Phones 'n' stuff

ríomhaire

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So I've basically just been given a HTC Wildfire S. It's an Android phone. So uh...what do you do with Android phones. Aren't they supposed to be super awesome an cure cancer and do the ironing and stuff? So should I/how do I change the main screen and customise stuff and what should I be doing with it?
 
Who gave it to you and why was it given?
 
Who gave it to you and why was it given?
Mother. A complicated thing involving work and iPhones and basically they ended up with a free one. Do you think I was looting? I don't even live in England.
 
So I've basically just been given a HTC Wildfire S. It's an Android phone. So uh...what do you do with Android phones. Aren't they supposed to be super awesome an cure cancer and do the ironing and stuff? So should I/how do I change the main screen and customise stuff and what should I be doing with it?

Digi and Pitz are the resident Android geeks. I have an Nexus S myself but I don't bother to root it and such.
 
Poor Windows Phone 7 :(


EDIT: Weird

oxqgL.png
 
Mother. A complicated thing involving work and iPhones and basically they ended up with a free one. Do you think I was looting? I don't even live in England.

No, the thought never crossed my mind. Sorry if I sounded like I was accusing you of something -- I was just wondering where you got it.
 
Android is better than iOS, my personal preference is HP webOS but most people haven't heard of it. If webOS didn't exist I'd be jealous of you :)
 
WhatsApp
Free texting basically. You can join Xev, Pitz, Digi and me in the HL2.net chatroom. :)

Google Sky Map
It's a live star map, works with the gyros in the phone. My fav app.

SoundHound
Cool app that recognizes songs for you. Also streams music.

QR Droid
Barcode scanner

Androidify
Make your own Android droid. Also has a cool live wallpaper.
 
The ones I apps I use most frequently:

- Catch
Note-taking app, lets you write/record/photograph notes, and synchronized with an online account so you can get at them online through their site using your PC.

- GO SMS
Much improved texting app over the default

- Pandora
Music player

- Pulse
RSS reader
 
Currently setting up widgets. Any recommendations from experience of what's handy and what's just clutter?
 
Sure: If you use it, its handy, if you don't, its clutter.

Hope that helps!

Oh, I have another one to add.

Tesla LED:
The best flashlight app around. Its got motha****in morse code 'n police lights 'n strobe functionality 'n shit.
 
WhatsApp
Free texting basically. You can join Xev, Pitz, Digi and me in the HL2.net chatroom. :) - But I doubt I know anyone in reality who uses this. In fact I don't know anyone who has an Android as far as I know.

Google Sky Map
It's a live star map, works with the gyros in the phone. My fav app. - This is awesome.

SoundHound
Cool app that recognizes songs for you. Also streams music. - Don't think I'll have much use, but thanks.

QR Droid
Barcode scanner - Installed. Thanks.

Androidify
Make your own Android droid. Also has a cool live wallpaper. - I'm not sure I see the point.



The ones I apps I use most frequently:

- Catch
Note-taking app, lets you write/record/photograph notes, and synchronized with an online account so you can get at them online through their site using your PC. - I'll look into it, thanks.

- GO SMS
Much improved texting app over the default - Just did a quick search. Doesn't seem to be available any more.

- Pandora
Music player - I'll look into it.

- Pulse
RSS reader - Found an app called Pulse News with a very vague description as to what it actually does. Is this it?

Thanks guys!
 
Weatherbug widget is pretty handy, it's really the only one i have running on my android. I also have the facebook app widget going but I only use it to look at people's status updates when I am pretending to be doing something important on my phone.

Other useful apps:
Torch - if you have an LED flash for your camera then it uses the LED as a flashlight. It's saved my ass a couple times, was walking on train tracks at night and had to cross a trestle, if I didn't have the torch app I probably would have fallen between the rails. Very simple app but extremely useful

Yelp - Excellent app. Finds restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, gas stations around your location. Very good if you are travelling or are in a town you're unfamiliar with.

Audiogalaxy - lets you stream music on your PC through your phone. I've used it pretty frequently because I haven't bothered to upload any music to my SD card. If you listen to music often it comes in handy.

Google Goggles - app that scans photos you take of random objects and identifies them via the internet. For example you can use google goggles to take a photo of a label that's in a different language and google goggles will identify what it is and present you with information about said object. Cool app I guess, I haven't really had to use it though.

Gstrings - Guitar tuner app. If you play guitar this app is amazing, uses your microphone as a chromatic tuner. Also good for other stringed instruments
 
Re: WhatsApp
Almost everyone in my contact list is using it since the app is also out on iPhone. Maybe it's a Dutch thing.
 
Recently got a regular keyboard phone (non-'smart'). Was set to get a smart but then they told us about the $30 for each phone we use per month and said screw that. Especially appropriate since I have no idea what the hell I would do with a smartphone.
 
