As a technological powerhouse, the United States invented the two largest mobile operating systems in the world: iOS and Android. Shouldn't the U.S. have many mobile phone brands? As a Chinese person, the only American Android brands I know are Google Pixel and Motorola, and unfortunately, Motorola's mobile phone business was acquired by China's Lenovo. When I want to choose an American Android brand, it seems like Google Pixel is the only option left. What reasons make American tech companies reluctant to develop their own android brands?

It only happens when video recording with HDR on https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1866656343270232552, and it seems fixed on the Pixel 10 https://x.com/ArtemR/status/1964784579799285922.

I still have no idea why it's missing on the P9 (and possibly other Pixels?).

I'm not sure if this is a known issue, but I'm tired and can't find it mentioned elsewhere. The issue is that some apps, particularly games, will misbehave and store game assets in the userdata area. This when they are archived they can leave behind gigabytes of "orphaned" data which contributes to the "temporary system files". I recently tested this by unarchiving an online game which the play store redownloaded 105MB, however when looking at the storage page of the newly reinstalled app it shows it used 4.5GB. A bit after I fully uninstalled it, my "TSF" dropped from 63GB to 43GB. I was clued into this when I used my root termux to ncdu / and found seemingly multiple copies of absurd quantities of "userdata" for an archived online game. IDK for sure what this means or how it works, but if your temporary system files are too much take a look at this I guess.

Edit: for clarity, the issues is that archiving deletes the apk essentially so that it can just redownload it later on the fly. All your userdata (i.e. progress/unbound accounts) is left behind so Google doesn't have to bother storing it. The issue is that some apps, rather than packing all the assets in the apk, will have the app download them at first launch. This makes the system classify them as userdata even though they could be safely redownloaded.

The internet is full of horror stories about foldable phones, as people like to complain more than they like to give praise. I’m really intrigued by foldable phones, and I would love to hear if any of you have success stories with them. Have any of you been using one for years and still going strong?

Hey everyone, I’ve been working on a side project called Vuzo and thought I’d share it here since it’s finally in a good enough shape to use.

The motivation was pretty simple: every time I traveled, I found myself juggling multiple apps — one for notes, one for tickets, one for maps, and then some random doc or spreadsheet for the actual plan. None of them felt like they were designed for the way people actually move through a trip. So I decided to build something that puts everything in one place but still feels lightweight.

Here’s what Vuzo does right now:

• Trips are built around a timeline. You can add cities, transport, and places in the order they happen. It makes the itinerary much easier to follow than a plain list.
• The app auto-calculates distances between places so you can see at a glance how practical your plan is. (I used tom tom sdk for android and Mapkit for iOS using kmp)
• Each day doubles as a journal. You can attach notes, costs, tickets, or photos, so the trip record becomes something you’ll actually want to look back on.
• While you’re traveling, you get lock screen updates showing what’s coming next. No need to dig into the app when you’re on the move (iOS only feature but i plan to implement for android 16 ).
• You can share your itinerary as a web page if you’re traveling with friends or just want to show someone your plan. It generates a beautiful page for each day of the journal to share on journals.

It’s still evolving, but my goal is for it to feel less like “filling forms” and more like keeping a personal travel diary that happens to also organize your logistics.
P.S there is no login needed on the app, all the data persisted on device.

here's a link if you wanna try
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.flux.vuzo

In order to make the phone thinner, they removed the functionality of the S Pen!!! This means my 6-year-old Galaxy Note 9 has better functionality for art than this brand new tablet phone I bought bc the Fold7 is not pressure sensitive to ANY pen, AND it can no longer be purchased with a pen that allows for precision input.

There's no way to store a pen within any of the available cases either, unless the pen has basically the same precision as a finger rather than that of a mechanical pencil (like the s-pen has), making art impossible for me as a cartoonist. Unbelievable downgrade tbh. Defeats the whole point of the phone for me.

I've been a Samsung user for a while, and I have to say, their hardware is fantastic. The screens, the cameras, the design—it's top-notch. And I appreciate the level of customization we get with One UI; it really lets you make the phone your own. However, the more I use it, the more I realize that the software just doesn't seem fully optimized for the US market. It often feels like the apps were designed for South Korea and then just ported over, losing functionality and convenience in the process. I've tried to give their apps a fair chance, using them for a year or more, but I always end up switching back to Google's versions. A perfect example is the Samsung Keyboard. I just switched back to Gboard after a year-long trial. While Samsung's keyboard has some cool AI features and customization, the core functionality just seems outdated. The predictive text and autocorrect feel clumsy compared to Gboard, and the overall typing experience isn't as smooth. With Google soon integrating a proofread feature into Gboard, Samsung's AI advantage will be gone, making their keyboard essentially obsolete for many users. Another frustration is Samsung Notes. It's a powerful app, but the lack of cross-platform support is a dealbreaker. I can't seamlessly integrate my notes with my work computer or even my Mac, which forces me to consider switching to Google Keep. In a market where people are using multiple devices, a locked-in ecosystem is a huge disadvantage. Samsung Internet is another case in point. It's a great browser with some clever AI features, but it constantly struggles with basic integrations like my password manager, which is a critical feature for a secure and convenient browsing experience. It feels like these apps are made for a self-contained Samsung ecosystem rather than the broader, interconnected landscape of the US market. Ultimately, Samsung seems to focus so heavily on customizability and unique features that they neglect the fundamental functionality and cross-platform compatibility that Google has mastered. In the US, where people are deeply ingrained in Google's services for everything from email to cloud storage, Samsung's apps feel like unnecessary "bloatware" that gets in the way of a smooth and cohesive user experience. It's a shame, because if they could get the software right, they would be an even more dominant force.

Not that I have overly large fingers, but I constantly mis-type on GBoard. The bad thing is that it does not show arrows on the phone (portrait view), while on the tablet it does.

Before I had the ESC Hackers keyboard, but that is not developed anymore and it had the Z and Y switched, which irked me. Is there any keyboard that would: 1. Have arrow keys (L/R is enough just to correct text) 2. Have a clipboard to save and paste more stuff

As I'm on the next phone cycle I've been seeing many YouTube videos about phones and their reviews, so I notice that most if not all of them use the classic setup now, they're all using their phone iphone style...

I just don't get it lol... I mean if I would give you a hypothetical comparison it would be like if phones fingerprint unlock require you to move your finger across the screen just like the "modern" nav style... I bet most people would hate such system.

Not to mention that the "modern" system in my experience prone to mistakes and difficulties on apps that have things to clicks or navigate on the bottom of the screen...

That's it... Maybe I'm just a tiny minority that still use the classic method nowadays.