Nexus Prime, And Ice Cream Sandwich, Go For a Video Tour

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Examiner.com, citing a report at gagdet.ro, about Samsung's upcoming high-end Nexus Prime, the first phone to be delivered with Ice Cream Sandwich. "This version of the Nexus Series (Google's Android flag bearer) runs the next version of Android: Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. This version is meant to combine Honycomb (Android 3.0) with Gingerbread(Android 2.3) into one OS, that will run on all devices. In addition to the merger of the two OS's, it also changes the Android UI a bit. One major change, is that the icons and the UI is a lot more sophisticated and clean, making even iOS look old and clunky. Also, it removes the requirement for Android phones to have hard/soft-hard mixed buttons, in favor of allowing manufacturers to use whichever type of button they wish. Also, it adds a soft button on the lock screen, to go straight to the camera app."

Comments

This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[RightSaidFred99]

One company can not compete with 10+ in terms of hardware innovation. Apple can release a phone maybe once a year, there's a new Android super-phone out every 3 months, and lesser new Android phones even more often.

Android lacks some of the polish of iOS, but it's gaining yearly.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Anonymous Coward]

But a singular hardware and software supplier *can* make it run smoother. That, in and of itself, makes iPhones worth it to some users. Even from my own Android experience I quickly tired of reading the reviews that said it would work with one set of hardware but not another. Not that iPhone doesn't have some form of that due to generation but Apple certainly is more forthcoming on what software works with what hardware.
 
But to each their own. I don't feel the need to own the latest or the greatest. I buy hardware and software to work for me, not as a techno-political statement or a status symbol.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[digitallife]

It's so funny, because I was thinking the exact opposite. The phone in the video looks complicated and ungainly. The user can't even hit the bottom buttons properly. He's moving things around the gui in ways that look totally cryptic, like some alien ui in a movie. I don't even own an iPhone and I've picked one up before and used it like I had been using it for years...

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

Apple seems to be doing pretty well at competing....

http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-available-mobile-phone-profits-in-q2/

Apple makes 66% of all mobile phone profit.
RIM makes 11%

Android doesn't seem to be "winning" in the only thing that counts for a business -- profits.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[joh]

One company can not compete with 10+ in terms of hardware innovation. Apple can release a phone maybe once a year, there's a new Android super-phone out every 3 months, and lesser new Android phones even more often.

Which just leads to people waiting for the next superphone, then waiting for its price to drop a third within two months and then still not buying it, because until then the next superphones got pre-announced. Or finally get one and then see it drop and drop in price and newer and newer models being annonced while their own phone doesn't get updated anymore and feels like four years old half a year later...

Only geeks can think model avalanches are what people want. Most people want, if they spend lots of money on such a thing or are locked into a contract for two years, some peace of mind and not the nagging feeling that what they got will be forgotten history after half a year that nobody cares for anymore. What Apple does is just sane model management that you need to do if you want people to part with their money. And if the iPhone 4S indeed has got the same CPU/GPU combination as the iPad2 it will blow the competition out of the water anyway, very much as the iPad (which is still at least as twice as fast as all other tablets even by naked benchmarks -- look at anandtech.com for details).

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[locopuyo]

They make plenty off of the google marketplace and google ads in free aps

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[shellbeach]

Android doesn't seem to be "winning" in the only thing that counts for a business -- profits.

Apple also comprehensively won the "profit" war back in the day with Mac computers. Guess which platform 94% of the world isn't using today?

The current trend is looking very much like the 1990s all over again -- Apple with its superior UI getting overrun by a platform which isn't quite as nice, but is distributed amongst many manufacturers and is much cheaper for end users to purchase.

And once again, as a geek, I'm not at all concerned, as it's a lot easier to hack the Android platform than the Apple equivalent. PCs brought us Microsoft supremacy, but they also brought us linux; Android's shaping to be much the same, and as long as Google and manufacturers like Samsung openly encourage users to hack their phones, I'll keep supporting them with my dollar. The fact that I'll be paying less dollars in doing so is just an added bonus :)

(I've never really understood the "more profit" argument from a fanboi perspective -- the fact that Apple is making users pay more for their phones is hardly a reason for the end users to brag. It's a great reason if you're seeking to buy Apple shares, it's not a good reason if you're in the market for a phone ...)

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

They make plenty off of the google marketplace and google ads in free aps

Hardware manufacturers don't make any money off of Google ads or the Google marketplace.

As far as how much money the Google market place makes....

http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/21/861-5-percent-growth-android-puny/

The Apple app store made 17.5x more money on apps than the Google marketplace. That doesn't include music, videos, books, tv shows, etc.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

Apple also comprehensively won the "profit" war back in the day with Mac computers. Guess which platform 94% of the world isn't using today?

So if market share is so important, then why is HP -- the worlds largest PC manufacturer --- trying to get rid if their PC business?

The current trend is looking very much like the 1990s all over again -- Apple with its superior UI getting overrun by a platform which isn't quite as nice, but is distributed amongst many manufacturers and is much cheaper for end users to purchase.

How is Apple getting "overrun" when it makes 2/3's of the world's mobile phone profit. Grosses 17x it's nearest competitor in app sales (see previous response), and makes more selling computers than anyone else in the world?

The fact that I'll be paying less dollars in doing so is just an added bonus :)

(I've never really understood the "more profit" argument from a fanboi perspective -- the fact that Apple is making users pay more for their phones is hardly a reason for the end users to brag. It's a great reason if you're seeking to buy Apple shares, it's not a good reason if you're in the market for a phone ...)

How much "less" are you paying for your Android phone than the equivalent iPhone (if you're in the US)> The fact is, that the carrier is paying a higher subsidy for the iPhone and you're still paying the same amount for your Android as the equivalent iPhone and your monthly bill is the same.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple seems to be doing pretty well at competing....

http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-of-available-mobile-phone-profits-in-q2/

Apple makes 66% of all mobile phone profit. RIM makes 11%

Android doesn't seem to be "winning" in the only thing that counts for a business -- profits.

'oh they have lots of customers, money and patents and they sue all their competitors therefore it must be good'. But of course when it's 'M$' it's 'oh they have lots of customers, money and patents and they sue all their competitors therefore it must be bad', maybe they should change it to Appl€.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[iserlohn]

So if market share is so important, then why is HP -- the worlds largest PC manufacturer --- trying to get rid if their PC business?

Because the PC market isn't growing, while the smartphone market is. The smartphone market now is the like the PC market back in the late 80s and early 90s.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

Because the PC market isn't growing, while the smartphone market is. The smartphone market now is the like the PC market back in the late 80s and early 90s.

So it couldn't have anything to do with the 4.9% operating margin of HP's PC division, could it?

Or just maybe -- unlike random Slashdot poster -- real business people know that profit is more important than market share?

I don't see Apple trying to get out of the PC business even though it has maybe 20% of the market share of HP.

BTW, Apple is growing PC sales quite nicely.....

http://allthingsd.com/20110217/mac-growth-outpaces-market-for-19th-straight-quarter/

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[shellbeach]

So if market share is so important, then why is HP -- the worlds largest PC manufacturer --- trying to get rid if their PC business?

Well, I didn't say it was important. All I'm saying is that if you want Apple to take over the world, their current strategy isn't working.

How is Apple getting "overrun" when it makes 2/3's of the world's mobile phone profit. Grosses 17x it's nearest competitor in app sales (see previous response), and makes more selling computers than anyone else in the world?

Again, see above. If making lots of money by selling fewer units at higher prices floats your boat, then by all means praise Apple. It's a great success capitalism-wise; it's probably not such a great success if you want to count popularity as one of your objectives.

How much "less" are you paying for your Android phone than the equivalent iPhone (if you're in the US)> The fact is, that the carrier is paying a higher subsidy for the iPhone and you're still paying the same amount for your Android as the equivalent iPhone and your monthly bill is the same.

I'm not in the US, so I can't comment on the situation there. I was also buying my phone outright. Nevertheless, in buying an HTC Desire a year ago I saved more than $300 compared to buying the iPhone 4 here in Australia, and more than $200 compared to buying the 3GS. I'd call that a win by any account.

I'd also guess that in comparing plans in the US, you're comparing the 4S with the Galaxy S2. However, I'd assume that you can get cheaper Android phones on cheaper plans over there? It'd be pretty crazy if you couldn't. Even on a plan here in Oz, the Galaxy S2 is substantially cheaper than an iPhone 4 (not S); and I can get a Nexus S on a plan cheaper than an iPhone 3GS.

Maybe Apple has prices that favour the US over other countries? Certainly they seem to be doing better over there than in the rest of the world.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

I'd also guess that in comparing plans in the US, you're comparing the 4S with the Galaxy S2. However, I'd assume that you can get cheaper Android phones on cheaper plans over there? It'd be pretty crazy if you couldn't. Even on a plan here in Oz, the Galaxy S2 is substantially cheaper than an iPhone 4 (not S); and I can get a Nexus S on a plan cheaper than an iPhone 3GS.

Three of the four major carriers charge the same monthly whether you buy a phone with a subsidy or without. The fourth (struggling) carrier T-Mobile charges you $10/mo less if you bring your own phone.

As far as how the iPhone is doing overseas, Last quarter Apple sold about 21 million phones with around 6 million being activated in the US (according to the two carriers who carried iPhones at the time.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Totenglocke]

Because, until recently, Android was the only one offering phones at multiple price points whereas Apple had theirs restricted to $199 on contract minimum.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[shellbeach]

As far as how the iPhone is doing overseas, Last quarter Apple sold about 21 million phones with around 6 million being activated in the US (according to the two carriers who carried iPhones at the time.

But the world >> US. And if you look at the stats (be it sales or web browser hits) Apple does substantially better in the US than elsewhere.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[oakgrove]

Apple makes 66% of all mobile phone profit.

Does it give you the warm and fuzzies that Apple makes a lot of money? Personally, I couldn't give a shit less.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

It's not about "a warm and fuzzy". Te definition of "winning" for a profit seeking entity is profit. So how is a profit seeking entity that generates more profit than all of its competitors combined, "falling behind"?

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Anonymous Coward]

I only buy gas from Chevron because they make more from their POS snack stands than Shell and Texaco and are therefore better.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[RightSaidFred99]

Easy - how dominant is the iPhone now compared to 2 years ago? It's a trick question because the iPhone isn't dominant now, Android phones (granted, from multiple manufacturers) outsell them.

I'm not talking about now, or even 1 or 2 years. I'm talking 5 years from now. It's the Mac all over again.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

Business isn't about being the Evil OverLord(tm) that dominates the world. Business is about making money. Apple makes 66% of every dollar in profit in the global phone industry.

If a business was successful based on market share the world's leading PC manufacturer(HP) wouldn't be trying to get out of the business.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Cederic]

The thing is, I don't want my hardware supplier to be making more profit than their competitors. I want my hardware supplier to drop their prices and give me the product at a better price.

Apple leverage exclusivity deals, monopoly positions and intellectual property bullshit (rounded fucking rectangles my arse) to achieve their profits, and I don't find that admirable at all.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

The thing is, I don't want my hardware supplier to be making more profit than their competitors. I want my hardware supplier to drop their prices and give me the product at a better price.

It's called better execution. If any other hardware manufacturer could do it. They would too.

But as far as price, I paid $200 for my iPhone 4 -- the same price as a similar Android device at the time and pay the same monthly service charge. Why do I care if the carrier had to pay a larger subsidy?

This is what an Android phone looked like before the iPhone:

http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wild

Why did it take Apple to introduce the iPhone design if it were so obvious?

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Cederic]

I'm sorry, I seem to have missed the part of my post where I compared Android to iOS.

I also don't recall suggesting the iPhone cost more than an equivalent alternate device. I merely suggested that Apple could significantly reduce their prices to give their customers better value.

Please help me understand why better value for customers is a bad thing?

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

I also don't recall suggesting the iPhone cost more than an equivalent alternate device. I merely suggested that Apple could significantly reduce their prices to give their customers better value.

Yes and every other profit seeking corporation could also reduce their prices and every consumer could voluntarily walk into their bosses office and voluntarily take a pay cut to increase their value to their employee. But that's not how things work in the real world. Companies also don't give away free flying ponies....

