New way Android updates itself?

[nickdalzell]

I have mentioned a few times in passing, but my carrier finally forced me to update from my beloved HTC Thunderbolt and Samsung Galaxy SII sometime around July/August. They were working fine, but in late July phone calls stopped working on the SII entirely (dials and gives up) but both still could text and use data. In August they both only get data and no longer send/receive SMS/MMS or make calls anymore. The Thunderbolt of course kills itself trying to get a signal despite it showing 5 bars of LTE service and 4 of 1X, which technically means it should still work but oh well. I tried, I failed. Had to upgrade. I decided to go back to Samsung with a A13 5G, which has been an excellent phone thus far.

I finally decided to go for the OneUI 4 Android 12 update, and I had a security update pending since I bought the phone in August. I had disabled all updates at the time via NetGuard to stop it from nagging me each time I unlocked to download/install the update.

The security update was only 1GB, but when it restarted, it had updated already to Android 12 and OneUI Core 4.1, almost as if a switch had been flipped. It didn't list the update as anything other than a security patch. Usually it tells you that it's an actual version update and is much larger, around 2-4GBs. It's like the phone already had the code for Android 12 as part of its original firmware and a switch in software flipped and there it was.

Is this a new method of Android system updates? It was fast and quick, which is not usually the case. I'm used to dealing with software and battery issues and a really hot phone after an actual update and factory resets to fix those. This was perhaps the most painless version update in my life!

 

[ocnbrze]

Is this a new method of Android system updates? It was fast and quick, which is not usually the case. I'm used to dealing with software and battery issues and a really hot phone after an actual update and factory resets to fix those. This was perhaps the most painless version update in my life!

not sure, but most of my updates, even the major ones do not take very long and use very minimal battery. i think since your previous phones are quite old that you are just not use to current updates.

 

[nickdalzell]

I've dabbled in 'modern' phones over the years but always went back to the older ones because the newer ones often frustrated me. I've become familiar with updates with the Galaxy S8 and even the S20 FE 5G. They always showed the update being around 2-4GBs, and the 'what's new' listed 'One UI x update with Android y' vs. 'The security of your devices is improved' and being much smaller.

Even the S20 FE 5G with its Android 12 update listed it as 'One UI 4.1 update with Android 12' and listed a long list of features included, the apps that get updated alongside, and the size was 3.5GBs. It also required Wifi to download it. With the A13, it was instant, and was part of a much-smaller security update.

Given I have zero choice to downgrade now (I've tried the same SIM in other phones, such as a Galaxy S4, S3, Note 2, and even a 2017 ZTE Majesty Pro, which is VoLTE compliant, but neither worked. They had data, acted like everything was good (under about phone, status it showed the mobile network type being LTE, sometimes LTE/3G (showing two signal strengths) and Mobile Network State as Connected, IMS as registered, and everything good to go. But trying to send a text or make a call fails after a minute or two. The SIM will now only work in phones no older than 2020. My other line is Verizon-based and no longer works in the Thunderbolt, an S4 Mini, or my Pantech Breakout, or the newer ZTE Z-Five C LTE from 2018. The last phone should work but all ran super hot, battery time was literally a couple hours, and the 'time without signal' showed as 100% despite obviously having a full set of bars, and 3G/LTE service. Again, neither would call or text during that attempt. The oldest phone that does work with that one is my Galaxy S5, which works, but is even older than the Z-Five. I am not sure what's really going on. The older ones worked fine as of Aug 1, the last text message sent on the Pantech Breakout letting my girlfriend know my main line was down and I was using the alternative until it was back up.

It really irks me because I prefer the older phones which fit in one hand and worked perfectly fine and had a far better UI design, and seemed more private given a lot of the Google software was dead. Now I have to have a phone that looks like all the others out there, and is too big for my hand. But the A13 is nice, and I do like what they did to Android 12. It's not the 1970s groovy mess the Pixel became, and I much prefer the scrolling effect as it borrows from iOS and the scrolling behavior in Android always annnoyed me as I came from a long time with iPhones and iPads and I remember quite the argument here over that!

