Xposed modules on my Android phones and tablets (as of October 2, 2014)

Xposed makes your Android yours

Custom ROMs? Nice, but with the Xposed framework you can turn any stock ROM into your own personal custom version. It has countless modules that let you customise just about everything you want to tweak, and more. Of course your phone or tablet needs to be rooted. It also needs Android 4+ (that means Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat, or newer), but there is a version for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) with limited functionality.

Xposed can do so much that xda gave it its own forum!

The Xposed Installer has a built-in app store full of Xposed modules, but some require a trip to the xda forums. Some modules are in the Google Play Store, but because of the way they interfere with the way Android and its apps work they have a high risk of getting booted out of Google's app store sooner or later.

With so many modules to choose from, some rather silly, many with overlapping functions, choosing the right Xposed modules can take a lot of time, trial, and error. Here's what I picked for my Android gadgets:


Alternate App Picker

Android Jelly Bean came with a few annoying "features," and its app picker is one of them. The old app picker (up to Ice Cream Sandwich) lets you tap the app name, and off it goes. There's a checkbox to remember your choice, but you can leave it unchecked to stay flexible and just launch the app you want with one single tap on the screen.

Enter the new app picker. It makes you tap the app, and then it makes you tap an "just once" or "always" button. Result: what you could do with one tap now takes two.

The alternate app picker module pus the old picker back, and can save you gazillions of taps and eons of your time.

• Alternate App Picker on xposed.info


App Settings

This module lets you set a couple of preferences per app instead of system-wide. Screen resolution, fullscreen behaviour, show app when your Android is locked, a way to remove ongoing notifications without killing the entire app, and more.

I use App Settings to run my camera, clock, Here Beta, seNotes, Timers4Me, Google Maps, and some other apps over the lockscreen, and to keep DeSpy Camera out of my recent apps list.

• App Settings on xposed.info
• App Settings at xda


Disable Clear Defaults Dialog

If you set a default app on a Samsung phone with TouchWiz, it pops up an annoying reminder to tell you that you can clear the default behaviour in the Application manager. Nice to know, but nobody needs to be told over and over again.

This module gets rid of the popup message once and for all.

• Disable Clear Defaults Dialog on xposed.info
• Disable Clear Defaults Dialog at xda


Disable Google Network Location Consent

Another annoying popup message that believes once is not enough. If you enable Network Location, Google asks for permission to use your location to build its database of cell tower and WiFi router locations.

Of course Google needs to ask, but does it really need to ask the same question over and over again whenever you toggle Network Location back on? My corrupted mind believes that Google did this on purpose to stop you from switching Network Location off when you're not using it.

Until Network Location gets a "don't ask me again" option, this Xposed module does the job that Google didn't do.

• Disable Google Network Location Consent on xposed.info
• Disable Google Network Location Consent at xda


Downloads2SD

Have a little bit of internal storage and a biiiiiig external microSD card? Android has the annoying habit of trying to cram every download, picture, podcast, ringtone, movie, and song on your tiny internal storage space instead of on your giant memory card.

Downloads2SD tells Android to put your stuff where you want it. Internal or external storage, the choice is yours.

This is especially useful for pictures: if you drop your phone in the pool you can simply pull out your microSD, dry it, and save your shots on any computer without having to wait for the repair shop to revive your drowned phone.

Sending big downloads to your external storage instead of squeezing it into your overflowing internal memory chip is very useful too.

• Downloads2SD on xposed.info
• Downloads2SD at xda


Force FastScroll

Does your favourite app show loooooong lists without a scroll thumb? The Force FastScroll module lets you drag the scrollbar in apps that don't let you do this themselves.

This saves you a lot of scrolling up and down in WhatsApp, Dood's Music Streamer, Liquid Bear, the SMS app that came with my Samsung phone, the Xposed installer download list, and many other apps.

It doesn't work for every app, and it makes Facebook Messenger, Google Play Music, and a few other apps force-close. The author of the module made a list of incompatible apps. Have a look if Force FastScroll breaks your Android app before you hit the Force FastScroll settings.

• Force FastScroll on xposed.info
• Force FastScroll at xda
• Force FastScroll list of incompatible apps


GoogleOfflineVoice

Google's voice recognition feature can work offline, but it goes online whenever there is a live connection, whether you want it or not. Slow internet, expensive roaming data, Google doesn't care.

GoogleOfflineVoice lets you force it to use offline voice recognition.

• GoogleOfflineVoice on xposed.info
• GoogleOfflineVoice at xda


Greenify

Android task killers are sometimes useful, but are often abused to the point of slowing down your device and burning up your battery.

Greenify has a better way to tame your apps. It hibernates them after your screen switches off, and wakes them up again when you want to use them. Much better than bluntly killing them!

• Greenify in the Google Play Store
• Greenify at xda


Message Delivered Toast Notifications

When you send an SMS from your Samsung and it gets delivered to the intended recipients network, Samsung throws a notification on your status bar. That wouldn't be so bad, except that it triggers the same ringtone as if you received a message yourself.

This Xposed module turns the delivery report into a popup ("toast notification" in Android-speak) that doesn't make any unwanted noise. It doesn't shake your phone either.

• Message Delivered Toast Notifications on xposed.info
• Message Delivered Toast Notifications at xda


Notification Mod

If you lock your Android with a PIN, pattern, or password, you probably can't pull down the notification bar on your lockscreen anymore.

