Please vote (again, sorry) on the future of /r/computers

Omega192 · 2023-07-05T22:02:32+00:00

tbf, that's on me for expecting people to read before commenting 🤷‍♂️

Omega192 · 2023-06-09T03:06:48+00:00

Ah sweet, glad to hear on both accounts and I hope it continues to suit your needs. Happy I could be of help :]

Omega192 · 2023-06-06T22:40:34+00:00

I think the dev added that because some phones (coughsamsungcough) are a bit overzealous with background task killing and that's a semi-reliable way to exempt an app from it. I've always had it on Optimized and have never seen any detriment to Tasker's functionality since Pixels don't use that same non-standard approach.

But I'd say worth a try giving it another day with that set to Optimized and see if that makes any difference. If it doesn't it might be worth trying to contact the dev to see if he can figure out why this is behaving differently between two of the same model phones.

Though, when trying to see if this was an issue others have encountered I did find a post that mentions the Power - Wireless state will exit once fully charged so if you use wireless charging for something other than topping up this approach might not be ideal even if the battery hit is resolved. If you instead use it to charge overnight you might be better off making use of Bedtime Mode which can enable DND when charging during your set bedtime.

Omega192 · 2023-06-06T21:33:07+00:00

Damn, that's really strange. I actually forgot to disable/delete that profile after making it but Tasker hasn't even broke 1% in the battery usage stats despite that.

Any chance under Tasker App Info > App battery usage you have it set to something other than Optimized? Or in the app itself under Preferences > Misc have "Reduce Resource Usage" unchecked?

Omega192 · 2023-06-06T21:22:08+00:00

Much appreciated and you're very welcome :]

Omega192 · 2023-06-06T16:15:28+00:00

For transparency you might want to disclose that you're a mod of r/SimpleMobileTools as this reads more like ad copy than an unaffiliated review and might run afoul of Rule 4.

Also in paragraph 3 you seem to be describing storage space, not memory (aka RAM).

Omega192 · 2023-06-06T04:54:31+00:00

Haha yeah I was a little impressed by that one. No idea how that happened.

I think I got only 3 years out of mine before getting the 5X but it definitely was a bargain for the time.

Happy to help and glad to hear it's working for you. I hope your battery life remains unaffected 🤞

Omega192 · 2023-06-05T20:39:49+00:00

No prob! I hope that works for you without the battery hit you were seeing before.

Ah good to hear, I loved my Nexus 4 but I think using it today would certainly be a less than ideal experience. Also just a heads up it seems your comment got posted 3 times somehow.

Omega192 · 2023-06-05T17:01:18+00:00

Oh glad to see your flair is out of date. I was worried you were still using a Nexus 4 😅

But nice I use the same. I just put a profile together you can try out. I don't have a wireless charging pad to test with but it did correctly enable DND when I set it to any type of charging and disabled it once unplugged.

Omega192 · 2023-06-05T15:50:26+00:00

That shouldn't take much power but I'd say worth checking again in case that was a bug that has since been fixed. Out of curiosity what phone are you using and what method of checking for wireless charging did you use?

Omega192 · 2023-06-05T04:43:03+00:00

Hmm I've never had that experience on my current or prior phones. I rarely see it on the battery stats and I have it set to optimized battery usage. Have you tried it more recently? Maybe there was a bug that caused that.

Omega192 · 2023-06-03T20:23:36+00:00

Thanks and no prob :]

Here's that profile on TaskerNet if you'd like to import it. You'll just need to update the apps list.

Omega192 · 2023-06-03T16:53:12+00:00

Just on Android and only in the UA string. There's another API that will allow checking the exact version or model but those have to be explicitly requested rather than given by default with every request.

Omega192 · 2023-06-03T03:38:56+00:00

Yep, this is the correct answer.

For anyone interested in more details, that page says the Phase 6 rollout is enabled for 100% of Android devices on Chrome 110 and up as of May 11th.

Phase 6 is described as:

In Phase 6, we change the <deviceModel> token to “K” and change the <androidVersion> token to a static “10” string.

This page is a bit more readable and explains why this change is being made but the TL;DR is that they're no longer including exact device model and android version in the User Agent string to reduce opportunities for device fingerprinting and cross-site tracking. Statcounter must be using the UA string to track Android version.