I hoped when AMPS shut down (which I still hate as those phones got perfect signal in remote areas, and the whole 'brain cancer' thing was eventually debunked) was the last and I'd never have to deal with it ever again. But the whole thing doesn't feel VoLTE related since obviously VoLTE phones also didn't work (ZTE Z-Five C LTE and ZTE Majesty Pro, the last two that had an LED notification, and a very Samsung-inspired UI design mixed with Material Design). I've tried to force them to work via secret menus (such as the *#*#4636#*#* code) and playing with mobile network type, APNs, and message center numbers, but they won't send or receive SMS or make phone calls anymore. I can live with the phone call thing since I can use VoIP apps to compensate (such as Viber) but losing the SMS is non-negotiable. I wonder if Android has finally enforced RCS and that's what broke? I don't see the settings for SMCC numbers anymore in the modern ones that do work, including the S5.

If anyone does know a way to restore the SMS function on my older phones I'm all open for it. I've tried everything I could from the APN settings, SMCC numbers, secret menus, even calling Straight Talk (don't. Their customer service is awful, can't leave their script) and to no avail. None of my older hacks that made my HTC work over LTE works anymore. None of the messages give errors anymore, they just say 'message not sent'. The newer ones don't tell me if they're sending via SMS or some sort of RCS. Now on the old phones, MMS works (I can send a picture fine) but I can't get replies since the contact is sending via SMS/RCS unless they respond with an MMS which I do get. But SMS and phone are broken. The SIM is not hotlined since it works in the modern phones. I can't find anything to explain what changed from July to now. Or why known VoLTE supported phones also don't work.

 

[ocnbrze]

well for me i love big phones. i love my z fold 3....talk about huge!!!!!! LOL

i will never go back to my very android phone, the htc hero which i loved very much at the time. nor the og htc evo 4g. they would be way toooooooo slow for me if i were to use them now.

but each to their own........

 

[nickdalzell]

You couldn't go back even if you wanted to. Because of futurists who cannot imagine anyone wanting to still use a decade-old phone, or carrier arrogance (the 3G shutdown, unlike AMPS was NOT mandated by the FCC and is not a requirement by law plus the old networks continue to exist here, I just cannot use them) or some entity wanting to know everything about everyone or some political belief that wants to mandate apps to track vaccination status, I cannot even use a valid SIM card in an older phone, even if it's VoLTE compliant. the Galaxy S5 is the oldest I can use. Even phones newer than it won't work. Not unless they're 2020+.

Angers me. I want a phone that fits my pocket, hand and has things like a removable battery and headphone jack, perhaps IR blaster and expandable storage. I cannot buy a modern phone with a 4" display. Seems more like people are trying everything in their power to take choices away and everyone just goes along with it. If I wanted to carry a tablet everywhere I'd put one some parachute pants like the Gap Band and pocket around a Nexus 7 or something.

I cannot even understand the whole thing. If it were VoLTE related then ANY VoLTE phone should work. I've tried tricking the IMEI to no avail either. I even offered a lot of money to any carrier who'd reactivate my BlackBerry Curve or various other phones and they just either hangup or tell me to pound sand. I really don't get it. Let me use what I want, especially since the networks are still up, and let me continue using them so long as I pay my bill on time and take my chances should the networks ultimately die off. It's almost like they're afraid of the prospect.

 

[Davdi]

I's a bit different in the UK, 3G is alive and well, my old phone, still on 4.1.1 Jellybean still works just fine for calls, text and data. It's my backup phone, but still works well, even the removable battery still holds a good charge.

 

[nickdalzell]

3G and even 1x still exist here as well, Kentucky. But you can't use anything on a phone relying on it. Data works, but no SMS or phone. This started in September, so it's long past the 'cutoff' for service which was February 2022. However this has nothing to do with the supposed 'shutdown' because VoLTE compliant phones I've tried don't work. Only the most modern ones will work with my SIMs. I wonder if I just kept them in the old phones and never swapped them to try playing with newer phones they might still work. I miss my Thunderbolt and SII.

