Hello Everyone,
I am new to androind platform, and i do not have much knowledge about android platforms. I am looking for the information that if i want to download any application or games for any android device, how would i recognize before downloading aplplication or games that the particular application or game is compatible with my handset or not.
In fact i have no clue about the different versions of android that what are the difference between those android versions?
I will really appreciate your help.
Thanks in advance.
Hi and welcome to the Android world!
In android play market on your phone, only compatiable apps will show, so you can not really download incompitable apps to your phone from market.
So the differences between the Android versions. Lets start with 1.5 (Cupcake).
Android Cupcake aka Android 1.5 Android Cupcake was the first version of Android most people got their hands on. It put some meat on the bare bones of the original Android OS, giving it the user-friendly features required to tussle with established platforms like Palm, Blackberry and the iPhone.
Android Cupcake introduced animated window transitions, accelerometer-enabled rotations, an improved web browser and a new virtual keyboard. That all sounds a bit technical, but what it really meant was Android became much slicker and easier to use. It also included features that outstripped its rivals, including integrated voice search, home screen widgets and Live Folders.
Android Donut aka Android 1.6
Android Donut added a new way to search your bookmarks, web history, contacts and the web directly from the home screen. It also pulled the video, photo and gallery applications together into one place, making it simple to flip between camera and video modes.
Android Donut also included some neat little tweaks, allowing you to select multiple photos for deletion, see what applications were draining the battery and a camera speed boost (Google statistics said it was 39% quicker).
Android Eclair aka Android 2.1
Android Eclair saw an avalanche of new features hitting the OS, with support for multiple accounts for email and contacts in a combined inbox. Exchange support was added too, much to the delight of businesses snapping up Android mobiles, while the ability to search through SMS and MSS messages and lots more camera upgrades meant Android fans using their phones for personal calls were just as happy.
In Android Eclair, the OS gained built-in Adobe Fash support, digital camera zoom, a new scene mode for easier photos in all environments, white balance controls, colour effects and a new macro focus mode for close-up snaps. The Android virtual keyboard also got another makeover to speed up typing speed and reduce spelling mistakes.
Android Froyo aka Android 2.2
After Android Eclair got the ball rolling, Android Froyo (or Frozen Yoghurt) continued the deluge of new features. A revitalised homescreen made it easier to configure shortcuts and widgets, and was combined with a brand new applications launcher and browser.
Security was improved in Android Froyo with the option to set a pin number or password, and the Calendar app added support for Exchange Calendars. The Camera app added on-screen buttons for zoom, flash, white balance, geo-tagging, focus and exposure and the Camcorder function gained LED Flash support. Android Froyo also saw Android get a major speed boost overall.
Android Gingerbread aka Android 2.3
Android Gingerbread was all about making Android simpler, faster and easier to use. A stripped back UI placed colourful elements on a black background, which Google believed would make navigating the OS at a glance a lot easier.
The on-screen keyboard in Android Gingerbread was overhauled once again, with keys reshaped and repositioned to improve typing accuracy.
One touch selection, along with copy and paste, was another simple but handy change adding the ability to press and hold to select a word and then copy it to the clipboard.
Android Gingerbread also included improved power management and the ability to simply monitor and close active apps. The Camera app also gained support for multiple cameras, to take advantage of phones with front-facing cameras.
As before, enhanced elements like the music player, notifications and social network integration were added to some gorgeous hardware to make the Galaxy S2 irresistible.
Android Honeycomb aka Android 3.0
Unlike the rest of the Android incarnations, Android Honeycomb is built specifically for tablets. That means the OS has had an extreme overhaul with a 3D take on the established Android approach to multitasking, notifications, home screen customisation and widgets.
The System Bar where notifications, system status and navigation controls rest is a constant fixture, while an Action Bar changes depending on which app you're using to give you access to options, navigation controls and custom widgets.
