
Android P - alanfranzoni
https://www.blog.google/products/android/android-p/
======
wpietri
Very nice. I am especially excited about these features:

> App Timer lets you set time limits on apps, and will nudge you when you’re
> close to your limit and then gray out the icon to remind you of your goal.

> Wind Down will switch on Night Light when it gets dark, and it will turn on
> Do Not Disturb and fade the screen to grayscale at your chosen bedtime to
> help you remember to get to sleep at the time you want.

I actually have a separate device for fun/addictive apps, and my phone's
charging spot is not in the bedroom. But these kinds of features will help
orders of magnitude more people than my very manual interventions ever will.

I'm glad Google is seeing themselves as on the side of the user here. Rather
than enabling the "up and to the right" religion that has a lot of tech
companies chasing DAU and UAM metrics by any means necessary.

~~~
stinos
_help you remember to get to sleep at the time you want_

On one side I think this is great, on the other side: I'm not sure what to
think of needing to be reminded when to go to sleep. It seems kind of wrong if
one needs to be actively reminded of something as simple and straightforward
as that.

~~~
entropie
It really depends on your lifestyle.

I think i have a very healty sleep system where i basicially follow no rules.
I sleep when I _really_ get tired and wake/stay up when i want.

My last sleep cycle was 11 1/2 hours, because a day before i only got like
90minutes (thats not common for me, but happens - usually i sleep more like 6
hours).

That only works if you dont have a fixed day time job.

Especially when i have appointments i sometimes really need to plan ahead and
go to bed earlier so a reminder works.

~~~
toyg
Just a reminder that research basically found that “catch up on sleep” doesn’t
really work. Bodies are astonishing machines, capable of adapting to the most
extreme conditions, but they do work better when they can repeat the same
routines day after day.

As a fellow 6-hour-sleeper, I think modern society makes it a bit hard for
people like me. The reality is that my body wants to sleep in 3-hour cycles,
and doesn’t really appreciate doing three cycles in a row, but it still wants
to sleep about 8 or 9 hours out of 24. That would work fine in past ages: wake
up early, tend to animals and fields, then have a mid-day nap - at a time when
it’s too hot to work anyway (at least where my genes mostly come from). Then
get back in the game, do social stuff, and be at peak awareness by dusk /
early evening, when the danger of common violence gets higher.

These days, when the dominant culture is clearly more “northern” in nature,
one is still pushed to be an early riser, but to then do all work and social
activity in a continuous chunk, no napping allowed. Because I sleep only 6
hours per night, after a few days I’ll be tired. The only option I have is to
go to bed absurdly early, wake up after 6h, do some work in the middle of the
night then go back to bed. That’s very antisocial in nature.

~~~
qplex
It's very interesting that you mention the culture be "northern" in nature.

Mid-day nap culture is still very much alive in really hot countries, where
it's practically impossible to work mid-day.

------
ohazi
Am I the only one who _doesn 't_ want a phone that arbitrarily changes
behavior in opaque and uncontrollable ways? Machine learning is fine for hard
tasks like voice recognition, but it really shouldn't be used for things that
would otherwise be a few checkboxes. I know the trend nowadays is to assume
that users are irredeemably stupid, but this? Seriously?

You can keep this update. I don't want it.

~~~
jayd16
You say that but the reality is its really convenient. I go to a taco place
every Thursday and pre-order the tacos for pick up from their app. The app
icon is only ever in the suggested list around lunch time on Thursdays. How
awesome is that?

Its pointless borrowing trouble. Complain when they screw up, not when you
think they can't pull it off.

