Android 9 Pie... Do you like it?

[ab2c4]

Overall I think it's pretty good, never had a problem with the previous version though. Bluetooth for me is terrible though. Less than half the time it works now. The new gesture system is terrible and inefficient, so glad we can turn it off which is what I did. God help me if they ever do away with the 3 button Nav bar. Oh and I want my app drawer button or icon back, I'll take either one. Other than the negatives I listed, I do like the overall look of the new version.

 

[cydewaze]

I generally like new Android releases, but for me this one's a huge miss. While I like the new look and feel (I use Nova launcher, so changes are minimal), there are a couple of things for me that would have made this a deal-breaker on a new phone.

The main one is that they've broken location services by removing the battery saver mode. Right after the upgrade, I had at least twice the battery drain. I was down to 50% by 10am, which is normally where I was at by 6pm (coming off a 5:30am charge). When I turned location off, the battery life improved, but now any widgets (like weather) are disabled due to lack of location. And it's not just a matter of turning it back on to refresh the weather. If you do that it takes quite a while for the widget to realize it knows where it is again.

My other problem is not being able to hide the taskbar clock. I've gone in to System UI Tuner to hide it, but that doesn't work anymore. It pretends it's hiding it, but it's still there. Clear all apps from the tasks screen is now hidden all the way to the left, and if you have a light wallpaper you're going to miss seeing it. Give it a blurred background or something to make it more obvious.

That said, it does seem pretty smooth, and I do like that dark mode is back for some items.

 

[Kulana]

I've had it for a few days and - mostly - I like it.

In the UK I don't (yet) get a choice of more than 2 Assistant voices or the ability to grab text from the Overview menu, however, I'm sure it'll cross the pond eventually.

I like the Gestures and the Auto-rotate changes.

 

[DJM626]

I generally like new Android releases, but for me this one's a huge miss. While I like the new look and feel (I use Nova launcher, so changes are minimal), there are a couple of things for me that would have made this a deal-breaker on a new phone.

The main one is that they've broken location services by removing the battery saver mode. Right after the upgrade, I had at least twice the battery drain. I was down to 50% by 10am, which is normally where I was at by 6pm (coming off a 5:30am charge). When I turned location off, the battery life improved, but now any widgets (like weather) are disabled due to lack of location. And it's not just a matter of turning it back on to refresh the weather. If you do that it takes quite a while for the widget to realize it knows where it is again.

My other problem is not being able to hide the taskbar clock. I've gone in to System UI Tuner to hide it, but that doesn't work anymore. It pretends it's hiding it, but it's still there. Clear all apps from the tasks screen is now hidden all the way to the left, and if you have a light wallpaper you're going to miss seeing it. Give it a blurred background or something to make it more obvious.

That said, it does seem pretty smooth, and I do like that dark mode is back for some items.

I totally agree with you on location services. I still can not find out what is sucking my battery life. With this turned off I am still having a huge battery drain, but when this was enabled, it was even more so. Dumb move on Googles part to remove this. My battery life on Oreo was outstanding.

I have toggled everything off that I thought would be the normal culprit of the battery drain issue, I have wiped my phone and the drain is still happening. Even when I went to sleep my battery was at 70% and when I woke up it was 60% so it is losing even when in active. I would say this has to be the worst experience for me compared to Oreo and even Nuget

 

[Randy Spear]

If you could either organize the app drawer or allow launchers to work 100% with overview, i would have loved this update.
My battery life is significantly worse.
In the DND settings, there's an option to ask everytime whether you want it turned back on at next alarm, time period, or manually. They stripped this away in Oreo, I'm happy they brought that back.

 

[DJM626]

Here is something that I found out. I may have been ignorant to the fact that I was not a beta tester for Pie and this may have been discussed previously. If you go into the app settings and then see all your apps, when you click on them individually and go under advanced to the battery section and under battery there is the background restriction toggle. I have restricted everything hence saving the battery.

I did receive a pop up when I did this saying that if you restrict something, you might not receive notifications or the app may not function correctly, but if I encounter any issues with any apps, I will just go back and toggle the apps that are giving me problems to non restricted. So far within the past few hours, this seems to be slowing down my battery usage

 

[cydewaze]

Here is something that I found out. I may have been ignorant to the fact that I was not a beta tester for Pie and this may have been discussed previously. If you go into the app settings and then see all your apps, when you click on them individually and go under advanced to the battery section and under battery there is the background restriction toggle. I have restricted everything hence saving the battery.

