Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#551

Post by HALtheWise » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

fouc wrote: post #525

talldan wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one thing that's handy about having it on the front, which is that the phone doesn't have to be picked up to unlock it. It's quite nice being able to read a message on my phone without picking it up from my desk. But on the other hand, it is definitely more comfortable unlocking it from the back while holding it. Maybe phones should have both!

Would be neat if there was a way to set the phone to stay unlocked for as long as it is stationary.

Pixel devices (at least previous ones) supported the inverse of this, where you could set the phone to remain unlocked until it was left stationary on a table. The theory is that (for some people) the most common reason to lose a phone is leaving it behind laying on a table, and it can safely stay unlocked as long as it's in your pocket.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#552

Post by 1_player » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:23 AM UTC

seoulmetro wrote: post #399

1_player wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All big companies are adopting this kind of behaviour: show we're inclusive by having as few white heterosexual men as possible. We're still decades away from racial and sexual integration and equality.

Which is a shame since we were getting very close for a while there.

We have never been very close to integration.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#553

Post by modeless » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:27 AM UTC

MikeBVaughn wrote: post #111

What is the warranty experience like on earlier Pixels? I've heard some bad things about Google's consumer-electronics-side customer service, but I don't know how representative those stories are. I dislike iOS, but AppleCare+ is the one thing that tempts me to go back to iPhones. If, after spending my entire work day writing code and fixing bugs, I have a problem with my phone, being able to say "you know, screw it,…

I've done 3 or 4 Pixel RMAs and device protection plan replacements in the past few years. The good news is that it's relatively easy to convince them to replace the phone. I've never had a problem getting a replacement, even multiple times for the same issue. The bad news is that communicating with them is infuriating. In one case they were so incompetent that two different reps separately sent me replacement phones. And when I called them trying to return the extra phone they were totally unable to process the situation. I eventually gave up wasting my time trying to convince them that I should return the extra phone and just kept it (gave it to a friend). Luckily they were too incompetent to charge me for it.

The other bad news is that the Pixel 2 XL and Pixel 4 XL both had issues warranting RMA and the RMAs did not totally fix the issues because these were design defects, and the replacements also exhibited them to varying degrees. Speaker buzzing for Pixel 2 XL, and back glass detaching over time on Pixel 4 XL.

I'm still buying Pixel 6, but if it doesn't have an RMA-worthy design defect it'll be the first one since Pixel 1.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#554

Post by wyldfire » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:28 AM UTC

octodog wrote: post #550

standardUser wrote: post #513

I couldn't wait any longer so I purchased a very expensive Samsung S21 Ultra ($1200) because no Google phone could lure me away from my fading Pixel 2 XL. My mistake, because the Samsung phone had preloaded software that took considerable effort to remove (more than most people could/would deal with). It wasn't the software itself that bothered me, but rather that there were notifications for apps I don't use that I…

What apps are you referring to? Bixby? I've also got the S21 and never get Bixby notifications once I switched them off.

I don't know what these are but if they're objectionable enough for both of you to have turned them off it's likely that they should have been opt-in.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#555

Post by 101011 » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:31 AM UTC

mithr wrote: post #545

Not knocking these phones at all -- I'm sure they're great -- but I found it genuinely hilarious that in 2021, one of the features Google chose to highlight, in the main, big "The reimagined Google phones" section, under "An all‑new Pixel experience" is "...and checks your spelling as you type."

I wonder how much money on market research went into that.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#556

Post by koyote » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:32 AM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #530

LegitShady wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did notice that - even though I'm using a pixel 3a now I'm waiting for full reviews and some understanding of why they embargoed the phone reviews before deciding to buy.

Same here. Still rocking my Pixel 3 even though the USB C port is hosed and I can only wirelessly charge. :/

This might be a long shot, but I once thought my USB-C port was broken but it turned out that all that happened was that fluff and dust/dirt was lodged inside and the cable no longer went in all the way.

The fix was to slowly scrape all the fluff out with a needle (I am sure there are better ways).

