yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] luckypoop:
I've read about people saying that there is a limit to the amount of apps you can install because everything has to be saved to the ROM. (Assuming you don't root it and install it to the SD card). Do you know if this is true?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cez10:
what are the advantages n disadvantages of android over the winmo ??
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
Yes this is true however the Desire has 512mb of space for you to store apps. I've got a 800mb partition on my G1 for Apps2SD and I have around 200 apps installed lol with no problems so 512mb will probably hold quite a few apps.

They're working on getting apps installed to the SD card in the next android release.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
That's a broad question, maybe you can be more specific?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ohyeahar:
Hey brummiesteven, thanks for creating this for Android noobs like me! I've been using WinMo for quite some time. Never played with Android until just a few weeks ago when I tried running Android on my Touch Pro2.

Enough history, on to my questions...

1. Is there a native file explorer? If not, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Any one in particular that is considered the file explorer? (The equivalent of Resco Explorer or Total Commander in WinMo?)

2. I read in that there's no native Office doc (ie, Word, Excel, etc) editor. There's only a viewer. Again, I suppose there are 3rd-party ones. Recommendations? Does it work as well as the native one in WinMo?

I guess that's it. These are my only concerns about jumping ship to Android. Everything else, I'm going to have a blast figuring out on my own...
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
1. No native file explorer, I think Astro is generally seen as the best file exporer:

http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.metago.astro/

2. Again no native Office. There are quite a few office suites, I don't know which is the best as I have no use for one. Here's one of them though:

http://www.androffice.com/

It will be worth noting that there probably will be a google docs app soon. And you can edit google docs already on android via docs.google.com. There's also a program called GDocs that syncs all your google documents to your handset.

I think the reason why there's no "Native" options for these is because Initially "Stock Android" is aimed at the average customer, they wanted to get the balance right for non tech savy people who just want a phone with apps but also allow the possibility and expansion of turning it into something extremely powerful for someone of the more tech savvy type.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cez10:
umm thought you might say that :) right let me think

- i've been mainly using symbian and winmo devices for the past years and there was some issues with stability and lag etc. on my old n95 8gb i used to get slow downs when ie had lots of apps installed does that happen on android? lags etc?

- are there any custom roms tweaks or in general droid doesnt really require much work to make it better?

- what about security of droids? as its an open source software it might be easily hacked, accessed by 3rd party users?

thats it so far i probably forgot about other more important things ;)

well thanks anyway
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
1. Put it this way, I've never experienced any slowdown on my G1 and it has like maybe a 3rd of the spec of the Desire? It is a fast operating system, wont be slowed down by installing a lot of apps but might by by having a lot of apps open but I highly doubt this would ever be a problem on the Desire (as it isn't on my G1).

2. Yes there are custom roms, mostly of different builds. For example the HTC Hero doesn't officialy have 2.1 released but there are already a few 2.1 roms for it on XDA. There will always be a way for devs to increase speed on here... even if it isn't needed speed can always be increased :).

3. The only security flaw you would have is if you rooted it, this enables the root account and on a linux system the root account can do things like access system files. Having said this, if you do root the phone, the phone will ask you before it permits anything (program etc) root access. I've never heard of anyone having their phone hacked or anything like that.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shaneaus:
I have had my G1 since it came out. Also, I rooted it as soon as that was possible. I have tried/installed over 500 apps and normally have over 100 installed at any given time. I have never had any issue with hacking or security.

That having been said! Recently, I read on an Android site where a group of individuals made an app as an experiment to see if they could access a users data. I believe it was a weather app. A majority of the users (if I remember correctly) didn't read the access rights of the weather app - as it said in the access rights it would have access to the users contacts/data. The app was able to upload user's data/contacts from those who installed the app.

So, MAKE sure you always read any applications access rights prior to installing an application. If the app is requesting access to information within your device that are NOT related to the apps functions - don't install it!

If you do that one thing - you should have nothing to worry about!

@brummiesteven - Didn't mean to highjack your thread. This is a great service you are providing for the new Androidians! Just wanted to remind them (all users) to read those app access rights before installing an application.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
Hijacking? Lol don't be silly the more the better :)
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] All Day On XDA:
Thanks for answering these questions. This next one is a bit more speculative....

given that winmo 6.5.x is probably going to be the last iteration before WP7S, what are the chances that some kind of emulator will be built to run legacy winmo apps on Android?

would this even be possible?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 69mws:
Hi Steven,

great service :)

One thing I really liked about my Blackberry, was the ability of customization regarding profiles and the notifications connected to it.

