Technology Android

[masta247]

That's a shame about USB-C. I thought it was supposed to be better all-round.

Do you think there could be an update to USB-C similar to how we have HDMI and USB 3.1 that will improve the stability and safety of USB-C?

It was supposed to be better. In theory, it sort of was. In practice, I think the standards need to be more streamlined and enforced because currently, it can be hazardous. Making it a fully open standard allowing manufacturers to add their deviations to cables and peripherals and still calling them USB-C was probably the largest mistake. The fact you can release a cable without sufficient electrical safety precautions and that you can overpower it is also crazy.

Another problem is, in the best case scenario and when you're lucky, the cable's box might say "good for up to 3A" (the most common cables). Yet USB-C power delivery supports 20V 5A chargers and charging, so if you tried to connect the above cable to a 5A charger (commonly provided with USB-C laptops), it might work but might also fry things. Heck, a 5A cable with a 5A charger might fry a phone trying to ask for a 2A charge if it's a really bad cable.

Micro-USB would simply not work if an attempt was made to do something it's not capable of, and devices on both sides could immediately see on a hardware level what the other side is capable of. For fast charging to work, appropriate wires have to be present on the cable and a proper pin has to be there on the phone's port. If any of those was missing, the charger would never try to push higher voltage, and that's it.

USB-C relies on the device transmitting the information to the charger over a cable that might or might not carry that information, over a cable that might or might not be capable of carrying such power.
It's insane that USB-C introduces such risks.
The conversion between USB-A ports and USB-C ports is also imperfect, especially since it's wrong to assume that every USB-A output will be a safe USB-C input.

I think the standards relating to what USB-C cables and peripherals can do and require needs to be fully enforced because otherwise, the standard is unsafe and currently requires the user to research and make appropriate choices. Even then it's not easy to research, as there's no spec sheet or easy way to figure out whether a cable is fine or not. There's pretty much no way to tell without relying on third-party tests and trust that the cable that they are recommending is safe. And USB-C device combinations range all the way from perfectly fine to hazardous.

lol that sucks about the LTE situation. I didn't know LTE and 4G were different. I did know HSPA was something different but also not sure in what ways. I think only TMobile has/had HSPA in the US.

4G and LTE are technically the very same thing. HSPA is simply 3G, yet in the US and Canada Android claims it is 4G.
What's annoying (other than Android lying here) is that there's no way to know how fast of a speed you're getting at the moment, since it either says 4G or LTE. When it says 3G, you can assume that you're connected to something slower than LTE, but you still don't know what that is, as Android is masking that.
I forgot to add, I don't know about your S7, but the Canadian stock ROM for the S8 also doesn't have the data toggle. As soon as I also saw that I assumed those were some insane things pushed by the local carriers who thought the phone users are dumb and it'll fly.

USB-C really was supposed to change things and people on Reddit slap their dicks for USB-C on their phones, but if there's a serious issue about burning out and lack of regulations on the accessories, then that's something that's not talked about often on forums.

I was excited about USB-C. But I also remember seeing pretty much every major news outlet warning people about USB-C. You can still google those issues and thousands of articles by major tech sites will pop up.
I remember seeing those articles. I just didn't fully understand why they're making such a big deal out of it and didn't realize how serious the situation is until I got my own USB-C device. I thought USB-C was more like Micro USB with some easily fixable problems and some early faulty cables. Then I realized the standard is just more hazardous than Micro USB. It's certainly not fool-proof, and potentially very punishing if you're unlucky. You can't even rely on the major companies, as Anker cables aren't safe, Belkin and APPLE recalled theirs, but the faulty ones are still circulating. It's more likely than not that the cable you're buying is actually unsafe, as very few are safe for each USB-C use case, while most of them cost more than $20 each.
Micro USB was a perfectly safe standard in that regard. Frankly, it just needed a reversible connector, faster data speeds and extended power limitations and it would be what USB-C should have been.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

I guess now that USB-C is becoming the standard, it would make sense to insure expensive devices like phones and laptops.

You'd have thought that it was well thought out technology and had years of development behind it. How would something with such mass production and adoption be approved if it was so unstable?

 

[masta247]

So the new iPhones now all look like the X. The chips are 60% larger (yet likely lower clocked to maintain power efficiency) and the camera is like the one on the Galaxy S8 (finally same sensor size, pixel size and almost as low aperture). Connectivity was also brought to the Galaxy S8 levels, not as fast as the Galaxy S9 levels, and all modems are now Intel, which is a bit controversial considering how weak the Intel modems are, and how much more problematic they are compared to the excellent Qualcomm modems. If I understand correctly, they now do dual sim as default, which is nice, especially as they're trying to maintain some sales in China, but makes you wonder why didn't they use that extra space for a headphone jack instead.

