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Adding to that: In Android Lollipop, One can't edit / delete local (phone-stored) contacts. They have to be synced to cloud in order to edit / delete them. If t

by hrjet 12y ago

Adding to that: In Android Lollipop, One can't edit / delete local (phone-stored) contacts. They have to be synced to cloud in order to edit / delete them. If this is intentional, it is a sick dark UI pattern.

hrktb 12y ago
On one hand it's backwards from the user experience POV. On the other hand it garantees consistency and resolves most of the weird edge cases of contacts syncing. I think the common wisdom would be to put the burden on the engineers to find a solution that somewhat handles all the quircks. Personally I've had so many sync failure and weird behaviors from all the services tried until now that I would settle for a more reliable system, even it had severe usability limitations. I envy organizations that can omit "obvious" features when they don't have a good enough solution to satisfy all the edge cases.
- gpvos 12y ago
  Good to know, so I won't update to Lollipop. I have no desire to use syncing, so I would be stuck without an essential feature, in order for them to fix edge cases in something that I don't need.
wtbob 12y ago
It wouldn't matter if contacts were encrypted client-side, but Google seen to have a severe allergy to client-side encryption. Mozilla are really leading the way on this issue. What I think is particularly sad is that Google could still make a huge amount of money without exposing one's private information directly.
- 9point6 12y ago
  Don't all the current nexus devices come with full-device encryption enabled?
  - ansible 12y ago
    I think it is turned on by default for 5.0. But it has certainly been an option before that. I turned it on with my Nexus 4 under 4.4.
  - kasabali 12y ago
    It doesn't make your synced contacts encrypted in client side, though.
  - wtbob 12y ago
    Full-device encryption does nothing when data are transmitted off-device. E.g., as long as my photos stay on my phone, they are encrypted, but if I back them up to Google+ then Google may read them. Which is really pretty crazy: Google don't need to read those photos (or my contacts, or my documents); my computers need to, and the computers of those I share the photos with need to. I could encrypt each photo with a unique key, and encrypt that key with my own private symmetric key, as well as my friends' public asymmetric keys, and then both they and I could view the photos at any time (our devices knowing how to access the keys we have authorised for them), but Google would not.
MichaelGG 12y ago
So all the shit that comes pre installed in a SIM is now permanently available?

by hrjet 12y ago

hrktb 12y ago

On one hand it's backwards from the user experience POV. On the other hand it garantees consistency and resolves most of the weird edge cases of contacts syncing. I think the common wisdom would be to put the burden on the engineers to find a solution that somewhat handles all the quircks. Personally I've had so many sync failure and weird behaviors from all the services tried until now that I would settle for a more reliable system, even it had severe usability limitations. I envy organizations that can omit "obvious" features when they don't have a good enough solution to satisfy all the edge cases.

gpvos 12y ago
Good to know, so I won't update to Lollipop. I have no desire to use syncing, so I would be stuck without an essential feature, in order for them to fix edge cases in something that I don't need.

wtbob 12y ago

It wouldn't matter if contacts were encrypted client-side, but Google seen to have a severe allergy to client-side encryption. Mozilla are really leading the way on this issue. What I think is particularly sad is that Google could still make a huge amount of money without exposing one's private information directly.

9point6 12y ago
Don't all the current nexus devices come with full-device encryption enabled?
- ansible 12y ago
  I think it is turned on by default for 5.0. But it has certainly been an option before that. I turned it on with my Nexus 4 under 4.4.
- kasabali 12y ago
  It doesn't make your synced contacts encrypted in client side, though.
- wtbob 12y ago
  Full-device encryption does nothing when data are transmitted off-device. E.g., as long as my photos stay on my phone, they are encrypted, but if I back them up to Google+ then Google may read them. Which is really pretty crazy: Google don't need to read those photos (or my contacts, or my documents); my computers need to, and the computers of those I share the photos with need to. I could encrypt each photo with a unique key, and encrypt that key with my own private symmetric key, as well as my friends' public asymmetric keys, and then both they and I could view the photos at any time (our devices knowing how to access the keys we have authorised for them), but Google would not.

MichaelGG 12y ago

So all the shit that comes pre installed in a SIM is now permanently available?