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Hello,
I'd like to know if having installed various launchers makes the phone lag or drain battery life ? I don't know which one to choose yet, so when I hit the Home button of my Nexus S, I get the choice of using all launchers that I've installed.
Would it be recommended to uninstall useless launchers ?
Also, let's say I want to use a 'light' launcher when I'm running out of battery, does running one launcher turn off widgets from my default launcher ?
Thanks for the help !
Bls440 said:
I'd like to know if having installed various launchers makes the phone lag or drain battery life ? I don't know which one to choose yet, so when I hit the Home button of my Nexus S, I get the choice of using all launchers that I've installed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you're not constantly switching between them, then the unused ones should be killed off and removed from memory. You should be able to select a default Launcher with a check box on that menu.
Bls440 said:
Would it be recommended to uninstall useless launchers ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go for it if you're running out of storage space.
Bls440 said:
Also, let's say I want to use a 'light' launcher when I'm running out of battery, does running one launcher turn off widgets from my default launcher ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The only running widgets would be from the currently running Launcher. Try Zeam Launcher for one that's simple and light weight.
If you're looking for a lightweight alternative launcher that still gets the job done without all the bells and whistles nothing more better than Zeam Launcher
I personally don't think that you will improve battery life using a lightweight launcher. Maybe it does but the difference might not be something you would notice.
What I would advice is disable widgets constantly polling for data e.g YouTube, Facebook, genie Widgets ...
Sent from my Nexus S using Tapatalk
Thank you all for your answers.
I enjoy having multiple widgets running even though it drains battery. But as I said, I'd like to turn them off when I'm on my way back home but unsure that my battery will last. By switching to another light launcher, according to what droptothetop said, I can make sure none of them are running.
Anyone found a decent honeycomb launcher (home screen) replacement? The default one seems to stutter a lot when swiping left and right. Launcher pro and ADW don't have these problems it seems, but they are designed for phones and so don't look good on a tablet. Especially missing the apps button at the top right.
Any suggestions?
Coming from the GTablet, I have used the VTL Launcher on my Transformer as well and it seems pretty well suited for tablet use. I have since switched back to the default launcher on the Transformer, but I still use it on my GTablet running CyanogenMod.
You can get VTL here: http://vegantab.gojimi.com/vt-labs/vtl-launcher/
Using adw for awhile and its much better then the stock. Dont know where u got that adw is only made for only phone. It looks great on my tf
I'm using ADW EX and you can hide the bar and do just about anything else that would make it less "phone like"
See the attached for my current setup.
rpavich said:
I'm using ADW EX and you can hide the bar and do just about anything else that would make it less "phone like"
See the attached for my current setup.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did you get that battery widget from that shows the dock level aswel? Looks pretty sweet
tim_2812 said:
Where did you get that battery widget from that shows the dock level aswel? Looks pretty sweet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1112391
Have tried ADW, LauncherPro and VTL.
VTL still feels a bit Beta
LauncherPro (which i use on my phone) just didnt seem quite right on my tablet
ADW is now my launcher of choice ... very smooth and very customisable.
Well..... until the SPB Tablet UI is release ... look at the youtube clips
If you use ADW EX there is a thread somewhere that tells how to tweak the settings for best performance....I can't find it.
But...basically this is what i did.
Hide dock bar.
Up the columns and rows to 10 x 9.
change the icon size to 75%
choose "background color" for the icons.
Choose "curve" for the transition effect.
Set "bounce" to 15
Set "transition speed" to 450.
it works great.
I've tried LauncherPro, which I use on my phone and have to agree with wilbur.
I've also choosen ADW EX, but would much prefer SPB Tablet UI too
I'll probably give the SPB Tablet UI a try but I hope it's not as much of a battery hog as the one for the phone.
My review of the launcher for the phone....
It was amazing...just like the tablet UI vid...but it was no faster than having icons (even less so) and it ran down my battery MUCH quicker than I was willing to allow. My battery consumption went from 8 hours to 4 hours before charging...unacceptable to me.
I refunded it for those reasons.
To be sure, it was eye candy...the best I've seen, but the battery consumption was not what I wanted.
PS: too bad that the SPB Tablet UI isn't for us; only for OEMS.
Here's a quote from one of the articles:
As before – and to the frustration of many interested users – SPB doesn’t plan to offer end-users either UI, only OEMs. They’ll be able to customize the layout and the widgets, adding in their own content and carrier-specific tweaks to differentiate the interface as they see fit.
What about this then? (one of the first links, posted yesterday)
Don't know if this is the correct version, can't test it since my tf is currently @ RMA.
(BTW, your tf needs to be rooted)
Tutti-frutti said:
What about this then? (one of the first links, posted yesterday)
Don't know if this is the correct version, can't test it since my tf is currently @ RMA.
