(Concept) Seamless homescreen replacer - Android Software Development

I have a concept homescreen replacer where there are no "pages", instead there is one single horizontal scrolling strip, much like a film strip. Think Windows Phone 7, but with widgets, icons, folders etc and horizontal.
Look at the attachment if you dont understand. I would put the image in the post but I cant post outside links yet.
Yes, it is possible to see half a widget, but I thought about it and decided it will be to the user to scroll so it is displayed right.
I have no experience in coding but I am pretty good in graphics like my picture
Tell me what you think

I've been thinking about and attempting to create (with limited success so far.) something similar to your home replacement but Vertical Scroll rather than horizontal. To give you an idea it would look similar to The Zune Launcher or the but also be able to take widgets. Again no snap to screen (cant figure that bit out).
Good luck with this, it would be interesting to see what experiences you gain and what problems you run into. Similar to you I am fantastic with graphics but not too good at coding (not done any since C++)

When I "jailbroke" my ipod ages ago, there was a tweak that was called "smooth scrolling" and it did the exact same thing described here. I think it would be awesome to have a free-scrolling home screen. I am working on a home replacement myself and it features a vertically scrolling home screen where the icons and widgets can be placed anywhere (not snap to a grid). If you would like to help, click on the logo in my signature to be taken to my site to see what I am working on. I could use a hand in graphics, myself. PM me if you're interested

I would prefer something that is like infiniboard for iOS

This would technically allow widgets to stretch past the 1 page limit in LauncherPro, as in, you could have widgets large enough that they cut off, allowing for some GREAT theming and future uses.

hmmm....interested but why vertical? feels a little to Windows Phone to me and i think widgets would work better scrolling horizontally. I looked up smooth scrolling for iOS and yep thats what i want with widgets and gridless.

I just want to subscribe to this and give my two cents:
I think any seamless homescreen app should still have the option at least of enabling a grid for apps and widgets. The idea of this as a functioning homescreen replacement could certainly get me to switch over from ADW, but only if it could satisfy my OCD needs for everything to be lined up juuuust so.

I think this would be a great thing to have, but I also would like to have an option for the widgets & apps to line up on a grid. while it is great to have the seamless scrolling (preferably horizontal & not vertical...maybe there could be an option for that as well) I like things to line up too.

I could definitely make that an option for my home-replacement. I just want to know what people would want out of a home replacement so that I can model mine around the general consensus of what everybody wants. Oh, and why does everybody want vertical scrolling? Because its different. Sure Windows phone 7 has it. But it does it in its own way. Android is know for its open-ness and widgets. The wonder of Android is that anyone can do anything with Android, and its free.

At first I want to say that the idea of a seamless lauchner is brilliant.
I had that idea by myself but I have no experience in programming.
I think I would prefer somewalls original concept with icons that fit into a grid and horizontal scrolling. To me it seems to be more useful on portrait format screens compared to vertical scrolling.
But anyway, I hope the best for you guys.

I think vertically scrolling widgets will work buggy this way. Unless there would be some kind of listener that stops the horizontal scrolling when interacting with a vertically scrolling widget.
Else both ways of scrolling will interfere.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

I like the idea, it's something that I would love to have on my phone! Just one suggestion.. I would like to see both horizontal and vertical scrolling, if it could be developed. As in, the user decides what kind of scrolling he wants, either vertical, horizontal.. or may be both? I don't if it's possible or not, I have no "serious" coding experience, as you may call it since am just in school!

