Google Android catch-all

You're right, of course. I'm already getting used to the things I find irksome.

Nevin73 wrote:

You're right, of course. I'm already getting used to the things I find irksome.

Quintin Stone, for instance...

Tempest wrote:

Home buttons are pretty much gone on all phones just like the headphone jack.

That second part is just not true. Just because Apple and Google dropped them doesn't mean they're pretty much gone.

The largest seller of cell phones in the world hasn't dropped them (Samsung).

Top_Shelf wrote:
Stele wrote:

Still trying to decide if I want to upgrade from Pixel OG to 2 or 3.

Gotta keep Google Fi, service has been so cheap.

Agreed on Project Fi.

And love my 2. But if you can upgrade with a zero interest loan get the 3.

Yeah I just finished paying for the first Pixel last month. So I'm saving even more money right now. Trying to decide if I want to take on a new payment or if maybe the 2 will be cheaper but still worth it.

Still a little surprised the 3 doesn't have 6GB of RAM.

How has the lack of external sd card affect your usage?
I've always added the biggest card I could, so I am wary of not having the option.

I hardly ever use them. I even decided to get the 64GB model instead of the 128GB because I have an unlimited data plan and I just don't store as much stuff locally as I used to.

Do you know how much system and app files and what not end up taking up? That seemed to be my issue for the last couple of phones.

I'm using 52gb with 76gb free. Guess I didn't need the bigger model after all.

Even have the Google photos full storage but keep most of them on my phone. Could clear 5+ gb easily with deleting some of those.

DSGamer wrote:

You never get used to carrying around dongles and needing to use wireless headphones, though.

When you find a comfortable and reliable pair with audio quality you can live with, yeah, you do. It becomes little different than carrying around wired ones.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

You never get used to carrying around dongles and needing to use wireless headphones, though.

When you find a comfortable and reliable pair with audio quality you can live with, yeah, you do. It becomes little different than carrying around wired ones.

I understand. I use AirPods. I like them okay. What I don’t like is that I also have to carry wired headphones for my 3DS, Switch or PSP (depending on which I take on a given day).

I kept forgetting the other headphones so eventually purchased 2 more pairs of earbuds and stashed them in each game system carrying case.

So I’ve adjusted... but it’s super dumb. It used to be that I carried one set of headphones that worked on everything.

Now I own 4 sets of earbuds because in 2018 headphones are no longer necessarily a universal standard.

Agreed on wanting one thing that works on everything. I think my ideal thing would be a set of headphones that can work via USB, but let you connect a regular cable if you want, and that has a twenty hour battery life. But even that wouldn't work completely, because I sometimes want a pair of big, closed headphones (on the bus/plane, in the office, or whenever I want to shut out the world), and sometimes I want small earbuds (when I'm walking around, doing yard work, or running). So my compromise is a big pair of corded headphones and a pair of wireless earbuds in my bag, and then I keep a pair of corded earbuds at home for if I want to play the Switch on the couch while my wife watches TV.

For earbuds, I've been using these Anker bluetooth ones. They're small, sound decent, have a reasonable battery life, waterproof, and pretty affordable. Hell, I even accidentally ran them through the wash the other day, and other than a little separation in the wire jacket at a joint, they still work, though I bet less waterproof.

Really, my biggest annoyance with bluetooth is that it's a pain to move between multiple devices. I'm not sure what the solution is, but while I could use my buds on either my phone or my laptop, I never switch because it's annoying.

Stele wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:
Stele wrote:

Still trying to decide if I want to upgrade from Pixel OG to 2 or 3.

Gotta keep Google Fi, service has been so cheap.

Agreed on Project Fi.

And love my 2. But if you can upgrade with a zero interest loan get the 3.

Yeah I just finished paying for the first Pixel last month. So I'm saving even more money right now. Trying to decide if I want to take on a new payment or if maybe the 2 will be cheaper but still worth it.

Still a little surprised the 3 doesn't have 6GB of RAM.

The 2's are $150 off and doubtful to go lower anytime soon outside of some sort of Flash sale. They don't want you to buy a 2, they want you to buy a 3 so they're pricing like Apple.

Huh, that's really funny. If I go to the Fi device shop, they show the Pixel 2 5" as out of stock, and the only thing available is the 2 XL for fifty bucks less than the 3. But if I go to the regular Play store, they have Fi Pixel 2s in stock. That seems...very much like they're trying to nudge Fi customers toward buying the 3, and if they're actually claiming out of stock when they're not, that's pretty sketch.