I think they finally must have made RCS a thing and killed SMS because all the modern phones post 2020 supposedly support RCS and that'd explain why SMS no longer works on the other phones. It's just a theory because the lame customer support doesn't understand, and I can't find anything online. MMS only works because data still works.

 

[Hadron]

I's a bit different in the UK, 3G is alive and well, my old phone, still on 4.1.1 Jellybean still works just fine for calls, text and data. It's my backup phone, but still works well, even the removable battery still holds a good charge.

It's coming though: EE and Vodafone have said they'll shut down 3G in 2023, 3 will do so by the end of 2024 (though as Vodafone are negotiating a merger with them that may change), so it's only O2 who haven't said when it will go (UK Gov has set a deadline of 2033).

I think they finally must have made RCS a thing and killed SMS because all the modern phones post 2020 supposedly support RCS and that'd explain why SMS no longer works on the other phones. It's just a theory because the lame customer support doesn't understand, and I can't find anything online. MMS only works because data still works.

That sounds a little unlikely to me. For one thing no iPhone supports RCS, so both iPhones and Androids rely on SMS when sending messages to each other. For another, RCS is app-dependent: it works with Google's and Samsung's apps (both called Messages), but not all apps by any means (and in those apps that do support it you have to actively turn RCS "chat" on).

Easy to test though: use an SMS app that doesn't support RCS and send a message.

You couldn't go back even if you wanted to. Because of futurists who cannot imagine anyone wanting to still use a decade-old phone, or carrier arrogance (the 3G shutdown, unlike AMPS was NOT mandated by the FCC and is not a requirement by law plus the old networks continue to exist here, I just cannot use them).

It may be that they are winding down their 3G, so they turn off some functions (e.g. voice) and migrate people at that point, then gradually wind down other things as they move the spectrum over to some other use. I'm sure that the motivations are cost and capacity: it will simplify their systems not to have to run an older network in addition to the newer ones, and they'll be able to increase capacity if they can re-use the bands for newer, more efficient protocols.

Angers me. I want a phone that fits my pocket, hand and has things like a removable battery and headphone jack, perhaps IR blaster and expandable storage. I cannot buy a modern phone with a 4" display. Seems more like people are trying everything in their power to take choices away and everyone just goes along with it. If I wanted to carry a tablet everywhere I'd put one some parachute pants like the Gap Band and pocket around a Nexus 7 or something.

The shortage of sensible-sized phones annoys me, though I don't require anything as small as a 4" screen, just that I can reach my thumb across without risking dropping the phone (I don't care about reaching the top of the phone one-handed as I couldn't do that without shuffling the phone even in 2010).

Part of it is that phones are commodity items now and most manufacturers make very little money out of them. Hence they produce "lowest common denominator" devices: they look at what is the most popular part of the market and make nothing else, and they cut what they can to improve margins. Which is why the variety there used to be has mostly disappeared: it doesn't require conspiracy, just chasing the bottom line. But I still refuse to buy anything that's the size of what we used to call a "phablet" in 2016, which is the size of most phones these days.

Do you still have anything that has an IR blaster though? My last phone to have one of those was my Ericsson T68 (released 2001), and my last device of any sort to have one was my Palm V (retired in 2010, but as the T68 had died of exposure in 2004 the only thing I'd used it for since then was to emulate a TV remote, and as it was less convenient than an actual TV remote I didn't do that very often!).

 

[Hadron]

I finally decided to go for the OneUI 4 Android 12 update, and I had a security update pending since I bought the phone in August. I had disabled all updates at the time via NetGuard to stop it from nagging me each time I unlocked to download/install the update.

The security update was only 1GB, but when it restarted, it had updated already to Android 12 and OneUI Core 4.1, almost as if a switch had been flipped. It didn't list the update as anything other than a security patch. Usually it tells you that it's an actual version update and is much larger, around 2-4GBs. It's like the phone already had the code for Android 12 as part of its original firmware and a switch in software flipped and there it was.

