Technically his app just shows apps that are movable that you probably didn't notice were movable before.

One of the nice features of Cyanogen MOD is that you're able to move a great deal many more apps than you can with regular Android. It's very helpful with those of us with older phones that have small amounts of space for app storage. I can't wait to get a new phone where that's not a problem. It's so strange when I used my tablet and I'm able to install as many apps as I want This is one of the few things I always envied about iPhone users, that Apple was smart enough to give them the full storage space to install apps, not just a paltry about of onboard space and a slow SD card.

Fortunately it looks like Google is moving away from SD for these purposes, and is urging manufacturers to only use them for added storage for stuff like media.

Has anyone tried any type of 'resolution changer' ?
I'd like the fonts to be a little larger.
I've tried out LCDDensity (for root) but the changes don't withstand a reboot.
I've found a few threads at xda about editing some system files and maybe I'll try that.

Just wondering if anyone has tried anything along these lines and what the results were.

I don't think it required any smarts at all. It was just kind of obvious and I could not imagine in what backwards universe Apple could have ever done anything different. In fact, to do anything different would require some type of severe mental deficiency. I can only imagine that Google didn't have time to convene a committee to discuss it as they were too busy in meetings about the correct color blue.



I'm not sure I follow here. How are they "moving away" if for the most part SD has never actually supported apps?

How many Android products even come with 32GB (or 64GB for that matter) of usable storage space today? Space that can be used for anything and everything from apps to data? Even today I can't honestly name a single Android phone that has 32GB of storage onboard. Sure, I've seen plenty advertising you can add an SDxx card, but which models have it already built-in?

It's almost as backwards as WinCE/WinMO devices that kept apps and data in RAM. They all did this at one point. If you forgot to charge your battery, you were done. WinMO devices were the biggest POS handhelds ever, and made 10-15+ year old Newtons look like they were from a hundred years in the future.

I think I figured out my problem maybe. I uninstalled Zeam and it seemed to solve the issue. I installed it again and now it seems back to normal. Something must have got messed up Zeam during a update or something I guess.

As much as I like Zeam, I've had it screw up after updates a couple of times. Usually stopping and starting it again fixes the problems I've had, but it doesn't surprise me that you had to uninstall it!

HTC data logger and privacy/security vulnerability:

http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/10/01/...sses-much-more/

Maybe the subject of this post should be "Android is for Dummies" or maybe "Android is from Dummies"

To be fair, the HTC stuff is HTC-specific. It's logging software HTC put on the phones - and of course didn't bother to tell anyone about, including its own customers.

They must think they're the next Sony or something.

There's something of a long history of this sort of thing, with vendor crapware on PCs installing ActiveX controls that were marked "safe for scripting" that were anything but.

This seems to be yet another argument in favor of getting a "pure" Android phone, to be rid of these vendor things.

The "pure android" experience isn't something that's going to last much longer, if it's even still available on any retail product. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing since Google hasn't really done anything terribly innovative with Android in terms of UI, fit and finish, polish, presentation and all that.

But what's needed is for vendors not to make their products into giant piles of hurt and security/privacy nightmares. It doesn't seem terribly difficult to imagine NOT collecting the data HTC has been, while still providing something unique. I'm pretty sure Amazon is going to move quickly to a (distant) number two spot in what will finally become (somewhat of) a tablet market.

Without changing up the Android "experience" a vendor is just going to be left with a bland and rather unremarkable product compared to the next guy. Or, as unremarkable and exactly like the next guy. Neither which makes a compelling strategy.

I think that perhaps a few companies may learn a thing or two from what Amazon is about to do and change their game somewhat. I doubt they'll be very successful, but from where they're playing now, they can only go up.

Android vendors today are just like PC vendors. When a user is buying a PC to run Windows, they don't even pay attention to the software. They just look at the hardware. Is it sturdy? Good battery life? Cheap?

Much as they might try to fight it, nobody's going to say "gosh, I love HTC Sense and I hate Samsung TouchWiz". Or, I hope they won't.

