Newbie Needs Help

[1stBase22]

Had my s4 and tab for a few weeks now, I went cold turkey! Gave up on all my apple products (iphone & ipad) the same day. I've got a few things I want to do but haven't figured out the best way to do it.

1) Rooting; To do or not to do? Any benefits to rooting on an S4? What about a galaxy tab 2 10.1?

2) Easiest way to transfer selected files from my itunes library to my new devices. Anyone use doubletwist?

Any other hints, must have apps or tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little lost in this android world but making my way. Happy with my new devices so far. May the Droids be with you

 

[VDub2174]

1) Rooting; To do or not to do? Any benefits to rooting on an S4? What about a galaxy tab 2 10.1?

Completely up to you. A lot of us Android users do this right out the box so we can remove/freeze carrier installed apps. Another reason some of us root our phones/tabs to customize the look/feel and to adjust battery settings to get more out of each charge.

 

[iHackPro]

1) If you want faster performance, better battery life, apps that require root, go ahead. If not, there's really no point to it.

2) I just copied mine from C:\Users\Administrator\Music\iTunes\iTunes Media

Here are some quick links for you!

Help, How-To, and Tips for Android | Android Central
32 essential Android tips and tricks - Equalize your music - CSMonitor.com

 

[garublador]

2) Easiest way to transfer selected files from my itunes library to my new devices. Anyone use doubletwist?

Any other hints, must have apps or tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm a little lost in this android world but making my way. Happy with my new devices so far. May the Droids be with you

I've never needed to root any of my Android devices, so I'll let others comment on that. From what I understand you already have more options in Android than you do in a jailbroken iPhone, so much of the customization you'll do doesn't require rooting.

For 2 it depends on how much you want to use iTunes features. If you just want it to store/buy your music then I've heard good things about DoubleTwist. IIRC, with DoubleTwist you download a new music manager and you import your iTunes music into it. I'm not sure if it gives you the ability to fully cut ties with iTunes or not (I assume it does but I don't use it).

If you want to continue to use iTunes and want some of the play count features, then I've had good luck with iSyncr. It's another program you install on your PC that has iTunes on it, but it's not a separate music manager. It allows you to sync, either by USB or WiFi your iTunes playlists onto your Android phone. If you want to reverse sync things like play counts I think you have to use their RocketPlayer app. IIRC, it does photos and videos if you want, too. I use this because my wife has iDevices so it's easier to just use iTunes then worrying about two music managers. It also will reverse sync any Amazon MP3's from your phone back into iTunes, which is nice.

These may be on the advanced side, but for other hints or demonstrations of the capabilities of Android my two favorite resources for customization are:

Beautiful Android Themes, Wallpapers, and Homescreens

and

http://www.pocketables.com/2013/03/overview-of-pocketables-tasker-articles.html

Mycolorscreen is just a bunch of different ways people have customized the look of their phones. It's a good way to learn how to use the cooler features in different launchers (which I'd recommend as TouchWiz is pretty limited as far as display options are concerned) and to get ideas of how to make your phone look cool.

The Pocketables link is, as far as I know, the best resource for learning and using Tasker. Tasker is an app with many different plug-ins, that allows you to customize how your phone works. There's the obvious stuff like having your phone go automatically silent at work or at night, or turn off Bluetooth at home, but you can do way more than that. There are plug-ins that make adding custom voice commands and inter device communication easy (e.g. I can ask my phone what the battery level of my Android tablet is and get a response using voice commands). I have mine reminding me of what I need at Target whenever I go there. I can copy some text in Chrome and send it to the clipboard of my phone or tablet. You can even use it to control home automation systems using widgets, voice commands or even NFC tags.

Automate Your Home via Voice Commands with Tasker and VeraLite

 

[jneusch]

I use iSyncr to sync with iTunes. It works very well. I also use drop box to sync photos to my computer. I just started using Google + photo back up and so far so good.

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