Tag Archives: nexus one

Reviving a dead Nexus One

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Dead Android

Well that was a pretty tense weekend! I’m harmlessly using my Nexus One and suddenly the screen goes blank and it won’t turn back on. I start to worry it’s a broken power button (again!) but when I plus it into the charger there’s no light. Nothing.

Mortified, I spent the next hour taking the battery out and replacing it, both with and without the charging cable plugged in, and holding down the power for different lengths of time before starting the routine all over again.

It was then I realised the device had flat-lined :-(

Now I get the shakes if I go a day without my smartphone so I instantly buried my grief and got on with searched for a new and improved model. After a few searches and some tweets (I’m a model digital consumer!) I settled on the Galaxy S II: partly through it’s spec; partly because Amazon could deliver one to the office Monday morning.

Out of pocket, but gradually over my loss, I got on with the rest of my weekend.

…but on Sunday I unplugged the phone from the charger, where I’d left it the day before, and there was a flicker of light on the screen.

I jumped back on the forums and found that it appeared that a hard reset and a memory wipe would resolve things:

Hard resetting the Nexus One with the Hard button factory data reset. (volume down and power button)
The device must be powered OFF to perform this reset. If the device is on, turn it off. (If the device is not responsive and does not turn off, remove the battery and re-insert it.)
While holding down the volume button on the side of the N1, press the power button briefly while maintaining the volume button pressed in for around 5-10 seconds.
You should be presented with a menu that allows for: Fastbook, Recovery, Clear Storage, and Simlock. You can release the volume button at this time.
Select Clear storage with the volume button up and down, then press and release the power button to make the selection.
It will ask you to confirm this decision. Press the yes button using the volume up

Low and behold the Nexus One gradually started up again and the backup from my Google Account brought back some, but not all, of my settings and apps.

It was at this point I learnt:

  1. Android Market only keeps a backup of your purchased apps so you have to remember which free apps you downloaded and install them again.
  2. Remembering which apps you had is hard
  3. Finding and downloading them takes ages – but you can speed things up by looking in you “My Market Account” on the Android Market via a desktop PC – why can’t you do that from the phone???
  4. I didn’t need the expensive smartphone I’d ordered off Amazon.

Hopefully I won’t have to go through that ordeal again for a while!

Connecting to Orange with the Nexus One

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So my company just moved from O2 to Orange.

While the transition was mainly smooth for everyone getting an iPhone 4, I had a few challenges with my Nexus One.

For 5 days I seemed unable to establish a data connection with the network and Orange sent out a couple of replacement SIMs to try and replace the issue.

To cut  long story short, it doesn’t seem as though Orange is able to send the data settings Over The Air (OTA), so with a little digging I found the answer on Google’s Nexus One Forum.

Adding the data settings is really simple. You just create a new APN with the following details (leaving everything else blank):

Name:  Orange WAP

APN:  orangewap
Proxy:  192.168.71.35
Port:  8080

 

Just though I’d post this for anyone experiencing the same problem.

 

My 7 favourite Android Apps

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AndroidNearly 7 months into owning my Nexus One, here are my 7 most highly recommended apps for the android handset.

  1. Swype – an alternative text input system that works by dragging your finger across a virtual keyboard rather than tapping it. You have to see it to believe how good it really is!
  2. Touchdown – one of the major failings of the nexus one was the lack of a decent eneterprise email software. Touchdwon is even better tht the Microfot mobile mail app.
  3. Foursquare – the future of geomarketing? I’m hooked, but are you?
  4. MyTracks – great Google Maps based app for tracking your running and cycling.
  5. Evernote – I’m always taking notes and this app allows you to quickly store text notes, voice memos or photos. Futhermore it syncs with the web and a desktop app so it’s always accessible.
  6. Fring – So Steve Jobs he thinks he invented video calling with Facetime? Well Fring was already doing it and what’s even better is that it allows you to make Skype video calls between PCs and mobile phones. Isn’t that a first?
  7. Layar – the Augmented Reality (AR) browser that overlays local data onto your phone’s camera viewfinder. Great software for showing off you lovely smartphone to mates in the pub.

