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Since the day the Galaxy s came I've fallen in with loved Touchwiz as matter of fact it is one of the reason i will not be trading in my Vibrant for Nexus s, well until touchwiz is ported nexus s at least.
But I've notice others with vibrant and other galaxy s phones hate Touchwiz and i want to know why? Please leave response as to why you love or hate touchwiz?
I like some things about TouchWiz...but...
its not customisable
the icons are too big and iphone-like
a lot of screen real estate is lost because everything on the homescreen is too big (should have grids of 5x5 instead of 4x4)
I like the app drawer...jumping to screens when clicking the small dots etc
and its quite fast for me
I really like touchwiz to. I tried launcher pro and adw and i really didnt like them. But i did just installed nero from tw and the gingerbread launcher is sweet.
Fear the beard...
For me it's not so much the TW Launcher as it is the widgets. I've found that I really use Feeds & Updates and Daily Briefing quite a lot, and though there are vaguely comparable ones, none of them have grabbed me.
The notification bar is also unique and extremely useful, so much so that Cyanogen largely copied it.
I think the biggest reason why people hate Touchwiz is because it has been blamed for much of the initial lagginess of the phone. Now we know this is largely not true.
It's childs play to use another launcher however, and people may prefer widgets that do not bind to TW. To each his own, which is the true beauty of Android.
What I don't like about TouchWiz:
-the page indicator on top can't be turned off or set to auto-hide
-the dockbar icon labels don't match the rest of the UI (they don't have black bubbles around the text, it looks mismatched)
-cannot change the number of rows on homescreens
-no swipe actions (ADW ruined me for swiping down anywhere on the screen to get the notification pulldown)
-no activities shortcuts (Wireless AP requires a shortcut!)
-seems to run slower/laggier than ADW or launcherpro
What I do like about TouchWiz:
-FEEDS AND UPDATES
-FEEDS AND UPDATES
-FEEDS AND UPDATES
Soooo much better than the Facebook widget...
Edit: I use ADW.Launcher myself and love it. I really miss Feeds & Updates though.
The app drawer can not scroll like a stock android launcher.
The docks can not be customizable to the level Android allows.
The icons look like an iPhone - AND I hate scrolling left to right (and I dont like the view for scrolling up/down)
I switch ROMs often, TW does not backup it's settings like LP/ADW can.
Other than those things, TW is great... I also prefer the widgets that come with LauncherPro Plus and the speed/customizations that it allows. TW COULD be able to duplicate those features..... but until it does, no thanks.
I love touchwiz. Love the left to right scrolling of the app drawer.love the look and feel. Love the icons. The dock icons are custamizable. This is one reason i dont like custom roms without touchwiz because i love it sooo much.
Things i hate. You cant hide the notification bar and it starts to Burn into your screen. Errrr
It's the iPhone clone look that turns me off. It was bad enough that the samsung made the phone look physically like an iPhone, but to skin Android to look like the iPhone's software was over the top. I don't want people to think I have an iPhone.
youre right
monstah_rain said:
It's the iPhone clone look that turns me off. It was bad enough that the samsung made the phone look physically like an iPhone, but to skin Android to look like the iPhone's software was over the top. I don't want people to think I have an iPhone.
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i got tired of the ipod touch i had and it resembles the ipod touch iphone too much for me. plus i dont like lines on my screen. i use adw and minimalist theme with black background, totally awesome for me. i can do with out the non sense.
"I love that Google is innovating the Smartphone technology space at an amazing rate. Android is growing fast and holds so much promise. For instance Google voice actions which I am sure you are all familiar with is such a great idea and I cant wait to use it with 2.2. The updated Gmail client and services as well, Chrome to phone are both awesome ideas but will never work on 2.1 so I am looking forward to 2.2 or higher. I own a car and well I do take calls while driving and would like to use voice search or voice dialing to be hands free. Obviously Android can do this just not with 2.1 this is a pretty cool feature also available on 2.2 or higher. What Samsung has done with Touchwiz is pretty cool too. Let's face it Google is perhaps innovating the space a bit too fast. Samsung has developed Touchwiz not only to slow that hectic innovation down. But, perhaps stall it completely on Samsungs devices that way we can enjoy 2.1 with Touchwiz just a little bit longer. It also sets the Galaxy S devices apart from all the other Android smartphones in the market running Google's latest innovations. But also because we like it and it is so good.
