After my first week with the phone coming from iPhone

[dukeblue91]

Hi All,

Last week friday I switched to the HOX after being with the iPhone since the very first one.
I thought I would take a few moments and reflect on my thoughts and share them here for anyone interested.

Lets start with the good stuff.

The phone design and screen are just incredible.
The screen looks just amazing and like the icons are floating on top of it.
It totally blows the Retina display out of the water especially with the 4.7" sized screen vs 3.5" on my iPhone.

Being able to customize everything and having a actual file structure just rocks.
The user interface even though being way more complicated when delving a little deeper is way better then what I heard and experienced when looking at Android a couple of years ago at various stores.
However since I always jailbroke my iPhones I'm very used to going deeper then just skin deep.

The speed and animations are very responsive and at the same level as iOS and this wasn't always the case in the past but there are no stutters or lag at all with ICS.

Some little design quirks that I have irritating this far are the buttons on the HOX specifically the power and volume buttons are very touchy and I always seem to activate the volume levels when grabbing the phone and the top one gets pushed when just looking at it funny or touch it lightly.
Having a back button is awesome and way undersold on the Android phones.

The battery live is okay not great but not as bad as I thought it would be and needs a little more consideration on how you use the phone and features vs the iPhone 4.
But it does last me through the day mostly when I'm not playing with it all the time which is hard on a new phone.

Some of the things that irritate the crap out of me are not the fault of the design but mostly with At&t and HTC's.

Starting with OTA updates, I've been trying to update to ICS 4.0.4 since I got the phone and nothing.
For an update that has been out for 3 weeks that is inexcusable to say it in a nice way.
Syncing and backup / restore is an utter joke and could and should be easy as pie nowadays but isn't.
For HTC not having a sync client for Mac is unbelievable.

So having grown tired of waiting on the OTA update I decided to do it manually and booted into my windows 7 partition, installed the sync manager and backed everything up and started the update.

I understood that it would wipe the phone and stuff but hey I synced and backed it up before so no big deal I'll just do a restore when done.
Well no it did not work, I had to set up my phone again like I did when I first got it.
Yes the Google stuff and apps no problem but everything else not so much.
I had to enter all my settings again including all my email accounts wallpaper and anything else you can think of.
I mean WTF are they thinking? this should be a no brainer, I should be able to attach my phone and restore to get everything back the way it was.

People on how bloated iTunes is and that everything has to go through it but at least it works.
Anyway I will never do that again and hope that HTC, At&t and google get their act together to fix that simple stuff.

The other thing which is small and probably can be fixed and I just have not figured it out yet is that every time I download a app it wants to put a shortcut on my home screens somewhere and I don't like that.
If I want an icon shortcut there I will put it there, isn't that the reason you have a app drawer.

Anyway other than that I love the phone and OS and highly recommend the phone.
If you like me are coming from the iPhone my advice is simple.
Do not compare the two on how things were done on your old phone but look at it as the new device and way of doing things it is.
If you only look for bad things then that is all you will find.

Sorry for the lengthy post and I hope that it will help someone.
If you have any pointers or tips please let me hear them.
Oh I'll attach a pic of my Home screen too.

Thanks,
Dukeblue91

 

[erwaso]

Only things I can comment on are

Google play store options allow to not have app sent to homescreen.

Updates just take longer than others

Sent from my HTC One X

 

[dukeblue91]

Only things I can comment on are

Google play store options allow to not have app sent to homescreen.

Updates just take longer than others

Sent from my HTC One X

Thank you for the store tip.
I can't believe that I missed this in the settings.

 

[lattemaker]

I myself just came from the iPhone after having the 3G, 3GS, 4, and 4S and I must say I agree with pretty much everything you have said. I kept trying to get the update to 4.0.4 and finally gave up because it just wasn't finding it. It doesn't bug me to much though. The thing that bugs me the most is the lack in support for OSX, I can't believe they don't support Macs.

 

[icebike]

The thing that bugs me the most is the lack in support for OSX, I can't believe they don't support Macs.

Chuckle...

Your mistake is plugging your phone into your computer. This is Android. We don't need to cable up for ANYTHING. Just lose your old Apple habits, put the cord away, and you will be much happier.

I've never even once cabled my HOX to my Computer. Its 2012, big guy, not 1998 any more.

 

[dukeblue91]

I used the air android app and as great of an app as it is it is nowhere near iTunes.
Lest also not forget that you don't need a cable to sync with iTunes and can do everything via wifi too but USB is way faster then wifi and when you have allot of data it helps tremendously.
Irregardless of all that it is still a shame that when you do a restore with the HOX it does not do a complete restore and that is what I'm having issues with and only brought up iTunes and iOS as an example since this is the only other Mobil platform I have ever used before now.
And I can't think of any technical reason why it can't be done under Android or at least the HOX.

