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EnglishMobster, in NOTICE: Community locked. Join us at !android@lemdro.id)
EnglishMobster avatar

Also over here on Kbin, can't join https://kbin.social/m/android@lemdro.id. They need to fix their federation settings.

exscape,
exscape avatar

I subscribed just now. 31 others were before me.

eatmoregreenfood,
eatmoregreenfood avatar

2nd

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

They locked their community on Lemmy, so none of these replies will likely federate. I sent @mikestevens a DM on Lemmy.world, though; hopefully they see it and can get it fixed.

MxM111,
MxM111 avatar

still 404 not found for me.

1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi,
JokklMaster, in “Sync for Lemmy is happening!”

What about Sync for kbin?

InterSynth,
InterSynth avatar

Please support kbin!

I_Miss_Daniel,
I_Miss_Daniel avatar

They're federated so it shouldn't really matter that much?

I guess we could do KiF once the API is read/write...

HidingCat,

IIRC, there are some slight differences in API so Jerboa doesn't work on Kbin. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

jake_eric,

Kinda; Jerboa can see and interact with Kbin posts, but you can't sign into a Kbin account with Jerboa.

xaxl,

KBin doesn't have a full API currently too, you can only read posts and comments with it. It is being worked on however.

EsotericEmbryo, in Google is preparing to kill Waze

Google kills everything it touches

klyde,

https://killedbygoogle.com/ is a great site to see them all. It's A LOT.

ohmyiv,
@ohmyiv@lemmy.world avatar

Damn, I missed the news about Google domains. That sucks. Squarespace domain pricing is typically pretty high.

Empyreus,

Wait are we sure about Google domains? I literally just saw an ad for it yesterday.

aeternum,

I'm sorry, you saw an ad? adblocker my friend. Use it

ohmyiv,
@ohmyiv@lemmy.world avatar

Confirmed by Squarespace: https://domains.squarespace.com/

Empyreus,

Wild they are still running ads

Moonrise2473,

Marketing team didn’t was aware yet or forgot to turn off the campaign when reassigned

For stadia, a game dev said that they were shocked by reading the announcement on Twitter, as they spoke with some stadia engineer about their game port to stadia only three hours earlier

Looks like when Google decides to kill a product, only a few managers know it

Empyreus,

Switch to cloudflare, they recently started with domains

PupBiru,
PupBiru avatar

that’s okay! there are other great alternatives: the folks over at selfhosted@lemmy.world generally agree that porkbun is excellent (and i’d agree with them)

whettghost,

Yeah it’s super frustrating too because google was one of the few places that you could get a .dev domain, and square space isn’t exactly the most logical place for a developer’s sight

Aldo,

I bought a domain from them right before the announcement, should've gone cloudflare

Poggervania,
Poggervania avatar

Wait, why the fuck would they kill off Google Domains? It's incredibly competitive when you compare it to Namecheap and Porkbun imo.

EnglishMobster,
EnglishMobster avatar

Sold to Squarespace for some reason.

NecoArcKbinAccount,
NecoArcKbinAccount avatar

288 services dead

Pretty sure if this was any other industry there would be a lot of shit thrown, but because its Google they somehow get away with it.

kratoz29,

Google cross Reddit when?

Limeey,

Why are they doing this. Waze was such an amazing tool

KazuyaDarklight,
@KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world avatar

They've integrated what they want into Maps navigation. Now they want you to switch and be happy about it.

lunarul,

No they didn't. They show traffic info from Waze in Google Maps, but the navigation is still the old one, not the Waze one.

orientalsniper,

Title is clickbait, they are laying off the ads department and using Google's.

aegisgfx877,
aegisgfx877 avatar

I dunno, google has a long history of buying competitors then shutting them down, we are all just anticipating it this time.

mook71,

Google maps is pretty damn good though - but I do like Waze for road trips

circuitfarmer,
@circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Do Only Harm

moonsnotreal, in What's your Google Maps open-source replacement?
@moonsnotreal@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Osmand with some of these custom maps that add address data to the normal maps. It works amazingly and is also entirely offline.

Olap,

Also on F-Droid!

Buffalox,

I’ve been using Osmand for years, it works fine here in Denmark. I just use the standard maps.

Offline functionality used to be very important to me, but not so much anymore. Still I’d hate my map to stop working, just because I don’t have good enough signal.

Olap,

I find offline still very important. Great for travelling, mobile data, and reliability

But I also have a SD card full of music on my phone. And no cloud storage

CodeGameEat,

Oh my thank you so much, this and no trafic data are my main 2 pain points with this app, now it’s one less!

grue,

Why isn’t that address data included in OpenStreetMaps and/or OSMAnd by default?