That new android Keyboard for Gingerbread is just what the Doctor ordered isn't it? How about the new Google personalized voice recognition for Google voice? Nice, but no thanks I like taking it slow with Touchwiz and 2.1. Who needs location services and GPS anyway right? What are your favorite 2.1 features?" - by Countbunny from the other forum.
That is how I feel about it.
i see people here and other places talking about rooting their thunderbolt (and dinc, before i upgraded) to get rid of sense. well why did you buy the phone then? to me, sense is a dealbreaker. i don't like vanilla android and sense doesn't "muck" stuff up as long as the hardware is decent (cougheriscough). so to you who don't like sense, maybe provide some insight to your perspective? is there something that vanilla offers that sense doesn't and i just don't know about it? please, explain.
For me it's just a personal preference. Sense runs fine on the TBolt, sure. But, I prefer the layouts/customizing I can do with LauncherPro, so that's what I use instead.
I don't care for sense myself. Maybe it's because I started out on a Moto Droid, but I prefer the basic Android applications by far. I can live with Sense, but when vanilla ROMs come out, I'll switch. For now, LauncherPro is close enough. The only thing I really can't stand is the text messaging app, but that's why they make 3rd party!
I've had the Incredible and Droid X, and didn't care for Sense or MotoBlur much on those, either. I'm just happy that there are so many options to keep everyone happy!
I have no clue, and would like to know this as well? I love the look, and feel of sense myself personally.
Short answer because sense sucks, real answer because I started out on the original droid I got use to vanilla android. I don't really like the way sense is laid out just doesn't work as well for me.
I bought the phone because it's great hardware and I was reasonably certain I would be able to dump sense. If I was stuck with the phone bone stock... Ugh.
I like Sense but I like the customization of ADW EX better. Also I'm beta testing SPB Mobile 3D and running it on top of Sense drains the battery. Other than that, Sense is pretty cool.
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Odinist said:
For me it's just a personal preference. Sense runs fine on the TBolt, sure. But, I prefer the layouts/customizing I can do with LauncherPro, so that's what I use instead.
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yeah for me i use launcher pro, have five icons at the very bottom of the screen at 185 DPI that open 5 different apps, and then if you swipe those icons they open 5 more apps. very clean look.
then WP Clock wallpaper and it is clean and totally awesome.
I guess some people like having an unmolested version of Android, the way Google wants it to be.
I personally love Sense. I love the dialer, the widgets, and some of the social aspects of it. I really don't have any negatives about it at all.
i dont mind sense, but i like the customization with other launchers that sense doesnt offer. and if its not going to offer it and im going to use something else then there is no reason for it to take up space and recourses. its not that its bad it just that some people are more anal about removing stuff from their phone they are not going to use. same with bloat apps. if im not going to use them i want the option to delete them.
Well to me sense slows the phone down a little bit more than stock vanilla android. Also having sense instead of stock android slows getting updates, if we had a stock vanilla android phone, we would get gingerbread faster.
Luckily that is one of the reason I root and put other roms on the phone like CM7.
I personally like SenseUI. I had it on a Hero before, and it ran like crap, but the Thunderbolt runs it really nicely. I like the way things integrate with the contact list, etc. I haven't really had a vanilla Android device, but I'm guessing soon I'll be trying one out Oh yeah, and CM7 too
laters
Sense is one of the main reasons I'm an HTC fan.
I had it... (sort of..) on my old VZW TP2. Ran like a slug. Now that I have an actually functioning version, it is great! I also like how many people hate Sense, but still want the HTC flip clock.. lol.. best of both worlds?
*EDIT*
I do have to add... thank God for 3rd party SMS apps....
Sense runs fine on TB hardware and the "new" Sense has made improvements over "old" Sense... but I still prefer AOSP.
I like CM7 particularly (among other AOSP-based ROMs) because of speed and I like the vanilla look and feel. I find it to be more appealing... and I use LPP or ADW whether I am on CM7 or stock Sense.
I also hate the crappy DPI of Sense. Everything looks blown up and pixelated on such a big display. I also hate the Sense dialer and contacts app... along with SMS. I much prefer stock (or third-party like GoSMS and GoContacts).
Need to figure out how to change the DPI. Looks like you can do it with Launcher Pro... any other way to do it?
