Isn’t there a new 9th planet we can’t see yet but we have detected because of it’s gravitational pull on things around it?

https://science.nasa.gov/solar-system/planet-x/

I guess it’s still a theory.

This also works for pool. Don’t ask me how I know.

Depends on who you are probably. But a poor person who’s only access to the Internet is via smart phone might beg to differ. This also might matter if you do taxes on paper rather than using an online service (paid or free). When you file digitally and supply a bank account you absolutely will receive a tax return pretty expediently unless you get audited. But if you file a paper tax return by snail mail and are expecting a check? Different story. What if they never received your return? What if it was lost in the mail? What if the check gets lost in the mail?

I also have an app for tolls in my state, and the VA. I’m just pointing out that not all government apps are terrible and I can certainly understand why some people would want or need to use them.

There’s an IRS app that will help you to know when you’ll receive a tax return if you live in the US. That’s useful.

So it has support for hearing aids. But nothing for the automotive side of things in that regard for the hard of hearing. His phone was connected to the car via Bluetooth. But no sound was coming from the cars speakers, and that sound was not transmitted to his hearing aid.

The onscreen toggle setting for Google maps does not show up until you select to navigate to a destination (this was a problem, because at first we couldn’t even see if it was toggled on). Picking a destination and choosing to start navigation made that toggle show up, and it was toggled on but we still had no sound.

There’s a settings toggle at the bottom of his screen (mine is not the same, I checked that both apps are updated to the latest firmware), and that settings menu has toggles for things like assistant voice/smart features related to the app, but no sound features. To get to the advanced sound features for the app you have to select your profile from the menu, then select settings, then select Navigation settings, and only then can you select things like “mute state”, or “guidance volume”.

Specifically things like “play voice over Bluetooth” which was not selected by default after his last update. This is not a setting he even knew existed or knew how to find. So I honestly doubt he deselected it.

My pixel 8 has accessibility features that allow for quick toggles. To control things like screen brightness and volume. It also has more settings for the hard of hearing than his. His S23 has the support for hearing aids but not things like sound amplifier that I was looking for. And audio adjustment which would have been useful to allow him to rebalance the sound for the ear that doesn’t use a hearing aid. I actually wonder if that’s a developer settings thing and why it should be hidden that way.

I also couldn’t select what type of Bluetooth device he was using (but this may be because of the make and model of his car, not a shortcoming of Google or Android).

For him I’m sure this was very confusing because it seemed convoluted even to me. Anyway in the long run, we got voice prompts for navigation up and running, and he was happy with that. But the bar for entry for the hearing impaired seems a bit high.

I was actually helping an aging coworker who wears a hearing aid set up some features on his phone and connecting his phone to Bluetooth. I was significantly disappointed with the lack of features geared toward those who are hard of hearing. Specifically in driving mode for Android auto. He’s got a newish phone (S23) so it’s not that. And the settings were far too convoluted to find for my tastes.

It really bothered me quite a bit that I couldn’t make the Bluetooth register that he was using a car and therefore speakers, not headphones. And further that the settings for voice prompts in the maps app requires he go into his personal Google settings to change toggles because the app user facing one is only available once you pick a destination and he couldn’t hear it.

Is it too much to ask for a long press shortcut?

I’ve got a friend whose earpiece on their iPhone stopped working. They could repair it, or upgrade for basically the same price. Their iPhone is a few years old at this point (3 years I think, maybe older), which is crazy to me. But it’s true. When something breaks the cost of replacement is often on par with the cost of repair for small tech like phones. Th system is basically rigged to make you upgrade. Also, with a work phone, the upgrade schedule isn’t up to him. It’s up to the IT department and the corporate office. They may decide to buy new phones next year or something.

This looks like a bun filled with guac and mayonnaise.

So, (assuming on mobile) you have selected to delete browser data on Firefox (fennec). Because of that and because there is no setting to white list the sites you’d like to keep cached, those sites load more slowly. You could try removing the one for cookies specifically and then manually erase them on a weekly basis but that’s more finicky. It may be better to use something like ublock origin to block cookies. You may be able to just whitelist the sites you want from there. Or switch browsers I suppose.

Grandads.

They mean YouTube music and Google play music concurrently and we still don’t have feature parity for Google play music features on YouTube music.

I know that android and IOS both have features for blind and hard of hearing people that may be possible to implement with assistant to help with this? I don’t know if it would summarise exactly though

I was thinking of something like audio description but it only seems to work with movies and tv and only if they support it.

The charge five isn’t really a Google product. Google were still in the process of buying Fitbit when it was released. And as someone who’s owned the charge HR (bad band), the charge 2 (great device, miss it), the charge 3 (died randomly - screen was backlit, device was charged but it would not wake up after an update), the charge 4 (still going strong, use it for work), and the charge 5 (too fragile in my opinion but a nice device), I can’t say I’m too surprised. The software update I will admit is google, but Fitbit had problems with device QC and quality long before Google bought them.

Go back to making phones like the moto X pure and we’ll talk.

Part of the reason we don’t have this, (even for vehicles) is because trade secrets in engineering are so well kept. You may be able to find a plethora of parts that will absolutely work for your vehicle. But they will absolutely not be manufactured to the same exact spec as the one from the OEM manufacturer. Because those manufacturers are not sharing their engineering specs. So anything you can buy third party is reverse engineered and your mileage quite literally may vary. Sometimes parts are better. Sometimes they’re worse.

But I agree with you that right to repair should create a free and open marketplace for non-oem parts manufacturers and sales.

Man this type of shit is why I’m getting rid of google Assistant and going to a FOSS home assistant setup. I don’t want chat gpt. I want to add things to my calendar, my shopping list, turn off lights and open/close blinds. I want to mute speakers at a certain time with a routine that isn’t broken every five minutes. I want timers that work reliably. I want to be able to make an announcement when Amazon is at the door. Why are they making this so difficult?

Do you have any idea just how angry I am at the implementation of the google home app on smart phones and the stupid pixel tablet?

Lenovo Smart Display that’s like 5+ years old? Displays weather, will tell me with a tap what the forecast is for the day and respond when I ask what the weather is like at work with continued conversation. The tablet? The shiny new $500 tablet? Nope. Contextual Conversation? Not a thing. Weather? Read aloud to me as I cook breakfast or make coffee? Nah fam, get wrecked. Have a routine work on the tablet as a target device? Absolutely not. Can’t even select it. Have multi-account support work with me and my husband through fingerprint or voice matching? Nope. Cast media with it in docked mode? No. Make it work with my hush routine at 10pm? Throws an error and alerts me on my phone that it can’t do that. Picture frame that works with google photos when it senses people nearby but turns the screen off when the room is empty? No. Use it similarly to a nest hub max as a smart home dashboard with user specific useful info like commute times? Not a chance.

Gtfoh.

You could sign up for the beta?

This is us. Up til recently they just gave out too much stuff. At this point I have given chargers away to homeless people because I have so many. My husband and I buy phones every two years generally (because android’s update BS until now). It’s ridiculous. And we never used the headphones when they came in the box.