EVO 1.47.651.1 update breaks root. Images.

So while traveling through Wisconsin about an hour ago, my boyfriend’s and my own EVO notified us of the 1.47 update. He documented it as I drove by taking pictures with my EVO of his EVO of the step by step process. He also quickly downloaded a benchmarking app to compare before-and-after performance. Images with captions below. However, as discussed elsewhere, it does indeed break the root access  for tethering. But don’t fear, I am sure developers over at XDA are feverishly coding a work-around for that potentially life-changing annoyance.

The update takes about 6 to 10 minutes total. Some screens seem to hang possibly making the interested user who is watching the process (i.e., power users) try to re-boot. Don’t.

Here is the first pop-up after the initial notification that I clicked on:

After acknowledging the initial notification, this is the first screen.

After clicking OK, it takes you to this screen:

Second Screen showing a progress bar.

Then you will be taken to this minimalist screen.  It appears to hang, as there is no animation or progress bar. But it is working in the back ground. This goes on for a minute or two:

Appears to hang here, but all is ok.

The images were taken in a moving vehicle so please pardon the grainy/blurry shots.

The EVO reboots at this stage, and then returns to this image where the progress bar is really just an animation of a ‘completed process’ with a grayish candy-cane like spinning spiral along the bar. It spins like this for another minute or so:

Spinning candy-cane bar.

The EVO reboots again, but this time with the familiar HTC tones and pixelated Sprint imagery and the “4G” splash screen. However, the EVO hangs on this 4G image for about a minute (the two fingers being held up was my boyfriend capturing a reminder for us when we reviewed these photos that this screen stayed on for 2 minutes:

This screen hangs around for a couple of minutes.

Then this is one more reboot as the HTC finally boots to whatever your normal boot up screen is (in this case, it is his normal live-wallpaper background and slide lock. It is NOT a part of the upgrade)

After the 4G splash screen, settles in to your normal boot up screen.

And then once we opened the slide lock to see our main screens, we were welcomed with this congratulatory screen. However, after doing some benchmarks, we are not sure what we are being congratulated for. Perhaps that our phones didn’t get bricked as some have reported:

I did use Wi-Fi at a relatives home a short while later and was able to upload these pictures and several others (for a total of 24 pictures for a data total of about 40MB) in about 10 -14 minutes (I walked away for a few minutes before it finished uploading, this the time span). I am not sure if that is an improvement as I have not used my relatives Wi-Fi with my phone before this test.

I will post this now, but will edit it shortly (in an hour or 2) showing the before-and-after 1.47 update screen caps and stats for this particular EVO. I wansn’t too impressed, but then again this update wasn’t necessarily supposed to improve performance like Froyo is supposed to to.

Let me know if you had any issues with the EVO 1.47 update.

HTC EVO 4G in hand

I didn’t quite realize when the guy at Radio Shack told me he would hold an HTC Evo back for me after the official launch day (Friday, June 4th) until Monday when I would get back from a trip, that he was doing me a great favor. My only commitment was a verbal promise to actually come get it (I believe he was supposed to charge me a $50 deposit, but if so, he waived that). I had assumed the Evo’s would sell well, but that I’d be able to find one SOME where on Monday. Obviously that was a bad assumption, but lo and behold when I called that Radio Shack guy back on Monday, he still had mine setting aside, after they reportedly were sold out everywhere in the U.S.

And boy am I happy. I’m loving the spiffy speed, and with the promised Android 2.2 update coming soon, should be 2 to 5 times spiffier. This thing is simply an iPhone with no restrictions, with a few trivial to substantial features the iPhone doesn’t have.  The iPhone has a few things as well, but to me they are not as important nor as substantial as the fact that I own this EVO, not Dan Hesse (Sprint), Eric Schmidt (Google), or Peter Chou (HTC), and I can install anything I damn well please on my new EVO. There is a known-by most toggle in the settings for the Android to “allow” non-market app installation (imagine that, Jobs), but in a day of perusing I’ve not be wanting an app I haven’t found in the Android Market, and I haven’t even left the “free” apps section yet.

If you are thinking about getting en EVO,  it is you for whom I am writing  this entry.

First let me say that this is not an anti-iPhone entry. the iPhone, as I’ve always said, has had that silky smooth superior to all other phones screen for years now. But my issue, as well as the issue with most power users, is the fact that you are forced to limit your entertainment and utility of the iPhone to what Apple decides for you. That’s a huge huge huge deal to me and so it would be very difficult for iPhone to surpass my intrigue with the EVO. With the EVO and Android, I can enjoy what I did with my HTC Touch Pro Windows Mobile device. That was that I can imagine any kind of thing I want my phone to do (within reason), and some developer somewhere already made that app, and so did several other developers trying to out-do each other for bragging rights, resulting in various types of the same app that do several other things.

