Google Rolls Out Official Android 4.0 ICS Update 92
dell623 writes "Google is rolling out an OTA upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich for the Nexus S. GSM versions can already be updated manually. An early review is largely positive and comments on the significant visual and performance improvements. The Nexus S upgrade allows for a direct comparison against Gingerbread on the same hardware, and the likely improvement in current phones that will receive the upgrade."
Re:Android performance (Score:5, Informative)
The free market has a decidedly pro-Android bias. Android is now on more than half of smartphones - not because it's the only option but because people chose it, voting with their own money.
Maybe that's because it's better.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is a great analogy in this case.
Windows beat Mac OS because it was more open and it created a giant ecosystem of companies creating cool products for it.
Android beat iOS because it was really, really more open and it created a giant ecosystem of companies creating cool products for it.
The great part is that Microsoft didn't learn from their past successes and they're following the Apple model in an attempt to beat back Android.
Re: (Score:1)
By definition, yes.
It's survival of the fittest and Android is fittest.
Re: (Score:1)
The only thing worse than a world dominated by Android would be a world dominated by iOS. A single vendor controlling all the market from hardware to software, and making 30% of all mobile apps sold in the world, without any way to avoid that fee (jailbreak doesn't count). Every thing would be vendor-locked to death.
No thanks.
Re:Android performance (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure your analogy works the way you stated it. The original MacOS died a well-deserved but slow death because it was closed, but not in that it was closed to software products: rather, because Windows was more open to hardware, while MacOS was restricted to Apple hardware. OSX is still tied to Apple hardware (the small Hackintosh community excepted), but its ecosystem has grown dramatically on the software side. Plus, Apple ships a developer kit and IDE with every copy of the OS (now available on the AppStore for free), which is a strong check on the openness side.
Microsoft's failure to gain a strong footing in the mobile arena against Apple and Android is more of a marketing failure than anything else. MS is haunted by the ghosts of CE and Zune, and they just don't have the consumer confidence that Apple has by the bushel. Android's relative success in the market is all the more remarkable for not having the marketing team that Apple enjoys. MS is going to have to learn how to sell themselves and differentiate themselves from the rest of the market with some nifty tricks if they're ever going to gain traction. Windows 8 and Metro are big parts of that strategy, and a lot is riding on the popular acceptance of Metro: if it tanks, so do MS's hopes of getting into the tablet/phone market big-time this decade.
That the market is different also points to a MS weakness: they grew partly because of openness to (and shady deals with) hardware vendors, but also because of the consequence of that hardware support: they were *the* business platform in the 90's. You had a PC at work, you had Word (or WordPerfect or Lotus AmiPro/WordPro) at work, you had grown used to thing being a certain way at work, so you got all that at home too. Phones and tablets are different, and Apple got the first-to-market advantage of being able to set the tone for what tablets and smartphones should feel like. Android hasn't beaten iOS yet, although they've certainly established themselves as a fierce competitor. MS is coming to the game without experience in the arena, with a corporate culture that's geared towards making business products (and failing on the domestic/personal side -- Works, Bob, etc.). The tablet and smartphone market isn't a business market; businesses use them on the side, but their main computing needs are still the laptop and desktop. MS may be overextending itself with respect to its own culture by trying to get into the mobile field.
In the end, it'll come down to consumer perceptions. MS has shown time and time again that its marketing team isn't up to the task of making a household name for itself: the place it held/holds in domestic computing was a side benefit of its dominance in the corporate world and a lack of competition. Apple's marketing has eroded that considerably, at least on the laptop side (How many MacBooks do you see in every coffee shop and classroom?), while not really even trying to dent the corporate market (OD/AD support is second-rate, as are many of the necessities of managing an enterprise installation base, and their office products like Pages are very much geared to the individual consumer rather than the corporate, although Keynote kicks everyone's ass). MS would be wise to refocus on the desktop market (it's not going away soon), try to recapture some of Apple's gains in the laptop market, and leave iOS and Android to duke it out over the market they already dominate. Oh, and fire their entire fucking marketing department twice over and then try to lure in some of Apple's UI designers.
