Ok there are a lot of questions about Android in a lot of different threads scattered about the forum so I thought I would make this topic.
I've had my G1 for 14 months now, in that time I've seen the upgrade from 1.1 to 1.5 to 1.6. I've rooted my device, installed a whole load of Cyanogen Roms, Hero Roms and Super D Roms. I've even installed Debain on my system.
If anyone has any questions about Android please use this thread and I'll do my best to answer them.
How many applications do you usually find yourself running at once and how much effect does it have on battery life in the real world?
Many. Android doesn't close applications it keeps them in the memory until they need to be removed (ie when more memory is needed).
On the G1 I run anything up to about 20 applications at the same time. It's never effected performance and battery life is fine. You generally find you have to charge the phone at the end of the day after heavy usage but the G1 is known for having poor battery life.
Of course you can use Task Managers etc to increase your battery life but it's not really necessary like certain articles/websites like to make out. I get around 15 hours life on my G1 and that's with sending around on average 20 texts a day, a few phone calls, some game time, surfing the net about an hour a day and going on facebook/twitter regularly over about 4 hours a day (basically anytime I'm in a lecture). I also get 2 hours of music playback via AD2P bluetooth headphones.
I've read about people saying that there is a limit to the amount of apps you can install because everything has to be saved to the ROM. (Assuming you don't root it and install it to the SD card). Do you know if this is true?
what are the advantages n disadvantages of android over the winmo ??
luckypoop said:
I've read about people saying that there is a limit to the amount of apps you can install because everything has to be saved to the ROM. (Assuming you don't root it and install it to the SD card). Do you know if this is true?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes this is true however the Desire has 512mb of space for you to store apps. I've got a 800mb partition on my G1 for Apps2SD and I have around 200 apps installed lol with no problems so 512mb will probably hold quite a few apps.
They're working on getting apps installed to the SD card in the next android release.
cez10 said:
what are the advantages n disadvantages of android over the winmo ??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a broad question, maybe you can be more specific?
Hey brummiesteven, thanks for creating this for Android noobs like me! I've been using WinMo for quite some time. Never played with Android until just a few weeks ago when I tried running Android on my Touch Pro2.
Enough history, on to my questions...
1. Is there a native file explorer? If not, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Any one in particular that is considered the file explorer? (The equivalent of Resco Explorer or Total Commander in WinMo?)
2. I read in that there's no native Office doc (ie, Word, Excel, etc) editor. There's only a viewer. Again, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Recommendations? Does it work as well as the native one in WinMo?
I guess that's it. These are my only concerns about jumping ship to Android. Everything else, I'm going to have a blast figuring out on my own...
ohyeahar said:
Hey brummiesteven, thanks for creating this for Android noobs like me! I've been using WinMo for quite some time. Never played with Android until just a few weeks ago when I tried running Android on my Touch Pro2.
Enough history, on to my questions...
1. Is there a native file explorer? If not, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Any one in particular that is considered the file explorer? (The equivalent of Resco Explorer or Total Commander in WinMo?)
2. I read in that there's no native Office doc (ie, Word, Excel, etc) editor. There's only a viewer. Again, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Recommendations? Does it work as well as the native one in WinMo?
I guess that's it. These are my only concerns about jumping ship to Android. Everything else, I'm going to have a blast figuring out on my own...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. No native file explorer, I think Astro is generally seen as the best file exporer:
http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.metago.astro/
2. Again no native Office. There are quite a few office suites, I don't know which is the best as I have no use for one. Here's one of them though:
http://www.androffice.com/
It will be worth noting that there probably will be a google docs app soon. And you can edit google docs already on android via docs.google.com. There's also a program called GDocs that syncs all your google documents to your handset.
