Essays
What is liberty?
What is liberty? It seems to me that at this time the fundamental ideas that birthed the United States is not known or being outright ignored. For me, at it’s core liberty is the right to control what happens to me. The Bill of Rights enumerates certain rights that allow me to speak and practice religion without personal consequences like being put in jail.
The Bill of Rights protects me from the government, but it does not give me the right to harm others or take away the rights of others because I disagree, even if the practice of those rights conflicts with my beliefs. The first amendment does NOT give a Christian the right to enforce their beliefs on a Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, or atheist. (I do not see how one can make the argument of life beginning at conception without using religious belief.)
The ninth amendment of the Bill of Rights clearly states that it is not the intent of the Constitution to enumerate all rights of citizens, in fact it says if the right is not enumerated it is retained by the citizens.
I thought that the ninth amendment and the inalienable, natural, rights declared in the Declaration of Independence were core beliefs of conservatives, but I guess that is not true for that which they do not like.
The Dobbs decision puts men and women at risk. Not only by what Clarence Thomas wrote but also because of the fact that it seems to go out of its way to say there is no right to control what happens to your body. Don’t like vaccines? To bad, that don’t matter that vaccine is for the greater good. Yes you have to wear that mask. Need welfare? Not going to give it to you until you get that vasectomy because we can’t afford paying for more kids.
If we truly held to what liberty means and fully agreed to equal protection under the law, we shouldn’t need to have an amendment that gives all citizens the right to choose what happens to and inside their body. It is the amendment we now need it seems and something that everyone should be able to support.
Does liberty truly exist in the United States? Is it really the land of the free? Unfortunately it appears that until this is enumerated in the Constitution certain Supreme Court justices and politicians will not abide nor defend that for which we stand.
Setting Up A New iPad
I’ve received my new iPad Mini 6 and I am working through setting it up. I opted to transfer apps, settings and data directly from the iPad Mini 5. First hoop I had to jump is getting through the update to iPadOS 15.4.1, which took several minutes to download and update.
Next thing I notice is that all of widgets on the home screen are all blank white boxes with no obvious fix. First I restarted the iPad, but that didn’t fix the problem. I then realized that while I see all the app icons, the apps are not installed so I need to start up each of the apps associated with the widgets.
I basically have to reinstall every app I use which is a really painful process that I cannot believe Apple foists upon users. And the process is made worse by the spotty nature of the App Store that right now is refusing to install apps.
So, it is going to probably take several days for me to get this Mini fully up to speed.
Profiting From Addiction
I’ve read Jonathan Haidt’s essay, Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid. I can summarize Haidt by saying the algorithms in social media are destroying our democratic society. We have devolved in to the very things that James Madison feared when writing the Constitution.
While Haidt makes many good points I don’t think he gets to the root cause, which I think is our acceptance that it is ok for corporations to make money from addiction.
In the United States we want to put all the blame of one’s problem on themselves. Thus, the only problem with addiction is the addict and the consequences they bring upon themselves. Too many industries like technology, food, service/fast food, alcohol, health, and pharamceutical all profit from addiction. You should note the fundamental nature of these industries.
Even after lawsuits and public trials against the tobacco industry that exposed it knew nicotine is addictive and knew it causes cancer and yet still made money off of selling cigarettes, we give every industry with a business model that uses addiction to maximize profit and wealth a free pass. In the United States it is ok for someone to make a buck off the death of another, and somehow there are even “leaders” in this country who consider themselves pro-life.
In the beginning Facebook and Twitter did not make money, it wasn’t until they introduced algorithms to force content in front of users that they began making money. Research is showing the algorithms are optimized for addiction. And still I think you will find many people in the United States point the finger at people who use these networks as solely to blame and unwilling to restrict Facebook or Twitter from making money because we believe nobody should be restricted from making money.
The United States was founded upon the basic concept of freedom, and frankly that concept is no longer the prime directive of the United States. Today the United States is entirely driven by capitalism and the prime directive is to make a few people very rich, and a few rich people don’t need nor really want democracy, they just want the citiizens to be free to spend more and more money on their products.
