Android

The Fairphone 4, as nominated by @be_gt@lemmy.world!

As promised, you will be receiving 1 Lemmy Silver, and of course, bragging rights.

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But, we also have an honorary Golden Lemmy award, which goes to...

Every Android device that is not the Samsung Galaxy S22+, as nominated by @OpenStars@discuss.online!

You get 1 Lemmy Silver (and bragging rights) too!

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That's it for this year's Golden Lemmy, folks!

(Nomination thread is here for future references.)

Previously: Submission Statement Edition

Haven't done these in a while, so let's get started.

1. Since we haven't really heard any feedback one way or the other, rule 8 is now official. To be fair, we've had a lot less microblog posts than I expected (only one Twitter/X post in the last month even after I waited longer than the initial 1-2 weeks expected, and that was a crosspost.)

• Again, the rules are always a work in progress, feel free to give your two cents here whenever you like.

2. As you guys know, PipedLinkBot went completely insane 2 days ago and looks like it's temporarily shut down. So, I'd like to use this opportunity to explain why I banned the bot pretty much immediately after our community reopened. (And gloat a bit, of course)

• Even though I do agree with the principle of using open source, privacy focused frontend instead of using Youtube directly, I have a real problem with using a bot to respond every time somebody posts a Youtube link. It feels like spam, and it doesn't feel like it serves any utility besides pushing an agenda (even though many people here would agree with it). Most people have seen it around here enough to use pipedvideo if they wanted it to use it already.

• I think it's always been a rage inducing part of the reddit experience that you see you received a response to your comment, but only have it been a bot smugly correcting your grammar or tell you all your letters are in order or something useless like that. So, for this place, I would like to make sure that everyone you talk to here is a real person as much as possible, because people inspire people to be greater, but bots don't.

When I want to find an app I haven't pinned to the home screen I swipe up from the bottom of the home screen to bring up a search bar where I can search for an app by name or scroll through list of all apps on the phone.

Thing is the search bar on my new pixel phone is actually a Google search bar that will search apps locally at the same time as providing web results, especially if it can't find the app by name.

It's a nice idea in theory but in practice I find it annoying, especially if I've just made a typo. Also, I'm just never going to use this search bar for web searching anyway because for that I would want my chosen browser so the web results are of no use to me.

I actually remember my old phone used to do what I wanted it to do, then one day it switched to what my new phone currently does and after a long time I found the solution to return it back to it's previous behaviour except now I've forgotten what I did.

I only want to search my phone's local storage for apps matching my keyword when I access the app drawer. How do I get rid of this Google search bar? (I'd love to get rid of the Google search bar from the home screen itself as well but I understand I can't do that without root on stock android.

Hey there, I'm trying to figure out what is wrong with my phone (Zenfone8). As you can see, the picture is alright but when I use the zoom the picture goes all pixelated (uploaded in a comment) I change the camera module but it still does the same :(

Any clue/help please...?

For a search company I can't believe how terrible the Android app search is. I can't even search "bank" for my banking apps, and there doesn't really seem to be any metadata except for the title that goes into the search. Which is absolutely ridiculous given how many companies name their apps something cReAtIvE like "home" or "Resideo" or "Smart Hq." I just want to search GE for the damn GE app. Or "thermostat" for Resideo. Surely there's something beyond surface level here because obviously this is an extensively solved problem. How is there not metadata or description searching at minimum? My only guess is fear of abuse but Google has definitely dealt with that for their entire existence and up until recently, managed to handle it fine.

This happens all the time. Happens when I go to the app switcher and resets when I go back home. But as soon as I hear back into the app switcher, it moves to the side.

Here it is as I write this post:

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15358017

> Google Pay alternative? > > Hey there, > I'm looking for an alternative to Google pay that'll allow me to use NFC payments etc. Thoughts?

> Google Messages' sent text editing feature has now begun rolling out to beta users, indicating that stable rollout is around the corner.

