All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

nah, it stops the app after I enter another one, thats no multitasking. at least chrome lets you load the pages that are on other tabs

it doesn't search efficiently. Im letting it do auto updates over wifi

I don't see anything so particularly unique about gmail, but them again I don't use it at all.

just unite them all, and when the other mail provider doesn't have the feature X or Y let it be disabled and warn the user.

 

Outlook.com provides a unique mail client just for their webmail. Yahoo Mail provides a unique mail client just for their webmail. Gmail provides a unique web client just for their webmail. And then Android also has the generic, somewhat-lackluster "email" client for any service that doesn't have a custom-built Android client.

I think the email app is part of the open-source stuff, and the gmail-app is a closed-source app only available with Google services. So they're saving "the best" in their mind for people tying into the Google ecosystem, while still being able to look people in the eye and say that the open-source stuff is fully-functional without the Google apps.

 

That's not how Linux or Android handles background processes. When an app isn't in the foreground, it goes into a sleep state. It's still active, and if it needs to do anything... it's perfectly free to do so. Also, the only reason Android will vacate apps from RAM is if the OOM level of the app is high enough, the app is in the background, and the system has a very immediate need for free RAM.

Which app "stops" after you enter another one? If you mean there's no live preview on the multitasking switcher, that's purely by choice... those are screenshots, not live app-view.

Also, about voice recognition... still don't understand. Works flawlessly for me and just about everyone I know. Even a Kyrgyz friend of mine uses it with no problem.

KitKat brings the stock Email app to feature/design parity with GMail.

 

good to know about the email app, now I'm just hoping that soon I will get the update.

Voice recognition doesn't work well.

I for one am native speaker of portuguese. and one without the major accents that you can find in brazil, my portuguese is boring as me. it doesn't detect always what I'm saying and gives me ludicrous results. it became an instant joke when my sister is going to search something using her samsung phone, it never gets it right.

My english is acceptable in terms of speech, i.e. I can enter a masters course., no major heavy accents either, but my brit friend swears to me that i have a canadian accent mixed with some portuguese accent.

Basically on dictation its very noticeable, it will always mistake at least 3-4 words in a phrase. unless you speak very very slowly. ruining the dictation process anyway.

for example grooveshark, I'm in brazil... so that has to serve, it stops after i fire up chrome. and so forth. its not always that while I'm checking my email and left chrome to load some pages that it won't load anything, and it doesn't matter if I'm using wifi or 3g, even 4g.

And no, Im not demanding multitasking while I'm playing a game, though it should be there, its simple tasks like listening to a radio app, and checking mails and surfing the web. very basic stuff that you do on your pc, basically very light office stuff. The amazing thing is that Im not even using 3-8 apps as I'm used in the pc, I'm just using usually 2-3 tops, so being out of ram, aint a possibility, as i checked in the apps settings, I'm still left with at least 1gb of ram free, i.e. half of my ram is vacant.

but as you said, the app goes to sleep. so its not functioning as it should.

 

Neither the official Grooveshark app or Dood's Music Streamer have behaved like that in my use. I can fire up any app I want and they will keep playing in the background. YouTube and browser activity, in this case m.grooveshark.com, will be paused if you attempt to do anything else.

 

strange, it does repeatedly on my phone, it simply stops functioning after entering another app. and yes its the official grooveshark app

i haven't tried doods music streamer, will try it

 

So I just bought a Nexus 7 by Asus 2012 generation. Before doing anything else after booting I tried to update from 4.2.1 JB to 4.3 normally from the auto-update (non-rooted). During installation it is now stuck in the 'X' logo for hours and I tried rebooting and it is still boot looping an staying on the X logo. I even tried a hard factory reset from the bootloader option and after rebooting it is still stuck on the 'X' logo. What do I do?

 

I'd probably download the toolkit. It'll walk you through everything.

[TOOLKIT] SKIPSOFT ANDROID TOOLKIT - NEXUS 7 V6.1.2 - Drivers, Root, Recovery + MORE - xda-developers

 

Is there an app or something I can do to make an Android handset act as a BT headset for another phone?

 

It's not so simple. The headset smartphone has to transmit that it will connect to the other smartphone's phone audio protocol. Doing a search, I haven't found an app that will override the bluetooth stack to force those bluetooth profiles active between the two when connected.

 

Why I don’t use screen protectors: An engineer’s perspective | Android and Me

 

I bet he'd use them if he bought decent screen protectors and was smart enough to put it on correctly.. I'll agree that some do change the feel, but if you buy a decent dry application one it's often a similar feeling

 

I think his major point : There are limited number of materials that we come into contact with on a daily basis that will actually scratch your phone’s display.

 

That discussion was largely pointless dare I say. Does the author's profession matter when his reasons for not using screen protectors are entirely subjective? The title is just used to grab views and to "validate" his subjective points. Not that I disagree with his subjective points (I don't use a screen protector or case with my Nexus 5 either), but using some facts to validate his opinions seems pointless. Whatever his work experience maybe, it offered no input into the discussion other than a text book definition of hardness and where Gorilla Glass' stands in the scale based on manufacturer claims. Not mention, lab testing under ideal conditions will most certainly differ from real world usage.

 

That guy sounds a little weird to me. The way he talks about the way his phone feels leads me to believe he caresses it as if it were an inflatable female companion.

