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Wasn’t it Garfield mail a long time ago? Anyways don’t forget to back your stuff up
Yeah, but that was over 20 years ago
Yea, I’ve had mine since I was 4, I’m 26 now
Pixel phones are a joke? They’ve been the best phones I’ve owned.
Yeah, I’m on a non pixel phone right now and I want to get back to pixel they’re great
I enjoyed my pixel up until the day they put a backup button on photos that would pop up right when I’m swiping. So I had to go through my Google backup and delete/disable it (which can only be done from the computer) just so that I could use my Gmail again.
Now I’m considering switching manufacturers on my next upgrade.
This is going to be unpopular, but even the default google firmware is nice, it’s clean and bloat free. Obviously people should flash a custom ROM to do google.
Same here. Have had Nokia and Iphones before and have my Pixel 3a right now for about 4 years and still happy with it.
Yeah I like them the most as well and funnily enough they are the easiest phone to degoogle
So you’re saying they’re the best phones to remove the products of this software company from? It’s like saying Internet explorer is the best browser to download other browsers.
So to name a few issues:
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pixel 1: headphone jack issue so bad they needed to issue a recall, audio would just FULLY stop working, loud speaker as well.
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pixels 2, 3 (and theorized 4 and 5): using cheap ram that literally just died within 3 years. They refused to issue a recall claiming that was “fine for the expected life span of the phone”
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Pixels 1-4: if you let them discharge long enough, they don’t charge anymore, ever!
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Pixel 4/a and 5/a: lemon units. Bad ram, bad flash storage, things like that. Some would be very slow and others would be fine. My pixel 5a died in 7 months.
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During this period of time from the 4 though 6 lines they were notorious for trying to deny your warranty replacement any way they could. It took me 5 months to get a new pixel 5a.
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Pixel 6: buzzing coming from loud speakers (not sure if recall issued)
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Pixel 6 and 7: first 2 tensor chips, known for draining battery too quickly and overheating.
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Pixel 8: OLED issues, I think random lines showing up on the display. They have issued a recall tho.
So in sum:
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In the older pixels there were some shitty cost cutting measures they used in order to recoup cost of development of the phones.
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their warranty service around this time was also piss poor
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QC issues with just about every pixel phone released.
Where we stand today:
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their warranty replacements are much better I’ve heard.
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There are significantly less glaring issue with the pixels, and they’re still reasonably priced
So, back in the day, if you got lucky you got a decent phone for a good price, if you got unlucky you got a shit phone and they probably wouldn’t replace it. Now, you’ll probably get a good phone, with some semi useful AI features and a decent warranty.
Can confirm, my Pixel 4a 5g just suddenly died one day and wouldn’t respond to anything or even boot, almost exactly two years after I activated it.
I’m sorry but you could easily find facts like this about every phone company from the past as of now they are great phones but cannot comment on the AI tools because I remove those
The shitty ram thing is especially egregious and was not the industry standard at the time, especially for your flagship phone.
The weird audio issues on multiple devices is also out of the norm.
Current pixel phones are pretty good! But it’s clear that for at least the first 4 gens they had some QC and quality of parts issues.
Edit: also to add, it’s a basic thing that if your phone is dead dead then you should use wall power to power the circuit to charge the battery. But if you let it sit for a few months, your older pixels will not charge again unless you put in a new battery with some charge, that is definitely out of the norm and is also something that should have been rectified sooner.
Na I have a 2XL that I let sit for two years and it still charged fine.
Must be nice, I have a pixel 1, straight up won’t turn on, I have a bunch of stuff that wasn’t backed up on there. The flash chip is fine I just can’t turn it on
The ai tools are thankfully just an app. I could easily remove it. Unlike google assistant your phone had to be unlocked to do anything basic like pausing music.
As much as like to shit on Apple for many other reasons, they’ve had fairly few mishaps with their phones. Even counting bending phones, “you’re holding it wrong” etc., their track record is still decent compared to the competition.
Their phone virtual-keyboards enrage me. I just can’t take them any more.
