[sclug] OT: Two weeks with the HTC Hero and Android OS

[Robin Lewis]

>> 2. Voice recognition doesn't work at all.
>
> I see reference to voice dialling on the Hero, but nothing I've tried
> enables it. Google Voice Search mostly works fine though, and with no
> training process. I'm impressed, but it certainly acts as a
> counter-advertisement for Google Voice (<http://www.google.com/voice>); I
> don't see any significant benefits to allowing Google to index my voice
> conversations as well as everything else!
>

Try this: push and hold the hardware call button and say "call Joe Bloggs" (or
add a contact named Talking Clock with a number of 123).

That said, I do have an application on my phone called Voice Dialer... And I
can't remember if that was pulled in from an official release or if it was
included as part of Cyanogenmod.

>
> [...]
>
>> 6. I am a big user of Google apps and consequently, the integration is really good. Contact
>> integration is superb. So is mail and calendar.
>
> My Hero has persuaded me to look closer at Google's apps. Calendar has some
> odd behaviour. Only today, I was fighting it to get the 'UK Holidays'
> calendar I subscribe to synced to my Hero. I eventually did it, but it was a
> kludge:
> <http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Calendar/thread?tid=30517f24d77603cf&hl=en>.
> I think Calendar is most in need of some polish now Android phones are
> taking off.

I'll second this. The new widget that's in Android 2.0 (which has been
packported to CyanogenMod) looks a lot nicer, but there are still a couple of
things that annoy me about the Calendar app in general (like back not function
quite as you'd expect and dropping you back on the home screen after switching
to day view from month view).

> One thing I am confident about is that given Google's diversity and ability
> of its staff, things will get better for the forseeable future.

I'd certainly hope so - and even if Google don't fix it, others will. Even if it
involves forking the Android Open Source Project.

>> Rgds,
>> Pieter
>
> Best Regards,
> Alex

Cheers,
Robin