Android 4.1 Jelly Bean Review 255
New submitter codysleiman points out a review of Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) at The Verge. They say the look and feel of Google's mobile operating system has improved in a few different ways. Aesthetically, it isn't trying quite so hard as it did in Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, making the UI less of a distraction. While performance benchmarks aren't much different, Jelly Bean forces 60fps throughout and lets the GPU, CPU and display run independently, so it at least feels smoother and more responsive. Another big area of improvement is notifications: "You can tap a share button on photos, calendar appointments give you a snooze or email attendees option, missed calls provide direct call-back buttons. ... Google has introduced APIs for actions on notifications and I hope that app developers take advantage of them, because it would be nice to have more actions on a variety of different apps." The new on-screen keyboard also got some much-needed updates, and Google Now looks promising.
But... (Score:3)
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking of Bluetooth, I got a new car, a Mazda 3, and my t-mobile G2 just worked. Setup is via voice control through the 3's stereo. A call comes in, I can pick up the call the steering wheel buttons, it routes throught the stereo, and I can also voice call out. How cool is that? No more hiding my phone below the dash.
The point is, my particular Android phone was probably never tested by Mazda. It just worked because it's all standards-based.
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Well, you shouldn't NEED to buy a new car more than every ten years or so. Unless you're getting really crappy cars, or not taking care of them.
I certainly plan to keep my current car at least ten years.
(My car's a 2007 model, and doesn't have Bluetooth anything. I stuck with the base stereo; for some bizarre reason, the nav system upgraded one couldn't play mp3s, but the base one could.)
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Because the MP3 players and phones typically aren't intended for eyes-free operation. On a properly designed car, all typical functions (Radio, HVAC, etc. exceptions would be setting the clock and other such not-supposed-to-be-done-while-driving tasks) should be easily controlled without needing to look at them.
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Cables? Just get a system with Bluetooth that has A2DP. You don't even need to take the phone out of your pocket.
Heck, the music files don't even need to be on your phone, run a UPnP renderer on your phone, music server at home and stream the music to your car.
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Re:But... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but splitting a
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A nice step forward (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:A nice step forward (Score:5, Informative)
Now the focus is on the apps - to not look like amateurish pieces of crap. Other than maybe a handful of Android apps (e.g., Dolphin Browser), most Android apps look horrible, and outside of that handful, the ones that look good are that way because they came from iOS.
I've got lots of great looking apps on my Galaxy Nexus including AIDE, Aldiko, Amazon Kindle, Analytics, APV PDF Reader, Bank of America, Chrome, ConnectBot, Currents, Drive, Droid DJ, Dropbox, Earth, Elixir, Engadget, Evernote, FBReader, Final Fantasy, Firefox Beta, FPSe, Ghost Commander, gReader, Mass Effect, MoboPlayer, Opera Mini, PicSay, Play Books/Movies/Store, Pulse, ShadowGun, SpeedVIew, TED, Vi Improved Touch, VLC, Voice, and Youtube amongst several more and they all look just great. For reference, I also have an iPad with many apps and as a rule, the iPad apps don't look better. What are you running that looks so bad?
Re:A nice step forward (Score:4, Insightful)
Can I run Android on my PC or PowerPC mac? (Score:2)
I want to try out this operating system.
Re:Can I run Android on my PC or PowerPC mac? (Score:4, Informative)
Sure [android.com].
Re:Can I run Android on my PC or PowerPC mac? (Score:4, Informative)
On PC (x86) you can run the free Android SDK which includes an emulator, or use Bluestacks which is an easy to run environment and supports most non graphically intensive apps. A word of warning with both is don't expect native high-end speed. Bluestacks is my recommendation, but even on a nice high end PC things like Netflix are just high speed slideshows.
On PPC you can find a few VM's of older versions but they will be running via emulation an x86 option. I know for a fact that I once was able to get a few running on a G5 Quad, but they were very slow and relied on the outdated VirtualPC for Mac edition.
