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We Need to Talk About Android

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Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#141

Post by Drbble »

thought_alarm wrote: post #21

You are not Samsung's customer. Phone manufactures sell phones to carriers, not consumers. Success in the phone industry depends entirely how well you meet the demands of the carriers. RIM knows it (or knew it), Nokia knows it, Samsung knows it. Android is merely a platform that allows Samsung to tailor their devices to the carrier's requirements, in a way they couldn't do when they were selling Windows Mobile device…

You aren't wrong in how you describe the players' actions and motivations, but thinking like this in the legacy and and Android markets is what is turning everyone into Apple's customer.

I got fooled by the "Android is open" marketing. Then I learned that "open" was for carriers, not consumers, so there really wasn't much "freedom" difference between Android and iOS,

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#142

Post by mark_integerdsv »

nextparadigms wrote: post #90
mark_integerdsv wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fans of the platform seem to hammer on about market share an awful lot. Stockholm Syndrome? I really cannot fathom why a consumer, assuming they have no stock in the platform outside their own purchase should be so concerned about something as trivial as market share. Were the platform in danger of disappearing due to low market share (WebOS) I'd understand that but puffing up your chest because the OS on your smartp…

Nor do I understand why fans of Apple products tout Apple's high profit? Isn't that a form of Stockholm syndrom, too? Being happy that the company you buy from makes a lot of money from you?

I'm assuming that wasn't directed at me-I don't recall having indulged in any-boi-ism of any sort. I also agree with your comment... Being egotistical about something so irrelevant is definitely a bit weird.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#143

Post by vibrunazo »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #96
vibrunazo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did that. That's the one reason why I bought a Nexus S. It's March, about 4 or so months after Android 4.0 launched. I still have 2.3 on my Nexus S, because of delays for my region and carrier.

You realise that Google is constantly updating your phone via it's Apps (e.g. new Youtube, new Market), yes? If so, why would you not feel you are missing out during the year between functionality updates for iOS and instead focus only on the OS version number? Is it simply that you don't want other people to have updates if you don't have them, rather than missing the actual functionality itself? Because you not hav…

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. You seem to imply that somehow I prefer iOS over Android, when in fact I never owned any Apple product. I still prefer my 2.3 Nexus S over any iDevice I could have.

I'm simply responding to a post where someone assumed that buying a Nexus device will guarantee you the latest OS update. This isn't true as I showed that the Nexus S, which I bought essentially for faster updates. Still didn't get the official 4.0 in my region/carrier even 4 months after it's available.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#144

Post by mrb »

batista wrote: post #114
mrb wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does not change his point. Many Windows users are not regularly applying security patches or upgrading to the latest Windows version, making the Windows ecosystem fragmented, yet this did not prevent it from becoming a market leader on desktops, with a large Windows development economy flourishing and producing apps compatible with many different Windows versions and service pack levels. For the same reason, Andro…

or upgrading to the latest Windows version, making the Windows ecosystem fragmented No, this did not made the Window ecosystem "fragmented" in the sense that Android is. Windows always had excellent backwards and forward compatibility, which meant you could develop for XP and still run on Vista and vice versa. You just couldn't take advantage of the latest and greatest APIs, but most apps used the classic APIs anyway…

Android too offers excellent forward compatibility! It is easy, as API changes are generally additive. I challenge you to find a few different apps written for, say, Android 1.6 that don't run on 4.0. I am sure some examples exist, but they are rare. In fact, I would even argue that Windows apps fail more often to be forward compatible than Android apps, because of the sheer complexity of the Windows software stack compared to Android.

As to backward compatibility, just like on Windows, it is the developers' responsibility to ensure he refrains from using APIs that are too recent. For example, if you write a Windows Direct3D 10 game, it won't run on XP because this API is only available on Vista and up. Same thing for Android: select the right API level when developing your app! http://developer.android.com/guide/appendix/api-levels.html How is Windows better/different than Android in this respect?

I speak from experience. I have developed on both Windows and Android, contrary to most people in this thread.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#145

Post by usaar333 »

betterth wrote: post #112
usaar333 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An issue I have with his claims: > A Price Observation All of the even slightly cheaper phones are much worse than the iPhone when it comes to OS support, but it’s interesting to note that most of the phones on this list were actually not cheaper than the iPhone when they were released The chart really doesn't quote pricing correctly. I'd prefer if he just used the un-subsidized cost. The subsidized costs are meaning…

But that's not $380 that has anything to do with Apple or Android. That's like saying your new LG TV is $400 dollars cheaper than your last Samsung TV, because you -also- switched your Comcast plan to pay less monthly. That's not a fair comparison.