Gmail ain't working. It just says "Waiting for sync" at the top of the screen and "Your email will appear shortly." on the main screen.
 
Gmail ain't working. It just says "Waiting for sync" at the top of the screen and "Your email will appear shortly." on the main screen.

The first sync takes ages, especially if you're on 3G. Switch to wifi if possible.
 
Sure: If you use it, its handy, if you don't, its clutter.

Hope that helps!

Oh, I have another one to add.

Tesla LED:
The best flashlight app around. Its got motha****in morse code 'n police lights 'n strobe functionality 'n shit.
It doesn't do an SOS right. You're just supposed to send SOSOSOSOSOSOSOS ad infinitum but it sends SOS SOS SOS SOS SOS. Otherwise it's cool.



Should I leave the GPS on? Does it drain battery/can they track me while I have it on?


Turned wifi back on Shaker. Thanks for the tip.
 
Oh Shem sorry for the over reaction earlier. So what's the best browser to use? Opera, Firefox, the default or some strange one that's unique to phones?
 
Oh Shem sorry for the over reaction earlier. So what's the best browser to use? Opera, Firefox, the default or some strange one that's unique to phones?

Default works fine for me. I have never really found a reason to switch.
 
Yeah, I've got the HTC Wildfire too. It's a good phone, and the apps listed here are good too.
 
If you have any non-Gmail/Hotmail email accounts I recommend you use K9-Mail, very useful.

Just installed WhatsApp...uhm how do I add you guys :p
 
Personally I'd recommend PowerAMP as a music player, even though it costs it is a great app and in my opinion very much worth the money.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S I-9000 myself.

I will have to check out some of the apps mentioned in this thread, they seem very useful!
 
Ive been playing a lot of Game Dev story of late. I think its about £2 but its cool :)

Other coolio's

Wikitude
Gensoid megadrive emulator
Sketchbook
Google Docs
Retro Camera

Oh ive got an app killer too, advanced task manger - very useful
 
Ive been playing a lot of Game Dev story of late. I think its about £2 but its cool :)

Other coolio's

Wikitude
Gensoid megadrive emulator
Sketchbook
Google Docs
Retro Camera

Oh ive got an app killer too, advanced task manger - very useful
Yeah Game Dev Story is easily one of my favourite games on Android, the devs also released Grand Prix Story which is very fun too!
 
Ok it's still not sync'd. Could I have accidentally paused the sync or something? Do I have to restart it?
 
WhatsApp
Free texting basically. You can join Xev, Pitz, Digi and me in the HL2.net chatroom. :)

How does one find this chatroom? I have the app and searched halflife2.net but got no results. Hell I don't get any results for anything I search for....
 
So it's finally synced, but I have a new problem. The phone already ran out of storage and I had to run the new storage wizard to move all my apps to the SD card before I could install new ones. Can I not just make it install automatically to the SD card?

Edit: Also, this:
How does one find this chatroom? I have the app and searched halflife2.net but got no results. Hell I don't get any results for anything I search for....
 
Holy shit Dalamari, where have you been? Good to see you around.

I have an iPhone 4 myself. I love it but I get frustrated with some of Apple's marketing / design choices and I feel pretty bad for suckling at Steve Jobs' teat all day... if Google comes out with a really nice line of Android phones with their acquisition of Motorola, I might have to switch sides a couple generations down the line when I upgrade my smartphone.
 
Holy shit Dalamari, where have you been? Good to see you around.

I have an iPhone 4 myself. I love it but I get frustrated with some of Apple's marketing / design choices and I feel pretty bad for suckling at Steve Jobs' teat all day... if Google comes out with a really nice line of Android phones with their acquisition of Motorola, I might have to switch sides a couple generations down the line when I upgrade my smartphone.

I have an iPhone 4 now too but I'll probably switch to WP7 at some point. In fact, might just buy one alongside my iPhone, probably a new Nokia, if they look good. The UI is amazing compared to iOS and Android. I love that it embraces that it's digital without its applications pretending to be a digital version of their real-life analogues. I get annoyed whenever I look at iOS's notepad app pretending to be an actual notepad, attempting to make it look like paper. How clever Apple, a notepad app that looks like paper! Or the compass app that looks like an antique compass. Ugh, so kitschy and cheesy. I don't quite get why Apple gets to have the reputation of being strong on design, iOS looks outdated. The screen of the iPhone 4 is incredible though and makes anything look great. But the deep blacks of WP7 should look amazing too on an AMOLED screen, despite the slightly lower resolution.

Android just doesn't appeal to me. Maybe it just annoys me that you need a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU to make everything animate smoothly. And even then iPhone 4 and last year's WP7 phones run circles around it in terms of responsiveness, with inferior hardware.
 
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