(BTW, your tf needs to be rooted)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes...that's the version that I tried (possibly an earlier one) but nonetheless... that's the app that I tried. (maybe it wasn't available to the general public at first)
I did pay the 15.00 for it...if it was somewhat gentle on the battery, then I'd say it's worth it if they sell it.
Maybe the Tablet UI will be available to the general public then...
ADW EX and get rid of the dock and expand the desktop.
If you want an app draw button, design your own to match your device.
How did you guys get the settings to work on ADW EX? Or did the 3.2 update break it?
U can try the normal spb 3d shell, it does have a beta tab option.
I liked ur, but for some reason it drained my battery.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA Premium App
ryukent said:
Launcher pro and ADW don't have these problems it seems, but they are designed for phones and so don't look good on a tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was messing around with my phone and i found Go Launcher. I when messing around with that i like it so much and i want to know is it possible to replace htc sense with Go Launcher? To add more detail to my question is removing it off my phone through a root explore and replacing it with Go Launcher? Will that work? and how?
Yep.
Download whatever launcher you want to use ( I used ADW, you can use Go, or anything else that works).
Ensure that it works by playing with it for a little bit.
Once you are sure it's working correctly, hit your home button and select your new launcher as the default. (don't skip this step)
After you have your new launcher as the default, using Root Explorer (or File Expert, both of those i've tested - others may work) navigate to and delete:
/system/app/rosie.apk
/system/app/rosie.odex
/data/data/com.htc.launcher
Exit your file manager and reboot your system.
Done.
That's the quick and dirty method.
I'd recommend using something like "Absolute System" to first delete the data, then uninstall HTC Sense (make sure the file paths correspond to what I wrote above) and then going back to manually delete /system/app/rosie.odex
Absolute System won't get .odex files, so uninstalling system apps this way means you have to go back and clean it up yourself for the .odex files.
Also, you lose the HTC myTouch Power Control and a handful of other widgets in this process.
I am experimenting now with deleting/uninstalling other system packages (like fusion, open sense plugin manager and so forth) to see where it causes problems, but that's still preliminary at the moment.
I made a thread about this Here which i'll be updating in another few days once I get my new battery settled in and can continue.
Meantime, just uninstalling the HTC Sense launcher and replacing it with another one works well, and still allows full functionality of the stock camera app, as long as the rosie.apk -.odex and corresponding /data/data file is all you remove.
Blue6IX said:
Yep.
Download whatever launcher you want to use ( I used ADW, you can use Go, or anything else that works).
Ensure that it works by playing with it for a little bit.
Once you are sure it's working correctly, hit your home button and select your new launcher as the default. (don't skip this step)
After you have your new launcher as the default, using Root Explorer (or File Expert, both of those i've tested - others may work) navigate to and delete:
/system/app/rosie.apk
/system/app/rosie.odex
/data/data/com.htc.launcher
Exit your file manager and reboot your system.
Done.
That's the quick and dirty method.
I'd recommend using something like "Absolute System" to first delete the data, then uninstall HTC Sense (make sure the file paths correspond to what I wrote above) and then going back to manually delete /system/app/rosie.odex
Absolute System won't get .odex files, so uninstalling system apps this way means you have to go back and clean it up yourself for the .odex files.
Also, you lose the HTC myTouch Power Control and a handful of other widgets in this process.
I am experimenting now with deleting/uninstalling other system packages (like fusion, open sense plugin manager and so forth) to see where it causes problems, but that's still preliminary at the moment.
I made a thread about this Here which i'll be updating in another few days once I get my new battery settled in and can continue.
Meantime, just uninstalling the HTC Sense launcher and replacing it with another one works well, and still allows full functionality of the stock camera app, as long as the rosie.apk -.odex and corresponding /data/data file is all you remove.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice thanks i'm trying adw.launcher the app-drawer seems slow?
Yea, switch it to vertical view in settings.
(on desktop, hit menu, then more, then ADW settings, you'll find it in there)
It helps - i'm trying to see if there's a conflict with ADW fighting against anything HTC has running on the device, i'm using ADW since i'm pretty familiar with it at this point from my Nook Color, it's the 'stock' launcer for CM7 there.
I noticed that after loading the app drawer the first time, it hasn't been an issue.
I'd love to hear more about your experiences with this, it's a learning experience for us all at this point.
Ok i was think renaming go launcher as rosie.apk so it can boot up on its on. Unless there is some xml or cfg file some where i can edit and rename it.
Update:
I completely replaced htc sense with go launcher everything seems to work perfectly fine. i like this launcher way better less ram and fast too.
Update 2:
I renamed it to rosie.apk after that I pressed the home button. It opened up go launcher and the camera is still working correctly.
Update 3:
Personalize doesn't work if you remove htc sense.
Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
On another note, is anyone slightly fed up by how lackluster the optimization of Sense was for this phone? Since I'm coming from the original MyTouch, I was used to non-smooth performance, but today I installed 7 launcher and I was amazed by how comparitively smooth it ran, despite "just" being a market app. I just installed golauncher after seeing this thread and am just as amazed. So smooth!
napilopez said:
Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
On another note, is anyone slightly fed up by how lackluster the optimization of Sense was for this phone? Since I'm coming from the original MyTouch, I was used to non-smooth performance, but today I installed 7 launcher and I was amazed by how comparitively smooth it ran, despite "just" being a market app. I just installed golauncher after seeing this thread and am just as amazed. So smooth!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Before I removed sense. All you had to do really was set a default launcher then killing sense with a tasks/processes manager. But i went ahead and removed it because i really want one launcher and i don't want the phone booting up to sense then others.
As well as it works, bear in mind this is just a slap-it-together fix.
None of the underlying frameworks that actually power the launcher are gone with the removal of rosie.apk, simply the launcher itself. (well, on the surface at least)
Yes, there is a slight performance gain, but nothing like what it would be if you actually went in and pulled everything behind the launcher that powers it.
Doing that, of course, would compromise the camera.apk, and most likely the whole rest of the phone in the process. It's likely that a new/different phone.apk would be needed, as well as most of the apps on the device.
(I don't know for sure yet whether phone.apk is tied to the sense frameworks, but I have barely begun looking into the .apk's we get with the phone, so don't take that out of context.)
Replacing the launcher, no problem. Ripping out Sense itself...we're quite a bit away from that at the moment. You can pull the launcher on the surface and still have a stable, running system.
I'd venture to guess, though I haven't checked for sure, any performance gains from removing the sense launcher are nullified by whatever launcher you replace it with.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't experiment, and I personally don't like the Sense launcher too much. I like some stuff about it, but what I don't like about it makes it worth it to me to trade it out for something else now.
At the moment i'm running the stock launcher again while I build my battery stats file up again, but as soon as that's done i'm back to ADW and ripping out the guts of this stock rom to figure out what needs what.
Now, the cool thing about removing the Sense launcher is there are a slew of widgets that won't run without it, so you can dump them as well since they don't do anything anymore.
Combining dropping the Sense launcher with all the widgets it doesn't need anymore, and the lists we are making in a few places in this forum about what you can/can't delete/freeze you can see a significant performance gain.
I just want to dispell the illusion that removing the Sense launcher removes Sense itself, they are two different things. As we decompile and sift through the software on the phone we'll figure out what we can and can't get away with.
Don't forget there are other things to get rid of to truly remove the Sense launcher, such as /system/framework/com.htc.rosie.jar (and corresponding .odex file) .
What I posted in the second post of this thread is enough to get it out of the way so you can use something else, but a far cry from removing it entirely. The deeper you dig, the less stable it all becomes. Until someone releases a rom that starts from the ground up, there's only so much we can get away with starting from the top down.
Meantime, though, everything we're doing here and talking about is helping the people who will develop a rom get an idea of how the system works. Threads like this and the questions being asked and answered are a big help.
And of course, this is all good fun too. Android is like legos, you can basically just build what you want with whatever pieces you want to use. Android is pretty robust and self-correcting, you have to do something drastic (like delete phone.apk) to break it.
sonicjam - I was messing around with launchers again since I got my battery taken care of and i'd forgotten what GO was like.
I tried to use GO launcher a while ago, but on the Nook Color, which is really underpowered for such a thing. It didn't run so well and I put it out of my mind.
I downloaded it and started playing with it, and now that I have a piece of hardware that can run it well, it's a fantastic piece of software.
All the different fun options to have it change pages are pretty cool, and my lady was really getting a kick out of it all.
I think I found my new favorite launcher, I just wanted to say thanks for turning me on to it! It really makes the phone fun to play with.
I love the fact that I can have as many desktop screens as I want, and this device can handle quite a few...I now have enough space to never have to go in my app drawer again and not be all cluttered.
Once we get a custom rom, or figure out how to remove Sense itself, this is going to become my permanent launcher. In the meantime i'll keep using it.
I just can't get over how smooth it runs on this device, it really is amazing.
Just wanted to say thanks!
napilopez said:
Question: does having another launcher without uninstalling sense significantly impact performance? I'd rather not have to root and delete sense at the moment.
...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know you also said in your post that you like GO launcher, and i'm definitely a convert now, but if you want something that will give you a significant performance boost, Zeam launcher is the most lightweight launcher on the market.
(maybe MoDaCo's port of the gingerbread launcher is about as fast, it's hard to tell)
Went from a G2 to this One S yesterday. I'm not too impressed.
No dedicated menu button
There is enough room for one on the bottom but they only put 3.
What happens now is that Android (or Sense or something) detects when there are menu options and puts a button on the screen for it taking away real estate from the application.
