Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android

avc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 196 posts

Re: Android

#171

Post by demallien »

glhaynes wrote: post #140
megablast wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All true, and still they've had great success." Google has had great success, which is good to see. "Which just means they can do even better if they can address those obvious problems." Not necessarily. If all these people are just buying android phones because they can not get an iPhone, then nothing Google does will change that. The real test will be when the iPhone is available on more carriers, and when people…

In many non-US countries, iPhone is available on multiple carriers. My understanding (though I don't have numbers readily available) is that it's quite successful in many of them.

I can't speak for any other country, but here in France, where the iPhone is available on any carrier, almost all of my acquaintances have either iPhones or, if it's supplied by their job, a Blackberry. The only people I know that have Android phones are programmers.

Re: Android

#172

Post by nl »

pkaler wrote: post #40

I know of no Android tablet available in the $199 price range. Someone please point one out if one exists. The argument that Windows won because Macintosh was priced at a premium is a dubious argument. Apple is able to purchase flash memory, processors, and touch screens in bulk. They own Intrinisty and PA Semiconductor. Apple looks like Walmart on their supply side and looks like Barney's on the retail side. There i…

There are a heap of them on Dealextreme.com. No Android market, capacitive touchscreen... BUT they are pushing down to $100, not $199.

Don't underestimate this - I know someone who bought one to stick on the kitchen wall for recipes. At that price there are hundreds of vertical markets available.

Re: Android

#173

Post by bad_user »

naner wrote: post #153
_delirium wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is fairly similar on that front. If you want to develop iPhone apps, you have to buy into the whole stack: XCode on OS X on a Mac. (Well, technically it's possible to target the iPhone via other methods, but they're not easy or supported, or in some cases even legal.)

Well... Microsoft is a little more weird. The company still freaks out over open source. And when they "officially" started endorsing some open source, it was in the context of their own open source licenses and their own open source hosting website. Then they try and develop web technology, Silverlight, that is better than Flash by technical standards but is so entrenched in Microsoft-land that hardly anyone wants t…

> "Silverlight, that is better than Flash by technical standards but is so entrenched in Microsoft-land that hardly anyone wants to do anything with it"

This is more to do with Flash being a defacto standard than anything else. I've been a Linux user since 10 years ago, and I haven't forgotten the piss-poor support of Adobe for Flash on Linux.

Heck, they finally decided to start porting Flash to Linux because of competition with Silverlight.

> "Mono doesn't count, can never be feature-complete"

Of course Mono counts, and compared to open-source Flash clones, it is in a far better shape.

Re: Android

#174

Post by bad_user »

thought_alarm wrote: post #48

But the iPhone and iPad aren't priced at a premium. Anyway, it's a mistake pit Google against Apple. The real battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels. (Meanwhile, you can buy an iPad from an Apple Store or from Walmart without any carrier involvement). Google hasn't managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven't done enough to control the qua…

This is what I call a typical product launch by Microsoft: hype with lots of magic dust that is going to fix everyone's problems.

Until you see those WinMo 7 phones in the wild, I would withhold judgment if I were you.

And you know what, it is also typically of Microsoft to fuck WinMo 6.x users and developers with something totally incompatible and no upgrade path.

Re: Android

#175

Post by ericflo »

jwr wrote: post #34

I find it interesting that most people who like Android like it in the future tense. Android is always great, but in that next version, that is just around the corner. That upcoming tablet, that upcoming phone, that upcoming software.

Android is "good enough" now for lots of people, which shows in its sales. That Android owners can point at future products and get excited for upcoming features is just icing on the cake.

Re: Android

#176

Post by tomerico »

jsnell wrote: post #105
potatolicious wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "I believe that AT&T subsidizes the hell out of the iPhone" No more than any other device. By all reports, the iPhone is not significantly more expensive to build than comparable smartphones, and in fact if you look at similar smartphones, both subsidized contract prices and unsubsidized prices are very similar to the iPhone as well. Android is going to open the market for cheaper, low-end smartphones, that's for c…

If I look at comparable high end smartphones, they are significantly cheaper than the iPhone whether subsidized or not. For example from Switzerland: Locked,subsidized iPhone 4 16GB: 199 CHF + two year contract at 55 CHF / month Locked,subsidized Galaxy S: 1 CHF + two year contract at 55 CHF /month, but with the monthly fee waived for 3 months (so basically 350 CHF cheaper) Unlocked, unsubsidized iPhone 4 16GB: 769 C…

You display partial data. I did a quick google search and Samsung Galaxy S 16GB cost 799 CHF on swisscom

http://swisscomonlineshop.sso.bluewin.ch/onlineshop/Pages/Pr...

