Samsung Galaxy S4 thread - See Mod Warning in Post #1

projectgtr

Herrick wrote: »

Agonizing whether to swap my iPhone 4s for the S4 but don't know.

Does the S4 have many issues at the moment? Is stock OS on the phone laggy at all? Any other issues?

Turn off the s-voice activation on the home button and the major lag is gone, honestly its a great phone though to be completely honest im selling mine to get a new Nexus.

Cossax

I'm on the same firmware that was on my S4 when I got it (rooted and not bothered updating until 4.3) and I have the latest Maps but I still have Navigation/Local whereas on my Nexus 4, I have Maps but no Navigation/Local.

It seems Navigation/Local is actually the same app as Maps but recent updates have removed the N/L app entry for huge amounts of people and yet I still have it, anyone else in the same boat? I've made it a user app, removed it, downloaded it and then made it a system app again and still have N/L.

Meleftone

techdiver wrote: »

Hi,

Yeah, I'm on the latest version of WatchOn, 5.1.4.

When I start it up and select Ireland I only get Sky as an option??

I read about issues with the UPC listing, I wonder have they removed it? Or is it only custom fit onto Irish operators firmware? (I'm on stock sim free model).

Had the same problem with mine but reset watch on and upc option is there when you select country

techdiver

Meleftone wrote: »

Had the same problem with mine but reset watch on and upc option is there when you select country

They seem to have fixed it in the last few weeks.

fuzz69er

Afternoon all.

Our office is looking at switching our mobile account to e-mobile from Vodafone. They have a new business offer for €30pm per handset fixed and are offering all the new phones as part of the deal. I can get myself an S4, HTC One, Xperia Z or iPhone 5. I love my S2 so am leaning towards the S4 but I don't know much about the others. Would any of them be a better option. I'm slow to move to Apple as I already have a Google account with about 40 apps linked.

Thanks.

rogieop

ive downloaded dashclock widget and am trying to put it on my lock screen. seems i cant have that and have a pattern to unlock my phone aswell as every time i set up the pattern dashboard disables.

Any ideas?

Cossax

rogieop wrote: »

ive downloaded dashclock widget and am trying to put it on my lock screen. seems i cant have that and have a pattern to unlock my phone aswell as every time i set up the pattern dashboard disables.

Any ideas?

Can you set it up if you make it Swipe instead of Pattern unlock? I usually use WidgetLocker so am not all that familiar with the TW lockscreen.

rogieop

Cossax wrote: »

Can you set it up if you make it Swipe instead of Pattern unlock? I usually use WidgetLocker so am not all that familiar with the TW lockscreen.

yeah i can do that but swypes isnt exactly safe.

Will have a look at widget locker. cheers.

GorillaRising

Picked up the GS4 at the weekend.

Great piece of hardware, but my God Touchwiz is horrific. I really hope they revamp it for Android 5.0.

Turned off all the useless stuff and installed Nova. Much nicer and quicker.

Surprised to see only 9GB of space useable for a 16GB device. That's really not good enough regardless of the fact there's an SD card slot.

madmoe

projectgtr wrote: »

Turn off the s-voice activation on the home button and the major lag is gone, honestly its a great phone though to be completely honest im selling mine to get a new Nexus.

I can't wait for the Nexus 5 and a pure STOCK Android experience without all the useless software and bloatware Samsung add in!!

GorillaRising

At the risk of sounding stupid:

Does the GS4 require unlocking prior to flashing custom ROMs?

I've installed CWM and rooted, but I'm unable to install an ubranded GS4 ROM...

techdiver

GorillaRising wrote: »

At the risk of sounding stupid:

Does the GS4 require unlocking prior to flashing custom ROMs?

I've installed CWM and rooted, but I'm unable to install an ubranded GS4 ROM...

If by unlocking, you mean network unlocking, then no.

You can flash custom roms without unlocking.

projectgtr

madmoe wrote: »

I can't wait for the Nexus 5 and a pure STOCK Android experience without all the useless software and bloatware Samsung add in!!

