Develop Bugs

Various questions

Hey guys, new to Android. First time ever last night when I got the mytouch slide. So I have a few questions that may make veterans laugh...
1. Why does it seem like there are a bunch of things running on my phone that I don't want running or ever use? Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
2. Is there's a setting that stops things from always being connected and draining battery? Amazon mp3 store I didn't even ever open and I see it in Running Services. How is that possible? Maybe I'm not understanding something?
3. When you back out of an app, is it closed? Or still running?
4. Any way to COMPLETELY delete certain apps from the phone?
THANK YOU GUYS!

Yes there's a task killer check market,in addition you can go to settings,applications,manage applications and end services yourself.that answers your 1st 3 questions,on to question 4.you cannot currently uninstall preloaded apps but if and when the phone gets rooted you will be able to remove them through adb or terminal.in addition eventually after this phone gets rooted people will create custom roms that won't come preloaded with all that bloatware.

Jerzeeloon is right, but I'm going to add some detail since you said you were new to Android.
1. Why does it seem like there are a bunch of things running on my phone that I don't want running or ever use?
THERE ARE.
Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
SORT OF. ASSUMING YOU HAVEN'T ADDED ANY OTHER TYPE OF MANAGEMENT APP, YOU CAN USE ASTRO WHICH IS PRE-INSTALLED. OPEN UP YOUR APP DRAWER AND SELECT ASTRO. ONCE OPEN, HIT THE PHYSICAL MENU BUTTON AND SELECT TOOLS, THEN PROCESS MANAGER. FOR NOW, I WOULD ONLY USE THE APPS TAB AND YOU CAN CLOSE OUT RUNNING SERVICES THIS WAY. YOU CAN ALSO DOWNLOAD ADVANCED TASK MANAGER OR ADVANCED TASK KILLER WHICH WILL ASSIST IN THIS PROCESS. BOTH ARE GOOD, TRY THEM AND CHOOSE WHICH YOU LIKE BEST. MANY SERVICES MAY BE RUNNING THAT SEEMS TO BE NON-USED, BUT ARE ACTUALLY WORKING WITH SOMETHING ELSE OR ARE RUNNING IDLE OR IN BACKGROUND.
2. Is there's a setting that stops things from always being connected and draining battery?
WHILE A FANTASTIC PHONE, THE SENSE USER INTERFACE AND TMOBILE BOTH RUN MANY APPS THAT WE INDIVIDUALLY MAY NOT WANT OR USE. FOR INSTANCE, I USE HANDCENT FOR TEXT AND K9 IN PLACE OF THE STOCK MAIL (NOT GMAIL). SO I GO TO SETTINGS-APPLICATIONS-MANAGE APPLICATIONS AND ENTER INTO THESE APPS WHICH I DON'T USE AND IF THEY ARE RUNNING, HAVE A 'FORCE STOP' OPTION. AS LONG AS ANOTHER APP ISN'T SOMEHOW USING IT OR YOU'VE SET DEFAULTS TO A DIFFERENT APP, THEN IT SHOULD STAY CLOSED/NON-RUNNING. I ALSO DID THIS WITH FRIENDSTREAM, PEEP, FACEBOOK, ETC WHICH I DON'T USE ON THIS PHONE. YOU SHOULDN'T REALLY NEED TO USE A TASK MANAGER VERY OFTEN. YOU'LL GET DIFFERING REPORTS FROM USERS; SOME SAY THEY 'END ALL' SEVERAL TIMES DAILY, SOME SAY THEY NEVER USE IT. I PREFER SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE THOUGH I NEVER 'END ALL'. THIS JUST FORCES ALL THE APPS THAT NEED TO BE RUNNING TO RESTART WHICH IS NOT USUALLY NECESSARY. MORE LATER...
Amazon mp3 store I didn't even ever open and I see it in Running Services. How is that possible? Maybe I'm not understanding something?
I'M PERPLEXED BY THIS, TOO. BUT I'M NOT A DEVELOPER OR CODER, SO WHAT DO I KNOW?
3. When you back out of an app, is it closed? Or still running?
FROM WHAT I'VE READ, SOME APPS WILL CLOSE WHEN YOU BACK ALL THE WAY OUT. SOME WILL CLOSE WHEN YOU LEAVE THE APP (BY HITTING HOME). SOME WON'T CLOSE AT ALL; WHICH IS THE "MORE LATER". THIS IS THE SCENARIO THAT I USE TASK MANAGERS (TM). IF I'M IN AND OUT OF MULTIPLE APPS IN A PORTION OF DAY, I MAY OPEN UP A TM AND CLOSE SOME OF THOSE APPS, I.E. MAPS, ASTRO, TASK MGR, HANDCENT, ALOQA, ETC. BE CAREFUL TO NOT CLOSE OUT APPS THAT ARE SET UP TO SYNC, LIKE YOUR MAIL APPS.
4. Any way to COMPLETELY delete certain apps from the phone?
NOT THE PRE-INSTALLED ONES. STOCK-ANDROID IS THE SAME AS LINUX ON YOUR PC. HAVING A CUSTOM UI IS AKIN TO WHAT COMPANIES LIKE REDHAT TRIED TO DO WITH AN OPEN-SOURCE OS. SO WHILE THERE ARE MANY NICE FEATURES, APPS, WIDGETS, ETC PRE-INSTALLED, UNFORTUNATELY YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ABILITY TO UNINSTALL THEM...YET. THIS PHONE WILL BECOME ROOTED. THIS WILL GIVE YOU THE OPTION OF ADDING CUSTOM ROM'S WHICH WILL ALLOW YOU DIRECT CONTROL OVER WHAT IS ON THE PHONE. THE NEXT THING WE ARE WAITING FOR IS THE NEXT OTA UPDATE, FROYO (2.2). THIS WILL BRING THE ABILITY TO RUN APPS FROM THE SD CARD (APPS2SD) WHICH WILL KEEP THE INTERNAL ROM MEMORY SPACE MOSTLY FREE. FOR ME AT LEAST, THIS WILL HELP ALLEVIATE THE CONSTERNATION I HAVE TO NOT BEING ABLE TO REMOVE THE BLOATWARE. FOR NOW, CHECK OUT WHAT IS ALREADY ON THERE AND IF THERE IS SOMETHING YOU LIKE, SEARCH THE MARKET TO SEE WHAT OTHER SIMILAR APPS ARE AVAILABLE. I WILL TELL YOU THAT THE ONLY ADD-ON APP I HAVEN'T "REPLACED" WITH SOMETHING ELSE IS THE SENSE WEATHER. AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, I USE HANDCENT FOR SMS, K9 FOR OTHER MAIL, SEISMIC FOR TWITTER, ADVANCED TASK MANAGER, SHOP SAVVY FOR BAR CODE, DOLPHIN FOR BROWSER, AND NEWSROB FOR RSS.

