Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One week with the Google Pixel

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 131 posts

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#91

Post by SiVal »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #55
travv0 wrote: post #48

"The Pixel needs charging once a day, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but it charges really quickly." I'm not sure I understand this negative. I'd think any problems caused by this would be easily remedied by just charging your phone while you're sleeping, when you can't use it anyway. Or is he saying that it needs to be charged once a day, even if you charge it overnight?

If you don't always sleep in the same place it means lugging a charger. It means you can't go to bed drunk and neccessarily expect your alarm to go off in the morning. It really just means that any time your life gets out of routine, your phone is probably going to die.

"Out of routine" is routine for frequent flyers. You never know when you'll end up spending the night in an airport transit lounge or you can't get into your hotel at the end of a flight around the world, or whatever. Or when driving or hiking through a somewhat remote area and something goes wrong....

When things go wrong, you need to make calls, put out fires, keep trying to reach remote towers using full radio power for extended periods.

When things go wrong is when you MOST need your phone, so you need a battery that can continue to serve you a lot longer than it normally needs to on an ordinary day unless you can somehow be certain that for you every day will be an ordinary day.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#92

Post by deadbunny »

josephg wrote: post #80
clumsysmurf wrote: post #6

"3. Deep Google integration - This shouldn’t be surprising in any way, but having Google built into pretty much everything you do on the phone is seriously useful." This is my main sticking point with Android lately. I would much rather have a stock Android OS + device from Google, and then add the few Google services I want. Instead Google is getting more and more baked into everything, and understanding how my data…

I moved from Android to iOS last year for this exact reason. Using android over a few versions felt like a slow slippery slope of access prompts giving permission for google to use ever more personal data about me and my phone. The final straw for me was learning that google uploads and stores audio recordings of everything I've ever said into google now[1]. A year ago when I got my iphone I deleted all of the histor…

Apple did not stand up for user privacy, they stood up against inserting a backdoor into their crypto and played it off in the media as a stand for privacy.

Apple have gladly handed over user info on dozens of occasions (in accordance with the law).

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#93

Post by threeseed »

artursapek wrote: post #45
nattaylor wrote: post #16

I've been wondering if I was missing out on the iPhone's 3D touch feature, for interacting with photos, messages, etc. The author didn't mention missing it, so I guess I'm not.

3D touch, like the Touch Bar, was an uninspired gimmick.

On both counts I couldn't disagree more.

I use Force Touch every time I pick up my phone and especially on list views it allows for far more functionality. Touch Bar is nothing more than a nice looking contextual menu. I assume toolbars are a gimmick too ?

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#94

Post by bad_user »

threeseed wrote: post #90
bad_user wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On number 2 I think that's just your lack of experience with Android apps. Me I've made the switch from Android to an iPhone 6s which I've had for a year already and now I also have an iPad Pro, both received as gifts, as I'm an Android guy :-) And let me tell you, I like Android more because of the apps. Now granted, there are a couple of nice, polished apps on iOS. But there are also entire app categories on iOS th…

Every app you listed is a 'power user' app. Naturally they will be better in Android since the platform is more open in this area. But in the sort of everyday apps most people use there isn't really a contest. Android lags far behind in overall polish.

I'm a heavy app user and imho that's a myth, because people end up being naturally biased towards the platform they've been using, once they learn about what's good or not.

And even if I can feel my own bias, I really think Android is the more polished one, OS & apps. I could enumerate all sorts of reasons for why, but then you'd hand-wave it as not being relevant for moms using apps that could have been web pages :-)

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#95

Post by simonh »

theswaagar wrote: post #87
josephg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from Android to iOS last year for this exact reason. Using android over a few versions felt like a slow slippery slope of access prompts giving permission for google to use ever more personal data about me and my phone. The final straw for me was learning that google uploads and stores audio recordings of everything I've ever said into google now[1]. A year ago when I got my iphone I deleted all of the histor…

If I'm not mistaken doesn't Apple also record and upload everything you've ever said to Siri?

Apple keeps the data for up to two years, but from 6 months its associated with a random ID code so it's not personally identifiable. At least that's how it used to be done. They have been talking about using more advanced statistical anonymization techniques recently but I don't know if they are used for Siri.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#96

Post by tedunangst »

SiVal wrote: post #91
xyzzy123 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't always sleep in the same place it means lugging a charger. It means you can't go to bed drunk and neccessarily expect your alarm to go off in the morning. It really just means that any time your life gets out of routine, your phone is probably going to die.

"Out of routine" is routine for frequent flyers. You never know when you'll end up spending the night in an airport transit lounge or you can't get into your hotel at the end of a flight around the world, or whatever. Or when driving or hiking through a somewhat remote area and something goes wrong.... When things go wrong, you need to make calls, put out fires, keep trying to reach remote towers using full radio pow…

Do frequent flyers not bring chargers in their carry on?

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#97

Post by tedunangst »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #55
travv0 wrote: post #48

"The Pixel needs charging once a day, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but it charges really quickly." I'm not sure I understand this negative. I'd think any problems caused by this would be easily remedied by just charging your phone while you're sleeping, when you can't use it anyway. Or is he saying that it needs to be charged once a day, even if you charge it overnight?

If you don't always sleep in the same place it means lugging a charger. It means you can't go to bed drunk and neccessarily expect your alarm to go off in the morning. It really just means that any time your life gets out of routine, your phone is probably going to die.

It's a pretty sad phone if even a low battery isn't enough to idle through the night.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#98

Post by [deleted] »

uabstraction wrote: post #89
marricks wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With google stepping away from masking your ad profile it is even more troubling... Apple doesn't get enough praise for protecting user's privacy IMO, or perhaps it's just really something most people don't care about...

Beyond their occasional public stands such as the San Bernardino case, I don't think Apple does enough to market how this is useful to the average end user. In fact, as a free software enthusiast who has never even considered getting an iPhone, the privacy issue has me seriously considering getting one (though not the 7!) when my Nexus 5x succumbs to entropy. There are a few technical issues I need to work out before…

[deleted]

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#99

Post by visarga »

empath75 wrote: post #65
visarga wrote: post #36

> For instance, ask it to search for an actor and then ask, “what films has he starred in?” It knows you’re still talking about the same person. Impressive. Yeah, but then you ask it: "What is heavier, a cat or an elephant?" and it fails, because it is lacking in common sense. It only has a small-ish factoid knowledge base and lacks all the general common sense things we take for granted.

Obviously, because they haven't created a fully conscious artificial intelligence, it's a complete failure.

Don't take it so hard. I am the greatest fan of conversational AI chatbots. I am just a little too impatient, especially that I have seen a chatbot that can do those types of common sense challenges.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#100

Post by [deleted] »

jrockway wrote: post #57
RBerenguel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I cleaned completely my home screen (iPhone). In the dock I keep Phone, a folder with Safari and Mail, a folder with what I used to have in my home screen (Calendar, todo, clock... 7-8 things) and the "social" apps folder (Facebook, Whatsapp, iMessage, etc). The rest, I have it in a secondary screen, neatly ordered by folder. And anyway, when I need to open almost anything that is not in the dock, I just sea…

I did that on Android too. I hate the iPhone's "YOU MUST LOOK AT ALL YOUR ICONS" mandate, because a quick swipe down brings up a search that's much more efficient than looking at things.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN