I think this is actually a very good development. If the other manufacturers follow suit, it might become possible to get an unlocked version of any Android device.
Then my choices wouldn't be limited to the Nexus devices, or the HTC with the best community support.
That's because their generator used the naive way of generating a Sudoku puzzle: create a random complete puzzle from scratch and then start deleting random boxes.
I know that because back in the time I tried to do a generator myself. Turns out there's more to it than that.
I see what you mean, but 1. that's not my experience, 2. it'd be bad for the application as well, since large downloads take a looong time even on 3G, and 3. if a developer were that careless with user's data and time, they'd get killed on the user reviews.
I actually like the current system because as a developer, I don't need to care or make special cases for each type of connection the user might or might not have.
Most smartphone applications only transfer very small amounts of data.
The exceptions are apps that need a one-time large download, like games or navigation software. They should be the ones going through the extra work of checking the connection type before they engage.
If you don't trust developers with a functional API, then you have much bigger problems than connection type. For instance, apps which update too often over the network will consume huge amounts of data.
What surprises me is that the app developer even has the choice of which channel to use.
I don't know much about WP7, but at least on Android, I don't think the developer can pick and choose. When the phone is connected to a WiFi network, *all data* goes through that route.
At most you can detect what kind of network you're connected to, and act accordingly -- for example to ask the user if he wants to perform large downloads over 3G, or if he'd rather connect to WiFi first.
I remember playing a game called The Koshan Conspiracy. It was similar to what you describe. You could meet people on the streets and ask questions, barter for their items, steal or fight.
As you'd try to steal their items, people would get progressively more pissed off. However, if you gave them something, they'd revert to a happy place, so you could try stealing again.
The funny part was that you could actually play with their inventory like it was your own. Eventually we discovered that we could start by giving them a large backpack, stuff all of their stuff into it, and then try to steal the backpack with all the items at once.
Then we started to run into another problem: our character we had limited space for items, but we discovered that items inside a backpack didn't count towards the character's available space. Furthermore, a backpack would take the same space whether it was full or empty. So we started to stuff full backpacks inside empty ones. At one point we had a full hierarchy of backpacks with items organized by type: guns, ammo, food, drinks, etc.
It was a fun game. Never managed to finish it though. The story component was always a bit too complicated to follow, and it was the kind of game where a wrong turn could make you lose the whole game without you even knowing it.
What if you enjoy playing? What if you only play until you've lost an acceptable amount of money for your entertainment?
Do you also call people who go to the movies idiots? What about snowboarding? Why are some forms of entertainment acceptable to you and others not?
The only stupid people in the casinos are those who play to win. Yes, there are many of those, but there are also many who know their chance of winning is low, but they like to play anyway.
I think Samsung is about to release some sort of media player version of it's Galaxy S phones. Of course, being Samsung, expect customized (read: shit) OS and no updates.
Or you could go the DIY route and hack an Archos player, or something.
What Google did wrong was this. They waited until after Christmas to hit us with this bomb. It's like "Samsung sold X millions of Galaxy Tablets for Christmas 2010" followed right by "Be ready to by the new Galaxy Tablet in February 2011 since Samsung will not be able to provide support for newer OS versions on the model you got for Christmas".
Dude, it's Samsung. You wouldn't get an update even if Google compiled it for them.
If you write a GW-BASIC compiler targetting.NET & XNA, and use it to write your game, Microsoft will happily allow you to publish it. Apple won't. Therein lies the difference.
Same on Android. If it runs, you can publish it. Hell you can publish it even if it doesn't run, but don't expect good reviews (and it'll probably get delisted).
The only reason you can't program Android apps in C#, or any other language, is because no one has made the development tools for it. Yet.
You'd probably also reconsider if (IF) the Amazon app store becomes a success, such that a huge chunk of consumers make it their first port of call.
It'd have to become a really huge part of the market in order to convince me. Just the fact that you can't publish anywhere else for 14 days after you submit to Amazon would be way too disruptive for me. I've had more than one occasion where I had to submit emergency patches, or where I had an easy feature request satisfied in a few hours.
In any case, I'll be sitting this one out. My hope is that if enough devs do that, Amazon will be forced to either revise those terms, or give up on the whole idea.
