Samsung s6 Nougat update

[Anonymous]

Any news when the s6 will get the new update?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

The last we heard was "no info" from o2
https://community.o2.co.uk/t5/Android-Devices-Samsung-HTC-Sony/S6-Edge-Nougat/td-p/1043126

[Anonymous]

I got it yesterday on my S6!

[GJD]

I'm really regretting installing it on my S6 yesterday. The user interface is much harder to use. I only wear glasses for long hours in front of a computer (and not for any other use; don't use them for watching TV or for general reading) but it feels like I'm going to have to wear glasses just to be able to use my b|oody mobile phone.

• Icons are drawn as very thin outlines (no solid fills) and not visible at a glance.
• Notifications text is minuscule and there's no way to enlarge it.
• The text message app is now unusable. It stops at 3 messages' worth of text (literally stops and lets you type no further). This I could cope with by using the indispensible app "Big SMS", but now if someone sends you a message of longer than 3 messages long, it stops in the middle of a word, states "VIEW ALL" then you have to go to another screen to read it. If you make the mistake of reading the message up to as far as it goes, you then struggle to find your place when it takes you to this completely unnecessary and cumbersome separate screen. Whose idea was that in the development team? How did it get beyond a brainstorming session (where the notion should have been mercilessly trashed) let alone rolled out onto millions of phones? I'm having to use Tu Go as a text message app now. Not ideal, as it shows received and sent texts in a usable text size, but the composition window has enormous text that only shows a total of 16 words at once before they disappear up into the hidden bit of this window.
• S Planner, now known as Calendar: calendar items are shown as white text on gaudy backgrounds. The colour of the background can be changed to a small degree but only to other gaudy mid- to pale colours there's no way to change the text to black on a pale coloured background that would make it easily readable.

(I loved the dark scheme that came with my old S3 -- I wish that could have been carried over to subsequent models.)

I've read things on other forums like "Hey, this is progress -- live with it -- don't be a dinosaur; get with it, luddite", but when they introduce things that make your phone harder to use for the most basic of functions that have featured on mobile phones for 20+ years (i.e. text messages) AND without any means to tweak the settings, it's just mucking around and trashing the user's experience for the sake of doing something new and with no option for the user to revert back to previous functionality.

I'm loathe to have to go hunting around for a third-party SMS app but if it comes to that, does anyone have any recommendations?

Anyone considering updating -- please do some research on the various forums before deciding. I'd love to go back to my phone that worked just how I wanted it to ...  😞

[Kuribo]

Re dark theme from S3, it's worth checking the Samsung theme store for dark themes there are some great free ones, including one made by Samsung.

[GJD]

Thanks -- I haven't managed to find any black styles optimised for Nougat -- there's still a lot of white white white! Solid icons would be amazing though, rather than very faint pale coloured outlines.

The phone admittedly is running a bit more smoothly, but the changes they've made to the SMS message app are maddening. I've looked on Google play but with every other one I've seen there are people complaining about glitches -- not able to send/receive picture messages etc.

I've found that TU is not ideal as a text message app -- probably best to leave that for its intended purpose.

Just posting some screen shots for show what I was on about with the ridiculous VIEW ALL (what were they thinking??!)

Then the next screen where you have to go to read the full message ...

[jonsie]

As good?

http://www.androidguys.com/2016/04/12/is-textra-the-best-third-party-sms-app-in-the-play-store-revie...

[GJD]

@jonsie wrote:

As good?

http://www.androidguys.com/2016/04/12/is-textra-the-best-third-party-sms-app-in-the-play-store-revie...

---

I'd hope it'd be significantly better!!
Thanks for the suggestion -- I'll give it a try. Can't believe though that we have to go hunting for third-party apps for things that should be basic basic options ("Truncate long messages" yes/no etc.)

[Kuribo]

Google's own SMS app Android Messages is pretty good and doesn't truncate at all. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.messaging

[Anonymous]

I am still awaiting the update, is the roll out still in process?