Man, you guys are awesome. Informative and friendly.
I HAD two questions but figured on e of them out so here's the one I'm still stuck on...
- Is there an app that will allow me to assign a specific ringtone to specific notifications? SMS, email, voicemail, etc?
Thanks guys!

You can do that by going into the setting in the app.. Example, go into the sms app, hit menu button (3 lines button), settings, notifications

Well that would certainly add a song to notifications for you but it wouldn't allow yo to pick a different song for SMS, MMS, emails, etc.

Are you looking to add different notifications for different people within SMS, email, etc or just to the different apps?
Within each separate app, you will have a 'settings' app, usually navigated by the Menu button. Within this you can set the notification settings. You can easily create your own sounds using Ringdroid and use them also. For example, I used the embedded voice recorder for one of my email accounts linked to my Amazon Seller account. So now when I receive email (via K9) to that account, I hear, "Cha-Ching!...Money!" (this makes me happy 10-15 times a day when that account syncs.)
tinpanalley said:
Man, you guys are awesome. Informative and friendly.
I HAD two questions but figured on e of them out so here's the one I'm still stuck on...
- Is there an app that will allow me to assign a specific ringtone to specific notifications? SMS, email, voicemail, etc?
Thanks guys!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

fl_jeep said:
Is there a way to kill them like with Task Manager on WinMo?
SORT OF. ASSUMING YOU HAVEN'T ADDED ANY OTHER TYPE OF MANAGEMENT APP, YOU CAN USE ASTRO WHICH IS PRE-INSTALLED.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Since when is Astro pre-installed? It certainly isn't on my phone...

