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Pixel 10 Phones

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Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#291
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an iphone and have for many years. I was a phone geek who would always use custom ROMs and have everything dialed in just so. I'm sure this has changed over the years but back in the day it seemed like there was always some weird issue with my Android phone. Admittedly, a lot of that could have been my fault for constantly messing with the device. Eventually I got busy and just needed my phone to do the simple…

How’s your 13 mini holding up? I have a recently refurbished one (6 months old) and I can’t make it to 2pm without recharging. Additional my mail search and photo search broke with Apple Intelligence/iOS18 integration. Debating jumping ship to a epaper phone or holding out for the rumored iPhone Air.

My 13 mini is also not great on battery. I've been debating ordering an iFixit battery and doing the swap, but in the past I've felt it was kind of mixed results from that. I don't think those batteries are newly manufactured units, but rather leftovers from the original production line that have been sitting on the shelf for 2-3 years. So although they'll be an improvement over one that's been through 1-2k cycles, they won't be like it was when it was brand new.

For now I'm just making do with having a power bank in my bag when I'm out and about.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#292
post #94

The people at Google seem to think much more like me than the people at Apple. There are 3 primary decisions Google made that click with me, while Apple's choices are a mystery to me: 1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles. 2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unso…

Same for me, although I currently use an iPhone (and the rest of the Apple ecosystem). I actually don't like iOS, and barely tolerate macOS but I love the hardware on mac right now. For me, it's Apple's privacy stance (which I know could change at anytime, but that's where we are at right now). Give me a Pixel & all the Google stuff but without Google, and with advanced data protection and Apple's tracking protection…

> barely tolerate macOS

I guess it depends what you’re comparing it to but macOS is (for me) the best of a bad bunch of compromises. POSIX with app boundaries that are (mostly) respected, if not particularly granular. There’s nothing I really hate about the platform save for homebrew and being walled in to the ecosystem.

I actually love modern Linux with Gnome, and it has all the parts these days to be a great desktop operating system, but I find the freedom there undercuts a lot of the promises (Flatpaks are a good idea in theory that doesn’t work in practice as the sandboxes are overly liberal and overreach on most apps because no-one’s forced to justify why they need the permissions they do etc).

I spent so long on Windows that I really don’t miss it. The Window management was way better for so long, but the idioms drive me crazy (registry issues and programs still freely writing anywhere they like), and supporting everything forever has massive drawbacks to usability (although Winget sort of slightly helps with this but it’s not much better than homebrew).

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#293
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an iphone and have for many years. I was a phone geek who would always use custom ROMs and have everything dialed in just so. I'm sure this has changed over the years but back in the day it seemed like there was always some weird issue with my Android phone. Admittedly, a lot of that could have been my fault for constantly messing with the device. Eventually I got busy and just needed my phone to do the simple…

FaceID is terrible, not even reliable. It scans your face all the time, even when you are not unlocking it. Every 20-30 seconds or so, let's just scan your face. I would love it if iPhones stayed with fingerprint unlock. Sometimes I put the phone on the desk and not pointing it to my face and I want to unlock it. I have to wait for the stupid FaceID timeout to be able to input my code.

Face ID is not terrible. Especially on newer phones which support landscape rotation etc. They check to see if you’re looking at the screen and your eyes are open, so they can keep the screen on regardless of the auto lock setting. It’s a smart and useful feature which you can turn off if you don’t like it.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#294
The only downside is that all of these new features will be supported for about 3 weeks, and then rapidly turn into another Google abandoned strip mall.

Fooled me once, shame on you, fooled me (hundreds of times), shame on me

Bet the people who launched these are already interviewing for their next gig.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#295
post #94

The people at Google seem to think much more like me than the people at Apple. There are 3 primary decisions Google made that click with me, while Apple's choices are a mystery to me: 1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles. 2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unso…

I prefer Pixel phones, for slightly different reasons.

One, it takes really good photos. Better than phones with supposedly better specs. This is big for me, I have a 3 year old, being able to snap photos that look great with no effort is huge.

Two, the Google integration is just really a gamechanger. My laptop is my "computing" device. So my phone is mostly for calling, navigating (I travel a lot), searching for businesses, that sort of thing. It's really effortless with Pixel devices, takes a tad more work with other brands.

