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Hi everyone,
This is Edward, developer of Car Locator. I just soft-launched my latest app and I wanted to tap this wonderful community to help me test it out and gather feedback before I start promoting it.
The app is called "Smarter Alarm". Basically, instead of waking up to a blaring sound in the morning, Smarter Alarm will read customizable information to you, like the morning's weather, stock prices, headline news, sports scores, your friends' birthdays and more. It's similar to Iron Man's "Jarvis" alarm clock.
I'll be adding more feeds in future updates, but I wanted to gauge interest before putting in the time =)
I'd really appreciate any bug reports, feature requests, and improvements you might have! If you can find any verifiable bugs, I'll happily reward you with a free copy of the full version of any of my other apps: "Car Locator", "Copy Paste It" and "Screenshot It".
Heres the market link: market://details?id=com.edwardkim.android.smarteralarm
Thanks!
p.s. The app is also entered in Verizon's VDC Power your app contest under the "information" category. Please vote for me! (poweryourappcontest.com/Protected/ApplicationListVote.aspx)
Sounds like a great idea! Ill keep an eye out
Sent from outerspace
I think its a great idea, but instead of voice, maybe an option to have music (or anything else playing) and instead have the text on your screen. Because currently the voice is a bit unpleasant to listen to
Hmm, interesting. I'll give it a try.
Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.
Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.
Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....
A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.
}{Alienz}{ said:
Pretty good once you install a decent voice. However, there is a big omission in features. It only supports one alarm time for every day.
Add the ability to configure a different alarm based on the day of the week. For example: Monday-5am alarm, Tuesday-6:30am alarm, Wednesday-7am alarm, etc.
Also, add the option to play user configurable music in the background while the voice is reading. Then it will be amazing. If the music volume is configurable independently of the voice, then it will be SUPERB. You only need to support a basic format like mp3 or something, no need for every format support....
A dream feature is to have the voice read like it is now BUT the app would also pick a RANDOM song from your music library and play it in the background. It will be different each time. But that's stretching it too far. Add music and different alarms for different days of the week and this thing will be irresistable.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
EDIT: Also, add in the description 1 or 2 suggestions as to what voices it sounds best with. I had to do trial and error with quite a few to get it to be decent and they were all paid apps that I had to then refund till I find one I like lol. Adding a suggested voice can help users a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your suggestions! Multiple alarms is definitely a feature that I'll be adding soon. I'm just getting started =).
Can you recommend to me some voices that you think are good?
Thanks for this fantastic app!
So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.
A few suggestions that were not mentioned:
Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.
Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.
User configurable RSS feeds.
Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).
Device: Samsung Galaxy S
tried it on my htc desire. Although the app is quite nice, however the lock screen went missing once this application is install, and lock screen is restored once the app was uninstall.
Hey guys, have you ever heard something about WakeVoice ?
It's exactly the same things but with vocal recognition to ! (Jarvis....)
Here is the XDA thread : http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=743915
RMonst3r said:
Thanks for this fantastic app!
So far i've found that it works great with SVOX Classic British English Voice.
A few suggestions that were not mentioned:
Statusbar icon when alarm is enabled.
Alarm track/tune play for a configurable time before reading starts.
User configurable RSS feeds.
Enable Wifi/Data before alarm start and disable after completion (may be reaching but would be cool still).
Device: Samsung Galaxy S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
User configurable RSS feeds is a DREAM feature for me as well. And the enable Wi-Fi Data would be important as I have things such as JuiceDefender which switch them off when not in use. Specifically...turning Wi-FI ON would be the most important one since where you need an alarm, you will likely be at your house and you will likely have wi-fi there that you use everyday.
So I suppose if I had to rate features it in order of important it would go like:
1. Configurable alarm time for different days of the week.
2. Turn Wi-Fi (or data) one minute prior to alarm going off. Make a trigger that checks if there is connectivity 1 min in advance and only enable the wifi if the trigger says there is no internet
3. Music in the background. Configurable in volume and content, meaning you can select what tune to play while the voice is reading stuff.
4. RSS feeds. YOU choose the feeds and news sites the alarm will read.
5. Randomize the background music so that it's different on different days or it randomly picks a song to play in the background-that way it will sound like you're listening to the radio only it's playing YOUR favorite music and telling you only stuff YOU care about.
Voices:
SVOX Classic British
SVOX Classic US Grace
Loquendo Susan
All 3 choices work pretty nice with the program. They are not like human voices but they are at least 5-10 times better than the default Android voice and WELL worth it. Hint: You can use them for navigation and reading your texts while you are driving as well.
To OP: If you manage to implement most of those features, I think you can easily set a $5-7 price tag and this thing will STILL sell like hot bread on the market lol. . .
nice.lets try
}{Alienz}{ said:
User configurable RSS feeds is a DREAM feature for me as well. And the enable Wi-Fi Data would be important as I have things such as JuiceDefender which switch them off when not in use. Specifically...turning Wi-FI ON would be the most important one since where you need an alarm, you will likely be at your house and you will likely have wi-fi there that you use everyday.
