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I own a Google Pixel 3a. Google Play Music is the default, preinstalled music app. It's discontinued and can't even play my local MP3s anymore. YouTube Music i
by Farbklex 6y ago
I own a Google Pixel 3a.
Google Play Music is the default, preinstalled music app. It's discontinued and can't even play my local MP3s anymore. YouTube Music is unfortunately worse. Play Music can't be uninstalled.
Google Photos is the default, preinstalled Photo Gallery app. Part of its service is discontinued. It can't be uninstalled.
- PurpleFoxy 6y agoThis is the actual state of google and android right now. Not missing my pixel 2.
- Farbklex 6y agoSome missinformation on my side: I checked the Google Photos app and opened my account settings. According to the information in the app, free & unlimited storage of photos in "high" (not original) quality will still be available for me after June 1st 2021. But uploads from other devices will count toward the available space quota. So Google Photos works as always on the Google Pixel 3a.
- xorcist 6y agoThis may be a stupid question ("why not eat cake instead") but why not install LineageOS on it? It's a clean Android and it's utterly well supported on the Pixel line of phones. Google only supports these phones for a few years. That is useless to me, who intend to use my tools for much longer than that. LineageOS has provided that support with a minimum of fuss.
- mb7733 6y agoWhat part of Google Photos is discontinued?
- aspaviento 6y agoUnlimited storage?
- 1023bytes 6y agoThe unlimited plan
- poisonborz 6y agoI think he means that uploads beyond your free Google storage are not free anymore, not even for Pixel users.
- andbberger 6y agoIsn't it grandfathered in though?
- JorgeGT 6y agoPhotos stored in original quality are counted towards your max, only photos in reduced quality taken with a Pixel device are grandfathered and do not count.
- danlugo92 6y agoI think all photos with reduced quality are grandfathered.
- wccrawford 6y agoI'm pretty sure they changed that just recently. https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-changes/ https://blog.google/products/photos/storage-changes/ > Starting June 1, 2021, any new photos and videos you upload will count toward the free 15 GB of storage that comes with every Google Account or the additional storage you’ve purchased as a Google One member. > Any photos or videos you’ve uploaded in High quality before June 1, 2021 will not count toward your 15GB of free storage. This means that photos and videos backed up before June 1, 2021 will still be considered free and exempt from the storage limit.
- Liquid_Fire 6y agoMaybe we understand the word differently, but to me that says that (existing) high-quality photos are indeed grandfathered (they will not suddenly start using your quota), just not new ones you upload after June.
- hhjj 6y agoplanned software obsolescence ?
- Nux 6y agoPixel 3a is well supported by Lineageos, I recommend installing it, though the Google Pixel cam app is indeed hard coded to only open previews in Google Photos, not any other gallery.
- radiKal07 6y agoThis. This is one of the biggest reasons I switched to iPhone.
- schoolornot 6y agoI bought a Samsung phone a few months ago. It too has a bunch of apps you can't remove. It's still not clear to me why some apps can be disabled and uninstalled but others can just be disabled. But oh yeah, with ADB it seems you can remove some/all of them. Except with Samsung you don't really know what you're uninstalling because a bunch of apps are weirdly named and not documented at all which leads one down the rabbit hole of inventorying each app and the permissions it has. Android is a mess.
- Mindwipe 6y ago> Android is a mess. TBH, so is iOS if you start actually worrying about services running on the device that may not be necessary or helpful, but iOS just doesn't tell a regular user they exist.
- avipars 6y agoYou can remove them, but it's a pain and you need to either be a developer or have technical knowledge
- Farbklex 6y agoDon't forget that one time when one of the apps became an addware which showed adds on the lock screen. https://fossbytes.com/peel-remote-use-remove-smart-remote/ https://fossbytes.com/peel-remote-use-remove-smart-remote/
- pas 6y ago// just a nitpick: advertisement is just one 'd' so, as far as I know it should be ads
- 45ure 6y agoMy Galaxy S4 on 4.4.x had this app pre-installed. I must have either rooted prior to any parasitic behaviour or attribute it to Xprivacy, as I did not encounter any ads. Regardless, not endorsing this app, just an alternative view, as it not only acted as a stopgap for a flailing universal remote, but also had a decent TV guide from what I can remember.
- jasonvorhe 6y agoThis is dishonest. When you bought the Pixel 3a it was never advertised to feature unlimited storage so from that angle, nothing changed for you and Photos is still the same product.
- Farbklex 6y agoI wasn't actually sure so I looked it up. According to wayback machine, it was indeed advertised: https://web.archive.org/web/20210104200400/https://store.google.com/product/pixel_3a https://web.archive.org/web/20210104200400/https://store.goo...
- shantara 6y agoI also use Pixel 3a as my main phone, despite having an employer-provided iPhone. The only killer app that still keeps me on Android is Firefox with uBlock Origin. If Apple allowed functional 3rd party browsers, I'll switch in a heartbeat.
