Database Users

Development Idea

Hello, I've just been thinking about using our devices in the car and have an idea, that I'm not sure has been developed, but I think would be useful for a lot of people on here:
It's nothing fancy, but I would like an application that allows programs to be made active by pressing a button. What I'm thinking is that if I'm driving I would like too have ready access to a handfull of applications (TomTom, MP3 player, FM Radio, G-Meter, Google maps, phone)
How this would work is that when the program is running a button press would move to the next application in a pre-defined list, and a second button would move to the previous application in the list. The 'next' and 'previous' app buttons should be configurable to take into account peoples devices and their preferences and the applications on the list and their order should be fully configurable.
As I said, the idea is to make using the device in-car a bit more practical, so I would like a couple of additional features, the application could be setup with a number of startup options, for example I would like to run the application and have it load up any of the listed applications that aren't already running and have a specific application as the default start position. I'd also like wi-fi to turn off if the phone isn't on charge and bluetooth to turn on and connect to my headset. Other options people might want are to turn the phone off, turn 3g off or close all other programs, or anything else to improve performance or battery life., such as turning off g-sensors, light sensors etc. it would be good if the notification preferences could be changed, so that for example emails don't pop up over TomTom, or a separate screen that shows the new message enlarged to full screen perhaps, then goes back to TomTom. Closing the application could also return everything to the way it was before hand. I'm sure you all have loads of ideas for in-car options as well.
I'm basically thinking, one screen press and the device becomes optimised for use in-car, close the application and it goes back the way it was.
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud, I don't have the skills required to take something like this beyond the ideas stage as my programming skills don't extend beyond modifying other people's html, but I'm hoping someone will see this and think its a good enough idea to be worth putting into practice.
Cheers
Paul.

No one think this would be useful?

I like the idea, but to develop it could be a bit too much...

for use in car especially with tomtom i believe that task managers like dynamo, taskfacade or mortbuttons are very useful:
one button and you switch from apps to apps without stylus...
having already used it while driving, i think its very comfortable to use...
another existing app that can be useful is voicecommand... clik and speak to run the app, it works great if your car is not too noisy (so not in my case lol )

Oh ok, I'll have a look at those programs, see if I can make those work. The only thing I'm thinking is that it might be quite important to have two different setups for in-car and normal use.
Don't suppose you know any apps that can be used to turn on bluetooth and attach to my headset through on press of the screen do you?

ht buttoon sllows you to use one button for multiple applications, but i dunno about the task manager stuff.... basically you want a program from different profiles, kind of like airplane mode

Might not be exactly what you are looking for but what about using a launcher like Throttlelauncher and setting up a custom tab with only the application buttons you need to use in the car? At the moment I use TomTom and Audio Manager together and find it very easy to switch between the two while driving using Throttlelauncher.
Not sure about notifications off though - maybe a script?
Just my thoughts out loud too.

its too hard to develop i hope u r thinking motivate someone

Thanks for the replies, I'm playing around with Mortbuttons to see if it'll do what I want and will have a look at a few other things.
A couple of people have said it is too difficult to develop, I know I don't know very much about whats involved, but I would have thought it would be much easier than most of the applications that are developed on here. What I'm looking for is basically a script that when run will load a list of applications, then use two of the hardware buttons to 'scroll' from one app to the next. I did list other things that would be good additions, but the basic premise seems pretty straightforward and wouldn't have any graphical element, other than the configuration menu.
Anyway, if someone wants to have a go, I'm sure it would prove very popular with the drivers on here!
Cheers.

Just create your own theme using something like WAD2.

Just got a T-Mobile HD2? Read Jamie’s "New to WinMo and absolute newbie tweak guide"

