Comment by qeorge | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qeorge | Hacker News Reader

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I'm an Exchange user with a Nexus 4, and the most recent Android update has really made my life tough.

First, they removed the normal email app, forcing me to use Gmail. I really dislike the Gmail app.

Next, they removed the normal calendar app, and replaced it with Google Calendar. I preferred the old one, and I don't use Google Calendar, I use Exchange.

And of course, I lost about 80% of my contacts (also stored on my Exchange account).

I've since switched to Nine[1] and turned off Sync on my exchange account (via Android settings), and that's fixed a lot of my problems. I can't recommend Nine enough.

Its frustrating. I liked the old "vanilla" Android. I just want an OS that stays the way I configured it, instead of changing its interface and removing applications at random.

Anyone else have this experience? What's the option? Cyanogen? I just want a phone that works; I don't want to spend my whole life on this.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolder...

I was in a similar boat, and switching to WP8 solved most of my calendar issues (and a lot of UI issues, as well). It also has very good support for multiple email accounts of different types. Not surprisingly, it has excellent Exchange support, but that's no guarantee it will be painless, due to the many bizarre configuration options offered to Exchange administrators:

1. There's no guarantee that autoconfiguration will work, especially if your address is user@example.edu but your server is exchange.example.edu.

2. You may be required to lock your screen with a password.

3. You may be required to allow remote wiping of your device (by your email provider, seriously?).

4. You may be required to enable ActiveSync in an out-of-band operation.

To make matters worse, error messages from any of the above tend to be completely meaningless.

But once you get past those hurdles, it's actually a pretty nice experience.

If you need to access calendars from other systems, you might be able to import or subscribe to them in your Microsoft account (live/outlook/onedrive/yahoo.com) online. I was able to integrate the school calendars of my children this way. It's not intuitive, but it's a set-and-forget task.

If there's anything that still is a horrible UI on WP8 it's the email app. It's wretched folder interactions are useless. More than any other "base app", the email app needs updating. Of course the new email app MS pushed to Android/iOS is gorgeous, but not for us WP8 folks. We're not good enough.

I think that really depends on how you use email, and since original WP was all about simplicity, the app is tailored more for a simple use (I just read email, don't delete/sort or anything else)

Yeah, deleting is really a power user feature

There is deleting and sorting (moving to another folders) and is any more time-wasting than other apps I've used. I have no idea what is he talking about.

Exchange compatibility is a bit hit and miss right now though: the full suite of Activesync policies is not available, meaning that a lot of nifty functionality that I tended to rely on back in the day (SMS sync to email inbox is one...) don't work anymore. I'm hoping WP10 brings that stuff back.

As a sidenote, this is the first time I have ever seen the solution to anything be "switch to WP8". Neat!

At the risk of being tarred and feathered. Did you consider a blackberry z30. I was given one through work and I wouldn't go back. Solid battery life, awesome inbox and phone capabilities. Browser is Essentially safari and the apps aren't too bad. You give up the App Store or google play but the upside is it just works.

Or, and this is going way out on a limb, maybe a Windows Phone since the GP is an Exchange user?

The two apps you mentioned are open source. You could just grab them, build them and load them. Here are links to some of the code you'll need: https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Emai... https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Cale... https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Exch...

I've never built them outside of a whole platform build so you might (read: probably) will hit issues. This could be a fun project for someone and it sounds like there is demand.

The f-droid store provides exactly what you described:

https://f-droid.org/repository/browse/?fdfilter=aosp&fdid=or...

That's good info, but I think you missed the part where parent commenter lamented:

> I don't want to spend my whole life on this.

You can get them with cyanogenmod as well, but there's a deeper issue. There's been an outstanding series of bugs with 4.4.3 and 4.4.4 that have prevented exchange from actually connecting running. I haven't been able to even bring up the old email app since upgrading to 4.4.4.

The stock EMail app is on Play Store - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and.... - does this not work for you or have they blocked installs on Nexus devices?

I had the exact same situation after my Nexus 7 updated.

Bonus WTF: the old email app had a view that combined all your inboxes in one places; the Gmail app does not. So for me (who uses several email accounts, none of which are on Gmail) it was a pretty dramatic downgrade.

Try K-9 mail. It's based on the original Android AOSP Email app and is open source and free on the Play store.

It has the unified inbox view and a number of other goodies. I've been using it for years without any problems.

I'm using cyanogenmod 11 on my galaxy nexus, which still has the email and calendar applications with exchange sync. It looks like contacts sync should work too.

I'd go with windows phone or iphone potentially now they are getting more microsoft support. No chance of the mail app getting replaced on either of those.

I had and used the Nexus One, S and Galaxy Nexus before moving to the iPhone 5 (since it finally had LTE and turn by turn nav). I was tired of shitty hardware design and bad battery life. If you're looking for a pretty controlled vanilla experience where you don't have to do everything the iPhone works pretty well and they're basically the same in terms of features.

Touchdown will take care of Calendar, Email, and Contacts with exchange. It's not as pretty as some of the others, but it's the most feature rich by far. It's basically Outlook for Android.

I am on 4.4.4 (Samsung though). The default calendar and email apps are still on there. Doesn't Nexus remove the default Android browser and replace it with Chrome too?

Nine is just brilliant. Only thing it is missing is alias handling.

That's what you get when you let designers loose over your product.

What? The designers start making incredibly strategic decisions and start cutting out functionality that was used by a margin of the customers that only benefited the competition (and the user)?

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