Here's the down side of app store competition for developers. They need to do submission and admin work for multiple stores, when the iOS developer only needs to do it for one store.
Exactly. I'm a developer and it seems every week I get an invitation to participate in yet another Android app store. They're all the "leading site for mobile apps" or something. Makes one wonder where the trailing ones are.
Anyway, I always respond in the same way -- if you want to post my free apps on your site, be my guest, but don't expect me to maintain or update the page for you.
OTOH, my guess is that the stores will be in competition to make submission hassle-free enough to be worth the developers' effort. It's in everyone's interest.
If that's the case, then wither Amazon really steps it up, or they already lost. I was invited a few months ago to participate in this experiment, and the submission was complicated like hell.
They expect you to fill out some Excel forms (no Windows or MS Office? they don't seem to care) where they ask for what I thought was too much personal information. Then they give you some FTP site where you should upload a ton of files in specific formats.
I didn't even know people still used FTP outside of test projects on private local networks.
All in all it just looked like Amazon isn't ready to make any solid investment. They're testing the waters.
Carriers hate it because it means that you're less likely to upgrade to a new contract, since your old phone will last longer.
That may be true, but I think the main reason they hate open phones is that they allow users to simply connect an USB cable and copy whatever they want to and from the phone without going through the carrier's paywall.
They also allow users to easily remove whatever crapware comes with the phone, making their marketing deals less attractive.
Samsung makes nice hardware, but sucks with the post-sale support. Don't expect that update to come anytime soon, if it will ever come at all.
Me and some other guys keep writing this everywhere because we were burned with their first generation Android devices and we wanted to get the word out. Funnily enough, around the time that the Samsung S devices were coming out, some of my posts in at least 2 different sites mysteriously disappeared.
If I was a cynic I'd have thought that the Samsung marketing machine was pressuring (or paying) site admins to clean up their comments.
Anyway, it's at least warming to see that I was right to swear off Samsung, and I guess it'll be safe to continue doing so for the near future (except for this Nexus device which will be supported by Google).
...it's just a re-badged Galaxy S. So those of us with GT-i9000s, Captivates, and Vibrants can basically expect every future version of Android within days of the source release.
Ahah! Oh, you were serious.
Look, it's Samsung. Don't expect any updates on time. In fact, don't expect any updates at all and you'll live happier.
That's very good news, since last I heard Samsung had sold over 8 million Galaxy S devices so far.
Yes, and they're already sold, meaning they already got your money and now they'd rather you buy the next one on the line.
I feel your pain. I bought the original Galaxy. It had one very late update to 1.6 when everyone else was upgrading to 2.1. Your best bet is to either get a phone which somehow gathered community support around it, or get one of the Google supported "Nexus" devices.
I'm probably getting this one someday, it just pains me to be giving money to Samsung.
Me and most people with a recent Vaio laptop are still waiting on nvidia. Apparently they have the problem fixed in testing, but we're still waiting for a release.
Meanwhile I'm happy I can still use 10.04. I don't know if this would be possible in a rolling release scenario.
Android's framework supplies an API for synchronization which any app can use. Furthermore, apps have full access to the contacts database (given the right permissions, of course).
Essentially, as an app developer, you have access to the exact same sync functionality which is used by Google's services. The problem you're facing is that those services are so good, that maybe the incentive to develop synchronization with other systems just isn't there.
I say "maybe" because I think Android now supports at least Exchange out of the box, and there may be other utilities which are able to sync on the market.
I think I even saw one which could back up and load your contact list to/from a file (presumably in a standard format). Just dump your contacts into Thunderbird, edit them, and reload them on your smartphone.
But again, Google's services are so well implemented into Android, that I never had the incentive to try any of that stuff.
So yeah, you can complain about a lot of stuff on Android (say, the lagginess of the UI), but managing your data isn't really a problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed.
I think this is actually a very good development. If the other manufacturers follow suit, it might become possible to get an unlocked version of any Android device.
Then my choices wouldn't be limited to the Nexus devices, or the HTC with the best community support.
I remember, I just thought it was funny that he wrote "Europe".
If you're going to specify which Frankfurt you're talking about, one would expect "Frankfurt, Germany".
In Frankfurt, Europe
Thank you for explaining where Frankfurt is.
Original Galaxy owner here.
I swore off Samsung ever since I bought this phone.