fermunky said:
Since when is Astro pre-installed? It certainly isn't on my phone...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess it is possible I installed it from my SD. I was in a tizzy with my new phone.

fl_jeep said:
Are you looking to add different notifications for different people within SMS, email, etc or just to the different apps?
Within each separate app, you will have a 'settings' app, usually navigated by the Menu button. Within this you can set the notification settings. You can easily create your own sounds using Ringdroid and use them also. For example, I used the embedded voice recorder for one of my email accounts linked to my Amazon Seller account. So now when I receive email (via K9) to that account, I hear, "Cha-Ching!...Money!" (this makes me happy 10-15 times a day when that account syncs.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, what I'm trying to do is have one ringtone for emails, another for notifications (appointments), another for text messages, and so on. If I can actually assign a ringtone to different email accounts, that would be even better!
The problem is, when I go into settings for my email account, in the notifications settings all I get is, email notifications on or off, notification sound on or off, and notification vibrate on or off. No choice to select an actual ringtone.

tinpanalley said:
Yes, what I'm trying to do is have one ringtone for emails, another for notifications (appointments), another for text messages, and so on. If I can actually assign a ringtone to different email accounts, that would be even better!
The problem is, when I go into settings for my email account, in the notifications settings all I get is, email notifications on or off, notification sound on or off, and notification vibrate on or off. No choice to select an actual ringtone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The stock Mail app might not have the option, but Gmail and SMS do. If you want a different notification sound in general for email and voicemail just hit menu, settings, sounds and display. There you will see the option to change notification sound.

So can you guys tell me which are the best email clients that exist for Android then? The most feature rich maybe? Well, best functioning is more important.
And secondly, if I use another email program, then does the email page all the way on the left become completely useless? Does it get populated with the emails from your new client? Can you delete the page?
Thanks!

I'm assuming you mean a widget?? If so you just touch and hold it down.. it'll turn red then drag it down to the trash. Gone! Then I would go into the mail app and sign off so its not constantly checking in the background and stuff. As for another feature rich mail app, the only experience I have with one is K9 and it worked quite well and has great reviews. Look it up in the market.
If you want to get the widget back for what ever reason you long click once again in the empty area, select widgets then mail.

Ok, cool, I thought it was a whole page, I didn't think it was just a big massive widget. This is more customizable than I thought!! Loving this phone more and more each day.

turboyo said:
Then I would go into the mail app and sign off so its not constantly checking in the background and stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do I have to do to make sure the HTC Mail app doesn't keep working in the background? Just kill my email account?
Is there a better SMS app?

first off, take off all widgets that are not necessary.. only widget i keep on is power control and clock. secondly, disable all sync that is unneccessary for you, under your accounts and sync menu in settings. that should save you a good deal of cpu usage and battery

I love K9 for my non-primary Gmail account. They also just updated it giving it some great new features such as viewing your mail from all accounts in one stream. They also have some nice batch options that I like and it's easy to dump trash along with compacting and expunging the messages from cache.
That indeed gives you the ability to assign different notifications for each account.

Hey,
I tried K-9 but right away, I got a picture in an email as an attachment that opened up all corrupted. Doesn't happen on the stock email program and I tested the same email there and it worked fine. I cant rely unfortunately on an email program that shows my picture attachments like this so I had to uninstall K-9. Anyone know why this happened? I got a few bars of the image across the top and the rest of the frame was black, almost dark grey.

The Judgement day never came, but Mango event will indeed come!

