What are your thoughts on Group Cast? - Galaxy S III General

Gang, after Samsung decided to advertise the hell out of Group Cast. It looks like an interesting and useful feature so I decided to give it a shot. First off, it was difficult to setup, something like 15 clicks or so to get two devices connected. I could barely figure it out myself, much less expect my wife or my friends who are not tech savvy to set it up. Also, it only works between GSIII's. The odds of two GSIII's getting together, well, you can calculate it. My previous phone was a GNex, and I discovered this app called Tapestry, and it is a really polished photo sharing app and it connects in 3 clicks. It also has nifty features like "swipe to download" to directly download images peer-to-peer, and also synchronized pinch/zoom. It also works with all Android devices, not just GSIII's. Has anyone else played with Group Cast? I'd like to get your thoughts. Has anyone else played with Tapestry? I'd like to get your comparison/contrast on it as well.

Related

Assistance with final year college project

Hi all!
I'm in my final year and we're supposed to do a project which is worth 200 marks overall. Most of us in our field have chosen to develop either android or iphone applications. My group and I have chosen adnroid.
Now, I'm in need of simple ideas for the apps. We have absolutely no idea on how to go about with the process. I've seen lots of people here develop stunning applications here! We're in need of ideas for developing simple apps.. which can be completed in a max of 2-3 months (considering the fact that we don't have any background knowledge on android development/programming. All we know is Java)
I'd initially suggested an automatic mobile credit recharge system, where in the app monitors you prepaid account balance from time to time and recharges the account once the credit falls below a user set value.
Although this seemed interesting at first, it can only be simulated with 2 databases (one for the mobile credit and another for the bank account)
After going through the type of apps here, I really want to develop something much better than this.
I'm open to all ideas, in fact, we don't mind developing an app that is already existing (for instance a profile manager or a data wallet etc) All we want is to have a fully complete app at the end of 2 months.
Please assist.
Thanks!
Secret Santa?
That's something that I thought up over winter break and whipped it up over a few days in the App Inventor. If you guys take your time, you can probably learn Android programming and design/code it in a month or so.
There are some "special" features that I added to make the app more useful but I'll leave that for you to think up.
I'll post back if I come up with anything else. I also need some app ideas, but just for recreational programming.
Thanks! I'm currently checking out appInventer.. I somehow find it hard to come up with ideas which is why I'm trying to find help from here :|
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
DrDubzz said:
I think the credit recharger is a pretty cool idea, personally. But I understand that you might want something with more "impact"
I think part of the key to this would be figuring out what has not already been done to death. There are so many apps with 5, 6, 7, etc versions of the basically the same thing. I would try to find something to develop with less competition, even if it's more of a niche product. I'm trying to think of the things I've previously thought "I wish I had an app for ____" but I'm drawing a blank right now.
If I think of anything I'll be sure to post it back in here
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! I checked out google appInventer tutorials.. theres one which says "no text while driving" -- basically sends back an sms to the sender that ur driving.. It seems interesting so I'm gonna see how best i can use it and pack some more useful stuff along with it.. and see how it all works out.
The reason why I'm giving the auto recharge a back seat is because it can't be implemented in real time.. it can only be simulated in a virtual environment.
You might want to think about doing something that takes advantage of the maps api. It's easy to do but it looks impressive and might help you get high marks.
A great idea?!
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
mirrorhelix said:
Graphics artist here,
Something I just thought of and just started searching for (literally) when I came across your thread, would be: Using the phone as a touch sensitive.. control for editing software, ie photoshop or paint.net. Basically turn the phone into a touchpad control for a computer.
Just an idea!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would be great! I'd definitely pay a couple/few dollars for something along these lines if it was user-friendly
Thats a really awesome idea!! Converting the touchscreen into a tablet input for PS or any other photo manipulation software.. But the problem is that I don't know where to begin! :|
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
I do like the sound of the phone touchpad app, it's been done on iPhone by Logitech but i've not seen something for android. If it helps, http://blog.logitech.com/2010/01/29...-touch-into-a-wireless-trackpad-and-keyboard/ .
There are a ton of them on the market: Gmote, MyRemote, UnifiedRemote, etc.
It might be a good idea to email this developers to get a better picture of what to do.
Problem is that all of those tools rely heavily on WiFi so you'll have to understand networking.
biggler said:
This is a college project so the idea isn't to make a unique and sell-able application... it's to demonstrate that you can work as part of a team to make an application from design to completion.
