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[Android] Thread v. 2018: Pixel 6 is out. Google might be bad at phones.

12467102

Posts

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    edited March 2018
    Yes, at a technical level both Android Pay and Samsung Pay (and Apple Pay) are more secure than an actual credit card.

    The reason Android and Apple Pay are more secure is because they generate one time use tokens, and that's what authenticates. Even with the chip, it's still transmitting your actual card and information to the machine, contactless payments do not do that. A token is generated, the machine talks to the bank and compares to make sure that the token matches, and that's it. The machine never actually gets account information. It's brilliant. EDIT: just to clarify the chip and pin is still tokenized to an extent, but because it's a physical thing that still has to interact with a physical reader, it is significantly easier to steal than a contactless NFC based method. Most cards issued now in Canada even have contactless built into the card itself because of this. I actually don't use android pay as often as I thought because my actual card already does tap to pay anyway.

    The funny thing is that outside of the US, Samsung Pay is almost 100% irrelevant. Almost every other developed country in the world has moved past swipe and sign years ago. It is all chip and pin. Hell here in Canada if your card has a chip in it (which is literally ever card issued now) the machine won't even *accept* a swipe. It'll tell you to use the chip. The magnetic stripe on our cards and readers exists only to facilitate compatibility if we travel to the US.

    wunderbar on
    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    MichaelLC wrote: »
    What's different with Samsung Pay?

    It works on any credit card reader, because it uses a magnetic field generator to mimic the magnetic stripe of the credit card. So it's not just limited to card readers that support ____Pay, or even ones that have touchless readers.

    Ah neat!

    That would freak people out. Just watch or for super old fashioned places that want to do a carbon imprint of your phone.

  • SirToastySirToasty Registered User regular
    wunderbar wrote: »
    Yes, at a technical level both Android Pay and Samsung Pay (and Apple Pay) are more secure than an actual credit card.

    The reason Android and Apple Pay are more secure is because they generate one time use tokens, and that's what authenticates. Even with the chip, it's still transmitting your actual card and information to the machine, contactless payments do not do that. A token is generated, the machine talks to the bank and compares to make sure that the token matches, and that's it. The machine never actually gets account information. It's brilliant. EDIT: just to clarify the chip and pin is still tokenized to an extent, but because it's a physical thing that still has to interact with a physical reader, it is significantly easier to steal than a contactless NFC based method. Most cards issued now in Canada even have contactless built into the card itself because of this. I actually don't use android pay as often as I thought because my actual card already does tap to pay anyway.

    The funny thing is that outside of the US, Samsung Pay is almost 100% irrelevant. Almost every other developed country in the world has moved past swipe and sign years ago. It is all chip and pin. Hell here in Canada if your card has a chip in it (which is literally ever card issued now) the machine won't even *accept* a swipe. It'll tell you to use the chip. The magnetic stripe on our cards and readers exists only to facilitate compatibility if we travel to the US.

    It's like this in the US too. I've actually swiped my card once in the past few months. Everywhere but like 2 places I go are chip equipped and many more are adding contactless.

  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field njRegistered User regular
    Where I am (New Jersey) there are still a good many swipe-only readers. Especially in smaller bodegas, movie theaters, and vending machines. Most of the bigger store chains (grocery stores, drug stores, etc) are all on chip readers now, but I'm actually seeing fewer NFC-equipped terminals lately.

    Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    Also, your credit card isn't secure against someone just taking a picture or video of what your card looks like and grabbing the numbers that way.

  • furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    I just splurged for my birthday and bought a refurbished Samsung Gear S2 3g from Amazon for 120. I guess I am going to be a fancy watch lad now! It had free 2 day shipping so it should get here either Saturday or Sunday. Very excited.

    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Just upgraded to Oreo on my Note 8.....can I go back to Nougat?

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Just upgraded to Oreo on my Note 8.....can I go back to Nougat?

    That bad, huh? :confused:

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    While the answer technically isn't "no" the difficulty/risk in trying to downgrade makes rolling back not feasible.

    what issues are you having? it's been fine on my S8+

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    My only complaint so far is the lock screen notifications are a bit screwy. I use PocketCasts, and the only way I can start a podcast that's paused is by unlocking the phone. I used to be able to just drag from the top on the lock screen.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • BlazeFireBlazeFire Registered User regular
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    My only complaint so far is the lock screen notifications are a bit screwy. I use PocketCasts, and the only way I can start a podcast that's paused is by unlocking the phone. I used to be able to just drag from the top on the lock screen.

