Transitioning Keyboard, Music, and Photos
Google Keyboard
I really like GIF’s.
In fact, I prefer to have full conversations with them, if at all possible.
In the iOS app store, here’s what shows up for ‘gif keyboard’:
- GIF Keyboard (Tenor)
- GIF for Messenger (Tenor)
- GIPHY. The GIF Search Engine for All the GIFs (Giphy, Inc.)
- Gif Keyboard Maker Animated Emoji.s Gifs for Giphy (MiaoYing Zhang)
I decided to give them all an honest shot for a few days..
Searches for ‘gif’ are pretty much the same, with a few GIF makers in there that use videos from your camera roll. Not really what I’m looking for.
Stangely enough, Google’s Gboard didn’t show up, but GIFs are the primary reason I keep going back to it.
After a using these alternative keyboards, I’m sticking to Gboard.
My primary security concern around using Gboard is the logging of everything I type, but there’s no telling if any of these other keyboards would do the same thing.
Time to poke a hole in this tin foil hat, and continue supporting our Google overlord.
Google Play Music
Music to me is very much a background media. At my desk, at the gym, at the coffee shop. Hardly ever on my couch just listening.
This makes radio-style playlists my primary method of listening over manually curated playlists.
Over the past few years, Google’s done a pretty good job with their “moods”, and the “I’m Feeling Lucky” radio has gotten pretty good!
Unfortunately for them, I’ve gotta give another platform a shot. Hello Spotify!
At first, I couldn’t stand the UI. It felt clunky and un-intuitive, but my thumb figured it out after a week or two.
Discover Weekly sucked too. I’d skip 5-6 songs in a row, leaving me with a few good tracks and a lot of disappointment.
I decided to give them 3 months to figure out my listening habits. I’m about halfway through this trial period, and Spotify is pretty damn good.
Discover Weekly hardly sees any skips anymore, New Music Friday has a good mix and flow of music, and I’m offered multiple daily mixes with different styles!
Even trying to go back to Google Play Music leaves me feeling disappointed. Moods just don’t cut it anymore.
The only feature I’m missing would be cloud access to uploaded music. DEFCON 25 ended recently, and the music is available on their site. I’d love to give it a listen on Spotify wherever I’m at, but I guess I’ll have to use the CD, and only in my car.
Google Photos
I started using Google Photos primarily for backup, around the same time I started using Dropbox and Amazon Photos.
If they all automatically back up my photos for “free”, why not use all 3? :)
Cutting this tie was as easy as deleting the app. If Dropbox AND Amazon lose all of my photos at the same time, I’m inclined to believe that we’re in an Internet apocalypse.