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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_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",
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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
(reposted to a more relevant subforum)
Hello All,
It's probably a stupid question for most of the ppl here, but I need to know how to remove all that HTC branding and their eye candy. I'm working on some software and we will be using HD2 for a demo. The problem is that some phone manufactures hire retards that break very fundamental things in WinCE and that destroys my APP completely.
So, I simply want to know how to get rid of all their junk and have vanilla default WinMobile 6.5 installation on that phone.
For curious ppl: the problem with their software that i have is that the "X" button that meant to do some action doesn't do anything in my app, it simply minimizes it and my app doesn't get any notification that the "X" button was clicked. The Acer phone (also with snapdragon) at the beginning had an opposite problem, the 'X' button would always kill my app even if I handle WM_CLOSE/IDCANCEL messages properly, but with latest update that problem was fixed. Latest update in HTC/T-mobile still has that same problem and I absolutely have to find a solution asap. Using some cooked ROM is not an option (cannot be accepted by the customer).
If it's not very clear what I'm talking about: on some old old htc devices after factory reset I had to hold green and red call buttons on the first boot to prevent it from running operator branding junk. That's what I want to do on the HD2 phone from T-Mobile
Hi,
look at some of the ROMs here. There are some which contains only WM without Sense (what you call branding). Other way is just disable Sense in the Settings for the Home Screen and see if your application still does not work.
But to be honest, I guess it's more an issue of your application and WM 6.5 not a "branding" issue.
bye
Sven
It's the issue of that sense thing and has nothing to do with the os or my app itself. I'm not doing any quirks, I simply follow documented stuff on ms web site and it doesn't work.
The top bar that contains the 'X' button seems to be modified or subclassed by their junk code and that's why my app doesn't receive messages that it it receives just in every other mobile phone that I test with (6 and 6.5 WinMo, for 6.5 Acer s200, toshiba tg01, samsung omnia all work just the way they are expected to work). I absolutely can't use any other rom (I can take hummer and do whatever i want with my test device, but for the real demo at the customer site nothing like that can't even be discussed).
As was said, you can get roms without Sense at all, where Sense covers the majority of the HTC customization, or you can simply disable it in the Today Screen setup. Beyond that, if the X button is your only concern, get a task manger and force its behavior to what you want.
The stock HD2 doesn't have a task manager or any change to the smart minimize behavior, so the message sent when the X is hit should be WM_ACTIVATE with parameters fActive = WA_INACTIVE and nonzero fMinimized. If you're used to seeing a WM_CLOSE message, those are WinMo installs where the Smart Minimize button has been customized to close, rather than the HD2 being the modified environment. The stock HD2 does, on the other hand, have a very aggressive memory recovery config that practically allows only one program running at a time. That aggressive OOM killer is why the smart minimize was left at default behavior.
That's what I figured after testing that it has that horrible smart minimize. What about poor guys like me who don't like smart stuff at all? What that aggressive memory recovery thing you mentioned? What does that mean? All current devices have way more memory than os 6 can allow to be used. All shared dlls in total take like 10MB nowdays that leaves all the apps with like 20MB addressable ram. That's the problem and aggressive memory recovery sounds like some buzz word that has no meaning in the real life (unless I'm a total noob and fail to see the "smart" part in the aggressive memory config
Any way I can disable smart minimize? By the way, I figured that I can workaround that smart crap: I made a test app and it works as expected, the only difference is that my app uses different window style flags which seem to trigger smart behavior.
hattmoward said:
Beyond that, if the X button is your only concern, get a task manger and force its behavior to what you want.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That worked perfectly!
I tried to check HTC task manager : http://www.freewarepocketpc.net/ppc-download-htc-task-manager-v2-0.html
and it did exactly what I wanted. It did not modify anything, it did not add that manager as shown on the download page but it simply disabled smart minimize thing and it's now working as expected/required.
thanks for help!
I got my Omnia 2 back in March. I am a very beginning user, meaning I do not know how to use roms and cooking and registry editors etc... I was hoping I could get a step by step guide to changing my theme. (if that is what it is called) I would like it to be more intuitive, like the iphone or android. I am also uncomfortable using a registry editor, I do not know what I am doing.
I have been able (with this board and others help) to unlock the GPS, and how to tether the phone to my laptop without using verizon's software.