I'd try and think of a fun app (i wouldnt care if it's been done 100 times before) that everyone on your team wants to contribute to. If it's unique, brilliant, if not nevermind you've got some good experience working as a team and making an android app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bingo!! Which is exactly what my instructor said. I tried out the tutorials on appInventer.. I was toying with the idea of integrating more features into those itself. Is that a good idea? Although the concept is from Google, would it be ok to build on it? i'm particularly interested in "No texting while driving" and "Broadcast Hub" -- both these apps are awesome! Are there any notable features that I can add to make them better.
How about an app for the quick oil change places. It could show your last service and what was done. Show any upcoming maintenance and when your next oil change is due.
Maybe integrate Google Maps to show locations of service centers. Maybe offer a "e-coupon" if they use the app. Pretend they offer online scheduling and maybe show them "2 customers in bay, one waiting" - Estimated wait time 20 minutes" yada, yada
As an "older" programmer with 2 degrees, it's nice to see your college offering the mobile platform as a programming choice. Hell, all we got to write were COBOL and CICS mainframe applications and some semi-cool C++ projects.
Good Luck and Congratulations on getting your degree!!
What about a bluetooth hack to where u would be able to hack into someones phone and use their service for texting and calling. I heard of something like that when i was on my blackberry and was really into it. But it would be nice to get something like that on my Incredible
Sent from my ADR6300 using XDA App
I think it would be a good idea to make an app that uses an existing web api for a popular website, could be facebook, ebay(do they have an api?) etc etc.
It's a good way to learn a lot of aspects of android development, with a useful product as the outcome.
It doesn't matter if there is already an app for that site, think of a different way of using the site on the mobile, and go from there.
I would like to see a program that reads the weather API and reflects the current weather and location on the wallpaper. This app would require graphics design, code to parse the weather feed, writing to the OS. When I was on Windows Mobile there was a skin for Weather Panel that did this but with Android's live walpaper it could be really cool.
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
blueren said:
Thanks for the ideas you guys! I really appreciate it. Everything seems interesting.. but the problem is we don't know where to begin or how to go about it.
I did the broadcast hub tutorial present in the app inventer page. It turned out good. Is there any way I can add functionality to this itself?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do all the tutorials and learn the blocks, you can create lots of stuff. There is a app in the market that adds more features to the app inventor, app inventor extender
XDA App
A couple of suggestions:
- A chess PGN editor
- A simple picture/document management app where you take a photo using the camera, add some tags or other info, and save all details in a database. You can also provide search functionality and a viewer to retrieve pictures using the index you've built.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
I did some homework on topics and came across this.. A multilingual speech translator.
Talk in a language, it converts the speech to text, translates that text to a target language, and reads the translated text aloud.
Is this feasible? What is the difficulty level?
Also, is it possible to develop a call blocker app? I looked around but wherever I search, I only find fully built apps but not pointers on how to go about creating one by yourself.
Please assist.

Windows Phone 8.1

So I've been inactive for a little while (partially because there wasn't really much happening that affected me). But I thought now would be a good time to talk about Windows Phone 8.1 and what it will bring (even though we're mostly speculating). The particularly interesting part to me is what will happen to phones such as mine (Ativ S Neo) now that Microsoft is buying out Nokia.
So here are my predictions (some of them are totally random):
1. Microsoft will make launching the camera faster by modeling it after Windows 8.1 (swipe down on lockscreen) however this could be replaced with a notification center, but either way, it will be used.
2. The notification icons can be touched as you're swiping the lockscreen away to launch the respective app. This is a more dubious prediction, but would be nice.
3. Nokia apps could be brought into the fold (integrated fully into Windows Phone). This is more likely to come with a GDR2 update or such since 8.1 is coming out right after the deal closes. It's also a hopeful prediction, but Microsoft had better make it happen.
4. Bigger square tiles. This is something I'm pretty confident about, and would love to see for things like Pictures and People apps, and would be awesome to see what developers do with them.
5. Group messaging. If they don't do this, I swear....
6. Notification center. This is of course going to happen, but what I'd love to see is not swiping down from the top, but perhaps swiping in from the left-hand side, and when you're on the Start screen, it would work beautifully with having the app drawer on the right (left notifications, middle Start, right apps).
7. Also, I'm guessing they'll integrate new app APIs in an effort to get ready for the move to one Windows store. This would also include APIs for Cortana integration, which I'll discuss in a minute.
8. Internet Explorer 11/sync with Windows 8.1. IE 11 is sorta given, but sync is one of those things they'd better do, because it would make my Windows experience even more seamless, and I love the way it happens on Windows 8.1 with multiple computers.
9. Cortana. This is something I can't wait for, and I just hope she integrates REALLY deeply into the Windows ecosystem, and eventually Xbox and Windows 8. First off, I realize Cortana is a codename, but I hope they let you name him/her. This way I can keep Cortana. It would also be sweet if you could make an avatar for her! For this section I'll be making sub-points.