Option 1: leave everything enabled, & everything works with full spyware enablement too

Option 2: disable everything, but forget basics like mail notifications, yet still resign yourself to invasion from irrevocably disabled services

Option 3: the middle ground. Just kidding, disabling only what you truly don’t need is wildly opaque, and painfully slow: options are split and hidden wherever possible. Forget any “apply to all” graces being given by King Google. Disable the wrong thing, and break a seemingly enabled feature.

Also love how some options are given during setup, while others are only informational: “visit settings later to change this thing - hope you forget!”

So, what’s left: Option 4, root your phone and hope Magisk will work when you need to use your bank app?

I just want my cell provider to spy on me because physics. (Govt banning sale/sharing of that data would be epic, maybe some day in the far future.) Extra spying in the shadiest ways is bad and Google should feel bad.

Review of Android 12

> Google Messages wants to make sure you don't see texts from blocked contacts anywhere with this upcoming feature.

In recently purchased Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 Pro with MIUI I see the message app isn't available for many popular apps, those messages usually show when the android version is old but I have android 13 so I don't understand why I see those errors so much in the play store.

Just thought I'd share. Probably nothing new or fancy, but may help some of you find a way to repurpose devices that aren't worth repairing into home servers or something: e.g. op5 I've used has better CPU compared to raspberry pi 4, can run linux (postmarketos, albeit with some caveats), and costs less if bought with broken display (or nothing if you have one lying around)

So I'm interested in buying a Pixel 8 to install GrapheneOS in it but I'm also interested in rooting it and from what I've read rooting your device with a privacy focused custom ROM like GrapheneOS beats the purpose of installing it, so I don't know if it's actually posible to do it or if it actually has any grace, honestly I just want to be able to install some Xposed modules and be able to auto-update my Droid-ify apps in the backgrounds without user interaction.

Excuse my ignorance in the subject, I have never rooted or installed a custom rom before.

I've used notification cleaner for years but it's dead. Anyone recommend alternatives? This has been difficult to find online

About time!

I haven't installed or tested in any way.

Is there any way to install and use the Gemini App without the Google App and forced association of the account with my Android phone?

I have a specific Google account just for Gemini, but I neither use the Google app nor desire for my phone to maintain this alt google account as one of the phone associates accounts. I think many folks would prefer login stay within the app itself.

I have some apps which I need them to synchronize in the background but they don't, even with battery optimization turned off. I've tried using an app called PhoneProfilesPlus but I don't need whole profiles, I just want an app to be opened and that's it.

Another problem I have and this may be at purpose for Android security reasons, is that even with PhoneProfilesPlus, when I set up an app to be opened in the background, the app only opens specifically when I turn on my screen, and for some dumb reasons the apps that I mentioned need to be in the main screen to be synchronized.

Hey guys, I am somewhat new to android (went straight to grapheneos) and am a bit annoyed with this widget.

It looks good, but the skip buttons are tiny and my gorilla fingers have trouble hitting them reliably. Is there a way to change to a different layout with bigger buttons or even gesture support?

I am aware that most music apps come with a widget for the home screen but I specifically need the one shown on the lock screen and pulldown menu to change.

Thanks in advance!

> Google’s migration guide for developers lists what they’re supposed to switch to on Android phones and Wear OS. However, there is no replacement for the Goals API that lets Google Fit users set “how many steps and heart points they want to aim for each day.”

I've heard the process is a pain in the ass and not very reliable. I am trying to prepare for when Apple adds RCS support because unfortunately in the US almost everyone has an iPhone and refuses to use a messaging app outside of iMessage.

I have installed sandboxed play services and the Carrier Services app from the google play store with a dummy google account and have put in my phone number in Google Messages for it to verify but it has not been able to do anything and is just stuck on "Trying to Verify" for hours now.

I've already tried clearing cache and everything as well.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: the following did the trick! Steps are to

1. settings
2. apps
3. Sandboxed Google Play
4. Google settings
5. mobile data messaging
6. phone number verification
7. automatically verify phone number (toggle on)
8. RCS should verify
9. Back to 7. And toggle off

Then go to Google Messages and enter xyzzy in the search bar, click the debug option, click RCS, and click on Force Client to Unregister, and then I went to click on RCS in the settings again and boom it was enabled.