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people will eventually realize that they're overpaying by a significant margin for the equivalent? (30% in-application tax that forced Google and Amazon to detract from the "user experience"?)

Amazon's actually discounting their hardware because of their default software (notice I didn't say "lock", because they left the off-market app install in there). They're going the garden approach (except it's not a walled, maybe a knee high fence). Actually, everyone ELSE (i.e. consoles) is discounting their hardware due to a locked in walled garden license fee. At least Sony, MS, formerly Sega all gave their users that.

And if I so chose to, I can take any android device and run off to Amazon for a garden approach if I cared enough about other people reviewing applications for me (I don't. I like to make my own judgement).

The major danger with a single-device approach is that things tend to snowball. If you're not the most popular one, fewer developers write for you. In turn, fewer people go with said platform because "why can't I download this program?". See Palm/HP Pre / Touchpad. Lose (or never have) critical mass? You will start hemorrhaging users.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Cederic]

Forgive me for appreciating organisations that value their customers and don't seek every possible opportunity to boost profits at their expense.

Maybe I buy my hardware from companies that give me good value and yet manage to make sufficient profits anyway. Both parties benefit, and everyone is happy. Funny how that works.

Re:This is why the iPhone is falling behind.

[Karlt1]

Forgive me for appreciating organisations that value their customers and don't seek every possible opportunity to boost profits at their expense.

Maybe I buy my hardware from companies that give me good value and yet manage to make sufficient profits anyway. Both parties benefit, and everyone is happy. Funny how that works.

Which company would that be?

It has a 720p screen

[teh31337one]

But 4.65" just seems too big. They should be able go get a 720p Super AMOLED screen around 4.3ish inches next year (Galaxy S III)

Re:It has a 720p screen

[Anonymous Coward]

But 4.65" just seems too big. They should be able go get a 720p Super AMOLED screen around 4.3ish inches next year (Galaxy S III)

it's seems too big because 4.65" includes i soft key
look: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--DLsU6YA14E/To9BEYPZHiI/AAAAAAAAJmY/aw6he1d_n6w/h301/noworries.png

Is this "open source" OS also going to be closed?

[RocketRabbit]

I wonder if Google will finally release the source. They said they would fully open source Ice Cream Sandwich, but whether or not they will keep their promises remains to be seen.

My guess? They will say that the source will be "coming soon" for the next few years, until they release Panda Bear Turd or whatever the next OS will be called, never release the source, but people will forget or make excuses for Google as they have regarding their closed source Android 3 implementation.

Buttons

[Daetrin]

The one thing i don't really like about my Nexus One is the semi-soft buttons, The back/menu/home/search buttons along the bottom are touch based but they _seem_ to be separate from the main touchscreen. However they are right next to the touchscreen and there is no divider. So often when trying to hit one of the bottom row of buttons i'll accidentally hit one of the four menu type buttons instead. This is especially problematic on the rare occasions when the touchscreen wigs out and detects my finger offset slightly from where it actually is. (I've seen this problem on more than one phone, so i'm not sure if it's a problem with the current version of Android or just a problem with multiple hardware sets.)

So encouraging full software buttons seems like a mistake to me in that respect. But in addition i really wish there were more physical hardware buttons. When listening to music or audiobooks i really with there were a physical set of buttons i could use without having to turn the screen back out. Rewind, play, pause and fast-forward would be the most obvious and useful ones. The volume rocker already works perfectly well has a hardware button that performs its function while the screen is off and there's plenty of room along the right side of the phone for more buttons.

Re:Buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

This is especially problematic on the rare occasions when the touchscreen wigs out and detects my finger offset slightly from where it actually is. (I've seen this problem on more than one phone, so i'm not sure if it's a problem with the current version of Android or just a problem with multiple hardware sets.)

Lemme guess: You're using LG, Samsung or some other Korean shit or cheap Chinese phone? (HTC is about the only one I would exclude from that list but their stuff can be pretty bad too)

Re:Buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

"The one thing i don't really like about my Nexus One is the semi-soft buttons"

There's your answer.

Re:Buttons

[jareth-0205]

I agree about the capacitative buttons, and is one of the reasons I'm hanging on to my HTC Desire is it's real physical buttons. *However*, the one saving grace of the screen-buttons is that they have decent click feedback (background goes bright blue) and (assuming that they work the same as in Honeycomb) if you do hit one accidentally, you can roll off it to avoid triggering it.

Not as good as real physical buttons, but I think it will be significantly better than the Nexus One-style invisible buttons.

Re:Buttons

[teh31337one]

The slightly off touch buttons are/were a manufacturing problem with the Nexus One. Or, if it were an iDevice, it would be known as a feature

Re:Buttons

[Threni]

> I agree about the capacitative buttons, and is one of the reasons I'm hanging on to my HTC Desire is
> it's real physical buttons

Even if you have to press the Back button harder and harder as each month passes.

I like my Desire, but the shitty multitouch and the laughable amount of free RAM piss me off. But..not enough to want to spend £600 (or whatever) on the new phones which offer little more than fixes for that problem. Think I might sit this next generation out and perhaps upgrade again in a year or so's time, and use a Kindle for reading, offline surfing/rss feed reading it the meantime.

Why do phones cost more than tablets, anyway? They sell more, and must be far cheaper to produce.

Re:Buttons

[jollespm]

If you listen to music in headphones and are looking for simple audio control, look at the headsets with integrated microphone. They typically include a mute button which when pressed when music is playing you can play, pause, and skip next by single or double clicking.

Re:Buttons

[Locutus]

Have you tried putting very thin slivers of tape above each button or even one long piece? You should be able to feel that edge and know when you're off the screen. It probably wouldn't have hurt if they etched the glass just a tiny bit so there was something to feel instead of one smooth piece of glass.

LoB

Re:Buttons

[Skuld-Chan]

My Droid X has real buttons - the home button is broken from over use.

Give me soft buttons any day :).

Re:Buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

Your problem with the touchscreen is an issue with the digitizers used in the nexus one, not a software/os problem. Someone actually built an app that demonstrated the problem with the touchscreen.

Re:Buttons

[Nethead]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can't_Go_Home_Again

Re:Buttons

[Nethead]

Add a link to the research and you would get an informative mod.

Re:Buttons

[evilviper]

When listening to music or audiobooks i really with there were a physical set of buttons i could use without having to turn the screen back out. Rewind, play, pause and fast-forward would be the most obvious and useful ones.

A bluetooth receiver costs about $20, and should include play/pause forward & rewind buttons, in addition to volume up/down.

I liked it at first, but then found the need to carry around (and keep charged) a second device was not worth the added effort. In addition, the sound quality was noticeably degraded, and the lag made video watching considerable hassle. Also, while Winamp and others work nicely with the bluetooth buttons, other apps don't honor them.

Re:Buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, love my N1 as a phone, but I still turn to my Nokia N95 8gb for my podcast player. The N95 had that dual slider mechanism, slide it one way for the the number keyboard, slide it the other for the media playback buttons. This, in addition to the excellent speakers, makes it ideal for listening to non-music content while working around the house or shop.

While I don't often hit the soft buttons while trying to hit stuff on the bottom row of the screen proper, I too have occasional problems with the N1 soft buttons themselves.This has been a known issue with this model from the start. The digitizer sometimes freaks out for no apparent reason. Using the power button to affect a quick off and on of the screen solves the issue.

One more thing, I *like* the trackball. I know it;s deeply unfashionable these days, but the option to navigate very quickly is always welcome. And different colored trackball notifications for different phone events is great too. Do we know how Google proposes to deal with notification colors with the new buttonless option?

Re:Buttons

[dextermanas]

I too have an HTC Desire, but I still continue to use my HTC TyTN because of all the handy buttons, and the QWERTY keypad. I just don't understand why phone makers these days seem to think buttons are un-necessary. :(

Re:Buttons

[rjstanford]

Why do phones cost more than tablets, anyway? They sell more, and must be far cheaper to produce.

Must they? They have basically exactly the same hardware but in a package approximately 1/10 the volume, thus requiring smaller components, tighter manufacturing tolerances, and a massive amount of design elegance to achieve the same result. Smaller rarely equals cheaper in anything other than bulk product storage.

Re:Buttons

[rjstanford]

I too have an HTC Desire, but I still continue to use my HTC TyTN because of all the handy buttons, and the QWERTY keypad. I just don't understand why phone makers these days seem to think buttons are un-necessary. :(

Because with a lot of care, you can make it so. Unfortunately, there's far more to good (ie: usable) design than adding extra shiny things - and highly usable mimimalistic layouts are actually really, really hard to get right (and seem so "obvious" when you do that it fools others into thinking that they can make one too, just a little better).

Re:Buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a Logitech Harmony remote with hard buttons, and a couple of those wore out from overuse. I bought a newer Harmony remote with soft buttons for the most frequently used features. But now I can't fast-forward, pause, and so on without taking my eyes off the screen, because I can't find the proper button by feel anymore. I miss the hard buttons.

I recently upgraded my 2-yo HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch) to an HTC Sensation. The home, menu, back, and search keys are now semi-soft buttons, and it is very easy to press them by accident, which frequently interferes with what I'm trying to do. I miss the hard buttons (even more so than I do on my remote). In fact the hard buttons on the myTouch were still working well after 2 years of heavy use.

Re:Buttons

[adolf]

Old post, hope you read this:

With Cyanogen on my "old" Droid 1, the buttons work as follows with the screen off and music playing:

Short press of volume up makes things louder. Long press goes to next track (volume stays the same).
Short press of volume down makes things quieter. Long press goes to previous track (volume also stays the same).
Short press of camera button doesn't seem to do anything. Long press pauses. Subsequent long-press resumes.

It also has similar soft buttons on the lock screen, which may be more convenient depending on mode of travel or environment.

I don't know if stock Android (as supplied by Motorola/Verizon) does any of this or not, since it's been a rather long time since I've run that. But I'm pretty pleased with Cyanogen's handling of buttons while either riding a bike or walking, with the phone unseen in my pocket.

It even works fine with my usual third-party music player (Subsonic), via whatever OS hooks are used to control such things.

Unplugging headphones also pauses. It resumes automatically when they're plugged back in, as long as Subsonic is running in the background (which is, itself, a minefield on these multitasking devices with limited RAM and no swap, but that's another problem altogether...).

And, allegedly, it's also responsive to in-line wired remote controls (which makes sense given the above observation), as well as Bluetooth controls, though I've tested neither since I don't have any kit to do it with.

FYI, etc. And FWIW, I'm otherwise also very pleased with most other aspects of Cyanogen's behavior, and it should run similarly fine on your N1.

Re:Buttons

[adolf]

To clean/repair hard buttons (ie: switches):

Step 1: Disassemble device.
Step 2: Apply Deoxit DN5 (accept no substitutes), sparingly, to contact area of switch (whether membrane or microswitch or whatever).
Step 3. Reassemble.
Step 4. Exercise switch to help break down the contamination and distribute the Deoxit where it needs to go.
Step 5. Enjoy. The switch(es) will likely work better (in all respects) afterward than when new, for years to come.

A name chosen for a reason.

[Chardansearavitriol]

To get silly headlines. And they are coming. And it will be silly. Dear god the sillyness. Almost enough to distract from the evilness.

Re:A name chosen for a reason.

[AC-x]

They've come up with a naming rule (desserts in alphabetical order) and they're sticking to it: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich

I'm just waiting for Apple to run out of "cool" large cat names and start releasing versions like "OS X Ocelot"

Re:A name chosen for a reason.

[Confusador]

I'm just waiting for Apple to run out of "cool" large cat names and start releasing versions like "OS X Ocelot"

That'd be the day...

The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[Gopal.V]

Knowing some people, I can expect a lot of crotch shots to be waiting for me when I come back :)

And they're not going to be the kind I'd want to keep.

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[rainwater]

You do realize phones have had dedicated camera buttons for years?

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you shouldn't leave your phone lying around if you don't want people messing with it. Alternatively, you could be more discriminating about the people you associate with and not blame the tech.

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[DaleCooper82]

Yes but this is different matter here. One of the best Android out-of-the-box features is that you can lock it so that noone else can use that unless s/he knows your PIN/gesture/passwd/whatever. When the phone is locked, not even HW camera button works - and rightly so IMHO. Having soft camera button on the unlock screen kills it.

