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Droid 4 with ICS - :(

Chadahoochie94

New Member
:mad:

Since my Verizon Motorola Droid 4 was updated to Ice Cream Sandwich (Android Version 4.0.4) I have had numerous problems which no one at Verizon or Motorola has been able to solve. Details are below. Previous to this I had a Motorola Droid X which I also loved. I usually advocated for people to get a Motorola Droid over anything else. I have had a Droid for over 3 years now, but the latest release has not made me very happy.
1. Battery Life has drastically decreased. I barely get 8 hours of use out of it. I have even did a factory reset of my phone, which helped some but not enough. Some of the other issues I have I think lead to the battery draining quicker. It just stinks that I can’t get an entire day out of the phone.
2. No way to just say you want to use 3G, with the previous version you could select LTE/CDMA or just CDMA. This is not an option anymore. I use to leave my phone on 3G, unless I was doing something that I needed the extra bandwidth. Most of what I do is just email, so I do not need the 4LTE Bandwidth. Not really a big deal, but when you are trying to conserve your battery this is an issue. Spoke with Verizon about this, and that is just the new settings.
3. I have a Motorola Vehicle Navigation Dock for my car. I actually like the new interface when it is plugged into dock. Verizon must think that every time I plug it in to the Dock that I want and need VZ Navigator to come up. Then prompt me about location services, and then to get to the Vehicle Dock screen I have to ‘MENU’ key, then ‘MORE’, then select ‘EXIT’, then it confirms if I really want to exit. Then finally I get to the Motorola Dock Screen. This is when I am driving of course! Previously with GB, I was able to disable this from happening and go right to the Motorola Dock Screen. I did speak to Verizon about this, but they could not prevent VZ Navigator from opening when plugged into the Dock.
4. The ‘Alarm and Timer’ app that is included with it. I used this as my alarm clock every day. Previously with GB, the whole screen would light up, anywhere you touched on the screen would snooze the alarm, and you would have to swipe at the bottom to turn it off. The New version on ICS, a little window pops up on the screen with a snooze and dismiss button. And actually the 1st few times it went off, a windows never popped up, and I was fumbling with it, trying to turn off the alarm. I am sure there are other apps out there that do what I need, but I liked how the previous version worked.
5. WORK EMAIL – This is a HUGE issue for me. Previously with GB, I had no issues with my work email. We use a standard IMAP mail server, and have a Cisco Iron Port C150 as our mail gateway (Spam Filter). I can setup my incoming IMAP server with no problems, but when I setup my outgoing mail server as the Cisco Ironport, it fails. We use STARTTLS as the security, and after I configure it, I get the following error message “Couldn’t Finish – TLS required but not supported by server”. I called Verizon, who transfer me to Motorola, who transferred me to Motorola Level 2 Tech Support, who then told me that a Level 3 rep would call me back in 24-48 hours. 3 days later I received an email from Motorola asking me to do a survey about the level 3 rep that solved my problem. I never received any resolution, nor spoke to any level 3 rep. Being pro-active I also contacted Cisco about our Cisco Ironport, to make sure it was setup properly. We did find a few things that we changed, but nothing that solved the problem. I proceed to download the K9 Mail app, setup that up and had it working in a few minutes. Clearly there is an issue with the built in mail app.

I am someone who likes to tweet his phone for most efficient use for me. I use it for many different things both for work and personally. Though some of these issues are petty, added all together make for a not so enjoyable experience, with little or no answers/solutions from Verizon or Motorola.
I will say I do like the new ICS interface and what it has to offer. There are some features I do like, but for me the problems have over shadowed the newer features.
The past 2 weeks I have spent way too much time on these issues with my phone.
 
1. I get way better battery life with ICS than I did on GB. My advice, root your device and use Titanium Backup Pro to freeze the bloatware that is probably eating up data and resources. Of not...I was rooted and debloated on GB and still get better battery on rooted and debloated ICS.

2. Download one of the many apps from the market that give you this option. The feature is there, just no selection from the settings. LTE on/off is popular (ignore that is says Thunderbolt...still works).
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.andirc.lteonfoff&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd

3
. I have the dock, I have not used it yet. However, if you root and freeze the VZNavigator stuff it will never ever never pop up and ask you to use it.

