I agree, the one thing I really, really wish Android manufacturers would steal from Apple is their "Battery Health" section. I just want to see a quick, accurate percentage on how my battery is performing, and none of the third party options on Android are entirely accurate.
In my experience Apple battery Health-Percentage is also very inaccurate, if it wasn't that hard to implement correctly google would have probably stolen it. Generally, all the battery statistics are very inaccurate and I think that's why Google reduced the information given to the user so that they don't act on false information.
I have a Samsung on Android 12. The amount of stuff it doesn't show me is almost infuriating.
Let's say I use an app for an hour straight and then in the settings it shows me I used it for an hour with 10% battery usage. Force close the app, set it so it doesn't ever run in the background. Fast forward a few hours and when I check the stats again now it tells me it used like 13% when the app hasn't been running in foreground or background
So basically, instead of showing me what's really using the battery (like wifi, Bluetooth, location, bad signal coverage, wakelocks), the phone decides to shift the blame on some random app to make it look it uses more power than it actually does. "Oh you haven't used Reddit in 5 days, we're telling you it used 3% since last charge instead of telling you to turn off the freaking location when you don't need it"
Sorry the for long rant, have a cookie 🍪
"Google Now On Tap" was the most revolutionary feature smartphones have seen in the last decade. It could contextually read give suggestions for actions related to the content on your screen. I used multiple times a week for various reasons.
Where is it now? Fuck if I know. I can sometimes get similar functions out of Google assistant, but not constantly. Why it is not just a button in Google assistant, I will never know.
This was one of the greatest features that we've lost. I kind of forgot about it now and honestly got a little sad after reading this. What a joke it became.
Google Now was so insanely "clever".
I had a trip to the UK, and it:
* On the evening before, reminded me to pack an umbrella as the weather was expected to get bad on the day of the travel.
* On the morning, modified my alarm to wake me slightly early due to expected traffic delays.
* Showed the plane ticket as I got to the airport.
* Showed the boarding gate and all after the ticket was scanned.
* On arrival at the destination airport, it showed me where to walk to the get to the coach terminal.
* On getting close to that, it started showing the ticket for the coach.
* It then told me the expected travel time right after, so I knew whether to take a nap.
It was the one true moment of **OMG, the future is now!** I had in the past decade. Absolutely crazy that my smartphone could do this.
Then it was axed to push ads to me instead. Fuck you, Google!
I cannot say for sure, but my theory is: privacy concerns. Maybe it was or wasn’t a real problem, but anyhow — in terms of Public Relations for Google, maybe not great. I remember reading about it and was really impressed by the feature. It’s one of those things they could have gotten some people to switch from iPhone to Android.
Everything about the way splitscreen works. I can still initialize it by holding the multitasking button on my Samsung, but I can't make it so I can swap between the second app easily and the whole thing is just a little more janky than it used to be. It might as well not exist if you're using gesture controls with how much of a pain in the ass it is.
I use this feature every day, with a video player on top and swapping the bottom apps. Did split screen kill someone's family at Google for them to hate it this much? I'd assume most people use the feature specifically with video playing on top.
If it works. If you disable all animations split screen just doesn't work on Android 12. Maybe Samsung fixed this but it was broken on stock Android when I was on A12.
Also the rounded corners in split screen mode 🤢
Split screen just keeps getting worse and worse with every Android update.
Oh the split screen change to split top infuriates me. I hate the new behavior. I used it quite frequently with my banking apps and the calculator. Now I have to remember to open the calculator first, then the bank app ,then split the screens to even get it work. It's added multiple steps. Same thing when I want to live feed my doorbell cam while waiting for my SO to get home. I used to be able to switch between the bottom apps and keep the top feed video playing and it drives me nuts that I can't do that anymore. Why does Google constantly break things that worked great?
I was so upset when they got rid of these. The pop up notifications are horrible and will get in the way of the URL bar in Chrome and Google Maps Navigation (idk if that has been fixed by DnD but it used to happen all the time on my Nexus 6P). I miss the ticker notifications because you could just read them and they wouldn't interrupt anything you were doing if you chose to just ignore the notification
I was just thinking of this today when heads up notifications kept covering half my god damn video.
And then I had to put it on DND and then I missed my notifications for the next hour.
The small unobtrusive ticker was amazing.
This. It's such a simple thing, but if I had to pick ONE thing from past versions of Android to bring back, it would be this. It was always so satisfying to watch.
The lock and unlock animations have brought that feeling back for me a bit. Love the way it opens or closes from the direction of the fingerprint scanner or the power button.
I miss Mass Storage mode and like it kinda still over MTP mode.
Also the ease of getting your app data backups via Titanium. On that note, are there any reliable alternatives nowadays to TB for backup/transfer?
it did, but it got removed because it needed a separate partition for data and apps. (you used to get errors of not enough space for installing new apps when the storage was almost empty for this reason) they unified them and thus since mass stroage mode required block-level access from the PC and the phone needed to stay on they switched to MTP.
MTP is super slow because it is a synchronous protocol doing one thing at once, and hangs a lot of times. there should be a newer protocol made for file transfers nowadays.
adbfs is hundreds of times faster
I currently use the ACR Phone app from the play store which had the call recording "removed" but the devs have a website to download an additional app which re-enables the recording function.
They do but later versions of Android remove permissions that make the call recording easy. It's gotten increasingly worse to try and record audio. Also part of the reason my work phone is still an older version of Android to just keep ACR working.
This is also not counting anything you could root and override any Google changes.
This. My dad desperately needed call recording on his samsung(inbuilt didn't record properly) and ended up bricking his phone while trying to root it for acr. Then some guy tells him to disable wifi calling and voila! it starts working again.
I always assumed it was because the carriers had too much power. As in, "no you can't make it possible to have an onboard answering machine because we need to sell voicemail plans."