Just got a T-Mobile HD2? Read Jamie’s "New to WinMo and absolute newbie tweak guide"
I wanted to write this guide due to the number of “THE HD2 SUCKS!” threads I’ve seen floating around. Guys, what did you think you were getting into here? This phone runs Windows Mobile. The very core of running this OS involves tweaking it beyond recognition, but, however, once you do that it can run quite beautifully. I wrote this guide to appeal to beginners. I try to avoid things like, "Oh, edit this registry value...What does it do? No clue, but it saves battery life." Those types of tweaks are for a different guide.
About the phone and Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is old. Really old. Try ten years old, and, sometimes, it really does feel like it's age is apparent.
The phone crashes. A lot. Get ready to soft reset a lot. Turning off Sense can help with the crashing, though.
The interface is called Sense. You can turn this off and revert back to Titanium, the default Windows 6.5 theme.
The HD2 is not like an iPhone. Get an iPhone if you want an iPhone. Apps that run on the iPhone do not work (and probably will never be ported) on Windows Mobile.
Yes, the screen is glass. It's scratch resistant, not scratch-proof. I hear mixed opinion on whether you can get away without using a screen protector, and plenty of people complain about how easy it is to scratch. It's your call, but keep in mind that glass is 6-7 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness. Hardened steel is 7.5. Your keys will scratch the absolute hell out of it. Some partials of sand and grit can scratch it, keep that in mind. And a drop from only a few feet will completely spiderweb the screen. Don't drop your phone.
The phone ships with two browsers: Opera 9.7 and Internet Explorer. Yes, that is an older version of Opera, but I feel it works fine. Opera 10 does not support pinch-to-zoom, and to my knowledge there are no tweaks to enable it.
The HD2 comes with Voice Command. To activate it, hold the green call button until it beeps at you. Then speak your phrase. A guide to using it can be found here. Your phone can read your SMSes to you.
Don’t like a tweak or application you installed? Uninstall it, and it reverts back to how it was originally.
Please see the Flashing Rom section on the different versions of Windows Mobile (6.1, 6.5, 6.5.3, etc)
Contrarily to the desktop version of Windows, hitting the X button does not exit a program, it just minimizes it. Please see the section about task managers.
WAIT ONE MINUTE
Wait! Hold on. Before you complain about ANYTHING (especially about messaging, lag, a pink camera hue, etc.), please make sure you have the newest stock ROM. To check, slide all the way to the right to Settings, then to About Phone, then to Software Information. What does it say under ROM version? Does it say 2.13.531.1?
If it doesn’t, you owe it to yourself and your sanity to flash to the new ROM. It’s real easy, too. Just go here and follow the instructions. http://dl.htc.com/ruudownload/t-mobileUS/DeviceDownloads.aspx?pid=leo
If you notice some weird-ass screen sensitivity issues (I never did), you should try installing this cab. Hey, it’s the first sticky; you should know this.
How to install a .CAB (You’ll be doing this a lot): First, download it from wherever. DO NOT EXTRACT THE CAB. Connect your phone via Activesync (Or Windows Mobile Device Center) . Drop the file onto your phone somewhere. Open File Explorer on your phone, run the file and install it to the device or storage card. I normally install to the device because you have plenty of storage, and if you connect the phone via disk drive to your computer, you temporarily won’t have access to any programs on the phone if they are stored on the card. If you need more instruction on installing cabs, please see my post here.
Killer Apps (That means required)
Cookie’s mod: This is my favorite tweak for Windows Mobile, especially more so now that version 1.8 is out. Install Cookie’s mod and it makes your whole life easier. What is it? It contains a bunch of features, but its main feature is to customize your home screen. By default, it makes it looks kind of iPhoneish, but I don’t think that is a bad thing. You can edit the home screen with more icons, widget things like toggles and an MP3 player, different types of adjustable (in size and layout) clocks including analog ones, and so forth. But, the cool part is that if you swipe up on the home screen, it turns into this iPhone-like icon grid interface--actually--more like an amalgamation of the iPhone and Android. You can scroll left and right to access more pages. Fill up the 3+ pages with applications, contacts, toggles, widgets, and you have the easiest and most convenient way to launch them. You could fill up an entire page about Cookie’s mod, though, and it’s important to download the editor for the program. Without the editor there won’t be much editing going on.
Check out this picture for a basic example of what you can do with cookie's mod. Note: The top picture is what you switch to when you swipe down on the main home screen; the bottommost one is when you swipe up on the home screen, left screen is a swipe to the left, and so forth. That was kind of hard to explain. Please see the thread for all of the features, customization options, etc. This is what Sense should have been like from the start.
Any task manager: Okay, you really need a task manager to make multitasking useful while not slowing your phone down to a crawl. Touching the X on a program does not actually exit a program, it just minimizes it. Map one to a specific part of the screen or a button, and easily switch programs. Hey, it’s you real advantage over the iPhone here; stream some Slacker radio or Grooveshark while you edit that Word document. Personally I use Arkswitch, but there are other great ones like Duttys. Hell, here's another one. At least add the default Windows Mobile task manager to a quick link at the very least.
BSB Specific Tweaks
Okay, so you have the newest official ROM and Cookie’s mod and you still think this phone is a piece of junk? Don’t fear yet. My next recommendation is to install BSB Tweaks. Download it here. What is it? Basically a bunch of settings you can modify that you normally can’t edit without a registry editor. This program is literally a godsend as it allows you to change, like, 50 popular settings that you couldn't do easily.
Don’t like lock screen and wish you could turn it off? Slide the off switch on “Auto Lock”.
Want to access the Windows settings through the Start Menu? Slide “Windows Settings” to on.
This is my opinion, but you can turn off “HTC Vibration” to make typing on the onscreen keyboard a bit more accurate, and you probably save battery life, too.
If you don’t like the phone’s screen turning on whenever you get a text message, slide “SMS Wake Up” to off.
I recommend turning on “Album Close,” because I don’t see the need to always have it running in the background.
Do you feel that the back button is a bit too stiff, and backing out of texts with it is a little uncomfortable? Turn on “Manila Send Butt.” to get a nice graphical send button, and it changes the left softkey to “back”. Very handy if you’re a big texter.
I recommend adjusting the LED notifications to however you see fit. Personally, I like having it flash for SMSs, but not anything else. Your opinion obviously differs.
I hear turning on “Wifi N” apparently helps improves, well, everything. I’ve heard, “Oh man, it’ll load pages instantly,” “You’ll get a wifi connection faster,” and other stuff, but I haven’t really noticed a difference. But I hear enough clamor that it probably doesn’t hurt to turn it on.
I highly recommend turning on "Opera Tabs". By default, you are limited to 3, which is laughable.
You can tinker with the other settings. A lot of them are a matter of personal taste.
Touch Tools Specific Tweaks
You might be asking why you need two tweaking programs that are 90% similar, and the answer is that Touch Tools does some stuff that BSB Tweaks doesn't See this post for the differences. Beware that Touch Tools is a lot more powerful and not as user friendly.
Slim Volume Tweak : Like the volume bar you get in apps like Youtube? You know, that transparent one that doesn't completely obscure whatever you're doing? Go into the Touch Tools folder, go to Slim Volume, hit Add, open the app you want to change the volume bar in, and shake your phone. I like doing this to whatever plays music.
Battery Life Tweaks
Tweak #1: Okay, I have no idea why, but the battery on this phone doesn't last very long. I recommend turning the backlight off automatic mode and setting it to a nice low, barely visible percent. Hey, you got to make it through the day, right? To do this, mosey your slider all the way over to settings, then to Sound & Display, then to Backlight. Joking aside, I feel it is perfectly readable indoors at 20%.
But there is a problem: once you go outside into the sunlight (the light, it buuuurns), your phone’s screen is nearly unreadable. Now you could take the time to crank up the backlight or turn it back to auto, but an easier way is to install this cab, map it to a Quick Link, and bam, you can quickly switch the auto backlight on and off.
Tweak #2: Turn My Location off. I have no idea why, but turning this off helps greatly--apparently it uses the data connection too much.. To do so, slide the slider to settings, and then click on Location. Make sure you turn off Location Service Settings and not AGPS.
Tweak #3: Turn off the various data synchronization. This phone can sync with various emails, Outlook, Twitter, the weather, your medical records, Facebook, the monolith, Youtube, and probably some others I am missing. Turn them to manual or put them to sync every couple hours to save battery. NOTE: It is extremely annoying to turn Facebook on and off (contacts pictures vanish, etc) so I recommend against turning it off.
Tweak #4: Web browsing takes a truly crazy amount of power. If you are going to do a lot of browsing, enable WiFi instead of using 3G, but be sure to turn off the WiFi if you're not using it, however. Also consider using Opera Mini 5 to browse the internet if battery is a concern. It uses less resources (bandwidth, processor, etc) than Opera Mobile 10.
Other tweaks: If you turn off Sense (Settings Tab > Right softkey > All settings > Today > Items) you’ll gain a huge battery life increase. I, however, feel that turning off Sense goes against the spirit of the phone. I like the Facebook integration and all the eye candy. And most of the tweaks have to do with Sense.
Useful Tweaks
HTC Flashlight: For whatever reason, the stock flash light does this stupidly infuriating demo where it scrolls through the flashlight settings. I have no idea why it does this; it conveys no useful purpose. It feels like this takes an eternity to do when you’re just trying to find something under your bed. Download this to fix that problem.
Lock Screen Icon at the Middle or Bottom: Okay, so our phone has a giant screen. I have pretty small hands and it was a bit of a reach to unlock the phone when the icon was at the very top of the phone. Install one of these and you can have it at the respective location. Very…handy. See what I did there?
4 Row Start Menu: By default the phone’s start menu ships with 3 rows. In my opinion, this is a huge waste of screen real estate. Install this CAB to fix it and make your Start menu so much more useful.
Power off icon: Want an icon to turn the screen off that you can put in the Quick Links? Check out post #3 here.
Turn off Weather Animation: Holy crap, it must always be cloudy in Kentucky or something as my home screen was always filled with clouds. A bit of a roundabout way to turn these animations off is to click on an empty Quick Link square, and pick "Weather Animation On/Off shortcut". Now you have a nifty icon to toggle the clouds (maybe sunlight in your case) on and off, and maybe even save some battery. Want less clouds? Install this .CAB. Wait, you said you want more home screen animations that aren't weather related? Bam and bam.
Is Activesync or WMDC annoying the absolute hell out of you by popping up on your computer? If you want to charge your phone via USB and you turn the phone's screen on for any reason, it starts syncing which can lag both the phone and computer. The simplest way to fix this is to start up Activesync on your phone (it's probably in your task manager already, damn thing's like a zombie) without it being connected to a computer, and then hit the Menu softkey, and then go to Connections, and unclick the check box for "Synchronize all PCs using this connection." Yeah, your computer beeps whenever you turn the screen on, but you won't get the annoying pop up.
A word about the WiFi's Power Save Mode (Com Manager> Wifi > Advance > Power Mode): Yeah, it probably does save you battery, but it does this by limiting your download speeds. I don't like slow page loads so I recommend setting it to performance, but the call is yours. I just don't think sacrificing page load times for battery is worth it.
If you hold down the red end key for a while, a handy menu pops up with some options. Make it even more useful with this thread. It adds a bunch more features like the option to restart Sense.
Mimic an iPhone or Android device when browsing. Guys, like mobile sites? Yeah, not many support Opera 9.7 and if you go to the m.website.com, you usually get the mobile website designed for your "niece's ****ty eight-year-old Boost mobile phone". An easy way to get the more feature rich website is to trick sites so it thinks you have an iphone or Android browser. I recommend doing this for Android because there are many Android devices that support 840x480 while the iPhone does not and many websites appear kinda busted.
To do so, fire up Opera. In the address bar type only "about:config" (not http://about:config) sans quotes. Scroll down to User Prefs and go to Custom User-Agent and type in whatever one you want. I recommend using the Nexus One user agent, even if the iPhone usually has better mobile page support.
Nexus One:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRF91) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1
iPhone:
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3
Hate mobile sites with a bloody passion and would prefer the desktop version no matter what? Try using the desktop firefox user agent:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.6) Gecko/20100625 Firefox/3.6.6
Commonly Asked Questions
I want to enable pinch-to-zoom in X program: BSB Tweaks can enable a few programs to work with pinch-to-zoom. You can also add your own application, but the caveat is that it literally zooms onto the screen like a magnifying glass. Not too useful in my opinion.
How do I take a screenshot of the screen? BSB Tweak can do this, too. Just go into Menu, pick screenshots, and shake your phone whenever you want to take a picture. Very handy....literally.
I am going out of the country. How do I easily disable data? BSB Tweak.
I want to add rotation to X program: BSB Tweak.
How do I change the softkeys: BSB Tweak.
How do I increase the number of tabs in Opera? BSB Tweak.
How do I watch flash videos? Internet Explorer has Flash, Opera 10 has a setting to enable it, too, but I recommend using the Skyfire Browser to view Flash Content.
Wait, what is the best browser then? Oh boy. It depends on the person. Why not try them all? I primarily use Opera 9.7 (the phone ships with this), and it does a great job of rending pages accurate and relatively quickly. Opera Mini 5 uses server-side page compression so pages load extremely fast, but you get some screwy pages (Engadget), and pages aren't fluid. Skyfire also uses server-side compression, I think the interface is god-awful, and I do not like how it renders pages. However, it has excellent Flash support. There are other browsers like older versions of Opera, Bolt, and Uzard--which I think has great potential if it would actually work. I recommend sticking with the first three.
Awesome Applications
First off, we have a subforum dedicated to Windows Mobile Apps and Games. You won't find the cool programs on the Windows Market Place; they're here on XDA. Another site with a huge repository of software is www.freewarepocketpc.net. It's hard to find the real gems. It seems like half of the programs are high schooler's computer app projects or something. What follows are my recommended programs. I mean, you have this nice phone and you need some applications you can show off, right?
Slacker Radio: One of my favorite music applications, which comes with the phone, however, you probably need to update the software anyways. So make an account and enjoy streaming internet radio. It actually has, you know, working buttons unlike the Pandora application.
SciLor’s Groovemobile: This is an interesting one. Typing in the name of a song and it starts playing. Ridiculously cool. Guys, I promised myself I wouldn't post any registry edits as I feel they are beyond a beginner's level, but the music stops playing when you use the hardware key to turn the screen off. For people who know how to edit the registry, follow this post to keep the music playing in standby until I can find a .CAB for this.
Bing: So HTC finally decided to start making phones where the GPS actually works (I did a side-by-side comparison with the Touch Pro 2 and I felt like crying for the TP2). Take advantage of this with free turn-by-turn navigation courtesy of Microsoft.
Opera Mini 5: Yes, the phone comes with the full-fledged Opera Mobile 9.7 which I like a lot, but Opera Mini is ridiculous with how fast it loads pages. Very useful when you’re on an Edge connection, or if you want to web browse for a few hours because it is much less resource intensive.
Deluxe Moon: Want an application full of eye candy that you can show off like all those annoying-ass iPhone users? You want this. It shows the phases of the moon. It has very good aesthetics.
FpseCE: The famous PS1 emulator. While it only runs about half of the games I throw at it, nothing will wow people like playing Metal Gear Solid on your phone. Snake? SNAAAAAAAKE. Though, you have to donate to get the better version with multitouch for the HD2.
Morphgear: Not a fan of the PS1? Want to emulate nearly everything else? Download this modular emulator to get started. By default it only plays SNES games, and you have to pay for the other modules to emulate other system. It can get rather expensive, too. It is also a little difficult to set up. Check this post for a how-to.
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"lightbox_close": "Close",
"lightbox_next": "Next",
"lightbox_previous": "Previous",
"lightbox_error": "The requested content cannot be loaded. Please try again later.",
"lightbox_start_slideshow": "Start slideshow",
"lightbox_stop_slideshow": "Stop slideshow",
"lightbox_full_screen": "Full screen",
"lightbox_thumbnails": "Thumbnails",
"lightbox_download": "Download",
"lightbox_share": "Share",
"lightbox_zoom": "Zoom",
"lightbox_new_window": "New window",
"lightbox_toggle_sidebar": "Toggle sidebar"
}
Sporty Pal: While I advise against bringing your HD2 cycling or running, this is an extremely nifty application to play around with. Walk around your neighborhood and it’ll give you a map of the area with a line of where you walked, various stats like top speed, and so forth.
MyMobiler: Install on computer. Hook up phone via Activesync, control phone from computer screen. Pro Tip: Select “zoom 50%” to actually have it fit on your computer screen. This makes texting your girlfriend with the slide-out qwerty keyboard soooo much easier.
My recommended MP3 player: I still haven’t found one that is as good as the iPhone’s. iMulator comes close to its feature set, but it crashes a lot for me. Yes, Sense does come with a built-in music player, but I think it is pretty terrible. Tweaks for this is for another episode--guide, I mean. Another great one is Nitrogen, which I tried out due to a suggestion. It is incredibly finger-friendly, but finding that one song you want to hear can be a chore. I also keep hearing this clamor for Pocket Player, but it is not free. I took that trial for a spin and it performed admirably. Finding a specific song was a breeze too. Lastly, don't forget that Windows Media Player does come with the HD2, and it's not that bad, honestly. You have to tell it to cache your library, but it performs rather well. It even works with voice command and all that cool stuff.
Dude, my phone still sucks. It lags, freezes, whatever.
My last suggestion is to flash a custom ROM. These are where people pretty much customize their own ROMs with newer builds of the default software, programs they personally like, their own tweaks, etc. You’ll find a lot of these are much more stable and responsive than stock ROMS. However, there is a small chance of bricking your phone, and it voids your warranty (although you can flash "to stock" and no one is the wiser. Get started reading about it here. And I mean read the damn thing. Don’t flash the wrong thing to your phone, brick it, and then make a new thread talking about it. If your SOP is to glance over the red, bolded text, maybe flashing ROMs isnt' for you? It really isn’t that hard if you just carefully read the directions, though. I guess there is always the option to wait for Android to be ported over.
Just for your information, the HD2 ships with Windows Mobile 6.5. There are newer versions out, namely 6.5.3 and 6.5.5, and these pretty much make the OS more finger-friendly (but you are using Sense which also tries to correct this). 6.5.3 has the bigger, more finger-friendly buttons and the remapped Start button. See this page for a picture. Personally I like this layout better, but it involves flashing a custom ROM to get. You also have your people who prefer 6.1, a really un-finger-friendly version of Windows Mobile.
I need more tweaks and applications!
Check out these threads here and here.

