Hey Google, I just…don’t know how to phrase this to you. Start doing some hard work on the Android platform to make the aging bits better, the dirty bits better, bring back more open-source, bring back more openness. Drop the YouTube crap and have dedicated apps on the phone for Music, Podcasts, etc.

Their current and next couple of years of dev cycles will probably be wasted on “AI” as the rest of the platform drifts and their C suite drools over a GPU-powered fever-dream that can’t even play Tic-Tac-Toe for more than 4 moves without forgetting the rules.

As it stands right now, I know several Androiders that see no reason to even stay with Android anymore and will likely switch to iOS for their next device replacement. I’m not sure I really want to bother sticking around either, although I’d prefer a tertiary alternative that as of yet doesn’t exist. (Speaking of, this dock sounds like something just borrowed from WebOS.)

Make the mobile OS something that can stand on its own instead of the data-mining marketing cesspool it has become, and put it on hardware worth buying instead of the janky Samsung modems.

Sincerely, some rando on the Internet

They’ll probably use another mediocre modem that will again make cellular reception mediocre. Until they fix that problem, there is no reason to take that phone line seriously.

It’s a glitch where the buttons break down mechanically, so it just thinks the user is holding the power button constantly, so as soon as it is off, it’ll turn back on.

Google’s not been very open source for a long time.

Android continues to remove open source from their OS over the years for proprietary binaries. They are also continuing to abstract away openness. Stock file managers can’t see inside the /sdcard/Android folder anymore. Only via USB on a computer. USB on a computer won’t copy some kinds of files into that part of the filesystem. ADB still allows you, for now.

If you try to go to the Android File Transfer app page, it now redirects to Quick Share.

Low level stuff continues to be taken away from the OS. Samsung Android phones in the US aren’t even allowed to turn off 5G on some carriers. All Android phones are having carrier select and network mode menus neutered in the US. Apple has more flexibility there, hilariously.

Fun fact: Back when it all kicked off, iPhone had a pretty big open source component in the underlying Mach microkernel and supporting software and there was a whole slew of OSS on their platform.

They’ve already been actively doing it. The paid live wallpapers from KittehFace software from yeeeears back just disappeared from my purchased software history 2 months ago, and the APKs will no longer install. Not even malicious software. Just. Old and outdated, but it worked.

It makes sense if you think about it, ultrasonic vibrations will “see through” the glove and detect the finger ridges beyond. If the glove is scrunched up, it “looks” like finger ridges that aren’t yours, which will then not match.

The tech has been in Samsung phones for several years, and is good enough that one’s fingerprint will read through vinyl gloves if they aren’t too scrunched up. It’s fast and decent.

Does make me wonder though, it’s a Qualcomm tech. Does that mean Google is finally going back to Qualcomm chips? The pixel modems have been trash ever since they left.

Fun fact. The Thunderbolt had two modem chips, a 3G modem and a 4G modem. Normally phones have one modem. Also the 4G modem was indeed super inefficient and ate electricity for breakfast. It was necessary at the time as Verizon hadn’t fully integrated CDMA and LTE yet.

Motorola released the Skip tag line around 2013, including a keychain battery that could charge your phone, and had Bluetooth and could use that service to locate whatever it was attached to.

…in 2013.

They don’t even need to push an update, they just need to send a kill command from their activation servers.

There are some that do power negotiation on the input side, and then power negotiation on the output side so you can have your cake and firewall it too.

I want a metal back phone

Steve Jobs did too, they still needed a plastic window for some antennae on the OG iPhone, then went to full plastic. It has become worse now, the back isn’t just for wireless charging. It is also for NFC, UWB, and often cellular/gps/wifi/bluetooth may share antenna connections through the back.

Right there with you though. NFC could probably be packed in a band at the top of a phone. UWB seems of dubious value thus far.

I miss the Nexus concept. There were some whiffs, but then wins like the Nexus 6. Having a vendor juggle was always fascinating, and they mostly used good modems.

Sounds like they may have set it up to wipe for security paranoia, and maybe not to be jerks?

That’s fascinating software! Thanks for the share!

Health Connect “beta” is a battery hog. Until they fix those issues, it’s a non-starter for anyone caring about battery life.

That OG Moto X with rubberized back was delicious. First phone in a long time that felt worse with a case, and fit so deftly in the hand. Camera was pretty amazing too for the time.

To be fair, the camera flash alert light was meant for deaf people. Others just chose to use it.

Sure would be nice to see status LEDs make a comeback though.

Would kinda work on T-Mobile but no 4G/5G band 71 as another commenter mentioned. Would work ok on AT&T but they probably would block it. Would be terrible on Verizon without band 13.

Would be a good Wi-Fi mp3 player though.

It started as a hardware problem and doesn’t seem to be slowing down. LTE needed more and larger antennae for lower frequencies than older tech. Four cellular antennae are now pretty standard. Then you have wifi, Bluetooth (which can share if they can TDM), wireless charging, NFC, ultra wideband, GNSS. Then the chips are so powerful they need heat dissipation systems installed (or just lame thermal throttling like what Apple does.)

The modems require more power, (especially at the beginning of LTE) which means bigger batteries. LTE and NR have reduced range compared to the older narrowband technologies, so the phone needs to use more power to transmit, especially when carriers like Verizon didn’t backfill cell sites to compensate for the reduced coverage.

Then, cameras, one wasn’t enough, 4 or 5 are very common now (usually 3 primary and depth or low res sensors for aiming.)

When tablets became popular, many people decided to just have a large phone screen rather than a tablet, further entrenching the size.

The tech is more mature now, a 2-antenna MIMO antenna for cellular would suffice, albeit at the expense of network performance. Likewise one camera with a depth sensor would work, although mobile photography would be more limited. Dropping some limited-use items like wireless charging and ultra wideband could further shrink space.

So it would be possible now, but as others here have mentioned, the supply side focuses on larger hardware.

Ironically, at this point I’d almost prefer a smart watch with LTE and stop carrying a phone altogether. However, the aforementioned antenna issue makes it so watches generally have poor to unusable signal, poor battery life in cellular mode, no camera, and the 5G NR low power spec/chips aren’t fully done yet, so it’s LTE only on them, which, with carriers transitioning to 5G will make it so watches can only access a handful of congested bands.

Also, that device manufacturers tend to design smart watches to be companion devices to a smartphone rather than primary makes that concept’s execution problematic.

Another idea I had that was anti small phone but huge battery boost was to just bring a backpack or a satchel or whatever. Carry a full sized tablet around, and use a Bluetooth headset for calls. However, tablets are also often crippled by carriers/manufacturers so they can’t do common things like SMS or voice calls, and Apple has basically monopolized that market.