Google Android catch-all

February is rumored on several sights. They want to better fight the iPhone 5, allegedly.

jollyeskimo wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

I'm thinking about getting the Note 2. Has anyone ever used it or the original?

My old man has the original. Aside from it being huge; the hardware is pretty solid, no complaints about performance, and they look great with the flip leather cover.

I picked up one last week an so far I've been completely satisfied. It's big no doubt, but runs like a dream with great battery life and snappy performance. I'm very satisfied. Let me know if you have any questions.

Ballotechnic wrote:
jollyeskimo wrote:
EverythingsTentative wrote:

I'm thinking about getting the Note 2. Has anyone ever used it or the original?

My old man has the original. Aside from it being huge; the hardware is pretty solid, no complaints about performance, and they look great with the flip leather cover.

I picked up one last week an so far I've been completely satisfied. It's big no doubt, but runs like a dream with great battery life and snappy performance. I'm very satisfied. Let me know if you have any questions.

I went ahead and picked it up today. It is ginormous but it still fits in my shirt pocket. It seems just as snappy as my S2. I haven't had it long enough to know anything else.

I put the Note II up to my face, which as has been discussed may indeed be the prescribed method, and felt kind of silly. No doubt the giant screen is sexy as hell. Wasn't sure it would actually fit in the pockets of all the pants I own. Especially if I add a case, which a klutz like me clearly should.

Anyone else with an iOS to Android switch testimonial?

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Anyone else with an iOS to Android switch testimonial? :)

My history: featurephones => this => 3GS => 4S => OneX => Nexus4

I think the big draw for me is the state of the enthusiast community - jailbreaks usually took quite long to release, and I get more of the tweaks I actually want on android with stuff like Tasker and NFC, as opposed to all the interface/theme stuff on Cydia.

I do miss Tweetbot very much, but I think that's the non-game app that I can remember.

The only useful Jailbreak app I've found is a tethering app. I've Jailbroken twice, and then gladly updated to new iOS versions later.

jowner wrote:
spider_j wrote:

Hey, this swipe thing on the stock keyboard in 4.2 is really cool. My Nexus 7 typing woes are over. I never tried Swype.

Is the quick settings drop down new, or did I just miss it before? The one where you drag down from the clock.

Pulling it now... fan of swype. The available apps didn't float my boat.

Tried to pull and install it myself and gave up. Bit of a pet peeve of mine so far with android stuff. It can be a 'free and open' platform but sometimes when you delve into the forums/blogs etc to jailbreak and install custom stuff it can be fairly obtuse. Maybe I'm just an idiot though.

and to my surprise I just refreshed my settings just now and its updating itself

Fedaykin98 wrote:

I put the Note II up to my face, which as has been discussed may indeed be the prescribed method, and felt kind of silly. No doubt the giant screen is sexy as hell. Wasn't sure it would actually fit in the pockets of all the pants I own. Especially if I add a case, which a klutz like me clearly should.

Anyone else with an iOS to Android switch testimonial? :)

Never been an Iphone user but if you're not attached to Itunes and theres no game breaking apps for you I can't think of a reason not to switch.

Buy the phone with whatever hardwear/screen size appeals to you and away you go.

I'm finding the more I use things like Gmail/Chrome/Drive/Maps and I tweak their settings the lower the chance I'll ever switch.

Malor wrote:

4.2 isn't even out for the Galaxy Nexus yet, straight from Google, so Samsung would be doing well to ship it on the S3 already.

Sure it is It's been rolling out to the Galaxy Nexus over the last day or so, at least for the ones that Google sold from the Play Store (and to any other HSPA+ models that have been flashed with the takju ROM from the Play Store version).

I'm not sure I'm sold yet on the new lock screen design, but the new clock app is great, and the swipe-o-matic keyboard does make it a lot easier to type with one hand, which is one thing that's always been a problem for me on a phone the size of the Galaxy Nexus.

I do now see the downside of the Note, all other phones seem small now.

Edit: I'm loving the ability to have two apps open on the screen at the same time.

Here's one that I just noticed on the N7. When you turn the screen off, instead of just going blank, it fades out a little bit. I usually use a smart-cover, so it could just be that I didn't notice it before, but I'm pretty sure it's new, and looks much better.

spider_j wrote:

Here's one that I just noticed on the N7. When you turn the screen off, instead of just going blank, it fades out a little bit. I usually use a smart-cover, so it could just be that I didn't notice it before, but I'm pretty sure it's new, and looks much better.

