[RohanDheman]

Originally Posted by hellmet

I have my MotoG using two Sim cards. No issues or lags at all, and certainly no noticeable drop in battery life either.

Originally Posted by dass

I do, one with Airtel for voice and SMS and one with BSNL for 3G. Though there is no lag, the battery is strained and it does not last the whole 24 hours for me. I guess, the average battery life is around 16-18 hours.

Thank you guys! That's all I needed to hear before moving to a single phone!

Rohan

[Aiel]

I have got both a Moto G and Nexus 5 in my family. In both these models, I am unable to see the widgets tab (which is there along with the apps tab).

I previously had the widgets tab in Nexus 4 and found it quite useful in terms of adding shortcuts to the homescreen.

Any help from the gurus here would be appreciated.

[Rehaan]

Originally Posted by Aiel

I have got both a Moto G and Nexus 5 in my family. In both these models, I am unable to see the widgets tab (which is there along with the apps tab).

What launcher are you using? Is it stock?

Post a screenshot of the apps drawer please.

cya
R

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Aiel

I have got both a Moto G and Nexus 5 in my family. In both these models, I am unable to see the widgets tab (which is there along with the apps tab).

I previously had the widgets tab in Nexus 4 and found it quite useful in terms of adding shortcuts to the homescreen.

Any help from the gurus here would be appreciated.

I think both of your phones have got "Google Now Launcher" by default which doesn't have widget tab in the app drawer like other stock launchers.

If you want to access the widget then touch and hold the long press on home screen and you will see few options including widget and wallpaper.

[_chikku]

Originally Posted by Aiel

I have got both a Moto G and Nexus 5 in my family. In both these models, I am unable to see the widgets tab (which is there along with the apps tab).

I previously had the widgets tab in Nexus 4 and found it quite useful in terms of adding shortcuts to the homescreen.

Any help from the gurus here would be appreciated.

You mean , you don't see the tab in top side of the screen?

[MaxTorque]

Is there any list of must to have Android Apps available in this thread? I have been using a Windows Phone and now back to Android.

[phamilyman]

Guys,

Those worrying about the safety of your data on MI? Here's an update from Hugo Barra - which other company bothers to communicate as transparently about such issues?

https://www.facebook.com/hbarra76/po...156612?fref=nf

>> We're moving your data! <<
User experience is hugely important to us. As a global Internet company, we really care about speed and we're also fully committed to storing our users' data securely at all times.
In early 2014, we kicked off a massive internal effort to expand our server infrastructure globally in order to better serve Mi fans everywhere.
Our primary goal in moving to a multi-site server architecture was to improve the performance of our services for Mi fans around the world, cut down latency and reduce failure rates. At the same time, it also better equips us to maintain high privacy standards and comply with local data protection regulations. This is a very high priority for Xiaomi as we expand into new markets over the next few years.
This server and data migration process is taking place in three phases.
>> PHASE 1: E-commerce migration
Earlier this year, our e-commerce engineering teams started migrating our global e-commerce platforms and user data for all international users from our Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in California (USA) and Singapore. We also began using Akamai's global CDN infrastructure to speed up static page loads.
This migration process will be completed by the end of October and will benefit users in all of our international markets — Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Taiwan. Users are already experiencing website speed boosts of at least 30% in markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and as much as 200% in India.
>> PHASE 2: MIUI services migration
We have also recently started migrating our MIUI services and corresponding data for all international users from our Beijing data centers to Amazon AWS data centers in Oregon (USA) and Singapore. This migration includes Mi Account, Cloud Messaging and Mi Cloud services. We are expecting to complete this migration by the end of 2014, with some parts being completed even sooner (e.g. Mi Account servers by the end of October).
With this migration, we are expecting to cut network request latency for users in India by up to 350ms, and users in Malaysia to experience 2-3x faster Mi Cloud photosync.
>> PHASE 3: Going local
In 2015, we are planning to take on a new challenge to further improve the performance of our services for users in large and fast-growing markets such as India and Brazil.
In these markets, where Amazon AWS services aren't yet available, we will be working with local data center providers to set up our service infrastructure. Once that has been completed, users in these markets will be much closer to their data and enjoy even faster speeds by connecting to local servers.
We will continue to keep everyone posted!
Hugo

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Guys,

Those worrying about the safety of your data on MI? Here's an update from Hugo Barra - which other company bothers to communicate as transparently about such issues?

Which other companies are you talking about? Other phones hardly establish 5-10 connections which are mostly familiar connections like Google etc against around 40-50 unjustified connections established in a phone running MIUI ROM. This all happens when you don'r even setup your user account or enable MI cloud service.

And nobody accepts allegations so this guy's logic given in defense of his company aren't important.

