> 8. If you haven’t used an app that you installed on your device in a while, you may not want it to keep accessing your data. Android will now “auto-reset” permissions for your unused apps and notify you accordingly. You can always decide to re-grant the app permissions the next time you use the app.
> 9. With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play, in the same way your apps update. So you’ll get these fixes as soon as they’re available, without having to wait for a full OS update.
8 seems like a rather wise and user friendly privacy concern (which might be annoying to power-users who set things up proactively and don't want their configurations messed with, yet overall a great improvement).
9 has me worried about variants of android like Lineage or ParanoidAndroid where the play store isn't included automatically. This forced reliance upon the play store for security sensitive updates is devastating for de-googled device feasibility. It will make more sense for developers to not support devices without Google Play, effectively shoehorning alternatives out of the usable, secure devices realm.
It becomes a problem when Google decides to keep those security fixes to themselves. I can very much see microG (a GMS reimplementation) provide the same service using their own compiled patches, kind of like Linux distributions provide packages and kernel updates developed by Intel, Microsoft, Red Hat, etc, which end up publicly available.
9 is part of google's attempt to deal with carriers and manufacturers who don't send out updates in a timely fashion. It may have side effects that make it harder for others to build de-googled android but that isn't the publicly stated main goal.
It looks like the user disable the automatic permissions rest on an app-by-app basis. If you navigate to the permissions page for a single app, there is a toggle at the bottom to disable this.
And yet their messaging strategy is to push a carrier standard with what I consider an egregious oversight: end to end encryption. You know, that thing Apple and Signal have had since the beginning of time.
Even worse, Google decided to auto-enroll millions of devices into their RCS hub meaning it's receiving device text messages in cleartext. How do you like dem apples? And you thought the metadata collecting was bad.
Thanks to XDA devs I'm able to run my 10ish year old tab (galaxy n8000) with the very latest Android and almost all apps.
Yes some apps are a bit sluggish but most useful apps are good as running on any latest hardware. This is definitely one advantage of owning an Android device over other companies that deliberately slow down hardware to force people to upgrade hardware.
Having used Android and iOS devices, old and new, on average my experience is that the iOS devices perform well for years longer. Although installing custom versions on XDA can sometimes get more life out of abandoned hardware (I’m not sure if the jailbreak scene for iOS is similar, because I never felt the stock OS was missing anything).
Someone can explain why it feels that Android / IOS updates feel less "important" than 6-7 years ago? I remember it was big, everyone was exited and waiting for new features.
Because everything major has already been implemented, and what they should implement are not being implemented because they go against their incentives, such as actual privacy features. I think.
Or take for example: they broke call recording. Third party applications do not work above Android 9 (?). There is a Google feature that allows you to record calls, but only incoming calls. How is that for a feature? Why does it have to be tied to Google? Why cannot we just simply record the call, whether it is an outgoing call or an incoming call, without it being tied to any Google-related bullshit? It should be relatively simple to implement, but nope, they do not seem to be wanting to do that.
iPod was mature in that it had reached a small video capability but was maxing out what was possible in how you could interact with the product.
Back then Apple's products felt boring. Zune was about to debut and compete with them by offering a brown color!
6-7 years ago we didn't have Apple Watch yet. There was still a sense of "what's next?"
Today, touch based interfaces in iPhone and iPad are so broadly understood that product interactions are routine:
- TikTok uses no new interaction concepts, rising instead on content and content format.
- Fortnite uses the same user interactions that have been adopted by shooters rising instead on gameplay.
Despite progress on ARKit, using AR experience on iPhone / iPad feels as wrong as watching videos on iPod Video did in 2005.
The good news is that iPod Video in 2006 was not even remotely representative of the experience what Apple was developing with iPhone / iPod Touch.
I'm hopeful that Apple will debut something as groundbreaking as the interaction iPhone offers between people and the world around them.
But until we see a level up like that, its going to feel a little boring on iOS at least.
I like this quote by Steve Jobs, which I think is applicable here:
“Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years.”
Outside mobile devices though, I think this is a very exciting time in open source and software technology. So if you're feeling board, it might be a good time to expand your horizons.
People realize these devices are just extensions of a limited subset of human actions.
Call, text, look stuff up, watch a video, listen to music, navigate, track, take a picture or video...
What else is there that these smartphones need to do?
Prob the next thing, since the processing power of the latest A14 and snapdragon is insanely good... just have one device be ubiquitous for everything besides poweruser stuff. Come in from a run and do work on your phone, etc. Seamlessly connects to monitor and keyboard. Do any heavy compiling on the cloud, etc.
That's pretty much it. They accomplished their goal.
The only features I care about is that they finally improved Java support beyond version 8, and NDK is finally getting AAR package support for C++ libraries.