Is this a new method of Android system updates? It was fast and quick, which is not usually the case. I'm used to dealing with software and battery issues and a really hot phone after an actual update and factory resets to fix those. This was perhaps the most painless version update in my life!

If Samsung used Google's A/B partition scheme then it would be possible to pre-install an update and then switch. But Samsung have been very resistant to doing this - certainly the s21 and s22 series still don't use it - and without that I don't think it's possible.

When my s21 received the A12 update it was completely explicit about what it was. I can't explain why it wasn't clear in your case, though as you say you had decided to go for that update did you actually press the button to accept that one? Perhaps it got a bit confused due to a hidden pending update and showed you the description for the first in the queue but then installed A12? I don't know quite how that would work, but it's the only guess I have.

 

[nickdalzell]

The last IR Blaster in a smartphone was the LG V20. Samsung's last was the S6.

My still working S5 has it. In fact there ain't been a phone as packed with features since the Galaxy S5. That stinks. I also want to be able to use a slider phone today. All of them be dead, too.

Stupid carriers. You'd think they'd listen to their customers. Nope. They are as arrogant as Apple and shareholder companies. NO customer asked for a huge screen (6.5"), and we had a phone for that anyway--the Note, G Stylus, and Stylo. We didn't need every phone copying it and making it the only option.

NO customer asked for a non-removable battery. Defnition of planned obsolescence. Another thing I'm stuck with--my phone has a lifespan of perhaps 3-5 years and I'm a buy it for lifer. Thanks, carriers, for screwing me and now making me an infinite consumer. The battery only became non-removable to appease the stupid tech bloggers who complained about 'cheap plastic construction'. Well, an all glass phone don't look too hot all shattered!

I'm still quite miffed as you've noticed by now. I won't get over this soon. I oppose consumerism, planned obsolescence, and updates and they made me, forced me to be part of all that I hate. I want my Thunderbolt to work again. I'm tired of being in a collective where everything looks the same, from phones, to tablets, to cars. Well, at least my old tablet still work since Wifi ain't going nowhere.

 

[ocnbrze]

my note 5 had an IR blaster that i never used.....so....meh

i asked for a bigger screen and i got the z fold 3.....talk about huge when it is unfolded!!!!! lol

i did not ask for a non-removable battery.....you can thank Crapple for that. they were the first to do this.

and my z fold 3 does not look the same as any other phone out there. i love being out in public and unfolding my phone and getting some wows from other people. so not everything is the same.

planned obsolescence is what it is. there is nothing you can do about it. plus it can't be helped when technology grows exponentially. my z fold 3 will run circles around your old thunderbolt. my current phone runs circles around my OG HTC Evo 4g which i have buried in my drawer somewhere.

 

[nickdalzell]

Your use-case for your Z Fold is quite different than my use cases for any smartphone. Congrats, we're different people. I don't live where everything is an app (seriously they got as many apps for ridiculous devices that shouldn't need apps like they once did for bluetooth speakers, I remember a deer rifle having a bluetooth speaker for crying out loud once!) and I don't need 4-8GB of RAM or 256-512MB Storage to send SMS texts and play MP3s.

I know Crapple started this, but why did Android do it? tech bloggers and review influencers that's why. They listened to the crap from TheVerge and Engadget too often. No Android user ever gave a hoot.

IR blaster is super convenient. Vs. me keeping up with 5-6 different remotes for everything. At least my S5 still has purpose.

While the Z Fold is very different than any current metal/glass sandwich, it's not doing anything differently than the Kyocera Echo did in 2012. We had folding phones before! We're just rehashing older concepts at this point. Waiting patiently for a modern slider phone...

 

[Davdi]

Re IR blasters, I have an old HTC One M9 with IR blaster that I just use an a universal remote Mainly for a Hitachi stereo that's lost the original one/. It's still on Android 7 and the IR app works very well

 

[nickdalzell]

None of the remote apps on my S5 require internet so I can happily use that with data off. I only use that line for a backup for my main line if it breaks (like when the carrier shut down SMS on my Thunderbolt) and it's only used mainly for phone calls at this point otherwise. So it's more private to turn wifi/data off and just use the phone and remote apps.