The Xr is a great upgrade for the old iPhone owners, as it's like having an iPhone X for cheaper with an LCD screen. Especially if you opt in for a larger storage option (128GB is just $50 more, while increasing storage on the Xs and Max costs $150). Sure, the screen isn't a fancy OLED and you'll feel like a peasant using a low res LCD display, but it's not any different from any of the previous iPhones and otherwise, you're getting basically the same phone for $200 less.

This upgrade for Apple is sort of like going from the Galaxy S7 generation to S8 for Samsung, finally getting rid of the bezels and refreshing the design, which is a huge thing in terms of feel and appearance, without making any other groundbreaking changes.

I feel like this generation was aimed solely at previous iPhone owners, making them upgrade and reducing reasons for them to switch to the more modern and fancy looking Android phones - the iPhone users will no longer look like their phones came straight from the stone age, but only as long as they upgrade from the iP 6,7 and 8. I'd say while Apple didn't do anything new that would entice anyone to switch over from the Android camp, it's a good move in keeping their series mostly up to date with the competition for their existing user base.

While I can see how this was a reasonable launch for Apple, almost fully catching up to the opponent's strengths in terms of hardware, it's a bit sad that they bring nothing new to the market. I was hoping for SOMETHING, yet there's not even a single innovation.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

This generation of iPhones will go a long way in phasing out the notch-less phones and making that design more of a standard.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Would you say getting a Micro-USB to USB-C converter is the safer option?

 

[masta247]

Would you say getting a Micro-USB to USB-C converter is the safer option?

If the cable is Micro USB, it will not function like a USB-C cable, you will be relying on the electronics on the converter (capacitors, resistors etc.) which can be equally bad as on the bad USB-C cables, and will usually only allow for trickle charging:

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Interesting read considering the rumours of the Pixel Watch coming out were claimed to be false:
https://www.t3.com/features/google-pixel-watch

Maybe there is something in the pipeline for this year.

 

[dilla]

Got the Samsung T5 500 GB for $100 no tax earlier this week. I think I'll add my music to it from iTunes and finally start using iTunes on my Mac. I've had my Mac for a year but Spotify was enough for me well before then but I was missing some old music I had that's not on Spotify and realized I only had a backup on my 2 TB external HDD. Didn't want to leave that running all the time nor did I want to waste space on my machine with 100 GB of music.

I'm still debating if I should just connect my SSD to our router and run my music through the network. Is that basically a server for media?

 

[dilla]

I missed the Apple keynote but caught up on the notes afterwards. Also, the keynote was nearly two weeks ago, so I'm late on that.

What the hell is with all the iPhone models now? The website is selling the Xs, Max, and Xr, as well as the X, the 8/8S. The three new models, what's the difference between the Xr and the other two?

Apple is really going down the shitter and as cliche as the phrase is, Jobs would've never let this happen. Or anything that has happened in the past few years since his passing.

At least the quality of the iPhone has remained one of the best but there is no simplicity to this lineup. Nor is there one to the iPad releases since the Air and until the upcoming Pros.

People will still lap that shit up for the flagship, as will Android users, and we're going to be living with a lineup of ambiguous models of phones that no one knows what the hell the differences are.

 

[Rukas]

Yeah this is shit.

iPhone just needs to keep it with one or two models (based on size). X and X Plus. Xs and Xs Plus. 11 and 11 plus. 11s and 11s Plus. It has worked perfectly for years. Stop messing up the recipe.

 

[dilla]

Yeah They also love to sell the previous model at a discount, which is nice, but it's not so much value despite the discount. Like you can still buy the X but it's not that cheap, still. I don't remember the price, but I know Apple.

 

[masta247]

Yeah They also love to sell the previous model at a discount, which is nice, but it's not so much value despite the discount. Like you can still buy the X but it's not that cheap, still. I don't remember the price, but I know Apple.

To me the line-up is transparent, but it is completely not general market-friendly, so I agree. The Xr is basically an Xs with a low-res LCD display to save the costs. The naming is horrible.

