Switching from Iphone 4s to 32GB Galaxy S4 - welcome all tips/apps/etc.

[Kris Inman]

Haven't been to Android since my days with the original Droid X & Froyo. A hitch with the iphone 4s (a perfectly fine, great-working phone . . .but not necessarily a lot of fun) is now ending as I await the arrival of my 32GB Samsung Galaxy S4 from Verizon. Would appreciate any tips or suggestions, apps. that sort of thing for someone who has been away for a while. What's awesome? What can I not live without? And, will the complete lack of stability that I experienced in the past be a thing of the past? Fire away, muchachos.

 

[garublador]

?I switched from the Droid X2 to the Galaxy S4 and I couldn't be happier with both the hardware and Android upgrades.

One of the first things I changed was running Nova rather than TouchWiz. TouchWiz is pretty limited when it comes to widget layout and grid size. There is a lot of wasted space in TouchWiz that you can recover in Nova, or some other launcher.

The next big improvement I recommend is DashClock to replace the lock screen widget. The stock widget doesn't update the time very fast, which is a deal breaker for a clock widget, and there's a ton of other useful information you can display. I tried both Minimalistic Text and UCCW and neither were as good as a lock screen widget replacement. They're both great custom widget makers, though.

The third, and probably biggest improvement you can make is installing and learning Tasker. It allows you to customize just about anything on your phone. If you haven't used it already there are a lot of good ideas and instructional articles on Pocketables.

As for stability so far I've found it's excellent on the S4 and way better than Froyo on the X2.

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[mikey95gt]

Thanks, this is good to know. I will be changing from the Droid X2 to the S4 32gig (if it ever ships, but this is for a different thread) also. I would be curious also of the difference and similarities to the Iphone as my boys are on the Iphone and I want to teach them andriod now. I will let them play with the Droid X2 once my S4 replace it.

 

[Kris Inman]

Thanks for the great tips -- I'm definitely seeing that running Nova Launcher is the way to go. Pretty easy to figure out & configure? What are some of its cool features that you particularly dig?

 

[garublador]

Thanks for the great tips -- I'm definitely seeing that running Nova Launcher is the way to go. Pretty easy to figure out & configure? What are some of its cool features that you particularly dig?

It's very easy to figure out. It's just a bunch of settings you can mess with. The reason I got it was to change the grid of the home screens (the number of icons that can fit on the screen). TouchWiz comes with a 4x4 grid with an entire row that only tells you which screen you're on. With Nova I changed it to a 5x4 grid so I can fit a whole extra row of icons on each screen. You can also change how the dock (the icons on the bottom of the screen that don't normally change) and app drawer function. For example, I preferred the way the Froyo app drawer worked where you scrolled vertically to see more apps rather than scrolling from one page to another horizontally and I'm able to do that in Nova. I'm really just scratching the surface of what's possible.

If you want to really see what you can do with launchers like Nova and APX you can check out:

Beautiful Android Themes, Wallpapers, and Homescreens

Many of the themes have instructions on how to set them up which is probably the best tutorial you can ask for.

Thanks, this is good to know. I will be changing from the Droid X2 to the S4 32gig (if it ever ships, but this is for a different thread) also. I would be curious also of the difference and similarities to the Iphone as my boys are on the Iphone and I want to teach them andriod now. I will let them play with the Droid X2 once my S4 replace it.

If you want to wow an iPhone user who's unfamiliar with Android I'd suggest really showing off widgets, Tasker and the themes from the link I gave above.

Widgets are the most obvious advantage. Being able to see your upcoming calendar events, to-do list, weather forecast, current song playing, Twitter feed or anything else like that without having to open an app (or even unlock your phone) is pretty cool.

There's a video on Pocketables of a guy controlling his apartment using custom voice commands with an Android phone, ~$300 in hardware, and Tasker. People are writing their own, custom Siri replacements and their own widgets and apps using this one app. It's even easy to set up a profile that remembers where your car is (assuming you have some Bluetooth device in your car) when you leave it and then a widget that navigates you back to your car if you forget where you parked. If you want to get crazy you can incorporate NFC tags into all of this as well. Using a setup similar to what the guy in the video does you could have a NFC tag in your living room that, when scanned, turns on your TV, turns on and dims your lights and turns on the WatchOn app on your phone. You could have a NFC tag that, when scanned opens your garage door, turns on your indoor lights and sets your thermostat to one temperature and then does the opposite (or even turn off all lights) when scanned again. I know there are similar home automation products for iOS, but they don't allow anywhere near the customization that you can get with Android. With iOS you're stuck with whatever app they have can do. With Android you can do whatever you want.

Showcasing the graphical options you have from Mycolorscreen is pretty impressive, too. You can make your phone look completely unique as opposed to just moving around icons.

 

[Somdk]

I switched to Android sometime back. The real problem i faced was with the transfer of Contacts and Memos. I might not have had to go through a lot of Google'ing if i had sometime or from the beginning had synced to an gmail ac as well. I always had it syncd to my desktop.

I am very average knowledged person when it comes to computers and all this. And in times of crisis or when i somehow make a mistake, the option i have to read and read on the internet to somehow find a way out.

The nice little program from Samsung, Smart Switch, did most of the work from itunes backup. It transfered

- Contacts (without the contact photo, i dont know why so happened.)
- music
- vids
- calender
- bookmarks

But this program didnt get the work done for the iphone memos.

Again i could not fogure out why.

I always had a picture for every contact. But the exported file from ms outlook didnt get along that part. And as hadnt ever synced with gmail, even when i turned the proper setting ON, no contacts would show up in gmail. A thus after looking for a long time i found this app

Group Contacts! by Qbix, Inc.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/group-contacts!/id488704737?mt=8&at=10l3Vy

Got the work done.
Its free
Works wonderfully. You look around and you will find it all. Export as an excel file and send it to the proper gmail id, and gmail does the rest.....i got all the contacts and all the associated pictures as well ! .

And the memo. God know what happened. Surely i know less to figure out the cause of not getting the proper results from a software.

After no way to import the memoa into S Notes, i now use Evernote, a cross platform memo/note keeping and backup cloud based app. That way all my iphone momes are in one place in this app on my Note 2.....

I hope my experience of a troubled beginning with Note 2 will save you some time and stress. I acted foolishly when started with iphone and also when with Android...

But i am liking Note 2 every bit...so user friendly and easy to use...and the proper screen size has relieved me of constant eye stress that used to have while using iphone....

Thanks
God Bless


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[Kris Inman]

Good stuff, Somdk, thanks!

 

[Somdk]

Edit

Group Contacts! by Qbix, Inc.
https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/group-contacts!/id488704737?mt=8&at=10l3Vy

Got the work done.
Its free
Works wonderfully. You look around and you will find it all. Export as an excel file and send it to the proper gmail id, and gmail does the rest.....i got all the contacts and all the associated pictures as well ! .

select all contacts or only contacts with pictures.

Go to Actions

Go Email Contact Info

Provide email id

Then go over to gmail inbox. You can directly mport it into contacts as gmail gives the option for that or download the file and then again upload it in contacts.

Thanks

 

[Somdk]

Hi there,

Just dropping a note to know, if the transfer of contacts and notes went all okay

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