Everybody knows money is the problem, but like an addict that just can’t do what is in their best interests, nobody is going to do anything about it. Sadly, like most addicts we know, I don’t think our country will seriously address our problems until we hit rock bottom, and I fear for what such a bottom will look like for a country that has accepted children being killed in schools and people in power acting to overthrow the government.
Javy Being Javy
I am enjoying watching Detroit sports learn how great a player Javier Baez is, as a Cubs fan I appreciate his unique talent and was disappointed the Cubs didn’t sign him.
I remember a time when shortstops were considered the worst batter in the lineup and that didn’t matter because shortstops were considered the best athlete and most important defensive player on the team. Ozzie Smith didn’t make is his mark at the plate, he was known as the Wizard because of his defense. I always felt too much attention is paid to Baez’s inconsistency at the plate and not enough value placed on his defense, which I think is worth enough to absorb his bat.
Baez was not the problem in the Cubs lineup, the problem was that everyone else in the lineup was not much better. Put Baez in a lineup with other players who make contact and get on base and you can live with his strikeouts, and revel in his ability in the big moments. I think in some ways Baez is like Brett Farve, high risk and high reward. The defense, and in particular Reggie White, made Farve who he was for the Packers because it could overcome his interceptions. Put Farve on the Detroit Lions and he is not a hall of fame player.
I am happy that even though Javier is no longer playing for the Cubs, he is playing for a team in my area that is on TV every day. Baez is the type of player you tune in just to watch, regardless of your interest in the team, much like Cabrera was in his prime. Tiger fans need to remember the incredible plays that he has already made in four games when he strikes out in that crticial moment in July because it will happen and he will still be worth every bit of money he is paid.
On War
War should not be watched or consumed as entertainment. One ought to consider how it is that one or a few people can make the decision to start a war with seemingly little to no regard for loss of human life and the suffering it causes. I think at the heart of it is the sin of supremacy that convinces that the other’s life is not valuable nor legitimate.
Even in democracies, as we know all too well in the United States, one man or woman has the power to wage war. We have decided that expediency is so important we must empower one human to such power, a power that frankly we should never allow to just one human.
The power to wage war and it’s consequences is why character matters so much when deciding which human should be elected President of the United States. Anyone who treats the power to wage war as a political tool should never be allowed to hold the office.
Forming A More Perfect Union
In the United States, democracy is less about the form of government and more about an aspiration. The idea of true equality of all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation was simply not comprehensible to the U.S. founders or their contemporaries. Interestingly, I think James Madison recognized the imperfections of the United States when he wrote these words in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
To me a “more perfect union” is not a declaration of an end state but rather a recognition that we can continue to become better. In other words, Madison expected the United States in 2022 to be more perfect than the United States in 1780 because the Constitution provides the framework for that improvement. It does this by providing for amendments that improve upon the original work.
Liberty Needs Equality
In my opinion too many U.S. citizens do not have an understanding of the country’s foundational documents, particularly the Declaration of Independence. For most the Declaration and Constitution boil down to one word, liberty. Indeed, the Declaration layed out the case for why the colonies were declaring their freedom (independence) from England. However, to me the most important part of the Declaration is the statement of why we had the right to declare our freedom and create our own government: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”
We can do this, we said, because we are created the same as you, King George. Citizens of the United States consider liberty precious, but true liberty is built upon our equality, and true equality is something not yet fully attained in the United States. The extent of which we fight equality, we put the liberty of one group of citizens over the liberty of other citizens. Liberty does not co-exist within supremacy.
On The Death Of Desmond Tutu
I am only aware of one country in the world that took conscious steps to address the cancer of supremacy, that country is South Africa. It’s path toward the task of overcoming supremacy was long and likely incomplete but would probably not have been taken up at all if not for Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
News of Tutu’s death makes me wonder how he saw the United States. Tutu had the wisdom to know that the antidote to supremacy is oneness, ubuntu. Supremacy cannot be shunned as it will simply continue lurking in the shadows. The only way to eliminate contempt is to see everyone as a part of me I do not yet know.
