So I’ve switched to Android…

Did you believe that? Well, you shouldn’t have.

But what I HAVE done is purchase a Pixel 6 for testing purposes of our upcoming game, Puzzle Royale.

Outside of the awful experience I’ve had setting up and using my kids’ Amazon Fire tablet I bought on a whim, I’m more or less an Android virgin. I invested in the iOS ecosystem starting with the iPhone 3G, and my house is littered with Apple products to close the loop. My philosophy with Apple has always been “when you fully embrace the ecosystem, life is good. When you try and fight it, you might as well not even be in it at all.”

I went through my Apple Evangelical phase in my 20’s and now I’m happy to leave well enough alone and have now settled on the idea that both sides of the coin have their merits, but the “cost” of leaving my happy walled garden was just too high to consider escaping.

Enter my involvement with Puzzle Royale…and enter my desire to test our game natively on an Android device versus emulating it with something like Bluestacks or NoxPlayer.

Now I’ve watched the vast majority of MKBHD and Linus Tech Tip videos, and I know their general biases. I’ve seen the cool things they can do, the nice hardware features they had, the interesting designs… but it’s all been voyeuristic up until this point.

For testing purposes, I decided that a Pixel 6 would be the best option available to me:

• It runs the purest form of Android

• It’s running on a new Google-made SOC for potential compatibility testing

• It was MKBHD’s pick for “Best Value Phone of 2011”

• I’ve always really appreciated that Google has treated their Nexus/Pixel line as the standard-bearer for the way Android is supposed to be

The fingerprint reader is BEHIND THE GLASS

Upon getting my Pixel 6, I was immediately presented with my first change: an in-screen fingerprint reader. Marques says that this sensor is noticeably slower than other Android devices, so I’ll take him at face value (I trust the guy), but it doesn’t feel all too sluggish under my thumbs. It does what it needs to do, it does it relatively quickly, and I can’t see it when I’m not using it.

Neat.

Homescreen and App Launching and Widgets, oh my!

My next noticeable hurdle when I finish the setup process was: a blank home screen. I have to actually put icons on my homescreen to use them quickly?! Gross.

I’ve heard all about Widgets and how amazing they are…and perhaps they are… but my mind isn’t really wired to take advantage of them. I’ve got a stock/crypto ticker widget on the homescreen and some of my most commonly used apps there, and I’m happy. Getting to other apps I suppose will really not be too complicated in the app drawer, as they’ll be alphabetically organized and I can quickly scroll through them versus having to page around to find them. Perhaps this would have been a big win for Android even a year ago, but this doesn’t feel like some “oh fuck yeah!” moment.

Slight edge to Android, not that big a deal though.

Apps coming in sideways

…but this is a business phone. A tester phone, more succinctly… I need to sideload me some APKs!

This process was fairly harmless. Tell my phone that I trust strangers on the internet and I’m able to install whatever I want. A godsend for testing multiple builds per month. This kind of model is a pure fantasy in the Apple space, having to deal with TestFlight and permissions and yadda yadda. Being able to just load “whatever you want” is so counter to the Apple Ecosystem, that it feels oddly “PC” to be able to just find something online and slap it on my phone if I want.

I’m a smart enough guy, right? Surely I won’t brick my device…

All of this has been just fine, and a very welcome feature considering the specific use-case I need it for.

Plus-erino

Some Android Magic

One of the coolest things I saw in the MKBHD review of the phone was the “Magic Eraser” feature. Basically it’s the Adobe Photoshop equivalent “Content-Aware Fill” feature, only 10x more user friendly and just about as good.

Don’t want grandma in the picture anymore? Highlight her ass (or all of her if that’s more your thing), and she’s gone. The phone will do it’s best to generate what should be behind her by analyzing the surrounding area and essentially clone-stamping it’s way to greatness.

The feature works fairly well, and certainly is noticeable if you care to look for it…but on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter…bite-size content consumption locations… no one’s pixel peeping to ensure you haven’t doctored up your photo. And even if they did, it’s a fairly inoffensive blurring more often than not, and nearly indetectable at other times.

Two thumbs up… both from me.

The Google Ecosystem

Which brings me to the way Google wants you to use these devices. They’ve got your Google Calendar, your Google Drive, your Google Docs…beaming up all that sweet delicious data to the Google servers so they can rake my precious data for ad revenue.

I’ll be honest, I love the flexibility, but still loathe the business practice.

Is it great that I can easily suck my Google Calendar into all kinds of apps for easy scheduling and review? Yes…yes it is.

Do I enjoy knowing that there’s an evil empire that’s grinning with every new piece of information I feed it? No…not all all.

Perhaps it’s the Apple purest in me, but I will never get behind the idea of the consumer being the product. Data is so freely given and abused, and we’re all largely worrying more about where we’re going to get our hair cut or if we can pay the bills that what some corporation wants to do with my search history or location data doesn’t really cross our minds.

I can appreciate that they’ve built a nice little Google bubble to live in. But I much prefer my walled garden where I’m much more confident that my data is localized on device only at best, or psuedo-randomized at worst.

Flexibility: Check for Android

Privacy: Check for Apple

Total Package: Total Wash

…I’m enjoying my time using my PIxel 6. It’s fun to not know what the hell I’m doing and having to Google a thousand obvious and dumb things that are second nature to me in my comfy iOS-land.

The time I’ve spent with it so far hasn’t convinced me that the grass is greener on the other side, but I’ve at least gained a newfound appreciation for what my neighbors are doing with their lawns.