Database Users

New Android User Questions

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).

[Q] Help choosing a ROM

Hi Chaps,
I'm getting pretty fed up with crashes, performance and low space on my Orange Hero w/2.1, as well as still being miffed by Orange screwing up everything with their tinkering of 2.1, sooooo, I'm going to flash.
But, I need some help, 'cause I think I'm just getting too old for all this tinkering lark and I'm reading up on a lot of ROMS and just can't choose - I'm reading, but nothing is sinking in!
So, I like Sense, or at least I think I do. What I actually like is contacts / Facebook integration, 7 pages of home screen and the HTC weather clock and the weather animations when I unlock the phone. I like the threaded SMS.
I DON'T LIKE: Orange screwing up the speed dial widget, running out of space, the fact that the default camera apps photos have gone 'stripey' since 2.1, (other cam apps are fine). A lot of complete hangs and force closes, including lately, something.htc.bgp force closing several times a day.
I use GPS a lot (CoPilot, Cardio Trainer, Latitude, Maps) and listen to music. The std music player is average and slow, but has some good features (headphone out pause, album art, lock screen control).
So, a lot of requests there, but I think it boils down to me needing: performance, apps2SD and reliability, and compatibility with a wide range of apps. Root not essential, since I run all the apps I need to, but I guess it comes part and parcel with flashing a new ROM. I have already installed and rooted with universal Androot.
Any help for me?
Thanks,
Rich.

Hi there
If sense is a must, look at rcmix. 2.1 with sense.
If You would like to experiment a bit You can try some of the 2.2roms, ie floyo, villain 1.6 to name a few. But it is hard to find a good dialer, and Facebook integration is on much lower level than sense roms. They should be quicker, so depends on You hope this helps
Sent from my HTC Hero using XDA App

I'm not sure if Sense is a must actually... what does it give me? The 'skinned' buttons across the bottom of the screen i suppose (phone, apps and add), but there ae other apps that do this aren't there? (Launchers?). What else does sense actually do that I might miss if I don't have it?
Is Rcmix running android 2.1 as it's version number suggests? Is there nothing with 2.2 yet? I see Rcmix does appstoSD, and I think after the phone just running right, space is my next biggest issue, so I suppose it could keep me happy.

I extremely agree with you. You have just, like, took this out of my head and put it on the forums!
Except, for me, the most important thing is the facebook integration. Doesn't the actual Facebook app provide that outside of sense?
something.htc.bgp is the location service, I think. After that crashing, foursquare stops working properly. I can't live like this.

With the Facebook intergration, I just like the way my contacts show pics from Facebook, and I get the status updates from the contacts too.

I think I'm gonna try Cyanogen. It's the most popular, I don't think much can go wrong. Still, I'm massively scared, haha!

I agree RCMix along wit kimera2.1 are great choices wit flykernal 11c or bfs. Had both and rarely had issues. Biggest losses from not having sense is the weather clock and a decent dialer if u plan to try a 2.2 rom

This might seem biased, but if you try following the instructions from this thread you will end up with a very nice, speedy hero setup. It even has info in there of a very fast, usable dialler app, as well as an app to sync your facebook contact pics.
LauncherPro Plus has a Facebook stream widget built-in, and you can either use BeautifulWidgets or FancyWidget for the clock.
Should all be in the post! (Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it looks, and its a lot to read, but might be worth it for you).
Zeb

Well, I got Cyanogen Mod, and so far I'm very happy with it. Definitely will try out the widgets from above

Me too... went for Zebwen's suggestion above (Thanks!) and pretty happy with it. Took a bit of customisation to get it nice, but now I know how easy it is to flash, I'll probably try a few.
Am I right in thinking I can do as many Nandroid backups as I want, and later on, restore to any previous, full setup, including Apps and data?

Verified my own question on Nand backups.
I had a problem yesterday with the camera force closing... is this a known issue? Reboot seems to have cured it so far, but despite the rest of the ROM being fine, the camera does seem a bit 'iffy'. Exposure wouldn't adjust when using it with barcode scanner the other day.

Likes and Dislikes on Blur

I know a lot of people totally hate Blur. I just want to know what exactly do you guys like and don't like about it? I really don't like Blur too much, but it does have a lot of features I like. I personally like a little Blur in my ROMs.

