Like them or not, Google's Pixel phones will be the iPhone competitor we've demanded for years

Vermillion said:
I use voice commands constantly. The beauty of Google's system is that it gets better with use. That makes it even more enjoyable to use because it hardly ever screws up my commands after using it for so long. The amount of commands it can handle is actually quite impressive. OK Google

As for security updates...that why there are nightly builds or competent developers who post updates within 24-48 hours of the code being posted to AOSP. You simply don't use some script kiddy MAH AWESOME CM-based ROM with build.prop edits that they claim means MOAR SPEEDZ! Just find a dev (CM, OmniROM, PureNexus for example) who actually cares about their work and lack of security updates aren't something you need to worry about.

Back when I was using CyanogenMod the security updates would be in the next nightly if not that nights nightly build. So in reality I was getting security updates faster than Nexus users.
Click to expand...

But nightlies are usually unstable builds....

And if you have to manually download and flash the device every time you want a security update, you are going to wind up doing it less often (at least most people would). If you have to do it manually it just isn't going to happen. There needs to be an automatic delivery and update system. Manually flash the ROM once.
 
T4rd said:
I mostly use it in the car for hands-free calling, messaging, navigating, and playing podcasts/music, which it is awesome at doing all of those things. I can tell it to play a specific artist/song/album/station without touching anything or being distracted by my phone. I can also tell it to message a specific person on Hangouts or via SMS without touching it.

We get the security updates via .zips posted that we can install manually without wiping or anything, so it's available just as fast on XDA as you would get it OTA. Plus I use the Franco Kernels, which has its own app and an updated kernel with the patch have consistently been available within a day of it being posted by Google.
Click to expand...


Ahh, Everyone is different I guess. I'd sooner pull over and do it manually than use voice commands. I don't trust them at all. I've had too many bad experiences over the years, besides there's almost always some other noise going on that would disrupt any voice command/text.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Wow, people actually use that? I've always considered it a useless gimmick, just like Apple's Siri.

I find voice activation and commands mostly useless.
Click to expand...
I use it a lot with Android Auto. Seems natural to continue doing so with the phone itself.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Ahh, Everyone is different I guess. I'd sooner pull over and do it manually than use voice commands. I don't trust them at all. I've had too many bad experiences over the years, besides there's almost always some other noise going on that would disrupt any voice command/text.
Click to expand...

I can tell you haven't tried it much then.. very rarely does it ever misunderstand me even while driving the car at speed with the windows down. It probably helps that it's using the mic built into my car's head liner instead of the phone's mic though (it will use any BT devices mic if you have one connected). It's pretty awesome for other random stuff too; like I'll be listening to a talk show podcast like I frequently do and not recognize some person or place they're talking about, so I'll just ask Google (right in the middle of the podcast playing, as it still picks up my voice and pauses any playing media to listen to me better) who this person or what this place is that they're talking about, then it will literally give me a short audible description of them/it and then continue playback of the podcast.

It's very powerful now and if you give it a chance, will become very convenient in situations like this. I can't imagine pulling over instead to do anything like this, heh.

Zarathustra[H] said:
And if you have to manually download and flash the device every time you want a security update, you are going to wind up doing it less often (at least most people would). If you have to do it manually it just isn't going to happen. There needs to be an automatic delivery and update system. Manually flash the ROM once.
Click to expand...

I use Pushbullet. Just follow the developer of my ROM (PureNexus) and I get a notification (on both my phone and PC if I'm on it) with a link immediately after he posts an update to the ROM. So I just click on that on my phone and it downloads so I can boot into recovery, install it, and be back up and running in about 2 mins round trip.
 
Last edited:
Zarathustra[H] said:
But nightlies are usually unstable builds....

And if you have to manually download and flash the device every time you want a security update, you are going to wind up doing it less often (at least most people would). If you have to do it manually it just isn't going to happen. There needs to be an automatic delivery and update system. Manually flash the ROM once.
Click to expand...

I used nightly builds of CM for 2 years straight. Never unstable except for the odd build. So you flash back and wait till the next nightly. 5 minutes wasted. I typically didn't even flash every nightly. I'd sit on a one and watch the CM change log when Google released patches. I'd then check the next nightly for those updates and flash that. This isn't complicated and anybody who's using a custom ROM shouldn't be overly concerned about using a nightly or anything. They know the risks. If they don't that's their fault.

