I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android
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Ok, so my iPhone is being repaired and they said it could take up to 2 weeks and they gave me a replacement phone for that time, a fucking Xperia something. Large piece of shit that gets hot when you're talking on the phone, so you feel this uncomfortable burn on your ear.
First impression: Android is fucking ugly as fuck. Seriously, why is that? I thought Google had like bazillion dollars to spend on design. And this is the best they were able to come up with?!
Exhibit A: Chrome for Android. Seriously, you've got to be kidding me! Here, compared with Safari on iOS.
Notice those hideous bold icons. Notice the awful address bar, hiding most of the address. Notice the home button! Who the fuck is still using home page in their browser? And then take a look at how sleek and elegant safari looks.
Exhibit B: Chrome for Android, opened tabs view:
Again, large and hideous icons, too wide borders, what the fuck? Compare with Safari.
Exhibit C, Gmail app. First, behold the same app for iOS:
Does its job. Not the best, too large letters (again! What is this with Google and the size of icons and letters?! Why do they hate their users so much they don't want them to see the stuff they want to see?!)
Compare to stock iOS mail app:
Much better. Again, slick, modern, elegant.
Compare to Android Gmail app:
Do you see this?! These awful icons (again!), large font, hideous colors, little information. The worst thing? Gmail, something that's supposed to be the best email app in the world, doesn't have a "show only unread" view. But there's a hack. Wanna see it?
Yup, you're right. A search bar. What the fuck?!
Gotta go, but I have more in Stock. The incredibly awkward way of taking screenshots, context menus that are ugly and that unfold below the finger that pressed it, so they're hovered by default. A fucking arrow which when you click it changes menu in an unexpected manner and you don't know why!
I'll be back in the evening and I tell you, I'll trash this shit because this is a great example of awful design!
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@kt_
As a former iOS user and now Android user, I fully agree with you. Especially about GMail (fuck that app with a purple cactus)! Mobile Firefox is slightly better than Chrome, BTW.I wish I could have the flexibility of Android and a well-designed UI on my phone. :/
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As someone whose contract is almost up and faced with no Windows phones to choose, I feel your pain, except I'm falling from a higher height :(
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This post is deleted!
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@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_
As a former iOS user and now Android user, I fully agree with you. Especially about GMail (fuck that app with a purple cactus)! Mobile Firefox is slightly better than Chrome, BTW.I wish I could have the flexibility of Android and a well-designed UI on my phone. :/
Yeah, this would be awesome. I mean, it was great that play store suggested to me Battle for Wesnoth. Bit it can't hide the fact, that what you get is extremely below par.
Another thing I hate and it's quick to write-up has to do with the way the phone is designed. Like, to take a screenshot you're supposed to press volume down and power button. But they're so close together, you can't do it in an easy manner. You have to shift your fingers to a completely new position.
And there's a "take photo" button, too. What? Why? In iPhone, you can take a picture using the volume up/down buttons. Here's a special button for that? Oh yeah, now I get it, that's because the volume up/down button is so inconveniently placed.
Sure, these things aren't Android problems, these are problems with the phone and I am aware that I was probably given a budget one. That's why I'm also not going to thrash its speed. But I will vehemently point out all of the bad ui design decisions and get angry at them.
Like, there's an app, literally the first one in the app drawer, that's called "album". I opened it, because I wanted to see a picture I'd taken. The first thing I saw was that this app wants access to my photos. Wait, the "album" app doesn't have access to my photos by default? Why is it there, then?!
Back to the screenshot thing, though. For the life of me I can't understand, why would you want to force the user to keep pressing these two buttons for a few seconds before the screenshot is taken? It's a huge inconvenience, especially considering where the buttons are placed, and there's no serious reason for this. You don't want the user to take a screenshot accidently? Why? It's easy to delete it and it's not like it will be easy to press these two by accident. So, why? The fuck?
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Having used this phone for almost half a day now, I'm starting to believe Google just fired all of their designers and let engineers or teenagers design their mobile products. Needless to say, it was a bad decision.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Wait, the "album" app doesn't have access to my photos by default? Why is it there, then?!
Android requires that you approve permissions for an app the first time it needs to use them rather than on app install.
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@powerlord Sort of: depends on the APK manifest. If the permission is required for the app to run, then you're asked on install. If the permission is optional, you're asked on first use.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Having used this phone for almost half a day now, I'm starting to believe Google just fired all of their designers and let engineers or teenagers design their mobile products. Needless to say, it was a bad decision.
Part of the reason everything looks so terrible is that the POS budget phone they gave you is super low-DPI. Those apps work much better on better phones.
Also, a lot of your complaints are very subjective. I think Safari looks like absolute garbage in those comparisons there, especially compared to chrome...