Re: Android

#177

Post by minalecs »

orangecat wrote: post #68
thought_alarm wrote: post #48

But the iPhone and iPad aren't priced at a premium. Anyway, it's a mistake pit Google against Apple. The real battle will be between Google and Microsoft for the exact same hardware manufacturers and sales channels. (Meanwhile, you can buy an iPad from an Apple Store or from Walmart without any carrier involvement). Google hasn't managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven't done enough to control the qua…

Google hasn't managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven't done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they've utterly mismanaged the Android Market. All true, and still they've had great success. (I'm actually surprised, given how bad the Market is and how blatantly the carriers are screwing up the phones). Which just means they can do even better if they ca…

I would say that fragmentation problem is not that big of a problem in general. It should be handled much like iOS is handling in basically they are not allowing iphone 3G phones and earlier not to have certain features, and ability to download apps.. which is essentially the same thing. I have a 3G and theres more and more apps that I'm unable to download, and I don't have access to a lot of features in the latest iOS.

Re: Android

#178

Post by nailer »

naner wrote: post #153
_delirium wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is fairly similar on that front. If you want to develop iPhone apps, you have to buy into the whole stack: XCode on OS X on a Mac. (Well, technically it's possible to target the iPhone via other methods, but they're not easy or supported, or in some cases even legal.)

Well... Microsoft is a little more weird. The company still freaks out over open source. And when they "officially" started endorsing some open source, it was in the context of their own open source licenses and their own open source hosting website. Then they try and develop web technology, Silverlight, that is better than Flash by technical standards but is so entrenched in Microsoft-land that hardly anyone wants t…

Sorry,, modded you down accidentally. Totally agree about moonlight, silver light content won't even point your browser to moonlight plugin on linux.

Re: Android

#179

Post by kgutteridge »

minalecs wrote: post #177
orangecat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google hasn't managed the fragmentation problem very well, they haven't done enough to control the quality the Android OS between carriers and manufacturers, and they've utterly mismanaged the Android Market. All true, and still they've had great success. (I'm actually surprised, given how bad the Market is and how blatantly the carriers are screwing up the phones). Which just means they can do even better if they ca…

I would say that fragmentation problem is not that big of a problem in general. It should be handled much like iOS is handling in basically they are not allowing iphone 3G phones and earlier not to have certain features, and ability to download apps.. which is essentially the same thing. I have a 3G and theres more and more apps that I'm unable to download, and I don't have access to a lot of features in the latest i…

This is a slight red herring, I do wonder how many of these apps you would like, could actually be rather easily made to run on your phone (can you give a specific example, many apps do not need 4.0 features or could easily have them ported around)

Apple have done a great job of outdating the old sdks, mainly through the method of dropping simulator support for the previous sdks and no legitimate route of running previous firmwares on an iPhone other than holding them back (obvious flaw in this plan, how does a new developer acquire an ipod running 2.2 or 3.0)

Android on the other hand has had no where near this rate of attrition of the previous sdks with only really the initial release not being heavily supported.

However Android suffers from the problem you are not just waiting for Google to update the firmware so you can't make your app 2.0+ only in the thoughts that if users want my app they can update their firmware, this step would remove a lot of htc, sony and other phones that do not currently have the ability to run a 2.0 firmware whilst still being a very comptent phone.

As for the carrier "enhanced" firmwares....

Re: Android

#180

Post by tomjen3 »

SapphireSun wrote: post #151
waterlesscloud wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent it's aesthetic. Java seems bureaucratic and verbose and just...clunky. Part of this is just where I'm coming from. I started programming as a kid with basic, then assembly, like most programmers my age. Then pascal and C in college, got a job doing C++ and did that for a number of years. Dabbled in a working in php at the end of that, seemed a little sloppy as a language. Then I just stopped programmin…

I have to chime in that I also feel that Java is much as you said. I wanted to write some reflective code, and it took me an hour (admittedly doing it for the first time) and 57 lines of code. Frustrated, I did a mock up of it in python to see what the difference would be. It was only 12 lines, and much more intelligible. It was also much faster to write, but that isn't a fair comparison since the research into the f…

Java is very difficult to use without an IDE, but if do use one it would have taken you much, much less time.

But yeah, using Java means you have to write many lines of code.

Post reply on HN