Notification Mod fixes that for you. It lets you choose between notifications, quick settings, or both, and you can have a notification pulldown without the settings button.

If you tap a notification to open an app, you still have to unlock your phone or tablet. But there's a way around that: you can tell the App Settings module which apps can run over your lockscreen sans PIN or password.

• Notification Mod on xposed.info
• Notification Mod at xda


Per App Hacking

Want to set a proxy server for an app, but not system-wide? Want to feed a fake date and time to an app, for example to make the expired Nokia Here Maps app work again? Want to prevent wake locks so an ill-designed app won't suck your battery dry? Per App Hacking lets you tame your apps!

• Per App Hacking on xposed.info


PlayPermissionsExposed

Android's permissions system is a mess that Google refuses to clean up. Dangerous permissions are mixed in with the harmless ones, so you'll never know what hit you if you don't pay attention.

Google "simplified" the permissions list in the Play Store, so now many permissions are completely hidden from you.

Even worse, Google decided not to list the internet access permission anymore, probably because of all the Play Store comments from people who wondered why things like launcher themes and battery widgets need to go online (answer: to show Google ads and let Google Analytics spy on you). That's a downright irresponsible move by Google. If an app can read my contacts list or find out my email address, I definitely want to know if it can go online or not.

PlayPermissionsExposed forces the Play Store to list all permissions that an app asks for, and requires your permission before installing any app with changed permissions.

• PlayPermissionsExposed on xposed.info
• PlayPermissionsExposed at xda


RootCloak

Just because you rooted your phone doesn't mean you want every app to know about it. For example, many games refuse to run on a rooted Android, or demand root access themselves to check if you don't use root to cheat.

RootCloak lets the apps of your choice apps think your phone or tablet is not rooted. Note that app developers can fight back. Some banking and online tv apps detect root with a method that RootCloak can't stop. RootCloak Plus is better at hiding root access, but it uses Cydia Substrate instead of Xposed.

• RootCloak on xposed.info
• RootCloak at xda


Samsung Multiple Widgets

Locking up your lockscreen with a PIN, pattern, or password is a good idea if you want to keep the unwanted out of your Android.

Unfortunately Samsung decided to kill your lockscreen widgets if you secure your lockscreen. Want to shoot pictures with your camera? If you set a PIN, Samsung keeps your camera closed. Firing up your web browser without entering your lock screen password? Samsung says no.

The Samsung Multiple Widgets module lets you put widgets on your lockscreen no matter if you set a PIN or not. Your music player, navigation app, or any widget you can cook up in Widgetsoid, it can all go on your locked lockscreen.

Firing up an app from a lockscreen widget only works if you allow that app to run over your lockscreen. Fortunately there's an app Xposed module for that. Samsung Multiple Widgets works great in combination with the App Settings module.

• Samsung Multiple Widgets on xposed.info
• Samsung Multiple Widgets at xda


SwypeTweaks

Typing Swiping with Swype? Swype is great, but its voice recognition sucks. The SwypeTweaks module forces Swype to use Google's voice recognition instead, which works much better than Swype's built-in Dragon voice recognition.

Works great in combination with the GoogleOfflineVoice module!

• SwypeTweaks on xposed.info
• SwypeTweaks at xda


Wanam Xposed

This is the Samsung-centric version of Wanam Kit.

Wanam Xposed does lots of things. You can tweak your notifications panel in many ways, hide unwanted items from your lockscreen, kill the camera shutter sound and other unwanted noise, change the looks and colors of your staus bar icons, notification panel, quick settings notification widget, restore read/write access to your external microSD card in KitKat (why did Google have to kill this?), and much more.

Some things I tweaked with Wanam:

- Killed the airplane mode and bluetooth scan dialogs.
- Made the volume panel auto-expand (show all volume sliders) upon hitting the volume button.
- Silenced the camera, disabled the boot and low battery sounds, and killed those annoying volume button beeps.
- Enabled my camera to shoot pictures during a call.
- Told my home button (yes, Samsungs still have one) not to wake up my phone.
- Long-pressing the back button kills stuck apps, but I told it to ignore some apps that I don't want to kill by accident.
- Made my status bar icons blue again, because I don't like them in white.

Wanam has ads, but you can use Wanam to switch them off. Yay!

• Wanam Xposed on xposed.info
• Wanam Xposed at xda
• Wanam Xposed in the Google Play Store


XBlast Tools

The XBlast module duplicates many of Wanam's features (see above), but it does some things that Wanam doesn't do, and vice versa.

Some of my XBlast tweaks:

- No gaps between quick settings tiles.
- Stop sending system usage data to Google.
- Enabled all display rotation angles, including upside down.
- Advanced power-off menu, with buttons to boot into recovery mode, and a screenshot button.
- Switched off the low battery warning, which always pops up when you're busy doing something else.
- Removed restrictions on bluetooth file types; now I can send and receive everything.

XBlast can do a lot more, but I already did those things with Wanam.

• XBlast Tools on xposed.info
• XBlast Tools at xda


XPrivacy

LBE Privacy Guard is dead. It stopped working since Android Jelly Bean, and its successor is only available in chinese (unless you let Xposed translate it for you with one of the LBE translation modules). Even if you can run LBE, it uses a lot of resources and doesn't give you fine-grained control over what your apps can do.

