I’ve recently written a few posts on my experience with the new Android-based phone HTC Hero, as well as its integration with Google’s Gmail/Contacts and Calendar applications.
Below is a summary of issues, from the business user perspective. I think that anybody who is seriously considering a switch to Android/Google and wants to save some time needs to consider these points. (more…)
Gmail creates contacts automatically from the e-mail addresses you send messages to. This has been an ongoing problem for a long time now. Such items are now added to the “Suggested Contacts” group, but it is still painful for anybody who syncs his phone with the Google service, since the phone will most likely pick up all contacts no matter what the group is. (On Android, there is a remedy for this - you can choose to sync only contacts that are assigned to certain groups. It’s still an issue, since you have to manually pick the groups you want to sync. Then, when you add a new group in Gmail, you have to remember to go back to the phone and check it also.)
What’s funny is how Google has been dealing with the problem. In the beginning, contacts were created automatically, driving people crazy as there was no way to disable this “feature” and no way to view the ones that were added by Gmail. Then, in July 2008, Google realized it was time to fix this, and created two default categories of contacts: My Contacts and Suggested Contacts. Those, that were added by Google would pop up under Suggested Contacts for approval.
Then, Google decided to move Suggested Contacts category so that now it’s displayed under “My Contacts” 
Personally, I was using Gmail Contacts for a few weeks before I discovered, that there is actually such a thing as “Suggested Contacts”. What’s also interesting is that this migration might have caused either some data loss or just a lot of confusion, since lots of people are complaining on the forums about it.
The other thing that impressed me about HTC Hero is the concept of customizable home screens. The phone comes with a number of widgets that you can choose from and add to one of 7 main screens. So you can add a quick Google lookup widget, next calendar event widget, weather widget (auto-detects your location), flip-through SMS/e-mail widget, etc. It’s a lot more powerful than just having app icons on the home screen, like on the iPhone. Moreover, you can change profiles and have different collections of widgets at work, at home, in a car, etc. The video below illustrates these features.
Time for the positive side. It turnes out, this smartphone can be impressive, even for those like me, who pay most attention to usability improvements & information management features.
And I must say I was shocked after seeing my phone book contacts linked up to Facebook automatically, profile photos downloaded, birth dates pulled down, FB updates showing up in the phonebook, incl. access to friends’ photo albums. Amazing, this all happened automatically and instantly! And what’s important, it didn’t add any new records to the phone without my permission, only extended the existing contacts by adding Facebook info.
I didn’t appreciate this half as much when I read about these things on the Internet. But it’s really hard not to like it, when you see it happen in front of your eyes. This is a an amazing feature!
The best part of it is that if some of your contacts don’t get linked automatically, all you have to do is tweak their names on the phone and next time they will pop up on the list of contacts to be linked upon your approval.
So I’ve used this phone for the entire day now, spent a lot of time testing it, syncing data, loading new apps. And what I can say for sure is… It does look beautiful on the picture:
But… fancy looks don’t last for long. As soon as I plugged it in, tried to sync contacts with Gmail. It wouldn’t connect to Google, even though the web worked just fine. Turns out, for anybody who purchases the phone and puts in a different SIM card than the one it originally came with, a reset to factory defaults is required. Otherwise, it won’t connect to Google. It’s a common issue as I found out , but it’s not documented in the manual. At first, I thought that a firmware upgrade was required, but after a short research I was glad I didn’t flash the thing. Looks like the newest firmware, at the time I’m writing this post, is buggy and causes freezes :/
BTW, it’s not as obvious to figure out how to make the phone seen by the desktop. It gets detected immediately, but it’s not seen by the HTC Sync software, neither does it show up as a flash drive. It turned out, that the user has to open a Notifications tab on the phone and then manually enable the USB memory or put the phone into the sync mode.
Upon synchronization of calendar & contacts I spent a few hours playing with the phone and immediately run into a few issues:
- In the Phone application, contacts that only have Organization filled in (no first and last name) show up blank on the list (only phone numbers), you have to open them up to see the company they’re associated with - this has been an ongoing issue for almost a year. Luckily, this issue doesn’t exist in the People app. So every time you want to call a company you have to go to the People app (extended version of the Phone app), open the contact and then initiate the call.
- Search capabilities are very limited - if you do a search from the main screen, then it will search through everything but your phone data. (Meaning it will search the web.) If you initiate a search from the People app, it will only look through the full name and phone number, skipping the other fields, such as Notes. To me, this single “feature” makes this phone unusable. (I was ready to give up and return the phone, luckily found the app the free Star Contact app, that can be a temporary workaround, until they fix it - supposedly this is to happen with the new version of the OS: v1.6 Donut)
- The phone is somewhat slow. It’s supposedly much better with the new firmware upgrade, but since people say it’s buggy, I’m not installing it yet.
What’s also worth a mention is phone’s usability. It feels like often times a few extra taps are required. This blog mentions some of these Android-related problems.
…Big Mess.
So yesterday I thought I’d give Google a try and move my calendar and contacts over the the cloud. I didn’t realize it’d turn into such a nightmare - my assumption was that Google’s online tools such as Gmail and Calendar are well tested, since they have been out there for a while, and that they are well-suited to handle personal information management. What a big surprise.
First of all, I was never enthusiastic about keeping these things online due to security and privacy concerns. BUT, there are practical advantages, too. The most important one is having the same information on a few different devices. (Provided that you use more than 2 terminals - cause if you only use 1 PC and 1 cellphone, then it’s easy to keep them both in sync.) The other advantage is that when you get robbed or when your house burns down, you can still access your data 
Finally, the one reason that made me pull the trigger is that I just decided to buy an Android-based phone, which in theory should work perfectly with Google services. (It doesn’t, I’ll write about it in a different post soon.)
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So I’m back in my searches for the perfect smartphone. After almost ten years of being loyal to PalmOS-based devices it’s finally time for a switch. Palm Treo has been one of the most useful electronic devices that I have seen in my life, and I still think that its UI is a stroke of genius. Too bad their latest and greatest is always behind competition. (Palm Pre is still not available in GSM.)
OK - this post is not meant to deliberate on which phone to choose. I’m rather going to talk about what a lot of business people seem to forget about when choosing their mobile device. So back to the basics, here is what I think business users need in their smartphones - and I wish the makers would start thinking more in these terms. Here we go…
