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

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

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

r0ck0 posted:

Why doesn't android have a built in theme manager like windows? I should be able to change the default colors especially with material design apps. Who said gmail has to be red and hangouts green? Why can I make all the apps the same color that I get to choose?

Which apps would you change, and what color would you change them to?

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 22:54

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:28

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

nimper posted:

I can't tell if this is a fakepost or not.

It's not, and he's not the only one that feels this way.

To be clear: I don't feel this way, he and his ilk are loving crazy sperglords that have to control every aspect of their device or else they feel oppressed.

Read the root thread sometime to see this attitude in larger numbers.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2014 23:58

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Desk Lamp posted:

There's really no reason not to have the option to, I doubt it would be too complicated. Then again there's no reason on screen buttons shouldn't be customizable either yet they aren't.

Too much choice is a bad thing. Not many people want to get lost in a sea of options when trying to use their phone.

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 02:56

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

baka kaba posted:

so it's not actually that out there if they stuck an API on it.

But why would they? What do they have to gain?
You want them to put extra man hours into a feature that only the worst humans will use. More code is more place for something to go wrong and more poo poo to maintain. How is that a win on their part?
On top of all that, they have a team of marketers that actually do care that gmail is represented with "gmail red". Can you imagine some nerdass showing off his custom scheme with black and purple and chiller font and dragonforce as his inbox background? Is that how you would want your product presented?

# ¿ Dec 20, 2014 17:10

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

It's been over a year, but I finally filled up the space on my 16gb 2013 Moto X. So full apps wouldn't update. Gallery -> Select All -> Delete.

Having all your stuff in the cloud is the way to go, I couldn't imagine having to maintain local data anymore.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2014 21:42

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Rusty! posted:

You have to have rooted to get rid of the AT&T poo poo.

I've been thinking about getting a Nexus 6 though AT&T, can you just flash the image from https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images and be rid of the AT&T stuff?

# ¿ Dec 29, 2014 17:34

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Good to know! Thanks, all. I'm at least going to wait and see what the 5.0 update is like on the 2013 X, but I've been tempted by the allure of a larger screen lately. I don't know why. :-[

# ¿ Dec 29, 2014 18:56

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

I really thought the 2013 X would have gotten a 5.0 update in 2014. :'(

# ¿ Jan 1, 2015 19:16

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Ugh. I just got this Nexus 6 and made the mistake of CJing it. I unlocked, removed the oem ringtones, boot screen, all that jazz.

Set it all up. Set up all 5 two factor authentication accounts. Good phone. Then I rebooted to relock the bootloader. Big mistake.

developers.google.com posted:

Execute:
fastboot oem lock
Locking the bootloader does not wipe any data

I reboot and am greeted by the new setup screen. All that work, I now have to do again.

Good god google, why do you have to suck so bad.

NEVER CJ A PHONE. IT'S NEVER WORTH IT.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 05:02

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Turnquiet posted:

Well, yeah. Why the preemptive unlock if you were just gonna change ringtones and stuff?

so i could wipe the oem partition with:
fastboot erase oem

took out the annoying at&t bootup screen

I REGRET ALL

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 05:13

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

r0ck0 posted:

he's a sperglord.

drat straight. If I don't have full control of my mobile computer then I may as well just have two cans and some string.

I got it all sorted. It's nice now that I have it the way I want it. Hopefully I never have to mess with it again.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 07:16

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

ssjonizuka posted:

Is the N6 still fubar on AT&T? Didn't have any at the local store and claimed the radio bug to be the issue. I thought that would have been resolved by now. I was surprised because I hadn't seen it mentioned recently and was thinking about using a next upgrade to get rid of my S4.

I got mine last night. Once I got it set up it's been great. Their site seems to suggest it's online only, but when I dropped in on one on a whim they had one.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2015 22:37

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Anyone else having trouble using "cast screen" on their nexus 6? It works until there is a screen transition (orientation change or app switch), then it disconnects.

Edit: only from the pulldown menu. "Cast screen" from the Chromecast app works.

Why are there two places for this feature and why do they seemingly work differently??

Wayne Knight fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Jan 4, 2015

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 19:58

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

My bank's app isn't compatible with my Nexus 6. =(

# ¿ Jan 7, 2015 18:38

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

treizebee posted:

I now have an android (droid turbo) for the first time.
Is there any first things to do off the bat, settings to tinker with, stuff to turn off/on etc...?

The only thing I was made aware of by other android toting professionals is that apparently Motorola phones will be updating to a new redone OS version soon.

Nah, just sign into your google account and you're good to go. Your phone should have perfectly sane and reasonable defaults.

# ¿ Jan 10, 2015 03:13

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Boy I tell you what this Nexus 6 is pretty great. I'm blown away by how quickly I've taken to it. As you all know, I was one of the biggest smallphone defenders but I've fully converted. Last night I held my 2013 Moto X and actually laughed by how small it is. I mean, it still feels good in your hand, but it's just so cute! Like a little baby phone.

