Thread: All Things Android

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

I can tell you straight away that I'll be dumping every iPad in the company, simply because they'll run Office flawlessly, they have a keyboard and printing will be a doddle.

Our senior managers all asked for iPads because their kids told them to (great reason, eh?) and they haven't got a fucking clue what to do with them but surf.

Someone should show your senior managers what you think of them - particularly how your obsessive fanaticism makes you endorse a non-shipping product, that no reviewer was allowed to use or review, from a company with a long history of non-functional turds.

Brilliant mismanagement of resources. Maybe it's time for retirement.

I have no issues opening Office documents on my iPad, nor of generating Office documents to share, using Apple's applications ... do you even know that Apple as Office suite compatible apps? Of course you don't, you're a dinosaur.

Oh stop your whinging, Daff,y we're only talking about 12 or so, Apple won't miss the business.

Mind you technically I suppose that makes me a ipad killer!

Never fear Daffy, I'll make sure they go to a good home, doing something that befits their usefulness, like finger painting for three year olds.

Originally Posted by Jesus Jones

My wife is more into this stuff than me. She has the Galaxy SII but has to use an Ipad for work. She ates it! She believes the Samsung is much better in every way as for as operation goes. I couldn't care less and want rid of my P-1000 tablet.

I must admit I only use mine for travelling, and with the Fire being able to load the news sites I read, I haven't even bothered getting it out for ages.

Might be time to pass it on to the teenager to break/lose/sell.

Oh deep joy for depressed Mac users!

BlueStacks Allows You to Run Android Apps on a Mac

Wednesday June 27, 2012 11:58 pm PDT by Arnold Kim
BlueStacks announced a public alpha version of their Android App Player for the Mac today at Google I/O.

The company had originally released a beta version of their App Player for Windows back in March. The software allows users to run Android apps directly on their Windows PCs, and the newest version begins to extend that functionality to the Mac.


While the Windows version allows you to run any Android app without modification, the early Mac version seems to be limited to 15 initial apps that comes bundled with the download. The bundled apps include Air Control Lite, Alchemy, Basketball Shot, Drag Racing, Elastic World, Facebook, Glow Hockey, Guns'n'Glory, Paper Toss, Pulse, Robo Defense, Seesmic, Twitter, Whatsapp, and Zebra Paint.

Their support page claims that "in the very near future", they plan on opening the Mac version up to over 400,000 Android apps:The BlueStacks App Player for Mac OSX (alpha) supports both Lion and Snow Leopard. You can test drive a fixed set of curated apps for the first release (alpha-1). In the very near future, BlueStacks will let you select from over 400,000 Android apps to play on your Mac.
The alpha version is available as a free download from the BlueStacks website.

And from Google I/O, nothing we really didn't know, apart from (a) the tablet will ship in mid-July, that's faster than I expected, and (b) the Nexus Q, which doesn't really tickle my tits, I must admit, probably more for the US market.

Google unveils Nexus 7 tablet, Android Jelly Bean

Thursday 28 June 2012 | 08:44 CET | News Google has unveiled an update to the Android OS as well as its first tablet. The Nexus 7 tablet features a 7-inch IPS touchscreen with 1280x800 HD display, running a Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and 1GB RAM. The 340g device offers 8 or 16GB of storage, front camera, NFC, the Chrome for Android browser and a range of pre-loaded content, plus a USD 25 credit to buy content on Google Play. It is available for preorder from Google Play in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and starts at USD 199 in the US. It will start shipping mid-July.
The new Android 4.1 OS Jelly Bean will start rolling out to earlier Nexus devices also from mid-July. Google promises a "smoother, faster and more fluid" experience, with features such as calling or email directly from notifications, better text prediction when typing and offline voice typing. Search is also improved with a new user interface and faster voice search, and Google can now speak back, giving a precise answer or a list of search results. The Google Now feature also serves up information as needed, such as the weather at the start of the day, traffic when you leave for work or scores from favourite sports teams.
Google also introduced the Nexus Q, a small sphere that plugs into the speakers and TV for streaming music and video in the home from an Android device. Available first in the US, it will ship from mid-July for USD 299. The Google Play store will also offer more entertainment in future, with the addition of magazine subscriptions, film purchases and TV series.
At its develops conference I/O, Google also gave a preview of its Project Glass, which offers a pair of glasses with sensors to deliver information about the surroundings directly to the user's eyes. A limited number of the glasses will ship to developers next year.
For its social network Google+, the company unveiled a dedicated tablet app, first for Android and coming soon for iPhone, and the feature Google+ Events, for organising and recording events. Google said it now has over 250 million users of Google+, while the Android installed base has surpassed 400 million, with 1 million new devices added each day.