If you are really concerned even little bit on this matter then please download some network tracing tool in your phone running MIUI and check yourself to believe whats really happening .

Indian Air Force warns against using Xiaomi phones

Chinese Smartphones a Security Threat, says Indian Air Force - Published: 19th Oct 2014

Taiwan has even started serious investigation against Xiaomi and considering imposing full ban on Xiaomi.

Banning the company won't do any good, bigger threat is their MIUI ROM which is available for other brand phones as well at free of cost. Never seen if Samsung made available their TouchWiz ROM available for other phones or HTC put their ROM with 'Sense' interface on their website for free download and usage.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Which other companies are you talking about? Other phones hardly establish 5-10 connections which are mostly familiar connections like Google etc against around 40-50 unjustified connections established in a phone running MIUI ROM. This all happens when you don'r even setup your user account or enable MI cloud service.

And nobody accepts allegations so this guy's logic given in defense of his company aren't important.

If you are really concerned even little bit on this matter then please download some network tracing tool in your phone running MIUI and check yourself to believe whats really happening .

Indian Air Force warns against using Xiaomi phones

Chinese Smartphones a Security Threat, says Indian Air Force - Published: 19th Oct 2014

Taiwan has even started serious investigation against Xiaomi and considering imposing full ban on Xiaomi.

TBPPJPR,

Those news articles do not get down to specifics. I am sorry but you need to get down to facts. Maybe I've missed something so feel free to point it out.

In about ten minutes of googling and about five pages of results, I have found only one clear report on this, all of which refer to this IMA Mobile post. Here's one:
http://techtheday.com/chinese-manufa...tphone-spying/
http://www.financetwitter.com/2014/0...-block-it.html

Firstly, there's only one app in there that's connecting to a Chinese server. ONE. Maybe there's another report with those 40-50 connections but I couldn't find it.

Secondly, yes it is connecting to a ISP owned by a Chinese government entity - is that a spy agency network, or is it the equivalent of BSNL. I would reckon the latter. Here's how they explained it - which seems reasonable to me.

Thirdly, this was July 31, 2014. They have since turned it off on Aug 10th. And now their post, three months later says that any such cloud services will be moved to third party servers like Akamai / AWS. Your post does not have an up to date network tracing report!

Unless you have proof that their current softwares are still "stealing" user data *today* (rather post Aug 10th), I think we need to give the company the benefit of doubt.

OR run a diagnostic tool. Unfortunately I don't run MIUI on my phone at the moment else I would have gladly run it for you.

The only way to know the real truth is to run the networks tools on an up to date MI3 or Redmi 1S right now. Getting overly worked up basis either past information or an outright paranoia of China, is pointless.

Having said that, of course, I completely agree with IAF that they would like to ban. In matters of national security, no amount of paranoia is enough. For the rest of us, we need to assess it calmly and take a considered decision with actual facts as of now.

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Never seen if Samsung made available their TouchWiz ROM available for other phones or HTC put their ROM with 'Sense' interface on their website for free download and usage.

This is incorrect. Please understand that no manufacturer encourages porting their ROMs, except folks like MIUI (maybe 1+?). Therefore you will not see official downloads of Sense/Touchwiz ROMs for other phones, but you WILL see Sense/Touchwiz ports for other phones.
Here you go: Sense for MotoG, Sense for SGS3 , Touchwiz for HTC oneX, etc.

Now MIUI is different. Just because it does things differently from other companies doesn't make it a criminal for God's sake!

In my understanding (feel free to correct me), the company doesn't sit and make ROMs for every device. But they gladly encourage porting of their ROMs to other devices. Here's MIUI for i9300 - none of the ROMs worked for me though. What worked was a user developed version which had a fatal mike mute bug so I don't use it anymore.

At the end of the day, I appreciate the honesty with which MI is engaging and I would like to give them a chance. Clearly you didn't even dissect Hugo's statement but rejected it outright, convinced of MI's wrongdoing. Unless you have fresh watertight proof of any (criminal) wrongdoing, we should avoid unnecessary negativity.

Please understand that the company is not run by a bunch of fanatical idiots - it does not take long for a well trained researcher to prove wrongdoing if it is actually stealing consumer data wholesale. Doing so will invite outright bans and kill the company. Why would they do it? Would you do it if you were the MI CEO?

PS: The above link: http://www.financetwitter.com/2014/0...-block-it.html also mentions at the bottom how you can stop the data transmission after rooting! (maybe block all chinese IPs for good measure? )

[Aiel]

Originally Posted by Rehaan

What launcher are you using? Is it stock?

Post a screenshot of the apps drawer please.

cya
R

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

I think both of your phones have got "Google Now Launcher" by default which doesn't have widget tab in the app drawer like other stock launchers.

