|
It could be a good feature with a little more work. (I've actually long been a fan of the idea of blurring the distinction between "web browser" and everything else an OS does, because it's not like you're ever actually offline these days.) Maybe there just needs to be a more intuitive way of "closing" a browser tab that you're done with. Otherwise the task switcher gets cluttered in no time, because I usually just hit the Home button when I'm done. Of course, I'd inevitably end up closing something and then wanting to open it again (your classic "throw the wrapper in the garbage and then need to read the instructions" problem). So they'd probably want to accommodate that as well.
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2016 12:53
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 16:20 |
|
|
Mobile UIs currently don't make much of a distinction between "recently closed" and "open in the background". I realize this is because of the way they do memory management, and the fact that it's made more sense for single-screen usage. But with actual multitasking becoming more of a thing on mobile devices now, maybe this doesn't make as much sense from a UI perspective anymore.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 24, 2016 15:26
|
|
|
I'm normally a pretty big Google apologist but this one is definitely a headscratcher. They've yet to make a compelling case for why Allo shouldn't tie in with your existing Google accounts and basically replace Hangouts. Messaging that relies only on your phone number and can only be used on your phone is called SMS. (Except of course, this requires internet instead...) One might suggest that they're afraid to step on Hangouts' toes, but that's certainly never stopped them before. They'd really be better off just imitating Facebook Messenger entirely. This feels different for the sake of different.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2016 15:59
|
|
|
Wrist Watch posted:Wait, I thought allo wasn't going to support SMS. Same thing broadly speaking, except Allo is tied to a phone number/device for some reason. And it doesn't support SMS, it just has a simplified way to convert SMS to Allo message, sort of like using SMS to tweet or whatever.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
Oh it also cracks me up that Google Assistant, one of the only real selling points here, is "Preview Edition". That is the Googlest thing.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2016 22:09
|
|
|
I've also never heard of Buzz, and I've been following Google/Android stuff pretty closely.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2016 16:49
|
|
|
FunOne posted:SPERG: If she thinks the quality of the photos taken from a phone are good enough for 4x6 and 5x7 prints as is, then the google compression isn't going to be noticeable to her. Yeah initially I sperged out over the decision of whether to upgrade and/or micromanage my Google Photos storage. Then I remembered that they're ultimately still just phone camera pictures, and they pretty much never capture a high enough level of detail for that to matter. (And if you somehow ever got THAT great a picture, you could always just copy it to your computer or wherever else you want for safekeeping.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2016 16:41
|
|
|
Like offline navigation instructions, it shows a little lightning bolt icon. as shown below:
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2017 15:22
|
|
|
But that's an obvious, sensible plan for messaging that works seamlessly across all platforms. Google's mission is clearly to do anything but that. Invariably due to some combination of "we're more excited to build new things than fix old things" and "this will be better for India or something"
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2017 20:10
|
|
|
It's great if someone is on a long trip and you're curious about where they are but they're diving so you don't want to text them. Or even call them, in case they're listening to podcasts or it's just inconvenient for whatever other reason. The Maps update sounds like it's designed to be even better for this specific type of scenario than G+ ever was. So uh, let's have it already!
|
|
#
¿
Mar 28, 2017 15:52
|
|
|
Seconding Flamingo. It's by the same developer as Weather Timeline, so it looks great and is wonderfully free of annoying or distracting crap. Keeps getting better too (such as the recent change to how threads are displayed). Great dark theme too 
|
|
#
¿
Mar 31, 2017 19:38
|
|
|
Help me out, goons: Does anyone remember something that I think Google was working on at some point, where you'd take pictures of rooms in a house with your phone and it would create a floor plan, or possibly a 3D model, or something? I feel like it was one of those news items about Google that popped up, and was probably available in beta or something, but I have no idea if it ever materialized into anything (because Google). I do see a few apps in the store to do that and I guess it could've been one of them I had read about, but I really feel like this was a Google thing. Can't seem to find it though. EDIT: Of course I just found it as soon as I posted this, it's Project Tango and it apparently only works on like 2 phones. Oh well, thanks. Sir Lemming fucked around with this message at 16:13 on May 6, 2017 |
|
#
¿
May 6, 2017 16:10
|
|
|
Yeah Goggles has basically looked like a Gingerbread app forever. I assume they abandoned it with the intention of incorporating all of its functionality into Google Assistant somehow. But either it doesn't have it yet or it's just a lot harder to use for that purpose.
