Before trying out some ICS ROMs, my only experience with the acer ring was from using the Iconia Touchbook. When i first heard acer was bringing the ring to android i was pretty excited, and i thought it would add some great functionality.
however, after i flashed a ROM containing it, i became annoyed with it very quickly. while i enjoyed having a way to access volume onscreen, the whole thing was just too obtrusive. it was easier just to use the hardware buttons. the only other thing i could think of to use the ring for was as a way to launch overskreen or aircalc from anywhere, but, lets face it, hitting home, opening an app on your center homescreen, and returning to what you were doing isn't that big of a deal.
also, the acer ring comes bundles with the acer lockscreen, and i really don't enjoy that. i actually greatly prefer the honeycomb lockscreen to the stock ICS one, i think the camera-launch from the homescreen is kinda pointless on a tablet, but i can live with it. the acer lockscreen, however, is gaudy, and i don't WANT to have to choose 4 apps to put on my lockscreen.
So, now that i got my personal feelings out of the way, I would like to year what you guys think.
Is the Acer Ring cool or annoying? do you like the lockscreen that comes with it? if so why? and have you actually tried it, or are these just your initial impressions?
Ehhh... eye candy. Also, considering the drop in performance vs returns..
Ok, so you can hit a bookmark from the lockscreen. Tab unlocks. Browser opens.
Nice feature. Sort of defeats the purpose of having a lockscreen don't you think?
What's nice, is that it is so darn easy to modify in the apk! As far as colors and such. Much easier than mucking around in the systemUI. Makes for a nice lock ring.
Just saying....
I like it and it has no impact on performance. I compaired with ring and without ring.
You can easely dissable it in settings.
If you don't want any feature of the ring and lock screen ring just two words need to be changed in build.prop
Enabled to disabled.
Acer shell mode and Acer shell contact mode.
That simple.
If you want you can discuss every app on a rom.
So for me yes , ones you are used to it its very easy.
Its not only for your bookmarks but if you put in the ring your favorite apps you get really fast access to them.
Everybody wants a folder orginazer but this ring combined with apinap you are set.
And yes it looks cool.
I use it every time now.
I have absolutely no use for it, but then again, I see no reason to hate it either. I mean, you can just ignore it if you don't like it.
it was one of my favorite features of the a200 3.2.1 port, but after running that for a while i simply dont care about it. its inclusion in a rom isnt a deal breaker for me either way, as it doesnt effect performance and it doesnt hurt anything being there.
the ring
I disabled it, but I like the lock screen. I've been using ics on my a500 for a few days and have the apps I would open anyway on the lock screen ring.
Wizz bar does what the ring does, and is MUCH better. I hate skins, all they do is disable and cause incompatibility. Case in point: acer's ring and Samsung's similar thing cause problems for Wizz bar.
I just picked up the A500 today. I played with the A200 a bit and the lock screen kinda reminds me of the AOKP roms a bit with the lockscreen. It's gonna be interesting to see what all we can do with it theme wise. It seems to add way more compared to the AOSP builds I've been theming on me nexus.
I like the lock screen ring for the purpose of being able to go straight to the apps I use the most. Also, it is nice to be able to change volume from inside ICS. I just have a small preference to using the UI for volume. If I were to have a complaint, it would be that the Ring can only access 'local' bookmarks and not those from my Google account that I have synced.
lawrex said:
I like the lock screen ring for the purpose of being able to go straight to the apps I use the most. Also, it is nice to be able to change volume from inside ICS. I just have a small preference to using the UI for volume. If I were to have a complaint, it would be that the Ring can only access 'local' bookmarks and not those from my Google account that I have synced.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not just change them to local ones you setup the ring bookmarks.
I like it, but then again I love Sense on the HTC devices. Plain old Android gets boring after a while.
dodgerflagg said:
I disabled it, but I like the lock screen. I've been using ics on my a500 for a few days and have the apps I would open anyway on the lock screen ring.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly the same for me
I like it but wish I could do more with it. its cool eye candy to show off with but most of the time I don't use it.
I love it. eye candy and functional. Doesn't take away too much from the experience. I do wish there was a finger gesture to bring it up though, instead of the button at the bottom. Perhaps there's an app out there that can run in the background and bring the ring up when a 5-finger gesture is used?
civato said:
Why not just change them to local ones you setup the ring bookmarks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do have some, but I would prefer to have all my bookmarks synced between machines. Sites I visit more I have added to local, but it would be nice if I didn't have to. In retrospect, I think I have an understanding as to why they don't. It isn't a deal breaker, just my opinion.
It's a bit of fun, but not that useful...
