Google Unveils Nexus 7 Tablet, Nexus Q 'Social Streaming Device'

Through some stroke of fortune, your friendly editor Timothy Lord is at Google I/O watching the keynote. We'll be updating the story live (below the fold) with his updates as they stream in. Starting things off, he reported a few features of Android Jelly Bean. First, graphics will be triple-buffered for extra smoothness; the graphics demo was reportedly impressive enough that the audience swooned. Text input has been improved with new dictionaries and a predictive keyboard that will learn better over time. Additionally, voice typing will now work offline. English will be initially supported, with Farsi, Thai, and Hindi support to follow. Hit the link below to see further updates, including details on the Nexus 7 tablet and the Nexus Q streaming device.

Update: 06/27 17:16 GMT by S : Camera: Toss photos by just flicking them away — actually, you can now do this with apps on the home screen, too. Pinch for a quick sideshow view; it's much faster than one by one, and makes a quick strip-view to slide back and forth. Undo for photo delete -- nice.

Google Beam: More than a million NFC-enabled devices are out now: In Jellybean, send someone a photo or contact info by tapping phones. Works with big files, too.

Notifications: You can expand and collapse them, they are actionable, and you can get a lot more info directly from notifications than in previous versions. Rather than opening an app from notifications (as from a missed call), you can call right from the notification itself. Similarly, you can read mail (that is, Gmail) right from the notification list. Canned responses to messages are also available directly from notifications. You can see full photos, Foursquare check-ins, etc. Notifications expand as they bubble to the top of the list, but you can also make them expand with a two-finger drag gesture.

Google search: Using Knowledge Graph. The graph allows new "card" answers to Google searches — a bit like "I'm feeling lucky," but with more multimedia right there. Search for 'What movies was Angelina Jolie in,' and you get back a headshot and a filmography.

Voice Search: Quick spoken answers to spoken questions. The demo question was: "Show me pictures of pygmy marmosets." Yep, there are the pictures.

"Google now" (lower case n): "Gets you just the right info at just the right time." It uses things like search, location, and calendar history to figure out what info you might need and when. If you looked for a flight, and it's updated, Google will alert you and show you the new one. It keeps track of your favorite sports teams. (The guy next to me says, "that's scary cool.. and kind of creepy.") Call up public transportation or an upcoming flight and you get details like how long each trip will be and where to transfer. I'm surprised it doesn't tell you which side of the street is shadier to walk on. Google knows now when you're traveling, and tells you, among other things, what time it is back home.

Note for developers: Jelly Bean will start to release to open source in mid-July. Devs can grab the Preview SDK from developer.android.com right now.

Android Engineering director Chis Yerga says Google Play is now up to 600,000 apps and 20 billion downloads Thousands of books and movies, as well as millions of songs. You can store 20,000 tracks for free in your music library. Yerga introduced movie sales, not just rentals. They're also adding TV: buy episodes, or whole seasons — 'perfect for when you're on the bus.' To start, their partners include Disney, NBC, Sony Pics, Paramount, and small ones like Magnolia. There will also be magazines: premium ones (Esquire, Wired) and lots of the pedestrian ones, too.

Brief, but important new features: App encryption (big applause from audience), and smart App updates — only the parts of the APK that update need to be transferred.

What everyone was waiting for: Asus-built Nexus 7, brandished from the stage. It's super thin, light and portable, and has a 1280x800 display. Inside: Tegra 3. Quad-core CPU, 12-core GPU. "That's basically 16 cores, which makes everything, including games, incredibly smooth.' It has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, a gyro, an accelerometer, and up to 9 hours of video playback. It weighs 340 grams — like a paperback book. Fits nicely in one hand.

Mag reader gets you form-factor optimized version of magazines, with various swipe-activated interactive features. There were chuckles from audience on showing the cover of 'Shape' magazine. A bikini picture as a demo of interactive "Premium reading experience" on Google play, available for certain magazines. I'm surprised that was the choice. It seems like the kind of thing women developers might not appreciate, or at least that I'd anticipate would have been nixed based on that presumption.

Google has also added a "what's this song" widget, which leads you to (of course) the store, where you can buy the identified song.

Apps on N7 + Jellybean: The Nexus 7 is the first device that ships with Chrome as a standard browser! YouTube app provides high-def video optimized for the N7. Google Maps: you've got the usual features (public transit, etc.), but also, "learn about a place before you get there." It has pannable 3D images inside places (where they have the footage, of course: it's not complete magic). They demonstrated panning inside a bar. BUG: "Make available offline" in a tappable menu means you don't need a data connection. Google Currents, news reader, etc., now has Google Translate built right in, transparently: choose a new language and see your news in Arabic, say, or any supported language, just like that. Games: They showed an amazing game demo (Horn) with lens flare, environment effects, and individually rendered leaves. Another game has zombies and lots and lots of blood (Dead Trigger). Not for kids, but great graphics.

The Nexus 7 price: They will launch "starting at" $199, including a $25 credit in the Google Play store, and several things as teases, including a Transformers movie and the Bourne Dominion book. It will be available in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the UK to start, with more countries coming.

Mysterious: Project Tungsten. It involves Android and Google Play — the first consumer product Google has ever built from ground up: The "Nexus Q." Q is a small (tiny!) Android computer, which "connects to all the media you have stored in the cloud." It's designed to plug into the best speakers and TV in your home, and always be connected to the cloud. It pulls content directly from Google Play, and is controlled by (but not streaming through) your phone / tablet as a remote. It's a small black orb; looks like a little Death Star. It'll use an NFC connection to your phone: "This is how you get your software," he said, as the phone leaned against it for a moment.

It runs on the same chip as the Galaxy Nexus. And 25-watt amp built right in (!?). It has optical digital audio and micro HDMI outs, too. Dual-band Wi-fi, ethernet, NFC, BT, and a port to encourage 'general hackability' (which got big applause). It's an odd-looking little thing — you won't be stacking anything on top of it. OK, I am drooling: there's a multi-colored LED-lit line around the equator (imagine Luke diving in with his tiny X-wing) which lights in patterns based on music.

It's a 'social connected device': multiple people controlling it from their own tablets in the same space results in their songs from different devices getting spread. Anyone can move songs around the queue, or control the listening experience. "Pretty cool, my friends can now play their music in my living room." Neat tech, but not the very newest possibility in the world. Slightly more cumbersome possibility it replaces: carrying one's whole movie library around. Basically, you can take over the TV connected to the Nexus Q, in order to stream stuff. It will cost $299. They're taking pre-orders now, and the device will start shipping in mid-July.

Google+: Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of G+. They played a cute video of hangouts, showing live video streaming to group. There's a vibrant community of astronomers, knitters, musicians, etc. 250 million G+ users now, with 50pct daily logins. Users tend to spend more than 12 minutes a day in the stream, up from 9 a few months ago (is that an impressive number?) Google+ is now accessed more from mobile than from desktop. They keep getting the same request from users: "Native tablet version?" That's the big G+ announcement today: native G+ for tablets. Photos, text, video, etc. are stylized slightly differently from each other for easy scanning. Hangout experience is an emphasis, too. Swipe to accept and invite, just like a phone call. Automatic video switching to whoever's talking. Looks slick and sweet. Everything is launching on the iPad, too, "very soon." All the new features also now immediately available for phones. Final note: they're introducing a sort of organization around events. "The substance of a real world event is [now] lost online" -- invites are brittle. Announcement: Google Plus Events, for stuff before, during, after. It includes deep integration with Google Calendar.

Before: Invitation, scheduling, organization. You can choose ready-made, cinematic themes. Eh, that looks sort of weak, but then, people sure bought a lot of trapper keepers in the '80s, and Hallmark is a successful business. During: Streaming, involvement, etc. "Everyone's photos get lost," with typical current mix of devices, systems, etc. But you can enable "party mode," which shares all the photos people are taking, if they've turned it on. Also, a current-photos slideshow. This is also controlled from Notifications — a green icon shows if one has turned on Party mode. OK, this is pretty neat — it beats my long-time idea that weddings should all have stations for dumping pictures from SD cards. After: put all those photos in chronological order: all the pics from all the guests who had party mode on, in one stream. Also, analyze photos, for most engagement or plus-ones, and ones in which you're tagged; can also sort by photographer.

Now Sergey is up on stage for a Google Glass demo...

Sergey is talking with his friend JT — they're live-streaming from about a mile ahead and thousands of feet up. They're in a blimp. They're communicating through a Hangout using Google Glass. He's about to jump with the glasses on . He's wearing a wing suit and has a GoPro camera. They're looking right at Moscone Center. And there they go! They're flying through the air, broadcasting the view live. They're aiming for the Moscone. Since I'm inside a big building, this could all be special effects, and I wouldn't know. And now they've landed on the room. Audience applause is hurting my ears.

And they have bikers up there, to speed them along the roof, also with Glasses. The bikers zoomed along the roof, doing flips, all streamed live. They rappelled down the side of the building to get onto the appropriate floor, then biked right up to the stage. Ludicrous. "Special delivery for Sergey." Now the skydivers and other guys have all reached the stage.

More on Glass: Lots of sensors, networking, location awareness, multiple radios for data communications. The project started 2.5 years ago. They showed a photo of Thad Starner wearing a clunkier version from back then. Now it's more like one side of a pair of fat-framed sunglasses. Lead designer Isabel Olsson (Senior Industrial Designer) talks about it: the display is above the eye; designed to be close to your senses, but not block them. The latest prototype weighs less on the nose than many sunglasses. They showed a few demos: playing tennis, first person service. Jumping into a ball pit. They stressed the importance of scaleable design: put all components to one side, so there can be wide frame compatibility. It looks symmetrically (could be be reversed and put on the other side?), but the demos all seem to show it on the right side (from the user's perspective) of the head.

Aspirations / purposes for Glass:
- Communications, documentation: Sometimes for grand or spectacular purpose (skydivers), but also mundane moments among geo-distant friends (the weather in NY or wherever), a baby growing up, etc.
- Search result medium
- Real-time dashboard (how fast are you going on your bike?)
- Interactive communication -- you're at the market and see something odd, or want to ask your spouse about the product you're supposed to pick up.

