Technology Android

[Casey]

*shrugs*

I use the Nexus Player literally every day and have no problems with it. Youtube works great, Play Music works great, Netflix works great, I have some games on it like Crossy Road and Pac Man 256, I control my Plex Server from it so I have all my TV shows and movies, and obviously I cast to it from all other apps on my phone and tablet as well.

What exactly isn't it doing that you want it to do?

 

[dilla]

Anyone who wants the best TV setup wants an IPTV system with VOD. Anything else is no match. Apple TV is shit, unless you get KODI on it. Anything google puts out is pants. Yes you can stream netflix, youtube and cast to it. But you can do that to most set top boxes, what makes it stand out...!

Nothing really makes it stand out until recently when it went from $100 to $25. I really feel bad for those that spent the full $100 on it. The Chromecast feels like a $15-20 gadget and the Player maybe double that at $50 tops. But that still feels like a bit of a stretch.

No Google fanboy is blaming Google for the lack of apps. And when there is something to blame Google for, like ignoring bug fixes and such, they just say the Player was a flop, and that's it.

Did you hear about Waze? They're revamping the whole app and already released a refreshed iOS version. Android version "coming soon."

So I am to gather that the best Google service phone is indeed an iPhone. The trade-offs for the "variety" and "openness" of Android are trumped hard by the fact that devs won't optimize their apps for different devices running Android.And no way I buy a Nexus device with sub-par hardware just to get updates quicker, because then I get a nice radio signal bug or Google Play Services fucking my battery life up with constant alarms.

The 6P may have changed that and that is still the phone to get, for me, but I feel bad for those that bought into the Android openness, which is only a theory and hasn't actually been fully put into practice. When it gets brought up, a smokescreen is throw up "oh, ask the OEMs that don't update Android, it's not Google's fault." True, but if Google takes this whole laissez-faire approach then why even boast about how open Android is? The idea of it is great but the execution is utter shit. Its biggest pro is its biggest con.

Still, that's another story. I basically bought a $25 Chromecast Plus for $10 less. I can't complain about the price of a limited-utility device. I'm juts glad I didn't buy in when it was released a year ago. At least when the TouchPad flopped and was put on a fire sale, it became a better device.

 

[dilla]

*shrugs*

I use the Nexus Player literally every day and have no problems with it. Youtube works great, Play Music works great, Netflix works great, I have some games on it like Crossy Road and Pac Man 256, I control my Plex Server from it so I have all my TV shows and movies, and obviously I cast to it from all other apps on my phone and tablet as well.

What exactly isn't it doing that you want it to do?

It doesn't have an HBO Now app? And casting from an iPad doesn't seem to be an option even though people are saying it is. Voice search blows with the 6.0 update. It barely works and ends up putting up gibberish in the search box. There's not even a browser. Google didn't design a web browser for its own Player for Android TV. Sideloading apps has been a chore and has yet to work properly either through Bluetooth or by connecting to the Player with a laptop.

Like I said above, I'm not really complaining as much as I'm asking why would Google charge $100 for something that is not much better than a Chromecast? Forget the pricing, but why even make it when other set top boxes have been so much better in getting apps for services and just simply working? Why isn't Google pushing Android TV harder when Apple and Roku are just running circles around it? They're proving Pittsey right by showing that setting up some weird in-house server is a better option than spending money on a Player or even an Apple TV or Roku.

 

[Pittsey]

The iphone isn't without it's drawbacks. I'm still very happy with my G3. If it ran vanilla android, it would be perfect.

I just don't pigeonhole myself to using one ecosystem. I buy what I consider to be the best product, usually because it is, and pick that. I like Android for my phone needs. Windows for my PC needs. And a cheap box that runs the OS that I want for my TV needs.

 

[dilla]

The iphone isn't without it's drawbacks. I'm still very happy with my G3. If it ran vanilla android, it would be perfect.

I just don't pigeonhole myself to using one ecosystem. I buy what I consider to be the best product, usually because it is, and pick that. I like Android for my phone needs. Windows for my PC needs. And a cheap box that runs the OS that I want for my TV needs.

Definitely. The iPhone and iOS devices in general have their drawbacks. But if software is important to you and it running smooth and even being upgraded/compatible with apps, iOS seems to be having fewer of those issues.

