Palm webOS Homebrewer's Guide to Android

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solarus

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Big thanks for this milominderbinder. Having just moved from a heavily modded Pre to a Nexus S this detailed information is much appreciated. Thanks.
 

jaramillo621#AC

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so because of verizons b1g1 my dad purchased a droid 2 for my sister and got a droid 2 for himself, after a month of the phone he has never been able to use it complains and asks for help on how to do things all the time constantly theres a new issue, i got tired of helping him, so to free myself from him, i gave him my pre plus and took his droid 2 (until new hp devices come out, and ill explain why)
after a week of showing him how to use it, i never heard a question from him again, the only thing i hear from him is how much he likes it. now with my story, ive had this droid 2 for a good time now and i am pretty darn good at this whole tech stuff we like to talk about, but still ive been so frustrated with the damn thing, not that i dont understand how to use it, but that using it is like having to wrestle with the phone, the fact that in order to use it and make it useable on a daily bases i have to download third party software, such as launcher pro and handcent, to do the simplest things that i was doing on my pre, in order for me to see my battery percentage in one view instead of one swipe from the top in any app, i have to download a separate application or widget, and apparently because of motorola, from what im told, i dont even get to see an actual percentage, what i get is percentages in increments of ten. if i want to turn on or off my wifi, again instead of a swipe down from anywhere in the phone i have about 2 options, none of witch simplify my life, i can either go to the home screen-hit the menu button-settings-wireless and networks-check enable wifi-wifi settings- pick a connection. why???? it makes no sense to me if i can do it in one click on my computer from any window i should be able to do it in one touch on my phone from any app, iphones the same as the android, but thats another topic....

so i know what your thinking "get a widget" great, now i got more crap filling up my screen i cant see my wallpaper unless i have an empty page, not only that but the widgets never match it all looks like the ui was stitched together and the ones that i get are either bulky or small or again dont look good at all, the same goes with bluetooth and airplane mode, same steps, or more widgets or a power control widget, and if i wanted to make it all match and look nice, it narrows down my selections and then i have to pay to take out adds and get "full version features" of the widget! i dont get how this is great, essentially i get a frankinstien home screen, or i have to pay to do simple tasks that should have been simply designed into the ui in the first place, i dont get why i have to go to a third party developer to get widgets for things that should have been put into my phone from the start, and even the widgets that come from the manufactures shouldn't be necessary.

well enough of that, on to the other things, notifications. great they dont pop up on my screen like iphone, but when i get that text message and im in the middle of doing something on a different app, i still have to pull down the notification drawer let it envelop my screen for one text message...

ok who was it?

dakota wants to see a movie. cool ill get everything ready, i mean i have a smart phone, so lets see fandago for the movie, places for a bite to eat, google maps for directions, and then back to handcent to reply to dakota, cool going back and forth simple right?

PHONE GOD: ya, hold the home button you can see your 6 recent apps.

ME:6?

PHONE GOD: ya, just 6... but dont worry everything else you opened is chillin in the background, so you can get back to it, if the app permits.

ME:so if its not in my 6 recent i have to go find that app?

PHONE GOD:yup.

ME:eek:h, ok great,i guess.... if thats the only way, but wait you said they all stay open?

PHONE GOD:yup they all stay open.

ME:so everything that i opened earlier? like my messages, emails, calendar, the app market, that notepad, my music player, the web browser with the three windows open, the dialer from that one phone call at the start of the morning, my contacts, youtube, and the rest of the stuff that i did earlier today?

PHONE GOD:yup its all there.

ME:and all those widgets that i had to have so i can get my simplest tasks done?

PHONE GOD:yup those are going too.

ME:so its eating up my cpu memory and battery?

PHONE GOD:yes sir sure is.

ME:why?

PHONE GOD:i dont know..... but thats ok theres a solution!

ME:there is?

PHONE GOD:yup, you just go download a task manager.

ME:wait.... download a task manager? a separate app... to end my tasks?

PHONE GOD:yup.