I. However, here's what Cortana should be able to do: cue up music based on what she knows you want to listen to. This way when I'm biking to work, she can cue up some great Imagine Dragons radio for me. Or when I'm biking back I can just ask her to play music and she'll cue up some rap for me.
II. I should be able to talk to her in a natural way, instead of using keywords ("let my girlfriend know where I'm at" and Cortana says "I'm leaving work" or sends a map of where I am).
III. I also really hope the voice sounds natural and works offline. Working offline is probably the number one thing besides accuracy that I want. IV. Cortana shouldn't just be there when I ask her though, she should be ready before I ask. When my girlfriend texts and asks where I am, Cortana should say "your girlfriend wants to know where you are, should I tell her you're leaving work?". Or if I'm looking for a place to eat, Cortana should know from my texts that I'm going out with my girlfriend for a nice evening in San Diego and recommend somewhere based on the kind of food I like and the budget I work with, before I ask her. She should turn herself on before I go out the door and say "here's a place to eat at tonight".
V. Of course this wouldn't be an instant thing. She'd learn you over time, and change as your preferences change.
VI. She should also be situation-aware. For example, if someone from work sends me an email and I ask Cortana to reply, she should draft it in appropriate business language. When I send a Facebook message, it should include appropriate smileys and lingo.
VII. Cortana should be part of the camera experience. If I pull out my phone to take a picture on the beach with my girlfriend, it should already be on the camera app before I unlock (I don't press the camera button, just turn the screen on.) and be able to take pictures when I give my phone to someone else on the beach without them pressing a button. It would be even crazier if I could prop my phone up and Cortana can tell someone to move left or right to get better in the picture.
VIII. She should recognize me. When I speak, she should know by my voice that it's me, or even discretely use the camera now and then to make sure it's me and if not lock someone out.
Anyways, those are my insane Cortana expectations, and they also include many other system features.
10. All-in-one Windows integration, not just sync. Obviously this would be later in the year, with GDR2 or 3 and another Windows 8 update. However, this is when I'm playing music on my phone and open my computer, then the computer automatically starts playing it. I move into my living room and my Xbox turns on and starts playing the music. This wouldn't be just music, but that's an example of what I want to see.
So yeah, my expectations are insane, but I'm guessing I've hit a couple things right.(especially with Cortana, though she's the thing that I set my expectations most ridiculously high on ha). But what do you think? How much of this will be a reality? Is there something I've missed?
And Microsoft, if you're reading this, just do it. Make Cortana blow everything out of the water. :good:
Group messaging has been built into Windows Phone since WP7 (maybe it was Mango, but I think it was actually a release feature...). If your phone doesn't "support" it, that's a problem with your carrier, not the OS or the hardware. (I'm not entirely clear why anybody would use Sprint, honestly; at least AT&T and Verizon have the advantage of network coverage).
I like the notification center ideas. Swipe (pivot) from left could be useful on both the Start screen (opposite of the app list) and on the lock screen (opposite of Kid's Corner), quite possibly.
IE11 is already part of GDR3, I believe... probably IE12 by the time WP8.1 comes out.
New APIs are much needed. I reallllly hope they move towards less lockdown (make it more RT-like, at a minimum, with file pickers and whatnot). Well, or let us bypass this lockdown BS altogether...
Your "Windows integration" thing is kind of weird, for a few reasons. First of all, your phone can already do this (again, this applies all the way back to WP7) by using Bluetooth. I can play music through my laptop, control it through my laptop, etc. automatically; if my desktop had BT it could do the same. Second, the thing that I really want to see with regard to Windows integration is the ability to work like a Windows machine instead of some special second-class-citizen "device". Things like Homegroup support, ideally domain-joining support (not likely, but it would be really nice to be able to sign my phone into the work network and access internal resources seamlessly; this *may* come as part of the VPN functionality), printing support (not sure if WP8 currently supports printing at all, although it can "see" BT printers), Favorites/documents/settings (where applicable) sync (some of this is coming via Skydrive integration, but it *should* be at least as good as Win8.0 managed), solid built-in Remote Desktop support, and that kind of stuff.
GoodDayToDie said:
Group messaging has been built into Windows Phone since WP7 (maybe it was Mango, but I think it was actually a release feature...). If your phone doesn't "support" it, that's a problem with your carrier, not the OS or the hardware. (I'm not entirely clear why anybody would use Sprint, honestly; at least AT&T and Verizon have the advantage of network coverage).
I like the notification center ideas. Swipe (pivot) from left could be useful on both the Start screen (opposite of the app list) and on the lock screen (opposite of Kid's Corner), quite possibly.