I feel as though the entire United States needs to be in a 12 step program. We cannot begin to overcome that which we don’t even acknowledge. We hide our addiction with our liberties. The amount of death that we have grown to accept, the amount of senseless loss of life we tolerate are not signs of a great nation or society.
The United States is leading the world into a third year of a pandemic that will continue to take more lives unnecessarily, and United States continues to lead the world in gun violence. All we are doing is managing to get by for just one more day. Apparently we have not yet hit bottom even after children are gun down in schools.
South Africa did not start to overcome the addiction of supremacy known as apartheid until it consciously did something about it. Any expert on addiction will tell you that no person can be made to overcome their addiction, the addict must decide for themselves they want to live. We, the citizens of the United States of America need to decide whether this republic handed down to us is something we want to keep, and that takes all of us to take a long look at ourselves and see us as we are rather than as how we keep telling ourselves.
Micro.blog Bookshelves Issue
Update: The issue below has been resolved.
Today I tried to move a book listed in micro.blog bookshelves that I was currently reading to finished, but when I clicked “Move To Finished” the book was removed from the currently reading list and not added to finished. I do notice that the book title still appears in the rendered version of the reading list on my blog. I then tried to manually add the book to Finished and it doesn’t appear. I also tried re-adding to Current Reading and it is not adding their either. Something appears to fundamentally not be working for the moment. Reported to help@micro.blog.
Live With Or Remove Corruption?
While I am sympathetic to Dave Winer’s critique of journalism in the United States, I am skeptical that his recommended improvements will make a difference. In my opinion the root cause problem of journalism is that it is beholden to the doctrine of capitalism. Everyone, regardless of party affiliation, believes that the prime objective of journalism in the United States is to make money and will bias what they publish towards that goal. Consider why it is that the titles for newspaper articles are usually not created by the person who wrote the article. Until the root cause is addressed I don’t see how there will be improvements.
The sad fact is, everyone is well aware of how money has corrupted every part of our lives. Our skepticism toward industry such as medical and media, and our skepticism of politicians is all rooted in our awareness of this corruption. We are at a danger level now because people have very little trust in anyone not themselves, and yet our society requires the ability to trust.
The Spiritual Experience of Microcenter
I was in an actual computer store yesterday, which was momentous for two reasons. First is that I have not really spent much time in stores other than grocery stories since the pandemic began. Second is that it has been way too long since I had been in a real computer store.
One of my favorite stores of my childhood is Radioshack, which was an electronics store from before personal computers were a thing that you could find in just about any town in the United States.
Radioshack on a larger scale describes Fry’s and CompUSA. In its prime you could probably find a CompUSA in most all metropolitan areas and I spent much time and money in the ones near where I lived. CompUSA is where I went to check out the newest computers and gadgets. It’s where I bought my first Apple computer, a Newton MessagePad.
Sadly, CompUSA and Fry’s are extinct, victims of the one-two punch of the big box stores and the Internet. In my area of metropolitan Detroit one lone Microcenter remains as a sanctuary of geekdom, which is where I found myself yesterday evening to pick up the new Macbook Air that I reserved online.
I nearly shed a tear when I walked through the doors to the sight of the picture below. I walked slowly up and down each aisle, thankful for the mask covering my face that hid what I am sure was the goofy look of geek joy. Every computer component you can think of sat on shelves in rows you must pass through to get to the manufactured computers in the back of the store.
I confess that I have contributed to the demise of the very stores that I miss, buying all of my newest tech online and having it delivered to my front door. I had forgotten the pleasure of seeing all of this technology in front of me. Walking out the door I vowed to not wait so long before returning.
Blog Posts and Stories
While thinking about how I use micro.blog and how I am using Drummer it occurs to me that both blogging platforms have the same problem with handling what I call long form writing. The root cause is the publishing of the full content of every blog post, regardless of whether the post has a title, on the home page.
