Thread: All Things Android

the iPAD is quite cheap, but it's underspecs and it's a closed platform

Butters,

Be off with you to the itard ipad thread. This is entitled "All things Android".

Staring at that iphone has mangled your brain.

I've just picked up a Galaxy Tab. Obviously a lot of apps to download, but I'll report back later. It's got Froyo and it's bloody fast already though.

how much in Thailand ? and where did you buy it ? might want to give it a try

can't stomach buying another apple crapware,

Butters, I don't live in Thailand, I live in the sandpit.

But you might try your local Samsung shop.

Originally Posted by Butterfly

how much in Thailand ? and where did you buy it ? might want to give it a try

can't stomach buying another apple crapware,

Got the 7" from a small Samsung dealer at the Airport plaza cm. They also got the tab as well as 3 or 4 other shops in the same area. Shouldn't be hard to find. I paid 22K and they told me the 10" tab was the same price.

Originally Posted by 9999

Originally Posted by Butterfly

how much in Thailand ? and where did you buy it ? might want to give it a try

can't stomach buying another apple crapware,

Got the 7" from a small Samsung dealer at the Airport plaza cm. They also got the tab as well as 3 or 4 other shops in the same area. Shouldn't be hard to find. I paid 22K and they told me the 10" tab was the same price.

OK, you have me confused. I thought you said you had a Galaxy S. You have a 7" Galaxy Tab and there's a 10" one?

Google has demonstrated a tablet-optimised version of its Android operating system for the first time.

Dubbed Honeycomb, version 3 of Android will be released next year with features specifically tailored for tablet devices.

Showing off the new operating system on an as yet unannounced Motorola tablet, Google's vice president of engineering, Andy Rubin, said Honeycomb included new APIs that allow applications to split into multiple views, including side-by-side on the larger tablet screens.

The Motorola tablet also had none of the familiar Android buttons, suggesting some fundamental changes to navigation for the tablet edition of the OS.

Among the apps demonstrated running on the Motorola tablet was a 3D version of Google Maps.

The announcement will end the uncertainty over Google's strategy for tablet devices. The unsuitability of the Android OS and its apps have been one of the chief criticisms of early Android tablets such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab, the Toshiba Folio 100 and the ViewSonic ViewPad 10.

Speaking at the D: Dive Into Mobile conference, Rubin admitted that Google was working hard to improve the Android user interface, especially on tablets. "You'll see the fruits of that investment in the tablets first, and then the phones," Rubin said, according to CNet.com. "We're aware of the problem and we're going to do better."

A demonstration video is

here

Apple iPAD is only 15,000 THB so this is more expensive ? fuck that !!!

Originally Posted by Butterfly

Apple iPAD is only 15,000 THB so this is more expensive ? fuck that !!!

Butters, the ipad is not a phone as well. Now fuck off droning about it. This is an Android thread you numbskull.

^ but the iPad has 3G ? so technically it's a phone since it has a SIM

Originally Posted by Butterfly

^ but the iPad has 3G ? so technically it's a phone since it has a SIM

:facepalm:

So much for fragmentation.....

Over the next several days, Google will be updating the Android Market on devices running Android 1.6 or higher to introduce a number of changes that will affect users and developers alike. According to email sent Saturday to registered developers, the changes include:

• Reducing the purchase refund window to 15 minutes (!). Previously, users had 24-48 hours to try an application and get a refund if they didn’t like it. Some developers worried that a long refund period could lead to abuses, but users were limited to one refund per application so I don’t understand the reason for this change.
• Users will be able to filter applications by content rating. Developers must set a content rating for their apps by December 15th: Mature, Teen, Pre-Teen, or All. Applications or games without a rating will be treated as Mature.
• The details page for every app will show a 180×120 Promotional Graphic at the top, provided by the developer in the Developer Console.
• Developers can also specify more than 2 screenshots, in several different sizes (currently 320×480, 480×800, or 480×854). Presumably the number of sizes will expand as different resolutions become more common.
• Market will support filtering based on screen sizes and densities, as well as on GL texture compression formats. Filtering is based on <compatible-screens> and <uses-gl-texture> elements in an app’s manifest, instead of console settings.
• The Market is getting new “dynamic” categories that will be based on an app’s manifest. If your app includes wallpapers or widgets, Market will automatically add them to the new categories.
• The maximum size for application packages is increasing from 25MB to 50MB.

