[Q] Recent Google Maps update - Droid Incredible Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Are we supposed to get the new vector graphics from the latest update? Is there a way to enable them? Google maps doesn't seem to be any different after the update.
Senseless rEVOlution 1.0 / Incredikernal

The maps aren't drastically different in appearance (other than when zoomed way in on a major city, like Chicago), but the performance is WAY better. Zooming in and out is almost fluid smooth with the text redrawing after the resize transition.
Also, it should get better the more you use it and then more map data it caches. I've been turning on maps when driving around to make sure I get a lot of cached data.

I'm hoping to cache a zoomed out continental U.S. for use when flying commercial.
It's not legal to use the transmitters on any phone while in flight, but (once the pilot says you are above 10,000 ft/3,000m) you can use the compass and GPS sensors - at least you can use GPS if you have a window seat!.
Call it the grown-up version of "Are we there yet?", or "Where are we?", but rather than memorize geocoordinates for the U.S. or carry a paper map, I'd like to have my DINC show me where we are on a Google Map.
BTW, Catch.com's Compass v2.0 has a GPS mode that includes pitch & roll sensors in addition to GPS & compass data. Works like a poor-man's artificial horizon to see what your pilot is doing with the aircraft.

So you guys did get the update? Mine still isn't using vector graphics, which is why I asked the question. It must be rom specific then

Check the market. It's available there. There i's a chance you won't see it though. I've had first-hand experience with a couple apps I couldn't view in market and other people could.

madtomatoes said:
Are we supposed to get the new vector graphics from the latest update? Is there a way to enable them? Google maps doesn't seem to be any different after the update.
Senseless rEVOlution 1.0 / Incredikernal
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Click to collapse
Agreed, it did the update on mines, but cannot use the 3d view by sliding two fingers over screen, am running latest version of MIUI, however I'm running the "Gingerbread" rom on my DX and it works just fine. It must be rom specific I'm guessing.

joelcableguy said:
Agreed, it did the update on mines, but cannot use the 3d view by sliding two fingers over screen, am running latest version of MIUI, however I'm running the "Gingerbread" rom on my DX and it works just fine. It must be rom specific I'm guessing.
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Click to collapse
New to the DINC but why are DX users asking about DINC like they get all the same features? DX has different hardware and manufacturers than the DX. Surely there will be different effects on the Market

Related

A good reason not to upgrade to the new Market in Froyo

Market filters:
When a user searches or browses in Android Market, the results are filtered, and some applications might not be visible. For example, if an application requires a trackball (as specified in the manifest file), then Android Market will not show the app on any device that does not have a trackball.
The manifest file and the device's hardware and features are only part of how applications are filtered — filtering also depends on the country and carrier, the presence or absence of a SIM card, and other factors.
Changes to the Android Market filters are independent of changes to the Android platform itself. This document will be updated periodically to reflect any changes that occur.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does anyone have any idea what the market filters are checking against?
That's not really a good reason to do anything, let alone not using 2.2
dik23 said:
That's not really a good reason to do anything, let alone not using 2.2
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Click to collapse
Not being able to get apps? Did you read the link? Doubtful. Uh sure. Have fun with vanilla 2.2 and 0.0 apps.
I'm sorry, did you read your own link? If you had scrolled down, it shows several examples of what can be filtered. The filters are implemented by the application developer themselves, and if they don't, they still show up in the market.
Besides, filtering by the application has been in Android since 2.0. Any application that deems a device incapable of running it (for example, a lack of a light sensor) can stop itself from running.
some kind of filter (the ones I've heard of so far are incompatible screen resolution, unverified builds, and protected apps) is already being applied to 2.1 in the AOSP build. I couldnt see Yelp, the Android Community and TMZ apps for whatever reason
cashless said:
Not being able to get apps? Did you read the link? Doubtful. Uh sure. Have fun with vanilla 2.2 and 0.0 apps.
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Click to collapse
Oh yeah, how suspicious. French people couldn't possibly prefer apps in French and people with that new Dell pad thing probably still want SMS and contact apps.
Yeah
so you are saying not upgrade to 2.2 because marketplace will filter apps for our phone, but stick with 2.1 because it doesn't?
well genius, why don't you go and install http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.yelp.android on your phone and let us know how that 'no filtering' works out for you.
When I was running my Vougue we ran into this problem as well, its not a big deal at all. from what I remember it was checking about the build.prob and screen size that is setup in your startup. what I used to do was set my phone to my the specs for the G1, then install the apps after adjusting the density to fit everything on screen and then reboot using factory startup. it worked pretty well for most of the apps since many only blocked off whatever border the developer had.
heres the problem though but with the pace we are going it wont come up for a while, once we decide we have a rom stable enough to flash we lost the abilty to change the settings since WM is copletely gone and no haret was used. I switched over to the Touch Pro and we had the exact same problem which was solved in the EXACT way but we were not flashed still(TP2 still has a LOOOONG way to go sad to say), kept the touch pro 2 for only a few weeks before they replaced my Sprint Line TP with a Touch pro 2 due to all the TP1 problems and i'm still saddened by the slow progress. I am a developer myself and even an avid budsmoker and was still able to help out. now Refer has done a great job but from my understanding he is just doing most changes to the Android Filesystem, theirs a couple other guys working on the kernels which would be were all the hardware problems are going to be fixed from. no matter what build we use something in the kernel is either not right, or we dont have the driver in place for Android itself and since we have few Hardware level developers working on these things it seems to be low progress.

