Fun with developer previews
I’ve got Android N Developer preview on my Nexus 9 mostly because I wanted to see what Google previews on Google devices work like.
Note for the easily annoyed – this is just a story of my weekend, not a scalding critique of Google’s developer program, nor anything more than a story of how I didn’t think of the unintended consequences of development software.
Now, my Nexus 9 doesn’t get a lot of hardcore use. I use it at night to read a little and then it spends the rest of the night being a sound generator to make it sound like there’s a river going by my youngest’s bed.
Nice flowing river sound seems to bring peace and a zen-like state to baby, or it just bores her to sleep, I’m not so sure.
There shouldn’t have been problems with the choice to put a developer preview on that tablet. It didn’t need performance, wasn’t under load, my only mistake was I didn’t assume that the audio was going to become a critical issue with a development preview.
It starts with finding out a couple of weeks back after I switched to the preview that it’s going into some weird sleep mode after an indeterminate number of hours. This turned off the audio.
Now, this wasn’t a killer. Twenty minutes of relaxing white noise was about all that it took to sooth the savage baby. If needed, I’d wake the tablet, go to the app and attempt to kill it. It would eventually say it wasn’t responding and I could close and respawn.
You start counting seconds when there’s a grumpy baby waiting for the sounds of gentle rain upon a tent canopy, and these started ticking up as the device ran longer.
Some teeth started budding and a very grumpy baby needed a nap. We generally don’t have to do much during the day, but this required a completely dark room, the sound generator, and a jaw rub.
This was all happening and the sound cut out. I walked to the other room where the tablet was and what I can only assume was the April Android N update was applying. That’s when I realized to my horror I had a Jabra Solemate Max sitting in the same room as the baby that had just recently suffered some sort of reset and lost the quiet settings.
This wouldn’t be an issue, thought I as I ran to get to the speaker, except that it was cranked and immediately announced “CONNECTED” in the most baby-startling fashion possible.
That’s when I realized if your baby is cutting teeth and the audio is cutting out you shouldn’t be on the cutting edge with your developer preview, or you’ll get cut.
Baby was not amused. Ended up being up with her until 4am last night. I’d love to blame Google for that, but sadly can’t.