Did the update automatically install or did you manually install it? No updates are showing up in the settings menu for me (Nexus 7).

Did the update automatically install or did you manually install it? No updates are showing up in the settings menu for me (Nexus 7).

Still waiting for the update to show up on my Nexus 7 also.

On the iphone > Android switch, I found it totally painless. Granted, I went from an iphone 3G to a Droid Incredible a few years ago, but I never had that moment of "oh god what have I done". Pretty much everything's generally comparable. Yes, you'll miss out on some stuff because developers tend to release ios versions of everything first, but either it eventually comes out for Android, or there's something that does much the same thing. I've got plenty of games on my phone.

I've been using an S3 for the past few months, and yeah, it's a damn sweet phone. Battery life is worlds better than my last phone, with an 18 hour day of reasonably heavy use only draining it halfway. Screen is gorgeous. It's fun to compare the iphone's fancy retina screen with my screen that has the same pixel density, but is as big as the iphone. Makes web browsing and GPSing much more pleasant.

The biggest reason I doubt I'll ever go back to an iphone is the tight integration with Google's ecosystem. I love that setting up the phone basically consisted of logging into my google account. After it synced, I had all my contacts, cloud docs, map locations, and apps ready to go. It's really nice to be able to add a contact or map location on the computer and have it seamlessly show up on my phone, and being able to sync tabs between desktop and mobile versions of Chrome is sometimes very handy.

One thing I will say about the S3 is that the thing is really slick friction-wise. I put a case on it after a few days because I found myself almost dropping it a few times just due to the size and slipperiness. I can also see how the screen might be too big for some people. I've got pretty big mitts, so it's fine for me, but even so, reaching the top left corner of the screen can take some reaching.

I've been using both for a bit. Software wise I think they are pretty much equal by now. Although Android is still lacking a decent twitter app.
Weirdly enough, as iOS has a slew of great ones.
The only thing I really have against Android, is that I buy apps and when installing it still wants all of my info that it doesn't need to function.
Privacy breach seems bigger (or there is none actually) on Android and with Apple's iOS it seems more regulated and restricted.

In the end I guess it comes down to your own taste.

cheesycrouton wrote:
Did the update automatically install or did you manually install it? No updates are showing up in the settings menu for me (Nexus 7).

Still waiting for the update to show up on my Nexus 7 also.

It just appeared for me. Installing now.

Sparhawk wrote:

I've been using both for a bit. Software wise I think they are pretty much equal by now. Although Android is still lacking a decent twitter app.
Weirdly enough, as iOS has a slew of great ones.
The only thing I really have against Android, is that I buy apps and when installing it still wants all of my info that it doesn't need to function.
Privacy breach seems bigger (or there is none actually) on Android and with Apple's iOS it seems more regulated and restricted.

At least on Android you know that an app can access your personal data, and you can decide whether or not you want to install it bearing that in mind. AFAIK, on iOS, there's no enforced breakdown of permissions like there is on Android -- any app you install could access all sorts of data. The only assurance you have that apps don't access information that they don't need is that the app has gone through Apple's approval process, and while that does seem to work for the most part, it has resulted in unexpected breeches in the past.

As for Twitter apps, I know what you mean -- I've been using Plume for ages, and it's not bad, but it could definitely use some improvement. I was hopeful about Tweet Lanes, which has a great UI, but it's currently lacking some major features (notifications, auto-refresh).

Yes, on Android you're always explicitly giving permission. On iOS it already has it.

EvilDead wrote:
cheesycrouton wrote:
Did the update automatically install or did you manually install it? No updates are showing up in the settings menu for me (Nexus 7).

Still waiting for the update to show up on my Nexus 7 also.

It just appeared for me. Installing now.

ditto for me last night.

Just randomly pushed and I wasn't even refreshing in settings.

If your comfortable messing around with recovery mode etc you can do it yourself but I gave up when I got to the point of downloading stuff to my pc to do it.

I got a Note II the other day and so far I'm digging it. The size takes some getting used to, but the fact that I have fairly large hands has been helpful. Still trying to get used to all the stylus features and gestures. I remember seeing in a review that there is some sort of multi-window feature where you could say, have a youtube video open while still surfing the web, but it's been disabled in the US version. Kind of sucks because that would be a neat thing to have.

Now that I am over in Korea I can see why they made another Note. Everybody and their brother here has either the old note or the note II. They love them some huge phone action.

I also just got Machinarium in the newest Humble Bundle, so I'm excited to try an adventure game w/ the stylus.

