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There was a time when I really thought Google was going to shake things up. Nexus Phones, Google Fiber, Google Fi, etc all sounded awesome. I bought a Nexus 5,

There was a time when I really thought Google was going to shake things up. Nexus Phones, Google Fiber, Google Fi, etc all sounded awesome. I bought a Nexus 5, switched to Fi, went through the super fun process of mixing around my google voice numbers, (breaking all kinds of stuff) but eventually I was mostly setup and functional. I'd lost some core parts of gVoice, but I figured it was just a matter of time before it was back up to a similar level. Having Hangouts as a full featured SMS/Voice/MMS replacement, which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience. GV features like Spam filter wasn't supported with Fi, and just accessing your GV account with a Fi subscription on your google account was difficult. Then they split SMS/Hangouts (although Fi users were somewhat grandfathered in), which broke basically every text convo I had going on, and made it more difficult to text Hangout friends compared with SMS only friends. Then they rolled back the gVoice/Fi plans, and made it clear that Hangouts was going away, and gVoice wasn't going to be an option. Then the Nexus phones started to get worse instead of better. The 6P was mediocre at best, and "Stock" Android was starting to make compromises, while somehow getting worse. The Pixels have continued this trend of decline, Hangouts can't really even send Gifs anymore (size limit of like, 3mb or something) Fi has made almost no progress, and when Hangouts goes away I'll be retiring the last of my Android devices. Kind of a long rant, but my point is I don't trust google to do anything competent in this space, and even if they did, I wouldn't trust them not to fuck it up 6 months later.

