I wanted to try out Android and give it a chance, so I bought a Galaxy S2. However, now I regret it. My Apple Earbuds do not work with it properly, especially the volume controls. I need to unplug it for the mic to work properly and the define function, which I regularly use as a student, is not available. I should have bought an iPhone 4 or even earlier for about the same price. I now use a custom ROM with jelly bean, in hopes of getting the same level of smoothness, but more and more problems pile up. And it is more difficult to customise. No activator, tweaks are so fragmented, backing up properly needs rooting, etc. I don't feel it is better in any possible way. I hope my experience will help others to know, don't go for Android if you are a power user who jailbroke your iPhone before. Android just can't compete with jailbroken iOS, rooted or not. Hope this helps you avoid a bad experience.
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I so regret buying an S2 instead on an iPhone of old
- Thread starter caspersoong
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How is Android not more customizable than a jailbroken iPhone? You're one fo the very few people I've heard saying that. Also, if you are not comfortable with flashing ROMs, you should stick with the stock OS.
I also have a Galaxy S2 (flashed Paranoid Android Rom) and it runs great. Also, the GS2 is running older hardware. You should have gotten a GS3, or the upcoming Nexus 4.
The s3 or the galaxy nexus would have been a better choice. The s2 doesn't have proper working project butter. The s2 has the old style touchwiz which I personally am not a fan of.
I got cyanogen mod 10 without touchwiz (which I hate as well). It is extremely customisable, just that it is much harder to do so because of the lack of a store like cydia and the fact that ony a few ROMs are supported for many of the tweaks. Instead I have to hunt through the play store and XDA.
That's another problem that people have when trying Android. Android runs on a vast number of different hardware. Just because you have a bad experience with an Android devices doesn't mean that Android sucks. There's a difference.
It's the same thing with Windows machines.
It's the same thing with Windows machines.
True, but the problems I highlighted are problems with the OS, not with the hardware. If I were to complain about the SGS2 hardware, it would be that it feels super cheap and the bump at its end is super irritating. I have no problems with the CPU or RAM or its lack of notification light, etc.
If you don't mind me asking, asides from the problem with your earphones not working, what issues did you have with the stock OS?
Touchwiz is too problematic. If I were to talk about the problems of the stock OS there would be too many because of touchwiz. For one, the smoothness. The brightness control not working properly. The tethering always breaking down halfway and forcing me to reset every few minutes. And this was stock ICS. The lack of many features I have come to love about jailbroken iOS such as the ability to customise everything about the OS. lousy, slow touchwiz apps. Phone app not registering any of the names I type. Google search takes 10 seconds for the keyboard to pop up. Contacts messing up every few days. Thankfully many of these issues are fixed in cyanogenmod 10 jb.
Thanks but I don't really care about customising visuals. It is adding functions to the OS that would greatly help me, such as Activator, and customising the information given such as IP address, available RAM in the drop down menu, etc. android is good at visual customisation but it is hard to find features I need.
Apples earbuds don't work correctly because Apple designed them not too. Guess what...the lightning plug won't work in anything other then a Apple device either. Btw Apple earbuds suck.
Not sure what you mean by define function. Let me know because I'm using Google search to define anyway. Btw if you mean using Siri, that's not available on the '4' you wish you would have gotten.
Yeah, you root rom switch version of Android then say its not customizable as an iPhone? I cant even JB because I'm on iOS 6 and even if I could I couldn't change versions.
I've found iCloud back up the same as Google. Stores all my crap and returns it too my phone after a reset. iTunes can arguably be better if you are not willing to root....I use iCloud though and it works ok'ish....
Not sure what you mean by define function. Let me know because I'm using Google search to define anyway. Btw if you mean using Siri, that's not available on the '4' you wish you would have gotten.
Yeah, you root rom switch version of Android then say its not customizable as an iPhone? I cant even JB because I'm on iOS 6 and even if I could I couldn't change versions.
I've found iCloud back up the same as Google. Stores all my crap and returns it too my phone after a reset. iTunes can arguably be better if you are not willing to root....I use iCloud though and it works ok'ish....
I bought an S2 last month with ICS 4.0.4. I haven't had any application crash on me yet. Not one. Tethering and brightness control is working properly as well. According to Samsung, the S2 will be upgraded to Jelly Bean this month. It is probably a fair assumption that the stock JB Project Butter will work fine.
