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So I just got my Fascinate last week. I'm new to Android and I'm trying to get a grasp on what the popular/necessary apps, widgets, roots, launchers, etc. are...... So here is the question- What did you do straight away when you got your phone? And what do you wish you had done straight away?
Root, install de bloated rom of choice, install voodoo, profit
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Where does one find these debloated roms?
Also I'm coming from a samsung omnia, my mind struggles to grasp how anyone considers this phone bogged down. So what is the purpose of rooting?
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BBennett said:
Where does one find these debloated roms?
Also I'm coming from a samsung omnia, my mind struggles to grasp how anyone considers this phone bogged down. So what is the purpose of rooting?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=798064
First, before you do ANYTHING, read about what you're doing, what the repercussions are, and DON'T do anything to the OS of your phone if you don't know what you're doing. That being said, there's more than enough people around here willing to help if you ask educated questions, and use the search function, as a lot of questions have already been answered. The above thread is excellent reading as to how to get started.
IMHO, Root, install a clean (de-bloated) ROM of your choice (many of which can be found in the Fascinate-->android development sub forum), and then if you want install a custom kernel, voodoo enabled or not, overclocked or not. Just read a bit, it'll all become clear very soon...
Welcome to a Fascinating world.....ugh that was a terrible pun.
iceman1183 said:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=798064
First, before you do ANYTHING, read about what you're doing, what the repercussions are, and DON'T do anything to the OS of your phone if you don't know what you're doing. That being said, there's more than enough people around here willing to help if you ask educated questions, and use the search function, as a lot of questions have already been answered. The above thread is excellent reading as to how to get started.
IMHO, Root, install a clean (de-bloated) ROM of your choice (many of which can be found in the Fascinate-->android development sub forum), and then if you want install a custom kernel, voodoo enabled or not, overclocked or not. Just read a bit, it'll all become clear very soon...
Welcome to a Fascinating world.....ugh that was a terrible pun.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A voice of reason in a sea of insanity.
BBennett said:
Where does one find these debloated roms?
Also I'm coming from a samsung omnia, my mind struggles to grasp how anyone considers this phone bogged down. So what is the purpose of rooting?
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I came from an Omnia too. Reading these threads makes me wonder how many of the guys complaining about the bloat/lag had ever seen any WinMo phones...
In terms of removing bloat, a really easy way to hide it is simply use LauncherPro from the market. Aside from being crazy customizable, you can hide apps you don't want to see from showing up in your app drawer. Not exactly removing, but as mentioned baby steps can save you from that sinking feeling most of us have had...
Either way this phone kills the Omnia dead!
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TheBadBen said:
I came from an Omnia too. Reading these threads makes me wonder how many of the guys complaining about the bloat/lag had ever seen any WinMo phones...
In terms of removing bloat, a really easy way to hide it is simply use LauncherPro from the market. Aside from being crazy customizable, you can hide apps you don't want to see from showing up in your app drawer. Not exactly removing, but as mentioned baby steps can save you from that sinking feeling most of us have had...
Either way this phone kills the Omnia dead!
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Amen!!
I still pine for ListPro and Pocket Informant, tho.
lots of good information here. The only thing I would add is that you should probably steer clear of Voodoo for the time being. Yes, it does really speed things up however do to the fact that it changes the filesystem type of your /data partition it no longer allows you to perform full backups (Nandroid) of your phone unless you disable the Voodoo lag fix which has rendered several phones (including mine) unable to fully boot without restoring to stock.
Voodoo will NOT brick your phone but anyone considering using Voodoo should be prepared to lose all their data and know how to flash back to stock. If you are not willing / able to accept that risk I highly recommend avoiding Voodoo - at least for now.
Martian21
Im not looking for a literal app pack, but apps that come highly recommended for cheap or even better, free! I've had my vibrant for a couple months now and I love the phone, but I feel that the utility apps I have now are sub-par. Sure I have the "stock" task manager as well as a second party one, I have norton....which I dont think I need, but better safe than sorry I suppose. Im trying to find some apps that will keep my phone rynning neat and fast, as close to as fast as the day I bought it. Any good suggestions?
I've given up on the Android Market. It's like navigating a labyrinth trying to find anything useless in there.
I hope something comes out of this thread.
Maybe there just aren't many useful apps, though.
Get appbrain
It'll help with navigating the market very easily.
Its free.
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Also r u rooted I can tell u some apps bit some are root only...
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I rooted then un rooted, breaking my ipod was cake, doing things to a rooted phone was entirely out of my comfort zone. Not user friendly at all. I already have app brain, awesome app.
