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Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

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Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#361

Post by ateevchopra »

geodel wrote: post #86

I think it is just me but I find this 'book me a concert and fancy dinner' schtick rather boring. May be well off people are so busy and book these things so often that these virtual assistant really save time if price is of no concern to them.

The way I see Google assistant is that it's a combination of many apps (or maybe interface to many). Now I can have Google Assistant Icon on my homescreen and use it to do many things like:

* Set up an alarm

* See the Distance

* Search nearby places/restaurants/gas stations

* Play some song

* Look up facts

* Look up news

* See my agenda for the day

* Search for my personal photos and maybe much more....

I rarely use the voice input. The thing I liked about allo is that I can chat with it. Even when i'm in a crowded bus, I can use my assistant instead of saying "OK Google".

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#362

Post by Retr0spectrum »

lumenwrites wrote: post #331

It blows my mind that there's not a single positive top level comment yet. Seriously, guys, what's up with the culture of entitlement and complaining? We're hackers, let's get fucking excited about the new cool gadgets! This phone is awesome . How about, before nitpicking and criticizing, we take a moment to appreciate and celebrate the new technology developed by our colleagues?

"Wow this is amazing!" doesn't make particularly interesting discussion.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#363

Post by WallWextra »

pcwalton wrote: post #358
tptacek wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have a lot more control over the mobile processors. The laptop processors have to maintain compatibility with all the software that people run on their laptops; effectively, that means they're stuck with other people's processors.

That's not really true. x86 emulation is a solved problem at this point, and Apple has shown willingness to use emulation to bridge an ISA transition in the past. I think the real reason is some combination of (a) ARM isn't competitive (or only recently became competitive) at the high power/high performance point that Intel CPUs excel at; (b) the Mac line generates so much less revenue and operates at so much smaller…

You need a faster processor to hide the emulation overhead. Good luck beating Intel by a big enough margin.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#364

Post by sz4kerto »

010a wrote: post #336
bryanlarsen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3G call time (minutes):[1] HTC10: 1859 LG G5: 1579 S7: 1492 iPhone 7: 712 The results would be closer on pretty much any other test, but it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison on anything other than talk time. Most review sites still find that this generation of Android flagships have longer web browsing times than the iPhone 7. 1: https://blogs.which.co.uk/technology/smartphones/iphone-7-fi...

iPhone 7+ is a much better comparison considering the size of the first two devices.

Not really.

HTC10: 145.9 x 71.9

iPhone7: 138.3 x 67.1 (-7.6, -4.7 vs HTC10)

iPhone7+: 158.2 x 77.9 (+12.7, +6 vs HTC10)

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#365

Post by diminish »

julianpye wrote: post #354

Last week we tried to launch an Android-first app at a major startup conference with 5000 visitors. 95% of the visitors (startups, entrepreneurs, investors, executives) had iPhones. We later confirmed this by looking at the network stats and couldn't believe it. In a country where Android statistically has 80% marketshare. The Android users loved the product, but we failed because we couldn't generate word-of-mouth.…

Actually that shows a big opportunity exists for startups in Android space. Clearly the startup world is not where the customers are due to various reasons.

Go where the customers are, observe what they are doing and make something they can use.

I truly see a big opportunity. Launching at startup events is wrong unless your customers are them.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#366

Post by fizzbatter »

czhiddy wrote: post #8

“The difference with this device is that we started from the beginning,” says Dave Burke, who runs Android engineering. Started from scratch, yet the end result looks like a iPhone knockoff from a random Chinese shanzhai company? http://i.imgur.com/LlqaAPO.png

I love my Nexus phones, i also have already ordered a Pixel XL. With that said, i hate the look of this phone compared to the Nexus 5 and 5X. I really felt the 5 and 5X were a good, unique and fitting feel for Nexus. The Pixel doesn't seem to have any identity of it's own.

Frankly, with Apple already having sued over phone designs.. i'm shocked this is so blatantly similar to the iPhone.