Yeah but they’ve got their own issues. They’re so anti right to repair and their OS is so much more restrictive. That’s how it is under capitalism, kind of just have to pick your poison :/
Yes exactly my point, there are other reasons to sit on Apple, but their phones hardware is pretty good quality. I’ll throw in long software support as well.
You got the Fairphone as an option though, also within the capitalistic system.
I like that Google supplies repair parts straight to iFixit back to the Pixel 2. It would be nice if it didn’t require melting glue to get to half of the components, but hey, baby steps. And the latest models out finally have a decently long support period for security updates.
This and grapheneos were the two big reasons I got a pixel 8 after I broke my 5 on a small drop. The third was I got it for basically perfect condition for $350 on ebay which is so baller.
As I haven’t noticed any of those problems with my 4 year old pixel 3a I feel lucky and even happier about it 😊
audio would just FULLY stop working, loud speaker as well.
Skill issue
You have a visualizer, use your imagination for once come on
My wife’s currently rocking a refurb 7 and the battery life is actually exceptionally good, easily lasting a full day of near constant usage. I’m guessing they’ve corrected some of this through software improvements
I have a refurbished pixel 7 as well, the battery is admittedly lower than on my other phone but isn’t terrible.
That’s good to hear, probably so
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Never heard of a single one of these, got some links to back up any of these? Recalls will be easy to prove.
Two pixels, and never seen these before either.
Pixel 1 recall and class action in 2019: https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/14/18623077/google-pixel-faulty-mic-issues-lawsuit-payout-hairline-fracture
Ram issue mentioned in user forum with listed official response from google: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/113517096/pixel-3-xl-bricked-overnight-computer-recognizes-as-qusb-bulk-cid-likely-caused-by-security-update?hl=en
Some of these others are harder to pin down because there’s no official response but I’ll do my best
Here’s some users experience charging issues: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/15lj11a/connected_not_charging_how_to_fix_this/
Pixel 8 lemon unit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/17sa4z9/got_a_lemon_should_i_try_again_or_go_different/
Pixel 4 lemon post: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/efhcvf/my_4_week_old_pixel_4_xl_died_yesterday/
Pixel 6 buzzing issue; https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/148605754/loud-buzzing-noise-from-speaker-during-call-on-my-pixel-6-pro?hl=en
Pixel 3 buzzing: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/9weskv/pixel_3_fix_for_buzzing_sound_from_speakers/
Pixel 2 buzzing: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-2-xl-buzzing-rattling-speakers-825307/
Article on tensor chips overheating: https://techissuestoday.com/google-pixel-phone-overheating/#:~:text=Tensor brings the heat%2C literally!&text=While all the AI advancements,some reason or the other.
Pixel 8 screen issues customer has bad expires with Google support: https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1c3gcnz/pixel_8_green_screen_and_recall_terrible_customer/ (thought they were doing better these days, guess not)
Pixel 8 screen issues warranty extension: https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-extends-warranty-for-pixel-8-display-issues-how-to-check-if-your-handset-is-covered/ (thought this was a recall, guess not)
Issue is, almost ever issue you’ve labeled here is a random (mostly reddit) post. I could pretty much name any series of any devices and build the same type of list. It doesn’t help make your comment look more valid. In fact, it kind of hurt it.
5 of the 7 issues I list have news articles, official responses from Google, or recalls/warranty replacements, but ok
And most of them of them were a repeat of a few problems that were literally fixed with a OTA patch, even to the point it was mentioned in the article you posted. Half of your “facts” were someone even mentioning they got a lemon by their own admission, and when a company makes over a million of the same device, a few lemons happen (it’s why there is a term for it).
And the few that don’t match these were speculation articles. Again, this could be said of so many companies and/or devices.
Should I post a links to iPhones and their problems? https://www.gizchina.com/2021/11/21/apple-recalls-the-iphone-12-iphone-12-pro-due-to-sound-issues/ https://www.macworld.com/article/675797/iphone-11-recalled-for-touchscreen-issues-how-to-get-a-replacement.html https://support.apple.com/iphone-6s-6s-plus-no-power-issues-program/other-countries https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/09/apple-activates-iphone-x-display-module-replacement-program-for-touch-issues https://9to5mac.com/2019/05/15/iphone-7-no-service-program/ https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/news/apple/139529-apple-iphone-6-plus-touch-disease-flaw-here-s-how-to-get-it-fixed/
I’m not even into a half dozen Reddit/speculation articles yet.
