Related
Are there any disadvantages of NOT running HTC Sense at all? Currently I'm only using the Sense interface because of the home screen where I have a 4 x 4 grid of shortcuts to start other programs. I can use other today screen apps for that purpose and save me some phone startup time and some Sense frustration.
I don't like the Sense settings screen because I always manage to find only half of what I'm looking for and end up using WM's settings instead. So I guessed I would start using something else to start programs and loose the Sense interface which is no big issue for me (it's pretty but not very useful). But will I be losing lots of functions if I do that, like the light sensor or other stuff you wouldn't realize you'd miss until they are gone?
turn sense off and see. you can always turn it on again if need be
So I am considering starting an AOSP project. The idea would be to stay away from replacing AOSP components and simply improving them. For instance, CM replaced the stock launcher with ADW. This project would not do things like that although we would make improvements on such apps. So with this in mind, what improvements is the community looking forward to most? For instance, there are UI improvements like the reboot selector CM built but there is also core improvements such as making the system more stable, etc. So basically, as an individual, what improvements to Android would you like to see the most if I was to start this project?
One of the things I miss that comes to mind is the ability to see what apps are open and ability to switch between them. A reference would be the Palm Pre. It shows everything open and can scroll through them....more like Windows 7 cascade option. All open, running apps viewable in windows that can be selected and closed by dragging. Considering we can multitask, this would be nice to have if it can be done.
One more thing that would be sweet is a modification to the Power Notification Widget which allowed another row of widgets so more than 6 can be utilized.
CCallahan said:
One of the things I miss that comes to mind is the ability to see what apps are open and ability to switch between them. A reference would be the Palm Pre. It shows everything open and can scroll through them....more like Windows 7 cascade option. All open, running apps viewable in windows that can be selected and closed by dragging. Considering we can multitask, this would be nice to have if it can be done.
One more thing that would be sweet is a modification to the Power Notification Widget which allowed another row of widgets so more than 6 can be utilized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm... Itching Thumb does a great job of Palm Pre style switching. Definitely better if built into the OS. I'll look into it.
Automatic SMS splitting in the stock Messaging app when the message is longer than 160chars.
CCallahan said:
One of the things I miss that comes to mind is the ability to see what apps are open and ability to switch between them. A reference would be the Palm Pre. It shows everything open and can scroll through them....more like Windows 7 cascade option. All open, running apps viewable in windows that can be selected and closed by dragging. Considering we can multitask, this would be nice to have if it can be done.
One more thing that would be sweet is a modification to the Power Notification Widget which allowed another row of widgets so more than 6 can be utilized.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I actually like how Android takes care of it. The status bar/drawer shows active services (things that are actively running and doing something that may require attention) so it's easy to switch between those. Anything else that is running and isn't that important can be accessed by holding on the home key to bring up the recently used apps switcher. The apps switcher could definitely be more elegant but it's functional at least.
bjb_nyj101 said:
Automatic SMS splitting in the stock Messaging app when the message is longer than 160chars.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THIS will be one of the first things I work on. This has been on my to do list on Android even if I didn't want to do an entire AOSP project since it's just so damn annoying lol
Full hardware acceleration.
I want to read your review of ICS on your Iconia. What do you like, what you think is lacking and should have been different as compared to HC. Positive and negative reviews are important so don't feel like you only have to pick just what you like or what is wrong with it. Write it all. Your first impressions and if you want, a followup later - once you've had some time with it.
I'd like to ask that you put some thought into it. Not that it has to be long but no single sentences. I'll just get a mod to clean the thread of them.
I'll get the ball rolling:
I went ahead and installed and can report no issues so far. A couple of things though.
After it booted [after the install] it wouldn't connect to the network automatically - I had to manually tell it to connect, though it still had the credentials and has since connected fine upon multiple reboots.
The browser bookmarks synced automatically. My problem was with HC - for the life of me it wouldn't sync my browser - all my other computers synced up fine with my primary and I tried everything I could to get it to sync with HC but it wouldn't and that was from a fresh reset a few weeks ago. After rebooting into ICS I found all my bookmarks synced up quickly so I'm happy again.
