lets play apps better than their stock counterpart! - Galaxy S II Themes and Apps
we all love our stock apps, theyre the meat and potatoes of our phone, they do a few crucial things, but not all apps are created equal. so lets take a look at the stock apps, and see if we can make any improvements, shall we?
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"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
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~~~click the pictures to download~~~
Browser!
the stock browser is smooth and simple, but maybe too simple if you ask me. Dolphin has a nice set of browsers whether youre looking for simplicity (with a nice array of features of course), or if youre looking for a fully featured browser, with addon support, and gestures. or take the Opera rought, which may save you a bit on your data bill. so without further ado, here they are
Dolphin Browse Mini
simplicity at its finest, very fast, smooth experence, all rolled up into a lightweight app, google chrome feel.
Dolphin Browser HD
fully featured browser, supports themes and addons, firefox feel
Opera Mobile
a unique layout, very friendly and clever UI, incorporated hardware acceleration, and offers a unique service; "Opera Turbo", which works as a middle man, translating and compressing data, optimizing it for mobile phones, probably not necessary on a phone as powerful as ours, but it will use less data if youre on a limited plan, dont worry turbo is an option you can turn on or off in settings
Gallery!
the stock Gallery has a very slick layout, but its not very fast, and it doesnt show full resolution.
QuickPic
QuickPic is a much more powerful solution. it has tons of options, including the option to always rotate a picture to fit the fullscreen, something no other browser seems to do, you can move and copy pictures right from the app, and it supports animated .GIF and offers a large cache to keep pictures loading fast, here it is, QuickPic!
Music!
the stock music player has an awesome ui, once you remove the album tab for folder, its a super intuitive music gallery, with a beautiful interface, and recently added, and played playlists make music wonderful, throw in some bright colors and you have a great app. sadly parental controls over the battery, and when the music player can and cant be opened limit it, so along side the stock music player, i use power amp
Power Amp
power amp has a few things on the stock music player, because you select your music folders during setup, it will never need to wait for media scanning, you can delete songs while playing them, and it has a nice array of widgets, and lockscreen widget, and it supports bluetooth controls. i personally dont care for the coloring, i like the bright pretty colors of stock, but as far as usability, theres plenty of room for both music players in my life; Power Amp
Camera!
Modded Stock!
Stock Camera has the best UI, and features. sadly theres some HORRIBLE parental controls, you cant use the camera below 15%, you cant use the camera if music is playing, or if youre on a phonecall, you cant use the camera if media scanner is running, theres an unmutable focus, and shutter sound. on top of this, because samsung added a lame photo and video editor app, they removed the ability to adjust lighting, coloring, and saturation in the camera, and the ability to pause/resume video recording, now you need to use the after effects of each respected picture and video editor..sigh~ but alas a small light at the end of the tunnel, Pulser_2 has modded the stock camera app, to mute the shutter sound, let you open camera while playing music, and remove the battery parental controls. heres the link, tho youll need to use an app like Root Explorer to manually replace the stock
HDR Camera
a true HDR camera, will take 3 shots, under exposed, over exposed, and normal exposed, and take the most dynamic colors from each, and encode them together, making some pretty awesome shots, this camera can also be used while playing music, while on the phone, at any battery, can adjust coloring and saturation, and no sounds. very useful, but not a quick picture camera, better for scenery
LockScreen!
WidgetLocker
WidgetLocker allows tons of customization, and style to the lockscreen, i can activate the LED flashlight, open to camera, camcorder, silence, or anything else i can think of, right from the lockscreen, very attractive look, well polished, and very useful. you can also add widgets like a normal window, tho i think it takes away from the glamour.
Launcher!
TouchWiz 4.5
based off the stock touchwiz 4.0 from samsung, comes TouchWiz 4.5 by Fr4gg0r. this heavily modded version offers some nice features not found in the stock, such as; homescreen count, enable/disable landscape, uninstall button on homescreen, icon dock count, enable/disable dock background, change app labels, number of apps per page, number of app columns, number of app columns, sort alphabetically, enable/disable app backdrops, enable/disable 3D effect for backdrops, enable/disable unread text/gmail/missed call counter badge on app, and supports themes, just to name a few options this launcher has, click the picture to see a full list of features, and download TouchWiz 4.5
Video?
while i dont have a good video player, QQplayer can play 1080p even on non 1080p supported phones, and can play .AVI files with subtitles, but i wouldnt say its exactly the nicest video player, still something worth mentioning, but i wouldnt say its better than stock
soooooo, what do you guys have? app section is all about sharing and discovering, so start sharing!!! these are what ive found, now you help improve it, lets make a sick [email protected]#$, want to add something? if its good ill put it up here, wanna spam or share experiences? go for it
You can add xscope on the browser's list
updated this a bit
Friendcaster is much better than the default Facebook app.