Xiialive Online Radio is my fave at the moment - nice front end for Shoutcast.

The Nexus Q is orb-shaped and and is part headless-phone – running Android 4.1, of course – and part media drive, hooking up with HDMI to your TV and throwing in speaker connections too. It can be used as a media streamer, pulling in content from YouTube and other cloud stores including Google’s new movie purchase system, as well as a communal local dropbox of sorts, with a shared playlist accessible from Android devices. Interested? Well grab your wallets as its going to set you back a hefty $299 and will ship in 2-3 weeks time in the States.

And the glossy on Jellybean:

Android 4.1, Jelly Bean: The world’s most popular platform gets even better



Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, is the fastest and smoothest version of Android yet. Jelly Bean improves on the simplicity and beauty of Android 4.0, and introduces a new Google search experience on Android.



Fast & smooth

With buttery graphics and silky transitions. We put Android under a microscope, making everything feel fast, fluid, and smooth. Moving between home screens and switching between apps is effortless, like turning pages in a book.
More reactive and uniform touch responses mean you can almost feel the pixels beneath as your finger moves across the screen. Jelly Bean makes your Android device even more responsive by boosting your device’s CPU instantly when you touch the screen, and turns it down when you don’t need it to improve battery life.


Simple, beautiful and beyond smart

Expandable, actionable notifications.

Android has always put you in control when it comes to staying notified and connected. Now you can take action directly from the notifications shade. Late for a meeting? Email everyone to let them know. Missed a call? Call them back in an instant. And because they’re expandable, you can get an even deeper look into the things that matter most, like multiple emails or photos on Google+.


Widgets work like magic.

With Jelly Bean it’s now even easier to personalize your home screen. As you place widgets on the screen, everything else automatically moves to make room. When they’re too big, widgets resize on their own. Interacting with your favorite apps and customizing your home screen has never been easier.


Seamlessly take and share photos.

Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, made snapping photos super fast; Jelly Bean brings that same speed to the next step: viewing. Just swipe over from camera to filmstrip view to instantly view the photos you just took, and quickly swipe away the ones you don’t like. Now sharing--and bragging--are a breeze.


A smarter keyboard.

Android’s dictionaries are now more accurate, more relevant. The language model in Jelly Bean adapts over time, and the keyboard even guesses what the next word will be before you’ve started typing it. With improved text-to-speech capabilities, voice typing on Android is even better; it works even when you don’t have a data connection, so you can type with your voice everywhere you go.


Accessibility.

With Jelly Bean, blind users can use 'Gesture Mode' to reliably navigate the UI using touch and swipe gestures in combination with speech output. Jelly Bean also adds support for accessibility plugins to enable external Braille input and output devices via USB and Bluetooth.


Android Beam.

With Android Beam on Jelly Bean you can now easily share your photos and videos with just a simple tap, in addition to sharing contacts, web pages, YouTube videos, directions, and apps. Just touch two NFC-enabled Android devices back-to-back, then tap to beam whatever's on the screen to your friend. Instantly pair your Android phone or tablet to Bluetooth devices like headsets or speakers that support the Simple Secure Pairing standard by just tapping them together - no more syncing or searching required.



The new Google experience on Android

The best of Google just got better on Android. The search experience in Jelly Bean has a new look-and-feel, and has faster and more natural Voice Search. And Google Now brings you just the right information, before you even ask.

