I cannot find Peggle for Android anymore. It's not listed in the Amazon OR Google App Store. WHAT THE FUCK???
Seriously. Stock ICS+ is an excellent, unified UI with consistent behaviors and paradigms that make intuitive sense. All the vendor skins are total ass compared to it, much moreso than in the 2.2/2.3 days. Using my 2.3 phone with goddamn Sense on it is maddening since I got my N7.
I would really recommend grabbing UCCW (Ultimate Custom Widget) as well. It makes creating tiles and shapes and images as widgets really easy. Unfortunately, I dont have any screenshots of my current homescreen at the moment. Maybe I can figure out how to take some later. I have to admit that I am still not completely happy with mine. It needs a more focused color scheme, and its nowhere as slick as the ones you see on the sites like Canuck linked. My current goal is to find a live wallpaper that lets me use multiple images and won't slow down the phone. Before the multiple wallpapers idea, however, what I did was open an art program (Paint.net or GIMP are free ones that work) and create an image the size of my phone background. (On my Atrix HD, that ended up being 1440 wide x 1280 tall because of the scrolling background). I then overlaid it with gridlines and saved that as a jpg, and sent it to my phone and made it my background. Using those gridlines, I was able to quickly figure out the pixel size of the dock at the bottom and the notification bar at the top, along with the size of each of the grid opening for placing icons. Then, I began thinking of what I wanted to be on my homescreen. I knew I wanted some kind of calendar widget, a clock, the weather, and room for some icons. I also wanted some kind of picture there just to make it look a little more interesting. I ended up coming up with the background I attached to this message (you should be able to click it to make it bigger) I left the grid on it so you could see the grid I made it. The black I left at the top and bottom are for the notification bar and dock. On this one, the top left was a big clock and weather widget, created using UCCW, the middle was for a 4 wide by 1 tall version of the simple calendar widget, the bottom left was icons for web browser and email, and the bottom right had big buttons for dialer, sms, and voicemail. Anyone who has done this before will see the problem immediately. Scrolling left and right slides all those background elements with it, making the screens beside the home screen look really awkward. I fixed that by putting less elements on the background itself and more panels using UCCW (which lets you create widgets which are basically just shapes with color. They make nice backgrounds for icons, and flip out of the way when you slide the screen left or right, so you can make new ones and make the next pages look just as nice.) Right now my background is a 50/50 split (with the black borders) of black and clouds. It makes my homescreen have a "work" side, where I put the calendar and the clock, and a side where icons can float. My next project when I get free time is to work with the multiple backgrounds live wallpapers to put more stuff back onto the background instead of using multiple widgets.
One thing I just noticed. If you look at that grid, it looks like the squares on the sides are wider than the ones in the middle. That was caused by me having a setting in nova launcher set where it had a side margin. When I removed that,the squares became the same size
If someone wants to make a dedicated thread for that that would be great. I'd love to learn how to do that stuff. I actually just started using Nova Launcher the other day. I bought it for 25c back when Google was having some kind of big campaign. Man, it is so much smoother switching screens than TouchWiz is. And it automatically organizes all the apps in the app drawer in alphabetical order! What an idea!
Nova Launcher scares me because it is new and different (to me). Any recommended resources on it before I dive into Wader levels of customization with it and the other apps? In part I think I'm just curious what TouchWiz actually does in relation to changing stock Android, and by extension what Nova Launcher will do.
So I got one of these "smartphones" today. A Samsung Galaxy Ace II x. Never used an Android OS before and not sure what some recommended apps are or just important things in the menu's that I might overlook. The only specific thing I need answered is whether I'll be eating into my data limit if I'm on my wi-fi at home?
Absolutely not (unless your wi-fi is metered by whoever runs that). Any time your phone is on a wi-fi connection, it will use that for data.
Ok, that's it, I am making a "Customizing Your Mobile Homescreen" thread. All OS's are welcome. I would love to see if anyone has done anything cool with iOS or Windows Phone 8 Also, the short answer to your second question is that Nova is much close to stock Android in how it looks and feels (before) you start mucking with it) than a lot of the os layers that phone companies throw over the top. It simply then lets you customize the hell out of it.
It's laid out better for larger screens and has some nice features, and manages to have absolutely horrendous performance on my N7.
I tried the beta and hated it. It does the thing that everyone always says they want -- using panes so that part of the screen is devoted to a forum view, and then part of it to the actual message you're reading. But I want the whole screen to be the message I'm reading, always!
It is, once you click into a thread. I'd like to use it, but the performance problem is catastrophic to the point that typing is annoying.
Can I just say that the inability of Google to sell either the Nexus 4 or any of it's derivative products is straight up bullshit? It's still sold out practically everywhere and supplies aren't supposed to normalize until February sometime - all of this information being obtained second hand through rumors or partners with Google. Who the hell sells something like this? I'd prefer if they raise the price by $50-$100 and actually gave reliable information on the things they are selling. And don't even get started on the charging orb...
Yeah, Google definitely has some supply chain/stocking problems that they need to sort through. Turns out managing physical distro/sales isn't the same thing as being a cutting-edge tech company, heh.
I don't think it is a question of management, but one simply of demand. All of the prior Nexus phones sold well, but weren't exactly blockbusters, and when released contained hardware and specs that were quite a bit less impressive than the flagship phones offered by other companies. The Nexus One, S, and Galaxy Nexus were, frankly, developer phones. The Nexus 4 is the first Google phone that can compete head-to-head with the iPhone 5, Galaxy SIII, and the other manufacturer flagships. It features cutting-edge software, hardware, and can be purchased unsubsidized at half the price of other high-end phones. Is it any wonder that it is still sold out a couple months after release? Google's mistake was being caught off guard by demand for the Nexus 4.
I agree that it's definitely a demand thing. But you're not entirely right about the hardware specs. The Galaxy Nexus was higher-end than the phones out there at the time (Galaxy S II, for instance), and was the first phone to have a big 720p display. The Nexus 4 is really a hard phone to predict demand for, though. On the one hand, it's a high-end phone for super-cheap if you don't get a subsidy. On the other hand, it only works on the nation's worst carrier, and everybody gets subsidies, at which point it's actually a really expensive phone. Really, the Nexus 4 strikes me more as a pure "developer phone" than the Galaxy Nexus -- no LTE, no Sprint or Verizon, no subsidized pricing. If it's selling as more than that, I think it speaks to the customer demand for change in the cell market, away from subsidized phones and high-priced contracts.
I agree dude. All the tech blogs were slamming the phone for not having LTE. It wasn't a slam dunk for sales, but I am more annoyed with the lack of any official information from Google. If they miscalculated, it should be them, not LG telling us.
So my Desire Z gave itself a reach around last night and now it has no OS. ( As in I go into the bootloader and it does some "searching" "no image" thing. Factory Resets don't work.). I'm pretty sure I can load a new one on there given that it's currently plugged into my computer and Windows 7 installed drivers for it... so.. what ROM? As a Desire Z it didn't get an official ICS. If there was a a version out there that worked I wouldn't mind giving it a go. Any recommendations ?
After four years on an iPhone I switched to Android about a month ago and I love it. I'm a bit of a design whore, and pretty fickle, so it's great to be able to transform the UI so drastically. I've been browsing the uploads on MyColorscreen and, while I admire enormously many of the very minimal screens people have crafted, I need information! I crave information. I need to look at my home screen and see my agenda and the weather and buttons :o Anyway, I'm really digging the Android experience: oh, you don't like the stock keyboard? Download another one with better predictive text. You don't like the icons, the launcher, the whatever...just grab another one. Awesome!
So I was at a Verizon store today, and I was playing with a Galaxy Note II. I've never actually used a non-Nexus Samsung before, it turns out. So I was all prepared for it to be nice, but I ultimately had to claw my eyes out because TouchWiz is SO BAD. I mean, say what you will about Sense, but at least it has an ethos. Yes, it replaces Android's look and functionality with something that is only rarely better, but at least it has an aesthetic and a design sense to it. TouchWiz is just like a dead raccoon shat on the screen. The fonts are ugly, the colors are hideous, the UI elements are bad. I mean, seriously, just look at this screenshot of the Note II's notification pane. I want to die inside, looking at that. TouchWiz has all the design sense you'd expect from someone who thought that "TouchWiz" was a good name. Ugh, ugh, ugh. So anyway, I think that pretty much locks me into a Nexus for my next phone, unless Motorola starts becoming relevant and makes un-shat-upon phones.
