Technology Android

[THEV1LL4N]

Was on windows 7. Now on 8, because it boots in about 5 seconds. But with the XBMC shell, so no windows tiles.

No lag at all. It's smooth. Have you read up on the XBMC site? Lots of tweaks to get it working. Although I think mine worked without much fiddling.

XBMC works really well on it (Acer Revo 3700). Nothing really wrong with it.

It's just the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS OS that can be laggy at times. The description said it was a dual core machine, but I suspect there are 4 cores inside because the task manager shows CPU 0, 1, 2 and 3 usage. Probably due to the Intel Atom CPU being low voltage and energy efficient.

 

[masta247]

What a lovely phone the Xperia Z is. Reading more and more previews and browsing through specs I really only like it more and more.

The best phone on the market (at least until Samsung and HTC come up with their line-ups) that is waterproof and one that you can toss around without it shattering - Awesome! It truly seems to be the best flagship that Sony have ever released. And it's also the first one from Sony that is not underpowered for its time.

Then it's pretty awesome that Sony introduced some features that are very very useful (and I'm surprised nobody's done it before) - like the battery saving mode that is able to shut down whatever you want, including everything apart from the core processes and gsm radio when the display is off. Pretty awesome and I think Google should implement that in their next Android version.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Sounds good.

Samsung did have their version of battery saving mode in the Samsung Galaxy S3 (not sure about the S2). Sony's seems to be more specific though.

 

[ARon]

It's funny you say that about battery because from what I've read about the next Android overhaul it's going to be about battery saving and certain power savings features like what Sony is doing

 

[dilla]

What if the OS and the apps on it were forced to be efficient? I don't care if it takes longer to make apps; everyone will be on the same playing field, so there's no reason to complain. This whole hardware war where cores go from single to double to quad is just dumb. Why can't the OS just know when to not use so much power or when power is needed? I mean, Google is so "smart" in making apps that can predict where the user is going to go, what it is going to want, and when, why can't the same data be pulled from phones to find out the same about the OS?

If it's isn't possible with all the manufacturers, at least do this to the Nexus devices. Let other manufacturers scratch their heads and try and keep their product competitive in the market. All this crapware put on the phone by carriers is part of the problem too. And now more companies are saying that the "openness" of Android is starting to "close" with each iteration of updates.

 

[masta247]

Sounds good.

Samsung did have their version of battery saving mode in the Samsung Galaxy S3 (not sure about the S2). Sony's seems to be more specific though.

Yeah Samsung's battery saving basically lowered the CPU frequency and wifi performance and dimmed the display. Sony shuts down processes - you can choose how much you want to shut down and if you go "all out" basically no apps and no processes apart from the core Android ones will run. You won't get anything other than calls and texts. Everything will sync once you turn the display on, and only then. You can also shut down everything apart from - say, Facebook or any other app you choose, and nothing else will drain the battery. You can do the same with hardware - for example radios. You can shut down everything except of the GSM radio. That's very cool.

 

[masta247]

What if the OS and the apps on it were forced to be efficient?This whole hardware war where cores go from single to double to quad is just dumb. Why can't the OS just know when to not use so much power or when power is needed

I agree. Most apps are shit, and nobody cares to optimize them. Because we have super powerful quad core processors and 2GB of ram on a freaking phone(!) developers get extremely lazy as far as efficiency of their apps goes. But still apps are "fairly optimized" so at least they don't use too much unnecessary data or battery (usually). The bigger part of the problem is that from day one I disliked Android for its process management - it allows things to drain battery for no good reason. You can't just close shit and make only absolutely necessary things work. Everything works all the time and launches shit and synchronizes shit (including shit you totally don't care about and don't want) while you're stressing whether you should reply to an important text or not becase you totally need your phone to last until the evening.
Finally Sony came up with a pretty good solution, it's great considering that it's the first one.

Now the thought of having 2GB of ram on phones is pretty ridiculous to me. 2GB of ram is enough to run full fledged desktop operating system with good 10GB of system files, run 2 full modern PC games or a dozen of productivity suites at the same time on a freaking X86 processor.
On Android, where an average app is 1/20th the size of its desktop counterpart and should use even less resources than that the OS shuts the app you wanted to run in the background after you launch 2 other apps. And then runs unnecessary shit, because it can and wants to show you it thinks it knows better. That's crazy.

 

[dilla]

I wonder what direction Google is taking Android in now. Do they want to continue to freak us out with retarded, pointless features that predict my next bowel movement, or do they want to have the system processes run in a way that my phone can last 36 hours when I use it like a goddamn phone, and not a fucking server?

The gap between Apple's stupidity and Android's is getting narrower. One is fucked hardware-wise, the other software. And honestly, I don't know which one is worse but it is high time there be another serious competitor in this game to either bring in the innovation, or force it out of the former two.

