Database Develop

WP7/Zune music player running on Nook Color

Followed the instructions from this link and I was able to download and install a Zune/WP7 style music player on my nook color. It's awesome!
Made my day!
http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
[30 May 2011] Alpha 4 now out with widget and custom add to playlist!

Awesome thanks!

Will check this out.
Sent from my Incredible with the XDA Premium App.

NICE! Thank you much.

It'd be nice if it had an actual name and icon.

Like the article says...
I Am Marino said:
It'd be nice if it had an actual name and icon.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"We did run into an occasional bug and forced closures but otherwise it’s quite functional, despite its alpha status".
A name and icon are in the works. Give it some time.
The app worked great...just looking forward to it's further development.
Ron

Yes I saw that, I was just stating.

sibyy said:
Followed the instructions from this link and I was able to download and install a Zune/WP7 style music player on my nook color. It's awesome!
Made my day!
http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here's the file I downloaded after following all the links. I guess its ok to post it.

If you're on Twitter, it's probably worth following the guy for updates. I did.

Same here, following dev on twitter.
As indicated above next alpha should include an icon.

probably not the right place, but I'll post my short blurb anyway.
like:
- clean uncluttered, only necessary information and buttons.
- fast, flipping between pages are nice.
- the typography
- how artist, album, etc is organized using alphabetical/large font is refreshing.
dislike (mostly related to smartphone to tablet screen scaling)
- I know this is for smartphone player, but when in "play mode" screen, the progress bar is only the size of small album cover. It's too small for practical use. Everything clumped together at bottom screen leaving huge empty space up top. (looks like something is wrong when there is no background image.) Maybe load a "default blank" image when there is no album image?
- bigger play/pause/next screen buttons? button size is too small for comfortable clicking for tablet. I think it's also mis-aligned. or at least the placement of buttons is spread out of context, not below the album cover in tablet screen. (maybe slice the screen into 4 quadrants, and fit all album/players controllers on bottom left corners)
- (setting is still blank. yeah I know work in progress)
- when inside "play screen", once getting out to browsing screen while playing, it's not possible to quickly get back to play screen without retracing path from song title. Also How about if I double/triple tap on the big image in play screen, It will bring me back to main browsing screen. How about scroll side to side? (play screen -- side swipe - browsing screen.)
- back button only bring me to previous screen. (so if I jump out of player, and back into play screen, if I hit back button, it will throw me out to external screen. and I have no way to get back to main browsing screen without relaunching the player.)
wish list ( I post one anyway.):
- button and font color option?
- in tablet, the super low rest/huge background image looks really blotchy for a lot of images. (for human face, it looks like somebody has bad skin disease or something. just ugly.) Can we have option, not downloading external images? force use internal default images.
- less aggressive use of wireless.
- equalizer
- widget
- playlist creation (I think it's still being build)
- a way to alter mp3 file label. (hey, not my music comes from stores. and a lot of my record label promo material has wrong labels. )
- I really liking this as a universal media file manager. How about video, ebook, "social" (as in libre.fm, last.fm, or whatever other social music), simple mp3 blog RSS.

Agreed with you bigbird.
Functionally my biggest issue is going back, especially when you are on a playlist you have to exit to get back.
An on screen back button + a way to get back to main screen quickly I think would be best.
Playlist creator
Scaling stuff could take longer to materialize but yes:
+ Bigger progress bar for Jumping/skipping song on + Bigger buttons
Why don't you send your recommendation to the developer via twitter?

I wish it did what Doubletwist does. If it's at the lockscreen, it shows the primary buttons and makes it click to unlock.

Alpha 3 just out and some of the issues above have already been dealt with. Back button from now playing screen, icon for the app, etc.
Download and what's new here: http://bit.ly/k0ZuU9
Instructions to install and screenshots here: http://www.stuff-review.com/2011-05/zune-and-windows-phone-7-styled-music-player-for-android/
Enjoy!!!

Good to see this is being worked on constantly.

how about the sound quality? Is it better than original music player?

Alexsandra said:
how about the sound quality? Is it better than original music player?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I could be wrong but:
1. On the software side audio quality would depend primarily on the encoding quality, i.e. compression type, bps or lossless.
2. Then it would depend on your hardware, mainly the DAC chip inside your device.
3. Your earphones
I would guess on hardware (2) that the Zune since it's a dedicated MP would have a better DAC and audio line path. On the other two it should be the same.

