New essential Android apps thread

rallyfan1986 · 23 Aug 2017 at 11:11

Give tasker a go, I use mine to enable profiles based on wifi connection, so connect to work wifi, it puts phone into vibrate/silent, out and about I use a default profile which turns the ring volume up.

Scam · 23 Aug 2017 at 12:53

I can do all that via Profiles on my OnePlus One. I was just interested in using NFC tags to activate my profiles. I nearly bought Tasker since it was on sale but I can't see much use for it.

I used to have my profiles activate on wifi but my home wifi kept dropping in the middle of the night, so the phone thought I was heading out of the house so would turn all sounds on and wake me up

marc2003 · 23 Aug 2017 at 21:19

I flippin' hate mobile phones. I just spent 15 minutes thinking my gyroscope was broken because I couldn't use landscape mode before realising I had "Portrait" mode fixed in the drop down options. :rolleyes:

Now back on the PC where everything makes sense. Old git mode most definitely enabled.

rallyfan1986 · 23 Aug 2017 at 22:54

Scam said:
I can do all that via Profiles on my OnePlus One. I was just interested in using NFC tags to activate my profiles. I nearly bought Tasker since it was on sale but I can't see much use for it.

I used to have my profiles activate on wifi but my home wifi kept dropping in the middle of the night, so the phone thought I was heading out of the house so would turn all sounds on and wake me up

Tasker can also do location based profiles, but to stop the phone going off during the night, androids quite hours work well

Scam · 24 Aug 2017 at 11:33

Would it override the phone changing to a new profile though?

rallyfan1986 · 24 Aug 2017 at 11:50

I think you would delete your phone profiles and allow tasker to handle all the profiles

iMacMart · 24 Aug 2017 at 14:10

Is there an app that can order your apps in a folder to alphabetical order? It drives me crazy that Samsung don't have this feature on the S8 nor the order of phone favorite either

Rimsy · 24 Aug 2017 at 14:19

Nova launcher does this

iMacMart · 24 Aug 2017 at 16:43

Rimsy said:
Nova launcher does this

But not the phone book side? I've been trying to avoid installing it but I can't anymore as it fixes all that is wrong with Android phones....

Used it for years with my Nexus 5x so should really go back to it

Sp00n · 31 Aug 2017 at 17:06

AndyCr15 said:
Rather useful app if your drive/ride -

Just did a long run, this was great, the overlay and average speed calculation is a nice touch!

G-MAN2004 · 5 Sep 2017 at 13:13

Just a heads up: the Dropsync Pro app (autosync files between Android and Dropbox cloud storage) is now 10p, down from £5.

Kanpai · 6 Sep 2017 at 07:18

Orcvader said:
Another option is setting the phone as a FTP server and then you can still use your PC's file explorer.

Went ahead and did this, so much easier now to transfer files to the phone.

Thanks for all the suggestions

tigerstyle · 6 Sep 2017 at 10:26

tigerstyle said:
Is there a decent app for long exposures?
Thinking proper 5 10 30 minute long night exposures using a tripod etc?

Anything recommended here before I start trying them randomly?

Orcvader · 8 Sep 2017 at 17:34

Anyone else noticed the YouTube app offering HDR now in the quality settings?

You might need a phone with a HDR screen for it to pop up, like the XZP/S8/G6.

... And I do not get smooth playback on my XZP any more, before HDR it could play 2160p 60 FPS with no issues, now even on 1440p it drops frames. 1080P is fine on the other hand.

AndyCr15 · 8 Sep 2017 at 21:48

I've noticed the dropped frame rate, usually watching MKBHD it drops to just a couple every second! Even if I then choose 720p, I can't get out of this slide show mode it's dropped me into. Rather annoying tbh.

james.miller · 8 Sep 2017 at 22:02

Yes it's dropping frames on my s8 now. also noticed i no longer have the option to stretch HDR content to the screen. On the plus side viewing HDR now overrides the screen brightness, so no need to turn it it up manually. It does make menus blazingly bright however

BananaDunka · 11 Sep 2017 at 10:17

james.miller said:
Yes it's dropping frames on my s8 now. also noticed i no longer have the option to stretch HDR content to the screen. On the plus side viewing HDR now overrides the screen brightness, so no need to turn it it up manually. It does make menus blazingly bright however

You're not stretching, you're cropping to fill the aspect ratio! Big difference that could confuse those who are unaware still!

BananaDunka · 11 Sep 2017 at 10:39

iMacMart said:
But not the phone book side? I've been trying to avoid installing it but I can't anymore as it fixes all that is wrong with Android phones....

Used it for years with my Nexus 5x so should really go back to it

Can you clarify? I don't really understand what you are trying to sort if it isn't the apps list you are trying to sort? What do you have against installing an app that makes your life easier? The app doesn't use any extra resources, there are only positives.

james.miller · 11 Sep 2017 at 11:17

mrk said:
You're not stretching, you're cropping to fill the aspect ratio! Big difference that could confuse those who are unaware still!

Not crop, stretch. It disappeared from the youtube app. It used to be an option but it's gone. It's still available in the stock video player apparently, must be software specific.

https://www.phonearena.com/image.php?m=Articles.Images&f=name&id=285453&kw=&article_id=93264&popup=1

BananaDunka · 11 Sep 2017 at 11:24

The button is still there but only for videos that are not HDR. This is a software bug but that needs Samsung to update things to detect the new YouTube server side support for HDR video I bet.

Local video players all have support to crop to fill the full screen however.

I have a folder full of HDR 4K demo videos which crop without stretching perfectly fine in the standard video player. Likewise in MX Player, but without HDR support of course.