Hey guys, new to Android. First time ever last night when I got the mytouch slide. So I have a few questions that may make veterans laugh...
1. Why does it seem like there are a bunch of things running on my phone that I don't want running or ever use? Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
2. Is there's a setting that stops things from always being connected and draining battery? Amazon mp3 store I didn't even ever open and I see it in Running Services. How is that possible? Maybe I'm not understanding something?
3. When you back out of an app, is it closed? Or still running?
4. Any way to COMPLETELY delete certain apps from the phone?
THANK YOU GUYS!
Yes there's a task killer check market,in addition you can go to settings,applications,manage applications and end services yourself.that answers your 1st 3 questions,on to question 4.you cannot currently uninstall preloaded apps but if and when the phone gets rooted you will be able to remove them through adb or terminal.in addition eventually after this phone gets rooted people will create custom roms that won't come preloaded with all that bloatware.
Jerzeeloon is right, but I'm going to add some detail since you said you were new to Android.
1. Why does it seem like there are a bunch of things running on my phone that I don't want running or ever use?
THERE ARE.
Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
SORT OF. ASSUMING YOU HAVEN'T ADDED ANY OTHER TYPE OF MANAGEMENT APP, YOU CAN USE ASTRO WHICH IS PRE-INSTALLED. OPEN UP YOUR APP DRAWER AND SELECT ASTRO. ONCE OPEN, HIT THE PHYSICAL MENU BUTTON AND SELECT TOOLS, THEN PROCESS MANAGER. FOR NOW, I WOULD ONLY USE THE APPS TAB AND YOU CAN CLOSE OUT RUNNING SERVICES THIS WAY. YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD ADVANCED TASK MANAGER OR ADVANCED TASK KILLER WHICH WILL ASSIST IN THIS PROCESS. BOTH ARE GOOD, TRY THEM AND CHOOSE WHICH YOU LIKE BEST. MANY SERVICES MAY BE RUNNING THAT SEEMS TO BE NON-USED, BUT ARE ACTUALLY WORKING WITH SOMETHING ELSE OR ARE RUNNING IDLE OR IN BACKGROUND.
2. Is there's a setting that stops things from always being connected and draining battery?
WHILE A FANTASTIC PHONE, THE SENSE USER INTERFACE AND TMOBILE BOTH RUN MANY APPS THAT WE INDIVIDUALLY MAY NOT WANT OR USE. FOR INSTANCE, I USE HANDCENT FOR TEXT AND K9 IN PLACE OF THE STOCK MAIL (NOT GMAIL). SO I GO TO SETTINGS-APPLICATIONS-MANAGE APPLICATIONS AND ENTER INTO THESE APPS WHICH I DON'T USE AND IF THEY ARE RUNNING, HAVE A 'FORCE STOP' OPTION. AS LONG AS ANOTHER APP ISN'T SOMEHOW USING IT OR YOU'VE SET DEFAULTS TO A DIFFERENT APP, THEN IT SHOULD STAY CLOSED/NON-RUNNING. I ALSO DID THIS WITH FRIENDSTREAM, PEEP, FACEBOOK, ETC WHICH I DON'T USE ON THIS PHONE. YOU SHOULDN'T REALLY NEED TO USE A TASK MANAGER VERY OFTEN. YOU'LL GET DIFFERING REPORTS FROM USERS; SOME SAY THEY 'END ALL' SEVERAL TIMES DAILY, SOME SAY THEY NEVER USE IT. I PREFER SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE THOUGH I NEVER 'END ALL'. THIS JUST FORCES ALL THE APPS THAT NEED TO BE RUNNING TO RESTART WHICH IS NOT USUALLY NECESSARY. MORE LATER...
Amazon mp3 store I didn't even ever open and I see it in Running Services. How is that possible? Maybe I'm not understanding something?
I'M PERPLEXED BY THIS, TOO. BUT I'M NOT A DEVELOPER OR CODER, SO WHAT DO I KNOW?
3. When you back out of an app, is it closed? Or still running?
FROM WHAT I'VE READ, SOME APPS WILL CLOSE WHEN YOU BACK ALL THE WAY OUT. SOME WILL CLOSE WHEN YOU LEAVE THE APP (BY HITTING HOME). SOME WON'T CLOSE AT ALL; WHICH IS THE "MORE LATER". THIS IS THE SCENARIO THAT I USE TASK MANAGERS (TM). IF I'M IN AND OUT OF MULTIPLE APPS IN A PORTION OF DAY, I MAY OPEN UP A TM AND CLOSE SOME OF THOSE APPS, I.E. MAPS, ASTRO, TASK MGR, HANDCENT, ALOQA, ETC. BE CAREFUL TO NOT CLOSE OUT APPS THAT ARE SET UP TO SYNC, LIKE YOUR MAIL APPS.
