First the quick introduction and hello. I'm a professional musician and long time Mac user who was recently swayed by Sony's Xperia S. As of today I have a contract with Three giving me unlimited data. I went for this contract since I often use my Macbook Pro in places where no wi-fi is available and have previously been using a Three dongle. The dongle was costing a reasonable amount a month so a mid contract upgrade which included a shiny new Sony Xperia S wasn't a difficult decision to make.
I love the phone. It's great. But I do have some issues with it that seem unfathomable and this is spoiling an otherwise great experience. Maybe you can help. Hopefully there is a magic button I can press somewhere deep within the Android OS that will make these problem evaporate.
Problem number 1..
I have never used Facebook and I never will use Facebook. Being used to the way Sony bloats it's hardware with software that nobody really wants or needs I delved into the settings and tried everything to make this blasted facebook app go away.
But it wouldn't go away. A few searches online later and the only things I found where people having the same problem as me and being told to root their phone. I spoke to Three about this and they told me it would invalidate my warrantee.
I downloaded a task killer and a Norton utility app (something I'm not used to having to do as a Mac user) and soon found that facebook was running in the background all of the time. Since I don't have an account, what exactly is it doing and how do I nuke it?
Problem number 2.
Google account forcing me to have a gmail address and then making that gmail address my primary email address.
I'm stunned by this. I had a google account but no gmail account. My established email address was my primary email account in my google account. When I tried to download apps from google play I was told that I had to have a gmail address. I kept hitting a warning which said "no gmail" or something equally as annoying. So, I opened a gmail account and promptly found that my established email address is now pushed to the back and my ugly gmail address flashes up whenever I use my google account.
Much searching later I find that I am not alone in my frustration at this. However, since the only things I found where on google's own forums, I thought it was still worth asking the the question here. How to I restore my original email address as the primary email address in my google account?
Problem 3.
The email app doesn't work.
Put simply, it just doesn't function correctly. No matter what I do I cannot make sent messages go to the correct IMAP folder. Instead they go to a new sent folder which is only present on the phone. This means that if I send email when I'm out, that email doesn't show as sent on my Macbook Pro, nor my iMac.
Again, some searching brings up google owned forums which offer no solution but much understandable complaining. Why ship the phone with an email client that doesn't work with IMAP?
Problem 4.
The camera insists on saving images as compressed jpegs.
Even though the Xperia S is a phone and not a real camera I had hoped that it would take some reasonable shots. Sony are usually good at this so why does it cripple the photographs by crunching them so badly? Hopefully there is a setting somewhere that allows the user to turn off the compression and access the images undamaged.
Problem 5.
The Mac software is terrible and clearly a bit of an afterthought. Hopefully this will change in a further upgrade.
Problem 6.
NFC tags. These sound like a great idea and Three put two of them in the box. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to use them. There is no manual and a search online returns various foreign reviews but no "this is how to set up your NFC tags with your new Xperia S" guide. Perhaps someone here has some steps I can copy.
As I said at the start of this post, I DO like the phone and Android seems to be a wonderful OS. It is frustrating, however, to have such a potentially great piece of kit that is hamstrung and unable to do exactly what I want it to do.
I think the most frustrating thing is that my iPod touch is an amazing piece of kit that does NOT allow me to customise it much since it is very heavily locked down. But, it works. The email client works properly, for instance. And it doesn't plant facebook malware all over the place. Android, on the other hand, claims to be the open choice. So why can't I simply remove an app that I find offensive? With Apple I know that I am obeying their rules when I use their kit. But that's fine if that kit works. With Android I'm sold an open OS which doesn't work perfectly and prevents me from making it work perfectly.
I'm 99% happy but, like anyone, I'd rather be 100% happy.
I love the phone. It's great. But I do have some issues with it that seem unfathomable and this is spoiling an otherwise great experience. Maybe you can help. Hopefully there is a magic button I can press somewhere deep within the Android OS that will make these problem evaporate.
Problem number 1..
I have never used Facebook and I never will use Facebook. Being used to the way Sony bloats it's hardware with software that nobody really wants or needs I delved into the settings and tried everything to make this blasted facebook app go away.
But it wouldn't go away. A few searches online later and the only things I found where people having the same problem as me and being told to root their phone. I spoke to Three about this and they told me it would invalidate my warrantee.
I downloaded a task killer and a Norton utility app (something I'm not used to having to do as a Mac user) and soon found that facebook was running in the background all of the time. Since I don't have an account, what exactly is it doing and how do I nuke it?
Problem number 2.
Google account forcing me to have a gmail address and then making that gmail address my primary email address.
I'm stunned by this. I had a google account but no gmail account. My established email address was my primary email account in my google account. When I tried to download apps from google play I was told that I had to have a gmail address. I kept hitting a warning which said "no gmail" or something equally as annoying. So, I opened a gmail account and promptly found that my established email address is now pushed to the back and my ugly gmail address flashes up whenever I use my google account.
Much searching later I find that I am not alone in my frustration at this. However, since the only things I found where on google's own forums, I thought it was still worth asking the the question here. How to I restore my original email address as the primary email address in my google account?
Problem 3.
The email app doesn't work.
Put simply, it just doesn't function correctly. No matter what I do I cannot make sent messages go to the correct IMAP folder. Instead they go to a new sent folder which is only present on the phone. This means that if I send email when I'm out, that email doesn't show as sent on my Macbook Pro, nor my iMac.
Again, some searching brings up google owned forums which offer no solution but much understandable complaining. Why ship the phone with an email client that doesn't work with IMAP?
Problem 4.
The camera insists on saving images as compressed jpegs.
Even though the Xperia S is a phone and not a real camera I had hoped that it would take some reasonable shots. Sony are usually good at this so why does it cripple the photographs by crunching them so badly? Hopefully there is a setting somewhere that allows the user to turn off the compression and access the images undamaged.
Problem 5.
The Mac software is terrible and clearly a bit of an afterthought. Hopefully this will change in a further upgrade.
Problem 6.
NFC tags. These sound like a great idea and Three put two of them in the box. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to use them. There is no manual and a search online returns various foreign reviews but no "this is how to set up your NFC tags with your new Xperia S" guide. Perhaps someone here has some steps I can copy.
As I said at the start of this post, I DO like the phone and Android seems to be a wonderful OS. It is frustrating, however, to have such a potentially great piece of kit that is hamstrung and unable to do exactly what I want it to do.
I think the most frustrating thing is that my iPod touch is an amazing piece of kit that does NOT allow me to customise it much since it is very heavily locked down. But, it works. The email client works properly, for instance. And it doesn't plant facebook malware all over the place. Android, on the other hand, claims to be the open choice. So why can't I simply remove an app that I find offensive? With Apple I know that I am obeying their rules when I use their kit. But that's fine if that kit works. With Android I'm sold an open OS which doesn't work perfectly and prevents me from making it work perfectly.
I'm 99% happy but, like anyone, I'd rather be 100% happy.
. Thanks for being a part of our community.