dmead 7y ago
I guess you're on apple stuff then? my nexus 6 just broke and im on an old 5x thats barely funtional. the pixels all look atrocious with no end in sight.
- abawany 7y ago
  The pixel 3a has been a pretty nice device at a good price (299 with Google Fi - you can cancel the latter after one day and still keep the discount according to their reps). It is a mid-range device though.
- Daniel_sk 7y ago
  The 5X is probably the worst Nexus ever, it was a low end device that is so frustrating to use that it probably made many people to switch to iPhone :-).
OkGoDoIt 7y ago
Exactly my experience. I finally bit the bullet and switched to the Apple side. There are things I miss from android but I trust Apple not to self sabotage much more than I trust Google these days. Which is weird, and exactly the opposite of the feeling I had 5 years ago.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  I'm in this situation right now - was just debating buying an iPhone yesterday after never owning anything from Apple. How do you like it so far?
  - superturkey650 7y ago
    Not the parent, but I recently switched to an iPhone and I'm liking it. On Android, I was constantly using new Apps, looking at /r/android for release announcements, and getting excited about all the new releases. Then, at some point, I realized I just wanted a phone that works. That's when I switched to Apple. That's not to say my Pixel didn't do everything my iPhone does. It could do it all and in many cases it could even do it better or in a more customized way. But, it also required effort. Effort to learn the new apps, effort to change all the settings, and effort every time Google decided to change something that I thought was already working just fine. Then I switched to Apple and I realized I didn't want necessarily want to spend all my time learning my phone, I wanted to spent my time USING it. To me, my iPhone is more like an appliance than a new tech gadget. It doesn't necessarily provide you with all the options and capabilities that an Android phone does, but it absolutely nails its core competencies and is very easy to use. I don't spend a single extra second trying to figure out HOW to use it, it just works.
    - baq 7y ago
      mostly agree except 3d touch which is clearly the most undiscoverable input method ever conceived. oh, and shake to undo, which i not once used intentionally.
      - 7y ago
flattone 7y ago
Very similar experience here. I'm gathering energy to try leaving Google/Android all together for whatever awaits me with a pinephone (not yet available afaik). https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Thinking that I much prefer an interesting "how to do x thing I want to add to my experience" over an "oh I'm being corralled into undesired xyz by Google again, how to maintain / return to normal functions"
- nullwarp 7y ago
  pinephone will be my next phone, ubports on nexus 5 has been pretty good too. That said I feel like we're going into this weird place where you have to have a cell phone even though every day i feel like wanting to have one less and less.
  - flattone 7y ago
    Agree re "have to have a cell phone". When I check for an example of a person participating in society (US) without any phone, I come up empty handed. Then try with me to even describe a setup where a person could reasonably participate but not need a phone. I am vaguely certain this is actually not possible (credit/transportation etc). Perhaps the dire wolf citizen of privacy is pulling this off..but what a high bar to set on an entire population, without their informed consent. Similarly it may be an impossibly high bar on regulators to provide a "life doesn't require a phone number" consumer option. I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email?
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      I actually know a couple of people who simply don't own cell phones at all. They're certainly an extreme minority, but their lives aren't any harder for it. The only repercussion is that they can't get/send calls or texts when they're out and about.
    - 29083011397778 7y ago
      >I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email? You've just described how SMS works for me under Voip.ms. All messages are available to be replied to via email, and starting conversations from their (albeit imperfect and slightly clunky) webpage or (much better) Android app
nkrisc 7y ago
I was, to a lesser degree, on the same path as you (Nexus 4, 5X, Pixel, Pixel 2 currently). Almost signed up for Fi, but decided not to after talking to a few people. My next phone will be an iPhone, for pretty much the reasons you stated. As soon as they launch 5-6" iPhone with an OLED screen that doesn't have three goofy looking cameras on the back, I'm in.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  > As soon as they launch 5-6" iPhone with an OLED screen that doesn't have three goofy looking cameras on the back, I'm in. Wouldn't that be an iPhone X, or more recently iPhone XS?
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    That may be the case, looking into it again. I might have been mislead by Apple's proprietary marketing terms for their screen (what the hell is "retina" anyway?) Not gonna lie, Apple's phone models confuse me.
endorphone 7y ago
Pretty much exactly the path I took. I truly believed Google was set to change the world for the better. I had every Nexus device (and pre-Nexus with the Magic and Dream), watched every Google move with anticipation, etc. The 6P was the last Nexus I owned -- miserable battery life and poor experience that it brought -- though I held on with Android a bit longer with the Galaxy line. I developed several apps on the platform with the motivation that I was helping a good product thrive. The Pixel line has always been just a sad runner-up to Apple, but always with completely deluded prices. The oft talked about "Reality Distortion Field" best applies to Google's hardware products now, where they've created a succession of miserable entrants at bizarrely unrealistic prices. Now I'm typing on a Macbook Pro with my iPhone 11 beside it. I use gmail out of legacy inertia, but aside from that Google just is not a compelling part of my life. I once truly believed they were a super innovative company that was trying to escape their ad revenue stream. Now I believe they're a very committed ad company desperately trying to push ads further afield.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  We often hear about all the great engineers at Google, but their project managers must be some of the worst in the industry. So many half baked and forgotten projects that wasn't good enough when they came out, left with few and slow upgrades, and then killed off. How many messaging apps have Google launched and killed? How many WearOS watches have they sold? How's the Android tablet ecosystem? How did the Nexus rebranding to Pixel go? They seem to lack any interest in polish and usability, beyond removing features and adding whitespace and larger margins. You would have to be crazy to adapt any new service from them, be it Messages, Stadia, or buying last year's phone for this year's price.
