Which customizations are your implementing on your Fascinate?

[jaekim717]

Most of us hate Bing. We don't need another thread about that subject. But I would like to hear about some of the first things you plan on doing with your Fascinate to customize it to your liking. Here are my thoughts, and since we have some time to kill until tomorrow, please share yours too.

I bought this phone for 3 reasons: screen, speed, and size. If it weren?t for those 3 things, this phone would have some major issues (IMHO) ? all of which I plan on solving immediately. Luckily there are ways around each of these things:

1) The first thing I noticed is the iPhone like UI ? this must go.

Solution: Download and install LauncherPro. This launcher is blazing fast, full of useful customizations, and allows me to hide apps in the app drawer that I don?t want to see and/or use. Before I do this, I will delete ALL widgets from the TW home screens to ensure none of them are running in the background. This will save battery, memory, CPU usage. If you want extra widgets or just to show your support to the developer, upgrade to Launcher Pro Plus.


2) Lack of Google Maps with Turn-by-Turn directions.

Solution: Download and install Google Maps an Navigation from the Market. When prompted by various programs (e.g., clicking on an address hyperlink in browser search results) the OS will prompt me to choose which program to launch to complete the navigation task, I will choose Google Maps & check the option to launch this by default.

3) It was bad enough that the TouchWiz UI was reminiscent of the iPhone, but Verizon also integrated Microsoft search as the default search engine. Press and hold the search button, and the OS will launch Bing. This has been discussed to death in this forum, and at this point possible solutions include

1) Installing the Google Search apk via SD card.
2) Rooting the phone and replacing the Bing apk with Google Search.
3) And hopefully it will not come to this ? but a custom ROM.

To further customize the Fascinate to my liking, I will download and installed the following apps from the Market:

1) Touchdown ? if you are an Exchange email user, this is an absolute must.
2) Dolphin HD ? a browser with tabbed browsing capabilities & much more functionality beyond the stock browser.
3) Handcent SMS ? a fully customizable SMS app.
4) AppBrain ? A Market replacement program. Filter out market junkware, sync apps to an online account for quick recovery after a hard reset and/or phone replacement, browse the market from a desktop, and more.
5) Battery Droid ? a battery widget that show percentage remaining.

Hey Cory,

not sure how i missed this thread but this is exactly what i've been looking for. Thanks so much for posting this and a ton of other helpful posts!

 

[jaekim717]

If you are new to Android, the next thing you will want to download & install is AppBrain. I can't begin to tell you how awesome it is. It filters out all the crapware from the search results, has a web interface, & allows you to sync your installed apps with your online account - so can quickly reinstall after a hard reset/phone swap.

Also, check out AC's Help & How To's.

hey cory,

when you see synch your installed apps, do you mean it makes a physical backup of your apps? so you can grab them and reinstall them later? or it just makes of list of the apps you had so you can find them later (via market place or appbrain)?

thanks

jae

 

[wtherrell]

Pretty much all the above Plus

CheckMark To Do List Pro
Jorte
gtasks
NoLed
Widget Locker
K-9 Mail
GPS Test
Google SkyMap
WiFi Manager
Astro File Manager
Weatherbug Elite
Home Switcher
Office Suite Pro

 

[SeatownGST]

I'm coming from a blackberry storm 1, after a full two year term, and LOTS of updating and custom file swapping. I realize this phone is brand new, yet my expectations are pretty high from the dev/tweaker community. If it can be done for the Storm 1, it should be even better for the newest. But I'll reserve a lot of complaints until this phone is on 2.2 and there's an even playing field across these phones for the devs to have some fun with.

Here's what I need this phone to do:

1) bluetooth commands. when the phone is locked off, bluetooth commands from the earpiece should NOT turn the screen back on. I use the phone in my pocket while driving and voice dial. this is currently not doable on this phone since you can toggle the call OFF accidentally. further, on the storm 1, ending a call could be done with the earpiece button. on these phones, it just toggles off the bluetooth transmissions, and now your call is on the phone earpiece or speakerphone. DOH. bluetooth commands need work.

2) easier sound manipulation. there was a button on the main screen of the storm 1 to toggle silent/vibrate/normal/loud. 2 clicks to engage. simple. I suppose I'll have to get something from the marketplace though that will be trialware or something. yeeesh. toggling the rocker on the left just isn't going to cut it.

3) something like shrink-a-OS, the killer app for the storm folks. you can purge unnecessary languages, apps, files, all sorts of stuff with ease. I'm new to the whole "you need root" concept, but on the Storm 1... you could NOT brick the phone. it was not possible. you could always push a new base install to the phone. it sounds like these phones are still fragile as folks figure out what's a required part of the OS and what's not.

4) multi-messenger client. I'm sure there's one out there. I already miss blackberry messenger though. something on the storm 1 couldn't possibly be better than android right?

5) email. holy crap I had to use a gmail account, to get to the marketplace, to then download an app that could get POP/IMAP mail. this phone ONLY comes with activesync and gmail support? hahaha. so how is a general mailbox going to work? is there an app for that as well? back on the storm 1, you could organize each mail icon to open those mails separately, or use the general collector icon that holds ALL incoming email. simple.

That's a quick list as I learn, I have appbrain and that's neat for installing news reader widgets and stuff, but some basic functionality has a long way to go.

But hey, it's all good, we aren't even on 2.2 yet and some bugs just got fixed today. So far so good I guess!