Is anyone else getting audio dropouts on CM7 (beta nightly)
Love everything about this app, but seem to have some audio dropouts and pauses during playback.. Using the beta CM7 build with Dalingrinators OC.
PS. im using DSP to boost volume via eq settings.

norkoastal said:
Love everything about this app, but seem to have some audio dropouts and pauses during playback.. Using the beta CM7 build with Dalingrinators OC.
PS. im using DSP to boost volume via eq settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've noticed a couple of tiny pauses at the start of tracks but nothing too distracting. I'm loving the app though (the Zune interface is simply one of the best I've come across) and it complements Launcher 7 perfectly.
Sent from my NookColor using XDA Premium App

I know many of you out there have been waiting for a widget for this, myself included.
The developer has just posted this as a preview for the upcoming next release.

changelog for v20N ????

so guys pls detail the new stuff u noticed with the 2.3 on your OB

Official Changelog Android 2.3:
•Improved power management
- Viewing multimedia content will require less CPU power
- Performance and battery consumption has been optimized to better oversee background functions and control the amount of memory and CPU time being used. This feature also allows users to kill or halt non-responsive applications.
•Support for more powerful graphics to allow for enhanced mobile gaming experience
•Improved UI to enable faster access and control and a more intuitive user experience
•One-touch word selection and copy / paste
- When viewing a web page, users can quickly select a word by pressing HOLD, then copying to the clipboard and pasting. Users also can easily adjust the selection area as needed.
•Download management
- This feature allows all downloads from browsing, emails and other applications to be easily viewed and controlled from one place.
•Audio preview
- Downloaded audio files can be promptly played without a specific player.
•Support for new media formats such as AAC, AVC, MPEG 4 and H263
•New features and other improvements: Active app management, shortcuts, widgets, icons, app groups, updated calendar options, camera geotagging, better email synching and more precise camera auto-focus

Flipping the screen seems to be much faster to me and keyboard also is new to me, but I may be wrong there...

Its more faster than 2.2.2 and more stable...
Enviado desde mi LG-E510f usando XDA Premium App

keyboard is the same

Camera lags disaper...
Enviado desde mi LG-E510f usando XDA Premium App

hmmm....
any new visible features? has the UI changed in some way? scroling the apps?

We already know about froyo to gingerbread changelog from google. More interested about the lg firmware update changelog.
Sent from my LG-P970 using Tapatalk

hmmm....
Exactly... more intrested in LG 2.3 changelog , rather then the google one...

- add widget media
- led buttons don't always light up anymore
- no more root
- very fast wifi connexion
- 7 home pages

2 new widgets: traffic and inTouch(is 1 is really cool)
blue overscroll effect
1 nexus LWP, buttons not always lighten up,polaris office is revamped,
overall speed increased...dats about all the changes i find'
the much missed "add to playlist" is there & tweaked music app
improved text selection
2 new widgets
little revamp...progress bar has corner edges instead of the froyo rounded edges
BTW,there are 4/5 wallpapers in /system/app (.odex) which is not showing up anywhere

Camera shutter sound can be deactivated... I Know some people wanted this, I don't really know if 2.2 had it in the latest versions...
@achyut: I had Traffic from the beginning, so it's not a new widget! Actually you could be right, the rom didn't had it but if you updated the apps it was there!

BoyBawang2 said:
We already know about froyo to gingerbread changelog from google. More interested about the lg firmware update changelog.
Sent from my LG-P970 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thats lg changelog...look at lgblog.de

my first impressions:
-the overall responsiveness is better than in stock froyo
-lg launcher is smoother than in froyo but not perfectly smooth
-camera shutter sound can be disable but I dont know if the AF sound can be disabled
-Battery life seems to be quite good, but using 3g web browsing it can be seen a big slope in the battery graph
-GTA3 runs laggy, more than in Nova 8
-Other average games like Fruit ninja which responsiveness and smothness was not good in stock froyo now it is
-I got a force close with the market
I couldn't mess with it too much but in overall I would say until CM7 is totally bugfree this firmware is the choice for me. If you need root then I would go with Nova 8. The last CM7 rom I tried was #34 and was quite stable but meh... still not perfect and I dont want to spend so much time messing with the phone, I did it enough until now. A phone should make our lifes easier not more complicated.