IE11 is already part of GDR3, I believe... probably IE12 by the time WP8.1 comes out.
New APIs are much needed. I reallllly hope they move towards less lockdown (make it more RT-like, at a minimum, with file pickers and whatnot). Well, or let us bypass this lockdown BS altogether...
Your "Windows integration" thing is kind of weird, for a few reasons. First of all, your phone can already do this (again, this applies all the way back to WP7) by using Bluetooth. I can play music through my laptop, control it through my laptop, etc. automatically; if my desktop had BT it could do the same. Second, the thing that I really want to see with regard to Windows integration is the ability to work like a Windows machine instead of some special second-class-citizen "device". Things like Homegroup support, ideally domain-joining support (not likely, but it would be really nice to be able to sign my phone into the work network and access internal resources seamlessly; this *may* come as part of the VPN functionality), printing support (not sure if WP8 currently supports printing at all, although it can "see" BT printers), Favorites/documents/settings (where applicable) sync (some of this is coming via Skydrive integration, but it *should* be at least as good as Win8.0 managed), solid built-in Remote Desktop support, and that kind of stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately Group messaging got dropped from Windows Phone on Verizon and Sprint from 7 to 8... I have no idea why.And with the music, I have desktop speakers hooked up to my laptop most of the time, but yeah, that was more a want than a prediction. And I have GDR3 and I don't believe it is an updated IE (I never saw something about that... But I could be wrong. Never noticed any improvements though) and yeah, I think you're very right on the VPN and domain stuff, they'll want to get businesses to want these for employees, and advertising it as working with existing infrastructure would be HUGE.
C-Lang said:
Unfortunately Group messaging got dropped from Windows Phone on Verizon and Sprint from 7 to 8... I have no idea why.And with the music, I have desktop speakers hooked up to my laptop most of the time, but yeah, that was more a want than a prediction. And I have GDR3 and I don't believe it is an updated IE (I never saw something about that... But I could be wrong. Never noticed any improvements though) and yeah, I think you're very right on the VPN and domain stuff, they'll want to get businesses to want these for employees, and advertising it as working with existing infrastructure would be HUGE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
group messaging was added again on the 928 since gdr2 launched a while ago. I'm not sure if its been corrected with any of the others yet.
On top of that, I'm not all sure what MS has done between GDR3 preview and GDR3 RTM. (NOTE: it auto suggests the word preview after typing GDR3.)
I don't think that way can bet on anything yet for the 8.1 update... MS still is battling uphill, when it comes to a seamless integration with the "one windows experience".
My beef still:
Why wasn't Xbox video integrated at launch and why is MS touting finally as "coming soon" by word from Nokia, not MS announcing the news?
Why isn't MS leaving an option to "unlock" our phones beyond pushing development apps? There is still a quite a large amount of functionality that's missing from WP that's in your good old WM6. I can understand that started from scratch after seeing that the T-Mobile Sidekick UI worked well, while the Kin and the kin 2 for that matter was a flop.
I also have to agree wit @GoodDayToDie about some of the Domain features,, but I'd one up by adding DirectAccess support, after all MS hates being limited to VPNs.
I also recall seeing drivers inside the registry for printing while thinking,
What would I want to print directly from my phone? Photos?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just not quite sure what Windows Phone's future is yet...
Essentially, I didn't find anything interesting coming out of Abu Dhabi.
Sent from my RM-860 using Tapatalk
Just another wishlist, that wont happend.
You should be more realistic and read more infos about, what microsoft is going to do with there OS. A wishlist, what u would like to have and how they should done it, is just a wishlist that never will be happend.
dergutehirte said:
Just another wishlist, that wont happend.
You should be more realistic and read more infos about, what microsoft is going to do with there OS. A wishlist, what u would like to have and how they should done it, is just a wishlist that never will be happend.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Trust me, I've read everything there is to read and included it in my list. I included many realistic expectations, but all threw in a bunch of random stuff that could happen, whether its in the next update or not. Have you even read about Cortana? She's kind of what I described, albeit probably not THAT smart, but that's Microsoft's goal sort of from what we currently know. Now go do some reading before you speak up next time.
According to what has leaked so far, I still see 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, some of 9, and something like 10 as extremely realistic. Sure not everything will happen that way, but from Microsoft's goals and my extensive use of Windows 8/8.1 on multiple laptops/Surface and Surface 2 and my use of WP from WP 7.1 on and my Xbox and what I've seen of the Xbox One (which I've preordered, and watched every video there is to watch) this all could very well happen, although some of it will no doubt be an update or so away.
