Ditched my iPhone, just got a Samsung Galaxy S3. Please help

[sgreger1]

The whole being able to swipe your finger aroudn the keyboard to type thing is kinda cool though. It just sucks because in iphone if I had the radio app playing in the background and I wanted to turn it off, i could just double tap home key and then see the list of apps running, choose the radio app and close it. With droid I have to go sift through pages of apps to find the radio app and then launch it,a dn then turn it off.

And I really miss the ability to search your phone for apps or other things easily. Now I have to remember where I put all of the apps which is quite annoying and less easy to recall than simply typing in the part of the name and it loading it right up.


Any recommendations for alternate text messaging apps since the one that came with my phone bricks every time I use it?

[lxskllr]

There's power conserving tweaks you can make. Make sure hardware services you don't need are turned off. Wifi, bluetooth are a couple obvious ones. You don't have to go t the app store to uninstall. You can do it with the stock O/S, or an addon app.

[Roo]

The uninstall thing was getting to me too. I am also learning my way around Android. I have always had ultra-shitty phones in the past so this does not represent a step down for me. Auto correct on android is a bitch, but so far I am leaving it on at least until I get better at texting/typing on this thing. Right now I'm so bad at it that over 50% of the time I appreciate the help from autocorrect. I am not terribly impressed with the battery life either, but like Lx said make sure wifi is turned off when you aren't using it.

[heders]

I have a Galaxy S 4G (the exclusive for T-Mobile with Inception preloaded). Terrible phone. Terrible. It has excellent build quality, but the software for it is very very poorly optimized. The radio is somewhat faulty in it as well. Sometimes looses service for no reason and doesn't work again until it feels like it, switches back and fourth between 3G and EDGE. I rooted it and put a custom rom on it, and it still blows.

I've always had really good luck with Samsung products, but this one must be a serious dud. I'm switching back to HTC as soon as I can afford it.

It's now 10:28am and my battery is already half dead. All I did was listen to the radio, check some texts and read the news for about 20 minutes. Definately wish it had more battery life. Also the reddit apps suck and the browser (Dolphin HD) is lacking. Has anyone else switched from iphone to android before, was your experience positive? Am I just not used to it yet? It seems like it is very hard to type on it too as it consistently wants to autocorrect me to death. The iphone would autocorrect once and then leave you alone if you spelled it wrong again, but this one seems to autocorrect like 5 times before it lets you pass with the spelling you want. So entering usernames or email addresses seems difficult. I guess the only option is to turn off autocorrect all together, which I didn't want to do.

That's why you root your phone.

My HTC Desire had really bad battery life with the stock ROM, but now, I can go 2 days with medium/heavy use with no problems. And with the radio problems, you can switch the radio in the phone to get a better signal. I updated to the latest one and it rocks.


Also, I forgot, Launcher Pro Plus is a must. That + Cyanogenmod makes for a lightning fast phone.

[lxskllr]

Here's apps I used and liked. All are libre software from F-droid...

http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...daway&fdpage=1
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...uckgo&fdpage=3
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...droid&fdpage=3
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...droid&fdpage=3
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...ubble&fdpage=4
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...ander&fdpage=4
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...notes&fdpage=4
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...ck.k9&fdpage=4
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...jongg&fdpage=5
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...rcept&fdpage=5
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...ttery&fdpage=6
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...0.rpn&fdpage=7
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...koban&fdpage=7
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...taire&fdpage=8
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...units&fdpage=9
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...ation&fdpage=9
http://f-droid.org/repository/browse...zirco&fdpage=9

[Frosted]

My apps

Kindle
Spotify
Soundhound
G Strings - Excellent guitar tuner - better than buying a dedicated guitar tuner.
Maps
Retro Calculator
Password Manager
Flickr
Push Ups

Best Calendar is Jorte.

Bookmarks - for snuson bbc etc


British Only
BBC iPlayer
RAC Traffic
Ocado (Grocery Delivery)

[sgreger1]

What would you guys say is the best mail app, as I once again don't like how the stock one displays things. i will relaly have to take the time to root my phone tonight it's just that I don't know what ROM to put on it since there are seemingly so many.

And hwo do you uninstall from the OS? Dragging it to the trash doesn't do it so i'm curious how it is done.

Also, more pissed, google wallet doesn't work on the Galaxy S3. Was really looking forward to trying that out.

[sgreger1]

That's why you root your phone.

My HTC Desire had really bad battery life with the stock ROM, but now, I can go 2 days with medium/heavy use with no problems. And with the radio problems, you can switch the radio in the phone to get a better signal. I updated to the latest one and it rocks.


Also, I forgot, Launcher Pro Plus is a must. That + Cyanogenmod makes for a lightning fast phone.

What does launcher pro do anyways? I tried the task manager/app killer but it kills them only for them to turn right back on, so i don't think it's relaly doing anything. What does the launcher do? And how do I get cyanogenmod. I am using the live play store right now for apps.

[devilock76]

Great list Ken! I especially needed a recommendation for the SSH and FTP client as there are just so many. Can you elaborate on why I would need advanced task killer?

