[Zenster]

Hello Friends,

Check out these mouthwatering new Specs from Samsung released by SamFirmware on twitter.

New specs of new Android and bada phones. - www.SamFirmware.com

From what I've read in other places, the GT-I9210 will be released in Canada as Galaxy Hercules and will be Canadian version of the SGS2 (It may still be rumored though). But I9220 and the I9250 look great on paper. iPhone-5 will have real tough competition as soon as its out.


I also wanted to check what security software you guys use and recommend. With security I mean more of Mobile Tracking, Backup/Restore, Remote Lock, Remote Wipe etc. I am not looking for content security and Antivirus (i'll take care of it manually). More importantly this software should work without SIM,GPRS and GPS being enabled.

I am looking at a situation of the mobile being stolen or lost. And from what I've seen/heard, the SIM is the first thing to remove. So replying on the SIM Signal, Phone Number (to send lock sms) or GPRS serves no purpose here. I have tried Lookout Mobile Security and it worked great, but works only if GPRS is enabled and obviously the SIM is still in the phone. So in a near Theft it will be no good :(

Please help throw some light on this topic, since I think with so many of us putting out hard earned money in these phones, the last thing we want is for it to be stolen by some PUNK!

[phamilyman]

You cannot do jack about theft. I installed theft aware and it doesn't survive custom ROMs (which takes <3 min on a galaxy SL for instance). so don't keep your hopes up my man.

[rohan_iitr]

Samsung announces Samsung Galaxy Xcover. It will be a ruggedised smartphone, similar to Motorola Defy.

The details are not out yet, but I feel that the specifications and price will be along the lines of Motorola Defy.

Waiting eagerly for this phone.

Rohan

[sids911]

Originally Posted by Zenster

I also wanted to check what security software you guys use and recommend. With security I mean more of Mobile Tracking, Backup/Restore, Remote Lock, Remote Wipe etc. I am not looking for content security and Antivirus (i'll take care of it manually). More importantly this software should work without SIM,GPRS and GPS being enabled.

I am looking at a situation of the mobile being stolen or lost. And from what I've seen/heard, the SIM is the first thing to remove. So replying on the SIM Signal, Phone Number (to send lock sms) or GPRS serves no purpose here. I have tried Lookout Mobile Security and it worked great, but works only if GPRS is enabled and obviously the SIM is still in the phone. So in a near Theft it will be no good :(

Please help throw some light on this topic, since I think with so many of us putting out hard earned money in these phones, the last thing we want is for it to be stolen by some PUNK!

I am using SamsungDive.com. If the GPS and other location tracking sensors are off, it remotely turns it on. I tried and tested it here in India. And essentially it works in tracking the phone!

The location accuracy probably wont be too good - but it still gives you a pretty close location (around 25-100 mtrs).

Remote wipe/lock and SMS alerts on SIM change work too. And its FREE.

Edit: Works only for Samsung phones AFAIK, and I just re-read that you want all of it without SIM, GPRS, and GPS enabled. Which is a no go. Sorry.

[VW2010]

Now to find a proper stock ROM image. Any clues on this will be helpful.

[ROM + Guide]Official i9100 Firmwares KF1/2/3/4/, KG1/2/3/5/6/7 Download - xda-developers

Check the above thread. You can also get stock kernel form the same link.

[Zenster]

Originally Posted by sids911

I am using SamsungDive.com. If the GPS and other location tracking sensors are off, it remotely turns it on. I tried and tested it here in India. And essentially it works in tracking the phone!

The location accuracy probably wont be too good - but it still gives you a pretty close location (around 25-100 mtrs).

Remote wipe/lock and SMS alerts on SIM change work too. And its FREE.

Edit: Works only for Samsung phones AFAIK, and I just re-read that you want all of it without SIM, GPRS, and GPS enabled. Which is a no go. Sorry.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

You cannot do jack about theft. I installed theft aware and it doesn't survive custom ROMs (which takes <3 min on a galaxy SL for instance). so don't keep your hopes up my man.

Thanks for getting back Guys. I appreciate all things explained but in today's times, the SIM is first thing that is changed. Unless we get really lucky. In that case, Samsung Dive sounds good since its free. I say this bcos I almost paid up for Lookout before all the doubts crept up in my mind. So all in all, if there is a Huge amount of Luck involved then why put any money in it

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by joslicx

Keep pressing back button till u reach homescreen / simply press home!