If one considers Google's software to be superior, then iOS is still getting the updates first. For whatever reason: too many different OEMs for Android, OS versions, etc. The 4S is still being supported while my S3 has been on 4.4.2 for nearly two years now. Is the Nexus 4 even getting 6.0? And that phone is still 8 months newer than an S3 and a 14 months older than the 4S. So even the "buy a Nexus device" argument doesn't hold up when the N5 had as many complaints as it did.All iOS devices can cast to the Player or Chromecast just as well as any Android device and with no restrictions. And all Google apps/services on iOS have a hell of a lot better UIs than Android. It just looks so much cleaner.

Still, the reviews on the 6P are only getting better. The Google Store even ran out of them yesterday. But shipping dates for people that bought it an hour after the pre-order went live still says late-November. Some are saying theirs is early-November, but either way I hope there isn't a shortage when the Holidays roll around. As I said, it's still the device to get for me and maybe being on 6.0 with more powerful hardware can let me hold off on rooting for a while. I do want to use Android Pay at least once and that requires a device to be unrooted for security reasons, understandably.

 

[Pittsey]

Yeah. I agree.


Take Apple Pay. Android phones have had the technology for far longer than Apple. Yet it didn't get popular until Apple did it... !As an Android user, I am happy that Apple exists and hope for them to remain successful, as they help move the technology along.

 

[Casey]

It doesn't have an HBO Now app? And casting from an iPad doesn't seem to be an option even though people are saying it is. Voice search blows with the 6.0 update. It barely works and ends up putting up gibberish in the search box. There's not even a browser. Google didn't design a web browser for its own Player for Android TV. Sideloading apps has been a chore and has yet to work properly either through Bluetooth or by connecting to the Player with a laptop.

Like I said above, I'm not really complaining as much as I'm asking why would Google charge $100 for something that is not much better than a Chromecast? Forget the pricing, but why even make it when other set top boxes have been so much better in getting apps for services and just simply working? Why isn't Google pushing Android TV harder when Apple and Roku are just running circles around it? They're proving Pittsey right by showing that setting up some weird in-house server is a better option than spending money on a Player or even an Apple TV or Roku.

I can't say I've ever wanted to watch HBO, so I can't answer that. Ditto on casting from an iPad. Yeah, voice search sucks. I'm sure this can be improved upon.

Why the fuck would you want a browser on your TV?

 

[dilla]

I can't say I've ever wanted to watch HBO, so I can't answer that. Ditto on casting from an iPad. Yeah, voice search sucks. I'm sure this can be improved upon.

Why the fuck would you want a browser on your TV?

It's not that far-fetched of an idea considering the original Android TV had it, complete with a keyboard.

Even without the keyboard, if the voice feature 1. worked at all 2. could be used outside of the set apps Google wants you to use it with, there are plenty of ways to use it.

If streaming a sports game, voice search could pull up a schedule or a player's stats in the browser. When watching a movie, voice search could find an actor's IMDB or Wiki if you were wondering about something. I'm not saying one should browse Streethop on their living room TV, but you should be able to use it to pull up small information like that.

And why shouldn't it have a browser? It's fucking Android. It's the same on every device it's on, be it a phone, tablet, whatever. You'd think it would just be included in there with the OS. Instead, Google gave it the finger and consciously pulled it out or disabled it. Who cares if it's not "optimized" for Android TV? It's not like the platform is overflowing with "optimized for Android TV" apps that they can afford to start pulling out features.

What was the point of upgrading it to 6.0? It runs the same shitty skin it ran on 5.0. Microsoft had the same UI on its Xbox 360. 5 Years ago.

It's a shame Google started this TV OS thing and now Apple is set to capitalize on it (or already has) while Android is jacking off on the couch just waiting for the next brilliant idea to come to it. And that's just mainstream people that want it for simple tasks. Others see the better device alternatives in the Roku or even the Amazon Fire Stick and go for those. And then advanced users set up using XBMC or something and start installing add-ons and all that other stuff I don't even know about. When it comes to set top boxes, I'm mainstream. I'm a simpleton. Just pick up the remote and sugar coat the UI with an easy app that just works. The Nexus Player doesn't even have an app to work.