No screen issues and it's far more snappier than it was on fresh vanilla HC. To be fair, I reset a few weeks ago and only installed about 5 apps - aldiko, dropbox, docs etc... the basics. Even vanilla HC was a bit of a bear sometimes but ICS is not.
No more stuttering when swiping through homescreen in orientations other than normal which is great to see.
I much prefer the new app drawer. It's a much more unified experience and swiping is so snappy! That's is the biggest things for me. But it's also nice to see a clean area. The HC apps/widget/wallpaper nightmare was just that. Not in terms of navigation, it just looked fugly and dropped me out of the whole HC look. Now it's far more complimentary to the ICS experience.
The whole swiping apps/notifications features is nice but I'm not sure it's really doing anything. I opened Gmaps and saw it listed in the running apps list in Settings - went to the homescreen - opened up the recent list and swiped Gmaps out - went back to settings>apps and it was still present. It wasn't a solid test, to be sure, but I'm not sure how significant the swipe to remove tasks is and whether it is actually meant to kills tasks or just remove them from the list. [confusion on my part] Second to that, I'm pretty ambivalent about the swiping notifications feature - an X to press, a tab to swipe - it's all the same and neither adds to or takes away from that basic function.
I could care less about the ring and I haven't read anywhere that we were suppose to get it at all so it's no surprise to me to not see it. Same with face-unlock. It's not something I would use.
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Looking good so far.
Since the update I have been testing all of my apps. So far all are working correctly. I was disappointed that I lost root, however that was an easy fix. I searched the forum and found an easy way to get full root. Had a few hickups at first with the browser and network connections, but they seemed to correct themselves as the day progressed.
Overall I am very happy.
nishka256 said:
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen flickering is what I am also experiencing quite a lot with ICS. With honeycomb, that was never an issue but a lot of apps make the screen flicker in ICS. For me, the stock browser and scrolling is blazing fast with ICS. It had a bit of lag when on honeycomb. Also, I just tried uninstalling zinio and I was able to. Couldn't do the same with tegra games, however, though!
So far I am really liking ICS but there are definitely a few issues that need to be worked on. The update process in itself was not smooth. I had to try 4 times, reboot and even factory reset before I was able to update the tablet to ICS.
Overall, I am having mixed reviews.
I had no problems downloading or updating. I just don't see much difference from honeycomb. I can now use some ics only apps, so that's ok. Switching home screens seems to have less lag. I guess I just expected more from this update.
Overall I guess it is nice to be up to date but it still feels llike the same old tablet.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
ICS + A500 : Home Screen Long Press Disaster
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
So far, so good. I never expected the Ultimate Tablet Nirvana from ICS... just incremental improvements. The A500 is smoother and more responsive. I really like the new media player, especially the row of movies/clip thumbs, etc at the bottom. Chrome is a big thing. I've used about every browser out there and was never fully satisfied with any of them. Chrome, for the first time, gives a desktop experience on a tablet. That alone makes the ICS upgrade worthwhile.
On a side note, my 64gb micro-sdxc card arrived the same day I updated, so that's another nice In Your Face to the iPad rabble out there. 80gb of storage.
idroids said:
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to realize that ICS is written for use on phones and tablets, not just tablets. The old way may have been quicker on tablets but wouldn't be very useful for phones (and their much smaller screens). It was a necessary sacrifice.
I personally don't have an issue with the new way, just because I'm not adding 10 apps or widgets to a screen anyway and I don't find the movements that time consuming vs. the old way. If I WERE adding lots of apps or widgets to a screen then I suppose I'd agree completely. I however prefer the widgets in a bigger area instead of having to scroll forever through them, in fact to me it seems a better trade off for the widgets.
ICS appears to be more polished than hc when it came out. Hc 3.0.1 was not a refined experience. There will be some changes when 4.0.4 is pushed, but it is enough to prevent me from going out and purchasing the next new tablet.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
The Good:
Everything is more responsive, period. Moving around is quicker, switching home screens is quicker, moving through apps and widgets is quicker. Not that the A500 was slow before, but it had its hiccups. This gives the tablet new life, imo - it really feels like a different piece of hardware.
