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Hi XDA-Samsung Users,
I've been a member of XDA since Jan last year. I went from owning a Nexus One to a Samsung Galaxy S i9000. The reason for the change was for the better specs and superior hardware of the Samsung Galaxy.
The phone is an incredible piece of machinery, but is severely hampered by the modifications that Samsung makes to the Android OS. I admit that the codec support within TouchWiz is impressive, but too much of the core framework of the phone is inefficient and sluggish.
Even using the latest release of unofficial firmware Samsung, Android 2.2.1 (JPY), there is still the occasional hang and the missing RAM (which is there somewhere, but not for user applications).
Samsung is mostly to blame, but there is also a quality control element that Google should be responsible for.
I have prepared an open letter that I sent to Android via Google Press and then forwarded on to Samsung for their reference. This were all through publicly available channels so will have to filter through customer service centers and the like.
I'm not expecting much, Google appears to use Amazon's customer service approach, "No customer service is good customer service".
But would like to post it here to hopefully get it out into the wilderness.
I tweeted it here http://twitter.com/#!/ibproud/status/27528781828722688
and would appreciate if you agreed with the content to retweet it. Hopefully it should give it a bit more weight.
It would be interesting to get the communities feedback on how mature they believe Android is.
Do they need to keep trying to make everyone happy or can they start to use the weight of their OS to get manufacturers to align the user experience?
Dear Android Team,
I am writing this letter to air my frustrations and to hopefully get some peace of mind that your strategy for Android will resolve some of the main issues plaguing the platform.
I have now been with Android for over 12 months. I used to be an iPhone user, but couldn’t stand the walled garden that Apple put me in. I couldn’t download directly to the phone, replace the messaging app or sync wirelessly. I went to Android because I wanted the freedom to use my phone more as a desktop replacement than as a phone/mp3 player.
When I joined the Android family (January 2010), I started with the Google Nexus One. I was so keen to get into the Android community I didn’t even wait for it to be on sale in Australia to get it, thus I hit eBay and bought it outright.
I was very pleased with the platform but could still see a few rough edges around the Operating System. It had the usability I was looking for but was lacking the polish I had grown use to with Apple. There was good news on the horizon with an Éclair update that would give the already beautiful phone a nudge in the right direction. As I was in Australia and the phone wasn’t here yet, I had to push the update through myself, after seeing how easy this was and getting the feeling of being a little phone hacker, I was hooked, I started preaching Android to the masses. Australia is still building momentum for the platform and it’s taking some time. Most of the major carriers stock between 4-6 Android devices, most of which are low end or outdated in the overseas markets.
I follow all the key players in the industry through Twitter and have a majority of Google News trackers picking up articles with android related words. I have also now converted my Wife to Android (HTC Desire Z, also not available in Aus) and I picked up the Samsung Galaxy S and gave my sister the Nexus One. The problem I face now is that I’ve run out of money and can’t go out and buy a new Android phone just to be up to date with the latest Android OS (Gingerbread), this would also be the case for most consumers. The Nexus S is so similar to my current hardware that I must be able to leverage the extra performance from the update.
But alas, we reach the major problem with the platform. Fragmentation. I’m not referring to the Fragmentation of the various app stores and apps available based on different OS versions but more to the Fragmentation of the OS based on the custom skins and manufacturer update cycles. The open platform that is closed at 2 levels, Manufactures and Carriers. I will continue to buy my phones outright as it gives me the freedom and flexibility to upgrade my plans as better ones become available. This always guarantees that I’m free from the bloatware that is preloaded on most Carrier bought phones and free from 1 of the barriers to the true AOSP experience. The next barrier is one that is running rampant in the interwebs rumour mill at the moment and that’s manufacturer updates and in my case I refer to Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy S phones come loaded with Android 2.1, most of them internationally are running Android 2.2 and just recently as select group of the devices is getting Android 2.2.1. This is now a month after Android 2.3 was released. For Samsung I would consider this largely negligent, considering they had the opportunity to work with Google to build a Google Experience Phone (Nexus S). The specs of this phone are so similar to the Galaxy range that a port shouldn’t be too difficult. I understand that there are a lot of constraints and dependencies in the development cycle that could cause delays as well as manufacturers agendas (mostly in unit sales). It is great that Samsung have sold so many devices globally but at a cost of the user experience as well as potential damages to long term retention.
I understand the Open nature of Android and the push to encourage manufacturers to put there own spin on the platform, but Android is getting bigger and more mature, it doesn’t need to be High school girl bending to the whims and peer pressure from the carriers and manufacturers.
There are a team of Devs in Germany who are working to port CyanogenMod 7 (Gingerbread) to Galaxy S i9000, but these guys have now spent over four months just trying to get through Samsungs drivers. The team didn’t start just to customise the phone but to actually make the phone work properly, I of course refer to the RFS lag issue and Samsungs modification to the framework that slowed it down. The goal of the team is to maximise the potential of the hardware and operating system.
It would be great to see some muscle from Google thrown into the mix, there doesn’t need to be requirements dictated, but maybe ethics encouraged.
There seems to be a few options here:
- Encourage device manufacturers to share their drivers, if it is too sensitive to share at least work with the community to help them do it themselves.