~~~
timendum
It's awesome but I prefer muscle memory: after a while I already know when an
icon is before it appears so I can open it without searching for it.

~~~
013a
And the changes actually impact productivity for those who have muscle memory;
it now takes two swipes up from the home screen to get to your list of all
apps. They already had one line on the all apps page dedicated to a list of
apps they're predicting you'll want. Now they have a second line on that
screen dedicated to actions they think you'll want to take.

I hate this change. Of course you can shove more icons on your home screen,
but now we're back to iOS where you just puke everything on home with no
automatic organization on the first screens you see when you unlock. Its not
productive. I already disliked Android's method of searching apps; on iOS, you
can pull down, type the first few letters of an app, and its there. On
Android, you click the search button, start typing, and it feels like you get
_lucky_ if an app appears there, or if it gives you google search results. Its
infuriating.

Oh, and the kicker: If your main google account is on G-Suite, its a complete
shot in the dark which features are available and which aren't. On my Pixel 2,
the default clock+upcoming events widget simply didn't work for the longest
time, then one day it just started working with no G-Suite configuration
changes.

I really dislike Google's push toward making hardware and services that aren't
designed to be tools. I like tools. A tool is simple, having easy to predict
input and output, with the ultimate goal of empowering humanity. There are
applications of AI that are so powerful and self-contained that it makes sense
to deploy it, but then you get the (admittedly _really_ cool) Duplex stuff and
its like they aren't even considering the ramifications on both the user and
the business if it _doesn 't_ work.

~~~
jayd16
>it now takes two swipes up from the home screen to get to your list of all
apps.

You can get to the library by continuing to swipe up. You don't need to lift
your finger.

------
angry_octet
Lots of slick UI stuff, but no meaningful updates to things that are well
overdue: \- Encryption of specific secrets for each app. \- Fine grained
control of what information is shared with apps. \- Ability to selectively
deny particular data (and have the app keep working, e.g by giving it an empty
contacts list, fake phone ID, etc). \- Ad and js blocking capable browser.

Why should installing e.g. the facebook app, allow it to track my position at
all times? Just freaky.

~~~
airlocksoftware
Location tracking requires specific permission from the user, not as part of
installation. I think you're a bit out of date.

[https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-
practices/deve...](https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-
practices/develop/runtime-permissions)

~~~
taneq
And this is a perfect example of the bait-and-switch: Location now goes
through Google's location services, so you're not saying "FindMyKeysApp may
use my GPS location", you're saying "FindMyKeysApp AND GOOGLE may use my GPS
location."

For most apps (unless I'm wrong?) there's no way to let the app use my
location without it going through Google's location services and sending data
back to the Borg Cube.

~~~
Lunatic666
You could use microg, then nothing goes to Google.
[https://lineage.microg.org](https://lineage.microg.org) – This together with
yalp gives you a good experience and keeps you private.

~~~
taneq
Yeah, I've been on LineageOS since it was CyanogenMod, haven't yet needed
Google Play for my (admittedly simplistic) requirements but it's good to know
that microg is coming along so nicely in case I get stuck.

------
JoshTriplett
While I appreciate the concept of learning things like "common next steps" to
make a device more usable, going by the history of devices like Google Home or
the Google Assistant, I also wonder how much of this is going to depend on
"give us all your usage history" settings and simply stop working with those
settings disabled. The Google Assistant is already unusable without a pile of
search history settings enabled; what will "smart" next actions and similar
require?

~~~
kuschku
Google already has all your usage history.

You can view it yourself by dialing _#_ #INFO# _#_ aka _#_ #4636# _#_ and then
selecting "Usage data".

You’ll see all apps you’ve used, for how long you’ve used them overall, how
many times, and when the last time was.

EDIT:

    
    
        *#*#4636#*#*
    

This goddamn markup on HN is utterly broken, I wish it would someday get
fixed. But no, of course not.

~~~
gruez
You can disable google play's access to it by turning off "usage access" in
app permissions.

~~~
kuschku
Or I can wait 16 days for the GDPR, and hope they fix it by then.

------
philipwhiuk
Coming from iOS, with all the disclosures about how Android leaks to Facebook
much more I expected to see permissions locked down a lot more.

There's a difference between "I want to put a location in my status update" to
"I want to upload my location 24/7 to Facebook's servers so they can profile
the crap out of me".

iOS makes this difference. Android doesn't.