It looks like fischer price. The friend stream widget you can only see like 1 or 2 peoples status per page. The launcher pro version of this is much better. There's a huge ass phone button in the middle of the dock. Launcher pro is much better with the ability, as someone earlier mentioned, to do 5 icons. You can swipe those 5 and get 10, then you can have up to 3 docks you can rotate between for even more. I use all 15 icons, with the swipe gesture on all of them for a total of 30 apps that I don't need to clutter up my homescreen to get.
The clock is massive and a waste of screen real estate. There's already a clock in the top right of appropriate size, why do I need a gigantic flip clock that does nothing but drain my battery.
The stuff where you can flip it over to silence it or turn on speakerphone is nice though, I like that. But the launcher and the widgets really suck.
This is my first sense phone, and i must say that i really like sense. Unless it really starts to be a liability to the phone, i will always use it or keep it around.
I actually dont mind sense at all, and i think it is a huge improvement over motoblur (from what ive seen on my friends phones) but i was running a rooted launcher pro OG droid, so in the end ill probably switch (already rooted).
To people that havent really been on android though I can see the love they have for sense (at least on the T bolt).
I personally have already gotten used to the launcher tray and I am a fan, but the messaging app on the droid was better, and while i like the dial pad itself, the way the contacts and call log are i have to go + to droid as well.
I love Sense. I mean all the others (Blur, Touchwiz) they all SUCK, but I think sense actually adds to the android experience.
i can see the statements about the huge widgets, but you can add or remove those as you see fit. i personally don't use any sense widgets on my home screen, but i like that they are scrollable. i use the calendar and people widgets as book ends (far left and right screens within the scene). but i find that sense brings a LOT of good features to android to integrate and make the use of the phone better. the pinch zoom out/tap "home" to show all screens to quickly jump to one instead of having to swipe left or right, etc. i like how it syncs facebook contact info with people, i like the color scheme especially. there are other things i like that i don't have on my work phone (OG Droid). as far as stock apps, i use handcent and gmail. i can say for certain i DO NOT like the stock people or contacts app. it sucks epically.
RE: being able to delete apps you don't use, i actually wrote a letter to corporate about that (don't put bloatware on my phone. put it in the market or if you put it on let me delete it) due to backup assistant, the moron at the store started to set my phone up for me, and was past that stage when he handed me my phone. i've been on android for over a year and before that was with blackberries using google sync also, haven't used backup assistant since my enV.
anyways, i can see some of the "customization" options on having different home screens, but sense is more than just a launcher. you can use 3rd party launchers and still keep the benefits of sense, which is the best of both worlds, if that's what your into. i personally like the sense stock look and once a good and stable root is available i'll root (no roms for me, they all suck one way or another IMO) to get my titanium and screen cap, then delete bloatware. FTW!!!
I tried liking adw but even with homescreen button lock on I found myself accidentally dragging the homescreen button off the screen and had to reload the launcher.
Plus adw looks too much like my Droid and I was ready for a change so this fits perfect. Seems like some wanna over customize just for bragging rights. To me Sense has plenty of options put of the box
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Many of us like to use home replacement apps to have more customization. But many of us whom are htc fanboys don't wanna let go of our sense widgets. They do make sense after all. So with the advent of these popup dock apps being on the market like dock4droid i thought hmmm maybe there can be a Rosie dock app that can be created as an overlay to the stock htc Rosie dock! Something that is themeable and looks just like the sense Rosie dock except that it has more app shortcuts embedded on it. Say like 3-5 app shortcuts that can revolve like the android rotary lockscreen that scrolls through different user defined shortcuts like launcher pro/ go launcher. That way we can keep our amazing goodness that sense 2.1 has to offer but having the convenience of using more shortcuts on the dock that home replacements offer. Has anyone else thought of this? And should this have been in the android general forum for more visibility? I'm not a developer btw. Just an enthusiast. Whaddayall think?
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Sounds like a nice idea for those sense-lovers. As for me, I don't much care for sense or the widgets, but would be willing to give this a try.
I originally thought sense was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen back in 1.5. After the step up to 2.0 I perfered the look of AOSP with other adjustments. I absolutely hate the dialer, contacts, and several other aspects of sense though. I would do anything to get it removed from my phone completely. I will rejoice to the heavens once CM7 is ported over to this wonderful piece of hardware.
