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

I'm sick to death of Android

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 147 posts

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#61

Post by cmsj »

ugh wrote: post #49
jkubicek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes a significant amount of revenue from apps and media… they make an astronomical amount from hardware. http://allthingsd.com/20110420/the-most-successful-store-no-... $1.4b/quarter as of last year. Their margins are a lot tighter on media sales, but even so, that's probably a good chunk of change.

Doesn’t matter. They don’t care. It’s not the reason why they support old hardware. That’s a bullshit argument.

Right. There's way more value in giving customers the knowledge that they are safe in the ecosystem for a few years.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#62

Post by Radzell »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #41
Radzell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true techy people have this option, but google needs to think ourside this market. Android needs to move beyond the 18-20 year old college or college bound male demographic if it's going to grow. It needs to simple enough for your grandma run it. Your phone should update with the latest features as soon as they are available not a year down the line. It's like playing roulette when buying a phone trying to fi…

If your aiming your phone at grandma you probably want to update it as little as possible. Very non technical users freak out if they switch something on one day and it's all different. It's probably the 18-20 demographic who cares about having the latest versions.

I think it should auto update. My mom who has a iphone likes it because she plugs into her computer and she can get all the new stuff she sees on TV. Older people don't understand tech, but they still understand commercial that are marketed to them. People who are techies want to the features market to the lock face to unlock. It's crazy to market features to people and not give them the features for 8 months.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#63

Post by Radzell »

orangecat wrote: post #33
Radzell wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true techy people have this option, but google needs to think ourside this market. Android needs to move beyond the 18-20 year old college or college bound male demographic if it's going to grow. It needs to simple enough for your grandma run it. Your phone should update with the latest features as soon as they are available not a year down the line. It's like playing roulette when buying a phone trying to fi…

Android needs to move beyond the 18-20 year old college or college bound male demographic if it's going to grow. Around half of all smartphones sold today run Android. I don't think there are that many 18 year olds. Your phone should update with the latest features as soon as they are available not a year down the line. Yes, it should. But most users don't really care, as long as it makes calls and can get on Faceboo…

People don't relize that when you marker things to people like face to unlock for android that when people buy the phone that's what they want the app market is proof they want more than just angry bird they want the apps their friends are using. It would make me angry if I wasn't a techy and a bought a new with a OS not know a app could play a game on my brand new phone because it wasn't updated.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#64

Post by Dobbs »

chubot wrote: post #60
JoshTriplett wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS (iPod and iPad2) and Android user (Samsung Exhibit II) here. When I first read your post, I thought you intended this as a snarky remark about the ongoing lawsuits, until I looked it up and found that Samsung really does have a phone named the "Exhibit II". Why do phone manufacturers in particular have such poor taste in naming, and keep picking names with no obvious naming scheme or consistency?

I would be very curious to know the history of this phenomenon (product naming, and in particular electronic product naming). It seems like Sony electronics in the 80's followed this pattern. It was always like the Trinitron DX-3095 and the DX-2085. Cell phones also follow this throwaway name pattern. I guess there are brands like the RAZR and Droid, but the individual models have throwaway names. Where do those numb…

> Ubuntu seemed to follow in Apple's lead with Hardy Haron and so forth.

To a degree but very few people I know use these names. Most use the 9.10/10.04 which imho is one of the best naming patterns for an OS.

It is very convenient to look at the OS version and be able to tell instantly if it is a LTS or standard build and when it was released.

Maybe these are only benefits due to how often Ubuntu releases new versions but I've found them useful.

disclaimer: I'm a sysadmin.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#65

Post by fpgeek »

ugh wrote: post #49
jkubicek wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple makes a significant amount of revenue from apps and media… they make an astronomical amount from hardware. http://allthingsd.com/20110420/the-most-successful-store-no-... $1.4b/quarter as of last year. Their margins are a lot tighter on media sales, but even so, that's probably a good chunk of change.

Doesn’t matter. They don’t care. It’s not the reason why they support old hardware. That’s a bullshit argument.

I think the biggest reason Apple still supports old hardware is they're still selling it (see: iPhone 3GS and now iPad 2).

That being said, it is interesting how Apple's support of old hardware is the dual of Google's.

Google does a bad job of getting OS updates to older hardware, but they do an impressively good job of supporting their applications on older hardware and OSes. Outside of the deliberate exception of the Chrome Beta, I can't think of an official Google app for Android that doesn't support at least Froyo and many go back further. My G1 (running Donut) was still getting Google app updates for a good chunk of last year. I happen to know that because I picked it up for a memorial tweet on the G1's third anniversary and was surprised with all the update notifications I got.

