Android users have hyped Flash for months... everyone's been waiting for Froyo so that they could get their hands on that beautiful Flash support (I like Flash in that it enables me to view content that I otherwise wouldn't be able to view - usually it wass the videos embedded in Engadget posts that pissed me off when I couldn't view them due to not having Flash).
Now I've gone through the trouble of switching out my Milestone for a Desire so that I could get Froyo a week early (seriously... official Froyo came out like a week after I got my Desire with the intention of running a Froyo custom ROM on it), and what do the iPhoners do?
iPhoner 1: "Hey dude, we need Flash!" iPhoner 2: "Uuuuhhhh... Steve Jobs hates it, but who cares - I'll port it!" *3 minutes later* iPhoner 2: "Here you go, Flash for your jailbroken iPhone!"
Now, while I applaud the devs in the iPhone community for getting this done, I'm a bit dismayed to realize that for some reason, Android devs weren't able to - and on the system that's supposedly more open.
What gives, Android fans? Nobody with decent skills using Android? Or just lazy?:P
PS: I don't know the first thing about programming (2-player Battleship in C++ in a DOS box is the extent of my programming ability), so I might just be overlooking some little fact that would make the same thing on Android much more difficult;)
"Case in point. Open/replaceable bootloader == no problems."
Then why are the latest Desires currently unrootable? Shouldn't their bootloaders allow anything to be loaded? An unencrypted bootloader is easier to crack/unlock, but difficult nonetheless, and it doesn't mean that you can just load anything you want on the phone.
"I haven't. My next phone will be a HTC Vision if it's decent enough and drops below A$600 (quite possible if the AUD-GBP rate doesn't change 1:0.57) due mainly to the hardware KB which looks to be the same KB as the old HTC Dream (which was a fantastic KB). But this will depend on modability as I dont like HTC Sense."
Exactly what I meant... you're planning on making the switch from Moto to HTC too;). Didn't mean to imply that you'd already switched:D. I was in the same boat though - don't like Sense, so I got the Desire because AdamG on XDA-Developers maintains a great ROM (OpenDesire) that's compiled directly from Android source, so it's basically a completely stock Android.:)
Hopefully someone will do the same for the Vision, because that looks like a pretty cool handset.
"It's only a matter of time before efuse is broken however."
I wouldn't bet on it. And it's not the eFuse we need to worry about, in case you're talking about Moto's new offerings - bypassing the signature check in the bootloader would be more than enough, I suppose.
I'm just trying to say: The grass is greener on the other (HTC) side, but not by that much:p. Read/Write access to/system/ as we have it on the Milestone is a good thing, and is currently still missing from HTC Desire root, and I'm guessing the Vision will use the same kind of protection.
You should read up on rooting current HTC phones. Moto => HTC is currently very much an "Out of the fire, back into the frying pan" kind of move, because HTC seems to be locking their handsets down prety strongly too. No encrypted bootloaders, but people losing root (permanently, as it seems) when upgrading to the latest official updates, and the Desire hasn't even been fully rooted yet (no read/write access to/system/).
I just made exactly the same switch (Moto Milestone => HTC Desire), and it seems that even though Moto was horrible in terms of being locked down, HTC doesn't seem to be that much better, and the general tone/trend seems to be that HTC phones are getting harder to hack/open up.
Of course, full custom ROMs are available, and read/write access to system is possible via ADB in Recovery (which is, unlike on the Milestone, permanently flashable, so no need to run an update.zip from the SD-Card every time you need a Recovery), so much better already. I'm just a little apprehensive about future phones - HTC seems to be closing root-holes at a very rapid pace.
Which manufacturers aren't doing it? The only phone that's rootable without finding some sort of vulnerability to exploit is still the Nexus One afaik...
The fact that Moto is the only manufacturer that's succeeded in locking the bootloader down so far that nobody's been able to crack it doesn't mean that others haven't tried. What we need is a completely user accessible operating system, similar to the PC. Something like OpenMoko or the N900, but good:p
Unfortunately, most consumers prefer to be spoonfed whatever junk their carrier has to offer, and wouldn't dream of rooting or applying a custom ROM.