The only thing I really liked about Blur was the change in appearance to the text message conversations. They were little bubbles, which I personally thought looked cleaner than the current text message style.
That, and also for some reason with the stock Blur on my phone, my D2 never made a noise when connecting to USB charging. Now that I have Fission ROM, it makes a notification noise every time.
Small things, and I'm much happier without any Blur.
These are the droids you are looking for

I love the dialer and the email client

I like the rich text in the email client. Unfortunately, the rest of the email client is awful. Unless I just didn't dig deep enough to find it, I couldn't find settings for update and notification for individual email accounts. So, I was stuck with the same polling schedule and notification scheme for all of my accounts. Also, I didn't like having text messages in the same interface as email. I understand that people may like that, and there are plenty of apps out there to do that. I don't want that to be the default behavior on my phone.
I really do like the text select. It's pretty smooth. From what I've seen, Gingerbread is using a pretty similar text-selection style. This is probably Blur's biggest (only?) real positive.
I despise the Facebook app. Or maybe it's the Accounts app. I only want to sync Facebook contacts that have a contact in one of my other accounts (gmail, corporate, etc.). So, I was stuck with all Facebook contacts even though I really only cared about 50 of 'em (Hey, I know I'm not the only one).
I do not like the accounts app. When attempting to set up an Exchange account, upon failure, I had no options. Under stock Android I have the option to modify some params - like the login domain (an essential change with my company's Exchange setup). With blur, I can't use my company email/calendar without some other app (like Touchdown). With stock android, it only takes a few seconds to update a connection param to something non-standard to get it working.
The worst thing about Blur is the set of services running on the device for the blur apps. They take up processor time and memory even when you're not using any blur widgets or blur applications.
The onscreen keyboard is slightly better than standard, but I've got a physical keyboard so I really don't use the onscreen one except for the most simple of inputs.
I don't like the image gallery. Lots of people seem to like this and I suppose I can understand. It's a good app, overall. I'm just used to the stock gallery.
And of course there's the bloat. Devices with Motublur come with a helluva lot of apps that I really have no desire to ever use, but there they are taking up space. In some cases, they run in the background sucking up memory. At the very least, they take up a MB or two that I could user for an app that I actually want.
So, overall, I really don't like Motoblur.
I really wish manufacturers/service providers would stick to base Android. If they really want to differentiate themselves via software I think they should have an installation package that would add their own apps (and/or replace default apps).
The hardware is great, but I really don't want those damned motoblur modifications. So, I'm glad that there are devs creating vanilla roms for moto devices.

I like the dialer and contacts apps a lot with blur. That's about it though. The bloatware and extra useless processes on it slows the phone down noticeable. Switching home screens is laggy and choppy with the blur launcher. I honestly don't need 50 widgets to see what everyone on facebook is doing seeing as how I'm not 14 years old.
And THANK GOD this phone doesn't have full blur or it would be so slow it would be unusable...
Sent from my Motorola Droid 2 with Fission 2.4.1

i like the social networking status widget. thats about it. lol

I love the resizable Blur widgets a lot, and I love the idea of linking different source of contacts. But I still have a lot to complain about the contact app:
* It mix social network with my contacts without clear visual clue, like colored tags, for me to distinguish them easily; (I withdraw this point now)
* It does not offer necessary filters like 'sort by family name' and 'hide contacts w/o phone number' ;
* It does not support non-english names as well as the stock app: for example, Chinese names are totally unordered;
* When sms is deleted, it's still in the contact's history, WTF!
If moto would fix theses small but fraustrating issues, I would love to use Blur-enhanced phone.
Sent from my MotoA953 using XDA App

Where are you guys getting that you can't hid fb contacts? Hit menu->show/hide->and the click your fb account and uncheck all contacts. It will hide any fb contact not linked to an already existing contact
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using XDA App

Likes: None
Dislikes: Everything

@Botnryan
Thanks, but I was trying to mean that tags should be used to give user a better clue when showing all contacts. Anyway I agree that's too picky, and I would withdraw that point.

botnryan said:
Where are you guys getting that you can't hid fb contacts? Hit menu->show/hide->and the click your fb account and uncheck all contacts. It will hide any fb contact not linked to an already existing contact
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where is that option? It was certainly not on the Facebook app on the D2G before I rooted and installed a vanilla rom.
I came from stock android on the original Droid to Motoblur on the D2G. Within the stock facebook app, under options, there's a simple selection about what you want to sync: all, only existing contacts, none. I assure you that these options do not exist in Motoblur. Now that I'm on the Fission 2.4.2 rom, I see the same old options and can sync contacts the way I want.

