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Android 12
- nly 5y agoAnyone else just stopped keeping track of what version of Android their phone is on? I used to know this stuff, but these days couldn't care less.
- TOMDM 5y agoFor real. For me smartphones are just good enough. They all take nice pictures, they're all fast enough, they all have a nice screen, nice touch controls and nice UI. It just doesn't matter as much anymore. The only thing on here that made me go "oh cool" is the extra dim mode, my 4a really likes scorching my retinas at night.
- inglor_cz 5y agoI am almost with you, but there are some things I appreciate: a. A better quality of pictures even in less-than-perfectly lit scenes. This matters indoors or in the gloomier months of the year. b. As you mentioned, an extra dim, or on the other hand extra bright, mode of the screen. Trying to orient yourself in blazing midday sun is a horror with some screens. c. Fast charging is something I thoroughly enjoy.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- danellis 5y agoThe dictation looks really good. The main reason I don't use it currently, even though it would be the most natural way to enter text, is that I want my text to have punctuation without me having to be explicit about it. Looking forward to trying this eventually. Also, given that they have translation and live transcription of videos, live translation of videos was the next logical step. I hope it's available for all audio sources.
- asmos7 5y agothat's a good point - shouldn't it include that out of the box? must be hard to accomplish
- hammyhavoc 5y agoHow are you doing in terms of security patches? On a Nokia 5.3 in the Android One certified program, and it's still on the May 2021 security patch. Go figure.
- TOMDM 5y agoWell, given I have a pixel, I'm pretty good on patches. I wish google patched their devices for longer, I'd happilly only update every 5-6 years these days, but security doesn't allow for it.
- lostmsu 5y agoI stopped caring after Google axed speech recognition when the screen is off on older devices with an update. Now it is a gamble I have to play because of security updates. IMO, one of the recent updates brought nice feature to AOSP and therefore all vendors: navigation via swipes.
- TrueGeek 5y agoIt's nice for Google to announce the new version, but it's up to the carrier to decide if I can have it, I guess. And when.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoI would like to. But the usability and quality of life improvements on each new version of Android are pretty tangible. I went back to my trusty old OP3 running Android 9 I think, for a bit, and the overall experience took a hit. Everything felt kinda clunky now coming from Android 11, even though I always loved the clean Android implementation of the OP3.
- hulitu 5y agoSince 6.0 there were no real changes in android. It will be better if they just concentrate on fixing bugs instead of claiming something was done.
- 45ure 5y agoIt becomes even more irrelevant, where UI enhancements have already been implemented by manufacturers to improve their OS. For example, Samsung OneUI with Good Lock (Multistar, Navstar,Notistar, Quickstar, Home Up, Clockface) One Hand Operation+, Sound Assistant etc. I am looking forward to how some of the features will be incorporated/improved in the new version(OneUI 4), rather than the stock features of Android 12.
- bko 5y agoI've been underwhelmed by recent mobile updates. Maybe I'm missing something but the stuff that sticks out is oh, this rectangle is rounded now. New clock face, okay. I guess floating notifications, but even that is meh. Facebook had those annoying floating faces 5 years ago I do remember when they were trying to push touchless gestures (e.g. changing the spotify song by waving your hand) which is a perfect example of a feature that pretty much no one wanted. I imagine google had to pay spotify to include that feature. Needless to say
- johannes1234321 5y agoThis happens a lot with established systems. I also don't know which Linux kernel versions I'm using. Was relevant once, now most changes don't impact me anymore. They are quite specialized. ...
- foobarbecue 5y agoYep, when updates stopped being available for my Xperia mini a few years ago. Just checked and it's android 9. Still works great. Still nice and small.
- vb6sp6 5y agoThe updates are pretty boring these days. The top feature showing in the system update screen is "Personalized design that adapts to the color of your wallpaper". yawn
- moogly 5y agoI've been using Android since Éclair (2.1) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) was the last version I was excited about. It's kind of like Word and Excel that were "finished" with v6.0 and v5.0 respectively.
