Coming from iPhone.......tips??

[joyfulnoise2]

I am a newbie to Android and also this forum..... as I have always used iphones................I pick up my S4 tomorrow and was wondering if you all could give me some tips? I know that I need to sync my phone but I'm new to Android so wasn't for sure if you could help this newbie out.

Thanks

 

[Christopher Matthews Jr]

What all are you looking for, in regards to help?

Tapped from my Nexus 10.1

 

[mhunter6378]

I am a newbie to Android and also this forum..... as I have always used iphones................I pick up my S4 tomorrow and was wondering if you all could give me some tips? I know that I need to sync my phone but I'm new to Android so wasn't for sure if you could help this newbie out.

Thanks

Best tips I can give your are

1. Turn off iMessage on your iPhone before you get your S4
2. Spend some time reading this forum - plenty of great information here

You will find the transition to be rather easy

And welcome to the forum and enjoy your new phone!

 

[nickgalaxys4]

Welcome to the Android family. The S4 is my first Android phone also had it since it first came out and love it (I had an iPhone for a long time also) some tips is just click around and see how the phone works, look over the gestures and see what you wanna keep on and wanna turn off some of them are useless, may sure you close out of all your apps to save life on the phone, enjoy all the ways you can design your phone from home screens to all. Most important have fun with it, and just like the other person said keep reading and posting on here you will find a lot of fixes on here if you are to come across a problem. Hope you enjoy you phone.

 

[droidntn]

You've taken the red pill.
Welcome and...
Enjoy your new life.

Sincerely,
An amazing S4

 

[JamesBramble]

I made the switch from a iPhone 4 to a S4 about 3 weeks ago. Very glad I did.

All I can tell you and my only tip is lock yourself away for a few hours and have a good play with your new S4.

I'm 3 weeks in and I'm still finding new things ;-)

Posted via my Samsung Galaxy S4

 

[joyfulnoise2]

Thank you all for your advice............I picked it up today and just not getting some apps loaded on there. Did sync all my stuff over so now to do some playing. Thanks again.

 

[Othe12sid3]

Best tips I can give your are

1. Turn off iMessage on your iPhone before you get your S4

Haha this is a great tip. I wasn't getting texts on my new phone for a while and was like WTF. After a while I finally connected the dots and it led me back to iMessages still being received by my old iPhone.

 

[Nguyenning]

If you get bored of Touchwiz, go download nova prime launcher. Lots of cool ways to customize your phone with that. Gestures can be convenient (double tap screen to launch camera, swipe up to launch navigation, etc...) they are pretty clutch when driving and just make life easier for your most common uses.

Also recommend getting a premium case like the Spigen Neo Hybrid to make it look and feel a lot more premium. I know most converters aren't fond of the plastic cheap feel, so a nice case like that will add a lot to the overall look & feel.

I've had the iPhone 5 and it's just all personal preference. I enjoy the bigger screen (better brighter and more vibrant too), I like customizing everything (I jailbroke my iPhone to do this, and I really like the 13mp camera on the GS4).

 

[shoii]

If you get bored of Touchwiz, go download nova prime launcher. Lots of cool ways to customize your phone with that. Gestures can be convenient (double tap screen to launch camera, swipe up to launch navigation, etc...) they are pretty clutch when driving and just make life easier for your most common uses.

Also recommend getting a premium case like the Spigen Neo Hybrid to make it look and feel a lot more premium. I know most converters aren't fond of the plastic cheap feel, so a nice case like that will add a lot to the overall look & feel.

I've had the iPhone 5 and it's just all personal preference. I enjoy the bigger screen (better brighter and more vibrant too), I like customizing everything (I jailbroke my iPhone to do this, and I really like the 13mp camera on the GS4).

http://i.imgur.com/7AFAxZpl.jpg?1

(It's not brighter than an iPhone, actually the iPhone has the better brightness of all phones if I'm not mistaken)

GS4 Love

 

[thatotherdude24]

I hear a lot of people talking about launchers.....can using a launcher improve batter life over the stock UI? Battery life on mine is horrible.

