The Android Thread - He;pl - The Something Awful Forums

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FAUXTON: Jun 2, 2005; spero che tu stia bene

L0cke17 posted:

My location settings says 'Off' and everything below is grayed out.

Hmm. I almost wonder if maps is trying to use other methods of locating and as such it's burning more energy than if it were to use GPS.

Either that or it's panicking about knowing where it is and constantly checking. I've never just straight up turned location services off so I wouldn't know :v:

# ? Feb 9, 2016 01:46

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# ? May 10, 2024 16:54

Keyser_Soze: May 5, 2009; Pillbug

bull3964 posted:

I really think the phone camera thing is generational.

I graduated college in 2001. At that point, you shot on film if you wanted anything to look halfway decent. The Sony Mavica FD5 storing images on 1.44" floppies was the peak of consumer digital cameras at VGA resolution for over $500 in 1997.

Film is expensive though. It was expensive in (good) equipment, consumables, and processing. Most people had either a cheap fixed lens 35mm camera that they got at Kmart or a disposable 35mm camera with 800 speed film. Photo quality was junk, but it was better than nothing and actually somewhat affordable. You took photos 27 at a time and probably took you a month or so to take that many unless you were going on a trip or it was a special event. Now people take 27 different photos of their lunch before the first bite is even eaten.

So, that's my frame of reference for photos.

I bought a Kodak DC3200 in 2001 with an incredible 1.3mp sensor and started snapping pictures. Even that camera came awfully close to those disposable days. From there it was an upward trend. My VX8100 flip phone bested that DC3200 and I had it with me all the time! It was without a doubt capturing better pictures than disposable film cameras. It was about that time that I had the biggest leap in quality when I bought my Canon Powershot S410 in 2006. That was my first serious camera at 4mp and honestly most of the pictures I took on it stand up to this day and it's only been in the past 2 years or so when smartphones (iPhone included) were as versatile and as high quality as the shots it took.

So, from there, my phone cameras keep improving with every upgrade, but none would surpass my point and shoot. I would eventually replace that S410 with an S790 8 years ago and it STILL bests the top smartphone cameras on the market. It wasn't long after I bought that camera that I moved to the OG Droid. From there it went from Droid -> Bionic/Droid Razr -> Galaxy Nexus-> Razr HD MAXX -> Droid MAXX -> Droid Turbo - MXP. Every iteration improved upon the last but they were all inferior to my point and shoot. At lot of times it wasn't inferior enough to warrant carrying around the point and shoot, but it still couldn't match.

So, I always had this clear line in my mind. If I wanted to take serious pictures, I used a real camera. Otherwise, whatever my cell phone had since the mid 2000s was LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than my only real choice for taking photos in college.

The ultimate expression of this occurred just last week when I bought a Sony A6000 APS-C Mirrorless camera. When I actually plan on snapping shots, that's going to be close at hand. There's no beating a decent sized sensor and real glass. For photos to post to Facebook? Smartphone cameras have been good enough for that for at least 4 years.

I very well might feel different if I was 20 years younger and I never knew what it was like to manually wind to the next frame or discover after you had the film developed that the awesome group shot you took a month ago was horribly overexposed and barely recognizable. Kids today don't know how good they have it.

So, in summation, GET OFF MY LAWN!!

I'm way older than you and still lugged around a sweet early 80's Nikon FE2 film camera and various lenses hiking until about 7 years ago when Iphone pics suddenly became "good enough" at that point on for most photos (not a twitterer/facebooker millenial). :corsair:

That reminds me of how awful 1990's early digital cameras were.

I have a decent small Lumix LX7 for "real" photos but for the most part the phone works great. I'll get a real DSLR someday but in no hurry. My senior age moms uses her iphone for pics too and usually ignores the digital camera I got her for hiking/puppy pics as well.

Convenience is more important than photo quality - but camera quality is an important driver for many phone customers and until recently they usually ended up iphone users.

Keyser_Soze fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 01:59

L0cke17: Nov 29, 2013

FAUXTON posted:

Hmm. I almost wonder if maps is trying to use other methods of locating and as such it's burning more energy than if it were to use GPS.

Either that or it's panicking about knowing where it is and constantly checking. I've never just straight up turned location services off so I wouldn't know

Thanks for all your help so far. I'll keep trying things. I only got a smartphone because it was cheaper than staying on my old phone plan. Since then I've been disabling all the 'smart' features because for the most part they annoy the crap out of me. I guess I went too far.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 02:05

Kraps: Sep 9, 2011; This avatar was paid for by the Silent Majority.

galahan posted:

This thread taught me to keep wifi on, and if not gps on, then at least battery saving location under google settings.
I almost never use location features, but apps are hardcoded into updating your location periodically (searching for wifi towers as well) and will freak out repeatedly doing the opposite for battery as you think.