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    The state of NDK is a good example. It appeared that the Android team was kind of forced to support C++ for game developers, and they did an half baked release with Android 2.0. Using headers and toolchains different than what regular Android (internal Google teams) were using, thus took them all the way up to release 14 to actually provide unified headers. Bionic wasn't fully ISO C compliant and has been being improved throughout all the NDK and Android releases. Back when they decided to drop Eclipse there wasn't a roadmap for C++ support going forward, and they were kind of rescued after JetBrains decided to create CLion, which they took up to integrate into Android Studio, almost two years later. There were two reboots for new build system tools, until they decided to keep ndk-build around and settle with CMake as alternative. Even though the NDK APIs are written in C++ (or C++ wrappers over JNI calls), they are exposed as extern "C" to userspace, thus being more prone to unsafe coding pratices. Only now they are starting to think about supporting NDK package management, so far each Android NDK developer using AARs had to come up with in-house solutions to package NDK libraries across projects. Small rant, plenty of other stuff to complain about. However I would also like to add that the (apparently) small NDK team has improved the experience a lot, when comparing with what the Android 2.0 NDK state started from.
hocuspocus 7y ago
I owned several Nexus phones (the ones that were properly priced) and overall it was clear that Google never cared to launch a finished product, all of them showing some serious software bugs, and sometimes even hardware issues. I assumed it was part of the deal, and Google has pretty generous customer service policies at least. Sadly the situation hasn't really improved with the Pixels and I can't justify buying such half-assed phones. Not at these prices at least. I bought an Essential when Amazon was clearing their inventory but I wonder what I'll get next. Nokia's are almost there but not quite. Unfortunately I cannot stand iOS and the iPhone lineup so that's not an option.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  Oneplus is probably your best option.
  - logjammin 7y ago
    I've owned a number of OnePlus phones - 3 or 4 at this point - and am tapping this post out on a new OP7 Pro. I really like the hardware, and no device has ever felt poorly made or unfinished, nor have they broken down on me. OS updates are relatively fast for a non-Google manufacturer, too, though they could be faster. The price has been creeping up as the rest of the market gets more premium, but even this new flagship phone is significantly cheaper than an equivalent iPhone. I'm resigned to OP beaming everything I do to PLA military intelligence or whatever, but frankly I don't do much on my phone anyway besides surf and YouTube. Customer service has been great whenever I've needed it, which hasn't been much.
EpicEng 7y ago
Not to mention the fact that the pixel 4 looks to be a big disappointment for the money. I was planning on getting a pixel as I don't want another Samsung (vendor crap-ware and bixby drives me insane), but now that I've seen it... looks like I'll be going back to Apple again after five years of Android.
zamadatix 7y ago
I went the Hangouts+pure data plan route, 10 bucks per month and I've had spam filtering and a single and/IM/video call/voice call/phone call account available on any device I sign into regardless if my phone was turned off 3 states over or not. It sucks they are dropping it and there is nothing like this experience available. Even Apple requires pairing to a phone (that is actively online) to send SMS.
cookiecaper 7y ago
I agree with the sentiment of being down on Google, but I just bought a Pixel 4 XL to replace my Pixel XL. They're not perfect, but they're phones that I can get, unlock, root, and actually have some sense of ownership over without any shenanigans. Why unlock and root? Because I can take full-disk images and restore the phone to an exact bit-for-bit copy. I can use apps like TitaniumBackup and bring over app+data piecemeal or swap out data profiles. I can use F-Droid to manage open-source apps and know that I'm getting something that I can crack open or modify if needed. I can get real insight into what the phone is doing via something like SystemPanel 2 or, worst-case, adb shell and figuring it out myself. I can copy the database from any app without dealing with Content Providers. I can install Magisk modules that give me a decent native shell and use Termux to install other utilities that I need. And ultimately, if I need something not accommodated by stock, I can install a custom ROM. I don't know how much of that is possible on an iPhone, but from what I hear, it's not much. That may be an OK option if you're willing to lock into the Apple ecosystem and take whatever they give you in exchange for feeling like your phone "just works", but if it's that important, you don't need to give up control -- just grab a cheap flip phone that will always "just work" while you retain the freedom and ability to get what you need out of your $1k pocket computer.
- what_ever 7y ago
  I think "just works" is way overblown. My friend just got a new iPhone 11 upgrading from 6s. FaceId is great, but you HAVE to swipe up after you unlock. There is no option, no setting to just jump to the home screen. Does it "just work"? I guess if that's the definition of working. It's been just a week and she is can't live with it. Other "just works" - always deep link to Apple Maps, Safari and other Apple apps. How is this still a thing in a "Pro" phone? Honestly I have been considering iPhone because of the longevity of their devices now that cameras have caught up with Pixels and added battery capacities but I can't deal with this locked down, spoon fed version of an OS. I think iPhone "just works" the way Apple wants and not how the user wants. Disc: Googler.
  - tw04 7y ago
    No offense but it shows you haven't actually used one. By default any notifications on the phone are locked down. I can see I got a text message but I can't see the info. If I look at the phone it shows who the text is from and the contents of the text (or whatever notification we're talking about). If I swipe up I can use the phone. This experience is so far above and beyond anything google has offered to date I don't even know where to begin. Google is so far behind on faceID it's laughable. And this is coming from someone who switched from an iPhone 6 to a Pixel and stuck with google all the way until the Pixel 4. Sorry - the hardware is getting worse, not better. And the spying/data collection has become too much. When you've got a CIO that says he'd let any house guest know he's got devices recording them and would suggest anyone that has google devices in their house do the same - you lost me.
zamalek 7y ago
> which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience FWIW this has been replaced by https://messages.google.com https://messages.google.com, but you have to use the messages app, and the phone has to be online. It's still way better than texting on a touch keyboard.