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there's the option to run android-x86 in a vm too, in my experience faster for lots of things than the emulators that come with the sdk or even bluestacks(which while nice suffers from intentional crippling by product design).
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http://www.android-x86.org/ .
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Yes. If you get the Android SDK, it comes with a VM - you can run pretty much any version. (its kind of slow, as its running a java VM on a virtual ARM processor on your x86. (Though apparently the latest version is an x86 version - haven't confirmed that yet)
Warning you now though - you're running a touch OS with a mouse. Think about the reaction to Metro that people are giving.
My point is, if you don't like running it in the VM, be aware that its a much better experience on actual hardware.
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Warning you now though - you're running a touch OS with a mouse.
Nothing whatsoever prevents touch and mouse from working well together, just as mouse and keyboard do. Never mind that Google is a little slow at getting the details right principly because Googlers are not as smart as they think they are. It works passably well now and it will work much better in the future after we work Google over with a cluebat.
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No mention of new Google Voice Search? (Score:5, Interesting)
That is one of the things I think looks really interesting.
It also seem to have improved vastly over not only the old version, but also over Apple's Siri.
Some videos of the new function:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLyuWEWqYqQ [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-RzN4xYyE [youtube.com]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHkhp6BwnGo [youtube.com]
I mean, it's still gimmicky, but it looks like an improvement. But for me it's not gonna be practical until it support my language, Norwegian. How useful is it when it can't understand the norwegian names on my contacts? Or street names? Or store names?
Still, it looks like a really fun toy... *wants*
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I just tested it today on a Galaxy Nexus running Jellybean and it's awesome, I assure you.
In fact, as a non-native speaker, it understood my English much better than when I tried Siri.
There's a reason Apple is getting scared shitless about Android and I'll tell you that it isn't about the form factor of the devices.
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perception & reality (Score:3, Interesting)
What is the difference between feeling "smoother and more responsive" and being "smoother and more responsive"?
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm asking seriously.
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Re:perception & reality (Score:5, Interesting)
What is the difference between feeling "smoother and more responsive" and being "smoother and more responsive"?
I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm asking seriously.
Here is a good example.
A swipe animation that takes 1 second to complete, rendered with 4 frames of animation.
vs
A swipe animation that takes 1.15 seconds to complete, rendered with 30 frames of animation.
The first example will ACTUALLY be more responsive, while the seconds one will FEEL more response to most people.
That explains the 28 updates this week (Score:2)
Oh, thanks, that explains the 28 updates to all my Google Play apps that appeared out of nowhere and killed my tablet productivity this week. I can't wait to see what my data plan charges will be as a result of this update.
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So I go and check my "About Tablet" and I see... 4.04! What blather are you spouting?
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Informative)
So I go and check my "About Tablet" and I see... 4.04! What blather are you spouting?
The "blather" that very few Android users as a whole are using the latest version of the OS, with all the new features that are being promoted (like this new API for example) because handset manufacturers don't want to update old phones that are perfectly capable of running ICS, and now JB, but want you to buy a new phone instead.
The last graph I saw showed that only 6 or 7% of Android handset users were on ICS, and now JB rolls around. Google needs to address that problem somehow, but I'm not really sure what it can do given the nature of the way Android works - that freedom has unfortunate side effects in some cases.
Compare that to iOS' distribution, where a *much* larger percentage are running the most recent version, making it a lot easier for developers. the trade off, of course, is that Apple tightly controls the ecosystem.
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Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Informative)
I just bought a Nexus. Neither my Nexus S nor my Galaxy Nexus have had any problems getting updates. I expect the same treatment when my Nexus 7 gets here.
Good for you - you're obviously in that 5 or 6% who have phones that receive updates (or are able to be trivially updated). The vast majority of Android users are not like you, as shown by the stats. Either they simply do not update for whatever reason, or they are unable to. It's a problem that doesn't go away (and in fact, only gets worse) if those at the top of the Android food chain with the really good devices say "I'm ok, so there's no problem". This issue still affects you, since it causes problems in the Android ecosystem as a whole.
