ICS observations/suggestions/complaints

[Mike.757]

Sounds good! Glad to help!

 

[wildernesscat]

Thanks a lot Mike! The DFR did the trick. The phone works beautifully! dancedroid

 

[Dave12308]

I also miss the "Task Manager" app that existed on Gingerbread, but I suppose I can live without it

Task managers are actually a horrible thing with a Linux based OS such as Android. Linux does its own thing when it comes to memory management, the theory being that unused memory is wasted memory. Still need to be supplied with power, so why waste it? Moto really should have never included one.


The following observations are thanks to an app called "System Panel", which I'm taking as gold, since it hasn't steered me wrong yet:

I know this can't be remedied, and is how ICS works, but both cores are running constantly. This was not the case while the phone still had Gingerbread. One went to 'sleep' when the workload wasn't heavy.

Back in the GB days, the second core was only used for processing touchscreen events. Now, it is used at all times; for multithreaded apps and/or load balancing. This is a VERY good thing.

I try to kill all apps that I'm not using, but another thing I've noticed, and again assume is 'just how ICS works', is that it uses almost twice as much RAM as Gingerbread did. At least on my phone, ICS is using 400-500MB, where as GB was only using 200-300. I have not noticed any slow down, but I can only assume this doesn't help battery life.

Again, unused memory is a waste. One big thing about ICS for the Moto OMAP4 devices is that is uses 256MB of memory JUST for the audio/video codecs. This doesn't even include the actual OS. This is a BIG reason why the D3 won't see ICS.

I just wanted to touch on a couple of your points, for easy readability my answers are in bold blue.

 

[ricpdjrr]

It seems I might be one of the lucky few that have not been forced to ( or accidentally) upgrade to ICS. I have read a lot of negative post's about it and very few positive ones. I am very happy with almost everything the Droid 4 does right now with Gingerbread. My list of gripes is very short.
1. Ghosting-
I assume ICS does not do anything to improve this one

2. Integration of bookmarks-
I know there are third party apps for this but I could never find one I liked.
From what I read you can get chrome with ICS which will FINALLY Intergrate my bookmarks With Google. However chrome seems to come with sum buggy flaky / behavior. I did not like the stock browser on the original Droid And ended up using dolphin. I really like the stock browser on the Droid 4, It does almost everything I would like And seems very stable.

3. Keyboard lights (REALLY)-
This one probably bugs me the most. I have read about the way these devices interpret light and realize it is a little more complex than one would think. Motorola said they fixed this problem with the last update but I did not notice any difference at all. All they really need to do to fix the problem is give us user adjustable settings. I really don't think that is too much to ask. Correct me if I am wrong but I do not believe there are any user adjustable settings for the keyboard lights in ICS.

That's really about it. So for me I don't believe the good will outweigh the potentially bad so I don't think I'm going to jump on board just to get the latest but not so greatest ....

It's a little ironic for me because with all of the great expectations of ICS I was holding off rooting the phone until I had updated to ICS. So now I think I'm just going to stick with Gingerbread and go ahead and root the phone. Then at least I can get control of my keyboard lights.....

In addition... I believe routing is the only way to get rid of The Daily nag screen to Update to ICS.

Rich....

Sent from my DROID4 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Mike.757]

Thanks a lot Mike! The DFR did the trick. The phone works beautifully! dancedroid

Glad it worked for you! Enjoy!:biggrin:

 

[Erikbal]

I tried this and my phone does not have "Power button instantly locks" option.
What am I missing?

I also went into system settings and then security and my phone doesn't have any option for this either. Unless I am missing something....

 

[Jerry24]

I also went into system settings and then security and my phone doesn't have any option for this either. Unless I am missing something....

Well you do have to have it lock.. Not [ slide unlock ] or [ none ] ..
Try setting it to pattern unlock and the option to change the Power button instanly locks option will show up..

Hope that clears it up