20220602-android_keeps_getting_worse.txt
WARNING: Really angry rant

So a few weeks ago my phone got updated to Android 11 (which evidently
released a year and a half ago). They "disappeared" the stock Android
Files app. The ONLY way to access it is some ass-backwards bullshit
like plugging in a USB drive and opening it via the notification
popup. It's completely removed from the app drawer. Why? Why the fuck
would you do this, Big G?

I use an Android One phone, so that means it gets "stock" Android
updates for a while. That's good for me as I'm not one for frills, but
it seems to me this fucking OS entirely peaked at Android 9: 9 had a
three-dot menu button for legacy apps, a lock screen that didn't blur
album art, access to a native file manager, etc. You know, shit you
should have. 10 blurred the album art on the home screen and now 11 is
doing more "security" shenanigans.

These fucking assholes keep removing shit and not even giving you the
option to add it back. Are you seriously such fucking stupid assholes
that you actually have to make a Big G Files app to compete with the
Android one and then hide the Android one because, surprise!, nobody
wants your inferior half-baked version? Or maybe it's because you've
decided to declare war on microSD card storage. Are you that fucking
greedy that you're just going to make it more and more inconvenient to
use expandable storage? You saw Apple making money by removing freedom
to upgrade their storage and thought "We should do that!"

This wouldn't be horrible. It wouldn't be, except for a few problems
in my case.

1. 11 has made my go to home app even worse: it's only taking up about
70% of the vertical real estate, still needs a menu button to mess
with the config, and now the fucking file explorer tab ONLY works for
local storage (AFAIK). I think I'd have to look up the UUID of the
microSD card just to fucking manually enter it because I can't
actually browse for it. It's gotten so bad that I've even halfway gone
to the stock launcher.

2. Notifications are like fucking larger bubbles or some shit. The
amount of stupid shit that Big G just blatantly copies from IOS is so
fucking annoying. I had to turn it off because a text session was
pinned to my home screen as a floating icon. HOW THE FUCK IS THAT
HELPFUL? I was able to turn it off, but the shade notifications are
still spaced out and not compact.

3. Now this may not be the fault of the upgrade, but it wasn't an
issue before: I'm now getting phantom touches ONLY in one app called
Just Player (via F-Droid). It could be the touch sensor or digitizer
or whatever is a bit smushed, but it only triggers screen events on
this one app. Nothing else, that I can tell, is affected. Even VLC
doesn't do that (which I had to reinstall). It may not even be that,
but it seems like if you breathe on the screen too hard, the UI pops
up which is really annoying when you're trying to watch a video.

Goddamn, Big G just keeps finding ways to fuck its users. I may not
buy another Android phone unless it's "stuck" at Android 9 or 8.