So it's better to use the "battery saving" option than the "device only" one?

# ? Feb 9, 2016 04:33

isndl: May 2, 2012; I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE

Kraps posted:

So it's better to use the "battery saving" option than the "device only" one?

Battery Saving uses less power, as the name implies. Device Only means you won't be sending telemetry to Google so they can tell you your location though, if you want to be paranoid about that sort of thing.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 04:44

FAUXTON: Jun 2, 2005; spero che tu stia bene

Kraps posted:

So it's better to use the "battery saving" option than the "device only" one?

GPS might use a touch more battery per unit of time under lab conditions but the device is spending twice the time awake having to triangulate from cell towers, which more than makes up for GPS' higher rate of drain since the phone isn't awake for nearly as long if it just pulls GPS.

E: in the latest incident of :laffo:

android

my Moto X Pure forgot it had a flashlight after a factory reset. Flash worked on the camera just fine, but it had no button on the notification/settings shade, and the chop gesture didn't work.

A restart fixed it. :wtc:

FAUXTON fucked around with this message at 07:04 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 04:46

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

That's a new one. Of course in other notification weirdness there's the "Until next alarm option" for DND that went away in 6.0, returned in 6.0.1, then just disappears never to return again.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 07:38

Rusty!: Aug 25, 2005; Play Up Pompey
Pompey Play Up

LastInLine posted:

That's a new one. Of course in other notification weirdness there's the "Until next alarm option" for DND that went away in 6.0, returned in 6.0.1, then just disappears never to return again.

February patch:

# ? Feb 9, 2016 11:29

Tunga: May 7, 2004; Grimey Drawer

Rusty! posted:

February patch:

It disappears towards the end of each calendar month.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 11:31

Skarsnik: Oct 21, 2008; I...AM...RUUUDE!

Stick your phone in aeroplane mode, then turn off automatic time and date.

Change the date to the last day of the month and try again, its the most Google thing ever :psyduck:

# ? Feb 9, 2016 11:51

CornHolio: May 20, 2001; Toilet Rascal

I just did a factory reset, I'll let you guys know if that fixed things. Kinda sick of my phone draining power while plugged in.

Though that's just one plug, honestly. Others do charge it, though very slowly.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 15:59

BeeSeeBee: Oct 25, 2007

Random question from someone way over my head in this: My boss has a marketing idea for our next major release. He'd like to load up tablets with a video that would have to be played once to essentially unlock the device in it's entirety and be a normal functioning tablet after that. Possible?

# ? Feb 9, 2016 17:44

Tunga: May 7, 2004; Grimey Drawer

BeeSeeBee posted:

Random question from someone way over my head in this: My boss has a marketing idea for our next major release. He'd like to load up tablets with a video that would have to be played once to essentially unlock the device in it's entirety and be a normal functioning tablet after that. Possible?

This question is missing quite a lot of details about what exactly you are trying to do so I can't really answer in any more detail than this: you could write a customer launcher app that makes the user watch a video before it will display the actual homescreen. As a bonus your users will hate you (and just uninstall the app).

Tunga fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 17:51

minusX: Jun 16, 2007; Say something hideous and horrible jumps out at you. Something so disgusting that it simply must die.
Ah! Oh!..So tacky! I can't...look...directly at it!

BeeSeeBee posted:

Random question from someone way over my head in this: My boss has a marketing idea for our next major release. He'd like to load up tablets with a video that would have to be played once to essentially unlock the device in it's entirety and be a normal functioning tablet after that. Possible?

Change the boot video maybe?

# ? Feb 9, 2016 18:02

FAUXTON: Jun 2, 2005; spero che tu stia bene

BeeSeeBee posted:

Random question from someone way over my head in this: My boss has a marketing idea for our next major release. He'd like to load up tablets with a video that would have to be played once to essentially unlock the device in it's entirety and be a normal functioning tablet after that. Possible?

It's potentially possible with a custom launcher/build but this sounds like some bitcoin-level "attention economy" poo poo that is a terrible idea under anything broader than a limited internal or show demo deployment designed to walk users through proper use.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 19:29

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

FCC filings indicate the Galaxy S7 is going to have a 3700mah battery. Eat that, Note-havers.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 19:48

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Lblitzer posted:

FCC filings indicate the Galaxy S7 is going to have a 3700mah battery. Eat that, Note-havers.