Furthermore I wonder if the camera launched by this soft button will still have that icon to get you to Gallery and browse all pictures taken in past ...

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe you shouldn't leave your phone lying around if you don't want people messing with it. Alternatively, you could be more discriminating about the people you associate with and not blame the tech.

That's terrible logic. In that case, why would one ever have a password/pattern of any kind on their phone, or on any device for that matter? As long as I make sure I don't leave it lying around, I'm fine right? Oh, wait...

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[teh31337one]

If you have a pin/pattern/password enabled, they wouldn't be able to get to the camera, just like they can't unlock it.

Re:The one touch camera is going to be abused ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, the world seems to have a dedicated surplus of morons too!

Android is becoming bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

Every new version demands more hardware resources and is following the Microsoft model - bloat, bloat, bloat.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[Colonel Korn]

Every new version demands more hardware resources and is following the Microsoft model - bloat, bloat, bloat.

Every new version of Android has increased the system's speed on existing hardware. It's getting more efficient, not less.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[Karlt1]

Every new version of Android has increased the system's speed on existing hardware. It's getting more efficient, not less.

That's really great that new OS's increase the speed on existing hardware since current Android users can always count on their devices to run the latest OS and being upgraded immediately after a new OS is released for at least two years.....

Oh wait....

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello? Droid X. 2.1 -> 2.2 -> 2.3. All official. IIRC the third highest-selling Android phone ever.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[teh31337one]

most devices I can think of (proper ones, not your crappy tmobile comet that launched with android 1.5 or w/e) have had 2 upgrades. eg. Evo 4G. 2.1 > 2.2 > 2.3, Galaxy S 2.1 > 2.2 > 2.3, motorola droid X 2.1 > 2.2 > 2.3

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[DeathFromSomewhere]

That's nice, because the vast majority of android users are on old operating systems.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[Anonymous Coward]

2.2.1 isn't "old" and most of those users were updates from 2.1 or 1.6.

And FYI, platform updates are optional. A lot of people don't even install them. People who do care about platform updates primarily buy Nexus-branded phones.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[_4rp4n3t]

Riiight. Ever seen an iPhone3 running iOS4? I have, and boy does it suck.

Re:Android is becoming bloatware

[dextermanas]

The problem isn't the system requirements; infact, I'm able to run the latest Android 2.3.7 on an outdated HTC Magic (G1) just fine (the last official update was 2.1) The problem is: 1) Manufacturers want to give users one more reason to buy a new phone - that it runs the latest Android version; hence they stop supporting older devices. It also makes sense to them, financially. 2) Manufacturers like to customize the deivce and tack on their own UI and integrate crapware into the system. Sometimes this doesn't work well, as there just isn't enough space on the ROM for all that extra crap (case in point - the reason for the delay in releasing Gingerbread for the HTC Desire). Even if the device supported all that crap, the manufacturers still have to do extra testing to check if everything works fine with the new Android codebase, which introduces delays. 3) Carriers. If manufacturer bloat isn't enough, the carries have to add in their own bloat, or worse, more lock-ins/restrictions. And then you run into the same issues as above. It's easier to just say, "sorry, your device is too old". Android isn't the problem here, the carriers and manufacturers are.

Pointless eye candy

[Coward Anonymous]

Scrolling the screen pops new content up from "within" the device. That makes absolutely no sense. It's eye candy that detracts from usability.
Not to be a fanboi, but the various animations in iOS serve to provide visual cues to the user on what is happening and how to use the UI. Apple is very up front in their UI guidelines about how animations should serve to inform the user on what is happening. This Android animation completely fails at that.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the first thing I noticed in the video as well. Very annoying.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[kolbe]

Yes, these "features" appear to be rather annoying flare rather than actually increasing productivity and usefulness.

Then again, I'm still not a fan of anything touch capacitive and only marginally tolerate touch resistive displays... Even if it means getting a crappier device, I'll take physical buttons and a QWERTY keyboard on a phone any day as I just feel more productive and less error prone having them.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Goaway]

Actually, some screens seem to move as you'd expect, while others pop out, so it's not even consistent.

Looks incredibly sloppy.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Sepodati]

How does that "detract from usability"? That animation doesn't "inform the user" that the screen is changing?

Re:Pointless eye candy

[kvvbassboy]

Uhh.. where is the video though?

Re:Pointless eye candy

[joh]

No, the point is it doesn't show the user what to do to return to where he came from before. Having another screen half turn, half slide in from two directions at once gives you no fucking clue how to go back. You're just staring confused and dazzled at what's going on on the screen. A good UI should help the user to get some spatial orientation by relating to physical models.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is ... the animation when you HAVE ALREADY swiped your finger is suppose to tell you that you're suppose to swipe your finger? Really? I don't see this as any different. The further you move, the more the new row of icons drops into place. Simple as that. If you don't like the animation, there are other applications that can replace it with whatever you with (side-to-side, carousel, pinwheeling... see Go Launcher EX screen transitions list)

To me, scrolling above a list to either search or refresh is incredibly inconsistent, without any clear indication which is which. I've accidentally triggered a refresh, wasting my battery and data plan. This is one of the "innovations" that Android didn't bring.

I see all you fanboys are saying anything that isn't a side-to-side scroll is annoying for no apparent reason.

I'm currently using Go Launcher EX with a shutter-like transition between screens and do not find it any more or less disconcerting or annoying -- nor has anyone else who has used my phone.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, the UI affordances look terrible. There are inconsistencies e.g. horizontal scrolling in app drawer pops cards vertically off a stack whereas home screen scrolls on a 2D pane except that in both cases the last pane performs an inconsistent sort of rotating bounce gesture. (Which is exceedingly odd because neither of the navigation animations involved any rotation in the first place.) I counted at least five times when the software did not correctly read his intention (closing the notification tray, hitting the home button x2, hitting the back button while in the widget tray, opening the app drawer) and five times when he had to shift his hand position to perform a gesture. Finally, selecting the camera app from the lock screen jumped first to the home screen for more than 500 milliseconds before blinking out and bringing up the camera in the wrong orientation! I could go on (seriously: UI designer with moderate OCD here) but watching this video made me embarrassed for Google's UI team. I would be ashamed to let something half baked like that out of my lab. Hopefully they're cleaning it up before release.

Rather than something subtle and understated like iOS and (yes, I can't believe I'm saying this) Mango, it looks like the Android UI team looked to the god-awful linux eye candy movement where transparency, 3D animation, and other superfluous visual effects are used instead of actual usability testing.

Having said that, the system for choosing and placing widgets looks substantially better and the responsiveness on scroll gestures is much improved from the laggy mess on the Froyo handset (Droid 1) I've got. I was hoping that everything people were saying about the improved UI was true because I really don't want to get an iPhone. But if this is the best Android has to offer... hell.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[brainzach]

iOS animation cues are under patent and Google can't copy it. Android's new animation are not perfect, but they provide a smooth and polished way of transitioning between screens compared to older versions and doesn't interfere with Apple's patents.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac Lion does a similar fade in from "back there" when you open new windows. Its pointless. Apple isn't prefect with animations either.
 

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Sepodati]

What point of the video are you talking about? Hell.. what video? Just to make sure we're seeing the same thing...

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is ... the animation when you HAVE ALREADY swiped your finger is suppose to tell you that you're suppose to swipe your finger? Really?

Yes! The animation should help provide context and illustrate where you are now and how you can get back. Often this involves physical metaphors. Think back to popping cards off the stack from the video. A swipe gesture from right to left directly manipulates the top pane by moving it to the left. It is then replaced with a pane that rises up. But how do you get back? What gesture do you use to push the current pane down to where it came from? It turns out that when you go back you don't actually manipulate the currently visible pane, you drag left to right to "manipulate" a pane that you can't even see on the screen so that it will slide to the right and thereby push the current pane back. You are performing a gesture that you already know will get you back but the illusion of "direct manipulation" is broken. How that strikes anyone as an acceptable transition for the default UI is beyond me.

If you don't like the animation, there are other applications that can replace it with whatever you with (side-to-side, carousel, pinwheeling... see Go Launcher EX screen transitions list)

And that's the problem. You see the transition animations as superfluous eye candy or personal preferences that can be swapped out for something spiffy. I see them as an absolutely fundamental part of establishing the user's mental model of the system. If I'm installing a Linux distro on a box with a good graphics card I want eye candy. If I want a phone for my mom I want a consistent mental model.

To me, scrolling above a list to either search or refresh is incredibly inconsistent, without any clear indication which is which.

Agreed, I'm not a big fan of that. Though many Android apps now use that same affordance, so it's becoming a cross-platform standard.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[BradleyUffner]

Scrolling the screen pops new content up from "within" the device. That makes absolutely no sense. It's eye candy that detracts from usability.
Not to be a fanboi, but the various animations in iOS serve to provide visual cues to the user on what is happening and how to use the UI. Apple is very up front in their UI guidelines about how animations should serve to inform the user on what is happening. This Android animation completely fails at that.

It looks fine to me. Like you are sliding the top page off of a stack of papers to reveal the one under it, only with a bit more 3D to it.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[BradleyUffner]

No, the point is it doesn't show the user what to do to return to where he came from before. Having another screen half turn, half slide in from two directions at once gives you no fucking clue how to go back. You're just staring confused and dazzled at what's going on on the screen. A good UI should help the user to get some spatial orientation by relating to physical models.

Why does it have to /show/ them? They just swiped left, the obvious way to get back is to swipe to the right. Not everyone needs a visual indication of how to undo every single action they take.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[RocketRabbit]

I was watching him do the little demo and thinking to myself "Just what the fuck is going on here?"

It looks like there was a different group of people, maybe in different parts of the world, developing each bit of chrome and flash for the UI, without ever talking to each other or trying it all out at once to see what worked and what didn't. Then they drank it all down with some raw eggs and anchovies, and barfed it into a gigantic bowl, moaning "I'm DONE man!"

Re:Pointless eye candy

[dzfoo]

I read your post and what I understood was this:

Google needed to implement animations for screen transitions because that's how transitions should be. It doesn't matter what they look like or what information they convey as long as they look "polished" and smooth. It just happens that some of the most "polished" ones have been patented by Apple, so Google cannot use them; but it's OK, they found some others. They'll do the job because they look cool and smooth and "polished."

I don't mean to troll, but honestly it seems like you and Google missed the point of the transitions. Hint: they serve a purpose other than eye candy.

        dZ.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, not to be a fanboy, but those things are going to confuse the hell out of users.

LOL @ captcha: "unbiased"

Re:Pointless eye candy

[RocketRabbit]

The point of showing a new windows from "back there" in Lion is to inform the user a new window was created.

If your window is in a different space, and you switch to it, the whole UI slides in from the side that your window is on.

Easy.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[brainzach]

Their main purpose is eye candy. Consumers want a phone that has a smooth and organic, something that the Android has been lacking.

There is a balance that Google has to do with its UI, to make it feel smooth and polished, being intuitive to the users, and not infringing on Apple's patents.

I really don't see huge drawbacks with the UI compared to previous Android versions. The scrolling is horizontal like the home screen with similar content, so it is pretty intuitive for the users. It is also much smoother than scrolling down a clunky list and then suddenly having it stop awkwardly. It might not be iOS perfect, but it is much better than before.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[rjstanford]

Scrolling the screen pops new content up from "within" the device. That makes absolutely no sense. It's eye candy that detracts from usability.
Not to be a fanboi, but the various animations in iOS serve to provide visual cues to the user on what is happening and how to use the UI. Apple is very up front in their UI guidelines about how animations should serve to inform the user on what is happening. This Android animation completely fails at that.

It looks fine to me. Like you are sliding the top page off of a stack of papers to reveal the one under it, only with a bit more 3D to it.

Ah, so when you swipe in the reverse direction, you'd expect the page to come back from the side and push the previous one back down on the stack?

Except, of course, that isn't what happens at all is it? Its mixing a stack metaphor (which I guess would make sense if you were, say, discarding the top email and reading the next one) with a multiple-panes view, and its doing it poorly.