I agree that Jobs would have never allowed them to go where they went as a business. Back in the days they consistently had no more than 2 phones, 2 tablets, and 2 laptop models at a time, sometimes also selling last-gen models alongside. Each of those products was very carefully perfected and they really made sense, so either one of those 2 products would be a perfect fit for pretty much anybody. Most of all, you could tell that they went all-in into the making of those few products. I loved the Macbook Air when it first came out and I still love the iPad Air. You could tell it's much more than just any other new device. 5 years later there are no spiritual successors. Their current laptops are just not the same, and while there are still decent iPads, they aren't what the Air was back then. The whole point that they are missing is that the best things about those products were how innovative, interesting and usable they were. It was never about improving on existing features, which is what they are doing now. What set Apple apart was how much positively different they went with each of their newer product lines. Settling on simply improving on the existing strengths was a thing of boring companies, not of Apple.

I consider 2013-2014 to be their golden years. They were probably the last years of Steve Jobs' impact, filled with products and ideas that he had planned for. In hindsight, he really made Apple make sense. He was about what Apple wanted, as opposed to what materials were available at the moment. They are losing their appeal these days. Their laptop lines are misguided, their tablet lines started going the wrong way and now it's started translating into their phones. The good take out of that is that they updated their design, but... there is no way in hell Jobs would allow them to go the way they did. He would force some creativity into Apple's spine. Otherwise they are just assembling products from readily available components like everyone else, slapping their SoC into the mobile devices and their logo, and calling it a day. Catching up on the competition in some regards hoping it'll be enough, without pushing anything of their own. That's completely unlike Apple. Even if I wasn't a fan of many of their attempts, at least something interesting was happening in their camp. Now after iOS catches up to Android, they will be just like any other OEM. No matter if you loved them or hated them, at least they used to have that spark that they are losing without Jobs.

 

[dilla]

To me the line-up is transparent, but it is completely not general market-friendly, so I agree. The Xr is basically an Xs with a low-res LCD display to save the costs. The naming is horrible.

I agree that Jobs would have never allowed them to go where they went as a business. Back in the days they consistently had no more than 2 phones, 2 tablets, and 2 laptop models at a time, sometimes also selling last-gen models alongside. Each of those products was very carefully perfected and they really made sense, so either one of those 2 products would be a perfect fit for pretty much anybody. Most of all, you could tell that they went all-in into the making of those few products. I loved the Macbook Air when it first came out and I still love the iPad Air. 5 years later there are no spiritual successors. Their current laptops are just not the same, and while there are still decent iPads, they aren't what the Air was back then.

I consider 2013-2014 to be their golden years. They were probably the last years of Steve Jobs' impact, filled with products and ideas that he had planned for. In hindsight, he really made Apple make sense. He was about what Apple wanted, as opposed to what materials were available at the moment. They are losing their appeal these days. Their laptop lines are misguided, their tablet lines started going the wrong way and now it's started translating into their phones. The good thing out of that is that they updated their design, but... there is no way in hell Jobs would allow them to go the way they did. He would force some creativity into Apple's spine. Otherwise they are just assembling products from readily available components like everyone else, slapping their SoC into the mobile devices and their logo, and calling it a day.

It felt like Apple was perfecting the present under Jobs while Android was really stretching the boundaries in to the future, as far as features went. Now, Android has its own set of issues but Apple is still dealing with quality control issues from 2015 Macs and the iPhone 6 battery issues. Not to mention all the debacles involving throttling when the battery was deemed "old" or the throttling of the 2018 MBPs, which was eventually fixed with a patch. I don't know if intel or Apple shouldered the blame for the 2018 MBP issue, but it wouldn't have been sold under Jobs, I feel. Or heads would have rolled once the fix was released.

Apple lineup and focus on it is no longer laser-focused, literally and figuratively. It's too broad as they try to get people to enter the Apple ecosystem if they can't afford the overpriced Macs and iPhones. I think the only thing that they sell that's of great value is the 2018 iPad, but it still has its flaws, like the screen gap. After that, it either comes at a slight premium over competitors or is just retardedly priced.

I have no issues with any of my Apple products, and neither does my family, so it sounds like I'm incessantly bitching but looking to the future for tech, there's really not much I see in Apple anymore. It'll be the same-old stuff for their Macs and the direction in design for the mobile devices has caught a ton of flak too, like the notch.

Not that I abuse my gadgets but I really need to make sure I make this MBP, iPad Pro, and S7 last because if I had to buy something right now because my current devices were destroyed, I'd feel like I was really being ripped off because of how little has changed. Granted my MBP is a 2017 so it gets a pass and 32 GB of RAM seems nice for future-proofing, but the S7 is fine the way it is compared to the S9 and the Pro is really not that different from the Air it replaced for me, but Pencil support is now invaluable to me. But the rumors for the 2018 IPPs doesn't look promising and the biggest feature seems to be a rumored USB C shift. Which OEMs have been doing for 3+ years now.