Related

[Idea] - LensLauncher

Maybe superfluous, but this is an idea I had for a launcher. This is inspired by the lens-eye feature from the excellent Comic Reader Mobile found on this forum.
- First picture shows standard launcher screen with lots and lots of really small icons. Small enough that hopefully all your programs fit on this screen.
- Second picture shows screen-area that is pressed.
- Third picture shows a lens that enlarges the icons close to where has been pressed.
This way any program in this launcher is 2 quick presses away. No more scrolling, no more having to leave icons out of a category because of space constraints.
Is this worthwhile?
If you want my opinion I think your idea is fast to launch items but slow to find them. I know that after some time playing with it, if you already know where it is you will launch it fast but....
I have another proposal for you . For my app I've done a couple of widgets that I call Bubbles (see attachment). The "flower" is initially closed and if you hold your finger in the middle it opens showing the icons surrounding, then draging your finger and releasing it over the desired icon you launch the app. thsi way if you are capable of grouping the apps into categories (grames, programs, comm, profiles, etc) you can access all those options with only one tap & hold .
I liked it, maybe a round lens with an animation will be more attractive
..sure, with dx 10 effects for your htc phones.
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nice idea, sunra, but menus seems generally better, than today launchers...like quickmenu i.e...
Th3Hunter said:
I liked it, maybe a round lens with an animation will be more attractive
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Click to collapse
Haha, it is certainly not meant to look like this! I had the look and feeling of the lens system of Comic Reader in mind.
APBilbo, your system is really nice. Our systems look alike. I want to ask you if you have any programs where you're not sure in what category you like to place them?
Nothin, could you explain why menu's seem better to you?
it is hard to explain - quick menu revised my today plugins, so i do not need to waste today space, menu is fast method with small mem usage.
i know, htc is promoting its ****ty stuff and many users got it, but there are other options, luckily....
i like claunch, tho(tap on empty space shuffles to next hm, tab"..).
claunch is nice but...
a programm launcher like the scrollbar in manila would be nice... as homeplugin...
it would be nice ... because you can insert lot of programs
8x8 icons with claunch(as line with 18 px height) is not enough?
i said, that i am using many tabs in that 1 line - tap on EMPTY space moves to another one, do i need to see ALL icons at once?
nope.
my rom contains ~60-70 applications i've added to rom, besides system ones, you know
end of OT.
keep loving your manila's, guys...
ehhh.
It's called a ZUI my friend, a Zooming User Interface
To be honest, I like it, but I think only one level of zoom should be required. Too many clicks otherwise.
Chuck in some decent kinetic scrolling for if there were too many items to fit on the screen, and you're on to a winner!
Might have a look-see to see how hard she'll be to whip up a prototype...
Rl Today
here iz my rl today setup hope u like it
Rl today
heres more

stock launcher home screen rotation?

does anyone know if there is a way to get the stock launcher home screen to rotate to landscape mode? i have spare parts installed and couldnt find a way to enable it. i didnt want to use another launcher just for this, i would love the landscape mode for tv out (yes phone is rooted) help muh help muh
There's no way to get the homescreen to rotate unless you download launchers such as launcher pro or adw.
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant
Tairen said:
There's no way to get the homescreen to rotate unless you download launchers such as launcher pro or adw.
Sent from my Samsung Vibrant
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm i guess ill have to go with another launcher, thanks!
the captive has the home screen rotation?
When I launch avatar it automatically rotates the screen and then stays that way to display the drm warning. Not really a fix, more of a bug you could take advantage of of you just want it rotated for games. As a real solution I would recommend launcher pro.
Sent from my Vibrant
How does one benefit from swiping through their home screens in landscape mode?
Another thing that proves people like what they like. I hate my homescreen to rotate. I use LauncherPro and disabled it.
^ that could have been my post exactly.
To each his own, I guess. This really bothered me, so I started using Launcherpro and can't see myself going back...Touchwiz is pretty good, but coming from my G1 running CM6, it made me feel too locked down.
flying_squirrel42 said:
To each his own, I guess. This really bothered me, so I started using Launcherpro and can't see myself going back...Touchwiz is pretty good, but coming from my G1 running CM6, it made me feel too locked down.
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Technically speaking, TouchWiz changes much more than just the launcher and home screen.
Using a custom launcher only overwrites the TouchWiz launcher, it doesn't remove TouchWiz altogether.
Honestly I really like the fact that the home screen does not rotate. It was one thing that used to drive me a little bonkers with some of the G1 builds. Do I flip it left or do I flip it down.
Of course that was just my opinion of course.
Well, for me personally it would be nice if it rotated while I have it sitting on my desk dock. That would be about the only time I would want it to.
HOME screen Rotation
I am running froyo Jpm on the S and I am really missing the HOME screen rotation, Really. And was hoping and hoping with all my heart that someone from xda dev could come up with a home screen rotation fix.. If someone has please point me in the right direction and also one more thing Home Screen rotation Rocks!haha. And it should be there when you wont it.. So please help us home screen rotation Lovers. Thanks
Reason to have landscape.
I have a phone case that has a kickstand allowing for my phone to be set long ways (on its left hand side, so the cable is coming out of the left at the bottom of the phone) because when I stand it up and plug it in it jsut falls over all the time. (The USB cable that came with the phone is REALLY stiff, compared to the MTS3GSlide/Cliq/G1) So it would be really nice if it would go to landscape mode allowing for horizontal scrolling across screens ( I guess that the widgets would also have to be able to handle on the fly the switch betweens[ can that even work?] or be removed) And also have the status bar be across the top (like normal) while it sets sideways. I mean most of the games, video players etc already auto switch to landscape so you can have the width to handle the frames anyway. And so that when my phone is on its side (which is roughly 9 hrs/day minus lunch and smoke breaks) I can still read the stuff properly. I guess that the pulldown on the status bar would also have to work and so on. I wish I knew enough programming to make this happen myself. But that is the ONE biggest thing I miss the most about the G1, landscape homescreens. I'd seriously take that over a lag fix any day.

