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If/when they screw up gmail, I’m blacklisting Google for good, that’s gonna be such a goddamn pain to disentangle myself from.
Email hosting is pretty cheap. Ive paid for email for a couple years now and use gmail for almost nothing except junkier things.
It’s about the thousands of things you have your old gmail tied to. Yes I use forwarding to my new proton mail but sometimes it doesn’t work cause it went into spam or smh and I must open gmail.
Sometimes also the icloud aliases stuff stops working and I don’t want my proton mail to be associated with too much ads so I again type the old mail…
To be honest I was supposed to use proton but I use apple icloud aliases stuff most of the time because I don’t want to disclose my most important and secure email address on some trashy sites. So yeah that google switch didn’t work out all that good I guess I just changed the tech overlord. At least the new one didn’t want to monopolize the internet I guess
You should start now.
Proton Mail FTW, until they are successful, then we move on.
Hmm. People still use yahoo mail, so maybe you are on to something here.
Don’t forget the investment into Israel despite the protests of the workers
Any info on the SEO lying point? I haven’t heard about that.
It’s not a question of liking, but not having a choice.
Luckily, there is a choice! All google services have a FOSS alternative. If you want to completely degoogle yourself, it’s a long process that takes dedication, but any amount is liberating. You are literally taking back your freedom!
Aside from Pixels, they’ve pretty much ruined all their products.
It sucks, because I actually like Google products, minus the gross privacy violations and ads. I used to pay for YT Premium.
Visual voicemail is broken on my Pixel, but that might be my carrier (Mint)
BTW if anyone has a fix or a recommended app for visual voicemail please let me know
I remember Visual Voicemail being broken for me back when I used to use Mint as well.
I switched to US Mobile on Verizon’s network and it works perfectly fine.
Do what a normal person does. Let it fill up and you won’t have to worry about it anymore.
Well yeah, that’s what I’ve done, but I’m self employed and some of my customers are old and don’t text. I’ve definitely lost some business because my voicemail is full
Googles call screening works kind of good if the other person doesn’t think they have the wrong number because a robot answers.
YouTube music/premium never grew on me. It simply wasn’t as good as google play music. ( in my honest opinion )
It’s ok, and getting better. My big problem with it is (like you) that Google Play Music was incredible, so good, and they discontinued it in favor of the much worse and awkwardly named YouTube Music.
Whoever convinced them to give up the branding of “Play Store, Play Music, Play Movies” should be drawn and quartered.
I liked it but the fact that they stole our google play music purchases to replace it with a sub only service soured the experience quite a bit.
I never really used it for YT Music. I don’t like YT Music.
I liked no ads + background playback on iOS and Android without having to go through hoops like using NewPipe/Revanced.
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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
Have you not seen the corpse that is Google hangouts still attached to Gmail? Google died with inbox and I hope they go under after just barely giving back to open source projects they profited off of.
RIP Inbox. Shortwave just isn’t the same.
Pixel phones are a joke? They’ve been the best phones I’ve owned.
Same here. Have had Nokia and Iphones before and have my Pixel 3a right now for about 4 years and still happy with it.
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.
Yeah I like them the most as well and funnily enough they are the easiest phone to degoogle
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.
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
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.
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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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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.
GrapheneOS FTW
Literally the only reason to get a pixel!
You’re wrong. CalyxOS >
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.
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.
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
Yeah, I’m on a non pixel phone right now and I want to get back to pixel they’re great
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.
I got a Pixel 6 last year after owning a Samsung Galaxy 7 for 6 years. I have a notes page with 49 complaints.
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.
They lost me right there, lol
Tbf a lot of Google is shite but i will never deny the pixel
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?
Android is still great. The Pixel phone is the best Android phone by several metrics. Usability and Camera come to mind. Android TV is by far the best TV interface. Just because it’s sideloadable and decently usable. Low bar, but here we are.
Gboard is good. The pixel launcher is good enough to not bother switching off. The Google Home certainly turns my lights on and off. And as soon as Google opens RCS, I’m leaving Google Messages.
But that’s the only Google stuff I use. And I’m thinking of switching to Graphene OS.
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I’m imagining that I’d just use whatever grapheneos keyboard, or Florisboard, which I prefer for peck typing over Gboard.
My only problem is finding a time to switch. I need my phone for work, so I need to sit down, backup my data, install GOS and restore, then spend like 5 hours learning the new systems. Things like sandboxing Google are nice until I’m lost in BFE without Google Maps or OSMand+ because I didn’t properly set up.