Is it possible to create profiles in Android, like 'Silent', 'Vibrate Only' and maybe one for the office where ringtones and notifications are very silent to avoid waking everyone up at the office :D

By the way, I recently stumbled over an application called cVolume that seems to enable some customization in that regard.

Is it possible to assign different ringtones for messages, mails, event notifications etc.?

(An example of what I dislike: I actually use a Palm Pre and the launch firmware didn't allow much customization. All notifications (except event reminders), no matter whether new mail, new textmessage used the same ringtone, which also couldn't be changed. That changed thankfully with a later firmware. Profiles are still not supported, you can just switch between 'ringtones on' or 'shut up/vibrate only'. --> Having used a Blackberry before, I felt kinda castrated with that few options of notification-settings :D )

Thx & Greetz,

69Mws
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XDA mark:
Sorry, no time to read which questions you have answered! I just copy/past my questions from another thread:

I can not call myself a WinMo veteran, since I have been using the HD2 for only 2,5 months. But the fact that it is already a dead device because of the Developers leaving to 7 Series(Adobe just stopped making flash for it, while they were very close to finishing it) makes me sad. If on 1 April there is still no word on the future of the HD2, I am selling it and getting a Desire.

A few questions to Android users!

How is the Android Market? How many apps? All useable by Desire, or is the divercity of the Android devices making the quality suffer? And only instal to internal memory right?

General Android OS: easy to use? Eye candy? Touch optimized?

Android browser: good or not? Is there Opera browser for Android?

Does HTC Sense work well with Android? Does it become 'one', or stay 2 different things like Sense and WinMo?

What should I know more about Android? What do you Android users think are the bad things about the OS and hope to see changed in the future updates?

I know it is a lot I am asking, but I am making a right decision this time so I need to be informed.

Kind regards
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ohyeahar:
I'm no Android user yet. But I have played with the emulator running on my Touch Pro2. So I can help answer a couple of your questions.

1. Android Market is much more extensive than Windows Marketplace. Remember, it's not the quantity but quality of apps that matters. And quality there appears to be much more quality apps than WinMo. Perhaps veteran Android users can chime in regarding usability by the Desire and installation location.

2. The Android OS is so much more pretty than WinMo. There are fade in/out animations when opening/closing windows. Everything is finger-friendly. The slide-down notifications bar is extremely handy. The ability to fully customize your home screens with shortcuts and widgets is just great.

3. The Android browser is much better than Opera Mobile on WinMo. I think there's Opera Mini in the Android Marketplace. But really, I don't think there's any reason to not use the default browser. It's renders fast and accurately. I can even access my internet banking site which doesn't work on WinMo or iPhone OS.

4. There's plenty of videos of Sense on Android. Check those out and see for yourself. Personally, I think it's great. Completely different than Sense on WinMo. Sense on WinMo is just a Today-screen plugin and enlarged menus. Sense on Android includes the HTC widgets and Leap among other goodies.

5. This is something I want to know too. Most of us know about what's bad about the iPhone OS and WinMo. But what's bad about Android that you'd want changed?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] irkan:
does Android require soft/hard reset every now and then like those damn M$ Windows Phones ? :P
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] StuMcBill:
I asked these in a different section, but thought I would see what Answers I get here, I know some have been answered before.

Thanks

Stu
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
There's no option for this initially but the system does allow you to assign different notification tones to different events, eg Email and SMS.

There will be apps that allow you to have "profiles". There's even an app called Locale which is pretty much an automatic profiler, will switch your settings dependant on the time, your location etc. For example, if I'm at Uni it automatically switches my phone to silent for all notifications and vibration only.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
No not at all, The longest uptime I've had is about 4 weeks. The only time I turn the phone off is to reboot into recovery and flash a new rom.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
1. Rooted devices wont get official updates OTA. You can flash them but you will lose the root function. Don't worry in all cases currently the updated version has been on XDA (with root function) before HTC or the carriers decide to make it public and push it OTA.

2. They are already putting desire roms on the nexus so it stands to reason that nexus roms will work on the desire.

3. Yes but people would be working on rooting the desire regardless off the fact that the Roms would work on a Nexus one. Expect it to be rooted pretty quickly...
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] K 7:
Hi...

Got my N1 2 days b4 & being 1st time Android user I don't know alot of things about it, will appreciate if u could answer few of below...

1- Suppose I m using Google Maps & want to browse internet as well & listen music, how will I multi-task now... I mean I will press back-button which will close Google Maps & then I will open internet, so how does it work...

2- If there are few apps running how will I check all of them & any screen/task manager/task switches to see them all & switch between.

3- In Google Maps is there compass button (same like iphone) available & does map rotates like in iphone (I DON'T LIKE IPHONE, JUST LIKE THIS FUNCTION IN GOOGLE MAPS, SO PLZ ALL U GUYS DON'T FLAME ME 4 MERELY MENTIONING IPHONE).

Thanks.

K7
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
1. Pressing the home button wouldn't close google maps. Anyway you hold the home button to view the last 6 applications and switch that way, to go back hold home again and select maps.

2. Again... Hold home for the last 6, for things that absolutely require multitasking they'll be in the tray

3. Check out the labs option on Google Maps, allows compass and more.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] StuMcBill:
Thanks for the reply.

In regard to point 2, I only really want the Highmem and undervolted kernel anyway!

Thanks again

Stu
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] venelar:
that right there may have just sold me on android. so tired of restarting for memory.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Eddiemc:
Great initiative mate!

I'm new to android and I posted a question in the software dev thread, but nobody has replied.. Being on the "noob-enlightenment path", perhaps you can help me..

I have a major concern about privacy and all the 3rd party data collectors...

A lot of apps these days are uploading user info and stats to companies like Flurry, pinch media etc. There is no rule or limit on how long this info will be stored, how it will be stored, details of what is stored, etc

I'm about to make the move from iphone OS to android, and i'm looking for a opt out to keep my privacy intact.

Take for instance Locale. To my knowledge it uploads my imei nr (+lot of other info) to Flurry, whilst i do see the developers need to gather info, and I do not see why my imei number should be uploaded at all.

When I get my android phone I can only chose NOT to install locale, but I just want to prevent it from uploading such info..

Do you know any way to prevent this? Perhaps a toggle, preferably one that doesn't aquire root, or some guide as to hosts file editing, or a firewall app that will give me this control over my device?

regards

-e
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
I have no idea, I don't think apps can access your IMEI theyre certainly not allowed to share information that's against the Market's terms.

You will get told what they are accessing, phone calls, contacts etc before you download. I know of no way to prevent access though having said that this is an open source system with very little restrictions so I don't see why they wouldn't allow such an app on the market and why someone wouldn't develop one.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Eddiemc:
From a user on androidcommunity on the Locale app:

"Packet sniffing what it's sending, it shows some scary stuff, like my IMEI number, phone make and model, build number, OS details, plus a whole load of stuff that isn't human readable. Not impressed!"

A lot of devs are implementing this kind of behaviour in their apps so they can get user statistics.. I believe the companies like flurry gather too much, and I'm disguisted that there are almost no info about it and no opt out.

On my iPhone I had a camera app that even uploaded facebook details to one of these tracking companies.. The dev saurik created privaCy for the jailbreak community that enabled opt out. Why nobody has done this for android is just weird..

I'll still become an android user in a few weeks time, and I'll still probably use the locale app, but I urge anyone to dig out more info about this issue. It's not that I'm too worried about my privacy, it's just the fact that apps do things like this behind the scenes and as a user I'm not informed nor do I have many options in the matter..

-e

---- edit ---

Just adding info: I'm not talking about info being sent to random 3rd parties. There are 4 major companies that works with mobile analytics. They are pinch media, flurry, medialets, mobclix they gather info on behalf of the devs, and for mobile statistics in general. They work on (all) mobile platforms, and a lot of apps have their functions embedded..
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XDAgeek:
Can we please terminate this thread, and get back to using separate threads with MEANINGFUL TITLES as is normal in a discussion forum.

This thread has one title: 'Android Questions', and covers a host of unspecified topics.

The whole design of a forum is that each topic should have its own thread, so differentiating between subjects.

Every day I have to read this darn thread just to see what untitled wisdom may be hidden within.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
This forum is for the DESIRE it isn't an Android General Forum and shouldn't be littered with topics and posts about General Android Questions. The idea of this thread is to keep those questions into one topic as there seems to be a lot of people choosing the Desire to be their first Android phone. This then keeps the forum a Desire Discussion forum (apart from this thread).

If you have a problem with it, go ask your android question in a separate thread in a forum which is for general android questions and not model specific.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] XDAgeek:
ISWYM, but its a shame that lots of good information will risk being ignored because it is under a generic title.

Just my tuppence worth. :-)
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] shaneaus:
HA! A lot of good information is ignored on EVERY DEV/ROM Release thread I have ever seen!

Go to ANY ROM release or new app release thread and you can't make it eight posts without someone asking a question that was answered by the dev about his release!

This is just a general thread for Desire related and Newb related questions. Most of this information can be found in many different places if the new users will just SEARCH for the answers.