XPrivacy does much more. It lets you control just about every Android permission your apps ask for, and it has close to zero impact on the performance of your device. If your Android is old, don't worry, because there is a version for Gingerbread too.

This powerhouse of an app lets you allow, deny, or spoof access to your accounts, location, contacts, messages, MAC address, Android ID, calendar, and many other private bits of information.

Don't want an app to receive push notifications, access your microphone or camera, or check which other apps are running? XPrivacy has a switch for all of those, and more.

Xprivacy can keep apps offline too, but a real firewall like AFWall+ gives you many more options. For everything else, give it a shot.

• XPrivacy on xposed.info
• XPrivacy at xda
• XPrivacy in the Google Play Store


Get it

There are many more Xposed modules. Go grab the Xposed installer and play around!

• Xposed framework
• Xposed modules at xposed.info
• Xposed at xda
• Xposed for Gingerbread at xda

• The competition:

• Cydia Substrate in the Google Play Store
• cydiasubstrate.com

Freshly updated list of Android bloatware that's safe to delete, or not. You decide!

Your Android phone or tablet came with so many preloaded apps that you only get to use half of the advertised memory. And most of the junk starts up all by itself as soon as you think about looking at your phone.

If your Android is rooted, it's time to clean up the junk. And not only if you run a stock ROM, because custom ROMs come with lots of junk too. Yes, even CyanogenMod.

But what to zap and what to leave alone? You don't want to brick your phone, you don't want bootloops on your tablet, and you don't want to delete something that you can only get back aboard if you reflash your ROM. And the names of the bloatware apps are so cryptic that even Google doesn't know what they're doing. Yes, really. Google for "somecrypticjunk.apk" and you'll find it back in hundreds of "safe to remove" list just because removing it didn't kill the phone of someone out there. Needless to say, deleting it will turn your phone into a paperweight, but don't ask forums like xda what the app is for. If you do, you'll get one of two equally useless answers:
1) "Google it." [If Google knew I wouldn't be asking, duh!]
2) "Just delete it. I don't know what it does, but trust me, it's safe."

So here's a list of apps that are safe to remove. Or not. Only you can decide if your gadget needs it, so it's not just a list of apps, but also a list of what those apps do and what might break without them. Have a click:

• The android underground Android system APK list

If you spot any errors or have something to add to the list please hit the contact link on the bottom of the page or leave a comment on this blog post.

CyanogenMod for Nokia?

Finally! Nokia has seen the light and made some Android phones!

They're low-end models, they're made to look like Windows Phones, and they have a watered-down version of Android with a Nokia app store that's as empty as the Windows Phone software shop, but it's a start. Because they have all the Android drivers built in, it shouldn't be too hard to make custom ROMs with the full Google Play Store and all its apps and Google syncing options.

Back when Nokia wouldn't even look at Android there was a CyanogenMod port for the Nokia N9, but that phone got abandoned real quick. But the new Nokia Android phones should have a longer lifespan, and maybe Nokia will add a few better-specced Androids later on?

Nokia hardware with the flexibility of Android... sounds like a promising alternative for when your Samsung needs replacement.

Update: Done! Nokia X rooted and filled with Google apps.
• Google apps on Nokia X at xda

Smooth Calendar update not so smooth

Little widget with lots of info

I like my calendar widget to cram a lot of useful information into a tiny space. In my current setup my homescreen shows my next five appointments in a tiny 2x1 widget. This leaves plenty of space for more important things on my main homescreen, such as my music player widget.

The widget that comes with Jorte Calendar has more customization options than any other calendar widget. There's one problem, though. The Jorte widget opens Jorte Calendar when tapped, and there's no way to change that. As long as Jorte doesn't add custom reminder time entry to its calendar app I keep my appointments in Business Calendar Free. So I need another app to throw a calendar widget on my screen.

My current weapon of choice is Smooth Calendar. Its widget can be as big or as small as you like, there are plenty of ways to customize the calendar text, and lots of other options to tweak its appearance.

More options

A recent update added even more options to change the looks of Smooth Calendar.

The new Smooth Calendar removed the limits on how many calendar entries you could throw into your widget. More entries need bigger widgets, unless you make the text smaller. The update lets you choose your own font size, so you can put lots of small text into a tiny space, or big text into a big area. The amount of unused space around the widget text got reduced too, although Smooth Calendar still wastes valuable screen estate on the left side when you switch off the calendar color bar.

More goodies: separate layout settings for widgets in portrait and landscape mode, and a new widget background. Of course you can still leave the background transparent. The widgets are not scrollable yet, but who knows what future updates will bring?

Bugs ate the new features

Too bad the new features introduced a jungle full of new bugs. The option to select your own calendar app to launch upon tapping the widget broke, but was quickly fixed. Widget text can spill beyond the "original style" background, and this did not get fixed. Force-closes when choosing a background color for your widget remained a problem, too.

These issues (and others) resulted in a flood of negative Google Play Store comments, which were addressed by an update that removed most of the new features. The version that works for me is version 1.1.0.3, which has most the new features but not many of the new bugs. Unfortunately the current play Store version is v1.1.0.6, which has most new features removed in an attempt to squash the bugs. The Play Store doesn't let you roll back to older versions (something that Google should fix!). If you have an older version with the new features still in them and it doesn't keep crashing, hang on to your backups until the app gets sorted out.