Part 2: Custom ROMs.
I really wanted to stay with the stock ROM, I really did. It worked pretty damn well out of the box. It was miles ahead of the Touch Pro 1. I appreciated nearly everything working without me having to immediately flash ROMs. I, however, began to get fed up with it more and more, mainly with the keyboard. As always, it just didn't seem to be able to keep up with me. Plus, the phone was freezing now and then. So I finally broke down, hard SPLed my phone, and flashed a new ROM only because I saw that a new version of the soft keyboard was much improved. And you know what? The keyboard finally worked how I wanted it to work. So on that reason alone it was worth flashing a new ROM. But there is another thing about flashing custom ROMs:
They fix things but break others.
Yeah, you'll hear people say nothing is wrong with their ROMs, but I think that is always nearly a lie. When I flashed that ROM a while ago I had several other weird bugs pop up. Like, if I received a text while in Opera, the keyboard would pop up with no way to remove it from the screen. Yeah, it seems like bugs are just the norm with Windows Mobile. It would also freeze frequently, sometimes several times a day, and picture messages would work with one build, but not the other. It seemed like community efforts to get MMS working completely failed. I flashed a few more ROMs, some older, some from different people, but I have finally settled on one I really like.
The newest ROMs seem to fix most of the freezing issues due to that new Tilt Sense version. I recommend getting one with that. Eventually these chefs will put newer Sense and Winmo builds in that are prone to freezing. That is nature of ROM flashing--you have to do it until you find a good one. I still have to put up with the keyboard popping up in Opera, but it's worth it to having a fast keyboard and it not freezing all the time. If I flash a new ROM, it may fix that, yes, but it will probably break something else.
Afraid to flash?
Yes, it does void your warranty. Yes, you can brick your phone. Yes, you can end up with a ROM that may be more buggy than you were led to believe. You, however, have been gifted with the ability to read and comprehended. It really isn't that hard if you read the instructions on how to do it. The T-Mobile USA specific ones.

I reccomend Nitrogen for playing music. Runs perfect on my HD2 running Energy Rom, with no stutters or skipping, or stopping once the screen turns off.
http://nitrogen.wmskins.com/

For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.

PoisonWolf said:
For some reason, unlike the older versions of Windows Mobile where you could have the option to make hitting the X-button permanently closing the program, Stock 2.13 only minimizes it. So I think you should either make it a good hint for people running stock to add the Task Manager to the shortcut on the homepage to check it from time to time.
Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.

Stickie
sirphunkee said:
+1 on that, esp for people new to the phone
This is still a great guide Jamie, thanks for the effort! Maybe we can get it stickied, or at least added to the "start here" list already at the top of the forums.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I 2nd that!

awesome!!!! great post.

