SHIFTPHONE_8.SOS.7.0.L.20250819

Received my Shiftphone 8 last week. Moved to ShiftOS L directly and what a treat is that. Simple, clean and no annoying popups from all the closed Google services, which you have to accept, without knowing what the service is actually doing with your data.

I really like the clean install.

Fingerprint sensor is working much better than on my former Samsung S20. Do like the ample amount of memory and storage.

This is by far the best phone I had: software-wise, going to Android AOSP has never been easier.

Also:
STT is working fine with the Futo-keyboard
TTS is working fine with Sherpa-onnx tts engine

Remarks:
  • FM radio app missing
  • display-setting: Tap to Wake: double tap anywhere to wake is implemented as single tap to wake. Double tap to sleep works fine. :)
  • gallery: zooming out doesn't work well in landscape mode
  • Shift Camera app: timer (countdown). Wouldn't be 3,5,10s more useful. 8 is a bit short as max.
  • don't understand the LiveDisplay setting. You can set grayscale read mode and adjust colors, but what does it have to do with live or time of the day?
  • SHIFT HOME is using quite some battery, don't understand why. Also running in the background a lot.
  • did connect a second display (USB-C), that works, but it simply mirrors, a setting to show some form of desktop would be useful. Or rotate the second screen. AFAIK the Fairphone 5 has such a setting (same soc)
  • did have a recurring crashing settings app -> system -> languages -> Text to Speech output. Think I added another language and set TTS on Dutch before I added a Dutch TTS engine, or the other way around. Had to do a factory reset twice to fix it. Working fine now.
Good to hear the phone is also ariving in non-german speaking areas. The double tap to wake problem is known and there will be a fix for that.
I already sugested the phone to FUTO because I think i complementes their software perfectly hardwarewise.
 
Thank you for the feedback!

FM radio app missing
Will be readded in future OTAs.
We have already prepared a new one with new SPL (Security Patch Level) which is getting tested, so i think it will land next month.

display-setting: Tap to Wake: double tap anywhere to wake is implemented as single tap to wake. Double tap to sleep works fine. :)
Needs to be renamed, the hardware only supports single tap to wake and we need to implement a software based solution to only wake it up after a double tap.
The up side to this will be, that there are 2 options then, whether you want to wake up with single or double tap

Shift Camera app: timer (countdown). Wouldn't be 3,5,10s more useful. 8 is a bit short as max.
I can ask the team again why they wanted these numbers.
Maybe they mean something special to them :D

don't understand the LiveDisplay setting. You can set grayscale read mode and adjust colors, but what does it have to do with live or time of the day?
This is a feature from LineageOS and we did not rename it.

They state the following:
LiveDisplay is an advanced set of features for improving display quality under various ambient conditions. The backend service is constructed with a set of LiveDisplayFeatures which provide capabilities such as outdoor mode, night mode, and calibration. It interacts with LineageHardwareService to relay changes down to the lower layers. Multiple adaptive modes are supported, and various hardware features such as CABC, ACO and color enhancement are also managed by LiveDisplay.

SHIFT HOME is using quite some battery, don't understand why. Also running in the background a lot.
This is the launcher, it will always be running all the time.
However, it should not drain battery, will investigate this, thanks!

did connect a second display (USB-C), that works, but it simply mirrors, a setting to show some form of desktop would be useful. Or rotate the second screen. AFAIK the Fairphone 5 has such a setting (same soc)
The desktop mode can be toggled via Developer Options.
We did not expose it as default yet because in our opinion it needs more work.

did have a recurring crashing settings app -> system -> languages -> Text to Speech output. Think I added another language and set TTS on Dutch before I added a Dutch TTS engine, or the other way around. Had to do a factory reset twice to fix it. Working fine now.
Do you remember the steps you did so I can reproduce and fix the crash?
 
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The desktop mode can be toggled via Developer Options.
We did not expose it as default yet because in our opinion it needs more work.
Kann es sein ,dass die Option "Desktop Modus erzwingen" in der L Version jetzt anders heisst ? Ich finde den Punkt bei mir derzeit nämlich nicht mehr. 🤔

Ist das vielleicht jetzt " Sekundäres Display simulieren " ? (die einzige Einstellung ,welche in die Richtung gehen könnte)
Ich habe im Moment leider keinen Hub oder Adapter (USB -C auf HDMI) um es einfach zu testen.
 
Thank you for your detailed response.

This is the launcher, it will always be running all the time.
However, it should not drain battery, will investigate this, thanks!
I understand, but I disabled background usage in Battery usage and that fixed the drain. (Clock)widgets, notification dots what else?

Maybe related to the dots of Signal/Molly. Battery drain for Molly websocket on Android AOSP is a well known annoyance, Unfortunately again, need to try out Unified Push. Telegram is 10 times more efficient with their push implementation.

Or is it the adaptive brightness adapting?
Do you remember the steps you did so I can reproduce and fix the crash?
I think I installed the TTS app and selected Dutch in TTS Language before adding Dutch as a system language. But I'm not 100% sure. Other users are having the same issue.


Regarding the issue with pinch zooming-out in the Gallery app: Auto-rotate off, open a landscape picture, turn the device landscape, manually rotate the screen with the small popup. Pinch zoom-in works fine, pinch-zoom out not. Double tap is the savior here. Don't you need something for the display ;)


That all said, I'm very happy with ShiftOs L. Had a long day out yesterday. Made about 120 photo's and some short video's, and had 30% battery left when I came home at midnight. (Have some feedback for the camera, but I guess there is another thread for that.)

Major battery usage: Molly ;( , not the camera.
 
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@Sjeng Do you use the preinstalled LineageOS Aperture or the Shift-Cam (available via F-Droid) for your photos? Although the Shift-Cam is not yet ready and above all not yet optimized for Android 15 / ShiftOS-l, you get better results imho.
 
@Sjeng Do you use the preinstalled LineageOS Aperture or the Shift-Cam (available via F-Droid) for your photos? Although the Shift-Cam is not yet ready and above all not yet optimized for Android 15 / ShiftOS-l, you get better results imho.
Shift Camera 1.0.10, sorry should have mentioned.

See my remarks:
 
"Enable Freeform windows on secondary display" bzw. "Freiform-Fenster auf sekundären Displays zulassen".
Tried it out, and yes, things have to be done, but even in this state I consider it more valuable then the default mirror behavior, because you get a full-screen landscape environment.

I have a AOC 16t2 mobile touchscreen, so just a USB3 cable turns the phone with this monitor into a 15.6 inch ShiftTablet.

Already very useful for:
- reading books (Librera, 2 pages mode)
- watching video (Grayjay)
- playing chess (DroidFish) on a big board, lost again in 27 moves.☹️