111–120 of 137 posts
4.6" screen? Do they not understand user experience at all? The arms race on screen sizes is getting ridiculous. It's like having a paperback book in your pocket. Why can't they increase pixel density but keep it in a dimension good for one handed operation with normal sized thumbs?
It's the same size as the screen on the Nexus S, but the buttons are now just a part of the screen, so the diagonal is bigger.
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Of course, that is one data point. Gizmodo says "certainly responsive" ( http://gizmodo.com/5851133/samsung-galaxy-nexus-the-greatest... ). Engadget says "startlingly fast" and "faster than its ever been" ( http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/samsung-galaxy-nexus-hand... ). Personally I just think it is clear that Android has gone well beyond the limits of caring (not perception) for the vast majority of users. There…
I've the feeling that Android doesn't employ the GPU for the OS, I hoped that this will change with 4.0
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>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if >letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely scree…
thats all the apple fanboys have, instead of this thread talking about all the amazing new features and improvements, its a bunch of hivemind people trying to convince themselves that Android isn't awesome. I'm sorry but I must of been oblivious the lag as well as the other Android users. Most people want cheap phones and/or cheap plans, a very high quality os, that make calls, send text, surf web, and maybe do some…
Isn't Apple proof enough that simply hitting the bullet points is not enough? Or Sony (with the PlayStation, which got thoroughly trounced by a machine bearing inferior specs across the board)?
People love polish, they love attention to detail, they love absolute frictionless products. Apple has priced themselves out of the low end (the 3GS' performance is a joke compared to the Android phones at that price point), so Android is largely dominating that segment.
But make no mistake about it - Apple owns the high-end smartphone market because their product has all of those things you just blithely dismissed.
Most people want a cheap car that gets good mileage. The lack of heated seats, automatic wipers, and a V8 under the hood makes no difference to most people. But yet, we know that the dynamics of the automotive market can't be hand-waved away so easily - why do it to the smartphone/consumer electronics market?
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I agree. I bought a Samsung Omnia 7 with Windows Phone 7 over android (and I am a free software kind of guy) because I found the Android experience lacking. I just found every Android device to miss the nice snappy response iOS and WP7 gives.
WP7 needs more spotlight. It's a really nice OS, both in UI and in UX. I really hope MS keeps focusing on it!
But so far all the hardware we've seen out of MS's camp has been me-too almost-clones of existing Android devices. None of the hardware have contained any features or industry design that would really make it desireable.
MSFT desperately needs a piece of hardware to act as WP7's flagship - something with the build quality and design quality of the iPhone 4. A real piece of art people can hold in their hands - IMO this would be the ticket to MS having a fighting chance in the smartphone wars.
They also desperately need to stop marketing in-house. Microsoft blows at marketing, and everything they do in-house falls flat on its face, and so far everyone they hire from the outside seems to suck equally as much (if not worse. Seinfeld?). Microsoft desperately needs to get its marketing act together.
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The “let’s cut corners because most people won’t notice or care” mentality you mentioned is where sub-par software comes from. Good software shouldn’t be a luxury that one can be “spoiled” by — it should be the standard.
this is a very elitist way of thinking of things. Some people just aren't able to afford the luxury of a "good software" as you put it. So does that mean they shouldn't have access to a solid operating system and access to mobile web. In many parts of the world where they buy their phones outright, does smoother animations really justify the extra cost for access to email and web. Get real.
Android is free to license, and the OEMs are benefactors of an incredibly wealthy company that seems to have no qualms about throwing gajillions of dollars into R&D to make a best-in-class mobile OS.
Android not being "good software" cannot be in any way spun as a win for the proletariat - because there is no opportunity cost. The cost to engineer the OS is in no way passed on to the consumer, and so far only the hardware is (with some marginal amount of software integration).
In other words, Google is pouring hundreds of millions to develop Android. The average phone consumer (in any part of the world) is not paying for its development (customers of other Google products are), so the argument that somehow these "cut corners" has resulted in a more affordable product is a complete non-sequitor.
For a second there I read that as a smartphone powered by icecream between two slices of bread. I was roughly halfway towards either peltier elements or Stirling engines, when I realized hat Ice Cream Sandwich is probably one of those silly names that people feel they have to give to their software.
Really? It's a dessert name, just like the other Android releases. http://www.google.com/search?q=ice+cream+sandwich&tbm=is... This is like those HN comments that ask who rms is.
If they'd simply call it Android version x.xx there would be no problem at all.
The only other arena where I recall come across such silly names is when people name their horses.
Who RMS is is important enough for me to remember, I couldn't care less what each android release is named because (1) I don't have an android phone and (2) I don't develop for Android.
Saying that it is just a dessert name and that I'm supposed to realize that is the same as telling you that you should have known that Grießbrei is a dessert too (and that one at least roughly translates). There is no equivalent to Ice Cream Sandwich in any other language that I'm aware of.
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>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if >letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely scree…
Android is growing fast because its on every crappy free/buy one get one smartphones that are basically used as a glorified feature phone, NOT because its good.
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>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if >letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely scree…
Android is growing fast because its on every crappy free/buy one get one smartphones that are basically used as a glorified feature phone, NOT because its good.
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>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if >letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely scree…
thats all the apple fanboys have, instead of this thread talking about all the amazing new features and improvements, its a bunch of hivemind people trying to convince themselves that Android isn't awesome. I'm sorry but I must of been oblivious the lag as well as the other Android users. Most people want cheap phones and/or cheap plans, a very high quality os, that make calls, send text, surf web, and maybe do some…
If you don't think the lag is a problem, fine, great. I personally think it's unacceptable. It's one of the reasons my daily use phone is iOS and not Android.
Why are we talking about this instead of the other new features? Because for a long, long time, Ice Cream Sandwich was touted as the solution to these performance problems.
I personally find Android unpleasant to use because of it. Worse, I think it makes my software look shitty, which makes me look shitty, which makes me tell people to demo my apps on iOS rather than Android.
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>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if >letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your keyboard. Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I have a big, lovely scree…
Android is growing fast because its on every crappy free/buy one get one smartphones that are basically used as a glorified feature phone, NOT because its good.