Android is only open in that anyone can use it for their hardware. However, 99% of the hardware that's meant to run with Android is locked down. A pity, really.
Using WiFi, I presume. I have it at home, I have it at work, I have it at the university, I have it at the library... the rest (basically what's left over for 3G) is just E-mail and light browsing (forums/Slashdot/blogs).
Lossless? We're talking about video here, not audio... even Blu-Ray is lossy.
Of course, that would be ideal... but when you've got a fully catalogued and sorted collection filled with DivX, why would you want to re-rip everything? The quality of the original DVDs hasn't gotten any better, and the ONLY thing that won't play the damned things natively is my Android phone...
Why would I redownload/reencode all the stuff I already have?
Sure, I wouldn't mind getting new stuff in H264 mp4/m4v right away, but I've got a lot of stuff I encoded or downloaded a long time ago, and redownloading and/or reencoding all of it would be pretty much out of the question...
Android's support of H.264 is surprisingly good. As a content provider, it's hard to go wrong for any iPhone or Android phone with H.264.
Consumers, on the other hand, get the short end of the stick... those hundreds of gigs of DivX everyone has laying around are useless on many Android devices, and even software-based decoder-players aren't enough because they need max CPU permanently, draining the battery nearly as fast as Flash on an iPhone (at least according to Steve Jobs:p)...
Actually, I think he's just a little confused - my Thinkpad screens hardly ever need to be cleaned. The glossy screens on my girlfriend's gear, on the other hand... just look at the screen funny and you'll want to break out a mega pack of Windex and a gallon of turpentine. Keeping glossy LCDs clean is absolute hell, because you can see EVERY fingerprint and EVERY speck of dust...
Well, that's the Android hardware fragmentation problem rearing its ugly head once again. They really need to hurry up and implement some common APIs for accessing audio hardware properly...
Sipdroid is, obviously, unbeatable, but doesn't offer Skype per se (although you could theoretically connect the voice portion via PBXes.org, IIRC) - for many people it's not about calling phones via SkypeOut, but rather keeping in touch with their many Skype contacts via both IM and voice.
I have to disagree with the call quality problems on Nimbuzz though - I use it as my day-to-day Skype app, and the calls are always crystal clear. The only problem I have is getting it connected in the first place.
As for battery drain? Yes, constant connection to the servers will drain the battery, especially if you're on 3G in an area with less-than-stellar reception, but no more so than any other connection - I haven't seen it use excessive amounts of power in any other way (CPU, sensor use etc.).
But yah... if you're looking for a landline replacement and/or a way to make cheap calls, Sipdroid with the SIP provider of your choice is definitely the way to go. But it's not Skype:D
Then I should probably remind you that Nimbuzz has its own set of problems. They are, however, not as bad as Fring's, IMO.
The problem with Nimbuzz is that it sometimes has problems connecting to certain services. I use ICQ, MSN (Windows Live), Google Talk and Skype, and all of them have had connection problems in Nimbuzz at some time or other. The problem seems completely random, and usually goes away by itself after an hour or two... but you COULD find yourself without connectivity for a while if you use Nimbuzz as your sole IM app.
That said, the Skype voice quality is still the best I've heard on Android, and rivals that of Skype on the desktop with decent microphones and headphones.
Now if they'd just address the connectivity issues (not to mention the application itself just dying in the background if Android decides it's low on memory - but this happens with all Android IM apps other than IM+, which restarts itself when it's kicked but doesn't support Skype at all), we'd have a full-featured Android chat client that does crystal-clear Skype VoIP.:P
Same here, although I'm basing this on my past experiences with Fring on Windows Mobile and Android - not sure what the iPhone version is like.
They were pretty awful...
