Hi all. On my Pixel phone I have the accessibility option for font size and display size turned up a notch or two but noticed that not all of the text in Tildes adheres to this. Some front page topic text is bigger, some of them remain small.

Is this something that can be quickly tested and fixed if it's a bug? It might drive poor sighted people away from the site.

I'm assuming it's not me, as my Pixel 7 is quite new .... but I am on the Android beta program.

Can anyone else try and see if it's a localised issue or more global?

I can post screen shots of needed but not sure what image sharing sites you prefer to use in here!

Edit:

Fixed with a chrome flag....

the text-scaling is being replaced by the "Accessibility Page Zoom" feature (currently hidden behind the feature flag in chrome://flags)

Hi
Android Mozilla browsers with access to about:config.
Examples are...
Firefox Beta
and
Firefox Nightly

Back in the day there were lots of config tweaks for PC Firefox.
But there's not much config information about Android Firefox.

I found these two posts on Reddit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/11shvus/fixing_performance_problems_in_firefox_on_android/

https://www.reddit.com/r/browsers/comments/1278zp5/improving_performance_in_firefox_android_part_ii/

Does anybody here have other about:config suggestions?

The Verge, Washington Post, CNET, Engadget reviews

RIP to my Pixel Fold: Dead after four days

Haven't had time to go through all the reviews but as it's a major new device from Google I thought there might be some interest here.

For most of my life, I've been a hobbyist programmer. From Qbasic to Python and JavaScript. I've always wanted to create an Android app, really just for me, just to do it. It's a bucket list thing.

Can you give me a book or a website guide that is up to date and complete but not 100,000 pages long that could help me get it done? A book would be preferred! I just want to cross this off my list!

Hi all, first post so hope I do it right.

I just read the Tasker post and thought I'd post a question/request here about it.

On my old Samsung S21 I wrote a simple Tasker script that detected a change in volume on one of the sliders, eg Media, and then adjusted the others, IE System, Notification and Call, to match with a little check, ie %VOLM neq %VOLR.

It worked fine in my Samsung but goes all over the place on my new Pixel!

Has anyone else seen this or can post something that works on Pixels? Or maybe my scripts need some work!

The trigger is variable set, IE VOLM, and the actions are to set the other 3 volumes to VOLM if they are not already set to that. And I have 4 of those, one for each variable.

And advice appreciated!

I just recently joined Tildes (absolutely loving it so far, by the way) and also recently left Reddit.

r/Tasker will probably be the hardest for me to let go of since I'm an avid Tasker fan/user, so I'm just trying to gauge the audience for that type of discussion and topics here on Tildes.

I'm not as big of a power user in phone automation as I would like to become but I'm fairly savvy and am learning more all the time.

To set the stage, I've always been a fan of non-nonsense reliable phones. My cellular usage started with a Nokia brick, moved on to a few Motorolo flip phones, then entered the Blackberry world as soon as data service become available in my area. With the demise of RIM, I went o a Moto X, made a misstep in to the Samsung world, then to a Pixel, a Pixel 3XL, and now a Pixel 7 Pro.

I only made the jump to the 7 Pro due to the 3XL starting to show it's age. The charging part wouldn't always connect, the battery would barely make it through the day, and the case was starting to fall apart. Of within three days of removing the case I dropped the phone, cracking the glass back....

The 7 Pro is awful to hold, without a case. I was waiting a week for the Spigen Liquid Air case to show up, and during the time I hated using the phone. The camera bulge felt awkward and sharp, the surfaces were slippery and the phone would slide around. The rounded edges of the screen would produce phantom taps, just all around a bad experience. Now that I've added the case though, it feels a whole lot better.

The user experience has been fairly good, thought not without some annoying bugs. I did the migration from my old Pixel to my new one, and while it did a reasonably job, preserving the launcher layout etc, the app installation process was strange. Google Play tried to install all the apps, but was stalled. I had to tap on each app to manually install them, they were just sitting there "Pending...", whether I was on battery or charger, WiFi or mobile. Once everything installed, and I added my accounts, it was fine, and now apps auto-update.

Notifications are acting a bit funny with Reddit is Fun, although that won't be an issue for much longer :-(. If I get notified of Mod Mail and a Message in RiF, tapping the notification message does nothing. This worked fine on the 3XL. I've also had one spontaneous reboot, and one night where the phone was plugged in, but decided not to charge. Lots of people complained about heat issues, which was a problem for me on the 3XL, but only in extreme cases. After sitting out in full sun with the 7 Pro, I'd say it is about the same, possibly a bit better regarding it's overheating. Many people also reported that the phone would feel warm/hot in their hands for the first few days as it "learned" your behavior. Never experienced that. Battery life and (lack of) heat levels have remained the same.