The biggest reason I removed it was battery life. My battery life is almost twice as good after removing blur. Although I did kinda like the launcher and the contacts, it wasn't worth my phone dying halfway through the day.
Oh and I almost forgot about the alarm! Oh how I miss how the alarm slowly got louder. It was awesome! I need to look for a new alarm app....
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

Putting blur on the phone is like putting a 500 pound man in a Ferrari.
You are not going anywhere with any sort of speed whatsoever.

zse45tgb said:
Where is that option? It was certainly not on the Facebook app on the D2G before I rooted and installed a vanilla rom.
I came from stock android on the original Droid to Motoblur on the D2G. Within the stock facebook app, under options, there's a simple selection about what you want to sync: all, only existing contacts, none. I assure you that these options do not exist in Motoblur. Now that I'm on the Fission 2.4.2 rom, I see the same old options and can sync contacts the way I want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not in fb app. In the contacts app..hit the menu soft key and then show/hide
Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using XDA App

blur is not so bad as features, but slows the phone down and uses a lot of cpu

ive not really had anything to compare it to but i dont have a problem with blur at the moment. ive dragged all the blur social widgets off of my homescreens as i dont use them. from the screenshots ive seen i actually prefer the green call button and blue contacts button over the standard android ones. the contacts app is nicely laid out, but dont know if thats motorola or just how it is anyway on android.
dont have a problem with the messaging app since ive got Handcent sms installed instead which is awesome and i cant recommend it high enough.
for peace of mind i would of liked to be able to uninstall the stock music player and other stuff i dont use.
also, if you dont want to use motoblur you dont have to sign up for the account. just hit the squares button and select Skip setup when you first set up your phone...
milestone 2.

I like the SMS app alot except no notifications when receiving MMS. Checked my settings and they are setup right so I just see it as one small flaw. Other than that blur can go away

If you've never experienced the phone without blur you wouldn't know you were missing anything. I mean they didn't put out an incomplete thing it's just not that efficient. That's why the Developers have made their stuff so that we can experience new software on the phones. I really like the speed of everything besides stock and the themes and animations make it all just click.

I don't mind Moto Blur. It doesn't have to be visible and some of the widgets are clean looking and ok well.
Count yourselves lucky you weren't a Xperia x10 owner like I was. You'd have a stupid timescape app that was poitnless compared to an app and it would automatically start up from time to time and your android version would be mutalated to the point where you expect features to be missing rather than included.
Moto Blur just need to suck less power that's all.
"Most truths were once deemed Blasphemy"

Blur eats resourses which drains the battery and it's laggy. You really need to try a Blur-free ROM just to see for yourself the difference in performance.
<insert plug for Fission here>
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App

From Sense to Stock

So I have had a HTC Sense phone since the beginning on my Android tenure. I haven't used pure stock Google too many times other than flashing here and there. Anyway, I am so used to some of the Sense additions that are either missing or I can't find in stock.
First, Sense links are contacts together for you and you can unlink if you need to. However, I know Facebook hasn't updated their API so you have to download a 3rd party app to sync photos. Also, I manually had to link/merge all my contacts which was a PITA and took forever. Is there a way to auto link contacts together in stock?
Secondly, I hooked into work email and the stock email app is not displaying HTML email. It does on Sense but I can't find any settings in stock email to enable HTML. What am I missing?
Those are the things that have stood out so far. I want to move to the Nexus line and thought a tablet would be a good start. Although a lot of people hate Sense I think it does a lot of things that stock does not. Plus, I really like the uniformity of widgets and it feels more polished. I know Google is getting there though.
Thanks all!