4. Any way to COMPLETELY delete certain apps from the phone?
NOT THE PRE-INSTALLED ONES. STOCK-ANDROID IS THE SAME AS LINUX ON YOUR PC. HAVING A CUSTOM UI IS AKIN TO WHAT COMPANIES LIKE REDHAT TRIED TO DO WITH AN OPEN-SOURCE OS. SO WHILE THERE ARE MANY NICE FEATURES, APPS, WIDGETS, ETC PRE-INSTALLED, UNFORTUNATELY YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO UNINSTALL THEM...YET. THIS PHONE WILL BECOME ROOTED. THIS WILL GIVE YOU THE OPTION OF ADDING CUSTOM ROM'S WHICH WILL ALLOW YOU DIRECT CONTROL OVER WHAT IS ON THE PHONE. THE NEXT THING WE ARE WAITING FOR IS THE NEXT OTA UPDATE, FROYO (2.2). THIS WILL BRING THE ABILITY TO RUN APPS FROM THE SD CARD (APPS2SD) WHICH WILL KEEP THE INTERNAL ROM MEMORY SPACE MOSTLY FREE. FOR ME AT LEAST, THIS WILL HELP ALLEVIATE THE CONSTERNATION I HAVE TO NOT BEING ABLE TO REMOVE THE BLOATWARE. FOR NOW, CHECK OUT WHAT IS ALREADY ON THERE AND IF THERE IS SOMETHING YOU LIKE, SEARCH THE MARKET TO SEE WHAT OTHER SIMILAR APPS ARE AVAILABLE. I WILL TELL YOU THAT THE ONLY ADD-ON APP I HAVEN'T "REPLACED" WITH SOMETHING ELSE IS THE SENSE WEATHER. AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, I USE HANDCENT FOR SMS, K9 FOR OTHER MAIL, SEISMIC FOR TWITTER, ADVANCED TASK MANAGER, SHOP SAVVY FOR BAR CODE, DOLPHIN FOR BROWSER, AND NEWSROB FOR RSS.
Man, you guys are awesome. Informative and friendly.
I HAD two questions but figured on e of them out so here's the one I'm still stuck on...
- Is there an app that will allow me to assign a specific ringtone to specific notifications? SMS, email, voicemail, etc?
Thanks guys!
You can do that by going into the setting in the app.. Example, go into the sms app, hit menu button (3 lines button), settings, notifications
Well that would certainly add a song to notifications for you but it wouldn't allow yo to pick a different song for SMS, MMS, emails, etc.
Are you looking to add different notifications for different people within SMS, email, etc or just to the different apps?
Within each separate app, you will have a 'settings' app, usually navigated by the Menu button. Within this you can set the notification settings. You can easily create your own sounds using Ringdroid and use them also. For example, I used the embedded voice recorder for one of my email accounts linked to my Amazon Seller account. So now when I receive email (via K9) to that account, I hear, "Cha-Ching!...Money!" (this makes me happy 10-15 times a day when that account syncs.)
tinpanalley said:
Man, you guys are awesome. Informative and friendly.
I HAD two questions but figured on e of them out so here's the one I'm still stuck on...
- Is there an app that will allow me to assign a specific ringtone to specific notifications? SMS, email, voicemail, etc?
Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
fl_jeep said:
Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
SORT OF. ASSUMING YOU HAVEN'T ADDED ANY OTHER TYPE OF MANAGEMENT APP, YOU CAN USE ASTRO WHICH IS PRE-INSTALLED.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since when is Astro pre-installed? It certainly isn't on my phone...
fermunky said:
Since when is Astro pre-installed? It certainly isn't on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it is possible I installed it from my SD. I was in a tizzy with my new phone.
fl_jeep said:
Are you looking to add different notifications for different people within SMS, email, etc or just to the different apps?
Within each separate app, you will have a 'settings' app, usually navigated by the Menu button. Within this you can set the notification settings. You can easily create your own sounds using Ringdroid and use them also. For example, I used the embedded voice recorder for one of my email accounts linked to my Amazon Seller account. So now when I receive email (via K9) to that account, I hear, "Cha-Ching!...Money!" (this makes me happy 10-15 times a day when that account syncs.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, what I'm trying to do is have one ringtone for emails, another for notifications (appointments), another for text messages, and so on. If I can actually assign a ringtone to different email accounts, that would be even better!
The problem is, when I go into settings for my email account, in the notifications settings all I get is, email notifications on or off, notification sound on or off, and notification vibrate on or off. No choice to select an actual ringtone.
tinpanalley said:
Yes, what I'm trying to do is have one ringtone for emails, another for notifications (appointments), another for text messages, and so on. If I can actually assign a ringtone to different email accounts, that would be even better!