All browsers are equal citizens. I use Vivaldi, it's nice it can be the default and work just as well with the phone as Chrome.

And finally, in all my dealings with big tech over my lifetime, Google has been the only one that I feel doesn't try to abuse users. With MS it's endless nagging and annoyances, plus their security sucks, with Apple they're very anti-consumer unless you do exactly what they want, all the time. Even Samsung annoyed me with bloatware and trying to make their apps default over and over. If I change something on a Pixel phone, it stays changed. I pay for some Google products so no ads for the most part. Their security is great. They prefer open formats and protocols and have done a ton for the open web. Just the best ecosystem I've bought into.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#296
post #168
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use an iphone and have for many years. I was a phone geek who would always use custom ROMs and have everything dialed in just so. I'm sure this has changed over the years but back in the day it seemed like there was always some weird issue with my Android phone. Admittedly, a lot of that could have been my fault for constantly messing with the device. Eventually I got busy and just needed my phone to do the simple…

> Trying to train them to use whatever app Google currently uses for video calls, and then retraining every time Google kills it off for another almost identical app This seems like an argument for picking something third-party, perhaps Signal. It's probably not going away any time soon, and it supports both major mobile operating systems.

both iOS and Facetime are super slick and baked into the device. The end user doesn't even have to really know how to the app to use the feature as it were. It shows up on a contact as a button click.

Signal does not, even on Android. You have to deliberately use it.

That small friction isn't great when you're likely one of few people using it in day to day life of others.

FaceTime on the other hand, just works

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#297
post #94

The people at Google seem to think much more like me than the people at Apple. There are 3 primary decisions Google made that click with me, while Apple's choices are a mystery to me: 1: When I put a Pixel on a table, it sits there stable. Because the backside is symmetrical. When I put an iPhone on a table, it wobbles. 2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unso…

> 2: When I sort my photos on a Pixel, I sort them in folders. The "camera" folder is where the unsorted photos are. When I sit in a bus or in a cafe, I go through it and sort the new photos into folders. This seems impossible on iPhones. Everything stays in the main folder forever. You can add photos to albums, but that does not remove them from the main folder. So there is no way to know which photos I have already sorted.

This along with iOS dumping pictures from WhatsApp, etc. into your main pictures folder is such a huge deal breaker for me. If I am backing up my pictures to a hard drive, there is no easy way to select just the pictures taken on my phone. Seems like such an oversight but I suspect it's a way to drive people to sign up for iCloud storage.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#298
post #271

The lack of a physical SIM tray is just one more way to lock users in Google's walled garden. eSIM support is not implemented in Android itself (AOSP), but part of the proprietary GMS package. This means Google-free Android forks like LineageOS will be unusable on the Pixel 10 series :-(

does this mean no GrapheneOS either?

GrapheneOS support eSim : https://grapheneos.org/usage#esim-support

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer Android. Unlike iPhone, the Android notifications system actually makes sense, and I can use real Firefox on Android. But, I prefer phones sized to fit in a human hand even more, so I'm stuck on an iPhone 13 Mini. Please make a ~4.5" screen Pixel phone, Google :(

Yeah, the main news I want to hear is the release of smaller Pixel phone. Secondarily, I'd like the return of the 3.5mm port. I don't care about any of the stuff they actually announce. I do currently use a Pixel, but I hate how big it is.

Eh, I've gotten over the headphone jack thing. I just buy a dozen adapters, stick one on each of my headphones, and replace them as they wear out every couple months. Good enough.

Re: Pixel 10 Phones

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The privacy stuff and the hardware quality are my main reasons as well. Oh, and Chrome OS isn't a real OS to me so I couldn't imagine using that as my daily driver as I would macOS. Another reason I stick with Apple is style/design. Aside from the latest Alan Dye-led stuff, Apple's design has been top-notch, they make every other company look like they lack class and design-sense. With that said, I did like Nokia's W…

> Apple's design has been top-notch But only from the iPhone X to 14, after which the Dynamic Island took over. (I'll see myself out)

No judgement here. I liked my touchbar, and was pretty productive with it before it got axed.
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