The Android Thread - He;pl - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Android Thread - He;pl

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

BonoMan posted:

Definitely true but as a Moto user (wife is on a 3a) goddamn Moto has some really great shortcuts. Their peek and chop/twist gestures should be loving standard on all Android phones.

Chop is a little awkward imho but twist for camera is pretty great.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2020 03:23

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 20:10

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

cage-free egghead posted:

Legit question, what's the best way to sanitize your phone? Preferably a way that isn't alcohol based so the oleophobic coat doesn't come off.

Are UV sanitizers legit?

Joanna Stern did a thing at WSJ that an iPhone 8�s coating didn�t come off after a shitton of disinfecting wipes: https://www.wsj.com/articles/yes-you-can-clean-your-iphone-with-disinfecting-wipes-11583771102 (googled �Joanna Stern disinfect phone� and took the link which didn�t hit a paywall).

quote:

Using a brand-new iPhone 8, I wiped the screen 1,095 times with Clorox disinfecting wipes. Why so many? I figured that�s the equivalent of wiping down your phone every day for the three years you might own it. Even after all that wiping, the coating was still in good condition.

YMMV and all but :shrug:

# ¿ May 18, 2020 04:51

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

ThermoPhysical posted:

I wonder if iPhones have a different coating or something. There's a pic of a Pixel 4 XL that some fanblog did that claimed the coating on the screen came off but it was really clearly wiped off with an alcohol wipe.

welp

I�d heard of people bitching about the Pixel coatings in general, so yeah, maybe higher-quality ones are fine and maybe Google uses... not-those.

# ¿ May 18, 2020 05:32

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

MINNIDIP x RAZR CH(AIR)

what in the fresh hell is this

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 01:18

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

I'm having a weird quirk with long distance video zoom on the s21 ultra. It looks all blurry/pixelated like the s20 ultra but then at far distances it suddenly snaps into focus. e.g.

https://vimeo.com/506700382

Edit: that building is 4km away btw

That�s probably it jumping from the 3x zoom lens to the 10x zoom lens.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2021 15:38

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

The situation doesn't really improve much if you move to Apple though despite marketing on a platform of privacy.

For example, the only reason why Apple TV channels exist (and why more and more providers are pulling out of them) is so that Apple can catalog what shows you watch and then use that data to make decisions on Apple TV+ shows. Since Apple sits on a Scrooge McDuckian pile of cash, they have the resources to outbid pretty much any outlet when it comes to acquiring content. This is also one place where they do allow sharing of anonymized data to their contracted 3rd party production companies. So, Apple can say "our 25-35 year old women's demo has higher engagement in shows that have these plot elements, incorporate them into your next season."

Dark Sky is another great example. They knew their users had high engagement with the service and they had the cash on hand to deny the platform to everyone else. I would expect the same thing to happen soon for game developers to bring them under an exclusive Apple Arcade umbrella.

So, you aren't really getting away from this no matter the platform. Apple hardware products exist to collect data on what services their user base uses so that Apple can just acquire or develop an alternative that's hooked into their stuff better.

Even if you go back to a flip phone, your cell carrier is likely selling your location data to advertisers which they then collate with the other demographic data they know about you.

This isn't something free market choices can solve because it's impossible to disengage and be part of modern society. This is something we need legislation and regulation for.

This whole discusson spun off of a post talking about analyzing the content if the images on your device, with the rest of the discussion effectively assuming that this is about the personal privacy implication of that.

That's... really not the same as Apple buying Dark Sky because they can tell lots of people use it, so this is a really weird equivalence to draw.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2021 19:16

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

It being android doesn't make small batches of 4.5" OLED screens any cheaper to produce or narrower and thicker batteries. It also doesn't make it any easier to integrate large multi camera modules in a smaller chassis. You have to have room for the better haptic engine. You have to have room for the resonance chamber for the speaker system. You need to expel the heat of the higher TDP components somehow. You have more antennas than ever that you have to find a place without compromising the rigidity of the chassis.

As the size goes down, engineering effort increases and as volumes go down, bespoke part prices climb.

That why smaller variants usually have cost cutting in some way. They will end up costing more than their larger counterparts with the same parts.