dmead 7y ago

I guess you're on apple stuff then? my nexus 6 just broke and im on an old 5x thats barely funtional. the pixels all look atrocious with no end in sight.

abawany 7y ago
The pixel 3a has been a pretty nice device at a good price (299 with Google Fi - you can cancel the latter after one day and still keep the discount according to their reps). It is a mid-range device though.
Daniel_sk 7y ago
The 5X is probably the worst Nexus ever, it was a low end device that is so frustrating to use that it probably made many people to switch to iPhone :-).

OkGoDoIt 7y ago

Exactly my experience. I finally bit the bullet and switched to the Apple side. There are things I miss from android but I trust Apple not to self sabotage much more than I trust Google these days. Which is weird, and exactly the opposite of the feeling I had 5 years ago.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
I'm in this situation right now - was just debating buying an iPhone yesterday after never owning anything from Apple. How do you like it so far?
- superturkey650 7y ago
  Not the parent, but I recently switched to an iPhone and I'm liking it. On Android, I was constantly using new Apps, looking at /r/android for release announcements, and getting excited about all the new releases. Then, at some point, I realized I just wanted a phone that works. That's when I switched to Apple. That's not to say my Pixel didn't do everything my iPhone does. It could do it all and in many cases it could even do it better or in a more customized way. But, it also required effort. Effort to learn the new apps, effort to change all the settings, and effort every time Google decided to change something that I thought was already working just fine. Then I switched to Apple and I realized I didn't want necessarily want to spend all my time learning my phone, I wanted to spent my time USING it. To me, my iPhone is more like an appliance than a new tech gadget. It doesn't necessarily provide you with all the options and capabilities that an Android phone does, but it absolutely nails its core competencies and is very easy to use. I don't spend a single extra second trying to figure out HOW to use it, it just works.
  - baq 7y ago
    mostly agree except 3d touch which is clearly the most undiscoverable input method ever conceived. oh, and shake to undo, which i not once used intentionally.
    - 7y ago

flattone 7y ago

Very similar experience here. I'm gathering energy to try leaving Google/Android all together for whatever awaits me with a pinephone (not yet available afaik). https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/ Thinking that I much prefer an interesting "how to do x thing I want to add to my experience" over an "oh I'm being corralled into undesired xyz by Google again, how to maintain / return to normal functions"

nullwarp 7y ago
pinephone will be my next phone, ubports on nexus 5 has been pretty good too. That said I feel like we're going into this weird place where you have to have a cell phone even though every day i feel like wanting to have one less and less.
- flattone 7y ago
  Agree re "have to have a cell phone". When I check for an example of a person participating in society (US) without any phone, I come up empty handed. Then try with me to even describe a setup where a person could reasonably participate but not need a phone. I am vaguely certain this is actually not possible (credit/transportation etc). Perhaps the dire wolf citizen of privacy is pulling this off..but what a high bar to set on an entire population, without their informed consent. Similarly it may be an impossibly high bar on regulators to provide a "life doesn't require a phone number" consumer option. I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email?
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    I actually know a couple of people who simply don't own cell phones at all. They're certainly an extreme minority, but their lives aren't any harder for it. The only repercussion is that they can't get/send calls or texts when they're out and about.
  - 29083011397778 7y ago
    >I guess a person could fashion "phone number to email as a service" where you get an unanswerable "phone number" which just forwards transcribed content to an email? You've just described how SMS works for me under Voip.ms. All messages are available to be replied to via email, and starting conversations from their (albeit imperfect and slightly clunky) webpage or (much better) Android app