- Start to break down the way the platform is customised so that way the manufactures (Samsung/HTC/Motorola) skin the platform can sit a layer above the core code, thus be a quick implementation/customisation to get their skins working.
- Get each manufacturer to offer the AOSP experience to advanced users. This can be done through an agreement between the user and manufacture that states this will void the warranty and have its own terms and conditions.
- This last one is a long stretch, but how about taking all the manufacturers drivers into a repository, the way Windows do updates. When a new Android version is developed the drivers can be updated or incorporated and be packaged out through the Android SDK.
I may be completely off the mark. I’m not a developer and couldn’t pretend to know what effort is involved at any stage of the process, from building Android to rolling it out into the latest and greatest phone. The one thing I am though is an End User, a person that wants my phone to do more, to get close to being a desktop replacement.
Maybe I’m also being a bit idealistic.
I hope the Android platform continues to flourish and for it to become the Windows of the mobile era.
Sincerely,
Irwin Proud
E: [email protected]
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It's really an excellent summary. Consider there're even more black sheeps out there. For example Sony Ericcson which ones recently made a statement like Android is their favourite Smartphone OS and left Symbian in Nokias hands.
But we found also the good ones like HTC, which every Manufacturer should have HTC as its Paragon concerning Android Software Development.
Great write-up; I agree 100%
I agree with your post fully, and concur that the Windows Phone 7 model for OS updates is more efficient, and strikes a happy medium between iOS and Android's approach to upgrades. However it is also more restrictive in terms of handset hardware limitations
I suppose the idea is that customers should vote with their wallets and buy from companies with good software and firmware support. The problem with that is a majority of phone users (android or otherwise) are technically savvy enough to take such support into consideration when looking at the latest and greatest fancy phone in a store. We could all buy the Nexus One or Nexus S only, but this too is restrictive to the customer as other phones offer more/different features
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
What Google should do?
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
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Please allow me to politely disagree. Google can do a lot about this and they have done this also. When I say they have done this - I am talking about not having Market application on Android OSes which come on non-phone hardware.
Google should put similar restrictions for loosley coupled skins, upgradable drivers. I had been giving this a lot of thought lately. I will sum up my thoughts with above letter as above:-
i) Device manufacturer skinning - Google should mandate that it should be just another APK within AOSP and users should be given a choice to turn it off.
ii) Device Drivers - Google should mandate there should be a better way of installing device drivers - similar to what we have in MS Windows (MS Windows is an excellent model of how hardware device should be handled - this lead to the exponential growth Windows is enjoying now).
iii) Android OS Update - If Google can achieve the above two, then the choice to upgrade the OS should be at user discretion. Of course, Google should mandate that there is OTA availble as an option. And obviously this OTA would be served by Google, not by device manufacturers. This would also free up time, effort and cash spent by device manufacturers in upgrading the OS.
So this is in the best of interest of everybody.
These restrictions if put in place, would free us all from this phenomena of running outdated OS.
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
Thank you so far for the feedback.
poundesville said:
my 2 cents worth:
I agree on your points - but I'd skip the first few paragraphs if I were the one who write the letter. Other than that, thank you for making the effort.
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Remember most members of XDA would be a cut above the average user. The reason this letter was written the way it was, was to demonstrate that I am a typical end user. Although I would consider myself leaning slightly to the more advanced side I wrote the letter based on a very general experience of the platform, an experience a lot of consumers would go through.
Toss3 said:
What exactly are you hoping to achieve with this letter? Google has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that samsung don't want to update their phones. In these type of situations it's just better to vote with your wallet and buy another manufacturer's phone next time and let Samsung know why you don't want to use their phones in the future.
Writing letters like these is just a waste of time imho.
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What am I trying to achieve with this letter?
I really don’t know, but it helps to just get the thoughts out there.
With approximately 300,000 activations daily, I don’t think Android sees the true reflection of how their platform is received.
When the Galaxy range of phones was released in the US, they would have been seen as the closest thing to an iPhone that non-AT&T customers could get. So sales and activations shouldn’t be seen as the indicator of clever consumers or consumers wanting an open platform, but of consumers who wanted an iPhone but for the various reasons didn’t want to go with AT&T.
Remember: The international Samsung Galaxy is the only Android phone I know of that looks more like an iPhone than any other phone.
What I would really like to see is, that annually google will release a major version of Android. So V1, V2, V3, etc…. the mobile manufacturers commit to any minor or incremental updates per major version. So if Google says they are releasing Android 2.4 then they are saying to the manufacturer that this version will also work on any phone that currently supports v2.1 to v2.3.
As more and more people move to smartphones and tablets, more and more will we see hackers, spammers, botnets and so on attempt to access our devices. If we can’t have the latest updates that close any open holes then our phones become a huge liability.
Pierreken said:
Not sure what ti say on this one. It's true that Samsung has failed on some levels, however I must say that this is the first phone that has allowed me to get to know so much about the internals of the Android OS.
Modifying kernels, ROM's, reading about different file-systems etc... it's not a thing for the common user but I expect the people on this forum to be interested in such things.