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
It's a huge inconvenience, especially considering where the buttons are placed
Not on my device (which is also Google's reference device). Not Android's fault Sony's hardware is shit.
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@RaceProUK said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
If the permission is required for the app to run, then you're asked on install. If the permission is optional, you're asked on first use.
Nope. This depends entirely on which Android version is targeted by the app, not on whether the permission is required. Over time, all apps will have to switch to asking for the permissions at runtime.
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@powerlord said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Wait, the "album" app doesn't have access to my photos by default? Why is it there, then?!
Android requires that you approve permissions for an app the first time it needs to use them rather than on app install.
ios does that too, but this one was installed by default. Why is it there, then, if it isn't pre-authorized?
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@sloosecannon said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
It's a huge inconvenience, especially considering where the buttons are placed
Not on my device (which is also Google's reference device). Not Android's fault Sony's hardware is shit.
Well, I actually said the same thing. Read my post again.
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@sloosecannon said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
It's a huge inconvenience, especially considering where the buttons are placed
Not on my device (which is also Google's reference device). Not Android's fault Sony's hardware is shit.
I don't have a home button on Chrome here either. Maybe Sony put it there.
I'm not a big fan of Samsung but I bought an S7 because I wanted a tropics-proof phone (dust, rain, sweat, heat, rough handling, you name it) and the only alternative in that respect was Sony. Sony is completely out of the question. The last Sony thing I had a was CD writer, then they started their copy protection shenanigans with the Minidisc, tried to force overpriced shite called Memory Stick on users, and the lead pipe that broke the camel's back was their trojanizing users via CD drivers for some other copy protection bullshit.
Luckily they're making it easy for me to boycott them by being crap in every other respect except for the sturdy hardware.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@sloosecannon said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
It's a huge inconvenience, especially considering where the buttons are placed
Not on my device (which is also Google's reference device). Not Android's fault Sony's hardware is shit.
Well, I actually said the same thing. Read my post again.
Fuck it, here it is:
these things aren't Android problems, these are problems with the phone and I am aware that I was probably given a budget one. That's why I'm also not going to thrash its speed. But I will vehemently point out all of the bad ui design decisions and get angry at them.
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@sloosecannon said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Having used this phone for almost half a day now, I'm starting to believe Google just fired all of their designers and let engineers or teenagers design their mobile products. Needless to say, it was a bad decision.
Part of the reason everything looks so terrible is that the POS budget phone they gave you is super low-DPI. Those apps work much better on better phones.
These icons look shitty on iPhone too, and they are retinas.
As for subjectivity, is searching for unread instead of convenient label freaking subjective?!
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Most of your complaints are about aesthetics, so they're subjective by definition. Short address bar in Chrome is due to phones being physically narrow. You can't possibly fit much more than the domain name. Safari is no better in that regard - from the screenshot it looks like it's not even trying. Home button is an optional thing that's disabled by default - most likely the phone was previously used by someone still stuck in the 90s and haven't been properly wiped afterwards. The permission thing is good - if I can't completely wipe an app off my phone, at least give me a way to disable all its functionality. Note that this "Album" app is not Android's default photo browser named "Galeria", but Sony's own bloatware shit.
The only thing I agree with is that GMail app is utter crap. But not for the same reasons - for me, it's crap because it logs off after a couple days of inactivity and dorsn't notify you in any way, and because you can't access delegated accounts.
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@Gąska said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Note that this "Album" app is not Android's default photo browser named "Galeria", but Sony's own bloatware shit.
Oh, that's why I was confused. It's definitely Gallery on my Nexus, and it's never asked me for permissions (caveat: that I RECALL, of course).
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@Gąska said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Note that this "Album" app is not Android's default photo browser named "Galeria", but Sony's own bloatware shit.
I've been using Android since 2009 and all the defaults have changed so much, not to mention vendor-specific apps, that it's hard to say what's the "official" photo gallery app. Right now I think the latest is Google Photos, with the pinwheel icon, but good luck deleting a photo off your SD card with it; IME no matter how many times you approve the permission for it, it won't work. Personally I use one called QuickPic because I'm tired of dealing with that bs.
Similar story with SMS apps; it's gone from Messenger to something else to Hangouts, and back to Messenger or something. I went third-party years ago and haven't looked back. Recently I changed to a different third-party app because the one I had been using for years started spamming ads and notifications telling me to upgrade to the premium version with online backup or some shit.
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Android being heavily customizable is both a strength and a weakness. Pretty much all default apps can be changed, including keyboard and home screen. Which does mean being able to make it your own phone, but it also builds a hell of all the vendors having their own vendor-specific touches which screws you up if you ever switch vendor. Go from Samsung to Sony and you have a new look and a new set of defaults. I wish the stock Android experience out of the box would be an option on every device for those that don't want the vendor-specific bollocks.