No need to try and do any memory management. Android manages it by itself (and is quite good at it as well!) See this thread:
Mobile-review.com Myths about the Multitasking and Resources Hungry Android

That is what I have been doing so far. But, I can confirm that does not exit the application. It merely switches to the previous UI or goes to the Home screen.
As a test you could launch Calculator. Now type some number (say 2222) and then press the back button. This will take you back to the screen from which you launched the calculator (In my case, I am back to home screen). Now from this screen, press calculator again. And you are back to the same instance of the program that you launched earlier. The number 2222 also appears where you typed it earlier.
Hence the application has remained active all this while. This would consume resources (memory, CPU) and affect battery.

So question again is how do you actually exit the applications (which are so easy to launch by just a tap on the screen.) I hope End task is not the only answer.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

Hence the application has remained active all this while. This would consume resources (memory, CPU) and affect battery.

So question again is how do you actually exit the applications (which are so easy to launch by just a tap on the screen.) I hope End task is not the only answer.

Short answer is the app doesnt remain "Active" per se. It is just there in the memory, doing nothing! There is no perceivable resource consumption either.

See Android memory management is different from a system like Windows. For more detailed and technical knowledge on that, you can go thru the link I had supplied earlier. Android does a "memory cleaning" only when required (lets say if you wanted to launch a 300 MB application, if it exists!). At that time it will clear the least used apps in the memory (or the apps with lowest priority).

Thats why till we have really heavy duty apps (say more than few hundreds of MB in size) there are no gains whether your phone has 1GB memory or 512 MB! Right now no apps exists that are that big, or I dont know any at least.

I've never done any app "closing" on my HTC since I read that article (its more than a month) and what it says is really true. I dont see any problems with my device at all. I just "switch" between apps seamlessly all the time!

I read somewhere that Apple iOS' memory management and multi-tasking is on pretty much similar lines. Maybe some iOS guru can enlighten us more on that.

[999]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

That is what I have been doing so far. But, I can confirm that does not exit the application. It merely switches to the previous UI or goes to the Home screen.
As a test you could launch Calculator. Now type some number (say 2222) and then press the back button. This will take you back to the screen from which you launched the calculator (In my case, I am back to home screen). Now from this screen, press calculator again. And you are back to the same instance of the program that you launched earlier. The number 2222 also appears where you typed it earlier.
Hence the application has remained active all this while. This would consume resources (memory, CPU) and affect battery.

So question again is how do you actually exit the applications (which are so easy to launch by just a tap on the screen.) I hope End task is not the only answer.

On my SGS2, I can go to task manager and exit all the open applications one by one.

[S_U_N]

^But that is far from an elegant way to close an application. right?
@joslics: I still feel that if an application (e.g. browser) is used and then kept running in the background, it might still be a much better option to exit an unneeded application cleanly rather than keep it running till the next time you reboot it or using task manager to forcibly kill it.

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

^
@joslics: I still feel that if an application (e.g. browser) is used and then kept running in the background, it might still be a much better option to exit an unneeded application cleanly rather than keep it running till the next time you reboot it or using task manager to forcibly kill it.

Since you dont want to bother opening that link, I'll copy-paste relevant info here:

So comes the first myth: if you open many apps in Android there will be not enough of memory for hungry software and the phone will work much slower.
There is a bit of truth in the statement, but do not forget the nuances. All applications for Android are made of modules, in other words an app contains many independent elements (unless they are connected with another module). The presence of the app in the memory does not mean it is fully used at the moment. It may be idle and not executing any code. It is located in the memory to ensure the next operation is started faster from the cache. When the memory is needed to other apps the least important modules will be unloaded in accordance with the system of priorities. The same concept of dumping is used in WP7. In this case task managers are harmful, because they unload apps, which have to be loaded again soon, which slows down the process.
The presence of the app in memory does not slow down the phone automatically. It is pointless to free the memory only to boost this parameter.


There is no smoke without fire and I will try to explain why.
This section is slightly too technical and describes the architecture of apps for Android. I would like to tell about the internal structure for readers to get a clear picture of the OS.
In Android all modules are divided into three main types:

• Activity
• Broadcast Receivers
• Services

Let's analyze them by the example of a music player.
Activity

These are windows of our application. Each window represents one activity. In other words a window with the track title, control elements and the album cover is one activity. Its life cycle is extremely short, because when you switch to another window (even within the same app), everything is paused, the resources are freed in a moment and the activity is disabled. In the background nothing is handled as it is not possible this way. When you move away from the player with the nice looking equalizer it will not require any resources as this part of the app is completely idle at the moment.


To be more precise if the app contains activities only (let's say a calculator) it stops consuming resources when you move away from it. It is languishing in the cache waiting for your return.


