Many of you know that I’m a huge fan of Android, as I feel that it bests iPhone in many ways. One place that it’s lacking, however, is in synergy of text messaging across devices. Apple’s iMessage has downsides, but the way it syncs between phone and computer is quite slick.

For years I used Google Hangouts to handle that, and it worked well enough. Hangouts has always been an app that “could be amazing”, but Google never put the time into it to really make it shine. With recent announcements and releases from Google, it seems they never will.

When I switched to the Pixel and Google Fi, I also made the decision to dump Hangouts and use the native Messaging app on Android. It’s much faster and works great, but no longer syncs with my desktop. There are a lot of popular solutions for syncing Android text messages to your deskop, and two of the most popular are MightyText and Pushbullet

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They’re similar; both have free versions that handle pretty much all you’ll need, both have paid versions to give you a bit more, and both have Chrome plugins to help keep things synced.

I started with MightyText and it worked great, but has a huge interface on the desktop. I wanted something a bit more space-concious, so I switched to Pushbullet for a while. However, Pushbullet seemed to be less reliable in getting me my texts (which is a pretty big deal), so I’m back on MightyText for now. The interface is imperfect, but it’s doing a nice job of syncing things and keeping me notified, so that’e enough for now.

If you’re an Android user, do you use any desktop software to sync your texts?

When I switched our family to T-Mobile earlier in the year, I did so with the intention of purchasing the latest Galaxy Note when it came out later in the year, as it was rumored to have amazing specs. When it came out, it absolutely did — every review of the phone was glowing and I was thrilled to be using it. As most of you know, however, many of them were catching fire and Samsung had to do a full recall of the device.

Around that time, Google unveiled their new Pixel phone. It was missing some of the extra features that the Note 7 had (such as the s-pen), but had some amazing new aspects to it.

When it comes down to it, the review of this phone is fairly simple. I won’t get into the nuances between Android and iPhone (I’ve covered that in the past and certainly will in the future), but more the differences between this phone and other Android devices.

The bad

While I love this phone, there are a few strange things about it:

1. It’s not waterproof. While that’s not a major factor for me, most new phones (including the Note 7 and the iPhone 7) are waterproof, so it’s odd that the Pixel isn’t.
2. The design is uninspired. I’m not really a design snob when it comes to phone, but the huge (useless) chin on the bottom is quite odd.

The good

1. It’s fast. Very fast. Not only does it have a faster chip than the Note 7, but having it stripped down to pure Android without all of the Samsung “extras” make it fly.
2. The camera is awesome. According to DxOMark, it’s the best smartphone camera ever made. We’re at the point where most every cell phone camera is amazing, but this one is the best you can get.
3. The Google Assistant is a big step forward. It will be on many other phones (including older ones) at some point, but this is the first to have it. Google voice search has always been great, but this is a big step forward. Marques Brownlee has a great video comparing the new Assistant to Siri, which you can watch here:

At the end of the day, this is an amazing phone. If you’re an Android user, there is almost no doubt you should get this phone. If you’re an iPhone user, you should at least give it a close look.

Project Fi

When moving to the Pixel, I also decided to move away from T-Mobile and onto Google’s “Project Fi”. This is a mobile phone service that you sign up for that is run by Google, but with some neat features:

1. The best is the network. Project Fi uses T-Mobile, Sprint and US Cellular, and your phone automatically switches to whichever network has a stronger signal at the time. T-Mobile is awesome around our area, and now I’ll have Sprint to help fill in the gaps between cities.
2. The pricing is cheap and simple. $20 for unlimited talk and text, and $10/GB for data. If you don’t use all of your data in a given month, you automatically get a refund for whatever is left. Data overages are charged at the same $10/GB as well.

The catches

I absolutely love Project Fi, but there are two big caveats to be aware of:

1. It only works with the Pixel and last year’s Nexus devices. No other Android devices, no iPhones.
2. While the pricing is fair and cheap, they count every bit of data you use. In the case of T-Mobile, our daughters can go wild; most music and video sites don’t count against the cap, and they automatically throttle data speeds when you get high. With Project Fi, every site counts against it and it’ll keep allowing full-speed data forever (running up your bill).

At the end, I’m the only one from our family currently on Fi. My wife needs her iPhone, and the kids need the data bonuses that T-Mobile provides. However, if the Pixel looks like a good phone for you, then Project Fi might be worth checking out.

I’m loving the new Galaxy Note 7 and still getting used to it, but I’ve found a few great uses for the new S-Pen “Glance” feature and I’ll share one with you here.

