Annoyance: Android Market Regional App Availability

November 29, 2010 1 Comment

The Android Market Place has regional app availability which means that if you live or travel outside of North America and the EU, you don’t have access to some of the best apps like Google Voice, Google Listen, GMail App updates, Amazon Kindle App and Skype to name a few.

It turns out that the regional restriction is by carrier but Google isn’t looking at where your data is coming from. They are looking at the carrier identifier on the SIM. The restrictions aren’t technically regional, they are by carrier.

If I put my AT&T SIM in my phone in Accra, I see the USA-only apps and can download them over WiFi. Unfortunately, even once they are installed apps that I have to install using my AT&T SIM don’t seem receive updates when I am using my Zain SIM. It seems that I have to periodically switch SIMs and check for updates.

It’s possible to spoof the carrier id and fool the Android Market  if you root your phone but I really don’t want to spend that kind of time and energy beating on my phone. I’d like it to just work, please.

The user experience for this is really bad. It feels like a bug with the phone because Android Market just says that the software was not found when you follow a link or QR code for a restricted app. Couldn’t it at least say something like “We’re sorry. The publisher of this software has not made it available for your carrier. Click here to request it to be made available.” This is the Amazon approach when a book is not available for Kindle. At least that is mildly cathartic that you get to complain to someone.

Is this carrier whitelisting of apps really necessary for the Android Market? Really?

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What’s new in Boot Camp 3.2?

November 19, 2010 1 Comment

Bootcamp IconBoot Camp 3.2 is out. It is not a cumulative update. You have to install Boot Camp 3.0 from Snow Leopard, then apply 3.1 and then apply 3.2. Apple says that it “adds support for the ATI-Radeon HD 5870 graphics card, Apple USB Ethernet Adapter, MacBook Air SuperDrive, and addresses critical bug fixes.”

Apple doesn’t describe what the critical bug fixes are, but here’s what else is new in there.

  • New Apple mutlitouch touchpad drivers: 3.1.0.10 (replaces 3.0.0.0)
  • New Cirrus Audio drivers: 6.6006.1.26 (replaces previous patch 6.6001.1.25 from BC 3.1.3 or  6.60001.1.21 from BC 3.1).
  • New Apple wireless touchpad drivers: 3.1.0.7
  • New Boot Camp manager (bootcamp.exe): 3.1.0.10 (replaces 3.0.0.1)
  • New Boot Camp control panel AppleControlPanel.exe: 3.2.0.0 (replaces 3.0.0.2)
  • New Apple OS Manager: 3.1.0.3 (replaces 3.1.0.1)
  • New HFS+ driver, AppleHFS.sys: 3.2.0.0 (replaces 3.1.0.0)
  • New apple mount manager, AppleMNT.sys: 3.2.0.0 (replaces 3.0.0.1.8)
    The most immediate thing that I noticed is that FN+F5 on my MacBook Pro (MacBookPro5,3) can now dial the keyboard backlight all the way down to off. The built-in speaker volume also seems to be much louder without any enhancements enabled.

Maybe with Boot Camp 3.0 (Lion?) we’ll get an ambient light sensor driver so that the Adaptive Brightness service in Windows 7 can work.

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