Galaxy S(uperphone) III - How I fixed a flawed phone

I upgraded my aging T-Mobile G2 (HTC Desire Z) in November, and boy what a difference 2 years makes. The Samsung Galaxy S III (SGH-T999) is leaps and bounds better than my old phones. It isn’t just the pretty hardware and speedy internals, Google’s latest OS update, Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) is a HUGE improvement and eliminates almost every complaint someone could throw at Android. The Galaxy S3, as of this writing, is the best Android phone to get, and it is available everywhere, on any carrier. Despite my praises however there are some things that hold it back, and Samsung is to blame, not Google or Android.

I’ve rooted and installed CyanogenMod on each of my previous phones, including the original Android phone, the T-Mobile G1. Both of my previous phones came with stock or close to stock Android straight from Google. I flashed CyanogenMod (CM6 on my G1, CM7 on my G2) mostly due to lack of official updates from Google, both the G1/G2 were left behind due to hardware limitations. CyanogenMod breathed life into my aging devices and allowed me to prevent spending money on newer hardware for that much longer. 2 years is a long time to wait in the mobile world, especially when newer and much better devices were being released every few months in the early days of Android.

When I bought the phone I decided to leave it alone and give Samsung’s stock experience in tact. Their custom interface, which runs more than skin deep, is called TouchWiz. TouchWiz does a few things for Samsung, it makes their devices “look” like Samsung, this is good for them, since this skin is consistent starting with their Galaxy S line of phones. TouchWiz also adds some nifty features (notification toggles, gestures, camera) that make it compelling to people that are new to Android, they also add some features that Google doesn’t provide natively in Android. However they also break a few things and ruin the Android experience with their proprietary sharing implementation, their confusing USB Mass Storage options, and other little things that, admittedly, many people don’t notice or care about.

I lived with a completely stock, out of the box Samsung TouchWiz (Android 4.0.4) experience for about 3 days before getting frustrated with Samsung’s “helpful” additions to Android. After rooting and installing CyanogenMod (CM10, based off of Android 4.1), which also upgraded my phone to the (at the time) latest version of Android Jelly Bean, which wasn’t officially available for any phone other than Google’s own Galaxy Nexus and their Nexus 7 tablet. Once I had installed CM10, life was good, the phone performed beautifully, Samsung’s hideous UI was gone, and I was able to use Android as Google intended. I did lose a few things though, it has been 2 months and I haven’t missed them. When you install stock Android, you lose all/most of the custom stuff that Samsung has installed including some of their proprietary (albeit nifty) sharing features, WiFi direct doesn’t work natively, Smart Stay (their eye-tracking feature) goes away, and a few other bullet points on Samsung’s checklist for why their phone is better than every other phone on the market.

TouchWiz vs CM10

Some of the noticeable differences are the Notification Toggles, which are completely customizable, and don’t take up half the screen like Samsung’s implementation. The blocky, candy-colored theme of Samsung has been replaced with Google’s much more subtle and clean look.

TouchWiz vs CM10

After a few days, I discovered a hack (links on bottom of post) that would allow me to remove my biggest complaint against the Galaxy S3 and pretty much every Android phone that has been released since the Galaxy Nexus introduced on-screen buttons. Hardware buttons need to die. I’m all for a power button, volume rocker and a dedicated camera button, but we don’t need them on the face of the device. Once Google decided that the menu button needed to go away in Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), there is no need to have a physical key dedicated to its use! I absolutely hate the single hardware button flanked with 2 capacitive keys on Samsung’s latest phone (and the Galaxy Note series), this used to be exclusive to the International version, but this time around Samsung was able to strong-arm the carriers domestically and each GS3 in the US has the same layout. The hack allows me to display on-screen buttons, and disable the hardware keys completely, or in my case, turn the home button into the missing dedicated camera button. This is great, in that it allows me to prevent accidental taps of the back/menu buttons, and I don’t need to have their backlights draining my battery, since they no longer light up as the sensors are no longer in use.

After all of this, which only took a few hours, I now have the most awesome phone on the market. I took my, pretty awesome, Galaxy S3 and turned it into the device that Google could have introduced, granted the device is already 6-months into its life and we’ll probably see a refresh, presumably the Galaxy S4, announced in March. I’m completely content and happy with what I have, and can’t wait to update to CM10.1 (based on Android 4.2), once it reaches semi-stable, monthly snapshot status (within a few weeks), I’m not hardcore enough to flash nightly builds onto my phone.

DISCLAIMER: I take no responsibility for broken, bricked, damaged, dead, eviscerated, warranty voided devices. Proceed with caution, and remember to READ EVERYTHING before getting started. Happy modding!

Interested in Flashing CyanogenMod? Find your device here: http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/index.php?title=Devices

Disable hardware/softkeys and enable on-screen keys:
Instructions: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1918166
Downloads: http://nrecom.net/downloads/viewcategory/9-navbar

General Info about Hacking/Modifying Android phones and tablets: http://forum.xda-developers.com/index.php

My Top Android Apps (2013 Edition)

I’ve done a few of these lists before, and it is interesting to see how my tastes and usages have changed depending on the device, and how some apps persist. Check out my previous lists: “My Top Apps for 2010” (T-Mobile G2 running Android 2.3.x [Gingerbread]) and “Android Apps - What I Use” (T-Mobile G1 running Android 1.6 [Donut]) or dive right into the (mostly) new apps below, in no particular order.