JPH Changelog, reviews, and first impressions

Please post your first impressions of the JPH firmware. A changelog and bugs encountered would also be helpful.
Thanks!
Exchange email does not send replies properly. The replies goes with just the original content.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
I'd be curious to know whether the thing that occurred with JPC on sim locked phones is still happening with this firmware - the product code changing and the phone asking for a network code. I really don't want to root my phone and go through the file copying again - I like it nice and stock-y.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
If you pinch-zoom in the applications menu this is now smooth =)
edit:
That was only true until I installed apps and had 5 pages of apps
First impressions best 2.2 out there at the moment. No lag, very responsive mind you not downloaded many apps at the moment. No market missing apps.
I find 2.2 is hardly as exciting as what people make it out to be.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Jordiharrison said:
I find 2.2 is hardly as exciting as what people make it out to be.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For someone that uses flash 99% of the time on the web, 2.2 is a gift from God himself.
riz157 said:
First impressions best 2.2 out there at the moment. No lag, very responsive mind you not downloaded many apps at the moment. No market missing apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't agree agree any more
JPH After 3 Hours Review:
Zero issues so far for me. I'm using the APK lagfix. Everything is nice and snappy (with and without the lagfix, although the lagfix seems to makes it better).
GPS seems to get an accurate lock very quickly indoors. (Started up maps, it found the nearest cellphone tower instantly with a 1km radius or something, then found my location perfectly after ~6 seconds. Going to street view once it had my location took my directly outside my house. Not the best GPS test ever, but it worked as well as any other GPS I've ever seen for that simple task.)
Compass seems to be as flaky as ever. This might be a hardware problem with my phone though, since the compass has always been flaky.
Blacks in videos seem as good as ever, and it played a few video files I gave it without issues.
Google market worked without issue, and wifi/hsdpa worked well. No issues with sdcards or anything like that either.
Internet browser is the best I've seen it, with flashing loading and playing smoothly without affecting speed on the rest of the page. Full page engadget with flash ads along the top and right side scrolled very smoothly after loading fully.
Games work the same that they've always worked (zero change, there aren't any games out that tax the GPU yet.)
I'll post a further review after using it for 24 hours or so.
Sorry to disturb your happyness and the overall enthusiasm
But.
Similar to JPC there is still an great Problem or Bug.
As JPC, JPH also dont sync tasks and appointments that are created with another app than the built in stock calendar
This is (for me, and for everyone who want to use the Galaxy seriously for Buisiness and Task planning) an absolutely bad behaviour.
I use Jorte and at first Quick Addroid for adding and editing Tasks. Because the Stock Calendar is to poor in Functionality and not very comfortable.
So if i add an Task with e.g. Quick Addroid, it appears in Device in all installed Calendar apps but is not synced with Google.
If i then edit and save it in Stock Calendar, then it will be synced.
Maybe, it belongs to changes in the code in Froyo, that ar not compatible with not samsung apps. Maybe the programmers have to fix it in their Software.
But also maybe that it is an Bug and Samsung have to fix this.
pbruck said:
Sorry to disturb your happyness and the overall enthusiasm
But.
Similar to JPC there is still an great Problem or Bug.
As JPC, JPH also dont sync tasks and appointments that are created with another app than the built in stock calendar
This is (for me, and for everyone who want to use the Galaxy seriously for Buisiness and Task planning) an absolutely bad behaviour.
I use Jorte and at first Quick Addroid for adding and editing Tasks. Because the Stock Calendar is to poor in Functionality and not very comfortable.
So if i add an Task with e.g. Quick Addroid, it appears in Device in all installed Calendar apps but is not synced with Google.
If i then edit and save it in Stock Calendar, then it will be synced.
Maybe, it belongs to changes in the code in Froyo, that ar not compatible with not samsung apps. Maybe the programmers have to fix it in their Software.
But also maybe that it is an Bug and Samsung have to fix this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To be honest, I doubt this is a dealbreaker for 99% of people.
I think it would be classed as a 'minor annoyance'! As far as I know, syncing (google integration in general) has changed a bit in 2.2, so it's probably the app that has to be updated. I could be way off here though.
Scrolling trough the Touchwiz icons in the menu is very sluggish here. Eclair was way smoother. Is just me?
dnsp said:
Scrolling trough the Touchwiz icons in the menu is very sluggish here. Eclair was way smoother. Is just me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, it isn't just you. I've done factory reset and it's the same.
I knew it isn't so good when I saw that the boot animation was slow and sluggish.
RyanZA said:
To be honest, I doubt this is a dealbreaker for 99% of people.
I think it would be classed as a 'minor annoyance'! As far as I know, syncing (google integration in general) has changed a bit in 2.2, so it's probably the app that has to be updated. I could be way off here though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe you´r right.
But this is my experience and my oppinion.
So far, so bad.
If this is (and i think so, as you) an problem of the apps, that ar not compatible with Froyo, then i hope they fix it asap.
For me is the proper sync of all Data and tasks absolutely mandatory. And so i have to downgrade (once again) to JM8
Very bad.
Much more because i really appreciate and like the new Functions in Froyo.
dnsp said:
Scrolling trough the Touchwiz icons in the menu is very sluggish here. Eclair was way smoother. Is just me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep feels sluggish on Touchwiz and even worse on Home replacemant apps such as Launcher Pro and ADW.....sadly!
Is WiFi Router working for you? I just get on H icon in notification bar upload arrow highlighted, download arrow stays gray all the time and theres no connection on PC. On USB tethering i get few pings nicely and then connection is broken for few seconds. I have to try this with other FW, maybe it's my provider fault but maybe you have simmilar problem?
Well...then , not worth upgrading from JM8 , i guess
Uhhh, theres also problem with compass and calibration. Every phone restart they are changing to default which is bad and compass after reboot always shows that theres wrong magnetic field and it shows wrong directions.
uberberben said:
Is WiFi Router working for you? I just get on H icon in notification bar upload arrow highlighted, download arrow stays gray all the time and theres no connection on PC. On USB tethering i get few pings nicely and then connection is broken for few seconds. I have to try this with other FW, maybe it's my provider fault but maybe you have simmilar problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, working WiFi Router.
Going back to JM7. Samsung engineers and programmers are a bunch of monkeys.
GPS, FM MONO!!!, LAG, SLUGGISH SCROLL, mehhhh
Never had good experiences with Samsung products and support... they only want to sell, get OUR money, and then tell their customers to screw themselves.

