Android

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Android logo.

Android is an operating system developed by Google primarily for mobile devices, but has also been incorporated into a wide array of general electronic devices. It was first released on 2008-09-23 and, in only two years, became the most popular mobile OS on the market, and currently retains that title by a huge margin. The OS is built on a modified Linux kernel written in C and C++ with its user interface layer written in Java.

Personal

I didn't get an Android device until around 2015. I had great expectations for the OS since it was made by Google, whose Web apps I loved, but I quickly found Android to be very constrictive and incapable of some of the most basic computer functions. Although not as bad as Apple's iOS, Google takes a similar approach where they try to force all users into using Android the same way, requiring everyone who finds the default way cumbersome or annoying to spend hours trying to find ways to bypass the restrictions of OS, if they can at all.

I've owned a number of Android devices over the years and have therefore owned several versions of the OS.

Software

The following is Android software that is important to me.

Applications

Games

See all Android Games.

Review

Good

  • The OS is written generically enough that it can be used on thousands of different platforms.
  • The swipe-able icon-driven interface is very easy to use, and looks great.
  • By default, the user has a fair amount of control over the many settings on each device (although much of this control is usually revoked by the OEM).
  • The Google Play store offers a huge variety of additional software to load. Many of which are free (with ads).
  • The source code for much of Android is and remains open-source.
  • I like how programs must inform the user which aspects of your device they require access to before installing (although this can be bypassed by the OEM).
  • The notification reminder is an invaluable setting which allows you to make your phone keep reminding you about notifications until you address them.

Bad

  • There are a lot of annoying nag messages that, as far as I know, cannot be turned off. For example, plugging an Android device into a USB capable device results in a dialog asking if I want to allow the connection (you can set this to be remembered with some devices, but others ask every time). Extremely common file types like images, audio, video, and text files are not associated with the default Android app out-of-the-box, so you have to set them all up one time with every new device. Another one pops when I plug a device into a car warning it can't read MTP. I've tried revoking MTP access in hopes of removing the dialog, but it still complains.
  • The volume for external devices (headphones, Bluetooth, etc.) starts too quiet, doesn't remember your previous volume level, and has another annoying nag message that can't be bypassed when you try to raise the volume to a listenable level. To make matters worse, it even overrides your volume level at regular intervals with a nag message forcing you to have to manually readjust the volume. From what I've read, some of this isn't Android's fault, but rather government interference because people are too stupid to know that extremely loud music can damage their hearing.
  • Following in Apple's misguided footsteps, most designers of Android devices have eliminated the extremely useful face buttons. When they aren't present, Android replaces them with an on-screen popup button menu that auto-hides and always requires an additional swipe to view. There is an unlabeled and poorly displayed soft lock button which alters the screen size for apps, which is annoying to code around. However, programs can always override your lock making it, not a lock.
  • The default call blocking list only allows you to block 100 numbers, which is both stupidly arbitrary, and too small to put a dent in telemarketers (I think this has since been increased).
  • Calendar has a lot of problems:
    • By default, it doesn't even show you a calendar, and you can't set it to do so. Instead it displays an hour-by-hour daily display, which is only useful to those few people who follow very strict schedules.
    • By default, it parses your emails and attempts to create events based on their contents; these are hit-or-miss, and often result in a lot of unwanted events being added.
    • Reminders confusingly change days if you don't manually dismiss them. If you set a reminder for the 1st, but don't dismiss it on the 1st, it will show up, not that you missed it on the 1st, but as a reminder for the 2nd implying that you are supposed to do it on the 2nd! The reminder continues to change dates to the current day forever until you manually dismiss it. If you create a reminder for each day of the week, but don't manually dismiss them, by Sunday you'll have seven reminders, all saying they're happening on Sunday!
    • Many people have complained that, despite having a secure Google account, scores of spam notifications are added to their calendar every day. This happened to me once with a spam notification covering every day in an entire month. This shouldn't be possible in any secure app.
  • Gallery, the default photo viewer, doesn't allow nested photo albums. A typical way to categorize, say, vacation photos is to group each vacation into its own album, then put all of those albums into a single album called "vacations," so they don't clutter the album view. This simple and desirable layout is impossible despite years of people requesting it; instead, only the lowest level of nested albums are displayed, and all of them are always displayed in a single long alphabetical list. The best you can do it mark albums as "favorites" which just sorts them, alphabetically, above all others. Google's other default photo viewer, Photos, is even worse. It tries to organize your photos with a primitive AI and fails miserably. Worse still, it limits your view to only displaying two and a half albums at once, and you can't see them until after you look past their unwanted and un-removable un-editable built-in albums.
  • When volume buttons are pressed, Android guesses at which volume you want to adjust based on the app that currently has focus, which is frequently the wrong app. For example, if you have a music app open, you would presume the volume control would affect the music's (media gauge) volume, but, this only occurs when music is actively playing through the speaker or headphone jack. If the music is paused, buffering, or for some other reason not playing, you will instead affect some other volume like the ringer or system. I frequently inadvertently change other volumes because of this behavior. I would also like to lock my ringer volume to vibrate and my headphone volume to full, but this is not possible without installing a third party app.
  • Chrome doesn't display a loading bar for media files. You just have to guess if an image, video, or audio file has finished loading based on the status of the indicator for the network type you're using.
  • You are not able to choose which program opens which file extension unless an installed app notifies the OS that it can open said extension. While this makes sense in theory, many apps don't register with the OS all extensions they can open. For example, Chrome can open extensions like TXT and JPG, but doesn't tell the OS it can, so it's just not possible to set them to open through Chrome in the file viewer.
  • The internal file system is case-sensitive. Not a huge problem since you don't get much access to it anyway.
  • Google isn't as quick at identifying and stopping malicious software on their Play store as they could be.

