Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One week with the Google Pixel

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 131 posts

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#81

Post by threeseed »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #38
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why else would Android exist than to get people (and their sweet, sweet user data) into the Google ecosystem?

To protect mobile search revenue. I get what you meant, I'm just saying Google doesn't need your location history and your assorted other meta data to profit off you. They just need to ensure Apple can never close the door on search to them.

Google is in competition with Facebook who have tremendous amounts of data available for advertisers to use.

So yes they do feel the need to collect as much data as possible.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#82

Post by s_kilk »

dmcginty wrote: post #75

I've been using Samsung phones for several years (currently still using a Galaxy S6), and my Pixel is supposed to come around the end of the month. Did they really get rid of app badges? That has been a thing for a while, unless I'm not understanding what "badges" are. Also, is the battery life on an iPhone good enough that you don't have to charge it every day. I can't remember owning a smartphone that could go long…

> is the battery life on an iPhone good enough that you don't have to charge it every day

Yup. I have an iPhone 6, and routinely go two days between charges. I can charge it overnight, use it all day, skip a night, all day again, and still have about ~20% charge still left by the time I plug it in the next night before bed.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#83

Post by petercooper »

doubleshadow wrote: post #20

I switched from an iPhone 6+ to the Google Pixel. I've had two problems, but overall love the phone. 1.) The phone is extremely slippery. I don't agree with the author on this one. My old iPhone was way easier to grip, and the iPhone 7 is even better. I bought a case which fixed this issue. 2.) I think this is pretty important. Android apps are second class citizens. A lot of applications don't work properly with And…

I use both Android and iOS and conversely, I think some apps are a lot better on Android due to the UI conventions (esp the "back" mechanism). For example, I find the official Facebook and Twitter clients to be better on Android.

The biggest issue I run into is Android apps are often more resource heavy. Amongst Android users I know, Snapchat is an app you really want to be quitting in between uses to prevent background CPU use.. which gets annoying fast.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#84

Post by voxic11 »

ebbv wrote: post #18
voxic11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook SMS support is client side only. They do not get your texts in any way.

Are you absolutely sure about that? I'd like to believe you but I can't take it on faith. I completely expect Facebook is giving itself some level of info about your SMS messages unless there is some reason they can't.

Trust is the only reason. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are examining the traffic of Facebook apps and someone would make a sink about it if there was evidence they were lieing about their privacy policy. That seems like an adequate assurance for most people but certainly not all.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#85

Post by IshKebab »

visarga wrote: post #36

> For instance, ask it to search for an actor and then ask, “what films has he starred in?” It knows you’re still talking about the same person. Impressive. Yeah, but then you ask it: "What is heavier, a cat or an elephant?" and it fails, because it is lacking in common sense. It only has a small-ish factoid knowledge base and lacks all the general common sense things we take for granted.

True it can't answer logic questions yet. It's never going to pass the Turing test, but it's knowledge-base is actually pretty huge in my experience. Especially because it can more-or-less get facts from web sites. For example "are you more contagious at the start or end of a cold?" gives a useful answer. That's pretty damn impressive.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#86

Post by kinkdr »

Karunamon wrote: post #78
kinkdr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your last statement is a pretty blatant slippery slope fallacy. Which one? In which way is it a fallacy?

"And sooner or later that day will come." You have no specific insight on the behavior of Google's future leadership team, so the assertion that Google will necessarily start abusing their users at some point in the future is unsupported. (Apologies if this is coming off a bit blunt, there's just not much else to say)

You are right.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#87

Post by theswaagar »

josephg wrote: post #80
clumsysmurf wrote: post #6

"3. Deep Google integration - This shouldn’t be surprising in any way, but having Google built into pretty much everything you do on the phone is seriously useful." This is my main sticking point with Android lately. I would much rather have a stock Android OS + device from Google, and then add the few Google services I want. Instead Google is getting more and more baked into everything, and understanding how my data…

I moved from Android to iOS last year for this exact reason. Using android over a few versions felt like a slow slippery slope of access prompts giving permission for google to use ever more personal data about me and my phone. The final straw for me was learning that google uploads and stores audio recordings of everything I've ever said into google now[1]. A year ago when I got my iphone I deleted all of the histor…

If I'm not mistaken doesn't Apple also record and upload everything you've ever said to Siri?

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#88

Post by hellofunk »

theswaagar wrote: post #87
josephg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved from Android to iOS last year for this exact reason. Using android over a few versions felt like a slow slippery slope of access prompts giving permission for google to use ever more personal data about me and my phone. The final straw for me was learning that google uploads and stores audio recordings of everything I've ever said into google now[1]. A year ago when I got my iphone I deleted all of the histor…

If I'm not mistaken doesn't Apple also record and upload everything you've ever said to Siri?

Yes. But it does not have your identity attached to the upload.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#89

Post by uabstraction »

marricks wrote: post #8
clumsysmurf wrote: post #6

"3. Deep Google integration - This shouldn’t be surprising in any way, but having Google built into pretty much everything you do on the phone is seriously useful." This is my main sticking point with Android lately. I would much rather have a stock Android OS + device from Google, and then add the few Google services I want. Instead Google is getting more and more baked into everything, and understanding how my data…

With google stepping away from masking your ad profile it is even more troubling... Apple doesn't get enough praise for protecting user's privacy IMO, or perhaps it's just really something most people don't care about...

Beyond their occasional public stands such as the San Bernardino case, I don't think Apple does enough to market how this is useful to the average end user. In fact, as a free software enthusiast who has never even considered getting an iPhone, the privacy issue has me seriously considering getting one (though not the 7!) when my Nexus 5x succumbs to entropy.

There are a few technical issues I need to work out before I make the change though. First, I need to get macOS running natively on my workstation so I can install my own software on the phone, as I'm not running out to get a MacBook for this single need. Second, I need a root shell.

Re: One week with the Google Pixel

#90

Post by threeseed »

bad_user wrote: post #77
doubleshadow wrote: post #20

I switched from an iPhone 6+ to the Google Pixel. I've had two problems, but overall love the phone. 1.) The phone is extremely slippery. I don't agree with the author on this one. My old iPhone was way easier to grip, and the iPhone 7 is even better. I bought a case which fixed this issue. 2.) I think this is pretty important. Android apps are second class citizens. A lot of applications don't work properly with And…

On number 2 I think that's just your lack of experience with Android apps. Me I've made the switch from Android to an iPhone 6s which I've had for a year already and now I also have an iPad Pro, both received as gifts, as I'm an Android guy :-) And let me tell you, I like Android more because of the apps. Now granted, there are a couple of nice, polished apps on iOS. But there are also entire app categories on iOS th…

Every app you listed is a 'power user' app. Naturally they will be better in Android since the platform is more open in this area.

But in the sort of everyday apps most people use there isn't really a contest. Android lags far behind in overall polish.

Post reply on HN