Android M Developer Preview and Tools • Hacker News Board

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#61

Post by digi_owl » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

rentnorove wrote: post #49

calvin_c wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've actually set the number of permission groups to 8. But at least you can accept/decline each individually. EDIT: The permission groups are Location Camera Microphone Contacts Phone SMS Calendar Sensor

Conspicuously absent: - Read external storage - Internet

I guess they consider external storage to be already handled by the Storage Access Framework.

As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#62

Post by wongarsu » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #36

27182818284 wrote: post #28

Google is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android. In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO) Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negot…

Only way i see Google getting them all onboard is revenue sharing from Play based on what Android version the person is using.

Or google could just stop playing nice, they practically own the platform after all. If they would say "either you supply updates for two years or you are not allowed to preinstall google apps on new devices" the issue would be over.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#63

Post by serve_yay » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

27182818284 wrote: post #28

Google is showing off Android M dev previews while devices sold new last fall in major US retailers are still running KitKat with no updates from Google or their providers. They continue to actively create the "fractured" world of Android. In other words, that's cool about Android M, but most people aren't even using L. (40% on K, 9% on L whose preview was the 2014 IO) Can Google not poach one or two of Apple's negot…

The situation is so bad that they announce all this new stuff, and I think, that's great and all but who cares. A few thousand people will use this stuff and everyone else is 2-3 versions back. And they don't care, either.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#64

Post by serve_yay » Thu, May 28, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

kllrnohj wrote: post #59

heyheyhey wrote: post #11

> Battery - We’re making Android devices smarter about managing power through a new feature called Doze. With M, Android uses significant motion detection to learn if a device has been left unattended for a while. In this state, Android will exponentially back off background activity, trading off a little bit of app freshness for longer battery life. Will this improve wakelock performance that has been plaguing Andro…

Wakelocks have just been a scapegoat for people to pretend to sound smart when just saying that they want better battery life. They haven't actually been an issue for years. No, this won't magically fix bugs in apps that lead to poor battery life. If an app opens the camera and forgets to close it, yeah that's gonna murder your battery.

That shouldn't even be possible IMO.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#65

Post by wongarsu » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:00 PM UTC

digi_owl wrote: post #61

rentnorove wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conspicuously absent: - Read external storage - Internet

I guess they consider external storage to be already handled by the Storage Access Framework. As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

>As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

Why would they do that? On it's own "Internet" may not seem to be an important category, but I am willing to give apps many more permissions if I know that they can't phone home. For tools, the Internet permission is often the deciding factor for me.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#66

Post by digi_owl » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:04 PM UTC

EddieRingle wrote: post #10

tdkl wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new permission system will be available on devices running M only. So a dev will have to support both when targeting M.

Well that goes without saying. I'm just trying to say that applications running on M and later that still target an older SDK will not use the new system.

As best i could tell, on a device running M it would be like this:

M ready app, you get no permissions display up front but asked to approve on API use.

Older app, you get a permissions display up front and can disable API access in Android settings.

On older devices both M ready apps and older apps would behave like today, giving you a list of permissions up front and no way to control them (unless you are running a custom Android or the OEM added the possibility).

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#67

Post by kllrnohj » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:05 PM UTC

mahouse wrote: post #40

isbadawi wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you referring to?

The image is blurry and the colours are dithered. This really looks good to you? https://i.imgur.com/r3HZWyG.png

It looks like its been compressed and made suitable for a web page where the image quality of that screenshot is pretty much irrelevant to everything.

Which seeing as they used it for a 400x248 image in the blogpost is pretty much exactly on point.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#68

Post by vardump » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:06 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #65

digi_owl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they consider external storage to be already handled by the Storage Access Framework. As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

>As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy). Why would they do that? On it's own "Internet" may not seem to be an important category, but I am willing to give apps many more permissions if I know that they can't phone home. For tools, the Internet permission is often the deciding factor for me.

A few years ago mobile virtualization was hyped a lot. What came of it? I'd love to be able to run multiple OS instances on same phone. Use one for private communication and others for fun and games (not that I play games, but the point).

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#69

Post by digi_owl » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:06 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #65

digi_owl wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess they consider external storage to be already handled by the Storage Access Framework. As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy).

>As for Internet, they leave that out of their "improved" Play store permissions as well (and the M groupings seems like a carbon copy). Why would they do that? On it's own "Internet" may not seem to be an important category, but I am willing to give apps many more permissions if I know that they can't phone home. For tools, the Internet permission is often the deciding factor for me.

Everyone with a pulse has asked themselves that already, and come up blank. All we have are potential conspiracy theories revolving around ad revenue for both Google and app devs.

Re: Android M Developer Preview and Tools

#70

Post by kllrnohj » Thu, May 28, 2015, 10:06 PM UTC

serve_yay wrote: post #64

kllrnohj wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wakelocks have just been a scapegoat for people to pretend to sound smart when just saying that they want better battery life. They haven't actually been an issue for years. No, this won't magically fix bugs in apps that lead to poor battery life. If an app opens the camera and forgets to close it, yeah that's gonna murder your battery.

That shouldn't even be possible IMO.

I, too, would love to live in a world where it's impossible to write bugs. Things would be so much nicer if Google could just solve the halting problem already.

Sadly it's more likely I'll just get some stupid pony instead.