If you like your small phone, stick with it and never try out a big one. You won't want to go back.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2015 16:26

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Mine got that update the night I got it. No problems here.

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 00:14

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

chocolateTHUNDER posted:

Eh, I can't live without muilti-window now.

What apps do you commonly put side by side?

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 15:34

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

r0ck0 posted:

Who said it was? I said they are able to update core components via google play, eg the google now launcher. Perhaps they could also patch the memory leak by updating the offending app or service.

Holy crap, I bet they hadn't thought of that! You'd better write an email to the team so they can get right on it. Them not knowing about this possibility is surely the only reason it hasn't been fixed yet!

# ¿ Jan 13, 2015 19:00

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Works perfectly for me. Just had to turn it on and tell it to trust "home" and "work".
(Also car bluetooth and my magicbands)

# ¿ Jan 18, 2015 16:38

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

You bought a Samsung.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 00:07

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Desk Lamp posted:

The Note 4 also has always on voice recognition and considering the Note 2 is getting Lollipop I don't think you have to worry about updates.

Counterpoint: it is a Samsung.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2015 02:40

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Interest check: would anybody want to buy an at&t locked 2013 Moto X? I'm not gonna try hard to sell it, there's a spec of dirt in the lens that shows up as a dot on pictures and a small part of the plastic chipped off on the side. Its green with yellow accents.

If nobody wants it I'll probably just keep it as a backup in my drawer.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 00:58

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Kidney Stone posted:

So, dilemma time for me.

My work has offered the employees a mobile phone for private (semi) private use. What we can chose between is a Samsung Galaxy Note 4 or a iPhone 6 Plus.

My wife already got a Note 3, and I do like the size of it - as far as I can see, boththe phones offered from work are roughly the same size.

So, what should I chose?

Do you have the option of not getting either? When your employer gives you a phone, it's basically saying "you're always on the clock".

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 21:37

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

SIR FAT JONY IVES posted:

Congratulations, you've always had crappy jobs. My full time Linux system administration job provides me with a $100 stipend every month for a phone, and doesn't ever expect me to answer it on the weekend. In fact, my boss gets upset when customers contact us on the weekend, and even more upset when we respond, since we are setting a poor precedent.

I'm one of four people in my company, so I'm always on the clock and I pay for my own phone! Just looking out for the little guy.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2015 21:46

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

No issues here with my Nexus 6 on 5.0.1

# ¿ Jan 23, 2015 16:48

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

bull3964 posted:

Moto wasn't happy with any other of the choices for fingerprint sensors, so they scrapped it.

This is what apple and moto get right, and what everyone else gets so, so wrong.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2015 17:08

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

mobby_6kl posted:

There was one goon for whom 5.0 worked fine so y'all must be imagining things.

I was going to go on about how you can't make conclusions because self reporting skews towards more extreme results and there not being a large enough sample size.

Instead I'm just gonna call you a dumbass. :tipshat:

# ¿ Feb 1, 2015 14:45

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

I have my google voice voicemails show up in hangouts, and it crashes 100% of the time I first attempt to listen to a voicemail. (As in, voicemail comes in, I check it, hangouts crashes, I check it again and it works)

# ¿ Feb 2, 2015 03:05

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Just checking in to say that my nexus 6 is still great and getting multi day battery on lollipop. No problems at all, smart lock owns.

Also, just got married, so y'all will be rid of me for a while during our honeymoon.

You'll all be running custom roms by the time I get back, won't you?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2015 11:55

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

LastInLine posted:

I think in this Wallet discussion you guys are missing the forest for the trees. You're working backward from "This is technically just as good as (or works roughly similar to) ApplePay and it was here first, why don't people adopt it?" instead of "Why is ApplePay being adopted and Wallet being ignored?"

Lots of people here brought up the fact that Google always choosing to cut out partners and rolling a half-finished process are right but I think are still missing the bigger picture.

I think the key issue is trust. People trust Apple. They trust Apple's done their homework, lined up the partners, and rolled out a solution that works well from day one. This goes deeper than just this feature and it goes to the heart of what Desk Lamp said earlier, it goes to enthusiasm on the part of the user base and a willingness to trust that Apple is caring for their ecosystem and you get the former by means of the latter.

I mean in this case the specifics are well known: Google tried to bypass both credit card companies, carriers, and their OEMs in the interest of just taking the data. Carriers put the kibosh on that immediately and created ~~a successful terrorist organization~~ an alternative contactless payment system. Samsung was deep up their own rear end scrambling to get ready for a break from Google and wasn't going to cooperate. And the principle actors that needed to be involved, the credit card companies, weren't at the table either (because that was exactly whose data Google wanted to take). There was no way this wasn't going to fail.

The bigger picture though still remains. Google has a loose coalition of partners, the key member of which was actively hostile toward it. The ecosystem was and still remains to a large degree fragmented and thrown together. And the key point, users had and still have no idea of the relationship between Google, Android, their carrier, and the OEM. This right here is the main thing.