Ok, if Samsung had done it right, we may have discussed these things anyway but it would've drawn less attention as people would not be looking for solutions to their problems.
But of course we have to strive to quality for everyone and this letter may just open some people's eyes at both Google and Samsung.
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Not really sure if Samsung has failed as such, but have put too much focus on unit sales rather than quality control and great user experience. They started releasing different iterations and modifications to the same phone without considering that each minor tweak to the hardware would mean more resources to develop updates and maintain each device.
I also agree that without Samsung I would know very little about linux filesystems, kernel and custom roms, but shouldn't all of these be more to push the phone above it's limits and not to just get it working properly?
There's nothing wrong with knowing the advanced stuff, however it shouldn't be a necessity.
The problem ironically is that Android is open source. I agree wit the letter above, but I can;t see how you can stop manufacturers doing what they want.
Also the Drivers being proprietary isn't going to change and device manufacturers aren't going to suddenly start releasing their closed driver sources.
Agreed Google should stand up and restrict the Skins to a single APK that can be removed, this would stop all the associated problems with HTC and Samsung skinning too deep in to the OS that it becomes impossible to remove it. The problem with that is, then any manufacturers APK will be installable on any phone. Which is something we know they don't want.
We already know Androids biggest downfall and so does Google. Fragmentation.
I believe once Google has the strong position they want and users demand Android when they buy a new phone, they will start to put their foot down and try to enforce standardisation across Manufacturers, but until they get to what they feel is that point, we're stuck.
Anyway much luck with the letter, I hope someone who matters get's to see it.
Logicalstep
After looking at Android's fragmentation, the pain that one has to go through for every damn update is really getting to me! Google has really screwed this one up big time...its funny to even see the number of different screen sizes, hardware configurations android is being used. No standardization makes it a nightmare for developers to write applications that are consistent. Its hard to imagine that google has been so short sighted!
Asus is surely a brilliant company to have come out with a great tablet (and their newer tabs are kick ass too at great price points). But its really bothersome if I'm always in some sort of dependence on the manufacturer to release OS updates - this is just plain crazy! If Google's aim of ICS was to converge all devices to use the same OS, then why aren't they supporting manufacturers or insisting on all manufacturers to push out an update?
To start things, Google has really messed up their long term roadmap with fragmentation issues...and I would expect a company of that scale to atleast put in some sort of contractual commitments with all its manufacturing partners to roll out updates to its customers within a given timeline.
Here is what I would expect Google to have implemented yesterday, if they really need to retain popularity towards Android and keep it growing -
1. No more fragmentation moving forward. Standardization of screen resolutions, minimum performance requirements, ram, storage requirements etc.
2. Device manufacturers must commit to issuing software updates within some timeline from when google has an update.
3. Manufacturers dont decide if the update can run on their device or not - it must be google who decides this, and should be decided based on hardware specs
Now with Windows 8 on the horizon, I would definitely wait it out and move over to a Windows 8 based tablet. Knowing Microsoft, they're perhaps the only company who invests a lot of time and thinking in getting things right. It shows clearly from their development tools/platform, their emulators, clean implementation rather than an iterative approach etc.
Last android tablet for sure! And I'm hoping windows phone 7 will mature too, and its windows 8 variant should be a lot more promising. Thats when I would phase out my Galaxy S and head back to MS
What are your thoughts people?
cheers,
San
dreamtheater39 said:
Knowing Microsoft, they're perhaps the only company who invests a lot of time and thinking in getting things right.
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haha, you made my day XD ...btw. throwing the word "vista" into the ring ^^
coming to win8. i just read an article today that the arm version of windows is most likely not able to run desktop programs. asuming that: WOOOOOW, Windows 8
If you prefer a monolithic OS to the liberty you get with Android that's your choice.
Personally, I do not. I do not like being locked into one vendor who gets to decide how I use my device.
I like having a choice between a smartphone, a 7", 8.9", 10.1" or even 11.5" tablet, or even a laptop that I can run the same OS (Android) on.
I love the Transformer. I have one device that is truly a tablet and, with root, also serves the full functionality of a laptop. What can Windows offer me that does this? What can iOS offer me that can replace my Transformer?
And that's besides the fact that with a Windows device I'm stuck with an OS that I am familiar with the shortcomings of, and unable to do anything about. Or with iOS that, again, no one can fix but the manufacturer (if they feel like it).
Yes, fragmentation of the Android platform is a bit of a problem. The Market addresses this, somewhat, by only showing software you can install on your device. Most Android devs are sensitive to their customer's needs and a polite email is frequently responded to positively, and usually with a fix in short order.
Frankly, I consider the fragmented markets (GetJar, Market, Amazon App Store, etc) to be a far larger problem than fragmentation of the OS, and I don't consider that to be anywhere close to a large problem.