Me too, im surprised at how snappy in day to day use my old Galaxy Nexus is compared to the S4. The S4 is a great phone by all means but the Nexus is just for me. I was going to flash the GE ROM but i think ill just sell and go for the Nexus5 when/if it ever gets released

GorillaRising

techdiver wrote: »

If by unlocking, you mean network unlocking, then no.

You can flash custom roms without unlocking.

It's just I read on XDA and other sources that when flashing the device should be unlocked...which I thought was strange.

Anyone flash pure Jellybean 4.3?

donkey balls

Cossax wrote: »

I get 24 hours easily enough with 3 hours of screen on time and data on in a poor reception area for a large chunk of that - either your battery is on or you have a huge amount of the gimmicks and possibly a rogue app running and draining your battery.

If you check the battery (Settings, More, Battery), what is it listing as the biggest battery user?
In addition, maybe go to the Notification window, switch to the quick settings and see if you have loads of those tiles activated.

The screen comes up as using 64% with voice calls using 17% the thing is that I have the screen to time out after 2 minutes.

techdiver

GorillaRising wrote: »

It's just I read on XDA and other sources that when flashing the device should be unlocked...which I thought was strange.

Anyone flash pure Jellybean 4.3?

Well if it means anything, I have previously flashed locked phones without any adverse effects.

nodolan

fuzz69er wrote: »

Afternoon all.

Our office is looking at switching our mobile account to e-mobile from Vodafone. They have a new business offer for €30pm per handset fixed and are offering all the new phones as part of the deal. I can get myself an S4, HTC One, Xperia Z or iPhone 5. I love my S2 so am leaning towards the S4 but I don't know much about the others. Would any of them be a better option. I'm slow to move to Apple as I already have a Google account with about 40 apps linked.

Thanks.

Your post might cause a breach of the warning at the start of this thread.

I have a rooted S4 (GT-i9505) and I've installed the Google Play Edition (4.3) ROM on it and it's lightning fast. My hubby got the HTC One and it too is lightning fast (also 4.3).

Google offers business tools for administering Android phones (if that's something you want) as does Apple. Most Android devices can be backed up on the phone itself and to 'the cloud' on the fly which I find to be a huge benefit over Apple.

Your question basically boils down to Apple vs Android (personally I'd go for Android and the S4 for gizmos or HTC One for style).

I hope this doesn't breach the OP?

PS: Android provides complete phone encryption and SD card encryption which I've triied and there was no noticeable lag - plus Android now provides a free 'Find My Phone' from Google using the Google Settings app - as long as your phone is on and the location functions are on (that presents its own problems) you can remotely find and/or wipe your phone, for free.

GorillaRising

Yeah I had before too so was wondering.

techdiver wrote: »

Well if it means anything, I have previously flashed locked phones without any adverse effects.

Do you know how 'Pure' Android runs on the GS4?

Also, anyone see a lot of battery usage from 'Phone idle'...mine when down 2% in 3hrs last night. Not sure how normal that is on the Galaxy though.

nodolan

I had a comprehensive post typed and as usual boards.ie logged me out (because I use ad blockers) and so I lost the whole post (I forgot to Ctrl-A Ctrl-C that I normally do just in case).

I'm running Google Play Edition 4.3 (Pure Android as some refer to it) on a rooted S4 (GT-i9505).

I'm also using the XPosed Framework:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1574401

And XPrivacy:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2320783

I find XPrivacy absolutely invaluable as it stops Google and Android apps from data harvesting.

There are lots of XPosed modules available including one to get around the headphone volume limitation in Android 4.3 (though my phone still crashes if I try to put the volume up to 11 so to speak.)

There's a hidden menu in Android 4.3 called App Ops and there are various free apps out there available to acess this menu. I use this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordpress.chislonchow.appopsshortcut

Be careful not to pay for any App Ops app that claims to give you extras because there are no extras apart from a How-To or an explanation of permissions - all of which you can find out for free online.

I don't know if any or all of this has already been covered but that's my 2c (so far).

GorillaRising

nodolan wrote: »

...