- 1_player 5y agoI routinely find my iPhone and iPad are one major version behind. Yep, just checked, I'm still on iOS 14. I don't even care about all the new features.
- MrMember 5y agoEarly on version updates were significant. Big, important changes adding nice features and noticeably improving the user experience (I remember one Android update where they put a lot of focus on improving the UI responsiveness for example). Mobile OSes are mature these days, there aren't as many (or any) opportunities for sweeping changes that improve the experience. These days I almost dread Android updates because I don't know what they're going to change for no reason that breaks my user flow.
- r-physicist 5y agoI am positively impressed with the new "Material You". Really. Don't want to stay in my comfort zone. Some positive stress for the brain to adapt to the new situation. All UI seems a little soft and friendly. For me missing IOS functionality with gestures from top to bottom to lower down any app for more convenient control with one hand
- riffic 5y agodid they stop giving these cutesy dessert-related nicknames for some reason?
- sleibrock 5y agoProbably because they're copying Apple's way of marketing iOS. Flat numbers.
- postalrat 5y agoApple invented numbers for version numbers? Amazing.
- smnrchrds 5y agoThe names were not only dessert-based, but also alphabetical. The last one to be named in this fashion was Pie. They probably couldn't find a good dessert name starting with Q, so they discontinued the practice. OS X names used to be big cats too until they ran out of good ones. Now it's locations in California. Who knows what it will be next.
- forinti 5y agoWhat a lost opportunity to have an Android Quindim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quindim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quindim
- merrvk 5y agoHow many things will I have to fix for this release?
- hulitu 5y agoIt's better if you don't know.
- peakaboo 5y agoMore spyware, yay!
- lucasverra 5y agoIt is remarkable the difference in awareness that android vs iOS releases produce. As a iOS user, i'm glad that iOS releases and features are pushed to me aggressively.
- handrous 5y agoHaving been a developer for both platforms, Apple events/announcements are exciting for people working on iOS apps, while Google events are kinda just depressing. "Oh, yeah, that's cool I guess. Be fun to get to use it in five more years when enough people have this, or a newer, version, for it to matter."
- slownews45 5y agoIn fairness it is getting (very slightly) better. A few years ago the phone co's would sell a phone today to your parents that was already 1-2 version behind especially if the phone was released a year or so ago. And then NEVER update it over 3 years outside of (maybe) some security updates. For some reason, a month after iOS is released, phones from Apple, including older phones still being sold, are either sold updated or can be updated.
- notreallyserio 5y agoGoogle themselves abandon their phones after only a couple of years. It’s awful for the environment, users, and app developers. Meanwhile my iPhone 8 got iOS 15 over 5 years after it launched.
- slownews45 5y agoAnd they are still updating older versions of iOS for some reason. iOS 14.8 was 9/13/21 14.7 was 7/26/21 iOS 12.5 was 6/14/21 So that's 7+ years?
- y4mi 5y ago> For some reason, a month after iOS is released, phones from Apple, including older phones still being sold, are either sold updated or can be updated. That reason should be pretty obvious. Apple has a massive profit margin on their phones, so they're economically able to do this. The margins are super small with Android devices, so if any OEM tries to offer support they'll be quickly undercut by the competition
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- BuckRogers 5y agoI love Android, at least on my TV set top box. I haven't used it on my phone since the Samsung GS3, almost a decade now. I like it and as a Windows user would love the additional integration but I need a "mini" phone and I want someone to match Apple's longterm support. People (don't know they) want Microsoft's foldable device and a phone like my 12 mini, but on Android. If Microsoft or Amazon ever decides to fit the void, I'd be back in. I enjoy the heck out of my FireTV devices, and have ever since I moved off of my AppleTV gen2 box, which was the last one I know of that could be easily jailbroken.