Really, superreally, i mean megabyte x 10^60 really, the mango event will be held on May 24th! Anyone excited to see?
The one thing i would love to see is to have facebook intergrated to be useful, like getting notifications if someone replied it back to my fb posts by using people's hub. Cause when i use fb for commenting & stuff, i have to manually search them to see if i ever got replies and even if someone replied it back, and i go to actual facbook.com, it won't give me notifications that the person replied me back. (that is when i used fb through people hub.)
What do you want to see in the next big update?

I want option to save camera setting.. way to freeze my phone from changing into landscape mode when i dont want it..

I just want multi tasking, and more APIs. I am sick and tired of havting to re-load apps just because my phone whent to sleep, or I checked an e-mail.

Turn by Turn Navigation, it's the only reason I haven't left Android yet. (And i mean Bing Maps TbTN, not some random third party app that gets removes from the marketplace)

Exchange sync'ed Tasks. I love the phone, but not having Tasks and the inability to dial directly from within a Task is a daily major pain for me.

HamerPlyr said:
Exchange sync'ed Tasks. I love the phone, but not having Tasks and the inability to dial directly from within a Task is a daily major pain for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try Tasks Anywhere or My Tasks. They both let you dial and launch url's from within the app. No exchange sync yet though. And I believe there is a few or at least one that has the feature of exchange sync. But, they may not have the linking feature.

thoughts on Mango 7720

Alrite, I've installed mango on my samsung focus.
It is AWESOME. But, there are some things I just don't understand why they are made that way.
1) push notifications
you need to install separate facebook and twitter apps to get those. even though u get your notifications in your me tile, you dont get push notifications when a new notification comes in. For now, I just had facebook and twitter apps installed to get push notifications and use me tile to actually check it when i get a notification. It works.
2) Facebook chat - this is far more annoying
when I am chatting on facebook, all the messages I receive would also go to my phone which makes it run riot. it would be beeping for every single message I receive. This NEEDs to be fixed before mango is actually released. I am not sure if it is on facebook end or msft's.. It might be facebook since they shouldn't be pushing messages to phone app when the other channel (such as the desktop browser) is open and connected.
3) Is it possible for third party developers to add more messaging channels to the stock messaging app? messaging such as google talk, skype, anything.... it would be really really cool if the messaging hub handle all those too...
4) this might be just personal preference.. But, It takes too long to wait for the live tiles to flip IMO.. The possible solution would be bringing the double click over to windows phone.
Single clicking the live tile will flip it. And double click to launch the application. I think it would be pretty awesome.

1. I dont get it too.
2. You are signed in on your phone on both Windows Live and Facebook chat. You can go offline if you dont want to receive fb chats on your phone.
3. Deep integration is microsofts job. Skype may come in as a separate app later this year or next year, or it might be integrated with the messaging hub in the next update.

1. You DO get push notifications via the Me tile. Sounds like what you are looking for are toast notifications once the push notifications update your notifications in your Me tile. Toast notifications are a great idea that I'm sure Microsoft is well aware of or had a reason for not putting in at this point in time.
2. Nothing to do with Windows Phone 7 or Mango. This is how chat generally works. You sign in on multiple places, you get your chats in all those places. You just need to sign out if you don't want to get messages on your other devices. Considering Mango is done, the behavior is not going to change, and really, this is one of Facebook's selling points on their chat system, how its available everywhere and how you can just pick up and go no matter what device you are using.
3. Unfortunately, there is no API for Messaging for third parties. Microsoft probably has the power there.

prjkthack said:
2. Nothing to do with Windows Phone 7 or Mango. This is how chat generally works. You sign in on multiple places, you get your chats in all those places. You just need to sign out if you don't want to get messages on your other devices. Considering Mango is done, the behavior is not going to change, and really, this is one of Facebook's selling points on their chat system, how its available everywhere and how you can just pick up and go no matter what device you are using.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not how google talk works... which is why I thought it might be on facebook's end. If you use google talk, let's say you sign in to two computers at the same time, you will start to get notifications when someone send you initial messages. But, when you reply to the message from either computer, it will stop sending newer messages to the other computer. I think it is great for security purposes too since noone can be eavesdropping your conversation on the other machine.
Facebook's selling point is that you can stay connected on every device.. But, I dont think that means every device has to be ringing for every message. It would make more sense if the message is delivered to intended person at the most available channel..