Android Honeycomb makes it easy to switch between recently used apps and has a redesigned onscreen keyboard customised for a larger screen. The browser, camera, photo gallery, contacts and email apps have all been redesigned to fully take advantage of a full screen tablet view.
So the latest version, ICS 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Ice Cream Sandwich combine the features of Gingerbread and Honeycomb into an operating system designed for phones and tablets. Ice Cream Sandwich's interface is similar to Honeycomb's, both in style and functionality.
ICS brought (as said above) Honeycomb features to smartphones and added new features including facial recognition unlock, network data usage monitoring and control, unified social networking contacts, photography enhancements, offline email searching, app folders, and information sharing using NFC. Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich is the latest Android version that is available to phones.
Read more about ICS here: http://www.android.com/about/ice-cream-sandwich/
Yeah, maybe a little bit much to read but you will understand the versions better
Sent from my LT26i using xda premium
Sikiduck, I think you have made a good summary. Not to much...
Related
I was wondering what the difference is in a touchwiz and non touchwiz rom is. What does one offer that the other doesn't?
The Touchwiz UI
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium
Why does that contain? I can't find anything on what it is. Is it similar to sense or more like entertainment?
Sent from a miui powered HTC Evo..
User interface. Helps with settings, eases twitter, Facebook and other widgets to be open and recieve live feeds on honeycomb homescreens. Adds a screen capture button which helps with forums. Just research galaxy tab 10.1 touchwiz UI. Really can't miss it.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium
Stardate Tab 10.1 said:
User interface. Helps with settings, eases twitter, Facebook and other widgets to be open and recieve live feeds on honeycomb homescreens. Adds a screen capture button which helps with forums. Just research galaxy tab 10.1 touchwiz UI. Really can't miss it.
Sent from my GT-P7510 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can The TW works on my P7510 (Chinese stock)?
Stay away from TouchWiz, is a pile of horse **** bloatware.
TouchWiz is by far the most advanced software you currently can get on a tablet. The user experience it provides is light years ahead of anything else out there, even Honeycomb 3.2.
Not only that but TouchWiz gives you access to specific hardware you cant access without it. The ability to change color temperature of the screen is a HUGE feature you can only have with toucwiz.
Here are just a few of the features you get from TouchWiz that you cant get anywhere else :
1. REAL multitasking just like in Windows. You can have TWO apps open at once on the same screen and not have to switch back and forth. There is nothing like this available in the market or in 3.2. HUGE props to Samsung for doing this.
2. Ability to change color temperature of the screen.
3. One touch wifi file access to tablet from PC <-- AWESOME
4. Sluggish menu scrolling in vanilla Honeycomb are gone! It looks like
Samsung devs used video hardware acceleration for scrolling which creates a smooth experience compared to Vanilla honeycombs laggy jumpy scrolling in may menus.
5. Awesomenew notification/settings popup menu. FAR superior to stock Honeycomb.
6. One touch screen capture button in the task bar takes a snap shot of the screen and automatically saves to a folder.
7. Lots of cool QUALITY widgets not like the junk you find in the market.
8. Motion gestures
9. Superior App Manager/ RAM manager which can run ON TOP of any app you are running.
10. BEST Music app and runs super smooth. Much better than stock H.C. or anything in the market
11. BEST Ebook reader app you can get.
12. Your tablet will run FASTEST with touchwiz. Samsung is using hardware acceleration for menus like Apple. Stock HC uses software rendering which is why its so slow and laggy. You cant get hardware acceleration if you dont have TouchWiz. No the Devs here will not be able to add it as its beyond their capabilities.
The list goes on and on. TouchWiz is simply a superior experience than stock HC. I would even dream of using my tab without it. Your tablet is incomplete and missing features to access hardware if you dont have TouchWiz.
I am really curious about changing the color temperature. How do you do it?
5thElement said:
TouchWiz is by far the most advanced software you currently can get on a tablet. The user experience it provides is light years ahead of anything else out there, even Honeycomb 3.2.
