I picked up a G1 yesterday. This thing is freakin' cool. Now I have an iPod Touch and a G1. I sort of like the idea of keeping my MP3 player and phone as separate devices. There seems to be a lot of PIM overlap though. I'll try sticking with the G1 for PIM work for now since it's connected fulltime and sync's with all my Google info. Gmail, contacts, calendars etc. Phone is a blast but apps are extremely limited at the moment. Google is supposed to open the marketplace up to outside developers starting next week. Hopefully there will be a flood of new apps.
Yeah the reviews I've read on the G1 are mixed. One thing we know is that Google will indeed improve the apps. In the end Google is always going to compete.
Sorry, I fell off the face of the earth for a week. But I'm back now. Well. Google opened up their application "Market" this week so there are a lot of good apps showing up now. The browser is VERY similar to iPhone without multi-touch (I suspect it's protected) The notifications bar on top is apparently exposed to applications so they can monitor activity and pop up a notice outside of the base android apps. Twitter client for example runs in the background and checks for updates every 15 minutes.
I still really like the hardware. There are a few annoyances with any first gen device and this one has its share. The lack of a headphone jack it first among them. You can use mini USB headphones which they include but it isn't an optimal solution. The lack of a virtual keyboard is one which the market should be able to correct. It's quite annoying to have to open the slider every time you type in a username of password. For larger typing tasks the "real" keyboard is great. Another issue that might be able to be cleared up by 3rd party developers is that the screen doesn't go into landscape mode by simply tilting the device. It will go into landscape when you slide it open but not just by tilting it. There are a number of apps which take advantage of the accelerometers so I know they're in there and it should be possible to do. I know that sprint has no intention of supporting android at the moment but I look forward to seeing what other manufacturers are going to do with this phone os. Did I mention that T-mobile is half the cost of AT&T and the G1 is about half the price of an iphone?
G1 is capable of multi touch and have the screen can go landscape and portrait by tilting but it's not available out of the box. I am guessing it's because of Apple's patents. I like the phone and I am keeping it. It's not perfect and it's only version 1. I bet the version 2 will be better.
A couple more little annoyances. 1) Plastic screen. The glass screen on the touch/iphone is much nicer. 2) Firmware isn't available via the Market. My phone is 2 generations back from the latest. It would by nice if I could download it myself rather than having to wait for OTA auto-updates.
Another annoyance. As the "Market" currently operates it will not automatically notify you of updates for the apps on your phone.
