Android Q Beta out now

[Corso Marche]

I opened the camera app on my Pixel 2XL today and discovered the stock camera app has updated to the same Google Camera 7.2 as the Pixel 4.
Which means I've lost burst mode, which I use regularly enough. Now I've two camera apps installed, and two camera icons within easy reach! The stock Google Camera, and Moment Pro for when I need quick burst.
I'm sure Google have stats to prove a minority of people use burst mode, but it'd be nice to have had the choice to configure whether holding the shutter button activated quick burst, or begins recording.

[AJB88]

Burst mode was annoying for me, One night phone was in car holder, it took 2000+ shots because one of the buttons was pressed by accident haha.

[Corso Marche]

• * WORD OF WARNING! ***

Exercise caution installing the Dec update on older Pixel devices if you used any early Pixel 4 software on them.

I had sideloaded the Pixel 4 launcher months ago, and am fairly certain it had updated via the Play Store since then. It definitely had no issues with the October and November updates.

But after the phone restart to complete the Dec update installation the Pixel 4 launcher kept crashing and relaunching, leaving the phone in this crash & relaunch ongoing loop where you can't do anything with it except interact with the notification drawer.

I remotely wiped the phone with a factory reset and then signed in and set it up again.
Only other apparent solution is using ADB commands to uninstall updates to Pixel launcher and then fingers crossed.
I did the remote factory reset out of expediency, as I hadn't time to be faffing about.

[AJB88]

my Pixel 4 hasn't even got the December update yet

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

• * WORD OF WARNING! ***

Exercise caution installing the Dec update on older Pixel devices if you used any early Pixel 4 software on them.

I had sideloaded the Pixel 4 launcher months ago, and am fairly certain it had updated via the Play Store since then. It definitely had no issues with the October and November updates.

But after the phone restart to complete the Dec update installation the Pixel 4 launcher kept crashing and relaunching, leaving the phone in this crash & relaunch ongoing loop where you can't do anything with it except interact with the notification drawer.

I remotely wiped the phone with a factory reset and then signed in and set it up again.
Only other apparent solution is using ADB commands to uninstall updates to Pixel launcher and then fingers crossed.
I did the remote factory reset out of expediency, as I hadn't time to be faffing about.

It's a common problem across the 2xl seemingly, had it this morning too and was on the cusp of factory resetting but found a Reddit post saying to hit app info on the launcher stopped popup then spam the buttons to hit the hamburger menu top right then spam again to uninstall updates - took me a few goes but got there. Had to reactivate Assistant and reset permissions to grant default to certain apps etc but saved a bloody factory reset!

Edited by stevoknevo on Tuesday 3rd December 15:34

[Corso Marche]

I'd tried that too. But hadn't time to stay persisting trying to get responses by pounding the App Info/Force Close buttons.
Hence I went for the remote factory reset. I executed the reset, then signed in on the phone again, opened the Play Store and selected the option to install all recent apps. Then got on with the other stuff I should've been doing! (I'd already lost 15 minutes trying to force close the Pixel Launcher, and wasn't going to lose any more!)

AJB88 said:

my Pixel 4 hasn't even got the December update yet

P4 doesn't receive the update until next week AFAIK.

Edited by Corso Marche on Tuesday 3rd December 16:17

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

I'd tried that too. But hadn't time to stay persisting trying to get responses by pounding the App Info/Force Close buttons.
Hence I went for the remote factory reset. I executed the reset, then signed in on the phone again, opened the Play Store and selected the option to install all recent apps. Then got on with the other stuff I should've been doing! (I'd already lost 15 minutes trying to force close the Pixel Launcher, and wasn't going to lose any more!)

AJB88 said:

my Pixel 4 hasn't even got the December update yet

P4 doesn't receive the update until next week AFAIK.

Edited by Corso Marche on Tuesday 3rd December 16:17

Fairy muff, I was still in bed and not for shifting! It's no big deal really now for a factory reset, but mines has been running brilliant/superb battery life and don't want to upset that if I can avoid it.
Thought this update had borked my mobile signal too, it had multiple reboots after the update but was showing nothing in the signal indicator, just the triangle outline, no X for no signal and I was still getting calls over WiFi - wasn't until I went out I realised I had no signal at all, but a reboot sorted it and it appears to be showing more of a signal than it was previously? (It rarely ever displays more than 2-3 bars wherever I go, but I had 3 instead of the usual 2 I get?)

[HannsG]

I have been under a rock.

Is this what will eventually be replacing android?

[stevoknevo]

HannsG said:

I have been under a rock.

Is this what will eventually be replacing android?