I think the reason why there's no "Native" options for these is because Initially "Stock Android" is aimed at the average customer, they wanted to get the balance right for non tech savy people who just want a phone with apps but also allow the possibility and expansion of turning it into something extremely powerful for someone of the more tech savvy type.
brummiesteven said:
That's a broad question, maybe you can be more specific?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
umm thought you might say that right let me think
- i've been mainly using symbian and winmo devices for the past years and there was some issues with stability and lag etc. on my old n95 8gb i used to get slow downs when ie had lots of apps installed does that happen on android? lags etc?
- are there any custom roms tweaks or in general droid doesnt really require much work to make it better?
- what about security of droids? as its an open source software it might be easily hacked, accessed by 3rd party users?
thats it so far i probably forgot about other more important things
well thanks anyway
cez10 said:
umm thought you might say that right let me think
- i've been mainly using symbian and winmo devices for the past years and there was some issues with stability and lag etc. on my old n95 8gb i used to get slow downs when ie had lots of apps installed does that happen on android? lags etc?
- are there any custom roms tweaks or in general droid doesnt really require much work to make it better?
- what about security of droids? as its an open source software it might be easily hacked, accessed by 3rd party users?
thats it so far i probably forgot about other more important things
well thanks anyway
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Put it this way, I've never experienced any slowdown on my G1 and it has like maybe a 3rd of the spec of the Desire? It is a fast operating system, wont be slowed down by installing a lot of apps but might by by having a lot of apps open but I highly doubt this would ever be a problem on the Desire (as it isn't on my G1).
2. Yes there are custom roms, mostly of different builds. For example the HTC Hero doesn't officialy have 2.1 released but there are already a few 2.1 roms for it on XDA. There will always be a way for devs to increase speed on here... even if it isn't needed speed can always be increased .
3. The only security flaw you would have is if you rooted it, this enables the root account and on a linux system the root account can do things like access system files. Having said this, if you do root the phone, the phone will ask you before it permits anything (program etc) root access. I've never heard of anyone having their phone hacked or anything like that.
I have had my G1 since it came out. Also, I rooted it as soon as that was possible. I have tried/installed over 500 apps and normally have over 100 installed at any given time. I have never had any issue with hacking or security.
That having been said! Recently, I read on an Android site where a group of individuals made an app as an experiment to see if they could access a users data. I believe it was a weather app. A majority of the users (if I remember correctly) didn't read the access rights of the weather app - as it said in the access rights it would have access to the users contacts/data. The app was able to upload user's data/contacts from those who installed the app.
So, MAKE sure you always read any applications access rights prior to installing an application. If the app is requesting access to information within your device that are NOT related to the apps functions - don't install it!
If you do that one thing - you should have nothing to worry about!
@brummiesteven - Didn't mean to highjack your thread. This is a great service you are providing for the new Androidians! Just wanted to remind them (all users) to read those app access rights before installing an application.
Hijacking? Lol don't be silly the more the better
Thanks for answering these questions. This next one is a bit more speculative....
given that winmo 6.5.x is probably going to be the last iteration before WP7S, what are the chances that some kind of emulator will be built to run legacy winmo apps on Android?
would this even be possible?
Hi Steven,
great service
One thing I really liked about my Blackberry, was the ability of customization regarding profiles and the notifications connected to it.
Is it possible to create profiles in Android, like 'Silent', 'Vibrate Only' and maybe one for the office where ringtones and notifications are very silent to avoid waking everyone up at the office
By the way, I recently stumbled over an application called cVolume that seems to enable some customization in that regard.
Is it possible to assign different ringtones for messages, mails, event notifications etc.?
(An example of what I dislike: I actually use a Palm Pre and the launch firmware didn't allow much customization. All notifications (except event reminders), no matter whether new mail, new textmessage used the same ringtone, which also couldn't be changed. That changed thankfully with a later firmware. Profiles are still not supported, you can just switch between 'ringtones on' or 'shut up/vibrate only'. --> Having used a Blackberry before, I felt kinda castrated with that few options of notification-settings )
Thx & Greetz,
69Mws
Sorry, no time to read which questions you have answered! I just copy/past my questions from another thread:
I can not call myself a WinMo veteran, since I have been using the HD2 for only 2,5 months. But the fact that it is already a dead device because of the Developers leaving to 7 Series(Adobe just stopped making flash for it, while they were very close to finishing it) makes me sad. If on 1 April there is still no word on the future of the HD2, I am selling it and getting a Desire.