Not only that but TouchWiz gives you access to specific hardware you cant access without it. The ability to change color temperature of the screen is a HUGE feature you can only have with toucwiz.
Here are just a few of the features you get from TouchWiz that you cant get anywhere else :
1. REAL multitasking just like in Windows. You can have TWO apps open at once on the same screen and not have to switch back and forth. There is nothing like this available in the market or in 3.2. HUGE props to Samsung for doing this.
2. Ability to change color temperature of the screen.
3. One touch wifi file access to tablet from PC <-- AWESOME
4. Sluggish menu scrolling in vanilla Honeycomb are gone! It looks like
Samsung devs used video hardware acceleration for scrolling which creates a smooth experience compared to Vanilla honeycombs laggy jumpy scrolling in may menus.
5. Awesomenew notification/settings popup menu. FAR superior to stock Honeycomb.
6. One touch screen capture button in the task bar takes a snap shot of the screen and automatically saves to a folder.
7. Lots of cool QUALITY widgets not like the junk you find in the market.
8. Motion gestures
9. Superior App Manager/ RAM manager which can run ON TOP of any app you are running.
10. BEST Music app and runs super smooth. Much better than stock H.C. or anything in the market
11. BEST Ebook reader app you can get.
12. Your tablet will run FASTEST with touchwiz. Samsung is using hardware acceleration for menus like Apple. Stock HC uses software rendering which is why its so slow and laggy. You cant get hardware acceleration if you dont have TouchWiz. No the Devs here will not be able to add it as its beyond their capabilities.
The list goes on and on. TouchWiz is simply a superior experience than stock HC. I would even dream of using my tab without it. Your tablet is incomplete and missing features to access hardware if you dont have TouchWiz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
im agree with you
i think honeycomb without TouchWiz,its like some old fashion of android..
TouchWiz is usefull and also very cool...
Wiseblood said:
I am really curious about changing the color temperature. How do you do it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd like to know this too.
Settings --> Screen --> Mode
Thanks 5th, that is exactly what I was looking for. This is my first tablet, and Im only coming from the HTC evo. And from that I came from the HTC hero. So Im still pretty green to this.
Is it worth swapping the kernel out? I know and Im sure you know as well, doing that on android phones will help out a lot. But what about on these tabs? IS that VooDoo what its made out to be?
touchwiz is pretty cool, but the gmail and calendar sucks big time compared to the original honeycomb version. how the heck can i see week view NORMALLY like honeycomb calendar instead of zooming with pinch and zoom. c'mon!
5thElement said:
Settings --> Screen --> Mode
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks!!
shine2007 said:
i think honeycomb without TouchWiz,its like some old fashion of android..
TouchWiz is usefull and also very cool...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I respect your choice, related to TouchWiz. I enjoy vanilla builds of Honeycomb and I think TouchWiz removes the Android authenticity. There is a reason why devs like PhantomHacker release their ROM's cleaned from the bloatware Samsung adds. I'm looking forward to install his vanilla 3.2 ROM on my P7510.
The Note is my first Android phone coming from iPhone and so far I'm loving the phone and loving Android. It's obviously much much more customizable in a lot of ways (theming, widgets, settings, etc), and I find that it loads most applications much faster and does things quite a bit faster than I'm used to on my iphone 4.
One thing I'm surprised about, and maybe I'm not looking in the right places or I have it all wrong, is that there aren't many _low level_ tweaks available? It's mostly just widgets and themes, but nothing really available that can change the core behavior of your phone as you can with tweaks on a jailbroken iPhone?
For example, two things I've looked for so far that seemed like no-brainer easy peasy things.... music controls for the notification bar (or perhaps music controls that are accessed by overriding a capacitive button, such as holding down the settings button), and a user agent faker for the default browser. Yes I know there are other browsers available, but that's not the point (I tried Dolphin browser HD and did not like it.. it was slower and less responsive than the stock browser).