Resolution tweak?

Has anybody messed with the lcd density in their build.prop folder? I saw this thread, http://androidforums.com/eris-all-things-root/164880-froyo-resolution-tweak.html, over at androidforums and was wondering if anybody else has tried this?
ill try it out right now sec
EDIT: yeah it does work, it increases the resolution size thereby making things smaller on your screen proportionally. our screens are rather tiny anyway though.
i tried it out at a ridiculous 130 which made things super small i may try out 140 for giggles. it does make things harder to use (and read) considering the size of screen objects is responsible for more than legibility like a desktop (a caveat of touch screens -- ease of use and interaction is based on ability to easily touch objects in the ui. make them too small and you lose a bit of your ease of use).
either way, its a neat little thing to mess with if you'd like to see what other res may look like on your eris' screen.
RE-edit: 140 is fine w/ launcher pro and icon drawing but it makes certain things super blurry or misaligned so you're not really getting the proper res up/down effect. google reader @ 140 renders horribly so the problem goes a bit beyond color banding like the original post over there says. going the other way to 165 also blurs stuff up. It's probably because our ui elements aren't necessarily vector or anything like that. mostly they are pngs which this density setting appears to resize on the fly causing some nasty image quality degradation. im sure someone else could chime in on this w/ a bit more knowledge. purely conjecture
Eh, dirty hack. I use more icons widget so I have tons of free space. It makes widgets weird too.
However I am really interested in that game he posted a screeny of.
Anyone?
Hungry Man said:
However I am really interested in that game he posted a screeny of.
Anyone?
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That game is Galcon... I'm addicted to it. Been playing the flash version on the web for a year or more now. It was only on iphone until about last month.
Thanks for the great tip. Perfect for internet browsing.
by the way, if you use this in sense the buttons at the bottom become unaligned and text under widgets and icons move. From what I've seen it works perfect in launcherpro.
homewmt said:
Thanks for the great tip. Perfect for internet browsing.
by the way, if you use this in sense the buttons at the bottom become unaligned and text under widgets and icons move. From what I've seen it works perfect in launcherpro.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes, it works great in launcher pro, expect if you use folders. When you try to open a folder it crashes. ADW doesn't have this issue with its folders.. but not a big deal otherwise.

