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Android for all and the new Nexus 5

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Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#201

Post by eigenvector »

lambda wrote: post #200
danellis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What?? The whole point of getting a Nexus device is that, unlike a carrier phone, it's not supposed to get left behind by updates!

I was upset when my N1 didn't get the Android 4 release. Apparently, the whole Nexus thing means you are first in line to get updates when they come out (as opposed to carrier phones which frequently get updates several months after they are released, and may never get updates), but that only lasts for about two years.

Although 3rd party developers eventually brought ICS (and Jelly Bean for that matter) to the Nexus One with a lot of hacking, there were good technical reasons why there was never an official release. ICS needed drastically more space on NAND than Gingerbread, as evidence by 3rd party ICS ROMs requiring you to repartition your NAND as well as mount /data on the SD card if you wanted to install more than two or three apps, which then led to greatly reduced I/O performance.

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#202

Post by throwaway2048 »

devx wrote: post #177
bsimpson wrote: post #5

I'm sad that the Galaxy Nexus isn't supported. My phone has increasingly been running out of RAM lately for reasons I don't understand - hearing Google boast about how KitKat has been optimized for memory had me hoping that it would support more than just the latest-greatest.

The problem is even chip makers don't support their own devices that long. For example Qualcomm only supported their own chip the Snapdragon S3 only for 18 months, which is why when HTC used it in the HTC One S in 2012, it was already on its last legs for support, and then HTC couldn't update it anymore in 2013 because they said Qualcomm wouldn't update the drivers for it anymore. So it seems it may not be just OEM's…

or you know, open sourcing the drivers, or providing the specifications so we can write our own.

Im aware of the torrent of weak excuses why this wont happen, save it.

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#203

Post by Everlag »

Holy crap, scrypt is now in android as a default method of key stretching for whole disk encryption! That makes it way of a legitimate option and I'm really happy to see a memory hard algorithm being adopted in such a large area!

https://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html#44-...

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#204

Post by judk »

Symmetry wrote: post #65
klausa wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>WebView is now based on Chromium Does that mean that there will no more be stock 'Browser' app? I refuse to use Chrome on Android because of brain-dead, non-disablable 'font-boosting' that makes (among many others) Hacker News absolutely unusable. If that means that the same engine is the only one officially supported on 4.4 forwards, then that's really sad and unfortunate.

Well, there's always Firefox and a whole bunch of other browsers if you don't like Chrome.

Firefox also has broken font-boosting

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#205

Post by e12e »

Spoom wrote: post #13

Behind the polish on the screen is the power under the hood. Take the Phone app, which for most people hasn’t really changed since the days of flip phones. Now, we’re making calling easier than ever, by helping you search across your contacts, nearby places, or even Google Apps accounts (like your company’s directory), directly from within the app. Is that marketing speak for, "We're moving the Phone app into Google…

I'm more concerned about the integration of hangouts with sms and mms -- I read that as all other voip/video calls and messaging services (xmpp) will be further pushed into the cold.

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#206

Post by mdwelsh »

lambda wrote: post #199
eigenvector wrote: post #9

Here's the Android release notes: http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html Highlights: * WebView is now based on Chromium * KSM and zRAM integrated into stock kernel * Public SMS framework * Printing framework * Storage access framework

Did anyone else get a Google internal link for "Chrome DevTools" that gives you an internal Google login page? https://devsite.googleplex.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/r... I clicked on that link and got a page that says "moma: inside google. Single Sign On" and asks for a Google login, password, and OTP. It also appears to display a random image; I wonder if that random image is used as part of the authentication…

That seems busted. I'll see if I can get someone to fix it.

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#207

Post by igrigorik »

lambda wrote: post #199
eigenvector wrote: post #9

Here's the Android release notes: http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html Highlights: * WebView is now based on Chromium * KSM and zRAM integrated into stock kernel * Public SMS framework * Printing framework * Storage access framework

Did anyone else get a Google internal link for "Chrome DevTools" that gives you an internal Google login page? https://devsite.googleplex.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/r... I clicked on that link and got a page that says "moma: inside google. Single Sign On" and asks for a Google login, password, and OTP. It also appears to display a random image; I wonder if that random image is used as part of the authentication…

Doh! On it.. In the meantime, this is the link you want: https://developers.google.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/re...

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#209

Post by chinpokomon »

devx wrote: post #132
chops wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use HN site on Chrome Browser anymore because the app Hacker News 2 is so good: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airlocksof...

Hacker News 2 is virtually perfect.

I only have three gripes.

First, it removes my paragraph separation when I post. Second, when you go back to the topic list, it repositions the view at the top of the list again.

The third is that when viewing articles, it doesn't use the Chrome rendering engine, so JavaScript demos suffer greatly and I have to relaunch the article in Chrome to see most of the correctly. It sounds like that last point of contention, Google may have just fixed for me.

Personally, I like all the changes that I read about today.

I'd also like to point out that Chrome as the default webview is a natural fit with the direction Google is taking Android. For some time now on Nexus tablets, there has been no Android browser, only Chrome. Also, you can now save "web apps" as applications, not just as bookmarked links. I think it is only natural that by the time Android 5 is released, you might even be able to install Chrome packaged apps just as you do with regular APK applications.

Android and Chrome are merging, and ChromeCast, a lightweight Android kernel that only runs Chrome, is the proving ground.

Re: Android for all and the new Nexus 5

#210

Post by chinpokomon »

manmal wrote: post #189
chops wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use HN site on Chrome Browser anymore because the app Hacker News 2 is so good: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airlocksof...

Shameless plug: My app "HN" has slightly better ratings, but also a reduced feature set: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly...

A great start, but until I can post a comment through the app, I can't really "use" it. :-/ I'm looking forward to that future update.
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