Cheers for that! I'll have a proper look later when I'm at home.

How do you find battery life on Google play edition?

nodolan

GorillaRising wrote: »

Cheers for that! I'll have a proper look later when I'm at home.

How do you find battery life on Google play edition?

Incredible. As long as you don't use Location (GPS), Mobile Data and WiFi non-stop you'll easily get 24 hours. I'm a fairly heavy user (Location/Mobile Data/WiFi non-stop) and the battery lasts the full day. The Google Play Edition I'm using is:
Android version
4.3
Baseband version
I9505XXUBMEA
Kernel version
3.4.0-1246543
faux123@localhost.localdomain #6
Wed Aug 7 16:40:44 CDT 2013
Build number
JWR66V.S014.130801

From here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2352258

It's stripped of all the extra Google apps like Google+, Keep etc. it's only 200+MB

There's also this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2341026
It includes all the Google apps and it's around 400+MB.

GorillaRising

nodolan wrote: »

Incredible. As long as you don't use Location (GPS), Mobile Data and WiFi non-stop you'll easily get 24 hours. I'm a fairly heavy user (Location/Mobile Data/WiFi non-stop) and the battery lasts the full day. The Google Play Edition I'm using is:
Android version
4.3
Baseband version
I9505XXUBMEA
Kernel version
3.4.0-1246543
faux123@localhost.localdomain #6
Wed Aug 7 16:40:44 CDT 2013
Build number
JWR66V.S014.130801

From here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2352258

It's stripped of all the extra Google apps like Google+, Keep etc. it's only 200+MB

There's also this one: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2341026
It includes all the Google apps and it's around 400+MB.

Cheers for that! 400MB vs the 6GB Samsung have on it! Deal.

techdiver

GorillaRising wrote: »

Yeah I had before too so was wondering.




Do you know how 'Pure' Android runs on the GS4?

Also, anyone see a lot of battery usage from 'Phone idle'...mine when down 2% in 3hrs last night. Not sure how normal that is on the Galaxy though.

I'm using Omega v10, which is a custom rom that includes Samsung apps and touchwiz. I easily get a full day of moderate usage out of it with 3G/Wi-Fi.

Cossax

nodolan wrote: »

I had a comprehensive post typed and as usual boards.ie logged me out (because I use ad blockers) and so I lost the whole post (I forgot to Ctrl-A Ctrl-C that I normally do just in case).

I'm running Google Play Edition 4.3 (Pure Android as some refer to it) on a rooted S4 (GT-i9505).

I'm also using the XPosed Framework:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1574401

And XPrivacy:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2320783

I find XPrivacy absolutely invaluable as it stops Google and Android apps from data harvesting.

There are lots of XPosed modules available including one to get around the headphone volume limitation in Android 4.3 (though my phone still crashes if I try to put the volume up to 11 so to speak.)

There's a hidden menu in Android 4.3 called App Ops and there are various free apps out there available to acess this menu. I use this one: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wordpress.chislonchow.appopsshortcut

Be careful not to pay for any App Ops app that claims to give you extras because there are no extras apart from a How-To or an explanation of permissions - all of which you can find out for free online.

I don't know if any or all of this has already been covered but that's my 2c (so far).

How do you find it vs. TW based roms? Anything very obviously broken?
I've Sammy's 4.2.2 on it and I've a Nexus 4 also and much prefer using the Nexus 4 at times, that little bit snappier despite being older/less powerful so 4.3 GE might be a nice change.

pah

Cossax wrote: »

How do you find it vs. TW based roms? Anything very obviously broken?
I've Sammy's 4.2.2 on it and I've a Nexus 4 also and much prefer using the Nexus 4 at times, that little bit snappier despite being older/less powerful so 4.3 GE might be a nice change.