Chaz wrote:

Agreed on wanting one thing that works on everything. I think my ideal thing would be a set of headphones that can work via USB, but let you connect a regular cable if you want, and that has a twenty hour battery life. But even that wouldn't work completely, because I sometimes want a pair of big, closed headphones (on the bus/plane, in the office, or whenever I want to shut out the world), and sometimes I want small earbuds (when I'm walking around, doing yard work, or running). So my compromise is a big pair of corded headphones and a pair of wireless earbuds in my bag, and then I keep a pair of corded earbuds at home for if I want to play the Switch on the couch while my wife watches TV.

For earbuds, I've been using these Anker bluetooth ones. They're small, sound decent, have a reasonable battery life, waterproof, and pretty affordable. Hell, I even accidentally ran them through the wash the other day, and other than a little separation in the wire jacket at a joint, they still work, though I bet less waterproof.

Really, my biggest annoyance with bluetooth is that it's a pain to move between multiple devices. I'm not sure what the solution is, but while I could use my buds on either my phone or my laptop, I never switch because it's annoying.

Chaz,
Do you know if you can fit hearing protection, like the big headphone ones, over those Ankers?
When I mow or whatever, I usually put in ear buds and then my hearing protection over and it works pretty well. I haven't had BT headphones yet that can fit.

They definitely don't. They stick out of your ear a decent way, so the hearing protection hits them. You might be able to do one of the sets that has the collar thing that sits around your neck, since those have buds that look a little smaller.

For yard work, I actually have a pair of ear protectors that have headphones built in. I just plug my phone into those. Something like this. They also have bluetooth versions, and if I was getting a new pair, I'd probably spring for those. Makes mowing the yard or snow blowing less tedious for sure.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

Do you know how much system and app files and what not end up taking up? That seemed to be my issue for the last couple of phones.

This. This is my problem right now (Galaxy S7 Edge). Without that external SD card, I'd have to delete a lot of apps, or it wouldn't be as useful a phone.

Chaz wrote:

Huh, that's really funny. If I go to the Fi device shop, they show the Pixel 2 5" as out of stock, and the only thing available is the 2 XL for fifty bucks less than the 3. But if I go to the regular Play store, they have Fi Pixel 2s in stock. That seems...very much like they're trying to nudge Fi customers toward buying the 3, and if they're actually claiming out of stock when they're not, that's pretty sketch.

Seems like they did that last year too. Pixel 2 out, time to get a cheap Pixel 1, but no.

Stele wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Huh, that's really funny. If I go to the Fi device shop, they show the Pixel 2 5" as out of stock, and the only thing available is the 2 XL for fifty bucks less than the 3. But if I go to the regular Play store, they have Fi Pixel 2s in stock. That seems...very much like they're trying to nudge Fi customers toward buying the 3, and if they're actually claiming out of stock when they're not, that's pretty sketch.

Seems like they did that last year too. Pixel 2 out, time to get a cheap Pixel 1, but no.

Yup, both times they had a good sale in June or July and then nada later. They know what they're doing.

Chaz wrote:

They definitely don't. They stick out of your ear a decent way, so the hearing protection hits them. You might be able to do one of the sets that has the collar thing that sits around your neck, since those have buds that look a little smaller.

For yard work, I actually have a pair of ear protectors that have headphones built in. I just plug my phone into those. Something like this. They also have bluetooth versions, and if I was getting a new pair, I'd probably spring for those. Makes mowing the yard or snow blowing less tedious for sure.

Oh, thanks for the built in recommendation. That is exactly what I need.

lunchbox12682 wrote:
Chaz wrote:

Agreed on wanting one thing that works on everything. I think my ideal thing would be a set of headphones that can work via USB, but let you connect a regular cable if you want, and that has a twenty hour battery life. But even that wouldn't work completely, because I sometimes want a pair of big, closed headphones (on the bus/plane, in the office, or whenever I want to shut out the world), and sometimes I want small earbuds (when I'm walking around, doing yard work, or running). So my compromise is a big pair of corded headphones and a pair of wireless earbuds in my bag, and then I keep a pair of corded earbuds at home for if I want to play the Switch on the couch while my wife watches TV.

For earbuds, I've been using these Anker bluetooth ones. They're small, sound decent, have a reasonable battery life, waterproof, and pretty affordable. Hell, I even accidentally ran them through the wash the other day, and other than a little separation in the wire jacket at a joint, they still work, though I bet less waterproof.

Really, my biggest annoyance with bluetooth is that it's a pain to move between multiple devices. I'm not sure what the solution is, but while I could use my buds on either my phone or my laptop, I never switch because it's annoying.

Chaz,
Do you know if you can fit hearing protection, like the big headphone ones, over those Ankers?
When I mow or whatever, I usually put in ear buds and then my hearing protection over and it works pretty well. I haven't had BT headphones yet that can fit.

Look up DIY custom fit ear buds. You can buy stuff to make custom ear plugs and shape it around whatever ear buds you want.

