[T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S II SGH-T989] Justananomaly:
Get the most out of the T989 T-Mobile Stock ICS/Unrooted without rooting

I thought this should be a separate thread as this should serve as a good way to fix a good number of issues as well as improve your overall device function quality, as well as having all of this in one post.

(Note: I know not many of us use stock unrooted, my personal T989 stays stock unrooted, my dev T989 is currently in the Dark ;). This thread is intended soley for those of you that do not wish to void your warranty).

Problems After Upgrade from GB > ICS

If you have issues after upgrading from stock/unrooted GB to stock/unrooted ICS, A factory reset is confirmed to fix these issues (tested by me because I had them):

- Near zero stutter/stagger now

- Huge improvement on battery life (using the same battery saving techniques, settings, and apps).

- Mobile Life contacts no longer hangs after reboot

- Task killer now appropriately determines which apps shouldn't be in the kill all list (Apex, Nova, Juice Defender, Avast!, Lookout, Badass Battery Monitor, etc).

- Voicemail working properly now (icon wouldn't show before no matter what I did).

- Apps no longer hanging and freezing entire device for 20-30 seconds.

- Wifi Calling now working

- Facebook For Android app no longer sets itself to sync all my contacts regardless how I had the option set.

- Wifi stabilized. No disconnects in an hour and a half.

- UI artifacting no longer showing when switching between apps.

- Swype no longer stutters and freezes.

My advice with stock unrooted ICS, if you upgrade from GB and have issues, go ahead and factory reset. Worth it.

Screenshot

You can take a screenshot of your T989's screen by pressing Home softkey+power button at the same time and holding for about a second.

Keep From Being Monitored

If you scan the T989 on stock unrooted ICS, yes, it does in fact have CarrierIQ installed. However, you don't need to worry about this because you can disable it. If you don't know what CarrierIQ is, it's a company all of the major carriers went through to anonymously collect diagnostic data from our devices. They call it "data needed for device diagnostics and troubleshooting". The problem, which is pretty much why they got/are getting sued, is that it collects well... pretty much anything it can get it's hands on. I compare it to killing a quota of 3200 whales per year for "tissue samples". It's completely unnecessary. Don't trust it or the reasoning behind it.

To disable this, go to Settings > Back up and Reset. Click Collect diagnostics. Uncheck the box. Save and close. You will now no longer send, or even agree to send, T-Mobile any "diagnostic" data.

Apps OK To Disable

In ICS you can disable nearly any unnecessary application or service permanently. This will hide it from the app drawer, keep the app/service stopped, and disable it from being checked for update via Google Play. Disabling bloatware apps and unneeded apps will save you RAM, Data, a tiny bit of battery, and a lot of headache.

To disable an app simply go to Settings, go to Applications, and go to the All tab. Click the app. Click Disable. (Some items listed below may have an Uninstall Updates option instead of Disable. Simply uninstall the updates, go back into the item, and click Disable.

Here is a list of apps/services that are OK to disable (tested by me).

Note: This is just a list deemed safe. You do not need to disable every single item listed. Disabling these makes them functionless. Please do so only if you do not/do not intend to ever use them.

- 411 & More

- AccuWeather Weather Daemon

- AccuWeather.com

- AP mobile news (Use Pulse News instead)

- Asphalt 6

- Blio eBooks T-Mobile

- Buddies now

- Days

- Digital clock

- Dual clock

- Face Unlock

- IM

- Talk

- Media Hub

- Memo

- Messaging (You shouldn't be using the default anyways, disabling this will not disable SMS, you can use Go SMS or Handcent just fine without it)

- Mini diary

- Mini paper

- More for Me

- News & Weather (Use Pulse News instead)

- Samsung keypad (Use your favorite keyboard instead (i.e. Swype, Go Keyboard, Swiftkey X, etc)

- Slacker

- Social Hub x3 (There are 3 of them, it's safe to disable all of them.)

- Swype (Use your favorite keyboard instead (i.e. Samsung Keypad, Go Keyboard, Swiftkey X, etc).

- TalkBack (Note: disables TalkBack feature needed for accessibility options)

- TelNav GPS Navigator (Use Google Maps/Navigator instead)

- T-Mobile Mall

- T-Mobile TV

- Tags

- Task

- Yahoo! Finance

Battery Savings

Note: Everyone's device use is different and these items are based on my own personal testing on the T989 based on my use (which I can assure you is pretty heavy as I have kids and basically use my T989 to do all the things I don't have time to sit at a computer and do).

Also please note: With these settings and apps, you are not going to notice an instant increase in battery life, however if you use Badass Battery Monitor [Play Link] you will be able to see the improvements on the bottom right (Average Battery Life time).

1.) General good battery saving advice

Note: These are just general advice, if you use these features constantly, you don't have to disable them, and besides the screen brightness and GPS, the amount of battery life you will save by disabling most of these is very small, but this list is intended for maximum power savings, not superuse.

- Disable GPS unless you are using it

- Keep screen just bright enough for you to see clearly (Settings > Display > Screen Brightness) unless you are editing something

- Stick to either Mobile Data, or Wifi. Never leave both on at the same time. When you're using Wifi, only enable Mobile Data when you are sending an MMS (SMS's still work on Wifi only)

- Disable Wifi Calling unless you need to use it

- Disable Bluetooth unless you are using it

- Disable Motion Controls (Settings > Motion) unless you need them. (Note: The Gryoscope and Accelerometer will always remain on).

