Jim P.

Happy to see it return. I would have really missed secure face unlock going from a 4XL to 8 Pro. Though I doubt the 8 Pro will work in complete darkness like the 4XL could.

I don’t understand the recent trends of ditching the upper camera bezel and doing questionable things like cutouts, islands, etc. that disturb the dimensions of the screen in odd ways. Did people really dislike having a dedicated area just for the camera and other sensors? I’d rather have a complete uninterrupted screen and upper bezel.

I hope so! Allegedly they have made it easier to swap out the battery on the 8/8 Pro as well but I’ll believe it when I see it. Google said in the keynote that they are partnering with ifixit for replacement parts and so on. You can already get parts from ifixit for older pixels but the process is rather complex.

I was tempted by the 7 Pro last year but my 4XL still works really well. After being without updates so long, though, it’s hard to justify staying on it any longer.

There is some more Tensor G3 info here: https://blog.google/products/pixel/google-tensor-g3-pixel-8/

Biggest takeaway from that is that the Pixel 8/8 Pro will once again have secure Face Unlock that’s been missing since the 4/4XL.

I ordered an 8 Pro to upgrade from my 4XL, along with some Pixel Buds Pro. I already had a Pixel Watch last year and it still works great, so now I can pass that old one on to someone else.

I can see someone being undewhelmed if they already had a 6 or 7, but for those of us coming from farther back it’s still quite an upgrade, and unlike other OEMs, it’s still the whole Pixel software experience.

With 7 full years of OS updates, too, maybe I can keep this one going even longer. My 4XL is still decent, the battery is starting to show its age but otherwise it runs well, just no more updates.

Exactly my thoughts. I see people making such a fuss over the colors offered for the phone itself, too. I don’t really care about the color as long as it works well, it’s going in a case anyhow.

Each note in Joplin is a separate Markdown file so there is only a real chance of conflict if two clients edit the same note at the same time. That is much more sync-friendly than an encrypted password database file.

I have yet to hit a conflict but it’s just me editing notes and I don’t usually use multiple things in the same note at once. I did have a problem getting syncthing to work well on my phone (a pixel with newer Android) where it worked OK on my tablet and other devices. I had to hardcode the address of my laptop in syncthing settings on my phone and then it seems to be happy that way.

I wanted to use Syncthing so I didn’t need a server involved and didn’t want to work off mapped drives/network shares. The client devices all handle the syncing themselves so the files are local on every device and kept in sync within a reasonable time period and if they can’t connect for a bit, that’s fine, they can work on the local files and sync up next time I’m back on the home network.

If your NAS has a similar function it can do that natively. Joplin can sync using files on the device filesystem which is how Syncthing works but it also supports syncing through a variety of other servers/services, such as Nextcloud. It’s very flexible in that way.

So essentially you can do it however you choose to do it since they are just plain text files being copied around.

After Evernote announced the price hike a month or so ago I started researching alternatives. I looked into a bunch of different apps/services but decided I did not want to get locked into another proprietary system subject to enshittification. So my main criteria were:

• Cross platform with support for Android, Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Fully Open Source
• Portable/open format files (e.g. Markdown)
• Self-hosted option so files are always on devices I own

Both Joplin and Logseq fit the criteria and were good in my testing when combined with Syncthing to copy files around securely. There are a ton of other options out there but they didn’t fit one or more of my wants.

Joplin is a VERY easy transition from Evernote. It can import notes exported from Evernote, has a similar interface, and doesn’t take much getting used to.

Logseq is interesting but it’s going to take time to get used to its workflow since it’s so different. I watched a couple hours worth of videos on its use and it that style may just not be for me.

I went with Syncthing because that means the notes never leave my devices, so there is no need to depend on a server or worry about the security/integrity of the note content. The downside is that syncing outside the house isn’t so simple, though it can be nudged to work over a VPN. Not for everyone.

After spending a week or so being happy with Joplin+Syncthing I canceled my Evernote subscription and went back to the free tier, but honestly I haven’t even opened it since doing that. I haven’t needed anything in it that I couldn’t do in Joplin.