- no_time 5y agoLooks like grandparent mode is enabled by default with all the whitespace and even lower information density. What's the endgame? In 20 years only a single letter at a time on the screen? >Any information processed in Private Compute Core requires explicit user action before it can be shared with Google (...) If they know everything about the data going in and coming out it's still useless. Also what important APIs did they axe now?
- 5e92cb50239222b 5y agoScreens keep getting bigger, while tweets stay the same size. You need something to pad the rest of the space.
- VortexDream 5y agoHow about more tweets? The information density on modern everything is utter garbage.
- reayn 5y agoI doubt anyone here wants more tweets. I personally wish the twitter UI would just be entirely whitespace (or a fine chirping blue if they're feeling adventerous) for their audience to sit and enjoy; I can genuinely find no drawbacks to such a UI rework.
- VortexDream 5y agoYou're not wrong. I guess I'm more annoyed by how widespread it has become to waste whitespace. The new Reddit design is unusable for me because of how much space it wastes. I try it sometimes for a few days, then go back to the old design and feel so much happier to be able to see so much at once without distractions.
- reayn 5y agoWhitespace is among the least of new reddit's problems lol.
- Aaargh20318 5y agoSo if it’s released, why does my phone say there are no updates available… /s
- Zigurd 5y agoThis is a serious problem that Google has not worked nearly hard enough. Sure, you can buy a Pixel if you want no bloatware and updates on the release day. But not having that for most OEMs is, among other things, a security problem.
- naikrovek 5y agobut how will those poor carriers and handset vendors "add value" or "differentiate" if they are forced to use stock Android? won't someone think of the children of the employees of those companies? seriously, "adding value" has never once "added" any "value" for the end user. not once.
- gog 5y ago> Sure, you can buy a Pixel if you want no bloatware and updates on the release day. Not really, I live in Croatia (EU member) and the product is not available in my country.
- vetinari 5y agoYou are not alone; Google store is available only in 12 of 27 EU countries (it is not in a single Eastern-European country and neither in Cyprus, Greece, Luxembourg and Malta).
- xorcist 5y agoWhile true, the whole point of the EU is the open market. It should be convenient to order from any member country. Not all shops will ship abroad, but buying a smartphone shouldn't pose a problem.
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- MMS21 5y agoStill no full system backup like iOS
- pornel 5y agoSad to hear it's still a problem. I had Android for a while, but device upgrades instead of being exciting, were a thing I most dreaded. Upgrading Android phones, even with their supposedly new migration assistant via cables, still kept losing most of my apps' device-local data and settings, as if Google didn't care about anything that isn't on their servers.
- TranquilMarmot 5y agoWhat kind of stuff does iOS back up that Android doesn't? On Android, all of my photos are backed up to Google Photos. Most games use Google Play's cloud save system. All of my notes are in Google Keep or Google Docs (or Notion) which all are backed up in the cloud. Whenever you switch phones, you can easily select a list of all the apps you want to install and _most_ of them have data backed up automatically. I think literally the only stuff on my phone that isn't backed up is local files (downloads etc.) but those could easily just be saved to Google Drive instead of on-device.
- hammyhavoc 5y agoApple effectively lets you 'image' the device, so you can transfer from one to another with no messing around. Windows Mobile/Phone allowed you to do the same thing. Blame fragmentation with ROMs like One UI etc.
- karteum 5y ago> I think literally the only stuff on my phone that isn't backed up is local files And besides downloads, there are many apps that just use local files and that you therefore need to transfert manually. e.g. apps from F-Droid, SMS, Wechat, etc. So even though "many" stuffs are automatically stored in Google servers, you still need a lot of case-by-case manual attention and care when transferring to a new phone.
