I want to do so many things and I have a lot of ideas started, but I’m not quite sure what steps to take. I haven’t posted in a while cuz I’ve been experimenting with other options like YouTube posts as well. Plus, idk I just kinda got burnt out in general. Even though I often feel energized by sharing my ideas and questions, sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming. Communicating things has also been a lot at work recently and so that’s probably part of why I don’t feel like communicating other ideas and questions.

I’ve been testing alternate apps and experiences for so many things this year. I tested a new tasks app, calendar, contacts, email. It was all using my own branded digital identity, but I couldn’t figure out how to do super basic things like share a calendar invite with someone else in a really seamless way. All of the things I explored helped me learn and see my digital life from different angles. It was really valuable. It was also fun to explore a lot of the open source world. I tried out alternate Android app stores and that was different. I’m still experimenting with some things like THunderbird for email, but I’ve decided to pause an alternate calendar, tasks, and contacts that aren’t the default apps Google provides. Cuz honestly, even if they’re lacking some things that the open source apps have, they integrate with the Android OS so much better and have all the core pieces I need. Do I still want a more open world of digital things? You bet! But, right now that world doesn’t exist in the way I want. If the Android OS could open up, or if alternate OS’s would be refined to the level that Android has been built to, then I think we would have something really valuable to play with. It needs to be simple, seamless, and remove as many levels of friction as possible for me to want to fully embrace it.

It’s confusing cuz I still don’t like a lot of the things that Google is doing. I don’t like how restrictive and trashy the Chrome browser is with the ads experience. I don’t mind ads and I even like them if they’re well designed and match my interests. Google is pretty decent at the matching interests part, but not the well designed part. Because there’s no guidelines or expectations for how ads need to be designed, how many can appear on a web experience at one time, and things like that, my web experience is turned into a trash heap of banners, videos, images, and so many other ads. I put up with it for about 8 years on my Android computers, but didn’t want to anymore. So, I switched to Firefox. Overall, I really like it. Firefox is making solid progress with the Android version too, but there’s still quite a few areas where I can feel or see the cracks. Their password manager for example isn’t near the beautiful and seamless experience that Google has refined over the years. The overall experience though is miles ahead because I can block all the ads I want, making my web experience a beautiful haven once more.

Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a limbo though with some of my digital life in one area, and some of it in another. I want a more customizable and personalized digital experience, but I’m not sure how to get there and everything seems to move so incredibly slow that it’s painful for me.I basically want full control over the OS, design, and features for all the apps and digital experiences I have access to. Cuz I could build my own OS, but that would be super difficult and I miss out on all the benefits and features that Android has that are genuinely useful and really well built. I like the core of it all, I just want more flexibility and customization. I want more control over my digital experience. I want it to respect me more and be better designed. I want the fediverse to succeed and become really refined so that I can more easily create an interconnected digital identity and experience and hopefully everyone else can too. They just launched a mobile app for Peertube for example, but I’m hesitant to open up a Peertube account when I already have a Mastodon account. I want one space for all my content that’s tied to my digital identity, I don’t want fragmentation. Maybe it does work like that and I haven’t explored it yet.]

Another thing I’m thinking about is gaming. I enjoy gaming on my Android a lot, but the gaming library is pretty terrible on mobile devices right now. Basically all games are designed for casual players who want free games that you have to log in every day to get content and I’m okay with a couple games like that, but if every game has daily quests and things to bring you back everyday, that’s not feasible for me to support long term for more than a few games. It’s not enjoyable for me. I think it might be cool if Steam was natively supported on ARM and Android in the future, but that’s probably a long shot (although less so with the potential breakup from the Epic lawsuit).

I’m very excited that Android seems to be heading towards a much more robust computing experience so that I can use my pocket computer as my main/only computer for both at home and on the go. The upcoming desktop experience could be an absolute dream if they implement it well and it supports “phones” with display out. I’ve been testing it out for a few days with a janky dev flag turned on and it’s fun, but definitely still very restrictive and weird. It’s given me a glimpse of how awesome it would be to have one computer for at home and on the go though. And the new charging optimization feature on Android that lets you pull power from AC after it charges up to 80% is so freaking amazing for this future that I’m trying to build!!!