Radical Ans wrote:

I got a Note II the other day and so far I'm digging it. The size takes some getting used to, but the fact that I have fairly large hands has been helpful. Still trying to get used to all the stylus features and gestures. I remember seeing in a review that there is some sort of multi-window feature where you could say, have a youtube video open while still surfing the web, but it's been disabled in the US version. Kind of sucks because that would be a neat thing to have.

Now that I am over in Korea I can see why they made another Note. Everybody and their brother here has either the old note or the note II. They love them some huge phone action.

That feature works on my Note. Try holding down the back button and see if the menu comes up. I also have a toggle to the far right in my notification bar, see if yours is off.

I never thought I'd switch away from Apple, but I have been seriously thinking about switching (specifically to a GSIII) for a while now. If the GSIV is coming soon, I might just have to wait and see.

I have a iPhone 4, and my biggest beef with Apple right now is the completely static UI. Just tired of it. My most used Jailbreak is "InfoScreen," which basically seems to be equivalent to what Samsung's GSIII is already doing quite nicely.

I also have an iPad 3rd gen, so losing the phone doesn't necessarily cut me off from my previous apps and purchases. I'm not THAT huge into Apple's ecosystem, but I'm also not big into GOOGLE'S, either... don't use gmail as my primary emailing account.

The iPhone 5 has some killer specs, but... as long as we keep getting square grids of apps, no widgets, no useful pulldown/infoscreen, I find myself caring less and less. The ONLY thing I might really miss is that fact that so many of my friends have iPhones now that I find myself using iMessage constantly.

Word is Google is consolidating Google Talk, Hangouts, and their mobile-only Messenger. I've also read unsourced rumours of Voice being included in that consolidation, which is why they've not done much to address its issues.

Given all that, sounds like an iMessage competitor in the works, and if it includes Voice, would be accessibly cross-platform. (I'm sure there are Talk iOS clients, but something like iMessage is needed for this to really be viable, I think.)

Google Talk has surprisingly good video chat. Just played around with it with some friends when I got my new phone in the summer. I still use Skype app most of the time because I'm usually using it for family who have Skype on their home PC or laptops.

Not a lot of iPhone or Android adopters among my parents, aunts, uncles, etc.

And also some of my cousins who are on iPhones, we end up both using Skype apps for cross-platform chat.

Just got the Note II yesterday. It's amazing.
It's a very big SIII, which is a very good compliment.
I don't love the stylus, but I guess it's only a matter of getting used to it.
I still have to see how the battery compares to the SIII.
The last Note seemed to suffer quite a lot from the big screen, I hope Project Butter and other tweaks will give me a full day and not an 8 hour appetizer.

Hobbes2099 wrote:

Just got the Note II yesterday. It's amazing.
It's a very big SIII, which is a very good compliment.
I don't love the stylus, but I guess it's only a matter of getting used to it.
I still have to see how the battery compares to the SIII.
The last Note seemed to suffer quite a lot from the big screen, I hope Project Butter and other tweaks will give me a full day and not an 8 hour appetizer.

My battery last about18 hours and thats even using GP and, Blue tooth on a regular basis.

What are Some good s-pen apps?

EverythingsTentative wrote:
Radical Ans wrote:

I got a Note II the other day and so far I'm digging it. The size takes some getting used to, but the fact that I have fairly large hands has been helpful. Still trying to get used to all the stylus features and gestures. I remember seeing in a review that there is some sort of multi-window feature where you could say, have a youtube video open while still surfing the web, but it's been disabled in the US version. Kind of sucks because that would be a neat thing to have.

Now that I am over in Korea I can see why they made another Note. Everybody and their brother here has either the old note or the note II. They love them some huge phone action.

That feature works on my Note. Try holding down the back button and see if the menu comes up. I also have a toggle to the far right in my notification bar, see if yours is off.

Nope, that doesn't work for me. You must be on sprint. According to this article it was omitted from us versions, but sprint did an OTA to add it to their version.

Looking to upgrade to a 4G Verizon Android device, and it looks like I've got some solid options going on this Friday. You can see the Black Friday 2012 ad is available (in scanned format) online, now I just need to decide between the following:

Motorola Droid Razr
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
LG Lucid

Leaning towards the Razr, but could be convinced otherwise. A removable battery is something that has never mattered to me, so there's that.

Note: there are better deals out there (Droid Razr Maxx @ BestBuy for free), but I need to buy directly from Verizon due to this being an early upgrade (not due until June 2013, rocking a Droid 2 currently).