Guess I’ve been lucky 3 phones in a row. And any issues I did have they solved very quickly and easily. Ymmv
My 5a just shut off while I was using it and wouldn’t turn back on one month after warranty period. Google was going to deny a replacement until I bitched that each previous pixel I had had died or became unusable and I was going to move to iphone. They gave me a “one time exception” and sent me a replacement. I traded it for a 7 but if this one dies I’m done.
I can’t speak from experience outside my own issues with my 5a but supposedly they’re better about that stuff now. One reason I’m interested in the 8 is the unlocked bootloader and their smallish form factor. I have a Zenfone 9 RN and I went to put lineageOS only to find out they locked the bootloader down six months after release 😭
Can you not unlock it yourself easily?
I don’t think so, unless I’m missing something
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GrapheneOS FTW
Literally the only reason to get a pixel!
You’re wrong. CalyxOS >
Pixel 5, refusing to die.
I just cleaned out all storage and man it’s still zippy
Pixel 5 is my new phone, lol. I had the original Pixel, now the 5. One of my kids used the original one for a few months after I upgraded too.
I do miss headphone jack :(
I missed it for a while, then got some shokz open run.
They are so easy I forget I’m wearing them, and they cover the music needs from my phone. For better audio, I go to other things.
No disassemble!
How else would I get the files out?
Disagree. I owned flagship Androids from the G1 until last fall.
Android is a privacy nightmare, and serves no technical advantage over an iPhone. So I got an iPhone. It’s 100% as adequate of a black rectangle that runs apps as any Pixel.
iPhone still can’t report the RSSI of a wireless network. Until they make that work, anyone who works in it/tech has to carry a different device to test wireless networks.
The wireless hardware is in the phone. Just let me use it.
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Until an iPhone can fold and send pictures/videos to people who aren’t using the same phone that don’t look like diarrhea I honestly don’t care about anything Apple does.
It’s in beta as of yesterday:
That’s great. RCS still isn’t great on the android side yet iirc.
my 6a has been nothing but shit. You cant charge it and run the GPS at the same time or it overheats. Thats just one of the many issues ive had with it.
Was considering the 6a until I saw the charge speed and screen to body ratio.
Sometimes even when I’m just browsing lemmy it decides the screen needs to be dimmed for the next 20 minutes because im just being so very strenuous on it by looking at memes.
My friends 6a and his wife’s both have a display issue where the screen just randomly turns green. Restarting fixes it, but what the hell!
I have the same problem, but only when I run the GPS under sunlight in a car. I wonder if other phones have the same problem under those conditions? Can anyone else chip in?
Oh holy shit. I’ve done that a few times. Completely using GPS by audio and without thinking I put the phone down in the Sun. I’ve never done it more than 10 or 15 minutes before I remembered and every time it would be so fucking hot. Even with the screen off and everything which really should have helped keep it cool you know?
The big problem here I was an instacart driver at the time so I had all these fucking weird things I had to do with my phone to make sure it didn’t explode while I was trying to keep it charged so I could work all day.
Yeah, the only thing I’ve had help is if I got an ac vent mount for the phone and had the ac going - if you get a small enough mount the cold air hits the phone and keeps it cool. But phone under the sun is BRUTAL.
I had a very recessed holder place that was pretty much always in the shadow no matter what direction I was facing I just got used to doing everything audio and tucking it down in there. It was really annoying because I honestly liked having the thing in my field of view to follow the GPS that way so the stupid voice didn’t keep talking over my goddamn music.
IT TOOK MY MUSIC FROM ME MAN
I got a Pixel 6 last year after owning a Samsung Galaxy 7 for 6 years. I have a notes page with 49 complaints.
