How do we not have an Android phone thread yet?

[Tom Servo]

That's not a great sign for the ancient aftermarket infotainment system on our RAV. Once we get out of this "don't buy a car right now whatever you do" mode, we'll be able to get something with a less ancient and hopefully more reliable one.

[TheBenior]

And of course it was connecting just fine today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Tom Servo]

Got it a couple of hours ago, and really liking it so far. It's damn snappy compared to my Pixel 3 XL and I'm impressed at how much the higher refresh rate on the screen is noticeable. Given that I already thought my Pixel 3 XL was sometimes too big, I'm glad I didn't go with the 6 Pro as this is almost exactly the same size as the 3XL.

Fingerprint reader has been surprisingly good given all the things I'd read about it. I'm installing the latest update now, but even out of the box it seems pretty decent. Not quite as good as the dedicated one on the back of the 3 XL, and I would have liked to see them keep a dedicated reader on the back as well as having the image-based one in the front, but oh well.

Most things transferred over really easily. I was super pleased with how easy it was to transfer over all my Google Authenticator 2FA tokens. It would not have been as easy if my old phone wasn't functional, that would have lead to a lot of pain in that case. I do think my "2FA for all the things" did lead to it not automatically logging me in to most things. Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, etc, everything needed to be signed into again. Facebook was also a bit of a pain when it came to my hardware keys, it kept wanting to "pair" with my USB-C one and then rejected my NFC key. Ended up using a GA 2FA key to login and that worked well enough, but gotta figure out what's going on there. Took me maybe 10-15 minutes to get my work Okta and GSuite access moved over. Pixel Buds transferred over just fine, though I haven't tried my fancier noise-canceling headphones yet.

I've felt for a while like Pixel phones were too expensive for what you got, but I was willing to deal with that in exchange for not getting things like Samsung's weird operating system that's continually attempting to get you to buy what's essentially DLC. This one feels like a hell of a lot better phone than I'd expect for the price.

EDIT: Also, while I never hated the notch for the notch's sake, I did hate how much of the notification area it took up. It's almost a little thrill to be able to see more than three notifications at any given time.

[Tom Servo]

Wanted to second the "impressed by the pixel buds" thing. They've easily been the best bluetooth headphones I've had outside of the Bose 700's that I use for meetings.

An Android update came out yesterday that supposedly fixes some Bluetooth issues for the Pixel 6. Michele's been having a ton of issues with that, where it'll connect to a bluetooth device but then refuse to play audio through it, so hopefully that's fixed. Mine's been pretty rock solid, so no complaints here. I actually wonder if Michele's issues are due to the janky JVC head unit we put in the RAV - that thing has always had some seriously dodgy bluetooth support that only works if you wave a dead chicken over it, so I wouldn't be shocked if it's somehow triggering a bug in the bluetooth stack.

[Tom Servo]

My wife lost her pixel buds case, and it turns out you can't just buy a replacement. Given that the pixel buds pro were coming out just afterwards, I gave my wife my case and ordered a set of the pros.

I like them. A lot. They sound great, bass response is quite good, and the active noise canceling works great. I think my main complaint at this point is that the "transparent" mode is about as good as old-school non-ANC headphones in that you still can't really hear what's happening outside, but if you pause whatever you're listening to, it comes through loud and clear. I was worried that the lack of the "ear hook" would make them/ feel unstable, but so far they feel stable and more comfortable than the pixel buds I was using. They also came with a little case to hold the other earpieces you're not using, which is nice.

With ANC on, at home they filter out noise as well as my Bose 700's. Complete isolation. In a month, I'll get a chance to see how they stack up while flying on an Airbus.

[Freude am Fahren]

Yeah, my girlfriend lost her Galaxy Buds case. Turns out it went through the wash and wouldn't work anymore, but you can't buy it either either. Found a third party one on amazon for about $25. I think she said it won't hold a charge itself to charge on the go, but at least can be used to charge when plugged in and to carry them.

Then she lost one of the buds...

[CudaMan]

Nice. ANC headphones are fantastic for flying - I've never tried buds but I like cords and replaceable batteries so I will probably keep using cans. My Bose QC15s are disintegrating their second set of earcups now which made me look at the market again for alternatives, I figure some things may have changed in the last 10 years. The new Sony XM4/XM5 models look intriguing. I've been happy with the reliability of my Bose headphones but their sound quality has always been very average to my ears. I really liked the old Denon ANC headphones I had before, but after going through 3 pairs under warranty in less than a year I gave up. Their electronics quality control was just not up to par.

Back on topic, I've looked into this a couple times and have never found a satisfactory workaround: is there a way for Android user Me to not screw up group texts with a bunch of Apple users? I'm actually considering an iPhone just because of this but realistically I don't think I want to spend that kind of coin to lose a headphone jack and an all-day battery.

[Tom Servo]

Oh yeah, I would not swap the pixel buds pros for my Bose 700 headphones for things like flying. Agreed that the sound quality isn't amazing, but the noise cancellation sure is, and also when it comes to noise cancelling for the microphone as well. I've had meetings where there's construction going on and people I'm talking to can't hear it.

I actually haven't really had any issues doing group texts with some of the people using iPhones, or at least nobody's complained to me about it. I just use the standard messaging app. What's getting screwed up?

[CudaMan]

Videos come through as potato-phone garbage for one. It happens to everyone in the group text if just one person is on Android. Also iMessage or whatever iPhones use has reactions like FB Messenger or Instagram does, and if an iPhone user reacts with a like or whatever, it comes through as a re-sent text that says:

Liked "Whatever the text was."

Instead of just putting the reaction on the text. So everyone gets a lot of extra texts and the whole experience is messier than it needs to be.

In my research it has to do with Apple using one text messaging standard and Android using another, and neither party being willing or able to work with the other or create a universal standard.

I tried a Google-made messaging app on my Samsung phone and it was prettier but didn't change the fundamental problem and it stopped working after a day anyway.




Good call on ANC buds for meetings, especially if there's a mode where you can still hear outside noises but people on the other end can't.

[Tom Servo]

Ahh, yeah, I run into those things too. The reaction thing is that Apple chose to add their own "standards" onto the SMS standards and basically has a vested interest in making it be annoying if you don't pony up and buy one of their phones.

The video thing I have not been able to figure out. In my experience, that doesn't even need an iPhone to be involved, just Android sends shit videos over SMS.

I think the thing is that we'll all need to start using a non-SMS app like WhatsApp or whatever, but for whatever reason people still really like texting. At any rate, sadly, I do not have a solution for either of those issues when it comes to SMS.