Jelly Bean - Initial Thoughts

[mstrblueskys]

What are your impressions of the new OS? I am actually really surprised by the battery life I'm getting. I'm pretty sure I've had the screen on for 2 hours without charging and I still have 85% battery - I'm impressed so far.

The themes are pretty lame, but everything else is awesome. I love that I don't have to have a lock screen anymore.

 

[crxssi]

I am not sure yet. Too early for me to draw any conclusions. I am especially concerned that the phone might revert back to disconnecting from WiFi when it is idle for a while... I HATED THAT. These are my observations after just an hour:

* After the update, I was missing some widgets and still not quite sure about one blank area... what was that?? Also had a strange, mis-sized bookmarks widget that I could not completely see on the screen or even adjust. I eventually was able to delete it and re-add and that fixed it.

* I can't believe it is almost 2013 and HTC still does not allow for a landscape unlock screen nor a landscape home screen. STUPID, especially since the code is already there for dock mode.

* I am disappointed the wallpaper no longer scrolls. It is not a big whoop, but it was a nice touch.

* I hate that the carousel wraps around. It makes it easier to get lost, and of course there is no setting to personalize that behavior.

* I hate the "Power Saver" in the notifications bar. I don't understand why there is no way to get rid of it and why they think that is so important. The checkmark to turn off notifications in that app is not uncheckable, and they made the app non "DISABLE"-able.

* I hate that there is not a dedicated voice button on the keyboard.

* The Gallery app is even more irritating than before. Not only does it STILL not understand how to deal with multiple nested directories, I am FORCED to go through yet another menu with "cloud" sources that I do not want to see or use (no way to turn it off). Thank God for QuickPic.

* Love that there is an option to FINALLY turn off the stupid non-security lock screen so we can FINALLY just use a secure lock screen ONLY. It is insane that it took this long for HTC to fix this!

* Could be my imagination, but it does seem that the user interface is faster.

* The pinch-zoom on the camera is neat.

 

[Andras]

I've had no real issues with my phone since buying it at launch day. This update though has totally screwed my phone and I now know how many people have felt with the issues the past months. So far...it has already rebooted itself 3 times, the screen is turning off on it's own, the proximity issue is back but now worse as it takes restarting the phone to get the sensor to turn back off, apps are force closing when they didn't before, messages such as "bluetooth has been disconnected" do not leave the screen, I've had the red led come on for no reason and it took a restart to turn it off, so many issues with pressing the screen and nothing happening even after multiple presses. For the first time since having this phone, since the last time I used my old HTC Hero which I upgraded from to this one....I'm struggling to not throw my phone against the wall. I've waiting patiently/impatiently for JB but right now I'd kill to have ICS.

 

[BUNK]

Very strange. My phone is a smooth as glass. I am not experiencing any of those things. I would take it in and have them re-install the update.

 

[georgeotc]

Some things will take some getting used to but overall it seems very nice. Ran a quadrant test and the results had a 1000 point increase over before with a score of 6264. Never really had problems pre-update either so it's all been good for me.

 

[zakphi]

* The Gallery app is even more irritating than before. Not only does it STILL not understand how to deal with multiple nested directories, I am FORCED to go through yet another menu with "cloud" sources that I do not want to see or use (no way to turn it off). Thank God for QuickPic.

question: is there anyway to split your main photo folder (for me its call 100MEDIA) between images and videos? that is one reason why i like the stock gallery over quickpic.

 

[crxssi]

I've had no real issues with my phone since buying it at launch day. This update though has totally screwed my phone and I now know how many people have felt with the issues the past months. So far...it has already rebooted itself 3 times, the screen is turning off on it's own, the proximity issue is back but now worse as it takes restarting the phone to get the sensor to turn back off, apps are force closing when they didn't before, messages such as "bluetooth has been disconnected" do not leave the screen, I've had the red led come on for no reason and it took a restart to turn it off, so many issues with pressing the screen and nothing happening even after multiple presses. For the first time since having this phone, since the last time I used my old HTC Hero which I upgraded from to this one....I'm struggling to not throw my phone against the wall. I've waiting patiently/impatiently for JB but right now I'd kill to have ICS.

It sounds like you might be a candidate for a factory reset/wipe.

 

[crxssi]

question: is there anyway to split your main photo folder (for me its call 100MEDIA) between images and videos? that is one reason why i like the stock gallery over quickpic.

QuickPic understands directories. Thus, you can have as many "folders" nested anywhere and anyhow you want. "Gallery" just throws every sub directory it finds into one big huge collective mess.

 

[TEEMILL]

I definitely like the new look I did notice a few minor issues that can be rather irritating for starters 1.when I want to use Google now the google voice feature takes to long to initialize 2. They combined a few buttons on the keyboard together for some odd reason it doesn't make things easier 3. I noticed the lock screen has slower response time when
Putting my password in. Other than that nothing major I do wish they would have changed the YouTube widget though.
Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[crxssi]

I am not sure yet. Too early for me to draw any conclusions. I am especially concerned that the phone might revert back to disconnecting from WiFi when it is idle for a while... I HATED THAT. These are my observations after just an hour: [...]

