My phone

*Updated September 15, 2011

htc Desire GSM

Purchased April 2010 -Still one of the best handsets out there.

Out of the box, my HTC Desire was far and away the best handset I’ve ever experienced. 15 minutes with it took me from the verge of regret (I was a staunch Nokia fanboy) to unhindered bliss. The mods I write of below are entirely my choice and are certainly not needed for any of the systems I write about on RunningDigital. But if you are hell-bent on hacking like I am, here’s what I’ve done to enhance my Android experience:

ROMs: I prefer AOSP over HTC’s Sense UI for a more Google experience. I initially rooted my mobile to use a “Sense-less” ROM, strictly to circumvent specific Bluetooth stack problems of the HTC Sense layer. Using AOSP ROMs allowed me to have access to the latest pure Android versions, often before those who own actual Google phones (i.e., Nexus One, Nexus S). UPDATE: No signs of Sense-related Bluetooth stack problems since 2,1. As such, I’m giving Sense another go. Sense 3,0 runs remarkably well, even on my single-core Desire.
Current ROM: Cool3D AceS v2 (Yes, a Sense ROM). What can I say, I haven’t run a Sense ROM on my Desire in over a year. The new Sense is beautiful and the dev making this ROM has it running smooth and quick. I”ve run CyanogenMod ROMs over most of the past 18 months, aIso I like to keep up with the ROM developments of Paul OBrien at MoDaCo. Following these development teams covers just about everything you’ll see in any other ROMs as their works are incorporated into most other custom ROM projects.
I’ve enabled full root access with S-Off using AlphaRev’s custom Hboot partitioning for the CM7 ROM. The main advantage here is write privileges to the internal System and Data partitions. You can also resize those partitions in order to greatly increase the internal space needed for apps. (e.g., You may not need to use your SD card for app storage, unless you’re an app hoarder)
If you’re going to tinker with your Android, begin with advice from XDA-Developers on your particular model. The how-to guides and FAQs at XDA will take you through all the steps you need. Cyanogen also has excellent how-to resources and advice for tinkering.
I’ve been using the latest ClockworkMod recovery but AmonRa‘s equally as good.
The only way, imo, to really experience Android is to learn to use the free Android SDK. Get to know ADB and FASTBOOT terminal commands. UPDATE: Though I’ll probably go to my grave a hacker, I have changed my attitude towards the need to hack. When it comes to phones, my old Nokia experiences conditioned me that I had to hack my phone to get the best experience. Early Android kept me in line with that thinking but, ultimately, hacking is beginning to take a back seat to customization. The latest flagship Androids and iOS devices are nearly perfect right out of the box and we have plenty of customization options via apps.

Like most folks, my app selection is always changing. Particularly true in the sports tech area. Here are a few apps that I have come to depend upon:

