The Curious Case of Duplicate Icons on Andoid!

Did you reach here searching for a solution to the shocker as you were swiping through your applications list on your Android phone and seeing two icons for the same app? You are not the only one who suffered from the pain of seeing two icons of the same application in your app drawer. And I am sure you tried the next best step of trying to delete one application thinking that the application got installed twice and burned your hand by deleting the only copy of the application installed on your phone. Trust me, you are not the only one who face the curious case of duplicate icons in your Android App Drawer.

It happened to me too. I just bought a new Android Phone a few days ago. And the phenomenon of duplicate icons in the App drawer started happening two days after I bought the phone. I was about to curse my buyer instinct for my stupid decision of buying an Android phone from an Indian phone maker, discarding the international big boy brands. But then I decided to do some research.

You are right, this happens only on devices that run the latest Jelly Bean version on Android. This seems to be a bug on Android that duplicate the icon of applications. This usually happens on Android Phones that run the stock version of Jelly Bean, without the device maker's highly customized user interface. Now, what do you do when you see two icons of the same application in your app drawer?

There is only one solution to this problem of duplicate icons on Android. Reboot! Reboot!! Reboot!!! Yes, just switch off your phone, keep it switched off for a minute or two and then reboot the phone. Sometimes, you will notice the same issue after you reboot! That is why I said 'reboot' three times! 

That missed call you just got might be scam!

Looks like scammers are increasingly moving away from the traditional ways of trying to squeeze some monies out of your pocket. They know that you have grown smart enough to recognize pishing and to avoid the Nigirian Bang Employee who got a truckload of cash stacked away in some distant place just for you.

We are living in the smartphone era. The smartness of the smartphones you own is the sweet spot for the new generation scammers. They try and exploit that these days to their best. I am sure you have noticed the automatic download of some funny application happening on your phone just as you visited one of those websites. Now, it seems that even if your phone is not so smart, scammers have found a way to exploit you. Some of them now resort to, you are reading it right, 'missed call' scam.

I just got a missed call the other day from a strange number. Smart as I am, (:P) I did not do anything about the number till I did a little bit of research online. The results were shocking. It seems that these numbers are configured to give you a missed call. And if you call back, they will charge you for the call.

I got the call from this number!

The scammer sets up a computer to call thousands of numbers. They know that for every 999 people who will never call back, there is someone who will. And once you call, you will get charged for every second you spend on the call.

Following are some of the things you need to do to make sure that you do not fall into this trap and lose money:

1. If the call is from a number you do not know, even if you are waiting for a call from let us say that agency you gave an interview for a job the other day, do not call back!
2. Google the number to make sure that it is not from a computer and is from a legitimate mobile/landline phone. There are also chances that you will find the number listed as a scam number.
3. Check your phone bill for call like this. File a complaint with your carrier in case you find you inadvertently made such a call. They will reverse the charge.   

Phone Review - Issues with Nokia Lumia phones

It looks glamorous! It looks sleek! The screen is all colorful and bright! And are you wondering if you should buy that Nokia Lumia smiling at you from the demo table of the mobile store? The answer is a big, emphatic 'NO"! Do not even think about it! Why?

Do you remember Steve Jobs' quip about smartphones of yore, as he was launching the first ever iPhone seven years ago? He famously said,  the problem with those smartphones were "that they (were) not so smart and they (were) not so easy to use." That is exactly the problem with Nokia Lumia too. It looks like a smartphone because it has a touchscreen and all that. But it is hardly what you can call a smartphone. Samsung's feature phone Corby (Do you remember that svelte handsome kid who took India by storm five years ago and changed the mobile game for Samsung forever?) was 100 times smarter than Lumia!

Let us look at why I think Nokia Lumia is a an insult to the word "smartphone"! What I will do is, categorize my reasons under two headings, taking from where Steve Jobs left with his one-liner about smartphones - Not so smart! Not so easy to use!

Not so smart!

A Proximity Sensor that has no sense! 
Touchscreen phones come with what they call a proximity sensor so that your cheek, hair or earrings does not end up doing funny things with the screen when you are talking to someone on the phone. Nokia Lumia's proximity sensor does not know when to work and when not to work. Sometimes in the middle of a call, you have your 'cheek' putting the person you are talking to on hold or muting yourself. The one I am using went to the extend of accidentally putting someone else who was not supposed to be part of a conversation on a conference call with someone I was talking to! Can you beat it - a conference call!!

A notification system that works to keep you un-notified! 
Smartphones are all about never missing any of your notifications. Lumia takes the idea of notifications 10 years backward! Yes, there is a lock screen which you can configure to display notifications from up to six applications. If you are someone who does a hell lot of social networking, mailing and messaging using a wide range of apps like I do, you are going to be doomed if you have a Lumia. I kind of workaround this handicap by pinning the applications I need to be notified about to the start screen. But then how often should you keep opening the phone to see if you have got a mail or a message or a location reminder.

Toast Notifications that can toast you!
I know what you are thinking - there is toast notification on Lumia! Ya, right! The toast notification goes for a toss the moment you have more than one notification coming in. It goes all over the place not knowing which notification to display. And it is so senselessly designed that sometimes the notification that appears on the top corner of your screen stays there forever, causing you enough embarrassment, especially if someone else is looking at your phone! Lumia does not give you the option to decide if you want the full text of a notification to be displayed or if you want just the notification! Choice and privacy of the user are not healthy for people at Microsoft.

A screen that keeps rotating! 
The user's ability to control screen orientation is the key to a good smartphone experience. But Nokia does not seem to think so. You can change the screen orientation for many of the applications. However, the problem is when you do not want the screen to change orientation. Lumia  has no option that allows you to decide if you want the screen to rotate or not. (Note: I am told this is only a problem specific to Lumia 520. The higher versions of Lumia do have a screen orientation manager!)

The 'baby' internet! 
Nobody likes Internet Explorer! By putting the stripped down, skinny version of Internet Explorer (IE) on Lumia, Nokia and their partner Microsoft have pushed innovation in mobile technology back by, like I said earlier, 10 years! Like Steve Jobs said, 'they say it is the internet! But it is the Baby Internet!' There is nothing you can do on the browser in Lumia that you can usually do on a browser in a smartphone. Load a website on your browser that is a little heavy for the poor IE to handle, the browser will crash. There are alternative browsers available. But I suspect they are all different versions of the browser that comes preinstalled on Lumia. Websites load in funny ways you cannot even imagine. Downloading files using the browser is a pain. And last but not the least, Windows Phone 8 does not even know what html5 is!

A navigation app that will take you nowhere! 
There is this joke of a navigation app they call Here Drive on Nokia Lumia. Are you the kind of person who depends on Maps and Navigation Systems to reach where you want to go? Then, the first thing you will learn if you buy a Nokia Lumia is, Microsoft wants you to kick that habit and get back to the good old way of finding the place you want to go by asking the first person you meet on the street. Here Drive will never take you anywhere or it will take you where you never want to go. The locations on the map are all messed up or wrong. And searching for a location is nothing short of a shame! It never gets the location right. It gives you all those locations you never want that you finally get confused about where you want to go when you search on Here Drive. Nokia should realize that they live in a world where even Apple could not beat Google in the game called 'Maps'!

Files that don't exist! 
The first and best thing that makes a smartphone smart is the way in which you can manage files on your phone. But for Nokia Lumia files do not exist! Therefore, they do not have a file management system on the phone. Yes, you have a gallery to access your photos. You have a music player to access your music files. You have a video player to access your video files. And you have Microsoft Office to access your documents! But if you want to see all your files in one place and manage them, copy them, rename them, delete them or do what you want to do with them, there is no way you can do that on Lumia. The result? You record something using an application and want to mail it to someone, unless the application is designed to do that, you cannot. You want to delete files because there is no space in your phone memory, you cannot. Nokia does not want you to see all your files in one place and then decide what to delete and what not to!

Apps that die if you use them! 
 Lumia is designed so that you do not use your applications for a long time. Keep using an application for sometime and you will notice that it will stop functioning! And there is no way you can delete the temporary files or clear the cache like you can do on Android and save your app from  throwing you off the hook when you are in the middle of something. If your app stops working, the only way you can save the day is by rebooting the phone. The worst part is, sometimes you cannot even reboot the phone the normal way. You need to kick open your phone, remove the battery and put it back again to reboot.

