Android @lemmy.world

1y ago

We heard you like toggles so we put a toggle in your toggle.

This toggle is annoying because what was once 1 press to turn on BT is now 2. It gets me every day.

138 comments

I have the opposite. I have never a reason to turn off Bluetooth, but always want to connect of disconnect devices. this is so much better than long pressing.
- Yeah they built this UI on the assumption that people didn't turn off their BT generally. This is an improvement for me but I really don't see why they can't make it an option for people.
  
  It's not an assumption. They obviously have telemetry that shows the vast majority of people never turn Bluetooth or WiFi off.
  
  Ummm... this also happened for WiFi as far as I can tell...
- My wife's car is extremely aggressive. The second she turns it on, it steals my Bluetooth connection. I could be mowing my lawn, listening to music on my phone, then suddenly hear nothing, and it's because my wife got in her car and was suddenly blasted with my tunes.
  I tell my phone to forget her car's Bluetooth connection, but then I'm constantly harassed by pop-ups on my phone every minute saying her car wants to pair with my phone. I can't get it to stop pinging me. It sees a Bluetooth device in range and then spams it, trying to connect.
  So yes, I like to keep my Bluetooth off until I want to use it.
  
  Tell the car to forget your phone?
  
  Have a dig through the cars Bluetooth settings and see if you can delete the pairing from that end.
  
  Sounds like your phone is top priority. Either clear it off the car or move her's up to the top spot.
  
  Does she have a mazda?? Mine does the same thing 😅
  
  Our car does this as well, but then when I get in it sometimes just refuses to connect automatically, so this actually helps me immensly.
- I turn it off daily. I have 2 phones and I don't want to connect my personal phone to my BT speaker at work. I can see where you're coming from though.
  
  I don't want to connect my personal phone to my BT speaker at work
  I'm confused, do you shuttle the same speaker between work and home or is work a separate speaker? If it's a separate speaker why don't you just delete it's pairing from your personal phone?
- Supermarkets and malls etc, use Bluetooth beacons to track, and profile you. I'm always turning mine off, when in those kind of places.
  
  I think this is the reason why Google implemented it. They already track you over Wi-Fi when you do not explicitly turn off the option, so Bluetooth is going the same route
- I was like you once until I got a speaker for the bathroom and now the wife and I fight over it...
  If we both have BT on, the speaker will connect to the last phone which is almost always the wrong one... And then the yelling fest starts so the other turns it off
- Yeah. That's my use case as well. I rather liked this. Even if I want to turn off BT, this is just one small button more that's almost underneath the fingertip on my phone when you press the bt.

I like the way Nothing OS does it. Tapping the icon toggles Bluetooth on/off, and tapping the text/rest of the button opens the popup.
- The fuck.... now i understand why the hell sometimes it opens me that annoying window ... It works the same on miui
  
  Same on OneUI, it's been part of the UX language for a while.
- But the wifi button still pisses me off. I want my separate LTE data toggle back.
  
  I actually have separate buttons for WiFi and data but they were buried in the 'edit' list
  
  This I can agree with
- The way it works right now on my phone is you tap it to turn it on and off and then you long hold to open the setting.
  I'm going to be peeved if that goes away in favor of OPs process...
  
  Yeah, long-pressing to open the menu makes intuitive sense regardless of whether you open the menu more than toggle.
- That's how my Samsung works too

I don't want to go conspiracy theory, but in my opinion it feels like a dark pattern to increase the time people have Bluetooth on. I believe they did the same thing with success for Wi-Fi. If I recall correctly, even when you are not connected to a device, Google can estimate your location based on what Wi-Fi networks you are in proximity to and something to varying degrees might work for Bluetooth as well which is why they also roll the feature over to the Bluetooth toggle
- Yeah, this is definitely it. This article is from 2019, so it has probably evolved a lot since then.
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluetooth-wireless-tracking-privacy.html
  In addition to the profits from earphones, this is probably another reason for the removal of the headphone jack.
  
  I could never go back to wired earphones though, they were way too annoying
- Definitely dark patterns.
  
  Not at all. That's what people want. Nobody turns off Bluetooth.
- They already do that regardless of the state of those toggles. You have to turn that off in a different spot.
  The main Bluetooth and Wi-Fi toggles otherwise just stop your device from actively associating/pairing with other devices. They do not control the radios.
  
  Thank you for this! I just turned them off. Such bullshit.
- Wut. Why would they bother when your cellular connection is constantly pinging all towers to literally triangulate your location? Why do something much more complicated to get data they already have?
  The real answer is they are a multi billion dollar company with telemetry. Obviously, the vast majority of people never turn off WiFi or Bluetooth. Most people want quick access to connect to a WiFi network or Bluetooth device, not to toggle either off.
  
  I believe that Wi-Fi points are more accurate than towers especially when they're sharing the information with indoor retailers
  
  Bluetooth give a lot more information about your surrounding (what device your phone detect or connect, for how much time, distance from objects, etc.), not only from your phone alone, but from other people phones who have bluetooth on and e.g. never disable any tracking from google services too. And the Mac address for bluetooth never change, so any device (and tracking company) will know you is forever you. Bluetooth is a privacy nightmare, and this is totally a dark pattern. People not knowing what they're doing is of course a thing, but it seems just a usual bad practice by google, who like to manipulate especially not tech-savvy people

I was just grumbling about this today. It's one of those little changes that might help someone, but interrupts a flow that worked well for me.
- Same. I was sure it's me doing something wrong.
  But I don't even like those larger icons. I want the smaller circles like before.

Can we talk about how space inefficient the UI is? It takes up the entire screen to essentially show 6 buttons. And I bet like the Internet toggle that it moves the buttons around when it detects new networks
- It's actually 9 buttons + DONE button. Each device has the option to connect to it by clicking its name, or enter Settings by tapping on its gear icon.
  
  I stand corrected. My brain must've been switched off at the moment.
- That was my first thought. Which skin of Android is this?
  
  This is not a skin, it's a pure android probably on pixel device

I prefer this. I've been annoyed by having to go to the settings every time I wanted to swap device I want to connect to. I rarely turn off BT anyways.
- Before it was a single tap to turn Bluetooth on/off, and a tap+hold to open the Bluetooth settings (or any quick setting tile in your notification tray). Maybe you just didn't know about that feature but the old way was 100% better.
  
  I knew about it but still prefer this new way

I miss the 6 small buttons

Going through the comments, I think it's clear to conclude this should be a choice to configure this tile. Some people prefer single tap to turn off, some don't

I honestly thought this was my own doing and was about to go insane when I couldn't find the setting to revert this. Why on earth would they do this.......
- I've felt this a lot over the years. Regressions in interface designs happen here and there, and I feel it's just people justifying their jobs. We have to change this, and that, and EVERYTHING, to keep it fresh. Where in reality, sometimes only some things need changing.
- I put buttons on screens for people at work and I'm imagining the fury that would rain down on me if I put 2 buttons in place do a normal thing that was once one button. I would never hear the end of it.

What version are you on? 15? I'm on 14, and for me it's as it ever was. Also, can you replace it by editing the Shortcuts? I was able to replace the Internet thingy with separate toggles for Mobile Data/WiFi by doing that.
- Hello, fellow kde connect user.
  
  Uh, this is kinda awkward, but I actually use a Gnome extension to be able to use KDE Connect.
  Edit: Oh, wait, I read KDE instead of KDE Connect. Well, ignore the above, then.
- I'm on 14 but on a Pixel 8 and it's like OP shows now. Clicking the button on the quick menu just opens the screen OP is showing instead of turning off the BT radio like it did on my previous phone, which was also on Android 14.
  For some reason, certain features and UI changes don't happen for every device even if they're on the same version of the OS. Like every phone maker has their own tweaked version of it for their specific phone, and it's not a universal experience for everyone just being on Android.
  
