[Galaxy S 5 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cookdav:
Ok, I'm around day 5 or 6 of trying to get my new Samsung Galaxy S-5 to be 'ready for prime time'.

[ It isn't. ]

I'm NOT new to Android (I own a Nexus-7 and a Nexus-10...oh, and a TV-dongle, too.)

And, I've developed a couple of apps (I use Android Studio, on my laptop), and

Eclipse before that.

And, yet, this new Galaxy, being my first SMART phone, is putting me into mumble-mode, with

all the svc-stoppages, and crazy behaviors that its 'phone' app is exhibiting.

Ok, my phone app is the 'default'...iirc, it is called 'phone' and has a green background with a

white pic of an old telephone hand-receiver on it.

The sub-optimal behaviors list of the app includes:

(1)It has decided to allow screen-rotation, but I don't want it to, as I am not (yet)

planning to use a headset or earpiece...at least not full-time.

(2)Even worse than rotation, it sometimes totally blanks the screen during rotations...not

sure if that's a bug or just a side-effect, but I didn't want that anyway. :confused:

(3)Not even sure I want it's numeric keypad to EVER go away, but when I perform other

actions, e.g. choose 'recent', then ok..makes some sense for it to discard

the keypad to get more screen real-estate for those ancillary use-cases.

(4)The biggest defect, seems to be that, after I complete a call, and I press

the red 'end-call' button, next thing I know, if I then carry out other use-cases, such

as hitting 'Recent', checking a few things, and then hitting the 'go-back' button

(at the bottom-right now, that some side-effect often kicks in, and my

phone decides to go off and make a call to the most-recent person that I

talked to. I respond with one or two 'go-back' button presses, and then I may

see a popup saying "whoops...some 'svc' just died/crashed". [The fourth or fifth

time that happened, I had to hold-down the small button on side of the unit, and

choose 'power-down' and shutdown/reboot Android, to clear out the stacked

operations that it seems to want to re-invoke. ARGH...

Bottom-line...I want this phone' app to mostly behave with mindset of how a 'not-as-smart'

flip-phone works...as though the numeric-keypad are hardware-keys, and don't

try to out-think me. i.e. When I take the phone away from my ear, to see the keypad

in order to press a key, do NOT blank the screen and do not rotate, etc, etc

Ok, some some reasonably-intelligent tech suggest that, maybe, I could find an

alternate app for 'phone'...i.e. she suggested that I go to the app store and serially

find and install alternate 'dialer' apps, until I find one I like better.

[ She then demoed a phone running M$'s tablet-OS, and I gave it a plus-one

for being smart enough NOT to rotate it's layout when I rotated it with its

dialer active. But, no, it's gonna be either Android or go back to a flip-phone for me. ]

I retorted that I'd rather find some list of 'most-popular' alternate phone-apps for

Android, so that at least I could try out alternatives in other than a random-order.

Anyone 'been down this road', that could advise me how to proceed?

[I tried disabling 'screen rotation' but that is global to ALL apps, which is NOT

what I want. I want ONLY that one app to quit rotating...why isn't that already

an app-specific setting, under its "three-vertical-dots' icon?]

EDIT: Oh, by the way, who signed-off on defaulting to this 'phone' app?

Google or Verizon (or some other company)?

[ So as I'll know whose stock to sell short. ] :laugh: