Weird texting problem

Question

I have a Z1s running 5.0.2 and I'm not a big texter.  I'm using the stock apps for texting and contacts.  I was trying to send a text to someone I had never texted before.  I brought up their contact page and pressed the little text icon and I got a texting screen except that it was covered by a menu that had options like 'add video', 'add picture' and a bunch of others that prevented me from actually being able to text.  The options did nothing and the back arrow also did nothing, so I was prevented from composing and sending a text.  I sent the text I needed to from my desktop using mighty text.  When I received a reply, I was prevented from reading it by the same menu which still did nothing.  That was yesterday.  Today, the menu was gone and I could read the return text.  For a while though, I was prevented from reading any other text I had received.  I would press on one and the first one I looked at came up instead.  Then that went away after a while and things seemed to have returned to 'normal'. I really don't understand what is going on with my phone.  I like the phone and I love the battery life, but this bit of weirdness and the fact that some apps that worked just fine on my N4, don't seem to work at all on the Z1s.  I have an app named Move that counts your steps during your day.  It worked just fine on my N4, but on the Z1s it's only counting maybe 1-3% of my steps.  It says I walked 89 steps yesterday and that is absurd.  I assume that the app uses the accellerometer to do its work.  I have another app that uses the gps for tracking and it's not registering anything even though the gps seems to be functioning.  And the phone doesn't have as good a connection during calls as my N4.  I get a lot of static and breaking up during calls that I never got on my N4.  99% of my calls are made and received at my home, so that is what I'm comparing.   Anyone have any clues as to what is going on here?  The update to lollipop was done through the pc connection.  Any additional updates have been done OTA.  I haven't rebooted in a while and I think I'll try that first. TIALT

Answer 1

The texting problem has gone away for a while, so I can't take a screen shot.  I loaded the suggested messaging and google fit.  I don't like changing apps if what I had worked under lollipop on my N4 and now that I have the Z1s also running lollipop they don't.  It seems to me that Sony must have something to do with this problem.  Either the hardware or the software (os) is significantly different (inferior).  The gps tracking app I'm using is called Bubbler.  I tested it today and it only registered my location a handful of times instead of the every 5 or 10 minutes like it's supposed to.  To me this indicates that the gps is not functioning properly. The phone and the sim card are about a month old and it came as a micro sim. I don't mean to be a whiner, I'm just confused and disappointed that things are not functioning as I expected.  And on top of all that, the call quality is less than stellar. SorryLT