getting an htc one in october, have a couple questions.....

[rayndog3]

Hi all, I'm new here. I've pretty much been with apple since I started with smartphones. My contract is up in october, I currently have a 4S, and I'm just not that impressed with the 5S, (and I've been rockin the beta versions of IOS 7 now for a couple months, so thats old now too), so I'm gonna be switching to an android for the first time. So while I wait the last month out, I'm researching. So here are a couple questions.

What are some MUST HAVE apps that really work well with the phone?

I see you guys get icon packs and widgets and all that, do you have to be rooted to make these sort of changes? I'm used to jailbreaking the iphone to get this sort of stuff, wasn't sure if android worked the same way.

thanks, and any advice is greatly appreciated!!

 

[garublador]

I see you guys get icon packs and widgets and all that, do you have to be rooted to make these sort of changes? I'm used to jailbreaking the iphone to get this sort of stuff, wasn't sure if android worked the same way.

No rooting required. You can change the launcher (how your home screen and app drawer look and act), your lock screen, widgets, icons and fonts all without doing anything except downloading them from the Play store. Here are some of the kinds of things you can do on this (and most any Android) phone without rooting:

http://mycolorscreen.com/

 

[dotB]

Hi all, I'm new here. I've pretty much been with apple since I started with smartphones. My contract is up in october, I currently have a 4S, and I'm just not that impressed with the 5S, (and I've been rockin the beta versions of IOS 7 now for a couple months, so thats old now too), so I'm gonna be switching to an android for the first time. So while I wait the last month out, I'm researching. So here are a couple questions.

What are some MUST HAVE apps that really work well with the phone?

I see you guys get icon packs and widgets and all that, do you have to be rooted to make these sort of changes? I'm used to jailbreaking the iphone to get this sort of stuff, wasn't sure if android worked the same way.

thanks, and any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Scour the forums for must have Android apps, there are many many threads. For the One specific, it seems most like to replace the MMS/SMS app and Textra is getting a lot of love.

For custom icons you do not need root and you can do it for free in most cases. You can get a 3rd party launcher like Apex or Nova (I use Nova). This will overlay Sense 5 though, so if you like Sense 5 you can do some workarounds to get those features on. Then you can customize the icons with compatible icon packs among many other features.

Rooting will let you get to the root of the OS and let you do some things that you may otherwise not be allowed to do by default like full system backups, I would put off doing that and get used to the phone out of the box stock before getting into rooting. Rooting will also let you load variants of Android to replace the stock version.

The forums here are very good and the community is solid, but there is some misinformation floating around, so always do your research. I use HTC One - xda-developers when I get into modding my devices.

 

[rayndog3]

Excellent, thanks for the help guys!!!!

 

[freddyttt]

My advice.... walk with it before you start running-. in other words.... take it slow. learn it, love it, embrace it.....

 

[rayndog3]

My advice.... walk with it before you start running-. in other words.... take it slow. learn it, love it, embrace it.....

Yes I plan to!! Gonna take me a bit to get used to it before I would even consider doing a bunch of modding!

 

[walterkurtz]

+1 for textra

nova launcher

must have: swift key for typing

pixlr express for improving your pics

i like k-9 for email. it closely resembles the way my blackberrys handled mail (i.e. 'delete on handheld only')

and generally speaking, learn to love google apps. since you're really choosing google not android.

enjoy!

oh, and if you have apple computers: android file transfer and airdroid will help ease the pain.

 

[ajua]

Hi all, I'm new here. I've pretty much been with apple since I started with smartphones. My contract is up in october, I currently have a 4S, and I'm just not that impressed with the 5S, (and I've been rockin the beta versions of IOS 7 now for a couple months, so thats old now too), so I'm gonna be switching to an android for the first time. So while I wait the last month out, I'm researching. So here are a couple questions.

What are some MUST HAVE apps that really work well with the phone?

I see you guys get icon packs and widgets and all that, do you have to be rooted to make these sort of changes? I'm used to jailbreaking the iphone to get this sort of stuff, wasn't sure if android worked the same way.

thanks, and any advice is greatly appreciated!!

I just posted some answers (and mentioned some apps as well) to questions like yours asked by other user. If you want, you can read them in this other thread.

 

[hodan]

You'll like this as well. You can sideload the .apk for the stock Android camera gallery that includes photospheres! Check xda for that. So you'll have two galleries on your phone, but it works like a charm.

I'm a huge fan of textra, has emoji that iphone peeps can see. The Yahoo! weather widget is spectacular. If you're a twitter person then you'll want to seek out a 3rd party client - Falcon Pro, Carbon are popular.

One more tip - the Facebook app will murder your battery, so a lot of people just use the mobile website.

Welcome to the Jungle!

