Technology Android
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Hands-on with Nitro HD, LG's first 4G phone with a 720p display
http://dvice.com/archives/2011/12/hands-on-with-t-1.php
Well, personally I always compare the Google maps app. It's still more responsive on the Ipad 2. But I haven't seen the Prime with ICS yet though. Also I have to give it to Apple that there's way more tablet-optimized apps for the Ipad. Personally I could see myself having more fun with the Ipad 2, which really means a lot for me.
Maybe ICS would change that but so far the quad core CPU doesn't give any significant advantage except of games, and these are still better on the Ipad. Most of all there are many more games for the Ipad.
On one hand I think it's amazing that Asus are selling such an awesome (hardware-wise) product for the price of old gen ones but on another hand Android tablets just aren't there yet for me. Seeing the Prime made me realize that. It's really a super-cool device, it has almost everything but.. it's still not appealing enough to me.
I can't speak for ICS yet but it won't suddenly magically make it so much better for me as the tablet apps is what is lacking the most here. If ICS is awesome, smooth and hardware acceleration makes it fly that would be an awesome base for something great for me, but it would still need time to grow. And by "it" I mainly mean the Android Market as far as tablets are concerned. Not only the amount of apps but their quality too.
Maybe ICS would change that but so far the quad core CPU doesn't give any significant advantage except of games, and these are still better on the Ipad. Most of all there are many more games for the Ipad.
On one hand I think it's amazing that Asus are selling such an awesome (hardware-wise) product for the price of old gen ones but on another hand Android tablets just aren't there yet for me. Seeing the Prime made me realize that. It's really a super-cool device, it has almost everything but.. it's still not appealing enough to me.
I can't speak for ICS yet but it won't suddenly magically make it so much better for me as the tablet apps is what is lacking the most here. If ICS is awesome, smooth and hardware acceleration makes it fly that would be an awesome base for something great for me, but it would still need time to grow. And by "it" I mainly mean the Android Market as far as tablets are concerned. Not only the amount of apps but their quality too.
The point of Ice Cream Sandwich being a unified OS is that you don't NEED "tablet-optimized" apps. All apps in the Android Market will not only work perfectly but scale properly for tablets once dev's update them using the new fragment UI system. And the Market certainly is not lacking for either apps or games.
Why are specs brought into this? The Prime seems to be this 1000hp car you can barely drive without spinning out. It's the content of each of the markets on the OSs and I think iOS just has more quality apps over Android. Who cares if the iPad has worse specs? According to the reviews, it still runs everything fluidly.
Because, as you know, the better spec'd the device the more future proof it is and the longer it's gonna last you.
Didn't you at first choose the mid-range Droid Eris over the premium Droid when both were released at the same time? How much use did you get out of the Eris compared to the Droid? Exactly.
I think the difference in apps is marginal and to be expected for a device that's been out for much longer.
With regards to the needs of the average consumer I think the tablet marketshare will overwhelmingly go towards products like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet over the next 12-18 months. Smaller, more focused e-reader/tablet hybrids.
Didn't you at first choose the mid-range Droid Eris over the premium Droid when both were released at the same time? How much use did you get out of the Eris compared to the Droid? Exactly.
I think the difference in apps is marginal and to be expected for a device that's been out for much longer.
With regards to the needs of the average consumer I think the tablet marketshare will overwhelmingly go towards products like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet over the next 12-18 months. Smaller, more focused e-reader/tablet hybrids.
ICS for the Nexus S is being tested internally. I imagine it'll roll out soon.
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/04/google-employees-now-testing-ice-cream-sandwich-for-nexus-s-cla/
http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/04/google-employees-now-testing-ice-cream-sandwich-for-nexus-s-cla/
But that example had to do with software, not so much hardware. The Eris had a bug that VZW did not fix for months. They're still on 2.1 and have no support from the dev community. The Droid still has nightlies for 2.3.7. But that's a hardware limitation and not simply the Droid having more users/devs that continue to develop for it?
Well, I really want to see a really future-proof Android tablet. Well, the point with Android devices is that despite having superior hardware they get obsolete quite fast. There are devices like the LG 2X that were to be really "future proof" but are already quite obsolete.
