Goin’ to Woodstock - with the Droid

I went to Woodstock for a weekend of live music. Friday was Steve Kimock at the Bearsville Theatre, and Saturday was Levon Helm at his Midnight Ramble. It was a great weekend, and I was able to pick up an awesome Elliot Landy giclée print of the Band. I picked up the Droid on Friday morning as my first ever smartphone purchase. I didn’t realize at the time that the device would play a significant role in the forthcoming weekend.

Ted had emailed me a Google map link earlier in the day which opened right into the Google Maps navigation app. Right away the app navigated from our current location.  Having full blown navigation right in the device is really nice. It has all the voice cues one would expect. It was fast, and I never lost service.

During the drive, Pandora streamed flawlessly. Changing songs was fast; I counted between 1 and 3 seconds to change songs after using it for about a half hour. When there was a navigation update, the navigation voice spoke over Pandora.

When Andrea and I reached the Bearsville Theatre, we met up with Ted, Corina, Suhas and Vanessa. During Kimock’s set break we were outside talking when Vanessa mentioned that she didn’t know all the stars of Orion. What the hell, I figured, and I pulled out the Google Sky. Sky, the app, is amazing. It does just what you want it to do, and since we don’t really have a chance to use it in the city, it was really cool to play with it in Woodstock, since the night was clear and the stars were crisp.

After spending the weekend using the phone in general, I’ve decided that it is an iPhone killer. Apps are friends with each other on the Droid. Nothing has frustrated me yet with the device, though I haven’t reached the 5GB data limit just yet.

Here is a picture of Steve Kimock from Friday. More on my Flickr page.