Re: (Score:1)
Apple has already been beaten in popularity for one simple reason. They won't do what it takes to win (marketsharewise). They just want to win the dollar battle, and they probably will continue to do so for a long, long time.
If they wanted to win, they'd kick over the walled garden and give manufacturers easy ability to create custom phones with iOS. Then they'd have a shot and perhaps would win. But as long as they want a monolithic culture, they'll never be dominant again because there are too many re
Re: (Score:2)
The original MacOS died a well-deserved but slow death because it was closed, but not in that it was closed to software products: rather, because Windows was more open to hardware, while MacOS was restricted to Apple hardware.
Which is one of the ways in which Android is more open than iOS.
Re: (Score:2)
Android's relative success in the market is all the more remarkable for not having the marketing team that Apple enjoys.
I doubt the iOS team is responsible for the successful marketing of the iPhone. Also, are you referring to marketing to the handset vendors, or marketing to the public? If the former, I seriously doubt Google sat on their ass and just let vendors stumble upon Android. I suspect you mean the latter, though, since Apple doesn't have to sell iOS to itself. Again, Google isn't exactly a slouch in the marketing arena.
Re:Android performance - Windows won why? (Score:5, Interesting)
I call B.S. on Windows being any useful comparison at all. That is a complete historical rewrite. When Windows won, there was no Windows and there was no Mac OS - in the same sense there is today. Windows won over Mac OS because Bill Gates is a marketing genius and Steve Jobs had not yet learned that skill. Steve Jobs was still a hippie, and Windows was DOS. At the time when the choice was being made, Neither Mac OS nor "Windows" (Which was little more than a vaporware App for DOS) was the best of breed. Best of breed at the time was the Commodore Amiga. 32 bit multi-tasking, 4096 colors, NTSC (PAL in Europe) video output, quadrophonic Sound (with stereo outputs), and real-time animation against DOS's 'beep' and 16 colors 'Ascii Art' and Mac OS's 64 shades of grey and monophonic MIDI 'sounds'. The best software of the day was being written for it. Electronic Arts was born and started selling games. Disney Animator begat "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", and "Max Headroom" (who was messed up on purpose to emphasize the fact that he was computer generated) and nobody had anything to compare with that. The business world did not really use these things yet. A few forward looking business gave them to secretaries, but there were Macintoshes and PC's both at this time. High end business (like law offices) tended to use Apple because it supported Postscript, and good looking printed output was possible, and low end businesses tended towards PC's running DOS because they were cheaper, and descent printed out was achieved with daisy wheel printers because laser printers needed Postscript, and DOS didn't support it (plus the laser printer cost more than the PC did). Bill Gates was able to manipulate the market to his advantage and nobody else saw it coming until it was too late. To his advantage was indeed an open hardware spec, but none of the companies involved at the time made anything to really compete with the Amiga. Adding peripherals to even try was very expensive, and nobody really tried very hard. Commodore lost by refusing to sell their machines through the toy stores for fear they would not be taken seriously where the Commodore 64 had a virtual lock on the market at the time (The Commodore 64 still holds the record for outselling any single model of computer ever), and insisting on SELLING their demo units to computer retailers, which were all independents at the time and refused to pay for them. So customers had a photograph of a better system in a corner of the store (Amiga), a better, but more expensive, piece of hardware with little software to take advantage of it (Apple), and cheaper hardware with little software to take advantage of it (DOS). "Windows" was useless at this point. There was also Atari, but they were somewhere between Apple and Commodore, and got squeezed out by being a bit too expensive with not quite enough hardware goodies to attract attention. If Commodore had had any marketing sense at all they could have killed everyone at this point, but they missed the boat. Then Apple kicked Steve Jobs out and replaced him with John Scully who made a complete mess of the company, and started losing market share faster than Nokia in the phone market. Steve finally woke up from his LSD infested dream and realized he screwed up. Steve Jobs created NeXT and wrote what is essentially the Mac OS of today, and got Apple back when it was almost completely bankrupt. By this time, Bill Gates had done some very underhanded, illegal, and anti-competitive things in the marketplace, mostly fixed Windows to look like a useful GUI OS, bought the components for Office (all of which were Mac based!), released Mac Office to generate interest in the business world that computers could actually be useful after all, and started porting Office to Windows. Steve Jobs came back to a marketplace John Scully had already lost. Microsoft owned the OS, and was able to write little bugs into Windows to break or slow down things like DR-DOS, Word Perfect, and Lotus 123... and add hooks to their advantage for Offic
Re: (Score:1)
Paragraphs.
