dream
Member
Sounds like a great platform.
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Windows Phone 7 |OT|
- Thread starter brotkasten
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Sounds like a great platform.
I don't understand why the official Google Reader app and default browser app keep force closing on Android.
That speaks volumes of the quality of developer tools.
Because iOS apps didn't have to be updated for new features like fast-app switching ... or Mango features for WP7 apps?
Granted this may involve a bit more work, but the principal is the same.
Joel Was Right
If you smell burning, it's probably the generators acting up. Report it anyway.
Any neat apps? I'm rather bored of my library of software so far.
Damon Bennet
Member
if you are looking for games i love "physi bricks". Really a great game
Speak for yourself. No issues whatsoever with Google's stuff.
Actually, this demonstrates another real problem. Fragmentation which effects software reliability consistency. Do we have something like DirectX in the android sdk? The way there are multiple versions of the same app for different hardware configs reminds me of the 3dfx glide days.
And Raistlin, what do you mean by pile of shit? Its faster (loading web pages) than safari on the ipad2 and 4s (ICS on GB anyway). I'm not very knowledgeable of web standards so I can't speak of how accurate it is, but as far as frame rate is concerned, its all over the damn place. Sometimes 60fps sometimes 30fps. Sometimes if I rotate to landscape, the same page can go from butter smooth to choppy shit and vice versa.
Unknown Soldier
Member
To paraphrase: it's the worst platform for smartphones, except for all those other platforms.
dream
Member
I guess I just think there's a huge difference between functionality and usability. If I pull out an old app compiled for iPhone OS 3.1.2 and it doesn't support multitasking, it's pretty inconvenient but it still runs with the same smoothness I'd expect of all iOS apps.
Oh it's relatively fast ... but it crashes ... basically all the time.
Not sure about Android 2.x or ICS ... but Honeycomb is basically a mess. I'll repost something from another thread regarding my impressions of Android (specifically the Transformer) as a Tablet.
----------------------------------------- http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=33725727&postcount=40 -----------------------------------------------
I suppose I should have expected these responses. That's what I get for responding to an ambiguous statement with an even more ambiguous (and easy to construe as blanket) statement. Sorry for that. Let me detail where I'm coming from.
First off I am aware that for many people, their needs are actually pretty simple. It's mostly email, facebook, some browsing and some media consumption. I can respect that. Hell, I have some friends that have mostly relegated their computer usage to when at work and doing stuff like bills. The vast majority of their personal computing is done on their phone.
However the poster I was responding to stated 'main computing device. It's a bit ambiguous, but I take the connotation of 'computing' to mean things a bit more intensive. Yes it's semantics, but given the context of also mentioning more horsepower and the availability of a keyboard dock ... it appeared to me her wants were likely a bit more than the above sort of use-case. Obviously I made an assumption there ... and I'm not trying to excuse my lack of detail in the response ... just trying to explain where I was coming from when I initially replied.
So assuming the use-case is intended to be a bit more I do have general reservations with current tablet offerings. But given that this a thread is about the Transformer though, let me concentrate on where I think it has problems:
The Keyboard - It can be a nice addition in some situations, but I think the usefulness at its price is questionable. I can appreciate ASUS had constraints in order to engineer a solution that would work in its 'laptop' form-factor. There are obviously size limitations. However that doesn't change the fact it creates some real-world usability issues. By utilizing this form-factor they were relegated to a chicklet (island) style with limited travel. Some people are used to or can get used to it, but obviously it's not ideal for people that need to do a lot of typing. It's pretty easy to miss-hit or over-hit. And while the amount of travel is due to its sizing, Asus certainly could have produced something with better tactile response to help out things.
A bigger issue though is the general cramped layout it forces. Even though the touchpad is small (which presents its own problems), if I have a nickel for every time I unintentionally moved the cursor and started accidentally typing ... wherever ... I'd be retired. They really should turn off the mouse pad when typing like many netbooks and laptops offer. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you could adjust the sensitivity - but to my knowledge you can't. Instead I'm constantly turning off the touchpad, especially when posting online (a pretty common use-case for a tablet).
