QR codes and BArcode shopping

I just got my Entourage Edge today.

1) Is it possible to scan and use QR codes with the Edge's camera for downloading and installing apps?

2) Has anyone had any success with barcode shopping apps for the Edge?

1) No. The eDGe doesn't have Google Market access.

2) See http://www.entourageedge.com/forums/...ode-reader-app.

Plus the barcode reader app usually just crashes, no app seems to be able to use the cam yet.

=-Sigh-=

Will Google Market become available with the forthcoming major Entourage Edge upgrade to 2.2? Where can I make sure that I get notified as soon as it comes out?

I had such high hopes for the Edge, but I may be sending it back from whence it came in short order . . .

Thanks for your help.

Google isn't letting tablets into their Market yet. They may with the latest version (Honeycomb?), but really want only cell phones to run Android and have Market access. I think Google wants tablets to run Chrome instead.

There are other places where you can get various Android applications, but not the official Google Market. Many work quite well on the eDGe, but you must search them out, and not all are on the other sites. If Google market is a must for your tablet, you'll have to wait for a while yet to find one. From what I've seen, the tablets that have promised/shown Google Market have done so with hacking into it, and then are slapped by Google and have to rescind the access.

But, I don't follow it closely at all. So, maybe I've missed something out there.

I thought I read in another post that a person with an Android phone could download apps from the Google Market to his/her phone, then sideload them to the eDGe. Is this only true for some of the apps some of the time? Is there a problem with formatting (phone vs. tablet)?

I'm pretty sure I'm going to be happy with my eDGe whether I can ever access the Google Market or not!
It'll be here Thursday!!

. . . only one more day to wait!

Originally Posted by Filark

I thought I read in another post that a person with an Android phone could download apps from the Google Market to his/her phone, then sideload them to the eDGe. Is this only true for some of the apps some of the time? Is there a problem with formatting (phone vs. tablet)?

Yes, it's true for some of the apps some of the time.

Many apps translate nicely, even with the difference in size between the phone and the edge but some do not. Some paid apps only allow the app to run on the device from which you've paid for the app. (At least, I've only heard of that being an issue on paid apps.) Apps that require the use of the camera have tended to not work on the edge, and apps that expect a built-in GPS don't work.

I've managed to find pretty much everything I need app-wise without Marketplace. Once, when I needed a very specific app, I did get someone with a phone to download the apk file and send it to me so I could manually load it onto the edge. (The app for one of my online photo album websites was impossible to find outside the official market.) But with the exception of cases where you need a very specific app, the other markets we do have access to seem to have most of the general tools you'd want.

There are threads here we started early on that both describe which apps we've seen do/don't work on the edge, plus a thread of .apk files. http://www.entourageedge.com/forums/...d.php?522-APKs

I have another android tablet and it uses the Android market just fine. I wonder if that could be the problem - what happens if a person wants to register more than one device with the Android Market?

Originally Posted by sarah11918

Apps that require the use of the camera have tended to not work on the edge, and apps that expect a built-in GPS don't work.

(1) Is this something that the company is going to "fix" in the near future? As a Middle-School teacher, I'd like to be able to use some apps like Google Sky (and I wish there were a pilot program so I could get a grant for 20 eDGe tablets to use with my class).

(2) Are you able to say where you have been able to find apps other than Marketplace? I'm worried about security and I don't want to brick my tablet. For example, I'd like to download and use a WiFi signal strength analyzer for use here at school, but whenever I find one, it just directs me to Android Marketplace.

(3) Is it possible to download apps to my desktop computer and then install them to the eDGe while it is USB-tethered to my desktop?

Originally Posted by JBrondos

(1) Is this something that the company is going to "fix" in the near future?

We've seen the camera get better (more functionality - not a better camera) over the last year. But remember that a lot of these limitations (like GPS) are hardware limitations. So if you buy a device, you're committing to the hardware capabilities at the moment you buy it. The edge doesn't have GPS built in, so I don't believe any amount of software updating is going to "fix" that. I can't comment on Google Sky because I've never used it, but I did find a lot of google apps didn't work when I first got the edge, so I just stopped trying and found other alternatives for whatever I was using. I think one big problem with Google apps on the edge is they are designed to function so seamlessly with Android phones that they more than any other apps make assumptions about the hardware that aren't true on the edge.

