[conite]

How nice of you to defend Google on this! And what about the upcoming clipboard changes in Q: are you going to defend them as well?

Defend how?

It's unfortunate for BlackBerry, but denying permission to other apps to dredge through your SMS and Phone logs is generally a good thing, no?

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

How nice of you to defend Google on this! And what about the upcoming clipboard changes in Q: are you going to defend them as well?

And as Android is Google's product, they have a vested interest in making it a less fragmented product, that is better for the average consumer... really nothing to defend as they can do whatever they want.

BlackBerry is doing the best that the can with the cards that they have now. But it's Google House, their Game, and their Deck. When BB10 flopped back in 2013, BlackBerry lost any chance to be the masters of their own game.

[Ment]

Google should make an exception for apps in the system partition. That would limit cross-info sharing on sms to OEM/carrier supervised apps, still would be some abuse I'm sure but very small. On the downside non-BB Android phones w/ Hub would be stuck with bifurcated features.

[Bla1ze]

This is all somehow Facebook's fault anyway.

[BigBadWulf]

You see: Defending Google.
I see: Laying out their reasoning.

As much as I hate the degradation of the hub, I'll toss in my own reasoning. The Google has had a hub almost from inception, in the notification center. Most of it's users have grow quite accustom to it. The Google is competing with Apple for best security image. It's playing to the lowest common denominator, and is their only chance. Consumers will do what consumers will do, unless they don't have a choice. Sad the rest of us have to suffer their ignorance, but on a positive note...

The Google has figured out how to fix stupid!

[TX Jedi]

Just got the update that brings call logs back!! So happy I won't need to get rid of my beloved BlackBerry Hub App. Update is for Samsung and One Plus devices.

[RK_BB]

Just got the update that brings call logs back!! So happy I won't need to get rid of my beloved BlackBerry Hub App. Update is for Samsung and One Plus devices.

What is the update version?

[TX Jedi]

Version 2.1902.1.55076

[ppeters914]

I can confirm that the update does -NOT- bring back Call Logs on LG device.

[joeldf]

I can confirm that the update does -NOT- bring back Call Logs on LG device.

But it does on Samsung.

[ppeters914]

But it does on Samsung.

...which is what the Change Log said (OnePlus also), but one can hope, yeah?

[BigBadWulf]

I can confirm that the update does -NOT- bring back Call Logs on LG device.

IIRC on my Moto I opened settings, apps, app permissions, phone, then removed the permissions for hub+ services and inbox, did a reboot, opened the inbox and was asked to approve permissions for phone.

[ppeters914]

Tried, but no joy. Using stock Android Phone app, so don't understand why this would work on some devices, but not others.

[BigBadWulf]

Tried, but no joy. Using stock Android Phone app, so don't understand why this would work on some devices, but not others.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Somebody's got to be the lucky bugger

[fof9l]

...A lot of apps were requesting access to such things for no reason at all, and end users not reading or understanding the permissions is a big problem on Android. .

So let me get this straight. Because greedy or lazy developers want access to your data, and most teenagers who want the latest shiny slabs can't (or can't be bothered to) read the screens, and don't understand that, when an app asks for permissions, it's draining your privacy, then the rest of us have to suffer a dumbed-down OS that becomes less useful month by month. Is that a fair summary of the situation?

[BigBadWulf]

So let me get this straight. Because greedy or lazy developers want access to your data, and most teenagers who want the latest shiny slabs can't (or can't be bothered to) read the screens, and don't understand that, when an app asks for permissions, it's draining your privacy, then the rest of us have to suffer a dumbed-down OS that becomes less useful month by month. Is that a fair summary of the situation?

Yes

As much as I hate the degradation of the hub, I'll toss in my own reasoning. The Google has had a hub almost from inception, in the notification center. Most of it's users have grow quite accustom to it. The Google is competing with Apple for best security image. It's playing to the lowest common denominator, and is their only chance. Consumers will do what consumers will do, unless they don't have a choice. Sad the rest of us have to suffer their ignorance, but on a positive note...

The Google has figured out how to fix stupid!

[Bla1ze]

Is that a fair summary of the situation?

Mostly. You left out the olds who don't understand all this newfangled nonsense.

[fof9l]

Mostly. You let out the olds who don't understand all this newfangled nonsense.

As an "old" myself, I resemble that remark!!

[TgeekB]

As much as I hate the degradation of the hub, I'll toss in my own reasoning. The Google has had a hub almost from inception, in the notification center. Most of it's users have grow quite accustom to it. The Google is competing with Apple for best security image. It's playing to the lowest common denominator, and is their only chance. Consumers will do what consumers will do, unless they don't have a choice. Sad the rest of us have to suffer their ignorance, but on a positive note...

The Google has figured out how to fix stupid!

Thank you to you and Blaze for bringing some knowledge and reasoning to this thread.

I am one of the people you speak of above. Though I have used iPhones, Android, Windows phone, BBOS, and BB10 I find it quite reasonable to use the native notifications hub for my Key2 LE. While I understand the usefulness of the BB hub, I don’t use it nor find it inconvenient to do so.

Everyone has always complained about Android security and, now that they are making positive moves, everyone is complaining about that. Just can’t win.

[DetlevCM]

Would someone smart please explain the teleological or physico-theological argument for removal of phone call activity and crippled SMS activity in the latest version of Hub.

Someone is aware of this since the naming of the home page icon became "inbox."

Aside the fanciful behavior of Android offering changes, was there an valid reasoning?

I think the simple answer is "because google is stupid" and wants to dictate what the world can and cannot do. Or at least the developers behind Android are not the brightest, based on the decisions made in the development of android, given that they make zero sense.... - Or maybe because they want to force users to become even more dependent on their applications and ecosystem...
Unfortunately end users are only left with two realistic choices, the bad Android and the worse iOS... - And the option to rant...