Hmmm my thoughts
1. They have set an agreement with there partners. A new timeline that they must update devices within a set life span for a device think it was around a year and a half have a google on it. (p.s year and a half aint bad considering how fast mobile tech is moving)
2. It should not be a problem for devs to write apps for ics and the differences in hardware are accounted for
3. ms well thought out vista ms dos longhorn??? ms dos was not future thinking and very short sighted especially in terms of ram!!!!!! if anyone remembers vista was a plain mess!! and longhorn didnt even meet the public. Not to mention the many other flaws or screw ups (anyone remember xp early days it was hackers heaven)
4. At its roots android is linux google the track record for updates and security between ms and linux then whie you're at it google how many servers in the world run linux compared to ms
5. The biggest flaw of all ms was a single user platform a pc the first pc they now want to make it multi user and move toward cloud computing etc etc linux has been doing this for years so inherantly android can do the same ms on the other hand is having to kick there own ass so hard bills teeth have been replaced with hes toe nails
6. I like win 8 and 7 for one reason gamming and a couple programs i just cant get otherwise but as soon as i can do these things elsewhere or linux based i will.
You do have good points but i just wanted to step in as the other side of the coin.
Sent from my tf Enigmatic V2 beta 1.65Ghz Panda.test cust kernel settings
If you really want to be assured you can run everything on every device I suggest you look at Apple. The iPad will continue to be the dominate tablet for years to come and then you can be assured that everything will be packaged nicely and controlled in the manner decreed in Cupertino.
Open source means a trading a messier support structure for more innovation, and is not for everyone.
blestsol said:
Just leave please and get your ipad.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
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Enough said, whining isn't usefull here.
Seriously what do you want us to say? Good writting nice information, thanks for the info!!
I mean wtf?
Reported the thread.
Klau you do relise where XDA stands for and what the DEVELOPERS word means behind it?
XDA is for developing and helping people when they want to use costum roms or other non officeal related subjects
If you are unsatisfied with a device use the offical forum of ASUS, thats the right place!
Are any of the responses written by a mod?
So since when did everyone get appointed the responsibility to decide what is allowed to be discussed on this board, which isn't even the developer forum, it's on the general forum.
If you don't think the topic is relevant to you, just don't enter it. Let the mod do their job.
---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 AM ----------
blestsol said:
Ooc, you don't agree of disagree... Why you responding? People use words wrong so much... Fan boy? Man you reaching. Foh. You sick of something ignore it and take your own advice. Dip from the thread. Simple ass that for your simple ass.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using xda premium
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Learn to read, I said if you disagree, state your reason.
I've stated my reason of disagreement regarding the unfriendly atmosphere of this board.
You're grasping at straws that don't exist look who's reaching lol
klau1 said:
Are any of the responses written by a mod?
So since when did everyone get appointed the responsibility to decide what is allowed to be discussed on this board, which isn't even the developer forum, it's on the general forum.
If you don't think the topic is relevant to you, just don't enter it. Let the mod do their job.
---------- Post added at 11:48 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 AM ----------
Learn to read, I said if you disagree, state your reason.
I've stated my reason of disagreement regarding the unfriendly atmosphere of this board.
You're grasping at straws that don't exist look who's reaching lol
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I didn't disagree. My post said what I meant. What he was describing is what ios can give him. Please show where my fan boy thoughts are though. In my short sentence.
I'll wait for that though.
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda premium
silversx80 said:
Oh, the irony :
Here's the thing, the OP is an open-ended criticism on things the android community praises about the android platform. Praising those things does not make one a fanboy, nor does calling one a fanboy render an ages-old demotivational poster anything less than a sophomoric response in the hopes that a chuckle will sway the reader over to your point of view.
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Nope, face palm has always been my actual sentiment about the responses here, and pictures help prevents a large post from getting ignored.
silversx80 said:
Someone criticizes the platform as a whole, one which others really enjoy (including myself), and makes the declaration that they're moving over to another, which is much better. Their assessment is based only on opinionated observations from their point of view, which is hardly an inconvenience to anyone else. Of course they're going to get a "get the f*ck out" response, and deserve nothing less. It's like when the Christians invaded the Turks and tried to convert the entire group of people.
It brings up the ages-old motherly line of wisdom: If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all.
There is nothing wrong with desiring something that is better for your uses, but use that as a premise. Don't start by lambasting the opposition, especially when you know what the system is about and you know the offerings of the competition. Some people may actually enjoy the things you don't.
In my opinion, ALL of the devises and software are AMAZING when you consider what the all do.
Instead, we get a bunch of non-contributing, product-zero, whiny little girls. You know what, that's fine; next time you think of complaining, go make your own. As soon as yours is better, then you can complain about other offerings.
Until then, STFU and GTFO.
P.S. If android will be more successful as a standardized platform, we'll see it move that way. I write that with reservation, as android is currently the #1 mobile platform in the world, so they must be doing something right... much to the chagrin of the OP.
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Look, every reasonably intelligent person understands trade-off exist. Simply one comes to mind:
can a "God be powerful enough to create a rock so heavy that even it can't lift it?"
Usability comes at the expense of functionality, everyone should understand that.
But people forget that sometimes, not a big deal, just explain it to them instead of acting like an internet bully. That doesn't help your point across.
silversx80 said:
It brings up the ages-old motherly line of wisdom: If you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all.