Well you just talked about not being able to kill the texting app. Incidentally I use google voice for free texting and it allows me read and compose texts from a computer. Plus I have it setup so I get all my voice mails transcribed to text for free as well. That is another android app you can download but to set it up you are going to want to be at a computer. I use a different number for my google voice and have texting disabled on my cell number. A slight pain but I have one number for calls and one for texts. You can set it up to be the same as your cell phone number but I had concerns over what would happen in the future with changing numbers and or phones. Not a big concern but reading their help info on it I elected to use different numbers.

OK I see you are having a lot of freezing. Where are you installing apps? You need to install as many as possibly of the non critical apps (non system oriented) in the SD card not the phone memory. Apps on the phone's memory reduce available memory and hence performance. Also I tend to avoid things like live wallpapers and stuff, they use up battery and processor cycles for nothing more than bling. Also I tend to leave the gps antenna off as well and only turn it on when I need it.

Ken

[lxskllr]

What would you guys say is the best mail app, as I once again don't like how the stock one displays things. i will relaly have to take the time to root my phone tonight it's just that I don't know what ROM to put on it since there are seemingly so many.

And hwo do you uninstall from the OS? Dragging it to the trash doesn't do it so i'm curious how it is done.

Also, more pissed, google wallet doesn't work on the Galaxy S3. Was really looking forward to trying that out.

I like K9 mail. It works well, and is libre software. One thing you should always be aware of is tracking and surveillance. These devices are perfect for that so care needs to be taken when picking apps, and apps with source code should be preferred. You can uninstall apps from the settings menu, or use an app. My tablet died, so I can't remember exactly what I used, but it was a system monitor type app that had an especially good installation/removal utility.

[devilock76]

It's now 10:28am and my battery is already half dead. All I did was listen to the radio, check some texts and read the news for about 20 minutes. Definately wish it had more battery life. Also the reddit apps suck and the browser (Dolphin HD) is lacking. Has anyone else switched from iphone to android before, was your experience positive? Am I just not used to it yet? It seems like it is very hard to type on it too as it consistently wants to autocorrect me to death. The iphone would autocorrect once and then leave you alone if you spelled it wrong again, but this one seems to autocorrect like 5 times before it lets you pass with the spelling you want. So entering usernames or email addresses seems difficult. I guess the only option is to turn off autocorrect all together, which I didn't want to do.

I did. The switch from iphone to android. Biggest reason I like the switch, the way I can parse work from personal email in android vs the all in one iphone mail app. Much better for my needs. However overall android you have to plan and know the device, because you can do things more ways than one that doesn't mean you won't lose out if you make a bad choice. Iphone does it all for you. Other thing with Android is the quality of the device is a big factor. I have a samsung charge, it is ok, I just have been thinking I should have gone with the motorola droid x instead though.

Anyway juice defender, plus keeping GPS off if you don't need it go a long way to preserving battery life. I have a 4g device, so I opt for wifi as much as possible as 4g can be a big battery drain. Apple makes superior batteries for their devices so it will be hard rival an iphone in that department. However there are more of certain things I can do with my driod phone vs android. I intend to root mine soon to see if I can up the performance. We shall see.

Ken

[devilock76]

The whole being able to swipe your finger aroudn the keyboard to type thing is kinda cool though. It just sucks because in iphone if I had the radio app playing in the background and I wanted to turn it off, i could just double tap home key and then see the list of apps running, choose the radio app and close it. With droid I have to go sift through pages of apps to find the radio app and then launch it,a dn then turn it off.

And I really miss the ability to search your phone for apps or other things easily. Now I have to remember where I put all of the apps which is quite annoying and less easy to recall than simply typing in the part of the name and it loading it right up.


Any recommendations for alternate text messaging apps since the one that came with my phone bricks every time I use it?

More on your battery, you need to configure how often certain apps sync. That can be a major battery killer, email tends to be one that is set out the gate to ridiculous. To get an idea of what is using battery check out in the settings the battery usage menu.

Also the way to switch apps in android is to hold the home key and then it will bring up a list of apps that are in memory to switch to them. And again there is the advanced task killer program I recommended.

Ken

[sgreger1]

Okay just got launch Pro. THANK YOU. My screen isn't cluttered with SHIT anymore like it was before. This is exactly how I want my phone to look, and I can finally see my sweet live background. I'm starting to like this phone more and more. I switched out the text message app, the mail app, the browser etc and now it is all running much smoother. I think in the end I am going to love this phone.

[devilock76]

What would you guys say is the best mail app, as I once again don't like how the stock one displays things. i will relaly have to take the time to root my phone tonight it's just that I don't know what ROM to put on it since there are seemingly so many.

And hwo do you uninstall from the OS? Dragging it to the trash doesn't do it so i'm curious how it is done.

Also, more pissed, google wallet doesn't work on the Galaxy S3. Was really looking forward to trying that out.

I use the gmail app for personal email, as I use gmail anyway. The stock one is ok for my purposes and I use that for my work email.

Ken

[devilock76]

Okay just got launch Pro. THANK YOU. My screen isn't cluttered with SHIT anymore like it was before. This is exactly how I want my phone to look, and I can finally see my sweet live background. I'm starting to like this phone more and more. I switched out the text message app, the mail app, the browser etc and now it is all running much smoother. I think in the end I am going to love this phone.

And your sweet live background is why your battery is screaming for mercy.

Ken