nkrisc 7y ago

I was, to a lesser degree, on the same path as you (Nexus 4, 5X, Pixel, Pixel 2 currently). Almost signed up for Fi, but decided not to after talking to a few people. My next phone will be an iPhone, for pretty much the reasons you stated. As soon as they launch 5-6" iPhone with an OLED screen that doesn't have three goofy looking cameras on the back, I'm in.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
> As soon as they launch 5-6" iPhone with an OLED screen that doesn't have three goofy looking cameras on the back, I'm in. Wouldn't that be an iPhone X, or more recently iPhone XS?
- nkrisc 7y ago
  That may be the case, looking into it again. I might have been mislead by Apple's proprietary marketing terms for their screen (what the hell is "retina" anyway?) Not gonna lie, Apple's phone models confuse me.

endorphone 7y ago

Pretty much exactly the path I took. I truly believed Google was set to change the world for the better. I had every Nexus device (and pre-Nexus with the Magic and Dream), watched every Google move with anticipation, etc. The 6P was the last Nexus I owned -- miserable battery life and poor experience that it brought -- though I held on with Android a bit longer with the Galaxy line. I developed several apps on the platform with the motivation that I was helping a good product thrive. The Pixel line has always been just a sad runner-up to Apple, but always with completely deluded prices. The oft talked about "Reality Distortion Field" best applies to Google's hardware products now, where they've created a succession of miserable entrants at bizarrely unrealistic prices. Now I'm typing on a Macbook Pro with my iPhone 11 beside it. I use gmail out of legacy inertia, but aside from that Google just is not a compelling part of my life. I once truly believed they were a super innovative company that was trying to escape their ad revenue stream. Now I believe they're a very committed ad company desperately trying to push ads further afield.

sorenjan 7y ago
We often hear about all the great engineers at Google, but their project managers must be some of the worst in the industry. So many half baked and forgotten projects that wasn't good enough when they came out, left with few and slow upgrades, and then killed off. How many messaging apps have Google launched and killed? How many WearOS watches have they sold? How's the Android tablet ecosystem? How did the Nexus rebranding to Pixel go? They seem to lack any interest in polish and usability, beyond removing features and adding whitespace and larger margins. You would have to be crazy to adapt any new service from them, be it Messages, Stadia, or buying last year's phone for this year's price.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  The state of NDK is a good example. It appeared that the Android team was kind of forced to support C++ for game developers, and they did an half baked release with Android 2.0. Using headers and toolchains different than what regular Android (internal Google teams) were using, thus took them all the way up to release 14 to actually provide unified headers. Bionic wasn't fully ISO C compliant and has been being improved throughout all the NDK and Android releases. Back when they decided to drop Eclipse there wasn't a roadmap for C++ support going forward, and they were kind of rescued after JetBrains decided to create CLion, which they took up to integrate into Android Studio, almost two years later. There were two reboots for new build system tools, until they decided to keep ndk-build around and settle with CMake as alternative. Even though the NDK APIs are written in C++ (or C++ wrappers over JNI calls), they are exposed as extern "C" to userspace, thus being more prone to unsafe coding pratices. Only now they are starting to think about supporting NDK package management, so far each Android NDK developer using AARs had to come up with in-house solutions to package NDK libraries across projects. Small rant, plenty of other stuff to complain about. However I would also like to add that the (apparently) small NDK team has improved the experience a lot, when comparing with what the Android 2.0 NDK state started from.

hocuspocus 7y ago

I owned several Nexus phones (the ones that were properly priced) and overall it was clear that Google never cared to launch a finished product, all of them showing some serious software bugs, and sometimes even hardware issues. I assumed it was part of the deal, and Google has pretty generous customer service policies at least. Sadly the situation hasn't really improved with the Pixels and I can't justify buying such half-assed phones. Not at these prices at least. I bought an Essential when Amazon was clearing their inventory but I wonder what I'll get next. Nokia's are almost there but not quite. Unfortunately I cannot stand iOS and the iPhone lineup so that's not an option.

