Android on Fedora

Samsung Should be soon launching Galaxy in market ( android based phone ). Android as such, looks very attractive to me, due to its developer friendly nature. If you wonder, why not an iPhone, I am biased towards linux, and a long read can be seen on reddit

To start with, I downloaded Android 1.6 SDK , and followed the install instructions

While install the Eclipse ADT plugin, you might encoutner a few nasty error message as see below

Cannot complete the request.  See the details.
Unsatisfied dependency: ... org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.xml.core/0.0.0
Unsatisfied dependency: ... org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.sse.core/0.0.0
Unsatisfied dependency: ... org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.xml.ui/0.0.0
Unsatisfied dependency: ... org.eclipse.equinox.p2.iu/org.eclipse.wst.sse.ui/0.0.0

To fix these, ( instructions from android-sdk-on-fedora-10 )

* enable "Eclipse Ganymede updates repository", from Help->software Updates->Available Software->Manage Sites->Tick "Ganymede Update Site"
* Search for "WST Common UI" from search box, tick it, and click on "Install"

Once the above is done, you can go ahead and install ADT plugin ( This may take some time ).

I also did run android emulator, which automatically picked by my internet connection, and worked pretty well with it.

Samsung Omnia HD ( Gt i8910 )

In short, this phone sucks, atleast to me.

Really annoying

* default firmware shipped with the phone is buggy ( web browser crashes on stop )
* WPA wifi connection is not supported
* VPN is a major pain in the ass
* any files/data received via bluetooth are saved to inbox, and cannot be directly saved to a user specified location ( You can access it from file system using a 3rd party file manager )
* Birthdays/appointments are not listed on "Home Page" ( alteast 24hrs in advance )
* Not very hackable
* Samsung sales team is not very helpful
* Windows only SDK ( Yes, to install the same on linux would be a major pain, in comparison to Android )
* Phone case/scratch guard are not easy to obtain
* Photo contacts are not listed as thumbnails, but as icons on "hover"
* 3D home screen navigation is not configurable
* lack of ogg/flac support with default install

* Adobe PDF - Terrible user interface, lacks full screen support ( Picsel viewer is way better )
* Horrible keyboard layout ( When using alpha-numeric kbd, the "Ok" button is on the top left corner, needing a massive shift )

Not particularly

* Opera has not been released for S60v5
* Phone needs to be modded to install most application ( Needs HelloXX2)
* No centralized application market, barring Ovi ( which is nokia ), and Samsung App store which lacks S60 apps ( on last check )
* Lacks kinetic scrolling

The Pros

* GPS/AGPS
* Super wide/big AMOLED screen, with auto-brightness setting, readable in broad daylight
* Accelerometer , and auto-orientation.
* Proximacy ? sensor will auto-lock/unlock the phone when you place next to you ear, or move it away from yourself.
* Easy to use scroll bar ( feels natural )
* HD Games from gameloft ( for ~USD 5 ), and are pretty good.
* Sports tracker ( from Nokia ) is rather amazing piece of software
* Podcast support
* Roadsync ( fro connecting to Office email via MS exchange )
* Route99 for Navigation ( Is far better than google maps )
* Supports for PIPs, and QT
* Support for high quality divx files ( and flv )
* QuickOffice, and Officereader ( 3rd party ) allows one to read MS office, and OpenDocs on phone
* Support for multiple, and custom alarm
* Support for displaying multiple timezones
* Support for zip file, in default install
* MTP support
* A very nice dictionary
* Business card reader