However none of that is relevant for end users, in that regard there is hardly any reason to get Android 11.
I wish Google cared more about the experience of photographers in Android. There's no way to pick images from Google Photos, so if you want to post 4 images taken at different times to Twitter or Instagram and you didn't take them just today, you have to first find them, then put them in a temp album (or else find them again later), then delete them from your phone, (here's where you re-find them if you didn't put them in an album first!) then re-download them. Then you can select them from the device folder "Recovered". Why is choosing images so bare-metal? Or why can't we have a virtual folder called Quick Collection or something, like there is in Lightroom?
I have of other gripes as a photographer but they're mostly about Google Photos and not Android itself.
I feel like I must be missing something regarding what you are trying to do because Google Photos does allow you to select multiple photos taken at different times and share them together to Twitter or Instagram.
I'm not entirely sure that I'm following, because my upload flow from Google Photos puts me into the "Select photos" mode where I can tap multiple photos to select them.
I'm assuming that you're been sent to a photo picker screen and can only choose one at a time. Have you tried holding a tap to enter multi-select mode?
The biggest downside of owning a good Android device (like a powerful Motorola that is a few years old); Is Moto abandons updates after 2 years (so if you buy a 1 year old phone ...), and then the phone might get one additional major AOSP update from an awesome developer on XDA. Later that developer burns out. No more security updates. And definitely no more major updates. :(
The "a" series Pixels (or other phones in that same feature/performance/price bracket) are increasingly seeming like the best value for money for this reason. I too just can't find the value in buying a $1k phone that's not gonna last any longer than a $350 phone, maybe even less time.
The next phrase in the sentence you quote from seems important: "in the notifications section".
That sounds like the notifications will be grouped, not the conversations (so like, messaging at the top instead of mixed with everything or something like that).
It sounds like that social hub windows phone had. I hated it because it worked by pretending all apps had the same features, so it was like the lowest common denominator
I've been following this issue across several filed issues now (the first one in the Chrome repo), waiting for them to fix this frustration, but still nothing.
"Update to media controls and smart home devices" - section.
Google's track record on home integration is laughably terrible and I'll bet this functionality comes to market duct-taped together and they'll break it as soon as it's convenient for them.
Last fall Google essentially bricked third party smart home integrations within their own NEST ecosystem by forcing a migration to rely on their terrible Google Assistant umbrella, removing IFTTT support, etc.(1)
As a result third party controller support broke, useful integrations like "flash my lights if there's a fire" broke, etc.
I appreciate Android's desire to own the UX and relegate all third parties to beyond their "bubbles" etc but it is scary to hand this level of control to Google if they disagree with your personal product choices.
> One-time permissions will allow you to grant single use access to your most sensitive permissions: microphone, camera and location.
What I'd like to see is permission requests for apps to use audio on the device, and the ability to allow or deny on a per-use basis. I don't want my phone making any noises unless I explicitly allow it.
I've been waiting for the final release to test out the Android Flash Tool website at https://flash.android.com and it worked perfectly with a Pixel 2 XL.
Pretty slick and much nicer than messing around with adb and zip files.
As for 11 in general nothing really exciting. Looks the same. Amusingly the first thing to happen after completing setup was an error message that 'Google keeps stopping'[0] :) Not the best thing to see on a fully wiped and fresh install of the OS!
> Android 11 will begin rolling out today on select Pixel, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO and realme phones, with more partners launching and upgrading devices over the coming months.
Apart from Pixel all other brands receiving the update immediately are Chinese brands. This really shows how much the Chinese manufacturers software has improved and how much the heavy customizations brands like Samsung do to Android blocks them from providing easy OS updates.
If you update and Settings crashes every time you open it even after a reboot, don't launch it from the pulldown. Scroll through your app list and long press Settings. Click the Info icon. Select Terminate. That should get it working again.
So, basically the summary of Android 11 is: People + Controls (at 1:37). Funny like it would sound completely different, if it were presented as: Controls + People.
Seriously though, it looks like a step towards how People and Message hub worked in Windows Phone. From the video I can't understand if what they propose is a way to consolidate communication channels (I wish it were), or just more levels of distractions / notifications. And I hope bubbles are nothing like Facebook Messenger.
> If you're using a Pixel 2 or above you'll get additional features to organize and manage your phone, like app suggestions on the home screen based on your daily routines
Ads. On the homescreen of a phone you paid money for.
This is madness. A lot of folks I know are livid that Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese OEMs do this...and won't you know it, the world's largest ad-network wants a slice of the pie, too.
Edit: Looks like these are suggestions for already installed apps unlike on Xiaomi / Oppo phones.
> With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play
This is huge [0]. Even though Project Treble [1] makes it easier to run latest AOSP and other forks on Androids, this is a much needed update for billions who couldn't be bothered.