CM also had a built in updater. CM also had stable monthly snapshots for a long time until Cyngn came along. I know OmniROM has that built in still. You can set it for nightly or stable. Then you select how often you want it to check. You get a message that an update is ready and you click install just like OEM update. I don't know if PureNexus has that updater but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Wow, people actually use that? I've always considered it a useless gimmick, just like Apple's Siri.

I find voice activation and commands mostly useless.

To me, the biggest problem with most (all?) and presumably this ROM is the loss of regular OTA security updates.

If something doesn't receive security updates, I stop using it. No exceptions.
Click to expand...
Yeah... I don't know when to use those voice thingies. While I drive I drive and in public there's no way I I'm going to bother others with my phone commands. I'm not sure how Google handles Finnish these days but I'm pretty sure that picking right music track for example could be problematic.

Edit:
Well, it would only work in the Google app so it's useless for me. I'd had to switch to another language to be able to use it elsewhere.
 
Last edited:
Vermillion said:
I used nightly builds of CM for 2 years straight. Never unstable except for the odd build. So you flash back and wait till the next nightly. 5 minutes wasted. I typically didn't even flash every nightly. I'd sit on a one and watch the CM change log when Google released patches. I'd then check the next nightly for those updates and flash that. This isn't complicated and anybody who's using a custom ROM shouldn't be overly concerned about using a nightly or anything. They know the risks. If they don't that's their fault.

CM also had a built in updater. CM also had stable monthly snapshots for a long time until Cyngn came along. I know OmniROM has that built in still. You can set it for nightly or stable. Then you select how often you want it to check. You get a message that an update is ready and you click install just like OEM update. I don't know if PureNexus has that updater but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.
Click to expand...


My problem with flashing ROM's is that every time you do it, you have to reset your configurations. I'd have to re-layout the position of my pages and widgets and subfolders, etc. etc. This is like 2 hour job. I can't go re-flashing my phone often. Heck, I want to have to flash it less than once every 6-8 months.

If they have a way of doing updates without requiring a re-flash like that, then that is different, but I don't recall this existing. From memory, every time you flash, you are back to a device in a like-new reset state.

Maybe things have changed since I last played with flashing roms though.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Maybe things have changed since I last played with flashing roms though.
Click to expand...

Uhmmm... yeah, I'd say things have changed. ;)

When flashing a ROM you're flashing the system partition with the new OS, nothing else really gets flashed. The cache and data partitions (where the actual configuration info is stored for your apps/etc) aren't touched in the process unless you do a full wipe (cache/data/system) beforehand, the process is known as "dirty flashing" so, when you first use a brand new ROM you've never used before it is recommended that you do a full wipe of those 3 main partitions so it's truly clean and fresh.

After that initial installation, however, if an updated version of the same ROM comes along with more features and bug fixes/etc at that point typically you do the "dirty flash" which overwrites the system partition with the new updated version of the ROM (unless it just installs some updated components which happens sometimes) but it leaves the cache and data partitions untouched meaning when you start up the device again it'll be running the updated ROM and everything should work exactly as it did before the flashing.

Yes sometimes the dirty flashing can cause issues but, that's part of the price you pay for messing around with custom ROMs in the first place: you already know going in that things could go awry which is part of the fun I suppose.

But in terms of dirty flashing that's been a regular practice for the better part of the past decade I'd say, many ROMs including Cyanogenmod based ones typically offer an updater built into the ROM which checks for newer versions and offers to flash them as part of the whole package and no it won't clean reset the entire device, that would be entirely counterproductive with an updater. ;)
 
Tiberian said:
Uhmmm... yeah, I'd say things have changed. ;)

When flashing a ROM you're flashing the system partition with the new OS, nothing else really gets flashed. The cache and data partitions (where the actual configuration info is stored for your apps/etc) aren't touched in the process unless you do a full wipe (cache/data/system) beforehand, the process is known as "dirty flashing" so, when you first use a brand new ROM you've never used before it is recommended that you do a full wipe of those 3 main partitions so it's truly clean and fresh.