Im more trying to find just a handful of utility apps though, with out the sometimes trivial user reviews. Not to mention the fact that not everyone posts which phone the apps are running well or poorly on. I appreciate the suggestion so far.
So, I see Twitter is all buzzing about the developers putting AOSP on the Fascinate and I was hoping to see some discussion about it here but surprisingly....nothing.
Actually I have to admit, I was hoping to lurk around to learn some more about what this means for us. As a new Android owner, I believe this gives us the stock android experience that devices like the N1 and NS have but I'm not entirely sure.
So I'm just coming out and asking, is this the reason why so many people are excited? To get rid of Samsung's TW layer on top of Android or does this mean something more? Secondly, does this offer us a pathway to Froyo or Gingerbread or are we still dependent on Samsung releasing their version first?
Aosp is android open source project. Yes it is vanilla android. The reason there is no discussion on here about it is that it is not totally functional yet, from last I heard, 2 days ago. If you want to see the progress of this, you can go into irc and ask about it. Aosp is usually more streamlined because there is no custom skin over it, sense, tw, blur which usually slow the phone down. It offers more customization, you can look at other aosp roms on different phones to see what kind of customization it offers. And lastly, no it does not pave the way for froyo or gingerbread. The source has to be released from Google which it has been, (I think) but samsungs source is corrupted which really hinders our devs from really doing much and makes it much more difficult. The RIL, the thing that allows us to call, text, ect also is also a problem. I hope this clarifies some things for you and I am still learning things everyday and if I have anything wrong, please feel free to correct me.
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Skyeclad said:
So I'm just coming out and asking, is this the reason why so many people are excited? To get rid of Samsung's TW layer on top of Android or does this mean something more? Secondly, does this offer us a pathway to Froyo or Gingerbread or are we still dependent on Samsung releasing their version first?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The alpha build was just "released" here today or last night. It's still buggy, but functional enough for basic use. It will make it somewhat easier to get AOSP Froyo/Gingerbread working, but it will still be difficult to get either on our phones without Samsung releasing either of them first to lay the initial groundwork for them.
Jt has made his own RIL for the aosp build, so I think this does help with froyo a bit.
iofthestorm said:
Jt has made his own RIL for the aosp build, so I think this does help with froyo a bit.
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Click to collapse
Thanks guys. I had read the he was making his own RIL, which seemed like you would only do if you wanted to make yourself independent from Samsung in the future.
This is my first Android and I REALLY like it compared to my previous smartphone, the BB Storm 1. However, like the Storm, Samsung's inability to produce a timely Froyo build feels like Deja Vu all over again.
I've played with TW, Sense and Stock Android and maybe it's just me but honestly, they are all pretty similar. I know that some here will vehemently disagree but all of them just let me do what I need to do, run apps, write e-mails and make calls. Truthfully, it seems absurd for these manufacturers to even write these silly custom UI's at all but they seem to think that this provides some sort of value added differentiation.
The only 2 things that bother me about my phone, the occasional freezes where the hardware buttons are lit but don't respond and then all of a sudden all the touches that I made that didn't do anything at first, start to fire off rapidly. Secondly, not being able to upgrade to apps that are coming out that require Froyo.
Full disclosure, I would have said GPS performance but that was fixed here with DJ05 and JT's 12/12 Non-Voodoo Kernel.
Well, I think the only thing that scared me away from running the AOSP rom was the list of bugs that seemed to indicate that inbound phone calls don't always work and lack of BT. While I know I can try it out and return, I hate having to restore all those apps and data settings with Titanium, not to mention the potential for a late night in IRC in case things go south!!
I was really excited to see this and loaded it up as soon as I could. It looked great, I would have kept it on regardless of the bugs, but for some reason my home button stopped working and sms functionality was sporadic at best.
I can't wait to try it again when it is finished.
Gotta say, major props to JT, birdman and others. Only reason for me wanting froyo now that i have DJ05 is HID support, which most likely won't come until CM comes around, so i'll wait on installing this, especially since they don't need bug report yet. But its nice to see progress on the playing field, especially when its progress that the community has taken into their own hands.
Thanks for all the hard work.
^this. Cant wait until its fully stable/all features working properly. JT is truly awesome at his craft!
I'm running it right now as we speak pretty stable for me, my new daily driver
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Also running this. Really awesome! Can't believe how hard you guys work on this phone. Keep it up
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working okay for me. keep up the good work
Working good for me as well.
Noticed there is no task manager as well as the backup to reload contacts. Guess it's manual input of those again....not so bad since it is the 20th time doing it. Just a nice waste of time.