Cinnamon3431,

good question :( why not upstream the data?

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime, in ‘You’re Telling Me in 2023, You Still Have a ’Droid?’ Why Teens Hate Android Phones

Mom, I’m tired of having software choices! I need to be locked into an ecosystem immediately!!

AnotherPerson,
@AnotherPerson@lemmy.world avatar

You are assuming they know about and care about those issues. The teens in my life don’t care.

SnowdenHeroOfOurTime,

You are assuming I should be taken at face value :)

spiritedpause, in When the fuck did a mobile hotspot become something you have to pay extra for?
LaxMotive,

Just downloaded it and I’m already sharing my connection with my tablet. Beautiful! Thank you so much for the link!

erie09,

This is a game changer for me! Thank you

Boinketh,

Awesome! I’ll be sure to give it a shot when I have the chance.

donut4ever, (edited )

The hero we need. Wow, I never knew this app existed. I’ll make sure to suck T-Mobile’s network dry. I always need it but I’m capped at 7GB.

Edit: also just donated the whole $4 I have on Google rewards to this app. Thank you for this.

thanevim,

Does this one handle https connectivity properly? I know that EasyTether failed in this without paying, and I couldn't get it to work for anything...

Boinketh,

Doesn’t work for me :(

C8H10N4O2, in EU votes to mandate removable batteries in smartphones in a landslide; no more glued together junk!
C8H10N4O2 avatar

I might be in the minority here, but I feel this is actually a step back.

In the 5 years I've had my phone, there have been two times I've ever really needed to pull the battery, and still the hard reset sequence still eventually worked in both cases.

Anyone remember how some phones had issues with the battery door becoming somewhat loose over time, causing any slight bump to turn the phone off? Many have already commented on how they explode into multiple pieces when dropped. Traditionally the battery covers are incredibly flimsy plastic, even on flagship devices (cough Samsung). Waterproofing is a common concern too, however it actually can be done with a removable battery (e.g. Galaxy S5).

What really needed to be addressed here was how cumbersome it is to get into these devices to replace the battery, and how often people are price gouged to replace them. I believe this could have been better written to allow for either a removable battery, or a standardized and affordable built-in battery replacement process.

homesnatch,

This will come into play at roughly the same time that solid state batteries will make battery replacement mostly irrelevant. We'll see some terrible designs to accommodate battery replacements that, for the most part, won't be used.

anirbanbiswas,

Good point.

HeavyRaptor,

I'll believe that once I see it.. We have been told the era of next gen batteries is just around the corner every year since the iPhone came out now. We're still using some version of lithium based tech in most applications where power density is important (phones, laptops, cars, etc.)

TheDevil, in ‘You’re Telling Me in 2023, You Still Have a ’Droid?’ Why Teens Hate Android Phones

I tried a full phone cycle on Android. A Wileyfox Swift. I stuck with it for 4 years. I’ve dealt with a handful of Android tablets. I still have to wrangle Android on fire sticks.

I love to mess around with electronics but holyshit never again. These are devices that need to work and perform, I got so damn tired messing with Lineage and TWRP - the alternative being the zero updates from the manufacturer. The whole stack is a janky mess, and a moving target in terms of security and performance. Flagship phones that might stay current and perform well for a couple of years? Wtf?

So many android apps are dogshit. There’s no minimum bar to entry. Malicious apps sneak onto the play store. Out of date apps linger around.

My phone is not a project piece. It’s an essential device. Apple gives me a stringently vetted App Store, strong privacy controls, dependable hardware and performance. They expose the settings that I need and optimise everything else. My iPhone works and does it’s job with far less painful maintenance. I’m definitely willing to trade some freedom for that utility.

Not only that but Apple hasn’t tried to drm the open web lately. Are you sure this is consumerism and peer pressure? And not a dogshit software stack with poor performance, security and hardware driving away the users who are most engaged with their devices?

Do I care what phone you’re using? No. But I think bullshit click bait articles which effectively denigrate an entire demographic for the sake of instigating a tired back and forth about apples vs oranges should stay on the other side of the fucking paywall.

pjhenry1216,

Did you really just compare an iPhone to some hacked version of an android phone? No shit it'll perform better. And complaining that you can't stop yourself from installing bad applications so you need Apple to stop you is kind of a weird flex. Just be a responsible computer owner. Don't just install anything because it's there. Be aware of what you install.

And it's kind of funny how you denigrate the other phone yourself and get mad that someone else did it towards your phone. Dont try too hard defending your decisions.