A new look for Search.

Android has search at its core. With Jelly Bean, a redesigned experience uses the power of the Knowledge Graph to show you search results in a richer way. It’s easier to quickly get answers and explore and browse search results.

Voice Search.

Sometimes you’d rather just speak your search query. Or just ask a question. Android lets you search the web with your voice, and it’s convenient for getting quick answers on the fly. It speaks back to you and is powered by the Knowledge Graph, bringing you a precise answer if it knows it, and precisely ranked search results, so you can always find out more.



Google Now brings you just the right information at just the right time.

Google Now tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team's score while they’re playing.
And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them. Learn more

Maybe they'll get a better than 7% adoption rate after 6 months.... wouldn't that be a hoot?

I wonder how long before I can install it on the SII. I give it 6 weeks after release, if it isn't out there already.

Funny thing is I went back to a modified 2.3.7 because it's the dog's bollocks.

This could easily go in two other threads, but here will do.

Android 4.1, iOS 6, Windows Phone 8 All Focusing on Location-Based Services

2012-06-28





A review of three new mobile operating systems recently introduced by Apple, Microsoft and Google indicates that all are seeking to deliver better location-based apps and services, as well as a better overall user experience, to their users.


No doubt you’ve heard the adage that the three most important things in real estate are “location, location, location.” It also appears that location times 3 is also the prevailing theme in the release of three leading mobile operating systems from Apple, Microsoft and Google.


At three developers conferences, all held in June in San Francisco, first Apple, then Microsoft and now Google previewed coming new versions of their mobile operating systems and all three of them showed attention to delivering a personalized and customized experience to users, often based on their location.


The latest, Google’s Android 4.1 operating system, nicknamed Jelly Bean, adds a feature called Google Now that delivers relevant information to the user based on their preferences, their current situation and their location. As demonstrated at the Google I/O conference June 27, Google Now knows from your search history that you’re a fan of the San Francisco Giants and pops up with a reminder that the Giants-LA Dodgers game is about to get underway at AT&T Park.


If you walk down to a Bay Area Rapid Transit platform at a certain time, Google Now can tell you when the next train is coming and its destination. If you have an appointment, the feature can tell how long it will take you to get there whether you’re walking, driving or taking a bus.


“Google Now gets you just the right information at just the right time and all of it happens automatically,” said Hugo Barra, director of Android product management at Google.


Likewise, Windows Phone 8 will incorporate new location-based services in future smartphones models from Nokia, Microsoft’s handset manufacturing partner. At the Windows Phone Summit on June 20 in San Francisco, Kevin Shields, senior vice president of the Lumia smartphone product and program management team at Nokia, demonstrated advanced mapping capabilities, including a navigation app that detects traffic tie ups and suggests an alternate route, similar to a feature of Android 4.1. Like Android, Windows Phone offers apps with information on mass transit services.


Apple did a complete rip and replace change in Apple iOS 6, replacing Google Maps with its own Apple Maps, one of 200 new changes to the OS from the current version, iOS 5. Undaunted by the snub, the Google Maps people unveiled a number of new Maps features June 6, including 3-D renderings of city streets from above, a feature matched by Apple in iOS 6.


“With each of these platforms, they’re looking to surround the user with experiences that each platform thinks the user wants,” said Ramon Llamas, a senior research analyst at IDC. “I just think that’s going to be the natural step in the evolution of mobility.”


When smartphones first became popular, users were impressed with the amount of information available to them via email, applications and on the Internet, Llamas said. But over time, they grew frustrated trying to move into and out of applications to get what they needed. Recognizing that frustration, Jelly Bean is going to have an improved notifications application in which users can respond to various notices in the notification app without having to go to the app involved. For instance, if the user misses a phone call, they can click on the notification and immediately call the person back. If a meeting notice appears from their calendar, they can click on that item and tell the person they’re meeting with if they are running late.


“What it all comes down to is the user and the best way to map down your user other than sticking a wire into his or her brain,” Llamas said.


