So my Bionic "died" after only a few months, ICS here I come...or maybe not?

[TheEdge]

Long story short, my bionic started rebooting a lot at random. The phone is bone stock, no root, I don't really run anything exotic on it. Nothing like what I had going on my trusty Eris, which NEVER failed me.

Yesterday it rebooted and then refused to go past the droid animation screen. I ended up having to do a factory wipe/restore to get it going again. Since I was wiping it I figured I would install the ICS leak (.232) I'm annoyed that I had to wipe it in the first place, no clue what started happening with the phone to cause it to reboot and finally choke completely out. I love the phone otherwise.

So, about ICS. I don't think I have ever been so underwhelmed before. It has a great, clean, fresh interface. It does run a little quicker than it did before. Battery life is about the same for me. Other than that... I don't get the hype. I understand that this is a leak, and not final. Citrix doesn't function properly at all anymore, which I use a ton for work. Flash support is still broken, which is something I never realized how badly I would miss. It seems like every video uses flash. Even the ones on CNN don't play, they freeze up whatever browser they are in. Most of all though I can't tap into the football streams with my phone now. That is almost a complete deal breaker for me. I bought this phone to have the full desktop browsing experience in a small package. I don't like mobile sites, and that is what ICS feeds me without flash. HTML5 is great, but I seriously doubt it is going to catch on as quickly as everyone thinks.

I think I am heading back to .905 this weekend unless my experience drastically changes. I just hope my phone doesn't freak out again, because I will have to find a new one if I end up wiping every few months again.

 

[tehsusenoh]

Flash support is broken? I haven't had any issues thus far. You just have to make sure you aren't using something like Chrome that doesn't include support for Flash.

Just remember that these are leaks. They aren't complete. Many things do not work.

The hype is for what ICS will be in the future. The UI itself was the first thing that had to be done, so is smooth and fast. They'll fix Citrix and the like in time.

I'd just sit back on .905 if you rely on that particular software so much. Heck, these problems might be fixed in a newer build, like .238, which are newer than the .232 you've tried.

You may also want to try out a custom ROM like AOKP or CM9 and just install Citrix from the Play Store. It may be that the app included doesn't work.

As for me, I am excited for what ICS brings.

For Flash, it will be fixed at least for a release. In time, it will be replaced, since Adobe is stopping mobile support, and are moving on to newer technologies like Air and HTML5.

 

[TheEdge]

After using ICS for a few more days, the interface is growing on me. Citrix still refuses to work, and I am finding other things that I like/dislike here and there. Maybe there is a work around for some things that I am not aware of.

I don't like how they handle Widgets. Can they just be displayed in a list? Also it takes sometimes 30 minutes to an hour for installed widgets to show up in the menu? is that normal? (ie: I install a widget from the app store, it is fully installed, but doesn't show up on the widgets until significant time has passed)

I have tried almost every suggestion to get embedded flash to work, still no luck there. It won't work in any flash supported browser(dolphin, skyfire, firefox) I did however install chrome to check it out since I have to browse without flash anyways, impressive. It will definitely be replacing Opera Mini for when I want to pull up something quickly. I still want a browser for full webpages(w/flash) though.

On a side note, my bandwidth results via speedtest appear on the surface to be significantly lower than with .905 has anyone else noticed this?

 

[doogald]

Sorry to hear that you are having issues. It can be really frustrating. I still fire up my Eris every once in a while when supporting people who still use them, and I cannot imagine anybody nostalgic for the Eris (though mine always worked great, though slow and quite battery draining. Anyway, ...

HTML5 is great, but I seriously doubt it is going to catch on as quickly as everyone thinks.

iPhones and iPads already do not support flash, and Android Jelly Bean and after has no Flash support. Adobe has stopped all mobile development (with the exception of security updates) as well. Trust me - if sites with flash want the fastest growing market segment to connect with them (mobile devices), they will switch away from Adobe Flash, if they have not already.

You may want to try out Dolphin Browser rather than the stock browser to see if it runs better (and faster.)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/...wsMSwxLDMsIm1vYmkubWdlZWsuVHVubnlCcm93c2VyIl0.

 

[TheEdge]

Unfortunately with .232 dolphin crashes on me all the time. I'm sure it is a leak issue. That is normally my browser of choice for full websites. I don't miss my Eris, I just never had problems with it like with my bionic. It was rock solid no matter what I did with it. The bionic seems much more finicky.

If I didn't love my bionic so much I would give up on it. For an "older" phone compared to the latest and greatest it holds up well in my book. I'm just not sure I will stick with ICS when the OTA arrives. It is a shame the latest leaks are locked. I would love to try them out, but I can't risk losing .905 at this point in time.