There just isn't any market for it. Pixel5/Pixel 4a is likely the lower bound of what we're going to see from phones moving forward. For people that can't use that size one handed, I'm sorry that's the case, but we're probably better off using UI tweaks to fix the problem.

Yep, some Android OEM can make some niche small phone and then take a big loss on it when only a niche market jumps for it and then decide to never make one of those again because what good is brand loyalty when you�re losing millions of dollars.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2021 18:04

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Khablam posted:

Something like 1 in 20 people want a small phone.
Google's marketshare in devices is something like 1.5% in the US and >0.5% worldwide.

As a broader and different point, there definitely does seem to be a disconnect between Google�s true market share and their perception as a market leader.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2021 20:41

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

UnfortunateSexFart posted:

Just wanted to share this photo from my s21 ultra, because I took it at night and it somehow looks like this

Sydney?

Also wtf Samsung, at least try to make it look like it�s night mode or whatever.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2021 15:37

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

TITTIEKISSER69 posted:

My Moto G Power (2020) has a great battery and a headphone jack.

This is true, but�

SkyeAuroline posted:

� a phone that will be supported for a while yet to come, and isn't weak as hell with a terrible camera? �

� it probably doesn�t really check these boxes, at least.

# ¿ May 10, 2021 21:30

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Computer viking posted:

It should be right because that side is much easier to hit and I use it more than the app switcher.

This is lefty erasure.

# ¿ May 11, 2021 00:03

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

KingKapalone posted:

Posted the other day about my Pixel 3a XL's camera no longer focusing. It hasn't fixed itself and the physical fixes like shaking and tapping haven't worked. Any other ideas?

If it's broken I guess I should get a new phone just for that reason even though I've only had this a year (bought used so no RMA I assume). Any recommendations? I like the size of the XL. The headphone jack is nice since I use AUX in my car. I think flagship phone prices are ridiculous. I'm on AT&T if that matters.

I�m not familiar with the Google Camera app but if there�s a manual focus slider thing, try that to see if it�s just autofocus that�s broken. If both autofocus and manual are broken then it�s probably really unlikely it�s a software bug. Sounds like probably the focus actuator died somehow.

# ¿ May 12, 2021 15:13

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Qualcomm can be relied on if you pay them enough.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2021 06:03

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

Yeah, no Note this year. They are basically saying the are just going to have more SPen enabled devices and not have the redundancy in the market.

~~Lenovo~~ Motorola continues their decline.

https://www.droid-life.com/2021/07/29/motorola-gives-up-on-long-term-updates/

You'll get one update and like it! Then maybe possibly you'll get more if it's a successful device but since Motorola shits out a new models between after dinner farts, good luck on that happening.

That is SUCH an utterly bullshit statement, "own merit in terms of where it needs to be updated". No, how about you give your devices proper after sales support and not leave your customers out to hang when it comes to vulnerabilities? Also, it's so incredibly tone deaf to basically say to the market that your devices are completely disposable after a year when the focus right now is on sustainability.

Don't buy Motorola phones, just don't. The sooner they get the LG treatment and exit the market, the better.

They walked it back a little I guess but they seem to do this every time.

�Oh you want security updates? Buy a new phone� is pretty lovely regardless, given the state of (much of) the competition these days.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2021 19:38

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

they are saying Tensor is fast enough to apply HDR per frame in real time (demo was 4k30 though.)

Basically everyone�s gonna be doing this soon, run the sensor at 60fps with one short+one long exposure and merge down to 30fps.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2021 01:20

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Khablam posted:

The good news for GOOG is they don't have a market share to lose. Pixels are almost exclusively bought by people ITT and r/android. It's about 2% in the US (and declining), 0.3-0.5% in Europe and "not found" elsewhere.
I'm honestly surprised they got to v6 since there's absolutely no way this makes them any money. I assume GOOG's disastrously stupid internal corporate structure allows Pixel to exist as some group's pet project without any oversight.

