181–190 of 658 posts
Would be nice if they added a switch to disable connecting to open wifi networks. Or at least to realize that the wifi is connected but its waiting for a sign in so internet traffic should still be routed through 4g.
At least my 4.x tablet used to have a 3-state wifi icon, off (not present), connected (gray), internet (blue).
The most interesting part is the way they are planning on tackling fragmentation in O onwards with Project Treble [0] If your device ships with O it should be running an immutable semantically versioned HAL. In essence you should be able to be able to flash AOSP on every new device. No matter what the vendor does. Edit: I can see it now, in the technical specs of each device you will see a list of HAL Versions. The n…
So you'll still be vulnerable to kernel bugs but most everything else will get regular updates? A bit better I suppose.
lately I have been been wishing there is a way I can just run some version of linux like debian/fedora on my phone and be able to run apt-get update and upgrade (or yum) as updates are released.
IIRC it cost $600, and technically it does more than I need, but the fact I am becoming more and more concerned that security updates are not being received is making me call into question I actually want a 'smart' phone.
I understand android is based on linux but it is above my head to compile this realease on my own and it is difficult for me to trust rooting the device if there was an option to install oreo on htcone m8 with my 'old' chipset.
any thoughts? did I miss any truely 'free' linux smartphone OS that I would be able to use?
Not saying that everything else is bad, but one thing that strikes me is how much they have run out of interesting things now that they had to use fillers[1] like: Tooltips Support for tooltips (small popup windows with descriptive text) for views and menu items. Normally, this would be relegated to a git changelog in the support library. But this is on the global marketing landing page. I like to imagine a fictional…
The awful scroll hijacking implementation on this page really distracts from the content.
Android has really been annoying me lately. Maybe I didn't care before but now that I can't root my phone I am forced to deal with it. Still can't disable or customize to stupid "share" menu that puts you one click away from accidentally sending something to a stranger you contacted once on sms or facebook messenger or email. Still can't revoke certain permissions from apps (like vibration). There is zero reason why…
Seen the same kind of reasoning play out in other contexts where user customization has been curtailed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vertical integration has its advantages. Also, due to people buying new phones every 6 months those seem to be the two things that disincentivze Android phone makers to not do those things.
You can change that: don't buy a new phone every six months, and buy from a maker that supports your phone longer. Maybe you cannot get the latest, but when you support the companies that support their phones for more than a few months you support that business model which in turn ensures that someone who updates their phones exists. You might have to leave the major names behind, and might have to skip a few feature…
I cannot change that. The ~5,000 I have spent on smartphones and laptops in the past 10 years is hardly enough. My buying choice, yours, and the GP's are just not strong and valuable enough to cause a manufacturer to pander to our desires.
The economies of scale and the greater money available from the opposite are so bad that no one even makes an expensive phone to capture our tiny segment of the market. They all chase the thinner, glued-up, bloatware-filled, non-repairable, closed-source, 2-year-or-less buyers. Same story on laptops.
In fact, my purchases seem to have the opposite effect: the Nexus is now as expensive as any other flagship. Motorola's cheap stock Android phone line shut down. LG stopped installing removable batteries. MacBook Pros still have nice hardware, but they are completely glued up. Thinkpads still have crappy stock screens.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The catch is that you can buy an Apple phone everywhere, but for instance Google decided simply to not offer the Pixel in my country. Also, they stopped updating my Nexus 4 long time ago, something that Apple does not with their devices. Hence, I am not "succumbing to Google marketing" again. I have now updated to a Moto, which used to be a Google company. Let's see how long it takes to update...
I would really like to see Google take Oreo as an opportunity to set an example and push the pixel 2 with something like 10 years of support. I am not holding my breath though
10 years ago was the original iPhone. How much of a money sink would it have been for Apple to support the original iPhone until now?
"new emoji" is an OS-level feature now. Welcome to 2017.
> "new emoji" is an OS-level feature now. System fonts have been an OS-level feature since the advent of OS with bundled GUI. Support of a larger part of the Unicode space in system fonts has been an OS-level feature since Unicode. New emoji has been a visible aspect of that, especially on mobile, for quite some time.
So according to the release the new features are: -Picture in picture (dual app onscreen) -Notification dots and "force-touch-like-feature" (my words, not Google's) to preview -Google Play Protect (an antivirus) [0] -Minimize unintentional overuse of battery from apps in the background -Faster boot speed -Support forAndroid Instant Apps -Over 60 new emoji (sic) Under the hood stuff, not in the release (thanks u/izaku…