Push Notification: what is it? usefulness and battery impact?

Hi,
My daughter said that she prefers to avoid Viber because it uses push notification. Which she said will consume more battery. I was puzzled and wanted to lookup further on push notification. But most what I found was related to development. Can you please help me to clarify?
Q1- What is push notification?
Q2- When is push notification required (or become useful)?
Q3- Is it true that increase battery usage and why?
Thanks for any help.

2LoT said:
Hi,
I have suggested my daughter to install Viber on her iPhone 3GS. She said that she prefers to avoid because Viber uses push notification. Which she said will consume more battery. I was puzzled and wanted to lookup further on push notification. But most what I found was related to development. Can you please help me to clarify?
Q1- What is push notification?
Q2- When is push notification required (or become useful)?
Q3- Is it true that increase battery usage and why?
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I remember correctly, It was basically a sync system. It syncs any new emails, notifications etc. Like the android sync system. But called push notification
Your wifi usage or data is almost "on" for it to work. So it's useful imo but also a battery hog.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_technology
So, if you would recieve 2 emails per day, the server initiates a push 2 times that day. Compared to having your phone constantly polling the mail server for new mail every hour or 30 minutes, what sounds more battery friendly?
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

2LoT said:
Q1- What is push notification?
Q2- When is push notification required (or become useful)?
Q3- Is it true that increase battery usage and why?
Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, why are you asking in the Galaxy Nexus forum about push notifications on the iPhone 3GS?
Push notification means that as soon as a message or data is available, its "pushed" to the device, rather than being "synced" on a timer interval. It uses more battery often because there's more data being transfered and the app needs to have a service running at all times to receive push notifications. It depends on the app and how its managed though. It can be more efficient than a frequent polling sync interval.
Push is useful for important email, messaging applications, and other apps that have time sensitive data. (Just think about it...)
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

2LoT said:
Which she said will consume more battery. I was puzzled and wanted to lookup further on push notification.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Er.. no. Pushing uses less battery. The service provider just needs to "wake up" the respective background process and send the push to it. In contrast, with a pull, the background process has to wake up and send data everytime it wants to poll the server. And then it has to stay awake long enough to receive a response back, which is what it would've had to do anyway in a push.
(True, if you set polling for once a week, it might save more battery, but that kinda defeats the purpose of all this.)
Warning: the above contents are complete BS that I made up 5 minutes ago.

Warning: the above contents are complete BS that I made up 5 minutes ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am lost, did you mean I should discard your reply? Well, as your ranking is "Senior Member", I assume that you know what you are talking. So I hope your reply was not a joke, so let continue.
thebobp said:
Er.. no. Pushing uses less battery. The service provider just needs to "wake up" the respective background process and send the push to it. In contrast, with a pull, the background process has to wake up and send data everytime it wants to poll the server. And then it has to stay awake long enough to receive a response back, which is what it would've had to do anyway in a push.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If so, can you make sense of this support page which advises to disable push notification to save battery
http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/support/personal/667853/3
Excerpted here the related paragraph:
Turn off Push Notifications – Apple
Some applications from the App Store use the Apple Push Notification service to alert you of new data. Applications that rely on push notifications may impact battery performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could "Push Notifications" has a different meaning in an iOS?

Because disabling any data based notifications, push or otherwise will save battery, bug the above is true. Push notifications will use less battery than a pull/sync. It can depend on a few things, though, like how many notifications get pushed, how often, and whether with those two factors if the app is set to push for every new notification, or groups them together periodically.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

2LoT said:
If so, can you make sense of this support page which advises to disable push notification to save battery
http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/support/personal/667853/3
Excerpted here the related paragraph:
Could "Push Notifications" has a different meaning in an iOS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Disabling push notifications from the general settings menu of an iPhone disables the notifications completely. The app will no longer give you notifications unless you enter the app or setup a sync interval (if the app supports it). That's why it'll save battery. You can universally across the entire OS turn off notifications for specific apps, groups of apps, or all apps.
This again quickly highlights the point though: Why is this thread about an iPhone 3GS and notifications in iOS in a Galaxy Nexus forum?
Might I recommend one of the hundreds of iPhone forums? You'll surely get better answers there from people who actually use the device. Seriously.