Glad you posted this thread. It clears up some questions I had too. I've been in computing since 1980 and it seems like the more time passes, the more unfriendly people are about sharing tech knowledge. Android has been one of the most difficult pieces of tech for me to find solid CONCRETE answers about. You have to piece things together from hundreds of websites and hope the consensus is accurate and not a stream of cut and paste work. Especially with android purporting to be open, you'd think there'd be a lot more energy to encourage more folks to develop for it, but it almost seems exactly the opposite.
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Anyone else having problems with their ringtones with this? Mine aren't playing at all. I just hear a short tweet sound at the beginning then silence
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bwheelies,
Does importing them from SD card work?
Google contact sync works fine (even fixes the duplicate contact bug that touchwiz has). I think he was referring to backup assistant (which is of course missing from this rom )
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Does anyone else get an instant FC on the Facebook for Android app? I was looking forward to using the app's built-in and far-superior to TouchWiz Facebook contact sync. Thing is, it just won't open after a fresh install. The only way I can get the app to open is if I restore a TB backup of Facebook taken from DJ05... which automatically keeps the built-in contact sync disabled.
bwheelies, as far as contacts go, it its probably worth your effort to put them into your google contacts now that you are entering them anyway... Just click Contacts in gmail (on your computer)and go to town, you will thank me later. Well, maybe not, but it its a handy time saver for synching contacts in the future
Swyped w/ XDA App. When in doubt, mumble.
+1 for contacts synced with google lol
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jspidah said:
bwheelies,
Does importing them from SD card work?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is what I did. Now to sync with Google.
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Tim Hutt (from this forum) has done a great job of packaging the standard ICS launcher, sms app and calendar and sticking them on the market. You can get them here: (original thread)
Launcher, Calendar, Messaging
I've also removed that horrible chatON. Go to settings and click on Application Manager, click on the All tab, then find and click on chatON. Click on Force Stop and Disable. This will stop it appearing on the lock screen. The same thing can be applied to all Samsung bloatware, such as backup, account, software updates, etc.
This solution has turned out to work really well for me as I actually some of the new features on the phone, such as the motion bits, and the water unlock.
The dialer is the only thing that gets on my nerves still so if anyone has any way to get the original, do tell.
And if you also get annoyed by the icons and want the original ICS ones, get the ICS icons from here, and get QuickShortcutMaker.
You can now make shortcuts to the camera, dialer etc but use the original icons. It's anal I know, but I like what I like
Root your phone and use titanium back up then delete what you want
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I don't understand why so many people hate chat on. It's one of the best I'm apps outside of bbm! The only issue is people refuse to use it.
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^Because it's looks like iPhone-ish? lol.. BBM, iMessage.. That will not sell on Android enthusiasts.. for me, Whatsapp & Viber are easily the best out there!
Lennyuk said:
I don't understand why so many people hate chat on. It's one of the best I'm apps outside of bbm! The only issue is people refuse to use it.
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Horses for courses really on this one. My issues is the way it's pushed in my face. On the lock screen, there are shortcuts to: phone, camera, web, chat on - spot the odd one out!
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=1693755
Download my new Android 4.0 Package I made for you.
I am looking for a radar only app and have narrowed it down to Radarscope and or Pykl3.
Have any of you used either with the S4? What do you like better? Any other suggestions?
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I personally have Radarscope, and while I enjoy it and most of its features, I'm not sure if I can really justify the price point of it. I mean, you can switch between a bunch of different radar options, but none of these are really going to be helpful unless you're a storm chaser out in Tornado Alley. Granted, I bought this because I'm attending a NOAA Skywarn class, but my point is that if you aren't actively trying to be a weather spotter, go with something cheaper, or even free. Weatherbug has a great app put together, along with a lightning detector. It's really feature filled. I have both on my phone currently, and it really comes down to me using Radarscope for storm tracks, and using the measurement tool to see how far away it is from my location. Then I switch over to Weatherbug to get all the instrument readings along with the recorded number of lightning strikes. Weather Station is also a great app if you want to utilize all the sensors in your S4.
Best-of threads are not allowed but maybe we can treat this as an "informative" thread about radar and weather apps. That being said, try a few and see what works best for you...no one else can tell you.
Now, for the "informative" part. I use an app called RadarNow. It has a free version and a pay version with more options. Personally, I like it. The Dev(s) support it with updates and it just works very well. Every now and again there is a lot of "noise" in the radar view(s), but that can be expected with just about any radar app. So, give it a try, like I sais, there is a free version on the Play Store.
Raindar here , Have had it for over a year roughly , Have never really had any issues with it and seems pretty accurate .
Thank you all for the information. This wasnt intended for what's best type thread.
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