Random purchase: Nexus 5

Post #396,367 by pwhysall 11/15/14 6:52:53 AM Reply	Random purchase: Nexus 5 Nice phone, got it off eBay 2nd hand. Flashed Android 5 (factory, not preview). Used Tap & Go to sync apps and accounts from my Nexus 7 - saved a lot of time. Will be interesting to see how this works. I haven't had an Android phone since Android 2.3. I imagine much has changed.
Post #396,368 by Another Scott 11/15/14 9:42:02 AM Reply	Good luck with it. I'm waiting with a bit of trepidation to see reports of L on a Nexus 4 before I flash mine. Some of the reviews of new features of L in general haven't been all that favorable... Cheers, Scott. (But who will do it eventually.)
Post #396,374 by pwhysall 11/15/14 4:07:05 PM Reply	Yeah, that's annoying I've got 4.4.4 on the N7 and 5.0 on the N5, so I can compare. In general, 5 is better (faster, smoother, better-looking, easier, whatever) than 4 but there are a couple of regressions - the calendar in 5.0 is shit, and the auto brightness in 4 is better. I also don't like the new Chrome UI - I can see why they've done what they've done, but I don't like the way they've done it. Too much all-the-time functionality hidden away.
Post #396,397 by Another Scott 11/17/14 3:11:01 PM Reply	Got the ping that I can update to L now if I want. Maybe tonight if I'm brave...
Post #396,407 by pwhysall 11/18/14 12:55:43 AM Reply	Dooo eeeet. Might as well. Everything's shifting to Material Design anyway, so at the very least you get a better VM (ART vs Dalvik) and the battery life gains of Project Volta.
Post #396,408 by Another Scott 11/18/14 1:01:14 AM Reply	Maybe tomorrow, er, later today. Maybe. :-)
Post #396,428 by Another Scott 11/19/14 7:17:32 AM Reply	So, I told the notification that I'd do it Later... I dismissed the notification by clicking Later (or similar). Little did I know that since then there would be no indication that the update to L is available. I was going to do the update last night or this morning. It's still MIA. (It doesn't show up in Settings -> About Phone -> System Updates now either.) Dunno if I should be happy or what? Oh well. More waiting... Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,447 by static 11/19/14 9:15:39 PM Reply	Should come back after a week or two. I put off the KitKat upgrade notification on my Xperia, too, eventually clearing it. About two weeks later it re-appeared. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #396,448 by Another Scott 11/19/14 9:58:22 PM Reply	Zooks! I was hoping it would just stop nagging me but still have it be available. Oh well. Thanks for the note! Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,450 by Ashton 11/19/14 10:48:14 PM Reply	C-dissonance Alert! 1) They. are. a. PHONE. Company. 2) Yet.. and yet and I bet you can't just Call Them.. and either find out why it it's not still an option OR ..just get The Phone Company to aim you at its present secrut locale. I so confused by these dances.. :-0 if you missed it, way-back: do rent a copy of The President's Analyst! (From cold-war daze and anticipating CIA-antics by ... a whole Generation! Perfect casting. It's a HOOT.) Hoping you missed previous refs. in these parts. All will be clear in the closing seconds. Spoiler: any more words here. Do not read imdb-anything. ;^>
Post #396,457 by Another Scott 11/19/14 11:44:45 PM Reply	:-) I've seen snippets of it, but not the whole thing. I'll put it on the list. :-) Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,482 by static 11/20/14 6:54:09 PM Reply	The Xperia upgrade notices are nice. By default it just tells you and lets you pick a time, and also by default it won't update over mobile data, but only on WiFi. Unlike Google Play, which wants to upgrade everything at any time. No respect at all for my data plan. Took me a while to figure out how to make it not work if there's no WiFi. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #396,511 by Another Scott 11/21/14 7:36:07 PM Reply	I don't think I've been bitten by that. One of the advantages of working in a building that doesn't get a good cellular signal most of the time. ;-) The Sony phones have looked quite appealing at times. I've kept an eye on them and will certainly consider them next year when I'll be thinking more seriously about something to replace my Nexus 4. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,518 by static 11/22/14 5:05:24 AM Reply	Been bitten before. When I bought my Xperia, I knew to shut off mobile data until I got home and could configure the WiFi. Glad I did, or Google Play would've downloaded half my mobile data allowance that evening almost without so much as a by-your-leave. Some programmers in Google-land need to spend a few months on a metered, low-data account so they know what much of the world has to live with. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #396,523 by Another Scott 11/22/14 10:04:32 AM Reply	Looks like it's a setting on the Play Store on KitKat. (Dunno if this was not an option before.) Start the PlayStore. Click the 3-bar "hamburger" icon on the left. Click Settings. Under General, click the 2nd line (mine says "Auto-update apps - Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only"). Change it as needed. I sure hope that L has that too! Thanks. HTH. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,546 by static 11/23/14 2:39:33 AM Reply	Interesting! I hadn't gone looking since I figured out how to make Google Play work over WiFi only (it's in Settings>Applications). But then, I don't like it auto-updating either. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #396,458 by pwhysall 11/20/14 12:22:41 AM Reply	Sometimes, power-cycling can get this sort of thing to show up
Post #396,462 by Another Scott 11/20/14 8:03:58 AM Reply	Hasn't yet.... I'll try to be patient. :-)
Post #396,507 by scoenye 11/21/14 5:22:22 PM Reply	Do you connect to an Exchange account? https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=74465 See the tail end of the thread We have started getting Android 5.0 on our Nexus devices at work. This removes the stock email client in favour of GMail. Although this removes the issue on this thread, we are unfortunately seeing a new issue with GMail 5.0 on Android 5.0. The new issue is that the sync service keeps crashing.