The problem is, when I go into settings for my email account, in the notifications settings all I get is, email notifications on or off, notification sound on or off, and notification vibrate on or off. No choice to select an actual ringtone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock Mail app might not have the option, but Gmail and SMS do. If you want a different notification sound in general for email and voicemail just hit menu, settings, sounds and display. There you will see the option to change notification sound.
So can you guys tell me which are the best email clients that exist for Android then? The most feature rich maybe? Well, best functioning is more important.
And secondly, if I use another email program, then does the email page all the way on the left become completely useless? Does it get populated with the emails from your new client? Can you delete the page?
Thanks!
I'm assuming you mean a widget?? If so you just touch and hold it down.. it'll turn red then drag it down to the trash. Gone! Then I would go into the mail app and sign off so its not constantly checking in the background and stuff. As for another feature rich mail app, the only experience I have with one is K9 and it worked quite well and has great reviews. Look it up in the market.
If you want to get the widget back for what ever reason you long click once again in the empty area, select widgets then mail.
Ok, cool, I thought it was a whole page, I didn't think it was just a big massive widget. This is more customizable than I thought!! Loving this phone more and more each day.
turboyo said:
Then I would go into the mail app and sign off so its not constantly checking in the background and stuff.
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Click to collapse
What do I have to do to make sure the HTC Mail app doesn't keep working in the background? Just kill my email account?
Is there a better SMS app?
first off, take off all widgets that are not necessary.. only widget i keep on is power control and clock. secondly, disable all sync that is unneccessary for you, under your accounts and sync menu in settings. that should save you a good deal of cpu usage and battery
I love K9 for my non-primary Gmail account. They also just updated it giving it some great new features such as viewing your mail from all accounts in one stream. They also have some nice batch options that I like and it's easy to dump trash along with compacting and expunging the messages from cache.
That indeed gives you the ability to assign different notifications for each account.
Hey,
I tried K-9 but right away, I got a picture in an email as an attachment that opened up all corrupted. Doesn't happen on the stock email program and I tested the same email there and it worked fine. I cant rely unfortunately on an email program that shows my picture attachments like this so I had to uninstall K-9. Anyone know why this happened? I got a few bars of the image across the top and the rest of the frame was black, almost dark grey.
Why is it BB apps update instantly and Android ones don't?
Examples
Facebook notifications aren't instant. You have to refresh to see em.
Emails, same thing or it you can set it up to check every 15 min.
BB if someone emails me, I get it as soon as it's sent. Same for facebook.
Are their apps or ways to change this?
buffnutz1 said:
Why is it BB apps update instantly and Android ones don't?
Examples
Facebook notifications aren't instant. You have to refresh to see em.
Emails, same thing or it you can set it up to check every 15 min.
BB if someone emails me, I get it as soon as it's sent. Same for facebook.
Are their apps or ways to change this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Gmail and it is instant push notification. I don't have to sync anything. I use exchange for my work email which is also push notification and it is instant without any syncing required.
As far as FB goes, I have mine set to notify me through my gmail account and as soon as I receive a comment I get an email instantly.
I also came from a BB and personally will never go back. Good luck
I found the BB market not very useful..but I did have a VZ curve without wifi.
I had issues with syncing working well with task killing..
Once you upgrade to android 2.2 get rid of advanced task killer and automatic task killer..
I've had no issues with syncing since..
buffnutz1 said:
Why is it BB apps update instantly and Android ones don't?
Examples
Facebook notifications aren't instant. You have to refresh to see em.
Emails, same thing or it you can set it up to check every 15 min.
BB if someone emails me, I get it as soon as it's sent. Same for facebook.
Are their apps or ways to change this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ohh yeah and another thing that I hated about my BB, the thing had virtually no memory on it and I had to constantly deal with a memory leak issue that was basically a known factor with BB's.
I was constantly cleaning and clearing cache on a daily if not 2-3 times a day basis.
My Dinc has never had any issues with this and in fact has plenty of memory to go around.
The only other problem i could complain about on my Dinc is the battery issues but I have been using the Seidio 1750 battery, and have rooted the phone and am running SetCPU and also turned off "Background data always on" and my battery life is awesome now!
Im running the latest version of QIK for the EVO. In doing some reading I have read that leaving QIK running drains the battery faster then having it not run. HOWEVER when I click SIGN OFF, I get a message "Signing off will remove your QIK data from this phone" .. what does that mean?? when I sign back in, will it put my linked contacts back??
Is this program actually a battery drainer??
Thanks...
I'm not sure about the sign off issue, but I tried installing the very newest version of Qik, and it drained my battery like no other app. Not even close either. And I knew it was the app because I changed nothing other than installing the app, and I was losing closer to 15-20% an hour.
are you sure? I havent seen anyone else report this...
I seem to be having some very poor battery life myself. The only thing I can think of is that recently (days) ago, I installed the Qik app to try it since a friend of mine just purchased on Evo. I've just uninstalled it to test this theory.
