[Magisk] 73sydney:
Hehe im sure The Man like many appreciates your invaluable input on the thread

Hehe i think most android folk would be a bit amazed at what pure Android is like on standardised hardware, like i said, im still stock, and 10 days after getting it, its my longest run ever without flashing, usually im off stock in under 24 hours on any other device...

My process, until now, for the last few devices was, when a Samsung device died, id look for one second hand that was 2 models up and set my budget at AUD$150. That worked for my jump from the s2 -> s4 ..then hit a snag when the s6 had crappy battery time, so i went to the Note 4 (also for AUD$150, and which i could swap batteries on, big plus). When the Note 4 died, there was no way i was going to deal with yet more Knox and other restrictive nonsense. Hence the Pixel 2 XL, though i had to raise my budget to AUD$240 to get one. Its nice not having to plug it in twice a day with its battery only 2 years old instead of 6 years :) I only have to recharge every 2 days with normal usage (for me)

Honestly the sheer ease of bootloader unlocking alone makes you less stabby, its just (with adb and fastboot):

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flashing unlock

Sure you get a warning on boot, but it doesnt sit there seemingly forever like my Note 4 used to do, making you feel like they put in an extended delay as punishment for breaking their bootloader/boot process

Want to relock your bootloader?

You guessed it...

adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flashing lock

Like i said, im kinda said to find i dont need MHPC...i needed it for both fingerprint for CTS on Q, and to change manufacturer name to get get the Gear Buds software to run...Samsung apparently dosnt care if you run it on any other rooted device, just dont do it on theirs :)

Really MHPC is/was great for so many things like that, The Man (@Didgeridoohan) has no idea prolly how useful his module has been. I can honestly say its been the module ive used most apart from my own hacky repackaged one, on and Swap Torpedo :)

As for my input, lets not overplay things, i merely packaged, with several script lines from The Man, that SQLite Gpay fix thingy from BostonDan, and others work. The Man was instrumental in proper magiskhiding of some of the play services that had to be referred to in special ways, that i spent hours and what was left of my hair trying to get working. So please, lets just all agree i repackaged other peoples work, with some extra help from The Man, because im essentially lazy, and at the rate i was testing ROM's on the Note 4 (at times 3/4 ROM's a week) manually doing the BostonDan method every time was making me want to end it all :) I did look at the downloads the other day and posted "wish i had of charged people 50 cents a download", because it was at like 22,000 (overall, all releases)...not bad considering its never been in the repo and got knocked back for inclusion for "not doing enough" and people have to largely stumble across it, be pointed it to it by one of many people (including yourself) or somehow see a reference to it in my sig :)

Measure that against my Unifi Autoban php script - entirely my own work and something i was quite pleased about considering the amount of array parsing/building/mangling involved and its only had 1 download. Sure it was written to fill a niche - to automatically ban people for a set period if they tried to do P2P on the Unifi networks i maintain/monitor.....i actually just turned it off on all my networks, the numpties finally learned to equate cause (opening a torrent file) with effect (their internet access ceasing to exist) and the numbers of offenders dropped to zero. There was an overhead (70%+ CPU usage, as opposed to 10% CPU usage without it) but i maintain you need to police your users and punish them for abusing your baby, or maybe im just related to the BOFH?

I dunno about going the iPhone route, ive had the odd shot at John about joining the Sheeple :) Ive been PC since my school was the first in my state to get the original IBM PC back in 1981, and have bene partisan ever since. I will always refer people i think would benefit from the one clear selling point Apple has.... support. But in my personal life i could never go there....its too restrictive an ecosystem in total....at least one friend knows to not break his MacBook again, because as ive told him "if you break that again, and bring it to me, its mine, because i want to wipe it, put Windows 10 on it and then take it to the cafe down the road wherere the soy drinking Apple sheeple hang out and piss them off by starting it up with the volume on 10 and the Windows start sound playing" :)

I always blame Apple too for the prices of modern tech, esepcially phones, They set the price (most of it pure profit), then everyone had to follow otheriwse they would be looked at as inferior. Maybe COVID will see a reverse in that trend and we'll see prices be far more reasonable going forward, because no country is coming out of this strong. I keep hoping for signs of more ethical behaviour from Apple, but i fear i may be waiting for a while...

In the meantime, not only surprised by PixelLife, but more than content and not missing Samsung at all.