33 ms·

Android 13

132 points by skiman10 4y ago

renewiltord 4y ago
I never use this "only the photos you want to share" shit. In the event that I do it and then want to add more photos to the list, the process is arcane. So I just share all photos. And Android Tablets? I thought they were dead. I used to have a Nexus 7 but now I'm all iPad.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
avel 4y ago
This link currently redirects to blog.google, perhaps it was taken down.
- skiman10 4y ago
  There seems to have been some weirdness in posting the blogs, but the link works now.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
JadoJodo 4y ago
Obviously, they're Google, but does it strike anyone else as odd that the `.google` tld exists? Why not `.amazon`, `.toyota`, etc
- hericium 4y ago
  Both exist.
- moreira 4y ago
  They do exist![0][1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.amazon [1]: https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota
  - JadoJodo 4y ago
    Today I learned... Crazy! Thanks for your reply :)
- agildehaus 4y ago
  https://icannwiki.org/.amazon https://icannwiki.org/.amazon https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota They both exist.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    But as far as I'm aware they don't use it because (my guess) they're rightfully scared of it looking incredibly silly.
- psanford 4y ago
  Both `.amazon` and `.toyota` both exist and are owned by the respective companies.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Owning your own TLD is pretty cost prohibitive. I take it that many companies simply don't have the technical skillset and have determined it isn't worth the costs.
- luke2m 4y ago
  There are many brand tlds. Many large companies have them, even if their main site is not on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom... https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota
- bdcravens 4y ago
  https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strings https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strin... There are many corporate TLDs, including Amazon (took a while to be approved due to protest from the Amazon region of the world). They also have many sites on the .aws TLD. https://global.toyota/ https://global.toyota/ is a real site.
  - bdn_ 4y ago
    Tip: You can search the term `site:ext` on DuckDuckGo to see sites using that domain extension (TLD). It's not very helpful for .com for example, but it's useful for queries like `site:aws` to see what sites are using the .aws TLD.
greatgib 4y ago
2022, the top innovation in smartphone space is to have color themes for applications...
- newaccount2021 4y ago
  this is why I don't care that much about OS updates anymore (even though my phone still gets them)...its usually just pointless UI tweaks. security updates and app updates are now handled separately from OS updates
- pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
  Time to party like it’s 1990! https://eduinf.waw.pl/inf/hist/002_gui/images/w30color.gif https://eduinf.waw.pl/inf/hist/002_gui/images/w30color.gif
- TwoNineA 4y ago
  I am looking forward to shared photo librairies in iOS. Also, the super duper locked down security mode looks nice.
jotm 4y ago
Cool, I guess? I don't see anything actually useful. Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. Would make my talks with several coworkers so much easier. There was a device that did exactly this, and it also seemed to do voice-to-voice pretty well but I can't remember the name. I laugh every time Google's multibillion dollar AI shows me the same ads for already installed apps, still shows me ads for women's products (they 100% know I'm male) and can't understand I'm on an anime songs binge (or rock, or a certain band) this evening. On that note, I can't update my OnePlus anymore. I know they stopped releasing updates, but I thought they'd keep the OTA update servers online. Guess AWS is too expensive.
- izacus 4y ago
  > Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. Uh... Google Assistant Interpreter mode exists for years now? https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9234753?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9234753?hl=en
- entropie 4y ago
  > Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. This exists. There is also a live transcription tool for deaf people that works really good (in german tested, i was very suprised) since android 12. https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/9158064?hl=en https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/9158...
  - jotm 4y ago
    Whoa, OK, thanks!
- wetpaws 4y ago
  Shared clipboard is decently useful, but that's probably it
- 4y ago
tryfinally 4y ago
I fondly remember waiting for new Android releases years ago. I'd jump to the landing page, get excited for new features, plan ahead on getting a new phone. I never noticed when, but at some point this stopped. My old phone works just fine (...for an Android, that is), and I don't even mind the cracked backplate. The battery capacity keeps decreasing year after year, but even that feels like a feature in disguise. It won't get an upgrade to the new Android (by design, I presume), but I don't care. Have I gotten old? Is it me? Or is it you?
- zoeey123 4y ago
  I feel the same except for the battery life going down feeling like a feature
- unsignedint 4y ago
  In some earlier versions, I found there were bit of "must have" improvements over the previous version, but as Android matures, I think it is less so as many of improvements offered by a new version these days are either already possible using an app, or just some nice to have. Occasionally, I do see features that I really want to have but I find they are far from dealbreaker...
  - hulitu 4y ago
    Android is a child who never grows up. Is like those children rose by volves.
- vanillax 4y ago
  Mobile OS's have far passed peak change. I think iOS 7 was peak change. Where it went to the transparent UI, swipe up bar etc. Everything since has been a tweak. The next future of "big change" will come in VR/AR || carOS when each OS update dramatically makes the experience better and more efficient. I doubt we will see much in phone OS space in the new few years as VR/AR/ CarOS ramps up.
  - xiphias2 4y ago
orthecreedence 4y ago
Oh cool! I was just getting used to how fucking terrible and broken Android 12's interface changes were. Now I get to start over.
- izacus 4y ago
  You're in luck, all the broken interface in 12 is still there for you to enjoy!
Rackedup 4y ago
I gained nothing by upgrading from Android 11 to Android 12... actually I don't like it as much. Hope 13 is better.
carlycue 4y ago
Can we just take a moment and applaud the Android team for evolving the Android UI to a point where it actually looks fresher and more modern than iOS? Android looked like a dumpsterfire and a poor-man's iOS for 10 years but now... who would've thought Google would outmuscle Apple in the design arena? It was unthinkable a couple of years ago. Apple got complacent and Google pounced.
- sgt 4y ago
  Not sure if you are joking. Beating Apple on design? They have a way to go.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    Personally I think iOS design is garbage and patronizing to the user, and finds every possible way to hide what you actually want to do. It's absurd how hard it is to find out how to do something on an Apple built OS, especially as they used to be so easy to function and navigate in the early iOS days, to help everyone get onto smartphones. Android doesn't baby me like that but has millions of other giant problems.
    - wiseowise 4y ago
      Patronizing how?
    - znpy 4y ago
      You know what? Both android and iOS won’t let you change dns server for mobile data. They’re both patronising to the user, in my opinion.
      - h4waii 4y ago
        You can now set Private DNS on Android, that's at least handy, and I think you can achieve the same thing on iOS through VPN settings or "Encrypted DNS".
- nightski 4y ago
grishka 4y ago
The notification shade design is still terrible with comically huge paddings all over the place. Nothing fits. Everything is truncated. My ticket on the subject got closed with bullshittest of excuses: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/232821168 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/232821168 Can't they, like, add new APIs, but not touch the damn UI without a clearly defined rationale? By "clearly defined" I mean substantiated by something besides calls to emotions. And I'm getting tired of every OS needing a major update every year because reasons. Software products need to have a finished state like every other engineering project does.