They showed a heartwarming demo: it looks like an Apple commerical, which may or may not warm the hearts of the people who made it. Sergey talked a bit about why they're showing these particular features. A) They're excited about it, B) These are things they can show us -- there are other uses, but they're tough to demonstrate, and C) they're a small team, with only a limited ability to test them out in different contexts. Sergey also announced Google Glass Explorer Edition. It's a rough-around-the-edges version for developers. Preorders are available for US-based I/O attendees to start. Cost is $1,500, and they plan to ship it to you sometime next year.

Comments

Uh oh

[netwarerip]

English will be initially supported, with Farsi, Thai, and Hindi support to follow.

That's all well and good, until someone speaks Farsi when trying to buy one of the devices, in which case all hell will break loose.

Re:Uh oh

[gman003]

My *guess* (haven't watched video yet, making some big assumptions right here) is that it meant the Latin alphabet, aka the one we're using right now, and which is used by most West European languages including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and the all-important Latin.

Re:Uh oh

[jbeaupre]

I've got a question: Will you catch more hell at an Apple store asking for an iPad in Farsi or a Nexus in English?

Re:Uh oh

[Luckyo]

Most likely the languages of the most active/important developers, with more to follow later. You obviously want to prioritise the languages you're fluent in when doing a project like this, to make sure that non-language related bugs get ironed out of the system.

Re:Uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if they express, in Farsi, the intent to violate federal law with it, making the store clerk an accomplice.

Re:Uh oh

[Zanadou]

My *guess* (haven't watched video yet, making some big assumptions right here) is that it meant the Latin alphabet, aka the one we're using right now

Speak for yourself!

Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

"First, graphics will be triple-buffered for extra latency."

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Latency

[MozeeToby]

Yes, 3 frames of latency will the be the doom of all user experience. Why, the latency will sky rocket from .06s (double buffered) to .09s (triple buffered). Oh the humanity!

Re:Latency

[Joce640k]

Let's hope the audience didn't really swoon. The lawsuits for making the graphics _THAT_ good could break Google.

(It's a bit like writing jokes... not a lot of people know that if you make them TOO funny you can end up in court on manslaughter charges)

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

30 ms is a big deal. People will notice it, they just won't be able to articulate what feels sluggish. Who is this "smoothness" for? To me it sounds like running a blur filter on your photos to "enhance" them.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

In tactile dragging context, 90ms is getting quite high, and would be perceived as 'give' or 'slack' or damping.
But your numbers are probably high anyway; I'd assume the refresh would be more like 60Hz (ie approx 17ms) otherwise the dragging would be quite jerky.

Re:Latency

[tabrisnet]

I was hoping for FIVE blades!

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

So the fact that triple buffering is offered (and sometimes by default activated) in a lot of games (which include some blockbuster games) is complete garbage to you?

I don't get the logic.

Triple buffering is meant to smooth out any sudden framerate jitters, and will look smoother if there's a momentary decrease in actual FPS.

Re:Latency

[timothy]

Well, it is a demo and therefore something well past "suspect," but of course the claim is utter smoothness, and depending on just how rigged the demo is, they at least have the visual aids to support that ... real proof will need something other than on-stage ready-made pitch, though.

timothy

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cannot run at full framerate with double buffering you get about the same the same increased latency in addition to stuttering. The second time the same frame is displayed it's not exactly showing current data you know. If you wanted to get tricky you could get even better latency with triple buffering than normally offered by doublebuffering by anticipating the time needed to render a frame and delaying just the right amount of time before handling input etc.

Re:Latency

[tangent3]

You obviously have no idea what triple buffering is. There is no extra latency when triple-buffering is used.

In double buffering, one renders to the back buffer while the hardware is displaying the front buffer. When the rendering is done, a buffer swap takes place. However, this does not take place immediately because you will need to wait for the hardware to finish reading the front buffer before it can be made available to be rendered on.

Triple buffering solves this wait by providing a 3rd buffer which can be rendered on while the hardware is displaying the front buffer and the previous frame is in the queue. Now, if your rendering is fast enough and you finish rendering while the hardware is still displaying the front buffer and the queued buffer has not been displayed yet, then the queued buffer will be removed and made available for the next frame. No latency issues here.

Re:Latency

[shadowrat]

tripple buffering usually results in more fps rather than less. it's only impact is in memory. if you've got the memory you should be doing it. it doesn't take any longer to get a frame up on the device, but the renderer can start working on buffer 3 before the device is finished switching from 1 to 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_buffering#Triple_buffering

Re:Latency

[Joce640k]

Two hours and no Monty Python references yet...?

Leaves disappointed.

Re:Latency

[citizenr]

Yes, 3 frames of latency will the be the doom of all user experience. Why, the latency will sky rocket from .06s (double buffered) to .09s (triple buffered). Oh the humanity!

thats 90ms on top of "normal" android 100ms latency

Re:Latency

[93 Escort Wagon]

(It's a bit like writing jokes... not a lot of people know that if you make them TOO funny you can end up in court on manslaughter charges)

If we'd just lurn to put in our friend Mr. Apostrophe, manslaughter becomes "man's laughter".

(Props to Mrs. Falbo)

Re:Latency

[bill_mcgonigle]

Yes, 3 frames of latency will the be the doom of all user experience. Why, the latency will sky rocket from .06s (double buffered) to .09s (triple buffered). Oh the humanity!

If triple-buffered means by extension what double-buffered means in computer graphics, the additional latency will be the time to blit the extra frame from memory to the frame buffer. Way less than .03s.

Re:Latency

[BitZtream]

Way less than .03s.

I'm guessing you've never used an android device eh?

Nothing in the android gui happens in less that 30ms, its designed to lag from the start.

Re:Latency

[swillden]

Umm, you don't know what triple-buffering is. It reduces latency by eliminating a bottleneck that exists in double-buffering.

Quick review of multiple-buffering for graphics display:

Without double-buffering, drawing is done in the same buffer that is used to refresh the display. This has all sorts of nasty effects when you're changing the display contents rapidly.

With double-buffering, drawing is done on a background buffer. When the frame is done, it's swapped with the display buffer and drawing can resume. The problem is that there is often a period of time when the drawing buffer is completed, but the display buffer is still being used to update the screen, so you can't swap. This leaves the GPU idle, and can cause update latency.

Triple-buffering adds a second background buffer. Drawing is done on one of the two background buffers, and when it's done it's queued up to be swapped with the display buffer as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the GPU can continue drawing onto the other background buffer. In the event that it is completed before the first background buffer is swapped to the display, the first buffer can simply be discarded. More commonly, of course, the first back buffer is swapped in while the GPU is working on the second back buffer.

The effect of triple-buffering is to reduce latency, increase framerate and improve smoothness. More importantly, it allows display, GPU and CPU to all run full speed without any bottlenecks, reducing the chance that a delay in any one of them causes everything to back up.

The cost of triple-buffering is the RAM required for the other buffer.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Framerate != latency (although lower framerate obviously results in higher latency also). If there's three buffers full of data it takes longer for the last updates to reach the screen compared to when there's only two of them.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, triple buffering provides more protection for spikes and drop frames, but this comes at the expense of latency and memory overhead.

For tactile, direct manipulation of virtual objects on a touch screen, eg dragging virtual page paper in a web browser, high latency feels sluggish and laggy. Non-technical users will notice the effect, even if they cannot accurately articulate it and instead just say "it feels funny/cheap" or "doesn't feel real".

For games, where there is usually a more indirect mapping from controller/touchscreen inputs onto object behaviour, eg for physical simulation, higher latency due to triple buffering is less likely to be objectionable.

Even so, for some 'twitchy' games or applications, a lower latency is desired and would be noticed and appreciated by many users. It is affected by many factors, eg image characteristics, display hardware,time constants in the system transfer function according to control theory, andexpected user intoxication level.

But that's just my opinion anyway, with a dozen years' experience in graphics systems for games with 20 million cumulative sales for the last three titles alone.

Thanks for playing.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the confusion in this thread is that there are different types of triple buffering. Depending on the exact buffer algorithm used, the latency may or may not be increased.

For maximum protection from frame rate variability due to CPU or GPU spikes, latency is increased: the CPU is writing command buffers well ahead of the GPU, and the GPU is rendering well ahead of the display.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

There are different forms of triple buffering. The specific triple-buffering algorithm that provides the most consistent frame rate and protection from CPU or GPU spikes *does* increase latency.

From the very wikipedia article you cited: "Another method of triple buffering involves synchronizing with the monitor frame rate. Drawing is not done if both back buffers contain finished images that have not been displayed yet. This avoids wasting CPU drawing undisplayed images and also results in a more constant frame rate (smoother movement of moving objects), but with increased latency.[2] This is the case when using triple buffering in DirectX, where a chain of 3 buffers are rendered and always displayed."

Re:Latency

[bazorg]

F*@# everything! we're doing 5 buffers!

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have no idea what triple buffering is.

You obviously have no idea what humor or sarcasm is.

Re:Latency

[flargleblarg]

Doubtful. More likely, it will skyrocket from 0.0333s (double-buffered) to 0.5000s (triple-buffered). Nothing runs at 30fps anymore, not since the 1980s. 60fps is the new standard frame rate. 60fps = 1 frame every 0.01666s.

Re:Latency

[flargleblarg]

Er, I meant 0.05000s (tripled-buffered). 3/60 = 1/20 second = 0.05.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Input A
Render frame #1 showing response to A
Render frame #2 showing response to A
Render frame #3 showing response to A
Input B
Display frame #1
Render frame #4 showing response to B
Display frame #2
Render frame #5 showing response to B
Input C
Display frame #3
Render frame #6 showing response to C

Do you see how you have 3 frames worth of lag before the response to input is shown? At 60fps, that's ~48ms worth of lag (2 buffers in memory + 1 being shown on display each 16 ms apart). That's not an insignificant amount of time, especially since Android already has quite noticeable input lag.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

For tactile, direct manipulation of virtual objects on a touch screen, eg dragging virtual page paper in a web browser, high latency feels sluggish and laggy.

Only if you're astroturfing for Apple.

Normal users thing it's slick and responsive.

Re:Latency

[ozmanjusri]

Leaves disappointed.

What about the twigs and branches. How are they feeling?

Re:Latency

[Blahah]

I so wish I had mod points. 5: Funny.

Re:Latency

[AK Marc]

You are correct, assuming the GPU is idle when the buffers are all filled. However, in the post you are responding to, when buffers are all full, the oldest is discarded and refeshed. This results in lower latency than double-buffered.

Re:Latency

[tangent3]

You still have no idea how triple buffering works. What will actually happen is this:

Input A
Render frame #1 showing response to A
Render frame #2 showing response to A
Render frame #3 showing response to A
Input B
Display frame #3
Render frame #4 showing response to B
Display frame #4
Render frame #5 showing response to B
Input C
Display frame #5
Render frame #6 showing response to C

Triple buffering is required to drop frames if you render faster than they are being displayed. It's the only way to guarantee that there will be a ready buffer to render to.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a big no-no.

For example, if you render at 100fps while the screen runs at 60fps, you're using 66% excess cpu and the timestep between displayed frames is alternating 10ms and 20ms instead of being constant 16.7ms, making the motion jittery.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent troll. This is nothing but Apple shilling.

Re:Latency

[justforgetme]

The smoothness is to compete with the iDevice, which unlike the totaly wrong android OS (no offense I support it as a FOSS and more liberal project but it is wrong in all other aspects) has the huge advantages of:
a) being a console type development environment ie: you actually have a very limited set of device speck to wory about and can actually optimise for every single device (and apple do that)
b) being not written in java which, even though Google have done tremendous achievements in optimization still demands more number crunching.
c) living in a monarchy where only the holy Lord iChoons has a say of what runs on your silicon. Seriously I have seen jailbroken i4Ss that are more sluggish than 1st gen Samsung android phones.

Re:Latency

[justforgetme]

Yep, exactly 17ms per frame is about the target. Still a 51ms lag is no small thing. A good turntablist has about that in accuracy.
So Android 4.1 is useless as a vinyl emulator. No pro will ever use it. ...

Ohh, look! Butterflies

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, true, you can run it so that the instead of being full the buffer is actually kept as empty as possible in which case it actually reduces latency (although this can be appled also with double buffering). The downside in that method is that you might get a framedrop even in such cases when rendering time suddenly jumps from 5ms to 6ms.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's hope the audience didn't really swoon. The lawsuits for making the graphics _THAT_ good could break Google.

(It's a bit like writing jokes... not a lot of people know that if you make them TOO funny you can end up in court on manslaughter charges)

Lest Apple sue them or something like that.

Re:Latency

[Anonymous Coward]

The alternative is dual ported RAM and that is ungodly expensive.

Watch Live Stream here

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks Timothy................ or you can just watch the live stream here: https://developers.google.com/events/io/

Re:Watch Live Stream here

[darjen]

unfortunately they block youtube at work. so I will have to be content with the live blog updates.

Re:Watch Live Stream here

[Patch86]

I've been begging for transcripts for ages. Not all of us have the time or ability to watch long video streams all day.

Genuinely- thanks Timothy!

And my phone was never supported...

[thittesd0375]

6 month old phone that still hasn't gotten past 2.3. Wake me when this is news.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[oodaloop]

I think I can safely say that the version on your phone and your satisfaction with it will never be news.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[h4rr4r]

Did you buy a Nexus device?

If not, why were you expecting anything else?

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[kqs]

So you've discovered that when you buy a device from a manufacturer/carrier that is known for not updating their firmware, your firmware is not updated. Whose fault is this?

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you're too dumb to choose the right Android phone. Wake me when this is news.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[Truedat]

that is known for not updating their firmware

By who? Is there an official list?

There are actually some people who don't spend all there time analysing the reputations of handset manufacturers and believe them when they say they will continue to provide support with updates.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[Anonymous Coward]

Newsflash: They don't make QWERTY Nexus devices. For those that consider it a necessary feature, we have to pick our poison ever since the OG Droid.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[h4rr4r]

Newsflash: that is why I gave up on the QWERTY keyboard. I would like one too, but I will not give money to those who make locked phones to get one.

Re:And my phone was never supported...

[Anonymous Coward]

Serves you right to buy a 500$+ product without due dilligence.
It's not exactly an industry secret: you want updates, get a Nexus. It's the reason I haven't gotten an Android tablet yet (it's about to change though).

Music

[darjen]

I wonder if they will finally address Android's audio latency problem this year, so developers can get us some better music production apps.

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/reduce-audio-latency-on-the-galaxy-nexus-and-nexus-s/

Re:Music

[Mr Thinly Sliced]

Their problem was designing their architecture before they had put real constraints on performance (latency).

I can only assume that the designers weren't audio programmers, because the architecture is a mess. (So many layers of mixing, buffering)

Then on top of this messy architecture, you have the problem that none of your user applications run with a high enough priority to get CPU when they need so you get gaps in the playback for shorter latencies.

I mean, pulse audio beats it hands down..... On it's own platform.....

For the moment, I don't see this getting fixed to the levels of satisfaction you can run soft synths and various drum machines in real time.

Someone at google needs to stand up, take ownership of it and _rewrite the audio layer_ from the ground up (maybe start with pulse), and put sound modules _inside_ the realtime sound generation thread.

Tell you what google, hire me, and I'll do it.

Re:Music

[timothy]

Audio latency is one of the improvements named for Jellybean over ICS at a session later in the day, actually. The presenters said that this is a moving target, though, and that this is one thing where there are device (I took by that "chipset") specific bugs / hangups / fixes needed, so it sounded like more improvements should arrive with updates to Jellybean.

timothy

Re:Music

[Anonymous Coward]

What about a global equalizer? Why did they remove it? Boo... Google. Too much bass in that tiny mono speaker

Re:Music

[darjen]

That's one of the reasons I got an iPad. I wanted to use things like fl studio. The other reason is I read a lot and the display really is a step above.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the 10% are the ones shipping now. I think every carrier has at least one ICS phone if you want one. The 90% of devices are people like me with my two-year-plus year old Nexus One running Gingerbread. (It still works, so why spend $400 on a new handset?)

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[spire3661]

The tablet should be ready to go. Asus was going ot release it months ago as their own until google decided it would make a great vehicle for them.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[alen]

and at the same time almost 90% of ALL IOS DEVICES are on the latest major version

all the features are cool but won't be seen until there are 4.1 devices in the hands of users. lots of users. don't count on seeing most of these features for a few years until 4.1 devices are the majority of the installed base

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

The new features don't, by and large, seem to require developers to change their apps to support them, though. So if I have a 4.1 device, what do I care if I'm the 1%? I got mine.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

For direct user features, woo cool awesome! For features that require apps to take advantage of, forget it. As an android dev I'm still targeting 2.2. Anything in the 3.0 or 4.0 api, forget it. I want my app to work on at least 80% of devices on the market, and that means targeting 2.2 If I targeted 3.0 that would be about HALF the devices on the market. From a dev standpoint I dont really give a flying if they are on 4.1, 4.2 or 8.0.

Yea, many android devices for sale now are 4.0, but not all of them, some devices are selling with 2.3.x The only time my device had the latest version was when I bought it, 3 months later it was an old version and never since has it been up to date.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

That's kind of a lie. IOS has some features that are only availible with some phones. Ie Siri on 4s only. The problem is only going to get worse with IOS 6 .

So how do I poison image search results?

[ibsteve2u]

...to make sure that "Show me pictures of idiots" has the right results?

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do lazy loading to use 4.0 features and still gracefully degrade on 2.3/2.2 phones, but it's often more work than it's worth.

both android and iOS seem to be mature

[alen]

the impression i get is that both are mature with slightly different feature sets and themes. apple lets their developers finish up on the feature set while google likes to tie most features into their backend and let the hardware partners sell the devices.

very little true cool new features in both updates

at this point i'm looking to dump AT&T and go pre-paid. I don't even care if i keep a phone for three years instead of 2. even the hardware innovation seems to have flattened out as well. slightly faster CPU, better GPU, better camera. yawn

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[darjen]

That is exactly what I have done. I have a droid 2 which I flashed onto a pre-pay service with a regional verizon reseller. I pay $12 a month for all the voice minutes I will ever need and 10mb of data. I mostly just keep 3g disabled and use the smartphone features when I am near wifi.

My wife does have an ATT iPhone which I activated on a gophone sim. so that is also an option.

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[alen]

i'm looking at straight talk myself. $35 a month unlimited everything for an iphone if you pre pay $495 for a year of service. even with the cost of the phone its like $1000 a year saved. i'll eat my ETF too and not worry about it. my wife will probably keep her iphone 4 and not care. i have a 4S and it does what i need it to do.

might go virgin mobile. they are $30 a month but you have to buy their special iphone. out in the midwest cricket is going to start selling the iphone for $500 and $55 a month

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[Anonymous Coward]

Straight Talk's "unlimited" data is limited to 2GB per month, at which point they cancel your account and don't let you transfer your phone number.

I'm looking for a nice prepaid bring-your-own-phone plan too, but the best I can find is T-mo's FlexPay, and their coverage area is not great.

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm looking at straight talk myself. $35 a month unlimited everything for an iphone if you pre pay $495 for a year of service.

$495/12 months = $41.25, not $35.

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is we don't have enough support infrastructure to really make use of our phones. NFC is a good example. Japanese people have been able to pay for all sorts of stuff with NFC for years. In many museums you can get more information on an exhibit by touching your phone to the plaque in front of it (replacing QR codes).

We are only now getting indoor navigation, but again Japan has had it for a long time. Making use of motion sensors for dead reckoning which we only use as a gimmick in games.

Re:both android and iOS seem to be mature

[Anonymous Coward]

Care to share more than one link from some guy that says this is the case? I've really been considering Straight Talk for a few months now and all I've seen and read indicates a 3GB cap and they cut off internet service until you call or go online and take a questionnaire. If you are the only person online who has information that it's a strict 2GB limit and they cancel your plan and violate number portability laws, I'd love to make some phone calls to follow up on that.

Triple buffered?

[_xeno_]

I don't know, for some reason, that sounds to me like the start of the graphics buffering equivalent of the "blades per razor" war.

So iOS 6.0 will all of a sudden add quad-buffered graphics for extra-extra smoothness, which means that Google will have to answer with "fuck it, Android Killer chocolate cake uses five buffers!"

But seriously, does triple-buffering really offer much over traditional double-buffering? I guess it might help if the process doing the animation gets swapped out, so there's an additional frame to fall back on?

Re:Triple buffered?

[Thagg]

There are two cases where triple buffering makes sense:

1) If it takes a substantial amount of time to clear the image. Recall that in double buffering, you are displaying one image while drawing another. When drawing the image, the first thing that is often done is clearing the image to a background color (and depth). On some devices, this took a substantial amount of the frame-time, and adding more memory was cheaper than making the "clear" faster.

