The New Yahoo! Mail App for Androids

Everybody has email addresses. Well okay, not exactly everybody. Almost. It’s pretty much an essential thing to have in this modern world where information technology (or just the computer itself) surrounds us.

I’ve been using email for years; ever since I was in my second year of my Junior High. Before that, it hasn’t existed yet (or maybe I was just ignorant). At first, I had no idea how to use it. I didn’t know that we needed the Internet connection.

I remember that a friend of mine gave me her email address. I used Microsoft Office Outlook to send her an email. Like I said, I had no clue about this email business. Once I finished writing, I sent it and told her what I did. We waited for hours but she didn’t get anything (note: I wasn’t connected to the Internet). Then my dad taught me about emails because I don’t think we were taught yet in school.

Even to this day – to this right second – I still have that email address that my dad made for me.

I use Yahoo because it was at its famous stage when my email was created. I have two accounts – one for personal things and one formal. I’ve seen its changes over the years. I quite like the current view, but I prefer the classic one if I had to choose. It takes a shorter time to load and I like that because my Internet connection at the moment is pretty slow.

But enough about that; I’m here to share my opinion on the new Yahoo mail app for androids.

The new app is quite different from the previous one. Now that I’m so used to it, I don’t even remember how the former one looked like (even though I’ve used it for a very long time). All I remember is that I had to check a message(s) and then press the Menu/Option button to delete or move it to a folder. The new app is better in my opinion. If you check a message(s), the appropriate buttons will appear at the bottom of the screen: delete, move, spam and (un)check all buttons. I thought that’s a very nice idea since users don’t have to click so many times to, for example delete one message.

The color is nice. In my opinion, it’s eye-catching. But I might be biased because I like purple. Although, it would be good if we can actually change the color. I’ve gone through the settings many times, but I still can’t find the option to do so.

Overall, it’s a pretty good interface.

However, I do have several things that I don’t really like form the new app. And they’re all as follows.

First of all, the delete or move button. I don’t know if it’s only my android, my unstable connection, or the app itself, but sometimes messages that I want to delete can’t be deleted no matter how many times I press that button. It’s still there until I actually give up and try to delete it again much later. The same goes to the move button.

Second problem is the sync. Sometimes my phone isn’t synchronized with the web version. It’s deleted on the phone, but not on the web. It’s read on the web, not on the phone. Or vice versa. It’s troublesome because I have to do it twice.

The third is the double account problem. As mentioned before, I have two Yahoo accounts and I use both of them frequently. That’s why I have both accounts online in my phone, because it’ll be easier to check emails without logging out one of them. The problem is, however, sometimes I can only access one account even if I’m signed in both. No matter how many times I click the account that I want to access, I am still in the other account. It’s annoying, to be honest.

All of these problems might be because of my connection. They might be glitches from the app itself. Nevertheless, I really hope that they can be solved soon.

JuiceDefender vs. Easy Battery Saver

A lot of people own an android phone these days, including my family. I used to have a simple phone and I’ve had that for almost five years. If it wasn’t for the battery, I might just keep it until it’s broken (literally).

I used to dislike androids because of its QWERTY keyboard. Despite that, I can type with 10 fingers on laptop/desktop. But I figure it’s the small size that makes it difficult for me to do so. My thumbs are pretty big so I will most probably press the wrong letters and instead, type something else.

Maybe because I’m so used to using it, I love candy bar phones. I can type without focusing my eyes on the display. It’s the right size; I won’t have to worry about my fingers pressing something else. It’s just perfect.

Not to mention, the battery. Old phones – mostly candy bar ones – can “stay alive” for more than three days; a week if you don’t use it. You can go camping and not worry about forgetting to bring a charger because your phone will still be alive when you’re already on your way back. Of course, this doesn’t apply if you can’t keep your hands off of it.

My android is Samsung Galaxy Wonder, only two months old. To be honest, I didn’t understand how to use it properly at first. It was confusing because I wasn’t used to using it before. It took me awhile to familiarize myself with the touch screen.

Like I said before, I’m really used to candy bar phones. When I found out about my new android’s phone, I was more than surprised. I wouldn’t have expected myself to always charge it every night. No matter how long I charged it, it’s always dead by the end of the day. Sometimes it didn’t even last that long, so the charger was always in my bag.

I even turned off the mobile data during the day because I was mostly busy that time. But since I bought a smart phone, what’s the use if not for the mobile data? My friend even said that I shouldn’t have bought it if I wanted the battery to last longer. So I just accepted my fate (?) and dealt with it.

People told me to look for a battery saver app. I was slightly skeptical because it might do something else instead. They said that it helped extending the battery life a bit, but not entirely. So I complied and looked for the app.

 The first app that I tried was JuiceDefender (JD). I googled and it’s one of the best battery saver apps available. The reviews in the Play Store are pretty good. So I decided to try it. I mean, if I didn’t like it, I could have just uninstalled it because it’s free (unless of course I paid for the Plus or Ultimate version).

For the first few days, I was in love with it. It clearly extended my battery for a few hours. I didn’t have to worry about a dying phone on my way home because mobile data would be off if I didn’t touch my phone at all. It had a night schedule where the phone could sleep when I did. It also had a schedule to run a background sync for an interval of several minutes whenever the screen was off. Basically, I was grateful for having come across this app.

But as time went by, one problem appeared: my phone started lagging. It took me longer to open an app, twitter for example. It used to be in a blink of an eye. But not anymore. It’s stressful because I had to be patient when I wanted to be quick.

I couldn’t take it anymore so I decided to stop using the app for a while (I didn’t uninstall it, though). I just continued what I did before: turning off the mobile data when I was at work and turning it on again after I finished. My phone didn’t lag anymore so that’s good.

I googled again and found another app: Easy Battery Saver (EBS). In my opinion, this app is much simpler to understand and much easier to operate. I installed it and chose the Advanced Customized Mode because I could choose which tasks allowed to do and such.

The night schedule is better because I can adjust the time for the phone to “sleep”, whereas in JD I can’t do that unless I pay for the Plus or Ultimate version. This app also offers more delay time for the night schedule than JD. One time, my phone lasted for two days, which is my record so far. Granted, I didn’t use my phone as much as I do usually.

Alas, nobody is perfect. The same saying goes to apps as well. My phone lags because of this app. Once, I had to restart my android because the screen kept turning off and on without me doing anything.

Having said that however, I still have both JD and EBS installed in this phone. But I’m currently using EBS because I’m in love with the services it offers. Maybe there are other apps much better than these two. But as good as they might seem to be, there will be weaknesses as well.

Maybe the only solution is to buy a simple phone, not a smart one ^^