All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

Sure! Just do this:

First, reboot into Recovery.
In recovery go to advanced SpeedMod ULK Features
Then LAGFIX Options
Then Advanced custom conversion options...
From there, use the power/select to change "DATA_FS" "CACHE_FS" and "DBDATA_FS" to EXT4 (not EXT4nj). As you press select it cycles through options...
Once done there, go back and reboot. Then upon reboot, select continue with backup and restore.

Doing that ensures that 1.) your phone's NAND will have a decent lifetime. EXT2 with loopbacks isn't that great for NAND. 2.) improved performance. and 3.) ensures data integrity. You saw what happened when disabling OCLF.

Only thing is, without the loopbacks you're going to get a little less than 2200. But since EXT4 is multithreaded, unlike RFS, you can perform read/write simultaneously...

 

Done but i clicked on convert to RFS to EXT4. Is that bad?

I do notice the "media scanning" doesnt take as long now

 

Where? EXT4 is what you want to convert to... so..

Yea. That helps media scanning a TON... Along with 2.2 just being faster with media scanning somehow.

 

It would seem Flip has a lot of reading to do lol.

 

Woops i meant it said Enable Lagfix: Convert RFS to EXT4. Turned out well so i guess its all good.

lol yes i dont really have the time or brain space to learn all about it. The last time i flashed my phone was like 8months ago.

Anyway everything is nice and smoothly running. Very happy with the outcome thanks to HAL

 

So whats a good music player app that has a full equalizer and can play flac?

 

Poweramp can I believe, Winamp may be able to. Probably the best two to check out for your use.

 

It's a shame you don't have a Defy

 

I bought an defy the other week and i am dying for froyo 2.2 , I am tempted to try an hacked rom, but i payed full sim free price and i am scared of turning it into an paperweight.

I do follow the defy on the xda-developers forum.

 

I saw your comment in the thread that relates to the cases.

I updated to the 2.34 Blur-lite Éclair ROM that's floating round, it was a nice improvement.
Also, LauncherPro is a must IMO.

 

I will have a look at that

 

The current version of Launcher Pro just keep hanging after reboot for no reason. It annoyed me so much that I switched to Zeam until a better version comes out.

 

I have zero problems with it, just as reliable as always (ie very).

 

It would seem a newer update was dropped that fixed the issue. I downloaded it again and no problem so far.

 

LauncherPro is actually getting a full re-write coming soon... this last version was just filler.

 

*fingers crossed* they introduce LG-esque categories in the App Drawer...

 

Currently running an early 2.3 build on my HTC Magic. All works well except for certain apps (Gmail, camera). I am also running launcher pro in 2.3. Using K9 mail as a replacement, I actually kinda like it, really snappy.

 

I wish Kies wasn't so buggy.. Its horrible.
I am not even running 2.2 yet D:

 

Yea dont use Kies, its a piece of buggy crap. Ive tried to make use of its features, but it all fails.

 

What else do you use to update your firmware?!
I dont feel like spending 3 hours flashing my device.. :S

 

Even in the US, people have to use a Kies variant (Kies Mini) to upgrade the Vibrant to Froyo.

It'll be interesting to see whether other US Galaxy S phones like Fascinate, Captivate and Epic 4G will have to use it.

 

I flash manually, the official firmwares and stuff are usually bloated with the carriers crap.

It doesnt take hours, i think i spent more time trying to do it through kies (which failed) than manually flashing it.

 

Iunno if it has been mentioned, but I really prefer Go Launcher to LauncherPro. It has been more fluid for me (yay for pointless anecdotal accounts!).

 

I am using Zeam now and its good but i find the dock icons are too small on the Galaxy S. It makes other icons and widgets go out of alignment.

 

Not "necessarily". ODIN is MUCH better than Kies.

Kies is horrible.

 

I like LauncherPro but I keep meaning to try the new version of ADW, Zeam and Go Launcher.
I just never seem to get round to it.

Oh and Handcent and the alternative Jason mentioned too...

 

Go Launcher is eh.. I'm Jewish on that one... But the other two are pretty darn nice.

Go SMS is great on the other hand... Is really nice. It's clean and themeable. I never could get Handcent just where I liked it.

 

Well, the thing about Go SMS and Handcent is that I'm actually quite happy with the stock Defy text messaging app ( with SMS Popup added to it).
But so many people go on about Handcent that I figure I've got to have a look...

 

Indeed. Stock SMS has come a LONG way compared to what it was when Handcent got popular. I rather liked the one on my Backflip. I'm on AOSP now... it's no-nonsense..LOL.

 

AOSP is Android Open Source... Or "vanilla".

 

So what does the P stand for?

 

Project. LOL.

 

'Project' seems somewhat anti-climactic

 

Woaaa, Zeam is really great, thanks for the tip Who shall I rep for the info?

 

Me! Pick me!

 

There's your answer

 

Tried Zeam.
Nah.

 

Zeam's actually a really nice, lightweight launcher, I use it instead of HTC Sense. Only downside is its on development hiatus

 

Don't get me wrong, it's not bad ( better than ADW when I used it, though it's had a major re-working done so I need to try it again) but it lacks everything I like about LauncherPro.

The only thing it had that would be nice to see added to LauncherPro was the transparency effect in the app drawer.

 

I only wanted something minimalistic and fast anyway, so it suited my needs perfectly, sounds like you have slightly different goal

 

The things I like most about LauncherPro are the scrollable dock and the fact you can hide stuff in the app drawer.
Makes my phone significantly nicer to use IMO.

 

Back on-topic a bit, I'm loving Tank Hero.

 

Ok, next on my list was Go Launcher.

Did not like the TouchWiz-esque ( ie iPhone clone) app drawer but that paled in comparison to the fact that it just didn't work.
On the home screen if I pressed the menu button then preferences or went into the app drawer, pressed the menu button then settings a menu would flash up for a second then immediately disappear.

Can't see it being worth the hassle/wait to get it working.

 

Sounds like your are hating TouchWiz for all the wrong reasons, just because it is a side scroll-er like the iPhone.

 

TouchWiz's launcher, I agree with Ian, is very much a rip-off on iOS. I really don't like the launcher. Now the other elements of TouchWiz I really like.

 

It sounds like you need to re-read what I said.
I said I disliked the side-scrolling app drawer on Go Launcher, I never even started to talk about how bad TouchWiz is.


But while we're on the subject, yeah, the app drawer on TouchWiz is bad. Not only because it's side-scrolling but because it's so obviously a rip-off of the iPhone.
It's lazy, not just because they've just copied Apple instead of doing anything original but also because they haven't even taken the time to try and make it look like anything more than a copy.

That and the general feel that it's been designed for five-year-olds.
It has an unattractive, simplistic feel to it, like they've gone for the 'Fisher Price My First Smartphone' look instead of making it aesthetically pleasing. It's like they've assumed their customers are too stupid to use anything that doesn't have big, brightly-coloured icons.

TouchWiz is one of the poorer interfaces available for Android IMO.

 

Agree with most of the points here, but there are some nice things in touchwiz. My sister recently bought a captivate, and the media player and integration with the lock screen and notification bar is pretty great on touchwiz.

 

I actually don't get the TouchWiz hate. (and having had an Omnia with TouchWiz 1 I should be hating right along with you guys )

I like that it's different. The stuff that annoys me about the generally good HTC Sense isn't there. For example, Samsung sorts the widgets between their own and Android stock ones. Little thing sure, but to me it shows someone took the time to organize things a bit compared to the thrown together list (why isn't the list at least grouped, HTC?) of widgets that HTC has done. Granted the number and variety of custom widgets could be improved, and HTC leads in that regard, but many of the Samsung widgets like "Feeds and Updates" etc look better than the HTC equivalent.

I also like how TouchWiz feel's a tad less visually heavy than HTC Sense. I'm a sucker for transparencies so the homescreen that lets a lot of your wallpaper though is very nice, along with the trick "puzzle piece" lockscreen that lets you go straight to missed calls/ voice mail/messaging available on some TouchWiz 3 models. I like how TouchWiz preserves unique android UI tricks like the popup context "window" that floats on top of what you're on, instead of covering the entire screen with a boring flat black list.

The same goes for the app drawer itself, I think it's great that it's transparent and scrollable from left to right. I do agree that it could do without the redundant multicolored app icon "backgrounds" but the powerful drag & drop sorting, easy app uninstallation right from the launcher, and ability to switch to list view are all unexpected from a OEM UI overlay. Also on most devices, the four semi-permnament icons along the bottom of the screen are customizable, which is nice.

You can even take a screenshot on most Galaxy S models w/out needing any additional software. It's little things i've mentioned sure but it's why I like it. *shrugs*

I prefer stock overall but if I had to go with a UI Overlay, TouchWiz 3's at the top of my list.

 

That's actually something I include with all my custom ROM's... it's called appwidgetpicker.apk and you can find it at XDA. It groups widgets perfectly, IMO. Drop it in /system/app or maybe it's installable (I'm not sure), and that's all that you have to do.