- invokestatic 4y ago
  Your ticket comes across as very confrontational. This puts the developer(s) into a position where they feel the need to defend themselves instead of acting collaboratively with the user to solve their problem.
  - MishaalRahman 4y ago
    Agreed, it's not very constructive feedback. Google does respond to feedback on the Issue Tracker, but I've found posts that sound like rants tend to get ignored (unless there's some critical issue at play).
    - hammyhavoc 4y ago
      It's also not a very constructive UI change, and the Pixel 6 doesn't allow rolling back to Android 12, so if you do update, your premium-priced phone suffers a UI downgrade. I don't think anger is unreasonable when all is said and done, it's a phone. It doesn't need constant screwing around with the UI, just make it secure, reliable, and optimize it.
      - thrashh 4y ago
        It doesn’t matter if anger is at play. At the end of the day, if you want something changed, you should act in the best way to get it
xnx 4y ago
When you get to version 13 of an OS, it's natural that the changes are more minor, but the permissions/privacy changes (though wonky, and harder to explain to the average user) are good and important.
radicaldreamer 4y ago
Something strange has happened to Android... the UI/UX had pulled ahead prior to iOS 7, strengthened it's lead due to the buggy shitshow that persisted through iOS 9, but has recently taken huge steps back in terms of information density and hiding things behind notches for no apparent reason. Has the team changed substantially? Has Google basically "won" in marketshare and has thrown in the towel? Is there something big coming where the resources are going to? iOS continues to improve and refine the "total user experience", especially if you're in Apple's multi-device ecosystem but Android feels like it is stagnating in a significant way for the last 2-3 years.
- grishka 4y ago
  Full-time designers gotta justify their jobs somehow.
  - anthropodie 4y ago
    We need to find a way to move on, once something is perfected. Because if we don't we kinda ruin what we have already perfected. It's called planned obsolescence and below are some resources on the same. It is widely used across industries for over a century and kinda plays a huge role in climate change. Veritasium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE DW (mostly about phone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aYJPonRJd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aYJPonRJd8
    - grishka 4y ago
      The problem lies deeper. There's only so much work that the humanity legitimately needs done, but the economy is built upon the assumption that everyone can get a job. So we end up creating jobs the society at large doesn't actually benefit from to make sure every person has to do some work to earn money to live. This includes ballooning IT companies about which you can't help but keep asking "where does enough work even come from to occupy all these people, in a product that's essentially finished". I don't know how to even approach solving this.
open-source-ux 4y ago
Who else has a smartphone "stuck" on a older Android OS? My phone is still using an older Android version - unable to upgrade any further, or receive security updates. Before you recoil in horror, consider the following: the phone is in perfectly working order, it has an excellent screen and camera, it's fast for my needs. The real horror is that millions of perfectly fine smartphones are sent to landfill because these little pocket super-computers with amazing hardware can no longer be upgraded by software. Is this a embarrassing wasteful state of affairs? Or the price of "progress" on the hardware upgrade treadmill?
- jmercan 4y ago
  On top of your point, I think people should also understand that smartphones aren't exactly a small purchase for a non-trivial population. Even tech-literate are stuck with the stock ROM if they need to use banking apps, snapchat etc. because of SafetyNet. Despite getting a lot of crap online, it looks like iPhones actually do better when it comes to shipping security updates to old phones? [1] I am not sure but if that is really the case, I think I'll switch to one for my next phone. [1]: https://endoflife.date/iphone https://endoflife.date/iphone
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    Apple does a much better job. My Note 10, released in 2019, is officially close to its EOL (last year of life support, i.e. security fixes) - and it was a big step forward for Samsung to ever even give such guarantees. The iPhone X, released in 2017, still gets new versions of iOS. Even phones that have long been dropped from new iOS releases still get security fixes for a long, long time. I hate Apple for some things and even they could probably do better, but they're incredibly far ahead here (now if only the devices were more repairable).
- solarkraft 4y ago
  It's absolutely terrible. Even on custom ROMs, which can extend the life of a phone quite a lot, the latest wave of obsolescence comes from Android dropping support for old, of course un-updatable kernels. It's absolutely not the price of progress, it's the price manufacturers not caring (why would they? people have already bought the device and they'll buy more short-lived devices) and there being no legislation to make them care. With mainline kernels many phones that are a decade old would be perfectly usable today.
alpsne 4y ago
per app language setting is great. I have been using my phone in English for so long because often times the apps would have very poor translations.
flyaway123 4y ago
Mainstream OS updates seem to have long past the point of diminishing returns. Personally, I would only upgrade my phone if there's significant hardware improvement, e.g. camera sensors.
dessant 4y ago
I wonder when will Google finally stop harassing users to enable Google Play Protect when they install or update an app with F-Droid.
- ocdtrekkie 4y ago
  That's Play Protect's sole purpose. It isn't actually a useful piece of software in any meaningful capacity (and remains, several years in, the industry worst in independent testing[1]). Play Protect is there to provide the "green checkmark" people expect to see on their PCs that tell them they are safe, even if it's kinda a joke because they're running Norton or something that doesn't do jack to protect them. Speaking of, Norton's mobile antivirus rates better than Play Protect. Play Protect is a scare tactic for installing software that doesn't pay Google a 30% cut. Probably the only functional thing it actually does. [1] https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/ https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I don't have any issue with Play Protect on LineageOS without Google services. Just saying, I guess. It's cool to be reminded what increasingly crazy bullshit it saves you to not be too tightly inside some walled garden.
michaelhoffman 4y ago
> The apps you download will now need your explicit permission to send notifications, rather than being allowed to send notifications by default. Hallelujah!
HidyBush 4y ago
I was at a phone repair shop and a guy came in saying he got hacked because when he did "something" a new thing popped up that was different from the one he wanted. Turned out he just upgraded Android to the next version and when swiping down the top bar all the icons were completely different (I imagine it's Android 12?). Can't wait for him to upgrade to 13 or 14 and see what else they can uselessly rework
Slackwise 4y ago
Finally, the feature I've been most looking forward to is finally here: - A shortcut to turn on the flashlight (The "Quick Tap" gesture can now turn on/off the flashlight) And this concludes all the features I was looking forward to in Android 13. Thankfully 3-button navigation is still here. The day they remove it is the day I stop using Android.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  There's an Xposed Mod/Custom ROM feature enabling you to map a long press of the power button to toggling the flash light and I miss it everywhere it's not available.
- interestica 4y ago
  MacroDroid has been a lifesaver for simple things like that.
buzzwords 4y ago
Imo no matter how great Android is, Samsung ruins it with their awful bloatware. There seem to be no way of removing them either.
- striking 4y ago
  Then don't buy Samsung phones?
  - eatonphil 4y ago