No trackball
I used this a lot on my G2 especially on web pages with small links that I didn't want to missclick. I already miss it. I also used the trackball wake feature in CM on my G2. Now there is only one way to turn the screen on and its a little hard to do one handed. The trackball was in a very natural position to turn on with your thumb. Now without it, it is very awkward to power on with your thumb, you have to hold it very high and I'm affraid of dropping it. Alternatively I could turn it on with my index finger but it spreads my hand way out and still feels weird.
No folders
I'm not sure if this is an ICS thing or a Sense thing (because this phone is an unholy bastardization), but I can't figure out a way to create folders on my home screens. I'm not talking about the Sense folders for applications either. In normal Android builds you can add shortcuts, widgets, folders. The Pandora application shipped with a folder called "My Stations" or something like that. I used this because it only took up 1x1 on a homescreen and let me choose which station was opened. Without it, you need to open the application and it immediately starts playing the last radio station. This is annoying.
Resolution
The DPI isn't any better than my G2, its just a bigger screen. This is pretty disappointing. I would like a crisper display in a flagship device.
Bloat
Its pretty bad. I know most users want Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, etc... but how about you let us select what we want during the phone setup.
Misc
This is my first Sense device and my first ICS device so again, not sure where this crap is coming from.... When you install an application it creates a shortcut for it on one of your home screens. Putting a shortcut is the simplist thing you can do in Android, why not leave it for the use to do if they want to do it.
On my way to work I was listening to I Heart Radio and while the live streams were okay when I went to the "pandora"-like functionality it would only play one song and then stop. This never happened on my G2. Don't know whats going on here.
I don't care for the browser (which they stupidly call "internet").
I don't care for all of the account options. I went to share a page in the browser, I wanted to email it to myself. So when I went to share page it let me select how to share it. I got "Facebook for HTC Sense", "Mail", "Twitter for HTC Sense", and "Dropbox". I did set up Facebook, but I did not set up mail, twitter, or dropbox. What I wanted was GMail which I had to select "See all..." Then I saw a plethora of garbage bloat that they bundle with the phone and had to scroll down to get to GMail. After I went though this experience I went to share another page to see if GMail showed up at the top... it didn't.
I'm sure I'll have more complaints the more I use it. I used my fiance's upgrade for this one but I get an upgrade in 3 months. If CM9 isn't out by then she'll be using this phone and I'll upgrade to a SGSIII or that yet to be named quad-core LG phone.
Summary
CM9 can't come fast enough.
EDIT
I'll add some good things here.
Good things
Again, this is coming from a G2 so in 2 years things should be better anyways....
It is very thin, and very light.
It has a front facing camera which my G2 did not.
The flashlight, though not as bright as the "High Brightness" Cyanogenmod setting on the G2, is still pretty bright.
The speaker seems to put out a lot of sound. Can't attest to the quality yet but the volume is there.
EDIT #2
Some more good and bad....
Skype Useless
... probably related to Wifi crackling. One of the things I was looking forward to with this phone was the ability to make video calls via Skype. My fiance has an iPad2, my in-laws each have a G2X, and my brother has a SGSII. Skype is useless on this device. There is echoing / cracking and video lag even when on Wifi. I called my brother with this One S and it was useless. I then called him on an iPad2 and it was great. I'm wondering if the problem has to do with Beats Audio. We'll have to wait for an AOSP ROM without Beats to find out.
So I unlocked/rooted/ROM'd ...
I am now running Black Dragon 4.0. I LOVE the menu hack to get rid of the stupid 3 dot menu on all the screens. I like that they kept the ability to longpress home to get the default behavior as well. The launcher seems nice though I haven't played with it too much (which is a good thing, means they have good defaults).
Can't wait for the kernel sources to be released so we can make some more CM9 progress. I really miss the buttons in the dropdown for wifi, brightness, bluetooth, etc. Now I have to dropdown, click settings, scroll down and find brighness.
How's the battery life? My G2 has some HORRENDOUS battery... like it can drain 20% an hour... I go to school for like 6/7 hours and I can leave with like a <20% battery life. Currently using MIUI because that seems to be the best battery life.
Edit: As for a menu button, Google is trying to get rid of that. I read a post about it a couple of months ago. They say it was useless. I completely disagree because I use it quite a lot. I use it way more than the search button which I have literally probably used less than 30 times and I've been on an Android device since the G1 came out.
For everything you just said mostly there are workarounds.
The deidcated menu button now exists through roms...the three button thing on screen is removed. Change of dpi works fine on no sense roms I'm set on 195 on sense not as good. Play market you can stop adding apps onto screens
Bloat just remove yourself root explorer..
Sent from my HTC One S using XDA Premium App
Battery lifes good also...
