WHEE TABLET JOY

Posted by on September 7, 2012

So I got a Nexus 7. :D :D :D

This is my first Android device! I think I’m going to need a lot of help figuring things out, but that’s okay bc I have plenty of friends.

Interestingly, even though this device was bought in the US and I chose to keep the OS in English as I was activating it didn’t stop it from deciding to talk to me in French in the Play store and app recs, etc – I suppose it’s a feature of the geolocation from before I turned off the GPS. (This is dumb! WHO SAYS I SPEAK FRENCH when I buy a US device & set the OS in English?!)

As a result, the three (free) book propositions offered to me from the Play Book thing were by Proust, Voltaire & Verne. Out of curiosity I opened A la Recherche du temps perdu, and what did I find? There’s no space before any of the double punctuation marks, which is the rule in French. Let me tell you, I will NOT be reading Proust with English-style semi-colons and colons everywhere. Ugh, ebooks quality. LANGUAGES ARE DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER EVEN WHEN THEY USE THE SAME ALPHABET, dammit. /rant

So far, here’s what I installed:

  • Sleipnir
  • Twicca & Tweetcaster
  • Aldiko
  • Skitch
  • 1Password Reader
  • Dropbox
  • Pinboard
  • Instagram
  • Feedly
  • Flipboard

Some are apps I already use on the iPhone/iPod Touch and knew I wanted, and some are stuff I didn’t really have on those devices but connect to services I already do use (laptop, etc), like Pinboard and 1Password – I don’t miss 1Password on the iPod bc I don’t do lots of shit there that I need it for, but I knew I would miss it on the tablet where I’ll probably do more web surfing, etc.

And some are apps I have never used yet, like Sleipnir (a browser that’s been specifically made to tightly integrate surfing with mobile use? I am unclear on it yet, just want to check it out) and Flipboard, which I might never use but have been curious about for a while.

I think I like Tweetcaster’s functionality/UI better in terms of actions but I like the display of Twicca better, so I’m a little torn.

Here’s an issue I hadn’t foreseen that both have: since Twitter’s new API TOS changes, clients don’t allow you to RT a locked tweet even in an editable mode where you can remove the tweeter’s name. On the laptop I can still select a locked tweet’s text & “easily” paste it without the username in the edit box, add RT: or RT (locked): and send it off. But on the tablet, at least in those clients, selecting the text of a tweet for C/P is not possible. That’s going to cramp my twitter style a LOT, considering a ton of my friends are locked but don’t object to being RT’d in this way. Sigh. (If you have a Twitter client that allows that, please rec it to me!)

What I’ve done with it:

  • dealt w/ email, which is fun and smooth
  • downloaded epubs from AO3 & import them into Aldiko
  • wrapped it up in a ziplock back to read fic in the bath <3
  • (later, went back to click on the link at the end of the fic to go leave a comment on the AO3 page, yay)
  • learned how to navigate the settings somewhat
  • thought, eventually, of downloading the user manual to not fumble too much :D
  • read through my feeds w/ feedly – which I’ve used a little on the iPod but haven’t really mastered very much yet. (any hints welcome)

Mysteries I need to solve:

  • How does one do file management on this? I haven’t seen a pre-installed app that seemed the obvious answer to that – are there apps I need to download to do that?
  • Can I, say, download a Youtube video to keep it somewhere on there so I can watch it later? Probably, right? I just have to find out how.

What I’m going to need / test-drive later:

  • a good text editor or several (I use 3 on the iPod, and about 3 on the Mac too, so, yeah)
  • a podcast management app maybe?
  • a todo list / task manager, perhaps, OR a text editor able to open/recognize TaskPaper files (they are plain text but with their own extension, some apps are baffled by this, sadly)
  • a Tumblr app that sort of works? Does that exist for Android?
  • an app for Ravelry (I recently started using Wooly on the iPod, it’s promising…)
  • a PDF management / annotation / reading app that’s not my ebook reader, to deal with my knitting patterns
  • a row-counter / needle-gauge app maybe?
  • other things I’m not thinking of right now.

ALL RECS AND ANDROID BABBLE APP TALK WELCOME, please tell me things! Sell me things! Warn me off things so I can avoid the worst mistakes!

I am a n00b, please help school me gently. If you’re so inclined. :D

geek:android

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