Cruising the Stratosphere

RAM--

One thing that I have noticed here with my Nexus 6 running Android N (NPD56N), Developer Preview 4, is that since this phone has 3 gigs of RAM I notice that web pages are cached for longer despite having a lot of other apps open in the background. What this means for the average user is that you can go back to a webpage to the work you were doing without the page totally refreshing and wiping out your current progress, whether that be a form that you are filling out or picking up in the exact place in a video that you were watching in Chrome or whatever. It's very nice. When on an iPad, I have always had to be careful when multi-tasking not to stretch iOS too far (,i.e. go back to the app that I want) to keep the information persistent (and then switch back to the app where my current focus lies), otherwise the OS will drop the cached info and when I go back it refreshes the page and wipes all the progress I have made. I have noticed this the most in Safari. I have always attributed this behavior to iOS not having more RAM. I am not sure if this is the 'complete reason'; it probably is not. I am not a programmer and so I do not know the inter workings of these particulars when programming, but what I can tell you is that it is nice not to have to be so timid when traipsing around the apps on your device, multi-tasking from this process to that.

Battery Life--

Battery life is better on iPhone 6S Plus, for sure, but if it's between certain enhanced abilities on the Nexus versus a longer battery life with more curtailed actions on the iPhone, I will gladly suffer having to be battery conscious over not being able to do what I want to do. The Nexus with Stock Android behaves more like a computer where you can get apps from wherever you want, not that you will, but you can...and that's a nice feeling.

App Store--

Why can't iOS have a security toggle that allows you to 'get apps from other sources' or something similar to the way that MacOS handles that issue? Why do I have to go the route of Jailbreaking the device or the long way around of installing a 'profile' for each app developer that has an app that I would like to run? There is an easier way to do this. It's not that I mind installing security profiles, but why does the process have to be so arduous?

Messages--

Now this is something that Google needs to nail down. There have been a lot of supposed solutions with nothing really taking care of the thing: Hangouts, Messenger, etc. Can we have One App that handles all of our messaging needs kind of like iMessage does for iOS? Apple 'sandwiches' the phone number and the Apple ID to create this cohesion (out of sight) for the user. Did they copyright the process? Probably. Is that why Google has not done something similar with the phone number and your Google Acct.? Even within Hangouts all this is separated for the user: SMS, MMS and just plain ol' Hangouts. The user has to choose which he/she is going to send. They have to be conscious if their user is an iPhone user or Android and choose the correct channel. This is ridiculous. Hopefully the Allo app that Google is about to release will change all this. We'll see. One thing if for sure: Messaging needs to be simpler on Android. The user just needs to type, add media if they want and send to one user or many, period. Yay, for iOS. You do this perfectly.

...On with more testing......

Ciáo!

I didn't set out to want to 'jump ship' on the iPhone. I am a proponent of iOS and the iPhone and have been eversince the iPhone 3G. But if I am honest, I have never really given 'Pure Android', i.e. Google's Android Experience--The Nexus line of phones and tablets--a true go. I am doing that now and it actually started out as an accident because I bought the Nexus phone that I am currently using in order to support some software that I was potentially going to need for some work. Well, the work fell through, but I still have the device.

What initially brought me to giving Nexus and Google's Assistant (Google's AI), which feature set I happen to use quite a lot in iOS through Siri, was the fact that the Google AI is able to do a lot more for the user than Siri can currently do for iOS users. I've heard a lot of people say that they don't use the Assistants all that much on either side of the OS fences, but I do and their penetration into our daily lives is only going to increase as the technology becomes more and more integrated into the products and services that we use everyday. Google has let their AI out of the bag quite a bit more than Apple has let out the leash on Siri. How this translates for me is in the simple helpfulness of everyday tasks. Google Now is able to help me, while Siri politely tells me, "I'm sorry Sean, I cannot do that". When has this happened? When I am asking Siri to turn down the volume on my Bluetooth connected speaker system while I am washing dishes in the kitchen. Siri cannot help me with this, but on Google's AI with a Nexus phone, the assistant is happy to oblige (having access to the device's settings controls). This is something that is off-limits for Siri. Siri can create or turn off alarms, and Bluetooth but that's about it when it comes to asking for help with device settings. Google's AI also has contextual awareness when conversing with you. This is huge. It means that when you ask an initial question with "Ok Google" and then once you have the answer, you follow up with another question about the subject matter in the question, you will not have to reiterate the subject matter in the phrasing of the second question---Google will understand to what you are referring and just give you the answer. This is so much easier. Talking with Siri is sometimes similar to talking to someone with mid-stage Alzheimer's or Dementia. I'm sorry for the analogy, but once you start using Google's AI on a Nexus device, you'll quickly understand the feeling that I'm referring to here.

Pure Android operates more like a computer where you have free reign to change granular settings for individual apps and what they have 'permission' to do or access in regards to your device. With iOS you have to accept the app permissions as a whole packet when you instal the app. You cannot go back and change a permission or two to disallow this or that or accept this or that action. With Android you can change the permissions either initially by disallowing the permission request from the pop-up when the app opens for the first time or by opening the permissions list in app system settings (main phone settings under apps>*app name*>permissions) later. I'm not sure if earlier versions of Android were 'sandboxed', but I'm running Android N developer beta on my Nexus and Google says that this system is. The Nexus phones are also encrypted by default now. That's nice in my estimation. Why? Because you can leave app permissions as they are (and Be Sure and Read Them Prior to Install) and as long as you only install apps from the Google Play store (and keep 'Allow Apps from Unknown Sources' toggled "off" in Settings>Security) with high ratings, you should be secure. iOS makes it so that you don't have to think about any of this and there's something to be said for that, but it's a trade off: (Oversimplified) Plug and Play with a Choosy Assistant or Complete Control (hands on the wheel) with the attention that requires)) with an Integrated, Higher Security Clearance Assistant.