The interface is more streamlined. I've never been into form over function, but in this case everything works well together. Many apps now written for ICS fit in with the whole scheme of things which creates a more uniform experience and aesthetic. Many ICS App widgets now allow you to choose either their default or black, which fits in with the ICS color scheme.
Some, dare I say most? video issues seem to have been addressed as I can play files I'd needed to use 3rd party apps to play on the included player now. Flash also seems more fluid.
Notifications are easily closed (with one X vs. many).
Widgets are laid out in a drawer vs. scroll bar making it much better and easier (for some) to go through and add them to screens.
Settings have been improved; for example, there's now a setting to see the data apps use, factory reset is now under a more obvious tab and other settings are found more easily as well.
Booting is fairly quick vs. Honeycomb. Seems to boot in under a minute no matter how many apps are installed. Booting is generally fast based on the amt. of apps that are installed, but I seemed to boot in roughly the same time before installing apps as after installing over 200 of them.
Some of the new features are nice, the screenshot ability is definitely welcome and swiping away apps is also great. Note: some apps will never fully close as they use services that run in the background.
The Bad:
Some users preferred the long press, split screen and 1-click adding of apps and widgets to the home screen vs. the App Drawer approach. I am inclined to agree that this method can be faster for adding multiple app icons and widgets to the home screens.
The Ugly: (bugs?)
The native browser still doesn't seem to be able to handle encrypted content from Google Chrome, and so the native browser cannot be synced with a Google Account which has had its content encrypted. It can only handle accounts with their passwords encrypted (which is the default).
How I see it is, if Chrome Beta can handle it, I don't see why there wasn't a setting added to the native ICS Browser to allow for it. To me, this doesn't make sense. Perhaps I'm just missing something.
***At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates (apparently).
Will append to list as I come across stuff.
***Update: This doesn't seem to be specific to ICS. After further investigation it seems this WAS caused by something on Acer's end (as of 4/29/2012, updated 5/22/2012).
UPDATE:
As of 5/22/2012 I have not been having/seeing any issues. I have noticed that when the tablet is extremely low on power (under 10% or so) it turns the wifi off when sleeping, even though I've set it to never turn wifi off. I'm not certain if this is a bug or working as intended in ICS as some power saving feature. This never, ever happens when the tablet is on A/C power or docked. When I wake the tablet, wifi is connected to automatically. I'm personally happy that it does this, but I can see it being a problem for some people...so I don't really want to file this under bug/issues.
Neoprimal said:
At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm betting this is simply they message they're sending because their servers are being overloaded from the ICS push.
Why ICS for Tablets AND Phones?
Taking the split screen feature away from my A500 is like taking my steering wheel and my automatic transmissions away from my car! Argggghhh!
Cutting corners on an OS so that it works exactly the same on phones and tablets makes about as much sense as saying that the engines used on a 2-seater plane, in a jet fighter, and in a 747 should all work the same so as to give the passengers the same experience. That is "plane" old silly. What is even SILLIER is to insist on putting a plush airliner seat into a 2 passenger plane or to insist on keeping a propeller on jumbo 747s.
I totally get that the split screen (showing ALL the home screens at once above and the Apps and the Widgets below) would not work well on an small phone but why should it since it's NOT designed for a small screen? Why do tablet users have to put up with taking 3 steps backward just so that phone users can take 3 steps forward.
Tablet users should simply be given the choice to customize their experience so that they can take advantage of the extra real estate on their screens instead of being forced to put up with restrictive aspects of an OS that is trying to be everything to everyone. Sure ICS is a big improvement on Honeycomb, but why did some aspects of its OS have to be amputated simply to satisfy some designer's need to have a single OS for 2 VERY different gadgets?
