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Google's Nexus 4, 7, 10 Strategy: Openness At All Costs
MrSeb writes "There have been plenty of rumors about how the Nexus program was going to grow and change with this year's announcement. Now that we have all the details, it looks like almost none of them were right. There is no Nexus certification program, and the dream of multiple Nexus phones seems well and truly dead. What we do have is a range of device sizes with the Nexus 4, Nexus 7, and Nexus 10. However, the Nexus program has been altered in one important way: we know what Nexus means now. There can no longer be any doubt: a Nexus device is about openness first and foremost. Last year the technology sphere was busily discussing whether or not the Verizon Galaxy Nexus was a 'true' Nexus device. This year we have an answer: a Nexus controlled by a carrier is no Nexus. Rather than get in bed with Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T to produce an LTE version of the Nexus 4, we have HSPA+ only. Even the new Nexus 7 with mobile data is limited to this enhanced 3G standard. And then there's the pricing: The super high-resolution (2560×1600) Nexus 10 tablet starts at just $399; The Nexus 7 is dropping in price to $199 for a 16GB tablet; The Nexus 4 with 16GB of storage is going to sell for $349, exactly the same as the old Galaxy Nexus was until yesterday. To put this into perspective, the LG Optimus G, which the Nexus 4 is based on, sells for $550 without subsidy. Google is pushing the idea of openness with the Nexus devices, but it's not an entirely altruistic endeavor. By giving us cheap and open devices, Google is making sure it's in control — not the carriers. That's better for the consumers, but it's also better for Google."
I presume "open" refers to the software stack, not the hardware.
There Can Be Only One...
manufacturers. both neglect their users. what google is doing is providing an open device where the user is in control and no longer bound by limitations of carriers and manufacturers.
In some countries and on some carriers one of the promises of the Nexus brand was broken: we didn't get timely OS updates.
I felt this was a breach of trust - the sort of thing we expect from our carriers and some manufacturers - and it meant I couldn't recommend the Galaxy Nexus to others.
Fortunately, it seems that what happened with the Galaxy Nexus was not acceptable to Google either, and I'm really impressed with the lengths they are going to - bypassing the carriers completely in my country - to set things right.
They will probably only sell a tiny number of the new Nexus w/o carrier support but then again, the carriers' were never going to like or promote a phone that came unlocked and with broad carrier support - so they did little to promote the G'Nex anyway.
So, I'm disappointed that the new Nexus doesn't have LTE, but there is some sense in it (see the linked below for a good explanation) and I believe that the Nexus is once again worth recommending to friends*.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3569688/why-nexus-4-does-not-have-4g-lte
(*assuming the reviews don't uncover lots of bugs or unexpected shortcomings.)
Worst case scenario, Google gets all the power. Is that better or worse than the phone companies having full control?
Ideally we'd have good healthy competition, but I'll take Google over AT&T any day.
No, you only need to understand this is at least partially wrong. The carriers *want* you to buy a phone today, and seemingly are happy for it to arrive tommorow, and have problems from the following day. This equates to the idea of contracts where end users can't wait to get a new phone, rinse - repeat. In this regard, the carriers are not your friends, and don't want to be, They only want you to pay them the money, and get a new contract.
Google Nexus devices are likely to get updates and changes, irrespective of the evil shit carriers pull - or lack of effort on their part in none evil cases. I still have Samsung devices that T Mobile either won't update, or the updates come months and months late. Or you simply get told they can't be bothered to work on the update, get a new handset.
So - for now - I'm glad Google are attacking this problem. The carriers need the lesson.
We`re all equal
We used to ramble about Windows, and now Android acts like the old windows system, the swiss cheese of security.
Apart from its not true. Security is a issue on EVERY platform, and Google have routinely stepped up security while allowing the...and I cannot empathise this enough the *option* of openness. Security has just become one of those words that Apple shareholders user to pretend that a closed ecosystem is somehow better...Its not it just means the company owns the device (and the content) not you. It means you get rubbish maps!
