Post by trog @ 02:17am 24/09/08 | 39 Comments
Definitely looking forward to reading some reviews about this when it comes out (due October 22 in the US); if it's everything that has been promised then it will almost certainly be a strong contender to the iPhone, especially amongst the more hardcore types.
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Posted 05:53am 24/9/08
Posted 06:04am 24/9/08
its the one thing i cant stand about my n73
Posted 07:26am 24/9/08
I thought google was taking the next step towards becoming skynet.
needs more neuronet processors imo
Posted 07:29am 24/9/08
Posted 08:41am 24/9/08
Posted 09:00am 24/9/08
Posted 09:04am 24/9/08
Posted 09:17am 24/9/08
The exchange thing is a pita, it has been hinted for a while android wouldn't support exchange out of the box, I guess if you were really keen you could push exchange mail/calendar etc to a gmail account but it's a bit messy. With the headphone jack, I was reading this has been a problem with the blackberry's as well but the new blackberry coming (Javelin) support a 3.5 jack. I would have thought you could get an adapter though.
edit: no mention of an expansion SD slot or any other kind of memory card slot, be pretty crappy if you were stuck with only 1Gb space.
last edited by Nailbomb at 09:17:04 24/Sep/08
Posted 09:15am 24/9/08
Yeah but then your stuck with this 3.5mm adapter sticking out of the side of your phone getting caught on s*** etc.
Posted 10:11am 24/9/08
Posted 11:50am 24/9/08
Posted 01:26pm 24/9/08
It takes MicroSD cards.
Posted 02:48pm 24/9/08
Phones that have no headphone jack and require you to use their mini USB s***e headphones are freakin annoying. Woot for iPwn.
Posted 02:57pm 24/9/08
Posted 04:55pm 24/9/08
Posted 06:56pm 24/9/08
That said, its certainly not as awesome as I was hoping. I think failing to have Exchange/ActiveSync out of the box coupled with no alternative desktop sync option is a bad, bad call. I've seen a few other people whine about the same thing - its something that makes the phone instantly less desirable to the business world because people know they can't just drop it in their office environment and have it sync their mail in a useful manner - something that the iPhone can do easily (even though Mail.app sucks a fat one).
All you iPhone fanboys are still losers though
Posted 08:38pm 24/9/08
Well, they've already said that they'll let people put up unlocking apps if they want, they wont stop them.
Couldn't agree more.
Posted 10:23am 25/9/08
Posted 10:50am 25/9/08
Mobiles have more accessibility and stupid users (OMG RINGTONES FOR $10 EACH AND $50/WEEK SUBSCRIPTION) so I'd imagine as the entire Android thing is open that there'll be a lot more malicious apps and trickery around.
Is there anything to stop an app being delivered and plonked on a web site that would give free ringtones and wallpapers but hidden behind the scenes it would be exploiting code or working its way towards the insides of the phone to spam emails 3G/GPRS.
Posted 03:32pm 25/9/08
Posted 04:28pm 25/9/08
If your PC gets a virus or trojan it's annoying as s*** but usually requires a format and reinstall. If your phone gets one then it could cost you $$'s with some of the premium SMS services out there.
*nix still has it's fair share of flaws but they are patched and new packages released amazingly quickly to rectify the vulnerabilities. Most distributions these days now download the packages behind the scenes making it oblivious to the end user.
Posted 04:59pm 25/9/08
Posted 05:05pm 25/9/08
Yeah, well I guess it is hard to protect against stupidity.
Posted 09:00pm 25/9/08
Often a malicious user will not bother targeting a system which has a smaller user base. Considering 90%+ of the world use windows there is a massive 'SHOOT HERE' target that baddy coders love to take aim at.
It's not hard to stay safe with windows if you know what your doing...thats why an open source OS for a phone would be a hackers dream. The amount of prepubescent teenagers that would be clicking like monkeys on crack to find the next 'coolest' app would be ridiculous. Add the potentially low price for the phone and you've got some interesting future prospects in terms of mobile viruses (which at the moment is a highly untapped market).
Posted 10:46pm 25/9/08
User stupidity is the hardest thing to guard against by far, I reckon
Posted 04:53pm 26/9/08
Totally agree. Guess its why vista employed that UAC
Posted 05:22pm 26/9/08
Posted 05:23pm 26/9/08
Posted 06:02pm 26/9/08
After doing 3 seconds of Googling, I found what I was referring to. This mentions Mac OS X being hacked considerably faster than Vista, despite it's smaller user-base. Ubuntu remained completely unscathed, despite being open-source.
Posted 06:23pm 26/9/08
Not only that, a developer has to consider the different Android devices on which their app will run. Some will be multi-touch, some touch, some just hard buttons. The gphone is going to go through a lot of ugly before it gets to a point where it is competitive, if it gets there at all.
I honestly wanted Apple to have some competition... damn.
