Android

The Fairphone 4, as nominated by @be_gt@lemmy.world!

As promised, you will be receiving 1 Lemmy Silver, and of course, bragging rights.

!

But, we also have an honorary Golden Lemmy award, which goes to...

Every Android device that is not the Samsung Galaxy S22+, as nominated by @OpenStars@discuss.online!

You get 1 Lemmy Silver (and bragging rights) too!

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That's it for this year's Golden Lemmy, folks!

(Nomination thread is here for future references.)

Previously: Submission Statement Edition

Haven't done these in a while, so let's get started.

1. Since we haven't really heard any feedback one way or the other, rule 8 is now official. To be fair, we've had a lot less microblog posts than I expected (only one Twitter/X post in the last month even after I waited longer than the initial 1-2 weeks expected, and that was a crosspost.)

• Again, the rules are always a work in progress, feel free to give your two cents here whenever you like.

2. As you guys know, PipedLinkBot went completely insane 2 days ago and looks like it's temporarily shut down. So, I'd like to use this opportunity to explain why I banned the bot pretty much immediately after our community reopened. (And gloat a bit, of course)

• Even though I do agree with the principle of using open source, privacy focused frontend instead of using Youtube directly, I have a real problem with using a bot to respond every time somebody posts a Youtube link. It feels like spam, and it doesn't feel like it serves any utility besides pushing an agenda (even though many people here would agree with it). Most people have seen it around here enough to use pipedvideo if they wanted it to use it already.

• I think it's always been a rage inducing part of the reddit experience that you see you received a response to your comment, but only have it been a bot smugly correcting your grammar or tell you all your letters are in order or something useless like that. So, for this place, I would like to make sure that everyone you talk to here is a real person as much as possible, because people inspire people to be greater, but bots don't.

Got to agree with the conclusion of the review, while this seems like a decent offering (and I personally like the "retro" look), for Є400, you might as well get a A55 with a much better screen and probably longer security support (Android OS updates aren't that important these days).

Charts

• Boxplot of SOT on stock vs. GOS
• Complete visualization of SOT on stock vs. GOS
• GOS SOT over a month
• Stock SOT over a month

Conclusion

• On my Pixel 8, stock seems to offer better battery life compared to GrapheneOS, with a mean SOT of 06:51 on stock, versus a mean SOT of 06:03 on GOS.
• I can't be sure where the difference in battery life is coming from, but it may be due to stock's adaptive battery function that is not available on GOS.
• However, the slight increase in battery life on stock is not worth the amazing privacy and security benefits that GOS provides over stock, so I will be sticking to GOS.

Context

• I wrote a similar post to this one based on the tracking and analysis I did while I tested out stock Android before switching to GrapheneOS (Lemmy), and I wanted to complete my battery tracking by also seeing how GOS battery life compares to stock Android.
• Similar to my testing while on stock, I used my phone as normal on GOS, with the below configurations:
  • LTE only (I don't have a 5G plan)
  • 120hz refresh rate
  • Owner user, with separate work profile managed by Shelter
  • Sandboxed Google Play Services enabled for both main profile and work profile on the owner account
  • Dark mode
  • Bluetooth on, always connected to my Galaxy Watch 6 Classic and very often connected to other BT audio devices
• With the above configurations, I used the phone normally, then took screenshots once I got the low battery warning notification at 20%. I started including the screenshots for the per-systems screen after seeing that the SYSTEM (IDLE) stats would be useful to track, but since I only have these datapoints for 11 charging cycles on GOS, I've excluded them from the analysis, although I am including the per-systems battery usage screen for reference.

Personal usage patterns & use-case

• I try to achieve a balance between privacy and convenience, so I am using Sandboxed Google Play Services and only use one user. However, I minimize unnecessary permissions and try to install only FOSS apps on my main profile while installing as many proprietary apps into my work profile as possible.
• The way I used my phone across stock Android and GOS was quite similar, although I did try to take advantage of GOS features whenever possible, such as enabling memory tagging, toggling off network permissions for apps that don't need them, etc.
• Depending on your privacy threat model, you can use a more strict setup without sandboxed Google Play Services, which may actually decrease battery life due to constantly active web sockets, or you may use multiple users to compartmentalize different apps into different profiles, which may save more battery versus my compartmentalization via Shelter.

Notable observations

• Although I got less SOT in general using GOS, I was still able to push the SOT past 9 hours with an idle time of 26:58 on my heaviest day (link), which is amazing battery life.
• Streaming music on Spotify seems to be a huge battery hog, and other Pixel users have noticed the same (link). The worst SOT I got, which was 02:13, seems to be largely due to at least an hour of music streaming on Spotify.
• On a related note, the background time tracking of Spotify is unreliable, as there were days when I was streaming music for about an hour (link), which led to a 10% battery decrease, but the battery usage screen says Spotify was active in the background for less than a minute (link).