Post #396,510 by Another Scott 11/21/14 7:32:51 PM Reply	Fortunately, no. Thanks for the warning though. Presumably it'll be fixed fairly soon as I know that's a big deal. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,598 by Another Scott 11/24/14 9:00:54 PM Reply	Done. It took about an hour. Looks promising - nothing's broken yet!! :-)
Post #396,385 by pwhysall 11/16/14 6:54:45 AM Reply	Re: Random purchase: Nexus 5 Early impressions: the phone is well-made (although the side buttons lack conviction) but utterly boringly designed. I have two cases on the way - a regular posh-looking one for day-to-day, and a lurid rugged one for when I'm in The Great Outdoors. The screen is very good indeed - actually nicer than my work colleague's iPhone 6, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that. Android 5 looks much better than 4, but is still a hot mess compared to Windows. I don't use the Google system for anything other than maps and the app store, so can't comment on Gmail etc. The Outlook/OneNote/OneDrive apps (in common with Microsoft's apps for Android in general) are very good. The Android calendar, though, is hilariously bad. It doesn't have a month view, and there's lots of other things wrong with it.
Post #396,387 by Another Scott 11/16/14 3:38:48 PM Reply	Thanks. Lots of good information in that review. I use the PIM from the author of the old Palm DateBK - Pimlical Android. It's almost too configurable and has some quirks, but I'm used to it. $10. There's a Calendar Widget too (that I haven't yet tried). $0.99. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,413 by pwhysall 11/18/14 8:29:29 AM Reply	Day 5. Struggling to enjoy it. I'm not really getting on with Android. Things I hate: The phone dialler. Digits are ridiculously small. It's a phone dialler. Fill the fucking screen! List handling. Can't tap a letter to jump to a section of a list. Selecting multiple contacts is impossible, and inconsistent with messages/emails. Compounded by the fact that when you long-press a contact you get an animation that leads you to think that something is going to happen Notifications is all sorts of fucked up, compared to WP; they're not categorised, so you can't easily dismiss all your FB notifications whilst leaving your email ones intact. You can mute them, but then you end up muting your alarms too, which is probably not what you wanted. There's a complex and annoying priority system that isn't at all discoverable. Out of the box, Android is a beepy farty buzzy annoying system - just about everything you touch and do makes a noise or gives haptic feedback - and just getting it to shut the fuck up in regular use requires a fair amount of wandering around in the settings And you can't mute the Google camera app without muting the whole phone Gratifyingly, the FB app is just as shit as the WP version You can't have badge notifications on app icons, because you're supposed to use a widget for that sort of thing. Well, provide me with a 1x1 widget then, motherfucker! This isn't a problem for me, but Google hates you if you have an AMOLED screen, because just about everything that isn't a bright colour is white All the provided tones and alerts are dreadful No glance as per WP No double-tap to wake as per WP Things I like: The Google Now card for my commute is handy; I have several alternative routes home and knowing about the traffic is very useful I can get Amazon Instant Video on my phone (but I had to install the Amazon App Store to get it, which was a bit shit) For the most part, it is responsive and smooth. Amusingly, the most responsive and smoothest apps on my phone are those provided by Microsoft The app icons are for the most part pleasant to look at and much better than the hot embarrassing mess that is iOS 8. Google have walked the line between colourful and childish with much more aplomb than Apple. I especially like the Messenger and Fit icons On balance, I think I'll end up back on the 1020.