My main problems:
-the phone is slow, I think because the 10 apps I have installed are all on my device and not in my storage, I have tried to remedy that by installing directly to my storage, but it often doesn't work.
-sometimes after a phone call it shuts down or goes black and I have to take out the battery to turn it back on
-I also can't see the screen in sunlight
-my email isn't being sent out from my hotmail account
I have searched for solutions to these problems, but to no avail. (at least for beginners like me)
Verizon Wireless Samsung Omnia 2 S:i920
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
What other information is needed?
Thank you so much for your help! I will gladly donate to a developers project if I can get some support. (so I don't have to go buy a new phone!)
I've tried answering some of you questions below. hope it helps.
erieboatergal said:
I got my Omnia 2 back in March. I am a very beginning user, meaning I do not know how to use roms and cooking and registry editors etc... I was hoping I could get a step by step guide to changing my theme. (if that is what it is called) I would like it to be more intuitive, like the iphone or android. I am also uncomfortable using a registry editor, I do not know what I am doing.
I have been able (with this board and others help) to unlock the GPS, and how to tether the phone to my laptop without using verizon's software.
My main problems:
-the phone is slow, I think because the 10 apps I have installed are all on my device and not in my storage, I have tried to remedy that by installing directly to my storage, but it often doesn't work.
Try the task manager to close any programs running in the background. That usually slows mine down.
-sometimes after a phone call it shuts down or goes black and I have to take out the battery to turn it back on
Mine too. Join the club. Not a big deal as it will get your phone running faster again!
-I also can't see the screen in sunlight
Have you gone into your settings and adjusted your backlight settings? Might help.
-my email isn't being sent out from my hotmail account
Go into your options in your hotmail account on the phone and you should be able to set up hotmail to be pushed immediately to your phone. you might have yours set to manual.
I have searched for solutions to these problems, but to no avail. (at least for beginners like me)
Verizon Wireless Samsung Omnia 2 S:i920
Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional
What other information is needed?
Thank you so much for your help! I will gladly donate to a developers project if I can get some support. (so I don't have to go buy a new phone!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for your suggestions
I have the setting to shut down programs when I press the x in the corner, so no programs are running.
Yours shuts down too? I think it is ridiculous! You pay $200 some dollars for a phone and have to take the battery out b/c it freezes? It is getting pretty annoying, especially when I have to make back to back phone calls or am trying to get a couple things done.
I was able to adjust the lightness settings, so the screen is bright all the time instead of being dull. I haven't had a chance to test it in sunlight yet. (It's been raining here, and I work in an office)
I do have my email pushed to my phone, but I just can't send anything out. I tried adjusting the settings, and even deleted the email account and then added it again. I'm not sure what else to do.
Again, I really appreciate you trying to help. I didn't think that getting a smart phone would require so much work and research to get it to act like I want it, which is nice easy push button intuitive. Instead, everything is so complicated!
Pushing the X button doesn't necessarily shut down the program, it may simply minimize it. That's why I suggested using the task manager to ensure that all programs are properly closed. I would have thought that windows would have figured out task management by now, but that's why they have the task manager built in. The phone will lock up only when it runs low on main memory which is likely due to too many programs running in the background. With a regular check of my running programs I find that my phone may lock up only once a week at worst.
regarding your Hotmail, do you have the box "send immediatley" checked? Otherwise you need to tap send/receive to send.
As for the screen brightness, I find mine hard to see in direct sunlight but it's mainly due to the shiny screen protector that's on my screen
The phone is a bit daunting to start off with and I have run WM2003, WM5, WM6, WM6.1 and now this Samsung with WM6.5. be patient as this phone can do alot and the best part is, if you invest the time into it, you can customize your phone to the way you like it, not some arbitrary user interface like some of the others. BTW.... stop reading about flashing the ROM and editing the registry for now. Just play with your settings and the settings of each program to get them working the way you want them to. If you are going to start cooking, I'd like chocolate chip cookies please!
AND back it up before you go too far so that if you screw it up badly, you have a back up to go back to.
.
I will start using the task manager from now on.
I do have the send immediately box checked.
I'm trying to be patient lol, but i gotta have it now! Like I said before I have had the phone since March, but have been unable to do a lot of customizing. I am not sure about downloading themes, b/c I don't understand what a lot of them are.
Is there a place just to download themes?