    That seems weird. On my 5X, when PocketCasts is paused I can start it from the lock screen. Do you get any notifications on the lock screen (there is an option to disable them all)?

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    looking at the lockscreen notification options on my GS8, it's likely you have "hide content" and/or "Notification icons only" turned on for lock screen notifications. with those you won't be able to control pocket casts (or anything) from the lock screen.

    Personally, I have both of those on because the entire point of a lock screen is that so no one can see notifications. In my opinion, it seems pointless to have a lock screen if your notifications are let through for the world to see.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • BlazeFireBlazeFire Registered User regular
    edited April 2018
    misread a post

    BlazeFire on
  • RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    The missus and I both have Nexus 5X phones we initially purchased via Project Fi back in late 2015. I'm now on my third of these and she's on her second; all three dead phones fell victim to the eventual bootloop problem that plagues that processor. While Google has been nothing but helpful in getting us our replacements, it definitely feels like our phones are paperweights-in-waiting, and I don't really think they'll be eager to replace them again now that it's been 2+ years since our initial purchase.

    So when the missus links me a Project Fi deal where the Moto X4 is marked down to $250, and furthermore if you buy two of them you get a $250 Project Fi credit, and then when I find out that Project Fi will give us $70 each for our Nexus 5Xs in trade-in... that's mighty damn tempting. I did some reading into the Moto X4 and it feels like it's in the same place the Nexus 5X phone was two years ago; namely, mid-range pricing with solid features and the Google UI Experience.

    Does anyone have any experience with that phone? I know at least that it's still got a headphone jack :rotate:

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    The X4 was supposed to be a pretty solid midrange phone, and hasn't had significant complaints.

    The one downside will be that the camera on the X4 will probably be a step below that 5X.

    If google is literally willing to give you money/credit and also a phone, I'd say go nuts.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    I seem to remember one person on here who had a bad experience (i.e. hardware problems) with their X4, but I've only ever seen that one.

    Honestly, for a deal like that, where you're essentially getting two phones for $100, I think it's worth the jump.

    If you have a bad experience, you can likely get refurbed or used Pixels (1st gen) for a reasonable price.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    [Seinfeld]So what's the deal with[/Seinfeld] me getting those spam virus pop-ups while browsing on Chrome? Recently wiped.

    Moto Droid, Verizon. 7.1. Doesn't happen on every site, but enough that I'm not sure if it's my phone or the website. For example, familyhandyman.com gave me a 3/4 screen warning about virus or some shit that was clearly fake. Get them on giantbomb.com as well.

    Is it my phone or the sites? Anything I can do to stop them?

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    It's probably bad code getting injected into their ad networks. Nothing you can do on Android Chrome because they won't let us run extensions. If you don't need the saved history/etc, you can use the Samsung Browser, which has ad-block support, or Firefox.

  • CormacCormac Registered User regular
    That's a hell of a deal for the X4's. So long as you're ok with another mid-range phone I doubt you're going to find anything cheaper that's anywhere near as good.

    FWIW, you can use almost any phone on Project Fi so long as you already have a Fi device to activate a SIM card. I'm using a OnePlus 5T on Fi and it works fine. Yes, I'm locked to the T-Mobile network, voicemail comes through but always gives me an error message as a text message, and you lose some of the really nice Fi features. I can deal with the quirks when my bill is under $30 per month.

    Steam: Gridlynk | PSN: Gridlynk | FFXIV: Jarvellis Mika
  • ShadowfireShadowfire Vermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered User regular
    BlazeFire wrote: »
    Shadowfire wrote: »
    My only complaint so far is the lock screen notifications are a bit screwy. I use PocketCasts, and the only way I can start a podcast that's paused is by unlocking the phone. I used to be able to just drag from the top on the lock screen.

    That seems weird. On my 5X, when PocketCasts is paused I can start it from the lock screen. Do you get any notifications on the lock screen (there is an option to disable them all)?

    While it's playing a podcast, I can pause, play, or skip forward and back. The controls are there. But if I pause the podcast and let the screen turn off, turning it back on removes the controls for PocketCasts. I have to unlock the phone again to see the controls in the notifications.

    WiiU: Windrunner ; Guild Wars 2: Shadowfire.3940 ; PSN: Bradcopter
  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    Does the S9 type real slow for anyone else?