    Pixel series is my favorite. Even the second tier Pixels are better than the Samsung Galaxy I got last year. The builtin Samsung apps suck and can't be installed, true. But also the keyboard or screen size isn't a fit for me so it's constantly inserting periods/upper case words into my stream of words when I type quickly. And worst of all the USB-C port has gotten so bad only 2 of my 8 USB-C cables work with the phone anymore (though they still work with other USB-C devices I need to charge). Really looking forward to going back to the Pixel phones and not touching Samsung again.
    - buzzwords 4y ago
      Pixel is generally out of my price range
      - eatonphil 4y ago
        Which Samsung do you get? My Samsung is more expensive than any Pixel I've had before. Pixel 6a is $449 new. You can get an older model than that used for half the price too.
        eatonphil 4y ago
        My sister-in-law got a Motorola phone under our Fi plan and I think it was fine too. They're around $300 new. https://fi.google.com/about/phones/moto?pli=1 https://fi.google.com/about/phones/moto?pli=1
toastercat 4y ago
I was honestly massively disappointed with the introduction of Android 12 and its "bubbles" UI; with it came some new pretty animations, and from my experience, the interface was more fluid, but less responsive. I now run Android with animations completely off because even setting them to .5x duration was too slow.
stephc_int13 4y ago
Is it me or the whole Android UI is becoming more boring and bland with each iteration?
- y42 4y ago
  I don't need fancy new features just for the sake of new features. Android is quite good as it is. Compared to iOS that seem to be stuck some ten years ago.
  - stephc_int13 4y ago
    I am not talking about new features. I am talking about UI style. It has never been so boring, for me at least. Compared to recent Android, Microsoft is looking sexy and innovative.
seanalltogether 4y ago
I think the localization preferences will be a big hit in European countries. Translations can be really hit or miss depending on how technical an app gets. For some apps, you might feel the developer did a good job with localization and want to view it in your native language, for other apps you'd rather use the English version because the translations are really bad.
- thiht 4y ago
  I also sometimes use the English version because it’s easier to find documentation. That’s also why I always use Linux in English, localized error messages are useless.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    This is a pain on Windows. I can't use an app in different language easily, like by just run `LANG=en_US.UTF-8 xeyes`.
- melgafin 4y ago
  Absolutely. I generally use English (not my native language) as default language for my Android phone, but there are some apps where the English translation is pretty awful and that I prefer to use in the original language. For these use cases app developers needed to add in-app language switchers, which can be a bit of a pain to implement. There are still situations where the setting in Android won't cut it though, namely if Android doesn't know the language at all. For example, Android doesn't know Romansh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaeto-Romance_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaeto-Romance_languages) is a thing, so if an app wants to add a translation for it, it needs to be an in-app switch.
arberx 4y ago
The media sharing tools (allowing all of your photos to be shared with an app) are the largest silent invasion of privacy on both Apple and Android phones, which is not much discussed. Even on IOS, until recently, every app, as long as you allowed media viewing permissions, had access to EVERY PHOTO in your library.
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  I'm confused by your comment. The new permission tools address the fact that apps have access to your entire library. It's an evolutionary improvement in security, since in every computing device since the 80s, all your apps had access to your entire filesystem. To be honest it can be annoying sometimes. I was happy with the all-in photo library access restriction we've had since 2014. Any app that would do something nefarious with my pictures would have to be something photography related, in which case they can still trick me into giving full library access even with the fine-grained policies. I'd much prefer a short-lived one-time access permission instead, for those times when you need to upload something.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Your message confuses me. Do you mean to say the improvement noted in android 13 is a good remedy for, historically, a bad privacy practice? To me, limiting which folders/pieces of media an app can access seems like a win.
- MishaalRahman 4y ago
  What Photo Picker does was (mostly) already available since Android 4.4 KitKat with the documents picker (Files app) and the ACTION_GET_CONTENT or ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT intents. What Photo Picker adds is a much nicer, more intuitive UI and the ability to grant read-only access to user-selected media files. URIs obtained through Photo Picker can be persisted, but unlike with documents picker, they don't grant write access as well. If you're curious about how the photo picker works under the hood, I wrote an article that goes into that: https://blog.esper.io/android-photo-picker-backport/ https://blog.esper.io/android-photo-picker-backport/
- kaba0 4y ago
Goosey 4y ago
10. Android 13 adopts Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, a new Bluetooth audio standard that results in lower latency than classic audio. This allows you to hear audio that’s in better sync with the sound’s source, reducing delay. With Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, you can also enjoy enhanced audio quality and broadcast audio to multiple devices at the same time. This is huge! Now I wonder if I have any Bluetooth devices which support the new standard, or if I will be forced to buy new headphones (again!)
- solarkraft 4y ago
  This happens to be my area of expertise (somewhat). You don't and none are planned to be released until later this year. You likely don't even have a phone that supports it: Only high-end chipsets with Bluetooth 5.2 capability support it (check for an explicit mention of LE Audio in the SoC's data sheet; per my understanding the isochronous channels needed for LE Audio are optional in the standard). Oh yeah, and it is huge, mostly in one way I care about: The audio quality might not suck so badly anymore when making phone calls because the standard finally allows more than 16kHz audio recording (the need for an extra profile has been removed).
  - MishaalRahman 4y ago
    According to the Bluetooth SIG cert for the new Galaxy Buds2 Pro, they support LC3 and many of the relevant LE Audio profiles. https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/154534 https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/154534 There's also this Bluetooth transmitter called the NEXUM VOCE that supports LE Audio, including Broadcast Audio: https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/157814 https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/157814
    - solarkraft 4y ago
      Hey, nice, new releases! There's a chance that many devices are in the pipeline and have been held back until now with Android 13 just being released and the LE Audio spec just being finished/the marketing push just starting (it might be hard to believe how long I've had to search for basic information beyond years-old regurgitated press releases a few months ago). For everyone playing along at home: Look out for "Basic Audio Profile" support.
firefoxd 4y ago
I had my app drawer on the swipe right screen. I updated to android 12, now that's the Google screen. You can't remove it. You cant replace it through the settings. However, you can disable it. But now, you have a giant blank page that says click to reactivate. It's personalization alright, but not the way you think. Kinda like how turning off wifi is a suggestion, not a guarantee.
- izacus 4y ago
  What are you talking about? Long press on background -> "Home Settings" -> "Swipe to Google app" disables that panel on Pixels (for which this 13 is rolling out for). The page is then fully gone.
kuon 4y ago
I just installed android 12, and I am surprisd how enormous everything has become. Volume picker is like 1cm thick now. It scares me if it becomes even bigger with the new version.
resoluteteeth 4y ago