Hi, I am planning to build my own location history service similar to the google maps timeline.

For this, I need a simple app that sends my current location (and current speed/altitude if possible) to a given HTTPS endpoint every x seconds.

Is there an app that does that? I could also build my own app, but I'd prefer to spend my time on the server-side.

I found a similar feature in OsmAnd (see the image below), but I'd like to not send my coordinates via URL parameters for security reasons. !

It's a very long story but ultimately all you need to know is, i have to make sure an unknown app isn't sending an assload of traffic through port 25 on any network im connected to. How can I confirm this on my android device without an external PC?

> There's a new Google Messages update page that takes up your phone's entire display every time you open the app.

>Granted, keeping your apps up to date is important, and this new system will help get that across to users. But we’re not sure annoying the hell out of the user about it is the best strategy.

> Starting today, apps made by state and federal governments are getting a new government badge to help users better identify official apps.

>The badge will first appear on over 3,000 apps for 12 different countries.

I remember that when I used Geometric Weather (not developed anymore, its more known fork is called Breeze Weather) it had a option to notify me when it was going to rain, but know that functionality was removed from Breeze Weather, it's there any other app with this functionality?

> One of the best features of Google Photos is the app’s ability to show old photos as a “Memory,” but sometimes showing a specific person isn’t what you want. Now, Google Photos is preparing to make it easier to hide someone’s face from Memories.

> The Google Contacts app is redesigning the process of adding a new contact with less clutter and more intuitive features.

I am fairly new to Tasker and I would like to hear about your clever automations. My automations are mostly location, WiFi and time based ones.

Additionally, I have the Google Play version of Tasker, which has some limitations about the Bluetooth, which are coming from the Play store policies.

Do you think there are any security drawbacks if I install it over GitHub?

I like tasks.org but unfortunately it doesn't look like this will come any time soon.

Plus points:

• if the task can be assigned to multiple sub-lists (or projects, buckets, etc).

Anyone else think the play store has had such a constant decline to the point where you can barely find an app without being flooded with ads. I pretty much only use f droid at this point because the quality of apps is just higher

Interesting comparison of the AI eraser functions on the Pixel versus the Galaxy.

I want a to-do list app that syncs from a json file (or other human-readable data format), so that I can view and modify the file (via a CLI like jq) from my computer too, and it would still reflect on my phone when it syncs.

Does this exist? Preferably it uses a format simple enough that makes it possible / easy to modify it via jq.

Rule of Google: if it works, kill it.

I know, I know, using Google apps isn't the best, but this was a perfectly good Podcast app with all the features you might want.

Apparently they're moving everything over to YouTube Music, where a lot of the features of Google Podcasts aren't implemented yet.

I've moved over to an app from F-Droid.

Hey everyone, I'm looking for a driving journal app, to track when, to/from where and which distance I drive.

Ideally I'd like for it to be FOSS, but if there are decent Closed Source apps I'm ok with it too (I'd just block Network Access in Graphene OS then).

This post (not mine) has pretty much my ideal criteria, but sadly didn't get any answers: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/88349/drivers-logbook-app-for-android-foss

Unlike the above post, I don't want this for tax purposes etc., but rather just to understand where all my distance driven comes from.

Edit: I've done some more research and haven't found anything, for now I'll just use an OnlyOffice spreadsheet. If I find the time, I might try developing an app for this at some point.

Edit 2: After developing my app for a week and then showing it to a friend, he instantly found exactly what I was working on...

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.liefers.driverslogpro

I use heliboard for my keyboard and quite enjoy it but on the 2023 RAZR+ it only allows Gboard to be used on the outer display. No other keyboard will fail to crash on the front screen.

I know its a niche issue but this is Android. Surely there's a way around it. Either with some kind of context-aware keyboard that only used Gboard on the outer display or some way to get other keyboards working on the front display.