Help me hate android less

[slackerinabox]

OK, so I hated my Galaxy S6 with a passion but was offered a great deal when hopping providers, and have read excellent reviews. I've been on iOS since Lollipop so my knowledge isn't up to date, and googling leads to contradictory information ("use a battery saver!" "don't! they're b.s.!).

Here are some of my complains in general, I know they can be remedied (s7 edge getting delivered tomorrow):

1. Samsung bloat. I hated how my new $800 phone wasn't silky smooth, is disabling the apps individually still the best way to minimize the bloat and smooth things up?

2. Launchers. I kinda prefer apple's approach because I only use 4 apps daily and find an app tray mostly useless. Assuming I'm a bit of a design snob, what's the slickest/smoothest launcher these days (I'll pay for theme packs if the icons don't have jaggies and remind me of win 3.1)

3. Battery life: My s6 couldn't get to lunchtime and I used a plethora of batt savers to help (some did, some made things worse). WHat's the prevailing wisdom these days: batt savers are bs, or worth installing?

4. Photo sync: I love icloud. Original quality (video included) synced without much thought. Is google as good? I know it downscales your pics but what about videos? I'm happy to have 128gb out the door so will be shooting lots of 4k video, does that get synced? If not, what service is the most problem free?'

5. Smart watch: I'm trying to be thrifty, will the 1st gen moto x that can be found for $100 be as good as a modern one feature wise (I'm fine if it's slower)? Is android wear rock solid, what I mean is that my damn pebble seems to miss 50% of my notifications while my buddies aWatch seems to be flawless. Is android wear perfectly acceptable, or a compromise (the pebble missing 50% of text notifications makes it pretty useless for my purposes)

6. My head unit has android auto but unfortunately no built in gps (carplay previously worked perfectly). Is android auto now bullet proof? I couldn't for the life of me get the prior standard working on my s6. Is there any trick (back then it was to download an app, which never worked, but I don't recall any instructions on the phone telling me to get an app I just had to figure that out I guess)

 

[ControlD]

I can't address all of your points, but I'll give my take on a couple of them.

(1) Can't answer. I fled to a Nexus device to avoid such issues.

(2) I still find Nova Launcher to be the most feature complete. It is consistently fast and offers more customization than I need for sure.

(3) I never was much into battery savers to start with. Same with task killers. With Android 6.x and doze, I really don't think a battery saver is required. Doze is basically taking care of that for you already.

(4) I don't sync photos or video so I can't answer this one.

(5) When you say you are missing text messages with your Pebble, is that connected to a iOS device? Pebble on Android already utilizes Wear. I haven't missed a single text message ever with my Pebble (I have always been using it with Android) but I hear Pebble integration with iOS isn't the best. You might try using your Pebble with the S7 for a bit and see how it goes.

 

[desura]

Samsung phones are awful for this reason.

Disabling doesn't do much. The best option for you is likely cyanogenmod.

That takes some work though. You can download the stock Google launcher on the play score and that's an easy way to make it a little better. But cyanogenmod gets its most benefit from Samsung phones, because you simply can't delete much of the Samsung bloat ware.

 

[KentState]

1. Disabling the apps is still probably the best method. The Note 5 and S7 don't have the hitches of earlier phones in my personal experience. I've used an S3, Note 2, S5, S6, Note 5 and S7 Edge for comparison.

2. I just donwloaded the dark material theme and use the Samsung launcher. Seems pretty minimal, but I do use fore than 4 apps.

3. Not sure what caused the issues with battery life on the S6. Some days where good, some bad and it was hard to figure out what was killing it. My Note 5 goes a long time with heavy use and the S7 Edge is even better. Shouldn't have to mess with any battery managers or app killers.

4. Photo sync is seamless now. The options are 1) lets Google downscale your photos and store them for free or 2) sync them at the native resolution and it counts against your quota. 4k also will get synce at the native resolution, but the app will only do that when on Wifi. Smaller videos can be synced over the network.

5. My LG Watch R doesn't have issues with missing notifications. Can't speak for all the models.

6. The Android Auto app is in the store. Just download it, hook up your phone to the car stereo's USB port and the app should connect/mirror.

 

[slackerinabox]

Samsung phones are awful for this reason.

Disabling doesn't do much. The best option for you is likely cyanogenmod.

That takes some work though. You can download the stock Google launcher on the play score and that's an easy way to make it a little better. But cyanogenmod gets its most benefit from Samsung phones, because you simply can't delete much of the Samsung bloat ware.

Ack, does cyanogenmod still open you up to web or app store nasties? I'm not a noob, but once I got a reply to a used car text inquiry with a "link to carfax" or something similar, and I remember getting spyware auto installed, and then installing an antivirus slowed the system to a crawl.