I'm a little concerned with where google is going with all these proprietary chromeos phone integration features. They discontinued chrome apps but PWAs aren't really ready as a replacement and it seems like google is continuing to use stuff like PNACL in various places which now nobody else is able to use, plus they are now just adding functionality like this that really should just be provided by apps directly to the OS to avoid the limitations of not having native apps and not have to compete with developers. Instead of chromebooks being a neutral platform where all developers have the same capabilities since it's just chrome, it looks like its turning into a situation more like the original release of the iphone where Google is just the only company that is allowed to make native apps, and they are using that to add features that can only be used with android. It kind of feels like they just invoked switching to PWAs as an excuse and instead simply closed down the os.
MishaalRahman 4y ago
Google's official blog posts on new Android releases usually leave out a ton of info. If you're curious about what many of the other features introduced in Android 13 are, I wrote a summary over on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/wp0skh/50_features_in_android_13_you_should_know_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/wp0skh/50_features... This summary is just for user-facing features and doesn't mention any of the new APIs, app-facing behavioral changes, or most of the platform changes. My ongoing Android 13 changelog (currently at >32k words, ~170 min estimated read time lol) covers all of that and then some: https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/ https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/
- TMWNN 4y ago
  Is Android 13 the version that will bring game controller rumble support? Or did that happen in Android 12?
  - MishaalRahman 4y ago
    You just reminded me of this article I wrote about that last year: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-better-game-controller-rumble/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-better-game-contro... Unfortunately, it looks like the patches were never merged: https://android-review.googlesource.com/q/topic:InputDeviceRumble https://android-review.googlesource.com/q/topic:InputDeviceR... In fact they were abandoned in August 2021. I haven't heard anything since.
    - TMWNN 4y ago
      Aw man, that sucks. Not having rumble is a disadvantage for GeForce NOW and Xbox Game Pass on Nvidia Shield TV. I thought that built-in Android support would lead to support in Shield TV's firmware.
andrekandre 4y ago
these os vendors (google, apple etc) keep changing and rearranging the ui every year... at some point isn't there diminishing returns? anecdotal but i get so many annoying issues with older family members "where di that button go" or "i cant find x" after upgrading...
pan69 4y ago
I just switched from a Pixel 3 to a Pixel 6 and I don't like it. I am just an average user, I don't use many apps, and the UI in the newer versions of Android is just atrocious. Everything is now "gestures" that don't really work that well, especially when you hold the device in one hand. I had to specially enable the old-school 3-button nav at the bottom of the screen (luckily that still exists) to be able to have some form of non-frustrating interaction with the device. I don't want to be super negative, just ranting I guess. Thanks for listening...
- Yhippa 4y ago
  What's crazy is that this problem was solved a long time ago. The Palm Pre had gesture-based navigation and while some of it had to do with the screen size being smaller, there was a focus on navigation from the bottom in applications. Notifications would pop up from the bottom. It's crazy that we're almost 14 years out from that and with these huge screens you have to reach to the top of the screen.
  - pan69 4y ago
    Yeah, I think that was my biggest gripe, they moved the back button to the top-left of the screen... why??? One handed operation used to work okayish, but not anymore...
    - ac29 4y ago
      With gestures on (the new default), you can swipe in from either side of the screen to go back. Easy to do with one hand.
- tiltrus 4y ago
  Enabling the three navigation buttons is the first thing I do on every new phone I get. You can navigate a lot faster with the buttons compared to the gestures.
  - kaba0 4y ago
    My personal opinion is that the ios-like gesture-based navigation is hands down the best UX I have ever used, so there is that. Though I dislike the back gesture on android, ios has it better due to not having it in the first place.
markdog12 4y ago
Detailed post here: https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/ https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Wait, so basically no more filesystem access? So it's the end for third party file managers? Wow... No more log access either, so that also means no more automation apps. And dns over https is hard-coded to cloudflare or Google with no way to chose another provider. I'm so confused about Google's strategy here. File access has always been one of Android's most attractive feature versus iOS. At this point it seems like I'll be using an iPhone very soon, for the first time of my life. Losing features that you rely on every single update is such a pain. At least with iOS the platform is stable, and updates never really remove any core feature.
  - MishaalRahman 4y ago
    >Wait, so basically no more filesystem access? So it's the end for third party file managers? Wow... Third-party file managers never had full filesystem access. Without superuser, they've only ever had access to external storage (what you may know of as /sdcard, /storage/emulated, or /data/media). When Google started enforcing Scoped Storage in Android 11, they disallowed apps from accessing files in external private storage directories, ie. the /storage/emulated/{user}/Android/data and /storage/emulated/{user}/Android/obb directories. Each app you install can create its own directory here, and they're only intended to be used by the app that owns them, not by other apps. The MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission introduced in Android 11 gave apps like file managers access to all of external shared storage, which excludes the /Android/data and /Android/obb directories since those are deemed external private storage. However, file manager devs figured out a loophole using Storage Access Framework that let them ask the user to grant them access to those external private storage dirs anyway. Said loophole has been closed in Android 13. >No more log access either, so that also means no more automation apps. This one is a bummer. Apps can still read the logcat, but they have to ask for permission every time. So yes that definitely kills any kind of automation you can do. >And dns over https is hard-coded to cloudflare or Google with no way to chose another provider. For now. Google never said they'd keep those two as the only DNS-over-HTTP/3 providers.
pentagrama 4y ago
Is hard to rate UI/UX of Android as a whole this days. In the last few years, each big manufacturer has created their own design language on top of stock Android and evolved in its own way. - Samsung's One UI https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/ - Xiaomi's MIUI https://global.miui.com/en https://global.miui.com/en - OnePlus's OxygenOS https://www.oneplus.com/uk/oxygenos https://www.oneplus.com/uk/oxygenos - (Stock) Google's Material Design/You https://material.io/design https://material.io/design Yes, new Android versions bring new features for all of them. Many took ideas from Google's vision, and small manufacturers just use stock with a few tweaks. Also Google for his Pixels does exclusive stuff that do not goes to the Stock Android that every manufacturer can use as a base. The point that I'm trying to make is that today is not much accurate to talk about "The Android Experience" (usually to compare it to iOS).
- hulitu 4y ago
  Between Win95 and Mac System 7 you could see a difference. Between all these "Material" interfaces i see no difference.
- fomine3 4y ago
  A pros on Android is that we can (somewhat) escape from bad UI by changing a device. I'm fine with Android 12 because mine is OneUI.
wink 4y ago
Android is such a weird beast. I'm a life long (unenthusiastic) Android user, coming up at around 13 years now. Still 0% interested in what new features they bring, for some reasons even iOS previews excite me more (which doesn't mean a lot, but definitely not zero percent). Guess it's because I only use 5 apps on my phone and prefer a computer for basically every task, but I couldn't even tell you any meaningful change I've witnessed over the years. It somehow works and they've not yet driven me to buy an iPhone, but their (Google and vendors) messed up policy on not providing updates for older phone models might just do that for my next purchase.
t0bia_s 4y ago
Is UI fixed in A13? A12 has absolutely ugly and inefficient UI design made for... kids I guess?

