14 ms·

Android is such a drag sometimes. Between mystery quirks like this, where I'm sure someone who has been making Android apps for 6 years will be able to explain

Android is such a drag sometimes. Between mystery quirks like this, where I'm sure someone who has been making Android apps for 6 years will be able to explain it, and things like the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel[1], such that Android will routinely topline sharing to a contact you got one text message from three years ago. "F.U., that's why" is the simplest conclusion I can draw. "Unpaid concept testing" is the next simplest. 1. https://cdn57.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/android-10-sharing-menu-edit.jpg https://cdn57.androidauthority.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/0...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
madeofpalk 6y ago
> the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel[1] that's funny because on iOS you seemingly can override the order, but the behavior of that between different apps (and/or content types?) is so undeterministic that people just give up.
- codercotton 6y ago
  I swear there's some AI going on here. I've noticed that suggestions in my share panel differ depending on content, location, and other things. Or maybe it's just really undeterministic. :)
  - prh8 6y ago
    If you're thinking of the inconsistency of the suggested contacts, it is based on content, source app, etc. For pictures, there's even analysis of picture contents. All on device. Unfortunately, there's no way to remove someone from being suggested, except to delete your message thread with them.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Any sufficiently unadvanced AI is indistinguishable from a random number generator.
    - cgriswald 6y ago
      ...that uses a seed randomly pulled from a list of four seeds based on something that doesn’t have an even distribution.
    - mensetmanusman 6y ago
      We really should use a clever term like AAI, artificial ... artificial intelligence. (not to be confused with humans)
  - why_only_15 6y ago
    There is
  - tripzilch 6y ago
    > Or maybe it's just really undeterministic. :) Never attribute to AI that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
bosswipe 6y ago
This is a bug in the app, I don't see how it is Android's fault.
- rhizome 6y ago
  tl;dr: what bug, or even what kind of bug? "The app" does not provide the share intent panel functionality, the framework does, and even if there was some way in which an app could be thought to be to blame, with what permission would it be inserting its resources in a particular spot in the panel?
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    The app declared itself to be a web browser so the OS asked the user if they wanted to use this new browser.
- dleslie 6y ago
  This is a Play Store curation failure _as well as_ a bug in the app. This sort of fault shouldn't have been allowed to pass.
  - dimator 6y ago
    It's funny how the chrome store has skewed so far the opposite direction (kicking out extensions that claim they need http://* http://*), but any Android app can claim they're a http:// http:// handler.
    - dleslie 6y ago
      The Play Store is a disasterous shit show; I don't trust apps on it at all.
    - on_and_off 6y ago
      well it is a pretty transparent use case : the app declares it can respond to any http intent. The user has to agree to use that app to open http links. Sure Google could kick this dev butt and ask them to use a more focused intent filter but that's way less of an issue than an extension siphoning all your web browsing.
xeromal 6y ago
Thank you for pointing that out. I often share things with my girlfriend and never share things with my landlord, but android share deems it necessary to show my landlord as the top level person to share with and my girlfriend nowhere to be found.
- Sevaris 6y ago
  For some reason, one of my top contacts on my iPhone is always this one awful customer I had sometime last year. Forget that I've talked to dozens of other people since, apparently a couple of emails to this insufferable dbag means I want to send him pictures of kittens and memes all the time. The one thing iOS does get right is being able to order my apps in the share dialog however I want and it always respects that. I fucking hate using my android phone because I'm 100% sure it's meant to torture you.
swiley 6y ago
Android’s complete user hostility is the best argument against GNU/Linux not being a popular desktop OS because it’s not “user friendly” enough.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Android is polished but user hostile. Linux is just unpolished.
Gene_Parmesan 6y ago
Yeah, the top suggestion for me to share content with is my boss's boss, whom I've directly emailed about three times in the 1.5 years I've worked at this place.
grawprog 6y ago
I dunno what's going on with you and some of the other child commenter's phones but my share panel is only people I text every day and always has been. Also, the share panel is configurable: https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/edit-androids-share-menu-no-root-needed-0182089/ https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/edit-androids-share-m... Can confirm this works, I just tried it.
- 27182818284 6y ago
  I run stock Android on a Pixel phone and the default people in my share area are people I haven't communicated with in years. I hate it so much. They're in my contacts in case they ever reach out, but by no means is it the last people I texted or anything close to that.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
  You can pins apps (second row), but not contacts (first row).
- rhizome 6y ago
  This Trick Works With: Android 7.0 through Android 9 I run Android 10 on a (Google) Pixel 3a.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    It's back on Android 11 I believe.
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
> the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel As an extra F.U., it also changes the list of contacts after a second. So I try to tap on my wife, only to have it substituted with the plumber who came once half a year ago... and this of course gets logged by the AI, ensuring the plumber continues to hold pride of place in my contacts.
- Groxx 6y ago
  This is quite literally my least favorite UI feature that Android has ever released. It's slow. It encourages mis-taps. I have intentionally tapped it literally <10 times ever despite using the share dialog thousands of times, since it almost never shows me the desired contacts, and even then I've tapped the wrong contact half the time. It's incomprehensibly awful, wantonly violates even the most basic user-interaction guidelines of the past few decades, and there's no way to turn it off. What in the world are they thinking / drinking.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    iOS actually isn’t much better here. Occasionally I’ll see something on Apple News that I want to share with friends who don’t use Apple News. I just want a web link. But despite Safari being literally the only icon I’ve ever tapped on to share something from Apple News, I have to hit the “...” and then scroll to find Safari buried in the list. I have to scroll past Strava despite (as far as I’m aware) Strava not even being able to open the link and me never having used it to open the link.
