Pet Peeves about Android

[jbsangel]

Not all that useful of a thread I know, but I have a list in my head of things that annoy me to no end on my Droid. Most of these I'm guessing are peeves with the OS itself, not the Droid specifically.

- Is there no cut/copy/paste in the gmail app? Can't find it...grrr

- Why does navigating to another app while reading an email in the gmail app cause my spot in the email to be lost. Sucks for long emails. Answer a txt, come back to the message and it's back at the top.

- In the email app, which is getting my work email pushed from exchange, whenever I read a message outside of the application, like on my regular computer, the message doesn't get marked read on the device, nor does the notification in the notification bar get cleared. The result is I leave work and some time later, I pick up my phone and see the notification in the bar, only to open the email app and see it refresh and all the mail becomes read. This doesn't happen with the gmail app. If you read a message elsewhere, the notification on the phone gets cleared.

- Why is 'vibrate' only a vibrate for the ringer?! Maybe I want vibrate to make all my notifications vibrate, not silence them all and let only the phone vibrate. So far, I haven't found a way to make my email ONLY vibrate when I put my phone on vibrate. I have to set email to vibrate and then have it vibrate always.

- Something I miss from WindowsMobile ::gasp:: is being able to set separate brightness and screen timeouts when the phone is connected to ac power versus when it is running on battery.

- Where is the integration with more google services, like google apps, google reader, and google tasks? I'm sure Android will get this eventually, but for now it just sucks. Even WinMo ships with tasks, outlook, word, excel and notes. Not the same as syncing in the cloud, but better than not syncing at all, and definitely better than not having the apps at all. Yes the market has somewhat solved this issue for me.

I'm sure i'll think of more. Interested to hear your peeves.

 

[jbsangel]

Oh yeah, why doesn't the contact and calendar app have tighter integration with the web versions. I can input an anniversary or group on the web contacts, but can't do that on the Android app. There are calendar functions supported in the web app that aren't on the Android calendar, like setting the time as free/busy and also different recurring event types.

One cool thing Outlook does is automatically make a calendar event for contacts that have birthdays and anniversaries. It's annoying because it also gives them a reminder so your phone dings at 11:45 the night before, but it does at least do it. With Google, you have to enter the birthday through web contacts, and then use the Birthday calendar, which coincidentally is broken for anniversaries...

 

[Boris Badenov]

It is by design.
Just to make sure that people have something to complain about.

 

[AnneDroid]

On the whole I love it, but in Exchange email:
1. Can see but can't access folders
2. Can't add a signature

Little stuff, but you asked...

 

[gatewayad]

CUT AND PASTE :rating00:

 

[Fraxinus]

- Is there no cut/copy/paste in the gmail app? Can't find it...grrr

From any app try opening the keyboard, holding one of the shift keys (you should now see a tiny cursor on the screen) now use your finger to select the text you want and it will auto copy to the clipboard. This is *definitely* kludgy, particularly when selecting small text, but it works.

- Contacts app doesn't auto-rotate for landscape!!! This one drives me *nuts*. You're in the car, in car-dock mode, you hit the giant contacts button from the car-dock menu and WHAM, everything is in portrait mode while you're in landscape....brilliant.

 

[Matth3w]

Most times if you need to copy and paste, if you highlight the text and then long press it allows you to copy. Then long press into a blank spot and paste.

 

[jbsangel]

From any app try opening the keyboard, holding one of the shift keys (you should now see a tiny cursor on the screen) now use your finger to select the text you want and it will auto copy to the clipboard. This is *definitely* kludgy, particularly when selecting small text, but it works.

Thanks! I had figured out how to do it in the browser, I guess because there is an option to select text, but not so in gmail.

BTW, I do know and understand that probably half of most users complaints are operator error. My copy and paste issue in gmail is an exampl, hence why I said "I can't find it" instead of saying "it doesn't exist."

I tried the whole highlighting the text thing, but with no luck, i guess because I wasn't pressing shift. Long press is not new to me, it's on win mo too, but I couldnt figure out how to highlight the text so I could long press on it!

 

[jbsangel]

On the whole I love it, but in Exchange email:
1. Can see but can't access folders
2. Can't add a signature

Little stuff, but you asked...

Not sure how exactly exchange works and if it differs across different servers. I can see and access my folders and the mail in them, but only those within the number of days I have my account set up to retrieve.

I agree, my "peeves" are little things. They aren't compelling me to swap it out. A lot of times people complain about something and the answer is "get a different phone." I'm not irate about these things, more like quibbles that I hope one day are addressed. I am probably 95% satisfied with the Droid. There are no dealbreakers for me as far as it's operation goes. But that doesn't mean there aren't things I wish were different.

 

[AnneDroid]

jbsangel: Everybody's gonna hate something, and that's a guarantee.

Thanks to your tip, I was able to see emails in some of our folders (one is a shared department account, the other account is mine - both Exchange). I can see everything older than today - like from yesterday back for a month - but nothing from today that's in there. Seems odd that it doesn't update sooner. Calendar and contact changes are immediate. Oh well, eventually someone will figure it out.

All in all, I love my Droid.


UPDATE: And now of course, the folder is current when I go back in to check. :icon_ devil: Guess it takes some time for it to update the whole folder once you open it initially. Live and learn.