Downloading themes means that you are changing the user interface of the phone iteself. first you need to decide which User interface program you want to use, download and install the trial, then search for a theme you like and download and install that as well. Guess what.... more customizing! Are you not happy with the Samsung Today interface that comes with the phone? or are you looking for a completely different experience?
Themes are like wall paper for the user interface program.... eye candy. Every user interface is about showing you pertinent information at a glance on the screen without the need to go digging into apps for that info. different user interfaces will also require differing levels of customization based upon which programs you have already loaded onto you phone and how you want the user interface (UI) to interact with those programs. This level of customization can be easy or hard depending upon the UI, so be prepared for more playing around. Add different themes which will then require more customizing as a theme is esssentially a customization of the UI. Differing UIs will also chane how you access programs, how you can group shortcuts to your liking, and the general experience of interacting with your phone.
Windows Mobile is definitely NOT a iphone experience, where how you interact is dictated by the manufacturer. Your phone allows for a huge amount of customizing to make your phone a truly unique experience.
As for your Hotmail acct, I'm not sure what else could be going on with it as it's really simple to set up and it sounds like you got it nailed. Is it connecting at all?
Another idea on your hotmail acct... have you tried sending yourself a test e-mail at work or at home? I know with mine there is never anything in my sent items on my phone and it might make you think nothing got sent.
Just an idea.....
i edited the power settings, so my screen is bright all the time and now i can sort of see it in the sun
erieboatergal said:
i edited the power settings, so my screen is bright all the time and now i can sort of see it in the sun
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd suggest to set it to "Auto"... that way it will be at 100% brightness in direct sunlight while keeping the backlight lower when it's not needed, resulting in a lower battery drain
Hi everyone. I just purchased my Droid X last week, and I'm having some migrating pains coming from Windows Mobile 6.5 (HTC Touch Pro 2, Mighty ROM) over to Android. I'm wondering if the fine folks here at XDA can help me ease into the Android OS a little easier.
Here are the things I miss most about WinMo, maybe you can tell me some viable alternatives.
1) The Dialer. - Skip the next 3 paragraphs if you're familiar with HTC Sense on WinMo.
The dialer absolutely sucks compared to the TP2. Having to click different tabs juts annoys me. In the TP2, the dialer and recent calls were displayed in a single window, so if I wanted to dial Steve, I had 2 ways of doing it.
The first way was to dial 7(S), 8(T). The phone would recognize I am spelling out Steve, and list everyone who fits the ST criteria sorted by most recently called. The more I spelled out his name, the narrower the results got.
The second method was to dial his number. Pretend Steve's number is (123) 456-7890. If I dialed 123, it would sort all contacts with numbers who matched the area code, and it would narrow the results as I typed more of his phone number.
I really hate having to tap between Contacts (there is a contacts soft button next to the dialer anyway), I would just click that if I wanted to from the beginning.
Are there any dialers out there closer to the HTC Dialer?
2) Contacts.
There has to be a better contact manager. Not being able to quickly tap a letter to get to contacts is really dumb.
3) Ninja Applications.
Why do I keep seeing applications running that I never started when I load Advance Task Killer. It's really annoying when I load up an App, and go to close it, and see Skype and CityID running when I never launched either of them. I'm almost afraid to set up AIM on my phone at this point.
4) GPS.
If I keep my GPS on, my battery gets killed. With my TP2, it would only use the GPS when it needed it, so for weather updates, and Google Maps, otherwise it stayed off (or was in a suspend state). I turned the GPS on my first day and had 0 battery by around 2 (left the house at 8). Is there any way to set the GPS to only be used, as needed?
5) APPLICATIONS EVERYWHERE.
Is there anyway to sort these into folders? Also, is there anyway to add an X to the application so I can close it when I'm done with it rather than having to launch an App just to close the App I just used?
I really liked the Sense way of doing it, where I had an X in the Application, and a drop down on the home screen that would list the open Apps so I could close them 1 at a time.
6) MotoBlur.
Ugh, I really hate this UI. Has anyone had any experience with SenseX?
7) Custom Roms.
I've seen a handful of Custom ROMs, and I'm planning on putting one on when I have some time next week. I need a good way to backup contacts, after I just spent an hour linking everyone, but I'd like to know if there is a decent Apples to Apples comparison of the ROMs. They don't seem to be outlines as detailed as I'm used to.
On this topic, are there any problems setting up things like MMS once you install a Custom ROM? It was a nightmare on the TP2, but those ROMs were also made for multiple carriers, which isn't a problem with this phone, so I imagine it shouldn't be an issue.
