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I hated my phone. I think that MS doesn’t know how to make a phone feel like a phone. That's my opinion and you know what they say about opinions... Anyway, thanks to the work of some fantastic programmers, I have gotten my phone to where it feels a little nicer. On to what I did.
I wanted to tackle making the phone prettier to use. I don’t like how the today screen background doesn't act as the background of the phone app. I think that's stupid. For fixing this, I downloaded a few dialer skins from Zombienexus. (http://www.zombienexus.net/portal/GH_ShowArticle.asp?HID=35&CATID=1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12) I'm not sure who this person is, but his dialer replacement is fantastic. I chose the "Springwood_BlackBars" theme. It's a dim picture taken of a rain forest. Looks really nice. Nice and professional. This took care of my today screen and my phone dialer. Now, both have a good (great) background.
Next up. I hate my contacts. I can't mash a letter corresponding to my contact's last name with my finger. My fingers are too fat. I don't like using the stylus for doing this because phones don’t' require stylus.... enter Contact Manager v0.10 (http://www.pocketcm.com). The guy that created this is freaking awesome. It's a contact app that pulls from your list of contacts and puts them into a list that makes them easy to select with a finger. If you drag your finger down, the list will spring down and continue scrolling with this elastic effect. If you drag your finger down one side of the screen or the other, a little tab will pop up following your finger from top to bottom with each letter of the alphabet in it starting with "a" at the top and "Z" at the bottom. Where you stop is where the list scrolls to, nice animation and all.
Now, this contacts manager is kind of plain looking off the bat. But, the creator gives you an ini file to customize. After thoroughly tweaking the ini, I now have my today screen background (the springwood) as the background behind my contacts. Though, in words this may not sound like much, but in practice, the phone is freaking sweet now. the only other thing I did, was use a softkey tweak (http://www.pocketpctweaks.com/pocketpc_tweaks/change_softkey_buttons.html) so that my contacts softkey invokes the new contactmanager app.
I wish I had screen shots of what my phone looks like. Showing it to friends has convinced them that wm5 phones CAN look like ... phones.
I'd love to see somebody "can" all three of these things together. I think a program that allows you to set the background for all three places would be very nice... What's best, all of the pieces I used are free (but, be sure and donate, these guys really out did themselves with this stuff).
Hope this helps somebody else make their phone a little more friendly.
Jason
NOTE: Contacts manager is a little funky when in landscape mode. It works, but display is a bit "off" and "tabs" no longer work. (but, who uses their phone in Landscape mode?)
Link to contact manager shows page not found. can you post fixed? Sounds interesting.
Sorry about that:
Links updated
armedmetallica said:
Link to contact manager shows page not found. can you post fixed? Sounds interesting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey Contact Manager v0.10 is made by one of our members @ xda developers, check out updates in the development and hacking forum.
Did'nt even know that. THat's cool... Great job Tene: ... here's link to that thread: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=314048&highlight=contactsmanager
Wondering if anyone else have a problem with the control of HTC Sense 2.5
Sliding from one tab to another is still pretty difficult for me (no I don't have motoric problems ) Sliding from the home tab to, say, the sixth tab on the right is not as easy as it seems. I can't point to the tab (which is the case for the first five tabs) but I have to scroll my way through a series of passing icons. Somehow this doesn't work for me.
Because I hated this the first time I lay my hands on the HD2 I got used to hiding all but 5 tabs so I can easily jump from one tab to another by just tapping the tab-icon. Now, because the amount of tabs is growing with every new rom, I thought I have to learn to swipe my way throught the tabs.
My question is, are there experienced users who are fluently in this. Can it be learned If so, do you have some tips and tricks.
Love the Vibrant BUT.... The On-Off button is on the right so that when you grab the phone to turn it on or off with your thumb (right handed), your fingers alter the volume buttons on the other side!!! Just because other manufacturers (HTC) have buttons on the top doesn't mean you HAVE to be different (Yes you SAMSUNG)
Also the system buttons on the bottom are FAR too sensitive. Other manufacturers stop using touch buttons because of this years ago.
Also Samsungs android overlay offers no user benefits whatsoever. They could have just offered a new set of widgets and apps with Vanilla android.
BUT NO.... They have to be different .. guess what? All business plans have changed these last couple of years. You do NOT have to be different just for the sake of standing out. I think the Dell Streak is gonna suffer because they are using a propietry charger (Throw all you other ones away and buy Dell's for 30 bucks each!!!!!) I was gonna buy one but now i'm not gonna touch it and support propiatism (made up word).
Calling all cellphone designers.... Please may I be a beta tester for you. I will tell you the truth and give you more feedback (as a heavy user) than any research company.... (Android phones only)
The truth may hurt but you need to hear it.
