The new OTA update is out! But if you are one of those hoping that it will be the new ICS update, well, I have to disappoint. The latest update for the GN is meant more for better usability controls along with an improvement for the onscreen keyboard.

The new OTA update pushes the firmware to N7000DXLA1.

One Hand Operation

The largeness of the screen will make it difficult for some of us to type with one hand and the UI has been improved for the keyboard to do this. The keyboard is now made a tad smaller with the option to be placed more to the left of right depending on your preferred typing style.

So if you are thumb typist, you can still use your right thumb to do the walking while the rest of the fingers are used to grip the device. The keyboard only works if you select the standard Samsung Keypad. They Swype keypad has no affect should you select one hand operation.

The Samsung Keypad now has five rows of keys, with the addition of numbers keys right on top. This is great. No more shifting around to get numbers when you want them and that means one handed operation gets easier.

Typing speed should improve considerably and this should take things up a notch. The rest of the layout hasn’t changed so you will still find the same mic input button where it usually is.

Lock Screen

When it comes to lock screen access, Android is on top but the stock standard lock screen on the GN was a bit different and people did not know how to get around this. What Samsung has done is simplify it further should you want immediate access but do not want to use a pattern or key lock.

It gives you an idea on where you wish to swipe to unlock and how to swipe it. Frankly, I don’t use this feature at all, preferring instead to use a pattern lock as I find that more snazzy.

Lastly there is the torch widget, which of course lets you peer into dark places by using the inbuilt camera flash as a flash light.

There are three settings, pushing it once will give you some light, second push will give it full power and third is to switch it off. Aside from this, the updates are not really significant. What I am more concern about is stability of the OS during day to day use and if this improves stability, then I am all for it. Right now, there are compatibility issues between ICS and Gingerbread. In the same sense, any firmware upgrade be it on iOS or Android will open up a can of worms. We can safely assume that this update for Gingerbread will be the last one before Samsung pushes out ICS. I would caution all of you to NOT rush this.

Both Apple and Google over the years have gotten ahead of themselves in terms of firmware updates, most of which will impair your previous apps and give you a new set of headaches than solve them. For this I won’t take sides on which is better because I have friends who are suffering from device failures on iOS 5.01.

If this update is not going to do much for you, then skip it. It will not hurt you one bit.

 

For sometime now, iOS devices such as the iPhone and iPad have had remote desktop app but few ever heard of it for the Android. If you care to look, Jump Desktop has one that runs on the Note.

Remotely accessing your desktop have long been the domain of the computer geek and they know how to put this to good use. It is like a personal cloud service, so instead of paying to have it, you just buy the app to remotely access all your files at home.

In the past, you could do it by cleverly hacking your WIFI router and using your MAC address to virtually tap into your home desktop but there security issue. Jump removes the issue by securely identifying your login and gives access to your desktop machine securely.

I have tested this on the Galaxy Note and it runs but there are limitations. The Note is multitasking and should you suddenly want to send off an email from your phone, Jump suddenly stops working. Everything else should work just fine.

Desktop App

You need both the desktop app and the phone app installed for it to work. The desktop app which is OSX and Windows friendly is free. you need to buy the mobile app which can cost you about US1.00 (that’s the price I paid during the offer) so please check with Android market for the latest information on this.

The Desktop app has a menu bar widget that allows you to switch on remote access on the Mac, but you must authorize it to do this the moment it is switched on or else it won’t log you in.

For the sign in, you need to use your google account. If you don’t have one, it wont work.

Mobile App

Downloading the mobile app is easy enough, and there is a link at jumpdesktop.com for you to do this. You can remotely control your desktop from several computers just by registering each one and leaving them on when you need to access files.

So what good is this. For one, you can access your documents for example you may suddenly want to fetch a desktop Word file and have that dropped into your Cloud storage for multiple sharing. All this can be done remotely so that you don’t have to worry about carrying all the files with you as you go along your day.