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Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:4, Interesting)
It gives trolls a convenient talking point too ;-)
I'm genuinely curious here, do you think I'm trolling, or do you think there's no problem with only a fractional proportion of the Android user base using the latest version of the OS, only for that OS to be already depreciated?
Clearly the "you can buy a Nexus S if you want to update" model isn't really working.
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:4, Interesting)
But you have that choice from Apple too - you don't have to buy the latest phone. Apple sells the 3GS still (free on contract, otherwise $99) and the iPhone 4 and they *still* gets the latest OS, despite not paying the premium price. There will be certain parts of iOS6 that are not supported on the 3GS, but it's not bad for free.
So, like unlike Apple, you get the choice of not paying the premium price for future upgrades if you don;t think you need them, since with Apple you get the non-premium phones with the future upgrades included.
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Informative)
And you only get to choose from Apple made hardware. If you only choose from Google-made hardware, you get the latest updates too.
The difference is, with Android, you don't have to choose Google made hardware. You may not get software updates, but you do get alternate hardware options, like full 3D support, damage-proof, water resistance and other options.
Where's the drop-resistant water-resistant daylight bright iPhone exactly? There isn't one. By licensing Android to other handset makers Google ends up with older versions in use on hardware that won't run the newer OS but there's more user choice too.
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The 3GS? Ha ha. That old piece of shit isn't even worthy of discussion with it's pathetic QVGA screen. And don't forget the thousands and thousands of apps in the Apple App Store that will only run on the iPhone 4 and above. Not that that raggedy piece of shit will run all of the new shit like Siri. Speaking of which has been royally stomped by Google Now. Ha ha.
This discussion was about cheaper, non-premium phones. The 3GS "royally stomps" (to use your words) on some of the non-premium Android phones out there that it is currently targeted to compete with, most of which also have a similar screen to the 3GS (since the iPhone lineup is low, medium, premium with the 3GS, 4 and 4S respectively). The 3GS certainly qualifies as a non-premium alternative, especially since it is available for free on various carriers with a contract.
Just because you don't think it's "wor
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Apple 3GS is an old piece of shit that is considerably inferior to any middle ground Android phones in the market, like Galaxy Ace, for example, AND more expensive.
The 3GS is free on contract (well, it's $0.01 on AT&T due to the way they handle billing). I'm not sure how that makes it "more expensive". What Android phones can you get for free that don't have a contract? Unlocked, it is certainly more expensive than an Ace, but the market for that at the non-premium end of the spectrum is pretty limited.
You also seem to be missing the point. You stated that "Unlike Apple ... you have the choice [on Android] of not paying the premium price for future upgrades if you
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Well, here nothing but the lowliest cost cellphones are completely free on contact. Sure, you get discounts for locked phones, but the discounts are about the same for a Galaxy Ace or an iphone 3GS (if you are able to find one to sell in the phone operators, which you are usually not).
And sorry, except for special cases, as you exemplified in your post, which are not available in most places of this world, you will still be paying a premium for a service you don't even have anymore, because you will be buying a 3 year old cellphone from Apple and paying a superior amount you would pay for much better, newer devices.
Then... buy the newer, better device? If the 3GS is not a good deal on its face (it actually is, especially with Apple's demonstrated forward support of it with updates to at least iOS6), then get something else. You were complaining about lack of non-premium options from - I gave you two non-premium Apple options, now you seem to just want to trash the 3GS.
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only a fractional proportion of the Android user base using the latest version of the OS, only for that OS to be already depreciated
Deprecated. The word is deprecated. Depreciation is a bookkeeping exercise to recognise the cost of an asset over a period of time. Deprecation is the word used to describe software features being superseded.
Yeah, I realised as soon as I posted it - I had a typo and used the spelling corrector, only to pick the wrong one in the list and I didn't catch it until I'd hit submit.