As I said workarounds exist
Also get a different launcher and ditch sense or just get Nova or apex
Sent from my HTC One S using XDA Premium App
Love this. G2 FOORRREEEVVVAAAAHHHH
.ili.music.ili. said:
How's the battery life? My G2 has some HORRENDOUS battery... like it can drain 20% an hour... I go to school for like 6/7 hours and I can leave with like a <20% battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm the wrong person to ask about battery life (at least during the week). I work in one of these new fancy energy efficient "Green" buildings. We have coating on our windows that block UV with the side effect of also blocking cellular signals. Everyone that works here puts their phones on airplane mode to save battery because we have 0 signal and the phone search all day.
I'll know better this weekend about battery life.
arknailed7754 said:
For everything you just said mostly there are workarounds.
The deidcated menu button now exists through roms...the three button thing on screen is removed. Change of dpi works fine on no sense roms I'm set on 195 on sense not as good. Play market you can stop adding apps onto screens
Bloat just remove yourself root explorer..
Battery lifes good also...
As I said workarounds exist
Also get a different launcher and ditch sense or just get Nova or apex
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How did they implement the dedicated menu button?
How do I ditch Sense?... what is Nova / apex?
Do I need root to install another launcher?
--
FunkyELF said:
How did they implement the dedicated menu button?
How do I ditch Sense?... what is Nova / apex?
Do I need root to install another launcher?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
no you can install launchers without root..from market just look for them
to ditch sense though you will need root..and to change dpi you will need root..my advice root lol
by ditching sense i mean install a non sense rom like black dragon or untouchables that strip sense away so the majority is ice cream sandwich without the bloatfest. some apps will be kept in but just use root explorer to rid the rom of it.
the dedicated menu button and ridding the screen of the three dots at the bottom is also because its been taken away and remapped by devs..so again..you need root
most of all..development will kick in soon..so better to root..or if not just use a different launcher but you dont really accomplish what your setting out to do
leedroid should be here soon with a rom,and will do away with most of the bloat anyway...so youll keep sense and most things you complained about will be sorted..
the main thing here is..root..worth it..yes..without..pointless and youll be stuck with htcs crap stock rom..pretty poor for me..but coming from another phone with loads of development..probably biased of how it should be
No Folders?
Just long-tap on the icon and drag it to another icon. THe folder will creat automaticly.
FunkyELF said:
Went from a G2 to this One S yesterday. I'm not too impressed.
No dedicated menu button
Root and ROM it. People are remapping the multitask key as the menu button, and hold-home now does the multitask. You're on XDA, so I assume you're enthused enough to root and ROM it.
No trackball
Seriously. Please find me an Android device with a trackball nowadays. It's gone...you're just gonna have to deal with it.
Resolution
This display seems pretty crisp. We're working with phones with relatively small displays. There's only so many pixels you can pack into until it doesn't even matter. 720p is about as far as we need to go on phone screens. The qHD screen on this phone has vivid colors and all the qualities of Super AMOLED. The resolution seems plenty high to me. Are you starting 1inch away from the phone and observing pixels?
Bloat
Welcome to flagship carrier devices. Again, you're on XDA, and fully capable of rooting it and removing all that crap. The G2 was a 1-off device that had pretty much stock Android. Consider it a Nexus device, more or less. With a flagship phone, you're going to get bloatware.
Misc
This is my first Sense device and my first ICS device so again, not sure where this crap is coming from.... When you install an application it creates a shortcut for it on one of your home screens. Putting a shortcut is the simplist thing you can do in Android, why not leave it for the use to do if they want to do it.
Sense has nothing to do with this. The new Google Play Store now by default places new apps' icons on the homescreen. It's as easy as going to the prefs in Play Store and disabling. Blame Google if you're going to blame someone.
On my way to work I was listening to I Heart Radio and while the live streams were okay when I went to the "pandora"-like functionality it would only play one song and then stop. This never happened on my G2. Don't know whats going on here.
Don't know what to tell you, but it's obvious that you're describing some sort of software issue, not a hardware issue. If it worked fine on the live streams, then your data connection worked. Talk to iHeartRadio.
I don't care for the browser (which they stupidly call "internet").
So install a new one! ICS Browser+ is exactly like the stock browser. There's also Chrome and Opera. Cmon...
I don't care for all of the account options. I went to share a page in the browser, I wanted to email it to myself. So when I went to share page it let me select how to share it. I got "Facebook for HTC Sense", "Mail", "Twitter for HTC Sense", and "Dropbox". I did set up Facebook, but I did not set up mail, twitter, or dropbox. What I wanted was GMail which I had to select "See all..." Then I saw a plethora of garbage bloat that they bundle with the phone and had to scroll down to get to GMail. After I went though this experience I went to share another page to see if GMail showed up at the top... it didn't.
This is the one thing I disliked and will agree with you on, although once again, rooting and ROMing can take care of it. That or removing bloatware.
I'm sure I'll have more complaints the more I use it. I used my fiance's upgrade for this one but I get an upgrade in 3 months. If CM9 isn't out by then she'll be using this phone and I'll upgrade to a SGSIII or that yet to be named quad-core LG phone.