Honest review from a critical nerd (me)

I've has my Galaxy Nexus for a couple of days now, on the Three network in the UK.
I hate how most people in reviews rave about phones when they have just forked out for them, and fail to mention any real negatives - presumably because they refuse to accept that something they've spent £500 on might be less than perfect. When you buy one and it's missing features or isn't quite what you expected, it's very annoying.
Here are my thoughts so far. I consider myself a power-user, and have tested almost everything. Overall, people are right. This is the best phone I've touched. I think once devs start optimising their apps to work properly on ICS it'll be even better. Fingers crossed that Cyanogen will address lots of the annoyances below.
I hope this is useful for someone
The Good:
Feels much more complete and unified.
It's lightening fast.
Most of the best bits of Android have transferred.
Screen looks great.
Face unlock works much better than I thought. Even in low light.
I've only had one crash despite installing a tonne of apps and testing every feature. [EDIT: a few FCs today. Mainly from the pre-installed Google Earth).
Radio seems to work fine on Three UK, unlike the SGS II which has data issues due to fast dormancy. Data speeds are great.
Browser generally much better.
Text input much better, but editing is a little confusing and seems to vary depending on app. [EDIT: This is actually phenomenal. I've always had a hardware keyboard or Swype before so no practice on these keyboards. After only 48 hours, I can literally type without looking. It is very good at correcting mistakes.]
Screen size is great for me, as I use my phones as mini-tablets. Doesn't feel bulky in my pocket at all.
BLUETOOTH STEREO FINALLY DOESN'T DISTORT - I can hear hi-hats again instead of just distortion. There is a bit of constant crackling though.
Screen remains responsive when charging. I have had an issue where it wasn't registering touch properly when charging on my Milestone, Desire and SGSII so this is really nice.
The Bad:
EVEN THOUGH I'M SUPPOSEDLY IN AN UNAFFECTED BAND, IF MY PHONE DROPS TO 2G, AND SOMEONE WALKS NEAR ME MAKING A PHONECALL IT PUTS MY PHONE ON SILENT.
The 'menu' button is unpredictable. For example, in most apps it appears at the bottom with the softkeys. In Market it's up at the top, near the search button. In some apps, it has gone. Seems to vary and is confusing.
You're stuck with the Google search box on you home screen. I hate this.
Now the button has gone, if an app doesn't have a search icon, you've lost the ability to search.
Also means no long press search, so you have to go back to the home screen for voice commands. This also means that regardless of what launcher you use, if you want voice search, you NEED to have the Google search widget on your home screen.
No USB Mass Storage – they've opted for media device profile instead. My Xbox recognises it but can't play any content. It doesn't work with my car stereo. It doesn't work with my TV. My laptop will see it, but I can't see certain hidden folders. This has just removed a huge aspect of flexibility from Android. It's no longer universal, and more like an iPhone now in that respect.
Icons are as ugly in real life as everyone expected.
Blue theme clashes with everything except blue. Blue icons on blue background feels very bland.
There is a huge problem with speech to text, whereby it is very slow, and seems to just write a list of names out of my contacts directory rather than writing what I say! Video here: http://youtu.be/qHVptz2EtMk
No longer accepts certain file formats over Bluetooth.
Camera seems buggy when reviewing photos. It works confusingly.
Gallery is not very intuitive at all.
Browser doesn't display Javascript animations properly.
Dropped a few calls.
Wifi range isn't as good as my other Androids
Front facing camera doesn't aim inwards towards your face. It points straight forward at 90 degrees, but it's positioned on the right of the device, so your face isn't central unless you hold the phone at a bit of an angle facing away from you. [EDIT - this is getting very annoying now. You have to have the phone screen pointing almost away from you to video call]
Bluetooth calls don't seem to work. Caller can't hear what I'm saying. [EDIT - I'm told it works on newer kits. Mine is a Jabra stereo receiver]
Bluetooth music has a constant crackling behind it, but it's barely noticeable in loud music.
All albumart appears in the phone gallery.
Google Talk seems to sign out after a while. It's showing all of my contacts as away even though I know they're online. Signing out and in again fixes this temporarily, but I'm guessing I would miss video calls whilst offline.
Phone has gone to permanent sleep about 3 times in 2 and a half days now. Requires a battery pull to get it back on.
Apps - If you can't live without these, I'd recommend waiting to buy until they're fixed
No menu button is shown on Facebook, so there's no way to set it up to sync contacts or notifications. This means no contact photos for now.
Twitter on the other hand syncs all my contacts, despite me telling it not to.
Doesn't support Swype as yet.
Doesn't support MX Video Player.
iPlayer not available in the Market.
Grooveshark app doesn't work due to lack of flash player. You can use Dood's music streamer for a functional but unattractive alternative.
Thanks for the review and honesty. It would be nice if you kept this updated as either your opinion changes or things are fixed from either Google or app developers.
Is web browser as smooth (scrolling, pinch to zoom) as one on the galaxy s2?
I really beginning to wonder if Verizon is going to put these out there in two weeks without some fixes/improvements in place. I mean, if December 8 is real, these phones have got be in sealed boxes already. People will be returning them faster than they sell them.
hrcro said:
Is web browser as smooth (scrolling, pinch to zoom) as one on the galaxy s2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It feels a lot smoother than my Galaxy S II did.
I'm about to test the bluetooth quality, as crackling audio was my biggest pet hate from previous Android versions.
Can you resize the search widget? If we are stuck with it maybe something smaller will help minimize that particular drawback.
have you got an otg usb cable? can you hook up a thumb drive?
Sent from my Google Nexus S using Tapatalk
suomaf said:
have you got an otg usb cable? can you hook up a thumb drive?
Sent from my Google Nexus S using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
yes, please test it. whole forum with owners GN but nobody had test this opportunity yet
I hope yopu don't mind but I am going to hijack this thread and also post a quick review from a similar nerd is maybe over critical. Saves starting a new thread.
The Good
ICS is very polished, much more so than any other version of android, it tries to stay consistent through the whole phone where as in previous versions it was one of my main annoyances.
The device looks fantastic.
