Essential Android Apps

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Been trying a few apps out today as I am getting a bit bored with having mostly everything as stock sense now, it was only a matter of time! :p

So this may or may not be useful for owners of HTC one mobiles! :p


Gallery - tried quickpic out and whilst it is nice for a minimal ICS UI, it still seems to render photos a bit too sharp i.e. my cats whiskers don't come out smooth looking, instead very jaggy and plus sense's gallery is feature full and linked to the editing part, which is great plus the UI is nicer overall IMO

So sticking with stock here.

Browser - Loved sense stock browser, nothing beat it at all until I tried ICS quick browser+ out today, seems marginally quicker at loading web pages and rendering them although the pages don't "look" as nice on sense stock browser, the text doesn't seem to "stand out" as well as stock either, but I love the minimal styling and the quick controls seem to work much better than on the sense browser. Still more features overall and the full screen support (for bars at top and bottom) is better in sense stock browser

Using ICS quick browser+ now.

Keyboard - I really love the sense keyboard, the theme, quick typing etc. Have tried swiftkey etc. out again and I just hate the themes for it (even the new ones in the beta) so won't be using it till they sort that out. Have also been giving the stock ICS keyboard a quick try and I love the theme for it and typing feels nice and quick as well, however, the height feature in portrait mode seems to be broken for me, sometimes it updates, however, most of the time it doesn't so I have only had a tiny keyboard and a HUGE keyboard to try so far :p :(

Will mix it up every now and then between ICS stock and stock sense.

Camera - Well obviously the camera app on HTC one phones is going to be better than all the 3rd party ones due to those apps not being able to use the main features etc. but I tried camera ICS out and the UI was pretty **** as well as features and panorama wasn't great at all

So needless to say will be sticking with stock HTC camera.


All that is left now is to try some diallers and text message apps out, is go sms still the best? What is the best dialler nowadays as well?

I love the sense stock apps for those 2 areas but I hate the way that it uses white backgrounds throughout the UI and also being based on AMOLED means the battery drains quicker than a black background.


Also MX player is very good!
 
Have you tried Apex launcher Nexus? It doesn't have the menu at the bottom and it's far smoother than Sense on the One X at least.
 
Yup, I am using it instead of go ex, no more evil 3 dot menu bottom! :D

I still miss go calendar and the folders in the app drawer though, but can live without them for a more stock ICS feel for now........ :p


Speed and smoothness is pretty much the same for all the launchers on my S :p


Stock ICS keyboard is annoying me at the minute and seems to have a few bugs, so have gone back to stock sense keyboard for good now!
 
What I meant by the smoothness was that it's clearly a Sense related issue as I suspected.

If I set the default Sense launcher up with some widgets and then put the same ones on Apex, the Sense one has a tiny bit of stutter regardless of how it's setup. Apex has none.

I'm pretty sure it's not something most people would notice, but I do and it shouldn't be there! Not a real issue though to be honest. I've yet to find a phone where I haven't started picking at micro stuttering, it even annoys me on the iPhone 4S which is just about as smooth as you'll get. :(

I'm still using SwiftKey as a keyboard, it's great!
 
Yeah, it is just down to the drivers/software optimization of sense/android for the X's hardware (just like every mobile).

From reading on XDA it seems tegra etc. is harder to work around/code for (well for the custom ROMs done by the developers over there anyway)

EDIT:

Until they get some nicer looking themes (would love a stock ICS one, not slightly modded!), I won't touch it ever again!!!! :p
 
Well, I'm quite happy on the stock ROM, I may switch in future when they get them all fully stable but it's a royal unnecessary faff in most cases. :p

I'm sure a perfect ICS ROM will appear sooner or later for the X and S. Then you'll cave. ;)
 
leaskovski said:
Ok, so I am on Virgin that has a thing where you can use the Orange network (however it shows up as 'virgin' on 'Virgin' mobiles).

This is great and allows me to get more signal. However, when I switch over onto the other network, my device shows me as roaming, which it technically is doing.

Does anyone know of an app that allows you to turn on Data Roaming depending what network you are connected to?
Click to expand...

Would it be possible to do this using something like Tasker?
 
Robbo said:
Well, I'm quite happy on the stock ROM, I may switch in future when they get them all fully stable but it's a royal unnecessary faff in most cases. :p

I'm sure a perfect ICS ROM will appear sooner or later for the X and S. Then you'll cave. ;)
Click to expand...

Most likely will! But won't be for quite a while! :D :p

I love the phone as it is and sense is great combined with apex etc. speed, smoothness and battery life is also great. Only reasons I would root and flash custom Roms is because of boredom :p and to change the colour scheme/theme throughout the UI or when HTC abandon the S for updates, that is when I will definitely be getting a custom ROM on :p

The only thing I wish HTC did was give the option of using a black UI/background instead of white :(
 
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Swiftkey 3 Beta may have a new default theme but you also know that it has a holo theme too right?

Screenshot_2012-04-29-01-12-49.png


Screenshot_2012-04-29-01-12-56.png


Looks perfect to me, I use it as my main keyboard most days. The key positioning is better than ICS stock too.
 
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