Hey all,
Over here in Australia (imagine in USA and a few other countries), the 3G/2G mobile networks are being shutdown. My carrier Vodafone is gradually shutting its down with Dec 15th 2023 being the final closure date. The 4G network will have VolTE but my device (LG V20) does not appear to support VolTE nor does it look like i can update the firmware easily (if at all) to do so.
Anyone else have this issue with their phone? (i realise it will be older ones)
Question about VolTE though - will sms and standard voice calling still work on 4G on my device or similar devices without VolTE ?.
thanks
Nig

I have a quandary. Even with a decent android keyboard (Typewise offline keyboard), I still find myself hampered by gettingnanstringnofnwordsnwhereni miss the space bar. Sometimes I miss n "A" key. I am very out put by my likelihood of getting "out" when I meant "put" and vice versa.

I am becoming a part time worker / primary parent while my wife goes back to a full time job, which means I do a lot of waiting in places where I'm typing extended sections of text (like this one) in places where its not really practical or appropriate to pull out a laptop.

What I really want is a physical keyboard for my phone. It seems like there are a lot of folding and non-folding options that are meant to work on a table with the phone as a screen. But if I could do that, I could pull out my laptop.

If I had a wish that could get me anything, I'd like a split thumb keyboard where the two halves sandwich (and grip) the phone the way the joycons go on a Nintendo switch.

The best thing I have found so far is this keyboard puck. I have bought a similar device for HTPC, and it is surprisingly easy to use. This still has the downside of requiring the use of with hands and not having a way to hold the phone. Maybe I could 3D print some kind of mount, but something with a built-in mount would be much better.

I'm wondering how others have solved this problem? I'm open to almost anything that makes me a faster /more accurate typist on the go.

I have a business phone number that I use for work in addition to my personal cell phone number which I’ve had for 20+ years. I’ve always used my work number for anything job-related (colleague contact, vendors, sales reps, networking, LinkedIn, etc) and only provide my personal for, well, personal contacts.

But having had my personal number for as long as I have, it’s very easy to Google my name and find that number associated to me.

My issue is that I’m constantly receiving phone calls and voicemails on my personal number from vendors, sales reps, etc that are either for services we use at my job or from vendors in relevant fields contacting me for various reasons. I realize some may lump this kind of outreach into “spam”, but I want to differentiate this kind of outreach from what I consider true spam (robocalls, phishing, non-work related sales calls like for home internet, etc) which just goes ignored and blocked.

I don’t want to answer every call to correct someone to use my work contact info. I can continue ignoring but it does fill my voicemail and I’m hoping to reduce the number of calls I receive on my cell every day (even if it were to only cut it down by 5). Someone suggested changing my outgoing voicemail message to flag it’s my personal number and any work related messages would be ignored while providing my work number. I think this may be the best approach (though I’d skip providing my work number as I don’t need it to start receiving robocalls). I know I’m not the only one that deals with this (but maybe I’m in the minority rather than a majority) and am curious if y'all have this issue and if so, how you manage it?

Specifically this week I have to choose whether to create an account with paypal, cashapp or venmo but I am also interested in a broader discussion including other apps. Any advice or information would be welcome.

This post is born from another discussion we have currently on tildes about the benefits of LineageOS. Please, check it out if you wanna discuss about the benefits of the custom ROM scene.
Here, instead, I ask primarily about hardware, not about software. Although, as always, they later intersect.

My question comes from my search for a new phone, I have been rocking a Moto G5 Plus since 2018 (it was released in 2017 and I bought it second-hand) and my experience has been great overall. I knew that I could root this phone so that I did in September 2018 and from there I haven't gone back to stock ever since. Mistakes aside, the experience has been great overall and has nourish my interest in computing. But, this phone is 3 and a half years old and I definitely notice it. One, due to the wear and second the 2GB of RAM my model had (XT1680). I'm in no hurry in a change though, I think I could use it for some more years and I can say that thanks to an amazing community that still supports this phone. (Seriously, I am using Android 10 with the latest patch, unthinkable!).

Nevertheless, as a thought experiment, or as a backup plan, or useful for anyone interested in being part of custom ROMs, I would like to ask you guys which do you think are the most dev-friendly phone in the market right now?

The criteria would be:

• It has a unlockable bootloader.
• The kernel has been released and is available.
• Has a community that constantly supports it.
• It doesn't have 2GB of RAM

Please, write any phone you have the idea that has a modding scene. I'm afraid that some will not be available in my country, but I want to make it as international possible so I insist, write any phone that has that criteria. And feedback for the english will also be appreciated.

I just picked up a Nokia 3.1 for $120 in a bit of an emergency and I really like it. It's very light, Android One, very nice styling and again it's $120!

I was shocked by this experience at this price point. This thing is excellent for my use case, as a pre-paid EU phone as my lovely iPhone 6s Plus has only one Sim slot. Are there any other great budget phones out there?

What are some apps that you use that aren't particularly well known? Let's help each other discover some interesting new tools!

lichess - best chess app out there IMO. Completely free and open source, has daily puzzles, and a pretty active pool of users to play against!
Syncthing - file syncing tool that works with just about any operating system (although I don't think it works with iOS). I use it to take notes and write lyrics/my journal and sync them back to my linux laptop.
Untappd - social media app for tracking craft beers that you drink. I've only just started using it, since I was on holiday and wanted to keep a note of the ales I was drinking. It's a free app, but supported by ads. I believe there's a paid tier, but the free version works well enough, and it's useful for encouraging me and my friends to try new beers when we're out and about.
WK - Japanese flashcard app, which is technically a front-end for the wanikani service. As you learn new radicals, characters, and vocabulary, it serves them back up to you after a certain length of time. If you remember it, it'll wait longer next time, and if you don't get it right, it brings it back to the top of the pile.

As evidenced by recent topics, most people are unhappy with the direction the smartphone industry has taken in recent years. As more unnecessary features and sacrifices are made with each passing generation of handsets, what components are essential in your ideal smartphone? Create one in the comments.

Here is mine, in no particular order:

• Optimized Stock Android
• Gesture-based navigation (think iPhone X)
• Removable matte black plastic back
• 2:1 Aspect ratio, 5.6" diagonal AMOLED display
• Dual front-facing speakers in top and bottom bezel
• Dual front facing cameras (Wide Angle and Standard)
• Bezel-less sides
• Dual back cameras, with OIS (Wide Angle and Standard)
• USB-C
• 3700 mAh removable battery with Fast Charging+Qi
• Snapdragon 855
• Apple-esque Face Unlock
• ~$750 price tag