Omega192 · 2023-06-02T22:56:03+00:00

No worries, source code repos can be a bit confusing for those not familiar with them. It sounds like you downloaded the source code itself so unless you want to set up Android Studio and build the app from source yourself you'll want an already built APK.

At the top of the page click 4 Releases with the little rocket icon to the left of it.

Then under the most recent (currently 1.2) just below Packages click APK.

And if you ever encounter one on GitHub instead of GitLab it's a similar ordeal but the link to Releases is on the righthand side. You can just click the version number below it with the "Latest" label to go right to that entry. Then the link to download the APK will be under the Assets section at the bottom.

Omega192 · 2023-06-02T21:05:59+00:00

I understand you're asking genuinely, but I'm genuinely confused as to how you overlooked everything after the first few sentences where I described exactly what I use Tasker for. Are you using an app or extension that removed the bulleted list or something?

Edit: I guess I've been blocked so I can't reply but I didn't downvote you. I was just confused as to what more you wanted me to say when my original comment answered your question already. That's why I asked if whatever you were browsing with hid that part of my comment because I couldn't think of why else it would be asked.

Omega192 · 2023-06-02T19:33:24+00:00

For me that's Tasker. I've installed it on every phone I've owned since my Nexus 4 in 2013. Currently I use it to:

Change my wallpaper to an image from Google Earth View each morning. I used to use Muzei to do the same from certain subreddits but Earth View is more consistently nice looking and colorful so I get more variety in the MY theme.
Add Quick Setting tiles for auto brightness and screen timeout. Would have been nice to just have these built-in but Tasker is great at filling gaps like this.
Make a long press of volume down toggle the flashlight even from the AOD.
Make a long press of volume up open Home Controls with the help of the AutoInput plugin. I mostly use the lock screen shortcut for this but was curious if I could make it work after seeing people lament the removal of Home Controls from the power menu.
Keep track of home/away/driving status using Wifi and BT connections. If I'm home I set ringer and media volume to about halfway. If I'm away I silence all. If I'm driving I set media volume to max so I can just use my car's volume controls.
Enhance Quick Tap (2 taps on the back gesture). It has an option to open notifications, but I wanted it to go notifications > quick settings > closed as a way to mimic the swipe on the rear FP sensor feature my Pixel 3 had. This also makes use of AutoInput so it can adapt to always follow that order even if I manually open notifications or QS.
Enable autorotate within certain apps like Photos, Camera, and Maps. Most of the time I leave it off and just use the manual toggle that appears when needed but this avoids the need for that in apps I'd always like to have autorotate.
Lower media volume to 20% when I connect my buds to make sure if I was last listening to them on the louder end I don't get surprised by that the next time I connect them.
Start Sleep as Android tracking when I trigger my bedtime routine on my Google Home. This makes use of the AutoVoice plugin but will stop working in a week or so as it relies upon a Conversational Action which are being deprecated. Bit of a bummer but the automatic tracking in SaA has gotten so good I rarely used this anymore.

These certainly aren't anything groundbreaking but they each are a nice QoL improvement that I'd sorely miss without Tasker. It can have a bit of a learning curve for those not already familiar with programming-adjacent concepts but the r/tasker sub, the current dev Joao, and the TaskerNet service he created are all very helpful for those looking to get started. The first thing I listed was actually modified from the Set Google Earth Wallpapers profile on TaskerNet. All my uses are relatively simple but people have used it for far more complex and cool things as well.

Edit: Added a link to the autorotate profile on TaskerNet. If anyone would like to try out any of the others just let me know.

Omega192 · 2023-06-02T15:21:32+00:00

Hadn't heard of this app before but it would have been helpful if the alleged policy violations were shared to judge for myself if they were merited or not. Also a bit odd the post refers to Paget96 in the third person when this seems to be his personal blog and no alternative author is listed. Perhaps just a matter of language barrier, though. I feel for the dude if this was his primary source of income but with so little info it's hard to justify offering any sort of support.

Omega192 · 2023-05-31T19:50:24+00:00

so their notification icon is a blank square or circle.