  • emp123emp123 Registered User regular
    So I have a 5x and I've had this issue that crops up every once in a while where the phone will basically shutdown without being told to shut down and the only way to get it to turn back on is to either wait some random amount of time (typically hours later) or force it to boot to the bootloader or whatever it's called when you hit volume down and the power button.

    Is this the bootloader issue?

  • RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    emp123 wrote: »
    So I have a 5x and I've had this issue that crops up every once in a while where the phone will basically shutdown without being told to shut down and the only way to get it to turn back on is to either wait some random amount of time (typically hours later) or force it to boot to the bootloader or whatever it's called when you hit volume down and the power button.

    Is this the bootloader issue?

    "wait some random amount of time" certainly sounds like the bootloop issue (you're letting the processor cool down.) On the other hand, in my experience, once the bootloops start it's impossible to get back into the OS.

    How long have you had it, and was it new or refurbished? We just got rid of ours, upgraded to the Moto X4 with the 2-for-1 deal going on currently. Which I just came to the thread to post about; this is a thoroughly sufficient upgrade/replacement, I'm enjoying it a fair bit.

  • emp123emp123 Registered User regular
    Rius wrote: »
    emp123 wrote: »
    So I have a 5x and I've had this issue that crops up every once in a while where the phone will basically shutdown without being told to shut down and the only way to get it to turn back on is to either wait some random amount of time (typically hours later) or force it to boot to the bootloader or whatever it's called when you hit volume down and the power button.

    Is this the bootloader issue?

    "wait some random amount of time" certainly sounds like the bootloop issue (you're letting the processor cool down.) On the other hand, in my experience, once the bootloops start it's impossible to get back into the OS.

    How long have you had it, and was it new or refurbished? We just got rid of ours, upgraded to the Moto X4 with the 2-for-1 deal going on currently. Which I just came to the thread to post about; this is a thoroughly sufficient upgrade/replacement, I'm enjoying it a fair bit.

    I've had it since Februaryish 2016, saw got an email about $150 off a Pixel 2 and I know my friend got like $500 for his out of warranty 5x due to the bootloop issue and thought hmm maybe I can get a cheap upgrade.

  • RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    Yeah, you might want to be thinking of moving on, then, as the wife and I just did. Every 5x out there is a paperweight in waiting, the only question is when.

  • FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    By the way, I've figured out that I think the keyboard software just doesn't play nice with Vanilla. Sometimes.

  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Refurb Pixel on Woot.com today. My 5X was getting nervous.

  • BlazeFireBlazeFire Registered User regular
    My 5x is really starting to show its age. I'm trying to drag it out until the pixel 3s are announced before I make any decisions.

  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field njRegistered User regular
    Anyone else been having issues with the YouTube app randomly locking up or refusing to load videos, or stalling in the middle of downloads? When it happens it doesn't even fix itself when I close out the app manually. Only rebooting my phone works. It's gotten to the point that it's happening several times a day. Samsung S8+

    Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • ChaosHatChaosHat Hop, hop, hop, HA! Trick of the lightRegistered User regular
    wunderbar wrote: »
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    The rotation thing is amazing. I love it. The gesture nav is just OKAY. I think the implementation on my wife's iPhone X is better. The back button still being there is really annoying too. It also doesn't play nice with Nova Launcher in terms of double swiping up to go to the app drawer.

    The redesigned recents drawer is much better. I kind of don't like the new sound options panel. Sometimes I do want my ring volume to be different and it's not very convenient. It does look nicer though.

  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    The rotation thing is amazing. I love it. The gesture nav is just OKAY. I think the implementation on my wife's iPhone X is better. The back button still being there is really annoying too. It also doesn't play nice with Nova Launcher in terms of double swiping up to go to the app drawer.

    The redesigned recents drawer is much better. I kind of don't like the new sound options panel. Sometimes I do want my ring volume to be different and it's not very convenient. It does look nicer though.

    the problem google has with the back button is that Android has literally had it since 1.0 so every app is written to take advantage of that, and there's no easy way to just change that on a dime. What probably happens is what happened with the menu button. It gets deprecated but still needs to exist, and more apps will be redesigned to use the gesture navigation, but some apps might always need the back button. and keeping it in the bottom nav bar keeps us from having situations where you end up having to have this.

    s8a02o4k8vhe.jpg

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • ThisThis Registered User regular
    Personally I like physical/capacitative home+navigation buttons. Screen-based ones just don't feel as good and they can bug out in a way hardware ones tend not to. Sucks that pretty much all flagships have dropped them.

