The Real Galaxy S4

I was so pumped when I first heard that the Samsung Galaxy S4 was going to have a 5 inch screen. As you guys know, I go through a lot of cell phones looking for the one that fits all my needs and preferences. My daily driver at the time was a Galaxy Note 2 and it was just a little too big. So I went out and got the S4 the day it launched. I loved the feel of the phone in my hand and the screen was the perfect size for me. Then I started playing with it and loading my apps on it. I became disappointed very quickly; the phone lagged and stuttered and sometimes even just force closed apps out of the blue. Needless to say I was frustrated. I wondered if I was I putting too much work load on the phone? I did load over a 100 apps on it. So I uninstalled some of my apps that were not must haves and uninstalled as much bloatware as I could. I turned off all the Samsung gimmick features like it scrolling for me while reading or answering the phone with the wave of a hand. It did little good, the Galaxy S4 seemed very overwhelmed and I just grew more and more frustrated. So I went out and bought a LG G2. The G2 is an amazing phone and I do recommend it to some people. I really liked the phone even with the heavy UI it has. So now that I had the G2 as my daily driver it wasn't underpowered, it wasn't slow at all, the screen was a whopping 5.2 inch screen, and the colors were gorgeous.

I use my phone a lot. I have four separate email accounts running on it using four different mail apps. I use it to manage two business I have and I want to be able to be disconnected from the computer and get what I need done using my phone. So I have the G2 and it was great until I got into the heavy work. I, at times, have to respond to emails with lengthy answers or descriptions. The issue that I had with the G2 (This is my issue not the phones) was that when I started typing fast for a long email I would hit the home soft key and the email application would close. I tried changing the keyboard and the keyboard soft key shortcut location. Nothing worked and it was very frustrating trying to answer a time sensitive email when I kept closing the email apps. So I decided to root my Galaxy S4. For those of you that do not know what rooting an Android phone is, it is simply a process to gain administrative access to the phone. So I rooted the S4 and uninstalled everything on it, I mean anything that I would not use, including all the Verizon and some of the Samsung add ons. The phone performed much better I tested it in this manner for a week. Then cruising through XDA Developers I found a ROM (A custom configured operating system) that I wanted to load on my phone. It was built on the original Galaxy S4 operating system without the bloatware and with a lot of tweaks and optimizations for performance.

Hello Hyperdrive..

 So I did a little bit of research because I knew that Verizon/Samsung had locked the bootloader on the Verizon Galaxy S4. Meaning that only approved by the carrier and manufacturer operating systems would load on the S4. If you would like to know more about bootloaders you can scroll the bottom of the post for a full definition.

So I did some research and found they had a workaround called Safestrap. I am not going to go into the whole flashing process in this post I will in future posts. So I installed the Hyperdrive ROM on my Galaxy S4. I was immediately in awe what great work Sbreen94 had done. The phone was lighting fast, everything responded right away there was no lag or issues using any of my apps. It truly felt like a different phone. Hyperdrive not only made the S4 it should have been but it also had a large number of utilities to customize the phone to how you would like. Needless to say after testing Hyperdrive for a few days with all my apps loaded I started using the S4 as my daily driver. Since installing Hyperdrive there have been several upgrades to Hyperdrive and every upgrade was smooth and I continue to be impressed. If only Samsung would look at what developers are doing with their products maybe we would have gotten this beast of a phone from Samsung and our carriers. I know rooting and flashing a new operating system isn't for everyone but if you are up for it Hyperdrive has transformed the Galaxy S4 into a superstar.

I have included the links below if you are interested in checking out Hyperdrive and the flashing process.


Hyperdrive by carrier:
AT&T
Sprint (Didn't find a S4 hyperdrive ROM for Sprint still looking)
T-Mobile
Verizon

Bootloader Definition and information on locked bootloader:
Bootloader

If you have questions about customizing or modifying your phone please let me know I would be glad to answer any questions.

HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4

Alright here we go head to head HTC One vs Samsung Galaxy S4. This will be a head to head challenge to first see which of the two phones I like better, but also to see if either of them can replace my Galaxy Note 2.

