Hey folks,
is it at the moment (in the future?) possbile to use a fullfeatured android-system without a google account/being bound to google? I love WM 6.5, because it comparatively is independent of any cloud stuff. Windows Mobile Phone 7 is very closed and lives in the cloud. So how open is android and to what extent is it spy-/adware?
Thx
My thoughts:
I was a WM5/6 user for quite a few years (at least 4+ years). I heavily hacked my WM phones to get the functionality I craved.
After fooling around with various Android ports to my HTC Titan, I decided to give the TBD Verizon Android phone (aka Droid) a chance when it came out. Since that fateful day, I haven't had a single regret. The Droid (and Android) is absolutely amazing.
Prior to my Droid, I had a couple of almost totally unused GMail accounts. I was resigned to the idea that to get the full functionality out of my Droid, I needed to move into the Google "cloud".
I have been amazed at how well everything flows together, now that everything syncs/baselines off of my main GMail account.
I'm not sure how functional the phone will be if you don't have a GMail account. Here is my (probably inaccurate) guess of functionality degradation you will face by not using a GMail account:
1) The Google Market may not allow you to purchase any apps. App purchases are paid through Google Checkout - Which is associated with your GMail account.
2) EMail integration is obviously very well implemented with Google. When a message is sent to my GMail account, it seems like I get it just a few seconds later on my phone. You can also set up your GMail account to poll any of your already existing email accounts from other providers. While not updated as fast as your GMail account, it still operates very well, and also color-codes which email account your messages came from. If you don't want to use GMail, the K-9 Mail app can work as an alternative to the GMail app.
3) Syncing with Google Contacts and multiple Google Calendars won't be available to you. The instant syncing of contacts/calendars is *very* useful, and works totally seamlessly. Again, updating a contact (or event) on the web (or your phone) nearly instantaneously updates the phone / web, respectively. You don't have to worry about losing contacts or calendars anymore. If you already had a GMail account with Contacts & Calendars, all that information is available on your phone within a minute or so after you have powered up your Droid for the first time. (Note: I do have some moderate gripes about how contacts are displayed & grouped on GMail & Android. I hope Google will be addressing these items soon). If your Droid gets damaged and you don't have a GMail account, you will probably have to manually reenter all your contacts / appointments.
4) Other non-Google "push" apps (such as Flight Tracker Pro) probably won't work since they need your GMail address to send their integrated information to your phone to update their app status.
5) Probably a bit of other stuff, but I'm too tired to think right now.
As far as my "who is watching my activity" paranoia level is concerned, I don't have any concerns at all about Google. I haven't seen a single instance in the months I have been using my Droid where Google appeared to be targeting any overtly obnoxious advertising in my direction. (However, if you are still concerned about ads, there is a hack to Android to block all ads). If I had any concerns, I would certainly trust Microsoft less (by a few orders of magnitude) than Google.
I'm not entirely sure how Google is making a lot of money from the Android adoption, other than having more devices natively using Google for searching (which can result in their advertising revenue). But from what I have seen, it is no worse than when you are using Google on your PC to do your web searches.
After using Android for months now, I can't ever see going back to WM6 again. WM6 was incredibly lame in comparison. Web browsing on Android is what I always hoped the WM6 platform would achieve (but never seemed to reach). Android is an amazing OS, certainly comparable to the Apple iPhone in almost all aspects, and exceeds WM6 in most aspects.
My advise would be to take the plunge and get an Android phone & GMail account set up. Try it out. If you don't like the OS (or Google cloud stuff), you can always return the phone within a couple of weeks for all the carriers, and go back to a WM6 phone.
The only thing you really need a google account for the Market. I have all syncing (mail, contacts and calendar) turned off and auto sync turned off. I believe you have to leave background sync turned on but that's it.
For everything else I use a hosted exchange account.
if you can live without google voice and google talk, then yeah. It is a fully functional OS. Market is not essential to core functionality and you can always install apks directly from sdcard as well as switch your search engine to whatever you prefer.
*****EDIT 2/25/2011*****
VERY SORRY for the delay in editing this post and/or replying to the comments!
I have had some very serious family problems in the last couple months and during this, didn't renew the lease with the server i was renting. I am currently looking to buy a server (or share one with any other dev??) that i can use to run this App. It requires its own server due to the amount of requests it needs to keep thousands of users up to date with all their accounts and push messages to your devices.
I am EXTREMELY sorry that I had not been able to come on and post this, but in the last 24 hours I have received TONS of emails stating you're getting an error signing up. Thats because The server isnt responding anymore to requests, I apologize.
I will have this fixed hopefully soon and also incorporate many more social media outlets into the app that don't currently have push updates.