Documents can also be opened, as you can see, the app when connected as cursor controls which you can use to spring clean your desktop should you be bored out of your wits in some remote corner of town. You can trash files as if you were in front of your computer so that should be quite productive.

On the Galaxy Note, you have more screen real estate to deal with. The AMOLED display also helps with the reading. I think for Tablet use it would even be better.

 

 

When you are running about or in motion, typing is a bitch. Just when you think your forefinger is on target to hit a key, you go sideways and hit the next key and should you keep going, you’re going to end up with lots of spelling mistakes. Sure you can have text prediction switched on but that rarely helps if the keys you tap make no sense in the first place.

I have the same problem on iOS and Android devices and for a long time, had to struggle with it. Heck, you have seen all the jokes made on “Damn you auto correct”. Often it is the wrong keypress that gets autocorrected to mean something else and bummer. I hate that.

The Galaxy Note has a Samsung Keypad built into. That said, it’s plain jane vanilla and I never liked it. But how many of you are aware that Samsung also included Swype into the Note?

WTF? In a perfect world, it would be the type of keypad you’d use when you are too drunk to type. To enable this, you need to go to settings>language & keyboard>Swype

I have in the past sent out pretty bad text messages. Thanks in part to bad type on a keypad while moving about. So it would make sense to have something where you don’t press on but rather swipe around.

The Swype keypad is spiffy. It spells out stuff for you as well as include punctuations where it should matter. Though still in beta, the keypad works far better than I have imagined.

For example, typing the word merry would mean hitting the “r” key twice. But Swype senses this and gives you a predicted text in blue as an optional word. Brilliant! And there are a few more tips too if you want to know more, just head down to this link.

If you have had problems typing, I think you should get this. Face it. No one is going to notice you’re drunk or for that matter a bad typist who keeps missing the keys if you can’t get your fingers to work straight. Best of all, it’s already installed on your Galaxy Note.

So far, only a few handset makers have bothered to preinstall this as Swype collects a license fee. Aren’t you glad you had a Galaxy Note? As for iOS, there is a Swype wannabe app but that cost US$3.00. Buy it at your own peril.

One of the first things you should do is for an Android device is to make app installations easier via the settings page shown  down here. We all know that Google has Android market but should you wish to install apps from say Amazon’s appstore, then you need to know how this can be done.

Google is pretty open about the fact that you can buy apps outside of Google’s own App Market. But there are some questions on this on whether this is a safer option. Truth is, the answer is a big negative. Google does not check apps for malware though it has the capability of removing it remotely from your phone if they find one.

Google has a very loose policy for app developers. You can put anything up as long as it is not outright porn.

This is the main reason why it hasn’t been allowed to operate in China but that’s not to say you can’t find appstores for Android devices there. China has several Android device stores and these can only be accessed in China since paid apps use a different payment option instead of paypal or western credit cards.

I am not going to list them here but you do need a Chinese bank account to get it going.

Now what about the other appstores you can use? Samsung has it’s own Appstore and though it is pretty thin in selection, I think there will be more in the future. Samsung started one to support it’s own Bada OS.

Most paid apps can be purchased through credit/debit card and you need to register this.

Galaxy Note Apps

Galaxy Note apps are very few for now. To find them you need to access the Samsung Appstore but there’s a number of free stuff if you care to look. These are mostly games and work perfectly on the Galaxy Note. Samurai 2 is particularly good as I bought this on the iPad before.

There are a number of Stylus apps which you can use to paint or draw. I will review some of these as I go along.

Right now Samsung is seeking more developers for the stylus and since it is shipping the Note by the truckloads now, we should be able to see some developers hopping onto the bandwagon.

As of end 2011, Samsung shipped over a million Galaxy Notes. The devices have yet to hit the shores in North America though Canadian carriers have them. Even in its homebase of South Korea, the phone was only launched in November.