Gmail, Email and messaging, the can't Do's

Duck141

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Just got my moto droid last week. This phone is so cool and yet so stupid. If it wasn't for google maps and the awesome video camera I would have returned it by now. The phone is filled with so many "can't do's" and I mean simple things that my previous phone could do so easy. Like making sure I know when I get a voice mail. I could care less about a text message but voice mail is dam important. Im in construction so Im not at a desk playing with my droid all day. Most of the time my phone sets in the truck. sometimes i carry it. When I get a voice mail I need to know about it. My other phone would make loud beeps every minute or so, the screen would come on to let me know also. This phone bearly whispers to you. I found the notification app at the market and that is not nuch better, and its only for missed calls. Who cares about missed calls. Someone doesnt leave a message then it isn't important. That dumb little beep i get from the notification app doesnt make it either. I on the job site, generators running, compressors, stupid job site radios blasting. Im late returning my messages. people getting mad.

And whats up with simple text messaging? My wife has the same phone as me and she loves to text message. Why cant you pick from your contacts when texting? you have to type in the names?, how stupid is that. My old phone would give you an option to select from contacts, you could select one or check several contacts to send the text to. I did find handcent, but why do you need this other stuff to do things that are so basic? and then you call it a smart phone?

What the hell is up with Gmail and Email? what is the difference? I played with Gmail quite a bit, because I wanted to get the friends latitude working for my wife and I. That took half a day to figure out. Mostly because the guy at the verison store set up my gmail account for me. spelled my name wrong and didnt bother to give me the password to my own account. My wife got her phone a few days before I did and she set up her own Gmail with no problems. Thanks verison guy for making mine so much harder.

What is Email about? my old phone had voice recorder. I would make voice notes about job spec changes and other job related stuf and send them to my email address on my computer at home so i could deal with them that evening. In Handcent it only sends messages to phone numbers, not email addresses. I did it thru the send option in voice recorder, but so many more steps now.

they really made simple stuff so complicated.
 

Detonation

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What the hell is up with Gmail and Email? what is the difference? I played with Gmail quite a bit, because I wanted to get the friends latitude working for my wife and I. That took half a day to figure out. Mostly because the guy at the verison store set up my gmail account for me. spelled my name wrong and didnt bother to give me the password to my own account. My wife got her phone a few days before I did and she set up her own Gmail with no problems. Thanks verison guy for making mine so much harder.
The Gmail app is a push email interface for your gmail address integrated into the Droid. The Email app is for any other pop/imap/exchange account you want to use. Unfortunately the stock email app is pretty buggy and often stops receiving email until you reset it. I personally just have all my other email addresses received through my gmail account, so the only app I need to use is the Gmail one which works great. I am sorry if the Verizon rep didn't set up your gmail right, but you can always just register a new one.

Handcent it only sends messages to phone numbers, not email addresses..
Type the email address into the To: field


Unfortunately I agree that many standard things on "dumb" phones require third party apps or a lot of configuring to work now. I had some of the same issues when switching from my old flip phone, but have long since moved past those and definitely would never want to go back.
While Droid still "does" a lot of things, it seems they left it up to the user to decide what it does and doesn't. I guess some people like that (especially rooted users) but there are some that just want something the works and they don't have to mess with. Those people are probably better suited with an iphone or blackberry.
 
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Tallica

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Wow, u need to play with your phone more. u can do almost everything u listed with the droid. 1 change the notifications to be a louder one for voicemails (try google voice it's free, better then verizons and it has visual voicemail) plus u should get a notification in the top bar. 2 in contacts tap on the picture/droid icon beside the contats name and a bubble will pop up and u can select text 3 the email app is for non-gmail accounts...hotmail, pop etc... use gmail or email whichever u use for Emails and use handcent or messaging app for sms and mms 4 there is a free voice recorder app in the market that does just what you want. hope this helps
 

warrior21

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I can tell you right now if you wanted a phone that would work one way right out of the box this phone is not for you. The great thing about the droid is you can set it up your way with whatever apps work for you. For example: Download handcent from the market and use that for your texting. You can bring up your contact list when you send a message and pretty much customize everything else from LED color to notification tones. Gmail is self explanitory and the email icon would be used for email accounts like Yahoo if you choose to set it up. It may be a little overwhelming at first but believe me we have all been there. Do some reading on here and you will start to figure it all out. It's meant to customize your way and that's the way most of us like it
 
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icculusX

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I got to go so Ill be quick...