My Wii-U also has an IR blaster so it's becoming my more common remote for the moment, while I hopefully find some method to restore connectivity to my favorite phone. It's probably a lost cause at this point but I have to try to find a way. Unless someone can find a way to help me recreate Sense 3 on a Galaxy A13, I can get launcher themes and icon packs, but how do I recreate the fancy animated lockscreen weather effect or the weather animation/sound of the home screen flip clock widget? All I find are un-animated lookalikes, many of which don't "look" quite right. Some look more befitting to the One M8 theme. Too flat. Play Store, much as I despise it, isn't cooperating either, outright hiding a lot of what I know is there. For example, If I put my Thunderbolt on Wifi, login to my Google Account and open Play Store on it, I can find helauncher 2 and the Sense themes, but on my A13, they ain't havin' none of it.

If I can't have the phone I like, at least I can try to do something about the UI without it just being a skin deep thing. I want the launcher, apps, entire theme and so on if possible. Icon packs and launchers and a handful of older apps is not a complete theme, it's just half done. The phone's size is also going to annoy me forever as well. They don't sell anything under 6-6.5" here. I've looked. There's some really bad leftovers collecting dust at Dollar General (LG Rebel 3) that are 5" or 5.5" but I doubt those will work any more than the ZTE did. Any phone that's not a Galaxy S5 even if it's a 3-4 years old won't get SMS either. They just fail to send/receive and phone won't work.

I'm debating just getting a fresh SIM, lying about the IMEI to the website, and faking activation and see if it restores SMS function. Either that or getting another S5 for this line, since the one I keep as a backup has a bad SD card slot and I need the SD card function to work.

 

[Hadron]

The trouble with "nobody asked for a non-removable battery" is that people may not have directly asked for it but effectively they did. They wanted bigger batteries, they wanted thinner phones, they wanted a more solid feel (do you remember how reviews of the S4 and S5 would moan about the flimsy, creaky backs of the phones?). A sealed device can fit more battery in a smaller space with less flex, and when manufacturers started doing that sales went up rather than down. Yes, there were loud complaints in the forums, but from a small group who don't reflect the typical phone buyer (who doesn't know these forums exist). So from the manufacturer's point of view people asked for it in the only way that matters: buyers overall preferred the sealed devices. Sure, it pisses some people off, but corporations don't care about that if it makes them more money. They are not there to serve customers, just to make money.

Now I do think that the "glass sandwich" is a triumph of marketing over product. I actually prefer the fact that my s21 has a plastic back rather than a glass one. But again you get reviewers whining that they "want something more premium" on a high-end device, and so the glass is back on the s22 (more expensive, more fragile, no actual merit in it at all, but that's marketing gimmicks for you).

As for "everything looks the same", I'm afraid that is just what happens with most products over time. In the early days different designs are experimented with, but over time things settle on certain solutions. You don't notice it with things like saws because the design was fixed long before any of us were born, but I'm old enough to remember when laptop design included many experiments before it settled down to "wrist rest at the front, trackpad in the middle, keyboard at the back". Cars follow fashion, but the laws of physics also force certain design trends and will do so even more in future because bad aerodynamics is more obvious when it impacts the range of a car than the fuel consumption. I can tell a Nikon from a Canon from a Sony at a glance, but to anyone who isn't a camera geek they will all look the same because having the same function their overall design is based on the same principles. In the case of phones business constraints play a bigger part than ergonomics, but the result is the same: there are people who would like a slider phone or whatever, but not enough to make it worth making one at a price most people would be prepared to pay. Sony are my go-to example here: they have resisted many of the trends, their phones still have headphone jacks, removable storage, notification LEDs, no notches or punch holes (they keep a narrow bezel instead), and they sell to a niche that values these things enough to pay a premium for them. But they don't find that the removable battery fits that model. We're almost at the point where only companies with a more ethical motivation (Fairphone) are still providing that, but they have now dropped the headphone jack and the phone is as big as all of the rest (and I don't think they are available in the US).

