Droid related stuff (problems/solutions tips, tricks, apps)

[Jobu]

hulu is available via web and netflix has an app for some android phones officially or you can root your phone and download it.

[MarcusAurelius]

hulu is available via web and netflix has an app for some android phones officially or you can root your phone and download it.

ah. says netflix isn't available on my phone, read something about because it's a tegra chip. is that not the case, and i can root it?

[Jobu]

I'm not sure, I know daoist rooted his. It's in this thread somewhere, my EVO is on the list so I didn't have to root mine. IMO is that it's not really worth it. It's nice and it works, but it eats battery life like nothing else. I use netflix a ton, but I can't see myself using it on my phone much.

[MarcusAurelius]

yeah i never would consider it, except that this thing has an hdmi out port on it, and i have no idea what else to use it for.

[Jobu]

I think the hdmi is simply for when you shoot video on it and you want to play it back on your TV.

[MarcusAurelius]

dislikes so far:
the power button is in a real odd place, as mentioned in reviews. and if it's just on a flat surface in front of you, there's no front or top button you can push to pull it out of idle, you actually have to pick the thing up.

the back cover is plastic... and to remove it you really have to bend the thing to snap it out. which is disconcerting, and feels cheap. overall, the thing is light and plasticky, and generally feels cheaper than the iphone, but that's not at all a big deal.

email: by default it has separate "gmail" and "email" apps/icons? wtf? i like the simple iphone inbox that shows me status of all my email accounts. maybe i can get used to this, with the notification thing. i guess i'll configure it the way i like, as i don't really want ringtone announcements of emails.

likes:
holy shit it's fast, and the screen at arm length looks sharper than my 1920x1200 24" lcd.

[daoist]

the latest netflix app doesn't do device check any more. So if you can get it onto your device and run it, it'll work if it's able to.

I don't know what the deal with tegra devices is, but there's some sort of hardware kink they're working on.

[MarcusAurelius]

the latest netflix app doesn't do device check any more. So if you can get it onto your device and run it, it'll work if it's able to.

how do i do this when it doesn't let me download it via marketplace?

[daoist]

download the apk file from somewhere else, like xda-developers or droid-life, etc.

[MarcusAurelius]

when i hit the power button on the the lady's motorola droid g1, it goes straight to the pattern-unlock thing. on mine, i set up the pattern unlock, but when i hit power, it still makes me slide the bar across first to unlock, and then draw in the pattern, which is silly.

how make not do this?

otherwise i'll just have to stick with using the fingerprint scanner.

[WrenchHead]

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but I put some 'Green Power' app (free version) on my phone to see if it'd conserve battery life.

My phone was at about 10% life by 10pm typically if I was not near a charger. Now at 10pm it's at either 70 or 80%. It always lives longer than 24 hours without a charge now. So whatever it does, it's working.

[nithos]

I am looking for a PDF viewer that will display the Title from the metadata rather than the filename. Anyone have any luck with this? 52403949234.pdf isn't as helpful as LRU User Guide. ezPDF displays it if you open the file and then open the File Info option.

iBooks on iOS displays this info nicely, but I haven't found a good solution for android yet.

Even a desktop utility that does the renaming would be better than nothing.

[nippletwister]

Any good photo editing apps for Droid? I grabbed android photoshop, which has lots of standard features, but everything is vague. When cropping, I want to know pixels and aspect ratio. When adjusting contrast, I want to adjust brightness at the same time. Bah.

[daoist]

Picsay is good. Its emphasis is adding goofy text bubbles and stamps, but it can do other pic editing stuff too. There's a free version for you to see if it does what you want.

[nippletwister]

I saw that, and was turned off by the cartoon nonsense. Will give it a shot.

[Wargazm]

I haven't tried this, but I came across it yesterday when looking for a replacement camera:

https://market.android.com/details?id=c ... rch_result

[daoist]

My droid 1 is seriously going down the shitter.

The charging port is nearly dead. I did buy an external battery charger and a couple batteries and they work fine. However I've noticed something is going on; occasionally my droid will drop from a reasonable state of charge (say, 50-80%) to 15% in about a minute or so. Needless to say, almost completely depleting the battery instantly with no reliable way to charge it back up during the day is kinda frustrating.

Its hating life and chugging along slowly at times. I've tweaked the VM allocation and a few other settings with the low memory killer. It seems to be okay today in this respect.

I really wanted a droid 3 to be my next phone. However the screen reportedly blows chunks, it doesn't have 4g, and doesn't have NFC.

Maybe I'll have to go keyboardless when the bionic is released next month.

[Turbo]

Is anyone else having problems with the facebook app continuously reloading and updating, so it only shows the news feed for a few seconds before looking for new posts?

[MarcusAurelius]

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but I put some 'Green Power' app (free version) on my phone to see if it'd conserve battery life.

My phone was at about 10% life by 10pm typically if I was not near a charger. Now at 10pm it's at either 70 or 80%. It always lives longer than 24 hours without a charge now. So whatever it does, it's working.

awesome, thanks. will check it out.

i think i might've misconfigured my mail apps to be hammering the data network too often.