132 points by skiman10 4y ago

I never use this "only the photos you want to share" shit. In the event that I do it and then want to add more photos to the list, the process is arcane. So I just share all photos. And Android Tablets? I thought they were dead. I used to have a Nexus 7 but now I'm all iPad.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

avel 4y ago

This link currently redirects to blog.google, perhaps it was taken down.

skiman10 4y ago
There seems to have been some weirdness in posting the blogs, but the link works now.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

JadoJodo 4y ago

Obviously, they're Google, but does it strike anyone else as odd that the `.google` tld exists? Why not `.amazon`, `.toyota`, etc

hericium 4y ago
Both exist.
moreira 4y ago
They do exist![0][1] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.amazon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.amazon [1]: https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota
- JadoJodo 4y ago
  Today I learned... Crazy! Thanks for your reply :)
agildehaus 4y ago
https://icannwiki.org/.amazon https://icannwiki.org/.amazon https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota They both exist.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  But as far as I'm aware they don't use it because (my guess) they're rightfully scared of it looking incredibly silly.
psanford 4y ago
Both `.amazon` and `.toyota` both exist and are owned by the respective companies.
encryptluks2 4y ago
Owning your own TLD is pretty cost prohibitive. I take it that many companies simply don't have the technical skillset and have determined it isn't worth the costs.
luke2m 4y ago
There are many brand tlds. Many large companies have them, even if their main site is not on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains#Brand_top-level_domains https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_dom... https://icannwiki.org/.toyota https://icannwiki.org/.toyota
bdcravens 4y ago
https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strings https://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/delegated-strin... There are many corporate TLDs, including Amazon (took a while to be approved due to protest from the Amazon region of the world). They also have many sites on the .aws TLD. https://global.toyota/ https://global.toyota/ is a real site.
- bdn_ 4y ago
  Tip: You can search the term `site:ext` on DuckDuckGo to see sites using that domain extension (TLD). It's not very helpful for .com for example, but it's useful for queries like `site:aws` to see what sites are using the .aws TLD.

greatgib 4y ago

2022, the top innovation in smartphone space is to have color themes for applications...

newaccount2021 4y ago
this is why I don't care that much about OS updates anymore (even though my phone still gets them)...its usually just pointless UI tweaks. security updates and app updates are now handled separately from OS updates
pwdisswordfish9 4y ago
Time to party like it’s 1990! https://eduinf.waw.pl/inf/hist/002_gui/images/w30color.gif https://eduinf.waw.pl/inf/hist/002_gui/images/w30color.gif
TwoNineA 4y ago
I am looking forward to shared photo librairies in iOS. Also, the super duper locked down security mode looks nice.

jotm 4y ago

Cool, I guess? I don't see anything actually useful. Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. Would make my talks with several coworkers so much easier. There was a device that did exactly this, and it also seemed to do voice-to-voice pretty well but I can't remember the name. I laugh every time Google's multibillion dollar AI shows me the same ads for already installed apps, still shows me ads for women's products (they 100% know I'm male) and can't understand I'm on an anime songs binge (or rock, or a certain band) this evening. On that note, I can't update my OnePlus anymore. I know they stopped releasing updates, but I thought they'd keep the OTA update servers online. Guess AWS is too expensive.

izacus 4y ago
> Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. Uh... Google Assistant Interpreter mode exists for years now? https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9234753?hl=en https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9234753?hl=en
entropie 4y ago
> Right now I'd like Google Translate/Assistant that would translate everything it hears and simply show the language next to the translation on screen. This exists. There is also a live transcription tool for deaf people that works really good (in german tested, i was very suprised) since android 12. https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/9158064?hl=en https://support.google.com/accessibility/android/answer/9158...
- jotm 4y ago
  Whoa, OK, thanks!
wetpaws 4y ago
Shared clipboard is decently useful, but that's probably it
4y ago

tryfinally 4y ago

I fondly remember waiting for new Android releases years ago. I'd jump to the landing page, get excited for new features, plan ahead on getting a new phone. I never noticed when, but at some point this stopped. My old phone works just fine (...for an Android, that is), and I don't even mind the cracked backplate. The battery capacity keeps decreasing year after year, but even that feels like a feature in disguise. It won't get an upgrade to the new Android (by design, I presume), but I don't care. Have I gotten old? Is it me? Or is it you?

zoeey123 4y ago
I feel the same except for the battery life going down feeling like a feature
unsignedint 4y ago
In some earlier versions, I found there were bit of "must have" improvements over the previous version, but as Android matures, I think it is less so as many of improvements offered by a new version these days are either already possible using an app, or just some nice to have. Occasionally, I do see features that I really want to have but I find they are far from dealbreaker...
- hulitu 4y ago
  Android is a child who never grows up. Is like those children rose by volves.
vanillax 4y ago
Mobile OS's have far passed peak change. I think iOS 7 was peak change. Where it went to the transparent UI, swipe up bar etc. Everything since has been a tweak. The next future of "big change" will come in VR/AR || carOS when each OS update dramatically makes the experience better and more efficient. I doubt we will see much in phone OS space in the new few years as VR/AR/ CarOS ramps up.
- xiphias2 4y ago

orthecreedence 4y ago

Oh cool! I was just getting used to how fucking terrible and broken Android 12's interface changes were. Now I get to start over.

izacus 4y ago
You're in luck, all the broken interface in 12 is still there for you to enjoy!

Rackedup 4y ago

I gained nothing by upgrading from Android 11 to Android 12... actually I don't like it as much. Hope 13 is better.

carlycue 4y ago

Can we just take a moment and applaud the Android team for evolving the Android UI to a point where it actually looks fresher and more modern than iOS? Android looked like a dumpsterfire and a poor-man's iOS for 10 years but now... who would've thought Google would outmuscle Apple in the design arena? It was unthinkable a couple of years ago. Apple got complacent and Google pounced.

sgt 4y ago
Not sure if you are joking. Beating Apple on design? They have a way to go.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  Personally I think iOS design is garbage and patronizing to the user, and finds every possible way to hide what you actually want to do. It's absurd how hard it is to find out how to do something on an Apple built OS, especially as they used to be so easy to function and navigate in the early iOS days, to help everyone get onto smartphones. Android doesn't baby me like that but has millions of other giant problems.
  - wiseowise 4y ago
    Patronizing how?
  - znpy 4y ago
    You know what? Both android and iOS won’t let you change dns server for mobile data. They’re both patronising to the user, in my opinion.
    - h4waii 4y ago
      You can now set Private DNS on Android, that's at least handy, and I think you can achieve the same thing on iOS through VPN settings or "Encrypted DNS".
nightski 4y ago

grishka 4y ago

The notification shade design is still terrible with comically huge paddings all over the place. Nothing fits. Everything is truncated. My ticket on the subject got closed with bullshittest of excuses: https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/232821168 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/232821168 Can't they, like, add new APIs, but not touch the damn UI without a clearly defined rationale? By "clearly defined" I mean substantiated by something besides calls to emotions. And I'm getting tired of every OS needing a major update every year because reasons. Software products need to have a finished state like every other engineering project does.

