Galaxy S Captivate and Vibrant GPS "fix"

So as other people have mentioned, the GPS on certain Galaxy S devices is not working that great. Personally, it had taken a while to lock onto a GPS signal and I had to press Retry on several applications that use the GPS signal such as Yelp and Maps.

These are directions that work on the Samsung Captivate as well as the Samsung Vibrant. The following instructions are taken from the guys over at xda-developers.com and is pretty simple to follow.



1) Disable “Use Wireless Networks”
2) Navigate to Settings > Location & Security > uncheck the box next to    “Use Wireless Networks”
3) Go to the phone and dial *#*#1472365#*#*
4) This step throws you into LBSTestMode menu
5) In the LBSTestMode menu change “Operation Mode” to MS Based
6) In the LBSTestMode menu, find “SUPL/CP Settings” and change the SERVER & PORT to supl.google.com and port 7276 (DO NOT use www. in front of supl)
7) REBOOT
8) Enable “Use Wireless Networks”
Navigate to Settings > Location & Security > check the box next to “Use Wireless Networks”



 If you want to revert to the original settings, here they are:

Original settings:
Operation Mode: Standalone
SERVER: www.spirent-lcs.com
PORT: 7275

I saw a vast improvement after I did this and although that's not what some others are saying, it worked for me personally.

Syncing Music with your Samsung Captivate

I've come to the Samsung Captivate from the iPhone 3G and one of the things I really liked about the iPhone was the capability of syncing your playlists. If you like the basic layout of iTunes (drag and drop) then I think that you'll like doubleTwist. DoubleTwist is very slim version similar to iTunes except with less restrictions of how many devices or what type of media you can add songs, pictures and videos to.

Once you've installed the USB drivers for the Samsung Captivate and your PC is able to see your internal and if you have it, your external memory you should be ready to use doubleTwist. If your device has been recognized correctly, you should see your Samsung Android underneath Devices.

Above Devices you will see Playlists. You can create however many playlists you like. You need to have the doubleTwist app downloaded from the Android Market for playlists to work. It will take a while to sync music on there depending on how many songs but once it has finished syncing give the phone up to 15 minutes to show your playlists. Once it's done coping over you'll see your playlists withing a few minutes.  FYI if you look in the Music folder you'll see that the playlists have an m3u extension.

How to Root your Samsung Captivate

I've had my Samsung Captivate for a litter under a week now and I've been doing some searches regarding rooting the Samsung Captivate. A guy named Peter Alfonso has developed a simple way to root your phone. I've taken some information from his website to bring to you. Props to Peter for this! Here's a link to his website.


Version 0.2
-Downgraded Busybox to V1.17.1 (has more commands)
-Properly symlinked all busybox commands
-Created a sideloading script! (enables non market app installation)
-Added SQLite3
-Updated Wireless Tether to pre8 (If this does not work after upgrade, see below for fix)

Download link and installation Instructions after the jump:
1. Download unleashthebeastv0.2.zip
2. Rename to update.zip
3. Place on sdcard (the built in card, not the removable)
4. Boot into recovery mode
(shut off phone, then hold power, volume up, & volume down at the same time)
5. Select "Reinstall Packages"
6. Enjoy, you have now Unleashed The Beast! You should not see the AT&T bloatware anymore and you should see a Super User icon.

Side-loading Instructions:

1. Open a terminal (you can download "Android Terminal Emulator" in the market)
2. Type in: su (The Super User icon will pop up, click Allow)
3. Type in: sideloading
4. Your phone will reboot and sideloading will be enabled!

Wireless Tether Fix :

1) Open Wireless Tether
2) Click the Menu button and then click Settings
3) Click the Menu button again and select (Re)-Install binaries/configs
4) Voila!