  • CormacCormac Registered User regular
    I've been using the navigation gestures on my OnePlus 5T and they work really well. It took a little getting use to the slide and hold to open recent apps, but being able to go back from either side of the screen is really convenient.

    Steam: Gridlynk | PSN: Gridlynk | FFXIV: Jarvellis Mika
  • ChaosHatChaosHat Hop, hop, hop, HA! Trick of the lightRegistered User regular
    edited May 2018
    wunderbar wrote: »
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    The rotation thing is amazing. I love it. The gesture nav is just OKAY. I think the implementation on my wife's iPhone X is better. The back button still being there is really annoying too. It also doesn't play nice with Nova Launcher in terms of double swiping up to go to the app drawer.

    The redesigned recents drawer is much better. I kind of don't like the new sound options panel. Sometimes I do want my ring volume to be different and it's not very convenient. It does look nicer though.

    the problem google has with the back button is that Android has literally had it since 1.0 so every app is written to take advantage of that, and there's no easy way to just change that on a dime. What probably happens is what happened with the menu button. It gets deprecated but still needs to exist, and more apps will be redesigned to use the gesture navigation, but some apps might always need the back button. and keeping it in the bottom nav bar keeps us from having situations where you end up having to have this.

    My complaint is not that the functionality exists, it SHOULD exist and I think it's better than the iPhone option of not having it at all. It's that the button exists. Why don't they make it a swipe from center to left (basically a reverse of the new quick app switch gesture, the old double tap recents) to go back and remove the button from hanging out there. You gestured everything else BUT that? It just looks ugly and lopsided.

    ChaosHat on
  • wunderbarwunderbar What Have I Done? Registered User regular
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    The rotation thing is amazing. I love it. The gesture nav is just OKAY. I think the implementation on my wife's iPhone X is better. The back button still being there is really annoying too. It also doesn't play nice with Nova Launcher in terms of double swiping up to go to the app drawer.

    The redesigned recents drawer is much better. I kind of don't like the new sound options panel. Sometimes I do want my ring volume to be different and it's not very convenient. It does look nicer though.

    the problem google has with the back button is that Android has literally had it since 1.0 so every app is written to take advantage of that, and there's no easy way to just change that on a dime. What probably happens is what happened with the menu button. It gets deprecated but still needs to exist, and more apps will be redesigned to use the gesture navigation, but some apps might always need the back button. and keeping it in the bottom nav bar keeps us from having situations where you end up having to have this.

    My complaint is not that the functionality exists, it SHOULD exist and I think it's better than the iPhone option of not having it at all. It's that the button exists. Why don't they make it a swipe from center to left (basically a reverse of the new quick app switch gesture, the old double tap recents) to go back and remove the button from hanging out there. You gestured everything else BUT that? It just looks ugly and lopsided.

    Remember: Developer Preview 2. Android O had significant changes between developer previews last year, so it's still possible/likely we see changes.

    They could also be testing a swipe left feature for something other than back. We don't know.

    XBL: thewunderbar PSN: thewunderbar NNID: thewunderbar Steam: wunderbar87 Twitter: wunderbar
  • minor incidentminor incident expert in a dying field njRegistered User regular
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    ChaosHat wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    So, I picked up an essential phone on the cheap a couple days ago. I've got a whole bunch of travel coming up this summer and didn't have a working second phone to use as a backup. Most of the options I was originally looking at had not great cameras and I wanted a pretty good camera on my backup, since photos are what I use my phone for probably 50% of the time, and I lucked into it.

    And, fortuitously the Essential Phone supports the Android P beta.

    first off, I don't hate the notch as much as I thought I would. I don't like it, but if I'm using a dark background it's a mildly annoying thing. on light colour apps/backgrounds it sticks out and my eyes just go to it. Maybe that'd fade over time but while it's not "omg this is the worst thing I've ever seen" I think I'm still on team no notch.

    Not having a headphone jack is annoying but like I said it's a backup phone so I can live without. the rest of the hardware is top notch (pun not intended). I actually think I like the feel of the phone slightly better than my GS8+


    Android P is going to be good. I don't love the gesture navigation, but it's buggy enough that you can tell they're still working on fixing some of the weirdness of it. One thing that really bothers me is that on the modern launchers you can swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to get to the app drawer, but on P you have to swipe up from the pill button, and the pill button only. that's muscle memory that I'm sure I'd adapt to over time if that was my primary phone/UI but I hope they add some options to it in future releases. I'm hopeful it's better at release. One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+. The rest of the cool features like the time and battery management stuff hasn't made it into the beta builds yet, but I'm encouraged by Android P.

