Att Captivate for Dummies (that would be me)

[jas2k9]

Ok. I am taking my early? made Captivate under the 30 day trial tomorrow. Unless I waiver again, I will try another Captivate.

So, this time - who can tell me what are the 'must have apps'.

What is a widget, how does it work, why do I need them, how do I create or turn them on?

What can I do to not have horror stories of burned MB usage when sleeping (other thread).

What else - what app most closely resembles itunes so I can more easily move music, photos, etc. from my PC to the phone.

All that stuff.

I am not a techie or a phone afixianado, I am coming from a first gen ipod touch, and a motorola razr - so simple english helps me a lot, I want this phone to be 'it' I don't want to go iphone, but frankly at this stage, with my background, the iphone seems more polished and much less risky.

Thanks!

 

[CrimsonPride]

Widgets, if you look at the "post your home screen thread" are the clocks, weather, music, pandora radio, facebook, etc.. application that are on your home screen. you can delete them by pressing on them and moving them to the bottom of the screen. you get new ones by downloading them via the android market, alot of the apps have widgets with them.

to save data, dont have your widgets do auto updating, mine auto update by i am connected to wifi 90% of the time so it does not use my data. you can get 3g watchdog and juice defender via the android market, 3g watchdog tells you how much data you have used, juice defender if set correctly will not allow data to be sent from your phone while it is locked so that helps save it also.

the stock music player is easy to navigate, i like it best personally but there are many you can download. wikitune, mixzing, music player are some that others use but really its personal choice. i think the default one looks and works quite well.

the must have apps are different for different people. i have att mywireless to check data as well as 3g watchdog. fandango and imdb to lookup stuff about movies and see when they are playing in theaters. smooth calander and battstatt are a few widgets i use for home screens. handcent sms is a different thing for texting although the default one wasnt bad in my opinion. oh and also i have xPiano which my little cousins love playing with, keeps them occupied for a few mins atleast. i have Touch Bible so i dont have to carry mine around anymore, got it right in my phone. and finally i have opera and dolphin hd web browsers just to try every now and then.

hope i helped alittle. with the apps you can find just about anything you can think of, you can probably google popular android apps or something like that and it may help alittle more than i could

 

[jas2k9]

This helps. I thought the widgets were historically referred to as icons. I guess it's widget on android and icon on windows and apple?

 

[sschrupp]

Yeah, widgets are just applications. So it's an icon that opens an application. Widgets just sound more fun and interactive I guess than Icons.

 

[sremick]

Not really...

An icon is more like a "shortcut"... a static, fixed-size button that launches a program. A "widget" does something active/interactive on the home screen/page it's placed on, and is not a fixed size. News tickers, weather info, clocks, all sorts of stuff is available as widgets.

 

[blackhemi]

I am not a techie or a phone afixianado, I am coming from a first gen ipod touch, and a motorola razr - so simple english helps me a lot, I want this phone to be 'it' I don't want to go iphone, but frankly at this stage, with my background, the iphone seems more polished and much less risky.

Thanks!

What it all boils down to is what you want from it. From what it sounds like, you would be fine by a mostly stock system. The cappy can be a bit to a lot more techie.

I use launcherPro, battery indicator, all the google apps, ringdroid(for ringtones and notification tones) and c:geo(geocaching app). I use the stock media player for music, its simple and works for me. One thing I do like about android is the limitless possibilities.

iPhone is tailored to just work. You dont have the ability to truly customize, app dev's are limited to what they can do too. I went from iphone 2g, 3g, and 3gs. I personally am done with them. My girlfriend still love hers, its simple for her.

I think the cappy is very capable of being a good phone. Right now, the only thing thats upsetting to me is the GPS.

 

[evodon84]

Jas,

Check the second post of the thread link below. I used this to get to know my phone and android and speed everything up. It worked great and now my phone is super speedy.


http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/140198-just-brought-my-new-captivate-home.html

 

[jas2k9]

Thanks to all, I think part of the issue for me, is that I jumped from something very plain to something new and much less plain.

I think perhaps I need to understand what the core issues are with something like an iphone then use it for a while and switch over.

As it stands, mine is going bac - like Lebron, I don't know which one I am replacing it with, another Captivate or an iphone.

Whichever, if it does not perform I will swap that one too, in 2 weeks for the other.