Droid user help (verizon)

[Scott Shepherd]

Have a friend that just got a new droid from verizon. Didn't have any choice since his company mandates what you can and cannot get.

He absolutely HATES it and was showing me a couple of the things that are killing him, and I couldn't figure out how to change them, or find out how to change them online, so I thought I'd ask those here that might have them and be well versed so I can pass the info along.

Two main issues that I know of at this point.

One is the contact sort and listing. It has some insane logic to it that prevents you from finding people logically. For instance, if he had a contact that was :

Smith, John

and he started typing "Jo....", it would not bring up John Smith. It would bring up :

Obermeyer, Jules

It's take the first two letters and making them the letters for the first and last name or something weird like that.

He tells me he has numbers in there were imported from his companies server and no matter what he types, he cannot get to them quickly.

I'm not sure what the logic is, but there has to be a way to change the sorting method, doesn't it?

Also, he can't see the numbers. When you look at the contact list, the names a little larger, and the numbers are very small. So small you can hardly read them. He's gone in and changed the font size to the largest setting, but no matter what he changes the font size to, nothing on the display changes.

Anyone with a droid now how to help?

Thanks!

[Dan Hintz]

Steve,

Is it a Droid, a Droid 2, or a Droid X? On my Droid, the search works as expected... if I type in 'a', all names beginning with 'A' are highlighted. Follow that with 'm', and I drill down to Amy and Amanda being highlighted. And so on.

When he did the import, is he sure it filled in the fields correctly?

[Charles Wiggins]

I have a Droid 2 and I do not have either of those issues, but I use my gmail account to manage my contacts, so that may have something to do with it.

I don't see phone numbers at all in my main contact list unless I select a contact. Most of the time I either use my recent calls list or voice command to look folks up.

With voice command I just say, "call jennifer" and it gives me a list of all phone numbers for all jennifers in my contacts and I tap the one I want to call. If I know exactly which one I want to call I can just say "call jennifer smith mobile 1" and it will call her cell number immediately.

[Charles Wiggins]

ADDENDUM:

I did some research, and there is a app called "Spare Parts" available from the Droid Store for free that will open up parts of the Settings menu that are normally hidden, including Font Size.


I have a Droid 2 and I do not have either of those issues, but I use my gmail account to manage my contacts, so that may have something to do with it.

I don't see phone numbers at all in my main contact list unless I select a contact. Most of the time I either use my recent calls list or voice command to look folks up.

With voice command I just say, "call jennifer" and it gives me a list of all phone numbers for all jennifers in my contacts and I tap the one I want to call. If I know exactly which one I want to call I can just say "call jennifer smith mobile 1" and it will call her cell number immediately.

[Scott Shepherd]

I'm not sure what model is it, but it's brand new, he got it about 2 weeks ago. The contacts appear to be in there correctly. Before he left the store, he had logged into something at their corporate side and downloaded everything.

It's all listed correctly from what I see.

Charles, I might have misspoke on that, it might be in the list of recent callers, or some history that shows where people have called. It lists the names, and the numbers under it, but the numbers are very small. So he can't see the number to call people back (I'm sure he could touch it and it would call them back, but hey, who am I to judge?).

I'll tell him about the app. I think Verizon has many things locked down or removed, but that's just my guess.

Dan, his does not give that behavior at all. That's exactly the behavior he wants it to do but it doesn't.

[Dan Hintz]

Amusingly enough, one of the best people he can ask about that is one of the geeks at the Verizon mobile store...

[John O'Brien]

I think what is happening, is when he types in the "jo" if he does not have a last name that starts with a J, it goes to the O and finds the first last name that starts with O. Has nothing to do with the first letters of the first and last name.

After all, it is a "smartphone":o

John

[Scott Shepherd]

As an example, if he types in "CE", it brings up someone's name that ends in "Coleman" BEFORE it brings up anything that starts with a C or a CE.

If you google it, you'll find 100's of upset people calling it one of the stupidest things they have ever seen. I just can't find any results on those pages, so I thought I'd ask here. Sounds like Dan doesn't have that issue at all. My guess is that there is a setting somewhere, but I sure can't find it.