For lockscreens, I use GoTo Lockscreen
Maybe add launchers. Touchwiz is great. I prefer the simplicity of zeam.
This may open a new can of worms
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
nice guide!!!
Nice guide there.
Sounds like your stock music app is different to mine though?! Bright pretty colours
you could add miren browser
maxthon browser
double twist and cloud skipper for music player
tweeteck for twitter and facebook
Just Pictures in place of the gallery..
It contains ALL pics Local and from FB,Photobucket and most other sites you upload to in one interface.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.justpictures&feature=search_result
Pure calendar for calendar widget. Power amp for music. Camera 360. G tasks.
I'm looking for a replacement to yahoo finance widget.any suggestions
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Business Calendar as a replacement for the default calendar.
Ubermusic beta for the music app
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
mVideoPlayer is by far the best Android video player I have found over the years!
I use Jorte as the calendar app very good one.
Cygnuss said:
I use Jorte as the calendar app very good one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 for jorte. I actually froze the stock calendar.
For videos I like mobo player the most.
Sent from my galaxy S2
I define better as something that is better in all aspects, no other app yet is better than the stock browser due to the HW rendering and flash support.
Dice Player is better than the stock video, best player I've yet found.
I disagree that something has to be better in all respects in order to consider it better overall. By your own standards the stock browser is not better than most of the other major players as it lacks dynamic reflow, persistent desktop UA, and has worse tab handling than them.
I must be one of the few that thinks the stock browser isn't really particularly good. It might be hardware rendered, but the checkerboarding is irritating, the pinch gesture to view open windows (tabs) does not work very well, and it all feels a bit clunky to me. In fairness, even those browsers that are not hardware accelerated, the SGS2 is so fast you rarely notice any degradation is performance in practice.
I've tried most of the browsers out there, and I personally prefer Dolphin HD - it has the nicest looking interface, and is also the nicest to use with its desktop style tabs (which I believe iOS getting something similar in iOS5). Opera isn't bad too (it works with some websites that other browsers, including stock, have difficulties with), although I am not a huge fan of the UI, but it is just as smooth as stock, but without the checkerboarding.
I tried Miren, but I don't like the UI either (too cartoonish) and it was a tad unstable for me (used to bomb out for no apparent reason)... shame as I did like that when you went back you instantly got the page you were looking at previously without it refresh = fast.
Never tried xScope, but the last time I looked it was paid app and I ain't going to pay for a web browser.
The thing with the stock browser is it tries to mimick the one in iOS, but doesn't really do it as well, and when iOS is moving to desktop style tabs, it seems pointless.
Back to the thread, and thanks to this thread I'm using QuickPic (which is indeed FAR better than the crappy default gallery), and Jorte which again, seems better than the stock calendar. Good thread
ahh awesome feedback guys, ill check these out and see about posting some of them when i get home keep the suggestions coming weres building something great here!
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
EarlZ said:
I define better as something that is better in all aspects, no other app yet is better than the stock browser due to the HW rendering and flash support.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i agree. alsthough others have more features they use up an inoridinate amount of resources too, such as dolphin hd, thus limiting its use for me.
other have complained about checkerboarding, ive never had it till my last fw update. its wierd but i think i can sort it out.
other than that i like the simplicity and speed and battery usage of stock. id try another browser if it can match stock in these categories. ive tried opera mobile, dolphin hd, xscope, miren, firefox and theyve almost all had poorer battery usage than stock, plus some dont even have full flash support. others too have textflow issues.
maybe ill look into dolhpin mini and opera mini.
Great thread..