2) If it takes more than one, but less than two frame times to draw the image, you can have interleaved pipelines. You are viewing framebuffer 0, mostly completed drawing the image in framebuffer 1, and just starting drawing (with a different set of hardware) into framebuffer 2. When you are done drawing, display framebuffer 1, clear framebuffer 0 and begin drawing, and finish drawing framebuffer 2. Note that this kind of triple-buffering decouples update from latency -- you can get very smooth playback at, say, 120 Hz, but the latency is still 1/60th of a second a best.

Both of these were done when I worked at Silicon Graphics in the early 90's, on machines several orders of magnitude larger than the nexus 7.

Re:Triple buffered?

[Anonymous Coward]

a) Triple buffering has been around since forever and b) No, because there's a latency trade-off.

Re:Triple buffered?

[mark-t]

In theory, there should be no more latency than there is with double buffering... you are still only ever drawing the frame that is one frame ahead of what you see at any given instant, just like double buffering. The third buffer is used to clear the drawing area and simply prepare it for being drawn on so that the logic that incorporates drawing offscreen does not need to deal with that, and could therefore potentially execute faster.

Re:Triple buffered?

[0123456]

But seriously, does triple-buffering really offer much over traditional double-buffering?

Uh, yes.

With double-buffering and sync to vblank, your frame rate is an integer divisor of the display frame rate. If your screen displays 60fps but your device can only render 59fps, then you'll actually see 30fps and the device will be idling nearly half the time waiting for vblank so it can switch to the other buffer.

With triple-buffering, if you can render 59fps you can display 59fps. The downside is that it can cause a small increase in latency.

Re:Triple buffered?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's for more consistent frame rate with vertical sync turned on.

Re:Triple buffered?

[BitZtream]

Both of these were done when I worked at Silicon Graphics in the early 90's, on machines several orders of magnitude larger than the nexus 7.

Physically or technically? Physically I'll believe. Technically, I find it hard to believe anything from the 90s is faster than a high end ARM device now.

Re:Triple buffered?

[Anonymous Coward]

The downside is that it can cause a small increase in latency.

But only if your display frame rate is faster than your render rate, and the added latency is at most one display frame time, and usually less. Also, the reality is that your render rate is not constant, while your display rate is. Suppose you render frame A, which takes a long time (relatively speaking), followed by frames B and C, which render very quickly because they're minor changes to A. With either double or triple, getting A displayed is going to take a while, which may cause you to lag a bit.

With double buffering, while A is being refreshed onto the screen, B is done but the GPU has to stop and wait for B to be swapped into the display buffer before it can begin drawing C. With triple buffering, when B is done on one back buffer the GPU can begin rendering C, and if C is done fast enough, then the buffer containing B will simply be discarded, and C will be displayed after A. This allows the system to recover from difficult frames and "catch up" much faster, even if the software higher in the stack doesn't pay attention to such backlogs and clean them up by dropping frames.

The net effect in many cases is to reduce latency (or so I read -- I haven't done graphics for a living for many years, when double buffering was the hawtness).

Re:Triple buffered?

[Space cowboy]

Faster in CPU MHz ? No, probably not, but that's not the only measure of capability. It was common practice to edit 2k films in real-time on an Onyx running Discreet's Flame or Inferno software when I was working in the Post-production industry back then. I can't see *any* ARM-based device editing uncompressed 4 megapixel RGB frames with effects applied in real-time at 25/30 fps any time soon...

SGI's machines were bandwidth monsters, for their time. We used the low-end 'Challenge S' (an SGI Indy without the graphics) as a very capable web server / database server machine. Average-speed CPU for their day, but the throughput was so much faster than a comparable PC running Linux (and I'm a linux fan).

Simon.

Re:Triple buffered?

[AmiMoJo]

Triple buffering allows you to hide the little stutters you sometimes get when some event happens that delays a single frame slightly. Interrupts are a common example, the CPU gets diverted to handle them and an animation frame is delayed. If you triple buffered and have a frame in hand you can display that (which takes almost no CPU time) while handling the interrupt and the stutter is hidden.

It is less important on devices with many CPU cores, so this shows Google does care about lower end devices having a good experience.

Re:Triple buffered?

[geekoid]

Yep. The MHz wars stalled CPU design by a decade.
we could have gone wide, but the market pushed its towards fast.
Damn AMD.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[DragonWriter]

and i might buy a device when they ship sometime in 2015

The first Jellybean device, the Nexus 7 tablet, is shipping mid-July. So your estimate of how long it will take devices to ship is on the order of 2^6 times too long.

the features are nice but until there are real smart phones shipping with it, its vaporware.

Yeah, a mobile operating system that is only supported by tablets doesn't really exist.

Also, there are indications that the already-available Galaxy Nexus will be getting Jellybean directly.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[spire3661]

Yeah especially when its completely artificial. I put iOS 6 on my ipad 2, sorry no Siri for you even though its almost the same exact hardware as the 4S.

Who cares about the keynote!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fork this over: http://socialtimes.com/files/2012/04/google-glass-300x289.jpg

WANT! NOW! And i take two pairs of the glasses too....

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[alen]

ok, by the end of the year 1% of the android installed base will have 4.1. i'm sure developers will be madly rushing to develop apps for the new features. meanwhile in iOS land something like 50% of users will be on iOS 6 by the end of this year if you go by the past upgrade curves.

and there will be apps in the app store to take advantage of the new API's. lots of them. even before iOS 6 is released to the public the big developers will already have compiled their apps for the new OS and released them in time for the OS release

$299 for the TV hook up????

[spire3661]

Why in the fuck is the Q so expensive? No way that thing will sell against Roku, AppleTV, the consoles (this gen and next) etc.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that thing's dead in the water at that price.

The tablet sure looks like a good deal though.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[nschubach]

Hell, there's a Vizio Co-Star that even supports DLNA streaming unlike any other Google TV Box I'm aware of... and it's $99. It also has On-Live capability, but I couldn't care less about that.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[alen]

if google can sell the nexus 7 at $199, amazon will have a new similar fire in a month at the same price and all the features of Amazon Prime as well. i'll take the Kindle

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[DragonWriter]

if google can sell the nexus 7 at $199, amazon will have a new similar fire in a month at the same price and all the features of Amazon Prime as well.

But none of the features of the Google first-party apps that are bundled with branded Android (as opposed to the Android Open Source Project), which is what most of the features highlighted in the keynote were.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have Prime. I do have content I've purchased at Google Play and at Amazon Kindle. So I'm gonna buy the Nexus 7 and then install the Kindle app. I can't buy the Kindle Fire 2 and install Google Play Store, at least without hacking up the device, which I prefer not to have to do.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

Because it includes a (claimed high quality) speaker amp *built in*. All those devices you listed require an extra box of some sort (be it a TV, receiver, etc...) whereas the Nexus Q you can connect speakers to it directly. Good amps aren't cheap. Also looks like it is made of metal instead of plastic.

Hopefully they will make a (much) cheaper version *without* the amp, though.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[squiggleslash]

I dunno. I'm a fan of the Kindle Fire, and perhaps Amazon can add the hardware features in that month (I say that because I'd be surprised if they don't already have designs like that in prototype already), but they'd have issues upgrading their version of Android to be on par with Jellybean in that space of time.

Still, I hope they do. I think the KF was the best thing to happen to the tablet form factor. It was (and still is) the right price and right size. It focused on a specific use case, and does an excellent job with that use case. If Amazon can leapfrog Google the way Google leapfrogged them today, and the way Amazon leapfrogged them with the original KF, I think it's all going to be awesome.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

Proud made in America !! not like they they took our jobs --southpark--

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who care already own an AV receiver & speakers, everyone else just uses their television speakers. Just a bizarre product design.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[the computer guy nex]

For $299 I can buy both an entry level Xbox 360 and an Apple TV. This Q is a disaster.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the built in audio power amps. I hope that catches on w/ Roku, et al.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

"Class D" audio power amps are cheap these days.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[bill_mcgonigle]

Why in the fuck is the Q so expensive? No way that thing will sell against Roku, AppleTV, the consoles (this gen and next) etc.

Look at it Dennis! It's a perfect sphere!

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[DRMShill]

Because it's designed and manufactured in the USA http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-q-is-designed-and-manufactured-in-the-u-s-a/

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[chowdahhead]

It also uses a OMAP4 chip, which seems like overkill for a media player.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

I can't understand why - at any price - someone would by a device that allows you to play content from one (1) provider. Yet overwhelming numbers of people do (thus reducing the options available for those of us who actually give a shit) so who knows...

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[farble1670]

i'll take the Kindle

at the same price, there's absolutely no reason to opt for a kindle. anything you can do with a kindle fire you can do on the N7 ... except on the N7, you also get all the google goodies, plus the google version of the all amazon services (play movies, apps, music, etc).

not to mention that the N7 is superior hardware.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[geekoid]

Yes, but then you end up with an XBox and an Apple TV. Both have serious problems.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

Made in the USA with non-oppressed workers.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't describe the situation of the 3% of the US-population concentration camp inmates as "non-oppressed".

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[ZombieBraintrust]

Why in the fuck is the Q so expensive? No way that thing will sell against Roku, AppleTV, the consoles (this gen and next) etc.

Look at it Dennis! It's a perfect sphere!

The articles seem to think its expensive becasue it is made in America.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[ZombieBraintrust]

Those people are not working in factories making dumb audio equipment.

Re:$299 for the TV hook up????

[Vintermann]

Why in the fuck is the Q so expensive?

Reasonable question.

No way that thing will sell against Roku, AppleTV, the consoles (this gen and next) etc.

Not reasonable conclusion. "Yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway." -- Steve Jobs

Tungsten

[ackthpt]

Every time I see that name I think of the Palm Tungsten... could have picked a different element. I don't think anyone has done anything meaninful with Yttrium lately.

Re:Tungsten

[Anonymous Coward]

Tungsten is just weird enough nobody (well, nobody normal -- TIG welders are special) has a chunk of it, or quite knows what W feels like, but it's a nice word that anyone can spell and pronounce easily (like DuPont products). Additionally, it sounds like its own word, rather than thisium or thatium. The handful of -um elements could work (I'm particularly thinking Tantalum), but -ium is just too conspicuous for good branding.

Yttrium is a recipe for people not buying it because it sounds contrived, and because they're afraid to sound stupid mispronouncing it.

