[Epic 4G Android Development] Reginalb124:
Loving it!

Alright, I have posted my back story a little bit, but I want to post it here, too, so that you can hear it ecooce. I came by the Epic on accident. I had an Evo, and payed full price for it. The screen shattered one day, there was no impact at all, it was in my pocket, but the phone had been on me during a cycling crash the week prior, and while there was no visible damage, I am sure it stressed the glass and caused the eventual shatter. Either way, when that happened, Evos were still very hard to come by, and Asurion told me it could be two weeks before they could get one to me. The then new Epic was available at a local Sprint store, and I being eligible for an upgrade then, bought it on contract, and figured I would just sell the Evo when it came (which, when it did, it was brand new, not a refurb, and took 2 days, not the quoted 2 weeks, haha).

Either way, I gave the Epic a spin. I am a nerd and love to tweek, but I didn't see the need for root, so I left it stock. I also didn't know how easy it is, how little time it takes, and thought I didn't have enough of that to do it. Over time, I found touchwiz to be some of the most awful programming I have ever experienced. twLauncher crashed constantly, and it was to the point that I couldn't use maps any more. This happened when I was driving to Fort Jackson from Florida (I am an Army Signal Corps officer) and I needed it for navigation. Maps would crash upon opening, every time. Luckily Waze would run, and I could use that.

Any way, I got to Fort Jackson, and rooted the next day. Removed bloatware, did some tweaking, and I was happy. It seemed to make things run better. I had a lot of apps installed, and I am sure this contributed to my issues. Removing the Sprint apps cleared up some space, and all was a little better. I decided I would wait for Cyanogenmod and its Gingerbread goodness before flashing a custom rom. But the it got worse. The day before I flashed this rom twLauncher probably crashed 30 times. Having had enough, I started reading up on roms at the xda wiki, and settled on this one.

Wow. What a difference. I tried to send you a PM the other day, but nothing is showing in my sent items folder. I am sure it was much like posting in here, I couldn't do it. I now have my requisite 10 posts, so I wanted to say thanks. I will be sending a donation your way, too, as soon as the Army gives me some money I am owed.

Anyhow, this rom is fast, it's stable. I ran it 24 hours (hard) before my first force close, and that was when opening Kayak to reserve a hotel room, it gave me the force close message, which I did, and then the app immediately opened. So I am not sure why it was crashing, but whatever. I also set up journaling, so that should help keep things a little more stable. I know that this is based on an existing rom, but my hat is off to you. Your rom is more stable, faster, and provides better battery life that that which Samsung pulled off with billions of dollars at their back. TouchWiz is god-awful, and I am thankful to you for providing this piece of software. I am happy with this phone for the first time since purchasing it.

I did have a few questions/comments, though. The one redeeming quality of TouchWiz was the calendar clock, is there any way for you to set up ADW launcher to run it? I don't know what that would involve, but I REALLY wish I still had that clock, but will not install twLauncher to get it. I really miss it.

Also, there is a video on youtube of a guy flashing this rom (I can't find it, but I KNOW I am not crazy, I know I saw it). There is a video that plays during boot from a Frankenstein movie, Yelling, "It's alive," etc., then shoots to an eye with some flashing red and what not. Where did that go? That was sweet.

Also, I think I can do it, but I am still running EC05, and I have never used ODIN, I am pretty sure from what I have read elsewhere I could load DK28 without too much trouble, but I have been known to rush and screw this sort of thing up. Could you run quickly through the steps of doing this so I don't miss anything? I don't need anything super in-depth, but this is a little different than all the ODIN tutorials out there which all seem to describe rolling it back to stock Eclair.

Also, is Sprint Hotspot necessary for something? I can never seem to get rid of it. I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I am just curious. Finally, I like your mascot, you should make a wallpaper with it. If I was home (playing Army at the moment) to make one I would, but you might have a higher res version on your computer, I have only a capacitive ExoPC tablet with me running photoshop, and it is a pain without a mouse on that thing. That being said, if you have a higher res version, would you mind posting it?

Alright, I have now left a novel in here, don't want to bother you any more. Once again, thank you for doing this. You have saved my phone from being thrown out of a moving HMMWV!

EDIT: Forgot one thing, it would be nice if the battery gauge showed it's charge level while charging not just when you unplug it.