Decent Set of Gapps from before they started to try and trick you into to enabling Google Plus all the time.

[Guest unrandomsam]

Google Play services basically makes my Xoom's battery absolutely useless ever since it was installed. When thinking of a solution I realised pretty much all the gapps are worse than ever as well so I am looking for a way to downgrade all of them to none Google+ enabled versions and get rid of my battery drain. (I would like them to be stopped from ever being updated again as well even if it means I lose access to e.g Sonic the Hedgehog 2). Google Play Services seems to make apps that depend on it run like total garbage on my device. (Even some that were working perfectly and don't look any different).

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest unrandomsam]

So I have been messing about installing various gapps to /system somehow I have a version of gmail that doesn't automatically update but yet youtube and others don't work in the same way. I have tested it and version 3 of Google Play services drains about 30% of my Xoom's battery in the same time with v3 it is about 4%. (And the whole device gets more laggy). All the recent updates seem to benefit Google not me. (If I need to stop using Google Play all together I will.) Even AOSP versions for calendar and search would be fine by me.

Anybody have similar issues? (The way I deal with it depends on if it is just for me or not). If I am not using Google Maps v6 I don't want any location tracking enabled. I don't want to login to YouTube. I want the clean and easy to use gmail.

[Guest maniac_mouse]

You could use viral https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Mata.YTplayer instead of googles youtube player.  It does screen off and popup window playback as well, unlike the google one.

And not a whiff of g+ either.

Edited December 25, 2013 by maniac_mouse

[Guest nvkid909]

Yup, I deleted YouTube a while back, seems to be the main offender. Also have no need for the Gmail app, I much prefer the android email client.

 

I have no need for google+ or their crappy location services (beyond what I enable per app). Google are becoming a joke, I give them maybe two or three years before a proper mobile phone manufacturer steps in & makes a decent smartphone that doesn't rape your battery in the name of information harvesting.

 

We need alternatives to google!

 

Booooooo!!!!!