I can control my fingers individually so that when I grip the phone to hit the power button, I can avoid squeezing the other side of the phone.
Having the button on the side is far better than having it at the top. HTC Evo's tiny button and placement has to be a complete oversight by HTC.
Samsung's TouchWiz 3.0 is pretty nice.
Just because you don't like the Touchwiz interface doesn't mean other people don't like it aswell. I actually enjoy having the default Touchwiz, but I wouldn't mind if it were stock android at all.
just a complainer...IGNORE!
I actually prefer the button on the side. If I use my right hand I can use my thumb and if I use my left hand I can use my index finger
I'm an advanced user
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
simham7537 said:
Calling all cellphone designers.... Please may I be a beta tester for you. I will tell you the truth and give you more feedback (as a heavy user) than any research company.... (Android phones only)
The truth may hurt but you need to hear it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are in no way representative of the user base.
The only complaint I have about the physical design of the phone is, why did they put the antenna at the bottom of the phone? It's easily covered by the hand, which is proven to cause signal degradation.
The antenna is at the bottom of the phone because it is mandated that it be placed at the bottom to move radiation away from your brain.
Still, that's not the issue. Many phones have their radios placed there, and do not suffer from the same reception issues the Vibrant appears to be experiencing.
Not all phones are created equal.
Even though the antenna is on the bottom of the phone, and bars are going down.. it doesn't really affect the speeds or drop your calls. Not sure whats up with that but I don't really care if the bars go down as long as nothing else is affected.
And TouchWiz can be replaced with alternative launchers available on the market. Everything will be great when ROMs will be created for this phone, which shouldn't be too far away considering how easy it was to root.
Jon C said:
The antenna is at the bottom of the phone because it is mandated that it be placed at the bottom to move radiation away from your brain.
Still, that's not the issue. Many phones have their radios placed there, and do not suffer from the same reception issues the Vibrant appears to be experiencing.
Not all phones are created equal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Mandated" Where did you get this nonsense? LOL @ The. Can we try yours and a few others?
simham7537 said:
Love the Vibrant BUT.... The On-Off button is on the right so that when you grab the phone to turn it on or off with your thumb (right handed), your fingers alter the volume buttons on the other side!!! Just because other manufacturers (HTC) have buttons on the top doesn't mean you HAVE to be different (Yes you SAMSUNG)
Also the system buttons on the bottom are FAR too sensitive. Other manufacturers stop using touch buttons because of this years ago.
Also Samsungs android overlay offers no user benefits whatsoever. They could have just offered a new set of widgets and apps with Vanilla android.
BUT NO.... They have to be different .. guess what? All business plans have changed these last couple of years. You do NOT have to be different just for the sake of standing out. I think the Dell Streak is gonna suffer because they are using a propietry charger (Throw all you other ones away and buy Dell's for 30 bucks each!!!!!) I was gonna buy one but now i'm not gonna touch it and support propiatism (made up word).
Calling all cellphone designers.... Please may I be a beta tester for you. I will tell you the truth and give you more feedback (as a heavy user) than any research company.... (Android phones only)
The truth may hurt but you need to hear it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. The power button
Personally I use a case on mine and I don't have any issues with accidentally pushing the power button. I also happen to like it on the right side now that I've used the phone for a litte while. It makes unlocking/turning on the screen much easier than if the button was on top.
2. Touchwiz
Some people like it, some people don't. For the most part, the only thing people are whining about is the application launcher which looks too much like the iPhone. The solution? Use Launcherpro, ADW.Launcher or whatever home replacement you like. You have options!
As for the other nicities of Touchwiz. I happen to like having easy access to the radios from the notification bar. I also like being able to adjust screen brightness by simply sliding my finger on the notification bar. Genius! I also like how you can slide to text or call on the contacts page. The unlock screen and the integration of the default music player is very nice into the lock screen is very nice. I also like the puzzle pieces that appear for missed calls, texts, emails.
In short, I like everything about touchwiz except the launcher which I replaced with Launcher Pro. I'd rather have this setup than if it came with SenseUI. This is my opinion of course, but I think Samsung did a pretty good job.
You can always get 3rd party apps for widgets and the launcher. You can't really replicate the other features I mentioned from what I've seen.
3. The buttons
Other manufacturers stopped using touch buttons? Really?
The Evo 4G, Nexus One, Droid Incredible all use capacitative buttons as well. I wouldn't mind a physical home button.
To each his own. Enjoy the phone or get something else. You have options!
PS: Just remember even though you have options, no other phone will have the Super AMOLED screen.
Now that I've been using the phone a while, here are the things I've found to be the biggest annoyances (in order of how much it bothers me):
1. The e-mail app can't display HTML mail. Also, it has problems making complicated URLs, ones with & or = in them, clickable links. Finally, it doesn't appear to have any copy & paste funcionality.