-removed------

Screenshot
yeomond said:
you cant take screenshots now....wtf?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holding down the home button (the house icon on the bottom) while pressing the power button works for me

artnex82 said:
Camera lags disaper...
Enviado desde mi LG-E510f usando XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This will be major for me...It was so frustating waiting sometimes 10seconds for the camera to respond after taking a photo

mihaiolimpiu said:
Camera shutter sound can be deactivated... I Know some people wanted this, I don't really know if 2.2 had it in the latest versions...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hmmm that's strange, it doesn't work for me. still can't disable it. where should i look for it ?

ics features not found on note

please can anyone tell me how to get some of the features which are on ics AND NOT ON NOTE
this i got it from http://www.android.com/about/ice-cream-sandwich/
ntroducing Android 4.0
Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is the latest version of the Android platform for phones, tablets, and more. It builds on the things people love most about Android — easy multitasking, rich notifications, customizable home screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing.
Simple, Beautiful, Useful
Refined, evolved UI
Focused on bringing the power of Android to the surface, Android 4.0 makes common actions more visible and lets you navigate with simple, intuitive gestures. Refined animations and feedback throughout the system make interactions engaging and interesting. An entirely new typeface optimized for high-resolution screens improves readability and brings a polished, modern feel to the user interface.
Virtual buttons in the System Bar let you navigate instantly to Back, Home, and Recent Apps. The System Bar and virtual buttons are present across all apps, but can be dimmed by applications for full-screen viewing. You can access each application's contextual options in the Action Bar, displayed at the top (and sometimes also at the bottom) of the screen.
Multitasking is a key strength of Android and it's made even easier and more visual on Android 4.0. The Recent Apps button lets you jump instantly from one task to another using the list in the System Bar. The list pops up to show thumbnail images of apps used recently — tapping a thumbnail switches to the app.
The Recent Apps list makes multitasking simple.
Jump to the camera or see notifications without unlocking.
For incoming calls, you can respond instantly by text.
Rich and interactive notifications let you keep in constant touch with incoming messages, play music tracks, see real-time updates from apps, and much more. On smaller-screen devices, notifications appear at the top of the screen, while on larger-screen devices they appear in the System Bar.
Home screen folders and favorites tray
New home screen folders offer a new way for you to group your apps and shortcuts logically, just by dragging one onto another. Also, in All Apps launcher, you can now simply drag an app to get information about it or immediately uninstall it, or disable a pre-installed app.
The All Apps launcher (left) and resizable widgets (right) give you apps and rich content from the home screen.
On smaller-screen devices, the home screen now includes a customizable favorites tray visible from all home screens. You can drag apps, shortcuts, folders, and other priority items in or out of the favorites tray for instant access from any home screen.
Resizable widgets
Home screens in Android 4.0 are designed to be content-rich and customizable. You can do much more than add shortcuts — you can embed live application content directly through interactive widgets. Widgets let you check email, flip through a calendar, play music, check social streams, and more — right from the home screen, without having to launch apps. Widgets are resizable, so you can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.
New lock screen actions
The lock screens now let you do more without unlocking. From the slide lock screen, you can jump directly to the camera for a picture or pull down the notifications window to check for messages. When listening to music, you can even manage music tracks and see album art.
Quick responses for incoming calls
When an incoming call arrives, you can now quickly respond by text message, without needing to pick up the call or unlock the device. On the incoming call screen, you simply slide a control to see a list of text responses and then tap to send and end the call. You can add your own responses and manage the list from the Settings app.
Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, and browser tabs
Android 4.0 makes managing notifications, recent apps, and browser tabs even easier. You can now dismiss individual notifications, apps from the Recent Apps list, and browser tabs with a simple swipe of a finger.
A spell-checker lets you find errors and fix them faster.
A powerful voice input engine lets you dictate continuously.
Improved text input and spell-checking
The soft keyboard in Android 4.0 makes text input even faster and more accurate. Error correction and word suggestion are improved through a new set of default dictionaries and more accurate heuristics for handling cases such as double-typed characters, skipped letters, and omitted spaces. Word suggestion is also improved and the suggestion strip is simplified to show only three words at a time.
To fix misspelled words more easily, Android 4.0 adds a spell-checker that locates and underlines errors and suggests replacement words. With one tap, you can choose from multiple spelling suggestions, delete a word, or add it to the dictionary. You can even tap to see replacement suggestions for words that are spelled correctly. For specialized features or additional languages, you can now download and install third-party dictionaries, spell-checkers, and other text services.
Powerful voice input engine
Android 4.0 introduces a powerful new voice input engine that offers a continuous "open microphone" experience and streaming voice recognition. The new voice input engine lets you dictate the text you want, for as long as you want, using the language you want. You can speak continously for a prolonged time, even pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences. As the voice input engine enters text, it underlines possible dictation errors in gray. After dictating, you can tap the underlined words to quickly replace them from a list of suggestions.