Oddly enough, the home screens scroll normally left to right as you'd expect.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

This complaint is so contrived, it's kind of funny. If you wanted to like this device, you wouldn't have a complaint. It's all in your head, because you are biased. I mean, it would take you literally 5 minutes to get used to this. Maybe it works well once you try it out - but you're not even willing to try to understand or appreciate what they're doing. That's bigotry.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll have to agree with brainzach. Desktops haven't had smooth transitions at all, and people get along quite nicely without it. It's mostly eye candy.

Also, as I've said before: The transitions only occur when you have ALREADY STARTED THE ACTION. If you didn't know the action was possible, why would you have done it? If I was new to technology in general (but I can read and possibly interpret symbols), I would never have known I could swipe left and right on any touchscreen platform's home (my parents didn't). Even if there were page indicators, I wouldn't know how to move. I might have thought the volume keys were going to move around since that's the only visible symbols that indicate movement of some sort on any touch based home screen. With a keyboard, I'd try the left-right arrows, or page up/down since they have "opposites". These are all visual cues that tell me I can do stuff.

The only reason why you know you can swipe left and right is simply because you've seen it already.

Re:Pointless eye candy

[dzfoo]

No, you are still missing the point. The reason iOS looks so smooth and "polished" is because intuitively it makes sense. It doesn't necessarily give you a visual queue of how to interact with a function; as you suggest, this may be useless when the user has already activated it. Sometimes functionality is best left to experimentation by inviting the user to perform actions that are non-destructive but that behave in predictable ways. As long as these behaviours are consistent across the entire system, users pick up on them quickly without needing to be told how it works.

Transitions should be functional as well as pretty and smooth. They give the user a sense of spatial and functional orientation within their mental model of the system. There is of course an element of "eye-candy," but I think it is greatly overstated.

For instance, in iOS swiping right-to-left scrolls a new view into the screen, not from the top nor at an angle, but from the side from which the user started, following the user's motion. It may look pretty and purely aesthetic, but it gives the sense that the view is just a small port and that the user is moving the content within it. This feels right because it's how it would work on a real, tangible object, say a Roll-O-Deck.

Moreover, this defines the OS interaction language throughout the entire system: Once the user scrolls a screen one time he knows how to scroll the rest of the views.

If I were to swipe right-to-left and a screen just "pops in" from nowhere, it may look cool and interesting at a glance, but it would not give me any indication as to what is going on in my mental model of interaction. Moreover there is no intuitive way to reconcile or associate the physical action (a right-to-left swipe) with the visual result (a screen popping in), mostly because there is no analogue to it in the real world, which is the model the user starts with. It does not provide any new information.

Those are the sort of animations that feel as if they were gratuitous rather than useful, and eventually lead to sense that the UI is "unpolished" because it does not feel right. Notice how everybody now agrees how older versions of Android seem unpolished, while I remember them being touted as prettier and nicer than iOS when they were first introduced. We both agree that animations and transitions for the sake of eye-candy eventually get tiresome.

You are right, desktops haven't had smooth transitions at all and people got along without them. Then again, there was a time when humans had no mode of transportation apart from their own two feet; there also was a time when they lived without electricity and running hot water. Yet people managed to survive. There was a time when there were no mechanical or electronic computers, and people managed to build some impressive architecture. This does not mean that cars, airplanes, electricity, and computers are useless.

Likewise, modern touch interfaces are more convenient and feel nicer and more intuitive than their desktop counterparts by the mere fact that they try to model the world in a more direct way, where the user interacts directly with objects using his fingers in much the same way he would a physical object.

All this is missed by asserting that smooth transitions are "mostly eye candy." This is made worse by acknowledging that people react positively to them, while at the same time misunderstanding the reasons why.

Until this is recognized, user interfaces that use visual flare for mere eye-candy will continue to be regarded as "less polished" by those who actually use them--irrespective of how cool and pretty they look.

            -dZ.

falling ahead?

[goombah99]

sounds to me like the megahertz game and the feature game all over again. On something with a small screen I don't really want tinier writing because it's a 1080p device and I want it useful. having a zillion gestures that different applications subset is not useful. Having a few gestures that all apps use in common ways it useful. I'll take complex on my desktop, but Simple and useful is what I want in a phone. Now one might say, well to each his own. But that's the point. If all phones work pretty much the same I don't have to learn how to use a different phone. It's not how most people want to expend brain cycles.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only an apple fan can argue that higher performance, more specialization, and a larger feature set are actually a step in the wrong direction, and a one-size-fits-all approach to manufacturing is the right choice.

Re:falling ahead?

[Colonel Korn]

sounds to me like the megahertz game and the feature game all over again. On something with a small screen I don't really want tinier writing because it's a 1080p device and I want it useful. having a zillion gestures that different applications subset is not useful. Having a few gestures that all apps use in common ways it useful. I'll take complex on my desktop, but Simple and useful is what I want in a phone. Now one might say, well to each his own. But that's the point. If all phones work pretty much the same I don't have to learn how to use a different phone. It's not how most people want to expend brain cycles.

Is this where Apple fans begin to make the decisive turn from "iPhones are the best and do the most" to "iPhones do less, run slower, and have fewer pixels because high speed and resolution overload are confusing for grandma?"

Re:falling ahead?

[SolusSD]

Higher performance? By what measure? Last I checked Android's entire UI is predominantly CPU-bound. iOS renders _everything_ using opengl- that's why paging between screens of apps is so damn smooth and is able to track your finger perfectly on even the original iphone. iOS apps are also far more optimized for performance (objective-c/llvm) and for battery (close attention paid to app lifecycle/background tasks, etc).

Re:falling ahead?

[kolbe]

This just harkens back to the old Apple+Motorola CPU days of "Mac does more with less" attitude.

Re:falling ahead?

[AndrewNeo]

This was changed in Honeycomb, and therefore ICS. The UI is done in the GPU now, like it should be. They were also discussing a new emulator that's much faster due to using hardware GPU rendering instead of in software.

Re:falling ahead?

[PNutts]

Hardware specs are not the best measure of user experience. And considering the relative number of apps for the different platforms I don't think "iPhones do less" is an a accurate statement. So the answer to your question is, "No".

Re:falling ahead?

[RocketRabbit]

You need much higher performance when your entire OS is Java based.

iOS is C based so it can naturally get by on much lighter hardware.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are people who think that scrolling in Android (lists, homescreens, app drawer) is as smooth and intuitive as the scrolling in iOS.

Then there are those who have actually used an iOS device.

Don't get me wrong, a little UI lag is insufficient to get me to switch from Android to a closed ecosystem. But pick up an iPad sometime and just swipe around. It's insanely responsive in a way that no Android tablet I've every used has even come close. I hope everything people say about the new emulator and GPU acceleration is all its cracked up to be.

Re:falling ahead?

[SolusSD]

awesome!

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

More specialization that no one wants to pay for costs money. And more "features" that no one cares about, interfere with each other, and confuse people are pretty pointless. Couple this with the shorter battery life associated with that "higher performance", and you've succeeded in building the "BeOS" of cell phones.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this where Apple fans begin to make the decisive turn from "iPhones are the best and do the most" to "iPhones do less, run slower, and have fewer pixels because high speed and resolution overload are confusing for grandma?"

Not exactly a fan of Apple, but I'll still point out that measuring speed in megahertz, utility in the size of app store, and display quality in pixel count is being a spec weenie.

Does it feel fast, do what I want it to do, and make my apps look good? Specs are a poor metric for those, especially across different OSes.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I wanted a smooth user experience, I'd just install the reviewed Android Amazon store. They review their applications before letting them on.

Without jailbreaking, because that would be cheating and not as the manufacturer intended...

Multiple marketplaces? (Amazon, GetJar)
So where are your apps to do face recognition to lock up apps? (Visidon Applocker)
Can your homescreen do both portrait mode and landscape mode? (Go Launcher EX, Launcher Pro)
Can you have an in-application payment give most of the money to the developer so they can launch more features / content? (Open>pick picture the same picture repeatedly? (Share with > command)
Can you have "deep integration" with ANY social media application available and not just twitter?
Can you sync with your desktop WITHOUT wires and WITHOUT using the Internet ('nets slow compared to a Gigabit or a Wifi N dual band connection)? (many apps)
Without arguing the merits and / or negatives of Flash, can you view Flash content? How about using Firefox?
Can you rent movies straight from the market / store without blowing another $100 TV box?
Can you use your phone as a USB drive without installing anything (something that 80%+ of other phones are capable of)?

You can finally use the volume key as a shutter (after 4 years, but had it for about 2 weeks on your market), so that one's off the table. Voice actions -- even with natural speech - has been available on both platforms for quite some time now, so that's not even a consideration.

So yes, it's more accurate. You're restricted in the kinds of applications due to policies in place by big red. It just means there are more of the same type of applications (games, website-replacements, internet, etc) -- stuff that every other phone is capable of to a greater or lesser degree.

Also, last time I checked, the two stores were almost equal in number of applications. Wouldn't be surprised if Android started overtaking.

Re:falling ahead?

[joh]

Just with the difference that this time the hardware is rather like "do more with more". The CPU/GPU combination of the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S is everything else than slow.

Re:falling ahead?

[bemymonkey]

Have you used a Honeycomb tablet lately? Still nowhere near as smooth as iOS devices... I've actually been wondering why. Any ideas?

Re:falling ahead?

[errandum]

Just my 2c... My 2 yo HTC Desire with launcherpro and cyanogenmod will outsmooth an iPhone 4 every day of the week. Apart from that, I could swear that since 2.3 the GPU could be used to render the UI, if available, but that's beside the point. ( And that's from a phone that when launched you could get for 200$ less than an iPhone and that now costs less than half the price an iPhone 4 does (unlocked). )

Also, Android will try, when resources are free, to pre-load the applications you use the most, so that when you click them, they're just there. Most android phones run at 55% of full capacity all the time because of this, and you need almost no user interaction with the tasks (if you really want to it's there, but there is no need to do anything).

Also, citing objective-C as a reason for better and faster apps also shows ignorance. Ignoring the fact the Objective-C is a nightmare to program to (and that it has a stupidly steep learning curve), you can write c/c++ for android ( http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html ). That means that you can have the performance of C for what needs performance and still have the user-friendliness of java for the rest. When someone trying to explain to me iOS programming starts by saying "first, you try to get to a webview as fast as possible!" (true story), it must mean something.

Is iOS bad? Not by a longshot. But trying to justify your point of view with "facts" that haven't been true for years now makes you look bad. Really really bad.

Re:falling ahead?

[errandum]

http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

Also, davilk is not Java. You might write things in java, but it's interpreted in a much faster and more efficient way.

Re:falling ahead?

[SolusSD]

I don't think objective-c has much of a learning curve at all- and being a dynamicly typed language makes it a joy to develop in. I'm an iOS developer and I used to be a Java dev. C++ is certainly more difficult and less suited for GUI development. Objective-C has some first-class frameworks.

Re:falling ahead?

[tangent3]

What kind of FUD is this?

The entire OS in Android is also C based.
The application stack runs a Dalvik VM which (since Froyo) does JIT compilation. Just about all the CPU-intensive stuff (i.e. UI drawing) is done in the C side through JNI. In any case with JIT, the performance difference between C and compiled bytecode is insignificant.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just my 2c... My 2 yo HTC Desire with launcherpro and cyanogenmod will outsmooth an iPhone 4 every day of the week. Apart from that, I could swear that since 2.3 the GPU could be used to render the UI, if available, but that's beside the point. ( And that's from a phone that when launched you could get for 200$ less than an iPhone and that now costs less than half the price an iPhone 4 does (unlocked). )

Also, Android will try, when resources are free, to pre-load the applications you use the most, so that when you click them, they're just there. Most android phones run at 55% of full capacity all the time because of this, and you need almost no user interaction with the tasks (if you really want to it's there, but there is no need to do anything).

Also, citing objective-C as a reason for better and faster apps also shows ignorance. Ignoring the fact the Objective-C is a nightmare to program to (and that it has a stupidly steep learning curve), you can write c/c++ for android ( http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html ). That means that you can have the performance of C for what needs performance and still have the user-friendliness of java for the rest. When someone trying to explain to me iOS programming starts by saying "first, you try to get to a webview as fast as possible!" (true story), it must mean something.

Is iOS bad? Not by a longshot. But trying to justify your point of view with "facts" that haven't been true for years now makes you look bad. Really really bad.

