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Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

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Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#221

Post by jamesaguilar »

wvenable wrote: post #217
jamesaguilar wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has no such obligation You and I are using different meanings of this word. Presumably you are referring to a legal obligation, or a moral one. I don't recognize the existence of morality and I suspect that, unless they have a "Windows 8 Ready" tag on the machine, no legal obligation would exist either. The "obligation" I am speaking of is an expectation formed in the minds of average consumers to the poi…

> The "obligation" I am speaking of is an expectation... Obligation is a legal or moral term -- you can't use that term otherwise. An expectation is not an obligation. If you expect free cookies from me because I've been giving you free cookies every day for the past week, that's fine. But I'm not obligated to give you free cookies today. If Bob gives you free cookies and I'm now sitting in Bob's desk, you might expe…

I guess we have reached an impasse. We'll see how well this approach works out for Google in the long run. I'm inclined to suspect it is hurting them as it would probably hurt Microsoft if they started breaking backwards compatibility with every OS release. But reality will have to be the arbiter of whether this theory is correct.

Also, IMO, the term social obligation is pretty well understood. It's an expectation of your behavior by others.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#222

Post by falcolas »

objclxt wrote: post #174
awolf wrote: post #169

The 7" form factor: big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry and small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff anyway. In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in between baffles me.

It's a Kindle Fire competitor. Without doubt. Having played with one at one of the IO Extended events today, and given the massive emphasis on the play store and video/audio/written content being made available Google are definitely making a play for Kindle territory here. Like you, I'm pretty ambivalent on the 7" format, but that isn't stopping people from buying Kindle Fires...

I'm a Kindle Fire and an iPad owner, and I love my Fire.

It's large enough to read on comfortably, and about the weight of a similarly sized high quality book, meaning that it is light enough to handle for a long time without trouble. It carries by hand very easily, and just doesn't get in my way.

The iPad (v3, btw), in contrast, is bulky and heavy to carry around and hold. The keyboard still isn't big enough to touch type on comfortably, and I am not able to produce content on it with a reasonable speed (after 1mo of use, I gave it to my wife). When I need to create, I usually ended up using my notebook computer, due to the size limitations and difficulty of using the keyboard while holding the device anyways.

In the end, the Fire is the perfect size for portable media consumption, and the addition of an unlocked (and high quality) operating system makes this new offering by Google a no brainer for me.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#223

Post by wvenable »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #221
wvenable wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "obligation" I am speaking of is an expectation... Obligation is a legal or moral term -- you can't use that term otherwise. An expectation is not an obligation. If you expect free cookies from me because I've been giving you free cookies every day for the past week, that's fine. But I'm not obligated to give you free cookies today. If Bob gives you free cookies and I'm now sitting in Bob's desk, you might expe…

I guess we have reached an impasse. We'll see how well this approach works out for Google in the long run. I'm inclined to suspect it is hurting them as it would probably hurt Microsoft if they started breaking backwards compatibility with every OS release. But reality will have to be the arbiter of whether this theory is correct. Also, IMO, the term social obligation is pretty well understood. It's an expectation of…

> We'll see how well this approach works out for Google in the long run.

You make it seem like Google want this but I seriously doubt that they do. They simply don't have any say in the matter. They gave the carriers and the manufacturers everything they wanted to get into the market and now they can't close the barn door after the horses have run out. So instead they have their Nexus devices.

> social obligation is pretty well understood

Social obligation is also a moral term and it means more than just doing what people expect you to do because they are spoiled.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#224

Post by ajross »

cheeze wrote: post #218
ajross wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the first point is pretty suspect, and definitely not a trait of the "average user" (who, on a tablet, remains a techie early adopter). You get content the same place you get apps. You're saying that the "average user" can't download an app, either? I tend to agree that "Play" as a brand is a terrible name, though. But then I feel that way about most marketing, and find my intuition there routinely wrong. So…

My grandmother and parents all have iPads. No, they wouldn't be able to download an app unless it was blatantly obvious (see: app store).

That seems to be getting pretty far off into silly now, though. Your contention is that grandparents with iOS devices can download apps (and presumably view media) there, but not on Android, precisely because the "app store" is called "Play Store". Really? Is there any research at all that bears this out?

