
Android N developer preview 2 is out - deepakkarki
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/04/android-n-developer-preview-2-out-today.html
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yincrash
I much preferred the generic yellow gumdrop emoji. The people feel a little
too bland.

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yoodenvranx
I wish Google had added the emojis to the appstore years ago and made them
updateable independent of the OS release. My phone will not get the upgrade to
N so I am stuck with the old emojis unless I install CM14 in the future.

Another problem is that there are way too many emojis on the keyboard and it
takes ages to find the right one. There should be a "long press -> hide this
emoji" option in the keyboard to get rid of the 75% you will never use.

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jacobr1
Slack places the "recently used" emojis on the first page. That works really
for me.

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untog
As does Android, actually.

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tbrock
And iOS.

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rkuska
Vulkan was there before? As everyone talks only about stupid emojis. I am
confused. Vulkan seemed to me as a great big news.

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e2e8
I'm still bitter about my nexus 4 being dropped from M for no technical
reason. Other phones with similar hardware got the update.

~~~
stewbrew
The seemingly dropped support for the Nexus 5 from N. Their "end of life"
policy is the main reason I won't get an (Nexus|Pixel) tablet or anything else
than a mid-range phone (in case they release one again). Maybe from a Silicon
Valley perspective, 3 yrs old hardware is ancient but my old hardware is still
100% functional and has been battle tested.

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untog
> 3 yrs old hardware is ancient but my old hardware is still 100% functional
> and has been battle tested.

True, but so is your software. Especially on Android where Play Services and
the Chrome browser are updatable via the Play Store, being on the previous
version of Android isn't such an issue any more.

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stewbrew
I wonder why they release monthly updates with security fixes then.

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throw7
Well I guess we're past the point of no return of trying to stop the
ridiculousness of some unicode characters (e.g. Pile of Poo)... what should
happen is all these "emoji" should just be different font sets that we can
pick and choose in our software.

Does Android N allow the choice of different "emoji font sets"? I'm guessing
probably not.

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noamsml
You mean like
[https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjg98Ler47MAhVV7WMKHT6wBsIQFggpMAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWingdings&usg=AFQjCNFNKVgV-
tWpN8-9kAy3WjdDLTjZjg&sig2=AhyIf4LcUw1NY0NXcbQcAg&bvm=bv.119745492,d.cGc)

~~~
throw7
Yeah... Like google's current emoji set could be called... "PC Emoji" and if
people liked them they could just keep using them. The new one could be
"Material Design Emoji".

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donatj
Hopefully this fixes the random freezes/slow downs/reboots I'm getting on my
5X. Running the beta on my main phone was my mistake, admittedly.

~~~
kaeawc
I've gotten the exact same thing. Also hoping it clears up

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tonfa
> Developer Preview 2 is intended for developers and not as a daily driver;
> this build is not yet optimized for performance and battery life.

So probably not.

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dhruvtv
How does one invoke these launcher shortcuts? Long pressing an app icon?

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delecti
They'll probably just be additional entries in the launcher, my guess is
they'll only take a normal tap.

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gcb0
after Android 4, was there any single feature that wasn't self-serving?

I'm still waiting first class voip. or even a single sms client that doesn't
try to force me to use g+

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gman99
The AOSP built in sms client does not use G+

Google's "Messenger" client does not use G+

You can also use Google's Hangout client purely for SMS (you can sign out of
hangouts)

If you don't like any of them, there are hundreds in the play store that have
no G+ requirement, and any of them can be set as the default.

As for first class VoIP; again, I have no idea what you mean. Android has a
full SIP stack that's built in.

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kuschku
On Android 5, most Nexus devices dropped all SMS apps for Hangouts.

And Dialer, Launcher, etc also require Google Play Services now.

I'm currently using the AOSP Launcher3, and it doesn't even properly align
icons in a grid, because it's missing the autoscaling of Google Now Launcher.

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gman99
>On Android 5, most Nexus devices dropped all SMS apps for Hangouts.

Just install Messenger (supports Android 4.1+):
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging)

It's actually much nicer than hangouts for SMS and has features hangouts
doesn't support (search, group messaging) and is updated regularly by Google
(with no tie-in to G+ or Play Services) so it's not like it's an abandoned
app.

>I'm currently using the AOSP Launcher3, and it doesn't even properly align
icons in a grid, because it's missing the autoscaling of Google Now Launcher.

Get a different launcher? For eg, Nova Launcher (paid, but does not have any
dependancy on Play Services) is basically Launcher3 (in terms of
looks/functionality) with a ton of extra features.

Is your complaint that Google is letting AOSP apps languish? In which case I'd
agree, but it's not like you're short on alternatives (and as time goes on
Google seem to be opening more parts of Android to be replaced by third party
apps -- in fact, the main components left are just the settings app and the
notifications menu that you're stuck with whatever comes with your phone.
Everything else is replacable by the end user)

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kuschku
> so it's not like it's an abandoned app.

The AOSP version is.

> Is your complaint that Google is letting AOSP apps languish? In which case
> I'd agree, but it's not like you're short on alternatives

Well, I am short on open source alternatives.

I always have ideas of features I’d want, and wish to integrate them into the
apps I’m using – like integrating with the local phone book data for reverse
caller lookup, as that has far better data than Google or OSM.

But I can’t do this with the closed apps.

Sure, I _could_ replace everything now by installing other apps, but when all
of them use SecureNet to prevent me from tinkering with anything, then I
honestly prefer the good old days where I could just mod anything.

> Get a different launcher? For eg, Nova Launcher (paid, but does not have any
> dependancy on Play Services) is basically Launcher3 (in terms of
> looks/functionality) with a ton of extra features.

This is the very same issue.

I want a minimalistic launcher, with some special features I wrote myself
already for Launcher2, but the AOSP Launcher3 is totally broken, and Nova
Launcher is not even close to anything I’d want – minimalistic, not
"accidentally swiped over an icon and half my screen is full of menus".

Since Google continued to drop work on AOSP apps, I’ve had to spend more and
more time.

By now I have to maintain my own apps for music, notes, etc, now Launcher and
SMS are becoming an issue, too. Sure, I’m a student, but my time is limited,
too, and I’d like to not spend it rebuild things Google took from the
community.