Yeah Pixel really has very low market share for all I can tell. But they�re Google and they make Android so they get a lot of attention relative to their market share on enthusiast boards and on tech news sites.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2021 22:53

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Tbh I�ve found Android widgets to be kind of a wasteland, too.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2021 22:59

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

Changing topic. Qualcomm is salty.

https://twitter.com/Snapdragon/status/1448317606365179906

Lmao this is great. :discourse:

# ¿ Oct 14, 2021 21:20

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

If you eat nothing but rice and beans for every meal you�ll also save a lot of money, hth

# ¿ Oct 22, 2021 12:36

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

I flat out do not like the touch response on the iphone full stop. I can't type accurately no matter the keyboard, I'm always pulling poo poo sideways when I want to just go up and down, and edge rejection is so drat aggressive that it takes me about 5 attempts to have it register when I press the 3 dots on a fullscreen YouTube video to access the playback menu.

I dunno, it�s weird, I can�t type for poo poo on gboard on my Motorola, but I can type perfectly fine on the stock iPhone keyboard. :shrug:

# ¿ Nov 6, 2021 03:24

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

CLAM DOWN posted:

Also my mom got a Pixel 6 today and absolutely loves it. She's super excited for the ultrawide camera and thinks the fingerprint scanned is the coolest poo poo ever. She's a pretty rad 74 year old.

Wanted to share something positive with this thread full of grognards

Google pandering to old ladies confirmed! :v:

# ¿ Nov 8, 2021 14:14

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

CaptainSarcastic posted:

I'm in a weird and mildly frustrating spot that my secondary Morotola G Play (2021) got the update to Android 11 this past week, but my primary Motorola One 5G Ace is still waiting on it. Motorola does poo poo for roadmapping releases, so I'm at the point of frequently checking to see if the Android 11 update for my main phone has released.

Whether either phone gets an OS update after that is doubtful but not completely impossible. From what I've heard so far I'm not in a rush to get Android 12 anyway.

From what I can tell, maybe late late December for the Ace? And yeah maybe don�t hold your breath on 12 for either of them�

# ¿ Nov 16, 2021 18:10

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

lovely film shot with terrible optics sucks? Wow. :monocle:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2021 13:21

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

TheScott2K posted:

I think the point is, that's what most people taking photos pre-smartphones were packing. The quality floor for normos is just so much higher now.

Sure but especially in 2010 you�re not getting a good smartphone camera for $15. It�s just a weird apples and oranges comparison. The real step-up is that everyone has multi-hundred-dollar devices in their pockets at all times and that�s normal now. (Obviously digital surpassed film a long time ago technologically, I just am not exactly shocked that a cheap film setup can perform worse than something digital that costs much more, especially by the 2010s.)

fourwood fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Dec 6, 2021

# ¿ Dec 6, 2021 15:52

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

Well yeah, but that was all that was available to many people where free phones today have cameras that do far better.

Hell, when that picture was taken, we were only 10 years removed from the first point and shoot with autofocus and only two years removed from the first SLR having autofocus.

Remember disposable cameras in the 90s and early 2000s? For many people, that was how they captured moments in those decades. Buy a new one every few months when you exhausted the 24 exposures on the one you got. Now I can burn off 24 shots in just a single evening with friends.

Quality photography wasn't all that accessible or affordable until the digital age. It's something that's easy to forget now.

Yeah, it definitely is quite the technological revolution that the large majority of people just walk around every day with a pretty decent (or better) and easy to use camera on them.

TheScott2K posted:

Ok, man

I�m sorry I made a snarky throwaway joke on The Something Awful Forums. :ohdear:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2021 22:07

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Is there a trick to getting autocorrect for Gboard to work in secondary languages? Motorola phone on Android 12 if it matters. The right word suggestions seem to pop up in the boxes over the keyboard, but the messed up words I fat finger in are never/very rarely actually replaced with the suggestions shown. Preemptive "don't use Gboard" but I still wouldn't mind a solution here before/while I look into other keyboards.

edit: huh, maybe it's just Duolingo not doing it? Seems like it's working in Awful.apk...

# ¿ Mar 18, 2022 20:09

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

I feel like Android�s back gesture goes too far the other direction and sends me out of apps when I�m trying to pull out a sidebar or whatever. I know you can sorta hover for a second but I find that to be finnicky and on iOS for me that sorta stuff usually Just Works for most apps.

3-button nav supremacy I guess.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 02:52

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

bull3964 posted:

Was not aware of the press and hold space bar thing, though I guess that brings up questions of discoverability if the OS never actually told me about it.

