A challenge to all gurus: Help me keep my phone!

[Cmass]

Here is a challenge to all Omnia gurus and problem solvers!

I've waded through some of the problem solving thread but had trouble finding what I needed so....

I want to keep my Omnia but am running into a host of problems – some of them annoying and some of them fairly serious.
Your challenge: Help Chris keep his Omnia by offering your comments, fixes, links to relevant apps downloads etc…
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What you will get in return:

Everyone who contributes with a relevant solution will get a “thank you”.

The person with best fixes to the most serious problems will receive my undying gratitude. I've considered giving actual $ to someone with a "contribute" button...but I'm unemployed so we'll see.

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I am hoping many of these are simple settings that I need to learn. If not, I am hoping there are simple patches or apps that can fix these issues. Many of these I've asked about before but I'm hoping to get a compact list I can scan in one places rather than searching everywhere....

The most important issues have to do with its use as a phone and MP3 player and the interface that allows those to be fast & easy. Right now, this phone seems to require a tremendous amount of fiddling around with teeny buttons to allow even the most basic functions to operate.

First, know that I HATE having to hunt through multiple menus to engage basic functions. Second, the Omnia is often very slow to respond to basic commands. Besides driving me nuts, this may be the root of numerous problems including freeze-ups. Perhaps there are apps that can help speed it up a bit?

As a phone (critical fixes):

* How to get rid of the obnoxious black button that automatically pops up after dialing a call? This is the one that asks me to touch an “action button” for access to anything. I know why they made it do this (to prevent your cheek from pressing buttons while you talk) but there needs to be a quick option to turn it off when I’m not talking.

* When the screen goes blank during a call, how do I bring it up again without hanging up on the person? Better yet, how do I keep the screen on during a call? My LG Dare had the best solution for this of any phone I’ve seen: It senses your cheek when talking and shuts off the screen. Immediately upon removing from your cheek, the screen comes back, keyboard and all.

* Are there fixes for the screen issue or might there be an app that imitates the Dare for my Omnia?

Similarly: * How to keep the keypad visible after dialing? After pushing Send, the keypad goes away. What the hell!?! If I’m dialing my voice mail I have to “push an action button” to unlock the phone and then attempt to push a teeny tiny “keypad” button to bring up the keypad. If I’m not fast enough while going through this nonsense, I may not enter numbers quickly enough during calls that require number input such as voice mail.

* Is there a good Contacts organizer that not only allows pictures associated with contacts but has a decent interface that allows you to quickly find names? The Spb Mobile Shell has an “OK” version but its like buying a metro bus for its sun visor. Quick, efficient access is what I'm looking for here. I have 750 contacts and the Samsung version is completely incapable of handling them.

* A really good Email interface. The one I was using with Mobile Shell was awful. As a general rule I despise being forced to walk through multiple menus when trying to get to the most commonly used functions. I have several Email addresses that I download from. Each time I needed to check them I had to push the Email Icon, go to the Email page Menu, select Go To, Select from the list of accounts. Why not simply list the accounts on the front page that have Email waiting and then just tap on them to bring up the Email? Does anything like this exist?

* I want to be notified of and be able to clearly see that I have voice mail as well as Email and text messages waiting – preferably with icons larger than 2 pixels across. It should chime at me and briefly wake up the screen to show a visible message. Then, once I unlock the screen they should be prominently displayed. S2U2 did have a pathetic, teensy little gray icon that would pop up at the unlock screen after wake up.....but you need a magnifying lens to see it.

Battery

I don’t know how others are using their devices or how long they last for you, but mine lasts only a couple of hours while using it heavily giving it the distinction of having the shortest run time of any device I’ve ever owned including an old laptop. Samsung claims to tag their batteries you cannot use aftermarket extended batteries (they won’t charge while in the phone). Of course, the Samsung version is expensive as hell. Does anyone know of an aftermarket battery that has managed to get around this problem? I found one company selling an aftermarket battery for the Omnia but when I cited what Samsung had written in the operators manual, they checked and sure enough their battery didn’t work. They pulled the product the next day.

A low battery warning that comes on at 15-20% power rather than 40%. Also, it appears to shut the phone down when there is still battery power left for 20 minutes more – or so it seems. This is like my gas tank chime coming on at half tank and the car shutting down on the freeway with 5 gallons left.
* Is there a setting or an app that can fix these problems?

Screen wake-up:

An option where I touch the screen and the phone wakes up with a custom screen. Right now, sometimes I can hit the Call End button and it will wake up, other times I have to hit the Power Button for it to wake up. If I use S2U2 the flower screen comes up depending upon just how asleep the device actually is.

Once woken up, the first thing I want to see is a photo of my choosing. I would then like to have a slide to unlock feature with a slider that is more forgiving than the S2U2. The current version has a smallish slider that requires me to center my finger exactly over it and move it veeerrrrry carefully and slowly and with just the right amount of pressure (not too light, not too hard) or it won’t engage. It then requires I slide and hold for a moment or it will bounce back.
* Are there more settings on the S2U2 that I was not finding? I have seen a developers thread in which people were making “custom” sliders but they appeared to be merely changing the graphics and not the size or functionality of the slider.
* Is there a skin with a larger slider?
* Can I put my own wallpaper on the front of it or am I stuck with the flower that came with it?
* Is there an option for a slide show screen saver? (Besides endless versions of a charging battery)

* Can I have Email alerts briefly appear when they come in when the screen is otherwise off?

