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Should Google spend more effort on their own stock apps?

I've had my Nexus One for quite a few weeks now, and I've made a list of my 'annoyances' from my own experience. These are all to do with Google's own apps, which is a bit disappointing because it is, ultiamtely, their own platform. They are annoyances instead of complaints because none of them hinder me in any significant way, but the length of the list do make me feel that there is no reason for Google to not include these features as soon as possible.
Contacts - Synchronization with Gmail contacts is great, but can't edit Birthdays on an Android phone.
Maps - Can't add an address pinned on the map to an existing contact, can't apply custom labels to starred items, My Maps always gives me "This Community Map could not be displayed because it contains errors."
Calendar - I've got 3 calendars synchronized with Google Calendar, associated with 3 different colours, and while all of them work fine in Day, Week and Agenda views, absolutely no colours show up in Monthly View! This is really annoying.
Browser - Can only recognize US phone numbers, so if I want to call a number on a page which is not in US format, I've to manually copy it and paste it in the Phone app, rather than just a long press or something easier.
Selection of Text - a bit cumbersome given HTC Desire does it better in my opinion.
Account Synchronization - Sometimes doesn't work. I've made changes in a contact and separately in my calendar entry, only to come back and find the change reverted to the original setting. I tried to repeat the change again but it would just revert back again. Finally I had to make the change in my PC browser and force-sync the phone for it to be accepted. Mind you, as I mentioned this has happened only a few times, it works fine most other times.
So as I mentioned, by themselves these issues aren't big. And I do realize in some instances a free 3rd party app is the way to go. But still, surely Google should make sure that their own apps leave as little to be desired as possible.
Thoughts?
A few key apps that aren't even developed yet:-
khaytsus said:
Google should write a good Google Docs
Google Tasks (integrate with Calendar, plus Widget)..
Maybe a nice shortcut forcing the Android browser for Google Reader.. I love Google Reader in the default browser, but if you have Opera set as default it looks horrid.
Google Analytics/Adwords
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TT1986 said:
Calendar - I've got 3 calendars synchronized with Google Calendar, associated with 3 different colours, and while all of them work fine in Day, Week and Agenda views, absolutely no colours show up in Monthly View! This is really annoying.
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I've just realized that the reason nothing shows in Monthly views is because events are all-day rather than during a specific time period on the day. If an event was scheduled for, say, between 1700 and 1800 hours, then a colour would show.
Not that this makes it any better. I still should be able to see something in the Monthly view to tell me that an all-day event is up on that day.

I know you're talking update what they have, but I think they're missing some important things..
Google should write a good Google Docs
Google Tasks (integrate with Calendar, plus Widget)..
Maybe a nice shortcut forcing the Android browser for Google Reader.. I love Google Reader in the default browser, but if you have Opera set as default it looks horrid.
Google Analytics/Adwords

You're quite right. The absence of an editable mobile app for Google Docs, from Google, is mind-boggling.
Infact I'll include your post in the OP. It'll help build a decent list of "Apps to Do or Improve by Google for Android."

Actually the most disappointing thing is that some of those issues are pretty obvious to anyone having used the phone a few days.
Also some were reported years ago ...
For example Google contact sync ridiculous resolution for photos, maps location labels etc ... And it's not like it would take them more than a couple hours work to fix either.

I dont think google will allocate their resources on specific stock apps or them given priority over the development on Gingerbread since with apps they have community resource.
unlike mobileme or exchange, google offers a lot of the cloud services free of charge for our personal use, and we shouldnt take that for granted.
and to answer the op, I too would like to have the listed features applied, but I would categorize them as 'nice to have'.
-Task list (would be very elegant solution to other 3rd party notepad software)
-gtalk video

chuday said:
and to answer the op, I too would like to have the listed features applied, but I would categorize them as 'nice to have'.
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I agree, I'm not too inconvenienced by them, but it would make the platform/apps so much neater and more polished. Some of them are really basic though, and you have to wonder that if Google can include some advanced features in an app (for example - layers or the seemingly defunct My Maps in the Maps app) why not quickly complete the basics?
Here's another thing I've been noticing regarding Gmail's Push mechanism. I've subscribed to this thread and another thread for instant notification and I've received a total of 5 replies, so 5 emails. Two of those emails have been delivered instantly to my phone, but the other 3 emails have had delays, the worst one being 11 minutes.
Again, my Gmail account isn't critical, so it doesn't bother me. However it's a feature which I imagine a lot would like perfected.