2. Can't change the default calendar for new appointments.
3. The Facebook calendar sync adds my Facebook calendar items to my Exchange calendar. This isn't great, but what's worse is that it adds the items multiple times, once for each sync, and also puts them at the wrong times, always Pacific Time instead of Eastern Time.
4. The Voicemail number is locked to T-Mobile's designated number. I would like to change it to my Google Voice number so that I can use the speed dial "1" or voicemail tab in the dialer. This is more fore my wife than me, but since she annoys me about it, it in essence annoys me.
5. Battery life... I use my phone heavily, so this is too be expected, but I wish there was an extended battery available.
6. Volume... The max call volume is too low. It's okay most of the time, but if I'm in a noisy area, I have a hard time hearing it. Also, the max volume throught the headphones is too low.
ElahC said:
Just because you don't like the Touchwiz interface doesn't mean other people don't like it aswell. I actually enjoy having the default Touchwiz, but I wouldn't mind if it were stock android at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I like the touchwiz as well. Take the calendar for example, miles ahead of Androids calendar.
simham7537 said:
Love the Vibrant BUT.... The On-Off button is on the right so that when you grab the phone to turn it on or off with your thumb (right handed), your fingers alter the volume buttons on the other side!!! Just because other manufacturers (HTC) have buttons on the top doesn't mean you HAVE to be different (Yes you SAMSUNG)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If this is happening to you, you are gripping the phone far too hard to push the power button.
Also the system buttons on the bottom are FAR too sensitive. Other manufacturers stop using touch buttons because of this years ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep your fingers away from the system buttons.
Also Samsungs android overlay offers no user benefits whatsoever. They could have just offered a new set of widgets and apps with Vanilla android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every android phone has a ****ty overlay (except the Nexus One), so this isn't just an issue with Samsung.
BUT NO.... They have to be different .. guess what? All business plans have changed these last couple of years. You do NOT have to be different just for the sake of standing out. I think the Dell Streak is gonna suffer because they are using a propietry charger (Throw all you other ones away and buy Dell's for 30 bucks each!!!!!) I was gonna buy one but now i'm not gonna touch it and support propiatism (made up word).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Being different is what gets attention, and when you are trying to make money, you want to get attention to your products and company.
Yogi76 said:
4. The Voicemail number is locked to T-Mobile's designated number. I would like to change it to my Google Voice number so that I can use the speed dial "1" or voicemail tab in the dialer. This is more fore my wife than me, but since she annoys me about it, it in essence annoys me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're wife could always just change speed dial "2" to her google voice number, and when she calls that it will take her to her google voicemail.
Just thought I'd post my thoughts on the Note II that I just bought yesterday.
Since happily dumping my iphone 4 I've been running a Galaxy Nexus on stock JB 4.2.1. Love the Nexus but I was pretty keen on the big form factor of the Note II but couldn't wrap my mind around the steep price, so for laughs ordered a Nexus 7 3G, figuring that between the 2 Nexus devices I'd have everything covered. Didn't really work out that way.
Nexus 7 is now for sale after a week, device is nice but I had to admit that I really don't have much regular need for a tablet, even a 3G one. So I bit the bullet and bought a Note II and have spent most of this morning configuring it...man is all that Samsung bloatware a mess! Not to mention the carrier's crap that I`ll have to root and remove. I am a gadget-a-holic and pretty good technically but this thing is pretty overwhelming in some ways.
A few observations/questions, feel free to comment:
- In the main app drawer for instance, the apps do not seem to auto-sort alphabetically like the do on my GNex...is there a sort setting for this? A pretty handy feature when you have a gazillion apps
- when I set a wallpaper background on the GNex, the background moves as you switch pages; on the Note the BG remains fixed...a setting?
- no matter how hard I fight it, I can't make apps group together by dropping one on top of the other, the lower one just keeps squirting out of the way...what am I doing wrong?
All together an impressive device though. While I'm a gadget freak I HATE collecting devices, I always get rid of inventory on Kijiji while it still has sale-ability, but in this case I think the GNex will be sticking around for at least a month or so or until I'm convinced the big Note II can work as a single phone. If not I'll keep both, because I don't see getting rid of the Note even if it is used most of the time as the tablet I said I didn't need...
Now just need to figure out how to root this thing and install a nice clean rom.
Cheers
Followup post: The original apps are in fact alpha-sorted in the drawer, but all add-ons are appended to the end of the drawer list/pages, in the order they were installed. Will reboot to see if they re-sort.
- In the main app drawer for instance, the apps do not seem to auto-sort alphabetically like the do on my GNex...is there a sort setting for this? A pretty handy feature when you have a gazillion apps
- when I set a wallpaper background on the GNex, the background moves as you switch pages; on the Note the BG remains fixed...a setting?