TheDevil,

No I did not and the Swift was (at the time) an official lineage target. It performed well, but the amount of work and effort it took to attain and maintain that performance was simply unacceptable to me. I like the concept of Android and I like how open it is but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be an apologist for it’s shortcomings. Of which there are many. I would love to be able to justify using an android device but it is just not a rational choice for me. And it would seem many others.

Denigrating something is by definition unfair criticism - and I don’t think even the most evangelical of android fans can support the mediocre manufacturer support and security history of the platform.

Dempf,

I think it’s a pretty fair comparison because in order to get the lifespan that I expect out of my hardware (3-5+ years), on Android I need to install a custom ROM just to get security updates.

Meanwhile Apple is still publishing updates for devices even 10 years old sometimes.

Yes, I know Google is starting to commit to 5 years of security updates, but if you bought a Pixel phone last year (like I did) then there’s a decent chance that yours still only came with 3 years of updates. So if you want a similar level of service then you end up having to do a lot of work yourself to make it happen.

deong,

Pretty sure Samsung guarantees 4 years of upgrades and support.

monotremata,

You were pretty unlucky to buy a Pixel 5A in 2022. Every Pixel device that's been released since October 2021's Pixel 6 has had 5 years of security updates*, including the A line starting with the Pixel 6A in mid-2022. So the only phone Google still sold in the first half of 2022 that didn't have that was the 5A.

At this point the Pixel phones specifically do have pretty decent support lifetimes. iPhones are still doing better, and Android phones in general are terrible about it, but for the Pixels in particular this has ceased to be a big issue. It sounds like you managed to snag the very last phone with this problem.

*They still only get 3 years of OS upgrades, but that hasn't made a meaningful difference in several years.

deong,

Honestly the only thing Apple vets is that the app maker isn’t trying to weasel their way around Apple’s cut of the revenue. They’ll 100% catch it if you have a link to your sign-up page instead of using in-app purchase, but if you want to make an app called Threads and scam 300,000 people’s info, go nuts.

The Google Store is no better, but if I gave 1000 people money to spend on software, the ones who would be scammed out of the most are the people using these app stores. It’s an absolute travesty that Apple continues to get so much mileage out of their bullshit claims about their strict and thorough review process.

Also, I think it’s kind of hilarious that you just want a phone to work without you needing to mess with it, and then your phone cycle with Android sucked because you apparently picked something called the WileyFox Swift and started fucking around with bootloader replacements.

TheDevil, (edited )

Except that somehow it just keeps happening to google:

www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/…/amp/

wionews.com/…/google-deletes-50-apps-after-joker-…

zdnet.com/…/android-warning-these-malicious-apps-…

Whatever Apple is doing, you just don’t see this level of compromise on iOS. It’s not just that the google store is no better, it seems to be so much worse.

The Wileyfox Swift was a rebadged device from an ODM, and at the time was quite well known and liked because the company was UK based and touted responsive local support. The hardware was good and the software support certainly no worse than any other at the time. The frustration of using it came from the problems inherent in the android stack, not the device itself.

I wanted to use android and I tried my best to make it a rational choice. The issues I encountered applied all the same to phones many times the price I paid, hence making iOS my only option. All these years later most of those core issues persist.

PopOfAfrica,

Who still uses Google Play? Use FDroid please.

TheDevil,

Shout out to FDroid for being awesome. But realistically it’s not going to cover all the apps you’ll ever need.

UnhappyCamper,
UnhappyCamper avatar

As much as I would love to only rely on f-droid, they do not have the same apps as the playstore or alternatives for everything.

deong,
TheDevil, (edited )

My concern is with malware that exploits the software stack though, and those links pertain to scams that exploit human nature. Hence they don’t really support the argument that the iOS/android stack is more/less secure.

Scams that exploit human nature are an inevitable part of being online and there is no foolproof way to prevent them. I never said that either company was better or worse at reactive removal.

Scam apps require user interaction to achieve their goals. They largely aren’t doing anything that the user doesn’t allow them to do. So while I would always advocate swift removal, the onus is on me to protect myself rather than the store itself.

The links I posted related to software on the play store exploiting aspects of the Android stack to surreptitiously perform tasks without the users knowledge. If somebody downloads one of those apps they are able to do things that the user isn’t aware of and never allows. This is the kind of exploitation that is preventable by thorough fuzzing. And this is the kind of threat that iOS does a fantastic job at protecting against.

Put it this way: I can safely download any app from the Apple App Store knowing that it is highly unlikely it will fuck with my device. I know that if it does it’ll probably be noteworthy enough to make the news. I can’t say the same for the Google Play Store.

deong,

This distinction only exists in your head.

