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Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

androidcentral.com

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Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#251

Post by nullc »

kristopolous wrote: post #244
nullc wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law

Yes but these are physical locations, not personal objects. The reason I don't choose a hotel 500 miles away is fairly obvious. This also applies to parking lots for the same reason... I think it's just cargo culting products. Apple made electronics sexy fashion accessories through their marketing, advertising and branding. The problem is the misattribution of their success to the poor choices they have the customer…

> Nobody has said "well thank God my new MacBook has no ports" or "I'm glad my battery isn't removable". The support column for these decisions is empty.

No, but they do say "thank god my device survived being splashed by water" or "I'm happy this teeny tiny thin device doesn't leave an unsightly lump in my pocket"

The de-featuring isn't capricious -- it's a result of optimizing for different tradeoffs. While it would be best for the customers if multiple vendors managed to tile the pareto frontier of feature combinations, allowing us all to pick a product that serves us best, for the vendors bunching up around a single point is a more stable equilibrium.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#252

Post by BoorishBears »

KORraN wrote: post #125
OliveMate wrote: post #75

Hi, (soon to be ex) Pixel 4a user here. Regardless of why this update has happened, the way Google have went about this update is sketchy at best, and deceitful at worst. To be plain: this phone has been EOL for 1½ years now. This update has appeared out of the blue and specifically decimates the battery + charging capabilities. My most charitable view is that Google have found a major fault with the Pixel 4a battery…

Great comment, even though I'm concerned whether my Pixel is a ticking bomb now. The update has been downloaded to my device, but before installing it, I decided to check Reddit and found out the battery issues. Since then, I'm dismissing the update prompt, praying to not miss-click. The article got it wrong - even before the update has been published, Google already sent e-mail to registered users with a note that t…

Google products have consistently been timebombs. I recall the Nexus 7 which had storage that would grind to an unusable halt after a few years.

They don't have the culture or the integration to properly support old devices the way Apple can. Everyone vilified Apple for CPU governers that extended device life by underclocking instead of browning out... this is the kind of behavior that would have deserved the backlash they got.

But the bar is so low with Google and Android devices in general that the outrage will be limited.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#254

Post by StressedDev »

ycombinatrix wrote: post #96
eldaisfish wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense like this is why I personally will never buy a google hardware product ever again. It is also why it is so difficult to recommend an android phone because of google being an advert company first.

apple is an advertising company too. what's the alternative?

Apple is no where near as invasive as Google. Most sites on the Internet phone home to Google. Here are some examples:

https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/ https://news.google.com/swg/js/v1/swg.js - I found these on the Washington Post's web site.

https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/opensans/v20/cJZKeOuBrn4kERxqtaU... https://www.googletagmanager.com/static/service_worker/51n0/... - I found these on New Egg's home page.

https://cm.g.doubleclick.net/pixel?google_nid=a9&google_cm&e... - I found this going to Amazon's home page.

https://www.gstatic.com/recaptcha/releases/I0bG74fWAenNf3Z5n... https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/anchor?ar=1&k=6LetQiEU... https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK.... - I found all of these on democrats.org.

https://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;register_conversion=1;sr...? https://9323526.fls.doubleclick.net/activityi;src=9323526;ty...? https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/anchor?ar=1&k=6LdJ810b... - I found these on www.gop.com.

Basically, Google tracks peopple everywhere. They track what news you read, where you shop, and what political party you support. Apple does none of this. No one tracks people on the Internet like Google. Facebook doesn't. Amazon doesn't. X doesn't. Microsoft doesn't (the own Bing). Apple certainly doesn't.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#255

Post by KORraN »

OliveMate wrote: post #218
ChoGGi wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dev options have a setting to not apply updates on reboot. I'm hoping that'll work if I forget.

I can say from experience that it doesn't. I get daily notifications & popups telling me that I'm X days out of date.