Again, SORRY for the delay in updating this. I hope to have a new Beta out soon.
Thanks!
*******End Edit******
Hey Guys..
This is our first post to XDA, and we are glad to be here.
We are a new Android development team, Atomic Pineapple. We wanted to let you guys know we have an app in Beta that brings push notifications for Facebook, and Twitter (this week for twitter) for ALL versions of Android. The app is called "Pushee"
Our plans are to grow the app into a full service push notification tool, including all the most used social platforms, FB, twitter, 4square, etc. We also have plans to bring push notifications for all POP3 email for non Gmail accounts as there is currently nothing for this. All these are in the works and will be integrated into pushee in the next few weeks.
If you want to get the Beta for Pushee just go to pushee(dot)atomicpineapple(dot)com and download it. Sorry we couldn't post a link because we are new users lol.
It will be out of Beta within a week or two and on the Market with a 7 Day Free Trial, and then for sale at 1.49.
Any comments on adding services to have notifications pushed are welcome!
Thanks!
Justin,
Atomic Pineapple.
I'm going to test it right now and it seems to be awesome !
I'm loving it so far. Few things..
1) Icon, I'm sure this will get changed soon. Just checking
2) When tapping on the notification for new items for Facebook, it wanted to open my browser. I would rather have it open my Facebook app. For example, when I see I have 2 new friend requests, I would like it to go to my Friends section of the Facebook app. Possible? =D
Also, do I have to add this to my task killer for it to monitor my Facebook?
dEris said:
I'm loving it so far. Few things..
1) Icon, I'm sure this will get changed soon. Just checking
2) When tapping on the notification for new items for Facebook, it wanted to open my browser. I would rather have it open my Facebook app. For example, when I see I have 2 new friend requests, I would like it to go to my Friends section of the Facebook app. Possible? =D
Also, do I have to add this to my task killer for it to monitor my Facebook?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sur but i think you must add this to your Task Killer
Waiting for the twitter option !
Looks great so far! One question, when we say "yes" when application asks for "exit?", are we gonna receive notifications?
And one addition, charset seems not "utf", or whatever (im new in android world), when we have non-english characters in the account name, it appears as a "□".
I just installed it, so im still waiting to see if i get a notification within 60 minutes (logged on gf's account and posted on one of my own comments)..
Bug/problem ->
Since i have an x10 mini pro, i have a small display - it is really hard to setup Pushee on this phone, as text is cluttered all over the screen, and email input is behind 'explanation text' etc.
Besides that, because of the MANY MANY permissions pushee needs, it was almost impossible (i got lucky) to press 'accept' to those permissions on facebook popup.
I've set facebook to 'never' update - i assume that is correct? As the Pushee servers will do the checking.
- If this app works & it enters the facebook app instead of the browser - then i'll definatly buy it - Even though 1.49$ seems like a bit much for a 'notification application'..
This app looked really promising.. but..
After a few hours, spamming myself with notifications and messages on facebook - I still didn't get any on the phone.
Installation/Configuration text is all messed up, and its hard to configure on an x10 mini pro.
Tried reinstalling - Cant create an account with the same email - Fair enough... But i cannot login to an existing account, the button simply doesn't work.
Sure this is a beta, and not alpha?
It is starting to feel creepy.
How does the "People" section in the Play store make suggestions for people to follow?
I had another google account that I closed and it clearly was getting them from my contacts. It creeped me out a bit as I'm ridiculously cautious as to any type of web presence for work. I deleted that account, created a new one and have never put any contacts on my phone nor on the google servers. I use a third party contact app from Verizon that is in the cloud now. I have no Google+ account and don't even use gmail on that account, it is tied to a private email address.
Today I notice it is suggesting people I know from 20 years ago. People I went to high school with that I haven't spoken to in years. Not just one or two, but like ten. What are the odds??? I am assuming it is geographically based but would like to hear more. It's just odd to me. Thankfully it's no longer suggesting business associates, etc. because it no longer has access to that info on my new account.
Also, since I have no Google+ account and don't ever plan on creating one, does this mean that I do not show up to them or would I still show up? (Also, I do keep in contact with one of the 20 people I actually knew, and they use iPhone, not Android. So obviously it wasn't because they linked us from her contacts.)
So last month the news came out that you don't need Google+ to use GPG anymore so I tried to log-in today (I have no Google+ and no interest in having one) but it still tries to forces me to create a profile to be able to use it.
What's up with that? I have the app fully updated so I shouldn't be having these problems right?
I've had Instagram installed on my Android phone (Nexus 6P) for quite some time now. I decided to download Facebook's standalone Messenger and when I went to log in, it knew that I had my Instagram account and suggested that I log in with my Instagram account. How can prevent apps from being able to read each other like this?