Possible Android NooB...Questions...

[imma_rage_quit]

Hey everyone! I'm seriously considering the new HTC Droid Incredible. I currently have the Storm 2 and I LOVE they way the BlackBerry does email but I honestly find their OS's to be very 1999 LOL. Please keep in mind that I have only handled an Android phone twice for a total of about 1 minute so I have limited knowledge of these types of phones. That said here are my questions...

1. If a new version of Android comes out (ie. Android 2.2) are we able to upgrade to it or are we stuck with 2.1?

2. Is there any way to integrate AOL email account and Yahoo email account (without paying yahoo $20 a year) like I can with my POP3 addresses?

3. Does landscape only rotate to one side (I know the MotoDroid only rotates to one side because of the keyboard is this she same way even though there is no keyboard)?

4. Can this OS run multiple apps like the BlackBerry OS can?


That's everything I can think of right now. I may add more later but I want to thank all of you in advance for helping me out here!

Rich

 

[zhelf]

Hey everyone! I'm seriously considering the new HTC Droid Incredible. I currently have the Storm 2 and I LOVE they way the BlackBerry does email but I honestly find their OS's to be very 1999 LOL. Please keep in mind that I have only handled an Android phone twice for a total of about 1 minute so I have limited knowledge of these types of phones. That said here are my questions...

1. If a new version of Android comes out (ie. Android 2.2) are we able to upgrade to it or are we stuck with 2.1?

2. Is there any way to integrate AOL email account and Yahoo email account (without paying yahoo $20 a year) like I can with my POP3 addresses?

3. Does landscape only rotate to one side (I know the MotoDroid only rotates to one side because of the keyboard is this she same way even though there is no keyboard)?

4. Can this OS run multiple apps like the BlackBerry OS can?


That's everything I can think of right now. I may add more later but I want to thank all of you in advance for helping me out here!

Rich

1. no the incredible will handle any upgrades for at least a year and odds are beyond that, the only reason the G1 and MYtouch had an issue was they were designed poorly and nearly obsolete on release.

2. idk about aol but Free yahoo is notorious for not playing nice with 3rd party email programs but not sure how it works on android.

3.due to the fact it is not released yet i cant be certain but i am pretty sure it will rotate both ways for most things.

4. yes android can multitask

 

[Night Train]

Is there any way to integrate AOL email account ....

People still use AOL?

 

[imma_rage_quit]

People still use AOL?

I have one old AOL account that I use. It's free so I use it. I'm to lazy to update my email address LOL

 

[imma_rage_quit]

OOO One more question I just thought of...

are POP3 email account push like gmail is?

 

[PJnc284]

no, only gmail and exchange accounts will be push. Others are polled at an
interval you select. Believe the min is 5min but that would effect your battery life.

As for #1, it should get updates as zombiepug said but likely won't be as fast to get them as a stock android device since HTC has to work their SenseUI into it.

 

[John-Paul]

Is it possible GMail could read your AOL and Yahoo accounts? I know it is working with my hotmail account. Like you, I plan to stick with my old email account, but then again, I could simply start replying to everyone with GMail if I wanted to change addresses.

 

[Adiliyo]

updates as people have said will be issued, but slower (eris and hero users are still waiting for their 2.1 update. even if HTC is quick about developing the update, verizon is notorious for rejecting updates until they are very stable.

that being said, once the phone is rooted (inevitable that it will be) you will be able to load custom ROMs that will have the newer OS on them far before the official update drops.

look in the forums, i think people have explained how to get free yahoo mail working, not sure about AOL though. you might want to have them forward to a gmail account anyways since then you can get the mail pushed to the device.

 

[imma_rage_quit]

I"m sorry as I said I was a noob with Android phones...What is rooted?

 

[John-Paul]

I am still pretty newbish myself, but I believe rooted is essentially getting administrative rights to the phone. Once the phone is rooted, you can change some settings in the OS that were otherwise locked by the carrier...say for instance the ability to tether your phone.

