ICS discussion thread

[s_special]

I thought we could have a new thread designated for our new update


Here are a few things that have changed in ICS:
Battery percentage indicator
Quick multitasking with home held down
You can now use Chrome browser
You can now use lCS launchers like apex
Tweaks to the UI like fonts and icons/menus

ICS now supports usb devices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQtlAW3mag&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

[s_special]

im also getting battery drain which seems excessive and a data roaming notification pop up often

After a factory reset things seem to be better (like on gingerbread)

 

[bencurt24]

Join the club.... We are all experiencing it.....

 

[Speed Daemon]

It's been a little over 16 hours now, and I'm still at 84%. Now ICS is performing better on the battery!

I'm beginning to think that the "battery problem" doesn't have as much to do with ICS as it does to users who are suddenly paying close attention to their battery's state of charge after a long time of not watching it so closely. Probably what they're seeing is that their batteries, that have gone through many charge-discharge cycles since they were new, are no longer factory fresh.

Why are my results different? First of all, my SII is only a few months old. Second, I have two batteries. I use one for at home, and short trips away from the charger, and another "low cycle" one for long days out in the field. My high cycle battery will lose capacity faster, but since it's for short times off the charger it doesn't matter. That leaves the low cycle one at peak capacity for times when I need that.

I've been using rechargeable lithium batteries for a long time now in all sorts of equipment. They used to be expensive, so I learned best practices early on. Anybody who has a large collection of Anton/Bauer batteries know what I mean.

 

[CoachEVO]

Speed,
While I understand your points, my Epic is only a few months old as well. Before the upgrade, I would be like you now, but since, there is a constant slow drain...and I can't find the problem. I have a couple of guesses though. One, I don't get a great signal, and that may be one problem (although I didn't have that problem before the upgrade). Two, there is some process running in ICS that I am unaware of that is causing it. Just sitting idle I will lose 2-4% per hour. This was never the case before. Maybe it will take a couple of days more, it just gets frustrating, that's all. New stuff, new issues I guess.

 

[thunder18]

I hope this is on topic, but did ICS bring back the scrolling background when using the stock launcher?

 

[Lateck]

OP, thanks for starting a new thread.
CoachEVO; I'm having the same problems, BUT, nothing major. I have read where there are some battery issues and some not. I am thinking it has a lot to do with the apps that are on each S2(????)

I have been tempted to maybe do a full wipe and reload items slowly, but I would lose the use of things as I reload....
I think I'll wait a few more days and see how it continues to flow........

Lateck,

 

[Lateck]

I hope this is on topic, but did ICS bring back the scrolling background when using the stock launcher?

Not on mine,

Lateck

 

[s_special]

I hope this is on topic, but did ICS bring back the scrolling background when using the stock launcher?

I had to scrap my launcher pro completely since it FC on startup (which still allowed for scrolling wallpaper)
Now apex doesn't seem to be able to override the touch wiz code. Lame

 

[s_special]

Can anyone confirm that foxfi is working after the Ics update

 

[VGPOP]

For the record, I did a factory rest and that fixed battery problem.

Example: Yesterday, I went to gym for 2 hours, non-stop music, texting occasionally from 99% to 10%.....something was definitely wrong

Today, I went for 2.5 hours non-stop, from 94% to 50%.

The battery was so bad that I disconnected phone at full charged and did about 10 minutes, JUST 10 MINS of surfing net and it would go from 99% to 75%.

I think it was running ICS and gingerbread at the same time....lol

So, doing a factory reset has fixed battery issue for me.

 

[Speed Daemon]

While I understand your points, my Epic is only a few months old as well. Before the upgrade, I would be like you now, but since, there is a constant slow drain...and I can't find the problem. I have a couple of guesses though. One, I don't get a great signal, and that may be one problem (although I didn't have that problem before the upgrade). Two, there is some process running in ICS that I am unaware of that is causing it. Just sitting idle I will lose 2-4% per hour. This was never the case before. Maybe it will take a couple of days more, it just gets frustrating, that's all. New stuff, new issues I guess.

I guess we can rule out a tired battery then. That means actually thinking hard.

You said that you don't get a great signal. I know that the cell sites control the output power of phones, so if your phone was running at full RF power, would that make a big enough difference? Maybe, but that would probably have happened before, wouldn't it?

When I did the ICS upgrade, I noticed a lot more system processes, and after I swapped batteries (hence rebooting) there were a lot less. Before I did the upgrade, I did kill a lot of processes that I didn't want, so my experience might have been exaggerated by that.

My phone still seems to be flaky about the Wi-Fi connection, and I imagine that it takes a fair amount of power to constantly reconnect. Perhaps you have a hardware power hog like that being driven by the new software. Have you tried turning off stuff like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth etc.?

I'm at 22 1/4 hours and have 78% battery left, BTW.

