touchwizzzz phone.apk and contacts.apk suck - Verizon Samsung Galaxy S III

I was already annoyed that the favorites and contacts button did weird wonky switch on me sometimes and even more annoyed that my favorites was the old school gingerbread looking list and not the beautiful huge ICS tiles .. but this outright annoys the the hell out of me and its the fact that when i change my lcd density the ****ing app doesnt resize to fit the screen..HELLO SAMSUNG.. Hear of vector graphics ever? anyway if there are any alternative phone and contacts app that can work exactly like or close to the stock AOSP apps please let me know. too bad the touchwiz framework will not allow for the aosp apps to simply be ported over =(

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[Request] AOSP Alarm, Calendar, Contacts, Music, etc. apk's

Firstly for those thinking, "just get DarchDroid! It's already AOSP," I would first like to explore this option. I like Sense UI, just hate the lag associated with certain Sense apps and would at least like to try the AOSP versions before completely switching to a new ROM.
I did some searching, but couldn't find any sure apk's that will work on a CDMA Hero. The closest I found was some working for the EVO 4G (here), but I don't want to risk it not working on the Hero.
Is it possible for someone to pull some apk's from DarchDroid ROM and have them work on Sense-based ROMs?
Suppose there are working apk's, will they replace or coexist with the HTC apps?
Thanks in advance, and I apologize if this was already done.
Edit: found some apk's!
Edit 2: apparently I suck at searching; there was another thread here http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=667715#7 but at least my thread has the DeskClock.apk
I feel your pain, or at least I did. I liked sense but hated all the lag such as the lag when scrolling threw contacts and SMS. All those little small areas where it would lag drove me crazy. I tried installing the apks from darchdroid but it didn't work so I searched it up. Got the same results as you. I had no choice but to go with darchdroid but I am more than satisfied now. Throw launcherpro on it and you wont regret it. AOSP is like a simplified less flashy version and I love it. I hope some one has a real answer for you though because I'm curious myself. Good luck.
Oh. If you do end up trying darchdroid, try out gomorrah's blackmod theme for it. It's sick.
Well, I managed to find the AOSP messaging app when I wasn't even looking for it! Go figure. It was in a thread talking about keyboard lag. Some claim that for texting, using AOSP messaging app has much less keyboard lag than the HTC messaging app. For those curious, it's here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=6309233&postcount=6
Oh and it looks like it replaces the HTC messaging app; they cannot coexist.
Edit: It also occurred to me that flipz included the AOSP alarm as part of his AOSP lock screen fix!
Much less lag. The messaging app is the only one that worked when I tried replacing them though. The phone and contacts apps were giving problems. I didn't know what to do so I just went with darchdroid. If you like sense, maybe there is a way to add it to an AOSP ROM. Maybe you can just try installing the HTC Sense launcher apk on darch's ROM.

[Q] cyanogenmod and calendar/phone UIs

ive got cyanogen 6.0 on my phone and its been working great. the only thing i want to change is i want my old calendar app back with the better looking widget as well and also i liked the sprint 2.1 in call phone user interface, you know the one with the long red endcall bar and just a speaker and mute button. i just dont like how the cyanogen mod phone user interface looks. and the calendar is a piece of crap compared to the original one that came with my phone. is there a way to get these back, but keep everything else cyanogen? i tried downloading a zip of the 2.1 software and moving the calendar apps into the cyanogen zip but it kept making me force close because there was a problem with the com.calendar.whatever file. can anybody hook me up?
codenaugh9 said:
ive got cyanogen 6.0 on my phone and its been working great. the only thing i want to change is i want my old calendar app back with the better looking widget as well and also i liked the sprint 2.1 in call phone user interface, you know the one with the long red endcall bar and just a speaker and mute button. i just dont like how the cyanogen mod phone user interface looks. and the calendar is a piece of crap compared to the original one that came with my phone. is there a way to get these back, but keep everything else cyanogen? i tried downloading a zip of the 2.1 software and moving the calendar apps into the cyanogen zip but it kept making me force close because there was a problem with the com.calendar.whatever file. can anybody hook me up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not going to happen for a while. What you're describing is Sense UI, which is not available yet for 2.2 Heroes.
Check out pure calendar or smooth calendar. As for the phone I prefer asop's because I no longer hang up on the caller with that huge end button.
Widget Addict
codenaugh9 said:
ive got cyanogen 6.0 on my phone and its been working great. the only thing i want to change is i want my old calendar app back with the better looking widget as well and also i liked the sprint 2.1 in call phone user interface, you know the one with the long red endcall bar and just a speaker and mute button. i just dont like how the cyanogen mod phone user interface looks. and the calendar is a piece of crap compared to the original one that came with my phone. is there a way to get these back, but keep everything else cyanogen? i tried downloading a zip of the 2.1 software and moving the calendar apps into the cyanogen zip but it kept making me force close because there was a problem with the com.calendar.whatever file. can anybody hook me up?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The closest thing you can get to Sense Widgets is LauncherPro they have comparable widgets to re-Sense your phone as far as the dialer fo-get-about-it
[email protected] said:
The closest thing you can get to Sense Widgets is LauncherPro they have comparable widgets to re-Sense your phone as far as the dialer fo-get-about-it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not entirely true ... DialerOne (free in the market) is a very Sense-like dialer in terms of T-9 searching for contacts, and actually is more expansive because of their swiping menu options. Check that out for a Sense dialer replacement.