    - Jakob 6y ago
      You can change the order of share items. When you are in the “...” screen, tap on “edit” at the top right. This is what OP complained about is not possible on Android out of the box.
  - harikb 6y ago
    iPhone has the same issue in something simple as recent contacts / phone dialer screen. I end up clicking the last dialed number that gets replaced on top of last-but-one by the time my finger moves to tap what appears as last-number, which was really the last-but-one, but the history wasn’t updated then.
netsharc 6y ago
I think the share menu uses concurrency to query available share targets (querying their names and icons), so whichever target responds first, gets put in the list first. Which is indeed very dumb, because the user gets a randomized list everytime s/he wants to share something. I'm using Fliktu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oakstar.fliktu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oakstar.fl... to override the share menu, it works in most apps (some apps use an internal share menu), and you can also trigger it by shaking the phone after copying something into the clipboard. AFAIK it sorts the share targets by "last used".
- efreak 6y ago
  Another option is Sharedr https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.sharedr https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.share... Personally, until something open source is available, I'll stick with NeoLinker on my unrooted (no firewall) phone. It uses the built-in share share menu, but has the advantage of being able to share to itself to rotate between share, open with, search for, etc. If you're interested, it's available on Fdroid (and probably the play store as well?)
hnick 6y ago
I confess I switch to Android from iPhone as a single issue voter - I just wanted to put files on and off it without the OS getting in the way. These days though I think iPhone is a little better at that, and Android gets in the way all the time ("Camera has crashed, please restart your phone" - somehow, restarting all apps that may have interacted with the camera works too Android, why don't you clean up after yourself so I don't miss nice photo opportunities).
- robocat 6y ago
  “Camera has crashed” is very likely model/manufacturer dependant. That said, having to evaluate different models to get something reliable is a pain (currently I would only buy either Pixel or Nokia).
  - hnick 6y ago
    Yeah I figured as much. Moto G5 Plus if anyone cares. However, if it carries the Android brand I think it's fair to put some of the blame on Google. Atari learned that lesson in the early 1980s.
- Marsymars 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm also a single-issue Android user (have used Dvorak for nearly 20 years now, no interest in using/learning the iOS QWERTY keyboard), and if anyone asks me, I'm hard-pressed to recommend an Android device over an iOS device.
  - freehunter 6y ago
    You can use Dvorak on iOS. One example (but not the only example): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dvorak-colemak-keyboards/id940278139 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dvorak-colemak-keyboards/id940...
    - Marsymars 6y ago
      Yeah, I've tried, but third-party keyboard apps on iOS definitely feel second-tier, and iOS will revert to the stock keyboard app for certain things, and it's just too jarring to get punted to QWERTY whenever I need to enter my phone password.
0xDEEPFAC 6y ago
> "Unpaid concept testing" is the next simplest. Shutup and eat your dogfood like a good consumer ; )
anigbrowl 6y ago
Oh, it's not just me.
colordrops 6y ago
While we are piling on, Android's autocorrect is absolute shite. It won't suggest or correct for misspelled words that are obviously one letter off, and then replace correctly spelled words like "the" because it knows better than you. It's not smart enough to get that you typed.period instead of space and correct it. It's as if the devs that work on it don't even use it.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  It's part of the keyboard. Just use another.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    Recommendation for one that doesn't slurp your data and has great autocomplete?
    - ehsankia 6y ago
      I'm not sure about the former, but SwiftKey is great. Owned by microsoft though so might still be slurping your data.
    - f1refly 6y ago
      Fleksy has an amazing algorithm and is gratis nowadays. I'm not user what the developers are doing because the thing is feature complete and they keep on announcing weird additions, bit those are always opt optional so not all bad. Here's their official page where they advertise their app to government officials due to their privacy standards: https://www.fleksy.com/government https://www.fleksy.com/government
- Talanes 6y ago
  IOS Autocorrect does all of the same shit. It's always been baffling to me that no autocorrect seems to be designed around the type of errors you're likely to actually make on a phone keyboard. Mistype the first letter? Nope, never gonna catch that. Being able to recognize simple prefix and suffix constructions on the fly would be nice too. If I put "re" or "pre" before any valid word, it should recognize what I'm going for.
on_and_off 6y ago
Android share is pretty sad. It used to be miles ahead of iOS but it has been pretty stagnant and for a while has shipped with an implementation that would ask at share time which apps can respond (Which explains why populating the share menu was pretty slow for several android versions)
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  that's not why
  - azezaeaz 6y ago
    yes it is https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1060927176772485120 https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1060927176772485120
eitland 6y ago
More examples here: https://erik.itland.no/andoid-pie-ai-fails-like-most-ai https://erik.itland.no/andoid-pie-ai-fails-like-most-ai I have now switched to a iPhone XR, and while it has its own issues it manages to get its suggestions right some times at least (no, I don't need directions home from the store 1000 m away, but at least it isn't completely out of touch like Android.
coronadisaster 6y ago
"things like the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel" You can replace the share provider app with something else like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.sharedr&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.share....
- apexalpha 6y ago
  Sure, but why does the default share menu shuffle everything every time I open it?
  - coronadisaster 6y ago
    Yes Google cannot be not doing that on purpose. The worst part for me is that it never shows a contact that I text daily and instead shows me contacts that I only contacted once a long time ago....