A few questions to Android users!
How is the Android Market? How many apps? All useable by Desire, or is the divercity of the Android devices making the quality suffer? And only instal to internal memory right?
General Android OS: easy to use? Eye candy? Touch optimized?
Android browser: good or not? Is there Opera browser for Android?
Does HTC Sense work well with Android? Does it become 'one', or stay 2 different things like Sense and WinMo?
What should I know more about Android? What do you Android users think are the bad things about the OS and hope to see changed in the future updates?
I know it is a lot I am asking, but I am making a right decision this time so I need to be informed.
Kind regards
XDA mark said:
...How is the Android Market? How many apps? All useable by Desire, or is the divercity of the Android devices making the quality suffer? And only instal to internal memory right?
General Android OS: easy to use? Eye candy? Touch optimized?
Android browser: good or not? Is there Opera browser for Android?
Does HTC Sense work well with Android? Does it become 'one', or stay 2 different things like Sense and WinMo?
What should I know more about Android? What do you Android users think are the bad things about the OS and hope to see changed in the future updates?
I know it is a lot I am asking, but I am making a right decision this time so I need to be informed.
Kind regards
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm no Android user yet. But I have played with the emulator running on my Touch Pro2. So I can help answer a couple of your questions.
1. Android Market is much more extensive than Windows Marketplace. Remember, it's not the quantity but quality of apps that matters. And quality there appears to be much more quality apps than WinMo. Perhaps veteran Android users can chime in regarding usability by the Desire and installation location.
2. The Android OS is so much more pretty than WinMo. There are fade in/out animations when opening/closing windows. Everything is finger-friendly. The slide-down notifications bar is extremely handy. The ability to fully customize your home screens with shortcuts and widgets is just great.
3. The Android browser is much better than Opera Mobile on WinMo. I think there's Opera Mini in the Android Marketplace. But really, I don't think there's any reason to not use the default browser. It's renders fast and accurately. I can even access my internet banking site which doesn't work on WinMo or iPhone OS.
4. There's plenty of videos of Sense on Android. Check those out and see for yourself. Personally, I think it's great. Completely different than Sense on WinMo. Sense on WinMo is just a Today-screen plugin and enlarged menus. Sense on Android includes the HTC widgets and Leap among other goodies.
5. This is something I want to know too. Most of us know about what's bad about the iPhone OS and WinMo. But what's bad about Android that you'd want changed?
does Android require soft/hard reset every now and then like those damn M$ Windows Phones ?
I asked these in a different section, but thought I would see what Answers I get here, I know some have been answered before.
1. If / when the Desire gets rooted, will the device be permanently rooted or will official updates from HTC "un-root" it?
So hypothetically, I get a Desire and it is rooted, and HTC releases Android 3.0 (for example), would I be able to upgrade to the newer software or would I have to use a "dev" update?
2. Since the hardware between the 2 phones is very similar, what is the chances of current Nexus One modded ROMs (cyanogen, enmother etc) working on a rooted Desire?
3. I imagine the community will be working on rooting the Desire so it can port the shipping version of Sense UI to the Nexus One?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
Stu
69mws said:
Hi Steven,
great service
One thing I really liked about my Blackberry, was the ability of customization regarding profiles and the notifications connected to it.
Is it possible to create profiles in Android, like 'Silent', 'Vibrate Only' and maybe one for the office where ringtones and notifications are very silent to avoid waking everyone up at the office
By the way, I recently stumbled over an application called cVolume that seems to enable some customization in that regard.
Is it possible to assign different ringtones for messages, mails, event notifications etc.?