In addition to the pictures listed above, developers can also provide a 1024×500 Feature Graphic, and a 512×512 High Resolution Application Icon. When I tried to update my app’s content rating the developer’s console said the high res icon was now required, while the others are optional. I’m hoping that’s a mistake that will be fixed because for one of my apps a full color 512×512 icon would be larger than the whole app.
Of all the changes, the most welcome and overdue is the content rating. Hopefully this will put an end to the crappy soft porn apps that are currently flooding the “Just in” box. That’s assuming the makers of those apps will correctly rate their apps, and there’s no guarantee they will. Deliberately mis-labeling their apps, though, would give Google a good excuse to kick them from the market. If they’d allow users to filter by star rating that would help too, since these apps usually get bad ratings.
Filtering by screen sizes will allow developers to keep their apps from showing on devices with new screen sizes and densities until they’ve had to test them. It will also let devs release two different versions of an app if they so choose - a regular version for phones and a “HD” version for tablets - and have only one show up in the Market on any particular device.
Still missing is a way to filter apps by CPU and GPU power and type, the amount of main memory, and specific device models. Look at what happened with Angry Birds: If a developer like Rovio knows that their app doesn’t work on some models or configurations, they ought to be able to make it so people can’t download the app on those phones until they’ve had time to make it work. Of course, it would be better if every app worked on every device, but since that’s not always possible then keeping users from getting frustrated with non-working apps would be a worthy goal.
Personally, I’m opposed to shortening the refund window. Having a “try before you buy” option was a nice feature that competitors such as the iPhone App Store could not match. I think it will make users a little more wary of pressing that “Buy” button, which can’t be a good thing for either devs or users. Google should reconsider this move, perhaps compromising with a time in the middle of the two extremes.
Finally, I have to wonder why Google didn’t use this opportunity to increase the skimpy 325 character description field. They should increase this to 15K and allow simple HTML formatting like bullet points, italics, and hyperlinks. In my opinion, that would be much more useful and take less metadata space than a high res icon and promo graphics.

Doesn't seem a year since the last one, which produced more promises than products. So here we are again, but this time with more tangible announcements and some, but not much, hands on.

Motorola were the first to demonstrate their Xoom tablet running Android 3.0 ("Honeycomb"), which is Google's supposedly "proper" tablet version. They also announced the Atrix, a really high end smartphone that plugs into the shell of a netbook and functions as both. The question is, is the announcement going to turn into reality?

ASUS announced three eeePads, which aren't coming till Q3 and won't run Android 3.0. Viewsonic announced 7" and 10" tablets with 2.2 and 1.6 respectively <seriously?!>.

Ironically, the biggest set of announcements concerned Windows 7 tablets, so it looks like any Android progress is going to be in the Smartphone market at least until Gingerbread is finally released, which is probably six months away.

So that's probably the last on this thread for a while.

If anything drastic pops up, I'll post it as I see it.

what android tablets have been seen in the wild in Thai other than the galaxy ?

I want a 7 inch capacitive
wifi
bluetooth
HSUPA
GPS
etc

something like this ProductsB-OK PAD--beon

I don't know about Thailand but maybe you could compile a list from here or Amazon and compare it with one of the local dealers, online or otherwise?

Android Tablet Forum

Google Search for 7" tablets

Just bought myself the Archos 5, 500GB. A handy piece of kit for travelling around as I don't want to lug around my Alienware M15X around airports.

Originally Posted by The Cat

Just bought myself the Archos 5, 500GB. A handy piece of kit for travelling around as I don't want to lug around my Alienware M15X around airports.

I wish I had GPS! I should have mentioned that in my complaints. But it supports Bluetooth, so I think I will just one of those $40 Bluetooth GPS receivers.

Originally Posted by JoshuaInMukdahan

I wish I had GPS!

I would like GPS also , but in a 7 inch for factor.

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by JoshuaInMukdahan

I wish I had GPS!

I would like GPS also , but in a 7 inch for factor.

The Galaxy Tab?

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Originally Posted by baldrick

Originally Posted by JoshuaInMukdahan

I wish I had GPS!

I would like GPS also , but in a 7 inch for factor.

The Galaxy Tab?

I have it on the 10" for an additional $40 bringing the 10" tablet with GPS to $330, I think that is far better than the $600 price of the 7" Galaxy, unless the Galaxy tab is cheaper in Thailand?

The Galaxy is completely overpriced, more expensive than the iPad