It's stuff like this that makes me really appreciate this forum. Thanks!

Absolutely brilliant post!

great post.
that's all.

This thread saved my life
I just bought my Tmobile HD2 on craigslist everything was fine until i rebooted it. I had never seen an HD2 lag the way it did like i mean where is the snapdragon when u need it my friend's HD2 on the other hand ran circles around mine. I don't think i've ever had a more painful experience of htc sense but thanks to this thread i found the answer to my problems it was running the older version of the stock rom

SD Card
For those people having lag problems with the HD2. Try formatting your SD card i noticed a great difference in speed when i formatted my card then did a hard reset also i would advise you to get a better memory card like a class 6.

Thank's very helpful and excellent tuto.

thanks
thanks very informative but I still dont know what to do with this phone

Thank you for taking the time to make this, its very informative, and a fun read.

super helpful post! thanks a million!

hmm
Quick question, (I apologize, I am new to the HD2 and winmob)
I have installed and set cookie + editor along with bsb tweaks and noticed that while texting, I dont have the ability to rotate the phone into landscape mode, in other applications (photos for instance) it works just fine.
I've looked over both tweaks a few times to see if I missed anything and cant seem to find the reason why.
Any thoughts?
Thanks!
Robbie

QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW

BatVette said:
QUICK FYI for you all. I just tried to download and install the RESET BUTTON...ranster_reset file downloading off of rapidshare. Sent my firewall virus program and about every other red flag jumping off my PC screen saying the file is infected with a trojan virus.
FWIW
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I removed the link until I can investigate further.
Edit: okay, so I found the .CAB here, a bigger tweak guide for the HD2.
Edit 2: Okay, I ran the file through http://www.kaspersky.com/scanforvirus and it came up completely clean. I also ran it thorough 19 scanners here and it totally came clean: http://i49.tinypic.com/2wd3n9s.jpg. I honestly have no idea why it tripped. Can you share more details?
In conclusion, Anyone who is using it is probably safe. Check it out yourself, it's been in another guide forever. I think someone else would have said something about it if it really is a virus. Maybe the advertising on rapidshare tripped your scanners? Anyone else is free to try and verify, however.

I'm new to the T Mobile HTC HD2 phone how do I download the apps onto to my phone? I can't seem to figure it out

TouchWhiz 3: What do you think

So after having spent quite a bit of time browsing through all the stock touchwhiz apps, I have to say, for the most part I'm really enjoying TouchWhiz. The launcher can be replaced so even if it REALLY bugged me, it is an easy fix. The apps have really impressed me, though. The social integration is quite extensive.
I've gotta say my one beef with it is that there is really a lack of options I would expect in a non-standard app. If TouchWhiz apps had the extensive options seen in replacement apps like Handcent SMS, ADW.Launcher, I don't think I would have anything to complain about. It would be really nice to be able to disable certain tabs and options..
Anyways, what do you guys think? Do you like it overall or just assume get rid of it all? Which things do you love most about it and which do you hate?
I can honestly say that any custom roms without TouchWhiz will have to have something pretty amazing to draw me away from the stock rooted rom or another TouchWhiz based rom.

I agree completely. I am really enjoying touchwiz, but am missing some of the customization i have come to love with Android.
I am hopefull that future updates will address some of this.

So far I am really impressed with TouchWiz3. The contacts app should be ported over for everyone to use. I have the filters to only include contacts with phone numbers, having the ability to jump to a specific letter in the address book and sliding across a name to make a call.

Wish I could select a default calendar to post to instead of the phones My Calendar. I have to keep selecting my google calendar every time I create an appointment. It's a bit annoying.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I'm loving TouchWhiz. Being a long time CMmod and ADW launcher user and having tried the old TouchWhiz version w/ the obnoxious sidebar, I was ready for CM6 before even laying my hands on this phone. Now I seriously doubt I'll switch even when CM6 becomes available.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I have to disagree I'm not happy with TouchWiz and really wish I could get the AOSP contacts and calendar back that's all I really care about...
Calendar most importantly

I really like TouchWiz. I don't like the App Drawer though. I still prefer LauncherPro, so i'll be using that instead.

TouchWiz 3 is particularly ugly. Ugly colors, ugly icons. Just tacky as they come.
I would have returned the phone if it wasn't for LauncherPro.

I miss the flexibility of the vanilla Android 2.1. I've been using CM5 on my G1 prior to buying the Vibrant. Can't wait for CM6 for the Vibrant.

I so so on TW, I'm using LauncherPro at the moment but I wish I could use my samsung widgets

Could've been a 9.5 phone but some small but major annoyances
The touchwiz calendar app is nice, but you are unable to create a new event that defaults to you google calendar...its defaults to the phone's default calendar ("My Calendar"). Also, the default alarm time before an event is set to "none" and can't be changed to the typical 5,10,15..min before event. Why? How can this be useful...The beauty of android is in the cloud. I guess they are trying to appease to folks that don't use google services, but this is a damn Android, so im calling this a dumb and stupid decision. The same logic is somewhat applied when adding a new contact, but a pop up gives you a choice to save to sim, phone or google, so it is definitely better implemented in the add contact option, but I must ask...Who is buying this phone and saving contacts to the sim card? It's a damn Android!
The other issue which I initially didn't use much on my G1 (CM 5.08), but later fell in love with is custom ring tones for a specific caller. The only way to do this with the Samsung Vibrant is to actually save the contact on the phone vs with google. I just don't get this....once again This is an Android phone. Why did they create these additional profiles and not default them to the standard Android behavior. This is why fragmentation of the Android OS can be bad.
These are really my only major gripes after having the phone for less than a week, well besides that annoying shutdown tmobile jingle and the power/unlock button on the side...oh and I wish this phone had hdmi out. The video out is really a neat feature, but its not a good experience using the standard def audio/video out jack.
I know these may seem like minor annoyances, particulalry the calendar and custom ring tone, but getting the basics right is what I think counts the most. Leave well enough alone!
With all that said it is a great phone and once you go superamoled there is no going back.
I forgot to add that I running ADW and there is no way I could run this phone with that awful iphone look alike launcher. I'm also rooted and tethering (wired or wifi) does not seem to work.
I'm hoping Cyanogen works his magic with this device...it will be a beast!

I hate touch wiz and the fact that it looks like an iphone. Don't really like the icons and the accu weather click is hideous. I use beautiful widgets and adw for my launcher. I think adw us the best launcher because of it's ability to customize extensively.
Feeling Vibrant on xda-app

Anyone else having problems with ADW Launcher Notifications bar?
I've got "Hide Status Bar" unchecked and yet it just keeps disappearing, I tried with it checked and got the same result, it'll be there for a while and disappears, even when I pull down the notifications drawer it's still not there just a blank line of wallpaper at the top.
I've actually gone back to the TouchWiz becuase I can't reliably see my batter meter or signal strength.
Anyone get this?

I think a lot of you are missing the fact that the Launcher is not "TouchWiz 3.0". The skin goes much deeper than just the launcher.
Copying contacts to the phone is also very easy. Export them and then Import them. They're on the phone now... not sure if this would work because they're still linked through Google, but they are on the phone now too so you could unlink them from Google.
If you want ugly just look at a stock Android phone. Ugly, tacky.. since when is black and blue tacky? The icon backgrounds in the app menu might not be to everyone's liking but it's still WAY Better than the stock app drawer with it's hideous background and yellow coloring throughout

I agree. I don't mind touchwiz at all. I'd like the option to switch to default Android look though. My main gripe with touchwiz is the calendar and the fact that the applications menu is a cheesy rip of the iPhone menu, come on Samsung. Also, I quite enjoy the AccuWeather clock.

jaxrunner said:
...I know these may seem like minor annoyances, particulalry the calendar and custom ring tone, but getting the basics right is what I think counts the most. Leave well enough alone!
With all that said it is a great phone and once you go superamoled there is no going back...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm totally with you on the touchwiz calendar and contacts apps having some serious issues. Though I really like the color scheme, love the subtle grey in notifications, the black task-bar, and the blue menu headings, it looks clean to me.
Anyway, I have found a temporary solueion for the Calendar, for myself at least. Should work for anyone who's rooted.
Grab the Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk from the thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6472313&postcount=674
then use a shell to backup TouchWizCalendar.apk/.odex and TouchWizCalendarProvider.apk/.odex
then remove all 4 files
and install the Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk from the link
and grant permissions to let the new calendar & provider access your data when it asks.
I'm stoked because this brought back the default calendar widget too, which I was seriously missing
Add in the GenieWidget.apk from the nexus one here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=600959
And I'm one step closer to having all the default apps and widgets that I like =)
Now if only I can do the same with the Cyanogen Dialer, Alarm and contacts app... not sure I'm feeling that reckless tonight though, lol.
cheers!