The speed is very good, I wouldn't say it is any faster than a SGS2 with a custom rom IMO but it is a lot smother in animation etc. so it feels a lot faster.
The screen is very nice, playing videos when the screen is set up to an acceptable brightness are amazing with colours a lot more natural than the SGS2 or the yellow tint of the iphone 4.
Radio is very good also, getting full signal in my house where as before i would only receive 2-3 bars.
Text input is a lot better although i have found it is unable to keep up with my typing, although it is putting the letters down it almost seems like there is a little delay in the animation of them magnifying.
Notification light is back and I am glad, as I missed that feature on my SGS2.
Has everything, NFC, noise cancelling mic, 720p display and ICS. Its pretty much future proof (in terms of the next few years)
Zero shutter lag is a very good feature
Bad Points
The screen although very nice on full or half brightness is not very good on auto brightness. It is so much lower compared to all my other smart phones it is almost unusable I find so I have had to manually set the brightness.
Auto rotate as I have mentioned in another thread is very inconsistent, very fast in some apps nearly non existent in others.
Sound quality is quiet, not poor quality but very quiet. My SGS2 and iPhone 4 over power it when playing videos.
The browser is fast but it is not as fast as my SGS2 running Check Rom Revolution HD. It is deffo faster than the iPhone 4.
The camera is not great, its not bad but the quality feels like it is from a year old device. Quite grainy, not as good as the SGS2 or the iphone 4s unfortunately.
And lastly a few quirks which I am sure will be sorted out with an over the air update, occasional stutter when opening app draw, gallery doesn't seem terribly smooth when going through photos and the auto rotate is just annoying me.
Other than the above I don't want people to read this and think it is doom and gloom because it isn't. This is a very very good device, I am glad I purchased it because it is still the best phone on the market in my opinion.
Every phone has its niggles but that is why this forum is so great, I am looking forward to the community baked roms which always make a device go from very good to just awesome.
To answer some question, you can't resize the search bar. Its not really a widget its sort of like the controls at the bottom, permanently there.
when typing does it type well, what I mean is it off when typing and you keep getting bad letters up, I had that problem with the SGS2 someone mentioned it was a screen problem that it kept jumping
thanks
bmstrong said:
Can you resize the search widget? If we are stuck with it maybe something smaller will help minimize that particular drawback.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, can't resize it. It's there permanently. You'd have to install another launcher.
Added a few more to the list, mainly to do with Bluetooth.
Is FM radio working with Spirit FM Radio app?
justabrake said:
when typing does it type well, what I mean is it off when typing and you keep getting bad letters up, I had that problem with the SGS2 someone mentioned it was a screen problem that it kept jumping
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah it types really well, I don't think I have mistyped once on there and I type real fast.
Good lord. That's a lot of negatives. Thanks for the honest review for undecided minds like me. Just two questions. If you use a 3rd party launcher (for example adw) will the google search bar still be present? Secondly, how does the GPS perform in terms of fix time and accuracy? Does barometer really help GPS fix time? Thanks
luffyp said:
Secondly, how does the GPS perform in terms of fix time and accuracy? Does barometer really help GPS fix time? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The GPS fix for me is very fast, easily within a second or so. Much faster than my Desire was, that's for sure.
A lot of those negatives either will be resolved soon by Google or they won't be a problem for the majority of people
Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk
OP > when typing does it type well, what I mean is it off when typing and you keep getting bad letters up, I had that problem with the SGS2 someone mentioned it was a screen problem that it kept jumping
thanks
mike freegan said:
You're stuck with the Google search box on you home screen. I hate this.
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Click to collapse
Ugh.
This is going to be problematic with my live clock wallpaper that is displayed at the top of the screen. Anyone else use WP Clock?
Here's an example of the live wallpaper I'm talking about:
luffyp said:
Good lord. That's a lot of negatives. Thanks for the honest review for undecided minds like me. Just two questions. If you use a 3rd party launcher (for example adw) will the google search bar still be present? Secondly, how does the GPS perform in terms of fix time and accuracy? Does barometer really help GPS fix time? Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you have to bare in mind that ICS is a big over haul, so if we were to list all the positives it would be a pretty big list. I am just venting my negatives of the device, but when you compare them to how good the device is they really are small and I would rather have this handset than any other. I forked out for both my SGS2 and the Galaxy Nexus sim free and i am not dissapointed with either. If you are undecided on whether to upgrade you have to look at the fact that this phone does have everything, is a developer phone and has ICS written specifically for it. I would say go for it.
If you use a 3rd party launcher the Google search will not be present, my GPS has been excellent, I have used it for a few car journeys and it is just as good as my SGS2 which was superb.
jms.flynn said:
Well you have to bare in mind that ICS is a big over haul, so if we were to list all the positives it would be a pretty big list. I am just venting my negatives of the device, but when you compare them to how good the device is they really are small and I would rather have this handset than any other. I forked out for both my SGS2 and the Galaxy Nexus sim free and i am not dissapointed with either. If you are undecided on whether to upgrade you have to look at the fact that this phone does have everything, is a developer phone and has ICS written specifically for it. I would say go for it.
If you use a 3rd party launcher the Google search will not be present, my GPS has been excellent, I have used it for a few car journeys and it is just as good as my SGS2 which was superb.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I know, ICS seems to be the biggest change among the previous Android versions. Together with Google & developers' support, it's why I want to jump ship to the Nexus line. At the moment I'm leaning towards it, just wanna read more reviews. Although the volume adjusting problem that many people are having is a bit of a concern. Hopefully it will be fixed by a software update.