2LoT said:
I am lost, did you mean I should discard your reply? Well, as your ranking is "Senior Member", I assume that you know what you are talking. So I hope your reply was not a joke, so let continue.
If so, can you make sense of this support page which advises to disable push notification to save battery
http://help.orange.co.uk/orangeuk/support/personal/667853/3
Excerpted here the related paragraph:
Could "Push Notifications" has a different meaning in an iOS?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No. Push is push. But when you are comparing push notifications against having no nofitications at all, then yes push notifictions will take some battery.

IMAP IDLE (push) protocol requires your phone re-establish IDLE connection to server at regular interval (usually < 30 minutes) before server time-out and terminates the IDLE connection. Eg. K9 email client refresh IDLE connection at 20-minute intervals.
If you have lots of emails, not sure if battery use is better. Difference with Sync is that you get email notification right away with Push.

With all due respect,
You have the terms wrong.
In android 2.2 and up to 4.0.x the push notification system is called C2DM (Cloud to Device Messaging). It's a protocol where a server sends a notification to the device and can wake the app it's meant to. It saves a LOT battery because the app doesn't need to poll anything. In fact, the app doesn't need to be running, only the google services framework needs to be running in background and it will wake the app, thus, saving battery.
In Jelly Bean, the system is now called GCM (Google cloud messaging).
For iOS users the system is very similar and apple handles those notifications.
In conclusion, push notifications save a lot of battery because the app doesn't need to be running and no polling period is needed. Also is faster: if you receive an email, you'll be able to see it right away and don't wait for the next server poll. The same happens with the twitter for android app and even Whatsapp.
In iOS something curious happen. In the iDevices, WiFi turns off few moments after the screen is off, and those push notifications are handled by the carriers data connection. In my case, I find that using my carrier's data instead of wifi, consumes more power because my cell signal quality is very poor in my country and a wifi connection is more stable, thus, I get a better battery life with WiFi always on. Maybe that's why on iOS devices the Push notifications are more power hungry.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Cloud_to_Device_Messaging_Service and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_technology
Cheers!

Persistent Annoying Email Notifications

I'm not sure if anyone else has been dealing with this, but the Stock Email App seems to be engineered to make it's users going insane. Let me explain:
I have two email accounts connected to my phone. A school (.edu) email, and a personal Windows Live account for everything else. Both are set to Push notifications. When I receive a new email, I'm notified as extremely quickly, and it works as it should. 90% of the time it's an a newsletter from my school or an email from Newegg or something so I usually just swipe the notification away, and go about my day. Here's the problem. After swiping away the notification, I'll constantly be reminded about this "new" email every so often. Even though I technically haven't read it, I found it weird that I have the notifications set to PUSH and it seems to want to keep annoying me until I give in and just open the email app and delete it.
This happens quite often and to make things worse, I'll go in and delete 5-6 emails at the end of the week and close the app. Minutes later, I'll receive an email for 5-6 "new" emails. I'll go take a look, and it's older emails that I've definitely read in the past and wanted to keep in my inbox, starting the cycle over and causing me to check the tiny boxes on the side and mark them as read, only to have this happen again later in the week. I thought the point of a Push notification was that I'd be notified in near-realtime. It does so quite impressively, but then it seems to set some flag where it just pesters the crap out of me every hour or so (or when I receive another new email) until I give in..
Is there a way I can stop this? I'd rather not download a third party app if I don't have to. I'm not a heavy email user. I mainly keep the notifications on to notify me of shipping updates, payment confirmations and class cancellations from my professors. There's nothing worse than waking up at 8:30 and stumbling into an empty lecture hall, so the notifications are pretty important.
Thanks in advance,

Well that's the default behaviour of the email app, you will be notified for new mails on each sync interval you have set.
Just open the notification & read the mail to avoid getting repeated notifications.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium