The [Android] thread - Phones and tablets in all shapes, sizes and desert flavors

Houn

New rom loaded, time to restore apps and tweak, and see if this one has better/more stable network connection.

autono-wally, erotibot300

Naphtali wrote: »

autono-wally, erotibot300 wrote: »

MrDelish wrote: »

I know I said that even a wet blanket would be an improvement in battery life to the Incredible but I find the S3's battery life very lacking. Any tips on how to extend its life? I already have the screen at the lowest brightness nearly all the time.

Stupid question, are you using the energy saving mode?

I would also recommend getting cpu spy and gsam battery monitor and see if your phone is staying in deep sleep while off, and if not, the battery monitor can probably tell you what's consuming your battery.

Yeah.. I haven't had it happen, but there are supposedly some badly written apps that drain your battery pretty fast.

Houn

Hrm. GoLauncher in ThunderShed 1.6 sets the Settings Icon to the IOS Settings Icon.

This will not abide.

Elin

I'm thinking of getting a Nexus 7. I already have a Kindle Fire. Is the 7 worth losing the Prime streaming videos?

My main complains with the Fire are speed (so slow), Netflix is pretty unusable (it stutters and it's not my connection), and lack of ability to use a bluetooth keyboard. Petty annoyances are the speakers are shit and the software is slightly buggy at times (I've had to factory reset the damnable thing to get it to show my book archives a few times).

Will the Nexus 7 set my heart aflutter? Should I wait til December and see if the release a new 7 inch Fire that fixes everything? I'd like access to the Play store without rooting though which I'm not sure the Fire will ever deliver.

Cokebotle

Elin wrote: »

I'm thinking of getting a Nexus 7. I already have a Kindle Fire. Is the 7 worth losing the Prime streaming videos?

My main complains with the Fire are speed (so slow), Netflix is pretty unusable (it stutters and it's not my connection), and lack of ability to use a bluetooth keyboard. Petty annoyances are the speakers are shit and the software is slightly buggy at times (I've had to factory reset the damnable thing to get it to show my book archives a few times).

Will the Nexus 7 set my heart aflutter? Should I wait til December and see if the release a new 7 inch Fire that fixes everything? I'd like access to the Play store without rooting though which I'm not sure the Fire will ever deliver.

Wasn't there going to be an Amazon announcement this month? Something about a new Kindle Fire? Or was that next month?

Really, I feel that the biggest selling point for the Nexus 7 is that it's a Nexus device - all updates are straight from Google when it's released. No waiting for Amazon to update their skins and push out updates.

For the Fire, I don't see why they would abandon their 7" format to upgrade exclusively to 10". I'm kinda surprised they haven't announced Prime streaming for all Android devices yet. Seems like that could be a big boost for subscribers. It sounds like you really like having Prime streaming available, so it might be worth waiting to see what Amazon's plans are this year before pulling the trigger on a new 7".
____________________________

By the way, what MP3 player apps are you guys using? I'm toying with the idea of investing in a replacement battery for my old Desire, swapping ROMs, and using it as a replacement for my Sony Walkman. I could use my S3, but I'm listening to music all day long (long commute + in the office) and prefer to have a dedicated device.

emp123

I dont know if my battery life is typical, but heres what I did today (all data usage 4G except where noted):
Unplugged the phone at 6am, browsed these forums for 15 or so minutes.
Streamed music and read a pdf file for about a half hour
Left idle for 5 hours
Watched 2 episodes of Arrested Development
Left idle for 4 hours
Navigated for an hour and a half, streaming music for about a half hour
Left idle for 2ish hours
Browsed these forums for a couple of minutes
Streamed some Youtube videos
Streamed some more Youtube videos (wifi)
Plugged it in at 1130pm

Sometimes I can get over a 24 hours usage, if I dont do much on the phone.

Stock rom, but Ive downloaded some apps (20+?).

My Incredible on the other hand was unplugged at around 9pm last night, left idle until its alarm went off at 5am and then I used the Kindle app for a half hour and then it was left idle until midnight where it was at 10% battery.


EDIT: Oh, Im really glad I still have my unlimited plan....I used over 14GBs of data this week...

Houn

Cokebotle wrote: »

By the way, what MP3 player apps are you guys using? I'm toying with the idea of investing in a replacement battery for my old Desire, swapping ROMs, and using it as a replacement for my Sony Walkman. I could use my S3, but I'm listening to music all day long (long commute + in the office) and prefer to have a dedicated device.