And as for my Cortana predictions, here's a great article to sum up what I've said and how it lines up with facts as we know them (Microsoft's goals and statements, leaks etc.) and it lines up PRETTY DARN WELL. And I quote Steve Ballmer "deeply personalized, based on the advanced, almost magical, intelligence in our cloud that learns more and more over time about people and the world". I don't know about you, but my predictions sound pretty reasonable to me.
This is not a "preview" in the sense of a "beta". It is, in fact, the RTM build... but in the proper sense of RTM (Release To Manufacturing) where "Manufacturing" here means the phone OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). The OEMs may further customize things at this point, adding additional packages to the update. It then goes to the mobile operators, why may make yet more tweaks (usually, in my experience, this involves removing some stuff, like the ability to lock the phone to 3G only on AT&T, for example, but they also add their own ringtones and boot screens and similar cruft).
However, the bits from Microsoft are final and released. Those are not changing. I'm sure MS runs pre-release programs (betas) internally, and they had a public beta program for Mango (WP7.5), but it appears that no part of WP8 had any such external program.
1. Microsoft will make launching the camera faster by modeling it after Windows 8.1 (swipe down on lockscreen) however this could be replaced with a notification center, but either way, it will be used.
No yet. Only as second option.
2. The notification icons can be touched as you're swiping the lockscreen away to launch the respective app. This is a more dubious prediction, but would be nice.
Already has this since GDR2 as I know. You can tap on it to open that app from lock screen, swipe notification message in top from left to right side, to hide it.
3. Nokia apps could be brought into the fold (integrated fully into Windows Phone). This is more likely to come with a GDR2 update or such since 8.1 is coming out right after the deal closes. It's also a hopeful prediction, but Microsoft had better make it happen.
No. Nokia wants to be independent and leader. So if all OEM apps will be available for all other WP devices, than Nokia gonna lost part of market share.
4. Bigger square tiles. This is something I'm pretty confident about, and would love to see for things like Pictures and People apps, and would be awesome to see what developers do with them.
Developers, developers, developers only can do with own apps to make similar as People, Pictures. Go ahead.
5. Group messaging. If they don't do this, I swear....
What you mean Group Messaging? SMS or Social Messaging (Twitter/Facebook/Lync/Outlook?) Will be.
6. Notification center. This is of course going to happen, but what I'd love to see is not swiping down from the top, but perhaps swiping in from the left-hand side, and when you're on the Start screen, it would work beautifully with having the app drawer on the right (left notifications, middle Start, right apps).
-------- No comments --------
7. Also, I'm guessing they'll integrate new app APIs in an effort to get ready for the move to one Windows store. This would also include APIs for Cortana integration, which I'll discuss in a minute.
-------- No comments --------
8. Internet Explorer 11/sync with Windows 8.1. IE 11 is sorta given, but sync is one of those things they'd better do, because it would make my Windows experience even more seamless, and I love the way it happens on Windows 8.1 with multiple computers.
Will be. This calling ecosystem.
9. Cortana. This is something I can't wait for, and I just hope she integrates REALLY deeply into the Windows ecosystem, and eventually Xbox and Windows 8. First off, I realize Cortana is a codename, but I hope they let you name him/her. This way I can keep Cortana. It would also be sweet if you could make an avatar for her! For this section I'll be making sub-points.
I. However, here's what Cortana should be able to do: cue up music based on what she knows you want to listen to. This way when I'm biking to work, she can cue up some great Imagine Dragons radio for me. Or when I'm biking back I can just ask her to play music and she'll cue up some rap for me.
II. I should be able to talk to her in a natural way, instead of using keywords ("let my girlfriend know where I'm at" and Cortana says "I'm leaving work" or sends a map of where I am).
III. I also really hope the voice sounds natural and works offline. Working offline is probably the number one thing besides accuracy that I want. IV. Cortana shouldn't just be there when I ask her though, she should be ready before I ask. When my girlfriend texts and asks where I am, Cortana should say "your girlfriend wants to know where you are, should I tell her you're leaving work?". Or if I'm looking for a place to eat, Cortana should know from my texts that I'm going out with my girlfriend for a nice evening in San Diego and recommend somewhere based on the kind of food I like and the budget I work with, before I ask her. She should turn herself on before I go out the door and say "here's a place to eat at tonight".
V. Of course this wouldn't be an instant thing. She'd learn you over time, and change as your preferences change.
VI. She should also be situation-aware. For example, if someone from work sends me an email and I ask Cortana to reply, she should draft it in appropriate business language. When I send a Facebook message, it should include appropriate smileys and lingo.