My assumption is this is suggesting apps you already open at a specific time of day. This is already a feature in the phone in the apps switcher, but isn't as prominent as displaying the icons on your home screen.
Right now there's only BMWs that support wireless Android Auto, so your Subaru unfortunately almost certanly doesn't have the required wireless capability in infotainment.
Completely off-topic, but having heard a "youngster" (relatively speaking) use the phrase "nuke the site from orbit" and then turn right around and ask, "BTW, where is that from?" [0], I wonder if this title hasn't suffered the same fate? Considering that the reference was released about 35 years ago, I imagine many folks saying "it goes to 11!" weren't even born when This is Spinal Tap came out.
[0] Aliens, the sequel to the first one: Alien. I'm old enough to have gone to the cinema to see all movies mentioned.
It happens. I make Casablanca references and that's a movie my grandparents would have seen in the theater when they were young adults. Not to mention how many English phrases come from Shakespeare or the King James Bible.
I’ve definitely nuked a thing or two from orbit and never really thought about where the phrase comes from. I wonder what else I say is actually some pop culture reference I’ve never heard of
[+] [-] matthberg|5 years ago|reply
> 8. If you haven’t used an app that you installed on your device in a while, you may not want it to keep accessing your data. Android will now “auto-reset” permissions for your unused apps and notify you accordingly. You can always decide to re-grant the app permissions the next time you use the app.
> 9. With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play, in the same way your apps update. So you’ll get these fixes as soon as they’re available, without having to wait for a full OS update.
8 seems like a rather wise and user friendly privacy concern (which might be annoying to power-users who set things up proactively and don't want their configurations messed with, yet overall a great improvement).
9 has me worried about variants of android like Lineage or ParanoidAndroid where the play store isn't included automatically. This forced reliance upon the play store for security sensitive updates is devastating for de-googled device feasibility. It will make more sense for developers to not support devices without Google Play, effectively shoehorning alternatives out of the usable, secure devices realm.
[+] [-] volgar1x|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jccalhoun|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burnte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yyyk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noir_lord|5 years ago|reply
Almost like that was the plan and Google employs some smart people isn't it.
[+] [-] sprokolopolis|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Google234|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schoolornot|5 years ago|reply
And yet their messaging strategy is to push a carrier standard with what I consider an egregious oversight: end to end encryption. You know, that thing Apple and Signal have had since the beginning of time.
Even worse, Google decided to auto-enroll millions of devices into their RCS hub meaning it's receiving device text messages in cleartext. How do you like dem apples? And you thought the metadata collecting was bad.
[+] [-] ghoomketu|5 years ago|reply
Yes some apps are a bit sluggish but most useful apps are good as running on any latest hardware. This is definitely one advantage of owning an Android device over other companies that deliberately slow down hardware to force people to upgrade hardware.
[+] [-] shajznnckfke|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Thaxll|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnisgood|5 years ago|reply
Or take for example: they broke call recording. Third party applications do not work above Android 9 (?). There is a Google feature that allows you to record calls, but only incoming calls. How is that for a feature? Why does it have to be tied to Google? Why cannot we just simply record the call, whether it is an outgoing call or an incoming call, without it being tied to any Google-related bullshit? It should be relatively simple to implement, but nope, they do not seem to be wanting to do that.
[+] [-] bredren|5 years ago|reply
iPod was mature in that it had reached a small video capability but was maxing out what was possible in how you could interact with the product.
Back then Apple's products felt boring. Zune was about to debut and compete with them by offering a brown color!
6-7 years ago we didn't have Apple Watch yet. There was still a sense of "what's next?"
Today, touch based interfaces in iPhone and iPad are so broadly understood that product interactions are routine:
- TikTok uses no new interaction concepts, rising instead on content and content format.
- Fortnite uses the same user interactions that have been adopted by shooters rising instead on gameplay.
Despite progress on ARKit, using AR experience on iPhone / iPad feels as wrong as watching videos on iPod Video did in 2005.
The good news is that iPod Video in 2006 was not even remotely representative of the experience what Apple was developing with iPhone / iPod Touch.
I'm hopeful that Apple will debut something as groundbreaking as the interaction iPhone offers between people and the world around them.
But until we see a level up like that, its going to feel a little boring on iOS at least.
I like this quote by Steve Jobs, which I think is applicable here:
“Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years.”
Outside mobile devices though, I think this is a very exciting time in open source and software technology. So if you're feeling board, it might be a good time to expand your horizons.
[+] [-] throw51319|5 years ago|reply
Call, text, look stuff up, watch a video, listen to music, navigate, track, take a picture or video...
What else is there that these smartphones need to do?
Prob the next thing, since the processing power of the latest A14 and snapdragon is insanely good... just have one device be ubiquitous for everything besides poweruser stuff. Come in from a run and do work on your phone, etc. Seamlessly connects to monitor and keyboard. Do any heavy compiling on the cloud, etc.