- krzyk 6y agoIt depends if you want to hack around on the phone. Android allows app to read gps status, do background stuff that is impossible on iPhone: - you can't upload photos using e.g. Google Photos or Nextcloud in the background - there are no custom apps that could do phone tracking (it is available to find my device) e.g. like GPSLogger on Android Can you integrate a ~smart/dumb watch to do action that you want? (e.g. send a http request, make a call)? Basically iPhone doesn't have Tasker like functionality and for me that is a no go. Also is there a way to search for an app that is installed or should I still browse a long list and play "finding nemo"?
- kenjackson 6y ago> Also is there a way to search for an app that is installed or should I still browse a long list and play "finding nemo"? The iPhone does have a search for apps. Plus they now also will group your apps into categories on the last screen. And apps like Google Photos on the iPhone do upload photos in the background.
- krzyk 6y agoThey do upload in the background, but they don't notice new photos while being in the background. You need to start the app and only then they will notice the new photos. (my life is miserable because my wife has iPhone and I have to deal with strange limits on iOS).
- delfinom 6y ago>Android allows app to read gps status, do background stuff that is impossible on iPhone: You are very much behind the times here. The newer Android (since 10 I think?) behavior for the last 2 years are permission prompts just like Apple. In fact many apps are not allowed to request background location updates anymore either.
- dvh 6y agoYou can uninstall any app by using adb shell: 1. sudo apt-get-install android-tools-adb 2. Connect phone using usb, choose file transfer 3. In terminal type: adb shell 4. On phone allow dialog that appeared 5. In terminal in adb shell type: pm list package 6. Find which app is it and uninstall it: pm uninstall -k --user 0 com.facebook.services
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y agoBetter else - disable adb shell pm disable-user --user 0 com.samsung.android.email.provider
- maxwelldone 6y agoI recently learned that the uninstall cmd doesn't uninstall the app from the phone but only for the user. This may come handy if you uninstall something by mistake, say, an essential service. Forgot the reinstall cmd but it's easy to find.
- NathanielK 6y agoI don't believe you can uninstall OEM apps from the drive of the phone unless you have root permission. As another comment mentioned, you can disable them for the single user over adb. On my sony phone you can disable OEM apps the same place you'd normally uninstall them in the GUI. It took some clicking (tapping?), but I disabled a bunch of cruft 2 years ago when I bought the phone and haven't had any issues.
- Angostura 6y ago
- NotPractical 6y agoI also own a Pixel phone. I can confirm that Google Play Music now does nothing but tell you that it's discontinued, cannot be uninstalled, and takes up over 50 MB, which is egregious. However, Google Photos still works as the local photo gallery. I'm not sure why you'd expect to be able to uninstall it.
- UweSchmidt 6y agoIf it's an "app" I would expect to be able to uninstall it and install my own. If it's a basic operating system functionality (dealing with files, viewing photos) it's fine if you can't uninstall it, but then it better not come with any kind of separate user agreement, separate updates, changes in functionality, upselling attempts etc.
- Farbklex 6y ago> If it's a basic operating system functionality (dealing with files, viewing photos) it's fine if you can't uninstall it, but then it better not come with any kind of separate user agreement, separate updates, changes in functionality, upselling attempts etc. Which is the case for Google Photos. It is also a messenger (not kidding), shows notifications with "moments" it automatically created from your photos, lets you create photo books which you can order and so on. I would prefer a smaller default gallery app with Google Photos being an optional extra.
- hctaw 6y agoWhy do you expect that? I've never seen a smartphone that behaved how you expect. Except for stuff like the pinephone, which couldn't be used as a phone for awhile.
- brendoelfrendo 6y agoI mean, that's the point: the smartphone ecosystem is broken. It was built wrong in the first place.
- efficax 6y agoI just uninstalled Google Music by dragging it to the trash on my Pixel 4a. I'm super annoyed about the YouTube music switcheroo myself fwiw
- snake_plissken 6y agoWow so Google Play Music won't even play MP3s, crazy. I never quite realized it was more than a music player.
- wnevets 6y agoI'm still bitter about Google Play Music being killed for YouTube Music. YouTube Music has been worse in every single way.
- sjelkjd 6y agoYou can probably get Google Play Music working with local mp3s if you reset to the factory version of the app and disable auto updates(worked on my Pixel 3).
- Farbklex 6y agoInteresting. Now that you mention this, it makes sense. It worked as an offline MP3 player before if I remember correctly. Quite unfortunate that they decided to remove this functionallity as well with the update.
- mickotron 6y agoInstall grapheneos! My pixel 3a is rocking it, yours should too ;)
- purpmint008 6y agoI just always used VLC. iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, or Linux -- VLC, VLC, VLC!
- stjohnswarts 6y agoI have a pixel 3 and it's fine. I don't use google apps and it serves me well. There are dozens of replacement services and apps out there and that's a good thing