My Droid Questions

[Vance]

Here are my questions (a lot, sorry):

Does it do Yahoo email? POP?

What is the music/media player like? How do I load media?

Does it have a media/app ecosystem like the iphone/itunes, a one-stop center for getting and loading?

Can I subscribe and automatically update/delete podcasts like iTunes does?

Visual voice-mail?

Can it sync with my Outlook data?

How many apps are available so far?

Is the email push, or do I have to fetch it?

 

[Carl C]

Hi Vance & Welcome to AF forums!

My answers are below in Red

Here are my questions (a lot, sorry):

Does it do Yahoo email? POP?

Yes

What is the music/media player like? How do I load media?

Simply put music on the SD card & the phone will load it on the Music player

Does it have a media/app ecosystem like the iphone/itunes, a one-stop centre for getting and loading?

Their are rumours Google is starting their own Audio service which could Rival I-tunes. Theirs also the app "Spotify" & "Pandora" which can certainly deal with all your music needs"

Can I subscribe and automatically update/delete podcasts like iTunes does?

Theirs a handy app from Google called "Google Listen" which you can search , stream , download , subscribe to pod-cast's etc. I'm sure if Google Released their audio feature this or similar would be their.

Visual voice-mail?

This would be Carrier dependant but Visual voicemail is supported on Android {like I said carrier dependant}......

Can it sync with my Outlook data?

Yes I beleive it can

How many apps are available so far?

Their are over 10,000 apps in the Marketplace & Plenty more to follow with Android gathering ever-increasing developer interest

Is the email push, or do I have to fetch it?

Both! it has the ability for push & Fetch!

Carl C

 

[MarvinAndroid]

Does it have a media/app ecosystem like the iphone/itunes, a one-stop centre for getting and loading?

There is an Adroid Market for downloading all kinds of applications (free and paid) and for checking for updates etc. But as of right now you cannot buy music, tv shows, podcasts or movies there. Just applications right now.

BUT... the key with Android is that there are apps for most of the stuff you want to do. For example, I use Pandora for streaming music and it works great. I think most Android phones have "Amazon MP3" pre-installed which is great for buying and downloading music. Several applications like Shazam and Pandora 'hook' into Amazon MP3 so you can jump right from the song in the application to buying it from Amazon. It's happened several times where I heard a song on the radio which I liked and I used Shazam to see who it is.. then bought the song or the whole album off Amazon a few seconds later.

Verizon already said they will have visual voicemail on the Droid. I have right now with T-Mobile on my G1 as well.

As Carl said.. there is supposedly some kind of Google media store coming at some point. And there are a few very nice apps for keeping track of and downloading podcasts. Doggcatcher is one.

In the end what I've found is that the I-Phone is very slick and easy and tightly integrated but more restrictive and locked down. Android can do most of the same stuff but you have more freedom to choose which application you want to do what.. it's more open and customizable. It might take a bit more work and time to get it setup the way you like.... but in the end "the way you like" is the key phrase. With the I-phone it's "the way Apple likes".

 

[Vance]

Thanks for the reply, guys. I don't really care too much about buying music, I have a ton of audiobooks and some music I want to be able to move on and off my phone easily and listen to easily. I am really hoping to replace my iPod with one phone/media player device, so the media performance will be as important as the phone. I think I will be in my Verizon store in a couple of weeks to play with it!