Here’s the Watch Out Google is Going to Entirely Control What You Can Do With Your Own Phone info.
I hope the EU will say Google can’t do this. First Trump and now this.
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Rightly so. I did notice on the IGN app that you can download maps in the event you don’t have a signal. (as you can with Google maps) and just rely on GPS. I just discovered this so not sure how useful it may be. Paper is good.
I was reading that article just a couple of days ago. I can’t work out whether it is a scheme to make more money for Google or give Google more control (probably both). Either way it does not seem to have any benefits for us customers.
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“Caffeinate” is a trivial little app that I use very often.
I keep my favourite recipies on my phone or sometime I follow a recipe on the internet. I prop up the phone in a corner of the kitchen. The problem is, my phone time out is short so the phone keeps going into sleep mode requiring a screen touch to wake it up.
This is not a sensible thing to do if your hands are sticky and messy from ingredients. I could go into settings and extend my time out period then change it back when finished (if I remember) but it’s a bit of a hassle.
With Caffeinate, I can set an extension period to be added to the time out period. My extension period is set to 15 mins. So to use it, I swipe down on my phone and hit the Caffeinate icon in the quick settings menu.This temporarily adds 15 minutes to the time out period. I can tap it several times and each tap adds 15 minutes
The phone will then stay awake for whatever period I have set allowing me to concentrate on cooking
I use Picture This, you don’t have to subscribe. You can take pics of flowers and plants, it tells you what they are, and without subscription you can see if its a weed, native and if it looks healthy. Very handy, all my plants now have labels on and when I’m out and about and see a plant I like the look of, I can just take a pic and find out what it is.
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I stopped using that as so inaccurate - as are all the plant apps I’ve tried.
Google Translate does audio to text, text to audio, audio to audio translation, and even two way “conversation” translation, and text translation “on the fly”, and is available for Android.
Just be aware that the text translation, via the camera, doesn’t work on the Android Go Edition, ie. the stripped down version for low-end phones.
That needn’t be a problem though, because the Nokia C32 (the one I’ve got), which costs around £80 PAYG at Tesco (it’s also unlocked, so you can fit your existing SIM), runs Android 13, which handles all the Google Translate features.
I must admit Picture This , does sometimes throw a wobbly, it described rudbeckia as some kind of weed. Which is why i wouldn’t subscribe to it. But as a quick and dirty that I can use in the go, it’s fine.
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Plantnet is pretty good on a mobile and works very well on a computer when you take your photo home.
I do agree but I prefer Flora Incognita 
I wasn’t aware of Flora Incognita and have now spent some time investigating it. Thank you for the tip.
My favourite AI helper Perplexity says to stick to PlantNet, partly because Flora Incognita can only work on a PC with a simulator like Bluestacks, while PlantNet can be downloaded directly. PlantNet gives a choice of a number of possible identifications and also allows several photos of flowers as well as leaves. I was in Eastern Turkey earlier this month and PlantNet identified the photos I took very well using an Eastern Mediterranean Flora. I do have some botanical knowledge, however, and can generally decide between the options presented.
It is, as always, a matter of horses for courses. For general walks in the countryside , I am sure that Flora Incognita would be very good with an instant ID. For those interested in critical genera like brambles, dandelions and hawkweeds, no electronic aid will help you!
Thank you for this excellent analysis! I used Plant@net for a long time, and it was mainly for the sake of my eyes that I switched to Flora Incognita, as I couldn’t figure out how to switch the former to dark mode… and it was really straining my eyes 
I do think that Plant@net is better for in-depth research, but Flora Incognita is quicker to use when out walking, for example, whilst being just as reliable.
Is that just for France? Looks good but I walk a lot in Spain, too.
Hopefully Graphene OS will be growing by the time this happens.
Without wanting to be flippant, the IGN app is indeed “just" for France, but given it’s produced by the French IGN, and for free, that’s probably unsurprising! Googling the issue suggests the Mapas de Espana app, produced by Spain’s IGN, is also free and provides good quality maps. I have no personal knowledge of it as I live and walk in France but hopefully it might help you.
A quick search also suggests the mapping authorities of several other countries, eg Belgium (Topomapviewer) and Germany produce similar free mapping apps..
Thank you. I have several for the walks that I do, was just interested to compare. Will definitely look at it for France.
Or Lineage which I’ve used for over a decade.
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Weather&radar
Excellent forecasts, very location specific, friends 15 km away have different exposure and get different notifications, you can check individual maps for wind, rain, temps etc etc zoom in very locally or out regionally to see where its coming from etc. long term forecasts very good too, much more precise than Meteo France. Lots of additional data about weather in general. Originally recommended by a local farmer I now use it exclusively, and have converted numerous friends to it as well.
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This productivity app is Apple only, but it’s invaluable for me. It’s a default app- Apple Notes. With a couple of clicks I can pull up anything I have saved: recipes, receipts, guarantees, instructions books, timelines and logs, help guides, project plans, clipped articles, etc. You can scan documents directly into a Note and it will save as a pdf. Search is powerful- it will search all text including text inside a pdf. If you have never explored what it can do, checkout one of the many tutorials on YouTube.
I am an android/windows user so no good for me. However, I have just started using a multiplatform app called “Obsidian” which seems to do a similar thing.
You create a note of anything then create links. Unlike a file manager where your have to decide which folder in which to store a file you create as many links as you want to anything you want. It’s a bit like putting the same file in as many relevant folders as you want but without the storage overhead.
I am just started getting to grips with it. For me, the biggest advantage is that you can have a copy of Obsidian on as many devices as you like such as your phone, PC, tablet or laptop and your notes are kept in sync on each device.
As an example, I can take take a photo directly into a note on my phone (using one of the many plug ins) then, when I get home I can start working on it on my PC.
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