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I am coming over from blandroid and unfortunately have a lot of time invested in google services. I know of a few alternatives to google products but there are a few I need help with:
Google Music: free cloud music storage
Google Navigation
Google Translate
Thanks in advance for your help
zune, skydrive, bing maps (and a bunch of good turn by turn stuff in the market)
not sure aobut translate.. but, like on andriod, find an app in the market
Unfortunately Navigation doesn't really have a good substitute. There are some paid turn by turn navigation, but they use local maps instead of always having the latest data straight from Google. The bonus is you get to use them offline, though these were available on Android, too.
Google Talk also doesn't seem to have a good substitute. GChat is alright. It takes a bit of time to start up and sometimes doesn't connect.
Microsoft needs to rethink their stance on multi-tasking. Maybe manually giving applications permission to multi-task. They also need to let developers make plugins for the messaging application to integrate other messaging services.
Overall I'm happy with my Venue Pro, but I won't be selling my Android phone.
If you have a developer phone, check out waze (you can find it in the developer forums here)
You can go for the real thing (sort of),
Google Music - Go to browser. You can actually play songs from Google Music. A bit limited, but whatever.
Google Navigation - gMaps although I am not sure that it has turn-by-turn, it is Google Maps though.
Goolge Translate - Translator Pro. Uses Google Translator's API so should work the same.
For alternatives,
Google Music - Zune Pass is a pretty good thing if you want streaming music, Rdio got updated to Mango to support background streaming. I'm personally waiting for Spotify because my whole music collection is on it (I local filed the songs that weren't in Spotify's database).
Google Navigation - Maps (which is built in), haven't used it, but I heard that it is iffy. If you have the money, go with Garmin. If you have the time, wait until Nokia Maps comes out (not sure if it is restricted to Nokia phones, but I heard that they will build apps for other OEMs).
Google Translate - The real alternative is Bing Translate, but honestly, you can just go into the marketplace and type in translator.
Hope that's helpful!
Once again, the XDA community proves to be the most helpful. Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I do like the Zune pass idea but my wife will make me choose between Zune pass and Netflix. The joys of marrying an teacher; never lets me have all the toys I want. Thanks again.
As we all know the Google Latitude service is shutting down on 9th August 2013.
Does anyone know of a suitable replacement?
p.s I never made it to the moon :crying:
The official replacement is "Locations" in Google+. Any reason why that won't work for you?
Solutions Etcetera said:
The official replacement is "Locations" in Google+. Any reason why that won't work for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My family and friends don't use Google+, any other apps?
meyert11 said:
My family and friends don't use Google+, any other apps?
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Click to collapse
Come next month, they won't be using Latitude either. I don't understand why looking for another app is preferential to switching to Google+. Is it just having to add it to your account? Or is it something else?
Solutions Etcetera said:
Come next month, they won't be using Latitude either. I don't understand why looking for another app is preferential to switching to Google+. Is it just having to add it to your account? Or is it something else?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google latitude ran under Google maps, so users of Google maps (virtually anyone) could follow each other. Now that latitude is being moved under Google+, only people with plus accounts will be able to use it. Since my family and friends don't use Google+, if we want to follow each other we will all have to sign up for Google+ accounts, just to use latitude. Seems like an unnecessary amount of work, for a feature that is useful during vacations and trips. Hope this explains it a bit.
meyert11 said:
Google latitude ran under Google maps, so users of Google maps (virtually anyone) could follow each other. Now that latitude is being moved under Google+, only people with plus accounts will be able to use it. Since my family and friends don't use Google+, if we want to follow each other we will all have to sign up for Google+ accounts, just to use latitude. Seems like an unnecessary amount of work, for a feature that is useful during vacations and trips. Hope this explains it a bit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google+ is a single option on a Google account. If they are using Maps with Latitude, the already have a Google account. IIRC adding Plus to an existing Google account is a single mouseclick.
Solutions Etcetera said:
Google+ is a single option on a Google account. If they are using Maps with Latitude, the already have a Google account. IIRC adding Plus to an existing Google account is a single mouseclick.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google+ is a social media service, like facebook, that is altogether separate. Larry Page is obsessed with having everyone sign up for Google+ because most people are surfing the web via their mobile phones and Facebook is dominating the mobile ad space. My friends and family are not likely to migrate from Facebook to Google+, so I need an alternative to Latitude.
If you'd like further clarity, feel free to PM me, rather than us having a long personal conversation on a forum about Latitude alternatives.
You don't have to use it, you just need to opt in to use the location services. I don't see what the big deal is but to each their own.
