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Android Oreo

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Re: Android Oreo

#391

Post by nevir »

tauntz wrote: post #343
kllrnohj wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually got some decent cheers at Google I/O iirc, it's bigger than it sounds at first. It's scaling the font size of the text to fit the available space, which is a fairly unique twist and is great for localization efforts (looking at you, German...)

Don't get me wrong, the feature itself is indeed useful. It's just that its so.. minor. If you ever wanted to implement this in your app then there are multiple ready-made solutions for this or you could write your own in a short amount of time. Presenting this as one of the key new features in a major new OS versions seems just strange.. like there wasn't anything else substantial.

It's really hard to do well, and in a performant manner. I'm glad they built it.

Measuring glyphs, dealing with reflow, kerning, whitespace breaking rules, etc is no fun

Re: Android Oreo

#392

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

Don't let the project treble eclipse the limitations imposed over background services,

Android seems to have taken iOS approach towards saving power,

"When an app goes into the background, it has a window of several minutes in which it is still allowed to create and use services"

Though iOS's background restrictions goes up to socket level (e.g VPN, which android O seems to have whitelisted entirely); this is going to be a huge impact over consumers and of course pain in the * for developers.

Re: Android Oreo

#393

Post by dlubarov »

dcow wrote: post #281
mjevans wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to do that, but when I 'exit' an app and/or swipe it off of the list of program cards I want it to ACTUALLY exit (at least within 30 seconds).

What if that app is say and open source messenger app that doesn't use GCM/FCM. For that to work you need to maintain a connection with a remote service. You don't need the UI hogging memory the whole time but you definitely want messages to come in immediately. IMO the system should offer a way to completely kill and app but "killing the UI" should not stop critical services utilized by the app. Okay so maybe you co…

There is a way to kill an app process, but it's in Setting and takes several clicks. I think it's for the best that killing isn't easier, because users don't generally know the implications of killing an app. In Square's Register app for example, force killing the process could prevent the app from uploading important payment data in a timely fashion.

Re: Android Oreo

#394

Post by wingerlang »

kllrnohj wrote: post #226
tauntz wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Noticed the same but for a different item in the changelog. "TextView autosizing" - it's such a minor thing and could well be a minor changelog item in the support library update..

That actually got some decent cheers at Google I/O iirc, it's bigger than it sounds at first. It's scaling the font size of the text to fit the available space, which is a fairly unique twist and is great for localization efforts (looking at you, German...)

That got some internal cheers in my company(s Android team) as well.

Re: Android Oreo

#395

Post by seanp2k2 »

selectodude wrote: post #179
victorhooi wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from what Ironlink said below, there's also the fact that Google and Apple support mean different things. For Apple, updates often mean some subset of the full operating system updates, or a crippled version. Whereas Google updates tend to be all of nothing - meaning if your phone does get the update, it gets all of the features of that particular version. This seems to have changed somewhat with moving a lot o…

I’m fine with receiving years and years of security updates. I paid for the features I got. Anything new is a bonus. But an up to date secure OS is non-negotiable.

If it's non-negotiable for you, you have a choice: Google phones or Apple phones. Everything else is out, unless you want to try your luck with stuff like LineageOS and hope that they support your device for whatever timeframe you consider reasonable.

Re: Android Oreo

#396

Post by seanp2k2 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #333
kyle-rb wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nexus line are the phones that are manufactured by various other device makers. I think the Pixel is actually made directly by Google.

The Pixel is made by HTC.

But we still don't know (do we?) who made that pixel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromebook_Pixel

Re: Android Oreo

#397

Post by robert_foss »

sitepodmatt wrote: post #386
dcomp wrote: post #108

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…

Android have been promising to finally tackle fragmentation in every release since KitKat. It seems people have a very short memory.

The code speaks for itself. Any Android implementation is now split in two halfs, one which is easily replaced and one which is not.

If vendors choose to not use this feature it is on them.

Re: Android Oreo

#398

Post by Nition »

mjevans wrote: post #148
JorgeGT wrote: post #118

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...

Reflect for a moment; what was the 'new' price of the Nexus 4 vs the 'new' price of the iPhone at the time? A Nexus 4 was a 2012 phone with 2GB ram, and 8GB storage (entry model) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_4 An iPhone 5 is the comparable year device. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_5 It had entry specs of only 1GB of RAM, but 16GB of storage. The apps would also be native binaries instead of 'java' apps…

The iPhone 5C with 8GB storage is still supported by Apple. Although not for much longer as it won't support iOS 11, and the OS takes up almost half the space on the phone.

Re: Android Oreo

#399

Post by [deleted] »

weberc2 wrote: post #315
rdsubhas wrote: post #141

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…

To be fair, I have an iPhone and I'm still waiting for the "remotely sane text selection" feature to ship. Just in case you think this is hyperbole: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhWz7rMj56Y

[deleted]

Re: Android Oreo

#400

Post by bschwindHN »

underwater wrote: post #292
koolba wrote: post #204

Does Google pay these candy companies to use the name or do they pay Google? There's obviously some contractual relationship but I can't figure out who's on which end of it.

I've never understood why they'd want to associate the brand with cheap candy. Ice Cream Sandwich used to evoke thoughts of sticky fingers and an over indulgence of sugar.

I don't think people really care all that much to be honest.
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