Bitcoin Forum

I've been an iPhone user for a few years, and getting into the Android world for the first time.  Any must-have Android apps?  Bitcoin or non-Bitcoin related.

Also, can anyone tell me what the USB cable is called for the Galaxy S4?  I keep seeing MHL and 11-pin, but I'm not familiar enough with the terminology to be certain I am ordering the right cable online.

ah cool I just got an S4 a few hours ago as well.
Shes charging up for first time so havn't had a play yet..but watch some of the video's..  Some of the camera stuff looks awesome if you are into that.
The eye / air stuff looks kinda cool to..

I had a S1 then an S3 but didn't use many apps.. so can't help you their but the cable is micro usb.
*edit* and just to confirm its just a standard micro usb.. same as the nokia's use etc etc.. so no need to buy a "samsung" branded one.
Also i'm curious what version of android yours has ?? Mines AUS so might be diff - You can check in settings -> about phone or device.. i forget

turned it on and changed all the settings to my likings..
the air touch move thingo is a bit flakey.. as is the eye move tracker thingo.. spose just need to figure out howto do it properly..

kinda over the phone now :)

Did you buy it with bitcoins?

S4, can be buggy.
But, it is a really good phone and I WOULD recommend to anyone who has came from a iphone.

Android, just seems right to me.
The must have app has got to be something bitcoin related right?
I think there's a few apps related to bitcoin you might want to check out.

just installed / played "real racing 3"

oh my god.. amazing graphics!!!!

hmm seems to be a bug with the wifi.. it connects / works.. then after a while.. sumhow loses or changes the passwd...
hopefully just a errr one time thing....

Nope.  Renewed my contract, and AT&T doesn't take Bitcoins yet.

Honestly, I don't really like it much.  I do like the bigger screen, and I do like the fact that there's no Apple store to block out all the Bitcoin wallets, but other than that, I kind of miss my old iPhone.

The keyboard is crap.  The iPhone keyboard would autocorrect everything, and do it perfectly 95% of the time.  Even after installing an aftermarket keyboard on this one, it still doesn't autocorrect some obvious ones, and never seems to autocorrect if you have an extra letter in what you were intending to write.

The interface is fairly laggy compared to an iPhone.  The iPhone is just so much smoother.  Google maps is much more laggy.  Games that shouldn't require much processing power, like Words With Friends, are laggy when moving the screen around and zooming in/out.

After using an iPhone, and now using an Android, I can definitely see what people mean when they say that Apple has the more refined product.  I miss that.  :(  But alas - I will make the sacrifice at least until Apple gets it through their thick skulls that Bitcoin is not made by the devil.

Apps: WiFiKill, Wifinspect, ES File Explorer, Duo Mobile, Ingress.

Good luck with your new phone!

Thank you - I'll check those out!

.

Do you have an invite for Ingress? It looks interesting...

A bunch of kids are selling them in the Digital Goods section for free / for a few bit cents.

Sadly no, I've been playing forever but haven't been given that ability yet. I think you can sign up at ingress.com though.

Listed by order of importance

You definitely want ES File Explorer. It handles so much, and makes so many apps obsolete. It includes a media player, storage analyzer, application backup (get APKs), download manager, etc.

If you plan on watching movies, MX Player is the way to go. Great UI and supports all sorts of formats.

Google Authenticator for 2fa.

TeamViewer has a surprisingly usable interface.

I use Bitcoin Widget to watch the price.

Orbot is Tor on Android. With the proper system settings (under your WiFi network), you can get Chrome to connect through it.

Everyone has their own favorite keyboard; mine is Swype Beta (not available on the Play Store). Install Hacker's Keyboard alongside that.

Maybe you want an IRC client and APG for mobile bitcoin-otc stuff; you could also use TeamViewer for that.

Tasker for automation, AIDE for quick on-device app development (handy for programmers). Similarly, there's the kbox terminal emulator which can run quick sh scripts. Limbo PC Emulator can run Damn Small Linux within the device without root.

Screen Filter to go below the minimum brightness setting

Luckily, they have given me an invite almost immediately after asking for one!

Thanks!

Flashlight.
Opera Mobile

Astro File Manager

APK Installer

GVoice Callback

Sipdroid

Kindle and Nook clients

Audible client

Scientific Calculator

PDANet

Adobe Reader

Note Everything

Wifi and Airplane mode toggle widgets

Tone Picker

NavFree (GPS navigation w/o Internet connection)

Andreas Schildbach's Bitcoin client (ports also exist for LTC, FTC if you want them.)

Whatever other specific utilities might be useful to you

Battery Optimizer

Almost forgot!