Je suis desolé.
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fandroids
Yep...I was wondering when the troll^H^H^H^H leopard would show his spots.
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fandroids
Yep...I was wondering when the troll^H^H^H^H leopard would show his spots.
I was responding in kind to the "Fucking troll" levelled at me in an otherwise courteous discussion. I don't throw insults around very often at all, but sometimes when it's late and I'm out of tea I might respond a little snappily to being called a "Fucking troll" and respond to said person less than favourably.
Can I assume that was you, since you're continuing down this path? Whoever it was forgot to log in - so brave of them when using such grown up words!
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Why does this have to be about iOS or Windows Phone?
errr...the one to answer that would be you [slashdot.org]:
"Compare that to iOS..."
Clearly you're the one trying to draw parallels to other platforms, but only when it suits your argument.
In the sense that iOS' user base is pretty much all on the current version, unlike Android. The GP then used that to frame a false comparison argument that because Android was already better than iOS (because, of voice search and nothing else), that there was no problem at all with Android. I was drawing attention to that problematic statement. Just because something is already better than something else (even if that something else is done a certain thing better) does not mean there's no room for improveme
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I have a Galaxy Nexus that was just updated to ICS 4.04 last month. It took a little while only because Verizon is my carrier. Those who really want the latest OS root their phones. Mine is not rooted but if it was, I could probably get Jelly Bean right now.
And you don't see that as a problem? The issue with Verizon? This is what I mean. I have taken serious vehement, frothing flack from mostly AC posters kneejerking to my perceived "trolling of Android" when pointing out something that is a fact - the low adoption of updates due to deliberate feet dragging or outright abandonment to force new phone sales.
My point isn't to create a dick waving contest over iOS or Windows Phone or any of that, it's to suggest that maybe Google could try to do something about it
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The issue with Verizon would have easily been averted by just withholding the GSM and CDMA updates entirely until they were both ready no one being the wiser. What they did instead was release the GSM code when it was ready and waited until the CDMA stuff was Aldo ready before releasing that. But it gives you something to troll about so I guess it wasn't a complete loss.
You still think I'm trolling? So you think it's totally ok that Android's general OEM model is one where locked bootloaders and abandoned phones is the norm?
What's your stance on Secure Boot on PCs? Do you think that it would be ok to remove the ability to disable it so that only Windows would boot on there? Then sell those machines at a discount, of course.
Whatever, if you choose to see this as purely trolling because I don't share the same opinions as you then go ahead. I'm not sure how else to rephrase i
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What's your stance on Secure Boot on PCs? Do you think that it would be ok to remove the ability to disable it so that only Windows would boot on there? Then sell those machines at a discount, of course.
Depends on who's doing it, obviously Microsoft can't mandate or have any involvement it as they have too powerful a market position, but if say Toshiba did it on their products there's no real problem with that, there's no competitive advantage to doing it.
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Do you have some kind of magic solution for fixing this problem? Google can't make the software open source and then simultaneously prevent the carriers and manufacturers from rolling their own versions with funky skins and locked bootloaders. Nor can Google force the carriers/manufacturers to update the software in a timely manner. Google can try to provide incentives, but they can't force the issue. You can have free and open software or an iron fisted regime where everyone is forced to move in lockstep, but you can't have both at the same time.
It seemed to work for GPLv3. I'm not saying the solutions are simple, but the current system is a bit of a mess and it's a shame. Not everyone who uses Android is savvy enough to understand that the should pick the Nexus, or something else in that category and then get stuck with a phone they can't update.
I have a number of friends who had terrible experiences on Android and they're universally in the "got a handset that was abandoned" category. Without exception all of those friends bought iPhones as soon
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Interesting)
With Apple, either you are an early adopter, or you are too old to care about. On Android, we have early adopters, as well as mainstream users, and late adopters. My year old phone is on Gingerbread, and iOS still hasn't caught up to it in functionality unless you buy a specific model of iPhone. So, while you can say that everyone on iPhone is running the newest OS version, while Android users are not, you can also say that every Android user can perform voice searches while iPhone users cannot.
