Google Gears problem with Android

Warning the procedure below will remove your bookmarks.

For the past few days I've been puzzled why the Google Gears application that used to work on my G1 phone just stopped working? The social networking site Brightkite makes use of some Gears code on its mobile web page at http://i.brightkite.com/ to allow your device to report back your location to the Brightkite website and automatically 'check you in' at that location.

This seemed to work fine for about the first two days with my new G1 phone. However it seemed to stop working about the time I accepted the software upgrade to Android Rc9. After this time it just sat at the screen trying to determine my location.

If I went in to the browser settings on the G1 I noticed that the 'Gears' settings/menu did nothing when pressed, it just ignored your press.

I tried resetting the browser to defaults but this also seemed to just do nothing, it did not even get rid of the bookmarks that I had set, as you would expect.

So I decided to go to the phone Settings and did the following:-

Applications -> Manage Applications -> Browser -> Clear Data

What do you know? It worked! It also removed the couple of bookmarks I had set, the Gears menu worked and best of all the Brightkite mobile web page was able to guess my location once again!

My G1 phone is here.

Well that didn't take long to decide did it? I'm now the proud owner of the first Android powered phone, the T-Mobile G1. I've been researching the phone for a good couple of weeks I would say. I was able to get an upgrade from my existing Blackberry Curve 8320 to the G1 and save some money by not needing the Blackberry service and also moving on to a cheaper monthly tarrif with more inclusive minutes and more data allowance!

I've only had the phone for about 1.5 days so far but first impressions are very good.  I think the battery life is going to take some getting used to but with a charger in the car and a couple of chargers around the house I should be ok!

Unlike the iPhone the G1 has a removable battery so if I need to go on an extended trip I can always take a spare battery.

Things I am impressed with so far:

• Responsiveness of the UI & operating system


• Speed of the 3g and wifi, seems much quicker on wifi than my Blackberry


• Ease of use and simplicity to setup with my Google account. Email, contacts, calendar.

So there we go, once I've spent some more time with it I will try and do another post.

What about the Google G1 Android phone?

Since the T-Mobile, HTC, G1, Google Android (call it what you will) phone was released in November of 2008 I had barely looked at it. Two reasons I guess; at the time I was not due for an upgrade to my current Blackberry handset and I'd heard one or two comments that it was "an early beta".

This kind of put me off so I did not look any further. Well with my current contract pretty much at an end I've been doing some reading about it and even went in to the t-mobile store in lancaster for a play with one.

On the whole it seems a pretty nice device. I was impressed by how responsive the operating system was in general and how quick applications and the touch screen were to respond.

I've recently moved my business domain to google apps and find myself spending more time using Gmail to access it that Outlook these days. As the G1 integrates itself in to the google apps so well this phone may well be worth a serious look at!

Watch this space for updates. (Actually you are probably much better keeping an eye on my brightkite updates over on the right there).