Can you post a Nexus notification screen for comparison? I never found the notification screen on my S3 to be unspeakably hideous but maybe I've been an uncultured fool.
Here you go. And I don't mean to shit on people who like their Galaxies/Notes. Just... I was kind of shocked by it. I see the same ugliness in the app drawer, where the TouchWiz version has worse design, iconography, and typography than the stock Android version. I just don't understand why they'd do that. Android looks nice! Why make it deliberately ugly?
I don't have a problem with TouchWiz on my Galaxy Tab 2. It looks fine to me, and in fact I didn't even know it was a thing until just now. Also that screenshot of stock ICS doesn't have the buttons to turn things on and off, which I love, so advantage TouchWiz I guess.
Stock Jellybean, actually. In 4.2, the quick settings are accessed via that odd profile-and-squares button in the upper right, on a phone; on a tablet, they're accessed by being pulled down from the upper right instead of the upper left. Here's a picture showing the quick settings side-by-side with the notifications.
Yeah, I'm not seeing the shocking difference here. I also quite like that the notification screen on the S3/TouchWiz has a bunch of common options you can turn on/off right there at the top.
Ah. Well it's good that they're there although I like the scrolling menu better for some reason I can't quite put my finger on. In general I don't really think either UI looks dramatically better than the other.
If you think it's okay, then you think it's okay; I mean, you're looking at the same thing I'm looking at. But to me it's a difference that figuratively punches me in the face.
I have the original note and the pull down menu is fine for me. Someday the original Note owners will be blessed with Jelly Bean...someday. That said I will definitely be going Nexus with my next phone. I love the size of my note but I love getting timely updates more.
I had the same experience with TouchWiz as mkozlows when my sister in law brought her new S3 around. Gorgeous phone, but ugh. Finally pulled the trigger on an N4,though, so all is well. Or will be, when it gets here in 2-3 weeks.
I have experience with two Android distros: 1. Stock Android. This means the Nexus 4 (or the Galaxy Nexus if you're a bargain hunter) today. I really like stock Android, think Matias Duarte (formerly of the WebOS team) is a great designer, and of course, this is the raw upstream driver of Android, so apps that are just built for Android in general tend to have a stock aesthetic. 2. HTC Sense. This means, well, any of HTC's phones. It's a lot less ugly than TouchWiz, but it also differs more from stock Android. Whereas TouchWiz is like taking Android and beating it with an ugly stick, Sense is trying to make its own OS with its own UI conventions that just happens to be based on Android (it's worth remembering that the earliest incarnations of Sense were on HTC's Windows Mobile phones; HTC has worked hard to develop its own brand identity with its own design cues). In the Gingerbread era, I think you could make a reasonable case that Sense was arguably superior to stock Android, and that its only downside was some lack of consistency as you'd move from fully-Sense apps to more stock apps. In the post-ICS era, Sense looks increasingly dated and is just not as good as stock Android, and the inconsistencies loom larger. So, my answer is: Nexus 4. Which has some shortcomings (doesn't work on CDMA carriers, no LTE), but is otherwise a great phone. But I have no firsthand experience with MotoBLUR or whatever LG's layer of customizations are called, and it's entirely possible that those are more minimal than Sense and less hideous than TouchWiz; I just at this point am extremely skeptical.
Third option would be to install something like CyanogenMod. I've been using it on my Galaxy S2 and it's awesome. It's basically stock android built from the android open source project but usually with a couple small additions like widgets and menu options.
Touchwiz is fine, you wussies. Besides, nothing else in that class has the removable battery and sd card slot.
Or you could just install an alternate launcher. Apex Launcher is free and pretty standard-Android themewise. You keep the system's notification bar and nothing else, and get back some fancy features (like the universal search box) that you'd otherwise not have thanks to patent wars. I have my Samsung device rooted, but I haven't bothered swapping images, because Apex is sufficiently not-skinned for my tastes.
I got my N4. It won't read my SIM card and it barely picks up a wireless signal from a router in the same room less than seven feet away. Great start.