Simply put, worries about being on the newest OS version is meaningless FUD.
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, you're claiming it's FUD because your one year old phone is better than an iPhone 4 (I'll pick the iPhone 4 since that was the current model a year ago), and specifically claim that the entire problem of low adoption of the latest OS release on Android, and the issue of manufacturers and carriers deliberately blocking and/or delaying updates to phones that can support them in an effort to drive sales of new phones, both of which cause big headaches for developers is "meaningless FUD" because Android users can voice search?
I think you need to lay off the Apple hate and stop framing everything as a competition with Apple. Fuck what Apple are doing, look at how Android is doing. Who cares if you can voice search on Android. Good for you! How does that have any bearing on the problems posed by the fact that a very small number of users are on the latest version of the OS and those who might want to join them either don't know about it or are blocked from getting there?
Constructive criticism of the platform and its perceived issues are not attempts to "troll" or "spread meaningless FUD".
An Android user might be blocked from getting ICS (and now JB) despite his handset being able to support it is hardly going to be placated by you spouting "well at least you can voice search! it's so much better than iPhone! lolz!". I imagine he already thinks that, since *he bought an Android phone in the first place*.
On the "you're either an early adopter or too old to care about" front on iOS, the facts simply do not bear that out. iOS6 is launching soon (likely with whatever the new iPhone will be called), but it's in developer beta now. It will support the 3GS (albeit with some features missing, like Siri) - that's hardly a culture of "early adopter or too old to care". The 3GS was released in June 2009, and they'll be actively supporting it with the latest OS. By the time iOS6 hits consumer handsets that's over 3 years, and the active support of the previous 4 model generations (3GS, 4, 4S and the new one). That's certainly doing "better" than some Android handsets that have been abandoned and can't upgrade (and for balance, doing "worse" than some Android handsets that will be supported for longer).
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Constructive criticism of the platform and its perceived issues are not attempts to "troll" or "spread meaningless FUD".
Then criticize the platform if that's what you want to do. All you've done so far is criticize the behavior of the various OEM's. You've been told over and over that if you want an Android device that gets guaranteed updates you get a Nexus. Since this article is about Jelly Bean, do you have any specific criticisms of it? Otherwise you are just continuing an off-topic rant.
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Constructive criticism of the platform and its perceived issues are not attempts to "troll" or "spread meaningless FUD".
Then criticize the platform if that's what you want to do. All you've done so far is criticize the behavior of the various OEM's. You've been told over and over that if you want an Android device that gets guaranteed updates you get a Nexus. Since this article is about Jelly Bean, do you have any specific criticisms of it? Otherwise you are just continuing an off-topic rant.
It's all tied in - the OEMs are the source of the problem. I am sure Jelly Bean is great, just like ICS is great. I've used an ICS-running phone (Galaxy S2) and it was a fantastic device. The OEM problem affects the entire Android ecosystem though - even those savvy enough to buy phones that can be easily upgraded. Most people are not like that, and will not even think about that as a source of potential future problems. "Is this device upgradable?" is not something most users think about. You may say "well, they should!" and yes, they should, but most don't and you're asking for a similar result if you say "well, users should just stop getting viruses!".
The Android ecosystem as a whole suffers when the majority (or a very large number - I'm not sure the proportion of devices that can't upgrade vs the ones that simply don't know they can) of devices are left on old versions of the OS. Normally this is not too big of a problem, but let's take the new API that Google just put into JB. How many developers are going to jump on that? It may not be hugely compelling, but let's say that it is. Let's say it's an amazing new API and feature set that makes Jelly Bean an absolute no brainer. Sure, all the Nexus S people can get it, and those who've rooted their phones, but what about those who simply don't update? Either because they can't or they don't know they can?