i use skyfire for web browsing...fast load up of pages, easy to use, customisable to a certain extent
Related
Cool/Useful Apps to Help Pacify Waiting on Froyo
ALL APPS ARE IN MARKET (VIDEOTONEZ-free) Tired of traditional ringtones? VIDEOTONEZ is a video ringtone app. How does it work? Someone calls and a music video clip pops up instead of the traditional ringtone that most of us are used to. Incase you're wondering, while the video/ringtone is playing you are able to view who's calling. (LOOKOUT SECURITY-free) This app helps protect any android running device from viruses, malware etc. How does it work? Everytime an app, music, video etc.is downloaded this app will scan to check for potential viruses, malware etc. This app can also give users the option to remotely wipe their device via internet. (POWER AMP-trial) This app is for users that use their phones as a music powerhouse. Power Amp is a music player that is more than a music player. It has both desktop and lock screen widgets for easy access to the player. Power Amp has a very powerful equalizer with pre amp. The UI is beautiful. (ZEAM LAUNCHER-free) Before I start, yes I'm aware of ADW and Launcher Pro! Unlike the two home launchers, ZEAM LAUNCHER has the least amount of settings but that doesn't mean that it can not/should not compete with the two. ZEAM LAUNCHER is very lightweight, not a memory hog and runs very smooth. I personally love ZEAM LAUNCHER'S UI out of the 2 I've mentioned. Try ZEAM LAUNCHER and be amazed! (PICSAY PRO-not free) Have you ever taken pictures with the myTouch Slide while using flash and noticed the evil red eye from hell? I have! PICSAY PRO will not prevent red eye, but it will fix the problem once red eye occurs. PICSAY PRO has many features, its like photoshop on a mobile phone. Ok, maybe not photoshop, but it has a lot of nice functions/options to edit photos. (TUNE IN RADIO-free) This app is one of my favorites because I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York, but I currently live in Maryland. I can now listen to NY radio stations without being in NY. How cool is that? If I lost or confused anyone this app is not limited to NY radio. Its global! THIS APP REQUIRES INTERNET/WIFI CONNECTION. (SOUNDHOUND-free) This app amazing. Have you ever heard a song on the radio, at the club, in a grocery store, at your grandmothers house, etc. and wanted to know who sings it/what's the name of the song? I know I have! SOUNDHOUND allows the user to find out those same questions. How does it work? Push the SOUNDHOUND button and put your phone near to a speaker and SOUNDHOUND will locate the Artist name, song title, youtube video, lyrics and where the song/album can be purchased. THIS APP REQUIRES INTERNET/WIFI CONNECTION. Black myTouch Slide w/stock rom www.GoTeamFriday.com
Android music player rips off Zune?
or WP7. So looking at this video from mobile tech world they walk through the new music player. Before watching look out for the pivot controls at the top of the UI that also cuts off words just like WP7. The design that so many said was stupid. Not only that but if I'm not mistaken they are also showing the artist in the background but it's to blurry to be sure. Then there is also the now playing screen that looks so similar to zunes now playing screen. I wouldn't normally care but in this instance it bothers me because of all the bashing MS gets for the UI when it's easily the best and now there are elements being used for android after so many said things about the UI. I'm sure all the android fans will come to love their new stock music player and all of a sudden words being cut off is no longer a "problem". Here's the vid. can't post links but this is what you need. youtube.com/watch?v=SZGw8TxCtNg
slow android gallery + edits for music == new android music player imho its a mess
Not really a rip of Zune UI because they had a similar style with their Gallery app. I can see the comparisons though.
Gallery replacement - QuickPic
replaced the stock TouchWiz Gallery app today with QuickPic and love it! The stock app's album page is annoying as hell to navigate thru. What are the other good gallery apps out there?
I've been using Quickpic for awhile too...I like that you can exclude folders so that it doesn't pick up all the graphics embedded in my emails like the stock gallery. Just read this today - haven't yet installed http://www.androidcentral.com/android-central-quick-app-review-lightbox
I'm using JustPictures!, multiple accounts (facebook, picasa etc.), very good app :] ..
Quickpic user here too.. I love that it's basic enough to just jump into and browse without the 3d annoyance of the normal gallery. I had an issue with it when I migrated from my Galaxy S to my Galaxy SII (not actioning screen taps even though they were registering) but that seems to have been fixed..
spachal said: I'm using JustPictures!, multiple accounts (facebook, picasa etc.), very good app :] .. Click to expand... Click to collapse is justpictures fast with loading fb/picasa thumbnails?
Gunna give both Quickpic and Justpictures a try. Fingers crossed that Justpictures lets me save images to Flickr from within camera-using apps... maybe wishful thinking... but I'd love it if Lightbox, for example, or Snapbucket, saved to Flickr.
Didn't really like QuickPick or JustPictures. Both were way too slow at loading the thumbnails. The stock Gallery3D loads all the thumbnails in a blink of an eye but in those two apps it took quite a lot longer. Btw does anyone know how to get rid of that "snap" action in the Gallery3D? Is it some Samsung addition because I don't remember seeing that kind of feature in the previous versions. It's annoying as hell. Could I just roll to the Gallery3D from market or would it be slower than this Samsung version?