 

[josuerios777]

Here are some useful apps I'd recommend:

Chrome for fast web browsing
Todoist for task listing and checking
Google Keep for notes in general
Lookout for security/locate your phone
Adobe Reader for all your PDFs
Clean Master to keep ram and storage free from junk files, unnecessary running apps, etc.

Btw, these all work beautifully on Android

Extra: There are iPhone look alike apps that you might like to play around with such as Espier Launcher and Hi Music. They're not perfectly smooth but being an ex iPhone user you might like some of it.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[rayndog3]

You'll like this as well. You can sideload the .apk for the stock Android camera gallery that includes photospheres! Check xda for that. So you'll have two galleries on your phone, but it works like a charm.

I'm a huge fan of textra, has emoji that iphone peeps can see. The Yahoo! weather widget is spectacular. If you're a twitter person then you'll want to seek out a 3rd party client - Falcon Pro, Carbon are popular.

One more tip - the Facebook app will murder your battery, so a lot of people just use the mobile website.

Welcome to the Jungle!

Thanks for the headsup on the FB app. I do use FB alot too, so I guess I'll stick to the mobile site. wonder why its a battery hog?

thanks to all you guys for chiming in with some apps!! Can't wait to pick up the phone (think I'm gonna get the blue one from best buy, looks sick!!!), sucks that at$t makes you wait the full two years to upgrade!!

why do you guys not use the stock messaging app, does it suck that bad?

 

[Gazella]

What are some MUST HAVE apps that really work well with the phone?

Dropbox (I forgot if it comes preinstalled), HD Widgets, Google Chrome or Opera Mini, AVG Antivirus or Avast, Evernote, Go SMS or Textra.

I see you guys get icon packs and widgets and all that, do you have to be rooted to make these sort of changes? I'm used to jailbreaking the iphone to get this sort of stuff, wasn't sure if android worked the same way.

If you want to customize and change the look and feel of your phone you're going to need to install an Android launcher, and home launchers don't need rooting. There are a variety in the Google Play Store, the most popular are Nova Launcher, Apex Launcher, Go Launcher EX, and ADW.Launcher. I personally use Nova Launcher Prime and I really recommend it.

 

[dotB]

I would also say to check out the HTC blog, they post tips and tricks on the most basic of features on our phone you may not know about.

 

[walterkurtz]

Thanks for the headsup on the FB app. I do use FB alot too, so I guess I'll stick to the mobile site. wonder why its a battery hog?

thanks to all you guys for chiming in with some apps!! Can't wait to pick up the phone (think I'm gonna get the blue one from best buy, looks sick!!!), sucks that at$t makes you wait the full two years to upgrade!!

why do you guys not use the stock messaging app, does it suck that bad?

it definitely doesn't suck. in fact, there was a time when nova and tesla unread weren't showing me my unread message count. so i switched back to stock and remembered being quite fond of it. i prefer the way stock handles security. as i recall you can select to 'hide' or secure an entire message. with textra, i think you can only hide a specific line of text. i'm not as young or as much of a player as i once was, but this is a nice feature. anyway, i switched for emoji. i have an ex that lives in another city. like most people i know, she is on an iphone. and she made me get emoji. she made me!

 

[rayndog3]

K, Thanks guys!!

 

[hodan]

Stock messaging app is not bad at all. Textra is more customizable plus has Emoji that iPhone people can see.

I do use Lookout - but the subscription comes with T-Mo's insurance on Jump! IMO you don't need anti-virus, that's a myth, unless you're really into hacking and slashing then maybe you do.

The one last app that I just started using is Notification Toggle. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.j4velin.notificationToggle

Awesome customizable toggles you can put in your notification bar, and super easy to set up. On one row I've got wi-fi, bt, sound, brightness, rotate, airplane mode, and flashlight. It had made me SOOOO happy.

And you are going to LOVE Google Now.

 

[rayndog3]

Got my htc one today, happy as a pig in %$&t!

 

[cgardnervt]

I use Nova launcher prime and Textra for my main SMS app. I think one of the users up above said it best...Take it slow and really learn the features. Expect some transition issues during the first few weeks. Don't damn it for being so different or "hard". I mean lets be honest! Its what sets it self apart from the rest of the world. Not that its hard to use. You just have MORE options than most platforms.

 

[rayndog3]

I use Nova launcher prime and Textra for my main SMS app. I think one of the users up above said it best...Take it slow and really learn the features. Expect some transition issues during the first few weeks. Don't damn it for being so different or "hard". I mean lets be honest! Its what sets it self apart from the rest of the world. Not that its hard to use. You just have MORE options than most platforms.

So far I've downloaded nova, widget locker, and textra! Love this thing!

 

[anon(7894520)]

So far I've downloaded nova, widget locker, and textra! Love this thing!

that's good. you have taken your first step into a larger world.