4.2 appears to have butchered my Gnex, is it possible to roll back, BUT keep typing?

Used the google services stop trick to force my stock Yakju to OTA update to 4.2 a couple days ago.
Phones been annoyingly wonky ever since. Its mostly just UI stuttering bugs, 50% of the time i'll get a pronounced hiccup when opening the app drawer. Overall "project butter" has been thrown right out the window, most easily noticeable when swiping apps away, but its everywhere. Calendar hiccups and stutters when scrolling across "days". Scrolling through messages is no longer "buttery". Looking at screenshots in the gallery it takes a full 2 seconds for the image to draw to the screen in high res! Donno if this is a bug, but you can literally watch the render from low res to high res climb up the screen.. It never used to be like this. That OS's natural fluidity is just gone.
Where I draw the line is now the stock browser is slow, like "Chome" levels of slow, its absolutely terrible on high content sites, and I also get a weird screen tearing glitch on a few sites.
I'd like to flash back to 4.1.2 but having used gesture typing for a couple days, i simply cannot go back! Before my Gnex, I came from a blackberry, and for the first time since the switch I do not miss my dedicated keyboard! gesture typing is that good!
Is it possible to roll back to 4.1.2 but keep gesture typing? Is there a patch available that would allow me to do this? switch back, but then patch over the 4.2 keyboard?
Edit phone is Galaxy nexus 4.2, Yakju, stock, unlocked but not rooted.
davinci.. said:
Used the google services stop trick to force my stock Yakju to OTA update to 4.2 a couple days ago.
Phones been annoyingly wonky ever since. Its mostly just UI stuttering bugs, 50% of the time i'll get a pronounced hiccup when opening the app drawer. Overall "project butter" has been thrown right out the window, most easily noticeable when swiping apps away, but its everywhere. Calendar hiccups and stutters when scrolling across "days". Scrolling through messages is no longer "buttery". Looking at screenshots in the gallery it takes a full 2 seconds for the image to draw to the screen in high res! Donno if this is a bug, but you can literally watch the render from low res to high res climb up the screen.. It never used to be like this. That OS's natural fluidity is just gone.
Where I draw the line is now the stock browser is slow, like "Chome" levels of slow, its absolutely terrible on high content sites, and I also get a weird screen tearing glitch on a few sites.
I'd like to flash back to 4.1.2 but having used gesture typing for a couple days, i simply cannot go back! Before my Gnex, I came from a blackberry, and for the first time since the switch I do not miss my dedicated keyboard! gesture typing is that good!
Is it possible to roll back to 4.1.2 but keep gesture typing? Is there a patch available that would allow me to do this? switch back, but then patch over the 4.2 keyboard?
Edit phone is Galaxy nexus 4.2, Yakju, stock, unlocked but not rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the 4.2 Transformation Pack, it has the new keyboard. Just delete the unneeded stuff from the zip, or extract the apk and the lib file from it and push them to your /system.
There are several mods that give you the 4.2 camera, gallery and gesture keyboard for 4.1.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
davinci.. said:
Used the google services stop trick to force my stock Yakju to OTA update to 4.2 a couple days ago.
Phones been annoyingly wonky ever since. Its mostly just UI stuttering bugs, 50% of the time i'll get a pronounced hiccup when opening the app drawer. Overall "project butter" has been thrown right out the window, most easily noticeable when swiping apps away, but its everywhere. Calendar hiccups and stutters when scrolling across "days". Scrolling through messages is no longer "buttery". Looking at screenshots in the gallery it takes a full 2 seconds for the image to draw to the screen in high res! Donno if this is a bug, but you can literally watch the render from low res to high res climb up the screen.. It never used to be like this. That OS's natural fluidity is just gone.
Where I draw the line is now the stock browser is slow, like "Chome" levels of slow, its absolutely terrible on high content sites, and I also get a weird screen tearing glitch on a few sites.
I'd like to flash back to 4.1.2 but having used gesture typing for a couple days, i simply cannot go back! Before my Gnex, I came from a blackberry, and for the first time since the switch I do not miss my dedicated keyboard! gesture typing is that good!
Is it possible to roll back to 4.1.2 but keep gesture typing? Is there a patch available that would allow me to do this? switch back, but then patch over the 4.2 keyboard?
Edit phone is Galaxy nexus 4.2, Yakju, stock, unlocked but not rooted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can search the "Galaxy Nexus" forums and find the 4.2 keyboard, the gmail app and the clock app if you so desire it. I personally like to use CM10 (4.1.2) with the new Google apps. It makes for an awesome experience. BTW You may also wanna try one of the AOSP roms in the threads. They are great sans the bugginess for the most part. My suggestion is to look around, but if you already know exactly what you want, then go directly to it and get it. I didn't go through the problem of searching the threads to find and post them for you because they are very easy to find. My hope is that while searching you may find something else that would interest you. Hope this helps...
BTW, don't know if you know, but when you go to flash another ROM (be it a 4.2 rom or 4.1.2), you will have all your content pushed to a 0/ subfolder. It is an annoying thing caused by code in the 4.2 rom that enables multiple user accounts. If this is a problem for you to (as it is for most people) then you may just wanna stick with 4.1.2 indefinitely. (that is until CWM or TWRP find some way to prevent this from happening)
Pipusz said:
Try the 4.2 Transformation Pack, it has the new keyboard. Just delete the unneeded stuff from the zip, or extract the apk and the lib file from it and push them to your /system.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome, thanks for the link.
Searching the gnex forum for 4.2 keyboard turns up a whole lot of nothing......... Fortunately google searching it got me what I needed.
However the 4.2 keyboard in these links is slightly different then the one that actually came with 4.2 from google, it functions just fine but has this giant cartoon bubble text hovering over everything as you swipe/type out. Any ideas on where I would get the actually(correct) keyboard?
I`d also like to install just the 4.2 *google now* updates, how do I determine which files in that zip are responsible for that part of the update?
I will point out, I highly recommend switching back to 4.1.2.. I didnt realize how bad/laggy/stuttery 4.2 really is, until I switched back, its really night and day. I`m convinced project butter is flat out broken in 4.2.
All is well again in the world
I've been disappointed with the 4.2 update, too. It does bring a lot of stability issues, along with ugly. But CM10 nightlies + 4.2 keyboard and Trinity kernel make for a potent combo. That's what I'll be rocking until the next version of CM comes along, or perhaps an updated version of Android that fixes issues in 4.2.