[poll] miui port who would want it?

edit: title should read poll, how did i mess that up? and now how do i fix it? mods?
edit: fixed, figured it out, im a newb to forums
i was poking around the evo forum for my friend and discovered miui. if you dont know it is a chinese rom that has been built for many snapdragon htc phones and translated into engrish.
it takes some of the better aspects of the iOS like the visually apealing menu skins and layouts and the thumbnail folder icons, has a dock much like iOS with drag and drop icons and no app drawer that can hold 5 apps.
apparently also has a secondary launcher that can come from the top of the screen presumably when you hit the home button that is like a standard android launcher.
has a unique app drawer that slides halfway down and tumbnails of the home screen pages pop up so you can move multiple apps to multiple screens without the drawer auto closing and a need to reopen for each app.
^this drawer is for widgets there is no app drawer, that can be fixed by putting apps in a folder and putting the folder on the launcher like an iphone.
it still has the android pull down notification bar and apparently has a scolling dock with toggles as well
i would love to see a port and some themes to go along with it. or a launcher/home app with some features borrowed.
check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=823494
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-9T44Bt7M&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Llz40hfpo&feature=related
some of the theming is a little odd and im alittle unsure if the screen space is enough for some of the features to be practical but it is interesting none the less.
also they have a browser that is apparently not with the rom that is said to be good.
Dani897 said:
edit: title should read poll, how did i mess that up? and now how do i fix it? mods?
edit: fixed, figured it out, im a newb to forums
i was poking around the evo forum for my friend and discovered miui. if you dont know it is a chinese rom that has been built for many snapdragon htc phones and translated into engrish.
it takes some of the better aspects of the iOS like the visually apealing menu skins and layouts and the thumbnail folder icons, has a dock much like iOS with drag and drop icons and no app drawer that can hold 5 apps.
apparently also has a secondary launcher that can come from the top of the screen presumably when you hit the home button that is like a standard android launcher.
has a unique app drawer that slides halfway down and tumbnails of the home screen pages pop up so you can move multiple apps to multiple screens without the drawer auto closing and a need to reopen for each app.
^this drawer is for widgets there is no app drawer, that can be fixed by putting apps in a folder and putting the folder on the launcher like an iphone.
it still has the android pull down notification bar and apparently has a scolling dock with toggles as well
i would love to see a port and some themes to go along with it. or a launcher/home app with some features borrowed.
check it out here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=823494
and here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or-9T44Bt7M&feature=player_embedded#!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Llz40hfpo&feature=related
some of the theming is a little odd and im alittle unsure if the screen space is enough for some of the features to be practical but it is interesting none the less.
also they have a browser that is apparently not with the rom that is said to be good.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I played with this rom on the Nexus, it's fantastic, extremely smooth, better battery then cyanogen, very nice overall feel.
I'd love to have this ported over to our galaxys
i love miui. i have i on my n1. my friend has a cappy, he would love to see it on the cappy. i was thinking about making a [idea] post in the dev forum. see if anyone has thought about it. i figure when froyo comes out for the cappy that there may be a port. i wish i knew how to dev for android.
krypticos said:
i love miui. i have i on my n1. my friend has a cappy, he would love to see it on the cappy. i was thinking about making a [idea] post in the dev forum. see if anyone has thought about it. i figure when froyo comes out for the cappy that there may be a port. i wish i knew how to dev for android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i think the i-9000 guys are working it. i cant code, or dev. i dont like to make requests that i cant contribute to. i was just hoping if people see this then some of our devs might jump in. i think the great aosp work being done will help pave a road for this. but we dont even have a working true aosp rom yet. although designgears did get many aosp apps working in his dev rom.
if we could get some of the features even if we needed a samsung dialer and other apps a hybrid rom would be cool. the widget tray is a great idea. although i like the android app drawer, especially the galaxy s scrolling alphebetical list implementation (i can scan a column pretty good, i cant scan a page very good), this rom has features that i think would be great.
I want it ..
I want. Please.