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever you say about Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, they new how to use paragraphs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People don't choose Windows. They take it because it's the only thing offered. Microsoft has worked very hard the last two decades to ensure that desktops aren't offered without Windows, and Windows is the only thing offered. In the most recent case, netbooks, they achieved this goal by killing the market for netbooks. Linux netbooks launched the category, and Windows 7 killed it. Microsoft has worked hard to prevent choice, and that's working against them now because people like to choose. It makes t
Re: (Score:3)
People can choose desktops and laptops without Windows- they're called "Macs". Which was sort of the point of this thread. Like you, I lament that Linux boxes aren't widely available, and that Linux netbooks were killed in such a clinical fashion. But the lack of Linux boxes has nothing to do with Windows beating Apple, or Amiga, or Acorn, or anybody else...
Re: (Score:2)
You're mistaking me for somebody who wasn't there then. What do all these things that failed have in common? As they died, what killed them? Was it Microsoft's ownership of the common platform and deprecation of them because of their lack of commitment to Microsoft's goals? Are you trying to remind people about the companies Microsoft has killed in the past to warn them off of doing something new? That would be bad. That would be prevention of progress. That would be veiled threats. And all of those
Re: (Score:1)
I disagree.
Linux died on the netbook because customers couldnt run word and anti virus apps ( geeks said they needed them right?) and games. Bestbuy cant make their comissions selling win32 software and customers couldnt find their blu E to their internet. They want Windows. Windows mobile will gain popularity as Metro gains apps
Infact the IPad didnt sell well at first because customers wanted Windows and feared no apps.
This is why MS won. Windows despite its flaws had the apps and the pc was always develop
iPad didn't sell well at first? That's the story? (Score:2)
If you got one of the first iPad shipment you could double your money on eBay that day - especially if you offered international shipping. It took the world's finest supply chain 20 months to ramp to meet demand. It shocked even Apple. There were nearly riots. It set records for new products, and ran halfway through the second version of the product.
If that's not selling well at first, I wonder what a successful product launch in a new category is. What could you have to gain from voicing such a blata
Re: (Score:2)
I chose windows when I built my system. I use it to play games and surf the web, works great. Win7 is actually pretty great and doesn't really get in the way. I switched back from 10.4 to Win7, and was dual booting linux for a while. Mostly I don't see any need to lock myself out of 60-80% of the software market. Win7 has utilities you can install to get great unix type support these days. It's not perfect, but for the home user I can't really complain. The OS landscape has changed a lot since 2005 and as t
Re: (Score:2)
The practices they used were faulty. That's why they were successfully charged in court for anti-competitive practices.
Thankfully, their product improved since they were convicted.
Re: (Score:2)
Now we're going mobile and Microsoft isn't coming with us because they forgot to let us pretend we get to choose.
Unlike say Apple eh?
Re: (Score:2)
If that were the sole case, then smart phones wouldn't be on the radar. qwerty phones are way cheaper than smart phones.
Re: (Score:1)
I'm an Android fan, and even I can counter that. Maybe that's because it's often cheaper? Or that there are more and different options with Android?
People vote with their money, but not everyone votes for quality.
Re: (Score:2)
The high-end Androids have sold fairly well over the last year too.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it is, maybe it is cheap and everyone is using it. You know most devices running Android are not made by Samsung or Motorola, but by no name companies you have never heard of. Just as people weren't chosing S60, they were chosing a Nokia Phone, a lot of people are not choosing Android.