Again, that's why I prefer comparing unsubsidized costs. My Hero may have been hundreds cheaper but perhaps some of that cheapness was from being on an inferior carrier.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#146

Post by mrb »

elithrar wrote: post #12
shingen wrote: post #3

The endless parade of fragmentation discussions regarding Android all prove one thing: a lot of people don't understand what wins a market. Customers lacking in technological savvy make up the radical majority of Android owners, they are never going to care about this issue so long as their smart phone functions at 85% good enough. 85% good enough, is more than enough to win a market if you have substantial other adv…

> Circa 2002 they had '95, 98, ME, and XP spread across over half a billion units. With further varied patch configurations and service packs. It's worth pointing out that this comparison isn't the same. You could, in 2002, run the latest version of Office on all of their operating systems. With Android, there are situations where even Google's own software (see Chrome on Android) only runs on the absolute latest ver…

> With Android, vendors are still shipping devices with 2.3.

How is this bad? Do you realize that 4 months ago, 2.3 was the very latest Android version available for phones? Its successor, 4.0, was barely released in Nov 2011 (3.0 was for tablets only). A few months delay is perfectly understandable because vendors need time to customize, build, test, ship, and clear inventory levels of devices running the previous Android version.

> You could, in 2002, run the latest version of Office on all of their operating systems.

This statement does not prove that forward/backward compatibility is easy in Windows. How much time did Microsoft waste into making Office run flawlessly across a wide range of Windows versions? With an application the size of Office (30M lines of code), it is almost certain that it has hundreds, if not thousands, of workarounds for limitations or bugs affecting the oldest Windows versions that Office needed to support.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#147

Post by AznHisoka »

The slow speed at which consumers upgrade their devices can be a good thing.. for developers.. once you finish making an app stable that works across most popular versions. You don't have to worry about future versions breaking it, or feel the need to upgrade your app to take advantage of newer features.

Compare that to iOS. Now if you download the new XCode, you gotta worry about ARC. A few years back, you had to make retina versions of all your images... and if you just had 1 version of those images, you were screwed. I compiled an app I made a year ago using iOS 5.0. It's breaks. I have no clue why.. As consumers we want the latest, but as a developer, sometimes I get really annoyed that Apple keeps changing so much so fast.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#148

Post by runako »

ktizo wrote: post #94
runako wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite: what non-consumer level smartphones would you suggest for schools? What OS would you suggest (given the discussion here, it obviously can't be the consumer-level iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, or any other OS that runs on a phone a consumer can buy in a consumer mobile store).

I wouldn't suggest any smartphones for schools, I'd have them removed at the door and given back at the end of the day, but that's probably because I have a lot of sympathy with Cliff Stoll's views on computers in classrooms.

I get it. Rewriting your prior post for accuracy:

How does having technology deployed to a school help educate people at all, regardless of things like platform fragmentation?

:-)

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#149

Post by ktizo »

runako wrote: post #148
ktizo wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't suggest any smartphones for schools, I'd have them removed at the door and given back at the end of the day, but that's probably because I have a lot of sympathy with Cliff Stoll's views on computers in classrooms.

I get it. Rewriting your prior post for accuracy: How does having technology deployed to a school help educate people at all, regardless of things like platform fragmentation? :-)

No, cos then they wouldn't be allowed to teach writing, which is quite a fundamental technology for education.

Is just that I view issuing smartphones or consumer tablets in a classroom to be about as useful and productive as issuing games consoles.

Re: We Need to Talk About Android

#150

Post by ktizo »

ugh wrote: post #121
ktizo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things being normal does not mean they are a good idea. How will teaching a class of 30 be improved with the addition of 30 tablets or smartphones, apart from in the rare occasions that you are teaching how to program the things?

It’s a tool like any other, like pen and paper. Why shouldn’t students be able to use up-to-date tools?! I certainly would have loved to have been able to do just that. It’s funny how you seem to imply that the only useful thing you can do with a computer is to learn how to program things. It’s not going to be a revolution or a huge improvement (better teachers are the most important thing above all else), but being…

There is a huge difference from using these devices to help with homework and using them in the classroom though. Also, pens and paper are an extremely cheap, robust, high-resolution, non-volatile, display, computation and memory technology that are amazingly resistant to EM interference and works even in situations of extended power loss.

And given the distractions that a group of schoolkids can create using just pen and paper, I don't see how devices that are primarily designed for consuming media and gaming are really going to help much. Half of them will get broken or stolen and the other half will be hacked.

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