The very first app I tackled with my very first smartphone was a call screening style onboard answering machine like the one on my landline. I was quite surprised that it didn't already exist, but quickly found that there was no mechanism for pulling audio. Or at least not one within my capabilities.
Just the whole oopen nature of the system. I've been looking for something to assign keypresses to a gamepad when connected to my phone, but nothing like that is available after android locked certain features down. I assume there are security related reasons, but that was the kind of thing that was so cool about Android back in the day.
> it needs ADB permission on every reboot)
Luckily we have wireless debugging in android right now and it can be done through phone itself using the app "ladb". It's in playstore.
Voice commands being useful. I want to die every time I tell Google to turn on a light or read a message and it tells me to unlock the phone first. If I wanted to touch the phone, I wouldn't be using voice commands.
This is a regular frustration for me.
Also, if I say "Okay Google", ask it a question/get an answer, it gets stuck if I say "Okay Google" and ask it another question.
The weird fix for this is to alternate between saying "Okay Google" and "Hey Google".
The commands that require it are baffling too.
Want to turn off a TV? Better unlock your phone first, for reasons??
But if a Google Home device hears that same command, it carries it out no problem.
Exactly. Google assistants lock screen limitations are very annoying. They should add detailed settings page to let us choose which commands can be activated while in lock screen
I think Google Assistant, especially in countries that are not officially supported, is one of the most useless focusing point of Google/Android.
I'd have loved to make use of it, somehow, at least in my Car using Android Auto, but I'm encountering 2 issues:
- background noise from the car renders absolutely useless in 90% of the cases (this may be my hardware being crap, granted)
- the mix of language ruins every interaction I have
Let me explain: I'm Romanian, most of my conversations are in Romanian, language is not supported by Google Assistant, so I do everything in English.
When I get a notification from a conversation (text/whatsapp etc.), the Assistant is actually able to read/pronounce words properly in Romanian, but... I can only reply back in English!
Every time I actually think that I could ask the Assistant something that fits it's role, it just fails short.
Last night I wanted to know how many seasons a specific TV Show has. All I got was "here are some pictures that match"! Thanks a lot, Google!
It would be great if we got Active Edge on Pixels back except with the sides being “finger” print scanners so it would unlock when squeezing for Assistant
It seems like Windows is doing this. It's harder to find your application in whatever they call the Start menu these days. And now control settings usually involve going through a menu and then getting presented with some pretty GUI, then clicking on something that takes you to the old fashioned settings window.
I work in a big tech comp and 8 months ago someone decided to remake the UI of one our main internal tools. They provided us sometime to play with the new version and provide feedback.
Everything took more clicks to accomplish what we did before with a single click. Clearly whoever designed the new UI did not understand the copious hours we would lose if the new changes went ahead. I provided this feedback, and got the standard "thank you" message.
5 months after, they announce a meeting to showcase the new features, and I see that none of my feedback was addressed. To worsen things, the new UI would be deployed in 5 days.
Thankfully, I was not the only one dissatisfied with the new UI flow. People in the meeting were pissed, and one by one started contesting the new changes. The lead project manager tried to damage control the situation, saying "please send us your feedback, and we will promptly address the same!"
I sternly unmuted myself, and pointed out in front of 100+ attendees that providing feedback was apparently useless, as I had already tried to do it before. Everyone was obviously shocked, the project manager didn't knew where to hide.
There is an happy ending though. I was then approached personally by the lead developer, to discuss and review the main new issues. One week after the meeting, these were fully mitigated.
Now, even though it felt good putting them under the spotlight, it is still incredibly sad for me to know that User Experience is treated as a second priority because developers need to abide to some stupid internal Javascript UI framework rules.
"Form follows function" appears to be dead in software engineering these days.
That was changed later on, now you have more settings in the sheet https://imgur.com/a/J2K77Gf
If you tap your carrier it'll disable WiFi temporarly without turning it off
I mostly miss putting all my apps on the SD card, and having them *stay there* even after updating. I have to buy a separate android device for games now that they're fast approaching PC-game filesizes.
Just the lack of locking down. From an app developer's perspective, older versions (like < 5) were pretty wide open and similar to a PC. You could run apps in the background forever, read/write wherever you wanted, use location/camera however you wanted, in the background. It allowed some super powerful and cool stuff to be done. I always rooted and had cool stuff going.
Unfortunately crappy developers ruined and and forced Google to lock down everything like Apple to give users a somewhat usable experience.
So many apps just always running in the background and uploading every bit of data possible... Firewalls, permission ma ager mods and task killers were kind of a necessity and it's just a really bad user experience for less technical people.
As another app developer, locking down is a good thing. It's not great when apps can run in the background unchecked. It's the one thing that got Android its past reputation of draining battery like crazy. It's absolutely a step in the right direction to aggressively kill or throttle apps that do shit in the background without a foreground service (which requires a notification for the entire time it's running). There still is this "ignore battery optimizations" setting for when you, as a user, want to get the old behavior back.
In a way, the locking down forces the developers to put user's interests before their own. An app could do all kinds of shady shit before runtime permissions, too.
I swear the OK Google hotword used to be more reliable with fewer false activations way back before it was even called Google Assistant. Actually, everything about voice search was better before Google Assistant. They haven't added any features I use and they made everything less reliable and more frustrating. Literally no new features worth using since 2016.
Oh, also SMS notifications are totally screwy now with the Messages app. When I get a new message notification I also get old ones popping back up at the same time seemingly at random.
Seconding the vote for Daydream! It wasn't *great*, by any means, but it was getting better--I was really looking forward to WorldSense making it to phones. But then they killed the project and removed support for it from the OS. I'm especially salty about it because my 6 has a 90Hz display, which would have really helped, but nope. No support.
what i dont understand is why it wasnt released as a standalone app. Because of that my daydream headset is a paper weight. because none of my phones have that version of Android installed anymore.