…medium.com/abuse-of-the-mac-appstore-investigati…

Those are apps that got through app review and silently did malicious things in the background with no user action aside from the initial download.

Who cares what the technical exploit was? The net result is that there’s an app in the store that if you download it, does harm to you in a way you can’t prevent except for uninstalling the app.

OsrsNeedsF2P, in So, what's stopping you from getting a foldable? [Poll]

My phone hasn’t died yet, so I can’t justify buying a new one.

I’m also afraid if my phone is too good, I’ll stop using my computer as much where I’m more productive

Edit: wow, looking at the poll results, this is definitely a minority opinion. Most people are about price/durability

Onii-Chan,
Onii-Chan avatar

Yeah I'm still rocking the Pixel 4 I got back when they first came out, and it's still running as great as the day I pulled it out the box. Why would I need to buy another phone? I admittedly have my eyes on the Pixel 8, whenever that launches, but the 4 does everything I need it to and I have no plans to ditch it anytime soon.

cloaker,

I totally get you on that second point, though I feel different on it. I feel regardless of phone type I would use it the same amount but I would like to have a Z fold when they're better to merge tablet and phone into one. I'm absolutely one for durability though.

Pamasich, in NOTICE: Community locked. Join us at !android@lemdro.id)
Pamasich avatar

In case anyone looks in here in the future:
It works now, kbin and lemdro are federating, the link in the post just doesn't work for kbin. Correct link is https://kbin.social/m/android@lemdro.id

nakal, in Hidden Gems: Unveiling Apps That Could Have Enhanced Your Experience Sooner?
nakal avatar

FairEmail: I hated reading email on my phone, till I found it. I was so happy that I already paid for it 3 times (optional!) just to give something back to the dev.

Waze: it belongs to Google now, but I like it much better because it's like a social network for navigation and maps. You can also edit the maps by yourself. Another advantage is that it shows speed limits and warns you about police while driving.

sketched,

I also really like fairemail for it's privacy focused approach but often the formatting in emails looks weird.. e. g. Paypal is especially bad :(

Felemuso, in For the people coming in asking what app for Lemmy. You don't need it. Lemmy is great on a mobile browser.

Sorry but that's not true at all. Lemmy's UI feels very unfinished/amateur project like. Even the jerboa app, which is from one of the dev, improves the mobile UI experience greatly compared to just the web version.

gogosempai,
@gogosempai@programming.dev avatar

Try wefwef.app. It’s a web app for mobile, the UI is based on the infamous Apollo app.

princessofcute, in Boost for Lemmy is happening!
princessofcute avatar

This is super exciting, hoping he either adds Kbin support or also makes a Boost for Kbin. Boost for Reddit was my go to for Reddit on mobile

glennglog22, in Boost for Lemmy is happening!
glennglog22 avatar

Oh fuck yes. Boost for Reddit was my app of choice for ages. I'll happily use this when it comes out.

FVVS, in Are you guys tired of "Material You" design?

As a UI/UX designer myself (hobbyist, to be clear), I really like it.

There seems to be this notion in the homebrew/FOSS/Linux community that “wasted space” is always non-preferable. I can see this being true for some people, but I feel like a lot of people and band wagoning this opinion.

It’s pretty universally known and accepted in the design community that padding is extremely important when it comes to helping your brain read and separate content. And to be fair, most non-tech people prefer space and padding in their applications to make things easier to understand.

I can be entirely off base here, but TLDR: I like padding and it’s literally beneficial to helping your brain understand the layout of what you’re looking at better.

naught101,
naught101 avatar

Clarity over density?

Widget,

It's one of those "it depends" things. I've been working on a pretty data-dense webapp and as time goes on we've been shaving bits of padding off and instead relying on elevation and borders to signify the UI hierarchy of the app.

For normie apps where there's hardly anything to present, I think all the spacing helps people not get overwhelmed as much.

sik0fewl,

Yep, it all depends on use case. If the goal of the app or site is to wade through data, then extra padding is a waste of space and should be minimized.

Also, if it's something that you use quite a bit, then I often find the extra padding annoying as well. This is more about the user than the use case. As a user becomes more familiar with the app, extra steps (like scrolling or switching tabs) becomes less desirable than just having a jam-packed screen.

rokzoi,

It's nice to see your perspective on it, you make some great points.

Its funny how the places that I dislike the most (status bar toggles and recently google search) are used often and thus do not need the benefits of reading and content separation. You already know by heart what it says and where they are.