To give an idea of how ridiculously superior this kindof OS is to the iPhone OS, imagine if you will, someone writes a WinMobile app that uses your phone’s GPS to track a point where you are, and continues to track your steps until you tell it to stop. No need to imagine that, because it happened, by several devleopers all over the world, typically for geo-cashing or bike travel. Now, imagine a few years later some one makes a very simplified version of that, removing most of the features and just allowing it to record the GPS location of where ever you happened to be standing at the time you hit the button. Imagine they coded it for the iPhone, and called it “Find My Car’. Well, that happened and the guy raked in $400/day on that sub-$5 app.

Let me summarize if that was too confusing. A utility that has been available for *free* with a ton more features for another popular phone OS gets stripped down to just saying “You are here!” and sold for the iPhone and iPhone users pay out $400/day to this developer. By the way, that’s damn near the Holy Grail for the vast majority of basement developers out there.

Anyway, so it seems to me that if the iPhone is all you need and you are lack of want for further utility, ever, than maybe it’s for you. Otherwise, it is not.

Things you should know:

Installing “third party” apps (that is, apps not ‘approved’ for the Android Market) will require a simple setting change. I left it restricted at first, but just learned that Audible.com had created an Android app and I love my audible.com listening. So I changed the setting and the app installed perfectly.

In that same regard, installing third party apps typically requires you download or copy the file to your phone, then click on the file from within the phone. I looked in vein for a way to browse the files on my EVO until I finally Googled “‘how to” and “browse files” and “Andriod” and learned there are no natively installed file browers with Android (???). Nonetheless, I discovered a commonly referenced free file browser on the Android Market and it installed perfectly.

Hp Slate hand-on a fake?

Just like the HTC Scorpion build file was nothing more than a text document leaked from an unknown location (however, like a crumpled up t-shirt between the mattresses, I suspect it originated in a 15 year old boy’s bedroom) , there is nothing there to say the recent video by conecti.ca (since removed from the site with a promise to await final release before reviewing) is a legit review of the upcoming HP Slate. First of all, even if it is real, we often see prototypes of devices before they come out that are lesser than the final release. Second, the pics of the external case do not match the specs HP gives for the HP Slate. Third, and this one has yet to be confirmed, but my own perusing of the conecti.ca  sites smacks of Apple fanboy writers. So my bets are that given the likely wrong case for the device in the leaked video and nothing more than Apple-centric conecti.ca’s word for it that it’s real, I’m going with my skepticism. Forthe record, I am not saying it isn’t real, but just not believing it yet. Also, I am not saying conecti.ca is an Apple fanboy site. My Italian is as limited as my time, so I only skimmed a few pages of the site which left me with a lot of pro-Apple stories. So take that part with a grain of salt.

Which brings me to my next point. Even conecti.ca has said, rightfully so, that they should wait until the final product comes out of Palo Alto before reviewing it. So what’s with all the Apple fanboy sites (and even some unthinking fence-sitters) posting blogs as if what was in the video IS the real thing?

Many sites are at least saying “according to conecti.ca” as they speak of the supposed HP Slate, even if they then go about the rest of their blogs as if it is the real device. But at least just as many are posting as if it is the real device, not even offering their readers the kinda’ interesting nugget of info that there is no real reason to conclude the item in the video is real or the final product.

And finally, the ‘meh’ that came from the video couldn’t possible have matched the same collective onomatopoeic groan when Jobs finally revealed the much hyped iPad. But if the biggest complaint is about boot up time, I’m not distracted from the more important (for me) functionality the Slate will have. Ah, what a difference a lone USB port can make.

Why the HP Slate is superior to the Apple iPad. And Why Apple doesn’t care.

It is all about how technically savvy, or lack thereof, the buyer turns out to be.

HP Slate vs. iPad

I’ve been reading hundreds, yes, hundreds of tech blogs over the last couple of months (Google Alerts are the gods’ gifts to tech bloggers’ geekdom) gathering information about the upcoming HP Slate and the Apple iPad. And while I’d say the slight majority of authors of these blogs prefer the Slate, there exists a steady stream of Apple Die-Hards who speak matter-of-factly that the iPad is “better”, in whatever way they are defining “better”.

I have become increasingly frustrated at, for lack of a more diplomatic term, the ignorance I am reading from what appears to be Apple Fanbois and Fangurls (that’d be FanPersons) either clearly ommiting information about the HP Slate or simply ignorant about the differences between it and the iPad. I’ve also read Apple Haterz’ responses that contained legitimate rebuttles, but still miss the point thinking the HP Slate will be the “iPad killer”. I hope to settle that debate here and now.

