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The [Android] Thread: The root of all roms - market.android.com now live
Alegis
ImpeckableRegistered User regular
ImpeckableRegistered User regular
> new thread is up!
Welcome to the ever helpful Android thread!
Please touch the computer screen with your finger on your desired action:
You need to have threadOS v3.4 (Tiramisu) installed for the interactive touch screen menu to work. For those not running Tiramisu we provide an old-school legacy version below:
What's new in Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or 3.0 (Honeycomb, Tablets)?
The deal with task killer apps and why to avoid them:
Some general App Tips & Tricks
Rooting: 'what's the deal'?
Some example pimped homescreens from the thread:
Let's install some Apps!
Check the bottom of this post for the Appbrain profiles of other PAers so you can see what they have installed.
In addition, here are some general app recommendations per section:
Custom Homescreen & widgets:
Communication
Multimedia
System tools:
Text & References
Useful:
Useless but nerdy cool stuff:
Games
If you want to find and explore more apps or discover which apps PAers use it's recommended you take a look at:
Appbrain!
Welcome to the ever helpful Android thread!
Please touch the computer screen with your finger on your desired action:
Install Recommended Apps
Ask if the HTC HolyShitAmazing is a better choice than the Samsung Parallel Universe S or any other offering in the Google Phone Gallery
Tell Me About Rooting
Ask if the HTC HolyShitAmazing is a better choice than the Samsung Parallel Universe S or any other offering in the Google Phone Gallery
Tell Me About Rooting
You need to have threadOS v3.4 (Tiramisu) installed for the interactive touch screen menu to work. For those not running Tiramisu we provide an old-school legacy version below:
What's new in Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) or 3.0 (Honeycomb, Tablets)?
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Spoiler:
Let's install some Apps!
Check the bottom of this post for the Appbrain profiles of other PAers so you can see what they have installed.
In addition, here are some general app recommendations per section:
Custom Homescreen & widgets:
- LauncherPro - Home screen launcher replacement. Very customizable. The paid pro version ($3) includes HTC Sense like widgets. Ars Technica review and guide with pics.
Alternative: ADW Launcher.
Snowstorm - Popular weather widget replacement - Multicon - Widget to place 4 smaller icons on the widget space of just 1 icon. If you really want to stuff your home screen.
- Digital Clock Widget - Another popular homescreen clock widget most peeps here use.
- Star Trek Combadge - Choose an action to launch when you click the fancy combadge. Engage!
- Beautiful Widgets - Paid app. Includes some widgets like clock/switch controls with skinning support.
Communication
- Handcent SMS - Replaces default SMS implementation, adding extra customization options for lay-out and feautures like pop-up windows.
- Skype - For Android 2.1 and up. Call skype friends over wifi.
- AndChat - IRC client for Android
- Google Voice - US only - Google Voice number on your phone, offering a different interface for your texting and calling needs. See the intro vid on the site for info.
- Alternative keyboards: Android supports keyboard replacements. Recommendations: Swype (not yet available on Market, but here is a beta), Swiftkey (free trial)
Multimedia
- Shazam -Let Shazam listen to songs for 30 seconds and it will show you the name and artist of the song. (No longer free unless you installed it earlier, 5 free tags a month limit. Alternatively: soundhound - also 5 tags/month limit for free version. You could use both and get 10 tags that way, or pay either to unlock full)
- Mp3 players - Doubletwist or Mixzing
- Pandora - Similar to last.fm radio. Search for an artist, stream radio of similar sounds
- Ringdroid - Easily turn any part of any mp3 into a ringtone.
- Internet browser replacements: Dolphin HD, Firefox, Opera Mini
System tools:
- Call Confirm - An extra prompt window to confirm you want to call someone.
- Estrong File Explorer - File explorer, browse internal/sd memory - install apps. Alternatively: Astro File Manager
- PDAnet - Free tethering: sharing the phone's internet connection with other devices. (Built-in in Android 2.2)
- Audiomanager - Home widget for easily managing all the different sound levels (alarm, ringtone,media) as well as vibration in one place.
- No Lock: enable/disable (widget) the 'slide' lock whenever the phone wakes up from standby.
- MyPhoneExplorer - This is a PC application to back-up/restore/manage your Android phone contacts/messages/etc.
