Things we lost with ICS that bug me.

FussBoss · Jul 3, 2012

One of the biggest touts about Android is you could customize it however you wanted, but I feel with this ICS update we lost some key things. Here is what sticks out for me most. What about you?

Notifications are small and dim, making them almost pointless.
Display contacts with phone number only

HTTR · Jul 3, 2012

It is just a much different operating system..has some really nice features, but a few that we are used to really tend to stand out now that we do not have them. For me:

-not having contacts intergrated with the dialer is just a mistake. I get that they want to promote the people feature but this is basic phone stuff.

-no having flash supported (yet)

-not having the ability to chose the number of home screens and have the loop as opposed to left and right only.

-the dim task bar is a bummer, but there is a battery app already that gets around that. Battery monitor.

I can run Go Launcher and get around all of this, but the widgets are a pain in the reat to get working with no labels. I also want to run this clean to see how it does. I am sure with updates things will get better. Overall, I am happy with the ICS.

Ekim Gram · Jul 3, 2012

You can easily disable Google+.

carracerz14 · Jul 3, 2012

Those just all sound like personal gripes

vry5 · Jul 3, 2012

I have a few that are bugging me right now, and wondering if anyone else has seen the same.

1. Contact photo is not linking up to Handcent. I made sure that the settings>social networks>picture source was correct, and even tried the various ones (Default/Google/Facebook)... no dice.
2. MyMusic player seems to be taking it's sweet time linking the album art. About 5% has downloaded so far... and that seems way too slow. I've played with the Live Music Info settings, and let it stay for a few hours.... but no real change.
3. I have yet to see this "continuous voice to text" that has been touted as the main practical improvement... The voice text seems to be quicker (and still either 100% on or 100% wrong, just like before) but it doesn't 'type' each word, like I was under the impression would happen... Am I missing something on this one?
4. Many of the very cool graphic animations from GB-Blur are now missing... the shine when you swiped homepages... and the cool cascading of the favorate contacts widget are the two glaring ones (that I used to brag on)

Thanks for any help resolving some of these, if it's just some setting I haven't stumbled on yet.

FussBoss · Jul 3, 2012

Ekim Gram said:
You can easily disable Google+.

If you can tell me how to do this without deleting G+ all together, please let me know. I have not downloaded G+, I have not set it up in my accounts on the phone - I do not even see it as an option in the phone.

carracerz14 said:
Those just all sound like personal gripes

Yes lol - thats kinda why I sad "that bug me". But they do effect how I use the phone. One of the great things about Android is how you can do so many custom things on the phone, and these were all things we could do before but now cannot.

sycor · Jul 3, 2012

It bugs me that SMartActions can't disable background sync anymore. (at least it's still lit in the Power Control widget) I know I've said it before in other threads, but it just really bugs me.

lowboydrvr · Jul 3, 2012

sycor said:
It bugs me that SMartActions can't disable background sync anymore. (at least it's still lit in the Power Control widget) I know I've said it before in other threads, but it just really bugs me.

"Background Sync" is one of the actions available. All you have to do is add it into your rule.

chris4x4 · Jul 3, 2012

No Flash

Not able to fully disable background data....to the point of keeping data connected, but not syncing with google servers.

syntrix · Jul 3, 2012

HTTR said:
-not having contacts intergrated with the dialer is just a mistake. I get that they want to promote the people feature but this is basic phone stuff.

Hit the search button while in the dialer, it brings up contacts. Not the best implementation, but I'll take it over having to launch contacts separately. Plus who ever intuitively actually uses that button?

Rogus · Jul 3, 2012

FussBoss said:
No more one touch dialing from contact list or from favorite widget

Go to Widgets and select "Direct dial", then Select the Contact and respective number you want to dial by touching the Widget.

Rogus · Jul 3, 2012

sycor said:
It bugs me that SMartActions can't disable background sync anymore. (at least it's still lit in the Power Control widget) I know I've said it before in other threads, but it just really bugs me.

I have a SA that when triggered a message pops up in the Notifications that says "Background data restricted". Is that different than "background sync'? The action for that SA includes "Background sync" Disable. I was sort of assuming that was now related to "Background data restricted and the wording change isn't yet reflected in the SA app. However, now that I look the Power Control widget toggle for background data sync does not change when the SA is activated.

Kwayit · Jul 3, 2012

1. Contact photo is not linking up to Handcent. I made sure that the settings>social networks>picture source was correct, and even tried the various ones (Default/Google/Facebook)... no dice.

