[colug-432] Android

[Rob Funk]

On Thursday, December 29, 2011 04:49:30 PM Rick Troth wrote:
> It synchs with Google Contacts, which has very good elimination of
> duplicates.  The linking of contacts seems to be a reinvention of that
> wheel.  (But with less control.)  To be specific, if I have a contact
> entry for Bob Smith and another for Sarah and Bob Smith, the "merge"
> function Google itself will let me say if I want the two merged or
> not.  But the stoopid phone will "link" them without asking.

For the most part I've only seen it make it possible to merge, but not force 
them.... except on incoming calls/texts, when it uses the phone number to 
match up to the first contact it finds. That can get a little confusing.
My solution is to have a separate entry for each person - "Sarah Smith" and 
"Bob Smith", getting rid of "Sarah and Bob Smith".

> I like the thing, but there are too few knobs to turn, so I'm looking
> for better controls.  Recently I was searching Marketplace for a
> permissions controller.  Some of these apps get way too much access
> and I don't see where to turn some off.  Blackberry was better on that
> point.
> 
> If anyone has suggestions, I am open.  The phone has still not been
> rooted.  That is overdue.  (And maybe would help with permissions?  At
> least put me more in control, I suppose.)

If you root the phone, you may (depending on the phone) be able to replace the 
firmware with Cyanogenmod, which is basically an alternate Android 
distribution that's as open-source as possible. http://cyanogenmod.com/
It gives you lots more control than you generally get with the stock firmware.
Starting with the most recent release (7.1), you can selectively remove 
permissions from apps.