I really like the soft keys. I wish there were a way to toggle them permanently off and then back on through something like the power menu or a gesture though. I play games more than I watch movies and it's slightly annoying having those keys on the side of my tv screen.
Disappointed with Soft Keys
- Thread starter azetoh
- Start date
Explain...cuz i guess i dont quite understand what you mean.....am I not using my browser when im typing on this forum response?
I love the soft keys although I do agree it would be nice if Google provided some native way to allow customization through some sort of theme engine that would make it as easy as downloading framework themes/customizations from the market.
Rooting is always an option and that's why I got a Nexus. However, I'm rather satisfied with the stock experience so far.
Rooting is always an option and that's why I got a Nexus. However, I'm rather satisfied with the stock experience so far.
Go to browser settings, labs, and click full screen. The buttons won't disappear, but they will go to the soft white dots like in the camera.
One thing I don't like is the elimination of the search button. Even as a soft button, it would be nice to have a consistent place to begin a search.
But this is the future of Android, and I'm happy to adapt to it.
Thanks...I too wouldnt mind seeing the return of the search button.....I have adapted but I used that thing a ton and would rather have the dedicated button as opposed to the constant homescreen bar. Either way I love the soft buttons
I think he's referring to the browser closing in the background as memory is used by other apps... But that happens in all versions of Android to one degree or another depending on how much memory you have, stuff running in the background, etc.
You'll have to forgive me as I've yet to handle ICS first hand (no VZW in Puerto Rico), but here's what I've observed thru Froyo, GB, and HC...
On Froyo and/or the original EVO my browser closed itself in the background all the freaking time, I couldn't switch thru more than one or two apps without the browser getting paged out of memory... And when I'd come back to it the thing would only reload one tab/window (if that), the rest were ignored.
On my EVO 3D and GB the basic behavior is the same but I can cycle thru half a dozen apps and even a game and the browser will probably still survive and not get booted out of memory. Obviously this is because the phone has twice the amount of memory as the previous one. Certain apps are more memory hungry than others and still force page the browser out of memory tho, Gmail seems very prone to do it... And when it gets kicked it only reloads one tab/window at best. I also had to hack the browser to get more tabs out of it because HTC keeps locking it at 4 for some weird reason.
On my Honeycomb tablet the browser always reloads every last tab I left open whenever it gets paged out of memory while multi-tasking, which is awesome imo and I'm guessing that's how it works in ICS too... However, I've noticed it does get paged out much more often than my phone's browser, which leads to the frequent refreshes the poster above alludes to.
Whether that's because I usually have more tabs open on the tablet or because it takes more resources to render stuff on a larger/higher res screen I cannot say, probably a combination of both. I always figured HC wasn't very well optimized anyway since the browser crashes more than on GB, dunno if it's any more stable on ICS.
Unfortunately if you often find your browser reloading when you switch back to it I don't think there's much you can do beyond rooting and trying out ROMs with tweaked memory handling, etc. I do think things like the browser and launcher should have higher priority when memory's being handled but I guess that's not always the case. You could try some other browsers too... It's quite possible leaving a video paused within the browser raises it's memory consumption significantly too, thus making it more likely to get kicked out. Flash isn't exactly a model of efficiency...
Hell it wasn't until a month or two ago that they finally got playback controls on Flash video polished enough to the point where they're finally semi-usable on phones... All that after having already given up on Flash, Adobe really was it's own worst enemy.
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Actually tried it on brother's xperia, fine, sister's incredible 2, fine and sis in law's my touch, also fine.
I run into the issue pretty much every time. Going back and forth between apps and the browser especially streaming video and apps. Between words with friends and an online dictionary, both refresh. Changing my equalizer setting while watching amazon video.
Ics browser still needs to be updated for this flaw, that people don't notice refresh = more data = $
Like I said been on other androids and they're fine.
It is not strictly an ICS issue, if you happen to multi task long enough on those other phones you'll see the same thing happen, or worse, the browser will just come back with nothing but your home page... HC & ICS just had the browser behavior tweaked so that they never really forget what was open, which leads to more memory paging which leads to more refreshes.
The browser isn't refreshing for the hell of it dude, it's refreshing because it got pushed out of RAM so it closed... When it's restarted it remembers what was open but it actually has to go and reopen those sites. I'm not saying it couldn't be done smarter (should be able to reload most of the page off local cache imo), but it's not some sudden ICS anomaly.
The browser has always been paged out of memory to one degree or another depending on the device, it just behaves different (better) when it reloads on ICS & Honeycomb, but it also seems to get unloaded more often on ICS & HC (at least based on what you're saying and my own experience with HC tablets)... Probably not any more often than on older devices like the first EVO tho.
The brute force fix is making more memory available (physically or thru tweaks), that made the biggest difference for me between the EVO 4G & 3D. It hasn't bothered me as much on HC thanks to the full recovery of open tabs but when I'm multi tasking with 16 tabs open it's still a drag (and a big reminder of the difference between a tablet and a real laptop).
The browser isn't refreshing for the hell of it dude, it's refreshing because it got pushed out of RAM so it closed... When it's restarted it remembers what was open but it actually has to go and reopen those sites. I'm not saying it couldn't be done smarter (should be able to reload most of the page off local cache imo), but it's not some sudden ICS anomaly.
The browser has always been paged out of memory to one degree or another depending on the device, it just behaves different (better) when it reloads on ICS & Honeycomb, but it also seems to get unloaded more often on ICS & HC (at least based on what you're saying and my own experience with HC tablets)... Probably not any more often than on older devices like the first EVO tho.
The brute force fix is making more memory available (physically or thru tweaks), that made the biggest difference for me between the EVO 4G & 3D. It hasn't bothered me as much on HC thanks to the full recovery of open tabs but when I'm multi tasking with 16 tabs open it's still a drag (and a big reminder of the difference between a tablet and a real laptop).
