Hello Android

I have the same experience with a Pixel.

Today I bought a heavily discounted brand new Pixel 2, because I wanted to try (pure) Android (and migrate to pure AOSP afterwards). After booting the device, I was downloading updates for 6 hours while doing nothing else. I really wanted to like this phone, as I don't like iOS either. But I was disappointed. Not a polished experience at all.

First many updates of applications. Fine. Quite quick. Then updating Android 8 to 9. Quite quick too. Then an insane loop of installing nth security update and rebooting. Why can't I get a fresh image in a single step? [1] Especially given that this is a flagship device from Google itself?

Furthermore, the process is really slow and full of glitches. Sometimes updates would stop downloading because there was phone activity, yet I never touched the phone throughout the process. After every update, my phone would spend a lot of time and energy "optimizing apps" (bytecompiling?) only to request rebooting and doing the same thing again and again. Very wasteful.

Lastly, I never got any notification once updates where installed and a reboot was necessary. So I had to keep checking to speed up the process.

Updating from Android 8 to 9 was quick, but there was also a serious glitch I didn't mention. I don't have a wireless connection, just LTE. For some time, there was no option to force the update to be downloaded using LTE! After installing some app or rebooting, suddenly an option to go ahead and use LTE showed up in the same window where previously there was none.

Also, the default settings in my out-of-the-box Pixel 2 out drained battery quite quickly, which I found shocking. Only after disabling NFC, bluetooth, location services and a few other things battery consumption was quite reasonable. I think also lots of services were initially polling for updates, and this drained energy.

[1] Apparently you can do this with adb. Many other users have had the same frustrating experience, though: https://reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/b04yxp/brand_new_p...

So I got a oneplus one (when they were new), and it was a fairly decent phone truth be told, but the store was woeful and it felt a lot worse put together. On the whole I was left with a pleasant idea of what Android could be, and aside from the huge size of the device and the motivation span I was pleased.

Fast forward to the release of the iPhone 7/8, and I’m rocking my 5s which is what I was using when testing the oneplus- and now Apple are making phones as large as the oneplus and removing the headphone jack. Also that protruding camera is gaudy.

So I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8, which is large but the curved corners made it fit my hand quite well.

I figure since it’s a flagship phone it will be a premium android experience and preceded to make it my daily driver (which I had not done with the oneplus)

Now, something of note: I roll my own carddav/CalDAV and mail servers, in iOS these slot right in to the default apps and you can do nice things like push notify on email if you set your server up to do so. I spent weeks trying to find apps in the play store that could handle CalDAV and carddav. There’s a heavily promoted one that just doesn’t work. The default apps definitely didn’t work, Samsung’s version of android (at the time) was simply incapable of it.

Not to mention the UI bugs, the themes that had black text on black backgrounds in menus, the freezes and crashes and after 4-5months I had started to get quite sour.

The thing that tipped me over the edge with going from disliking the phone to hating it was when it decided on my behalf that it wouldn’t let me send an sms without signing up for a Samsung account.

I had avoided making a Samsung account for over 5 months and then it brings up a dialog that never goes away while I try to open the messaging app.

I gave that thing to one of my colleagues and he’s happy. I went back to an iPhone SE.

I've had a fantastic experience on my OnePlus devices over the last few years.

To this point, I would have titled this "hello moto whatever and samsung whatever"

If you want it to "just work" like an iphone, you'll likely be happiest to get a Pixel.

Especially with google fi, get a USA phone. Then your phone will work in most foreign markets... including Canada.

Sent from my LineageOS phone, getting security updates weekly, very stable, and better looking, in my opinion.

I remember, even when their Dev APi and kits came out, the API was convoluted, unnecessary complex, and also a 'death by thousands cuts' type of experience. IOS development is much better, (the pain point on iOS has always been the signing/cert and test distribution experience, but working with XCOde and iOS Simulators is still a much better experience).

Since then I turned into iOS and never looked back.

I think the reason is that google keeps hiring people that know how to implement Radix sort in top of their heads, and balance a Graph under 2 mins, but really know nothing about UX/UI and overall user experience. Good (native) client work is just not part of their DNA. Youtube, Maps and Gmail being an exception. While Music and all their myriad of chat/social apps being a failure.

I don't think there is going to be a change in the company unless they start fresh with new priorities, user experience before Academic Experimental mental exercises that their APIs tend to become.