To my eyes it makes no sense embedding a titled post that has multiple paragraphs on the home page because it just makes the home page too long. The reader ends up scrolling further and further down a page. Another problem is the reader sees these entries as just another blog post whereas I want such titled posts to be seen as a story or essay.
My ideal scenario would be a publishing platform that is smart enough to handle a couple of scenarios. One scenario would be to enable the writer to create what I will call an introduction post that has a title, a specific introduction that I wrote, and a link to the page with the full article. The idea is that a story, or essay, stands alone on its own page and one is simply writing a blog post to link to that page. Micro.blog even has a pages option that could support this, but it’s not integrated in the manner that I am suggesting.
The other scenario, or approach, would be for the blogging platform to just automatically limit a titled post on the man page to the title and three sentences, with a cut and a read more link. I emphasize I don’t want a publishing platform that requires titled posts, I want it to smartly handled untitled and titled posts and not necessarily treat them the same.
I’ve always held that a blog post is only one, maybe two paragraphs long and something longer is different, what I call stories but others may call essays. This very item you are reading right now is an essay, not a blog post, it just happens to be published on blogging platform. In fact, perhaps what I am advocating is for a web publishing platform that is more than a blog publishing platform.
I can manually implement this approach by only writing blog posts here and publishing stories on another site, but that forces me to maintain two sites and use two different writing flows that I have find fatiguing. My desire is to use one writing and publishing flow for both forms of writing.
Learning Computing
Back when there were several book store chains and plenty of stores I spent a fair amount of time in them and in particular looking through the computer magazine section. Magazines were a big part of my formative computing years, and I looked forward to each month’s issue of Byte. The magazines were not only a source of news about the latest hardware and software, they were also a means of software distribution containing pages of source code available to manually enter on a variety of computer platforms.
Physical book stores are nearly extinct and computer magazines shrank in to oblivion, replaced by the Internet, but I have found one corner of the Internet where computer magazines still live. You may have heard of the Raspberry Pi, which is an inexpensive “computer on a chip” popular amongst makers. What you might not know is that raspberrypi.org is more than just the computer hardware, it’s a foundation dedicated towards computer education. The foundation publishes tutorials and lesson plans for teachers and it has a publishing arm for books and magazines.
Four different magazines are published: HackSpace, Custom PC, Wireframe, and The MagPi, which you can subscribe to and purchase online and in stores in the United Kingdom. Better yet, the magazines and books are free to download in PDF format.
If you own a Raspberry Pi and have the full desktop version of the operating system installed you will find a Bookshelf app in the Help menu of the desktop’s application launcher. Bookshelf has tabs for each magazine and books that you can download and read on the Pi. If you don’t have a Pi you can browse through and download the PDFS using the web browser on your computer.
If you are not familiar with Raspberry Pi you will find everything you need to know about it on their web site, raspberrypi.org. Another great source for information is the Official Raspberry Pi Handbook, and the 2022 version has been just released and available to download.
If you are looking for an inexpensive starter computer for yourself or a child, I recommend the Raspberry Pi 400, which is an “all-in-one” computer you can buy for $70. I also think anyone considering a future in computing, or just interested to learn more, should buy a Raspberry Pi 4 kit, which you can assemble and use to learn more about computer hardware and software.
2021 Microsoft Surface Event
I am contemplating purchasing a new laptop computer so that I can access and learn the latest operating systems. I am most interested in Window 11 because Windows is the primary operating system that I use every work day, but the integrations between iPadOS and MacOS also have me interested in a Mac. If I buy a Mac I can also run Windows 11 in a VM, so that will provide me the best of both worlds.
So, I watched the Microsoft Event today to see whether Microsoft might announce something that will influence my purchase decision. My conclusion is none of the products announced today fit in the budget that I have in mind because of the add-ons one has to purchase to gain full functionality.
