"Official" Android thread

[CNYCacher]

It's not very intuitive, but WiFi takes more power than the 3G connection.  WiFi wasn't created with low power usage in mind.  The cell data technologies were.

You get better battery performance if you just let the phone stay in 3G mode all day.  Way better.

This depends on how much data you are using.  If you are using no data or almost no data, you would be correct in saying that GSM beats WiFi on power consumption.  For anything greater than just a tiny amount of data per second*, wifi wins.  The reason is the vastly different transmission distances.  If you have an email account on push, or are actively browsing the web, or have any other kinds of notifications, and your phone is doing that on a cell tower 5 miles away vs. a wifi router 5 meters away, you are using more battery than you need.

YMMV, I have three email accounts on push and twitter and facebook notifications going on, and I see dramatic decrease in battery time when i turn off wifi.


*= One study I saw had 1kbps as the cutoff point above which wifi wins.

[GigaBuist]

You know, you're probably right.  My WiFi experience is tainted because a long time ago I set my phone to not turn off WiFi when the phone went to sleep.  I'm going to look into this more.  I'm curious.

[Iain]

Digging up because after moving recently I couldn't find my old spare wireless mouse, and having installed a new media pc with TV in my new bedroom this was rather frustrating.

Gmote. Very nice application, can perform two functions. Firstly you set it up on the computer and tell it where to find your media files, so you can then open the app on the phone, scroll through the media files and play them with the version of VLC that the app installs on the computer. Secondly, you can use the touchscreen on the phone as a touchpad for the computer.

There is beta functionality (doesn't work for .avi so haven't tried it) that allows the phone to play media from the computer.

[grislyatoms]

Just got turned on to a free police scanner app. by a friend. Seems to work pretty well and the price is right!

[wuluf]

These things make calls too??

[dogmush]

Just got turned on to a free police scanner app. by a friend. Seems to work pretty well and the price is right!

Link? Name? Legality?

[grislyatoms]

No idea about legality outside of where I have lived/currently live. It would certainly be prudent to check state/local laws. Lots of info here:

http://www.radioreference.com/

"Scanner Radio" by Gordon Edwards is the free version. I ponied up the 4 bucks for the "paid" version this evening just to throw the dev. some support. "Scanner Radio Pro" is what I am currently running, though I haven't yet discovered any difference between the two.

http://www.androidapps.com/tech/apps/325950-scanner-radio-pro-gordon-edwards

[GigaBuist]

Digging this one back up.  I've been farting around a bit more with keeping WiFi on during the day and I do believe it sucks more power.  However, I don't have any real hard data to back that claim up.  It's entirely intuition.  I've found some folks online that tried making some experiments to figure out which way was better but I didn't see anything conclusive.

But, something in CNYCacher's comment stuck out at me: GSM.  It seems that GSM and CDMA phones do the whole "3G" thing different.  Of course, there's a number of technologies that fall under the "3G" label so that makes sense.  Anyway, from what I gather on GSM phones the radio that does cell/voice communication is different than that for "3G."  Over on the CDMA handsets it's all the same chip.  On a GSM phone when you connect to WiFi the 3G radio can be turned off.  In CDMA land we can't turn off any extra chips, else we'd lose the ability to actually make calls.  Which, I hear, is something these devices are occasionally used for.

So, maybe that's why we've got different takes on the matter.  I'm on CDMA and apparently CNYCacher is on GSM.  Food for thought.  My statement that turning off WiFi is always good for the battery is certainly false.  That much I now know.  But, with my particular hardware and usage pattern it tends to hold true.  I think.
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I also dumped Locale and switched to Tasker recently.  I figured I should give it a fair shake.  It's certainly more powerful, but e-gads is it a pain to work with.  I find it incredibly annoying, though I admit that it could be because I'm used to thinking of everything in a Locale-centric matter.  It works, it's not that, but I wouldn't touch the thing unless you're the kind of person that knows how to create a DOS batch file or *nix shell script.

