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just purchased s3. Android newbie

D

diegoesk

macrumors regular
Original poster
Former iphone user here. Trying to get used to the android way of things. So far so good.

Can someone recommend good apps for killing background processes. And any other apps you can recomnend. Not really interested in flashing my phone at this point.
 
diegoesk said:
Former iphone user here. Trying to get used to the android way of things. So far so good.

Can someone recommend good apps for killing background processes. And any other apps you can recomnend. Not really interested in flashing my phone at this point.
Click to expand...

It is my understanding that android can manage background tasks just fine. Most experienced android users recommend against any type of task killer app.

Of course you can kill your recent apps but holding down the home button and swiping them left and right off the screen but I don't think that actually kills something that is "running" in the background.
 
I agree with THE JUICEMAN that there's no need for a task killer app on the S3. On first generation Android devices with lousy processors it was more helpful, but the S3 is blazing fast without the need for task killers.

As for other apps, the only absolute must-have in my opinion is Lookout (anti-virus and missing device locator).

If you are looking for any other kinds of apps in particular, then I can suggest some for you
 
SGMD1 said:
I agree with THE JUICEMAN that there's no need for a task killer app on the S3. On first generation Android devices with lousy processors it was more helpful, but the S3 is blazing fast without the need for task killers.

As for other apps, the only absolute must-have in my opinion is Lookout (anti-virus and missing device locator).

If you are looking for any other kinds of apps in particular, then I can suggest some for you
Click to expand...

recommend all the apps you can please.. I'm new to android and been messing around with the phone for 2 days straight.. im just figuring out how the whole wigets thing work😎..
 
diegoesk said:
recommend all the apps you can please.. I'm new to android and been messing around with the phone for 2 days straight.. im just figuring out how the whole wigets thing work😎..
Click to expand...

Some I use:

AirDroid, App Protector Pro, Beautiful Widgets, BetterBatteryStats, CALCULATOR WIDGET PRO percent, Light Flow (might require you be rooted, I'm not sure because I'm rooted), Nova Launcher (+Prime), MoboPlayer, OfficeSuite Pro 6+, Poweramp, QuickPic, SwiftKey 3, Tapatalk, Tasks, Zedge.
 
diegoesk said:
recommend all the apps you can please
Click to expand...
Haha ok, here are some non-obvious ones that I use often:

ColorNote - excellent notes app
Genie Widget - an auto-updating news and weather widget
AdAway - ad blocker (requires root access)
Chrome to Phone - send a webpage, phone number, address, or text from your browser (Chrome/Firefox) to your phone
Google Voice - free visual voicemail and cheap international calling integrated into the native dialer
 
SGMD1 said:
Haha ok, here are some that I use often:

ColorNote - excellent notes app
Genie Widget - an auto-updating news and weather widget
AdAway - ad blocker (requires root access)
Chrome to Phone - send a webpage, phone number, address, or text from your browser (Chrome/Firefox) to your phone
Google Voice - free visual voicemail and cheap international calling integrated into the native dialer
Click to expand...

AdAway and Chrome to Phone look like apps I could use. My phone isn't near me but thankfully the Play store lets you install stuff remotely 😀
 
wow keep em coming lol..

any recommendation for mail clients? The one on the iPhone was cool because you had all your emails in one client. Now I have to switch between gmail and the email app 😎
 
diegoesk said:
wow keep em coming lol..

any recommendation for mail clients? The one on the iPhone was cool because you had all your emails in one client. Now I have to switch between gmail and the email app 😎
Click to expand...

The stock email app should do it. I have my hotmail, school, and gmail email all through that one.

K9 was good too, but the stock email has been perfectly fine so found no reason to keep K9.
 
K9 Mail for email - Just superb.

Cant recommend Juice Defender enough. Has doubled my battery life on the GS3.
 
Dave.UK said:
K9 Mail for email - Just superb.

Cant recommend Juice Defender enough. Has doubled my battery life on the GS3.
Click to expand...

I just added my other email accounts to gmail acoount and its works fine.

if you really want to kill a task, there is already one built in, press and hold the home button, it will launch recent tasks and on the bottom left is a task manager option.