Microsoft did announce nice looking products today, but for me they have a real pricing problem. Take, for example, the new Surface Go 3. The lowest price version costs $399, which comes with 4 GB of RAM and only 64 GB of storage, which I really do not think is enough storage for any productivity device in 2021. Consequently, the lowest model I would consider is the mid-tier 8 GB RAM, 128 GB model at $549, but that only gets you the tablet. You will want to add a type cover that costs at least $100 and most likely a Surface Pen for another $70, for a grand total of $719, and that combo is with an Intel Pentium processor rather than the more powerful Intel Core i5 in the Surface Laptop Go. In my opinion Microsoft should include the type keyboard with the Surface Pro and Surface Go at their current price.
My research prior to the event tells me that the Microsoft product that most makes sense for a reasonable PC running Windows 11 is the Surface Laptop Go. While it won’t run MacOS, you can buy a well equipped model (8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) for $800.
Thing is, I can also buy a Mac Mini with the same memory, storage, and price and for less than $200 also have the ability to run Windows 11. Of course, the Mini is a desktop and my bias is toward the portability of a laptop, so that has me looking at a Macbook Air for $200 more, which is pushing the price a bit higher than I would like.
Of course, I don’t intend to make a decision until after the expected Apple Mac event that should happen in October. Rumors are a new Mac Mini and Macbook Pros will be announced, but not an Air. A new Macbook Pro might influence pricing of the current Airs. My ideal would be a new entry level Pro with 8 GB of RAM and 512 GB SSD starting at the current $1299 “base” price, which I think would mean Apple could drop the price of the current Airs by $100 to $200. The logic being it would not make sense to have the high end Air and the Low end Pro with the same specs and same price because nobody would by the high end Air. (The only reason to buy the high end Air over the Pro right now is the 512 GB storage at $50 less price!)
The other question is, what will be the specs for the new Mac Minis? In this case I expect the specs will remain the same, the prices will remain the same, and there will be a processor upgrade. However, the consequence there might be availability of the current Mac Minis at lower prices. An 8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD model at nearly $600 is appealing.
One might think the reasoning I’ve described above is an “apples to oranges” comparison. I see it as a “get what I need” versus an “investment” comparison. I bought my last Macbook Air 15 years ago, and it still functions! It’s really slow compared to most devices today, but what that experience tells me is that buying an Apple laptop or desktop realistically gets me 5 to 7 years of use. I can buy a cheaper laptop to just run Windows 11 but it probably gets me 4 years of real use.
So, now we wait for the next Apple event. Traditionally Apple has held two events in the fall, one in September to announce new iPhones, which they did, and one in October featuring Macs and iPads, thus one more event to gather information for making my purchase decision.
Happy Operating System Season
And here you thought pumpkin spice was for fall, no it’s operating system season! Yesterday Apple released iOS and iPadOS Version 15, and coming up October is Android Version 12, Windows 11, and MacOS Monterey. Three companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft) and three platforms (smartphone, tablets, desktop/laptop).
I installed iPadOS Version 15 on my iPad Mini yesterday and I haven’t spent a significant enough time with it yet. So far it’s a mixed bag. For example, being able to place widgets on the home screen makes them a bunch more useful, but the tradeoff is a decrease in the number of icons per line that display. My old iPad Mini has a quarter inch bezel followed by a half inch of empty space on the left and right side of the screen. I fear this is going to look worse on the iPad Air.
Of course, iPhone owners have had widgets and App Library since last year, so this is not new to them. I don’t own an iPhone, but so far I wonder whether they see much new in this version of iOS.
For some reason I like how the App Library flys up from the lower right of the screen. I do think App Library is a better way to manage applications than has existed prior, just wish I could edit what Apple does automatically to tailor the result. I suspect the larger icons in each group were determined to be the most frequently used app of that group, do they change over time?
The changes of widgets and App Library create questions of what icons to place on the home screen if any, given the dock. Tapping the widgets launches the associated app, so they serve that purpose in addition to providing information. I probably don’t need any icons but so far I have kept six: Mail, Safari, Streaks, Notes, NetNewsWire and Pocket. Another decision is, what to do with the “old page” that displays when you swipe right from the left edge? The widgets on the home screen don’t need to also be there, so there is some changes to be made.