My review to come soon. 

What is Project Glass

Project Glass is a project currently underway by Google to bring augmented reality with hands-free smartphone like features to a pair of glasses. These are not just any glasses these glasses have a small screen, they have sound and they take voice commands. Just remember the "context" it will be big in the future. 

Have a look for yourself:

Project Glass:

How it feels:

Updated Swiftkey Flow Beta

Swiftkey Flow Beta, the new Swiftkey keyboard that is being tested in a public beta was upgraded today. The link below will get you to the Swiftkey update page where you can grab the latest version. 

Link: Swiftkey Flow Beta Page

Google+ for Android gets a big update

This morning Google released a big update for the Android Google+ App. Lots of big features including support for Android 4.2. For me a big feature that I was looking for was that I could use communities from my Android phone and Google did not disappoint.

Here is a list of whats new in the latest release:

New feature: Google+ Communities

- Support for full resolution photo uploads via Instant Upload

- Subscribe to any circle for notifications

- Support for time zones in Events

- Basic profile editing

- Integration with Google Now to send birthday wishes to friends

- Support for animated GIFs

- Express your mood via animated images in posts

- View and explore Photo Sphere images (Android 4.2+)- Add the Google+ widget to your device’s lock screen (Android 4.2+) 

Google Play Link

Verizon Galaxy S III getting Official Jelly Bean tomorrow.

According to Engadget Verizon will be releasing the long awaited Jelly Bean update tomorrow. I will probably flash the official to check it out before I go back to a ROM from XDA



Engadget Link GS3 JB update tomorrow

Falcon Pro for Twitter

I use Twitter quite a bit and am always looking for a great full featured Twitter client. I have always felt that Twitter clients on Android are always one step behind the iOS clients, but that rant is for another day. The other day I ran across a client that I thought was very nice, fast, smooth scrolling and had a great user interface. The Twitter client was Falcon Pro for Android. I found the interface to not only to be easy to use it was really easy to read and I could get to almost anything in one thumb swipe or click. Falcon Pro is not a full featured Twitter client and is missing some advanced features like looking at ReTweets or muting or looking at mentions on another users profile. But for most it would probably be a great fit.

Update: I am being told by the guys over at XDA Developers that the Mute and ReTweet functions are there. I didn't see them. Link to the XDA Falcon thread below.

I have added the screenshot from latest version the Menu Retweets.

Timeline

  

Inline Pics & Vids

   

Full size Pics

Composing new Tweet

Menu 

   

List Search and Trends 

Link: Falcon Pro in Google Playstore
XDA Thread: XDA Thread
Twitter: @falcon_android 

NOCS NS200 Aluminum earphones

I have had many bad experiences with headphones/earphones on Android. One of my biggest frustrations has been to get a good quality set that also has the advanced features not only allowing me to use them for phone calls but also give me a inline remote for music control. I am always on the search and found the NOCS NS200 Aluminum specifically for Android phones.

What seemed great to me is that it even came with a free software package in the app store to customize the controls. So I bought a pair and will be posting a review as soon as I spend some time testing them out.

NOCS official site

NOCS Remote Control in the Play Store

AirDroid Gets External SD Card Management

AirDroid that fantastic app that lets you manage your Android device wirelessly just got better. One of the things that people wanted to manage most was files back and forth to devices. Up until now it would only see internal storage on a device and not the SD card making you have to plug in your device to get external SD card access if you wanted to manage those files. Well now you dont need to plug in at all AirDroid has added external SD management in their latest update.

If you do not already have the application here is the link:
Direct link to Google Play

Nova Launcher Mod (Galaxy Nexus) Folder Mod 11 Different Options

From the RootzWiki Forums user Jaydotelloh comes a very cool cosmetic Nova Launcher Mod. What the mod does is change the folder on the Nova Launcher desktop. I liked the invisible folder Mod here is the Invisible one and a couple of other examples there are 11 in total.

Invisible

Blue Rings

Square Folders

Head on over to RootzWiki to see all 11 choices.