Originally Posted by JBrondos

(2) Are you able to say where you have been able to find apps other than Marketplace?

Yes, there are other threads here, but all of us have been using:
http://andappstore.com/
http://slideme.org/
http://www.appslib.com

These aren't sketchy although everything of course is at your own risk.

You can also do a google search for any app you're looking for with the search term .apk to see if you can find just the install file online somewhere. Also do check out our APK thread here.

Originally Posted by JBrondos

(3) Is it possible to download apps to my desktop computer and then install them to the eDGe while it is USB-tethered to my desktop?

It is possible to download the apk files to your computer. I usually transfer by emailing to myself, so I can't comment on the tethering. I know that if I email myself the apk, then simply click on it, it will self-install. I haven't tried moving the file over because I'm not sure I'd know exactly where on the file system I should put it if I did it myself. Someone who is more leet than me can probably advise you on that. But email works just fine.

Originally Posted by JBrondos

(1) Is this something that the company is going to "fix" in the near future? As a Middle-School teacher, I'd like to be able to use some apps like Google Sky (and I wish there were a pilot program so I could get a grant for 20 eDGe tablets to use with my class).

(2) Are you able to say where you have been able to find apps other than Marketplace? I'm worried about security and I don't want to brick my tablet. For example, I'd like to download and use a WiFi signal strength analyzer for use here at school, but whenever I find one, it just directs me to Android Marketplace.

(3) Is it possible to download apps to my desktop computer and then install them to the eDGe while it is USB-tethered to my desktop?

1. The camera issue: Possibly. However, other programs that require GPS, orientation sensors or accelerometers will never work because the eDGe does not have those hardware devices inside it. The closest thing that might happen is after the 2.2 upgrade, a bluetooth GPS receiver could be tethered.
2. Popular alternative markets are SlideMe.org, AndAppStore.com, and GetJar.com. I know SlideMe has several Wifi analyzers.
3. Yes. You can download an APK file (the install file) from any of the above websites via a desktop and then load them on the eDGe by any data transfer method you prefer. You "run" the APK like an EXE file to install it. APKs can also be obtained via links put up by other users (many on this forum). I myself have posted several APKs on this forum that I obtained by installing them via the market on a hacked emulator (and later my Droid X) then backing them up as APK files and uploading them.

Originally Posted by sarah11918

Yes, there are other threads here, but all of us have been using:
http://andappstore.com/
http://slideme.org/
http://www.appslib.com

These aren't sketchy although everything of course is at your own risk.

I would point out that the apps you find in these third party markets are the same ones you find in the Google market and I believe are submitted by the author of the app. Google doesn't do much vetting of the apps in their market (unlike Apple), so even something you download from Google could be sketchy.

If you want to be super safe, don't download apps posted on file sharing sites like 4shared, mediafire, and rapidshare, etc.

I particularly like slideme.org and andappstore.com as their market apps will notify me when a new version is available and make updating the app really easy.

Originally Posted by sarah11918

The edge doesn't have GPS built in, so I don't believe any amount of software updating is going to "fix" that.

Actually, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to 2.x is that there's an app that talks to an external bluetooth GPS and makes it available to other android apps.

Yes, I should have mentioned that I think all 3 of these markets have their own marketplace app. So if you download that, you get a "market experience" even if it's not the Google Market. This means you can browse categories or search for apps. And I know I keep getting notifications for apps that have been updated, but I can't confirm off the top of my head whether all 3 markets do this or whether all those notifications are just coming from one particular market.

Between these markets and our sticky APK thread, there is a LOT to keep us all going! (Plus other threads devoted to particular apps, of course.) I'm pretty sure that 95% of the time, I don't notice/miss not having the Google market.

Originally Posted by nprnncbl

Actually, one of the reasons I'm looking forward to 2.x is that there's an app that talks to an external bluetooth GPS and makes it available to other android apps.

Interesting! Do you have an external bluetooth GPS? I'd never heard of such a thing. Or, are you referring to a kind of tethering with your phone's GPS?

(The reason I ask is that because we have data shut off on our phones, we can't use our phone's GPS. But a separate product not requiring a data plan could be interesting to us.)