
(Don’t) hold the phone: new features coming to Pixel 4 - EddieRingle
https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/new-features-pixel4/
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Latty
My first thought when I heard that Apple were ditching fingerprints for face
recognition was that the lag would be infuriating after getting used to
picking up my phone and unlocking it as I did so. With the sensor on the back,
it became a natural thing to do and meant my phone was ready and unlocked
before I was looking at the screen.

They are describing face unlock working equivalently well, which would
mitigate my concerns a lot.

The presumed lack of a headphone port is annoying though. I know it's an oft-
stated thing, but still. I just wish anyone was offering a phone with a second
USB-C port on top as an alternative. It'd be useful in other ways too.

My main issue with wireless headphones is that I swap between 3+ devices
regularly and I have never found any good wireless headphones that handle that
as well as just swapping a cable, as counter-intuitive as that is.

There was a time I said I'd never buy a phone without a physical keyboard
(mostly solved by bigger screens and swiping virtual keyboards), and later a
removable SD card (solved by storage size outpacing my storage needs—on a
phone at least), so I assume this, too, shall pass.

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melling
Project Soli has a lot more potential. The user interface could move off the
screen.

[https://atap.google.com/soli/](https://atap.google.com/soli/)

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vardump
So nice to see a phone that doesn't look like every other new phone with an
edge to edge screen.

Contactless gestures could indeed be an interesting feature. At least fresh
and different one.

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ndjskska
Is it a common problem that hitting snooze on the alarm is /too hard/?

I find myself paying for apps that make hitting the snooze button complicated.
Captchas. Math. You name it.

Is there any combination of sensors that gives the smartphone an idea if I'm
properly awake? Not talking about light sleep vs dreaming here. More the "will
he get out of bed" kind.

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6gvONxR4sf7o
If I have to use my hands to pull my phone out of my pocket/bag/whatever, and
the easiest way to make the screen point at my face is by holding it in my
hand, what do the radar gestures add? It's either a gimmick or they have some
very clever new UI features that might be a big change from what we're used
to. I'm really hoping it's the latter.

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Canada
I'm very uneasy with allowing Google to have control of even more sensors

~~~
lightgreen
You can simply disconnect/blind the sensors, I’m sure the rest of the phone
will continue to work fine.

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GoMonad
I had a Moto X which had IR touch-less gestures. I remember them being
surprisingly useful and I missed them when I retired the phone.

I'm optimistic to see what these radar based sensors can add.

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jessriedel
Can you explain what about the touch-less gestures you found useful? Like, if
I'm already holding the phone in my hand and I want to give it input signal,
why would I want to avoid touching it?

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GoMonad
I remember them being useful when my phone was resting on my desk at work.
This was before always on notifications were as prolific and advanced as they
are today.

I could wave my hand to check the time. Or see what was causing the most
recent notification chime. It sounds really simple but not having to pick up
the phone meant reducing distraction.

The Moto X's gestures couldn't be much more than a hand wave due to the
simplicity of the sensor. But even so, they kept me from picking up my phone
quite a bit.

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jessriedel
Thanks!

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jdlyga
Will they get rid of that chin bezel? Most android phones except huawei have
them, and it's very 2016.

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heelix
The article graphic has an annotation that said audio port - be nice if that
really is the case.

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ac29
Its fairly clearly pointing to a speaker though. They mean audio port as in a
hole where sound comes out, not a 3.5mm jack.