• Smooth Calendar

Swype Beta sweeps out account requirement

Swype, don't type

If your Android phone manufacturer or carrier didn't install Swype on your phone, there are many good reasons to install it yourself. After climbing over a very low learning curve Swype is the fastest way to enter text on a phone, and it beats standard keyboards on tablets too.

There are similar keyboard apps, but Swype is free.

Swype works offline, its handwriting input doesn't require internet either, so the only reason to allow Swype to go online is for voice input.

Don't register, just download

A major annoyance of Swype used to be that if it didn't come preinstalled, you had to sign up for the beta test program. Making yet another account somewhere just to install a keyboard? Ugh! Fortunately Swype has seen the light, so now you can download and install Swype Beta without signing up to anything.

Swype still won't let you download its keyboard directly, though. Instead it hands out a Swype installer, which downloads the keyboard to your phone and gets it installed. If your phone came with Swype preloaded, the Swype installer will add an extra copy to your phone. This new extra copy usually has more features than the Swype app (if any) that came with your phone out of the box.

You can firewall the installer offline after it has done its job. You can even uninstall the installer, the keyboard stays where it is and keeps working. Of course you can force the Swype keyboard itself offline with a firewall (after downloading language packs, of course). Keeping Swype offline kills the voice text entry part of the app, but it also ensures that the passwords and credit card numbers you Swype into your Android apps won't leave your phone through Swype. You may also want to use apps like PDroid or LBE Privacy Guard to make sure Swype Beta doesn't grab your location info.

Can't read you, don't speak your language

The app is called Swype Beta for a reason. Typing and swyping works really well, but the handwriting feature is erratic, especially for languages with accented letters, tildes, and other symbols that the english language does without. Inserting foreign words into an english text is a sure way to confuse the handwriting mode of Swype. Even when I stick to plain english, Swype often chokes on my handwritten letters that Google Gesture Search has no problems with.

Swype can only use one language at a time. It would be nice if a future version of Swype would cater for bilingual Swypers by letting them activate multiple languages simultaneously. In the current modus operandi Swype runs into trouble when you mix languages, and the autocorrect option turns your multilingual writing into a complete mess. Exempli gratia, a ménage à trois between english, french, and español is very fehlerhaft in Swype. Swype, if you want world domination you should fix your language issues today rather than mañana, capiche?

Another annoyance (one that keeps me using the old preinstalled copy that came with my phone): the current version of Swype Beta rings a very loud beep when it doesn't recognize a word, and there's no way to switch this noise off short of putting your entire phone in silent mode.

Anyway, even with these shortcomings Swype is one of the best touchscreen keyboards out there, so give it a shot.

• Swype Beta

Another good keyboard (too bad it doesn't Swype):

• MultiLing Keyboard

Are Android users obsessed with the weather?

Every tech site, discussion forum, and Lifehacker clone on the web has a bunch of "post your homescreen" threads. Tech blog The Verge started yet another one. All those screenshots tell a lot about the different mobile operating systems.

iPhoners always post the same thing: a grid of apps with a wallpaper behind them and a clock icon that's stuck at a quarter past ten. Except for those that Think Different®, 'cos they got folders too. Makes me think of that Monty Python movie where Brian shouts "you're all individuals" and the crowd replies with "yes we are!"

No Blackberry screenshots, because Blackberry users hide in a corner for fear of being found out as a Blackberry owner. And Windows Phone owners don't bother to reply. They keep quiet, all three of them.

And then there are the Android homescreens. Now that's a different story. No two Android phones look alike, and the homescreens are often a gem of creativity.

But there's one common theme in all those screens. Custom launchers and individual wallpapers aside, there's something that you'll find on virtually every Android homescreen picture ever posted on the web. And I'm not talking about the customary Angry Birds shortcut.

Scroll through the Android homescreen pictures and you can't miss the fact that 99.99999% of them has a big shiny weather widget as the main attraction. Temperatures, wind speeds, pictures of clouds, the forecast for tomorrow and the day after, it's all there. The weather widget usually takes up half the screen or more.

Why?

Where I live it rains so much that we pay taxes to keep the water out. Half the country sitting below sea level might also have something to do with this. And it's often freezing cold, especially this time of the year. The ever-present wind that comes in straight from the North Sea doesn't make things any better. It blows the Scottish weather our way. 'Nuff said.

So the last thing I need is a giant homescreen widget that keeps reminding me of what I'd rather forget.

Yes, I know that things are different if you live on a tropical island and you spend all day on the beach drinking coconut rum under a palm tree. A weather widget that shows nothing but "Friday: sunny, 28 ºC, Saturday: blue sky, 31 ºC, Sunday: high tide at noon, 29 ºC" looks really good. And so does a calendar that reads "Monday: Surf Class, Tuesday: Restock the bar on the boat, Wednesday: Waterskiing, Thursday: BBQ at the pool." But in such a place you'd have no need for a weather widget at all.

So what's going on here? Do all meteorologists have an Android phone? Are all Android users meteorologists? Do Androids never go out so they need their phone to tell them if it's winter or summer out there? Or did they just miss the off switch to remove the weather from their clock widget?

I can see the point of a calendar on your central screen. Or a music widget on your main homescreen. Or your email or the number of minutes and texts that you have left this month.

But the weather? On your main screen so you see it everytime you pull out your phone? Each and every time? With an extra copy on your lockscreen so no raindrop flies by undetected?