For real?! gently caress that owns.

# ? Feb 9, 2016 19:53

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

BeeSeeBee posted:

Random question from someone way over my head in this: My boss has a marketing idea for our next major release. He'd like to load up tablets with a video that would have to be played once to essentially unlock the device in it's entirety and be a normal functioning tablet after that. Possible?

Are you talking like a tablet at a marketing event? To show a video while people walk around and then to use the app, unlock and the app is avail?

# ? Feb 9, 2016 20:03

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE: Aug 1, 2004; whoa, what just happened here?; College Slice

Lblitzer posted:

FCC filings indicate the Galaxy S7 is going to have a 3700mah battery. Eat that, Note-havers.

That's the S7 Edge, right? That's actually a 5.5" phone (vs the 5.1" 'regular' size the S7 is)

Even so that's a improvement over the Note 5's 3000mah. Note 5 being, of course, 5.7". (Probably because precious space is taken up by the pen and its ejection mechanism)

e: S7 Edge has 3600mah.

e2: S7 is expected to come in at 3000mah (still a large improvement over the 2550 on the S6)

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 20:27

BeeSeeBee: Oct 25, 2007

Tunga posted:

This question is missing quite a lot of details about what exactly you are trying to do so I can't really answer in any more detail than this: you could write a customer launcher app that makes the user watch a video before it will display the actual homescreen. As a bonus your users will hate you (and just uninstall the app).

This could actually be an option, we would have no problem with something that can easily be uninstalled, especially if it left the OS otherwise untouched. I'll just have to ask if he'd be willing to spare development time on the actual software to make a launcher.

minusX posted:

Change the boot video maybe?

FAUXTON posted:

It's potentially possible with a custom launcher/build but this sounds like some bitcoin-level "attention economy" poo poo that is a terrible idea under anything broader than a limited internal or show demo deployment designed to walk users through proper use.

deong posted:

Are you talking like a tablet at a marketing event? To show a video while people walk around and then to use the app, unlock and the app is avail?

Sorry, a bit more background: I work for a sensory consulting company primarily focused on consumer packaged goods (mostly food) that has also developed software pretty specific to the industry. It's a very niche industry, and because of that, the software options have really lagged behind where the industry is, and most people use some suite of software that's increasingly complicated and kludgey. Enter us, SaaS, slick, constant updates, one license per company, unlimited users, etc. To toot our own horns, we're doing a lot of things right and the response from the industry has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of feedback and sales. This is relatively expensive B2B licensing stuff so this tablet idea isn't intended to throw a bunch at people randomly, but rather send it to a lead sensory scientist at places we haven't been able to get our foot in the door (not going to lie, this crap has worked in the past when the software was just released).

The idea is to play a 1-2 minute explainer video (e.g. something like this) on the tablet when they turn it on the first time, and then we'd like the tablet to otherwise function like a standard tablet, they wouldn't have to watch the video ever again, completely open, not locked down at all. The tablet thing is related to the industry and how a lot of companies collect data, and it would tie in to one of our marketing messages which is more or less that as robust as the software is, it's easy enough to setup, run, and analyze all on a tablet if need be, thanks for watching the video, enjoy your free tablet. I don't necessarily agree with the strategy (considering he also wants Ray of Light at background music), but it's my job to ask all the same

Thanks all!

BeeSeeBee fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Feb 9, 2016

# ? Feb 9, 2016 23:24

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

broken clock opsec posted:

That's the S7 Edge, right? That's actually a 5.5" phone (vs the 5.1" 'regular' size the S7 is)

Even so that's a improvement over the Note 5's 3000mah. Note 5 being, of course, 5.7". (Probably because precious space is taken up by the pen and its ejection mechanism)

e: S7 Edge has 3600mah.

e2: S7 is expected to come in at 3000mah (still a large improvement over the 2550 on the S6)

2700mAh for the regular S7 according to this:
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...rc=rss&attr=all

I'm not due/able to upgrade until the end of August so it'll be interesting to see if the battery lasts longer in this than the S6. I've been using a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact for 16 months and the battery life has spoiled me. If they have a Z6 Compact with a faster SoC, fingerprint scanner, more onboard memory and a 1080p screen at 4.6 inches, I'll be happy as a pig in poo poo.

