Ever since my medical episode in 2009, an Apple iPhone has been within reach. Counting the one Countess has, I have purchased 4 iPhones and 3 iPads since then.
There is a rumor that Apple has already canned the iPhone X and just hopes to unload their first run. The reason is the price, but that is not the only reason.
I am fed up with a closed architecture with proprietary hardware, restrictions on software developers to only use the Safari WebKit html rendering library that crashes constantly and is very slow.
I am disgusted that Apple squandered their lead with Siri who assumes that the answer to most questions exists in my music library or a nearby restaurant.
I am tired of having to rent movies from Amazon’s web site because Apple blocks merchants from having their non-Apple payment systems in an app so Apple gets their tithe from the masses. I am tired of seeing the pretentious corporate spaceship HQ. I am tired of the Apple Store employees treating me like I should be grateful that they will talk to me only if I have an appointment. I am tired of devices without easily replaceable batteries and external memory cards.
I bought an Amazon Fire HD Tablet a year ago during Prime week. It was a learning toy and somewhat interesting, but followed the same closed philosophy – you can have Android as long as it is Amazon’s Android. You use the Silk Browser. [Firefox has eventually been added to the Apple ecosystem by complying with Apple’s demands.
I love google software, but my attempts to add in the Google Play store failed, so I lost interest. Now that we have a Roku TV with a FireTV stick, I decided to try a bit harder. Countess now has her own Fire 8 Tablet and I bought the Fire HD 10 Tablet as a much cheaper alternative to a new iPad – as a side note, I am very unhappy the 7th Generation kindle/Fire does not support Miracast that allows screen mirroring to the Fire TV stick.
But I really want to run Google Earth and Microsoft Excel on the Kindle/Fire Tablet.
So last night I tried again to use the instructions at BoingBoing to Add Google Play Store to my old Fire 8 – in case the device was “bricked”. It went smoothly and I did the same on Countess’s Fire 8 and then the new Fire HD 10.
Success!
The camera on the tablets are horrible, but who takes pictures or videos with a tablet? Skype quality, perhaps… So the iPhone 7SE will live on until it wears out, but I am completely on board with the idea of an Android phone in the future.
I ordered a microUSB to HDMI cable for projecting on the TV today. Using Wi-Fi for screen mirroring breaks down in 1080p when our neighbors come home and clog the Wi-Fi bands. Forget 4k in the future. It is just a matter of time until we have that 80 inch screen…
A couple things you may wish to explore and have fun with given your background:
https://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/3025104/linux-windows-emulator-wine-now-available-on-android
https://www.androidauthority.com/install-ubuntu-on-your-android-smartphone-765408/
Podcast Addict is an absolutely awesome app.
With the Tasker app, you can program you device to do almost anything. Mine turns on my WIFI when I am within 200 feet of home AND NOT connected to my car’s bluetooth and turns OFF my WIFI when I connect to my car’s bluetooth. When I plug in earbuds or connect to my bluettooth headphones, it pops up a menu asking me to choose from Podcast Addict, iHeart, and a few other audio apps. Lots of cool things you can do.
Re Excel, I’d suggest trying Google docs to see if it meets your spreadsheet needs. You can open and save files in the Excel format.
After I received the (wrong) cable, I learned the Fire HD 10 7th Generation does not support video output, either via miracast or an HDMI cable. My sense is that HDMI has become crippled by layer on layer of copy protection schemes, and it is not in Amazon’s business interest to allow me to watch a movie unless I rent it through them.
The justwatch app that lets you find which streaming services have a movie along with the price – is not available in the Amazon App Store. But the app is in the Google Play store and the Roku has similar functionality. Google also rents movies, but they get the idea that the route to revenue is having access to what people are willing to pay, not concealing information from the customers