----------------------------------
Thank you for taking the time to read this wall of text.
Other than the 7 things listed, I love the phone. Finding MortPlayer for Droid made my day. I'm looking forward to unlocking it's true potential, and I hope my list isn't a bunch of things I'm just going to have to adjust to.
Thank you again, have a great day.
EDIT:
Also, it's really annoying that every time I connect my phone to my PC, it launches a Verizon web site. Is there anyway to disable this?
Ok... I will take a stab at this.
FIRST, You DO NOT have to settle for the apps that come preinstalled on your phone! Just had to clear that up... Ok, here we go:
Check an app called "Dialer One" and see if that fits your needs... I haven't used it in a while... but heard it still a great replacement for the stock dialer.
Searching for a better Contact Manager is on my To-Do list.. hope someone comes in and help out a little more with that one
Don't worry about the "ninja" apps TOO much. Android Froyo has an amazing task manager and even though you SEE the apps as "running applications", they are not really RUNNING. They are more like... in a queue.. so they are ready for whenever you come back to them....but you still have to watch what the apps are doing. Some do not play nicely and hog memory. I'll link a good post here in a minute explaining that a little better.
There is a widget that can help you out here.. it's called "Power Control" put that bad boy on your homescreen and the option to turn on/off wifi, bluetooth, gps, etc is at your fingertips (for even more controls... check out "Extended Controls" in the market. It cost like $1 and some change)
I'm... not really following this one. For one.. you CAN use folders on your homescreen and put whatever your heart desires in them.. and label it accordingly. I'm not sure what you mean by the "X" in the app
SenseX?? What is that?? Anyway.. as you will find out soon, 99% of the Droid X community despise MotoBlur!! You can use a different Home Launcher and not use Blur. Two of the major Home Launcher replacements are Adw.launcher & LauncherPro... which one is better is a whole different story. They are both great and only YOU can choose which one is best. There many threads comparing them and they run neck to neck mostly. I'm on LauncherPro personally
Custom Roms?? Eh.. I personally do my own developments and theming on my phone and do not use them... there not really all what they cracked up to be because whatever they have on them... I can do myself. So I'm not much of an help on that one... Somebody else maybe will chime in.
P.S-To fix the Verizon thing, go to the "M" in the taskbar at the bottom of your screen by the clock on your PC and right click it.. there should be an option saying to tell it to NOT send you to the Verizon site when you connect your phone. I don't know the EXACT wording of the option menu.. I'm on a mac
Thank you for your reply.
I will check out the Dialer. Thank you very much.
Darn!
A friend of mine told me that, but it's hard for me to not be a bit OCD about background Applications. I've been a Windows user most of my life, and coming from WinMo, background apps really kill performance.
More than anything, my issue is with things like Skype loading when I do not want to be signed in. I want auto-login when I launch the Application, but I don't want the application loading when it feels like it, and me getting a random IM or call from someone when I didn't even tell it to log in.
It also bothers me that Amazon MP3, something I've never even loaded, has turned itself on. It makes me feel like I don't have control over my phone.
I do have a widget that lets me turn these things on and off, I was just hoping for a way to set it up so that the GPS is "pinged" and only used as needed, and turned back off. My TP2 did this, and was a great battery saver. Having to turn the GPS on and off just to get a weather update based on location is a bit annoying.
I didn't mean on the home-screen, I meant in the application list. So when I hit the application list, I can sort them by "Games", "Google", etc.
For the "X", what I mean is in reference to closing an App. In WinMo, the top right of the screen had an X, and if I touched that X, the app would close. Now, once I exit the App, I need to use an application killer to close said App.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764840
Looks like Sense for the Droid X. In Beta now, so I'm waiting for a stable release.
Really, it's just to get rid of bloatware and take advantage of some performance optimizations that have been made.
A couple of other things that have come up.
I need a better keyboard. One with arrows so I can navigate text. Touching isn't precise enough, and I don't have a stylus with this phone. Today I voiced a text message, and I went to correct an error, but I couldn't get the curse to go in the exact spot I needed it to go into. My old OSK had arrow soft-keys I could tap to navigate with.
Also, I notice when I pull my phone out of the leather pouch I have, when I hit the power button it comes up in landscape, and the accelerometer doesn't pick up on the turn. I need to turn the screen off and turn it back on.
