Saturday, April 16, 2016

iPhone to LG G5 - Car mode and how to diable it

Let me start by saying I am not a fan boy of a particular technology or company. I enjoy all technologies. I believe there is no one solution to all. Some time's you side with one for something and with other for something else. Life seems to be more of a pleasure this way and you enjoy the solution/action rather than anything else. In short you are objective. One thing I do make sure of is not to get bound by proprietary s/w. Reasons are obvious. You are bound by them and in more occasions than not, you dance to their tunes, in no time you are married to more proprietary s/w

Recently I switched over from iPhone to Android. Fancied my chances on LG G5, just for a change. I have for long wanted to do Android apps, in addition to what I do on iOS. Although I have been building applications for Android, never had the stomach to leave behind my dear iPhone. Call it a fascination for APPLE or the resale value I enjoy on iOS devices. But then with my love for LINUX growing more and more, I started to spend more of my time on Ubuntu. Ubuntu/Linux-iOS have a sort of love hate relationship. It was making life difficult for me to share files and access things from my device, etc. I decided to give Android a run. Not that I have not tried in the past. All my experiences were soar. I blame it on my choice for devices more than the s/w. Your past experience haunt you and are a major trigger for your present decisions, be it a phone or life.

Back to the contemporary world. I feasted myself with LG G5, as it was taunted to be the finest of Android phones. The reason I liked LG G5 (over Nexus 6/6P) was its size. I came from iPhone 6P world. In the early 6P days, I enjoyed its gorgeous size and view, but with time, I realized its a pain handling huge devices. Believe me, device was great, my mind set changed. With that in mind, Nexus 6p in its 5.7" screen was a no go. More over, I prefer a Android device that has support for SD Card. These 2 conditions narrowed my choices and from the limited choices I had, found LG G5 to be my best bet

Boy, what a device. Great display, wonderful dock and navigation system, feels great in your hand. I did not try the sport features, but overall it was a pleasant experience. One of the great feature that was talked about in Android was "Car mode". I reckon this is an addition from Verizon more than from Android OS itself. This feature detects if you are driving and will turn the phone's car mode on. This in turn will help do some wonderful things behind the scene for you, if you are driving. Like doing an auto-reply for your messages, answering the phone etc. It's great right. It is indeed, if you do not have control on yourself. Although great, I found it buggy. What if you are not driving, but you are a rider. Sometimes it will show up even while I am not in the car. If my phone is not disturbed for more than 20 mins or lying flat up, car mode will turn on. Now that's a problem, because people who message me will now see an auto-reply.

Only choice I had was to disable it. How do I do it? Given my background in Android I was not sure. Google was of little help. I saw a lot of people talk about similar issues but no good solutions. After some exploration found that, it's pretty easy to turn it off. If you ask me "Why would you turn off such a great feature?" My answer is simple. When I drive, I don't answer my phone. Its my vow. Driving takes priority. If there's an important call, I'll let my pillion driver take it or if no one is around, it goes to my VM and I'll call back. I don't peek into my messages, play music from phone while I drive. Its my driving and dashboard in the car that gets all my attention. If you are like me than "Car mode" is useless and/or rather a hassle.

Now to the interesting part on how to turn it off
Head on to messages

  1. Open settings, by tapping the Hamburger menu in settings
  2. Turn off "Driving Mode" and "Auto-Reply"
  3. You should see "Settings" in the list, tap it
  4. This will open up more settings. Locate "Driving mode" and tap it open
  5. Ensure all connected blue tooth devices are checked-off here
  6. Also, turn off Auto-Glympse settings


That's it!!! Now enjoy more for less with your new LG-G5.

Here are a couple more things I did for my phone to keep it run long enough

  1. Bought myself a screen-protector from Verizon
  2. Got this great case - http://www.amazon.com/Absorption-Protection-Bumper-Scratch-Protective/dp/B01BOBL8SQ?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00