  I mean, sure, but both lineage and the stock rom on pixels should be reasonably close to stock Android, compared to stuff like, for example, MI UI.
- I'm on 14 on a Google pixel 6 pro. I tried what you suggested but there's no option to alter it, but thanks.
  
  Hmh. Annoying. I'm on lineage, and I noticed that the stock Pixel Rom seems to be more limited like that in some ways.

Fuck this noise! Hate it.

?
Does it not turn on Bluetooth before opening that menu?
It does for me.
Bluetooth on: single tap turns it off.
Bluetooth off: single tap turns it on and opens that menu so you can select a device to connect to. (it still connects to the last connected device automatically) From there tapping back or tapping beside it closes it.
Been that way for several years now. (Samsung A54, and A52 prior to this one)
- Not on my Pixel 8. Single tap on the Bluetooth button only opens the Bluetooth connection screen with a separate toggle to actually turn on Bluetooth once you're in there. Google likes to do things the hard way.
  
  Ah... Google devices...
  I'm much less confused.
- Nope.
- You have a Samsung, so you can avoid Google's UI dumbing down.

And then they don't toggle where you want to toggle (a connect / disconnect on each device) so you have to tap and guess or open settings anyway

Fuck Google's recent changes to the quick settings panel, really. Especially now that One UI 6 didn't revert those changes like it was done with One UI 5.

It follows the pattern for WiFi/Internet.
- Which was also a terrible change.
- This was my thought. I often turned my Bluetooth off while trying to switch devices because of habits from the Wi-Fi
  
  I appreciate the consistency. I've turned off Bluetooth accidentally too.

I don't like it, but I like it more than the old way of holding the button down to get to the menu. I do hate that the "see all" menu doesn't just expand the current menu, it takes you to the old menu. There's definitely hints of windows95 creeping into Android.

I Fucking Hate It!

I think however this is just based on how the average user interacts with this toggle. Very few users actively turn off their BT, ever, as they have frequent situations where they want their BT to just work immediately.
OTOH, this means that in some cases, they need to swap which device to connect to, hence opening the menu on the first tap.

this entire quick actions shade was redesigned either for children or for elders
the space now used for 4 quick actions could fit 12 quick actions before

They need to add a way to quick toggle it, maybe a double tap or hold.
- Tap and hold should bring this menu up. Tap should just toggle it. It's stupid.
  
  Isn't this how it used to work? I hate the double toggle too.

This is part of why is think stock android is now trash. I'll stick to oem skins for now

I thought this was only on graphene, as a way to confirm your wanted Bluetooth radio turned on. As a general Android update, it makes no sense

You're not wrong, but you just reminded me to setup some Tasker events to manage my BT enabled state.

my phone does single tap to toggle and tap on the down arrow or longpress for settings page

I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling this way.

It's so Google can keep tracking you via Bluetooth and WiFi, which they hope you forgot to turn off said tracking option in settings, and they are making it difficult to turn off all the way.

So, maybe a weird question, but what are you doing with your phone exactly that you need to turn on Bluetooth on a daily basis?
- I sometimes use Bluetooth headphones but turn off Bluetooth to save battery.
  
  I will never understand wireless headphones as a concept. They seem objectively worse in every way.
  Lower sound quality, more battery intensive, have to be charged, less comfortable, easier to drop and way easier to lose. Also, makes you look like you're talking to yourself all the time
- This was pointed out already that I could just unpair my personal phone to my speaker, but I have 2 phones. I have a speaker at work both are paired to. So every day I turn bluetooth off so when I turn my speaker on I'm not announcing connection to my personal phone because it violates cell phone policy. Because it announces connection to both, I turn bluetooth off before I go inside. Since I have a work phone, I'm good to use that one, just not my personal phone.

138 comments