All Nexus devices can also be unlocked and rooted in a straightforward process. That they don't come in this way is a protection for the average Joe who doesn't know what "rooting" even means and who'd just be vulnerable to a malicious app trying to elevate its own permissions.
Nexus devices are still consumer devices.
If it was all about openness, then why no micro sd slot
What has openness got to do with a micro sd slot!? I in no way defend not having one. I think that cripples the devices. Seriously you could have talked about the APACHE license, or binary drivers. Merging the Linux kernel, opening up the 1st Party proprietary programs on Android, or highlight the GPL programs available on android! [use http://f-droid.org/ ]Not having a microsd slot is about creating artificial different price points for your device. The truth is when compared to the competition it is the most open.
In the US, carriers have full control over which devices they allow on their networks, and even if they didn't, the lack of a single wireless standard means that effectively you are locked in anyway. We need uniform wireless standards and a requirement to let people move freely between carriers.
1. When you buy a Galaxy Nexus or Nexus 4 from the play store it comes with an unlocked bootloader.
2. You can restore factory images quite easily, google provides all of them.
3. You are correct about no root access out of the box, you need to do that yourself.
the person who even SUGGESTED that backspace/delete and enter/return should be ANYWHERE NEAR EACH OTHER on a touch screen should be shot. just summarily shot.
and there would be much rejoicing; there really would.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
HSPA+ is just as 4G as LTE is, according to Wikipedia (which is to say, it was decided that while they weren't technically 4G they advanced 3G enough to be called 4G).
What advantages does LTE have over HSPA+ that would make the latter "lame" by comparison?
Oh come on, 16GB should be enough for anybody.
Do you actually carry multiple batteries?
Serious question. I hear people gripe about this all the time, but I don't know ANYONE who actually carries extra batteries. I only hear of people either carrying a charging cable or asking to borrow one.
No, but I want to replace the small battery with a large on. I used my Nexus Galaxy with the standard battery for 2 months before replacing it with battery that would last 2 days, which is what I need.
Linux O Muerte!
Several reasons:
1) It's supposed to guide carriers/mfgs away from partitioning the memory on their phones (apps/music/etc). The Nexus standard is for a single volume that the user can fill with whatever they like. Remember, the Nexus line is a "do as I do" standard.
2) Mixing EXT and FAT is silly, since the benefits of EXT are lost when users shift their stuff to the FAT SD card. Since most people think FAT is what you are when you're overweight, and EXT is a trim level on a Chevy truck, they don't realize what they're giving up (like filesystem security) by moving apps and data to their SD card.
3) Forcing MTP mode means the phone can keep it's entire filesystem mounted without having to hand it over to whatever computer it's plugged in to, as well as keeping control (permissions) over the actual data on/written to the disk. It also means that when you trip and yank the USB cable out in the middle of copying files over, you haven't corrupted your data.
4) It saves on hardware (cost, thickness, etc)
5) Fewer interoperability headaches. Not all SD cards are created equal, and someone trying to run a read/write intensive app off their slow-as-dirt cheap SD may blame poor performance on "my piece of shit phone"
When I first got my Galaxy Nexus, I too was concerned about the storage limitations. After all, I wanted to put my entire music library on my phone... never mind that my entire library is literally weeks of playtime, or that there are apps perfectly capable of streaming my own media off a home server for me on demand (with the caveat/concession that I am normally away from WiFi for no more than 30 minutes), or that if I *really* wanted to go gung-ho with music for some reason I had a perfectly capable MP3 player that was even better than my phone (battery life, etc) for that purpose. Nope, I wanted to put the whole thing on my phone because it would make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. The reality is that I don't need to do that, I just wanted to. Once I shifted my expectations to match my reality, it ceased to bother me.
I compare the lack of an SD card to the "range anxiety" you see in EV cars. It bothers us that it's not available even though the majority of trips are well within an EV's range. Once you prove to yourself that you don't really need it (and can work around it in case you do), it's not such a big deal.
> What has openness got to do with a micro sd slot!?