I think you just took someone to school. +1

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that you can code in native C in Android since version 2.0 of the OS and supports the earliest releases, right?

This is good for game developers that don't want to move their development to Java, but are ok with losing a bit of portability in the mix.

Re:falling ahead?

[shellbeach]

Higher performance? By what measure? Last I checked Android's entire UI is predominantly CPU-bound.

There's a lot of GPU-rendering in gingerbread now. Admittedly probably not enough, but enough to give the user a smooth, reponsive experience. Try using a phone with cm7 on it, and experience what gingerbread should be like. I suspect that ICS will be using a UI that's fully GPU-rendered.

One of the early problems was that some hardware makers (HTC, for example) never appreciated this difference, and rendered all of their abominable HTC Sense UI in software, making it painfully choppy. I'm not sure if they've learnt their lesson now (I only bought an HTC phone because it was one of the most popularly hacked phones available) but knowing HTC, I doubt it.

There was also the problem that even a year ago, most Android phones were using pathetically underpowered GPU hardware. That's changed now, but it's taken far too long ...

Re:falling ahead?

[SolusSD]

I don't quite understand how I was "taken to school" by someone who obviously knows very little about Objective-C and C++ UI programming, for that matter.

Re:falling ahead?

[mlts]

With the rapid development of Android, it is going to end up a Ford or Chevy type of thing -- either iOS or Android gets the job done, and one can argue endlessly about one versus the other.

Re:falling ahead?

[errandum]

You're entitled to your opinion, but keep in mind that you're the exception, not the rule. And I've done both android and iOS, so I can tell you now that my hair turned white trying to do simple things on iOS that took me 30 minutes on Android.

On the other hand, it seems to be impossible to do a bad looking GUI for iOS. I tip my hat to apple in that - but only that.

Re:falling ahead?

[RocketRabbit]

To be fair, your "facts" are just as unbelievable. Firstly, you don't out-smooth iOS. It's so smooth that there is never any perception of anything else. You may be able to fiddle around with your Android and jam some modified OS onto there, and make it smoother than the stuttering mess that is the out of box Android experience, but you will never convince anybody that it's smoother than iOS. NEVER. Even if your modified Android is somehow *nearly* as smooth as iOS, it is really yelling that you had to put your own modified OS and shit on there to get it that way. People don't generally do that, and what counts is out of box smoothness.

Second, Objective-C, despite being what you claim is a nightmare to program for, has so many top notch applications that your claim falls flat on its ass. You can program in C / C++ for Android, but you're still running everything through Goggle's ripoff virtual machine, with no performance benefit over using Java. If your iOS programming buddy tells you to first get a webview, he may just not be the most awesome programmer ever.

The irony, again, is that your hyperbolic anecdotes (I won't outright call them lies, at least not yet) are indefensible and ridiculous, and despite this, unconvincing.

At least you didn't tout the massive computing horsepower of the newer Android phones, which of course is necessary to keep the Java Virtual Machine going at any kind of a reasonable pace.

Re:falling ahead?

[Threni]

The GPU is not as powerful? That seems to be the only advantage to the iPad over the other tablets.

Re:falling ahead?

[RocketRabbit]

I don't understand how somebody who prefaces their defense of Android with "well if you root it and install some tweaked OS and some other bits of shit here and there, you can get it to be nice" could ever be seen as schooling anybody.

Re:falling ahead?

[DrXym]

Second, Objective-C, despite being what you claim is a nightmare to program for, has so many top notch applications that your claim falls flat on its ass. You can program in C / C++ for Android, but you're still running everything through Goggle's ripoff virtual machine, with no performance benefit over using Java. If your iOS programming buddy tells you to first get a webview, he may just not be the most awesome programmer ever.

Er hang on. If you write C / C++ apps they're running natively. There is little if any Java / Dalvik at all aside from some glue perhaps if you want to launch some other activity or something similar. As for performance benefits, Dalvik is a register based VM, Java is a stack based VM. Completely separate things. Since 2.2 Dalvik runs the app through a JIT after which would execute at a reasonable clip, certainly nothing to be bothered about in the vast majority of apps, and if it was an issue, well C/C++ support is there too.

Re:falling ahead?

[errandum]

Ok, you can dislike Android, but you're blindly full of crap.

I do. I can make a video with it if it makes you happy, but having a phone with as much horsepower as iOS without the clutter actually makes it way smother. iOS is full of little hangs and stutters that are hidden under "cool" animations, but they're there.

Second, Android is not slow out of the box. Android on a 100$ phone might be slow out of the box, but if you're comparing a 700$ iPhone with an Android phone, at least have the decency to chose an equivalent phone. The user experience on the top-of-the line Android phones has been the same (if not better) than on iOS. So, yes, my modified Android (because I can modify it to run smoother than your iPhone) runs faster than iOS. If you missed the part where I talked about pre-caching of applications, read it again. It's actually the secret for an instantly responsive apps (that, again, any top of the line android phone will do - the ones 200$ cheaper than an iPhone).

I've programmed in Objective-C. And I never said it was impossible, and good for Apple that there's talent where there's money. But when you say that everything runs through Google's VM as if that makes everything slow, you're an idiot. They might run inside a VM, but the code is native code and it runs as is. If you're doing processor intensive stuff on your mobile phone (physics simulations, video decoding, etc) you'll benefit immensely by using c code. And google's VM is actually highly optimized and way faster than the Java VM you're complaining about.

My "buddy" is actually not the only one. Remember the researchers that found the iOS tracking? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GynEFV4hsA0&t=10m40s ). They also seem to run from it around 10:50. And the thing about going for the webview actually shows intelligence. If you only want some menus to show some photos with music / sound / whatever, why bang your head against the wall? You don't need a ferrari to go on a groceries run.

And again, read the part where my 2yo Desire (that actually came out 3 months before the iPhone 4) does everything the other one does, but smoother. Try running iOS4 on an iPhone 3G and you'll be crying for your lack of horspower the same way a 100$ Android phone will. But if you level yourself from the top, nowadays, the top of the line Androids WILL beat your iPhone out of the park on pretty much everything.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't quite understand how I was "taken to school" by someone who obviously knows very little about Objective-C and C++ UI programming, for that matter.

How is it 'obvious' that he knows very little about C++ UI programming? I don't think there was anything in his post to indicate that whatsoever, much less make it 'obvious'. Are you sure you're not just making up things that aren't even there?

Re:falling ahead?

[exomondo]

You can program in C / C++ for Android, but you're still running everything through Goggle's ripoff virtual machine, with no performance benefit over using Java.

Are you sure you understand what C/C++ is? If you're programming in C/C++ you are running it native (see NDK, clue is in the title), which means that code is not running on the virtual machine.

Re:falling ahead?

[exomondo]

You need much higher performance when your entire OS is Java based.

Pretty sure the Linux kernel isn't written in Java.

Re:falling ahead?

[Cinder6]

Even the original iPad is smoother than the new Android tablets, from what I've seen, and often more responsive. It's certainly the case versus the HP Touchpad (though webOS is still a much better interface overall). Granted, it's been a couple months, so things may have changed.

Re:falling ahead?

[Cinder6]

Objective-C is a strict, and rather simple, superset of C. It's really easy to learn. I think most people freak out when they realize its syntax isn't like Java or C++ (it's more like Smalltalk). Sounds like you're complaining more about the libraries and frameworks, which obviously take a lot longer. It would be nice if iOS had automatic garbage collection, though--Java has a clear win there. Obj-C 2.0 on the Mac has it, though, so I imagine it will show up on iOS devices at some point.

Re:falling ahead?

[Flipao]

I was playing with a 1ghz dual core, Nvidia Tegra Android tablet not that long ago, it wasn't bad at all but the browser wasn't anywhere near as smooth as the one on my 2 year old iPhone 3GS.

As much as I like Android, the UI is laggy and unresponsive where iOS is fluid and snappy, even on the 1st gen iPhone, Android phones have been using the CPU for UI rendering while iOS devices offload this to the GPU.

So while they look better on paper, they're still not quite as good in practice.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can't do neat things in c/c++. Like almost every single PC/Console game and OS (including mac os x) that has been developed since the 90's. Those guys clearly should have been using objective-C, everyone knows you can't do neat things in C++.

Re:falling ahead?

[amRadioHed]

Also, citing objective-C as a reason for better and faster apps also shows ignorance. Ignoring the fact the Objective-C is a nightmare to program to (and that it has a stupidly steep learning curve)

Look, I'm an Android/Linux fanboy and haven't bought an Apple product in over a decade, but how can you say Obj-C is difficult with a straight face? It is c with a minimal set of extra features added on. When I used to regularly program in c, I was able to pick up Obj-C in an afternoon.

Re:falling ahead?

[Totenglocke]

True multitasking is my guess. You can actually have things running in the background (even without realizing it), thus slowing other apps down. Though it does seem to be that if you hit home to close an app it stays running but if you hit back multiple times to exit, the app closes.

Re:falling ahead?

[RocketRabbit]

I think the other main issue I have with Android, (and you are correct about the native development, I will give you that, despite the fact that lots of stuff will still be slowing the whole system almost to a halt by using the Java tools) is that all Android devices have the most gay-ass names in the world. Sure, iPad, yeah, that's kind of a lame name. But Desire? Hero? They're fucking shitty knockoff phones that are mainly made of plastic, designed to fulfill a nice low market niche, and they are naming these things like they are RPG characters!

Fuckin gay, dude, just like Android.

Re:falling ahead?

[oakgrove]

Higher performance? By what measure?

How's this for starters?

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I use a droid 3, and I use a ipod touch, I find both to be smooth but I just find my droid 3 to be better than my ipod touch I have had an OG droid, an OG ipod touch and now a 3 and a recent touch (3 months old) the ipod is great for what i need it for, but it is not as good as a droid in any aspect other than the music side of things.

Re:falling ahead?

[ganjadude]

.... ill give you that, im a droid fan, but you are correct, htc is the worst offender of the lot, moto* is ok, simple and to the point but some of those names are miserable.

Re:falling ahead?

[shutdown -p now]

I think his point is that Android API is itself largely implemented in Java and runs on Dalvik - meaning widgets, layout etc. So even if your code is C++, you'll still get Dalvik running there. And, in fact, you may even lose efficiency on JNI.

Re:falling ahead?

[Shadow of Eternity]

Don't forget the number of phones that don't even HAVE a GPU. I love my intercept compared to the old blackberry I had but even with an 800mhz cpu there are times where I am painfully aware of the fact I'm rendering in software.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously?

Your response to that is...

"The names sound gay, oh yeah and so is Android!"

Maybe it's just me (and by that I mean it definitely isn't) but that's an admission that you don't have a point.

Make a point that's not subjective - oooh, maybe you're a really clever counter troll, making iPhone users look stupid... although that's probably beyond you.

Re:falling ahead?

[DrXym]

If you're writing in C / C++ then you probably wouldn't be using the widget API in the first place except as glue - i.e. you might write a little Activity wrapper to host your native app but 99.99% of the code would be pure native code. Of course there may be apps which are hybrids with a lot but I suspect the majority of apps which need native execution are mostly native execution. Not that I think Dalvik is particularly slow at all. I have a quite compute intensive app which runs acceptably on a single core phone and it's pure Java.

Personally I think graphics performance in 2.2 is fine, certainly nothing I've ever felt myself complaining about but I expect it does preclude some of the fancier transitional effects this thread is referring to. So if it's changed for the better in 3.x/4.x then that's fine by me. We know that Android underwent quite a substantial reworking of the layout engine in 3.x to better utilise hardware acceleration and that is bound to carry through to 4.x. There is even a RenderScript language which allows performance / compute expensive operations to be specified in an agnostic fashion and then accelerated at runtime utilizing what ever hardware is best suited for the task.

Re:falling ahead?

[rjstanford]

Yup. The video showed some pretty weird paging as well - moving around from left to right always moved the "current page" off to screen right or screen left, as it should. But on the home screen, the new page came in directly behind the page being abandoned, which seemed to make sense. In other places, even though the old page went off to the side, the new page zoomed up from "underneath" somewhere. Sure it works, but it certainly didn't feel predictible.

Re:falling ahead?

