All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

Well, so much for the FroYo update. I'm still stuck on 2.1...according to the VM Facebook page, some people have had the update since yesterday, others don't have it. There doesn't appear to be any particular pattern to it.

 

Because it's got no basis in reality.

No it doesn't.


The idea that as soon as they take T-Mobile over, AT&T are just going to flip the kill switch on the AWS 3G is nothing short of ridiculous.
Companies never move that quickly even if something is in their interest - and this wouldn't be.

Not to mention, AT&T have stated that T-Mobile customers will be migrated over to AT&T's 3G bands as their upgrades are due.
Flipping the switch would not be 'migrating'...

 

Please read this: http://gizmodo.com/#!5783954/your-3g-t+mobile-phone-will-be-useless-after-att-merger

I don't think I ever said they would do it instantly. As HAL posted last page, it would be eventually after a few years.

EDIT: here's my post on the last page:

 

The links broken but it makes no difference, citing Gizmodo is a bit like equating something to Nazism or Hitler, the argument is over.

Well maybe not instantly but you implied that the service would be switched off while people were still trying to use it which is clearly not going to happen on any meaningful scale.

 

I'm having some trouble finding inspiration for what to do with my Arc in terms of customising the homescreen...

 

ROFL!

What would you like to see on the homescreen? There are some cool clock widgets that look art-y...

 

I dunno, I just want it to be as cool and arty as the phone itself.

I'm trying to work out whether TimeScape is worth sticking with the stock launcher for...

 

I've been using this one for a while... [APP][09/12] TypoClock - typographic time/date widget [W/H/QVGA][0.51] - xda-developers

I include this one in all my ROM's... [APP Widget]Cowon D3 Clock - xda-developers

 

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll look into them

I'd originally hoped to kind of do this again but have TimeScape active in the free space but since TimeScape won't work with alternative launchers and takes up the full width of the page on the SE launcher ( which can't be adjusted), it's not an option...

Speaking of launchers, are you aware of any that can be set to landscape-only?

 

Not off the top of my head, but look in the Streak forums at XDA. All the launchers on the Streak are landscape, with them having to mod them to run in portrait.

 

What the screenshot doesn't do is give a decent impression of how nice the display is on the Arc.
The blue in so much richer and the contrast ratio kicks the of my monitor...

 

This is getting old...it's been two days now and I'm still stuck on 2.1. >:/

 

Virgin Mobile Froyo 2.2 StockROM, kernel, and other stuff. *Ok GO! Fixed!*

Community to the rescue!

 

After reading through that entire thread, that's not the official update, and it's only advised for people using a rooted Intercept with a non-VM baseband. Some of the posts even explicitly said that it's not a good idea for a stock non-rooted Intercept. I've never rooted and I'm still on the VM baseband, so I'm waiting for the official thing. I'm just miffed that it's taking this long when so many others have had it for days now.

 

Bwahaha!

The SE bootloader-unlocking site is live, time to get all mad scientist on someone else's Arc!

 

New T-Mobile Plans rumored coming

$60 for Unlimited Data!!!!!!!!!

has a 2GB soft cap where you get throttled after, but i found a hack around that anyway

I might be going to this.

 

Think again.

Also, how do you think you can get round the throttling?

 

Damn it XD they just posted that

Oh well, sounded too good to be true

And, this is how
[MOD][THINK TANK] REMOVING Data Cap THROTTLE-UPDATED 1.06.2011 - xda-developers

 

I just don't see how modifying something on your phone can do that - surely it's something at the network's end that throttles your speed?

I mean, if you go over your free minutes, it's not like you can fiddle with your phone and magic up some more...

 

well the minutes is a hard cap, so just like with data theres no way to get around a hard cap.

But this is only a soft cap so its different. If you look at the thread it only lasts until you reboot or something like that, so its not a permanent fix but it apparently does work to avoid throttling.

 

Galaxy S II benchmarked, makes other phones cry in shame -- Engadget

The Galaxy S II just ate Qualcomm's lunch... then kicked them in a bad spot.

Exynos = Dual-core A9 with Out of order execution
Current dual core Snapdragon = Dual-core A8 with in-order-execution (and 128-bit SIMD extensions)

Qualcomm fails.

 

The Exynos is clocked 20% faster than the Tegra2 SoC in the Optimus 2X and that quadrant score is pretty much spot-on 20% higher. Certainly it's an impressive bump but nothing out of line with some of the competition.
Saying that though, the Xoom that was OCed to 1.5GHz only hit ~3100 in Quadrant.

To be honest, I'm not familiar enough with any of the benchmarks to know what's actually important and what's just empty bragging rights.



Jason, have you had a hands-on with a Galaxy S2 yet?
If so, is there any truth to Samsung locking the bootloader?

 

True.. the overclock in comparison to other A9 cores scales linearly. Samsung's A9 vs Qualcomm's A8 though... not so much.

Qualcomm spent millions and millions on the customization of their A8 architecture, and they're trying to milk it for all it's worth. It's getting old.

But yea, I've had -some- hands on time. The bootloader on the handset we have is signed. The good thing is though, that it's smoother on stock settings than any other Android phone I've ever handled. It's shockingly smooth... flash and all.

 

DAMN! <nocaps>

 

Well, that's the bootloader on my Arc officially unlocked.

 

Nice

At least you can do it, the phones that are impossible to unlock suck...

 

Yeah, like my Defy...

The only downside is that the Arc is still waiting to be rooted.