Other than that I'm learning more and more about my awesome little phone on a daily basis and loving it more every day.

 

[leon odell]

I read your article and thought I would respond. On my HTC EVO I have Amon Ra installed which allows me to put a complete backup of everything on the SD card. Whenever I want all I do is hit restart go to recovery then to restore and the phone is brought back to exactly what it was. I use this feature whenever I go into the phone and add something that causes trouble. IAfter I change something in the phone I do a backup , that way if I have to make a "nand" recovery its exactly like the latest phone configeration.

 

[adipabeta]

Yes. We only need our android to backup and restore. I love my first android.

 

[dukeblue91]

I read your article and thought I would respond. On my HTC EVO I have Amon Ra installed which allows me to put a complete backup of everything on the SD card. Whenever I want all I do is hit restart go to recovery then to restore and the phone is brought back to exactly what it was. I use this feature whenever I go into the phone and add something that causes trouble. IAfter I change something in the phone I do a backup , that way if I have to make a "nand" recovery its exactly like the latest phone configeration.

Thank you Leon
I will check that app out.

 

[anon(847090)]

first, Good luck with your purchase.

second, you made a right choice... one x is a good device...

third, with jelly bean which you will get soon the lag is gone.

forth, unlike iphone you have total control over your phone so you can better manage your batter as well.
i use to get 1-1 and half day of battery life before but now i get 3 days solid.

 

[austriak]

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose HOX over Samsung galaxy s3?

 

[mgfjd12]

cables uhh? I have never used a cable with my android... WIFI sync, and transfers are really fast. I didn't have problems with my upgrade. anyway. it is your first week, you will learn more around here.. go to XDA.com and have fun with your phone.

 

[dmcincubus]

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose HOX over Samsung galaxy s3?

I chose HOX over S3 mainly because I have the captivate then S2. Wanted something different. Glad I made the change. Been a great phone.

 

[Pengwn]

The other thing which is small and probably can be fixed and I just have not figured it out yet is that every time I download a app it wants to put a shortcut on my home screens somewhere and I don't like that.

It's a simple fix! When you are in the play store, just go into the settings and uncheck "auto add to homescreen". That will solve this issue you are having.

If you are familiar with jailbreaking, I'd highly suggest looking into unlocking/rooting your device. The only thing I was truly jealous iOS users had that Android users didn't have was timely OTA updates. Once you look at the bigger picture, it's a little easier to understand why it takes a little(well...) longer to get your OTA. Each manufacture applies their own custom Android ROM to their devices. Since you have an HTC device, you will be running their Sense ROM. Once google releases the newest version of Android, the manufactures then have to take the new code and make it work with theirs. If you're unlocked/rooted, you don't have to wait for the manufactures to update their code as you can flash one of the many custom ROMs that are put together by some very hard working developers.

One X Development - RootzWiki

As you can see, there are many ROMs available for your phone. This way, you can skip ICS and go straight to JB!! If you really want a fast phone with no lag and improved battery life, I'd strongly suggest flashing a JB ROM. I'd also suggest going with a stable version of a ROM when you're first starting out as builds(nightlies) are usually tests with bugs to be expected.

Welcome to Android!! Enjoy your stay

 

[jra8927]

in the play store there's a setting. Where you turn off that auto add widget or app after downloading an app

Hi All,

Last week friday I switched to the HOX after being with the iPhone since the very first one.
I thought I would take a few moments and reflect on my thoughts and share them here for anyone interested.

Lets start with the good stuff.

The phone design and screen are just incredible.
The screen looks just amazing and like the icons are floating on top of it.
It totally blows the Retina display out of the water especially with the 4.7" sized screen vs 3.5" on my iPhone.

Being able to customize everything and having a actual file structure just rocks.
The user interface even though being way more complicated when delving a little deeper is way better then what I heard and experienced when looking at Android a couple of years ago at various stores.
However since I always jailbroke my iPhones I'm very used to going deeper then just skin deep.

The speed and animations are very responsive and at the same level as iOS and this wasn't always the case in the past but there are no stutters or lag at all with ICS.

Some little design quirks that I have irritating this far are the buttons on the HOX specifically the power and volume buttons are very touchy and I always seem to activate the volume levels when grabbing the phone and the top one gets pushed when just looking at it funny or touch it lightly.
Having a back button is awesome and way undersold on the Android phones.

