Android for dummies

So here are some questions for Matt and all the other Android experts out there.

The phone I have is running 2.2 if you didn't know already

The first question is in the web browser can I get rid of the zoom in and out on the lower right of the screen ? I keep hitting it by accident and don't need it anyway it's easier to use pinch to zoom.

Second I thought I was reading I could download a file unsupported by the phone and save it to the SD slot. I tried downloading one and just got told it was unsupported. Is there something I need to install to do this or did I read something wrong ?

So far I installed Gmail, Google Maps, Goggles, and Chrome to Phone. Goggles seems fun to play with but not too useful, it would probably be useful if I needed to translate something. Chrome to Phone will be nice to have now they need to make phone to chrome too.

I can't believe they shipped a phone without GMail. That app is the best thing about Android. Argh.


Anyway, my suggestion regarding the zoom buttons is frankly to try another browser. One nice thing about Android is that it has always supported completely different browsers from their own, so you can download Opera (now available on iOS too), Fennec (Firefox - in beta), or a number of other popular ones like Dolphin HD. The built in browser won't let you turn that off, but the others might not have it. I tend to like the zoom buttons as a good one-handed way to zoom.


That's odd, I could have sworn that I could download files and save them to SD. I'll have to play with this later. It's possible you aren't even using the stock Android browser, and the one you have is preventing this. Again, I'd try another one.


Yeah, I haven't found much use for Goggles, but it's neat. Chrome to Phone has pretty limited uses, particularly if you already have a GPS in your car, but if you don't it's great for throwing driving directions to your phone.

My recommendations:

- Try out alternative "launchers." They're basically replacement homescreens/desktops, and control how things are organized on the home screens and a little in the app list. Some of the most popular are LauncherPro and ADW Launcher. My current favorite is called Zeam.

- Browse around the app market online to find new apps you'd like to download. It's much easier than on the phone.

- I'll try to think of more suggestions later when I'm not hurrying out the door...

I thought that I may not be using the stock browser is there a way to tell ?

I have been looking at the online marketplace looking on the phone isn't that bad but it is nice to be able to install stuff from the online one.

My Motorola Droid X's browser doesn't have this zoom thing. Clearly they were thinking along the same lines as you.

Of all the various apps I've installed, I find I use relatively few of them on a frequent basis. They are:

- Twitter, Facebook (the official apps)
- Google Voice (plus my Verizon voicemail doesn't exist; it goes straight to GVoice; also cool to be able to send and receive SMS for free)
- DoubleTwist player (not as good as the iPhone, but usably close enough)
- Google Maps / Navigation (with the $40 dashboard attachment, works like a champ)
- Pandora (which, despite my having selected "high quality", often gives me low-quality while I'm driving)
- Google Reader (there are 3rd party alternatives, but the official Google app seems to work very well)
- RPN Calculator
- New York Times (supports offline reading nicely)
- Prey (front-end for PreyProject, a free service to help you track your phone if it's stoken)

Is there a way to make the notifications stand out more ?

Not normally, but there are some lock screen apps that might give you what you want. I prefer how Android does notifications to how iOS does it. There are some improvements they could make (and I think they're making them in upcoming versions), but overall I'm quite pleased.

My list of apps I use, only some of which I use frequently, in no order at all:

• Doggcatcher: okay, I lied, this one was put first on purpose. It's my most-used app, and a must-buy for people who are serious about listening to podcasts. I adore this app and use it every single day. The developer is responsive and constantly improving the app, and has added tons of great features and customizability.
• Tweetdeck: post to Twitter and/or Facebook from the same app/widget
• Scoreboard: for sports scores - previously the absolute worst Google-developed app because it never worked - it seems they've fixed it because it works like a charm now
• Google Reader: like Dan said, this is the best Reader app for Android
• Email to Self: my most-used app - all it does is put an icon on my home screen which, when pressed, brings up an email composition with my own address already filled out - it's my #1 productivity tool and I live by it
• IMDb: I may have been wrong, this might be my most-used app, because every time I'm watching TV or movies I have a need to check what the people on screen have been in before
• Soundhound: it's just like Shazam, but I like it more for reasons I can't explain...
• ZipList: combined with an account for their service, it's making dinners easier to plan and shop for. I haven't used it long, but it seems to be just what I've been looking for in a grocery shopping app. I save recipes on their site, and when I plan on making one, I add it to my shopping list and remove the ingredients I already have. I then tell it which of my grocery stores I'm going to and because I've told it the order of the aisles, I can dash through the stores!
• Power Control Plus: kicks the ass of the power control widget that comes with Android. It's fully customizable and can toggle pretty much anything on the device. For example, I have one button on my widget that toggles between WiFi off, WiFi on, and WiFi hotspot.
• Google Voice: for everything Dan said. I love having free SMS (I don't have a plan with my carrier), and voicemails for both of my phones go to it instead.
• Retro Camera: most of the effects it adds are awful, but I like the last one for some interesting shots
• SDWatch and SDMove: developed by our very own Bitt, when I install/update an app, SDWatch tells me if it can be moved to the card, or I can just launch SDMove and see if there were any I missed before installing SDWatch
• The Weather Channel: so far I haven't liked the other weather apps. I don't like this one either, actually, but I dislike it less than the others
• Traffic Cam Viewer: this app has saved me many hours in the car since I installed it. I have one client downtown, and there are essentially two ways to get home, one of which is faster but has occasional road work on it. I have traffic cams set up for those roads on my phone, and I just check before I leave the city.
• Winamp: DoubleTwist is good too, but it was claiming control from my podcast app for a lot of things, so I use Winamp instead. It'll do wireless syncing.
• Filer: for navigating the file system
• Dropin: for syncing my photos to Dropbox. I've noticed it isn't very quick, but it's better than what I had before (which was nothing)