Data usage controls let you monitor total usage by network type and application and then set limits if needed.
Control over network data
Mobile devices can make extensive use of network data for streaming content, synchronizing data, downloading apps, and more. To meet the needs of you with tiered or metered data plans, Android 4.0 adds new controls for managing network data usage.
In the Settings app, colorful charts show the total data usage on each network type (mobile or Wi-Fi), as well as amount of data used by each running application. Based on your data plan, you can optionally set warning levels or hard limits on data usage or disable mobile data altogether. You can also manage the background data used by individual applications as needed.
Designed for accessibility
A variety of new features greatly enhance the accessibility of Android 4.0 for blind or visually impaired users. Most important is a new explore-by-touch mode that lets you navigate without having to see the screen. Touching the screen once triggers audible feedback that identifies the UI component below; a second touch in the same component activates it with a full touch event. The new mode is especially important to support users on new devices that use virtual buttons in the System Bar, rather than dedicated hardware buttons or trackballs. Also, standard apps are updated to offer an improved accessibility experience. The Browser supports a script-based screen reader for reading favorite web content and navigating sites. For improved readability, you can also increase the default font size used across the system.
The accessibility experience begins at first setup — a simple touch gesture during setup (clockwise square from upper left) activates all accessibility features and loads a setup tutorial. Once accessibility features are active, everything visible on the screen can be spoken aloud by the standard screen reader.
Contacts and profiles are integrated across apps and social networks, for a consistent, personal experience everywhere — from incoming calls to emails.
Communication and sharing
People and profiles
Throughout the system, your social groups, profiles, and contacts are linked together and integrated for easy accessibility. At the center is a new People app that offers richer profile information, including a large profile picture, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, events, and a new button for connecting on integrated social networks.
Your contact information is stored in a new "Me" profile, allowing easier sharing with apps and people. All of your integrated contacts are displayed in an easy to manage list, including controls over which contacts are shown from any integrated account or social network. Wherever you navigate across the system, tapping a profile photo displays Quick Contacts, with large profile pictures, shortcuts to phone numbers, text messaging, and more.
Unified calendar, visual voicemail
To help organize appointments and events, an updated Calendar app brings together personal, work, school, and social agendas. With user permission, other applications can contribute events to the calendar and manage reminders, for an integrated view across multiple calendar providers. The app is redesigned to let you manage events more easily. Calendars are color-coded and you can swipe left or right to change dates and pinch to zoom in or out agendas.
In the phone app, a new visual voicemail features integrates incoming messages, voice transcriptions, and audio files from one or more providers. Third-party applications can integrate with the Phone app to add your own voice messages, transcriptions, and more to the visual voicemail inbox.
Capture the picture you want, edit, and share instantly.
Rich and versatile camera capabilities
The Camera app includes many new features that let you capture special moments with great photos and videos. After capturing images, you can edit and share them easily with friends.
When taking pictures, continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, and decreased shot-to-shot speed help capture clear, precise images. Stabilized image zoom lets you compose photos and video in the way you want, including while video is recording. For new flexibility and convenience while shooting video, you can now take snapshots at full video resolution just by tapping the screen as video continues to record.
To make it easier to take great pictures of people, built-in face detection locates faces in the frame and automatically sets focus. For more control, you can tap to focus anywhere in the preview image.
For capturing larger scenes, the Camera introduces a single-motion panorama mode. In this mode, you start an exposure and then slowly turn the Camera to encompass as wide a perspective as needed. The Camera assembles the full range of continuous imagery into a single panoramic photo.
After taking a picture or video, you can quickly share it by email, text message, bluetooth, social networks, and more, just by tapping the thumbnail in the camera controls.
A Photo Gallery widget on the home screen.
Redesigned Gallery app with photo editor
The Gallery app now makes it easier to manage, show, and share photos and videos. For managing collections, a redesigned album layout shows many more albums and offers larger thumbnails. There are many ways to sort albums, including by time, location, people, and tags. To help pictures look their best, the Gallery now includes a powerful photo editor. You can crop and rotate pictures, set levels, remove red eyes, add effects, and much more. After retouching, you can select one or multiple pictures or videos to share instantly over email, text messaging, bluetooth, social networks, or other apps.
An improved Picture Gallery widget lets you look at pictures directly on the home screen. The widget can display pictures from a selected album, shuffle pictures from all albums, or show a single image. After adding the widget to the home screen, you can flick through the photo stacks to locate the image you want, then tap to load it in Gallery.