I like my Pixel phones, so I dunno what about it is supposed to be a joke?
My 3a still works. Wish they wouldn’t have removed the headphone jack from later models but the 7a has been fine.
Yeah the pixel hardware is the only thing they make that I think is any good and I run graphene on mine
Google won’t open it but Apple are working with GSMA to add the things Google made as proprietary extensions to RCS part of the RCS standard (such as encryption which isn’t in the standard).
I still miss swype. Gboard is usable but it doesn’t compare for me.
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.
They are the IMO most supported Single-Sign-On provider. I think Facebook, which I don’t even have, was mostly for games, and then apple also isn’t an option, and that’s just it besides using firefox’ built in password manager for another email/password combination. What’s your opinion on log in providers?
Android worse every year? How? Every update I’ve received (on a Samsung, mind you) has made my experience better.
More bloated and inefficient every release. That would be fine for Android but sadly, it affects the core and thus every custom ROM too.
Latest Samsung updates removed classic swipe controls for navigation. I had to do a hacky workaround including finding 2 random APKs just to preserve functionality. (S21U)
Really? D: That sucks, I use swipe navigation for everything. Not sure if it’s classic or not but losing an option is a bummer.
They used to have both the old school one where you swipe up on the three sections at the bottom, as well as the new Google one for years. The newest update to OneUI 6.1 removed the classic swipe controls for no reason, keeping only the Google one. I had to install Good Lock and NavStar to make some sort of custom settings configuration, which returned the navigation option. Thankfully I did get it working, but only after messing around and wasting 20 minutes of my time.
I really hate that they think they own my device, not me.
Android 12 took up 700MB RAM, leaving some space for non-sytem apps on lower end smartphones.
Android 13 takes up easily 1.2GB, leaving almost nothing at the benefit of having a somewhat “snappier” interface
Lower end phones usually already have 8 GB RAM (example: Galaxy A54 5G, 300€ new).
I would consider the A-Series of Samsung “mid-range”. I know you said “lower” and “mid-range” is lower than “high-end”, but I suspect tetris11’s issue mostly applies to “low-end” phones. Something like a Motorola Moto G Play 2024
You consider that a good thing… Phones shouldn’t have this much RAM.
Why would higher RAM be a bad thing? That’s like saying phones shouldn’t have more storage, faster processors, better camera, …
Sure, they worked before that already. But isn’t technological advancement still good?
To a certain point.
There used to be tons of customization options which have been removed/limited under the guise of “personalization”. For example you used to be able to do things like choose system colors that weren’t from a selection of 5 pastel themes. For some reason Google believes that pastels and pastels alone accurately reflect the “personality” of every user and that users wasn’t their “personality” reflected.
There’s a ton of settings that have been removed over the years, volume button behavior changed, various privacy settings reset to default with random updates, privacy settings removed…
It’s still fairly functional but if it weren’t for certain apps i need i would be trying out graphene or whatever.
You could never officially choose system colors in AOSP. It was always white with teal accent. If you’re thinking of Substratum, that was kinda an unintended exploit when Google was working on adding native theming for OEMs.
Volume buttons are being made more customizable in Android 15, which is launching on Pixels soon.
Privacy settings have never been reset for me, maybe you’re confusing it with Windows 11.
Sorry i think i meant theme colors, not system colors. In any case it was better before the “you” thing that’s currently used which has restricted customization significantly.
I think it may be google account settings, which are not android I’m aware. Though i recall phone settings becoming default whenever a settings menu was overhauled instead of something reflecting the previous selection.
No I’m on windows 10 still. Well aware of the difference lol
Lots of proprietary google crap. Much harder to run a custom ROM with decent support and apps
lol…last update (like every other update) on my Samsung I have to restart to get it to charge, and now videos lag horribly (try watching anything live? nope.)
Worst phone ive ever had, hands down.
OP technically isn’t wrong, there are many UI changes that have made android worse over the years.
Like what?
The drop down that shows the toggles and notifications. I remember when there used to be 6 or 7 toggles at the top before you had to swipe down again to get more, but now, there are 4 huge and frankly unnecessary toggles instead of the previous 6-7 small ones. Also, more and more of google shoving their unnecessary products down your throat that you cannot uninstall.
Yeah, I disliked that when I saw the announcement too. I think the disconnect here is my Android flavour. Since I’m on Samsung, I still have 6 small round buttons at the top (Android 13, OneUI 5.1).