A phone that keeps fiddling around with the ringtone volume!
Lumia has a mind of its own when it comes to ringtone volume. You can never say when the ringtone volume will increase or decrease! If you buy a Lumia, be sure you will miss important calls because the phone decides when it is in your pocket that noise pollution is a big concern and decreases the volume. And sometimes it will increase the volume and cause you big time goosebumps, with people staring at you for being this new-generation brat who does not know the basics of mobile etiquette to be followed in a public place.

A decapitated ringtone system!
You want to make that sweet song that you are listening to now the ringtone when your girlfriend calls? You are out of luck if you are using Lumia. There is no way you can directly assign a song as a ringtone. If you want to do something like that, you have to connect your Lumia to a computer, find the song you want to use as ringtone, then copy it to the ringtone folder, go to the ringtone settings on your phone and assign it as ringtone. Do you see what a pain life can be this way?

Fonts that you can do nothing about!
You are browsing or reading news or using a messaging application. And the fonts are too small for your eyes. There is no way you can increase the size. Small is beautiful for Microsoft. And Nokia thinks that you do not deserve to use their phone if you do not have a perfect 20:20 vision. And by the way, do not even think about text wrapping on that useless browser! And you need a magnifying glass to see your entire 30 day calendar!

A sync system that never notices password change!
Let us say you recently changed your password for some account and you forgot to update it on your phone. The sync system on Lumia never notices it. It never alerts you to the fact that your password is wrong and you need to change it. It will just sit there tight with the old password and never sync. And you will be left wondering why you are not getting those important mails.

A message system that never lets you 'search'!
You want to quickly search a message from your phone. There is no way you can do it because the fact that people sometime search stuff that is stored on the phone has never occurred to anyone at Microsoft.

A call log that you can never delete!
This is going to be a big turn off for all you girls out there who have too many boyfriends to manage. Beware, if you buy a Nokia Lumia you are going to be screwed sooner or later by one of your suspicious boyfriends. You cannot delete your frequently called people list. Worst, the list of calls and messages you have sent is going to be right there under history of each number you have. There is no way you can delete them. Even if you factory reset the phone, the moment you sign back in using your Nokia or Microsoft Account that long list of impending doom is going to come back to haunt you.

There is no App for that!
Smartness of Lumia is about less or no choice at all when it comes to Applications. Like Android or iPhone users are used to, there is no way you can do anything digital you want to do if you are using a Lumia. There is no way you can use different apps for the same functionality. There are replications of many of the Android and iOS favorites on Windows Phone 8. But they are what you can easily call 'cheap imitations' and do not have the kind of functionality their real counterparts have. The idea of alternate applications does not figure if you are using Lumia. And there is no way Nokia is going to let you choose your default apps on your own. You are stuck with the same app for the rest of your life to do what ever you want to do.

 Not so easy to use! 

Steps
Software is considered good when it makes your life simple and easy! It does not look like Microsoft has understood this key aspect of designing software. What you can do in two steps on a normal smartphone, you need to take six steps if you are using Windows Phone 8. The best example is saving a contact. It takes you five to six steps to save a contact on your phone. Ease of use is not a good thing for Lumia and Microsoft. Looks like for their own sense of work-satisfaction, they need to step-tease people through their software!

Settings
The settings on Lumia is a mess. You have an unending list of badly organized settings, so thoughtlessly designed that by the time you figure out what to do to get what done, you are going to become old. Or at least you are going to die young trying! There is no way you can quickly change or toggle a setting because Microsoft wants you to admire their innovative setting vocabulary by swiping through the entire list,

Solution: Twitter for Tablet is crashing!

Tablet optimized version of Twitter is released here! If you own an Android Tablet, you can go straight to the German Website to download the application. Like a good early adopter and enthusiast of Android Applications found in the wild, I am sure you went ahead and downloaded the app, only to find that it keeps crashing or never loads. 

The version of Twitter for Android that we are talking about is optimized for Galaxy Note 10.1. Samsung has optimized Twitter (or I am anot sure if Twitter has optimized Twitter) to make it look like an application that can be used on Android. And the German site we are talking about says there is no assurance that Twitter for Tablet will run on any tablet. And they are right! It may not when you install it!

