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Help How to change/set unread text notification to something similar to iPhone?

hs04avp

Lurker
Mar 18, 2012
4
0
Hello there,

I've had my new phone for just a few days and am absolutely loving it :) however, one thing I am having slight issue with is the way in which you are notified of a new text message.

If I am with my phone and see a message arrive, that's great, but if I'm not, I find it hard to notice (easily) that I have a new message.
Obviously there will be a message icon in the top bar, but I'd like to have something similar to the iPhone, where you have a little number appearing showing you (for example) how many missed calls you have, unread emails or text messages.

Is this possible? I've tried looking for apps but can only find apps which bring the text message up on screen in a pop-up box when received and I really don't want to do this as want my messages to stay private.

A few other things since I'm posting:
1. Is there a simpler way to access the voice command function without having to unlock your phone and then touch the microphone symbol (i.e. a way to do this without unlocking the phone, as I would like to send a text by voice while driving and the above takes far too much concentration)
2. When using voice command to send a text, once the text is written and addressed to a contact, is there a way to then send the text using your voice?
3. There is an app for the iphone a friend showed me, called kb shortcuts, which allows you to customise shortcuts to use when typing, by using the spacebar as a shift button and dragging to another key. For example, this friend set it up to press space and drag to the letter N and his email address would then be pasted into the text box.
Is there a similar app for android? I'm aware there are already so keyboard shortcuts but I want to customise my own.

Thanks in advance :)
 
Theres a few apps for the text issue

Lightflow will flash your LED on the front of your phone, you can set different colors for gmail email calls texts etc you can even do a different color for certain contact

Also if you only use slide to unlock you can pull down your notification bar from waking your phone a.d see any variety of notifications youve received.
 
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For the main question, you can use Handcent and then use the small widget and it will put the number of unread texts on the icon. If you use Nova Launcer, you can also put this in the bar at the bottom if you want. I'm not sure if there's a way to make Gmail do it.

Light flow is also really good.

If you use Widget Locker, you can add widgets and anything you can to the main screens onto the lock screen. I'm not sure if there's a slide to voice command option or not, but there might be.
 
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Thanks for the replies guys, although it isn't exactly what I wanted, light flow is pretty awesome and is better than the inbuilt visual notifications, I've installed it and am really enjoying it, thanks for the tip!

El Presidente - it seems I would need the launcher installed before I can use the notifications, but this is exactly what I was looking for! I need to get to grips with launchers and figure out what it is I would want from one, but may well reinstall adw launcher so I can use the notifier function (I tried it, but I found it a little confusing and decided to leave it for now) in the future.

Thanks all!
 
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