If you want to access the widget then touch and hold the long press on home screen and you will see few options including widget and wallpaper.

Originally Posted by _chikku

You mean , you don't see the tab in top side of the screen?

I am using the stock Android. The apps drawer was not visible. However, the suggestions by tbppjpr worked like a charm.

Thanks guys.

[tbppjpr]

I don't know what more facts you are looking for and why you are defending the Xiaomi to such level. I also didn't believe such news easily until I carried out my own tests which verified loud and clear that the allegations are not baseless. The tool I used even declares the IP addresses as data abuser. What more do you need. And why 30-40 connections in a single phone? A 'normal' android phone requires hardly 5-10 connections at max.

We have talked on this matter earlier as well and now I am sure that people defending Xiaomi haven't bothered about doing the tests themselves. This is very simple thing to download some network tracing tools in the Xiaomi phones ruining stock ROM and do the same in any other 'normal' android phone for comparison.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Those news articles do not get down to specifics. I am sorry but you need to get down to facts. Maybe I've missed something so feel free to point it out.

Forget about Indian agencies, what about Taiwan's move on this matter?

Here is one old report when things started coming into light:
http://en.ocworkbench.com/mobile-new...vers-secretly/



See the above screenshot and tell me one thing, all the apps can connect to one or other server but have you ever seen the default messaging app connects anywhere? I haven't seen that in any other ROM but this happens in the MIUI. There isn't anything in MIUI ROM which remains offline, atleast not when I tested it.

Unfortunately I forgot to capture screenshots when I was doing the test otherwise I would have also posted plenty of screenshots .

In about ten minutes of googling and about five pages of results, I have found only one clear report on this, all of which refer to this

Googling will show only what you want to read

Firstly, there's only one app in there that's connecting to a Chinese server. ONE. Maybe there's another report with those 40-50 connections but I couldn't find it.

As I said earlier, I flashed MIUI ROM in my own phone to see what exactly this all halla-gulla is and the results were really shocking. Maybe off-late they have brought down the number of data collections after seeing all the controversies, but the numbers were really plenty when I tested. There are few Xiaomi uses in this thread as well who also confirm the same.

Secondly, yes it is connecting to a ISP owned by a Chinese government entity - is that a spy agency network, or is it the equivalent of BSNL. I would reckon the latter. Here's how they explained it - which seems reasonable to me.

Real question is why and how on earth someone can collect data from my phone when I haven't granted any permission to do so? And BSNL equivalent will establish one or two connections, not so many of connections. Forget permission, this happens when I haven't even setup my accounts in the phone. On the contrary I haven't seen this happening in other normal ROMs.

This is incorrect. Please understand that no manufacturer encourages porting their ROMs, except folks like MIUI (maybe 1+?). Therefore you will not see official downloads of Sense/Touchwiz ROMs for other phones, but you WILL see Sense/Touchwiz ports for other phones.
Here you go: Sense for MotoG, Sense for SGS3 , Touchwiz for HTC oneX, etc.

You really didn't get what I wanted to say. I meant was I haven't seen any company officially making available their own firmware for other phone users, but Xiaomi does it officially. Why? I am sure you will have good reasons in favor of this move as well.


Smartphones are very dangerous equipments, its easy to turn them into a spyware in pocket instead alive human spy agents. Ideally there should be a 'proper' authority in our country which scrutinize the phones, computers, softwares etc come for sale and later watches their activities. But we are unfortunate that there isn't such thing in our country, and we people are also ignorant enough.

Though other countries take some measures. Have already given example of Taiwan, here is another example of Korea:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/south-korea...awei-products/

Forget these countries, even China doesn't allow other major players to run their services freely in their country. Apple, Google or Facebook are not free enough like how they are in other countries. China has it's own connectivity circle, a separate world where rest of the world can't easily look into.

PS: The above link: http://www.financetwitter.com/2014/0...-block-it.html also mentions at the bottom how you can stop the data transmission after rooting! (maybe block all chinese IPs for good measure? )

The internet articles, reports can wake only handful of people and they can take some measures to limit the connections, but what about lakhs of other people who are already using these devices and such reports don't reach to them, neither they know how to really check and fix such issues.

[phamilyman]

Dear TBPP,

You have quoted an image from the very article I linked. Thus even you, in your infinite skepticism did not find any more substantive *up to date* information.

Let's just agree to disagree on this issue, and never the twain shall meet! You're free to avoid MIUI like the plague, I will consider installing it when the dev fixes the mic bug

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Googling will show only what you want to read

This is news - Google is a mind reader? But never mind.

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

You really didn't get what I wanted to say. I meant was I haven't seen any company officially making available their own firmware for other phone users, but Xiaomi does it officially. Why? I am sure you will have good reasons in favor of this move as well.