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Just because you disagree with the OP doesn't mean it was not "nice" or offensive
lol's were had reading this thread.
klau1 said:
Just because you disagree with the OP doesn't mean it was not "nice" or offensive
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Dude, basically what he did was akin to going over to VW Vortex, complaining about all the reasons why his little 2.5 Golf was not like the current offerings from Toyota, and said that when the new Hondas come out, he's getting one of those.
There is no purpose in his post other than to demean and criticize. There is nothing productive, nor contributory about it. No, I didn't have to read, nor post, but I felt compelled.
If someone want's to leave for a better personal option, that's fine. If they want to make a scene and flip the table on the way out, then they shouldn't expect a positive reception to their announcement.
As much as I hate Apple, I do think that progress requires contrast. What do I mean? We need a solidified company like Apple that keeps pushing the same standard but slightly better (that's like peer-reviewed science). We need a looser society of innovators like Google's associates who play around at the edges of what we expect at the moment (who are like fringe scientists, some contribute great genius ideas, and some who completely **** it up). For me, I like the fringe scientist; I understand the need for peer-review, but I think I'll stick with Android for at least the next tablet too.
A WARNING FROM THE MODERATOR
A WARNING FROM THE MODERATOR
Play nice..........
talk nice ........
Or you will be banned.......
And I will close the thread
To those who reported this bad behavior, thank you
Keep it civil, Folks
Thanks ~ oka1 Moderator
Did they demo a Windows 8 ARM device at CES? I am very curious as to how Windows 8 will perform.
This is a very interesting project that could either excel if developers jump onboard, or crash horribly if developers reject the idea of Windows on ARM.
Sent from my Transformer TF101 using Tapatalk
Interesting feedback from all you guys!
Just to clear things out, from where i come from -
-I've always loved android for the flexibility it gives me. I've always made custom roms, modded the hell out of every device i've ever had, starting way back from the Pocket PC days! Android - seemed like the most perfect option for me.
-I've always stayed away from Apple, for a myriad of reasons - they dictate everything, and i hate that. And also, i hate being in the bucket of half wit fanboys who bought one just to be "cool"
-I work for one of the biggest game companies, and i'm responsible for technology direction for smartphones, tablets. So, let me tell you what this looks like from a developer's view point -
A game is always written for iOS first - reason being, the platform is standardized in terms of display resolutions, hardware capabilities. Testing effort is extremely low in comparison (you dont have to test on a 100 devices!)
You have only 2 aspect ratios to deal with - phone & tablet. And you know that your game will run on all the iphones and ipads floating in the world. So this makes it easy from development & testing points of view. And this is the reason why games are "always" developed for iOS first.
Now the fun begins - once the game is done and is out on iTunes, there are large conversion teams which takes care of getting it to run on android phones and tablets. You have to see the hardware inventory we have here - so manyyyy android phones and tablets - and all of these have to be tested to give it a QA greenlight. Even when devices have the same hardware specs, each device behaves differently at times because the manufacturers have written different drivers specific to the device!
And then now, we have honeycomb and ICS - the screen has a static status bar in the bottom which takes away 48 pixels from your screen! Suddenly, your game needs to factor odd resolutions of 1280x752, 1232x800, 1024x552, etc etc. This means - redesigning all your game menus, UI, dialogs so that they dont leak out of the screen - crazy load of work! And then - you can have ONLY ONE APK to support ALL THESE resolutions and hardware configurations!
And then finally to top it all, you have several different market places, custom roms to test on, devices that the developer blacklists because of incompatibility - bypasses blacklisting on the market place because of a custom rom/hack...and he ends up playing the game giving us bad ratings!
The list is endless! I really feel this should not be the case for such a huge platform coming from a really big ass company! Honestly, i feel android made it big because it came in at the right time when the hardware side of things was at a great level - allowing them to give super slick graphics. And they had no other competition (windows mobile was too old, and the other was just iOS). They just got lucky, went without a clear plan - and iteratively refined and fixed things.
Atleast now, I feel Google should really accelerate its efforts towards some form of convergence. Look at the variance that a developer needs to take care of - different hardware configs/specs (ram, storage, processor!) - performance wise, different screen resolutions (a 100 different combinations! literally!), custom roms/modding, different manufacturer driven hardware/software customization, a zillion different OS versions, and so on. All this has to be factored, and we can have only 1 apk! And then finally, the provided android emulator that they provide - is soooo damn sorry, its not even funny. The emulator is literally like a slide show on my really powerful desktop - forget trying to use the built in emulator for developing games!
At the end, the platform lives because of the number of developers who support it. If customers dont have newer and better experiences coming - they would shift boats - its as simple. Making it harder for developers is just shooting yourself in the foot!
-San
dreamtheater39 said:
At the end, the platform lives because of the number of developers who support it. If customers dont have newer and better experiences coming - they would shift boats - its as simple. Making it harder for developers is just shooting yourself in the foot!
-San
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I have a huge problem with this statement, and pretty much the rest of your post. They are not a valid presumptions.
First, the developer and platform support each other. The platform does not live because the developer supports it... I'd argue that it's the other way around, but still a 2-way street. Without the platform, the developer cannot develop.
Second, games from the big developers may be released on iOS first, and some may be released on Android first. Without references, your statement in invalid. If you're only referring to your company, then specify that.