One Month of use and playing with it, here is the result

Hello,
So, let me start by saying that I am by no means a developer but a tinkerer by trade. I got the Fire Phone the day after Release. My initial reaction was disgust at the interface and usability of it all. I found the carrousel interface to hinder my use of the phone. The Apps I needed always rotated away and I would spend more time scrolling over to find something than it would ever take me to find and launch from the traditional Android launcher screens. So I set about finding a way to "restore" functionality.
Previously I've had a Motorola Milestone, Motorola Atrix and Samsung GS3. My SGS3 had abysmal battery life, which is why I switched to a new phone. Comparatively, the Fire Phone so far has had brilliant battery life. I've been unplugged overnight and still been at 40%+ in the morning when it was around 80% the night before.
I had used towel root recently on my SGS3 and I tried it on the Fire Phone. It worked. I just downloaded the most recent version from the towel root site, allowed apps from other sources in settings, and first try it worked. I installed Root Explorer from the Amazon Store. Using the instructions from another Thread about getting G-Apps onto a Kindle Fire I was able to load Chrome, Play Music, Google Maps, Gmail, and the play store. There are some small quirks though. The Play Store does not work. It says no connection when opened. And the Google play services is constantly crashing and slightly annoying. I also found on AppAPK a download for the galaxy launcher. I installed that and at first I could not set it as the default launcher but There appeared to be some sort of update or something that rebooted my phone at this point the launcher asks which to use when it needed the launcher at boot and the galaxy launcher is not set to default. It still crashes if I try to set a background or widget but I at least have a functional home screen.
The only thing that really stops me from having a great experience with it now is an issue with Google Maps. Road names overlap and after driving for a short about of time words just become giant gray blobs of unreadable garbage. Navigation works fine and the maps themselves look okay, the words just become completely useless.
I do have to say that it has a really nice Camera, pictures look great.
I also wish there was a back button......this has been really hard to get used to as well. Having to swipe up from the bottom or hit the Home
I hope that there will be a custom Firmware someday, until then I feel like unless you really like Amazon kindle and Amazon services, or can tolerate a hundred workarounds to try and gain more functionality, stay away from this phone.
My overall Rating would be as follows:
Performance - 4.5 - I run into some hiccups every now and then and it gets hot even if you are just web browsing for a little bit.
Battery Life - 5.0 - Sooo much better than my old SGS3
Ease of Use - 1.0 - Out of the box, coming from several other Android solutions, it was the worst thing I have ever used. After all the tweaking and hacking ~4.0
Features - 3.5 - There are a lot of nice features but overall there are a lot of Gimmicks...also why no SD slot? No Google Play yet also hurts...
Overall - 3.5/5.0 - At least I got another free year of Prime out of it...
I have an Important Question: please help me
1.Can this phone show 3D side bye side movies without glasses ( like LG optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D) ?
2. Can this Phone Capture 3D images or videos?
danteoz said:
Hello,
So, let me start by saying that I am by no means a developer but a tinkerer by trade. I got the Fire Phone the day after Release. My initial reaction was disgust at the interface and usability of it all. I found the carrousel interface to hinder my use of the phone. The Apps I needed always rotated away and I would spend more time scrolling over to find something than it would ever take me to find and launch from the traditional Android launcher screens. So I set about finding a way to "restore" functionality.
Previously I've had a Motorola Milestone, Motorola Atrix and Samsung GS3. My SGS3 had abysmal battery life, which is why I switched to a new phone. Comparatively, the Fire Phone so far has had brilliant battery life. I've been unplugged overnight and still been at 40%+ in the morning when it was around 80% the night before.
I had used towel root recently on my SGS3 and I tried it on the Fire Phone. It worked. I just downloaded the most recent version from the towel root site, allowed apps from other sources in settings, and first try it worked. I installed Root Explorer from the Amazon Store. Using the instructions from another Thread about getting G-Apps onto a Kindle Fire I was able to load Chrome, Play Music, Google Maps, Gmail, and the play store. There are some small quirks though. The Play Store does not work. It says no connection when opened. And the Google play services is constantly crashing and slightly annoying. I also found on AppAPK a download for the galaxy launcher. I installed that and at first I could not set it as the default launcher but There appeared to be some sort of update or something that rebooted my phone at this point the launcher asks which to use when it needed the launcher at boot and the galaxy launcher is not set to default. It still crashes if I try to set a background or widget but I at least have a functional home screen.
The only thing that really stops me from having a great experience with it now is an issue with Google Maps. Road names overlap and after driving for a short about of time words just become giant gray blobs of unreadable garbage. Navigation works fine and the maps themselves look okay, the words just become completely useless.