How about both?

http://phandroid.com/2013/08/22/galaxy-s4-modaco-switch-rom-now-avaliable-in-beta-indiegogo/

GorillaRising

Flashed Google edition earlier on there. Much better! Smooth, no issues so far...

siobhanoh

Bought the S4 last Thursday. Today the battery is draining very fast and the main culprit is 'Android OS' at 85%. I have been looking around online and apparently that is a very high percentage. All apps are closed, I turned it off, took out the battery and restarted it but it is still the same. I tweeted Three about it and they said to bring it into the shop. I'm going away tomorrow and I really don't want to waste time going to the Three shop if I don't have to. Does anybody know if this is a defect?

GorillaRising

That's crazy high alright. Mine is at 6% at the moment.

Battery performance usually gets better after a week or so when it's been calibrated. But nonetheless it shouldn't be that high.

What were you running previously? How long are you getting out of it daily with normal usage??

Do you have lots of active widgets and accounts syncing?? Otherwise could be a dodgy unit firmware wise unfortunately.

I had a similar issue with an S3 before and changing it to a non branded carrier firmware did the trick.

donkey balls

This is the usage on my SG4

Screen 68%
Device idle 8%
Android OS 6%
Voice 5%
Google services 4%
Cell Standby 3%
Journal 3%
Facebook 2%
Android system 2%
The screen time out is set for 2 minutes any ideas on what I could/should do.:o

GorillaRising

donkey balls wrote: »

This is the usage on my SG4

Screen 68%
Device idle 8%
Android OS 6%
Voice 5%
Google services 4%
Cell Standby 3%
Journal 3%
Facebook 2%
Android system 2%
The screen time out is set for 2 minutes any ideas on what I could/should do.:o

What's your usage like and what kind of usage are you getting??

My battery when down 5% in 6 hours last night -- Device idle being the main culprit.

donkey balls

I hardly use the phone to make calls during work I would mainly use it to read e mails send texts,And browse through the stories on the Journal. ie.
I would also use the music player while going training in the morning for 90 minutes which uses about 10/15% of the battery.

GorillaRising

But how long does a charge last you with that usage? 10-15% could be a lot depending on if you're manually changing tracks with the screen on a lot of the time...

Seems to be a common enough issue with the galaxy -- battery drain.

I remember there was a similar issue on the Nexus 4 with Jellybean prior to an update.

This is why I prefer iOS.

donkey balls

I get about 10/12 hours out of the battery since I took it off charge this morning around 8ish ,The battery has gone down to 90% and that's just reading e mails and posting on boards.

GorillaRising

That seems normal enough - mine's at 84% - a few minutes of browsing, torch for a few minutes, some texts and about 5 short calls.

I've noticed it seems to shoot down initially and gets better as the day goes on..

nodolan

Cossax wrote: »

How do you find it vs. TW based roms? Anything very obviously broken?
I've Sammy's 4.2.2 on it and I've a Nexus 4 also and much prefer using the Nexus 4 at times, that little bit snappier despite being older/less powerful so 4.3 GE might be a nice change.

The main problem for me with GPE 4.3 vs TW is the new security - Google hasn't been very open about what exactly has changed - LBE Security Master doesn't work properly any more. I'm hyper-privacy concerned and the stock ROM just pours out personal data to Google, Samsung and individual apps, but as I said, I use XPosed/XPrivacy and that gives me very detailed control over what personal data apps can access (main thing being my phone number/ID/IMSI/IMEI, location and contacts.

The 'Pure Android (4.3)' Google Play Edition loses nothing important for me compared to Samsung's stock ROM - I never used all the waving/proximity/audio gizmos - but if you still want them a lot of them are available freely from the Play Store as individual apps.

People finding the Android system using up the battery shouldn't be too concerned. Google's services/framework (Google Settings etc.) has been given a lot more 'work' to do - Ads, Location, Google+, Phone Finder etc - so it looks like it's taking up huge amounts of battery life but it's actually doing most of the Google/Android functions now AFAIK.

PS: The special cover (forget the name) still works with GPE 4.3.
PPS: I'm downloading the MoDaCo dual-boot ROM right now (I'm a glutton for punishment) - can't wait to try it out.

mylesm

one word

Nexus

GorillaRising

Camera is rubbish and I needed a good one. Also require an sd slot.