The voice-activated features of Android 4.1., which include email composition and Web searches, earns praise from Ovum research analyst Jan Dawson.


“Android includes some good improvements including a competitor to Apple’s Siri and an innovative new service called Google Now, which uses artificial intelligence to serve up information relevant to the user’s context proactively,” she wrote in an email. Microsoft also demonstrated a Siri-like voice-recognition service with the working title of “Audible” for Windows Phone 8 devices.


Both Dawson and Llamas noted Google’s plans to not only offer a software development kit (SDK) for creating Jelly Bean apps, but a platform development kit (PDK) for device manufactures to design devices to optimize the features of Android 4.1. Llamas says end users often blame the application when it runs too slowly or fails to open quickly enough when it may actually be the device if, for instance, the processors are too slow.

Former stazi futurologist, fedrick itardnutter, announces his intention to sue apple, google and microsoft for patent infringement.


In a statement Mr itardnutter said, back in the 1980's I announced to my colleges that in the future we would have permanent 24x7 location, audio and video surveillance on every citizen and that with good marketing we would be able to get the citizens themselves to not only carry the monitoring device with them at all times, but to happily pay enough for it to allow us to make a healthy profit.

I was ridiculed and fired from my job. But with the fall of the berlin wall, I was able to patent this technology and my law suit against these companies who have blatantly stole my intellectual property is vindication of my ideas.

To my former colleges in the stazi I say... see what you did when you ridiculed me.... you destroyed us. with my technology not only would our state have survived... but with the collapse of the berlin wall we would have taken west germany, europe and the world you fools.

Originally Posted by hazz

[B]Former stazi futurologist

It's spelled "STASI" (from STAats SIcherheitsdienst)

Thank fuck you're here, Daffy, otherwise that might have slipped through.

You really don't cover jealousy well... You need to work on that, gramps.

Oh, and btw:

Ina Fried, reporting for some website:

On the hardware side, Shih and Rubin feel they have something that can serve as a full-fledged tablet computer while competing on price with the Kindle Fire. Despite its bargain-basement price, Shih notes that the device packs a high-end laminated display, quad-core chip and other high-end features.

One way the companies managed that is through razor-thin margins. Google is selling the device through its Google Play store, essentially at cost, and also absorbing the marketing costs associated with the device.

“When it gets sold through the Play store, there’s no margin,” Rubin said. “It just basically gets (sold) through.”

That must be music to the ears of Sony, Samsung, Acer, HTC, and anyone else trying to sell Android tablets for, you know, a profit. Where by “music to the ears” I mean “a shit sandwich”.

And I’m sure Google’s wholly-owned Motorola division is delighted to hear that Andy Rubin doesn’t think they were capable of building this device.

On the hardware side, Shih and Rubin feel they have something that can serve as a full-fledged tablet computer

I doubt very much that they do!

In fact this article suggests they are taking a hit on it to compete with the Fire.

Google Sells Nexus 7 at Cost, But Analysts Doubt It Will Challenge Apple iPad.

Google Works Hard on Android Tablet Breakthrough, But Analysts Remain Skeptical
[06/28/2012 10:04 PM]
by Anton Shilov Google is trying hard to make its Android operating system a true competitor to Apple's iOS on the market of tablets. The company will sell its Nexus 7 media tablet basically at cost in order to enable low price-points for fully-fledged Android tablets that can run all the applications for the platform. Nonetheless, financial analysts remain skeptical about Google's ability to challenge Apple's iPad with Nexus 7.
Google Nexus 7: Made in USA for $199?

When designing Nexus 7 together with Asustek Computer, Google wanted to make a device that would both look and feel good. Therefore, the device features high-quality IPS screen with 1280*800 resolution as well as "leatherette" (as mainstream media calls it) finish on the backside. To further impress the public, Google claims that the Nexus 7 is "designed and manufactured in the USA", as opposed to Apple's products that are "assembled in China". In a bid to ensure the highest-quality user experience, Nexus 7 will ship with Google Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean" that features new Butter technology which makes operating system respond quicker as well as makes user interface more convenient.