Broadcast Receivers

These are elements of applications responsible for receiving global messages. There are many standard ones and you can expect almost any message to be received if you notify the system about it, which is useful to connect different apps. Messages vary dramatically. It can be a message that the WiFi network is available and you can go online searching for new tracks. When you insert the phone into the dock station a nice window with the clock appears. Press the pause on the headset and the playback stops. This way you can send a picture to Twitter from the gallery: your Twitter app is registered for events like "I can share pictures" and the gallery sends a similar message to all appropriate apps for the user to choose what to do with the picture. It gives flexibility to Android regarding the installation of different apps.
The module stays active as long as it is necessary to handle the message from the system. The app remains in the memory to be on the safe side if the system sends another similar message. Instead of starting the app again it will be called for from the background.


Here the issues with resources start. If the app registers itself to receive a global message the system will always start it and disabling it with the task manager is useless and harmful. On the other hand the application may receive messages only when it is active. For example, the music player must receive messages from the headset to manage the playback and use the pauses if you receive a call. If the app is not active it will ignore these events.
In this case you can disable a useless app from time to time if it sucks in resources for nothing (it often happens when the phone has acres of free memory). One of examples is that of the music and podcast players, which if started simultaneously may compete for the same resources.
Services

Now it is time to mention the least resources efficient elements. Services are components of an app, which must run in the background and have no other purpose. These are tiny blocks active to implement multitasking in Android, iOS and WP7 Mango. These are services of synchronization, updates and downloads. For the music player the track must be played by the services! Even during the call an element responsible for the conversation is the service allowing you to speak and enjoy Angry Birds at the same time.


These are the main users of resources, but task managers do not detect them well. You'd better analyze them in standard Running Services.
Android can disable services when you lack free memory, but they have a priority and the OS will try to run them again to return to the status quo. The highest priority is given to services with the icon in the status bar, no matter how silly it sounds. These services tell the users that they are active and Android keeps them going until the very end. That is why almost all music players have an icon in the status bar.


Conclusion

It is important to understand that different elements of applications can be active at a time and serve different purposes. By disabling the app you make the system load it again. It is necessary to disable unstable apps, which do exist in the Market due to the absence of moderation.
Only small elements of applications will work, but the rest will be hibernating without influencing the system.

[rajanmehta]

Originally Posted by rohan_iitr

Samsung announces Samsung Galaxy Xcover. It will be a ruggedised smartphone, similar to Motorola Defy.

The details are not out yet, but I feel that the specifications and price will be along the lines of Motorola Defy.

Waiting eagerly for this phone.

Rohan

Here are the specs..

• 9.2 cm (3.6 inches) capacitive touch screen scratch resistant tempered glass display
• Dust resistant, can withstand accidental drops and one meter water for up to 30 minutes.
• Android 2.3 Gingerbread with Samsung’s TouchWiz interface
• 800 MHz processor
• 150 MB internal memory
• microSD cards up to 32 GB
• GPS
• 3.2-megapixel camera
• VGA front camera for video telephony
• WLAN 802.11 b / g / n
• Bluetooth 3.0

[rohan_iitr]

Originally Posted by rajanmehta

Here are the specs..

Can you post the link to the source of this information, please.

Size of the display is 3.6 or 3.7 inches, but the resolution has not been disclosed by Samsung. This would be the deciding factor for this phone.

They can't expect to sell this with a crappy 320x480 display when Motorola Defy is offering much higher resolution.

Rohan

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by joslicx

In Android all modules are divided into three main types:

• Activity
• Broadcast Receivers
• Services

Let's analyze them by the example of a music player.
Activity



To be more precise if the app contains activities only (let's say a calculator) it stops consuming resources when you move away from it. It is languishing in the cache waiting for your return.

Thanks for these details. One simple question based on scenario below:
From Settings, I tap into Check for system updates. The screen stays on Checking for updates for several minutes. I don't know if it is doing something, but based on my Data Manager, it seems that some MB's have got consumed. Now, I would like to keep the Updates checking process ON, and do some browsing with the Browser app. If I launch the browser, will my Check for updates process/ task hibernate or continue in the background? Any clues?

[San Phrangmung]

After a long long wait and confusion, finally brought home the old very first Galaxy Tab P1000, for Rs 25,600 from Big Bazaar.
Had spent around the same on N8 when it was launched, but was looking for bigger screen and mobility cum always on functionality. So mini laptops were no no and IPad too pricy and suffocating, the only option new tab 8 or 10, but when i saw the price announced two days back and yet again launch delay with news of ban in EU & Australia P1000 it was.
Still discovering exploring the product, but ther's one little problem.
All my contacts are saved in sim, and everything is shown in N8, but after twice putting in and out the sim on to the tab, not a single contact is shown. I didn't find any sim contact show option or anything related either.
So friends, help me on how to make visible or copy the sim contacts in the tab.
Thanks & good day to all.