Things That Irk Me With Android Devices

After going exclusively for a while with the iSide of mobile phones, I decided to get back with Android. It felt like greeting an old friend again. However, I found some things that annoy the heck out of me with Android devices these days.

The first one is darn “silent switch” - you have it on the side of every iPhone ever. An easy way to check or adjust whether your phone is silenced or not without looking at it. And no, fiddling with volume buttons in your pocket doesn’t count as “normal” Android behavior is to share media and ringtone volume. And reversing silencing also means guessing your ring volume every time. Or simply giving up and using it in either silent or max volume mode. And don’t blame Apple patents for this as there are (rare) Android manufacturers that have it - like OnePlus.

The most curious thing about this physical switch is that I didn’t miss it before I went to Apple. I was OK with volume buttons and got used to their quirks. However, coming back to Android, I gave up on damn volume buttons for anything except volume control. While getting used to silent switch took no time, getting used to life without it takes eternity.

And frankly I could stop here as all other things together don’t annoy me as that simple switch. However, I will mention a few more issues. :)

Lack of headphone jack on new devices might be OK for some but I find it really limiting. Apple successfully removed it first and then everybody just had to follow. I have a feeling if Apple sold a polished turd, other manufacturers would start rubbing their’s too. Yes, I do know Bluetooth exists and I actually have reasonably good wireless headphones. But they are also pricier, have batteries, and I even sometime forget to bring them with me. You know what I always have? Pair or two of cheap 3.5mm headphones that need nothing. I can use them for rare sessions in (non-Pokemon) gym, driving a bike, or while walking through woods. If I lose them - so what?

And whoever mentions headphone dongle first can stuff it where the sun doesn’t shine.

Notches are my enemy too. Like in the carrot measuring contest (what? you don’t do those?) all manufacturers are trying to have screen to body ratio as high as possible. So they notch the hell out their phones. The more expensive phone the uglier notch (or two) it has to have. Yes, I know, people say you get used to it. Well, I can get also get used to having a screen without notch in the first place. :)

Of course I will complain also about the fingerprint sensor on the back. Not only this allows me to fiddle my phone for an uncomfortable minute before hitting it just right but it also means I need to physically move phone to get under it. Too much work for just a quick glance toward notification.

To continue with “get of my lawn” old man gripes, I find even such inconvenient fingerprint sensor strongly preferred to face unlock. Not only face unlock gives you the same drawback of having to pick up phone to unlock it, but you also cannot share your face with other people (unless you’re Nicholas Cage).

For example my phone at this moment has fingerprints for me, my wife, and both of my kids. My wife’s phone is likewise setup for the whole family. My kids’ phone have my wife and me added as secondary fingerprints as they don’t trust each other. :) And stop yelling privacy concerns as (a) they’re kids, and (b) I don’t actually snoop through their messages nor they snoop over mine (as far as I know :)).

Shared logins are awesome if you play some game together (e.g. Pokemon Go - yes, still) and one of you is not there - no worries, just use your own fingerprint and play on their phone. Or for the admin in the family - i.e. me - when I go over each phone to either setup new app or I need to test something during night and I don’t want to wake everybody up just for login. Yes, I could track their PINs and patterns in password manager but that’s not as friction-free as the good old fingerprint.

I have great hopes for come back of the fingerprint with the new under-the-screen technology but it might be that for the next phone my whole family will have to wear the same mask. :)

PS: And yes, I know that not all these are necessarily just Android faults but general industry trends - especially the damn notch race - but I’m not gonna change title now. :) Maybe some time later I’ll write what I love about Android and why I came back to it to bring balance to the universe.

Removing Line Breaks

Sometime in scripting you don’t get to choose your input format. For example, you might get data in multiple lines when you actually need it all in a single line. For such occasions you can go with:

cat ^^file^^ | awk '{printf "%s", $0}'

Likewise you might want lines separated by a space. Slight modification makes it happen:

cat ^^file^^ | awk '{printf "%s ", $0}'

Lastly, you might want to split a single line into multiple ones (handy for base64 printouts):

cat ^^file^^ | fold -w 72

PS: Check fmt if you need word-aware line splitting.

Extracting Public SSH Key From a Private One

Common key management method seen in Linux scripts is copying private and public SSH key around. While not necessarily the best way to approach things, getting your private SSH key does come in handy when easy automation is needed.

However, there is no need to copy public key if you are already copying the private one. Since private key contains everything, you can use ssh-keygen to extract public key from it:

ssh-keygen -yf ^^~/.ssh/id_rsa^^ > ^^~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub^^

What is the advantage you ask? Isn’t it easier just to copy two files instead of copying one and dealing with shell scripting for second?

Well, yes. However, it is also more error prone as you must always keep private and public key in sync. If you replace one and by accident forget to replace the other, you will be chasing your tail in no time.

Familiar Column Selection in Visual Studio Code

If you ever dealt with any advanced text editor, you are probably aware of column (a.k.a. block selection). You press Shift+Alt and then either use mouse or arrow keys to have a bit unusual block selection. While not needed often, it’s invaluable when it comes to dealing with text in columns.

Visual Studio Code does support it but, of course, there are minor issues. First of all, unlike almost any other editor (including Visual Studio!), shortcut is actually Shift+Ctrl+Alt. Fortunately this can be fixed either by manually remapping key bindings for column selection or by simply installing Visual Studio Keymap extension.

While that sorts out column selection key shortcut, it still leaves one annoying problem - if you move cursor in any direction while multiple lines are selected, you will see multiple cursors move - instead of more usual selection cancellation. Fortunately, you can add a few key bindings in keybindings.json to deal with that issue:

[
    {
        "key": "left",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "right",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "up",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "down",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "pageup",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    },
    {
        "key": "pagedown",
        "command": "cancelSelection",
        "when": "editorHasMultipleSelections && textInputFocus"
    }
]

Now you can enjoy block selection that works properly. :)

DRM Exceptions

A few days ago The Library of Congress has published Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. To make a long document short, you get to bypass a bit of DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) rules.

Most of the media talk about playing older games and fixing consoles or jail-breaking your phone but that’s not the full scope. For example, there is a security research exception. Without this exception any company ending as butt of a joke could sue the security researcher. And, the way how DMCA was written, they would prevail. Mind you, they still get to sue you, but now their victory is unlikely.

For Nth year in row, these rules also plug a hole in e-book accessibility. For example, without this exception, blind people would depend on the mercy of DRM-protected content producers. With this exception, they can use software of their choice to help them read and, if software has to break DRM to do it, so be it.

Lastly, one important category is fixing your vehicles. Quite a few manufacturers (John Deer comes first to mind but they are not alone) have been using DRM as a way to prevent you from fixing your vehicle yourself. There is quite a lot of revenue to get if you can block those pesky independent repairmen. Well, at least now they cannot use DRM to do this.

However, it’s not all good news as these provisions expire every three years and thus there is always a possibility of “LoC giveth, LoC taketh away” situation in the future. And just having right to DRM circumvention doesn’t mean shit if you still cannot get replacement parts and/or any replacement parts you do obtain are potentially seized.

But it is a good step forward.