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I've read all post in this board.
but i can't quite understand if lag is really there, if it shows only in certain phone(say carrier,geographical area etcetc) or whatever...
reading random post here and here doesn't give precise informations about this aspect of the hero's user experience.
So i'll make a poll. 4 options of lag-tollerability.
if you vote for the poll, reply describing details of the phone, and a precise description of the lag(where, when, app open...)
ps
I'm italian so sorry for my dodgy english.
I'm going to refrain from voting until I have a better idea of what precisely people mean by lag.
The only slightly slow thing on my G2 has been the messages - sometimes there has been a bit of a delay opening the list of messages, threads etc.
Today, I waited for all of about..........four whole seconds.
I can live with that.
None of the phone's other functions have any appreciable delay or sluggishness.
It's worth noting, however, that I don't use the Farcebook or Twatter widgits, so I don't know if they cause any lag on other poster's phones.
Compare this to my Vario III/Kaiser which seized up on regular occasions.
And if you had the temerity to hit the 'back' button whilst using PIE, well, it was sometimes quicker to do a soft reset than wait for it to get its arse into gear.
That's the feedback i was looking for.
in my opinion you are in the second option of the pool.
Because it's normal that some application need loading time, and that's not lag nor abnormal..
I voted no lag, but that is because of some modifications I made.
Before I go into detail, here is my definition of "lag":
My device lags if an action that should be instant hangs for a fraction (or more) before taking place. An example of such an action is a screen swipe across the homescreen. It should happen as you perform the swipe, if it doesn't, something is lagging and preventing the screen from moving. Waiting for a calendar to load, an inbox to display, logging in to messenger, that sort of stuff is in my view not lagging. They are usualy an action that loads data for display or modification.
I voted for No lag at all, but I cheated because I have removed the entire Sense UI and its widgets from my device using the Rosie remover from Modaco.
The Sense UI is a great piece of work, but every time I used it I had the feeling the Hero just doesnt have the horsepower to drive such a UI. (Which fits my description of lagging)
So, lagging: No, but only after cheating and reverting to the default Homescreen.
I voted totally no, but it's not exactly true. The phone can sometimes lag abit while it's loading up from sleep mode, also the browser can lag depending on which sites you visit. But both of those examples are very minor and I have never had the phone freeze for more than a second.
Sure the phone could be faster, but when I got it, and after hearing about it's laggyness from reviews I was supprised of how fast it was.
I use the default ROM that came with the phone, and taskkiller isn't even installed.
I have a couple of complaints about this device but lag isn't one of them.
Irregular Programming said:
I voted totally no, but it's not exactly true. The phone can sometimes lag abit while it's loading up from sleep mode, also the browser can lag depending on which sites you visit. But both of those examples are very minor and I have never had the phone freeze for more than a second.
Sure the phone could be faster, but when I got it, and after hearing about it's laggyness from reviews I was supprised of how fast it was.
I use the default ROM that came with the phone, and taskkiller isn't even installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I experience the same thing, I've had doubts on buying the new diamond 2 or the hero, since i've had the diamond 1 for a while I decided to try the android thingy.
Compared to that the diamond lives in the stoneages and experiences lot's of lag, my hero sometimes hesitates when coming out of sleep and when I just refreshed the widget's (got new mail ore weather update) it lags a tiny bit, but I don't consider the hero to lag overall so I voted option 2
Typing quickly makes the keyboard lag quite alot which always winds me up.
Scrolling through contacts is very clunky (maybe due to all of them having pictures and facebook status'). But then again dont offer the feature if its crap.
Messages takes too long to load up.
BAM!
Biffert said:
I voted no lag, but that is because of some modifications I made.
Before I go into detail, here is my definition of "lag":
My device lags if an action that should be instant hangs for a fraction (or more) before taking place. An example of such an action is a screen swipe across the homescreen. It should happen as you perform the swipe, if it doesn't, something is lagging and preventing the screen from moving. Waiting for a calendar to load, an inbox to display, logging in to messenger, that sort of stuff is in my view not lagging. They are usualy an action that loads data for display or modification.
