The Evolution of Technology

Posts Tagged ‘phone’

Every so often — really, about once every few weeks — someone asks me for advice on buying an Android smartphone. It’s been this way with BlackBerry devices for years. If you write about something, people you know will come to you for first-hand advice. With BlackBerry it was easy. Everything was relatively straight forward, so once you got to know the basics of what they wanted, you could give advice without quarrel. Android, however, is a completely different game. There are so many devices on so many carriers that you can spend weeks trying to pare down the choices. Yet there are two issues that constantly stymie me when researching what Android would fit what person.

Upcoming devices

With BlackBerry, this was relatively easy. There are only so many BlackBerry devices released every year, and we usually have a good idea of what’s coming out when well before it happens. If someone asked me about which BlackBerry to get, I’d ask them which carrier they used and make sure to not the new models and when they’d come out. With Android, though, it’s a completely different story. There are not only tons of models already available for each carrier, but there’s always a long list of coming-soon models.

“It’s time our phone calls caught up with the rest of our digital lives.” That’s a line from Thrutu’s promo video. I was already sold on the service before hearing the line — I had read through all the material first — but that really brought it all together for me. Ever since I started using a smartphone, phone calls became more of an annoyance. There are so many ways to communicate; why would I choose the method that takes up the greatest portion of my attention? With Thrutu, which I found on Android Police, there might actually be a good reason. It lets you use the rest of your smartphone to interact with the person on the other line.

There are plenty of purely useful functions of Thrutu. For instance, you can send the caller your location, so that he or she can find you easily. The indicator on the map continues moving, too, so even if you’re in motion it’ll be easy to meet up. You can take that a step further by sending a picture from your camera, which helps navigate via landmarks. Thrutu also allows you to share contacts directly from your address book, making easy connections. Of course, there are plenty of fun aspects that take the app to a different level.

We’ve all been in the situation. You’re on the phone and you need to take down a phone number. Only, there’s no pen or paper nearby. Oops. You can fumble through your Android device and open an email or a text document, but that means you’re exiting out of the call screen and going into other parts of the phone. It’s not convenient, really. Thankfully, Android developers have you covered. There’s an app in the Market called Number Saver, and it lets you take down that number with no hassle. Just click the icon, which is right on your call screen, and you’ll get a prompt, as you see above, asking for the number. From there you can save the number, dial it, send an SMS, or just add it to your contact list. This is one of those apps where there’s little reason not to have it (it’s only 64K). You can download Number Saver from the Market.

Via Talk Android.

This post originated at AndGeeks.com – home to all things Android! Also a great source of info about Android Phones.

Number saver makes taking down a phone number easy

AndGeeks – Android News and Reviews