I believe once the phone is rooted, you then have the ability to flash a new ROM to it. Essentially, this is reloading the OS. However, at least for the Nexus, this supposedly voids the warranty.

 

[Adiliyo]

basically right.

getting root, is getting super user (su) access to the phone, it's like going from a guest account in windows to an administrator account.

you're allowed access to run application like tethering apps, screenshot apps (why these require root and aren't simply built into the OS is beyond me) and the ability to change the boot loader and put custom ROMs on the phone.

you also have access to change things in the phone's ROM area, so like for instance, when i rooted my droid, the first thing i did was remove the visual voice mail link, the exchange app, and the amazon MP3 app.

custom ROMs can consist of things like completely stock android, newer versions of android, the ability to overclock the phone, reskinned OS, etc.

hope that helps

 

[imma_rage_quit]

Will this void the warranty?

I come from the BlackBerry world where you can pretty much do anything you want with the phones. They aren't "locked down" so to speak. We get new OS's all the time (not neccessarily a good thing LOL) and we can skin the phone any way we want with themes.

I"m just tired of BlackBerry not coming out with anything revolutionary with their UI's. They seem like they are stuck in 2000 and can't move past it...

 

[Adiliyo]

no, it won't void the warranty, however verizon won't offer you customer support if you call with issues.

if you have to return/replace the phone for some reason you can always go back to stock and give it, also a lot of stores don't check/care if it's rooted when you give it back.

now if you root, and then overclock, and then fry the phone, you're going to be out of luck warranty wise.

 

[imma_rage_quit]

Ahh Ok THANKS!! yea it's kind of like the BlackBerry in a way then. If I have an issue I just put the latest official OS back on and back it goes (I've had the Storm 1 and Storm 2 so I have more than my fair share of experience with this LOL). Don't know that I need to overclock but it would be awesome if I could reskin the OS or put Android 2.2 on it when it was released if that makes sense.

Now I have another question I just thought of (sorry like I said TOTAL N00B with Android). Can you arrange the icons on the home screens anywhere you want kind of like you can on your PC's desktop just by dragging and dropping?

 

[Adiliyo]

yes, you can rearrange the icons and widgets however you want across the 7 home screens. the screen is set up in a 4x4 grid, with icons being 1x1, and widgets in varying sizes.

the nice thing with sense is it will show you the empty spots where something will fit.

and yea, it's kind of like blackberry in a way since you can (pretty much) always go back to stock.

 

[imma_rage_quit]

Awesome! Thanks! This is looking more and more appealing to me. The only draw back to me is the lack of push email from a POP3 account which is how my main email from my home ISP operates (wish they did an exchange server!!!). Just need to get my hands on one to see how it feels in my hands. I'm guessing VZW stores won't have demo units out until the 29th (sucks!).

 

[Adiliyo]

yea, no demo's really until the 29th.

you could have your pop mail forwarded to gmail, which should then make it pushed...

 

[imma_rage_quit]

Yea however it would still leave all the messages on my POP3 server until I went in and deleted them. With Blackberry I kind of like how I can delete the crap I don't want off the server and then when I open outlook I only have the suff I wanted to show up there. Oh well I guess I'll have to live with it If I decide to go this way since BlackBerry is stuck in 2000 with their operating systems and UI's. I was waiting to see what 6.0 lfor BlackBerry looked like and it looks the same as 5.0 and 5.0 was a POS so I think I'm done with them.

 

[NVR2ND]

So if you root is there a way to gain access to the 6.6(or whatever) gigs of on board memory for apps?

I have read on here about people thinking ti will be an OS update to change the option to do that, but if you root couldnt the user now do this change?

 

[Adiliyo]

once apps2sd works on the phone you should have no problems doing it.

the OS update variant is desired because it will allow the general public the ability to do it, which makes it more beneficial for a developer to take advantage of it and we should (hopefully) start seeing some better looking/more complex applications that need the space