Avatar by @girlfiend
Posting to formally announce my new Android app, Zero. It does nothing. Literally, you open it and it immediately quits. That's it. This is not a joke, I made this and you can download an APK from the GitHub link above. I made this to solve an actual problem I was having but it did not work, so instead I put it on the Internet.
As described in the GitHub README, there are several future improvements I am considering to this app, depending on the level of user interest. Your feedback is welcome.
Re: awful Lenovo android ui: would just... Installing a different launcher not work? The first thing I do on every phone I get is install nova launcher to get rid of the default launcher.
Also, it doesn't quite help. The problem is that the "taskbar" cannot be turned off and the "taskbar" always uses the quick launch bar from the original default launcher, you can switch to Nova Launcher and it won't even notice
The linked thread is quite a ride! Kind of feels like you get at least one curse like this on any non-google Android and a couple other curses on Google's devices.
And, like, if they took effort to find it and strip it out, that suggests that something was breaking if you disabled the "taskbar"..?
As for the square, does Android still let apps open the home screen through an intent? Perhaps it could be re-purposed into a "home button", which is still silly, but might be slightly more aesthetical than a blank square or a very suspicious shadow.
I suspect this is possible (the intent) but I never figured out how. I did consider what you describe as an option, but it felt silly, especially when I did have a method (albeit fucking absurd, and highly temporary) of hiding the white square completely before reading comics.
Also, to be clear, if I could send a message back in time to Andi 1 month ago, I would probably tell her not to buy the Lenovo at all and to go with a Samsung even if it costs more. But also if I do get to send a message back in time I have several higher priority messages I would prefer to send instead or first
Oh this seems really annoying, I'm sorry :/
Would it be less distracting/frustrating for the app icon to be a dark grey squircle outline (blending with the shadow) around a light grey interior, so the do-nothing squircle feels more deliberate and is closer to the visual look of the other navigation buttons in the lower right?
This may not have been fully explained in the other post:
For now, what I'm going with is the default/bug white square because it means I have the option, due to what appears to be a second bug, of making it temporarily disappear completely by opening then closing the "overview" screen. I can do this every time I open the viz app, and it's deeply silly and degrading, but then I get what I want, at least until the next time I use the overview screen and the white square comes back. I think short of returning the tablet (which maybe I really ought to do, I don't know) this is the best option.