I voted for No lag at all, but I cheated because I have removed the entire Sense UI and its widgets from my device using the Rosie remover from Modaco.
The Sense UI is a great piece of work, but every time I used it I had the feeling the Hero just doesnt have the horsepower to drive such a UI. (Which fits my description of lagging)
So, lagging: No, but only after cheating and reverting to the default Homescreen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you keep any aspects of Sense UI intact? I don't know what is tied to it as far as the keyboard and music player?
Totally no for me. I thought about 'More of a slight delay' but that would be less accurate, as for the most part things happen very quickly. The keyboard has been known to miss a beat, and large pdf files take a minimum of time to load up the pages as you scroll, but apart from the expected delay in processing intensive tasks, generally I've been pretty amazed at the speed of the thing to be honest. If I was to say the Hero lagged, I'd have to say my PC lagged aswell. Some things do take time. You're not gonna load up a 5Mb pdf instantaneously on the iPhone either.
To completely remove delay or lag from a phone you'd need processing power far beyond that normally required by the software, which isn't practical.
megaoptimus said:
Did you keep any aspects of Sense UI intact? I don't know what is tied to it as far as the keyboard and music player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only the visible parts have been removed such as HTC widgets and the homescreen itself. The apps still work great (calendar, people, keyboard, etc). The background services are still present.
Just a bit of delay between switching screens and once in a while I do encounter keystroke lag when typing on eBuddy and RoadSync email - rarely any keyboard lag when texting.
I've been trying out some bits and pieces over the past couple of days and have noticed some serious performance differences.
After my factory reset I didn't set an 'unlock code' with the connect the dots dealy, this has made a massive difference to the performance of my phone. Also, as I'm with Vodafone, I didn't bother setting up Peep, I opted for Twidroid instead. Without peep on a home 'scene' I've got a performance boost too. Twidroid is still running in the background, mind and I don't miss a tweet!
Just thought I'd chime in and see if anyone else had noticed the same.
No lag at all here with anything yet, tried a few different configurations. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but looks like the new update will sort out any lag in the next few days?
No lag for me, sometimes you have to wait a second but compare to my last phone (HTC Diamond) it's just black and white.
The diamond was buggy and slow. The hero is fast, I never had a freeze and Android is the best OS I never tried!
This is my first touch screen, and first android phone, so of course im constantly impressed with it. Blows my mind in fact.
That said, I do experience lag problems:
- that require me to use Taskiller to kill everything once in a while if ive been using to many difference apps.
- Keyboard lag when typing fast. More noticeable if apps are piled up in the background
- Sliding between home screens straight after unlocking the screen. Seems like once they screens are 'buffered' they slide smoothly and quickly. FYI i only use 3 home screens with only the clock, dialer, Taskiller and WIFI widget. Rest is plain app shortcut icons.
- Dialer widget. Sliding through favourite contacts is sloooow. Take a second or two to start moving, and as aboive, once I've slid all the way up and down and its 'buffered' its smooth as silk...
I voted for Sometimes is unusable.
First week I used TasKiller and Advanced Task Killer (great app btw!) to kill unnecessary apps running, and I was very pleased with the performance. Next week I uninstalled all third party task killer apps because I read here that Android should be very capable of handling these things. Well in my experience, I doesn't handle this all too well, I think now my device is lagging more than with me using task killers.
Lagging here means screen unresponsive when unlocking, not being able to drag notifications bar to properly view what's there, home screen switching is not so smooth etc. I'm only using Wi-Fi & other ON/OFF switches, medium weather app, couple of calendar widgets and bunch of shortcuts on my home screen. Only FB contacts are integrated, I'm not on Twitter or Flickr.
Just today I started using class 6 microSD card, and for now, everything seems pretty smooth. But I did remove the battery before doing this so it might not be so dramatic change compared to previous experience. Waiting eagerly for the new Hero update!
Only Sense is slow sometimes
Sometimes (once or twice a day) it definately lags. But it seems only a "Sense" issue. When it happens, for example the scrolling is not smooth anymore and the "SMS" Widget stops working properly (you can't flip trough the messages anymore).
But if I enter any Application, the App. itself works smooth and without any lags at all.