Changing the calendar alerts and notifications to alert did what I want. Before I would just get the tone and a little icon in the status bar. Now I get the tone and a big thing covering the whole screen when I check the phone.

I installed Download All Files so now I can save any file to the SD card. It was free but there are ads on it. You don't really ever need to look at the application so it's probably not a big deal. I might keep looking for something better.

There is no way to delete files from the SD card without installing one of the file managers right ?

I installed Zeam too and I think I like that one better than the default. I don't plan on making phone calls so it's nice to not have the phone icon down at the bottom. I tried Launcher Pro and that had even more junk at the bottom Zeam is much nicer thanks !

What keyboard are you using ? I tried swype for a few minutes and switched to the stock one. It works ok but I hit the wrong letter a lot. It seems like I need to hit the letter to the left of where it is.

You can replace all of the stuff at the bottom with Launcher Pro. I don't recall if you can with the default launcher.

You can't, and we don't even know if his default launcher is THE default launcher. I admit that this is a problem with Android.

And you can change things around in the bottom toolbar with LauncherPro, but I like how Zeam does it more. Zeam is nice and simple, and I think it runs faster.


Like with the browser, I can't be certain you have the actual stock Android keyboard or something the manufacturer put on there, but I suspect it's probably the standard one.

My favorite is Swiftkey ( free demo available). I just love it. I've discussed this in the other thread, so go search for it here.

Is there a way to tell if I have the standard keyboard, launcher,etc? The keyboards I have installed are called Swype and Android keyboard.

I'm not aware of a way, but I suppose if it looks similar to this shot of a Froyo keyboard on a Nexus One, it should be the stock keyboard.

I guess it does in am pretty sure it's the stock one.

Anyone use a to do list app ? I have tried about 10 of them and haven't found one I really like yet.

Astrid.

If you're a google user, gTasks. Syncs to your Google task list so you can see it when you check your email.

Bitt, have they added that to Astrid, or does it still only sync with Remember the Milk?

I wish Google would finally release an app for Tasks. I always figured it just wasn't something they cared much about, but after the last major update to GMail, they made it one of the three most prominent features, and assumed they'd put more effort into it. Not so. I still have to use the web app.

On my Desire HD the default browser doesn't have zoom icons.

My most used apps:

email/calendar - ActiveSync'ed to my work
Gmail
Skype
Google talk
DroidStack - (a stackexchange app)
TripIt - my personal travel manager :-)
Kayak - flight searcher. invaluable so far
Tweetdeck
FB Reader - better than the default one
AutoWifiEnable - learns where free wifi is available and only turns on your wireless in these areas. Good battery saver.
AppBrain - decent front end to marketplace which lets you select apps from your PC
DaTuner - very good guitar tuner
GO Launcher - I tried Zeam but it annoyed me too much
Goggles
Google Sky Map
Password Safe
Network Discovery
Picasa Tool
Soundhound
WifiAnalyzer

And I have a range of widgets for rapid control of functions, especially battery life ones. Still can't get used to having to charge the battery more than once a week!

I uninstalled Goggles. It kept eating my battery, and wouldn't die.

Astrid no longer syncs with RtM. They're now using Producteev.

Personally, I hate Google Tasks. It is clearly so much of an afterthought; the UI is miserable and there's zero integration with gCal.

Not entirely. If you set a due date on a task, it shows up in your Google Calendar with a checkbox next to it. From Gmail, you can create a task from any email, to which you can then add a date. It works much more seamlessly than Remember the Milk ever did.

On my phone, when I need to get to my Tasks, I use the web interface. Lame, but functional.

Weird - mine closes when I tell it to

Is it possible to uninstall Goggles? I think I tried to recently just to free up some space, and all I could do was "Uninstall Updates" or something like that. It was the same for Twitter, oddly...

Goggles is in the ROM for the Nexus One, so you can't uninstall it completely.

Mine didn't come with it pre-installed so I can uninstall it.