~~~
talldan
You can already disable SMS, phone and location permissions (and others) for
each app in the previous version of Android (Oreo). I'm sure this has it too.

~~~
BugsJustFindMe
> _You can already disable SMS, phone and location permissions (and others)
> for each app_

This doesn't address the comment you replied to in any way. Surely you see
that there's a gap in reasoning between "I want to be able to add my location,
just not have my location always broadcast to them" and "you can disable
location entirely". Your suggestion specifically violates the "I want to be
able to add my location" part of personal control over information.

Or are you suggesting that it's reasonable that a user should have to manually
switch apps between white/black lists for behaviors? Personally I would find
that idea contemptible.

~~~
refulgentis
Bwah? The permissions model is the same on Android and iOS, if you opt into
permissions, you have to "manually switch between white/black lists to opt
them out"

~~~
toxik
Nope, there's three options on iOS location sharing: never, always, and while
using app.

------
mortenjorck
The typography in Android P looks strange now with the addition of Product
Sans alongside Roboto. The old graphic design rule of "never pair multiple
sans serifs" is hardly absolute – different sans families can often be
successfully paired as header and body, for example – but in this case, there
are headings rendered in Product Sans with barely-smaller subheads in Roboto,
which just looks jarring.

------
ISL
_Ten years ago, when we launched the first Android phone—the T-Mobile G1—it
was with a simple but bold idea: to build a mobile platform that’s free and
open to everyone._

To what quantitative fraction is Android still free and open (as in speech),
and how much of it has been moved into closed-source containers?

~~~
kuschku
Almost all of it is closed.

Since the G1, the following parts are just some of the many that were removed
from the open project and replaced with proprietary ones:

Launcher, Dialer (the actual phone app), Contacts, Calendar, Email, on-device
Search (last open in 2.3.7), and many more.

Everything that the user touches or sees is closed source.

~~~
lern_too_spel
All of those apps exist in AOSP and have many open source equivalents not
developed by Google. The platform that those apps run on is just as open now
as it was in the G1 days.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> The platform that those apps run on is just as open now as it was in the G1
> days.

It never was open.

Sure, Google ups a bunch of source code to AOSP after the release of a new
version but there is no actual OSS-style development going on. All development
is behind closed doors, only done by Google and the public cannot contribute.

I cannot check out the latest development version of Android from github, fix
some issues and send a PR. It's all a one-way street.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Agreed. It might have made sense to do development behind closed doors in the
early days with the mobile patent war raging, but now that most advances are
in apps and services on top of the platform instead of in the platform itself
and now that Apple is way behind in features and usability and has no way to
catch up, they might as well switch to the Chrome development model, or at
least the Fuchsia model where the roadmap and design discussion is closed but
the code is entirely open.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> Apple is way behind in features and usability

LOLWUT ? Apple is years ahead of Android.

~~~
lern_too_spel
My team of ten went from majority iPhone to all but two on Pixels with the
last two saying they will switch on their next upgrade. It's not due to cost —
the iPhone X or the Pixel costs nothing to the employee. It's due to sheer
usability.

------
wtvanhest
If someone from google reads this, can you please consider removing the
functionality that periodically drops the nav bar at the top down? Many people
use the top of their screen as a bar to line up and read text. Your site is
basically unreadable.

~~~
cma
When you scroll up to reread something, it literally hides it.

~~~
ItsMe000001
Having to scroll UP when I'm reading by scrolling DOWN only to hide the bar is
bothersome. That's the point. And what's the "literally" for, in case I scroll
up "figuratively" and wonder why it doesn't work? :-)

------
davidmanescu
Adaptive Brightness: "solving a problem that's been solved numerous times, but
this time using machine learning"

~~~
bkanber
Eh, I find that the current adaptive brightness works very poorly. Sometimes
slight shifts in my sitting or holding angle will cause the screen to dim.

------
LiquidInsect
"Android P Beta is available today on Google Pixel." Oh, except the Pixel C
which we're pretending never happened.

