android

This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

inspector, in Android Auto Lets You Use Google Maps on Phone, Car Display Simultaneously

Finally! Being forced to use Google Voice on Android Auto has driven me crazy, I’ll be honest.

ijeff,

I wish my car supported Android Auto.

inspector,

I don’t have Android Auto in my car, but I’ve used it on my mates cars. It’s…nice, but I prefer something with physical buttons that provide tactile feedback.

Most of the Android Auto or Apple CarPlay units I’ve interacted with are pretty underpowered and the voice interface doesn’t even work like it’s meant to.

multimoon, in Google reminds us that Google Chat can be used with friends and family

How long until it’s rebranded youtube chat?

Welp_im_damned, in Asus Zenfone 10 review-gsmarena

Would you guys be interested in me doing a megathread for the Zenfone 10 still?

ijeff,

Sure, go ahead! I can clean up the other ones after you do. Something I’ve noticed for Lemmy is that a brief intro at the start can help to keep the markdown text out of the main page description box.

cole, in Google Pixel 8 series will have bigger batteries, faster charging
@cole@lemdro.id avatar

Sounds like this may be indicative of the Tensor G3 not being significantly more efficient which is kind of disappointing

Quetzacoatl, in Google Pixel 8 series will have bigger batteries, faster charging

and smaller screens? 145 x 65 mm would be perfect! and anything larger than 150 x 70 is too big.

shitescalates,

Nope the 8 is basically 150x70. Basically a taller S23. Zenfone wins out for me, even though I prefer smaller.

wingsfortheirsmiles,

Assuming Asus deliver on the improved software support, I’m strongly considering jumping to the ZF10

lightrush, in Google Pixel 8 series will have bigger batteries, faster charging
@lightrush@lemmy.ca avatar

As a Pixel 6 Pro user, I’ll probably be picking up an 8 Pro on the account of its flat screen. If Tensor G3 is made using a smaller manufacturing process, that’ll be a bonus. Some 50-100mAh up or down on a 5Ah battery is meaningless and more about the shape of the device than anything else.

ijeff,
@ijeff@lemdro.id avatar

It’s interesting how quickly flat screens turning into a selling point over curved. It’s definitely a conflict between usability and design aesthetic.

lightrush,
@lightrush@lemmy.ca avatar

Curved screens were a nice marketing wank to sell a few newer models but there are few advantages to them and some significant disadvantages. I’m sure most people still buy the marketing though since I have to point out the issues for them to people to notice them. 😁

punkid, in Google’s custom Pixel chip might not arrive until 2025

Hmmmm Mishaal is posting on this community and not the one in lemmy.world 🤔

MishaalRahman,

I didn’t even know there was another community at lemmy.world when I joined this one. I joined this one on the recommendation of the /r/Android mods. Looks like the lemmy.world mods have decided to merge with this one, though!

Knightfall, in First screenshot of Sync for Lemmy
@Knightfall@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m loving Connect for Lemmy right now, but certainly curious to see how this turns out! Sync was my go-to app for Reddit.

nick_99,

Is connect open source?

RichRatsch, in What is the state of rootless ad blockers for Android?

You can easily use private DNS settings on your android without installing anything!

dns.adguard.com is simple and works well nextdns allows more configuration, stats and blocklists

Carter,

I personally never found DNS adblockers to be very successful.

monotremata,

If you're using Chrome, that's why. Chrome bypasses your DNS settings and uses Google's DNS because they found using the system settings was affecting their ad revenue. Using Firefox fixes this, although in Firefox you can just use ublock origin anyway, which works even better.

nefarious, in What is the state of rootless ad blockers for Android?

Honestly, I should probably set up a system-wide adblocker, but I just use uBlock in Firefox and avoid apps that shove ads in my face.

cdegallo, in Pixel 7 Pro Review - 8 Months Later "I Love It But, I'm Disappointed" - In Depth Tech Reviews

I’ve gotten every generation of pixel phones. I was very excited for the 7 pro given the shortcomings I had with the 6 pro (very horrible cellular, disappointing battery life, prone to thermal protection scenarios)

I also go between google and samsung phones, most recently used an S23 ultra.

I had mostly stuck with pixels because of the camera, but to be honest, I feel like google has regressed still camera results since about the pixel 4/5 timeframe.