This brings up a more general complaint. While I applaud their attempts to make the OS act more like a laptop/netbook when the keyboard is docked, it's a bit half-baked. Why didn't they implement some sort of general cut/copy/paste hotkeys for when text is selected? Speaking of hotkeys, what they do offer is generally flaky. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. Actually most of the keyboard functionality can be seen in this light. Out of nowhere the top row function keys just stop working. It's this lack of refinement and features that make using the dock frustrating for anything more than casual use (and even then it can be annoying). Is it better than using the touch keyboard? Yes, at least when it's functioning properly. Does that really make it a good solution though? I'd say generally no. A better keyboard and functionality like in many netbooks or true laptops is the way to go if you think you'll be typing more than a little. If it worked better and was cheaper, I'd recommend it automatically, but it's kind of hard to given its realities. The extra battery and USB support does make it nice, but wouldn't it be preferable if the tablet itself simply had better battery life and USB?
Android Itself - Well, I knew what I was getting into. I didn't really buy this to replace anything ... more for convenience and tinkering ... but it's hard to not be concerned by how little things have really improved over time. Obviously I haven't had a chance to use Ice Cream Sandwich, and hopefully it rectifies some of the problems, but it's concerning that over a few Honeycomb iterations many of the well-known general problems still exist. Further, many issues with Android proper have remained over a much longer duration, making it hard to assume things will magically resolve any time soon.
There's the general UI itself. Whether you like it is subjective (I don't hate it, but it's not great either), but the fact it's generally laggy is simply something you have to live with. Given the amount of horsepower the Transformer (let alone the Prime) has, it's pretty disconcerting. I could accept this if things were actually polished though. But they aren't - far from it. The OS and many apps are flaky - in some cases, absurdly so.
The fact the browser is such a crash-happy mess after several iterations is ridiculous. I can almost accept it when rendering a gif-happy, memory hog of a page. The problem is that while that will almost assuredly cause issues, the thing regularly crashes for no obvious reason at all. I mostly use mine for gaf ... and it crashes ... a fucking lot ... on regular pages ... in a forum. Even then, I could almost get past that and my previous complaints about the keyboard's physical and functionality issues if typing in the browser wasn't such a laggy mess. The delay is so frustrating, I'm not sure what's better when typing online - the physical keyboard or the touch keyboard. Either way, it's so bad that I now much prefer using my WP7 phone for portable forum usage. A fucking phone - with a 4" screen. I don't know if Android 2.x phones are as bad. If they are, I feel bad for its users.
Of course then we move on to the marketplace. While some things have improved, it's still a fucking mess. Lot's of incompatible apps depending on your hardware, and a pretty terrible overall tablet-specific set of app offerings. Thank god they've finally offered an easier way to find tablet-specific apps - I don't want to even state how annoying things were before - but it's still a mess.
With all of this in mind, I simply find it near impossible to recommend an Android tablet over an iPad - even if I do love the concept of Transformer's form-factor. It tries ... but it just ain't there. Unfortunately for Asus, much of it is Google's fault even if they did bring in some problems of their own. Hopefully ICS and future updates rectify many of the OS-level performance issues. But even if they do, how long will people wait for a good catalog of tablet specific apps? Particularly more serious, larger-scale apps? What about production apps? The problem is these tablets aren't selling all that well. Stuff like Nook and Fire is what's selling on the Android front - but their size and typical use-case isn't going to draw those sorts of apps. They're more about consumption - basically glorified phone apps.
Summary - Sorry if this has turned into a serious tl;dr post. But since I was annoyingly brief and ambiguous in my initial post (and many responded in kind) ... I figure I should attempt to detail where I'm coming from.
