Sprint get's 4.3..... Verizon still nothing!

News on the internets today includes the notice from Sprint that their Galaxy Nexus Variant will be getting 4.3 in the next few days. While, its not the 4.4 Kit Kat release that we are all waiting to hear about later today, its still better than the NOTHING that Verizon has released or even talked about.

Still left waiting....


DnT
.
.
.

Did Verizon's internal clock reset?

So, I've been waiting for 4.3 to roll out for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus.... but not a peep has been heard. No leaks, no test groups, nothing. Which makes me wonder, did the JWR66Y update that rolled out on August 21, 2013 for the GSM Galaxy Nexus restart Verizon's internal "testing" procedures? According to Verizon's response to complaints about customers being unable to activate Nexus 7's with LTE, their testing process takes between 4-6 weeks to complete and certify a device for their network. I'm starting to think that Verizon probably has similar testing for updates and were mid-test when the bug fixes rolled out... and that sent them back to the beginning. If that is the case, and the clock re-started on 8/21, I should re-calibrate my predictions right? Though, Verizon's updates never seem to fall in that 4-6 week window.

So... if Verizon matches their speed with the 4.2.2 update of 19 days to a soak test and 36 days to release, that would've put us at September 9th for the soak test. So, let's assume Verizon goes back to their 50 days to soak test schedule from the 4.1 update. That puts the soak test at around October 10th.  Only time will tell.

.
.
.

DnT

Start the clock...

Today Google officially announced Android 4.3. They stated that the Galaxy Nexus (along with the Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10) would be getting that update, with updates beginning to get pushed out today. So let the "Verizon delay clock" begin....

Here's the Galaxy Nexus update history for comparison.  The 4.2.2 update came fairly quickly in only 36 days (by Verizon standards).  Based on that timeline, I'm hoping for an August 12th "soak test" followed shortly thereafter by a leaked version...and then an official OTA around August 29th.  Only time will tell.




4.0.4: ICS update
------------------------
4.0.4 was pushed by google (GSM) around March 30th.
4.0.4 was soak tested by Verizon on May 1st.
4.0.4 was pushed by Verizon around May 31-June 1

So, right on 60 days to 4.0.4


4.1: Jellybean
------------------------
Google began updating their GSM Nexus to Jelly Bean (4.1) on July 10th.
Verizon's soak test started on August 29, 2012.
An early leak was posted online in the first week of September. (I installed on 9/5)
The full update was rolled out 9/21

So about 73 days to Jelly Bean 4.1.


4.2: JB update
------------------------
The 4.2 update began rolling out on November 13, 2012 to the Domestic GSM variant "takju". 
4.2.1 was pushed out with a bug fix on November 27, 2012.
The Sprint CDMA variant started updating on January 30th, 2013
Verizon NEVER saw 4.2 or 4.2.1


4.2.2: JB update
------------------------
4.2.2 was released on February 11, 2012
4.2.2 hits Verizon testers on March 2, 2013 (only 19 days! That has to be a record)
On March 4, 2013 a leaked version was posted online. (I installed it on 3/5)
4.2.2 begins hitting Verizon Galaxy Nexus phones OTA on March 19th, 2013 (36 days - a Verizon record I'm sure!)

.
.
.
DnT

Apple Plays Catch-up (Part II)

Just finished catching up on Apple's WWDC this afternoon. Just a few comments on the new iOS 7. Apple finally seems to have caught up to the other mobile OS platforms out there in a few regards:

1. True multi-tasking - in theory, we'll see how real it is. Everyone else has been doing it, now Apple's in the club. Welcome aboard.

2. Control center - I know this has been a much talked about feature on a lot of tech blogs, and Apple finally gave iOS users easy access to their settings. Welcome, again.

3. Fragmentation - yeah, they are catching up here too.  Tim Cook took some shots at Android fragmentation early on with comments like...

