V400 - KitKat = No notifications on icons and difficulty in making new home screens, can I get some help?

[AC Question]

V400 - KitKat = No notifications on icons and difficulty in making new home screens

Hello!

I've recently obtained an LG V400.

I set it up yesterday and I'm noticing a couple of things that I don't believe are right.

1 : The icons of the apps don't get any numbers on them when there has been activity.

Example:

Facebook : I'll get "likes" on photos or comments on them. I'll have friend requests. Nothing about the Facebook icon changes to let me know I should go in and look at it.
Same with Words With Friends. I actually hear notifications for the game when opponents submit moves but the icon never shows I have games waiting.

2 : Everyone online source says for making an additional home screen you simply need to grab an app/widget icon, the grid comes up, then drag it all the way to the right of that grid and you'll create a new screen and if you ever remove all apps from that screen the screen will be deleted.
That's not the case for me. I was told by LG Support that I needed instead to hold my finger on a blank area of a screen then once it shows the apps at the bottom and my screens at the top I need to then press and hold one of the screens again and then I get the screens 1, 2 and 3 with a 4th one being a "+". I press "+" and then I can make a new screen.

Do these issues indicate that m device isn't properly functioning or is this just how Android works?

Outside of my Kindle Fire HDX, this is my first Android device.

 

[B. Diddy]

Re: V400 - KitKat = No notifications on icons and difficulty in making new home screens

Welcome to Android Central! "Unread badge counts" are not a typical feature on most Android devices--but it depends on the device. Certain manufacturers build that feature into their own "skin," or modified Android user interface. Do you know if your V400 is supposed to have that feature? If it doesn't, then you can try a 3rd party app like Notifyer Unread Count.

The difference in how to manage homescreens also reflects the differences between these various skins. The way your LG support person described it is how the LG skin works. What you had seen online about removing the last shortcut leading to removal of the homescreen is particular to the Google Now Launcher, which is Google's main skin for Nexus devices.

That's how Android works--there is a basic Android user interface (seen on Nexus devices) that can then modified to varying extents by other manufacturers, with all different kinds of features added (which is not always a good thing, if they start to bog things down or use up more internal storage). Some people like these feature rich skins like Samsung's TouchWiz, while others prefer a more basic interface, since you can typically add features yourself by installing the appropriate apps from the Google Play Store.

 

[GPendolino]

Thanks for your reply.

I'm slowly getting used to android and I'm starting to like it.

I submitted these same issues to LG support and of course their knee-jerk reaction is to do a hard factory reset.

I'm doing a backup of it now and I'll see what happens.

If that doesn't work I'll try to app you mentioned for the "notifyer" and then I'll just use their method for creating additional screens.