So PLEASE, when the next version of ICS comes out PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEASSSEEE give us tablet users the split screen again through the long tap on the Home Screens! Think about it! How often are you going to change your background? Making the long tap lead ONLY to the background change screen is such a WASTE of a unique gesture!
Well if you absolutely want long press to open drawer, try Apex launcher, it's based on ICS launcher but there's an option for binding long press/double tap to any function of the launcher. There is many more options that should suits you. Nova launcher is another alternative you can try.
Positives
A couple of the things I noticed right off is that when recording you don't get the terrible background noise you always seemed to get on hc supports avi video format now which I was happy with and the camera and video app seem to be recording at better detail not sure if its me or my cam? The browser is also blazing fast for me now. Layout is also crisp and clean the ring is useful makes taking screenshots a snap.
Negatives...have noticed some apps cause terrible lag for me there was also a lot of lag and freezing the first couple of hours I had the update. Also sometimes the screen flickers stated above ^^^^ none of these are big issues and shouldn't keep you from updating to enjoy
I had a lot of issues with the ICS update. I finally had to do a factory reset. Some issues were solved, but others remain:
Seems to be solved:
- Unstable applications (flashing and crashing, including Gmail).
- Unstable folders (flashing, crashing and all icons on the desktop disappearing).
Unsolved:
- Wifi is unstable and does not auto-connect (I have to connect manually when I restart the tablet or when I get home... it was working fine before ICS).
- The GPS does not work (I am not sure if it was working before ICS... as I had not had the time to test, so maybe it is not new).
- System update does not work (indicates that network coverage is insufficient despite the signal being strong and staying beside the wireless router).
ICS = bitter pill to swallow!
Well I learned the hard way that I shouldn't have jumped on the ICS bandwagon too early!
I cannot believe that in 2012 we have people designing MAJOR OS updates that have MAJOR problems and bugs!
Why not just wait another month or so and work out these major problems before unleashing ICS on everyone.
I mean didn't the ICS designer and programmers TEST ICS ON ALL TABLET AND PHONE platforms BEFORE releasing it to the world?
I'm going to milk my airplane analogy some more and say this:
Releasing ICS without having thoroughly tested it across ALL platforms is like building a plane and not knowing if it is designed well enough to fly at different altitudes and even worse not being sure it can actually land well in ALL major airports in the world in spite of different weather conditions.
Can you tell I am SICK of designers and programmers NOT having done their homework and using the general public to test their new OS for them?!
This HAS GOT to change!
I have one huge problem. In HC 3.2.1, when I press the volume button, it brought out the volume bar, and by taping the speaker icon, I can turn the volume to off, now it doesn't do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's really annoying to have to hold the volume button to turn off the sound.
One Giant bonus I like in ICS is you can make native folders without the need of a secondary app.
Having one strange flaw which is my tablet randomly vibrates for no apparent reason other than that so far so go and the whole UI just seems a bit smoother than it was before on HC. Browser seems Way more Responsive than HC as well.
I'm pretty happy with ICS but GPS is not working at all. I need to check the gps.conf but it was working on HC.
Best feature of ICS: Chrome browser.
Samsung is great. They may be slow to update, but when they update, they do it right. People complained that it took so long for the update, but they do a lot more than other companies. Samsung creates the absolute best tablet experience since they now take note of stock android and only built upon it rather than change it (Sense 3.0, MotoBlur, TouchWiz 3.0)
Quick Apps:
Multiple quick apps open at once are now supported and the apps themselves are much improved. Having access to calendar and calculator are very handy. You can check email without exiting or minimizing a game and the task manager has quite the pretty facelift.
Music App:
Not only is it Samsung's best music app yet, I think it provides a better tablet music experience than any other music app out there (that I've tried). Google Music is close, but I love the quick app/mini app.
-SoundAlive enhancements are great, allowing you to simply improve the clarity and bass of a song without touching an EQ. EQs are nice, but you always have to sacrifice something (add bass and treble, lose mids)
-Customizeable navigation. Never seach with Year, Composer, Genre, etc? Disable them.
-Quick App. Quick access to playlist, volume, and navigation in any app. No need to minimize or quit.