I'll give google launcher a go, I use it on my $80 tablet with decent results, hate how it's not as symmetrical (icons) as ios.

 

[poofyhairguy]

1. Samsung bloat. I hated how my new $800 phone wasn't silky smooth, is disabling the apps individually still the best way to minimize the bloat and smooth things up?

Nope. The answer is to not buy a Samsung phone with their skin on it.

2. Launchers. I kinda prefer apple's approach because I only use 4 apps daily and find an app tray mostly useless. Assuming I'm a bit of a design snob, what's the slickest/smoothest launcher these days (I'll pay for theme packs if the icons don't have jaggies and remind me of win 3.1)

LG has the option to not have an app drawer on its phones, as do most Huawei phones. Any launcher I would recommend would have an app drawer.

3. Battery life: My s6 couldn't get to lunchtime and I used a plethora of batt savers to help (some did, some made things worse). WHat's the prevailing wisdom these days: batt savers are bs, or worth installing?

BS. The answer is Android 6.0+ and doze combined with bigger batteries.

4. Photo sync: I love icloud. Original quality (video included) synced without much thought. Is google as good? I know it downscales your pics but what about videos? I'm happy to have 128gb out the door so will be shooting lots of 4k video, does that get synced? If not, what service is the most problem free?'

You can put orginal quality in Google's cloud, you just have to pay (reasonable prices). I do.

5. Smart watch: I'm trying to be thrifty, will the 1st gen moto x that can be found for $100 be as good as a modern one feature wise (I'm fine if it's slower)? Is android wear rock solid, what I mean is that my damn pebble seems to miss 50% of my notifications while my buddies aWatch seems to be flawless. Is android wear perfectly acceptable, or a compromise (the pebble missing 50% of text notifications makes it pretty useless for my purposes)

The only downside to the 1 Gen 360 is battery life and the screen won't be as sharp as a Apple Watch.

6. My head unit has android auto but unfortunately no built in gps (carplay previously worked perfectly). Is android auto now bullet proof? I couldn't for the life of me get the prior standard working on my s6. Is there any trick (back then it was to download an app, which never worked, but I don't recall any instructions on the phone telling me to get an app I just had to figure that out I guess)

Never tried Android Auto.

 

[gorcorps]

Battery not even making it to lunch sounds abnormal for that phone. What was your usage like? I'm starting to suspect a more serious issue with this phone. I'd be interested to hear how your S7 turns out on this front before recommending anything else.

Typically though, battery savers that actively kill apps are not good. There are apps that help you figure out which apps might be running in the background, which are nice as they don't do anything other than give you the information and leave any actions up to you. Still, it really shouldn't be necessary these days.

 

[desura]

Ack, does cyanogenmod still open you up to web or app store nasties? I'm not a noob, but once I got a reply to a used car text inquiry with a "link to carfax" or something similar, and I remember getting spyware auto installed, and then installing an antivirus slowed the system to a crawl.

I'll give google launcher a go, I use it on my $80 tablet with decent results, hate how it's not as symmetrical (icons) as ios.

I don't know. I've never had that problem with cyanogenmod.

I can say that I recently cyanogenmod on a Samsung device and it was like night and day. So much smoother and more useful.

 

[Commodus]

1. Samsung bloat. I hated how my new $800 phone wasn't silky smooth, is disabling the apps individually still the best way to minimize the bloat and smooth things up?

You can try that, but as was suggested, a lot of it is simply Samsung's overall interface. The S7 is going to be different (faster processor and slightly different software), but the easiest solution is to get a phone with a lighter take on Android, such as a Nexus or the HTC 10.

2. Launchers. I kinda prefer apple's approach because I only use 4 apps daily and find an app tray mostly useless. Assuming I'm a bit of a design snob, what's the slickest/smoothest launcher these days (I'll pay for theme packs if the icons don't have jaggies and remind me of win 3.1)

Google Play Launcher if you value simplicity, I say.

3. Battery life: My s6 couldn't get to lunchtime and I used a plethora of batt savers to help (some did, some made things worse). WHat's the prevailing wisdom these days: batt savers are bs, or worth installing?

Generally not worth it. You're better off limiting the apps you install (say, skipping Facebook) and managing notifications. Your S7 Edge will likely have much better battery life all on its own, though.

4. Photo sync: I love icloud. Original quality (video included) synced without much thought. Is google as good? I know it downscales your pics but what about videos? I'm happy to have 128gb out the door so will be shooting lots of 4k video, does that get synced? If not, what service is the most problem free?'

I use an iPhone as my daily driver, but Google Photos is great. You won't see downscaling unless your shots are over 16 megapixels (not an issue on the S7), and the compression is virtually invisible. You can sync 4K video, but it'll count against your Google Drive space -- take that into account if you don't have a ton of free storage.