"93 percent of iOS users are on iOS 6. "That's in stark contrast to the world of Android." 

and

"More than a third of Android users are using an operating system that was released in 2010"

Well. Then he went on later to note that iOS 7 will only be supported on iPhone 4S and up, and iPad 2 and up.  I guess this fall Apple will have to stop talking about fragmentation.

I didn't really see anything else that struck me as new or interesting. Seemed that AirDrop was the big thing for them aside from the redesign of icons and apps. I'm not even sure what it is, some kind of file sharing feature. As expected Apple finally did away with the skeumorphism that everyone on iOS seemed hung up on. 


-DnT
.
.
.

Jelly Bean for Verizon (UPDATE!)

While the official Jelly Bean update for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is still MIA, there is a leaked version (JRO03O) that has been making the rounds on the internet. 

(UPDATED 9/21) The official Verizon update has arrived! Users are reporting the update is now available via Wi-Fi ONLY for the Verizon Galaxy Nexus. Get on Wi-Fi and hit that 'Check For Update' button now! 

I installed the leak on my rooted GN on September 5th and have been running it since. I thought I'd share my impressions here for those who may have grown impatient.

Jelly Bean definitely shows marked improvement in the responsiveness of the phone in terms of swiping, scrolling, and opening apps. Google Now offers some really intriguing features, but at this point for me they offered little value. The updates on sports scores were nice (at least once Google got NFL scores going for week 2!). I imagine people who do a lot of travelling would love the flight updates and travel features, but as I rarely move about the country (and even less about the world), they were of little use to me. Same goes for traffic updates - I work from home so traffic notifications offer me no help. I tried to  activate "places" to get updates on nearby events or businesses but I never had a card show up. Its possible I just hadn't given Now a chance to learn about me before disabling it.  The real issue for me, though, was the seemingly large increase in battery usage attributed to map/location-related programs. Under Better Battery Stats, there were no fewer than 5 different processes responsible for 'waking up' the processor on my phone, some with significant usage. Location services have always seemed to use an excessive amount of background processor time which always bugged me, but the increase I saw with Google Now active was just too much.

(Update: I'm giving Google Now another shot but with limited location features to see if it works any better)

The most obvious other change I saw in Jelly Bean was the device settings page. Instead of the previous "accounts & sync" line, Android 4.1 brings all your accounts to the main list for easier access and modification. I really don't find this to be a valuable addition as I rarely ever find myself adjusting things like app syncing. I usually keep all but the minimum necessities OFF. I feel that this change didn't add anything and just cluttered up the main settings screen and forced me to scroll more to get down to things like 'developer options' and 'about phone'.

The most useful change in Jelly Bean is the notification bar. Aside from the font style and color change, the notifications are far more useful. Instead of a very limited listing of your notifications, Jelly Bean provides you with a very detailed list of what's waiting for you including the content of SMS messages and an extended amount of info from received gmails, not to mention the ability to call contacts directly from missed call notifications.  It really makes the notification bar so much more useful.

As far as functionality goes, the radios did not appear to offer me any improvements over the prior versions, but then again, I never had major problems despite being in a borderline 3G/4G area.

[Note: If you were rooted on ICS and flashed the Jellybean update, you probably lost root and don't even know it. To regain root, copy this updated SU zip file to your sdcard and then install the zip through cockwork recovery.]

-DnT

.

.

.

Apple plays catch up...

Or.... "The all-new iPhone 5"
Or.... "The new iPhone XLT"
Or.... "The innovative new device everyone else was already making...."

OK, so maybe I kid, a little.

But honestly, let's look at what's "new" here.

4" screen - Done 2 years ago, and a new 4"+ phone is released almost every day it seems.
Also, didn't Steve Jobs once say “3.5 inch handset size is the “sweet spot” for mobile phone design; big enough to produce detailed, legible graphics, but small enough to fit comfortably in the hand and pocket.”  I guess things change.  Maybe people evolved bigger hands in the last 2 years. To be fair, different screen sizes work for different people, which is what makes Android and all of its choices so great in my opinion. To each his own, size.