-Scrollable Widget. Full playlist access right from the homesecreen.
-One negative is the no social features such as last.fm, facebook sharing, or the like...I don't care about those features anyway...I don't even know what scrobbling is.
App Drawer:
-Can finally organize apps by name. Or customize it as before.
-Built-in function to Hide Apps. Samsung finally allowing us to hide their own bloatware.
-Continuous looping. Swiping doesn't force you to enter the Widgets panel.
-App drawer allows application uninstalling.
-Instant Play Store access from the menu, like stock.
Other Apps and Features:
-Browser has built in desktop page request feature, page saving for offline viewing, network printing, instant homescreen shortcut creation, incognito mode, color modes, inverse mode for night reading, text scaling, search engine chooser, and sharing features. Holy crap.
-Beautiful Accuweather widget, but only truly compatible with TouchWiz
-S Planner is a calendar and task list app, which could be as good as Google Calendar, but it still bolstered by the quick app.
-Built-in Photo and Video Editors (I know this isn't new, but it's still nice)
-Find My Mobile. Remotely track, lock, or wipe your tablet.
-Automatic power saving features below a battery threshold.
-Tilt to move apps/widgets from one homescreen page to another.
Visual Changes:
-Google Search and App Drawer bar is less intrusive and more concise.
-Quick Launch buttons now have more varied icons.
-Black status bar without having to mod...nice.
-Reskinned clock, notification window, and notification toggles. Green...ehh.
-Added "Restart" to the Power Menu.
Performance Changes:
-The choppiness has been reduced quite a bit, though it's inconsistent. You can have every quick app open and the performance will not get worse. This is WAYYY too big a deal to so many people. I know it sullies the experience of buttery smoothness like the iPad, but unless you spend all day transitioning home screens, it doesn't diminish functionality. PocketNow even went as far as to say that the lag often renders the tablet unusable, which is preposterous, and went on to say that the tablet is a 3.5/5 rather than a 4.5/5 because of it. Other than home screen transitions and additions, the performance is top-notch, and a custom launcher can be used to smooth it out completely. However, you will lose some of the features listed above (though other launchers have most of them anyway).
-I am getting much better WiFi reception. I haven't seen whether the Bluetooth breaks up/slows down the WiFi connection anymore...if someone would like to check/confirm that for me, it would be much appreciated.
With all the the features that Samsung throws in (that allow you to opt out or hide), I would pick the Tab 7.7 over the Excite 7.7 any day. With the ICS update, this tablet is truly the best small tablet on the market today, IMO. Considering the S-AMOLED Plus screen, the incredible battery life, the top-notch performance, the expandable storage capacity, and all of the features listed above, if you are unhappy with this tablet, you are impossible to please and shouldn't be allowed money to purchase tablets.
I know some of the features above are in 3.2, but I can't remember which exactly. All I know for sure is that the Excite doesn't have all of these.....but it does have a USB port...hmm..
Dont mind do a video on animation for our ics tablet? I wanna compare on jb hee
Sent from my GT-P6800 using xda premium
Agreed, samsung have done a great job here on the 7.7. ICS upgrade is so good, no real need for custom rom, touchwiz phone app and music are better than pure ics offerings. Also wifi tether works so well I ditched my home internet connection and wireless accespoint..
I run cm9/aokp on my galaxy 10.1v as the stock android is 3.2 and a 3rd party ics is a major improvement so have experience of both stock and custom roms.
Android P in depth review (updating...)
Hi XDA, this is my opinion on the freshest dev preview of android P
Appearance
The appearance looks smoother and polished. The notifications have rounded corners and the Heads Up notifications appear like they are actually coming from the status bar instead of a rectangle taking up the screen. This is looking more and more similar to IOS, but android's customizability takes the lead. The new settings app looks a lot like the touchwiz settings because of the color coded icons. The clock has shifted to the left because P is made to support "notch" devices (i'll explain why Google is working hard for this feature later). The settings menu is organized more like touchwiz with the colored icons and that is a plus in my book. Overall, I believe this OS has achieved a greater standard when it comes to appearance.
