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How can I find the comparison of specs and features of Android devices?
I recently got fed up with my previous smartphone (name omitted) and I'm considering switching to an Android-based phone.  However, I have been stumped by the sheer number of handsets.  I'm more than willing to change carriers and I have no preferences in keyboard style.
What I am looking for (and cannot find on Google) is a comparison of features between different Android phones so that I can make an educated decision (or at least whittle that decision down).

This is a community wiki. Feel free to edit and update the info.

Wikipedia - List of Android smartphones: This link to Wikipedia shows a list of Android devices. It is recommended to click on Version twice, to sort with the latest Android version at the top.
GSM Arena has a great tool to compare devices one to another.
PhoneScoop has an excellent search engine and compares an extensive list of features side-by-side with differences highlighted automatically.
PhoneDB: It's a bit overwhelming with all the options you have available to filter by, but it always seems up-to-date. It can also find phones other than Android.
PC Pro has a well-sorted reviews section - click on Android (under OS) and you'll have a list. You can tick the boxes next to the phones and then a compare button will appear giving you a line-by-line comparison. Note this is a UK site and some phones have different names to the US versions.
ConsumerReports.org: If you're willing to pay a little, this site really does well at apples-to-apples comparisons on a wide variety of products, including cell phones.
Versus.

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Useful or cool Tasker recipes
In a similar vein to this question, I'm interested in finding any useful recipes for Tasker.
I've found several profiles and "Step Throughs" on their wiki, but would be interested in any others that people have found helpful.

Here's a good one I found on Lifehacker a while back.
http://lifehacker.com/5611003/build-a-find-my-iphone-clone-for-android
I changed a few things when I did it, like allow the text to come from any phone and send the reply to that phone, and making the SOS text a passphrase so that nobody accidentally sent it to me.
I also made one that turned my ringer up and played a song for when I lose my phone around the house. I can just text my phone 123findme and it will play a song even if I left it on vibrate mode.

Launching ConnectBot remote commands in answer to another question.

Awesome! This solves a problem I have with the Wake on LAN plugins I have tried in the past. Now when I connect to my home WiFi, I can automatically send a WoL packet to my PC from my home content server.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


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Why does my phone peg the CPU every time I wake it up?
This is driving me nuts. I have SeePU installed so that I can see a CPU graph on my Moto Droid. When I unlock the phone after being idle for a while, the CPU is pegged by android.process.acore and the phone is unusable for 15-45 seconds, which is an eternity when you are trying to answer the phone!
Tech details:

Moto Droid
OS 2.2 CyanogenMod v6 (also happens with 2.1 stock)
Launcher: LauncherPro (also happens with DXTop, and ADW Launcher)
No task killer

Apps:
http://www.appbrain.com/user/mark_porter/apps-on-the-phone
UPDATE: I un-installed most of my apps, and I seem to have licked the problem for now. I'm gonna try adding one app back a day until it gets stupid again. If I can find a particular app that causes this problem, I'll post it here

Does it still do it with Android 2.2?

It's ADW. I have the same problem with both ADW and LauncherPro. Can't find a fix other than uninstalling.

Did you ever find the offending app?

Are you over/underclocking your CPU at all and/or using profiles?
A lot of users will underclock their CPU when the phone is sleeping, which may save battery. However, if you underclock too much (125 MHz), the phone will lag like crazy when it wakes. It is recommended to never underclock further than 250 MHz.
Aside from that, I'm not really sure anything would cause this to happen and would need more information to help you diagnose.

I don't underclock below 250, and my buddy with bone stock Moto droid has the same problem. What elese would help trouble-shooting?

A few more things: does it happen with SetCPU uninstalled? Also, how many home replacement apps/launchers do you have installed? If you have multiple and each of those has widgets, etc, that could also strain your system (and hinder battery life). Always only keep one home replacement/launcher loaded with your widgets.

I have had a lot of pegged-CPU, laggy-phone problems with my MT3G stock Android phone. At different times, I have thought it was due to specific apps, but it usually comes back. Certain apps make it worse, Better Keyboard seemed epecially bad, but I'm not sure any one app is the root cause. I have Master Re-Set a few times, it eventually comes back. Very, very frustrating. (I use Wing Tseng's Task Manager to see CPU usage.)

I have the same issue with the MT3G except that it's rooted & running CM6.

If it reoccurs again and you have trouble pinning down which app it is, I would recommend Watchdog (free version is more than sufficient). You can use it to to track down what is eating up CPU so you can eliminate the program directly instead of having to remove it all and swap them all in individually.

He's already said that "android.process.acore" is what's using his available CPU cycles. Watchdog and SeePU are similar in function.

Missed that, apologies. What I get for answering questions pre-coffee.

Instead of doing that, just try the WatchDog app which finds which apps uses a lot of memory or slow down your Android phone.

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Do I have a branded smartphone (HTC Desire)?
When my HTC Desire boots, I can first see a purple Android (?) icon, then a white background and the 'HTC' text, then a short animation with text 'T-Mobile'. Does that mean that I got a branded phone? The rest of the system doesn't show any signs of T-Mobile and I'm on a Vodafone prepaid 'contract'.
I'm worried that I got a branded phone (which means I'll get Froyo later than other HTC Desire owners) even though I'm not with T-Mobile.

Being that you get a T-Mobile graphic then I would say yes you have a branded Desire. Having said that my father has a branded O2 Desire and he has already received the Froyo update (today - Monday). I too have an O2 branded Desire, but I have not received Froyo yet which I suspect is because I am on a Business plan with O2, whereas my father has a personal plan.

I guess I'll just have to wait a little bit longer here down-under.

Yeah. I was under the impression that only European Desires were getting the update this early and have not seen anything saying that others around the world are getting it this week. Still don't have mine yet :(

I think all that matters is which phone you have and which carrier you are on. Updates are always pushed out by the carriers to their subscribers. So, Vodaphone will send out the update to all Desire's on their network, including yours, and you will be good to go.
If there is an issue when the time comes, then a quick call to your carrier should sort it out.


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How to make Froyo's portable hotspot more stable?
I have updated to Froyo on my HTC Desire yesterday and am testing out the portable hotspot option. The problem is that it is very unstable, at random times (1 to 10 minutes) I lose the WiFi connection.
I have a laptop on my lap and the Desire in my pocket, so it's not like they are out of reach. Does anybody have any ideas on this? Similar experiences?

What Froyo build did you install? I installed 4 as they came out and recently went with a Cyanogen Beta.

I use the stock build from HTC the came in during the OTA update. Never tried any other build.

Rather than putting it in your pocket, place it next to your laptop with the screen on. Then you can see if your hotspot is cutting out, or maybe your 3G is cutting out. I imagine there is a threshold of where you need a certain strength of 3G signal to operate a hotspot.

Good suggestion! I have tried that, the 3G connection is stable all the time...


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Is there an Android media payer that allows you to speed up an mp3?
Is there a media player for android that can play an mp3 10% faster or slower if the user wants to?

Rockbox has a very early port to Android that allows speeding up an MP3 once the Timestrech option is enabled.  The port is very functional, but the UI and integration with Android still leave much to be desired.  Jon Corbet of LWN did a good summary article a few weeks ago.  The most important piece of advice before using it:

Imagine that your screen is a 3x3 grid, where the middle is used as the selector,
  left-right-up-down are used as cursor keys. The other directions have special
  functions in some screens, e.g. in Now Playing screen with the upper left you can
  access some playback mode settings.

Having previously enjoyed Rockbox on a several previous Sansa players, I personally excuse the UI shortcomings and use it when playing long stretches of podcasts.  I like that set the playback speed (independant of the pitch) from 50% of the original speed to (at least) 200%.  In increments of a tenth of a percent.  Depending on the subject and the speed with which people speak, I will listen to a podcasts at 175%, 166%, 150%, 133%, or 125%.

I wrote Osplay, which does this as its main feature.  I consider it a stable product and am now only issuing bugfixes.

VLC For Android has a feature to play faster or slower
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.videolan.vlc&hl=en

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What is the difference between jailbreaking and unlocking an Android?

Possible Duplicate:
What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc

Is either possible, legal, contractually legit and does either damage the phone?

I'm also interested in this.  Ie. the difference between unlocking an iPhone and an Android phone.  iPhones void warranty and you can't use the app store (from what i understand) does the same hold true for Android phones?

My prelim googling implies that unlocking is just getting it to work with other carriers, but jailbreaking is something like having the administrator password on a computer.  Apple is famous for trying to cripple jailbroken phones, as for Android google isn't giving me a clear answer.

legality varies by country and region. You might want to clarify what jurisdiction you're in

Duplicate of http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/2885/what-is-the-difference-between-rooting-jailbreak-rom-mod-etc

If you were to unlock your Android phone, this would be to allow a SIM from any provider to be used in the handset.  Phones are usually locked to a provider when they are purchased (the idea being to stop you using other SIM cards after buying your phone).  You can however get a sim unlock code from the network when you contract runs out.  You can also buy the handsets with no contract unlocked.
Jailbreaking (or rooting as its known on Android) allows you to do a few different things, the main use seems to be either tethering (however it seems that more phones are offering this as standard), or installing a custom firmware.
One thing to mention, is rooting your phone will invalidate your warranty, so if you get stuck, you will be on your own (however there are many sites out there full of people who will help you if things go wrong).  There is a small risk of bricking the phone (however there are ways to recover from this too on some handsets).
Personally I've rooted my Android device and have enjoyed playing with custom firmware and it's generally been smooth sailing (although as it takes a long time to boot after flashing a new firmware, the first time I was a bit worried :P).  However, I would suggest doing a fair bit of reading around first, and only approaching this once you're sure you know what you're doing.
Hope this helps!

to my knowledge (and Wikipedia agrees) the PUK is the Personal Unblocking Code or PIN Unlock Code, for that rare cases when you mistype your pin 4 times. And nothing todo with Unlocking the phone for other networks.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Unblocking_Code

Yea your right :)  I've edited the original post to reflect that!