Write your review of ICS

I want to read your review of ICS on your Iconia. What do you like, what you think is lacking and should have been different as compared to HC. Positive and negative reviews are important so don't feel like you only have to pick just what you like or what is wrong with it. Write it all. Your first impressions and if you want, a followup later - once you've had some time with it.
I'd like to ask that you put some thought into it. Not that it has to be long but no single sentences. I'll just get a mod to clean the thread of them.
I'll get the ball rolling:
I went ahead and installed and can report no issues so far. A couple of things though.
After it booted [after the install] it wouldn't connect to the network automatically - I had to manually tell it to connect, though it still had the credentials and has since connected fine upon multiple reboots.
The browser bookmarks synced automatically. My problem was with HC - for the life of me it wouldn't sync my browser - all my other computers synced up fine with my primary and I tried everything I could to get it to sync with HC but it wouldn't and that was from a fresh reset a few weeks ago. After rebooting into ICS I found all my bookmarks synced up quickly so I'm happy again.
No screen issues and it's far more snappier than it was on fresh vanilla HC. To be fair, I reset a few weeks ago and only installed about 5 apps - aldiko, dropbox, docs etc... the basics. Even vanilla HC was a bit of a bear sometimes but ICS is not.
No more stuttering when swiping through homescreen in orientations other than normal which is great to see.
I much prefer the new app drawer. It's a much more unified experience and swiping is so snappy! That's is the biggest things for me. But it's also nice to see a clean area. The HC apps/widget/wallpaper nightmare was just that. Not in terms of navigation, it just looked fugly and dropped me out of the whole HC look. Now it's far more complimentary to the ICS experience.
The whole swiping apps/notifications features is nice but I'm not sure it's really doing anything. I opened Gmaps and saw it listed in the running apps list in Settings - went to the homescreen - opened up the recent list and swiped Gmaps out - went back to settings>apps and it was still present. It wasn't a solid test, to be sure, but I'm not sure how significant the swipe to remove tasks is and whether it is actually meant to kills tasks or just remove them from the list. [confusion on my part] Second to that, I'm pretty ambivalent about the swiping notifications feature - an X to press, a tab to swipe - it's all the same and neither adds to or takes away from that basic function.
I could care less about the ring and I haven't read anywhere that we were suppose to get it at all so it's no surprise to me to not see it. Same with face-unlock. It's not something I would use.
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Looking good so far.
Since the update I have been testing all of my apps. So far all are working correctly. I was disappointed that I lost root, however that was an easy fix. I searched the forum and found an easy way to get full root. Had a few hickups at first with the browser and network connections, but they seemed to correct themselves as the day progressed.
Overall I am very happy.
nishka256 said:
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen flickering is what I am also experiencing quite a lot with ICS. With honeycomb, that was never an issue but a lot of apps make the screen flicker in ICS. For me, the stock browser and scrolling is blazing fast with ICS. It had a bit of lag when on honeycomb. Also, I just tried uninstalling zinio and I was able to. Couldn't do the same with tegra games, however, though!
So far I am really liking ICS but there are definitely a few issues that need to be worked on. The update process in itself was not smooth. I had to try 4 times, reboot and even factory reset before I was able to update the tablet to ICS.
Overall, I am having mixed reviews.
I had no problems downloading or updating. I just don't see much difference from honeycomb. I can now use some ics only apps, so that's ok. Switching home screens seems to have less lag. I guess I just expected more from this update.
Overall I guess it is nice to be up to date but it still feels llike the same old tablet.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
ICS + A500 : Home Screen Long Press Disaster
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
So far, so good. I never expected the Ultimate Tablet Nirvana from ICS... just incremental improvements. The A500 is smoother and more responsive. I really like the new media player, especially the row of movies/clip thumbs, etc at the bottom. Chrome is a big thing. I've used about every browser out there and was never fully satisfied with any of them. Chrome, for the first time, gives a desktop experience on a tablet. That alone makes the ICS upgrade worthwhile.
On a side note, my 64gb micro-sdxc card arrived the same day I updated, so that's another nice In Your Face to the iPad rabble out there. 80gb of storage.
idroids said:
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to realize that ICS is written for use on phones and tablets, not just tablets. The old way may have been quicker on tablets but wouldn't be very useful for phones (and their much smaller screens). It was a necessary sacrifice.
I personally don't have an issue with the new way, just because I'm not adding 10 apps or widgets to a screen anyway and I don't find the movements that time consuming vs. the old way. If I WERE adding lots of apps or widgets to a screen then I suppose I'd agree completely. I however prefer the widgets in a bigger area instead of having to scroll forever through them, in fact to me it seems a better trade off for the widgets.
ICS appears to be more polished than hc when it came out. Hc 3.0.1 was not a refined experience. There will be some changes when 4.0.4 is pushed, but it is enough to prevent me from going out and purchasing the next new tablet.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
The Good:
Everything is more responsive, period. Moving around is quicker, switching home screens is quicker, moving through apps and widgets is quicker. Not that the A500 was slow before, but it had its hiccups. This gives the tablet new life, imo - it really feels like a different piece of hardware.
The interface is more streamlined. I've never been into form over function, but in this case everything works well together. Many apps now written for ICS fit in with the whole scheme of things which creates a more uniform experience and aesthetic. Many ICS App widgets now allow you to choose either their default or black, which fits in with the ICS color scheme.
Some, dare I say most? video issues seem to have been addressed as I can play files I'd needed to use 3rd party apps to play on the included player now. Flash also seems more fluid.
Notifications are easily closed (with one X vs. many).
Widgets are laid out in a drawer vs. scroll bar making it much better and easier (for some) to go through and add them to screens.
Settings have been improved; for example, there's now a setting to see the data apps use, factory reset is now under a more obvious tab and other settings are found more easily as well.