Re:Tungsten

[Anonymous Coward]

You would think Yggdrasil would have used that one..

Re:Tungsten

[Vintermann]

Also, it means "heavy rock".

Re:WHY are events like these not streamed?!!!!

[Gribflex]

It is streamed: https://developers.google.com/events/io/
Most of the talks will be available on YouTube following the event as well.

How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[0123456]

Like supporting multiple user accounts on a single tablet?

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[h4rr4r]

They do. I have two accounts on a nook running CM7.2.

What issues are you facing exactly?

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are talking about multiple users\profiles like Windows or Linux has. So one person can login and get there apps, data, message, etc, and another person can login and get their apps data, message, etc.

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a much better idea that just supporting multiple users. Particularly if you're using a more expensive tablet.

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, I think the GP might mean "supporting multiple [global] user accounts" so that when I'm done with it, I can log off, and hand it to my niece without any chance of her deleting my emails.

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[h4rr4r]

You can do that. You just switch the account in market and you get the other accounts gmail.

Dividing up storage too would be awesome.

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you use a more expensive tablet now that you can buy a Nexus 7?

Re:How about fixing some of the glaring omissions?

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out SwitchMe it isn't the perfect solution but it is pretty close!

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[jdgeorge]

The more significant argument for developing on iOS is that Apple users spend more money on apps.

Regarding the comments about Android's painfully slow (or nonexistent) upgrade schedule for existing devices, Google is obviously trying to address this problem by making it easier for hardware manufacturers to port new Android versions for their platform using the new PDK.

However, I suspect that the Android hardware manufacturers are torn about upgrading. Their current model (except for the Nexus series) is that people have to buy a new device in order to get a new Android version. As a consumer, it sucks. As a manufacturer, it's a dangerous, game, as it tempts people to abandon Android for Apple, where new OS versions are rolled out (pretty much) across all the hardware.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[DragonWriter]

all the features are cool but won't be seen until there are 4.1 devices in the hands of users. lots of users. don't count on seeing most of these features for a few years until 4.1 devices are the majority of the installed base

While there are probably a bunch of new developer-facing features for which that would be true, the features announced in the keynote were almost entirely basic UI features or bundled-apps features, which will be "seen" by each user as soon as they get a Jellybean device, regardless of how many other people are using Jellybean or what third-party app devs do.

XDA Developers

[Picass0]

Don't complain. Do something about it. Root it and install Ice Cream Sandwich. Go to youtube and search for instructions on rooting your phone. QBKing77 does a ton of videos that walk you through doing it. Look up a rooting video FOR YOUR DEVICE.

If you've never done it before (I assume) you will need Odin for windows and the appropriate rooted kernel. Once you have installed a rooted kernel you can reboot into clockworkmod recovery and begin installing ROM images for your device.

I'm no guru, but I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 (Sprint's Epic Touch variant). I'm running an Ice Cream Sandwich based ROM called Blu Kuban. Great stuff. I can block ads in free software. I can overclock my CPU. I installed Beats Audio to optimize my sound playback. You'll even be able to flash more recent modem firmware to give you improved signal strength for improved connections. Change your user interface, themes, even boot animations.

Or you can wait for your provider to push ICS and you might get it around the same time everyone else is upgrading to Jelly Bean.

Your source for getting the most from your phone:
http://www.xda-developers.com/

Re:XDA Developers

[thittesd0375]

Phones, like the Electrify, come with warranties. Companies that provide a phone for you generally like you to keep their devices under warranty. When Google decides that market fragmentation is too great of an issue and starts making its own devices that are always upgradable to the current version upon release then Android will become a real OS. Until then, those of us that can't void our warranties are stuck with whatever support USCC decides to give us.

Re:XDA Developers

[CastrTroy]

Fine if you don't mind potentially bricking your device. I almost bricked my device because my service provider calls my phone the LG Optimus 2X, even though it's an LG Optimus G2X. They are visually indistinguishable. After trying to install ClockWorkMod and selecting the wrong phone model, my phone wouldn't boot. I had to download the LG flashing tool and an LG Gingerbread file for TMobile to allow me to get a usable OS back on the thing. The only way to root 2.3 on my phone is to overwrite the LG Recovery mode using NVFlash with ClockworkMod Recovery. There's not way I'm overwriting that, because if something goes wrong with that, then I've completely bricked the phone. I'll probably do it in a couple years when I'm due for a new phone anyway, but this isn't something I'd risk on a new phone.

Re:XDA Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

When you try and get your phone replaced under warranty when something goes wrong, the company will screw you over anyway. Even if they don't try and tell you something like "well, ambient humidity triggered the moisture sensor so we're going to pretend you chucked your phone in a lake and not help you", they'll give you someone else's refurbished warranty return and it'll break after three weeks and you'll be in Warranty Hell where you send back the replacement to get a new refurb, at your expense, over and over again.

Void that warranty. Void it with gusto. Void it in the first week of owning your phone and don't look back.

Re:XDA Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't complain. Do something about it. Root it and install Ice Cream Sandwich. Go to youtube and search for instructions on rooting your phone. QBKing77 does a ton of videos that walk you through doing it. Look up a rooting video FOR YOUR DEVICE.

If you've never done it before (I assume) you will need Odin for windows and the appropriate rooted kernel. Once you have installed a rooted kernel you can reboot into clockworkmod recovery and begin installing ROM images for your device.

I'm no guru, but I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 (Sprint's Epic Touch variant). I'm running an Ice Cream Sandwich based ROM called Blu Kuban. Great stuff. I can block ads in free software. I can overclock my CPU. I installed Beats Audio to optimize my sound playback. You'll even be able to flash more recent modem firmware to give you improved signal strength for improved connections. Change your user interface, themes, even boot animations.

Or you can wait for your provider to push ICS and you might get it around the same time everyone else is upgrading to Jelly Bean.

Your source for getting the most from your phone: http://www.xda-developers.com/

Clearly, this puts Android upgrading on par with Apple upgrading... something well within reach of the average consumer.

Re:XDA Developers

[Picass0]

>> "Void that warranty. Void it with gusto. Void it in the first week of owning your phone and don't look back."

Amen.

Re:XDA Developers

[Picass0]

Doing anything for the first time is scary.

This is XDA's forum for your phone:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1114

Here's a page of how to root your model:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1594650

Here's a youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUT5JcnJHgk

Go boldly.

Re:XDA Developers

[BitZtream]

Not sure why this is informative, of 'rooting your phone' is the answer, he might as well just get an iPhone and have everything you want.

Re:XDA Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped listening and had an aneurysm when you said "Beats Audio."

Re:XDA Developers

[AmiMoJo]

Changing the phone's software does not void the hardware warranty, in the same way as deleting Windows on your new laptop and installing Linux does not void the warranty. This has been shown to be true in court (in the UK).

Re:XDA Developers

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

And yet if a rom allows you overclock the device, perhaps voiding the warranty is not so unreasonable.

Re:XDA Developers

[AmiMoJo]

That is no different to over-inflating the tyres on your car, burning an imagine into your plasma/CRT display, plugging 12V power into your phone's headphone jack etc. Misuse of a product voids the warranty, but merely changing software that does not damage hardware doesn't count.

Re:XDA Developers

[geekoid]

Any one who calls android 'Market fragmentation' is pretty damn clueless.

It's an OS for Many competing platforms. If it was all ONE platform by ONE company and they had different OSs, then you have actual market fragmentation.

Stop comparing Android to iOS. Its hows you're complete ignorance of the market.

compare specific devices to Apple device if you must.

" Android will become a real OS. "
Are you 3 bits short of a byte? Of course it's a real OS. What it is not is a complete walled garden.

Re:XDA Developers

[yelvington]

Oh, I can beat that. Sort of.

I followed Tmobile's advice on Tmobile's website, followed the link to LG's website to upgrade the OS. The upgrade failed and locked the phone in "upgrade" mode. I managed to roll back and found myself having a phone with no baseband (software radio), so it's not a phone.

And I can no longer flash anything. At all. So basically I have an Android equivalent of an iPod.

Out of warranty. Insured, but I know what insurance means: "Give us another $130 and we'll find a reconditioned phone to ship to you."

I bought a $30 crap phone from Amazon and said to hell with it.

Re:XDA Developers

[geekoid]

since my phone gets the latest android push as soon as it's available, I'll pass, but thanks.

Re:XDA Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're such a goddamn iPhone fanboi, why are you bothering to read and comment on an article about Google's new stuff? Nothing Google is doing will affect you.

The same cannot be said for Apple, who is currently engaged in a war to keep competition off the shelves, to keep software from running on their hardware without their blessing, and to keep their ridiculously high profit margins nice and cozy off the back of their idiot customers. If Apple has their way the rest of us will be screwed; if Google has their way, well, you iDiots will still have your shit to play with.

Re:XDA Developers

[jmorris42]

> Don't complain. Do something about it.

Easy to say, not always easy to do.

> Root it and install Ice Cream Sandwich.

Got root but can't get fastboot to work. It launches some strange screen that requires a battery removal to get off of. And you DO NOT want to remove the battery on this phone, it takes days to recover original battery life as it recalibrates. There are no ready made images for my crappy 'lil phone (Blu Tango, 160M usable RAM for Linux) and without fastboot, a serial console to a bootloader (can't find a header) or something there is little chance I'll get anything newer on this phone. All I'd manage to do is brick the thing while blindly trying things. It shipped with 2.2 and I doubt 3.0+ would be worth trying so that only leaves 2.3 as an upgrade path anyway.

Re:XDA Developers

[AK Marc]

Installing another OS has been used to refuse service in the US. How do they know that it wasn't OS misuse that caused the RAM failure? Theoretically, in the US, unrelated changes won't void a warrranty (refusing to service a transmission in your car because you put on aftermarket speakers), but in practice, it's up to the owner to sue to get past this, and the courts side with the corporations (try the transmission with after market exhaust, and they'll argue the extra power and aggressive driving of those who do such mods voids the warranty, and they'll win often with that).

Re:XDA Developers

[Compaqt]

Overinflating a few psi shouldn't hurt, right? I normally overinflate 2 psi in dry weather to get a little better fuel efficiency.

Re:XDA Developers

[Vintermann]

> And I can no longer flash anything. At all.

Sounds very strange if the phone is still functional. One thing is if it refused to boot, but if it boots, you should be able to go into bootloader mode, and from there you should be able to flash radio and updates.