Everyone knows Windows. But even though Android can be called almost ubiquitous on non-iOS super phones, doesn't currently have that draw and may never have. Only the geekiest of Engadget readers and your typical slashdotter go looking expressly for an Android handset. Everyone else is going for an iPhone or just "a phone."

When someone goes to buy a computer they're looking first and foremost for one that comes with the OS they're after. Windows. And they're looking most definitely at the hardware.

With Phones, most brands lack any meaningful consumer pull and generally speaking, customers are first and foremost looking at price. However, since most of these Android makers are competing around the same price points, sometimes "from free" and usually with similar enough hardware (mostly copying the iPhone at first glance), it's going to come down to what one can do over another to help a differentiate products and brands.

It's Apple's strategy and why the iPhone is still far and away the number 1 super phone in the world.

I'm sure Android is going to get better, but are the OEM's willing to wait? Some of them might prefer a head start on their competition. SOme of them will want to create something more compelling, knowing fully well by past performance, that Google is far from being a leader when it comes to UI and design. Some may want to do more than try and sell a marginal piece of hardware with a short shelf life. They may want to try their hands at creating an eco-system.

That's what Amazon's doing. And it's why they'll be far more successful than anyone else has been up until now with Android.

I ended up doing the wipe anyway. Reloading Zeam helped but it was still slow and I just wanted to clean it out I had installed and removed about 100 programs since getting the phone.

Any other newbies need not fear doing a wipe it wasn't that big of a deal. Matt is right I didn't need to do anything with the carrier it didn't even delete my pictures from the SD card.

Here is another thing I discovered that sped my device up considerably.

http://www.bongizmo.com/blog/moving-all-android-apps-to-sdcard-apps2sd-froyo/

After installing all the apps I wanted that would not all moving to SD in the application manager my internal memory would be just about full and it would slow down the phone a lot. Changing the default install location to SD and re-installing the apps I wanted to move made my device much faster. I had to install a lot of crap on my PC just to change this though.

Semi-non-sequitur:

I'd been using My Cast Lite as the thing that told me the weather. Under ICS, it didn't really work any more. It wasn't particularly reliable on my old phone, either.

I've now switched to BeWeather. It's a bit heavy on the eye candy, but it does everything I want.

I got a new device the Samsung Exhibit II on t-mobile now I can see why so many people root and install custom roms on these things. This phone came with so much crap on it there were about five screens worth! This thing even had bookmarks it wouldn't let me delete. So far I have rooted it and used Titanium backup pro to freeze a lot of the junk.

Another thing that is annoying is it seems to have different apps for messaging and calendar than the stock ones. This has Gingerbread does anyone have screen shots of what the stock messaging and calendar should look like? These look way different than what my old phone with 2.2 had and I don't really like them.

I'll try to get a shot of it. You might be out of luck unless you put Cyanogen on there. That would be my suggestion if you've already rooted it (that's the hard part, IMO).


I just tried an app called 1Weather. Give it a try. It's attractive without going overboard, has really informative 2x2 widgets, and a "feels like" temperature notification.

I was trying to see if I have the stock apps or not and if I do I figured I would just find a different messaging app but if I don't I was thinking I would try a different rom.

Based on my prior experience with the Samsung Captivate, I'm betting they aren't stock apps. Samsung seemed to be doing minor look changes, but major UI changes on 2.2, wouldn't surprise me to see them digging deeper with 2.3.

This is what the stock calendar looks like:
http://www.gsmarena.com/google_nexus_s-review-565p7.php

Messaging is here:
http://www.gsmarena.com/google_nexus_s-review-565p4.php

Thanks Tom! That is not what I have. The calendar looks similar but dark and messaging is totally different. Messaging is totally different and I don't like it.

There is no cyanogen yet for this device. I found you can download a Google application package but when I try to install them it fails. I email myself the apk, click install in the email, I get a message that this is a system app and will be replaced, then it says installation failed.

Since I have rooted is it still safe to do the factory data reset under privacy?