This is of course assuming your issue isn't anything electronic.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#557

Post by xxpor » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:36 AM UTC

gniv wrote: post #433

fomine3 wrote: post #404

Pixel 6 207g weight is horrible. Pixel 5 is just 151g so this is huge jump. I wish smartphone manufacturers stop adding unnecessary weights for premium (like glass back). Pixel 6 Pro 210g is fine compared to non-Pro.

Agree, but a lot of people seem to not care. The iPhone 13 pro is 204g. The max is 240g.

I've literally never contemplated the weight of my phone, if I'm honest.

The screen size sure, but never the weight.

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#558

Post by EastOfTruth » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

whichquestion wrote: post #49

DCKing wrote: post #20

Thanks Google. Think I’ll be buying this. I want as little to do with Google’s services as possible in my life, but they really deserve credits for making a modern usable smartphone that is reasonably open. There is just one single feature I will be buying this for - the 5 years of software updates. While good image processing is definitely a pro, all of these software you’re presenting features I really don’t give a…

5 years of security updates, 3 years of feature updates. On the page it says on the 12th footnote, "Feature drops for at least 3 years from when the device first became available on the Google Store in the US. Your Pixel will receive feature drops during the applicable Android update and support periods for the phone. See g.co/pixel/updates for details." On https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705 it says…

> 5 years of security updates, 3 years of feature updates.

It would be nice to have 8 years of security updates and 0 years of feature updates, instead. I always dreamed of having the option to only have security updates on my OSes...

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#559

Post by tehnub » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:37 AM UTC

fisherjeff wrote: post #521

tehnub wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why they require that you reach a certain threshold number of matches before its sent for human review. The threshold allows them to take the probability of a false collision, which they can estimate from data, and set the probability of an overall false-flag by requiring a certain number of these collisions. They've released that the threshold, to start, would have been 30 (Page 10 of https://www.apple.com/ch…

They mention a “very conservative false positive rate” - doesn’t 1/trillion imply that they used 1 / (1e12 ^ (1/30)) = ~40% as the false positive rate? If so, that does seem extremely conservative to me!

A 40% false collision probability would give an overall false flag probability of 1/trillion only if you had exactly 30 photos in your library, and thus all 30 had to be false collisions. The calculation gets a little more complicated if you have more, because you have to account for all the possibilities of combinations of 30+ false collisions among N photos, for N > 30. I wrote out the calculation in a comment from when this was being discussed a few months back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28174822.

On page 10 of the paper I linked though, they state that they assume a false collision probability of 1/million, which is more conservative than the 3 in 100 million false collisions they saw in their tests. The way they chose 30 as the threshold is based on the safeguarding assumption that everyone's photo library is larger than the actual largest library. This is safeguarding because the more photos you have, the more likely you are to have collisions. Copying from my previous comment, we can compute their photo library size assumption by solving for N in this equation: 1/trillion = 1 - sum_{k=0}^{29} of (N choose k) (1 - p)^k p^(N - k), where p is 1/million (the probability of a false collision).

Re: Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro

#560

Post by ablekh » Wed, Oct 20, 2021, 4:42 AM UTC

DCKing wrote: post #535

soylentnewsorg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One doesn't have to dream. Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it. The Nexus 6 from 2014 can have the latest android running on it - not just security updates. And unlike an iphone, it has a build that disables some eyecandy that keeps it actually usable and fast. As I understand it if you run the last supported ios on an iphone 5s, with all th…

That’s all great - but don’t lure people too much into a false sense of security. While your Nexus 6 may run a shiny new version of Android, underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes. The community is great, but vendor support remains important. LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile - they can only provide security updates for open source compon…

> underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes

> LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile

I think that you're wrong on this, that is unless you decided to use term "kernel" above too liberally, referring to all software running on a device. AFAIK, alternative Android images, such as LineageOS, include relevant - and quite up-to-date! - AOSP common kernels (aka Android common kernels or ACKs; https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro...), which are open source, plus some manufacturer-specific proprietary binary drivers and firmware (though there exist a related, but slowly-moving, project Replicant focused on creating and maintaining a fully open, i.e., kernel + drivers + firmware, Android distribution: https://replicant.us).