Plus to save on data i would limit what uses background data. I made chrome and the picture gallery wifi only because between the both of them they almost used 1GB running in the background.

I have curious about juice defender but worry about how it works, there is also a power save mode built in too
 
It's not an app but I recommend XDA Developers site. This site pretty much changed the way I think of Android.
 
How has nobody mentioned Tasker? Tasker is definitely one of the ultimate apps. Automate your life!

BeyondPod is the best podcast app on the market. It gets me through my day. I got it on sale for $2 so maybe wait until Black Friday?

Others:

Zagat
Flixter
Airdroid
Mint
ES File Explorer
Titanium Backup
ClockworkMod
MyFitnessPal
Jefit
Pulse
Chrome
MangaSearcher
MinimalistText (Amazing widgets to put text on your homescreens)
 
Stropaganda said:
How has nobody mentioned Tasker? Tasker is definitely one of the ultimate apps. Automate your life!

BeyondPod is the best podcast app on the market. It gets me through my day. I got it on sale for $2 so maybe wait until Black Friday?

Others:

Zagat
Flixter
Airdroid
Mint
ES File Explorer
Titanium Backup
ClockworkMod
MyFitnessPal
Jefit
Pulse
Chrome
MangaSearcher
MinimalistText (Amazing widgets to put text on your homescreens)
Click to expand...

Instead of ES File Explorer, I recommend you take a look at Solid Explorer. It is absolutely beautiful and functional at the same time. I've noticed that more and more developers have started to use the holo interface for their apps.
 
I prefer Thumb Keyboard over other keyboards. The S3 is rather large and I generally prefer typing in landscape. The size of the phone makes reaching the centre keys of the keyboard difficult. Thumb Keyboard has a variety of different keyboard layouts. The one that I like is a split keyboard where the keys are closer to the side and makes typing more comfortable. The other thing I like about Thumb Keyboard is that you can choose to turn off auto-spacing. I prefer to press the spacebar myself whenever I want to add a space instead of the keyboard app doing it for me.

Another app that I recommend is Volume Widget. This is a widget that sits on your home screen. You can set 3 different sound profiles. I have one where notification sounds are completely off while the ringer and alarm sound remains on. With a single tap, I set this before I go to sleep, so that email alerts do not wake me up, while the alarm and phone call still will. Then when I wake up, I tap it again to turn my notification sounds back on.
 
Holo Launcher HD - It lets you get a stock looking homescreen, icon set and app drawer without a custom rom.

Chrome for Android - Quicker than the stock browser, has swipe from left/right to change tabs and is just generally better. If you use chrome on other devices it syncs tabs, bookmarks and saved information for you. No Flash support though.

Smart Keyboard Pro - Lets you customize your keyboard down to key spacing and placement. Very feature rich. It also lets you skin it. I skinned mine to match the Android Holo Theme.

Handcent - A very good feature rich SMS application. Lets you assign different text notifications and LED colors to different contacts. Does not work well with syncing FB picutres atm (Devs are working on it) and honestly even after it is themed it still looks rather ugly.


Those are the ones off the top of my head right now.
 
Stuntman06 said:
I prefer Thumb Keyboard over other keyboards. The S3 is rather large and I generally prefer typing in landscape. The size of the phone makes reaching the centre keys of the keyboard difficult. Thumb Keyboard has a variety of different keyboard layouts. The one that I like is a split keyboard where the keys are closer to the side and makes typing more comfortable.
Click to expand...

+1 on Thumb Keyboard. I myself prefer Swype. But for the times I have to type one handed , Thumb keyboard is what I turn to.
 
Stropaganda said:
How has nobody mentioned Tasker? Tasker is definitely one of the ultimate apps. Automate your life!
Click to expand...

Tasker IS awesome, but you need a novel to figure out how to actually use it...LOL. I bought it a while back and I STILL haven't figured it out, even after reading tons of tutorials online. The devs behind it really need a comprehensive guide on how to start out with it and then how to do more complex operations.

It's not the most intuitive piece of software in the world, but (I've heard) if you can get it running how you want it, it's amazing. 😀
 
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