Strange thing is: after a couple of minutes (and it doesn't matter if the phone is turned on or not) the lag disappears totally. Maybe theres is some sort of "memory-rearrangement" or "Disk defragmentation" going on that slows the phone down while running.
it's worth noting as well that whether or not there are any "issues" it's always possible to make the phone lag - playing high-bit-rate-music while trying to browse a flash website will do it, for example - but that's only because the phone doesn't artificially limit what you can do
Since there appears to be such conflicting reports about lag or lack there of; I think it would benefit us all if we start to list who is having lag and who isn't whilst including where you bought the phone etc....
so to those that are having lag, give us these details:
1.) where and when did you get the phone, including the color
2.) branded or unbranded
3.) look under the battery or where ever for serial numbers or manufacturing dates
4.) report what firmware (if possible) and what the "about android" says in the OS
5.) what you are perceiving to be slow and when it occurs
If you would like some other examples of "slowness" check out the comments here: http://www.pda-247.com/wordpress/2009/08/htc-hero-review-part-two/
Note that after some discussion, all parties involved are equally confused and can't understand the opposing experiences of the other. I would also like to see reports from those that haven't experienced any lag or nothing like what some of the laggers are experiencing. I think we are experiencing some manufacturing differences here that have yet to be documented or made certain. I suspect this is all due to sense UI but who knows for certain. Is it possible to have the G1 Hero rom installed on a stock hero? Perhaps the Hero rom that is mentioned the in the hero dev forum would help? In any event, we should really start compiling specifics in a single thread as nobody likes buyers remorse
Not geographical. Its about the way you use your phone.
Sawkes said:
Not geographical. Its about the way you use your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Fine. But it shouldn't be. If the phone is "just suppose to work" then there apparently still needs to be some optimization to account for the apparent excesses of others. I'm SURE it's JUST about what these people are doing...come on man, there has to be something else going on even if it is simply due to sense UI needing some optimization tweaks. You can't just toss away the experiences of many different folks (reviewers included) with the implication that the phone is not at all at fault for the negative reports.
I agree, I think there are variables we aren't considering. I think it comes down to the use of widgets and the amount of screens you have running, though I'm not totally sure.
I personally have not experienced any lag. I have a white sim free Hero, I use 3 screens, one with wifi, bluetooth, mobile data and gps widgets, a weather widget and a few icons. Another page has all icons, and the third has the bookmarks widget. I used to have the contacts widget on the second page and noticed no lag when using that either.
Once I tried to start up as many apps as I could to see if I experienced the lagginess people were talking about.... with no result. Still very slick.
What I don't have is a clock widget. I personally think it's useless when you have the time in the taskbar. I don't use a twitter widget either, but Peep seems to start itself sometimes.
That leads me to something else, I have apps which start themselves up spontaneously. Peep, Glympse, calendar for example.... they all show up in the task list (Taskiller) when I haven't used them. I've switched off any auto updates/ stay logged out etc. So that's a bit weird. That's part of the reason I'll use Taskiller maybe 4 or 5 times a day to kill everything running.
All in all I'm very happy and impressed with the useability of this device.
Switchbitch said:
I agree, I think there are variables we aren't considering. I think it comes down to the use of widgets and the amount of screens you have running, though I'm not totally sure.
I personally have not experienced any lag. I have a white sim free Hero, I use 3 screens, one with wifi, bluetooth, mobile data and gps widgets, a weather widget and a few icons. Another page has all icons, and the third has the bookmarks widget. I used to have the contacts widget on the second page and noticed no lag when using that either.
Once I tried to start up as many apps as I could to see if I experienced the lagginess people were talking about.... with no result. Still very slick.
What I don't have is a clock widget. I personally think it's useless when you have the time in the taskbar. I don't use a twitter widget either, but Peep seems to start itself sometimes.
That leads me to something else, I have apps which start themselves up spontaneously. Peep, Glympse, calendar for example.... they all show up in the task list (Taskiller) when I haven't used them. I've switched off any auto updates/ stay logged out etc. So that's a bit weird. That's part of the reason I'll use Taskiller maybe 4 or 5 times a day to kill everything running.