 

[Hadron]

Unless someone can find a way to help me recreate Sense 3 on a Galaxy A13, I can get launcher themes and icon packs, but how do I recreate the fancy animated lockscreen weather effect or the weather animation/sound of the home screen flip clock widget? All I find are un-animated lookalikes, many of which don't "look" quite right. Some look more befitting to the One M8 theme. Too flat. Play Store, much as I despise it, isn't cooperating either, outright hiding a lot of what I know is there. For example, If I put my Thunderbolt on Wifi, login to my Google Account and open Play Store on it, I can find helauncher 2 and the Sense themes, but on my A13, they ain't havin' none of it.

Probably because it's not compatible with the A13: if you log on from an Android device the Play Store only shows you apps that it believes are compatible with the device you are using.

If you can find it in something like apkmirror or apkpure you can test whether it actually does work (sometimes they get this wrong), but there are old apps that genuinely do not work on newer devices.

If I can't have the phone I like, at least I can try to do something about the UI without it just being a skin deep thing. I want the launcher, apps, entire theme and so on if possible. Icon packs and launchers and a handful of older apps is not a complete theme, it's just half done.

Sadly skin deep is probably the best you can hope for. A launcher and icon packs you can do, but anything more than that is going to require root and replacing system resources. Even then it's probably not going to do more for you than replace notification icons, at best some system settings icons. I did a little of that sort of thing manually back in 2011-12, but it was a very long time ago (I remember editing a ROM zip, opening system APKs and replacing images within them, but not much detail beyond that).

 

[nickdalzell]

The trouble with "nobody asked for a non-removable battery" is that people may not have directly asked for it but effectively they did. They wanted bigger batteries, they wanted thinner phones, they wanted a more solid feel (do you remember how reviews of the S4 and S5 would moan about the flimsy, creaky backs of the phones?). A sealed device can fit more battery in a smaller space with less flex, and when manufacturers started doing that sales went up rather than down. Yes, there were loud complaints in the forums, but from a small group who don't reflect the typical phone buyer (who doesn't know these forums exist). So from the manufacturer's point of view people asked for it in the only way that matters: buyers overall preferred the sealed devices. Sure, it pisses some people off, but corporations don't care about that if it makes them more money. They are not there to serve customers, just to make money.

Now I do think that the "glass sandwich" is a triumph of marketing over product. I actually prefer the fact that my s21 has a plastic back rather than a glass one. But again you get reviewers whining that they "want something more premium" on a high-end device, and so the glass is back on the s22 (more expensive, more fragile, no actual merit in it at all, but that's marketing gimmicks for you).

As for "everything looks the same", I'm afraid that is just what happens with most products over time. In the early days different designs are experimented with, but over time things settle on certain solutions. You don't notice it with things like saws because the design was fixed long before any of us were born, but I'm old enough to remember when laptop design included many experiments before it settled down to "wrist rest at the front, trackpad in the middle, keyboard at the back". Cars follow fashion, but the laws of physics also force certain design trends and will do so even more in future because bad aerodynamics is more obvious when it impacts the range of a car than the fuel consumption. I can tell a Nikon from a Canon from a Sony at a glance, but to anyone who isn't a camera geek they will all look the same because having the same function their overall design is based on the same principles. In the case of phones business constraints play a bigger part than ergonomics, but the result is the same: there are people who would like a slider phone or whatever, but not enough to make it worth making one at a price most people would be prepared to pay. Sony are my go-to example here: they have resisted many of the trends, their phones still have headphone jacks, removable storage, notification LEDs, no notches or punch holes (they keep a narrow bezel instead), and they sell to a niche that values these things enough to pay a premium for them. But they don't find that the removable battery fits that model. We're almost at the point where only companies with a more ethical motivation (Fairphone) are still providing that, but they have now dropped the headphone jack and the phone is as big as all of the rest (and I don't think they are available in the US).

Fairphone is not only unobtainium in the U.S., it also won't work on U.S. bands either. Even if you import one it'd not activate.

