why?

I’d say the spiderverse movies are significantly better than the original trilogy.

It’s kind of open. It’s pretty much open for carriers to implement on the server side, and for OEMs to develop on the client side. There is an open source client in AOSP’s RCS Test App, but for one reason or another, as far as I know nobody’s attempted to implement it in an actual usable client app. I don’t believe there’s a server reference implementation. And, in the US, all the carriers’ RCS services are run exclusively by Google, so there’s no real point in attempting to set up your own server. Apple might be able to navigate the politics with carriers and with Google to make something work, if it wants to, but it’s really not a standard for us to play with.

Use Matrix Instead.

I disabled the Google App back when “Google Now” was still a thing. Remember when it would give you directions to get where you were going after you were already on your way? I’d be on the train, it’d tell me “oh, you wanna go somewhere? Get off the train, take a cab to the nearest train station, get on the train…”

They removed everything but sports score tracking, I kept using it for a while, and then I realized that I could just fucking use my browser for search, since that’s where I wanted to read search results anyway. And that’s what I did.

They’re going to keep doing this again and again, making their app worse and worse.

No idea why I would ever want the Google app back.

“forbes sites” is basically just blogs

alright, I never remember how to do this… @allthingsfoodandcooking

Smart TVs are the stupidest fucking things.

No TV manufacturer is actually willing to put processing power or networking features in a TV, and they’re never willing to spend money developing the software, so even new, they’re slow as shit, and you can no longer realistically use them for 10 years, they’ll go obsolete. A $35 external computer is more powerful and I’ve been using mine for a decade now without a problem. The interface is more straightforward. I don’t need to log into anything. I don’t need a special remote, I can just use my phone. The TV manufacturer can’t spy on me. There’s no microphone.

Dumb TV + Chromecast is just a thousand times better than a smart TV.

It’s weird how much better Chromecast was when it came out than it is now. Stronger hardware, sure, but no real antifeatures, you could set it up without installing the app, you could use the app without giving it location data, casting was way more straightforward…

I liked it, but couldn’t bring myself to finish it once I realized that Sly’s character literally only ever hurt people. It felt like it was supposed to be “old man, set in his ways, criminal, doesn’t know how to live in this world, says the wrong thing, but has principles, does the right thing.”

But in the end it was just “old man, set in his ways, criminal, doesn’t know how to live in this world, says the wrong thing, but has principles, but he’s still an asshole and makes everything worse all the time, and of course he does, he’s a criminal and a jackass.”

It’s still fun to watch him go Mike Ehrmantrout on a situation, but Mike’s plans usually end well for the people he’s helping.

I pre-ordered the game.

Then, very quickly, the full game + all DLC was available for $20. And I was annoyed, because the DLC itself barely went on sale at all. I sure as shit am not about to pay more for it, after overpaying in the first place. So what do I get? Zero DLC. Nice.

I learned my lesson. I’m waiting for the sale on part 2. And on this new prince of persia game.

they will back a super narrow conception of “right to repair” that only hurts their competitors, but doesn’t inconvenience Google at all.

I found, ages ago, that I never used the google app for something I couldn’t do in my browser. Like, this was back in the days just after Google Now died—all the features that almost worked just got scrapped because they really didn’t work. It allowed me to keep up with one college sports team, but other than that, opening the app was just a slower version of opening up my firefox and searching there.

So that’s what I do now. I disabled the Google app, and I don’t miss it at all.

I disabled the google app years ago. I use my browser for search, and then when I get the results, the results actually show in my browser, and I don’t have to switch apps or anything to get to my browser.

Plus, I don’t have to look at the vestiges of all the features the app used to have, which now just feel like they’ve left the UI cluttered and pointless.

Plus, every time I open the app, I feel like I’m being spied on, because I am.

Plus, Google Assistant sucks ass. The voice commands are super unreliable, and as for search, I don’t want AI to guess what I’m trying to search for, deterministic imperative searches are actually better.

next time… a sprinkle of salt and a hint of balsamic make tomatoes sing. I’d say throw in olive oil, but maybe the mozz is enough fat to do the job.

it’s still going to be a distraction, especially if it’s the rare type of meeting you actually need to listen to or engage with.

Didn’t they state that their next game would not be a totk sequel?

oh fuuuuckkk

well, I’m on f-droid, so I guess my only issue is that I’m going to stop getting updates… but I’ll need a new gallery eventually, what are people switching to?

Koler was very pretty, but there’s no way to get back into a call once you switch out of it. This is really bad, partly because it makes it impossible to hang up without restarting your phone. Huge, glaring bug they never fixed.

I’m absolutely with you on Contacts.

I hate Google Photos for a number of reasons, I think my current app is just simple gallery.

Android has an easy remote backup system built in. You can save a file to any location, including cloud locations, as long as the cloud service provider plugs into the API. Signal actively disables this feature because they would rather spite users than risk even the shadow of a chance that a user upload an encrytped backup to an internet service that could theoretically then be hacked and hypothetically maybe one day decrypted.

Matrix doesn’t have this issue, it just stores encrypted messages on servers.

in other words: the default messaging protocol is imessage, unless that’s impossible, in which case it falls back to sms.