If I could get both with a Nexus I'd have kept mine.

GorillaRising

nodolan wrote: »

The main problem for me with GPE 4.3 vs TW is the new security - Google hasn't been very open about what exactly has changed - LBE Security Master doesn't work properly any more. I'm hyper-privacy concerned and the stock ROM just pours out personal data to Google, Samsung and individual apps, but as I said, I use XPosed/XPrivacy and that gives me very detailed control over what personal data apps can access (main thing being my phone number/ID/IMSI/IMEI, location and contacts.

The 'Pure Android (4.3)' Google Play Edition loses nothing important for me compared to Samsung's stock ROM - I never used all the waving/proximity/audio gizmos - but if you still want them a lot of them are available freely from the Play Store as individual apps.

People finding the Android system using up the battery shouldn't be too concerned. Google's services/framework (Google Settings etc.) has been given a lot more 'work' to do - Ads, Location, Google+, Phone Finder etc - so it looks like it's taking up huge amounts of battery life but it's actually doing most of the Google/Android functions now AFAIK.

PS: The special cover (forget the name) still works with GPE 4.3.
PPS: I'm downloading the MoDaCo dual-boot ROM right now (I'm a glutton for punishment) - can't wait to try it out.

My battery went to sh!t with play edition. Down 10% in an hour with a tiny bit of usage.

Back on stock with Nova and ton of stuff quarantined.

madmoe

siobhanoh wrote: »

Bought the S4 last Thursday. Today the battery is draining very fast and the main culprit is 'Android OS' at 85%. I have been looking around online and apparently that is a very high percentage. All apps are closed, I turned it off, took out the battery and restarted it but it is still the same. I tweeted Three about it and they said to bring it into the shop. I'm going away tomorrow and I really don't want to waste time going to the Three shop if I don't have to. Does anybody know if this is a defect?

Factory reset??

markc91

Woke up today and seen a security policy update available so went to download it but it failed and said update failed due to network issues tried on 3g and wifi getting the same error message anyone got any ideas?

Mc Love

also getting cant connect to server

MrVestek

mylesm wrote: »

one word

Nexus

As a previous Nexus 4 owner - the S4 is a better device in purely user experience.

knipex

markc91 wrote: »

Woke up today and seen a security policy update available so went to download it but it failed and said update failed due to network issues tried on 3g and wifi getting the same error message anyone got any ideas?

exact same issue here. lots of reports of similar problem in UK.

MonkstownHoop

knipex wrote: »

exact same issue here. lots of reports of similar problem in UK.

Installed the update just now, not sure what it has done

projectgtr

Achilles wrote: »

As a previous Nexus 4 owner - the S4 is a better device in purely user experience.

User experience wise the S4 doesn't have a patch on stock Nexus. In everyday use I still prefer my galaxy nexus over my s4. They over complicate a simple snappy OS with gimmicks IMO. GE edition would be best of both worlds though

Random

this security policy thing is very annoying. thought maybe just failing on 3g but failing on wifi at home now too.

Doom

markc91 wrote: »

Woke up today and seen a security policy update available so went to download it but it failed and said update failed due to network issues tried on 3g and wifi getting the same error message anyone got any ideas?

Same here...

Dr.Winston O'Boogie

Doom wrote: »

Same here...

Me too, annoying me at this stage.

Cossax

Achilles wrote: »

As a previous Nexus 4 owner - the S4 is a better device in purely user experience.

I do miss the toggles on the secondary menu of the notification shade, easily fixable if I want but just slightly annoying to have to fix. +1 for the S4.

Other than that, I prefer the Nexus 4 (despite only getting the 8gig version compared to 16 gig + SD for my S4). Part of that may be as I used CyanogenMod on my S2 so vanilla feels more familiar than TW does.
In general, I find it snappier, the interface cleaner and I'd frozen all the gimmicks on the S4 anyway while the battery, despite being smaller, seems about the same.

Quazzie

To get rid of the update from your notification tray, long press it until app info comes up then go in and press force close. This at least gets rid of it from the top notification panel until you reboot when it'll return.