So I suppose if I had to rate features it in order of important it would go like:
1. Configurable alarm time for different days of the week.
2. Turn Wi-Fi (or data) one minute prior to alarm going off. Make a trigger that checks if there is connectivity 1 min in advance and only enable the wifi if the trigger says there is no internet
3. Music in the background. Configurable in volume and content, meaning you can select what tune to play while the voice is reading stuff.
4. RSS feeds. YOU choose the feeds and news sites the alarm will read.
5. Randomize the background music so that it's different on different days or it randomly picks a song to play in the background-that way it will sound like you're listening to the radio only it's playing YOUR favorite music and telling you only stuff YOU care about.
Voices:
SVOX Classic British
SVOX Classic US Grace
Loquendo Susan
All 3 choices work pretty nice with the program. They are not like human voices but they are at least 5-10 times better than the default Android voice and WELL worth it. Hint: You can use them for navigation and reading your texts while you are driving as well.
To OP: If you manage to implement most of those features, I think you can easily set a $5-7 price tag and this thing will STILL sell like hot bread on the market lol. . .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your feedback again, as well as the suggested voices
I really like your ideas and I'll definitely be adding configurable multiple alarm times, music in the background, and rss feeds (1, 3, and 4). As for turning on wifi (2), I'll have to look into whether or not 3rd party apps are even allowed to turn on/off wifi without user input. I'm sure its possible, and if so, I'll add feature 2 as well.
Look out for updates in the next week or 2!
Almost forgot, my email address (for you to send the log file) is eddie dot kim at [google's mail system] dot com
Hey Edward,
Wifi control should be possible because Juice Defender does it, it may require root though (not sure).
Can't wait for the changes.
Bug report!
This is the second day it failed to "alarm" lol. Good thing I set another alarm 5 min after otherwise I woulda slept in late for work.
Ok bugs. Yesterday it gave me a Text to speech can't be initialized or similar (I was playing with voices night before so maybe thats why).
This morning it gave me some error as well. I was in a rush and sleepy so didn't remember it but from now on I'll write them down or do log cats. Point is though both times it failed to ring. Today's error was not connected with voices at all as far as I remember.
Also a different bug is: When you launch the app, it AUTOMATICALLY turns on screen rotation and then bugs itself out when it can't decide on a horizontal vs vertical layout. Interestingly enough, the rotation option remains DISABLED on my phone...the app goes crazy switching modes though and then errored out with something. It does this on being launched or running, regardless. Just flip the phone a bit and you'll see.
It's a bug report because if an alarm goes while it's doing this, the alarm errors out and does NOT ring.
}{Alienz}{ said:
Bug report!
This is the second day it failed to "alarm" lol. Good thing I set another alarm 5 min after otherwise I woulda slept in late for work.
Ok bugs. Yesterday it gave me a Text to speech can't be initialized or similar (I was playing with voices night before so maybe thats why).
This morning it gave me some error as well. I was in a rush and sleepy so didn't remember it but from now on I'll write them down or do log cats. Point is though both times it failed to ring. Today's error was not connected with voices at all as far as I remember.
Also a different bug is: When you launch the app, it AUTOMATICALLY turns on screen rotation and then bugs itself out when it can't decide on a horizontal vs vertical layout. Interestingly enough, the rotation option remains DISABLED on my phone...the app goes crazy switching modes though and then errored out with something. It does this on being launched or running, regardless. Just flip the phone a bit and you'll see.
It's a bug report because if an alarm goes while it's doing this, the alarm errors out and does NOT ring.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for your bug report. Not alarming is obviously a huge bug, so I'll try to duplicate this and put out a fix asap. While the alarm is going off, screen orientation changes SHOULD be disabled so the alarm is not interrupted.
Sweet app. which voice engine is better? It gives me a choice of Pico and eSpeak
One suggestion: Add the current time. Ex: "Good <morning|afternoon|evening> name. It is <time>am|pm.
Not sure if this is a bug, or just something not fully implement yet, but when I'm setting the alarm time, the time is in am/pm format - even though my phone is set to 24h format. Other than that it looks promising and good luck with your project.
Sent from my Desire HD
This sounds really good. It reminds me of those futuristic moives where the computer tells the person everything about the day and stuff.
Sent from my X10i using Tapatalk
Awesome app! Here are some suggestions:
1) Please include an alarm clock icon in the status bar, so I know whether it's on or off.
2) Please add an option to configure what days you want the alarm to go off.
3) Bug report: current weather is given in Celsius, but the forecast is give in Fahrenheit.
I'm swapping from Android to Windows Phone, and was hoping if anyone is bored enough to read this they might suggest some Windows Phone Apps that might suit my needs.