Data & screenshots

| date | OS | SOT (h) | main | full_apps | full_systems | | ---------- | ------------- | ----------- | --------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | --------------------------------- | | 2024-02-21 | Stock Android | 07:26 | link | link | \- | | 2024-02-24 | Stock Android | 06:59 | link | \- | \- | | 2024-02-26 | Stock Android | 05:07 | link | \- | \- | | 2024-02-28 | Stock Android | 05:22 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-02 | Stock Android | 03:56 | link | \- | \- | | 2024-03-04 | Stock Android | 05:10 | link | \- | \- | | 2024-03-05 | Stock Android | 07:16 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-06 | Stock Android | 04:56 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-08 | Stock Android | 04:31 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-09 | Stock Android | 05:26 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-11 | Stock Android | 08:06 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-12 | Stock Android | 10:24 | link | album | \- | | 2024-03-14 | Stock Android | 02:33 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-16 | Stock Android | 04:28 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-18 | Stock Android | 03:55 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-20 | Stock Android | 06:34 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-22 | Stock Android | 05:41 | link | link | \- | | 2024-03-23 | Stock Android | 07:35 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-16 | GrapheneOS | 04:16 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-18 | GrapheneOS | 05:29 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-19 | GrapheneOS | 04:20 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-21 | GrapheneOS | 03:04 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-23 | GrapheneOS | 05:12 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-24 | GrapheneOS | 02:13 | link | link | \- | | 2024-04-26 | GrapheneOS | 04:56 | link | link | link | | 2024-04-27 | GrapheneOS | 09:03 | link | link | link | | 2024-04-29 | GrapheneOS | 05:56 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-01 | GrapheneOS | 04:03 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-03 | GrapheneOS | 07:13 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-05 | GrapheneOS | 03:20 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-08 | GrapheneOS | 08:45 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-11 | GrapheneOS | 04:27 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-13 | GrapheneOS | 06:09 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-15 | GrapheneOS | 02:56 | link | link | link | | 2024-05-16 | GrapheneOS | 04:45 | link | link | link |

My old $200 Motorola G9 Power phone lasted almost 4 years with only very minor scratches. Obviously in that period I have dropped it a few times getting out of the car, where the phone sometimes work itself out of my pant pocket while I drive, and then it slips out when I get out of the car. But no problem on my previous phones, despite the Moto had cheap Panda glass front.

Then I bought my $800 glass back Xiaomi 13T Pro in January, and I loved the phone for the camera and good specs. But alas after only 4 months, and single drop of just 30 cm while sitting on the porch, the glass back immediately cracked! The back now looks like an ugly mess, and the high water resistance is very likely gone too.

For sure the last time I buy a phone with a glass back!!!

I wonder why glass back is so popular, and I curse the media for reviewing the Samsung Galaxy S2 as "feeling a bit cheap", because the back was synthetic, and drop tests showed it was 10 times as durable as the iPhone with its glass back.

Samsung did it right in the beginning, glass backs are a curse.

PS: I don't use condoms for my phones, if they need that for daily use, it's an obvious design flaw!!!

The glass back is supposedly there to give a premium feel to the phone. But because it's fragile, people have to use a cover, but with the cover, the premium feel of a glass back is gone anyways? How is glass back not a design flaw?

EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION:

I am not clumsy, that's why I believe the phone should be able to last without cover. This was the first time the phone slid out of my packet, and I've NEVER dropped it out of my hands. One 30 cm slip and it's broken. Where for instance my Moto had maybe 4-6 in all over the years, and remained unscathed, apart from some tiny scratches. The sliding out of pocket does occur maybe a couple of times per year, but it's a low drop, and the phone should absolutely be able to handle that tiny drop, as it's an item for everyday use. I've also never had problems with scratches on my screen on any phone, which is the reason people use screen protectors I guess, which I don't either, because they are ugly, for instance they create a tiny ring around the camera, and they feel awful IMO, my phone came with it, and it took exactly 10 seconds for me to decide to remove it, because I could feel the edge of the screen protector when using the phone. But please stop with the dropping my phone regularly comments! Just because I dropped my Moto a few times (slid out of pocket) over almost 4 years! Always from low height, which it should be able to handle a few times.

Hi folks, a little troubleshooting help here, please.

I have a Samsung Galaxy S9 with Android 10 rn. I use Firefox as my main browser, but I've tried this on others (Internet from Samsung, DuckDuckGo browser) and get the same result.