16:9(ish) - Again, Steve Jobs didn't like 16:9. Thought it was only good for movies. Times change I guess. I am a little surprised that their solution to resolution change on older apps is to letterbox. I guess they'll be pushing devs to update to the 16:9 ratio so they don't want to make it too complicated in the meantime.

UPDATE: Something else that's been bugging me about the iPhone is the display. While Apple unquestionably produces a phone with a great display, it still surprises me that they stick with a 640 horizontal line display. With almost all of today's manufacturers producing a 720 line display I find in interesting that they are sticking with 640. Obviously the benefit is transitioning apps to the new longer display more easily, but it just seems like having 720 lines gives you 'more' when it comes to video. Most HD video is 1080p or 720p, so scaling down to 640p implies a loss of some lines of resolution.

Headphone port on the bottom - Not sure that the Galaxy Nexus was the first, but it sure had that last year when it came out. It makes sense too. I'm pretty sure everyone puts their phone in their pocket upside down right?  Only fitting to put the port on the bottom so you can be plugged in while its in your pocket without switching things around.

Panorama photograph mode - Had that on my Galaxy Nexus last year. Check


LTE - Done early 2011.  In Apple's defense, there was no rush to be early to the party... as other than Verizon almost no one has a substantial LTE network in place anyway. No penalty for the late arrival.

Sharing tabs between mobile and desktop - Chrome Browser / Android Browser. Check.

SMS response when declining calls - Android. Check.


I'll give Apple some points for making it lighter, that's for sure. In terms of making it thinner, well its 18% thinner but its 18% longer, so no points there.




Also, while I completely understand them going with a new connector, the adapter they are showing just looks absolutely redonkulous.

UPDATE: The adapter is $30!  Ouch. That's a lot of extra cash coming Apple's way for everyone with an existing dock....






All in all, Apple is finally updating the iPhone to what consumers have been demanding for more than a year now. A 4" (or more) 16:9 screen and, for some, LTE. A lot of the 'new' features won't seem all that new to Android users, but with Apple's focus on litigating, it must leave little time for innovating!  Obviously, no one has touched one of the new iPhone 5's yet, so no one can comment on the performance of the processor, camera, or any of the other software features. They might turn out to be incredible, even if many of the other features are today's standards.


-DnT
.
.

Where are those Jelly Beans?

As most Android addicts on Verizon Wireless know, Verizon is a bit slow to push updates. We suffer through it because they have the best speed and best coverage... and best customer service.

Anyway, as many people are aware, Google released their most recent version of the Android OS 4.1 codenamed "Jelly Bean" back in early July. Owners of the direct-from-google GSM variant of the Galaxy Nexus were treated to that update starting on July 10th.

So what does that mean for those of us on Verizon Wireless?  Let's see what happened with the 4.0.4 update to Ice Cream Sandwich.....

4.0.4 was pushed to Google's GSM variant around March 30th.
4.0.4 was soak tested by Verizon on May 1st (Which I immediately flashed to my phone!)
4.0.4 was finally pushed by Verizon around May 31-June 1

So, right on 60 days basically.

Google began updating their GSM Nexus to Jelly Bean on July 10th.
Based on the ICS timetable, I'd expect a Verizon soak test in Mid August.... which is now-ish.... followed by a full push in early September.

I guess we can only wait and see....



-DnT

.

Black Wallpapers - for the extreme power saver!

So, with an AMOLED screen, colors are generated by illuminating individual LED's. Black is 'created' by NOT illuminating LEDs. Needless to say, dark screen = less power (unfortunately black is not zero, but its as close as we can get). As a result, some of the more serious battery power conservationists out there run black or very dark wallpapers to minimize power usage.  I just thought I'd share a handful of my favorites. I didn't make them, I just like them!

All Black - The name says it all.

 Blocks - What would you call it?

 Black Steel

Carbon Fiber

Carbon Fiber 2

Verizon finally rolling out 4.0.4 to the masses...

