Samsung Galaxy S, Big Brother, and an unsolicited review [Was: Advice Needed - Bye Bye Nokia!]

[Shachar Shemesh]

On 25/02/11 23:28, Oleg Goldshmidt wrote:
>     I hope synchronization can be disabled on all Android phones, but
>     I don't know that and I could not find out. "My Calendar" was a
>     major reason for choosing Galaxy S.
>
>    

Calendar and contacts use a "provider" (technical term) in order to 
perform the synchronization. Calendar cannot be used without at least 
one such provider. Samsung must have created a "local only" provider to 
make calendar usable without connecting your phone to Google. This is 
not Android's default.

Standard Android does support, at least for the Google provider, to tell 
it what to sync and what not. I routinely (because my phones get 
reinstalled a lot due to work) tell it to not sync the contacts, but you 
are right that this is not the default.

The contacts situation is a little more complicated on stock Android. 
The contacts application is useable even before logging in to Google, 
but it uses a temporary local provider that is no longer available once 
the Google provider is present. This means that any contact you create 
after logging in to google will automatically be synced unless you told 
the provider not to sync the contacts. This includes contacts imported 
from vcard or the sim card.

Shachar


-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting Ltd.
http://www.lingnu.com