[Paul B]

Bloody hell. Swype is awesome!

SlideIT isn't bad either. Turns out the installer re-downloading was due to the browser being on the DL page, at each re-sync it refreshed and started downloading.

I'm having a bit of a 'mare trying to get my contacts list working properly:

If you link the devil that is facebook you end up with a fair few unecessary contact numbers, on 'People' this can be turned off and contacts still linked with FB profiles which is perfect. Unfortunately as soon as you flick over to messages you don't get such an option and its back to a useless flood?

[Drew]

Does anybody know if there's a decent version of Sleep Cycle for Android? Looking for sonething which measures my sleeping pattern, and wakes me up at a suitable time.

[Paul B]

Sleep as an droid?

[Tris]

If you are using the stock rom on the wildfire, then the first thing you want to do is put on another rom which is rooted or just root the stock rom manually..

Either way you will need a custom recovery image...

http://unrevoked.com/#wildfire

Info:
http://unrevoked.com/rootwiki/doku.php/public/unrevoked3

[Paul B]

If you are using the stock rom on the wildfire, then the first thing you want to do is put on another rom which is rooted or just root the stock rom manually..

Because?
I spend quite a lot of time mucking around with tech, is there any advantage in doing so? I quite like HTC sense so far and it doesn't seem to struggle with much unless I'm streaming to it and trying to do other tasks.

[slackline]

I spend quite a lot of time mucking around breaking with tech.

 

[Jim]

look here and get a new rom
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=678

[Paul B]

look here and get a new rom
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=678

From what I've seen there are tonne's of pitfalls in doing this. Lots of the threads include features that won't work or reported instabilities (in browsers etc.). Which are you using Jim?
I can see it from the geeky aspect and fiddling for fiddlings sake but beyond that?

Plus, as the first thing I did was update to Official Froyo 2.2  I'm reading that unrevoked won't work.

[tommytwotone]

Without having seen this thread I got hold of SlideIT the other day - great little app, though it has taken me a little while to get used to it!

Good shout from Slackers on Plume, used it for a year now in it's previous incarnation / as Plume.

A few I've got on my HTC:

Xkcd viewer app
Cricinfo app (live scores etc)
TuneIn Radio (for TMS, though streaming so watch bandwidth again)

[Jaspersharpe]

From what I've seen, the majority of Android users who rooted their phones were doing so to get a version of 2.2 (or similar) before it was available on their device / network.

Seems a bit / completely pointless if you already have Froyo 2.2 unless of course you like "faffing about for the sake of it" or are a super geek who's already trying to find a version of Gingerbread 2.3 (as pointed out by Dobbin) or perhaps Ice Cream 4.0

 

[tomtom]

Whens ChickenDhansak (4.3) due out?

[Jaspersharpe]

Probably around the same time you're spending £700 on an iphone 5.

[slackline]

 

[tomtom]

Probably around the same time you're spending £700 on an iphone 5.

At least I'm not wasting days updating it to chickendrumstick 7.0.. 
Man, even jailbreaking this thing only took 1 min..

[ChrisC]

From what I've seen there are tonne's of pitfalls in doing this. Lots of the threads include features that won't work or reported instabilities (in browsers etc.).

I'm using CyanogenMod on my phone.  All they do for their ROM's is to take the stock android code and improve it, either by removing restrictions  adding features and optimisations.

The team that make this are more professional about the code they include than any software development company I've ever worked in.  They have a code review system where each commit is discussed and vetted prior to inclusion coupled with nightly builds to continually gain feedback on the development progress.

Even the nightly builds are more stable then the stock firmware the phone shipped with and the battery life is at least 1.5x what it was - on a smart phone then that makes it worthwhile on its own for me even without the multitude of other features.

The full list of changes is here:

Step by step instructions here

Plus, as the first thing I did was update to Official Froyo 2.2  I'm reading that unrevoked won't work.

Sounds like that's the case currently, though it looks like they will be fixing that soon: http://twitter.com/unrevoked/status/24492360310198272

[Jaspersharpe]

Probably around the same time you're spending £700 on an iphone 5.

At least I'm not wasting days updating it to chickendrumstick 7.0.. 
Man, even jailbreaking this thing only took 1 min..

Keep up. 

[slackline]

The team that make this are more professional about the code they include than any software development company I've ever worked in.  They have a code review system where each commit is discussed and vetted prior to inclusion coupled with nightly builds to continually gain feedback on the development progress.

Much like many open-source software projects then (e.g. the linux kernel, Xfce, Gentoo).

Even the nightly builds are more stable then the stock firmware the phone shipped with and the battery life is at least 1.5x what it was - on a smart phone then that makes it worthwhile on its own for me even without the multitude of other features.

So the battery lasts 1.5 days and you now have to charge it in the middle of the day.

[Tris]

If you are using the stock rom on the wildfire, then the first thing you want to do is put on another rom which is rooted or just root the stock rom manually..