(An example of what I dislike: I actually use a Palm Pre and the launch firmware didn't allow much customization. All notifications (except event reminders), no matter whether new mail, new textmessage used the same ringtone, which also couldn't be changed. That changed thankfully with a later firmware. Profiles are still not supported, you can just switch between 'ringtones on' or 'shut up/vibrate only'. --> Having used a Blackberry before, I felt kinda castrated with that few options of notification-settings )
Thx & Greetz,
69Mws
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's no option for this initially but the system does allow you to assign different notification tones to different events, eg Email and SMS.
There will be apps that allow you to have "profiles". There's even an app called Locale which is pretty much an automatic profiler, will switch your settings dependant on the time, your location etc. For example, if I'm at Uni it automatically switches my phone to silent for all notifications and vibration only.
Hi,
I'll get my new Desire HD this week. I had a nokia 5800 before. What should I know about Android and the Deisre HD.
Wich apps should I install?
What are the most important apps?
What are the differences between the hacking and modding of Nokia devices and Android devices?
Thanks for your answers.
Coming from an identical scenario as yourself (Nokia 5800XM -> Desire HD). There are many things I noticed from Symbian to android, mainly the larger support for applications (No more signing unverified apps!) and better web browsing.
For apps, most web browsers from Symbian OS such as Opera and skyfire are available!
For apps check out appbrain.com, seems more reliable than the app store.
For modding (also known as rooting in the android world) customising an android phone is about 100x easier, there's no certificates to trick and there's a much bigger user base.
I hated my Nokia 5800, most unreliable gadget I ever owned claiming 3 on my insurance for hardware / software problems.
Hello & welcome.
Depending on how you use your Desire HD (DHD), will decide what apps you should have.
Must haves for me are,
*FREE*
- Juice Defender - It will try to minimise the drain on your battery by intelligently turning data on/off
- SMS Backup + - Backs up your SMS, MMS & Call logs to your GMail account.
- XDA - These forums on your DHD, perfect.
- PhoneMarks - Sync's your bookmarks in chrome to your DHD.
- Last.fm - Excellent personalised radio.
- Dropbox - Sync files from practically anywhere, to anything.
- Linda File Manager - Manage files on your DHD & SD card.
- LauncherPro - Alternative Home screen interface, lots of customisation available.
*PAID*
- Ultimate Juice - Paid addon for Juice Defender, more customisation available.
- Better Keyboard - Alternative keyboard, IMO best keyboard available.
*ROOTED*
- Titanium Backup - Backs up apps to your SD card & Dropbox, also removes apps. Donate/Paid version available.
- AdFree Android - Stops those annoying in-app adverts.
With those apps you should not run into any problems.
As for the whole Android experience, its entirely what you want it to be. If your happy with HTC Sense, you've got yourself a great handset. If your into trying something new, cutting edge (atleast with Android) then your in great company.
certainly get dropbox. massively useful.
angry birds is a must
i ASTRO file manager instead of linda, but ive not tried linda.
app 2 sd is useful since the DHD has little internal memory.
GPS test: useful for getting the GPS to work the first time (might take 45 minutes to get its first lock, but then less than 3 minutes thereafter. doesnt seem to know what side of the world to look at the first use)
sketch online is great fun. simple fun.
switchpro widget will help you save battery by letting you turn your 3g off, but it costs 68 pence.
teeter is a free version of labyrinth, the marble maze game.
uninstaller is useful since the inbuilt one is slow and useless.
yell.com
i would advise you use the stock HTC sense UI before loading launcher pro or anything. im still using sense simply because it does everything i want it to do.
i had an n96 before this (the most unsupported phone EVER) and rooting my DHD was so easy in comparason. visionary+ is what i used, but look for a guide.
Thanks alot for the good answers. On Friday I'll get my DHD.
jt_seven said:
Hi,
I'll get my new Desire HD this week. I had a nokia 5800 before. What should I know about Android and the Deisre HD.
Wich apps should I install?
What are the most important apps?
What are the differences between the hacking and modding of Nokia devices and Android devices?
Thanks for your answers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Assuming your from the UK, where did you get yours?