I use gmail for email and it seems like the gmail app doesn't check for new messages. I manually make it check for new messages and I will get some that are hours old.

A couple days ago I added a second gmail account to the phone and it seems worse since then.

Any advice ? I have email notifications checked and notify once un-checked in the gmail settings. I also under accounts and sync settings I have sync on for both accounts. Background data and auto sync are checked too.

By default the gmail app will check, and you can define how frequently it does this. You also need to ensure sync is enabled - if it is disabled the device will not try to connect (useful battery saving measure :-)

That's weird, though. I get GMail messages instantly. Matt, has it done this since you got the phone or is this new?

I think it was working when I got it. It seems lilike it started after I setup the second email account. I also have installed and removed a ton of programs. Last night I was reading reviews of the gmail app and there are a lot of people saying they are having this happen with the latest version. If that was the case I should have been having the issue the whole time since it hasn't been updated since after I got the phone.

I believe the gmail app is supposed to "push " messages to you. I don't see anywhere in it to set an interval for checking. There is in the mail app that shipped on the phone but that just uses POP or IMAP.

That stuff isn't in the GMail app. Like iPhone, it's in the settings area.

From the home screen, hit the menu button, settings, "Accounts & Sync."

Make sure both the checkboxes are checked, then under "Manage accounts," select the account with the lowercase "g" next to your GMail address (if there's more than one, I have a couple).

In there, select the services you want to keep synced. On mine, I have Google Reader (didn't know about it before, this got me to enable it, thanks!), Books, Contacts, GMail, Picasa Web Albums, and Calendar.

I had it half right.

Under accounts and sync both accounts had the green g next to them but only the first one I setup had the services to sync checked. It really didn't seem like either account was getting messages until I checked for them but after setting the second account to sync gmail, contacts, and calendar it seems to be working right.

Thanks again !

I do not have Picasa on there as a option for a thing to sync. Is there a Picasa app ? I looked when I got the phone but didn't see one. My device has something called "gallery" that is connected to my Picasa account somehow but it doesn't seem like it's from Google.

I believe that up until recent versions of Android, Gallery would sync with your Picasa albums automatically (a neat feature). I think it's only recently that they added a selectable option in the account sync setup that would let you disable it. But I'm not certain...

What does syncing picasa do for you?

Should I be using a task killer? I keep seeing a lot of those.

I don't use one. I would say you don't need one.

I installed AutoWiFiEnable and it is a great program thanks !

I pretty much only want the WiFi on at home and it has worked flawlessly. When I get home it's on and when I am out it is off.

The Android Market was featuring a great little app called Shush! recently, and I love it. All it does is detect when you've put the phone in silent or vibrate mode, and asks you when you'd like that to get turned off. You can easily hit a button to tell it to leave it on. It adds one more tap to silence your phone, but it's nice to not have to remember to turn the ringer back on, which would require at least another screen tap anyway.

Because of software like this I'm still divided on what I like more, a hard switch or software control. Being able to silence my phone without removing it from my pocket has been handy. On the flip side, a coworker of mine back in 2004 had a symbian based Nokia phone with software that let him set silence/ring settings based on location. At work his phone was always in silent mode, but automatically turned back to ring mode when he drove home.

I agree that there are great advantages to both of them. I used to have a Treo with the mute switch on it, and it was great to be sitting in a theater, the typical "turn off your cell phone" reminder comes on, and I can just reach in my coat pocket without even looking and mute my phone.

But that doesn't give you much control. I just installed Shush! on Monday, and I'd estimate that I used its functionality about eight times already. I like that it's a one-time process, and I don't have to remember later.

Android has a bunch of apps that do muting based on location (and Tasker can do pretty much anything on the phone based on pretty much anything else), but don't they put a drain on the battery?

Not sure on Android. On the iPhone when you develop a location app, you can decide what level of location resolution you need. If it's limited to just using WiFi and the cell tower triangulation, power draw would likely not be noticeable especially with the daily charge cycle most smartphone owners have. Only when you go for full GPS based location does power draw start to become a concern. Polling time would also impact how much power the app would use. Something set to once every few minutes would again probably not be all that bad.

The Symbian app my friend had worked purely based on cell triangulation, and he didn't see any noticeable reduction in battery life by using it, since the phone is constantly keeping an eye on cell towers anyhow.

Power wise with WiFi, I did do a recent test on an iPod touch, letting it sit connected to a WiFi point and always ready to accept an incoming Facetime call. It lasted over a week before it alerted that the battery was below 20%. Though I'm not sure how much more power draw is involved when a WiFi device is searching out other base stations for location vs staying connected to one.

The AutoWiFi app I am using says it doesn't use up the battery because it isn't using GPS to get your location it's going off which cell tower you are connected to. I can attest that it doesn't drain the battery and it does work. During the day when I am out the WiFi is off and when I get home it's on. I would thing something like that could be used to turn the mute on and off.