Unlike HTC / Samsung - Xiaomi think of themselves as a software company first. XIAOMI have been around since Apr 2010 (and MIUI in Aug 2010) but their first device was in Aug 2012 only. So for two years, they got their ROM ready. What better way to test / develop it than letting everyone use it?

Think of it more like amazon but with just an app store. That's why MIUI has its own app store, its own comprehensive set of tools (like amazon). It wants to earn a piece of the consumer's spend, not just through phones. FYI both Samsung and HTC for sure install their own app stores on their devices as well.

MIUI goes one step further and offers its OS to other developers, which makes people port it by themselves to all possible devices (remember for 2+ years it was a software company and didn't have its hardware in the market). What better way to drive revenues than to have your software (and hence app store/ wallet etc etc) be installed on hundreds of millions of phones belonging other manufacturers?

To some, this is probably a really nefarious evil idea but let's just agree to disagree on this one as well

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by phamilyman

You have quoted an image from the very article I linked.

I posted that image just to show that MIUI is even collecting data from stock messaging app which I haven't seen anywhere else. Also wanted to refer that it all started long ago and authorities are still not serious. These are still allegations, not a proven crime. Point is if there is proper scrutiny channel which gives green signal after investigation then people can take a breath of peace.

Unlike HTC / Samsung - Xiaomi think of themselves as a software company first. XIAOMI have been around

And they are immature enough to throw their half baked software in the market just to test on users and keep releasing fixes for the bugs? It happens with others as well but not as frequent as Xiaomi.

MIUI goes one step further and offers its OS to other developers, which makes people port it by themselves to all possible devices (remember for 2+ years it was a software company and didn't have its hardware in the market). What better way to drive revenues than to have your software (and hence app store/ wallet etc etc) be installed on hundreds of millions of phones belonging other manufacturers?

But they are not any bigger than Google itself, or they are? Google, who's empire is standing on pillars of data collection also doesn't collect that much of data which MIUI collects! Adn Google atleast doesn't collect when user doesn't allow it to do so but MIUI does it. And there are other big players also who provide ROMs like CM, Slim etc. They provide far greater stable and smoother ROMs. But they don't collect data in the way MIUI collects.

If there is anyone who needs to give justification with facts then its Xiaomi who has given funny only logics so far to prove themselves clean.

[TheTeacher]

Originally Posted by SunnyBoi

Sync it with your Google account. Take a CSV export from MS Outlook and upload it into your GMail account. Once thats done, it will sync automatically with any android phone irrespective of the manufacturer.

Originally Posted by phamilyman

Sir,

like SB said, CSV export is the way. Last i tried it, in 2011 - it took me less time than you took to type your other post

phamilyman Sir,

Please don't Sir me; I'm a nobody, you're a respected Distinguished BHPian!

Gentlemen,

Thanks. I am totally leery of putting confidential data in the cloud or handing it over to Google. Let us say I'm just a little bit paranoid about data security, having been in the IT industry for 3 decades and knowing it's dirty little secrets.

The first thing I did when I got my present Android phone was to disable syncing with my GMail account (it exists, but is dormant; Yahoo email is my regular use email account)

I want something that will sync offline with my PC. If that means being restricted to these 4 manufacturers and having to live with the limited choice, so be it.

More importantly, my question remains unanswered. Big Corporate types who have MS Exchange as the in-house email will not like putting thier data on GMail and will want to sync with MS Outlook on the uers' PC.

[phamilyman]

Originally Posted by TheTeacher

phamilyman Sir,

Please don't Sir me; I'm a nobody, you're a respected Distinguished BHPian!

Gentlemen,

Thanks. I am totally leery of putting confidential data in the cloud or handing it over to Google. Let us say I'm just a little bit paranoid about data security, having been in the IT industry for 3 decades and knowing it's dirty little secrets.

The first thing I did when I got my present Android phone was to disable syncing with my GMail account (it exists, but is dormant; Yahoo email is my regular use email account)

I want something that will sync offline with my PC. If that means being restricted to these 4 manufacturers and having to live with the limited choice, so be it.

More importantly, my question remains unanswered. Big Corporate types who have MS Exchange as the in-house email will not like putting thier data on GMail and will want to sync with MS Outlook on the uers' PC.

Help me understand it better. Please describe what all data you wish to sync?

Most ROMs have the ability to add an "Exchange" account where you can sync email / calendar and ToDo. What else are you looking to sync?

Secondly, the sync is with the server, not the PC. The PC itself syncs with the server.

This is not the old paradigm where the nokia phones would "sync" with the PC. Every communication is directly with the cloud.

What functionality are you specifically missing?