I don’t and I wish I had known about them when they were still a thing.
What other forgotten accessory or innovation in Android history do you wish had taken off or would come back?
I don’t and I wish I had known about them when they were still a thing.
What other forgotten accessory or innovation in Android history do you wish had taken off or would come back?
I still have mine! In a drawer. Somewhere.
Home screen widgets are basically the same thing. The issue with these is NFC doesn’t work unless the phone is unlocked, or you rooted it to allow NFC all the time.
I dislike the hassle rooting has become. I have to weigh the benefits vs. managing my banking apps, etc.
Plus, honestly, there’s not as much benefit as there used to be. I used to root so I could install that app that red-tinted the display. That’s been built into stock Android for a while now. I also liked making the navigation buttons smaller and trying different gesture systems, but imo stock Android gestures leave everything else I tried in the dust. Theming? I only ever used OLED themes, and most Android phones and applications have an option for that now. One by one over the last few years almost every justification I had for rooting was rendered moot. Then Android phones started doing that a/b partition thing and it was just too much of a pita for not much benefit
I like the gestures but the app edge gestures just does it better and it is fully customizable. I can’t even use a phone without it now. It’s super intuitive plus I have gestures to call or text certain people, open apps, flashlight etc… check it out if you haven’t it’s tits
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.edgegestures
There’s also [One Hand Operation +] (https://galaxystore.samsung.com/detail/com.samsung.android.sidegesturepad) for Galaxy users.
That’s pretty similar to edge gestures but I don’t have a galaxy so haven’t tried it. Thanks for sharing!
Google removed a lot of tasker functionality with the recent versions. Can’t even toggle wifi with an unrooted device anymore
I switched to iOS a while ago so I’m able to keep my Android phone on an old crusty version of Android that still does what I want. Plus it’s rooted so I can really do whatever. “This app won’t run on future versions of Android” won’t apply if you never update *taps head*
What about ad-blocking? DNS based solutions are far behind the root-based ones
Oh yeah, I remember I used to use AdAway! Tbh, these days I have ublock origin in Firefox and if I really care about an app I’ll purchase the ad-free version, otherwise I just won’t keep it installed. So all in all, I don’t see very many ads
A recent discovery of mine is KSU (Kernel Superuser) which is almost as powerful as Magisk, but undetectable by banking apps. So you’re good as long as your banking app checks for root, and not for bootloader lock. Used it for couple months now and only Google Wallet was angry about it