I never even thought about auto muting. I don't mute it much. I think something that un-mutes after a time would be better anyway. Unless you go to the same places frequently where you want the phone muted.

There are two "permissions" for location gathering in the Android API: course and fine. Generally speaking, these map to cell tower triangulation and GPS, respectively, but other technologies can be used, and there are ways to develop software for new ones as plugins.

I'm getting a hand-me-down Droid 1 soon- my first foray into smartphone-town.
I'll be doing some more research about how far the modders have gotten with the thing and what I'd like to do with it.
From what I've read it's the 'most hackable' Droid.

Probably because it was the biggest selling and highest-profile plain Android phone. You should have Froyo on that, I believe.

I haven't got it yet, but I think Froyo, too.
I was reading about CyanogenMod and watching youtube videos last night.
Seems that rooting, ROMs, and OCing are all 'one click' sort of deals at this point. Kind of nice to step in when everything is so well threshed out!
I'd like to get a 2800mAh battery to start off with.

I recently "rooted" my Droid X with z4root, which was slightly more than one click. It required me to reboot several times, and put my phone in airplane mode, before it finally did the deed, but it did work.

I haven't tried monkeying around with replacement ROMs or to strip the Blur from my MotoBlur. However, once rooted, I have a variety of coolness factors:

- ClockSync now keeps my phone firmly pegged to proper Atomic time (versus the 14 second drift I'd been measuring)

- I can tether without paying usurious fees (most common use: running 'git commit' or 'git update' from my laptop when traveling; otherwise, I tend to do mobile email from my phone, not my PC)

- I can do screen captures (and why this isn't built in like it is on an iPhone, I'll never know)

And, umm, that's really about it. I'd really like to have proper Gingerbread on my phone already, but Motorola and Verizon aren't in any particular hurry on that. (All the more argument to purchase a Google-branded Android phone like the Nexus S.)

Should I be able to preview doc and xls files in gmail? I installed acrobat pdfs open in that. I have download all files installed and when I click preview in gmail I get asked if I want to download it.

Do I need to install something to view doc and xls files?

GMail does not preview Office files natively. You have to install an app that will open them. I don't really know which ones are the best, but a search on the Android market should yield some results.

I just found out that my favorite freeware review site also has a section for Android apps.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-android-apps.htm

Of course, if you want reviews of paid software, you'll have to keep looking.
It's a start, anyway.

Thanks I did look on there and there are quite a few I just couldn't believe there wasn't something built in. Just wanted to make sure before installing something else

Weird, my desire came with inbuilt microsoft office viewer/editor app

What's it called ?

I'm not sure why you'd be surprised. It would be nice, but viewing Office files isn't something built into any OS (technically, you can view .doc files in Windows 7 using Wordpad, but that's the only one I know of - perhaps Phone 7 has this capability?). The manufacturer can include third party software to view these documents, but that's up to them.

I believe the most frequently-added software for this purpose is Documents to Go.

Windows has been able to open Word files out the box for some time now.

iOS can open Word, Excel and PowerPoint files out the the box, as can WP7 (and so could Windows Mobile*).

I for one am very surprised to find that Android has no out of the box support for at least viewing some of the most common file formats on the planet. I would have assumed that they would have built that in from the start.

* actually I think some handset manufacturers didn't ship mobile Office, presumably because MSFT charged them more for it

iOS likely gains the office document viewing from OS X's quick look feature. It is an OS level service for quickly previewing files, and is extended by plugins. Out of the box, it can preview Office documents, iWork documents, common text files, and any media file QuickTime can play.

I'm surprised because my crappy four year old Blackberry could view .doc and .xls files without installing anything additional.

Anyone else install the Amazon app store ? http://www.amazon.com/mobile-apps/b?ie=UTF8&node=2350149011

I downloaded it and have been downloading the free paid apps of the day.

Today the free application of the day is SwiftKey. I was gonna buy it anyway after the demo I was using ran out so yay

This is what happens when you let people customize a phone UI:

http://fuglyandroid.tumblr.com/

That's pretty much true of any customizable UI, not just phones. Ever browse through the WinAmp skins? Sure, most of them are poo, but if the owner of the phone likes it, then why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? It's their phone, right?

I lol'd at the battery indicator on the second to last one.

Very much agreed. The base experience should be a clean, well designed setup, but if people want to alter it, they should be able to. Phones are highly personal devices, more so then computers. While some of us may point and laugh at the ugly designs some people come up with, others out there have embraced this trend and made a ton of money off of that desire to customize. Just look at the market that exists around cell phone cases, skins, ringtones and so on.

Oh, the link wasn't supposed to be a rip on Android at all. It was just a rip on the design sensibility of the people that most often want to skin things. It seems to me that the people who want that kind of thing the most are the ones without any talent to make use of it. I see the same thing in the Boxee forum when people ask for skinning because XBMC has it.

