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Android 12

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111–120 of 131 posts

Re: Android 12

#111
post #34

Still no full system backup like iOS

What kind of stuff does iOS back up that Android doesn't? On Android, all of my photos are backed up to Google Photos. Most games use Google Play's cloud save system. All of my notes are in Google Keep or Google Docs (or Notion) which all are backed up in the cloud. Whenever you switch phones, you can easily select a list of all the apps you want to install and _most_ of them have data backed up automatically. I thin…

Apple effectively lets you 'image' the device, so you can transfer from one to another with no messing around. Windows Mobile/Phone allowed you to do the same thing. Blame fragmentation with ROMs like One UI etc.

Re: Android 12

#112
post #9

Anyone else just stopped keeping track of what version of Android their phone is on? I used to know this stuff, but these days couldn't care less.

I routinely find my iPhone and iPad are one major version behind. Yep, just checked, I'm still on iOS 14. I don't even care about all the new features.

Re: Android 12

#114
post #20

Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? >Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...) If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless. Also what important APIs d…

> Looks like grandparent mode...

I almost cut my arm off with all that edge. Care to dial it back a bit?

The counterpoint is that most of the 'information' apps think are important really are wasting my time and obscuring actual signal. Putting design on a diet and making apps think about what data is priority vs noise is something that respects the user.

The ability to glance at my phone and get the most important info without parsing out noise - that's a big plus. The ability to mix and match widgets on my home and lock screen to display the data I want without crowding stuff out - also great.

It's funny that a related argument against mobile is that all apps demand full screen and it's difficult to do advanced work bc of app switch friction - well this approach of forcing apps to limit and prioritize info puts out a path of addressing that inefficiency nicely.

> what important APIs did they axe now?

Again many API turn downs improve user privacy, improve system stability, or push apps to more battery/memory efficient APIs.

Do you really want win32 level of API compatibility? As a user I don't care. As a developer I would rather work on a living and evolving platform then a fossil or legacy tarpit.

Re: Android 12

#115
post #12
post #9

Anyone else just stopped keeping track of what version of Android their phone is on? I used to know this stuff, but these days couldn't care less.

For real. For me smartphones are just good enough. They all take nice pictures, they're all fast enough, they all have a nice screen, nice touch controls and nice UI. It just doesn't matter as much anymore. The only thing on here that made me go "oh cool" is the extra dim mode, my 4a really likes scorching my retinas at night.

I stopped caring after Google axed speech recognition when the screen is off on older devices with an update. Now it is a gamble I have to play because of security updates.

IMO, one of the recent updates brought nice feature to AOSP and therefore all vendors: navigation via swipes.

Re: Android 12

#116
post #20

Looks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? >Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...) If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless. Also what important APIs d…

What I want from a grandparent mode is for the app to not show an sign-up announcement screen with every update or at least have that X (close) prominently; Adobe Acrobat Reader is notorious in that regard as they showcase their graphics prowess with fancy 'Sign-up' screen with every update and almost invisible (X) button; Old people who are just trying to open a pdf from the email shouldn't have to put up with this.

Re: Android 12

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really good and has been like forever. You of course have to spend equal amounts as for an iPhone to get a high end experience, and it was like that back then as well. Many people failed to understand this and bought shitty underpowered handhelds, and blamed Android for being laggy.

I had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.

Samsung devices (and I read, Xiaomi devices too, but to a lesser extent) have shitty performance. Yeah, they have excellent specs, but the software is horrible. I know this because Pixels are almost always guaranteed to be extremely fluid, but my comparable S10 suffers from significant stutters and lag.

Re: Android 12

#118
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this has been solved for a while now (at least on pixel devices in my experience)

Performance is still variable on Samsung/Xioami devices in my experience. I have a Samsung S21 which can be really fast one minute and stuttering the next. Possibly it's better on Google's own devices.

highly recommend unless you need knox or some other propritary samsung app. I also wish they would stick with one processor. The exynos vs snapdragon differences are annoying when trying to read reviews or troubleshoot

Re: Android 12

#119
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not alone; Google store is available only in 12 of 27 EU countries (it is not in a single Eastern-European country and neither in Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg and Malta).

While true, the whole point of the EU is the open market. It should be convenient to order from any member country. Not all shops will ship abroad, but buying a smartphone shouldn't pose a problem.

In shops other than Google's, yes.

But Google will tell you they are not in your country, they won't ship there and you can just look:

> We aren’t in your region yet > > You can still browse our products in any of the other regions.

Re: Android 12

#120
post #34

Still no full system backup like iOS

What kind of stuff does iOS back up that Android doesn't? On Android, all of my photos are backed up to Google Photos. Most games use Google Play's cloud save system. All of my notes are in Google Keep or Google Docs (or Notion) which all are backed up in the cloud. Whenever you switch phones, you can easily select a list of all the apps you want to install and _most_ of them have data backed up automatically. I thin…

> I think literally the only stuff on my phone that isn't backed up is local files

And besides downloads, there are many apps that just use local files and that you therefore need to transfert manually. e.g. apps from F-Droid, SMS, Wechat, etc. So even though "many" stuffs are automatically stored in Google servers, you still need a lot of case-by-case manual attention and care when transferring to a new phone.

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