1. Horrible interface - incredibly ugly, unintuitive, and not very consistent 2. Not very reliable in either the sense of program stability or the ability to connect consistently 3. Horrible, horrible horrible horrible (!!!!!) Skype VoIP quality. Skype calls through Fring on Android, for instance, sound far worse than with, say, Nimbuzz. While Nimbuzz Skype calls are better than GSM in terms of clarity and on par in terms of latency, Fring sounds scratchy, overly compressed and introduces pretty bad latencies.
I can definitely see where Skype's coming from, and would agree: Fring has been damaging Skype's image.
That said, I don't like what Skype's been doing lately either - exclusive partnerships with Verizon, no Android app whatsoever...
Hmmm, I'm guessing that's irrelevant, since it's probably just the same signal attenuation that's present on every cellphone.
The issue on the iPhone4 is the ability to detune the antennas just by touching both the GSM/3G antenna and the WiFi antenna at the same time with a sweaty finger - something that could have been so easily prevented with a dielectric coating. That's the reason people should be pissed, but a lot of people seem to be confused about what's really the problem.
Seen on its own, yes, this is a good move. However, it's being marketed as a fix for the issues people have been having with the iPsone 4 - as I understand it, it's about the calls that are dropping when you touch the spot between the two antennas...
Also, people seem to be a little confused - it's not the regular attenuation due to human flesh being in the way of the antenna that everyone's griping about, but rather the ADDITIONAL 20dB signal drop that occurs when you touch the antennas. No software will be able to change the fact that the antennas are being detuned due to the user bridging the cell antenna with the 2.4GHz antenna...
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Ah, good to know. Guess they needed pros to do the hard work too :D
Which is why I bought a Desire (for running a custom Froyo ROM) about a week before Froyo was officially released for it.
Flash Lite is, however, not Flash.
It's an optional download. AFAIK just the plugin framework was added in the browser with Froyo...
Android users have hyped Flash for months... everyone's been waiting for Froyo so that they could get their hands on that beautiful Flash support (I like Flash in that it enables me to view content that I otherwise wouldn't be able to view - usually it wass the videos embedded in Engadget posts that pissed me off when I couldn't view them due to not having Flash).
Now I've gone through the trouble of switching out my Milestone for a Desire so that I could get Froyo a week early (seriously... official Froyo came out like a week after I got my Desire with the intention of running a Froyo custom ROM on it), and what do the iPhoners do?
iPhoner 1: "Hey dude, we need Flash!"
iPhoner 2: "Uuuuhhhh... Steve Jobs hates it, but who cares - I'll port it!"
*3 minutes later*
iPhoner 2: "Here you go, Flash for your jailbroken iPhone!"
Now, while I applaud the devs in the iPhone community for getting this done, I'm a bit dismayed to realize that for some reason, Android devs weren't able to - and on the system that's supposedly more open.
What gives, Android fans? Nobody with decent skills using Android? Or just lazy? :P
PS: I don't know the first thing about programming (2-player Battleship in C++ in a DOS box is the extent of my programming ability), so I might just be overlooking some little fact that would make the same thing on Android much more difficult ;)
"Case in point. Open/replaceable bootloader == no problems."
Then why are the latest Desires currently unrootable? Shouldn't their bootloaders allow anything to be loaded? An unencrypted bootloader is easier to crack/unlock, but difficult nonetheless, and it doesn't mean that you can just load anything you want on the phone.
"I haven't. My next phone will be a HTC Vision if it's decent enough and drops below A$600 (quite possible if the AUD-GBP rate doesn't change 1:0.57) due mainly to the hardware KB which looks to be the same KB as the old HTC Dream (which was a fantastic KB). But this will depend on modability as I dont like HTC Sense."
Exactly what I meant... you're planning on making the switch from Moto to HTC too ;). Didn't mean to imply that you'd already switched :D. I was in the same boat though - don't like Sense, so I got the Desire because AdamG on XDA-Developers maintains a great ROM (OpenDesire) that's compiled directly from Android source, so it's basically a completely stock Android. :)
Hopefully someone will do the same for the Vision, because that looks like a pretty cool handset.
"It's only a matter of time before efuse is broken however."