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2017 16:54
|
|
|
St_Ides posted:MagicPlan is the one I remember. Stanley also makes a floor planning one. Trip report: MagicPlan works pretty great, thanks! I'm sure the dimensions aren't perfect, but it's a good way to get a general idea of the size and layouts of rooms in a house I'm moving into soon.
|
|
#
¿
May 15, 2017 14:07
|
|
|
I'm sure there are reasons this first-draft idea wouldn't work, but I feel like you should be able to group certain apps together in a tabbed interface sort of like a web browser. When you want to do messaging you open your Messaging group, and then you have all your messaging apps right in front of you and can easily switch between them, so it's kind of like opening one messaging app but they still have their own interfaces so the companies that make them don't get mad about it. True integration into one interface is the dream, but it's never gonna happen, because obviously they all want you to see whatever new feature they've added this week. I'm just glad most of them are on board with the whole "reply within notification" thing. Thought there might be more pushback to that.
|
|
#
¿
May 18, 2017 14:08
|
|
|
gradenko_2000 posted:Can I get a recommendation for a voice recording app? I guess the most important feature would be that it be easy to activate. See if you can get one that automatically starts recording whenever someone says "bigly". That's in high demand these days.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 16, 2017 13:41
|
|
|
Google Maps is rumored to be rolling out that feature soon, but nobody's sure exactly when.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2017 13:27
|
|
|
Thermopyle posted:I think it was this thread where it was being discussed about Google Maps showing or not showing speed limits. I'd never considered the massive legal headache that could potentially result from displaying the speed limit. Makes sense that they're taking so long to roll the feature out.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2017 15:10
|
|
|
hooah posted:Couldn't they just associate a disclaimer with the speed limit? Oh I'm sure they will. Just like I'm sure it will be a "beta" feature until the next century. But they'll still want to play it safe because they're a big target.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 10, 2017 15:48
|
|
|
I just noticed that Google Keep added a feature I've wanted for such a long time (though I didn't know exactly what form it should take). If you have a list where a lot of items are checked off -- i.e. a grocery list that you use long-term -- if you start typing a new item, the autocomplete brings up not just stuff from Google's database of frequently typed items, but also existing, checked items on that list. And if you choose that from the suggestions, it simply unchecks it instead of adding a duplicate item. Farewell, 60-item grocery list with 6 duplicates of "Eggs"!
|
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2017 19:32
|
|
|
underage at the vape shop posted:Whats better between spotify and google play music? Spotify has better market share so occasionally you'll miss out on little exclusive things; but overall if you're in the Google ecosystem and can see yourself using the additional perks of YouTube Red (no ads being the obvious one), Play Music is a great choice. And 99% of the catalog is the same. For now.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2017 15:55
|
|
|
Google Drive definitely has some pretty robust scripting tools you can use to interact with the Calendar API. I'm phoneposting so I can't necessarily look it up right now, but with a little bit of googling I was recently able to create a Sheets spreadsheet of a workout schedule, autofill a date range, and generate a calendar. (It involves adding a custom menu & button to the spreadsheet to contain the script, but it's surprisingly easy to do.)
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2017 08:45
|
|
|
I'm a bit shocked today to discover that Flamingo, which is overall a great Twitter app, apparently hardcoded its 140 character limit. Not that I've ever programmed extensively with the Twitter API, so I can't guarantee that it has a "getCharacterLimit()" function. Hope they update it soon. (I don't really tweet enough to justify setting up another app for it, and/or I'm lazy.)
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 16:02
|
|
|
datajosh posted:Twitter hates third party apps. Polls have been around for two years and there's still no way to even see if a tweet has a poll attached to it with the API, so I doubt character limits were ever a part of it. I use Flamingo too and I imagine he'll have an update out soon. Odd. Considering how many third-party Twitter apps there are and the fact that Twitter seems proud of their API, I always assumed it was really developer-friendly.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 8, 2017 21:24
|
|
|
datajosh posted:I don't think there was much of a use for it since the limit was a hard 140 characters until recently. Yeah, but it just seems like better coding practice to store the character limit as a constant somewhere and reference it abstractly when doing the "how many characters left" calculations. Anyway, Flamingo is updated now, so yay!
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 02:46
|
|
|
All of the above, plus Flamingo has dark themes for OLED supremacy
|
|
#
¿
Dec 6, 2017 17:04
|
|
|
Well they apparently might be killing Play Music soon, so who freakin knows anymore YouTube’s new music streaming service reportedly launching next March Or I guess more likely it'll be a new app that kinda does the same thing but also kinda doesn't Presumably it will also have nothing to do with YouTube TV, and YouTube Red will probably still be a thing somehow. None of the above possibilities would surprise me, especially considering I had to pass the above article through 3 different apps (Newsstand, "search", and Chrome) before I could copy the URL.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2017 18:48
|
|
|
I'm still grandfathered into GPM's early adopter price ($8/month) and the lack of ads on YouTube is a nice extra perk, and with the content being mostly the same across platforms it'd take a lot to make me switch. Hopefully they won't do anything stupid enough to make me want to. Spotify is appealing just because more people use it and it's not tied into any other products, but I still wouldn't pay more for it. Speaking of being tied to other products, Google and Amazon need to kiss and make up already. Pulling YouTube from Amazon devices is ridiculous, and the more stuff they integrate with YouTube the more ridiculous it'll become.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 8, 2017 19:36
|
|
|
Scudworth posted:Stop using an app and just use the mobile web interface then. Add a shortcut. The mobile site still has most recent sorting. Unless you like posting photos, in which case good luck. It's almost bad enough to make me install the app again, but I've settled for just not bothering.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 21, 2017 21:53
|
|
|
Uthor posted:Uploading photos for me was always a 50/50 chance that it'd actually get uploaded or it would error out. Per photo (so, more photos, more errors). Everything slowed to a crawl, so adding text or tags was super painful. It's why I started using the app (instead of it just sitting in my app drawer so the one game on my phone could backup). This is my experience as well, it's just a crapshoot. Sometimes it works and other times it just kind of sends me into a confusing endless loop. Doesn't help that FB's interface for posting photos is pretty confusing even in the real app and desktop site, especially when you start trying to tag.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 22, 2017 15:14
|
|
|
*2 days later* We regret to inform you that Milkshake Duck File Explorer is now adware.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 23, 2018 13:01
|
|
|
Maker Of Shoes posted:i'd only be sad if i lost my grandfathered pricing. i'd still pay whatever though, watching youtube on anyone else's account is basically non stop ad cancer and I can't be bothered with the typical hacky dumb poo poo to get around ads. Same here, although if Spotify is smart they'll offer a discount to new subscribers (at least for like a year or something) right around the time that happens. (If it happens.) I'd probably go for it.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2018 20:35
|
|
|
Yeah I'm definitely taking the wait and see approach here, they seem even more confused than we are about what they're offering. Maybe it's like a Memento situation where they keep forgetting that they already made an app that does the thing their new app is going to do
|
|
#
¿
May 17, 2018 21:35
|
|
|
Funny, just this morning I was thinking "I wonder if this YouTube Music thing will be inexplicably missing Play Music's podcast feature and incorporate it at some later date." Sounds like I was half right: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/12/17453006/google-podcast-app-launch We're not quite at "3 messaging apps at once" levels here... Well, hopefully it ends up being a better experience. I always hated how Play Music didn't have a separate search for podcasts vs. songs.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 12, 2018 21:19
|
|
|
Google Podcasts has arrived. Will have to give it a test drive on my upcoming vacation. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.podcasts
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2018 17:23
|
|
|
bull3964 posted:It allows you to search for podcasts, play episodes, and manually download them for offline listening. Hmm, that's a bit lame. I just checked it out for a few minutes on lunch break and subscribed to my usuals, but I didn't see a whole lot else to the interface, so that checks out. Considering the branding (icon, overall app style, etc.) it looks like they want this to feel like an extension of Assistant/Home/Search, which is... ...a choice. However, this was a pleasant surprise: ThermoPhysical posted:The new Podcast app has podcasts that I can't get on GPM. Hell, I think there are podcasts that used to be only on iTunes on here. I feel like on GPM they completely forgot about the podcast feature after a week, because I pretty much never saw any podcasts get added to the pool that was there at launch.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 19, 2018 18:32
|
|
|
I'm giving YouTube Music a try and I guess it's a nice little app. The album listening experience is a mess, though. For starters, it doesn't seem to do gapless playback, which is an absolute deal-breaker for me. There are various other small issues that irk me even though they aren't exactly crucial issues. For some reason, on some songs, it will do that weird YouTube thing where it says "[Artist Name] - Topic" instead of the name of the album (at least on the Bluetooth text). It's also just confusing how it seems to want everything to be a video even when it isn't -- if you press the 3 dot menu while a song is playing and Share, it prompts you to "Share This Video". Again, that's not really a big issue, but it's confusing. It feels like one guy at Google has a vision of music and music videos becoming seamlessly merged, and everyone else is humoring him.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2018 18:25
|
|
|
There really is absolutely no way of knowing, because Google. But GPM is nowhere near as popular as Gmail, and it's a highly competitive sector of the market, so my bet is they're gonna put all their eggs in the YouTube basket because it's their sexy (ish) new app and has good brand recognition. Also it's funny to me that the app icon calls it "YT Music". Hey, I listen to rap too!
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2018 15:32
|
|
|
Yeah seriously use the Awful app's embedded imgur feature, it's everything you need.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 30, 2018 14:25
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 16:20 |
|
|
I like how Android Messages wants me to respond to "Happy Birthday" texts with "Thanks, you too!" I guess Google's AI is just as awkward as a real CS major. YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE HELPING ME WITH THIS, GOOGLE
|
|
#
¿
Aug 8, 2018 14:57
|
|