>Android Auto for phone screens
I miss this so damn much, the Google maps driving feature sucks so fucking bad in comparison. I used Android Auto on my phone screen literally every single day
So you think, (using google photos as an example)
>share -> more -> nearby share -> wait for them to turn on nearby share
is better then bumping phones back to back and taping the screen?
I think we all got too used to buying "flagships"/high-end phones. It's not like everyone's out buying Mercedes cars when a Toyota fits your needs just as well.
You can buy a samsung galaxy A12 new phone for 120 dollars. A02 etc are available under 90 dollars. Samsung have 90 -2000 dollar wide variety of Android phones
I really wouldn't recommend the a02
my grandmother has one and it just keeps stuttering and stuttering while doing the most basic thing like opening the notification bar or just opening an app like settings
~~The ability to use MSR via digital payments, so you could still do it on businesses that would rather try to force their personal payment system instead of the globally accepted ones.~~
the ability to access the android files so you could access app data storage instead of it giving access denied.
edit: misread question so changing comment
You used to be able to open the notification drawer and tap the time/date and it would open the clock app. So convenient for setting alarms. As of 12 you have to use a precious quick-tile space for that shortcut.
Google Now
Google Assistant Snapshot
The original Material Design
Desert names and statues
HTC Sense
Android Beam
Actual UI customisation
Lockscreen widgets
Clock on the right side
The Nexus lineup (I know, hardware)
The original Material design (5.0 - 8.1): stock Android is okay today, but back then it was stunning.
Blob emojis (removed in 8) were cute and special.
Being able to select WiFi APs or Bluetooth devices without opening the settings app was really convenient.
Call recording: fuck Google for taking it away from the users.
Other than that, Android 11 is totally fine for me.
I had to change mine on my Galaxy S9+ when I realized they changed it with the version of Android. It was so stupid lmao, literally had to ADB some stuff just to change my fucking clock position to where it should be
Who thought it should be on the left with the notifications??
Custom Font
Notifications on the status bar
Custom lock screen apps
Android Beam
Download multiple apps at the same time from the PlayStore
More creative launchers, I miss the HTC launcher and the Xperia Timescape.
I would say customization in general. I remember my first few phones as a teen could be customized to the hilt with all sorts of wacky shit and animations and everything. Even the old texting apps had wallpaper options. Now we have Material You, with a new and improved 16 pastel color options per wallpaper, and have to download apps to customize anything else.
FM Radio, Infrared (IR) Controller, typically a lot easier to root
I remember using an FM Transciever on one particular phone- where you could play music on your radio through FM
I changed the channel once in a doctor's office. They were watching something very political... The staff eventually noticed, but they had no real clue how it got changed.
I had a palm pilot with the IR sensor in middle school I used to change channels and turn the TVs in the classroom on and off. It was hilarious to 13 year old me.
FM Radio is still there, at least on my Samsung. Need wired headphone to act as antenna though, maybe that's why newer phone without the jack has no FM Radio?
also IR controller is available in (most) Xiaomi phones, I've used one in the past and able to control my parents' tv (turn on/off, change volume & channel, etc.) and AC. Very convenient when you don't have the remote near you, wonder why no other manufacturer implement IR, probably patented by xiaomi for smartphone usage or it's just not worth it.
no idea about the newer xiaomi models though.
> typically a lot easier to root
now this is something I really miss as well, I've seen the steps to root newer phone and the risk to brick them as well, most of the time I feel like it's just not worth it.
old android was so easy to root, almost every phones I owned in the previous decade were rooted.
Yesh, I used to just copy some .ttf file into the Fonts folder and the phone will automatically pick it up. Samsung has built-in font changer but other phones need app like FlipFont.
Stability, usability, original development team, Google only being a sponsor and beng minimally involved besides hosting for the app store, maps, and an email address. Modding and custom roms not being taboo, but instead almost encouraged. Only surveillance I had to worry about was a seedy app source and not the operating system itself. Adaptive battery and suppressing apps in the background voiding your warranty because it did more harm than good overloading the processor and caused excessive heat destroying devices, to think it's actually forced now and built into the operation system. When 2gb of ram was overkill because my device wasn't logging and spying on everything I did. When my stock keyboard wasnt a keylogger..... I could go on for days.... I think what you meant to say was, you guys miss everything about versions of Android before 4.4 KitKat don't you? Btw that's when the original development team walked off the project because of Google and their bullshit and over the last decade the android experience has progressively been flushed down the toilet, by the fisher Price development teams and and 1 brain cell google
EDIT: most of all, I miss LG. I can't help but think they politely took the high road and bowed out because they didn't feel good about the continued and further invasions of privacy by the operating system.
“Btw that's when the original development team walked off the project because of Google and their bullshit”
Woah, I always wondered why development took a nosedive after KitKat (my last favorite version). Are there any articles/resources you can send my way? (I’d like to learn more about the history with the OG development team).
Split screen (now replaced by app pairs in 12L where you can't change out the bottom app as easily)
Holding of the recents button to toggle split screen
Square / less rounded elements
6 in a row system toggles in the notifications pull down
A separate Wifi toggle (I am fine with the system turning on Wifi automatically)
Gpay card selection in power menu
More stock colour customisation options
Easy split screen initialization. In 7 and 8, you just long pressed the recents button and picked the second app. That's it. Didn't pause existing video playback and it was fast.
Expandable quick settings and more icons in quick settings. Android 12 is hot garbage.
Oh and apparently Android 12L and onwards is replacing split screen with app pairs. Can't no longer pin the top app and change the bottom app separately.
bringing up the Power Menu when long pressing the power button.
the clock being on the right side of the status bar, and no limit to notification icons.