- Spare Parts - Unlock easy access to some system options that can't be found in the default menus like wifi sleep policy and animation/font settings.
- Quick Settings - Quick access to some of the most-used settings like sound/wifi control. One screen accessible from search button.
- aLogCat - View logcat messages on your phone. Basically shows all the warnings/errors going on in your phone, convenient if you get force close windows to track down the issue.
- Tasker - ($) Automatize some actions like turning on wifi when you open some apps, read out SMS messages if you're in the car etc.
- App 2 SD (move apps to SD) - App will notify you which apps you have that can be moved to the SD (2.2 Froyo only). It will notify you when you install new apps that can be moved.
Text & References
- Wapedia - Wikipedia in mobile form. Alternatively: Quickpedia or mobile.wikipedia.org
- 3banana - Take notes and sync with your snaptic account
- RSS readers: Newsrob is a Google Reader client with offline sync. Google Reader has an official app with nicer interface but lacks the offline cache. Pulse has a fancy image interface but only for select feeds (like engadget).
- Epicurious - Cooking guide, search for recipes from Epicurious.
- Aedict - Japanese/English offline dictionary with Kanji search. Indispensable when going to Japan. For kanji search: use search by radical, which is the stroke count of the kanji (+- 2) and the 'sections' called radicals, sorted by the amount of strokes.
- Many newspapers like NYTimes have their own android widgets.
Useful:
- Barcode Scanner - Essential - use the phone's camera to scan barcodes/QR codes.
- Easy Spirit Level - Your phone is now a spirit level, congratulations
- Cardiotrainer - Useful for fitness exercises. Turn on your GPS when you take a run around the block and it will save your trajectory which you can view on your stats page. Plenty of alternative apps out there.
- Astrid - Personal task manager (to-do lists)
- Gmote - Stream music from your desktop to your android or use your phone as an input device via Wifi (useful for presentations).
- Chrome to Phone (Android 2.2 only). Install chrome to phone from the market, install the chrome extension (Firefox exention is called FoxToPhone) - send URLs, maps etc directly to phone through the android internets cloud.
- Handycalc - Scientific calculator including unit conversion, graphs etc.
- Alarm Clock Plus - Extensive alarm clock replacement with options like setting dates, crescendo volume, snooze & math question settings etc.
- Dropbox - Access your Dropbox folder easily from your phone, share taken photos etc easily by sending them straight to your dropbox.
Useless but nerdy cool stuff:
- Google Sky Maps - Point at the sky, see star names. Sure to impress your ladyfriends.
- Solaris - Is there an electromagnetic storm in your area? What's the auroral activity like in the north? See it on a 3D earth.
- Tricorder - Congratulations, your android phone is now a tricorder. Measure the magnetic field around you among other things.
Games
- WordFeud - Play 1v1 scrabble at your own pace. Play in up to 20 games at once, challenge other PAers!
To challenge or add PAers to your friends list and gloat with your score:
check the Android Wordfeud thread - Alchemy - Combine elements (starting from water, earth, wind and fire) to form new elements. Gotta catch 'em all.
- Barr - Time management in a pirate barr. Link goes to forum post in thread
- What the Doodle!? - Draw words online, opponent has to guess
- Throttlecopter - The classic helicopter game - press to ascend, release to descend
- Wikipathia - Find the quickest path between two random wikipedia articles.
- Abduction - Doodlejump clone
- Project INF - Multiplayer top-down shooter.
- Fruit Ninja - You cut fruit. Show 'em who's boss. 1$, pretty fun
- Shortyz Crosswords - It's crosswords. Everybody loves crosswords!
- Jewels - Bejeweled
- Angry Birds - Fling angry birds at pigs in wooden/glass constructs. Popular iPhone game free for android.
If you want to find and explore more apps or discover which apps PAers use it's recommended you take a look at:
Appbrain!
Discover and explore apps, add them to your download queue and the AppBrain app on your phone will install/update all your selected applications. Convenient when filling up your phone for the first time.
http://www.appbrain.com
Find out which apps PA forumers have installed (and stalk them using the Appbrain Follow feature): (post yours in the thread to have it added!)
http://www.appbrain.com
Find out which apps PA forumers have installed (and stalk them using the Appbrain Follow feature): (post yours in the thread to have it added!)
