[Lyrad D]

Hello!

Thanks for reading. I'm new to Android, got rid of my iPhone for a change. I'm now the proud owner of the Galaxy S3. Great phone, loving it..... Except............


F**King icon badges..... How do I get them?

When I receive a text message, it shows the orangish circle above the messages app to say I have one message or two etc. I like this. How come no other app has this? I have downloaded Whatsapp. When I recieve a message on Whatsapp, the only way to tell I have a message is by actually opening the Whatsapp app to check. Yeah, it shows on the status bar at the top, but this isn't good enough. For example, new phone.... I have 9 updates due. The update icons filled the status bar which pushed the Whatsapp icon off the screen. I had not idea I had a Whatsapp message. Also, Instagram and Facebook and Twitter. None of them show that the app has an update due or a message. Please please tell me there is an option to have these badge icons like on the iPhone. It's a pretty standard thing for a phone to have. I dislike the status bar at the top.

Can someone please put me out of my misery? It's annoying me so much, that I am honestly thinking of taking it back and waiting for the iPhone 5 which I don't want to do.

Is my new phone faulty???

[EvilMonkey]

I think badge icons are on an app-by-app basis. I don't use Whatsapp so not sure they can be enabled on that or not. Normally these apps have an widget you can add that has the badge (for example, I use Go SMS, and if i add the app icon to the screen it doesn't have the badge, but if I add the widget (which looks exactly like the app icon), it does. It's just a difference of how the systems work. You should long press on your screen and try to add a widget and see if there's one for Whatsapp that would have the badge on it.

EDIT: I just verified it does have a widget. Not sure if it had an unread count with it, but I assume so.

It is one area that Android could improve, I suppose (although I'm used to the notification bar, which works good enough for me).

I am a bit confused about this:

have 9 updates due. The update icons filled the status bar which pushed the Whatsapp icon off the screen.

If you have 9 updates due, there should only be one icon up there saying there are updates available (it should look like a down arrow). If you mean you updated 9 apps (or had them set to automatically update), then there would be checks (one for each app that was updated). You can easily clear these by pulling down the notification and swiping them away, or pressing the "clear" button to get rid of all the notfications.

The notification bar is one of the big advantages of Android (since you have toggles and various other things there). It's so nice, iOS even put in a severely stripped down version of it.

I suppose if you hate the notification bar and badge icons are a dealbreaker for you, maybe iOS is more up your alley if the above widget thing doesn't work for you. My suggestion is to give the GSIII a couple of weeks. It's not an iPhone so don't expect it to mimic everything. There's pros and cons to both, so give it a chance to get used to it to see if all the pros (and there's many) outweigh the cons.

[Lyrad D]

Ahhhhhhhhh......... Thank you..... I can relax a bit now....... Like I have been bursting to ******* and I am now relieved. Ha!

I'm not satisified, but at least I know I'm not going insane. I find it strange the badge icons aren't standard. Even old, simple phones have an icon above the app.

The status bar is good, don't get me wrong. But I'm not a fan a preview messages showing up. I don't have anything to hide, but if someone wants to look at my new phone, I feel on edge that a message may preview at the top when they're looking at my phone. I know this won't bother some people, but it's a big deal for me. I hate it. I prefer the simple badge icons. I am going to have to get used to it then aren't I? I don't want to give up on Android just yet.

The update icons I mentioned, I explained incorrectly. It was the ticks to say each app had been updated. They stacked up and filled the status bar.

The swipe down notification screen....... Is this customizable? Can I have like my next three calender events showing in there? Or tasks? Or even weather??

[EvilMonkey]

You should check for a setting for the notification thing. There's one in Go SMS under the privacy settings (to just show "You have a new message" instead of the content of the message). Maybe someone who uses Whatsapp can chime in.

If you don't want the ticks, I think you can go into the Play app and then Menu -> Settings and disable notifications, but I'm not sure if that just disables the notification that there's updates available or also disables the ticks when something has actually been updated. I would guess the former, but not the latter. Although I don't really understand why you wouldn't want to know if an app was updated. I personally don't update anything automatically because I want to read the release notes and recent reviews to see if the update broke anything or took away functionality that I want to keep.

For customizing the notification bar, it is to an extent.

I just use the default calendar app, which doesn't have an option to display the next 3 events, but there's a widget you can add to your screen for that. Perhaps another calendar app that has the option to display it in the notification dropdown.

I use Weatherbug Elite (the paid version) and there's an option to display the weather in the notification dropdown, so it's there for me (temperature and weather alerts in the notification bar and when I pull it down). Clicking on the notication takes me into my weather app. See screenshot on how it looks both in the notication bar (the blue temperature) and the pulldown (current weather for my location).

[Lyrad D]

Thanks mate.

You've been a massive help, much appreciated.

[saichick04]

Welcome! Well let's see badges..are you trying to get each icon to show you the number of items..like on the iPhone if you have 3 facebook notifications it shows a little 3? There is something out there called "missed it" I think it only works for messages and phone calls but I could be mistaken. I haven't used it myself. As for the updates yes if you update or install multiple apps they will make little check boxes that fill your status bar but they are easily removed w a swip or by hitting clear as Evil Monkey pointed out.

As for the preview messages in the status bar, alot of Android users don't like the native messaging app and use a 3rd party app like GOSMS or Handcent. These give you popup text notifications (similar to iPhone) and you can have it as your default and set it to only display "New Message" in both your status bar and on the popup. You can also create different little blackgrounds/themes w those apps.

Weather in the status bar.. Most weather apps installed once you open them will put the weather in your notifications. You have the option in the apps settings to take it out, how often to update it and such. I use 1weather. It's simple, small and does the job.

Calender... I use a widget on one of my homescreens so I'm not sure you can put it in your notification list... I'm sure there's an app for that.. <--- you see what I did there..

I hope this helpful. It's hard going from one platform to the next sometimes but it's also lots of fun

[saichick04]

Lol. Evil Monkey beat me too it! Ha. He replied while I was typing that long reply Are you rooted Evil Monkey? I miss having my toggles for wifi, BT and such in the notification bar...

[EvilMonkey]

Lol. Evil Monkey beat me too it! Ha. He replied while I was typing that long reply Are you rooted Evil Monkey? I miss having my toggles for wifi, BT and such in the notification bar...

Yes I am rooted, but those toggles are all there by default for the Galaxy S3 (except for the wi-fi toggle which Verizon removed for some reason....I think it's there on other carriers).

[saichick04]

Yes I am rooted, but those toggles are all there by default for the Galaxy S3 (except for the wi-fi toggle which Verizon removed for some reason....I think it's there on other carriers).

Hmm.. I'll have to look into it.. Razr Maxx here. I just got it a few days ago (previous Galaxy Nexus owner). Thanks alot!

[EvilMonkey]

Hmm.. I'll have to look into it.. Razr Maxx here. I just got it a few days ago (previous Galaxy Nexus owner). Thanks alot!

Well, the toggles are a Touchwiz thing, so they might not be there for the Razr Maxx.

I had them on my old Evo running Cyanogen as well (and they were more customizable there since I could pick and choose which ones show up, which I can't do with Touchwiz).

[saichick04]

I found an app. Notification Toggles. It seems to work well! I too had an Evo running cyanogen and I really liked those toggles. This app seems to be working alright so far. I'm going to give it a few days. I like when the toggles have the name of the toggle under them. This one doesn't but I can tell my the pictures.

[dbareis]

You want to install light flow. It does way more than LEDs but it will remind you of outstanding notifications and do this while screen is off also. It will also help you sleep at night as it has a sleep mode.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus