Please can someone help me "set up" a new phone without activating itThis question is

[Jade1523]

This question isn't specific to a Droid model. I'm hoping some kind people will offer suggestions. I apologize for the length of this message.

Thanks to an unbelievably nice lady at Verizon, I have a DX for my husband coming for Valentine's Day. This is great, but now I'm puzzled about what to do, because my plan had been to upgrade my own phone to what is now called the Bionic, then to give my DX to my husband. That went awry because now I'm getting him a new phone rather than giving him mine since the Bionic release date has been pushed up to what now looks like the May/June time frame.

I have quite a few free apps that I know he loves, but I've also been downloading to my own phone apps I know he can use in his business that I never had any use for. Some of these I paid for since I knew he'd be able to use them and I had planned to just turn over this phone to him, but there are also many others that are free and I know he'd want them on his own phone. Many of these I downloaded over the past few months simply so I wouldn't lose track of them in the meantime.

So, I said all that to say this, so you understand what I really want to do. I'd like to give him this phone ready to go on Valentine's Day, with the apps he'll want, but only those, not mine that he won't care about, and with his e-mail, etc. I can't figure out how to do this.

One issue is that I need to selectively transfer (some of them paid) apps to his new phone, but I also need to get his personal stuff set up on his phone. I'm thinking this means I'm going to have to activate the phone, but I can't do that because it will cut off his existing phone, and I need a network connection to do some of this.

Also, just to throw another wrench into it, he's not going from Droid-to-Droid. He has a BlackBerry right now, so I'm not seeing a seamless transition.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help,
Jade

 

[spaz33g]

My best advice would be to activate the phone after he goes to bed the night before Valentine's day. That way you Gould give it to him first thing in the morning. The only problem would be that whatever apps you've paid for will be tied to the Google account that you paid for them with. Not sure if you know this but any android phone is required to be synced with a Google account at activation. So if you paid for the apps with your Google account, the phone will need to be activated with that sane account in order to have those apps remain paid for. This would pose a problem because he would constantly be receiving your emails and such. In any case, there may be a way to set it up as a surprise for him but it may require you to buy those apps again. Kind of a crappy situation I know.

As for the learning curve coming from blackberry to android, you could always send him our way and we'll get him squared away.


tappin and a talkin

 

[Jade1523]

Thanks so much, and if I might ask a few more questions

My best advice would be to activate the phone after he goes to bed the night before Valentine's day. That way you Gould give it to him first thing in the morning. The only problem would be that whatever apps you've paid for will be tied to the Google account that you paid for them with. Not sure if you know this but any android phone is required to be synced with a Google account at activation. So if you paid for the apps with your Google account, the phone will need to be activated with that sane account in order to have those apps remain paid for. This would pose a problem because he would constantly be receiving your emails and such. In any case, there may be a way to set it up as a surprise for him but it may require you to buy those apps again. Kind of a crappy situation I know.

As for the learning curve coming from blackberry to android, you could always send him our way and we'll get him squared away.


tappin and a talkin

Spaz, I don't doubt you a bit, and I very much appreciate the help. You have an unbelievable number of posts.

I'm not sure activating it after he goes to bed on that night will be an option because there's too much to get installed and configured so it will be a bit easier for him, but you bring up a great point about linking it to the Google account. I don't remember doing that for activation with my DX or D2, but maybe I did and it was simply something I did in my whole process of getting my phone set up and I forgot having to do it.

I'm apologize if I'm being bothersome about this, but I was trying to figure something out while I was waiting for a response. What if I restored a backup from my DX to the new DX I got for him, then I went through his phone and deleted what I knew he doesn't need? That would make everything local to the device and activation wouldn't come into play. If I were to do that just for the convenience, would I be able to go in afterward and link his phone to his Google account instead? I'm not sure how that would affect the paid apps, but perhaps I could contact the devs of the apps I've paid for so far that are for him and ask them to link the apps to his account instead?

I do have some time here to figure this out, but that's why I wanted to post a message right off because I'm thinking this might take a while to get it set up and try to get apps transferred before I surprise him with it. I'm going to have about a week between the time I get the phone and the time I give it to him.

I'm very grateful for your help. Thank you so much.

 

[guidot]

It has nothing to do with the Developer. You purchased them using your google account (you have to set one up to buy anything on the market) and they are not transferable AFAIK.

I think you may be repurchasing these apps to get them on his phone.

As for the backup, are you rooted? Or using MyBackUp Pro?

You can load the backup onto the new X, but that would still have the gmail address associated with it that is also on your phone.

I think that unless you are going to give up your gmail address (which it sounds like you don't use anyways) you are going to have to repurchase those paid apps on his device with his gmail address.

Good Luck.

 

[Jade1523]

Thanks so much, and not rooted

It has nothing to do with the Developer. You purchased them using your google account (you have to set one up to buy anything on the market) and they are not transferable AFAIK.

I think you may be repurchasing these apps to get them on his phone.

As for the backup, are you rooted? Or using MyBackUp Pro?

You can load the backup onto the new X, but that would still have the gmail address associated with it that is also on your phone.

I think that unless you are going to give up your gmail address (which it sounds like you don't use anyways) you are going to have to repurchase those paid apps on his device with his gmail address.

Good Luck.

But using MyBackUp Pro.

I don't really use my GMail address for e-mail, but it's associated with my account, so I do use it for that.

It wasn't a huge amount of money, so I'd be okay with repurchasing the apps, I still need to figure out how to get everything set up for his phone.

 

[guidot]

Does he have Gmail address?

If not you could set one up for him and buy the apps that way!

Does he have Verizon right now?

You could bypass the activation screen, put it in airplane mode, create the gmail account, buy the apps, then factory reset and when he sets it up with gmail address you made it will show the apps as purchased in the market.

That would be the ultimate way I think! Totally geeky too! Lol

Sent from my GimpDroid (Installed by RZR).

 

[guidot]

Any decisions?

Sent from my GimpDroid (Installed by RZR).