VII. Cortana should be part of the camera experience. If I pull out my phone to take a picture on the beach with my girlfriend, it should already be on the camera app before I unlock (I don't press the camera button, just turn the screen on.) and be able to take pictures when I give my phone to someone else on the beach without them pressing a button. It would be even crazier if I could prop my phone up and Cortana can tell someone to move left or right to get better in the picture.
VIII. She should recognize me. When I speak, she should know by my voice that it's me, or even discretely use the camera now and then to make sure it's me and if not lock someone out.
Too much.................
Anyways, those are my insane Cortana expectations, and they also include many other system features.
10. All-in-one Windows integration, not just sync. Obviously this would be later in the year, with GDR2 or 3 and another Windows 8 update. However, this is when I'm playing music on my phone and open my computer, then the computer automatically starts playing it. I move into my living room and my Xbox turns on and starts playing the music. This wouldn't be just music, but that's an example of what I want to see.
Read my answer of question 8.
Notification icons != notification toasts. The ability to tap on Toasts to open the app has existed since well before WP8.

New U8

Got my U8 today and here's my initial impression:
Plus - 1. Immediately went to English, no Chinese. EZ setup. 2. Several choices for watch faces. Several choices for menu icons. Some are color and big. 3. Love the vibration for notification. 4. Speaker while on phone good. 5. Phone pick up works good.
Cons - 1. Washes out in sunlight bad. That's a show stopper for me. 2. Have to turn off phone Bluetooth and use handset for a private call. Switch is in my phone app and simple but still. 3. I use Touchdown for email and it doesn't notify on the watch. Working on that. 4. Band seems a bit 'soft', not hard rubber.
Added Con - Not having the watch face constantly lit is driving me nuts!
rogerperk said:
Got my U8 today and here's my initial impression:
Plus - 1. Immediately went to English, no Chinese. EZ setup. 2. Several choices for watch faces. Several choices for menu icons. Some are color and big. 3. Love the vibration for notification. 4. Speaker while on phone good. 5. Phone pick up works good.
Cons - 1. Washes out in sunlight bad. That's a show stopper for me. 2. Have to turn off phone Bluetooth and use handset for a private call. Switch is in my phone app and simple but still. 3. I use Touchdown for email and it doesn't notify on the watch. Working on that. 4. Band seems a bit 'soft', not hard rubber.
Added Con - Not having the watch face constantly lit is driving me nuts!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi rogerperk,
Some image to your statement is very much appreciate.
Thanks
I was just looking at one of these on ebay today. Are you able to reply to text messages through it? Does it have voice input as well as a keyboard?
Artimis said:
I was just looking at one of these on ebay today. Are you able to reply to text messages through it? Does it have voice input as well as a keyboard?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I bought a Pebble. Regardless of whether the U8 has voice input or not if I can't see the face they it's useless to me. And outside that is the case. If that doesn't matter then I'd be willing to sell you mine for a cheaper price than you'll get on line. Wore it a total of 2 days.
rogerperk said:
I bought a Pebble. Regardless of whether the U8 has voice input or not if I can't see the face they it's useless to me. And outside that is the case. If that doesn't matter then I'd be willing to sell you mine for a cheaper price than you'll get on line. Wore it a total of 2 days.
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Click to collapse
Thanks but I'll pass. I'm going to stick with my MotoActv for now unless I can pick up a cheap Galaxy Gear or either the LG G-watch or Moto360 convinces me when released.
Artimis said:
Thanks but I'll pass. I'm going to stick with my MotoActv for now unless I can pick up a cheap Galaxy Gear or either the LG G-watch or Moto360 convinces me when released.
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Click to collapse
LOL good choice! The longer I have my Pebble the better I like it.
Just got mine today
Hey Roger,
Been following another thread ("Elegance U8") and now this one since ordering mine off Ebay a week ago. Got it in the mail today, and I can see your points for both pro and con.
Here are my questions, if anyone knows. (yet)
I remember seeing what the actual phone OS is called somewhere, but can't find it now. EDIT: It's called "Nucleus." Have found some info and a sample download online. Might try and see if I can learn how to develop for it.Though the device plays nice with Android and ios, it's actually neither of those things. If someone knows what the name of it is, is it possible to find a tutorial on coding it somewhere?
The initial reason I ask is:
Not waiting for the manufacturer to patch the "shut off screen" function. I'd like to see if I can figure out how to do this myself, and
Enabling texting. Rather than a traditional keyboard, am thinking a sliding alphabet. A - slide to B - slide to C, etc. A pain in the butt, but probably less so than trying to use a keyboard. Picture the "carousel" from the Kindle Fire series, but with letters / numbers / symbols. Also, as suggested earlier in this thread texting with use of the mic, if possible.
