They did, it's called Google+. Nobody seems to like it.

They probably use the phone numbers in the address book and see if the users of phones with those numbers are online. This is probably the most non-invasive ways to do this.

I really want to install XPrivacy but it requires Xposed. And I have had a really bad experience with Xposed. It literally burns through my battery sometimes. Specially on boot, like 90% to 70% in a couple of minutes, plus burning my hand. The tragedy is that so many Xposed modules are so incredibly useful.

Even when I connect my bluetooth keyboard to my nexus 7, the apps themselves are under-featured. Microsoft Office is light-years ahead. Suppose you want to make a spreadsheet with names of all months. In Excel, you can type "January" and drag to autofill. I could not do this in any android or iOS app. I tried a lot. Even if it is possible, it is very hard to find out how to do it.
PS: On Android, Polaris is much better than Google's own Office-clones (whatever they are calling them this month). I got the pro version bundled with my S4.

You seem to be new here.

But then again, I haven't seen an actual satisfactory word processor, spreadsheets, compiler on any touch device (iOS/Android). All the available ones are, to put it bluntly, shit. Even the ones created by Apple and Google themselves. I think Metro apps are not supposed to be full blown apps, they are supposed to be like iPad apps. Just a nice frame to pull data off the web, or games.

Why can't a touchscreen support context menus (right-click menus)? Android does it pretty elegantly, via long touch. And don't forget that Win8 was built from the ground up to support touch, the entire metro interface is great with a touchscreen.
just because it is capable enough to run a parallel full desktop interface doesn't mean the whole thing is stupid, it means it is trying to be 2 things at once. And that can be a brilliant thing, if you manage to pull it off.

in games that allow it, i choose to login thru fb than g+. because that allows me to play against my friends with iphone or the rare windows phone. but yeah, except this, there is no other use for g+.

you forgot :P

ftfy if you are in india (:

and there is the question of time and data too. when i watch locally, its usually 1080p. when i watch youtube, i usually set it to 480p because of my slow internet. so even though i might watch more youtube in terms of the time watched, the data transfered is way less than local 1080p content.

the problem is not kernel-debugging, the problem is debugging bugs caused by the compiler misrepresenting your c code in assembly.

wtf is a "Go! phrase"?

amen to all of that. its a huge problem here in india, i hope it doesn't catch on in the us too. and if nadella does indulge in stuff like hiring stupid guys just because they would work for peanuts, he deserves all the hate. but my point is, traditionally microsoft has NOT done this. they hire only the best, regardless of the ethnicity of the employee being hired. and they pay them more or less at par with americans.

yeah, i'm unable to capitalize. see here's a capital 'a'. oops, just can't seem to press shift together with any other key.