
Introducing Android 9 Pie - nsriv
https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/08/introducing-android-9-pie.html
======
EpicBlackCrayon
Did anyone see these privacy changes?
[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/p/android-9.0-c...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/p/android-9.0-changes-
all#privacy-changes-all)

* Limited access to sensors in background

* Restricted access to call logs

* Restricted access to phone numbers

* Restricted access to Wi-Fi location and connection information

* Information removed from Wi-Fi service methods

* Telephony information now relies on device location setting

~~~
confounded
Great stuff. However, while I'm happy that they're limiting third-party access
to this data, given Google's business model, I still wouldn't trust _them_
with it.

~~~
DennisAleynikov
You're right Google no longer has the trust it used to enjoy. So many apps
have been uploading entire call logs and it's really absurd this was so easiy
accessible to all apps.

~~~
creatornator
Android may have always been available at no cost, but it was never free.
Always assume if you are given a service gratis, that _you_ are the product
being sold. This doesn't just apply to Android, but to gmail, Drive, Docs,
etc.

~~~
DennisAleynikov
A product only useful at the Billion User data points level. I am 100% fine
participating in what's essentially the training data for all future AI
products coming out of Google. It feels like a happy family of devices all
working together for a more scientific future.

~~~
sametmax
In history, people allowing one entity to accumulate a lot of power on the
basis that they will remain benevolent have almost always be wrong.

Don't assume people at the top have an agenda that are compatible with yours.

The fact we are enjoying a lot of peace and freedom right now should now be a
signal for us to relax : democracy is a system that needs maintenance, not
some legacy you can claim ad vitam.

It's our duty as a citizen to always doubt the intentions of those in power.
Just like it's a flight intendent duty to check that the planes doors safety
are engaged again and again. It's not a moral issue. It's just a technical
requirement.

~~~
some_account
There is no democracy, just the appearance of one. As an adult, I think it's
everyone's responsibility to start and understand this sooner or later.

~~~
sametmax
Well yes, I do believe we are in an oligarchy and not a democracy. But it's a
different point, and would strike a debate that would not help with the main
argument of my comment. So I just use the word "democracy" where most people
expect it, otherwise, it gets complicated.

------
mmastrac
One of the quieter features of Android 9 is that they are reducing the API
surface of Android by explicitly black-listing and white-listing various APIs
and fields that previously required reflection to access. None of these APIs
were documented, but none of them were explicitly "off limits" before Android
P.

That suggests that the life of Java as Android's primary language might be
really coming to an end, even though Android is very much a platform built on
Java/C++ at its core.

~~~
jmgao
That's a bizarre conclusion to come to. The real motivation is that if you
know apps are reflecting into your internal implementation details, and you
want to make a change, you're stuck with a bunch of bad choices.

1\. Break the apps.

Users tend to get annoyed when they upgrade the OS and their apps stop
working.

2\. Maintain a compatibility shim.

Depending on what the change you're making does, this might not even be
possible. Assuming that it is possible, how do you know what needs a shim and
what behavior is actually expected?

3\. Give up and do something else instead.

Things get worse if you consider that OEMs may want to modify implementations
as well, so you'll end up with apps that work, except on some devices. There's
no sensible way to prevent app breakage when there are apps depending on your
internal (and _explicitly_ private) API; the solution is enforcement.

~~~
nunez
Dumb question: isn’t this what the Google Play submission process is for?

~~~
pjmlp
Yes, the problem is that many use private APIs to get around bugs that never
get fixed, or even if they do, never reach customer devices.

Google is promising that now things will be different, take it with the usual
skepticism.