@Kingamajick: I think this answer should be merged into "What is the difference between: Rooting, Jailbreak, ROM, Mod, etc".

As I understand it, unlocking (with any phone) is allowing it to work with other carriers, as you've surmised.
In the Android world, the "correct" term for the equivalent of "jailbreaking" (which seems to be an iPhone-centric term) appears to be "rooting" (which is much more technically descriptive, anyway).  Rooting, as I understand it, is gaining root access to the device, which allows you to basically do anything you can figure out how to (install custom ROMs, access previously locked-down functions such as wifi tethering, etc.).
Rooting/jailbreaking is now apparently explicitly legal, although doing some of the things that many people root to be able to do is not, if it violates your carrier's terms of service (i.e. wifi tethering).

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Can I connect to WEP-secured MyWi network from iPhoDroid?
Yesterday, I installed Froyo on my iPhone 3G with iPhoDroid. I'm trying to connect to the WiFi using MyWi on my jailbroken iPhone 4 but the network isn't visible at all. The network is WEP secured. That's not a problem with Android is it? I see lots of unsecured networks around, but I'm at work and they're all through proxies anyway, so that wouldn't work. Anyone have any insight on this? I'm completely new to Android so this is exciting to me!

Hi Thomas, I removed the salutations because the first line of the question appears in the summary pages.

Have you checked whether the network is broadcasting its SSID? If it isn't then your phone won't find it and the network won't appear in the list. You can enter the network details manually by going into the Wi-Fi settings (under Wireless and network on my 2.1 phone), then clicking Add Wi-Fi network (at the bottom of the Wi-Fi networks section), then entering the network's SSID.
If you're already doing this and the network isn't being added, it may be that the router has restricted the client devices that can connect to it. In this case you'll have to use a client with an established connection and modify the settings to allow your phone. You can typically add the MAC address to a whitelist. You can typically find your phone's MAC address under Settings->About phone->Status->Wi-Fi MAC address

Thanks for the help Rich. I did try manually entering the SSID. That didn't work. And as far as editing the router's white list, the MyWi doesn't have that option (as far as I can tell). I tried disabling security on my network, and it still wouldn't recognize it.


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How do I undelete or recover deleted files on Android?

Possible Duplicate:
How can I recover a deleted file on Android?

Is there a way to recover deleted files on Android phones without using standard USB storage recovery tools?

First off, from a practicality standpoint I do not think there is a way to do this. Especially if the data was on internal storage. If the data was on an SD Card you could try googling for data recovery software or something along those lines and then mount the sd card and try searching it. But most software out there isn't made for sd cards.
Is your phone rooted? If so you should be creating backups with NAND at least every other week, I usually do them more often than that. Also you can use Titanium Backup to backup apps and system data. Neither of these will backup your SD card though. For that I just copy all contents from my sd card to a computer before a major change.
Check out the link below for more info, keep in mind I wrote that guide based on the Evo, but still it applies to almost any Android phone.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7672616

I tried recuva and many tools. None of them don't even show paired external devices. Anyone found some tools to do it?


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Can I change the time interval between flashes of the notification led on the HTC incredible?
I want to be able to change the time interval between flashes of the LED when I have a new notification. Is this possible on the HTC Incredible running 2.1 (eclair) or even on 2.2 (froyo)?
I don't really want to flash my device or install a custom build of android, etc.

My answer here for a similar question points to the Missed Reminder app which appears to have an adjustable LED interval setting. Hope it helps.

I'm pretty sure I've only seen this feature on rooted Android phones running custom ROMs.
I've seen it on some custom ROMs in the 'Messaging' app, but never as a general system-wide setting. I'm going to say that no, this isn't possible right now, at least on stock Android.


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Is it possible to exclude some folders on the sd card from being added to my playlist in the standard android player?
I use the android media player to listen to music. Last week I installed an app that brings a lot of sounds with it in mp3 format and saves them on the SD Card to prevent the app from cluttering my internal memory. Now the media player picked up this folder and added it to my playlist. Every time I listen in shuffle mode I hear a sound from this Application mixed in at least every tenth song I listen to.
Is it possible to exclude a folder from being indexed by the media player?

As I understand it it's possible to add a .nomedia file into a folder that you want to exclude from media scans. I've not had occasion to test this myself but the comments on this issue seems to confirm that it works.

seems to work :)

works, after rescanning media

You can use File Expert to create the file - long-pressing on a folder gives a menu with option for hiding media. I'm sure there are also other apps that can do this.

Meridian Media Player (free in the Market) specifically facilitates this, allows digging deep into a folder structure and other goodies too.


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Why won't my android video player display media in the correct aspect ratio
I'm using a Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) and when I play M4V video files, ostensibly formatted for IPhone, the device stretches the image to fit the screen rather than letterboxing.  I can't find any option to change this.  Is there a better media player or a hidden setting?

I use RockPlayer and it has a button right on the display to toggle aspect ratios and zoom levels--very convenient.


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Can I automatically log in to open WiFi that requires web login/password?
There are lots of wifi hotspots that are open, but require a web-based login to use. Hotels, coffeeshops, workplaces. For password-protected wifi, it's easy to set up Android phones to remember the login and password. But I'd like to be able to use my workplace's open wifi with web-based password on a regular basis, without having to manually type stuff in. It should just automatically connect to the Wifi router, go to http://1.1.1.1 or whatever, type in my password, and then everything else should just work. Is this possible?
(HTC Evo running Android 2.2, fwiw...)

You might be able to do that with tasker, but it's paid.

How do you set up on android to remember the user/pass?

The best you can do is set it up to auto-connect to the network and then manually open a browser when you're in range.  Save the username and password in the browser.  That gets it down to 2 clicks (er... touches).  Make sure Remember Passwords is on the the browser's settings.
There are some apps that claim to do what you want but I've never used them.  Here is a list.

WIFI Web Login works great for those that require a username/password or an email, or even just a checkbox to agree the EULA.

This is a $2.99 app in the store now.

I noticed a couple of things in its configuration: a) don't put hotspot login UR, b) to run this app on background, disable it from battery optimization.


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What is /system/bin/mediaserver on Android, and why is it pegging the CPU?
I noticed that my Motorola Droid, running rooted 2.2 Froyo, has been acting sluggish sometimes.  I fired up the terminal emulator, and ran top, and noticed that /system/bin/mediaserver is using around 90% of my CPU.
What does this program do? Is it safe to kill it?  How can I prevent it from slowing down my phone in the future?
Some quick Googling has turned up other people with the same problem, but not really any answers.

The media server is responsible for indexing the images, videos and music files on the device. It then is queried by programs like the media gallery or the music player for filtered lists of certain media types.
I think that it would be restarted pretty fast after killing. I would assume that somehow there are many write options on the sd card and the media server will constantly reindex your mass storage. But I don't know a solution for that.

Okay, thanks.  I noticed this behavior after I moved a bunch of my apps out of internal memory, and onto the SD card, so I suppose all of those writes explains why mediaserver went a little crazy.

What is meant by "indexing images, videos and music"? Does it try to do image recognition or what?

As Janusz explained, this program scans and indexes media files on the internal and removable storage. Sometimes the media scanner using a lot of CPU can be a result of it trying to scan one or more corrupted files. This is usually a symptom of your SD card starting to fail. Try scanning your SD card's filesystem for errors on a proper computer (e.g. using fsck on a GNU/Linux system, or Scandisk on Windows). If any errors are detected and fixed, put the SD card back in your phone and see if the problem goes away.

Simplest solution is, if you can identify where in memory card you have junk image files, then just place a .nomedia file. Which avoids scanning that perticular folder for indexing media files (Note: It will also not appear in gallery).
In my case I did that to Whatsapp images folder, which had hell lot of images but I dont want it to be appearing in my gallery. So I thought it would work for me.
Same way you find out such content and then try to clean up unwanted stuff, also look for any corrupted media files also and remove them.
This is a dirty hack, not permanent fix.

The title is still unanswered: "What is /system/bin/mediaserver on Android, and why is it pegging the CPU?"

In my particular case the mediaserver process was spinning with scanning the temporary/junk files cached by the browser and other programs. As long as I started running a junk file cleanup program at least daily I no longer have this problem.

What is /system/bin/mediaserver on Android ?

as you may already know it's a binary file it is used by android to scan the phone's storage for media files (images , sounds and videos ) android usually run it on boot and on media storage changes (like sending new files from pc via mtp ,removing and inserting SD card or usb OTG storage devices ,downloading new media files ect .. )

why is it pegging the CPU?

Now that can be for multiple reasons I will list some of them

SD card ,media Storage ,USB devices corrupted file system : in some cases the storage gets corrupted which make the mediaserver use more resources to scan and in some cases the process gets stuck with an i/o error that it can't handle.
some third party applications may abuse the use of mediaserver in so many ways ,like forcing the android system to rescan explicitly or passively ,explicitly is when the application developer made it so in this case only removing that app or contacting the developer may solve the problem but when the app passively make the media server run like when an app writes junk or cache media files (images ,sounds ,video ) in directories that are not exclude by the media scanner which forces the android system to rescan more often to prevent this you need to find the folder where this app puts junk files and exclude it from the media scanner by creating an empty file named .nomedia inside that folder in fact you can use this methode to exclude any folder from being scanned my the media scanner.

the point is ,the problem is not in the mediaserver binary it self because this binary can be used by any third party app which makes it difficult to determine who is abusing it's use.
I hope this answers your question


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German lessons in an Android device

Possible Duplicate:
How can I study or prepare myself for an exam with the help of my Android device?

Is there any German course that I could do on my Android device? Whether it's an app or an optimized web site it's fine by me.