Live Effects let you change backgrounds and use Silly Faces during video.
Live Effects for transforming video
Live Effects is a collection of graphical transformations that add interest and fun to videos captured in the Camera app. For example, you can change the background behind them to any stock or custom image, for just the right setting when shooting video. Also available for video is Silly Faces, a set of morphing effects that use state-of-the-art face recognition and GPU filters to transform facial features. For example, you can use effects such as small eyes, big mouth, big nose, face squeeze, and more. Outside of the Camera app, Live Effects is available during video chat in the Google Talk app.
Snapping a screenshot.
Sharing with screenshots
You can now share what's on your screens more easily by taking screenshots. Hardware buttons let them snap a screenshot and store it locally. Afterward, you can view, edit, and share the screen shot in Gallery or a similar app.
Cloud-connected experience
Android has always been cloud-connected, letting you browse the web and sync photos, apps, games, email, and contacts — wherever you are and across all of your devices. Android 4.0 adds new browsing and email capabilities to let you take even more with them and keep communication organized.
The Browser tabs menu (left) lets you quickly switch browser tabs. The options menu (right) gives you new ways to manage your browsing experience.
Benchmark comparisons of Android Browser.
Powerful web browsing
The Android Browser offers an experience that’s as rich and convenient as a desktop browser. It lets you instantly sync and manage Google Chrome bookmarks from all of your accounts, jump to your favorite content faster, and even save it for reading later in case there's no network available.
To get the most out of web content, you can now request full desktop versions of web sites, rather than their mobile versions. You can set your preference for web sites separately for each browser tab. For longer content, you can save a copy for offline reading. To find and open saved pages, you can browse a visual list that’s included with browser bookmarks and history. For better readability and accessibility, you can increase the browser’s zoom levels and override the system default text sizes.
Across all types of content, the Android Browser offers dramatically improved page rendering performance through updated versions of the WebKit core and the V8 Crankshaft compilation engine for JavaScript. In benchmarks run on a Nexus S device, the Android 4.0 browser showed an improvement of nearly 220% over the Android 2.3 browser in the V8 Benchmark Suite and more than 35% in the SunSpider 9.1 JavaScript Benchmark. When run on a Galaxy Nexus device, the Android 4.0 browser showed improvement of nearly 550% in the V8 benchmark and nearly 70% in the SunSpider benchmark.
Improved email
In Android 4.0, email is easier to send, read, and manage. For composing email, improved auto-completion of recipients helps with finding and adding frequent contacts more quickly. For easier input of frequent text, you can now create quick responses and store them in the app, then enter them from a convenient menu when composing. When replying to a message, you can now toggle the message to Reply All and Forward without changing screens.
For easier browsing across accounts and labels, the app adds an integrated menu of accounts and recent labels. To help you locate and organize IMAP and Exchange email, the Email app now supports nested mail subfolders, each with synchronization rules. You can also search across folders on the server, for faster results.
For enterprises, the Email app supports EAS v14. It supports EAS certificate authentication, provides ABQ strings for device type and mode, and allows automatic sync to be disabled while roaming. Administrators can also limit attachment size or disable attachments.
For keeping track of incoming email more easily, a resizable Email widget lets you flick through recent email right from the home screen, then jump into the Email app to compose or reply.
Android Beam lets you share what you are using with a single tap.
Innovation
Android is continuously driving innovation forward, pushing the boundaries of communication and sharing with new capabilities and interactions.
Android Beam for NFC-based sharing
Android Beam is an innovative, convenient feature for sharing across two NFC-enabled devices, It lets people instantly exchange favorite apps, contacts, music, videos — almost anything. It’s incredibly simple and convenient to use — there’s no menu to open, application to launch, or pairing needed. Just touch one Android-powered phone to another, then tap to send.
For sharing apps, Android Beam pushes a link to the app's details page on Google Play. On the other device, the Google Play app launches and loads the details page, for easy downloading of the app. Individual apps can build on Android Beam to add other types of interactions, such as passing game scores, initiating a multiplayer game or chat, and more.
Face recognition lets you unlock your phone with your face.
Face Unlock
Android 4.0 introduces a completely new approach to securing a device, making each person's device even more personal — Face Unlock is a new screen-lock option that lets you unlock your device with your face. It takes advantage of the device front-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to register a face during setup and then to recognize it again when unlocking the device. Just hold your device in front of your face to unlock, or use a backup PIN or pattern.
Wi-Fi Direct and Bluetooth HDP
Support for Wi-Fi Direct lets you connect directly to nearby peer devices over Wi-Fi, for more reliable, higher-speed communication. No internet connection or tethering is needed. Through third-party apps, you can connect to compatible devices to take advantage of new features such as instant sharing of files, photos, or other media; streaming video or audio from another device; or connecting to compatible printers or other devices.
Android 4.0 also introduces built-in support for connecting to Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP) devices. With support from third-party apps, you can connect to wireless medical devices and sensors in hospitals, fitness centers, homes, and elsewhere.