------
blinkingled
Essential has done a fabulous job with Android updates -
[https://twitter.com/essential/status/1026516461907369984?s=2...](https://twitter.com/essential/status/1026516461907369984?s=20)

I hope they stay afloat and release a successor to the PH-1.

~~~
watersb
Yes, this is great. I purchased an Essential Phone on Amazon Prime Day. Amazon
was (is?) an investor in Essential; they sold these for $250 on that day. The
360-degree camera is available from Essential at a deep discount.

I got the idea that they were winding down operations, but the unlocked
bootloader gave me some hope that I would be able to use this device to learn
Android app development.

And here they are, supporting Android P as an OTA update on launch day! I'm
typing this on Android P...

------
hateful
> We partnered with DeepMind on a feature called Adaptive Battery that uses
> machine learning to prioritize system resources for the apps the user cares
> about most.

You know what mind I would like to control what apps get more resources?

Me

~~~
fixermark
Not most people though. There was a time when in MacOS, one could manually
limit the amount of memory a program was launched into by setting the required
and preferred memory footprint.

But that kind of low-level stuff isn't something most people care about or
want to do. They just want the damn thing to work.

~~~
binomialxenon
I see your point that most people don't want to dig into the nitty-gritty
details, but I don't think it'd hurt to be able to mark applications as High,
Normal, or Low priority for memory and CPU use.

~~~
joshuamorton
But this isn't really high/normal/low priority for mem and cpu, its how often
the applications should wake up. And from my cursory understanding, background
resource consumption can be highly variable, and most apps don't really need
that much.

Its the same thing as using those battery manager task killer apps. For a
pixel, those apps will result in worse battery life, because recent android
versions manage resource consumption better than users will.

------
Legogris
I can't be the only one getting a chill down my spine when I read this.
Google, a company "committed to reach and engage the right users safely and
cost-effectively around the world", doing deep analysis of my every input and
my context in order to "drive engagement" and "surfacing the best parts of the
apps [I] use all the time"?

I hope this stuff is kept out of AOSP. Yes, I know it seems like at least some
of the computation happens on-device, but I am not comfortable having it done
on a device out of my full control regardless.

~~~
ppeetteerr
They already do this with your searches and geolocation data. Why not this?

~~~
Legogris
I can still dodge those by disabling Location Services and using something
else than Google app-wise. It is not clear how opt-out this will be. Even if
it can be disabled today it might become pushed harder as time goes.

~~~
ehsankia
You can disable this too: Home Settings > Suggestions

I believe the computation is done fully locally, as for "tracking", every
single OS has a history of what applications you've launched recently, how is
that any different?

~~~
anonytrary
> doing deep analysis of my every input and my context in order to "drive
> engagement" and "surfacing the best parts of the apps [I] use all the time"?

This is much richer data than a list of recently used apps, right? Do OSs also
record that information?

~~~
ehsankia
A lot of those words are from the commenter, not sure where they pulled it
from. The article says:

> Actions take advantage of machine learning to surface your app to the user
> at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and the user's
> context.

"Semantic intents" are basically Android intents. So yes, it's more than just
what app you are in, but rather which window of the app you are in. There is
also user context, which is things like what time it is or what other apps you
have opened.

All this is fed to a model that basically practice, given the current context,
what other intents you may need. It's nothing really out of the ordinary.

The commenter tries to imply it that it tracks every input, which is
unfounded.

------
51Cards
One small annoyance about the new version I've hoped they would revert is the
new clock placement on the left. It was done to accommodate notches better but
Android has always had notifications there. I've been running the beta for
probably 6 weeks now and I still think I have notifications pending at a
glance. It should move based on the presence of a notch only.

Edit: Also there is now a 4 notification icon limit with the clock on the
left, whether you have a notch or not. I often have a lot more than 4
notification icons up (1) (esp since a couple are permanent from background
apps) and the rest will just disappear under a dot-dot icon.

(1) - 3 email account alerts, Trillian, SMS, Ebay, and a Photos alert on my
phone right now. Half aren't visible.

------
unethical_ban
* It looks like they've taken away the "apps" homerow button and swapped it for "swipe up from anywhere". So that is one less gesture available to apps, unless you install an alternative desktop.

* Wi-Fi RTT sounds pretty neat, I had not heard of that before.

* Shutting mic, camera and sensor data off for idle/background apps is neat, though I'm shocked that wasn't an option before.