Finally, I'm having extender issues, but I think I need to call VZW for that. When leaving my house, I can't reconnect to Data without a power-cycle.
Thank you for the reply.
my .02
3. Break yourself from the taskiller need. If you have programs allways running that you dont need, ie skype or city id. Root and delete those SOB's. you can look around and there are plenty of articles of why not to use them. Android is a linux based os. Linux is far supirior to Win in memeory management. You dont need task killers.
4. if your gps is turned on its not always running. It only runs when needed. Is by chance your wifi on? that will run all the time by searching for access points. if not you might have maps running, make sure to always back out of maps and not just hit home. That way it closes and doesnt just run in background. (actually goes for most apps)
5 organization- you cant sort the app drawer, you can hide apps (just the icons) using launcher pro, not sure if ADW has that option. Useing folders or the app "app manager" is your best bet
extra. swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.
I came from winmo- so I know all about your "X" pains. But I say forget about a task killer or even killing tasks (except maybe maps and navigation). I did a little reading about pros and cons and decided to try the "no task killer" approach. I haven't had any problems. the task killer is a pain anyways. you can kill apps all day long and there are a bunch of them that are just going to repopulate themselves in like 5 minutes. I just said, "fegetaboutit". My phone runs great.
if you open the dialer and are on the contacts tab just long press the menu button (the physical button) and your keyboard will pop up. start typing and contacts will appear.
I like "Zeam Launcher". There is a thread here on XDA. I have Launcher Pro+ -but actually liked Zeam so much I use it. Just different preferences though.
that's all i got for now.
Thank you for your replies.
I will try to be a bit less OCD regarding my tasks. I did kill a couple of services of applications that kept starting, like Skype.
I'll check out those launchers and see if I like them better.
Any good stock widgets?
EDIT:
So I just tried to check my location on Google Maps with GPS turned off, and it says I need to turn it on.
How do I set it up to use the GPS as needed?
I leave location services on (GPS)
My theory is that applications will only enable GPS when they need them, so if you have a application running that wants GPS, it will use it.
The GPS icon appears in the notification bar when I'm using something that is using GPS, so I assume its only actually on when this icon is present. Leave it on in settings just makes is available.
Any widget or application that has a setting for manual location (Weather, IMDB) I use it, and disable GPS location, to keep GPS from running all of the time.
To exit an app you are using, either hit the back button or the home button.
If you are worried about "ninja" apps using cpu and memory, you can try a minfree adjustment application such as AutoKiller Memory Optimizer. It fine tunes android's inner memory manager to be a bit more aggressive in closing applications.
I use another Rom (rubiX, link in sig) that already has minfree adjusted (according to the author) and it does help in keeping the X smooth. It also removes all (well most) of Blur and default installed apps as well, so you start with a very clean X.
The default home screen (blur) is crap. I would also suggest replacing it with LauncherPro or ADW
For removing the pre-installed applications. Follow this guide
http://www.droidxforums.com/forum/d...ta-3-ways-super-easy-safe-safe-easy-free.html
Some apps in /system/app/ are not named what they are
(IE. mynet.apk = 3g Hotspot)
For a keyboard anywhere, you can hold the menu button, and it will pop up.
Swype is really a few keyboards. Swype from the icon to the SYM button, it will give you the edit panel (arrows, home, end, copy, paste, etc...) press the ABC button to go back.
Swype from the icon to the f key, it will turn into a number pad. Press the ABC button to go back to the normal keyboard.
Run the tutorial on Swype too, it will give you some very nice pointers on it's use. I used Swype on windows mobile and I found out a few things about Swype I never knew.
Also, as for touching where your cursor is in a text field, if you press and hold, and magnifying bubble will pop up. This makes moving the cursor easier
Did you find a dialer yet? I saw these posted and thought about this thread...
http://www.appbrain.com/app/kz.mek.DialerOne
http://www.appbrain.com/app/acontacts/kz.mek.aContacts
Haven't had a chance to try them yet.
bad4u6669 said:
.... swype has arrows. swype from the swype icon to abc and it will bring up a new keyboard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OMG. thanks. been loving swype but that has been driving me nuts. Thanks for the info.
Thank you for the replies.
One of the things I liked about my TP2, is I could leave location services on, and it used very little battery.
