My First Smart Phone... Update: Success!!!

[jseth]

***** UPDATE!!!

After all the tips, comments and suggestions, I have all the music in my phone... I have the Pulsar player (thanks, cnac!) and am listening to the thing right now!!!

Really appreciating this Forum, once again... after 12 years here, I still pick up gems and suggestions that give me a lot!

I am thoroughly "chuffed", as our Brit friends would say!!!

Thanks again, everyone!




Just got an Android/Galaxy A01, through my brother and his Verizon plan...

What an AMAZING device!!! It's far smarter than I, certainly, and I've just been digging in to it and getting it to do what I want it to... I have a friend who "knows" this stuff and he helps, but I wanted to ask here about a couple things.

First off; is the AGF mobile app a good one? Different, weird, why do it? Does it take a bunch of space or is stored on the SD portion?

This A01 has a 2GB limit inside, with no way to expand that; I already have a higher capacity SD card on it's way, but I understand that not every app can be stored there. Should I be concerned about conserving space in that portion?

Any tips to manage that effectively?

Second thing is, MUSIC! A life-long lover of music, I have a bit in my computer; all stuff I've bought and loaded in, for those times when I may want to make copy for my car or a friend... maybe, 50-70 cd's worth? AS soon as I knew, everything has been done with the highest resolution I could find, either Apple Lossless or WAV files...

With this phone, I have a Google Cloud storage... loaded all my pictures from my computer there, so I can access them on my phone when I want.

Question is, how can I get that music from my PC to the Cloud and then to my phone? Currently, the music organization system I have is the free Media Monkey... which works okay, although I haven't yet gotten fluent with it...

Be easy on me, here... I am not all that tech-smart, roughly 6th or 7th grade level? Ha!

Some big realizations for me as a result of this little gizmo. I have always been a "One and Done"-type... I find the best I can get, I find a good deal on it, I hollar ONCE when I pay for it... and then I learn it, use it, care for it and keep it for a long time (first hand-built guitar? 41 years...).

My friend here rocked my world when he said, "No, don't figure out everything it will do... just figure out how to get it to do what YOU WANT, now... and when you want it do something else, you figure out that..."

it's a fun way to approach this thing... I'm having a lot of fun!

Any help on those two questions is greatly appreciated... I always would rather have information from "Boots on the Ground"" than theory or conjecture or good opinions from the "nether-world"!!!

play on........................................>


John Seth Sherman

[JCave]

Another good man gone....

[jseth]

Ha! Yep... I held out until 2010 to get my first cell phone... barely used it for the first three or four years, could never remember to take it with me when I left the house (just in case!)...

About 4 years ago, that cell phone became my only phone, so I have used this little LG "slide-apart keyboard" thing until the Android...

I can finally see why so many folks are SO LOCKED IN to their phones! Not me, but I can see the attraction... talking with my friend up (the old IT guy) and he says, "What kind of computer do you have?"... I tell him and he says, "That phone in your hand has more power and is faster than that computer...". Astonishing!

I'll try not to go off the rails....

[Mr. Jelly]

Everyone has their own style of using their smart phone. There is no wrong way though there may be an easier way. I use my phone for things that I may use while on the go. Things like dealing with my investments, I don't go there with my phone. I only order things when I am at home, with the phone, as I don't want that information going through someone else's wifi. Realize you may forget your phone somewhere and you don't want some bad character getting access to the the inner workings of your life. That being said I also use my phone in place of my home computer when it has issues. That's one reason to have the AGF app on your phone. I don't use my phone for music much but when I do I just use Pandora. It gets me by in a pinch.

[jseth]

Thanks, Mr. Jelly;

I don't plan on using the phone for the AGF; lord knows I spend too much time here already! However, there may be moments where it would be good to able to access this site, say, if I were selling something and wanted to be timely with a response...

Is the app good? Seamless? I don't know all the verbiage, but I know that many folks will "put up with" a lot of nonsense, just to HAVE something. I'm more of a "form follows function" person; if the thing doesn't deliver, I see no need to have it around me.