Only thing that feels unique is that weird glass bit on the back.. and that's ugly as hell imo.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#367

Post by erikpukinskis »

adamweld wrote: post #29
mikestew wrote: post #13

And yet not a single hard detail in the article as to why the headline might be true. For going on ten years we've seen the "iPhone killers" come and go, and this article does nothing to tell me why this time it will be different. Perhaps because it won't be. Of what very few details the article outlines, they just go on about nifty hardware. Have we not learned by now that cool hardware still sucks when hamstrung by…

>Now, Google is no Samsung, but they're a long way from Apple or even Microsoft on the UX front. Not sure I agree with this. I've been on android for a while, so I'm sure I'm biased, but stock AOSP Android is pretty much perfect for me. Very minimal and aesthetically beautiful, but still powerful and customizable.

Honestly, in terms of staff UI design cred Android is in better place than iOS right now.

With the Sidekick, PalmOS, and then Material Design, Matías Duarte has been consistently at the forefront of mobile UI design.

Jony Ive is probably the most brilliant consumer electronics hardware designer in the world, but I have yet to see any indication that he has any idea how to lead a platform UI design project. I had issues with Scott Forstall's style, but he was at least leading the charge somewhere.

In my opinion, force click, Siri, 3D wallpapers, etc, have not been major coups in terms of UI finesse. At best Apple is in a holding pattern right now, I haven't seen any indication that they're pushing the state of the art outside of the hardware. The animations keep getting flashier and smoother, but that's not really UI design.

I thought Ive's strong understanding of design methodology would be enough, but I think maybe software design requires a different way of thinking. I don't know.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#368

Post by [deleted] »

adamweld wrote: post #29
mikestew wrote: post #13

And yet not a single hard detail in the article as to why the headline might be true. For going on ten years we've seen the "iPhone killers" come and go, and this article does nothing to tell me why this time it will be different. Perhaps because it won't be. Of what very few details the article outlines, they just go on about nifty hardware. Have we not learned by now that cool hardware still sucks when hamstrung by…

>Now, Google is no Samsung, but they're a long way from Apple or even Microsoft on the UX front. Not sure I agree with this. I've been on android for a while, so I'm sure I'm biased, but stock AOSP Android is pretty much perfect for me. Very minimal and aesthetically beautiful, but still powerful and customizable.

[deleted]

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#369

Post by tdkl »

x0x0 wrote: post #243
anfogoat wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the worst time since switching to the OnePlus 3 and from what I've read the OS on this phone is very close to stock Android. The only way to have a good experience with email, calendars and contacts is to use Google Apps – which I refuse to migrate to. The stock apps have no support for IMAP IDLE, CardDAV, or CalDAV. You have to resort to 3rd party apps for these and they are without fail either slow, buggy,…

This is absolutely true -- I'm on a nexus 5/android 6. There's no native caldav. I use a paid client called caldav-sync which is mediocre. For a while on android 5/lollipop, you had to install a second app (free from the same author) to prevent settings being wiped during OS upgrades/patches. When I upgraded to android 6 I couldn't figure out why calendars weren't syncing until I discovered caldav-sync decided to syn…

I used Aquamail & Davdroid (paid on Play,free on F-droid) for that combo (before my hosting got ActiveSync, for which I another excellent client app called Nine), was working without issues you write about.

Re: Behind the Pixel: Google’s First Real Threat to Apple’s iPhone

#370

Post by threeseed »

jusben1369 wrote: post #201
benologist wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that what literally every android manufacturer has been doing since day 1? Google doing it "too" doesn't sound like a game changer.

Well every other manufacturer has looked to Google (largely) for the sw and built the hw. It's this bundling together of the two that's being presented as unique and is different to every other Android manufacturer.

But that's hypothetical. I'm not seeing any features that Google is uniquely placed to offer. And it's not like Android is so antithetical to third party modifications.
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