5. Smart watch: I'm trying to be thrifty, will the 1st gen moto x that can be found for $100 be as good as a modern one feature wise (I'm fine if it's slower)? Is android wear rock solid, what I mean is that my damn pebble seems to miss 50% of my notifications while my buddies aWatch seems to be flawless. Is android wear perfectly acceptable, or a compromise (the pebble missing 50% of text notifications makes it pretty useless for my purposes)

You won't get cellular data or a speaker, but you're otherwise covered. My biggest beef is Android Wear's tendency to partly obscure your watch face with Google Now cards (at least, at the time I was trying it). That and many of its upgrades tend to be playing catch-up. For a while, the running joke was that you could see where Android Wear was going based on what the Apple Watch already had.

6. My head unit has android auto but unfortunately no built in gps (carplay previously worked perfectly). Is android auto now bullet proof? I couldn't for the life of me get the prior standard working on my s6. Is there any trick (back then it was to download an app, which never worked, but I don't recall any instructions on the phone telling me to get an app I just had to figure that out I guess)

I've heard that it's good, but not bulletproof. You'll still get phones that don't quite like Android Auto. The good news is that it's better, and a fair number of car makers support both it and CarPlay.

 

[slackerinabox]

Battery not even making it to lunch sounds abnormal for that phone. What was your usage like? I'm starting to suspect a more serious issue with this phone. I'd be interested to hear how your S7 turns out on this front before recommending anything else.

Typically though, battery savers that actively kill apps are not good. There are apps that help you figure out which apps might be running in the background, which are nice as they don't do anything other than give you the information and leave any actions up to you. Still, it really shouldn't be necessary these days.

I posted a thread about it and the end result after much investigation was that the s6 was constantly seeking a signal in my pre-war building, so mostly radio stuff was going on. My iphone was smart enough to manage this better, and wouldn't seek radio as much when on wifi calling.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I don't know. I've never had that problem with cyanogenmod.

I can say that I recently cyanogenmod on a Samsung device and it was like night and day. So much smoother and more useful.

Oh yeah, Samsung hardware is great without Touchwiz. My favorite phone ever was a Galaxy S4 with a GPe ROM. When that program died so did a piece of my soul.

 

[slackerinabox]

I can't address all of your points, but I'll give my take on a couple of them.

(1) Can't answer. I fled to a Nexus device to avoid such issues.

(2) I still find Nova Launcher to be the most feature complete. It is consistently fast and offers more customization than I need for sure.

(3) I never was much into battery savers to start with. Same with task killers. With Android 6.x and doze, I really don't think a battery saver is required. Doze is basically taking care of that for you already.

(4) I don't sync photos or video so I can't answer this one.

(5) When you say you are missing text messages with your Pebble, is that connected to a iOS device? Pebble on Android already utilizes Wear. I haven't missed a single text message ever with my Pebble (I have always been using it with Android) but I hear Pebble integration with iOS isn't the best. You might try using your Pebble with the S7 for a bit and see how it goes.

Awesome on 1-4, I keep forgetting that doze has made a huge improvement these days.

5- I'd very inconsistently receive any notifications on iOS on the pebble. I have adhd so set reminders on my phone for everything, and would love ding reminders, but it just doesn't work that way and I miss about 50% of everything from text to calendar reminders. Bluetooth sync often needed a reset too. Other than that I don't really need a fancy smart watch, I'll dig the pebble up and give it a go on android - thanks for the suggestion!

 

[sm625]

I'm trying to be thrifty

You spent $800 on a phone. You are not trying to be thrifty. If you want to hate android less, then first you need to not delude yourself. Android is much better on a $100 phone.

 

[slackerinabox]

You spent $800 on a phone. You are not trying to be thrifty. If you want to hate android less, then first you need to not delude yourself. Android is much better on a $100 phone.

Actually, buy one get one free made my cost $30 for two phones per month, compared to $58 for 2 iphones prior. I don't believe thrifty is buying a phone that takes shitty pictures of my kin, know what I mean? Service was $50 for 4 lines with 2 gigs data each, so I'm walking away saving $150ish a month over my prior tmobile bill, with 2 galaxies, 1 lg basic phone, and one 6s plus.

 

[Zaap]

Battery not even making it to lunch sounds abnormal for that phone.

There's something wrong with the individual phone. I had an S6-edge and S6 edge+ both for a month each and never experienced any such terrible battery life issues with them. And that was leaving them completely stock as I've never messed much with test-drive phones.



---

Android Auto:

I had to get an software update for my 2016 Volt before it would work at all. You might need a firmware update for your head unit before it will work correctly. Definitely it was half-baked out of the gate.

