Pandora Moods

Project Status: Feature Request

Problem

Pandora is great, if you don't know what it is you should really go check it out. However; the problem I have noticed from users over time is that everyone seeds their individual stations with a specific song or artist. They end up with quite a few stations but as they listen to the stations over time, by use of the thumbs up and thumbs down buttons, the stations all start to blend together. The same songs will carry over and play in other stations.

The idea of stations then isn't that useful in the long run when a user wants to tune in for something and ends up hearing basically the same old stuff again no matter which station is selected at the time.

Solution

I think Pandora should learn the taste of the user over time as a whole, and not per station. Once Pandora begins to understand a user it can build a stream of music for the moment by allowing the user to choose a mood. Of course we can predict user moods based on things like if they are at work, the gym or hanging out on a Friday night. Moving from station selection to mood selection would be a pivotal change for Pandora and a step in the right direction I believe to keep them relevant and ahead of user needs in a market which now has many growing competitors.

Pandora Group Stations

Project Status: Feature Request

Problem

Listening to music at work is difficult because people have such different taste that playing music for everyone always leaves someone wishing it wasn't on at all. Everyone listening to individual stations requires earbuds and isolates workers. This isolation causes drops in productivity for the group and slows necessary communication needed for the team to excel.

Granted the types of work environments I am thinking of here are ones in which people are working together on tasks or in large groups. As far as your cubical workers, sure, keep your earbuds my friends.

This idea also applies to parties and groups of friends hanging out. Whether it's in your car or on the couch, catering music to the crowd takes a delicate touch and DJ like skills.

Solution

I think Pandora Internet Radio, which is great by the way and you should look into it if you haven't yet, should make group stations.

Currently you can make your own stations and even share them with other people, but what I am suggesting here is a station geared towards a group audience with group controls.

I want to be able to create a station and share it with some friends. From that point I want my friends to have the same interactive controls as I do over that station. Anyone could thumbs up or thumbs down a song.

You would want to be able to play the station at work and have users of this group mirror the feed controls to their own devices. Someone in the group really doesn't want to hear a song? No problem, let that person hit the skip button for the feed playing to the whole group.

Over time you should end up with a station that works for the group. Of course it's not going to always be everyone's favorite song, but a nice mix to make everyone happy.

Privacy Concerns with Recent Apps List

Project Status: Feature Request

Problem

When using an app on Android, as you close out of the app, a snapshot is taken to store in a list of recent apps. There becomes a privacy issue with the camera app which takes a randomly grabbed image when your camera was last open that anyone can scroll back to and partially view.

So for example; if you have your phone in your hand, camera probably facing your feet, and you open then close the camera app, a snapshot of that camera view is now stored in your recent apps list. There is no telling what you might accidentally share a photo of here and you never even have to press the button to take a photo, it automatically stores whatever the camera had seen last.

This is also a privacy concern with other apps such as banking apps. Open and login to view your balance, close the app and a screenshot of that balance remains stored in your recent apps list. Anyone could scroll though and see this information without having to login to your bank account themselves.

Workaround

Currently the only way to avoid this is either by aiming the camera selectively as you close the camera app or by always going back and swiping away your camera from the recent apps.

With other apps such as banking apps, the only way to solve this is to completely sign out of your banking apps after each use, which I would recommend anyway, or remember to swipe the app out of your recent apps list.

Solution

In my opinion, they should add to Android the ability for developers to label a view in the app as sensitive or private. That way when the app closes while still on this view a screen grab of it won't be taken or kept around for anyone else who may later hold your device.

Another way would be to let developers replace a screen grab with an alternate view of their own design. The banking app; for example, could choose to replace sensitive screen information with a generic screen or a login screen.

Actually mixing both of these ideas might be the better solution but as long as they do something about this I will be happy.

Android Group Ringtones - Now Obsolete

Project Status: Losing Hope
View Original Post: Android Group Ringtones
How you can help: Star this topic on the Android issue tracker

This is an update to the very popular feature request for Android to add group ringtones. Unfortunately no one is happy to hear this news.

According to Google's Issue tracker the suggestion to have an option to choose group ringtones on Android is now considered "obsolete." The reason they consider this obsolete is because as of Lollipop they moved to a new "Contacts" app instead of the old "People" app. Sadly in this new app for contacts the ability to view or use your contact groups has been removed.

Assuming you have your phone setup with a Gmail account linked to it, you can still log into your Gmail account through a web page and go to your contacts groups. None of those groups however will appear on your phone as they used to.

So as you can see; without the ability to have contact groups, the request to add group ringtones is no longer possible for Android to implement. Which is why they consider this feature request to be obsolete.

As far as I am concerned this is a step backward for the Android platform. There must be some pretty strong and valid reasons why the great people over at Google chose to remove contact groups from Android, but I don't know what they are. It will be interesting to see how things develop from this point.

If you are one of the many people that miss the contact groups check out this post on the issue tracker and either add a comment or star the issue. The more stars an issue gets the more likely the development team over at Google is to take action. Hopefully that action will be bringing back group contacts. Nearly seven hundred people have starred the issue as of the date of this post. Lots of issues on this tracker only gain a handful of stars so to gain this many stars actually places this item in the top ten open issues. I can only image that Google will have to take some action on this soon, maybe they have something better in the works than what we had before.

