Should I use ths as I am going to EU for 2 months…

Today was my first day out in my car since buying the Milestone, and I tried both the Moto Nav and Google Maps.

Google Maps was just that – not really a directional turn-by-turn program at all.

Moto Nav was quite buggy with not updating where I was for quite a while on screen, but telling me where to turn left/right. My favourite part was when it said “Turn right at the next street, and then turn right” (can’t quite recall the exact phrase), and then a few seconds later – “turn left at the next street, and then turn left”. Fortunately I knew where I was going.

I really think that GPS systems should now be at the level where they read out the street name instead of “next right/next left”.

I had an odd situation with media playback – I was listening to one podcast and then used the headphone “pause” button to pause, but instead of pausing Podcast 1, it started playing another podcast at the same time (so I had two podcasts playing simultaneously).

After a while, I figured out that the device screen would pause/play the initial podcast, but the headphone button was pausing and playing an additional podcast… I exited the program and rebooted a couple of times to see if that would fix – and no luck. Strange experiences with this device.

I do miss the blackberry a bit for many of the reasons I’ve listed, but am enjoying the touch screen and some of the cool apps like google sky, seesmic, shazam, goggles etc. ( the free apps).

My work is web development related for a large organisation (more than 35000 employees) and I’m seeing what RIM is trying to do with catching up on the browser front with Apple and Google…the results are not good. Bold users are seeing completely bizarre results when viewing web pages/pdfs etc., and hyperlinks in html emails don’t even work consistently. I like RIM for many reasons including their way of managing bandwidth for carriers, and security – but they’re fast losing the race for the desktop experience on mobile device.

Here’s hoping that Motorola will “free the bootloader” for us here in Canada and elsewhere.

As for paid app access in Canada; there is allegedly going to be an announcement from Google some time this week about that very topic. Hopefully it will be to announce that we finally get access to paid apps; I just might hold my breath on this one :)

And to repeat Sigrids words, thanks for the compliments. And thanks also for reading!

The Google navigation software is only available in the US, just like the paid apps. I don’t know what reasons Google has to exclude this software for other countries. I know you can install it (the navigation) but it won’t work since there are no maps available. The paid apps…I have no idea but Palm is doing the same and there’s regional restrictions in the BB App World as well. Looks like there’s some legal issues just like with tv series, phones, game console’s, etc etc
Palm has announced paid apps will be available in March for Europeans so at least we know it is possible. I really hope some smart guy or woman finds a way to root your Canadian Milestones…it would give you paid apps within 2 minutes !

Thx for the compliments!

I agree with all of Charrion’s comments, and thought I’d add a few more of my own – thanks for letting us Canucks do our reviews here.

I’m generally pleased with about 75% of the device, but here’s the complaints:

Hardware
Performs great, but I’m missing external buttons that can pause music. I can use the headphone pause “pinch” when I’ve got headphones on (although not great), but when I’m listening on speaker – it’s a pain.

The keyboard (I know..I know…everyone warned that it wasn’t good) isn’t good. I can live with the flat buttons, but it’s so wide that I can’t reach to the middle with two hands. I could type quicker on my blackberry pearl 8100 which was regular phone pad with predictive text than I can on the Milestone.

I also find odd applications launching when I move the device (lay it down, change orientation etc.) so I think that the acclerometers must be freaking out.

Audio
Yep – lots of skipping. I’m frightened to go jogging with it – it sometimes arbitrarily skips to other parts of the recording. I listen to a lot of long podcasts (1 – 2 hours), and so trying to get back to the part I was listening to is difficult with the fairly lame status bar.

Paid Apps
Charrion mentioned this but…can someone give us an explanation as to why we can’t give Google/Developers our money? There may very well be a valid reason…but no one is saying.

Synching
I’ve been using Outlook on my PC for 10 years, and it’s a common software to use for people trying to organise their contacts/email/tasks/notes. With Google, no synchronization. To keep things in synch – I’m creating CSV files from Outlook to upload (not synch) contacts, using a downloadable app from Google to synch calendar with online google (I don’t like sharing everything…with google), and tasks and notes are just not an option. It’s a lot of steps to do this, and if the calendar option was better — I’d just use that but it’s not. Contacts have to have email addresses (my relatives don’t all have them). Additionally, I don’t want to share all of my contacts with Google – they’re “my” friends- not yours.

Milestone Calendar
To make a 1/2 hour event on a blackberry, one click to open – type the event name – one click to save. I’ve got my preferences set to default to 1/2 hour events with no reminder.

To do the same thing on milestone is torture. Open calendar, click button to get menu, click “new event”, type in name of event, to change time, click on the time and then change the hour back 1 hour, then start changing the minutes going forward in **1** (one) minute increments…!? I may be organized, but I’m not doing it to the minute, click “set” and then click “back” for it to be saved. I’ve started sending myself emails to remind myself of things rather than post in calendar.

The events are not shown in calendar view if the text is on just one line also (not sure why).

Maps
One of the really exciting features was the GPS offered by Google, but it looks like features like “Text to Speech” are disabled.

I think that this might possibly be because Motorola is offering its own $50 version of MotoNav (uhhh….no thanks…no text to speech, and their terms are pretty ugly…”lifetime” means two years, and you can only download within the first two months…hopefully I live longer than two years). I declined, and now can’t find it on their site but it was definitely a no-go.

There are a number of other quirky software issues also, but I’m hoping they’ll be taken care of at some point in the future with OS updates, and being able to buy apps.

Thanks again for the very good site.

There’s still no way to know how many posts show and how many are deleted unless people spread the word if their posts don’t show up. Just give it a day after you post just in case.

It’s really a shame to see this happening. Motorola looked to be on the rebound when they released Droid to some very good sales but I think they really underestimate the negative press they will ultimately get from this Milestone debacle.

Perhaps in true American fashion they just don’t believe anyone in America is going to care how unhappy people in the rest of the world are. The sad thing is; they might not be wrong.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I have a question that will likely end up deleted; it seems quite a few posts have been lately. But here it is nonetheless.

Has MotoDev, or Motorola in general for that matter, considered how much truly creative works you may be missing out on that take advantage of the Milestone’s unique hardware qualities by denying the Android community to ability to make custom mods? Take a look right now at what the community around CyanogenMod is doing with the Nexus One. Heck, it’s quite possible that if the bootloader was unlocked someone might have fixed the MP3 skipping problem that is plaguing the Milestone on both sides of the pond.

And from a purely bottom-line, bean counter point of view Motorola could save a ton of money since every rooted or modded phone would be warranty void; every one would be one less you have to spend on support.Oh well, I thought I’d get it out there. Don’t know if it will stay out there though.

Sincerely,

A once (and future?) Motorola fan