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The reason given is:
Specifically, Google wanted to eliminate the button that lets you view all your open apps, making it easier to see your apps with a swipe.
But the underlying reason for wanting to do it comes from this quote from Dave Burke, Google's VP of engineering for Android
"Android have those three buttons at the bottom: Home, back and something else," Burke said. "And it's, it's a little too much, a little too complicated. I think of it as like walking into a room with three doors and it's like, 'which door do I go in?'"
My response to Burke would be: Well, Dave, when you walk into the room, and there's three doors, and one of them is labeled "bedroom", one of them is labeled "kitchen", and one of them is labeled "bathroom"; it's pretty easy to decide whether you're tired, hungry, or need to take a leak - so maybe you should look at having standards for labeling things.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ledow on Tuesday May 15 2018, @08:40AM (14 children)
"Let's copy Apple's stupid ideas".
It's really not hard. Back and Home. The third is entirely optional, really, if you don't tap it you can do everything you would do some other way. But it's really "right-click" / task manager.
However, if you didn't just have a circle, square, triangle or other completely useless symbols on them, and actually REFERED TO THEM BY NAME occasionally, people might know what they do.
Seriously, as stupid as a single-button mouse, STOP TAKING INTERFACE AWAY. Gestures are incredibly crap for controlling an interface.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday May 15 2018, @08:49AM
What, like Sony?
(Score: 4, Informative) by anubi on Tuesday May 15 2018, @10:19AM (12 children)
Just in case anyone is reading this topic for feedback... here I am, old fart, had no idea how to use a smartphone.
I found one behind DelTaco one day. A BLU android phone. Took me some time to figure out how to turn it on. I finally discovered if I held the big button on the right down long enough, it would turn on just long enough to say its battery was dead. I saw it had a USB connector, so I assumed it would use USB power to charge it... so I took it home and plugged it into USB power and left it overnight. Sure enough in the morning, it powered up. But I still had not figured it out enough to do much with it. It did not take long before I found out what the triangle, circle, and square did, although I had no idea yet how to make it connect and place calls. A bit more fooling around with it and I got it to place a call to a number in its contact list. Whoever I called had the info on who was calling, and they knew the person that lost the phone. They told me they could get in contact with the owner and have him drop by DelTaco to retrieve his phone, and I took the phone back to DelTaco and left it with the manager.
TLDR -> An old fart picked up a phone he did not know a damned thing about, and did not have all that much trouble figuring out the circle, triangle, and square. Even he recognized the importance and functionality of each, and even took the time to post a reply: DON'T CHANGE IT! It is an elegant functional design. And even he, well known for bitching on damned near anything, did not bitch on it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15 2018, @12:23PM (1 child)
They aren't going to stop removing features/control and generally dumbing things down until everyone stops using smartphones and the internet in general.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 15 2018, @12:25PM
And if you think I am kidding, look at broadcast TV.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Tuesday May 15 2018, @03:03PM (9 children)
You're lucky the phone was even unlocked.
I have had any number of phones handed into my workplace where we have absolutely no idea whose phone it is, can't unlock it, can't even ANSWER it, let alone access the addressbooks etc.
All because of things like fingerprint readers and passcodes.
One phone I had to do enormous detective work based on a name of a teacher sending an assignment to a phone (that popped up as a visible notification). I managed it but it was far from easy.
Sometimes the only recourse is to remove the SIM and inform the carrier, but that's rarely likely to actually result in a hit as they don't want to tell you anything and if they can't / don't inform the owner to come collect it, there's nothing you can do..
(Score: 2) by lentilla on Tuesday May 15 2018, @03:34PM (2 children)
I've done that. Found a brand new iPhone in the middle of the road which I managed to grab before it got run over. The phone was locked so I telephoned the carrier: "hi, I've found this phone, and I'd like to get in touch with the owner so I can return it" was met with utter confusion. Eventually I managed to speak with a manager who was also confused until I used my Jedi mind tricks to have them come up with a brilliant plan to get themselves, me and the owner on a three-way conference.
Unsurprisingly the owner was very happy to get their phone back when they turned up on my doorstep the following afternoon - but the effort to do so was far from inconsiderable.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday May 15 2018, @06:39PM (1 child)
This is why you should set up ICE (In Case of Emergency) contacts and make them accessible from the lock screen
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 16 2018, @12:01AM
I set that up.
Phone kept pocket-dialling the first entry.
Now have a custom home page message with a friend's phone number and my name - which worked, the one time I left my phone in a park.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Tuesday May 15 2018, @06:55PM (3 children)
Best bet is make sure the battery is charged and it is turned on. If it's an Android and the user hasn't done something too dumb, they can locate the phone through Google.
Otherwise, they should surely notice eventually that their phone is missing and retrace their steps.
If nobody shows up to claim it in 90 days (local law may vary), it is abandoned. Pull out the sim and do a factory reset. Enjoy! Or giove to a shelter. Many battered women's shelters hand them out since even without a SIM, the phone will dial 911.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:49AM (2 children)
How about a battered man shelter? Oh, there probably isn't one. Don't support the sexism. Men get battered too.
Truth is though, the shelters are actively harmful. They do not really try to resolve issues. They are staffed by some very bitter anti-male people who actively push families apart. Children and their fathers are the obvious losers in all this, but women lose out as well when families fall apart.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday May 16 2018, @09:31AM
Or battered fish?
Wait, that's not what you meant.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 18 2018, @11:14AM
We men did this to ourselves.
We will do nearly anything to get a piece of snatch, like moths drawn to a flame, or a mosquito determined to get a drop of blood.
There was a time when a man expected to be PAID to take on such a risk and responsibility.... it was called a Dowry, and the woman's father was usually saddled with this.
Today's men not only waive the dowry, but also assume the responsibility of keeping the woman entertained sufficiently to keep her around, lest her lawyer take everything you have.
I know this sounds awful selfish, but staying single seems the only prudent action for the male if he expects to have a roof over his head on his deathbed. There are no "safety nets" for males. Boobs will get you benefits, a penis only marks you as a worker drone, expected-like the drone bee- to produce until you are no longer economically viable.
Go ahead and flamebait me... as a lot of people won't like what I just typed at all... but its the way I see it.
Just don't blame it on the women... we men are totally responsible for this - by being so gullible as to take directions from Hollywood and take all this lovey-dovey stuff as filmed - and we get what we tolerate - and we have tolerated way more than I was willing to tolerate.
So the other guy got the trophy prize... then I later see he's the one who caught a batted hornet's nest.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday May 15 2018, @06:58PM
Newer phones (last 3-5 years) support a Medical Info screen that can be pulled up from the lockscreen. Of course, it's up to the owner to actually enter their info and enable it, but if they did then it would definitely come in handy for locating the owner of a lost phone.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Friday May 18 2018, @07:30AM
Gotta admit had the phone been locked, the chances of getting it back to its owner would have been slim... about the only thing the phone would have been good for is a donor phone for its LCD screen and battery, and maybe its TF card if it had one. There are very few parts in modern electronics I have the tools to remove and repurpose, much unlike the electronics I got into when I was a kid ( vacuum tube stuff... nearly 100% of the components could be removed and re-used to build other things.. I was using parts from trashed TV's to build guitar amps for the longest time... all I had to actually buy was the output transformers.
My amplifiers had a rather unique sound, as I was using the 6CD6 type horizontal output tubes as power output tubes, and was having a good time playing around with 6BE6 pentagrid AM converter tubes and 6BN6 gated-beam tubes to make odd-sounding devices - well, this was in the 60's... we went out of our way to make things sound weird... psychedelics and all that, ya know. Actually, I only built two amplifiers - I don't know where they are now... they probably got tossed because they were definitely not anything to look at... they were built on stripped TV chassis. Typical high-school kid who has no shop experience type construction. )
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]