Slashdot Mirror
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.
One might be thinking right now: MIDI? Wasn't that what my dad used to listen to music?
However MIDI has proven to be quite adept as a protocol and file format being now 30+ years old with only a few minor revisions. This year some major improvements are being announced with the release of MIDI HD Protocol, which will allow for more control and expressiveness as well as network connectivity and will
be MIDI 1.0 compatible. So in the future you may be able to use your Android phone's touch screen and accelerometer as a MIDI controller.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/05/sourceforge-grabs-gimp-for-windows-account-wraps-installer-in-bundle-pushing-adware/
SourceForge grabs GIMP for Windows’ account, wraps installer in bundle-pushing adware
Seriously, if you're doing office work, get a typewriter. Just because you have a pimp desktop doesn't mean it should handle everything.
Seriously, if you're doing gaming, get an XBone. Just because you have a pimp desktop doesn't mean it should handle everything.
Seriously, if you're listening to music, get an MP3 player. Just because you have a pimp phone doesn't mean it should handle everything.
Do you see how ridiculous this is?
There are serious benefits and advantages to convergence: using one device for many purposes. Unless there is some reason why the hardware is especially poorly suited to the task, there's no reason *not* to do it. Supporting needless device specialization plays straight into the hands of the consumer electronics companies, who want you to spend $300 on a music player, another $300 on a phone, another $300 on a tablet, another $300 on an eReader, another $300 on a device to visit facebook, another $300 on a device to visit Yahoo, another $300 on a device to play games, etc. etc. etc.
A few exceptions:
e-Ink: acknowledged that it's superior, mainly due to battery life and readability in a wide variety of light conditions, for long-term reading of plain text. However, many people read large amounts of text on LCDs/AMOLEDs with no adverse effects.
External hardware for music production: acknowledged that skilled musicians can usually do a better job using actual instruments (whether MIDI or just a microphone attached to a conventional instrument) at music production. However, these microphones and MIDI sources can, and should, be compatible with general-purpose computing devices, including smartphones.
Physical keyboards: if you're typing something longer than a Tweet, it's so much faster and more comfortable to use a physical keyboard, even if it's just a small one. However, Android's support for bluetooth keyboards is pretty good, so that's not to say you shouldn't support physical keyboards attached to devices that normally lack them.
Actually, the latter two of those aren't really *exceptions* at all. They exactly prove my point. A general purpose computing device plus external accessories can be much more broadly useful in a diverse array of situations compared to a general purpose computing device that only supports phone calls and web browsing.
So then we have the following categories of devices:
(1) General-purpose computing devices. SHOULD have very robust support for external accessories to make it useful in a wide variety of use cases.
(2) Specific computing devices that serve one or two purposes. These are only justifiable if the hardware feature(s) are so essential to the task being performed that it has to be built-into the device, and it doesn't make sense to make it an accessory to a general purpose computing device. For instance, it would be silly to attach an e-Ink external display to a smartphone.
(3) Accessories. These don't have any real "smarts" to themselves, but they connect to a general-purpose computing device that provides some kind of value-added processing or data storage or streaming, etc.
Reducing the utility of general-purpose computing devices and selling more specific computing devices that are unnecessarily specific is an anti-consumer tactic.
manually set app permissions please.
I think it's odd that the "flashlight" app wants to get into my contacts,and even stranger that Google lets them.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I think this has a very practical purpose: by allowing the charging circuit to operate at the same time as power flows out of the host, it will allow something like this:
USB Keyboard = K
USB Mouse = M
Powered USB Hub (connected to wall socket) = H
MHL adapter (USB-C to HDMI with a female USB-C socket for accepting peripherals and power) = P
Smartphone = S
K and M --> H --> P --> S
USB hub provides power to K and M and provides data and charging to S
Not sure if this is how it will actually work, but they definitely needed to do something to enable a use case like this, and it sounds like it might just do it.
Or how about Bluetooth audio that actually *works*? https://code.google.com/p/andr...
The thing to keep in mind is that Google doesn't have a one-track mind. They don't have 1 developer who can only perform feature development work on one thing at a time. MIDI support has very likely been a side project brewing for a number of years that finally now is stable enough to release. Meanwhile, they have lots of other people who have little to no clue what that guy was doing with MIDI because they spend a lot of their time looking into problems similar to the ones you've identified. But obviously those people aren't done with their work because the feature isn't in production yet.
I consider it very unlikely that some other highly useful feature would have been worked on instead, had they opted not to add MIDI support. I'm not sure why they chose to feature it so prominently in TFS or to even mention something like that at Google I/O, but my guess is that it was a 20% project for someone who has a passion for MIDI, so it's not like Google could tell them, "stop doing this useful contribution to the Android open source project in your spare time". 20% time at Google is exactly for this type of thing.
Rumor has it that the reason we have USB C is because of Apple.
Rumors are probably wrong. If Apple wanted to make their connector standard, they would have given their dock and lightning connectors. Instead, they compete against a standard connector again.