I recommend a decent Backup app. So once you've entered all of your contacts or appointments or settings - you can save them on your sdcard for a rainy day/new rom etc.
I've been using the trial of MyBackupPro for the past couple of weeks. There might be better ones but I haven't tried any yet.
xp79 said:
Assuming your from the UK, where did you get yours?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm from Germany, and got it in ebay.
Hi @ all,
I will get my new DHD on friday too, thanks for all these usefull answeres. Is there everywere a tutoral to root the DHD as user without knowing about android? Maybe anyone of you here can give me usefull tips to work with the DHD better than the original method.
Thanks alot,
robDHD
Zum Beispiel hier:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=857537
When you want to have an german root tutorial look at the post to you on facebook. I think in this board it isn't allowed to post links to other boards.
Hi there all dev heads!
First post here so please bare with me...I have a headache after reading so many threads here...at least I'm willing to learn...
Here's my situation:
I'm a happy owner of a Moto Defy for a week now and before I go ahead and jump onto the rooting and the flashing bandwagon, I would like clear indications on what is possible to achieve, how to do it, what to expect and what not to do on my Defy.
Here are what I'm really after:
A) I want to know if there is a real "not de-blurred" stock (not OC at 1MHz) Chinese ROM that I can flash back to if anything fails don't the road? I know about the bootstraped recovery, but if I ever have to use RSD flashing, I'd like to start from official Chinese Motorola ROM and avoid losing my flash, email, SMS or what not...I'm in China afterall!!
B) I want to know if there is any way for me to use the magic of rooting/flashing to get my desktop VPN to work on my defy --> really I want this to be able to use Skype over wifi when I'm in my house. The Great firewall and Motorola seem to work together to block this possibility and let all the phone carriers controlled by "The Party" make money with the state-controlled carriers by not allowing any VoIP apps on the Defy. My VPN seems to 'lock in' [I see a key on the top taskbar] but I cannot access internet on the 2 browsers I tried [stock and Dolphin HD]. Do I need 'tun' or something??
C) I succesfully used an update.zip on my un-rooted phone to get a working Android market (as oposed to the stock and very limitted Chinese market) but what about being able to use the applanet market? Is it really worth rooting and maybe flashing just to do so?
All that I've seen so far here applies to 1) people living outside China and mainly not limitted by Chinese carriers or 2) people running with ROMs or Nandroids pre-Froyo. I'm not too bottered by Blur since I don't use 3G, social networks or ever data over 2G at the moment --> I connect only using my wifi.
I do understand the advantage of customizations and I sure would like to improve my battery usage by using something like Frozen-xx to use some sort of 'speedstep' on the processor [I find that downclocking under low cpu usage much more attrative than just OC for good quadrant scores...] but that will come maybe one day when I'm fully confident about all that is involved prior to get there. [i don't know what geodex and tun are exactly and I've never used adb backup, recoveries or flashing yet...]
So what is your take on this? Especially my 3 main points A, B C ??
Any Gurus here that can comment on this?
I know that there is a lot of the Defy dev't that originated from here in China, so is there anyone from China that really know what I specifically can do and hope to achieve?
Thanks all for your input and long live xda-dev !!
[Sorry for the long post but don't be shy to put a lot of info as well - the more explanation, the better for me ]
my findings...
I will write a reply to my own questions since someone in a similar situation might find my findings helpful one day...
A) So far, I'm happy with Froyo and can live with MotoBlur since I don't use any sort of sinch'ing. So I'm still not rooted and the standard reset recovery allows me to keep my stock ROM available.
B) VPN on the Defy requires a VPN without encryption to work - plain and simple! I checked with my desktop VPN supplier and they do have 3 specific VPN servers dedicated to smartphones and where encryption is turned off. So I was able to switch to one of those and I'm now over the Great Firewall!!
As for Skype over Wifi, you can only install it if you're within US or Canada. But with the magic of my VPN described above, I could download and install it easilly. The even greater news is that once it's installed, I no longer need to use the VPN to use it --> just over my livingroom's wifi and I'm doing calls!!
