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Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

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Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#231
post #85

It's curious how the Nexus 7 seems to be using a phone ui rather than a tablet one; it seems to make for a lot of wasted screen space.

Yeah, one of the major UX failings of the iPad is the way the notification shade is handled. It seems extremely out of place on a tablet. I'm surprised the Nexus 7 seems to have a similar style shade.

Also centering the buttons in landscape mode? Seems like it could be inconvenient.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#232
Looks like a solid Android gaming device. The Kindle is pretty nice in that aspect. There still is really no competitor to the iPod which holds down almost half of handheld gamers on the iOS platform. Android has no match for that still really being solely phone based for the smaller devices for the most part.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#233
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Support for the original iPad was cut off"? What? Isn't the current version of iOS 5.1.1? Doesn't the iPad 1 run it? I'm not sure what the discontinuation date matters; if you bought your Nexus One in the short window of time Google sold it, you got less than 2 years support. If you bought your 3GS in its first year, it's still supported today, and will be in Fall as well.

Apple has already announced it's cut off. The fact that it's still supported by last year's OS is nice, but given that I already acknowledged that the support period was a little bit longer, I think you're splitting hairs here. They were both cut off fairly quickly. I think Apple gave one more release than Google did. I mean, is the complaint that Google almost supported the Nexus One long enough and everybody would…

My feeling is, if you're going to declare the iPad "unsupported" by dint of "doesn't run operating system Apple won't even release for another 3-5 months", there's not a lot of productive conversation for us to have.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#234
post #143
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had gotten the galaxy 7 (the new one) you'd still be fine. But none can predict what's future proof, mainly because it's what companies make their money off. They NEED you to buy a new tablet, phone, etc, every year. They'd make car breaks and need complete replacement every year if they could as well. So, while it can happen that a product is "future proof" for a couple of years instead of one, it's rare. Hec…

I understand your point, but I am not sure I agree. The initial demise of the American automobile manufacturers was partly due to the unreliability of their products. Regarding tablets, I would think that locking people into a particular app ecosystem would be a higher priority than achieving a high tablet turnover rate. Seems like the money is in the apps, not the hardware.

It depends, most of the hardware is not manufactured by Google (even thus it's sold in Google's name)

So for example, Samsung, etc, (but mostly Samsung here) see a benefit in having the hardware expire as fast as possible (while keeping the balance of 'not having the customer complain about reliability or performance' and 'not letting the competition get ahead, or too much ahead')

Almost a black art ;-)

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is better, two 20WHr batteries or one 40WHr battery?

Two twenties, because after a few months, I have two 15s and you have a twenty. Batteries never seem to fully charge like the used to. My wife has a iPhone (the 4s or something) and still has to charge hers more than I do (Samsung Galaxy II). Not a whole lot different, but instead of her being tied to the outlet, I can pull my battery out, put in the new one and keep going. That kind of convenience is worth everythin…

By the time a [nondefective] battery needs replacing in an iPhone, your warranty is up anyways. They're not user-replaceable under warranty but they're not especially difficult to replace either, and only cost about $30 from an OEM parts supplier.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple owns the entire ecosystem, they can't claim anything they do to it is unplanned. Google merely owns the OS and a few devices, they can't control what samsung and htc and everyone else decides to do or not do.

“Planned obsolescence” implies that a device is made obsolete to force people to buy newer devices as opposed to other reasons. Just because a device becomes obsolete doesn’t mean it’s “planned obsolescence”, even with total control over the whole ecosystem. That’s at least how “planned obsolescence” is commonly used and defined. “Planned obsolescence” as a term implies a reason (forcing people to buy newer devices),…

So do you imply that the iOS6 features missing on the iPhone 3GS are missing for hardware reasons - or that intentionally leaving out features is not planned obsolescence? Whatever it is, I don't think Apple is maximizing hardware lifetime here.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/06/12/new-features-in-ios-6-re...

(I'm not complaining about the average lifetime of my Apple devices here, the iPad 1 and iPhone 3G were abysmal but my laptop & Mac Mini made up for it. I actually think that's why they have to add stronger, artificial incentives.)

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#237
post #114
post #77

I haven't been following much of android development but is it starting to look like WP7? I only say this because both of the screenshots on the page look very very much inspired by WP7. https://lh3.ggpht.com/3Pu3EHP1QUr9oI-YdIPQE5BxWYVGZ_DzPwhReS... - Metro-esque https://lh4.ggpht.com/p-eZmyce7_T2-_eOwltQxU6glPj6f53kDXvDvN... - Big airy sans, open spaces, riding the line of minimalist, etc.

Google started that design language quite a while ago with Google+ and all the new designs for their services. The big images thing came a long time ago in the Chrome Webstore as well: https://chrome.google.com/webstore Why do people have to immediately associate something with something else even if it's only 5-10% similar?

Metro: http://andrewtechhelp.com/images/stories/windows8devpreview/...

Google: https://lh4.ggpht.com/p-eZmyce7_T2-_eOwltQxU6glPj6f53kDXvDvN...

If I remove the "Google" logo from the second image would you think it was just Google's design language? Design doesn't happen in isolation. It's a product of everything that influenced the designer.

I thought it was interesting because:

1) They look to be headed the same direction as microsoft. 2) The images they chose to use to showcase their new tablet look to be "metro".

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#238
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just get a 10 inch Samsung tablets and buy one of the stylus's that are available anyways. It's no different than an iPad with one of the 3rd party stylii.

I think he's talking about a stylus like in Galaxy Note, which is quite a different beast (proper pressure sensitivity and pen angle detection).

Yeah, I figured that, but the alternative was to go to a different ecosystem entirely that has the same hangups (in this respect).

It's like saying "I was waiting for an Android tablet that could make me breakfast and transport me through time, but I can't wait any longer, iPad!"

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#239
One of the things I hate about Google Play is:

    Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet.
I agree; that is sorry. They even show me this when I log in, go to the 'My Orders' screen, and click on the Galaxy Nexus I just bought from them this month (when I visited the US for WWDC).

I was going to ask for a summary, but this is good enough: http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/27/3120992/asus-nexus-7-andro...

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#240
Just bought the 8GB version.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think the 7 inch form factor is much malaligned. It fits perfectly in between my smart phone (Galaxy Nexus) and my (relatively) massive tablet (Transformer Prime), and gives me a Kindle sized form factor for TV/Film/music (which as much as I love my wonderful Kindle - I sorely need content on the go). I didn't get the Amazon Fire - felt like it was too locked down.

The G7 is cheap enough for an impulse buy, and honestly the Android fragmentation has been greatly overstated - most apps work for the 95 percentile use case - and seeing as how massive the Android market is - I'm surprised that it isn't even more fragmented.

All in all, I'm quite sure that this and the Nexus Q (despite it's rather unique design) will be winners in their respective spaces.

This is not an iPad competitor. It's a Kindle for the rest of your content - without the lockdown.

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