It only took them a month or 2.... but Verizon finally started pushing the 4.0.4 update to its Galaxy Nexus users yesterday. The rollout seems to be going gradually, with some reports that Verizon plans to spread it out over 10 days.... which seems ridiculous yet on par with how they've handled everything about this phone.

That said, if you can't wait, there's always rooting and flashing the update yourself. I've been enjoying it for a month now.

Good Luck!


DnT

.

"Swiping" apps out of the recent apps menu

I read about a lot of people who think they are making their phones run better by 'swiping' things out of their recent apps menu (the two little rectangles at the bottom right of your phone). The reality of Android is that this is at best a waste of time, and at worse, making your phone operate slower. This is not like a desktop running Windows where these other apps are running in another window. Most apps are actually in a 'standby' state when they are in the background - except if you have music or Navigation or something that is actually open and running - but that's not really what we are talking about here.

As for swiping items from "recent apps" to free up memory, there really is no point in doing that. Most of your recent apps aren't actually running. If an app is actually running in the background (like streaming Sirius), swiping it out of the recent apps doesn't actually do ANYTHING. If you go into settings > apps > running, you will see that most of the things in your recent history aren't actually running. The OS puts them in a 'suspended state' that isn't really doing anything. If you click on "cached processes" at the bottom, you will likely see many of your recent apps there. Swiping these apps from the "recent apps" tray basically is just erasing this cache and doesn't really serve any purpose. By swiping these apps out of your recent history and clearing the cache, all you are doing is 'freeing up' memory that you don't actually need. If the phone is running low on memory the OS handles this on its own by prioritizing what it keeps running or cached in the background and will close apps completely if it needs the memory. In reality, by clearing these items from the cache, all you are doing is ensuring that the next time you open that app it will take much longer to load as its doing so from scratch instead of resuming from the cached state.

I don't want to get into the discussion of task killers as they are really unnecessary, especially on devices running ICS, for the same reason. The OS does a great job at managing apps and memory. It doesn't need your help. Now, you could manually close running processes if you really felt it was necessary, however that is really not recommended unless you feel like the app has gone rogue and won't shut itself down or something.


-DnT

.

Must Have Apps for your Galaxy Nexus

I don't play many games so don't expect to find any listed here! These are in no particular order other than the order I notice them on my phone...which is basically alphabetical.

Apps:
------------
1. 4G Toggle (Free) - OK its not really an app, its more like a widget, but its really just a shortcut. And it doesn't even do what we all wish it would.... but if you are the owner of an LTE Galaxy Nexus and live or travel in iffy 4G areas. You need this widget. Its really just a shortcut to the screen that lets you switch between CDMA and LTE modes.... but it saves you about 3 steps going through the menus.

2. AirDroid (Free) - Forget the USB cable. Airdroid makes transferring files over wifi the way to go. Its not drag and drop but its easy enough to use and it works.

3. Better Battery Stats ($2.89) - If you are like MANY Galaxy Nexus users and find yourself running short on battery life, this app is a valuable tool for finding out why. I wrote an earlier post about the app and how to use it so I won't go into more detail here. I believe BBS is also available free for XDA members.

4. ES File Explorer (Free) - It is what it is. A file manager. It is simple, works well, works with Root, and its free. What more do you want?

5. Light Flow ($1.99) / Light Flow Lite (Free) - Take advantage of the multicolor LED notification light by assigning different colors for all your app notifications. The free version supports most basic stock notifications but if you want to set notifications for 3rd party apps like Facebook, Twitter, Skype, etc. you'll need to shell out for the full version.

6. Nova Launcher (Free) - Just like the stock launcher/homescreen, only way better. Fast, stable, and lots of options missing from stock. Some of the best features are 360 degree screen rotation, fully customize-able dock and dock icons, adjustable # of homescreens, ability to change animation when flipping between homescreens. There is Nova Launcher Prime ($4.00) which adds some more features like gestures and the ability to hide icons in the app drawer - which is nice if you have icon packs and other things that you don't ever want visible in your app drawer. The base version is good enough for me. I'd love to hide icons but not for $4.