After that initial installation, however, if an updated version of the same ROM comes along with more features and bug fixes/etc at that point typically you do the "dirty flash" which overwrites the system partition with the new updated version of the ROM (unless it just installs some updated components which happens sometimes) but it leaves the cache and data partitions untouched meaning when you start up the device again it'll be running the updated ROM and everything should work exactly as it did before the flashing.

Yes sometimes the dirty flashing can cause issues but, that's part of the price you pay for messing around with custom ROMs in the first place: you already know going in that things could go awry which is part of the fun I suppose.

But in terms of dirty flashing that's been a regular practice for the better part of the past decade I'd say, many ROMs including Cyanogenmod based ones typically offer an updater built into the ROM which checks for newer versions and offers to flash them as part of the whole package and no it won't clean reset the entire device, that would be entirely counterproductive with an updater. ;)
Click to expand...

what he said.

you can dirty flash the same ROM with zero issues nowadays. I personally wouldn't jump ROM to ROM and dirty flash but with Android 6.0 your desktop settings (at least with Google Now Launcher) are saved and the system tries to put it all back together in the same place you had it. If it can't it puts a place holder to the app there. Tap that and it download and installs. If you use a 3rd party launcher like NOVA you can backup all those settings anyways.
 
jwcalla said:
As hard as they're pushing this thing it makes me wonder just how much NSA spyware is baked into this thing.
Click to expand...

You don't seem to understand: the NSA basically pulls all the data that crossed the Internet itself 24/7 and they've been doing it for a few years now so there's no reason to worry about pulling data from individual devices. Now that everything is moving to cloud-based technology (and I really hate that term, it's fucking client-server and has been for decades) where all your relevant data (calendars, contacts, bookmarks, photos, even videos nowadays) are moving across the Internet at some point in time so there's no reason for them to give a shit about one device or even a few in general.

When Edward Snowden pointed out that the primary function of the activities going on was "Sniff It All, Collect It All, Know It All, Process It All, Exploit It All" he wasn't kidding and that's precisely what they've been at for a while. ;)

If you use any type of modern computing device and it's connected to a network then it's compromised, but here's the most important aspect: it's not compromised because it's a computing device, it's compromised because it's on the network.

The network is the common denominator that links all things now considered "the Internet of Things" or IoT for short and that - the network - was compromised from the ground up.

Yes I get you were probably being a bit sarcastic with the NSA baked in reference but, even so, it's not actually a joking matter when people really look at the big picture. :(

And now, this:

IJS.jpg
 
Tiberian said:
Yes I get you were probably being a bit sarcastic with the NSA baked in reference but, even so, it's not actually a joking matter when people really look at the big picture. :(
Click to expand...

True. But I wouldn't be surprised if Google goes out of its way to assist nefarious activities.

I won't be buying anything Google until the Wikileaks dumps are complete and we all have a better understanding of exactly what the hell is going on.
 
Off topic;

Just curious, everyone running Android 7.0. Do you use battery helping apps like Greenify or Naptime ? Do those truly help extend battery life like they say, by a substantial margin ?
 
jwcalla said:
As hard as they're pushing this thing it makes me wonder just how much NSA spyware is baked into this thing.

They seem to be pretty desperate to get it out there far and wide.
Click to expand...
my thoughts exactly. seems the gloves are off, to me. of course we all know google IS the NSA anyway, but now, they can't be bothered to fake hide the fact.
 
Zorachus said:
Off topic;

Just curious, everyone running Android 7.0. Do you use battery helping apps like Greenify or Naptime ? Do those truly help extend battery life like they say, by a substantial margin ?
Click to expand...

I still use Greenify for aggressive doze, and yes, it does make a significant difference for screen-off battery drain if you check notifications frequently. If your phone frequently sits unused for long periods of time, aggressive doze isn't going to make much of a difference though.
 
I will say this, I'll bet the Pixel XL, actually will have pretty good battery life.

I briefly had the LG G5 and HTC 10, which use the SD820 + 4GB RAM, and both were rooted and ROM'd, and shockingly they both gave me some very impressive battery life for those sized phones.

