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)

Use text-based Google Now (sort of) on any device, no Android required

Google Now is Googles fresh new virtual assistant. You ask a question, it gives you an answer. It can tell you the weather, whether your flight is on time or not, how many miles to the moon, the half-time score of your favourite football team, if there's a traffic jam on your way home, the nearest sushi place, and much more. Of course it also works as a dictionary, calculator, currency converter, ...

But you need an Android phone or tablet to use Google Now. And not just any Android, but Ice Cream Sandwich or Jelly Bean or newer.

Unless you settle for a lighter version. No matter what device you use, you can get the same answers if you ask your questions to Google Talk chatbot guru@googlelabs.com.

And when I say any device, I mean any device. As long as it can connect with Google Talk you're in. You could use imo on Android, fring on Symbian, Trillian on your PC, and of course Googles own Google Talk app. It even works with the chat app on your Blackberry or iPad.

You have to type or swype or your questions, though. And the chatbot doesn't talk to you, it only writes to you. This is a bonus in classrooms where you don't want your teachers to find out you're cheating, in public transport where talk on phones is annoying for everyone, in your local techno club where the noise deafens everyone and everything including your phone, etc. And if you want to talk'n'listen anyway, just use your phones text-to-speak feature. You don't get the "I predict what you're gonna ask and tell you before you ask it" part of Google Now either, which is bad if you don't value your privacy and good if you do.

This pseudo-Google Now is nothing new, really. Google launched it a year and a half ago, but nobody really noticed. But now that you heard about it, give it a test spin. Add guru@googlelabs.com to your favourite instant messaging app and ask ahead. Want more? Then use Voice Search with Voice Actions or one of its many spinoffs to search your phone and the web and control your phone as well (Siri wasn't that new after all).

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)