“Compact” is a bit of a stretch. But the size of the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro (non-XL) is pretty nice. I currently have a 7 Pro and while the “screen real estate” is nice, it’s really on the upper end of what I’m willing to use. (Both in terms of size and weight) I bought my mom a Pixel 8 recently and I really liked the form factor when I set up the phone. It’s large enough to fit everything on the screen but small enough to use comfortably. Since I really want a telephoto lens the non-XL Pro version seems like it’s made for me. 😄

Wouldn’t it be better for our digital wellbeing to have an option that makes it unpleasant to use the phone in bed? 😬

I use it when I’m staying at hotels and want to use their WiFi, or any other public WiFi, to protect my private data. Google probably has it anyway but there’s no need to share it with another unknown entity.

This is a belated April Fool’s joke, right? This looks horrendous. Like the ugly child of iOS and Samsung icons.

I’m still not quite sold on the pill-shaped camera bar but I suppose this design helps with consistency across different types of device (normal phones, foldables, tablets), unlike the current camera visor.

I’m not using two-button navigation but there was one nice thing it did in Android 9: you could flip the pill to the right and hold it to scroll through open apps until you’ve reached the app you wanted to switch to (or move your finger left/right to scroll in that direction), and only then lift the finger.

Unfortunately that only worked in Android 9. In Android 10 you could only swipe to the very next app. Not sure why they butchered that carousel navigation; probably to bring it in line with full gesture navigation.

It’s a relatively new feature that is slowly rolling out to other languages/regions. I received it maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago (in Germany).

I don’t think there’s a definitive list of words/phrases that trigger it. It usually works with one or two words (for example “happy birthday!”) followed by an exclamation mark. Could be pretty much anything. It even works with “Batman!” Although the result is … well, not appropriate for the Dark Knight. 😄

I mean, how many ways can you style an X?

Maybe they need a new mascot now that the bird is gone. How about a hamster? They could call it Xhamster.

Congratulations, you’ve passed Capitalism 101.

Why do they ask for feedback for their platform … on another platform? I don’t have a Twat Twitter account and I don’t intend to ever create one.

It also supports MaterialYou color theming, which always a nice addition to any app.

They do that to let search engines index their articles. Then they switch on the paywall an hour later or so but still get a lot of traffic (which is good for advertising) when people click on the link on Google etc.