Notification Toggle (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.j4velin.notificationToggle&hl=en) is an absolute must-have, especially if your version of TouchWiz doesn't have a data toggle in the shade.

Wow, nice list!

Thank you all for your inputs!

bloody dropped my phone onto concrete today... screen shattered in top right corner.
still 100% usable..  not to much of the actual touchable screen shattered (and even that bit still works) just doesn't look so pretty anymore. and don't really wana put my head to close to the shattered glass.. has a few sharp bits...
$260 to fix :(

I'm sure the earlier models where much sturdier.. my s1 I used to throw around and its still 100% 2-3 years later... even the s3 took a few hits and was fine (till i dropped it in water.. :[ )

Its annoying cause i'm usually not this unlucky / retarded.


i

My S2 feels old.

I'm selling my S4... $550.  Want to replace yours?  :)

nah... no thanks

u dislike it that much ?? Going back to iphone ?

All I use is Wifi Tether and GAuth.... but I can't get a mobile signal worth beans, and VOIP is unusable on low-strength 3G. Thanks, Sprint.  :D

3G... how 2011...

but yeah i'm the same.. just use the phone for sms / basic crap.. a 1995 nokia 5110 would do me fine.

Feels so good to finally get rid of the Itunes closed-shit, right?

:D

Useful

Falcon - lovely twitter widget.

Miner status - keep an eye on your mining rig.

Barcode scanner - for all your QR and UPC needs.  Nice feature is that it will de-shorten URLs for you, so you can see where you're going before you go there, which is essential with the QR-driven malware going around.

FBreader - Nice featureful epub, etc. reader

Realcalc - nice scientific calculator

Battery Snap - nice battery stats app, with an informative widget

Android Terminal Emulator - Use your shell.  Useful for various purposes.

Busybox - Full set of real shell tools for above terminal.

DNSchanger - Hand your carrier a bit less information about your activities

Droidwall - Pick and choose what apps get to use the internet and when.

Catlog - Logcat reader.  Essential for bug reporting.

GPS Status & Toolbox - Gives you additional details on your GPS status

MinFreeManager - Tweak the values for the low memory killer, either to keep more RAM free or keep apps from being killed when you don't want them gone.

Silent Toggle widget - Quick one-touch widget to toggle between normal, vibrate, and silent.

SpeedHud - Speedometer and trip logger.

SuperSU - More full-featured superuser manager

To Do List Widget - Exactly what it sounds like.  It's a simple and convenient to-do list.

VLC for Android beta - It's VLC on Android.  Still has some bugs, but is steadily improving.

Amusing


Soundhound and/or Shazam - Never wonder what song is playing again.

Coloreye - Identifies colours by Pantone name and RGB hex.

It's 5 o'Clock Somewhere - And now you know where exactly.

Simple Moon Phase Widget - Tells you the current moon phase and gives a calender of the phases.  Nice for werewolves or the curious.

Yep, I really did.  Lots of little things I just really didn't like about it.  The keyboard is terrible (all of them), the screen is very hard to see in sunlight, some apps are $10 or $20 on Android while free on iOS, I can't go from the lock screen straight to taking a picture, taking a screenshot of the phone didn't work 80% of the time, etc.  The iPhone just does everything I want it to do except Bitcoin (hopefully more support in that area will come soon), so I switched back.

You sound like me switching from an iPhone.
"Lots of little things I just really didn't like about it. The keyboard is terrible (there's no way to try even one other), the screen is tiny, the appstore is blatantly censored for political views and there's no way to sideload apps, I can't use lockscreen widgets (or widgets at all), can't replace the battery (useful on long trips), can't expand the tiny storage space with an SD card, no Bitcoin allowed, etc etc. Android does everything I want it to, so I switched to it.

Agree that the screen is smaller than I'd like it to be on the iPhone, but it's too big on the S4 for some things... I never really decided if I liked the 5" screen size or not.  1080p was awesome, but I couldn't one-hand it across the entire screen like I can on the iPhone.  It's more like using a tablet instead of using a phone.

App store censoring is annoying, lockscreen widgets are cool, I agree, and replacing the battery and storage is awesome.  The downsides just threw me off too much though.  I'll probably try the latest and greatest Android offering in another year and a half, when I am again eligible for an upgrade, and see if I like it.

The keyboard is way better on the iPhone though.  It actually autocorrects properly.  ::)  If you do so much as add an extra letter on the S4, it would come up with all sorts of words you didn't want.  The iPhone's autocorrect is just a lot smarter, and means I can type essentially without looking and very quickly, and it almost always comes out how I wanted it to, even though every other letter was mistyped.