Yes, you are right. If you install the Tablet version of Twitter on top of your existing Twitter application, it will never load. All that you will get is a black screen of death and an intimation that tells you the application crashed.  What can you do when the Twitter for Android, optimized for Tablets crashes?

There are two things you can try:

One, Go to settings on your Android Tablet, and go to the applications and bring up the Twitter Application. And the rest is simple - clear the cache! Once you clear the cache, the Twitter for Tablet that is leaked will start working.

There is no 100% guarantee that clearing the cache  will allow Twitter for Android to work. If it does not, I suggest that you uninstall the current version of Twitter on your Tablet and install the APK given here. From my experience, it works 

Amaze your friends with this magic keyboard!

I never lose a chance to show off the power of Android.  I always have things thing about trying out any new thing that I find on Android. Just as I was searching for the next cool thing on Android that will amaze my friends, I came across this magical application that allows you to use the keyboard of your computer and the browser to type.

Yes, there is a surge of different kinds of keyboards on Android. Some of them try to be as accurate as possible. Some of them just focus on adding glitz to the utility  by including gesture typing, swiping (I still do not know what is the difference between both!!), etc. Some of them go to the extend of eliminating the key buttons and the qwerty type layout. But it looks like the cool idea was yet to come.

Yes, the makers of Wifi Keyboard came up with the next best thing. They made a keyboard that is not a keyboard at all. Though they call it Wifi Keyboard, it does not have anything to do with Wifi. All you need is a computer, a net connection and a browser. You can use the keyboard of your computer and type, once the Wifi Keyboard is downloaded and enabled on your computer.

You can download the application from here!!

Guess what - I typed this entre post using the Wifi keyboard. There were no glitches, no typos as it usually happens when I use a native android keyboard on the screen. And it was fun typing.

Wifi Keyboard allows you to use the browser and type on your computer. The text that you type will not be displayed on your computer screen. The best thing I notice about the application is that there is only a millisecond delay between when you touch your finger on the computer keypad and the text beging displayed on your phone/tablet. Yes, some times when there are too many inputs Wifi Keyboard gets confused and text may not be displayed quickly. But this happened to me only once as I was typing using Wifi Keyboard.

The best next part is, you can use almost all the functions allowed on your computer keyboard if you are typing using Wifi Keyboard. From Ctrl+V to Arrows. It also allows you to your the F2, F3 keys to access Menu or search. It is a cool application. Download it today!!

How to stream live TV on Android for free in India?

If you are in India, own an android phone and are connected tithe world wide web through your blazing 3g connection, I'm sure you have at least once in your android user lifetime searched for an application that allows you to watch TV live. In the process you might have got into any of the following three bizarre situations,  One, you might have downloaded an application only to know that it's a link to a website or at its best a junk application that shows you nothing more than error messages. Two, you might have got your hands burned and your pocket torn downloading and subscribing to applications like mimobitv from Apalya, paying unreasonably and getting charged even after you have unsubscribed .Three, you might have downloaded applications only to know that the best they can do is play all these crappy Russian or Chinese channels that you don't even understand.

I am sure you were cursing under your breath a d wondering when would Android users in India get a decent application that will allow live tv streaming for free. Well, the time has come.

So, what do you do when you want to watch tv in your android phone for free?  Well, head over to the market and download DTV .

Dtv is a well designed mobile app that allows you to stream tv live on your android. There are four things cool about the Dtv application. One, it has a very well designed and intuitive user interface that works well on your phone and tablet. Two, it has plenty of customization options that makes viewing a pleasure. Three, it has almost all Indian channels in a playable format, with minimum or no error issue. Four, it is free!

Then what are you waiting for? Head over to Play Store and download your copy of Dtv today. You can download Dtv from here and start watching all your favourite indian tv channels for free.

How to type in any Indian Language on Android Phone?

Android is evolving so quickly into a robust platform that matches operating systems on personal computer. It's actually evolving in leaps and bounds. And one of the concerns of people who live on the Indian subcontinent has always been, when it comes to android, its inability to render indic languages. A lot of discussion has been going on around the web regarding this and people have been tying to figure out ways to create text input and rendering methods for Indian languages or indic languages as it is popularly known in tech circles.

