Hey All,
Fired off a 4a couple weeks ago and still in process of learning this phone and android system. Chose Pixel4a for smaller real estate and bloat free environment. Sony use to do small phones however they have shut shop so got Pixel4a without any research beyond these wants.
I am a longtime Blackberry user and never used android before. But with doomsday approaching on 4th January 2022 I had to ditch BB10 and jump on android. You can understand the struggle to ‘like’ android is very real here. I guess my late arrival late to the android party is largely because I have not been a power user and use myriad of apps even much less.
Moving forward, I am trying to set up the device pretty much as ‘workcentric’ as possible. So far I am happy with stock android experience but need advice for couple of niggles that bother me.
1. I use my phone for work first and leisure second. I do not create content nor do I consume content except small sessions of YouTube watching. So far I am happy with what I have.
2. I had high hopes to replicate BB like hub experience but Blackberry Hub is buggy. Microsoft launcher is ok for what it is but that’s about it. I still find the android notification handling subpar and few launchers I tried left me wanting. Gave up on that.
3. My work a/c is handled by Office 365 but the small red blip with unread/new email counter remains stuck and doesn’t clear up even if I run the file cleaner or open the outlook icon from recently used screen or in main app drawer screen.
4. I use a Gmail account to set up the device but it is not an account that I use for any personal work. But I get Goggle calendar everywhere and I not able to make the Outlook calendar as default or sync with Google calendar. I very much want to have Outlook calendar do all the heavy lifting and notify me of coming events etc. (Might add here that I do not want Google contacts to jump into the fry here and have me sending birthday email to Julia, who is a relative, from my work email.)
5. While using Microsoft Teams app, I would like the Teams app give me audio chimes on set intervals rather than just giving me a muted ‘ding’ 15 min before start of event. I tend to miss the single ‘ding’ if I am out and about. Is there any way wherein Teams app meeting/calendar event(s) automatically converts into a ‘Reminder’ and keep chiming every 5 min before the event till I manually kills it?
6. Looking for an app/setting but failed so far, wherein I can set up a ‘Reminder’ BUT with a recorded clip attached to it? I tend to use dictation for reminders. If I want to call John on 1st of January about subject of a planned field visit then I am okay with plain reminders but I also want to ‘listen’ my recording and quickly run through the subject/reason why I am calling him at first place before placing a call to him.
Any help and pointers in this regard is greatly appreciated. Though I am not even sure if I have articulated myself clearly; given my lack of experience with android.
Fired off a 4a couple weeks ago and still in process of learning this phone and android system. Chose Pixel4a for smaller real estate and bloat free environment. Sony use to do small phones however they have shut shop so got Pixel4a without any research beyond these wants.
I am a longtime Blackberry user and never used android before. But with doomsday approaching on 4th January 2022 I had to ditch BB10 and jump on android. You can understand the struggle to ‘like’ android is very real here. I guess my late arrival late to the android party is largely because I have not been a power user and use myriad of apps even much less.
Moving forward, I am trying to set up the device pretty much as ‘workcentric’ as possible. So far I am happy with stock android experience but need advice for couple of niggles that bother me.
1. I use my phone for work first and leisure second. I do not create content nor do I consume content except small sessions of YouTube watching. So far I am happy with what I have.
2. I had high hopes to replicate BB like hub experience but Blackberry Hub is buggy. Microsoft launcher is ok for what it is but that’s about it. I still find the android notification handling subpar and few launchers I tried left me wanting. Gave up on that.
3. My work a/c is handled by Office 365 but the small red blip with unread/new email counter remains stuck and doesn’t clear up even if I run the file cleaner or open the outlook icon from recently used screen or in main app drawer screen.
4. I use a Gmail account to set up the device but it is not an account that I use for any personal work. But I get Goggle calendar everywhere and I not able to make the Outlook calendar as default or sync with Google calendar. I very much want to have Outlook calendar do all the heavy lifting and notify me of coming events etc. (Might add here that I do not want Google contacts to jump into the fry here and have me sending birthday email to Julia, who is a relative, from my work email.)
5. While using Microsoft Teams app, I would like the Teams app give me audio chimes on set intervals rather than just giving me a muted ‘ding’ 15 min before start of event. I tend to miss the single ‘ding’ if I am out and about. Is there any way wherein Teams app meeting/calendar event(s) automatically converts into a ‘Reminder’ and keep chiming every 5 min before the event till I manually kills it?
6. Looking for an app/setting but failed so far, wherein I can set up a ‘Reminder’ BUT with a recorded clip attached to it? I tend to use dictation for reminders. If I want to call John on 1st of January about subject of a planned field visit then I am okay with plain reminders but I also want to ‘listen’ my recording and quickly run through the subject/reason why I am calling him at first place before placing a call to him.
Any help and pointers in this regard is greatly appreciated. Though I am not even sure if I have articulated myself clearly; given my lack of experience with android.
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