I'm using Anki flashcards. There is also version for Android.

Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it is a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.

You can download German dictionary and start learning :-)

That's a very good resource, thanks! I still would need to learn more than vocabulary though.


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Best software to enable speech-to-text on HTC Desire
One of the notable features missing from the HTC desire that is found on the Nexus one is the speech to text.
I am using google voice search and am impressed therefore what is the best software (free or paid) to enable the dictation of emails and text messages.

Have a look at Vlingo: http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.vlingo.client
It learns over time and many people find it more accurate than google's voice recognition.

I have an HTC Desire and speech to text works fine. Are you holding down the microphone keyboard button to the left of the space bar?

Full text to speech is only hidden and can be re-enabled in older HTC versions of android through a keyboard hack. Alternatively you can install goggle voice search just to enable search via voice.
Text to search is fully supported by HTC in the Froyo software update and can be accessed via the keyboard or holding down the search key.


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is it possible to upgrade the android OS on all phones?
Do Android phones as a rule allow you to upgrade the OS version at will, or does this require special support from the manufacturer or carrier?

You receive updates from the carrier.
You can circumvent this by rooting your phone and installing a custom rom (or stock rom, if available) to get the latest version of Android.

Each carrier needs to add their customizations to the source code. That's why not everyone gets the new OS updates at the same time and why some early Android phones will never get an update.


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How can I clear the cache of the Android Facebook app?
My phone (T-Mobile Pulse/Huawei U8220 with Android 1.5) doesn't have much on board space, so I quite often run into the low disk space warning. Looking through the list of apps, I see the facebook app has about 2.5 MB of user data. I suspect most of this is a photo album I looked at recently. But I can't seem to find any option to clear that cache ...
Does anyone know how to? I'm happy to use a file manager and go into the filesystem to delete stuff if I can find it and someone can reassure me that I'm not going to stuff up the facebook app at the same time.
And I don't want to uninstall and reinstall because nothing will install any more.

I've an Android 2.2 FroYo and my facebook app also uses a lot of space. Clearing the cache is disabled for facebook app (and it seems not to be using it). Clearing the data makes me login again and has to sync all my contacts again, its annoying.

To VC'ers: 12k views is likely not 'too localized'

Here are the instructions for Android 2.2, not sure if it will work for 1.6, but you may want to give this a try.

Home Screen
Menu --> Settings
Applications
"All"
Select "Facebook"
"Clear Cache". If you want to delete ALL data, choose "Clear Data"

These instructions work for all apps, not just facebook.

I'd tried that, but despite it reporting over 2MB of data, the button to clear data is not present for the facebook app, though I have seen the button available for other apps. It does have a clear cache button, but there is no data in the cache. Thanks for trying to help anyway.

The "clear data" option is available on Froyo (2.2) without rooting your phone. It doesn't show what data is there, however.

The only way you can clear that cache would probably be to delete system files which would only be possible if you were rooted. There might be a market app to help with that, not sure. Try googling something like "android app clear cache". Also keep in mind few apps were written for 1.5.
I would try upgrading to Android 1.6 at least and then see if you have more options. 1.6 is more stable and gives more options too. Plus the upgrade will likely clear out cache and give you a fresh start.
Also if you root your device there would be more opportunities for storing apps and such on sd card which would help with your internal storage issues. Check out XDA Forums to see if rooting your device is possible.

So far I believe the only way to clear your cache is a hard reboot.


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(how) can I install android on an iphone 4?

Possible Duplicate:
Can I install Android on my non-Android device?

I know it is possible to install Android on an iPhone 3G.
How about the iPhone 4? Is it possible to run Android on it? If yes, how, and what are the risks?
If no, is that a "not yet" or a "can't happen, because of X"?

I'd say "not yet", at this moment.
My suggestion is to keep your eye on this page: http://www.idroidproject.org/wiki/Status
As you can see from the Wiki table on the iPhone4, the iDroid project participants aren't even sure exactly what hardware is in it yet. So writing code for it without that knowledge is a bit of a challenge.
Seeing as iDroid doesn't even run on iPhone 3GS, I would guess that it's gonna be a while before it runs on the iPhone4. Although, they do have it listed on the Wiki, so the iDroid devs are probably considering it at some point "down the road".

I have it installed on my 3G, and it's just for scientific purposes. I just want to learn more about the filesystem and innerworkings of both OSes. To that end, I think it's very interesting. Not at all useful though. It crashes frequently, I have not yet been able to connect to a WiFi network, and when it does run, it's kinda sluggish. But if you've got an * EXTRA * iPhone, I would say go for it.


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How to fix setting Android display brightness to 0%
I have a Windows Mobile phone(HTC Tilt 2) and put Android on it(on the SD card only). When I was messing around with some stuff I accidentally set the display brightness of Android to 0%. So now nothing will ever show up on my screen.How can I fix this without doing a clean install of Android?

Is it the case that you can't see anything at all, or is it just really, really dark at the moment? Most LCD screens will show something faintly, even without a backlight, if you can get them in the right light.
If you can see something then the easiest way to turn the lights up (if you're using Android 1.6+) is to add the Power Control widget to the home screen and then tap the far-right button on the Power Control Bar, this should turn the brightness to half and then full, and you should be able to get to the rest of your settings then.

Marking this as the answer.. I couldn't actually see anything on the screen though but I already had a brightness widget thing on my home screen and the touch screen works with the screen off so I just had to push around until I found it.

@Earlz: Try shining a really bright flashlight to the screen (the brightest you can get). If the problem is with too low brightness, but the LCD is still filtering the lights, then you should be able to get faint images by shining a strong light.

Use Apk 1.3 (PC) to access tablet and screen shot shows what is in the screen. Keep refreshing screen shot as you press tablet options.
Mike M.

A link to the program mentioned would be good.


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Why do I have duplicate contact birthdays on Android calendar?
I deleted all of my contacts from Google and from my HTC incredible so that I could reload them all in just Google. As a result, the calendar on my phone has 2 entries on the "contacts birthdays and events" calendar on my phone. The calendar in my Google account only has 1 entry. The android calendar even has a birthday for a contact I deleted.
Has anyone else seen this and have a fix?

Are the duplicate entries in different calendars (IE different colored labels?)

no, they are in the same calendar. i already tried turning off that calendar and turning it back on to force it to re-sync completely with the online google calendar, but that didn't work.

"
TomSawyer_2112
Hey Guys,
I had to clear the Calendar Data for the Bday to show on my calendar. This is what I did,
Go to Settings-Applications-Manage applications, then select Calendar Storage then "delete data". After doing this the screen (HTC EVO) will reboot (white screen with the HTC Logo).
After clearing the data, go to the calendar setting and add the Bbay.
Hope this work for you.
"
Source:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=58d284f1a1f36866&hl=en

Remove the google-account from your android system (sync settings), than add it again. After that, go into your contacts and refresh / resync your contacts. Now take a look at your calendar, it should be fixed now

You have to go into your address book, select the contact to edit, and then delete the event (in your case, birthday). Then click save. Now, on the calendar, it should only show one entry for the birthday.


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Improve Android battery life by lowering CPU freq
I would like to know if it could be possible to use adb (Android Debug Bridge) to tell the phone to lower its CPU max freq.
I'd like to use less battery if possible, and in my use case I don't mind if some tasks are a little slower.

You might want to check out this article from How-To Geek on methods to reduce battery usage before you do something as extreme as underclocking your CPU. http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/25319/complete-guide-to-maximizing-your-android-phones-battery-life/

I've read this barely impacts your phone but produces extremely impressive results. As long as he's already rooted, this isn't that extreme.

There is a program called SetCPU which will allow you to over/under clock the processor.  The advantage here is the ability to set profiles to have the phone determine when to adjust the processor, such as when the phone is at a certain temprature, or if it's plugged in or not.
I've been using it on my Droid Eris for a while now, and the results have been great.

Thank you.  That is what I was looking for, but I need to do it manually or to implement it in my own application.  Any idea in that sense is welcome.

Unfortunatly I can't help you there, however these guys can, http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=524

This requires root to use.

@colithium Yes, you've got to root, but considering that he was planning to use ADB to try to adjust the cpu, rooted was a given.

Just for community reference ;)


text:
Why does Android prompt me with "Enter the credential storage password" when I attempt to connect to a secured WiFi network?
When I connect my iPhone to a secured WiFi network (at work), I'm prompted for my Username and Password. (And then I'm prompted to accept what I presume is an SSL certificate.)
But when I select the same network on my Motorola Droid or HTC EVO 4G, I'm prompted with "Enter the credential storage password".  What is this password?

I went into Settings -> Location & Security (on Droid, Security on the EVO) -> Use secure credentials, and entered the credential storage password.  Then I was no longer prompted for this password when selecting the WiFi network.

With SSL you are using the RSA public/private key pairs to securely exchange the encrypt/decrypt key for a much simpler encryption algorithm.
The RSA keys are used so you can start with the bare minimum of knowledge of each other.
The public key of the SSL cert of the server needs to be signed by someone you already trust.  Those are stored in the Trusted Root store.  Most browsers ship with all the well known ones.
If they are not trusted, you will get asked to trust them, which is probably what you are getting asked, and then to store it, so it is now 'trusted' and they do not have to ask again.

Go to your Settings
Select Security
And Set a 4 digit pin.

It worked for me.


text:
How can I manage contacts on my SIM card with an Android phone?
How can I add and manage contacts on a SIM card with an Android phone (HTC Magic)? I'm aware of 1 application which is capable of doing this but it cost 4€ for SIMPLY managing SIM contacts o_O

The default (well, default on my Samsung Galaxy S - I guess default in Android doesn't mean much) contact manager can do a part of this. When creating a new contact, it gives the option of storing it on the SIM, Phone memory, or a linked account (like Google).
There's the option of copying contacts from SIM to Phone or Phone to SIM (Contacts->Menu->more -> Copy contacts). Import/Export is in the same spot.
I know these suggestions aren't quite what you're looking for. I don't know if contacts can be stored on a SIM card in different ways depending on the Phone. From what I've seen the software that comes with Android phones might (depending on manufacturer) let you move contacts around.

on the T-Mobile G2, you can only "Import from SIM card". You cannot, apparently, put contact data into the SIM card.