When I am at home, connected to my personal wifi network I want to connect to my self-hosted server at 192.168.68.137. In all browsers, just starting this week, I get "Can't connect to the server" or "ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE". This just was working fine the other day, but something (???) has changed and it won't connect. When I am trying this, my phone's IP is 192.168.68.106 so def on the same lan. And, my phone can connect to 192.168.68.100 without error - it's just the .137 address it can't connect to. This isn't a DNS issue; I am trying to reach it only via the IP address.

The server is definitely up and other PCs can connect to it just fine on the same LAN / 192.168 segment. I've tried rebooting the phone, same result. I turned off my pihole ad blocker - same result.

The craziest thing (to me) is that if I disable wifi on my phone, (so now it's on the cellular network) then connect my Wireguard VPN back into my home network, then I can browse to my home server. That should work, of course, but so should it work for me to connect while on the home wifi network without the VPN.

If anyone has any ideas, I would be very grateful.

EDIT: I rebooted the server and voila! The phone is connecting again. No idea why, but sure, OK. Thanks anyway, folks.

>In addition to Private Space, Android at I/O 2024 is really working to boost the mobile operating system’s theft, security, and privacy protections.

When I want to find an app I haven't pinned to the home screen I swipe up from the bottom of the home screen to bring up a search bar where I can search for an app by name or scroll through list of all apps on the phone.

Thing is the search bar on my new pixel phone is actually a Google search bar that will search apps locally at the same time as providing web results, especially if it can't find the app by name.

It's a nice idea in theory but in practice I find it annoying, especially if I've just made a typo. Also, I'm just never going to use this search bar for web searching anyway because for that I would want my chosen browser so the web results are of no use to me.

I actually remember my old phone used to do what I wanted it to do, then one day it switched to what my new phone currently does and after a long time I found the solution to return it back to it's previous behaviour except now I've forgotten what I did.

I only want to search my phone's local storage for apps matching my keyword when I access the app drawer. How do I get rid of this Google search bar? (I'd love to get rid of the Google search bar from the home screen itself as well but I understand I can't do that without root on stock android.

Hey there, I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with my phone (Zenfone8). As you can see, the picture is alright but when I use the zoom the picture goes all pixelated (uploaded in a comment) I change the camera module but it still does the same :(

Any clue/help please...?

EDIT I rebooted the phone to stock settings and the camera is acting the way it ought to...very weird. I guess there was some apps the camera didn't like...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15358017

> Google Pay alternative? > > Hey there, > I'm looking for an alternative to Google pay that'll allow me to use NFC payments etc. Thoughts?

This happens all the time. Happens when I go to the app switcher and resets when I go back home. But as soon as I hear back into the app switcher, it moves to the side.

Here it is as I write this post:

!

Hi, I wonder if there is a setting somewhere to setup the default sharpness for all the android photo app.

As you can see in my example the sharper picture is way too sharp and unnatural and it’s horrible with faces.

With FreeDCam I'm able to set that but this app is too complex to use it in the every day use.

I have a Fairphone3 with /e/os but I don't think that's matter.

Any suggestion?

( and it’s not related with the subjecHorrible Pictures Zenfone 8t: Horrible Pictures Zenfone 8 )

For a search company I can't believe how terrible the Android app search is. I can't even search "bank" for my banking apps, and there doesn't really seem to be any metadata except for the title that goes into the search. Which is absolutely ridiculous given how many companies name their apps something cReAtIvE like "home" or "Resideo" or "Smart Hq." I just want to search GE for the damn GE app. Or "thermostat" for Resideo. Surely there's something beyond surface level here because obviously this is an extensively solved problem. How is there not metadata or description searching at minimum? My only guess is fear of abuse but Google has definitely dealt with that for their entire existence and up until recently, managed to handle it fine.

> Google Messages' sent text editing feature has now begun rolling out to beta users, indicating that stable rollout is around the corner.

> Google Messages wants to make sure you don't see texts from blocked contacts anywhere with this upcoming feature.

In recently purchased Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro with MIUI I see the message app isn't available for many popular apps, those messages usually show when the android version is old but I have android 13 so I don't understand why I see those errors so much in the play store.

So I'm interested in buying a Pixel 8 to install GrapheneOS in it but I'm also interested in rooting it and from what I've read rooting your device with a privacy focused custom ROM like GrapheneOS beats the purpose of installing it, so I don't know if it's actually posible to do it or if it actually has any grace, honestly I just want to be able to install some Xposed modules and be able to auto-update my Droid-ify apps in the backgrounds without user interaction.

Excuse my ignorance in the subject, I have never rooted or installed a custom rom before.

Option 1: leave everything enabled, & everything works with full spyware enablement too

Option 2: disable everything, but forget basics like mail notifications, yet still resign yourself to invasion from irrevocably disabled services

Option 3: the middle ground. Just kidding, disabling only what you truly don’t need is wildly opaque, and painfully slow: options are split and hidden wherever possible. Forget any “apply to all” graces being given by King Google. Disable the wrong thing, and break a seemingly enabled feature.