The newer ones are nice, but as an owner of the first 4 because I need unbloated OSes, they were a complete joke in hardware support and failures. Can’t count the number of times I’ve lost data to my pixel 1 randomly resetting, had bluetooth issues with 1-4, and had a smattering of other nonsense issues with everything up to the 6. Eventually I gave up and hopped over to iOS.
My pixel 1 was and is fine. Pixel 3 was an excellent phone. The only bad phone I recall from Google was the Nexus 5x which was made by LG
Glad you had a decent experience. That was not the case for me and many documented others. The bluetooth issues are particularly well known and plagued the whole series from 1-4, if you didn’t use Bluetooth much it probably didn’t phase you but holy shit it sucked. As far as nexsus devices go they were a crapshoot. My nexus 6p crashed week 3 and bricked into a boot loop. Google replaced it only for the replacement to do the same damn thing a month later. They had massive QC issues which meant you either got a fine phone or a shit one and a lot of people fell towards the latter.
Perhaps it’s that I am not an early adopter. I wait until I have good reason to update. It sucks that they make their customers unwitting beta testers, but they seem to have stuff sorted after the phone has been on the market for several months
Not sure what made you assume I was an early adopter. Generally, after the pixel 1, I waited until the first few months passed just to get the discount they always had. You seem to make a ton of assumptions to pave way for some fine cognitive dissonance as they never “sorted out the stuff” in those phone models and if you bothered to research it instead of using your own experience as a defacto account I think you’d see that.
They lost me right there, lol
Tbf a lot of Google is shite but i will never deny the pixel
Yeah, Nexus phones were great, but Pixel phones are also good. And Android is definitely not “getting worse”.
Agree with the rest though.
Android is getting weird. It’s not bad but some UI choices just don’t make sense. They’re making everything super large, and required so many swipes and clicks for certain settings. They’ve lost the plot a bit. Also, having used both iOS and Android, iOS gestures are leaps and bounds ahead of Android. Genuinely, it’s no contest.
All this being said I prefer Android, I just wish they put more thought about ease of use and feature refinement rather than changing for changes sake. Like we are JUST NOW getting an update to the gesture controls. They’ve been basically unchanged since Android 11/12 they have had ample time to refine them a bit.
I like Samsung’s flavor with OneUI as it’s kept a lot of the condensed layout and it has good one-handed support. I’ve created a lot of custom shortcuts that just use swipes from the side of the screen.
I’ve decided that I’ll never get a phone with a boot loader than you can’t unlock as long as I can help it, so Samsung is out for me
Could you elaborate on the gestures part?
I remember the opposite, having hated navigating my iPhone for work. I specifically remember swipe to go back not working reliably at all (many apps seemed to just ignore it, others I think configured other actions on that gesture - WTF), so I got into the habit of using that stupid little hard to reach, hard to hit, tiny back arrow that at least worked consistently when you managed to hit it.
I’ve been enjoying Android navigation gestures pretty much ever since I found out they existed.It might have been a user issue in my case with iOS since I didn’t use it as much, and therefore maybe was simply using it wrong/was unaware of better ways. But I don’t see anything wrong/missing with gestures on Android.
So apple has slowly added some of these swipe features and a lot of iPhone users were basically trained how to use them over time.
I’d honestly say swipe is a bit of a misnomer for them, it’s more like eases. There’s a specific way you to swipe for different things, it’s nuanced. When I switched to iPhone for a year, I had to ask my gf a few questions to get the hang of it, but once you do it’s super intuitive. On almost every app a swipe from the left is back and a swipe from the right is forward. And there was a different in finger action for a back swipe and a side menu. Once you get the hang of it it genuinely feels like second nature, I almost never missed my android buttons. When I switched back I tried androids swipe features and was immediately disappointed. Android’s backswipe is really oversensitive, meaning that it’s way too easy to swipe back when I’m not trying to. Also they’re multitasking up swipe is less sensitive meaning it’s harder to get to multitasking than on iphone. And of course the final nail in the coffin there is no forward swipe from the right, a swipe from the right is also just back on Android which was a real mind fuck. Currently I just use the Android old buttons, or I use the Android gestures where you have a home and back button and then you swipe for multitasking stuff. I can say that the multitasking swipe stuff seems to be better than the last time I tried it.