Winamp Free. When I bother. Looking into Google Music, though.

Tav

Cokebotle wrote: »

By the way, what MP3 player apps are you guys using? I'm toying with the idea of investing in a replacement battery for my old Desire, swapping ROMs, and using it as a replacement for my Sony Walkman. I could use my S3, but I'm listening to music all day long (long commute + in the office) and prefer to have a dedicated device.

I use Poweramp because Winamp didn't have good FLAC support like a year ago. I don't know if it does now, but Poweramp was definitely worth the like two euro or whatever it was. There's a 14 day free trial of it on the market if you want to give it a try.

visiblehowl

Hey, so I just got a Nexus 7, mostly because it'll be really useful to me at work. However, in a work environment, if I'm navigating through my tablet, I don't want whoever's with me to see games like Kill Everybody Everywhere and Magical Faerie Princess Land on my apps list or home screen. Is there a good app out there for setting up user profiles? Something similar to what Windows has, I guess.

mts

you could always just create folders

Bullio

I don't know if JB lets you hide apps in the drawer, but GoLauncher does. If you get Home Switcher (think that's the name), you could use the stock Jelly Bean launcher for your non-work stuff and set GoLauncher up for your work stuff. Not aware of any other options, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

MichaelLC

You could give Chameleon a try when it's released. Main idea seems to be exactly that - create different profiles based on programmed conditions like wi-fi network or time/date.

I pre-ordered, though I missed the Kickstarter bonuses.

Kalkino

Anyone got the Nexus 7 in the UK recently?

bloodatonement

My go to mp3 player app is the Amazon app since i can stream all my music that way and not have to load up my phone with music.

ChaosHat

bloodatonement wrote: »

My go to mp3 player app is the Amazon app since i can stream all my music that way and not have to load up my phone with music.

This is what google music is for!

tsmvengy

emp123 wrote: »

I dont know if my battery life is typical, but heres what I did today (all data usage 4G except where noted):
Unplugged the phone at 6am, browsed these forums for 15 or so minutes.
Streamed music and read a pdf file for about a half hour
Left idle for 5 hours
Watched 2 episodes of Arrested Development
Left idle for 4 hours
Navigated for an hour and a half, streaming music for about a half hour
Left idle for 2ish hours
Browsed these forums for a couple of minutes
Streamed some Youtube videos
Streamed some more Youtube videos (wifi)
Plugged it in at 1130pm

Sometimes I can get over a 24 hours usage, if I dont do much on the phone.

Stock rom, but Ive downloaded some apps (20+?).

My Incredible on the other hand was unplugged at around 9pm last night, left idle until its alarm went off at 5am and then I used the Kindle app for a half hour and then it was left idle until midnight where it was at 10% battery.


EDIT: Oh, Im really glad I still have my unlimited plan....I used over 14GBs of data this week...

I have Cyanogenmod on my Incredible and it did wonders for battery.

Houn

I moved to Thundershed 1.6 (Cyanogen_7.2) on my T-Bolt, and while I still have a lot of tweaking to do, it's MILES better on battery drain than the stock HTC or Slayher's Unofficial Cyanogen_7.1.

I anyone cares. I don't think the T-Bolt was ever that popular.

Cokebotle

Hm... I'll look through some of those media apps, thanks guys. Although, because I live in Australia I can't really get the full benefit of Google Music. In fact, the app doesn't even show up for me in the Play store

Although something I found this morning: So there's this app called InstaWifi that allows you to share Wifi connection information with people via QR code or NFC, instead of having people type out long passwords. Seems kinda interesting so I figured I'd get it and play with it a bit.

I wanna know why the suggestion on Google Play was "instawife" after typing it out. o.O

Just_Bri_Thanks

The facebook app isn't compatible with my tablet. Nothing is compatible with my tablet. I am not too broken up about it, but one of the reasons I got a tablet is so I didn't have to fill up my phone with crap.

Xeddicus

What is your tablet?

bficky

Woo, just got the email from Google saying the 16GB Nexus 7 is back in stock ("ships in 3-5 days"). I just put my order in... pretty excited.

Just a warning, y'all will have to put up with my asking a ton "new to Android" questions. Preemptive apologies.

Kalkino

bficky wrote: »

Woo, just got the email from Google saying the 16GB Nexus 7 is back in stock ("ships in 3-5 days"). I just put my order in... pretty excited.