The 2x just barely got an update to Gingerbread, it's buggy and its almost dead and it never even took real advantage of 2 cores, and most people I know who had that phone have already replaced it with something newer or are planning to replace it soon. And it was announced less than a year ago. LG are thinking about upgrading it to ICS just because it's where it might truly show its potential but in my opinion that's only for show as its too late from the product life-cycle perspective. It's gotten extremely short for most Android devices.
A lot of phones that were technically very good not long ago are already obsolete and basically dead. That's mainly because how fast the market for Android smartphones evolves. The point is that processing power in new devices makes it an overkill because as soon as it's really needed most people will have replaced their devices already. Another thing is that Android doesn't really take good advantage of powerful hardware. Sure you can run a few cooler games smoothly but that's usually about it. I really hope that ICS will prove to fix that with heavy optimizations but then again, if ICS will be optimized enough for tablets it'll be as smooth on dual core units and quad core units as both are really fast enough.
I guess my main point comes down to this - the first Ipad had a single core processor which was slower than that in the first Galaxy S/Nexus S. I have used the first Ipad, I know people that still use it and it still appears to work smoother than Honeycomb with a freaking Quad core Tegra 3 which is easily 4 to 10 times faster in benchmarks.
And you can still do more with it and launch (and work smoothly with) more apps, including a lot of really cool apps that aren't there or aren't good enough on Android for tablets.
Now don't get me wrong, I thought that the original Ipad sucked for me back then but it's able to take good advantage of its hardware, while it doesn't seem to be the case with Android devices (can't speak for ICS yet).
Something tells me that despite being quite old and much slower on paper the Ipad 2 is still more future-proof than the Transformer Prime.
Of course it's just my personal thought and of course the Prime is hands down the best Android tablet at the moment.
The 2x just barely got an update to Gingerbread, it's buggy and its almost dead and it never even took real advantage of 2 cores, and most people I know who had that phone have already replaced it with something newer or are planning to replace it soon. And it was announced less than a year ago. LG are thinking about upgrading it to ICS just because it's where it might truly show its potential but in my opinion that's only for show as its too late from the product life-cycle perspective. It's gotten extremely short for most Android devices.
A lot of phones that were technically very good not long ago are already obsolete and basically dead. That's mainly because how fast the market for Android smartphones evolves. The point is that processing power in new devices makes it an overkill because as soon as it's really needed most people will have replaced their devices already. Another thing is that Android doesn't really take good advantage of powerful hardware. Sure you can run a few cooler games smoothly but that's usually about it. I really hope that ICS will prove to fix that with heavy optimizations but then again, if ICS will be optimized enough for tablets it'll be as smooth on dual core units and quad core units as both are really fast enough.
I guess my main point comes down to this - the first Ipad had a single core processor which was slower than that in the first Galaxy S/Nexus S. I have used the first Ipad, I know people that still use it and it still appears to work smoother than Honeycomb with a freaking Quad core Tegra 3 which is easily 4 to 10 times faster in benchmarks.
And you can still do more with it and launch (and work smoothly with) more apps, including a lot of really cool apps that aren't there or aren't good enough on Android for tablets.
Now don't get me wrong, I thought that the original Ipad sucked for me back then but it's able to take good advantage of its hardware, while it doesn't seem to be the case with Android devices (can't speak for ICS yet).
Something tells me that despite being quite old and much slower on paper the Ipad 2 is still more future-proof than the Transformer Prime.
Of course it's just my personal thought and of course the Prime is hands down the best Android tablet at the moment.
What do you mean by "work smoother"? If you compare the two side by side that's not the case at all, and I've done so. For me iOS on any hardware is still crippled by lack of proper multitasking and background processes. A handful of specific background processing API's simply isn't good enough IMO. You still don't have anything working in conjunction with anything else the way Android does because processes get frozen rather than continue to operate. It's probably good enough for most people but it's not the way that I prefer to operate and everytime I try to use iOS it frustrates me within 5 minutes. Open an app. Press home. Open another app. Press home. Open another app. Press home. It's no wonder dogs, cats, and month-old babies can use it.