Not saying I'd be able to do any of this, but I have limited experience doing some dev work in Android (through Unity) and am wondering if it's possible to self teach this OS, figuring that we quite probably won't see a lot of feature updates from whoever the manufacturer is of this product.
Thanks, and God bless.
If you do develop, please keep us updated. i like the watch but would love to be able to reply to messages. let me know if i can help any also in the development
Does anyone have the latest firmware for the smart watch?
Mine is: M28_KHR.FN1.V04
Regards.
Conect, was wondering if you'd gotten anywhere with OS development for this watch?
Is this the one you got,this is the one i have but the icons and analog faces are different... ?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/311154443880?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT
Conect11 said:
Hey Roger,
Been following another thread ("Elegance U8") and now this one since ordering mine off Ebay a week ago. Got it in the mail today, and I can see your points for both pro and con.
Here are my questions, if anyone knows. (yet)
I remember seeing what the actual phone OS is called somewhere, but can't find it now. EDIT: It's called "Nucleus." Have found some info and a sample download online. Might try and see if I can learn how to develop for it.Though the device plays nice with Android and ios, it's actually neither of those things. If someone knows what the name of it is, is it possible to find a tutorial on coding it somewhere?
The initial reason I ask is:
Not waiting for the manufacturer to patch the "shut off screen" function. I'd like to see if I can figure out how to do this myself, and
Enabling texting. Rather than a traditional keyboard, am thinking a sliding alphabet. A - slide to B - slide to C, etc. A pain in the butt, but probably less so than trying to use a keyboard. Picture the "carousel" from the Kindle Fire series, but with letters / numbers / symbols. Also, as suggested earlier in this thread texting with use of the mic, if possible.
Not saying I'd be able to do any of this, but I have limited experience doing some dev work in Android (through Unity) and am wondering if it's possible to self teach this OS, figuring that we quite probably won't see a lot of feature updates from whoever the manufacturer is of this product.
Thanks, and God bless.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've had my watch for about a week now, and I gotta say, for the price, it's pretty killer! I wish there was more development for it besides distributing firmware and flash tools.
I've noticed that when you activate Google Voice search and texting with the watch connected, it uses the watch mic to pick up your voice. I was thinking it might be cool to find a way to trigger voice search and voice texting from the watch, since you can already use it for voice input as long as you trigger the feature on your phone. Have you made any progress on trying to develop for the u8?
Also, I believe I read that they're going to release an SDK for MediaTek devices, such as this watch. Might be interesting to see if anything comes of that.
Wish there was a way to add a count down timer to this watch. It needs to have the timer with a start/stop button on the screen as well a reset button for the timer. so If I set it to 30secons, when I hit the reset after the 30s is up it will reset it back to 30secs again.
I need to root my phone so I can turn off a few notifications that I do not want to transmit.
driver instalation problem
helo,
maybe in wrong thread, but if anyone could help i would be grateful. my windows 8 dont recognise u8 watch, and i cant install provided drivers for vista. i'm stuck, and i would like to instal firmware, but without watch been recognised its not posible. thanx
Is there a way to make the U8 vibrate when you receive a text message or have a phone call?
I was wondering if anyone has found a way to get different faces on this watch. I believe mine may be a clone.

Android wear. A notification OS?

I was looking forward to install apps, develop apps and use apps on the android wear. When I installed the android wear sdk, and ran the emulator, it didn't seem very "huge". Not much can be done!
http://developer.android.com/wear/notifications/creating.html
As linked above, Google tells us to that we can add support for wear in a few lines of code. What can be done, is limited to the buttons that can be added when swiping to the right page.
No other documentation suggest that we can make Android Wear specific apps. It's not possible to add controls and widgets (Editabletext, button, spinner etc.) like it's possible in full android. Now i know that the screen is small, and limitations has to apply..
But the limitations are counted. Imagine receiving an email, swipe right, theres a reply button, click on it, voice will be activated, speak your message, and it will send it. That's pretty cool, but not cool enough..
What if i would like to add someone to cc?, not possible using the sdk, what if i would like to add a different signature? not possible.
The idea is fine, and it's awesome to see something new, i could really see it's potential, but as of right now, i am kinda disappointed.
I was noticing this also from the non developer point of view. All the marketing of the product it's based on notifications, at least the Gear was able to support the installation of apk's and i was excited since Android was about to release his own watch it was going to unleash all the real power of the smartwatches, but getting notifications from my mom telling me to buy milk does not sound like very awesome to me.
When Android Wear was first announced, I also heard that it was only for notifications. If that is really the case, I'm not interested and will keep my Gear 2 for now.
I think notifications are one of the obvious benefits, but there's going to be a lot more that we figure out how to do with them.