~~~
haldean
It also looks like the back button is gone... how is that supposed to work?

~~~
joshuamorton
The back button is now contextual, it appears in apps, but disappears when it
can't do anything.

~~~
ptx
What about when an activity in app A opens an activity in app B? Can I still
go back to app A's activity from app B's activity?

~~~
joshuamorton
I just tested this (I think):

I opened a link from fb messenger in chrome. The back button is still there,
and clicking it returned me to messenger. So yes I believe so.

------
vesinisa
As a developer working with an app that integrates fingerprint authentication
- thank god for BiometricPrompt! It sounds awesome - finally a cross-OEM
official API to do fingerprint auth with one callback and with a uniform,
"standard" UI. Does anyone have any idea if and when will it be backported to
the support library?

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Surprised not to see mention of the cutout stuff yet. It seems pretty dumb to
me that Google is jumping on board with this ridiculous feature. Maybe this'll
be one of those Dropbox-style HN comments which in hindsight looks misled, but
I honestly can't find any redeeming factors to the cutout idea.

~~~
kcmp
People loved it when Apple did it which gave everyone else the okay to go
ahead and do it themselves. It allows phone manafacturers to advertise higher
screen to body ratios and is really just a step in the progression towards
bezelless phones. There's definitely a loud group of people who strongly
dislike it but I think most people are okay with it

~~~
userbinator
_the progression towards bezelless phones_

I hope not. The bezel has a very real purpose: a place to hold it without your
fingers interfering with the screen, whether by activating a touch or just
plain blocking the view. I have an older Android with ~5mm of bezel on all the
sides and ~8mm of thickness, and trying to get a good grip while not
activating or blocking the screen is hard enough. I remember being handed an
iPhone 6, and trying not to drop it was the most difficult part. Holding
something that thin is just not comfortable, as is trying to pick it up off a
flat surface.

~~~
SkyPuncher
I use to agree, but I would except most devices to account for this. I'd
except a virtual bezel or software controlled dead space around the edge of
the phone.

You'd basically push buttons and the status bar into the bezel, then use the
sides much like the Galaxy Edge does.

------
lgleason
Funny. My Essential already has the update, but my pixel doesn't. Go figure...

~~~
on_and_off
My pixel 2 sees it.

I strongly suspect that this is a gradual rollout. Maybe that force checking
if an update is available allows to force enroll ? that's how I saw the update
and I now that Google has moved in this direction for the most impatient
users.

~~~
radicalriddler
You are correct. If you force check for an update, then it lets you update to
Android Pie. I assume that the gradual rollout will send notifications to
phones that it's available.

~~~
givehimagun
Force check on my Pixel 2 did not work =(

~~~
radicalriddler
Ah well. That proves me the hell wrong then. Bad luck, try again tomorrow XD.
FeelsBadMan.

------
mikeevans
Interesting that the Digital Wellbeing features that were teased at IO aren't
being launched today, but part of _another_ beta that you have to opt in to.
(And Pixel series only?)

~~~
sigfubar
By the time Android P actually makes it to non-Pixel devices, the beta will
have long since ended, so this doesn't _really_ matter.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Android P is available for the Essential phone[0] the same day as the Pixel.
Technically, every device in that was enrolled in the Android P beta could
have also had it day one.

[0][https://www.essential.com/](https://www.essential.com/)

~~~
xd1936
Yup. I've got Android P on my Essential PH-1 right now. I'm bummed I don't
have the wellbeing features that were promised.

~~~
curiousgal
You can have them if you're rooted.

[https://www.xda-developers.com/get-google-pixel-digital-
well...](https://www.xda-developers.com/get-google-pixel-digital-wellbeing-
essential-phone-android-pie/)

------
edhelas
It's crazy that in 2018 we are still using GIFs to do short animated demo.

Those few "images" in the article were ~40Mb, come on.

------
j_coder
It is amazing how each new version of Android has a complete new UX and none
of them are actually good. Google is basically a back-end company incapable of
doing good UX (if it is more than a search bar).