Sure, there might be a whole bunch of great games and random ass apps - there are on both platforms. But when it comes to the essentials - Gmail, Gtalk, Navigation, YouTube, G+, Google Calendar, YouTube, Latitude, Docs, Google Reader..... iOS lags far behind in functionality. Even some third party apps that used to be inferior on Android, have now not only caught up but actually surpassed their iOS versions, like Foursquare which I use so heavily that's on my home screen. Spotify and obviously Google Music are superior on Android.
All of those are things I use literally multiple times a day and all on my homescreens.
If I was looking for fluidity I'd go with WP7. But that means nothing because the core services are shit. Just like the core services on iOS are shit. iTunes? gimme a fuckin break, it's a piece of shit.
I don't see Apple as a software company. They're a hardware company that happens to make operating systems for their products. The way I see it, let the great hardware companies of the world make great hardware. Nobody is fucking with Samsung when it comes to hardware. Nobody. Let the great software companies of the world (like Google) make great software. When it comes to web apps Google have the game tied up. They're fighting a war on social with facebook. But nothing else has a competitor, there's no competitor for Search, or Maps, or YouTube, or Gmail. So let the great hardware people and the great software people work together and share the wealth. No need to be a dictatorial control freak.
I see zero innovation coming from Apple. There's no freedom, live in the walled garden and see what they allow you to see, the bits of innovation that trickle down, usually a year or two later.
As far as the G2X, who the fuck cares about official updates when things like CyanogenMod exist? As with every other device they support, it'll have a blazingly fast ICS when CM9 comes out in a month or so. If you rely on official updates from carriers of course you're gonna have a shorter life cycle. But you're locked in, that's an Apple-esque way of thinking. Luckily, you have a choice. From an "official" perspective the G1 was dead at 1.6. I used it for another 16 months after that and by the time I replaced it, it was running 2.2, and it was running it very well. It went on to run 2.3 pretty well, too.
Sure, there might be a whole bunch of great games and random ass apps - there are on both platforms. But when it comes to the essentials - Gmail, Gtalk, Navigation, YouTube, G+, Google Calendar, YouTube, Latitude, Docs, Google Reader..... iOS lags far behind in functionality. Even some third party apps that used to be inferior on Android, have now not only caught up but actually surpassed their iOS versions, like Foursquare which I use so heavily that's on my home screen. Spotify and obviously Google Music are superior on Android.
All of those are things I use literally multiple times a day and all on my homescreens.
If I was looking for fluidity I'd go with WP7. But that means nothing because the core services are shit. Just like the core services on iOS are shit. iTunes? gimme a fuckin break, it's a piece of shit.
I don't see Apple as a software company. They're a hardware company that happens to make operating systems for their products. The way I see it, let the great hardware companies of the world make great hardware. Nobody is fucking with Samsung when it comes to hardware. Nobody. Let the great software companies of the world (like Google) make great software. When it comes to web apps Google have the game tied up. They're fighting a war on social with facebook. But nothing else has a competitor, there's no competitor for Search, or Maps, or YouTube, or Gmail. So let the great hardware people and the great software people work together and share the wealth. No need to be a dictatorial control freak.
I see zero innovation coming from Apple. There's no freedom, live in the walled garden and see what they allow you to see, the bits of innovation that trickle down, usually a year or two later.
As far as the G2X, who the fuck cares about official updates when things like CyanogenMod exist? As with every other device they support, it'll have a blazingly fast ICS when CM9 comes out in a month or so. If you rely on official updates from carriers of course you're gonna have a shorter life cycle. But you're locked in, that's an Apple-esque way of thinking. Luckily, you have a choice. From an "official" perspective the G1 was dead at 1.6. I used it for another 16 months after that and by the time I replaced it, it was running 2.2, and it was running it very well. It went on to run 2.3 pretty well, too.
