Smartphone feature wishlist - HTC Desire

I'm very satisfied with my HTC Desire. But like everyone knows, there's no perfect smartphone. There's always a feature or two missing. Here's a couple of things I wish the HTC Desire had.


Screenshot-taking ability
Requires root access which is quite silly. This is the only reason I'm considering rooting my device. It may be the best thing I've ever done. Will have to see how that goes!

More homescreens
7 Should be more than enough. But apparently, homescreens are like closet space. You can never have enough!

Dedicated dual-action camera hardware button
Pressing the optical pad to activate the camera shutter almost always results in blurry pics. For now, I'll have to settle for pressing directly on the on-screen viewfinder. I wonder if I'm able to somehow map one of the volume rocker keys to do the job...

Longer battery life
Current battery life is barely adequate. Unfortunately, battery technology is lagging behind.

Better video capture capability
Out of the box, the Desire can capture video at 800x480 (WVGA). After the official OTA 2.2 update, it can capture at 720p. I've found that WVGA captures were barely passable with good lighting. With inadequate lighting, framerates dropped and quality is horrible. 720p captures are no different. Instead of crappy video at 800x480, you now have crappy video at 720p.

Use HTC Sense widgets in conjunction with other launchers
I prefer using LauncherPro. But because HTC Sense widgets are tied to the default launcher, I can't use them in LauncherPro. This is the only reason I've not switched over to LauncherPro full-time.

Dedicated call-end hardware button
It would be much more convenient to be able to hit a physical button, hit standby, and slide the device back into the pocket without looking at the screen to verify that I indeed ended the call.

True multi-touch screen
The screen on the HTC Desire is limited to 2 touch points. That's fine for zooming and for typing. But being able to register more than 2 points is crucial for gaming. I'll try to explain in Nintendo terms. With the HTC Desire, you can instruct Mario to run to the right. Using your left thumb, you push the virtual joystick to the right while as the same time, you press the virtual B button with your right thumb. Things get tricky when you try to run and jump at the same time. You cannot hold the virtual B button while pressing the virtual A button. Along with the virtual joystick, that would mean you have 3 points of contact and the device will not register the presses and you will inevitably fall to your doom.

What can my smartphone not do?

I’ve blogged about how the Apple iPhone can’t do this and can’t do that. Here, I'll talk about what my smartphone, the HTC Desire, can't do.

To up the ante, I'm not going to compare the HTC Desire to the iPhone. Doing so wouldn't be fair to the Apple fanboys. I'm going to put my smartphone up against a computer running a desktop OS (desktop, notebook, or netbook running Windows, Linux, or OSX).

Here are the things the HTC Desire can't do when compared to a full PC.

• I can't buy movie tickets online at The Grand Cinema website. I can buy tickets at every other Hong Kong cinema site except that one. None of the other smartphone platforms can do so either.
• There's no optical drive so I can't access optical media.
• Even if I have DVD files, I can't play them because I'm not aware of a DVD player software for Android. The DVD files would first have to be encoded. This brings me to the next item...
• I can't encode video on my HTC Desire. First, there's no encoding software for Android. Second, I can't rip source files from a DVD. Third, CPU is not fast enough. My quadcore desktop CPU that clocks in at 2.5ghz still needs about 40 minutes to convert a movie. Several years ago, my Pentium 3 that ran at 1Ghz took about 6 hours to convert a movie. I don't want to imagine how long a mobile 1Ghz processor would take.
• I can't plug in USB devices (ie, flash memory drives, peripherals, etc).
• I can't perform elaborate photo editing. I can still do basic things like resize, rotate, and crop. I can even edit things like brightness, contrast, and saturation. But I can't do layers, extracting, etc.

That's all. That's the best I can come up with. The first item is the only really disappointing one. The others are things that you wouldn't ever expect a mobile device to do anyway. Can anyone else come up with some more things?

By the way, there are a couple of things that my smartphone can do that surprises even me.

• Edit and create PowerPoint presentation. Even the official Microsoft version of PowerPoint on Windows Mobile was view-only. However, I can only edit text. I can't insert images and I can't even edit the slides' styling.
• Access the full desktop-version of my HSBC online-banking web site. The iPhone browser can't do it. I couldn't do it even if I spoofed the browser-agent in Windows Mobile. This means, I can pay bills, transfer funds, and manage my investments while being nowhere near a computer, bank branch, or ATM.
• Play Flash-based web games. I'm not talking about simple stuff. I'm talking about games like Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies.

Convince me I need an iPhone. I dare you.

Why is everyone out to get an iPhone these days? Even before the 4th-gen iPhone was announced (or leaked), everyone wanted one. They wanted one without knowing what it was going to look like or what new features it was going to have. Everyone trusted Steve Jobs to deliver.

Now that new iPhone is here, even more people want the new device. It just boggles my mind how Apple does it. Let’s imagine that I know nothing about the iPhone. Here’s what a conversation between me and an Apple employee would sound like.

Apple: Hi, can I help you with anything?