The battery live is okay not great but not as bad as I thought it would be and needs a little more consideration on how you use the phone and features vs the iPhone 4.
But it does last me through the day mostly when I'm not playing with it all the time which is hard on a new phone.

Some of the things that irritate the crap out of me are not the fault of the design but mostly with At&t and HTC's.

Starting with OTA updates, I've been trying to update to ICS 4.0.4 since I got the phone and nothing.
For an update that has been out for 3 weeks that is inexcusable to say it in a nice way.
Syncing and backup / restore is an utter joke and could and should be easy as pie nowadays but isn't.
For HTC not having a sync client for Mac is unbelievable.

So having grown tired of waiting on the OTA update I decided to do it manually and booted into my windows 7 partition, installed the sync manager and backed everything up and started the update.

I understood that it would wipe the phone and stuff but hey I synced and backed it up before so no big deal I'll just do a restore when done.
Well no it did not work, I had to set up my phone again like I did when I first got it.
Yes the Google stuff and apps no problem but everything else not so much.
I had to enter all my settings again including all my email accounts wallpaper and anything else you can think of.
I mean WTF are they thinking? this should be a no brainer, I should be able to attach my phone and restore to get everything back the way it was.

People on how bloated iTunes is and that everything has to go through it but at least it works.
Anyway I will never do that again and hope that HTC, At&t and google get their act together to fix that simple stuff.

The other thing which is small and probably can be fixed and I just have not figured it out yet is that every time I download a app it wants to put a shortcut on my home screens somewhere and I don't like that.
If I want an icon shortcut there I will put it there, isn't that the reason you have a app drawer.

Anyway other than that I love the phone and OS and highly recommend the phone.
If you like me are coming from the iPhone my advice is simple.
Do not compare the two on how things were done on your old phone but look at it as the new device and way of doing things it is.
If you only look for bad things then that is all you will find.

Sorry for the lengthy post and I hope that it will help someone.
If you have any pointers or tips please let me hear them.
Oh I'll attach a pic of my Home screen too.

Thanks,
Dukeblue91

 

[The Shag]

Since you already figured out the issue with apps showing up on your homescreen, let me point you to a couple of awesome apps that address your other issues.

Juice Defender will add hours to your phone's life. If you are willing to unlock and root, the Ultimate version of the app is magnificent.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...RlZHJvaWQuanVpY2VkZWZlbmRlciJd&token=e26W2xbX

And if you unlock and root, ROM Manager is another awesome tool to do full back-ups. This saved my life while I was serving in Afghanistan. I used my phone as just a wi-fi device, and had put a custom ROM on it a while back. Growing bored with it, I spent a few days downloading AOKP (The internet out here is INTENSELY slow). After installing it, I realized that downloading all of my apps, especially the bigger ones, was entirely unrealistic, so I just went into ROM Manager and restored the back-up I made just before AOKP. BOOSH! Everything back and it was exactly as before.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e...mmanager&feature=search_result&token=PF8czckA

 

[runer112]

I can't help you with everything, but the icons appearing on the main menu issue is rather an easy one. From your google play settings, there is an option which goes something along the line of "Automatically add new widgets/addons/downloads" that allows you to control this problem.

I have had a similar experience, but it wasn't a move from a phone of almost similar stats: I had a Nokia N81 8GB for almost 4 years until I switched from that to a GS3 almost a month after the GS3's release.

I love the phone, it does everything I want and more. It's an entirely different experience for me coming from a phone of the previous generation but I managed to settle down soon. Also, the amount of apps is scary.

 

[flyboy2]

After owning the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 4, I too made the jump to a S3 last week. I'm loving it. Everything that I used to jailbreak my phone for I can now do without much hassle.

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

I read your article and thought I would respond. On my HTC EVO I have Amon Ra installed which allows me to put a complete backup of everything on the SD card. Whenever I want all I do is hit restart go to recovery then to restore and the phone is brought back to exactly what it was. I use this feature whenever I go into the phone and add something that causes trouble. IAfter I change something in the phone I do a backup , that way if I have to make a "nand" recovery its exactly like the latest phone configeration.

Thank you Leon
I will check that app out.

What he's talking about requires you to be rooted and running a custom recovery. If you root, you can then use Titanium Backup to backup your apps on device and sync them with various services.

 

[Fillyo]

Other than auto restore of apps and other settings (I believe auto restore remembers wifi and certain other settings), I would prefer to install and set up certain things cleanly, including email accounts, to make sure you have a nice clean install. You get very good at it the more you flash. I would definitely root, install CWM, and atleast back up your stock set up.