Perhaps Fuschia OS is that change.....

Android on a tablet is not for everybody though since depending on your app choices you could be in for a lot of programs intended for a phone looking blown up on this screen. So far, that hasn't been an issue for me since I mostly stick to the browser, Anki, Ghost Commander, Moonreader, emulators like SNES9X and PPSSPP which all either have tablet UIs or it's just not relevant.

The last thing I got this tablet for and which also works great is Termux to have a real command line interface and, though I didn't plan for this, Linux on DEX which gives you either a full blown Ubuntu desktop or you can just start up a BASH interface in a couple of seconds. It's great and it's the real thing right on the tablet. Even works with a keyboard and mouse with the Ubuntu desktop appearing on the tablet rather than external display. It's amazingly responsive too. Much moreso than I expected on a Snapdragon 670 with 6GB of RAM.

If you're thinking about an Android tablet, give this thing a shot. I don't work for Samsung; I'm just a happy user and since OP mentioned it and seemed to be satisfied as well, here's my 2 cents.

Edit: also my girlfriend has a Motorola Play Z something or other and that splash screen really is something else with the "HELLO MOTO" blaring and the robot doing a backflip I cringe every time she reboots it.

The only problem I've had with the phone is the dumb USB to 3.5mm audio dongle. Each one I've had breaks after only a few months of use. Very frustrating because I generally dislike bluetooth headphones but am forced to use them.

I've been loving Fi (it's great if you travel a lot but are also usually on wifi), I've used it in several countries and I end up paying around $35-40/mo (2 GB data or so). If I need to use more data I just go ahead and do so, without having to worry about what kind of plan I'm on, and I'm billed for it in a straightforward manner. Some people complain that their pricing is bad for heavy data users, but my usage just naturally lands at the 2Gb/mo mark so it works for me. I've had much better coverage in the US with Fi as well.

After having been burned w.r.t. security updates by Samsung, then Motorola, and now Nokia, I'm more or less done with Android (once I have enough money to ignore the wasted Euros...).

It seems only people able and willing to spend 500+ Euros every year deserve basic security on Android.

not amused

No, it's up to date. I have the same phone - Jan security patch is the latest.

A common conceit among those who uses a tool or product that is impenetrable to others. It's particularly bothersome when this weak rationalization forms an equally weak pillar of that person's identity, a.k.a. the fanboy / fangirl.

Fi is designed for phones with eSIMs. With any model of Pixel and a small list of other phones, you don't need to wait for a physical SIM to be shipped to you, and (anecdotal) the 3 times I used it the activation was complete in <10 minutes.

>Once it turns on, the screen plays this insane Hello Moto video thing with flashing colors. Possibly the most garish thing I’ve ever seen, without exaggeration.

Let me guess, you're an American who lives in suburbia? In places where the smartphone market is competitive you get a lot more garishness, so I guess your views don't align with the majority of customers on that one.

>I pass through the airport and get to the bus stop. Still no data. Fortunately, I already knew which bus to take. I arrive at my destination downtown. Still no data. I wait a bit longer. I wait a whole fucking week. Still no data. I do not know what Google defines a few minutes to be, but I think reasonable people will agree it’s less than a week. I do not like Google Fi. Google Fi is a liar.

Project Fi has had the best support of all 8 cell phone carriers I've ever used, so if anyone else is in a similar situation, don't be afraid to check with their support, since one of the selling points of Project Fi is ease of access to support on a smartphone.

>The on screen keyboard defaults to shifting the first letter of a sentence, which is helpful. Unless I’m doing something esoteric like entering a username into a website. So then I press the shift key, which... turns on caps lock. Nobody wants that.

You've been able to choose what keyboard you want for a decade on Android and the case you describe is the only time I've heard of that problem since a couple generations ago. AOSP keyboard will still capitalize if the website has incorrectly marked the field as text rather than a username, but that's not really the keyboard's fault.

There are way maybe genuine criticisms of Android in this comment section than there are in the article. If you approach a new piece of technology expecting to dislike it - or expecting it to perfectly mimic it's competitors - you're going to have a bad time. Most of the criticism in the OP (to me) smacks of someone who doesn't really want to be using Android. For most of 2018 I was using an SE alongside my Pixel 2; I noticed plenty of issues with Android and iOS in the course of that usage, but not one of those overlaps with the article, which makes me think either mine or the OP's usage was superficial.