Tried Q in an AVD... Pleasant surprises and major disappointments!

[anon(10181084)]

So... today I installed the latest canary build of Android Studio in order to get Q running in an Android Virtual Device since none of my physical devices can run Q.

Positive:

-File management not messed up by scoped storage, both in X-Plore and Files. (THANK GOD!)

-Supports some really ancient apps like Linpack 1.0.6 (from 2009!) and an early rare version of Softweg's Benchmark (this successfully saved a file directly to internal storage). Also, Smartbench 2010 mostly works.

-Gorgeous UI, far nicer than Oreo which I currently have on both my daily driver devices.

Negative:

-Outright refuses to install (despite disabled Play Protect) some other legacy software (AnTuTu 1.4 and 1.6 were some of the "test victims") and even some modern apps like the latest versions Limbo PC Emulator and Solid Explorer. This is a problem for a geek like me who likes vintage android apps (especially messing with ancient benchmark apps) and retro PC emulation. Also of note is that AEMULA 486 emulator doesn't install.

-Recent apps menu sucks

-Has scoped storage, which I couldn't test since there are no apps that target Q yet. I'm wondering if the sandbox storage or some other "general" directories such apps are allowed to use can be accessed through a file manager and then I can copy stuff between them. If that is possible (and maybe even direct access via SAF through the documents provider), then I will still be able to do my geeky power user stuff (APK editing, managing files for emulators, manually editing/changing emulator config/bios files etc...) without issues.

All in all, it seems alot more bearable than I thought it would be, but the spotty APK compatibility is getting on my nerves and they should offer the legacy Lollipop/Marshmallow/Nougat/Oreo style recents menu as an option. Also, when you run most apps that target older versions, on first start it warns you that you are using a legacy app.



Edit: I just realized some some of the apps that do not work require ARM processors. I guess they messed up ARM emulation in AOSP lol.

 

[Rukbat]

And some legacy apps require old APIs - which have been deleted. (Don't ask me why, I'm not the one who makes those decisions.) Also, the order of args for some APIs may have been changed (again, I didn't make the decision - I'd never do that, and I'd write the newer version of the API to default to some sane values for new values that weren't supplied - if possible. Only if it's not possible to run the modified API without those arguments would be the time I'd pop up that "made for an older version" message.

If you've been programming long enough to have written your post, you've run into things like this before.

(It took a while to get used to swiping up for both the app drawer and the recents, but now it's so second-nature that when I ran an old phone with 5.0.1 last night, it took a bit of doing before I could pull up recents. And the Back button was at the "wrong" side.)

 

[anon(10181084)]

And some legacy apps require old APIs - which have been deleted. (Don't ask me why, I'm not the one who makes those decisions.) Also, the order of args for some APIs may have been changed (again, I didn't make the decision - I'd never do that, and I'd write the newer version of the API to default to some sane values for new values that weren't supplied - if possible. Only if it's not possible to run the modified API without those arguments would be the time I'd pop up that "made for an older version" message.

If you've been programming long enough to have written your post, you've run into things like this before.

(It took a while to get used to swiping up for both the app drawer and the recents, but now it's so second-nature that when I ran an old phone with 5.0.1 last night, it took a bit of doing before I could pull up recents. And the Back button was at the "wrong" side.)

I fully understand. At least it is not the complete restricted/incompatible disaster that I expected. And BTW, just because I installed Android studio doesn't mean I program Android apps. I installed it solely because I can use the AVD emulator. I'm now pretty sure 90% of those compatibility issues will be non existent on ARM devices with the final version.