If you can explain why weather widgets are so popular you'll receive a generous reward. First prize: the raincloud that decided to relieve itself right when I was biking under it. Second prize: a big bag of northwestern wind. Third prize: a pound of sleet. Wait, make that a kilo.

So leave a comment or hit the email link below to fill me in.

Can I delete that system app without killing my phone?

Your Android phone or tablet came loaded with bloatware because its manufacturer thought you'd like it, or because the maker of the bloatware paid to get their merchandise included. If you bought your phone "for free" on a contract then your mobile phone operator added even more junk.

All those unwanted apps have some nasty habits. They autostart and won't shut up, they phone home and steal your data and drive up your internet bill. You have many good reasons to get rid of all that crapware.

But...

...all that crapware often has cryptic names that don't tell you what the apps are doing and if your phone breaks if you freeze or uninstall them. So you Google the cryptic app name to see what it does, only to find a bunch of links to forums with "safe to remove" lists that may work for whoever wrote them but not necessarily for you. Who knows what really happens when you remove AdminFeedNotifier or freeze oma1motService.apk?

So here's a list of apps that are either safe to remove or should be left untouched. You're the only one who can decide what your Android phone or tablet needs, and this list helps you make an informed decision before it's too late and you end up with a device that refuses to boot.

Did you know that Google Maps voice navigation needs TtsService.apk? That com.android.systemui is geekspeak for your Android nofification bar? That RichTextCommon sucks your battery dry and drives your data bill through the roof? Or that you don't need MediaSync.apk to sync your media?

The Android APK list on android underground aims to tell you what those apps really do, if they're safe to remove, or why you shouldn't touch them if you don't want to reinstall your ROM from scratch.

It's a work in progress that depends on you, so if you spot some errors or have something to add to the list then please hit the contact link on the bottom of the page or leave a comment on this blog post.

• The android underground Android system APK list

Widgetsoid alive and kicking, could use a finishing touch

 
Update with growing pains

Ultraversatile widget creator Widgetsoid received a massive update last week. Although the changes are not that spectacular, the app was completely rewritten and the format of the old widgets was no longer compatible with the new app. You had to rebuild all your widgets from scratch.

Widgetsoid can toggle WiFi, GPS, display brightness and just about anything else that can be toggled in Android. You can put shortcuts to apps and settings screens in widgets to make 'em take up less space than they would occupy as normal icons in your homescreen grid.

The update from v3 to v4 added two-storey widgets, among other things. And where the old Widgetsoid required a PhD in rocket science to create a widget, the new version made things a bit easier by simplifying the user interface. So now you only need an MSc degree to make it work.

Too bad the update was bitten by bugs so hard that I had to keep the old version for a while. The new edition made things crash a bit too often to be useful.

But now the bugs are squashed. Maybe not all of them, but the new Widgetsoid is ready for human consumption. The "rounded corners" option for widgets with custom colors still doesn't work, but that's a minor issue that bit all the previous versions too. The next step should be to make the app easier to use, and to stop cluttering the root folder of my microSD card.

Confusingly simple

The number of tabs in the widget building screen went down. A lot. All widget elements are now hidden under a single button called "toggles." Sounds simple, right? Unless you want to add a shortcut instead of a toggle. The shortcuts are counterintuitively hidden under a button called "Application" in the "Add New Toggle" screen.

Putting everything under one button labeled "toggles" is confusingly simple. Splitting the "add toggle" button into a toggle and a shortcut button would make things a lot easier to find.

And then the shortcut menu could use a facelift.

Hidden shortcuts

Adding a shortcut to a settings screen (bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, app manager, whatever) takes a confusing series of steps. First you have to hit "Add New Toggle" to add a shortcut that's not a toggle. Then you have to tap "Application" to add a shortcut that's not an aplication. Which lands you into a long list of apps, with some settings screen shortcuts in between.

But not all settings screens. For example, a shortcut to the Android app settings menu requires more than "simply" hitting "new toggle" and "application." When you're in the screen to add apps you have to hit the tiny little wrench icon on top of your screen to get a list of all possible settings shortcuts. This is so easy to overlook that you're likely to miss a lot of the possible settings shortcuts.

Wouldn't it be a lot easier if all shortcuts to settings were stacked under an entry called "settings" in the shortcut list instead of scattered in between your apps and hidden under an icon?

SD card clutter

The old Widgetsoid would create a single folder on your SD card. The folder was called ".widgetsoid" including the leading dot to hide it from some file managers. The new widgetsoid puts a folder called "Widgetsoid" on your memory card. No leading dot, so it appears in addition to the old folder.

So far, so good. Delete the old folder, stick with the new folder.

Until you add a settings shortcut from the hard-to-find settings list, because then Widgetsoid dumps a file called "dslv_state.txt" on your card. Not inside the Widgetsoid folder, but bang in the root of your memory card. As if things are not cluttered enough already with all those apps dumping files and folders there in a totally unorganised way.

I'd welcome a new Widgetsoid that would keep ALL its files in one single folder, with an option to let me choose the location of said folder so I can move it out of the way. SD/Android/data/Widgetsoid sounds like a good location for me. SD/Android/data/ is where many other apps put their folders so I don't have to scroll past them whenever I fire up a file manager to hunt down a PDF or text file.