C) Like mentioned in the original post, I had the original Chinese market, updated to the standard Android market APk from an update.zip found here on xda-dev and I also found out that no rooting is required to use applanet market. [Althought if you're planning to use apks that require it, then you'll have to do it]
I'm now a happy camper with my Defy
If anyone would like pointers to a good VPN provider, write to me and I can use the referral service from mine [send them your email from my account] and that would give me some credits with them...
Cheers! And keep up developing!!
I recently got my SGS2 GT-i9100, and I wonder about all the things the different apps want to hava access to... Either they are simple games or apps...
Your location
Coarse (network-based) location, fine (GPS) location
Network Communication
Full Internet access
Phone Calls
Read phone status and ID
Storage
Modify/delete USA storage contents
...and many more I have not yet familiarized with.
I'm just thinking about whether allowing some apps to have access to all of these things can be harmful in any way, or if I should be concerned in any way. F. ex why should Fruit Ninja be allowed to read phone status and ID? ... I don't get it.
I need a clarification to exactly what all these permissions stand for and mean, what exactly they will have access to if I permit them, and whether to avoid some apps to have access to these, or if it is "safe". I hope you all understand my concerns.
//Steria
No clarification needed really, the permissions mean exactly what they say. Should be obvious why some tools needs internet access, for example. Many apps on the market also have a description as to why they need certain permissions.
Use common sense. If it seems pointless for app x to access your phone, don't install it. Always useful to see reviews and check popularity on the market too.
Difficult to be more specific without knowing what apps you use (no idea what Fruit Ninja is..).
There's an article here which explains a bit http://techpp.com/2010/07/30/android-apps-permissions-secure-private-data/
I may be wrong but I think Fruit Ninja would need to read phone status so it can pause the game when you get an incoming call.
Greetings people smarter than I, so here's my problem
I have an HTC M8 (Verizon) Windows Phone. I have done research that shows that the M8 (Both the android and windows version) are the exact same phone with the exception of the windows logo on the back of the case.
I'm interested in (after backing up what is on it) wiping the darn thing and making it an Android phone instead because I miss playing similar games with my friends that aren't available on Windows phone and I thought they were (see Clash of Clans). All of the articles I have found on this forum so far, and others, all start from the point of view of switching to a custom Android ROM from a phone that is already running Android and well...that's obviously not going to work for me. That I know of.
My question is: Is it possible to re flash my phone from the windows phone that it is, to an Android phone instead. Research suggest the SIM card should still work and be unaffected by the OS change, but I'm unsure where to even start after going to HTCdev.com. Or if I should.
Any help is appreciated.
This is the list of OSs that I'm interested in (Specifically Viper and CyanogenMod)
((Apparently I cannot post links yet, so go to phonearena.com slash News Slash Outstanding-custom-Android-ROMs-for-the-HTC-One-M8_id63633))
afaik there is no platform conversion possible so i would not try anything if i where you.
Secondary question from the thread I haven't checked in a while, I'm curious if anyone has actually tried this on this specific phone. From what I have read there is no hardware difference between the android version of the M8 and the WP version. The only difference is software.
So If I were to simply unlock it (Through HTC's approved process) and swap ROM files, why wouldn't this work? Would it brick the phone? Am I crazy?
/for reference I'm actually using a Motorola Droid MAXX for my daily phone, this HTC WP is an extra one I have
//because I like messing with things
///slashies come in three
The hardware is the same except we do not have available the software to make the conversation. You're stuck with WP and there won't be anything in the future. Little to no development on the HTC M8 windows platforms proves as much. Enjoy while you have it.
Reasons why it wouldn't work:
Partition layouts - if different then no.
Processor OTP - chip security, one wrong digit in this .... It's a paperweight.
Between the sbl, OTP, RADIO and security - if it doesn't all tally with each other... Paperweight.
Partitions match - even if they do, between the second and third reason .... Paperweight.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Free mobile app