I don't like it in general, but a few additions really ought to get disseminated to every ROM.
I'm using ADW launcher.
You can tell TW is glued on top. It doesn't feel integrated. It actually seems to hamper the nice Google integration I've had. It's great that Tmo wants to offer something, but not letting me change my voicemail number manually (but leaving it in there) is forcing it on me. Makes me bristle.
As far as changing ringtones, I haven't gotten that far. Working on rooting and getting my adb going with it (to get the calendar back to vanilla, frankly). I imagine aContacts might solve that. Thanks for pointing it out.
The blues would be fine (although I'm not a fan since it's much like WM 6.0), except they don't match very well. It almost looks like a corporate argument, or a cheap contracted graphic artist, or both, and someone worked on the WinMo 6 team. And much of the blue-tinted gray text fields don't go with the fully gray Android button color. I'm not a fan of trying to do browns & ambers as accent colors, as a slice of the wheel, fine, but I've tried, and it just doesn't work. Maybe it's the shiny black tube. It just looks 2006 to me.
I love the control bar in notifications. I was doing it with BarControl, then BarTender, but it's so, so much nicer now. Add a "Fastbright" or better yet, replace the silent with it, since I can do that with one of the two hardware keys. The "just took off my rose-colored glasses" tint could definitely go.
I do like the phone app. A lot. Especially in-call. It's clean. The BT took too long to connect if it wasn't enabled first, but I can see this being streamlined, which would be slick. The calculator & dialer ain't as pretty, but being old I like the big, no, HUGE numerals. I like the "0" long-press to vibrate (wish it were customizeable).
I love using a gesture to call or sms. The sideways stuff has been wasted "space" so far. I hate the redundancy of using a line that could show a contact and a space in the menu to add a contact. It's also weird not having a way to go from contacts to favorites. I was having trouble on the CM ROMs, so I guess it's just nice that it works without a bug, too.
I guess I like the updates tab in the contacts app, it's a great way to check what's up before making a call, but I've already got my methods, so if I really feel like I need to know, I'll check first. My guess is it won't take off, not like it is, but it got me thinkin' how nice it would be to pull all those social networking sites together and list them under a contact. Total agregation. So I suppose it's a step in the right direction.
I doubt it qualifies as TouchWiz, but I adore the camera app. That action shot mode could prove useful. And the continuous shooting while holding the "button" is excellent. I don't get the "beauty " mode. Didn't help. (Maybe it's only set up for darker skin as an obscure FU to HP.) What I don't love is that it won't post to Picasa or Facebook by default, a few other third party photo hosting places, but not either of the ones I use... since I got on board with Android. Huh. I smell something here.
Music app is nice & simple. I haven't looked, but I'm guessing it's pretty lightweight. It carries my biggest gripes about the interface, tho, the empty space above and below each line mean less data for me to see on each screen, and it's on a big black, ultra-shiny tube.

regarding the OP: you CAN change the volume of the tmo startuip & shutdown jingle by going to settings-->sound&display-->system volume
the one thing i noticed when i pick my own ringtones that are either in the internal sd OR external sd storage, is that if i set them, then mount sd card, then unmount, then my f**king ringtones and notifications all change back to the annoying as F**K default. !! i would LOVE to be able to mount JUST the external sd OR the internal sd ONE AT A TIME OR both IF i wanted to.
but no... someone at samsung or tmobile didnt think of this. too me a lot of the little things we as smartphone users really care about were entirely overshadowed by the concern for aesthetic beauty of touchwiz 3 by samsung. tmobile or someone needs to push and update that will edify the smartphone features as they should be...

Good find
s0niqu3 said:
Anyway, I have found a temporary solueion for the Calendar, for myself at least. Should work for anyone who's rooted.
Grab the Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk from the thread here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6472313&postcount=674
then use a shell to backup TouchWizCalendar.apk/.odex and TouchWizCalendarProvider.apk/.odex
then remove all 4 files
and install the Calendar.apk and CalendarProvider.apk from the link
and grant permissions to let the new calendar & provider access your data when it asks.
I'm stoked because this brought back the default calendar widget too, which I was seriously missing
Add in the GenieWidget.apk from the nexus one here
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=600959
And I'm one step closer to having all the default apps and widgets that I like =)
Now if only I can do the same with the Cyanogen Dialer, Alarm and contacts app... not sure I'm feeling that reckless tonight though, lol.
cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I may just try this...Thanks

2.2 Review

*** True Story ***
I am a member on Dell's community forum and have watched Dell's mouthpiece, Amy-B, post the lies and put up the smoke and mirrors regarding this for a while now. When she first announced that the update would begin on 11/15, I paid closer attention. By the end of the week when there was no update, I commented that users may have a potential class action suit. With that, I got a scathing email from Dell saying I violated their terms of use, some left handed subtle threats, and my post was deleted. I still laugh about that.
End True Story, my ongoing review below
I put 2.2 on last night and played with it for a little while before bed, then really started putting it to the test today. here's what's happened until now.
First, when I applied the update, it kept a lot of previous settings and applications rather than clean wiping. It also bypassed forcing me to login to google account, so when I tried to use the market, it couldn't. With that, I used my credentials to login to my google account and immediately started having some google calendar syncing error. It became a loop, each time asking me to report it, then asking me to force close the app, and then over and over the same thing. So I rebooted the streak, and it came up with the same exact issue not allowing me to do anything with it. I had to pull the battery to shut it down this time and when I get it all together to power up, I simply held the up/down volume keys and told it to do a factory reset.
The rom cooks itself into the streak as the factory install and 2.2 came up on the next boot, this time asking for google credentials. It worked that time, and I was ready to put the phone through it's motions.
Issues I've found
1. Voice Dialer via Bluetooth crashes each time I try to use it. It crashes to the point that it tells me to restart my phone. This is without fail.
2. swiping to unlock the phone, or pattern unlock are flaky. it will start then stop as if I've taken my finger off. I have to do it multiple times and crazy ways to make it work. Pattern lock same thing. Especially after coming out of my pocket... as if the heat from my body makes my finger not be recognized on the whole screen. This build makes the touchscreen no longer responsive as it was in 1.6... update, I've tested this over and over and over. yes, it seems to be the temperature, because if I blow on the screen to cool it, or something similar, the screen becomes instantly responsive to my touch. I never had this problem with 1.6 regardless of when I pulled it out of my pocket.
3. sometimes, changing screens gets choppy or laggy.
4. No widget bar or tray/drawer that allows you to turn BT or Wifi on or off. You have to get something from the market to do this (updated, this is available as a widget, I should open my eyes a bit)
5. Can't change the number of screens; can't add or subtract screens, stages, rooms, or whatever you choose to call it. You're stuck with 7, the center one being the default.
6. Multiple FC's for variety of reasons, many are while simply browsing the market. With that Microsoft-esque error reporting thing always popping up, I think they anticipated feeding garbage to the masses.
7. Have tried a few alternate launchers. Some are better than others, more functional etc.. .but no matter how weak an alternate launcher appears to be, they pretty much ALL beat StageUI
Likes
1. Have always liked the live wallpapers that we were introduced to in 2.1
2. landscape mode rights itself regardless of which side is facing up. could be a caveat since it puts the home/back/menu buttons upside down on the left instead of right with the hard buttons on the bottom, but still kind of cool nonetheless.
4. Support for Exchange is native and doesn't require additional software/applications.
the long and the short of it.. Dell is useless as an OS developer/tweaker and StageUI blows.
Samsung hit the homerun with it on its Galaxy S series. I was just at best buy, and the Galaxy Tab is pretty sweet but the price tag is ridiculous. Comparing 2.1 of my Vibrant with 2.2 on my streak, the Vibrant wins. no contest.
Day one of having the new 2.2 update on there and it's clear that this OS needs some patching already. I can only imagine what the people on O2 in the UK had to go through with their 2.1 fiasco
more to follow...