No, this is the latest revision of Android - all versions up until now had a letter that corresponded to a desert/sweet (éclair, ice cream sandwich, kit kat etc) this letter was Q and there was much speculation as to what it would be called? They called it Android 10. Boo, hiss...

Google Fuchsia has been the long mooted Android replacement.

Edited by stevoknevo on Tuesday 3rd December 22:47

[Corso Marche]

stevoknevo said:

It's no big deal really now for a factory reset, but mines has been running brilliant/superb battery life and don't want to upset that if I can avoid it.

Nearly one week now since the factory reset. Two things which I noticed;

• It took a few days for battery performance to return to previous levels, and it's pretty much there now just shy of a week later. On the first 100% charge it returned 17 hours uptime, then 24 hours, and so on. Now back around 33-34 hours, whereas before it was consistently 35-40 hours. Likely it'll continue to reach that level again in a few days. It's very interesting just how much predictability it can calculate on your phone use and subsequently adapt power management to suit.

• Storage - All I keep on internal storage are podcasts which have yet to be listened to, and Spotify playlists. So storage requirements don't change all that much over time. Pretty much everything is stored in the cloud and very little on the device. For the last couple of years internal storage has typically shown 87-92GB as being free. Now with the usual amount of music and podcasts stored on device it's varied between 107 and 108GB being available/free. Apps (current & removed) and previous OS updates obviously gobble up storage which doesn't get freed up again fully when you're finished with them. 15-20GB of storage seems a large chunk to lose over 3 years, even if it doesn't provide any benefit in my use case, it might very well make a big difference to others. I noticed the same on my old 6P after a reset. It had been running low on storage (32GB version) but since a reset 18 months ago it's maintained 14-15GB of free space.

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

stevoknevo said:

It's no big deal really now for a factory reset, but mines has been running brilliant/superb battery life and don't want to upset that if I can avoid it.

Nearly one week now since the factory reset. Two things which I noticed;

• It took a few days for battery performance to return to previous levels, and it's pretty much there now just shy of a week later. On the first 100% charge it returned 17 hours uptime, then 24 hours, and so on. Now back around 33-34 hours, whereas before it was consistently 35-40 hours. Likely it'll continue to reach that level again in a few days. It's very interesting just how much predictability it can calculate on your phone use and subsequently adapt power management to suit.

• Storage - All I keep on internal storage are podcasts which have yet to be listened to, and Spotify playlists. So storage requirements don't change all that much over time. Pretty much everything is stored in the cloud and very little on the device. For the last couple of years internal storage has typically shown 87-92GB as being free. Now with the usual amount of music and podcasts stored on device it's varied between 107 and 108GB being available/free. Apps (current & removed) and previous OS updates obviously gobble up storage which doesn't get freed up again fully when you're finished with them. 15-20GB of storage seems a large chunk to lose over 3 years, even if it doesn't provide any benefit in my use case, it might very well make a big difference to others. I noticed the same on my old 6P after a reset. It had been running low on storage (32GB version) but since a reset 18 months ago it's maintained 14-15GB of free space.

I'm sitting at 66% on storage, got 18gb music that I rarely use but like having it on there just because - I'm very proactive about managing stuff, if it's not getting used it gets deleted, and same once photos are backed up.
I'm down at 14h30m for battery life, but my healths been in the stter this year and I use it heavily all day long, still covers a full day fairly easily.
I'm slowly building towards a reset, need to look in to Duolingo not losing my data, every thing else can happily go.
It's not been quite right since the December update when I had to uninstall Pixel launcher updates to get the bugger to work properly - Assistant has been a bit wonky a few times because of it. And I've had a slight issue with portrait mode on the camera, bokeh hardly there on the right side of shots but may well be hardware related, it's been like that for a long time tbh.
And mobile signal strength indication has always been low, they had issues with it reading incorrectly on the betas but I've had quite a few no signal notifications since the update last week.
I've still got 6 months warranty, need to reset and see if it sorts it out or see about a replacement, but this one doesn't have anywhere near as bad as the reported screen issues others reported and I'd be gutted to get a duffer in return.

Feck it, I'll reset it this morning, give me something to do!

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

I opened the camera app on my Pixel 2XL today and discovered the stock camera app has updated to the same Google Camera 7.2 as the Pixel 4.
Which means I've lost burst mode, which I use regularly enough. Now I've two camera apps installed, and two camera icons within easy reach! The stock Google Camera, and Moment Pro for when I need quick burst.
I'm sure Google have stats to prove a minority of people use burst mode, but it'd be nice to have had the choice to configure whether holding the shutter button activated quick burst, or begins recording.

