Android M To Embrace USB Type-C and MIDI

jones_supa writes: USB Type-C connection is showing up in more and more devices, and Google is rolling support for the interface in its Android M operating system. The most significant additions relate to the USB Power Delivery spec. Charging will now work in both directions. That effectively means that Type-C devices can be used as external batteries for other devices. Android M is also finally introducing a feature that musicmakers have been long asking for: MIDI support. This builds on some of the audio features Google introduced in Android 5, including reduction in latency, multichannel audio stream mixing, and support for USB microphones, amplifiers, speakers, and other accessories. As others have written, music and media creation apps are much more prevalent in iOS than they are in Android, and Google hopes turning that around.

Comments

Re:The future of MIDI

[Voyager529]

so how about we knock off this feature creep shit already in favor of real battery life.

With that mentality, we'd all be using phones with low-rez, monochrome screens, non-touch (button) interfaces and GPRS data capability. Hell, yeah -- I want my Nokia 8290 back! Best phone ever!

No, with that mentality, we'd have things like

• Phones that aren't anorexic, instead being willing to be a bit thicker and sport two days' worth of battery life.
• Phones with physical keyboards. Nothing wrong with Swype or Swiftkey, but if there's a market for pseudo surround sound in a phone, you can't tell me that having a keyboard like the Blackberry Curve or HTC Rhodium doesn't have a maket.
• Phones with intentionally lower DPI, for people with less-than-perfect eyesight that still want to use their phone.
• Phones with a better ability to leverage integrated storage
• Phones with screens designed to be user-replaceable

And that's just off the top of my head of hardware-based changes that end users would be much more likely to want, and would not negatively impact battery life.