In the meantime; there are several apps in the play store which allow you to access your groups, some even let you set group ringtones. I just wish that Google would have both of these features built in.

Clash of Clans Anti-Spy

Project Status: Feature Request

Currently Clash of Clans has a sneaky little issue where players can easily spy on the opposing war clan once a war has started the preparation day. The development team could easily fix this problem by making it so that anyone who joins into a clan after a war search begins is unable to see the war map. Essentially revoking this player's access to the war details and leaving the spectator status only for members who were in the clan before the war search started but are not eligible for war.

Often times during the preparation day members of the opposing clan will try to come over and sneak a peek. Sometimes even taking screenshots of all traps and war castle troops. This is pretty sneaky and gives the spying clan a huge advantage during the war. Many times it is easy to spot and avoid because you can recognize the name of those trying to join as a member of the opposite clan. The hard part is that many times people will drop in with a second account and snoop around.

Making this easy fix, of blinding new members from the war map, would help to stop this form of cheating. It would not however stop the opposing clan from coming in and listening to the clan chatter. So overall the fix would make the game more fair by blocking this form of blatant cheating but still allowing those that love the idea of spying to listen in on clan chatter if they desire.

The best part about fixing this form of spying is that it will ultimately help clans to grow larger quicker. Larger clans tend to keep players more involved in game play, meaning more money coming in for those that run Clash of Clans. The reason being that right now the only way for a clan to rule out spying is to close up the doors until war is over. Often players leave during war and sadly by the end of each war it seems that clans get smaller and smaller. Spending a lot of time between wars trying to build a clan's size back up loses those war hungry fighters to more active clans. Then without your hardcore true-blue fighters the war losses start to pile up and the downward spiral of a dying clan continues.

Sure this fix will not solve all the problems with dwindling clan sizes, but it will sure help them to grow larger and stronger. It gives a clan more time to accept in the noobies and see how they mesh with the group before having to drag them into the trenches of war only to find out that they are flaky.

I hope this one day becomes a part of the game that I am currently so addicted to, but I doubt that it will. I guess it's just another pipe dream for now.

Vote on the topic via Google+ by clicking here.

Toggling Elevator Buttons

Project Status: Feature Request

Have you ever pressed the button for the wrong floor and wished you could undo it? Worse yet, stepped into the elevator as a child was stepping out only to see that every button has been pressed?

I have no idea why the people who make elevators don't make the floor buttons work as toggle switches. I have a hunch, but if you happen to know the real reason please enlighten me.

When a floor has been selected you should always have the option to press the button again to deselect it. The only complicated part is implementing a way for the blind to know whether or not the floor is selected.

Android Group Ringtones

Project Status: Feature Request
Updated here: Android Group Ringtones - Now Obsolete
How you can help: Star this topic on the Android issue tracker

Sure there are a few apps in the play store which provide options to set customized ringtones for contact groups and you can find them here if that is what you are looking for, but what about the ability to do this directly from the stock install of Android?

As of the today, with the current version of Android (4.2.2) this is not an option. However; it would be super easy for the Android development team to tack this onto the next version of Android. So here's to hoping that by Android 5.0 this feature exists right out of the box.

Check out this update, but you aren't going to be happy..
Update: Android Group Ringtones - Now Obsolete

When a contact is selected there are options to: edit, share, delete, set ringtone, send all calls to voicemail and place on home screen. Select a group of contacts and the only options are to edit which contacts are in the group or to delete the whole group.

What I'm suggesting here is that all of these same contact options become available for contact groups as well.

Let's take a moment and break this down for each new element that this feature includes:

Share

I don't use the "share" feature for contact data myself, but seeing as many users would; I don't see why they wouldn't also want the ability to share a group of contact data.

All calls to voicemail

I use this option on individual contacts quite a bit. Imagine though having a group of "blocked" contacts that always go to voicemail, or when going on vacation being able to ignore all work calls with one easy click.

Place on Home screen

Placing a single contact on the home screen already works great by making a shortcut to that contact. Placing a group of contacts on the home screen should create a folder containing a shortcut to each contact in the group, and of course this folder should update automatically as the group members change over time.

Set ringtone

I've used Android since the first version and I've waited forever for groups to show up at all. Now that they have I'm sure it's only a matter of time until being able to set a ringtone for the entire group will become an option. I would love to know if it's my family, friends or coworkers calling before I ever pull my phone out of my pocket.

The priority levels for setting ringtones should go as follows:

• Highest priority - a ringtone set for an individual contact
• Medium priority - a ringtone set for a group of contacts
• Lowest priority - the default ringtone

Then the only complicated part left to solve is to let users prioritize their groups. This is needed when a contact resides in multiple groups. It's necessary to define which group out ranks another and takes priority as the selected ringtone.

Do you want to help make it happen? Go to this page and star the post (which is issue 5146). The more stars this issue gets the more likely the Android development team will consider making this feature request a reality.

Update: As of Android Version 4.4.2 this is still not a feature.