Remember, the first time you open the app it'll cache the thumbnails. Gallery takes a fair while to process all your images the first time it's launched. I've been using QuickPic for a while instead of Gallery, image quality is better and it's more functional. I like it. JustPictures! is a good little app too, seems surprisingly quick.
[25/05/12][1.1.1 released][APP]HDMIPlayer
I'm making a player for HDMI/MHL with subtitle support and hw acceleration. Now I don't know of any other player like this, apart from the stock but it has some bugs and ugly font rendering. There are players with sw acceleration but it means that you can't play complex videos and also you will see a video downscaled to 800x480 to fit the phone screen and then upscaled again to 1980x1080. That's because only on hw the firmware understands you're playing a video and output at original quality.
for ICS here:http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=26504204#post26504204
Features:
Play every file via hw acceleration
Reads SRT subtitles
Reads ASS subtitles
Size, color and other little things of the subtitles are customizable for SRT
Partial support for styled ASS
Custom fonts for ASS
Less than 200kb
You can select between customized text rendering or samsung standard for SRT
Energy saving mode for screen
No permissions required, and no root.
Planned feature:
Even better ASS/SRT support
A file search dialog with metadata info
Overscan settings (on some TVs the image goes out of the screen)
Internal MKV sub support
Limitations I can't do anything:
I'm using samsung "hidden" things to draw on the Tv surface and they have limitations. The most important is that I can draw only on the lower part of the screen (see the white line in ASS mode). Also I can't improve the rendering because alpha isn't available and just a limited bit depth of colors. Plus other things...
Also HDMI is a bit bugged, sometimes it doesn't work right, black screen... It depends also on the tv, on my sharp is almost perfect but on my samsung keep going black screen. I think keep everything else closed, and stop phone data connection improves. Or just reboot...
Also on everything I draw on screen there are black pixels forming a little outline. It's almost surely because of the missing alpha. I tried to remove them in many ways but nothing worked.Know bugs:
Report them. Now it doesn't crash often ASS subs are overlapped now if many are displayed at the same time, I will work on it.
Guide:
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"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
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The screenshot shows black but there was a video playing on device
It's simple, there are three icons: for opening a file, for the settings and the red/green one just shows if it's connected.
And three tabs: SUBS for selecting the type of the subs, PLAYER for seeing the video and working on it, and LOG for info and errors. The video controls appear and disappear when you touch the video.
The settings are simple enough to explain themselves otherwise ask me.
Under the HDMIPlayer title there will be "SRT" or "ASS" depending what's playing now. It search for subtitles with the same name as the video and with extension .srt or .ass.
MENU BUTTON
Press the menu button to enter in energy saving mode, the brightness is at minimum and the screen is almost completely black except for a moving little dark gray text, to prevent burning. Being an OLED, a black pixel is the same as a swithed off pixel.
And I tried it only on my SGSII I9100 with stock 2.3.6 KJ1.
No permissions and no root are required.
Probably it won't work on MIUI and cyanogen but I've not tried. It requires samsung internal "things".
If you try it please tell me your impressions and if it's useful for you, you can donate via paypal:
awsom i'm having that issue i can play 1080p with subs using stock player and the sammy MHL adapter the issue is subs stay untill the next line of subs comes around, which is annyoing the say the least. Also your feature to be able to turn of the phones screen(black screen) while playing would be super cool.. it's a waste of burn hours on my oled screen if it runs while displayed on tv NOTE sammy devices often have poor subtitle support. atleast both my phones(SGS SGS2) and HDTV seem to have issues in various areas with subtitles Hope you keep working on it, i'll be testing it as soon as i have time
Shezed said: awsom i'm having that issue i can play 1080p with subs using stock player and the sammy MHL adapter the issue is subs stay untill the next line of subs comes around, which is annyoing the say the least. Also your feature to be able to turn of the phones screen(black screen) while playing would be super cool.. it's a waste of burn hours on my oled screen if it runs while displayed on tv NOTE sammy devices often have poor subtitle support. atleast both my phones(SGS SGS2) and HDTV seem to have issues in various areas with subtitles Hope you keep working on it, i'll be testing it as soon as i have time Click to expand... Click to collapse thank you, that bug was one of the reason I'm making this. I have lost days trying to make libass work but now I'm making it myself, and it's almost complete. I plan to release soon a v2 to show it and then I will rewrite completely the interface, the current one was just for testing. The black screen should be very simple to implement, not only for the burn of the oled but also for energy saving. Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Brilliant idea. Hope you keep developing further.
