First time Droid User Here, Help!

[thomamon]

For years I have been an iPhone user and often have thought about adding a second phone so I can check out the Droid. I was unhappy with my MiFi from Verizon so they made me an offer and I made the plunge and took Verizon up on their offer and added the Rezound to my collection. I now have two phones, an iPhone 4S and the Rezound. I'm so excited about this!

Since I know little about droids and was fooling around with it tonight, I have a few questions.

1) Is there a page to see all your apps that have updates?
2) Is there a way to check what version of the Google Navigation is installed?
3) Can you suggest some apps, maybe something not on iPhone, that I should check out ASAP?

Thanks so much and looking forward to being part of the community.

 

[combatmedic870]

1. go to market, then hit the menu button(the one next to home) and click my apps and it will show you all that you have and will tell you whether they need to be updated.

2. see #1.

3. if you want a flashlight, download tiny flashlight + led. it works well and you can make a widget that doesnt open up an app it just turns it on(and i like that). I mean there are tons of apps....its hard to say what you would like. once your rooted and unlocked...THEN i can tell you apps that will help you along the way and that are good to have!

 

[thomamon]

3. if you want a flashlight, download tiny flashlight + led. it works well and you can make a widget that doesnt open up an app it just turns it on(and i like that). I mean there are tons of apps....its hard to say what you would like. once your rooted and unlocked...THEN i can tell you apps that will help you along the way and that are good to have!

Oh I like the sounds of this... I don't know much about rooting or anything like that so maybe you can help me along. What are the advantages of this? Is it easy to do?

Can't wait to hear back!

 

[lisalisa13]

I don't know much about rooting either and would love to learn more about it too!

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[mikeinctown]

Yeah, the flashlight app was one of my first on my original D1. Works great. As for the apps, they auto update if you allow them to, or in some cases where you don't allow auto update, you will get a notification that updates are available. A few taps later and all the apps are updating for you.

 

[mjones73]

You "root" your phone so you can have control over deleting uninstallable app, installing custom roms (rom is the whole OS) etc... If you don't feel the need to do those things, I wouldn't bother rooting it.

With that being said, currently these phones are shipping with the bootloader locked, it will take a little time for someone to figure out a way to get around that and permanent root these models.

 

[Cinoib]

1. go to market, then hit the menu button(the one next to home) and click my apps and it will show you all that you have and will tell you whether they need to be updated.

2. see #1.

3. if you want a flashlight, download tiny flashlight + led. it works well and you can make a widget that doesnt open up an app it just turns it on(and i like that). I mean there are tons of apps....its hard to say what you would like. once your rooted and unlocked...THEN i can tell you apps that will help you along the way and that are good to have!

Didn't Verizon lock the billiard on the Rezound?

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[Cinoib]

You "root" your phone so you can have control over deleting uninstallable app, installing custom roms (rom is the whole OS) etc... If you don't feel the need to do those things, I wouldn't bother rooting it.

With that being said, currently these phones are shipping with the bootloader locked, it will take a little time for someone to figure out a way to get around that and permanent root these models.

Rooting an Android is like being the
system administrator on your Windows pc.

Being rooted allows you to install Titanium Backup and freeze Verizon applications that you will not use (Navigator - really Verizon?) that use system resources.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using DroidForums

 

[jeffe65]

Rooting will also give you the ability to use applications that will block ads and manage application versions better, if you like to tinker. This became a necessity on the OG Droid, as it had limited on-board memory, so managing applications and where they were installed (Phone vs. SD card) could be "forced" if the app didn't do it automatically. But there are tons of things you can do once you have control to do it, just read up on it, there are a lot of people on the forums willing to help.

One thing that makes it a little difficult is, if you don't use custom ROM's, you won't be able to accept software updates (the automatic OTA's); you'll have to do them manually. But the upside is, once you're rooted and you make minor changes, the OTA's become optional because you can control the "fixes" they were addressing in the first place in other ways.