Android is a great OS (better than the old ones, not as good as iOS IMHO), and there are top of the range phones coming out now, that offer more features than Apple. It is popular at every level.
Re:Android performance (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Android performance (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite improvements, ICS isn't quite as smooth and responsive as iOS was four years ago on the first iPhone, and it's really becoming quite an annoyance that Google hasn't yet solved this.
This is true, but I think it's interesting to look at it in context. Android phones usually have performance advantages over the current iPhone when it comes to things like loading web pages, but UI smoothness can be done on very little hardware if it's your OS design priority, and the iPhones have been designed with that in mind from the start. Looking even further in this direction, a single core first gen Windows Phone 7 has an even smoother UI than a much more powerful iPhone 4s - MS definitely focused on being iPhonelike this time around. That weaker hardware manifests itself in poorer computing performance, but the majority of what people do on their phones is swipe around different screens and run applications designed for the lowest common denominator hardware on its platform.
In my experience, OSX, Windows 7, and any flavor of Linux are somewhere between Android and iOS in their UI smoothness even when running on vastly more powerful hardware. Since we use those operating systems for content creation, though, we care about other types of responsiveness. I always disable smooth scrolling in a web browser, for instance, because it induces a slight delay. Scrolling is then jerky but instant. As mobile devices become more suited for content creation (and yes, I know that they're severely crippled for most non-consumption roles) I think we'll see users shift their priorities away from dropped UI frames and toward things like time to run a photo processing filter, which will largely favor the more powerful hardware.
That said, ICS looks pretty smooth to me.
Re: (Score:1)
Having just tried out ICS on a Huawei Ideos U8150, I can tell you it wasn't just laggy, but NOTICABLY laggy under default settings on my phone. Part of the problem, as I discovered is that most of the powersaving options are overly aggressive and UI response when ramped up to 250-600,mhz is fine, but since the phone spends most of it's time idle the initial 5-10 seconds where you switch it into 'operating mode' tends to make the most lag, especially given that on my phone as an example 60mhz is the ultra lo
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
I did try the linked ROM, and it's definitely nort ready for prime-time...
Re:Android performance (Score:5, Informative)
Android has Exchange support. Honeycomb added full device encryption, and ICS carries it over. It's right in the changelist [android.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Honeycomb added full device encryption
That's what the release notes say, but I'm pretty sure it's just internal encryption. For some reason sdcard isn't encrypted. I don't get why but some people were still looking to get LUKS working for sdcard.
Re:Android performance (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
At launch, no. A year later, yes. Having just upgraded my original first gen iphone, it did quite well with modern apps as long as you stayed away from games with 3D graphics.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh my, that's a lovely frist psot, and no doubt you spent a lot of time preparing it, savoring the moment you could paste it.
Let me just short circuit all of your arguments: we really don't give a damn who did what to whom. We just want to video chat with grandma, and the first one to put that ability in our pocket wins. We want progress and we really don't care who brings it. Give with the progress and we honestly don't give a [darn] who you stole it from as long as we get it.
Re: (Score:1)
Despite improvements, ICS isn't quite as smooth and responsive as iOS was four years ago on the first iPhone, and it's really becoming quite an annoyance that Google hasn't yet solved this.
Both iOS and Windows Phone 7 use retained mode graphics, while android uses immediate mode graphics. Difference is that in android cpu has to redraw everything on screen when something changes while competitors load everything to GPU which will then redraw the screen. Android developers brag about android being hardware accelerated but it still uses the old model - even tho line command is hardware accelerated the cpu still has to make this line command.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Android uses the same aproach since 3.0. See http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/hardware-accel.html#hardware-model , Hardware accelerated rendering model. CPU just makes display lists and pushes them to the GPU. Processor is not involved in the rendering once the display list are on the GPU (if the GPU supports it).
Sweet (Score:1)
And thanks to rogers, I just recieved my 2.3.4 update for my xperia arc today!
Now only about 6 months till they start possibly thinking about giving me the update!