I've sent several notes to Handcent, but nothing back from them.

Everything to do with Contacts is a pain. I've deleted the ones that I don't want 3 times. They aren't in gmail and they aren't in BackupAssistant.

These two annoy me... a lot.

jazz1266 · Jul 3, 2012

FussBoss said:
No more uninstall from app screen.

Long press on app in app drawer drag to top of screen for more options

tmaertin · Jul 3, 2012

i miss the ability to create a widget shortcut to running services directly - can only go as far as apps now in ICS.

Guess I may have to install elixir and elixir widgets to do that now

sycor · Jul 4, 2012

lowboydrvr said:
"Background Sync" is one of the actions available. All you have to do is add it into your rule.

I know it's there. But it doesn't work anymore. And yes, I've done a factory reset. It also used to be that if I had a SA to turn off data and background sync (like for work or sleeping) once that SA was finished and turned off these things would turn back on on their own. This doesn't happen anymore either. This has pretty much made smartactions a useless app. There is no reason to use it if I still have to manually do stuff.

carracerz14 · Jul 4, 2012

sycor said:
I know it's there. But it doesn't work anymore. And yes, I've done a factory reset. It also used to be that if I had a SA to turn off data and background sync (like for work or sleeping) once that SA was finished and turned off these things would turn back on on their own. This doesn't happen anymore either. This has pretty much made smartactions a useless app. There is no reason to use it if I still have to manually do stuff.

I've found that my sleep action doesn't always work. I I have it set to silent my phone at midnight if it's plugged into my wall charger. If i have it plugged into my car and then plug it into my wall charger when I get home it won't enable until and I have to disable it and re enable it to get it to work. Annoying

fdnj48 · Jul 4, 2012

The one and only thing that really bothers me is that the phone ringer and notifications volume can no longer be linked together. Other then that I'm loving ICS

SyrStorm · Jul 4, 2012

I want the Task Manager app back

I used that a lot as it seemed a lot better than any other task manager

seVer · Jul 4, 2012

fdnj48 said:
The one and only thing that really bothers me is that the phone ringer and notifications volume can no longer be linked together. Other then that I'm loving ICS

this is probably my biggest gripe!!!! there's nothing quite like setting a smart action to lower ringer volume, just to have a text message blare at nearly full volume.

besides that, though, there are a few other things that I preferred in GB, but nothing that's a major deal breaker...

One thing that I did, was have a VZW rep (probably tech) fill out a product issue form/log for the missing ringer/notification linkability. I understand it gets forwarded internally to Motorola for consideration on future releases.

seVer · Jul 4, 2012

SyrStorm said:
I want the Task Manager app back I used that a lot as it seemed a lot better than any other task manager

especially since you could set certain things to auto-end after 2 minutes of standby.

cdf3 · Jul 4, 2012

I had abbreviations added to the names of those I text on a frequent basis. When I had GB I was able to type the abbreviation, and the contact would appear.
This method no longer works with ICS. I have to type their first name or last name for them to appear. It works fine if I try to locate the contact in the People app or GMail app using that method. Will not work using stock SMS app, as well as 3rd party SMS apps.

rushmore · Jul 4, 2012

Are you all talking about JB? Flash works fine with ICS on Razr.

There is one thing you did not lose that non Moto devices do with ICS- mass storage mode. Moto had to leave it due to lapdock support.

What I do not like is I lost battery life and gained more heat.

jcarlosfox · Jul 4, 2012

HTTR said:
It is just a much different operating system..has some really nice features, but a few that we are used to really tend to stand out now that we do not have them. For me:

-not having contacts intergrated with the dialer is just a mistake. I get that they want to promote the people feature but this is basic phone stuff.

-no having flash supported (yet)

-not having the ability to chose the number of home screens and have the loop as opposed to left and right only.

-the dim task bar is a bummer, but there is a battery app already that gets around that. Battery monitor.

I can run Go Launcher and get around all of this, but the widgets are a pain in the reat to get working with no labels. I also want to run this clean to see how it does. I am sure with updates things will get better. Overall, I am happy with the ICS.

The app mentioned is BATTERY MONITOR by SIM2K.

There are a lot of Battery applications, but this one allow you to pick the color of the task bar notification, including bright white and ICS blue.

mr1patch · Jul 4, 2012

re the Smart Actions - the rules are still in there, but they no longer functions. It says the background data is disabled, but I still get emails ringing (waking me up) in the middle of the night.

Things we lost with ICS that bug me.

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