Essential Android Apps

V4NT0M · 21 May 2010 at 21:19

The SDK route is a little hit and miss, the main stumbling block seems to be the the device drivers.

Loving Kaloer Clock:

Got shot of my aging radio/alarm clock.

Psypher5 · 21 May 2010 at 21:24

love it skyfall, the blue option is mighty sexy

mrk · 21 May 2010 at 21:44

Looks like a good clock app that, checking it out now.

Camalot · 21 May 2010 at 21:48

insane200 said:
apn droid is a free mobile switcher widget.

Can't seem to work this? I add it as a widget, click it, goes green but nothing connects :confused:

413x · 21 May 2010 at 21:58

The app limit is getting annoying now.. I have 14 mb free but I cannot install anything else cause I get the irritating low space icon ahhh everything else I have I use!

Microwave · 21 May 2010 at 22:14

Khan, thank you so much for switch pro. I love it! Exactly what I wanted, even though I wasn't even asking!

Because of it I've been able to uninstall 2 apps - orientation lock and APN droid!

mrk · 21 May 2010 at 22:24

Well Apps2SD will sort that soon al4x.

Microwave:

Kaloer is really nice, like the fade in of the alarm clock feature, now no more suden pinging out of bed at the sound of a rooster all dazed and confused

The digital blue skin looks great, matches the blue LED of the dock now:

Love how AMOLED looks like a normal digital clock in the dark, no backlight on pure black at all like I used to get on the HTC Magic.

I have it set to auto close when it's disconnected from USB but I manually launch it by clicking the left section of the homescreen clock (right loads HTC Weather).

Awesome customisations on Android 4TW

Only thing I'm possibly concerned about is the time doesn't move around on the screen like the stock desk clock app does - I don't know if this will affect the AMOLED lifespan or not if it's left on like this for several hours each day over night.

Kreeeee · 21 May 2010 at 22:27

Blue in particular causes issues with AMOLED screens as they have the shortest lifespan and are the hardest colour to produce. Research the desires screen and the word blue to see the crazy ways they try to overcome some of the issues.

Psypher5 · 21 May 2010 at 22:35

Random:

My brother in law "made" a shade of blue for OLED screen a good few years ago for some uni/thesis work, and samsung yoinked it off him.

Microwave · 21 May 2010 at 22:36

Have you tried Bedside? I mentioned it a few pages back. It has desk clock functionality amongst lots of other things!

I'd definitely recommend trying it, even if you uninstall it.

insane200 · 21 May 2010 at 22:46

Camalot said:
Can't seem to work this? I add it as a widget, click it, goes green but nothing connects

ive not had any problems with it.

mrk · 21 May 2010 at 22:47

I've used Bedside before (already purchased back in the Magic days) - I just uninstalled it a long time ago due to not having the features I wanted but will retry it again now to see what updates it has had!

Kreeeee · 21 May 2010 at 22:51

With switch pro can I make it like the default htc power app, where toggling the gps icon just toggles the gps, and not pop up with a menu to toggle gps/wifi location finder tools.

mrk · 21 May 2010 at 23:11

I can't see an option to do that, it's because Google don't allow third party apps to change the GPS setting any more (they used to), only the stock power widget allows this.

This is why apps like Where's My Droid require GPS be enabled all the time. It won't consume battery however, only when GPS is in use will battery be used.

Edit*
Bedside uninstalled, again, features not as rich as Kaloer Clock and upon exiting Bedside there's a very minimal frame lag which is weird.

V4NT0M · 22 May 2010 at 00:03

Khaaan! said:
Love how AMOLED looks like a normal digital clock in the dark, no backlight on pure black at all like I used to get on the HTC Magic.

I was just about to reply saying that must be an HTC thing as I thought my phone had an AMOLED screen, but apparently it doesn't...

How on earth did I get it into my head that it had an AMOLED screen? I looked into the phone exhaustively before even considering buying it...

Either way, might have to use that digital blue skin, it's growing on me.

Nexus18 · 22 May 2010 at 12:38

Skyfall said:
I was just about to reply saying that must be an HTC thing as I thought my phone had an AMOLED screen, but apparently it doesn't...

How on earth did I get it into my head that it had an AMOLED screen? I looked into the phone exhaustively before even considering buying it...

Either way, might have to use that digital blue skin, it's growing on me.

Yeah I thought that as well lol, plus I thought the I5700 had 16M colours as well, as all the review sites said it did, plus the people in the 3 shop told me as well, but when the mobile came, on the side of the box it said 65K colours. But I have to say that the screen quality is amazing though compared to my old samsung u900 soul mobile (16 million colours), don't know why that is though lol.

V4NT0M · 22 May 2010 at 12:56

I agree I was impressed with the screen, they were kinda right the screen is 16m colours apparently just not in Android 1.5, so when it gets 2.1 it will be 16m colours. Wish they would get the update out soon as 1.5 is really a limiting factor on the phone plus I hear people are getting better performance out of it.

