****The official I'm a n00b to Android thread****
 

To this point I haven't had a droid. My phones have been blackberry lol and iPhone. But it seems to me like Apple has stagnated so I wanted to get into the Droid operating system through a tablet. That way if I hate droid I'm not into it through a phone that im locked into or costs a pile of money.

I bought a Samsung Galaxy note 8. So far I really like it.

Anyway, I know virtually nothing about droid. So I ne ed help figuring out all the cool shit droid will do. Apps, widgets, features, lets hear it.

Protocol droids are the best...

<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EVAO4C1SZLg/UT5f-azO-dI/AAAAAAAAKA4/JAG23yfLxIU/s1600/droids.jpg">

Have you played that Angry Birds?

android*

Currently my two most used tablet apps are Aldiko (eReader) and DSLR Dashboard (control cameras and live view).

Wow! What an awesome thread I made.

I can't believe there isn't anyone here that wants to trash ios and tell me some really great features about droid on tablets. At this point there is so much shit out there it's hard for me to wade through it all to find the decent apps and widgets.

Currently, I have the weather set up like I like it, as well as the home page. I also set up the android futures widget. It's pretty handy but I wish there was a way to get July wheat and Dec corn instead of the front month, but that's OK.

I have a few specific questions, though.

Is there a way to make it automatically insert a period if I push space twice? I haven't managed to locate that yet.

Also, which is better, the stock Internet browser or chrome?

Which app is best for running office documents, mostly excel?

How do you shut off apps running in the background to conserve battery?

What other good features, apps, widgets, whatever do you use?

Ok, I found the double space Period thing..

My Keyboard automatically adds a period if I click twice. I use a custom keyboard called Go Keyboard. Not sure if you can make the default keyboard do it.

There's a version of M$ Office for Android, but it requires paying for an Office365 subscription. Which you can get for $80/4yr sub.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...fice.officehub

I use a knockoff called Kingsoft Office. Works decent enough for the price. But I don't do a whole lot of mobile work, just very simple editing. It also allows you to manage pdfs.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ps.moffice_eng

I really like Chrome.

Hold down the Home button to get to the Task Manager. You can kill apps there.

You can also get apps like JuiceDefender, that does a bunch of stuff to preserve battery. But I found most of those apps to be such a pain in the ass that I preferred to simply manage running apps manually.

Voice works really nicely. It's a Siri clone. I use that very frequently. If you're running stock Samsung, it will be S-Voice. You can configure it to whatever button combination you want.

Titanium Backup is a nice app. Used for backups, app management, freezing apps, etc.

TeslaLED is a flashlight app that turns your camera flash into a flashlight.

CardStar lets you store all your Shopper cards on your phone.

AroundMe is handy for finding nearby places of interest.


Just a few I can think of.

You're describing my experience with my Nexus 7. Other than big name apps that are just iOS clones, there's really nothing that really gets me fired up. The slickest app I've come across is a clock/timer.

1. I don't think you can do the double-space = period thing in the stock keyboard, but there are dozens of others out there. I'm a big fan of Swiftkey, though I have no idea if it has that feature or not.
2. Chrome.
3. I don't personally do Office on my phone/tablet, but Microsoft has...well...Microsoft Office. I'd try that.
4. I never bother with shutting down apps - that's generally viewed as more effort than it's worth. If you turn off communications (WiFi, Bluetooth, etc.) that might help a bit, but honestly I wouldn't bother with a tablet as long as you're not running into major drain issues.
5. There's a thread in here somewhere that's nothing but nifty Android apps, but here are a few I like that might not be obvious:

• Tapatalk for CP browsing
• theScore for sports scores
• BeyondPod for podcasts
• TuneIn Radio for mobile radio
• Spotify for music
• Chrome Remote Desktop to get back to your PC if you need it

Feel free to reach out if you have specific questions (you know how to find me). I think your thread isn't getting a lot of responses because your initial question is kind of like saying "I just got a computer. What do I do with it?"

Oh, and be sure to get Google Now up and running. It's already built into your tablet, but you may have to get it up and running. It'll randomly show you stuff that's interesting.

Oh #2: And for the record, it's technically Android. Droid is a specific line of phones by Motorola.

I think it's really reached parity for the most part. Kind of like Windows vs. Mac, most major apps are on both systems these days, so the selling points are the core OS and features rather than app libraries.

I got it to work on the samsung keyboard. It is an option buried in there. Is a keyboard app wort it in that it's got enough better features that it is worth the trouble of downloading?

I need office and I don't want to pay for it.

On ios I shut down the apps because it can rob processing power and cause a little lag.

Makes sense as to why I'm not getting responses, but if there are no real differentiating features from ios, it may not be worth the hassle of grtting tied into android.