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

madeofpalk 6y ago

> the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel[1] that's funny because on iOS you seemingly can override the order, but the behavior of that between different apps (and/or content types?) is so undeterministic that people just give up.

codercotton 6y ago
I swear there's some AI going on here. I've noticed that suggestions in my share panel differ depending on content, location, and other things. Or maybe it's just really undeterministic. :)
- prh8 6y ago
  If you're thinking of the inconsistency of the suggested contacts, it is based on content, source app, etc. For pictures, there's even analysis of picture contents. All on device. Unfortunately, there's no way to remove someone from being suggested, except to delete your message thread with them.
- hnick 6y ago
  Any sufficiently unadvanced AI is indistinguishable from a random number generator.
  - cgriswald 6y ago
    ...that uses a seed randomly pulled from a list of four seeds based on something that doesn’t have an even distribution.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    We really should use a clever term like AAI, artificial ... artificial intelligence. (not to be confused with humans)
- why_only_15 6y ago
  There is
- tripzilch 6y ago
  > Or maybe it's just really undeterministic. :) Never attribute to AI that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

bosswipe 6y ago

This is a bug in the app, I don't see how it is Android's fault.

rhizome 6y ago
tl;dr: what bug, or even what kind of bug? "The app" does not provide the share intent panel functionality, the framework does, and even if there was some way in which an app could be thought to be to blame, with what permission would it be inserting its resources in a particular spot in the panel?
- bosswipe 6y ago
  The app declared itself to be a web browser so the OS asked the user if they wanted to use this new browser.
dleslie 6y ago
This is a Play Store curation failure _as well as_ a bug in the app. This sort of fault shouldn't have been allowed to pass.
- dimator 6y ago
  It's funny how the chrome store has skewed so far the opposite direction (kicking out extensions that claim they need http://* http://*), but any Android app can claim they're a http:// http:// handler.
  - dleslie 6y ago
    The Play Store is a disasterous shit show; I don't trust apps on it at all.
  - on_and_off 6y ago
    well it is a pretty transparent use case : the app declares it can respond to any http intent. The user has to agree to use that app to open http links. Sure Google could kick this dev butt and ask them to use a more focused intent filter but that's way less of an issue than an extension siphoning all your web browsing.

xeromal 6y ago

Thank you for pointing that out. I often share things with my girlfriend and never share things with my landlord, but android share deems it necessary to show my landlord as the top level person to share with and my girlfriend nowhere to be found.