Those two examples may have their own workarounds (I know notification music controls are coming in ICS, and about:useragent will temporarily change the user agent), but I'm really getting at a larger question here. Other examples of "low level tweaks" from iphone that I kind of liked -- if you are viewing a text window above an open keyboard (ie gtalk, sms) and scroll down within the text window, it moves the keyboard out of the way. This was really natural for me, and just a simple download from Cydia. Another example -- swiping up from the bottom of the phone opening the multitasking bar -- again, really natural and awesome... a better fit for iphone for sure, but again, I'm not necessarily looking for those _exact_ tweaks, just offering some examples of what *types* of tweaks I'm referring to as "low level tweaks". Based on that, is there somewhere I can look to find these *types* of tweaks?
Unless I'm mistaken, it seems that to get these low level tweaks, you need a custom ROM? And then I guess you either need to learn how to build your own custom ROM, or hope that a dev will bake *all* of YOUR favorite tweaks into the _same_ ROM. Is that assessment about right when talking about low level tweaks? Or maybe there are other ways to add these tweaks, such as using adb to push them over? If so, where might I actually locate tweaks like this -- is there a repository / database / market of them somewhere?
FWIW I am rooted and OC'd using Da G's kernel (thanks Da G!). I've never dealt with custom ROMs on android so I'm partially speculating based on what I've heard about them and the lack of low level stuff on the market.
i think your comparing apples to oranges.
Apple keeps it simple and navigation is seamless IF YOU USE the device the way THEY INTENDED. step outside of that little box and they won't even support you .. i.e. jailbreak - after jailbreaking you can screw your phone up with all kind of cracked apps and all that junk.
As far as the keyboard moving out of the way, i don't think their are a great deal of ppl who care too much about that.... i think android compensates quite well in other areas.
having owned both platforms i would say it like this:
Apple holds software to a higher regard than hardware. after all, if you can't use your phone because it force-closes every 2 seconds then what's the point.
If you are like me and you like to "think outside the box" a little bit, then there are more possibilities with android... seems like eventually android drives you to learn more about your phone and how stuff works. i call it "the phone for adults!" lol
As far as the keyboard is concerned, you just need to download a different one. Go Keyboard, for example, has a button you can press to hide the keyboard whenever you want.
There's always an app/widget/setting in Android that will let you accomplish almost anything you want. That's the beauty of the platform.
Hitting the back button while in a text field will hide the keyboard, and allow you to scroll in the text box.
Sent from my SGH-I997 using xda premium
I'm not sure about low level tweaks but you could try something other than the default TW launcher and keyboard to achieve some of the gesture based control you mention. For example, Swiftkey X has gestures to hide the keyboard by swiping down and ADWlauncher allows you to program the swipe up function to various things.
Android is a platform built on top of a Linux kernel. If rooted, anything you can do with Linux (e.g. everything), you can do with Android.
Hi there,
I have a GT-i9300. I was wondering: When I check out some messaging apps like WhatsApp in my friends' iPhones, I see that they get this little transition effect right after sending/getting a message, whereas in my Android device the messages sort of pop up without any effects. I see these little transitioning differences in many apps. Is that related to Android's and iOS's core coding system, or is it because big companies' Android developers are just too lazy?
It could be because android developers are all about speed stability and performance, while iPhone developers are all about looks and could care less about speed stability and performance.
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ROM: All-star ROM v7
Kernel: Lighting
Radio: LB7 blaze
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I'm trying to make an app, message if you are willing to help!
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The latter. There are many beautiful Android apps out there, much better looking than many iOS apps. It depends on the developers. Whatsapp just looks ugly on Android. I don't know why it's taking them so long to adapt the holo UI and make it modern looking.
ArianaGrande said:
It could be because android developers are all about speed stability and performance, while iPhone developers are all about looks and could care less about speed stability and performance.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not true. iOS apps are very fluid and smooth. You can hate on iOS for many things, but definitely not for speed and performance. Also, there are many beautiful looking Android apps which work perfectly even on low end devices. Ugly != better functionality.
sashank said:
The latter. There are many beautiful Android apps out there, much better looking than many iOS apps. It depends on the developers. Whatsapp just looks ugly on Android. I don't know why it's taking them so long to adapt the holo UI and make it modern looking.