Touchwiz has been put over top of ics so most of stock ics are not there. . Only way ia to find non touchwiz ics for note im sure there are some in dev section but be careful not to increase your Binary counter
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium

There are some features you just can't have due to hardware ie nfc but to got stock ics look and feel use cm9
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA Premium HD app

zacthespack said:
There are some features you just can't have due to hardware ie nfc but to got stock ics look and feel use cm9
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA Premium HD app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean to get truer ics use cm9 or stunner, cause stock is what is delivered with samsung crap lmao.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

baz77 said:
You mean to get truer ics use cm9 or stunner, cause stock is what is delivered with samsung crap lmao.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
'stock ics' is in my view AOSP based roms, touchwiz is not stock ICS, although it is stock for the note, so there is the confusstion yes

zacthespack said:
'stock ics' is in my view AOSP based roms, touchwiz is not stock ICS, although it is stock for the note, so there is the confusstion yes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AOSP is only "stock" on Nexus and some generic devices. If it's not made by the manufacturer of your device, for your device, it's not stock. But AOSP most certainly is "pure". There are times I really hate TouchWiz.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk

yes, kind of disappointed after Note got ICS upgrade compare to those original ICS phone.

A question then - can we have toggle recent apps button as the one to be found on stock ics? I find extremely annoying to long press in order to switch between apps ...

Spo0f said:
A question then - can we have toggle recent apps button as the one to be found on stock ics? I find extremely annoying to long press in order to switch between apps ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure we can.
ICS Stunner has an option to enable softkey buttons.

Spo0f said:
A question then - can we have toggle recent apps button as the one to be found on stock ics? I find extremely annoying to long press in order to switch between apps ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Long press on the home button will bring up list of recent apps, you can swipe to the right to remove apps from list and at bottom is shortcut to taskmanager

Only on stock lol
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

Stock Photo Gallery Color Issue?