invokestatic 4y ago
Your ticket comes across as very confrontational. This puts the developer(s) into a position where they feel the need to defend themselves instead of acting collaboratively with the user to solve their problem.
- MishaalRahman 4y ago
  Agreed, it's not very constructive feedback. Google does respond to feedback on the Issue Tracker, but I've found posts that sound like rants tend to get ignored (unless there's some critical issue at play).
  - hammyhavoc 4y ago
    It's also not a very constructive UI change, and the Pixel 6 doesn't allow rolling back to Android 12, so if you do update, your premium-priced phone suffers a UI downgrade. I don't think anger is unreasonable when all is said and done, it's a phone. It doesn't need constant screwing around with the UI, just make it secure, reliable, and optimize it.
    - thrashh 4y ago
      It doesn’t matter if anger is at play. At the end of the day, if you want something changed, you should act in the best way to get it

xnx 4y ago

When you get to version 13 of an OS, it's natural that the changes are more minor, but the permissions/privacy changes (though wonky, and harder to explain to the average user) are good and important.

radicaldreamer 4y ago

Something strange has happened to Android... the UI/UX had pulled ahead prior to iOS 7, strengthened it's lead due to the buggy shitshow that persisted through iOS 9, but has recently taken huge steps back in terms of information density and hiding things behind notches for no apparent reason. Has the team changed substantially? Has Google basically "won" in marketshare and has thrown in the towel? Is there something big coming where the resources are going to? iOS continues to improve and refine the "total user experience", especially if you're in Apple's multi-device ecosystem but Android feels like it is stagnating in a significant way for the last 2-3 years.

grishka 4y ago
Full-time designers gotta justify their jobs somehow.
- anthropodie 4y ago
  We need to find a way to move on, once something is perfected. Because if we don't we kinda ruin what we have already perfected. It's called planned obsolescence and below are some resources on the same. It is widely used across industries for over a century and kinda plays a huge role in climate change. Veritasium https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5v8D-alAKE DW (mostly about phone) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aYJPonRJd8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aYJPonRJd8
  - grishka 4y ago
    The problem lies deeper. There's only so much work that the humanity legitimately needs done, but the economy is built upon the assumption that everyone can get a job. So we end up creating jobs the society at large doesn't actually benefit from to make sure every person has to do some work to earn money to live. This includes ballooning IT companies about which you can't help but keep asking "where does enough work even come from to occupy all these people, in a product that's essentially finished". I don't know how to even approach solving this.

open-source-ux 4y ago

Who else has a smartphone "stuck" on a older Android OS? My phone is still using an older Android version - unable to upgrade any further, or receive security updates. Before you recoil in horror, consider the following: the phone is in perfectly working order, it has an excellent screen and camera, it's fast for my needs. The real horror is that millions of perfectly fine smartphones are sent to landfill because these little pocket super-computers with amazing hardware can no longer be upgraded by software. Is this a embarrassing wasteful state of affairs? Or the price of "progress" on the hardware upgrade treadmill?

jmercan 4y ago
On top of your point, I think people should also understand that smartphones aren't exactly a small purchase for a non-trivial population. Even tech-literate are stuck with the stock ROM if they need to use banking apps, snapchat etc. because of SafetyNet. Despite getting a lot of crap online, it looks like iPhones actually do better when it comes to shipping security updates to old phones? [1] I am not sure but if that is really the case, I think I'll switch to one for my next phone. [1]: https://endoflife.date/iphone https://endoflife.date/iphone
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Apple does a much better job. My Note 10, released in 2019, is officially close to its EOL (last year of life support, i.e. security fixes) - and it was a big step forward for Samsung to ever even give such guarantees. The iPhone X, released in 2017, still gets new versions of iOS. Even phones that have long been dropped from new iOS releases still get security fixes for a long, long time. I hate Apple for some things and even they could probably do better, but they're incredibly far ahead here (now if only the devices were more repairable).
solarkraft 4y ago
It's absolutely terrible. Even on custom ROMs, which can extend the life of a phone quite a lot, the latest wave of obsolescence comes from Android dropping support for old, of course un-updatable kernels. It's absolutely not the price of progress, it's the price manufacturers not caring (why would they? people have already bought the device and they'll buy more short-lived devices) and there being no legislation to make them care. With mainline kernels many phones that are a decade old would be perfectly usable today.

alpsne 4y ago

per app language setting is great. I have been using my phone in English for so long because often times the apps would have very poor translations.

flyaway123 4y ago

Mainstream OS updates seem to have long past the point of diminishing returns. Personally, I would only upgrade my phone if there's significant hardware improvement, e.g. camera sensors.

dessant 4y ago

I wonder when will Google finally stop harassing users to enable Google Play Protect when they install or update an app with F-Droid.

ocdtrekkie 4y ago
That's Play Protect's sole purpose. It isn't actually a useful piece of software in any meaningful capacity (and remains, several years in, the industry worst in independent testing[1]). Play Protect is there to provide the "green checkmark" people expect to see on their PCs that tell them they are safe, even if it's kinda a joke because they're running Norton or something that doesn't do jack to protect them. Speaking of, Norton's mobile antivirus rates better than Play Protect. Play Protect is a scare tactic for installing software that doesn't pay Google a 30% cut. Probably the only functional thing it actually does. [1] https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/ https://www.av-test.org/en/antivirus/mobile-devices/
solarkraft 4y ago
I don't have any issue with Play Protect on LineageOS without Google services. Just saying, I guess. It's cool to be reminded what increasingly crazy bullshit it saves you to not be too tightly inside some walled garden.

michaelhoffman 4y ago

> The apps you download will now need your explicit permission to send notifications, rather than being allowed to send notifications by default. Hallelujah!

HidyBush 4y ago

I was at a phone repair shop and a guy came in saying he got hacked because when he did "something" a new thing popped up that was different from the one he wanted. Turned out he just upgraded Android to the next version and when swiping down the top bar all the icons were completely different (I imagine it's Android 12?). Can't wait for him to upgrade to 13 or 14 and see what else they can uselessly rework

Slackwise 4y ago

Finally, the feature I've been most looking forward to is finally here: - A shortcut to turn on the flashlight (The "Quick Tap" gesture can now turn on/off the flashlight) And this concludes all the features I was looking forward to in Android 13. Thankfully 3-button navigation is still here. The day they remove it is the day I stop using Android.

solarkraft 4y ago
There's an Xposed Mod/Custom ROM feature enabling you to map a long press of the power button to toggling the flash light and I miss it everywhere it's not available.
interestica 4y ago
MacroDroid has been a lifesaver for simple things like that.

buzzwords 4y ago

Imo no matter how great Android is, Samsung ruins it with their awful bloatware. There seem to be no way of removing them either.