- no matter how hard I fight it, I can't make apps group together by dropping one on top of the other, the lower one just keeps squirting out of the way...what am I doing wrong?
1. Go to app drawer, press left sencor button and choose "view type" and you can customize grid sorting
2. only with modded TW you can make wallpaper scrolling
3. Firstly, u need create folder and then go to app drawer, press left sencor button, click edit, choose folder and press to add apps to that folder
EdgaBimbam said:
- In the main app drawer for instance, the apps do not seem to auto-sort alphabetically like the do on my GNex...is there a sort setting for this? A pretty handy feature when you have a gazillion apps
- when I set a wallpaper background on the GNex, the background moves as you switch pages; on the Note the BG remains fixed...a setting?
- no matter how hard I fight it, I can't make apps group together by dropping one on top of the other, the lower one just keeps squirting out of the way...what am I doing wrong?
1. Go to app drawer, press left sencor button and choose "view type" and you can customize grid sorting
2. only with modded TW you can make wallpaper scrolling
3. Firstly, u need create folder and then go to app drawer, press left sencor button, click edit, choose folder and press to add apps to that folder
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Will do, thanks!
How about Contacts sorting by Last Name?!
alphasports said:
Will do, thanks!
How about Contacts sorting by Last Name?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to contacts, settings and you will find
alphasports said:
Will do, thanks!
How about Contacts sorting by Last Name?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
contacts -> setting -> display contact by last name
edit : EdgaBimbam faster
To skip all the carrier junk I bought mine from Amazon the international version
As long as you don't mind the higher price
No carrier blotware
No waiting for carrier to approve updates
Works almost anywhere on almost all networks
No having to unlock it if you need a different carrier
Sent from my Samsung Infuse running PA JellyBean using the xda-developers app
Thanks for the replies.
- When I go to Contacts I do not have a Settings command available (unlike the 3 little dots in the Nexus JB)
- When I go to the App Drawer to sort apps, and press the left sensor, I get Google+ launching, not a sort menu
Sorry for the noob ?s
Cheers
Got it figured out thanks
zacharysblubaugh said:
To skip all the carrier junk I bought mine from Amazon the international version
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heck yeah, that's why I did it. I don't think the OP realizes this forum section is for the N7100/7105, which are the non-carrier branded, international versions.
sleebus.jones said:
Heck yeah, that's why I did it. I don't think the OP realizes this forum section is for the N7100/7105, which are the non-carrier branded, international versions.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not if you live in a so called "international" country and buy one from a local carrier, like I did
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda app-developers app
If you want your apps together in a folder like on the iphone just go to your home screen and hit menu and create folder and drop your apps on there just like the iphone
Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2
Just love threads like this when people rant on how crap a phone is over their last one just to find it was them either doing it wrong or not been quite the expert on phones they thought they were.
Sent from my Samsung Note II.
alphasports said:
Thanks for the replies.
- When I go to Contacts I do not have a Settings command available (unlike the 3 little dots in the Nexus JB)
- When I go to the App Drawer to sort apps, and press the left sensor, I get Google+ launching, not a sort menu
Sorry for the noob ?s
Cheers
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1-tab on the menu button the on the left of home button u will get setting
2-same thing ^
First of all, if any of this has been asked and answered in other threads, I apologize. I did look! But there are a ton of threads to go through. I even did a search.
So, I had a Gear S2 sport, and I wanted to upgrade and get something that looks nicer (Gear S2 even with band adapters doesn't looks so good), so I thought I'd try out AW and so I got a Huawei Watch 2 Classic. So far, whoa, this is a whole new beast! I guess I didn't think that two different smart watch OS's would be so different!
Anyway, some things I REALLY miss about Tizen wear:
The ability to scroll left or right to get to menus/widgets/etc. (this only brings up watchface selection for me. Can't seem to find a way to change it, seems like a HUGE waste of possible functions!).
Adding widgets (not watchface widgets, actual screens you can scroll to, like swipe to the right to see for example). This I really miss. I could scroll right and glance at the weather, calendar, control my phones music player, etc. It was SO helpful and functional. Not having this also seems like a HUGE waste of possible functionality.
Sooo, is there any way to do any of this? I see there are launchers for AW, but I haven't found anything yet that quite does this. Some DO allow swiping left or right to pull up menus and such, which is a great start, but no widgets.
Also, is there any way to adjust the screen timeout? I cannot find anything... If I have the always-on active and I wake the watch, it times out and goes back to ambient mode in 5 seconds. With always-on disabled, it turns off after 10 seconds. It would be nice to be able to set this for longer. This is particularly annoying.
Anyway, thanks for any help! I want to give this a try and will give the new watch a few days at least, but to be honest, I'm already thinking about exchanging it for a Gear S3. So, let me know what I can do to remedy this please!