I think a big part of it for RAR specifically is that it’s a proprietary format that would technically require Google to license it, and for the tiny percentage of users that would benefit, they don’t bother.
A seemingly random but relevant example is the Japanese travel card situation with Pixel phones—every pixel on the planet has the necessary hardware to support Japanese travel cards since the pixel 6, however only pixel phones bought in Japan can use the feature (locked by the OS) because it would mean Google would have to pay a per-device cost worldwide.
This is kinda a similar situation I’d bet, they’ve proven they would rather not include the feature than pay for licensing
And there’s not really any money to be made charging licenses to open source projects—see ffmpeg/vlc
Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.
Google including it in android though means they can charge licenses as a per unit fee because, basically, Google (or phone manufacturers) is a company with money.
What? This has literally nothing to do with unrar’s license terms.
We’re talking about Android, unrar doesn’t have anything to do with this really.
The entire topic is about RAR archive support on Android, so of course the freely available source code of unrar, released by the RAR developer himself, has absolutely to do with everything here.
RAR is and will continue to be a proprietary format with an owner who can seek royalties.
Nope, unrar’s source code is free, released by RAR’s developer.
It’s like saying Google should stop licensing MPEG because ffmpeg exists—it simply doesn’t work like that
Nope, it absolutely isn’t like that. You just have no clue at all.
<span style="color:#323232;"> Unrar source may be used in any software to handle RAR archives
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> without limitations free of charge, but cannot be used to re-create
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> the RAR compression algorithm, which is proprietary. Distribution
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> of modified Unrar source in separate form or as a part of other
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> software is permitted, provided that it is clearly stated in
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> the documentation and source comments that the code may not be used
</span><span style="color:#323232;"> to develop a RAR (WinRAR) compatible archiver.
</span>
It’s not FOSS, given that it comes with the provision that no RAR compressor can be created based on unrar source code but for browsing and extracting RAR archives, the unrar source code as is is absolutely fine.
Ah fair play, I didn’t realise unrar was from the same guy, cheers for the extra context.
So I guess we go back to what else it could be:
The licence could still be an issue as it’s not FOSS and parts of android are, so I guess that could prevent its inclusion if it’s incompatible with existing licences
The licence could also be an issue in terms of wanting feature parity with zip support, which would include creation of archives.
As I mentioned before, the percentage of users who are interacting with non-zip archives locally on their devices is a pretty small percentage. It may be on the backlog, but it’s not going to be far from the bottom in priority.
How many of the use cases are not served by the third party app ecosystem sufficiently that it would benefit inclusion in the actual OS and the extra maintenance that would entail
RAR is an outdated format and in decline at this point, there are better options to add before getting to it
Let’s also address the elephant in the room regarding the last point—I don’t think I’ve seen RARs used regularly outside of piracy in quite some time. If that’s the main use case, Google is not going to be bothered about supporting it.
There’s probably other reasons I’ve not thought of, but just a couple of the above are enough to explain it IMO
One of the one plus that tmobile gave when they required 5g capability. It’s partially degoogled, but otherwise pretty standard. Headphone jack + sd slot, and it gets the job done. I can’t recall what the general name is, something like a nord 200 or whatever, but the model is de2118.
Decent phone overall tbh. I thought I would hate it, but the battery life is solid, the audio is “good enough” for road trips, and the size is just right for my hands.
I used to hate Bluetooth, but that’s because the early versions were terrible. Painful to connect, frequent drops and disconnects, and very short range and easy to block the signal.
Since Bluetooth 4 it’s been great, and rock solid with Bluetooth 5. The only time I’ve had a problem is when I went into the other room and stood directly in front of a running microwave. I lost about half the signal until I took a step back.
Wireless headphones are far more convenient. Phone in my pocket, and I can walk around, clean the house, or work out at the gym, completely untethered.
Yeah I absolutely do not miss snagging my headphone cable on every door or drawer handle in a 1 mine radius. Also I think I used to go through 3-4 sets of headphones a year by wearing out the cable, spending the last few weeks precariously holding the cable 24/7 to enjoy the music.
Wireless does have it’s issues but I’m on my 2nd wireless pair, both bought in the £30 region and it’s probably been 5+ years since I used wired now. Battery hasn’t been an issue really, and although I lost one headphone on my previous wireless set, I can live with it.