Sevaris 6y ago
For some reason, one of my top contacts on my iPhone is always this one awful customer I had sometime last year. Forget that I've talked to dozens of other people since, apparently a couple of emails to this insufferable dbag means I want to send him pictures of kittens and memes all the time. The one thing iOS does get right is being able to order my apps in the share dialog however I want and it always respects that. I fucking hate using my android phone because I'm 100% sure it's meant to torture you.

swiley 6y ago

Android’s complete user hostility is the best argument against GNU/Linux not being a popular desktop OS because it’s not “user friendly” enough.

saagarjha 6y ago
Android is polished but user hostile. Linux is just unpolished.

Gene_Parmesan 6y ago

Yeah, the top suggestion for me to share content with is my boss's boss, whom I've directly emailed about three times in the 1.5 years I've worked at this place.

grawprog 6y ago

I dunno what's going on with you and some of the other child commenter's phones but my share panel is only people I text every day and always has been. Also, the share panel is configurable: https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/edit-androids-share-menu-no-root-needed-0182089/ https://android.gadgethacks.com/how-to/edit-androids-share-m... Can confirm this works, I just tried it.

27182818284 6y ago
I run stock Android on a Pixel phone and the default people in my share area are people I haven't communicated with in years. I hate it so much. They're in my contacts in case they ever reach out, but by no means is it the last people I texted or anything close to that.
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
You can pins apps (second row), but not contacts (first row).
rhizome 6y ago
This Trick Works With: Android 7.0 through Android 9 I run Android 10 on a (Google) Pixel 3a.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  It's back on Android 11 I believe.

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago

> the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel As an extra F.U., it also changes the list of contacts after a second. So I try to tap on my wife, only to have it substituted with the plumber who came once half a year ago... and this of course gets logged by the AI, ensuring the plumber continues to hold pride of place in my contacts.

Groxx 6y ago
This is quite literally my least favorite UI feature that Android has ever released. It's slow. It encourages mis-taps. I have intentionally tapped it literally <10 times ever despite using the share dialog thousands of times, since it almost never shows me the desired contacts, and even then I've tapped the wrong contact half the time. It's incomprehensibly awful, wantonly violates even the most basic user-interaction guidelines of the past few decades, and there's no way to turn it off. What in the world are they thinking / drinking.
- freehunter 6y ago
  iOS actually isn’t much better here. Occasionally I’ll see something on Apple News that I want to share with friends who don’t use Apple News. I just want a web link. But despite Safari being literally the only icon I’ve ever tapped on to share something from Apple News, I have to hit the “...” and then scroll to find Safari buried in the list. I have to scroll past Strava despite (as far as I’m aware) Strava not even being able to open the link and me never having used it to open the link.
  - Jakob 6y ago
    You can change the order of share items. When you are in the “...” screen, tap on “edit” at the top right. This is what OP complained about is not possible on Android out of the box.
- harikb 6y ago
  iPhone has the same issue in something simple as recent contacts / phone dialer screen. I end up clicking the last dialed number that gets replaced on top of last-but-one by the time my finger moves to tap what appears as last-number, which was really the last-but-one, but the history wasn’t updated then.

netsharc 6y ago

I think the share menu uses concurrency to query available share targets (querying their names and icons), so whichever target responds first, gets put in the list first. Which is indeed very dumb, because the user gets a randomized list everytime s/he wants to share something. I'm using Fliktu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oakstar.fliktu https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oakstar.fl... to override the share menu, it works in most apps (some apps use an internal share menu), and you can also trigger it by shaking the phone after copying something into the clipboard. AFAIK it sorts the share targets by "last used".

efreak 6y ago
Another option is Sharedr https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.sharedr https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.share... Personally, until something open source is available, I'll stick with NeoLinker on my unrooted (no firewall) phone. It uses the built-in share share menu, but has the advantage of being able to share to itself to rotate between share, open with, search for, etc. If you're interested, it's available on Fdroid (and probably the play store as well?)