[Matt Meiser]

I think he's just not happy about getting that phone and looking for things to hate. :)

Mine's an HTC EVO 4G from Sprint, and I think the phone book is actually great. Yes, in mine if I type MA there are two entries before my name (imported from the Exchange server at work) that it matched by initials, but I'm 3rd. By the type I type MAT I'm at the top. Remember too that you are also type MB, MC, NA, NB, NC, OA, OB, and OC. by hitting MA. I tried numerous names from my list and I can get all in the top 3 results within 2 or 3 key presses. It matches on initials forwards and backwards. MP = PM. So I'd guess Coleman's first name starts with D,E, or F.

[Scott Shepherd]

So I'd guess Coleman's first name starts with D,E, or F.

Nope, starts with a B. He has several hundred people in there, so if he were searching for "Matt", and typed "MA", it probably won't be in the top 3. This is so contrary to how every other device on the market works. He's coming from the blackberry world, and he has an ipad for work, and neither do the stupid sort routine.

Everything I have ever seen gave you a settings screen where you could control the way things sorted or displayed. I can't find any settings like that in that phone.

I thought he was just complaining too, and then I tried to use it and he would tell me "Now search for John", and I'd do it and I have to agree with him, it's not right. I suspect the 100's and 100's of posts online about the same problem back up it's not just him complaining, but I haven't seen any fixes online for it yet and I don't know anyone that has one other than him.

[Tim Morton]

As has been pointed out , you will need to find out which "droid" as there are at least 5 "droids" that i know of, and they all run a slightly different OS.

Mine is the droid Incredible, and it runs a slightly different OS than the Droid eris, and a completely different OS than the Droid, or the Droid 2, or the Droid X.

Here is the sawmill creak of Android Phones...

http://androidforums.com/android-phones/

[Scott Shepherd]

Looks like it's the Droid Incredible to me. I looked at the HTC website and from memory, that's the only one that has that layout, with the one button on the bottom.

[Matt Meiser]

He might look in the App Store to see if there's a contact app more suitable to his liking. I seem to recall there being some in there.

[Tim Morton]

Looks like it's the Droid Incredible to me. I looked at the HTC website and from memory, that's the only one that has that layout, with the one button on the bottom.

I use Car Talk to manage my contacts, and to navigate ....but i don't have 300 contacts to mange. But its free and its included on his phone.

[Scott Shepherd]

Thanks, I think he'll be by here this weekend some time. I'll see if I can work with him on it and try some of those applications. I also saw a tip somewhere that said the place to change some of that is when you are actually entering the contact. Apparently you can hit something and get to some other options during that process, but you can't get to them anywhere else.

We'll see. Thanks for the help!

[John Shuk]

He can add contacts to a speed dial screen on the Incredible. My search on the Incredible seems to work things out pretty well when searching contacts but it is far from perfect. Truthfully, traditional paper phone/slash address books work pretty darn well and always have.

[Caspar Hauser]

I have a little blue book and a pencil. The pages are indented and have the letters of the alphabet printed on them. I write names and telephone numbers in it.

I used to have a little black one, then I got married.

:)

CH

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't think he has any interest in going back to a pencil and paper.

It seems this odd search method is unique to the droid. For example, if you type in "CH" looking for "Chuck", it brings up every thing that has a C and a U in the first and last names combined. How that's a good search is beyond me. If I want to find "Chuck", typing "Ch" should have Chuck listed long before "Cassandra Matthews".

Speed dial isn't going to help him, he's one of those people that deals with a lot of people on a daily basis. He's on the phone probably 6 out of 8 hours a day.

I stand by my comments, he shouldn't have to look for all these work arounds. There should be a simple way to change the way the phone sorts, like ALL the other smart phones out there.

[Tim Morton]

I don't think he has any interest in going back to a pencil and paper.

It seems this odd search method is unique to the droid. For example, if you type in "CH" looking for "Chuck", it brings up every thing that has a C and a U in the first and last names combined. How that's a good search is beyond me. If I want to find "Chuck", typing "Ch" should have Chuck listed long before "Cassandra Matthews".

Speed dial isn't going to help him, he's one of those people that deals with a lot of people on a daily basis. He's on the phone probably 6 out of 8 hours a day.

I stand by my comments, he shouldn't have to look for all these work arounds. There should be a simple way to change the way the phone sorts, like ALL the other smart phones out there.

just have him go into the "market" and search for dialer...there are hundreds of them..i tried "Dialer One", and Super dialer....both seem to be more BB based so he may like them better.