Westfire said:
So I have had a HTC Sense phone since the beginning on my Android tenure. I haven't used pure stock Google too many times other than flashing here and there. Anyway, I am so used to some of the Sense additions that are either missing or I can't find in stock.
First, Sense links are contacts together for you and you can unlink if you need to. However, I know Facebook hasn't updated their API so you have to download a 3rd party app to sync photos. Also, I manually had to link/merge all my contacts which was a PITA and took forever. Is there a way to auto link contacts together in stock?
Secondly, I hooked into work email and the stock email app is not displaying HTML email. It does on Sense but I can't find any settings in stock email to enable HTML. What am I missing?
Those are the things that have stood out so far. I want to move to the Nexus line and thought a tablet would be a good start. Although a lot of people hate Sense I think it does a lot of things that stock does not. Plus, I really like the uniformity of widgets and it feels more polished. I know Google is getting there though.
Thanks all!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm a pretty serious sense fan. I really enjoy modding and tweaking sense a lot. I just wanted to let you know that pretty much everything widget and app wise that sense can do, you can also get AOSP to do. But it does take a lot of reading on the forums, google searches, or talking to people who have been using AOSP for a long time to learn all of the tricks of the trade and what's possible.

[Q] Phone Setup Suggestions

Everyone should be getting their phone in the next few days. I am coming from iOS so I am not 100% sure about all of androids apps and features. I have spent a lot of time in the last month learning as much as I could about switching over but I would like to get some opinions from everyone. I hope this will also help any other novice users get the most out of the note 3.
1. Are you going to use a launcher .. if so which one? why?
2. What apps will make using the note more enjoyable/easier?
3. What apps can I wow people with a demo of?
4. Any other general app recommendations?
5. What general settings should I initially use? or disable?
6. Anything I missed for a first time android user?

1) NEXT Launcher 3D
2) NEXT Launcher 3D
3) NEXT Launcher 3D's "Swing with Scroll" feature

Impuls3101 said:
Everyone should be getting their phone in the next few days. I am coming from iOS so I am not 100% sure about all of androids apps and features. I have spent a lot of time in the last month learning as much as I could about switching over but I would like to get some opinions from everyone. I hope this will also help any other novice users get the most out of the note 3.
1. Are you going to use a launcher .. if so which one? why?
2. What apps will make using the note more enjoyable/easier?
3. What apps can I wow people with a demo of?
4. Any other general app recommendations?
5. What general settings should I initially use? or disable?
6. Anything I missed for a first time android user?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welcome aboard! Here's the first thing you'll have to deal with: Size. The Note 3 (I have a Note 2) will seem huge and you may get buyer's remorse. Most of us do. It wears off in a couple of days, though and then you'll wonder how you dealt with such a small phone.
1. I use Apex launcher. Why do I use a launcher? Because I like to change the number of rows/columns from the standard setting. I also like to eliminate the Google search bar. And, I like using gestures to go to apps. I use swipe-up for Google Now and swipe-down for notification shade. Why do I use Apex instead of others? No particular reason but it seemed to have the most available features for a free version at the time. I have since paid for it.
2, There are a bazillion apps. But, coming from the iPhone I would first experiment with keyboard replacements. Why? Because you can and the iphone users can't. Try Swype or Swiftkey. Swiftkey is amazing at guessing what your next word will be. Most of all, get used to swiping instead of typing. Once you get good at it it's MUCH faster than typing. Then show that off to your iPhone buddies and say, "Take that!"
3. If you really want to dazzle people with your new phone find a high def YouTube video (the Vevo ones are good). Playing a beautiful video on a large screen has some really powerful WOW! factor.
4. Some apps I use a lot:
Color Note - A great note and checklist app that syncs via the cloud.
Chrome Beta
Flixter for getting movie times and watching trailers
Gas Buddy to find cheap gasoline
Amazon App store. A free app every day. You have to side load it, it's not in the Play Store.
Droid of the Day - A new app suggestion every day
Timely - One of the most beautiful alarm clock apps. It also syncs with all your devices
The usual apps: Netflix, Pandora, Watch ESPN, HBO Go, Dropbox, et al.
5. I turn off Auto display brightness. I leave my Note 2 at full brightness all the time. The battery can handle this just fine.
I leave GPS, Wifi, and NFC on all the time.
Make sure you setup Google+ to automatically upload your photos
6. Don't go too crazy downloading apps. You may find your battery suddenly draining too fast. If you don't like or use an app delete it immediately so it won't eat battery.
Good luck and have fun.

Impuls3101 said:
1. Are you going to use a launcher .. if so which one? why?
?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nova Prime because it is better than TW in every way.