...Mainly because I use Dolphin as my browser. If there was a way to make my bookmarks from Dolphin available to the Ring, I might still use it. But as it is? Turned it off...
Currently using Flexreaper with Go launcher Beta for ICS and loving it...
Achristocat said:
...Mainly because I use Dolphin as my browser. If there was a way to make my bookmarks from Dolphin available to the Ring, I might still use it. But as it is? Turned it off...
Currently using Flexreaper with Go launcher Beta for ICS and loving it...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just updated my A501 to ICS and looking for a way to configure the normal Acer lock ring. Is there a way to add some items to the lock and the camera?
I use the lock ring functionality every day. Very convenient to jump straight to email (or whatever your top apps are) when unlocking the tab. I don't use the ring much once in UI after unlock but I like the functionality. Yes, it's nice eye candy also.
I love it because my main apps that I use are on there so its very easy to get to the apps I need. I don't install a from if it doesn't have the ring but I can see why some people wouldn't like it.
I like it but I hate how it doesn't show gmail linked bookmarks, only local. Is there a way to have the bookmarks on both local and my account so that I can use the links on my other devices while having them show in the ring?
Related
Hello desire community,
I just though of an idea. I like the look of the lock screen on sense, but i miss the option to have two sliders (one to unlock, one to silence). What is someone could build a slider that can slide up and down, plus has a slider point in the middle that can slide either left or right. I have attached an example but I am not a good artist so I hope you can understand what it means.
+1, that would be neat
I thought so to but:
1) I don't know how to program that
2) I can't even draw it very well
Like WidgetLocker, perhaps?
http://www.appbrain.com/app/widgetlocker-lockscreen/com.teslacoilsw.widgetlocker
Moved to themes and apps
I have widget locker. I was thinking like the rotory slider but with one "slider" in the middle and four directions to slide.
This is what he wants except the places where it fades he wants it to rotate, and i agree would be cool.
Edit: this as in dragging up, and down, and rotationg side to side, would give it 4 ways to move instead of just one, and would take full effect of the possibilities of the HTC design...
Exactly I could imagine using up for dailer, down unlock, left mms, and right ringer. If it is in widgetlocker they could be customized
That's a really nice idea, i'd love to see such a feature.
Nice idea but I can imagine the amount of unwanted actions in pocket etc.
blinde said:
Nice idea but I can imagine the amount of unwanted actions in pocket etc.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None because you would have to touch the middlepoint of the slider to make it work and thats veeeery unlikely....
a better example would be Galaxy S Lockscreen i think
this style is what i like to have
noobandroid said:
a better example would be Galaxy S Lockscreen i think
this style is what i like to have
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that is just the vanilla android lockscreen :/
yeah,well can anyone make one, i love to have it, make sure it is in zip though, and "easy install" mode
Search widget locker on market. It has a vanilla lockscreen
OK semi stupid question about Android roms. Is there one where you don't have to slide down to answer calls? I keep the phone in my pocket when it rings, I go to answer it most of the time it answers itself. Don't know if there one that has slide left to right like the Iphone or others.
CM7 roms slide left to right to answer, I think it's only Sense and MIUI that slide down to answer, but I could be wrong. But I know that CM7 has the sliding tabs to answer/reject like on the lockscreen.
the easiest way to go about this would be to download a lockscreen app from the market. there is a really great app called lock 2.0 which will allow you to do what you want. also you can add custom sounds if you like. there is also 1 called lockbot pro (what im using now) which has many different lockscreen styles like iphone, hero, eclair, froyo, x10 & galaxy. you can create many different lockscreens by changing the background around and a setting that will go through your default lockscreens you choose so you get a different lockscreen each time..i find it pretty cool. there is a free version as well but not as many features. hope this helps out.
htccraze said:
the easiest way to go about this would be to download a lockscreen app from the market. there is a really great app called lock 2.0 which will allow you to do what you want. also you can add custom sounds if you like. there is also 1 called lockbot pro (what im using now) which has many different lockscreen styles like iphone, hero, eclair, froyo, x10 & galaxy. you can create many different lockscreens by changing the background around and a setting that will go through your default lockscreens you choose so you get a different lockscreen each time..i find it pretty cool. there is a free version as well but not as many features. hope this helps out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
but as far as I can remember, these apps don't change the incoming call screen, which is the real benefit of horizontal slide
i had to re-read that because i wasn't sure what you was talking about at 1st. your 100% right though, i must of missed the part about incoming calls the 1st time i read it.