~~~
curun1r
I would agree with you, but after spending the last two years using an Android
phone after almost a decade using iOS, I feel that Google has made some
fundamentally bad decisions below the UI layer as well. Despite using a phone
that is newer and more powerful, my Android phone is slower, less responsive
and runs out of battery much faster than any of my iPhones.

The only reason I stay with Android is Google Fi.

~~~
curiousgal
I wholeheartedly disagree. I tried using both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X
and none of them came close to the Pixel 2, UX and feature wise. I couldn't
download files, couldn't even change my ringtone to a custom melody, couldn't
attach files coorectly, the integration with their Maps app was awful, the
battery life drained faster after one update... I just felt so limited!

------
adrian_mrd
Does anyone know if Final Cut Pro X or Premiere Pro (or other popular video
editing tools) yet support encoding to the "HDR VP9 Profile 2" ?

(HDR VP9 Profile 2 is isted as a new feature, as per "Android 9 adds built-in
support for HDR VP9 Profile 2, so you can now deliver HDR-enabled movies to
your users on HDR-capable devices." yet I wonder if this is effectively a
telco-friendly video codec not widely used by media publishers or creators?)

~~~
sjwright
I don't think publishing to a single specific profile is an appropriate use of
a desktop video editing application. It's like typesetting a paperback book by
pressing "print" from Microsoft Word.

You should be exporting a "master" file from your editor and getting your
delivery platform (or at minimum a dedicated transcoding app) to output to the
various profiles.

Also, exporting HDR content isn't as simple as changing your export setting.
HDR changes the way you handle content from the earliest moments of data
capture; the real question is how you choose to crush the high dynamic range
down to a standard dynamic range for everyone else.

~~~
adrian_mrd
Yeah, all good points, although sometimes one just needs to export a file or
two (as opposed to setting up a publishing workflow or a system).

And Compressor for Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Media Encoder CC for Premiere Pro
CC are effectively integrated (or some of the export code) for such a function
- or are launched via the apps when you ‘Export’ or ‘Share’, although this can
depend upon your CC plan or whether you have purchased/installed Compressor,
or not.

The ‘crushing the HDR’ is a good point, I’ll have to look up how this codec
handles DR and colour gamet :)

------
bitsoda
Feels kind of lazy going with "Pie" after having used "Key Lime Pie" in the
past. Though technically not a dessert, I was rooting for "Pancake".

~~~
what_ever
It was changed from KLP to Kitkat though. So Pie was never used.

Disc: Googler but nowhere close to Android.

~~~
cpeterso
I was rooting for "Pumpkin Pie", a nice alliterative two-word name. And not
trademarked! :)

------
abhiminator
Surprised with the naming, did Google just miss a great opportunity for
collaborating with candy manufacturers like they did with Nestle for Android
4.4 'KitKat'?

~~~
tjungblut
me too, but what would be a world-renowned candy that starts with 'P'?

~~~
NSAID
I was pulling for (unbranded) Petit four

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_four](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petit_four)

~~~
yoz-y
I've been living in France for 16 years and eaten a lot of petits fours. Today
I learned that they can be sweet? I've never seen somebody use the term for
sweet foot.

~~~
sjwright
I live in Australia and I only ever see _petits fours_ used to describe small
sweet morsels served at the end of fine dining (a three course meal, a tasting
menu or _degustation_ ) often delivered with your order of coffee or tea.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=dinner+course+menu+petits+fo...](https://www.google.com/search?q=dinner+course+menu+petits+fours+pdf+site%3A.au)

------
adrian_mrd
Given the number of times the post mentions Machine Learning (ML), I'm
surprised they didn't skip the P for Pie and go straight to naming it Android
ML ;)

------
Raphmedia
"It's nice!" ... or at least that's what I would say if my phone wasn't
limited to Android 7.0

~~~
zanny
I was worried my S5 was doomed to Lineage 14.1 forever, but some saint dev
ported it to 15.1 last month.

LTE doesn't work, but hey, 15.1.