New Features
Since this is only DP1, we are not seeing many new features, but I have seen the screenshot editor, different volume controls, the new settings app, etc. The screenshot editor is a much needed tool for me because I use social media and need to crop my screenshots, now this function can help me do just that. The volume defaults to media rather than ringer. The ring has 3 options, silent, vibrate, or ring. I believe this to be a better standard because I am always adjusting the media volume, but never the ring volume. This switch has kept the average consumer in mind. The new settings app has many battery tweaks! First off, there is a new power saving mode that doesn't tint your nav bar and status bar an ugly red color. This time, the battery saver works by limiting background power usage on applications and has a greater improvement on SOT. On DP2 at Google I/O, there will probably be more features to look for.
SOT/Battery life
The SOT has increased from 6 hrs on DU to 10 hrs on P. This is because P limits the background camera and microphone usage for apps such as Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The new battery saver feature can be turned on at any time and increases the SOT even more! I use the kirisakura harmony kernel for P and it is as good as the stock kernel, with better audio quality.
Tweaks, root, what else?
TWRP 3.2.1-2 works, but the password decryption is still faulty. It still registers what lock setting you're using. Magisk v16.1 has been released on the beta thread and magisk manager is bundled in (it is working and registering this time). Some magisk modules are not working because of P, but that should all be fixed in a few days. The only CK i've seen is Kirisakura harmony.
Overall...
Android P is a great OS for people that like new features and is relatively stable for a new OS. There are some api compatibility notifications, but that is because app devs haven't upgraded to the new api. I will be using this as my DD until official P comes out.
Thanks.
Bugs? Battery life? What apps don't work?
TokedUp said:
Bugs? Battery life? What apps don't work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know if anyone will agree with me but my battery life is the same or better as stock for me. I had a couple force closes in the first 5 minutes after my first boot but only 2 since then. Snapchat comes up with a toast message occasionally that says something like "API compatibility error" or something, but the app still works. It has a couple hang ups here and there. I honestly feel like it's DP2 or 3 material. Been running for 24 hours, just my experience though.
Jackaroop said:
I don't know if anyone will agree with me but my battery life is the same or better as stock for me. I had a couple force closes in the first 5 minutes after my first boot but only 2 since then. Snapchat comes up with a toast message occasionally that says something like "API compatibility error" or something, but the app still works. It has a couple hang ups here and there. I honestly feel like it's DP2 or 3 material. Been running for 24 hours, just my experience though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also have been running for 24 hours and battery is on par with stock Oreo. Haven't had any issues with apps, I don't use many though. Bluetooth works but it still said I was connected to my head unit after I turned my car off and was in my house, toggle off and on fixed it. Bluetooth icon doesn't show unless it's connected but it seems to be by design. Seems very stable for a dp1 but I think I might flash back to Oreo if root isn't available soon.
Sent from my marlin using XDA Labs
tekanina said:
Also have been running for 24 hours and battery is on par with stock Oreo. Haven't had any issues with apps, I don't use many though. Bluetooth works but it still said I was connected to my head unit after I turned my car off and was in my house, toggle off and on fixed it. Bluetooth icon doesn't show unless it's connected but it seems to be by design. Seems very stable for a dp1 but I think I might flash back to Oreo if root isn't available soon.
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Click to collapse
Looks like root is available just an issue with the magisk manager right now.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/help/aod-pixel-xl-p-dp1-t3760506/post75821115
Jackaroop said:
Looks like root is available just an issue with the magisk manager right now.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/pixel-xl/help/aod-pixel-xl-p-dp1-t3760506/post75821115
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Click to collapse
I am currently figuring out a method to get your root apps on P, will be posted soon (along with a few other things
I actually like p alot even though I'm starting to see a hint of iOS
Pros
For me battery is better than Oreo
I like certain aspects of design
Seems more stable
Cons
I hate iOS
Limited root for now
I hate ios
joeeboogz said:
I actually like p alot even though I'm starting to see a hint of iOS
Pros
For me battery is better than Oreo
I like certain aspects of design
Seems more stable
Cons
I hate iOS
Limited root for now
I hate ios
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well you can hate it but iOS is far ahead of android when it comes to the UI.
