Another nit-pick: Chrome often shows a black screen when I leave and return which doesn't refresh until I touch/scroll.
The stock keyboard doesn't seem to think hyphens exist without spaces before and after. Almost anything with a hyphen gets auto-"corrected" with spaces and it doesn't undo even when you immediately backspace. I find that it is often replacing things as I type even without having spaced to finish typing my word, which is almost always wrong. It also frequently duplicates words for no reason. As far as the "download another keyboard!" argument goes: It's special with S-Pen functions that I would be giving up. The S-Pen is the defining feature of the phone. Is it too much to have some expectations and criticisms of it?
I'll just remind that this whole sidetrack started with responses to your quote:
Samsung still hasn't fixed My Files (no home screen folder shortcuts despite online documentation of the feature).
Right. I nitpicked Samsung for not making a work-around like every other file manager app did and I went on to explain that it was first broken by changes to ICS vs. Gingerbread.
So again, it's kind of like complaining why hasn't Dell fixed some "Dell My Computer" shovelware rather than Microsoft for their OS.
Except that Android does not include a functional file manager like Microsoft does and specifically relies on their partners and app store apps. If NONE of them can get it right, we have a problem. If their biggest partner can't get it right, we have a nit-pick, which is exactly what I called it.
Most of your beef sounds like it's with Google, not Samsung. As I said, the only reason they even bother with some My Files shovel-ware is due to the default noobs that would never figure out just to go to Play Store and download one.
Most of my beef is with Google but I only started with my Samsung nit-pick (on-topic) and that was kinda dragged out of me.
There's plenty of good software for most tasks, and on Android far more is allowed in the first place than in iOS. (Yeah, good luck expecting a basic file explorer there.)
Agreed. FWIW, I am even more critical of iOS UI and functionality sins.
Sure, there are things to complain at Google about (I certainly can rant about Google's shortcomings and questionable 'upgrade' decisions) but it's also a combination of you being very nitpicky. (Which you do admit). I mean, something like X-Plore is a better file browser than I've seen even on desktop OS's.
Makes it a snap to copy any file to/from anywhere, including FTP, SMB shares, and a half dozen cloud services. Interface is near perfection, IMO.
And it's just one of a dozen choices. If none are good enough for whatever your needs are, then its highly probable Android isn't for you.
I tried it. I like the two-pane Windows 3.1 File Manager style but I ran into frustrating limitations almost right away. At my suggestion, a coworker downloaded an iOS app that played sound rips from Super Nintendo games (SNES SPC files). He was playing them within minutes of downloading the app because it linked him straight to the sites that had the SPC files and supported the archives they were downloaded in. Three applications and two plugins later and I finally have some players capable of playing SPC files on my Note 3 and I manually browse to the same website and download the music from 100+ games, each in their own *.7z and *.rar files. Neither application supported playing them from inside the archives and the file sizes are negligible anyway, so I had to extract them.
Luckily, X-plore supports Rar and 7-zip formats... but functionally treats them like a folder! There was no way to extract them all to their own folders and the file contents were not named in a way that would work well if they were all dumped into one directory. Neither File Manager nor ES File Explorer nor My Files could do this simple operation that any desktop archive application could easily do, which is forgivable (it's not like Windows Explorer supports 7z). It seemed that, like a typical desktop OS, I needed a dedicated app for managing archives and not a limited file manager. I hit up the Play store for an archiving application that could do the same on Android. Should be simple, right?
First, it seems a little weird that even though 7-zip is open source and the format is widely supported there is no Android port. Hmm. I see people have compiled the command line version so it shouldn't be much harder than whipping up a good GUI (HA!), right?
So, I do some searches and it seems like B1 Archive is the highest-rated most downloaded archive management apps. I grab it and quickly find that it can, indeed, extract to a new folder automatically created with the archive name. Good. I also find that it supports multi-select for managing multiple files at the same time. Also: Good. I the try to multi-select and extract the archives and all I have are the same file management options a typical file manager has (Cut, Copy, Delete, Move, Zip, etc). BAD! It shaved tens of thousands of taps and clicks but it was still a tedious process to do for over 100 archives. All I have to do in Windows is select all and then extract with the Explorer extension to do the same things in as little as one keystroke and one click.
Sure, this is just one frustrating example that another app may do right, but do I really have to expose myself to more random software from more random people for such a simple operation?! If there were an AOSP base file manager in the first place with extensible functionality like Explorer extensions, we wouldn't have everything-and-the-kitchen-sink file manager over-reaching with half-assed 7-Zip support lacking basic functionality. Even as a power user by most standards, what took moments for my coworker on his phone turned into an all-day project for me due in no small part to half-assed file managers (would have appreciated in-app download/archive support with no need for file managers but I certainly didn't expect or need it).
If you don't want ads for any apps you use, then pony up for the paid versions. It amuses me that people will spend hundreds on a device, then complain about having to pay a buck or three for an application. Desktop software that costs anywhere from $20-$1000 must drive such people crazy!
I'm documenting and informing others who may be undecided about dropping hundreds on it. I find it frustrating that minutia like this is often completely ignored in discussions and reviews.
When the Google experience on Nexus devices forces me to go download an ad-riddled untrusted third-party software like ES File Explorer for basic functionality and no two devices can accomplish the same basic task the same way, I am not impressed. Even so, that's not what I was complaining about here.
