Android's Mic and Camera Access Kinda Suck

2023-06-13 14:18:45Z (last updated 2023-10-16 08:55:03Z)

I have Android 12 on my phone. It came with some new features:

Ability to disable Microphone

Ability to disable Camera

etc.

Now, here's my opinion: it sucks... because it's kind of unusable

How does it suck?

Now you might be wondering:

> "Isn't that a good privacy feature?"

Which I would say "yes" if it wasn't for it being pretty annoying to re-enable the microphone when you need it.

The most annoying part is when I send a voice message, instead of sending a voice message, I send complete silence. And so I have to swipe to open the quick settings (1-2 swipes), then swipe to the page where it has the microphone access setting (2 swipes), enable it (1 tap), close the quick settings (1-2 swipes), then try to remember what I was just about to say and re-record the voice message, then delete the empty voice message.

That was a lot of words. Here's the list of events that follow after I realized my recording is messed up:

Realized something is wrong (silence instead of voice)

Swipe to open the quick settings (1-2 swipes)

Swipe to the page where it has the microphone access setting (2 swipes)

Enable it (1 tap)

Close quick settings (1-2 swipes)

Try to remember what I said and say it again

Those steps, when done, take up time. The time lost is quite valuable, since during that time, I might forget what I said, so in the end I might end up forgetting what to say.

There is a dialog to unblock it but it sucks too

There is a dialog that shows up if you're trying to use the camera/microphone but it's blocked. However, that sucks too:

It only shows up when trying to take pictures or record audio (start and no more taps), not sending voice message (continuously held tap)

It's has a noticeable delay before it shows up (camera app opening to dialog)

The camera app sucks too (specific to my ROM), requiring to reopen the app after allowing access to the camera if it doesn't work after unblocking camera.

And that's about all I have about this.

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