Agree to disagree on the keyboard. Having tried the iPhone keyboard, Swiftkey, and Swype (latest beta), I've found that swiping is much faster than tapping, and SwiftKey's AutoCorrect is more accurate than the iPhone's (it will sometimes predict 4 words in advance!)

Edit: yes, no Android phone that I know of ships with a good keyboard.

I think I tried a keyboard called "Perfect Keyboard" which was better than the default, but still not great with regards to autocorrection.  If Swiftkey wasn't one of the stock keyboards available, I didn't try it, sadly, as I may have liked it.  Swype is cool and probably fast if you're used to typing on a phone with one hand to begin with.  As it is, swyping could never be as fast as I type with two thumbs, since it only uses one finger and have more traveling time between letters.  Even after I got used to the swype keyboard (it was the one I used the most) and was swyping across words as fast as I physically could, it still doesn't hold a candle to just plain old autocorrected-without-looking thumb typing.

Anyway, yes, agree to disagree.  Obviously, different keyboards are better for one person vs another based on how they type.

Wait -- it's possible to type on these things? My big, fat thumbs are always pressing 2-3 keys unless I switch to landscape mode, and then I usually can't see what I'm typing. Whatever happened to those phones with the slide-out keyboards?  :(

That's SwiftKey's specialty. Some of the big OEM's should stop trying to make their own crappy keyboards and just make a deal with SwiftKey.
I tend to agree about the speed, but two-thumbing gets tiring more quickly, especially because you're lifting them vertically.

Use your nails, or try swiping.

Mine too.  That's why I like keyboards that will autocorrect for me, so I can just get in the general area of what I was trying to do and it makes it into what I was actually trying to write.

redphone

text secure

gibberbot

twidere

fdroid

jitsi(alpha)

k9 email

fire Fox

orbot

Someone's got their head on straight. Note: firefox does not use the system proxy setting, so good luck getting it to work over Tor. Chrome does.

i switch between browsers depending on how patient i am at the time.

also, i would suggest getting Cyanogenmod flashed to your phone. Its available for Rogers and TMobile versions of the S4, last time I checked. There may be unofficial builds for the other carriers.

Let me know if you get Cyanogenmod up and running on a Galaxy S4 (AT&T)

My must-have apps list:

Es File Explorer
Fing Network Tools
Astrid Tasks
Photo Editor
Groove IP
MyWeather Mobile
Adaway
Chrome
Unified Remote (paid)

It's true that the iPhone keyboard is better than the Samsung one - but Swiftkey (a third party app which replaces the Samsung KeyBoard) is WAY superior to both of them. You can actually fully customize it, it learns the way you write and it pretty much "writes all alone by itself". Plus, on Swiftkey you can set up three preferred languages for the autocorrection, so you do not need to switch between languages when writing. I know many english speakers only write in english, but for many of us who use +3 languages per day is a HUGE advantage.

I think you shoud have given a little bit more time to your Android - it's true that iPhone works pretty good "out of the box", while on the contrary you need to tweak the Android for it to really shine. But, as soon as you have put a little amount to work in it (downloading the widgets that are relevant for you, replacing the keyboard and other apps that control key functions), you will discover a world where "everything is possible", while on iOS you are locked inside Apple's very limited world.

My must have Apps:

1password
Evernote
Google Authenticator
Waze
K-9 mail (WAY superior to the built-in mail app)
Dropbox
Spotify
Whatsapp
JuiceDefender
Skype
My Bank's app
Smart Tools
Bitcoin Widget
Bitcoinium

I like litecoin widget better than bitcoin widget.
litecoin widget is able to display a whole bunch of coins including bitcoin and it's faster to refresh the price

The issue is that AT&T (and Verison) S4s have locked bootloaders, though an temporary (you need to redo it every time you flash) exploit is available (http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/05/25/1633247/researcher-unlocks-galaxy-s4-bootloader-for-att-verizon-phones).

Here's the ultimate battery saving app. I just found it and its already saving me tons of battery life. These smart phones suck power like crack addicts.

Its called DS Battery Saver Pro.

This app simply puts your phone in deep sleep timer. It will wake up after a set period, turn on all network devices, sync, and then go back to sleep after a specified time. So far with this app my phone uses 3% battery per hour, that's 30+ hours with very lite use, waking every 15 minutes to sync.

Unfortunately if you need to answer all incoming voice calls then this app will not work for you.

I'll probably dive back in to the Android world in 18 months again, we'll see.  But yes, I wish I would have had a chance to try out the swiftkey keyboard.

For now though, I am quite enjoying the addition of an iPad to my arsenal of electronics, due to the money saved by just using my old iPhone and selling the S4.  :)