Also, Sony's been excellent with their Concept ROM, though they've missed January's security update. What are Samsung like in the UK with their software updates?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 00:00

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE: Aug 1, 2004; whoa, what just happened here?; College Slice

WattsvilleBlues posted:

2700mAh for the regular S7 according to this:
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone...rc=rss&attr=all

I'm not due/able to upgrade until the end of August so it'll be interesting to see if the battery lasts longer in this than the S6. I've been using a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact for 16 months and the battery life has spoiled me. If they have a Z6 Compact with a faster SoC, fingerprint scanner, more onboard memory and a 1080p screen at 4.6 inches, I'll be happy as a pig in poo poo.

Also, Sony's been excellent with their Concept ROM, though they've missed January's security update. What are Samsung like in the UK with their software updates?

Sammobile seems to believe the 3000mah figure for the regular S7. On balance I put more credence in their prediction.

I have seen the Samsung security update article talking about the January patch including what's covered in it, but I haven't seen any phones actually get it outside the ones getting Marshmallow already, which are up to date to February I believe.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 03:23

Super-NintendoUser: Jan 16, 2004; COWABUNGERDER COMPADRES; Soiled Meat

BeeSeeBee posted:

This could actually be an option, we would have no problem with something that can easily be uninstalled, especially if it left the OS otherwise untouched. I'll just have to ask if he'd be willing to spare development time on the actual software to make a launcher.

Sorry, a bit more background: I work for a sensory consulting company primarily focused on consumer packaged goods (mostly food) that has also developed software pretty specific to the industry. It's a very niche industry, and because of that, the software options have really lagged behind where the industry is, and most people use some suite of software that's increasingly complicated and kludgey. Enter us, SaaS, slick, constant updates, one license per company, unlimited users, etc. To toot our own horns, we're doing a lot of things right and the response from the industry has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of feedback and sales. This is relatively expensive B2B licensing stuff so this tablet idea isn't intended to throw a bunch at people randomly, but rather send it to a lead sensory scientist at places we haven't been able to get our foot in the door (not going to lie, this crap has worked in the past when the software was just released).

The idea is to play a 1-2 minute explainer video (e.g. something like this) on the tablet when they turn it on the first time, and then we'd like the tablet to otherwise function like a standard tablet, they wouldn't have to watch the video ever again, completely open, not locked down at all. The tablet thing is related to the industry and how a lot of companies collect data, and it would tie in to one of our marketing messages which is more or less that as robust as the software is, it's easy enough to setup, run, and analyze all on a tablet if need be, thanks for watching the video, enjoy your free tablet. I don't necessarily agree with the strategy (considering he also wants Ray of Light at background music), but it's my job to ask all the same Thanks all!

On the nexus phones you can pretty easily modify the boot image to add your own services and init processes. I did so to make android phones run crond and and a few other scripts that do custom things like launch apps and click them for reasons. I could guess a Nexus 7 or 9 could likewise be modified to launch your app and auto play your video on boot. It could even set itself to only play once easily too.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 05:35

BeeSeeBee: Oct 25, 2007

Awesome, thanks! I'll look into it and see if I can't get something working or farm it out to a freelance site (and pretend it was all me to prove my worth!

)

# ? Feb 10, 2016 07:56

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

BeeSeeBee posted:

Awesome, thanks! I'll look into it and see if I can't get something working or farm it out to a freelance site (and pretend it was all me to prove my worth! )

It should be noted that doing this will break updates for that device. Obviously not a big deal if it's a Nexus 7 as those are 3 years old and way past any updates but for a Nexus 9 the recipient might not like the nag message to update but the inability to do so.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 09:51

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

LastInLine posted:

It should be noted that doing this will break updates for that device. Obviously not a big deal if it's a Nexus 7 as those are 3 years old and way past any updates but for a Nexus 9 the recipient might not like the nag message to update but the inability to do so.

I got a system update for my 2013 Nexus 7 this morning.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 11:34

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

WattsvilleBlues posted:

I got a system update for my 2013 Nexus 7 this morning.

Given the length of time BeeSeeBee is looking at for development it will almost certainly be out of support by deployment.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 12:55

Super-NintendoUser: Jan 16, 2004; COWABUNGERDER COMPADRES; Soiled Meat

WattsvilleBlues posted:

I got a system update for my 2013 Nexus 7 this morning.

Probably getting the monthly security updates.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 15:26

Doctor Butts: May 21, 2002

Whoa, how long have you been able to reply to a hangouts message right from the notification?

