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Android Oreo

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Re: Android Oreo

#431

Post by pjmlp »

Tehnix wrote: post #405
rubyn00bie wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any facts to back this up? Prior to the iPhone changing how phones were sold-- carriers meddled with everything so they could get their hands in media playback, app sales, feature upgrades etc. I don't think much has changed in this where anyone gives them an inch (which is nearly everyone but Apple). Note: I worked for T-Mobile for four years prior and a little after the originals iphone came out.

Before the iPhone, how prevalent were software updates to phones? I know of no one who ever got had an update. There is absolutely no reason for carriers to need to do anything at all, else it would not make sense that I can change the SIM card out and voila I’m on a new carrier. The manufacturer is the one doing the testing, and the carrier simply provides the infrastructure. I feel US perhaps has a different experi…

Nokia had firmware updates, but only technically savy people would do them.

It was done via the desktop application to manage the phone.

However one would ususally only get bug fixes on the Series 30 and 40.

On Symbian towards the end of it, there were some OS updates still, but usually only once.

Re: Android Oreo

#432

Post by josteink »

ksk wrote: post #93
Karunamon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supposedly the carriers are real pains as well. I've heard horror stories of months-long approvals processes on Verizon and AT&T ROMs. It's a game I wish they'd get out of entirely. There's no such thing as a useful carrier overlay.

Probably because they have to test the ROMs on their network in different regions, with different frequency bands, with roaming, etc. That work is tedious given all of the phones they support.

Do they do all this testing for all GSM phones in the world? All new and old? All GSM phones ever sold?

I guess not. I guess instead they rely on the GSM specification to allow seamless independence between the phone and the carrier for 99.999% of the phones out there (if not more).

So why do they need to "test" the remaining 0.001% when they have a update in user-facing functionality the carrier will never see or interoperate against?

No carrier in Europe does this.

Does your ISP control what OS updates you can download? No. And why should they?

That carriers needs to do testing is a lie perpetuated to allow for customer-hostile business-practices. Stop repeating it.

Re: Android Oreo

#433

Post by shaklee3 »

dingo_bat wrote: post #364
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…

At least they are bringing back PIP. This was such a great regression in N for Samsung users.

PIP somewhat exists already. Some apps, like tinycam already do it.

Re: Android Oreo

#434

Post by arrayjumper »

flukus wrote: post #330
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…

How do tooltips even work on a touch based OS?

In android it works right now on the app toolbar with a long touch of a button for which you want to see the tooltip (if it is programmed right). The text shows up sort of like a toast message.

Re: Android Oreo

#435

Post by hsivonen »

on_and_off wrote: post #172
izacus wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the limited availability of Google Store and Google hardware in general is a huge failing of the company. I really don't understand why they so commonly fail to bring best Android devices to markets with most Android penetration - they're practically giving the market share away to Apple's aggressive price cuts lately.

My understanding is that it is not enough to ship the device to a country, you also need an very large ad push and deals with local operators in order to actually sell it. However, it should be mentioned that the pixel was sold in even less countries than the previous generation .. Google really need to step up its game.

Not having an ad campaign is an extremely poor reason to refuse to ship EU-wide when they ship to Germany. The operator excuse is not valid in the EU. The EU is supposed to be a single market.

Re: Android Oreo

#436

Post by chrismorgan »

jm_l wrote: post #222
ghughes wrote: post #5

The awful scroll hijacking implementation on this page really distracts from the content.

I'd just like to point out that this isn't really "scroll hijacking." You have full control over scrolling on this web page. Rather this is uses what we call a parallax layout ( https://envato.com/blog/parallax-scrolling-in-web-design/ ), which can also be annoying, but is actually not the same as scroll hijacking. (Compare this to the Mac Pro landing page which actually hijacks scrolling https://www.apple.com/mac-pr…

It’s uses scroll-linked effects that are every bit as bad as scrolljacking.

Re: Android Oreo

#437

Post by mrb »

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

That is nuts. I had no idea such a basic feature was so broken on the iPhone.

Re: Android Oreo

#438

Post by curlie »

amiga-workbench wrote: post #62
jampa wrote: post #36

I know this is a non-issue for many, but those emojis look really dated. Every update they get harder and harder to read in small form. One of the things I observe, mainly on Instagram Stories is only people with iOS post with emojis attached, I never see Android ones. Too bad there is no way to install custom emojis in any system (without rooting/registry tweaking), like we do with fonts.

The yellow blobs were adorable, and sidestepped all the identity politics guff associated with the more anthropomorphised styles.

I like them too. Was disappointed to see the latest ones.

Re: Android Oreo

#439

Post by Buge »

fulafel wrote: post #420
sumeno wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty unreasonable desire. Technology changes so much in 10 years that it wouldn't be feasible to support a generation of phones for that long. 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?

There's no rocket science in maintenance support (eg security patches) for 10 years. That's the only thing that is necessary to keep the device usable.

All the apps on the app store will be written assuming more powerful devices with newer API versions.

Re: Android Oreo

#440

Post by hesarenu »

pjmlp wrote: post #168
kevincox wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that it shouldn't be on Google to force them. It should be Google to enable them and the users to "force" them. They have argably been enabled for a while, but Treble is making it even easier. Hopefully this pushes the needle over the line for at least some OEMs/teclos.

In Germany there are quite a few stores still selling budget Android 4.4 and 5.1 devices, which people keep on buying.

You can get a Nougat device for as low as Rs 3500($55) in India. Which would be considered low end mobile.
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