Essential Android Apps

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Can anybody advise what the best Android App for London public transport is please? I'm mainly interested in the tube but an app that can plan entire journeys making use of multiple transport types would be cool.

I'd like quite like it to include "official" TfL maps (namely the London Underground).

General "live" departure board info would be useful, in addition to a basic transport planner.

There seems to be loads on the market but not sure which is best? I, obviously, am willing to pay for the right app (though I'd prefer not to try them out and seek a refund for the useless ones).

Thanks! :)
 
RastaManBob said:
Can anybody advise what the best Android App for London public transport is please? I'm mainly interested in the tube but an app that can plan entire journeys making use of multiple transport types would be cool.

I'd like quite like it to include "official" TfL maps (namely the London Underground).

General "live" departure board info would be useful, in addition to a basic transport planner.

There seems to be loads on the market but not sure which is best? I, obviously, am willing to pay for the right app (though I'd prefer not to try them out and seek a refund for the useless ones).

Thanks! :)
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I'd be interested in something like this. I only use the Overground however and something tells me that any app, official or otherwise, would omit that. When I get my Desire a National Rail app and an Overground app would be a brilliant combo for me.
 
Kreeeee said:
I thought this was widely known. Task killers have never been recommended afaik and the only people who used them seemed to be the more naive folk who couldn't really justify why they used them.
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Use them every day, have used them since Android 1.0 and G1, the definitely free up memory making my phone quicker and they definitely kill tasks that can eat up battery by using CPU time, though tbh if a program is taking up that much CPU I'll probably uninstall it anyway...

The long and the short of it is that for me, on my phone, killing tasks keeps the phone quick, stable and smooth. This has been the same on the two android phone's I've had and the 2 other android phone's I've had extensive contact with.

With the newer handsets it's a lot less of an issue because they have a lot more ram in the first place, meaning that it takes a lot more to fill it up.
 
Can someone backup then host the Google Maps 4.4 APK please ??

For some bizarre reason it downloads but fails to install over the market. Attempting a manual update via APK on the phone if someone can help ??
 
Khaaan! said:
Here you go Android pal!

http://robbiekhan.co.uk/root/android/maps4.4.rar

To update you have to uninstall the existing maps then install this.
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Ta Robbie... I did try and uninstall but it says failed there as well :confused:

Will give it another shot :)


Edit: seems to be that Google maps is installed in system/apps and is read only so I guess this stops it being overwritten or deleted/uninstalled.... Whats the easiest way to force an uninstall of this ??
 
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Skyfall said:
Use them every day, have used them since Android 1.0 and G1, the definitely free up memory making my phone quicker and they definitely kill tasks that can eat up battery by using CPU time, though tbh if a program is taking up that much CPU I'll probably uninstall it anyway...

The long and the short of it is that for me, on my phone, killing tasks keeps the phone quick, stable and smooth. This has been the same on the two android phone's I've had and the 2 other android phone's I've had extensive contact with.

With the newer handsets it's a lot less of an issue because they have a lot more ram in the first place, meaning that it takes a lot more to fill it up.
Click to expand...

Here's the thing though...

Task Killers really aren't needed. However, as you have found, in certain circumstances, they do increase the performance of the phone.

You are quite right, the newer phones don't seem to suffer from performance issues as much because they tend to have large amounts of ram. Where as on the older phones (Hero and older?) don't have as much ram.

Now, the built in task killer in Android does work very well, so you are probably thinking I'm talking rubbish right now as you do notice a performance increase when you kill a load of tasks. However, that's because you are low on ram and simply freeing it up.

The reason the phone goes slow is obviously because the ram is very low and Android hasn't killed a load of tasks to free some up. The reason for this is that the threashold is set far too low for these lower memory handsets.

The solution is to raise the threshold so that Android frees up ram/kills apps before you are cititically low on ram. This means the performance remains fast and you can have Android do it's own thing without the need for a third party task killer running in the background.

The app you need is AutoKiller. Root requied.

or

Install VillainRom 12.0, which has this threashold set higher as standard.

I haven't used a task killer for a very long time. I too was sucked into the trap of believing that a task killer was the correct thing to do. That is until Autokiller came out (which I no longer use anyway due to VR 12)
 
An App for the F1 fans:

Soft Pauer launch Timing and Track Positioning App on Android

Now anyone with a smart phone operating on this system can enjoy Soft Pauer’s unique App and follow Formula One anywhere in the world. The App takes the official live timing information from Formula One™, and translates it into a dynamic/interactive track map not found anywhere else. This map shows the precise location of all of the cars on the circuit simultaneously. Users can zoom in, view the track from any angle, follow their favourite driver and keep up to date with exactly what’s happening, wherever they are.
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The App is available in English, French and German at a cost of just £14.99/€19.99 for the whole season.

If it had been free I may have installed it.:(
 
Yep, it's been out a while but the cost is just too high for me, especially since it's over half way through the F1 2010 season!

Stupid price even....even though it's looks like an awesome app. There are alternatives, but it looks like the FIA are starting to ban them, at least one of the ones I was using was :(
 
Could applications such as Desk Clock cause damage to the screen if left on for long periods of time ?

I want to use this app but I'm quite scared that leaving one image on the screen for countless hours could cause it harm.
 
[SKR]Phoenix;17039253 said:
Here's the thing though...

Task Killers really aren't needed. However, as you have found, in certain circumstances, they do increase the performance of the phone.

You are quite right, the newer phones don't seem to suffer from performance issues as much because they tend to have large amounts of ram. Where as on the older phones (Hero and older?) don't have as much ram.

Now, the built in task killer in Android does work very well, so you are probably thinking I'm talking rubbish right now as you do notice a performance increase when you kill a load of tasks. However, that's because you are low on ram and simply freeing it up.

The reason the phone goes slow is obviously because the ram is very low and Android hasn't killed a load of tasks to free some up. The reason for this is that the threashold is set far too low for these lower memory handsets.

The solution is to raise the threshold so that Android frees up ram/kills apps before you are cititically low on ram. This means the performance remains fast and you can have Android do it's own thing without the need for a third party task killer running in the background.

The app you need is AutoKiller. Root requied.

or

Install VillainRom 12.0, which has this threashold set higher as standard.

I haven't used a task killer for a very long time. I too was sucked into the trap of believing that a task killer was the correct thing to do. That is until Autokiller came out (which I no longer use anyway due to VR 12)
Click to expand...

According to what I've read, how much ram you have free shouldn't matter. Because Android is based on Linux and not Windows, whether you have 20mb or 200mb free shouldn't affect performance.

To quote from here: http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/

"Linux however isn’t generally affected by this. While I admit that I don’t know the architecture and reason for this… linux will run the same regardless of if you have 20mb free memory or 200mb. "
 
[SKR]Phoenix;17039253 said:
Here's the thing though...
Task Killers really aren't needed. However, as you have found, in certain circumstances, they do increase the performance of the phone.
Click to expand...
The reason I use task killer all day is because of performance and battery life. Adjusting the memory threshold would help the performance, but I want my battery life to be as long as possible. That's why I use a task killer, and ones that I don't want killed go in the ignore list.
 
I've said it before, without a taskiller my phone slows at less than 40mb so on screen lock my phone kills all tasks except dolphin and a few others I've picked

really helps
 
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