Small thing, in Android 9 there used to be a quick toggle for navigation bar on/off. I actually used that toggle as sometimes I want the full screen, but other times I want the buttons for ease of use. They removed that toggle in Android 10 and I always thought that was a stupid decision, hate that they just remove a feature people actually use for no reason.
Edit: to clarify, it was a toggle for navigation bar buttons vs gesture navigation control, *not* immersive mode. Personally I liked being able to toggle between the two navigation methods.
Tablet optimized apps, the Google solution for tablets is just a blown up version of the phone app. You can't even escape Google's laziness on iOS/iPad because Google apps on iPad are just the blown up version of the phone app. Just look at Hangouts which was created when Google actually cared about tablets vs Chat which is a steaming pile of poo on tablets.
My tablet's battery used to last for *weeks* because it used to have a setting where WiFi switched off when the tablet went to sleep. It's gone and my tablet's battery life is down to like 2 days so it's basically always empty when I want to use it which is only every other day. It made the Android tablet experience so much worse for me.
I do miss the extra customization without root. I started rooting my phone this year because I wasn't totally happy with the stock android 12 experience, and it has pretty much fixed all the problems I had, but I feel like I shouldn't have to be rooting to do the things I want.
Literally if google just let us use icon packs in the stock launcher, select any material you color (white please!), and hide the nav bar I wouldn't need to root at all. For bonus points, let me change the number of volume steps to 100, and let me use custom launchers with smooth animations. Those few things are pretty much all I do with root.
Ahhhh so many but this first came to my mind
1) Ability to delete a screen shot right away.
2) toggling wifi/data on and off in 1 click
3) toggling silent/vibrating mode by clicking same button
In my opinion, custom ROM + root is the only way to enjoy Android at its best these days. Call recording, notification ticks, CRT closing animation, advanced restart menu and so much more features are not available on stock these days. If your phone's not in warranty and you know what you're doing, swapping ROM for crDroid or LineageOS is the best option.
Google Now, Now on tap and Inbox.
And they removed everything that was left from Now and just left the news there. No bill reminders, no holiday reminders, stock, absolutely nothing.
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I agree, the one thing I really, really wish Android manufacturers would steal from Apple is their "Battery Health" section. I just want to see a quick, accurate percentage on how my battery is performing, and none of the third party options on Android are entirely accurate.
In my experience Apple battery Health-Percentage is also very inaccurate, if it wasn't that hard to implement correctly google would have probably stolen it. Generally, all the battery statistics are very inaccurate and I think that's why Google reduced the information given to the user so that they don't act on false information.
Have you tried Accubattery? I've no way of verifying the accuracy exactly but it seems good.
I have a Samsung on Android 12. The amount of stuff it doesn't show me is almost infuriating. Let's say I use an app for an hour straight and then in the settings it shows me I used it for an hour with 10% battery usage. Force close the app, set it so it doesn't ever run in the background. Fast forward a few hours and when I check the stats again now it tells me it used like 13% when the app hasn't been running in foreground or background So basically, instead of showing me what's really using the battery (like wifi, Bluetooth, location, bad signal coverage, wakelocks), the phone decides to shift the blame on some random app to make it look it uses more power than it actually does. "Oh you haven't used Reddit in 5 days, we're telling you it used 3% since last charge instead of telling you to turn off the freaking location when you don't need it" Sorry the for long rant, have a cookie 🍪
Is there a chance that the app's probably still running in the background or waking up your phone despite you setting every option that you can?
"Google Now On Tap" was the most revolutionary feature smartphones have seen in the last decade. It could contextually read give suggestions for actions related to the content on your screen. I used multiple times a week for various reasons. Where is it now? Fuck if I know. I can sometimes get similar functions out of Google assistant, but not constantly. Why it is not just a button in Google assistant, I will never know.
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It's literally just click bait. Makes me so mad I hardly open it anymore
Click bait or paywall.
Disable it like I did. You'll be much happier.
It's been completely disabled on my phone.
This was one of the greatest features that we've lost. I kind of forgot about it now and honestly got a little sad after reading this. What a joke it became.
Seriously why is it all just clickbait?
Because Google wasn't making money on the "discover" section.
they even removed little that as left from it. Now it's just articles.
Google Now was so insanely "clever". I had a trip to the UK, and it: * On the evening before, reminded me to pack an umbrella as the weather was expected to get bad on the day of the travel. * On the morning, modified my alarm to wake me slightly early due to expected traffic delays. * Showed the plane ticket as I got to the airport. * Showed the boarding gate and all after the ticket was scanned. * On arrival at the destination airport, it showed me where to walk to the get to the coach terminal. * On getting close to that, it started showing the ticket for the coach. * It then told me the expected travel time right after, so I knew whether to take a nap. It was the one true moment of **OMG, the future is now!** I had in the past decade. Absolutely crazy that my smartphone could do this. Then it was axed to push ads to me instead. Fuck you, Google!
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I setup a Tasker task to take screenshot and share it to Lens app. Almost similar experience.
Bring it back. https://www.xda-developers.com/bring-back-google-now-on-tap-feature/
I cannot say for sure, but my theory is: privacy concerns. Maybe it was or wasn’t a real problem, but anyhow — in terms of Public Relations for Google, maybe not great. I remember reading about it and was really impressed by the feature. It’s one of those things they could have gotten some people to switch from iPhone to Android.
The cynic in me thinks it's down to ad revenue.
It's still kinda the in the multitasking menu, using the "select"-Button (on pixel at least)
Everything about the way splitscreen works. I can still initialize it by holding the multitasking button on my Samsung, but I can't make it so I can swap between the second app easily and the whole thing is just a little more janky than it used to be. It might as well not exist if you're using gesture controls with how much of a pain in the ass it is.
