Essential Android Apps

Deep · 8 Feb 2011 at 01:05

Lucero said:
I've got gentle alarm. HandcentSMS with Handcent locator, Gingerbread keyboard and stock android browser set to ie mode

Is Handcent locator just a system where you send a text message with your exact location?

Whatsapp does this, and I've had to use it once and it was brilliant!
My mate was somewhere in London, sent me the location and then copy paste into navigation I was on my way!

Nexus18 said:
Yeah, been having a look at that as well, heard it is suppose to be good, also looking at the keyboards like swype, tried swype once before and just couldn't get use to the swiping part

Yup, don't like better keyboard at all either, looks/feels extremely bloated.

Also heard that smart keyboard pro is suppose to be excellent.

The main thing with my choice of keyboards is a smiley key! I use them a lot so be nice to have a button on the top layout and not having to delve deeper!

Nexus18 · 8 Feb 2011 at 01:39

Same for me with the comma button for the 2.3KB, hate having to hold down that symbol key or swap to another layout to get a comma, which I use a lot, so as you can imagine it is rather annoying that, as it wastes that little bit extra of time, be perfect if it where just right beside the space bar like it is for the HTC_IME keyboard.

So I have ruled out all the others and am now deciding between 2.3 or HTC_IME.

2.3:

- Very quick, no lag at all
- Easier to type with
- Uses a bit more memory than the HTC_IME
- Doesn't have a comma on the main layout
- Prefer it for the dictionary and the wording selection stuff
- Can't see what I am typing for some stuff in portrait mode i.e the sweet note widget

HTC_IME:

- Fully customizable
- Has a hide keyboard button
- A wee bit laggy sometimes and takes longer to start up compared to 2.3 KB
- Love the swipe gestures
- Has a comma button on the main layout
- Uses less memory than the 2.3 KB

EDIT:

Really struggling to decide between browsers as well, hardest choice

Miren is very good and a lot of people seem to love it over every browser especially dolphin mini. It has a lot more features etc. and it is pretty quick, just as quick as mini, but there is just something about it that I don't like, think there are too many options for a mobile browser and I am not too keen on the UI either, it's the sort of browser you really need to try out for yourself to see what it's like.

The one thing, which I love about dolphin mini is the cache to SD card.

And one problem, which I seemed to have with every 3rd party browser, was that youtube videos didn't show on this forum, it was just a big blank space (plug ins was set to always on for every browser), but yet on stock they show perfectly well.

However that may be fixed now as I am on a new ROM now, hence choosing new apps and all

EniGmA1981 · 8 Feb 2011 at 06:04

Thanks for the links Nexus, do I have to install Lukiqq's v1, v2 and v3? or will v3 be a 'latest version' with the changes from v1 and v2 included?

I use handcent, kaloer and ultra keyboard - love ultra keyboard, plenty of customisability(sp?) and it's got a trace(swype) function that makes texting on my phone a breeze

>edit<
those Lukiqq files made my phone colourblind!! red and blue swapped! yellow was turquoise and the boot animation/recovery screens were in quad display... not good lol

PiKe · 8 Feb 2011 at 09:29

Words with friends should be out this month

SteveOBHave · 8 Feb 2011 at 09:47

Seriously good weight loss app

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.wsl.CardioTrainer.weightloss_feature

Gavin · 8 Feb 2011 at 10:05

coudnt get ringo pro to work but installed voice called id and now get a spoken voice of whos calling like on the older nokias. Ideal for when your near the phone and talking to some one and dont know whether its important or not.

Django x2 · 8 Feb 2011 at 10:53

Deep said:
Is Handcent locator just a system where you send a text message with your exact location?

Whatsapp does this, and I've had to use it once and it was brilliant!
My mate was somewhere in London, sent me the location and then copy paste into navigation I was on my way!