I guess Weather Bug just SUCKS battery out like crazy. I turned on the GPS last night for something, and decided to see how well it did with battery today. It turns out that some grocery shopping app I wanted to try was sucking my GPS dry (no idea why)... yet another "ninja app" that just started up because it felt like it (this kind of **** really makes me , programs should only start up when I tell them to, not when a component of my phone turns on).
I live in an apartment that has really bad signal (I actually have a Network Extender), so that might be my GPS constantly trying to update when I'm at home killing my battery.
WeatherBug is set to update every hour, so I'm going to see what happens tomorrow with the GPS turned on. It would be nice if I could just set it and forget it, not need to turn it off every time I come home.
Thank you for the contact program, I might check it out. I've been pretty content since I got DialerOne and found out I can get the keyboard up by holding the options.
I tried LauncherPro, and I LOVED it at first, and my phones performance was fantastic!
Then I found out it charges me to resize widgets... WTF is that crap?
I'm going to try some other launchers and see what happens. I'm getting the hang of it, but I still do not like things starting up on their own. Regardless of memory management, my phone should not just decide to boot up programs on it's own.
the phone only does what the app or the user tells it to do. If theirs an app that you don't like, delete it.
And complaining that launcher pro charges for every thing it offers is ridiculous. Every thing it offers for free already ( 7 home screens, 10 rows and columns, unreal speed improvement, etc. ) then to get the extras its less than most people throw away on a daily basis. Where as this three dollars its money that pays off on a daily basis
Adw and lp should be paid apps from the start for all they offer.
You have 3 options, write your own program, use the stock launcher, find a free one.
-end rant
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
I usually leave my location setting on "Use Wireless Networks" and don't bother with GPS other than for maps and navigation. Works fine for all of my other apps that need a location (e.g., weather).
There are apps out there that can turn GPS on and off automatically when you run a particular app, such as Tasker (which can do a whole host of things, but that is one one of them). Tasker is a paid app, but there might be something free out there that does something similar.
Also, I agree with the previous poster re: Launcher Pro. It's really a fantastic home launcher and well worth a few bucks to support the developer. The LP Plus widgets are also a lot better than any of the Blur widgets.
In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.
EtherBoo said:
In the end, I probably will buy it, but I'm going to play around with some of the free ones first.
Tasker sounds like it might be worth it for that feature alone (being able to turn the GPS on and off at will). I'm just surprised a feature like this wasn't built in to begin with, considering WinMo has had it for years.
On an unrelated note, can anyone recommend a good media player? I'm going to be flying soon and want to test the battery out on Airplane mode while watching a movie from the SD card. I need something that can decode a variety of formats, mostly XviD for stuff like digital movie copies and TV shows.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You might want to look into RockPlayer. That's the only one I found so far that decodes ALMOST anything on the spot.
The "Ninja Applications" are running because Android is a true multi tasking OS.
Sent from my DROIDX using XDA App
I hope necromancy isn't frowned upon on this board, so my apologies if it is.
I found a new problem because I had the nerve to attempt to update a contact photo after Facebook had saved it's picture to it.
This is especially frustrating because I'm going to want to override a lot of these photos very soon.
Apparently, updating the photo updates the Google Contact photo, but the phone only displays the Facebook photo. This is a bug confirmed by Moto that will be fixed in a future update.
This leaves me with 2 options.
De-Sync FB, which I'm not thrilled about only because I like getting the most recent status update prior to receiving a call, and There is a lot of info that FB fills in for me.
Copy down all the FB info, and fill it in manually. With Google Contacts not being the best contact manager (I'm very OCD about uniformity in the way things are formatted), I really don't want to do this.
So I figure I need a new contact manager. I tried AContacts, and it crashed every time I tried to edit a contact.
I would love something like the HTC one that comes with WinMo, or maybe even the iPhone one.
I would be willing to pay for this.
P.S.
I'm now rooted and running a custom ROM (zapX I think it's called). I'm loving my phone much more now. My battery life has skyrocketed, and my performance is amazing now. Very iPhone smooth (one thing I was always jealous of, and I hate the iPhone).
Well, even though I actually don't have a problem with WinMo 6.5 outside of a few minor annoyances I've decided to make the switch over to Android...guessing NAND...though, still looking to here about WinMo 7...
I'm just noticing that there is more support and apps being developed for Android and the future of my HD2 suddenly shows more growth...have my fingers crossed waiting for Netflix to resolve the DRM issues they have with Android!