TT1986 said:
Contacts - Synchronization with Gmail contacts is great, but can't edit Birthdays on an Android phone.
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I absolutely hate how I can't stop it from syncing auto-added contacts, which should be an option to completely disable in Gmail anyway. It's been almost a year since they changed it but Google apparently doesn't bother paying attention to people's complaints.
I did read somewhere that 2.3 is supposed to be heavily focused on improving the stock design and apps. I certainly hope that's true.

TT1986 said:
I agree, I'm not too inconvenienced by them, but it would make the platform/apps so much neater and more polished. Some of them are really basic though, and you have to wonder that if Google can include some advanced features in an app (for example - layers or the seemingly defunct My Maps in the Maps app) why not quickly complete the basics?
Here's another thing I've been noticing regarding Gmail's Push mechanism. I've subscribed to this thread and another thread for instant notification and I've received a total of 5 replies, so 5 emails. Two of those emails have been delivered instantly to my phone, but the other 3 emails have had delays, the worst one being 11 minutes.
Again, my Gmail account isn't critical, so it doesn't bother me. However it's a feature which I imagine a lot would like perfected.
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Hmm? Layers and My Maps work in Google Maps... I have a layer of Star*ucks and Kroger Fuel stations and when I need to fuel up (me or the car ) I fire up Maps, turn Layers, My Maps, click the one I need.
I wish Google Maps could do orientation of travel... Navigator does, but sometimes a flat map is just fine.

I think they said Gingerbread would have major cosmetic changes so I think they will improve google apps, overhall the Music app (which has been near enough the same since 1.0) and the messaging app etc etc.

Θmega said:
I absolutely hate how I can't stop it from syncing auto-added contacts, which should be an option to completely disable in Gmail anyway. It's been almost a year since they changed it but Google apparently doesn't bother paying attention to people's complaints.
I did read somewhere that 2.3 is supposed to be heavily focused on improving the stock design and apps. I certainly hope that's true.
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Click to collapse
Try going to contacts.google.com and set your contacts into separate groups (friends/family/etc) and tell the phone to only sync those groups. Lifehacker had a post about this awhile back with better directions

Google Apps are BY FAR the worst, most incomplete, apps I have installed on my phone.
How about the fact that you can't change your "send as" address in Gmail for Android? They gave us that ability at Gmail dot com years and years ago, but there's been an open ticket on adding it to the Android version for over a year with NO response from Google at all.
I HATE how the contacts app automatically merges similar contacts. My dad and I have the same name, so it adds my Facebook account and all of my email addresses to his contact after every sync.
The Google Voice App gives you the options to "Never call with GV", "Always call with GV", "Use GV for international calls", or "Always ask"... Why can't you set the option on a per-contact basis? I wan't to call half the people in my phone book with GV and half without it, but I have to tell it which is which for every single call. I opened a ticket on this months and months ago with NO response from Google.
The list goes on... I just can't believe how long some of these tickets have been open, and how many "+1" responses they have, but Google just ignores them. It really makes me wish they'd release paid versions of their software so that maybe we'd have a voice (nevermind the fact that I gave Google $575 for my Nexus One).
The other frustrating part is that Google's "novelty apps" seem to be more complete than their "productivity apps". Maybe it's because I don't use them every day or because I don't rely on them, but does anybody have any complaints about the My Tracks app? Or Google Goggles?
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent!
Billy

Another one of my rants, regarding the Gallery app: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=738590

harrellj said:
Try going to contacts.google.com and set your contacts into separate groups (friends/family/etc) and tell the phone to only sync those groups.
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Would you _please_ stop this, it's causing me utter agony
My Samsung Galaxy S is deprived of this functionality by Samsung (!). Groups sync but just don't show... To prove they indeed sync, just create a group in goole with the name "test". Then sync. Group does not appear on phone. Now try to create a group "test" on the phone -> Error "Group name already in use".
Samsung really f... up the contacts management

Customizable snooze times and volume per alarm would be nice.

Is google also responsible for the youtube app? It sucks too ^^
No comments possible for example...

That is def.ly a good topic to debate and I def.ly would say yes they should. It looks like those apps will def.ly be redefined come gingerbread time (3.0). Even the gmail apps is not as defined as it should. At least there should be an unread mail count by default in the app among other things.