Booting is fairly quick vs. Honeycomb. Seems to boot in under a minute no matter how many apps are installed. Booting is generally fast based on the amt. of apps that are installed, but I seemed to boot in roughly the same time before installing apps as after installing over 200 of them.
Some of the new features are nice, the screenshot ability is definitely welcome and swiping away apps is also great. Note: some apps will never fully close as they use services that run in the background.
The Bad:
Some users preferred the long press, split screen and 1-click adding of apps and widgets to the home screen vs. the App Drawer approach. I am inclined to agree that this method can be faster for adding multiple app icons and widgets to the home screens.
The Ugly: (bugs?)
The native browser still doesn't seem to be able to handle encrypted content from Google Chrome, and so the native browser cannot be synced with a Google Account which has had its content encrypted. It can only handle accounts with their passwords encrypted (which is the default).
How I see it is, if Chrome Beta can handle it, I don't see why there wasn't a setting added to the native ICS Browser to allow for it. To me, this doesn't make sense. Perhaps I'm just missing something.
***At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates (apparently).
Will append to list as I come across stuff.
***Update: This doesn't seem to be specific to ICS. After further investigation it seems this WAS caused by something on Acer's end (as of 4/29/2012, updated 5/22/2012).
UPDATE:
As of 5/22/2012 I have not been having/seeing any issues. I have noticed that when the tablet is extremely low on power (under 10% or so) it turns the wifi off when sleeping, even though I've set it to never turn wifi off. I'm not certain if this is a bug or working as intended in ICS as some power saving feature. This never, ever happens when the tablet is on A/C power or docked. When I wake the tablet, wifi is connected to automatically. I'm personally happy that it does this, but I can see it being a problem for some people...so I don't really want to file this under bug/issues.
Neoprimal said:
At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm betting this is simply they message they're sending because their servers are being overloaded from the ICS push.
Why ICS for Tablets AND Phones?
Taking the split screen feature away from my A500 is like taking my steering wheel and my automatic transmissions away from my car! Argggghhh!
Cutting corners on an OS so that it works exactly the same on phones and tablets makes about as much sense as saying that the engines used on a 2-seater plane, in a jet fighter, and in a 747 should all work the same so as to give the passengers the same experience. That is "plane" old silly. What is even SILLIER is to insist on putting a plush airliner seat into a 2 passenger plane or to insist on keeping a propeller on jumbo 747s.
I totally get that the split screen (showing ALL the home screens at once above and the Apps and the Widgets below) would not work well on an small phone but why should it since it's NOT designed for a small screen? Why do tablet users have to put up with taking 3 steps backward just so that phone users can take 3 steps forward.
Tablet users should simply be given the choice to customize their experience so that they can take advantage of the extra real estate on their screens instead of being forced to put up with restrictive aspects of an OS that is trying to be everything to everyone. Sure ICS is a big improvement on Honeycomb, but why did some aspects of its OS have to be amputated simply to satisfy some designer's need to have a single OS for 2 VERY different gadgets?
So PLEASE, when the next version of ICS comes out PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEASSSEEE give us tablet users the split screen again through the long tap on the Home Screens! Think about it! How often are you going to change your background? Making the long tap lead ONLY to the background change screen is such a WASTE of a unique gesture!
Well if you absolutely want long press to open drawer, try Apex launcher, it's based on ICS launcher but there's an option for binding long press/double tap to any function of the launcher. There is many more options that should suits you. Nova launcher is another alternative you can try.
Positives
A couple of the things I noticed right off is that when recording you don't get the terrible background noise you always seemed to get on hc supports avi video format now which I was happy with and the camera and video app seem to be recording at better detail not sure if its me or my cam? The browser is also blazing fast for me now. Layout is also crisp and clean the ring is useful makes taking screenshots a snap.
Negatives...have noticed some apps cause terrible lag for me there was also a lot of lag and freezing the first couple of hours I had the update. Also sometimes the screen flickers stated above ^^^^ none of these are big issues and shouldn't keep you from updating to enjoy
I had a lot of issues with the ICS update. I finally had to do a factory reset. Some issues were solved, but others remain:
Seems to be solved:
- Unstable applications (flashing and crashing, including Gmail).
- Unstable folders (flashing, crashing and all icons on the desktop disappearing).
Unsolved:
- Wifi is unstable and does not auto-connect (I have to connect manually when I restart the tablet or when I get home... it was working fine before ICS).
- The GPS does not work (I am not sure if it was working before ICS... as I had not had the time to test, so maybe it is not new).
- System update does not work (indicates that network coverage is insufficient despite the signal being strong and staying beside the wireless router).
ICS = bitter pill to swallow!
Well I learned the hard way that I shouldn't have jumped on the ICS bandwagon too early!
I cannot believe that in 2012 we have people designing MAJOR OS updates that have MAJOR problems and bugs!
Why not just wait another month or so and work out these major problems before unleashing ICS on everyone.
I mean didn't the ICS designer and programmers TEST ICS ON ALL TABLET AND PHONE platforms BEFORE releasing it to the world?
I'm going to milk my airplane analogy some more and say this:
Releasing ICS without having thoroughly tested it across ALL platforms is like building a plane and not knowing if it is designed well enough to fly at different altitudes and even worse not being sure it can actually land well in ALL major airports in the world in spite of different weather conditions.
Can you tell I am SICK of designers and programmers NOT having done their homework and using the general public to test their new OS for them?!
This HAS GOT to change!
I have one huge problem. In HC 3.2.1, when I press the volume button, it brought out the volume bar, and by taping the speaker icon, I can turn the volume to off, now it doesn't do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's really annoying to have to hold the volume button to turn off the sound.
One Giant bonus I like in ICS is you can make native folders without the need of a secondary app.
Having one strange flaw which is my tablet randomly vibrates for no apparent reason other than that so far so go and the whole UI just seems a bit smoother than it was before on HC. Browser seems Way more Responsive than HC as well.
I'm pretty happy with ICS but GPS is not working at all. I need to check the gps.conf but it was working on HC.
Best feature of ICS: Chrome browser.