Suit yourself. 4.7 inches is just too big, and at these speeds, you're at the mercy of your data connection, not the processor.
Summary
CM9 can't come fast enough.
AMEN
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think nearly all of your points are moot. A lot of your review seems to be based on your lack of willingness to change some preferences and MANAGE your device. If you were on a G2, then you never had to manage stuff like this. Consider it a new experience. If you wanted stock Android, you should've gotten a Galaxy Nexus. I just upgraded from a Nexus S and while I screamed at first at all the Sense crap, I quickly had it rooted, debloated, de-Sensed, and up and running with a nice, fast ROM (Black Magic 4.0).
Give it time. The phone JUST came out.
nickmv said:
I think nearly all of your points are moot. A lot of your review seems to be based on your lack of willingness to change some preferences and MANAGE your device. If you were on a G2, then you never had to manage stuff like this. Consider it a new experience. If you wanted stock Android, you should've gotten a Galaxy Nexus. I just upgraded from a Nexus S and while I screamed at first at all the Sense crap, I quickly had it rooted, debloated, de-Sensed, and up and running with a nice, fast ROM (Black Magic 4.0).
Give it time. The phone JUST came out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i agree with you there,its all about learning curves..no sense roms are fairly close to stock..its just the settings that are different now..he_stheone has already added certain elements of stock android..so its fairly close..just the settings..that are the main difference now.
jacakowal said:
No Folders?
Just long-tap on the icon and drag it to another icon. THe folder will creat automaticly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Those aren't the folders I'm talking about. I think what I'm talking about are called live folders. In AOSP builds of Android when you long press on an empty space on one of your screens you can choose widgets, folders, shortcuts, contacts, and other things I can't remember.
With Sense you only get widgets and shortcuts.... no folders, no contacts, etc... just widgets and shortcuts.
Isn't that minor thing?
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nickmv said:
I just upgraded from a Nexus S and while I screamed at first at all the Sense crap, I quickly had it rooted, debloated, de-Sensed, and up and running with a nice, fast ROM (Black Magic 4.0).
Give it time. The phone JUST came out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I didn't see this one listed in the ALL ROMS post here.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1584163
Where is the info on that ROM?
Dude its in development section
Black dragon 4.0
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nickmv said:
I think nearly all of your points are moot. A lot of your review seems to be based on your lack of willingness to change some preferences and MANAGE your device. If you were on a G2, then you never had to manage stuff like this. Consider it a new experience. If you wanted stock Android, you should've gotten a Galaxy Nexus. I just upgraded from a Nexus S and while I screamed at first at all the Sense crap, I quickly had it rooted, debloated, de-Sensed, and up and running with a nice, fast ROM (Black Magic 4.0).
Give it time. The phone JUST came out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Going to have to side with you on this one. This phone is definitly a great device, give it some time, dig in a little bit. Much better than my Tmo-SGS2.
most of things you mentioned isnt a "bad thing" just you dont know how to operate the phone, or its just different (opinion at that point).
Also you didnt like things which are for all devices, not just one S
FunkyELF said:
Those aren't the folders I'm talking about. I think what I'm talking about are called live folders. In AOSP builds of Android when you long press on an empty space on one of your screens you can choose widgets, folders, shortcuts, contacts, and other things I can't remember.
With Sense you only get widgets and shortcuts.... no folders, no contacts, etc... just widgets and shortcuts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The long press, dragging and combining of icons together is AOSP folders in Ice Cream Sandwich. The long press on the desktop to add folder is long gone and is not coming back.
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arknailed7754 said:
Dude its in development section
Black dragon 4.0
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry... you said Black Magic, not Black dragon.
I'll give it a try in a couple weeks. I like to use my phone a bit before rooting to make sure I didn't get a lemon.
Does the camera work on this one?
Just got the phone and here are my negatives:
1. With lowest brightness setting the screen is horrible (but if you increase it a bit, its ok)
2. No switches in pulldown menu ? I though Sense always had that.....
3. Bottom plastic is not 100% flush at one corner (maybe will exchange, maybe not)
4. In navigation I just couldnt find "setting" button anywhere.....whats up with that ?
gonna go to Verizon and compare to Nexus....I still need Tmo SIM and stores are in same place anyway....I am not a phone freak not wasting time here
Its also very true that until you have 2 devices in hand you cant really compare screen quality...I though my G2x IPS panel for super great, but compared to One S its very warm colored and whites have red tint. Its also hard to use in lowest brightness even in dark room....but with G2x case its because screen is simply too dark, with One S its bright but disgusting to look at due to some "noise"
as many people are customizing there phones, i thought the launcher is the first screen that people always see, and they seem to provise the most customizable attributes. i am curious and on the search for the most versitile lancher out there and what they can do.
i know there is a post your homescreen thread out there and there is quite a few responses and nice pics, but not all list their lancher preferences or apps they used to get those.
posting screenshots and tools you used would be great
super simple laucher pro, but not done yet
Haven't had much success with it but sslauncher is pretty customizable. Really though most of the launchers give you roughly the same features.