 

No screen protector will get in the way between me and my piece of Gorilla Glass.........

 

Not using protection?

Ooooh, Johnny! You're gonna catch something you don't want...

 

I live life in the..........

Spoiler

 

I believe everything said by anyone wearing a smock.

 

Im trying to find why I'm not able to use my telco internet, basically I can just surf over wifi.

I have tried a restore to factory settings with no success. Im not limiting my apps, nor background connections, anything, it just won't work in a 3g or 4g connection

 

Behind every good android there's a little devil waiting to set you on fire. Is it really worth that unprotected feeling to let him near your unmentionables?

 

Fair enough. Though that one time you do encounter an scratchy substance, you'll wish you had a protector..

 

Absolutely, I went without a protector forever and regret it by the time I look closely at the display again...scratches all over.

 

He's right and wrong. You don't need one. It's mostly for cosmetic purposes TBH. Gorilla Glass and other scratch resistant glass is as it says. But for me, I tend to flip electronics fast, and a screen protector allows me to keep my phone in pristine shape.

 

Absolutely, I went without a protector forever and regret it by the time I look closely at the display again...scratches all over.

 

I disagree with his 'engineer's perspective', though I also go uncased. You case / screenprotect for insurance beyond everyday abrasion, more so with some makes (I'm looking at you, HTC). The problem is that many phones are engineered to be trinkets first, everyday usable second.

 

Go launcher is like the McAfee of phone apps....my goodness.

Removed it and things got a lot better on this old thing.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

 

Well, I finally caved. Ordered a Nexus 7 (2013) WiFi 16GB! Rationalized it out to myself that it'll be useful for eBook and research paper PDFs...

Yeah, Go Launcher and its associated apps are all horrendously bloaty and laggy. Really annoying how they always try to upsell you to the paid versions as well.

 

Nova Launcher Prime remains my favorite launcher. Smooth, customizable, and practical.

 

Despite the speed (I have the transitions still on, but dialed up to pretty much max speed) it's still clunky to me but it looks like as good as Android gets. Nova also gets my vote - the paid for version.

 

GO apps in general are pretty bad.

 

I liked some aspects of it like auto categorization and how smooth the transitions were but the upsell irritated me. Plus once I removed it the phone became much more responsive.

If only touchwiz's app drawer would stay in device memory...waiting for that damn pinwheel to spin as my apps load irritates me even more...

Sadly I can't run Nova on this phone: its stuck on android 2.3 without any chance of a 4.0+ upgrade...official or otherwise.

For sure...theres a lot of potential but the constant upsells and questionable tactics (like trying to replace Play Store shortcuts in their apps with their weird front end) are a turn off.

Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk 2

 

So THAT'S what it is? I was always curious why I couldn't flip through my app drawer and widget drawer on my Galaxy S3 with the TouchWiz Home launcher without significant stuttering, since the same phone NEVER chokes when flipping through the widgets with Nova Launcher Prime set as the launcher.

 

I've never had stuttering on app drawer with Touchwiz. That's the only thing I've never had stuttering on my SGS3.

 

My SGS3 is bugging me to update to 4.3. Sure, like I will blindly install an update without checking what it will incur beforehand.

KNOX Bootloader my pale white butt!

Step 1: Remove the update from my SGS3 so I don't get these notifications anymore.

Step 2: Wait until XDA undoes the KNOX bootloader or finds a work around to reset the flag.

 

Serves him right!
I hate when people take out their stupid phones during concerts/games/etc.

 

Got the google service / google play service battery drain problem, any definitive fix?

 

Android 4.4.

That's about the only thing I've seen so far that is a definitive fix. What phone do you have?

 

nexus 7(old) on 4.4 ~~, turned off keep awake for google (play)service seem to help. waiting for a full charge so the battery usage thing reset.

Can the battery usage thing reset w/o full charge?

 

Interesting.

And no, Tegra 3 with the Nexus 7 doesn't have the advanced power management interface that Snapdragon has.

 

So I have to un root if I want the AT&T software update right? I got a software update and I've been postponing it because I'm modified. It keeps popping up though.

 

Correct.

If you're rooted, you can use root explorer and go into /cache, or data/fota and delete the update. It won't stop the notification, but it will guarantee the update will not automatically start itself.

 

It's $4! Is there another way?

 

You can use any file explorer/manager which allows for root access.

 

Oh, duh. I found one that worked. Thanks

 

If you use Titanium Backup and force-close the AT&T Software Update process, that will prevent the constant update auto-downloading as well. You won't need the paid version of Titanium Backup to do so. I had to do that a few times on my stock-rooted GS3 before I moved to CyanogenMod.

 

I'm still back on 4.1.2... I need to move to something newer and figure out how to do it without losing all my contacts like last time lol

 

I'm in the same boat. But on my SGS3, I can't update with the stock image cause of a little OEM virus called Knox Bootloader.

So I'm stuck waiting for until someone on XDA reverse engineers the update and removes the bootloader. A couple already have, but those updates have issues with wifi and rotation lock.

 

I just haven't sat down to figure out how to do everything right. It's a bit intimidating at first, but I know it's not that big of a deal. I just need to sit down and give it a shot.. I got a 4.3.2 to install right but I couldn't get my contacts back so I had to restore my back up. And I lost all S Pen functionality which sorta sucked.