Whats really scary is that the official Samsung Touchwiz ROM stopped getting
updates two years ago and is stuck on 5.1 I think. Ain't it great when
hobbyists support a device for over 3 major revisions past when the billion
dollar manufacturer that made it stopped updating it less than five years
after it was released.

~~~
voltagex_
>LTE doesn't work, but hey, 15.1

Ah, XDA, where critical features become optional.

------
PopePompus
Even in Pie, "Adaptive Brightness" is terrible. The display often abruptly
drops in brightness for seemingly no reason. I think I could do better with a
photocell and an opamp.

------
rayiner
> App Actions is a new way to raise the visibility of your app and drive
> engagement. Actions take advantage of machine learning to surface your app
> to the user at just the right time, based on your app's semantic intents and
> the user's context.

Aside from the unnecessary jargon, this irks me how it portrays the user as
some passive consumer. It really drives home how Google is, first and
foremost, an advertising company.

Compare Apple's ad copy:
[https://developer.apple.com/ios](https://developer.apple.com/ios)

> Siri can now intelligently pair users’ daily routines with your apps to
> suggest convenient shortcuts right when they’re needed. Use the Shortcuts
> API to help users quickly accomplish tasks related to your app, directly
> from the lock screen, in Search, or from the Siri watch face.

See how this is much more respectful of the user, by treating her as an active
entity? Overall, Apple's copy is less jargon-y and terrible too:
[https://developer.apple.com/ios/whats-
new](https://developer.apple.com/ios/whats-new).

~~~
Navarr
You're reading a developer blog.

The Android.com page is more similar to Apple's:

> App Actions predicts what you’re about to do, so you get to your next task
> more quickly. If you do something like connect your headphones, the playlist
> you were listening to earlier is front and center. [1]

[1]
[https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/](https://www.android.com/versions/pie-9-0/)

~~~
rayiner
> You're reading a developer blog.

Both things that I quoted are for developers:

> Siri can now intelligently pair users’ daily routines with _your apps_ to
> suggest convenient shortcuts right when they’re needed.

The Android.com copy you quote, by contrast, is directed to users ("connect
_your_ headphones").

------
conradfr
I was just hoping for them to retire those stupid round adaptive icons. They
did not.

Also it's not clear if the old style of switching "opened" apps will still be
there? Because the new one with the full screen preview seems more flashy but
less practical(think alt+tab vs win+tab on Windows).

~~~
mikelward
I think the idea was good, it's just too bad so many apps (many by Google)
went the lazy path of leaving the icon as-is and adding a white background
layer.

Also note that they're only circular on Pixel.

~~~
Avamander
To be fair the API given is pretty c*p when you have to target older Androids
as well (and don't want to give them an uglier icon). If I remember right I
had to simplify the icon as well (remove transparency I think) because Android
doesn't like many things that are okay in svgs.

~~~
mikelward
I just used Android Studio to generate the icon for older versions. Yes, I
would assume no transparency, since it needs to be a simple single-layered
image, AFAIK.

[https://developer.android.com/studio/write/image-asset-
studi...](https://developer.android.com/studio/write/image-asset-
studio#launcher)

------
paulcole
Adoption of the previous version (Oreo) is at 12%.

[https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/06/google-releases-
android...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/08/06/google-releases-
android-9-pie/)

------
hateful
Finally, a dark theme.

------
chappi42
Great, system navigation looks like Palm webOS...

~~~
cpeterso
Or iOS's swipe-up app switcher.

------
thewizardofaus
Could they cram the world Machine Learning into the article much more? If this
was 12 months ago, replace every instance of the word Machine Learning with
"blockchain"... Oh boy, gotta love buzzwords.

~~~
anonytrary
Each of the whopping 5 instances they use the phrase in are used correctly.
The entire document is around 2500-3200 words. I think they could cram a lot
more in and still keep it kosher.

------
sapphire_tomb
Anyone know if there's a way to get the Oreo "Recent apps" feature back? The
new one is fairly terrible in my opinion, it now takes many more swipes to get
back to the app I want.