@benc HTC models some of them marketed as t-mobile gX (x for version) do not have option to back to sim, but you can use free application like contact2sim to work around

@cofiem update for Android 10: SIM and phone memory are not a storage option anymore -- it lets you save contacts only on an email (like gmail) account (I am on Xiaomi A2)

I wanted to delete some contacts on my SIM card on my HTC Sensation. I tried and tried and it didn't work. So I took out my old Nokia phone and it can read and write to the SIM card. Deleted the contacts I didn't want. It worked.

In general, don't store your contacts on the SIM card. There is no advantage in doing so. Modern smartphones are usually only able to import/export contacts stored on the SIM card.
The contact App from Android 4.0 on provides a feature which lets you import your contacts form SIM card to either Google contacts (which I highly recommend) or simply local phone contacts.
Open Contacts > Menu > Import/export > Import from SIM card
Furthermore the "Messaging" app of Android 4.0 is able to mange the text messages stored on the SIM card.
There are only a few very narrow reasons for storing contacts on a SIM. Some like to be able to swap the SIM card into a small feature phone when performing certain activities (like trail running).
However, note that contacts stored on the SIM card are unprotected. Everyone who has access to the SIM card can read your contacts. This impacts your and your contacts privacy.

Later Android versions’ messaging app seem to have long lost this option. Now there are a bunch of crappy SIM card apps that constantly show ads and do not work, but SIM contacts by Mitali Parekh seems promising. I’ll comment after testing it.

SIM Phonebook is better, and allows multiple selection and mass deletion.

The SIM contacts app did not have copying, importing or exporting.

@peterhil Thanks for the link. An app that does what the OP is asking for without ads, in-apps purchases or abusive permissions. Why don't you add as an answer? For me this is the answer.

New (manual) contacts should get backed up if your gmail account is linked, and they should show up in your gmail contacts.
But my old ones (on sim and phone before email was linked) did not. I had to copy the ones from my sim and phone to my SDcard by going into contacts (people) then menu -> export to SD (as for example SIM.vcf).
And after that menu -> import to (my email) linked gmail address. And i just told it to import all vcf files on the SD.
And that was it, they were now all in my gmail contacts.

I have Android 10 on a SmartE11 phone.
I tried to delete contacts that are stored on the sim using the phone app. I get a message 'Could not delete contact' with no explanation why. I also got a 'silent notification': Problem deleting contact from SIM, with the body: This phone may not be able to delete contacts from a SIM.
At the top of the contact display, for contacts on my sim, it shows "Saved to SIM - view-only'. So, I guess it is because the contact is view-only.
The pre-installed Contacts app has an option 'Fix & manage'. This has an option 'Manage SIM'. This lets me import or delete the contacts on the sim. I wanted to delete some obsolete contacts added on my old phone. I selected the contacts to be deleted (actually, I unselected the contacts I didn't want deleted, because they were all selected by default and there was no option to unselect all) and clicked the trash can icon then clicked Delete on the 'Remove contacts from SIM?' pop-up.
This deleted the contacts from the sim but didn't remove them from the contacts list on my phone app. To achieve that, I had to shut down my phone then start it again. The contacts from the sim were then gone from the phone app: All of them were gone, even those I hadn't deleted from the sim. But a little while later, those that were on the sim reappeared in the phone contact list.
It's a bit roundabout and hardly obvious, but it worked.


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Is it possible to completely brick your Android phone by using a Custom ROM?
I understand that you can completely "brick" (render unusuable) your iPhone by attempting to Jailbreak incorrectly.
Whether or not this is actually the case, is it possible to do the same with your Android phone?  Or is the nature of that operating system and the handsets such that you can always install a new ROM on it if everything goes pear-shaped?
I assume there could be a difference due to how closely the iPhone is tied to iTunes, compared to how independent Android phones seem.

Yes, happened to me. Now I have a useless $500 Galaxy S3. Be very careful when flashing a new ROM. Make sure it's the specific one for your device.

Yes it is possible to brick and that is why all root methods and custom roms give warnings on their threads. But that said, it is very hard for someone without much knowledge to "brick" a device as long as you follow the directions given. HTC does a great job on their devices and makes it difficult to brick them. Almost always there is a fail safe of some kind.
Most people that claim they bricked their device are mis-using the term and just throwing it around. Even someone that completely cracked their screen and could not use the screen of the phone was still able to successfully root and pull off needed files. The brick cries are no different now then they were with Windows Mobile devices that people tried to unlock. Every time someone saw the bootloader screen they cried brick, but just didn't understand that screen was normal.
If you want more reading on the topic, check out XDA Forums. Also I wrote a guide on XDA forums for rooting and backing up information, tips, etc. While the article was specifically written for the Evo 4g, most of the information still applies to any Android phone. I recommend checking it out for more info.

To get specific: Bricking your phone generally requires damaging the bootloader, called a "hard brick".  Webs is correct that most bricks are actually "soft bricks", where the phone won't boot up past the bootloader but can still be fixed.  If you can get into the bootloader, you can normally re-partition the phone and flash good software.
In some cases of hard bricks, you can use a USB jig to force the device into a mode where new software can be loaded when the normal methods for getting into the bootloader fail.


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Using VoIP from Android via GPRS?
Is it possible to use VoIP over gprs from an Android phone? Either using a SIP client or Skype?

Do you consider Google Voice a VoIP client? It is currently open to join

There are a number of sip clients available such as Sipdroid, CSipSimple, and Linphone.  Sipdroid includes an option to create a pbxes.org account linked to your Google Voice account, allowing you to make and receive calls to and from PSTN numbers for free, assuming you are in the US.  (After the account is created, any sip client can be used with the pbxes.org account.)
If you want to setup your own Asterisk server, you can configure the trunking with Google Voice yourself.  Or you can use any other VOIP service that provides SIP/PSTN trunking.
An alternative option is GrooVe IP, which is a Google Talk client with voice support.  This uses XMPP/Jingle directly between your android device and Google Talk/Voice.  The free version only supports WLAN networking; the paid version works over mobile networks.

There a quite a few SIP clients last time I looked, but you need some sort of ID you have to purchase elsewhere to make use of them. Skype is supposedly coming soon and I think is available right now for Verizon Android phones.
Ditto Fring. Its a great app and probably one of the easier ones to use. Plus you can do video conferencing with Fring.

it is available for verizon, but they have some weird deal where you can only use the voice stuff over the 3G network, no wifi.

Oh thats right, I forgot about that. Yea, I would be surprised if someone didn't come out with a root app that allows voice over wifi, or if the carriers opened up Skype.

Try Fring  it is all in one, Unfortunately they do not support Skype anymore, But ther is SIP, Gmail, MSN and many others.


text:
How can I determine if a device is really running Android?
In our area there is gadget called "IRobot" which the supplier claims has Android 1.4 inside. I am afraid that it might be a "fake" version of the Android OS. I do not have experience with Android so are there any guidelines I can use to check that a device is really running Android? Also, is there a way to check if a version of Android can be updated?

As far as I'm aware there was never a 1.4 version of Android with any wide release. Major versions were 1.0, 1.1, 1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 & 2.2 so that already looks suspicious.

You can go to Settings to see Android version in About. If the option doesn't exist, the device needs serious inspection because it's possible that the device isn't running Android at all. Share more in in information so that we could detect. Probably, some screenshots of different parts of system can help.

You could try entering *#*#4636#*#* into the phone's Dialer application. This should open up a menu with all kinds of data about the phone.

Before you enter any dailer codes you should make sure you know what they do!

@Amanda Is there an overview of all dialer codes?

@Amanda you said it like that combination hides a self-destruction subroutine :)

It doesn't give Android version information...

I've never heard of Android 1.4, but it could exist. It could be a dev release or something but just was never widely used.
Go to your wireless carrier store and see what OS the phones should be running. Then make a purchase.

True, and as Android is an open source OS that any manufacturer can download and then modify to work with their device, there's no real point in anyone creating a fake version of Android when they can get the real thing for free.

I doubt that someone has created a fake Android OS version. But someone could claim they have a device and purposely or accidentally mis-represent the version on said device. I'm not sure what the advantage would be to do it on purpose though.

Android 1.4 doesn't exist. Instead, 1.1 went directly to 1.5; and each release were alphabetically named:

Android / Alpha (1.0)
Beta (1.1)
Cupcake (1.5)
Donut (1.6)
Eclair (2.0)
Froyo (2.2)
Gingerbread (2.3.x)
Honeycomb (3.x)
Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.x)
Jelly Bean (4.1.x - 4.3.x)
KitKat (4.4.x / 4.4W.x)
Lollipop (5.x)
Marshmallow (6.x)

Go to setting and check for device version located at the end.


text:
Are there any video players with commercial skip for Android?
I have a TiVo Series 3 and the TiVo Desktop Plus software, which I use to convert shows for playback on my iPod Touch.  I'd love to find a video player that would have 30 second/commercial skip for an Android phone (future purchase).  It's hard for me to adjust the slider on the video player with that degree of precision.

It's not an actual 30 second button, but MX Player has a feature to slowly adjust forward and backward (a full screen swipe typically does ~45-60 seconds), making it very easy to precisely navigate a video.


text:
How do I use the US Android Market from Europe?

Possible Duplicate:
Circumvent the regional limitation in the market
How can I buy apps from unsupported countries?

I am in Europe and I have an Android phone, but I cannot buy apps on the Android market? How can I overcome this limitation? I am thinking somehow registering with a US address. Is this possible?


text:
Alarm about Internet usage?

Possible Duplicate:
Monitor wifi usage?

Is there a way to have an alarm warn me every time I spent another 100MB and telling me the total I've spent on the last billing period to avoid going over my limit and into debt in Android?

It looks like NetCounter will do what you need

I'm using Network Monitor. With this free app you can track 2G/3G and WiFi traffic as separate stats. Also you can set up warning message for each stat.


text:
Renaming a contact group on Android
Is there any way to rename a contact group on the HTC Desire?
Via "Edit Group" in People you can add and remove members, but the title doesn't seem to be editable.
I could add a new group of course and move contacts over, but unless there's an easy way to do this en-mass this would be inconvenient.

Go to www.google.com and sign in. Click settings in the top right corner. Then click on "Dashboard      View data stored with this account". This will take you to your dashboard. Scroll down and you can manage contacts. The only group names you can edit are the ones you created yourself. The default Google ones are not editable.

Ah, this works though as it happens it looks like the group I was trying to edit is a default one, and thus isn't editable.  Normal user - created groups are actually rename-able on the phone, I was just confused.

Thats good to know that it is also editable on the phone.


text:
How do I limit 3g speed on my Nexus One
I have 1gb of traffic per month. Internet speed is 2.2mbits, so it's pretty easy to waste all gb in a few days. I don't usually watch youtube from my phone, and 500-700 kbits would be pretty enough for me. Is there an application or way I can manually limit 3g speed manually, without rooting the phone?

If all else fails, you could set the “Use only 2G networks” option...

Well that's too slow and doesn't worth it. But thanks)

3G Watchdog is capable, when coupled with APNdroid or JuiceDefender, to automatically disable mobile internet connections when you reach a configurable % of your quota.

Try NetSentry or 3G Watchdog.

I use 3g watchdog and NetCounter, but these only collect data about traffic, don't limit it in any way.

Did you try Netsentry? It doesn't limit traffic but can notify when limits are reached.

Apps which I use have this function too and much more. Thanks anyway)


text:
Leaving wi-fi on all the time
Does it highly affect the stand-by time to leave wi-fi open all the time on my phone?

Yes, I would imagine leaving WiFi on all the time would drain the battery faster. Even if you're not actively connected to an Access Point (AP), the phone is still constantly scanning all the APs in the vicinity of where you are and that takes energy.

The general rule is to turn off what you are not using.

This has been my experience with HTC's Evo:
WiFi uses less power compared to 3G when actively downloading/uploading large amounts of data.  Even when doing a lot of browsing.  However, unlike 3G, the WiFi radio never goes to sleep.  So when you aren't actively downloading data, it's best to turn it off.  This is unlike GPS and Bluetooth where if they aren't being used, they don't use much power at all.

Turning off anything that isn't in use will generally increase battery life.  Also remember that the biggest drain on the battery is generally the display.  Setting your brightness to the lowest level (or at least auto) can do a lot to save your battery life.  Also, if you typically connect to WiFi at home, but don't have access at your work, there are apps that can automatically turn off the WiFi radio (among other things) in the morning, then turn it back on in the late afternoon/early evening.  I use Advanced Volume Mode Scheduler to do this.

Wifi uses significantly less power then 2G or 3G and in fact uses less while connected and inactive than when it is searching for an AP. So I leave it on all the time and my battery lasts longer.

That is only half the story. Wifi uses significantly less power when actively transmitting data since it transmits lower range signals; but maintaining a Wifi radio without transmitting any data uses much more battery than maintaining a 3G radio.

As JamesRyan pointed out, leaving WiFi connected and inactive uses less battery than if it has to keep searching for an AP.
I use a HTC Desire and initially had my WiFi set to sleep after 15min, but then realised that every time I unlocked my phone it would wake the WiFi, and in turn it would start searching for an AP. Afterwards, I set WiFi to never turn off - this actually resulted in more battery power left at the end of the day (even with the occasional sync of my accounts - email, twitter etc).

By my experience it seems that if WiFi is connected to a network then leaving it on will improve standby time as all the periodic data access that an Android phone does will go through WiFi. And accessing data over WiFi is more battery efficient than 2G/3G/LTE.
On the other side, if WiFi is not connected to a network then it will constantly search for one and decrease the standby time.
So what I try to do is to leave WiFi on whenever I think I will be around a known WiFi AP for some time but I leave it off the rest of the time. The drawback is that it forces me to change the setting at least a couple times per day.

Yes, it decreases standby time because WIFI is one of the more significant things draining the battery. As long as WIFI is enabled, your phone is constantly scanning for new networks and "listening" on TCP ports.
Additionally it will be sending data from applications, requesting updates, etc.; and if you have the Play Store set to automatically update apps then it will also be downloading and installing apps, which also significantly drains the battery.


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power consumption by application?
Since cellphone application software requires extra power for processing. Is there any application software that indicate power consumption by particular application?

What platform are you asking about? iPhone? WinMo? Android? Blackberry?

I would be interested in each platform.  A very good question, if the answers might be somewhat indeterminate.

Settings > About Phone > Battery Use

I don't think this is going to be a popular answer, but you have to realize that your modern smart-phone is an incredibly complex beast, and battery life is affected by all sorts of things:

CPU usage (your phone might get warm, or use a system activity monitor for more details)
Bluetooth radio, is it on, is it in use (ie, headset or tethering)
Wireless radio, what protocol is it using? HSPA, EVDO, EDGE?
WiFi radio, are you actively using it? What version?
Proximity and power of nearest cell towers (weak towers = cell phone tries harder to connect, using more power).
Baseband version (this is the part of the phone os written and maintained by your carrier)

As you can see there are a lot of things that affect battery life, so it's tough to guarantee that any given App will have a given profile, since it's data usage might be over weak signal (which will reduce your battery life more).

I'm guessing it would be a no for all platforms, but Android is the only one I can speak to with certainty.
However, Android phones can tell you battery information for specific items and apps. Also if you are rooted you can use a command line command that gives even more information. If you have a Sprint phone you can try dialing (without quotes):
 "*#*#4636#*#*"
or
 "##DATA#"

Both are ## codes that give detailed info. The first is a battery info code and the second is one that gives cell radio and all other kinds of detailed info. But I don't think it gets that granular for cell radio.
Sprint might be able to give this information from their 4g app they have in their 2.2 Android OS, but I haven't looked into at all so that is just a guess.
An Android app called "OS Monitor" will give information about CPU utilization, but not cell radio. I think such an app doesn't exist.

Linux-based phones (with a GNU or Busybox userland, I'm unsure about Android) might be able to run powertop. It was designed for desktop/laptops but it could be useful on a phone.
Intel wrote it so there may not be an ARM build, but it's GPL-licensed so some enterprising hacker could port it.

Why not PowerTutor app which is freely available in Android Market.


text:
How can I prevent my HTC Desire from overheating?
Recently I bought an HTC Desire overall I'm very happy with it. There seems to be one major flaw, it overheats quite easily causing it to reboot. I've run into this several times while driving using the navigation whilst recharging. Does anyone have any suggestions to workaround this problem? I've searched around but haven't found any helpful information.

Using while charging is generally a bad idea.  It'll be easier on your battery if it's off while charging, as well.  I understand it's necessary sometimes though.

I also purchased HTC Desire recently and I found it was overheating while using Internet on 3G networks. When using Wi-Fi it doesn't heat-up much. Additionally it has some battery issues. Battery is getting low too quickly and charging takes so long. However we shouldn't forget it has won Phone of the year award in many contests. So I'll continue with it. Lets see what it will do in future.

[I also have a HTC Desire]
Your device overheats because its hardware is strained a lot during heavy use such as turn-by-turn navigation. This is compounded by the fact you probably have plugged it in the car charger as well, which is also known to generate some amount of heat (you probably have noticed this yourself when charging your phone normally).
There doesn't seem much that you can do to alleviate the problem, except turning off turn-by-turn navigation and only use the map to show you the route. You might also want to check whether there are other apps and services that strain unnecessary the device (frequent syncing could be an issue, as well as Bluetooth and mobile internet).

I also have the same problem i bought my HTC desire 3 weeks ago and if i stay on the internet for around 5 minutes, the phone starts to become extremely hot and if i continue ton use it it will cut of and reboot. my solution was take of the back cover and expose the battery. Taking this measure it kept my phone a little cooler and did not have to reboot.

This is a Q&A site not a forum,it is expected from you to give technical answers. Although you can mention your personal experience but it should come with technical reasoning, not just an opinion. Back your claim with credible sources. See How to Answer.

I have a rooted HTC Desire. My phone used to overheat and reboot.
I tried to solve it by moving some of my apps from Phone to SD. The phone is generally good but the battery runs out very quick. I advise nobody to get a task killer application from the market as i have experienced that it kills the phone battery more.
I tend to use 3G mobile-internet and that made my phone to overheat and crash - after I started using WiFi, it made a difference. Also this phone has problems in general with the battery the best advice would be to get a new battery of Amazon or E-bay and it lasts twice as long and the phone doesn't overheat at all.

Do not install unstable software. It is not stable. Then your mobile overheat.
Do not change CPU pulse rate. Keep normal number.
Keep free RAM and free space. Overload can heat mobile.
Some games need more RAM. It can overheat mobile.
Update operating system.

I disagree. Custom ROMs might not be as stable as some stock ROMs but only badly configured ROMs would overheat the device. By CPU pulse rate, do you mean frequency? If yes, what constitute as normal number? What does RAM has to do with overheating? Much of the heating that contributes to heating issues come from consistently high CPU and GPU cycles (too much electron flow, therefore, high generation of heat). If there is no stock update for ROM, what can a user do given that you asked them not to update to a custom ROM?

I said unstable custom ROM. You increase CPU pulse rate, it can heat mobile. You do not have memory and use high application, it can heat mobile.