I would say the biggest difference is when you swipe on the iPhone it’s like turning a page, a smoothe slide. Where as android it’s just a flick. So when I accidentally swipe the screen, I’m going back on Android, but on iPhone I have to definitely be doing an intentional slide, and for me that slide was just short enough to not be annoying.
Thanks for responding, that makes a lot of sense.
I think generally what one gets used to has a big impact on preferences.I’ll say, an easily accessible, reliable gesture for side menu sounds nice. It feels like this was either abandoned on Android or left up to developers who mostly abandoned it. I remember struggling to get the side menu to trigger instead of back navigation and it not working near reliably enough. So I’ve been trained to always use the hamburger buttons that, ironically, are hard to reach in the top left corner in most apps. To be fair, I feel like I hardly use one menu interaction for every 100 back actions, so the latter being ergonomic is a lot more important to me.
On that point, swipe from left to go back seems quite annoying. I go back all the time, and having to move my thumb across the entire screen is a pain. I almost never need to go forward, so having that be the more accessible gesture seems weird. I’ll concede that having a gesture for it at all is useful and Android should add the option.I never felt like the swipe to go back is too sensitive, and if you accidentally trigger it, you can simply move your finger back towards the edge before letting go to cancel the action. You can also configure the sensitivity in the settings. The feedback that you’re about to trigger the action is probably not as obvious as on iOS though, and likely less elegant.
I think both Android and iOS would do well to let users customize these interactions more to their own needs.
For Android you have to hold on the side for a second then side menus pop out, I hate it lol
As a mobile developer, tiny unhittable buttons drive me batshit. I used to get handed app design documents all the time that had these little buttons, along with image files for these buttons that were just large enough (width and height) for them. I would always do a trivial amount of extra work to make the actual tappable regions larger than the images to improve their usability, but when I mentioned this to the designers they would go apeshit and demand that I restore the original tiny tappable regions, usually with the bullshit rationale of that being what end-users expected and they didn’t want to verify that what I’d done to my best judgement was OK. Management would go along with the designers, on the grounds that enlarging the tappable regions required more time and effort - even though I’d already done it and undoing it would require even more time and effort.
It eventually occurred to me to just do it without telling anyone and I had no further problems.
A fun little fact about iOS: the operating system includes a private method (which is something developers supposedly can’t use without getting their app rejected) named _warpPoint. This hack was put in when they started supporting landscape, because the top toolbar and its tiny buttons became even tinier and virtually unusable in that mode. _warpPoint intercepts touches near the toolbar and changes the coordinates to the middle of the nearest button - basically doing the same thing I was doing by enlarging the tappable regions, just doing it at the global level. The irony is that they still don’t really work very well, despite the very existence of this method proving that Apple knows it’s a general problem.
I hate the super large quick access buttons. Like why would I want to only have 4 accessible with one touch when I’m used to 8+
Agreed
I’ve already mentioned it here, but OneUI kept the small buttons.
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Honestly Google Drive works great as free storage (Though for large storage there’s no guarantee they won’t accidentally delete it, it’s happened before).
And Google Suite is good enough if you can’t be bothered to get Microsoft Office. Though they’re forcing AI into it and have some weird quirks like being unable to copypaste external text with rightclick.
Let’s not pretend like google does not have a monopoly on search engines, maps, and shortform video content. Also, their cloud ecosystem might be second behind AWS, but it’s still fucking enormous and makes them truckloads of money.
It’s actually 3rd. I think you’re forgetting about how massive azure is
Third. It goes AWS, with about 50% of the market, Azure with around 40%, and then GCP
Given that Amazon, Microsoft, and Google together only account for 64% of global cloud hosting, I’m going to say those numbers don’t add up. But you are right that Google is third behind the other two.
Fair. I didn’t realize the others had expanded their portion of the market that much. Last time I was looking at reports “other” only had <1% of the market.