Looking through the post your home screen threads many use apex, adw, or launcher pro. They let you replace homescreen icons with custom ones.
Uccw is a popular clock and weather widget but us rough to figure out.
Those are the main 2 I would say. A good place to start anyway.
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You can surely find plenty of launcher reviews, if you search.
Some require Android 4.0.. I haven't looked at those.
Among remaining it seems frequent mentions are ADW, Go Launcher, Launcher Plus, Holo
I haven't done a lot of comparison. I tried Holo launcher first and have mostly stuck with it. It does what I want, and I'm not interested in spending a ton of time comparing and setting up launchers.
I did try ADW later. It has more options but also more complicated interface so I stick with Holo. (I may change in the future...maybe if I learn about something big that I'm missing during this thread)
Attached are screenshots.
The first one highlights something I like about Holo (only the pro version) - you can put any widget into the dock area at the bottom.
So the first two icons on the left of the dock are Tasker toggle widgets in there for Wifi and Data. The color changes when the status changes (grey for off, green or red for on depending on what parameter). They are controlled manually or by Tasker which changes status based on location. Then in the center/right of the dock, I have Elixir widgets displaying battery level, MB free, number of applications running. Clicking on these widgets launches handy menus - the memory free sends you to settings/applications, the running applications lists running applications with option to switch to any running application... I use this often to make sure I have closed out all the applications I've used recently (may not be required but makes me feel better).
The 2nd screen highlights easily resizable widgets - I use them heavily for lists on my homescreen. I have 9 screens available, so plenty of room to have many lists on homescreen and move them around. Also of course I can change which note is displayed in a given position or get rid of a note from home screen and it remains (stored in Color Note).
Also I like the gestures. For me swipe down laucnhes a Tasker tasj to turn the screen off (save wear and tear on my power button). Swipe up launches a Tasker task for brightness control... if no response in 7 seconds it sets to max brightness (handy when you're in bright sun). There are several other gestures available to be assigned to whatever you want (applications or shortcuts)
That's not all the features, just a few that I like. I suspect most or all of above features are available in other launchers. And I suspect most of the others have more than Holo. I like Holo for simplicity and good useful tools. Not what you asked for... just throwing in my opinion.
Like any launcher, Holo has a few non-optimum features that are discussed in the Holo thread. There is only one that bugs me a little but I learned to cope. The main screens and three dock screens move independently of course. When you press home button with main screen not in home position, both the dock and main screen jump to their home position. But if you press home button with the main screen at home position and dock in non-home position, the dock does not jump to home position. Not a big deal since it's not hard to manage scrolling within 3 dock screens, but I'd like home to take me to home on main/dock screens regardless of where I started.
electricpete1 said:
You can surely find plenty of launcher reviews, if you search.
Some require Android 4.0.. I haven't looked at those.
Among remaining it seems frequent mentions are ADW, Go Launcher, Launcher Plus, Holo
I haven't done a lot of comparison. I tried Holo launcher first and have mostly stuck with it. It does what I want, and I'm not interested in spending a ton of time comparing and setting up launchers.
I did try ADW later. It has more options but also more complicated interface so I stick with Holo. (I may change in the future...maybe if I learn about something big that I'm missing during this thread)
Attached are screenshots.
The first one highlights something I like about Holo (only the pro version) - you can put any widget into the dock area at the bottom.
So the first two icons on the left of the dock are Tasker toggle widgets in there for Wifi and Data. The color changes when the status changes (grey for off, green or red for on depending on what parameter). They are controlled manually or by Tasker which changes status based on location. Then in the center/right of the dock, I have Elixir widgets displaying battery level, MB free, number of applications running. Clicking on these widgets launches handy menus - the memory free sends you to settings/applications, the running applications lists running applications with option to switch to any running application... I use this often to make sure I have closed out all the applications I've used recently (may not be required but makes me feel better).
The 2nd screen highlights easily resizable widgets - I use them heavily for lists on my homescreen. I have 9 screens available, so plenty of room to have many lists on homescreen and move them around. Also of course I can change which note is displayed in a given position or get rid of a note from home screen and it remains (stored in Color Note).
Also I like the gestures. For me swipe down laucnhes a Tasker tasj to turn the screen off (save wear and tear on my power button). Swipe up launches a Tasker task for brightness control... if no response in 7 seconds it sets to max brightness (handy when you're in bright sun). There are several other gestures available to be assigned to whatever you want (applications or shortcuts)
That's not all the features, just a few that I like. I suspect most or all of above features are available in other launchers. And I suspect most of the others have more than Holo. I like Holo for simplicity and good useful tools. Not what you asked for... just throwing in my opinion.