Alegis on
Posts
No sane man could hope to keep up with the Android phone launch list,
which is why Google employs an army of insane men to update the Google Phone gallery:
If you don't want to click the image you can click this instead
There's a 'compare feature', pictures, specifications and list of offered phones by carrier.
older, slightly out-dated round-up post by rndmhero
Any idea what's up with that?
I take offense
Going to bed in a bit, I'll take a shot at hardware round-up and rooting tomorrow. Haven't had the urge to root myself so never bothered. Feel free to suggest some or explore appbrain profiles or your appbrain recommended apps list.
also the Droid X and Droid 2 to the Verizon lineup
Yes, they are so breautiful.
Steam: CarbonFire MWO, Planetside 2, Origin: Carb0nFire
excitement!
I think it's a Motorola thing because the same thing happened to the Droid 1.
http://amzn.com/w/3I989XAK63WPV · 3DS 1461-7082-5181
I was about to say the same. I think you can turn off vibrate for total silence, but you have to go through settings and fuck around. Unfortunately it's kind of all or nothing that way.
And the Captivate to AT&T.
Currently painting: Space Wolves [flickr]
Currently painting: Space Wolves [flickr]
Well, assuming it's an app store. Only thing I saw was that Amazon is reaching out to developers for Android and then having them sign some NDA before they hear the details. *shrug*
My logical conclusion is we can expect an Amazon Android phone soonish. Or maybe a tablet, or Kindle integration. That would be interesting.
If it's buried in settings normally, would something like the Quick Settings app give you a faster way to do that (albeit still having to use the screen).
Steam Profile
That's what I was thinking, yes. Potentially making the kindle run a modified Android OS. Man that'd be interesting.
The best part of this app is the comments. :lol:
This could be really interesting.
But nope, it looks pretty solid that Amazon is going to launch their own app store.
Copy and pasted from TechCrunch because I didn't see the link on their RSS feed.
We’re still going over the details, but if the information we’ve obtained is accurate, it appears there are a number of interesting tidbits around payments paid out through this store. And a number of new restrictions. Ugh.
Amazon’s entry into the Android app space follows Verizon’s move into the area as well with the forthcoming V Cast apps. I can’t wait to hear what Google thinks about all this competition on their devices. Hopefully Google CEO Eric Schmidt will talk about it tomorrow at TechCrunch Disrupt.
Update: Okay, some details:
* For each sale of an App, we will pay you a royalty equal to the greater of 70% of the purchase price or 20% of the List Price as of the purchase date (70/30 is standard, this 20/80 split is somewhat odd and confusing)
* The List Price is apparently in place so that you can’t sell your app cheaper on other “similar services” — meaning other app stores, presumably
* The “similar services” should also include the forthcoming Chrome Web Store, if I’m reading this correctly
* There is a $99 fee to be a developer in this program (the same as Apple’s iOS developer program)
* It seems like if your app is available on other platforms, you have to make sure to update it at the same time on Amazon’s store that you do in any other store (this will piss off a lot of developers)
* Apps will have to be laced with Amazon DRM — meaning they will only work on devices they approve (obviously)
* Amazon has the right to pull any app for any reason (obviously)
* Apps can also be shown on amazon.com (this is up to Amazon)
* You can offer free apps
* The app store is U.S.-only (at least for now)
* This part is interesting too: “We have sole discretion to determine all features and operations of this program and to set the retail price and other terms on which we sell Apps.”
Those are the details for now. It’s not entirely clear how closed or open this store will be. Also not clear is what Android devices this store (and its apps) will run on. More to come, I’m sure.
Also coming are rumors of an Android based Amazon tablet.
Of course, the only thing I ever run that could possibly bother me with all mobile networks/data off is my morning alarm clock. YMMV.
I'm guessing this is probably related, and should really start using Tasker to keep data off and poll once an hour, or so.
My blog: policy and conscience
But the Amazon marketplace annoys me, as does the Verizon one
it's possible there are free alternatives just for the focus thing
That does look good, but I'm not sure about buying apps on the off-chance. Thanks for the help though.
Currently painting: Space Wolves [flickr]
Its Froyo, its good. Flash and other things.
http://androidcommunity.com/nexus-one-gets-froyo-2-2-1-update-available-to-install-now-manually-20100924/