This is a followup to my previous post on the TouchFLO system
ok seems like it can show more than one thing, but it's quite selective, at the moment it shows one all day item (at random if you have more than one) and the next timed appointment, it sometimes shows one from tomorrow also, but that seems a bit random.
Some settings to control what it shows would be great!!!
Wednesday 27 August 2008
The FM Radio
It's been quiet in the office this week, by that I mean that a number of people are off enjoying sunnier climbs and I've needed something to break the silence, other than the laserjet on the other side of the office. So given I've not got a large enough SD-mirco card to put a reasonable music collection on yet, I've resorted to the on board radio.
The first thing to note is like a number of other handsets with on board FM the Touch Pro uses the headphones as an antenna, so you can't use the neet little box as a really compact radio as you have to have the dangly headphones plugged in to even start the app.
Once the app starts it auto scans for the strongest signals and sets them as presets, it managed to pick out my favorite stations first time, selecting them is easy enough from the GUI, the buttons are big enough to operate with your thumb. There are 20 save slots for presets, 6 of which can be access by one touch from the portrait screen and 8 from the landscape (keyboard out) screen - the FM radio does not use the G-sensor to rotate the screen. The rest of the presets can be easily accessed from the presets menu at the bottom of the screen.
The interface also comes complete with a mute button, speaker/headphones selector, seek/tune buttons, stero/mono selector. It also displays the signal strength as two little bars on either side of the frequency readout, above which is the station name and the off button, which is close enough to the 'x' button that you can just arbitraly go for either.
Another neat feature is that as the headphones connect via the extUSB port the device knows when they've been unplugged and pauses the radio app, and asks if you'd like to replace the headphones or close the app altogether. Also unlike the TouchFLO media player (or the standard Windows Media Player, the radio keeps playing if you put hit the power button on top, meaning you save your battery life.
It also has a sleep function so if, like me, you get to sleep faster with say Today In Parliment in the background you can have it turn off after 30,60 or 90 minutes.
All in all a very nice little app that really adds to the overall usefulness of the device - did I mention that the reception was great too?
The first thing to note is like a number of other handsets with on board FM the Touch Pro uses the headphones as an antenna, so you can't use the neet little box as a really compact radio as you have to have the dangly headphones plugged in to even start the app.
Once the app starts it auto scans for the strongest signals and sets them as presets, it managed to pick out my favorite stations first time, selecting them is easy enough from the GUI, the buttons are big enough to operate with your thumb. There are 20 save slots for presets, 6 of which can be access by one touch from the portrait screen and 8 from the landscape (keyboard out) screen - the FM radio does not use the G-sensor to rotate the screen. The rest of the presets can be easily accessed from the presets menu at the bottom of the screen.
The interface also comes complete with a mute button, speaker/headphones selector, seek/tune buttons, stero/mono selector. It also displays the signal strength as two little bars on either side of the frequency readout, above which is the station name and the off button, which is close enough to the 'x' button that you can just arbitraly go for either.
Another neat feature is that as the headphones connect via the extUSB port the device knows when they've been unplugged and pauses the radio app, and asks if you'd like to replace the headphones or close the app altogether. Also unlike the TouchFLO media player (or the standard Windows Media Player, the radio keeps playing if you put hit the power button on top, meaning you save your battery life.
It also has a sleep function so if, like me, you get to sleep faster with say Today In Parliment in the background you can have it turn off after 30,60 or 90 minutes.
All in all a very nice little app that really adds to the overall usefulness of the device - did I mention that the reception was great too?
Saturday 23 August 2008
Thoughts on TouchFLO part 1
I've called this post part 1 as I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on TouchFLO in the coming weeks but here are some initial thoughts.
