[Discuss] Syncing Android phones directly

[Edward Ned Harvey (blu)]

> From: discuss-bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org [mailto:discuss-
> bounces+blu=nedharvey.com at blu.org] On Behalf Of David Kramer
> 
> the reasons TO root it are
> growing as I do my research (in particular the Samsung and AT&T
> non-removable bloatware taking up a huge amount of the internal storage).

Removing some of that junk is very good.  But you need to be conservative in doing so.  It's extremely easy to remove something you think is junk, that satisfied some kind of dependency of some other thing.  (Ask me how I know.)  The advice I'll give with removing the preinstalled junk is to disable those you can via "normal" settings, and only forcibly uninstall when you see no alternative.  Use something like Root Uninstaller, which creates a backup of whatever it removes.  So you have a recovery plan just in case it all goes to hell.


> I should clarify that it's specifically Contacts data, and to a lesser
> extent calendar data, that I'm worried about.  Yes.  I know you can turn
> off syncing contacts with GMail, but I had assumed if I turned that off,
> then I wouldn't have to worry so much about them getting my contacts.  

This is a little tricky.  Because in order to add the google account, you obviously need to be on the network.  And when you add it, by default, sync contacts & calendar is enabled.  At best, within a few seconds you might be able to quickly un-check the sync contacts & calendar checkboxes, but in the meantime, it has been sending your stuff as fast as its little brains could.

When you disable the checkbox for sync contacts & calendar, it doesn't REMOVE stuff from the server.  It just stops syncing.

You want to get around this, I don't see any alternative.  You'll have to start with a blank empty phone, add your google account, disable sync, and THEN populate your addressbook / calendar.

You need the google account in order to get apps from the Google Play store.  Which basically means, you need to add a google account.