Yeah I agree pretty much every time I see something that can get skinned it ends up ugly. WMP and winamp skins are always ugly.

What! It only had one misplaced element.

Those fugly android shots remind me of how people used to customzie their Myspace pages. Oh the horror of some of those pages. I think that was one big reason people fled to Facebook so fast- it was just cleaner.

Anyway to import a .ics into Google Calendar ?

Settings / Calendar Settings / Calendars / Import calendar.

I don't have that setting.

OK. Main Google Calendar page / Other Calendars sidebar / Add dropdown / Import Calendar.

Are you having talking about the website? I am trying to get to do it on my android phone.

If you do it on the main website, won't it show up on your phone?

Well... Yes. To my mind, the calendar on the phone isn't Google Calendar. It's just "the calendar". I very rarely enter events into the phone. What happens if you open the .ICS file from an email?

If I go to the main website and open the email with the invite I get a preview of the invite and I can click to add it to my calendar. On the phone I see the attachment of the .ics file and when I click it I get asked what I want to open it with.

I guess I don't really know if I am using the Google calendar mine is just called calendar too.

It would be nice if I could tell where theses programs are from.

Google Docs is out for Android now I can preview Excel and Word docs yay

Yeah, this had me thrilled this week. Mostly I'm extremely happy that it was a good Google app and not a bad one, like Scoreboard.

I haven't tried the OCR features yet, but I've heard they're so-so. I'm not surprised, given the limitations of the camera. I'm more excited by the ability to use the Share menu to put something up to Google Docs.

So what is having Picasa set to sync doing for me? I'm not sure what is being synced.

It's supposed to give you your Picasa Web Albums in the Gallery. If it's not working for you, then I can only offer the typical aggravating response of: "perhaps it doesn't work on non-vanilla Android?"

It is the google Gallery application. I can see my Picasa albums in there so I guess it's working as it should. I was thinking sync would mean more than viewing my albums.

Here is a good link for people trying to tell where they applications are from http://www.google.com/support/mobile/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=29767

Sadly that list isn't a good indicator if something is stock though. Samsung modified the stock Android Mail program to the point that it was worthless for me on the Captivate.

I'm not sure what else it would mean. What else could you sync? I guess it would be nice if it went the other way, and that you could have the option of syncing photos taken on the phone with PWA, but I wouldn't personally want that, since not every photo I take on my phone is one I want to share with everyone. Instead, I use an app that waits until I'm on a WiFi connection and then syncs new photos to my Dropbox account.

Uploading from the phone is what I was thinking. I hear sync and I think both ways. I am not sure if I want that either I was just thinking I wonder if it will do it. Then I saw picasa under the sync choices and wondered what it did.

Link?

I use that too. I think I saw it linked here earlier. Unfortunately, I don't have the Droid handy to see what app.

Sorry, I've mentioned it a few times here already so I think I just assumed.

It's called Dropin. It works pretty well, actually. There are a few quirks, but it's the app that finally made it completely unnecessary to connect my phone to my computer. Android has always had this reputation for being sync-free, but that doesn't mean you didn't have to connect it to the computer sometimes for certain purposes. Now I don't.

Here is a real issue I am having. I can't figure out how to send an email to a group. The groups show up in Gmail online but not in the Gmail app or contacts.

All my searching is finding is people asking how to do it

I'm not very impressed with the gmail app. I can do what I want with the mobile web page. I haven't tried sending an email to a group, though.

I'm not very impressed with Google Groups in general. For personal discussion groups they seem fine. But Google also sells Groups as the feature to replace mailing lists in Exchange. I've seen all kinds of weirdness when Groups is combine with calendar invites. Sending an invite to the group address (very common thing to do with Exchange) results in an e-mail message at gmail.com with two separate yes/no/maybe links. Clicking one set returns errors that you aren't on the invite, while clicking the other works. Problem is, the working set of links only shows on gmail.com, and is not propagated to IMAP users, iOS users, Android users or Blackberry users.

Anyone get the Netflix app working?

The modified apk here works on my un-rooted Optimus V if anyone else wants to try it and doesn't have one of the five officially supported phones.

I got it working because my phone is supported, so there's not really and "get it working" to be done. It works REALLY well, and the quality/framerate is excellent over 3G.

It works alright on mine even though it's not supported. I don't see why they just can't release it and say here's the devices we tested it on and if you run it on anything else buyer beware.

Because no-one will heed the "buyer beware" part, and it will cause them significant support costs and negative mindshare.

How does any other company have open betas then?

I updated Zeam to 3.0.2 and it added all of my applications to the dock

So I just removed everything from the dock but I want the applications button on there and I can't figure out how to get it back.

Does anyone know how to add the applications button to the dock?

I'm pretty sure you simply drag an icon to the bottom of the screen while avoiding the trashcan.