In no way do I expect anyone that hops in to respond to each type, or google around for me, but I expect I'm not the first person to make the Android -> Windows phone swap, so maybe some of you will have a quick idea of ones to try out. You don't need to spend a lot of time explaining every app, if you're busy. Every platform is different though, so rather than spend 10 hours looking for something that everyone in the community already knows, I thought I would just toss out some quick questions.
1. RSS feeds. On Android I use gReader Pro. It's a pretty basic app that allows easy setup for RSS feeds and syncs them with your google reader account. Not very exciting, but it's easy to use because my feeds are already set up via google, so a decent app that can do the same would be nice.
2. Google Voice. I'd like to make and receive texts, as well as make calls on wifi (receiving calls isn't a big deal, but would be a plus). I downloaded GoVoice, which seems like it will be pretty decent, but am open to suggsetions.
3. Podcasts. I used Doggcatcher on Android, which allows you to stream, download + save, and sync podcasts. It has a decent search function to help you get started.
4. Tasker. This one is more difficult to explain, but essentially it allows you to program a set of tasks, like a macro function. Essentially I have it set up for "Off" (as in data/wifi/bluetooth/gps/gsm disabled), "Data" (same as off but wifi enabled), "Loud" (same as data but with notifications and media volumes all the way up), and "Car" (same as Loud but wifi off and speakerphone and GPS enabled). Basically I use this to change the state of the GPS, WIFI, and volumes, so that I can quickly switch a number of settings at once. Great app, if you have some patience and have an Android kicking around.
5. Astrid Tasks. A pretty basic reminder app. I'm sure there are plenty of these for Windows Phone, but any suggestion would great. If it can store backups to the computer, or sync with a cloud based system, that would be a plus.
6*. Something to show running applications quickly. I'm not sure if this is actually an issue for Windows Phone, but sometimes apps go "rogue" on Android, so being able to make sure that a particular app isn't a battery drain would be nice. I was using System Panel on Android. If this isn't needed, disregard the question.
7. A good alarm app. I was using Gentle Alarm on Android, which has a widget to show you the next alarm that will go off, and allows easy creation of various alarms, which can be set for audible, vibration, specific days of the week to repeat on, etc. You can also ensure that alarms will always be audible, regardless of if everything else is muted, which is nice for at night when you don't need an email waking you up, but need to make sure the alarm is at maximum volume in the morning.
8. Anything else you can think of that is a must have for daily use. I'm a student and don't really have a lot of time to play with the phone for games, but hey, we all have to pass the time every once in a while.
9. Onenote. I like how this app syncs easily, but I can't view my handwritten notes that I write on my tablet. Is there a workaround that allows you to see these?
------ I'm only using this Lumia 710 on WIFI, essentially as a PDA + GPS, so anything handy that can prevent battery drain is a plus, as I don't require GPS to constantly be on, and I certainly don't need phone/data(non-wifi) to constantly be on.
In short, I appreciate any input you might have, even if it's only for one of the things I have listed. The phone seems great in general, and had most of the important things already installed (the email, calendar, navigation, office, etc., is fantastic as is, which is a great bonus compared to Android, where I had to use 3rd party apps for most of the core aspects).
Regards,
--bb
Weave
Skype
Music and Video with Zune
Not possible
Ask Ziggy
not needed
Default alarm
Board Express Pro
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 PM ----------
Nokia Drive
Crackle
Nokia Creative Studio
Contract Killer
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
Box
SkyDrive
MetroTube
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
pvt_nemesis said:
Weave
Skype
Music and Video with Zune
Not possible
Ask Ziggy
not needed
Default alarm
Board Express Pro
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:14 PM ----------
Nokia Drive
Crackle
Nokia Creative Studio
Contract Killer
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
---------- Post added at 06:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:16 PM ----------
Box
SkyDrive
MetroTube
Sent from my HD7 using Board Express
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all of the suggestions. That should keep me busy for quite awhile. :good:
Try also fantasia painter for photo editor. Is awesome and free. The only app i am missing since switching from wp7 to android
Sent from my HTC Explorer A310e using xda app-developers app
Before I get into my list, I'm just going to run down how apps and multi tasking work on WP7 in case you don't already know.
#1: No app can truly run in the background. The only way to get an app to continue running is either to have it up and prevent the screen from turning off, or (if supported by the app) allow it to run under the lockscreen, which means when you press the power button, only the screen turns off, the phone does not enter a sleep state.
-----------------The exception to this rule is when an app is playing music. If the app dev has done it correctly, he should have handed the music playing off to the system, so once you set up the music source in app, you should be able to minimize it and use the next/previous/play/pause controls. In fact you can even go to grooveshark's beta html5 in internet explorer; HTML5 can plug in to this system media playback! I was very excited to learn that. But at least on grooveshark, next/previous controls don't work.