As someone who routinely argues that Steam has a de facto monopoly… Google does not have a monopoly on search. Bing / DuckDuckGo works just fine. Especially now that Google’s completely fucked their own results.
Also, a huge chunk of shortform videos on YouTube are just reposted Tiktok videos, so Google doesn’t have that either
Google does not have a monopoly on search. Bing / DuckDuckGo works just fine.
Around 82% of search engine requests are issued through Google. Bing around 10%. I don’t know if we just have differing definitions of “monopoly,” but Google is the default on all Android devices, almost every non-Microsoft browser, and probably on Apple products as well. And most users don’t know enough or care enough to ever change from that.
Honestly I suspect Bing will eventually surpass Google. Its reached the point where its better than Google for web search
Kind of like Microsoft then. They buy up or spend money trying to break into all kinds of different areas but consistently take bad L’s and get pushed back to their core business time and again after face-planting and alienating those who gave them a shot.
Bring back Google Wave, goddammit!
That thing was killer. I used it throughout university with my classmates to build the best notebook covering all our lectures, tutorials, etc. We had a habit of dropping in polls for distant sections so we could decide which notes were best to keep etc or needed more work, etc.
Docs is so weak in comparison.
Hate it like you want, but the effing pixels are still the best phones. Not by os, not by spec, but simply by being the most open android of them all. The easiest to de-google. Sounds stupid, but is not.
I hate google with all my heart (since they dropped their slogan “don’t be evil” and went… Well… Evil). But i will buy their fucking phones until a viable alternative comes along.
The call screener is a godsend and it’s the absolute most used feature I rely on. Many evenings I wake up for work and see that my phone stopped 5-10 spam calls that would have ruined my sleep.
Hehe, i have an awesome solution for that. I simply block everyone except wifey and friends. The rest of the world doesn’t need to reach me. I call back when i want to, or simply don’t 😁
Just because i CAN be reached mobile doesn’t mean i have to. Wasn’t before Smartphones and won’t be with…
But yes, the call-screening is cool. If you disregard privacy and the percentage of non tech-savy people who are totally overwhelmed by that.
It’s a real shame that OnePlus just became an Oppo rebranding, because the OP1 was a phenomenal phone, and up until OP6 they were both cheap and had a relatively clean Android install. To date, features like gestures are still better than what you get on the Pixel, and most of their stuff is less invasive than Google’s.
The Android market nowadays, especially for high end, is “which manufacturer is the least shit”, and that’s a real shame.
Totally. First thing i check is “can i debloat and root this piece of shit which is technically awesome but ruined software-side”. Which i most likely can’t as the hurdles became more and more annoying each year up to the point where i gave up and went google.
If they’d do the same with PCs, noone would buy that shit. Unless it’s a crapple…
I desperately want fair phone (and it’s parts) to be sold in my country. 8-10 years of android support for a self repairable phone? Yes please.
Those looked nice, yes… But hard to get here and technically not that interesting to me, last time i checked. But we need more alternatives than just fairphone.
I hate the smartphone-market and what samsung and crapple made out of it.
My 7t was the best phone I ever had when it was on Oxygen OS 10, but every upgrade was a downgrade. Features were dropped, ui got uglier, bloat was added. I have an 8t now, but I won’t be getting another OnePlus. Really sad
100%. I just bought a Pixel 8 so I could install Graphene OS. It was so damn easy too. I was amazed. This phone is great minus the lack of headphone jack and SD card slot.
Calyx pixel gang over here
Oh man, the lack of a headphone jack is still a killer for me. It’s one of the reasons why I stayed on OnePlus 6 for so long, and to be blunt, I don’t see the Pixel 8 as a huge jump outside of power and bullshit like AI photos. My kingdom for a high-end phone with a headphone jack and stock-ish Android!
same here. bought one 2 months ago
graphene pixel gang
hell yes. been using this combo for over a year now, won’t ever look back
Been using their phones since the Nexus 6. That thing was huge.
And I’m the one guy that uses Google Fi. My bill was $38 last month.
