I wish I could agree...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| KernelShepard Feb 19, 2012 9:32 PM EDT |
I will say it's the prettiest, and I will say that FINALLY images on the call screen are bigger than my thumbnail (although the image resolution has stayed the same, so my images are horrendously pixelated). That's not my gripe with ICS, though. My current *major* gripe is that none of my calls last over ~2 minutes before my phone suddenly reboots itself. Another gripe is that my phone is even less likely to actually play my mp3s. With Gingerbread, about once or twice a week I'd have to reboot my phone because when I'd try to play an mp3, it'd tell me that the codec was unsupported. Now, with ICS, I have a 1:10 chance that rebooting will even resolve this issue and I've completely given up hope that I'll be able to play any media at all on this phone anymore. FWIW, I've tried both the "Music" app that Samsung bundles *and* the Google Music app. Neither work anymore. I will never ever buy another Android phone. It frustrates me so much because I wanted so bad to use a Linux-based phone. |
| gus3 Feb 19, 2012 9:47 PM EDT |
@KS, have you brought the in-call reboot issue to the attention of your service provider? They tend to take call quality issues seriously, since that is the sine qua non of a cell phone. The other stuff, meh. They aren't core functions of a cell phone, so they are, by definition, lower priority. |
| KernelShepard Feb 19, 2012 10:16 PM EDT |
gus3: Sadly I doubt they will help me because I voided the warranty when I installed ICS. Had I known that Android could get any worse than what I had before, I wouldn't have bothered voiding my warranty and installing ICS. Luckily I'm due for a new phone in April. |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 19, 2012 10:33 PM EDT |
so you installed a version from a third-party provider that doesn't properly support your hardware?
(nothing against third-party providers, it is likely not their fault, rather blame the lack of standardization in the phone market or in the ARM system on a chip market) greetings, eMBee |
| gus3 Feb 20, 2012 12:53 AM EDT |
Also, the provider('s reps) may be able to restore the original image, minus your customizations. Maybe for a fee... |
| r_a_trip Feb 20, 2012 4:44 AM EDT |
@KernelSheppard Maybe you can find a stock rom on forums.xda-developers.com for your Samsung device. Restoring to stock Gingerbread should at least give you previous performance levels. -0-0-0-0-0- ICS at the moment is a no go, from what I read. I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 and I'm following developments fairly close. Samsung keeps cranking out beta's, but all of them seem to have hardware and stability problems. I'm not going to subject my phone to that just yet. Maybe it's time that Google starts to treat Android as a true FOSS project. If manufacturers could follow developments as they happen, they wouldn't have to scramble so much when Google dumps the "gold" code. Ah, one can dream... |
| KernelShepard Feb 20, 2012 9:56 AM EDT |
r_a_trip: Yea, I'm going to look into restoring back to Samsung's release of Gingerbread today. To be honest, I'd rather that the manufacturers didn't modify Android at all other than contributing drivers. But yea, I guess the next best thing would be that Google developed Android in a more open fashion, allowing the manufacturers to get a head start on making their UI changes (which, for Samsung at least, seems to take them a year to do after Google tosses the code over the wall). That said, this article is completely void of any details, so let me try to enumerate the changes from what I can tell so far using ICS: 1. The GMail app has changed - just like their web UI. It's certainly fancier looking and I think it's mostly a better UI. I'm not sure if it's just my install of ICS or what, but unfortunately it also feels a fair bit slower. It seems to spend an awful lot of time showing me a spinner and/or a blank white screen (especially when starting up the app). I suppose since my phone was released probably 18 months or so ago (I bought mine ~16 months ago), I suspect newer faster phones will deal with this better. 2. The Google Music player UI is vastly improved but has way too many search bars - one on the top of the screen, one on the bottom, plus the standard search icon button below the screen? I mean, come on. Other than that, it's pretty decent. Of course... it won't actually play music on my phone because 99% of the time it says the mp3 codec is unsupported. 3. The Phone app finally seems to default to a sane screen on startup. With older versions, it would almost always start up on the number pad screen even though I rarely if ever used it. I almost always wanted it to startup on the contacts page (or, at least, the recent calls page). With ICS, they seem to have fixed it to start up on the last page you viewed, even after plugging it in for charging and/or rebooting. This is nice. I've been waiting 16 months for this feature. Now if only calls would last > 2 minutes... The contact photos shown when a call is active are now "full screen" like iPhone, which is also an improvement. I could dive into the other programs and try to comment on them from ancient memory of what they used to be like, but for the most part those are the apps I use most frequently. I also use Google Maps and SMS a lot, but I haven't used them since installing ICS. Interesting to note is that Google seems to be moving away from the black background in most of the apps. The GMail, SMS and Youtube apps are now a white background. The Phone dialer app still uses a black background, but the Contacts app now uses a white background as well. The Google Music app still uses a black background, which seems out of place now. I have to say, I mush prefer white backgrounds. It just feels cleaner and more pleasant. |
| Khamul Feb 20, 2012 2:34 PM EDT |
White background = more light = more eyestrain. A PC/laptop/smartphone isn't a piece of paper (nor do they use e-ink screens), that backlight is harder on the eyes than with a dark screen, especially in a dim environment. Computers were much better WRT eyestrain back in the old days when they just had black screens with green characters. Green is the easiest color for your eyes to see and resolve, and green-on-black has the highest contrast. |
| penguinist Feb 20, 2012 2:58 PM EDT |
Battery life is a key issue with smartphones and tablets, and the display is the big power consumer. White takes power to produce, black is free. So the more black you can get on your screen the longer your battery will last between charges. |
| mbaehrlxer Feb 20, 2012 3:01 PM EDT |
i used to complain about the black background too. but someone claimed that a black background would use less power. i don't know if that is true, but if it is, then i am all for it. greetings, eMBee. |
| KernelShepard Feb 20, 2012 3:22 PM EDT |
Considering my wife's iPhone 4 has always gotten much better battery life than my Samsung Galaxy S and it uses a white background for everything, I'm not sure I buy that argument. It *sounds* reasonable, but I'm not sure it matches reality. Eyestrain? Maybe if you wake up in the middle of the night, but not during daylight usage. |
| KernelShepard Feb 20, 2012 3:27 PM EDT |
From here: http://www.allaboutvision.com/cvs/irritated.htm Adjusting the display settings of your computer can help reduce eye strain and fatigue. Generally, these adjustments are beneficial: * Brightness. Adjust the brightness of the display so it's approximately the same as the brightness of your surrounding workstation. As a test, look at the white background of this Web page. If it looks like a light source, it's too bright. If it seems dull and gray, it may be too dark. * Text size and contrast. Adjust the text size and contrast for comfort, especially when reading or composing long documents. Usually, black print on a white background is the best combination for comfort. * Color temperature. This is a technical term used to describe the spectrum of visible light emitted by a color display. Blue light is short-wavelength visible light that is associated with more eye strain than longer wavelength hues, such as orange and red. Reducing the color temperature of your display lowers the amount of blue light emitted by a color display for better long-term viewing comfort. White text on a black background causing less eye strain is a myth. |
| Khamul Feb 20, 2012 4:53 PM EDT |
@penguinist: Actually, you have that backwards. If you were talking about CRTs, you'd be correct, but with LCDs it's the other way around: the backlight is on all the time, and to make the screen black the liquid crystals have to have electricity applied to change their orientation and block light. Without any power, they're transparent and you see white. However, the difference in power consumption is almost negligible, since the vast majority of power consumed by an LCD display is used for the backlight. Now, this may be a little different now that they're using LEDs for backlights instead of a cold-cathode tube. But I'm pretty sure most smaller displays still use a single bank of LEDs, on the edge of the screen, so they can't selectively turn them on and off for different regions. Also, for the new OLED displays, black backgrounds do save power. @KernelShepard: I think that link is full of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-on-dark_color_scheme From the article: "There seems to be a dispute among vision and perception researchers about whether it is actually easier or healthier to read text on dark or light background; there is a similar dispute between users, when using each other's computer terminals." Something can't be a "myth" if there's a dispute about it and nothing approaching consensus. |
| gus3 Feb 20, 2012 5:58 PM EDT |
@Khamul: The light/dark LCD used to be very easy to invert. Just flip the top polarizing filter. Since it was oriented at 45 degrees, any flip on either the horizontal or vertical axis would reverse the "color" scheme. |
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