~~~
deaddodo
It looks like lineageOS might also be dropping it for v16. Which is pretty
lame for a $600 tablet.

~~~
majewsky
Quick reminder that none of those 600 bucks went towards the LineageOS
developers.

------
esaym
About 18 months ago I bought a Samsung S6 off of ebay new in a box for $250.
Was actually my first "real" smart phone. I've liked it quite a bit but was
disappointed at them taking 8+ months to bring android updates. I was thinking
I might get Oreo this August or so. But then I just learned that they've
(Sumsung) discontinued all S6 support. So now I guess I'm screwed.

I really liked the samsung health app and the built in heart monitor. And I
use samsung pay. I don't think any other phone has this and I would like to
stay with samsung. But as I sit here and type this on a desktop running Debian
that I built in 2008... I really can't support a company that thinks their
hardware is only good for 3 years before you need to throw it in the trash.

Any tips? I don't really want to root and load a rom (and plus that would make
me loose samsung pay and wifi calling I think).

~~~
wvenable
Keep it as is? I have a Samsung tablet from a few years back that got a single
major OS update and has run smoothly and perfectly as the day I got it.

My iPhone got a huge number updates over it's lifespan but it also got
steadily slower and less reliable after each one.

There is nothing in Oreo or even P that's really worth it.

~~~
esaym
That's probably what the reality will be. But I hate the idea of once I do
'upgrade' after a few years of no support, that the current version of Android
will be so different that I'll have to relearn how to use it again...

~~~
wvenable
What does Android do? It shows you your app, lets you switch them, and gives
you some notifications. An operating system exists to run applications --
there isn't much to learn. Even switching from iOS to Android and back isn't
that difficult.

The real issue will be when applications stop supporting your version. I found
on iOS that support for older versions dies pretty quick but on Android
applications seem to support older versions for a very long time.

------
3steve
I thought Project Treble was supposed to make the updating process easier from
an OEM point of view. If so I wish they supported the Nexus 5X and 6P for one
more version.

~~~
ucaetano
I don't think those phones ever had Treble.

~~~
kuschku
But they should have. Ending support just one version before basically
immortality for the phones is just a bad joke.

Especially when the only available alternative starts at 3 times the price.
$900 for the smallest Pixel in Germany, fuck that.

~~~
izacus
Treble requires SoC vendors to provide drivers with explicit support. SoCs
from Nexus devices aren't supported by Qualcomm so they simply can't be
upgraded.

~~~
pjmlp
That is why there is this thing called legal agreements.

If Google actually cared, they would impose support requirements on OEMs that
wanted to play on Android playground.

~~~
HillaryBriss
but ... did Google really have that much leverage in those relationships, at
least, early on?

how authoritarian could Google be about forcing this on, say, Samsung?

and if they granted Samsung an exception, what would the reaction be from
other manufacturers?

~~~
pjmlp
As much as they would be willing to go.

Given the results of Bada and Tizen, Google would have little to worry about
if Samsung ever decides to go rogue.

------
russellbeattie
I was skeptical of the new home button and app overview - (why fix something
that already works pretty well?) - but it actually looks good and seems to
actually improve the experience.

~~~
51Cards
I was the same. The moment I saw the three icons gone I rolled my eyes. I
thought it was pretty user friendly as is. That said once demoed I am
interested to try it. I would like to have an option to toggle back though if
desired because...

When I see UI changes like this my initial concern is not for myself but for
my 75 year old mother. It has taken her years to be able to move through
Android with some efficiency and the basic consistency has been a good thing.
A fundamental UI change like this isn't as easy for users like that to adapt
to. I am already dreading the first time she has a Google P based phone. I
hope to be proved wrong.

~~~
Zarel
I installed the beta the moment I heard the keynote say I could immediately.

The new swipe-up-from-Home UI is off by default. I had to turn it on in
Gestures. By default, it's the old three-button UI: Back, Home, App switcher.

~~~
The_suffocated
How are UIs on third-party apps affected? If you turn on gestures, does it
mean that on a third-party app, one has to use gesture now to do what could be
done before using a back button?

~~~
Zarel
If you turn on the gesture mode, it's still largely the same UI, it's just
that the "App switcher" button is gone. The Back button is still there, in the
same place as before (although it does disappear on the Home screen now, which
is neat).

Tapping Home and tapping Back still do exactly the same thing. Long-pressing
Home still opens Google Assistant.

Opening the app switcher UI is now done by dragging Home up (instead of
tapping App Switcher).

Quickly switching to the last used app is now done by dragging the Home button
right (instead of double-tapping App Switcher).

------
joshmarinacci
Boy, the gesture based task switcher sure looks familar.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2tkX_zJp-8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2tkX_zJp-8)

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
I thought the exact same thing. It's such a damn shame, WebOS was way ahead of
its time. Apps could be built using web technology and they ran great!

~~~
gowld
It took a few years, but last year Android got "native" web apps:
[https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-
apps/](https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/)

------
gcatalfamo
I used to be excited about product releases like this one.

But after years of bloated releases and devices that feel old and laggy after
just one year of use, I’d rather welcome an Android version that prioritized
UI fluidity over everything else.

I loved my Nexus 5, but the Nexus 5x was dead on arrival, to the point that my
current setup (1 Android and 1 iPhone) will by just iPhones. I’ll definitely
miss some features but I need my work horse to just work and not freeze when I
try to press switch between apps.

~~~
gowld
Nexus 5 came with KitKat, which was the Android release dedicated to ...
reining in bloat and restoring decent performance.

[https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2013/10/android-44...](https://android-
developers.googleblog.com/2013/10/android-44-kitkat-and-updated-
developer.html)

5 years later, it would be great to do that again.

------
dgudkov
Machine learning in smartphones is all great and cool, but when can we get
easy "undo" in text editor? Really.

~~~
omeid2
Or ability to paste into an empty text box.

~~~
VladimirGolovin
1) Press-and-hold on the empty text box, 2) a context menu appears, 3) tap
Paste. Voila.

~~~
omeid2
Doesn't always work. :(

------
zmmmmm
> ML Kit offers developers on-device APIs for text recognition, face
> detection, image labeling and more

This is what I always thought Google should do. Operating systems have
completely stagnated, but a truly new and differentiating set of features
would be to deliver AI as a platform - not a Google-only feature but a set of
open APIs that anybody can use or implement. I hope they continue down this
track.

------
igravious
“Android P Beta is available today on Google Pixel. And thanks to work on
Project Treble, an effort we introduced last year to make OS upgrades easier
for partners, a number of our partners are making Android P Beta available
today on their own devices, including Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia
7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1.”

Yay! Project Treble is paying off already :) Personally hoping to see Huawei
bringing its recent flagships to P-land very soon, fingers crossed. Has Google
finally cut off a few heads from the fragmentation hydra? Time will tell but
this is a positive indicator!

------
opayen
I wish they will use all of these new AI capabilities to fix the share UI
([https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/05/google-please-
fix-a...](https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/05/google-please-fix-androids-
slow-bloated-share-ui/))

Personally, I always use the same app when sharing URLs (Send to Instapaper).
Yet, it always shows me default actions I never used (send via Twitter DM,
Print, etc.) and takes like 5 seconds to have the UI usable.

------
cryptos
I'm tired of the throw away culture of Android device manufacturers. With the
exception of Google Pixel and the Samsung top models, where you get up to 3
Years (security) updates, you can throw your Android device away after 2
years, sometimes only after a year. The hardware is usually still fine after
this time, but you won't get no more updates and will have an insecure device.