 

[masta247]

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Random question. Do you think USB-C earphones would be able to receive audio if plugged into the USB-C port of a laptop? The USB-C Pixel Buds that are rumoured to be bundled with the Pixel 3 got me thinking about this one as I may go for this phone and am looking for a Chromebook in the near future. I prefer wired over wireless and expect the second generation Pixel Buds to be better (so, if they're free then why not?)

 

[SiGh]

Android turns 10 years old today.

 

[dilla]

Android turns 10 years old today.

lol I saw only a handful or articles mentioning this. Really underwhelming hype around its tenth anniversary.

Also, the market isn't really full of competitors anymore and ten years later it is just iOS and Android as the main smartphone OSs.

I'm surprised Google didn't decide to make a tenth anniversary Android phone to commemorate it, full of all the features that make it a true flagship Android phone. Instead, they're being cockteases with fake leaks of the Pixel 3 lol

 

[masta247]

Random question. Do you think USB-C earphones would be able to receive audio if plugged into the USB-C port of a laptop? The USB-C Pixel Buds that are rumoured to be bundled with the Pixel 3 got me thinking about this one as I may go for this phone and am looking for a Chromebook in the near future. I prefer wired over wireless and expect the second generation Pixel Buds to be better (so, if they're free then why not?)

Generally speaking, USB has always been capable of transmitting digital audio (Windows has had built-in drivers for USB Audio since XP). My computer does digital audio out over any USB port, and I used it with many different speaker sets, and a pair of USB headphones. While it shouldn't be too different with USB-C, not all devices play well with each other, so while they should work, I would double check the particular devices. Mostly the headphones, as any data-enabled USB port on a computer (on an OS with USB Audio drivers) will just send a digital stream of raw media to the audio device, and it's the headphones/speakers that do the decoding and digital-analog conversion (which is why USB headphones are more expensive).

Instead, they're being cockteases with fake leaks of the Pixel 3 lol

Google isn't capable of releasing groundbreaking phones using whatever they got with the HTC purchase.
The previous Pixels were below mediocre devices with great software, which perfectly illustrates their situation. They were clearly saving great software work (their camera algorithms, own Android overlay, assistant etc.) hoping that it will result in a market leading device worth backstabbing other OEMs for.
Except they got HTC, and there's hardly anything they could do with it - the hardware was simply crap.
At this point their phones would take long years and lots of money poured in to become competitive in terms of hardware. That doesn't make that much sense considering the rather low popularity of Pixel devices.

I think Google should stick to just focusing on Android, and I wish they did something with their software for the 10 year anniversary. Or released some special edition of Google home at the very least. It's a bummer that it seems like they forgot about the anniversary altogether.

 

[dilla]

Generally speaking, USB has always been capable of transmitting digital audio (Windows has had built-in drivers for USB Audio since XP). My computer does digital audio out over any USB port, and I used it with many different speaker sets, and a pair of USB headphones. While it shouldn't be too different with USB-C, not all devices play well with each other, so while they should work, I would double check the particular devices. Mostly the headphones, as any data-enabled USB port on a computer (on an OS with USB Audio drivers) will just send a digital stream of raw media to the audio device, and it's the headphones/speakers that do the decoding and digital-analog conversion (which is why USB headphones are more expensive).



Google isn't capable of releasing groundbreaking phones using whatever they got with the HTC purchase.
The previous Pixels were below mediocre devices with great software, which perfectly illustrates their situation. They were clearly saving great software work (their camera algorithms, own Android overlay, assistant etc.) hoping that it will result in a market leading device worth backstabbing other OEMs for.
Except they got HTC, and there's hardly anything they could do with it - the hardware was simply crap.
At this point their phones would take long years and lots of money poured in to become competitive in terms of hardware. That doesn't make that much sense considering the rather low popularity of Pixel devices.

I think Google should stick to just focusing on Android, and I wish they did something with their software for the 10 year anniversary. Or released some special edition of Google home at the very least. It's a bummer that it seems like they forgot about the anniversary altogether.

"Forgetting" is what Google does best. The forgot tablets, though they may claim that tablets were a failing market 5 years ago and that they're failing today as well. Apple, the most frugal company, when it comes to their profit margins, isn't making iPads out of their good will. They're still selling and idiots are willing to upgrade from their current Pros to whenever the next Pros release in the next few months. Clearly there's a market.