Yep, except with Handcent you don't need to copy and paste, also useful if you don't have whatsapp (or your friends don't)

MobyDick · 8 Feb 2011 at 11:33

Nexus18 said:
2.3:

- Doesn't have a comma on the main layout

Get the comma by goin Homescreen --> Menu --> Settings --> Language & Keyboard --> Android Keyboard --> Voice Input --> Off.

It was on "on main keyboard".

The mic is replaced with the comma.

Nexus18 · 8 Feb 2011 at 12:02

EniGmA1981 said:
Thanks for the links Nexus, do I have to install Lukiqq's v1, v2 and v3? or will v3 be a 'latest version' with the changes from v1 and v2 included?

I use handcent, kaloer and ultra keyboard - love ultra keyboard, plenty of customisability(sp?) and it's got a trace(swype) function that makes texting on my phone a breeze

>edit<
those Lukiqq files made my phone colourblind!! red and blue swapped! yellow was turquoise and the boot animation/recovery screens were in quad display... not good lol

No problem

You only need to install V3, it will include the latest fixes and the other things, although I forgot to mention that one doesn't work properly in the sense that it doesn't actually apply one of the kernels properly, lol, it's this one that you should install:

http://forum.samdroid.net/f56/discussion-lukiqq-kernel-playground-4112/index66.html#post108285

Although it was working perfectly for me yesterday, I have really bad battery drainage, had 81% left at 3am, just woke up to find my mobile not turning on due to the battery being dead, even though it wasn't in use the entire night, lol. So going to have to go back to stock 8.3 with some other mods sometime today

Ok, thanks for that, will check that KB out, sounds good.

Lol, the colours shouldn't have changed, and yeah the 4 screen recovery bug everyone has using that kernel, he said he will fix it in the next release, the recovery still fully works, you just need a magnifying glass in order to see the text

MobyDick said:
Get the comma by goin Homescreen --> Menu --> Settings --> Language & Keyboard --> Android Keyboard --> Voice Input --> Off.

It was on "on main keyboard".

The mic is replaced with the comma.

Ah right, nice one, I thought that the settings button showed instead of the mic, thanks

Will probably just use the 2.3 KB now if I don't get on with the ultra KB.

englishpremier · 8 Feb 2011 at 14:32

Is sopcast available for Andriod yet?

Russinating · 8 Feb 2011 at 14:38

Nexus18 said:
Trying to decide between goSMS and handcentSMS.

Dolphin mini, stock android, miren browser or xscope.

HTC_IME or gingerbread keyboard.

Best alarm clock, kaloer or stock.

- Stock SMS (I have no qualms with it and I like its look and feel)
- Opera Mini (Faster and neater than all the other options)
- Swype (Fast and intuititve)
- Alarm Clock Plus (It speaks the time and weather, great for me as I cycle to work and like to know what the forecast's like)

Nexus18 · 8 Feb 2011 at 15:43

Thanks.

I am going to try out gosms for a bit and see how I get on with it, don't really like the look of stock android messaging, plus I just keep hearing good things about gosms and quite a lot of people saying that it is better than handcent sms :eek:

Love opera mini especially the speed and UI, but the rendering of web pages and pictures just doesn't look as good in terms of quality compared to the other browsers IMO and sometimes it doesn't render them properly, will give it another try though.

I can't get use to swype at all, just makes a mess of everything that I try to type

That alarm clock looks great, just stock android clock but with more features

Thanks

krooton · 8 Feb 2011 at 15:58

Nexus18 said:
Love opera mini especially the speed and UI, but the rendering of web pages and pictures just doesn't look as good in terms of quality compared to the other browsers IMO and sometimes it doesn't render them properly, will give it another try though.

Doesn't Opera load sites on to it's own servers, and lowers the quality of images to make it load faster?

manveruppd · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:18

Just the "Mini" version, Mobile doesn't. (Though it has the "Turbo" feature that you can optionally turn on, and that does pretty much the same thing. Well tbh I only use Mobile, not Mini, so it may be that you can switch it off on Mini as well, I don;t know. Useless post, I'll get my coat.)

