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Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

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Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#11

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#12

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

>> That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

> Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

I'm sure he did read the post.

For Google to perform A/B experiments on a random person's phone, they'd have to remotely manipulate that person's phone, which means Google has control of it at all times. They shouldn't even have the capability to perform an A/B test. We're not talking about some webapp running on their servers.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#13
post #4

This happened to me today! I was using my phone and then it went all weird with no haptic feedback when typing. I finally figured out that battery saver was on and disabled it... This really bothers me... I am starting to think we need a truly open source phone. That is hardware and software. like GNU/phone or something. We must have full control over our hardware and software! Viva La Gnu! (no clue what this actuall…

Mine did it too...kind of creepy they could do that to be honest.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#14

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

This is far different than running an A/B test in an app though. This is an OS level feature where there’s an explicit expectation of user control.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#15

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

This doesn't address the OP's concerns at all, and how would it be any better? I get wanting to A/B test for apps, but doing so for OS-level features is a bit unsettling.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#16
After my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone started having hardware issues, I looked to see if a phone running open source software was available, one that also could run the Android apps I currently use.

I've had sucess with LineageOS 15.1 on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro (codename "whyred"). Unfortunately the phone's LTE bands don't support every country, but it works fine here in India. The phone hardware costs USD 210 and buys a lot of hardware: https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_note_5_pro-8893.php

The phone comes with Xiaomi's Android fork called MIUI. It comes with the bootloader locked, and Xiaomi makes you wait for about 2 weeks to 2 months to be able to unlock the bootloader to install a different phone OS (called a custom ROM). Until then, one has to either put up with MIUI or leave the phone sitting on a shelf.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/whyred/install

Once you unlock the bootloader, you can install LineageOS on it which is fully open source stock Android with some minimal tweaks and extra privacy features. The current version for this phone is 15.1 which is based on Android Oreo. This reminds me of my old Google Nexus 5's phone OS, but it is far more tweakable. You can build the LineageOS ROM for your phone from source code: https://download.lineageos.org/whyred

You can install a subset of Google Apps depending on what your preference is: https://wiki.lineageos.org/gapps.html https://github.com/opengapps/opengapps/wiki/Package-Comparis...

Or you can avoid Google Apps altogether by using microG instead: https://microg.org/

After 2 weeks of using LineageOS, I am so impressed that I'm willing to shill for it^w^w^w describe about it here.

For your country, if the "whyred" phone's LTE bands are not compatible, you should be able to find a similar phone that is.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#17
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off.

>> That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission. > Did you even read the post? It was a bug... They do A/B testing and experiments all the time. What's up with hackernews and going full technopanic at the smallest most benign things. It's not like someone at Google hacked into your phone and turned battery saver off. I'm sure he did read the post. For Google to perform A/B e…

Yeah. Duh. Of course they do.

Ever heard of remote lock down features?

Don't use a Google phone if you don't want to be the product. That simple. Why would anybody trust Google and the Android ecosystem with security in general?

Sent from my galaxy s9

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#18

Could they face repercussions over this? That is unsettling that they can remotely manipulate your phone without your permission.

They push new software to your phone constantly. They could just permanently enable low-power mode for everybody tomorrow if they wanted to, or change all your icons to Pop-Tarts.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#19
What a misleading, fake title. Honestly disappointing coming form HackerNews... The post quite literally says it's an experiment, accidentally enabled. A bug. Literally an A/B test, which they do all the time.

The title makes it sound like they hacked in your phone. With that logic, any time your apps update or you get a notification, you're getting hacked.

Re: Google activated battery saving mode on multiple phones, then rolled it back

#20
post #16

After my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone started having hardware issues, I looked to see if a phone running open source software was available, one that also could run the Android apps I currently use. I've had sucess with LineageOS 15.1 on a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro (codename "whyred"). Unfortunately the phone's LTE bands don't support every country, but it works fine here in India. The phone hardware costs USD 210 and buys…

Fully aware this might be a silly question, but why do they make you wait, and why does the time period vary so greatly?
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