I’ve never been a huge Android fan, preferring more “open” or “Capital-F Free” systems like Maemo. However after watching Maemo and its free siblings being consigned to the bit bucket one by one I have to admit that Android is looking more and more attractive.

With that in mind I pre-ordered the Google Nexus 7 on the day it was announced and it finally arrived this afternoon. I’ve had a chance to play with it a bit and I must say I’m very impressed.

I have a few thoughts about what I’ve seen so far.

  • I’ve never been a fan of onscreen keyboards and while the Jelly Bean incarnation isn’t bad for quick IMs or status updates, typing something longer (like this post) is still rather painful. I think a setup with a Bluetooth keyboard will be a necessity for any serious creation effort on this device.
  • The fonts on this thing are the most readable by far of any device I’ve seen. I already prefer using the N7 to catch up on Google Reader over my desktop and laptop machines.
  • The N7 is perfect for reading/chatting/looking stuff up from the couch while watching TV, which is a primary use case I was thinking of when I bought the thing.
  • The WordPress app for Android suffers the same annoyance as the Maemo version, which is the combination of a limited keyboard with an editor that doesn’t help you out much. It sucks to have to type a bunch of HTML manually on a phone/on-screen keyboard because they don’t give you shortcut buttons beyond bold/italic/underline. As I said above a real keyboard is going to be a must for writing anything longer than a haiku.
  • The N7 comes with a copy of Transformers: Dark of the Moon but not the accompanying Rifftrax. way to drop the ball, Google.

  • Up early; another short walk before work.
  • For lunch I poured the leftover turkey/spaghetti sauce from last night over some also-leftover rice form last week. Surprisingly tasty. I should start a bizarre-leftover-combination food blog.
  • Emily made chicken with pierogi and peas for dinner. Yum.
  • Went for another walk after dinner. This time with Emily. Walked in the other direction just to mix things up.
  • Played around a bit with Google+. I like the user interface. It’s really well thought-out. it doesn’t get in the way as much as I remember Facebook doing. The interface actually reminds me quite a bit of Diaspora*, which makes me sad in a way because now it’s even less likely to take off. Still, the ideal outcome for me is for Google+ to become king of the hill, then start supporting OStatus, so I can leave it and communicate with everyone from my StatusNet account.