Samsung Galaxy S III looks pretty hot→
The ultra-thin bezel at the top of the phone seems a little too thin, but this phone looks pretty slick (and has some ridiculous specs to boot):
- 1.5GHz quad-core Samsung Exynos processor
- 4.8-inch “full HD” 1080p resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio display
- A 2-megapixel front-facing camera and an 8-megapixel rear camera
- Ceramic case
- 4G LTE
- Android 4.0
[BGR]
MG Siegler on why he hates Android→
MG Siegler wrote an article detailing the history of the Android platform, its original goals, and what it has since become. In doing so, he also explains why he hates Android:
Apple, for all the shit they get for being “closed” and “evil”, has actually done far more to wrestle control back from the carriers and put it into the hands of consumers. Google set off to help in this goal, then stabbed us all in the back and went the complete other way, to the side of the carriers. And because they smiled the entire time they were doing it and fed us this “open” bullshit, we thanked them for it. We’re still thanking them for it!
While you could argue that this is just one side of the story, there’s no arguing that Android has shifted a lot of power back into the hands of the wireless carriers.
For the record, I don’t really believe that Apple wrestled that control away from the carriers out of the goodness of its heart (or even for the benefit of consumers, for that matter) — it’s very possible that it’s just another case of Apple doing things on its own terms or not at all. That’s why I don’t really blame Google for doing what it did. This really isn’t an Apple vs. Google issue — it’s about carriers vs. consumers. Android is the carrier’s best friend. And that usually means it’s the consumer’s worst enemy. [parislemon]
The Reason Android is Laggy→
This is quite possibly the geekiest link that I have ever shared (and that’s saying a lot), but if you’re wondering why some people claim that Android’s UI is “laggy,” Andrew Munn has posted his explanation (but first you should really read this post by Dianne Hackborn clarifying some of the misconceptions about Android graphics):
Work on Android started before the release of the iPhone, and at the time Android was designed to be a competitor to the Blackberry. The original Android prototype wasn’t a touch screen device. Android’s rendering trade-offs make sense for a keyboard and trackball device. When the iPhone came out, the Android team rushed to release a competitor product, but unfortunately it was too late to rewrite the UI framework.
This is the same reason why Windows Mobile 6.5, Blackberry OS, and Symbian have terrible touch screen performance. Like Android, they were not designed to prioritise UI rendering. Since the iPhone’s release, RIM, Microsoft, and Nokia have abandoned their mobile OS’s and started from scratch. Android is the only mobile OS left that existed pre-iPhone.
Andrew and Dianne are both way smarter than I am, and I barely understand half of what they write, but I still found their posts interesting. What’s even more intriguing is whether the Android team ever decide to solve this problem once and for all by rewriting the rendering framework:
[Android Engineer] Romain Guy doesn’t elaborate on what the downsides are, but it’s not difficult to speculate:
- All Apps would have to be re-written to support the new framework
- Android would need a legacy support mode for old apps
- Work on other Android features would be stalled while the new framework is developed
It’s an interesting situation for the Android team. [Andrew Munn and Dianne Hackborn via Daring Fireball]
On the Galaxy Nexus camera
If you didn’t believe me when I said that shutter lag was important, check out one of the features of the newly announced Galaxy Nexus: zero shutter lag. That’s awesome. And from what I can tell from a demo video, it appears that both startup and shutter lag are even quicker than on the iPhone 4S. I also love that they chose to leave the camera at 5MP rather than bump it up to 8MP — most people don’t need 8MP out of their camera phones, and the end result will likely be higher quality images with less noise. From a technical standpoint, there’s a lot to like about the Galaxy Nexus camera.
It’s not always about the numbers
One of my good friends is a pretty big Android guy, and whenever we talk about phones, he’ll often get excited about the new dual- and quad-core processors that are “just around the corner.” I’m a geek, so I totally understand the appeal of faster processors, but I can’t help but wonder whether specs even matter anymore.
First of all, “normal” people (read; non-geeks) don’t care about specs. They couldn’t care less about which CPU is in their new phone so long as it works and it’s fast. Having said that, the iPhone 4 has been out for over a year now, and despite running a single-core processor, it has never once felt slow to me. Since the iPhone 4’s release, countless Android phones have come out featuring dual-core processors and much faster CPU speeds. But are these phones noticeably faster than the iPhone?
Well, it just so happens that Anandtech posted some benchmarks today. Actually, the benchmarks were meant to showcase the new iPhone 4S (spoiler alert: it’s really fast), but what really caught my eye was just how well the old iPhone 4 performed against the rest of the field. I’m sure iOS 5 had something to do with it, but the iPhone 4 held its own against the newer Android phones — at least when it comes to web browser performance.