I absolutely support the want for a headphone jack so people can choose wired, but I’d still choose wireless.
It’s not just android devices, Apple discontinued the mini (5.4”) after the 13 series and they are on 15 series now. If you want a small iPhone now you have to get the SE which is an 8 with a chip from the 13 inside. The standard size is now 6.1 on both platforms.
I’m hoping the Mini isn’t discontinued, just that they are skipping a few gens. I have a 13 Mini. Given my normal pace of buying, I’ll be in the market for a 20 Mini.
Yeah the mini is a great phone just didn’t sell well. I thought maybe they would roll the X back out as a mini or a SE since it’s screen size was about halfway between the mini and regular 12&13. I never thought phones would just keep getting bigger. I remember switching from a HTC One to an LG G3 with its massive 5.5” screen and it was just perfect lol.
I’m on Graphene too and I once read that the modems used in Pixel phones are pretty trashy and drain a ton of battery. If I filter my battery usage by system, it shows that network standby almost consumes half of my battery charge (~46%).
Maybe the other guy here is right and it’s a VPN issue (too)? idk. Anyway, I didn’t really found a solution for this except leaving my phone on airplane mode at night.
Likely sound like cranky old man but I’ll be catching phones with a jack as long as I can! Not mad about having the option for wireless, but I’m a bit of a purist.
Plus once in a blue moon I’ll DJ without Wi-Fi and use the phone to pull up a tune I don’t have in my physical storage. Much harder to do that without 3.5mm jack.
Still on a pretty old Galaxy 9, been putting off the upgrade forever. Not even sure what the cool kids are using these days. Need to hit that research phase a bit
I have big hands and I still can’t stand these 6"+ phones. They don’t fit in a pocket worth a shit and they’re fragile as hell.
I had a Samsung S4 Mini, it was my favorite phone. Fit in a shirt pocket, I kicked that thing down ladders and on gravel, never broke the screen. Everything else bigger has had a broken screen within a year.
Kicking a phone down a ladder isn’t exactly the intended use case though, so maybe it’s just your fault that your phone screen keeps getting broken. I’ve had large phones for years, and haven’t broken a single screen.
My hands aren’t particularly small either and I hate big phones. I like to use my phone with one hand most of the time so I need a small phone to hold it comfortably and to reach around the touch screen.
I’ve noticed even few millimeters of difference in width has great impact on how comfortable the phone is to use. Gesture navigation also helps and I think it was created out of necessity for bigger phones.
That sounds like a weird way to get around battery optimizations without having to ask the user to explicitly do that for this app? I mean there is a mechanic for that already via disabling battery optimizations, far as I understand it.
Showing a notification doesn’t “evade” battery optimization - as battery optimization is completely independent of Android’s memory management.
Showing a notification allows Android’s memory management to better assess what apps to kill using a weights system, based on whether they are in the foreground or background, if any of the app’s overlays/notifications are visible to the user, and exactly how visible they are.
Battery optimization will kill any non-system app based on how frequently it is used, dependent on its overall background CPU usage, regardless of whether the app is showing a notification or not.
Persistent notification for some ongoing processes, such as downloads, torrenting clients, VPN services, all sorts of synchronisation, weather, DND, bedtime mode, battery monitors etc.
I in particular liked to use it with Tasks.org client for non-dismissable reminders, so that they stayed in the notifications bar until I mark them done. This way I would never accidentally dismiss a reminder for a chore until I specifically completed it.
I in particular liked to use it with Tasks.org client for non-dismissable reminders, so that they stayed in the notifications bar until I mark them done. This way I would never accidentally dismiss a reminder for a chore until I specifically completed it.
This right here. Exact same use case.
What I’ve started doing is setting them to re-trigger at random if they’ve been swiped away. At least then if I accidentally dismiss it, it’ll come back in a little while.
Enabling it completely breaks Reminders, btw. Or at least it has so far for me. It won’t let me set a reminder and previously set reminders don’t send a push notification. Other assistant things like timers and playing songs seems to hand off to Assistant correctly.
Edit: they seemed to have fixed this. Reminders function normally now.
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