Third, screen resolution (and other oddities) may be a contributing factor in some app developers not bringing iOS apps to Android, but the vetting process of the Apple App Store discourages other developers from even trying to release anything onto iOS. Some devs don't even want to program things for iOS based on principle (and visa versa).
Fourth, the whole reason big mobile-platform app developer companies exist is to make money. Why alienate more than 50% of the market because of screen resolution? That would be lazy and counter-productive to profits.
Fifth, one could argue that it's not the big-time devs who got each platform off the ground, but the small-time devs, who released their apps for free. It wasn't the gaming capabilities that sold Android and iOS early on; that's a very narrow perspective.
Sixth, Android isn't being shot in the proverbial foot by different market places, those particular devices may be. The Nook and Kindle Fire come to mind, but keep in mind that those were sold on the premise that they're electronic readers first, that happen to run a modified version of Android.
I feel that you're upset over Android making it harder for you to earn a paycheck. I understand the challenges involved, but I think you're not looking at the big picture.
I moved to Windows Mobile phones from Palm devices because I wanted better synching with my computer, use of the .Net framework, and ease of customization ability. Turned out that WM was not intuitive on my early phones.
I moved from WM to webOS. Loved it. It was intuitive, smooth and reliable. Customization wasn't very easy, but I didn't care. Also, it had support of the big app developers and had some pretty good games too. Unfortunately, it didn't have support of the small-time app devs because of the difficulty writing apps for it. Where is it now?
From there, I knew that webOS was going to be short-lived, so I moved to Android. No, it's not as stable as iOS or webOS, but it is still a great OS. Small devs can get a chance in the app market, along with big-time devs who write cross-platform.
Windows 8 may be a great platform, but the big picture is that there is no cult-following for Microsoft as there is for Apple. What they need to do is give potential-customers options. Those options need to range from inexpensive, to top of the line. Different hardware, in other words (a nightmare for devs). If they don't, and since they don't have a die-hard following, I suspect it wont gain as much ground as Android did, or even webOS.
Apple has a good customer base, and knows what that customer wants. It's an easy sell. Windows customers are far too diverse and can't accept a blanket-type device range to cover all the wants and needs like Apple customers can. Android addresses those customers by providing options because it's an open architecture. Fragmentation sucks for the devs, but the user doesn't care because the typical user only has one device. Those users are why the devs exist at all.
To sum up, I think three things:
1. Your assessment of Android's shortcomings are somewhat short-sighted and not applicable to the big picture. The user wants the experience of the phone, not the apps. Apps are just noise now, with hundreds doing the same thing.
2. Your arguments are falling on deaf ears, or ears that cannot do anything about your complaints (i.e. I don't think Android's authors are reading this thread with much merit).
3. Your arguments would be better suited in the iOS, or Windows 8 sub-forums.
I was thinking about the horror of all the different Android devices when looking at them from a Dev's point of view (which I am NOT) so I appreciate your openness and insight.
The main reason why I will stay away from an iOS tablet for a long time is simply that the interface on a tablet needs to be more flexible than simply arranging icons to start apps. In other words, as long as iOS does not support widgets there's no appeal to me to buy an Apple tablet. Very narrow-minded, I know. Having an iPh*one (3GS) is not optimal but I am still waiting for an Android phone that intrigues me and is NOT linked to VZW.
dreamtheater39 said:
Interesting feedback from all you guys!
Just to clear things out, from where i come from -
-I've always loved android for the flexibility it gives me. I've always made custom roms, modded the hell out of every device i've ever had, starting way back from the Pocket PC days! Android - seemed like the most perfect option for me.
-I've always stayed away from Apple, for a myriad of reasons - they dictate everything, and i hate that. And also, i hate being in the bucket of half wit fanboys who bought one just to be "cool"
-I work for one of the biggest game companies, and i'm responsible for technology direction for smartphones, tablets. So, let me tell you what this looks like from a developer's view point -
A game is always written for iOS first - reason being, the platform is standardized in terms of display resolutions, hardware capabilities. Testing effort is extremely low in comparison (you dont have to test on a 100 devices!)
You have only 2 aspect ratios to deal with - phone & tablet. And you know that your game will run on all the iphones and ipads floating in the world. So this makes it easy from development & testing points of view. And this is the reason why games are "always" developed for iOS first.
Now the fun begins - once the game is done and is out on iTunes, there are large conversion teams which takes care of getting it to run on android phones and tablets. You have to see the hardware inventory we have here - so manyyyy android phones and tablets - and all of these have to be tested to give it a QA greenlight. Even when devices have the same hardware specs, each device behaves differently at times because the manufacturers have written different drivers specific to the device!
And then now, we have honeycomb and ICS - the screen has a static status bar in the bottom which takes away 48 pixels from your screen! Suddenly, your game needs to factor odd resolutions of 1280x752, 1232x800, 1024x552, etc etc. This means - redesigning all your game menus, UI, dialogs so that they dont leak out of the screen - crazy load of work! And then - you can have ONLY ONE APK to support ALL THESE resolutions and hardware configurations!