You may not care about HBO, but the fact Apple and Sony have HBO's balls and shaft in their mouths trying to get exclusive rights to apps for the devices and TVs, respectively, shows that not having an HBO app on ATV is a damn shame. After Hulu and Netflix, I bet premium channels like HBO and Showtime are the next most popular video streaming apps.

 

[masta247]

Android is shit - just updated the Nexus 9 to Marshmallow and my tablet got diabetes. I knew I should've gone with iPad.

It's not an Android issue. It's a general issue in the mobile world - nobody cares to optimize an OS release as well on an older model as they do on a newer one. Didn't you notice how new Android releases that are supposed to be faster make your phone slower, even though they are really faster in benchmarks on new devices?

Case in point, I have the Ipad Air which I am generally happy with, but since the iOS 9.0 update it makes me wanna cry. It didn't bring any big changes over the iOS 8 that I actually use or like, but it make the user experience laggy and unpleasant, while it was super smooth on iOS 8, which was one of those things I liked the most about it. And that happened on a 1 generation past the latest Ipad, still almost the fastest tablet around.
I can't roll back, if I did not all apps would be supported, I can't do anything except buy a new model that runs iOS 9 slightly better than my original Air ran the iOS 8, right? But I'm not going to, because that's an industry problem that I don't want to boost, which is going to happen as long as smartphones and tablets sell at incredible rates and get replaced more often than ever, and manufacturers understand that and what boosts that behavior. They learned from the PC market, where due to lack of significant hardware advancement over the last 7 years people are just happy with their PCs they bought years ago that still work almost as well as brand new ones, and after they install an SSD they wouldn't notice the processor or anything else lagging behind. That is because new Windows releases are not optimized for any hardware platform more than another. That''s simple. Now PC OEMs and software makers are having trouble making people upgrade. That's why the mobile game players are not repeating that mistake.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Lol Masta, I was being sarcastic. Marshmallow seems fine on the Nexus 9 from what I've seen. However, Android 5.1.1 on my Nexus 7 is painfully slow and it really takes a lot of time to do a simple task. I'm considering upgrading it to Android 6.0 after wiping it.

 

[Pittsey]

It's a shame Google started this TV OS thing and now Apple is set to capitalize on it (or already has) while Android is jacking off on the couch just waiting for the next brilliant idea to come to it. And that's just mainstream people that want it for simple tasks. Others see the better device alternatives in the Roku or even the Amazon Fire Stick and go for those. And then advanced users set up using XBMC or something and start installing add-ons and all that other stuff I don't even know about. When it comes to set top boxes, I'm mainstream. I'm a simpleton. Just pick up the remote and sugar coat the UI with an easy app that just works. The Nexus Player doesn't even have an app to work.

Nah. Apple TV is shit too. Just has more fanboys.


As for XBMC and the add ons. That is getting closer to what your TV experience should be.

 

[dilla]

It's not an Android issue. It's a general issue in the mobile world - nobody cares to optimize an OS release as well on an older model as they do on a newer one. Didn't you notice how new Android releases that are supposed to be faster make your phone slower, even though they are really faster in benchmarks on new devices?

Case in point, I have the Ipad Air which I am generally happy with, but since the iOS 9.0 update it makes me wanna cry. It didn't bring any big changes over the iOS 8 that I actually use or like, but it make the user experience laggy and unpleasant, while it was super smooth on iOS 8, which was one of those things I liked the most about it. And that happened on a 1 generation past the latest Ipad, still almost the fastest tablet around.
I can't roll back, if I did not all apps would be supported, I can't do anything except buy a new model that runs iOS 9 slightly better than my original Air ran the iOS 8, right? But I'm not going to, because that's an industry problem that I don't want to boost, which is going to happen as long as smartphones and tablets sell at incredible rates and get replaced more often than ever, and manufacturers understand that and what boosts that behavior. They learned from the PC market, where due to lack of significant hardware advancement over the last 7 years people are just happy with their PCs they bought years ago that still work almost as well as brand new ones, and after they install an SSD they wouldn't notice the processor or anything else lagging behind. That is because new Windows releases are not optimized for any hardware platform more than another. That''s simple. Now PC OEMs and software makers are having trouble making people upgrade. That's why the mobile game players are not repeating that mistake.

