With the recent update to Google Search for Android you can no longer disable web searches. Every time you use the universal search on the phone you must wait for the web results to return and they are listed before the apps. For people who primarily use the search functionality for accessing apps this poses difficulty.
What is the best way around this? At present I've just been using an older version of the Google Search apk. Is the best way around this hacking the current Google Search apk to just have a different package name and use that from now on? Does anyone know if there is a hack to disable web searches in the new Google Search with integrated Google Now?
Also posted a poll along with this to see if other people find this intentional exclusion of web search options annoying. Thanks in advance.
Well then... now that android is a major contender in the mobile OS wars. Had the G1 from day one.
My only complaint from android... is the quality of apps. Also, repeat of the same apps over and over again in the play store. Recently I've been scouring the market place and I noticed that there are a lot of apps that seem kinda... a waste... For example... just how many weather apps and widgets do you need? most of the time they copy HTC, Samsung, or Sony apps (weather, clock, calendar etc) and slap on a generic name onto it.
Now Im all for "oh android is OPEN" but at least put some effort on making an app
this raises the question... should android have a tighter quality control over apps? Im not saying to make android "closed" but anyone that wants to submit an App on the play store needs to follow guidelines so there isn't repeats of apps that makes android fragmented. I mean there's 700,000 apps on the play store right now but prlly only a few 100 are only worth using because of how polished they are.
What do you guys thing? does Google need have tighter control of the play store?
I agree with you. I think holo ui on apps is the best thing ever happened to android. Apps started to look high quality and developers did great job with holo. But there are still tons of non-holo apps that hasn't been updated since 2009/2010 and most of them not even work on new devices they just give force closes. I think Google should give those developers 2 month to update their apps with their guideline and otherwise just delete it. I started get sick of these old apps.
The other thing bothering me is the themes. Go themes, adw themes, launcher pro themes, they are everywhere. I hate to see all those themes when I simply search "launcher" on play store. Most of them are not even compatible with the latest versions of their launcher. I hope Google will do something about it.
Google started letting Android turn into new Windows. Every manufacturer can put bloatware in it. Millions of useless programs in the Internet. Most of them aren't updated since XP. Most of the people choose Linux or Mac(I still like windows more than mac ) over windows just because of the bloatware. Think about the toolbars of ie . Google should manage apps better in play store. Otherwise Android will start killing itself.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium HD app
No, Android is an open platform and things like this may discourage developers. Google will feature apps that are designed well, but banning apps because they are deemed outdated looking or not useful is not what I want to see.
I do agree there is a lot of junk in Google Play but there is also the same junk in the iTunes app store. I would like to see Google allow more advanced searching in Google Play, they are Google afterall. Google Play's search should add sort by date app updated, filter by compatible Android version, and I'm sure there are more. That way you could find newer and better apps in your search.
spunker88 said:
No, Android is an open platform and things like this may discourage developers. Google will feature apps that are designed well, but banning apps because they are deemed outdated looking or not useful is not what I want to see.
I do agree there is a lot of junk in Google Play but there is also the same junk in the iTunes app store. I would like to see Google allow more advanced searching in Google Play, they are Google afterall. Google Play's search should add sort by date app updated, filter by compatible Android version, and I'm sure there are more. That way you could find newer and better apps in your search.
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so your saying that google should just let those junk apps stay in the play store. sure ios has junk apps but it isnt as bad as android.
yea discourage the developers that makes junk apps. thats the point. if a developer is constantly putting out updates then it shouldn't worry about having its apps being deleted. im just saying that google needs remove crappy apps from the play store. it just makes google play look lazy
leventccc said:
I agree with you. I think holo ui on apps is the best thing ever happened to android. Apps started to look high quality and developers did great job with holo. But there are still tons of non-holo apps that hasn't been updated since 2009/2010 and most of them not even work on new devices they just give force closes. I think Google should give those developers 2 month to update their apps with their guideline and otherwise just delete it. I started get sick of these old apps.