I am looking for a wi-fi tablet for singing from pdf sheet music on a shared Google Drive. The phone is too small of a screen.

In the past, tablets at this price are often junk, already end-of-life, and run so badly they are unusable (balky when simply scrolling). So, I am still using paper for now, afraid to buy yet another disappointing piece of junk despite not needing anything high end.

Any suggestions?

I'm getting on a 5 hour flight later today. I've got my Android phone (S22 Ultra) and cheap Android tablet (Lenovo P11 G2) with me. What are some of your favourite games you'd recommend to pass the time?

Because I'll be on a plane they'll have to playable without an internet connection. I also don't have any controllers with me, so would prefer games with decent touch controls. I'm open to any genre, but I particularly like RPGs. Thank you in advance!

If this is against the rules, I'm sorry and I'll take it down immediately. I just found it easier to use an app instead of going to the website every time I want to check out Tildes. I didn't actually make it myself, I just used this website: https://gonative.io, so if this gets taken down you can just use that link to make one for personal use. It's on Google Drive so I think it automatically gets scanned for viruses if you're worried about that.

Here is the link to the APK: https://goo.gl/Ynu4c7

I know a lot of people have been asking for an app, if just for a home screen/app drawer icon, so I cobbled together a small WebView wrapper that installs on your phone as an app.

It's for Android only (sorry iOS users) and probably will receive very little support, since I'm not an Android developer! In fact, this is just a fork of the vastly more capable woheller69's gptAssist, ported over to support Tildes and with some limiting functionality removed. Absolutely check out some of their stuff! My app and the original gptAssist are both licensed under the GPLv3. If anyone would like to contribute, please do! In fact, if you're an Android dev, feel free to fork and make it much better.

I absolutely appreciate the design philosophy of the Tildes devs and think that a WebView wrapper is a good compromise between having an app and using the thoughtfully-built website. If you're anything like me, you just like being able to tap on an icon to get to where you're going. I put this together with that in mind.

After 11 years of life, Google Authenticator has added cloud backups for OTP keys in version 6.0.

Google Security Blog: Google Authenticator now supports Google Account synchronization

This is surprising news to me, because historically Authenticator had no way to backup keys by design. Here's a 2017 quote from a Google engineer who maintains Authenticator:

There is by design NO account backups in any of the apps. ^[source]

This design choice always made sense to me, as the point of 2FA is that you've got (1) something you know, and (2) something you have. The second factor should be tied to a physical device. If you lose the physical device, the second factor should be gone, and you'll need to use one of those 10-ish backup codes that we all definitely keep somewhere safe. I'm quite befuddled that Google is reversing this design choice and walking back their previously strong, security-centric design for the sake of user convenience in the case of a lost phone. I used to advise my friends and family to choose Google Authenticator over Authy for this specific reason.

If you want further reading, here's a PCWorld article with an altogether different tone than Google's announcement: Google Authenticator’s long-awaited cloud 2FA feature carries hidden risk

I know very little about Linux but have a good overall level of technical aptitude.

I have a device called an eDrumin 10 which uses an app to change the internal settings. https://www.audiofront.net/downloads.php I would like to use the control app from a tablet, but would prefer not to buy a ipad if I don't need to. Would it be possible to run the Linux version from an Android tablet?

I'm spending time at a new city and Google Maps is shit for walking. It's hard to say exactly what's wrong with it, everything feels wrong. Car centric logic just doesn't work for walking I guess (yes I'm using the walking mode). It feels bad, unreliable, and I'm lost all the time. Yesterday I ended up 2 hours away from my destination and had to call an Uber (big humiliation!). Walking is my preferable way of urban exploration and I hate talking to strangers.

What I want is a simple compass that tells me "go to that general direction and you'll get there". No map, no street names. Just an arrow and a linear distance (like, in a straight line). Like a videogame. Without foreknowledge, street names are just confusing and unnecessary. I can handle the route myself.

Does such an app exists?

I've been enjoying Legends of Runeterra for the last couple of years. It's a collectible card game with really nice art and voice work. I'm not a very competitive person, but I put up with the deckbuilding and competitive bits because I enjoyed the gameplay.

About a year ago Riot added a new PvE mode where instead of playing against humans, you play against increasingly difficult AI decks. Every few wins you get your choice of 3 random passive abilities, some of which can dramatically increase the power of your deck for the rest of the run--kind of a roguelike twist on the CCG formula. This has completely spoiled me--I enjoy it far more than LoR's base gameplay. Unfortunately, despite the popularity of the new mode, Riot made the inexplicable decision to give it only token support, focusing instead on PvP.

