Last February, I gave up on the possibilities of either Verizon getting the iPhone, or any chance of our family ever being able to coordinate a switch to AT&T, so I bought Motorola Droids for Eric and I when Verizon had a “buy one, get one free” deal.
I quickly decided that despite being an Apple fan, that I really like my Droid… Three things that I liked right away — the charging and data connection is done using a standard micro-B USB cable, which I was able to get extras from Monoprice.com for about a buck a piece, including a 6 foot cable that is actually long enough to reach when using the AC adapter. I also like that it has a standard SD memory card, so if I want to load more apps, music or video later, I can replace the 16Gb memory card with a 32Gb when the prices come down. Third, I like that the battery is removable and replaceable. Eric and I have swapped batteries several times when his was low, but he needed to go somewhere, and couldn’t charge it.
The next two accessories that I picked up after some extra USB cables, were a Griffin PowerJolt dual USB 12v charger for the car, and the Motorola “Car Dock,” which is the suction cup windshield mount. The phone clips into the car dock easily, making perfect for navigating with Google Maps. I also found that the speaker phone mode works well enough that I just use that when driving instead of getting a bluetooth headset.
When you clip the Droid into the car dock, there is a magnet embedded in the back that activates a switch in the phone so that it automatically launches the “Car Home” app, which gives 6 large buttons for functions that you would commonly use while driving, including Phone, Maps, Navigation, Voice Search, etc. When the Android 2.2 update came out, there were additional buttons the second screen that were blank. I always wanted to be able to assign other apps to those buttons, like Speedview and Wardrive, that I often use when driving.
A couple of days ago I was searching through the Android Market, as I had seen someone mention that there was an updated Google Voice Search app, so I opened the info page for one of the Google apps, and picked “Other Apps from this Developer” to see what other apps Google had published. One of the first things I noticed was that Car Home was listed, and didn’t show that it was already installed! I clicked Install or Update, and downloaded it. Turns out that is version 2.2.1. I don’t know why it didn’t get loaded automatically as an update, but installing manually worked fine.
The biggest difference that I see with Car Home 2.2.1 is that it now shows “Add Shortcut” in all of the blank buttons, so that you can add apps, navigation destinations, or direct dial numbers to any empty spot! I’ve already added a couple of apps, and a few direct dial contacts. This is a nice upgrade! I only wish that it would have shown up automatically…