[shellbeach]

Don't forget the number of phones that don't even HAVE a GPU. I love my intercept compared to the old blackberry I had but even with an 800mhz cpu there are times where I am painfully aware of the fact I'm rendering in software.

To be fair, most phones these days are using Qualcomm processors with built-in GPUs ... the good ones have at least an Adreno 205, but even the really budget phones have an Adreno 200 now (which is as good as what's in my Desire, although, really, that's not very good!)

Android phone hardware is getting pretty decent now; we just need the software to start taking full advantage of it. If only Google and Samsung would stop paying their respects to a dead white man and release ICS, things could start moving forward again. Gingerbread was the first decent release of Android, but there's still a lot of shortcomings that I'd like to see fixed in ICS.

Re:falling ahead?

[errandum]

Have you ever done a mac app? The problem is not how to use the code, but the frameworks involved to program for iOS / Mac.

Also, you'll find people saying that LISP is great and easy to learn, but those are full of bullshit too. It's your opinion, but the majority of people I know complain about this, so...

Re:falling ahead?

[Cinder6]

I have, actually. And I dabbled in iOS, but didn't want to pay $99/year. iOS was definitely more difficult to learn, but Mac programming was stupid easy to get an application running. Of course, doing advanced things takes a lot more work, but that's the case with everything. Easy to learn, difficult to master, and all that.

While I didn't spend that much time looking at Cocoa Touch, the sheer number of iOS apps available tells me that learning Objective-C and Apple's frameworks can't be that tough. I think it's more a case of people not liking change.

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because they use two different rendering methods. The Android browser processes everything on the page, while some other browsers including the one you mention do not..

You'll never see the stock Android browser checkerboard anything.when scrolling, and never stall out for a few seconds if you suddenly scroll to an area of the page that requires significantly more processing power for some reason..

Re:falling ahead?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, who needs another USB port or pesky expansion card to lose?

Re:falling ahead?

[cynyr]

why would the font be smaller on a 1080p screen? 12pt font should still be 12/72ths of an inch high and just use more pixels.

The only things using uncommon gestures on my phone would be apps that i set up that way or games. even then most of the games still use a few common ones, pinch zoom for example.

Re:falling ahead?

[cynyr]

is obj-C dynamically typed like python or like vba/.net?

like python is fine, like VBA is a nightmare.

Re:falling ahead?

[SolusSD]

I;ve never used vba/.net, but Objective-C dynamic typing isn't a nightmare. :D Objective-C was heavily influenced by Smalltalk, like Ruby.

FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

Honeycomb.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[leoplan2]

If you are going to rule your life by speculations, believe me, you are screwed. Just wait and see. If Google don't release the source code, we should stop supporting them

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[RocketRabbit]

That's what people said about Android 3!

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[bill_mcgonigle]

My guess? They will say that the source will be "coming soon" for the next few years, until they release Panda Bear Turd or whatever the next OS will be called, never release the source, but people will forget or make excuses for Google as they have regarding their closed source Android 3 implementation.

And if they do release the source, it'll just be because they were almost caught being evil and will need to work harder at it next time?

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[mariasama16]

I know you're going to label me a "fanboy" for arguing with you on this, but have you actually READ the articles on why Google hasn't released the source for Honeycomb (3.0)?!

So where is it?

[Chemisor]

Where's the sandwich? I watched the whole demo and I didn't see it. Or is it like the cake again?

Re:So where is it?

[Threni]

> Today, a Romanian gadget blog,

See. It's from Romania. This whole thing is pointless. How the fuck is someone in Romania going to get a scoop on anything?

Re:So where is it?

[dzfoo]

"The sandwich is not a lie."

        -- HAL 9000, from the game "Dead Space"

Two-handed phone?

[joh]

Even with 4.3" about three quarters of the population won't be able to reach all points across the screen with their thumb when using the phone one-handed without balancing it on three fingers. And not many people will like a phone that NEEDS both hands to use it.

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but honestly I think that these huge screens are totally idiotic if you really want to go mainstream with a phone. See, half of your potential customers are women (which tend to have smaller hands) and not too few will be teenagers.

And then have a line of three or four small buttons (on or off the screen) on the very bottom of the face and a screen that stretches 4.3 inches across to the top. Using this thing while walking and carrying something with the other hand is like eating soup with a fork.

And no, I'm not trolling here. These things are great for males with large hands or for geeks who usually sit down over anything resembling a computer anyway and would love it to have foot switches, too. But how can those companies just walk over the needs of major parts of the population and expect to be sucessful with this? I just don't get it. Or of course Google and Samsung are purposefully limiting their target group to a certain part of the population, because... yes, why would they do that? Any ideas?

Re:Two-handed phone?

[PNutts]

This women will not have a problem operating the phone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSL4cmFW_GU

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even with 4.3" about three quarters of the population won't be able to reach all points across the screen with their thumb when using the phone one-handed without balancing it on three fingers. And not many people will like a phone that NEEDS both hands to use it.

It's like totally too hard to drive, text and apply makeup at the same time with this phone!

Re:Two-handed phone?

[reub2000]

I agree with you. I wouldn't want to carry around these larger phones. That's why it's a good thing Android gives you choice. Apple has fewer options and forces you to choose between a 3.5" screen or a 10" with nothing in between.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[demonlapin]

Because guys who have large hands buy phones too? It's not as though it's the only device Samsung makes. It's not even the only LTE device on Verizon that they make.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[joh]

Yeah, maybe. But this wasn't my point. I agree that 3.5" may be too small or too large for certain people and then it's good to have a choice. Nothing to argue here. I'm not saying that there should be only one phone or one screen size for everyone. Choice is good. Nothing wrong with that.

But I think that Apple just has totally nailed it for the majority of the population with that screen size. Not for everyone, but for most. What I'm wondering then is why Google/Samsung are putting up that phone with a screen that does not target the majority. Why do they do this? I just don't get it. Why targetting only fringe minorities with these phones? Do they not want to sell that phone to as many people as possible? Why? It's almost as if they had already accepted that they have to pick up the crumbs that the iPhone leaves for them. Hard to imagine, really. Or they really just don't know what they're doing. Or what? As I said, I don't get it. It's almost as if all modern Android phones with halfway decent hardware are fighting over the same minority of big-handed male geek technophiles with big pockets while leaving Apple to scoop up the other 80% (or more) of customers. How idiotic.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[artor3]

My Droid X2 has a 4.3" screen, and it fits my hand wonderfully. I specifically chose it over competing phones for that reason. That's one of the many nice things about Android -- you don't have a single model that has to be one-size-fits-all. There can be different models targeted towards different market segments.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[joh]

No doubt. But still: Is NOT targeting the majority with your latest and greatest phone a wise move? I mean, this thing is meant to be THE Android Smartphone by Google(TM). Why not targeting it smack at the middle of the mainstream right up against the iPhone? How can you be successful if about all the Android phones that are better than "halfway usable" are fighting over the big-handed technophile geeks, leaving the majority of potential customers to either buy second rate cheap Android phones or an iPhone? How silly is that?

As The Onion headlined a few days ago: "Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies". How apt.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Wrath0fb0b]

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but honestly I think that these huge screens are totally idiotic if you really want to go mainstream with a phone. See, half of your potential customers are women (which tend to have smaller hands) and not too few will be teenagers.

Is the Nexus line really branded as a 'mainstream' product? I figured it's targeted at the gadget-crazy that would find the extra real estate useful. That seems to be Android's niche anyway -- more male, more techie, more left-brained.

I'm sure the demographic data isn't perfect, but the skew seems pretty reasonable to me: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20092784-71/study-android-users-sad-hicks-iphone-users-rich-girls/

Re:Two-handed phone?

[joh]

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but honestly I think that these huge screens are totally idiotic if you really want to go mainstream with a phone. See, half of your potential customers are women (which tend to have smaller hands) and not too few will be teenagers.

Is the Nexus line really branded as a 'mainstream' product? I figured it's targeted at the gadget-crazy that would find the extra real estate useful. That seems to be Android's niche anyway -- more male, more techie, more left-brained.

Yeah, what I was saying. What I'm wondering is: why? Leaving the mainstream to Apple and fighting over the scraps (sorry) does not sound like a strategy for success to me. Don't get me wrong, it's great to have phones for male techie left-brained people who seem to actually want a tablet computer that just about fits into their pockets. But somehow more and more every fucking decent Android phone seems to be such a phone, leaving the other 80% of the population for Apple to scoop up.

(I'm not a girl and I *am* a techie, but I'm also a typical city-dweller with no car. I use busses and trams and subways and trains every day. I'm lugging around bags or pushing a bike very often. A phone I can't use one-handed safely is just totally out for me. And if I look around this seems to be rather the rule than an exception.)

Re:Two-handed phone?

[demonlapin]

At some point, producing a phone for large-handed guys who love technology is going to result in your latest and greatest phone being aimed at a small part of the population (although they are probably a much larger part of the smartphone market). Has to happen some time.

I don't think most people who aren't gadget nuts are really all that interested - my father-in-law, for example, had an original iPhone and was about to replace it a month before the iPhone 4 was announced. He was totally unaware of their usual release schedule. They go to the store, they buy something that looks nice and fits in their pocket/purse/cupholder, they use it for a while, they get another.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[gmhowell]

Daring Fireball linked to a nice piece regarding the size of iOS phones and music players that echos your sentiments.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Citizen of Earth]

I just don't get it. Why targetting only fringe minorities with these phones? ... while leaving Apple to scoop up the other 80% (or more) of customers. How idiotic

Android smartphones are out-selling iPhones by 2:1. Perhaps they know something about the market that you don't.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Citizen of Earth]

It seems to me that this article is mostly observing that lower-income people buy less-expensive phones.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[halo1982]

Even with 4.3" about three quarters of the population won't be able to reach all points across the screen with their thumb when using the phone one-handed without balancing it on three fingers. And not many people will like a phone that NEEDS both hands to use it.

I have issues with anything 4" or above and I don't think I have hands that are that small. On my Galaxy S with a 4" screen I could barely use it with one hand, and on an HTC HD7 that was totally impossible with it's 4.3" screen. 4.65" is just ridiculous and starts to get into Dell Streak 5 territory. But on my iPhone I have no issues with one-handed use and I find it's 3.5" screen perfect. And I'm finding less and less of a reason to Jail Break it with each itteration of iOS.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Totenglocke]

I used to have an iPhone 3GS and then traded that for an Evo 4G (currently own an Evo 3D) - the Evo 4G and 3D are NOT much bigger than an iPhone. I know, the screen size is significantly larger, but due to the massive bezels at the top and bottom of an iPhone, the 4.3 inch phones aren't much bigger.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[brainzach]

Not everyone's main priority on a phone is using it with one hand. I know many people who always use two hands for using their 3.5 inch iPhone and others who are able to handle a 4.3 inch phone one handed no problem.

People use smart phones to browse the web, read the news, edit documents or watch a movie. A bigger screen offers a huge advantage for majority of the tasks out there.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[dudpixel]

My phone is 4" and its not a problem.

an extra half an inch diagonally isn't going to affect it a great deal I wouldn't imagine.

If the length is increased more than the width (which is what I'd expect) then its possible that the overall phone dimensions are roughly the same - since the 4.65" screen would cover an area currently occupied by the buttons at the bottom.

I'm fine with it, and provided it is still within practical limits, bigger/brighter is better.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[oakgrove]

Er, Google hasn't targeted any of the Nexus line at the mainstream buyer. What the fuck makes you think they would start now?

Re:Two-handed phone?

[ganjadude]

Am I the only one who wants a phone that is longer, but not wider? maybe 4.3 X 6 or something?

Re:Two-handed phone?

[tknd]

NOT targeting the majority with your latest and greatest phone a wise move?

No sane business plan ever targets "the majority". That's an excellent way to set yourself up for failure. Every marketing strategy first targets a very small group and then new strategies are created to target the next group.

For example, even the first iphone targeted very specific users. Later it expanded with each iteration. The first iphone didn't have 3rd party app support and the iOS App Store wasn't available yet. It wasn't until 1.5 years AFTER the initial announcement of the first iphone that the itunes App Store was released.

The basics in marketing are to come up with a marketing strategy that will succeed in a specific target market. Make your target market everyone and you're guaranteed to fail.