I've noticed the color of the thumbnails in the stock Samsung gallery app differ when they're actually enlarged. Anyone else notice this? It doesn't happen with third party gallery apps, but I'd prefer to keep the stock gallery app simply because it plays back the slomo video. If you haven't noticed, check it out. Watch the vibrant reds/blues slightly shift to a lighter red/blue.
Now, I've experimented with this, and noticed it does this when the "Adaptive display" setting is left on. However, leaving it on and testing this out with a third party gallery app, it worked perfectly. The display adapted and the colors matched. Of course the color will be the same once enlarged so as long as you change the display's screen mode to "AMOLED photo". However, I'd prefer the adaptive setting because I don't like the warmer white tones when using my phone for everything else besides photo editing.
Leaving it on "Adaptive display", the software should know when I am actually opening a photo and adjust the colors so they're accurate. But now I'm thinking that there's a glitch with the stock gallery. The adaptive display setting is working fine with third party gallery apps, just not that stock gallery app. Which is sorta ironic....
Thoughts?

I noticed that too, doesnt really bother me.
What does bother me is how there is no "Capture" feature anymore what playing back a video and how trimming videos takes a ridiculous amount of time all while not being able to retain 4K resolution. My Note 4 trimmed 4K videos in seconds and kept the resolution.

Impression.

I just used the phone for half a day and thoroughly enjoy it. On first impression, the phone is very light for the size and they give nice accessories considering the price; earphones, screen protector, case. The phone have an RGB notification light.
Interface:
-The interface is not stock Android, it's more like a modified version of MIUI. It's very usable once you install your choice of stock launcher, replace the default keyboard, and disable some of the bloat apps.
-Since it's not stock Android, I find it take a bit of time to get used to finding things in the Settings menu.
-The swipe up hardware toggles (Control center, similar to iPhone toggles) are pretty useful and more well organized than stock Android imo.
-Screen off gestures, you get many different commands (double tap on, camera, flashlight, customize your own, etc) and it work pretty good.
-Feature to display network speed on the notification bar
-"Close all" button in the recent apps menu.
-There is a feature to modify apps permissions called "Permissions of App".
-I can not find the shortcut to "Smart Lock" window anywhere, even though it is supported in the OS, if you pair a bluetooth device it will display the notification to enable it. But there seems to be no way to get to the actual Smart Lock window to enable other smart lock features, or I miss it somewhere.
Performance:
I installed all my programs pretty quick. I don't see any lag issues. All the apps launches fast and run smoothly. I don't intend to play any heavy games on a $100 phone, all the light games I play like Subway Surfer and Horizon Chase have no lags.
Connection:
Cell: The dual sim feature seems to work good. I still have to to test the signal quality, but I have to say the data speed is average. I get about 10 to 12mbps down for T-Mobile LTE speed test.
Bluetooth: I'm happy to report the Bluetooth have good performance, the motion of people lips in videos are in synced with the audio from the bluetooth speaker.
WiFi: Can reach high speed, no problem.
GPS: No problem.
Storage:
There is a strange quirk with the phone which is by default your microSD is acts as the main 'internal storage' of the phone (sdcard0), and the actual internal storage act as external (sdcard1). So it would help if you use a fast microSD. I think this is because I have the microSD inserted the first time I set up the phone. Maybe this problem can be prevented by not inserting the microSD for the first time you boot up the phone. I don't know, but I'll just live with it.
Display:
The screen is very nice for a 5.5" 720p AMOLED display. It's not going to be sharp, but it the pixels are smooth so you don't get so much of that pixelation effect. Pretty much deep black, saturated colors and good viewing angles you expect from AMOLED. It's definitely not the brightest of display though, so you might have some problem under direct sunlight.
Camera: I haven't used it too much, but it's pretty average. Like all lower end camera, it have issue with under/over exposure, also the white balance is really off on auto mode. I like the manual mode that let you control the ISO and shutter speed. It's no where bad in good lighting condition, I'd say it takes good enough details for a budget phone.
Speaker: Very average, don't expect much here.
Charging: I used my Anker quick charger and it seems to charge the device fast and safely.
Ringtones selection:
The only thing I don't like is that if you have music in your phone, when you go to change the default ringtones, it will display every single songs in your phone and you have to scroll through it. The way to remedy this is to use the file manager in the phone and create a file called ".nomedia" in your music folder, so the phone will not recognize songs in it. Once you set your desired ringtone, you can remove that file. Or you can simply use a third party app to do the job.
Aside from some quirks, I honestly have no complaints so far, I would have no problem paying the full $150 for this device. I definitely like it better than the Moto G3, except that Motorola phones tends to have superior signals and call quality compared to most other brands. I definitely will not use this phone without a case though since it's on the light side.