4. I can't help you with that....I don't use the Alarm clock. My wife does though and has no complaints.

5. Work email....my job provides me with an iPhone 4 for work emails so I don't use my Droid 4. However, there may be an app in the Market that will handle that for you without issue. K9 email or something....worth checking out.

1 & 3 can be helped by rooting and freezing bloatware as well as the VZNavigator stuff. The others can be helped by apps from the Market. That's the whole point of Android...you don't have to use the stock stuff...you can find better alternatives if you want.
 
You will most likely get some other good responses by asking in the Droid 4 forum. This one is actually for the original Motorola Droid, model A855.
 
For 1, 2 & 3 there is no need to root if you are not comfortable with that. It happens to be one of the huge advantages of ICS, that you can disable or uninstall bloatware without rooting. To disable/uninstall any of the stock apps you do not use or want, go into settings, apps, scroll along top to all apps and when you open a bloatware app, you will be given a choice to disable or uninstall. For some you have to uninstall updates before it allows you to disable. Any apps that allow you to disable or uninstall are safe to do so.

ICS defaults to global data (very stupid in my-op). This sucks allot of battery. You want your phone to be set to at least LTE/CDMA mode. Like tcrews said, you can get the LTE On/OFF app in play store which will give you quick access to switch between 3g only mode to 4g.

If you do not use vz navigator, then disable it... Yee ha, I love that I can finally disable that annoying useless app. That will solve your car dock problems.

I don't have better solutions for alarm because I like being forced to look for the little snooze button,believe it or not... it actually works to help me wake up some. Therefore I have not looked for an alternative but I am sure there is one.

Hope this helps accomplish some of what you need and you can start to actually enjoy ICS. Post any questions if they come up.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to mention... welcome to droid forums.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums
 
Screenshot_2012-09-05-17-51-39.webp
For 1, 2 & 3 there is no need to root if you are not comfortable with that. It happens to be one of the huge advantages of ICS, that you can disable or uninstall bloatware without rooting. To disable/uninstall any of the stock apps you do not use or want, go into settings, apps, scroll along top to all apps and when you open a bloatware app, you will be given a choice to disable or uninstall. For some you have to uninstall updates before it allows you to disable. Any apps that allow you to disable or uninstall are safe to do so.

ICS defaults to global data (very stupid in my-op). This sucks allot of battery. You want your phone to be set to at least LTE/CDMA mode. Like tcrews said, you can get the LTE On/OFF app in play store which will give you quick access to switch between 3g only mode to 4g.

If you do not use vz navigator, then disable it... Yee ha, I love that I can finally disable that annoying useless app. That will solve your car dock problems.

I don't have better solutions for alarm because I like being forced to look for the little snooze button,believe it or not... it actually works to help me wake up some. Therefore I have not looked for an alternative but I am sure there is one.

Hope this helps accomplish some of what you need and you can start to actually enjoy ICS. Post any questions if they come up.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot to mention... welcome to droid forums.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

Is this the best I can hope for. I don't seem to have anything unusual running but the battery seems to be draining faster after ICS. The screen is obviously the biggest user but I have it set on Auto. Do I need to force it to 50% or less to make it thru the day? Most of my use is e-mail with occasional browsing, lately to look at the forums for battery use posts:biggrin:.
 
So are you complaining about not making it through a day? Or not making it through the day with more than 50%?

Do I need to force it to 50% or less to make it thru the day?

It isn't a MAXX after all....
 
nd my
So are you complaining about not making it through a day? Or not making it through the day with more than 50%?



It isn't a MAXX after all....

My problem is that my battery is dying faster with ICS than it did before the upgrade. I have killed every App that I could and called Verizon last night. As a last resort he updated my tower setting remotely (*228 apparently doesn't work on 4G phones). As a result, this morning I had no signal and my phone was hot as hell. Called Verizon again and learned that he had changed my phone and my wife's to Blackberry Curves (hers is a Droid 3) and mine was Pink! After another hour I had signal again but I am down to 70% after 4 hours. I guess I just need to keep a charger handy, I usually use the phone mostly for e-mail and occasional Web browsing, lately to research battery issues with the Droid 4.
 
I recognize that this doesn't help you predicament at all, but I charge everytime I'm in the car. I find that every little bit helps. Rooting and looking for a less bloated rom is also an option.
 
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