If you look at the Google Support forum for Android you will see many threads where people are asking for rendering and input systems for Indian languages. Google has solved this issue in their latest Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean updates and now developers can create input systems for Indian languages because text rendering has got so much better than it used to be.

So, what is the best way to type in Hindi, Malayalam, Kanada, Tamil, Marathi in your latest Android phone? Panini Keyboard has done it for Malayalam. However,  the issue with Panini Input Method is that they don't  give you the qwerty keyboard interface. It's pretty similar a scenario for other Indian language keyboards as well. Until Adaptxt came along.

Adaptxt is a normal keyboard, that was launched in Play Store recently without much noise. They have not made any tall claims about why it is better than other keyboards on the Play Store. Because action speaks louder than words.

The first thing that caught my eyes about Adaptxt is the varied language input options available for the keyboard. Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil -be it any Indian language you want to type in on your Android phone. Adaptxt has a language pack for that. Certainly,  Adaptxt comes with a hoard of other features and customization options too. But for me what sticks out is their robust language packages.

You want to type on your Android Phone or Tablet in Hindi/Malayalam/Kannada/Tamil/Marathi/Gujarathi and the best keyboard option you have out there on Google Play is Adaptxt. You can download Adaptxt from here.

Sync disabled after Jelly Bean (4.1.1) update on Android Phone

I'm sure many of you are facing the same problem that I faced right after the Jelly Bean or Android 4.1.1 update on your brand new Android Phone. Sync just doesn't work. You try everything you can to eable Sync and get push notification working. Some of us even remove the account and add it back again. What do you do when the Sync option is not working on your Android Phone or Tablet.

Heard of people who forgot to plug in the printer, trying to take a print out thinking that there is something wrong with the computer? Well, the Sync issue is something like that. It is not a bug or functionality issue.

When your phone is updated to Jelly Bean, the sync is automatically turned off. All that you need to do when sync is disabled on your Android Phone after Jelly Bean or 4.1.1 Android update is to go to your notification bar. Pull down the notification bar, swipe to the end of the function icon list and click on sync icon. Yes, I am talking about the same place where you go on your notification bar to enable wifi, gps etc. Once you enable sync from the notification bar, the application settings will change to sync from the internet.

What's wrong with the Jelly Bean update on Samsung Galaxy Tab 2?

I like the seven inch form factor when it comes to tablets. I always think it is better than the massive, difficult to hold ten inch tablets. Apple following the footpath of Samsung with their IPad Mini and Amazon with their Kindle Fire only reiterate the fact that seven inch is the best tablet form factor. That is exactly why I bought the first Galaxy Tab and later the Tab 2, the moment it was out on market.

When you talk about hardware, Tab 2 is superior to Tab 1. I can't imagine you can get better hardware on Tab 2 at half the price of Tab 1. But that's what Samsung has done. It is the software that was a disappointment.

After all the marketing hype around Ice cream Sandwich, the software is left wanting. ICS in some sense was a step backward from Gingerbread than a step forward. The most prominent of them being the text on the browser not arranging itself on zoom. You are reading something and you want to zoom as the letters are small. There was no way the text would rearrange when you zoom. Or the text would already be rearranged for a particular zoom level. Until Dolphin Beta came along with an automatic text rearrange feature on zoom, I had to struggle to read on browser. ICS on Tab 2 looked like it was designed only for landscape reading and I for one hate landscape reading. Why? Because since most paperback books for normal reading are in portrait, it is natural for you to expect the same from the tablet. You use a tablet for content consumption and the best content consumption designs are portrait.

I was hoping that the Jelly Bean update would take care of this problem. Yesterday evening, I got the Jelly Bean update notification on my Tab too and I downloaded it with too much of hope. I realized it was a mistake  I don't know who to blame, Samsung or Google  The Jelly Bean update was again a disappointment when it came to portrait viewing. They have not corrected the text readjustment flaw.

To add insult to injury, they seem to have made another horrible design decision. The App drawer on the top corner and the notification bar at the bottom was the best design decision when it came to ICS. Now, Jelly Bean update on Tab 2 has changed all that, wasting a lot of screen real estate with two bars on screen. There is a bar at the bottom for home button etc and a notification bar at the top. I am sure the Samsung or Google Engineer who made this decision was drunk when he did it and this is exactly why I respect Johny Ive when it comes to design.