Couple of things I noticed
1. The navigation buttons at the bottom (Home, Back & Option) does not have backlight. Not sure if there is a LED there that can be enabled in settings. I couldn't find any setting for that.
2. The data connection drops from 4G LTE to 'H' (HSPA) when on a call.

One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.

Here are some photo samples. The main problem are over exposure, white balance detection and some lost of saturation. The quality suffers when you're indoor with less lights.
https://goo.gl/photos/j9BrJ7gcbDCXBQgD6

The LED notification light seem like its set a ways under the glass and has this really bright shining affect versus a little glow other devices have.
I must say, the amoled screen on this is quite impressive for $100 phone..
wifi and data speeds are very similar compared to my oneplus 2 (both running Tmobile)

I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.

hamilLewiston said:
I noticed that the user cannot remove home screen icons. Like when you press and hold there's no option to remove the icon. Some apps show an option to uninstall. But for some pre installed apps there is no option to remove the icon.
Like Google chrome, opera browser, BLU help, amazon etc....
I don't want to uninstall the app, just remove from home screen.
Yea I noticed the LED light being very bright. I could read a book under that lighting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just use another launcher. google now, nova

eksasol said:
One of thing I notice about the Gallery app in this phone is there is an "Encrypt" option. If you press it accidentally it encrypt the file and move it into the "Pictures\.GallerySafe" folder. To access the encrypted photo, you have to "pinch outward" in the app.
No Smart Lock support: I tested and even though the smart lock feature turned on when you paired a bluetooth device, it actually doesn't work.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The smart lock is really baffling. It prompts to turn on smart lock but never works after that.

tlxxxsracer said:
just use another launcher. google now, nova
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks, that's what i finally did

so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.

I've been using the Honor 5X a bit today so here is a comparison.
Things I prefer on the Vivo XL:
-This is a faster device. Everything about the Blu is more responsive and I don't think it's down to just the 720p display. It seems that this Mediatek CPU is actually pretty decent, games are smoother on it as well. In comparison, Honor 5X is slightly sluggy, not just in the interface, but in apps as well. This is probably due to the EMUI OS on the Honor 5X.
-Blu's UI is actually easier to understand and getting used to, especially if you're not accustomed to MIUI style interface on the Honor 5X.
-I'm not sure if it's due to the screen protector preinstalled on the Honor 5X, but the Blu touchscreen is a bit more sensitive and responsive to touch. Though it's not bad on the Honor 5X.
-The slide up "Control Panel" on the Blu is more useful with lots of options. Hate to admit it, but I prefer this slide up behavior more than Android's default because it's faster being close to your thumb. The notification toggles for the Honor 5X is missing a few options, but not a big deal.
-Blu is thinner and more light weight.
-The USB Type C connector is god sent.
-Removable battery.
Prefer on the 5X:
-Sharper screen that is very bright, its actually brighter than some highend flagship devices. The viewing angle isn't great however, but that is non-problem because it's a phone, not a TV.
-The camera is (only) slightly better. It have a bit more details and much better handle at white balance. Although the Blu camera's tap to focus is faster and more responsive. At this price range, it's not a big difference between the two phones.
-While their EMUI interface takes time to learn, it have some useful features, such as network control for apps. This let you disable data or wifi access for any apps you want, which is a very useful security feature.
-Very nice metal body.
-Finger print scanner, which I don't use.
It's a bit hard to choose which phone I would use as the daily driver. I think that if you go with the Blu, the software is good enough that you don't need to install custom roms. If you go with the Honor 5X, I believe you will need to install custom roms if you want the most out of the performance. I would have to pick the Blu Vivo XL as better value for the money, since it performs better for $50 less, and may last longer due to removable battery and USB Type C connector (more durable than microUSB). Also I like it when companies throw in free phone case and headphones, which is lacking in the Honor 5X packaging.

hamilLewiston said:
so i found that there is an option on the desktop settings to 'hide' apps that you don't want to see on the desktop. it will hide the apps, with a password / pin. i'll post a guide later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
wheres the guide?

Thanks you for this app