I've been using cstark27's latest Gcam port, you can add burst back, has astrophotography, super zoom, and a few other features - haven't noticed any difference in quality between this and stock 7.2.

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/cstark27/gcam-cstark...

[stevoknevo]

Totally nuked it and started fresh - spent this afternoon getting various apps not from the playstore on, setting everything back up etc, and it feels a bit zippier which I'm quite surprised at tbh as had no real issues or complaints.

See how it goes over the next week or so.

[Corso Marche]

stevoknevo said:

I've been using cstark27's latest Gcam port, you can add burst back, has astrophotography, super zoom, and a few other features - haven't noticed any difference in quality between this and stock 7.2.

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/cstark27/gcam-cstark...

Cheers, might have a go with that. I'd used a version from cstark earlier in November before the stock camera app had updated on the Pixel 2.

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

stevoknevo said:

I've been using cstark27's latest Gcam port, you can add burst back, has astrophotography, super zoom, and a few other features - haven't noticed any difference in quality between this and stock 7.2.

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/cstark27/gcam-cstark...

Cheers, might have a go with that. I'd used a version from cstark earlier in November before the stock camera app had updated on the Pixel 2.

It was the slightly older one I had been using until today, only realised it was different with all the new features when setting it up.

And I highly recommend YT Vanced - Youtube without the ads and background play. Download and install MicroG first if you want to login to your YT account, then either of the APKs below - only thing that's borked is notifications but if you leave them on in the official app you'll still get them https://vanced.app/nonroot

[stevoknevo]

stevoknevo said:

Totally nuked it and started fresh - spent this afternoon getting various apps not from the playstore on, setting everything back up etc, and it feels a bit zippier which I'm quite surprised at tbh as had no real issues or complaints.

See how it goes over the next week or so.

Battery life has been a fair bit worse than previously, still getting 7 hrs SOT but was 8.5 before and I'm having to give it a charge early evening - it did sort out a tiny niggle on the homescreen sometimes not registering a touch.

Picked up a really tidy original Pixel xl today for my Mum's Christmas from the kids - zero screen burn and less than 18 months old so hopefully the battery should be fine! Should be a decent step up from the Samsung J5 she has and hates - £90 delivered.

[Corso Marche]

Don't worry, the battery life will improve. Mine did, but took 10-12 days of use before it was back to where it was before the reset.
It's back between 35 and 40 hours now depending on use (having started at 17 hours after the reset).
I will admit I was nervous for a while after the reset, not knowing if/how it would impact battery life, but all is good now.

[stevoknevo]

Corso Marche said:

Don't worry, the battery life will improve. Mine did, but took 10-12 days of use before it was back to where it was before the reset.
It's back between 35 and 40 hours now depending on use (having started at 17 hours after the reset).
I will admit I was nervous for a while after the reset, not knowing if/how it would impact battery life, but all is good now.

Good to hear as that's a week today - I got 8hrs the first day and it's been dropping slightly each day, my use is fairly consistent but SOT never is, was getting 11+hrs a few weeks ago. It's been worth it though as performance has definitely improved a bit, probably from getting rid of the sideloaded stuff like being able to pull down anywhere on the homescreen etc that's now official. One thing I have noticed is that it's now never 100% when I pull it off the charger in the morning, usually 2-3% down and I'm probably losing nearly 30 minutes because of that - it must be fully charging then not kicking back in as it drops, no issue previously. And I'd forgotten to optimise apps for battery when setting up last week, only done it 3-4 days ago.

[TameRacingDriver]

I should add that I got my 2XL RMA'd and now I have a refurbed one it obviously includes a new battery, the battery life has got back to normal again, although I have been using dark mode almost exclusively.

I quite like it now, works really well. First time I've had my 2XL work as well as it has in over 2 years of ownership and its caused me to switch to a monthly contract rather than upgrade which I was going to do but the 4XL looks underwhelming.

[stevoknevo]

TameRacingDriver said:

I should add that I got my 2XL RMA'd and now I have a refurbed one it obviously includes a new battery, the battery life has got back to normal again, although I have been using dark mode almost exclusively.

I quite like it now, works really well. First time I've had my 2XL work as well as it has in over 2 years of ownership and its caused me to switch to a monthly contract rather than upgrade which I was going to do but the 4XL looks underwhelming.

Been considering RMA'ing mine for a while, still under warranty until July but the camera doesn't blur/bokeh correctly on the right side of photos in portrait mode; there's also a tiny feint bit of screen burn on the right and near the top, only noticeable on white backgrounds if you look for it, and I use dark mode for as much as possible. I'll do it at some point but fear getting a duffer back!