MP3 issues:

If I’m playing my MP3 player, when the screen wakes up I want with the controls on top. I want them to stay there unless I down-screen them. As of now, the incantations I go through to operate this thing are laughable: If I want to stop the music after the screen has timed out, I have to hit the power button to wake up the screen, then operate the slider to unlock it, then bring up the menu, then go back into Programs, hit the Multi-media icon, find the Media Player, bring it up and then hit Pause. If I really want to stop the music, I then navigate back out to the Task Manager to close the program.
* Please tell me this is NOT how you buys actually operate your player!

Is there a fix for what appears to be a play glitch? When listening to the player, I find it often cuts out – sometimes for 2-3 seconds at a time. It doesn’t do it each time - just sometimes. Each time it has happened I scanned around looking for possible glitches or open memory hog programs that might be interfering. I have also tried various headphones and repeated sections of songs to see if they were corrupt. Nothing found so far.

Is there a good MP3 player for this device? I know this is a terribly qualitative question, but here are the basics for me:

The MP3 player controls should be large enough for me to use without a microscope and sewing needle stylus. And, for the love of god, someone please tell me why the vast majority of players don’t have a frigging STOP button?! Or an easy way to actually END the program? They have a PAUSE button which often requires a series of steps to get to, but no stop button and no quick way to simply halt the program.

I should be able to quickly find my files and organize them the way I want to organize them.
I prefer a player with an EQ and boost.

The player should have a small footprint.
The player should have optional skins. I don't need 9,535 skins - just some options.
The player should have high quality sound. Seems obvious, but not all do.

Something very strange: Several times the music has actually played at slightly uneven speeds as if it was an old warped vinyl LP or 1960s school movie projector. I’ve NEVER heard of such a thing happening on a digital player – although it is certainly possible since some have options for speed control. Have you ever had this happen?
What MP3 player are you using and why?

Volume:

Volume buttons need to work properly. The default Samsung volume is a joke. When you push the volume button, 2 options come up, one for the music and one for the phone, but it gives you about 2 seconds to move your finger over and pick which volume one you want to adjust – and god help you if you don’t hit it just right or it will disappear again. The S2U2 volume is far better but still does not always operate properly. It responds inconsistently to manipulation. It is also ugly. Are there small apps that give me options for various types of volume controls? (sliders of various shapes and sizes, circles etc..) I’m thinking a slider the full length of the screen would make most sense since it is not competing with any other items on the screen when it is activated.

Buttons:

Sliders and buttons in various applications such as song lists, changing settings etc.. are so small they often not even functional. And oddly, sometimes the slider scrolls the opposite direction of the text!! Not always – just sometimes. I do NOT want to carry around that ridiculous stylus (which I have apparently already lost). Having it dangle off the side of the phone is inviting disaster when it inevitably gets caught on something. Even with the stylus, some of the sliders are so small they do not work properly. Are there apps that can enlarge buttons and sliders? There is certainly enough real estate available on the screen for them…
Examples: The “X” and “OK” for closing programs measures 1/10” square! Some sliders are less than 1/10” wide while others are wider. Some sliders are sliders while others are moveable arrows. I don’t know why they are different when they all serve the exact same purpose. Either way, they are all far too small if using without a stylus.
* Are there skins or apps that can improve this situation? Some folks have told me that once the phone is set up the way I want, I won’t be fiddling with these much. However, I find these microscopic buttons on lots of things including the stupid “keypad” button that I have to push in order to bring up the keypad during a call.

Screen:
A touch screen that works in “cool” weather? The other day I went for a walk with the phone in my outer jacket pocket. The temperature was about 35 deg. When I attempted to work the MP3 player, the screen would not engage unless I poked at the icons several times. It seemed to work better once it warmed up. I assume this phone would not work at all in an emergency if I was hiking or skiing or walking for extended periods in cool or cold weather. Is this a correct assumption?
* Are other people having this problem as well? Or is it just my imagination?

Misc:

* Close programs when I close programs – unless I have marked them as a program I want to stay running such as the MP3 player. So far, the only way I have done this is to map the camera button to the Task Manager and close them manually. This is silly.

* GPS unlock hack. Obviously everyone wants this……

* I expect to have a phone that doesn’t lock up very often. Thus far, I have been pushing the reset button at least twice per day – and if I don’t have the stylus with me I start hunting for paper clips or sticks to poke the little button. I don’t know what others experience has been with this, but so far mine has been unacceptable.

* Choices of icons and skins without spending a fortune on Spb products or ruining it with other buggy products. (I’m sick of hard resets)

* A camera that does not take pink pictures when pointed at white backgrounds. This appears to be a problem with the CCD as it does not change with a hard reset nor does it change by fiddling with every possible setting in the camera setup screen. I have brought this up in a separate thread but I can’t tell if others who claim they don’t have the problem are duplicating my test or if mine is bad. Either way, Verizon has thus far refused to help in any way.