I noticed issues on the last Zeam update too. For some reason they added random things to my dock as well (but not all my apps! yikes!), and they also reset my action bindings for the workspace (I have a downward swipe on the home screen set to open the notification window, upwards for the dialer, and hit the home button to bring up applications). It took a few minutes but I got it all back.

That works for anything that has an icon but there isn't an icon for the apps screen is there?

I got it back now. I reset the Zeam launcher to default and resetting everything up again.

I've lost the little three-icon tray a couple times. It seems to hide if you swipe down across it just right. Swiping up takes a bit more of an effort to get it back.
Before I figured all that out, though, I relied on restoring a backup of my 'desktop configuration' in ADWLauncher. That also did the trick.
Now I'm pretty careful of making desktop backups.

He's using Zeam, which I don't think has a way to hide the dock.


There is. Long-press on a blank space on your homescreen, and it'll be somewhere in there. For me it's one of the first selections under "Add to screen," but you might see something different.

I wonder if the empegbbs can run the Tapatalk or ForumRunner software.
Would be nice to get empegged on the pocket screen.

Other forums I'm on use Tapatalk and I've already got that installed.

Neither support UBB.Threads it seems. I think UBB.threads 8 has some plans for slightly more mobile friendly layouts, but development on that version has been slow.

Ah well. Thanks for checking on it!

SwiftKey X is the free Amazon app today.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005D9MUWY?ie=UTF8&ref=mas_faad

I decided to buy when it first launched for $1.99, but anyone who is still on the beta should definitely grab it today. I started out thinking Swype would work better for me, and I'm still not as proficient on Swiftkey as I was on my Pre, but its recommendations are getting much better, and I'm slowly getting better at using it effectively.

I had SwiftKey does anyone know what's new in x.

That's a good question. As far as I can tell it's mostly color scheme

But seriously, I'm not sure. I assumed it was just the new version that they'd be working on going forward. I don't know why they wouldn't just continue work on the existing version and avoid confusion, plus it's kind of dorky in this day and age to add the letter "X" to the end of something. But it's the keyboard I use on my phone and my tablet. It does a great job.

If you're a current Swiftkey user, I believe you get the upgrade to the X version for free...

I got the last version for free on Amazon today I "purchased" version X and it replaced the one I had. I didn't try and upgrade before today I just saw it for free so I grabbed it.

The font on the keys and the word suggestions look different. Did the old one have the thing where it wants to search your email and facebook? I don't know if the old one had voice recognition.

I recently tried the voice recognition in Google Maps and it is freaking amazing now I have been using it everyday.

I think it had most of those things. I think they just reworked that button to change how the voice button fit into the keyboard. You can also hold that key down as a shortcut to the voice input.

Holding down your phone's search button is the shortcut to get the the general Android voice search/actions. It's so incredible to be able to - from anywhere in the phone - say "navigate to Starbucks," and the phone automatically finds the nearest business by that name and brings of the navigation app with the destination all set. Fantastic.

I also like commands like "set alarm for 7am," and the phone does just that.

So you can't rotate an image in Acrobat for Android right? I keep getting files that are rotated the wrong way then when I turn the phone it rotates the image so it's still the wrong way.

I suppose there is a way to stop the phone from rotating the image but it would be better if I could just rotate it in Acrobat like the desktop versions do.

So am I missing it or is it not there?

The only suggestions I have are to look through the options when you press the menu button, or to long-press the PDF its self and see if there's an option there.

Wow, it's not as big news as the Moto merger (which is now being discussed in another thread - thanks for splitting that out), but check out the story about Samsung hiring Cyanogen! That's pretty huge news.

It's also fairly ironic that Samsung, who IMO has the worst Android skin of all the manufacturers, hired the guy who makes the ROM that a lot of people use to get away from that skin. I hope he keeps up his promise to continue working on CM, and I'm extremely curious what Samsung has him doing for them. Is he working on their own skin? If so, that has the potential to be a very positive thing. Cyanogen (I can't not call him that) sometimes seems to know Android better than the Google programmers who make it. Perhaps he can make Samsung's skin not suck so much...

That is certainly interesting news!
Good luck to him. I'm flashing a new nightly right now, in fact, so I have a personal interest in his (continued) success.

I have a question for Tasker users (or anyone who has another idea of how to do what I want).

My old non-smart phone would pop up a message on the screen and play a little tone when the charging status changed.
"Charging" doo-beep!
"Charger off" bee-doop!

I've looked high and low for an app that would replicate this action on my 'smart' Droid.
Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful in my search. The problem is that the typical Droid indicators of charge status are only a few pixels in size, or in my favorite battery app, Battery Monitor Widget Pro, the (very small) text changes from red to green.

I need to be able to toggle a tone and/or message based on battery charging status.
Any ideas?

Tasker will do it. There are events and variables to check for current power source (AC, USB, or battery), docked/undocked events, and "charging finished" events. You can then just do a notify action or whatever you want to when the power status changes.