All in all I'm very happy and impressed with the useability of this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Makes no damn sense to me and it's posts like this that make me think it isn't the software afterall....geez. I guess I'll just have to order one some time soon and cross my fingers that it really isn't hardware related.
Hi everyone. I just purchased my Droid X last week, and I'm having some migrating pains coming from Windows Mobile 6.5 (HTC Touch Pro 2, Mighty ROM) over to Android. I'm wondering if the fine folks here at XDA can help me ease into the Android OS a little easier.
Here are the things I miss most about WinMo, maybe you can tell me some viable alternatives.
1) The Dialer. - Skip the next 3 paragraphs if you're familiar with HTC Sense on WinMo.
The dialer absolutely sucks compared to the TP2. Having to click different tabs juts annoys me. In the TP2, the dialer and recent calls were displayed in a single window, so if I wanted to dial Steve, I had 2 ways of doing it.
The first way was to dial 7(S), 8(T). The phone would recognize I am spelling out Steve, and list everyone who fits the ST criteria sorted by most recently called. The more I spelled out his name, the narrower the results got.
The second method was to dial his number. Pretend Steve's number is (123) 456-7890. If I dialed 123, it would sort all contacts with numbers who matched the area code, and it would narrow the results as I typed more of his phone number.
I really hate having to tap between Contacts (there is a contacts soft button next to the dialer anyway), I would just click that if I wanted to from the beginning.
Are there any dialers out there closer to the HTC Dialer?
2) Contacts.
There has to be a better contact manager. Not being able to quickly tap a letter to get to contacts is really dumb.
3) Ninja Applications.
Why do I keep seeing applications running that I never started when I load Advance Task Killer. It's really annoying when I load up an App, and go to close it, and see Skype and CityID running when I never launched either of them. I'm almost afraid to set up AIM on my phone at this point.
4) GPS.
If I keep my GPS on, my battery gets killed. With my TP2, it would only use the GPS when it needed it, so for weather updates, and Google Maps, otherwise it stayed off (or was in a suspend state). I turned the GPS on my first day and had 0 battery by around 2 (left the house at 8). Is there any way to set the GPS to only be used, as needed?
5) APPLICATIONS EVERYWHERE.
Is there anyway to sort these into folders? Also, is there anyway to add an X to the application so I can close it when I'm done with it rather than having to launch an App just to close the App I just used?
I really liked the Sense way of doing it, where I had an X in the Application, and a drop down on the home screen that would list the open Apps so I could close them 1 at a time.
6) MotoBlur.
Ugh, I really hate this UI. Has anyone had any experience with SenseX?
7) Custom Roms.
I've seen a handful of Custom ROMs, and I'm planning on putting one on when I have some time next week. I need a good way to backup contacts, after I just spent an hour linking everyone, but I'd like to know if there is a decent Apples to Apples comparison of the ROMs. They don't seem to be outlines as detailed as I'm used to.
On this topic, are there any problems setting up things like MMS once you install a Custom ROM? It was a nightmare on the TP2, but those ROMs were also made for multiple carriers, which isn't a problem with this phone, so I imagine it shouldn't be an issue.
----------------------------------
Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text.
Other than the 7 things listed, I love the phone. Finding MortPlayer for Droid made my day. I'm looking forward to unlocking it's true potential, and I hope my list isn't a bunch of things I'm just going to have to adjust to.
Thank you again, have a great day.
EDIT:
Also, it's really annoying that every time I connect my phone to my PC, it launches a Verizon web site. Is there anyway to disable this?
Ok... I will take a stab at this.
FIRST, You DO NOT have to settle for the apps that come preinstalled on your phone! Just had to clear that up... Ok, here we go:
Check an app called "Dialer One" and see if that fits your needs... I haven't used it in a while... but heard it still a great replacement for the stock dialer.
Searching for a better Contact Manager is on my To-Do list.. hope someone comes in and help out a little more with that one
Don't worry about the "ninja" apps TOO much. Android Froyo has an amazing task manager and even though you SEE the apps as "running applications", they are not really RUNNING. They are more like... in a queue.. so they are ready for whenever you come back to them....but you still have to watch what the apps are doing. Some do not play nicely and hog memory. I'll link a good post here in a minute explaining that a little better.