7. Titanium Backup (Free) / Titanium Backup Pro ($6.58) - If you root and rom your device you cannot live without this app in my opinion. Titanium is the go-to app for backing up and restoring all your apps and data for users who wipe their device and install new roms. $6+ seems pricey for the pro version, but its worth it after the first time you try to manually re-install your apps one by one! The pro version allows you to install your apps/data all at once instead of going through one by one and hitting "ok".

8. TripIt (Free) - Trip it is a great app / site for keeping track of your travel plans. Its really useful for even the occasional traveler. You basically forward your confirmation emails from airlines, hotels, cruises, car rentals, etc. to Trip It, and automagically, the information appears in your account. Its visibile via the web or in app and is really nice to have every piece of information readily available in one place....from the price of your airline ticket to the phone number of the hotel you are staying at, to the departure time of your return flight. Its all there and easy to use. There is a "pro" service offered by TripIt that runs $49/yr and adds instant flight updates, tracks travel rewards, helps find alternate flights, and more. I don't travel much so the free service is plenty for me.

9. Volume+ ($1.99) - Speaker on your phone too quiet? Fix it with Volume+. This enables you to boost the volumes on just about all the audio outputs from speaker to headset. I think you can download it free from the developer's website too.

10. Wifi Tether (Free) - Need to tether that Touchpad you got in the firesale? Well, Wifi Tether is what I've been using since the days of my "OG Droid". I rarely am away from Wifi so I rarely need to tether, but its a great option to have. Requires Root - available on XDA Forums.

Widgets:
------------

1. Beautiful Widgets ($2.79) - its one of the few apps I paid for but it is worth it. So many widgets, clocks, weather, and totally customize-able with downloaded skins. You can even make your own skin.

2. CalWidget (Free) - I like the stock calendar widget but it still doesn't display all day events.... which makes it worthless. There are lots of 3rd party calendar widgets, but I just like the options CalWidget has to offer....from widget size to background color and opacity, it just does what I want.

3. Circle Battery Widget (Free) - A minimalist, but customize-able battery meter. Change the color and size to match any theme.

4. Widgetsoid (Free) - Like the stock power control widget? Then you'll love Widgetsoid. There's almost nothing you can't control with these fully customize-able controls. From Wifi Toggle to CPU meter, to flashlight, to airplane mode. You can create a stock looking row off toggles and readouts. The options and colors are fully user configureable to fit with any theme.

That's it for apps and widgets. Hope you enjoyed my list.


- DnT

CM9 Update for HP Touchpad

Just a quick update on ICS for the touchpad. The Cyanogen team has started releasing nightly updates again. I recently installed the 3/29/2012 update. No problems. Runs smooth. Using the 4.0.4 build of ICS.

CM9 Official Nightlies

The only bugs I see in CM9 are the browsers (both stock and Chrome Beta) crashing/closing occasionally. Not sure what causes it but I am guessing its some sort of unsupported plugin. These crashes have happened on CM9 alpha 2, the 3/17 and 3/29 nightlies so its not something new I am seeing.


- DnT

My new best day(s) ever.

So, when I say that WiFi is the be all end all of power conservation, here's what I mean. This is my battery usage after 15 hours on WiFi only with an hour of screen time and a couple of minutes of voice calls.

But that was just half the story.... or more accurately, 1/3 of the story. In the end, my battery lasted until Monday morning. That's a full 48hrs. Of that, 41hrs was spent on WiFi and about 7hrs was spent on 3G. Granted, it was only 1:45 of Screen time and 7 minutes of talk time, but it says a lot about WiFi and the battery's "standby capacity'.

- DnT

If you have an HP Touchpad, you NEED to install CM9

Last fall I managed to score a few HP Touchpads during the great firesale. I sold a few and kept one for myself.... a 32GB model. Now, I bought it hoping that eventually Android would get ported over, but knowing that for $150 WebOS would be good enough for my needs. Primarily, this was going to be a couch surfing device and a media player for the kids when we travel, and WebOS can handle that just fine.... it even has plenty of games for the kids to mess with - though the market is sadly limited. That said, I was always hoping for the Android port.

