I know there are more important things in the world, but in case you happen to be thinking about getting a new smart phone, just know the #Google apps on the Pixel 3a are garbage, so you'll have to install, for instance, a file browser that isn't garbage.
@2ck I would recommend that you look into Fdroid.
@AmpBenzScientist thanks. I'm familiar with that. I'm merely lamenting Google's failure to make something as basic as a file browser not crappy. Like, I can't even get it to not autoplay videos - I can press a button if I want to play it! Stop interrupting my freaking podcast while I'm browsing files! jeez
@2ck Android is getting worse imo.
@AmpBenzScientist not just your opinion. my frustrations were motivated by an upgrade to v11. it messes with the parts of the UI I use most (media player, file manager, and notifications) but doesn't make them better: just different or worse.
@2ck I was referring to the "open" aspect of Android and developing for it.
@AmpBenzScientist ah. I don't know much about that. I tried making an Android app once, but found simple things too tedious to deal with for what I wanted to build.
@2ck It's not that they used Java but they reinvented Java and nixed what made Java useful. It would have been much easier to develop for if it was closer to Java.
@AmpBenzScientist I don't think that aspect of it was as much of a pain point for me. The one thing I recall is that I lost state in a really surprising way when the screen rotated. Viewing that attempt with experience I have now, I'm struck by how the Android app development process wants to give you (or fit you into) a framework when what I would have preferred was a library of objects that let do what I wanted. I think the latter is a more obvious way to present the system vs giving developers object "life cycles", so I'd be curious to know what motivated the construction they have. It's also possible I just had the wrong aspect of the interface and something closer to my ideal was already available.
@2ck If I recall correctly, the screen can be locked in one position in the code. Oddly enough this was an issue that turned me off of developing apps. I did make a couple of Android Apps but they were very simple as I saw it more as a waste of time.