There is a widget that can help you out here.. it's called "Power Control" put that bad boy on your homescreen and the option to turn on/off wifi, bluetooth, gps, etc is at your fingertips (for even more controls... check out "Extended Controls" in the market. It cost like $1 and some change)
I'm... not really following this one. For one.. you CAN use folders on your homescreen and put whatever your heart desires in them.. and label it accordingly. I'm not sure what you mean by the "X" in the app
SenseX?? What is that?? Anyway.. as you will find out soon, 99% of the Droid X community despise MotoBlur!! You can use a different Home Launcher and not use Blur. Two of the major Home Launcher replacements are Adw.launcher & LauncherPro... which one is better is a whole different story. They are both great and only YOU can choose which one is best. There many threads comparing them and they run neck to neck mostly. I'm on LauncherPro personally
Custom Roms?? Eh.. I personally do my own developments and theming on my phone and do not use them... there not really all what they cracked up to be because whatever they have on them... I can do myself. So I'm not much of an help on that one... Somebody else maybe will chime in.
P.S-To fix the Verizon thing, go to the "M" in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen by the clock on your PC and right click it.. there should be an option saying to tell it to NOT send you to the Verizon site when you connect your phone. I don't know the EXACT wording of the option menu.. I'm on a mac
Thank you for your reply.
I will check out the Dialer. Thank you very much.
Darn!
A friend of mine told me that, but it's hard for me to not be a bit OCD about background Applications. I've been a Windows user most of my life, and coming from WinMo, background apps really kill performance.
More than anything, my issue is with things like Skype loading when I do not want to be signed in. I want auto-login when I launch the Application, but I don't want the application loading when it feels like it, and me getting a random IM or call from someone when I didn't even tell it to log in.
It also bothers me that Amazon MP3, something I've never even loaded, has turned itself on. It makes me feel like I don't have control over my phone.
I do have a widget that lets me turn these things on and off, I was just hoping for a way to set it up so that the GPS is "pinged" and only used as needed, and turned back off. My TP2 did this, and was a great battery saver. Having to turn the GPS on and off just to get a weather update based on location is a bit annoying.
I didn't mean on the home-screen, I meant in the application list. So when I hit the application list, I can sort them by "Games", "Google", etc.
For the "X", what I mean is in reference to closing an App. In WinMo, the top right of the screen had an X, and if I touched that X, the app would close. Now, once I exit the App, I need to use an application killer to close said App.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764840
Looks like Sense for the Droid X. In Beta now, so I'm waiting for a stable release.
Really, it's just to get rid of bloatware and take advantage of some performance optimizations that have been made.
A couple of other things that have come up.
I need a better keyboard. One with arrows so I can navigate text. Touching isn't precise enough, and I don't have a stylus with this phone. Today I voiced a text message, and I went to correct an error, but I couldn't get the curse to go in the exact spot I needed it to go into. My old OSK had arrow soft-keys I could tap to navigate with.
Also, I notice when I pull my phone out of the leather pouch I have, when I hit the power button it comes up in landscape, and the accelerometer doesn't pick up on the turn. I need to turn the screen off and turn it back on.
Finally, I'm having extender issues, but I think I need to call VZW for that. When leaving my house, I can't reconnect to Data without a power-cycle.
Thank you for the reply.
my .02
3. Break yourself from the taskiller need. If you have programs allways running that you dont need, ie skype or city id. Root and delete those SOB's. you can look around and there are plenty of articles of why not to use them. Android is a linux based os. Linux is far supirior to Win in memeory management. You dont need task killers.
4. if your gps is turned on its not always running. It only runs when needed. Is by chance your wifi on? that will run all the time by searching for access points. if not you might have maps running, make sure to always back out of maps and not just hit home. That way it closes and doesnt just run in background. (actually goes for most apps)
5 organization- you cant sort the app drawer, you can hide apps (just the icons) using launcher pro, not sure if ADW has that option. Useing folders or the app "app manager" is your best bet
extra. swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.