Meanwhile, Apple is very good about getting OS updates to older devices. But when you look at their app support, it doesn't look nearly so good. Everyone talks about Siri, but did you also know that the original iPad doesn't support iPhoto or iMovie (see: http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/9/2856499/iphoto-ios-app-ipad... )? iMovie is particularly damning because the first iOS version (for the iPhone 4) was released less than 3 months after the original iPad.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#66

Post by yason »

It's the transition period from cellphones to computers. A cellphone doesn't need updates, it's a hard-coded brick that's released once and then it works until it gets broken. A computer is a platform, mostly made out of software and the freshness of the software platform is a key part of its nature: we've used to updating our linux and windows boxes for fifteen years.

Now, smartphones are still a bit in between. They're basically computers but still regarded as phones. It'll take some time for everyone to catch up to the same level, maybe some years. Apple does it already and others must follow as soon as they get the order back in their development chain.

Ideally, an Android phone would be like Ubuntu with per-device kernels. It would continuously stream new packages over the net and the kernel would handle all device specific things so that Android userspace doesn't have to. It basically works like this already, it's just the update process that hasn't been mechanized. And there are a small number of device specific tricks in the userspace too, these days, because OEMs think they can tailor Android for their product. It's as bad as an OEM that would want to sell laptops with an OEM customized Ubuntu distribution. It works one time but gets left back as soon as the real Ubuntu makes the next release.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#67

Post by creamyhorror »

latch wrote: post #18

Smartphones are a commodity. I hate my Samsung Galaxy. It destroyed the Samsung and Android brands for me. When it's time for me to get a new phone, I'll definitely pick an alternative (probably an iPhone). Doesn't matter if there's a Galaxy 5 running Android 6 by then. Same thing played out with US vs Japanese car manufacturers. People have lasting memories when they feel that they spent money on an inferior product…

I hate my iPhone 3GS, because after my PC died I couldn't sync it any more without losing my media, couldn't update the OS because I had jailbroken it (never installed pirated apps either), and because the battery life is horrible on 3G - it heats up, drops a few percentage points in a few minutes, and I often have to power off the phone.

I told myself I was running off to Android where I wouldn't have to deal with a walled garden any more, so I'm kind of like the reverse of you - going to get a non-iPhone after my bad experience with Apple.

What I'd like to know is whether Android is still worth going to. Will I be able to sync without worries, install apps as I like, and root the device easily? I keep seeing mention of CyanogenMod and I don't know if that's what I'll have to install to get the full control I want. Is installing CM what rooting (mostly) involves?

I've been meaning to pick up the Galaxy Nexus, but bad press about its camera and uncertainties about the degree of freedom it allows have been keeping me back. I was even considering getting a Galaxy S II and installing ICS. I appreciate any advice from the Android users among you.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#68

Post by LVB »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #45
LVB wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they don't need to be updated, but when I'm paying $50+/month for essentially a luxury (I could live with a prepaid dumb phone), my expectations go up. I'm paying a lot for fun/interesting technology and I want to partake now in the new whizzy things that people are raving about, not 9 months from now.

What "new whizzy things" are people raving about? I haven't seen anyone get even close to excited over a new OS feature since iOS 4's multitasking -- from the people I know, the response to iCloud, FaceTime, iMessages, Notification Center, ICS's Face Unlock, etc. has been a collective "meh". The only thing I've heard anyone seriously happy about recently was Windows Phone 7.5's ringtone manager.

Doesn't have to be a new OS feature directly. I'd like to run the new Chrome browser but can't. In any case, I'd like to decide "meh" or not for myself.

You're right that most changes have very little impact, so this is largely psychological. It hits in two ways for me: 1) the delay between the product's "release" and when I can get it, 2) the uncertainty of whether an upgrade will even come at all for my phone.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#69

Post by antirez »

"variety of manufacturers devices with varying feature sets that gives consumers the added benefit of choosing exactly what product suits their specific needs."

Basically the recipe for a disaster.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#70

Post by mark_integerdsv »

I think we have yet another example of someone just not getting it.

The OP repeatedly laments the fate of people less technically minded than himself, how hideous the experience must be for them if someone do clued up is having such a terrible time... The fact is that those users to whom he is referring exist in a realm of blissful ignorance.

I wonder what proportion Android users out there even know what ICS is. I'm willing to bet it's a tiny fraction and I'm willing to bet that Google knows that. That's what makes the whole Android story such a cynical one IMO-the platform was (still is to a large degree) touted as the ultimate geek device. Something beautiful that google was goig to give to the techies out there... What it is is a shallow, lowest common denominator.

I had such high hopes for the 'Google phone' of 2006 but I have never owned and Android device and really do not care to.

Post reply on HN