Sure, the interface is restrictive, but that's kinda the idea. The real benefit will be adding that little extra special sauce to the notifications in the context of whatever else is going on. And notifications don't need to just be a note from Dear Old Mom... geolocation, sensors, and other things may come into play.
After reading most of the AD site I sorta feel like you do when you know in about a hour and and a half you're going to have to have a seat on the pot - I know I've got a potential big idea in there somewhere, but it's just not ready to come out yet.
johdaxx said:
I think notifications are one of the obvious benefits, but there's going to be a lot more that we figure out how to do with them.
Sure, the interface is restrictive, but that's kinda the idea. The real benefit will be adding that little extra special sauce to the notifications in the context of whatever else is going on. And notifications don't need to just be a note from Dear Old Mom... geolocation, sensors, and other things may come into play.
After reading most of the AD site I sorta feel like you do when you know in about a hour and and a half you're going to have to have a seat on the pot - I know I've got a potential big idea in there somewhere, but it's just not ready to come out yet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only potential scenario i see working, is having a service, on the phone. That service will have created a notification, showing relevant information, let's say it's showing when sunrise and sunset (depending on the time of the day), if you swipe to the right, you can click on "Show someother info". When you tap that, it will start showing some other information, the service will then have altered the text on the notification.
Thats a potential and very possible scenario. Then again.. Is it really optimal? Apps that need to show this kind of information will take up all the notification space on the phone.

[Q] Is there a family mode for NP?

I feel like this product wasn't thought out well. As in you have to link it to your Google account and then you have YouTube spitting out very strange recommendations to watch things that you have never even looked at on YouTube.
So what I'm asking is if there is some way to have a family profile on the NP that is separate from your own Google data?
I would *love* a way to block some stuff from being blasted into my kid's eyeballs just by turning on the TV. I plugged this thing in, turned it on, and boom. Sons of Anarchy and American Horror Story's covers will now give my 4 year old nightmares. Great. And I've never seen the shows.
Now, I don't want to report things as "inappropriate" though, because... well, they're not. I just don't want them on my screen... Now, before I get flamed with comments like "be a good parent" and "you shouldn't let your kids watch that stuff anyway" - that's exactly what I'm saying. I just didn't know that I was going to be blasted with the stuff as soon as I turned it on.
The good news is that as soon as I launched the PBS Kids app, most of the stuff I don't want to see was pushed off the screen by Wild Kratts and Curious George... But really - what if Google decides that I should watch a Victoria's Secret fashion show? WTH?
Have you tried enabling content filtering in the Play store? I would think that it should remove any suggestions from the Play store above a certain rating. Have not tried it myself but I guess I could give it a test later. I was looking to put 2 of these in my kids rooms but hadn't really thought that part out.
There are also restricted profiles... Might be better for your case.
I guess my point was more along the same lines as the poster above. I look at some comedy videos and stuff on YT. My GF came in the other day like what's this college sex prank video recommendation on the NP (from some channel I never watched)
It's very embarrassing. I don't need a restrictive profile. There are no kids involved, but I would like the NP not to show recommendations like that. In the meantime I turned off YT recommendations, but I would like to see some sort of profile separation where you can have a family profile that doesn't pull from your own recommendations.
I had this exact same problem with questionable recommendations from Google Play Movies and YouTube and it turns out you CAN remove them by disabling notifications for the app.
Just got to: Settings --> App --> App Name and change notifications from On to Off.
PhyerFly said:
I had this exact same problem with questionable recommendations from Google Play Movies and YouTube and it turns out you CAN remove them by disabling notifications for the app.
Just got to: Settings --> App --> App Name and change notifications from On to Off.
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Click to collapse
Yea, I did that already. I would like to see a different profile for the TV though so you aren't getting strange recommendations. Turning off recommendations completely defeats the purpose of even having them...
EcPercy said:
Yea, I did that already. I would like to see a different profile for the TV though so you aren't getting strange recommendations. Turning off recommendations completely defeats the purpose of even having them...
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Click to collapse
I can't imagine how complex the controls would need to be in order to be able to be able to screen every possible type of recommendation from every app ever, especially when we're talking about a single google account associated with the history it's built based on your usage.
I feel your concern and I think Android TV and Google's apps have already done some damage in terms of what they surface on my TV (ex. the Google Music app shows a full-screen background of Mariah Carey with her tits falling out of a dress when I play her Christmas songs), but realistically I don't know how else I'd weed out everything unless they had some kind of rating system that all apps respected
My thought was a separate profile that isn't pulling from your email account. I suppose the other option would be to just make a new gmail account and sign the NP into that.

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