Flying with Froyo on Vibrant

Froyo is now available for T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant, however to really get it, you need to have the charged to more than 75% and have the Samsung Kies Mini downloaded & installed. This release is not OTA and the full fledged Samsung Kies software dos not work for USA hence the Mini is required.

Downloading Kies downloader was quite fast, however the actual installer download took some time but the install was a breeze. Hooked up my phone to the laptop and was told that an update is available and I started it. The downloading took about 15 minutes and then the actual install another 7 minutes. Here are the steps:

1. Setup Vibrant as follows:
1. Go to Menu > Settings > Applications and check the box beside "Unknown Sources"
2. Go to Menu > Settings > Applications > USB Settings and select "Ask on connection"
2. Download Samsung Kies Mini from Samsun website.
3. Install Kies Mini
4. Ensure that the battery on your phone is more than 75% charged
5. Take a backup of your data from the phone
6. Start Kies Mini and connect the phone to the PC
7. On phone prompt, choose "Samsung Kies" as the connect method on the phone
8. Kies will show that an update is available, click on the "Phone Upgrade" button on the left
9. A disclaimer Caution screen pops up - Read the Caution statements
10. Click the checkbox for "I have read and understood...", and click the Upgrade button
11. Kies will download the upgrade from the server - this took about 15 minutes for me
12. Once the files are downloaded, Kies will start the upgrade process and the phone screen will change to reflect this with icons and info of what step is being performed
13. After the installation finishes, click on the "Ok" button in the last screen to complete it.
14. Now the phone should reboot by itself and now you can disconnect your phone from the PC

My phone just kept waiting for about 5 minutes in the initial screen that displays the Vibrant logo and then came up.

Here are the differences that I see right off the bat:

1. Menu icons are colorful
2. Phone seems to be a bit faster than before
3. T-Mobile TV is now available - this is a pad service so not that interesting for now
4. Option to add Samsung widgets on the home screen using the long press is not available any more
5. WiFi calling is now available - but this still uses plan minutes so is useful only in places where T-Mobile or any other roaming GSM signal is not available, but a Wi-Fi signal is available.
6. There is a new app for Google Search
7. USB / Wi-Fi tethering is now available from Settings > Wireless and network > Mobile AP and Settings > Wireless and network > Tethering 
8. In the pull down menu from the top notification bar, there is a new icon to control Auto-Rotation

Here are the current version numbers:

• Firmware version: 2.2
• Baseband version: T959UVKA6
• Kernel version: 2.6.32.9
• Build number: FROYO.UVKA6

Yay!!! Finally on Froyo!!!

Android 2.2 Froyo now available on T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S

Good news !!! Finally Android 2.2 Froyo is now made available to T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S users after months of waiting.
Sad part is that this update is not available over the air (OTA) so the user needs to download Samsung Kies Mini from Samsung website and install it. This upgrade includes Wi-Fi calling, USB / Wi-Fi tethering, and various software enhancements. The update is build number T959UVKA6 also known as KA6.
The full instructions for the update are available on the T-Mobile site.
Note that AT&T Samsung Captivate is still  not ready for Froyo as the update is only a maintenance release as per Samsung website.

S/W Update for T-Mobile Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S

This morning, T-Mobile pushed a software update to my Samsung Vibrant Galaxy S - however, the phone would not install it as the battery level was lower than 75%!

After the install, here are the major changes that I noticed:

1. HD Camcorder is now available in the list of applications
2. Media Hub now works but the previews work only on Wi-Fi :(  This should have been allowed on 3G - I would sure like to watch the preview while traveling on the bus/train!
3. Task Manager app is provided, however, I did not find it very useful as it did not show many of the running applications which the Advanced Task Killer free app shows.

Here are the current version numbers:

• Firmware version: 2.1-update1
• Baseband version: T959UVJI6
• Kernel version: 2.6.29
• Build number: ECLAIR.UVJI6

Now let's see when Froyo gets pushed - waiting for Android 2.2 for a lot of kool features to be enabled!

Created a simple TTS app with App Inventor

With my Samsung Vibrant phone, even though I am still struggling with connectivity to Ubuntu 9.04, I was able to connect very smoothly to Windows7!!!

So to test it out, I created a simple app that has a text box and a button. On pressing the button, the text that was entered in the text box is spoken out aloud by the app. If there is no text in the box, then a default message is read out.

To create this first app, it took only 2 minutes!!!
This shows that the App Inventor is pretty good and quite promising.

However, there are a few cons as well - the created software when installed on the phone, takes a huge amount of space; 3.55Mb to be precise for this simple app! Also, I cannot share this app with others or upload it to the Android Marketplace - it can only be shared with others who have an App Inventor account. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too!

Unable to connect Samsung Vibrant to App Inventor on Ubuntu9.04

The good news is that almost 2.5 months after I applied for access to Google Android App Inventor, I got the access on 1st October.