Here's a couple of things that I like in this build but before I list the items I wanted to address the comment you made about being able to turn of BT, wi-fi, GPS, brightness, etc. Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget. You do, however, will have to delete one of the Stage widgets to free up the room. Or you can just open the widget via apps. For my use, I currently prefer a different launcher than Stage. I am using the LauncherPro but there are a lot of other free choices like ADW, Zeam and so on.
Here are the things I like about this build:
1. Ability to hang up the call by pressing the power button ( you have to go to Settings-Accessibility-then check the mark for that option)
2. Radio feature - is absolutely great. The thing I don't like is the web ad that seems to pop every time I start listening to a station. If anyone knows how to turn/block that pop-up you would make me very happy )
3. Keyboard is awesome. Love the size, the options to switch to symbols, just love it. Haven't messed with SWYPE but I love the Andriod KB right now.
4. Flash - yes it works and it works well.
5. Speed - significantly faster. Whether navigating or downloading. Wi-fi speeds are faster than 1.6 or 2.1 I use to have.
6. Bluetooth volume is louder. This one was high on my priority list.
7. Music widget - looks nice and clean.
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
9. Security is beefed up by adding the option for PIN or password on top of the normal sliding lock. My slider works without any issues. But I prefer the pattern lock which also works great.
10. Haptic feedback can't be completely turned off, or you can turn off certain features alone like keyboard. I have mine off so the three main buttons don't vibrate any more. I don't think that option was available in the previous builds but I could be wrong.
These are the ones that I can think of right off the bat. I may add more as I remember them.

streak4m3 said:
Under apps you can select Power Control and that will give you those options in a form of a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long press home, then under widgets, then power control... thanks tons. that's what I was looking for.

So my quick review:
The good:
Loving the out-of-the-box Exchange support. Yay. Mobile e-mail/calendar/contacts without having to use Touchdown and the hassle of 'pushing' Touchdown contacts to the phone's contacts.
w00t. Ability to grab requiring apps from the market which require 2.x.
2.x features like portrait home screen, better multi-touch, etc.
The bad:
The Stage UI is just lame. Giving it a few days before I toss it in the bin.
I miss the old video playing app. I dunno what it was called, but there isn't even a shortcut for the new one. I installed ASTRO File Manager, browsed to my video directory and the file launched with some less-than-basic video player. What I liked about the old one was the order-by-date view which I have become used to but isn't the end of the world, the resume where you left off feature, and the delete from within the app feature. I guess Rock Player is the video player most people seem to be recommending, so I hope it has this.
For all its faults, I liked the old keyboard. I suspect it's still there, but I have yet to look. Using 2 (To/two/too) and 4 (For/four), etc in txt/IM/tweets now takes extra keypresses.
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
Yet to check:
I've found the Streak's camera has taken pretty lame photos. I'm not photophile, but our 5 year old, 4MP camera takes better photos than the Streak. I've had the Streak set to the best quality (Lowest compression or whatever it was) and if you zoom in on a picture while viewing on a PC, it gets pixelated very quickly, while our 4MP pics are much nicer looking and they are twice the file size (4MP pic twice the file size of a 5MP pic?), so I'm interpreted this as 'The Streak takes crappy pics'. Been waiting to see what, if anything, the upgrade to 2.2 does for this.
So I guess it seems to lack polish, BUT, I think the reason for this is because it's actually near-to-bare Android, so I'm not going to criticise the roughness when the other option is more polish (Which one may or may not like) from Dell that means OS updates take 6+ months. I'm sure I'll be able to overcome anything I'm not liking with apps or through tweaking some options somewhere. Isn't this why we have Android?
But yeah. Stage is coming off pretty quick I suspect.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png

This build was far too laggy for my tastes. 1.6 was faster on some of the processes for me. I'm happily back on DJ Steve's build which is soooo much faster and has virtually the same features.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Something I'm surprised is:
2.2 doesn't have separate sounds for incoming:
E-mail
Texts
Reminders
...I dunno if iOS does, but my old Windows Mobile device did. I'd like a different sounds for these events, as I'll respond to them differently. Now I don't know if it's a calendar reminder which I can't ignore, a text which I might ignore or an e-mail that I can ignore...

streak4m3 said:
8. Camera works fine. I don't see an option for 720p though.
.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I got fooled by this. check 'Custom' for 720p. I can verify it is 720p too. pretty good quality.
Edit: Check it out. cant post link so you'll have to type the youtube code in manually
watch?v=Xm-jbOqIUiU
Enjoy! pretty sweet.
Format : MOV
Dimensions: 1280x720px
Video codec: MPEG4
Audio codec: AAC

htnprm said:
I never really knew how handy the Dell notification area was for 1.6. I'd turn off the cellular data and run Wi-Fi only, with just a couple of presses and it wouldn't interrupt the app I was in. Now I have to go to the home screen, press the menu button, and that's only to turn off wireless. I have yet to find the equivalent enable/disable for 3G.
PS - You all might laugh: http://i.imgur.com/ULMLx.png
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try "Quick Settings" which puts an icon in your status bar so when in an app, just drag down the status bar click on it and all your settings are there. Or, try "QuickDesk". Not sure if this is out of beta yet but its also an awesome app for doing exactly what you are talking about.....and much more.
Cant wait to get my Streak and to start rockin this 2.2. Would love to have vanilla 2.2 though.

as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.

htnprm said:
Yeah. I was wondering about many of these. Hopefully I get the first real sit-down with the phone sans-children jumping all over me, so I'll get back to you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
cheers, appreciate it

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk

Spectre51 said:
Yes the led can work as a flashlight. I used the N1 Torch app and it worked fine.
Yes it does have wifi tethering.
I really miss the 1.6 menu bar/notification bar. Stage blows compared to the old ui. The swype keyboard is great. I have mixed feelings about the update mainly because of the ui changes.
Sent from my Dell Streak using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx for the info
yeah me too, but you can allways install one of these :
http://myandroidworld.in/posts/android-launchershome-replacement-apps

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap

gavelis said:
1. Yes, I use StreakLight from Market (free)
2. Yes, there´s an option for this and I checked it, and it seems to work. But I haven´t connected a device yet.
3. How can I check this?
4. Dunno, cause I use Exchange and some Imap
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thnx
ad 3 : http://www.playerversion.com/ and http://jrgraphix.net/research/flash-dock-mx-2004.php and http://flowplayer.org/plugins/streaming/rtmp.html

da_jojo said:
as you are on 2.2 now , can you check something for me ?
- can flashled from camera be used as torchlight ?
- it should have usb tethering now, but does it also do wifi-tethering ?
- can the flashplayer play activescript ?
- is activesync (not exchange) working ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Alright. Others have answered, but I'll pass on what I know. If you're talking Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) not talking to an Exchange server, a la Hotmail, I'm getting a "cannot connect to server" error... My EAS to work's Exchange is working flawlessly though.
And USB/Wi-fi tethering are working grand. I'm tethered by Wi-fi as I write this, so I can pass my 3G USB modem on to a colleague. w00t.
I am a little concerned about battery life. I haven't done that much with the phone today, unlike a normal day where I might squeeze in a few calls, texts, tweets, bit of web browsing, and three+ hours of video and have the battery at 20% at the end of the day. I'm at 20% left now, and I haven't done any of those things.

thnx
have you tried hotmail through POP3 ? it worked with k9 client.
what i meant is activesync on windows 7 64bit with office 2010 32bit.
yeah batterylife concerns me also. i have a habit of draining these in godspeed (A)

You can create a shortcut to the wifi & networks popup from launcherpro activities.
1. Long press on the desktop bsckground
2. Select shortcut
3. Select Activities
4. Select wireless & networks
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Sent from my Dell Streak using XDA App

this is exactly what people where missing , thnx

rodjordan said:
You now have access to the old dell popup to disable data, 3g etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinda. You still have to go from the app you're in out to the home screen, turn it on/off, and then go back to your app. But thanks for the info.

List of issues, any solutions?

