x
This website is using cookies. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. More info. That's Fine
HPC:Factor Logo 
 
Latest Forum Activity

Android P

1 2
HPC:Fan Page Icon Posted 2018-05-09 5:15 PM
#
Avatar image of HPC:Fan
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
877
Location:
Europe/USA
Status:
Well, just saw a review of Android P. Not sure if I'm liking it. It seems Android will be moving away from buttons to gestures when it comes to navigation. Using a Galaxy Note phablet, I tend to use the pen a lot. I'm curious how that'll translate over to Android P is set up to be used by swiping your finger for gestures?

I'm not really sure I like where things are heading. I enjoy simple interfaces, a button to close an app instead of swiping. I like a physical home key, not swiping up to go home. Anyone else in the same boat?

Here's a link for a preview of the gestures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWVrQFrLsNk

Edited by HPC:Fan 2018-05-09 5:16 PM
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-09 10:00 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
I don't like most of where consumer IT is heading, consumption, marketing and data mining. I've threatend my computer with Linux twice this week; and it's only Wednesday.

I'll reserve judgement for when I see it, and probably turn it off and never look at it again 30 seconds later. Gestures are ok for able people, I'm supporting sseveral disabledpeople with varying issues. None of them could cope. So if Google pull a Microsoft and mandate bad interface design, then it'll be canned fruit that benefits.

I'm still running Lineage OS on 7.1.2. Having been on it since it was Cyanogen, I've no idea why people use non-stock Android with all the carrier and OEM bloat. 2014 phone purrs along and gets weekly patch releases. When they're not pulling April fools nonsense, they're well worth the time and reinstall to jump onto IMO.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/
 Top of the page
Rich Hawley Page Icon Posted 2018-05-10 12:48 AM
#
Avatar image of Rich Hawley
Global Moderator
H/PC Guru

Posts:
7,188
Location:
USA
Status:
Why we use a non-stock Android? Because we are locked out of the bootloader and can't flash any firmware on the piece of crap we bought! That's why!
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-10 7:56 AM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Pretty much all phones have locked bootloaders though. I had to replace Samsung's with TWRP, which is actually the most tricky part of the process in most cases - for Samsung it usually involves ODIN. Once you've got custom recovery with TWRP, CWM or other, you can obliterate the OS partitions pretty much with impunity from that point on.

I had one device with a non-writable bootloader and that needed a special partition on a SD card to make it work, but I did get it in the end.

You don't have to have google services either, Lineage by default has no Google bloat and if you want you can just install the play store and minimal services from Open GApps Pico installer https://opengapps.org/ and the other nice thing with Lineage is that it assume that by default you do not want Root, you have to add it separately. This is good if you just want a newer OS without the security implications of root access. Having root can often upset security apps, LOB apps and even email these days, preventing or restricting use. It's easy to install from the recovery if you want it.

What phone handset have you got Rich?
 Top of the page
Rich Hawley Page Icon Posted 2018-05-10 1:52 PM
#
Avatar image of Rich Hawley
Global Moderator
H/PC Guru

Posts:
7,188
Location:
USA
Status:
Actually my phone isn't a problem… it's my tablet. ASUS Memopad 8, ME181C. Would love to put Cyanogen firmware on it, but the Custom bootloader is impervious to every attack I've tried. Odin is my favorite, though I've used Heimdall and Framaroot before on other devices. ASUS has this bootloader so locked down...just to give me the bloatware blues…

Wish I just had a stock Android machine with just only what I want on it…

My phone is BoostMobile LG X Charge. Great phone for the price. No complaints… but same issue with Boost bloatware… arghhhh!
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-10 10:40 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
Is anyone on XDA servicing lineage for the LG X? It's not on the official devices list
 Top of the page
Rich Hawley Page Icon Posted 2018-05-11 2:22 AM
#
Avatar image of Rich Hawley
Global Moderator
H/PC Guru

Posts:
7,188
Location:
USA
Status:
They are for LG X Power, but not LG X Charge…just hasn't been out long enough yet.
 Top of the page
HPC:Fan Page Icon Posted 2018-05-11 12:07 PM
#
Avatar image of HPC:Fan
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
877
Location:
Europe/USA
Status:
I've been using Cyanogen mod off and on for the past four-five years. (Don't recall if I was using something else prior to that.) Even that will eventually succumb to newer Android OS versions. I don't consider myself "old" at all when it comes to tech. I'm usually on the bandwagon the second new tech is released. But when it comes to UI I prefer simplicity. I like physical buttons but accept virtual buttons. I don't see why tapping and the like is so difficult that it warrants a complete redesign of how we use mobile devices.