The exception might just be the Nexus S, since the software support is coming from Google.
It just pains me to be giving money to Samsung again.
Pointless? It's all over the web.
Ok, maybe just the geek web, but still, at the very least it was a great marketing move.
That's because their generator used the naive way of generating a Sudoku puzzle: create a random complete puzzle from scratch and then start deleting random boxes.
I know that because back in the time I tried to do a generator myself. Turns out there's more to it than that.
I see what you mean, but 1. that's not my experience, 2. it'd be bad for the application as well, since large downloads take a looong time even on 3G, and 3. if a developer were that careless with user's data and time, they'd get killed on the user reviews.
I actually like the current system because as a developer, I don't need to care or make special cases for each type of connection the user might or might not have.
Most smartphone applications only transfer very small amounts of data.
The exceptions are apps that need a one-time large download, like games or navigation software. They should be the ones going through the extra work of checking the connection type before they engage.
If you don't trust developers with a functional API, then you have much bigger problems than connection type. For instance, apps which update too often over the network will consume huge amounts of data.
What surprises me is that the app developer even has the choice of which channel to use.
I don't know much about WP7, but at least on Android, I don't think the developer can pick and choose. When the phone is connected to a WiFi network, *all data* goes through that route.
At most you can detect what kind of network you're connected to, and act accordingly -- for example to ask the user if he wants to perform large downloads over 3G, or if he'd rather connect to WiFi first.
Not to mention that depite what MS would want you to believe, Windows Phone 7 is based on the previous versions of Windows.
There was a major rewrite, sure, but you don't come up with a completely new OS overnight, even with the resources MS has at their disposal.
Even if it were that, the data should be going through wifi instead of the mobile network when connected to a hotspot.
I remember playing a game called The Koshan Conspiracy. It was similar to what you describe. You could meet people on the streets and ask questions, barter for their items, steal or fight.
As you'd try to steal their items, people would get progressively more pissed off. However, if you gave them something, they'd revert to a happy place, so you could try stealing again.
The funny part was that you could actually play with their inventory like it was your own. Eventually we discovered that we could start by giving them a large backpack, stuff all of their stuff into it, and then try to steal the backpack with all the items at once.
Then we started to run into another problem: our character we had limited space for items, but we discovered that items inside a backpack didn't count towards the character's available space. Furthermore, a backpack would take the same space whether it was full or empty.
So we started to stuff full backpacks inside empty ones. At one point we had a full hierarchy of backpacks with items organized by type: guns, ammo, food, drinks, etc.
It was a fun game. Never managed to finish it though. The story component was always a bit too complicated to follow, and it was the kind of game where a wrong turn could make you lose the whole game without you even knowing it.
What if you enjoy playing? What if you only play until you've lost an acceptable amount of money for your entertainment?
Do you also call people who go to the movies idiots? What about snowboarding?
Why are some forms of entertainment acceptable to you and others not?
The only stupid people in the casinos are those who play to win.
Yes, there are many of those, but there are also many who know their chance of winning is low, but they like to play anyway.
I think Samsung is about to release some sort of media player version of it's Galaxy S phones.
Of course, being Samsung, expect customized (read: shit) OS and no updates.
Or you could go the DIY route and hack an Archos player, or something.
What Google did wrong was this. They waited until after Christmas to hit us with this bomb. It's like "Samsung sold X millions of Galaxy Tablets for Christmas 2010" followed right by "Be ready to by the new Galaxy Tablet in February 2011 since Samsung will not be able to provide support for newer OS versions on the model you got for Christmas".
Dude, it's Samsung. You wouldn't get an update even if Google compiled it for them.
If you write a GW-BASIC compiler targetting .NET & XNA, and use it to write your game, Microsoft will happily allow you to publish it. Apple won't. Therein lies the difference.
Same on Android. If it runs, you can publish it.
Hell you can publish it even if it doesn't run, but don't expect good reviews (and it'll probably get delisted).
The only reason you can't program Android apps in C#, or any other language, is because no one has made the development tools for it. Yet.
You'd probably also reconsider if (IF) the Amazon app store becomes a success, such that a huge chunk of consumers make it their first port of call.
It'd have to become a really huge part of the market in order to convince me.