[Ben]

I'm CDMA. Interestingly, at home, where I get a strong signal, if i have WiFi on, I definitely notice the phone draining faster -- not a lot, but according to system panel, the battery voltage drops at a slightly steeper curve when WiFi is on. At work, I have crappy reception and am lucky to get one or two bars. If I have WiFi on there, it dramatically improves battery life through the work day.

[MillCreek]

Ever since I installed Green Power Free, I can get two days out of my smartphone battery.  An amazing app.

[CNYCacher]

So, maybe that's why we've got different takes on the matter.  I'm on CDMA and apparently CNYCacher is on GSM.  Food for thought.  My statement that turning off WiFi is always good for the battery is certainly false.  That much I now know.  But, with my particular hardware and usage pattern it tends to hold true.  I think.

I'm on Sprint, which I think is CDMA.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Also have the droid x, and chose it over the motorola partially because of the swype feature which the guy said I would get used to quick...
I have it on but I seem to go faster poking the keys. I'm still glad I got this one for the larger screen, though.

Apps...

Well, once I figured out how to use facebook from the browser without the mobile page I really stopped using the app. So far i've gone through two games completly ( alchemy genetics and gem miner) and i've opened a couple other apps for funsys but have yet to really use them. I think the kindle app will be one since I have a couple things I want to read that arn't in book form ( julia quinns second epiloges for her bridgerton series) and I like the idea of free classics. I just have to set up the amazon account because I can't for the life of me, remember how to get into the old one!

My only beef with pandoras app is I can't figure out how to add more stations to the account with out logging on to the site, which doesn't really seem to work on the browser. So I guess I shall have to wait until I get to a computer or just listin to a LOT of Daft Punk.
I just added a fm radio app which is nice, as the one that came with the phome doesn't seem towork without earbuds.

I guess I shall report back as I get more stuff. Although, I may not be using it nearly as much, as rumor has it, I might be getting a computer.

[Ben]

I think the kindle app will be one since I have a couple things I want to read that arn't in book form ( julia quinns second epiloges for her bridgerton series) and I like the idea of free classics. I just have to set up the amazon account because I can't for the life of me, remember how to get into the old one!

If you're looking to read free classics, try Aldiko book reader. It works seamlessly with feedbooks.com. Much easier to find free classics (and more of them) on feedbook than on Amazon.

[BlueStarLizzard]

If you're looking to read free classics, try Aldiko book reader. It works seamlessly with feedbooks.com. Much easier to find free classics (and more of them) on feedbook than on Amazon.

I have now used the kindle app. Its good enough for now, and i'm finally getting to read the extended material for one of my fav series. for me the freebies are more of a nice bonus.

[GigaBuist]

Liz, if Pandora is giving you trouble then you might want to try Last.fm.  I don't really use either, though.  Slacker Radio is more to my liking.  You don't personalize them quite like the others, as you select from a pre-defined channel, but you can tweak it once it starts playing with like/dislike options.  Plus it's got comedy channels which I really like. 

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I got something pretty dorky working tonight on my Droid.  I started playing with ROM Downloader a while ago which is basically a front-end to a bunch of other emulators.  Kinda cool except the Droid's keypad makes a horrible controller.  Turns out you can link a Wii remote to your phone via Bluetooth.  There's an app you need to make it work, it's free, but I forget the name.  Works pretty well.

[BlueStarLizzard]

I just loaded the dolphin hd browser.

Much, much better them the stock.

[InfidelSerf]

I've been out of it for awhile.  Lot's going on.  Little to no time to post.

I would highly recommend the Dolphin HD browser as well.

I discovered that the wifi hotspot feature on the phone is priceless.
It saved me a bundle this last visit to vegas where alot of hotels want to charge per computer per day for wifi in the room.

[Physics]

Liz, if Pandora is giving you trouble then you might want to try Last.fm.  I don't really use either, though.  Slacker Radio is more to my liking.  You don't personalize them quite like the others, as you select from a pre-defined channel, but you can tweak it once it starts playing with like/dislike options.  Plus it's got comedy channels which I really like. 