This is the TouchFLO interface, the 'home' screen is the second from the left (with the clock)
This is the TouchFLO interface, the 'home' screen is the second from the left (with the clock)- Not as many 'one click' options as IPhone, on the afor mentioned jesus phone you get the now famous 15 icons that allow you to goto an array of useful things. With touch flo there is a slightly limited feel to it, as the main home screen only has 10 one click destinations, with a further 5 being on the other end of the slider
- Slide Accuracy, it might just be me but the videos of TouchFLO look great, the finger slides along, and brings up exactly what the user wants. One problem though, is due to the 'both parts moving' element to the slider it's difficult to know (at least at first) where, say, music, will be on the bar when you get the slider over it, and when you do, your thumb is over it. I'm actually starting to find it easier to hit the 'programs' option, which whizzes the slider to the end, then just tap the option I actually want - which makes the fancy slider a little superfluous. I may get used to it, I don't know
- Diary display, so far I've only ever seen one diary entry on the main home screen. Now this flips between the massive flipper clock in the pic, and a smaller clock allowing more space for the diary entries only they don't seem to use it!
The Data Connection
Ok, so last weekend you could hardly pry the thing out of my hands, it was great, sleek, black, and shiny. Didn't take me too long to get most of it figured out, but I'm going to skip straight to what is the most important issue. It's probably not limited to the Touch Pro and probably not just the HTC handsets - but it's worth noting.
The data connection, the one you are paying for by the megabyte, can be automatically activated by any of a number of on-board programs!!!!
Let me spell that out, software that comes with the phone, preinstalled, can automatically dial the data connection, and retrieve/send data - that will cost you money!!
Common offenders are: Active Sync, the email client, TouchFLO's Weather client.
There are no warnings either - all that happens is the little 'cellular radio' icon changes to a data symbol (either two arrows over the signal meter, or a 'H', or a 'G' or a '3G') that's it!
I tried a whole load of things to stop this from happening, here are a few:
I finally found a program call "Pocket Toolman", this allows the disabling of both WAP and GPRS, and this actually works, you can have all your programs set to auto-sync and they can't dial the connection; but you can activate it when needed from the TouchFlo connections setting page.
So it only took me a week, but this area of slight irritation is now solved - to be honest this is something that should be in there from the beginning
Pocket Toolman is free; more information and a download are available here
http://pockettoolman.blogspot.com/
The data connection, the one you are paying for by the megabyte, can be automatically activated by any of a number of on-board programs!!!!
Let me spell that out, software that comes with the phone, preinstalled, can automatically dial the data connection, and retrieve/send data - that will cost you money!!
Common offenders are: Active Sync, the email client, TouchFLO's Weather client.
There are no warnings either - all that happens is the little 'cellular radio' icon changes to a data symbol (either two arrows over the signal meter, or a 'H', or a 'G' or a '3G') that's it!
I tried a whole load of things to stop this from happening, here are a few:
- turn off data connection, you'd think this would do it wouldn't you? NO, the nice switch in the TouchFLO system just gets flipped back to ON
- remove password from connection details - results in very irritating pop up constantly asking the password
- remove connection from connections system - results in connection being dialed anyway
- Install connection monitor SPB GPRS Monitor - no use this just monitors, I already know it's dialing, thanks!
- Install GB-Softtweak - no use, only has option to force Always On, which is bloody useless, unchecking this option does not force Always Off either.
I finally found a program call "Pocket Toolman", this allows the disabling of both WAP and GPRS, and this actually works, you can have all your programs set to auto-sync and they can't dial the connection; but you can activate it when needed from the TouchFlo connections setting page.
So it only took me a week, but this area of slight irritation is now solved - to be honest this is something that should be in there from the beginning
Pocket Toolman is free; more information and a download are available here
http://pockettoolman.blogspot.com/
My New Touch Pro
OK, so I just got a new Touch Pro last week and I thought, since they're brand spanking new I'd keep a log of my thoughts on it. This is not a review, there are already a few out there, this is diary where I'll record my day to day thoughts of using the device, I'll try and give you an insight into what it's like, and hopefully whether it's for you or not.
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