And that’s the thing: what’s the point of these dual-core 1.5 GHz processors if the performance benefits are marginal at best? That’s why Apple has stayed out of the spec wars by refusing to list the CPU speeds and RAM of its devices. It’s not because they tend to have lower specs. Sure, that may play a small part, but more importantly, it simply doesn’t matter. The overall user experience is all that counts.
So while traditional geeks still harp about the specs on all the new Android phones, the bottom line is that they’re fighting the wrong fight: it simply doesn’t matter anymore.
Joshua Topolsky summed it up best in a post he wrote earlier this year on the Post-PC era:
It won’t be a debate about displays, memory, wireless options — it will be a debate about the quality of the experience. Apple is not just eschewing the spec conversation in favor of a different conversation — it’s rendering those former conversations useless. It would be like trying to compare a race car to a deeply satisfying book. In a post-PC world, the experience of the product is central and significant above all else. It’s not the RAM or CPU speed, screen resolution or number of ports which dictate whether a product is valuable; it becomes purely about the experience of using the device.
Comparing the same apps running on Android and iOS→
Android Gripes wonders why apps from the same company look worse on Android than on iPhone. I haven’t had a chance to use Android for an extended period of time — though I’d actually like to if someone with an AT&T compatible Android phone wanted to swap for a bit — but if these screenshots are accurate, it’s pretty eye opening.
For example, here’s the official Meebo app running on Android:
And here’s the same official app running on iOS:
Make sure to hit up Android Gripes for comparison shots of apps from Facebook and SpeedTest as well.
To be fair, this is definitely a “fixable” problem, and I expect things to improve on the Android side as it continues to grow its lead in market share. Still, Android has never been known for its aesthetics, and these screenshots only serve to further that sentiment. [Android Gripes via Daring Fireball]
Dungeon Defenders on Android→
Not wanting to feel left out by the recent releases of Rage HD and Infinity Blade on iOS, it appears Android will soon be getting its first Unreal Engine 3-based game called Dungeon Defenders. From Engadget:
Of course, one problem these guys have now is that Android hardware is all over the map, so they actually need to publish a long list of minimum requirements — just like PC titles — and in this case you need 512MB of RAM, an 800MHz or better SOC with support for OpenGL ES 2.0, and at least 400MB of free storage.
Sounds like fun. [Engadget]
Android and “open”
I want to like Android. I really do. But one of my biggest gripes actually comes from the fact that it’s “open.” Google loves to tout how Android is “open” and how this provides users with many benefits. And they’re absolutely right; Android allows users to modify the OS with third party applications, such as Swype, which is actually pretty neat. What Google fails to mention, however, is that users often suffer as a result of this same “openness” in the form of skins and pre-installed apps.
Joshua Topolsky of Engadget goes on a pretty good rant on the downsides of Android’s “openness” on the latest Engadget podcast (skip to about 32:30 in or just download the clip here). Here are his main points:
- Aside from the HTC Sense UI, other “skinned” versions of Android actually result in a worse user experience, and they’re merely a ploy by phone manufacturers to attempt to differentiate their products. Sidenote: users with “skinned” Android phones also have to wait — sometimes up to several months — to upgrade to the latest version of Android OS since manufacturers need to wait on Google to release the code before they can reapply their skin. Furthermore, since the Nexus One and Nexus S are the only two phones that run stock Android, it’s safe to say that the large majority of all Android phones out there are using skins.
- Topolsky wants phone manufacturers to offer two versions of their Android phones — one “skinned” and one “stock” — even if they have to charge more for the “stock” version. Sidenote: YES! This is exactly what I want.
- Nilay Patel recently received an over-the-air update for his Motorola Droid X and one of the listed “features” was that it automatically installed a demo of Madden NFL. It also gave him a notification saying that he should purchase Quickoffice. Sidenote: He has Verizon to thank for selling out its customers and cutting a deal with the software companies to help push their products.
- Topolsky wonders where the “openness” is when Android phones get pre-loaded with unwanted apps and demos that users are not permitted to uninstall. “Where’s the openness there? See, there isn’t openness there. It’s only openness for OEMs and carriers because OEMs and carriers have money … and you know who pays? End-users.”
H.264 video on the rise
If you believe TechCrunch, H.264 already makes up 66% of all web videos based on recent encoding trends, while Flash only accounts for 26%. Remember that huge, insurmountable lead that Adobe once had in web video? It seems to have disappeared… in a flash.
Thank you. I’ll be here all weekend.
Update: Here’s an interesting point that was brought up in an article on 9to5Mac:
And while [Adobe] hopes to bring Flash to Android later this year, there’s still no saying how successful that solution will be on the plethora of hardware configurations Android is designed to run on.
It’s especially valid given that Twitter recently released its “official” app for Android a few days ago and yet it supposedly only runs on 27.3% of all Android phones. Really? We’re only talking 140 characters at a time, folks.