I do have to say that it has a really nice Camera, pictures look great.
I also wish there was a back button......this has been really hard to get used to as well. Having to swipe up from the bottom or hit the Home
I hope that there will be a custom Firmware someday, until then I feel like unless you really like Amazon kindle and Amazon services, or can tolerate a hundred workarounds to try and gain more functionality, stay away from this phone.
My overall Rating would be as follows:
Performance - 4.5 - I run into some hiccups every now and then and it gets hot even if you are just web browsing for a little bit.
Battery Life - 5.0 - Sooo much better than my old SGS3
Ease of Use - 1.0 - Out of the box, coming from several other Android solutions, it was the worst thing I have ever used. After all the tweaking and hacking ~4.0
Features - 3.5 - There are a lot of nice features but overall there are a lot of Gimmicks...also why no SD slot? No Google Play yet also hurts...
Overall - 3.5/5.0 - At least I got another free year of Prime out of it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Towel root works?? We can make a thread in the development forums to guide people to root it. PM me.
bagher said:
I have an Important Question: please help me
1.Can this phone show 3D side bye side movies without glasses ( like LG optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D) ?
2. Can this Phone Capture 3D images or videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No to both.
the 3d is just a simulation, but a very convincing one. It uses perspective, and the best guess knowledge it gains from 4 cameras to guess where your head is. In theory, this could be used to watch a 3d movie, or photography, but it would need to be specially formatted for the Fire phone. As far as 3d recording goes, nope.
The 3d they call Dynamic Perspective. It is a lot like looking into a photo, but then being able to look around the inside of the photo as if it were a diorama. They use it in games and throughout the interface, though both are in the early stages.
bagher said:
I have an Important Question: please help me
1.Can this phone show 3D side bye side movies without glasses ( like LG optimus 3D and HTC Evo 3D) ?
2. Can this Phone Capture 3D images or videos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't think of it as a 3D phone. Pretty much only the lock screen is 3D. Out of the five cameras on the phone, only one is a camera and the other four are used to track where your head is. That being said, it is a fantastic phone.
---------- Post added at 03:56 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:54 AM ----------
danteoz said:
Hello,
So, let me start by saying that I am by no means a developer but a tinkerer by trade. I got the Fire Phone the day after Release. My initial reaction was disgust at the interface and usability of it all. I found the carrousel interface to hinder my use of the phone. The Apps I needed always rotated away and I would spend more time scrolling over to find something than it would ever take me to find and launch from the traditional Android launcher screens. So I set about finding a way to "restore" functionality.
Previously I've had a Motorola Milestone, Motorola Atrix and Samsung GS3. My SGS3 had abysmal battery life, which is why I switched to a new phone. Comparatively, the Fire Phone so far has had brilliant battery life. I've been unplugged overnight and still been at 40%+ in the morning when it was around 80% the night before.
I had used towel root recently on my SGS3 and I tried it on the Fire Phone. It worked. I just downloaded the most recent version from the towel root site, allowed apps from other sources in settings, and first try it worked. I installed Root Explorer from the Amazon Store. Using the instructions from another Thread about getting G-Apps onto a Kindle Fire I was able to load Chrome, Play Music, Google Maps, Gmail, and the play store. There are some small quirks though. The Play Store does not work. It says no connection when opened. And the Google play services is constantly crashing and slightly annoying. I also found on AppAPK a download for the galaxy launcher. I installed that and at first I could not set it as the default launcher but There appeared to be some sort of update or something that rebooted my phone at this point the launcher asks which to use when it needed the launcher at boot and the galaxy launcher is not set to default. It still crashes if I try to set a background or widget but I at least have a functional home screen.
The only thing that really stops me from having a great experience with it now is an issue with Google Maps. Road names overlap and after driving for a short about of time words just become giant gray blobs of unreadable garbage. Navigation works fine and the maps themselves look okay, the words just become completely useless.
I do have to say that it has a really nice Camera, pictures look great.
I also wish there was a back button......this has been really hard to get used to as well. Having to swipe up from the bottom or hit the Home
I hope that there will be a custom Firmware someday, until then I feel like unless you really like Amazon kindle and Amazon services, or can tolerate a hundred workarounds to try and gain more functionality, stay away from this phone.
My overall Rating would be as follows:
Performance - 4.5 - I run into some hiccups every now and then and it gets hot even if you are just web browsing for a little bit.
Battery Life - 5.0 - Sooo much better than my old SGS3
Ease of Use - 1.0 - Out of the box, coming from several other Android solutions, it was the worst thing I have ever used. After all the tweaking and hacking ~4.0
Features - 3.5 - There are a lot of nice features but overall there are a lot of Gimmicks...also why no SD slot? No Google Play yet also hurts...