For notifications, there are quite a few things.

First and foremost, I always feel blind due to the lack of any icon or indicator when you are just using the device that there are notifications. Android has icons for your notifications in the top bar that are there right next to the time to let you know they exist. iOS does not do that and I can�t understand why. I�m a �device on silent most of the time� person and I can�t even image the number of notifications that would go unnoticed for me if I used an iPhone. Glance away at the phone for a second, just long enough to miss the toast, and you have no idea something came in unless you explicitly checked for it. Even a simple dot to tell you there�s something in notifications would be something.

Second, the grouping and the concept of older notifications is just odd to me and I can�t get used to it. On android, notifications are consistent. The ones that show on your lock screen are the same ones that show when you pull down the notification shade are the same ones that are represented in the notification bar via icons (unless you explicitly change how the notification presents itself). They do group, via app, but the don�t fall off unless they clear on their own for some reason, you dismiss them, or you address them.

Right now on my iPad, the lock screen has nothing on it as far as notifications go. If I pull down the notification shade after I�m in the device, there are notifications in there. That�s just�wrong to me. There�s a notification there as far back as Thursday that�s gotten ignored I guess to the point where it�s not on the lock screen anymore. Then sometimes there�s notifications for the same app that are in two different spots because some of them are �older�, so now that means I have to dismiss notifications for the same app in two spots instead of all at once. I understand the concept at its base, but I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around a practical use for the extra complication.

So, what it tells me that unless I�m hyper vigilant about addressing the stuff on my lock screen, it falls off to the notification center and if it falls off to the notification center, I have no way of knowing at a glance that stuff is in there unless I explicitly check for it. It feels very fiddly, like it needs micromanagement and obsessive checking. Because of that, I find notifications on Android so much more stress free. Then when you introduce Always On Display, it�s essentially game over. I can tell, without even touching my device, at a glance, that I have notifications and for what app they are. Hell, I can tell from across the room that I have notifications even if the icons are too small to discern at that distance.

Then there�s the dots. They are widely inconsistent. I have several notifications that don�t show any sort of badge at all on their application even though they are turned on in settings. But then there are some that have had their notifications dismissed days ago but the badge is still there until I actually open the app. So, the one thing that could potentially alert me on just the home screen that I have a notification for an app without having to go to the notification center just seems completely unreliable. I got dots for stuff I know about and dismissed and no dots for things I haven�t seen or addressed in any way.

I also don�t really like how you can�t dismiss the media notification controls if the app isn�t swiped away.

But that about sums up my impressions after using iOS on and off for about 18 months. Notifications feel stressful and require too much management when their whole point is they are supposed to simplify management and immediately make apparent what things you need to address.

ngl half of this just reads like you�re used to one system vs the other, not that Android is objectively better. Like I miss Android notifications all the time when my phone is unlocked because they secretly just slip into the status bar, where on iOS you�d get a whole toast every time there�s a new notification.

iOS app notification badges definitely can be buggy as hell though, that�s legit.

Also on my Android so very often I will get flooded with notifications as soon as I unlock it. Why weren�t you getting these/showing me these on the lock screen earlier?! What good is a notification if I have to pick up and unlock my phone to even receive it.

I guess I�m also still not really sure how much Android notifications are that much better than iOS these days, other than �just a little different from each other�.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 20:32

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

Notification channels are definitely cool as a concept, but yeah lots of apps get way too deep into the weeds of computer janitoring with it. Even some Google apps have like 20 different channels. My eyes just glaze over looking at some of the settings screens.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 23:09

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

CaptainSarcastic posted:

I actually like that as it gives me a visual cue that I have reached the end of the page. I can understand not liking it, though.

Yeah, agreed, before it felt like sometimes my brain wasn�t quite sure for a second if it�s supposed to scroll more or not. The visual cue is great to have and I personally don�t mind (maybe even like?) the effect.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2022 02:40

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 20:10

fourwood: Sep 9, 2001; Damn I'll bring them to their knees.

withoutclass posted:

I did not realize it's not available in Europe. Truly a blessing unless you're cursed with Meta's Whatsapp.

It�s available, just everybody basically uses WhatsApp I think.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2022 16:34

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Android Thread - He;pl