It appears that thanks to an accidental leak that the next version of the Nothing Phone will be utilising the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 – although it is a generation behind the one thing to remember is that only the big vendors have access to the latest generation due to being able to buy up in bulk a large number of units. I don’t think there will be a huge difference between Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and Gen 2 other than the benchmark enthusiasts. Carl Pei has gotten the old development group back together again so hopefully we’ll see Android 14 making the way onto the Nothing Phone 1 and 2 (I’m assuming that the Nothing Phone 2 will launch before Android 14 stable is released).
Android 14 Developer Preview 2 was released a few days ago (link) but I’d say there will be more details at the Google I/O on 10 May 2023 – it will interesting to see what happens with the big privacy push particularly around third party tracking and cookies in light of the work that Google is doing around Topics API where rather than tracking then forming a profile there is a sandboxed anonymised set of interests that developers can then use regarding what ads should be shown to a particular end user. In a perfect world Apple and Google would standardise on something that both Apple and Google can live with – that can preserve privacy while ensuring that the ads being presented to the user are relevant.
Chrome 111 was released recently and everything is going well – what keeps me on Chrome isn’t just the performance (and the improved memory and power efficiency) but also the third party extension ecosystem. I only have one extension installed and that is uBlock Origin – although Google has been talking about phasing out MV2 in favour of MV3, they’ve kicked the can down the road a few times to now they no longer have a solid date. Long story short, it is easy to make an announcement but it is difficult to stick to it when you make an announcement before talking to all the stakeholders whose extension would no longer work because what is what they depend on MV2 no longer exists in MV3 – the WebExtensions Community Group minutes give a good insight. I think what is going to happen is that they’ll do a piecemeal deprecation of components. IMHO, there is no hurry, take your time and ensure you get it done correctly.
Although I am having some ‘homesickness’ about breaking out of the iCloud/Apple ecosystem I am still enjoying the Nothing Phone, Chrome, Google Workspace etc. so I guess it is the jarring experience of having been using something for over a decade then abruptly changing then finding the experience is disconcerting as one adjusts to the new way of doing things.
Watching the news regarding the SVB, Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, and once again the right wing are looking to find distractions to move the conversation away from yet another example of Trump era deregulation coming back to bite the public on the backside. Unfortunately in the political world there is a lag between a policy being enacted and for the downstream effects of such a policy to materialise in the real world. It is one of the reasons why I would like to see longer parliamentary terms in New Zealand – move from 3 year terms to maybe 4 or 5 year terms which would encourage more long term planning not to mention giving enough time for voters to see the outcome of the policies so they can then make an assessment whether to vote for said party again.
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