There's also the issue of even though Android has a set of design guidelines, app devs feels like they don't have to follow them and do their own solutions instead of using the built-ins and cause experience-breaking layouts. From what I know, Apple is better at enforcing their design guidelines while Google Play don't block apps using iOS layouts for example.
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@Atazhaia said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
I wish the stock Android experience out of the box would be an option on every device for those that don't want the vendor-specific bollocks.
coughcyanogenmodcough
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
I thought Google had like bazillion dollars to spend on design
You'd think there is a trillion developers on android core, but
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@heterodox said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@Gąska said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Note that this "Album" app is not Android's default photo browser named "Galeria", but Sony's own bloatware shit.
Oh, that's why I was confused. It's definitely Gallery on my Nexus, and it's never asked me for permissions (caveat: that I RECALL, of course).
So why is it there? It shouldn't be there at all.
I agree that user permissions are the right way to go. I don't think that any app that comes by default should require granting permissions.
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@Gąska i.dont understand what you're saying about "home" button. Is there a home button? (ETA you meant home button in Chrome. I don't think this was disabled by default, from what I can tell phone has been formatted before they gave it to me.)
As for safari's address bar, it tries and it does the eight thing: it shows the most important information and stops at that, knowing full well that showing more would look bad.
That's one of the indicators of good design decisions:.you.can see that a decision has been made.
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@kt_ no amount of "design" would convince me to pay 4x more for a phone that is locked in a walled garden.
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@Atazhaia I'm not aware of any case where apple would block an app because it didn't conform to some guidelines. I could be wrong here, though. It is true, however, that the average iOS app has much better design than the average Android app.
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@wharrgarbl said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ no amount of "design" would convince me to pay 4x more for a phone that is locked in a walled garden.
Nope. Top line of Android phones costs just a tad less than iPhones. You get what you pay for, though. Buy a budget Android phone and you're gonna suffer. Pay this tad less and you end app with awful Android that is pain to use on a day-to-day basis.
QED
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@Gąska said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@Atazhaia said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
I wish the stock Android experience out of the box would be an option on every device for those that don't want the vendor-specific bollocks.
coughcyanogenmodcough
Yeah, I understand that Nexus/Pixel is a better brand. But this is still Android, what I have. No Metter how you look at it.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Top line of Android phones costs just a tad less than iPhones.
Top of the line phones are bullshit, they only have slightly improvements over the middle end ones.
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@wharrgarbl said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
they only have slightly improvements over the middle end ones.
Actually receiving updates is more than a "slight improvement" if you ask me.
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@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Actually receiving updates is more than a "slight improvement" if you ask me.
Motorola updates their middle range better than Samsung updates their high end, at least that was my experience.
But I disagree with you on your premise, updates aren't worth a 4x in the price.
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@wharrgarbl my Motorola fried its mobo within half a year.
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On with the Gmail app. Man, is this a piece of shit!
So, take a look at this:
First take a look at the green circles. Why is there a silhouette of a person there? I can't click it, I can't do anything with it. All I can think of is, it's there to show a photo for this account. Why would it? The Black part holds my name and email address. Why would I also want a photo there that takes up a lot real estate and that makes the other part in the second green circle be unoccupied. Phone screens are small. Google's idea seems to be "well, let's make it seem even smaller!"
Then there's this fucking arrow. I can click it and I can hear a sound and then some stupid stuff happens I'm going to describe later. The thing is, if I click anywhere in its line (so the blue circle), and the same stuff wjll happen too, but I won't hear the sound. What, why? If it does the same thing, why does it behave in a different way?
Now, what could this arrow do? Well, it points downward so it probably reveals some super extra hidden functionality that's so important. Let's click it.
Yeah, it shows these two positions: to add account and to manage accounts. Two options in a totally different screen that I can get to by clicking an arrow pointing down. If this isn't awesome design, I don't know what is. I bet ux professionals must get instant orgasms, when they see this!
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@wharrgarbl said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Actually receiving updates is more than a "slight improvement" if you ask me.
Motorola updates their middle range better than Samsung updates their high end, at least that was my experience.
That's another thing, if these vendors are so shitty (they add bloatware, don't release updates, design phones as shitty as the one I got -- it's Xperia E2303, BTW), why do people buy their stuff?
They should be boycotted into the oblivion! (or at least Morrowind)
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It's funny how people keep downvoting my posts, yet no one has taken the time to defend these shitty design choices, which the most important that aren't about aesthetics are:
- Too large fonts and icons, that steal real estate
- Gmail app not being able to default to showing unread email, you need to use search function to get there (and wait a moment or two while the app actually performs the search!)