And with the Pixel having similar hardware, and underclocked SD821 ( being a good thing ). And running Android 7.1 with the better Doze than what those above MM phones had, and the larger 3,450mAh battery, I'm betting the Pixel XL does great for battery life.

My Nexus 6P is no better than my old Note 5 battery wise. Even though the N5 had a smaller battery my 6P just matches it, doesn't best it. I get ok battery life on my 6P. With kernel tweaks and everything maximized, I get like 5.5h ScreenOn time. And that's with the phone heavily modified to give best battery life, and it's good, but not amazing or great.

Here's hoping the Pixel XL offers some great battery life.
 
So do we think the battery life on the smaller Pixel will be bad?
 
I'm hoping for good things battery life wise from the Pixel XL and I'm pretty confident that it will deliver... The Note 7 (that I unfortunately had to return...) had really amazing battery life over all. It was easy for me to get > 5 hours of screen on time in a day with that phone. I switched back to my Note 5 and I struggle to get to 3.5 hours of screen on time, sometimes even 3 is iffy depending on what I'm doing.

Here's hoping!
 
Megalith said:
So do we think the battery life on the smaller Pixel will be bad?
Click to expand...


We have nothing to base it off of thus far.

Too many variables. These are the first phones with a Snapdragon 821, so we don't know how it does with battery life yet, and they will also be the first phones with Android 7.1

My guess is they will do pretty well, but we just don't know.

Here are Googles claims: (but claims are almost always a bit optimistic)

2,770 mAh battery
Standby time (LTE): up to 19 days
Talk time (3g/WCDMA): up to 26 hours
Internet use time (Wi-Fi): up to 13 hours
Internet use time (LTE): up to 13 hours
Video playback: up to 13 hours
Audio playback (via headset): up to 110 hours
Fast charging: up to 7 hours of use from only 15 minutes of charging
Click to expand...
 
My two phone orders went from 'pending' to 'processing'. Maybe I'll get them sooner than expected.

Also some really good reviews across all the sites. Yay!
 
pretty determined to go pixel now. need new phone badly. this turbo v1 is long in the tooth!

are we certain the vws sold units will be bloated.. so much simpler to get it through them..
 
Google and Verizon said the bloat is just some pre-installed apps that you can remove.
 
guess the best way to handle this is to wait a week or two for into "into the wild" and see..
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
You can order it with a payment plan straight from Google just like a traditional plan straight from your carrier.
Click to expand...

It's more like a credit card than installment plans. Not interested.
I don't need another tradeline on my credit affecting my DTI, unlike TMo where the payments are not reported as a tradeline.

* Google Store Financing is a credit card account issued and serviced solely by Synchrony Bank and can be used only for purchases at store.google.com. Credit card application decisions are made solely by Synchrony Bank. This offer is subject to credit approval. This purchase (and all other items purchased in the same sales transaction) qualifies for a 24 month equal pay financing offer with 0% APR. 24 monthly payments required. No interest will be charged on the total promotional purchase (including shipping and handling and taxes) and equal monthly payments are required equal to the total promotional purchase (including shipping and handling and taxes) divided by 24 until paid in full. The equal monthly payment will be rounded to the whole cent and may be higher or lower than the minimum payment that would be required if the purchase was a non-promotional purchase. The monthly payment shown on this purchase is equal to the purchase price (excluding taxes and shipping) divided by 24, rounded to the whole cent and only applies with the use of a Google Store Financing credit card account. If you make your payments by the due date each month, the monthly payment shown (adjusted for taxes, shipping and any other items purchased in the same sales transaction) should allow you to pay off this purchase within 24 months if this balance is the only balance on your account during that time period. If you have other balances on your account, this monthly payment will be added to the monthly payment applicable to those balances. Regular account terms apply to non-promotional purchases. For new accounts: Standard purchase APR is 29.99%.
Click to expand...
 
Man, I wish carriers would just get out of the business of subsidies, JUMP, etc. entirely. Can't stand how they continue to exert influence on people's buying decisions that way.

Carriers should have no more to say about the average person's smartphone purchase than AOL did about people's desktop purchases in 1998. But they brilliantly set the paradigm early with exclusives and subsidies, and even now that most subsidies are gone, 90% of the US doesn't realize they can buy anywhere other than their carrier's stores.
 