I came from winmo- so I know all about your "X" pains. But I say forget about a task killer or even killing tasks (except maybe maps and navigation). I did a little reading about pros and cons and decided to try the "no task killer" approach. I haven't had any problems. the task killer is a pain anyways. you can kill apps all day long and there are a bunch of them that are just going to repopulate themselves in like 5 minutes. I just said, "fegetaboutit". My phone runs great.
if you open the dialer and are on the contacts tab just long press the menu button (the physical button) and your keyboard will pop up. start typing and contacts will appear.
I like "Zeam Launcher". There is a thread here on XDA. I have Launcher Pro+ -but actually liked Zeam so much I use it. Just different preferences though.
that's all i got for now.
Thank you for your replies.
I will try to be a bit less OCD regarding my tasks. I did kill a couple of services of applications that kept starting, like Skype.
I'll check out those launchers and see if I like them better.
Any good stock widgets?
EDIT:
So I just tried to check my location on Google Maps with GPS turned off, and it says I need to turn it on.
How do I set it up to use the GPS as needed?
I leave location services on (GPS)
My theory is that applications will only enable GPS when they need them, so if you have a application running that wants GPS, it will use it.
The GPS icon appears in the notification bar when I'm using something that is using GPS, so I assume its only actually on when this icon is present. Leave it on in settings just makes is available.
Any widget or application that has a setting for manual location (Weather, IMDB) I use it, and disable GPS location, to keep GPS from running all of the time.
To exit an app you are using, either hit the back button or the home button.
If you are worried about "ninja" apps using cpu and memory, you can try a minfree adjustment application such as AutoKiller Memory Optimizer. It fine tunes android's inner memory manager to be a bit more aggressive in closing applications.
I use another Rom (rubiX, link in sig) that already has minfree adjusted (according to the author) and it does help in keeping the X smooth. It also removes all (well most) of Blur and default installed apps as well, so you start with a very clean X.
The default home screen (blur) is crap. I would also suggest replacing it with LauncherPro or ADW
For removing the pre-installed applications. Follow this guide
http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/d...ta-3-ways-super-easy-safe-safe-easy-free.html
Some apps in /system/app/ are not named what they are
(IE. mynet.apk = 3g Hotspot)
For a keyboard anywhere, you can hold the menu button, and it will pop up.
Swype is really a few keyboards. Swype from the icon to the SYM button, it will give you the edit panel (arrows, home, end, copy, paste, etc...) press the ABC button to go back.
Swype from the icon to the f key, it will turn into a number pad. Press the ABC button to go back to the normal keyboard.
Run the tutorial on Swype too, it will give you some very nice pointers on it's use. I used Swype on windows mobile and I found out a few things about Swype I never knew.
Also, as for touching where your cursor is in a text field, if you press and hold, and magnifying bubble will pop up. This makes moving the cursor easier
Did you find a dialer yet? I saw these posted and thought about this thread...
http://www.appbrain.com/app/kz.mek.DialerOne
http://www.appbrain.com/app/acontacts/kz.mek.aContacts
Haven't had a chance to try them yet.
bad4u6669 said:
.... swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG. thanks. been loving swype but that has been driving me nuts. Thanks for the info.
Thank you for the replies.
One of the things I liked about my TP2, is I could leave location services on, and it used very little battery.
I guess Weather Bug just SUCKS battery out like crazy. I turned on the GPS last night for something, and decided to see how well it did with battery today. It turns out that some grocery shopping app I wanted to try was sucking my GPS dry (no idea why)... yet another "ninja app" that just started up because it felt like it (this kind of **** really makes me , programs should only start up when I tell them to, not when a component of my phone turns on).
I live in an apartment that has really bad signal (I actually have a Network Extender), so that might be my GPS constantly trying to update when I'm at home killing my battery.
WeatherBug is set to update every hour, so I'm going to see what happens tomorrow with the GPS turned on. It would be nice if I could just set it and forget it, not need to turn it off every time I come home.
Thank you for the contact program, I might check it out. I've been pretty content since I got DialerOne and found out I can get the keyboard up by holding the options.
I tried LauncherPro, and I LOVED it at first, and my phones performance was fantastic!