And then finally to top it all, you have several different market places, custom roms to test on, devices that the developer blacklists because of incompatibility - bypasses blacklisting on the market place because of a custom rom/hack...and he ends up playing the game giving us bad ratings!
The list is endless! I really feel this should not be the case for such a huge platform coming from a really big ass company! Honestly, i feel android made it big because it came in at the right time when the hardware side of things was at a great level - allowing them to give super slick graphics. And they had no other competition (windows mobile was too old, and the other was just iOS). They just got lucky, went without a clear plan - and iteratively refined and fixed things.
Atleast now, I feel Google should really accelerate its efforts towards some form of convergence. Look at the variance that a developer needs to take care of - different hardware configs/specs (ram, storage, processor!) - performance wise, different screen resolutions (a 100 different combinations! literally!), custom roms/modding, different manufacturer driven hardware/software customization, a zillion different OS versions, and so on. All this has to be factored, and we can have only 1 apk! And then finally, the provided android emulator that they provide - is soooo damn sorry, its not even funny. The emulator is literally like a slide show on my really powerful desktop - forget trying to use the built in emulator for developing games!
At the end, the platform lives because of the number of developers who support it. If customers dont have newer and better experiences coming - they would shift boats - its as simple. Making it harder for developers is just shooting yourself in the foot!
-San
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought the name of the game was resolution independence, designing your UI's without depending on absolute values but rather relative values and taking into account resolution size, using DP measurement units instead of PX. The last time I worked on an app was a while ago but even then the app scaled fine from something as small as a Droid 2 to something as large (was large at the time) as a Nook Color or a Galaxy Tab.
So are you saying Apple has it better because they only have two screen sizes? Who cares if there are fifty different screen sizes and fifty different resolutions? If you design your UI and your app correctly with resolution independence in mind it should scale well to most if not every resolution and every aspect ratio shouldn't it?
Even when devices have the same hardware specs, each device behaves differently at times because the manufacturers have written different drivers specific to the device!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you referring to certain things like how device GPU's vary and therefore certain texture compression methods in OpenGL for example only work with ATI GPU's and not PowerVR GPU's and vice versa?
I do agree that fragmentation exists but only between Android versions such as those running 1.5, 1.6, 2.2, 3.0, 4.0, etcetera but you can deal with this. I doubt they'll standardize hardware. Maybe screen sizes, maybe screen resolutions but manufacturers are there to make money, not play equal to every other manufacturer. If HTC wants to release a better phone with a better resolution to make more money Google isn't going to tell them to do otherwise. The only reason this is different with Apple is because Apple is the only one making hardware for their iOS so there are no companies fighting over each other for profits. They can control the whole platform. Obviously with Android you have multiple hardware manufacturers and they're not all part of the same company, they're looking to make profits over each other and that means devices have varying features. That's just how Android is unless Google makes their own devices and restricts Android to Google devices.
I think I would like the idea of uniformity better too, not as strict as Apple but certain things being the same across all vendors. We're heading that way in a sense since Google is requiring all ICS devices to support the Holo theme. I wouldn't be surprised if in the future we get more restrictions from Google but as for forcing manufacturers to make certain hardware? That I truly doubt. Google has made it possible to work with different devices by allowing you to query for different device features such as checking for a keyboard or a trackball or an accelerometer, use resolution independent practices such as DP measurements and relative positioning, it's not as bad as it seems IMO.
different hardware configs/specs (ram, storage, processor
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So? What developer hasn't had to deal with this on virtually every system developed on since the origin of computing? Because Apple managed to create an illusion that this is irrelevant by making a handful of devices with fixed hardware and therefore only having to achieve acceptable performance on those devices? Make the decision to alienate those who don't fit the requirements. Alienating a certain group from support isn't going to be the end of the world. Games are sure to use Tegra 3 and those without Tegra 3 devices might be assed out if the game can't scale down. The world continues...
Tubular said:
I thought the name of the game was resolution independence, designing your UI's without depending on absolute values but rather relative values and taking into account resolution size, using DP measurement units instead of PX. The last time I worked on an app was a while ago but even then the app scaled fine from something as small as a Droid 2 to something as large (was large at the time) as a Nook Color or a Galaxy Tab.
So are you saying Apple has it better because they only have two screen sizes? Who cares if there are fifty different screen sizes and fifty different resolutions? If you design your UI and your app correctly with resolution independence in mind it should scale well to most if not every resolution and every aspect ratio shouldn't it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Of course, a lot of work is done to make things resolution independent. But this is not always easy when you want to have some really complex games designed which is heavy on 2D UI. Full screen dialog boxes, Floating UI options etc. are all part of many big game titles developed and ends up being incredibly hard to port across multiple resolutions/aspect ratios. Try looking at some of the user reviews on games - people complain about the smallest of things and randomly throw in a 1 star rating. For a development company, ratings are everything. If your app gets low ratings, it goes unnoticed and thereby killing your chances of earning decent revenues for breaking even - let alone profitability! The cost of development goes up due to higher requirements for development & testing (multiple devices and other fragmentation issues).