First, I dono about the whole loud area thing for your phone. I mean you can put it on vibrate for calls and SMS? I think there are settings to warn you about missed calls but I am not sure cause I have always had mine set the same... someone else can help you with this.

Secondly, for texting you can go to your contacts app first, pick someone from your list and push their pic, then his the TXT app. Super easy and fast. Also, you just have to type the first letter or two and your contacts show up. Its really easy and well put together IMO.

Third, gmail is for google mail and email is for other emails like POP3 accounts and so on. That sucks that verizon messed up your account when logging on... but I don't see how thats possible being that you need to log on to use the phone (basically, at least for google apps) and if your name was spelled wrong it wouldn't have logged you on. Thats easy to fix, you just reset and log on again. Done. Also, you used gmail to set up latitude? I dont quite understand that one. As for the recorder question, check out the market...

Its very simple once you play around with it. Take some time reading thru this forum and youll learn so much youll master that phone. I came in knowing absolutly nothing adn now I have a rooted phone with tons of apps and my own theme and icons running on it. It takes time to learn anything. Don't get frustrated, just keep trying.

(EDIT: Sorry if others had said the same things, I was in a rush and posted quickly)
 
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You know theres like 6 different volumes on this thing right? Get the audiomanager widget from the market to help you quickly change audio settings. I have a a vibrate toggle switch on my home screen too. but at the loudest setting I would hardly characterize the noise as a whisper compared to other phones. On a noisy jobsite, perhaps, but that would apply to all phones.

The rest is stuff that is easily accomplished. you just need to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the phone.
 

ajGoes

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Some people should not use smartphones

Perhaps I've missed something fundamental too, but I think the OP's complaint about the Droid's reminder system was that the Droid will remind you only once. After that, it's up to you to look at the phone to see whether you've missed something.

The phone should allow the user to configure all reminders. For example, OP wants his phone to give an audio reminder once very minute if has new voicemail. I want mine to remind me audibly of appointments once every five minutes until I dismiss the reminder or I haven't responded after an hour. This stuff just seems fundamental to what a reasonable user can expect a SMART phone to do. So far as I know, no 3rd-party app can manage these simple tasks.
 

ricks

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I use the app called missed call for all my missed calls, voice messages etc alerts. You can set them to alert you to sounds, led light colors, and how often you want sounds to go off.
 
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Duck141

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Some people should not use smartphones

What are you saying, im stupid? Maybe I dont have 1000 hours of free time to play with my driod. The thing is a phone right? not a mini computer. This is not why I posted again. Wanted to list another "Can't Do";

USB connection to a computer. Works great on my xp 32 bit machine. First time I did it I thought "great, finely somthing to do with the computer that actually works like its supposed to". Plugged it into my new high powered w7 64 bit machine and it worked there too. I was briefly happy.

Second time I plugged it into the 64 bit w7 machine it wouldnt mount. w7 saw the phone, but the card would not mount. Plugged it back into the 32 bit xp machine and it works there fine. back to the 64 bit w7 machine and still no deal. Uninstalled the drivers, still no deal. Read thru forums, saw that im not the only one with this problem. Checked the debug thing on the phone and that worked for one time only. Second time no deal.

At this point im ready to return the phone. Im at the store with my receipt. The guy plays with the phone for awhile then says "this is over my head" and gets motorola on the phone. The guy at motorola says the droid has problems with 64 bit machines, but they are working on a fix. I was a little suspicious since I had already stated it works on my 32 bit machine but not my 64 bit machine. The squeeky wheel gets the oil or maybe conned, lol.

Since it works on my 32 bit machine and I have them networked togeather. And they say there going to fix it, I let the verison guy talk me into keeping the phone.

BTW, I read somewhere on this forum a guy says reinstall your operating system on your 64 bit machine and it will take care of the problem. You know what a pain that is? Like im going to go through all that for a phone.
 

hookbill

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Some people should not use smartphones

What are you saying, im stupid? Maybe I dont have 1000 hours of free time to play with my driod. The thing is a phone right? not a mini computer. This is not why I posted again. Wanted to list another "Can't Do";

USB connection to a computer. Works great on my xp 32 bit machine. First time I did it I thought "great, finely somthing to do with the computer that actually works like its supposed to". Plugged it into my new high powered w7 64 bit machine and it worked there too. I was briefly happy.

Second time I plugged it into the 64 bit w7 machine it wouldnt mount. w7 saw the phone, but the card would not mount. Plugged it back into the 32 bit xp machine and it works there fine. back to the 64 bit w7 machine and still no deal. Uninstalled the drivers, still no deal. Read thru forums, saw that im not the only one with this problem. Checked the debug thing on the phone and that worked for one time only. Second time no deal.

At this point im ready to return the phone. Im at the store with my receipt. The guy plays with the phone for awhile then says "this is over my head" and gets motorola on the phone. The guy at motorola says the droid has problems with 64 bit machines, but they are working on a fix. I was a little suspicious since I had already stated it works on my 32 bit machine but not my 64 bit machine. The squeeky wheel gets the oil or maybe conned, lol.

Since it works on my 32 bit machine and I have them networked togeather. And they say there going to fix it, I let the verison guy talk me into keeping the phone.

BTW, I read somewhere on this forum a guy says reinstall your operating system on your 64 bit machine and it will take care of the problem. You know what a pain that is? Like im going to go through all that for a phone.


lol, yeah, that's why you should have bought a Mac in the first place, but I digress.

OK, I don't want to jump on flaming band wagon here and please people, we all had to learn sometimes. Be kind, he's just at the learning curve.

The Droid in fact IS a mini computer and it does take a bit to learn how to use it. I looked at your opening post and it's not really anything I don't see here from time to time. Some people find the learning curve, and the adjustments necessary to make to work a Droid a bit steep. Doesn't make you stupid, it may mean that the Droid just isn't right for you.

Now I don't know how much experience you've had with other smart phones, but in your case perhaps a Blackberry Storm would be more to your liking. It has a browser that slower then a snail and it's about 10 years technology wise behind the Droid but many people actually do prefer it over a Droid.

You've got 30 days to make up your mind from the time you purchased your phone. If you feel the phone is not meeting your needs then return it. But I can tell you we have over 50,000 members in this forum and the vast majority of them are very satisfied with their Droid.

I definitely would not wipe my hard drive for the Droid. I feel there is something else missing there but I'm not a PC person so I can't tell you.

Anyway if you do want to learn and there is anything we can do to help we will.

Does anybody have any suggestions for the OP on what to do about his drivers situation and Windows 7? Let's see if we can't help him.

I'll start by having you review your email set up. Please take a look at this: http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...66-droid-hints-pop3-gmail-forwarding-you.html

I think that my be of some help to you.
 
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vtvette

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Invest $11 in "The Droid Pocket Guide" by Jason O'Grady. You can get it from Amazon. It will save you a lot of time, grief, and effort using search in this forum.

Amazon.com: The Droid Pocket Guide (9780321711939): Jason D. O'Grady: Books

Hey man I picked up this book the other day and started reading through it. I highly recommend it to any Droid/Android noob. I actually ended up ordering the Incredible but most info in this book should pertain to the Incredible as well (it's actually a Moto Droid/Eris book) and they focus on android 2.X.

Thanks again for the recommendation.
 

Droids

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Sorry I can't help with a handy link to the drivers at the moment, but once installed I haven't had any issues connecting my phone to 64bit Windows 7. Works every single time I connect it. There's a solution to every single 'problem' you listed. If you don't have time to read up regarding the great features of this phone, well there's always the iPhone with it's Fischer-Price interface. Maybe that would be a better fit.

4 links in my sig can help you too.
 
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