Don't need root anymore to theme the status bar. I can do that with Super Status Bar and other apps that overwrite the default with an overlay. Haven't seen any that look anywhere like the one from Android Gingerbread or Sense 3 yet however. Still holding some hope.

Ain't no app gonna do nothing for the screen size though. I feel like I'm going through another Nokia moment. When I tried to ditch my 5185i for newer models before the boss ultimately forced it, and this was in the era of the RAZR and BlackBerry Pearl, I hated it and always went back to that Nokia as I knew it inside and out. When I heard of 'iPhone' and 'smartphone' I thought for sure 'omg this is the Newton MessagePad all over again!' and totally dismissed them as nothing but a fad. When the boss handed me that 3GS I knew what made them so pleasing to use. Even after I ditched Crapple for Samsung in 2013, 14, I enjoyed them. Each version actually was an upgrade, with even more features than the earlier one, and felt like an improvement. Now they take features away and call it an upgrade. It's a downgrade pure and simple.

I am convinced the market had no say in the removal of features. People will buy from what's available if they feel they have to, or if their device is broken or upgrade fever sets in. Even if Apple and Android never got beyond a 3.5 inch screen, I bet people would still line up for them.

Maybe eventually the A13 will grow on me like that 3GS eventually did. I can only hope. I'm still adjusting to the gestures and screen size and failing a good 90% the time though. Unlocking the screen isn't nearly as pleasing as swiping up on the ring on my Thunderbolt.

 

[mikedt]

The IR Blaster is the main reason why I keep my old Huawei Mate10 with Harmony OS in use, rather than been relegated to a drawer. Specifically for my Android Box, TV, as well as the A/C both at home and in the classrooms. As this device is no longer been used as a smart-phone and is off-line, the battery lasts a whole week.

 

[nickdalzell]

If I keep the data and wifi disabled on the Galaxy S5, that can go a couple of days easy. It's about a day with data on. Since it's used as a remote control, email inbox, and phone most of the time (can't be my daily as I need a working SD card reader and it's bad) the data is usually turned off with wifi being on occasionally. SMS and phone still work on it, though. SMS is 'flaky' though, as sometimes it takes a few attempts to send. receiving is fine though. It still wants to pick 1x over LTE so that's how I know the 'old' network still exists. I also got a Note 10.1 tablet that's 3G only that still has bars (I don't have an active plan on it though). I was under the impression AT&T was outright killing ALL 3G in Feb 2022, so I'm surprised we still got an active 3G tower somewhere. When they shutdown 2G it was gone completely.

Verizon was supposed to be keeping small pockets of 1x online indefinitely (although I also heard in 2021 that they delayed the shutdown of their older networks for an 'indetermined' amount of time) for IoT and M2M stuff, so I kinda had hopes that the Thunderbolt would work a few more years at least. Maybe placing the SIM into the newer phone messed it up.

Does anyone know if the Galaxy S5 Verizon variant supported RCS? I'm trying to still pinpoint why SMS is dead on even a VoLTE supported phone like the ZTE Majesty Pro from 2017. The only thing that allows me to text on that AT&T based line are 2020+ phones like the A13, A01, S20 FE, and any 5G capable phone--All of which support RCS. It's quite possible my city is one of the first to have RCS? The iPhone 6S is another older phone which works as well, and it does iMessage. It won't receive SMS though, only iMessage appears to work.

It's quite possible that putting the SIM into the A13 5G reprovisioned something on the SIM and broke compatibility with the S4, since that's all I did on that line. Verizon I had put the SIM into the A03s to play with it, and after that it no longer works with the Thunderbolt or Pantech Breakout. They run extremely hot, have data only, and battery stats show time without cell signal 100%. It's like they are hunting for CDMA when they shouldn't be. Again, it was after placing the SIM into the newest phones that the old ones stopped. I am not sure if it's coincidental or if something the newer phones did had messed it up. I might try a burner SIM and see if I can restore SMS to the S4 at least, to experiment.

 

[nickdalzell]

Much better. Even got the lock screen. Thanks Nova Launcher, Go Locker, dev options (DPI 284) Galaxy S4 Theme HD, Sense 5 Icon pack.