[MarcusAurelius]

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but I put some 'Green Power' app (free version) on my phone to see if it'd conserve battery life.

My phone was at about 10% life by 10pm typically if I was not near a charger. Now at 10pm it's at either 70 or 80%. It always lives longer than 24 hours without a charge now. So whatever it does, it's working.

awesome, thanks. will check it out.

i think i might've misconfigured my mail apps to be hammering the data network too often.

this has been fantastic. i'm on day 2, with 70% charge.

although not scientific, as i did delete k9 mail.

[caddymac]

As a favor/challenge/wedding gift, the wife's coworker tried replacing the screen on the wife's Droid 2. The glass looks much better, but now there are several problems. The biggest issue is that the ear piece no longer works so she has to use speakerphone to make phone calls. There are also dead spots on the screen, the power button no longer works, and certain keys on the keyboard no longer respond.

I think we both are giving up on Android and touchscreen phones and going to a full BlackBerry household.

[fiveSD]

My Droid1 is crappin out like you Dao, but just not sure where to go from here. I don't think I can give up the keyboard, so my options are Droid2/Droid3/DroidPro?

[WrenchHead]

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but I put some 'Green Power' app (free version) on my phone to see if it'd conserve battery life.

My phone was at about 10% life by 10pm typically if I was not near a charger. Now at 10pm it's at either 70 or 80%. It always lives longer than 24 hours without a charge now. So whatever it does, it's working.

awesome, thanks. will check it out.

i think i might've misconfigured my mail apps to be hammering the data network too often.

this has been fantastic. i'm on day 2, with 70% charge.

although not scientific, as i did delete k9 mail.

My phone seems to have been taken over a bit.. ie: at first it would try to turn on wi-fi at any opportunity possible to save battery somehow. I disabled it finally.. I never use wi-fi. But this app has been working as it said it would. I have no idea what it does.

But if I have a 'heavy use' day where I'm using google maps or the web, the battery still drains just as quickly as before. Not a big deal.

I think it checks my email NEVER. that's the only other issue.. But I'm usually on a computer so it doesn't matter.

[WrenchHead]

So it's like past 1.5 years of owning the Droid.

Mine seems slow as shit.. I have purposely removed any apps I don't need to see if it'd speed up.. Is there a way to speed up the droid?

Delete all the photos and videos off of the SD card?

What sort of stuff is slowing it down and what can I do to make it as responsive as it was when new?

[Toilet of Sadness]

Yeah, the biggest power savings these apps provide is disabling the data connection when the screen is off.

[daoist]

As a favor/challenge/wedding gift, the wife's coworker tried replacing the screen on the wife's Droid 2. The glass looks much better, but now there are several problems. The biggest issue is that the ear piece no longer works so she has to use speakerphone to make phone calls. There are also dead spots on the screen, the power button no longer works, and certain keys on the keyboard no longer respond.

I think we both are giving up on Android and touchscreen phones and going to a full BlackBerry household.

I think the problem you're having is more in line with a shit repair job than a fault of the handset itself.

It sounds like he didn't reconnect one of the ribbon cables. Also when you take the housing apart the snap dome contacts for the volume and power rockers can fall off. Or since none of them work, it's likely that that ribbon cable is also unplugged. Since there's dead spots you likely need a new digitizer. The keyboard is likely fucked. What a favor :-/

[daoist]

So it's like past 1.5 years of owning the Droid.

Mine seems slow as shit.. I have purposely removed any apps I don't need to see if it'd speed up.. Is there a way to speed up the droid?

Delete all the photos and videos off of the SD card?

What sort of stuff is slowing it down and what can I do to make it as responsive as it was when new?

Have you updated to a newer rom? Either through the normal OTA process or by rooting/etc?

If you're not rooted, you should root your phone. Then you can change a few settings, such as the VM Heap size and the cutoffs for the low memory app killer. I did those recently and my phone is much more responsive. Of course, I'm running gingerbread so it's not as responsive as when it was brand new, but it's still usable.

[fiveSD]

how different are Droid1 vs Droid2 vs Droid3 in terms of memory and speed capabilities?

[Thinine]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+different+are+ ... ilities%3F

[fiveSD]

ZOMG YOU ARE SO HILARIOUS
so you don't know.

[Turbo]

no, but the internet does

[Dr. Jan Itor]

Just updated to Android 2.3.5 on my rooted nexus s 4g....wireless tether still works.

Also have a rooted Nook Color running CM7, modified build.prop to make it appear to be a Droid2 in the market so it can download/run Hulu Plus app

Anyone else do anything fun today?

[Toilet of Sadness]

Not ever use another android device in my life again. Good times.

[Gretyl]

If you have a monopoly business and generate monopoly profits and take those monopoly profits to another industry and gave away what your competitors (must) charge for, which led you to quickly capture the dominant market share, would you…

…whine like a bitch?

[Dr. Jan Itor]

Not ever use another android device in my life again. Good times.