hnick 6y ago

I confess I switch to Android from iPhone as a single issue voter - I just wanted to put files on and off it without the OS getting in the way. These days though I think iPhone is a little better at that, and Android gets in the way all the time ("Camera has crashed, please restart your phone" - somehow, restarting all apps that may have interacted with the camera works too Android, why don't you clean up after yourself so I don't miss nice photo opportunities).

robocat 6y ago
“Camera has crashed” is very likely model/manufacturer dependant. That said, having to evaluate different models to get something reliable is a pain (currently I would only buy either Pixel or Nokia).
- hnick 6y ago
  Yeah I figured as much. Moto G5 Plus if anyone cares. However, if it carries the Android brand I think it's fair to put some of the blame on Google. Atari learned that lesson in the early 1980s.
Marsymars 6y ago
Yeah, I'm also a single-issue Android user (have used Dvorak for nearly 20 years now, no interest in using/learning the iOS QWERTY keyboard), and if anyone asks me, I'm hard-pressed to recommend an Android device over an iOS device.
- freehunter 6y ago
  You can use Dvorak on iOS. One example (but not the only example): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dvorak-colemak-keyboards/id940278139 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/dvorak-colemak-keyboards/id940...
  - Marsymars 6y ago
    Yeah, I've tried, but third-party keyboard apps on iOS definitely feel second-tier, and iOS will revert to the stock keyboard app for certain things, and it's just too jarring to get punted to QWERTY whenever I need to enter my phone password.

0xDEEPFAC 6y ago

> "Unpaid concept testing" is the next simplest. Shutup and eat your dogfood like a good consumer ; )

anigbrowl 6y ago

Oh, it's not just me.

colordrops 6y ago

While we are piling on, Android's autocorrect is absolute shite. It won't suggest or correct for misspelled words that are obviously one letter off, and then replace correctly spelled words like "the" because it knows better than you. It's not smart enough to get that you typed.period instead of space and correct it. It's as if the devs that work on it don't even use it.

londons_explore 6y ago
It's part of the keyboard. Just use another.
- colordrops 6y ago
  Recommendation for one that doesn't slurp your data and has great autocomplete?
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    I'm not sure about the former, but SwiftKey is great. Owned by microsoft though so might still be slurping your data.
  - f1refly 6y ago
    Fleksy has an amazing algorithm and is gratis nowadays. I'm not user what the developers are doing because the thing is feature complete and they keep on announcing weird additions, bit those are always opt optional so not all bad. Here's their official page where they advertise their app to government officials due to their privacy standards: https://www.fleksy.com/government https://www.fleksy.com/government
Talanes 6y ago
IOS Autocorrect does all of the same shit. It's always been baffling to me that no autocorrect seems to be designed around the type of errors you're likely to actually make on a phone keyboard. Mistype the first letter? Nope, never gonna catch that. Being able to recognize simple prefix and suffix constructions on the fly would be nice too. If I put "re" or "pre" before any valid word, it should recognize what I'm going for.

on_and_off 6y ago

Android share is pretty sad. It used to be miles ahead of iOS but it has been pretty stagnant and for a while has shipped with an implementation that would ask at share time which apps can respond (Which explains why populating the share menu was pretty slow for several android versions)

anoncareer0212 6y ago
that's not why
- azezaeaz 6y ago
  yes it is https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1060927176772485120 https://twitter.com/davey_burke/status/1060927176772485120

eitland 6y ago

More examples here: https://erik.itland.no/andoid-pie-ai-fails-like-most-ai https://erik.itland.no/andoid-pie-ai-fails-like-most-ai I have now switched to a iPhone XR, and while it has its own issues it manages to get its suggestions right some times at least (no, I don't need directions home from the store 1000 m away, but at least it isn't completely out of touch like Android.

coronadisaster 6y ago

"things like the absolute inability to override the order of items in the sharing panel" You can replace the share provider app with something else like https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.sharedr&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rejh.share....

apexalpha 6y ago
Sure, but why does the default share menu shuffle everything every time I open it?
- coronadisaster 6y ago
  Yes Google cannot be not doing that on purpose. The worst part for me is that it never shows a contact that I text daily and instead shows me contacts that I only contacted once a long time ago....