TT1986 said:
You're quite right. The absence of an editable mobile app for Google Docs, from Google, is mind-boggling.
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I gotta agree with this. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Gmail: needs the ability to send to a group.
YouTube: needs a setting to tell it what resolution of video to default to. It's a pain to load the video and then select "high quality" every time.
And lets not talk about everything that needs to be done to make the Market app not suck.

I think they should. While Sense is nice (even though I'm not using it lol) I think it would be a lot better if Google's stock UI was much better. There's a lot of rumors going around that Gingerbread has Google focused on a much better user experience so that they don't need things like Sense, MotoBlur, etc...And I hope so. I think Google should stack it's main stock options, and then if people want to be able to add extra stuff by putting on some kind of skin/extra UI then they should have the option. Just my 2 cents

OP you read my mind. I really do think google should spend some time upgrading the overall look and feel of the stock apps. I mean they have added about every feature you can possibly need but some basic things they have seemed to overlook. Especially their music, email, youtube, and other almost daily used apps should be more pleasing to use. But as someone mentioned earlier, their 3.0 gingerbread might sexy things up a bit.

Does Froyo for captivate fix unparsed URLs

I have two froyo questions to see if the community can answer them before I try to set back to factory and upgrade.
1. URL Parsing
In J6 touchwiz could not parse this url into a hyperlink from email nor from calendar entry.
https://companyx.webex.com/xyz/j.php?ED=156264002&UID=479348601&RT=NCM0
Any idea if froyo can parse this (r-click, copy link location, send to yourself that url in an email to check)
2. edit email replies
In J6 when replying to email I could not edit the original email any idea if this is now possible in froyo?

anyone? I'm hoping I'm not the only one that wishes this was fixed.

bwolmarans said:
anyone? I'm hoping I'm not the only one that wishes this was fixed.
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I think it fixed it email, but not calendar. People were installing stock 2.2 calendar and that fixed it.

alphadog00 said:
I think it fixed it email, but not calendar. People were installing stock 2.2 calendar and that fixed it.
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Thanks alphadog.
I am bumping this post again because it is driving me INSANE that Samsung can't parse url's and I can't believe more people aren't being driven equally nuts by this. I get webex meeting requests in my calendars constantly and cannot click on them....

I feel your frustration - I want the phone numbers for con calls.
My temporary workaround is Gemini calendar - it has a widget and an alternate the calendar. The alternate calendar parses everything. I don't like the alternate calendar as much, but i do like the widget - so i can click on it and bring up the event and click a link.
I did report the calendar issue to Samsung when the captivate first came out, and actually had a support person log it. So maybe 2.2 will fix it. If not, I will install the stock 2.2 calendar.

I seriously thought I was the only person experiencing this. I'm on 2.2 and still having the problem in email app. The urls look broken up for the most part right?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

Escape311 said:
I seriously thought I was the only person experiencing this. I'm on 2.2 and still having the problem in email app. The urls look broken up for the most part right?
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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The problem we are discussing is the URLs, phone number, address not being "clickable" like in other places. Touching a URL should launch a browser; touching a phone number should launch the dialer, etc.
Since 2.2 is a beta, it is hard to say what it is supposed to do.

Gemini calendar doesn't parse any better

bwolmarans said:
Gemini calendar doesn't parse any better
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Did you go into settings and tell it which items to parse? It works 100% for me. I can click on everything - phone, email, www and map links.
Happy to provide screen shots if you can't find settings.

Thanks ... you have just saved me a lot of frustration every week.
This is amazing on several levels.
One) that it seems so very easy to fix.
Two) that in all the other email and calendar programs I tired including touchdown, it is not fixed, not in the calendar nor in email.
Three ) Given number one, that it just seems so very very odd to me that there are so many thousands of these phones out there and not more people are complaining on xda-developers in particular of this completely messed up feature. I feel like a lone voice prehaps.
I wonder if this is purely a messed up thing on Captivate and not on the other galaxy variants?
alphadog00 said:
Did you go into settings and tell it which items to parse? It works 100% for me. I can click on everything - phone, email, www and map links.
Happy to provide screen shots if you can't find settings.
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Click to collapse