This is a thread labeled [Q &A] so.... It is specifically labeled to just have many questions and answers. IE - NO SPECIFIC TOPIC. :D

XDAgeek - I see your point and would normally agree with you. But, the label of this particular thread specifies the topic. We can't get most of the xda users to search anyway - SO, I would rather they come to a thread like this to get answers than asking these same questions on a Dev's theme/ROM/App release thread! ;)
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] StuMcBill:
Another question if you don't mind.

If / when the Desire is rooted will you be able to do anything you want to the phone? For example, install custom recovery etc, or is that protected because the bootloader is still "locked down"?

Or am I not understanding the situation at all?

Stu

Edit - I suppose, what I mean is: Will it act like a Nexus One with an unlocked bootloader?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] K 7:
Hi

I know this has already been asked n answered but wan2 get this re-confirmed... (Plz excuse me 4 this)

Will Desire have that Speak2Text function??? Thanks...

K7
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
If it's rooted then the bootloader will be unlocked I think. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to install rooted roms and therefore wouldn't be rooted.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
I'm not 100% on this but I'm very confident and the answer is yes.

Speech to text exists within the Android system, it's not Nexus Specific. In 1.6 speech to text was used for searches in 2.1 they've introduced it into the keyboard so you can use it anywhere.

IF the Sense UI has no microphone button all you would have to do is install the stock keyboard. However, several videos i've seen show the sense keyboard with a microphone button and therefore yes it does support speech to text out of the box.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] batest:
today screen

Is Sense on android 2.1 can be disabled?

I mean like we can choose between Sense and 'native android home' (or any other 'Home') without rooting or something else.

I really like that kind of option on Winmo, feeling that you have a 'new' phone everytime you change today screen plug-in..
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
You can go back to stock 2.1 home aswell as install other launchers off the market.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gogol:
Hi,

I also jumped ship, from WM6.1 (HTC Kaiser) to HTC Desire (pre-ordered).

My question:

All of us should familiar with WM app like "SKTools" ... Which we use to "clean" WM system ... removing invalid registries, defrag, junks, temps, whatnot.

I know that Android is a kind of Linux OS ... But, do we still need this kind of process? If yes, any recommendation for app?

If not, will we eventually feel performance degradation overtime later?

Thanks :)
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
Not needed, no degradation of performance.

If you're really picky you can use a task manager to exit apps but that's as far as it goes.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gogol:
Question about closing application.

I know that Android does multitask and I love it.

When we hit the Home button, app will not be closed.

But the app will closed completely (removed from memory) by using the Back button.

Is this correct?

Is there any apps that "refuse" to completely close when we use the back button?

Because I still hate some of WM6 apps:

- HTC Album (unless you modify registry)

- Opera Mobile Browser

When I close (hit the [x]), they dont close.

I would be glad if the Back button closing behavior cannot be ignored by any app!

I know that we can use kind of Task Killer, but still ...

:D
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
What you say is correct but this isn't windows mobile, leaving apps running wont slow down the system because it was designed to do this. When android needs more memory it will eventually close apps itself to make space for new ones.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kiwizz:
Have a look at http://levelupstudio.fr/foxyring

You can set your ringtone / vibrate by location (gps)
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kiwizz:
One question, not really Android specific, but more Desire related.

Will the phone support 32gb+ SC cards (SDXC) ?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] cez10:
thanks for that mate, i didnt understand how would it work untill i ve seen the pictures although its kind of complicated to configure and add all the places you might want ur ringtone silent :rolleyes:
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] weirdwilli:
Getting tempted by the Desire, but never had an Android phone before - just my iPhone so sorry if this has been mentioned before but I'm just reading into it now. Can Android phones be unlocked easily? Or is it possible to unlock the Desire at all?

Thanks
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wankingweiner:
Ok i read through this thread and now im having doubts on how to close apps. The Desire will be my first android phone so forgive me if this is a noob question. So when u hit the home button in an app it still runs in the background. This is understandable, but when u hit the back button it closes the app? I dont get that.. Isnt there an exit button or such for most apps? Or do i have to resort to killing tasks with a task killer? (which im not too fond of).
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
Yes

10 charecters.
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
How do you mean "unlocked"? Network unlocking?
[Desire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] brummiesteven:
Ok... you do not need to close apps on android.

Why?

The operating system has been built up to keep apps running in the background for speedy access to the most used. YOU WILL NOT NOTICE ANY SLOWDOWN OR LAGGING BECAUSE YOU HAVE APPS OPEN. Having the apps open will not effect you in anyway. The system will start closing apps when it needs more memory avaliable to do other things (eg for other apps).