Google forgets about its services. Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Messages, Keep, Inbox, Wave, Lens, Home. I thinks Lens and Assistant were the only features talked about in the last, big Google keynote months ago. Glasses?

What's wrong with HTC hardware? When they were still around, they were always applauded for their beautiful designs. And even the software seemed to be pretty as well. I think a phone designed like the HTC One and running plain Android would be a best seller, though I think Samsung has a strong enough hold in the Android market that people will buy the next Galaxy S blindly, much like many iPhone users will upgrade to the next iPhone blindly. I'm probably one of those people because the rest of the OEMs just aren't on my radar. Maybe poor marketing or just hearing about quality control issues and Samsung remains as the best OEM, in my opinion. But that's mainly because reviews for past Pixel devices always mentioned some big flaw, usually quality control related, with the Pixel. And Reddit is full of posts of people complaining about getting their phone repaired several times and still having issues. You don't hear about that stuff from Samsung owners. Which isn't to say it doesn't exist but not at the scale that so many Nexus and Pixel users are claiming.

I'd be wary when trying to buy a Pixel and the Pixel would really have to blow the others out of the water with features for me to even start considering them. But they have to start somewhere but their biggest feature still seems to be that it runs stock Android. And while that seems a little enticing to me because that means I get software updates first, many of us are starting to realize that major android updates aren't all that "major" when all is said and done. The features and improvements are small and that isn't worth dealing with hardware issues and some sub-par specs. Is it the screen or the camera of the Pixel 1 or 2 that was either washed out or just plain lagging behind the competition?

 

[masta247]

Google forgets about its services. Hangouts, Allo, Duo, Messages, Keep, Inbox, Wave, Lens, Home. I thinks Lens and Assistant were the only features talked about in the last, big Google keynote months ago. Glasses?

The problem is nobody uses those services. Hangouts was sort of a thing and I knew a user or two, but Allo, Duo and the rest - I don't think I've ever met anyone using them. To make a successful messenger, you actually need people who are willing to use those services. The casual masses are fine with Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, with younger crowds also adding Snapchat to the mix, and everyone else is happy that they have everyone on 1-2 platforms without needing a 4th or 5th messenger.
Nobody really wanted those services from Google (apart from the Google yes-men), Google still made them, and then they stop supporting them because they find out nobody wants them. That's something of a trend at Google.

What's wrong with HTC hardware? When they were still around, they were always applauded for their beautiful designs. And even the software seemed to be pretty as well. I think a phone designed like the HTC One and running plain Android would be a best seller

HTC hardware was behind literally every other remotely popular OEM at the time Google bought them. All of their greatest engineering talent that made the original HTC One S&X devices is already at Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi and the Taiwanese computer hardware makers, with Google getting whoever was still left.

I know the US had a weird thing for HTC in some niche tech circles, with some reviewers actually having positive things to say about the One series over there, but hardly anyone bought them there, and outside of the US people thought they're generally inferior and they didn't sell at all. Their designs were a niche, "acquired" taste, with gigantic bezels, poorly calibrated LCD displays and rough around the edges metal or shiny plastic build. I could never perceive them as pretty, and while just me saying HTC One wasn't as pretty as some people seem to think is not enough, those phones simply didn't sell well. Plus they certainly weren't objectively good at fitting their hardware efficiently into a competitively sized smartphone body.

For the past 5 years, HTC wasn't even a top 20 smartphone maker by units sold OR revenue. And that is completely justified - their internal hardware design of the last 5 years was some of the worst on the market, and so was their software, to the point they struggled and never succeeded at camera image processing, which was dramatically helped by the Google acquisition, but the fact that they simply aren't competitive at hardware remained. Therefore, Google is left with mediocre hardware teams, with some really talented software teams trying to work with what they're given, which just isn't much, unfortunately.

HTC used to be quite decent, but that ended in around 2012, with the One S being their last phone that was actually objectively good and turned a profit. That was almost 7 years ago. There is no way to make a really outstanding phone with what's left there without reinvesting a lot of time and money and building things from scratch. That money wouldn't be coming from the Pixel sales, as they aren't selling many units, so Google would have to pour a lot of their own money in, so in 2 or 3 years we could see an actual contender for a market leader from them. How much sense does it make though, considering that they'd be competing with companies who are constantly pouring (or reinvesting) big money into improving their existing devices and existing top-notch hardware and software? I hope Google has a better plan than it seems.