bwolmarans said:
Thanks ... you have just saved me a lot of frustration every week.
This is amazing on several levels.
One) that it seems so very easy to fix.
Two) that in all the other email and calendar programs I tired including touchdown, it is not fixed, not in the calendar nor in email.
Three ) Given number one, that it just seems so very very odd to me that there are so many thousands of these phones out there and not more people are complaining on xda-developers in particular of this completely messed up feature. I feel like a lone voice prehaps.
I wonder if this is purely a messed up thing on Captivate and not on the other galaxy variants?
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It is broken on others as well - I tried the i9000 2.1 ROM months ago -when i first go the phone - hoping it was a captivate bug.
I think that that most people buying the phone are not using it for business - so calendar items don't contain much data, and they don't miss the functionality.
The iPhone was missing this until version 3.x - so it took apple almost 2 years to add it as a function. I am surprised Samsung overlooked it. But, if 2.2 comes out and it is missing, i will install the stock Froyo calendar and be all set.
BTW - it is an easy fix - but for some reason they did what apple did - although the calendar data is available - they treat the location and body fields like untouchable text - you can't even copy what is there. It is just a matter of telling the calendar app, that these fields are readable and to parse for phone, url, email.
I hope you send a bug report to their customer service email or something. The more people that complain the more likely they fix it.

I would hope that they have 1000's of reports of this already.
But assuming they don't or don't have enough to form a critical mass where the bug gets fixed, I am willing to add another.
What is the procedure for submitting a bug report to Samsung or do I submit it to AT&T?
alphadog00 said:
It is broken on others as well - I tried the i9000 2.1 ROM months ago -when i first go the phone - hoping it was a captivate bug.
I think that that most people buying the phone are not using it for business - so calendar items don't contain much data, and they don't miss the functionality.
The iPhone was missing this until version 3.x - so it took apple almost 2 years to add it as a function. I am surprised Samsung overlooked it. But, if 2.2 comes out and it is missing, i will install the stock Froyo calendar and be all set.
BTW - it is an easy fix - but for some reason they did what apple did - although the calendar data is available - they treat the location and body fields like untouchable text - you can't even copy what is there. It is just a matter of telling the calendar app, that these fields are readable and to parse for phone, url, email.
I hope you send a bug report to their customer service email or something. The more people that complain the more likely they fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I have not found a formal method. I emailed their "contact us" link on their web page, and posted to their twitter and facebook accounts.
Like i said before, it took 2 years for apple to fix it - even others at work that were iPhone users didn't mind it as much. It just depends what you are fixitated on. GPS works OK for me - not perfect, but not a show stopper. Others feel differently.
Twitter and facebook - search for samsungmobile.

Time, Calendar, Agenda App for Shift Workers?

Hi all, I noticed this thread but sadly no replies... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=866933
Basically I am a shift worker and am looking for a shift workers app that will replicate a shift pattern through the whole year or between predefined dates. Also as my shifts do vary from time to time the app should allow for replicated days to be changed.
Many of my iPhone colleagues have an app that can do this but not it seems on Android.
I sync my Calendar items with Google Calendar so I could add them manually that way but it will takes ages.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Hello, after reading "iPhone colleagues......" I started to search something. I'm a shift worker too and I've not ever felt the need of, but you are right! so I've found these apps:
-Gemini calendar
-Shifty lite
-Work calendar lite
let me know which is the best, I'm start to testing!
Regards

Hi,
there is an app, called "Quick Addroid" on the market. The app adds shift patterns to the standard calendar. You can define your own pattern.
http://www.streim.de/quickaddroid/

Thanks for the suggestion... I will definitely check it out.
Cheers!!

Problem using shared google calendar

SWBMO has recently got a One S, cracking phone! Noticed something odd last night in that i didn't see new calendar entries she's been putting in. For years we have used a shared calendar on google no problem but with the one S she can only add events to her own google calendar. Although the shared one appears in the drop down it won't select ( PC Sync will )
Quite frustrating, more so as trying to work around it I managed to delete the shared calendar!
Anyone found this?

Had a response from htc support.apparently you can only sync the primary google calendar not secondary ones,.new one on me, our shared calendar has been working fine until now!
The one s will see multiple calendars she just can't add events to others!
I await the next update!

Same issue here. Disappointing that a feature that worked and was heavily used on my 2-year-old Vibrant doesn't work on my brand new One S. I hate to have to buy a replacement app for one that should work as expected, but I can't wait for a fix.

HTC have come back and said it is an interesting issue and they are investigating.
I have done some more testing though. I created a new calendar and shared between our accounts. After sync I can see it in the multi calendar menu in the normal calendar app. When I add an event on her phone I go to the drop down at the top and see it listed.
Select the new calendar and it does go in the right place. But the issue seems to be the field at the top doesn't change from Google to reflect the calendar name so you don't actually know where you are entering it, could be any of the google calendars. They seems to have removed the variable part of that if it's a google calendar.
Don't know if it's the effect of creating the new calendar makes it kind of work or whether it just wasn't obvious before.

