T-Mobile S7 Edge - coming from Nexus - lots of questions ..

[BBIronMan]

Some years ago I moved from a BlackBerry to a Nexus - I pretty much had no issues of substance and when I had questions, everything was fairly straightforward. Now, moving from a Nexus to a carrier S7 Edge, there are a lot of (mostly little) things that are confusing me. Your experience insights appreciated. :-D

The choice of carrier vs unlocked was not mine, so I have to deal with that. It does come with a few specific questions though:

1) The T-Mobile app, the one you can't disable (along w/ the 'Mobile Hotspot' app) - you cannot remove permissions (Locations, Phone, and SMS) from it or force stop it. Specifically you can remove the permissions but they come back fairly immediately. What does it do? It seems to accumulate app data. When you open it, and uncheck 'Agree', it just lets you close it. I'd have presumed at that point it shouldn't do anything but it clearly still does.

2) To confirm, the other T-Mobile apps (TV, Visual Voicemail, etc.) still say 'Force Stop' is available even when disabled. On my Nexus devices it was clear there was nothing running but the implication here is they are in some form running even if disabled? I think I'm not understanding that correctly so just trying to confirm.

In terms of Samsung components, and getting used to TouchWiz, I have a few specific questions:

3a) Updating Samsung apps from the 'Galaxy Apps' seems not to be complete - a number of things seem to have upgrade options only within the 'About' section of those individual things. Is there a list of what can / needs updating outside of the regular 'Galaxy Apps' process? For example, the Samsung keyboard required upgrade within the settings.

3b) Likewise, some of the Samsung apps (Beaming Service for Samsung, Samsung Internet for Android) don't appear to update through Play Store automatically either. If I hadn't coincidently scrolled down in 'All' apps, I wouldn't have seen there were updates. Any known reason for that?

4) S Beam prompted it was ready but I don't see what that's used? Is there an app that needs to be installed to configure it? I turned off Android Beam but that seems to be different than S Beam. I'm a bit confused on this.

5) I can't quite figure out how to use S Voice or if I should be - given I use the 'OK Google' just fine. Just a general question as to how and why people use it or if I should go ahead and disable it. The Android Central article on it is nice but those are things I do through Google fine. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something?

Thanks much for reading this far, pardon the verbosity but figure details helped me answer questions back at CrackBerry forums.

Cheers.

 

[BBIronMan]

4) S Beam prompted it was ready but I don't see what that's used? Is there an app that needs to be installed to configure it? I turned off Android Beam but that seems to be different than S Beam. I'm a bit confused on this.

OK - searching for "S Beam" yielded a few results that suggest S Beam is just a transparent replacement from Android Beam from Google? Is that accurate? So it's just devices back-to-back and screen tap?

 

[torbach1]

Some years ago I moved from a BlackBerry to a Nexus - I pretty much had no issues of substance and when I had questions, everything was fairly straightforward. Now, moving from a Nexus to a carrier S7 Edge, there are a lot of (mostly little) things that are confusing me. Your experience insights appreciated. :-D

The choice of carrier vs unlocked was not mine, so I have to deal with that. It does come with a few specific questions though:

1) The T-Mobile app, the one you can't disable (along w/ the 'Mobile Hotspot' app) - you cannot remove permissions (Locations, Phone, and SMS) from it or force stop it. Specifically you can remove the permissions but they come back fairly immediately. What does it do? It seems to accumulate app data. When you open it, and uncheck 'Agree', it just lets you close it. I'd have presumed at that point it shouldn't do anything but it clearly still does.

2) To confirm, the other T-Mobile apps (TV, Visual Voicemail, etc.) still say 'Force Stop' is available even when disabled. On my Nexus devices it was clear there was nothing running but the implication here is they are in some form running even if disabled? I think I'm not understanding that correctly so just trying to confirm.

In terms of Samsung components, and getting used to TouchWiz, I have a few specific questions:

3a) Updating Samsung apps from the 'Galaxy Apps' seems not to be complete - a number of things seem to have upgrade options only within the 'About' section of those individual things. Is there a list of what can / needs updating outside of the regular 'Galaxy Apps' process? For example, the Samsung keyboard required upgrade within the settings.

3b) Likewise, some of the Samsung apps (Beaming Service for Samsung, Samsung Internet for Android) don't appear to update through Play Store automatically either. If I hadn't coincidently scrolled down in 'All' apps, I wouldn't have seen there were updates. Any known reason for that?

4) S Beam prompted it was ready but I don't see what that's used? Is there an app that needs to be installed to configure it? I turned off Android Beam but that seems to be different than S Beam. I'm a bit confused on this.

5) I can't quite figure out how to use S Voice or if I should be - given I use the 'OK Google' just fine. Just a general question as to how and why people use it or if I should go ahead and disable it. The Android Central article on it is nice but those are things I do through Google fine. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something?

Thanks much for reading this far, pardon the verbosity but figure details helped me answer questions back at CrackBerry forums.

Cheers.

For 1), 2), 5), and 5)... First advice I'd give you is to purchase Package Disabler Pro for Samsung. From there you can more easily disable any app and it will remain disabled. This includes the built in T-Mobile apps. I would disable all of those apps including S-Voice, S-Beam, etc.

 

[BBIronMan]

For 1), 2), 5), and 5)... First advice I'd give you is to purchase Package Disabler Pro for Samsung. From there you can more easily disable any app and it will remain disabled. This includes the built in T-Mobile apps. I would disable all of those apps including S-Voice, S-Beam, etc.

Interesting - oddly none of the 'top tips' pages link that application so this is a huge help. Thank you! Sincerely ..

Now if Samsung would only respond on the bloody updates question (I queried them as well), that pretty much settles it.

 

[torbach1]

Interesting - oddly none of the 'top tips' pages link that application so this is a huge help. Thank you! Sincerely ..

Now if Samsung would only respond on the bloody updates question (I queried them as well), that pretty much settles it.

With the Samsung Apps, what I so is in Galaxy Apps, I set it up to auto update. It doesn't always update the day the update is available, but it does update within a day or two. It's in Settings. See screenshot.

 

[BBIronMan]

There are actually some that don't appear to - they only seem to update from within the 'About' or 'Version' sub-menus.

The Play Store Samsung apps not updating automatically seems to have been an anomaly as others updated (per your note) some hours later.

It's just the Galaxy App managed ones that don't all appear in their store to update and I have to stumble over individually.

 

[crystinonfire]

Some years ago I moved from a BlackBerry to a Nexus - I pretty much had no issues of substance and when I had questions, everything was fairly straightforward. Now, moving from a Nexus to a carrier S7 Edge, there are a lot of (mostly little) things that are confusing me. Your experience insights appreciated. :-D

The choice of carrier vs unlocked was not mine, so I have to deal with that. It does come with a few specific questions though:

1) The T-Mobile app, the one you can't disable (along w/ the 'Mobile Hotspot' app) - you cannot remove permissions (Locations, Phone, and SMS) from it or force stop it. Specifically you can remove the permissions but they come back fairly immediately. What does it do? It seems to accumulate app data. When you open it, and uncheck 'Agree', it just lets you close it. I'd have presumed at that point it shouldn't do anything but it clearly still does.

for 1) you can also turn off background data for that app and it should help. Go to settings - data - scroll to the bottom, click on each app and there should be a toggle to turn off the background data for that app