Ok I will answer some of my own questions from using the device the last 10 or so hours I hope this helps someone else. Please add suggestions because I am still getting used to everything.
1. Nova launcher seems to be easier to use because it takes all ur tw settings and imports them. It makes it easy to switch between the two. I like the tw weather widget better though
2. -I still need to find a good email client that syncs the few accounts that I have together. I haven't looked into this yet.
-Equalizer is a really good app to put more bass or customize the sound of your music.
-Adblock plus is really nice to have while browsing the internet .. I always hated that I couldn't use it on the iphone.
-The adapt sound settings helped make my headphones sound a little better. I use an aux in on my car so it kind of sucks that they don't have profiles for different sources.
3. -Next Launcher is really nice to show people but I don't know if I could use it everyday and its 3x the price of other launchers.
-Real Racing 3 is a nice demo game but good old angry birds star wars 2 probably looks the best and it has a note 3 achievement
-slow mo camera is really nice but anything less than 1/2 speed and the image starts to look very grainy .. 4k really has a wow factor even on the 1080p screen.
4. Sketchbook for Galaxy is a lot of fun to draw in with the s-pen.
5. -I followed this guide for disabling some of the bloatware: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2478448
-I also disabled most of the air hover features because they are nice for demoing the device to someone but I probably won't use them. Plus I wear glasses and it doesn't seem to detect my eyes very well.
-People are reporting poor wifi and one of the settings suggested is to turn off network auto connect.. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2472779 .. I experienced the problem but reset my router and it seems fine now.. not sure if its a software glitch or what.
6. -Here is a useful guide on how to transfer your contacts : http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/transfer-iphone-contact-to-android/
-The only thing I am missing from iOS are the nice lock screen notifications. If anyone has a suggestion please let me know

Impuls3101 said:
Everyone should be getting their phone in the next few days. I am coming from iOS so I am not 100% sure about all of androids apps and features. I have spent a lot of time in the last month learning as much as I could about switching over but I would like to get some opinions from everyone. I hope this will also help any other novice users get the most out of the note 3.
1. Are you going to use a launcher .. if so which one? why?
2. What apps will make using the note more enjoyable/easier?
3. What apps can I wow people with a demo of?
4. Any other general app recommendations?
5. What general settings should I initially use? or disable?
6. Anything I missed for a first time android user?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. I have been using Nova for a while on my Galaxy Nexus, and use it on my N3 now too. It's not too bloated, allows custom number of icons per row/column, gestures, and resize all widgets. I used to use Apex, and that was really good too, but I switched a while ago to Nova because there was some feature Apex didn't have, though honestly I don't remember what now, and they may very well have added it.
2. SketchBook Mobile by Autodesk (makers of AutoCAD and Inventor, among many other engineering-oriented programs) is kind of cool, it's a sketch program that you can do a lot with, and works well with the stylus. Not the most useful app, per se, but a fun "proof of concept" if you will, and it's free. I believe there's more options than the built in equivalent, though I haven't used either a ton yet.
3. Any high def media will look awesome. Show them Netflix streaming, or as someone else said, HD Youtube, or any other HD video. Even pictures taken with the camera look great, simply because of the huge high res screen. Pictures taken with the phone probably would look even better on the screen than ones taken with another phone with a better camera but worse screen, because it's still small enough to cover up minor imperfections, but big and crisp enough to really look amazing.
4. For a music player, I like PowerAmp. It's got a really good equalizer, and a ton of settings to play with. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the interface, but it's not awful. You can also customize the widget as much as you want, in terms of colors, fonts, transparency, buttons, size, what's displayed, etc.
I also use UberSync for Facebook, which lets you use sync HD pictures from facebook as contact photos. You can also import birthdays into your calendar, if you want, and some other info from people's profiles. You can choose what resolution to use, how often to sync, and only use wi-fi if you want.
5. I turned off all of the Smart features and that kind of thing. I don't want to control my phone with my eyes or hand gestures, I want to use it with my hands or S Pen. Of course that's fully a matter of preference. Also I noticed that the setting to alert you if you walk away without putting the S Pen back in is disabled by default, so I enabled that. I still worry I'm going to lose it sometime, but that's just because I'm forgetful.

Impuls3101 said:
-Adblock plus is really nice to have while browsing the internet .. I always hated that I couldn't use it on the iphone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How are you using Adblock without root??

jmorton10 said:
How are you using Adblock without root??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using Firefox with the adblock plugin and its working great. Firefox now flies on this phone.:good: