New HTC Desire... questions!

[batfastad]

Hi everyone

Just got an HTC Desire through O2 in the UK as an upgrade to my old SE P1i. Happy with it so far, still going through it trying to turn off and disable loads of stuff though.

Here's some initial questions:

1) I got the Force Close Button program from the marketplace. Should I be using that to close programs to save battery life?
Or should I just leave everything running in the background? Camera, web browser, email, calendar and whatever else I've ever used since I last cycled the power.

2) Is there a particular Task Manager program I should look at?
I've got ES File Manager and notice they do a Task Manager as well but didn't know if there's any others that people recommend.

3) Is there a way to disable the SMS threaded/conversation view in the stock SMS program?

4) And to supress the deletion prompt in SMS?

5) I've setup the GMail program with my GMail mailbox and that seems to work well.
However I notice it's also gone and added pretty much everyone I've ever emailed from my GMail contacts, into my phone contacts. That auto-adding of contacts is one thing that's always really bugged me about Gmail.
I don't remember it telling me that it was going to sync contacts when I tried to sync my mail.
Is there any way to undo it and prevent it doing it again in the future?
I'll probably just revert to using the GMail mobile web interface.
From the Sync Accounts bit in Settings (why on earth is the Settings menu not sorted in alpha order?) it seems if you add a Google Account, it syncs everything!

6) Is there a way to disable the linking of contacts in the People menu?
Again, I don't remember it prompting me about this but it seems to have merged loads of my contacts together. I was planning on possibly using the Facebook program but I have a feeling it would munge my contacts data even more. Reckon I'll just stick to the mobile facebook website.

7) I've tried to disable all background data and basically any automatic syncing/data access that I can find (annoyingly in loads of different places) but I still find that data is being used. I'm on an "unlimited" plan but clearly that's not a solution to the problem.
Is there any way to have it prompt me when a program tries to access the internet, then set up a whitelist?
I also don't like the way that most programs seem to use data services immediately on first start without asking.
And when you click on certain menu entries there should be an icon to warn you that it will fire up your browser and immediately try connecting to the internet.

8) When I turn the phone on I get welcomed by a brutal bubbles animation provided by O2, is there a way to kill that off? I finished school a long time ago.

9) Is there a way to stop the optical scroll button from triggering the left/right flipping between panels in the home screen?
Be good to stop it flipping between panels in Mail and People as well, since there's buttons on the screen that already provide that function. I find it far too sensitive.

10) How do I create my own ringer profile? Seems there's only 3 to choose from: sound on, silent, vibrate only

11) Is there a way to change the behaviour of the power button?
At the moment a single-press locks the phone and a long-press brings up the profile/power option screen. I'd like to reverse that.
12) Are there any programs out there that can show me the technical info/status of the GPS receiver?
Long/lat, satellite fixation, vdop/pdop or whatever the GPS precision variables are called.
I'm planning to use Trekbuddy (used it on my SE P1i and it rocks) for making tracklogs in GPX/NMEA formats and accessing my collection of Ordnance Survey Explorer 1:25k maps. I believe there's an Android version these days! That can display the detailed satellite info.
Just wondered if there's any other programs I should look out for?

13) Is there an icon in the top notification bar that shows when satellite GPS is active?

14) Anyone got suggestions for a decent Notes program?

Cheers, B

 

[Pryomancer]

I can answer a few for you.


1).
Don't use a task killer, Android is very good at managing that stuff by itself, and without draining the battery as much as you'd think.

2).
N/A

8).
The O2 thing is built into your phone's version of Android. It's the same as the default one but O2 have added some things in for themselves. Most carriers have added at least something. Orange are the worst, I think. I'm on Tmobile and I get the Tmobile logo when I turn it on and the name on the lockscreen, that's pretty much it, they're quite unobtrusive.
To get rid of it requires rooting your phone, which if you don't know much about that, is probably to be avoided until you want to find out more in the future.

13).
Yes, it's a little satellite dish.

14).
I use one called 'color notes', it's pretty good, though personally I don't use it that much.

 

[batfastad]

Thanks for the reply

1+2) Thought that I should be ok with programs running in the background.

8) Yeah figured as much. I'll hang on a while until rooting my device I think

13) I've not seen the small satellite dish yet. Just had a look through this guide (HTC Desire New User Guide Nimbu) that was posted by another user in these forums and there's no sign of that satellite dish symbol?

14) Color Notes is perfect! Thanks!

Anyone got any other comments/suggestions on my other Qs?

The SMS threaded view is especially irritating as it basically means SMSs are grouped by contact in my inbox and each one has at least 10 messages in it so far. Since when creating a new message to someone it's usually quicker to reply to an existing SMS, leading to conversations of loads of messages!

Cheers, B

 

[Ozymandias88]

Ill answer as many as I can but I have a nexus so I'm going of memory of my girlfriends htc desire.