Cause I'm about to return this thing.
Software/OS wise:
- I guess this is an Android "thing", but the phone is constanly launching random programs in the background that I had nothing to do with, and it noticeably slows the phone down. If I see Sense stuttering, I'll run ATK, kill the dozen or so random things thta somehow launched all by themselves, and the phone is snappy again. Today I was typing a text message, and the phone was so slow, it was only registering one character every 5 seconds or so in the message. I went tho ATK, a whole ****load of random stuff was running, I killed it all, text messaging goes back to normal. How can you use an OS that randomly launches apps that degrade system performance? And as far as I can tell there's no way to remove the apps, or keep them from randomly launching on thier own in the background. I thought Android apps running in the background were supposed to not use any resources? But these a re having a noticible impact, clear as day. Sluggish UI, run ATK, kill the apps, silky smooth UI.
- I despise threaded SMS and you can't turn it off.
- I hate the little gray faces in the people list, and you can't turn them off
- Don't like the transparent folder backgrounds, and you can't do anything about it.
Hardware wise:
- The volume rocker is in a terrible positoin and is way to easy to accidentally hit. And apparently you need root to do anything about by remapping the keys
- If the phone is locked, sliding out the keyboard just a little bit wakes up the phone unlocked. andthen when trying to slide the KB back in you end up hitting buttons and hittingthe volume rocker, it's just annoying
- Suffers from the iPhone 4 "holding the phone in your righthand cuts your signal strength by 3 bars" problem
I mean, by themselves, none of these is a huge deal (except the OS slowing itself to a crawl, WTF is up with that?), but add them all up, on tp of the fact I'm paying $30 more a month over my Mogul, and I think this thing is going back to the Sprint store this weekend.
Kinda shocking that 5 years later the latest Androis phone still can;t match my Mogul in terms of useability.

emkorial said:
Cause I'm about to return this thing.
Software/OS wise:
- I guess this is an Android "thing", but the phone is constanly launching random programs in the background that I had nothing to do with, and it noticeably slows the phone down. If I see Sense stuttering, I'll run ATK, kill the dozen or so random things thta somehow launched all by themselves, and the phone is snappy again. Today I was typing a text message, and the phone was so slow, it was only registering one character every 5 seconds or so in the message. I went tho ATK, a whole ****load of random stuff was running, I killed it all, text messaging goes back to normal. How can you use an OS that randomly launches apps that degrade system performance? And as far as I can tell there's no way to remove the apps, or keep them from randomly launching on thier own in the background.
- I despise threaded SMS and you can't turn it off.
- I hate the little gray faces in the people list, and you can't turn them off
- Don't like the transparent folder backgrounds, and you can't do anything about it.
Hardware wise:
- The volume rocker is in a terrible positoin and is way to easy to accidentally hit. And apparently you need root to do anything about by remapping the keys
- If the phone is locked, sliding out the keyboard just a little bit wakes up the phone unlocked. andthen when trying to slide the KB back in you end up hitting buttons and hittingthe volume rocker, it's just annoying
- Suffers from the iPhone 4 "holding the phone in your righthand cuts your signal strength by 3 bars" problem
I mean, by themselves, none of these is a huge deal (except the OS slowing itself to a crawl, WTF is up with that?), but add them all up, on tp of the fact I'm paying $30 more a month over my Mogul, and I think this thing is going back to the Sprint store this weekend.
Kinda shocking that 5 years later the latest Androis phone still can;t match my Mogul in terms of useability.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok - a long list of complaints. I'll try to address a few, but I don't think there are any "fixes" for any of these problems.
1. Have not had this happen on this phone. Not sure what is running....what were you doing at the time? What apps do you have installed?
2. You'd prefer a single message? Not really sure I understand the issue with threaded SMS...
3. If you hate the gray faces, you can customize the picture for each person - if you don't feel like doing that, then stop complaining. To assign a picture for your contacts - Contacts - "Joe Smith" - Edit - then click the Camera to the left of the contacts name. You can assign any picture you want.
4. This is something that can be modified once we have perm. root, I believe. Is customizable if you modify LPP or ADW.
5. I see a lot of people complaining about the terrible placement. I've only hit them once when closing the phone, but they are almost in the same position as my Heroc, so it must be a habit from avoiding that rocker.
6. My slider needs to slide until I see the 2nd row of keys before the screen turns on. Not sure if yours is diff. or not, but that seems acceptable to me. Perhaps you want to put a lock code or pin on, and then it won't open to the homescreen, etc.
7. I have noticed that too, but really almost every phone has this to some effect. And I've only watched the signal strength bars in the notifications bar. We should watch the signal strength (dB) to see if there really is a drastic difference. It hasn't negatively impacted my use of the phone (on a call, or surfing the web) so I don't really see it as an issue, but more of a pet peeve.
Sorry to hear you are so turned off by your experience so far. hope some of what I've written is useful.

There is no need for a task killer. Just because you see those apps in the backround doesnt actually mean they are running. Android works different in the fact that those are stored in ram to actually save battery if you were to open those apps. It doesnt use more battery to have those apps stored in your ram. Since froyo was introduced there is no reason to use ATK unless there is an aftermarket app that you know will cause power drain.
There is an app called Volume Locker. It will keep you from being able to change the volume level.
Also, there are different dialers out there that offer different looks if you dont like the sense dialer.
I dont have any issue with my bars going down when holding my phone. The reason that happens to an Iphone is because they built the antenna around the case of the phone. It's not built like that with the shift.
Is this your 1st android phone?

emkorial said:
Cause I'm about to return this thing.
Software/OS wise:
- I guess this is an Android "thing", but the phone is constanly launching random programs in the background that I had nothing to do with, and it noticeably slows the phone down. If I see Sense stuttering, I'll run ATK, kill the dozen or so random things thta somehow launched all by themselves, and the phone is snappy again. Today I was typing a text message, and the phone was so slow, it was only registering one character every 5 seconds or so in the message. I went tho ATK, a whole ****load of random stuff was running, I killed it all, text messaging goes back to normal. How can you use an OS that randomly launches apps that degrade system performance? And as far as I can tell there's no way to remove the apps, or keep them from randomly launching on thier own in the background. I thought Android apps running in the background were supposed to not use any resources? But these a re having a noticible impact, clear as day. Sluggish UI, run ATK, kill the apps, silky smooth UI.
- I despise threaded SMS and you can't turn it off.
- I hate the little gray faces in the people list, and you can't turn them off
- Don't like the transparent folder backgrounds, and you can't do anything about it.
Hardware wise:
- The volume rocker is in a terrible positoin and is way to easy to accidentally hit. And apparently you need root to do anything about by remapping the keys
- If the phone is locked, sliding out the keyboard just a little bit wakes up the phone unlocked. andthen when trying to slide the KB back in you end up hitting buttons and hittingthe volume rocker, it's just annoying
- Suffers from the iPhone 4 "holding the phone in your righthand cuts your signal strength by 3 bars" problem
I mean, by themselves, none of these is a huge deal (except the OS slowing itself to a crawl, WTF is up with that?), but add them all up, on tp of the fact I'm paying $30 more a month over my Mogul, and I think this thing is going back to the Sprint store this weekend.
Kinda shocking that 5 years later the latest Androis phone still can;t match my Mogul in terms of useability.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1) if your talking about things like FM radio, Sprint navigation, NFL, Sprint TV, etc running in the background. they arent using processor time just small bits of memory they launch in the background after certain triggers like "SMS Recieved" occur and you cant change that without full root, or you can use the temporary root and set it after every boot
2 and 3) i believe you can with handsent or chomp
3) not without full root and nand unlock
as for the rest, havent had any issues with signal either on or off my airave so i cant really replicate your issue, havent had any slowness or slowdowns compared to the painfully buggy and slow mogul for sure.