I’ve been on Fi for years, I think basically since the first year they started ProjectFi. So much cheaper than my old Verizon or sprint accounts…
And I’m the one guy that uses Google Fi. My bill was $38 last month.
There are dozens of us, baker’s dozens.
I’m 13!
My bill was $38 last month.
Did you mean that this was a lot or dirt cheap? Sounds quite expensive to me.
Genuinely curious, what service are you comparing this to that makes it sound quite expensive? Asking for my wallet
A very basic phone plan from one of the top three ISPs where I live (Taiwan). Comes with 3 GB of data a month. (I’m on Wi-Fi most of the time.) Costs ~$6.1 a month. No 5G connection, only 4G. ~22 cents per minute of calltime.
$38 usd is considered low in the US because even though we all have a high median income the cost of everything is extraordinarily high, rendering most americans de facto impoverished
Gmail has ads in it. They’re stealing your data and training their D-tier AI on your emails and still showing you ads and you just take it.
Wow, Gmail has ads? I never knew, because I have adblock. It’s free, you know
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If you use a reputable adblocker, especially a well known FOSS one like uBlock Origin, you’re not the product. The way they block ads is by downloading static filter lists, not live checking by sending your queries to their servers.
I’m not saying all adblockers won’t track you, but acting as if people are “Adblock’s product” by using adblockers is simply a misinformed view of how most adblockers operate. (I do agree that marketing adblock as a solution for a legitimate issue doesn’t negate the initial problem or its critics, though.)
I’m not saying it’s not a bad thing, I’m just remarking it’s interesting you know in the first place. I didn’t know.
Hey
Don’t kink shame
What’s your social baby? What’s your favorite credit card number?
472-86-5532 & 9786 4352 6987 5234
What’s yours?
123-45-1234 and nocr-edit-card-ssta-rtwi-th9!
Mine is special, it’s full of NEETBUX credits from Mommy’s personal line!
I hate Google and try not use it anymore but there’s still one thing I can’t do without : Google Maps.
Docs is good too
That copy & paste block thou, never again for me
Like everything else, advertising pressure has ruined it. You can still search, but just zoom in and look over an area to see what is there? So many businesses missing, because they don’t pay Google to advertise. Apple Maps shows them all, because they don’t make money from advertising.
Open Street Maps are ok, but my area has a lot of businesses missing. If you know the address you need to go to, then it’s great for routing.
My personal hobby horse with Google killing things is Reader.
I feel dumb using Google Maps and seeing all the ads. Should’ve known from day one that was the game plan.
Pray Apple keeps their hardware sales up.
Have you tried open street maps? I suggest organic street maps for your phone
Organic Maps are great, however if you’re looking for shops and restaurants (or rather their reviews) Google Maps are second to none.
Facts, Google maps drive mode is also super handy
Drive mode = turn by turn, like the regular get directions and tap to begin navigation?
It’s like the map from an angle without a specific destination. Helpful for showing the surrounding map area.
If you’ve driven a car with a built in map display, it’s basically that but for your phone.
OSM can technically replace Gmaps for shops and restaurants if enough people were using and updating it.
However, Gmaps in unbeatable for public transportation :( no alternative at all
In Europe at least I had some minor functionality with OSMAnd… but Google beats it out no contest, in terms of speed, accuracy, and being up-to-date… which is depressing but that’s the reality.
it’s the only reason I haven’t stopped using Maps
Gmaps in unbeatable for public transportation
citymapper
Ooh, nice. Thanks for making me discover it! I would have liked a FOSS alternative, but this is pretty good.
Edit: argh, it’s nice for local urban commute, but it doesn’t work outside or between big cities :(
In Europe you can usually download an app for the public transit in that specific country/city. However, Google Maps is the only one that will show you how to get to a specific address (not just the train/bus station).
I use Transportr for that. It integrates with the different local metro systems. Works great in Sweden at least🙂
Cool, thanks for the tip!
Oh, I’m well aware of that, but there are so few cities that have been mapped to the degree to compete with gmaps, that I doubt we ever will reach that level.