I'm glad to see it wasn't just me. I fail to see why qik needs to have a background task when it isn't running - it has no reason to notify me about anything. I uninstalled it and my phone is back to making it through the day.
I wouldn't be surprised. I used to have Fring (another video chat app) installed on my phone and that was a battery drainer. I'm guessing these video chat apps have to stay open and 'listen' for a potential incoming call or video chat session.
abanh said:
I wouldn't be surprised. I used to have Fring (another video chat app) installed on my phone and that was a battery drainer. I'm guessing these video chat apps have to stay open and 'listen' for a potential incoming call or video chat session.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sounds about right. Can't receive a phone call if the phone isn't on, right?
Anyways...
The reason it's a battery drainer is because not only does it have your screen on constantly, but it's also using the front facing/rear facing camera, recording video, up streaming the recorded video, and down streaming video. That's when you're using it. When you're not, it runs in the background for potential video calls, like stated above. It's using your data almost constantly; sending and receiving small packets that tell it "No requests yet!"
As for the data loss, what it's saying is that when you sign out, you're signing out. Your User ID and Password is no longer saved, and from what it says, you're videos and general user data will be erased from the phone. However, all of the videos you've taken are saved on their website, and is accessible from their app once you sign back in. If you choose to sign back in, the app will read your contacts like it did before.
I have Qik installed, and my battery is unaffected. I just sign out when I close it that way it won't run in the background. If all else fails, you can always just manually end the process using .Free Advanced TaskManager. It's available in the market place, and is a huge help. I love it. Look for the Icon with a blue phone inside a blue gear. There are several apps with similar names, and it may not show up as the first one.
Hey you guys!
Ik hope this is the right topic to post in, since it's about an app, but about the DHD as well.
For about a week now whatsapp wont push my messages forward to a notification.
When i recieve a message i will only get notified when i open up the whatsapp main screen (like it has to load the new messages instead of pushing it right away). This ofcourse takes all the functionality out of the app!
Anyone here got the same problem? my buddies (none of them on DHD) have no problems what so ever, except when they try to reach me. Altough, 1 friend of mine has the exact same problem (running DHD ROM on HD2) another friend of mine (with the exact same software setup on HD2 as well) has no problems.
Also, htcsense.com can no longer reach my phone to ring or block the device.
-stock DHD on 2.3
-most recent version of whatsapp
-doesnt matter if 3g or Wifi
-tried reinstalling the program
-htcsense.com apparantly "Can't connect to phone"
any you guys have suggestions?
You aren't running a task manager app are you?, in my experience HTCsense.com would work intermittently at best anyway, but no problems with Whattsapp notifications here but I am running CM7
yes im running SystemPanel 1.0.9.
But im using this task manager for months now and until now there were no problems at all, the task assigned to whatsapp is excluded from the kill list
Panatella said:
yes im running SystemPanel 1.0.9.
But im using this task manager for months now and until now there were no problems at all, the task assigned to whatsapp is excluded from the kill list
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TASK MANAGERS ARE EVIL REMOVE IT NOW AND YOUR LIFE WILL BE BETTER, don't just take my word for it try some of these sources for size Phandroid, Androidspin, Infoworld, Lifehacker and Androinica. As Cyanogen himself says remove your task manager and reproduce the bug and we'll see what we can do.
Got the same problem with htcsense. Can't lock or locate my phone or let it ring. No problems with whatsapp, thats working fine. Also on a stockrom 2.3.3 on a Desire HD
Erik
I don't use htcsense.com, but I use SystemPanel (with Whatsapp excluded), and whatsapp works perfectly without exception: I receive audio notification when the phone is inactive, and the messages pop up in front of the lockscreen.
(stock rooted Froyo, eng & S-off)
I have heard a lot about htcsense.com, hence I don't use it... but Whatsapp is very stable for me. Could be a combination of ROM/other apps, but in principle I'd look at htcsense.com
I had these problems when I got my DHD. For me everything went fine after I:
-Created a new Sense Account
-Settings --> Location --> Tick Phonefinder and turn gps on
-Settings-->Accounts &b Sync --> Click on "HTC Sense" and Set the update schedule on "As items change (push)"
-In case its not there just try to download an additional wallpaper and log on with your sense account.
After that you go again to htcsense.com
Log in and then locate your phone.
Now you should see the GPS icon in your phones statusbar...
Now go outside an make sure you find GPS signal.
many thanks for the responses! I have found a few more things that could maybe help us crack this case.
When im in the whatsapp client, it shows the status of recepient (online, typing etc.) as "online" or "last seen at xx:xxu" in wich xx:xx is often after i sent the message.
In short: there is traffic going on between me, the server and the recepient even though messages i sent won't pop on their screens, and theirs not on mine.
(classic case of not enough internetz?)
Also, removing the task manager had no result!