I was always waiting for a solid Android build that actually replaced WinMo (NAND is finally here). During that time I used WinMo and actually liked it. First thing I will miss is the customization. I don't think there's another Mobile OS that beats it in that department...and I REALLY like customizing.
I've been using Android more now and still don't understand how the NAND will work. Have read a lot...as far as installing, that won't be a problem with me. My questions start with customizing. Where will the media folder be? Is there a folder on the SD card that Android associates ring tones with? I make my own ringtones as mp3 files, so i need to know the structure of how Android handles media. WinMo was simple. Also, the Android build I was using did not support USB without major hickups...well...it just didn't work. I'm not going to assume all Android builds are like this, but can I expect Android to be able to link via USB and I can work with it as a storage device and create folders and organize in this manor?
I know you guys work hard and appreciate it, so please do not take this the wrong way. Which Android build is the most stable at this time with all features working? I ask this cuz I notice there tends to be some builds that come along much slower than others and bugs as well as a lack of hardware support can occur. Is there a build that's considered stable and all hardware is supported?
I've basically been trying to make Android provide the same experience as far as apps and ease of use I had with WinMo...I think I'm there.
Does Android have a set structure with Wallpapers...ringtones...documents and such? Example...does each file type have its own folder on the device or storage card in which Android associates the tools which manages them? I always keep my device clean and move all files to the card that don't NEED to be on the device. Is this possible with Android?
Android play well with Microsoft Docs?...Word?
I've always felt that Android ran smoother than WinMo 6.5. I noticed after a while it can get a little sluggish. Is Android like that? I believe Android is Linux base? I'm expecting memory management to better. On PC, I'm use to any Unix based OS to out perform WinAnything with resource management.
I also noticed something strange about some of these apps in the Android market. One, a lot of adds within the apps. Two, a lot of these apps tend to require access of priveledge areas that can be security risks...to make it worse you fine yourself saying why a browser would need access to anything else outside on internet and maybe GPS. Other apps have access to areas that make no sense to me.
Are their security issues with Android...it's market...or apps?
That's all i can think of now. Didn't have a moment to proof read, so please excuse me. Have to take care of a few things. be back shortly.
Thanks.
WOW! What can I say... Ditto. I love WinMo, but I'm fearful that I'm watching it's death rattle. Win Phone 7 seems like a illegitimate infant in a world of fast moving, focused, college freshmen (albeit, not the brightest).
I had a lot of reservations with switching from WM. Mainly related to the phone being able to handle work related stuff. So I too ran WM and android on SD. I must admit though, that after having run android for almost 2 months without loading WM, (I basically pretended I had bought a new phone and forgot all I could do with WM), I had figured out work-arounds and got it running more than sufficiently. The only problem I had was having to back-up the SD in fear of a random reboot corrupting the data.img. Now with NAND, it's no longer a problem. I can honestly say that the switch was easy, and I'm glad I no longer have winmo in my life.
IMO Android is a far superior OS, and I can't sing it's praises enough.
As for all the questions:
Media folder is built like this:
media
->audio
->->alarms
->->notifications
->->ringtones
->->ui
Different folders are available for their obvious uses (i.e. go into ringtone selection, and you don't get the ui folder listed).
USB is more than stable (for me at least), never had a problem since NAND. Having most stuff moved to SDCard the phone hates it when I plug it in as a disk drive, (widgets disappear etc.) but within a minute of unplugging it it's back to normal.
I personally feel the desire build are the best, however as for more stable? I believe we are reaching a plateau where stability is the norm. I have tried nexus builds, and have had no problems with them either, it's just personal taste. The HD builds (Desire HD Base) are a little more 'experimental' but with reading, you'll learn what works on each build, and what doesn't. Figure what's important to you, and check.
The best advice I can give is get hold of SPB Backup (For WM). Do a full backup. Then jump in at android's deep end. (After reading how obviously). If you don't like it, re-flash winmo, redo your backup, and it's like you never left. You won't regret it though.
Man I'd love to dump WM as well, bu I can't bear the thought of all the days going by where I can't be the dude on the bus who reboots into ubuntu to pass the time...sigh.
MattOG said:
The best advice I can give is get hold of SPB Backup (For WM). Do a full backup. Then jump in at android's deep end. (After reading how obviously). If you don't like it, re-flash winmo, redo your backup, and it's like you never left. You won't regret it though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Microsoft My Phone actually does fine with all the backup I need.
