Help me smoothly move to Android

Doz007

Doz007

Doz007

Associate
Joined
30 Jul 2008
Posts
713
Well after years of being an iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone & WebOS user I've finally bitten the bullet & ordered a Sim Free Nexus 5! :D

I've got a lot of questions about the switch and would like some advice/answers from long term Android experts.

  • Does Android have a native Cloud back up system ala iCloud?
  • I'll still be using an iPad as my tablet device of choice and have a few Airplay devices around the house, does Android have an Airplay app/hack?
  • Can I pay via NFC in stores using Google Wallet?
  • Is it possible to get rid of the notification bar at the top of screen, I don't like how cluttered it becomes on Android
  • Battery life, will having news and football apps etc sending push notifications kill the battery? I'm used to getting push notifications on iPhone and the battery still lasting a day.
  • Is it possible to get the Moto X voice recognition and voice commands etc from the phone being off/screen locked?
  • Can I store & backup photos to Google without posting them on Google+?
 
Thanks for the detailed reply. :)

Excellent news on the Airplay compatibility. I didn't expect Android Airplay to be so easy to achieve!

Anything else that I've missed? The Nexus 5 is due to arrive Monday so I've got a couple of days to prepare for the switch. Anyone aware of any Android 'quirks' that I should know about?

I'm just looking into Google Music All Access, are you able to download songs for offline listening?
 
Yeah, I really like the Window's Phone approach to the top bar. Hidden but only a swipe down from the top is required to see your battery status etc.

Another thing that I've thought about is the email app. Does the standard email client allow multiple inboxes to be added and viewed in a single unified inbox? Also, does it download email images automatically?
 
DIABLO said:
Your recently listened to music gets cached on the phone, you can choose to permanently keep them on the phone by "pinning" them and as said if you unsubscribe to all access you lose access to the songs that you did'nt upload/buy from Google Music.
Click to expand...

Sounds good. As I have a Lumia 925 at the moment, I've got an Xbox Music subscription so how does the google music all access app compare to the big competitors in terms of UI and song selection?

DIABLO said:
I don't use the email client, i have setup gmail to check my other POP3 email account so all my emails appear in the gmail app.
Click to expand...

Excellent, I wasn't aware of this functionality and it sounds perfect! I guess that's my Sunday morning sorted :)

All this talk of launchers is confusing, can I just use a third party launcher to hide the task bar but keep everything else stock Kit Kat?
 
Yeah, that's probably going to be the route I take first to be honest. If it does all get too much, I'll look to hide it later on.

How is the standard Android keyboard these days, I used a friends briefly way back in 2.1 and I can't say I was impressed. Is Swiftkey still far and away the best touchscreen keyboard?
 
Well this is my first post from the Nexus 5 and I must say I'm really impressed!

As I'm getting lots of app installation notifications, is there an easy way to dismiss them all at once?
 
cymatty said:
When you pull down the notification shade there are 3 staggered lines, click that and it will dismiss all non permanent notifications.
Click to expand...

Simple and elegant. Thanks again cymatty :)

I've set off using the standard Android KitKat Keyboard and I must say I'm very impressed. To the point that I can't see how Swype or SwiftKey will be significantly better than Google's effort.
 
Is there an easy way to customise what appears in the notification bar?

At the moment there's a Keyboard icon in there every time I type something..... :(
 
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