# ? Feb 10, 2016 15:53

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

Meh, still not excited about Galaxy S phones. Again with unnecessary chrome elements and bends and shine.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 15:56

nimper: Jun 19, 2003; livin' in a hopium den

Doctor Butts posted:

Whoa, how long have you been able to reply to a hangouts message right from the notification?

Couple weeks now. Last update at the end of January enabled it.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 15:58

WattsvilleBlues: Jan 25, 2005; Every demon wants his pound of flesh

LastInLine posted:

Given the length of time BeeSeeBee is looking at for development it will almost certainly be out of support by deployment.

Would be great if they released an 8 inch tablet that's decent. The battery on my Nexus 7 is starting to get a bit iffy.

SIR FAT JONY IVES posted:

Probably getting the monthly security updates.

Twas.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 15:59

ClassActionFursuit: Mar 15, 2006

WattsvilleBlues posted:

Would be great if they released an 8 inch tablet that's decent. The battery on my Nexus 7 is starting to get a bit iffy.

Amen.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 16:07

ilkhan: Oct 7, 2004; I LOVE Musk and his pro-first-amendment ways. X is the future.

WattsvilleBlues posted:

Would be great if they released an 8 inch tablet that's decent. The battery on my Nexus 7 is starting to get a bit iffy.

Same here.

N10 and N9 were both crap with totally different designs than N7 users were looking for.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 16:15

FogHelmut: Dec 18, 2003

Is anyone else having to reboot their 5x about once a week? It seems to just bog down after a while.

Long term, I'm really not seeing any performance gains over the 2013 Moto X. The battery is great, the camera is wonderful when it wants to load. It just gets annoying with things like that - the camera or other apps not loading instantly every time, getting stuck in apps and not wanting to go to the home screen. Bluetooth eating up all the battery even when its not connected. Good luck running navigation and play music at the same time.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 16:20

Super-NintendoUser: Jan 16, 2004; COWABUNGERDER COMPADRES; Soiled Meat

FogHelmut posted:

Is anyone else having to reboot their 5x about once a week? It seems to just bog down after a while.

Long term, I'm really not seeing any performance gains over the 2013 Moto X. The battery is great, the camera is wonderful when it wants to load. It just gets annoying with things like that - the camera or other apps not loading instantly every time, getting stuck in apps and not wanting to go to the home screen. Bluetooth eating up all the battery even when its not connected. Good luck running navigation and play music at the same time.

My N5X experience is similar.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 16:23

E.T. NO HOMO: Jan 27, 2007; but you say he's
just a friend

I just ordered a couple 6P's for my wife and I and was wondering if there's already a goon favorite car charger for it. Anker or Aukey or whatever?

E.T. NO HOMO fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Feb 10, 2016

# ? Feb 10, 2016 18:35

bronin: Oct 15, 2009; use it or throw it away

E.T. NO HOMO posted:

I just ordered a couple 6P's for my wife and I and was wondering if there's already a goon favorite car charger for it. Anker or Aukey or whatever?

Anker builds quality stuff imho. They are my go to brand for third party chargers.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 18:40

Manky: Mar 20, 2007; Fun Shoe

FogHelmut posted:

Is anyone else having to reboot their 5x about once a week? It seems to just bog down after a while.

Yeah. The camera on my 5X was just great for Nov and Dec, then last month and consistently since then, it just won't work sometimes in any app until I reboot. When the camera does work, it's usually slow. Very frustrating.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 18:50

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# ? May 10, 2024 16:54

Daily Forecast: Dec 25, 2008; by R. Guyovich

FogHelmut posted:

Is anyone else having to reboot their 5x about once a week?

It's crazy to me that this is such a big deal for some people, but I guess I'm that guy who's constantly clearing memory and reboots his phone every 2-3 days anyway. People are always talking about 'bad RAM management" like it's such a big loving deal that the media player won't save your position in a song. If it's been a day or two since listening to music, I'd want to restart the song anyway, or probably play a different one. Same for web browsers; if the browser is going unused long enough to be kicked out of memory, then chances are good I don't give a poo poo anymore about whatever page I had up and running.

I guess this thread has taught me in the past, though, that my use case is way different from everybody else's. I have had no problem getting at least two (sometimes three) days out of every phone I've owned since a Nexus 5 (Nexus 4 lasted maybe a day and a half) and it just doesn't infuriate me when my phone doesn't cold launch an app in point two milliseconds.

# ? Feb 10, 2016 19:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Android Thread - He;pl

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