I've currently got both an xda2 and an xda2i. I'm thinking of changing to the iq when its available ( I believe it a re-labelled tornado).
Has anyone else done this - changed from touch screen pda phone to a similar phone to the tornado and if so what do you think, pros and cons of each type.
Also which software works as add ons ( currently use tomtom5, sprite backup, pocketmax phonealarm to name a few).
Thanks in advance.
Hi petest!
I didn't switch to a tornado, but I got to play with one for a couple of days, and after being used to Pocket PC interface, and touch screen, the limited Smartphone platform seemed really annoying and frustrating.
Here are my impressions:
- Getting around start and options menus is a pain, since you can't scroll directly through the whole menu, but have to press 'more' to see the options that don't feet on screen.
- The file browser is also problematic, as you have to change views to see the files and you cant type a file name to get to it quickly.
- Typing is a problem since you only have the numeric key pad, even with T9 function. It makes the PPC on-screen keyboard look great.
- Finally, shutting down a program, to free up memory is a pain as well, if it doesn't have an exit option.
On the positive side:
- It is closer in size to a regular cellphone then most PDAs.
- The screen is protected, and not as vornable to scratches and various damage as a touch screen.
- The numeric keypad makes one hand usage easy.
Well that's my opinion, but as you might have noticed, the touch screen and the comfort it brings is a big issue for me, so I might be bias against Smartphones in general...
Thanks for the reply levenum.
Like yourself I find the touch screen good on the pdas and they're all I've used for the last 4 or 5 years so I'm used to the features of them.
It would be useful if I could borrow one (xda iq / imate sp5) for a couple of days to play with and see how i get on - I might just get one on a new contract and if i don't get on with it trade it in.
Thanks again.
On my unrooted phone the "Steamy Window" application worked fine
If I pressed a little it would make a little line in the "steam", and if I were to push my thumb down on a large area, it would detect that and make a "thumb" sized print.
Now using JF1.41 no matter what I do it only makes a TINY TINY line, about a pixel or two in size.
Did the modification of the screen change an api that the Steamy Window app is using to work different?
Well, maybe you should go back to an unrooted phone so that you can play with your steamy window....
LPChris, I would expect a little more maturity from a "senior member"
I am trying to contribute to make JF the best it can be. Maybe your just having a bad night or something, but theres no need to be so childish.
:ed:
Looking through your posts it seems like your just having a bad night
Back on topic:
While this may be a stupid little problem with one application. Should finger-area sensitive applications continue to be made this could isolate JF1.41 from the market. Naturally I dont care much for steamy window, but I would like to prevent other issues in more... useful... applications
I've seen some weirdness where my home screen has a jitter. I've also had accuracy issues with clicking menu items and buttons. I'm going to backup my phone and load JF 1.31 back on to see if it is the screen or the img.
Interesting...I just reflashed with 1.41 RC30 and the problem went away. I was using the fade to blue theme .99.
sjbayer3 said:
On my unrooted phone the "Steamy Window" application worked fine
If I pressed a little it would make a little line in the "steam", and if I were to push my thumb down on a large area, it would detect that and make a "thumb" sized print.
Now using JF1.41 no matter what I do it only makes a TINY TINY line, about a pixel or two in size.
Did the modification of the screen change an api that the Steamy Window app is using to work different?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto about LPChris lol, a lot of his posts sound like that, but yeah I noticed the same thing about the steamy window app before and after using JF 1.41.
Steamy window, LOL! sorry guys. anyway keep up the great work.
Yes, this is a trivial example, but it does identify a real issue.
I was reading through the various google android groups last night and I ran into some info that seems to addresses this issue. From what I was able to gather, the JF1.x implementation of multi-touch uses a community hack that reassigns the value that normally keeps track of the size of the touch input. This value is now used to keep track of the distance between two touches. (see: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/android-platform/browse_thread/thread/209b512a9fdf7367?hl=en)
your Steamy Window app seems to make use of the size value as it was originally designed. Now with the change, with only one finger input, this value is set to some minimum, producing a thin line.
To test this theory, see if when you touch the screen with two fingers the size of the mark gets bigger.
Why can't a capability bit or other mechanism be defined that could be used to indicate whether or not an application were multi-touch aware, so that the touch handling behavior at the lower levels would revert to "standard" behavior for normal (non-multi-touch) apps? Trying to make the multi-touch hack fully backwards compatible may not be practical.
I tested your idea about multituch possibly fixing steamy window
My only results are really strange.
If I touch with two fingers it will make a line about the width of my 2 fingers, but its located in the top left, no matter where my fingers actually are. Furthermore the line isnt straight its curved.