Strange wallpaper issues on CM10.1

Hi all,
Sorry, I'm a long time reader, but new poster to the forums, so I cannot actually add this to the appropriate dev thread. I am having the same issue as described here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=41419120#post41419120
Unfortunately, the issue is a little bigger than just what is shown there, so I will be as specific as possible.
1. Using the Trebuchet launcher that comes with CM10.1, if I load a standard (non-live) wallpaper, while a standard wallpaper is currently being used, I get the results shown from the other post. If I select a live wallpaper first, and then select a standard wallpaper, it displays correctly. This would be sufficient enough work around, however, the working space in Trebuchet with the device in portrait does not resize properly, so there are huge gaps at the top and bottom of the homescreens that cannot have icons / widgets placed. This is a major usability issue.
2. Using a third party launcher, like Apex or Nova, the wallpapers always have the shown issue, however, they provide the full workspace for placing icons and widgets onto the device. Nova appears to behave a little better, but the visual layout makes things appear very phone like (icons appear somewhat magnified - not quite sure how to describe this, but I will try to get some screen captures to include here in the AM).
Overall the device behaves perfectly with these few exceptions. Unfortunately this is my wife's device, and she is less tolerant of finnicky behavior (she's been living with an iPhone for her last phone cycle, so is tired of the finnicky behavior). Unfortunately, the only response I've found to the previous poster was "Use a different launcher", so I'm hoping someone out there has some other ideas suggestions!
P.S. After doing a little further messing around, I downloaded a random large sized wallpaper image and tried using it - in Trebuchet, it appears to load correctly, as it does in Nova. In Apex, it almost looks right, but along the very bottom, there is a thin line, just a couple of pixels high, where you can see a very similar thing to what is shown in the other post, where it almost looks like part of the image is being duplicated and shifted to the right.

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