 

Which is why I am hesitant to switch from my nexus one

Pretty sure I will be buying the Galaxy s2 though... looks way too awesome. Aso, SAMOLED+ should be incredible

@hal with the recent posts by samsung of the galaxy s2 not being delayed, is it still delayed on ATT?

 

Yeah, it wont matter. soon they'll all be that way gonna be the downfall of android's "open-ness"

 

Well, except SE handsets and Nexuses.

 

It's a strange world where HTC starts signing their bootloaders and SE opens them up

 

Yeah i forgot about Nexuses. that would probably be one thing they dont do to thier phones....

Well looks like my next phone will be a nexus

 

Somebody managed to acquire and upload the actual official 2.2 Android update for the Intercept on Virgin Mobile for people to install manually instead of waiting for the OTA update from Virgin, which may take weeks.

I installed it, and I'm very impressed so far. The phone is so much more responsive and fast, it's unbelievable. Angry Birds is comfortably playable now with no discernible lag; on 2.1 it would literally get a frame every 3 to 4 seconds. I have no idea how an OS update can do that

I'm not a huge fan of the new light interface...on 2.1 my notification bar was black, and so was the background of the messaging app with white text. Now the bar is white, and the messaging app is bright gray with black text...ah well. I use Handcent most of the time anyway.

5 home screens instead of 3...I only ever used one anyway, so it's kinda lost on me. Dedicated phone and browser buttons on the home screen are nice though. The browser button even let me choose to use Dolphin Lite over the stock browser.

EDIT - holy crap, I literally cannot believe what I am seeing right now...I just ran a Speedtest, and I'm getting over 900kb/s down and 400 up, with 90ms ping. Last time I ran it on 2.1 a week or so ago, I was getting around 120 down and 50 up, with ping over 600. At no point have I ever gotten ping below 400 on 2.1...yet I just ran the test again here and it's well under 100.

I'm currently using my phone to tether, since I have no internet at home, and it literally feels as fast as if my netbook were on WiFi. I have no idea what's going on

 

My LG Optimus is supposed to arrive today!
I can't wait. I sold my HTC Touch Pro2 in a matter of it being posted for 2 days on craigslist. I've been using this for the last week

Marvel at the wonder of this multimedia mammoth! Complete with a total of 10 minutes talk time on its ancient battery that has been word to the bone.

 

@Mastershroom: Nice! i wonder what caused that, not usually a result you expect huh?

Oh god i feel for you... XD

The Optimus is pretty nice for a midrange phone i have to say
I'd highly recommend putting Gingerbread on it, theres an available method here. Its a it of a process, but it makes it much faster, definetly worth it.

 

Sad thing is, that this phone was the new hotness just a few years ago

I had definitely planned that much. Thanks for the link though ahl, saves me from having to dig and search for it!

 

No problem!

It took me a couple hours to do but its worth it.
When you get to the command prompt part to install a custom bootloader, type su before entering the commands. Something they left out of the instructions and took me a few tries to figure out might save you some frustration

 

Went back to LauncherPro - that tablet launcher is fun and all but it's too buggy just now.

 

I like ADW EX, the effects are awesome

 

Go to your dialer and type *#0011#. It should bring you to a ServiceMode menu. Something like this... (Though I'm not 100% sure if debugmode works the same on CDMA models)

 

I'm not at all taken with ADW - the tablet launcher was based on it and I missed a lot of the features of LauncherPro and a lot of the features it has that LauncherPro lacks are either badly-implemented, unnecessary or both.
The only thing it has over LauncherPro IMO is the ability to re-size widgets on the fly - which you can add to LauncherPro if you pay for the 'Plus' version.


As for the tablet launcher, basically the only features it has over a normal one is the ability to default to landscape and dock(s) that are re-designed to fit/complement that orientation.

 

Ah ok, the thing i like about it is the effects

Does the LauncherPro Plus have similar affects possibly?

Applanet is your friend

 

Which particular effects are you talking about?

 

<param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5wkXH5ZJ2Yo?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5wkXH5ZJ2Yo?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width='480' height="390"></embed></object>
http://youtu.be/5wkXH5ZJ2Yo

 

It has similar effects, yeah.
Not as many I don't think but they're definitely there.

 

Hmm ive always used ADW but ill have to give it a shot

 

I dialed that and it just said the number is not valid.

What exactly was that supposed to do, anyway?

 

I was interested to know why your data speeds are varying so much. They shouldn't unless you're teetering between 1xRTT and 1xEV_Rev.0. I know most prepaid CDMA carriers restrict users to 1xEV Rev0 to keep contract subs happy with RevA. 1xRTT sounds like what you're mostly connected to with those low data speeds and massive ping times... and when you say it's like WiFi, that's 1xEV.

Basically 1xEV would never provision you in situations where your ping time would be over 500ms. That's where you fall back to 1xRTT.

EDIT: That *#0011# should have worked. Samsung standardizes their debug codes in the dialer. Try this one... *#DATA*727336*#

EDIT2: Don't press call... when dialing, after pressing the last character, it should show the servicemode.

 

I see.

From what I've read, the Virgin Mobile version of the Intercept is capable of Rev.A, while the contract Sprint version can only do Rev.0.

Neither of those codes seem to do anything, the numbers just stay on the screen...I assume by "DATA" you mean 3282?

 

Hmm... I think I'm too used to my engineering phones. It seems you need to unlock the debug codes for that phone.

But overall, 2.2 is still giving you a lot better speeds and latency?