Now, after my first touch, it seems if I touch it again it just crashes.
ex-MN said:
From what I was able to gather, the JF1.x implementation of multi-touch uses a community hack that reassigns the value that normally keeps track of the size of the touch input. This value is now used to keep track of the distance between two touches. (see: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/android-platform/browse_thread/thread/209b512a9fdf7367?hl=en)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Edit: Hmm... the x-y data of the second finger is stored in separate fields. I think the usage of the size field is just as a boolean to tell multitouch capable programs that second finger data is being sent.
themes and JF RC versions. be careful
TheDudeOfLife said:
I've seen some weirdness where my home screen has a jitter. I've also had accuracy issues with clicking menu items and buttons. I'm going to backup my phone and load JF 1.31 back on to see if it is the screen or the img.
Interesting...I just reflashed with 1.41 RC30 and the problem went away. I was using the fade to blue theme .99.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it seems as tho themes have to be matched to the rom, a theme for 1,30 may flake out on 1.41, most of the themes I have seen and used so far were marked as to which rom the were intended to theme...
BhanG
bhang said:
it seems as tho themes have to be matched to the rom, a theme for 1,30 may flake out on 1.41, most of the themes I have seen and used so far were marked as to which rom the were intended to theme...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After some more testing I have this same issue on 2 1.41 compatible themes (rusty metal and fade to blue) I am going to go back to themeless 1.41 but I think it is more related to the multitouch 'hack' than the theme themselves. I find it hard to believe that a bunch of icons could mess this up. I watches my screen jitter between the left and right screen for 3 minutes today before I just performed a soft reset on my phone.
Note: I also applied each theme from a fresh flash of 1.41...not on top of each other.
this happens with screen crack also, but it doesnt affect me that much until i start not being able to select stuff. i know it may be important its just not to me... yet *knocks on wood*
Yeah Ive noticed it too..
I thought that it was just the app at first.
I might be switching back to .31 then at least til this gets fixed.
Steamy window def is NOT reading my fingers location or size properly.
I've also seen it affect touch paint found in the API Demos. Doesn't even register touch anymore.
It appears multi-touch is premature at this point and to implement multi-touch throughout the OS and not just the browser like everyone seems to think isnt good. It is definitely is throughout the OS and probably will affect any application that uses the second touch value to register touch size.
My other concern is that dev's won't take this hacked multi-touch into account so they will continue to write programs that won't be compatible since its not the "norm"
Taken from and android forum...this is my biggest concern
"Please think about soft keyboards when considering multi-touch APIs,
where the problem isn't detecting the distance between two finger, but
rather is allowing a 2nd finger (or thumb) to come down on a 2nd key
before the first finger (or thumb) has been released. The proposed
API to provide only a centroid and the distance between fingers won't
work at all for this sort of application.
I think you'd ultimately want to package this as additional
GestureDetector subclasses, depending on whether the type of gesture
detection wanted was pinch/zoom or multiple/overlapping taps.
Keyboards (and maybe games) would use one class, browsers another.
Providing the right information from a touch panel to drive either
detector might be challenging, especially if the panel provides
'unpaired' x and y coordinates rather than individual touch locations,
but I believe it could be done. "
JesusFreke,
Any thoughts on this?
Yeah lets hear what JF's got to say.
I originally thought that the multitouch was embedded in the browser, It's too soon to have it throughout the entire OS...
How about 1.41=with multitouch and 1.42=without
I've installed JF1.41 and I have an unusual bug....sometimes the screen behaves like it isn't calibrated..i press the screen on a button and it is pressed another one....have anyone encoutered this problem?
I invite everyone to do the following to find out how ur touch registers on ur screen. Open anycut. Get it if u don't have it.
Click activity and find raw image viewer. Click ok and then click on the shortcut.
Now start moving your finger around and see the results.
Let's all post our results here so we can figure this out.
Post in the same format as me:
ROM: JF1.41
1 finger - it surpisingly followed my finger perfectly. It only registered the very center point of my finger.
2 fingers - it appears that it made the same point as the 1 finger, however now the point was exactly in between my fingers and stayed there as I moved them around.
Ok so now we need ppl with stock rc30 and 1.31 so we can test this out!
You wanna have some real fun? Try it with 3 or 4 fingers.. It goes nuts..
I am having problems with the swipe down Notification bar on my Desire HD. I would have posted it in there, but this is a general problem, as I have seen it on several android phones in other forums. However, the ones I have seen are all HTC. Whether this is a manufacturer related issue I do not know.
Put quite simply; it won't slide down in portrait. But when I switch to landscape it works perfectly fine.
One of the suggestions was to use Draw Pad and see if there were any deadspots on the touchscreen. So I go nuts, and find a bar about half an inch on the top of the screen that isn't responding, unless I flick upwards quite quickly. But it's not a deadspot, as when I'm using that part of the phone in landscape it works perfectly. I can also swipe down in landscape from the corner (top right) perfect as well. So I would say it can't be the hardware.
The last time the notification bar worked was when I was in Tweetdeck, and swiped like mad through a load of tweets to class them as 'Read'. I've since uninstalled Tweetdeck, restarted my phone (both by using Restart and by removing the battery), and returned the phone to Factory Settings, but nothing works.