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I got something pretty dorky working tonight on my Droid.  I started playing with ROM Downloader a while ago which is basically a front-end to a bunch of other emulators.  Kinda cool except the Droid's keypad makes a horrible controller.  Turns out you can link a Wii remote to your phone via Bluetooth.  There's an app you need to make it work, it's free, but I forget the name.  Works pretty well.

You can make custom stations on Slacker.  IMO Slacker is hands down better than Last.FM and Pandora both.

I just got an Epic.  I like it a lot so far, although it does have some bugs and battery life appears to be pretty low.  Nothing special in the way of apps yet, other than those that appealed to me in this thread. 

[GigaBuist]

Since the thread came back up, here's something I learned recently:

When my battery life started to really take a crap on my Droid I poked around and guys that load custom ROMS, like I have, sometimes feel the need to reset the internal battery capacity life of their phone.  So, I did that.  You can't do it if you're not rooted though.

Turns out, in my experience, it doesn't really get you anything.  The phone just reports a higher battery charge early on after coming off the charger for a while but settles back on the old discharge cycle pretty quickly.

There may be some reasons to reset it, such as tossing in a brand new battery, but I suspect the phone's OS will figure out how to deal with that after a few charge cycles just like it figured out I how to deal with my crappy battery all over again.

There's no such thing as a free lunch in that area.

[GigaBuist]

Well, GingerBread (Android 2.3) has been out for a while now and the code has filtered into the CyanogenMod project, which is where I get my custom ROMs from.  They're currently on a v7.0RC2 release, so not official yet but pretty close.

I tossed it on my Droid Sunday.

Impressions:

- The "widget" controls in the notification window are very nice.  I got these via a back-port w/ CyanogenMod 6.1.2 a while ago.  They seem a little more refined in this release and if you load 'em up you can scroll horizontally between them.  They let you toggle Wifi, GPS, mobile data, account sync, LED light, airplane mode, ringer status, etc. by pulling down the status bar and making a quick tap if you're not familiar with it.

- Memory management is freaking aggressive.  And by that I mean it'll kill tasks without any hesitation.  On the  one hand I got some GREAT battery life out of the thing in the last 24 hours.  On the other common background apps (Tasker, Screeble, WeatherBug, even my Launcher app (ADW Launcher)) were getting killed.  The downsides here, for me, are a combination of a buggy RC build and being on a Droid which has limited RAM.  It'll get sorted out eventually I hope.

- The whole status bar seems tighter.  Less real estate is devoted to things that are always there like 3G status, cell signal, clock, battery, etc. 

- Market v2.3 (which some people got a while ago) is much better than the 2.2 release.  They basically ripped off the UI from Apple's app store on this one.  Well, the functional parts.  It also actually downloads stuff which is way better than my experience with 2.2  A buddy of mine w/ a Droid still running Verizon's official stuff has Market 2.3 and it still gives him troubles, but we both agree it's better than before.

- The keyboard is better.  They did some minor tweaking to the on-screen keyboard and it just works slightly better.  If your'e not on 2.3 then you can still get a free app (search for Gingerbread keyboard) that backported the 2.3 keyboard to 2.2 (and maybe previous) versions.  I gave it a go while when I was still on 2.2 and liked it.

- There's also a new animation with 2.3 that blanks your screen in a manner that resembles an old CRT TV flipping off.  Totally useless but feels pretty cool.

- The default unlock screen now has a curved slider which just feels better.  It might not actually be any different, functionally, as I can still unlock with a flat slide, but the visualization is at least more akin to my natural motion.  I have no idea if it's really any more forgiving than the old one though.

Right now I'd say do NOT go to Cyanogenmod 7.0 RC2 unless you're an idiot like me.  Wait for the official build, but if you've got a  chance to get an official Gingerbread/2.3 build from your manufacturer I'd take it.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Bring this thread back for cool app.
 
Book Catalogue. Uses barcode scanner or isbn number to acount for all your books.

No more being tricked by reprints!!