Overall - 3.5/5.0 - At least I got another free year of Prime out of it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you considered that the Ease of Use is hard because you're comparing it to other Android platforms? It really shouldn't be compared to Android at all.
For the Love of Tech said:
Have you considered that the Ease of Use is hard because you're comparing it to other Android platforms? It really shouldn't be compared to Android at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why shouldn't I compare it to android? It is android under the hood with a multitude of tweaks. Even iOS and Windows phone both support having apps arranged in a manner that makes finding them easy and how you want it. So far the Fire has not shown that. I had an original kindle fire, it was quickly rooted and I loaded custom ROMs within a few weeks because the interface was really bad for running multiple apps.
For me personally and anyone else I've shown it to, it is far from user friendly. But again that is my opinion of it and that was what I gave here, my opinion and observations.
danteoz said:
Hello,
So, let me start by saying that I am by no means a developer but a tinkerer by trade. I got the Fire Phone the day after Release. My initial reaction was disgust at the interface and usability of it all. I found the carrousel interface to hinder my use of the phone. The Apps I needed always rotated away and I would spend more time scrolling over to find something than it would ever take me to find and launch from the traditional Android launcher screens. So I set about finding a way to "restore" functionality.
Previously I've had a Motorola Milestone, Motorola Atrix and Samsung GS3. My SGS3 had abysmal battery life, which is why I switched to a new phone. Comparatively, the Fire Phone so far has had brilliant battery life. I've been unplugged overnight and still been at 40%+ in the morning when it was around 80% the night before.
I had used towel root recently on my SGS3 and I tried it on the Fire Phone. It worked. I just downloaded the most recent version from the towel root site, allowed apps from other sources in settings, and first try it worked. I installed Root Explorer from the Amazon Store. Using the instructions from another Thread about getting G-Apps onto a Kindle Fire I was able to load Chrome, Play Music, Google Maps, Gmail, and the play store. There are some small quirks though. The Play Store does not work. It says no connection when opened. And the Google play services is constantly crashing and slightly annoying. I also found on AppAPK a download for the galaxy launcher. I installed that and at first I could not set it as the default launcher but There appeared to be some sort of update or something that rebooted my phone at this point the launcher asks which to use when it needed the launcher at boot and the galaxy launcher is not set to default. It still crashes if I try to set a background or widget but I at least have a functional home screen.
The only thing that really stops me from having a great experience with it now is an issue with Google Maps. Road names overlap and after driving for a short about of time words just become giant gray blobs of unreadable garbage. Navigation works fine and the maps themselves look okay, the words just become completely useless.
I do have to say that it has a really nice Camera, pictures look great.
I also wish there was a back button......this has been really hard to get used to as well. Having to swipe up from the bottom or hit the Home
I hope that there will be a custom Firmware someday, until then I feel like unless you really like Amazon kindle and Amazon services, or can tolerate a hundred workarounds to try and gain more functionality, stay away from this phone.
My overall Rating would be as follows:
Performance - 4.5 - I run into some hiccups every now and then and it gets hot even if you are just web browsing for a little bit.
Battery Life - 5.0 - Sooo much better than my old SGS3
Ease of Use - 1.0 - Out of the box, coming from several other Android solutions, it was the worst thing I have ever used. After all the tweaking and hacking ~4.0
Features - 3.5 - There are a lot of nice features but overall there are a lot of Gimmicks...also why no SD slot? No Google Play yet also hurts...
Overall - 3.5/5.0 - At least I got another free year of Prime out of it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well I have it a week , I sideload the 4.6.1 update and updated in 5 minutes, I followed the tutorial to install Google services and play store and works flawlessly, I installed Google maps and youtube and chrome Along with more Google apps and other apps and they work flawlessly , I can install custom launchers and different keyboards but I like the stock launcher as its fresh from just seeing a grid off apps and the stock keyboard is fine, the only work around I did was to manually install the 4.6.1 update sand install Google apps, the phone is fast and never lags and has good speakers and hardware
The home button doubles as a recent app selector. Try installing 4.6.1 like suggested it totally makes the a better experience.
I'm using it for about a month and easy of use is OK, much better than some say it is. I'm using it with stock launcher and I can't understand this obsession of many users here to s**t all over it. Main problem with FireOS is absence of persistent notifications on top bar - system tray, and inability to choose which quick actions you want to have in system tray. Lock screen is also pretty basic but not to bad. Installing other launcher will not solve this problems. UX can be better but can be worse either. Overall its a great phone for price under $200.

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