Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by anal_reactor 371 days ago
Honestly, I'm happy my phone won't get an update. This way I won't be exposed to new bugs. I'm on Android 13 and the only thing I observed when updating from 12 was that now when I switch apps, the screen blinks for split-second, which is incredibly annoying. Functionality-wise, there's very little that can be improved anyway. It's mostly just fiddling with details of the UI here and there.

I think we grew up with technology advancing rapidly and expensive tech from previous year being outdated, but now we came back to baseline where technological advancement is just small fixes stretched over a long period of time.

2 comments

> Functionality-wise, there's very little that can be improved

Yep. Honestly can't name a single major new smartphone feature that I would consider a dealbreaker that wasn't available 10 years ago.

The last things that made me excited about a new phone was contactless payments and Android auto, but both are pretty old now.

Now it's just a slightly different ui and maybe a bit better camera when I got a new phone.

> both are pretty old now

They are not that old and we still don’t have proper dashboard integration. I would like directions there rather than on the central console.

Plus there has been nice features trickling to user from release to release.

I like that you can easily use your phone as a clock with a magnetic dock. Translation and text selection in screenshot were nice. Search from picture highlight is great.

Phone screening is nice. Hold for me is nice too. Chat apps have improved by leaps and bounds since Covid. Productivity is now okay-ish at least for joining meetings and reading things.

As someone that plug his phone to a dock from time to time, convergence is nearly there but some things still need polish. I really wish we could get a better version of Office for example.

It’s not ground breaking but meaningful incremental improvements have been there.

>>> we still don’t have proper dashboard integration

The last place I want mobile devs to get their buggy little code is my dashboard. Hell I don't even really want a screen there, but I make an exception for tiny info screens if they come with real gauges on the side. That same shitty little screen currently shows a directional arrow and mile/feet till the next turn passed to it by Carplay/Android Auto. Thanks Ford for getting one small thing right with my E-transit, shitty massive touchscreen radio/AC controls non-withstanding.

Android 12 made it possible to have unattended updates possible on fdroid. I sincerely will not recommend an Android version less than 12 at this point.

At some point, we will have something similar on a newer version of Android that we will want and that we can't have with an older version. I don't know what it is yet but i am sure there will be something at some point.

https://f-droid.org/2024/02/01/twif.html