#2: HOWEVER each app can have a "daemon" which is essentially a set of tasks that are run periodically by the system (minimum of every half hour). So if you use google latitude, latitude apps will only be able to update your position every half hour (or at longer intervals, but no shorter). This system of background daemons is actually very very good as it encourages unique thinking from the developer side, and still gives the user the benefits of true multi tasking without the battery drainage. What a daemon can do isn't that limited, but it's the fact that no internet connection can remain active in the background that poses a lot of problems (for example, IRC clients cannot have multi tasking for this reason). Since things can only run every half hour, you don't have to worry about things like turning off your gps, since nothing is allowed to just turn on the GPS and keep it on.
#3 : Also there's still push, of course. Lemme break that down for you: push notifications can either be through the live tile (rather than having a background daemon update the tile, things are pushed to it immediately as they arrive), or push can be used through statusbar notifications. One unfortunate oversight in this system is that if you have an app that you do not pin to the start menu, and if it has a notification and you did not hear it... there is no list of missed notifications. This doesn't come into play that often; for me it only happens with eBay, where I don't want to bother having that on my start screen but I might miss some alerts.
#4: Battery Saver mode is YOUR FRIEND. You can get nearly another day out of your phone (or I can with my Titan) when battery saver kicks in. You can enable it so that it turns on when the battery is low (%20), or manually. However, it disables all background daemons and push notification in order to save battery.
#5: Multi tasking and switching between apps. Hold down the back button to see the list of the last several apps you used (or in the case of my unlocked ROM, all of the apps you have used since boot). When you minimize an app (press the start button), it gets "dehydrated" which means it's just suspended to RAM. It works like you'd expect; start typing something in one app, switch over to another to look something up and switch back to the first to resume typing. To remove an app from the list, or "exit" the app (since it isn't actually running the only thing this does is remove clutter or perhaps free up some slots), you "back" out of them. Press the back button until the app goes away.
One of the reasons, in my opinion, that windows 8 is getting a lot of negative flack is because people don't know that live tiles are good. It doesn't help that, last time I checked, there were no useful live tile apps in the 8 marketplace yet. So frustrating! People hate what they don't understand, because hating on the internet is the standard state of existence. I encourage you to think about what you do on the internet every time you sit down on your computer, and see if you can find an app with live tile to do it for you. For me, I had a routine of checking my email(s), going through a lot of webcomics, reading news feeds, etc. That was my daily routine. Now with WP7, I have each aspect of my routine as a live tile, so I can literally replace that entire process with just looking at the start screen.
The other thing about live tiles and metro that people fail to understand is that active push notifications, where unnecessary are BAD, for a few different reasons. Push notifications are "active" and live tiles are "passive". This is because live tiles do not make any noise or otherwise prompt you to look at them; they are simply there and deliver content when you pull out your phone. Let me put this in perspective: say I pull out my phone to look up something on wikipedia. I can see that I have 2 new emails, some new RSS articles and a facebook notification. Number 1: I don't feel the urge to go and clear the unread count of all of these things, as I would if they were all aggregated in the statusbar like on android (because you need that statusbar for things, and if it's cluttered and you don't keep up on it, it quickly fills up and becomes overwhelming). I can leave them alone for now and go to wikipedia. Now if this were an android/IOS device, I would have gotten an audible notification for each of those three things, and I would have taken time out of whatever I was doing IN LIFE to tend to my phone.
Some points about stressors here (and when I say stressors, I don't mean overwhelming stress you can feel, but stress in the clinical sense, which is objective): having your phone beep at you constantly stresses you; for most people it's difficult to put their phone out of their mind until they have seen what the notification was. This is not good.
Moreover, feeling the need to go and clear unread counts/managing your statusbar is also somewhat of a stressor; if it starts overflowing you'll either learn to not use things that create notifications (somewhat limiting your experience with a smartphone), give up all hope and never look at the statusbar again, or just clear it out and miss out on things you wouldn't have if the information was presented in an orderly fashion.
Live tiles, being passive, are also more efficient in terms of time spent on the phone and your phone's battery life. Notice how in my example, I observed the new content only when I was already pulling out my phone to do something else. With things aggregating in bulk, I can view them in bulk at points of the day where I was already on my phone. This is opposed to pulling out my phone every 15 minutes because something new happened... which wastes time pulling your phone out of your pocket many times a day, wastes battery when turning the screen on/off many times a day, and if you use wifi; wastes even more battery when the wifi radio is turned on/off sporadically many times a day.
So yes, live tiles are an objectively less stressful approach to mobile devices and less distracting from tasks at hand. The same concepts can be applied to windows 8; rather than having popup notifications for all your facebook, email, rss, etc bombard you while you're trying to write a paper... all of that information is silently aggregated for you in the background.
------------The List-------------------
For alarms,
627.AM
Built in Alarm app.
For task / project management
Tasks by telerik
Or just use the built in calendar app
Or use Onenote and Pin your task list to the start screen.
For RSS
Wonder Reader hands down, none of the other google reader clients are quite as fully functional and polished.
Fuse is pretty but I never got the hang of using it.