I've done it.

lunchbox12682 wrote:

Do you know if you can fit hearing protection, like the big headphone ones, over those Ankers?
When I mow or whatever, I usually put in ear buds and then my hearing protection over and it works pretty well. I haven't had BT headphones yet that can fit.

I have Taotronic headphones that look really close in size to those Ankers. A medium sized set of cans will fit over them but not the slim style ones. The only problem is if the earbud shifts then you have to take the whole thing off to re-adjust. I also have hearing protection with speakers built in, like Chaz mentioned, which are great for lawn mowing and 3-season work. Unfortunately, in the winter, a hat will break the seal and I doesn't work so well. In those cases I have to resort to the earbud / protection combo.

EvilDead wrote:
lunchbox12682 wrote:

Do you know if you can fit hearing protection, like the big headphone ones, over those Ankers?
When I mow or whatever, I usually put in ear buds and then my hearing protection over and it works pretty well. I haven't had BT headphones yet that can fit.

I have Taotronic headphones that look really close in size to those Ankers. A medium sized set of hearing cans will fit over them but not the slim style ones. The only problem is if the earbud shifts then you have to take the whole thing off to re-adjust. I also have hearing protection with speakers built in, like Chaz mentioned, which are great for lawn mowing and summer work. Unfortunately, in the winter, a hat will break the seal and I doesn't work so well. In those cases I have to resort to the earbud / protection combo.

For winters, I've usually had a hat large enough to go over the earbuds and hearing prot or buds/facemask/hearing prot.

That probably looks pretty funny after you have all that stuff on! In that case you could use the protection w/ bluetooth all year round no prob. I'm waiting on companies to start adding noise cancellation to those too. I have some cheap active noise cancelling headphones (COWIN E7) that have a good enough seal to use for lawn mowing but I would like them to a bit more passive noise blocking as well.

I just have a thinner watch cap/beanie thing that I wear the headphones over. It's not a perfect seal, but good enough.

I now have wireless headphones small enough to wear under my normal beanie, but maybe this is an option?
Bluetooth Beanie Hat Headphone

There are a bunch of variations of this video on youtube, but this is how to get ear protection with ear buds. I've done it with a couple of IEM's, and it works pretty well considered the cost.

After spending some more time with my Pixel 3, I'm really coming around to liking the form factor and integration with Android.

What I have found is that I don't like Android Auto. I don't like leaving radios on in my phone when I'm not actively using them (except for location services). So I have used Locale for years to configure my phone based on various conditions. With my Note 5, I was using a USB charging condition to kick into "driving mode" so the Bluetooth would turn on (while shutting down Wifi). That got to be a pain in the ass though because whenever I charged the phone it thought it was driving. With the Pixel, I decided to experiment with the driving detection functions in Android Auto. It detects driving, through audio and motion, fairly well. What I don't like is the limitations on apps that you can use in driving mode. They really only have major names available for audio. If you don't use Google or Amazon for your music, or a streaming service like Pandora or Spotify, chances are you won't be able to play your music using Android Auto. I use PowerAmp so I bailed on Android Auto. Instead I found a Locale/Tasker plug-in that seems to do just as a good a job as Auto (and better than the native Locale functionality).

Also, if you have old phones lying around, I found that WardenCam is a pretty good app for turning them into security cams. My Note 5 has been pressed into service and I'm thinking about seeing if it will work with my old Note 3.

I am not a fan of what they did with Android Auto in general. What I really want is to have my car software running stock android with a driving friendly interface. I should be able to download all the same apps that I can run on my phone. I get that it is hard since people might start playing games or watching movies on it, but that can be solved by having apps certified as being driving friendly.

kazar wrote:

I am not a fan of what they did with Android Auto in general. What I really want is to have my car software running stock android with a driving friendly interface. I should be able to download all the same apps that I can run on my phone. I get that it is hard since people might start playing games or watching movies on it, but that can be solved by having apps certified as being driving friendly.

I personally don't want to pay for another data connection, so I'm fine with using the processing already in my phone.

And there are a lot of Chinese made head units that do exactly what you say, and run a version of Android natively. I think also some Pioneer headunits can be hacked to basically do screen mirroring from your phone, if that's what you want. So anything on the screen in Android can be shown on the head.

kazar wrote:

I am not a fan of what they did with Android Auto in general. What I really want is to have my car software running stock android with a driving friendly interface. I should be able to download all the same apps that I can run on my phone. I get that it is hard since people might start playing games or watching movies on it, but that can be solved by having apps certified as being driving friendly.

Isn't that basically what they've done? Also, during that time the hardware running Android Auto wouldn't be updated. Think about how long you can stand to use an Android device (or expect security updates for it) in general before replacing it.