Re:XDA Developers

[Picass0]

Blu's Tango phone barely has the system specs to run Froyo. It sounds on par with the HTC Wildfire I had a while back. Blu phones are usually offered by the smaller cell providers and pay as you go plans. The upshot is the Tango is already pre-rooted. The downside is you probably won't find too many ROMs for that phone as the hardware is pretty limited.

Re:XDA Developers

[jmorris42]

Nope it wasn't prerooted. But it was a simple script kiddie friendly package to rage against the cage.. Problem is no fastboot so I can't safely experiment by booting from SD and avoid damaging the onboard flash.

And yes it is fairly spartan, but it was replacing a Moto flip phone with Java ME so it was a step up. :) eBay bargain, couldn't argue with new in the box and delivered for $70. I don't have a data plan and every time I enable WiFi it goes into a frenzy, even with sync and all location services disabled. The second the WiFi indicator goes on Google Play, Google Maps, Google Search, GMail, My Uploads and Bluetooth!!! launch. Soon after every other app seems like it need to phone home, including Facebook and I have never touched it since I have no facebook account. Thinking of using my root powers to simply remove Google Maps since it is useless without data. But it seems wired into a lot of other things so Android may not like it.

Re:XDA Developers

[bingoUV]

I have removed Google maps, default messaging application, and Motorola 's battery manager module from my Attic when it was at froyo(2.2), stock Tom. Didn't result in any nasty issues except I couldn't see what used the battery since last charge.

You could also install droidwall and take away network connectivity from these offending applications.

Confusion

[Hnice]

"It's designed to plug into the best speakers and TV in your home"

See, this is the problem right here: why on earth would I keep the best speakers in my home anywhere *near* my tv? Watching TV and listening to music are completely different activities. They don't even use the same chair.

I don't need to stream *everything* to one place, I need to stream *different* things to *different* places, and I'll gladly pay $250, but not $250 per room if I'm only going to use some of the functionality.

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

Fortunately, you can run a 10m HDMI cable from your Nexus Q-ball (near your speakers) to your TV, with absolutely no picture quality loss.

And if your house is so big you need more than 10m, I have less than no sympathy for your $250 money troubles, but you could investigate even longer HDMI cables. ;)

Frankly, I agree with you in the abstract, but I wouldn't think of spending $250 on an "appliance" to do this.
To me, the multiple use cases that may or may not overlap for different people* is a prime example of why you need to tackle problems like this with hardware-independent software that can be run on your HTPC, your music PC, and your phone (for working in the yard, say). There's certainly a hardware component at some level, but binding the software to a particular artefact in the appliance-ization fad of the 2000s is getting real old now.

*As in, seriously, different chairs? To me, that's what recliners are all about -- sit up to watch TV, lay back to listen to music. Different strokes for different folks, and software can deal with it if it's not tightly coupled to hardware.

Re:Confusion

[geekoid]

OMG, I don't use me device that way, it will FAIL!!!11!!11!!

Jeez, most people do have the speakers in the living room, right next to their TV.

I know, you're to precious for that, but most people have actual reality based standards.

Re:Confusion

[LateArthurDent]

See, this is the problem right here: why on earth would I keep the best speakers in my home anywhere *near* my tv? Watching TV and listening to music are completely different activities.

Right. And the best speakers are for movies, while music is listened to on the car speakers or on headphones while working out and at work. That said, when reading a book while sitting in the most comfortable chair, which is, of course, facing the TV, you might as well use those speakers to listen to music.

People have different use cases. I'm ok with the fact that you don't hook up your awesome speakers to your TV, but there are quite a few of us who do, and apparently we are the target audience.

I don't need to stream *everything* to one place, I need to stream *different* things to *different* places, and I'll gladly pay $250, but not $250 per room if I'm only going to use some of the functionality.

That's a pretty good point, though.

Re:Confusion

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry, but you are one of the rare breed of extreme hipster "audiophiles" that have gone completely crazy.

How the fuck is any of what you are saying rational and sane behavior?? Nobody does that!

But

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it blend?

That's what a Nexus-7 looks like?

[i41Overlord]

I prefer the Nexus 7's that look like Pris. But I guess we'll have to wait for the basic pleasure model.

Nexus 7 not all you want...

[amcdiarmid]

It does not include an external storage device as far as I can tell. Yes I, and some others, do travel to places without cloud access. OK: I want to buy hours of video to keep my kids quiet on a road trip. My cell phone service is lacking where I'm going. 16GB is not going to cut it. I need removable media...

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[DragonWriter]

It does not include an external storage device as far as I can tell.

It doesn't include a card reader, if that's what you mean.

Yes I, and some others, do travel to places without cloud access. OK: I want to buy hours of video to keep my kids quiet on a road trip.

Portable DVD players are much cheaper than tablets for this task.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[h4rr4r]

How is 16GB not going to cut it? Do you drive for more than 8 hours at a time?

If not, bring laptop, move videos over each night.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[h4rr4r]

Portable DVD players are also far worse for this.
You have to carry the DVDs, the kids will scratch them. You really can't take them out of the car, they don't offer games, on and on.

Portable DVD players are cheap and that is the only thing they have going for them.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[shutdown -p now]

What I didn't see anywhere is, does it have a micro-USB socket (I assume yes, to connect it to PC); and if so, does that support USB OTG? A lot of Android devices do that these days, and it effectively lets you use any USB stick as external storage - just perfect for those hours of video and such.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes I, and some others, do travel to places without cloud access. OK: I want to buy hours of video to keep my kids quiet on a road trip.

Portable DVD players are much cheaper than tablets for this task.

Keep in mind, if he needs the tablet anyway, you may have just recommended carrying two devices, two car chargers, and two mains chargers, plus the hassle of managing the charge states of two devices to ensure adequate charge at the end of the trip etc.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[R3d M3rcury]

I want to buy hours of video to keep my kids quiet on a road trip.

Have you considered drugs? They work pretty well, also.

While I agree with you regarding the external storage, I've found that animated kids shows tend to compress nicely. And it's not like most kids animation requires a high color gamut and 30 fps.

Just out of curiosity, the Nexus 7 has a USB port. Could you use this to attach a USB card reader? Would Android be able to deal with that?

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[farble1670]

16GB is not going to cut it. I need removable media...

you are a niche market. manufacturers have found that while it adds considerable cost to the manufacturer of the device, removable media is a rarely used feature. many modern android devices are taking the iOS approach and not including removable media. you'd have to expect something like this in what is essentially a budget tablet.

if you want all the bells and whistles, buy up.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[geekoid]

Sure, if you are pushing full length blu-ray movies.

However you can get movies and live well below 500MB and have it look fine.
And you could download them when you do have wifi along your trip.
Or put it on a portable USB drive.

And having a few hours of nothing for the kids to do but let their mind wonder isn't a bad thing, either.

For me, it's too small for what would be one of m,y primary uses. sheet music.

I guess it's the Asus infinity tf700 fro me.

Re:Nexus 7 not all you want...

[Krojack]

Lets hope they fixed the bad GPS and WiFi problems that plague the Transformer Prime.

Where is Angel Summoner?

[Sporkinum]

BMX Bandit did his part!
"And they have bikers up there, to speed them along the roof, also with Glasses. The bikers zoomed along the roof, doing flips, all streamed live. They rappelled down the side of the building to get onto the appropriate floor, then biked right up to the stage. Ludicrous. "Special delivery for Sergey.""

Re:Where is Angel Summoner?

[Professr3]

More importantly, where is King Radical?

The glass demo was amazing

[Flipao]

I see huge barriers towards the mass adoption of a device like that, but you have to apreciate them having the balls to pull off that stunt, genuinely glad I got to see it live.

As far as Android goes it's about time they put the time and effort to make the UI fast and smooth, I'm amazed it's taken them so long to realize how much a laggy UI can hurt the user experience.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[93 Escort Wagon]

I see huge barriers towards the mass adoption of a device like that, but you have to apreciate them having the balls to pull off that stunt, genuinely glad I got to see it live.

I'm genuinely curious - is there any independent video from outside the building? Something that shows the whole thing was indeed shot live, and happened as described (e.g. not someone else doing the skydiving)?

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[AmiMoJo]

I guess you have not tried a high end Android device. The GUI doesn't lag, it is fast and responsive. Occasionally on medium or low end devices there will be a little bit of stutter in the animation due to other tasks needing CPU time and triple buffering will help with that.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Flipao]

I see huge barriers towards the mass adoption of a device like that, but you have to apreciate them having the balls to pull off that stunt, genuinely glad I got to see it live.

I'm genuinely curious - is there any independent video from outside the building? Something that shows the whole thing was indeed shot live, and happened as described (e.g. not someone else doing the skydiving)?

It didn't really feel like a prerecorded video, Sergey Brin looked genuinely unnerved at times and kept reminding the audience that there was a good chance stuff could go wrong, and the way he fist pumped at the end you could tell he was genuinely relieved everything worked out.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Grizzley9]

There was quite a bit of back and forth between what looked like Glass viewpoint and 3rd part Go camera viewpoint. In fact, you can see that some of them have the Go-type cameras mounted on their helmets. I was actually a little surprised at how much was shot using non-Glass. So parts of it did look a bit staged or faked, even if they weren't. I was just wondering what kind of device they were streaming to from the plane, to the ground where there was no interruption (or were they cutting out to 3rd party when connection issues arose?)

Either way, glad it went smooth, but it did seem rather gimmicky for what is currently only a streaming POV camera. HUD potential like what was shown in the initial commercial was not displayed or shown.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, someone outside Moscone shot the blimp and some other stuff on their phone. I don'e have the URL but you can probably find it with a YouTube search.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Flipao]

I guess you have not tried a high end Android device. The GUI doesn't lag, it is fast and responsive. Occasionally on medium or low end devices there will be a little bit of stutter in the animation due to other tasks needing CPU time and triple buffering will help with that.

I have tried high end Android devices, I got a transformer tablet last year for example, which I ended up swapping for an iPad as it was not quite there yet. Anything using Gingerbread and below is laggy by default because there is not hardware acceleration for the UI. If you've never used an iPhone or a WebOS device you might not be aware of it, but Android, even on the highest end devices can be laggy as hell, in particular whenever the garbage collector kicks in.