[Q] App Request: Old Danger Sidekick Launcher

I was searching the Android Market for a new launcher for my Sidekick, but most of them are more likes themes of the basic Android launcher. The handful that offer something truly different aren't developed enough to warrant using. So, is there a dev out there interested in making a home screen replacement launcher that's a clone of the old Danger Sidekick homescreen?
Looking at the few videos of the older sidekicks ui i want to say....... why? seams like it uses alot more space compared to the asop launchers. closet thing i can even remotely look at an comes to my mind when i see a old sidekicks user interface is what sony puts on their phones.
Circle launcher looks promising: https://market.android.com/details?id=de.dbware.circlelauncher (also a free "Lite" version)
pintek said:
Looking at the few videos of the older sidekicks ui i want to say....... why? seams like it uses alot more space compared to the asop launchers. closet thing i can even remotely look at an comes to my mind when i see a old sidekicks user interface is what sony puts on their phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why? Well, it's unique for one thing. There are other launchers available that do similar things, but they aren't refined enough in their functionality and/or don't look right. Here's basically what I have in mind. I'd want a launcher with 2 home screens. The 2nd one would be where I'd want the bubbles to be. That would be the one on the right. The bubbles would have to be on the right hand side of the screen in landscape and at the bottom in portrait mode. The other screen on the left would be for widgets only. The launcher would need to support folders well too for things you want to keep in them like an 'All Apps' folder. This carousel would need to play nice with the trackpad too (a lot of docks on other launchers are similar but don't work well with the trackpad). In other words, the carousel concept is a blend of the dock and icon grid. Here's another WHY: Putting all of the icons on the carousel would clean up the screen so I can see pictures of my wife and children without all the icons blocking the view. So, that's a bit of my thinking in a nutshell. There simply isn't anything like this out there for Android.
ged92781 said:
Why? Well, it's unique for one thing. There are other launchers available that do similar things, but they aren't refined enough in their functionality and/or don't look right. Here's basically what I have in mind. I'd want a launcher with 2 home screens. The 2nd one would be where I'd want the bubbles to be. That would be the one on the right. The bubbles would have to be on the right hand side of the screen in landscape and at the bottom in portrait mode. The other screen on the left would be for widgets only. The launcher would need to support folders well too for things you want to keep in them like an 'All Apps' folder. This carousel would need to play nice with the trackpad too (a lot of docks on other launchers are similar but don't work well with the trackpad). In other words, the carousel concept is a blend of the dock and icon grid. Here's another WHY: Putting all of the icons on the carousel would clean up the screen so I can see pictures of my wife and children without all the icons blocking the view. So, that's a bit of my thinking in a nutshell. There simply isn't anything like this out there for Android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. This is something i would enjoy very much.
the only issue with this is a lot of people (including me) have disabled their track pads on the phone due to the optical joystick glitch when out in sunlight. I wish I had my old launcher from my old sidekick, but I do not see how it would work with this phone considering its physical fault.
Both the sk4g n the og sk have the same landscape based design I think it would be very possible to have the wallpapers and theme icons. For the og line
Sent from my SGH-T839 using XDA App
shadowscott said:
the only issue with this is a lot of people (including me) have disabled their track pads on the phone due to the optical joystick glitch when out in sunlight. I wish I had my old launcher from my old sidekick, but I do not see how it would work with this phone considering its physical fault.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I'd imagine you could manipulate the bubbles with a touch of the screen as well. Believe it or not, some actually did this already...to an iPhone! If you dig around enough on YouTube, you can probably still see it.
ged92781 said:
Well, I'd imagine you could manipulate the bubbles with a touch of the screen as well. Believe it or not, some actually did this already...to an iPhone! If you dig around enough on YouTube, you can probably still see it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FYI, here's one of the 2 videos on YouTube where a guy made a functional Danger Sidekick homescreen for the iPhone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDG11kliWWw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
here is the closest thing i've come to find thats like the interface you are wanting though there is no landscape mode for this which is a "mild" pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU2gGI8KVhY
My suggestion is to drop a message to the dev of that launcher on market place an see if they can do some minor addons to work in landscape an possibly ability to change icons (if you so badly want the older danger icons)
"Orientation Control" can force any program into landscape. It's inexpensive and effective.
It's the only app of its kind that works. And, it works like a charm.
Developer support for landscape is no longer an issue. It all runs landscape now; rather it wants to or not.
Recommended.
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.coinsoft.android.orientcontrol
pintek said:
here is the closest thing i've come to find thats like the interface you are wanting though there is no landscape mode for this which is a "mild" pain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU2gGI8KVhY
My suggestion is to drop a message to the dev of that launcher on market place an see if they can do some minor addons to work in landscape an possibly ability to change icons (if you so badly want the older danger icons)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a very cool launcher. Thanks for the suggestion. It just might work if it had some more functionality. I'll send the dev a message.
oh well, this launcher, while cool isn't going to cut it soon enough. I wonder if that guy who made the Sidekick launcher for the iPhone would be interested in making one for the Sidekick 4G.