First, let me jump right into the middle of my overall diatribe to point out one major issue that continues to come up in these blogs from the Apple Loverz: The ‘connectivity’ issue. Just as an example, one blogger at Intoday.in wrote in his (her?) blog titled “Why Apple iPad’s ‘killers’ won’t kill” stated, “HP’s Slate will probably fall flat with just its connectivity restrictions“.

Now, the tell tale sign that this author is simply hatin’ the HP Slate or failing to add another moment of critical thought about his thoughts on the Slate is that he used the word “restrictions” to describe the lack of native 3G integration for the Slate, whereas the iPad does have native 3G installed. Let me add more accuracy to that statement: The Slate does not have native AT&T 3G installed, whereas the iPad does. How anyone could call this a ‘restriction’ on HP’s part is beyond me. It is actually the opposite of restrictive.

The HP Slate has a USB port, and runs Windows 7. This means that not only can the Slate’s end user plug in an AT&T 3G modem card/dongle into their Slate and have the exact same connectivity as the iPad, they can also plug in a Sprint 3G card, or Sprint 4G/WiMax card, or Verizon LTE card, or any USB connected wireless broadband card/dongle from the carrier of their choice. Do I need to explain this any further? The HP Slate actually has MORE connectivity than the iPad, in spades.

So, for that fact alone, the HP Slate is indeed superior to the iPad if one puts most of the weight of their decision in the ‘connectivity’ requirement for their respective tablet device.

Now let’s move to the respective OS’s. As stated, the HP Slate will run the Windows 7 OS, which has had surprisingly good reviews for the most part relative to their past OS releases. Aside from a dedicated geek following with Windows XP Pro, Microsoft has had a bear of a time enjoying a smiley faced history as has Apple. The reasons for this are multi-faceted (which I will go into shortly) but for now, let it suffice that Windows 7 is at minimum a viable OS for the HP Slate.

This is where it will come down to why the HP Slate will not be the iPad killer. Even though Apple iPad has locked down their iPad OS, that YOU OWN, mind you, and has decided to dictate what you can and cannot install on your iPad and what functions you can and cannot enjoy on your iPad THAT YOU OWN, Apple will still sell iPads by the Wagon load to not only eager Apple loyalites, but a significant portion of the general public who’s extent of technical savvy is that they know how to make their fingers do the ‘pinch to zoom’ gesture on their iPhone screen. This is because Apple markets to them, and not to the technically savvy among us. That is what Apple does right when it comes to business sense. In short, Apple could sell iSnowballs in Alaska if they so chose.

That being said, it is to the power-user community’s chagrin that this ‘pinch to zoom’ demographic shapes the kind of technology we get to enjoy. In other words, the iPad could have all the features we want in a Tablet, but (and this is key) Apple has WISELY realized that by limiting what the small minority of geeks want in functionality, they get a more stable OS upon which to run their iPad, thus less software conflicts that the end user would cause by installing third party applications (but for which Apple would be blamed). Perhaps Steve Jobs’ himself had identified this seemingly avant garde  business model of retaining part ownership of the end users’ devices and parentally controlling how end users use their Apple device, so as to limit the aforementioned technical issues (the number 1 issue that has plagued Microsoft’s Windows releases when end users would cause major issues by installing third party software and turn around and blame Microsoft). Nonetheless, when it comes to looking good and thus enjoying numerous sales of their iProducts, Apple’s way is smart.

Regardless who identified it, they have seen the fruits of this decision to control the end user’s device in that hordes of Apple Fans flock to buy their next “magical” product. It’s a mind boggling sight to behold, really, the droves of Apple Faithful waiting in line to get their shiny colorful Apple iGadget, not caring at all that they will not get as much usability out of it due to the lock down Jobs’ and Co. have dictated will be the case.

Incidentally, Windows 7 inspiration was perhaps accidentally outed by Microsoft’s partner group manager Simon Aldous in an interview with PCR last November when he offered that Windows 7 design wanted to “create a Mac look and feel in terms of graphics”. Despite that black-project geosynchronous satellites as far away as China picked up an onerous warble of time and space from Redmond at that moment, the damage was done and the proverbial cat was let out of the bag. It was what many of us suspected all along. Microsoft finally recognized the superior interface that the Mac OS sported might actually have at least something to do with their followers’ faithfulness. And look what happened. Windows 7 actually got, *gasp*, a significant portion of POSITIVE reviews.

In a further point, one might note how the new Windows Phone 7 (series) OS has abandoned the Windows Mobile model of ‘anything goes’ for developers at the (dramatic) cost of functionality, and instead has nearly mimicked the Apple ‘lock down’. They will implement the Apple model of app approval and will pretty much decide, like Apple, what you can and cannot do with YOUR Windows 7 phone. Again, it will be an infuriating move to the power-users like myself, but Microsoft will gain the same demographic (and fistfuls of money) of pinch-to-zoom potential buyers who vastly out number us power-users. It’s a fact of life we have to live with.