striking 4y ago
Then don't buy Samsung phones?
- eatonphil 4y ago
  Pixel series is my favorite. Even the second tier Pixels are better than the Samsung Galaxy I got last year. The builtin Samsung apps suck and can't be installed, true. But also the keyboard or screen size isn't a fit for me so it's constantly inserting periods/upper case words into my stream of words when I type quickly. And worst of all the USB-C port has gotten so bad only 2 of my 8 USB-C cables work with the phone anymore (though they still work with other USB-C devices I need to charge). Really looking forward to going back to the Pixel phones and not touching Samsung again.
  - buzzwords 4y ago
    Pixel is generally out of my price range
    - eatonphil 4y ago
      Which Samsung do you get? My Samsung is more expensive than any Pixel I've had before. Pixel 6a is $449 new. You can get an older model than that used for half the price too.
      - eatonphil 4y ago
        My sister-in-law got a Motorola phone under our Fi plan and I think it was fine too. They're around $300 new. https://fi.google.com/about/phones/moto?pli=1 https://fi.google.com/about/phones/moto?pli=1

toastercat 4y ago

I was honestly massively disappointed with the introduction of Android 12 and its "bubbles" UI; with it came some new pretty animations, and from my experience, the interface was more fluid, but less responsive. I now run Android with animations completely off because even setting them to .5x duration was too slow.

stephc_int13 4y ago

Is it me or the whole Android UI is becoming more boring and bland with each iteration?

y42 4y ago
I don't need fancy new features just for the sake of new features. Android is quite good as it is. Compared to iOS that seem to be stuck some ten years ago.
- stephc_int13 4y ago
  I am not talking about new features. I am talking about UI style. It has never been so boring, for me at least. Compared to recent Android, Microsoft is looking sexy and innovative.

seanalltogether 4y ago

I think the localization preferences will be a big hit in European countries. Translations can be really hit or miss depending on how technical an app gets. For some apps, you might feel the developer did a good job with localization and want to view it in your native language, for other apps you'd rather use the English version because the translations are really bad.

thiht 4y ago
I also sometimes use the English version because it’s easier to find documentation. That’s also why I always use Linux in English, localized error messages are useless.
- fomine3 4y ago
  This is a pain on Windows. I can't use an app in different language easily, like by just run `LANG=en_US.UTF-8 xeyes`.
melgafin 4y ago
Absolutely. I generally use English (not my native language) as default language for my Android phone, but there are some apps where the English translation is pretty awful and that I prefer to use in the original language. For these use cases app developers needed to add in-app language switchers, which can be a bit of a pain to implement. There are still situations where the setting in Android won't cut it though, namely if Android doesn't know the language at all. For example, Android doesn't know Romansh (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaeto-Romance_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaeto-Romance_languages) is a thing, so if an app wants to add a translation for it, it needs to be an in-app switch.

arberx 4y ago

The media sharing tools (allowing all of your photos to be shared with an app) are the largest silent invasion of privacy on both Apple and Android phones, which is not much discussed. Even on IOS, until recently, every app, as long as you allowed media viewing permissions, had access to EVERY PHOTO in your library.

ricardobeat 4y ago
I'm confused by your comment. The new permission tools address the fact that apps have access to your entire library. It's an evolutionary improvement in security, since in every computing device since the 80s, all your apps had access to your entire filesystem. To be honest it can be annoying sometimes. I was happy with the all-in photo library access restriction we've had since 2014. Any app that would do something nefarious with my pictures would have to be something photography related, in which case they can still trick me into giving full library access even with the fine-grained policies. I'd much prefer a short-lived one-time access permission instead, for those times when you need to upload something.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Your message confuses me. Do you mean to say the improvement noted in android 13 is a good remedy for, historically, a bad privacy practice? To me, limiting which folders/pieces of media an app can access seems like a win.
MishaalRahman 4y ago
What Photo Picker does was (mostly) already available since Android 4.4 KitKat with the documents picker (Files app) and the ACTION_GET_CONTENT or ACTION_OPEN_DOCUMENT intents. What Photo Picker adds is a much nicer, more intuitive UI and the ability to grant read-only access to user-selected media files. URIs obtained through Photo Picker can be persisted, but unlike with documents picker, they don't grant write access as well. If you're curious about how the photo picker works under the hood, I wrote an article that goes into that: https://blog.esper.io/android-photo-picker-backport/ https://blog.esper.io/android-photo-picker-backport/
kaba0 4y ago

Goosey 4y ago

10. Android 13 adopts Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, a new Bluetooth audio standard that results in lower latency than classic audio. This allows you to hear audio that’s in better sync with the sound’s source, reducing delay. With Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) Audio, you can also enjoy enhanced audio quality and broadcast audio to multiple devices at the same time. This is huge! Now I wonder if I have any Bluetooth devices which support the new standard, or if I will be forced to buy new headphones (again!)

solarkraft 4y ago
This happens to be my area of expertise (somewhat). You don't and none are planned to be released until later this year. You likely don't even have a phone that supports it: Only high-end chipsets with Bluetooth 5.2 capability support it (check for an explicit mention of LE Audio in the SoC's data sheet; per my understanding the isochronous channels needed for LE Audio are optional in the standard). Oh yeah, and it is huge, mostly in one way I care about: The audio quality might not suck so badly anymore when making phone calls because the standard finally allows more than 16kHz audio recording (the need for an extra profile has been removed).
- MishaalRahman 4y ago
  According to the Bluetooth SIG cert for the new Galaxy Buds2 Pro, they support LC3 and many of the relevant LE Audio profiles. https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/154534 https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/154534 There's also this Bluetooth transmitter called the NEXUM VOCE that supports LE Audio, including Broadcast Audio: https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/157814 https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/157814
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    Hey, nice, new releases! There's a chance that many devices are in the pipeline and have been held back until now with Android 13 just being released and the LE Audio spec just being finished/the marketing push just starting (it might be hard to believe how long I've had to search for basic information beyond years-old regurgitated press releases a few months ago). For everyone playing along at home: Look out for "Basic Audio Profile" support.

firefoxd 4y ago

I had my app drawer on the swipe right screen. I updated to android 12, now that's the Google screen. You can't remove it. You cant replace it through the settings. However, you can disable it. But now, you have a giant blank page that says click to reactivate. It's personalization alright, but not the way you think. Kinda like how turning off wifi is a suggestion, not a guarantee.

izacus 4y ago
What are you talking about? Long press on background -> "Home Settings" -> "Swipe to Google app" disables that panel on Pixels (for which this 13 is rolling out for). The page is then fully gone.

kuon 4y ago

I just installed android 12, and I am surprisd how enormous everything has become. Volume picker is like 1cm thick now. It scares me if it becomes even bigger with the new version.

resoluteteeth 4y ago

I'm a little concerned with where google is going with all these proprietary chromeos phone integration features. They discontinued chrome apps but PWAs aren't really ready as a replacement and it seems like google is continuing to use stuff like PNACL in various places which now nobody else is able to use, plus they are now just adding functionality like this that really should just be provided by apps directly to the OS to avoid the limitations of not having native apps and not have to compete with developers. Instead of chromebooks being a neutral platform where all developers have the same capabilities since it's just chrome, it looks like its turning into a situation more like the original release of the iphone where Google is just the only company that is allowed to make native apps, and they are using that to add features that can only be used with android. It kind of feels like they just invoked switching to PWAs as an excuse and instead simply closed down the os.