    The rotation thing is amazing. I love it. The gesture nav is just OKAY. I think the implementation on my wife's iPhone X is better. The back button still being there is really annoying too. It also doesn't play nice with Nova Launcher in terms of double swiping up to go to the app drawer.

    The redesigned recents drawer is much better. I kind of don't like the new sound options panel. Sometimes I do want my ring volume to be different and it's not very convenient. It does look nicer though.

    the problem google has with the back button is that Android has literally had it since 1.0 so every app is written to take advantage of that, and there's no easy way to just change that on a dime. What probably happens is what happened with the menu button. It gets deprecated but still needs to exist, and more apps will be redesigned to use the gesture navigation, but some apps might always need the back button. and keeping it in the bottom nav bar keeps us from having situations where you end up having to have this.

    My complaint is not that the functionality exists, it SHOULD exist and I think it's better than the iPhone option of not having it at all. It's that the button exists. Why don't they make it a swipe from center to left (basically a reverse of the new quick app switch gesture, the old double tap recents) to go back and remove the button from hanging out there. You gestured everything else BUT that? It just looks ugly and lopsided.

    That gesture is used by quite a few apps for in-app navigation (Instagram is a big one, and of course, notably, Tinder). Trying to re-take it as a system-wide gesture seems like it would be a mess, or it would have to be such a specific distint motion that it's impractical.

    Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    wunderbar wrote: »
    One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+.

    One thing I wish I had was the ability to lock rotation but leave it on in my gallery app.

  • mtsmts Dr. Robot King Registered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    wunderbar wrote: »
    One thing I *really* love is that if you're not a caveman and keep your rotation locked 90% of the time, if you need to tilt your phone it'll actually pop up a small button on the nav bar at the bottom that lets you force the screen to rotate. I don't know how we lived without this before, but I miss it terribly when I am using my S8+.

    One thing I wish I had was the ability to lock rotation but leave it on in my gallery app.

    Yea I wish there was a way to get app specific system settings

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  • The Dude With HerpesThe Dude With Herpes Lehi, UTRegistered User regular
    edited May 2018
    Anyone have any comments/opinions about LG phones?

    I'm constantly on the lookout for a potential replacement for my Nexus 6, but my requirements typically means that everything comes up short.

    One of those requirements (or at least strong desires) was to keep Google Fi, and Google just announced more phones that can be used with it.

    Looking between the newer ones both the G7 and V35 ThinQ's meet most of my requirements. The V35 has an oled screen but a lower ppi than the G7's IPS LCD (but apparently the G7 has a super bright mode for outdoors that the V35 doesn't); but the G7 is a slightly larger screen (slightly, 6.1 vs 6.0). The V35 has higher base ram, but the G7 has a more interesting speaker setup. The G7 has a notch (not a fan, but reviews seem to say you can set bars on the screen that all but hide it most of the time), the V35 doesn't.

    But, they both have fi, both have wireless charging, headphone jacks, 6in+ screens, and both seem to have up to date innards (and priced to match...but still below apple/samsung stuff), and seemingly pretty stock Android with google assistant.

    I wish there was a way to test phones easier these days. Best buy doesn't really carry anything other than samsung/apple anymore and at least last time I tried looking at phones (it has been awhile, granted) local carrier stores didn't have much that was new.

    Regardless, is LG good about OS/security updates? I would assume/hope they both get Android P. Do they completely drop support in under a year like Samsung (at least in the past, they stopped supporting my wifes Note 4 in well under a year)? Any particular praise/criticism anyone has?

    I'd say, despite the notch, I'd lean toward the G7, but they seem similar enough that I don't know that it would matter massively. The G7 releases, on paper anyway, on June 1st, dunno if the V35 has an actual release date; they both say "coming soon" on the fi page.

    EDIT: The new pixels should be announced sometime in the relative near future (I'm not upgrading immediately regardless, I just want to keep an eye out for potential replacements because as I've said before, the end is drawing ever nearer for my Nexus 6), and it sounds like the XL 3 might be pretty much the same as these LG's, and in fact LG is manufacturing the screen for it I guess.

    The Dude With Herpes on
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