Like any launcher, Holo has a few non-optimum features that are discussed in the Holo thread. There is only one that bugs me a little but I learned to cope. The main screens and three dock screens move independently of course. When you press home button with main screen not in home position, both the dock and main screen jump to their home position. But if you press home button with the main screen at home position and dock in non-home position, the dock does not jump to home position. Not a big deal since it's not hard to manage scrolling within 3 dock screens, but I'd like home to take me to home on main/dock screens regardless of where I started.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wow, that was one lenghtly response.
i am not really on a search for a launcher, i have done that. i know how to do my homework. i was basically creating a social type of environment for those who really love their Infuse and fully exploit all the freedom we have in customizing.
the other thread, again, has a lot of great pics and i am really like liking some of the more simplified screens. however, most do not post the tools they used.
i have just discovered the SS launcher yesterday and it is pretty unique. still trying to figure it out. another one i found intresting was FullScreen launcher and of course, i still need to dive into that one too.
captemo said:
wow, that was one lenghtly response.
i am not really on a search for a launcher, i have done that. i know how to do my homework. i was basically creating a social type of environment for those who really love their Infuse and fully exploit all the freedom we have in customizing.
the other thread, again, has a lot of great pics and i am really like liking some of the more simplified screens. however, most do not post the tools they used.
i have just discovered the SS launcher yesterday and it is pretty unique. still trying to figure it out. another one i found intresting was FullScreen launcher and of course, i still need to dive into that one too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry I misunderstood.
Hopefully you didn’t view my post as being in conflict with your goal of social post (would that make me anti-social )
Launchers are of interest to me, but maybe for a different reason than for you. I have only done a litle exploring them but have been using Holo for a few weeks.. It strikes me that changing launchers has a big impact on our experience, but we don’t discuss that very much on these forums, even though chaning launchers is much eaiser and less risky than changing Roms. I guess maybe that’s because Roms are Infuse-specific and launchers aren’t.
I did think my setup is unorthodox having lots of things indicated on the bottom dock. By the way, my Data icon shows not only data on/off but also how many MB used this month (91.2MB in the first screenshot)... it’s updated daily by Tasker sending an SMS to AT&T requesting data usage and putting the value from the AT&T response into my widget label. Putting Tasker widgets like that into the dock seems pretty useful/versatile to me. I just don’t know if the other launchers allow the same approach. Lots of ROMs have similar stuff up in the notification area but I don't really like that as they tend to be small and also a busy notification area makes it harder to recognize new stuff popping up there.
electricpete1 said:
Sorry I misunderstood.
Hopefully you didn’t view my post as being in conflict with your goal of social post (would that make me anti-social )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
not anti social, you responded in the first place. i was trying not to sound as if i was being a ****. i understand the reaponse though. there are way to many people who wont even look at the previous post, and ask a question that was just addressed. so many questions would be answered if they just did some reading. instead they are pissing off developers who then decide to leave our device.
with all the Jellybean work being done, which is amazing, however JB is pretty much JB. not a lot of individualism. with everything working so good, there is not a lot of movement on the threads. so i have gone back to gingerbread and contiuing my quest for the ultimate set up.
i love the idea od swapping my icons for text, and simple text is pretty easy to work. i would love some vertical text though. i am running the JW8 v2 version of Saurom and like it pretty good. pretty fast. trying to find everything else to complete the package.
i would say most customizeable would be go launcher but i hold tru to ftl launcher pro, basically becuz of the cube scrolling effect for your apps
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I would use launcher8 its smooth and nice, look for it on the play store
Ive used Go Launcher, ADW and Holo in the past. I used Go launcher extensively on my Infuse and my Gio since it was so customizable but after playing around with other phones using more recent versions of android I felt it was too resource hungry. Holo I used for a bit for that ICS look but found it lacked a few options when compared to Go. But I actually DLed it recently and the experience is now closer to true ICS and reminds me a lot of Trebuchet and its simplicity. Currently Im using Trebuchet since putting my infuse on a CM10.1 ROM and I really like it. Very smooth and simple.
I used GoLauncher for a long time, but have used Nova for almost 4 months now, and I love it! Very customizable and easy to save and reload between flashes
I personally love Apex pro mycolorscreen.com has customization guides that use mostly apex you'd be amazed.
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I use nova and like it a lot!
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I have tried them all my friend. GO, ADW, Holo, Apex, Nova, Are all pretty close in the number of options. I used Go forever because of the folder system in the app drawer. Unfortunately it didnt seem to behave very well with all the ROMs I started flashing (thanks Faux.) Now I use the HoloHD+ and will likely continue to do so ...until the KLP hits me.
Just started using sslauncher and i have to say this is by far one of the most customizable launchers if ever used although there is a learning curve
Slim SON
Ss launcher gives pretty new styles of launcher.
You might want to try this launcher.
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Nova
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Nova + rom control.
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