If Joe Public is on Froyo and he sees his buddy with a cool new killer app and he wants to use it, can he, if it needs JB? That depends if his phone has an upgrade path. I think it is unacceptable that his phone should be abandoned, if it can run the latest OS. That is the problem I think should be addressed.
It's not off topic, in a discussion about Jelly Bean, to talk about just who it is who will be able to use it, and whether developers will look favourably on the new features if past experience shows them that adopting them will result in an app that is only available to 5% of the user base, assuming a similar adoption rate for JB vs ICS. It's a shame.
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The Android ecosystem as a whole suffers
If there are 600,000 apps in the appstore and 1 million phones are shipped with Android daily, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of other software makers would like that kind of "suffering". Have you considered the possibility that you are so steeped in the Apple way of thinking that you just don't understand Android and what makes it so compelling to so many people? Trying to view all of Android through the lense of a completely different system is folly.
That's odd that you think I'm looking at this "from an Apple way of thinking" when my argument is that locked bootloaders are a bad idea, and that Android should mandate that OEMs that use it should provide unlocked bootloaders and a clear and easy upgrade path.
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Right, in which case all of the comparisons of Android to other mobile operating systems should be made against the version that is 2 back from current. It's meaningless to tout the "great features" of Android (and they are pretty damn good in ICS and JB) if no one is using them and developers aren't looking to target them for another year or more.
Then you talk about a 2 year mean life of the product. I thought it was Apple users who were "locked into" the "upgrade treadmill" - now you're saying that's a po
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When directly comparing OS features high-end Android Devices do have the lastest versions, so you need to compare those new versions with iOS equivalent ones. My Galaxy S2 received ICS almost 2 months ago, for example, and it will most likely receive JB in a few months at most.
Mid to low end devices must be compared t
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Mid to low end devices must be compared taking their price tag into consideration, and sorry no option from Apple beats the best Android devices in this region, even if they are running Gingerbread.
In your opinion - many people beg to differ, as does the sales chart which shows how popular the 3GS (and the 4) are - selling better than any other phone *period* except the 4S and, more recently, the Galaxy S3 - despite being 2 generations behind. The people buying them are doing so because they're coming off crappy low to mid Android handsets (as opposed to the really good Android handsets - I'm not saying Android is crappy), or they're brand new buyers who were waiting for a cheaper entry into the smart
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare that to iOS' distribution, where a *much* larger percentage are running the most recent version, making it a lot easier for developers. the trade off, of course, is that Apple tightly controls the ecosystem.
"Easier for Developers"? LOL. I have developed apps for Android and I know what's required to develop apps for IOS. First of all, Android apps can be developed on Windows (all versions), linux, and OSX platforms. Apps can even be developed on Android itself. Eclipse + ADT plugin makes it very easy. IOS apps, on the other hand, can only be developed using Xcode running on OSX. Also, its pretty easy to test your Android app while in development using the emulator but most devs prefer to side-load their app onto the device because its faster and just better than using an emulator. Let's try side-loading an IOS app....oh wait, no USB port. Of course then there's the whole tightly controlled ecosystem you mentioned with Apple...Despite that, vulnerabilities still surface but I bet there are others that Apple stays tight-lipped about and maybe fixes quietly. When Android has a vulnerability, the whole world finds out through the open system of development, arguably making Android appear less secure.
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I side-load all my iOS apps. The ones I write, that is. How do you think iOS developers test?
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You missed much bigger issues, like the fact that you h
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Sure a Mac costs money, but less than a week of developer salary. The cost isn't an issue.
Many if not most developers are hobby developers, who have a phone, and like to fiddle with it. They don't get a developer salary, they probably don't get paid at all, well a few dollars on ad revenue maybe if they care to put ads in their app. They may or may not have a Mac. Cost for them may very well be a real issue.
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If by "side load" you mean "install without going to the app store" then this is what a dev account allows you to do.
Plug in the iphone to USB, click deploy in xcode.
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Latest market stats [android.com] (as of July 2) say 10.9% are on ICS and slowly growing. 64% are still on some version of Gingerbread and 2.4% on Honeycomb tablets.