------
pleasecalllater
So to get all the privacy changes I will need to buy a new phone, as my
current Samsung has 3 years now, so it won't get any updates. What a funny
world.

------
zinckiwi
My feature wish list: 1) working Smart Lock Trusted Places

------
YZF
Coming to my Nexus 4 soon? ;)

It always feels like the goal here is to get people to buy new phones. I
wonder what % of phones running the previous OS will be upgradable.

~~~
dan1234
My Moto 4G finally got it's upgrade to Android 7.1… last week. Better late
than never, I guess.

------
pjmlp
Android Oreo, one year later in spite of Treble, 12.1%

~~~
yathern
Oreo was in tandem with Treble. Updates in Oreo and in the future should show
an increase. Not upgrades _to_ Oreo.

~~~
scottlamb
Agreed. Put another way: Treble should make the Oreo distribution percentage
go down more quickly than other versions did once they're not the latest.
Since Pie was released today, this is the starting line. It'll be interesting
to see how it goes.

Where could one find graphs of the Android major versions' distribution
percentage over time?
[https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/](https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/)
just shows today's numbers. I'd like to see a "distribution vs days since
following version released" with a line for each old version.

~~~
jeroenhd
Wikipedia has a nice graph:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#/media...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history#/media/File:Android_historical_version_distribution_-
_vector.svg)

Needs an update though; this one only goes up to February this year.

------
cmurf
I wonder if Google's own apps are exempt from adaptive battery? I continue to
have problems with Google's apps soaking my phone's battery. Reset the phone,
and I get 6 days of standby (this is LineageOS). Install Google apps, and it's
now 4 hours. Wakelock detector says the apps Inbox, Google, and Google
Contacts are the top offenders with dozens of wakes keeping the phone awake
between 40% and 99% of the time. Super irritating.

~~~
izacus
That wakelock detector is probably showing wrong data (especially on newer API
levels). Can you try something more advanced like Battery Historian (in dev
tools) to see what's waking up the CPU?

(And no, Google apps are beholden to all power saving restrictions like other
apps - Play Services being the exception because it services functionality
that must work at all times.)

~~~
cmurf
Battery Historian isn't really helping pin this down. CPU is running the whole
time over night, ~5%/hr drain doing nothing. Kernel only uptime has hundreds
of events per minute with reason "unknown". Userspace wakelocks total less
than 16s every 20 minutes with no app I recognize named (Babel_ConcService is
the top offender). Top app is blank as is Long waklocks and Screen. Doze is
"light" all night.

    
    
        Kernel Wakesources:
        Ranking | Name            | Duration / Hr | Count / Hr | Total Duration | Total Count
        0       | event1          | 17m59s340ms   | 23457.57   | 3h2m57.557s    | 238578     
        1       | event5          | 17m32s350ms   | 23463.47   | 2h58m23.053s   | 238638     
        2       | alarmtimer      | 1m47s350ms    | 53.59      | 18m11.818s     | 545        
        3       | wlan            | 45s341ms      | 58.99      | 7m41.149s      | 600        
        4       | bluetooth_timer | 23s642ms      | 194.68     | 4m0.462s       | 1980       
    

No idea what event1 and event5 are, but that seems excessive.

    
    
        Kernel Wakeup Reasons:
        Ranking | Name    | Duration / Hr | Count / Hr | Total Duration | Total Count | Show Count vs Time
        0       | unknown | 57m26s285ms   | 11789.25   | 9h44m10.852s   | 119904      |                   
    
        App Wakeup Alarms:
        Ranking | Name                           | Uid   | Frequency (count/hr) | Count
        0       | GOOGLE_SERVICES                | 10033 | 60.66                | 617  
        1       | com.android.providers.calendar | 10004 | 0.20                 | 2    
    

60 wakeup alarms per hour? Excessive anytime but absurd for night time.