I mean, this thing is meant to be THE Android Smartphone by Google(TM).

The nexus phones are Google's way of pushing the Android market where they would like to see it. You can think of it as "seeding" the competition.

For example when Google released the Nexus One, it was the first phone with Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. During this period, many manufacturers were trying to build the cheapest Android they could get away with so most of the phones came with slow processors and minimal RAM. Google didn't like that, and had the Nexus One built. With that came other "fast" phones (for the time) like the HTC Incredible which shared specs with the Nexus One VERY closely. That wasn't a surprise considering that HTC also manufactured the Nexus One. Immediately following this, all the other manufacturers followed up with their own offerings with similar or better specifications.

Sometime in the future, perhaps Google will start to compete with their own hardware. But at this point, I don't think that is their primary goal. The primary goal is to push the Android market forward. Secondary would be making money on the hardware since they already are the source for the OS.

As The Onion headlined a few days ago: "Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies". How apt.

You do know that The Onion is 100% satire? You've lost a lot of credibility with that kind of statement.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[joh]

I just don't get it. Why targetting only fringe minorities with these phones? ... while leaving Apple to scoop up the other 80% (or more) of customers. How idiotic

Android smartphones are out-selling iPhones by 2:1. Perhaps they know something about the market that you don't.

Again, as I said: Normal people buy either cheap Android phones or iPhones.

Come on, I'm not a Fanboi. I'm just wondering why Google is doing what it is doing and why there is no Android-equivalent to the iPhone.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Archimonde]

No sane business plan ever targets "the majority". That's an excellent way to set yourself up for failure. Every marketing strategy first targets a very small group and then new strategies are created to target the next group.

You're missing the parent's point and generalizing too much. I'll give you a counterexample. Nokia Ngage and N9. They targeted a very small group and they didn't hit pretty much anything.

For example, even the first iphone targeted very specific users. Later it expanded with each iteration. The first iphone didn't have 3rd party app support and the iOS App Store wasn't available yet. It wasn't until 1.5 years AFTER the initial announcement of the first iphone that the itunes App Store was released.

First iphone didn't target very specific users. It targeted as big the market share as possible. I know about that 1% share of the smartphone market but everyone knew back then they are going for much bigger share in the future. After couple of years the phone didn't change much even if you include the apps. Apps for mobile phones then were almost non-existent. Of course you had some apps on other phones but that wasn't used much anyway.

So if Google wants to have a flagship phone it would be natural to target as big market share as possible. Pigeonholing themselves by introducing a huge phone doesn't help them in any way. Of course you can release a big phone as an experiment and that is fine by me, but introducing something as a design template (as nexus one and samsung's nexus were) which is destined to be used by potentially very small market share isn't a good strategy.

 

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

The nexus phones are Google's way of pushing the Android market where they would like to see it. You can think of it as "seeding" the competition.

most of the phones came with slow processors and minimal RAM. Google didn't like that, and had the Nexus One built. With that came other "fast" phones

Then please explain the Nexus S.

A phone with a single-core CPU when every other manufacturer had moved to dual-core.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[socrplayr813]

You answered your own question, really. 'Normal' people don't care about having stock android, dual-core processors, and the like. They want a phone that also does apps and internet stuff, which means they follow the crowd to an iPhone or get a cheaper Android phone that still does everything but make their coffee in the morning.

Google knows very well who they are targeting with these flagship phones and it's not hurting them one bit. They're trying to show off what Android can do and they're letting the carriers fill the rest of the market. Remember that Google doesn't care about dominating the market with their specific phone. They just want the advertising money and the carriers are doing that for them just fine.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most men don't have girly sized hands. And women don't have a problem with larger devices so long as it does more than just make calls. Most people want something larger than what Apple offers simply because devices do far more than Apple ever wished. The fact you're an Apple fanboy doesn't change that most people actually want functionality out of their device rather than "look how cool", I am elitism. You are right, there are two groups of people but absolutely not how you divided them. There are people who are wanna-bes who follow trends and that's all that is important. Then there are people who actually want to use their device how THEY want to use it, without regard for Apple telling them the ONLY way they can use it.

Elitism vs productivity seems to always get the fanboys upset.

Re:Two-handed phone?

[bingoUV]

While your point is almost right, and I look for a bit smaller than the largest phones myself. I also agree that Apple got the size right for most people (and battery life too).

But I totally disagree with all half-decent Android phones being huge. See Atrix 4G vs iPhone 4

Atrix 4G was one of the first dual core phones, nearly top hardware for its time except for Samsung Galaxy S2. It is lighter than iPhone 4 and only slightly (8%) wider. Length is the same (2% longer) and thickness doesn't matter for holdability, pocketability as long as it is less than about 20 mm.

Sony Ericsson has lots of models much smaller than iPhones, though not flagship products but close followers. Though there are other problems, ideological and practical with Sony Ericsson's phones so it is out for me.

EXCUSE ME?

[Superken7]

"One major change, is that the icons and the UI is a lot more sophisticated and clean, making even iOS look old and clunky."

As an all-time Android user and fan, I must say the new icons look awful. Especially the phone, camera and browser icons look as if they had been taken from windows 95. I'm sorry, but existing icons are much sleeker, and those icons aren't by a LONG SHOT as polished as in iOS.

The menus do seem a bit more polished, just like in Honeycomb, but everything else I don't see why it has improved. There is even still that hideous "flash" when reaching the end of a scrollview. I have run cyanogenmod and changed the yellow to a more blueish flash and I can assure you, the color change doesn't improve things.

I just can't believe someone would go as far as saying that it makes iOS look "old and clunky". I think many things about iOS are old and clunky, but the looks certainly are not, especially when compared to current ICS leaks, which have left a very "meh" feeling in me, a long time android fan.

Now I am going to go cry in a corner.

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[Anonymous Coward]

then use an icon pack

or use go launcher

or because it is not SHITTY ass iso costoumiz it any other zillyon ways....

the icons dont look good Piff use diferint one

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[teh31337one]

There is even still that hideous "flash" when reaching the end of a scrollview. I have run cyanogenmod and changed the yellow to a more blueish flash and I can assure you, the color change doesn't improve things.

With CM7, you can disable the overscroll glow, and use the bounce effect. Oh, and the bounce effect isn't included by Google (or Samsung any more (as of latest Galaxy S II builds) because it's patented.

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[Emetophobe]

I agree. I was really looking forward to the Nexus Prime and 4.0, but this is just embarrassing... it's so unpolished and amateurish. The color scheme, fonts, and icons on my stock Nexus S look 100x better.

I'm still looking forward to some of the new sdk features though.

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can turn that flash off

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[jez9999]

)

^ That was the post. This text gets around Slashdot's lame lameness filter. Please ignore it.

Re:EXCUSE ME?

[teh31337one]

I thought that I'd forgot one of the parenthesis, but then half checked, saw one opening and one closing parenthesis, and ran with it.

iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fans?

[ad454]

My current iPhone 3GS is too dated and on its last legs. I am a big fan of iOS, and was planning to immediate buy an iPhone 5 this year, from any carrier, since my old contact has long expired and I am only paying month-to-month. But since Apple decided after nearly a year and a half to slap their loyal fans in the face and refused to produce and release any significant hardware improvements, let me tell you, I am strongly considering this Samsung Nexus Prime as my next phone.

To me, the physically bigger high resolution AMOLED screen is a big deal. I find myself needing to surf the web more and more on my phone, and with iPhone 4 the screen is so small, that I typically can only read small chunks of it at a time, and need to do a lot of horizontal scrolling, even in landscape mode.

NFC support is really important, since not only can it be used for purchases, but you can buy stacks of NFC RFID tags for next to nothing, like the NXP iCode tags, and read and write to them for countless applications (WiFi settings, business cards, product info, etc.).

What I don't like about the Prime is the fact that the iPhone's typically have superior cameras. I am not talking about the number of mega-pixels, but the actual sensor quality and optics. I have done a number of image comparisons between photos taken with iPhone 4 and Samsung Nexus S, and the iPhone wins hands down by a huge margin. There also does not appear to be a video out solution. I wonder why doesn't the Prime support HDMI out like HTC Android phone? At least the iPhone has a VGA out cable. It would also be nice to have a microSD card slot as well.

The iTunes App store still has a lot of great apps missing from the Android marketplace. My favourite is OmniGraffle for quickly drawing diagrams, charts, etc. If only there was something equivalent in the Android marketplace now that IceCreamSandwich supports Honeycomb apps. I also love the Pages and KeyNote apps from the iWorks suite, which is by far superior to QuickOffice and Google Docs. I am hoping these will get better soon in IceCreamSandwich.

Maybe I should hope for HTC to release this fall an IceCreamSandwich phone with a similar screen, better camera, plus NFC, video out, and microSD slot. If I can get all of that, it would be enough for me to break out of my iOS addiction, especially since the Android marketplace is steadily growing.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[kvvbassboy]

They have already lost some (if not much) of the Open Source community and users support since Android 3.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[RocketRabbit]

Yeah, Google doesn't want shitty Chinese tablets spoiling their image.

But that's the deal with open source - if you have an open source software package, people will use it for things you might not approve of.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[Daneurysm]

Do not wait for HTC to release a phone with a better camera. Samsung makes, hands down, the best camera in the Android game right now. The Camera on my Nexus S was really good, but, a little lacking. The camera on my Galaxy S2 is nothing short of phenomenal. I would imagine the Nexus Prime to have the same sensor and maybe better optics.

...I just came from a long line of HTC phones before these last two Samsungs...and I will be getting the Nexus Prime when it comes out. The HTC's have "pretty good for a cellphone" level of camera on the Hero, EVO4G and EVO3D.

But if you are going to jump whole-hog into Android a Nexus device is probably the best bet. They get updates first, they get updates longer, great community support, cutting edge hardware. Also even though all Nexus devices have been built on a nearly-identical platform as other phones (Nexus1= HTC EVO4G, Incredible... Nexus S= Galaxy 1...Nexus Prime=Galaxy 2) they seem to run faster and smoother out of the box.

The EVO4G even had the same sensor as the iPhone4 but the pictures weren't even close, not in the same league...not on the same planet. I wouldn't waste any time hoping for HTC to make a better camera than Samsung.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[dogmatixpsych]

If Android 4.0 really is good, switching would be fine. I've never had an iPhone but I have an iPod Touch. I also recently purchased an Android phone (it's brand new but only 2.2, unfortunately). The whole interface is unpolished and clunky compared to iOS. Android crashes on me on occasion, something I've never had happen with iOS. I really prefer iOS but Android is pretty good. Maybe 4.0 will finally catch us with iOS. Yes, I know there are a lot more things (geeky things) you can do with Android but I still prefer the usability of iOS to the features of Android. It's the same reason I prefer OS X to Linux for my research computers (and personal computers) - OS X is much more polished and can do essentially everything Linux can do (at least as it applies to my neuroimaging research).

Ice Cream Sandwich?

[rossdee]

What is the marketing department smoking?

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Ambvai]

1.5 Cupcake
1.6 Donut
2.1 Eclair
2.2 Froyo [Frozen Yogurt]
2.3.x Gingerbread
3.x.x Honeycomb
4.x.x Ice Cream Sandwich

My guess is that somebody very, very hungry developed the naming system.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[iluvcapra]

I suppose Jellybean will be the next one. K is a toughie, "Klondike Bar" might not be ideal for several reasons, "Kit Kat" too. Maybe they'll just cheat and do "Krunchbar" or "Kandy Korn"

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[radicalpi]

I'm guessing Key Lime Pie, unless they're saving generic Pie for P.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[rainer_d]

K Y jelly?

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is awesome!! I would never even have noticed that. I appreciate the list and the inclusion of the proper .x at the end of the last three as well, it helps with clarity. Also LOL @ the very, very hungry. ROTFLMAO!

I'm going to hire you to look at those crazy ubuntu names next.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[owlstead]

Dunno, but I know what they are eating.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Macrat]

My guess is that somebody very, very hungry developed the naming system.

And diabetic.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Anonymous Coward]

They call it Android. Show me one single magazine, television, or store display advert that uses Android release names other than occasionally using the version numbers. So whatever they're smoking appears to have affected their reality less than yours.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Ambvai]

As I recall, Ubuntu names were picked to be alliterative [to be easier to remember], in alphabetical order [after the first few], and, when presented as the adjective and animal, to be a unique search engine hit.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing they weren't smoking before. In case you haven't noticed, Android releases are named after desserts.