Therefore, the HP Slate will be a winner for many of us, but will not kill the iPad.

And HP should sell enough Slates to make a profit. This is assuming other newer Tablets on the market and yet to be announced do not provide more functionality for a similar price. But to compete with the Slate, they will have to run either Windows 7 or Android, otherwise their proprietary application code will limit developers’ contributions, more nimbler OS be damned.

Earlier this month, this slide was possibly leaked out of Palo Alto.  If so, it gives us a peek at the specs HP has in store for the Slate:

From i486Girl HP Slate vs. Apple iPad leaked Slide?

Hardware wise, if the above embedded HP slide is legit, the iPad has a slightly bigger screen and thus a slightly better resolution (iPad’s 9.7″ screen @ 1024 x768 vs. Slate’s 8.9″ screen @ 1024×600), a wider Wi-Fi range (iPad covers 802.11a/n in addition to Slate’s standard b/g), and a longer battery life (iPad’s 10hr vs. Slate’s 5hr.). What has yet to be seen is if HP has managed to get even close to the superior touch-screen capabilities of the iPhone and iPad. Apple wins this part of the vis-à-vis face-off  as they have poured a ton of R&D into making multiple layers of software work together to create a silky smooth touch screen experience for the end user, even though they are using the same Taiwanese touch-screens every other manufacturer is using.

But none of these pique my attention. Another 0.7″ of screen real estate and an additional 168×1024 pixels does not make a noticeable difference for which uses one will likely buy a tablet (I doubt CAD engineers will make up a worthwhile proportion of potential end users).  The Wi-Fi range of b/g is sufficient, and if I ever wanted to use the a/n band, I can simply carry around a tiny $20 802.11a-n dongle with me (with all the other gear I invariably carry around). And while the battery life is quite awesome for the iPad, I really have rarely needed more than a few hours on my laptop before I was next to an outlet. My old laptop’s battery dropped to 30 minutes of life a year before I bought a new one, and I don’t think I ever needed to use it more than 20 minutes away from an outlet. And I use my current laptop away from a plug at most an hour at a time. I admit it would be nice to never worry about the battery draining if I were ever stuck away from a plug outlet, but it’s not been the case for me ever, and so it is not a deal maker for me.

And as for that delicious touch-screen advantage the iPad may have over the Slate (we will have to wait and see), I clearly love it. But you could offer to sell me the sexiest candy-apple red Ferrari with luxurious leather seats that sensuously caressed my body, but if it only allowed me to drive to a fraction of  cities in the U.S., I’ll take the still comfortable ‘go anywhere I please’ Lexus if offered for the same price.

The HP Slate will run an OS that is not locked down and developers will not have to bow to a Jobsatollah Khomeini to earn the right to offer you an app to run on YOUR device THAT YOU OWN (it seems I have to drive that point home given the blog articles I’ve read that seem to miss this point). This will mean developers’ existing Windows Applications, which number in the millions, will already be available to the HP Slate and thus instantly surpass the iPhone app store’s piddly amount of apps, relatively speaking.

And as mentioned, the Slate will have a USB port that the iPad will not have, where you can plug in and use litterally hundreds of various USB devices (external HDs, DVDs, Monitors, printers, flash drives, 3G/4G/LTE modems, 1394 cards, turntables, mini-fridges, dancing bugs, the list is nearly endless). That funcionality alone makes the HP the choice for me and many people over the iPad.

The Slate will have an SD card slot. Not that this matters too much when it already has a USB port (for multi-card readers), but at least it will be  a faster means of transferring data from the now ubiquitous SD card standard.

I have not mentioned other horrid limitations of the iPad, such as there is *currently* no way to print from it aside from what the guys over at formgroup.com discovered:

How to Print with the iPad

Also, inversely to my earlier point,  you are LIMITED to AT&T’s 3G connectivity. And then there’s Apple’s typical “up-yours!”  attitude, this time directed at Adobe and the use of Flash on the iPad. That may come out later, but Slate buyers will never have to worry about what their Daddy Jobs decides will be permitted to work on their device (ahem, that they own).

So, if you want the iPad, go to town and stand in line with all the other people who like colorful shiny gadgets. But don’t write blogs that ignore the extreme restrictions and limitations of the Apple iPad OS and hardware. It just makes you look silly to those of us who know better. The iPad may very well provide all the funcionality you want or need. And if the iPad’s current feature set gave me all I needed, I’d also buy it just to have that damn near orgasmic touch screen. But if someone wants more functionallity, the clear choice between the two is the HP Slate.

i486Girl@GMail.com

4/16/10