I understand that I can install a ROM as a last resort, but I am pretty sure that there must be an app that can reset the touchscreen calibration or something similar, to reset the dimensions of the screen when it's in portrait, or a hidden setting that can reset it. My phone isn't rooted, so I would much rather fix the problem, rather than overwrite it to save the extra work when I wouldn't really appreciate a rooted phone with a custom ROM.
I am running Android 2.3.3 with HTC Sense 2.1. My Kernel Version is 2.6.35.10-gd2564fb | htc-kernel(at symbol)and18-2 #1. The build number is 2.50.405.2 CL87995 release-keys.
(The (at symbol) is because I am new and outside links are forbidden for new users)
My phone isn't rooted, however I am not averse to doing so if it helps solve the problem. I have minimal experience with the Terminal, however, so if it is required, I could do with instructions rather than 'do X and Y'.
Thanks, and sorry for the wall of text.
I am the only who experience this tendency? That the one ha UI function makes the navigation buttons at the bottom are to the left?
Often when u put it in the table often the navigation button are very often to the left. A bug? To activate one hand UI you need to use a quite rapid motion.. But obviously one hand UI activate when you put it on the table. I hope this problem is solved In the latest firmware (which is not accessible through official channels for eu devices)
If you shake your hand to the left, the navigation bar automatically adjusts to the left. Same thing goes if u shake it to the right.
[email protected] said:
If you shake your hand to the left, the navigation bar automatically adjusts to the left. Same thing goes if u shake it to the right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know how the gestures is working to activate one hand GUI, what I am saying you is that it is not working..
In fact.. it is quite unsensitive so when you want to to activate one hand GUI and make the geasture the the left or right it is kind of hard you really need to do a quite rapid and distinct motion. What I am saying is that the one hand GUI is being activated WITHOUT any gesture at all.. when I am putting it on my table.. most likely it does not lie down on the table 100% straight, so what I am saying here this is simply a bug.. the one hand GUI should be activated by a distinct hand gesture not when it is laying on the desk and you pick up the phone. This makes the whole one hand GUI function very frustrating... it would had been a less problem if it had a tendency to move to the right most of the times since 99% of the time you want it to be on the right.. I wish it was possible to disable it moving it to the left at all..since I am not left handed..
Also.. I wonder..is there any 3rd party app where you can get similar one hand function to Note 4 ? where the whole screen is getting minimized to a small window ? since the Mate7 have a bigger screen then note 4.. the need is even bigger for more One hand functions... to handle a 6 inch device... I hope this will improved with Lollipop as well.. it is clear that android is not optimized for bigger devices. One simple example is google play... to push the "my apps" button you cannot reach it with your right thumb.... I think this will be some of the things that they will look at in versions after lollipop..which is to have more menus at the bottom instead of the top..where people will reach it easier...even on big devices. .. if android and apps in general was more optimized for bigger devices.. the drawbacks of big devices which mainly is you can't reach your thumb over the whole device would be a much less problem.. if the most important parts of interfaces in OS and apps is in the "Thumb zone" where most people reach with one hand use even on 6 inch devices. Nexus 6 is 6 inches..so because of that..I think android after lollipop will be a lot more optimized for bigger screens in general.. also the averge screen size is getting bigger.. 5.5 inches is now really common.. but I think 6 inches.. is where it will stop...
Sure if the mate 7 hade 100% body to screen ratio then sure..it could had bigger screen but I would not like a phone with bigger outer measurements then this.. the limits is here for sure.. going over this limit is just stupid..
I understand what you mean, although i have not really tried this one hand function of the mate 7, because i find the solution half-baked in mate 7. In note series (3 & 4 I'm sure), the whole screen is minimized. The current lenovo vibe z2 pro also does the same thing as the note's, which for me is the perfect implementation of the one-hand operation function. Although this function is not a deal breaker for me, cause i still find the mate 7 attractive because of its many other uses.
Hi Guys,
Long time user of Sonys Compact phones here, so I'm custom to small screens and one hand operation of my phone, i HATE that I have to use two hands, and the manufactors thinks that we all loves big screens..
Ok so I bought a Google Pixel 4a, but for me thats also to big.
I have tried to set the display resolution via adb wm Size function, it works like a sharm, but the phone centeres the display, and google have for some reason removed the overscan function i version11, so I cant set the display to be on the bottom. "damn you google"
I have also tried the Quick cursor app, but its so slow to use all the time.
Then a thought, is there a way to force all apps only to be X pixels high, and fixed at the bottom of the screen? I dont want to ever reach over a certain point of my screen.
Or is there another way to solve my problem?
We are seeing our selfs as a smart race, but creates devices that needs two hands to operate?! jeezzee
PS. No root options wanted.
Kind regards
Morten
May be Android's Split Screen mode is a workaround.
BTW: On ChromeOS, Android apps can be presented in free‑form windows that are arbitrarily resizable