    
    
        Time Spent In Each App State:
        Name                       | Uid   | Top / Hr | Foreground Service / Hr | Top Sleeping / Hr | Foreground / Hr | Background / Hr | Cached / Hr
        GOOGLE_SERVICES            | 10033 | 7s202ms  | 59m52s311ms             | 0ms               | 486ms           | 0ms             | 0ms        
        bbc.mobile.news.ww         | 10109 | 5s312ms  | 0ms                     | 0ms               | 0ms             | 762ms           | 16m48s169ms
        net.sourceforge.opencamera | 10097 | 5s71ms   | 0ms                     | 0ms               | 0ms             | 0ms             | 59m54s209ms
        com.google.android.tts     | 10072 | 4s910ms  | 88ms                    | 0ms               | 0ms             | 0ms             | 59m54s200ms
        com.cyanogenmod.trebuchet  | 10026 | 3s247ms  | 0ms                     | 59m44s851ms       | 0ms             | 0ms             | 11s900ms   
    

Foreground service per hour?

Anyway, battery life goes to about 4 days standby if I put the phone in
airplane mode. Or if I reset the phone and then on next boot I don't enter my
Google account info. I have one bugreport where the discharge rate varied
between 15% and 40% per hour, but there's no battery data due to overflow (?)
looks like I'm only getting 3-4 hours of detailed data after a reboot.

~~~
izacus
Hmmm... if I remember correctly the concservice thing is supposed to come from
the Hangouts app. Unless you have Fi, can you try disabling it?

~~~
cmurf
I've uninstalled Hangouts Dialer and Hangouts, reset stats and rebooted, left
the phone untouched since. No change in discharge rate, it's still around 4-6%
per hour. The top user wake lock offender is NlpWakeLock now, but it lasts
just a second, but happens every 10-15 minutes.

Still event1 and event5 listed as wakesources with tens of thousands of counts
per hour each. And still kernel wakeup reason "unknown" 12000+ counts per hour
and 58m per hour duration (the entire 3h46m the phone was left since booting
until capturing the bugreport).

The big gripe I have is in fact not the battery loss. It's the lack of tools
that reliably pin the blame on the cause of the problem. So now I have to once
again F around with uninstalling apps one by one to find out whodunnit and
past experience tells me it will be a Google app or service with no recourse
for getting the problem fixed. It's really an irritating platform.

Edit: And the WLD app shows the phone is "awake" 99% of the time. But if I put
it in airplane mode, or wipe it and don't put it in airplane mode, it'll be
awake 1% of the time (this is being left alone untouched for 1-4 hours).

~~~
izacus
Yeah, honestly this looks like there's something wrong with the actual phone
(not software) - those "event" sources tend to come from kernel interrupts and
those issues tend to happen when a sensor or something related malfunctions.
Just a guess tho.

~~~
cmurf
Except doesn't happen after a reset. Doesn't happen when in airplane mode.
Happens only after I restore apps. Something is busy doing something when
there's network access, and I suspect the 15% to 40% drains are when wifi goes
down for whatever reason and I'm left with a really crummy weak mobile signal,
which I know drains phone batteries fast just by the nature of having to
compensate for weak signal.

------
lai
I don't know if it's just me, but I don't really like the text magnifier. I
select text better without it.

------
pornel
It's a shame that Google has stopped upgrading the OS on the Nexus line of
phones.

~~~
ilove_banh_mi
Is there a reason for them not upgrading Android on Nexus? Disappointing news
since I bought mine a mere 2 years ago.

~~~
izacus
The major reason (according to the dev podcast) is that SoC vendors simply
drop support and don't update drivers for new Android versions. This pretty
much blocks any kind of updates since mobile drivers are all closed binary
blobs.

Before 8.0 Android driver layer wasn't separate from other OS layer so they
couldn't upgrade Android separately.

------
DennisAleynikov
I'm no longer surprised that Samsung doesn't feel the need to update to the
latest version of Android! Grace UX (their skin) already had all of these
features as of last year. I do not see anything worth upgrading for here.