Ugly

  • Google allows OEMs too easily and irrevocably alter the OS at the expense of the user's experience. Most devices are sold with loads of useless, dangerous, or unwanted software which wastes space, drains the battery, and spies on the user. This software cannot be removed or even prevented from running without seriously overhauling your device to the point where you might brick it.
  • By default, Android lacks many of the features you would expect from an OS (like a calculator or file viewer) and relies on the OEM to implement them; compare the available settings between two different devices to see what I mean. This is bad for two reasons. First, if the OEM doesn't implement them, you simply won't have access to the features even if they exist on the hardware. Second, if the OEM does implement them, it is guaranteed that each will do so in a different manner, requiring you to have to relearn the feature with every new device.
  • A lot of the default Google apps are crippleware. For example, if you use YouTube in a browser, you can play a video in the background and listen to the audio. However, if you use the Android app, you cannot, and are instead expected to buy a premium account to get the same service you get on a computer for free.
  • Android makes many of their own Google apps mandatory even if they are not necessary for the operation of the OS. For example, GMail and YouTube are certainly not necessary for a phone OS, but you cannot remove them.
  • The Google+ app adds an entry into your contacts list for every person you've ever emailed through GMail. When I setup my first Android phone it added over 500 contacts without even prompting me, most of whom I didn't recognize because I had only ever had a single email exchange with them years ago!
  • By default, Android can't even perform a function as basic as editing and saving a text file! Local HTML files can't even be opened by Chrome, the app specifically designed to open them!

Tips

Repeat Notifications

By default, Android will send you a single notification for something like a missed call or text message, and then never notify you again. So, if you're away from your phone or don't notice the notification, you will never see it until you next check your phone. To have Android keep notifying you until you acknowledge the message, do the following:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Open Notifications.
  3. Open Advanced settings.
  4. Turn on Repeat notification alerts.
  5. Open Repeat notification alerts.
  6. Open Apps to repeat alerts.
  7. Turn on which apps you want to receive repeated alerts from, for example, Phone, Messages, Calendar, etc.

Viewing Files With Chrome

By default, Android does not associate HTML files with Chrome or include Chrome as an app that can open them, or even have the ability to do so (why the hell not?). The same is true for TXT files, image files, or any of the various other formats Chrome natively supports. However, you can still use Chrome to view your file system, through a rather convoluted way. Not all Android devices have all forms of storage, some don't have any, but your device will usually have one of the following:

  1. Open Chrome.
  2. Click in the address bar and type the following based on which storage locations your device supports:
  3. file:///sdcard to see the contents of your SD card.
  4. file:///storage to see the contents of your devices local storage.
  5. file:/// to see the contents of all forms of storage.

From here, navigate to the file's location and click on it.

Turning Off Google Assistant

Google Assistant is so poorly written, it often confuses the plugging in of a stereo cable as voice instructions to activate Google Assistant. When this occurs, it stops whatever you're doing and opens Google Assistant. If you have a loose patch cable or weak headphone jack spring, it will keep popping up. This is so annoying, you'd want to turn it off, but an Android update around 2023 made it impossible to actually disable Google Assistant. Even if you switch it off, plugging in a stereo cable will sometimes prompt you to turn it back on again. To partially turn off Google Assistant, do the following:

  1. Open the Google app.
  2. Click the ... More button at the bottom.
  3. In the menu, click Settings.
  4. In the menu, click Google Assistant.
  5. Scroll down to the "All Settings" section and click General.
  6. Uncheck Google Assistant.

Also, because Google is trying to push their crappy app, they will reactivate Google Assistant without your consent in the future, probably with the next system update, so you'll have to turn it back off again.

Disable Assistance App

By default, Android makes Google Assistant the default app for a long press on the home button. To switch to a different assistant or disable this feature, do the following:

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Click Advanced features.
  3. Click Device assistance app.
  4. Choose None or a different app.

You will also see Voice Input. This cannot be disabled because Google is always listening to everything you say.

Links

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