Note: I have been using a Samsung Galaxy SIII (on T-Mobile) running CyanogenMod 10, so your mileage may vary and some apps may not be compatible without rooting and/or installing a custom ROM. I'm also using a Nexus 7 tablet, I use most apps on both, but will indicate where differences occur.

Nova Launcher - Complete home screen replacement and loads of customization options. If you want a fast way to cover up some of the crap that Samsung/HTC/Motorola put in your device, this can help. It allows you to set the number of icons as well as number of home screens, options for folders, and custom icon themes. It also supports gestures, which let's me get rid of a few icons in favor of a swipe or double-tap on the home screen.

Nova Launcher, all customized to my liking.

Chrome for Android - Finally I have a device that supports Chrome for Android, it is almost everything I thought it would be. It is super fast, syncs up with my other Chrome instances (installed on basically every device I own), my bookmarks are there, automated sign on for google services. It is great, if you are running Android 4.0 or higher, you should ditch the “Browser” app and install Chrome now. My only complaint is no option for Full-Screen, location bar is always visible, though this feature is apparently in the works.

Simple - Super fast Foursquare check-ins. If you follow me at all you will know that I’m a self-proclaimed Foursquare junkie. I check-in everywhere and reap the benefits of awesome recommendations whenever I’m looking for something new, or something nearby. This app takes the slow out of checking in, once you have authenticated the app (a one-time process), launch the app, you see a map and a list of nearby venues (up to 20, I think), tap an item and boom, you’ve been checked in. There is a search feature as well, if the venue isn’t listed.

Google Now (Google Search) - This one is a little hard to explain a little hard to demonstrate, but is awesome once you use it. Google Now is an evolution of Google Search, you CAN do voice searches using the app, and it will return answer “cards” or a list of search results. The voice commands are also very useful for things while you are driving, such as “text Alisha on my way home from work”, that pops up a confirmation dialog, you hit send, done, or “call Mom” Android has been doing this for years. What is new however, is the ability of Google Now to surface information when you need it. What? How does it know? Basically Google has access to all of your Google stuff, so it can scan your email/calendar/etc to display useful info such as event reminders, package shipping confirmation, information about your stock portfolio. Google uses your phone’s GPS location to determine, and notify you, when you need to leave for an appointment, including delays such as traffic. This is my favorite feature personally. Google Now also learns what you do, for example, it regularly tells me how long it’ll take to get to/from work in the morning before I leave for work and in the afternoon before I leave from work. It knows that I usually leave work for/from at certain times and that I like to watch movies on the weekends. I have trained it (unintentionally, I might add) I search for movie showtimes on Friday/Saturdays and Google (Now) knows that. There are many other awesome things that it can do and that Google will continue to add to. This is THE reason to get the 4.1 Jelly Bean update (or new phone), which is currently the only way to get Google Now.

Rapido - Not to plug my own application, but I really do use it all the time, which is one of the reasons I built it. I WANT to use it. In a nutshell it allows me to post quickly to both Facebook and Twitter, fast.

SwiftKey - One of the biggest things that sets Android above the other phone OSs out there are the custom keyboards. Android has a plethora of virtual keyboards to choose from. The stock keyboards are pretty good, and get better with each version. As of late Swype has become the de facto keyboard for many an Android device. I decided to give SwiftKey a try after using the stock Jelly Bean keyboard, simply because it was an option, I didn’t hate the JB keyboard, but now I LOVE SwiftKey. I’ve been testing SwiftKey Flow Beta 4.x which adds in the ability to do swipe typing, yes, just like Swype, however it does it with the amazing predictive power of SwiftKey, which is its main selling point. I can hammer out messages and text in no time, and it is very good at deciphering and writing what I want. You can also give it access to your text messages, Facebook and Twitter, so that it can learn how you type and better help predict. It really is awesome and has changed they way I type for the better. In fact I wrote the last half of this post using SwiftKey.

TuneIn Radio - I've been late to the party here. A local station I've come to enjoy only comes in clearly when I'm downtown, as a result the broadcast is usually fuzzy, not so with this app, so long as you have Internet, it is crystal clear.

Feedly - Great for reading my RSS feeds, it syncs up with Google Reader so I don't have to maintain multiple lists.

Re:Me (phone only) - This is best described as a reminder service. When you receive a new SMS, it will notify you that you have not responded, even if you have already read the message. This is useful for me since, I often read a message and then get distracted or something, this reminds me to respond. You can of course dismiss reminders and ignore numbers if you don't care to be reminded.

aeGis (phone only) - This is the missing administrative tool for Android. The service operates on SMS triggers in order to locate, lock or erase your device. Updates have been coming very frequently, I've tested the app, but haven't needed to use it, luckily.

on{X} - I've written about this before, it is a great automation tool, that let's you take care of menial tasks without thought.

Other Awesome Apps: Dropbox, Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, Evernote, Foursquare, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Facebook Messenger, Mint, Flipboard, Pocket, Snapseed and Chrome to Phone.

These are just the more common apps that I use, there are many many more installed on both my phone and tablet. I keep discovering new ones daily, and this doesn't even cover the games. What are some apps that you have found useful or interesting?