
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Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#12It would sure be nice to also include text-to-speech. Then you could actually use it without having to get too hands on.
It does have text-to-speech, which figures prominently in the "car mode" app.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#13The multi-touch keyboard in 2.1 is a big improvement over the previous generation, I type much more quickly with it.
I'm a little surprised this hasn't gotten more attention.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#14I hate to be 'that guy' who's always putting down Andriod, but there are a few 'features' listed here that make me think Google just doesn't get how customers actually use their phones. The cube menu interface seems really impractical, and given how poorly existing Android phones perform at simple scrolling, I doubt the Nexus One will provide a smooth and fluid experience. And as for the speech-to-text, hardly anyone…
I got my Nexus One yesterday.
Yeah, the "cube" is annoying and the tweaks they made to the physics of the menu made it worse (IMHO).
But the speech-to-text (and probably the text-to-speech too) is part of their "Car Home" app. Voice Dialing is a pretty common and useful feature while driving.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#15I'm disappointed in 2.x so far. Google is making some good refinements but they seem to be ignoring two of the biggest usability issues in my opinion: We need a real multi-tasking UI. If the OS is going to multi-task apps we should have a way to intuitively interact with this functionality. Installing third party utilities such as task managers shouldn't be required to use a major feature of the OS. The "alt-tab" fea…
I'm curious: What exactly are you expecting to be able to do with multitasking that Android doesn't already do?
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#16The multi-touch keyboard in 2.1 is a big improvement over the previous generation, I type much more quickly with it. I'm a little surprised this hasn't gotten more attention.
I'll have to check it out. I played with a Motorola Droid today and the typing was absolutely horrendous. Definitely a lot of room for improvement.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#17We have come full circle. First, we got the telephone and started talking. Then, we got instant messaging and started typing text messages. And now we say our messages, but they get translated into text messages?
Yes, but they are asynchronous.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#18I'm disappointed in 2.x so far. Google is making some good refinements but they seem to be ignoring two of the biggest usability issues in my opinion: We need a real multi-tasking UI. If the OS is going to multi-task apps we should have a way to intuitively interact with this functionality. Installing third party utilities such as task managers shouldn't be required to use a major feature of the OS. The "alt-tab" fea…
I'm curious: What exactly are you expecting to be able to do with multitasking that Android doesn't already do?
It's just a GUI issue for me. I want a way to easily see which applications are running and more consistency in how applications terminate or stay running in the background. Right now I'd say it's 50/50 -- some apps quit when you hit the home button, some remain running. There's no taskbar, dock or expose style feature to quickly see what's running or switch between applications. The drop down menu is hit and miss. A few apps will put up a notification that say they are still running but most don't. I also think there should be someway to ensure the core applications don't suffer from background tasks. If I leave some apps running in the background sometimes my dialpad in the phone app becomes very laggy to the point of being unusable so I have to get into the habit of pausing my music before I made a phone call and restarting it afterwards instead of letting the phone pause it for me.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#19It looks like a smartphone OS designed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
That's kind of awesome.
Re: Android 2.1’s Best Features in Screenshots
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious: What exactly are you expecting to be able to do with multitasking that Android doesn't already do?
It's just a GUI issue for me. I want a way to easily see which applications are running and more consistency in how applications terminate or stay running in the background. Right now I'd say it's 50/50 -- some apps quit when you hit the home button, some remain running. There's no taskbar, dock or expose style feature to quickly see what's running or switch between applications. The drop down menu is hit and miss. A…
Holding down the home key shows a list of six running/recently running apps.
There are task managers in the market, I've not gotten a lot of use out of them, other than to note that I should remove an app I'm no longer using any more that I wasn't aware was running.
What happens when an app no longer has foreground capability is app-dependent.