Ask Android

I quite like my launcher, but unfortunately it's closed sourced and employs some unsavoury features, despite being paid, it's limited in how many devices it can be installed on and it nags users for staying on old versions.

The issue I'm having is that recently bugs have been introduced. Widgets get randomly greyed out and I need to turn off and on the screen for them to become usable again. Also the launcher keeps appearing in Android's recent apps screen.

I find both of these things frustrating and have attempted to ask a couple times about the status of the launcher. The first time I was flat out ignored and the second time I was lambasted by a community member to not ask for ETAs. I'm not sure how asking if they're still working on things is asking for an ETA, but whatever.

I bought a lifetime license and so I can't even act like I'm paying for this, but I do feel that my purchase at least entitles me to know if development is ongoing or do I have unreasonable expectations? I'm not asking for a when, just whether or not something is happening. Especially considering these bugs were only introduced when the launcher started trying to do too much and add features that should be handled by the OS rather than the launcher, namely a "usage breaker".

So, recently I read an article stating that apps can still access installed apps on your phone as long as they list the apps in their manifest or use intent based hacks. Unfortunately, the app I use to restrict permissions (App OPS) does not have any measure against this.

Is there anything that can be done from adb, etc to restrict an app's ability to view other apps?

The article in question, it talks about indian apps but the info it shared should apply globally: https://peabee.substack.com/p/everyone-knows-what-apps-you-use

I recently installed graphene on a new to me phone. I am attempting to use a product called SMS Backup and Restore to more some things over from my old phone, but cannot do so because it needs to be set as a default app and my phone denies that. Warning photo attached.

I poked around in Matrix but didn't see any mention of this but am pretty unfamiliar with how to use Matrix.

Any graphene users have advice? It seems like it must be so simple and the graphene and other forums mention using this software. I have allowed all visible permissions for now, and all seeming relevant ones for the google support programs.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/41715084

Not exactly "news" but the recent Samsung Galaxy Ax6 phones (A26, A36, A56) all does not have the MicroSD card slot, only the Galaxy A16 still has it.

I fucking hate this. I love having a mini-TV with me. I can load up a Terabyte of TV shows I love rewatching. You know, maybe you travel or something. Also, good for recording like a lot of videos. Now, new Samsung phones cannot do that anymore.

Sorry for the rant, but honestly, I have to vent: Fuck Samsung. Fuck this capitalist bullshit.

I'm thinking of stop buying Samsung for the future, but honestly, other manufacturers might follow suit, so it ultimately might not matter. I hate this bullshit. I will carry a portable SSD if I have to, I ain't buying your stupid cloud. I'm broke AF and I don't got no money for subscriptions. (Also, they could hold your data hostage and refuse access for random "ToS" violations)

What are your thoughts? What's the future of MicroSD card slots in phones?

(future looks so bleak)

Device: Ulefone Armor 24 (cheap-ish Chinese brand)

The default audio quality is absolutely awful. It's like this everywhere, including the default camera app.
The issue shows up with external microphone as well.

Basically it sounds like over-compressed audio that gets easily beaten with 22.5kHz 64kbps MP3 (comparing to what I listened to recently).

I've found this audio recorder app that allows selecting audio source manually, including "unprocessed" audio: https://gitlab.com/axet/android-audio-recorder
The result is far better.

Audio recording samples

I just recorded music playing from my laptop, so yeah, the audio source isn't that great either, but you can hear the artifacts there.
Both were recorded lossless.

Default

https://files.catbox.moe/e33ufc.wav [2.7MiB]

https://files.catbox.moe/d2n7sg.flac [1.4MiB] - converted to FLAC for in-browser playback

Unprocessed

https://files.catbox.moe/xf9ab8.flac [2MiB]

---

Basically, it's just missing some noise-cancelling, but other than that, it's far better.

I don't care if disabling that potentially screws up phone calls, I don't like those anyway.

I am looking for a smartphone that is a music player at the same time, I want the device to have physical buttons for play/stop next/previous song. I can find android devices that are music players with physical buttons but are not smartphones.

I downloaded and successfully setup buzzkill. Then a day or two later found FilterBox. It was created at the same time as buzzkill but has AI spam filtering – I'm guessing a traditional algorithm for spam filtering used in emails and not an an actual LLM.

So, why is it not recommended more instead of buzzkill.

Tap for spoiler

On ~~reddit~~..

It also has a nice UI and supports analytics for your notifications history. Also has double the downloads of buzzkill. Although, buzzkill has a simple UI.

The algorithm spam filtering which is based on your recommendation is neat. Especially, since you do not need to manually create rules for each and every spam message/notification across messaging apps.

What are your thoughts?

Since I just paid for buzzkill and did a thorough setup I hesitate to jump ship. But, spam filtering is enticing. For those 10-20% of use cases which cannot be filtered by regular rules unless you keep on adding more.

It only shows Drive (for each account), Bug Reports (?) and System Traces (?). Of course, I just restarted my phone to see if it fixed it. It did, but as soon as I try a second time it's gone again.

I mention Discord but I'm pretty sure this file picker screen is not directly associated with Discord.

Update: This is affecting a friend of mine as well in the same way from the same time. Haven't determined if it's just Discord yet.

Update 2: Alright, if I scroll to the photos instead of selecting "files" then go to "all albums" I see Google Photos. Not sure what changed to make it like this but at least now I know.