If I had to do it again, I likely wouldn't have bought my Transformer and dock (especially at launch pricing). It simply isn't ready for primetime. Instead I should have waited to compare next year's Windows 8 netbooks/ultrabooks/tablets versus iPad 3. Actually I'll probably wait until the following year to see how the gen 2 Windows 8 offerings stack up (and maybe iPad 4). At that point they'll be a number of offerings with SoC's utilizing a smaller fabrication process (better battery life) as well as more pricing competition.
I'm not going to say Android is useless as a tablet OS. But given it's current state and trend, as well as dev support, I think it was a lot of weaknesses. Where I think it will work best is for smaller media consumption devices. 7"-8" tablets that specialize in specific use-cases. Stuff like Nook and Kindle Fire (once they get all the kinks out). For more serious duties though, I haven't seen anything to make me assume it will compete all that well versus iPad and W8 in the long run. It's behind - arguably far behind - and doesn't appear to be really gaining in many areas. If anything it seems to be losing ground for general tablet usage.
Don't get me wrong ... there's a reason I'm not using an Android phone
DAMNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!! I'm not sure I'd go that far ... but yeah once the honeymoon was over, I wish I had the money in my pocket instead.
I still do use it though, especially at night in bed. Hopefully ICS will at least improve things a bit. Too bad that won't magically create a good library of tablet apps :\
VanMardigan
has calmed down a bit.
So was I, so I went hunting for some new/cool apps. Here's what I found:
Games:
-Ricochet-fun little pong-like game
-Bouncy Mouse-Just a good game
-Orb-was free for a bit, another fun game
-Mafia Pizza Car-surprisingly fun little top down driving game
Apps:
-AppDeals-We don't have an Amazon app store to give us a free app a day, but this app gives you a heads up on discounts and free-for-a-limited-time apps.
-Face Mask/Face Swap-a few apps from MS Research, you can do goofy stuff with your pics
-Screen Capturer-If you jailbreak your phone (and there are only a few tokens left of the official Chevron tool, so get on it) this is the type of app that provides functionality that should've been included in the OS by default
-SkyMap Free-Like Google SkyMap
-Timedancer Ep1 and 2. Goofy little storytelling sci-fi app. Episode 1 is free
-TuneWiki-Displays lyrics as your Zune songs play
-Tweet It!-Fun Twitter app, definitely NOT for power users, but quick loading and great look
I can completely understand. Trust me, I have a Xoom.
Thing is, I simply cannot accept the alternative in this case. My biggest uses of the Xoom are web browsing, gmail, music/movies and gaming. Of the five, the iPad 2 does one of those better and almost as good in another. If productivity or app consumption was a priority, Android wouldn't even be an option.
As it stands, Android only "shines" on the phone side. It's customize ability is so far ahead of everything else out there, making me feel like the phone really is mine and tailored for me by me. And for all its performance shortcomings, its such a functionally fantastic OS with some absolutely genius ideas to it. Just needs the polish all the others have.
As for the laggy typing and crashing, the later almost never happens on the phone iterations (though it lacks hardware acceleration outside of ics). The former is present on every single version of android I have ever seen. Only in ICS's stock browser is it somewhat improved.
Solution? Use Opera mobile. It pulls up a dialog box to type replies in, and moves much MUCH faster.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Sure, if you want your tablet to have a battery life of 2 hours.
Google knows that Honeycomb was a mess and has even admitted as much. Why don't you wait until ICS is available on your tablets before you pass final judgment?
Google knows that Honeycomb was a mess and has even admitted as much. Why don't you wait until ICS is available on your tablets before you pass final judgment?
Because stuff should work.
And why do you assume that? I expect Win8 ARM tablets to have relatively comparable battery life (or at least 2nd gen ones since all the SoC's will be running on a smaller fab process).
Who said I've passed final judgement? My above impressions where for Honeycomb (and the Transformer's keyboard) ... it states as much.