- Disable Animations - Disable both animation options (Settings > Developer options) - This will improve the speed at which you can do things, as well as improve battery life.

- Disable unneeded syncing - Settings > Accounts & Sync - Disable all items that you do not need to have sync'd 24/7, if you can change the sync interval set once every hour, two hours, or once per day depending on the item and how important it is for you)

- Disable or decrease App notification settings. Unless necessary, disable automatic update notifications on your applications individually. Keeping automatic updates enabled keeps a service for that app running in the background 24/7.

- Limit background process count. Set the maximum number of background processes to 4 or lower (Settings > Developer options > Limit background processes. This will allow only 4 or less apps to be running at once. Note that this will pretty much destroy your multitasking capabilities, but if you're a lower needs user, this can increase both battery and performance.

2.) Battery Saving Apps

The following are apps I use (all installed together) to make the most out of my battery on the T989. They have improved my battery life so much I can't begin to describe to you what I would do without them. All of these apps are free of charge, some features disabled:

- Apex Launcher [Play Link]. I am probably going to catch a lot of flack for this one. First and foremost, the default TouchWiz homescreen is a battery hungry and nearly useless piece of crap (the first part of that is fact, the latter observation is of course my opinion). There are two really good ICS-only homescreen replacements. The first is Nova Launcher, the second is Apex Launcher. Both do about the same thing, each has their own feature sets, but more or less they are pretty much equals. Why do I list Apex Launcher instead of Nova? Well this is the Battery Saving section of this post, and well, Apex uses less battery over time. Use Badass Batter Monitor if you do not believe me. And no, I don't have a grudge against Nova. I actually like both equally but again, battery saving section. ;)

- Power Controls [Play Link] is a widget that lets you quickly change items that can eat up your battery and it is much better and more configurable than the default T989 power widget. I highly suggest using it.

- 2x Battery Saver [Play Link] will turn off 3G/4G connectivity when your phone is idle (screen off or locked while you're not using it). This does not keep you from getting calls and texts, only data is disabled, not the entire radio. This will save you boatloads of battery as well as data since we're all on caps with T-Mobile) by killing data when you are not using your device.

- GO Power Master [Play Link] is an application that optimizes your device by using a variety of different things. The first is a widget that allows you to manually kill tasks and clear services and apps you are not using. I recommend doing this pretty much every time you go to lock your device as it will save you additional battery. The second is an option you have to manually enable that, like the app above, disables connectivity when the device is idle (locked/screen off) except this app only disables Wifi. The third and best feature is that based on a profile, Go Power Master can automatically disable features at certain battery percents as your phone battery gets lower and lower. All of these profiles are customizable.

- Alternatively, you can use Juice Defender [Play Link] which disables both Mobile Data and Wifi when your device is idle, however from my experience with it on the unrooted T989 it is very unstable as to when it decides to disable things. Sometimes it does nothing, other times it does. It just doesn't seem to work well with the unrooted T989 at least for me. This is one of those apps that really does need root permissions to function properly.

Increase Performance

These are things I do to increase performance of my T989. As above, note that everyone's use is different so these may or may not help you.

- Class 6+ MicroSD card. I can not express to you how much of a difference this makes in speed of saving pictures, opening the gallery, apps that read/write data from the SD card. I currently use a Class 10 16gb MicroSD card and before it, I used a 8gb Class 4. I was able to notice the difference almost instantly.

- Keep your device and SD card clean! Norton Utilities [Play Link] can remove unused .apk files from your SDcard, And SDMaid [Play Link] can clear duplicate and temporary files from your SD card. (Note: SDMaid advanced features require purchase of the full app)

- Disable Animations - Disable both animation options (Settings > Developer options) - This will improve the speed at which you can do things, as well as improve battery life. Note that your devices Gyroscope and Accellerometer will always remain active.

- Some users tell me forcing GPU Rendering (Settings > Developer options) can improve performance, however I have read that this will break some things like the Gallery displaying pictures incorrectly. The opinion is still out on this, so enable this only if you want to try it for yourself. Note: Apps that can take advantage of GPU Rendering already use GPU Rendering, this option checked or not. This option simply forces it on every app.

- Kill tasks before gaming or high performance app use. Use Go Power Master (listed above) or the built in Task Killer to clear apps and free RAM before you launch a high-performance app (i.e. Shadowrun or N.O.V.A. 3) to increase gaming/2D/3D performance.

- Set the maximum number of background processes to 4 or lower. (Settings > Developer options > Limit background processes). This will allow only 4 or less apps to be running at once. Note that this will pretty much destroy your multitasking capabilities, but if you're a lower needs user, this can increase both battery and performance.

Best Replacement Apps for T989 (in my opinion)

Note: List includes paid apps

- Music - Poweramp [Play Link] - The reasons you should use this instead of the default music player is a list longer than I have the will to type out, but include fixing your album art, equalizer, a great ICS theme (separate download), and lyric support. Try it for 30 days for free. You won't regret it.

- Home Screen/Launcher - Apex Launcher [Play Link] - A great ICS style launcher that has a great featureset and saves battery compared to stock TouchWiz.

- SMS/MMS/FB Chat/Chat - Go SMS Pro [Play Link] - Do I need to explain this one? It's free. It's awesome. Use it.

More items/help/tutorials will be added as I get time to add them.