Me: Hi, I have a smartphone already; it’s the HTC Desire which runs Android. But I just heard that you guys have an iPhone4 that just released.

Apple: Yes, that’s right.

Me: It seems everyone wants one. So perhaps you can tell me why I should buy the iPhone4?

Apple: Well, it has got a Retina Display which makes everything appears super sharp on screen.

Me: It does look sharp…compared to previous iPhones. But it’s hardly sharper than the WVGA display on my phone…

Apple: Well, it has a front facing camera for FaceTime.

Me: That’s interesting, but I’ve had phones with front facing cameras since 2006 and I’ve never had the urge to make video calls over 3G.

Apple: But FaceTime is new. It allows you to make video calls only over WiFi.

Me: Isn’t that less convenient than 3G?

Apple: Right…anyway…We have this other new feature. If you double tap the home button, you get access to your most recently used apps. We call this Multitasking.

Me: Sorry, that’s not very impressive. My PocketPC back in 2001 could multitask just fine.

Apple: You can organize your apps into something we call Folders. And you can set an image as a background on your homescreen. We call it Wallpaper.

Me: Have you been living under a rock? Folders and wallpapers have been around for as long as I can remember!

Apple: You can shoot video in 720p and take still pictures with the 5MP camera with LED flash.

Me: The quality of the videos and pictures are impressive, so you got me there. Anyway, let me ask you some questions.

Apple: Sure.

Me: What happens when I receive an SMS or email while I’m using the device?

Apple: You get a popup with options to read the message or dismiss it.

Me: What if I don’t want to read it yet but I don’t want to dismiss it either because I’m sure I’ll forget to read it if I do?

Apple: Sorry, you'll have it read it right away.

Me: Can I save email attachments?

Apple: Yes, if someone emails you some pictures, you can save them directly to your photo gallery.

Me: But what if the attachments are not images?

Apple: Nope.

Me: Can I send emails with attachments that are not images?

Apple: Nope.

Me: Can I download files from the browser? Let’s say I want to save a pdf file I found on the web locally. Can I do that?

Apple: Sorry, no, but the browser is very fast and text is crisp on-screen.

Me: The browser does look nice. But those top and bottom bars seem take up a lot of space, especially in landscape mode. Can I get rid of those to get full-screen browsing?

Apple: Nope.

Me: Can I send and receive files via Bluetooth?

Apple: Nope.

Me: Ok, I’ve heard enough. Let’s recap. What am I impressed with?

Apple: The quality of the recorded videos and photos?

Me: So, you’re telling me that is worth HK$5000?

Apple: Uh…yes…would you like me to help you preorder the device?

Me: Seriously? Your device can't deliver on features that are basic mundane tasks. I'm not asking for out-of-this-world things. I'm not asking the iPhone to be able to microwave my dinner and then feed it to me.

Apple: Well, if you order now, we can give you a free case so that the cellular radio works properly.

Me: What?!

Some thoughts on the official Froyo update for the HTC Desire

HTC released the much anticipated official Android 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo) for the HTC Desire over the weekend. I was already quite satisfied with Android 2.1 (a.k.a. Eclair) on my device but Froyo seems to have really taken it to the next level. There are a number of new features but I'll just highlight a couple of main ones here.

1. Overall speed is slightly improved. It's noticeable but not a huge difference since it was plenty fast before.

2. Probably the most touted feature of Froyo is Flash support. The native browser can now utilize Flash Player 10.1 to take advantage of numerous Flash content on the web. HTC had initially built-in limited Flash support in their original Eclair ROM for the Desire. It works but performance was quite poor. Flash videos would play but framerates were just horrible. Now, with Froyo and Flash 10.1, Flash videos load quick and play surprisingly smooth. I was able to watch videos from ESPN.com. Youtube videos would load right within the browser (ie, I wasn't kicked out to the streaming video player or the Youtube app). I was even able to play the browser version of Plants vs Zombies! It's a bit slow in that scenario, but it's a miracle that it works in the first place! Kudos to Google, Adobe, and HTC here. Very well done...

3. I'm pretty sure tethering was possible in Eclair. But now, it's idiot-proof. You just toggle the WiFi Hotspot on, set your device's SSID and encryption password, and that's all! Are you listening, Steve Jobs?

4. Installing applications to external memory should have been a feature that was suppose to be there since the beginning. But, better late than never.

5. Chrome to Phone is something that was new to me. I tried it out and it's just brilliant! With just one click in your desktop browser, you can send snippets of information to your Froyo enabled device! (ie, hyperlinks, phone numbers, text you want to copy to the clipboard, Youtube videos, Maps coordinates). This feature really can't be explained. It must be experienced. See here http://code.google.com/p/chrometophone/

6. 720p video recording was rumored to be a feature of the HTC Desire prior to release. Now, we finally get it. I must admit, it's not very impressive. Framerates are quite poor and there's a lot of noise. If you intend to view the video on your device, you should just record in WVGA resolution. If you intend to view it on a larger screen, by all means try 720p but manage your expectations.