Nexus18 · 22 May 2010 at 13:12

Skyfall said:
I agree I was impressed with the screen, they were kinda right the screen is 16m colours apparently just not in Android 1.5, so when it gets 2.1 it will be 16m colours. Wish they would get the update out soon as 1.5 is really a limiting factor on the phone plus I hear people are getting better performance out of it.

Seriously?! That's great

(I am on 2.1, bought my Spica around 20th April with it preloaded, although surely they should have updated the box saying 16M colours then lol). I thought they had the official update done for quite a while now, just use there software Kies or PC studio to update to the latest firmware.

Yeah the performance is pretty good (don't know what it was like though with 1.5) although when sliding to different home screens it seemed to lag a bit and slow down when using the menu, but I don't use there launcher any more (pantheon), I use launcherPRO beta, it's so quick and smooth plus i like the UI of it more than the default

.

There are apparently quite a few hardware capabilities which haven't been implemented with this mobile yet

:

(http://forum.samdroid.net/threads/64-Where-are-you-from-Ot-kuda-vy?p=1667&viewfull=1)

Really hope we get the update to 2.2 (but it probably won't happen as the mobile is a bit old, even though it was only launched in 2010 and plus there new samsung mobiles are coming out soon).

V4NT0M · 22 May 2010 at 13:38

I read about some of the limitations too, specifically the multitouch. Regards the 16m colours that's what I read anyway, it is noticeable on my phone in some places, some gradients look messed up and if I slowly drag between different home screens some of my icons look a bit funny, also playing movies or TV episodes it's obvious.

I'll have to look into the pc studio again, just can't get it to reliably connect to the device, but from what I hear from other people the update isn't up for the UK yet, doesn't make much sense as to why not though considering that portals from 3 come with it pre-loaded.

I may even try to flash some custom firmware onto it if they don't hurry up.

I'm both impressed and disappointed with the Portal myself, the white version in particular looks and feels great in the hand, the camera is perfectly acceptable (much better than my old G1) HSDPA but it's really let down by android 1.5 and terrible graphics performance, 3D games are mostly unplayable, also the accelerometer is a little funny, it made my favorite game (labyrinth) unplayable

I heard that 3D performance was a lot better in 2.1 than in 1.5, have you tried any 3D games?

Nexus18 · 22 May 2010 at 14:46

Skyfall said:
I read about some of the limitations too, specifically the multitouch. Regards the 16m colours that's what I read anyway, it is noticeable on my phone in some places, some gradients look messed up and if I slowly drag between different home screens some of my icons look a bit funny, also playing movies or TV episodes it's obvious.

Yeah I really hope they get an update out in order to enable the multitouch as well. I haven't noticed anything with the icons being messed up when dragging between the home screens, but I haven't watched any videos on it yet apart from the video record stuff, just tried the beeb player for Friday Night with Jonathan Ross there and the colours do seem quite bad unfortunately

.

Skyfall said:
I'll have to look into the pc studio again, just can't get it to reliably connect to the device, but from what I hear from other people the update isn't up for the UK yet, doesn't make much sense as to why not though considering that portals from 3 come with it pre-loaded.

Yeah I had problems with connecting my spica to there software, but I enabled USB debugging and the software actually connects to the mobile and recognizes it now. lol yeah I don't quite get that either, I could have sworn that I read somewhere that the update is available for the UK now, maybe try bringing your mobile into a Samsung or 3 shop and see if they will do it for you.

Skyfall said:
I may even try to flash some custom firmware onto it if they don't hurry up.

I had a look around to see if I should root my mobile as well especially if we don't get 2.2, but worried encase I brick my mobile and plus it will void your warranty as well.

Skyfall said:
I'm both impressed and disappointed with the Portal myself, the white version in particular looks and feels great in the hand, the camera is perfectly acceptable (much better than my old G1) HSDPA but it's really let down by android 1.5 and terrible graphics performance, 3D games are mostly unplayable, also the accelerometer is a little funny, it made my favorite game (labyrinth) unplayable

I heard that 3D performance was a lot better in 2.1 than in 1.5, have you tried any 3D games?

Yeah same, love the mobile but there are some features which I do miss, like having the flash for the camera and a few other small things, but got to say the camera is really good (coming from a samsung U900 soul 5M), also the screen is really good on sunny days, can easily read texts etc. (obviously not in direct sunlight) I have the black version, although I do prefer the looks of the nexus 1 and the desire, especially the larger screens. I have labyrinth as well, can't do the last level

lol. But it performs really well so yeah I guess the 3d performance has improved a lot from 1.5.

Edit: It would have been great as well if the screen resolution was higher, but then it would probably have slowed the mobile down a bit more, plus also having an AMOLED screen would have been nice.