MishaalRahman 4y ago

Google's official blog posts on new Android releases usually leave out a ton of info. If you're curious about what many of the other features introduced in Android 13 are, I wrote a summary over on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/wp0skh/50_features_in_android_13_you_should_know_about/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/wp0skh/50_features... This summary is just for user-facing features and doesn't mention any of the new APIs, app-facing behavioral changes, or most of the platform changes. My ongoing Android 13 changelog (currently at >32k words, ~170 min estimated read time lol) covers all of that and then some: https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/ https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/

TMWNN 4y ago
Is Android 13 the version that will bring game controller rumble support? Or did that happen in Android 12?
- MishaalRahman 4y ago
  You just reminded me of this article I wrote about that last year: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-better-game-controller-rumble/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-better-game-contro... Unfortunately, it looks like the patches were never merged: https://android-review.googlesource.com/q/topic:InputDeviceRumble https://android-review.googlesource.com/q/topic:InputDeviceR... In fact they were abandoned in August 2021. I haven't heard anything since.
  - TMWNN 4y ago
    Aw man, that sucks. Not having rumble is a disadvantage for GeForce NOW and Xbox Game Pass on Nvidia Shield TV. I thought that built-in Android support would lead to support in Shield TV's firmware.

andrekandre 4y ago

these os vendors (google, apple etc) keep changing and rearranging the ui every year... at some point isn't there diminishing returns? anecdotal but i get so many annoying issues with older family members "where di that button go" or "i cant find x" after upgrading...

pan69 4y ago

I just switched from a Pixel 3 to a Pixel 6 and I don't like it. I am just an average user, I don't use many apps, and the UI in the newer versions of Android is just atrocious. Everything is now "gestures" that don't really work that well, especially when you hold the device in one hand. I had to specially enable the old-school 3-button nav at the bottom of the screen (luckily that still exists) to be able to have some form of non-frustrating interaction with the device. I don't want to be super negative, just ranting I guess. Thanks for listening...

Yhippa 4y ago
What's crazy is that this problem was solved a long time ago. The Palm Pre had gesture-based navigation and while some of it had to do with the screen size being smaller, there was a focus on navigation from the bottom in applications. Notifications would pop up from the bottom. It's crazy that we're almost 14 years out from that and with these huge screens you have to reach to the top of the screen.
- pan69 4y ago
  Yeah, I think that was my biggest gripe, they moved the back button to the top-left of the screen... why??? One handed operation used to work okayish, but not anymore...
  - ac29 4y ago
    With gestures on (the new default), you can swipe in from either side of the screen to go back. Easy to do with one hand.
tiltrus 4y ago
Enabling the three navigation buttons is the first thing I do on every new phone I get. You can navigate a lot faster with the buttons compared to the gestures.
- kaba0 4y ago
  My personal opinion is that the ios-like gesture-based navigation is hands down the best UX I have ever used, so there is that. Though I dislike the back gesture on android, ios has it better due to not having it in the first place.

markdog12 4y ago

Detailed post here: https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/ https://blog.esper.io/android-13-deep-dive/

mardifoufs 4y ago
Wait, so basically no more filesystem access? So it's the end for third party file managers? Wow... No more log access either, so that also means no more automation apps. And dns over https is hard-coded to cloudflare or Google with no way to chose another provider. I'm so confused about Google's strategy here. File access has always been one of Android's most attractive feature versus iOS. At this point it seems like I'll be using an iPhone very soon, for the first time of my life. Losing features that you rely on every single update is such a pain. At least with iOS the platform is stable, and updates never really remove any core feature.
- MishaalRahman 4y ago
  >Wait, so basically no more filesystem access? So it's the end for third party file managers? Wow... Third-party file managers never had full filesystem access. Without superuser, they've only ever had access to external storage (what you may know of as /sdcard, /storage/emulated, or /data/media). When Google started enforcing Scoped Storage in Android 11, they disallowed apps from accessing files in external private storage directories, ie. the /storage/emulated/{user}/Android/data and /storage/emulated/{user}/Android/obb directories. Each app you install can create its own directory here, and they're only intended to be used by the app that owns them, not by other apps. The MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission introduced in Android 11 gave apps like file managers access to all of external shared storage, which excludes the /Android/data and /Android/obb directories since those are deemed external private storage. However, file manager devs figured out a loophole using Storage Access Framework that let them ask the user to grant them access to those external private storage dirs anyway. Said loophole has been closed in Android 13. >No more log access either, so that also means no more automation apps. This one is a bummer. Apps can still read the logcat, but they have to ask for permission every time. So yes that definitely kills any kind of automation you can do. >And dns over https is hard-coded to cloudflare or Google with no way to chose another provider. For now. Google never said they'd keep those two as the only DNS-over-HTTP/3 providers.

pentagrama 4y ago

Is hard to rate UI/UX of Android as a whole this days. In the last few years, each big manufacturer has created their own design language on top of stock Android and evolved in its own way. - Samsung's One UI https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/ https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/one-ui/ - Xiaomi's MIUI https://global.miui.com/en https://global.miui.com/en - OnePlus's OxygenOS https://www.oneplus.com/uk/oxygenos https://www.oneplus.com/uk/oxygenos - (Stock) Google's Material Design/You https://material.io/design https://material.io/design Yes, new Android versions bring new features for all of them. Many took ideas from Google's vision, and small manufacturers just use stock with a few tweaks. Also Google for his Pixels does exclusive stuff that do not goes to the Stock Android that every manufacturer can use as a base. The point that I'm trying to make is that today is not much accurate to talk about "The Android Experience" (usually to compare it to iOS).

hulitu 4y ago
Between Win95 and Mac System 7 you could see a difference. Between all these "Material" interfaces i see no difference.
fomine3 4y ago
A pros on Android is that we can (somewhat) escape from bad UI by changing a device. I'm fine with Android 12 because mine is OneUI.

wink 4y ago

Android is such a weird beast. I'm a life long (unenthusiastic) Android user, coming up at around 13 years now. Still 0% interested in what new features they bring, for some reasons even iOS previews excite me more (which doesn't mean a lot, but definitely not zero percent). Guess it's because I only use 5 apps on my phone and prefer a computer for basically every task, but I couldn't even tell you any meaningful change I've witnessed over the years. It somehow works and they've not yet driven me to buy an iPhone, but their (Google and vendors) messed up policy on not providing updates for older phone models might just do that for my next purchase.

t0bia_s 4y ago

Is UI fixed in A13? A12 has absolutely ugly and inefficient UI design made for... kids I guess?