A few things not mentioned here that I like which will be in Android P:
You can specify how long you want to use a program for in a day and it will tell you when you’re going over time. This will then grey out the applications icon to remind you that you shouldn’t be using it.
You will be able to get a notifications digest instead of as they happen.
And expanding on the shush gesture, from what I understand Do Not Disturb features in general will be more powerful. For example, right now it’s easy to quickly turn off sound and vibration on my phone but the stupid blinky light still shows up and messages light up my screen for a few seconds. I can turn those off but it takes effort, the demos at Google I/O suggested that this will be closer to a DnD button.
Given that “making tech less addictive” is in opposition to Google’s business model of surveillance-driven advertising, I’m having a hard time buying it.
Youtube will probably take a hit but search, maps, drive, gmail and the many other google products will still get used without any need for addiction. You don’t check google maps for no reason just for fun unlike facebook or snapchat.
While it’s always good to keep Google’s motives in mind, I think they’re being more subtle than that. If they take an approach of relentlessly making things addictive, they will (and they know this) face a backlash of people that want services that aren’t completely addictive. I think they’re willing to lose on total available waking percentage of a person’s attention in favor of maintaining a percent relative to competitors.
I like this plan, one & a half thumbs up. Shush: it’s good. Wind down: also good. Dashboard data: who’s really going to open that? Armchair design session time: a phone should have a real bedtime with the same annoying “Are you sure you’re not sleeping?” questions you get in Driving mode. Second, the Dashboard data should pop up when you open any app, so you can see you opened $app 15 times already today, once not even 3 minutes ago.
I think the real battle against phone addiction is to acknowledge its downsides and focus on them, and it’s hard for a phone to know what you’re not doing when it’s face-on-screen. But all in all, good stuff.
A few things not mentioned here that I like which will be in Android P:
Given that “making tech less addictive” is in opposition to Google’s business model of surveillance-driven advertising, I’m having a hard time buying it.
Youtube will probably take a hit but search, maps, drive, gmail and the many other google products will still get used without any need for addiction. You don’t check google maps for no reason just for fun unlike facebook or snapchat.
While it’s always good to keep Google’s motives in mind, I think they’re being more subtle than that. If they take an approach of relentlessly making things addictive, they will (and they know this) face a backlash of people that want services that aren’t completely addictive. I think they’re willing to lose on total available waking percentage of a person’s attention in favor of maintaining a percent relative to competitors.
I like this plan, one & a half thumbs up. Shush: it’s good. Wind down: also good. Dashboard data: who’s really going to open that? Armchair design session time: a phone should have a real bedtime with the same annoying “Are you sure you’re not sleeping?” questions you get in Driving mode. Second, the Dashboard data should pop up when you open any app, so you can see you opened $app 15 times already today, once not even 3 minutes ago.
I think the real battle against phone addiction is to acknowledge its downsides and focus on them, and it’s hard for a phone to know what you’re not doing when it’s face-on-screen. But all in all, good stuff.