1+2) From what I understand whenever you click off a program is inactive its current state is saved and then reloaded when you start it again. Some apps do run in the background though so if you find you battery dying quick take a look at the battery usage in the settings and figure out what it is. Personally I'd then uninstall it as I'd say it's faulty if its eating all your battery.

3+4) have a look for a custom SMS app in the market I imagine someone will have a suggestion for a good one. I like the stock one personally.

5) check out the accounts and sync menu you should be able to change what accounts sync in there.

6) select the contact you want to unlink. Press the menu button and select link. You can then remove existing links or add new ones.

7) you could turn off your data completely I think but not sure why you'd want to as being connected is one of the reasons most people get a smart phone. If you want to keep track of your data usage (not what apps have been using it though) I'd suggest netcounter a fantastic free app.

8) answered by pryomancer

9) don't know

10) wouldn't you just use the volume button on the side of the phone? I've you want to change ringtones aswell and stuff that might be possible with HTC sense themes.

11) don't know

12) don't know but you an search for a particular geolocation in Google maps if you want to find out where a particular spot Is later.

13) you may have GPS dissabled. I'd recommended the power widget that comes with the phone to keep track of what's turned on. Once you know GPS is on run Google maps and you'll see the satalite dish. With GPS off the phone will attempt to guess your location using the signal strength of local network masts

14) answered

Hope this helps.

 

[batfastad]

3+4) Yep I think ditching the SMS app is the way forward.
I've not been able to find a way to view all my sent items yet either as they're all tied up in conversation view. Very strange to have conversation view as the default for an SMS program and then not to have the option of normal view.
ChompSMS seems to have been suggested in other threads so I might give that a look.

5) I had a look in Accounts & Sync in Settings and it seems that when I setup my GMail account in the GMail program, it also added Contacts and Calendar syncing (without asking or at least telling me).
Doesn't seem like there's a way to remove Contacts and Calendar syncing. Just to remove the whole Google Account.
It's just irritating that it didn't ask. Now I've got to delete all the extra "contacts" that have been imported from my GMail account... all the unsubscribe@ etc and basically anyone I've emailed in the last 5 years (which is why I never used GMail for storing my contact info as they all get added automatically grrr).
Looks like I might be better off just using the GMail mobile web interface like before. I was hoping the GMail program would be a better way of accessing my GMail but it seems it needs to sync the whole lot as well.

6) Is there a way to unlink all contacts that it decided to link automatically without asking? And then prevent it from doing it ever again?

12) Yeah I know about Google Maps but it doesn't exactly give you much in the way of technical info about the GPS signal it's receiving.

Cheers, B

 

[Ozymandias88]

3+4) handscent is also highly recommended

5+6) ok so I'm not sure on the desire but on my nexus I go to the accounts and sync menu. Select the acount I want to change and Deselect sync contacts. Those contacts will then be removed and any links to them gone. As for unlinking all for any others I don't think so. I'm affraid you'll have to do it by hand I think.

 

[Astridax93]

Why would you want to reverse the power button, correct me If I am wrong, does an even longer press shut off the phone. So if you reversed them, wouldn't you sometimes shut down the phone when all you wanted to do it unlock it.

 

[batfastad]

Yeah i've had a further dig in the sync settings on the HTC Desire and it seems you can't stop contacts from syncing!
I tried to remove my Google account and it seems you need to do a hard reset to do that!
Truly shocking. Looks like I'm totally screwed here.

Wouldn't mind but I don't remember it telling me that would be the case before I added the account

If you do an action on a phone where the only way to reverse is a hard-reset, then there should be a warning. I've had that experience with a few phones and ActiveSync (SE P1i Symbian being the most recent) and each time it's warned me that I was doing something irreversible.

 

[batfastad]

Why would you want to reverse the power button, correct me If I am wrong, does an even longer press shut off the phone. So if you reversed them, wouldn't you sometimes shut down the phone when all you wanted to do it unlock it.

Surely reversing those 2 button actions doesn't make it any more likely for me to hold the power button down to power the device off? That behaviour would remain unchanged.
If it did then even at the moment you would expect me to sometimes shut down the phone when all I wanted to do was switch it to vibrate/silent etc. Not had any problems with that so far!

Better behaviour would be to have a lock option in the same menu as silent/vibrate/power off when you do a medium press of the power button.

 

[Anthony1]

3+4)
12) Yeah I know about Google Maps but it doesn't exactly give you much in the way of technical info about the GPS signal it's receiving.

Cheers, B

There's an excellent free app called 'GPS Status'

It'll give you all the info you need and more

 

[Ozymandias88]

Yeah i've had a further dig in the sync settings on the HTC Desire and it seems you can't stop contacts from syncing!
I tried to remove my Google account and it seems you need to do a hard reset to do that!
Truly shocking. Looks like I'm totally screwed here.