Maybe I would like it more if the big padding would only be used in places where I do not interact often with. This would make consistency difficult though.

wason,

Good point but just because you know where certain things are on screen, that doesn't mean everybody knows. So you have to account for that too. Like design considering that that's the first time someone's looking at that screen.

Dark_Blade,
@Dark_Blade@lemmy.world avatar

There’s a fine line between desirable ‘white space’ and too much padding, which Google should probably do a better job at finding.

Anomander,
Anomander avatar

Some padding is necessary and important to most good design; that doesn't necessarily mean all usage of padding is great, or that "more" padding is always better.

rtxn, (edited )

While you're here, I'm curious about your opinion on the latest Spotify client design. It feels like they want to bring the desktop design closer to the touch screen client (maybe to reduce the codebase not shared by the projects). Personally, having grown up with Winamp, I find it very uncomfortable how images are dominant in both list and grid views, and how much space is left (really wasted) around texts. I think it's just a very inefficient interface with way too much useless visual fluff. ::: spoiler spoiler https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cb7969d2-30db-425f-a5c8-f471e72241b7.png:::

(the application on the left is a terminal-based client that really only needs a tiny corner on the screen)

Coliseum7428,
Coliseum7428 avatar

Not who you’re replying to, but I don’t like the giant album art menus. Save that for a now playing screen that should still be able to be shrunk down.

thanksbrother,
thanksbrother avatar

My initial reaction was it sucks. It wasn’t great to begin with, but this felt like a major downgrade to me.

dantheclamman,
@dantheclamman@lemmy.world avatar

Padding sometimes seems like it's used as a crutch to get around placing stuff more thoughtfully. I agree there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it is particularly annoying in feeds where it results in an excessive amount of scrolling

Zeus,

personal opinion, i think padding is worse for delineating objects than a bit of colour; or just, like, a line. look at this example - there are four distinct segments on the left, whereas on the right they all merge into one and a half

padding is really useful, yes, but if you put padding on everything then what's there to be separated?

OpenStars,
OpenStars avatar

The one on the right has more of a nostalgic feel of physical "buttons". Then again, it takes up more space so that your capabilities are restricted. Then again, square root, pi etc. - those are all more useful than INV, DEG, & e for me. So I could see where people could go either way, up to personal preference and even more so on the need that they are trying to meet. Although the one on the left just flat entirely wastes 3 buttons worth of space...

Virkkunen,
Virkkunen avatar

The one on the right looks like different buttons and that everything is clickable. A quick glance shows you different elements and you can easily find what you're looking for. An example of form and function working together.

The one on the left looks like a text area showing different symbols. A quick glance shows you a blue area and a white area. Seems like you need that extra moment to find what you want because everything looks the same. An example of function over form.

Cramming a lot of things together isn't always good (probably it's just bad in general) because it just makes things confusing and ends up wasting time more than having bigger things but less of them.

Coliseum7428,
Coliseum7428 avatar

Gotta agree. On the left, I’m drawn straight to the secondary set of symbols.

On the right, the “distinct segments” are more distinct to me, because of the colors. Primary symbols, All Clear(?), numpad catch me first. Then I notice the lack of shapes and color on the secondary set of symbols.

!deleted168378,

deleted_by_author

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  • JBloodthorn,
    JBloodthorn avatar

    Yeah, choose a wallpaper you like less so your calculator doesn't suck!

    Robtfool3r, (edited )

    Or, just change the color if you don't like it.

    hydra,
    @hydra@lemmy.world avatar

    There are also preset schemes.

    Cosmic_Frog,

    As a UI/UX designer myself (non-hobbyist), there’s UI and there’s UX. What differentiates a good-looking design from a crappy-looking design, most of all, is space (or padding). There are many other factors, of course, contrast being also very important for example, but space is number one. But that doesn’t make a design good, just good-looking, which is a very different thing.

    Adding steps to take a common action (turn off wifi or whatever) because you used to have a certain number of buttons and now you have to hide some to add space… That’s bad design. Good looking, good UI. Shit UX.

    Space should be added when needed. And you need it, when you do, to make thinks clearer. You shouldn’t add space to make it look better if that’s gonna make the experience worse.

    The number one rule of design is that form follows function. You should make things as pretty as possible until you find the wall of functionality, and then you stop. Going from six quick access buttons to four was breaking that wall. You wanna be just on top of the wall. Go to one side, you get a great looking interface people hate to use. Go the other side, you get an interface that’s dense and full of things you want, but looks like a piece of nerd shit.

    I’m also tired of people repeating the same copypasted ideas about any new design system out there (as I’m sure most people are when hearing people talk about their area of expertise), but they are not wrong on that regard when it comes to material you. Shit name by the way.

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