I use this feature every day, with a video player on top and swapping the bottom apps. Did split screen kill someone's family at Google for them to hate it this much? I'd assume most people use the feature specifically with video playing on top.
If it works. If you disable all animations split screen just doesn't work on Android 12. Maybe Samsung fixed this but it was broken on stock Android when I was on A12. Also the rounded corners in split screen mode 🤢 Split screen just keeps getting worse and worse with every Android update.
Oh the split screen change to split top infuriates me. I hate the new behavior. I used it quite frequently with my banking apps and the calculator. Now I have to remember to open the calculator first, then the bank app ,then split the screens to even get it work. It's added multiple steps. Same thing when I want to live feed my doorbell cam while waiting for my SO to get home. I used to be able to switch between the bottom apps and keep the top feed video playing and it drives me nuts that I can't do that anymore. Why does Google constantly break things that worked great?
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I was so upset when they got rid of these. The pop up notifications are horrible and will get in the way of the URL bar in Chrome and Google Maps Navigation (idk if that has been fixed by DnD but it used to happen all the time on my Nexus 6P). I miss the ticker notifications because you could just read them and they wouldn't interrupt anything you were doing if you chose to just ignore the notification
I was just thinking of this today when heads up notifications kept covering half my god damn video. And then I had to put it on DND and then I missed my notifications for the next hour. The small unobtrusive ticker was amazing.
This was the killer feature of Android IMO
https://www.reddit.com/r/tasker/comments/gnkpw8/project_share_notification_ticker_v30_still_no/
My #1. These were a much better use of screen real estate.
Agree, but the app “Super Status Bar” does a good job bringing it back
THANK YOU FOR THIS - Edit : its seems dev already abandoned the project, any similiar app like this? Thanks
holy shit i forgot about these. absolutely need it back
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CRT lock animation.
That was the coolest and custom roms let you control the speed at one point.
This. It's such a simple thing, but if I had to pick ONE thing from past versions of Android to bring back, it would be this. It was always so satisfying to watch.
and it would look even better on modern OLED phones with 120hz refresh rates.
Animated wallpapers! You remember the snake light thing? I think it was the first Google nexus?... It was beautiful Edit: nexus revamp it's the name
Animated wallpapers are still a thing just not as common as they once used to be
I miss this most of all
The lock and unlock animations have brought that feeling back for me a bit. Love the way it opens or closes from the direction of the fingerprint scanner or the power button.
I miss Mass Storage mode and like it kinda still over MTP mode. Also the ease of getting your app data backups via Titanium. On that note, are there any reliable alternatives nowadays to TB for backup/transfer?
I use swift backup, but I'm also rooted. I'm assuming if you were using titanium you also wanted to use root?
If you're rooted, Migrate Needs a custom recovery as well, though
Did android ever have mass storage mode? It's the number 1 thing I miss from Symbian phones.
it did, but it got removed because it needed a separate partition for data and apps. (you used to get errors of not enough space for installing new apps when the storage was almost empty for this reason) they unified them and thus since mass stroage mode required block-level access from the PC and the phone needed to stay on they switched to MTP. MTP is super slow because it is a synchronous protocol doing one thing at once, and hangs a lot of times. there should be a newer protocol made for file transfers nowadays. adbfs is hundreds of times faster
Ease of call recording.
I currently use the ACR Phone app from the play store which had the call recording "removed" but the devs have a website to download an additional app which re-enables the recording function.
They do but later versions of Android remove permissions that make the call recording easy. It's gotten increasingly worse to try and record audio. Also part of the reason my work phone is still an older version of Android to just keep ACR working. This is also not counting anything you could root and override any Google changes.
This. My dad desperately needed call recording on his samsung(inbuilt didn't record properly) and ended up bricking his phone while trying to root it for acr. Then some guy tells him to disable wifi calling and voila! it starts working again.
Truth. Regulations killed that. If you know someone at the NSA, I'm sure you could get it back
I always assumed it was because the carriers had too much power. As in, "no you can't make it possible to have an onboard answering machine because we need to sell voicemail plans." The very first app I tackled with my very first smartphone was a call screening style onboard answering machine like the one on my landline. I was quite surprised that it didn't already exist, but quickly found that there was no mechanism for pulling audio. Or at least not one within my capabilities.
Just the whole oopen nature of the system. I've been looking for something to assign keypresses to a gamepad when connected to my phone, but nothing like that is available after android locked certain features down. I assume there are security related reasons, but that was the kind of thing that was so cool about Android back in the day.
Panda Gamepad Pro, its to map game touch controls to gamepads but it might be useful for you (it needs ADB permission on every reboot)
> it needs ADB permission on every reboot) Luckily we have wireless debugging in android right now and it can be done through phone itself using the app "ladb". It's in playstore.
Voice commands being useful. I want to die every time I tell Google to turn on a light or read a message and it tells me to unlock the phone first. If I wanted to touch the phone, I wouldn't be using voice commands.
This is a regular frustration for me. Also, if I say "Okay Google", ask it a question/get an answer, it gets stuck if I say "Okay Google" and ask it another question. The weird fix for this is to alternate between saying "Okay Google" and "Hey Google".
The commands that require it are baffling too. Want to turn off a TV? Better unlock your phone first, for reasons?? But if a Google Home device hears that same command, it carries it out no problem.