 Afteryears with the former, right now I'm enjoying a prolonged test drive with the latter.

Note/Disclaimer: I am technically minded and so I love having more of hands-on approach with my technology. It's certainly not for everyone. If you are the kind of person that gets 'mad' at your devices when they will not do this or that for you then perhaps iOS is better for you on the whole. If, when something is not working like you expected it to work OR like it has 'always worked' in the past and you find that 'interesting' and then put on your 'Tech Sleuth' hat and get down to figuring it out with a kind of excitement, then maybe you would enjoy the experience of Android, which both allows you and your apps more free reign, but also 'can' require a little more of your involvement.  

If you've had an issue enabling this feature on your iOS devices, you're not alone. I, personally, found that my second iPad Air 2 was not able to make these phone calls over LTE when my iPhone was off or not near me. I had followed AT&T's directions to a 'T' and still, I was not able to make it happen. All the settings on my iPhone 6S Plus and iPad Air 2 were exactly as they requested and yet it was not working.

If you are like me, you've probably thought, "Well, that's okay. Apple's 'continuity' Feature is enough for me. After all, that allows calling on the iPad when the iPhone is nearby and both devices are on wi-fi, which for all intents and purposes is going to cover most use-case scenarios."

Well, fortunately you don't have to settle for that. Number Sync allows you to make calls on iPads and Apple Watch as well as Mac OS X devices (when all devices are running the correct version of the OS AND when they are on the compatible list ) when the phone is off (or away from you) and whether or not the iPad is on Wi-Fi. Note: for the Watch to work, you have to be in a 'known' wi-if network zone, i.e. you have to have used the watch and phone together in that same place in the past while the phone was on that wi-if network at that time, otherwise the watch will not have that network in its 'know network' list in its software. Before you ask, no, there is no way that you can look at that list on the watch or edit it.

So...the one detail that was missing in AT&T's instructions was that when you turn on wi-if calling on the secondary device (tablet), IT MUST BE ON WI-FI when provisioning the wi-if calling. To me, this was not necessarily common sense (, to you, it may be). I had my device on LTE through the whole process, thinking that it was the LTE Network that was provisioning this Number Sync feature and had nothing to do with my personal wi-if home network. Alas, I was wrong. I had turned all the settings on, but still the process was stuck on this last 'provisioning step' on the iPad. I turned the features all off and started over again on the iPhone and iPad. Finally, it occurred to me to flip on the wi-if on my tablet. The moment I did that, everything clicked into place and the provisioning was complete. I then tried the feature on all devices, turning my iPhone 6S Plus off and making a regular phone call with my iPad Air 2 on LTE. It worked seamlessly. I also tried it on my Apple Watch since I was at home and my Network would be a known Network to the Watch. Also, that worked seamlessly as well.

Yay. Success.

I hope this little detail might help some of you that may have been stymied by this feature to find resolution like it did me.

Our forgiveness of ourselves cannot be predicated on whether others forgive us for our mistakes. That would be missing the point entirely. Growing and evolving through our own process must be an independent yet related flow to the mirror that others provide. What they provide and what we see in that mirror IS feedback, but it has to be taken in, mixed with compassion and love and then redirected through our own centers of self-reflection and learning. No matter what we are, who we are....even with all of our (--I use this word loosely) 'idiosyncrasies' we are still with ourselves and it is our job to take care of who we are.

"What others think of us is none of our business" is a quote from someone somewhere that I have heard over and over through the years. While this is true, others still provide a barometer of sorts of how we are. I think the sweet spot is somewhere in the mix between the experiential feedback that we receive from our experiences and how much dissonance we encounter when we reflect on the experiences later. I believe the truth is in the 'afterimage' that we encounter when alone and have had time to reflect in a prayerful, balanced light within the heart.

We all age and as we age we tend to care less about semantics and political correctness and more about just conversing--just saying exactly is what is on our minds. This is all fine and dandy except when we are talking to our kids. Even though our parents age and we speak to them as adults do and they speak to us as adults as well, we are still their 'kids'.

Sometimes they forget to have the sensitivity that they should. Sometimes they forget that we still have feelings that can be damaged by what they say. I am here to say that we should offer them grace and forgive them without them even needing to know that we are doing that or that IF we took them seriously we would be hurt by what they are saying at that moment. Sometimes it is not worth the energy of trying to bring it to their attention and sometimes it is. We have to decide that on a case by case basis. The explanation and conversation to them can be lost and the significance of it lost just in the time and words that it takes to lay it out for them. Just to let it go is in many cases the best option. If you can see it with humor and with grace, then you have done yourself a service and by extension them as well.

Although that can be hard to see, that may eventually be us one day. Wouldn't it be nice if at that time our child afforded us the same grace? I think it would; at least it would be for me.