Also reviews. I’m not sure if there even is a way to fix that without creating a separate program with a separate ecosystem in the process…
Unfortunately the reviews at GMaps are becoming less and less reliable though, as many businesses begin to have bad reviews removed through lawyers.
I’ve had it happen to a couple of mine, where Google forwarded the request of a law firm to prove I had actually been at a restaurant more than 5 years ago (where I reviewed it with 3*).
Even if you can prove it, most people won’t and in that case the restaurant went from 3.8 stars to 4.6, which is a shame really. It confirms a hunch that just as with Amazon the reviews get a lot less reliable.
OSM is great in some places. But outside of the more techy areas, it’s a barren land. I something do my part with streetcomplete, but anyway, it’s not there yet (in most places)
Yeah I contribute to OSM but apps like OsmAnd are a far cry in features from Google Maps. The paths are very much not optimized. If I tell it to go back to my hometown it takes me about 15 minutes out of the way. And I can’t tell it to go to a certain house because the houses aren’t mapped yet.
Should I help map them? Yes. But for your average user that’s not going to work.
OsmAnd blows google maps out of the water in terms of features, but google does better with less. It’s easier to use and it has everyone contributing to traffic analysis without them even realizing.
I can never stick with those alternatives, the traffic conditions feature is simply too good to miss
I find Waze quite good for traffic conditions. The only thing it always tries to steer me wrong with is that there’s 2 main routes home from work, around the North East of the city, and on the bypass around the West/South of the city. It always wants to take me on the bypass as when I’m at the exit for the other route, traffic is way lighter. However by the time I’m halfway home on the bypass traffic has brought itself to an essential standstill. And there’s no real ways cutting across the city that avoids the high traffic section of the bypass that doesn’t take longer than sitting in traffic. Also…the NE route is at most 15mins longer due to speed limits, but it’s 20ish km shorter.
Surprise! Waze is owned by Google :-(
FUCK.
Well, here’s hoping they don’t kill it like they kill everything good they’ve ever made…
Goddammit
Waze isn’t technically difficult to replace, but it is going to be difficult to replace because the replacement needs critical mass to become useful. There’s no point using it over some other navigation app if people don’t report stuff.
I’d be okay with Google dwindling all the way down to just Google Maps.
I tried it but in my area it doesn’t have a lot of places on it. Especially the satellite view being so old it’s hard for me to figure out how to contribute
I have tried using it for a while but a few updates ago the search functionality was kinda messed up (and still is) so I had to switch back to gmaps :(
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OSMAnd beats out Google Maps, if you are a trail climber etc. Google’s entries are so lacking, whereas OSM content has near exact coordinates and paths for sooooo many routes.
What have Google developed inhouse that’s good since Gmail?
Android and YouTube were both acquisitions.
Once upon a time, search. Those days are long past.
Hm, 8.8.8.8? That was 5 years after Gmail.
Docs, Sheets, and Slides were all acquisitions. I guess Drive and Forms are good.
1.1.1.1 gang represent.
The UI for GMail is awful. Can’t even follow conversations on my phone app. Just put that shit in order like Outlook does. Fuck.
The timeline got fucked when they killed Google Reader. That was Google’s Harambe incident.
Yeah Google never wanted RSS feeds to really be a thing.
Edit: fixed link my bad
Broken link
Sorry fixed link
Interesting read… Ty
Theres much much more… Smaller kills sometimes are the most effective. Think about Google RSS Reader the best rss reader to ever exist…
Theoldreader.com is a good clone
What is a good RSS reader? I keep meaning to get into RSS at some point and make myself a feed. Is there a good guide or preferred software or however it works?
I ended up on Inoreader after Google Reader shut down. I’ve never needed more than the free tier and it works pretty well.
Bookmarking this as I’m in the same position, godspeed my brother.
Depends on what you are looking for. I like Akregator but it’s quite old-school.
What did it do better than other RSS readers?
The UI imo
Fast, and easy to edit. It was a fantastic start page.
For me it was that all my friends used it. So we share and comment posts a lot there. Now we do not have an alternative.
Yeah same thing I was wondering. There are still a lot of great RSS readers. Arguably even better than Google Reader was.