* Volume that cranks up and uses the full potential of the headphones. I have good hearing but have found the volume on this to be wimpy. The only reference to a fix for this had to do with programming issues.....

Apps I have tried:

The full $50 Spb Communications pack including:
Mobile Shell: It was quite expensive and I could not see the major advantage of it. It required the use of the Spb Watcher which in turn caused other problems such as not allowing me to see Spb Insight running on my Today screen.
Phone Suite: This did nothing extra but some silly things such as allowing me block calls and a few other things I don’t really care about. It was big but offered no fundamental improvements.
GPRS Monitor: Don’t need it
Insight: Cool new headline reader board - but hogged memory and was constantly logging on to update. After 2 days the coolness wore off. Also, since I was using the Spb Watcher, I could not see it because it only worked on the Today screen.

S2V: Full of bugs and simply didn’t work.
S2P: I see no advantage to it over other less buggy players.
S2U2: I like the basic idea of this but have had many problems – some of which I described above.

Mobile Youtube: When it worked, it was very cool. But in reality it would freeze up about 60% of the time requiring a soft restart. Other times it was so slow it appeared to lock but in fact was waiting. Unfortunately, it did not always indicate whether it was loading something or if it had frozen….so I would have to sit around and wait until deciding whether or not to restart.

Google Maps: Hey, something that actually worked properly! It was slow seemed unable to find my location, but everything else worked properly. This is a good app to have.

Pocket Player. Great program with an excellent EQ. It is also very configurable. However, the EQ and other buttons - even with different skins - were so small that even with the stylus I could not use it. It is also a rather large program for an MP3 player and slows things down.
Music ID: A free player. Not well laid out & provided no outstanding features.

Point of interest: I'm one of those people who NEVER uses the "Start" menu for anything on any Windows device. Partly because I don't know what the advantage is over just hitting "Menu". They have the same things listed.
What exactly is the major advantage the Start menu affords?

- Chris

[Adrynalyne]

How to get rid of the obnoxious black button that automatically pops up after dialing a call?

Patched Dialer:

http://www.modaco.com/content/i9x0-o...lock-in-calls/

[Adrynalyne]

When the screen goes blank during a call, how do I bring it up again without hanging up on the person?

Press the top button once.

To keep screen on, adjust settings under Settings- System- Power- Calling tab.

[Adrynalyne]

Is there a good Contacts organizer that not only allows pictures associated with contacts but has a decent interface that allows you to quickly find names?

iContact Burt edition.

[Adrynalyne]

My battery runs a good two days with medium to slightly heavy usage. For battery life, I disable receive all beams (why does this option exist?), and enable power saving under the power applet.

I found that disabling the Low battery notification keeps my phone silent until about 15 percent or so. Then it starts *****ing at me.

Add this reghack and adjust it under the notification settings.

[Adrynalyne]

Once woken up, the first thing I want to see is a photo of my choosing. I would then like to have a slide to unlock feature with a slider that is more forgiving than the S2U2. The current version has a smallish slider that requires me to center my finger exactly over it and move it veeerrrrry carefully and slowly and with just the right amount of pressure (not too light, not too hard) or it won’t engage. It then requires I slide and hold for a moment or it will bounce back.

Sounds like your screen is poorly calibrated.

Can I put my own wallpaper on the front of it or am I stuck with the flower that came with it?

Yup. Images go in the \Program Files\S2U2\Gfx folder.

[Adrynalyne]

Most of your MP3 issues can solved by using something like Kinoma Freeplay or Pocket Player.

[Cmass]

Woa!!
Man you are on a role....
You just more than doubled your "reputation" points in one sitting.

EXCELLENT JOB!! =D>

[Cmass]

BTW: Anyone interested in my camera issue and want to do some comparisons of their own, have a look at this - it is very weird:

http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread...074#post617074

[Adrynalyne]

* Close programs when I close programs – unless I have marked them as a program I want to stay running such as the MP3 player. So far, the only way I have done this is to map the camera button to the Task Manager and close them manually. This is silly.

wkTask will do this for you.

* Close programs when I close programs – unless I have marked them as a program I want to stay running such as the MP3 player. So far, the only way I have done this is to map the camera button to the Task Manager and close them manually. This is silly.

I never lock up so...*shrug*

A camera that does not take pink pictures when pointed at white backgrounds. This appears to be a problem with the CCD as it does not change with a hard reset nor does it change by fiddling with every possible setting in the camera setup screen. I have brought this up in a separate thread but I can’t tell if others who claim they don’t have the problem are duplicating my test or if mine is bad. Either way, Verizon has thus far refused to help in any way.

I dont have this issue.

* Volume that cranks up and uses the full potential of the headphones. I have good hearing but have found the volume on this to be wimpy. The only reference to a fix for this had to do with programming issues.....

As for volume issues, try this reghack attached.