Now the bad news is that I am unable to connect my Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant to App Inventor on my machine running Ubuntu 9.04. Here is what I have tried till now after installing App Inventor Extras software for Linux:

I ensured the below settings were done before connecting the phone:

1. Settings > Applications > Unknown sources is checked
2. Settings > Applications > Development > USB debugging is checked
3. Settings > Applications > Development > Stay awake is checked
4. Settings > Sound and display > Orientation is un-checked

On connecting the phone, I see the USB Icon which mentions that USB is connected and also a Red exclamation alert icon mentioning that USB debugging is connected. I also ensured that OpenJDK is also not installed on my machine as that is known to cause clashes with Android SDK.

Then I opened a shell, logged in as root (using sudo -s) and then did the following:

# lsusb | grep 'Sam'
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 04e8:681c Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd 
# vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="04e8", ATTRS{idProduct}=="681c", MODE="0666"

Now rebooted the machine and again with sudo -s, ran the following commands:

# /etc/init.d/udev restart
 * Stopping kernel event manager...                                      [ OK ]
 * Starting kernel event manager...                                      [ OK ]
# cd /usr/google/appinventor-extras/commands-for-Appinventor
# ./adb kill-server
# ./adb devices
* daemon not running. starting it now *
* daemon started successfully *
List of devices attached

# ./adb usb
error: device not found

I tried the above sequence of steps with these versions of UDEV rules as well, but to no avail:

# vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666"

and

# vi /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
SUBSYSTEMS=="usb_device", SYSFS{idVendor}=="04e8", MODE="0666"

Here is the log from the Java console:

Creating the REPL controller
Changing the REPL communication button text to Communicating...
Disabling REPL communication button.
********* Actually invoking CreateAndSend
Restarting repl controller (true)
ReplController sending (begin (require com.google.youngandroid.runtime)  (setup-repl-environment "<<" ":" "@@" "Success" "Failure" "=="">>" '((">>""&2")("<<""&1")("&""&0"))))
**** devicesPluggedIn: 0 isPluggedIn: false connectionHappy: false
************************** commIndicator was unexpectedly
connected!!!! COMMUNICATING
Changing REPL communication button to Connect.
Re-enabling REPL communication button.
Communication with REPL failed: java.io.IOException: App Inventor
cannot find any phones.
Please plug in a phone and try again.

I am at a loss as to what else to check as all these steps are a compilation of the knowledge in the google groups as well as other blogs on the topic. If anyone has any ideas/pointers/suggestions, please let me know - Thanks.

Extend battery life on Samsung Vibrant

Here are a few tips / tricks to extend the battery life on Samsung Vibrant and any Android based phones. Of course, cutting down on many of these aspects may reduce the quality of experience that you have with the phone, so there's always a give-and-take involved. However you can definitely turn-off those features that you don't use so that you can have the full-fledged experience of the phone as well as a better battery life!

1. Switch off GPS
If you are not using any location aware services, maps or navigation, then turn off the GPS radio. GPS radios generally use a lot of juice and if you are not using the feature, no point in letting it consume battery.

2. Switch off Wi-Fi
If you are on the move and not using Wi-Fi, then turn it off as Wi-Fi radios can eat up a lot of power as well.

3. Switch off Bluetooth
If you are not using Bluetooth, then turn it off. Switched on Bluetooth transciever that is not being used is another major culprit for draining the battery in all phones that have bluetooth, not just the Samsung Vibrant.

4. Adjust & Optimize Display Setting
Reduce the brightness of the screen and decrease the screen time-out (the amount of time the phone waits to turn the display off if there is no activity). Display is the major consumer of battery resources hence using it in a controlled manner will provide astonishing results.

5. Increase Synchronization intervals
Increase the gap between synchronization intervals or set them to synchronize on demand instead of a time interval. Apps for social networks, emails that use "polling" instead of "push", weather, news, etc. are major culprits for such unwarranted usage of battery.

6. Install Apps to Kill unwanted tasks
Note: this may be risky / complicated depending on which app(s) are installed and how they are used.
For Android 2.1, you can install JuiceDefender to intelligently manage & control how apps use battery.
You can also install & use Advanced Task Killer to kill apps that don't close after you have exited from them. Apps that keep running in the background even after you have exited from them can also drain the battery.

7. Remove Dynamic Wall Papers
Dynamic / Live Wall Papers and similar apps can also eat into the battery very fast - disable such apps to increase available battery.

8. Turn off Vibrate / Haptic Feedback
A small motor spins at a high speed to create the Vibration / Haptic Feedback buzz. This obviously takes a lot of power, so switching it off can save quite a bit.

9. Switch to Flight mode in areas of no cell coverage
Switch to Flight mode in areas where there is no cell coverage to conserve battery. When there is no cell coverage, generally the signal strength is boosted to see if any towers can be reached and the polling interval also increases. Switching to Flight mode switches off the radios saving the battery from drain out.


Note: These are also generally applicable for all other (smart) phones too based on whether they have the below mentioned features.