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Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

arstechnica.com

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Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#301

Post by Spooky23 »

7bit wrote: post #267
Spooky23 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Italians do the same thing. If your name matches some name or you’ve travelled to some naughty place, you’ll get picked for this sort of thing. That said, the last time I went to Italy the customs guy looked annoyed at being awake. He asked my son’s age (he is huge but too young to use the electronic gate), then shrugged and stamped my passport with all of his strength.

Don't spread misinformation. The difference is that in Italy it is not against the law to not hand out the password to your phone -- or anything else for that matter.

In the United States, you have a fundamental right to not testify against yourself, including providing a password. You can be compelled to provide a biometric. The UK has taken a different approach and my understanding is that you can be jailed for refusing to provide a password.

Most countries recognize very different limits at a customs boundary. Is this appropriate in an age where a tiny device gives you access to all of your "papers" in many cases? I don't think so, but international law doesn't recognize our concerns with respect to that.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#302

Post by NooneAtAll3 »

ffsm8 wrote: post #121
BurningFrog wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always turn it off and on, AFAIK.

Long Press power while pressing volume down works on all Android devices I've used to date. And that's ignoring the fact that disconnecting power, waiting a few days and then reconnecting it will inevitably let you cold boot it, too (which this would be an equivalent to - as far as I understood it)

long power press = force reboot

power+volume = screenshot

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#303

Post by mananaysiempre »

anonymars wrote: post #249
dagmx wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but my point is that blaming Apple for another brands decision to follow is just weird.

Fair point. It's a frustrating pattern that seems to repeat, and I think partially it stems from when other brands are too thick to understand why people are choosing the competitor. Web browsers are an immediate example that comes to mind. When everyone started switching to Chrome, the other browsers fell all over themselves to strip down into minimalism, as though it was the sparse UI that was capturing users' hear…

The minimalistic UI was kind of the original headline feature, I have to note—it’s literally in the name that the browser was to be little more but chrome around the stuff the user actually cares about, that being the web page. It’s just that the other things turned out to be more important.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#304

Post by iggldiggl »

subscribed wrote: post #230
panny wrote: post #197

Why would it reboot instead of just power off?

So you could still answer a phone call or have your phone reachable for "find my phone".

Doesn't work if the SIM is pin-locked, too, though.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#305

Post by joseda-hg »

dheera wrote: post #240
rvnx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, it could also be seen the other way around; it's a potential way for Google to force deployments of system updates (potentially at the request of law enforcement). With an automatic reboot, then the update can automatically be applied without user action.

They should really implement a dual user / dual password system to combat those countries. If you enter password 1 it goes into your normal account, if you enter password 2 it goes into another user account with a burner environment where you can install a few token commonly used apps for plausible deniability. The existence of password 2 should be optional and you should not be able to tell if the system has one or…

Some alternate ROMs already have this, duress mode I think it's called

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#306

Post by rahen »

daneel_w wrote: post #48
amelius wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I have GrapheneOS and I never noticed it rebooting. (And when i manually reboot, the "BIOS" prevents it from booting without acknowledging that I'm aware it's a non-Google OS, so how does it work?)

The feature is not enabled by default. Also, the boot doesn't wait for you indefinitely - it just gives you a few seconds to glance the checksum and halt it, before it proceeds automatically.

It's enabled on mine, at least. By default, it reboots after 18 hours without being unlocked.

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#308

Post by ponorin »

dheera wrote: post #240
rvnx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, it could also be seen the other way around; it's a potential way for Google to force deployments of system updates (potentially at the request of law enforcement). With an automatic reboot, then the update can automatically be applied without user action.

They should really implement a dual user / dual password system to combat those countries. If you enter password 1 it goes into your normal account, if you enter password 2 it goes into another user account with a burner environment where you can install a few token commonly used apps for plausible deniability. The existence of password 2 should be optional and you should not be able to tell if the system has one or…

You can either use: separate user accounts (needs context switching) or a new private space feature. Private space was introduced with Android 15 and can hide its existence (from the launcher).

Re: Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days

#310

Post by speerer »

Talanes wrote: post #163
mh- wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had that happen on iOS, but I have woken up in the night needing my flashlight just to find my phone applying a lengthy update. I have it set to download automatically and install manually now, I believe.

I haven't had any problems in at least 7+ years, but I work in coffee and I can remember at least two instances where an Apple update made half the staff late by turning off their alarms, myself included.

What's the link between coffee and iOS?
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