Solutions Etcetera said:
You don't have to use it, you just need to opt in to use the location services. I don't see what the big deal is but to each their own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You will have to open the Google+ app to follow your friends and family. It has been physically removed from the updated Maps app.
The problem is that you don't even HAVE to have a Google + "account" just because you have a Google account. I can go into my Google account right now and delete my Google + profile. So that's not even true. To have to opt into and then use the Google + app is a pretty lame alternative. ALSO, the Google + Locations really sucks right now. My boyfriend and I are in each other's circles, have shared our locations with each other, and turned on background location reporting, but he does not show up as a person who I can see his location. He showed up for 1 hour when we first set it up, but he's since disappeared, even though I've been right next to him and seen his settings on his phone as we tried to troubleshoot. It needs some serious work before it's ready to replace Latitude.
I've been trying to use Glympse for those times when I need to let someone know where I am, and for them to track me. The only down side is you can only let people see your location for up to 4 hours at a time. When you've got an active Glympse running, your GPS is in constant use too, so it will drain your battery faster than Latitude did. You can opt to turn your GPS off and just let Glympse use WiFi or cell networks to locate you, but it won't be as accurate.
Other than that, all the other alternatives are also closer to social networking or checkin apps that also happen to share your location. I just want something simple, LIKE LATITUDE.
Oh. I guess the alternative is Latitude. I don't understand why they killed it off. I hope maybe Backitude will pull a Feedly and create something neat out of this.
Solutions Etcetera said:
The official replacement is "Locations" in Google+. Any reason why that won't work for you?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me, three things:
1. No option to navigate to a person on the map
2. No "last update" time stamp means sometimes the locations are 5 minutes old. Sometimes an hour.
3. No accuracy bubble
It's basically useless as a way to figure out where people are at any given time. Extremely annoying to have that go away. Hopefully there will be a replacement that shows up that doesn't drain the battery. Something that automatically responds to a ping for a check-in rather than polling for locations every X minutes would be great.
ppdd said:
For me, three things:
1. No option to navigate to a person on the map
2. No "last update" time stamp means sometimes the locations are 5 minutes old. Sometimes an hour.
3. No accuracy bubble
It's basically useless as a way to figure out where people are at any given time. Extremely annoying to have that go away. Hopefully there will be a replacement that shows up that doesn't drain the battery. Something that automatically responds to a ping for a check-in rather than polling for locations every X minutes would be great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, these are some valid concerns. I am not a big fan of the location tracking features so were unaware of these. Hopefully, as Google continues to unify its social services we will eventually see more granular features resurface. I miss the offline ability in the new maps more than anything else at the moment. Hangouts not showing online status is annoying as well. Its important to leave Google feedback through official channels when valued existing features go AWOL. It has always been Android's nature to throw out something half-baked, and improve (or kill ) it over time based on user feedback.
As for battery... Google announced a number of new API's that would be rolling out this year. Some of which are specifically designed to reign in apps that poll/push data. I remember location services being a big part of that.I'm willing to bet this will get better over time.
Solutions Etcetera said:
Hi, these are some valid concerns. I am not a big fan of the location tracking features so were unaware of these. Hopefully, as Google continues to unify its social services we will eventually see more granular features resurface. I miss the offline ability in the new maps more than anything else at the moment. Hangouts not showing online status is annoying as well. Its important to leave Google feedback through official channels when valued existing features go AWOL. It has always been Android's nature to throw out something half-baked, and improve (or kill ) it over time based on user feedback.
As for battery... Google announced a number of new API's that would be rolling out this year. Some of which are specifically designed to reign in apps that poll/push data. I remember location services being a big part of that.I'm willing to bet this will get better over time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've already complained to google, but I'm not real hopeful there. If Latitude wasn't being used heavily, it didn't make sense to leave it in Maps cluttering up the interface. I don't blame them.
For me, literally the only thing I want to use this for is making it easier to coordinate with my wife, or friends/family when we're on road trips. I suspect thats how most people were using it. It's great to be able to see that she's left her office or is at our kids' daycare or is 10 minutes away from a restaurant without calling her a dozen times a day. Losing the 'last update' stamp ruins that use case. Really not sure how they envision people using the G+ locations feature.
Apple's Find My Friends was great when my wife and I were on iOS. It behaved almost exactly right, only ever reporting your location when someone on your whitelist opened up their FMF app. There was no real power drain associated with it. All the apps in the Play store that fill this niche seem to report locations on their own, which is dumb *and* a redundant power drain given that Google location services is already grabbing that location.
Oh well.
ppdd said:
Apple's Find My Friends was great when my wife and I were on iOS. It behaved almost exactly right, only ever reporting your location when someone on your whitelist opened up their FMF app. There was no real power drain associated with it. All the apps in the Play store that fill this niche seem to report locations on their own, which is dumb *and* a redundant power drain given that Google location services is already grabbing that location.
Oh well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apple does it right in not allowing apps to just go out and post/get whatever they want, whenever they want it. The app has to register for the info, and the system coalesces these requests for when the corresponding hardware is connected. Google is well on their way to implementing this same behavior.
Having much of this stuff better unified is a good thing IMHO, and I understand the thinking that things related to friends and family should be found in + and not maps. And based on what I saw at I/O, this will get better.
From what I've heard, the previously mentioned Glympse is a pretty decent replacement depending on what features you need. It's more aimed towards temporary location sharing between people during car trips, theme park visits, going out for lunch, etc. There's no option to leave it permanently on, though, and it doesn't appear to use intermittent polling.
Now that Latitude is dead, who knows if it will introduce this functionality to get new users?
I'm hoping that there is a location history feature in the new Google+ locations as I use this a lot, but I would love to eventually reach the moon - and maybe beyond!
It's an opening for another Feedly to come in and increase their market share. Someone like echoecho or swarmly could tweak their application to provide the same functionality, while furthering their own growth, a percentage of those new users would start using their services as result.
If I knew enough about Android development I’d quickly drop an app that pulled the Google+ location information and dumped it into maps provided by the Google Maps API with the options for satellite imagery and streetview. I'm really surprised that Google didn't merge the existing functionality into Google+, it must be available as they'll only be leveraging Google Maps anyway, certainly in regards the above.
theickleone said:
I'm hoping that there is a location history feature in the new Google+ locations as I use this a lot, but I would love to eventually reach the moon - and maybe beyond!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Location history will remain:
If you use Location Reporting and have Location History enabled, your location data will continue to be recorded to your Location History. You can view and manage Location History data on the Location History dashboard.
Note: We’re no longer supporting Google Maps for Mobile 6.14.4 and below for Location History or Location Reporting settings.
google is forcing us to use their G+, first was gtalk converted to hangouts, now latitude
i have yet to find a map of people in G+ on the PC, i can only see people on the phone
now they have a universal "location tracking" setting in android, the new maps v7 is garbage, hopefully someone is able to mod the old maps apk to push and pull data from their new location service, reformat it and keep latitude working in the old maps
laur3n.newm4n said:
Other than that, all the other alternatives are also closer to social networking or checkin apps that also happen to share your location. I just want something simple, LIKE LATITUDE.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi laur3n.newm4n, I'm currently building location sharing app for many of the same reasons you mentioned. We're still in private alpha but if after you checkout the features and it's sound like we're solving your problem you can signup for the beta
Hope it will help: yougy.co
Hello!
I love this phone, still awesome. BUT!!! Why we bough the phone if google play services eat all battery. I removed a lot google app, i used ,Disable Services" app, disable all location servies only use GPS hardware when need. And still GOOOGLE F***ING services draining my battery.
Can somebody create a lollipop image without GAPPS? Please
BTW i use Lollipop RU.
Sorry about my english and this but i'm very angry.
Thanks
I can't say I happen to have the same issue.
Have you tried a factory reset?
Sent from my KFFOWI using Tapatalk
Yes, i tried. Yesterday night i flashed the phone, i was very angry
Doze Google Play Services
Android 6 has the Doze feature that can help you, it makes the system use lot less resources when the phone is idle.
But some remarks about Doze.
1 - Doze works, but only when idle for more than an hour and at night, so you should use "Greenify" to force Doze being used more often.
2 - Ads are constantly being downloaded on the background so use "My Android Tools Pro", to disable ads, on apps and some services you don't want/need.
3 - Use "Amplify" it helps.
4 - DOZE GOOGLE SERVICES - This is what you looking for. Yes it's possible, Google made Android have Google Play Services in a whitelist so it never goes Dozed, so you need to change it, you can see more about that in here https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/module-enable-doze-google-play-services-t3608783, just install the "EnableDozeGMS+_TWRP - by VR25.zip", install it with the recovery.
Obvious for all this you will need root, custom recovery and xposed framework.
I also use "Intelli 3G" to fast change from 2g on standby to 3g when I really needed it.
"3g Watchdog" to see which apps are downloading stuff without telling me, so I can use "My Android Tools Pro" to disable those ad sevices or just make "Greenify" force sleep them...
Best luck
You can also use the YotaPhone without Google Services, you just use a Chinese version of the YotaPhone 2 ROM, Chinese ROM are smaller because China Government prohibits Android being released with Google Services by default, but remember there's plenty of apps that use google services for sync, location and web browsing etc, so some apps will not work without it, but it's possible of course. Just keep/change the correct radio for your YotaPhone Model, YD206 or YD201 etc, replace the radio folder from one ROM to the other and flash the ROM.