For Wifi Video calls
Tango. It's pretty limited in that the android and IOS client are updated with better features, and you can only call other people with tango... but the service itself is more efficient and more reliable than the skype app was last time I tried it. Moreover it supports push for accepting calls, something skype doesn't. Also I like the concept of not having "online / offline" states. You call someone, and they choose to answer it or not. Why would I need to log into a phone...
I used to take notes on a tablet at school, and ran into the same problem as you. Only solution I know of is to print your notes back into onenote. You'll have duplicates of everything unfortunately.
Podcast functionality is built in.
For random recommendations...
das Image (Better image search)
Image Map (Renders all of your pictures on a map based on GPS loc info)
Dynamic Background (Unlock) (Updates the lockscreen picture every half hour choosing randomly from a pool of selected images)
Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)
EnClock (there is no stopwatch built in to WP7, and you never know when you need one)
eBay
HandyScan (Helps you take good pictures of papers, backs up to skydrive. Better to keep documents in here than with regular pictures).
Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)
Nokia Drive (Unlock unless you get a nokia device)
MetroPaper (Read it later / pocket)
Metrotube + Supertube (youtube apps. 1 is awesome, 2 lets you download videos and even create offline "music" playlists)
Photo2cloud (back up full res photos to skydrive independent of PC)
Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)
WeatherLive (There are plenty of other weather apps... but weatherlive works, it's incredibly thorough, updates live tile using GPS location, is pretty, etc)
Zite (Gives you news articles based on google reader feeds and who you follow in twitter, good for every time I go to the toilet )
If you use IRC or SSH
The SSH Client Pro
TinyIRC
And now that you are a part of the WP community, you should invest in AND pin the live tiles of each to your start screen:
WPCentral
WMPoweruser
Games! I Don't like to play serious games on my phone; I like something I can whip out at any time and turn off at any time, no consequence. That said, I make an exception for the Final Fantasy updated / rerelease for WP7
COLLAPSE (Probably my favorite mobile game. It's an easy puzzle game, but satisfying to plow through at ludicrous speed. There are some very hard rounds with special conditions though.. story mode is dumb but it has unique challenges and you need to play through it to unlock all the quick play modes).
Final Fantasy
Wordament
Fruit Ninja
Dodonpachi Maximum (Genre: Bullet Hell. If you don't know what that means then try it before you buy it. If you love bullet hell; buy this. It's by CAVE).
Wizard's Choice (A casual text adventure).
link68759 said:
Lots of good info
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the detailed response!
I've started using Onenote as a to-do list, but I made a recent post as to why that's causing me problems (or so it seems).
I seem to be syncing everything from onenote, and my device has basically filled up overnight as it downloaded my files. Microsoft told me to contact Nokia about it, and then disconnected?
It seemed like a good plan to me as well. I don't really need to see detailed graphs and notes on the phone, just a couple simple folders.
I may just reset the phone and give the other apps you suggested a shot, and not connect with my microsoft live ID at all. I went from plenty of space on the device to none, in a matter of days.
I'm not sure if podcasts were an issue as well, and how it saves and deletes them. I only stored what I would consider a small amount, maybe 200 megs or less.
Nokia drive works great. It takes up a lot of space, but I have it on my feature phone as well, and the GPS acquisition time on the Lumia 710 blows away my E5-00, and my Droid X. It's just incredibly fast at locking in.
I'll do a reset tomorrow and give the other apps a shot, and try to avoid anything that could be crushing my storage. All I really need for storage is email, nokia drive, and basic apps/news/podcasts, which on my android (nav aside) shouldn't really take more than 1 gig of space. A few small games to pass the time, and some apps for productivity, and I should be back in business.
Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to determine what is using X amount of space, so I'll have to do a full wipe and install items slowly, to sort it out.
There isn't a proper app to view this kind of thing, is there?
Regards,
--bb
I'll reply to your other thread about one note.
You can't not connect with your live ID if you plan to download apps unfortunately.
For viewing used space, Zune does divide it up for you, I don't remember how specific it gets but it should be divided into space used by music, videos, podcasts, apps. I don't think it's possible for an app to view usage, because each app is sandboxed; that is they have their own folder on the device and they are not allowed to leave it.
Nokia Drive shouldn't need to take up a lot of space; you can just download the maps of where you live and where you might possibly go spontaneously, as opposed to your whole country XD. Yeah I've had good luck with my phones and GPS, WP7 in general does an excellent job with GPS.
Oh I forgot to mention in my first post; WPCentral and WMPoweruser are good because they do a lot of app/game reviews, usually the reviews are on new apps in the market. This is pretty much the only way I discover new apps
link68759 said:
I'll reply to your other thread about one note.
You can't not connect with your live ID if you plan to download apps unfortunately.
For viewing used space, Zune does divide it up for you, I don't remember how specific it gets but it should be divided into space used by music, videos, podcasts, apps. I don't think it's possible for an app to view usage, because each app is sandboxed; that is they have their own folder on the device and they are not allowed to leave it.