Because?
I spend quite a lot of time mucking around with tech, is there any advantage in doing so? I quite like HTC sense so far and it doesn't seem to struggle with much unless I'm streaming to it and trying to do other tasks.

The main reason is to remove all the shite that you don't want or use on your phone - this will dramatically increase the battery life. My missus has the wildfire. She was on stock vodafone 2.1 rom, since changing her over to a custom rom (Modaco 2.2.1 custom, baked in kitchen), her battery life has almost doubled. (still using sense ui which she likes - I hate)

Most carriers o2/Vodafone etc will add their own 'bloatware' into the stock ROM which HTC release, custom apps like Vodafone live and My o2 etc. Do you really want stuff like this? Or Facebook/youtube etc. - do you use them all? You can only remove apps with root access on your handset.

The biggest advantage of using a custom recovery image is that you can flash custom roms, but you get to back up your handset with Nandroid. Nandroid takes a complete snapshot of your phone so you can save the backup files to your pc. If you lose your phone or break it and need to get it swapped out, you can get the new handset restored to exactly how it looks now, all settings, history, apps etc etc in a matter of minutes rather than spending hours tweaking it and configuring it all again. Also if you install a new rom and it looks shite you can just go straight back to your old rom with Nandroid...

Anyway, you may find you are happy with your handset and the battery life as it is now. Battery life is a big thing for me, it may not be for you.

[Tris]

Back to great android apps...

Here is my current home screen:



The best apps I use are:

Astro - easily the best file manager out there
Extended controls - brilliant app to switch stuff on/off - network/gps/usb/airplane mode etc
Camera 360 - much better than the stock camera app, tons of options
SetCPU - overclock/underclock your processor (currently underclocking to increase battery life)
Dimmer - change your screen brightness to 10 rather than 30 the minimum that Android allows
Root explorer - easily make changes to the OS
Demo player/Rock player - play divx/avi/mkv files without needing to convert them
Xscope 6 - chrome like browser

[slackline]

The main reason is to remove all the shite that you don't want or use on your phone - this will dramatically increase the battery life. My missus has the wildfire. She was on stock vodafone 2.2 rom, since changing her over to a custom rom (Modaco 2.2.1 custom, baked in kitchen), her battery life has almost doubled. (still using sense ui which she likes - I hate)

Most carriers o2/Vodafone etc will add their own 'bloatware' into the stock ROM which HTC release, custom apps like Vodafone live and My o2 etc. Do you really want stuff like this? Or Facebook/youtube etc. - do you use them all? You can only remove apps with root access on your handset.

I could say the same about PCs when you buy them. They invariably come M$-Windows on, and will have various unnecessary and unused pieces of software.  So really everyone should ditch their default OS and install the penguin (after all, the kernel and OS that underpins your phone is running it (gain access with the Terminal Emulator app).

Anyway, you may find you are happy with your handset and the battery life as it is now. Battery life is a big thing for me, it may not be for you.

Battery life may well be a big thing, but I think its just as easy to change your behaviour as it is to try eeking out a few more hours from a single charge.  I'd guess that most of us spend the majority of our working day sat in front of a computer, in which case the sensible thing to do if you are worried about battery life is to take your phone out of your pocket and plug it into a USB port to keep it charged (at no cost to yourself either  ).  Do the same overnight if you're worried.  Get a phone charger for your car so it charges when your driving around.  I'm yet to run out of battery once in over a year.

[Jim]

plenty of reasons mentioned why to use custom roms, good apps built it, bloatware shite removed, genuine feedback from users, regular updates. not sure about android but on win mobile htc phones you have to install hardspl which basically means you can't brick your phone (ie its always recoverable).

[slackline]

I must have been lucky as there doesn't appear to be any bloatware shite from T-mobile on my Hero other than their splash screen at boot.  Nothing like Vodafone live of My O2.

Apps I can install myself from market place.

As I've said elsewhere (and PaulB echoed below) I spend enough time tinkering with two desktop/servers, a laptop, two routers (one router, one bridge), two NAS's, a PS3 and the most time consuming of all, resolving wife's computing woes.  Adding a phone on top of that isn't something I'm bothered about personally.

[Stubbs]

I find it really interesting how hard some people want their smart phones to work for them.  I phone, text, email, go on the interweb and use maps, and that's about all I'm interested in, and my Desire does all of these things very well without me having messed around with it at all.  If I want to listen to music I still carry my ipod as that's what it was made for and I therefore don't waste the batteries on my phone, it also works very well as an extenal HD if I have a requirement to carry files around (rare).

[Jaspersharpe]

I must have been lucky as there doesn't appear to be any bloatware shite from T-mobile on my Hero other than their splash screen at boot.  Nothing like Vodafone live of My O2.

Me too. I don't even get an O2 splashscreen.

[Tris]

Adding a phone on top of that isn't something I'm bothered about personally.

Exactly - it's horses for courses. If you are happy with how your phone functions, then leave as is. If not, change it...(but to change it, you need root access  )