Its funny to me that the way you feel about sense now is the exact same way I feel about aosp. I like the way aosp performs over sense. Feels much lighter and easier on the cpu. But I like the look and the added functionality that htc brings to android on their devices. Perhaps if there would be a wonderfully themed metamorph and some htc themed dialer and contact apps available on the market I'd totally be on aosp. Since there are all these developers out here banking off of htc themed apps ie flip clocks, widgets and home replacements, I don't see why the htc corporation just not turn their famous ui into a highly advanced home replacement app! And/or convert their famous widgets into android widgets for sale on the market. I'd be willing to pay spb 3d shell money for all of that. They can definitely bank off of selling their ui to those that don't buy their devices and to Those who buy their devices, root and flash aosp on their devices. It can be a win/ win situation for them. And btw, they would kill any home replacement app on the market right now if they were to release a home replacement app based on sense3.0!
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The most themeable launcher with a doc that I've seen is Go Launcher
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gau.go.launcherex
Go launcher isn't very sense like though if that matters. It's more like vanilla android or sort of like touchwiz on samsung phones.
With LauncherPro Plus and the theme support of widgets you can pretty much have a sense like ui.
Yea but I'm not talking about an idea for a home replacement appz I'm talking about just a dock replacement app, or dock overlay. Something that is put on top of the default dock to be used with the current rom and can be used alongside the proprietary widgets. Launcher pro is the best home replacement app to mimic sense but sense 2.1 and the upcoming 3.0 has surpassed launcher pro. The developer can updated it to have much of those features but who knows if he will and when he will. A simple dock overlay with a few enhancements can save app storage space and be easier on the cpu. I've noticed when I have more than 3 home replacement apps installed, sense starts to get a bit laggy. It would be nice to be able to still experience sense entirely but with a few added enhancements.
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iflip said:
Yea but I'm not talking about an idea for a home replacement appz I'm talking about just a dock replacement app, or dock overlay. Something that is put on top of the default dock to be used with the current rom and can be used alongside the proprietary widgets. Launcher pro is the best home replacement app to mimic sense but sense 2.1 and the upcoming 3.0 has surpassed launcher pro. The developer can updated it to have much of those features but who knows if he will and when he will. A simple dock overlay with a few enhancements can save app storage space and be easier on the cpu. I've noticed when I have more than 3 home replacement apps installed, sense starts to get a bit laggy. It would be nice to be able to still experience sense entirely but with a few added enhancements.
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Problem with launchers those widgets are bundled with them on android is they're generally not sharable. App independent ones like pandora don't have that problem, but the launcher ones seem to be be tied into the launchers and wont play nicely. People have ported out or cloned ones from launchers, but I am guessing the actual ones are just too tied to the launcher code to be standalone.
True but the idea I'm talking about is not a home replacement launcher. I'm talking about a dock overlay. Something that can be used with the default launcher, widgets etc. Look up dock4droid on the market. The idea stemmed from that. Specifically what I'd like to see is a replacement Rosie dock that covers the default dock with extra app shortcuts that are scrollable like launcher pros dock.
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OK, so I've been using Android for a while with HTC Sense, what user interface differences am I likely to notice when I move to Touchwiz on a Galaxy S3? (I would have gone for the HTX One X - but no removable battery, no SD card?! C'mon!)
I also have a nice physical qwerty keyboard at the moment, so having to use a touch-only keyboard will be a wrench, how bad is it? (I can't really use the on-screen keyboard on my HTC Desire Z at all, I'm just hoping that the slightly larger screen will make a touch keyboard least bearable).
Andre
Touching "Weather" on home screen leads to "Weather app" only - no Clock, no Alarm...
Weather then needs three steps (and browser) to show ""Hourly". No animation in Weather app, also.
Ended up removing that widget completely and putting normal clock instead.
Dialer has no AI. Needs a lot of patience. Ended up adding "Direct Dial Widget" for some people I call a lot - can't use dialer at all, it's annoying.
I found no way of copying contacts to Phone all at once, like in Sense. Contact pictures are small and pixelated due to this (used to change Google to Phone contacts on Sense, and reapplying the pics so they stay in full res).
TouchWizz will link contacts properly but will miss their Skype pictures. Further (manual) linking is possible, but a bit more complicated then in Sense 4.
Adding widgets and apps in Sense 4 (I used before) is a lot more straight forward. This is a bit... well, one can get used to it, but it's different. "Hold and drag" instead of simply "Tap". Go figure.
