There is not much to say about the app. It pretty straight forward. It resides in your taskbar and when opened all you have to do is click a program to close it. The only thing missing in the option to confirm closing the app. People with fat fingers (why are you looking at me) can accidentally hit the wrong program and kill it.

The app comes in a free version and a paid version for 0.70 euro (about a $1) with the only difference being that you can add more than 2 tasks to an ignore list.

The cyrket site that I listed before is down, but the QR codes are listed in the link below.

http://www.androidtapp.com/taskiller/

So who better to out do Google, well Google. Google Maps Navigation has been confirmed for Android 2.0 (not available for myTouch yet) which will first be on Verizon’s Droid. Check out the video on this new feature below. This is how all GPS devices should look. The best part of this that like all Google services, it’s free (minus the information they are gathering).

As a test yesterday I drove to work (about 10 miles through the city) and listened to a station the whole way. Today I lost the signal a few times. Streaming services were never really designed for data devices that are constantly moving like cell phones. Of course all it would take is a 5-10 second buffer to avoid this which it may have and I passed that up. While walking or running in the city I am guessing the signal will be steady. I might test the walking, but good luck on me testing the running unless a pack of wild dogs starts to chase me. At that point the myTouch becomes a weapon.

The interface let’s you look at the top stations, browse by genre, search, view favorites, view history and view tagged. The favorites and tagged are a really good feature. I tried out another SHOUTcast app and it didn’t have the ability to ad favorites. It didn’t last long on my phone. Most of the music that is streamed contains tags like mp3’s that contain the artist and song title. If you hear a song you like you can press the tagged button and add it to a list that you can view later. Then you can go to your favorite music store and purchase the song.

This app comes as a free app with ads or $2.99 (one time) for the no ad version. As far as I can tell all the features are the same between both. They did strategically place the adds so that you might accidentally hit them which I have done.

This is an app I could see paying for.

DroidLiveLite (free): http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.android.DroidLiveLite

DroidLive ($2.99): http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.android.DroidLivePlayer

Remember I said most large sites, well feartheninja.com is moving up because now you can browse with your mobile device.

Just install this plugin and follow the directions: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-edition/

Here are before and after shots of the plugin:

before plugin	after plugin

Below are screenshots from the application:

main screen	add new account
moderate comments	recent post list
add/edit post (view 1)	add/edit post (view 2)

The only thing I couldn’t find was a way to reply to a comment.  The other day I received a text message saying there was a new comment, but I couldn’t do anything with it. I have not used the program much so it might still be there and I over looked it.

Other than that the program was easy to setup and use. You wouldn’t use the myTouch to make a large blog post, but for little updates it can be useful.

Note: I almost forgot, you have to change a setting in Word Press to enable remote posting. In the admin panel under Settings >> Writting there is a setting you have to enable labeled XML-RPC.

wpToGo (free): http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.roundhill.androidWP

One of the sites I look to for reviews is http://www.androlib.com/. If you click on any app you will see a code that looks like this:

Once you have Barcode Scanner installed you can scan the code on the apps page and it will take you directly to the app so you can download it.

For a bonus scan the QR code in the banner up top.

Barcode Scanner: http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.google.zxing.client.android

Right now the main location to download and install programs is from the Market which is a default app on the phone. From here you can search for an app by name, browse categories apps/games, browse subcategories and show a list of top free/paid. Currently there is not a way to sort by review rating, but I am assuming this is to keep competition up. Luckily there are many sites that review apps to make it easier.

For a while I have been very interested in getting a smart phone. I am not going to lie, it all started when the iphone came out a few years ago. The largest hurdle for me was paying the monthly data fee, which is required, with paying $149 being the second hurdle. Have the data plan is really required for all the great features, but it’s hard dropping money monthly. Last week I did some computer work for my dentist which made the second hurdle a non factor plus covered a few months data.

I finally decided the other day that I was going to do it. Dropping money and committing to 2 years is kind of scary idea. When I entered the store I was ready to buy but started to have second thought while waiting. When the sales guy walks over I start asking questions that I really knew the answers to just to hear him confirm them. It was then that I asked if he had any in stock almost expecting him to say ‘not right now’. Well he didn’t and ran and grabbed one. It was then that I said “I’ll take it”. Right after that I confirmed the pricing. The standard fee for data that you have to get is $34.99 which includes unlimited data and unlimited text messages. I already had the unlimited text messages for all the lines so I had to pay only $24.99 a month. Even now I am trying not to think about it. I’m not going to lie as I drove home I remembered when the T-Mobile rep said “You have 14 days to return it if you don’t like it.”.

So you might be wondering what phone I bought. Well I decided on the T-Mobile myTouch 3G.

The one that I decided on was black. It also comes in White and Merlot. The size is comparable to the current lineup of smart phones.

While phone searching I had a few models in mind. Specifically the Blackberry Curve and the Nokia E71.

The Curve seemed to business like for me. It seems great for e-mail and texting, but lacks the great touchscreen browsing and 3G that the myTouch has. The plus for the Curve was the physical keyboard.

The E71 was above my price range, but it was unlocked so I wouldn’t have to extend my contract or be required to buy the data plane. Feature wise it was comparable to the Curve. The E71 does have 3G, but it doesn’t work on T-Mobile’s network.

The large display, touch screen and all the apps won me over for the myTouch.