~~~
jhasse
You can install LineageOS after two years on many devices.

~~~
cryptos
I've tried the predecessor, CyanogenMod, on an older tablet and there were
hardly any update. And the installation was absolutely not fun!

Another downside of rooting your device is that some Apps will no longer work
(like banking apps). So, no, this is not the solution I'm looking for. And it
is definitely not the solution for the average user.

But thanks anyway for the suggestion.

~~~
jhasse
The rooting issue has been fixed, you can now deativate root after flashing
LineageOS. There are also apps which hide the fact that you unlocked your
bootloader.

As for the updates: This depends on the device. Check the list of supported
devices and you'll see that there are quite a few with weekly updates.

------
blinkingled
Looks like Project Treble actually helps with faster updates - The beta is
available on 11 devices from different OEMs. Essential said they were able to
put out the beta for their hardware in less than a month's time. I did not
want to put it on mine though after reading the known issues.

------
anotheryou
they call "frequently used" machine learning now? I expected something
fancier...

~~~
what_ever
Except that it's not just frequently used as described. It also takes into
consideration what apps you use at a specific time, location, day.

~~~
Qwertie
So a slightly more complex formula.

------
fooker
I'm almost tempted to try out the beta on my daily driver Pixel. Seems like a
stupid decision though.

Is there an easy way to manage this from a worktation? Completely backup my
current state and restore it afterwords?

~~~
loafoe
installed it about 3 hours ago and it definitely feels good enough to use as a
daily driver

~~~
cbhl
Until you discover in X months that moving from the beta to release versions
that get security updates requires wiping your phone.

~~~
wakkaflokka
You have to wipe the phone to upgrade to the release version? Might change my
mind about installing the beta.

~~~
Someone1234
If you do OTA (over the air) updates, no, you don't need to ever wipe your
device. At the end of the beta they'll just push the retail version and de-
enroll your device.

This is my third beta (8 and 8.1) and I never wiped.

------
mtgx
Android P has some interesting security features, too, especially the HSM
thing, which I assume Google will use in Pixel 3. Maybe Samsung, too, because
they have Knox and they target the enterprise market. But it would be nice if
more manufacturers would use that, too.

Also I've been waiting for a long time for client-side encrypted backups.

[https://developer.android.com/preview/features/security](https://developer.android.com/preview/features/security)

------
vincnetas
I'm amazed and simultaneously shocked by current state of technology and it's
use.

28.6 MB in 8 gifs on the site. But i had not noticed that because site fully
loaded in 7 seconds.

~~~
bombledmonk
I had the same realization with the Autodesk Eagle 9 blog post[1]. There was
over 45MB of animated gifs on that page.

1\. [https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/blog/autodesk-
eagle-...](https://www.autodesk.com/products/eagle/blog/autodesk-eagle-9/)

------
waytogo
Thought that all new Android One devices should get upcoming updates like the
Pixel devices but they don't get Android P Beta (except the Nokia one).

~~~
taeric
I'm annoyed that my new device isn't covered here, as well. :( I'll clearly
survive, but there seems to be no solid reason for why some of these devices
aren't more supported.

------
mderazon
All I care about is to know if they fixed the horrible direct share issue that
makes the share sheet unusable for couple of seconds everytime I share
something.

[https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/05/google-please-
fix-a...](https://www.androidpolice.com/2018/05/05/google-please-fix-androids-
slow-bloated-share-ui/)

~~~
eythian
At first glance, no obvious change.

------
haspok
I love how it starts with:

"Technology should help you with your life, not distract you from it. "

and then

"A new Dashboard, for instance, shows you how you’re spending time on your
device, including time spent in apps, how many times you’ve unlocked your
phone, and how many notifications you’ve received."

Who cares? What am I supposed to do with this information? (Apart from Google,
of course.)