Future Widgetsoid

Most bugs are fixed, now the user interface needs a minor overhaul and the SD card clutter should be cleaned up. The new Widgetsoid is a great app, but its present state resembles a beta test version

• Widgetsoid
• Widgetsoid v3.4.4 (old version, for if v4.x doesn't work for you)

Widgetsoid pimped, broken, fixed

Widgetsoid is the most versatile toggle and shortcut widget builder out there. It can switch wifi and mobile data on and off. And bluetooth and GPS and your ringer volume and USB debugging and a lot more. You can put a bunch of app shortcuts in a Widgetsoid widget too, to fit more apps in the limited space of a homescreen.

You don't need to put 'em on a homescreen, though. You can put your widgets in your notification bar too.

Too bad that Widgetsoid has a pretty steep learning curve. It can do many things, but it takes quite a bit of trial and error before you get the hang of it.

The latest update made things a little easier because the widget configuration screen  is simplified a bit. A little too simplified, because you have to look in a screen called "toggles" to find the button that makes app shortcuts.

Another novelty: two rows in your widgets, so you can put more toggles in your notification bar, or put two rows of icons in a single homescreen widget instead of stacking two widgets on top of each other.

The number of widget sizes went down to three (well, six, because you can turn rows into columns to make vertical widgets), but any decent launcher lets you resize widgets at will so there's not really any size limit.

Update: the full set of widget sizes came back.

Warning: the update from v3 to v4 comes at a price. Your old widgets are not compatible with the new app, so you need to rebuild them all from scratch. Tip: take screenshots of your old widgets before you update the app so you know what goes where when you build your widgets again.

Too bad the update introduced some annoying bugs. Lighting up my flashlight from a Widgetsoid widget takes longer in the new version. It used to flash instantly, now there's a noticeable delay. Shortcuts for bluetooth and app settings don't work anymore for me, hitting the widget now makes the settings app crash. The "rounded corners" option for the widget background doesn't work with a custom background color, but this bug bit the old version too.

Update: the flashlight issue is fixed.
October 20 update: the settings app crash bug is fixed.

According to the Google Play Store comments problems with the new version are quite common. The developer rewrote the app, which effectively turned it into a beta test version. It may work for you, or you may encounter bugs. Some phones and ROMs fare better than others.

I'm gonna keep the old version until the bugs are sqashed. Make sure you have a working backup before you update Widgetsoid, because there's a good chance that you'll want to roll back.

Update: the October 20 edition fixed all the bugs for me, so I'm on version 4 now.

• Widgetsoid
• Widgetsoid v3.4.4 (old version, for if v4.x doesn't work for you)

MultiLing Keyboard for your special characters and nose jobs

When it comes to Android keyboards it's hard to beat Swype, but sometimes an alternative keyboard is useful too.

For example, highlighting and inserting with pinpoint precision is a lot easier with cursor buttons, and the Swype keyboard doesn't have 'em. On many phones the enter key turns into a smilie button when you fire up the stock SMS app, so switching keyboards is the way to put line breaks in your text messages.

Edit: Swype has cursor buttons, but they can be hard to find. Swype from the Swype key to the SYM key to make 'em show up.

GO Keyboard did a pretty good job, but I trashed it when I found MultiLing Keyboard.

MultiLing Keyboard does not ask for internet access, which is a very good thing for an app that can see any password you tap into your phone.

It comes with cursor buttons, of course. Its unique selling point is that it makes it really easy to enter special characters like ¿¡~°£ etcetera. You can even tell it which special characters to pop up when you long-press the period and comma keys. And it lets you decide for yourself if smilies should be noseless or not, as in :) vs. :-).

• MultiLing keyboard

ROM Toolbox doubles as a fully functional free autostart manager

There are plenty of custom ROMs for Android phones out there, and plenty of apps to manage all these ROMs.

ROM Toolbox is one of them. Its latest update kills some bugs and adds some features. Obviously ROM Toolbox manages ROMs, but is does much more than that. So much more that it's a useful app even if your phone runs a stock ROM.

Its ROM manager installs ROMs and other zips, and lets you back up your current ROM. It can also reboot your phone into recovery mode so you don't have to keep power and volume down pressed on boot or whatever key combo sends your phone to the recovery console. ROM Toolbox is not as good as ROM Manager by ClockworkMod, but it's got the basics covered.

And not just the basics. ROM Toolbox is a kind of swiss army knive to tinker with your Android system. It does eye candy like themes, custom boot logos, fonts and status bar icons, and more. There's a bare bones CPU tweaker, a build.prop file editor (might be useful if you want to impersonate another phone), a file browser and a terminal emulator, an app manager (too bad that its best features are only available in the paid version), and ROM Toolbox can block ads too.

There are plenty of dedicated apps that do all these things better, but ROM Toolbox puts it all in one package. And it has one killer feature that makes the app a useful addition to your phone no matter what ROM you use, stock ROMs included.

That killer feature is its autostart manager.

There are plenty of apps that stop other apps from autostarting when your phone boots up, but ROM Toolbox goes further. It can prevent autostarting on boot, it can stop apps from autostarting on connectivity change (mobile data to WiFi, etc.), it stops Google Maps from snooping online whenever you charge your phone, it keeps pushy apps like JaxtrSMS asleep when your WiFi wakes up, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are dozens of other events that can trigger apps to launch, and ROM Toolbox lets you control all of them.

Autostarts only does it for money, Autorun Manager limits most of its useful features to its paid version, but ROM Toolbox does all its autostart management for free.