On smaller devices, I can see why gestures would be useful as I feel it'd be easier to control. (I'm sure we've all noticed some annoyances with a WinCE powered handheld at some point in time where clicking on a tick box has been an annoying venture.) But for larger devices, two handed operation is what they were meant for.

I don't know, perhaps it's time for me to finally put on some grandpa pants and sit by the fire whittling an iPAQ out of wood forgoing modern devices as a whole.
 Top of the page
HPC:Fan Page Icon Posted 2018-05-11 7:15 PM
#
Avatar image of HPC:Fan
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
877
Location:
Europe/USA
Status:
Has anyone taken a look at Andromeda OS? It's basically (from what I understand) going to be a streamlined version of Windows 10 designed for phones / phablets and the like. (https://www.techradar.com/news/andromeda-os-is-microsofts-big-plan-to-make-windows-10-fully-modular)

In the past year I've found myself using more and more Microsoft products. I hated Windows 10 initially, now though I've grown fond of it. I've not booted my MacBook Pro up in ages, and I was a big time Mac user. I hated Windows Mobile (the latest iteration) that they released on their phones. But if Andromeda is in fact Windows 10 based, I may even ditch Android for good like I did iOS in 2008.
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-11 10:32 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
The more I see of Windows, it's lacklustre QA, poor design decisions, focus on fluff and nonsense over substance and the more I see it failing to work on both old and new hardware - especially with 6 monthly over-installs - coupled with its focus on anti-privacy. The less I want to see. Microsoft couldn't get people to write code for CE, H/PC, Palm-sized PC, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone or Windows App store. They can't build community. Another gimmick that they abandon after 2 years like the above, leaving the user base high and dry, just isn't going to garner my interest.
 Top of the page
smb_gaiden Page Icon Posted 2018-05-12 5:08 AM
#
Avatar image of smb_gaiden
Factorite (Elite)

Posts:
212
Status:
Quote
C:Amie - 2018-05-11 2:32 PM

The more I see of Windows, it's lacklustre QA, poor design decisions, focus on fluff and nonsense over substance and the more I see it failing to work on both old and new hardware - especially with 6 monthly over-installs - coupled with its focus on anti-privacy. The less I want to see. Microsoft couldn't get people to write code for CE, H/PC, Palm-sized PC, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone or Windows App store. They can't build community. Another gimmick that they abandon after 2 years like the above, leaving the user base high and dry, just isn't going to garner my interest.


I can relate to this very well. Recently bought a Surface RT on ebay with the intention of having a Surface RT win 8.1 product. I keep my original on Win8.0 intentionally.

After receiving the new (used) one, it took about 4 days to get through the updates. The procedure was:

1. Update
2. Update app freezes trying to update more
3. Reset back to factory
4. See xda thread about blocking updates and manually installing a few patches that fix the updater
5. See xda thread about trigger manual update permission and enable it
6. Batch update with 8-15 updates at each time and never exceeding 300MB
7. Continue this loop with #6 for a lot of hours and iterations
8. Get to the end which installs conflicting updates that boot to a blinking wifi signal and otherwise unusable
9. Start back at step 3 (later find out that this was not needed because can uninstall select updates from recovery)
10. Read about a few updates that are order dependent and ensure this at step 6-7
11. Finally fully updated


Extra credit:
1. block future updates and roll back specific updates to enable test mode and non windows store desktop apps to be run.
2. Recompile my stuff to ensure it works well with win rt 8.1 this time, it did, posted to the xda threads with updates.
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-12 10:47 AM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
1. Install Windows 10
2. Add privacy settings
3. Remove bloatware, crapware and spyware, wonder why Candy crush is permanently glued to the app store even though you don't want the wretched thing
4. Wait 6 months
5. Install feature update
6. Feature update didn't install, install again
7. Spend an hour per machine working out why, change BIOS settings
8. Install feature update
9. Re-add privacy settings
10. Remove all reinstall crap and bloatware, still wonder why Candy crush is permanently glued to the app store even though you don't want the wretched thing
11. Be forced to run windows update at the most inconvenient time
12. Reboot computer while Windows sits at a 'restarting' screen for 20 minutes with no disk or network activity
13. Some app or other - or the app store now won't open with a grey icon and no viable fix apart from reinstall. So abandon the use of the app/pp store
14. Update failed to install, go to 11 and repeat until new feature update arrives to repair the servicing SxS repository or you give in and waste 3 hours performing a clean install because you falsely think you need the app store or it's the Spectre/Meltdown patch that won't install and you probably do need that one
15. Go to 1

I've professionally supported Windows deployments since Windows 3.1 and I've used Windows since 2.04. No one, in their right mind, upgrade installs Windows. It's never worked, bad things always happen, don't do it. Yet Microsoft have setup their entire deployment around their inability to have Windows do this and is it any surprise that those of us dealing with the fallout are seeing 30-60% failure rates within a couple of months.

1603 - broke all corporate branding, restored all the bundled crapplications
1703 - branding still broken, failed deployment on every Surface device it touched, restored most bundled crapplications
1709 - rapid SxS corruption on devices with a high amount of standby/resume cycles, App store breaks, Surface devices using genuine surface docks all break, still no branding fixes, intentional ignoring of privacy settings and belligerent attempts by Microsoft to resume data harvesting and extraction despite all previous efforts, Dell laptops power management getting so badly screwed up that they become unusable
1803 - requires mass BIOS reconfiguration, currently running at a 48% upgrade install failure rate, including "unable to validate product key" on 100% licensed and legal installs, continuation of MS changing the registry values to quietly re-enable anti-privacy data harvesting - just think of the millions of hours being wasted by corporate IT departments all having to invest in IT researching how to counter this nonsense. Small business and retail consumers have no chance -- and MS know it. ... and what the hell is this new voice / internet enabled OS install screen that listens to you and forces you to literally wait, unable to do anything so, to listen to it ramble about how it wants to be your personal assistant. ARGH.

#rant

At least with Android you know Google is screwing you, but don't have to spend any time un-breaking it. Which means a lot to us war weary :crys:
 Top of the page
HPC:Fan Page Icon Posted 2018-05-12 5:57 PM
#
Avatar image of HPC:Fan
H/PC Sensei

Posts:
877
Location:
Europe/USA
Status:
As your average consumer running Windows 10 on two laptops (2012 i5, 2015 i7) I have had nothing but a pleasurable experience. Windows XP, not so much. Windows 7? Much better but still have had issues. This is the first time I've ever been happy with running Windows. I (perhaps idiotically) look forward to updates which is something I totally turned off in previous versions of Windows and only updating if I *had* to.

I decided last night that I would place my Mac's for sale (except for my "classic" Mac's) locally for sale / trade towards a Surface Pro. Got an offer today and will go take a look at it tomorrow. If all else fails, I'll boot up my old Core 2 Duo and use Ubuntu from 2008 again. D:
 Top of the page
C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2018-05-12 11:31 PM
#
Avatar image of C:Amie
Administrator
H/PC Oracle

Posts:
17,952
Location:
United Kingdom
Status:
I've written a lot of code to take a vanilla Microsoft Windows 10 ISO and convert it into a privacy enabled crapplet-free install image. I updated my system for 1803 on Friday, so at this point, I'm good for 6 months. I've had BIOS issues with 1803,which is unusual, clean installs usually work fine - as Windows always has been. It's the upgrade install.

Good for you, selling your Apple
 Top of the page
Yoldering Page Icon Posted 2018-05-19 4:19 AM
#
Avatar image of Yoldering
H/PC Vanguard

Posts:
2,579
Location:
The Lone Star State
Status:
I know off topic, sorry. I gave my mom my old Surface. It was just sitting at the top of my closet. As for my personal laptop, I have not even turned it on in over a week. I started at a new company in January. Got a new Dell Latitude 7480. Love this thing! Lightest laptop I have ever had and super fast. We are running Windows 7....forgot how much I loved 7!

As for Android, I am not a fan of gestures. I like simple basic barebones android. I don't want anything on my phone that I do not need. I only use apps that I really need and that don't ask for tons of permissions.
 Top of the page
1 2
Jump to forum:
Seconds to generate: 0.201 - Cached queries : 73 - Executed queries : 8