Android phones: Tips, tricks?

Could be. I feel awfully silly talking to my phone and even more silly making my phone talk back to me. I can see that it would be handy at times.
 
timwhit said:
Yes. It will get an OTA update eventually.
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I didn't realize Samsung had finally started doing OTA updates. It's long past time, Kies was always rubbish and even some 3rd party ROMs have been doing OTA updates for a while. When did Samsung start doing them?
 
Mercutio said:
Could be. I feel awfully silly talking to my phone and even more silly making my phone talk back to me. I can see that it would be handy at times.
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I think that is a big reason why they put raise to speak in there. That and there are no buttons or taps at all involved with raise to speak triggering Siri.
 
I have found Siri useful for reading me txt messages and also for replying and writing them while driving. I don't like the idea of trying to write on the phone while driving.
 
I've pretty much expected that something like that exists for every smartphone from every carrier. It's really no surprise. I don't know if I care or not. The worst thing I might do on my phone is look at the occasional porn tumblr. My email is encrypted and my phone is encrypted, but unless there's a TOR client someplace for Android, they're going to know where I'm going online and how much data I'm downloading.
 
I need two Android apps, and I would love any recommendations.

1. RDP client for connecting to Windows 7 desktops using the built-in Remote Desktop, no 3rd party software on the desktop.

2. Program that allows printing to networked printers from a web browser. No idea if this is even possible, but many of the things I'm asked aren't.
 
Mercutio said:
Could be. I feel awfully silly talking to my phone and even more silly making my phone talk back to me. I can see that it would be handy at times.
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I would too. In fact I feel silly using a Bluetooth headset. The first time I saw somebody using one years ago, he was walking and had the Bluetooth headset on the ear I couldn't see. He was pacing up and down a long driveway (I was waiting for my car to be fixed), and I thought he was some kind of loony and wanted to get away from him! It was only when he turned around at one end of the driveway that I realized he was talking to a wireless device stuck in his ear.

We better get used to it. We're going to have more and more of this in the future.
 
FYI, for seeing how well OEMs actually implement Android on shipping devices, check this out.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...d-big-leaks-in-pre-installed-android-apps.ars

Mind you, with CarrierIQ and now this, I might just go back to a dumb phone, that gets heaps of stand-by time, actually correctly supports the GSM-AT-Hayes command set (which actually means you can sync your phone and your desktop without some cloud service being in the middle), and I don't need to worry about remote hacks or other sh***y software. Just kidding, I actually do like my android handset...
 
It appears carrier iq is even on apples phones according to chpwn but it looks like it can be disabled and doesn't have a key logger apparently. Nokia says they don't have it for sure, but I wonder if that is just a setup to say the carriers put it on there when/if it gets found.

The key logger portion is what really gets me, secure email and ssl sites don't matter to that thing.
 
Looks like a compelling argument for re-rooting my phone.

But honestly, even if they're logging keystrokes, there's nothing that interesting happning on my phone anyway. I don't enjoy Swyping so much that I'd try to have any kind of extended conversation via email or (much more rarely) GChat. Wow, maybe Sprint knows I like to look at smutty Tumblrs or and spend an unhealthy amount of time looking at stuff on Amazon on my lunch break.

The privacy concerns are pretty substantial for people who live their lives through their handset, but I'd bet that many of the people who are alarmed by this have disclosed everything about every member of their family to Facebook and its advertisers anyway.
 
People are just pissed that it wasn't disclosed or able to be removed or disabled. I can see aspects of it really help the carriers and manufacturers.

Should be a stand alone app.

Surprised there isn't more of a media shitstorm over it given what happened with apple over locationgate and that only logged to the handset or computer.
 
What was that remark about government intrusion, and a compound in Idaho, Sam?
 
WTF? How can that be legal, or are there no laws at all anymore?
 
Just pointing out that all those folks in free states have a reason for moving there.

I'm not sure if it's the ostrich position, head in sand, or the nuclear weapon position, kissing your ass good bye, but for a not very positive person, Sam is in love with Big Brother.
 
What makes a state free? I guess the grass is always greener. I've thought about living in California and the thoughts are positive. I just don't want to leave all my friends and family.
 
Depends. Those states have a bunch of people that think the government, both federal and state, should be limited.

Texas as well. If the state congress only meets 3 months a year, they have little time for dictating how you wipe your ass, like Kali, and what temperature water, and what kind of toliet paper you use.

Hawaii's Constitution and state government are the same as the Federal Government's system. This tends to limit the state government's ability to write stupid, unconstitutional laws, that take years to get repealed.

I can go on, but, you get the idea.
 
Back to phones.

Looked at Tmobiles options. HTC phones are nice. HTC makes the MyTouch Slider 4G for
Tmobile. Through Costco, it's a good price point.

It would run 80.00 for the phone, and I would be tied in for the basic 40.00 plus some amount of data 10 dollars at least.

So, for 80.00 new phone, but, 50 a month, not so bad.

The other option is to pay full price for a phone, and for 50 get an unlimited month to month,
no contract.

Tried the Republic phone, but they are full, and, you are paying 200 dollars for an old phone.
 
Anyone have any idea how much data is average for checking email, limited browsing functions, etc.?
 
I consume around 700-800MB/month using my iPhone doing the things you mentioned.
 