My swiss army knive is a useful tool even though I only use its corkscrew. ROM Toolbox is a useful tool even though I only use its autostart manager.

• ROM Toolbox on the Android Market Google play

Update: Gemini is another great free autostart manager. It doesn't have all the extra bells and whistles that ROM Toolbox has, but Gemini lets you control some extra autostart receivers that are ignored by other autostart managers.

• Gemini App Manager (Google play)

Another update: Autostarts is available for free from F-Droid.

• Autostarts (F-Droid)

Widgetsoid got better (and it was already very good)

If you want to display all sorts of phone info, toggle things on and off from a widget, and more, Widgetsoid is the most versatile widget app out there.

It is also rather complex. Widgetsoid has a steep learning curve and it's user interface is a mess.

But once you get over that, you can make widgets to toggle just about everything. WiFi, bluetooth, GPS, data by switching it off, and data by renaming your access points ApnDroid-style. And then there's brightness, sound, auto sync, flashlight, battery stats, network info, and a million more things that you can toggle, check, or make shortcuts to. And if that's not enough, you can customise your widgets with plenty options. Custom transparency, custom icons and labels and indicators, and much more. Don't want widgets on your home screen? Widgetsoid can put its stuff in your notification bar instead.

Widgetsoid has been updated a few times lately. The most important changes:
- One-click GPS toggle for Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich (not all ROMs supported, though).
- You can make a CPU frequency toggle to overclock or underclock and quickly go back to normal.
- You can now display the WiFi network name as the WiFi icon label.
- The WiFi toggle icon can indicate the signal strength in the same way as your WiFi icon in the Android notification bar. Useful if you have a minimal homescreen with the notification bar out of sight.

• Widgetsoid

Mess up your pictures with Mosaic Wallpaper

Have a picture that's too ugly to use as a wallpaper on your phone, but you want to use it anyway? Then Mosaic Wallpaper is for you.

Mosaic Wallpaper has plenty of image effects to alter your pictures beyond recognition. Circles, stripes, spirals, or just cut it up in little tiles like Antoni Gaudí used to do. You can use the results as a background for your phone, or for anything else.

The image from the screenshot comes from Vladstudio, a great site to grab backgrounds for your homescreens and desktops. I wonder if Vlad would recognise the picture without sneaking a peek at the original image first.

• Mosaic Wallpaper (Android Market)
• Vladstudio

Android keyboard TouchPal free for the time being

Don't like the stock keyboard that comes with Android? No problem. There are plenty of other keyboards to choose from.

A bit of SlideIT, Swype, and SwiftKey

What do you get if you crossbreed SlideIT with SwiftKey? The new keyboard on the block is called by the cheesy name TouchPal. It's been around as a private beta test version for a while, but now everybody can grab a copy from the Android Market. There are many good reasons why you should, and only a few why you shouldn't.

TouchPal is like Swype, but with a couple of extras. The Swype gestures in TouchPal are called Curve. On top of its Swype-like input, TouchPal comes with a bunch of predictive text and auto-correct options and it can auto-complete unfinished words. Sometimes it's a bit too much, though. TouchPal insists on auto-capitalising the first word in a line even when you don't want it to. Worse, it inserts spacing between words even if auto-spacing is switched off. If you try to type www.google.com TouchPal turns it into www. google. com, with spaces!

If you don't like Curve you can turn it off. You can also switch to an old skool T9 keypad.

Languages, dictionaries, spelling

You can download dictionaries in most western european languages (and thai, chinese, russian, and indonesian too), but eastern europeans and most asians are left out. And it only has american english, not british. Maybe TouchPal will add more languages over time. You can add your own words to a custom dictionary to fill in the gaps.

A nice touch is that you can use multiple languages together, so if you're bi- or trilingual you don't need to switch languages in the settings all the time.

Bells and whistles

More good stuff: there's a "close" button in the top right corner so you can hide the keyboard with a single tap. That beats long-tapping the menu key or hitting the highly unpredictable back button. The virtual cursor keys are great as well. They make it very easy to put the cursor in exactly the right place, no matter how fat your fingers are.

You get quick access to the screens with numbers, special characters, and smilies. There's also an option to put alternative symbols on the normal letter buttons, which you can then insert by either long-tapping or a downward swipe. Unfortunately TouchPad only displays the extra characters on the bottom row in Curve (Swype) mode. The other keys have numbers and special symbols as well (just long-tap and see what happens), but the TouchPal keyboard fails to show them. According to the developers that's because downward swipes on the top two rows conflict with Curve. Maybe they should look a bit harder for a solution. While they're at it, they should add a page with letters like å, ß, ç, á, è, ñ, ø, š, ô, ü, etc.

Permissions and pricing

TouchPal asks for access to your contacts so it can add the names in your address book to its dictionary. It also wants full internet access, something that keyboard apps should never ask for. Apps like TouchPal can read everything you type, including passwords and credit card numbers. Better keep TouchPal offline with DroidWall or LBE Privacy Guard. Don't worry, blocking internet access does not break TouchPal. You can still download additional languages, because TouchPal launches the Market app for that.

TouchPal is available for free on the Android Market until the 31st of October, 2011. After the freebie period TouchPal will probably become a paid app, and judging from the price of the Windows Mobile version it won't be cheap. The free version never expires, so grab a free copy while you can.