I wouldn't bet on it. And it's not the eFuse we need to worry about, in case you're talking about Moto's new offerings - bypassing the signature check in the bootloader would be more than enough, I suppose.
I'm just trying to say: The grass is greener on the other (HTC) side, but not by that much :p. Read/Write access to /system/ as we have it on the Milestone is a good thing, and is currently still missing from HTC Desire root, and I'm guessing the Vision will use the same kind of protection.
You should read up on rooting current HTC phones. Moto => HTC is currently very much an "Out of the fire, back into the frying pan" kind of move, because HTC seems to be locking their handsets down prety strongly too. No encrypted bootloaders, but people losing root (permanently, as it seems) when upgrading to the latest official updates, and the Desire hasn't even been fully rooted yet (no read/write access to /system/).
I just made exactly the same switch (Moto Milestone => HTC Desire), and it seems that even though Moto was horrible in terms of being locked down, HTC doesn't seem to be that much better, and the general tone/trend seems to be that HTC phones are getting harder to hack/open up.
Of course, full custom ROMs are available, and read/write access to system is possible via ADB in Recovery (which is, unlike on the Milestone, permanently flashable, so no need to run an update.zip from the SD-Card every time you need a Recovery), so much better already. I'm just a little apprehensive about future phones - HTC seems to be closing root-holes at a very rapid pace.
Which manufacturers aren't doing it? The only phone that's rootable without finding some sort of vulnerability to exploit is still the Nexus One afaik ...
The fact that Moto is the only manufacturer that's succeeded in locking the bootloader down so far that nobody's been able to crack it doesn't mean that others haven't tried. What we need is a completely user accessible operating system, similar to the PC. Something like OpenMoko or the N900, but good :p
Unfortunately, most consumers prefer to be spoonfed whatever junk their carrier has to offer, and wouldn't dream of rooting or applying a custom ROM.
Android is only open in that anyone can use it for their hardware. However, 99% of the hardware that's meant to run with Android is locked down. A pity, really.
That's troubling on a great deal of levels. Android seems to be going the same way...
Using WiFi, I presume. I have it at home, I have it at work, I have it at the university, I have it at the library... the rest (basically what's left over for 3G) is just E-mail and light browsing (forums/Slashdot/blogs).
Rockplayer is a godsend, but unfortunately drains the battery in the blink of an eye :(
Lossless? We're talking about video here, not audio... even Blu-Ray is lossy.
Of course, that would be ideal... but when you've got a fully catalogued and sorted collection filled with DivX, why would you want to re-rip everything? The quality of the original DVDs hasn't gotten any better, and the ONLY thing that won't play the damned things natively is my Android phone...
Why would I redownload/reencode all the stuff I already have?
Sure, I wouldn't mind getting new stuff in H264 mp4/m4v right away, but I've got a lot of stuff I encoded or downloaded a long time ago, and redownloading and/or reencoding all of it would be pretty much out of the question...
Android's support of H.264 is surprisingly good. As a content provider, it's hard to go wrong for any iPhone or Android phone with H.264.
Consumers, on the other hand, get the short end of the stick... those hundreds of gigs of DivX everyone has laying around are useless on many Android devices, and even software-based decoder-players aren't enough because they need max CPU permanently, draining the battery nearly as fast as Flash on an iPhone (at least according to Steve Jobs :p)...
Actually, I think he's just a little confused - my Thinkpad screens hardly ever need to be cleaned. The glossy screens on my girlfriend's gear, on the other hand... just look at the screen funny and you'll want to break out a mega pack of Windex and a gallon of turpentine. Keeping glossy LCDs clean is absolute hell, because you can see EVERY fingerprint and EVERY speck of dust...
The "Score:4, Interesting" mod scares me a little, because I'm not entirely sure whether or not it's really a joke. :/
Alright, that one I'll let slide ;)
And even the reference platform isn't supported properly because the apps need to be tested on so many different devices.
See the problem? :P
Well, that's the Android hardware fragmentation problem rearing its ugly head once again. They really need to hurry up and implement some common APIs for accessing audio hardware properly...