The sync developer has been MIA for a long time (1 year or longer) and I fear it will stop working sooner or later when Lemmy instances start updating to v1.0 in future.

I use Sync because it has a nice Material you theme, is smooth, supports caching posts & media offline (also keeps the comments, posts loaded even if android reclaims memory from the app)

I can open posts, comments, and even communities in a seperate window if I choose to do so.

Anything with multi window support out there yet? I used voyager for posting. But, want sync like multi window capabilities.

My uncle just belled me to say that the define option has disappeared from his phone when selecting words and it's only happening since switching to his S25+. The option is always there on my Pixel, any idea how to restore it?

Title. The app is incredibly slow to respond to inputs and periodically freezes. Not sure why.

So, an ac​quain​tance of mine has a malware which shows an ad every once a while especially when you install apps.

It's hiding in settings with an icon and name called "Settings". It has no icon in the launcher. It cannot be uninstalled. It has acquired device admin settings and even that cannot be revoked. Google play protect warns of this malware but even play protect does not have enough permissions to actually remove it for good.

I tried to enable developer options to nuke it via adb. Unfortunately, developer options are blocked with a pop-up saying Device managed by your organization.

Outside of official service center visit. Or reflashing the stock firmware. Are there any ways the malware can be deleted?

I have advised to get it fixed from the place he bought.

Hello,

so I am using Android Studio to emulate a Pixel 9. I can manually set up a #location #mock after each power up. But I want to to it consistently.

I already added

geo fix geo fix -121.45356 46.51119 4392 to emu-launch-params.txt but it was just removed automatically.

I could write a script starting telnet... but I don't want to. How to use it out of the box?

Thank you

Ever since we've gone to hybrid working, I've been having to deactivate work notifications and enable game notifications back and forth and it's driving me nuts.

I have a Pixel 9 Pro XL and would like a way to allow app notifications to come through based on a variable that I can control. At my disposal I have Tasker and Home Assistant but can't find a way to perform automations to enable or disable specific app notifications.

Is there a way to do this? I have to imagine other people have this problem.

Hey y'all,

There's currently a sale on the Samsung S10+ tablet which I decided to buy out of curiosity. I am absolutely blown away by how good the screen is. I currently own a Pixel 9 so I'm definitely an AMOLED snob and the Samsung software has come a long way. Dex is also a great feature.

However I find it to be a bit too big and heavy with a case and the one accessory which solves the problem the official keyboard case, is 200+ dollars. I am considering returning it as it's a pretty massive investment for what is essentially a YouTube machine.

I just wanted to crowdsource some opinions and see what my options are. I'm considering waiting for an S9 to go on sale instead but the S9 won't be supported as long as the S10+. The pixel tablet is also on sale so it's an option if I can live with a 60hz screen.

What the title says. When it reboots, the screen just turns black without any warning or pop up windows. (Though I think I have seen a very dim flash of a red warning strip across the screen one time when using it in the dark.)

I also have a suspicion that the power button might be failing. I generally have to click it harder for it to lock the screen now, and sometimes it opens up the power menu when I only clicked it once.
Would a failing/stuck power button also cause this rebooting behavior?

Thanks!

Edit: Thanks for the help, guys! I think I'll get my phone checked for a stuck power button some time. Shame I use it often for the camera shortcut.

Hello, everyone!

I have an issue with transferring files. So, when I connect my phone with my PC, the phone detects PC, but not the other way around. Although when I try to use adb, it sees my phone as a connected device. I have tried switching cables and ports, but nothing seems to work. And the funny thing is that it worked before, but it just suddenly stopped working. Any help is highly appreciated!

PC is on Linux Mint 22.1 Phone is Pixel 8 Pro on GrapheneOS.

Thanks!

I am interested in installing a de-googled android on my phone, but I would like to try it out a little bit first. Is there some way to emulate a phone on my PC, or is there anything like dual booting on phones?

Looking for a clean way to display newest article on RSS feed.

It's fine via Termux, but I don't seem to be able to do it at all via the new Android 15 Terminal that's running Debian.

I’m new to android. (Default android 13, not looking to install custom ROMs because I need this to be very functional and dont have time to deal with bugs).

Anyways, I’ve installed F-Droid, Helix Keyboard and my go to VPN app.

What next? What browser, third party YT player, torrent client, jellyfin client (I’m deaf so need one with opensubtitle integration), email clients, rss aggregator, note taking apps etc. should I install? I’m paralysed by choice.

Is there an equivalent to the ios shortcuts app?

Anyways, I’ll be happy to try out any suggestions. Cheers.

F-Droid has been giving me some issues for a few days (that I've noticed). It crashes immediately upon opening. Sometimes I will see it open for less than one second before it crashes, but usually it just goes right to a crash submittal screen. I want to reinstall it, but am unsure how to handle all my apps. Will it just pick them back up? I don't really know how to troubleshoot this, I am open to alternative paths!

Like the Meebok M7 which runs Android 11. I know most apps support Android 9 as minimum, but how future proof will Android 11 be for these coming 5 years for example? I know it went EOL like last year. I could go for the Meebook M8 with Android 14, but it's much more expensive..

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/8317927

I have stuff I've prepared to help my family with what is coming, info, steps to take, articles and other sources and evidence, etc. Its in multiple formats. What's the best and/or easiest way to move it to SNote or another E2EE app?