What else? I know the changes to how multitasking works is significant, but I won’t fully experience that until I upgrade the iPad Air. This is the fun of operating system season, discovering new “gifts” and hoping they aren’t lumps of coal.
Sir Sinclair and I
British inventor Sir Clive Sinclair died yesterday, September 16. I, of course, never met this man who had an impact on the direction of my life.
My chosen field of study in college, computer science, led to the career that caused me to move to metropolitan Detroit, ultimately meet and marry my wife, and have the life I now live. How I came to chose to study computer science was influenced by three events during my high school years: the arrival of the Apple II in my high school, taking an after school BASIC programming class, and being gifted the Timex Sinclair 1000. Sir Sinclair invented the ZX80, the predecessor to the ZX8, in Britian, and that same computer was later sold as the Timex Sinclair 1000 in the United States.
I was raised by my grandmother and we lived off social security along with some savings. The personal computers sold at the time cost well beyond our means, but the Timex Sinclair only cost $100, though you needed the nearly $40 additional cost of the 16 KB storage for it to be useful. The nearly $150 total cost made it the most expensive gift my grandmother ever bought me, and I don’t doubt she made sacrifices to buy it, but she felt it important for my future. Turns out my grandmother was right.
Even by the standards of the time, the Timex Sinclair was a bit of a joke for a computer. Frogger was one of the games available for the Timex Sinclair that my friend called “woodtick” because of how the large block pixel graphics of the frog took over the entire TV screen when it got run over by a car.
Back then the common display for personal computers were TV screens. Programs were stored on cassete tapes. As I said, the Timex Sinclair only had 16 kilobytes of RAM. It had a membrane keyboard rather than a real keyboard that had most of the BASIC functions assigned. When writing a program you “typed” PRINT by pressing a combination of a function key and they key that had the command printed on it. I don’t recall whether I ever connected the Timex Sinclair to a printer or did anything like word processing.
Despite the limits Sinclair’s invention made a brand new world of personal computing accessible to me in the comfort of my bedroom floor. Hours of typing in pre-printed programs from magazines and hours of experimenting with little BASIC programs sparked the interest that as I said led to the life I now have.
Reading tributes and stories of Sinclair, I know that I am just one of hundreds of thousands of people around the world that share the same story. What a wonderful legacy. Thank you Sir Sinclair, rest in peace.
Wishing It Was So
In my feeds this morning are some statements recalling how united they thought we were on 9/12/2001 and wishing that was the same today. A deeper, perhaps more meaningful question might be, why is it that the United States can only unite around hatred for an external enemy?
Some thought, many hoped, back then that the event would be a catalyst for change. Of course change is always happening, transformation is what is really desired. The difference is between what naturally happens and intent. Transformation requires true understanding of from what to what, which in turn requires a desire to look within.
Take for example the pandemic. Much of the struggle amongst ourselves is superficial. Wear a mask, don’t wear a mask. Get the vaccine, I’ll never get the vaccine. Our attention is on these arguments with little thought about why the arguments are even happening.
For me what the pandemic exposes, and what has existed from well before 9/11, is a majority of people stuck within the basic animal instinct to view everything and everyone by comparison. Either you’re or with me or you’re against me is one of our most basic survival instincts. While this instinct keeps us alive in a moment of crisis, living constantly in this mode prevents one from growing and usually makes us vulnerable to being manipulated in to decisions not in our long term best interests.
The transformation some of us desired after 9/11 that would have resulted in more unity did not happen because there was no intention for it to happen. Change, yes, that has happened, we have evolved to a more fractured not united state than before, and will apparently continue to do so unless we intentionally chose a different path.
The United States of America is only 245 years old. In comparison to the world, the U.S. is a toddler, to the universe, an infant. Our growth (transformation) relies in embracing the seemingly conflicting values of liberty and unity, by transformation from an either/or worldview to a both/and worldview. The transformation will not be easy because everything we know and see around us is built on and reinforces either/or. Either/or keeps power in power. Take the red pill
After Using Android 12 For One Week
A little over a week ago I installed beta 4 of Android 12 on my Google Pixel 4a. I have not experienced any significant issues with running this version of Android, even though it is still a true beta and not a release candidate.
