I drive a Ford Maverick that is equipped with adaptive cruise control, and if I were to get 3 "keep your hands on the wheel" notifications, it deactivates adaptive cruise until the vehicle is completely turned off and on again. It blew my mind to learn that Tesla doesn't do something similar.
HalcyonReverb
joined 2 years ago
Teams is truly awful. The fact that I have seen it maintain the same general clunkiness for years at this point is crazy. When it was newer, I could overlook it somewhat and assumed that the wrinkles would get smoothed out over time, but it still feels very janky and duct-taped together. It's functional enough for what I need it to do, but it may be my least favorite piece of software that I need to use regularly. I used Slack a few jobs ago and I miss it. It has been Teams ever since that job.
The other big issue I have with Discord is that information isn't really indexable or able to be archived easily. Reddit developed its own issues, but at least it was great to use alongside a search engine. Discord just feels like a black hole of information in comparison. It feels like a ticking time bomb in terms of inevitable enshittification.
You are correct that it isn't really an essential feature, but it gives a nice boost in fluidity that I really enjoy, and directly ties into latency, which you mentioned as being important, which I agree with. Color accuracy still seems to be very good on modern flagships regardless of HZ, according to those who test those things.
The battery impact isn't as bad as you probably expect actually, most newer high hz phone displays are LTPO, which allows them to scale down to I believe as low as 10hz, such as when you are reading or the AOD is on. I believe it will also scale down to match the frame rate of a full screen video too, which can also help.
As far as cost, I'm sure it's not "free", but now that OEMs like Apple, Samsung, and Google are all ordering them in bulk, I imagine it's kind of just built into the category of display spec that they are ordering. For what it's worth, the $300 Galaxy A23 features a 120hz display. Of course, Samsung makes the display, but that cost still has to be accounted for somewhere, especially as their profits are currently down 95%.
But yeah, overall I just enjoy a high refresh rate. My monitor, TV, iPad, and phone all support it, so I enjoy the consistency. I recommend trying a high HZ phone in person sometime if you haven't. I find that it adds a lot to the fluidity of the UI both visually, and in terms of feel, as it feels like it follows my finger more closely when scrolling, for example. Of course, you can always turn it off and cap it at 60hz as well.
I love Pixels, they're easily my favorite option. I'm currently on a Pixel Fold (yes I'm an idiot, but that's beside the point), and I also enjoy my Pixel Watch and Buds Pro and A series.
I carried an iPhone for work for 3 years and just don't care for iOS in a personal daily carry capacity. It's fine for a work phone though, but I also enjoy the way that Android handles work profiles. I do own an iPad though, and that's fine. I would consider replacing it with a Pixel tablet someday when it's time though, especially if there's a 120hz display option by then.
I'm not a big fan of Samsung's design choices or bloatware tendencies. The kitchen sink approach isn't for me when the majority of it is stuff that I won't use, and it feels sloppy to me switching between apps and one uses Samsung's design language, and then the other uses Material You. I like the consistency you get on a Pixel.
I use my camera a ton, so Pixel is an obvious choice there. Software features like call screening are indispensable for me too. I have been seeing daily spam calls again recently, and watching my phone silently discard them is always enjoyable. I also enjoy getting updates as soon as they are released, which is something that always bothered me with other manufacturers. I have made quite a few people happy by recommending the A-series to them. Wonderful budget-midrange value options.
Where would I go if Pixel went away? Tough question. The Nothing phone seems alright, I could see that working. The Zenphone 10 looks nice as well. I think I would explore one of those options before considering Samsung or Apple again.
It is not a separate app, but it can be opened by tapping on the weather widget or searching weather in the Google app, tapping the 3 dot menu next to "Weather / Today" and then tap on add to homescreen. It is more like a full app UI vs searching for weather.
I liked Appy Weather for a while. Nice clean design, and had access to the Dark Sky API and now the Apple Weather API after Dark Sky was shut down.
The precipitation notifications became nonsense for me though. We were on week 2 of a drought recently and I would get notifications saying things like "heavy rain continues for 8 hours" with no precipitation in sight. Not sure if that was the app's fault (developer hasn't updated in a while) or the API's, but yeah. Inaccurate notifications.
I am on a Pixel Fold now, so I'm currently using the redesigned Google Weather app. I really like the redesign. I just noticed that I had notifications disabled due to previously using that other app though, so I'm curious to see if it has live precipitation notifications now that they have the ML-Powered Dark Sky-like Nowcast thing.
Fantastic news! Sync was my main client of choice. I will be more than happy to toss the dev a few more bucks.
It has been an interesting mix of things for me in the last few weeks. I have been playing a few Metroid games simultaneously. I never finished Prime 2 or 3 back in the day, so I'm revisiting Prime 2 currently and got past the boss that I got stuck on back in the day on my first try, so that felt good haha. Metroid 2 is one of the only Metroid games that I haven't played yet, so I started AM2R also.
I also randomly got into Soul Calibur 6 this weekend, which runs great on the Deck besides load times being a bit longer than I expected, but it's fine overall. I loved Soul Calibur 2 back in the day, so I have been going between both of those. The cool thing about fighting games is that they seem to age well as long as the mechanics are solid, so I think that SC2 still holds up very well today. It even has a native widescreen option, so it scales nicely to the Steam Deck's display.
I also picked up Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 a few days ago for just a few bucks, so I'm playing that sometimes too for variety. Street Fighter 6 releasing and now the Mortal Kombat I reveal has me playing some fighting games again apparently. It's a pretty healthy time for that genre right now.
I lost my little guy to FIP back in 2017. I still miss him dearly, and while I'm sad that the treatment wasn't available at the time, I am very happy that other cats no longer need to go through it the way that he did now that it is treatable.
I follow a cat on Instagram who got it, went through treatment, and has been thriving for years ever since. It's a happy little reminder of progress every time I see him.
Your kitty will be in my thoughts. It sounds like she already has a very thoughtful and caring owner, and that's already a big win for her in this fight. I'm sure she will do great. ๐