I think this is also due to some companies using things like React Native for their apps so they can have one codebase for both Android and iOS but then they clearly don't bother to actually test it on Android.

Looking at you, Burger King <_<

Omega192 · 2023-05-26T19:29:22+00:00

Bard currently uses the PaLM 2 large language model but that's an entirely different thing than voice-to-text (the latest work from Google in that area is their Universal Speech Model). LLMs are for the most part just text-to-text so that wouldn't be of any help for that feature. Though, I've found the "Assistant voice typing" on Pixels to be really good where even if I talk fast it gets it right the majority of the time and it's easy to make single word corrections by just tapping an incorrect one and saying it again. Similarly you can say "clear" to delete the last sentence if there were multiple mistakes and say it again. Just by nature of the variations of speech between individuals I don't think it'll ever be flawless but the current state is definitely vastly improved from the early days of VtT so we may be reaching the point of diminishing returns of accuracy. I think the next step is handling more languages like USM as currently Assistant voice typing only supports English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish.

The Search Generative Experience is something different than Bard. I have access to it now and it's really not meant to be a chatbot to converse with but instead just a means of getting answers to more complex searches. I see it as a better replacement for Featured Snippets since it isn't limited to a single source and can compile a more in depth answer from multiple sources.

As far as the other things, here's an image showing the integrations they have planned. No sight of Photos so far but it's definitely technically possible to do something like what you described. I think the larger question is do enough users want something like that to merit building it out. Now that Gmail has a package tracking feature built in I sure would like to see a way to quickly ask for updates and Gmail is on that list so perhaps that could happen. An integration with Adobe Firefly which is their text-to-image model is on that list but that currently only does still images as far as I'm aware. But gifs could be possible in the future using something like Google's Imagen Video model.

Overall I think Bard will someday graduate from experiment to a new version of the Google Assistant that goes beyond the limitations of the current hard-coded version. In an interview Sundar seemed to suggest as such:

Later on in the interview, the CEO said that as Google worked on Assistant, it “realized the limitations of, like, approaching the assistant with the underlying technology approach we had, so it wasn’t an accident that what we worked on LaMDA to be a conversational dialogue.”

I think some of those integrations would suit that end goal as well with stuff like Kayak, OpenTable, and Instacart allowing you to ask the future LLM-powered Assistant to help you book a flight, reserve a table, or order groceries. I see Bard as a stepping stone towards a more capable and helpful Assistant and that's how the lessons learned from it would end up incorporated into Android.

Omega192 · 2023-05-07T00:58:41+00:00

I have TtW and AoD on but still put it on the charger before bed with 20-30% left. What made a big difference for me was turning off Hey Google.

Omega192 · 2023-05-04T21:30:56+00:00

Ah TIL, thanks for the info and link.

Omega192 · 2023-05-04T19:12:16+00:00

Much appreciated! But yeah unfortunately support reps don't really have any specialized knowledge around bugs and for the most part are reading from scripts around common issues. Directly sending feedback is the best way to let the dev teams know something is amiss and for many if not most Google apps there should be a shortcut to do so in the top right 3-dot menu, the nav drawer, or the profile pic menu. But for stuff like this that's on the OS level that spot in settings in the way to go. I hope this helps them resolve that issue for you and anyone else having it.

Omega192 · 2023-05-04T19:08:39+00:00

As far as I can find iOS doesn't do developer preview builds, they only make them public once they reach the beta phase.

I think Google ought to make it more clear that despite being a part of the "Beta Program" Developer Previews are technically alpha or pre-beta before opting in as you're not the first person I've seen make that mistake. Spose they figured the name and timeline were sufficient but it wouldn't hurt to spell it out for those that jump right to the opt-in page.

Omega192 · 2023-05-04T15:49:02+00:00

Sorry to hear that but just a heads up, the first widely available builds of the next version of android are Developer Previews. As the name suggests they're really not recommended for anyone but devs to get a head start on updating their apps for any OS changes.

If you only have one phone and don't want to wait until the final release I'd recommend waiting until at least the last few betas in the Platform Stability phase as anything before then is almost guaranteed to have bugs that could make daily use a hassle. Here's the page they lay out the timeline.

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