If this has been going on "for some time", then I can only assume they have been overtaken by events.
The Facebook app for Android is pretty well featured, and the default Contacts app hooks in to it if you choose to FB authenticate. So you can see the last status update of all your contacts.
I don't see why they need a dedicated Facebook/Android handset... unless it's a marketing exercise, or they are trying to make the FB status updates/notifications more intrusive. Just seems to me like they are taking the featurephone mindset, and applying it to a smartphone (where IMHO it is redundant).
The people that annoy me in all this are the media.
Where I live (UK), the government can often use the thirty year rule to halt the reporting of their mistakes. Two football players currently have injunctions out, stopping the media talking about their adultery. Worst consequence - shamed football player.
When the media see a story like this and have a choice for a change, what do they do? Give a whackjob like Pastor Terry the oxygen of publicity.
Worse, they act like the annoying small kid in the playground, trying to provoke a fight between two bigger kids.
To Florida! Pastor Terry, are you still going through with it? Thanks for the story.
To Kabul! Angry Muslim guys... he's going through with it. What are you going to do? Really? You're going to stone Westerners? Thanks for the story.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, there probably will be deaths over this. Oh... but that's a story, too.
...or appeal to the OHA members to put any relevant software patents into an arsenal to hit Oracle with. They exist to improve (and perhaps protect) the platform.
Sorry - not convinced. They bought the platform in 2005, and did little with it until Apple showed them the way in the market with the iPhone? Smells like reality distortion field to me. I can understand that they took a little longer to form the OHA, and create & refine a serious open platform that has no two-tier app status and private APIs. I don't see how they got "kicked up the backside" by the iPhone launch. Remember - they make very little money out of Android. They are not a hardware company like Apple. Their interest is in having a platform that they can't be locked out of, and the future advertising possibilities from a location-aware computing platform.
"Then they decided they wanted a piece of the pie instead of depending on Apple"
Google bought Android in July, 2005. Apple announced the iPhone in January, 2007. You're saying they launched their own platform as a reaction to the iPhone?
Nice theory. It was intentional from day one, so they made the world aware of it three years down the line... Because, like, you can never have enough bad publicity.
Remotely plausible?
More like - we messed up. This is what we collected. We're getting rid of it.
It's not like there's another turn by turn package that's even close to free for the iPhone.
I've just started playing with Google Maps Nagivation on the Nexus (am in UK). I think it has more going for it than the $0 pricetag... It looks a different class of satnav when you see the satellite layer over your 3D route, and the ability to check out any of your waypoints in 360 degree compass mode is pretty nifty.
That has been a feature of the Nexus One since January. Apple quietly implement such features (compass is another example), but are very loud indeed when other people implement features they consider theirs.
Here in the UK, video calling was being promoted by a cellular carrier about 5 years ago. Expensive, though. I'd love it to be mainstream. I think it would indeed be a killer feature.
I agree too... Apple will always have a solid following. But my feeling is that Android sales will overtake because the market will soon be swamped with devices, which will appeal to a much larger demographic who just want 'a touchscreen smartphone that does apps'.
The comments look a bit suspicious to me. If he's trying to spin it so the Eric Schmidt quote was _a reaction_ to the buzz privacy cockup, he's way off. The quote was in Dec '09, and Buzz was released in Feb '10. The Schmidt quote sounds inflammatory, but the gist is don't submit sensitive stuff to a public network that is constantly spidered.
Various sources have reported that they were never comfortable operating in China. One faction argued that they would do more good by being there than boycotting China. That argument prevailed for a while, but events overtook, and another faction got their way - hence the pullout. It isn't an Apple-style autocracy.
...and due to their cynical attitude towards planned obsolescence, the non-replaceable battery will be hosed after 24 or 36 months of heavy use. It may not be a rental arrangement, but it sure feels like it.
That's a valid point. I think their motive is to have complete control over a best-of-breed Android device, which they hope will prompt better quality in the devices they don't control.
I'm quite tempted myself, even though I love my current HTC Hero. Faster updates would be nice.... for my device, new releases go from Google to HTC for skinning, to T-Mobile for branding. Takes bloody ages.
If you find yourself near Kings Cross station, the British Library is next door. There's free wifi in there, and power sockets to charge your laptop one one side of the cafe. There are also power sockets near some of the rest benches, and most are in coverage of the free wifi.
Also, the British Library is a cool place to explore.
I've been messing with the preview for a little while, and I think the realtime collaborative editing feature could be useful for brainstorming, or fleshing out different parts of a document simultaneously. It works rather like EtherPad...
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think Jobs had any hand in the Lisa product
He certainly did, for the first four years of development.
In fact, it was named after his daughter.
If this has been going on "for some time", then I can only assume they have been overtaken by events.
The Facebook app for Android is pretty well featured, and the default Contacts app hooks in to it if you choose to FB authenticate. So you can see the last status update of all your contacts.
I don't see why they need a dedicated Facebook/Android handset... unless it's a marketing exercise, or they are trying to make the FB status updates/notifications more intrusive. Just seems to me like they are taking the featurephone mindset, and applying it to a smartphone (where IMHO it is redundant).
The people that annoy me in all this are the media.
