Be Excellent To Each Other

See, I was all over the OnePlus, but everyone on Reddit that has a OnePlus phone seems to say "I wouldn't have another one".

There's a few reasons, but customer support being dire seems to be the most common, along with OnePlus seeming to drop the older models as soon as a new one comes out - something their "never settle" motto seems to make fun of.

Still though - both those things happened to me with a Nexus phone, so meh.

Oh, wow. It's not quite as cheap as it used to be, is it?

I dropped and totally wrote off my Nexus 5, and now in trying to flash my old HTC One m7 with a newer custom rom, I appear to have softbricked that too. Hooray.

Yeah, as a OnePlus One owner I'm not having another. If anything bug-fixing and ongoing support for older models appeared to *get worse* after they dumped Cyanogen to do better at exactly that.

Helen dropped hers on gravel breaking the touchscreen completely. Got her a moto g5 asap looking as the best sub-200 model. She doesn't much like it unfortunately, but doesn't seem to want to take me up on my offer to have it and we'll get her another (the radio in mine hates WiFi and cell networks now).

So here's a thing, I bought my Chromebook back in September 2014. It's a basic Toshiba affair and only cost £200, but it's done solid service and continues to do so.

For a little while after I bought it, it updated itself reasonably regularly, but then it stopped. Even a manual 'check for updates' reported that it was up to date.

After a few months Gmail started nagging me that my version of Chrome was out of date and that I needed to use a supported browser (amusingly, offering a link to the Firefox site), yet a check for updates would have the Chromebook insisting it was up to date.

In the end I had to create a recovery USB key using the Google App, and rebuild the Chromebook with the latest version of Chrome OS using that.

This has happened several times over the last three years, in exactly the same pattern. Gmail eventually starts nagging me that Chrome is out of date, the Chromebook insists it's up to date, I create a new recovery USB drive, and rebuild it.

So last week we were away in the UK and I took my Chromebook with me, and we had wifi in the hotel.

The Chromebook updated itself twice during the week.

The difference? UK IP versus IOM IP.

I know we get a gimped Play Store here because Google treat us as 'Rest of the world', but I'm surprised that extends to devices not picking up updates that will of course include security fixes.

Might be worth setting up a VPN connection for the future. I know the software I use has UK servers available. Although I use it mainly for US servers and Netflix.

Chrome OS isn't Android. How are we supposed to have a coherence and continuity to the conversation if you're just going to post in random threads?

Almost as bad as people who post regularly in the movie thread then moan each movie doesn't have its own thread.

Jesus dude.

Why on earth doesn't 'set up this android device from another android device' copy texts? How can leaving out the fundamental device things be a thing that you would think is sane to do?

Is this still your fault, DocG? Get it fixed then go back in time so it works when I do it a week or two back.

I don't think it copies 8-tracks either

If my phone had an 8-track in it I would be outraged about that too.

Now I'm just a bit upset that phones don't have 8-tracks

What do you update on a clock?

'Now features 25 hours per day'.

We did that 3 years back. Only just got to IoM?

The clocks in my office genuinely have 6 'seconds' between every fifth number.

Time zones. Countries are fucking stupid so they fuck over technology all over the world by fucking with time zones every year at very short notice.

Oh the buttons and sliders on the alarm screen are a nice pastel shade of blue now, whereas before they were a sort of pinky red.

This is the sort of bold new direction I've been yearning for in Android for years, and I applaud this update to Clock.

Also pastels. Time zones and pastels.

Gotta future-proof that clock

I upgraded my phone to *sigh* Oreo yesterday and it's made close to zero difference, which I'm fine with. Well, except for one annoyance: there's now a notification settings permanently in the window blind telling me that I have two apps running in the background. Which I know about; mostly because they both also have their own permanent notifications making the Android system one utterly redundant and really annoying. I don't suppose anyone knows how to get it to fuck off? Apparently in previous versions of Oreo you could go into that settings and say you didn't want to be told about background apps but now that, and all the other associated switches, are disabled so you can't turn any of them off. Which is weird and annoying.

Another minor Oreo annoyance: Google have made a big deal about the new 'notification dots' feature and there's both global and application level settings for it available. Does it work with the Google Now launcher? Does it buggery. I understand trying to make the Pixel launcher all exclusive and shit to try and shift your over-priced hardware but why even expose features to me that haven't been implemented?

The Nova launcher does that on Nougat, fyi

Yeah, I think most of the third party launchers have similar features which Google are now reintroducing as if it was a new idea. It's very Apple-esque of them.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09 ... -reviewed/

Exhaustive (as in, 20k words) review of everything new in Android O. It's well structured though so you can skip sections you're not interested in and skim others, which alleviates the book length somewhat.

Wait, the blob emojis are gone? Nope. I'm done. Need to find a new phone OS.

The blob emojis are gone? Great.

No need for another 19,994 words, I'm sold already

So, umm, hi!

Have you returned to the dark side?

are you fucking kidding me

I presume you've brokered a special deal with Google so that they don't sell your personal information?

I promised Gaywood a drink and he sent me all the photos Myp has taken so far, so it appears not.

https://privacy.google.com/intl/en-GB/how-ads-work.html

"We do not sell your personal information to anyone"

"We give it away for free!"

"we just provide excellent methods for third parties to gather your data directly"

I'm cutting my coat according to my cloth. Can't justify £1000+ on a new iPhone. Got a Samsung Galaxy S8 instead. It seems nice so far.

You do realise 2/3rds of the new iPhones won't be £1000

(They'll still be more than that S8 tho)

Don't worry, I still have my 12.9" iPad Pro to use when I feel like looking down on you all still

My Note 8 arrives this week. Meanwhile, unless something very surprising happens, there's a strong chance the face unlock thing kills my enthusiasm for the iPhone X.

How does it cope with monozygotic twins?

The 6 Plus 64GB I bought two years ago was £819. Are you telling me that the 8/7s will be a similar price despite Brexit and the £ tanking?

In any case I'd want the X which is going to be £1,200 or thereabouts. Time for me to tap out now before I'm destitute.

We don't know yet, ask again later

The 128 GB iPhone 7, today, is £699. The 7 Plus is £819. Those prices already have the post-Brexit currency shift priced in; the pound hasn't moved all that much since September last year. I anticipate very similar pricing for the 8 and 8 Plus. And £819 is a lot, but it's still a long way short of a grand.

How does it cope with monozygotic twins?

Or celebrity looky-likeys

Once again, Microsoft have lead the pack on this then. Always innovating while everyone else is imitating.

It's not about security, it's about pointing your phone at your face being dumb

Yeah, I was only being sarcastic. I have used Windows Hello on my Lumia 950 and while it does exactly what it's supposed to, even in pitch black conditions.. It just means that you have to hold your phone at an unnatural angle to your face.

It'll never catch on.

So I'm curious: so far, what do you like and dislike the most?

He likes me the most. He dislikes you the most.

HTHHAND