Not true. iOS apps are very fluid and smooth. You can hate on iOS for many things, but definitely not for speed and performance. Also, there are many beautiful looking Android apps which work perfectly even on low end devices. Ugly != better functionality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. Just because an app is beautifully designed doesn't mean it has to have poor performance. And the fact that professional (and probably rich) developers like Whatsapp Inc. still don't make visual improvements on their apps of the biggest operating system out there amazes me.
Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
so how can i do that? i decompile whatsapp apk. but i not found this sending message style like ios. i want to do that...
Hi,
Short:
Is there any launcher that supports (lockable) profiles/layouts? (See last paragraph for detailed description)
Long:
Lately I was thinking a lot about the UI of smartphones. It started as I got my first android device which pretty much took over the basic UI of the iPhone. Up to 4.2.1 android starts with a launcher that provides several pages (as a mobile would be a book), and you can place icons and widgets on it - as it were a desktop that you look at often. But shouldn't a launcher be a launcher after all? It's first task is to find and start apps as quick as possible. Further it can use its space for showing dynamic information or feature nice images (background).
So I tried almost every launcher I could find. Most were pretty similar to the stock launchers, with some additional, but mostly not needed features. I tried several layouts - just how I guess most people use their home screen: putting icons on the screens, put them in groups by categories or how often I use them, checking out widgets (most are of no use because they don't show dynamic content) etc. but I was never really satisfied. I've kept no launcher more than a few days. Not that they were any bad - not at all. But it's just not perfect.
Lately some interesting alternatives were introduced here on xda: for example SFlauncher (mostly interesting because of its nice layouting) or Listener (mostly interesting because of its reduced focus to show dynamic information). Besides apps arise that use the obvious - gestures and haptic feedback: GYF, Swapps, LMT and others.
But I was still not satisfied. I observed how I use the device (and I'm a heavy user for sure). I found out, that when I'm on the streets I would prefer to have Google Maps as my live wallpaper, a widget to control my music - and for sure I then don't need a shortcut to Titanium, LMT configuration etc. When being in my office, I want to have another, colleague-friendly background. Being with friends I want to have some sharing apps in front - and being safe to give them the phone (so no direct access to those apps/bookmarks/images that are too private). So it's all about purposes.
My journey seemed to come to an end. But I cannot find any launcher that follows such an approach. I know apps as Llama and Tasker can do most of mentioned actions location-based. But I don't want to have my mobile react on location, I want to switch between the profiles/purposes anytime (some need be locked, of course).
So, currently I believe that the ideal launcher (for me) would structure everything by purposes. I want to be able to define several purposes/scenarios (for example: traveling, studying, in the cinema, kid is playing, optimizing device). Each of these purposes then should show its own background, widgets and icons on the screen (one per purpose is enough). Individual wifi/bluetooth/... settings and status bar visibility setting would be a plus, but not so important.
Hello everyone,
after having upgraded my Note10+ to Android 10 under OneUI 2.0, with its new gestures implementation, a remark came to me.
Have you installed on your smartphone the DROPBOX app? If yes, open it, enter into a subfolder and then go back to the previous main folder using the in-built back gesture (which works simply by swiping right from any point of the screen).
Have you noticed? How smooth the gesture itself and the transition (and simple I would say) are?
Then, I looked back at the new back gesture implementation coming with Android 10, and I ended up thinking that back-gesture on the Dropbox app is way smoother, nicer, and easier to get and to reach (which is a key point from a perspective of an OS which maximises the User Experience).
Hence my question is, would be a nice move from Google to implement a gesture like the one in the Dropbox app in the next version of Android, namely Android R (maybe)?
Thanks to all
Michele