- Stolen real estate in the Gmail's drawer to show irrelevant stuff
- Inconsistent behaviour when clicking in the line of a completely devoid of meaning arrow icon
- Allowing apps to be preloaded without required authorizations
- Allowing apps to be preloaded, when they duplicate the existing functionality, ie take space and annoy users
Come on, these are so bad it's hard they go unnoticed. Oh, wait, they don't
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@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Actually receiving updates is more than a "slight improvement" if you ask me.
True. But that's no reason to buy a $900 Galaxy S8, that's a reason to buy a Nexus, or a Moto G. Maybe a Xiaomi or a Oneplus?
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@anonymous234 said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Actually receiving updates is more than a "slight improvement" if you ask me.
True. But that's no reason to buy a $900 Galaxy S8, that's a reason to buy a Nexus, or a Moto G. Maybe a Xiaomi or a Oneplus?
Yeah, I don't suppose anyone that read the Enlightened thread would ever buy anything from Samsung.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Yeah, it shows these two positions: to add account and to manage accounts. Two options in a totally different screen that I can get to by clicking an arrow pointing down. If this isn't awesome design, I don't know what is. I bet ux professionals must get instant orgasms, when they see this!
Maybe I'm biased due to having to shuffle between a dozen Google accounts on my desktop for quite a few years now, but I instantly recognized it as a quick way to switch accounts (if you have more than account, it lists them there above "Add account").
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@Gąska said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Yeah, it shows these two positions: to add account and to manage accounts. Two options in a totally different screen that I can get to by clicking an arrow pointing down. If this isn't awesome design, I don't know what is. I bet ux professionals must get instant orgasms, when they see this!
Maybe I'm biased due to having to shuffle between a dozen Google accounts on my desktop for quite a few years now, but I instantly recognized it as a quick way to switch accounts (if you have more than account, it lists them there above "Add account").
Seems like you've been well trained. Which doesn't help my case, but I still think that this icon is awful, doesn't provide any context and should have never made it into the official design.
Compare this with a pretty enigmatic icon for sharing in iOS:
https://d13yacurqjgara.cloudfront.net/users/69143/screenshots/1109014/ios7-share.png
It's not at all clear what it will do, but once you tap it and you see what happens you think "right!", not "WTF?!"
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Allowing apps to be preloaded without required authorizations
Did you know that a lot of Android phones come with several preloaded apps to do the same thing? Often one from Google and one from the manufacturer, less likely but sometimes there is a ASOP (Android open sorres) one or some crap from the provider. So nice that the crappy ones are granted rights by default.
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@Luhmann said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Allowing apps to be preloaded without required authorizations
Did you know that a lot of Android phones come with several preloaded apps to do the same thing? Often one from Google and one from the manufacturer, less likely but sometimes there is a ASOP (Android open sorres) one or some crap from the provider. So nice
Yeah, I used Android phones before so I was prepared for that. Still, I think it's an awful design and it makes for a very bad user experience.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
pretty enigmatic icon for sharing in iOS
I was expecting log-off or exit or something. This doesn't indicate sharing in anyway to me.
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@Luhmann said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
pretty enigmatic icon for sharing in iOS
I was expecting log-off or exit or something. This doesn't indicate sharing in anyway to me.
There's an arrow pointing outward from the box, which is your phone. It can do other stuff, too, but sharing is the most important.
You wouldn't have expected it to do any of the stuff you mentioned if you saw it in a context, like Safari menu bar.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
As for subjectivity, is searching for unread instead of convenient label freaking subjective?!
http://i.imgur.com/kd0avk3.png
But that's an Office 365 account. On my personal Gmail one, you don't have an Unread folder there.
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@Maciejasjmj said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
As for subjectivity, is searching for unread instead of convenient label freaking subjective?!
http://i.imgur.com/kd0avk3.png
But that's an Office 365 account. On my personal Gmail one, you don't have an Unread folder there.
btw, how is it that Microsoft makes so awesome applications for mobile and Google can't follow suit? Just look at the office apps, they're marvelous.
I've just installed Excel and it's consistent with the ios version and it's a joy to work with and beautiful to look at.
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@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Excel
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
beautiful to look at
Don't think I've ever seen these in the same sentence before
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@kt_ just had this thought. If Windows Phone is as good as Microsoft's mobile software, I understand why people around here are so devastated it got abandoned.
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@RaceProUK said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Excel
@kt_ said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
beautiful to look at
Don't think I've ever seen these in the same sentence before
Well, she is quite good-looking...
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The first positive experience with Android: setting up my Gmail account in outlook. My address was one of the dictionary suggestions in the suggestion bar, when I clicked next the oauth screen popped open, I clicked that I agreed and it got set up.
This was alright.
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@asdf said in I've been wronged. A tale of being forced to use Android:
Mobile Firefox
It is a good browser but nobody bothers checking if their site works in it.