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Droid Texting - Fail!
Stoic Joker:
Okay, so I'm on record as detesting most of the things that smart phones are for...But I ended up with one anyway. I've no good explanation for why, it just happened.
I got one on the new HTC Arrive Windows Phones, and despite all attempts at hating it...I just can't. It has a straight forward intuitive interface that makes things easy to do, even when I'm intent on being thick.
The wife on the other hand, got a Droid, specifically a Samsung Elite ... I considered setting it on fire earlier this evening, but wasn't entirely sure it would burn... :) I actually had to wait several hours before making this post to calm down to avoid breaking the record for most profanity ever used on a single page on the internet.
Anyhow... It all started with a Text Message, or rather an attempt at sending a text message. Texting, it seems, requires a 10 digit number. Okay fine. The droid however flatly refuses to to save and reuse said prerequisite 10 digit number (which is the one and only number in the contact list) for reasons which completely escape me. Here's a couple of test scenarios I went through, in the process of going ballistic.
Sent wife text from Windows phone (works fine)
Try responding to text from wife's Droid (it says no 10 digit number/bite me/Fail!)
Edit contact on phone, and then log into Gmail to make sure that all traces of number format 123-4567 are gone.
Delete text message history for contact me, because otherwise I'm not allowed to change the target number.
Once again confirm that number for contact Me is on the required 666-123-456 format.
Purge all history so there is no other alternative other that to read the number given in the contact info...
Open messaging on the droid, and pick me from the list.
Top of message windows says: My Name <123-4567>, ... WTF?!?
But it is, at this point, editable, Sort of. Correcting the number is (best I can tell) impossible. Best I can do is back it out entirely, and then it will give a drop down where I can (Believe it Or Not) select the correct number. And! successfully send a text.
Sent a few messages back and forth. All is fine... Kinda...
I close the message window.
I go to contacts, pick me, and pick send message.
Fail! Broken phantom number <123-4567> hath returned.
Not to mention I can't change/correct it any longer. I have to start over at step 1 with deleting the complete message history...To get the blasted thing to ASK me for the Freaking ~CorrecT~ number which it has in the contact list but completely refuses to use. Because apparently it's far more fun for the phone to bust my balls over a number that IT Decided to Truncate!
Factoid: There were 35 expletives in the last two sentences when I said them just now in my head.
<I'm going to step out for a cigarette...>
:D
<Much better now...>
Additional Observations:
Texting to any long distance (/out of local area code) number, works fine. Contact info is uses as it is stored.
Texting to any local number, even if all 10 digits (666-123-4567 -or- 66612345767) are stored. Fails.
Pulling the battery to force a reboot does not affect the aforementioned ill behavior.
Why this is happening, I've not a clue. The Windows phone, also on the same carrier...performs flawlessly. I can only hope that someone recognizes this behavior, and knows of a fix for it...That they will share...Before the phone meets a tragic end.
Thank you.
Renegade:
I don't use SMS, or extremely rarely. Even with a keyboard, with my big thumbs, I'm exactly that -- all thumbs.
But I can sympathize. I've encountered things like that before. Localization/globalization issues can drive you far beyond the wall of sleep and deep into the mountains of madness. I'd be rich if I had a dime for every profanity I've uttered over issues like that. If volume were factored in, I'd be getting $100 bills. (On more than 1 occasion I've been driven to insanely screaming like an absolute idiot.)
I try to not let it bother me anymore. I'm resigned to the fact that anything I want to do will only be 80% supported by the tools that purport to do them.
Stoic Joker:
So... What you're telling me is this kind of horse shit is normal?!? Christ no wonder I avoided these things for so long.
I'd think from all the hype that the Google/Android phones would be just dandy at all this Social Networking crap. Simple Message Service my ass!
I'd hoped it was a setting that was off but could be fixed. But I guess I'll have to get her switched to a Windows phone because her office is insisting on her being able to text the doctor.
Hell my Windows phone came with Office Mobile and connects to our Exchange server just fine. The VP got a Droid (same as the wife's) and it locks up daily. I thought they were supposed to be great phones...?
Renegade:
So... What you're telling me is this kind of horse shit is normal?!? Christ no wonder I avoided these things for so long.
I'd think from all the hype that the Google/Android phones would be just dandy at all this Social Networking crap. Simple Message Service my ass!
I'd hoped it was a setting that was off but could be fixed. But I guess I'll have to get her switched to a Windows phone because her office is insisting on her being able to text the doctor.
Hell my Windows phone came with Office Mobile and connects to our Exchange server just fine. The VP got a Droid (same as the wife's) and it locks up daily. I thought they were supposed to be great phones...?
-Stoic Joker (May 10, 2011, 10:59 PM)
--- End quote ---
Oh -- I didn't mean that it happens normally on Android -- I was speaking about any technology or service or product or anything in general... i.e. Less than promised...
My HTC Desire HD certainly isn't perfect. But it's ok. My next phone will be Windows Mobile though. That way I can easily program what I want for it quickly. I'm finding that anything I want to do on iOS is simply mind-numbingly horrid. I've not done enough on Android yet to say much though. Microsoft simply produces better tools to get things done. I had no problems a few years ago doing stuff on Windows CE/2003 or whatever it was. I forget now.
As for SNS stuff and all that... Ready to lose your last threads of sanity? Check out the documentation for some of the popular SNS SDKs/APIs.
e.g. http://developers.facebook.com/docs/
WTF? It's a bloody maze. Where is the documentation? Huh?
http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/photo/
Now it's starting to look like documentation, but how it relates to anything isn't obvious.
So, the whole social networking service stuff still seems to be very much in its infancy. Mobile is still in its infancy as well, and I think that the fast paced world of Wall Street is pushing things out the door prior to them being prime-time ready.
Compound that with flaky network infrastructure and dubious providers, and you've got 80%. :)
I recently went through my HTC and ripped out a bunch of software as it was bogging things down.
Well... go figure. Once you run something, it's always in memory. Want to close an app? Guess what? CTRL+ALT+DEL and kill it. Well, the mobile equivalent anyways. Or you can reboot... Reboot to close an app? Ummm... Yeah... It's THAT bad.
Try it -- Start an app, close it. Next, Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Running. You'll see a complete horror story there.
Some applications behave properly, but it doesn't seem like many do.
I suppose that's part of the price of having an open platform as opposed to a closed one.
Apple's polish vs. freedom? I'm hoping that Windows Mobile 8 comes screaming out of the gates, guns blazing, and addresses those issues.
Deozaan:
I never had that problem on my HTC G1.
But I've always been in the habit of storing contact's phone numbers as 11 digit (1-234-567-8901). Even so, there have been a few times that numbers were stored in my phone in 10 or 7 digit format and they always worked fine.
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