When they introduced hardware acceleration in Honeycomb for tablets and then ICS for the rest of devices things improved a bit but it was not what you could call "buttery smooth", it was better by miles but still not that great compared to the experience you get in iOS for example, which is quite frankly, flawless. And this isn't me being an Apple apologist, if you go through my previous posts you'll see I'm a massive Android fanboy.

If you watch the keynote you'll see a demonstration on a Galaxy Nexus. which will show the difference better than I can explain :)

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

>> I guess you have not tried a high end Android device. The GUI doesn't lag, it is fast and responsive. Occasionally on medium or low end devices there will be a little bit of stutter in the animation due to other tasks needing CPU time and triple buffering will help with that.

It's you who hasn't tried other devices that are actually smooth (iOS or Windows Phone). I've tried Android on all the highest end devices and it is pretty bad on all of them. I work on UI design all day though, so I'm pretty sensitive to the latency.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't render the current amount of frames in a short amount of time - causing lag, you think rendering an EXTRA frame would reduce lag? LOL.. You are clueless.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[AmiMoJo]

Android has had hardware graphics acceleration from the start, and most certainly did have it in Gingerbread:

https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/2FXDCz8x93s

https://plus.google.com/105051985738280261832/posts/XAZ4CeVP6DC

On my Galaxy S if I turn all the animations on they seem pretty smooth, It runs 2.3, Gingerbread. My Galaxy S 3 is even better, as good as an iOS device 99% of the time.

Personally I can live with those 1% minor juddering on animations in exchange from true multitasking. That is what it boils down to - on iOS the animations have absolute priority and all apps must yield to them, on Android they don't freeze your entire system for the duration.

Re:The glass demo was amazing

[Wisp]

I saw them rappel down the building.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[squiggleslash]

Nexus 7 is shipping now. It's the Q that's shipping in July (together with the Jellybean updates for existing Google supported devices.)

16 cores?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's basically 16 cores, which makes everything, including games, incredibly smooth.'

No, it's not. A quad core cpu + a GPU is NOT 16 cores. Who is this guy, some clueless sales person?

--
Sundar Pichai is the utter asshole whose incompetence has resulted in the shutdown of Google's Atlanta office.

Re:16 cores?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it's not. A quad core cpu + a GPU is NOT 16 cores. Who is this guy, some clueless sales person?

Especially while you take into account the fact that Tegra 3 video driver is closed-source and will never be opensourced. No one will be able to use these 12 cores for general purpose computations.

Re:16 cores?

[scot4875]

If you're using a handheld device for general purpose computations that need 12 GPU cores, I'm sorry, but you're doing it wrong. The typical use cases are all handled by specialized hardware decoders, largely eliminating the need for those types of general purpose computations, and if you're just trying to squeeze some extra work out of your hardware, the GPU you'll get on a handheld is pathetic compared to even a $50 GPU in a desktop PC.

--Jeremy

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[squiggleslash]

Ignore the parent, I read a liveblog thing that said the Nexus 7 was out today, but play.google.com puts it at 2-3 weeks, same as the grandparent said.

Sorry.

Amusing

[whisper_jeff]

I find it amusing that the Nexus Q (you know, the incomplete device that requires hookup to another device to be of any value) costs more than the Nexus 7 (you know, the complete device that doesn't require anything else). Methinks one of these devices is going to do quite well in the market and the other will do less well...

Re:Amusing

[chill]

Market it to all the people bitching about how we now buy everything from China and have no manufacturing jobs left in the U.S.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-q-is-designed-and-manufactured-in-the-u-s-a/

Re:Amusing

[Anonymous Coward]

At that price, they're not likely to have those manufacturing jobs for long.

Re:Amusing

[Flipao]

Yeah it's far too expensive, and it won't even stream stuff stored on the devices connected to it, it has to be streamed from Google Play. My guess is that was due to licensing issues. I do like the idea behind it though, queueing up songs Jukebox style from the phone would be a pretty cool thing at parties, as long as you take away people's ability to jump the queue!

price and hardware

[dukeofurl01]

The real appeal of the Kindle Fire and the Nook are their inexpensiveness and availability without a contract.

The hardware is the only thing that counts, the operating system is irrelevant since it would be wiped out with a Cyanogen mod.

Not a lie to developers

[SuperKendall]

IOS has some features that are only availible with some phones

But not as far as developers are concerned. iOS6 features that developers can leverage are the same across all devices.

Girlie Pix

[Anonymous Coward]

[girlie pix]I'm surprised that was the choice. It seems like the kind of thing women developers might not appreciate

There's a difference between "not appreciating" something and living in denial of the astounding size of the girlie pix market and the effects it has had some computers. If you live in the real world, then it's important, whether you like it or not. It is smart for tech companies to acknowledge it.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[BitZtream]

Define completely artificial.

The microphone and noise cancelation (or lack there of) on phones previous to the 4s make using Siri on them a really shitty experience, its really not something you want to do as you'll just be frustrated as hell as it gets everything wrong/

The iPad 2 has NO noise cancelation, it would fucking suck for siri unless you're in a completely isolated room.

Just because you fail to understand technical reasons for doing things doesn't mean they don't exist.

Perhaps you should leave the software and hardware engineering to the engineers?

Forgot the best part...

[Picass0]

I forgot to add I was able to enable my phone as a hotspot, something Sprint has locked by default. They want you to pay extra for that.

Rooted iPhone is better.

[Picass0]

Apple and your service provider lock cool stuff on your iPhone too.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[spire3661]

Hmm good point. I forgot about the enhanced mic, which i know for sure is better then average because Siri over my car's bluetooth cant understand a damn thing i say. No need to be an asshole about it.

USB OTG?

[steveha]

It has a micro USB socket. Also GPS! See the specs in the Google Play store:

https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_16gb

It doesn't say there whether the USB is OTG or not, but I'll bet that it is. The latest Nexus phone has a micro USB with OTG. But, according to this video, flash drives don't just work out of the box. He speculates that you could root your device and get it to work or that perhaps an update will enable it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EFl8UEAMcw

I'm with you: I want to be able to plug in a USB flash drive, an SD card reader, etc. And I want this even more because the tablet doesn't have a socket for SD or Micro SD cards anywhere. (Not a deal-breaker for me... I already pre-ordered a 16 GB model.)

steveha

Re:USB OTG?

[mapsjanhere]

I was going to preorder it until I realized the lack of a slot on the play.google spec list - sorry, for me that IS the deal breaker. And I don't trust that they enable flash drives etc since they are subscribing to apple's "lets gouge them for extra memory" pricing strategy, plus the whole idea of having to jailbreak an "open source" device is just plain stupid.

Re:USB OTG?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I don't trust that they enable flash drives etc since they are subscribing to apple's "lets gouge them for extra memory" pricing strategy

I don't agree with your reasoning here. The Nexus 7 is expected to have an unlockable bootloader so you can root it easily; Google doesn't want the user under their collective thumb the way Apple does. But thin and light, inexpensive, mass-produced devices are not conveniently upgradable; I'll wager the storage chips are soldered to the board. So, yes, you pay more to get more storage, but it's hardly a conspiracy.

Re:USB OTG?

[mapsjanhere]

Not a conspiracy, but the 16 gb version cost $50 more than the 8 gb, with extra cost of less than $10 if that. So the lack of external memory is clearly an intentional money making "feature", and Asus seems unlikely to shoot themselves in the foot by making it easy to accept any.

Re:USB OTG?

[Krojack]

I'm kinda with you on this. I was considering buying one of these for my mom but 8gigs seems so little these days and $50 for an extra 8gigs is mind blowing. With the price of memory I would expect 32gigs for that extra $50 now days. They would have been smart to go that route. I'm 100% sure they would be selling FAR more $250 models and still making about the same amount of profit.

Thank god for Sergey Brin

[dumcob]

If Google is left to the likes of Steve Job wannbe's like Vic Gundotra we'd be sitting for hours listening to complete garbage. I was quite happy to see him getting kicked off stage to make room for Babak Parviz...a real engineer who builds shit.

Re:Thank god for Sergey Brin

[Grizzley9]

But no, this party invite software is the best thing since sliced bread! You can put pics together to remember the event! And your invitations are animated!!

Is it just me or do I see Google engineers all standing around at a party with their phones fighting over music playlists (Nexus Q) updating status' and combining pics of the event forgetting they are there to interact with other humans?

Re:Thank god for Sergey Brin

[gbjbaanb]

... forgetting they are there to interact with other humans?

like girls? c'mon, I think we both know the answer to your question.

Re:Thank god for Sergey Brin

[Anonymous Coward]

I think at this point most people know Vic Gundotra as the asshole who came up with the stupid Real Names (tm) policy. Why would you want such a clown on stage?

bluetooth

[Rogue Haggis Landing]

To me, the big thing that the Nexus has over the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet is bluetooth. A tablet on which you can use a BT keyboard to do some serious typing is a device that can replace most of what I do on my netbook -- web surfing, Netflix, email, and light word processing. There are already $200 tablets with BT, but they are things like the Ideapad A1 that don't approach the Nexus in terms of internals and screen quality. This is a big moment as far as I'm concerned. If the thing had a microSD card slot (an unfortunate omission) then I'd preorder one right now and put the netbook up on eBay.

And I know the Nook Color is a very well-built device that's been around for a while and that has bluetooth that you can use under CyanogenMod's build of Anrdoid. But the BT chip doesn't have an antenna, the internals aren't great (and were less good when it was released in October 2010 than the Nexus 7's are right now), and you're stuck on Gingerbread. The Nook Color is close; the Nexus 7 looks to be even closer.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[AmiMoJo]

As 4.1 is a point update most devices running 4.0 will get it as part of their regular updates now.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[AmiMoJo]

The more significant argument for developing on iOS is that Apple users spend more money on apps.

True, but that isn't much help if the market is already flooded with similar apps or if Apple devices to ban what you are trying to do for some arbitrary reason ("duplicated functionality" is a particular favourite).

Regarding the comments about Android's painfully slow (or nonexistent) upgrade schedule for existing devices

There is no such thing as "Androids upgrade schedule", it depends on the manufacturer. Google devices are always up to date. Samsung seem to be pretty good now. If you care about that kind of thing get a device from a manufacturer that is good with updates. In fact since only Apple can supply iOS devices you can only fairly compare them to Google, who are prompt with updates.