Santilli said:
Anyone have any idea how much data is average for checking email, limited browsing functions, etc.?
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The only answer there is depends on your personal habits. I regularly exchange emails with 25kB walls of text and/or 2MB attachments but even at that I probably don't hit 250MB of SMTP-only traffic on my phone in any given month. Likewise, "limited browsing" means different things to different people. Flash objects, streaming audio or video and even ad-laden-ness of the sites you visit will impact that estimate.

What I can tell you is that a couple people I know who live in rural areas and use 3G data plans with 200MB quotas are OK as long as they restrict data access to email only.
 
I just solved one problem. TMobile has Wifi calling, and data, that don't count against your minutes, provided you have a phone that can do it. That would solve the long phone calls with my girlfriend, before 9 PM, from the house. Now I need a wifi phone.

The other choice is a land line, unlimited, for 20 bucks, to the area shes' in.

Republic says they are full, and, I'm not jazzed about paying a premium price for an old Android phone.
 
It depends a lot on what you do, and somewhat more on where you do it. I use my phone online quite a bit but I've very rarely away from a WiFi access point (Maybe 1 hour a day most days) so I use less than 500MB/month without having to watch what I use.
 
mubs said:
Hah! Now I know how the manufacturers are naming their stuff. Why pay their Marketing guys or an outside consultant firm when this free site does exactly the same thing?? !!
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Thanks mubs. I'm glad someone appreciate the small amount of humor in the ridiculous naming conventions of Android phones. :)
 
Speaking of which:

Costco has some deals on phones for Tmobile. Tmobile, for me, seems to be the only company to go with, because of their wifi free calling. Perfect for calling my girlfriend all day, free.

That said, they have a couple phones to look at. The Mytouch slider, the Mytouch, Amaze, and Sensation. I would like to be able to transfer my music through moving a SIM, it's about 16 gigs, but that's not a deal breaker.

The Mytouch is free with deal. Mytouch slider is 79.00. Amaze is off the charts, like 250, and the Sensation is about 199. All phones made by HTC. The mytouch lines get great reviews, do everything I want a phone to do.
The amaze and sensation don't have expandable memory.

The slider gets a 8 vs 5 mp camera, and, a dual vs. single core processor, and a keyboard for 79 dollars more then the 4 gig slide. Looks like I found my phone.
 
Santilli said:
Speaking of which:

Costco has some deals on phones for Tmobile. Tmobile, for me, seems to be the only company to go with, because of their wifi free calling. Perfect for calling my girlfriend all day, free.

That said, they have a couple phones to look at. The Mytouch slider, the Mytouch, Amaze, and Sensation. I would like to be able to transfer my music through moving a SIM, it's about 16 gigs, but that's not a deal breaker.

The Mytouch is free with deal. Mytouch slider is 79.00. Amaze is off the charts, like 250, and the Sensation is about 199. All phones made by HTC. The mytouch lines get great reviews, do everything I want a phone to do.
The amaze and sensation don't have expandable memory.

The slider gets a 8 vs 5 mp camera, and, a dual vs. single core processor, and a keyboard for 79 dollars more then the 4 gig slide. Looks like I found my phone.
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If T-Mobile isn't what you really want and you're looking to use WiFi to make calls vs the mobile network, why not use skype on your mobile device? Even better, why not just get a media player and run skype using one of those. Keep a basic cell phone if you need it for emergencies.
 
Skype hasn't been good since MSFT bought it. Stopped working on the Beast, and I haven't had a chance to get my girlfriends' laptop, and try and set it up again.

You did get me thinking. I changed my google phone number to the same as her area code, so there shouldn't be any charge. That should solve one problem.

As soon as the contract is over, I'm going to go for the Mytouch slider from Costco.
That gives me a decent HTC phone, for 79.00, plus contract. Since with the google phone number changed I think I've solved my gf problem, I can use the minimum contract price, which is about 50 dollars, for the phone. I do need to find out how much they charge for overage on the data contract.
 
Santilli said:
Skype hasn't been good since MSFT bought it. Stopped working on the Beast, and I haven't had a chance to get my girlfriends' laptop, and try and set it up again.

You did get me thinking. I changed my google phone number to the same as her area code, so there shouldn't be any charge. That should solve one problem.

As soon as the contract is over, I'm going to go for the Mytouch slider from Costco.
That gives me a decent HTC phone, for 79.00, plus contract. Since with the google phone number changed I think I've solved my gf problem, I can use the minimum contract price, which is about 50 dollars, for the phone. I do need to find out how much they charge for overage on the data contract.
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You may have missed my point. It doesn't matter if Skype works on your basic desktop or not; you would be using Skype on your mobile device. Your mobile device would be connected to WiFi and then you would Skype your girlfriend on her mobile device, laptop/desktop, or even some kind of iPod/media device. I've not had any issues with Skype on my iPhone since Microsoft bought them (or even prior to). Look into the Skype app for whatever Android phone you decide to go with and see if there are any issues. There may even be other VoIP apps you can find if you don't want to use Skype.

Your goal is to be able to talk to her without racking up minutes and charges. Ditch the mentality of needing an actual phone number and look into an IP conferencing device. In theory you could get away with using something like an Android media player or even (dare I recommend) a used iPod Touch. There's no phone number needed, just your wifi. Keep a pre-paid tiny flip phone with you when you travel if you need a mobile phone. Otherwise, get a real smart phone, pay the cost, and have fun with it and stop worrying about it.
 
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