~~~
dagurp
It's useful for helicopter parents

------
joosters
... _Say you connect your headphones to your device, Android will surface an
action to resume your favorite Spotify playlist_...

... _but what if we could surface part of the app itself_...

What is it with the repeated usage of 'surface' here, instead of the more
obvious and common word 'show'? Is it something to do with Android API naming,
or something else?

~~~
craftyguy
As far as I can tell, it's an Android thing. They even call their display
manager thing (I don't know the right term for it) SurfaceFlinger:
[https://source.android.com/devices/graphics/](https://source.android.com/devices/graphics/)

~~~
bitwize
The surface in SurfaceFlinger is in the context of "drawing surface", a term
of art in computer graphics to refer to a window, bitmap, or other thing that
can be drawn on/blitted to.

------
bitmapbrother
The multitasking display was really interesting because they seem to be live
windows so that you can interact with them.

------
dublinben
I wonder how much of this will be included in AOSP? Probably none.

~~~
lern_too_spel
All of it. The article is about the Android platform, not about any Google
services or apps.

~~~
jackpeterfletch
it certainly wont get any of the machine learning stuff, backs onto google
services.

------
ohthehugemanate
This looks awful. I've come to realize that any feature with "smart" anywhere
in the name, is something I want disabled.

Smart quotes? Only exist to fuck up copypasta code and SQL statements.

Smart spell check? There's a field of internet hilarity about how bad this is.

Smart restore? Best way to lose my data and fuck up my install.

Smart assistant? I've yet to meet even one person who uses
GAssistant/Siri/Cortana for anything more complex than "schedule a meeting" or
"set an alarm."

Smart handwriting recognition? Refuses to detect the word "fuck". And my
handwriting was perfectly legible anyway.

I want my software to be TOOLS. Predictable, ideally interoperable and
chainable, but above all: simple. The best pieces of Ux make technology feel
like a simple tool. Cut/paste. Messaging conversation-style, with a simple
"send" button. Grep.

I find my best note taking software is a text editor, with all formatting
turned off. I use ad blockers to disable as many recommendation engines as I
can. I use duckduckgo because it just answers my query, without trying to
tailor the answers to what the machine (or the advertiser) thinks I want. To
mee, simple tools that behave consistently are infinitely preferable to the
game of "guess how the computer is misunderstanding the request." Maybe I'm a
curmudgeon.

I work with ML/AI, and there are great benefits in lots of applications. Just
not in second guessing what people want to do. Even other PEOPLE are terrible
at that.

Please don't make me dance around the quirks of your "smart" AI. I promise, I
am smarter. I have better context. I know what I want to do. Just get out of
the fucking way and let me do it in the simplest, most direct way.

~~~
chrononaut
> Smart handwriting recognition? Refuses to detect the word "fuck". And my
> handwriting was perfectly legible anyway.

Related to this, I recently found the option that controls whether the system
from recommends or corrects to offensive words. It's buried under:

Settings > System > Languages & input > Virtual Keyboard > Gboard (more than
likely for most) > Text correction > Block offensive words.

The same option exists for Google voice input. Wonder if there's something
similar for your issue.

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habitue
Can anyone clarify if the app dashboard or "wind down" modes are in the
Android Beta? I couldn't find them

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rs86
Funny how "machine learning at the core" is a selling point. ML is a technique
not a feature...

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sapphire_tomb
This is great and all, but I just wish they'd fix it so that bluetooth
connections don't crash the UI on my phone.

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LifeLiverTransp
I cant wait to see what horrific tumors of software the phone producers can
get to grow on these improvements.

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sgroppino
Is this version Popsicle?

~~~
gagege
Maybe Peppermint?

~~~
MBCook
Parsley. They’re going healthy.

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Bulbasaur2015
did they say what the P stands for?

~~~
jsight
I think that the official name normally comes out very close to the GA
release.

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emilfihlman
That video was virtue signaling to the max.