Supposedly, I've removed downloaded update using instructions from https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Pixel_4a_Battery_Perform... - hopefully this will stop popups:

>Users can delete an already downloaded (and not yet installed) update: Settings -> Apps -> All Apps -> Google Play Services -> Storage and cache -> Manage Space and from there on delete all data through the "Clear all data" button.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#256

Post by kristopolous »

nullc wrote: post #251
kristopolous wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but these are physical locations, not personal objects. The reason I don't choose a hotel 500 miles away is fairly obvious. This also applies to parking lots for the same reason... I think it's just cargo culting products. Apple made electronics sexy fashion accessories through their marketing, advertising and branding. The problem is the misattribution of their success to the poor choices they have the customer…

> Nobody has said "well thank God my new MacBook has no ports" or "I'm glad my battery isn't removable". The support column for these decisions is empty. No, but they do say "thank god my device survived being splashed by water" or "I'm happy this teeny tiny thin device doesn't leave an unsightly lump in my pocket" The de-featuring isn't capricious -- it's a result of optimizing for different tradeoffs. While it woul…

I've never bought that argument. Apple wanted to sell high margin accessories that get broken, lost and replaced often because people hold on to their devices about 4 years now instead of the 1-2 from 10 years ago.

I use a panasonic wired headphone with a mic, $10. Airpods are $200. They wanted to increase their costs and frequency of purchase by hiding it behind accessories with higher profits and shorter longevity than the primary device.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#257

Post by izacus »

tristor wrote: post #191

Stuff like this is part of why I stick with iPhone. The Pixel 4A stopped receiving security updates just 3 years after release, and rather than being direct about what battery changes were made and providing reasonable pathways for people to replace batteries, this happens. Apple does stupid and shady stuff too, it is certainly not perfect, but Google has always had a cultural attitude permeating their organization s…

Apple literally did the exact same thing with limiting battery limits on iPhone 6 and got sued for it. C'mon.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#258

Post by izacus »

marcan@ took a look at this update here: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/113914172433692339

It seems like it limits max charge voltage on one exact model of the battery to much lower limit. I bet there's a reason for it and reverting the change most likely isn't the smartest for safety.

What I don't get is why Google just doesn't come out and say it.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#259

Post by toast0 »

Zak wrote: post #236
toast0 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Headphone jacks in phones are (sadly) gone forever i'm afraid. Maybe from Google phones, for now? Possibly on smaller phones. But Best Buy sells 7 models with 5g and a headphone jack. There's almost certainly more if you shop a retailer with more variety, using Best Buy because they have decent filtering. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-...

GSMArena has a great parametric search: https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3 Unfortunately, unlockable bootloader isn't one of the parameters available, and I consider it essential.

I like the parametric search, but searching a US retailer helps me focus on phones that are reasonable to source and use in the US. I could manage when GSM was two bands in the US, and usually two bands overseas and if you wanted a really neat phone you hoped it was quad band or at least tri band, because the really neat phones that were dual band were dual band on EU frequencies... now GSM Arena inevitably points me at phones intended for use in Japan and usually have a pretty poor match up with bands I'm likely to use while remaining flexible for use on other carriers in case it becomes a hand me down and the recipient isn't on the same carrier as me.

Re: Google Pixel 4a's old firmware is gone, trapping users on buggy battery update

#260

Post by dzaima »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #212
jennyholzer wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This has been solved" is an arrogant way to put it.

Only if it hasn't actually been solved. LTS releases resolve the conflict between providing a stable system that receives only security updates and separately maintaining dozens of separate branches.

And now instead of having a small update every now and then that you can perhaps try to adapt to, you have a massive update every 5 years or whatever (or less if you happened to start out just before the next LTS) that'll basically guaranteed wreck everything (by design even!!) and for all intents and purposes might as well not exist cause there's no way you're upgrading to the horrible "new" mess. And we're back at people being stuck on outdated software, but now there's just absolutely no way whatsoever you'll get them to upgrade.

Never mind the problem of if you started out on a non-LTS version.

And also the problem of not getting the actually nice updates, and perhaps losing app compatibility.

So, no, not solved at all.

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