The blog of Abraham Williams

Originally published on bendyworks.com . For this festive day of Christmas, I'm going to do something more fun and add a fancy icon. For android I will be using an  adaptive icon  so that it looks good in any shape and has a nice wiggle of movement. A big thank you goes to  @tommy_emo_  for creating this awesome design. There is a nice  flutter_launcher_icons  package  that makes the technical implementation easy. To start, require  flutter_launcher_icons  as a  dev_dependency  in  pubspec.yaml . Then there will be a new  flutter_icons  key added with several values. flutter_icons : android : true ios : true image_path_android : assets/icon/ic_launcher_xxxhdpi.png image_path_ios : assets/icon/ios.png adaptive_icon_background : assets/icon/ic_background.png adaptive_icon_foreground : assets/icon/ic_foreground.png android  and  ios  set to  true  sp...

Question: Can you activate a Moto G (3rd gen) on Sprint? Answer: No. TLDR: Don't use Sprint. Having the unfortunateness of accidentally dropping and mostly obliterating a perfectly functional Nexus 5, my housemate was in need of a replacement ASAP. With solid specs and an amazing price tag (a mere $220) a Moto G (3rd gen) was high on my list of replacements. Considering the 2015 Nexus devices hadn't even been announced yet, it was pretty much the only option in that size range. Moto was quick to ship and we skipped off to the Sprint store Moto G in hand to get it added to the existing service plan. I mean really, how hard could adding a phone be? Sadly it was all downhill from there... Walking into Sprint there were a couple of people being helped or waiting to be helped but overly not very busy. Initially the service rep thought we wanted to transfer photos, data, etc from one device to another and said she could help us. After describi...

Build quality At first it felt cheap and plasticy compared to my Nexus 4. Now it feels right and the Nexus 4 feels heavy and the glass feels like it could shatter at any moment. And before you ask, no I did not get to customize the colors of my Moto X, I purchased the developer edition which is only available in black and white. Which is fine, I'd rather have that than a locked colorful version. Screen The screen is fantastic. Watching a video on it makes the phone melt away and leave only the media. Touchless controls The idea behind touchless controls is pretty cool, but in practical application, touchless controls are useless to me. This is 100% because of my security paranoia though. I have PIN on every mobile device I own and I trend towards the security side of the spectrum instead of the convenience end. Having to manually enter a PIN for every voice request completely removes the less from "touchless". My two hours of using the Moto X before conf...

Note: This is an old draft what was never completed. Native screenshots! On the downside screenshots don't appear to automatically upload to Google+. People don't get merged. Take these two examples of searching for my sister and my boss by name. Each search shows each person six times. In the web version of Google Contacts there is only one entry for each so the extra entries appear to be from apps such as Twitter, and LinkedIn. The screen is simply gorgeous! Battery life initially is pretty terrible. The menu button jumps around a lot. Sometimes it is in the top right. sometimes the bottom right. Panoramas are awesome. Can't take a photo from the lock screen when using a pin. Love the built in encryption! Still lags some but much better then my Nexus S 4G.

Update : I now recommend you install Google Chrome  and  disable  the built in Browser as it supports encrypting all synced data. After picking up a gorgeous  Galaxy Nexus yesterday I was running into an issue where my browser data wasn't syncing to the phone. After a little Googling I found this is commonly caused by having all of my synced Chrome data encrypted instead of the default of only encrypting the passwords. These are the steps I went through to get my dat syncing again without losing any of it. The exact error I was getting was "Sync is currently experiencing problems. It will be back shortly." In Google Chrome open the personal stuff settings page by clicking this link or by opening the wrench menu, and click on "signed in with example@gmail.com".  Hit "disconnect your Google Account" to temporarily disable syncing from your browser. Visit the Google Dashboard and "Stop sync and delete data from Google". I waite...

Applications that got the chopping block Square SwitchPro Widget Listen ADWLauncher EX HNews Google Sky Map Google Buzz widget Taskos To Do List NXP TagWriter OpenWatch Recorder Flickroid 360 Bnter ASTRO File Manager Foursquare LinkedIn Disco Hulu Plus Touchnote Battleheart BBC News Al Jazeera English Pool Party Dropbox Barcode Scanner Amazon.com Applications that are on notice Google Earth - I don't actually use it but I can't remove it. Postagram - I love the idea but it needs to integrate with Androids contact manager and use the Market's micro payments. Google Shopper Applications that are sticking around Google+ Twitter Battle.net Authenticator USAA Mobile Google Maps Netflix Google Docs Google Goggles Pandora Internet Radio Google Authenticator Voice Search Zipcar YouTube Blogger Google Voice My Tracks Music Google Books Videos Google Translate Google ...

Patents stifling competition Originally uploaded by 4braham