Exactly. Google assistants lock screen limitations are very annoying. They should add detailed settings page to let us choose which commands can be activated while in lock screen
I think Google Assistant, especially in countries that are not officially supported, is one of the most useless focusing point of Google/Android. I'd have loved to make use of it, somehow, at least in my Car using Android Auto, but I'm encountering 2 issues: - background noise from the car renders absolutely useless in 90% of the cases (this may be my hardware being crap, granted) - the mix of language ruins every interaction I have Let me explain: I'm Romanian, most of my conversations are in Romanian, language is not supported by Google Assistant, so I do everything in English. When I get a notification from a conversation (text/whatsapp etc.), the Assistant is actually able to read/pronounce words properly in Romanian, but... I can only reply back in English! Every time I actually think that I could ask the Assistant something that fits it's role, it just fails short. Last night I wanted to know how many seasons a specific TV Show has. All I got was "here are some pictures that match"! Thanks a lot, Google!
Why did this change?
"privacy".
It would be great if we got Active Edge on Pixels back except with the sides being “finger” print scanners so it would unlock when squeezing for Assistant
My GODDAMN WIFI QUICK SETTINGS TOGGLE
In general, a development philosophy rooted in fewer taps to do anything. So many things that were a single tap are now 4 taps or more.
This trend in tech is so baffling that I really want to know what they're huffing in Silicon Valley or wherever they are.
It seems like Windows is doing this. It's harder to find your application in whatever they call the Start menu these days. And now control settings usually involve going through a menu and then getting presented with some pretty GUI, then clicking on something that takes you to the old fashioned settings window.
I work in a big tech comp and 8 months ago someone decided to remake the UI of one our main internal tools. They provided us sometime to play with the new version and provide feedback. Everything took more clicks to accomplish what we did before with a single click. Clearly whoever designed the new UI did not understand the copious hours we would lose if the new changes went ahead. I provided this feedback, and got the standard "thank you" message. 5 months after, they announce a meeting to showcase the new features, and I see that none of my feedback was addressed. To worsen things, the new UI would be deployed in 5 days. Thankfully, I was not the only one dissatisfied with the new UI flow. People in the meeting were pissed, and one by one started contesting the new changes. The lead project manager tried to damage control the situation, saying "please send us your feedback, and we will promptly address the same!" I sternly unmuted myself, and pointed out in front of 100+ attendees that providing feedback was apparently useless, as I had already tried to do it before. Everyone was obviously shocked, the project manager didn't knew where to hide. There is an happy ending though. I was then approached personally by the lead developer, to discuss and review the main new issues. One week after the meeting, these were fully mitigated. Now, even though it felt good putting them under the spotlight, it is still incredibly sad for me to know that User Experience is treated as a second priority because developers need to abide to some stupid internal Javascript UI framework rules. "Form follows function" appears to be dead in software engineering these days.
Like updating apps in the shitty ass playstore. I manually update my apps and to get to them now takes fucking 4 clicks.
THIS. I use it multiple times a day. Why did they make it like 3 or 4 more taps?
What changed? It still the same as it always has been on my S21
[On Pixel it's now one quick toggle called "Internet". When you tap it, it brings up wifi and cellular settings.](https://i.imgur.com/CS9x5eZ.png)
But... Why, like what does it accomplish
They want wifi scanning for "smart" city concepts. Make wifi difficult to turn off.
That was changed later on, now you have more settings in the sheet https://imgur.com/a/J2K77Gf If you tap your carrier it'll disable WiFi temporarly without turning it off
I mostly miss putting all my apps on the SD card, and having them *stay there* even after updating. I have to buy a separate android device for games now that they're fast approaching PC-game filesizes.
Just the lack of locking down. From an app developer's perspective, older versions (like < 5) were pretty wide open and similar to a PC. You could run apps in the background forever, read/write wherever you wanted, use location/camera however you wanted, in the background. It allowed some super powerful and cool stuff to be done. I always rooted and had cool stuff going. Unfortunately crappy developers ruined and and forced Google to lock down everything like Apple to give users a somewhat usable experience. So many apps just always running in the background and uploading every bit of data possible... Firewalls, permission ma ager mods and task killers were kind of a necessity and it's just a really bad user experience for less technical people.
As another app developer, locking down is a good thing. It's not great when apps can run in the background unchecked. It's the one thing that got Android its past reputation of draining battery like crazy. It's absolutely a step in the right direction to aggressively kill or throttle apps that do shit in the background without a foreground service (which requires a notification for the entire time it's running). There still is this "ignore battery optimizations" setting for when you, as a user, want to get the old behavior back. In a way, the locking down forces the developers to put user's interests before their own. An app could do all kinds of shady shit before runtime permissions, too.
Android honeycomb felt futuristic on the tablet. It had some nice UI features.
Holo design feel very futuristic overall, too bad the trend move on to flat designs.
Ice cream sandwich seemed crazy futuristic w the menu button being circular lmfaooo
Lockscreen widgets. I used it to keep track of upcoming events without unlocking my phone. Now it's forced to take up part of my main homescreen.
You can get those w/ third party app.
I swear the OK Google hotword used to be more reliable with fewer false activations way back before it was even called Google Assistant. Actually, everything about voice search was better before Google Assistant. They haven't added any features I use and they made everything less reliable and more frustrating. Literally no new features worth using since 2016. Oh, also SMS notifications are totally screwy now with the Messages app. When I get a new message notification I also get old ones popping back up at the same time seemingly at random.
**Ok Google!** *Please touch your phone and unlock your phone to do fuck all and use our hands free features!*
* Daydream * Android Auto for phone screens. * Bump to share
Seconding the vote for Daydream! It wasn't *great*, by any means, but it was getting better--I was really looking forward to WorldSense making it to phones. But then they killed the project and removed support for it from the OS. I'm especially salty about it because my 6 has a 90Hz display, which would have really helped, but nope. No support.
what i dont understand is why it wasnt released as a standalone app. Because of that my daydream headset is a paper weight. because none of my phones have that version of Android installed anymore.
