I’m a Note fan. I don’t use the stylus every day, but when I do need to sketch something and attach it directly to a message, having that ability is powerful. The fact that it has a generously large screen makes daily use excellent.
Big? Not so big that the screen isn’t worth it.
I will say that Rym’s search for smaller and smaller phones is a bit odd to me, but I don’t wear super-tight jeans, so that might be part of it.
I really think @SkeleRym 's search for ant phones is directly correlated to the tightness of his pants. I want the biggest phone that will fit in my pocket. 6+ inches would be ideal.
And hey, that’s alright. Whatever phone is both most comfortable and works the best for any given individual is the best phone for them to buy. You can look at page after page of stats, and determine down to the smallest detail as to which phone is objectively “better” - but it’s a device being used by a person, and each person will have different tastes and needs, and the most objectively good phone in the world doesn’t matter a good goddamn if the individual using it finds it unpleasant to use. And we have to face facts - that’s a very large component of which phone you should buy, considering that for most people, their phones are an every day item to have and use, the standard issue outboard brain.
For example, a friend of mine has limited mobility in his hands, dude always buys whichever the current newest Galaxy + or note phone is out, when he’s changing phones, because he always uses his phone two-handed, and the extra screen real estate both allows him to watch video content and read more comfortably, and allows him to use larger icons to account for his lower dexterity. Would a smaller phone be objectively better? Sure, maybe, on a spec sheet and from a UX standpoint. But it would suck for him and make his phone borderline unusable, meaning he’d have to rely on his carer to do everything with his phone - and really, would any of us want to have to run everything on our phone through another person first?
Interestingly, you see a similar situation - albeit more obvious and less complex - with those “as seen on TV” infomercial sort of gadgets. A lot of people look at them and see cheap tat for suckers, but 90% of them started life for or are incredibly useful for disabled people. But assistive technologies and products are not a lucrative market, because the target market is so small - so they re-target them so that you essentially have suckers subsidizing production for the people that actually need them. The snuggie started life as a wheelchair blanket. The slap-chop started life as a kitchen tool for people with limited dexterity and physical strength. Never forget there are always needs and use cases unlike your own.
I still think the Nexus S had the most perfect ergonomic shape. You could pick it up in the dark and tell which was the front, back, up and down and then it was comfortable. This Sony I pick it up without looking and there are 4 ways I could be holding it and I’m usually wrong. It’s dumb.
Apple has added a pretty solid fuck you to law enforcement in the latest iOS beta. Basically if I get a hold of your devices I have a maximum of 7 days to get in before it locks itself down. A 6+ digit lock code can take a few days to brute force and in practice it might take a couple days to get started. Sucks to be those departments that wasted $30k on brute forcing hardware.
All the evidence suggests that Apple’s privacy stance is actually walk and not just talk. For all their problems, you really are the customer. They have no interest in getting your data and selling it to anyone. They do really do what they can to make their devices and your data secure, including all the negatives that go along with that, such as the app store approval process.
Yep, Apple pretty much makes all its money by selling hardware (phones), media (mostly music, but also ebooks and videos), and software, even if that software money comes from taking a cut out of every app sold via the app store. They have a business model that allows them to profit without having to sell their customers’ data. This is also part of the reason why many security experts basically say, “if you want a secure phone without having to be a security expert, just get an iPhone. Apple pretty much it figured out better than any other mainstream manufacturers.”
This person requested their data from Apple and was surprised to see what was NOT included. They keep shockingly little data considering how much is available from an iPhone user. Other data they keep, like Siri queries, is truly anonymized.
Indeed. Apple does a lot of stuff that annoys me (but then again, a lot of companies do), but this is certainly one area where they are doing the right thing.
Yeah, they’re generally pretty good, I haven’t looked at too many reports directly from Apple but they tend to be just the basic logs that it would be weird if they didn’t have.
My only real problem with Apple’s stance on this is that there isn’t always a way to opt out or any attempt to educate people on what level of security they’re setting up. I get that it’s complicated and kind of an edge case thing to worry about but since it comes up in my job regularly it’s hard for me to ignore.
It’s obvious to most people that you don’t give someone a combination lock safe if you want to get into it when they die, or if you do you need to know the combination too. It’s less obvious that you are doing that when you give them an iPhone. I don’t have a solution I just find it frustrating that no one acknowledges that it’s a thing.
Fucking aye, I’m gonna actually jump for joy now. Who linked this thread to the Android team?
I wear normal jeans and my phone fits in them fine, but at 5" it’s already too big. I kinda miss 4" phones but 4.7" is probably the ideal.
Are you still hot on the XZ1 Compact? I need a new phone, Amazon has it for $360, and I’m 5 minutes from pulling the trigger.
It’s the perfect Android phone.
I am tiny hands, so I love small phone. Been using the SE happily for a month now. After so much time with the Nexus 5x, it feels a little small TBH, but it actually fits in my pockets (small sizes + women’s clothes == major suck pockets).
Android features I miss:
The swipe keyboard (3rd party Swiftkey) is inferior to android’s built in swipe keyboard. I bought Minuum for the mini keyboard, but would prefer a hybrid of the two – minified keyboard with swiping behavior. Either way, I think alternate keyboard methods should be included by default in iOS.
I also miss the android voice to text, and haven’t been able to satisfactorily send messages via Siri, but other voice integration has been better than Android.
iOS Features happy to have:
I am very happy with the built-in color temperature shifting, white point settings, and accessibility shortcuts, which did not exist on the 5x.
I like the live feature for taking photos, which generally reduces the total shots I need to take.
General performance and response time is much improved, as well as third party app quality (e.g. twitter is less buggy on ios).
I am happier with the overall iOS experience than I was using the Nexus 5x (which bricked itself a month later). The hunt for a case that proteccs the phone without adding bulk is still ongoing.
Try Gboard, the Google keyboard.
GBoard takes up over half my screen RIP
Yup, SE is best phone. Hopefully they update it soon because the hardware is getting long in the tooth.
I mean I takes up just as much screen as the default keyboard, are you holding the phone sideways whilst typing?