I too have an iPad Air but I'm not seeing the same issues you are. I'm not Jailbroken either, although I should get on that to get some tweaks that I used to have on an older iPad. Still, I agree with OS updates on Android and iOS, that nothing big has changed from 8 to 9 and 4.4.2 TouchWiz feels the same as the Lollipop ROM I had from CM on my S3. Of course, material design is a big UI update, but speaking more to you pointing out how newer iterations of OS claim to boost speed and this and that, yet my phone actually seems to do worse dealing with the new UI and probably bogged down with new features of Lollipop that I may not even use. That's why these benchmark tests are so stupid. Not to mention newer devices run newer versions of Android (5.0, 6.) while a phone that's maybe a year old is still on Kit Kat, like those Samsung devices Samsung refuses to update.

Although I just remembered iOS 9 brought in multiwindow which has been pretty neat to use while streaming video and needing to look something up online or something. Too bad it's limited to a few Apple apps like Safari and such, but I imagine that's due to third party apps not supporting it properly. But I'm not really missing anything third party either. Browser is 90% of the thing I use in multiwindow.

 

[dilla]

Nah. Apple TV is shit too. Just has more fanboys.


As for XBMC and the add ons. That is getting closer to what your TV experience should be.

Apple TV at least has the damn apps like HBO. Developers are actually releasing Apple optimized apps so consumers can at least watch what ever the hell they want. Android TV does not have an HBO app to begin with. That's huge because it doesn't have a lot of other apps either for services that are just as popular.

If the Apple TV hardware sucks, so be it. The average Joe is not going to be bothered by it, if they even notice. Because what they want to watch is still available to them. As long as they get their content, they're happy.

Kodi doesn't even work properly on the NP's 6.0. Let that sink in.

 

[dilla]

Pretty much cements this phone as the one to get.

 

[masta247]

I too have an iPad Air but I'm not seeing the same issues you are. I'm not Jailbroken either, although I should get on that to get some tweaks that I used to have on an older iPad. Still, I agree with OS updates on Android and iOS, that nothing big has changed from 8 to 9 and 4.4.2 TouchWiz feels the same as the Lollipop ROM I had from CM on my S3. Of course, material design is a big UI update, but speaking more to you pointing out how newer iterations of OS claim to boost speed and this and that, yet my phone actually seems to do worse dealing with the new UI and probably bogged down with new features of Lollipop that I may not even use. That's why these benchmark tests are so stupid. Not to mention newer devices run newer versions of Android (5.0, 6.) while a phone that's maybe a year old is still on Kit Kat, like those Samsung devices Samsung refuses to update.

Although I just remembered iOS 9 brought in multiwindow which has been pretty neat to use while streaming video and needing to look something up online or something. Too bad it's limited to a few Apple apps like Safari and such, but I imagine that's due to third party apps not supporting it properly. But I'm not really missing anything third party either. Browser is 90% of the thing I use in multiwindow.

I noticed it on occasional FPS drops in the UI, Safari slowdown and a game I play once in a while - Fallout Shelter went from ultra smooth at all times to something that feels like a 10 year old PC. I did no other updates except of the iOS update in between. The iOS 8 was great, the 9 feels like regress + multiwindow feature copied 1:1 from the Galaxy Note series.

Still, I wish the desktop OS model applied to mobile devices, where you can just install the newest Windows/Mac OS on a 20 year old device and still theoretically be capable of running the newest features, and where there's no new mandatory app framework coming out every year or so tied with a new OS version release. I believe the OS should be separated from drivers and from frameworks, so it would offer almost unlimited flexibility in having what you want and being able to run what you need.

Instead, now you have the OS integrated with the drivers and frameworks (api levels), so it all comes in one big package, once your OEM stops support for your phone, you don't get shit, and once your phone is a year or so old, noone cares about optimizing the drivers, so nothing works as well with each other anymore.
And it's a business decision to fuel device sales. It would be actually easier to do it the PC way - all smartphones run the same ARM instruction set, and there are only a few vendors that would have to come up with a driver update once in a long while for very few hardware products that they make. You could just slap the newest Android core once in a while once Google releases a new one and redistributable packages a'la Java update for maintaining eternal app compatibility on all devices, even 10 years old and your device maker couldnt block it like they do now.