That said, I haven't seen anything to make me expect a huge uptake in tablet apps dev for ICS. Really the only thing that will a light a fire under that - particularly for productivity apps - is if there's significant increases in sales (and I don't mean Kindle and Nook). So even if ICS or some future update improves performance and stability, I think I'm out of the market for largish Android tablets for a while. They make for nice smaller consumption devices though.
From a higher level though ... I'm not sure what Google admitting it was garbage is supposed to do for me? Exactly why wouldn't my impressions make me cautious - especially since they've already had OS updates and it's still crap? That's a pretty standard reaction. It would be one thing if this was an anomaly ... but it ain't. Google is the king of beta's, and this is just another example of that. Not to mention most of their UI's are king of crap IMO - but that's subjective.
If the kindle and nook move to ics and maintain full compatibility, it'll be a great boon for tablet support for android in general.
If they don't....fragment ahoy.
frontieruk
Member
Got android trolled. It'll quiet down in a bit until the next Android release with jelly bean, where we'll see more iOS and wp7 ideas in it and the death of more android launchers as the features that make them noteworthy get baked into the OS as well.
blarg ... my apologies. I'll stop once this conversation ends.
Will it though? While some people my root these devices, I suspect the majority of people will be using the stock OS. That means the Nook and Kindle-specific stores. So who's to say most of the apps won't target their HW, form-factor, and features?
Even if those apps scale well, you have to think about what these devices are targeted towards - consumption devices. Their popularity doesn't guarantee the breadth of SW many people were hoping for. If anything, it limits it.
I'm certainly not psychic, but I try to keep abreast of the big picture and how things are trending. Unless some things change, I'm starting to think Android is moving towards a somewhat limited, consumption-oriented niche. Basically more and more Kindle/Nook-like ... with iPad and obviously Win8 being more about bridging the gap between PC and phone. It's funny. I originally thought Android's open nature would make it better equipped for bridging such a gap. In hindsight, I think it actually ended up being the opposite. HW and the OS is so fractured, that performance oriented SW got lost in the shuffle. It seems the more controlled environment I used to argue against may actually prove to be the best way forward.
It will be interesting to see the real world battery life figured but on the arm side I would think they would at very least match comparable android battery life figures (and with their more closed system in relation to 3rd party apps I would not be surprised if they end up beating android).
Unknown Soldier
Member
Ars Technica had a very good article about Android 'fragmentation':
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...-thing-as-android-only-android-compatible.ars
Android doesn't 'fragment' because Android isn't a single monolithic OS design, with a closed-source model which is enforced by a multibillion-dollar corporate entity. Google doesn't give a shit about Android 'fragmentation', because they don't make any money off selling the OS itself, but rather from Android Market and advertising. If we stop thinking of Android the same way we think about Windows, Mac OS/iOS, and other monolithic OSes, then we won't incorrectly think there is a problem. Because there isn't. Except for Verizon not getting NFL Mobile working on my Tuna, that's bullshit.
Yeah. I think the more tightly regulated environment will mean more optimized performance even if it's actually doing more. Look at how WP7 performs on 'shit' hardware (oh yeah ... we're in the WP7 thread
). While Win8 won't be that tightly controlled ... it's still slanting in that direction.See my above post.
I do get where you're coming from. The issue is this wasn't really obvious to us as consumers at the time of Honeycomb's launch. Hindsight's 20/20 and all. Obviously Android is what it is ... it's just that many of us where expecting something more based on all they hype. Live and learn I guess.
Knowledge of this explanation doesn't really help things moving forward though. It begs the question, exactly what is Android as a tablet device targeting ... and how successful will it be? Will it ever really get a wide breadth of quality software?
I think this is the first legitimate point where android could be forked and fragmented. If the numbers for the kindle are accurate, it might be enough pull for them to create their own APIs and compatability for tablet support from devs. Different APIs than ICS. Right now apps are interchangeable between markets because the GB tablets are following the "google" compatability check list. It's almost like the tables turned with the mishandling of HC.