Internal SPI expansion bus that's trivially easy to program directly with minimal ceremony?
As an embedded hardware guy, I totally get warm fuzzies from SPI. It's just about the easiest low-ceremony bus on planet earth to use, and in a pinch you can even bitbang it with minimal effort. I know there's no room inside a microSD card for useful hardware thicker than a silicon wafer, but you could always use a fake microSD card connected to a ribbon cable to feed hardware built into a thicker replacement back.
Your choices are actually:
Apple's hardware + Apple's OS + Apple approved software
or
LG's hardware + Whatever ROM you like + Whatever apps you like
I think the screen size is a reflection of the market. People are migrating towards phones with larger screens. For example, I'm guess that the Samsung S2 and S3 owe their success, at least in part to their large crisp screens. I'm not saying that 4.7" hasn't gone a little too far for the average user, but I bet that screen looks a lot prettier than the competition.
Personally, I have huge hands, so my next phone will be humongous. I avoid texting because I can't help but hit like 5 characters at once. I'm even considering the monstrously large Note 2.
Forcing MTP mode means the phone can keep it's entire filesystem mounted without having to hand it over to whatever computer it's plugged in to, as well as keeping control (permissions) over the actual data on/written to the disk. It also means that when you trip and yank the USB cable out in the middle of copying files over, you haven't corrupted your data.
Of course the big drawback is that MTP was originally a Windows-only protocol that was only later standardized by the USB group and support is very flaky on any Linux-based OS I've used. You're no longer guaranteed that you can plug the device in to any host and have it recognized.
You also can't edit files directly using MTP; you must edit it locally then re-upload in its entirety back to the device.
I had a big post but my browser crashed. So I'll post an abbreviated version:
First: MTP on the system partition is a good thing; the partitioning was stupid. However, that is totally orthogonal to having an SD Card with mass storage.
For me, the big thing is that I personally use my phone as a thumb drive that doesn't take up space in my pocket and can view the files on it. SD Card means easily upgraded storage for cheap. Mass storage means not MTP idiosyncrasies like dropping a file it doesn't like or a .svn directory, etc. Support for MTP is also pretty spotty and generally a pain vs mass storage. MTP costs a lot in terms of flexibility and compatibility.
But this:
> If I *really* wanted to go gung-ho with music for some reason I had a perfectly capable MP3 player that was even better than my phone (battery life, etc) for that purpose
Yeah, well I don't. I don't and I don't want to have to buy one and I don't want to have to carry one and charge one and sync one.
> Once I shifted my expectations to match my reality, it ceased to bother me.
This is a total non-point. Why not shift your expectations to be okay with a cheap 2GB music player and a feature phone with a EDGE connection? Or to a string and a carrier pigeon? An SD slot isn't just possible, but present on many devices. Many cheaper devices, even. The fact that people would need to adjust their expectations when their expectations for a several-hundred dollar device are so easy and regularly met elsewhere is ridiculous. It might be a trade-off they are will to make, or a deal breaker that sends them elsewhere, but to pretend that it's their fault for wanting a fairly ubiquitous feature? Outrageous.
Whooosh.
Right now my options are:
1. Give complete control to Apple, who are already abusive assholes.
2. Give complete control to Microsoft, who are already abusive assholes.
3. Give complete control to the phone company, who are already abusive assholes.
4. Give very little control to Google, but maybe one day they'll start to be abusive.
5. Do without a phone.
From where I'm sitting, #4 looks like the least bad.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
You can't have that reliably in any phone connecting anywhere no matter the technology. The carries do not have the capacity to give you speeds in that level, you will end with a tenth of that in average if you are lucky.
Rubbish.
For the past 3 months my internet has come from wireless LTE with 100MBit down, 10MBit up at consistent speeds that put my previous cable connection to shame.
All this in a European capital with dense population and one of the highest rates of smartphones per inhabitant in the world. All this at 49 EUR a month with no data limit. And no restriction whatsoever; no URLs blocked, no services disallowed, streaming via p2p, VPN and ssh tunnels.