ME:well then, thats dandy, all these apps all these widgets taking up all my storage memory all this stuff that i had to download to get the simplest stuff done?!?!?!?

why??? it doesnt make sense, on my pre if i want to see battery percentage, bluetooth controls, wifi controls, airplane mode, i swype down from the top any where i am, if i open more then six apps its ok still because i could open up to 45 (including the four 3d games that i had on it,) before it starts to loose memory, it will let me know when theres not enough memory so i can close one of my 45 apps (and thats just limits, not even an average use) task manager built in, throw a card away boom closed, didnt save? it does it for you.

notifications dont interrupt you, they chill at the bottom showing the app icon, letting you work on what ever your doing even when you bring it up to see and act on the notifications you can still have full access to what ever app you had open simultaneously, and even if you leave that app, you can see everything that you have open in card view, its just there, easy to see everything. did i have to download a widget or separate app to help me do simple tasks in simple ways? no, its built in to the ui, and with the gesture area it eliminates the need for a cluster of buttons that are never the same on all the different android devices,every app has its own menu options at the top as well, yes that same top that always shows the time that lets you swype down for ease of access to the earlier mentioned wifi, bluetooth, airplane mode, and so on. my pre doesn't lag on me, like the droid 2 does, even with its better processor. why does it lag now? it didnt do that on day 1, oh ya all the stuff i had to put on it to make it function easily. still it boggles me why i have to keep adding stuff to my phone, or suffer a difficult phone. its so stupid i mean it reminds me of the t-mobile comercial putting the my touch 4g against the iphone 4, where the iphone has at&t on its back slowing it down (YouTube - T-Mobile myTouch 4G "Piggyback") in this case, instead of a network its the os its self, you get your new android, but hey we need to add to it to make it work right, so lets put THIS on it and THIS on it and THAT and one of THOSE and we cant forget THIS THING i dont even know what it does but it has five stars!, lol when your done customizing it, and getting it to work for you and not against you, theres so much stuff on it, that it has to carry that it doesnt even make it worth the time or effort.

oh and damn crashes, my pre never crashed, not once not through anything i put it through, but this droid 2 just kicks the bucket every now and then and i dont even do anything!!!! i just have to look at it the wrong way and it says "bye bye", and did i mention the lag it starts going through?

im sorry i thought that the point of a smart phone was to make it a little easier to do things, but android showed me i was wrong.

oh and why is everything white on black? it kinda makes me scared to change a setting, its all colorless and dark its uninviting and just kinda ugly, even in the apps, like text messages and contacts, and the calendar.... if you have a busy agenda.... dont use the built in calendar app... its not worth it....

and theres a whole lot more that i just cant stand, like the virtual keyboard and such, but im not gonna go on any more....

long story short, i wish i could take my pre back from my father, but giving my dad the droid would be like giving him a wild tiger to tame, and im not a heartless person.

so my time with the droid 2 so far has been nothing but a better reason to wait for february 9th.
 

disney.jessica

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To each his or her own. :) I think you're lucky, i'm very fed up with WebOS and I would give up my Palm Pixi in an instant for an Android phone. I understand some differences may be considered bad, but I love technical stuff and customization.

And to the original thread creator, thank you! This really helped me understand Android more and it's advantages over WebOS.
 

jjeffcoat

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I'm trying to figure out how to a screen capture on my EVO shift - in webOS it orange+Sym+P but haven't been able figure out how to do it yet on Android.

Thanks!
 

milominderbinde

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Does anyone know if Android can synchronize contacts from multiple sources (Google, Yahoo, Facebook) like webOS does? Also, same question applied to calendars?
Yes and Yes.

Is there any equivilant to the "add scrollbar to browser" patch?
They are built in.
Miss the bluetooth only on, cause when your on the subway why do I need the cell to be on.
You can turn off the cell and just have bluetooth on. Home > Menu > Settings Wireless & networks. Set Airplane mode=ON and Bluetooth=ON. Your phone should have come with these widgets but also check out:
? Curvefish: ? WiFi On-Off ? Bluetooth On-Off ? GPS On-Off .
I'm trying to figure out how to a screen capture on my EVO shift.
I like:
? ShootMe - Simple Screenshots. Does not require root on EVO and many other phones.

