MODS: I realized this is in the wrong forum. Please move as necessary, thanks
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Hello:
I currently am a BlackBerry user (9930 and Playbook). My carrier, Sprint, has not provided a viable upgrade path for me, so I am looking into alternatives to BlackBerry. The upcoming HTC One has my attention and I am hoping to answer a few questions about my ability to use an Android phone while maintaining local control over my PIM data. I should stress here that I am at the very beginning of my exploration of Android OS, so hopefully you can tolerate what I expect will be some basic questions.
1) Is it possible to fully use the phone while preventing it from storing my PIM data on Google's servers?
-- My understanding is that you must create, or link to, a gmail account in order to access the Google Play store (and possibly do other things on the phone). Doing so creates a means for Google to back up your calendar, email and potentially other data to its servers. If I must establish a Gmail account, then can I do so strictly as a means to access the Play Store, while preventing the non-Gmail email accounts (and their associated calendars) that I will actively be using, from getting backed up to the cloud, but still enabling those (non-Gmail) accounts to automatically pull down mail periodically?
2) Can direct, local syncs between the phone and MS Outlook on my computer be performed (via wifi/ bluetooth/ USB)?
3) Does the native calendar app accept and properly process incoming iCal invites (especially those which would be sent by a BlackBerry), and can invites for events be sent from the calendar when the events are created?
4) Assuming I can get away with not registering a Gmail account, what are some of the best non-Play Store options for obtaining apps?
Thank you
Updates to my questions from earlier: From reading I have done, it appears that I can avoid having my calendar and contacts data synced to Google, by simply turning that (sync) feature off, and not establishing a Gmail account. Also, there are options like the Amazon App Store, Getjar and Aptoide from which I can obtain apps without needing a Google account.
What remains unclear is whether I can set up a non-Gmail account to automatically pull down mail on a schedule, when I have Google sync turned off (in other words, are the sync settings "one size fits all" or can sync settings be different for various accounts).
What I am also a little fuzzy about is whether the native email client is vendor agnostic, or somehow tied into Google. This relates to my question about turning off "Google sync"
Bottom line: if I do not establish a Google account for the phone, am I safe from having email, calendar and contact info uploaded to Google servers?
GuerillaMoves said:
MODS: I realized this is in the wrong forum. Please move as necessary, thanks
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello:
I currently am a BlackBerry user (9930 and Playbook). My carrier, Sprint, has not provided a viable upgrade path for me, so I am looking into alternatives to BlackBerry. The upcoming HTC One has my attention and I am hoping to answer a few questions about my ability to use an Android phone while maintaining local control over my PIM data. I should stress here that I am at the very beginning of my exploration of Android OS, so hopefully you can tolerate what I expect will be some basic questions.
1) Is it possible to fully use the phone while preventing it from storing my PIM data on Google's servers?
-- My understanding is that you must create, or link to, a gmail account in order to access the Google Play store (and possibly do other things on the phone). Doing so creates a means for Google to back up your calendar, email and potentially other data to its servers. If I must establish a Gmail account, then can I do so strictly as a means to access the Play Store, while preventing the non-Gmail email accounts (and their associated calendars) that I will actively be using, from getting backed up to the cloud, but still enabling those (non-Gmail) accounts to automatically pull down mail periodically?
2) Can direct, local syncs between the phone and MS Outlook on my computer be performed (via wifi/ bluetooth/ USB)?
3) Does the native calendar app accept and properly process incoming iCal invites (especially those which would be sent by a BlackBerry), and can invites for events be sent from the calendar when the events are created?
4) Assuming I can get away with not registering a Gmail account, what are some of the best non-Play Store options for obtaining apps?
Thank you
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Hi,
I have a personal Google account which I sign into my Nexus 5 with and that all works fine.
I also have a work Google Apps account which I would like to log into Hangouts with but do not want to add it like a normal account (i.e. Settings > Add Account etc).
The reason is that if I sign in to my work account it requires that I download a device policy which then restricts how I use my phone (i.e. does not allow lock widgets, rooting etc).
I have found workarounds for email and calendar where I have third-party apps that let me sign in from a web-based google login page and then grant access.
So I am after, either, a way to log into Hangouts app without adding a base account, or a third party app maybe that would allow me to log in like the email / calendar clients I have.
Any suggestions for this would be appreciated.
Does anyone have a good how-to on setting up limited account sync on a secondary device?
I'd like to share my Google Music library with my wife, but she doesn't need (or want) access to my Gmail, G+, etc.
As near I can tell, providing access to Google Sync automatically provides access to ALL Google services at once. I can manually disable them, but there's nothing to prevent the services being re-enabled without re-prompting for a password.
Hi!
Out of the need to limit my kids' abilities on my tablet I created restricted profiles for them on my Samsung GalaxyTab 4 (SM-T530) which is running the original Samsung Android 4.4.2 so far.
Now - some of the games my kids play don't support usage of restricted profiles and thus we can't link their achievements to G+ and transfer them to other devices, and I didn't find a way as of yet to "switch" the profiles to an unrestricted one and link them with a GMail account.
What I achieved so far:
Changing the status of the profile by editing the corresponding XML file in /data/system/users/
generating the GMail account under the administrator account
What's missing - I can't find the GMail account settings under the kids' profile as the accounts entry is not available in the system settings
Any hints?
There is no way to access network services to backup photos on a restricted account which is infuriating. The only way I was able to get at my photos was to install Microsoft Onedrive. Once it's installed you have to go into the main account, under users click on the gear to the restrictesd account and turn on OneDrive for the restricted account. You will then be able to launch OneDrive from the restricted account and allow access to photo album, give the backup and sync process the time to copy the files to the network and then turn off onedrive once you're done, so your child doesn't accidentally delete anything important!
When I add a google account to a device it adds that account to all google apps (mail, maps, calendar, etc). I can turn sync off for most of the apps, but is there a way to limit which off the Google apps that account is connected to? ie, it signs in to my google account on Google Play Music so my wife can access our music (which is on my account), but my account isn't connect to her Google Maps so her location stops messing with my timeline.