There is no need for a task killer. Just because you see those apps in the backround doesnt actually mean they are running. Android works different in the fact that those are stored in ram to actually save battery if you were to open those apps. It doesnt use more battery to have those apps stored in your ram. Since froyo was introduced there is no reason to use ATK unless there is an aftermarket app that you know will cause power drain.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but there is. Performance on the phone is noticably slower, sliuggish screen transitions, today my text messaging was barely working at all the phone was so bogged down. Killing tasks fixes the problem, so obviously those tasks are using some system resources. If they weren't I wouldn't care that they are there, but they are having a absolute impact of the phones performance and responsiveness.
none of the apps running were crazy stuff, there's maybe 2-3 things I installed from the market (Astra and Google Maps being the most frequnt) and the rest is preinstalled stuff, Teleus GPS, Voicemail, Gmail, Amazon MP3, etc. At the low point ATK says I have aorund 30M memory free, clearing the apps out brings it up to 160.
This isn't a "things running in the background bugs me", it's "these things are slowing the phone down.
2. You'd prefer a single message? Not really sure I understand the issue with threaded SMS...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, each messgae should be a message. Unto itself. I know some people like threaded, and that's fine, but why is there no option to turn threaded SMS off? I can specify seperate auto completoin settings for the soft keyboard and hardkeyboard for crying out loud, but I can't choose how I want text messages displayed?
3. If you hate the gray faces, you can customize the picture for each person - if you don't feel like doing that, then stop complaining. To assign a picture for your contacts - Contacts - "Joe Smith" - Edit - then click the Camera to the left of the contacts name. You can assign any picture you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, pardon me while I run off to snap 150 pictures and assign them all. I should be able to customize the view to no show pictures with the contacts, not be forec to have 1 chunk of screen real estate takend up "mystery gray head man"
4. This is something that can be modified once we have perm. root, I believe. Is customizable if you modify LPP or ADW.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats good to know, thanks
Also, there are different dialers out there that offer different looks if you dont like the sense dialer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The dialers fine, it's the contact list.
Is this your 1st android phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, an I knew there' be some getting used to things, but honestly, why am I paying more for a phone I have to get used to (and launches apps to slows down it's performance by itself)? I'l just go back to my Mogul, it works how I want, and is cheaper.
they arent using processor time
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SOMETHING getting auto launched is using processor time, absolutely. When the phone is runing so slow I can;t even type a text message, and killing the running apps fixes the problem, then there's something running in the background slowing the phone down massively.

Might want to try killing apps 1 at a time to find out what the rogue process is... generally task managers do more harm than good.
You can also sync facebook photo's with contacts if any of your contacts are on your fb account... if you use facebook that is You can also assign photo's thru your gmail account on the web, that is an easier interface than on the phone.
There is really no getting around getting used to a new phone.. just takes some time to get comfortable with it. Usually a week or 2.

emkorial said:
but there is. Performance on the phone is noticably slower, sliuggish screen transitions, today my text messaging was barely working at all the phone was so bogged down. Killing tasks fixes the problem, so obviously those tasks are using some system resources. If they weren't I wouldn't care that they are there, but they are having a absolute impact of the phones performance and responsiveness.
none of the apps running were crazy stuff, there's maybe 2-3 things I installed from the market (Astra and Google Maps being the most frequnt) and the rest is preinstalled stuff, Teleus GPS, Voicemail, Gmail, Amazon MP3, etc. At the low point ATK says I have aorund 30M memory free, clearing the apps out brings it up to 160.
This isn't a "things running in the background bugs me", it's "these things are slowing the phone down.
SOMETHING getting auto launched is using processor time, absolutely. When the phone is runing so slow I can;t even type a text message, and killing the running apps fixes the problem, then there's something running in the background slowing the phone down massively.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to read up on this article. like I said before you only need to use it when you have a bad app. Close 1 at a time until you figure out the lag issue as I havnt had a single issue at all with lag. Why you shouldn't use task killers
When you close apps that always run they have to re-open and that uses CPU. All those apps running (except the one giving you issues) arent using any cpu just stored in your memory and if they need to be ran it actually saves CPU. You obvliously have more apps running than you think because I always have at the very least 80mb free. If you decide to root your phone you can always use auto killer memory optimizer and make it so if you hit a certain point it will close the empty apps etc.
Give it some time. Your obviously and amateur Android user (Please dont take offense) and will learn how they work and love it I promise.

I think you're the first person I've heard about who prefers Windows Mobile 6.X to Android. If that's the case, more power to you. Rock that Mogul and cut your monthly bill down and save some bucks. In this economy, nobody's going to argue with you over that.
Sounds like a lot of your gripes are just getting used to the phone. I've never once accidentally hit the volume rocker but I'm coming from a Sprint Hero too, so maybe that's why. If I cup my hand around the bottom of the phone I can get it to drop a bar or two, but I never hold my phone like that under normal use so it doesn't bother me. And my phone doesn't wake up until the keyboard is halfway out (2nd row of keys). If yours wakes from barely moving, maybe something is wrong with it? Take it back for a new one and see if that fixes the problem.
I haven't noticed any slowdown but again, I'm coming from the Hero and that was just a dog trying to run factory Sense. Some people have reported improved performance after performing a factory reset (though that's typically related to data speeds). Might be worth looking into if you're still having problems.

You need to read up on this article. like I said before you only need to use it when you have a bad app. Close 1 at a time until you figure out the lag issue as I havnt had a single issue at all with lag. Why you shouldn't use task killers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand the who idea of android running crap in the background, and if it really worked as advertised and was using no CPU power, I wouldn;t care if there were 100 apps in the background. Whatever is running my my background is causing moderate performance issues most of the time, and occasionally severe performance issues.
Next time it happens I'll try the "kill them 1 at a time" thing and see if I can identify the culprit.
I recognize that most of this is just preference and getting used to the phone, but the performance degradation, the volume rocker, and the signal loss are, to me, enough added up to make the phone just not worth dealing with.

emkorial said:
I understand the who idea of android running crap in the background, and if it really worked as advertised and was using no CPU power, I wouldn;t care if there were 100 apps in the background. Whatever is running my my background is causing moderate performance issues most of the time, and occasionally severe performance issues.
Next time it happens I'll try the "kill them 1 at a time" thing and see if I can identify the culprit.
I recognize that most of this is just preference and getting used to the phone, but the performance degradation, the volume rocker, and the signal loss are, to me, enough added up to make the phone just not worth dealing with.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well that sucks you find one of the sickest Android phones not up to par. Maybe you should go back to a Windows phone lol

There's always the Jesus phone.

Also, the battery is doubling as a heater. I played angrybirds for about 20 minutes, my battery is reading 106 degrees F, and my hand is starting to sweat.

fifedogg said:
Well that sucks you find one of the sickest Android phones not up to par. Maybe you should go back to a Windows phone lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, my windows phone doesn't launch mystery apps in the background to kill my performance, doesn't have threaded SMS, doesn't have transparent folders, doesn't put little grey heads next to my contacts, doesn't have any buttons that are easily pushed by mistake, doesn't have an overheating battery, doesn't unlock and wake up when the keyboard is opened, and doesn;t lose signal strength when you pick it up. So yeah, it's kinda dominating android on those points.

herbthehammer said:
There's always the Jesus phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Herb, I am quickly starting to love your posts!
Sent from my HTC Evo Shift 4G

Uh, I'd be inclined to think the device is defective or you installed something janky. I have only in a few situations with z4root seen lag on this thing.
I would try a factory reset (hold volume down while powering on the device, choose from menu) and see if that doesn't help. It will wipe the handset so be prepared for that.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App

Hard reset fixed most of my issues, but the only big one was the battery life anyways. Try that and hopefully it works for you too.

Life is too short to be miserable over a cell phone. Take it back and go back to the Mogul. You clearly like it better and it's cheaper per month. Win-win.

Peace out! Go rock that bad ass mogul til the wheels fall off.
Scent phrum mie fone!

etbrandt2 said:
Uh, I'd be inclined to think the device is defective or you installed something janky. I have only in a few situations with z4root seen lag on this thing.
I would try a factory reset (hold volume down while powering on the device, choose from menu) and see if that doesn't help. It will wipe the handset so be prepared for that.
Sent from my PG06100 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How can you back up your contacts? The Sprint store copied them over from my Mogul for me, so they're all on the phone, no on my gMail account.
I'd like to hold out and see if some of these issues are fixable, because there is a lot I like about the phone too. I love the marketplace, I like the proximity sensor, I like close to 99% of Sense, the screen is gorgeous. Is there hopw that when the phone is rooted I'll be able to fix some of this stuff?
Peace out! Go rock that bad ass mogul til the wheels fall off.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I also got about a 50/50 split betweenn yes and no on whether or not I can go back to my SERO plan if I want to.
I'll give it a week, hopefully real root will be out by then, see if it helps/give the ability to fix some of this stuff, and if not, back to the Mogul. Much love for the 30 day return window!!

Unfortunately I think to get the contacts copied over to Google you'll need to log into your Google account and manually add them.
The nice thing is though, that once you start flashing ROM's they will automatically sync.
I find it much easier to go in and streamline my contacts on my computer.
Also, if you do not use Facebook or have pics to sync up from FB you can add pictures to your Google contacts and they will sync to the phone.