Essential Android Apps

Nexus18 · 10 Feb 2013 at 12:14

Obviously it will come down to how much white is being displayed and at what brightness etc.

But it is pretty obvious that white does use considerably more power on SAMOLED thus it is going to have some effect on battery life considering the screen is the biggest drainer on any phone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLED

While an OLED will consume around 40% of the power of an LCD displaying an image which is primarily black, for the majority of images it will consume 60–80% of the power of an LCD: however it can use over three times as much power to display an image with a white background such as a document or website.[68] This can lead to reduced real-world battery life in mobile devices when white backgrounds are used.

And again if SAMOLED phones are doing crap compared to LCD in the browsing test on gsmarena's site then it does play a very large part.

As for blue, well supposedly that is the second worse colour for power consumption on SAMOLED screens, however, the blue used in google music is pretty dark, I imagine they mean the more bright blue i.e. sky blue etc.

My point wasn't about the white being used in google music or how long you have google music opened etc., simply replying to your comment about the "general" power consumption of white:

The whole 'white uses more battery' is overplayed in my opinion.

AndyCr15 · 10 Feb 2013 at 13:05

Nexus18 said:
My point wasn't about the white being used in google music or how long you have google music opened etc., simply replying to your comment about the "general" power consumption of white:

Then honestly, I'm not sure why your going to such great lengths to show white uses more power, as I never said it didn't. My comment wasn't about "general" power consumption of white.

It was commented someone wouldn't want to use this version as it was white and that uses more battery. My point is, they're being over cautious. In a full days use, this change would not be noticeable in battery consumption.

benjo · 10 Feb 2013 at 23:05

This is cool - Nandroid backups on the fly

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pommedeterresautee.twoborange3

photoshop · 10 Feb 2013 at 23:22

benjo said:
This is cool - Nandroid backups on the fly

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pommedeterresautee.twoborange3

Dont know why, but i always prefer to do my nandroid backups when the phone isnt booted up so no apps or processes interfere with it.

PS. How does Google go about saving user pictures? Does it have a service where it syncs user photos to the cloud as part of the "back up to my google account" ?

kona786 · 11 Feb 2013 at 00:46

^^^ it sucks - still getting low res contact pics on JB. It syncs photo with contacts.

photoshop · 11 Feb 2013 at 02:27

kona786 said:
still getting low res contact pics on JB.

Im getting high resolution pics.

Matteysan · 11 Feb 2013 at 02:38

photoshop said:
Im getting high resolution pics.

Same.

Danger Phoenix · 11 Feb 2013 at 06:12

photoshop said:
Dont know why, but i always prefer to do my nandroid backups when the phone isnt booted up so no apps or processes interfere with it.

PS. How does Google go about saving user pictures? Does it have a service where it syncs user photos to the cloud as part of the "back up to my google account" ?

kona786 said:
^^^ it sucks - still getting low res contact pics on JB. It syncs photo with contacts.

photoshop said:
Im getting high resolution pics.

Mattey1 said:
Same.

With JB if you set the photo on the phone it will remain a high resolution one until you happen to wipe. It will then restore a low resolution on from Google Contacts.

A solution for this is to use:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oxplot.contactphotosync&hl=en

Add all your pictures through that, and that adds another entry to Settings > Accounts. If you wipe your data, Android will restore from Google Contacts first and then when you reinstall Contact Photo Sync, that will get all the high resolution ones.

photoshop · 11 Feb 2013 at 13:13

Danger Phoenix said:
With JB if you set the photo on the phone it will remain a high resolution one until you happen to wipe. It will then restore a low resolution on from Google Contacts.

A solution for this is to use:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oxplot.contactphotosync&hl=en

Add all your pictures through that, and that adds another entry to Settings > Accounts. If you wipe your data, Android will restore from Google Contacts first and then when you reinstall Contact Photo Sync, that will get all the high resolution ones.

Not the case for me.

90% of my contacts pic's i done in Gmail on the computer. The other newer 10% i done on my phone and after restoring my phone the other day, after a mess-up, i still have high res contact pics. I've even removed my Google Account on the phone and re-added it and i still get high-res contact pics...

The latest android uses 720x720 resolution i believe.

rogueblade · 11 Feb 2013 at 13:29

I've truely given up the contact picture issues. half of mine have no pics and half have low res pics, I've sycned google and facebook etc etc tired of faffing around with a bunch of different crappy apps to try fix it. I'll wait on android 6.0

Danger Phoenix · 11 Feb 2013 at 14:26

photoshop said:
Not the case for me.

90% of my contacts pic's i done in Gmail on the computer. The other newer 10% i done on my phone and after restoring my phone the other day, after a mess-up, i still have high res contact pics. I've even removed my Google Account on the phone and re-added it and i still get high-res contact pics...

The latest android uses 720x720 resolution i believe.

That is really weird... I've done the exact same thing before, but every time the phone was wiped it restored low resolution images from Google, even though I had sat there for hours adding high resolution photos for my contacts via GMail.

rogueblade said:
I've truely given up the contact picture issues. half of mine have no pics and half have low res pics, I've sycned google and facebook etc etc tired of faffing around with a bunch of different crappy apps to try fix it. I'll wait on android 6.0

Try the application I mentioned

photoshop · 11 Feb 2013 at 18:47

Danger Phoenix said:
That is really weird... I've done the exact same thing before, but every time the phone was wiped it restored low resolution images from Google, even though I had sat there for hours adding high resolution photos for my contacts via GMail.

All your contact pictures are saved in https://picasaweb.google.com/home

Check the folder there to see if they really are high res.....

photoshop · 11 Feb 2013 at 18:49

Anyone know of any app that adds bubbles to icons like Whatsapp/Facebook and others when you receive a notification?

The ones ive come across and use at the moment only do it for gmail/texts/phone....

King4aDay · 11 Feb 2013 at 18:50

Anyone know of a good offline web and forum browser? Would love something that let me catch up on my favourite pages whilst out of signal range (happens a lot when I'm in the Hebrides).

Grrrrr · 11 Feb 2013 at 20:05

Swapps! All Your Apps, Everywhere

Swipe the left side of the screen to access your apps list at any time. It basically saves you going to the homescreen and then app drawer. I installed it this lunch time and it's certainly useful. It's still a little rough round the the edges but I'm hopeful the dev will polish it up with updates.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.schiztech.swapps
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2130082

adolmino1 · 11 Feb 2013 at 20:07

When does the Google Play Gift Card come out in UK ? i believe they are out in US but not UK yet , they are coming but don't know when!

Ahleckz · 11 Feb 2013 at 21:14

Any good keyboard apps for text messaging on the S3? I'm after auto correct (having to press the correct spelling of the word is really annoying me), plus the default keyboard doesn't have a comma in the main bit. Having to go into a separate menu is daft.

benjo · 11 Feb 2013 at 21:18

Swiftkey 3 without a doubt

chiggz · 11 Feb 2013 at 21:28

Ahleckz said:
Any good keyboard apps for text messaging on the S3? I'm after auto correct (having to press the correct spelling of the word is really annoying me), plus the default keyboard doesn't have a comma in the main bit. Having to go into a separate menu is daft.

Disabling voice input solves this - it replaces the mic icon on the keyboard with a comma. However, I find that the voice input seems to enable itself randomly :-s

Ahleckz · 11 Feb 2013 at 21:55

benjo said:
Swiftkey 3 without a doubt

Wow. Got the trial version, this is great!

What else do I need? My first phone that uses apps. Enjoying it!