- MMS21 5y ago
- handrous 5y agoI see three total representations of time... I think? I think that's what I'm looking at on the left screenshot on the "Mon 4" widget? A clock face? One of them's normal (top bar), one (the clock face) looks way more "cutesy" and decorative than functional, so I guess if it's some customization and not standard, that's fine, but what's with the Lock Screen? Why print the time with unusual formatting on there? (I know, I know, the answer is "it looks very nice in screenshots for marketing... and for my portfolio") Rightmost screenshot: wow, iOS and Android quick-settings screens have converged a lot more than I realized, since I was last in the Android world. Who copied whom? It's really weird that the rightmost screenshot (the quick-settings screen) bumps the top bar down for a second top bar that just prints the date, in small type. The permissions and privacy stuff seems OK but I'm surprised they were so far behind on that front that this is new. Screenshot interface is also damn near identical to the one on my iPhone. Again, dunno who got there first, or if it's just convergent design... but wow, it's very close. The "scrolling screenshot" thing is cool, though I wonder how that'll interact with drawing rules for various app widgets—or maybe it just works on web content? (no clue if my iPhone can do that—I don't think so?) Phone switching feature—again, I'm surprised this is new for them. Being able to do it from iPhone, too, is a nice touch though.
- AnssiH 5y ago> Phone switching feature—again, I'm surprised this is new for them. Being able to do it from iPhone, too, is a nice touch though. The feature itself is very old. I think they are implying that in previous versions it did not transfer all your "essentials" and now it does - it isn't really clear to me what exactly they improved, though. And the iPhone bit may be new.
- sbradford26 5y agoThe scrolling screenshot feature is the only thing I am semi excited about. I had it on my old Huawei Mate 10 Pro and used it a lot.
- nsonha 5y ago> bumps the top bar down for a second top bar that just prints the date sounds like a privacy thing
- mabub24 5y agoThis UI style reminds me of the jitterbug phone UI.
- joemazerino 5y agoNot bad. Monet, the Android theming engine, is closed-source. We will see how much more Google covers up away from the community with the Pixel 6.
- BiteCode_dev 5y ago"Private by design so you’re in control." Oh, come on.
- y4mi 5y agoThat feature definitely is a privacy improvement though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- singularity2001 5y agoWas that paragraph meant to be clickable or extendable? Because I wanted to read what they meant by "With new easy-to-use, powerful privacy features, you’ll have peace of mind" but noscript blocked any link or something. "If you see anything that you’re not comfortable with, you can manage permissions right from the dashboard." I doubt I can remove all permissions from Google (?)
- lkbm 5y ago> Was that paragraph meant to be clickable or extendable? The next four sections expand on it: see what apps are using the mic and camera, option to give apps only approximate location data, app permissions dashboard, and the local computation for some data.
- vzaliva 5y agoMy Pixel 5 picked up the update just now. So it is actually available not yet another future announcement.
- Ocha 5y agoLast time I used android it was version 4.1 boasting how it improved responsiveness of the system. Here we are with Android 12 still trying to improve responsiveness and smoothness of the system...
- vb6sp6 5y agoI feel like this has been solved for a while now (at least on pixel devices in my experience)
- kiwijamo 5y agoPerformance is still variable on Samsung/Xioami devices in my experience. I have a Samsung S21 which can be really fast one minute and stuttering the next. Possibly it's better on Google's own devices.
- vb6sp6 5y agohighly recommend unless you need knox or some other propritary samsung app. I also wish they would stick with one processor. The exynos vs snapdragon differences are annoying when trying to read reviews or troubleshoot
- unixhero 5y agoIt is really good and has been like forever. You of course have to spend equal amounts as for an iPhone to get a high end experience, and it was like that back then as well. Many people failed to understand this and bought shitty underpowered handhelds, and blamed Android for being laggy.
- procinct 5y agoI had high end Android devices up to Android 7 and still experienced lagging and stuttering. It was clear there were optimisation issues with the software that couldn’t be solved by throwing hardware at.
- thiht 5y agoThe new accessibility features seem pretty cool. But this design is awful, and these widgets are the worst I’ve ever seen. The clock widget in particular is just… ugly? Wtf, why do they seem so proud of this monstrosity, sticking it everywhere they can?
- TheChaplain 5y agoI must admit, I no longer look forward to new Android releases. It's now a "what did they ruin this time" kind of expectation.. :/