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A friend of mine recently asked if she should buy an iPod Touch or a Motorola Droid.  While these are two completely different products, one being a wifi-enabled MP3 player and the other being a full-featured smartphone, a choice definitely still exists.  So without any further adieu, here’s what I had to say about the two of them!

I bought my 16GB iPod Touch two summers ago and I used it like crazy.  Since I didn’t have a smartphone back then, I basically used it for everything.  The apps are fantastic, battery life is great, and let’s not forget that the Touch is still a really nice MP3 player.

On average, I used my Touch 90% of the time for apps and the internet, and the other 10% was for music/audiobooks.  The one real downside of the Touch is that a wifi-only device, so once you hit the road you won’t be able to use most of the internet apps.

I bought a Droid about two weeks ago.  It’s amazing.  It’s exactly the type of phone I’ve always wanted – highly customizable, very fast, and has huge potential for growth.

Since you’re trying to figure out which one to buy, here’s some things to keep in mind about the devices:

– Both have apps.  Touch has way more, but Droid’s app store (called the Android Market) is steadily increasing.  The nice thing about Android phones is that the app market is completely open, which means there are no barriers to entry for a software developer (unlike Apple, who requires an arduous approval process).  If a developer wants to make something for Android, boom, it’s done.  Huge potential for growth here.

– Both support the basics.  They can both play music (although the Touch is probably more refined when it comes to a straight MP3 player).  They both have apps like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, email, web browsers… pretty much anything you can think of.

– Battery life will be much longer on the iPod Touch, but keep in mind the Droid is also a full-featured cell phone which uses most of the juice.

Here’s where they’re pretty different:

– Touch has Google Maps, but no GPS (and you can really only use the maps when you have a wifi connection).  The Droid uses your cellular network and has a built-in GPS, so not only can it show you maps, it can also do turn-by-turn navigation (which is free!).  It’s a straight-up GPS, and I used it on my last trip to Minneapolis as a total replacement for my old GPS.

– Droid has a cellular network. This was implied before, but this means you’ve got an internet connection anywhere where you go.  Verizon’s network is really impressive, and you’ll browse websites on the Droid just like you would at home.

– Touch is much simpler and easier to use.  For a person like me this can be frustrating (I like menus! And settings!), but you can’t beat it for ease of use and using it for what it was intended – enjoyment.  The Droid, on the other hand, lets you customize basically every facet of the phone (and the things you can’t change can typically be modified with apps from the Android Market).  This is a blessing and a curse – even I found the Droid to be a little daunting when I first started using it.

– Droid has a camera (5 megapixels), the Touch has no camera.

– Both are touchscreen devices.  They both have “virtual keyboards”, which are keyboards on the touchscreen, but the Droid has an actual slide-out physical keyboard.  I’ve never had one of these before and I really like it.  A lot of people complain about the keyboard though, so your mileage may vary.  The Droid offers both landscape and portrait virtual keyboards in almost all applications, but the Touch only offers landscape virtual keyboards in applications that support it.

– As for size, they’re about the same dimensions but the Droid is much thicker (again, the cell phone is the reason for this).  The Droid is heavier than the Touch.

– Droid supports a bunch of Google services out-of-the-box (Android was designed by Google).  This means that Gmail, Google Calendar, your Google contacts, and several other services are automatically synchronized to the phone and are deeply integrated.  This makes it really easy to manage your data.  Touch can do these things too, but it’s more “added on” and not as smooth in my opinion.

– Total cost of ownership: the iPod Touch costs around $300 and that’s all you’ll every pay to use it (excluding purchases from the app store). The Droid costs $200 with a new 2-year contract, and you’ll need a voice plan (starting at $39.99/month) as well as a data plan ($30/month). That puts the total cost of ownership for the Droid at about $1,040 for the first year (includes price of the phone) and $840 for successive years (network charges). Plus tax.

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Overall, I’ve loved both of these devices.  I still use my Touch (mainly because Audible.com DRM-encrypts their audiobooks and they don’t support Android yet – that’s another rant altogether) but for all intents and purposes, the Droid gets all of my attention.

I love being connected everywhere I go, and the Droid does a fantastic job of integrating all my Google services, Facebook, Twitter… everything.  It’s a fantastic device.

The post Comparison: Motorola Droid vs. iPod Touch first appeared on Techerator.

Step One: Download and extract the Android SDK for your operating system.  SDK stands for Software Development Kit, and is what developers use to design Android software on a PC.

Extracting the files is all you have to do – you don’t actually have to install anything for this to work.

