After a few days I'm well in to the new world, for me, of Android Oreo on a Pixel 2. I've kept a list of observations (in Google Keep) of what's better, worse, and what I miss.
What's better
- Shows incoming call may be spam and lets you confirm or not
- Launch camera by double tapping the power button (Pixel 2)
- Ability to not lock when connected to trusted bluetooth devices
- Front facing stereo speakers on the Pixel 2
- Great that the Google Home Mini that comes with the Pixel 2 at the moment works as a Chromecast audio device.
- Works better with Philips Hue lights than going via HomeKit which is a little unreliable for me
- USB-C. I want this everywhere.
What's worse
- Don't like some android apps have bumpy animation flashes, even native Google software like play store installs.
- Front facing speakers on the Pixel 2 aren't so good when I listen to podcasts with the phone in a shirt pocket.
- Don't like how some apps re-open rotated
- Facebook chat heads appeared. Happily Apple doesn't allow that.
What I miss
- Apple watch
- Airdrop
- Continuity (copy on computer, paste on phone)
- Apple Reminders, am using Android Tasks
- Apple Notes, using Google Keep and chrome extension on macOS
- Reeder RSS reader, am using TTRSS client
- Overcasts, using PocketCasts
- Find my friends, could use Google Maps
- Fitbit being able to use the step counter in the iPhone, using Google fit but I miss the competition with family
- Safari not auto-playing videos with sound (coming in Chrome)
- Spotlight search to launch apps by pulling down on any screen.
Notes
- Deactivate iMessage association with my phone number (Thanks Jason and Gavin for the tip)
- I'm looking for a way to import notes into Keep
- Why do apps in the Google Play store need to be verified with Play protect on device?
- Android Studio looks nice but HAXM (required to emulate Android O) isn't compatible with macOS 10.13 yet, even in the Beta version.
- Backup doesn't work. When I decided to switch to the other review phone, the XL, I found that App data, messages etc were all "waiting for backup" on the first phone. This seems to be a known issue that currently doesn't have a fix.
- I was tricked by a fake Messenger app called "Messenger" with a very similar icon to the Facebook one that showed me full screen ads before bouncing over to the real app. No idea what other terrible things it might have done. I'm not alone.
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