Which apps do you think are essential for an Android phone?

Nexus One Docking Station – it’s, erm, minimalist

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It’s arrived!

But there isn’t really a lot to say about it…it’s a small nicely formed, well balanced docking station.

When you put the phone on the docking station, well, it charges.

When you take the phone away from the docking station in stops charging.

Might as well have just plugged the power cable in.

Docking station next to bluetooth headset...yup, that's it.

So what’s so special about it?

Well, for some reason, rather than connecting to anything via the connectors on the docking station, the Nexus One activates Bluetooth when docked, allowing you to sync with other devices or a headset.

It has a socket and cable for connecting to  a speaker system.

The device basically turns into an alarm clock when docked, with the option of playing music or showing a picture slide show.

It seems to me that Google are really pitching this as a “lifestyle” phone and not a business phone.

Nexus One Dock now available

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Announced via twitter tonight is the Google Nexus desktop docking station.

It looks to be positioned as a hybrid dock/alarmclock/photoframe/speaker system.

They had an initial glitch whereby the product wasn’t available to order straightaway, but you can now purchase one here.

I have; it’ll be here soon. Watch out for a review.

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Nexus One docking station on its way.

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There are surprisingly few accessories for the Google’s Nexus One phone, but there are two I’m specifically looking forward too; the docking station and the car dock.

There is very little news on the Car Dock (ping me if you find anything), but it is expected to be a challenger to the existing satnav companies, such as Tom Tom.

In the meantime, details of the desktop docking device have started to surface have been published and the Bluetooth functionality sounds excellent

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Nexus One Review (Part 1) – The Productivity Killer?

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Just over  year ago, everyone at my company who had a company mobile was moved from the windows smartphones to the Apple iPhone. They all had an option, and they all took the iphone…except one person. Me.

HTC Touch Pro

Don’t get we wrong, I think the iPhone is a great device (I bought my wife one!) but I felt I really need a phone with a separate keyboard, so I kept the HTC Touch Pro I’d bought the previous year. I’ll save my praises for this handset for separate post. For now, let’s just saw it was great.

However, over the last few months the keyboard has started to get worn down and the space bar started to stick makingemailsfrommereallyhardtounderstand.

So the timing of the Nexus One launch was perfect.

I watched the launch on ustream and followed Danny Sullivan’s live blogging of the event, and nearly ordered the handset (S~IM free) that evening. But I slept on the idea and did some more research in the morning…

….then ordered it.

Nexus One box

Nexus One box

Within days I had received my new phone in its minimalistic packaging. I unwrapped and began to play. This is primarily a work phone for me so task number one was to set-up my exchange email and sync my calendar, contacts and tasks.

And that’s where the problems began.

The phone comes with a basic mail app which made setting-up the exchange account really, straightforward, and it managed to pull in my emails and contacts with no fuss. However, the app is really limited and lacks some essential functionality, such as:

  • The ability to add a signature to emails
  • Sorting of emails
  • Scheduling of email sync (you can chose to check emails at set interval on a “push” basis, however you can’t set peak and off-peak times like windows mobile can)

The Calendar app, however, on the Nexus One only syncs with a Google calendar not outlook. oops. Thanks to a suggestion from my friend Jim, I downloaded Google Calendar Sync for Outlook, but it isn’t working that well at the moment.

As for syncing Tasks, that’s not an option.

From a productivity standpoint this is a real show-stopper to me  and I don’t understand how Google plans to take an acceptable share of the corporate market without embracing the kind of software that makes businesses tick. Sure, there is plenty of novelty apps in the Android Marketplace  (more of that in Part 2), but the basics need to be there first.

I’ve recently download a trial of the Touchdown exchange app which claims to replicate all the required functionality of mobile exchange, and will post a review separately.

POSTCRIPT – becuase the phone was purchased SIM free so I had to input the O2 data settings manually.