That's pretty much it. They accomplished their goal.
[+] [-] vernie|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fareesh|5 years ago|reply
Now they're all there
[+] [-] pjmlp|5 years ago|reply
However none of that is relevant for end users, in that regard there is hardly any reason to get Android 11.
I was more than happy with my Symbian Belle C7.
[+] [-] simonsarris|5 years ago|reply
I have of other gripes as a photographer but they're mostly about Google Photos and not Android itself.
[+] [-] tssva|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poisonborz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbo|5 years ago|reply
I'm assuming that you're been sent to a photo picker screen and can only choose one at a time. Have you tried holding a tap to enter multi-select mode?
[+] [-] Cactus2018|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CydeWeys|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lexicality|5 years ago|reply
I really hope this is optional or highly configurable, I don't want work conversations to start mixing with personal ones :/
EDIT: Ah, it's clearer on the main release page this is for notifications only
[0] https://www.android.com/android-11/#a11-conversation-article
[+] [-] maxerickson|5 years ago|reply
That sounds like the notifications will be grouped, not the conversations (so like, messaging at the top instead of mixed with everything or something like that).
[+] [-] bzb5|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcstl|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NateEag|5 years ago|reply
I've been following this issue across several filed issues now (the first one in the Chrome repo), waiting for them to fix this frustration, but still nothing.
[+] [-] aresant|5 years ago|reply
Google's track record on home integration is laughably terrible and I'll bet this functionality comes to market duct-taped together and they'll break it as soon as it's convenient for them.
Last fall Google essentially bricked third party smart home integrations within their own NEST ecosystem by forcing a migration to rely on their terrible Google Assistant umbrella, removing IFTTT support, etc.(1)
As a result third party controller support broke, useful integrations like "flash my lights if there's a fire" broke, etc.
I appreciate Android's desire to own the UX and relegate all third parties to beyond their "bubbles" etc but it is scary to hand this level of control to Google if they disagree with your personal product choices.
(begrudgingly written from Chrome)
(1) https://blog.google/products/google-nest/helpful-home/
[+] [-] chimprich|5 years ago|reply
What I'd like to see is permission requests for apps to use audio on the device, and the ability to allow or deny on a per-use basis. I don't want my phone making any noises unless I explicitly allow it.
[+] [-] satysin|5 years ago|reply
Pretty slick and much nicer than messing around with adb and zip files.
As for 11 in general nothing really exciting. Looks the same. Amusingly the first thing to happen after completing setup was an error message that 'Google keeps stopping'[0] :) Not the best thing to see on a fully wiped and fresh install of the OS!
[0] https://i.imgur.com/Wy4T0qj.jpg
[+] [-] kyriakos|5 years ago|reply
Apart from Pixel all other brands receiving the update immediately are Chinese brands. This really shows how much the Chinese manufacturers software has improved and how much the heavy customizations brands like Samsung do to Android blocks them from providing easy OS updates.
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srg0|5 years ago|reply
Seriously though, it looks like a step towards how People and Message hub worked in Windows Phone. From the video I can't understand if what they propose is a way to consolidate communication channels (I wish it were), or just more levels of distractions / notifications. And I hope bubbles are nothing like Facebook Messenger.
[+] [-] ninju|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoramous|5 years ago|reply
Ads. On the homescreen of a phone you paid money for.
This is madness. A lot of folks I know are livid that Xiaomi, Oppo and other Chinese OEMs do this...and won't you know it, the world's largest ad-network wants a slice of the pie, too.
Edit: Looks like these are suggestions for already installed apps unlike on Xiaomi / Oppo phones.
> With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play
This is huge [0]. Even though Project Treble [1] makes it easier to run latest AOSP and other forks on Androids, this is a much needed update for billions who couldn't be bothered.
[0] https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/07/accelerati...
[1] https://source.android.com/setup/build/gsi
[+] [-] brandonhorst|5 years ago|reply
Android already does this at the top of the applications list, just not directly on the home screen.
[+] [-] kingnothing|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OJFord|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mustak_im|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] edoceo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dominotw|5 years ago|reply
This is the feature iam looking forward to the most. But I don't think it works for my subaru crostrek 2019 even though its a compatible vehicle.
[+] [-] xaqfox|5 years ago|reply
I am not affiliated or even saying it actually works. I just saw it posted on xda developers the other day. https://www.xda-developers.com/aawireless-dongle-enable-wire...
[+] [-] izacus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikestew|5 years ago|reply
[0] Aliens, the sequel to the first one: Alien. I'm old enough to have gone to the cinema to see all movies mentioned.
[+] [-] sedatk|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acheron|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigyikes|5 years ago|reply