Sipdroid is, obviously, unbeatable, but doesn't offer Skype per se (although you could theoretically connect the voice portion via PBXes.org, IIRC) - for many people it's not about calling phones via SkypeOut, but rather keeping in touch with their many Skype contacts via both IM and voice.
I have to disagree with the call quality problems on Nimbuzz though - I use it as my day-to-day Skype app, and the calls are always crystal clear. The only problem I have is getting it connected in the first place.
As for battery drain? Yes, constant connection to the servers will drain the battery, especially if you're on 3G in an area with less-than-stellar reception, but no more so than any other connection - I haven't seen it use excessive amounts of power in any other way (CPU, sensor use etc.).
But yah... if you're looking for a landline replacement and/or a way to make cheap calls, Sipdroid with the SIP provider of your choice is definitely the way to go. But it's not Skype :D
Do you have it on your non-Verizon Android phone? If so, it's Skype Lite, which does not have any VoIP capabilities whatsoever.
Didn't you wonder why the word Verizon pops up about ten times on the page you linked to?
Let me guess... Verizon phone?
http://blogs.skype.com/en/2010/02/verizon.html
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/25/skype-mobile-for-verizon-on-android-hands-on-with-wifi-off/
There is no Android Skype app other than this one as far as I know. If you've found one, please share it with us :)
Then I should probably remind you that Nimbuzz has its own set of problems. They are, however, not as bad as Fring's, IMO.
The problem with Nimbuzz is that it sometimes has problems connecting to certain services. I use ICQ, MSN (Windows Live), Google Talk and Skype, and all of them have had connection problems in Nimbuzz at some time or other. The problem seems completely random, and usually goes away by itself after an hour or two... but you COULD find yourself without connectivity for a while if you use Nimbuzz as your sole IM app.
That said, the Skype voice quality is still the best I've heard on Android, and rivals that of Skype on the desktop with decent microphones and headphones.
Now if they'd just address the connectivity issues (not to mention the application itself just dying in the background if Android decides it's low on memory - but this happens with all Android IM apps other than IM+, which restarts itself when it's kicked but doesn't support Skype at all), we'd have a full-featured Android chat client that does crystal-clear Skype VoIP. :P
Same here, although I'm basing this on my past experiences with Fring on Windows Mobile and Android - not sure what the iPhone version is like.
They were pretty awful...
1. Horrible interface - incredibly ugly, unintuitive, and not very consistent
2. Not very reliable in either the sense of program stability or the ability to connect consistently
3. Horrible, horrible horrible horrible (!!!!!) Skype VoIP quality. Skype calls through Fring on Android, for instance, sound far worse than with, say, Nimbuzz. While Nimbuzz Skype calls are better than GSM in terms of clarity and on par in terms of latency, Fring sounds scratchy, overly compressed and introduces pretty bad latencies.
I can definitely see where Skype's coming from, and would agree: Fring has been damaging Skype's image.
That said, I don't like what Skype's been doing lately either - exclusive partnerships with Verizon, no Android app whatsoever...
Hmmm, I'm guessing that's irrelevant, since it's probably just the same signal attenuation that's present on every cellphone.
The issue on the iPhone4 is the ability to detune the antennas just by touching both the GSM/3G antenna and the WiFi antenna at the same time with a sweaty finger - something that could have been so easily prevented with a dielectric coating. That's the reason people should be pissed, but a lot of people seem to be confused about what's really the problem.
Seen on its own, yes, this is a good move. However, it's being marketed as a fix for the issues people have been having with the iPsone 4 - as I understand it, it's about the calls that are dropping when you touch the spot between the two antennas...
Also, people seem to be a little confused - it's not the regular attenuation due to human flesh being in the way of the antenna that everyone's griping about, but rather the ADDITIONAL 20dB signal drop that occurs when you touch the antennas. No software will be able to change the fact that the antennas are being detuned due to the user bridging the cell antenna with the 2.4GHz antenna...