Wouldn't mind but I don't remember it telling me that would be the case before I added the account

If you do an action on a phone where the only way to reverse is a hard-reset, then there should be a warning. I've had that experience with a few phones and ActiveSync (SE P1i Symbian being the most recent) and each time it's warned me that I was doing something irreversible.

I've checked the desire and the same settings as on the nexus are there. In the accounts and sync menu click whichever account you want to edit and then a new screen will show. At the bottom of the screen is a button that says remove account. Above that is some checkboxes, one of them is sync contacts, uncheck this to stop the syncing. This is on vodaphone but I don't see why any of the other networks would have changed this.

 

[batfastad]

I've checked the desire and the same settings as on the nexus are there. In the accounts and sync menu click whichever account you want to edit and then a new screen will show. At the bottom of the screen is a button that says remove account. Above that is some checkboxes, one of them is sync contacts, uncheck this to stop the syncing. This is on vodaphone but I don't see why any of the other networks would have changed this.

When I go into the Google Account from Sync & Accounts I get a listing of 3 "sub-accounts":
Sync calendar, Sync contacts, Sync Google Mail but they don't have checkboxes next to them

If I use the optical scroller I can highlight the "Sync contacts" then click the Remove account button and I get the following warning:
"Do you really want to delete this account? Deleting it will also delete all of its messages, contacts and other data from the phone. Proceed?"

If I click "Remove" then I get the following prompt:
"This account is required by some applications. You can only delete it by resetting the phone to factory defaults (which deletes all your personal data). You do that in the Settings application, under About phone."

That happens no matter if I highlight Sync contacts, calendar or Google Mail. So the only way to get rid of the syncing contacts is to do a hard-reset!
I bet the only way to download from the Market is to add your Google Account to the phone... rather than just being able to login with your Google Account credentials.

And all this because I assumed setting up the GMail program would setup the GMail program!
In fact it's tied my Google Account in with my phone and can only be removed with a hard-reset!

Having said all that, it seems the contacts sync hasn't even added my phone contacts into my GMail account so I've no idea what's going on with this. Having the sync work on a bi-directional basis would be a slight improvement.
Unfortunately I've not found a way to sync with my own CardDAV server

Going back to the Sync Accounts menu, there's one thing that struck me as illogical straight away. If these sub-accounts under the Google Account could be changed/removed on a one-by-one basis then why not have them at the top level along with the other sync accounts?
I've got Weather and Stocks listed there but I can't get rid of them... I didn't set them up myself and I can't see how I can change/inpect the data source so I can only assume an Android developer thought I would want them!
I think I've manage to disable the syncing of Stocks but the longest delay for the syncing of the Weather program is only once per day! Doesn't seem possible to set it to never, block or even manual!
I like to sync my knowledge of the weather manually by looking out the window.

 

[Ozymandias88]

When I go into the Google Account from Sync & Accounts I get a listing of 3 "sub-accounts":
Sync calendar, Sync contacts, Sync Google Mail but they don't have checkboxes next to them

If I use the optical scroller I can highlight the "Sync contacts" then click the Remove account button and I get the following warning:
"Do you really want to delete this account? Deleting it will also delete all of its messages, contacts and other data from the phone. Proceed?"

If I click "Remove" then I get the following prompt:
"This account is required by some applications. You can only delete it by resetting the phone to factory defaults (which deletes all your personal data). You do that in the Settings application, under About phone."

That happens no matter if I highlight Sync contacts, calendar or Google Mail. So the only way to get rid of the syncing contacts is to do a hard-reset!
I bet the only way to download from the Market is to add your Google Account to the phone... rather than just being able to login with your Google Account credentials.

And all this because I assumed setting up the GMail program would setup the GMail program!
In fact it's tied my Google Account in with my phone and can only be removed with a hard-reset!

Having said all that, it seems the contacts sync hasn't even added my phone contacts into my GMail account so I've no idea what's going on with this. Having the sync work on a bi-directional basis would be a slight improvement.
Unfortunately I've not found a way to sync with my own CardDAV server

Going back to the Sync Accounts menu, there's one thing that struck me as illogical straight away. If these sub-accounts under the Google Account could be changed/removed on a one-by-one basis then why not have them at the top level along with the other sync accounts?
I've got Weather and Stocks listed there but I can't get rid of them... I didn't set them up myself and I can't see how I can change/inpect the data source so I can only assume an Android developer thought I would want them!
I think I've manage to disable the syncing of Stocks but the longest delay for the syncing of the Weather program is only once per day! Doesn't seem possible to set it to never, block or even manual!
I like to sync my knowledge of the weather manually by looking out the window.

Aahhh ok, in that case then I have no idea, I always thought sense ui looked quite cool but since my girlfriend got the desire I've noticed they've messed some stuff up compared to stock android 2.1.

Sorry I couldn't help more.