Even 'working' I find it next to useless. The ONLY thing makes it worth using is Maps on the dash screen since your car doesn't have its own navigation.

Even the music functions are rudimentary, way less functional than my car's own controls, and apps like Pandora are built into the car anyway and work better. Google's own stupid music player doesn't even work properly with it- had to use a 3rd party player which again begs the question, why not just use the car's own built-in functions which are superior?

I guess it depends on the car, but Android auto is like car audio 2013. So if the car itself has built-in controls of greater vintage, then it may seem like something. For any newer car with its own built-in interface and touch screen- I can't imagine why anyone would spend more than the first few curious minutes with it, then never use it again. (Unless to use Maps on the dash that is.)

I can tell they made it with what I call 'dumbass safety' in-mind, that is "ohh noes! It's not safe to use this in a car, so let's make sure we make sure it doesn't actually function very well at all so few people will actually *use* it at all, and that one dumbass out there won't wreck his car and hold us liable."

 

[mikeymikec]

My dad has an older Samsung phone and poor battery life had bothered him for a long time. In the end I tracked the problem down to a feature that made his phone look for open wifi networks constantly (the battery graph showed wifi coming on and off non-stop). After disabling that he's been getting battery life at least twice as long as before.

 

[sweenish]

As far as Auto is concerned concerning GPM, they are relaxing the restrictions they had in place.

They were/are absolutely stupid, and voice controls aren't good enough to justify the lockdown they had.

With that said, I think Auto is worth it for Maps alone. But more apps do need to take advantage.

 

[quikah]

I use an iPhone as my daily driver, but Google Photos is great. You won't see downscaling unless your shots are over 16 megapixels (not an issue on the S7), and the compression is virtually invisible.

I disagree, the extra compression is very noticeable in a LOT of situations when viewed on a large screen. I don't recommend using it as an archival system.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I can see the compression too. But switching to upload as taken removed that problem for me and I still have lots of Drive space.

 

[desura]

I'm still kinda annoyed how google music stores your music as 320kbs mp3 files.

Transcoding artifacts, anyone?

 

[Zaap]

I'm still kinda annoyed how google music stores your music as 320kbs mp3 files.

Transcoding artifacts, anyone?

Im certainly not an audiophile that can hear all these magical differences (in my car certainly) but what exactly would be better than 320kbs mp3?

 

[desura]

Im certainly not an audiophile that can hear all these magical differences (in my car certainly) but what exactly would be better than 320kbs mp3?

I dunno, a direct upload with no transcoding?

 

[gorcorps]

Im certainly not an audiophile that can hear all these magical differences (in my car certainly) but what exactly would be better than 320kbs mp3?

The key of what he said was "transcoding artifacts".

If you upload something that's not already an mp3, it'll convert it automatically. So if it's aac or something, it gets transcoded which sounds terrible

 

[slackerinabox]

There's something wrong with the individual phone. I had an S6-edge and S6 edge+ both for a month each and never experienced any such terrible battery life issues with them. And that was leaving them completely stock as I've never messed much with test-drive phones.

I mentioned it before but the s6 does not do well in areas with marginal service. My apartment's (and the subway) causes constant radio activity (which I think is trying to find towers) and it just crushes battery life. My iphone didn't have that problem, or had better power management.

---

Android Auto:

I had to get an software update for my 2016 Volt before it would work at all. You might need a firmware update for your head unit before it will work correctly. Definitely it was half-baked out of the gate.

Even 'working' I find it next to useless. The ONLY thing makes it worth using is Maps on the dash screen since your car doesn't have its own navigation.

Even the music functions are rudimentary, way less functional than my car's own controls, and apps like Pandora are built into the car anyway and work better. Google's own stupid music player doesn't even work properly with it- had to use a 3rd party player which again begs the question, why not just use the car's own built-in functions which are superior?

I guess it depends on the car, but Android auto is like car audio 2013. So if the car itself has built-in controls of greater vintage, then it may seem like something. For any newer car with its own built-in interface and touch screen- I can't imagine why anyone would spend more than the first few curious minutes with it, then never use it again. (Unless to use Maps on the dash that is.)

I can tell they made it with what I call 'dumbass safety' in-mind, that is "ohh noes! It's not safe to use this in a car, so let's make sure we make sure it doesn't actually function very well at all so few people will actually *use* it at all, and that one dumbass out there won't wreck his car and hold us liable."

Thanks! I'll be sure to check for head unit firmware updates. The rest sounds annoying but bearable, as long as I can get a map on my HU the few times I need the nav.

 

[slackerinabox]

I can see the compression too. But switching to upload as taken removed that problem for me and I still have lots of Drive space.

I already pay for 1tb of gdrive, thanks for the advice to switch to "as taken."