You didn't say unstable earlier. // I can fill RAM to the brink of its limit, and it would still not contribute much in overheating.

I have written "it is not stable = unstable". Anyway you are senior I follow your instruction.


text:
How to break in a new cell phone battery?
Whats the best way to break in a new cell phone battery?
I just got a replacement battery for my Motorola Droid and so far through 2 cycles it is barely lasting a few hours.

Few hours talk time or standby time?

You may need to recalibrate the device for the new battery, especially if you got a 3rd-party replacement:

Allow the phone to drain completely to the point where the device no longer powers on
Plug the device in and allow it to charge completely. Do not use your device during this time.
After the device charges completely, keep the device connected to the charger for an additional 2+ hours.
Repeat this process once more to ensure that the device is being charged to maximum capacity.

If this doesn't cure your battery problems, make sure you don't have apps running in the background wasting power. Culprits include zealous Twitter clients and apps that constantly use the GPS.

You don't need to "break-in" a typical cell phone (lithium-ion) battery. It doesn't help the battery at all.
Having said that, as Kyle mentioned, calibrating it may be necessary.

Is it a lithium polymer battery battery? Discharging it probably won't have any effect:

This used to be true for NiMH
  batteries, where discharging fully was
  thought to help extend both voltage
  depression effects (where cell voltage
  would start to drop more quickly when
  in use) and general capacity (the
  "memory effect").
Fully discharging cells cures voltage
  depression in NiMH cells, but if you
  fully discharge a whole NiMH battery
  pack then the stronger cells in the
  battery will "reverse" the weaker
  ones. The weaker ones go flat first,
  and then get charged backwards by the
  others. This is bad for the weaker
  cells, and will kill a NiMH battery
  pack more quickly. Model enthusiasts
  will use a proper electronic
  discharger that discharges the cells
  without damaging them.
There is no need at all to
  purposefully discharge a lithium
  polymer battery. The chemistry is
  totally different. Each cell in a lipo
  pack has a working voltage between
  4.2v (fully charged) and 3v (fully discharged). If you run any lipo
  battery based RC models then you'll
  know how carefull you have to be.. fly
  your lipo helicopter for a few minutes
  after the power has dropped each time
  and then youll have to chuck the
  battery away within a few charges as
  youve completely messed it up! A
  laptop will switch off when any of the
  cells in the pack reach 3v to protect
  the battery. Then when it is charging
  it will charge each cell individually
  and balance them all out. There is no
  memory effect though.
Model enthusiasts preserve your lipo
  batteries when not in use by keeping
  them in the fridge. Even better if
  they are discharged half way
  (apparently).
Totally impractical for a laptop
  battery, but a cold laptop might be
  nice on a warm day.

(Lifted from this discussion on laptop batteries, but pertinent anyway)

Discharging the battery is not about the battery,  it's to calibrate the phone to the batteries capacity. It needs to go from 0 to full a couple times to know what 0 and full are. Makes no difference what chemistry the battery is

You are ALL very WRONG!  Discharging ANY LiPo to 0V makes it puff up.  Do it every day and your battery will suffer the very first week I guarantee.  There is no "Battery Level Calibration".  That is an imagined myth.  The Battery % is a table of Voltage Vs. % Capacity, with some guard band to save your battery from total discharge, which will hurt it!

If you are going to claim everyone else is wrong, please provide links to references to support all your statements.  Although I agree with most of your statements, how you presented them is rather off-putting and they are also completely unsupported with helpful references.


text:
HTC HERO OTA update to Android version 2.1 firmware deleted the Calibrate Touch Screen feature from the menus. How do I get it back?
HTC directly updated over-the-air (OTA) from 1.5 android to 2.1 android firmware on my handset. Since that time, the touch-screen (which is miscalibrated) can no longer be recalibrated, because the menu item has disappeared.
I have, of course, requested support from HTC via email, but I doubt that they will find an answer here, and I suspect my phone is now junk, unless some enterprising Phone-savvy person can figure out how to restore this thing.   There is sadly no backup that I know of that I can use to restore this phone, and going back to Android 1.5 has a host of issues associated with it.
How can I get this working again?  I could use any technique that will let me recalibrate the touch screen, even if it isn't the built-in menu item, maybe there is a way to bring that up indirectly somehow, or through an add-on app?
Incidentally, HTC HERO's seem to be famous on internet cell-phone forums for glitchy capacitive touch screens.

Unfortunately I'm pretty sure this isn't possible. How long have you had your phone? If it's still under warranty/insured, you should be able to get it replaced and can make sure that the new one has a good screen. Sounds like a hardware problem to me.

You're right. I contacted HTC and they say that this kind of capacitive multi-touch screen is either auto-calibrated during a hard-reset or goes back to them for service. It was the latter.

Now I have doubts. I have already sent it to them, but in some forums, people are saying that it's a firmware glitch. So I've paid shipping so they can address this firmware glitch as a warranty repair, I think.

Saw this on SDX Developers forum.  You might want to try it out
===============================================================
http://forum.sdx-developers.com/android-1-5/htc-hero-virtual-keyboard-on-moment/
This is a quick guide on how to get the htc hero vk onto your moment.
(1) You will need to go onto the android market and download an app installer.  'appmanager' should work.
(2) Download the HTC virtual keyboard apk
(3) Connect phone to computer, mount the phone, then move file onto a folder on the sdcard.  unmount.
(4) open appmanager -> press 'menu' key -> select 'Install from SD'.  There you can install the .apk file. If the file is not visible, press menu again, and select 'Whole SD' so that you can see the file.
(5) Go to your home
-> go to 'Settings' -> 'Locale & text'.  Select 'Touch Input'.
(6) Go to someplace where you input text, such as messaging. Long-press on the text input field, and select 'Input Method'. Select 'Touch Input'.
If you would like to calibrate the htc vk, download this file: calibration apk
(1) follow steps 3 and 4 above.
(2) to calibrate: go to 'settings' -> 'Locale & Text' -> 'touch input' settings -> 'text input' -> select 'calibration tool'
Thanks to bjb_nyj101 for locating the htc vk; and hokansoc for locating the calibration tool.
Also note: the calibration tool isn't necessary for it to work, so you should be ok even if you can't get it to install.
=============================================================


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HTC Delivery Report
Is there a way to turn on the text message delivery report on the HTC Desire?
Does it even have a delivery report functionality?

Open the "Messages" app
press menu
choose settings
enable "Delivery reports" (4th option from the top)


text:
Is it possible to use an Android phone in "disk mode"?
If I connect an iPhone to a PC it is not possible to copy files between the PC and the iPhone. I would like to be able to do this because it would be useful.
What happens if I connect an Android phone to a PC? Do I see it as a disk or is it similar to the iPhone?

Wait, hang on! Why are you asking about iPhone in not being able to copy files? Use iTunes for that!

Absolutely, and it's very easy.  This is the procedure for my Samsung Galaxy S; other phones may be different:

Plug in the USB cable and a USB icon
appears in the notification area at
the top of the screen.
Pull down the
notification and tap "USB
connected".
Tap "Mount" on the
dialog box that's displayed.
Two
removable drives show up on my PC;
one for the built-in flash memory,
and one for the expansion SD card.

great. It is what i hoped; soon or later i will try to get an Android phone :-) Thank you !!

Yeah, this varies by phone (or possibly carrier?) - on the Moto Droid, you only see the expansion SD card, not the built-in memory.

This works fine, but I've found that I get better data transfer rates if I remove the SD card and use a card reader.

power users can push things to sd card w/o mounting in in terminal type adb push  /sdcard/

Only one little thing, there are Android phones that have this function disabled, like for example the Samsung Galaxy S that requires to install a special app on your computer to copy files from/to the phone.

@doliveras: I have a Galaxy S and don't need any app (I presume you mean Kies?) to copy files.  If yours is set up that way (mine wasn't when I got the phone), you can change it in Settings > Applications > USB settings: you get a choice of Kies, Media player, Mass storage or Ask on connection.  Select one of the last two.

On my HTC Desire you choose "Disk drive" mode although you only see the SDCard not the internal memory.

Same thing for HTC Hero. I imagine all HTC phones can do this.


text:
Geo-tagging DSLR photos with Android
Is there any app for Android that would assist me on tagging the pictures I take with my non-GPS DSLR camera by using a log of the phone GPS that Android can store?

GPS Essentials app will let you set waypoints of you location, so you could set a waypoint when you take a picture.
You could then use software like GeoTag to tag your images on your computer when you get home.

So, I have to manually take the current geolocation. Won't it constantly store it with a timestamp, like My Tracks?

I was looking for a similar solution. Does this help?
Update:
In short, use MyTrack app on android to generate a GPX log and then use GPicSync to use that log to geotag your pics.

Just make sure you sync the time on phone and camera. You can edit time in your .gpx files later, if needed, but it can take some time.
In case you have had different time on your camera and GPS, you can use command line utility ExifTool for time shifting. For your convienience, there is also a GUI frontend for that tool.

GUI frontend can be found here: http://freeweb.siol.net/hrastni3/

This application would solve your problem
Geo tag photos
This system uses the phone to track the time and location and then you upload your photos from the DSLR to a website and the site will help you geo tag your photos based on your phone's information.  Basically the phone keeps track of where you are and sends the info to the site and then when you upload the photos the site matches the timestamps on the photos with locations.


text:
Voice-to-text on keyboard in HTC Sense
I've just got my phone upgraded to Android 2.1. It's a HTC Hero running HTC Sense. One of the features I was really looking forward to in Android 2.1 was the microphone button on the keyboard which you can use to dictate into any text field.
However, this button doesn't seem to be there on the HTC Sense keyboard. Is there any way to enable this?

So did you try anything?