Nokia Drive shouldn't need to take up a lot of space; you can just download the maps of where you live and where you might possibly go spontaneously, as opposed to your whole country XD. Yeah I've had good luck with my phones and GPS, WP7 in general does an excellent job with GPS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Gotcha!
I will look into setting up a new windows live account for OneNote to-do type lists. I know Office sometimes used to have issues with multiple live accounts on the same computer, in Windows 7, but I think that's mostly fixed now. I use google calendar anyways (to sync), so realistically it's not the end of the world for me to keep the accounts disconnected from my school Onenote live account.
I guess I synced all of Nokia North America at once (1.9 or so gigs of a download). I certainly don't need more than 20% of it. In fact, my whole state, now that I look at it, is only 36 megs.
Now that you've given some ideas of how to approach it, I'm liking this more than any of my other previous phones (iPhone, BB Bold, Droid X, etc). It needs some time to grow as an operating system, and Nokia really needs to put an LED notification light on future models [shakes tiny fist], but I think they're back in the game!
Thank you very much for all of your help.
//Edit: I read your other post responding to mine. I think you're right. I could probably do a wipe, use the same account, but move the basic to-do lists to a separate folder, pin them, and make sure to never ever open the school folder itself in Office on the phone. That sounds like it would work ok as well, as I must have opened a school folder that overwhelmed it and just started syncing massive amounts of pdf's, inking, and so on, along with the simple things.
I just wanted to also mention that all that you typed out would make for a great sticky. That's a ton of great info.
Thank you again for all of the feedback.
You made some excellent points about how smartphones add lots of unnecessary stresses when they're constantly distracting us with notifications, as well as how live tiles really help ease you into information you need, and information you might not, but are willing to take a brief glance at. I'm a big Windows 8 fan, and have used RP, RTM Pro (currently), and RTM enterprise. I think Live Tiles are fantastic, whether it's on my phone, my convertible laptop, or my desktop. I think you're absolutely correct about how people just don't quite understand how handy it will be yet.
//BTW: I bookmarked your post as a sort of "zen" explanation I can refer back to, or link to a friend, so they understand the unity and purposes in the next stage in Windows products.
///Afterthought: I still would like a notification LED on the phone, as long as it's customizable. On Android and Blackberry I would always disable the light for all of the nonsense things, but keep it enabled for things like a missed call (because that could be my son needing a ride, or something else that's important), or for a severe weather alert. Random emails would just have to wait until I turned on the screen.
Sorry to bump my own thread again, but I have a question about three of the apps that link68759 mentioned.
"Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)"
"Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)"
"Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)"
By "unlock" I'm assuming he meant an unlocked bootloader, and not locked to a cellular carrier? I did the basic test today, and mine appears to be locked, which is a shame because both of those functions would be great.
As far as "Keep Alive" goes, I can't seem to find that specific app/dev combo in the market. I don't use 3g/4g data on this phone, or any phone anymore, so is that an app that is better than keeping the scanning on, or is it a battery drain? I'm just not sure I follow the concept, because I can't find a description of it.
Regards,
--bb
bladebarrier said:
Sorry to bump my own thread again, but I have a question about three of the apps that link68759 mentioned.
"Supreme Shortcuts (Unlock) (Lets you pin any setting page to the start screen)"
"Battery Status (Unlock) (Live tile for current battery percent, also tracks battery usage and graphs it for you)"
"Keep Alive (by jaxbot, it prevents wifi from turning off)"
By "unlock" I'm assuming he meant an unlocked bootloader, and not locked to a cellular carrier? I did the basic test today, and mine appears to be locked, which is a shame because both of those functions would be great.
As far as "Keep Alive" goes, I can't seem to find that specific app/dev combo in the market. I don't use 3g/4g data on this phone, or any phone anymore, so is that an app that is better than keeping the scanning on, or is it a battery drain? I'm just not sure I follow the concept, because I can't find a description of it.
Regards,
--bb
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You'll need to flash a custom ROM, which you can luckily do on your 710.
The a wifi radio turning on/off takes more power than one that is idly connected. So if you use the phone frequently, it's better to stay connected. If you aren't going to touch it for many hours at a time, better to let it disconnect and turn off.
But if you aren't using cellular then you'll need wifi to update information in the background.
Some more here
Dialpad7
Handyscan
Photogram
Skype
Sleep Bug
Tango
UC Browser
whatspp= messenger
Yelp = to find nearby things
So since switching to my lovely N5, I've missed a few things I found baked into older versions of Android on my old Razr I.. I know that if I fiddle with the Accessibility/TalkBack settings in Kit Kat, I'll get some of the features I need, but I was hoping not to have to go with the full talkback functionality if possible, so I was wondering if any of the good folks here had recommendations of good/stable apps to do the following?
An app that uses TTS to do caller ID and SMS announcements - e.g. for when I'm driving..
A reliable and configurable app for auto answering calls..