 

[masta247]

They should get the app management straight. ICS was a first step and I expected much more afterwards but it didn't happen yet.
The secondt thing they should do is implement Sony-ish battery saver features. Those two should be highlights of the new Android OS.

I remember how I could rock my Samsung Bada phone, and it would last me a week despite being a smartphone. That's because apps would launch only when you made them to and worked only when you wanted them to - that is until you closed them. You could close everything and basically have a feature phone. You could launch one app and only that one app worked in the background.
As far as Symbian sucked, it could also work that way. That was quite simple yet pretty awesome, and I would want to have it in Android.

 

[Pittsey]

No-one can be arsed to code an app for 3 dozen devices. That is the problem...!

 

[Pittsey]

In better news -

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XBMC 12 Frodo launches in finished form with support for Android, live TV

​

XBMC 12 Frodo has spent enough time in beta that you'd think it was walking to Mordor. Whatever prompted the long trek, it's at last over: the finished version of XBMC 12 is hitting the servers. As promised, the completed edition significantly expands the media center app's universe to include initial support for Android andRaspberry Pi, as well as live TV and DVR functionality. Sticklers for quality may like the upgrade as well, as there's new support for Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD Master Audio processing on top of 10-bit H.264 video decoding.

 

[THEV1LL4N]

So can I download extensions/plugins for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and various other video on demand services?

If so, this will be sick. Especially if I can get content from round the world like live sports.

 

[dilla]

No-one can be arsed to code an app for 3 dozen devices. That is the problem...!

At least have it optimized for a Nexus device and let the other devices deal with the bugs. I know it's not realistic, but man, people are switching from the iPhone to Android quickly, but when they realize their battery is draining and they're not doing anything to make it happen, they'll get fed up with Android too. No OS is flawless, but this is just dumb for it to be one issue for the last 5 years.

Do custom ROMs fix this? Or is it possible for CM to do something about it?

 

[masta247]

The issue goes far too deep into the very core of Android - Google did it on purpose - they think the OS knows better than the user. It used to be worse with early versions of Android when the OS would launch stuff all the time. Now you can disable an app so the OS doesn't run it or any processes related to it - that's the only thing you can do from the ROM itself. That's how Sony implemented their battery saving - it temporarily pretends to be disabling all apps so nothing works when the screen is off.

 

[Pittsey]

So can I download extensions/plugins for BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and various other video on demand services?

If so, this will be sick. Especially if I can get content from round the world like live sports.

Yeah. But you have always been able to do that. Since 9.0 or before, I think.

 

[Pittsey]

At least have it optimized for a Nexus device and let the other devices deal with the bugs. I know it's not realistic, but man, people are switching from the iPhone to Android quickly, but when they realize their battery is draining and they're not doing anything to make it happen, they'll get fed up with Android too. No OS is flawless, but this is just dumb for it to be one issue for the last 5 years.

I still find battery on my phone better than the iphone.

But... I agree.

 

[dilla]

I still find battery on my phone better than the iphone.

But... I agree.

Well, my sister's 4S lasts her over 24 hours and she uses it like any high school girl would. Maybe part of the reason my battery life hasn't been as good is because our backyard runs into a wooded area, and we are about a quarter mile off the main road. I can make calls perfectly in the house, but data is almost non existent. I get a tiny bar of 4G, maybe, in the house. So I'm always on WiFi. But maybe that tiny bar is indicative that signal is poor even just for voice and text. So it drains the battery faster.

We are on Sprint now, but my parents were on US Cellular, a small regional carrier, and I was on Verizon when they were on USC, and even though our signals blew ass in our house. All these carriers, FYI, are CDMA, but I'm not sure what someone with GSM carrier across the street, or something, have as their signal. I think it's just the fucking trees around our house.

 

[ARon]

You signal dropping in and out will eat your battery real bad. It forces the radio to constantly search for a better signal

 

[masta247]

^ yeah, that, and the 4S has a smaller screen. Considering that the battery is ~1400mAh it would last much longer under casual use than a phone with a 4+ inch display with a battery of similar size.

Also, iOS has 1 service for gathering all data from synching and maintains relatively healthy battery and data usage. On Android there are separate services for each app that runs in the background and it's up to app developer to make it reasonable.

And one more point - the CPU on Iphones is lower voltage, battery efficiency is a priority there (4S runs a dual core a9 800mhz processor made by Samsung - it's like the Galaxy S2 processor but lower voltage and frequency - it's optimized for energy savings).

Considering all of those, I'm really surprised that Iphones don't last longer on a single charge. 4S is basically a SGS2 with a smaller screen and lower power cpu, yet it doesn't last longer than it.

 

[Pittsey]

Yeah. My S3 easily outlasted the 4S. My Nexus does too. But battery was better on the S3, and I had a spare too. Which the Nexus 4 or iphone 4s cannot compete with.