Dropbox If you do not have this essential app/service, you are making your life more difficult. A basic 2gb account is absolutely free, but if you sign up with this URL http://db.tt/5Rf6Wcd you’ll get an additional 250mb free storage and so will I :-) Dropbox is this: You install a Dropbox app on all your computers, tablets and mobiles, which gives you folders to put whatever files you want in them. A file dropped in one device’s Dropbox immediately cloud-syncs and becomes available on all your other devices. You can also use the service to share files with folks who don’t have Dropbox. For example, here’s a recent image of my Android’s home screen stored on my DropBox cloud storage: http://db.tt/CBuYbtB UPDATE: Thanks to all who’ve used this referral link! I now have 7,5gb of storage for free. I’ve tried SugarSync and Minus recently, both offer more free storage to start off with. SugarSync is DropBox’s biggest threat but I found it a bit of a resource hog.
KeePassDroid Another essential app. This one is open sourced, free, and works brilliantly with Dropbox. It’s cross-platform software which allows you to generate, store and retrieve extremely complex and secure passwords. You install KeePassDroid on your mobile device and place your password database file in a Dropbox folder. Then on your PC or Mac, you’ll install a the equivalent software from the keepassx.org project site. Finally, the database file store in Dropbox is accessible from all your computers, and you’ll never have another excuse for using “abc123″ as a password again. UPDATE: Still gotta have this one. The same setup works perfectly on my iPad.
SportsTracker Pro We’re beginning to have a lot of choices in the sport tracking category and choosing the right one depends on your experience level and personal taste. As it’s the theme of this site, I’m only interested in sports trackers which support wireless sensors. Then I need my app to be highly configurable, with plenty of voice cue options. The goal here is to minimize having to access my mobile on a run. SportsTracker Pro gives me all this in a beautiful UI, great customer service, frequent updates and supports the most Bluetooth sensors of any Android sports tracker. UPDATE: I continue to use this app as my daily fitness driver. If you are interested, by clicking through the following link you will help support my site. SportsTracker Pro by STL Just sign up for free and if/when you decide to get the Pro version, I’ll get a free (very small) cup of coffee.
MyFitnessPal This free tool greatly helps you track your calories with a community-supplied database of foods. The app is a cinch to get going with but it gets even easier as your most used foods and portion sizes become readily available. You can set your goals, track your weight and measurements and tap into an active community of users for help. If you haven’t kept a food diary before, it’s likely that it was just too inconvenient. MyFitnessPal is free and I highly recommend it.

Evernote I was slow to warm to this one and looking back, I can’t see why. Not just for notes and lists, you can save entire web pages which are instantly synced across multiple platforms. I use Evernote for several things, from content consumption to content production. Like DropBox, Evernote is a cloud-based organizer with free and paid service levels.
Pulse is a news feed aggregator and will be the only tool you’ll need to access, save and share the latest from all your favorite content providers. Setting Pulse up is simple, has apps for different platforms, includes offline reading features and convenient sharing tools for the most popular social networks. If you have to stay on top and organize the latest news, Pulse is the best tool of its kind available on Android. That said, Flipboard provides an even better user experience if you have an iPad.
Doggcatcher is the best podcast player for Android, handles any type of feed (be it audio, video or text) and has more features than I thought I ever needed, including variable speed playback. I spend a lot of hours a week running and cycling and consider that time incredibly valuable for listening to informative and entertaining podcasts and audiobooks (up next). I hear too often from running purists and wannabe elites that they’d never consider listening to anything but their breathing during their workouts. Too bad for them.
Audible Like I just mentioned for the above service, I make the most of my time spent on the road. Audible gives me excellent tools to listen to any of thousands of titles. While reading purists can be critical of consuming books in this fashion, I’m reading a book every week thanks to Audiobooks. The service is not free but considering what I get access to in even the basic subscription, I’m hooked.
OSMAnd A free (donations encouraged) offline map solution I especially love. OSMAnd rivals all other solutions and is great when using your phone for tracking/navigation in remote places where GSM signals can’t be found. You can download OpenStreetMaps or those from other sources. There are other similar apps that offer offline maps, including the excellent sport tracking app Run.GPS., but OSMAnd is the best in my opinion. UPDATE: Google Maps now gives you offline maps with a feature you enable within the app. Free navigation for the US, UK and a growing number of other countries, including Sweden now. Not true and full offline maps, but is close enough for most situations when you know where you’re going to be in advance. For instance, when traveling or hiking. Advantage to Google Maps if you’re using other Google services, such as Google+, Latitudes and contact’s location look up.

There are plenty of great apps to talk about. Below is my current list, for what it’s worth. An iPhone is in my near future. I love my Android but I’m missing out on sports apps and accessories to write about on this blog, so I’ll add an iPhone5 upon its debut this ~~summer~~ fall. I already got my feet wet with iOS thanks to my iPad, recently. Also interested in seeing the next generation Windows mobile; The demo looks great.

My current apps list as of September 14, 2011

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My phone

htc Desire GSM

David Hroncheck, Twitter

SportsTracker (by STL)

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My phone

htc Desire GSM

David Hroncheck, Twitter

SportsTracker (by STL)

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