In reality, the Google Nexus 7 is far from perfect. It lacks back-facing camera, unlike Apple iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab media tablets; it does not support WWAN (3G, 3.5G or 4G/LTE) even as an option unlike fully-featured tablets from Apple and Samsung; it is made of plastic, whereas Apple uses unibody aluminum cases for iPads. Finally, despite of claims, the assembly as well as key components of the Nexus 7 are not made in the U.S. Asustek does not have its own manufacturing capacities, it outsources production to Pegatron, which operates facilities in China; Nvidia produces Tegra 3 system-on-chip at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company using 40nm process technology; IPS screens are not made in the U.S., but are manufactured in South Korea by LG Electronics. Perhaps, some of the assembly is done in the U.S., but Nexus is not completely "made in America".
Analysts: Nexus 7 will Challenge Kindle Fire, Not iPad

A good thing about Google Nexus 7 is that it will cost $199 for 8GB version and $249 for 16GB version, which is the cost to manufacture those devices, according to Google's claims quoted by HotHardware web-site. Therefore, Google will not make profit selling the hardware, but hopes to capitalize by selling software as well as content through Google Play store. Unfortunately, the low cost will unlikely help Google to fight the dominance of Apple iPad on the market of tablets, financial analysts believe. The product that Nexus 7 will likely challenge successfully is Amazon Kindle Fire 7".
"While the Nexus 7 tablet stacks up favorably against Amazon’s Kindle Fire, we believe it’s not revolutionary enough to gain significant tablet market share. Targeted at the same consumer likely interested in Amazon’s Kindle Fire, we see several advantages the Nexus 7 has over the Kindle Fire, including its processor, battery life, resolution, and additional features. However, we expect the tablet market to remain dominated by Apple and weakening demand for the Kindle Fire makes us cautious on overall demand for 7” tablets," Kerry Rice, an analyst with Needham & Co., wrote in a note to clients, reports Tech Trader Daily.
Low price of Google Nexus 7 will not necessarily help the company to compete against Apple iPad as consumers are willing to pay for the latter due to impressive ecosystem that Apple has managed to create over the years.
"Given the iPad’s dominance in the tablet market (approximately 70% market share) and potential to release its own 7-inch “mini” iPad, we believe Google will have a difficult time stealing share from Apple given consumer proven willingness to pay a premium price for Apple iPad 9.8"," said Tavis McCourt, an analyst with Raymond James, in a research notes for customers.
Since Google will sell Nexus 7 without any profit or even with subsidies, financial analysts believe that other vendors will not be able to follow with similar price points unless Google will subsidize them somehow. As a result the possible success of Nexus 7 will not be sustainable.
"So far there has been limited sustainable traction for Android in terms of tablet share […] certainly the profitability of the vendors involved has been relatively weak. The issue has been a combination of too high a price point, a lack of applications and poor user experience. We do believe that with the improvements made to Google Play (the cloud service), the price point, design and recent improvement in available applications many of these have been addressed. As to whether this will capture material share the issue we would have is that given its spec we would believe Google are probably heavily subsidizing this device to achieve a $199 price," believes Kulbinder Garcha, an analyst with Credit Suisse.

Manufactured in the USA?

Asustek does not have its own manufacturing capacities, it outsources production to Pegatron, which operates facilities in China; Nvidia produces Tegra 3 system-on-chip at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company using 40nm process technology; IPS screens are not made in the U.S., but are manufactured in South Korea by LG Electronics.

Yeah right.

Uh, yeah, that is what my comment originally said. Not big on paying attention,mare you?

Originally Posted by Cthulhu

Uh, yeah, that is what my comment originally said. Not big on paying attention,mare you?

You're just embarrasing yourself daffy - time to go home.

Can't we have a new MKP thread... "The Harry & Daffy Show" for all of this shite

Well the thread is "All Things Android" and Daffy doesn't have any interest, so it would probably go back to serving its original purpose if he just fucked off.

Just saying.