I'm still wondering about security issues. Example: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20026804-83.html
Also, hit a bump in the road. It would seem that Android doesn't support the Mugen 2600 Extended battery!
The primary security issue with Android isn't Android or Linux, it's Google. Google's security is very problematical, Gmail has been hacked (as has Gmails security software) by someone.*
*Some think it's the Chinese government, the official Chinese response is, "No, it's just kids" but since all hacked accounts we know about have been dissidents, the government theory looks pretty solid....
The primary issue is NOT Google. It's the user.
If you're loading up banking apps on a device that you could lose, be stolen, or bluetooth hacked, then don't blame anyone but oneself.
I've yet to know anyone who's been phone-hacked if that's any consolation.
As a former hd2/android user Id have to say It makes the entire experience of the phone better.
I think it also depends on what you are use to. as far as customizing I would venture to say that there is just as much customization with winmo as there is android. Though id have to say I found myself looking for skins more often than not cause winmo was so ugly to me.
I enjoy having almost direct access to all my data without it having to look like winphone7.
As far as security I think its always been tighter because most people were on different types of phones. now that we have blackberrys and iphones and android phones I think possible viruses will show.
I believe google has a built in kill switch for rogue apps. Also if you buy apps from the legit market you should have no problem!
Ok two things that I'm trying not to get frustrated about before I put a little research into it...
First, why in the world does Android want to crop every image instead of using the entire image as a wallpaper?
I even have wallpapers that are the exact size of the display and Android still wants to crop a small portion of that image?....help please...
Second, why can't I get a simple widget or window dedicated to favorite contacts, such as sense in WinMo does without having to pay for it?
Android doesn't have a simple tool that allows you to setup a favs like Sense does in WinMo? There's this LaucherPro that wants to charge me to do so?
Thanks
Why does Photoshop Express require access to personal information, phone calls and full internet access?
Devils1stBorn said:
Why does Photoshop Express require access to personal information, phone calls and full internet access?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
checking the install notes It says
the only one that bothers me is the it reads contact info.
the phone state is different than phone info. it basically should shut down when you recieve a phone call. why it needs access to your contacts is why im uninstalling it.
I can also set basic contacts by long pressing a blank spot on the screen and selecting shortcuts>contacts>the actual contact.
wallpaper I believe if you set the picture with the proper resolution it shouldnt crop it
Devils1stBorn said:
Ok two things that I'm trying not to get frustrated about before I put a little research into it...
First, why in the world does Android want to crop every image instead of using the entire image as a wallpaper?
I even have wallpapers that are the exact size of the display and Android still wants to crop a small portion of that image?....help please...
Second, why can't I get a simple widget or window dedicated to favorite contacts, such as sense in WinMo does without having to pay for it?
Android doesn't have a simple tool that allows you to setup a favs like Sense does in WinMo? There's this LaucherPro that wants to charge me to do so?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. You can just expand the crop window so it encapsulates your entire wallpaper, if it indeed is in perfect size. Keep in mind the crop window is sized for 3 homescreens or 5 or however many you have, so if your perfect size is for just one screen (480x800) you'll have a bit of a problem there.
2. You can just place contacts on the desktop. That's the closest you'll get without paying for this in LauncherPro. While you're at it, even if you don't want to pay - get LauncherPro and replace the default Launcher already. You'll love its speed superiority immediately.
A lot of devs put permissions on to prevent possible problems, also, not sure if it relates to android, but I know some permissions are needed for things that you would not normally relate them to, possibly things like automatically pausing operations when a call comes in etc...
schunniky said:
1. You can just expand the crop window so it encapsulates your entire wallpaper, if it indeed is in perfect size. Keep in mind the crop window is sized for 3 homescreens or 5 or however many you have, so if your perfect size is for just one screen (480x800) you'll have a bit of a problem there.
2. You can just place contacts on the desktop. That's the closest you'll get without paying for this in LauncherPro. While you're at it, even if you don't want to pay - get LauncherPro and replace the default Launcher already. You'll love its speed superiority immediately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I figured out the contacts on desktop, thanks though!
As for the wallpapers, I do try to expand the Window and it never completely encapsulates the entire image. I just dont get why Android doesn't allow the Wallpaper to remain static while your homescreens maneuver over it.