See the Getting Started for all of these answer and a lot more. The webOS guide is just an into. The Getting Started has many more details.
 

Analog

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Well, after seeing HP's presentation the other day, I think I'm here for good. I don't regret leaving webOS, but my God I miss the user interface. Android's way of handling task switching and multitasking is a horrible, horrible godforsaken mess. After ten years of using Windows and Linux desktop computers, and one year of using webOS, I have come to expect to be able to leave a task to do something else on the machine and then come back later to find it exactly in the state that it would have been in if I hadn't started a new task. Is this really too much to ask? To Android's designers, apparently it is.

I also sorely miss the Universal Search Command Line patch. The built-in search app on my Shift 4G seems to have been designed by people to whom the thought has never occurred that some folks might have a preference other than Google for default web searches. I've tried a few alternatives, but the closest thing I could find was the Opensearch app, which has nonexistent documentation and which can't truly replace the built-in app (support for a landscape hardware keyboard is not great either). Anybody know of a search app that can replace the functionality of webOS's Universal Search with the USCL patch?
 

giograves

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My goodness.

Glad there is a Android for Palm users support group here. lol.

**yet another disenchanted pre user from precentral**
 

giograves

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I have come to expect to be able to leave a task to do something else on the machine and then come back later to find it exactly in the state that it would have been in if I hadn't started a new task. Is this really too much to ask?

So wait, lets say I'm drafting an email. I need to go to the web for some fact checking back and forth. I get a call in the middle of all this......

...Um....i dont totally know where I'm going with all this but, but on webOS i dont even worry about it. The only thing that doesn't maintain state is web sites. Could you draw an example?
 

Analog

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Working with, say, K9 mail and composing a message. Go to another program or the home screen for a minute to check on something, and then come back. Am I still in the compose screen with my message open and in the state it was in when I left? Well...maybe. Or maybe not. Or when following a link in the web browser that leads to streaming audio, thus causing the browser's streaming plugin to start playing the stream. Great, I'll let it play in the background while I do something else...oh. I guess I won't. And when I go back to the browser I may or may not have to click the link all over again to restart the stream (or, more likely, try to find a way to listen to it that will let it keep playing with the screen off).

It's just constant with this kind of crap. Never was a problem in webOS. Never was a problem with anything, on any device I've used, that presumed to call itself an operating system.

Working day-to-day with Android's implementation of task-switching and "multitasking" gives me the unshakeable feeling that my device is working really, really hard to create the illusion that it can do everything at once without ever having to shut anything off--and not carrying off the illusion very well. It's like watching a bad magic show where the tricks don't always work AND you can see how they're done.

I like a lot of things about Android, but with this sort of thing it needs a major course correction.
 

giograves

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Back to stock???

Ok so with webOS, you run webOS doctor freely available from HPalm to get back to factory, but what about an android phone? And if it matters, specifically an Evo...
 

verwon

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Ok so with webOS, you run webOS doctor freely available from HPalm to get back to factory, but what about an android phone? And if it matters, specifically an Evo...

There's a setting in the Evo to restore the phone, plus quite a few other methods, such as if you root the phone and etc.

Sent from my eVo
 

dbeedle

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Feb 11, 2011
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Alas Palm...

Hi all. Long time Palm use joining the support group!

Today I miss the silence switch. How hard can it be to make the phone (an Epic) truly silent? Every PalmOS and WebOS smartphone has had the switch including the Treo 300. After looking over several apps today I can't find one that turns off all sounds like you and I (WebOS/Palm users) might expect.
Each one leaves one or more audible alerts active, be it ring, alarm, notification or annoying clicks when touched!

Whew...thanks for putting up with my rant.

Hopefully I just haven't found the magic ap that lets me hit one button and all is silent once again. Hopefully.
 

giograves

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There is a widget for that!

Actually there is nearly a dozen ring toggle widgets that I've found.



EDIT: Um actually, at least on the EVO, holding down the power button will bring up a menu where you can choose your sound mode.


- Sent from my HTC eVo with Tapatalk
 
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