Then I found out it charges me to resize widgets... WTF is that crap?
I'm going to try some other launchers and see what happens. I'm getting the hang of it, but I still do not like things starting up on their own. Regardless of memory management, my phone should not just decide to boot up programs on it's own.
the phone only does what the app or the user tells it to do. If theirs an app that you don't like, delete it.
And complaining that launcher pro charges for every thing it offers is ridiculous. Every thing it offers for free already ( 7 home screens, 10 rows and columns, unreal speed improvement, etc. ) then to get the extras its less than most people throw away on a daily basis. Where as this three dollars its money that pays off on a daily basis
Adw and lp should be paid apps from the start for all they offer.
You have 3 options, write your own program, use the stock launcher, find a free one.
-end rant
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
I usually leave my location setting on "Use Wireless Networks" and don't bother with GPS other than for maps and navigation. Works fine for all of my other apps that need a location (e.g., weather).
There are apps out there that can turn GPS on and off automatically when you run a particular app, such as Tasker (which can do a whole host of things, but that is one one of them). Tasker is a paid app, but there might be something free out there that does something similar.
Also, I agree with the previous poster re: Launcher Pro. It's really a fantastic home launcher and well worth a few bucks to support the developer. The LP Plus widgets are also a lot better than any of the Blur widgets.
In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.
EtherBoo said:
In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to look into RockPlayer. That's the only one I found so far that decodes ALMOST anything on the spot.
The "Ninja Applications" are running because Android is a true multi tasking OS.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
I hope necromancy isn't frowned upon on this board, so my apologies if it is.
I found a new problem because I had the nerve to attempt to update a contact photo after Facebook had saved it's picture to it.
This is especially frustrating because I'm going to want to override a lot of these photos very soon.
Apparently, updating the photo updates the Google Contact photo, but the phone only displays the Facebook photo. This is a bug confirmed by Moto that will be fixed in a future update.
This leaves me with 2 options.
De-Sync FB, which I'm not thrilled about only because I like getting the most recent status update prior to receiving a call, and There is a lot of info that FB fills in for me.
Copy down all the FB info, and fill it in manually. With Google Contacts not being the best contact manager (I'm very OCD about uniformity in the way things are formatted), I really don't want to do this.
So I figure I need a new contact manager. I tried AContacts, and it crashed every time I tried to edit a contact.
I would love something like the HTC one that comes with WinMo, or maybe even the iPhone one.
I would be willing to pay for this.
P.S.
I'm now rooted and running a custom ROM (zapX I think it's called). I'm loving my phone much more now. My battery life has skyrocketed, and my performance is amazing now. Very iPhone smooth (one thing I was always jealous of, and I hate the iPhone).
[SOLVED]
I recently updated to 3.1 on my Iconia, and it seems like when I click the clock/network menu in the toolbar and then exit that to the home screen, the tablet hangs for about a second until it responds. Did something go wrong during the update? I can confirm that I do not have a lot running in the background.
I just tried a factory reset and am applying the update that way. I have a feeling that the rooting I did before the update may have been the cause. I'll report my findings.
Edit: I did the factory reset and things appeared to be snappier than before. Then I was asked to do a smaller update, and upon rebooting, I experienced the same slowness as before. Very strange!
Without knowing what applications you had installed or widgets you had running on your screens, it's impossible to point fingers at anything.
While it is possible that something may have gone wrong with the update, if that was the case it usually leads to a catastrophic failure. Normally the update installs fine, it justy ruins the experience by way of improper coding/handling.
With 3.1, being a (albeit relatively speaking) big update, (read: not major) it could just be that you had an app or widget that wasn't handling the environment very well to begin with and after the update, it got worse.
However, I will admit, the homescreen seem do get refreshed (out of an app) far too often - that is to say - when you leave an intensive application (one with hooks into many resources) and land back at the homescreen, all those widgets etc that may have had their UI's unloaded, now have to restart/refresh.
gammaRascal said:
Without knowing what applications you had installed or widgets you had running on your screens, it's impossible to point fingers at anything.
