Live data from Hacker News

Android P

blog.google

101–110 of 316 posts

Re: Android P

#101
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of it is closed. Since the G1, the following parts are just some of the many that were removed from the open project and replaced with proprietary ones: Launcher, Dialer (the actual phone app), Contacts, Calendar, Email, on-device Search (last open in 2.3.7), and many more. Everything that the user touches or sees is closed source.

All of those apps exist in AOSP and have many open source equivalents not developed by Google. The platform that those apps run on is just as open now as it was in the G1 days.

Oh? I can compile all these apps, exactly as they are on the Pixel 2, myself? I'd love to see that source.

The versions in AOSP are heavily cut down on functionality and barely even work.

Im the days of the G1, the actual Google Talk and Google Search apps were open, the Google Books app was open too!

That was the Android we bought into: one where a default install was entirely open, and living without any closed source apps was easily possible.

Today, that's long gone. Play Services here, SafetyNet there, Google®™© apps in the middle.

Re: Android P

#102

Coming from iOS, with all the disclosures about how Android leaks to Facebook much more I expected to see permissions locked down a lot more. There's a difference between "I want to put a location in my status update" to "I want to upload my location 24/7 to Facebook's servers so they can profile the crap out of me". iOS makes this difference. Android doesn't.

You can already disable SMS, phone and location permissions (and others) for each app in the previous version of Android (Oreo). I'm sure this has it too.

Re: Android P

#103
post #33
post #15

I'm almost tempted to try out the beta on my daily driver Pixel. Seems like a stupid decision though. Is there an easy way to manage this from a worktation? Completely backup my current state and restore it afterwords?

Posting on the phone! I have just upgraded and the update is absolutely flawless and can be considered as a dail

It seems premature to make such a proclamation right after updating.

Re: Android P

#104

While I appreciate the concept of learning things like "common next steps" to make a device more usable, going by the history of devices like Google Home or the Google Assistant, I also wonder how much of this is going to depend on "give us all your usage history" settings and simply stop working with those settings disabled. The Google Assistant is already unusable without a pile of search history settings enabled;…

I don't appreciate it, and hope it can be optionally disabled. I don't find it makes the device more usable.

One example, YouTube suggestions. I watched a "Family Guy" clip, didn't upvote it or comment or anything and suddenly I have 10 channels of Family Guy content "recommended" as if I'm suddenly YouTube's biggest Family Guy addict because I watched one two-minute video.

I don't want my phone anticipating what I want to do, I want to tell it what I want to do. Because when it tries to anticipate, it's usually wrong, and that's annoying.

Re: Android P

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of those apps exist in AOSP and have many open source equivalents not developed by Google. The platform that those apps run on is just as open now as it was in the G1 days.

Oh? I can compile all these apps, exactly as they are on the Pixel 2, myself? I'd love to see that source. The versions in AOSP are heavily cut down on functionality and barely even work. Im the days of the G1, the actual Google Talk and Google Search apps were open, the Google Books app was open too! That was the Android we bought into: one where a default install was entirely open, and living without any closed sou…

The Pixel 2 is not an AOSP device, just like the Galaxy 8 is not an AOSP device. Why would you think you get the source for all the third party apps?

> Im the days of the G1, the actual Google Talk and Google Search apps were open, the Google Books app was open too!

Those apps as they were are still open (the Google Talk app was/is actually a multiprotocol messenger), though I don't remember a Google Books in AOSP. Even better, there are now superior equivalents to all of these that are also open source.

Re: Android P

#106
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I'm not mad at all. I'm glad that both iOS and Android are implementing one of WebOS' best feature. Using the Android P beta now and it seems to be most of the way there.

It's the worst part of Android P, and I'll patch AOSP to get rid of it for my devices. If I open a task switcher, I want to see a lot of my open tasks. Not one, not three, not even four, but dozens. How long am I supposed to be swiping if there's hundreds of open tasks? And scrolling with the home button is even worse. Let's hope Android Q quickly gets rid of this again.

Came to rant about this, and the fact that the blog article itself seems to break wheel scrolling.

Re: Android P

#107
post #83
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's corporate lingo. More specifically, PM/UX speak. "I'll ping you on gChat the slides on what to surface when users tap on the map. Then we can ideate together." Only a slight exaggeration, based on my observation of specimens in the wild (many years at Google).

Right up there with the noun version of "ask".

Or learnings instead of lessons.

Re: Android P

#108

Coming from iOS, with all the disclosures about how Android leaks to Facebook much more I expected to see permissions locked down a lot more. There's a difference between "I want to put a location in my status update" to "I want to upload my location 24/7 to Facebook's servers so they can profile the crap out of me". iOS makes this difference. Android doesn't.

You can already disable SMS, phone and location permissions (and others) for each app in the previous version of Android (Oreo). I'm sure this has it too.

> You can already disable SMS, phone and location permissions (and others) for each app

This doesn't address the comment you replied to in any way. Surely you see that there's a gap in reasoning between "I want to be able to add my location, just not have my location always broadcast to them" and "you can disable location entirely". Your suggestion specifically violates the "I want to be able to add my location" part of personal control over information.

Or are you suggesting that it's reasonable that a user should have to manually switch apps between white/black lists for behaviors? Personally I would find that idea contemptible.

Re: Android P

#109
> ML Kit offers developers on-device APIs for text recognition, face detection, image labeling and more

This is what I always thought Google should do. Operating systems have completely stagnated, but a truly new and differentiating set of features would be to deliver AI as a platform - not a Google-only feature but a set of open APIs that anybody can use or implement. I hope they continue down this track.

Re: Android P

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh? I can compile all these apps, exactly as they are on the Pixel 2, myself? I'd love to see that source. The versions in AOSP are heavily cut down on functionality and barely even work. Im the days of the G1, the actual Google Talk and Google Search apps were open, the Google Books app was open too! That was the Android we bought into: one where a default install was entirely open, and living without any closed sou…

The Pixel 2 is not an AOSP device, just like the Galaxy 8 is not an AOSP device. Why would you think you get the source for all the third party apps? > Im the days of the G1, the actual Google Talk and Google Search apps were open, the Google Books app was open too! Those apps as they were are still open (the Google Talk app was/is actually a multiprotocol messenger), though I don't remember a Google Books in AOSP. E…

Because the G1 was an AOSP device, and so was the Nexus One, and so was the Nexus S.

I was barely in middle school when the G1 came out, I saw Android morph from the promised solution as entirely open source platform to what we have today, where the platform and base apps are all proprietary.

Post reply on HN