Trying to switch from iPhone to Android. A little help would be great.

[cody]

I come from years of smartphones from back in the Palm, windows mobile, blackberry days. I had a few of the first Android device and love a lot that Android has to offer.

I went to the iPhone 5 years ago when verizon first got the 4s. What apple does they do pretty good. I just want a little more and feel apple is not innovating anymore and its always the same thing year after year.

As silly as it sounds, the main reason I wanted to switch is repeat calendar notifications. This required a jailbreak and even then only a few apps available that didn't work as good as they should. on the S7, it works perfectly. I have full control over notifications and don't miss events anymore. I also love the way that the notifications stay on the screen until I dismiss them.

my biggest problems are replacing my apple watch and siri.

i got my s7 a week ago today. On Friday I got the s2 and not the 3g version. I do not want to make calls with the watch and the phone is with me all the time. I just love not having to take my phone out of my pocket 100 times a day with every notification and call that comes through. I love getting scores on my watch during the games, caller id on the watch so i can easily ignore them. The s2 does many of the things I want it to do, but a few things are still driving me crazy.

Here is where I am having trouble.

1. I wanna be able to use my watch to send quick text message. for example... on apple watch i would say "hey siri, tell my wife i'm on my way", and she would get the message "on my way". i've been trying to figure out this s voice thing and just can't.

2. I wanna be able to set my self reminders while driving down the road. with the apple watch or the iPhone i could add reminders to listed i created with a simple push and hold of the home button. i created lists in the iPhones reminders app for each of the jobs I was uncharge of as well as a general list called "my list". I could say things like... "add to my (job name) check on permits" and when i went to the list for that job, it would be there. sometimes i would just say "add to my list get flowers for wife at 4pm" and not only would it put the reminder in "my list", but it would remind me at 4pm to do it.

3. app features on watch. There was nothing handier than having my hands free when making certain purchases. Like at the starbucks drive through. when I get to the windows i would show them the starbucks QR code on my watch, they scan it for payment, and hand me my drink. at the movie theater I always reserve seating ahead of time. when i get to theater, I scan my watch and have both hands available to receive tickets. with s2 it seams as if it is only one directional. things come to watch, but hard to do from watch.

I am in no way making excuses to switch back to android. I knew this would be hard, so i should my iPhone 6s and apple watch as soon as i got the S7. Going back will be much harder this way. I am not totally stuck with either the S7 or the S2 and if convinced I would be better off switching to something else, I could. I have one more week with the phone and 10 days with the watch.

What options do i have to get past the few things still driving me crazy.

Thanks, Cody

 

[Russell Holly]

Lets see what we can do to help!

1. Your Gear S2 can be set up for voice activation, but it is not set up to do so out of the box. You can tap the S-Voice icon and enable "Hi Gear" as a command to wake up the watch and start using voice commands. You can actually set whatever you want as a trigger command for S-Voice. Those commands include "Send message to [contact]" which works similarly to Siri's messaging function on the Apple Watch.

2. S-Voice doesn't currently have a to-do list function with calendar reminders. You can set voice memos to record and play back at certain times, but that's hardly the same thing. This is a function better served by Google Now on your phone or on an Android Wear watch, but not currently supported on the Gear S2.

3. There are a bunch of apps that can be set to your primary list for launching features, but Starbucks is not currently one of them. At least, not in the US. It's available in Korea but hasn't been rolled out worldwide yet. Samsung Pay works on the watch, but you don't gain the Starbucks rewards that way.

It seems like most of your problems are coming in with the Gear S2, and not necessarily with Android. Samsung has built this watch to be a little outside of the Android ecosystem, and as a result it's not really able to do everything Android and Android Wear can do right now. It's a frustrating way to look at all of this, but if you're in a position to check out something running Android Wear connected to your Galaxy S7 you are likely to find these pain points disappear entirely.

 

[williams448]

My suggestion is to get an Android Wear watch, & set up Google Now. Way more functionality than S-voice. IMO

Posted via the Android Central App using my badass Galaxy S7

 

[cody]

Thanks guys for the replies. Recommendations on android wear watch that works good with S7?

Cody

 

[williams448]

My almost 2 years old Samsung Gear Live still works great. My wife has the Moto 360 2, & she loves it. So any newer one should work great. I think you can get the Asus Zwnwatch 2 for $150 or less. Very low price compared to all other smartwatches.

Posted via the Android Central App using my badass Galaxy S7

 

[Russell Holly]

Thanks guys for the replies. Recommendations on android wear watch that works good with S7?

Cody

All of them

I'm partial to the Huawei Watch and Moto 360 2nd Gen.

 

[t0ked]

For voice commands Svoice is much less functional than Google now. I disabled it and use Google now exclusively. It can do much of what you are asking about.

 

[Alanhd]

I've got the LG urban and ive no complaints