You can't build trust by throwing "Wallet" on a user's Samsung Galaxy S5 and expect them to just throw in their financial data and use it without the Verizon rep pointing out that it's safe, without Samsung saying that this isn't just crapware like all the other crapware on this phone, and most importantly without their credit card companies saying "Hey, use this neat thing on your device!" Why would anyone trust this? Why would anyone not just think that it's another Verizon Navigator wanting you to pay for something Google gives you for free? They wouldn't and they shouldn't.

Now Apple can get away with it because they're Apple. They don't put crapware on their devices and people know and trust this. Carriers can't block them because (going back to Desk Lamp's excellent point) their fans demand their carriers carry the iPhone and Apple won't compromise. Apple doesn't have to get OEM and carrier permissions to install apps and services on their own devices but that's the difference between being a niche product and a commodity (and it bears mentioning that Google is completely fine with this; they care about being on as many devices as possible first and foremost).

The thing is that if you're going to be the commodity OS, then you have to, must, cannot refuse to engage your partners. You can't be both the biggest and most trusted without acknowledging and leveraging (and yes, sharing the spoils with) your partners. Until Google runs the Android ecosystem in a way where everyone benefits, from the partners down to the user, and the user knows, understands, and trusts that ecosystem they'll never be able to launch initiatives like this.

Getting caught up with this thread, just wanted to say that this is one of the most correct posts I've seen in here.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2015 17:48

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

It takes me a lot longer than 10 minutes to sign in to all of my 2fa accounts.

The real solution is to just get a new phone. Seriously, just upgrade yearly. Its like the thing you use the most in your life, it should always be as good as it can be.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2015 22:39

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Shadowgate posted:

Just buy a new phone every year says the android thread. I just got this god drat Nexus 5 right before Lollipop launched.

Don't buy a phone right before the new model comes out I guess?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 01:00

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

nerve posted:

Then just don't buy an Android lol. This does not bother anyone.

I took the iPhone challenge was happy to come back. Androids intent system is too good to give up, even though it makes other things kind of messy. (The back button, mostly)

It seemed like every iPhone app had it's own web browser and that sucks. Its a shame, though. Apple does a lot right and the hardware feels great.

Hace posted:

lol

Why would you settle for anything less than the best for something that gets so much use?

# ¿ Mar 8, 2015 02:49

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

oppo shitphone style

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 16:48

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

whatever7 posted:

Why do you have to lead every argument to the sales/profit analysis. I really don't care if Samsung/Sony/HTC go bankrupt next year. The sooner I can pick up a flagship phone deal for $150 off contract the better.

Yeah man, let's cheer on a race to the bottom! I can't wait until the lenovo/superfish fiasco reinvents itself on phones!

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 18:07

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Lblitzer posted:

I think he's more referring to having phones like the Nexus 5 or OPO being non-contract, affordable, and decent. Heck, even the new Asus phone looks pretty great and is going to be under $300. I'm not sure how the superfish issue is relevant to cheap phones though, is that like Xaomi or any of those companies coming preinstalled with malware?

lowering margins will cause the manufacturer to attempt to monetize elsewhere, inevitably leading to them selling access to your communications to the highest bidder.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2015 19:04

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

Hadlock posted:

My company wants me to give up my company issued blackberry and run something called GOOD Technology on my personal phone as a way to save the company money to the tune of $60 a month + not having to pay to replace the blackberry when it inevitably breaks. I'm required to carry this device with me at all times as a condition of my job.

This sounds dumb for a number of reasons, shortened list here

1. this puts the financial burden on me with no compensation
2. i buy my devices outright, it's not carrier subsidized or insured
3. running someone else's software on my personal phone doing who knows what
4. who pays for my phone when it invariably breaks?
5. my blackberry has about 5 days of standby time, my android device has about 1 if I'm lucky, it usually needs to suckle from the wall teat after 18 hours, and I go camping, etc away from power sources at least 2x a month

Does this sound reasonable to you? How do you handle this?

Side note, this is a Large Company with deep pockets, recently acquired by a Larger Company with Very Deep Pockets; not a mom and pop shop.

That's dumb as hell. I would just tell them straight faced that I didn't own a cell phone.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 16:36

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

It's not about the money.

Hadlock posted:

I'm required to carry this device with me at all times as a condition of my job.

Your profile says you're in Dallas, so it sounds like it'd be legal for them to force you to spend your own money.¹ It's still lovely and probably indicative of a lovely work environment. Press the issue and see how flexible they can be.

¹: "Employers do not have to reimburse an employee's out-of-pocket business-related expenses; however, the employee must be allowed to deduct unreimbursed business expenses as itemized deductions", http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/expense_reimbursements.html

worst case:

WugLyfe posted:

get a dedicated phone for it.

keep that poo poo away from your personal life.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 16:57

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:28

Wayne Knight: May 11, 2006

I've been saying for years now that blackberry should make an attempt at being the android phone for business.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2015 18:46

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