Android Frustration/Hatred Brewing

[flywithsean]

The point of this post is asking for help not to start a war of which is better. Please understand this and don't start a fanboy measuring contest over my post. I have an Android so I have joined the family. Welcome me in and make me feel at home!!

Ok so here is the story. Last week I got laid off from work (sucks ass) but when I did I had to return my company iPhone and iPad. Kind of a shock those few hours without any smartphone of any kind. I went to AT&T and got a Galaxy Note. I chose the Note because I seriously have had it with the small screen of the iPhone. My eyes just don't want it. First impressions are that I was happy with the Note. I will never use the pen but the screen size is great.

Here is where all of you come in. I will share a list of my issues and see if there is anything that can be done to fix them. Understand that I have had each iPhone since they came out generally on the first day. I am not an isheep so refrain from all the hating. I do recognize the increases Google and Samsung has taken and thats why I have an Android.

Text Messages - The stock text message app blows. I have since downloaded GoSMS Pro. I like it BUT why on the Android phones do I always receive pictures as a slide show? This is almost a complete deal breaker since it is so frustrating. I also hate that now that I have GoSMS I don't get a notification badge on the icon showing me how many text messages I have.

Email - Another stock app that totally blows. I am now using Aqua Mail and I actually like it quite well however I think the Gmail app is the only one with threaded messages. I really want that! Also same issue as texts with the badge on the icon. I like the at a glance option.

Laggy - Why is this thing so damn laggy? Do I just need to sack up and get a SIII? I play a lot of games and they just don't seem to be so great. No matter what I do I always seem to be about 2/3 memory used up with everything killed I can kill.

Camera - Is there no quick access to the camera on ICS? Once again do I need to sack up and get an SIII and wait for Jelly Bean?

Bloatware - This to me is unacceptable. There are so many damn apps on this thing that I can't get rid of. I know you can disable them but even some of them won't allow that.

Apps - This is a downside only time will fix> i love the fact that I can get all the emulators that you cant get on iOS however the number of quality games are seriously lagging behind iOS. Also why is Temple Run in the Amazon store and not the Play store?

Thats it for now help me out. I have about 16 days left to swap it for a different one if thats the verdict.

I want Android to work don't mistake my post

 

[wayneholbrook]

Goo post. I'm looking forward to someone who knows android that cloud answer. I also have an iPhone and I am bored as hell. I want to buy the note or the G3 this weekend but not sure which one to get. I'm also a bit nervous to take the android plunge but some of your questions if answered would help quite a bit. By the way, I did hear the K-9 mail app is a real good mail app for android.

 

[ferret141]

There are solutions to all your problems. Look around a bit more. For some you may have to root to get the best solution.

 

[chanchan05]

1. On Go SMS Pro, you can set which picture viewer you can use to view. Go to Go SMS Pro>Menu button>settings>advanced>application settings>use default picture viewer. This will use whatever your default picture viewer is to view pictures sent to you. Also for the badge on how many messages you received, go to Go SMS Pro>Menu>Settings>Notification Settings>put a check on "show unread count". You can slo change the icon of the notification bar here or set it to private mode so it only says "New Message" and doesn't reveal the contents of your message.

2. Threaded messages works for Gmail mainly because Gmail is itself threaded. You could try the native Yahoo/Hotmail or whatever domain you use if they have an email app.

3. Laggy depends on a lot of stuff. I have a Galaxy S (original first version) and its not laggy unless I try to play newer games. It is two years old and only has a single core processor so its understandable. Plus the fact that you are keeping on killing stuff makes it more laggy.
Android is Linux, and is designed to use as much memory as it can. The more memory used, the faster it is. The more you kill active running processes in the background, the more it slows down. Android registers your usage patterns as you use the phone, basically optimizing itself to be as fast as possible for your purposes. As you use apps, Android remembers which apps you opened most often and keep them cached on RAM. This allows Android to open them faster, but they aren't using any CPU cycles and thus negligible battery drain.
The problem comes when you start using task killers to kill apps and remove apps from cache. Task killers are there for the rogue app that stuck, not to tinker with normal running apps. Killing apps and clearing the RAM causes Android to think these apps crashed and would try to restart them. Thus what happens is, the more apps you kill, the more apps Android tries to restart, contributing to increased CPU load which causes the lag. I would advice you to just turn off the phone and remove the battery for 10min for Android to refresh (its still new anyway) for it to forget the erroneous usage pattern it remembered from you killing apps.

3. Camera - this is dependent on the lockscreen you use. You can just install a different lockscreen and have a camera shortcut on it. This is simply because when Android went into the OS race with Apple, it went for functionality first before the "convenience features" like camera on the lockscreen out of the box. However this can also be attributed to Samsung since HTC has had camera shortcuts on the lockscreen since like more than a year ago. Basically, you can just install a different lockscreen from the market so you can have a camera shortcut. The most customizeable is Widgetlocker, while one of the most popular and easy to use ones is GO Locker (same people who made GO SMS Pro). I use Grunge Fourkey theme on it, so I got a music, camera, sms and dialer shortcut on the lockscreen.

4. Bloatware - Its part and parcel of how carriers made their deals with Android manufacturers. Carriers are allowed to put whatever bloatware they want (sponsors etc) on phones they sell, since Android is open source and tinkering the OS is allowed for manufacturers and resellers.

5. Apps - Uh, Temple Run is in the Play Store. I have no idea what's the problem here. All major apps are in the Play Store. In fact, third party stores like the Amazon App Store have very few apps compared to the actual Play Store.

Here's the link to Temple Run from the Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...51bGwsMSwxLDEsImNvbS5pbWFuZ2kudGVtcGxlcnVuIl0.

 

[jerofld]

I can't tell you what would be better for you. I can tell you that the SGS3 does have the camera on unlock screen option. Either by placing a shortcut on the lockscreen or doing a special gesture to unlock directly to the camera. However, it also has that MMS bug. I think it's a Samsung thing and is easily fixed with Go SMS or using the stock MMS app. As a side note, the problem of appearing with a slideshow only appears when receiving MMS's from iPhones (in my experience, at least). I get MMS from other Android users without a problem.

Temple Run, and the disney version, are on the Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/search?q=temple+run

If it doesn't appear for the Note, it's because the developer hasn't flagged it working for the Note. Emailing them may make them add it for the Note.