I reported a bug to HTC, who kept replying that "you can't add events to Google calendars other than your 'main' Google calendar". Then I did some more digging and figured out the same thing Scoop940 reported: you *can* add events to calendars other than your "main" calendar; the drop-down list just doesn't show the calendar you've selected.
One thing you still can't do, however, is "move" an existing event from one calendar to another. That ability wasn't present on my Vibrant running Froyo either.

Still ongoing with HTC this one, I have now sent endless screen shots from my sensation and wifeys One S to demonstrate the problem. It has now been passed to someone in the HTC Written team whatever that means and they now have the software info from the One S.
At the moment it feels like they are listening just hard to get through to them the problem. Change the static Google name back to a variable showing the calendar name, someone made the assumption that people only use one google calendar.
Will keep updated.

Well been recognised as a fault and escalated, although reading between the lines it says don't hold your breath!.;-)
Sent from my HTC Sensation using XDA

Thanks for the heads up on this. I am also able to create events in other calendars, the app just does not display the currently selected calendar at the top as you mentioned, so it's a pretty simple workaround.
Still, it's a bit annoying and it seems like a relatively easy fix, although I doubt it's high on the priority list.

Scoop940 said:
Well been recognised as a fault and escalated, although reading between the lines it says don't hold your breath!.
Sent from my HTC Sensation using XDA
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Click to collapse
Any movement on this problem yet?

Text2Calendar - anything similar that WORKS? [REQUEST]

I really want to be able to 'Share' to my calendar - that is, for example i'm on a webpage, and i want to put the website name/address on to my calendar as an event. I want to hit 'Share', and have it share to the calendar. Same should be for other apps, but mainly browser sharing to calendar would be great.
There's an app on the market that does just this called Text2Calendar, but it was last updated in August 2010. After installing it, it works just as you'd hope. On a webpage, you can share to this app, it will open the calendar where it's prefilled the website name as the name of the event and the address is pasted in to the description. Only problem is that when you hit save, it automatically crashes Text2Calendar and the event never saves. I've tried this app on ICS and JellyBean and same result. It always crashes.
I can't be the only one who religiously uses their calendar, and there are similar extensions available on chrome, just wish my galaxy s iii could do it too! Thanks!
Link to play market app here:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=luck.of.wise.text2calender

Nice tool and yup it crashes when it wants to write to /data/data/...calendar.db - seems the colum displayName is not quite correct..

Fix for ICS calendar
Ok, did tinker with it and fixed the issue with ICS calendar - well at least here, but please test it.
Edit - With english translation

Hey man! It works! Sort of - i mean it definitely doesn't crash anymore, which is FREAKING AWESOME. I'm impressed.
Only thing if you can change, would make it great. It pops up a calendar entry screen where you can save the details, and then a second screen pops up with foreign text and tells you to select a calendar.
is there any way that it will just share it to the internal calendar sharing? thanks either way bud!

Yeah I was wondering where the japanish part of the app would appear I have only one account, so I don't see this dialog, I also use a different calendar...but I'll look into the translation.
Edit : New version post 3
Hopefully this will sort the language issue, but about the internal sharing thingy I don´t quite follow. The entries in the picture, are they different accounts? and if they are there is little I can do about it as this the way of android or original coder..Might be a settings in your calendar to set a default account, but that´s my guess..

Awesome work man. I tried the new apk but it looks to be the same as the first one you posted.
The only other thing I was wondering if you could change - whenever you share to the app, it doesn't allow you to select a time for the event. It automatically puts the event as 30 minutes from now, it doesn't allow you to select the time. Can you change that? thanks again for your amazing work!

texas83 said:
It automatically puts the event as 30 minutes from now, it doesn't allow you to select the time.
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..totally unexpected lol
and the english arrays was a waste too?
just for comparison, I have replaced stock calendar with aCalendar
,have one google account, on CM9 4.0.4, and txt2cal is working with no issues. What´s unexpected is how well it picks up in other apps to, thanks!
Could you try to only sync one default account, for test, and see if anything changes?
obvious differences in setup makes this into a ghost hunt, for my part. A log would be last resort, so if catlog is reporting errors you will need to post them here, but chances are slim to none what to make of it