This morning at church I fired up the trusty YouVersion Bible app, as seen here:

With most phones, you could then click back and forth using the recent apps icon, but the Glance feature does it a bit better. Once the app is open, pull out the S-Pen and you’ll get the following menu:

Choose “Glance” near the bottom, and it’ll tuck your current app (in this case, the Bible app) into a very small window in the corner of your screen. You can drag it to any other corner of your screen if you prefer. Once it’s down there, you can tap the S-Pen actions again and choose “Create note” and you’ll be looking at something like this:

Here where it gets awesome. You can use the Notes feature to take notes with the pen, no problem. If you simply hover your pen over the Glanced application in the corner, it becomes full screen for as long as you keep your pen pointed toward the screen. As soon as you move your pen away, it tucks itself back into the corner and the Notes become the main app again.

It sounds a bit confusing, but in practice it was great. I could take notes for whatever I needed, and when a scripture was referenced I could hover over the Bible, find the reference and read/bookmark it, then simply point the pen away and instantly be back in the Note I was working on.l

Of course, you don’t need to use the Notes and Bible apps to get this to work; it should work well with any two apps that you throw at it. Maybe “Glance” a chart from a co-worker as you are typing up a reply. Or perhaps you could “Glance” at ESPN data while your fantasy football draft is happening in the main window. Or you could “Glance” your music app so you could quickly hop in there to change tracks while working on something else. There are a lot of great possibilities with this.

The Note 7 is amazing device and this is just a small part of it, but certainly something you should take care not to overlook.

What is your favorite Note 7 feature?

While Android and iOS phones are becoming quite similar these days, the general story for the past eight years has been this:

• Android has more features.
• iOS has a smoother interface.

That’s it. Now that Apple has caught up in terms of features, and Android has caught up in reliability and smooth operation, they’re quite similar. Their watches, however, are the opposite of what you’d think.

Android Wear: Beautiful and Simple

Android Wear is a very simple operating system, and the hardware coming out lately (see the Moto 360 above) looks quite awesome. The primary use of the watch is notifications; not only incoming calls/texts/emails, but the brilliance of content from Google Now.

Google Now is quickly becoming Google’s biggest advantage. Privacy issues aside, letting Google know everything about you (email, calendar, GPS, etc) allows them to do some crazy cool things in Google Now. Apple can’t touch it. Google knows what sports teams I like, so it keeps me updated on their scores. It knows how far the drive will be to my next appointment. It knows what news stories will interest me. It’s creepy, but awesome, and the watch makes great use of it.

Yes, you can load apps on the watch, but they’re more tucked away and somewhat of an afterthought at this point.

Apple Watch: Ugly and Powerful

The Apple watch isn’t “ugly” by many standards, but you’d be hard pressed to say it’s a nicer looking device than the Moto 360, Huawei watch and others. That said, Apple’s watchOS is much more powerful than Android Wear, which is both good and bad.

The number of apps for the Apple Watch is already dwarfing Android (and Pebble and others) and many of them are quite awesome. The Apple Watch has more sensors than other watches and it can do some powerful things.

Switcheroo

All of that said, it simply feels like Google and Apple switched ideals for their watches. Google built something simple and beautiful, while Apple built something much more powerful and complicated. Neither approach is necessarily better, but it’s an odd direction for each to take.

Having the phones grow so similar to one another, I’m excited to see the companies take separate approaches on their watches. I expect they’ll draw a bit closer over time, but right now they both have a lot they can learn from one another.

One of the more remarkable things about the Apple Watch is that it’s still not available in stores. To this point, it’s been available exclusively online.  According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the watch will be arriving in stores “by June”.

While the lack of in-store sales hasn’t hurt the Apple Watch, having it available there will only seem to help. Many consumers have ordered online after doing their research, but a hands-on look at the watch is a necessary step for a lot of people.

(via 9to5mac)

Even though Pebble may be in a bit of trouble, their new Pebble Time smartwatch is scheduled to begin shipping in less than a week.

According to the Pebble Kickstarter page, shipments will start on May 27. Specifically:

• Production is now in full swing since bringing the factory online at the beginning of May.
• With things moving along at this rate, we expect all Pebble Time Rewards to be manufactured by the end of the month.
• By the end of May, all backers can expect an invitation to finalize their selections in the Reward Portal so we can get your Pebble Time processed and shipped.
• Every backer with a Pebble Time included in their selected reward tier should receive a tracking number from us by mid-June.
• Shipments will continue on a rolling basis as watches land at distribution centers.

If you’ve been waiting for a Pebble Time, your wait is just about over!