Re:Ice Cream Sandwich?

[pmario]

What is the marketing department smoking?

Well, considering their naming scheme, I would guess marijuana.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Microlith]

Everyone who knows about them should discourage purchase of those shitty Chinese tablets anyway. Virtually all of them violate the GPL and don't distribute the kernel sources.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Microlith]

Yeah, and their arguments are bullshit from end to end. They should just keep it closed and drop this facade of Android being open.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not even a question to me whether they'll release it. To compare Honeycomb v. Ice Cream:

Honeycomb:
  - Experimental. Rushed. Beta-quality. Embarrassment.
  - Supports <1% of total Android devices.
  - Deprecated within 1 year of release.
  - No hacker community.
  - No code contribution pledge. No history of open source.

Ice Cream Sandwich:
  - Open source commitment made back in January/February of '11.
  - Theoretically it supports most Android devices.
  - All previous versions of handset OS were open source.

I only see ICS being closed if it's fundamentally broken in some way (UI design) or if it's alpha-quality crap competing with the iPhone 5. Personally I'll switch to iOS if that happens.

Nexus rocks

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a freaking iphone/ios lovefest here. Disaster. It's funny how most of you know little of what you are talking about when it comes to android, Go cry about your iphone 4s's somewhere else.

Re:Nexus rocks

[RocketRabbit]

How courageous of you to not only tell everybody specifically what they got wrong, but posting as an AC as well?

Hats off to you, a Superman among men. We really ought to kiss your feet or the corner of your robes.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[CritterNYC]

Well, considering the source code to Gingerbread 2.3.4 (what my phone runs) is fully available as Google said it would be, and Google said Android 3.x Honeycomb would be closed as it is, why would you doubt them? Android 4.0 Ice Cream will be open source and the Cyanogen guys will be hacking it into working ROMs for every phone on the market soon after it's released.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[iluvcapra]

They were caught "being evil" when they released the "open" ICS to Samsung, HTC and other favored vendors six months ago under NDAs. Is that open source?

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[RocketRabbit]

I don't own a single Android device and don't really care, on a personal level.

On a broader level, it just shows that Google merely talks the open source talk without walking the walk.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[Kurt Granroth]

I think you summarized the Android v iOS question pretty well. I'm in a similar boat -- a long time iOS user that's wanted to move to Android, but it's just not there yet. Maybe Ice Cream Sandwich will be?

I do have to take exception with one thing you said, though: "Apple...refused to produce and release any significant hardware improvements [in the 4S]". I hear refrains like this all over the place and just don't get it. The 4S has the same screen and case profile as the 4 but everything else is updated. The hardware improvements are massive! Sooo.... no new screen and no NFC and they haven't made any? Odd.

But yeah, Nexus Prime plus Ice Cream Sandwich looks like it might finally catch up to the iPhone + iOS. That leaves hope that a later model might actually supersede it.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if Google will finally release the source. They said they would fully open source Ice Cream Sandwich, but whether or not they will keep their promises remains to be seen.

My guess? They will say that the source will be "coming soon" for the next few years, until they release Panda Bear Turd or whatever the next OS will be called, never release the source, but people will forget or make excuses for Google as they have regarding their closed source Android 3 implementation.

cause you sound like someone who would actually download the code and and contribute to AOSP.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Hotweed Music]

Correct. People wrongly assume that open source means a free-for-all.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[larry bagina]

You don't think the iPhone 4S is a significant hardware improvement over the iPhone 3GS?

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[amRadioHed]

No, the reason is because the source for 3.0 is broken. Yes, it will work on tablets, but for the majority of Android devices out there it simply will not work. So instead of releasing a broken product, they are putting off releasing the code until it is in a state where it is usable.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[dudpixel]

um, you do realise they will most likely be releasing the iPhone 5 next year, right? Probably in about 6 months, when the original iPhone 4 buyers are out of their 2 year contracts. That kind of makes good business sense.

With the Android 4.0 release imminent, it was also likely that Apple felt the need to release a hardware-updated iPhone to compete with the latest android offerings. They also have iOS5 almost ready to go. One wonders why it wasn't versioned 4.5 or something, in line with the iPhone model number, saving version 5 for the release of the real iPhone 5...but that will probably remain a mystery. Most of us do not understand the Apple marketing department anyway...although it does work well.

I'm not saying you shouldn't get a Galaxy Nexus (or nexus prime, whatever it will be called). But if you were so ready to buy an iPhone 5 regardless of it not having many of the specs you listed, then why not just wait 6 months and buy one then?

It seems that the reason you want to switch, is because Apple (not the iPhone) failed your expectations, as a company. That seems a bit of a strong statement in light of what they actually did release.

Now, I do own a Galaxy S and I'm a big Android fan (I just sold an iMac after owning it for 3 weeks, and I will never own an iPhone), but your logic makes me think you were really just looking for a reason to switch.

I apologise if I'm mistaken.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[swillden]

I recently switched from an iPhone 4 to a Nexus S 4G, and my experience is exactly the opposite. The reason I switched was because I recently started working for Google and I'm doing some work on Google Wallet, so I decided I'd better get more familiar with the platform. But I expected to find that Android was less polished than iOS, and I expected to miss my iPhone (which I gave to my wife).

In fact, I think that Honeycomb (don't know about previous versions of Android) is much more polished and better thought-out than iOS from an interface and usability perspective. There are a handful of things that aren't as good; I really like the scrolling date bars in iOS and the drop-down list selection in Android is clunky, but there are far, far more ways in which my Nexus S is better.

To start with, I greatly prefer the app organization scheme in Android. I spent way too much time trying to find some way to organize apps on my iPhone so that I could quickly find the stuff I use frequently but without burying the infrequently-used stuff on one of several rarely-used app pages or in some rarely-used app folder. On the iPhone I frequently had to resort to typing the app name in the search bar for my lesser-used apps. Android's approach is much better.

I also really like the "Car Home" mode, which simplifies the UI down to six large buttons focused on stuff you're likely to want to do while driving. And what makes it especially useful is the excellent voice search capability. I use my phone constantly while driving now, but never look at the screen or type anything. I even carry on conversations via SMS while driving, but never looking at the screen or punching buttons. As long as I speak a little more slowly than normal, and enunciate clearly, it's very nearly perfect.

Another little bit of polish that really impresses me is the way Android handles competing audio tasks. I like to listen to audiobooks while driving, and so I'm often listening to a book while also using the navigation software. I tried several different navigation apps on iOS, but all of them talked right over my book, resulting in me not being able to understand either the story or the directions. On Android, the book (or music, or whatever), is automatically paused when the navigation app talks, and when the book resumes it backs up about one second, ensuring that I don't miss anything.

I much prefer Android's approach to notifications, too, and I think the mail app is much nicer. There are a lot more things I prefer about Android, but this is getting long enough.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I had an iPhone 4 for eight months, and an iPod touch for 2-3 years before that. I've only had my Nexus S for a few weeks, and I don't regret the switch in the slightest. In fact, I like the Nexus much better. To me, it feels not just more flexible, but more polished and better thought-out. And more flexible.

I'm sure that coming from a Google engineer this will be taken with a large grain of salt. But that doesn't change the fact that it's my honest opinion; and if I didn't like the Nexus better, I would say so.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing about it makes it not open source.

Souce Code?

[Anonymous Coward]

TSIA!!

that might be because...

[ganjadude]

its a demo phone...for bug testing,.,,,

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[RocketRabbit]

Yes but Android is no longer open source.

Makes me wonder, which tablets you've seen

[Kartu]

Makes me wonder, which tablets you've seen. It's hard to be more responsive than Samsung's Galaxy Tab.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[R3d M3rcury]

The 4S has the same screen and case profile as the 4 but everything else is updated.

Agreed. The iPhone 4S is a brand new phone inside the case. Of course, what's inside that case is pretty much the same stuff that's been in Android phones for the last six months.

The battery Life of nexus prime?

[sunr2007]

What i really want to know is the battery life of Nexus prime? . Though galaxy S2 is awesome , its battery life sucks. There is no point in using a smartphone if it battery cant last a day. Thats why i still like nokia for this. they make best phones with superior battery life.

Re:The battery Life of nexus prime?

[shutdown -p now]

SGS2 battery life sucks largely due to software issues. 2.3.5 started rolling out for some users in Europe (Norway etc), and practically everyone who got it reports noticeably better battery life (2+ days).

Re:The battery Life of nexus prime?

[CompMD]

My N900 has horrible battery life. Getting it to last a day is a miracle.

I don't use Android apps anymore

[mbstone]

And my phone is more reliable, the battery life is longer, I never run out of memory, I can view my mail and news sites in the browser, and I can use Maps. Since I don't use Market, I don't have to enter a Google email address so that those evil Googlers can track my every move.

And then there are the Android app developers. Invariably they want access to my contacts, they want to impersonate me, they want real-time access to my GPS location, even for apps as simple as Droid Flashlight.

Fuck'em.

Re:I don't use Android apps anymore

[AC-x]

And then there are the Android app developers. Invariably they want access to my contacts, they want to impersonate me, they want real-time access to my GPS location, even for apps as simple as Droid Flashlight.

iPhone apps do the same, and you don't even get a chance to check what permissions apps use to decide which flashlight app to install (the one that does access your contacts, or the one that doesn't, hmm, tough choice :)

Re:I don't use Android apps anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed the same thing when looking for an app to use the camera flash LED as a flashlight: the most popular one wanted access to my contacts. I looked and found another one TeslaLED, that only required sensible permissions and installed that one instead.

I've also refused to update some live wallpapers since the updated version requires access to my browser history. Really? For a live wallpaper?

The thing is, those permissions are pretty clear--even if 90% of people don't look at them--and let you make sensible choices about which apps respect your privacy and which don't. Cyanogenmod has a feature that lets you deny specific permissions to apps that shouldn't need them, by e.g. showing the app a dummy empty browser history rather than your real one, or telling that app that internet is unavailable, when it really isn't.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[Phil Urich]

And indeed, that's why Android doesn't really interest me much at the moment. If they open up the source code again, I might become interested again. In the meantime, it doesn't really "integrate" with my "ecosystem" (to use the terminology the popular kids are using these days) so whatever. Meanwhile the KDE folk have just released the first version of their tablet-oriented variant, now THAT's a tablet OS I can get behind (ie. Linux with a sane and standard userland).

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[MemoryDragon]

I would not count on a 6 months cycle anymore here. Apple seems to have settled down to an ipad revision in march and an iphone revision in october.
So it is another year.

Re:Is this "open source" OS also going to be close

[rjstanford]

Nothing about it makes it not open source.

Well, other than that whole you-can't-get-the-source part. But yeah, except for that, nothing at all.

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about the Nexus but the iPhone camera isn't very good. Or well, not good at all.

Also just because one Nexus wasn't good either doesn't have to mean a future one can't be. The iPhone 4 camera is better than the 3Gs.

Nokia N8 camera is nice for what it is.

/ aliquis (oh, posting against the almighty Apple, better be AC.)

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[rjstanford]

But since Apple decided after nearly a year and a half to slap their loyal fans in the face and refused to produce and release any significant hardware improvements

So... 2x faster processor, 7x faster GPU, what seems like a 4x better (resolution and image quality) camera, 1080p with really solid image stab. for the video camera, 2x faster downloads, and no reduction in battery life isn't significant?

What, pray tell, were you hoping for exactly? Other than a different case with the number 5 blazoned accross the side? Screen size I see from your post, although its debatable whether that's better or worse (good for some, less so for others) and NFC certainly has a lot of utility to a few folk (I'd like to play with it as well, to be honest). But to dismiss the 4S improvements strikes me as a little unreasonable.

BTW, the iPhone now does support 1080p for video out and mirroring - its right on the "Tech Specs" page.

Camera button to the lock screen

[JabrTheHut]

Um, didn't Apple "copy" that last week? At least now we know why the release was delayed.

ios

[Anonymous Coward]

Android sux..... ios all the way

Re:iPhone 5 replacement for disappointed Apple fan

[dudpixel]

The last iPhone revision was in June.