Well, its here. Actually, its been here for a while, but I haven't wanted to mess with it until now. Recently the CyanogenMod team released their 'Alpha' build of CM9 (Cyanogen's custom ICS ROM). There are bugs, and not everything works, but honestly, its good enough. I installed CM9 Alpha 2 last week and I haven't really run into any problems. The only minor thing I've seen is that some embeded web videos don't play in the page, but really I don't care too much about that. The Chrome beta browser lacks the ability to change the user agent to 'desktop' or request desktop versions of sites like the stock browser. It is the same issue on the Galaxy Nexus, but I think being able to get the desktop site is clearly more important on a tablet.

Other than the minor browsing issues, everything else works fine. Market....sorry Play Store.... is up and running as are all the Google apps like Gmail, Maps and YouTube. Netflix is working too.

So, the bottom line is, even though this is not even a Beta yet.... its quite stable and functional and I don't see any reason to go back to WebOS. But its nice to know its there if ever I wanted it.

Install instructions can be found HERE.

Current Files can be downloaded HERE.

I installed the CM9 Alpha 2 release, but I am currently running the 3/17 Nightly release without a hitch. If you want the latest stable nightly release, I recommend installing this build and the 3/17 version of gapps. Nightly builds are available HERE.

NOTE: I ran into a weird situation during the install. The Moboot screen came up with options to boot to WebOS, WebOS Recovery, Clockwork Recovery, and Reboot. It was missing the option to boot to CyanogenMod. I uninstalled and reinstalled to no avail. I couldn't find anyone else who ran into that problem. I experimented and was able to manually install the CM9 zip. If you run into a moboot screen with no option for booting to Cyanogen, try this:
Boot to WebOS
Plug in to your PC and verify that the CM9 zip file is saved to the cminstall folder on your touchpad. If not, copy it there again.
Eject the Touchpad from your PC.
Reboot your Touchpad.
From the Moboot screen, choose "boot to clockwork recovery".
Once in clockwork recovery, choose install from zip. navigate to the cminstall folder and select the CM9 zip to install.
Install it.
This should get CM9 installed on your Touchpad. Once installed, boot to CM9. The installation should take a few more minutes. Once you have CM9 running, you need to reboot again. Boot to Clockwork recovery again, choose install from zip again.... but this time choose the gapps zip file. Once installed, reboot to CM9 and you should be all set. You just have to setup your google account and install your other apps.

(Moboot is the screen that appears during boot that lets you choose what to boot to: CM9, WebOS, Recovery, Reboot, etc. - kind of like the Safe boot selection screen on Windows).


NEXT UP: Invaluable Apps - All ICS approved of course!


- DnT

Rooting does not mean 'ROM-ing"

I come across people fairly regularly posting on android forums who avoid rooting because they "don't want to mess with custom ROMS". It prompted me to write this post, if for no other reason than to say that...

You can ROOT without installing or running a custom ROM.


I've been unlocked since day one as unlocking fully wipes your device and I didn't want to go through the trouble of setting everything up twice since I knew I'd want to root shortly. I rooted my phone within days of getting it, not to run custom ROMs but to have access to all sorts of Root-only features.  Personally, I still run the stock ROM and kernels, but root gives you access to so much more.

Here are just a few reasons I rooted.

1. Wireless tether. I've had wireless tether since my original Droid (albeit a fairly insecure Ad-hoc implementation). Now, there are supposedly some non-root wireless tether apps, but I'll stick to what I know.

2. Titanium backup. If you ever want to change a ROM, TB is priceless for getting your phone back up and running.

3. Custom features - Installing custom boot animations, certain features of apps like Nova launcher, and dozens of other root-only apps make rooting invaluable in my opinion.