Note: You also need to have Java JDK installed (not just JRE which is more common).  More information can be found on the Android SDK requirements page.

Step Two: On your Android-based phone, go to Settings –> Applications –> Development and enable USB debugging.  When you’ve enabled debugging, connect your phone to the computer.

In my case, I had to install additional Motorola USB drivers for my phone to be properly recognized in debugging mode, even though it worked fine before I enabled it.

Step Three: In the folder where you extracted the Android SDK files, open the tools folder and run ddms.bat.  This will launch the Dalvik Debug Monitor, and if your phone is connected properly you should see it in the list of devices as shown below.

Step Four: To take a picture of your current screen, select your device in the list and click Device –> Screen Capture. You’ll then see a high resolution screenshot of your device’s screen!

The post How to Take Screenshots of an Android-based Phone first appeared on Techerator.

Enabling high quality YouTube playback is very easy, but the option to enable it is hidden in a few menus.  It is mentioned in the “Getting Started” guide provided with the phone, but who reads those things, anyway?

Enabling High Quality YouTube

Step One: Touch the Menu button (it’s the touch-sensitive button with the series of parallel lines).  Then select the ‘More’ button.

Step Two: Select the ‘Watch in high quality’ option.  Your video will now reload in beautiful, high quality.

It’s a bit of a surprise that high quality playback isn’t available by default, especially since one of the Droid’s biggest selling points is its 3.7″ high resolution screen.  Check out the comparison below:

The post How to View YouTube in High Quality with the Motorola Droid first appeared on Techerator.

Since its launch, Google’s open-source linux-based mobile OS, Android, has been a welcome addition to the market. During the past few months, enterprising hackers have been working to get Android running on phones which do not natively run the OS.

There are currently a number of phones which are capable of running Android, and this guide will specifically walk through the details of getting Android running on the HTC Kaiser (AT&T Tilt).

Things you’ll need:

• A supported phone
• At least a 512 MB micro SD card formatted with FAT 32 with enough space for the Android files.

Android requires a set of files in order to run properly:

• zImage – This is the linux kernel
• system.img/sqsh – This file stores the UI and some OS files
• default.txt – This file has the linux boot parameters.
• Initrd.gz – init ramdisk
• rootfs.img/sqsh – Root filesystem image
• user.conf – This may also be included. It allows you to run shell scripts upon system startup.
• haret.exe – this is the Linux bootloader. You’ll need this to boot Android from within Windows Mobile.
• media folder – This contains android default ringtones and other media.

Limitations of current Android builds on the HTC Kaiser:

• Directly booting to Android (Must boot via haret.exe)
• The camera does not work
• Bluetooth does not work

A Few Notes Before Installation

By installing Android, you will not actually replace Windows Mobile. You must boot to Android via the linux bootloader (haret.exe). While it is an inconvenience to not have direct booting to Android available, this does mean that you can run Android on a completely unmodified phone.

Installing Android

Current packages can be found in the xda-developers forums: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=602

To install, unpack the package or assemble the files needed and place them in the root of your SD card. Once done, open haret.exe and select Run. Android should begin booting at this point. If it is your first boot it may take longer since it needs to create the data.img file which will contain all of your downloaded apps and settings.

Once booted, you’ll be prompted to login to your Google account. If you do not have one, there is an option to create one. In order to login or create a Google account, you’ll need to ensure the data connection is working. If it is not working you can skip the account login process and enable your data connection.

If your connectivity is not working after the initial installation, you may need to update or add your carrier APN. To do so, navigate to Settings > Wireless Controls > Mobile networks > Access Point Names then click the menu button and select New APN and enter in your carrier APN info (APN Carrier Info is available here: http://www.androidonhtc.com/old/carrier_network_settings). Once the APN information is in, you can test the connectivity with the Modem application.

With the data connection working, you can then login to your Google account. This will pull down all of your emails and contact information from Gmail. To ease the process of getting your contacts into your Android phone, you can import them into Gmail. (Guide here: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=8301).

Once you’re connected with your Google account you can enjoy the full glory of your new Android phone.

I highly recommend browsing through the market and checking out the apps available. Here are a few of my favorite picks:

• Twidroid – Twitter Application
• ConnectBot – SSH Terminal Application
• Google Voice – Google Voice Application
• The Weather Channel – Weather Application
• Pandora – Pandora Music Application

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments.

The post How to Install Google Android on the HTC Kaiser (AT&T Tilt) first appeared on Techerator.