sorenjan 7y ago
Oneplus is probably your best option.
- logjammin 7y ago
  I've owned a number of OnePlus phones - 3 or 4 at this point - and am tapping this post out on a new OP7 Pro. I really like the hardware, and no device has ever felt poorly made or unfinished, nor have they broken down on me. OS updates are relatively fast for a non-Google manufacturer, too, though they could be faster. The price has been creeping up as the rest of the market gets more premium, but even this new flagship phone is significantly cheaper than an equivalent iPhone. I'm resigned to OP beaming everything I do to PLA military intelligence or whatever, but frankly I don't do much on my phone anyway besides surf and YouTube. Customer service has been great whenever I've needed it, which hasn't been much.

EpicEng 7y ago

Not to mention the fact that the pixel 4 looks to be a big disappointment for the money. I was planning on getting a pixel as I don't want another Samsung (vendor crap-ware and bixby drives me insane), but now that I've seen it... looks like I'll be going back to Apple again after five years of Android.

zamadatix 7y ago

I went the Hangouts+pure data plan route, 10 bucks per month and I've had spam filtering and a single and/IM/video call/voice call/phone call account available on any device I sign into regardless if my phone was turned off 3 states over or not. It sucks they are dropping it and there is nothing like this experience available. Even Apple requires pairing to a phone (that is actively online) to send SMS.

cookiecaper 7y ago

I agree with the sentiment of being down on Google, but I just bought a Pixel 4 XL to replace my Pixel XL. They're not perfect, but they're phones that I can get, unlock, root, and actually have some sense of ownership over without any shenanigans. Why unlock and root? Because I can take full-disk images and restore the phone to an exact bit-for-bit copy. I can use apps like TitaniumBackup and bring over app+data piecemeal or swap out data profiles. I can use F-Droid to manage open-source apps and know that I'm getting something that I can crack open or modify if needed. I can get real insight into what the phone is doing via something like SystemPanel 2 or, worst-case, adb shell and figuring it out myself. I can copy the database from any app without dealing with Content Providers. I can install Magisk modules that give me a decent native shell and use Termux to install other utilities that I need. And ultimately, if I need something not accommodated by stock, I can install a custom ROM. I don't know how much of that is possible on an iPhone, but from what I hear, it's not much. That may be an OK option if you're willing to lock into the Apple ecosystem and take whatever they give you in exchange for feeling like your phone "just works", but if it's that important, you don't need to give up control -- just grab a cheap flip phone that will always "just work" while you retain the freedom and ability to get what you need out of your $1k pocket computer.

what_ever 7y ago
I think "just works" is way overblown. My friend just got a new iPhone 11 upgrading from 6s. FaceId is great, but you HAVE to swipe up after you unlock. There is no option, no setting to just jump to the home screen. Does it "just work"? I guess if that's the definition of working. It's been just a week and she is can't live with it. Other "just works" - always deep link to Apple Maps, Safari and other Apple apps. How is this still a thing in a "Pro" phone? Honestly I have been considering iPhone because of the longevity of their devices now that cameras have caught up with Pixels and added battery capacities but I can't deal with this locked down, spoon fed version of an OS. I think iPhone "just works" the way Apple wants and not how the user wants. Disc: Googler.
- tw04 7y ago
  No offense but it shows you haven't actually used one. By default any notifications on the phone are locked down. I can see I got a text message but I can't see the info. If I look at the phone it shows who the text is from and the contents of the text (or whatever notification we're talking about). If I swipe up I can use the phone. This experience is so far above and beyond anything google has offered to date I don't even know where to begin. Google is so far behind on faceID it's laughable. And this is coming from someone who switched from an iPhone 6 to a Pixel and stuck with google all the way until the Pixel 4. Sorry - the hardware is getting worse, not better. And the spying/data collection has become too much. When you've got a CIO that says he'd let any house guest know he's got devices recording them and would suggest anyone that has google devices in their house do the same - you lost me.

zamalek 7y ago

> which also let you do all of those things from your computer was an awesome experience FWIW this has been replaced by https://messages.google.com https://messages.google.com, but you have to use the messages app, and the phone has to be online. It's still way better than texting on a touch keyboard.