171–180 of 216 posts
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Your information is outdated. The Holo theme is required to be present on all devices that wish to carry the play store. If you write an app targeting 4.0 or higher that uses the default theme, it will look the same across all phones.
However, you will lose the 2.3 users, who still hold a ton of market share.
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He's not wrong. There's always a tradeoff between security and usability. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/security_vs_us... The key is finding the right balance.
You couldn't be more wrong and, unfortunately, I don't have the karma yet to enable downvoting :-). Easy example as long as we're on the topic, the Chrome browser or ChromeOS. I can think of a dozen things that could be done to Android to both mitigate against current threats and exploited weaknesses and either not interfere with or improve user experience. Unfortunately, we are long past the point where fundamental…
The web would be a much more interesting place if we could hook up arbitrary peripherals. It's holding back the entire world from developing better computer interfaces.
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> Since Sundar Pichai is the head of ChromeOS, perhaps this move is part of a larger move to unify Android and ChromeOS. I can't see both exist at the same time for much longer, and Android is encroaching on ChromeOS' domain much faster than the other way around. I'm predicting that ChromeOS will be shut down within a couple of years.
I'll take that bet. Instead I think it's going to happen the other way. Chrome is going to be more tightly integrated into Android. Eventually the Play store will contain Chrome Packaged Apps that appear to the user no different than the Java apps. Chromebooks will remain untainted. They'd be giving up too much security wise by allowing native apps on Chrome OS, one of its biggest selling points.
This is an interestingly timed article. We're building our Android app right now, and its certainly more annoying than when we built out iOS app. As an app developer, in Canada (not Canadian however) i'm excited that RIM have attempted to prevent further fragmentation by sticking close to the Android stack, however i really don't want to deal with the distribution and other issues (such as screens, OS bugs etc) that…
Is this better or worse than developing for a completely different platform (i.e. BB<10, WP7/8, etc)?
“We’re getting closer to a world where technology takes care of the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so that you can get on with what makes you happiest… living and loving.” Just lie back and let yourself sink into the goo. Don't worry about all that messy technology behind the curtains. We've got that taken care of. Have a nice day :)
Isn't that what nerds have always wanted? To be the ones saying that.
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He's not wrong. There's always a tradeoff between security and usability. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/security_vs_us... The key is finding the right balance.
You couldn't be more wrong and, unfortunately, I don't have the karma yet to enable downvoting :-). Easy example as long as we're on the topic, the Chrome browser or ChromeOS. I can think of a dozen things that could be done to Android to both mitigate against current threats and exploited weaknesses and either not interfere with or improve user experience. Unfortunately, we are long past the point where fundamental…
You can't downvote direct replies to your comments. :-)
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Your information is outdated. The Holo theme is required to be present on all devices that wish to carry the play store. If you write an app targeting 4.0 or higher that uses the default theme, it will look the same across all phones.
However, you will lose the 2.3 users, who still hold a ton of market share.
Like with all massive ecosystems, change in the android world takes time. Google is addressing the problem and solutions, like instituting a required theme, are rolling out.
Give it a year, maybe a year and a half, and the need to support 2.3 will be much less pressing.
This is really incongruous. You don't move a project from having a dedicated top level manager to being one-of-many under someone else as a way of "doubling down" on it (what an awful expression). It makes no sense, if Google sees Android has having future in its own right as one of Google's top priorities, that they put it under management with somebody with so many other priorities.
I can only conclude that either a) Sundar is a temporary replacement while they locate someone of Andy's stature as a replacement to lead Android in its own right or b) Google has charted somewhere far in the future that Android will get folded, substantially merged or otherwise share some kind of significant synergy with the other projects that Sundar Pichai is in charge of.
I find b) quite worrying because it signals an end to the (healthy) competitive tension that Google promoted internally where both Android and ChromeOS were pursued as independent ventures and "may the best man win" would determine the outcome. I also find it worrying because no matter how they spin it, I don't see how this can not seem like a blow to the esteem of the Android team - they've effectively been taken over by another division, effectively falling down one step in the company ladder. To have that happen after establishing one of the most incredible technology success stories in history - I can't imagine how deflating that would be to the team members. I hope Android doesn't lose a lot of talent from this. A huge amount is going to depend on how well Sundar Pichai handles this transition.
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You are aware the jail breaking exists, right? So iPhones aren't so secure.
> So iPhones aren't so secure. What's your benchmark? If you have access to the hardware virtually everything can be jailbroken. With the iPhone, however, you can't do it non-destructively (i.e. you can't get personal information). At least that's my understanding, if I'm wrong please correct me.
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Not to mention that Chrome has figured out how to push updates, while a majority of Androids are still running a version released over two years ago. If Google can start pushing auto-updates to all of its devices, that would be one of the greatest improvements ever made to Android. Also, one of Chrome's most touted features is performance, which has always been Android's weakest point. Hopefully he'll be willing to a…
Much harder for an OS than an app. Phone makers have their own custom set of drivers for driving their unique hardware and these often have to be changed in subsequent releases to deal with changes to the hardware abstraction layer. And even for releases that don't change the exposed hardware abstraction layer it can be really difficult to know if each phone maker's drivers will deal properly with subtle changes to t…