Go to Settings, Language and Keyboard and see if there is another keyboard you can enable and use. If there is one, check the box to enable it. Then go out and open something that requires text input like an text message. Long click on the text field and choose Input Method. Then change to the keyboard you just enabled. See if it has the microphone.
If you only have one keyboard to enable you could try a third party one like Swiftkey Beta. I use it and it has a microphone option for speech input. Plus the keyboard rocks with all kinds of great features.

Thank you. I managed to download this keyboard, and it has a microphone button.

Would you mind voting?

The new OTA update of Android version 2.10.405.2 included a voice-to-text option on the keyboard. The microphone key is located on the left of the comma key.

NB: I believe this update has only so far been released to unlocked HTC phone users only... if your phone is locked to a network you must wait for your network to push the update.


text:
'Car Home' in HTC Hero, Android 2.1
I've just had my HTC Hero upgraded to Android 2.1, and I have heard about the Car Home function, which sounds great for when I use the new Google Maps Navigation in my car. However, this doesn't seem to be on my phone. Is that because of HTC installing HTC Sense? If so, can I get Car Home back again?

That app might not be available for the Hero, it is up to HTC and Sprint if they are going to include it in a release. What was the function of Car Home, what does it do? There might be something you can download or do to get the same functionality.

Check out the marketplace have a look at 'CarUI' similar but not identical.  Might have to root our Heros to get it, as it probably only compatible with 2.2 sigh

Take a look at some alternatives, such as Car Dashboard, which is a Car Home replacement app.
Discalimer: I am the developer of this application

You may want to try the following link:
http://androidforums.com/htc-desire/177579-froyo-car-panel-desire-htc-navigation-panel.html
The first post should have links to three different "Car Home" applications: Google Car Home, Google Car Launcher, and HTC Navigation Panel.  You will need to either go to this site on your phone and click the links or download the .apk and transfer it to your phone.  After reading a little more down the page it seems if you choose the Google one then you need to install both not just one of them.
I haven't tried these on my Hero yet (I will tonight after work) but in my experience trying to install apks either works or it doesn't - so give these a shot and see if any of them work.  If anyone has had different experience installing non-market apk's please sound off in the comments.
I also just found this page:
http://geekfor.me/hero/downloads/fresh21removedapks/
These are apps that are removed from the fresh ROM 2.1 for the Hero.  As you can see from the list the HTC Navigation Panel is in there.  However I don't know if you need to be on fresh ROM for these to work.
All that said, Byran's Car Dashboard look like a pretty cool replacement if you don't need the official Google or HTC car app.


text:
On an HTC Evo, is there any way to sync only 'my contacts' from gmail (not 'all contacts')?
I've seen references to this posted elsewhere, but never a solution. I'd like to only sync the "my contacts" group of contacts from my gmail (really google apps, but should work the same) account, rather than "all contacts". I can not find an option to change this. Any suggestions?

I like to sync all contacts and then in contact list I choose to only show the ones with phone numbers. To do this open Contacts > menu > View > select "Contacts with phone numbers". Not sure if that is what you are looking for but is the only thing I could find for a solution on Evo.
Strange, the directions below will work on other Android devices, but not an HTC Sense devices.
Open contacts > menu > Settings > Edit sync groups. Select "Sync all contacts", "My Contacts" or "Starred in Android".
For HTC sense do the following, contacts (people) > Groups tab > menu > Sync Groups.
Note, on my Evo neither option worked for me. I'm running 2.2 and suspect that is part of the reason.

I am using the option to only sync contacts with phone numbers, but I'd still like to prevent it from syncing all of my gmail contacts.  I like having peoples' contact information available in gmail, but don't want everyone I correspond with to be synced to my phone. This is a pretty frustrating shortcoming, especially considering it's just a matter of a Google product interacting correctly with another Google product.

Are you rooted?

It is possible to do if rooted by either running an ASOP ROM or by installing the ASOP contacts apk. But it looks like that is the only way to accomplish this.

So this is a complete workaround, but worked for me and I'll keep it this way until there's a better solution.  It's a real pain to have contacts updating each time you send an email to someone.  I for instance, sell items on craigslist occasionally and in a 5 day period got and replied to over 60 people, most of them offering some sort of offshore job offer scam.....yet they all go in my EVO 4G contacts!  Irritating for sure.
What I did was this, it took me a half an hour:
Set up a New Account Group in Google called Temporary (name is irrelevant)
Moved all of the contacts that I didn't want on my phone into this group
Deleted all of them
Deleted the group altogether
Then I set my Auto-Sync settings on my handset for contact-syncs to Manual.
So now, I have only the contacts I want on my phone.  Not sure how this will play out once I want to add contacts, but for now my contact book is very clean and tidy.

With Gmail, at least, you can turn off the setting whereby every person you send an e-mail message to ends up in your contacts.

I don't know if the Evo uses the vanilla contacts and dialing app, but if it does, it's a two step process.  First, you have to organize your contacts into groups in GMail.  Adding a star to any contact on your phone will add it to the "Stared in Android" contact group in GMail.  This will be principally for contacts that you wish to sync, but don't feel like putting into another group.  For me, these are mainly the phone numbers of local taxi companies.  Now, on your phone, open your contacts, hit the menu button, and select Display Options, expand the google contacts, and then start deselecting groups, especially All Other Contacts.  All Other Contacts include all the contacts that are in My Contacts (added liberally by GMail) but aren't in any groups.


text:
Can I convert Samsung Omnia WinMobile to Android OS phone

Possible Duplicate:
Can I install Android on my non-Android device?

I have Samsung Omnia I900 one of first line Omnia devices on WinMobile 6 OS,
Since phone is now near end of its life, Ill like to try BOOT Android on it.
Is that possible, Does exists any tutorial for that.
I once fund one site which was on way to boot android on Omnia, but they in that time did not have all drivers for Omnia.

is there a new update on the android version of omnia as of 2010

your discussion appears to be interesting to me, I am trying to reboot my Omnia I900 with andriod, But how can I do this I am having andromnia with me but not sure whether it will work or not, can any body provide me proper guidance as i do not want to destroy my omnia

i have the omnia i900, and i likee to convert my mobile os to andorid =) how can i do it?
plz help me

The answer appears to be a yes. But we need more information about your phone. Exact model number, carrier, CDMA or GSM, etc. The more specific you can be about the phone you have the better.
Typically the process for getting Android on a WinMo phone is this, unlock with a custom bootloader, install a newer radio (not always required, depends), install a custom ROM, and then install Android using your preferred method. You mileage will vary as the process for installing a custom ROM differs for each phone manufacturer.
There are 2 main methods. 1 install HBOOT and run Android from the SD card and memory. This is preferred by me and many others because it doesn't disrupt the actual phone itself, rather it runs on top of your WinMo phone. This means you can keep your WinMo phone in tact and can easily go back to it any time.
2 flash Android ROM over WinMo and go full Android. This method is more risky because you are flashing a completely different OS over whatever WinMo ROM you had installed. So there is no easy way to go back to WinMo. You would have to flash a WinMo ROM and start over to go back to it. This method is a more permanent Android running on a WinMo phone solution.
I would recommend the 1st method first. Then go from there. But personally I never flashed Android on a WinMo phone. The other method was way too convenient for me.
I have some links below that should help, but your version of your phone is going to be key. DO NOT start downloading files and running them until you understand that your phone version is supported by the tools you are using.
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=103190&highlight=install+custom+rom
http://www.modaco.com/content/i9x0-omnia-http-omnia-modaco-com/289028/project-andromnia-android-on-omnia/
http://andromnia.net/
It looks likes the i900 and i910 are well supported, so if you have one of those you should be good to go.


text:
What is the right way to close apps in Android?
I'm new to the Android platform, and this is probably a dumb question, but...
How do you close an app?
When I'm in an app, and I want to get out, I just click on "Home" and move on, but I just installed a Task Manager app, and I noticed everything is left running.
Is there a way to exit apps? Or do I need to use the Task Manager every time I exit something?

See also: How can I stop applications and services from running?

If you exit the app using the BACK button then it will call onDestroy() on the current Activity, If you press HOME it only calls onPause()
Don't be too worried about it though, Activities won't drain battery they are just left in memory so they can be opened faster in the future.
I wouldn't recommend using one of those task killer apps Android is designed to keep that stuff in memory for a reason, using a task killer is only one more extra service tugging away at your battery..  What you need to watch out for is apps that run services in the background like twitter or email clients pulling their servers, any good app that has a service like that will have an option to turn it off.

I have noticed a couple apps that do eat through a lot of battery in this paused state.  Namely, the latest version of Google Maps and a game I've got called GalaxIR.  So keep an eye out for bad offenders and be sure to close those ones properly.

you are mistaken, if it is eating your batter that is a background service.

It is indeed possible to have an application that is not well developed and does not follow the Android application life cycle. For instance, a thread can be left active in an activity even after it was paused by the OS (by pressing Home), in this case the app will continue using battery.

I wouldn't keep anything like that installed on my phone :-)

@schwiz Are you sure that the Back button will call onDestroy()? I have not noticed this mentioned in activity lifecycle. AFAIK the Back button does just pop the Activity's view from the stack. Can you show us a reference where this is stated?

@Flow just make a simple activity that prints to the console when onDestroy is called and you will see that the back button destroys the activity.

@schwiz You are right, this is documented here. Maybe you want to put this as link into your answer.

I have found that many apps do not exit when I hit the Back button. For example:Pandora, G

(my edit time expired)....other apps that don't close on Back button:  Pandora (which even continues to play after pressing Back), Google Play Store, FaceBook, Podkicker. The way I'm testing is to click the Back button until the app disappears (usually that puts me back on Home) and then running Easy Task Killer.

I'm pretty sure that everything I've ever read says that the Back button is the right way to exit out of apps.
Pressing Home leaves them running in the background until Android decides that they're not needed any more, which can be handy if you just need to switch between apps to check something (holding Home for a couple of seconds gives you the list of recently running apps you can switch back to on most phones) but coming out using the back button tells the app that you want it to close.