Awesome! I was just reading the Tasker homepage and couldn't see anything there about battery status changes.

Thanks!

edit:
Ah! The market info does say 'states - power'. Hadn't gotten that far in my reading. Guess I'll lean more heavily on the market in the future.

More questions from the Dummy.

I have installed and uninstalled a ton of stuff and my device is getting slow. Is there a way to wipe it? If I were to wipe it would I have to activate it with the provider again?

You can certainly wipe it. And no, you won't have to do anything with your carrier, you just have to set it up with Google again. When you power back up after the wipe, it'll ask you for your Google account info, and all your email/contacts/calendar should automatically return to your device. In most cases a large portion of your apps return as well, but I'm not positive about that.

But if you don't want to go through all that hassle, there are things you can try:

1) Move apps to your SD card. May I suggest our own Bitt Faulk's SDMove, a great app that shows you all the apps that can be moved to the SD memory. He also made SDWatch which will alert you when you install an app that can be moved.

2) Clear up some memory. Go into the app management area and select things like the browser. You may be able to clear some data or cache to free up space. This might clear some stuff you don't want, so by conservative about it.

3) Similar to #2, you can also go into the GMail app separately and scale back on the number of days and labels that get synced if your phone doesn't have enough memory to get too many emails. This is a big help, I've found.

I think there are a few other things you can try, but I just woke up and can't recall them at the moment Maybe someone else can chime in.

I have been moving everything to the SD card but some programs will not let me. I installed Bitt's app and it let me move some that I couldn't before. Thanks Bitt!

I will see if that makes a difference but I kinda do wanna just wipe it too. I am not worried about losing stuff I just don't want to activate again.

Oh wow! Thanks for the tip on Bitt's endeavors!
I'm running gingerbread, but SDWatch will do the trick for me!
Great idea!

Technically his app just shows apps that are movable that you probably didn't notice were movable before.

One of the nice features of Cyanogen MOD is that you're able to move a great deal many more apps than you can with regular Android. It's very helpful with those of us with older phones that have small amounts of space for app storage. I can't wait to get a new phone where that's not a problem. It's so strange when I used my tablet and I'm able to install as many apps as I want This is one of the few things I always envied about iPhone users, that Apple was smart enough to give them the full storage space to install apps, not just a paltry about of onboard space and a slow SD card.

Fortunately it looks like Google is moving away from SD for these purposes, and is urging manufacturers to only use them for added storage for stuff like media.

Has anyone tried any type of 'resolution changer' ?
I'd like the fonts to be a little larger.
I've tried out LCDDensity (for root) but the changes don't withstand a reboot.
I've found a few threads at xda about editing some system files and maybe I'll try that.

Just wondering if anyone has tried anything along these lines and what the results were.

I don't think it required any smarts at all. It was just kind of obvious and I could not imagine in what backwards universe Apple could have ever done anything different. In fact, to do anything different would require some type of severe mental deficiency. I can only imagine that Google didn't have time to convene a committee to discuss it as they were too busy in meetings about the correct color blue.



I'm not sure I follow here. How are they "moving away" if for the most part SD has never actually supported apps?

How many Android products even come with 32GB (or 64GB for that matter) of usable storage space today? Space that can be used for anything and everything from apps to data? Even today I can't honestly name a single Android phone that has 32GB of storage onboard. Sure, I've seen plenty advertising you can add an SDxx card, but which models have it already built-in?

It's almost as backwards as WinCE/WinMO devices that kept apps and data in RAM. They all did this at one point. If you forgot to charge your battery, you were done. WinMO devices were the biggest POS handhelds ever, and made 10-15+ year old Newtons look like they were from a hundred years in the future.

I think I figured out my problem maybe. I uninstalled Zeam and it seemed to solve the issue. I installed it again and now it seems back to normal. Something must have got messed up Zeam during a update or something I guess.

As much as I like Zeam, I've had it screw up after updates a couple of times. Usually stopping and starting it again fixes the problems I've had, but it doesn't surprise me that you had to uninstall it!

HTC data logger and privacy/security vulnerability:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/10/01/...sses-much-more/

Maybe the subject of this post should be "Android is for Dummies" or maybe "Android is from Dummies"

To be fair, the HTC stuff is HTC-specific. It's logging software HTC put on the phones - and of course didn't bother to tell anyone about, including its own customers.

They must think they're the next Sony or something.

There's something of a long history of this sort of thing, with vendor crapware on PCs installing ActiveX controls that were marked "safe for scripting" that were anything but.

This seems to be yet another argument in favor of getting a "pure" Android phone, to be rid of these vendor things.

The "pure android" experience isn't something that's going to last much longer, if it's even still available on any retail product. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since Google hasn't really done anything terribly innovative with Android in terms of UI, fit and finish, polish, presentation and all that.