 

[CoachEVO]

Speed,
I finally broke down and did a factory reset, saving my apps to SD card first. Since I was at rather low battery, I fully recharged it and am now waiting to see what happens. Thanks for your ideas and for trying to help. I, too, have the wifi thing happening, but don't think that is part of the problem as my phone was doing that before as well. I'll let you guys know what happens. I've read that the factory reset did the trick, so I'll post as soon as I find out...maybe it will help others as well.

 

[BigHAZE]

For the record, I did a factory rest and that fixed battery problem.

Example: Yesterday, I went to gym for 2 hours, non-stop music, texting occasionally from 99% to 10%.....something was definitely wrong

Today, I went for 2.5 hours non-stop, from 94% to 50%.

The battery was so bad that I disconnected phone at full charged and did about 10 minutes, JUST 10 MINS of surfing net and it would go from 99% to 75%.

I think it was running ICS and gingerbread at the same time....lol

So, doing a factory reset has fixed battery issue for me.

And did you do that through the menus? or hard reset boot with volume control? Thanks

 

[s_special]

And did you do that through the menus? or hard reset boot with volume control? Thanks

Don't they both do the same thing?

 

[bencurt24]

I'm starting to doubt that the hard reset is making the battery a ton better. I mean its better than it was right after i got ICS but with little to no use its going down from 100 percent to 50 in about 6 hours...... anyone else got any ideas? I seriously think something is wrong with my battery but the people at sprint can't find anything.

 

[VGPOP]

And did you do that through the menus? or hard reset boot with volume control? Thanks

Menu.

SETTINGS, PRIVACY, FACTORY DATA RESET.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Speed,
I finally broke down and did a factory reset, saving my apps to SD card first. Since I was at rather low battery, I fully recharged it and am now waiting to see what happens. Thanks for your ideas and for trying to help. I, too, have the wifi thing happening, but don't think that is part of the problem as my phone was doing that before as well. I'll let you guys know what happens. I've read that the factory reset did the trick, so I'll post as soon as I find out...maybe it will help others as well.

Keep me...us all posted on how that works out. I'd hate to have to go through all those settings once again.

I'm at 37:20 hours now and it shows 69% left on the battery. And this is my backup battery, which has less capacity than the one that comes with the phone, so that's even more impressive. Maybe my results are because I haven't customized my phone with a ton of extra processes? It looks like the constant seeking of the WAP has died down too. I live in a place where there are dozens of SSIDs floating around out there. Maybe it went into seek mode every time a new SSID popped up out of the sea of RF hash generated by all the WAPs on every frequency. I'll have to test it more thoroughly later.

 

[Speed Daemon]

I'm starting to doubt that the hard reset is making the battery a ton better. I mean its better than it was right after i got ICS but with little to no use its going down from 100 percent to 50 in about 6 hours...... anyone else got any ideas? I seriously think something is wrong with my battery but the people at sprint can't find anything.

Is the phone hot, or at least warm in one spot? I could feel what I assume is the CPU get warm when it was using most of my battery. If not, you might want to see how long it takes to get to zero. It could be a calibration error giving you a false battery reading.

IME with lithium and other secondary batteries, they're a lot a car's gas gauge when it comes to reading battery life during operation. My car goes a long way on the first half of the tank according to the meter, and a lot less on the last half. That's because of the shape of the tank.

Battery chemistries that deliver a fairly consistent voltage right up to the end are hard to measure for capacity, because voltage alone can only tell you if the battery is fully discharged. The larger lithium batteries in notebooks, camcorders etc. have built-in microcontrollers that manage the charge cycle, and make more comprehensive measurements, so they give more reliable indications of the actual level of charge.

With something like a phone, the power that a smart battery draws from itself is unacceptable, so they don't use them. So with phones it's more of a guess.

 

[VGPOP]

By the way, I know there are some features that are not working yet with ics for s2, camera, calendar.

What about Roboto font?

As far as I know, it didn't install font, is there anyway to get it?

 

[Speed Daemon]

By the way, I know there are some features that are not working yet with ics for s2, camera, calendar.

Those work on mine.

What about Roboto font?

As far as I know, it didn't install font, is there anyway to get it?

Press the "install fonts online" button, or use the apps website.

 

[VGPOP]

Those work on mine.

Press the "install fonts online" button, or use the apps website.

The calendar and camera DO work, but there are not the default ICS stock apps.

Using install fonts online does not provide with ROBOTO font, already checked.

 

[bencurt24]

Yea the phone is getting hot. its not like really hot but i've noticed the back is warmer than normal and my CPU is way high for someone reason even when i'm not using the phone........

 

[s_special]

Does anyone know how to disable the phone from automatically mounting when connecting usb to a computer? I just want to have it plugged in for charging but I can't seem to find the setting to turn it off.

 

[s_special]

BTW I was getting a ton of reboots and freezing last night so I just decided to do a factory reset. Seems much better now