WorldExclusive said:
It's more like a credit card than installment plans. Not interested.
I don't need another tradeline on my credit affecting my DTI, unlike TMo where the payments are not reported as a tradeline.
Click to expand...

If you're paying it off every month what does it matter who the payment is going to? TMO or Google's credit card service.
 
harsaphes said:
If you're paying it off every month what does it matter who the payment is going to? TMO or Google's credit card service.
Click to expand...

One is reported as a tradeline on your credit (Google), the other is not.
I'm not placing $869 on my credit for a phone. My priorities are more in order than that.

I rather be patient and pay it cash.
 
brettjrob said:
Man, I wish carriers would just get out of the business of subsidies, JUMP, etc. entirely. Can't stand how they continue to exert influence on people's buying decisions that way.

Carriers should have no more to say about the average person's smartphone purchase than AOL did about people's desktop purchases in 1998. But they brilliantly set the paradigm early with exclusives and subsidies, and even now that most subsidies are gone, 90% of the US doesn't realize they can buy anywhere other than their carrier's stores.
Click to expand...

It isn't just that. The USA is still dominated by primitive SMS and MMS protocol, that doesn't always work well, due to carriers. Anywhere else in the world and you'll be using WhatsApp or Signal or Telegram or some form of digital messaging service that tend to work great as they aren't dependent on tower voodoo.

Also you cannot just up and buy a phone like elsewhere in the world frequently. Sprint for example only whitelists IMEI/MEID certain phones they want on their network. If your device is the wrong model you automatically hosed. If it is the right model, you then have to fight USA CS to get your non-carrier phone added to the whitelist.
 
Skripka said:
It isn't just that. The USA is still dominated by primitive SMS and MMS protocol, that doesn't always work well, due to carriers. Anywhere else in the world and you'll be using WhatsApp or Signal or Telegram or some form of digital messaging service that tend to work great as they aren't dependent on tower voodoo.

Also you cannot just up and buy a phone like elsewhere in the world frequently. Sprint for example only whitelists IMEI/MEID certain phones they want on their network. If your device is the wrong model you automatically hosed. If it is the right model, you then have to fight USA CS to get your non-carrier phone added to the whitelist.
Click to expand...
It's mindboggling how that kind of shit is possible. Government should do something to prevent operators from peeing on their customers. I'm so happy that I live in Finland.
 
Skripka said:
It isn't just that. The USA is still dominated by primitive SMS and MMS protocol, that doesn't always work well, due to carriers. Anywhere else in the world and you'll be using WhatsApp or Signal or Telegram or some form of digital messaging service that tend to work great as they aren't dependent on tower voodoo.
Click to expand...


What kind of problems have you had with SMS/MMS?

I've had a cell phone in the U.S. for 14 years now, and in all that time across three carriers ( Cingular -> AT&T, Verizon, Google Fi) it's always worked just as expected. It's not the most feature rich, but it always works for me...
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
What kind of problems have you had with SMS/MMS?
Click to expand...
I personally have probably 1 out of 50 texts get messed up in some way. Sometimes they arrive out of order if the text splits into two. Sometimes they never arrive. Sometimes half way through message it changes to complete gibberish even though that wasn't what was sent. Sometimes they take hours to arrive. MMS sometimes just get stuck sending. All of this is over multiple phones over about 5 years and the problems have been around the whole time, maybe its verizon.
 
harsaphes said:
GOT MY SHIPPING NOTICE!
Click to expand...

Nice. Mines still processing, but I chose basic shipping, so it is probably not prioritized.

While I am excited to get mine, I don't see enough value in being the first to receive a new phone to pay for expedited shipping. :p
 
I have a pre-order in with my carrier and joined the reservation list with Google for the 128gb Pixel XL but it's sounding like no one really got any stick if this model for sine reason...

I went to a store today and they had denobunits but no devices at all for sale.

I spent some hands on with the Pixel XL and it was super fast. Really really great software experience and for sure is the reason to buy this phone... Not the hardware...
 
Anyone know where I can get the unlock one without waiting for a month?

Seems like Google store all out of stock.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top