But what's needed is for vendors not to make their products into giant piles of hurt and security/privacy nightmares. It doesn't seem terribly difficult to imagine NOT collecting the data HTC has been, while still providing something unique. I'm pretty sure Amazon is going to move quickly to a (distant) number two spot in what will finally become (somewhat of) a tablet market.

Without changing up the Android "experience" a vendor is just going to be left with a bland and rather unremarkable product compared to the next guy. Or, as unremarkable and exactly like the next guy. Neither which makes a compelling strategy.

I think that perhaps a few companies may learn a thing or two from what Amazon is about to do and change their game somewhat. I doubt they'll be very successful, but from where they're playing now, they can only go up.

Android vendors today are just like PC vendors. When a user is buying a PC to run Windows, they don't even pay attention to the software. They just look at the hardware. Is it sturdy? Good battery life? Cheap?

Much as they might try to fight it, nobody's going to say "gosh, I love HTC Sense and I hate Samsung TouchWiz". Or, I hope they won't.

Everyone knows Windows. But even though Android can be called almost ubiquitous on non-iOS super phones, doesn't currently have that draw and may never have. Only the geekiest of Engadget readers and your typical slashdotter go looking expressly for an Android handset. Everyone else is going for an iPhone or just "a phone."

When someone goes to buy a computer they're looking first and foremost for one that comes with the OS they're after. Windows. And they're looking most definitely at the hardware.

With Phones, most brands lack any meaningful consumer pull and generally speaking, customers are first and foremost looking at price. However, since most of these Android makers are competing around the same price points, sometimes "from free" and usually with similar enough hardware (mostly copying the iPhone at first glance), it's going to come down to what one can do over another to help a differentiate products and brands.

It's Apple's strategy and why the iPhone is still far and away the number 1 super phone in the world.

I'm sure Android is going to get better, but are the OEM's willing to wait? Some of them might prefer a head start on their competition. SOme of them will want to create something more compelling, knowing fully well by past performance, that Google is far from being a leader when it comes to UI and design. Some may want to do more than try and sell a marginal piece of hardware with a short shelf life. They may want to try their hands at creating an eco-system.

That's what Amazon's doing. And it's why they'll be far more successful than anyone else has been up until now with Android.

I ended up doing the wipe anyway. Reloading Zeam helped but it was still slow and I just wanted to clean it out I had installed and removed about 100 programs since getting the phone.

Any other newbies need not fear doing a wipe it wasn't that big of a deal. Matt is right I didn't need to do anything with the carrier it didn't even delete my pictures from the SD card.

Here is another thing I discovered that sped my device up considerably.

http://www.bongizmo.com/blog/moving-all-android-apps-to-sdcard-apps2sd-froyo/

After installing all the apps I wanted that would not all moving to SD in the application manager my internal memory would be just about full and it would slow down the phone a lot. Changing the default install location to SD and re-installing the apps I wanted to move made my device much faster. I had to install a lot of crap on my PC just to change this though.

Semi-non-sequitur:

I'd been using My Cast Lite as the thing that told me the weather. Under ICS, it didn't really work any more. It wasn't particularly reliable on my old phone, either.

I've now switched to BeWeather. It's a bit heavy on the eye candy, but it does everything I want.

I got a new device the Samsung Exhibit II on t-mobile now I can see why so many people root and install custom roms on these things. This phone came with so much crap on it there were about five screens worth! This thing even had bookmarks it wouldn't let me delete. So far I have rooted it and used Titanium backup pro to freeze a lot of the junk.

Another thing that is annoying is it seems to have different apps for messaging and calendar than the stock ones. This has Gingerbread does anyone have screen shots of what the stock messaging and calendar should look like? These look way different than what my old phone with 2.2 had and I don't really like them.

I'll try to get a shot of it. You might be out of luck unless you put Cyanogen on there. That would be my suggestion if you've already rooted it (that's the hard part, IMO).


I just tried an app called 1Weather. Give it a try. It's attractive without going overboard, has really informative 2x2 widgets, and a "feels like" temperature notification.

I was trying to see if I have the stock apps or not and if I do I figured I would just find a different messaging app but if I don't I was thinking I would try a different rom.

Based on my prior experience with the Samsung Captivate, I'm betting they aren't stock apps. Samsung seemed to be doing minor look changes, but major UI changes on 2.2, wouldn't surprise me to see them digging deeper with 2.3.

This is what the stock calendar looks like:
http://www.gsmarena.com/google_nexus_s-review-565p7.php

Messaging is here:
http://www.gsmarena.com/google_nexus_s-review-565p4.php

Thanks Tom! That is not what I have. The calendar looks similar but dark and messaging is totally different. Messaging is totally different and I don't like it.

There is no cyanogen yet for this device. I found you can download a Google application package but when I try to install them it fails. I email myself the apk, click install in the email, I get a message that this is a system app and will be replaced, then it says installation failed.

Since I have rooted is it still safe to do the factory data reset under privacy?