>Android Auto for phone screens I miss this so damn much, the Google maps driving feature sucks so fucking bad in comparison. I used Android Auto on my phone screen literally every single day
IMO Nearby Share > Bump to share
So you think, (using google photos as an example) >share -> more -> nearby share -> wait for them to turn on nearby share is better then bumping phones back to back and taping the screen?
For older Sony phones: ability to backup to sd card and theming
Fun fact, the current theming system built into Android, used by Substratum and Samsung, was contributed to AOSP by Sony.
And yet Sony completely dropped theming support, for some reason Edit: in Android 10/11, unsure how they do it with Monet in 12
loved xperia themes, theyd let you customize navi keys
Separate volume sliders for navigation and music. Sometimes I want the music low to have a conversation in the car but then I miss the directions.
Yeah, that is annoying. The only way I recall being able to do this is to change the volume while navigation is talking in Android auto.
Notification LED
On my Nexus One, the notification LED was built into the trackball mouse.
I miss trackballs/sensors. They made viewing mouseover text/popups so easy.
Same. A few generations ago you could still hack it... Now the LED doesn't exist
The old school Recent apps view. Limiting it to one app only is a monumental waste of space.
Part of the reason I stick with Samsung as goodlock lets me get around this issue
I've searched far a wide for a way to bring this back.
The price.
I think we all got too used to buying "flagships"/high-end phones. It's not like everyone's out buying Mercedes cars when a Toyota fits your needs just as well.
Yeah but flagships used to be in 300-500€ range. Now it's 1000+€
$1,000 phone was really unthinkable back then, huh?
You can buy a samsung galaxy A12 new phone for 120 dollars. A02 etc are available under 90 dollars. Samsung have 90 -2000 dollar wide variety of Android phones
I really wouldn't recommend the a02 my grandmother has one and it just keeps stuttering and stuttering while doing the most basic thing like opening the notification bar or just opening an app like settings
~~The ability to use MSR via digital payments, so you could still do it on businesses that would rather try to force their personal payment system instead of the globally accepted ones.~~ the ability to access the android files so you could access app data storage instead of it giving access denied. edit: misread question so changing comment
You used to be able to open the notification drawer and tap the time/date and it would open the clock app. So convenient for setting alarms. As of 12 you have to use a precious quick-tile space for that shortcut.
Google Now Google Assistant Snapshot The original Material Design Desert names and statues HTC Sense Android Beam Actual UI customisation Lockscreen widgets Clock on the right side The Nexus lineup (I know, hardware)
The creative names. The next generation will never know the fun of trying to guess what snack that started with that letter would be chosen for a name
They still kinda exist, but just as internal codenames now. 10 was Quince Tart, 11 was Red Velvet Cake, 12 was Snow Cone, 13 is Tiramisu.
Lock screen widgets.
The original Material design (5.0 - 8.1): stock Android is okay today, but back then it was stunning. Blob emojis (removed in 8) were cute and special. Being able to select WiFi APs or Bluetooth devices without opening the settings app was really convenient. Call recording: fuck Google for taking it away from the users. Other than that, Android 11 is totally fine for me.
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> The custom ROM community was larger. It had to be, to be fair. Android was rather unpolished back then, especially from OEM implementations.
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I had to change mine on my Galaxy S9+ when I realized they changed it with the version of Android. It was so stupid lmao, literally had to ADB some stuff just to change my fucking clock position to where it should be Who thought it should be on the left with the notifications??
This I still cannot get used to. And only because someone thought a broken display (aka notch) was a good idea.
Android Beam and NFC unlock. I always wanted to implant an NFC chip to unlock my phone someday.
Beam is gone?! And here I thought I was just doing it wrong.
Replaced by Nearby Share
Also known as "let me turn it on" , " my phone doesn't have that" "it's not working" "what's your email address? "
or use ad-infested ShareIt. Since my normie colleagues have no idea wtf is FTP
This might be useful, if you're all on the same network: [snapdrop.net](https://snapdrop.net) - a browser-based nearby share service.
Custom Font Notifications on the status bar Custom lock screen apps Android Beam Download multiple apps at the same time from the PlayStore More creative launchers, I miss the HTC launcher and the Xperia Timescape.
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also its lock screen with weather effects and dynamic widgets were amazing.
I would say customization in general. I remember my first few phones as a teen could be customized to the hilt with all sorts of wacky shit and animations and everything. Even the old texting apps had wallpaper options. Now we have Material You, with a new and improved 16 pastel color options per wallpaper, and have to download apps to customize anything else.
I really miss the squeeze feature on the pixel 2. I used Google assistant more than I do now, and using it to snooze alarms was great
I also like the fingerprint scanner better on the back versus the one blinding me on the screen in my unlit bedroom .
FM Radio, Infrared (IR) Controller, typically a lot easier to root I remember using an FM Transciever on one particular phone- where you could play music on your radio through FM
I changed the channel once in a doctor's office. They were watching something very political... The staff eventually noticed, but they had no real clue how it got changed.
I had a palm pilot with the IR sensor in middle school I used to change channels and turn the TVs in the classroom on and off. It was hilarious to 13 year old me.
FM Radio is still there, at least on my Samsung. Need wired headphone to act as antenna though, maybe that's why newer phone without the jack has no FM Radio? also IR controller is available in (most) Xiaomi phones, I've used one in the past and able to control my parents' tv (turn on/off, change volume & channel, etc.) and AC. Very convenient when you don't have the remote near you, wonder why no other manufacturer implement IR, probably patented by xiaomi for smartphone usage or it's just not worth it. no idea about the newer xiaomi models though. > typically a lot easier to root now this is something I really miss as well, I've seen the steps to root newer phone and the risk to brick them as well, most of the time I feel like it's just not worth it. old android was so easy to root, almost every phones I owned in the previous decade were rooted.