Re: (Score:1)
http://developer.sonyericsson.com/wp/2011/12/15/ice-cream-sandwich-alpha-rom-available-for-unlocked-xperia-phones/#more-4706 [sonyericsson.com]
was followed by
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1393738 [xda-developers.com]
running it (Score:5, Interesting)
I installed it on my Nexus S several hours ago. I prefer the pure Google experience and don't like to mess with other ROMS, and it was quite an easy install.
ICS is much better than GB. Smoother scrolling, more polished and true multitasking. Music stays running even when paused, and Navigation stays in the background much better... still exploring, but this is everything I wanted from my Nexus S.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Huh?
Re: (Score:2)
One thing I kinda wondered about - how do they deal with buttons on old Android phones? On Galaxy Nexus, they show [wikimedia.org] buttons for Back, Home, and task switcher at the bottom of the screens, but those aren't dedicated - they're actually painted on the main screen. On Nexus S, do they just use its hardware buttons, and don't paint anything? If so, does this mean that you don't get a dedicated button to switch tasks?
Re:running it (Score:4, Informative)
You're right, no dedicated switch process button. Long-press on home button works as usual to switch between processes.
Re: (Score:2)
By "as usual", do you mean that it shows the old Android 2.x task switch UI (a dialog box with app icons)? Or the new ICS UI (app thumbnails scrollable up & down)?
Re:running it (Score:4, Informative)
By the way, if I'm not mistaken, face unlock is missing. Couldn't find it anywhere in the settings.
Re: (Score:2)
You can download the apk from xda-developers (i know its located here:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1363593 [xda-developers.com]
scroll down in the first post and youll see the link.
I cant use it as the build 9 of cyanogenmod 9 has a distorted output from the front camera, which the face lock will keep bitching part of your face is missing
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Not really a fan of all the blue instead of green. Anyone know a way to change that?
Re: (Score:2)
Did this or any previous update ever fix the Sprint reception problems that everyone talked about when the phone came out?
Re: (Score:3)
I do wish people would allow this spam to stay unmodded for a little longer - the language is just so amusing.
Restore ancient ways in recent street snap of cloak was stars to deduce wantonly
has an inner poetry that is quite beguiling, even if some fool wants to sell a knock-off handbag on the back of it.
It's almost tempting to think that there is a very poorly made recursive transition network somewhere in China knocking this stuff out, but I fear it's just bad Chinglish.
Slow as hell!! (Score:3, Informative)
Installed since 30 min. Playing around, it's unbelievably unresponsive and slow...
but finally in 2011 I can move emails across folders...
cheers
Re:Slow as hell!! (Score:4, Interesting)
The gmail application was very slow for me too until I purged all its data and resync'd from the server, now it's pretty reasonable.
Perhaps there was a storage format change and a poorly written compatibility shim in place.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
but finally in 2011 I can move emails across folders...
cheers
I've been doing this for ages on Android using K-9. Android is about choice... make use of it. ;)
Re: (Score:1)
but finally in 2011 I can move emails across folders...
cheers
I've been doing this for ages on Android using K-9. Android is about choice... make use of it. ;)
you like to hack, to spend time looking for an alternative email client that fits your needs and so on. I like to have something that is full-featured and works out of the box because I like to spend my time differently.
I don't think that something you pay that lacks features out of the box is about choice, it's just about lack of features
Re: (Score:2)
you like to hack, to spend time looking for an alternative email client that fits your needs and so on. I like to have something that is full-featured and works out of the box because I like to spend my time differently.
I don't think that something you pay that lacks features out of the box is about choice, it's just about lack of features
Well, by your definition, every 12yo kid who installed AIM on his desktop computer is a "hacker". ;)
Look, I'm not saying that the stock client shouldn't be able to move messages between folders. I just don't get why if you have such an aversion to installing apps that you'd get a smartphone. My old dumbphone had 100 things that it didn't do right, or didn't do at all, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Part of the reason we all love our smartphones is because they give us the ability to ins
Wife got it first (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)