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I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

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Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#201

Post by spacemanmatt »

fasj82 wrote: post #164
georgebarnett wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Background tasks become essential as soon as you need your phone to be a data aggregator for external devices. As an example, if you monitor biomedical sensors on your body, the app needs a way to reliably run in the background without being shot down.

The sensors should store the information inside themselves and then sync with the mobile when I open the app. No need to have my mobile awake all the time for something like that.

'should'

Someone should redesign them, someone should rewrite OS support for them, and someone should pay for all that?

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#202

Post by dmitriid »

simonh wrote: post #72
dmitriid wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this area the single most useless display of information on an iPhone. Yes, you can see which app takes how much space. Then what? There is no way to control or clean up that space. You can hope that an app has a setting somewhere that let's you delete old data, and that's it. The biggest offender? Apple's own Photos app especially with iCloud and Photo Stream: there's exactly zero ways to make it give up spac…

What's stopping you deleting photos and videos, or even whole albums in the app? Or syncing photos off and deleting on sync? Anyway, I'd genuinely be interested in how Android or Android apps solve his problem in better ways. For a lot of the other issues, it seems like this is a problem with the apps though, not the OS. If Facebook or a podcast app is hogging space, it's up to the app to provide options to manage it…

Apple's Photo app's interactions are so incredibly broken that is nigh impossible to figure out how to properly remove photos from a service without accidentally deleting them across all devices you own.

Heh, I'm a programmer, and I'm scared to touch anything in that app :)

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#203

Post by randomsearch »

Saaster wrote: post #168

I wish I could switch to the iPhone, and I've tried several times. The hardware is excellent. But these are my deal-breakers that keep me on Android (I've only ever had Google Nexus / Pixel phones): - Lastpass or any other password manager on iPhone is a joke, requiring multiple convoluted steps and using the "share" menu in the browser because of the Apple lock-down. Lastpass on Android? Click the password field in…

Your last two points may be valid, I can't say I use any Google apps other than maps, but iOS has password management built in. When I first logged into an app using face recognition, it was one of those magical "wow" moments.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#204

Post by alasano »

no1youknowz wrote: post #120

I know a lot of this is anecdotal... My Mom who is 77, has had a few Androids. Always calling her Sons to help fix her phone. She bought cheap phones for a couple of hundred dollars, but always limited the Ram, but had plenty of storage. WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook would constantly fill it up and many times you'd have to clear out all the apps, clear the storage on the phone, etc, etc. Then I would have to explain to h…

From your punctuation I presume you're using swiftkey on Android :D

Such. Random. Punctuation.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#205

Post by dalore »

nvarsj wrote: post #190
Saaster wrote: post #168

I wish I could switch to the iPhone, and I've tried several times. The hardware is excellent. But these are my deal-breakers that keep me on Android (I've only ever had Google Nexus / Pixel phones): - Lastpass or any other password manager on iPhone is a joke, requiring multiple convoluted steps and using the "share" menu in the browser because of the Apple lock-down. Lastpass on Android? Click the password field in…

Unfortunately, as you point out, you pretty much have to use Google apps to make Android worthwhile. And you're basically opting into massive invasion of your personal privacy by doing that, turning your life into an ad-targeted money tree for Google and the other dozen pre-loaded apps on your typical Android phone. I don't think it's worth it one bit. Similarly, a lot of the inconveniences you point out (e.g. LastPa…

And with Apple you use Apple services which no doubt do the same invasion of privacy.

And if you don't want to see ads it's pretty easy, buy apps without ads rather than using ad supported apps.

> Similarly, a lot of the inconveniences you point out (e.g. LastPass), are also a way of protecting you from rogue apps (e.g. Facebook) from tracking everything you do on your phone. That level of integration means that any app can read anything in your browser and operate on it independently of a human action.

This is patently wrong. No rogue Android app has full access from tracking everything on your phone and your browser. There is security in Android, and you can selectively choose whether to enable them for certain features. For example having a custom keyboard is possible to enable the lastpass features, but you have to go and set it to on (the app can't do it). And you get warned that it can have access to what you type (it should it's a password manager). But point is that you have the option, but apps are locked down by default and can't just access everything like you have stated.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#206

Post by ballenf »

elmigranto wrote: post #183
Saaster wrote: post #168

I wish I could switch to the iPhone, and I've tried several times. The hardware is excellent. But these are my deal-breakers that keep me on Android (I've only ever had Google Nexus / Pixel phones): - Lastpass or any other password manager on iPhone is a joke, requiring multiple convoluted steps and using the "share" menu in the browser because of the Apple lock-down. Lastpass on Android? Click the password field in…

Keyschain Access.app works exactly like that. Not sure if it would be easy to migrate from Lastlass, though. I know you can at least script the process. Well, that could be a dealbreaker, though given this is a taste thing and great browser performance of iOS, I personally don't see it as a problem. Google Photos is on the App Store. On Mac, you can rsync your photos library with cron or launchctl (~/Documents/Photos…

Want to second this and mention that as of iOS 11, the built-in keychain works inside apps. It's also the reason I've switched back to using Safari on the desktop as my default browser. Neither Firefox nor Chrome use the keychain properly (hard to tell whether this is Apple's intent).

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#207

Post by intended »

matwood wrote: post #174
baldfat wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdotal evidence has been the opposite. My daughter has always been an Apple user and she has had so many more issues with her phone. Either she never upgraded her phone due to storage limitations because she refused to uninstall certain apps. He screen twice has twice peeled off. The battery expanded and now it glitches every hour but she is stuck because there is NO HEAD PHONE JACK. So she keeps saying do I bu…

Siri is definitely Apples biggest weakness, but the headphone jack? The phone comes with a little adapter. If you're a person who has tons of nice headphones laying around, but a couple more adapters and call it a day. Is it a bit of inconvenience at first? Sure, but don't act like there is no way to plug in headphones or that it's the end of the world. And Duo? I'm a tech person and I can't keep all of the Google co…

Head phone jack is a big issue.

I have no desire to keep one on me at all times on the off chance that I will need it.

I just stop listening to music or using the device for that use case.

Basically dropping the functionality of the phone significantly, unless I’m home or near my tech storage locker.

This is assanine design.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#208

Post by fasj82 »

spacemanmatt wrote: post #201
fasj82 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sensors should store the information inside themselves and then sync with the mobile when I open the app. No need to have my mobile awake all the time for something like that.

'should' Someone should redesign them, someone should rewrite OS support for them, and someone should pay for all that?

No, they should've designed it correctly in the first place.

Re: I switched from iPhone to the Pixel 2: One-week report

#210

Post by e40 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #126
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy mother cow That's awesome on so many levels. Just having "call me i need your help" on the phone is so obvious and yet unexpected. And then actually having strong customer support is ... ungoogle-like wow

There's this meme that Google has terrible customer support that is years out of date. When you have a problem with a Google product that you actually paid for (like one of their hardware devices), experiences are generally good. I had a replacement Nexus 5X shipped with no problem, for instance.

Google only gives support for paid things. I was a Nexus user for years and always got good service. I'm in Project Fi now and the service there is excellent. Just try getting support for a Gmail bug, if you're not paying Google money for your phone.
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