If I remember anything else, I'll add it. Can't help with your keyboard issue, I use screen for it for a while.
So basically Sense is mostly better, but it's fixable with third-party apps. Kinda what I expected; I do like Sense, but HTC have dropped the ball a bit with the rest of the One-X vs. the Galaxy 3S.
The one thing I know I'll miss (stupid I know!) will be the animated weather graphics when you open the home page.
Andre
You can get all that from beautiful widgets and the free animation app at play store. go to getjar for the apk.
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I too moved from HTC (previously Desire, Desire HD, SensationXE) to S3.
Missed the most is the HTC signature home page, lots of custom mods and libary of widgets provided by Sense. But nothing can trump replacable battery and uSD card. Take me few hours to get use to Touchwiz and Samsung apps. Now a very happy user of S3.
andrewilley said:
So basically Sense is mostly better, but it's fixable with third-party apps. Kinda what I expected; I do like Sense, but HTC have dropped the ball a bit with the rest of the One-X vs. the Galaxy 3S.
The one thing I know I'll miss (stupid I know!) will be the animated weather graphics when you open the home page.
Andre
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What you won't miss is the lag with Sense.
As for the keyboard, you just have to go cold turkey. I could suggest trying other keyboards. One or two features I find missing on the keyboard are directional arrows, because it's hard to pin point going back to a word to correct it, and the mic icon for voice to text input... I had a keyboard on my Note that took care of those two and was a bit easier to type on.. Now I forget which one it was and miss it.. lol
Thanks. I use HD Widgets on my tablet, which allows installs onto multiple devices, so I'll try that first - or maybe try Beautiful Widgets for the animations.
Andre
Swype changed my opinion of touch screen keyboards forever. It's almost as fast as having a full sized qwerty keyboard once you know how to use it.
I like sense as well but I'm not buying a phone without a removable battery either. I'm also tired of the sub standard speakers HTC keep using. I'd at least like to hear my phone ring in my pocket.
Think most of the points of difference have been covered already. Touch wiz now also has features of its own lacking in sense. Example is smart stay and some of the other motion control options.
All in all, having used a sensation up until April and a desire hd before that, I'm finding touch wiz to be quite pleasant. It's not nearly as crap as the HTC fan boys like to make out on those forums.
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Hey guys. I'm the type of person who loves his phone to be like a second home. My friend had an HTC Desire HD and it impressed me so much i actually wanted to but it off him, even though its about 2x worse in specs than my current phone, but it has the most beautiful user interface i've ever seen.
I'm talking about the HTC DHD weather unlock animation.
I first noticed it when i asked the friend to make a call and upon unlocking the phone the screen froze over and it started to snow, it was pretty amazed by how good it looked, and how accurate it was since it was really snowing outside.
Here it is. ( not my video, but exactly the same thing)
HTC Desire HD Weather Animation Snow - YouTube
I think this is one of the best looking widgets/launchers i've ever seen, and i have a question, not as much as a request.
I do know that this is "exclusive" to sense, most likely 3.0, but would it be theoretically possible to rip out the launcher/weather widget you saw in the video?
I am NOT asking for any warez, just some instructions, i feel like i'm dedicated enough to work with this for a few days just to get it.
I'm currently using a SONY Xperia GO , and i would like to port the needed things to it from sense (3.0?) to it. How do i do it?
Maybe someone knows a similar app that does this and looks like it.. But so far i've downloaded 20+ widgets/apps from the play store and didn't find anything ever NEAR as beautiful, or as functional. Most of the apps/widgets require you to click on the widget to see a weather animation, thats not what i want.
TL;DR : How do i port the sense (3.0?) launcher/weather widget? Is there an app that is as functional and looks similar?
Thanks in advance.
It's VERY difficult to port proprietary UI stuff like Sense based things to other devices. So much of Sense is not just based on the apps, but also on the framework-res.apk, systemUI,apk, and another one - htc.resources or something of the sort. Been a bit since I was that deep into HTC stuff. There just aren't going to be any easy or elegant solutions to this. As for a half assed work around, Go Locker claims to have animated weather stuff on the lockscreen in it's free version. Couldn't hurt to check it out? They have TONs of themes, but I find the Go Locker and Launchers to be a bit laggier than some. HTC has started adding some of their apps into the Play Store, including Blinkfeed, but something tells me that there won't really be a way for them to add the lockscreen as a standalone option.