Potentially huge for people buying the notched phones. The support for that
did improve in this update.

~~~
mkirklions
Curious what others think of samsung hardware on HN.

Ive had:

>S5 phone whos charging port broke and had terrible battery life. But hey,
when I bought the phone the screen was bright and beautiful... I feel like I
was tricked

>My SSD failed in a year

>My grandpa's 1,000 dollar samsung TV he bought in 2018 has an irresponsibly
slow smart TV.

And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was
looking to buy them last year.

I cannot tell if Samsung has lots of customers with horror stories, or a
massive marketing department that is able to get people to buy average
products at luxury prices.

~~~
kop316
> And I read some horror stories about samsung home appliances when I was
> looking to buy them last year.

I can add to that. From a previous comment: "I actually just replaced a 3 year
old Samsung Electric Dryer. The heat was no longer working, and I suspect it
was the heating element. To access the heating element required me to: - Take
off the control board - Take off the entire top of the dryer - Take out the
door - Take out the Front panel - Take out the drum I only figured this out
after finding a service manual, as I did not want to risk destroying a dryer
to figure out how to fix it. A new heating element was $80 off the grey
market. I wanted to see how much it would be to get it fixed by a service
place, and any service place I went to wanted to charge $100 just to look at
it!

When I saw a new dryer was $400, I just decided I did not want to deal with it
anymore and bought a new dryer.

I will not be buying Samsung products again. "

~~~
paulie_a
I had a Samsung fridge, it would constantly reboot... Samsung products just
flat out suck in my experience. They insist on installing shitty software on
everything.

------
faragon
In my opinion, Android should focus in quality/stability and UI
responsiveness. E.g. it blows my mind that Nokia N900 (2009, Maemo Linux) was,
in some cases, way more responsive in the UI than current Android running in
hardware 20x faster.

------
bedros
is the new API open source or vendor-lock-in so app developers are forced to
stick with google

------
dingo_bat
Reading through the list of improvements leaves me quite underwhelmed. I
thought the Oreo upgrade was basically useless, but this is literally a
service pack style update. Also amusing to see "battery improvements" in every
release without anything to show for it.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _Also amusing to see "battery improvements" in every release without
> anything to show for it._

Whatever improvements are made are most likely quickly eaten by the cruft
accumulating both in the system and in applications. The latter update
frequently, which means you have a steady stream of bloat coming in...

~~~
dingo_bat
This is the first time I am considering an iphone as my next phone. But the
lack of headphone jack makes it _really_ hard.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Think of this experience next time someone tries to convince you that
customers in this market get to "vote with their wallets".

~~~
MBCook
They do. Customers voted overwhelmingly ‘we don’t care’ so the headphone jack
didn’t return.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Did they? Or did they just express they care more about staying in Apple
ecosystem than the headphone jack?

This is my point: there isn't really a way to express a preference for
something minor. Smartphone market is mostly "take it or leave it".

~~~
selectodude
They throw a dongle in the box. Just keep it hooked up to your headphones and
now they're fancy Lightning buds. No big deal.

~~~
maaark
Nah, they're stopping that now.

------
ythn
But can we get scheduled SMS yet? Samsung has had this feature for ages...

~~~
mikelward
The SMS app is not part of the base Android OS. Install whichever SMS app you
like. It sounds like there are several that do what you want.

------
stephengillie
What happened to the "3rd party brand" naming convention? No payday for
PayDay?

~~~
pgeorgi
KitKat and Oreo were brands with international reach. On the other hand,
what's "PayDay"?

------
bitL
Can we please get a choice of a non-infantile UI in Android in the future? The
candy-style material UI just pushes me not to use Android for serious work,
more for fire-and-forget tasks I don't care about, as interfacing with it is
extremely unpleasant (only slightly better than WP8).

------
AndyKelley
"Android 9 harnesses the power of machine learning to make your phone
...simpler"

What a ridiculous concept. Have you ever tried to install TensorFlow? It's a
giant, flaming shit-pile covered in a layered shit cake. A word such as
"simple" in this context is obscene. This is all bloatware. Android is garbage
and it's only getting worse.

What phone can I get that isn't Android or iOS?