The thread's getting way off topic now tho...
I've got a question for you ICS early adopters... How do you search on apps that haven't been updated with a soft search button within the interface? Are you just SOL now until it's updated?
Can't even use the search bar now to search specifically within one app, AFAIK, used to be you could search only within contacts or only within IMDB, or whatever, right from Google's standard search... But they removed category searching within ICS no? (and even on older devices/OS versions, I lost it on GB when I updated Google Search thru market)
I understand removing the search button... Sort of, search bar takes more space but I guess it's a design/cosmetic choice. Removing category search just seems like a step backwards tho, specially when done in the midst of eliminating the search hard button.
Removing menu and moving away from long presses I TOTALLY understand, those are smart design-focused decisions imo. Jury's still out on soft keys themselves tho... Manufacturers could easily ignore the initiative. Personally I think there's more upside than drawbacks, it makes much better use of a device's physical space... Even if occasionally you end up with apps that don't maximize past the soft keys. I expect many apps will purposely choose not to maximize over the soft keys too, since it makes it harder to quit or switch away from the app. Can't even imagine how frustrating it'll be when an app does hide the soft keys and then stops responding, there will be no way to go back to the home screen and kill it, what then?
Regardless, I still think they're a step forward overall, I still dunno about some of the changes to search tho. Shouldn't that be Google's forte??
Btw, how do you invoke global voice search on ICS? (the old search long press) Are you just forced to go back to the home screen for that too? If so, yuck...
I've got a question for you ICS early adopters... How do you search on apps that haven't been updated with a soft search button within the interface? Are you just SOL now until it's updated?
Can't even use the search bar now to search specifically within one app, AFAIK, used to be you could search only within contacts or only within IMDB, or whatever, right from Google's standard search... But they removed category searching within ICS no? (and even on older devices/OS versions, I lost it on GB when I updated Google Search thru market)
I understand removing the search button... Sort of, search bar takes more space but I guess it's a design/cosmetic choice. Removing category search just seems like a step backwards tho, specially when done in the midst of eliminating the search hard button.
Removing menu and moving away from long presses I TOTALLY understand, those are smart design-focused decisions imo. Jury's still out on soft keys themselves tho... Manufacturers could easily ignore the initiative. Personally I think there's more upside than drawbacks, it makes much better use of a device's physical space... Even if occasionally you end up with apps that don't maximize past the soft keys. I expect many apps will purposely choose not to maximize over the soft keys too, since it makes it harder to quit or switch away from the app. Can't even imagine how frustrating it'll be when an app does hide the soft keys and then stops responding, there will be no way to go back to the home screen and kill it, what then?
Regardless, I still think they're a step forward overall, I still dunno about some of the changes to search tho. Shouldn't that be Google's forte??
Btw, how do you invoke global voice search on ICS? (the old search long press) Are you just forced to go back to the home screen for that too? If so, yuck...
The phones which I conducted had 2 apps open, browser and another app. It was just switching back and forth between the two. What you're saying makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is our ram apparently can't handle it. Just now I used bit.ly to shorten a url and had to refresh to come back to the forums, that's like no memory.
Yeah it'd typically take more than two apps to force that kinda behavior on recent GB phones, tho it really depends on the apps too... Switching over to Gmail for more than 5 min often seems to kill my browser regardless of OS version, yet the stock non-Gmail email app hardly ever causes it. You're totally right, sometimes there's just no rhyme or reason to it (at least not an obvious one), the new Nexus might be at a further disadvantage than other phones in this regard because in addition to the changes made to how the browser restores on 3.0/4.0 it's also running a higher res than most other phones out there (basically the res of current tablets, slightly different ratio).
I'm really curious to see this in action, guess I'll swing by a Verizon store if I travel to the states in February... VZ's always putting out more phones than anyone, I feel deprived in not being able to try them first hand.
Wish they'd never left PR...
I'm really curious to see this in action, guess I'll swing by a Verizon store if I travel to the states in February... VZ's always putting out more phones than anyone, I feel deprived in not being able to try them first hand.
Wish they'd never left PR...I ABSOLUTELY share your concern ! It is the sole reason I have never bought another phone besides a Samsung.
By the same token I don't understand why other manufactures don't utilise the bezel under the screen and simple place hard keys there, instead of Dead Space
The keys are ribbons, fractions of a mm thick that sit under the glass.
Does Samsung have the patient on these??
Anyway Damn these others to hell who say they are not a problem. You pay for a 6" screen you want a Frecking 6" I'm not buying a nexus due to the small screen and until other manufactures can have translucent or hard keys I am stuck with Samsung.
It is a problem ! It is the deciding factor in my phone purchases.
Others have clearly not owned a phone with a large screen and know nothing different besides soft keys. If you have never had them it seems like the most illogical thing in the world to put buttons on screen space. Screens display useful data, buttons are placed on the device. Not the screen. Illogical.
I feel your pain brother.
By the same token I don't understand why other manufactures don't utilise the bezel under the screen and simple place hard keys there, instead of Dead Space
The keys are ribbons, fractions of a mm thick that sit under the glass.
Does Samsung have the patient on these??
Anyway Damn these others to hell who say they are not a problem. You pay for a 6" screen you want a Frecking 6" I'm not buying a nexus due to the small screen and until other manufactures can have translucent or hard keys I am stuck with Samsung.
It is a problem ! It is the deciding factor in my phone purchases.
Others have clearly not owned a phone with a large screen and know nothing different besides soft keys. If you have never had them it seems like the most illogical thing in the world to put buttons on screen space. Screens display useful data, buttons are placed on the device. Not the screen. Illogical.
I feel your pain brother.
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