Device manufacturers are motivated to provide updates. Most people don't just randomly buy new phones, they get them with their contract. As such if you fail to provide timely updates during the phone's lifetime you won't get another sale 18 or 24 months later. Manufacturers realized this and the better ones now offer continual and prompt updates.

Hello Osborne Effect!

[janimal]

Now, why would I want ICS on my current or next Android phone?

Re:Hello Osborne Effect!

[k_187]

Because they won't have Jelly Bean ported to them yet!

Re:Hello Osborne Effect!

[DragonWriter]

Now, why would I want ICS on my current or next Android phone?

Why would Google want you to want ICS on your current or next Android phone when they are selling Jellybean devices and Jellybean includes enhancements designed to promote the use of Google services?

Re:Hello Osborne Effect!

[Anonymous Coward]

Google doesn't charge for Android. They want you to use the most recent version you can on your device, so the only reason you'd use ICS is if you can't get Jellybean on your device, as to why you'd want ICS, that is because it is a hell of a lot better than Gingerbread (and also better than Honeycomb).

One word

[Anonymous Coward]

CRAPOLICIOUS

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[k_187]

Yeah, that didn't happen on the shift from 2.0 to 2.1 to 2.2 to 2.3. There's not a lot of technical reasons that most android devices don't get updated, but most don't.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[AmiMoJo]

Your message is a bit unclear, but my first Android phone had updates from 1.5 through to 2.3 (HTC), and the second one went from 2.1 to 2.3 and can run an unofficial 4.0 (Samsung, the Nexus version went from 2.1 to 4.0 officially).

N7 on Google Play now, shipping mid-July

[DragonWriter]

Nexus 7 is shipping now.

No, its available to order now in the Google Play store, with units shipping in mid-July. See, to pick one of many sources, here.

It's the Q that's shipping in July (together with the Jellybean updates for existing Google supported devices.)

Those, too, but so is the Nexus 7.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

My Samsung galaxy s2 got a constant stream of updates in the 13 months since i bought it. It's at 4.03 now.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Belial6]

I just have to wonder why iPhones can't understand what is said when even the crappiest of Android phones have no problem doing speech to text. My suspicion is that the mic excuse is just that. An excuse. I always find it baffling that fans of Apple use the reasoning that Apple engineers are incompetent to explain why Apple's failings don't count.

I'm getting sick of this.

[Jane Q. Public]

The more Google "integrates" Android with its own services, the less it becomes an "open" system, and instead begins to resemble closed, proprietary systems like OS X and iOS.

Which means they are throwing away any competitive advantage it had over those same competitors. Even Google has been guilty of doing some pretty stupid things in recent years.

Palm did the same thing: when they changed their business model to go after smartphones, they changed everything to conform to the existing smartphone market... thereby giving away the massive competitive advantage Palm had over any other mobile operating system at the time: they tossed out handwriting recognition, screen real-estate, and popup keyboard with a shitty, tiny, manual keyboard that was a major pain in the ass to use. And old Palm apps would not work anymore.

Instead, they ended up competing with established smartphone manufacturers on their home turf, and didn't bring anything new to the table. They'd left it all at home.

And that's what Google (in a somewhat different way) is doing to Android. It's a mistake.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the first generation of android could handle Voice->Text translations in the exact manor Apple does theirs now.

Why is the Nexus 7 so... crippled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, no microSD slot and no USB host port [1]. It couldn't cost more than a few dollars to include those, and look what you get for your money.
Google's single biggest weapon against Apple is connectivity. Apple charge hundreds of dollars for a few measly GB of RAM, and you can buy a 64GB SD card for $70. And with USB host, you can carry other media on a USB hard disk. Or preview your photos on the tablet and save them to a USB drive while you're travelling, using a micro-SD card and adapter in your camera.
And the kids and music buffs can get more songs than they can possibly get on any iPad they can afford, for a fraction of the cost. Talk about hearts and minds!
Think, Google! Leverage your biggest advantages.

[1] Yeah, yeah, USB OTG can handle the USB host support, but most users don't know and/or can't be bothered.

Re:Why is the Nexus 7 so... crippled?

[frovingslosh]

Yea, I was waiting for the Nexus 7, but on seeing it I'll wait a while longer to get something worthwhile.

$50 more for the version with about $4 worth of extra flash, and no slot to allow the user to add an SD card. And the motive behind this seems to be to force users to use the "cloud". Store all of your music and video on the cloud, then see how long it takes the RIAA and/or the MPAA to find out what you have and start bringing lawsuits. But even if I would re-buy all of my music from Google Play, my ISP has started enforcing monthly usage caps. So I dare not listen to all of my music and watch all of the video that I want or I'll go over the caps and get hit with insanely high overage charges (the little old lady next door already got hit because she likes Netflix). And the finite storage with no expansion slot makes it unreasonable to store all of my music locally (same fault with Nexus Q, which can't store anything). The crippling is for Google's vision of wanting to have all of your information, but pretty much ignores the wants and needs of the customer.

I was pretty disappointed to learn a few days ago about the lack of a back facing camera also. Sure, I've heard the rationalizations, "everyone" already has a digital camera so you don't need it. But that ignores all of the cool things that you can do with a back facing camera on a smart tablet that you can't do with a dumb camera. Everything from Geo-tagging photos to pointing the camera at the night sky and having an astronomy app ID what you are seeing. Reading and looking up QR codes and scanning bar codes. Serving as a wifi enabled remote control camera. And plenty more, and things that just can't be done as well with the crappy front facing webcam.

If they want to claim they had to cut corners to get to the $199 price, I might believe that. But the $249 model has $4 more worth of parts. They could have easily added a basic rear facing camera (even without flash or optical zoom) and an SD slot, and this would have given the customer a decent Android experience. As it is, all I'm hoping for from the Nexus 7 tablet is that it will drive other prices down and set better expectations for screen resolution and CPU power. I had been waiting to buy this, but now that the details are out I wouldn't touch it.

Re:Why is the Nexus 7 so... crippled?

[nhaines]

Good news! There's no way an astronomy app would ever use the camera to identify what you're seeing.

They use GPS to determine your location and then the on-board accelerometers to determine device orientation, and then they show you what's on the other side of the phone based on that.

Re:Why is the Nexus 7 so... crippled?

[green1]

And this is why I have an Iconia. It is the only tablet available in my location with a full sized USB host port. it also happens to have a micro-sd slot and micro-HDMI output.
The USB port was an absolute requirement of mine, and the lack of a needed dongle to convert to full sized is even better.
As for the Nexus 7... they lost me at "7" I have absolutely zero interest in a tablet less than 10inches. my phone is over 4, I don't need anything that's only marginally bigger than the phone. I'd buy a 12" tablet if they made one. (my ideal tablet would be 8-1/2"x11", same as a standard sheet of paper)

Re:Why is the Nexus 7 so... crippled?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly my position. I have an Iconia A500, and I love it. But Google just don't seem to see where their big advantages lie, It's not just about the OS and the apps. It's about NOT being a walled garden like Apple. And connectivity is possibly the biggest part of that.

8.5"x11"? Then they'd have to make an A4 version for the rest of the world, me included. ;^)

Re:Why is the Nexus 7 so... expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

Add an extra $50 to get it all the way to Australia. No thanks.

Wrath of Heaven

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you'll catch the wrath of heaven, coz we all know that's where His i-ghness went after he ascended from terra frima.

Re:Wrath of Heaven

[Meski]

Was a lucky thing he didn't succumb to the Thetans.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[exomondo]

I don't know about that, Voice Control on the iphone 4 seems to work perfectly well for me, even going beyond dialing to using the music playing features.

It's the pixels, Stu

[frovingslosh]

they lost me at "7" I have absolutely zero interest in a tablet less than 10inches

Sounds like you have an obsessive need to think that you have bigger equipment. I'm not sure exactly what tablet you have, you failed to give a resolution, but a Google search on Iconia tablet leads me to believe that your screen resolution on that big equipment is 1280x800, exactly the same as the resolution of the 7" Nexus. Personally I don't need a big screen with widely spaced pixels, if I can get that same number of pixels in a 7 inch display I would rather have that. Of course, I would much rather have the iPad retina display, but without the Apple cost and without the Apple closed software. And I've been using a 7 inch Android tablet as an e-reader and find it a very nice size for a tablet. Not bulky but large enough for practical use (wish it had that 1280x800 display though).

Re:It's the pixels, Stu

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really not just the pixels. They could compress a full HD screen down to the size of a postage stamp, but they wouldn't get many buyers. That's why the iPhone, even with the retina display, is losing sales to Samsung and HTC. People want bigger screens, not just more pixels.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

But that doesn't affect app developers. They can write the same apps for the 3GS as the 4S

MHL

[Reed Solomon]

Does the Nexus 7 tablet support MHL cable output?

If it doesn't, great disappointment. I can live with the lack of SD slot, but no video output is a deal breaker.

And you obviously don't read The Onion.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you'd get the joke.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Vintermann]

"Latest major version"? OK, but what does it mean in practice?

I understand it means, among other things, that apps that are perfectly capable of running on earlier models (e.g. Siri) are deliberately held back in order to encourage buying a new model.

Still no native 64-bit SDK

[the_arrow]

After so many years and releases, there is still no native 64-bit native SDK. While it's still good to have 32-bit applications still for a few years, I don't think you can get a new system today that is not 64-bit capable, and doesn't have a 64-bit OS.

Smoothness

[johnw]

graphics will be triple-buffered for extra smoothness

Sounds like a coffee advertisement.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, Samsung is only good about updating flagship devices. The Samsung Stratosphere (sure, not high end specs, but good enough for ICS) which came out about the same time as ICS was announced, will never see an ICS upgrade.

Sadly, the only flagship QWERTY line is the Droid series, and even then, the Droid 3 won't get ICS even though it has nearly the same specs as the Droid 4.

I sure do miss the spirit of the OG Droid. It was the last QWERTY stock Android device.

Jesus wept

[tehcyder]

From TFS: "the graphics demo was reportedly impressive enough that the audience swooned."

Get. A. Life.

Stop crapwear from phoning home...

[Picass0]

What you can do for nuisance software that phones home is install Droidwall from the market. It's free. It will allow you to white list what software and system processes have network access. It requires root IIRC, but you have that covered.

Re:Jellybean looks very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

No need to be an asshole about it.

I agree.

Nexus 7 tablet

[makayasaul]

It's really nice..english will be supported with farsi...interesting features