While it is possible that something may have gone wrong with the update, if that was the case it usually leads to a catastrophic failure. Normally the update installs fine, it justy ruins the experience by way of improper coding/handling.
With 3.1, being a (albeit relatively speaking) big update, (read: not major) it could just be that you had an app or widget that wasn't handling the environment very well to begin with and after the update, it got worse.
However, I will admit, the homescreen seem do get refreshed (out of an app) far too often - that is to say - when you leave an intensive application (one with hooks into many resources) and land back at the homescreen, all those widgets etc that may have had their UI's unloaded, now have to restart/refresh.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, there's no telling. I didn't have a lot of info on, so I just did a system restore and things are super snappy again.
Another strange discovery: it seems that the tablet is more responsive in a certain landscape position as opposed to the portrait view. Also very strange.
It's always been like that.
gammaRascal said:
It's always been like that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah ok, sorry I didn't pick that up earlier. Thank you for your help!
A weird thing has been happening to my S5 since I got it, both before and after rooting. For some reason, not all widgets want to stick to my homescreen in the stock Samsung launcher. When I first got the phone, they all worked, as far as I could tell (I didn't investigate fully at the time, since I had no reason to suspect that they wouldn't work). After a little while, though, I found that I couldn't make Beautiful Widgets widgets stick. I long-pressed the homescreen, chose BW, selected a widget style/size, and customized it in the BW menu, just like it's supposed to work. But no widget appeared on the homescreen. What was weirder was that in the BW app itself, it listed my widget as working, even though it obviously wasn't. Uninstalling/reinstalling the app did nothing but clear the "existing" widget I had created from the list within the app interface.
At first, I thought this problem was limited to BW, so I just got rid of it and decided to jump to another app, but then I found that HD widgets didn't work, and another similar clock/weather-style widget group wouldn't work. Thinking maybe I had created some sort of data corruption, I did a factory reset, which worked for a while, but eventually the widgets stopped working again. After rooting, and finding that the problem still existed, I factory reset again, and started putting my apps back on one at a time, testing to see if it was a conflicting app causing the problem. No luck. The widgets worked until some random time when they simply no longer would.
I finally resolved to go without this kind of widget, since it wasn't a necessity, just a convenience. The problem is that I've now noticed that other kinds of widgets aren't working, either, including some that I'd really like to have work, like the Tasker timer widget.
Has anyone else noticed this problem occurring on their Verizon S5s? I'm going to look into which widgets actually still work (because some do), and which don't, and compile a spreadsheet, see if I can come up with a reason. I doubt I'll be successful, but it might be useful for other people who actually know how to fix things.
PS. Another weird thing is that the widgets stick to Nova Launcher homescreens just fine. Now, that would be okay, except that I want to do some theming now that we can flash some ROMs, and I thought that theming only applies to the stock launcher. Plus, I'm guessing that this isn't normal behavior and I do want to find out why it's happening, not just use a workaround.
After some more digging, I've found that, with only a few exceptions, the widgets that require some sort of customization before placement on the homescreen are the ones that don't work. All widgets that are simply "click-and-drop" work fine. But, if I click a widget and it opens up a configuration page, 9 times out 10 no widget will appear on the homescreen after the configuration.
It doesn't seem to matter what size the widget is, whether the widget's app is stock or third-party, or if it is solo on the widget page or part of a group of widgets from the same app.
Plus, there are some exceptions to this, such as Google Play widgets, Mint, and Email Me Pro. Others work sometimes, depending on what configuration you apply to the widget. For example, the stock Picture Frame widget works when you shuffle the pictures, and doesn't when you choose where to draw pictures from.
Very strange. I'm thinking my only course of action might be to go nuclear and flash a completely different stock image onto my phone through Odin. I downloaded one from this post: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53437805&postcount=1289. If I'm correct, this tar image should be exactly the same as the one that was on my phone from the factory, presumably minus whatever problem mine currently has. We'll see how it goes, I guess.
Okay, so flashed the tar image through Odin, reloaded some stuff without rooting (yet), and everything seems to be going fine so far. I'm pretty sure that by this point in my previous experiment, the widgets had stopped working. I think it must have been some sort of corrupted file deep inside my system that isn't there now.