I reworded the list and sent most of it to HTC yesterday. Today I got a reasonable response from them:

"I'm glad to hear you are enjoying Jellybean on your EVO 4G LTE! I also want to thank you for providing some areas where you would like to see some changes / improvements. I tested to ensure that we could not adjust the behaviors you have documented with settings and it does not appear we can, so I have forwarded your thoughts for consideration and review.

Thank you again for your succinct feedback! I hope you are having a wonderful start to your weekend."

 

[Cattails_r_Edible]

Love how smooth and fast my phone is! Google now is awesome! Love the new keyboard layout! Love the continuous homepage scroll and static wallpaper! Love the extended messages in the drop down! the new steel skin is amazing! I have none of the issues mentioned, before or after the update!

SENT FROM MY JELLYBEAN EATING EVO!

 

[Emmanuel11]

I love it. I just need to find out how to customize it again I need some colors

 

[dtreo]

I am not sure yet. Too early for me to draw any conclusions. I am especially concerned that the phone might revert back to disconnecting from WiFi when it is idle for a while... I HATED THAT. These are my observations after just an hour:

* After the update, I was missing some widgets and still not quite sure about one blank area... what was that?? Also had a strange, mis-sized bookmarks widget that I could not completely see on the screen or even adjust. I eventually was able to delete it and re-add and that fixed it.

* I can't believe it is almost 2013 and HTC still does not allow for a landscape unlock screen nor a landscape home screen. STUPID, especially since the code is already there for dock mode.

* I am disappointed the wallpaper no longer scrolls. It is not a big whoop, but it was a nice touch.

* I hate that the carousel wraps around. It makes it easier to get lost, and of course there is no setting to personalize that behavior.

* I hate the "Power Saver" in the notifications bar. I don't understand why there is no way to get rid of it and why they think that is so important. The checkmark to turn off notifications in that app is not uncheckable, and they made the app non "DISABLE"-able.

* I hate that there is not a dedicated voice button on the keyboard.

* The Gallery app is even more irritating than before. Not only does it STILL not understand how to deal with multiple nested directories, I am FORCED to go through yet another menu with "cloud" sources that I do not want to see or use (no way to turn it off). Thank God for QuickPic.

* Love that there is an option to FINALLY turn off the stupid non-security lock screen so we can FINALLY just use a secure lock screen ONLY. It is insane that it took this long for HTC to fix this!

* Could be my imagination, but it does seem that the user interface is faster.

* The pinch-zoom on the camera is neat.

Ditto.
Plus, making a wallpaper out of a camera photo makes Tue image very grainy since you can't for some stupid reason use the whole image. Why is that? Seems you should be able to use the while image for a wallpaper. Now the cropped image is so grainy and doesn't show off the great screen nearly as well as it should.

 

[AetherJones]

Ditto.
Plus, making a wallpaper out of a camera photo makes Tue image very grainy since you can't for some stupid reason use the whole image. Why is that? Seems you should be able to use the while image for a wallpaper. Now the cropped image is so grainy and doesn't show off the great screen nearly as well as it should.

I just found out that this is because of the size (shape) of the wallpapers. If you use the Zedge app for instance to get wallpapers then when you set it as your wallpaper the new cropped size will be close to the original size... So the image does not become grainy. You want more of a square shaped wallpaper than rectangular now.

Sent from my EVO using Android Central Forums

 

[secretmethod70]

I reworded the list and sent most of it to HTC yesterday. Today I got a reasonable response from them:

"I'm glad to hear you are enjoying Jellybean on your EVO 4G LTE! I also want to thank you for providing some areas where you would like to see some changes / improvements. I tested to ensure that we could not adjust the behaviors you have documented with settings and it does not appear we can, so I have forwarded your thoughts for consideration and review.

Thank you again for your succinct feedback! I hope you are having a wonderful start to your weekend."

Where did you get the info to submit feedback? I'd love to add my voice to some of your complaints.

Overall, I like this update. It has many benefits and I *finally* have no issues at all with my contacts! There are definitely a few unwelcome changes, though, and most of them seem to have been made for little to no reason.

 

[crxssi]

Where did you get the info to submit feedback? I'd love to add my voice to some of your complaints.

See the link in my signature of every post I make...

Their interface is a bit strange, but I have found they ALWAYS reply to me. And sometimes, as you see above, it is actually a personalized/custom response. How much impact does it make? Who knows. But at least I am complaining to the correct people- those with the means to fix things. I am careful to word things as correctly and professionally as possible- plus I add thanks for the things I like, not just complaints about the things I do not like.

In their response will also be a link to a survey, and I take the survey after each.

 

[BoredandTattooed]

Fixed my contact issue, that's all I cared about really....

Turned off almost everything in Google now even... It kind of pointless for me as a user..

In the stock browser, there's no way to get to your phones notification bar... You could hit tabs b4 and see it that way if you missed your chance to pull the curtain down on a notification... Otherwise it just kind of shows intermittently... Also the Brower addresss bar, tab button, etc looks ugly and is it just me or did the size of those increase a few lines, I don't like it...

Other than that, no real issues.

Oh and facebook app looks nice with JB

 

[NastyNeil]

Yeah, I just shut of Google Now completely. Being able to use the mic and search is enough for me. Now, for me, is very intrusive, and is not something I need. It runs in the background all day, so I am hoping it will help with my battery issue since the update.

 

[NastyNeil]

Don't need my phone going all iRobot on me, LOL