Post #396,420 by drook 11/18/14 2:27:16 PM Reply	Several "Yes", a few "I don't have that issue" ... overall, sounds about right My attitude is a perfect example of how lock-in works. I expect to have to fuck around with a new device (laptop, desktop, phone) for a while until either it works how I want or I've gotten used to it - AKA given up. So I dread getting something new and having to go through it all again. -- Drew
Post #396,569 by pwhysall 11/24/14 2:32:09 AM 11/24/14 2:54:02 AM Reply	I've bailed The straw that broke the camel's back was when my alarm went off at 0600 today and, in my sleep-befuddled state, dismissing it was a bit of a pain in the arse. SIM card is back in the 1020, and the N5 will be on eBay this week. I'll miss the 1080p screen and Google Now, but pretty much everything else works better for me on Windows Phone - especially things with lists - like my contacts, my email, my messages. And especially the calendar. Google really fucked that up. Edited by pwhysall Nov. 24, 2014, 02:54:02 AM EST Expand All History
Post #396,574 by Another Scott 11/24/14 6:59:38 AM Reply	Thanks for the reports. Sorry it didn't work out.
Post #396,576 by pwhysall 11/24/14 7:51:54 AM Reply	It's disappointing, really. Material Design was starting to grow on me, but there were too many things that required too many taps/swipes to get to. What's frustrating is that Google really can do nice software when they try. They just don't seem to try very often. It's clear that a boatload of usability work went into Google Now, because that whole thing is slicker than snot. Ditto for Inbox. Presumably those usability people were down the pub when the calendar was being designed. The camera app wants to be the Nokia Camera app so hard it hurts, but it so isn't. The settings are still all over the place - sound is particularly bad for being smeared out across the settings in ways that are technically correct (the best kind of correct!) but which are user-hostile if the use case is "OH MY GOD WILL THIS PHONE EVER SHUT THE FUCK UP?". You turn off app sounds here. You turn off keyboard sounds there. You turn off notification sounds over here. You have to go into the FB messenger app to get it to STFU because it doesn't (seem to) respect the system-wide notification thinger. Reloading a page in Chrome is a swipe up to get the menu/address thing to appear, a tap on the three dots, and a tap. Seriously? Android is a lot better than it used to be, of that there is no doubt. But stacked up directly against WP 8.1? For me, the only advantage it's got is first-mover advantage, IMHO. MS dropped the mobile ball in spectacular style, and Android has exploited that to the max.
Post #396,577 by Another Scott 11/24/14 8:08:36 AM Reply	Does the microphone clip? One of the apps I really like on mine is a SPL app for measuring noise. Unfortunately, on my Nexus 4, it clips at 80 dB. How is it on the 5? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kr.sira.sound It's things like this that make me nervous about buying a new phone. One really doesn't know about the hardware limitations until one has used it for a while... Yeah, there are lots of annoyances that they need to fix, like the browser refresh thingy. I generally do it by a quick short down swipe to get the address bar, tap the address bar to get the keyboard to appear, then click the Go button. One that gripes me is on really long pages (e.g. a long comment thread on Balloon-Juice) is there doesn't seem to be a way to quickly get up to the top or bottom of the page. I have to scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll. Really? I generally have my phone on vibrate all the time because I haven't figured out the various sound things yet. Fortunately, I almost never get calls, but I agree that needs to be fixed. Google Now is neat, but I haven't figured out how to customize it, so I generally never use it. The "20 minutes to work, 2 more than usual" notification thingy is nice, if a little creepy. Thanks. Cheers, Scott.
Post #396,579 by drook 11/24/14 8:58:25 AM Reply	The browser refresh spawned tons of hate There used to be a refresh button on the toolbar. When it went away dozens of people reported it as a bug on Google's help group. Google replied, "Nope, we meant to do that." Thousands of angry comments later they haven't budged. -- Drew
Post #396,580 by malraux 11/24/14 9:46:18 AM Reply	Apple isn't the only one that does "we know better". Historically they're much better at it than Google, however. Regards, -scott Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
Post #396,591 by static 11/24/14 3:28:47 PM Reply	They all try it at some point. IBM used to do it. MS was the poster-child for it. Adobe has fits of it. Even Canonical did it. Wade. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/
Post #396,596 by pwhysall 11/24/14 4:34:34 PM Reply	But none of those made the "definition of open" tweet Google did, so their control-freakery (you can't even choose colours for items in things like the speed dial, ffs) comes off as a little out of place. https://twitter.com/Arubin/status/27808662429
Post #396,597 by static 11/24/14 8:17:09 PM Reply	Ouch. Just Add Story http://justaddstory.wordpress.com/

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