Consider reinstalling the stock OS and waiting for the official update.
I've never tried Activator. Is it similar to Tasker for android? Tasker is pretty much the ultimate customizability app for Android.
Also, a neat little trick is that you can swipe across the notification bar to change brightness. Some of the issues you are describing, such as contacts messing up sound very strange to me. What exactly is messing up?
If you haven't visited it already, you should definitely go to the Galaxy S2 forums in XDA? Anything that you could possibly need, you will find it there.
The notification bar in Android is very customizable. You don't need to root to display IP address or RAM usage in the notification bar. For example, I just typed in 'ram' in the play store and installed the very first app : Smart Ram Booster. It does exactly what you asked for.
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You haven't even properly told us what these features are that you need. If you can do this then maybe we can help you and this thread will look less like other iOS users indulging themselves in a circle-jerk of frenzied Android hatred.
May I ask why "back in up needs rooting" is an issue when you are already running custom firmware which is undoubtedly rooted? Do you desire to go back to a stock, unrooted TouchWiz rom but can't because you lose the ability to use apps like Titanium Backup?
As cynics said, Apple ear buds do not work on the S2 but the stock Samsung ones should be fine. I'm not sure if there is a difference in the jack leads but the apple buds never worked for me when I accidentally left the house with the Wong headphones.
Once the kernel source and official JellyBean ROM hits you should be on the way to a better JellgBean experience once hopefully.
I do agree that given your criticisms of Android, if you want a jailbroken iOS experience them the only thing to go for is a jailbroken iPhone. Good luck in future, perhaps you can try to trade your S2 for someone's iPhone 4 online? Post in a few classifieds areas on forums to garner some interest. Good luck!
As cynics said, Apple ear buds do not work on the S2 but the stock Samsung ones should be fine. I'm not sure if there is a difference in the jack leads but the apple buds never worked for me when I accidentally left the house with the Wong headphones.
Once the kernel source and official JellyBean ROM hits you should be on the way to a better JellgBean experience once hopefully.
I do agree that given your criticisms of Android, if you want a jailbroken iOS experience them the only thing to go for is a jailbroken iPhone. Good luck in future, perhaps you can try to trade your S2 for someone's iPhone 4 online? Post in a few classifieds areas on forums to garner some interest. Good luck!
I think you're confusing touchwiz with Android. You keep harping on the OS but all your gripes pertain to touchwiz. I have used older versions of sense w/android (Inspire 4G) that date around the same time frame with the Galaxy S2 and have never experienced any of those issues.
I agree touchwiz sucks. I've known this since their first iteration on the Samsung Behold 2. Your issues are with Samsung, not Android.
Try GMD it's the closest thing to Activator that I know of. https://play.google.com/store/search?q=gmd+gesture+control&c=apps
Sorry OP but I think like what others are saying you're confusing Touchwiz with Android. Please let us know what customization trouble you are having. What specific ROM are you running? What kernel? I have a few friends with Galaxy S2s running custom JB roms and all of them don't have any problems. You mentioned that backing up 'properly' needs rooting. I don't get what you mean by that because according your post you installed a custom ROM running JB. In order for you to install a custom rom you have to be rooted anyway.
Those types of things you can all get widgets and apps for. If you want more of that in a ROM, aokp or codename android may be more your style. Those features are all built in.
All the root apps are in the regular play store. Just search root. Many of the things you want don't even require root by the way. Memory and battery widgets don't need root.
This is probably what your looking for. Doesn't require root.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.faberfox.systemon
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The problem here is that you expected CM10 to work flawlessly on a nightly/monthly build. You can't, it's just not there yet and won't be until the end of the year, or even January.
And most likely you aren't even looking hard enough for the tweaks, or are looking at stuff that's not even for ICS and above.
I also have a S2.
And most likely you aren't even looking hard enough for the tweaks, or are looking at stuff that's not even for ICS and above.
I also have a S2.
I noticed that earphones and headset jacks for different phones seem to work differently for some reason. It appears that each manufacturer does some tweak that may make it incompatible with earphones of other manufacturers. I noticed this across the many phones I have used from different manufacturers.