Hello!
Me again I don't know why but sometimes when i restart my phone (lollipop), in the settings menu ,,Data Usage" won't start or disappear. And i think that time my phone draining slower. Maybe. Is it possible? Is it possible to disable or delete Data Usage function?
Thanks
Hmmm, Data Usage should be a passive counter, not activly draining battery.
Unfortunately it's not easy to disable the counters function.
HOW I DISABLED Google Playservices for INSTANT Apps
DISCLAIMER: Tweaking these apps and services can leave you with a broken, non-functional, steaming, smoking, screaming device; proceed at your own
risk. Just because I got it to work, doesn't mean it will work for you. I am not responsible for your PEBKAC errors. All Google stuff on my devices is extensively neutered, if it's not on your this may not work. I prevent updates to Play Store and Play services and the brunt of services run by those apps are disabled there's too much there to be covered in a simple guide but this instruction is what FINALLY clipped INSTANT APP'S wings.
I thought I'd found a way to prevent it from re-installing itself, but after two days it did, but at least this turns it off and keeps it from hogging battery and as much memory. As many have pointed out, freezing doesn't, but but turning off the SERVICES as outlined here, it slows it down a lot.
ROOT IS REQUIRED, the only way to block it without root I know of is disable the Play Store, go someplace else for that and don't hijack this information, it's not about using 3C, facebook, Play store, relationship problems or political unrest, it's about STOPPING Google's Apps: Play Store & Play Services from installing "Playservices for INSTANT Apps"
I think the PLAY STORE downloads and installs “Playservices for INSTANT Apps” under control of services run by PLAY Services
RECOMMENDATION: Every release of Play Store and Play services potentinally includes NEW services that might affect this solution. I recommend each time they are updated you check for NEW items that might trigger installation of Instant apps.
THE SOLUTION:
=============================================================
Using 3C All-in-One Toolbox" from 3c71 dot com
"Manage">"Application manager">"Apps">"Google Play store">"Manage">"Permissions">"Activities">search (with magnifying glass on toolbar)
input package name "instantapps to filter and uncheck items. Do the same for "Providers", "Receivers" and "Services"
"Manage">
"Application manager">
"Apps">
"Google Play services">
"Manage">
"Permissions">
"Activities">search (with magnifying glass on toolbar)
input package name "instantapps to filter and uncheck items. Do the same for "Providers", "Receivers" and "Services"
NOW, UNINSTALL/DELETE/REMOVE the app: Google Playservices for INSTANT Apps.
"Manage">
"Application manager">
"Apps">
"Google Play store">
"Manage">
Uninstall
============================================================
This is working for me on Samsung Galaxy S5 (G900V Lollipop), Core Prime (G360T), Core Prime G360V, J1 (J100M), LG VS810P and MemuPlay Emulator.
Call it what you want, Malware, Spyware, Shovelware, Vaporware, Bloatware to me Google Playservices for INSTANT Apps is all those things. I saw Google Playservices for INSTANT Apps on my phone December 2018 and cringed. It's taken me almost 4 months to come up with this working solution. When I say WORKING, I mean it prevents Google Playservices for INSTANT Apps from reinstalling and still leaves Google Play Store functional.
THANK YOU! to the dev of 3C All-in-One Toolbox for providing their awesome tools.
hello,
I removed all the bloatware through ADB except Android auto, decoPic, galaxy store, ar doodle, ar zone, one ui, samsung cloud, tags and swiftkey.
Can any1 pls share the commands to remove the above apps.
What is the use of ANT services ? is it useful?
Thanks
ANT(+) is for connecting fitness sensors such as a heart rate strap, power meter, speed sensor etc for cycling and running. A lot of phones, Apple especially, don't even have this feature at all.
tdodd said:
ANT(+) is for connecting fitness sensors such as a heart rate strap, power meter, speed sensor etc for cycling and running. A lot of phones, Apple especially, don't even have this feature at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ANT is never active unless a device is present that uses it.
A package blocker is more useful.
Karma Firewall* will stop on wasteful Google, Android, Samsung, 3rd party apk constant polling.
Google Play Services, 4 times each minute... for what?
Android Services 2x @minute.
Goggle Backup Transport and Backup Framework are major offenders as well even with screen off.
Disabling them in settings doesn't stopped them on my 10+ running on Pie, you may be luckier on your load.
*VNP freeware firewall, no ads, extremely low battery/resource usage. Logging ability may be limited by Q... of course.
Thanks for the suggestions, Can you update of removing Android auto, decoPic, galaxy store and swiftkey.