 

[dilla]

I noticed it on occasional FPS drops in the UI, Safari slowdown and a game I play once in a while - Fallout Shelter went from ultra smooth at all times to something that feels like a 10 year old PC. I did no other updates except of the iOS update in between. The iOS 8 was great, the 9 feels like regress + multiwindow feature copied 1:1 from the Galaxy Note series.

Still, I wish the desktop OS model applied to mobile devices, where you can just install the newest Windows/Mac OS on a 20 year old device and still theoretically be capable of running the newest features, and where there's no new mandatory app framework coming out every year or so tied with a new OS version release. I believe the OS should be separated from drivers and from frameworks, so it would offer almost unlimited flexibility in having what you want and being able to run what you need.

Instead, now you have the OS integrated with the drivers and frameworks (api levels), so it all comes in one big package, once your OEM stops support for your phone, you don't get shit, and once your phone is a year or so old, noone cares about optimizing the drivers, so nothing works as well with each other anymore.
And it's a business decision to fuel device sales. It would be actually easier to do it the PC way - all smartphones run the same ARM instruction set, and there are only a few vendors that would have to come up with a driver update once in a long while for very few hardware products that they make. You could just slap the newest Android core once in a while once Google releases a new one and redistributable packages a'la Java update for maintaining eternal app compatibility on all devices, even 10 years old and your device maker couldnt block it like they do now.

Isn't that essentially what the devs on XDA do for legacy phones? As much as I complain about Samsung not supporting the S3 officially beyond 4.4.2, there are devs still pumping out 5.1 ROMs for the S3. I'm not sure about 6.0, but I bet it at least gets 6.0 before there are talks of ending support. There are occasional legacy phones that stick around for like 6 years, like the HTC HD2, but that was originally a Windows Phone. That's impressive and all, but I doubt anyone is still using theirs as a daily driver.

Still, isn't that all possible because devs remove the more modern features that would otherwise slow own an older phone and just still keep the core 6.0 content, like UI and stuff?

 

[dilla]

Masta, I'm not sure if it's model specific in this case here http://www.diverse-news.com/2015/10/iphone-6s-plus-apparently-experiencing.html

But it seems like other devices have the frame drop issue too and it may instead be an OS thing, like you said.

 

[masta247]

Isn't that essentially what the devs on XDA do for legacy phones? As much as I complain about Samsung not supporting the S3 officially beyond 4.4.2, there are devs still pumping out 5.1 ROMs for the S3. I'm not sure about 6.0, but I bet it at least gets 6.0 before there are talks of ending support. There are occasional legacy phones that stick around for like 6 years, like the HTC HD2, but that was originally a Windows Phone. That's impressive and all, but I doubt anyone is still using theirs as a daily driver.

Still, isn't that all possible because devs remove the more modern features that would otherwise slow own an older phone and just still keep the core 6.0 content, like UI and stuff?

It is much more difficult with how it works with mobile OS. Both Android and iOS tightly integrate everything in a rom and it wouldn't work otherwise. You can't just uninstall a skin (like touchwiz) or a driver and install a different one like you can on for example Windows - everything would break because everything else relies on having the version the ROM meant to come with. I think that's the core of the problem - that it all comes in one tightly integrated package rather than customizable components.

About iOS 9, I think the problem there is that it's not as well optimized as other iOS versions before. iOS 8 was awesome in that regard. It seems like with iOS 9 they wrote it for the 6S, and other devices just aren't running it as efficiently. I can see actually it using less resources than previous versions while the slowdowns and frame skips happen - that just means poor optimization, and that is frustrating if you have still great hardware but the software just isn't taking proper advantage of it.

 

[dilla]

Yeah and that was the one thing Apple was good at. Its hardware didn't need to be top-tier to run its OS which was very well optimized for it. Save for the screen size, which was always an issue prior to the 6. And maybe RAM.

I'm on the developer's beta for 9.1 and I use my iPad for most media and the occasional web browsing. There was one app for school I used as well. But in all those instances, I never found the system to hang. About the dropped frames, I don't game either. I figure that's when I'd see it. Would it happen while streaming? I usually stream in HD on the HBO, Netflix, Showtime, etc. apps and don't notice anything odd.

 

[dilla]

Google would be the worst parent ever. Chrome OS blows and they just let it drown for the past few years before finally pulling the plug.

http://www.wsj.com/article_email/al...-android-1446151134-lMyQjAxMTA1NzIxOTAyMzk4Wj