I'd be amazed if Google isn't courting amazon right now to "keep the peace" in terms of compatibility. Google has no problems with alternative markets (see get jar) and they've said as much that they'd be willing to dump their apps in the Amazon Appstore.
At first I was like WTF are you talking then I saw the news. Microsoft is mad. 10,000 tokens only (and that's per device not individual—I've owned 3 different WPs already) and now they wont continue the program?! Fuck em.
brotkasten
Member
Hey guys, what's going on he- ... Oh.
Oh.
Ewww.
Oh.
Ewww.
Baconit (Reddit Client) is finally available internationally, it's really great (other than deep linking not working)
http://windowsphone.com/s?appId=fa4e749a-a521-43f1-b2cd-40bd1a0a8875
People should really take their Android discussions to the Android thread
http://windowsphone.com/s?appId=fa4e749a-a521-43f1-b2cd-40bd1a0a8875
People should really take their Android discussions to the Android thread
brotkasten
Member
It's not Microsoft's decision.
I'll just say it... but haven't you learned your lesson from Coperdickus about having an Android phone and posting in a Windows Phone thread? It doesn't lead to good things.
Can we just keep the Android shit in the Android thread? I come here to see if there's anything cool available for the phone I have, and I'm sure other people come here to get a feel for the platform before making a decision whether or not to jump in. I don't think this x vs y bullshit is really helping.
bigtroyjon
Member
No point in being a soldier if you aren't going to war and imposing your beliefs onto others.
Well, I finally checked this. 978 mAh :-(
Let's hope the update really fixes this problem. Do you guys know if I could exchange my phone if it doesn't?
Think you can exchange it now, it is definitely a bad batch and not all phones because my capacity reads 1512 mAh
looked around, here is the nokia press release
frontieruk
Member
so for giggles i installed ICS on my HTC Desire just for comparison against my HD7 (same chipset, same clock speeds), its not a complete laggy mess, but its not wp7 smooth either, but i'd imagine that with some better use of the gfx chip for the ui it'd be a lot better but at the moment it leaves a lot to be desired on lower end hardware, I'm probably going to pick up a HTC Rhyme, so I'll root and install ICS on that so that'll give a better comparison to this gen of wp7 than the 1st gen.
Hmm, sounds like the software update will fix it. I'd rather not exchange it if i don't have to.
Just my luck :-(
It's hard to evangelize Windows Phone... lost another two sales.
My aunt and uncle got two new phones. They are both first-time smartphone users and are not at all technically versed, which is why I think WP would have been the ideal choice. Something rather intuitive that gets the basics right (phone, contacts, messaging, mail,...). I don't think they will use a lot of apps.
Unfortunately I got to them too late. I saw them last week and tried to make a case for WP, but by that time, they had already somewhat made up their minds.
My aunt had her eyes on the iPhone, because she somehow thought it was the only one that had games... don't know how she got that idea.
My uncle on the other side was looking at either the Galaxy S2 or the Galaxy Nexus, because some review site on the internet had them as their top choices.
I think a lot of review sites are not ideal for this type of consumer. WP always gets deducted points because of its 'weak ecosystem'. As if the two of them actually needed more than 50.000 apps...
They hadn't really heard anything about Windows Phone, so I showed them my mother's LG Optimus 7 for a couple of minutes and told them about some of the things it does well. (and also that it had games ^^)
After that I sent them a somewhat extensive mail with videos and links about the available WP handsets and most importantly about the Nokia ones. (also a video with an introduction to Windows Phone).
In the end I was not successful. They already were too far gone and bought the phones they had chosen beforehand (Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4S). I couldn't even convince her not to get an expensive iPhone, when a Radar or Lumia 710 would have covered her use case just as well...
That's unfortunate because I really think WP would have been ideal for them.