• TouchPal (Android Market)
• TouchPal (cootek.com)

Newer is not always better: get GO Launcher EX v2.27 (with uncluttered menu) and v2.37 (with old folder layout)

GO Launcher EX is one of the best Android launchers. It's fast, it's got lots of customisation options, you can kill or uninstall apps right from the app drawer, and it's free.

It's also updated very frequently. Usually the updates bring useful new functions, kill old bugs, and improve the program.

But newer is not always better. Sometimes the updates add useless clutter, reduce functionality, or reduce stability of the app.

GO Launcher EX v2.28 introduced a new menu layout. The six menu entries of the old version turned into eight, with even more hidden behind a "more" button. The extra entries pointed to things you could already get by hitting "preferences" in the old menu, and made it a lot easier to spamvertise the app by recommending it to your friends and foes. It also added links to the GOStore, which is useless to most people because all the GO products are easy to find in the Android Market and from the GO preferences screen.

Somewhere in between v2.29 and 2.36 stability started to suffer. My old v2.27 always kept running, no matter what I did. But later versions often lost my icons and widgets, which then needed to get redrawn whenever I returned to my home screen from memory intensive apps like a web browser full of tabs.

GO Launcher EX v2.38 came with a new home screen folder layout. Whether the new folders look better or worse than the old ones is a matter of personal preference. Unfortunately the new folders hold less icons, so you need to do more horizontal scrolling in crowded folders.

If you don't like the new folder layout you may want to install GO Launcher v2.37, which is the last version with the old folders that hold more icons than the new ones. If you want the old uncluttered menu back then version 2.27 is for you.

If you go back to v2.27 there's a small price to pay: grid size is limited to a set of three: 4x4, 4x5, and 5x5. The custom grid sizes were introduced later (you get them in v2.37). The upcoming GO Launcher EX v2.50 will add a new method to add and remove apps to/from home screen folders, but that's such a minor issue that it's not worth the upgrade. Keep in mind that new themes, plugins and add-ons do not always work with old versions of GO Launcher EX.

To cut it short: get v2.37 if you want the old folder layout back, get v2.27 if you want the old folders and the old uncluttered six item menu.

• GO Launcher EX in the Android Market (latest version only)
• get GO Launcher EX v2.27 and v2.37 at android underground

Is GO Launcher EX trying to kill itself?

GO Launcher EX is one of the best Android launchers out there, but it's trying to become one of the worst.

It started with cluttering the menu with useless shortcuts to spamvertise the app to your friends and buy stuff in the GOStore. Then stability started to suffer. Old versions of GO always worked, recent versions often draw a blank and have to rebuild your home screens when you return from another app.

The latest update (version 2.38) forces its screen indicator on your display. You can choose between the old indicator and a new version with new looks, but the option "no screen indicator" is gone. Autohide after a couple of seconds is the only choice left.
Edit: the option to remove the indicator returned, but it doesn't always work.

But the worst part about the new edition is the folder layout. It displays less icons and hides the missing entries behind a swipe gesture (more clicks to get to your apps!). The new folders try to disguise themselves as a pulldown bars. It wouldn't be so bad if this horrible and counter-intuitive folder layout was optional, but GO Launcher gives us no choice. The crippled layout is the only folder display option in the new version of GO.

GO Launcher EX is plagued by a bad case of featuritis. Once upon a time is was a clean, efficient, lightweight, fast launcher, but its makers threw in so much junk that it has become bloatware.

Time for the GO team to make a light version of their launcher which sticks to its core business, instead of cluttering the app with junk and bloat.

And maybe they remove the "phone home" behaviour of the app? GO Launcher EX tries to go online everytime I boot my phone. Of course I blocked it with DroidWall and LBE Privacy Guard, but why does a launcher need to call its maker all by itself? What data does it send out, and why is there no "off" switch in the settings menu?

If you want a vintage version of GO Launcher EX from the good old days, go here:

• old versions of GO Launcher EX: v2.27 (uncluttered menu) and v2.37 (old folder layout)

Problem: Missed alarms and notifications when SD card is mounted. Workaround: root your phone and move your sounds to internal memory

When you hook up your phone to your computer to transfer files, your SD card is "unmounted" and Android can't access it.

And then you receive an SMS. Or your calendar is supposed to sound its alarm to remind you of an important meeting. Or you've left your phone hanging on your computer overnight to back up your entire SD card and get your phone charged at the same time, and then the alarm clock has to fire off...

...but it doesn't.

Because when Android can't access your SD card, apps can't access the custom ringtones stored on the card.

Sometimes it will play the default tone when the custom tones are unavailable. This works for calls, but not always for messages, calendar alarms or alarm clock apps. For example, if you switch off notification sounds in Androids settings (because you don't want to hear a sound for every email or incoming IM) but enable a custom notification in your SMS app, the custom SMS sound fails if your SD card is not mounted.

Soulution: each and every app should play a backup sound from the on board memory if it can't play files from your SD card. Unfortunately there will always be programmers who forget to add the few lines of code needed for that.

Workaround: copy your custom sounds to the internal memory of your phone. This way you can unmount or remove your memory card without having to worry about missing your early morning flight because the alarm clock stays silent. Of course you need root access for that; yet another good reason to root your phone if you haven't already done so.

Always check if alarm clock apps, calendars, SMS programs and other apps play a backup sound if they can't reach your memory card. If an app fails to make some noise when it should, you should use a sound from your phones internal memory.

image from Wikipedia