Like most men, I imagine, I carry my phone in my front pants pocket. In the past I occasionally discovered that the flashlight feature of the phone turned on while the phone is in my pocket, causing an odd, if not humorous, appearance. After installing Android 12 I found this occurring much too frequently.
Two lock screen settings appear to be the culprits: Tap to check phone and lift to check phone. Movement while walking is being interpreted by Android as either a tap or a lift, so I have disabled both features. I notice that Android seems to be smart enough to know the phone is in my pocket because it turns off the ambient display, so it should also disable the tap and lift to check functions, and I have provided feedback on this to Google.
App suggestions, which many people do not like and probably disable, are not working. Google added this feature in Android 11 that changes which app icons appear in the dock at the bottom of the home screen and at the top of the app drawer with the ones most commonly used at a particular time of day. Right now the icons displaying are the ones that were present in the dock at the time I installed the upgrade and have never been changed by Android. I might be the only person who likes this feature enough to report it not working.
I like the changes to the UI that Google has made, particularly increasing the font size in settings. The changes to the notifications are nice, although I am not sure whether I am a fan of the increased size of the Quick Settings icons, I think I wish they were the same as in Android 11.
Of course, the big change in Android 12 is the new design language called Material You with includes automatically changing the overall color appearance to the wallpaper on the phone. I have the Landscapes wallpaper changing daily to see changes with the appearance of the phone, and I am pretty pleased with what I am seeing.
I have not noticed any significant difference with over all performance or battery life, which is good. Ideally we would get better battery life in each release, but at the least we don’t want to lose battery life. Beta 4 marks Android 12 reaching the platform stability phase, which marks it as feature and API complete so that developers can test against a reliable version. One more release, release candidate one, will be made available before the final release of Android 12.
Android 11 was released on September 8, 2020, if Google is to meet that same early September release date we should see the release candidate late next week, which might coincide with the launch of the Pixel 5a.
Google Wear Is A Hot Mess
Google Wear OS is a hot mess. During Google I/O earlier this year I got the impression that due to the partnership between Google and Samsung the pending Galaxy Watch 4 would be more in line with standard Wear OS watches. Given that it appears the Samsung watches will be the only ones to get Wear OS 3 this year, I was considering buying one.
However, as I read more reviews about the Galaxy watches I am becoming less likely to buy one. First I read that Google Assistant is not preinstalled. Next I read that the watches don’t easily pair with non-Samsung phones, nor work the the Android Wear OS app.
Amazingly, it looks like there will not be a serious Wear OS watch to buy in 2021, and there wasn’t one last year. It feels like Google has or should just give up. As the Fossil Sport I have been wearing is getting more finicky, I am contemplating my next step. Buy a Mobvoi that is expected to be the first to get Wear OS 3 next year, or dump Wear OS altogether and buy a Fitbit?
What’s worse are suggestions that Wear OS 3 may not work best on the Qualcomm 4100 chip in the Mobvoi, the chip that is the next generation smart watch chip from Qualcomm. What the heck?
Hot mess indeed
First Impressions Of Android 12
Yesterday Google released the final user beta for Android 12, and as I did since version 10, I have installed it on my Pixel 4a. First thing I looked for is how the new UI colors and fonts look and I found that to really see that you need to be in light mode rather than dark mode. I’ve been using dark mode full time with Android 11.
I did the update late last night so one of the new features I experienced first is the update to the ambient display, the larger clock display is handy at night when I wake up and want to see the time.
I think I like the changes to the notification shade but the larger quick setting buttons look off. Everything in the UI seems larger, which I appreciate.
One other change I looked forward to is the use of the power button to activate Google Assistant, which you have to specifically configure in settings. I disable “Hey Google” mostly to save battery life, but also because I find I don’t use it very much. Wish Google would add a gesture to the fingerprint scanner in which if I press and hold the phone would unlock and activate Assistant. If I just tap the scanner the unlock the phone, if I keep my finger in the scanner then unlock and activate assistant.