I have an S4 (Sprint). What apps should I get?

[TechBoyJK]

I just graduated from an EVO 4G to a Galaxy S4. WOW is this phone amazing.

I already bought a moga pro bluetooth controller and have several classic gaming emulators setup for it (works great!) as well as some new games. This phone is a beast. Some of these games look borderline PS3 quality.

Just curious if anybody had any recommend apps. =)

 

[Pulsar]

I just picked up one of these as well. I'm putting all my standard apps on it, office, youtube, dropbox, etc. The newer phones (MF9 build level) are a bear to root. However, I finally found that Odin + Chainfire autoroot did the job. My first priority was to get the sprint garbage off the phone.

My next step was to enable the the hotspot switch (please note you must have the hotspot data plan to do this).

I'm not really happy with the google now 'card' thing, and I turned off google personalization as well. They're really trying to dig into your personal details pretty deeply, and I'm terribly interested in being a profit center for them if I can help it.

I ignored removed most of the Samsung branded functions. Turned off the face recognition because it was flakey, and the same with the hand gestures. They seem gimmicky after a day or two.

I'm going to dig further in the XDA Developer threads to see what people are putting on the phone. I don't really want to put a ROM on it because some of the Samsung camera features are excellent, and I don't want to deal with messing around with the camera app apk.

Root Browser, Adblock Plus, Weather bug, Flashplayer, Quicknote, Yahoo Sportstacular, Netflix, a good E-Book reader (I like aldiko), Clockworkmod, Titanium backup and office apps were my first installations.

I need to see if there are any good overclocking kernels and apps for this phone. Juicedefender is on the list too.

 

[jhansman]

Swiftkey. A must have over the stock keyboard.

 

[Pulsar]

I'd have to check, but my S4 has swype. I thought it came with that pre-installed, but I may have restored it from my apps account on google without realizing. I hate two-handed typing, so I love swype and swiftkey!

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Do we really need a new thread everytime someone gets a new phone? Perhaps a sticky for must-have apps refreshed every 6 months at most would be sufficient.

With that said, Swiftkey is overrated. Stock keyboard does a good job now, or Kii.

 

[Elganja]

Swiftkey. A must have over the stock keyboard.

Kii keyboard is better imho

 

[lopri]

I would first go out and take some pictures of "nature." From what I've seen the S4 takes amazing outdoor pictures.

 

[Pulsar]

Do we really need a new thread everytime someone gets a new phone? Perhaps a sticky for must-have apps refreshed every 6 months at most would be sufficient.

With that said, Swiftkey is overrated. Stock keyboard does a good job now, or Kii.

Orrr, you could just not click on threads that you don't think are worth reading. See? Was that really that hard?

 

[Apex]

ES File Explorer
MX Player
SMS Backup & Restore
Wakelock Detector or Better Battery Stats
Nova Launcher (or your launcher of choice)

If you rooted:

Titanium Backup
Greenify
Xposed Installer (and maybe Nottach)

I'm using TriForceROM 3.0 (a TW based ROM) with KT Kernel (7/24) on MF9. So far, really happy with that combination. Have voltages down pretty far below stock at the lower end (189Mhz to 594Mhz range), and -50mV for most of the rest. Battery life has been great.

 

[Pulsar]

I loved ES File Explorer right up till last night. I needed to rename several files in the system/framework directory, but ES File Explorer was not requesting superuser permission and changing the names.

That's why I listed Root Explorer. I downloaded it and it asked for superuser then renamed the files.

I'm not sure why ES wasn't cooperating.

Do you see much of a performance hit in games with the speeds that low?

 

[Apex]

Do you see much of a performance hit in games with the speeds that low?

Nah, most of the time, when you're playing a game, you're not using the lower speeds. I seem to be at 1.134Ghz (at 890mV) or 1.566Ghz (at 990mV) most of the time when playing more graphics intensive games.

I think there's a bit of a loss of "snappiness" (for lack of a better word) when it's at the 189Mhz range. I'm still playing around with it, trying to find what feels the best yet conserves the battery. Here are my current voltages:

189Mhz: 700mV
378Mhz: 715mV
486Mhz: 725mV

According to Better Battery Stats, the vast majority of my time (non-gaming) is spent in those 3 speeds. I have yet to have any reboots, freezes, etc at those voltages.

During gaming, it'll go all the way up to 1998Mhz (I'm mildly overclocked), but it usually doesn't stay that high.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

that phone would be a hundred times more useable on att or verizon

 

[Oyeve]

that phone would be a hundred times more useable on att or verizon

Are all of your posts just worthless?

OP, keep WatchOn updated. Its pretty useful.

 

[Pulsar]

Nah, most of the time, when you're playing a game, you're not using the lower speeds. I seem to be at 1.134Ghz (at 890mV) or 1.566Ghz (at 990mV) most of the time when playing more graphics intensive games.

I think there's a bit of a loss of "snappiness" (for lack of a better word) when it's at the 189Mhz range. I'm still playing around with it, trying to find what feels the best yet conserves the battery. Here are my current voltages:

189Mhz: 700mV
378Mhz: 715mV
486Mhz: 725mV

According to Better Battery Stats, the vast majority of my time (non-gaming) is spent in those 3 speeds. I have yet to have any reboots, freezes, etc at those voltages.

During gaming, it'll go all the way up to 1998Mhz (I'm mildly overclocked), but it usually doesn't stay that high.