 

[gnr_2]

Best tips I can give your are


2. Spend some time reading this forum - plenty of great information here

This^^

Just the S4 forum alone has a zillion posts started by former iPhone users that have switched. You will see what frustrated them and what was suggested to fix it.

But most of all remember, THE S4 ISN'T AN IPHONE! It will never be an iPhone so don't try to make it one. Just let it be Android and life will be so much better.

PS. On the front page of Android Central is a link to Android for iPhone users. I didn't find it that helpful but I found it after playing with my new phone for a while. Reading it first, you might find it more useful.

Sent from the Superuser account on my newly flashed Sprint Galaxy Nexus with XenonHD

 

[WickedRabbit]

This is personal preference (my personal preference) and browsing around tech forums you will generally hear people tell you things like go into Developer Options and turn the Window/Transition and Animator Duration scales to zero (off). From personal experience, do not do this. The reason most suggest it is that they feel that this makes the phone feel snappier in terms of opening applications, etc. And, while there is definitely some merit to this argument it also can greatly kill the experience and make the phone actually seem slower in many respects. Hear me out:

The purpose of a small opening/transition animation is NOT only for eye candy. It's also to mask and make the entire UI experience (no matter what you open) more seemless and fluid. In other words, that half a second or 1 second opening animation covers up performance hiccups that EVERY device will have. This is something that Apple has understood from the beginning. Animations are not only pleasing to the eye but they create a uniform experience by allowing everything to seem like it opens at the same speed, which in turn creates a more seemless user experience no matter what you're doing.

For Android, when you turn those options off, many applications can open (or seem to open) almost instantly. However, there are PLENTY that will not open instantly for various reasons. As you start to use the device more, it will kill the user experience because as you come across applications that don't seemingly open as quickly (or animate as quickly) as others you think your device is performing worse.

I have personally had those options OFF (because of listening to the Internet) for years on Android and after being frustrated I only recently came to the realization that performance issues exist because you're changing settings. There's a reason Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. have animations. If turning them off would make the phone seem faster, don't you think they would?

Recently, I set those options above to 0.5 instead of the default 1.0 and for Nova Launcher I turned off "faster than light" for scroll speed and set it to default Nova. Personally, I feel that the phone feels more linear now.

Perception is very powerful and animations do cater to that perception. We can knock companies like Apple all we want for their heavy use of animations. But consider this: when is the last time you've heard the majority of iPhone users complaining about performance issues in terms of UI on almost any iPhone. That group of people is far smaller than the endless Android camp and a lot of that plays into what you read on tech sites and people tinkering with too many settings.

Like I said, that's my personal preference. I played with both and as of right now, I prefer to leave the animations on, albeit as mentioned above I did speed them up slightly over the default settings, but I did not disable them entirely.

 

[Farish]

Only other thing I have to say is, give the phone or should say Android a chance.

Too many people get their device based on looks and change their mind after a day because they make the assumption that Android is going to work like IOS.

 

[petaf]

Some of my friends made the switch. I found it amusing that many never go out of the app drawer. Think of Android as an app drawer plus up to five (?) screens of amazing widgets that can be tweaked size-wise and for content. Also explore live wallpapers in the Play Store, there are some amazing ones that don't use much battery (read reviews first). I use an app called Lookout that scans downloaded apps for malware. Enjoy your new device!!

 

[gnr_2]

Ooohhh. The first thing you should do is go into Play Store and turn off "auto add widgets to home screen". Then everything you buy will be in your app drawer and YOU can decide which you want on your screens. Keep just the ones you use often and use the rest of the screens for widgets.

Another thing. Once you are comfortable with the phone, look into a launcher. A launcher is basically a different way to interface with your phone. The best analogy would be your phone as a PC. A launcher would be Windows 3.0 or Windows 95 or Vista (if you don't think of them as operating systems) because the computer is basically acting the same way, you just get it to look differently in one than the other or have access to different settings, like hiding apps, or changing the number of home screens. Also in launchers you can edit the names of your apps. Can't do *that* on an iPhone, eh?

Sent from the Superuser account on my newly flashed Sprint Galaxy Nexus with XenonHD