- DnT

Custom Boot Animations

If you are tired of that low res, washed out boot animation on your Galaxy Nexus (or really any Android Phone), its easy to change - provided you are rooted of course.


In ICS I believe there are 2 locations for bootanimation.zip files to be installed. The "factory" location is under /system/media/ and the alternative is under /data/local/. Even though the system/media location is the stock/factory one, the data/local one overrides it. I have run half a dozen bootanimation.zips on my Nexus with no problem....just delete whichever one is in the data/local folder and paste in a new one. This allows you to keep the stock one intact in case you ever want to go back to it (just delete the data/local version). Oh, and if you are one of those people who constantly change ROMs and wipe/reset your phone, the data/local file won't be erased whereas the system/media will. So, there's another reason to use the data/local location.


There are a couple of ways to load a custom bootanimation. Some people package their animations as a zip installer that you have to run through either recovery or Clockwork, but I think that adds quite a bit of unnecessary time. I prefer to just copy the bootanim.zip file directly to my phone storage. Quick and Easy.  


Note: If you find a bootanimation you like, but its setup as a zip installer, its simple to extract the bootanim.zip. The installer zip will have a name like "fireworksbootanimation.zip". Just open the installer zip, open the 'data' folder, open the 'local' folder, and copy the bootanim.zip file within.


I found this thread on Rootzwiki that has a BOATLOAD of custom boot animation files. I mean, there's a million of them including user requests. Its 50 pages long but worth going through if you have the time. There are also a whole section dedicated to boot animations including things like NFL and NHL Team Themes. 


If you are the creative type, you can even make your own. There's a nice tutorial here on how to do it.





- DnT

Its been 4 months....what happened to 'faster' updates???

Anyone who regularly visits 'Galaxy Nexus' forums has certainly seen this comment multiple times when complaining about the lack of updates from Google on this "Nexus" phone. Well, there are two points those people are missing, and they are usually quickly addressed by the more savvy GN users.

1. This phone received an update within seconds of being unboxed.

2. Faster doesn't mean more often. It means faster than non-Nexus devices. Now, it will be a little different for the GSM Nexus and the Verizon LTE Nexus, but for the most part these updates will be much sooner than updates for every other phone by every other manufacture. Because the GN is a 'vanilla' version of Ice Cream Sandwich, we don't have to sit around and wait for the manufacturer to apply their custom skins and bloatware. That is a process that often takes months. Look at the Droid Razr, it still has no ICS update and ICS has been released since the end of 2011.

Also, it is assumed that Google had some issues with the 4.0.3 version of ICS when they tried their test rollout on the Nexus S - which caused them to not roll it out en masse and head back to the drawing board. I think that is why we are now rumored to be getting a more advanced/tuned 4.0.5.

So, be patient. 4.0.5 is on its way in the next few weeks.



- DnT

WiFi vs 4G

[Originally posted over at Androidforums.com]


Since there is a lot of talk about how much better WiFi is than 4G or even 3G, I thought I'd run a little test just to show it....

On day 1 I ran my phone on mobile data all day, no WiFi, a mix mostly 4G and some 3G. On day 2 I ran my phone in typical fashion. That is WiFi almost all day - 13hrs out of 15hrs - with 2 hours on 4G. Both days had strikingly similar usage, almost exactly 1hr of screen time, no streaming. The only usage difference was that on day 2 I had about 40min of voice calls, whereas on day 1 it was only 20min. Obviously a pretty mild day usage-wise. Take a look at these charts and then imagine what the 4G would have been like had I spent a couple of hours streaming!

15 hours on 4G = 3% remaining
13 hours on WiFi, 2 hours on 4G = 43% remaining

The moral of the story is, obviously, use WiFi whenever you possibly can! 

- DnT

BetterBatteryStats

If you really want to find out what is keeping your phone's processor awake and chewing through your battery, look no further than BetterBatteryStats available for $2.89 in the Google Play Store. Install it. Run it.