Dr.Move said:
but as far as I can remember, these apps don't change the incoming call screen, which is the real benefit of horizontal slide
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Simple, Just get a protective case for it or sleeve or something. The screen is capacitive so only responses to touch from your fingers (not pressure but touch) so aslong as there is something covering screen it wont unlock.
tauntt said:
OK semi stupid question about Android roms. Is there one where you don't have to slide down to answer calls? I keep the phone in my pocket when it rings, I go to answer it most of the time it answers itself. Don't know if there one that has slide left to right like the Iphone or others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as stated earlier CM7 slide left and right, but if you dont want to use CM7 and like the rom your on, get go launcher[FREE], launcher pro, ADW launcher ... i think each has a different answer button
If there is A rom that u like u can use this application to get rid of the slidedown to answer (EZanswer) http://www.4shared.com/file/MhGQjhuO/EZanswer_1400.htm tell me about the result
TheATHEiST said:
Simple, Just get a protective case for it or sleeve or something. The screen is capacitive so only responses to touch from your fingers (not pressure but touch) so aslong as there is something covering screen it wont unlock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure about your phone, but mine is so responsive that it feels my finger through the protective cover I always demonstrate this to my friends by unlocking my device (whether vertically in android or horizontally in WinMo) through the cover
that's why it's a problem, we either need a horizontal answer app (easy) or get a thicker cover, which makes a barely-pocketable phone impossible to fit in pockets, unless you're one of those who wear baggy pants with huge pockets.
use the pattern unlock screen Miui has loads if different lock screens
Sent from my HTC HD2
To be clear, I am liking ICS a lot, and am happy to see where Android is progressing. Here are a few complaints, however:
-I can't believe they disabled the search capacity button from the home screen. If you remove the search bar, there's no way to search from the home screen. Still hate the fact that the top bar is unusable space.
-Limited items in folders. This is one area which I don't understand why they back-peddled. It's very iOS-like, and it's one of the worst things to copy. Max 16 apps in a folder now. My understanding was that it was unlimited before. This will require adjustment.
-The icons look childish. Wish Google would truly allow customization and let us change the icons like other launchers do.
-Still no ability to add custom shortcuts to the home screen (like ADW Launcher can). Unless I'm mistaken? How do I make a direct dial icon?
-Long pressing Home button for the app switcher feels slow and clunky. It takes a while for the list of apps to show up.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. Still getting the hang of it. Again, overall, I'm really enjoying ICS. The UI is so modern and sleek looking.
You can add direct dial shortcuts through the widget section dude
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium
Search cap. button works here
I noticed that the quality of the panorama pictures is terrible. It looks like a Polaroid.
sashajovicic said:
Search cap. button works here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the main home screen? Pressing it once brings up search? It doesn't for me.
onthecouchagain said:
On the main home screen? Pressing it once brings up search? It doesn't for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes it does for me.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App
onthecouchagain said:
On the main home screen? Pressing it once brings up search? It doesn't for me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i can confirm the button also works for me
I'm loving ICS on the Nexus S, too. However, my battery life is atrocious since the upgrade today. I went from 100% to 4% in less than 6 hours. It wasn't that I was using it or playing with it that much, either. All the settings were similar to what they were on 2.3.6, e.g., low backlight, GPS/WiFi/Bluetooth off, push email on, account sync on. I was getting 12+ hours with up to 20% left on Gingerbread with these settings. According to the battery app, it looks like "Android OS" might be the culprit, as "keep awake" is listed as the highest-ranked battery usage over everything else, including screen, voice calls, cell standby, etc. I've read on other forums about a possible Android OS bug with the SGS II. I'm thinking it might be so with ICS on the NS. Anyone else have this issue? How do we report it to Google so we can get a bug fix?
onthecouchagain said:
-The icons look childish. Wish Google would truly allow customization and let us change the icons like other launchers do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
icons are still customizable, as they are with any rom. The launcher my not let you do it as easily as other launcher aps from within android.. but you can still do it externally by editing the icon files from the flash able rom file.
One small issue I found: Lock sound never plays even when the option is checked. Besides that, I'm really liking ICS. I wish the default widgets were more customizable. (e.g., calendar widget is one row too long, GMail widget is one column too wide) As a person with a severe visual impairment, I find the "Larger" text option a nice touch.
sir topas said:
I'm loving ICS on the Nexus S, too. However, my battery life is atrocious since the upgrade today. I went from 100% to 4% in less than 6 hours.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This couldn't be a battery calibration issue with the upgrade could it? I'm experiencing the same at the minute. I seem to recall there is a way to clear the battery stats but I can't remember where I read it.
Sent from my Nexus S using xda premium
BlindWolf8 said:
One small issue I found: Lock sound never plays even when the option is checked. Besides that, I'm really liking ICS. I wish the default widgets were more customizable. (e.g., calendar widget is one row too long, GMail widget is one column too wide) As a person with a severe visual impairment, I find the "Larger" text option a nice touch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can easily resize them by a long press on a widget without delete it, you will see the widget outline get blue with diamond which you can hold too resize.
pepours said:
You can easily resize them by a long press on a widget without delete it, you will see the widget outline get blue with diamond which you can hold too resize.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh wow, thanks! By the way, I found my issue for the lock screen: it got switched to None. I guess I forgot to switch it back after looking for the Face Unlock feature.
Speaking if which, looking at other threads it seems this feature was dropped for the Nexus S due to poor front-facing camera resolution. Oh well.
PS: I wish the custom message you can put on the lockscreen was more customizable than one scrolling line.
mofunzone said:
i can confirm the button also works for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
search button working for me too
and you can hide search bar In preference
Sent from my SGH-T989 using xda premium
How about you guys give it about a week and then start complaining BC now you just sound like some whiney brats.
Sent from my Google Nexus S 4G using xda premium
One thing I noticed is it gets rather sluggish at times. UI is smooth but there are very bad lags. Noticeable with even just the a live wallpaper, you can see it stutters every ten seconds or so.
Also, some apps won't work, Viber for example. It installs but it doesn't work, it just won't start. Black screen.
Maybe I should wait until the official OTA comes available for me, in Italy, through Software Update, and see if things are better? I have an i9020T, though- isn't the update going to be the same exact file?
if your battery life is really bad try turning off NFC and see if that makes a difference. From the Alpha I managed to get about 25 hours (once..) but cannot remember what I changed to get that.
the two complains I have : auto brightness doesn't work as well as it used too.
and google talk signs me out after a while without telling me.
Face unlock didn't seem to make the cut on the Nexus S.
Posted this in the ICS link section... this seems like a better place for it.
Anyone seeing any issues with the completely stock ICS on the TMo version of the nexus S?
Issues I am seeing so far:
Delayed scrolling when I swipe in the web browser. Seems as if the browser is trying to determine if I meant to click a link or scroll and the delay for the OS to decide is MUCH longer than it was on GB. (Maybe that was intended but maybe they over compensated).
The browser exits (doesn't even force close), just exits on certain websites when trying to scroll.
I hear reports of it being "buttery smooth" and honestly mine feels like it is slower than GB.. maybe that is because of my perception that the scrolling is slower...
Curious to see if this is happening to anyone else...
I want to read your review of ICS on your Iconia. What do you like, what you think is lacking and should have been different as compared to HC. Positive and negative reviews are important so don't feel like you only have to pick just what you like or what is wrong with it. Write it all. Your first impressions and if you want, a followup later - once you've had some time with it.
I'd like to ask that you put some thought into it. Not that it has to be long but no single sentences. I'll just get a mod to clean the thread of them.
I'll get the ball rolling:
I went ahead and installed and can report no issues so far. A couple of things though.
After it booted [after the install] it wouldn't connect to the network automatically - I had to manually tell it to connect, though it still had the credentials and has since connected fine upon multiple reboots.
The browser bookmarks synced automatically. My problem was with HC - for the life of me it wouldn't sync my browser - all my other computers synced up fine with my primary and I tried everything I could to get it to sync with HC but it wouldn't and that was from a fresh reset a few weeks ago. After rebooting into ICS I found all my bookmarks synced up quickly so I'm happy again.
No screen issues and it's far more snappier than it was on fresh vanilla HC. To be fair, I reset a few weeks ago and only installed about 5 apps - aldiko, dropbox, docs etc... the basics. Even vanilla HC was a bit of a bear sometimes but ICS is not.
No more stuttering when swiping through homescreen in orientations other than normal which is great to see.
I much prefer the new app drawer. It's a much more unified experience and swiping is so snappy! That's is the biggest things for me. But it's also nice to see a clean area. The HC apps/widget/wallpaper nightmare was just that. Not in terms of navigation, it just looked fugly and dropped me out of the whole HC look. Now it's far more complimentary to the ICS experience.
The whole swiping apps/notifications features is nice but I'm not sure it's really doing anything. I opened Gmaps and saw it listed in the running apps list in Settings - went to the homescreen - opened up the recent list and swiped Gmaps out - went back to settings>apps and it was still present. It wasn't a solid test, to be sure, but I'm not sure how significant the swipe to remove tasks is and whether it is actually meant to kills tasks or just remove them from the list. [confusion on my part] Second to that, I'm pretty ambivalent about the swiping notifications feature - an X to press, a tab to swipe - it's all the same and neither adds to or takes away from that basic function.
I could care less about the ring and I haven't read anywhere that we were suppose to get it at all so it's no surprise to me to not see it. Same with face-unlock. It's not something I would use.
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Looking good so far.
Since the update I have been testing all of my apps. So far all are working correctly. I was disappointed that I lost root, however that was an easy fix. I searched the forum and found an easy way to get full root. Had a few hickups at first with the browser and network connections, but they seemed to correct themselves as the day progressed.
Overall I am very happy.
nishka256 said:
Well for my Acer a 500 the stock browser is super sloooww. It was super fast before the update. My screen flickers within some apps. For some reason scrolling is slow also. Before update I could swipe and scroll and it would scroll fast and its not the same anymore. For instance before update on my browser I could scroll down and it was so fast I would have to back up to get to exact spot I wanted to read. Now I scroll down and it only goes down a short distance and have to scroll again. I cannot remove zinio, tegra games and a few other bloatware that I have no use for. These are my big complaints with the update now.
Sent from my A500 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Screen flickering is what I am also experiencing quite a lot with ICS. With honeycomb, that was never an issue but a lot of apps make the screen flicker in ICS. For me, the stock browser and scrolling is blazing fast with ICS. It had a bit of lag when on honeycomb. Also, I just tried uninstalling zinio and I was able to. Couldn't do the same with tegra games, however, though!
So far I am really liking ICS but there are definitely a few issues that need to be worked on. The update process in itself was not smooth. I had to try 4 times, reboot and even factory reset before I was able to update the tablet to ICS.
Overall, I am having mixed reviews.
I had no problems downloading or updating. I just don't see much difference from honeycomb. I can now use some ics only apps, so that's ok. Switching home screens seems to have less lag. I guess I just expected more from this update.
Overall I guess it is nice to be up to date but it still feels llike the same old tablet.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using xda premium
ICS + A500 : Home Screen Long Press Disaster
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
So far, so good. I never expected the Ultimate Tablet Nirvana from ICS... just incremental improvements. The A500 is smoother and more responsive. I really like the new media player, especially the row of movies/clip thumbs, etc at the bottom. Chrome is a big thing. I've used about every browser out there and was never fully satisfied with any of them. Chrome, for the first time, gives a desktop experience on a tablet. That alone makes the ICS upgrade worthwhile.
On a side note, my 64gb micro-sdxc card arrived the same day I updated, so that's another nice In Your Face to the iPad rabble out there. 80gb of storage.
idroids said:
If I'm missing something PLEASE let me know.
Otherwise why are people taking this sitting down?!
BEFORE ICS long press on Home Screens brought up:
1-split screen with Widgets and Apps below and ALL 5 Home Screens above
2-sending Widgets and Apps to specific Home Screens was a breeze
3-click on a Widget and send it to the page of your choice and watch it go there
4-click on one Widget after another and off they all go
5-the same applies to Apps: you can click on 10 apps one after the other and they all add themselves to the Home Screen of your choice
6-then with simple tap and back to the Home Screen
AFTER ICS long press on home screens brings up...are you ready for this?
1-Choose your wallpaper (WHAT A TOTAL WASTE OF THE LONG PRESS)
2-to get to the widgets list you have to press the apps grid icon at top right
3-that brings you to a tabbed list of Apps and Widgets (this is the OLD SLOW way of adding Apps and Widgets to your home screens!!!)
4-click on Widgets and
5-now press on one widget and ICS brings you back to the home screens where you can drop your widget on the main home screen or push it around to other home screens (very TEDIUS and CLUMSY process!!!!!)
6-now you HAVE TO go back HOME to then press the apps grid icon at top right AGAIN to get back to the tabbed list of Apps and Widgets, then press on Widgets and repeat the process for adding other widgets to the home screens!
7-each and every time you want to add an App or a Widget you ICS forces you to go through this process
8-meaning that you can only add one App or one Widget at......a.......time......!!!
I have to wonder what kind of genius would get rid of the split screen that shows all the home screens, the Apps, and the Widgets?!
Is there a launcher app that would give me back my split screen with a long press on the home screens?!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to realize that ICS is written for use on phones and tablets, not just tablets. The old way may have been quicker on tablets but wouldn't be very useful for phones (and their much smaller screens). It was a necessary sacrifice.
I personally don't have an issue with the new way, just because I'm not adding 10 apps or widgets to a screen anyway and I don't find the movements that time consuming vs. the old way. If I WERE adding lots of apps or widgets to a screen then I suppose I'd agree completely. I however prefer the widgets in a bigger area instead of having to scroll forever through them, in fact to me it seems a better trade off for the widgets.
ICS appears to be more polished than hc when it came out. Hc 3.0.1 was not a refined experience. There will be some changes when 4.0.4 is pushed, but it is enough to prevent me from going out and purchasing the next new tablet.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
The Good:
Everything is more responsive, period. Moving around is quicker, switching home screens is quicker, moving through apps and widgets is quicker. Not that the A500 was slow before, but it had its hiccups. This gives the tablet new life, imo - it really feels like a different piece of hardware.
The interface is more streamlined. I've never been into form over function, but in this case everything works well together. Many apps now written for ICS fit in with the whole scheme of things which creates a more uniform experience and aesthetic. Many ICS App widgets now allow you to choose either their default or black, which fits in with the ICS color scheme.
Some, dare I say most? video issues seem to have been addressed as I can play files I'd needed to use 3rd party apps to play on the included player now. Flash also seems more fluid.
Notifications are easily closed (with one X vs. many).
Widgets are laid out in a drawer vs. scroll bar making it much better and easier (for some) to go through and add them to screens.
Settings have been improved; for example, there's now a setting to see the data apps use, factory reset is now under a more obvious tab and other settings are found more easily as well.
Booting is fairly quick vs. Honeycomb. Seems to boot in under a minute no matter how many apps are installed. Booting is generally fast based on the amt. of apps that are installed, but I seemed to boot in roughly the same time before installing apps as after installing over 200 of them.
Some of the new features are nice, the screenshot ability is definitely welcome and swiping away apps is also great. Note: some apps will never fully close as they use services that run in the background.
The Bad:
Some users preferred the long press, split screen and 1-click adding of apps and widgets to the home screen vs. the App Drawer approach. I am inclined to agree that this method can be faster for adding multiple app icons and widgets to the home screens.
The Ugly: (bugs?)
The native browser still doesn't seem to be able to handle encrypted content from Google Chrome, and so the native browser cannot be synced with a Google Account which has had its content encrypted. It can only handle accounts with their passwords encrypted (which is the default).
How I see it is, if Chrome Beta can handle it, I don't see why there wasn't a setting added to the native ICS Browser to allow for it. To me, this doesn't make sense. Perhaps I'm just missing something.
***At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates (apparently).
Will append to list as I come across stuff.
***Update: This doesn't seem to be specific to ICS. After further investigation it seems this WAS caused by something on Acer's end (as of 4/29/2012, updated 5/22/2012).
UPDATE:
As of 5/22/2012 I have not been having/seeing any issues. I have noticed that when the tablet is extremely low on power (under 10% or so) it turns the wifi off when sleeping, even though I've set it to never turn wifi off. I'm not certain if this is a bug or working as intended in ICS as some power saving feature. This never, ever happens when the tablet is on A/C power or docked. When I wake the tablet, wifi is connected to automatically. I'm personally happy that it does this, but I can see it being a problem for some people...so I don't really want to file this under bug/issues.
Neoprimal said:
At "excellent" strength and a 75Mbps link rate, upon checking for updates I get a message saying "network coverage is poor, move to a location with better coverage to continue". Hopefully some sort of fix comes from Acer directly before they issue more updates as I can now essentially, not receive updates
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm betting this is simply they message they're sending because their servers are being overloaded from the ICS push.
Why ICS for Tablets AND Phones?
Taking the split screen feature away from my A500 is like taking my steering wheel and my automatic transmissions away from my car! Argggghhh!
Cutting corners on an OS so that it works exactly the same on phones and tablets makes about as much sense as saying that the engines used on a 2-seater plane, in a jet fighter, and in a 747 should all work the same so as to give the passengers the same experience. That is "plane" old silly. What is even SILLIER is to insist on putting a plush airliner seat into a 2 passenger plane or to insist on keeping a propeller on jumbo 747s.
I totally get that the split screen (showing ALL the home screens at once above and the Apps and the Widgets below) would not work well on an small phone but why should it since it's NOT designed for a small screen? Why do tablet users have to put up with taking 3 steps backward just so that phone users can take 3 steps forward.
Tablet users should simply be given the choice to customize their experience so that they can take advantage of the extra real estate on their screens instead of being forced to put up with restrictive aspects of an OS that is trying to be everything to everyone. Sure ICS is a big improvement on Honeycomb, but why did some aspects of its OS have to be amputated simply to satisfy some designer's need to have a single OS for 2 VERY different gadgets?
So PLEASE, when the next version of ICS comes out PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEASSSEEE give us tablet users the split screen again through the long tap on the Home Screens! Think about it! How often are you going to change your background? Making the long tap lead ONLY to the background change screen is such a WASTE of a unique gesture!
Well if you absolutely want long press to open drawer, try Apex launcher, it's based on ICS launcher but there's an option for binding long press/double tap to any function of the launcher. There is many more options that should suits you. Nova launcher is another alternative you can try.
Positives
A couple of the things I noticed right off is that when recording you don't get the terrible background noise you always seemed to get on hc supports avi video format now which I was happy with and the camera and video app seem to be recording at better detail not sure if its me or my cam? The browser is also blazing fast for me now. Layout is also crisp and clean the ring is useful makes taking screenshots a snap.
Negatives...have noticed some apps cause terrible lag for me there was also a lot of lag and freezing the first couple of hours I had the update. Also sometimes the screen flickers stated above ^^^^ none of these are big issues and shouldn't keep you from updating to enjoy
I had a lot of issues with the ICS update. I finally had to do a factory reset. Some issues were solved, but others remain:
Seems to be solved:
- Unstable applications (flashing and crashing, including Gmail).
- Unstable folders (flashing, crashing and all icons on the desktop disappearing).
Unsolved:
- Wifi is unstable and does not auto-connect (I have to connect manually when I restart the tablet or when I get home... it was working fine before ICS).
- The GPS does not work (I am not sure if it was working before ICS... as I had not had the time to test, so maybe it is not new).
- System update does not work (indicates that network coverage is insufficient despite the signal being strong and staying beside the wireless router).
ICS = bitter pill to swallow!
Well I learned the hard way that I shouldn't have jumped on the ICS bandwagon too early!
I cannot believe that in 2012 we have people designing MAJOR OS updates that have MAJOR problems and bugs!
Why not just wait another month or so and work out these major problems before unleashing ICS on everyone.
I mean didn't the ICS designer and programmers TEST ICS ON ALL TABLET AND PHONE platforms BEFORE releasing it to the world?
I'm going to milk my airplane analogy some more and say this:
Releasing ICS without having thoroughly tested it across ALL platforms is like building a plane and not knowing if it is designed well enough to fly at different altitudes and even worse not being sure it can actually land well in ALL major airports in the world in spite of different weather conditions.
Can you tell I am SICK of designers and programmers NOT having done their homework and using the general public to test their new OS for them?!
This HAS GOT to change!
I have one huge problem. In HC 3.2.1, when I press the volume button, it brought out the volume bar, and by taping the speaker icon, I can turn the volume to off, now it doesn't do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's really annoying to have to hold the volume button to turn off the sound.
One Giant bonus I like in ICS is you can make native folders without the need of a secondary app.
Having one strange flaw which is my tablet randomly vibrates for no apparent reason other than that so far so go and the whole UI just seems a bit smoother than it was before on HC. Browser seems Way more Responsive than HC as well.
I'm pretty happy with ICS but GPS is not working at all. I need to check the gps.conf but it was working on HC.
Best feature of ICS: Chrome browser.
Have: Nexus 6P stock 6.0.1. Need: some customization. Items in green have a solution.
I've enabled Developer Mode and System UI Tweaker. I'd like to do this without root, or anything that would affect individual Google Play-installable apps. (The reason is, I need this device for final user release testing, so it should be what users have just from factory reset + install apps and normal OS upgrades):
Different wallpaper on Lock Screen than behind icons and widgets. (Tried: http://forums.androidcentral.com/an...-lock-screen-wallpaper-help-how-can-i-do.html - No triple dot menu visible in Wallpaper)
Full brightness on Lock screen instead of 90%, independent of brightness settings. ("OK" option: same brightness as manual brightness in Settings) (http://forum.xda-developers.com/galaxy-s3/help/home-lockscreen-brightness-t1704705 - no Lock Screen Options in Settings)
Disable peeking globally. ("OK" option: put them in the statusbar like 4.4.4) (I don't want to disable peeking for every new app I install: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Here...ifications-in-Android-6.0-Marshmallow_id75408) Temporary solution: I will manually disable peeking for every new app that shows them.
Global saturation setting for icons. (They're all saying "click ME!", that's an icon designer's job. With an excellent high-contrast screen like this, it's a crowd shouting.) ("OK" option: some other way of getting icons to look more Zen.) Icon packs for launchers are that "OK option", browsing tons on Google Play left Hexacon and Dual Shadow. So Hexacon.
Remove the Google Now bar from my Home Screen (without disabling any services). (As in, I taught the device my voice, so I don't need it there for me to tap. Tried: https://www.androidpit.com/how-to-remove-the-google-search-bar-from-your-android-homescreen - it's not long-tappable nor draggable, nor does it appear under Google Apps in Widgets.) Best solution so far: Nova Launcher.
I'd like to be able to do this:
Some quick way (preferably swipe) to access a more compact Quick Settings widget, like on my Xperia Z. I've reduced it to 9, can't remove "Invert Colors" and Location toggles.
Global Night Mode for everything in the System UI - to make it look similar to the Quick Settings. (This is a "like to" only because it's been promised in N. I really need it like, now. ) Best solution so far: Nova Launcher.