Ideally the ability for these apps to activate or shut down when paired/not paired to a specific bluetooth device (e.g. like Car Home Ultra) would be awesome.. I could get tasker involved at a pinch, but native support for this would be easier
I appreciate that if I look at the play store, there are a LOT of free and paid apps that cover the basic requirements - but XDA has always been my go-to source for reliable recommendations, and if I'm honest the reviews for most of the ones I can find are all over the place
tia
You may like utter!.
PhilipTD said:
You may like utter!.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I shall certainly give that a go on my drive home!
Thanks for the heads up
Unfortunately, Utter was a little too unpredictable for me - when used in conjunction with my bluetooth car unit anyway...
I'm trying Free Car Mode
..which seems to be a single app that does both auto answer and SMS announce - in fact it may be the only app on the play store that does both.. (irritatingly it has an annoying quirk of always going back to it's main screen whenever an SMS is read out, kinda defeating the "hands free" requirement if I'm already in a navigation app.. but hey ho, its free so I can't complain too much - I've mentioned it in my Google Play review, so you never know.. the developer may implement it
jms_uk said:
Unfortunately, Utter was a little too unpredictable for me - when used in conjunction with my bluetooth car unit anyway...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, bummer. There's also AVX.
Yeah, I saw that.. no worries, a "personal assistant" app may have been overkill anyway. Free Car Mode seems to be doing the job - it's a pain to manually launch before each drive, but I've added it as a button to Car Home Ultra and just have to manually enable/disable before each drive
With the apple watch release, comes the hoards of apple enthusiasts taking the crap out of android wear products!
I am looking to create a collection of the best and most AWESOME apps and tips for android wear to blow the mind of others and demonstrate how much more amazing android wear is than any of the other competitors!
Please post the best apps and tips/tricks below. Not apps like your basic calendar app, but instead unique ones, apps which are creative and truly awesome. Apps which allow you to say: can your watch do that!??!
Cheers, looking forward to discovering some cool stuff!!!
Say turn on the computer with autowear+Tasker, or start playing spotify music, read reddit posts on the go (they probably have that too...) create or download your own watchfaces(!!!)
List of apps which i use. I dont know whether it fits ur criteria, but still i would like to share the list of apps i use on my MOTO 360.
1) Wear Mini Launcher
2) Task Manager for Android Wear
3) My Roll Gallery
4) Evernote
5) Browser for Android Wear
6) Weather Timeline
7) Minnum Keyboard
8) Messenger for Android Wear
9) Runtastic Pro
StariX37 said:
7) Minnum Keyboard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can u reply Whatsapp with this app?
I would ad Watchmaker and Autowear!
Juanmiwow said:
Can u reply Whatsapp with this app?
I would ad Watchmaker and Autowear!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I THINK it replaces the voice typing as default but I am not sure.
This isn't particularly a 'feature' or a cool app or whatever, but I found that the Google Music app was surprisingly useful at locating my phone. I couldn't find my phone in my room one time, so I used Wear's Google Music app to make my phone play random music to help me find it. Sorry if it's a bit of a lame contribution but at the time it was quite a big help
smooth-pursuits said:
This isn't particularly a 'feature' or a cool app or whatever, but I found that the Google Music app was surprisingly useful at locating my phone. I couldn't find my phone in my room one time, so I used Wear's Google Music app to make my phone play random music to help me find it. Sorry if it's a bit of a lame contribution but at the time it was quite a big help [emoji14]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THAT is brilliant.
smooth-pursuits said:
This isn't particularly a 'feature' or a cool app or whatever, but I found that the Google Music app was surprisingly useful at locating my phone. I couldn't find my phone in my room one time, so I used Wear's Google Music app to make my phone play random music to help me find it. Sorry if it's a bit of a lame contribution but at the time it was quite a big help
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I found that answering a call on my watch also starts my music on my phone.
Custom Voice Commands by Treycent lets you tag photos with a voice commands that you can then share. This lets you and your friends load photos by just speaking a question or phrase (e.g. "show me Hanna's latest selfie"). It also lets you post messages to WhatsApp and Twitter by voice.
Toggles wear
swipify
wear volume
my car location
and showear
My LG urbane use changes dramatically with these apps.
Instaweather is the only must have app I have.
No other watch face shows me time, POP, weather radar, both batteries, temp, temp forecast, sun set, sunrise at a glance and now the even added support for Google Fit.
Top two apps on my watch are:
Google Keep - Notes (shoppinglist, todo) on the go
Remote Control Collection - Controlling my PC (presentations, media) from my wrist
WearTasker + Tasker!
Apple can't touch this.
floyd0815 said:
WearTasker + Tasker!
Apple can't touch this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you give example of tasks?
My contribution to the list is the lockscreen app "Showear". Let's me fold my arms without accidentally setting alarms and texting ppl.
tihimasmo said:
Could you give example of tasks?
My contribution to the list is the lockscreen app "Showear". Let's me fold my arms without accidentally setting alarms and texting ppl.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a Raspberry PI for home automation and with WearTasker I can control basic TV, satellite, HiFi, Light,... functions. Also I have a task to start Spotify on my tablet, powers on the HiFi and connects to it via BT.