Android 4.x Contacts/Phone on a Touchwiz Rom

I spent a lot of time on AOKP of my former phone and as a result I fully redid all of my contact photos because of the high-res support built into ICS and JB. Incoming calls looked awesome with photo ID taking up the whole screen and being crystal clear.
Now I am using all these different TouchWiz roms for my new GS3 and the contacts and dialer are HIDEOUS. All my contacts are tiny images AND they look awful! I'm not even sure how that is possible.
Is there any way on earth to completely remove all the touchwiz pieces of software that pertain to contacts and phone in these TW releases? I've happily ditched the email app and replaced it with AOSP email, the AOSP calendar is on the Play Store. The AOSP lockscreen is available on most custom roms....but the dialer/phone piece is one of the last hideous things bugging me about this sweet phone.
Since no one seems to have done it I feel I should assume it's not possible, but figured I'd ask.
The other hideous thing that I'd love to fix is the size of the fonts in the notification curtain. Samsung designed their layout for 80 year olds apparently....everything is so enourmous
I'm not a big fan of the TouchWiz contact or dialer apps either, but the contact photos can be easily fixed.
What are you using to sync your contact photos? HaxSync (available on the market) works great if you are synching photos from Facebook. The quality depends on whether you are on ICS or JellyBean, as JellyBean is capable of storing higher resolution than ICS.
When I was on AOSP jelly bean I set up high res photos for almost all of my contacts in Gmail. I don't use Facebook. Recently Google upgraded the contacts applet within Gmail to allow for higher resolution photos.
So it was beautiful. On any clean install of CM or AOKP I had full screen high res caller id just by syncing my Gmail contacts.
Now crappy touchwiz takes my gmail contact photos and mutilates them to look low res and half-screened. It's shameful really.
I know exactly what you're talking about. I had a Gnex and my pics were little. tiny blurry cubes upon switching to my s3. You'll have to manually switch them all from the phone or use haxsync to overwrite some of them. It sucks though. I know where you are. Lol.
And I don't think you can get rid of the dialer/contacts. Pretty sure a dev buddy of mine said it's too deeply intertwined with the rest of the TW framework and wreaks havoc when removed. I could be wrong, but I think I'm right
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
I believe you...I figured it must be a major pain or impossible to remove or someone would have done it already.
I'd be willing to pay a developer if he could create a mod that fully removes TW-based contacts/phone and replaces them with the corresponding JB pieces.
So after spending a week on a flashing binge I've come up with two apparently impossible scenarios to make the perfect rom for this phone.
1) an AOSP rom that somehow is able to implement the TW-based Galaxy S3 Camera
or
2) a TW-based rom that somehow is able to remove everything TW-related (contacts/phone) EXCEPT for the camera
Good luck, my man. Lol. Let me know what happens. Both scenarios are nice.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
spearoid said:
I believe you...I figured it must be a major pain or impossible to remove or someone would have done it already.
I'd be willing to pay a developer if he could create a mod that fully removes TW-based contacts/phone and replaces them with the corresponding JB pieces.
So after spending a week on a flashing binge I've come up with two apparently impossible scenarios to make the perfect rom for this phone.
1) an AOSP rom that somehow is able to implement the TW-based Galaxy S3 Camera
or
2) a TW-based rom that somehow is able to remove everything TW-related (contacts/phone) EXCEPT for the camera
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just want a replacement for the dialer and contacts apps! Samsung did such a great job with this phone, and TouchWiz overall is actually kind of nice. I just wish they had put more effort into the dialer and contacts apps. It would be perfect if there was a viable way to replace those, but I agree it's probably damn near impossible.

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