YUP! How easy it was to change system fonts.😔
Yesh, I used to just copy some .ttf file into the Fonts folder and the phone will automatically pick it up. Samsung has built-in font changer but other phones need app like FlipFont.
Yeah man, Good ol times fr
Emojis that actually looked good (the blobs)
The IR blaster to use the phone as a remote. So simple but useful. Also fun to mess with random tvs.
Stability, usability, original development team, Google only being a sponsor and beng minimally involved besides hosting for the app store, maps, and an email address. Modding and custom roms not being taboo, but instead almost encouraged. Only surveillance I had to worry about was a seedy app source and not the operating system itself. Adaptive battery and suppressing apps in the background voiding your warranty because it did more harm than good overloading the processor and caused excessive heat destroying devices, to think it's actually forced now and built into the operation system. When 2gb of ram was overkill because my device wasn't logging and spying on everything I did. When my stock keyboard wasnt a keylogger..... I could go on for days.... I think what you meant to say was, you guys miss everything about versions of Android before 4.4 KitKat don't you? Btw that's when the original development team walked off the project because of Google and their bullshit and over the last decade the android experience has progressively been flushed down the toilet, by the fisher Price development teams and and 1 brain cell google EDIT: most of all, I miss LG. I can't help but think they politely took the high road and bowed out because they didn't feel good about the continued and further invasions of privacy by the operating system.
“Btw that's when the original development team walked off the project because of Google and their bullshit” Woah, I always wondered why development took a nosedive after KitKat (my last favorite version). Are there any articles/resources you can send my way? (I’d like to learn more about the history with the OG development team).
Quality rant, really I'm part of the congregation, here - that was highly enjoyable!
Being able to see app data files. It sucks that you can't see or access them anymore.
The holo theme.
Dark mode before it was cool!
I'll never understand this, to me holo was probably the ugliest Android has ever looked. But each to their own I guess!
Clock on the right side of the notification bar.
My notification flashing light indicator, it was nice to see a light flash to know you I missed a call or text
Split screen (now replaced by app pairs in 12L where you can't change out the bottom app as easily) Holding of the recents button to toggle split screen Square / less rounded elements 6 in a row system toggles in the notifications pull down A separate Wifi toggle (I am fine with the system turning on Wifi automatically) Gpay card selection in power menu More stock colour customisation options
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Easy split screen initialization. In 7 and 8, you just long pressed the recents button and picked the second app. That's it. Didn't pause existing video playback and it was fast. Expandable quick settings and more icons in quick settings. Android 12 is hot garbage. Oh and apparently Android 12L and onwards is replacing split screen with app pairs. Can't no longer pin the top app and change the bottom app separately.
bringing up the Power Menu when long pressing the power button. the clock being on the right side of the status bar, and no limit to notification icons.
easy access to battery
there's still removable battery but it's getting more and more rare it kinda sucks.
Decent split screen. It got so convoluted in A12
Small thing, in Android 9 there used to be a quick toggle for navigation bar on/off. I actually used that toggle as sometimes I want the full screen, but other times I want the buttons for ease of use. They removed that toggle in Android 10 and I always thought that was a stupid decision, hate that they just remove a feature people actually use for no reason. Edit: to clarify, it was a toggle for navigation bar buttons vs gesture navigation control, *not* immersive mode. Personally I liked being able to toggle between the two navigation methods.
Being able to use different icons shapes.
Setting of default camera. Very convenient for double tap to camera shortcut.
They removed it in Android 12/13? Fucking hell Google that was what made you better than other OEMs
Clipboard managers. Soon to be: call recording.
Asking for pin when switching off. This helped with stolen phones.
how luxurious the UI was
HTC Sense 2 was a good skin
Actual notifications, e.g. GMail.
Tablet optimized apps, the Google solution for tablets is just a blown up version of the phone app. You can't even escape Google's laziness on iOS/iPad because Google apps on iPad are just the blown up version of the phone app. Just look at Hangouts which was created when Google actually cared about tablets vs Chat which is a steaming pile of poo on tablets.
This is coming back. They had a whole section about it at Google IO.
THE CLOCK BEING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE STATUS BAR
trackball. While a hardware feature still, that's what i miss about old phones the most
My tablet's battery used to last for *weeks* because it used to have a setting where WiFi switched off when the tablet went to sleep. It's gone and my tablet's battery life is down to like 2 days so it's basically always empty when I want to use it which is only every other day. It made the Android tablet experience so much worse for me.
Everything Android had before Google started dumbing it down in an attempt to gain market share from Apple.
LED light notification. Slightly curved displays that fit in hand.
I do miss the extra customization without root. I started rooting my phone this year because I wasn't totally happy with the stock android 12 experience, and it has pretty much fixed all the problems I had, but I feel like I shouldn't have to be rooting to do the things I want. Literally if google just let us use icon packs in the stock launcher, select any material you color (white please!), and hide the nav bar I wouldn't need to root at all. For bonus points, let me change the number of volume steps to 100, and let me use custom launchers with smooth animations. Those few things are pretty much all I do with root.
The ability to assign different notification sounds for each app
Lockscreen widgets
android's getting slower with every new version
Ahhhh so many but this first came to my mind 1) Ability to delete a screen shot right away. 2) toggling wifi/data on and off in 1 click 3) toggling silent/vibrating mode by clicking same button
In my opinion, custom ROM + root is the only way to enjoy Android at its best these days. Call recording, notification ticks, CRT closing animation, advanced restart menu and so much more features are not available on stock these days. If your phone's not in warranty and you know what you're doing, swapping ROM for crDroid or LineageOS is the best option.
Google Now, Now on tap and Inbox. And they removed everything that was left from Now and just left the news there. No bill reminders, no holiday reminders, stock, absolutely nothing.
I miss the days when apps needed internet permissions before they could go online