Just a warning, y'all will have to put up with my asking a ton "new to Android" questions. Preemptive apologies.

I ordered one today as well, after I saw the demo model in a shop. It was just the right size/combination of smoothness that my hesitancy evaporated. I would have got one on the spot but the shop had run out, but Google Play store was in stock

Houn

Does anyone have any experience with ADW Launcher and ADW Launcher EX? If I'm reading this correctly, the only difference is some screen transitions and other effects; the play store page doesn't list any differences in functionality that I can see.

Anyone with firsthand experience able to comment? Google is of little help on this one, everything just copy/pastes the play store page:

Differences between ADW.Launcher and ADWLauncher EX
ADWLauncher EX is based on the ADW.Launcher opensource core with a lot of new additions and improvements, like for example:
-5 different app drawer styles/behaviors
---3D Nexus One like application drawer
---2 different plain vertical drawer styles, the "old one" and a new fast and smooth one
---2 different Iphone-like horizontal application drawers, a traditional paginated one and a new one with continuous fling
-Different desktop transitions: new animations while navigating through your desktop screens. Try them all, they're crazy!!!
-New Icons configurations/look and feel: Tweak your desktop icons, change its sizes, add coloured backgrounds, change font size, color, etc!
-New fast presets mode: Quickly change the whole desktop configuration by 1 click!
-Editable desktop icons for applications, shortcuts and folders!
-Lots of code improvements
-More, more more to come!!

Just_Bri_Thanks

I would love a google Nexus, but I am not keen on going to a carrier that requires contracts.

visiblehowl

Just_Bri_Thanks wrote: »

I would love a google Nexus, but I am not keen on going to a carrier that requires contracts.

Do you have a smartphone with 3G?

Open Garden has worked great for me

Just_Bri_Thanks

I use Foxfi, it does the same thing.

I thought the Nexus was a phone, is it just a tablet?

visiblehowl

Just_Bri_Thanks wrote: »

I use Foxfi, it does the same thing.

I thought the Nexus was a phone, is it just a tablet?

The Nexus 7 is just a tablet, yeah.

Just_Bri_Thanks

Oh, Capital. Must get.

tsmvengy

Houn wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience with ADW Launcher and ADW Launcher EX? If I'm reading this correctly, the only difference is some screen transitions and other effects; the play store page doesn't list any differences in functionality that I can see.

Anyone with firsthand experience able to comment? Google is of little help on this one, everything just copy/pastes the play store page:

Differences between ADW.Launcher and ADWLauncher EX
ADWLauncher EX is based on the ADW.Launcher opensource core with a lot of new additions and improvements, like for example:
-5 different app drawer styles/behaviors
---3D Nexus One like application drawer
---2 different plain vertical drawer styles, the "old one" and a new fast and smooth one
---2 different Iphone-like horizontal application drawers, a traditional paginated one and a new one with continuous fling
-Different desktop transitions: new animations while navigating through your desktop screens. Try them all, they're crazy!!!
-New Icons configurations/look and feel: Tweak your desktop icons, change its sizes, add coloured backgrounds, change font size, color, etc!
-New fast presets mode: Quickly change the whole desktop configuration by 1 click!
-Editable desktop icons for applications, shortcuts and folders!
-Lots of code improvements
-More, more more to come!!

EX is worth it for the iPhone style folders.

Houn

tsmvengy wrote: »

Houn wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience with ADW Launcher and ADW Launcher EX? If I'm reading this correctly, the only difference is some screen transitions and other effects; the play store page doesn't list any differences in functionality that I can see.

Anyone with firsthand experience able to comment? Google is of little help on this one, everything just copy/pastes the play store page:

Differences between ADW.Launcher and ADWLauncher EX
ADWLauncher EX is based on the ADW.Launcher opensource core with a lot of new additions and improvements, like for example:
-5 different app drawer styles/behaviors
---3D Nexus One like application drawer
---2 different plain vertical drawer styles, the "old one" and a new fast and smooth one
---2 different Iphone-like horizontal application drawers, a traditional paginated one and a new one with continuous fling
-Different desktop transitions: new animations while navigating through your desktop screens. Try them all, they're crazy!!!
-New Icons configurations/look and feel: Tweak your desktop icons, change its sizes, add coloured backgrounds, change font size, color, etc!
-New fast presets mode: Quickly change the whole desktop configuration by 1 click!
-Editable desktop icons for applications, shortcuts and folders!
-Lots of code improvements
-More, more more to come!!

