Help Really Frustrated With This Phone and Need Help

[itsallgood]

Hi Everyone, I just bought my SGS4 on AT&T, a few days ago. There are really a lot of things I love about it, but these few things that I've gotten accustomed too on my Atrix 4G, I can't even do on this phone.

1) I have paired my bluetooth head set successfully, but every time I turn on bluetooth, a box pops up that says "Bluetooth" with my device name and the paired bluetooth device. (I only have one paired). I have to select my bluetooth device and another popup box ask for permission to connect with device. There has got to be an easier and simpler way of doing this. My old phone, once device was paired, I only had to turn on bluetooth and the paired device and it connected without any other action from me.

2) So I got the 16GB version, which was the same storage as my old phone. Right out of the box, I had just over 9 GB of internal storage. Is this right? I mean, I copied all of my files and data from my old phone to this one and I have only 700MB left and I'm not even halfway finish installing my old apps. I have a 32 GB SD card with over 9 GB free space, but can't move any apps/data to it.

3) So I am using "Gmail" and "YaHoo!" mail apps for my emails. I can't find any setting on the phone, or in the apps themselves, as to how often I want it to check for new emails. I receive notifications all thru the day every time a new email comes in. (This is so frustrating) Anyway to select how often to check/sync new emails? I prefer every 4 hrs or manually to check.

4) Any way to end third party apps? My old phone had a stock Task Manager that I could select 3rd party apps to end when the screen timed out.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[RichSz]

Hi Everyone, I just bought my SGS4 on AT&T, a few days ago. There are really a lot of things I love about it, but these few things that I've gotten accustomed too on my Atrix 4G, I can't even do on this phone.

1) I have paired my bluetooth head set successfully, but every time I turn on bluetooth, a box pops up that says "Bluetooth" with my device name and the paired bluetooth device. (I only have one paired). I have to select my bluetooth device and another popup box ask for permission to connect with device. There has got to be an easier and simpler way of doing this. My old phone, once device was paired, I only had to turn on bluetooth and the paired device and it connected without any other action from me.

2) So I got the 16GB version, which was the same storage as my old phone. Right out of the box, I had just over 9 GB of internal storage. Is this right? I mean, I copied all of my files and data from my old phone to this one and I have only 700MB left and I'm not even halfway finish installing my old apps. I have a 32 GB SD card with over 9 GB free space, but can't move any apps/data to it.

3) So I am using "Gmail" and "YaHoo!" mail apps for my emails. I can't find any setting on the phone, or in the apps themselves, as to how often I want it to check for new emails. I receive notifications all thru the day every time a new email comes in. (This is so frustrating) Anyway to select how often to check/sync new emails? I prefer every 4 hrs or manually to check.

4) Any way to end third party apps? My old phone had a stock Task Manager that I could select 3rd party apps to end when the screen timed out.

Thanks for all your help.

1. That's weird. I have a Pebble watch which is always connected to BT (and BT is always on). When I get in my car, the phone just connects, no prompts, no hassle. There don't seem to be any options on BT devices so I don't think you have something set wrong.
2. The memory size is a known issue/situation with this phone. Sadly, 9gb is the right about of free memory. There are rumors that Samsung is releasing an update which will allow apps to be moved to the SD card but I haven't read when it'll show up with US carriers. It only moves the apps, not the data so it's no panacea. If you moved all your media to your SD card and are still strapped for storage, then this is not the phone for you. I'd recommend returning it. Seriously.
3. No idea. I like to get my GMails instantly. Everyone has their own requirements.
4. Not sure what you mean by ending 3rd party apps. Don't get into task killers, it's a useless path to go down. When I'm done using the phone for a while, I'll hold the Home button and hit Close All but don't bother with anything else because they tend to make things worse not better.

Not a lot of help, sorry.

 

[zebug]

For the sync email thingy, and please someone correct me if I am wrong, but Gmail uses a push style action so your phone isn't always pinging the server looking for new email, Gmail itself is pushing it to your phone when it recieves an email. I don't know of a way to stop this from happening.

As for yahoo, I don't use the yahoo app so I don't know if its there, but I'd look in the app itself (hit the little menu button on the bottom left of your phone and look in the settings inside the app). I have yahoo going through my stock "Email" app and in the stock email app, you can set the sync schedule through settings>accounts>email>settings>'your account here'

 

[WalkaboutDavid]

For the sync email thingy, and please someone correct me if I am wrong, but Gmail uses a push style action so your phone isn't always pinging the server looking for new email, Gmail itself is pushing it to your phone when it recieves an email. I don't know of a way to stop this from happening.

This is actually true only is you use the Gmail client or if you are on a buisness google account. Google recently (and with great controversy) disabled activesync protocol for all other users.

The end result is that gmail is push with the gmail app, but battery-intesive polling with the native samsung app (which is about 100 times nicer, btw). Its dumb.

The OP appears to be the relatively rare individual who prefers not to receive e-mails in real time, and the OEM Samsung client would be a great option. I suspect their are options of that nature in the GMAIL application too, but I hate that application so much that I rarely go near it.

As for yahoo, I don't use the yahoo app so I don't know if its there, but I'd look in the app itself (hit the little menu button on the bottom left of your phone and look in the settings inside the app). I have yahoo going through my stock "Email" app and in the stock email app, you can set the sync schedule through settings>accounts>email>settings>'your account here'

I haven't used Yahoo in sometime. But, when I did, I again found that the Yahoo application used push and the OEM client used polling.

 

[Adara]

For the Gmail sync-y thing, you can turn off notifications in your Gmail app. It won't stop it from syncing, but it will stop it from annoying you with unwanted notifications. (Alternatively, you can make your Priority Inbox your Default Inbox, so you only get notified when something Priority-level comes in. That's the way I do it -- and, after a little time spent teaching Gmail what's priority and what isn't -- it has pretty much settled down to only alerting me to things that actually matter.)

I can confirm the bluetooth screen popping up when I turn on bluetooth. However, I ignore it, put on my headset, flick it on, and it goes ahead and connects. (At which time I either cancel out of that screen or it disappears of its own accord. I can't recall which.) The point: the screen pops up when I turn on BT, but if I ignore it, the phone connects to the already-paired device without further action from me. (The screen just pops up slower than the device connects.)

(I use the iBolt dock in my car. iBolt is set to toggle BT when the device is docked and undocked. For docking, it works great -- BT goes on, and the phone connects to my car with no further prompting. It gets exciting when I LEAVE the car if I'm still on a call -- I switch the call from the car to the phone, put the call on speaker for a second, then undock the phone (which toggles BT off), requiring me to turn on BT to put the call on my earpiece. It is at this point where the BT pop-up pops up, but the phone connects as soon as I wake up the earpiece. It is effin' annoying, but until the iBolt people change the options from "BT toggle" to "BT on and stays on," there isn't much I can do about it other than just manually mess with BT. Or have a sit-down with Tasker over it. I digress.)

 

[stp84]

Do people seriously have that many apps where 9 GB isnt enough space??? I guess if all you do is play games it could be a problem. I have plenty of apps with a few games and I still have 5 gb of storage available

 

[itsallgood]

5902077[/URL]]This is actually true only is you use the Gmail client or if you are on a buisness google account. Google recently (and with great controversy) disabled activesync protocol for all other users.

The end result is that gmail is push with the gmail app, but battery-intesive polling with the native samsung app (which is about 100 times nicer, btw). Its dumb.

The OP appears to be the relatively rare individual who prefers not to receive e-mails in real time, and the OEM Samsung client would be a great option. I suspect their are options of that nature in the GMAIL application too, but I hate that application so much that I rarely go near it.

Thanks. I actually am using the stock email client now. I can set it to sync whenever I like.

5902386[/URL]]
I can confirm the bluetooth screen popping up when I turn on bluetooth. However, I ignore it, put on my headset, flick it on, and it goes ahead and connects. (At which time I either cancel out of that screen or it disappears of its own accord. I can't recall which.) The point: the screen pops up when I turn on BT, but if I ignore it, the phone connects to the already-paired device without further action from me. (The screen just pops up slower than the device connects.)

I will try this and see if it works.

5903205[/URL]]Do people seriously have that many apps where 9 GB isnt enough space??? I guess if all you do is play games it could be a problem. I have plenty of apps with a few games and I still have 5 gb of storage available

Actually, It's not the apps that take up the space, but additional files for certain apps like: offline GPS maps, game apps, documents, etc. I actually took the 16 GB back for the 32 GB.

 

[Nick The Great]

I don't like the Gmail App and just use the Email app for my gmail(s). What's wrong with that? It gives me the option to control how often it checks

 

[jdCaptivate]

I don't ever see that box, unless I turn my Bluetooth off, on the phone. Which I then expect to see the connection box, when I turn it back on. Otherwise, it just connects when I turn my Bluetooth device on.

 

[WalkaboutDavid]

Actually, It's not the apps that take up the space, but additional files for certain apps like: offline GPS maps, game apps, documents, etc. I actually took the 16 GB back for the 32 GB.

All of this can be stored on an SD card. I probably had over 125 applications on my Droid 3, which had like 8 GBs of ram. Never came close to having a problem. I just stored files on an SD card, in a fairly seamless fashion.

 

[RichSz]

That all changed with Ice Cream Sandwich. You can no longer store apps and their data on an external card. Sure you can move your media there but not app related stuff.

 

[WalkaboutDavid]

That all changed with Ice Cream Sandwich. You can no longer store apps and their data on an external card. Sure you can move your media there but not app related stuff.

You can store some of the data produced by apps - like downloaded photos. But, otherwise, I agree.

 

[itsallgood]

5907771[/URL]]You can store some of the data produced by apps - like downloaded photos. But, otherwise, I agree.

Actually, I have all my music, video's and pictures on the 32GB SD card. I prefer to have all other personal documents on the internal storage, which doesn't take up a lot of space, in case I ever lose my phone or its stolen.

As fare as the bluetooth permission pop-up box, I think it has something to do with my bluetooth head set. I have a year old pair of bluetooth head phones that just connects when I turn them on without the pop-up permission box. (Can't explain this one.)

So I've finished setting up my phone and must say that I'm really loving it. I'm still learning about its many features, but I am very happy now. This is really an awesome device and I should be set for years to come. I will be going on vacation soon and really looking forward to trying out the camera/video app. (I have a point and shoot camera, Koda Easy Share 12 mp.) I will have my point and shoot as a back up, but plan on tacking all pictures with my phone.