Yeah I agree about iOS being locked and I agree that there's no proper multitasking and no processes running in the background. The point is that it's often better to have less processes running in the background. It sometimes bothers me with Android. A perfect multitasking to me would be the Windows7-esque multitasking - when I can run a few things at the same time but run only things that I want, while being able to close what I don't want there. That's also why ICS looks appealing to me but it's yet to be seen if it'll be good enough.
Personally I think that the Android process management is too complicated and that's why it uses too much power, while being irritating for power users or minimalists because it thinks that it knows what to run better than the user himself and does too much at the same time, even if I don't want it to. Something in between Android and iOS would be perfect as far as this is concerned.
Which doesn't change the fact that for a casual user who wants to open up a browser or navigate maps - a multiple times slower and older device will feel as smooth (or something smoother) than a new, quad core beast and that's what's important. Most people won't care about processes running in the background or advanced functions in basic apps.
I agree that iTunes is shit. I still hate Apple's philosophy in matters like those, I dislike a lot of things about their software and overall I'm convinced that Android is more complete and people-friendly than iOS. It's just that in my eyes it has its flaws compared to iOS too. There are a lot of flaws that both systems share also.
If it comes to apps personally I barely use Google ones other than maps and gmail from time to time. My productivity circles around Office and more advanced apps that sometimes are there for the Ipad (or at least client apps for them) and there are usually inferior alternatives for Android for tablets (if there are any). Gamers will also pick Ipad 2 over the Tegra 3 because of developer support (even giants like Capcom, Namco Bandai). I wish huge developers were more keen to develop for Android.
Even Yu Suzuki of Sega wants to develop for the Ipad.
There are business apps for the Ipad that aren't there for Android too.
It's just that I saw both devices next to each other and even if the Ipad version of Google maps offers less functioanlity it does what I'd like it to do faster and works smoother. Apps that I'd use that are there for the Ipad are not there for Android or don't work well on tablets.
Ultimately I think that Android tablets "aren't there" because while I'm not really a huge fan of tablets yet I can see myself being able to do more with the iPad 2. Of course its limitations would annoy the heck out of me, of course I'd feel bad about having an Apple product. But since I don't want to get one I'm really looking forward to Android tablets being much better and that using them will just feel better and I have high hopes that ICS will be a huge step in that direction.
Personally I think that the Android process management is too complicated and that's why it uses too much power, while being irritating for power users or minimalists because it thinks that it knows what to run better than the user himself and does too much at the same time, even if I don't want it to. Something in between Android and iOS would be perfect as far as this is concerned.
Which doesn't change the fact that for a casual user who wants to open up a browser or navigate maps - a multiple times slower and older device will feel as smooth (or something smoother) than a new, quad core beast and that's what's important. Most people won't care about processes running in the background or advanced functions in basic apps.
I agree that iTunes is shit. I still hate Apple's philosophy in matters like those, I dislike a lot of things about their software and overall I'm convinced that Android is more complete and people-friendly than iOS. It's just that in my eyes it has its flaws compared to iOS too. There are a lot of flaws that both systems share also.
If it comes to apps personally I barely use Google ones other than maps and gmail from time to time. My productivity circles around Office and more advanced apps that sometimes are there for the Ipad (or at least client apps for them) and there are usually inferior alternatives for Android for tablets (if there are any). Gamers will also pick Ipad 2 over the Tegra 3 because of developer support (even giants like Capcom, Namco Bandai). I wish huge developers were more keen to develop for Android.
Even Yu Suzuki of Sega wants to develop for the Ipad.
There are business apps for the Ipad that aren't there for Android too.
It's just that I saw both devices next to each other and even if the Ipad version of Google maps offers less functioanlity it does what I'd like it to do faster and works smoother. Apps that I'd use that are there for the Ipad are not there for Android or don't work well on tablets.
Ultimately I think that Android tablets "aren't there" because while I'm not really a huge fan of tablets yet I can see myself being able to do more with the iPad 2. Of course its limitations would annoy the heck out of me, of course I'd feel bad about having an Apple product. But since I don't want to get one I'm really looking forward to Android tablets being much better and that using them will just feel better and I have high hopes that ICS will be a huge step in that direction.
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