EX is worth it for the iPhone style folders.

I don't use folders on my iPhone, so I feel little need to use them on my Android. It's just not a style of organization I use. Any other goodies?

Gaslight

Just_Bri_Thanks wrote: »

Oh, Capital. Must get.

Furthermore, a tablet with no 3G/4G connectivity at all. So the issue of a carrier is pretty much a moot point, it's not like you have to worry about adding the N7 to your data plan or whatever.

Bullio

Amazon changed up their Cloud Player service today to include track matching at 256k and a 250,000 upload limit for $25/year, or you can match 250 tracks free.

I still have a premium sub from first turning on Cloud Player last year, but I have to say my time with this new service has been really underwhelming. The music importer seems to, I don't know...not work? I've been sitting here for 20 minutes after clicking Import (I have the importer installed) looking at an empty window with a spinning orange circle. I also can't find any confirmation that you can download matched copies of tracks. The product page is less than clear on this subject on Amazon. I've heard that you apparently cannot download specific tracks with the mobile app; you either download your entire library or none of it. Which is really lame if true. Has anyone been able to get this thing working at all? If it actually does work, and has a high successful match rate, I could see this being a really nice platform-neutral iTunes Match competitor.

EDIT: Finally got the importer to work, I think an Adobe AIR update broke the original install. I uploaded 186 tracks that iTunes Match didn't match for me and it appeared to match 5 of them. I downloaded the 5 files it apparently matched, and only one of them came back in an upgraded bit rate. I'm curious to see the results people have with larger libraries. I'd consider testing it myself, but I'm not going to redownload my entire library off of Match.

Daedalus

Just_Bri_Thanks wrote: »

I would love a google Nexus, but I am not keen on going to a carrier that requires contracts.

The Galaxy Nexus phone is available in an unlocked GSM version, you can just buy it and get a non-contract SIM from AT&T or T-Mobile.

Evigilant

For all of you able to use Google Wallet, some good news:
http://www.droid-life.com/2012/08/01/google-wallet-update-allows-you-to-add-any-credit-or-debit-card/

I have the older version working on my GSIII, but I need to wait for an updated version from XDA/or any dev to get this update working on Verizon. Every time I update, even though rooted and what not, it says unsupported device and force closes the app.

Edit:
For people who have an unsupported device, and all Verizon customers:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1769083

I just did this, it works. Make sure you backup constantly, and if you install a new rom you reset your google wallet app data before you do, or you could bork your google wallet.

Kyougu

The spotify app has come a long way from when it first came out.

They redesigned the entire app recently and just added the radio option which is fantastic. If you checked it out and was turned off by how awful the app was at the start check it out again.

Halfmex

Word on the street is that the rezound is getting ICS starting today. Here's to hoping.

Just_Bri_Thanks

When I tried Spotify, I could not figure out how to add artists rather than single tracks.

bficky

I got my Nexus 7 today... I'm really digging the level of customization possible (coming from iPhone and iPad).

So, unlocking and rooting... that's something that I want to do, right? I've never messed with jailbreaking my iDevices, but it seems like unlocking and rooting is much more common on Android devices. Can someone give me the lowdown? What's the difference between unlocking and rooting? Why would I want to do this? What won't I be able to do if I decide not to root/unlock?

Bullio

bficky wrote: »

I got my Nexus 7 today... I'm really digging the level of customization possible (coming from iPhone and iPad).

So, unlocking and rooting... that's something that I want to do, right? I've never messed with jailbreaking my iDevices, but it seems like unlocking and rooting is much more common on Android devices. Can someone give me the lowdown? What's the difference between unlocking and rooting? Why would I want to do this? What won't I be able to do if I decide not to root/unlock?

Unlocking is freeing your phone to be able to run on any network, and I don't think is something you can really do on your own. Rooting gives you superuser access to the filesystem, which opens the phone up to deeper customization and the ability to run apps that require root access. Apps like CPU speed adjusters, ad blockers that block ads in free apps, and custom ROMs(ala Cyanogen) and deeper UI customization that involves modifying system files (as opposed to changing a launcher or widgets, which does not require root).

emp123

Unlocking generally refers to unlocking the bootloader which is a required step on some devices if one wishes to install custom kernels. I dont think its necessary on Nexus devices though.