My aunt and uncle got two new phones. They are both first-time smartphone users and are not at all technically versed, which is why I think WP would have been the ideal choice. Something rather intuitive that gets the basics right (phone, contacts, messaging, mail,...). I don't think they will use a lot of apps.
Unfortunately I got to them too late. I saw them last week and tried to make a case for WP, but by that time, they had already somewhat made up their minds.
My aunt had her eyes on the iPhone, because she somehow thought it was the only one that had games... don't know how she got that idea.
My uncle on the other side was looking at either the Galaxy S2 or the Galaxy Nexus, because some review site on the internet had them as their top choices.
I think a lot of review sites are not ideal for this type of consumer. WP always gets deducted points because of its 'weak ecosystem'. As if the two of them actually needed more than 50.000 apps...
They hadn't really heard anything about Windows Phone, so I showed them my mother's LG Optimus 7 for a couple of minutes and told them about some of the things it does well. (and also that it had games ^^)
After that I sent them a somewhat extensive mail with videos and links about the available WP handsets and most importantly about the Nokia ones. (also a video with an introduction to Windows Phone).
In the end I was not successful. They already were too far gone and bought the phones they had chosen beforehand (Galaxy S2 and iPhone 4S). I couldn't even convince her not to get an expensive iPhone, when a Radar or Lumia 710 would have covered her use case just as well...
That's unfortunate because I really think WP would have been ideal for them.
I've got 2 800s here, the wife's and mine, both have the borked battery reading. The patch is supposed to come out January 18th so hopefully that fixes things. She's an iOS jumper who likes WP7 well enough but stepping out with a 900+ mAh phone is kinda pathetic and that's affecting her user experience pretty badly.
Psychotext
Member
Damn, I don't have the bug and I thought the battery was pretty bad (not really used to smartphones)... it must be utterly horrible with the bug.
Photoshop Mockup of the 900 based on the leaked ads
http://thenokiablog.com/2012/01/02/nokia-lumia-900-full-mockup/
http://thenokiablog.com/2012/01/02/nokia-lumia-900-full-mockup/
The comparison means dick if the ICS rom you install isn't full hardware accelerated. ICS on something as "slow" as a Samsung vibrant or nexus s runs so much smoother than any previous iteration of the OS with android I know that's not saying much, heh).
So everyone now I have on Facebook seems to have discovered Kik and have started installing it.
I'd always seen it on the Market when I was on Android but never knew anyone who used it so never bothered installing it, but since people I know are using it now I thought I'd give it a go on WP7 and it's actually a great app, leaps and bounds ahead of the steaming turd that is Whatsapp on WP7.
I'd always seen it on the Market when I was on Android but never knew anyone who used it so never bothered installing it, but since people I know are using it now I thought I'd give it a go on WP7 and it's actually a great app, leaps and bounds ahead of the steaming turd that is Whatsapp on WP7.
frontieruk
Member
did I not say there would be gains if it was hardware accelerated? I did it for giggles, doing it on the rhyme would enable hw acceleration as the adreno205 driver is fully understood, but having used the Galaxy Nexus for a week as my primary phone, they still have so UI lag issues even on top of the line hardware, but no where near as bad as others in this thread have implied.
Hell ICS on the Desire out performs any AOSP froyo/gingerbread build I've had on the Desire for UI performance so they've done a good job, but its always going to be a Mac vs Windows situation, the controlled nature of WP7 hardware requirements vs the Android free for all will always have performance on WP7 side where as Android will always have the latest processors, GPUs and screen technologies but users will have a greater likelihood (Yes wp7 does have crashes) of software crashes and application compatibility issues.
I've always preferred Kik! to Whatsapp, but as you say the number of people using it is low
I kind of hope Touch comes to WP7 at some point tooPhotoshop Mockup of the 900 based on the leaked ads
http://thenokiablog.com/2012/01/02/nokia-lumia-900-full-mockup/
They totally neutered the face of that device with the seal around the screen. =/
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