Android apps

[Scouse]

Who loves you and who do you love?!

 

[Lamp]

Fucking piece of shit Kies. Took 10 minutes to load up. I don't know why I even bothered downloading it. Airdroid takes seconds and does the same thing.

/uninstall

 

[Raven]

Yeah, I remember that joke of a program. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get it to see your phone.

 

[Scouse]

Airdroid takes seconds and does the same thing.

Can't backup your contacts using it. Thought that's be a basic feature. But other than that seems good

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Turns out I was wrong about SkyGo quality. It starts off poor but settles into quite a sharp picture after a couple of minutes.

 

[Lamp]

Google saves all your contacts in gmail anyway.

 

[Scouse]

Google saves all your contacts in gmail anyway.

Not if you don't let it. I was miffed when google went around taking everyone's wi-fi details with their streetview cars, I'm not about to voluntarily hand 'em over my wi-fi password on principle.

Although they've probably taken it anyway

 

[caLLous]

Yeah I was a bit shocked tbh. I have a couple of gmail accounts and they are all set up in the android gmail app on my phone. Now, google != gmail so I was a bit narked to see them all being used for downloading apps and app updates and whatnot. Even worse, there doesn't seem to be any logic to it - every day I get notifications about updates for multiple gmail accounts.

Also, when I logged into my "main" account on my pc, and went to the bit about what data is held by them "for" me, it had all the other gmail accounts in there all linked up nice and happy.

 

[Scouse]

I'm not shocked. I read an interview a couple of years back in New Scientist with Google's "head of data mining" or somesuch (board-level guy). He said, and I quote, that they'd "like to abolish privacy"...

 

[caLLous]

Yeah shocked was the wrong word because I do know they'd take every bit of personal data and then some and hoard it if they were allowed to, "fucking annoyed" covers it better.

 

[Zenith.UK]

The problem is does the benefit outweigh the pitfalls?
Like Scouse, I never sync my phone contacts with Gmail. The contact list in Outlook on my PC is where I store and maintain my contacts, letting HTC Sync take care of getting them onto my phone. I don't let my contact list get onto Google's servers because I don't want my friends and family inconvenienced in the event of Google's system suffering a massive intrusion.

That said, I've got Latitude enabled along with Latitude History as I use GMaps every day as a poor-man's satnav. I know I'm letting Google store my location history, but in return I get the ability to see where I was at a particular time on a particular day. That's helpful for filling out my overtime and mileage forms at the end of each month. The conspiracy theorist in me hates the idea that my location info might somehow be used to serve up localised ads to me. The realist in me isn't bothered because I've got multiple methods of blocking ads on my gadgets.

By buying apps from the Market I've also let Google know my card details for Google Wallet. I do however only buy apps when they're on some sort of reduction or promotion. I worked out that I spent £2 getting £10 of apps during the recent sale. It's much the same with Steam for me. I never buy a game on Steam as full price, only when it's in a sale.

It's all about balance. I let Google have some data about me in return for a particular service. I deliberately withhold other data as I don't feel comfortable letting other people's personal information (that they've trusted me with) to get out of my control. The same could be said of Apple, RIM or Microsoft, so it's not just kicking Google for the sake of it.

And Cut The Rope is a nice little time-waster. Osmos is okay, but once you've completed the Odyssey and Arcade modes, what's left?

 

[Lamp]

Try Flick Golf....managed to get 8 holes-in-one in succession...a 9th is proving illusive....especially on the Elite courses.

 

[caLLous]

Osmos is okay, but once you've completed the Odyssey and Arcade modes, what's left?

The arcade mode of Impasse on level 9. And that's about it.

 

[Bigmac]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.omgpop.dstfree

Draw Something, very fun app to play with friends.

 

[Lamp]

I bought Sony's Frame Grabber, tried it out, realised it only works on videos you can shoot on your phone, not stuff you've downloaded to it in other formats (flv, mp4 etc). Got a refund. Bloody copyright bollocks.

By buying apps from the Market I've also let Google know my card details for Google Wallet.

I only keep about £30 on the card I used to purchase Apps, so if anything bad happens, I won't lose much.

 

[Lamp]

Can anyone recommend a decent Excel viewer?

Documents to Go want £7 & Polaris seems to take ages to open just a 4 meg Excel sheet!

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Some seriously big news in the world of Android apps: http://www.sigames.com/news/14114/Football+Manager+Handheld+makes+Android+debut

 

[Lamp]

Angry Birds Space - interesting twist on the game with gravity. Good time waster.

 

[Gray]

For anyone using Youtube on their Android, does anyone know of a way to shuffle the items in your playlist? On browsers there is the option, but can't see it anywhere on this phone.

 

[dysfunction]

Angry Birds Space - interesting twist on the game with gravity. Good time waster.

I agree! It's done quite well with the gravity angle

 

[caLLous]

Sooo, has anyone with a Galaxy S2 got ICS yet? Through proper channels, I mean. Apparently Samsung withdrew their announcement that it was ready but some of the operators (O2 and Three I think) are already rolling it out. I'm sim-free so surely we should be getting it first.

I launched Kies the other day and plugged the phone in and it said there was a firmware update so I thought "ooooooh goody" but it turns out it was just Gingerbread 2.3.5 from July or August last year. Note to self: check for updates more frequently.

 

[Lamp]

I'd be interested if anyone on Giffgaff has had a firmware update message come thru yet. I'm still running stock 234.

 

[soze]

Would GiffGaff not get the SIM Free one? As Giff Gaff don't sell phone I can't imagine they would send Operator Customised updates.

 

[Bigmac]

I read somewhere SIM Free users wont be getting ICS till all network operators have given the green light, I dont have ICS yet as vodafone still have it in testing.

 

[Gray]

I got the ICS update last night, was a pain in the fuckin arse running it through Kies, but i tried it at 2am and relised in the morning i was using my USB3 connection which didn't seem to recognise it right, as soon as i plugged it into a USB2 it was sorted...

<3 the reset option now, and phone boots up must faster which is nice. Galaxy S2 on O2 anyway!

 

[Sar]

Some seriously big news in the world of Android apps: http://www.sigames.com/news/14114/Football Manager Handheld makes Android debut

Mark me as "giggidy".

Have the PC version, but not got playing a lot of it so far.


And I've got Cyanogenmod 9 on my SGS2 atm - best by far for battery life after trying 3 other custom ICS roms. Some of them are shockingly bad on battery life, but this has been good so far. 04/04 build.

 

[Lamp]

I'm tempted:

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/mobile-phones/how-to-root-your-samsung-galaxy-s2-50004972/

...but as I'm such a n00b at this sort of thing (what the hell is an "unsecure kernel" ??), I don't want to risk bricking the phone so stuck with 2.3.4 probably until the S3 comes out with ICS

 

[MYstIC G]

As I understand it, in that context insecure kernel means one that hasn't been locked down.

 

[Bahumat]

Does anyone know a good app to manage finances? Preferebly on iPhone.
I do not have any debt, however I would like to better manage my money and quickly see where it's going lol

 

[Lamp]

I would like to better manage my money and quickly see where it's going lol

get married