You're doing a great work!! Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk
Just to let you know, it FC's on the latest CM7, wasn't expecting it to work as per your OP, but thought I'd confirm it for you.
cobhc said: Just to let you know, it FC's on the latest CM7, wasn't expecting it to work as per your OP, but thought I'd confirm it for you. Click to expand... Click to collapse Apart from my app MHL works? I would be more interested if it works on custom kernels, because I'm planning to switch to something like siyah. Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
Only for your information..just look at MX Videoplayer...if its usefull to you..
nihal.shaikh said: Only for your information..just look at MX Videoplayer...if its usefull to you.. Click to expand... Click to collapse Does mxvideoplayer use hw acceleration?
Dice player uses hw acceleration and its Fab. Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
bervin said: Does mxvideoplayer use hw acceleration? Click to expand... Click to collapse Bynar010 said: Dice player uses hw acceleration and its Fab. Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium Click to expand... Click to collapse Do they output subtitles(embedded as well as external) over MHL/HDMI in 1080p? Because Mx doesnt work properly with subs over mhl atleast not for me. also can't turn of my phone's screen while outputting to my HDTV which is very anoying I think this is a great project! btw are you planning to make it open source?
Shezed said: btw are you planning to make it open source? Click to expand... Click to collapse Probably not, only if the code becomes good. However if I stop working on it I will release the source or some kind of docs for everything I learned experimenting. Update: I'm still working, a bit slower because (also) have to study sometimes and also the girlfriend. I've got a problem with the rendering of the styled text on screen. There are black pixels around the edge of the text and I'm trying to remove them. I think is something related to the lack of alpha but I can't use it. With SRT I've used white text with black outline so I didn't noticed.
Will a feature that decides the output definition be possibly? 480p 576p 720p 1080p?
Shezed said: Will a feature that decides the output definition be possibly? 480p 576p 720p 1080p? Click to expand... Click to collapse There's a function for that but I don't understand how it works. I tried now and it just flicked the screen or stopped working until I did something else. Maybe I will put the function on UI just for experimenting, maybe someone will understand.
I've released V2, see the opening post. I've added ASS, optional black screen on playback for energy saving, custom fonts,... For the next one I will plan to rewrite the UI and most of the rest, this was just a concept to make sure it was possible, I don't think you can use it as a serious video player yet.
Thanks mate
Thank you very much! Excellent project! Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
great work this sounds great. its a shame samsung didnt think it through and enable a black screen for video playback in stock
Ok this app is officially my full hd movie player.. It displays subtitles correctly and the black screen options its what I've been looking for.. Put it on the market Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium
Gorjess said: Ok this app is officially my full hd movie player.. It displays subtitles correctly and the black screen options its what I've been looking for.. Put it on the market Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda premium Click to expand... Click to collapse Well, I thought about putting in the market or samsung apps but it's only for SGSII, so I'm not sure.
Browsers
Get guy, I'm curious as to what browser you're using? I'm using boat mini. Its light weight loads quick no lag very clean interface, which was just updated recently. The default browser I found very laggy. Then I tried dolphin.. too much uneeded bloat and in my opinion, not a great interface. My 2 cents on a few I've tried. Sent from my LG-P930
Installed the Boat and so far it certainly seems "spritely". What I like so far: * Using the volume buttons to zoom * 'Paste and Go' option for the address bar * Small app footprint = Fast load * The green denim theme is nice What I don't like so far: * Text re-flow isn't as good as Operas' (such as viewing forums) Has a lot of promise, I'll continue to try it out. thanks.
I installed Boat... not the mini version. I like it very much. So much I uninstalled Maxthon. Thanks for the heads up! Sent from my LG-P930 using XDA App
I'm using Opera Mobile. Works really well
So far I like the Boat Browser. Very snappy and quick and clean. Almost no lag noticeable. I like it over Opera, Dolphin and of course the stock browser. One thing it does great as well, and that is youtube. I currently use it to play videos on youtube since the default app for youtube is still broken. Edit: Alright, so as always, I can't find a browser to run the video's of the desktop version of Youtube properly. On Boat Browser, when you double tap on the video to make it full screen, you only get a small box for the video and the rest of the screen is black. This happens regardless of what resolution the Video is at (360 or 720). My current solution to it for now is to just manually enlarge the video by pinching it out until it somewhat fits the screen. It is not true fullscreen, but it is better than nothing. And on a good note, the damn browser runs 720P videos like butter!
Chrome for me I have used firefox & Opera before but those were extremely laggy. Chrome was a welcome surprise as I've heard reports that it's laggy but not to me. Very satisfied. Will need to try Boat sometime too.