Why the switch to GS3?
Last night, after a long mental battle with myself, I bought the Samsung Galaxy S3 on a whim. After many years of being a devoted iPhone user, i was extremely disappointed by the lack of innovation in the iPhone 5. Also, I was just plain bored with the look and feel of iPhone. Back in the day, iPhone was the most innovative phone on the market and first adopters like me loved that. I felt special for having the best technology out there. However, it’s time to get real- my grandmother has an iPhone. Sure, the phone is easy to use (that’s why she has one) but doesn’t that say something about the lack of functionality of the device? I say yes. I also found it so annoying that Apple would wait centuries and create a huge fanfare about releasing “new” updates for the phone with supposed “new” technology and ideas- when Android has had these “new” features since it’s inception. So alas, I switched.
Initial Panic set in.
Upon purchase, I felt crippled by the GS3. I had no idea how to do anything, including basic functionality like locking or unlocking the phone. It should be said that these are really easy things to do on the GS3 and I can only attribute my inability to do them to something I’m going to call iPhone separation anxiety. However, that passed by the time I left the store.
Transformation into the ideal iPhone
As soon as I started setting up my GS3 I found myself trying to turn it into an iPhone with a new look and better functionality. You might call this crazy, but there were certain functions that I did love about the iPhone. I’m proud to say that I have the majority of them back. You should know that if the GS3 doesn’t do something out of the box that you want it to - 9 times out of ten you can get an app from the Android app store Google Play to run in the background and make it happen. In a huge victory- I made the phone sync pretty seamlessly with my Macbook. Here’s what I used and how I did it.
Calendar
I am desperately dependent on my macbook’s ical, so a seamless integration with this was my number one priority. First, I exported each of my ical’s to my desktop. Then I imported them to my google calendar. (I had to create new calendars inside my google calendar and then when importing I had to select where I wanted them to go- work to work etc.) After that, I subscribed my ical to my google calendar. Voila! However, panic struck when I only saw one calendar instead of the five color coded calendars I had imported to google calendar. To fix this I went to iCal->Preferences->google->delegation->select your calendars! And just like that my phone syncs with my google cal which then syncs to my ical and my ical syncs to my google cal when then syncs to my phone!
For step by step instructions take a look at the tutorials I used:
Export your ical’sImport your Ical’s to your google calendar:Link your ical to your google calendar:
Music
My iPhone held my entire music library. I used it as an iPod almost daily. So, naturally, I wanted my entire music library on my GS3 as well. To my delight the GS3 has the capability to use SD cards to extend their storage capability so I purchased a 32g SD card to ensure that this library transfer was possible. To do this I used this nifty app called DoubleTwist. I downloaded it on my phone and went to the company website to download it on my computer. Unfortunately, for this to work on the GS3 you have to upgrade the phone app to do Air Sync. It’s only about $4, which was a small price to pay for all of my music on my phone. Once the computer download was done I opened the program, linked my device wirelessly with a passcode, ctrl-a’ed the music under the library tab, and dragged it all to my device. Now, when I first tried to control my phone with the headphones it started playing from the default player rather than DoubleTwist. I fixed this by changing the settings in DoubleTwist. Player settings -> use headset controls -> on.
This help article on their site helps you through the set up:
DoubleTwist Tutorial
Email set up on the GS3 is a dream. All you have to do is type in your email and password and it does the work for you. No looking up incoming or outgoing servers! To add multiple accounts just go to email -> settings -> and hit the +. I prefer to look at my inboxes combined so to do that I just clicked the white rectangle at the top of my inbox and selected combined view. Yay!
Widgets
I love the GS3’s option for widgets on the home screen rather than just app icons. This option lets me look at the app running right on my home screen. I have mine set up with a clock and a few key app icons on the front page, then when I scroll to the left I have a widget for my email, then to the left again for my calendar. To the right of my home screen is more app icons with a music player and to the right again is my alarms. To add a widget hold down a blank spot on the home screen, click add to home screen, apps and widgets, widgets, and pick and place!
Headphone Controls
So, I may have been the last person on the planet to know this but, iPhone headphones do not work with the GS3. People rave about the headphones that come with the phone but I’m not so sure about them yet. They are earbuds with a rubber cap that sits inside your ear. The sound quality is pretty bomb, but when I’m walking around I can hear the rubber caps shaking around. I’ll probably be shopping for a more basic pair. Anyway, to my dismay when I tried to voice control my phone using one long click, like my iPhone, it did not work. I was pretty pissed about this because this was one of my most used functions on the iPhone. However, after an hour of research and finding tons of other people with my problem I FINALLY found a solution! All it takes is downloading an app and you can set the headset to do whatever you want. The app I got is called Headset Button Controller. It was free and did the job perfectly. Just download the app and go into the settings to set what you want different headset clicks to mean. I set a long click to mean voice control and BAM! We are back in business (:
Transformation Complete
Now, at the end of all of that, I finally have the phone I wanted. A phone with all the best functionalities of the iPhone, the freedom of total customization, and actually current technology. I never thought I would ever go to Android, but until Apple gets their innovation act together I’ll play for the better team.
Now for a joke-
The iPad mini
ahhahahhahah
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