Growth rate might experience an uptick in the next couple months as carriers roll out HTC's ICS upgrades for a few of their phones, such as my Incredible S.
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So I go and check my "About Phone" and I see... 2.3.4! What blather are you spouting?
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The problem are the carriers, not Google. Once a carrier has sold you a device and locked you in to a contract, what incentive is there to keep your device up to date? It's just a money sink to them, and they'd much rather have you drooling over an early upgrade in part because of an OS upgrade too.
Personally, i like sticking to Google's phones.
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Huh? Carriers make their money on service, not hardware. That's why they're willing to sell you a phone at a loss to get you to sign a new contract. As long as they can get customers to stay with them, it's beneficial if you keep the equipment you have as long as possible. That changes somewhat with technology changes. Right now, carriers have an incentive to
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Considering the low amount of people on 4.0, it's seems almost like there's no point in releasing 4.1 at this time.
How does that follow?
Among manufacturers who simply never upgrade, the state of the present is wholly disconnected from the state of the future. It doesn't matter whether the existing devices are on 1.6 or 4.0, they are water under the bridge, the only thing that matters is what version is available when future products are in development.
Among manufacturers who do upgrade, the willingness to upgrade only matters if Google has an upgrade available. The phone vendors, so far, show an ability to improve
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:5, Informative)
It's just more FUD from the Slashdot anti-Android astroturf brigade.
Reality is a little different:
The bigger view comparing ICS with other Android versions shows how ICS is the only one of them that has grown its penetration percentage in the last period, and that Gingerbread may have started its S-curve decline, echoing the one that Froyo in green below has already been through:
The takeaway here? Well, despite declines, those other OSs are still being sold and used. ICS in total, he believes, now represents about 42 million devices in use, compared to 260 million running 2.3, and 70m still on 2.2, aka Froyo.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/03/melting-point-for-ics-its-share-of-android-penetration-is-growing-while-others-falling/
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not the point though. I have a samsung galaxy s2, and I am willing to bet a dollar that I will never get upgraded jellybean, unless I flash the rom.
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And if you never install windows, I'm guessing you'll never get Windows 8.
Going to cry about being stuck on XP? DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
Re:Too bad no one will get it (Score:4, Informative)
And if you never install windows, I'm guessing you'll never get Windows 8.
Going to cry about being stuck on XP? DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I know, I know your sarcasm. But allow us to illustrate a few gentle listeners:
XP, VISTA and WINDOWS 7... with a life 3 to 5 years between sequels *rarely* encourage developers to build Applications to nag you to upgrade. Bargain bin items till about 3 years ago commonly boasted Windows 2000 backward compat*
Yet Android versions last a year and are ripe with annoyances:
Funny, it hasn't been a full 4 years since September 2008 (compare to my numbers above for full OSs).
Since that's the year of the first Android release, we can see a forced trend like NO DESKTOP^H^H^W WINTEL PC has ever required. I recall, MacOS back in 1998 did have tons of programs that condemned you for needing OS 7.1, or 7.5 or 8.1 or 8.5, or 9.0 or 9.1 to run due to library compat --though Windows still gave you the chance of downloading, say VBRUN300.dll or whatever VC or DotNET runtime you needed. I see what phonemakers learned from that boldness to just stay quiet and block you before you download.
99.9% of people don't upgrade. Get new computer, let the OEM introduce you forcibly to Windows ME, XP, Vista, Seven, Eight... profit. Those OS upgrade boxed sets are for proactive geeks with nothing to lose but some cash.
* meaning the laziest, cheapest developers who might actually pick new SDKs to look shiny don't care if you have a dinosaur PC... it's the largest companies with much to lose who actually ostracize their userbase via platform shifts
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If you want to buy cheap models, on the other hand, chances are you don't care a lot about upgrades, but the great majority of available apps work well on Froyo, and the great
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I see this getting thrown out a lot, and I've actually been responsible for using it a few times.