I've mostly run out of content for the new game mode, and I'm wondering if another game has something that will scratch the same itch. I'm looking for PvE games with deep gameplay and good production values that aren't too fast-paced or actiony. Bonus points if the game gets new content occasionally. Extra bonus points if it has a good story. Any of y'all have a favorite?

Starting on Thursday night, Twitter cut off API access for some of the biggest third party clients.

From The Verge:

It’s hard to tell whether the third-party client outage is due to the API. Attempting certain calls from my individual Twitter developer account seemed to work, while Twitter’s own API explorer tool is currently broken.

It definitely seems like it is on purpose. For it to last this long without any update definitely makes it feel like it was done on purpose. Many developers' apps have started showing up as "suspended". In looking at my own account, I can see that both Tweetbot and Fenix are gone from my list of connected apps.

The Icon Factory (makers of Twitteriffic) have a blog post about it as well.

The complete silence from Twitter is completely baffling. Burning more than a decade of working with developers overnight seems incredibly stupid. As Paul Hadad, one of the makers of Tweetbot said:

Even during the darkest Twitter 1.0 days they were pretty open about what they were doing. I remember getting a call prior to the 4 quadrants token limit where they explained what was going to happen and answered questions. I wasn't happy but at least felt there was respect.

(apologies if this isn't the correct place to ask, I'm just a bit out of ideas)
(content warning for abusive parents)

I have a friend who's abusive parents track her location using the stalkerware app life360.

she currently runs graphene os (android 13) on a pixel 7 pro.

in my past android experience there are plenty apps that can spoof your location via developer settings. however they all crash on android 13 (or at least on graphene..)

see below (none of these work, and they also crash on my android 13 phone, but they have worked for me in the past on like android 9):
https://github.com/mcastillof/FakeTraveler
https://github.com/wesaphzt/privatelocation
https://github.com/warren-bank/Android-Mock-Location
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lexa.fakegps&gl=US

if there are no functioning apps that will do this. do you know any other solutions? on other android roms or with root with magisk / xposed? obviously this is less secure than graphene os but the current problem is her parents more than anything else.

we r also considering a secondary phone just for the stalkerware which can be opportunistically left in innocent places. or just killing the life360 app on occasion when needed. or just letting the phone die when it needs to. But not sure how obvious this might be to the abusers. any insight is appreciated.

(suggestions like "leave her parents" are good but far easier said than done and while it will eventually happen its not feasible at the moment. That being said if you can provide detail suggestions are welcome)

Thanks :)

I've been slowly more frustrated by the Spotify client updates particularly on android and short of getting all my music offline which I'd like to do eventually I want an alternative client that isn't going to change the layout constantly and make listening to the music I want to listen to any more difficult than it should be.

I'd also like to filter out podcasts if possible because I have my way of listening to podcasts and spotify filling my home screen with them isn't going to make me any more likely to use them. Especially if they keep fucking pushing podcast episodes featuring deceased family members just to ruin my morning.

I am considering the purchase of a Garmin GPS watch, but I don't want to run the bloated Garmin Connect app on my phone. Really all I want, is the ability to pull coordinates from my watch (.gpx files) and put them on my phone or computer. Does a privacy-respecting app like this exist?

Having been on Android since day 1, I've had to pick up an iphone for work purposes recently. It's a great, high end one. The hardware is clearly fantastic.

But the software. How do people put up with this? I've been trying to get accustomed to it, but it's so clearly lackluster.

Aside from a plethora of minor issues I've been encountering, what's most unbelievable to me is how clear the lock-in is all over the place.

Things like the story about all browsers having to use the Safari view really seep out, for example I can't change the launcher/home screen to something that doesn't suck (lets me position things around and doesn't have the display density of a toddler's typewriter).

And then it was a chore to even figure out how to disable iMessage (unpopular in Europe) so I'm only sending sms via the .. sms app.

Incompatibilities all over the place. Hotspot sharing doesn't work across my 6T and iPhone, it looks like iOS hotspots are again some kind of proprietary crap. Pictures and videos being in not quite standard formats. AirPods sound quality only being decent in the Apple ecosystem as well; couldn't release an Android app to support whatever Bluetooth enhancements they're doing?

And of course, the Lightning connectors which only exist in the apple ecosystem. I agree they feel better than usb-c even, but, more of those same incompatibilities.

It almost feels like a parallel universe where everything works slightly differently, and doesn't quite have as many freedoms.

I can't deny there's some nice things in there. I actually like Safari's hold-preview for example. I also appreciate the very fine grained permission system and warnings such as "such and such app has been accessing location in the background a lot". And FaceID is really well built. But, whew, i do not know how so many people swear by it.

Some things are just different and that's okay, but some things are shockingly inferior and incompatible Just Because, and that feels super insulting 🙃

Thanks for hearing my rant.