Which one did you use?

I actually first had an HTC Hero which was the biggest POS i've ever used in my life (worse than any flip phone) and even told my fiancee i was probably going to switch to an iPhone. Then i got impatient and upgraded to a Nexus S 4G....now my iPhone desire is completely gone, i'll just make sure I upgrade to a solid phone each time and not the bargain base model (and still probably spend less than on an iphone )

[Gretyl]

now my iPhone desire is completely gone, i'll just make sure I upgrade to a solid phone each time and not the bargain base model (and still probably spend less than on an iphone )

The 3GS is $50 with-contract, FWIW.

[MarcusAurelius]

will OS updates make the phone worthless before the contract ends? i'd bet on it.

[Toilet of Sadness]

Which one did you use?

I owned an original Motorola droid for 13 months. Just garbage build quality. Battery cover would never stay on. hardware keyboard was not well designed. Shit battery life (most days it wouldn't last through the entire work day). Touchscreen stopped responding to input at the 13 month mark. I didn't even bother replacing it since I could upgrade early to the CDMA iPhone.

[Turbo]

I have an event once a week. I would like to have it so that my google calendar sends my phone an alarm on that date, so I either wake up or remember about the event. is there a way to do this?

[Reagraham Lincool]

I have an event once a week. I would like to have it so that my google calendar sends my phone an alarm on that date, so I either wake up or remember about the event. is there a way to do this?

http://www.googletutor.com/screencast-h ... -calendar/

This might be the easiest/ugliest solution.

[Wargazm]

can't you just set a weekly alarm?

[Turbo]

I can. ISU has mail and calendar through google. Using my gmail account works, so I think it's an ISU thing, because my iastate acoount will not do that

[Turbo]

hermano is thinking of getting a verizon smartphone, particularly something running Android. What's good now? Is there anything coming out in the next few months worth waiting for?

[daoist]

The bionic just came out. It's pretty sweet.

There's always a ton of awesome phones coming out in the holiday season.

[WrenchHead]

My droid is slower and slower every day. Is this most likely due to the 16gb memory card being full of photos and music? I mean it's got GB worth of free space, but I was curious if the gallery on my phone takes over a minute to show a photo because I have too many photos on the card.

Is there a good way to 'clean' the memory card or defrag the phone or something??

I'll be eeking out the phone's usage until the iPhone 5 hits the market.

[daoist]

The sdcard handles that itself the best it can.

Given that sdcards support a limited lifetime total of writes, defragging it would be terribad.

[WrenchHead]

Is there a way to figure out what sort of stuff causes the phone to fall on its ass when I try to make a call and it takes 30 seconds for the 'phone' feature to fire up?

I'm trying to find a way to identify problem apps and remove them or do something to the phone to speed it up to where it was when new.

[Jobu]

I'm finding that the android platform is very similar to windows. The more stuff you install on it, the goofier it starts to act.

[WrenchHead]

But apparently without the option to 'reinstall windows'

[WrenchHead]

I went through and deleted anything I don't use or haven't used in a long time. I also downloaded LauncherPro and really like it. Shit is better now.

[Gretyl]

Stockholm says what

[nippletwister]

You're one to talk.

[Gretyl]

"Shit is better now" for me since when?

[Turbo]

Hermano says he wants a full keyboard, so we're going to look at the droid 3 tomorrow

[Turbo]

they are a week behind on droid 3 orders, so they are mailing him one

[Gretyl]

which phones/apps pass this test?

pıoɹpuɐ buısn ǝq ʇou ʇsnɯ noʎ 'sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟı

[Turbo]

what a useful test!

[Gretyl]

I ask because a co-worker keeps asking me about strange ?'s he's seeing on his phone browser that he doesn't see on the desktop. If you could point me to something better, device- or app-wise, then I can pass the help on to him.

[fiveSD]

My droid is slower and slower every day. ...

I'll be eeking out the phone's usage until the iPhone 5 hits the market.

I'm with ya, but have had no luck in getting my Droid to speed up. I'm running Good for Enterprise which I think is the main issue, but I don't want to give up the convenience of checking work email from my phone for phone speed. Gogo holiday phone releases!

[Gretyl]

If you wanna drop $10, there's the upgraded JuiceDefender, which will manage your wifi/cellular radios to save you some battery if you're regularly in bad reception. It's got one of the custom ROM developers (Mark Lowne, who's worked with the Swagged Out crew) behind it, if you're looking for some authority.

[MarcusAurelius]

the greenpower app saved a lot of life for me, but it was pretty annoying that i had to wait 5 seconds or so before doing anything network-related after turning it on from standby.

... turns out that k9mail was hammering the mail servers so removing that fixed the battery life pretty well.

[daoist]

But apparently without the option to 'reinstall windows'

you can reflash your phone any time you want

[daoist]

But apparently without the option to 'reinstall windows'

you can reflash your phone any time you want

[floor punching mummy]

twice even, just for good measure!

[Gretyl]

Maybe he needs to reflash his phone.