 

[jbsangel]

UPDATE: And now of course, the folder is current when I go back in to check. :icon_ devil: Guess it takes some time for it to update the whole folder once you open it initially. Live and learn.

Yeah mine takes a little bit to update when changing things like that. There's a little swirly thing in the top right that spins when it is refreshing if you hadn't seen it.

 

[jsh1120]

jbsangel: Everybody's gonna hate something, and that's a guarantee.

Thanks to your tip, I was able to see emails in some of our folders (one is a shared department account, the other account is mine - both Exchange). I can see everything older than today - like from yesterday back for a month - but nothing from today that's in there. Seems odd that it doesn't update sooner. Calendar and contact changes are immediate. Oh well, eventually someone will figure it out.

All in all, I love my Droid.

I'll take your comment as a springboard to venting about Microsoft Exchange. I, too, am subjected to this bit of corporate constraint made worse by a less than competent IT department that administers it.

Fortunately, I've been able to do the following:

() Get all my corporate email downloaded to my Outlook client and out of the clutches of the Exchange server so I don't worry about overloading my allotted space at corporate headquarters.

() Convince my corporate IT department to send my email to my gmail account.

() Forward my other email (selectively with filters) to my gmail account. Interestingly I almost always receive the email on gmail before my Outloook client catches up by downloading the corporate email.

() Tag all email coming to my gmail account from my company's users with the company's name.

() Configure my Outlook client to send a copy of any email I send to anyone else in my company to my gmail account.

() Configure gmail to send copies of sent mail to my corporate email account so it ends up in my Outlook account as well.

() Synchronized my calendars on Outlook and Google. This allows my co-workers to see my calendar from their Exchange crippled email clients. It also allows me to update my calendar from my desktop, my laptop, and my phone.

All of this allows me to avoid completely the Droid's "corporate email" app and deal only with gmail on my phone. I have Documents2Go on my Droid so I can open and manipulate any attachments I receive on my Droid without going to the gmail account on the web.

The solution isn't perfect. I sometimes (but surprisingly rarely) get a redundant email in either my gmail or my Outlook client on my desktop. But it's a small price to pay to escape the clutches of my company's Exchange server.

 

[deputc26]

This thread is actually a good idea, with this many members to provide input a thread like this could be very useful to google/oems.

I suggest that a mod find all valid points in this thread and others and condense them into a single list that is available to google and Motorola and HTC etc.

 

[dos]

jbsangel: Everybody's gonna hate something, and that's a guarantee.

Thanks to your tip, I was able to see emails in some of our folders (one is a shared department account, the other account is mine - both Exchange). I can see everything older than today - like from yesterday back for a month - but nothing from today that's in there. Seems odd that it doesn't update sooner. Calendar and contact changes are immediate. Oh well, eventually someone will figure it out.

All in all, I love my Droid.

I'll take your comment as a springboard to venting about Microsoft Exchange. I, too, am subjected to this bit of corporate constraint made worse by a less than competent IT department that administers it.

Fortunately, I've been able to do the following:

() Get all my corporate email downloaded to my Outlook client and out of the clutches of the Exchange server so I don't worry about overloading my allotted space at corporate headquarters.

() Convince my corporate IT department to send my email to my gmail account.

() Forward my other email (selectively with filters) to my gmail account. Interestingly I almost always receive the email on gmail before my Outloook client catches up by downloading the corporate email.

() Tag all email coming to my gmail account from my company's users with the company's name.

() Configure my Outlook client to send a copy of any email I send to anyone else in my company to my gmail account.

() Configure gmail to send copies of sent mail to my corporate email account so it ends up in my Outlook account as well.

() Synchronized my calendars on Outlook and Google. This allows my co-workers to see my calendar from their Exchange crippled email clients. It also allows me to update my calendar from my desktop, my laptop, and my phone.

All of this allows me to avoid completely the Droid's "corporate email" app and deal only with gmail on my phone. I have Documents2Go on my Droid so I can open and manipulate any attachments I receive on my Droid without going to the gmail account on the web.

The solution isn't perfect. I sometimes (but surprisingly rarely) get a redundant email in either my gmail or my Outlook client on my desktop. But it's a small price to pay to escape the clutches of my company's Exchange server.

This is my main pet peeve. I don't like how you have to send all your non google and corporate email through gmail to get it to work. I believe there would be alot more of us using Android if the mail client was somewhat close to what Blackberry has set up. I know my husband would buy a Droid or Nexus in a minute if the mail was set up without having to go through gmail.

 

[Fraxinus]

Two things:

1. This has been beaten to death all over the internet but Google, please add bluetooth voice dialing. This isn't a huge deal for me, but it's a deal breaker for a lot of folks. Phones *far* less advanced than the Droid have had this for a long time.
2. For all of you with an Exchange requirement for work check out Touchdown with Exchange Activesync. This lets you do just about everything you can do from an Outlook client. Here's the rub - it's $20!! However, there is a free version with full functionality for 5 days (indeed, the developer forces you to download this version and verify that it works before purchasing the activation key). After 5 days it becomes a read-only app (which may suit some of you just fine). The price tag is pretty steep, but from what I can tell it is seriously full featured. Check it out and solve your Exchange woes!