I’ve now had my HTC Hero (AKA T-Mobile G2 Touch) since yesterday, so thought I’d give an update on my initial impressions and thoughts.
There were a few initial issues but these were all related to my network provider, rather than the fault of the phone – my data connection didn’t work (T-Mobile had to resend my settings) and I couldn’t access the Android Marketplace (this is because it may contain content for over 18′s so you have to override this on the T-Mobile website).
Once all that was sorted, I was off.
My thoughts, before I got the phone, is that Android provides only the basics, expecting you to populate your phone from the Marketplace with what you want. Well, thanks to all the “additions” from HTC, this is not the case and I’ve been surprised how “well stocked” the default set-up is.
I was very impressed with the way that I supplied my Google signin details once and it automatically connected all the appropriate Google apps – including downloading all my contacts to the phone book. A nice touch.
There is no PC software with the phone, but you can download HTC syncronisation software – but this is merely to syncronise contacts, etc, with PC applications, something I don’t use. That means there’s no backup software, which will be one issue I’ll need to tackle.
Once connected via USB there is an option on the phone to “mount” the device to the PC, allowing the phone to act as an external hard drive. From here you can use Picasa to import any photos and Windows Media Player to synchronise music.
Now I continue with setting the phone up and getting it just how I’d like. The built in alarm clock is okay, but doesn’t have a “vibrate only” option (and when I’m getting up at 5:30am this is essential for me) – I may have to splash out a whole $1.99 for something more advanced!
Anybody who 
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The Apple iPad – my views
Many people were expecting some exciting name, with it often being referred to as a “slate”. In the end it’s the underwhelmingly named iPad. You see, it sounds like iPod. How they must have chuckled at their own ingenuity.
The thing is, nobody was really talking beforehand about the software – that’s the one thing that Apple are good at and with the iPhone and Mac OS already available, it was obvious that one of them would be used. None-the-less, most thought it would be the latter as they were expecting a slim, multi-touch computing device. In the end, it’s turned out to be a big iPod.
And there’s the rub – Apple have traditionally not been so good with the hardware so, to me at least, the resultant iPad isn’t very exciting. It literally is a big iPod. Or iPhone if you buy the 3G version. Look at the picture above of Steve Jobs with the iPad – it does look like he’s got some kind of promotional oversized iPod in his hands. To me, it looks like some kind of bad Photoshop picture.
Apple are intending to target gamers and, particularly, eBook readers.
The former, well, I can’t see it working. Gamers either want full scale powerful gaming or a pocketable device – this is neither. Electronic Ink based eBook readers are 100 times1 better for reading eBooks with. Why spend £500 on an iPad instead of under £200 for a dedicated eBook reader?
Okay, I’m not Apple lover but I can appreciate a good bit of kit and I will happily say good things about the iPod and iPhone, even if I don’t want one myself. But the iPad has left me cold. I just don’t get it.
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