Comment by daveFNbuck | Hacker News Reader

Comment by daveFNbuck | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

We don't just need to consider accessibility for the elderly. I need to regularly reconfigure my Bluetooth connections on my phone. They just randomly stop working. With the latest version of Android, I couldn't figure out how to even access the Bluetooth settings. When I connect some devices, they don't show up in the list of paired devices. Somehow it still ended up working, but I don't know how or why.

When I walk into the bathroom wearing my Bluetooth headphones, my podcasting app starts detecting disconnections and pausing, so I have to turn off the feature to stop playing on headset disconnect. This makes everything else work poorly. My podcast player also often crashes when I connect a Bluetooth device.

My problems get a lot worse when I try to pair a speaker or headphones with multiple devices. I often have to factory reset the device to get it to work again when switching sources.

I'm clearly not the only technically-minded person dealing with random nasty Bluetooth issues, as evidenced by this article and https://xkcd.com/2055/

This is why I hold on to my iPhone 6 like it's precious and won't install any software updates so as not to kill the battery. I have bluetooth headphones but they're a pain to charge and the headphone jack just works consistently. I love my iPhone 6!!

From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade.

I prefer the method of Samsung in this case, they clearly state for the monthly update that it is mostly a security update. Where Apple seems to apply marketing by promising 'the best experience yet' and shiny new features with each major version bump.

edit: typo

>From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade.

A lot of users? iOS has the fastest and widest adoption rate for new releases of any mobile or not OS. Android specifically used to have awful fragmentation issues and phones never updated by the vendor 3 and 4 releases behind.

APPLE IOS 12 HAS SEEN THE FASTEST ADOPTION RATE, RUNNING ON 50% OF IPHONES AND IPADS (Oct 12)

https://www.firstpost.com/tech/news-analysis/apple-ios-12-ha...

iOS 11 is now installed on 81% of Apple’s over a billion active iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices in the wild, up from the 76% adoption rate reported on April 25. By contrast, Android Oreo versions powered less than six percent of active Android-driven smartphones and tablets that had been accessing Google’s Play Store during a seven-day period ending on May 7, 2018.

https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/06/05/ios-11-adoption-rat...

50% is "a lot of users". Ranting about Android doesn't change that.

His ranting style is unhelpful but the underlying point is sound—Apple device owners update the operating software at a dramatically higher rate and frequency than any other significant competitor platform. If there is a contingent of iOS device users “conditioned” to avoid upgrades, it would be impossible to prove this contingent exists statistically.

Frequent vocal complainers on internet forums probably only account for less than 0.01% of their installed base.

Does that really mean anything, though? I'm sure win10 users update at a higher rate than that, but that doesn't mean that people are clamoring for Microsoft's newest update.

The Windows ecosystem has a far higher percentage of users running older versions—e.g. 8.1, 7, 2012 R2.

JFYI 50% is an adoption achieved in only 23 days after iOS 12 release [1]

"Apple’s latest mobile OS hitting 50 percent adoption across eligible devices in 23 days (via VentureBeat).

For comparison, iOS 11, released on September 19th, 2017, didn’t hit 52 percent adoption until November 6th of that year, taking 48 days, or over twice as long as it took iOS 12 to hit its own 50 percent mark."

So now it is probably higher, though I didn't find any fresh stats.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/11/17965302/ios-12-install-...

50% in a couple weeks after the release.

Android was 6% after much much longer.

I mean, it’s much easier to update if you own the entire platform

I never had a problem updating Windows PCs not made by Microsoft. In fact, I was able to just stick a Windows 7 disk in my old 2006 Core Duo Mac Mini and “upgrade” it after Apple abandoned it.

Fragmentation! Lol! The only people who seem to care about "Android fragmentation" are lonely Apple fanbois. It makes no difference to Android users as the version of Android you run and the apps you can install/websites you browse are entirely unconnected.

>The only people who seem to care about "Android fragmentation" are lonely Apple fanbois.

First, "fanbois" is something 15-year olds emotionally invested into "my side is better" would use. Just state what you want to state, and don't assume some magical group of mindless drones or paid shills behind statements that point to deficiencies in a platform. In general, drop "lol", "lonely fanbois" etc from your vocabulary if you want your statements to be taken seriously.

