3 Major Features Needed Regarding 3rd Party Applications

[Stanovoy]

I personally believe these 3 features are the most important and need to be resolved soon:

1. The ability to store apps on memory cards
2. Automatic updates for all the downloaded apps
3. Multi-layered folder structure for organizing icons

Here are a few less important ones:

1. Easy access to recently downloaded apps
2. Additional screen panels
3. The ability to uninstall an application directly from the application itself

[bizarro_stormy]

i like your thinking sir.

[Android0523]

Yes I like your thinking too.

[Lukster]

This one is wanted most-


1. The ability to store apps on memory cards

[Jeewone]

Also the ability to manually turn off/close apps! Let's help the battery out here!

[Stanovoy]

Also the ability to manually turn off/close apps! Let's help the battery out here!

I'm not sure that apps stay running in the background. Don't get me wrong, some do, such as Countdown. However, most of them appear to have their session states saved upon exit and reloaded upon restart. You can try this out yourself. Download pTerminal. Execute the command "ps". Get a general idea of how many processes there are where the User column starts with "app". Then open and close a dozen of apps. Execute "ps" again. You will see that the number of "app" processes have not increased in general.

That said, I do agree the general structure for apps should be changed. Reloading session state is a time consuming task, not to mention the memory space requirements. There should be a task switcher where leaving one app would cause its session state to be saved. There also should be a close button that tells the system to not save the session state. Countdown is a good example of this design methodology.

[Jeewone]

Well put. Any idea when and if a virtual keyboard will be released?

[McParty]

Geeesh... no offense but I am just sooo tired of hearing people whine about a virtual keyboard. It really is crazy!!

[Jeewone]

I understand but that is one app I could really use. I mean turning the phone on its side and opening the keyboard every time I need to type anything just gets old. Would be nice to have the option is all that I'm saying.

[Stanovoy]

Geeesh... no offense but I am just sooo tired of hearing people whine about a virtual keyboard. It really is crazy!!

I would like to have a virtual keyboard too. I text a lot, around 2000 to 3000 a month. Frequently, the entire text consists of "Yes" "k" "sure" "cool" etc. It gets very annoying when I have to flip open the phone every time. Also, for some of the apps, all I need to type in are a few letters or numbers, but I have to open the phone to do that. That's not very cool.

Btw, the virtual keyboard is scheduled for a Q1, 2009, release.

[RMizzy]

As much as i like the keyboard we have now....like stanovoy said when i have to text someone a one word response it would be nice not to have to slide open my phone and close it....and i also heard that it would be released in 2009.....i was told as early as january.

[McParty]

And I understand that... but you DID know it was a damn flip up keyboard before you bought it. LOL I wish it would give me winning powerball numbers too! LOL

[Jeewone]

I hope I don't sound like too much of an idiot, but what does Q1 mean? The first quarter of 09?

[tread]

yes, first quarter

[Stanovoy]

And I understand that... but you DID know it was a damn flip up keyboard before you bought it. LOL I wish it would give me winning powerball numbers too! LOL

Don't get me wrong. I bought the phone mostly because of its physical keyboard. I can't live without one. I just think it would be nice to have a virtual one so I can hammer out those short texts easily. Seeing how the iPhone and other smart devices all had it, I kind of just assumed that there will be some barebone virtual keyboard on the G1. I don't have to have one, but it's just a nicety to have. Plus, the less I have to flip open the screen, the less likely I will break the opening mechanism :)

[Jeewone]

That was one of my concerns also. The less you have to open it the longer it should last!

[jcott28]

I really need to be able to edit google docs. google docs are the primary documents used by my work and being able to actually work on them would be fantastic.