Holding the Home button just list the last 6 opened apps, not the running one.

@Loïc: it shows 8 for me.

@LoicWolff, AlEverett It depends on the launcher in question that is used and the ROM itself.

That's not quite true. Activities don't run in the background on Android.

Some apps have an "Exit" option in their menus. Most don't.
You don't really need to worry about it. You can just go to whatever app you need next. Android does a pretty good job freeing up resources when required.
Update: AndroidSpin did some real-world research.

Nice link, ty :)

Activities don't run in the background
In Android, activities (that is, the part of the app you can see) never run in the background. They can only run (and use battery power) while they're on the screen. The activity stops running regardless of whether you use home or back to leave it. The only difference is what data Android asks the app to save, so neither option is "the right way". It just depends on what you want to do.
Home
If you use home, Android leaves the app in the same state, so that if you come back to it later (e.g. through the recent apps list), it'll still be in the same state you left it: on the same screen, with the same stuff shown. For example, if it's an email app, and you were looking at one email, then it'll remember which email that was, and show you the same one.
Eventually (after about half an hour), Android concludes that you're not coming back to the app, so it resets this state: next time you start the app, it'll start from the front/main screen. To continue the example, the email app will forget which email and folder you were looking at, and show you the inbox.
Back
If you use back, you're telling Android that you don't want to come back to this view. It'll destroy the information about what you were looking at right away. Next time you start the app, it'll show the front screen (e.g. the inbox).
As others have said, apps can control the behaviour of the back button: for example, web browsers use it to go back in the browser history. What I've described is the default behaviour of the back button, and developers are urged to keep the behaviour like that to avoid being confusing.
Cached background processes
Whichever method you use, Android will leave the app in memory (but not running) for as long as it can. This is to be more efficient. When you come back to the app, if it's still in memory, Android can run it again right away; if it isn't still in memory, then Android has to spend time and energy loading the app from storage again.
In old Android versions, apps left in memory in the background this way were included in the list of "running apps". This is a little confusing for users - it makes people think the app is really still running - so newer versions call these apps "cached background processes", to make it clear they're only cached, not running.
What about background apps?
Earlier on, I said that activities don't run in the background. So how does your email client check for mail? As well as activities, apps can have services. Services don't have any GUI for you to see or interact with, but they do run in the background. Usually, a service will only run infrequently, such as to check mail once an hour, but it's possible for the app developer to run the service all the time, draining your battery.
Leaving an activity with back or home doesn't change how Android treats any services from the same app: the service can continue to run, or be triggered later at a given time (next time the mail check is due).
Summary
In summary, it doesn't really matter whether you use back or home: it only changes what the app shows you next time you run it. It doesn't have an effect on battery use. Neither of them corresponds to "exiting" a program on your PC.

I'm so glad someone covered this!  I'm a developer, but I used to work for Verizon Wireless and I can't tell you how many  people were concerned about this when there wasn't any need to be.

In Android, applications never need to be closed and the OS is taking care of cleaning the memory of any remaining applications when the resources are needed elsewhere. Using a task killer will just break the normal operation of the OS and could even slow down the device because the applications will always have to be reloaded from the start.
Android application life cycle is working in a way that applications that are not on top are moved in a paused state that doesn't use any cpu anymore; only the memory content is kept in case the application is opened again; and the memory will be freed if needed.
This being said, the application developer has the responsibility to follow the application life cycle when he creates his application so some bugs or mistakes can happen that will result in an application that never really stops or pause. If you encounter such application and what to close it you can do it through the "Settings" -> "applications" -> "Manage applications" by selecting "Force stop" on the application.
But I would really not recommend using a task killer that is constantly running on the device.

Just want to add in schwiz's answer that it's just few lines of code needed to override the functionality of the back button. So it's not always reliable to close the app. So if the app developer doesn't want to close the app on pressing the back button, it won't get closed.
Although most good app developers popup an alert dialog on pressing back button on home menu of the app, asking if the user intends to exit the app or not, if you click on exit, it does close the app.
The correct answer could be this, the closure of the app is completely upon the app developer, if they wants the app to close on pressing the home button, they'll put the exit code in onPause(). If they want it on back button, they'll put it in the onBackKeyPressed. So it's not really in hand of the user.
The user can just avoid using the apps which doesn't provide the proper closing functionality, when not needed. The task managers are not a good way to close the app, since it can crash the app and doesn't give them a chance to save their state.
The OS does close the app whenever necessary, so you should not worry too much about it.
Edit:
There's an option to destroy the applications, as soon as you leave the app i.e. when you click the home key. You can go to Settings->Developer Options->Don't keep Activities. Although it's a developer option, but if you're too concerned about the apps running in background, you can use this option. But keep in mind that it's not recommended to be used by non-developers.


text:
Where to find Android benchmarks results?
I am looking for a site where to find Android benchmark results for the different smartphones and android builds.

http://smartphonebenchmarks.com/
That link is unverified nor do I know how scientific any of it is. But it was about all I could fine for multiple devices.


text:
How do I create a Favorite Contacts shortcut on Droid X?
On the motorola Droid X there is a favorite contacts shortcut. I'd like to add this on another screen but I can't figure out how to create a new one. Any ideas?

while all of the above is true, you can simply click menu -> add -> shortcut -> dialer -> favorites to recreate the shortcut if you accidenatlly delete it.  that is if you are talking about the little red icon with the star that takes you to the favorites tab in the dialer.

"long touch" on the screen (the wallpaper) so the Add to Home screen option opens.
touch Motorola widgets
touch Contact quick tasks
choose the contact you want to add
choose the contact method(s)
done!

Some widgets might only be able to be placed once. If you only want one instance of it, but on another screen, just long click (click on the widget and keep your click/pressure on it or keep your finger pressed to the screen) till you have control of it. On my Android device I feel a vibrate and the widget shakes on the screen. Then just move it where ever you want. To go to another screen hold the widget to the edge of that screen and you should be on the the next screen.
Another tip that might be easier than moving apps and widgets on homescreens, just long click on them till you have control and remove them by dragging to the bottom of the screen. Then go to the screen you want and add it. Long click on an empty space of the homescreen and choose "widgets" then find your widget and add it.
Update:
So at the very top of my widget list is something that says, "Get more HTC widgets". You could see if you have that. Not sure if Motorola has their own option there or not.
Also try looking at your widget list and then see if you have "Contacts" or "People". On my phone I have "People" and that allows me to add one of those favorite listings for my contacts.

I know how to add widget and manage widgets. My question is how to add the favorite contacts shortcut/widget/whatever it is.

Have you ever had that widget on your phone before? I know HTC has a favorite contact widget, but it is a sense widget and would not work on a Droid of any kind without some modification. If so, if Motorola has there own version, I would think you could just follow the directions I wrote in my answer for adding a widget. It should show up in the listing of widgets.

The widget is already on the screen and it doesn't show up in any of the lists.

So at the very top of my widget list is something that says, "Get more HTC widgets". You could see if you have that. Also try looking at your widget list and then see if you have "Contacts" or "People". On my phone I have "People and that allows me to add one of those favorite listings.


text:
Better keyboard on Nexus One?
is there some easy way to get a better keyboard on the Nexus One? The default keyboard has way to small buttons and it's hard to use.

possible duplicate of Alternative keyboards

see also: phones with built-in QWERTY keyboards http://android.stackexchange.com/questions/187/what-are-some-good-android-phones-with-built-in-qwerty-keyboard

There are a ton of keyboard apps out there -- check out the market for both free and paid.
I hate tapping and tapping, and there are at least two slide-the-finger virtual keyboards available:
Swype is my favorite -- but that's only been out in a limited beta for Android, so far. Maybe again....
ShapeWriter is a good substitute... but that's off the market due to a post-merger company re-org  (kids, THIS is why FLOS is a Good Idea). Hit up google, and you'll find a few people that have the .apk available, though. Here's one (as of Sept 2, 2010).
JetKeys is one of the weirdest that I've seen. Not a glider -- touch in the center of key, then slide in a direction to select alternate characters. Great idea, weird to use.

I have some more notes in a blog post.

Can't really get Swype because of the beta. Would like to try shapewriter, but I really don't like downloading software that is not on the marketplace. So this question is still unsolved imho.

There is another slide-the-finger virtual keyboard called SlideIT.

Getting the Swype beta isn't difficult, but you do have to sign up. Then just download & install the Swipe Installer .apk and let it do its thing.

The just-announced Android 2.3 has a much-improved keyboard. The Nexus One will almost certainly get Gingerbread, and sooner than most.
However, you can get the Gingerbread keyboard on your phone now. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.moo.android.inputmethod.latin.free

Video of the Gingerbread keyboard here, for those that like to see before they try: http://www.androidguys.com/2010/12/07/hands-gingerbread-keyboard/

it is now no longer necessary to be rooted to install Gingerbread keyboard on pre-Gingerbread phones: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.moo.android.inputmethod.latin.free

Cool. Thanks @Lie. I've updated my answer accordingly.

There should be some stuff on XDA Developers (http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=560) just do some searching at that link. I've seen droid keyboards floating around and I bet someone has one ported for the Nexus.
I would also check out Swype (have to go to their website to get it http://www.swypeinc.com/) and Swiftkey Beta (can be downloaded from marketplace. Both of these are the best keyboards I have used because they both allow quick typing and aren't overly annoying with suggestions.

You can try SlideIt from the Android Market : - https://market.android.com/details?id=com.dasur.slideit.vt.lite&feature=search_result
Its much better than swype in my experience !

I recommend ThickButtons keyboard which I have been using for years. Free tool, and it uses predictive text algorithm to enlarge the most-probable keys for the next character. Really good for my fat fingers and thumbs.