But it seems like AutoWear has more possibilities so I will maybe switch to that.
I have my G Watch R since 3 days, so I'm quite a newbie and WearTasker is easy to set up.
Treycent said:
Custom Voice Commands by Treycent lets you tag photos with a voice commands that you can then share. This lets you and your friends load photos by just speaking a question or phrase (e.g. "show me Hanna's latest selfie"). It also lets you post messages to WhatsApp and Twitter by voice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well Whatsapp didn't work for me!
No options inside the app for whatsapp
You can start a whattsapp message from ok Google send whatsapp to....... followed by your message. Very handy
Okay, so the most WOW inducing app I have found is Look Behind. It turns on your camera and allows you to view it on your watch screen. When I demo it for people, they frickin' love it. I got it for work, I'm tech support at a university library, and am always having to look behind computers, wall mounted displays, etc. It has the ability to turn your flash on, so looking behind a TV screen to check connections becomes a easy task. Its pretty awesome.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixtogram.wear.lookbehind
karlkarloff said:
Okay, so the most WOW inducing app I have found is Look Behind. It turns on your camera and allows you to view it on your watch screen. When I demo it for people, they frickin' love it. I got it for work, I'm tech support at a university library, and am always having to look behind computers, wall mounted displays, etc. It has the ability to turn your flash on, so looking behind a TV screen to check connections becomes a easy task. Its pretty awesome.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pixtogram.wear.lookbehind
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Does it do anything this free app doesn't? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dheera.wearcamera
DQEight said:
Does it do anything this free app doesn't? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dheera.wearcamera
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, it doesn't even allow you to take pictures. I will say I have tried both and i like the interface of Look Behind a bit better (on my round watchface) and it seems to work more reliably than Wear Camera. I had a few hangups when I tried Wear Camera. That said, while Look Behind is free, to get the version that allows you to take pictures, PixtoCam, it costs 1.99. Either way, an app that lets you view your phone camera on your watch will definitely get peoples interest.
Has anyone come across a Tasker to Gear app other than TaskS2, which is kludgy and frequently disconnects? I contacted the prolific tasker plugin creator (AutoWear, AutoPebble, AutoNotification, etc), and he says there's not enough interest in the Gear to create an AutoGear plugin. VERY unfortunate. Tasker is desperately needed on this watch. If Samsung Pay ever stops working with Pixel, I'm done with Gear.
I'd even pay $20 or more for a quality, working plugin.
+1
I agree, there's so much I could do with a Tasker type app for the Gear S3.
Try contacting the dev of TasGear.
It was better than TaskS2.
The disconnect issue happens when system optimization or any 3rd party optimization apps kill the service which talks to the watch app. Exclude TaskS2 from the optimization list and it should work fine
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
TaskS2 only controls profiles on Tasker on your phone. Being able to control the watch is what would be fantastic.
It's a bit complicated, and very much self-service, but you can get Tasker functionality with Wearable Widgets. When you use it in app form (as opposed to the watch face) it'll send touches to the phone.
This means you can use widget crafters to run tasks. I'm using Zooper Widgets, but you need the paid version of that one. Pretty much any roll-you-own widget app that can talk to Tasker should work. You can build a simple or complex GUI to run whatever you want.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app
hawkjm73 said:
It's a bit complicated, and very much self-service, but you can get Tasker functionality with Wearable Widgets. When you use it in app form (as opposed to the watch face) it'll send touches to the phone.
This means you can use widget crafters to run tasks. I'm using Zooper Widgets, but you need the paid version of that one. Pretty much any roll-you-own widget app that can talk to Tasker should work. You can build a simple or complex GUI to run whatever you want.
Sent from my Nexus 6 using XDA-Developers mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I imagine that'll suck the battery though, given it's pushing widgets from the phone to the watch.
In my case, I'd like to have things like when my phone is put into silent mode, the watch also goes into silent mode. When I dismiss my phone alarm in the morning, turn the watch brightness to full and enable AOD.
That sort of thing would be amazing, not sure this would be achievable with that method. if it was, it would be rather messy I think.
the_scotsman said:
I imagine that'll suck the battery though, given it's pushing widgets from the phone to the watch.
In my case, I'd like to have things like when my phone is put into silent mode, the watch also goes into silent mode. When I dismiss my phone alarm in the morning, turn the watch brightness to full and enable AOD.
That sort of thing would be amazing, not sure this would be achievable with that method. if it was, it would be rather messy I think.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The silent part is possible but the rest is not. Currently, Samsung gives very limited control to the watch settings.
Just FYI. Developer of TaskS2 just said he will be updating his app (in response to suggestion it had been abandoned with no updates in a year). It's too bad the AutoXXX developer isn't interested, but I appreciate anything I can get on this watch. I miss my pebble with tasker
any new news on this?