I don't listen to much recorded music, never have since I've had a fairly extensive collection of all manner of albums, cds, tapes... when I DO choose to listen to something, I'm not gonna go for "just anything"... if I want to hear Charles Mingus' "Sue's Changes", then that's what I want to be able to dial up...

Seems that it should be doable... I know I can always go to spotify or pandora if I want a steadier stream of "semi- programmed" random stuff.

[fitness1]

Better you than me

Hope they don't quit making "flippers" in my lifetime.

[jseth]

Well, I suppose I'm enjoying all the "pithy" remarks, but do any of you actually KNOW how answers to those two questions?

Come on, guys, I know I'm not the only who's had to deal with this stuff!

[RedJoker]

I've tried the AGF app in the past and didn't care for it. I just use the browser on my phone to access it. Plus, it looks and works exactly the same as when I'm on a computer.

[TBman]

I use Google Chrome on my smart phone to view and post here. The AGF app doesn't show signatures.

[Silurian]

I've never used the app. Just have the AGF on the home screen, just as you would have a shortcut on a PC.

When you say 2GB I believe you mean 2GB RAM. that is memory used by the processor to run applications and isn't memory used to store stuff. A quick Google says with A01 has 16GB storage.

[cmac]

Originally Posted by jseth

This A01 has a 2GB limit inside, with no way to expand that; I already have a higher capacity SD card on it's way, but I understand that not every app can be stored there. Should I be concerned about conserving space in that portion?

2Gb isn't huge, but it'll still allow a lot of apps and their data. Don't worry about it and deal with it if / when it becomes a problem.

Originally Posted by jseth

Second thing is, MUSIC! A life-long lover of music, I have a bit in my computer; all stuff I've bought and loaded in, for those times when I may want to make copy for my car or a friend... maybe, 50-70 cd's worth? AS soon as I knew, everything has been done with the highest resolution I could find, either Apple Lossless or WAV files...

Question is, how can I get that music from my PC to the Cloud and then to my phone?

A CD in WAV form is about 500 - 600Mb, so 70 of these is about 38Gb of data. So I hope the SD card you have ordered is 64Gb or higher.

First, you don't need to go via cloud storage. Just connect the phone to your PC, set it in file transfer mode, then copy the music files onto the phone's SD card (make a Music folder if there isn't one there already.) Alternatively use a card reader on the PC and copy the files directly into the SD card, bypassing the phone completely.

I see no benefit to having music stored in the cloud rather than on the device itself.

I strongly suggest you consider converting all those WAVs to MP3 for the purposes of the phone. Apart from saving space, correctly tagged MP3s will be catalogued by the phone and will be picked up by any music player app so you can browse audio by artist, album, or whatever. You don't get that with WAVs, so actually finding the WAV file you want will be much more involved.

[robj144]

As someone else has said, your RAM is 2 GB, not storage. It's probably not much though after the Android system is on there.

I would move and put all your music/pics to the SD card and the get the largest SD card you can put in your phone.

Just use your computer to drag and drop the music files onto your phone and then put it in your phone. You might have to tell the music program on the phone where your music is though.

[jseth]

THANK YOU!!!

Such great replies, especially the last ones were extremely salient... all good to know. Of course, the Android is all about Google if I want, so I'll just use Chrome when I need to come here away from home. No problem! I'd always rather not use an app if I can come straight to the thing.

I did order a 64 SD card; my phone will handle a lot, I think even a 512 GB will work... but there's no need for high resolution when I'm out and about. MP3's will be fine, and especially if they are easily organized, recognized and take up way less space.

Thanks, again, folks... as usual, it may take a few replies, but this place is a goldmine of information, time and again...

[shufflebeat]

Not wanting to pre-empt your requirements but I suspect at some point you'll find a use for iRealB.

Chord charts and backing track and my most useful app.

[JimC1702]

The latest versions of Android removed the ability to move apps to an SD card. You can only use it for storage of photos and videos, etc. So, if you want or need a lot of apps it's important to have sufficient internal storage. My current phone has 32gb and I'm near the limit.