Just the fact that you can't publish anywhere else for 14 days after you submit to Amazon would be way too disruptive for me. I've had more than one occasion where I had to submit emergency patches, or where I had an easy feature request satisfied in a few hours.
In any case, I'll be sitting this one out. My hope is that if enough devs do that, Amazon will be forced to either revise those terms, or give up on the whole idea.
I'd be ok with both.
Here's the down side of app store competition for developers. They need to do submission and admin work for multiple stores, when the iOS developer only needs to do it for one store.
Exactly. I'm a developer and it seems every week I get an invitation to participate in yet another Android app store.
They're all the "leading site for mobile apps" or something. Makes one wonder where the trailing ones are.
Anyway, I always respond in the same way -- if you want to post my free apps on your site, be my guest, but don't expect me to maintain or update the page for you.
OTOH, my guess is that the stores will be in competition to make submission hassle-free enough to be worth the developers' effort. It's in everyone's interest.
If that's the case, then wither Amazon really steps it up, or they already lost.
I was invited a few months ago to participate in this experiment, and the submission was complicated like hell.
They expect you to fill out some Excel forms (no Windows or MS Office? they don't seem to care) where they ask for what I thought was too much personal information.
Then they give you some FTP site where you should upload a ton of files in specific formats.
I didn't even know people still used FTP outside of test projects on private local networks.
All in all it just looked like Amazon isn't ready to make any solid investment. They're testing the waters.
Carriers hate it because it means that you're less likely to upgrade to a new contract, since your old phone will last longer.
That may be true, but I think the main reason they hate open phones is that they allow users to simply connect an USB cable and copy whatever they want to and from the phone without going through the carrier's paywall.
They also allow users to easily remove whatever crapware comes with the phone, making their marketing deals less attractive.
Yeah, but he's level capped at +5
Samsung makes nice hardware, but sucks with the post-sale support. Don't expect that update to come anytime soon, if it will ever come at all.
Me and some other guys keep writing this everywhere because we were burned with their first generation Android devices and we wanted to get the word out.
Funnily enough, around the time that the Samsung S devices were coming out, some of my posts in at least 2 different sites mysteriously disappeared.
If I was a cynic I'd have thought that the Samsung marketing machine was pressuring (or paying) site admins to clean up their comments.
Anyway, it's at least warming to see that I was right to swear off Samsung, and I guess it'll be safe to continue doing so for the near future (except for this Nexus device which will be supported by Google).
It's a developer device, so it should come rooted from the box.
...it's just a re-badged Galaxy S. So those of us with GT-i9000s, Captivates, and Vibrants can basically expect every future version of Android within days of the source release.
Ahah!
Oh, you were serious.
Look, it's Samsung. Don't expect any updates on time. In fact, don't expect any updates at all and you'll live happier.
That's very good news, since last I heard Samsung had sold over 8 million Galaxy S devices so far.
Yes, and they're already sold, meaning they already got your money and now they'd rather you buy the next one on the line.
I feel your pain. I bought the original Galaxy. It had one very late update to 1.6 when everyone else was upgrading to 2.1.
Your best bet is to either get a phone which somehow gathered community support around it, or get one of the Google supported "Nexus" devices.
I'm probably getting this one someday, it just pains me to be giving money to Samsung.
I don't think yours was the last to get fixed...
Me and most people with a recent Vaio laptop are still waiting on nvidia. Apparently they have the problem fixed in testing, but we're still waiting for a release.
Meanwhile I'm happy I can still use 10.04. I don't know if this would be possible in a rolling release scenario.
Android's framework supplies an API for synchronization which any app can use.
Furthermore, apps have full access to the contacts database (given the right permissions, of course).
Essentially, as an app developer, you have access to the exact same sync functionality which is used by Google's services.
The problem you're facing is that those services are so good, that maybe the incentive to develop synchronization with other systems just isn't there.
I say "maybe" because I think Android now supports at least Exchange out of the box, and there may be other utilities which are able to sync on the market.
I think I even saw one which could back up and load your contact list to/from a file (presumably in a standard format).
Just dump your contacts into Thunderbird, edit them, and reload them on your smartphone.
But again, Google's services are so well implemented into Android, that I never had the incentive to try any of that stuff.
So yeah, you can complain about a lot of stuff on Android (say, the lagginess of the UI), but managing your data isn't really a problem.