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

Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 137 posts

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#101

Post by progrock »

redthrowaway wrote: post #63
progrock wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My FB newsfeed is full of inane posts by family and a few friends You can't really blame that on Facebook.

I can, though. It's built into FB's newsfeed algo. I interact with family and friends I don't often see for geographical reasons quite often on FB. Unfortunately, Zuck et al make the erroneous assumption that this means I care about their daily goings-on. I don't. My FB feed currently consists of: 1) Instagram pictures from a friend I've known since birth 2) Location checkins from someone I have good banter with but…

Either way it's easy to have a flood of updates that you don't want to read, or cloud over the bits you are interested in.

If you had two Facebook accounts, one for your close friends and family, and another for interests, would it be any better?

I'm not sure if there is a G+ algo. If you aren't the stalking kind on Facebook, and don't interact with certain people - then some of your acquaintances end up out of sight. And sometimes the wrong ones end up in plain sight.

Both platforms would benefit from a 'turn this person down switch.'

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#102

Post by progrock »

w1ntermute wrote: post #79
giulianob wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinkpads have great quality but I have to say I have not seen any touch pads that come anywhere close to the quality of the ones on a Mac. Luckily I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it and bringing a high quality touchpad to a PC would be a big deal IMO.

> I prefer the Lenovo "nipple" over a touchpad but most people hate it The problem is that no one gives the TrackPoint a chance. I've seen people who've used ThinkPads for years and have never even touched the TrackPoint. But if you spend about 30 minutes working with it, you'll find that it's superior to both mice and trackpads for 99% of tasks (gaming being the one exception, for which I keep a mouse on hand).

I find that the nipple requires a little too much pressure (T500), which is a little tiresome. You can be really light to the touch with some touchpads (including simulated clicks.) I'd prefer a nipple more like a touchpad - something like you get on the Blackberries (not the old trackballs.)

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#103

Post by roopeshv »

mmagin wrote: post #84
Andrenid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myself and my wife had absolutely no problem sliding it out of it's sleeve and then slicing the 2 tabs with a knife and lifting the top off. Only thing i can think of, is maybe there was a defective batch of boxes that were slightly too tight? The complaints I had been reading for days definitely confused me once I got it and opened it with ease.

In recent memory, I haven't needed a knife to open an apple box easily. (Not counting brown outer shipping boxes.)

he cut open a tape with a knife. if you have nails, you can take off the tape with it, but I bite my nails, so I had to use my keys, and it's easier to do it with cut tape along a crevice anyway.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#104

Post by seabee »

primatology wrote: post #100
generalk wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, fewer buttons does not necessarily make a device simpler. There's a happy medium that I think Android hit with the four-button menu/home/back/search keys. Whenever I use an iPhone anymore I always cache-miss and try to find the hardware back button.

Not every screen needs a back button. You can't hide a hardware back button. I'm with Apple on this one. The back-arrow button in the toolbar reminds me I'm in a hierarchal app, and the label reminds me what the prior screen was. It's just the opposite for me: every time I use an Android I hunt around the screen for the software back button.

As the hardware buttons are generally lit, you could de-emphasise it by removing the light. I had a Motorola java phone which did just this.

The failure of the Apple hierarchical model is it's app-centric, unlike Android which is activity-centric. In a perfect world we could have software back buttons which worked like Android, but I wouldn't trust developers to implement that consistently.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#106

Post by eropple »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #9

I'm a long time Linux and Android fan, but had no interest in a tablet. I recently had not one, but two Android disliking friends buy a Nexus 7 and one even sold his iPad shortly thereafter. Needless to say, I wound up pulling the trigger. It's really quite nice how well Android 4 and up work n multiple form factors. This just reconvinces me that there are a host of people that would adopt Android if they gave a more…

I'm still not a fan of Android on a phone (I have a Galaxy Nexus lying around here and I don't like it), but the "bigger phone" feel of the Nexus 7 makes it work great. I think Android fits a lot better on a device of this size/form factor than on a phone, and I feel like the reverse is also true: I love my iPhone, but I'm not digging iOS on a tablet at all. It feels clumsy.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#107

Post by ralfn »

ConstantineXVI wrote: post #83
ralfn wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Were they using stock android or crappyfied android? Dont wait 24 months to suggest a windows phone. Suggest they flash a non broken version of android onto their phone.

Why should I go out of my way to fix a broken product? The appropriate response to a phone running broken software is ignore it and buy one built by someone competent. Buying a broken phone only encourages the manufacturer to make more, regardless of what you do with it after they have their $400.

It is not broken. It is old, and not being updated.

If they had bought a windows phone those 2 years ago, they would be saying the same thing about their windows phone.

But i agree that most android vendors suck at updates and should be avoided. But you should avoid their phones just as much when they are running windows.

Really, only Apple is doing this right: you get the full ecosystem experience for at least two years.

Those skinned android are often already six months behind and wont be updated.

But to compare a three year old android phone with a fresh new windows phone is unfair and illogial.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#108

Post by Andrex »

Zirro wrote: post #30
guelo wrote: post #26

My main disappointment is with the lack of Flash. Flash is still needed on a lot of websites and every time I've needed it it's a reminder that Adobe has cost Android one of its big advantages over iOS.

This just made me realize that Android-users of newer devices may currently be in a worse spot than iOS-users when it comes to lack of Flash-support. Since iOS has always been shipped without Flash-support, many popular sites target iOS specifically with HTML5-video. Android however, only recently lost support for Flash and is still likely getting the Flash-versions of videos instead of the HTML5 ones.

I doubt this is the case since Flash hasn't been bundled with the stock browser in quite some time (if ever, I'm having trouble remembering.) The real world websites I've seen and even worked on just serve HTML5 to both Android and iOS since you can't count on Flash being there for the former, and of course the latter doesn't have it.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#109

Post by erichocean »

ableal wrote: post #44
notatoad wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for reading fiction, ~7" tablets or e-readers are the sweet spot. if you're reading technical stuff with diagrams, the ipad really is the best option. a 10" 16:9 screen sucks for anything but movies, you really will appreciate the 4:3 screen.

Right on all counts. Fiction on 6 inch e-ink works well - think paperbacks. Technical PDFs need more, and even at the same screen size, really work better on the iPad than on the old Kindle DX. I also much prefer the 4:3 ratio - the narrow 16:9 devices give you much less area for the same diagonal measure, as this chart accurately points out: https://twitter.com/trojankitten/status/221270669273468930 (or http://a.yfr…

For the ratio not reflecting the actual screen area, IMO, manufacturers should reference screen sizes with four numbers: resolution (e.g. 1920x1080), aspect ratio (e.g. 16:9), and area (e.g. 22 in^2). I would drop the diagonal measurement, as it is completely misleading. I'd be willing to drop the actual resolution in favor of DPI.

As a consumer, you generally want a high DPI screen, with a specific aspect ratio, and a certain amount of screen area. The current spec reporting is not helping people out in this regard.

Re: Quick Nexus 7 Comments By Linus Torvalds

#110

Post by patrickod »

hrktb wrote: post #37

> You'd look like a complete dork trying to take photos with a tablet anyway "The best camera is the one you have with you" as we say, looking like a dork is irrelevant. The ipad camera is actually usable and if that's what you have in your hand you just take the photo with it. Now I agree at 200$ a super good camera would be asking to much for what seems to be an already very good device.

I'd imagine that most phone cameras would beat whatever Asus would most likely have used in this. Given I always have my phone on my I'm happy they left it out and hit the $200 price point.
Post reply on HN