What I’ve noticed about my 7 pro, and I’m also disappointed with it, but different from the video, I did not keep using it in spite of the issues:

  • Battery life has been really bad. From 100% charge at 7:45am and using it for very basic usage on wifi during a working day without taxing apps like games or video chats, I will use it for up to 2.5h SOT and it will be down to 35% battery left after 12h. Wifi almost all the time, and I have cellular set to prefer LTE (no 5g). I use it incidentally throughout the day for MS Teams text chats, some outlook (limited), some text chats on discord, checking gmail, and (in the past) some reddit usage, and maybe 45 minutes of bluetooth audio streaming. That’s it, and only 2.5h SOT with 35% battery left is awful.
  • I disagree with him re. screen brightness outdoors. Screen does not stay bright when outdoors for a significant amount of time. I was glad that google started using brighter displays, but for me it feels like after 30 seconds the screen brightness drops to the point of being difficult to read outdoors.
  • Cellular–while better than the 6 series, it’s still not great. I’m not talking the difference between 500mbps and 900mbps, which is insignificant in terms of overall normal usage. I’m talking the difference between a stable and reliable cellular connection with no drops or lag in usage. Between my 7 pro and S23 ultra in the same location along a local ‘main drag’ area, and in many places my 7 pro will have an unstable cellular data experience and the S23 ultra has no issues. When my 7 pro disconnects from cellular, like in a parking structure, it takes quite some time to re-establish connection to cellular. My S23 ultra reconnects almost instantly.
  • Charging speed–I’m not asking for more than 25w charging, or even 65w or 100w like other phones (for example). But the throughout-battery-range charge speeds are too conservative and slow, especially when, in my experience with the 7 pro, it drains battery very fast and needs intermittent top-ups at times. Even on 18w USB-PD charging, my 7 pro charges much more slowly from the 40-100% range compared to my S23 ultra; to the point where it takes twice as long. This is frustrating and I wish google would at least make it an option to charge faster.
  • Front facing camera is bad. That’s the best way to put it. So disappointing that google didn’t maintain the auto-focus camera system on the pixel 3; the best front camera experience I’ve had on a phone.

I had a recent weekend trip for an outdoor wedding and was using my 7 pro at that time. Battery life was bad. I had to charge up from a battery pack in the middle of the day and it was frustrating. Also, being outdoors, I was taking reasonable shots and videos of the wedding and it was almost impossible to see the viewfinder because the screen brightness dropped due to temperatures. It wasn’t hot outside; it was 68f and sunny with a bit of overcast/light clouds on occasion.

I have been using the S23 ultra since early May. I was pushed mostly because battery life on my 7 pro for a regular day was basically unusable without necessary interruptions to charge. Battery life is crazy better on the S23 ultra–with the same usage that takes my 7 pro down to 35% on a normal, basic, untaxing day, my S23 ultra is never below 70% battery for the same time/usage. Cellular performance is so much better as well. I also like many of samsung’s software additions including but not limited to things like Modes & Routines, attention to sound settings (individual app volume settings, ability to route simultaneous sounds to different outputs), attention to video settings. Better video recording and audio recording quality. Samsung software experience is a polarizing topic, especially among pixel users, but overall it’s never bothered me.

I continue to prefer the still camera results from google camera on a pixel, but the differences are much smaller now than in the past between google and samsung cameras. I also noticed that subject motion blur–something that I was always disappointed with samsung cameras–is better on the S23 ultra to the point where it doesn’t really bother me in the context of whether to use a google or samsung phone.

And then there’s other aspects–Samsung pays more attention to having an integrated ecosystem experience. What I mean by this–take the example of the video where he mentions nice features on the 7 pro like reverse wireless charging, and he sets the pixel buds on the back of the phone. He also has a pixel watch in many shots of the video, but google did not build in the proprietary charging protocol to reverse wireless charging on the 7 pro, so you can’t use it to charge the pixel watch. With samsung they have built in support of charging galaxy watches with their battery share feature, so if you are going on a trip or something like that, you don’t need to even worry about or think of bringing your watch charger. It’s that sort of attention to the ecosystem that I think Samsung does a better job with than where google currently is. Google’s devices don’t feel very integrated outside of the industrial design and color schemes they chose.

Overall I’m disappointed with the 7 pro. Mostly because of the battery life. Google does need to re-invigorate the camera experience. They have challenges with their SOC and cellular modem choices and I’m disappointed that their first ‘non-qualcomm’ approach has been disappointing. When even samsung doesn’t use their own SOC design and SOC manufacturing and opts for their competitor then you know there must be a reason, and plowing ahead despite that is a pretty poor decision.

dbx12, in [Android][App] Obtainium. Get Android App Updates Directly From the Source.

I don’t want to watch the video on “why this app is better than fdroid”. So, does anyone care to write an TL;DR?

itadakimasu, in [Android][App] Obtainium. Get Android App Updates Directly From the Source.
@itadakimasu@lemmy.world avatar

This doesn’t seem super safe from a security standpoint. Can anyone comment on safety?

nodiet,

Yeah fdroid is vastly preferred over this because you can be sure that the source code provided actually produces the executable.

SatyrSack,

F-Droid installs an APK that F-Droid compiled. Obtainium installs an APK that the app developer themselves compiled. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

everett,

Malicious APKs, built by the developer themselves, not matching their public source code.

bluejay,
@bluejay@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Which developer?

E: Lol @ the ninja edit.

That’s hardly a meaningful advantage for f-droid and the whole man in the middle risk you’re exposing yourself to there. If you don’t trust the developer to do the bare minimum of providing a release that matches source then why are you even installing their app? Satyr’s response about developers getting compromised has way more weight in that conversation, but still falls short IMO.

Making sure the apk matches public source and running it through VT aren’t going to catch a malicious apk that has the nasty bits buried in various commits but checks out in VT and matches the public source code. Sure, it’ll burn them as a developer if/when they get caught, but how often does the community truly do code reviews on one-off Android apps? Not often enough to catch that kinda thing before it spreads without getting insanely lucky.

SatyrSack,

If you think about it, any developer could have their account hacked and the attacker upload an APK that includes malware. Obtainium isn’t doing any malware scan or building from source or anything. If you are planning to just install from GitHub anyway, Obtainium should be a no-brainer. But I can see where might argue that having a middleman like F-Droid to validate APK integrity has some merits.

f-droid.org/docs/Security_Model/

f-droid.org/docs/Reproducible_Builds/

apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/info#security

csm10495,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

So this means you trust F-Droid? … do you have proof that they aren’t doing anything nefarious?

… if we want to play the game of ‘is it safe’ play it all the way in each case.

Like we’re acting like a dev would upload malware to a trusted repo. If we think that way, the could also slip it into the open source code and not be noticed. Anything’s possible but don’t live in fear.

There is a weird thing on Lemmy where people seem to be very worried about things that they probably shouldn’t be; then we hit a line where its just ‘ok’.

TLDR: For 99.99% of people I’d recommend just using the Google Play store.

nodiet,

I thought about that argument as I was posting my reply. The thing is that with fdroid you only have to trust one instance. With something like obtainium, you are trusting every single developer whose app you are downloading. Don’t get me wrong, ultimately I am not that worried either and am using the izzyondroid repo as well which has the same issue as obtainium. But it is good to have systems in place to prevent abuse even if that abuse is unlikely.

csm10495,
@csm10495@sh.itjust.works avatar

Aren’t you trusting every app developer since it still compiles their code? I mean unless you actively look through all the code in each app you use.

nx5qly, in [Android][App] Obtainium. Get Android App Updates Directly From the Source.

Been using this for a while now. Ngl, I didn’t understand it at first and was sitting in my app drawer for months.

Revisited the app again few days ago, and I couldn’t be happier. Pulls directly from developer’s GitHub, Gitlab, or Codeberg as long as their Release page contains an APK.

Devgard, in samsung background apps

that’s weird, I haven’t faced any optimisation issues on my S23 Ultra, I get all messages like normal

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • random
  • uselessserver093
  • Food
  • [email protected]
  • aaaaaaacccccccce
  • test
  • CafeMeta
  • testmag
  • MUD
  • RhythmGameZone
  • RSS
  • dabs
  • oklahoma
  • Socialism
  • KbinCafe
  • TheResearchGuardian
  • Ask_kbincafe
  • SuperSentai
  • feritale
  • KamenRider
  • All magazines