When you open the app, you'll see a screen like this

Select "Partial Wakelocks" from the first dropbox and leave the second one set to "Since charged". This will display for you a list of every app and process that has been causing your processor to run in the background.
If you are seeing a lot of overnight activity or want to view what is happening during a specific time period, BBS includes an option to address this. Go to Menu > More > Set Custom Ref. This creates a Reference point in time for BBS to track from. Then, when you are ready to check stats, instead of choosing "since charged" you can choose "since custom ref." and it will display all the activity since you set the reference point.

Once you've chosen which stats to view, they are displayed in decreasing order from the most time "awake" to the least. As I mentioned before, most of these are necessary and harmless. Others may be draining your battery. Looking at the screenshot above, you can see that currently the biggest cause of partial wakelocks is "Airdroid". Airdroid is an app that lets you transfer files wireless between PC and phone. I happened to have forgotten I left it on, and as you can see it was running for half an hour. That's not a terrible drain on battery, but I don't want to leave it on anyway. What you are really looking for is processes that use excessive CPU - it will probably appear near the top of the list and may have a red line extending much of the way across the screen. Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot, but previously I found that the Google Backup "feature" was stuck in some kind of sync and kept my processor awake for 11 Hours! Needless to say, I disabled that feature. I haven't seen other people reporting that same problem so it could have just been a fluke, but by using BetterBatteryStats I was able to identify the cause of my poor battery life. Note that if you are streaming a lot of audio you will see certain "audio processes" reporting a lot of partial wakelocks. This is perfectly normal. You may also want to take note of the "count" of different processes as this actually tells you how many times that process caused a partial wakelock. You may notice that things like "syncs" and "Gtalk" cause a lot of partial wakelocks as they are constantly checking for updates/changes. That's why in my previous post I recommended eliminating any syncs you do NEED.

Next up.... WiFi vs 4G



- DnT

Finding your battery drain!

As I mentioned in my first post, there are a lot of obvious causes of poor battery life. Unfortunately, there are many other causes of battery drain that are not so obvious. In this post I'll talk about finding those problems and addressing them.

1. Battery Stats are your friends and the graphs provided in Ice Cream Sandwich are quite useful once you know how to use them.

Main Battery Screen - This screen shows you the estimated charge remaining (80% here), the time on battery (5h 34m 34s), and then breaks down the biggest users of the battery by percentage. Typically you will find Screen and Android OS at the top of the list.

Battery Graph - If you click on the picture of the graph itself, it will bring up another screen that offers you a more detailed look at the phone's discharging process. Mobile Network Signal gives you an idea of the signal strength throughout the day thus far. Green is strong, then bright yellow, dim yellow/grey and red. You may notice on your phone that the battery discharges more quickly with a poor signal as the phone tries to boost power to maintain the connection. The next two lines I am going to focus on are really critical to battery life. "Awake" and "Screen on". Awake refers to times when the phone's CPU is operating (ie awake) and Screen on refers to times when the screen is turned on (obviously). What is really important here is to watch out for periods of time where the phone is Awake but the Screen is NOT on. This indicates some background process running that is draining battery while you aren't using the phone actively. This is pretty normal, so long as its not excessive. If you are seeing lots of awake time that doesn't correspond to Screen on time you may have an issue. Streaming music and receiving emails/texts etc are perfectly normal background processes. In my next post I will focus on using some free apps to help identify what processes/apps are hogging your battery in the background.

Here's a closeup of the Awake and Screen On lines. You can see how almost all the awake time lines up with times the screen is on. This is what you want.

Android OS - Android OS simply tells you how long the CPU has been running (in total) since you unplugged and how much time it has been "kept awake". As you may notice, Keep awake time tends to exceed total - yes, it seems an odd way to report usage but that's what we have. Its perfectly 'normal', at least according to what many users are seeing, to have several hours of Keep Awake time. I regularly see 2-3 hours after 16 hours unplugged. If you are seeing WAY more than that, you may have an issue. Again, we'll focus on that in the next post.

Hope this has been helpful so far.



- DnT