The big problem with that argument is not what you (the geek) can do with it's phone, it's what common people do. The success is measured with the sales of the 99% of the people that cannot do that (and it's harder than installing windows - you first have to root the phone, get into recovery, etc etc).
This is where apple shines. If an OS is available, it'll be available for every phone that supports it. Google d
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2.3 is over 18 months old so I don't Android is incrementing terribly quickly.
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...so I don't *think* Android...
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That's plain disingenuous. Firefox's a blatant example of version number inflation; there's nearly no distinguishing feature between each version. Android's a fast progressing software project; new versions are frequent, but each comes with significant (sometimes drastic) changes.
You should be complaining that your phone manufacturer/mobile provider is keeping you stuck at 2.3.5 instead of complaining Google is improving the OS.
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Firefox is merely following Google's example with Chrome. For reference, Chrome is currently version 20 on my machine and still looks remarkably similar to version 1.
One important difference, Google isn't using version numbers for marketing. Without looking, I have no idea what version of Chrome I'm using. It could be 1.0, it could be 90.8.5, it doesn't really matter. With Firefox I'm using Firefox 13, with Chrome I'm using Chrome. They might be competing with Google, but Google isn't competing with them, at least as far as version number inflation goes. I think Google also has a different scheme of version numbers than Firefox had, they generally bumped the princi
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All those Nexus products. All one of them.
How many iPhones are there? How many Windows Phone devices on the market right now will be upgradable to Windows Phone 8?
Yes, it is hard. Not every carrier offers a Nexus device.
Actually, you can get the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon, Sprint and the GSM version works on At&t and T-Mobile with full data speeds. The iPhone works on less carriers than that.
Also, there still is no Nexus tablet. It hasn't shipped yet.
True but it is shipping in 2 weeks. The Xoom before it was the Google Experience tablet device and they have already confirmed Jelly Bean will be released for it.
Everyone is so happy and glad you have a Galaxy Nexus, but you're trying to defend against one of the most valid and popular complaints about the current Android ecosystem. Try again this time next year once Google has more Nexus phones and tablets on the store and some people have had time for their contracts to expire. Maybe then you can blame the more tech-savvy that they should've bought Google devices, because there may actually be some by then.
I'm just pointing out the fact that if people are
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How about just enjoy what you have without trolling? I have an HD7 windows phone as well as Android phones and I just like the Android phones better. Especially now that my Galaxy Nexus is running jelly bean and consequently super smooth thereby obliterating the last advantage windows phone has for me.
What I'm really glad with my GNex is that I can expect full updates in the future while my HTC windows phone will never see windows phone 8.
Re:Does it even matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google's own numbers show ~90% Android users still aren't on 4.0+, and it's been almost nine months since ICS was released.
There are still millions of Windows XP boxes even though Windows 7 is out there for years. Does that indicate that the Windows upgrade process is broken?
Android devices are sold as something a notch below Apple products (at least because it's not Apple.) Android phones cost less, and as result they are sold to customers who just want a phone. There are very few geeks in that crowd. Among geeks there are very few people who want to risk all the data that they have on the phone for sake of upgrade to a new version of the OS that they haven't seen and don't know what it does better or worse. Most people don't even know what they have and what else is out there. I have a Galaxy Tab device; I don't even know what version of Android it runs! I don't even know what versions are out there! Why? Because I don't care. It's not a quest of my life to nurture and maintain the most recent version of Android on a device that does what it needs to do already. I see no point in upgrading it. It's a tool and it works well.
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There are still millions of Windows XP boxes even though Windows 7 is out there for years. Does that indicate that the Windows upgrade process is broken?
I think so. It's a combination of the fact that Microsoft charges too much for an upgrade, and there isn't any good reason for most people to upgrade to Windows 7.
This is unrelated to Android, for which most people depend on the manufacturers/carriers to deliver them the upgrade. They haven't been doing their job.
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