inspector

@inspector@gadgetro.id
27 Post – 51 Comments
Joined 1 years ago

Back in the day, it was a really great way to find new apps. And by back in the day, I mean when it was still called the Android Market.

Its initial transition to Play Store in the ICS era also wasn't too bad. It still kept a lot of the good things from Android Market. But since the launch of Lollipop, things have really deteriorated. It might not have really been the fault of Google, but there's a lot more noise with subpar apps that crowd the store now. There's also the incessant ads for sketchy apps featured prominently that leaves a bad aftertaste in your mouth.

Like you, I've probably spent like 30 minutes on the Play Store over the last 4 years probably. Every app I want today is either on F-Droid, or already pre-installed on my phone. Or they're PWAs, and it's easy to install them just by going to the website.

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Asus ZenPhone? Have you been living under a rock these past few months lol

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I don't do much on my phone anymore.

But, I'd like to pitch in with a story from the time when I was involved with the Android-x86 project, and was testing out a bunch of things on their Android distro.

I had a Vaio laptop from 2010 that had the first gen Core i3 in it. Was pretty okay for the time specs wise, and it came with Windows 7. I used that for a while, and eventually replaced it with Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat - probably my most favourite version of Ubuntu to date. It had all the right things - Unity, good support for most things - and it was just a joy to use.

Back then, towards late 2011, the Android-x86 team (mainly Chih-Wei Huang, but also a bunch of other folks) were hard at work making Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich stable on x86 architecture. ICS had a lot of things going for it - Google were gearing up for Project Butter (I think that's what it was called anyway), and ICS was built on the strong foundations of both Honeycomb and Gingerbread, which meant that of course it was pretty decent to use on large screen devices.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s in my country, we were just seeing the rise of Internet in the form of 3G and CDMA dongles - they weren't fast, but they were good enough. This was also the start of the 3G revolution - smartphones were just coming out with support for 3G bands, and by smartphones, I mean Nokia S40 and S60 (v3 and v5) phones, with a couple of Samsung Galaxy SIIs thrown in here and there. Data plans were usually at a premium - 1 Gigbyte of data cost about 15 USD, which meant I needed to make a wise choice in deciding which operating system I wanted to download.

I happened to choose Android-x86, and it so happened that I would not have access to another PC or that much data for the next couple of years.


So what did I use on that Vaio that ran Android-x86 ICS? In no particular order:

  • I did taxes, and paid bills
  • I booked movie tickets, and ordered food
  • I did a bunch of reading on the Kindle app, and on Aldiko
  • I browsed a bunch of forums I frequented back then and made posts, replied to them and so on. This was mostly done on the Tapatalk app, but also on the ICS browser (yes, we had a separate browser from AOSP prior to the switch to the ARMv7 and v8 platforms and Google's release of Chrome)
  • I tagged a bunch of my MP3 files using an audio signature app that mostly got it right

For more hardcore stuff, I was also involved with a few projects in the Samsung Galaxy Y ROM scene, and I helped by testing out the ROMs on my Galaxy Y. I would download the ROM on the Vaio through the browser, use a file manager I was familiar with from my days in Symbian called Xplore to move it over from the Vaio to the Galaxy Y, then flash the ROM on the phone through Creeds version of the Samsung recovery. Oftentimes, I would need to make quick edits to the ROMs themselves by editing manifest files or oftentimes the install script for the ROM itself.

I used to use Picsay Pro editor for editing and touching up a bunch of images. All of them would get backed up on Google+ and this carried on into the Google Photos era, and eventually ended up living in Drive when Google axed the Photos free forever plan.

I used Tasker quite heavily to automate a bunch of things TBH. Back when root was a very easy thing to acquire, I would periodically backup chats from WhatsApp on my Galaxy Y, and upload it to an FTP server on the Vaio. I had a Tasker script firing on both devices at around the same time, and it used to work like a charm much before WhatsApp eventually got around to rolling out chat backups. I used Tasker to run a task to export my contacts and SMS to the phone storage.