 

[Cory Streater]

hey cory,

when you see synch your installed apps, do you mean it makes a physical backup of your apps? so you can grab them and reinstall them later? or it just makes of list of the apps you had so you can find them later (via market place or appbrain)?

thanks

jae

It doesn't make a physical backup of your apps. AppBrain scans all apps installed on your phone. It creates a list of those apps and uploads them to the AppBrain server. If you hard reset your phone, you download an install AppBrain from the Market, sign in, then open up Appbrain & click Manage & Sync. From there you can pull the list to your phone and you manually install each one, or you can use their web installer app to push them down all at once.

If you replace your device with a new one, you can login to their website, and then pick and choose which ones you want to install on the new device. It makes it really easy. I love AppBrain so much, maybe that will be my next video demo It's kind of hard to describe its abilities in full detail.

 

[packerbacker]

Watching the demo now, Cory. I had Launcher Pro on a couple of my Droids, but I'm not sure if I want it on my Fascinate. I DO like the hidden icons feature (I didn't know it had that!) though, a lot. So maybe it's worth it for that. Does Launcher Pro have the option to hide the Notification Bar, or was that another Launcher I used? (I used ADW and one other... I think)

 

[Cory Streater]

LP can hide the bar

 

[KH29]

I just downloaded app brain and I noticed that it synced all the apps that came pre-loaded on the phone (bloatware) as well as the apps I have downloaded up to now. I noticed the red "x" next to the apps and clicked on it for the Need For Speed app and it asked me if I wanted to uninstall that app. So can app brain remove the bloatware or does that mean uninstall for the app brain server?

 

[packerbacker]

YES. Very happy about this. Downloading Launcher Pro... and probably buying the Launcher Pro icons app also. Once you pay for the initial app do you have to buy each one or are they all free?

 

[packerbacker]

I just downloaded app brain and I noticed that it synced all the apps that came pre-loaded on the phone (bloatware) as well as the apps I have downloaded up to now. I noticed the red "x" next to the apps and clicked on it for the Need For Speed app and it asked me if I wanted to uninstall that app. So can app brain remove the bloatware?

On my D2 I actually could delete NFS (I assume on my Fascinate I can too). Couldn't delete any of the other bloatware though.

 

[KH29]

Nevermind, it won't uninstall the bloatware.

 

[emptycube]

Late to the thread and brand new to smartphones. Installed LP and various free apps; WeatherChannel, System Info Widget, Chess, LiveHoldEm, and NFL Mobile. Will prob add/swap some but there are so many choices it's a bit overwhelming. Baby steps.

 

[packerbacker]

Caved and got LauncherPro last night. I didn't think I'd need it on the Fascinate (I had it on my Droids). I was wrong. I also have Beautiful Widgets. Considering paying the LP Dev the $3 to get the Favorites and Bookmark Widgets also.

 

[prakash99]

Even though I did not mind TW, I like LPPro better. So I got LPProPlus. Besides that I have:
Google Maps & Nav
Dropbox
Appbrain
Jorte
Astro File Manager
Dophin HD
Rock Player
and
aniPet Aquarium Live Wallpaper

 

[packerbacker]

Late to the thread and brand new to smartphones. Installed LP and various free apps; WeatherChannel, System Info Widget, Chess, LiveHoldEm, and NFL Mobile. Will prob add/swap some but there are so many choices it's a bit overwhelming. Baby steps.

Aww, it definitely can be! I know I was overwhelmed. Before I found this forum, which I only found recently, I'd find YouTubes or Facebook Groups where people would list their top 5-top 10 favorite apps, and use that to get ideas. Also, searching appbrain.com is helpful because you can view the most popular downloads overall or by category!

 

[Briarrose5642]

Hello,
Can you demonstrate how to install a ringtone frm an email message? The settings do not give me an option. I also tried to saving as a sound but no options at the message screen.

 

[packerbacker]

Not sure how it works on the Fascinate, since I haven't tried it yet, but on my Droid and Droid 2 I just downloaded the song and it went into my music player. I long pressed it and there was an option to "set as ringtone". You can also download an app like Ringdroid so you can edit what part of the song you want as the ringtone. That's how it worked on my Motorolas so I'm assuming it'll work that way on the Fascinate too.

 

[hanathan]

Here are the paid apps that I'm running:
-Root Explorer
-LauncherPro Plus
-Beautiful Widgets
-Weatherbug Elite
-System Info

I use Nandroid to backup my system with the help of
-Rom Manager/Clockwork Mod

Other apps I like include:
-Dolphin HD (an internet browser)
-Handcent SMS (Mac-looking <gasp> IM client)
-Jorte (ugly but exceptionally well-designed calendar w/widgets)
-Key Ring (less to carry in wallet = WIN)
-ShootMe (screenshot app that doesn't require root)
-Vlingo (voice commands)
-US Economy (chart/graph nerdiness)

Currently trying the free version of a battery app called Juice Defender, but haven't decided what I think about it yet.

 

[NOsquid]

I use a lot of the same stuff everyone else uses.

One I haven't seen mentioned that I really like is Android Agenda. It's not a typical calendar widget that shows the whole month with all the blank days, but it does sync with your Google Calendar and shows your upcoming events without all the blanks in between. More like a memo pad. I find it more efficient. It's got toolbars/shortcuts to go to your calendar if you need to. And you can customize the size any way you like.

 

[superstar1213]

I actually have a question. I've downloaded LauncherPro, which I love.. but found that you can't use the Samsung widgets? If so that might keep me to TouchWiz.. because I absolutely love their Buddies Now Widget. Maybe someone can tell me if theres anything like it that will work with LP.