Also love how some options are given during setup, while others are only informational: “visit settings later to change this thing - hope you forget!”

So, what’s left: Option 4, root your phone and hope Magisk will work when you need to use your bank app?

I just want my cell provider to spy on me because physics. (Govt banning sale/sharing of that data would be epic, maybe some day in the far future.) Extra spying in the shadiest ways is bad and Google should feel bad.

Review of Android 12

I've used notification cleaner for years but it's dead. Anyone recommend alternatives? This has been difficult to find online

Just thought I'd share. Probably nothing new or fancy, but may help some of you find a way to repurpose devices that aren't worth repairing into home servers or something: e.g. op5 I've used has better CPU compared to raspberry pi 4, can run linux (postmarketos, albeit with some caveats), and costs less if bought with broken display (or nothing if you have one lying around)

About time!

I haven't installed or tested in any way.

Is there any way to install and use the Gemini App without the Google App and forced association of the account with my Android phone?

I have a specific Google account just for Gemini, but I neither use the Google app nor desire for my phone to maintain this alt google account as one of the phone associates accounts. I think many folks would prefer login stay within the app itself.

I have some apps which I need them to synchronize in the background but they don't, even with battery optimization turned off. I've tried using an app called PhoneProfilesPlus but I don't need whole profiles, I just want an app to be opened and that's it.

Another problem I have and this may be at purpose for Android security reasons, is that even with PhoneProfilesPlus, when I set up an app to be opened in the background, the app only opens specifically when I turn on my screen, and for some dumb reasons the apps that I mentioned need to be in the main screen to be synchronized.

Hey guys, I am somewhat new to android (went straight to grapheneos) and am a bit annoyed with this widget.

It looks good, but the skip buttons are tiny and my gorilla fingers have trouble hitting them reliably. Is there a way to change to a different layout with bigger buttons or even gesture support?

I am aware that most music apps come with a widget for the home screen but I specifically need the one shown on the lock screen and pulldown menu to change.

Thanks in advance!

> Google’s migration guide for developers lists what they’re supposed to switch to on Android phones and Wear OS. However, there is no replacement for the Goals API that lets Google Fit users set “how many steps and heart points they want to aim for each day.”

I've heard the process is a pain in the ass and not very reliable. I am trying to prepare for when Apple adds RCS support because unfortunately in the US almost everyone has an iPhone and refuses to use a messaging app outside of iMessage.

I have installed sandboxed play services and the Carrier Services app from the google play store with a dummy google account and have put in my phone number in Google Messages for it to verify but it has not been able to do anything and is just stuck on "Trying to Verify" for hours now.

I've already tried clearing cache and everything as well.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: the following did the trick! Steps are to

1. settings
2. apps
3. Sandboxed Google Play
4. Google settings
5. mobile data messaging
6. phone number verification
7. automatically verify phone number (toggle on)
8. RCS should verify
9. Back to 7. And toggle off

Then go to Google Messages and enter xyzzy in the search bar, click the debug option, click RCS, and click on Force Client to Unregister, and then I went to click on RCS in the settings again and boom it was enabled.

Hi, I am planning to build my own location history service similar to the google maps timeline.

For this, I need a simple app that sends my current location (and current speed/altitude if possible) to a given HTTPS endpoint every x seconds.

Is there an app that does that? I could also build my own app, but I'd prefer to spend my time on the server-side.

I found a similar feature in OsmAnd (see the image below), but I'd like to not send my coordinates via URL parameters for security reasons. !

It's a very long story but ultimately all you need to know is, i have to make sure an unknown app isn't sending an assload of traffic through port 25 on any network im connected to. How can I confirm this on my android device without an external PC?

> There's a new Google Messages update page that takes up your phone's entire display every time you open the app.

>Granted, keeping your apps up to date is important, and this new system will help get that across to users. But we’re not sure annoying the hell out of the user about it is the best strategy.

> Starting today, apps made by state and federal governments are getting a new government badge to help users better identify official apps.

>The badge will first appear on over 3,000 apps for 12 different countries.

I remember that when I used Geometric Weather (not developed anymore, its more known fork is called Breeze Weather) it had a option to notify me when it was going to rain, but know that functionality was removed from Breeze Weather, it's there any other app with this functionality?

> One of the best features of Google Photos is the app’s ability to show old photos as a “Memory,” but sometimes showing a specific person isn’t what you want. Now, Google Photos is preparing to make it easier to hide someone’s face from Memories.

> The Google Contacts app is redesigning the process of adding a new contact with less clutter and more intuitive features.