Basically I have the greatest phone, so I want it to look good at all times, and with the aim Clean, Fresh, Zen.
I posted here bc the forum was most specific. Feel free to refer or advise me how to best get answers as I joined tonight.
Any & all advice on single questions is appreciated Not possible is a valid answer, and I'm also prepared to wait for N if that's the answer.
I used to think of "ok google" as a novelty but its become more polished and if it remains reliable Ill continue to use it more& more. As it applies to keeping things clean it sort of does eliminate need for extra widgets.
If you have ok google everywhere u can just say " ok google...launch settings". Same goes for music apps, podcasts, youtube videos etc.
Started using a new app other day you might like called sesame edge. I set it on the right edge, virtually invisible and it brings up quick access to apps.
KLit75 said:
I used to think of "ok google" as a novelty but its become more polished and if it remains reliable Ill continue to use it more& more. As it applies to keeping things clean it sort of does eliminate need for extra widgets.
If you have ok google everywhere u can just say " ok google...launch settings". Same goes for music apps, podcasts, youtube videos etc.
Started using a new app other day you might like called sesame edge. I set it on the right edge, virtually invisible and it brings up quick access to apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, trying it out. Also tried Sesame in the hope that it would let me set a different lock screen wallpaper, but it only had "their automatic lock screen wallpaper or off" as setting. I sent feedback to them, so let's see.
HenrikErlandsson said:
Thanks, trying it out. Also tried Sesame in the hope that it would let me set a different lock screen wallpaper, but it only had "their automatic lock screen wallpaper or off" as setting. I sent feedback to them, so let's see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I dont use a lockscreen but on Pure Nexus which Im using now there is an option to set lockscreen wallpaper.
I use action launcher 3 which doesnt allow me to remove google bar (i dont think) but nova will let u do that. I like the bar cuz on action launcher i can put several shortcuts for whatever i want.
ASAP launcher is very minimal. Again you cant REMOVE the bar but swipe down and it turns into a simple clock widget.
KLit75 said:
I dont use a lockscreen but on Pure Nexus which Im using now there is an option to set lockscreen wallpaper.
I use action launcher 3 which doesnt allow me to remove google bar (i dont think) but nova will let u do that. I like the bar cuz on action launcher i can put several shortcuts for whatever i want.
ASAP launcher is very minimal. Again you cant REMOVE the bar but swipe down and it turns into a simple clock widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thx, tried Nova and it gives me Night Mode. Thanks for that Still, no way to have a different wallpaper on the lock screen than on the home screen, and I can find no Prime option for it either. Pure Nexus requires CM.
Can I mix and match this type of apps? Will they interfere with each other? Sesame seems to work with Nova at least.
What about Hi Locker? http://android.wonderhowto.com/how-to/get-back-lock-screen-customization-android-lollipop-0160204/
Can custom lock screens lock me out of my phone, make me butt dial, hog battery? I just want to change the gdmn background!
As I wrote, if some feature comes in N I'd rather wait than mess up my new phone.
HenrikErlandsson said:
Thx, tried Nova and it gives me Night Mode. Thanks for that Still, no way to have a different wallpaper on the lock screen than on the home screen, and I can find no Prime option for it either. Pure Nexus requires CM.
Can I mix and match this type of apps? Will they interfere with each other? Sesame seems to work with Nova at least.
What about Hi Locker? http://android.wonderhowto.com/how-to/get-back-lock-screen-customization-android-lollipop-0160204/
Can custom lock screens lock me out of my phone, make me butt dial, hog battery? I just want to change the gdmn background!
As I wrote, if some feature comes in N I'd rather wait than mess up my new phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Seems Im constantly tweaking things and having problems recalling exactly what I used. I know making lockscreen different from desktop is something Ive done many times. Do u have xposed? Pretty sure gravitybox has that option.
As far as butt dials, I use sweep to wake & it was a problem. Always remember to put it in your pocket screen facing out. I also need to do that when using bt headphones or else i get distortion. Anyways if i find something relevant Ill let u know.
Thx for suggestions!
I want weather, clock, and a background that matches my high-end case on the lock screen AND NOTHING ELSE, and then wherever there are icons I want a neutral background or just a color so I can see them properly. I think that's being a normal user with sensible demands.
Right now a huge dark gray or white slate COVERS the background anyway. I don't mind it, it lets me see the icons of all manner of variety and quality against something neutral, still... just allowing a background to set behind your icons seems to be an easy addition... since Froyo... Anyway, end rant about Simple Things. Android at least lets you customize them.
I'm battling notifications now. Light Manager is recommended for the 6P - testing it out now for notifications that are actually important, will report.