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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."
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.
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.
Oh come on, 16GB should be enough for anybody.
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.
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 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.