This also being the golden era of ROMs, I used to use Titanium Backup on both my Vaio and the Galaxy Y to have a very identical setup of apps. This meant that for apps that didn't have a cloud sync feature (which to be fair was most apps), I'd backup and transfer backups to and from the device to ensure I was working with the same set of data. I didn't do this for all apps because the process is tedious, but yeah. Titanium Backup was also great for very quickly setting up a new custom ROM with the exact same settings as the old ROM.

I used ICS on that Vaio for almost 2 years. I used it until my first week of Uni, and I eventually switched to Linux on that laptop until I replaced it with a MacBook.

Using Android on a computer made me realize a lot of things: Android is a damn capable OS, and its vast majority of applications enrich the experience very very much. There's almost nothing that you can't do on Android that a computer can't, especially when it comes to general computing needs. Android might have been built with phones in mind, but Google have put in a ton of work to make that transition over to bigger screens very smooth - I still firmly believe that Honeycomb was one of their best releases, right alongside KitKat. Both very polished Android offerings, and set the basis for a lot of things that we still use on modern Android today.


Since that time running Android on a computer, my Android based computing needs aren't that great TBH. I rarely use my phone these days, and since I switched from my Mi A1, I haven't really tinkered with Android much.

I still fondly recall a lot of things that made Android dear to me - like Xposed, Titanium Backup, Magisk, CyanogenMod, LineageOS, omniROM, the rise and fall of the Android modding scene on XDA Developers and the growth of some great devs like AChep (creator of AcDisplay), Paul Henschel (Paranoid Android), Francisco Franco (Franco Kernel dev), and many many more.

For me, Android will still remain one of the best computing experiences that most people can and will have. It will probably also be the first ever computing experience for the newer generations, and I think Android is poised beautifully to capture and enthrall generations of users to come.

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This is usually a function that full blown media servers offer.

Jellyfin is the one that jumps to mind with this functionality, however I haven't really this functionality out as of yet.

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Was that typed from your Galaxy phone from Tapatalk?

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Yep I second this. I've been using GNOME, hyprland and sway interchangeably since 2021 Oct on my system as my main DEs. I recently wanted to give Plasma Wayland a try. Was met with multiple crashes, and freezes that required me to long press the power button to reboot to get it working again.

While the new rootless wayland on SDDM worked fine for me, there are several things in Plasma that still don't yet have support for Wayland. I could never get screen sharing to be reliable on Plasma Wayland, despite having the right portals installed.

GNOME, Sway, and Hyprland are miles ahead in having a stable system on Wayland.

Currently rocking a Samsung Galaxy A53 5G. Bought this to replace my old shattered Xiaomi Redmi Note 8.

I've been using Android phones since a long time. Started out with a Galaxy Y, loved those small phones with TouchWiz 3!

My most favorite phones I've owned over the years have to be my most beloved Xiaomi Mi A1 (probably the best clean stock Android experience I've had), the Pixel 3a, Sony Xperia M, and the Moto G2 2014 (again, with the cleanest Marshmallow experience).

My A53 is good, mainly got it because I've kind of gotten old tired of experimenting with new ROMs lol. I don't plan on upgrading for 4 more years...this phone does everything I need it to, and it's decent enough to last it's promised update life cycle.

So that they can abandon it in short order like they do with their messaging apps

Man, I always wanted a Nexus 7, but it was never easy to get one in my country back then. And then Google officially partnered with Amazon and Flipkart to launch the tablet...right after I'd gotten a new iPad.

I loved the size of my Pixel 3a! It's a shame they're hard to fix in my country; I'd rather have a phone that size than the huge ones that seem to be default now.

That's expensive compared to the first gen one!

Kind of ironic how their CEO mentioned good phones needn't be expensive during the hype for the NP1 launch.

This is for the older version though, IIRC

Edit: Ah, it seems I missed Automattic acquiring Pocket Casts. Would make sense they're open source, since Automattic is a fully open source company.

I'd actually forgotten it existed TBH. I haven't used many Google apps since ages, and that gesture only works on Google apps. Never seen other apps make use of that either.

I used to edit on phones back in the day, but since I spend most of my time these days in front of a PC, I just edit it directly on there.

I really do like the Pixel Fold though. Interesting device, and is looking to do something new that Pixels (or Nexus) have never done.

