XDAndroid on HTC Touch Pro2

[Hook]

Ok Mi An... which ver of XDA are you running? I'm back on my Tilt2 for a while since HD2 decided to jump into Batlimore Harbor this morning.

I'm so sorry to hear that that happened. Guess Spongebob has a new Android.

[Mi An]

Yikes. Sorry to hear that, but also glad to have a fellow user to chat with.

I've got Froyo build 6, may 6th, 2011 kernel (there have been several since --this one works for my vzw pretty well, but different models sometimes have different experiences, comments in the kernel repo incl models to help you find the best for you). I edited the OP with everything I used to get up and running, links included.

There are gingerbread builds, they just aren't as stable yet. There are also cyanogen builds for the TP2 which you might be more interested in. I know nothing about them. I went with xdandroid because it was my first go and I figured, support-wise, I'd be better off this way. You know your stuff though, so... I'm eager to hear your experiences.

[Mi An]

Test kernel: Zoom bar acting as multitouch pinch to zoom - xda-developers

Someone has hacked the zoombar into functionality by causing it to send phantom multitouch signals to the OS from center screen, thanks to a new kernel version and the zoom bar. I have yet to need pinch-to-zoom, and the new kernel is less functional than the old, but it's cool to see new stuff work.

If pinch-to-zoom is pretty well supported by Android (I assume it is), this makes the zoom bar more functional for zooming in Android than it ever was in WinMo. But I anticipate there may be other functionality attached to the bar in the future, just as there was in winmo.

My favorite dictionary has come to android in beta, and while it doesn't run on my current config, I'm planning to test it with the new kernel soon, and might give this a try as well.

[Mi An]

I was only using XDAndroid for spells at first, but now I use it almost exclusively. I tend to restart fairly regularly, but I knew people who had that problem with winmo. Battery life seems slightly worse than winmo, but I also use XDAndroid more, so that could partly be an illusion. I might also be due for a fresh battery.

Readerware is largely driving my devotion. Since my very first handheld, reading has been my major mobile activity. WinMo's reader selection sucks. Even my preferred reader, Freda, is out of development for 6.x and isn't exactly finished. Moon plus works like a charm. Zinio is being developed for magazines and there are some interesting comic readers too that might reignite my interest in the genre.

I haven't yet found a nice simple sleep timed music player yet. Mortplayer's navigation isn't exactly fluid, and it won't remember my preferred delay, so I have to reset it every single time. Nor have a I found an alarm to replace galarm (I use mortplayer, but I mean one with quizzes and the like), though I haven't tried.

The integrated GV dialing is nice. On my WinMo side, I've copied GV sms numbers to the contacts so as to avoid needing a dialer. That doesn't help with dialing new numbers or landlines though, but on Android everyone sees my GV# with no effort on my part. The promise of GrooveIP is intriguing as well. I've figured out how to make Droidwall work, so I can block net access from certain apps and probably will have fewer data concerns going forward.

I have plans to try once again to move some db, tracking type stuff from paper to Syd because I'm always buried in paper. I tried this in winmo, and it wasn't a good fit. We'll see what happens.

The new .39 kernel DOES in fact run the android version of Pleco, my treasured dictionary, and the most expensive software package I own ("mobile" modifier omitted on purpose). I haven't moved my entire license to android yet, and probably won't until both .39 and plecoid have developed a little further, but the live OCR is fun to play with.

Last I looked, .39 supports wifi, making it almost as functional as the older kernel (though I'm not sure they've ironed out CDMA issues yet). On the nand side, someone has managed to get the 3.5mm jack working, and I think it's just a matter of months (assuming development isn't abandoned) until Android is, without question, the best TP2 OS for me rather than just a lesser of evils.

[jigwashere]

Thanks for being the trailblazer, Mi An! I use Google Voice, but I need to use it a bit differently than most people. Do you know if the Android dialer or 3rd party dialer can do something like credit card dialing? What I do is dial my GV number, access the voicemail, then dial my contacts. It works like this (commas are pauses): <google voice number>,,2,,<contact number>#. The reason I do this is because Sprint doesn't charge me when I call my GV number. By dialing out from GV, I get free calls.

[Mi An]

I was going to check my carrier call records for you to see for sure what number it is shown as dialing. It hasn't updated, but based on what I saw on my phone, it looks like the official GV app dials a pseudo google number -- a number google owns that forwards to a different number/contact when I dial it than when someone else dials it. Basically the same hack I used on WinMo except less work for me.

I will try to keep my eyes open for the style of dialer you require though, and will holler back if I find something. I would think that the built-in dialer would support your syntax. I'd also think there would at least be a generic calling card dialer that would do it, if there isn't a GV specific one.

[jigwashere]

I was going to check my carrier call records for you to see for sure what number it is shown as dialing. It hasn't updated, but based on what I saw on my phone, it looks like the official GV app dials a pseudo google number -- a number google owns that forwards to a different number/contact when I dial it than when someone else dials it. Basically the same hack I used on WinMo except less work for me.

I will try to keep my eyes open for the style of dialer you require though, and will holler back if I find something. I would think that the built-in dialer would support your syntax. I'd also think there would at least be a generic calling card dialer that would do it, if there isn't a GV specific one.

The other option is for me to install xdandroid and figure it out.

[Mi An]

I'd love to have an xdandroid buddy! But I also don't mind doing a little recon.

I don't use my phone much as a "phone", but one thing you might care about is that I often get static on the earpiece. I get the impression though that people on the other end hear me better in Android. I don't think winmo autovolume is tuned to my vocal range very well.

Bluetooth might actually be functioning in some really cutting edge kernel, not sure. They're definitely making progress on it at least. I keep reading related posts, but I haven't dug deeper because I don't do bluetooth anyway.

[Mi An]

3.5mm support has been enabled

Now I can listen to taylor swift in public and tell people I'm listening to Seal again.

I'm a little down on the new .39 kernel I was bragging about before. All new kernels requires a system image tweaked to use a new acoustic code to support bluetooth and without it, there is no audio at all (Which is also at varying levels of functionality), but I don't really know much about it and don't want to mess with it. I have an older .39 kernel that I use to run pleco, but I haven't used it much. There will be a new base build, FRX07 (as opposed to the FRX06) that will probably integrate a lot of recently created innovations. If you're considering trying xdandroid, it might be easier to wait for it, though it has no official ETA, it is increasingly anticipated.

[Mi An]

FRX07 arrived on 7/15/11. No updating steps necessary. Download here, follow the 5 easy steps and enjoy.

Now would be the easiest time to get a nice up-to-date version. In a couple of months, there'll probably be another 10 step process to enjoy cutting edge xdandroid. I'm backing up my old stuff now before I try the new build. I'll edit this post with my experiences. A lot has changed since I started, but I already had a lot of the changes incorporated into my build.