I did receive a pop up when I did this saying that if you restrict something, you might not receive notifications or the app may not function correctly, but if I encounter any issues with any apps, I will just go back and toggle the apps that are giving me problems to non restricted. So far within the past few hours, this seems to be slowing down my battery usage

I'll try to see if I can figure out whether or not any specific apps are contributing more to the drain than the rest, and apply the treatment you mentioned. My battery life's been better since keeping location off (and picking a spot between home and work to use for weather), but it was still better with Oreo.

 

[DJM626]

When I did this, I don't have to keep my location off as it took care of most of the issues with battery, from what I can see so far. Left my house at 2:00 this afternoon with 93% just returned at 8:30 with 73% so being down only 20 and using my phone quite a bit while out with location on, to me is pretty good compared to what I have been getting all week thus far

 

[JamieLawrance3]

This one had to be smoother but in the end, my phone is getting hotter and work slowly. On reboot, the problem disappears for a while but after some time using the phone its happens again. Somebody?

 

[Billy Bob Jimmy Joe]

I feel indifferent. It is nice trying a new navigation method. It's just not an upgrade to me. They add some new features but took some away.

 

[TwistedByKnaves]

Battery life is just ridiculously awful. losing 1% every couple of minutes. Otherwise lovely.

Almost caught up with webOS.

(Is preCentral still up?)

:0)

 

[TwistedByKnaves]

Seems better today. On 76%, though with limited use. Restricting Twitter to 15 mins may have helped...

:0)

 

[JoePa2624]

I had this issue as well. A hard reset and clean install has resolved this for me. Battery life is now exceeding my average on Oreo (still small sample size)

Battery life is just ridiculously awful. losing 1% every couple of minutes. Otherwise lovely.

Almost caught up with webOS.

(Is preCentral still up?)

:0)

 

[dyastrab]

I'm starting to like it more. It's better looking than Oreo. Battery is getting back to where I was in Oreo as well.

 

[hyollech]

Just another 5 years and android could be as good as webOS. =)

 

[bdb23]

Glitchy AF. Battery life sucks now. Phone runs super hot. Apps freeze up. I've restarted my phone like I'm using an old Blackberry.

 

[Kizzy Catwoman]

My battery life has finally improved and is even better than on oreo. Happy.

 

[LeoRex]

The feature I like the most is the new Overview. I was never a big fan of the vertical cards in the old Recents... Easy to miss the app I wanted.

Now it does so much more. The full cards are easier to see, and the fact that you can copy text and pics is pretty slick. But it's the other additions that shine.

You now have access to apps without dropping back to the home screen... Either flick up twice or longer to get to the drawer or (my preference since I never really use the drawer) tap the search bar and start typing the app you want and it'll pop the apps that match. That app search function was clunky in the older versions of the Pixel launcher, requiring you to click all the way at the top of the screen to start searching.

The suggested apps are also pretty accurate. My usage is often a creature of habit, so the list usually has the app I'm looking for.

And the fact that this is easily accessible via a quick flick up, on any screen, is great. It's become my primary way to launch apps.

And they are going to be bringing back some of the old Now features to the Feed while making it easier to access in Google Assistant... Which will cut down, even more, the need to drop back to the home screen.

 

[anon(10092459)]

You now have access to apps without dropping back to the home screen... Either flick up twice or longer to get to the drawer or (my preference since I never really use the drawer) tap the search bar and start typing the app you want and it'll pop the apps that match. That app search function was clunky in the older versions of the Pixel launcher, requiring you to click all the way at the top of the screen to start searching.

Whole post is spot on, but this part right here has been a game changer for me. My previous setup was clean homepage with 1 right panel with "frequently used" apps and everything else in the drawer. Now with the predictive apps and search bar accessible from anywhere, that 1 right panel has been demoted to the bench, so to speak.

 

[dyastrab]

My battery is better. It's taken a few days but I am definitely seeing longer life.

Still miss the quick settings shortcuts but the other visual improvements are making up for it.