They should learn it is all about where your fingers feel easy to go when you are reading. When it comes to notifications, your fingers feel it easy to go to the bottom of the page than top. That's the most natural way your fingers behave when you are immersed and tablet is about immersion.  But the Jelly Bean update just blew it!

How to remove an ongoing process from ICS notification?

As beautiful as it is when it comes to looks, Icecream Sandwich comes with its own set of bugs and quirks and issues that will get you frustrated. One of them is certain ongoing processes that get stuck on your notification window and would not go away no matter what swiping you do. It usually happens with downloads.

You are downloading something from, lets say, your mail application. The download started but it doesn't seem to be connecting to the server. The process is for ever running on the notification window. You are not sure if it is draining your battery or not. But you are almost on the verge of freaking out because you know that applications running in the background on an android phone will drain your battery like there is no tomorrow. What do you do in a situation like that?

What do you do when a download starts on your android phone and it doesn't get connected and the download notification will not go away from the list of the ongoing processes on your ICS notification window? Here is what you do to remove a download notification that you are not able to swipe away from your notification window:

1. Go to your Setting and from there click on the application manager
2. Once you are on application manager, swipe across the categories to find All. This will give you a list of all applications on your phone. Your application manager has three categories - a) Downloaded b) Running and c) All.
3. Once you select All, scroll down the list of applications to find Download Manager.
4. On Download Manager, click on the button that says Clear Data. Once the data is cleared, the download notification on the notification window will go away.

Note: When you do this, the history details of your downloads will be removed from the download manager. Your downloads will not be affected.

Issues with Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus (GT-S7500)

I loved Samsung Mobile Products. My move from being a loyal Nokia customer to becoming an ardent Samsung Fan started when Samsung's feature phone Corby landed in my hand. Corby was an awesome phone and there was no looking away from Samsung after that. When their Samsung Galaxy Tab (P1000) was launched I did not have to think twice to buy it. And I am using the Tab as my personal computer ever since, to read, to write and to create multimedia content. At one point I even thought of spending 100 days without my laptop, with the Tab as my primary computer. And then I bought Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus, the new kid in the block.

In two days, I fell out of love with Samsung. Next time I have to buy a Phone, I am not going for anything Samsung. Why?

Following are my reasons:

1. Connectivity - We buy mobile phones so that we are always connected, on the go. Ace Plus does not think so. It just sits there, losing connectivity all the time. People are trying to reach you so badly and all they can hear is the voice of some woman or man telling them you are out of network coverage. They try and they try and when they finally reach you on some other phone nearby, you are like, surprised. You take Ace Plus and look at it. The signal bars are right there. Then how is your phone out of network coverage? But that is how it is with Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus. It will get out of network coverage, any time it pleases, even if it shows the signal bars full.
2. Music Management - I heard Samsung is now trying to ape IPod, by creating a music player on Android. I think they will fail. Because the music/media management on Ace Plus sucks big time. You create a play list, putting together all your favourite songs. And the next time you want to listen to those songs, you go back and take a look at your play list. Bingo, your play list is empty! There are no songs in the Play List. Frustrated, you go to your recently played list. And that list is empty too. And then the frequently played and recently added lists are empty too. I know, that is the height of having a bad digital music player in your hand. 
3. Ringtone Management - The first thing I do when I get a phone is to set different ring tones for different people. This way I know which call to attend when. The ringtone management in Galaxy Ace is so bad that the phone never rings the way you have set it up. Ring tones keep changing as and when it pleases. Imagine the phone rings and you do not bother to pick it up only to realize later that the call was someone important. Galaxy Ace Plus has a mind of its own when it comes to ring tones and set them as it pleases. In other words, ring tone management sucks. 
4. Image Management - I do not know if it is Artificial Intelligence at its best, if you are using Samsung Galaxy Ace, the images toss and turn the way they like. Yes, I am talking about that feature that allows you to rotate images. You rotate an image in a particular way because that is how you want to see it. Come back to the image after some time and the image would have rotated on its own back to where it was before you turned it this way or that.

I do not trust Samsung Products any more!