Where I live (UK), the government can often use the thirty year rule to halt the reporting of their mistakes. Two football players currently have injunctions out, stopping the media talking about their adultery. Worst consequence - shamed football player.
When the media see a story like this and have a choice for a change, what do they do?
Give a whackjob like Pastor Terry the oxygen of publicity.
Worse, they act like the annoying small kid in the playground, trying to provoke a fight between two bigger kids.
To Florida!
Pastor Terry, are you still going through with it? Thanks for the story.
To Kabul!
Angry Muslim guys... he's going through with it. What are you going to do? Really? You're going to stone Westerners? Thanks for the story.
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, there probably will be deaths over this.
Oh... but that's a story, too.
...or appeal to the OHA members to put any relevant software patents into an arsenal to hit Oracle with. They exist to improve (and perhaps protect) the platform.
Fun story, but fairly inaccurate.
Sorry - not convinced.
They bought the platform in 2005, and did little with it until Apple showed them the way in the market with the iPhone?
Smells like reality distortion field to me.
I can understand that they took a little longer to form the OHA, and create & refine a serious open platform that has no two-tier app status and private APIs.
I don't see how they got "kicked up the backside" by the iPhone launch. Remember - they make very little money out of Android. They are not a hardware company like Apple. Their interest is in having a platform that they can't be locked out of, and the future advertising possibilities from a location-aware computing platform.
"Then they decided they wanted a piece of the pie instead of depending on Apple"
Google bought Android in July, 2005. Apple announced the iPhone in January, 2007.
You're saying they launched their own platform as a reaction to the iPhone?
Why were you loitering on the home page long enough for the game to start?
Time is money. Chop chop!
The boss.
Interesting. How did it get in the way of your search?
Nice theory.
It was intentional from day one, so they made the world aware of it three years down the line...
Because, like, you can never have enough bad publicity.
Remotely plausible?
More like - we messed up. This is what we collected. We're getting rid of it.
Is it tinfoil season?
And I'm guessing that the members are sitting on one hell of an IP portfolio...
Could be interesting if the platform needs defending.
It's not like there's another turn by turn package that's even close to free for the iPhone.
I've just started playing with Google Maps Nagivation on the Nexus (am in UK). I think it has more going for it than the $0 pricetag...
It looks a different class of satnav when you see the satellite layer over your 3D route, and the ability to check out any of your waypoints in 360 degree compass mode is pretty nifty.
> built-in active noise reduction
That has been a feature of the Nexus One since January.
Apple quietly implement such features (compass is another example), but are very loud indeed when other people implement features they consider theirs.
Here in the UK, video calling was being promoted by a cellular carrier about 5 years ago.
Expensive, though. I'd love it to be mainstream. I think it would indeed be a killer feature.
I agree too... Apple will always have a solid following.
But my feeling is that Android sales will overtake because the market will soon be swamped with devices, which will appeal to a much larger demographic who just want 'a touchscreen smartphone that does apps'.
The comments look a bit suspicious to me.
If he's trying to spin it so the Eric Schmidt quote was _a reaction_ to the buzz privacy cockup, he's way off.
The quote was in Dec '09, and Buzz was released in Feb '10.
The Schmidt quote sounds inflammatory, but the gist is don't submit sensitive stuff to a public network that is constantly spidered.
That's a pretty rigid way of looking at it.
Various sources have reported that they were never comfortable operating in China. One faction argued that they would do more good by being there than boycotting China. That argument prevailed for a while, but events overtook, and another faction got their way - hence the pullout. It isn't an Apple-style autocracy.
...and due to their cynical attitude towards planned obsolescence, the non-replaceable battery will be hosed after 24 or 36 months of heavy use.
It may not be a rental arrangement, but it sure feels like it.
Great if that's what you need.
On my Android, I like using Spotify and a Shoutcast client in the background.
So I could never switch to an iPhone; from my point of view, it has a defective operating system.
Maybe you can educate me how to fold my tinfoil hat properly.
Habeas corpus, fool.
Insightful... meh.
That's a valid point. I think their motive is to have complete control over a best-of-breed Android device, which they hope will prompt better quality in the devices they don't control.
I'm quite tempted myself, even though I love my current HTC Hero. Faster updates would be nice.... for my device, new releases go from Google to HTC for skinning, to T-Mobile for branding. Takes bloody ages.
Tip from a local...
If you find yourself near Kings Cross station, the British Library is next door.
There's free wifi in there, and power sockets to charge your laptop one one side of the cafe.
There are also power sockets near some of the rest benches, and most are in coverage of the free wifi.
Also, the British Library is a cool place to explore.
Hmm... not convinced.
I do remember reading an article that said he has his emails printed out and brought to him...
He's probably wandering around NewsCorp HQ right now, trying to find the typing pool.
... plus Sony Ericsson, and now even Dell are joining the party.
:-)
IMHO, the iPhone looks better... but so did Betamax
compass-wise
The iPhone gained a compass some time *after* the release of the G1. [Cite]
If you're going to make location-aware apps, it's sometimes useful to know which way you're pointing.
Lucky that Google and HTC were thinking.
Good point...
I've been messing with the preview for a little while, and I think the realtime collaborative editing feature could be useful for brainstorming, or fleshing out different parts of a document simultaneously. It works rather like EtherPad...