Android and Linux

Monday, December 12, 2011

Android blues... and cheers.

The bad.

My Nexus One is dying. About a month ago, I was having problems like my favorite keyboard kept being reset to the Android default and my email sync kept turning off for no reason. So I upgraded to the newest Cyanogen and had even more problems. First it took several attempts to install, then a couple more wipes and attempts and some tweaking, hacking and tricking to get the Market to work, and I've been having random reboots and lock-ups since.

When you have a broken power button, a random lock up means you have to plug it into a charger then pull and insert the battery a couple of times to trick the sucker into booting.

I'm pretty sure there is something wrong with the phone's hardware somewhere. The upside is that it gives me an excuse to get the new Galaxy Nexus. The downside is that Verizon is dragging their feet about putting the darn thing on sale, so I'm stuck with a dying N1 for the time being.

There's nothing cooler than having to leave a party to go outside and plug my phone into the car charger to tease it into a hard reboot when it suddenly locks up in the middle of a conversation.

The Good.

If you haven't been to the web version of the Android Market lately, they've added some handy filters to search results, and they're also having 10 cent app sales to celebrate their 10 billionth download. The downloads have been changing daily and there are quite a few worth picking up. I've grabbed a bunch because, although I don't really want them now, I may have a use for them in the future.

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