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Introducing Chrome for Android

googleblog.blogspot.com

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Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#191

Post by patrickaljord »

Steko wrote: post #189
notatoad wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is a bad analogy, apple does not backport features to old versions of their OS, they put their new OS on old handsets. google puts their new OS onto old devices as much as they can too, the problem is that the carriers and other handset manufacturers don't. i'm sure google would love if everything would start running ICS, but it's not their responsibility.

"as much as they can ...not their responsibility." You make it sound like Google's suddenly found themselves in these unfortunate circumstances through no fault of their own. On the contrary, this is the reality of Android. You don't get to own the pluses of being "open" and not own the minuses.

> You don't get to own the pluses of being "open" and not own the minuses.

Actually you can, you wouldn't blame Linus because your linux based router comes with a broken or old version of linux.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#192

Post by hahainternet »

Steko wrote: post #178
john-n wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware dependant? Siri was shown running on pre-4s devices (3g if I recall correctly) before apple bought them.

Not to Apple's standards apparently. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57371624-264/why-apples-a5...

Siri has since been ported to older devices via jailbreaking. As I understand it, there are no performance issues.

However, I do agree that Google needs to sort the 'update problem'.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#193

Post by cma »

rkon wrote: post #162

This is unusable on the Galaxy Nexus due to its mysterious tendency to make fonts microscopic for random sections of the page. Guess it never occured to anyone to test their flagship browser on their flagship phone? It doesn't even resize the page to fit the screen when you pinch zoom (which the stock browser does) Also, it has a persistent address/menu bar that takes up the top 10% of the screen, no doubt thanks to…

Put the stock browser into fullscreen mode and you see the button was totally useless. You just scroll up a bit for the address/menu/tab buttons to show.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#194

Post by fpgeek »

wavephorm wrote: post #109
shmerl wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any factual statistics for that?

I've never seen any chart or graph where Firefox Mobile even shows up. Usually when something has http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201101-... http://www.netmarketshare.com/mobile-market-share

Do you have evidence that they are correctly detecting Firefox Mobile? In my day-to-day use, I've seen it treated as everything from desktop Firefox to Mobile Safari, so I'm not terribly optimistic on that point.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#195

Post by Steko »

hahainternet wrote: post #192
Steko wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to Apple's standards apparently. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57371624-264/why-apples-a5...

Siri has since been ported to older devices via jailbreaking. As I understand it, there are no performance issues. However, I do agree that Google needs to sort the 'update problem'.

"As I understand it, there are no performance issues."

It's one thing to "work" in the hacking sense, and another to "work properly" in the Apple sense.

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2656999&cid=38...

There's a difference between running and running as well as on the 4S. The demo of noise reduction is impressive. http://www.audience.com/demos/transmit-noise-en.php [audience.com] It's easy to see why with that noise reduction, Siri would be much more accurate than without it, in real scenarios.

Apple obviously wants Siri to be judged on it's best performance. They have a reputation for quality to maintain.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#196

Post by steve-howard »

_ea1k wrote: post #11
steve-howard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Samsung didn't lock down the bootloader so fucking tight on my $500 phone I wouldn't have to care what the telco does.

Which Samsung Android device has a locked bootloader?

I'm so sorry, I was incorrect. I briefly owned a Nexus S which had an unlocked bootloader. I currently own a Motorola Photon, and even though there are ways to flash the bootloader, doing so cripples 4g (I believe this is by design).

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#197

Post by Steko »

patrickaljord wrote: post #191
Steko wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"as much as they can ...not their responsibility." You make it sound like Google's suddenly found themselves in these unfortunate circumstances through no fault of their own. On the contrary, this is the reality of Android. You don't get to own the pluses of being "open" and not own the minuses.

> You don't get to own the pluses of being "open" and not own the minuses. Actually you can, you wouldn't blame Linus because your linux based router comes with a broken or old version of linux.

I'm sure Linus himself would tell you that he would own that as a minus of linux and that it's far outweighed by the positives.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#198

Post by patrickaljord »

Steko wrote: post #197
patrickaljord wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get to own the pluses of being "open" and not own the minuses. Actually you can, you wouldn't blame Linus because your linux based router comes with a broken or old version of linux.

I'm sure Linus himself would tell you that he would own that as a minus of linux and that it's far outweighed by the positives.

Let's not guess what he would say. But blaming Linus for that is like the Iranian government blaming a dev because someone used his upload app to upload porn pictures or people blaming gun makers instead of killers. You can do it but it isn't the smartest thing to do to say the least IMO.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#199

Post by psychotik »

nextparadigms wrote: post #180
psychotik wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem here is Android's inability to update what are considered 'OS components' independently of updating the OS. Ideally, the built-in browser (which should really just be Chrome) can be updated just like other apps can. Having a built-in browser and also Chrome for Android seems like it would confuse users, and not have the desired security impact you describe because it needs users to search for, instal…

Google can update apps independently of the OS. Youtube, Gmail, Maps, Market - are all updated independently of the OS ever since Froyo. They will eventually replace the stock browser with Chrome, but they're waiting until it's not beta anymore, and until ICS has bigger marketshare, or maybe they'll just make it the default browser starting with Android 5.0.

Exactly, the (current) browser is not an app and hence cannot be updated independently.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#200

Post by aptwebapps »

jrockway wrote: post #148
cryptoz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is common Google strategy. They are trying to build the future and pre-ICS devices are not the future. So they get shafted. Google may make unhappy customers this way, but they can move a lot faster than companies like Microsoft, who support everything back two decades or so sometimes.

But to be fair, everyone gets a cheap phone every two years, so what's 1% today will be 100% in two years. Remember, the G1 is three-ish years old, and it's mostly gone now. The Nexus One was released on January 5, 2010, and so only the earliest of early adopters (with a standard contract) are just now gaining the ability to upgrade. Two years is a long time, but if IE 6 went away after two years, we wouldn't even re…

I agree in general but IE6 was out for five years before IE7 came out, so it may not be the best example.

Of course, that was because they disbanded the browser team after crushing Netscape.

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