Android 12 review: Like the new feature it’s “Extra Dim”

Ryan Daniels — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 00:50:00 +0000

Android 12 was released on October 2021. Normally a new version of Android means new features, and in the past those new features have been improvements. This isn’t really the case with here.
You can summarize the Android 12 release with a single new feature: “Extra Dim”.
Extra Dim, also known as: I upgraded to Android 12 and all I got was this lousy, bright gray dark theme.

Android 12

I think Android is great, don’t get me wrong. But Android 12 is nothing special. I like the new privacy improvements for notifying about camera and microphone access, but that’s about it.

Extra Bright Dark Theme

Why? Just why would you make the dark theme so bright? I mean you can light up a dark room with this thing. I don’t care if the screen doesn’t look quite as good with black AMOLED. Don’t take away the proper dark theme and give us this bright gray dark theme. Then, on top of that we get a button called “Extra Dim”. Just why.

Extra Dim

Why do I need a button to activate “Extra Dim” screen brightness. Why can’t I just adjust the brightness slider for lower brightness. Now the user interface has two different places for screen brightness. I understand it’s under the Accessibility menu, but Android 11 did not need this. Android 11 was actually darker at it’s minimum brightness with the Dark Theme enabled than Android 12.

Adaptive Brightness is slow

Adaptive Brightness on Android 12 is slow compared to Android 11 (Pixel 6 vs Pixel 2XL). It takes way too long for Android 12 to figure out it should change the screen brightness in my opinion. And often it just seems to get it wrong. Android 11 never had this problem.

Larger Buttons and Space around everything

Why do I need such large buttons? I change my phone font to be small and even with the “Display size” set to small there is so much wasted space around everything. Just open up the Settings and you can see how much wasted space is at the top of the screen. I don’t really want a small “Display size”, I just want less space around everything!

Those buttons, just wow. And at night even with the lowest brightness, they are still so bright!

Theme Colour from Wallpaper

Maybe some people want the main colour for the theme to be picked automatically from the wallpaper. Or maybe some people only want to pick from 4 “Basic colours” for use by the theme.

4 Tile Buttons from the top menu

You only get 4 Tile Buttons from the top menu when you drag it down. But drag it down again and you get 8. In Android 11 you could see 6 Buttons. This continues the theme of less is more?

The Good

Wikipedia has a list of all the new features, it’s a pretty short page though.
Battery life so far has been good on a Pixel 6, so I suppose this means Android 12 has something to do with that. Also, the green indicator when the microphone or camera is active is nice to see.

Comparing Android 11 to Android 12

This is what Android 11 looks like. No useless empty space around anything! And the Dark Theme is actually dark, brilliant!

Android 12 Conclusion

Android 12 is based on Android 11. So maybe just stick with that, if you can. Android is still great overall!

Also my references might not be exact, since my experience is from two different phones. Android 11 is on a Pixel 2XL, while Android 12 is on a Pixel 6.

The post Android 12 review: Like the new feature it’s “Extra Dim” appeared first on Ryan Daniels.

Recommended Android Apps

Ryan Daniels — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 21:54:17 +0000

Many applications are available for Android which is one of the reasons Android is so good. Here is my recommended list of Android apps. Most are free, but some of the best apps do cost a little. Originally posted December 2013, updated for ~~2016~~ 2017.

Keyboard

SwiftKey Keyboard (Now free).
The mind reading keyboard! Best app to get for Android.

Email

Nine – Outlook for Androids (Free trial, $9.99 after)
Best Email app.

Corporate Addressbook
Lookup your colleague’s information in Exchange on your Android.

Messaging/Social

Signal
A must have app. Replaces the stock SMS application and looks exactly like the stock SMS app from Cyanogenmod (or 8sms), except it adds encryption.

Security

APG
APG is OpenPGP for Android. It’s open source and its goal is to provide a similar OpenPGP implementation as GnuPG.

Cerberus anti theft (free one week trial)
Cerberus is a complete anti-theft application, the best protection you can get to recover your misplaced, lost or stolen Android device.

Google Authenticator
2-step verification codes on your phone.

OpenVPN Connect
OpenVPN Connect is the official full-featured Android VPN client for the OpenVPN Access Server, Private Tunnel and OpenVPN Community.

Orbot: Proxy with Tor
Orbot is a free proxy app that empowers other apps to use the internet more securely. Orbot uses Tor to encrypt your Internet traffic and then hides it by bouncing through a series of computers around the world.

Orfox: Tor Browser for Android
Orfox is built from the same source code as Tor Browser (which is built upon Firefox), but with a few minor modifications to the privacy enhancing features to make them compatible with Firefox for Android and the Android operating system. (use with Orbot)

Media

aWARemote for Winamp
Control the Winamp running on your computer from your Android device.

BubbleUPnP UPnP/DLNA
Play your music, videos and view images on your Android devices from your network (using DLNA TVs, XBMC, WMP).

Songza
Songza plays you the right music at the right time. Great streaming music (needs internet connection).

YouTube
The official YouTube app for Android.

Shuttle+
Music player to replace the Google music player.

AntennaPod
Podcast player, with feature to automatically download podcasts you subscribe to.

News

Feedly News Reader
Feedly is an RSS news reader for android phones and tablets.

Circa News
Circa is a good way to read and follow headline news.

Weather

Notification Weather
Notification Weather is an exceptionally stylish and easy to use app for always staying up to date with the weather forecast.

Notification Weather Premium ($1.00)
The premium version gives you a few extra features.

Utilities

Barcode Scanner
Scan barcodes and QR codes using this app.

Dropbox

Amaze File Manager

OS Monitor
OS Monitor is a tool for monitoring your Android system.

Greenify *ROOT: Renew my Phone (requires root)
Greenify help you identify and put the misbehaving apps into hibernation when you are not using them, to stop them from lagging your device and leeching the battery.

ROM Manager (requires root)
Best app for root users. Lets you backup your ROM easily.

Smart WiFi Toggler
Smart WiFi Toggler is an application designed to control your phone’s WiFi using location based rules. Its aim is to conserve battery and minimize data charges by turning WiFi off when not connected to a network, and turning it on when a known hotspot is present. It constantly learns where your hotspots are located to make its decisions.

Volume Locker
This app helps prevent against accidental volume changes by confirming the change you made, by either tray notification or a pop up. If you don’t approve the change, the volume will be reset within a set amount of seconds. Great app!

Wifi Analyzer
Shows the Wi-Fi channels around you. Helps you to find a less crowded channel for your wireless router.

Sports

theScore: Sports & Scores

Ad blocking

Firefox (allows uBlock Origin addon!)
Blocks ads on websites. After installing Firefox look for the “uBlock Origin” addon.

AdFree (requires root)
Must have for root users. Blocks ads! (stopped working recently)

AdAway (requires root)
Same as AdFree. And still works!

Books

Kobo
Read books that are on your Kobo on your Android device.

Google Apps

Roms

LineageOS
LineageOS is the successor to CyanogenMod ROM. One of the best ROMs for your Android device. Be careful, installing a custom ROM isn’t for beginners.

Cyanogenmod only Android Apps

Profile Switcher
Unfortunately, does not work with LineageOS. App changes your notification profiles based on time of day. Great to turn off sms/messaging notification sounds while you sleep and automatically turn them back on during the day time.

The post Recommended Android Apps appeared first on Ryan Daniels.

Tag: Android - Ryan Daniels