One absolutely incomprehensible development in Android: the removal of the ability to clear the cache with one click on Android 8 (or was it already 7?).
My mother's KeyOne was draining its battery way too quickly and recently we cleared all caches with CCleaner... - Oh wonder, the battery life has become usable again.
Basically, google's choice to remove the cache clearing has worsened user experience. Why is this phone's battery always empty? Why is it so laggy? Ah, because android is rubbish... congratulations.
Why the does such an action need a third party app? And manually going into each app doesn't to clear the cache is too tedious, even if you keep installations to a minimum.
(Heck, my Priv used to slow to a crawl every 4 days until I disabled the malicious "google app" after which it suddenly worked a lot better.... Yes, google makes and ships its own malware... - As a user, being forced to reboot every few days is not acceptable, nor is excessive battery drain.)

Besides the crippled Hub as big brother google wants to control your SMS it seems, you also now have no more control over the LED colour on Android... I guess the google developers are colour blind as there is no other sane reason for this...
I'm starting to rant...
And while someone suggests that SMS are very private: SMS are not encrypted during transmission. In addition, other messengers can apparently integrate into the Hub... - It is just a way to try and force users away from using a third party application. How many people change their SMS application ?

And while I have rant...
How can google take an efficient OS (Linux) and create something so resource hungry and inefficient... I can run a Linux server which uses only 250MB RAM (no GUI), I can run a full distro (openSUSE) with Plasma using just 500MB of RAM. In "normal usage" I rarely if at all exceed 2GB. Android? That lags on 3GB of RAM...
I also do not need to reboot my server every few days - or a laptop/desktop using the same OS.

Effectively we have ended up with a duopoly where mediocrity has to be accepted because there is no suitable alternative... - And companies like google do what they want to do because they can.
Then again, if you started using Linux full time and then have to work on Windows, you also start to notice the severe limitations of that OS - but company IT requires you to work on a crippled OS...
And with Windows 10 we see the same dictatorial stance from Microsoft as practiced by Apple and Google... (and that is a kind description...)

...thus all one can do is rant about how bad things have become with little hope for improvement. (At least in the mobile space. Windows 10 did give me the final Linux push for personal computing.)

And before someone says "make something better": from a technological point of view, BlackBerry 10 was significantly better, also from a user interface perspective.

But alas, BlackBerry 10 is dead/breathing its last breaths and there is only Android unless one stops using a mobile phone...
(And after suffering through three years of touchscreen use, I am not going back willingly to a touch only device.)

[DetlevCM]

As much as I hate the degradation of the hub, I'll toss in my own reasoning. The Google has had a hub almost from inception, in the notification center. Most of it's users have grow quite accustom to it. The Google is competing with Apple for best security image. It's playing to the lowest common denominator, and is their only chance. Consumers will do what consumers will do, unless they don't have a choice. Sad the rest of us have to suffer their ignorance, but on a positive note...

The Google has figured out how to fix stupid!

What notification center? I'm not aware of one on Android. And the notifications at the top are useless because they are gone once dismissed...
Plus, as an old BlackBerry (OS & 10) user, I much prefer to have a central application like the Hub, rather than random notifications.

This reminds me of Windows 10 in the office... showed some message with deletion of something - I clicked on it to read more and it was removed... utterly and completely useless...
Then again, if Windows 10 deletes files, it isn't my problem - I didn't chose it as a working OS, IT did... (I would have picked Linux - I can work more efficiently with it too...)

[conite]

I think the simple answer is "because google is stupid" and wants to dictate what the world can and cannot do.

The fact that Google wants to limit app access to SMS content and Phone logs is anything but stupid.

On another note, we ended up with the current duopoly because that's what customers overwhelmingly chose.

[DetlevCM]

The fact that Google wants to limit app access to SMS content and Phone logs is anything but stupid.

Of course it is stupid - it serves no point other than to try and consolidate spying power in Google's hands - and make the user experience worse.
This is something that should be covered in permissions and not dictated by Google - who are incidentally no more trustworthy than the next random person on the street.

Add to that, anybody within range can listen in on a mobile phone call (as the "encryption" is no longer fit for purpose) while SMS are not encrypted at all.

And if google cared about privacy, why can I not suppress internet access for specific applications for example?

Or why can I not use an Adblocker on Chrome in Android?
Why did it take until 2015/2016 for permissions to be available in Android? (BlackBerry OS had them all the way back on OS 4.5)

Google enforces permissions/finer controls when it serves THEM. The end user is just an irrelevant "data cow" to Google - whose value lies in the the ability to command a large group of willing and unwilling data suppliers.

[anon(10562251)]

What notification center? I'm not aware of one on Android. And the notifications at the top are useless because they are gone once dismissed...
Plus, as an old BlackBerry (OS & 10) user, I much prefer to have a central application like the Hub, rather than random notifications.

This reminds me of Windows 10 in the office... showed some message with deletion of something - I clicked on it to read more and it was removed... utterly and completely useless...
Then again, if Windows 10 deletes files, it isn't my problem - I didn't chose it as a working OS, IT did... (I would have picked Linux - I can work more efficiently with it too...)

Welcome to the new reality of BlackBerry. Well, actually not that new.

Software messed up? Google did it. Hardware messed up? BlackBerry Mobile did it.

Logo correct? License revenue collected? Check.

[conite]

Of course it is stupid - it serves no point other than to try and consolidate spying power in Google's hands

Anyone, including BlackBerry, is still free to make their own SMS client. We are talking about preventing SMS content and logs from moving BETWEEN apps. This restriction was long overdue.