Does the triforce ROM have a built in way to modify the voltages, or are you using another app for that?

I'm staying away from ROMs for now because I like the Samsung camera app so much. Do you have experience with other ROMs? Any idea if they keep the stock camera app?

I just got the phone a couple nights ago, and work has been preventing me from really digging into it as much as I want to.

 

[lopri]

Well, telling him to root it away (thus voiding warranty) seems a bit.. irresponsible. Without knowing how much the OP is into root I would suggest apps that take advantage of its beautiful screen.

I do not own an S4 myself so I don't know what looks good on it. But photos taken looked incredibly sharp.

 

[gmaster456]

Dashclock.

 

[Pulsar]

Well, telling him to root it away (thus voiding warranty) seems a bit.. irresponsible. Without knowing how much the OP is into root I would suggest apps that take advantage of its beautiful screen.

I do not own an S4 myself so I don't know what looks good on it. But photos taken looked incredibly sharp.

I didn't tell him to root it. I said I rooted mine. There's a big difference.

The photos are excellent. The screen looks awesome, but my last phone was an LG Marquee which was already 5 years out of date. Which means I don't really have a good benchmark. I compared it to some relatives who have iPhones, and one of them asked if they could still return thiers and get an S4. He is a little hard of eyesight and wanted the bigger screen. All subjective of course, but I'm very happy with my choice. That anti-shake feature on the phone helps, I just wish it helped MORE. My hands are a bit shaky so taking nice pictures is always a challenge.

 

[Apex]

Does the triforce ROM have a built in way to modify the voltages, or are you using another app for that?

I'm staying away from ROMs for now because I like the Samsung camera app so much. Do you have experience with other ROMs? Any idea if they keep the stock camera app?

I just got the phone a couple nights ago, and work has been preventing me from really digging into it as much as I want to.

I'm using the KT kernel. When you flash that, it gives you an application called KTweaker, which gives you the ability to adjust over/underclocking of CPU & GPU, voltages, the governor, scheduler, read buffer, and many other things. TriForce uses the Aroma installer, so you can choose which options you want during the initial install (what kernel, what theme, if you want to do full wipe or not, etc).

All of the TouchWiz based ROMS like TriForce, Sacs, Sonic, etc all keep the stock Samsung camera, air, motion, voice control, kies, s-beam, IR blaster, etc. I use these things, so I decided to stick with one of the many many TouchWiz ROMs out there.

It's only if you go to an AOSP based ROM that you lose those things (for now). Later on, it might be added in. The Google Edition ROM is also built on top of the TouchWiz kernel, so chances are, someone will figure out the Samsung camera sooner or later.

 

[Pulsar]

Excellent. I'm looking at the Triforce Rom with Agat's kernel instead of Ktoon's. It seams that the last couple Ktoon's kernels have created some lag in the app drawer. For now I think I want to stay away from that.

Isn't Ktoon's tweaker app a paid app?

 

[Apex]

Excellent. I'm looking at the Triforce Rom with Agat's kernel instead of Ktoon's. It seams that the last couple Ktoon's kernels have created some lag in the app drawer. For now I think I want to stay away from that.

Isn't Ktoon's tweaker app a paid app?

I had some issues with WiFi with Agat's on MF9, but that was on 0.3.3, I hear 0.4.0 is just fine. I haven't had any issues with the app drawer yet, but that might just be luck.

KTweaker is free and comes with the kernel. Are you thinking Faux123 Kernel Enhancement Pro?

Side note: 378Mhz does seem snappier than 189Mhz. May end up keeping it if the battery life is pretty similar. I'm guessing it will be. I've dropped voltage at 378Mhz down to 705mV now and am seeing if I have any issues. Turned off "Gentle Fair Sleepers" to make things a bit snappier too.

Screen off 486Mhz max profile (excluding calls), with Noop scheduler seems to work well for me too. I know some folks set it to 1134Mhz or 1350Mhz.

 

[McWatt]

that phone would be a hundred times more useable on att or verizon

Sprint LTE is showing up all over the place now. In the little town in the midwest where I'm living now I get 20 Mbps down from my office.

Also, Sprint's unlimited data transfer is actually real. They have made no complaints about years of 50-300 GB of data per month.

 

[Apex]

If you rooted:

Xposed Installer (and maybe Nottach)

Scratch that, Nottach isn't working at all for me on TriForceROM 3.0. Tried v11 & v12. Might work for some other MF9 based ROM, but since development has stopped for it, may not be worthwhile.

Now switched to Wanam Xposed from Google Play. Doesn't have as many of the options I want from Nottach, but it does work.

 

[lopri]

Control Center.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inc.lonetooth.controlcenter

Its functions are redundant to Android/Touchwiz's notification pulldown but it should look pretty on AMOLED screen. You can show off what the iOS 7 will look like to your friends. XD

 

[Pulsar]

I'm running Nova Launcher now, and like it.

I have to do a couple more tests. The ROM seems to be working well, but I just did an Antutu benchmark and got 21000 (ish). That is 20% below the 25000-27000 I've seen elsewhere, and I'd like to discover why.

I am running Triforce with KToon. Agat and Triforce weren't getting along well on my phone.

I moved my low speed voltages down to your. I also forced the phone to a max of 189 with screen off. On past phones that's only caused me a problem when it's too slow for me to answer a call. We'll see if the same holds true with this phone. If so, I'll bump it up a bit.

I want that two day battery life some people are bragging about.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Uber is the best app you can ever have.