>It makes no difference to Android users as the version of Android you run and the apps you can install/websites you browse are entirely unconnected.

Tons of Android developers have been lamenting fragmentation. It's about having a coherent platform to be able to know what features to count on, and not to have to support several older versions of the OS because most of the buyers are still using it.

Also tons of Android uses have lamented mobile vendors not providing updates for their older models.

https://insights.dice.com/2017/11/16/android-fragmentation-r...

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/what-is-android-fragmen...

https://hackernoon.com/android-fragmentation-makes-every-and...

"In general, drop "lol", "lonely fanbois" etc from your vocabulary if you want your statements to be taken seriously."

Thanks for the advice but I appear to be immune to this "social networks and digital media causes depression" issue, as I couldn't give a fuck what anyone thinks about me.

Part of the reason Apple has such high update numbers is due to the dark pattern of presenting "enter your passcode to update tonight" (when you select "later" instead of "install now" on an update alert) in the exact same style as the normal passcode entry screen. I'm sure a significant number of people have inadvertently updated their device through that method.

Anecdotally speaking, Android, particularly from version 8, started pushing system breaking changes/bugs in the supposedly security-oriented monthly upgrades (have a look at how many users found their phone not to fire alarms anymore after a minor Oreo upgrade...), so I think this is a market-wide tendency.

> From a security point of view, it's really worrying that a lot of users refuse to upgrade software because of the track record of Apple making devices less usable with every upgrade.

Sure it is, but this is what you get for not separating security and feature updates. I tend to avoid updating applications (both on desktop and mobile) for that very reason (though I do update the OS).

If each vaccination you took came with mandatory remodeling of your house, directed by whims of some "artists", you'd see much more antivaxxers too.

> I prefer the method of Samsung in this case, they clearly state for the monthly update that it is mostly a security update.

I have an S7 and my experience doesn't confirm this, though I don't know whether it's Samsung's fault or operator's (Orange). Either way, I find most updates I get to be indistinguishable by their description. I'm not worried though, because I haven't caught any of them installing bloatware. That said, from what I understand, they're still linear - you're expected to apply one patch after another. I see no way of opting out from feature updates, and sticking only to security ones.

Anyway; why oh why it's so hard to include a changelog in an update?

> If each vaccination you took came with mandatory remodeling of your house, directed by whims of some "artists", you'd see much more antivaxxers too.

I cannot concur strongly enough. (And I will likely steal this lovely analogy in the future!)

Security is important, and installing security patches is a good practice. But companies use this as an excuse to force the adoption of all sorts of other crap. I'm not willing to put up with that.

I understand that back-porting patches requires some amount of additional effort. But asking gigantic tech companies to support major releases for a few years at minimum should not be too much to ask.

In this regard, Microsoft and Windows 10 are by far the worst offenders. Microsoft develops and releases security-only patches for 1607 and will continue to do so until 2026, but these patches are only available to enterprises. Normal consumers need to either use Microsoft's problem-ridden biannual updates, or be insecure.

Actions speak louder than words. If Microsoft actually held security in such a high regard, they wouldn't hold security patches hostage in order to push other corporate interests. I thus don't feel the least bit of guilt about opting out of MS's entire update process.

IIRC, Bluetooth LE devices managed by apps doesn't have to be listed in Android, since the app can talk to it without pairing. Devices not meant for pairing with the OS itself (because it doesn't offer interfaces the OS understand) will not always show in scans, because Android can't interact with them without needing additional apps. So instead the corresponding apps has to be used to scan for them, to tell Android that this app can talk to those devices.

The devices that aren't showing up aren't managed by apps. They're headphones and speakers. It seems I may have been in the wrong part of the settings app, as I've just now discovered that the area of settings labeled "Bluetooth" shows the device name and an option to pair a new device but doesn't show the currently paired devices. I thought my device name was just hidden.

There's a second separate settings page for "Pair new device" that shows currently connected devices and has the same option to pair a new device as the Bluetooth page. It doesn't let you control the current device's name, but it does have a weird link to a general connection preferences page that includes a link to the first Bluetooth one, as well as links to similar pages for NFC, Android Beam, Cast, Printing, Received files, and Chromebook.

I had a lot of trouble finding both of these pages, and the fact that these are two different settings pages does not help at all. They've really made this a lot more difficult and confusing in Android Pie.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com