Posted 06:35pm 26/9/08
Posted 07:30pm 26/9/08
Posted 08:23pm 26/9/08
Posted 10:13pm 26/9/08
I'm basing my opinion on videos like this one: http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/55/
Yep that music app is pretty terrific... Haha. But yeah the fact is there are no Android UI guidelines, so it's doomed. There's a difference between good UI guidelines/conventions, and specific UI being enforced. Conventions lead to familiarity, efficiency; a base for the user to learn from. It's like in a good publication, each page is interesting; but there are conventions that hold it all together (commonly the grid, styles..) and help the user through. Throw all of those conventions away and you get Android. The extra screen clutter in apps to support non-multitouch devices is just going to make a bad problem much, much worse.
Another thing - although it's early hardware, the responsiveness is a bit of a joke. And in another video the web browser scrolling jerked around like crazy... yeah it's early days, but this isn't a good way to launch. This thing needs to get designers/developers excited to join The Cause, which should be easy with the App Store's recent insanity. If Google launched an iPhone with freedom, this would be exciting. It's really not.
This sounds a LOT like Android could be. Google could be smart and have the Marketplace favour apps for your device... but I have no faith in their ability to pull off a UI which could make the Marketplace work intuitively for that sort of outcome. FAIL!
But yeah, it's true that Apple now don't have the handheld computing category to itself, which should be a good thing. And its openness should make Apple look bad as a company (they aren't getting the balance right at all). But I don't expect to see an Android device that will interest me for at least the next couple of years, if at all. It's not good for the platform at all.
You're right, this is fun. Did I mention that Safari's latest nightlies have a javascript engine faster than V8? :P
last edited by Farseeker at 22:13:01 26/Sep/08
Posted 10:33pm 26/9/08
I'm not a noob though, I'm a power user. I like my mice to have even more than _2_ buttons! Having no consistent UI style between applications means d*** to me, as long as each application is well constructed for _its_ primary purpose. Hmm I actually read the G1 doesn't even support multitouch - not sure if that's true? I thought that video showed it being fairly responsive? The web browser scrolling was a bit slow, but its not super fast on the iPhone/iPod Touch anyway - it just fudges it better so it looks more responsive than it really is. They certainly could have picked a better demo page to show the scrolling around on though. Well, in fairness, it should be noted that Apple are still f*****g miles behind eveyone else in marketshare here. I found some good numbers the other day which I have since misplaced - Symbian is still miles ahead in terms of OS marketshare, but it doesn't reaaaaaaaaaally count because I don't think anyone takes it seriously as a 'smartphone'. Blackberry I think is winning there, then Windows Mobile, then maybe Palm - and then iPhone is all the way down at the bottom, obviously because it is still so comparitively new.
I don't think it'll replace blackberrys any time soon - from people that I've spoken to that live by their remote email the Blackberry still kicks the s*** out of the iPhone - especially in the US where apparently they're still having problems with decent cellular coverage (which seems really weird - one dude I spoke to in San Francisco could never get decent coverage even in the middle of the city, wtf?!)
Anyway, I think I'll wait a month or two and see what happens in the Android space in terms of application development and take it from there. I'm not in a rush to get a new phone or anything. I mostly want something I can read ebooks on easily (ipod touch f*****g sucks for that because there's no real buttons to press to go to the next page - scrolling the screen with the touch thing is just a painful way of doing it).
Posted 10:46pm 26/9/08
from here It doesn't say anything about windows mobile..
/me stokes fire
Posted 10:52pm 26/9/08
slashdot post with wikipedia reference: "Based on raw market share, Symbian is the market leader (57%), followed by Blackberry (17%), Windows Mobile (12%), Linux (7%) and then iPhone (2.8%). Android yet to make a showing!"
Posted 11:32pm 26/9/08
how about ebook readers with autoscroll? There has to be a good way of doing this - have it crawl along at a reasonable reading speed, if you're getting left behind/distracted, just hold the screen and it stops; hands off, and it gradually gets going again. To me the lack of hard buttons is a bold move that is paying off big-time, as apps don't have the traditional constraints - developers can make the best interface to do the job.Ey! I think you still have the wrong idea about what I mean by consistency. What if some Windows desktop apps decided to put the menubar in the bottom right corner; I'm not saying you can't break these rules to make an app the best for its primary purpose, but if "Back" is generally a button in the top-left corner, why change it? These are the things that will make Android phones a waste of time. Software shouldn't be something you need to labour over. Especially when you're out and about and just want to get stuff done.
Yep, G1 doesn't support multitouch. It's all quite awkward and unresponsive when you see how it's used, especially compared to the iPhone. And it's not like it's doing anything special. Same workflows, more taps, more waiting, more guessing what to do next, getting lost in obscure menus with too much text. This isn't how it should be. Devices will come with multi-touch, but I wonder if they will redesign the interfaces to take advantage of it - I have a feeling developers will mostly leave it to work with the lowest common denominator. Android may be where the iPhone is now in a couple years time. Where will the iPhone be?
Yes! They recognise the importance of it being a device that is, you know, good for humans to use. Really should be a pre-requisite for anything in this era: Good for humans. Check out this clip. Definitely no win.
Posted 12:02am 27/9/08
If all you do is read ebooks, then there are way cooler devices on the way:
The iPhone is a success in making a device that is flexible to be great at lots of different things. Android is in this same space, but I'm not convinced it's pulling its weight. The general quality of developed apps are going to reflect the built-in apps' general UI dodginess (inconsistency, poorly thought-out, not good for humans). BAD start.