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#225

Post by chc »

tptacek wrote: post #219
chc wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 3GS is not a good comparison, as it's still being sold. It may have been released a while ago, but it is still a current product. Support for the original iPad was cut off after about two years, as was support for the original iPhone — because those were both actually old (in the sense of "not current") products. They got very slightly longer support periods than the original Nexus, but they got the same sort of…

"Support for the original iPad was cut off"? What? Isn't the current version of iOS 5.1.1? Doesn't the iPad 1 run it? I'm not sure what the discontinuation date matters; if you bought your Nexus One in the short window of time Google sold it, you got less than 2 years support. If you bought your 3GS in its first year, it's still supported today, and will be in Fall as well.

Apple has already announced it's cut off. The fact that it's still supported by last year's OS is nice, but given that I already acknowledged that the support period was a little bit longer, I think you're splitting hairs here. They were both cut off fairly quickly. I think Apple gave one more release than Google did.

I mean, is the complaint that Google almost supported the Nexus One long enough and everybody would have been satisfied if it had gotten that one additional upgrade? Because my impression is that people would have felt it was short either way — just like the iPhone 1 owners did.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#226

Post by morsch »

awolf wrote: post #169

The 7" form factor: big enough to be a pain in the ass to carry and small enough to be useless for most tablet stuff anyway. In my opinion, a mobile device should have a keyboard big enough for me to type using ten fingers, or it should fit in my pocket. Using something in between baffles me.

I think that's a valid position to take, but people have different needs. Another person might say a mobile device should be big enough to let them use the non-mobile version of the web, or it should fit in their pocket. Or it should be light-weight# enough to comfortably hold in one hand for extended amounts of time, or it should fit in their pocket.

I think typing with ten fingers and the overall typing experience is surprisingly unimportant for many people.

# People have widely reported fatigue with the iPad (e.g. Ars). I don't know that the Google 7" device is any lighter, but I assume it is the case.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#227

Post by metrop0219 »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #154
warfangle wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"don't even work on other companies devices that they have no control over " Fixed that for you. The Nexus (minus the G1) line of phones gets regular updates - my old Nexus One was always updated within a few weeks of a new version of android coming out. If you want updated OS software on your phone, be smart about which droid phone you get. Ain't goog's fault Samsung won't allow updates to Phone #4123.

I'm just a user of Google's Android OS. My three-year old Windows and Mac computers still get the latest OS versions, as do my iPhones. I don't care about the particular reasons why my phone with Google's Android OS doesn't get updated. I just know it doesn't. Those are Google's problems, not mine. My problem is that I own an Android phone that is not on the latest version. > be smart about which droid phone you get…

Except that the 3GS isn't getting iOS6. It's lacking features from iOS6, such as Siri. Apple permeates this lie in order to fool you, the consumer, into thinking that they're completely 100% keeping everything up to date. While I agree they are doing a good job, they're still lying, and consumers (especially us) should be smart enough to see through this.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#228

Post by myko »

awakeasleep wrote: post #72
MartinCron wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future-proof is a reasonable goal for a desktop PC, television, digital camera, automobile, wristwatch, or other more mature technology. It's just too soon to expect future-proofing from tablets or phones. As long as the tablet continues to do what it's supposed to do , it shouldn't really matter that there's a newer OS out there. As compared to the Kindle fire, which was never any good at doing what it was supposed…

How does the future-proofedness of Android tablets compare to the first iPad? I think it's held up pretty well, it doesn't get apps or features that require the camera, but aside from that it still gets updates and can run stuff. Andriod tablets can run new apps but not the operating system upgrades? I don't have any experience to know.

Generally API features of newer versions of Android are backported and made available through the compatibility library, so it's common to get features of newer OSs on older devices (a major exception to this is Google Chrome which is unavailable for pre-ICS devices).

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#229

Post by myko »

guynamedloren wrote: post #18
Splines wrote: post #12

No SD card slot? Urgh. 8/16GB is not a lot of room, especially for a tablet that is not going to be online all the time.

but nobody complained when the original ipad didn't have one (with same internal storage).

I complained. It's one of the reason's I switched to Android.

I'm pretty annoyed by my Nexus devices no longer having built-in SD card support, though on the tablet I don't mind using USB storage for plane rides when I need the extra space.

Re: Nexus 7, Made for Google Play

#230

Post by myko »

programminggeek wrote: post #147

Android's UI as a "media consumption" device is terrible compared to what Kindle Fire and Nook have done. The average user (say your parents), aren't going to go to the Google Play Store (which is a terrible non-obvious) name to buy books, movies, apps, etc. unless you explain to them that you have to use the Play app to download content. Kindle Fire nailed the obviousness of this with the top bar being labeled with…

How is 'Google Play Store' non-obvious? Especially once the app is opened?
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