Russinating · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:34

Nexus18 said:
Love opera mini especially the speed and UI, but the rendering of web pages and pictures just doesn't look as good in terms of quality compared to the other browsers IMO and sometimes it doesn't render them properly, will give it another try though.

Really? I've found Opera Mini to be the best for rendering pages as my desktop would as, as said, Opera compresses and translates the page on their own servers. You can increase the quality of images in the settings as well if that's what you mean.

And make sure you're using Mini and not Mobile

.

Filmed this a while ago now:

EniGmA1981 · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:40

I use xScope Browser - it's lightweight so it loads fast, scales pages to fit your phone screen automatically too so you don't need to scroll left and right to read the forum etc...

Love it

manveruppd · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:51

I thought Mobile was the superior one... :confused:

I'm confoozed naw!

Nexus18 · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:57

krooton said:
Doesn't Opera load sites on to it's own servers, and lowers the quality of images to make it load faster?

Yup pretty much, although some people don't seem to have that issue with the image looking poorer compared to others.

manveruppd said:
Just the "Mini" version, Mobile doesn't. (Though it has the "Turbo" feature that you can optionally turn on, and that does pretty much the same thing. Well tbh I only use Mobile, not Mini, so it may be that you can switch it off on Mini as well, I don;t know. Useless post, I'll get my coat.)

Yeah, the mobile version is pretty much the same, but it has a lot more features/choice etc. found them to be the same speed and the rendering seemed the same for me personally, although the mobile version was a wee bit slower. Mini doesn't have the turbo option iirc.

Russinating said:
Really? I've found Opera Mini to be the best for rendering pages as my desktop would as, as said, Opera compresses and translates the page on their own servers. You can increase the quality of images in the settings as well if that's what you mean.

And make sure you're using Mini and not Mobile .

Filmed this a while ago now:

Yeah, compared to dolphin mini, stock etc. I find that.

Have you tried dolphin mini at all? Personally I thought it was excellent, plus the websites looked better quality in terms of colours more so than the stock android browser :confused:

, don't ask me how though

, it is also extremely quick.

I also enabled the highest quality image setting, something about the images just don't look as good compared to the other browsers, also when your loading quite a lot of images e.g. the windows desktop thread, some of the images didn't load properly at all, was just all blurry and blocks of colours, probably cause you have a desire HD, faster processor, better GPU etc.

Lol, yeah, don't like the mobile version at all, far too big for a browser and plus it uses a load of RAM.

See, from watching that video of yours, it looks so quick and the rendering looks excellent, also the way the image is just before it properly renders, that's how some images look when I load pages with a lot of images on it.

So it's between stock, dolphin mini, opera mini now.

Thanks.

EniGmA1981 said:
I use xScope Browser - it's lightweight so it loads fast, scales pages to fit your phone screen automatically too so you don't need to scroll left and right to read the forum etc...

Love it

Yeah I used it a while ago, was really quick but had a lot of problems with it FC other apps mainly handcent SMS and sometimes sluggish behaviour especially when more than 3 tabs where opened, didn't have those problems with other browsers

, also don't like the way it has a task manager built into it as there really is no need for that in a web browser and the web browser would be a lot better/more lightweight with out it IMO.

manveruppd said:
I thought Mobile was the superior one... I'm confoozed naw!

It should be in theory, but it's really not from my experience and russinatings experience

Participant · 8 Feb 2011 at 17:00

I use Dolphin Mini as I found it to have the best balance of speed, browser functionality, and websites just working correctly. Now that they've added a default page zoom setting, it's my weapon of choice.

Nexus18 · 8 Feb 2011 at 18:13

Yeah dolphin mini is an excellent browser as well, I love just how quick the entire app is and the features that it has compared to other browsers and the cache to SD is very useful.