The other thing bothering me is the themes. Go themes, adw themes, launcher pro themes, they are everywhere. I hate to see all those themes when I simply search "launcher" on play store. Most of them are not even compatible with the latest versions of their launcher. I hope Google will do something about it.
Google started letting Android turn into new Windows. Every manufacturer can put bloatware in it. Millions of useless programs in the Internet. Most of them aren't updated since XP. Most of the people choose Linux or Mac(I still like windows more than mac ) over windows just because of the bloatware. Think about the toolbars of ie . Google should manage apps better in play store. Otherwise Android will start killing itself.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium HD app
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Click to collapse
your right about some of the themes... some of those themes are copying other manufacturer's skins
look at beautiful widgets... they copied htc sense clocks. im suprised that htc didnt take them down.
spunker88 said:
No, Android is an open platform and things like this may discourage developers. Google will feature apps that are designed well, but banning apps because they are deemed outdated looking or not useful is not what I want to see.
I do agree there is a lot of junk in Google Play but there is also the same junk in the iTunes app store. I would like to see Google allow more advanced searching in Google Play, they are Google afterall. Google Play's search should add sort by date app updated, filter by compatible Android version, and I'm sure there are more. That way you could find newer and better apps in your search.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There isn't thousands of outdated launcher themes and not working apps in the app store. The ones at app store still work on newer iphones and don't look outdated. But the ones at play store look stretched and outdated.
i agree with you
I believe one thing that would help is better search functionality in the play store. Seams to me that a major search engine would have better search options in their store.
Sent from my DROID BIONIC using xda premium
Hi people,
Just to inform that Google Play Store 4.2.3 is out from Nexus 4 Android 4.3 system dump. You can download it here. For GPS 4.2.3 multi dpi normal or inverted for ics/jb go here. Enjoy.
Thanks
Any info about new features?
Edit: info from the site
What's New?
I've looked through it, and from what I can tell, it has some sort of additions related to the new functionality for restricting user access to Google Play. I suspect this is used in multi-user situations, where the primary user doesn't want secondary ones to be able to install things, but I haven't been able to confirm it just yet on the Nexus 7. Maybe there is a new menu that shows up in Android 4.3...
Another theory proposed by commenter Markus is that it's possible that this new functionality is meant for restricting Play Store's usage on devices that aren't licensed to use it and don't come with it pre-installed, which would... suck, though I don't see how Google could enforce it.
There is a new Activity called com.google.android.finsky.activities.AccessRestrictedActivity and this related new string:
Code:
<string name="limited_user_text">"You don't have permission to use Google Play Store."</string>
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I'm using a Nexus 4 and trying to get rid of all the Google tracking services and their built-in Android background communications with Google servers. I have already searched the internet and found a few articles about this, however most of them were outdated or didn't answer my questions.
I do like the look and feel of stock Android, which is why I would probably go for CyanogenMod for this. In an optimal world, it would retain its current look and feel, but without communicating with Google.
My questions that I currently have pretty much are as follows (when using CyanogenMod):
- is it possible to keep using SOME Play store / stock apps but taking their permission to send information to Google? For example, I still want to use whatsapp and I doubt I can find it in the F-Droid store, or perhaps i like the Google camera app, and so on
- is it possible to turn off all Google tracking services (obvious things such as Google Now, but also the less obvious, like the constant hidden communications with Google servers) using CyanogenMod?
hi folks,I cannot be the only person on xda with this problem,which is,how to search through 4000 apps in MY APPS that I want to keep listed but would like to be able to find the one I want/need in less than a week.
any ideas/advice ?
I would prefer an app that can use different filters,like age,device etc etc.
I presume google refuse access to apps/software that would make this possible,its ridiculous that I have to install a seperate app to find the apps I have paid for,or muck about in a browser at my google account history to even do that simple task.
have looked for years and still not found a tool for searching my apps,and google do not appear to want to make it possible.
I just use the search function in Google Play Store.