I add it through their web interface. I signed up several years ago, but I spent 2020 and 2021 updating OSM for my city to be as good as Google Maps for major places, posting their open and close times, better pin placement and such.

Home of Christine and the Queens, Manu Chao, Justice, Metronomy, Parcels, Ed Banger Records…

I've never heard of any of those artists...

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Awesome, will give this a try on a new Arch install with hypr

Man, I loved ICS. I've spoken about this before on a post from a few days ago.

Here's when I used ICS as my main operating system on my computer for over a year

Back when I had my Mi A1, I used to run a Pixel 2XL GSI ROM that enabled the same feature.

I used that to take a screenshot, and later, show the accessibility menu when my power button and volume buttons stopped working.

CC: @ladfrombrad@lemdro.id who is the only person I know that still has their A1

I know one guy in one of our Telegram chats that simply loves their Android turtle emoji

👀

Bettle Juicing at its finest

Maybe in time. Most Xiaomi devices are pretty custom ROM friendly, so it shouldn't be a huge problem as such.

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Android tablets are just hard to come by in a good configuration. Last time I found decent ones were in 2013: Nexus 7, and before that the Motorola Xoom.

Both had great support for custom ROMs.

There's also the fact that modern Android has simply gone away from the design philosophy that set android tablets apart in Honeycomb.

Oh man, the LG Optimus One! That was a pretty sick phone. Ran stock FroYo OOTB. Can't recall if it ever got an update to GB though

Thanks! Been on the lookout for good HDDs with external power supply.

How are you connecting the two drives to the Pi? Do they have external power supplies?

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I spy with my little eyes a donut media podcast 👀

Yep, I used to follow it when I had a Mi A1. A lot of the GSI images for the A1 came from groups on Telegram. Unfortunately, most bank apps these days need a passing CTS check. And the last time I tried Magisk Cloak, it was still a cat and mouse game with certain bank apps. It's why I don't tinker around with modern Android phones much.

Magisk Delta? Been away from the custom ROM scene for too long now, is Magisk Cloak no longer a thing?

The reason I switched from Gboard was because it autocorrected a capital "I" to a small "i"

As someone who has used the first gen phone, what are your thoughts on the Nothing Phone 2's design, and would you say it fits in the same vein?

Yes, definitely! I don't have as much use for a tablet these days, which is an unfortunate thing. My phone is big enough to cover most use cases, and my iPad 2017 is too big to be used comfortably for most things - it's not ergonomic to hold upright in most conditions, it's slippery without a folio case (and cases are hard to find unless you get an official Apple one which is very expensive), typing on it is a pain because of how thin it is, and the only saving grace it has in terms of typing is the mini floating swipeable keyboard added to iPad OS in recent years.

I'd definitely love to run something like a Nexus 7 again! Perfect form factor for most things, including media consumption, reading books, and much much more!

Nextcloud News, Nextcloud Notes, Nextcloud, and DAVx5/ICSx5. I also really like FairMail; it's one of the best email clients I have tried.

The former set of apps allows me to ditch most of Google's services.

I have a self-hosted Nextcloud instance, and I use the Nextcloud News app on Android.

Works really well. There's also Inoreader, which is really good. There's also a couple of good ones on F-Droid that you can check out.

If download is what they're worried about, they should also have a look at yt-dlp then. Something that Google themselves have tried blocking before, but gave in because a lot of folks had pretty genuine use cases for yt-dlp

Same here. I have lifetime plus from having bought it ages ago, but I've simply just defaulted to listening to podcasts on my Nextcloud News app out of convenience. It has a play and pause button, and that's mostly all I need from my podcast app.

Interesting, I saw some of this UI on my Android TV last week. Unsure if that's how it's always been or if they were doing some A/B testing. It was refreshing to use a UI that was intuitive, NGL.

There have been very few good affordable Android tablets: both the variants of the Nexus 7, and then the only other one I can recollect is the Amazon Fire Tablet 7, which launched probably sometime in 2015 or 16.

Isn't that still the case there?

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IIRC, that is literally just a skinned KDE Connect lol. Probably even just a name change. Never used Zorin, but this is what I remember either DistroTube or Chris Titus saying.