I personally like the new UI on P.
Bugs so far (fresh image install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing. Keep in mind that I paid attention to every little detail:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
richii0207 said:
Bugs so far (fresh install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did u flash factory (with wipe) or full ota file??
onesolo said:
did u flash factory (with wipe) or full ota file??
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Flash image with full wipe.
richii0207 said:
Bugs so far (fresh image install, 100% unmodified non-rooted) in my few hours of testing:
1. Phone didn't want to wake one time to the point where I thought the phone was off. It took maybe 10-15 seconds of fiddling with the power button to wake it.
- This alone makes me think that an alarm clock could be missed.
2. Randomly goes from silent to ring.
- May be dangerous for some people depending on situation (business meetings, school setting, sleeping).
3. Launcher settings can be seen through the app drawer background.
- Tacky cosmetic mistake.
4. Adaptive brightness appears broken.
I'm sure there are more that I haven't encountered as it was only for a couple of hours. I wouldn't run it as a daily driver if you rely on your phone for things like business, alarm clock, maps, etc.
It's pretty functional for an alpha release but I wouldn't call this stable enough for everyday use unless you're comfortable with the possibility of the phone switching to ring randomly, missing an alarm clock for an important event, or phone not waking to capture a life moment (picture/video).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's weird I didn't have any of these issues except for the launcher settings icons displaying over the app drawer.
I did however encounter some minor problems:
On the settings icon shortcuts, when I click on "Data usage" I get an error saying "app not installed"
I cannot get the new screenshots editor, when I click on edit right after taking a screenshot it takes mo to the Google photos editor
I have noticed errors related to API compatibility showing on certain apps
Some apps don't seem to work correctly, GSam Battery Monitor for example is showing wrong stats (SOT jumped from 3 to 4h in a couple of minutes)
Other than that everything seems to work in a good and smooth way.
Words with Friends kept FCing
Pros:
1. Beautiful UI
2. Battery life is great (no orange bar for battery saving mode)
3. Notification management! P recognizes the types of notifications you want/ or don't want and gives you a quick option to disable them.
4. No FCs so far (might just be me)
Cons:
1. Launcher settings can be seen through app drawer (dev preview ****)
2. Settings icons are hideous
3. Media volume setting comes up by default when pressing the volume button. (might just be me)
I love so much about P. I can't wait for until it's out of dev preview.
guruguap239 said:
Pros:
1. Beautiful UI
2. Battery life is great (no orange bar for battery saving mode)
3. Notification management! P recognizes the types of notifications you want/ or don't want and gives you a quick option to disable them.
4. No FCs so far (might just be me)
Cons:
1. Launcher settings can be seen through app drawer (dev preview ****)
2. Settings icons are hideous
3. Media volume setting comes up by default when pressing the volume button. (might just be me)
I love so much about P. I can't wait for until it's out of dev preview.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think I read that now volume keys always default to media volume rather than ring volume. Check one of the feature list posts in xda news to verify.
Review updated, includes more stuff
I've been running Android P for about 3 days now my Pixel XL. I haven't had many issues at all, but my battery seems to drain/die much fast than it did on 8.1.
I may try to re flash P again to see if a fresh install helps in anyway. Especially since everyone seems to be getting much better battery life with P.
I'll update if I see any difference.
So you are getting 10 hours of SoT with this P preview? Seems unreal man!
nory82688 said:
I've been running Android P for about 3 days now my Pixel XL. I haven't had many issues at all, but my battery seems to drain/die much fast than it did on 8.1.
I may try to re flash P again to see if a fresh install helps in anyway. Especially since everyone seems to be getting much better battery life with P.
I'll update if I see any difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm also getting worse battery life on P, although I did just update from 8.1 with the factory image without wiping. I might just give it a try after wiping but I'd really rather not. I'm using a normal Pixel, non-XL.