Are you referring to certain things like how device GPU's vary and therefore certain texture compression methods in OpenGL for example only work with ATI GPU's and not PowerVR GPU's and vice versa?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Several things here - PVR textures, many open gl calls behave differently on certain devices - for instance the filtering doesnt work as expected on the samsung line of devices because they have their own driver tweaks applied, some devices crash out on a minor opengl warning, while the other devices ignore and continue to run etc. The point here is, you cant see it running on 1 "TYPE" of device which represents a family (same res, performance specs) and assume it will run on the rest. You can release and iteratively respond to user feedback - but you risk getting low ratings and then your game gets buried under.
So? What developer hasn't had to deal with this on virtually every system developed on since the origin of computing? Because Apple managed to create an illusion that this is irrelevant by making a handful of devices with fixed hardware and therefore only having to achieve acceptable performance on those devices? Make the decision to alienate those who don't fit the requirements. Alienating a certain group from support isn't going to be the end of the world. Games are sure to use Tegra 3 and those without Tegra 3 devices might be assed out if the game can't scale down. The world continues...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
[/QUOTE]
When you build games, the objective is to provide the best graphics to the end user with excellent gameplay. Now, if i have to support several hardware configurations i either have a fallback mechanism to have lower quality on lower device (more dev effort, more costs, more testing), or reduce overall quality of graphics all across (bad quality game - low ratings, low revenues), blacklist lower specced devices (killing potential market share - cutting total revenues, risking break even). This becomes extremely critical especially because the games and apps are sold for a measly $1 and every sale is important!
silversx80 said:
Second, games from the big developers may be released on iOS first, and some may be released on Android first. Without references, your statement in invalid. If you're only referring to your company, then specify that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not all developers need to follow this. But any large sized company will invariably follow this approach - mainly from the point of view of monetization. Right now, the fact is, Android is yet not a platform where the big bucks come from. Its still unfortunately the damn fruit company. And the sheer fact about the difficulty in have a game run on android is a deterrent to release on android first. Its much easier to finish a game for ios, throw it on the marketplace, and quickly see how the game did. If people like it, and you made decent revenues, then you could expand to android - which would take a lot more time, money, effort.
Fourth, the whole reason big mobile-platform app developer companies exist is to make money. Why alienate more than 50% of the market because of screen resolution? That would be lazy and counter-productive to profits.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
true, and thats what i mean by the effort it takes on testing and development makes it a costlier bet! Imagine the capital investment - to house all the phones to test on!
I feel that you're upset over Android making it harder for you to earn a paycheck. I understand the challenges involved, but I think you're not looking at the big picture.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I barely find it hard to earn my paycheck Its my company which has to invest the $$$ to get every game out of the door to hit android markets! And just seeing all the chaos involved in shipping an android title, just makes me wonder why google has made this so complicated! If i have to think from the perspective of having my own startup company making android games - it would give me shivers! Not all companies have the lucky streak of Rovio and those few company that i could handcount.
-San
We may never get Android 5.0
Hi guys just sharing an opinion piece I wrote about the future of Android.
My current theory is that eventually Android could be replaced by Chrome OS, or merged and it could happen as soon as the next major update (5.0)
My article and reasons are here and I just wanted to get some input from you guys: my fellow Android Enthusiasts,
I have one word for you: grammar
there and their, you really should know the difference
I can't believe there is a Firefox OS coming. I mean, sigh... I was a big supporter of firefox for a long time, but finally got sick of the bloat. And I might add I can't stand chrome browser, desktop or mobile. Chrome on the XZ was the worst mobile browser I've ever used.
It's a nice opinion, but do you develop applications yourself?
Here's my opinion, as consumer, an Engineer and an App developer;
Mobile phones aren't about browsing, frankly, I could care less about web on my phone. Putting everything on the web would be a night mare. Further, no scripting language is going to run as fast as native code, yes most Android apps are written in Java, but are then compiled into DBC (Dalvik Byte Code), yes, this runs on a VM (Dalvik-VM), but it's a highly optimised one. Next, we have the NDK, developers can currently write native applications compiled directly into machine code and ran natively on the hardware, again, this can not be replicated in web scripting languages, nor will the speed be matched.
Further, integrating web technologies would rely on an abstraction layer that allowed the web languages to talk to the hardware, guess what, this won't be written in web technologies, and will be written in native.
Mobiles are powerful pocket computers, but they can't be expected to have internet access all the time. Yes, web apps can be stored locally, but shifting completely to the cloud doesn't work everywhere.
Finally, my thought on Chrome OS, I would never use it personally, it's a late entry into a dying breed of desktop computing, worse yet, it's aimed almost entirely at the casual desktop user. Web browsing, desktop publishing, it's the netbook of the 20-teens(2013+).
Firefox lost my interest as my number one browser when they said screw the companies that need test cycles in order to deploy our latest browsers by switching to rapid release cycles of poor quality updates, that came and went faster than any company get put it through their test process. Firefox OS for phone has no interest from me. Ubuntu OS also isn't quite the "full OS" they claimed it to be, in fact, the dev preview wasn't even Ubuntu and was a hypervisor on top of Cyanogenmod (Android).
Shifting to cloud based services is inevitable, but to have entirely web based OSs such as the ChromeOS is ridiculous currently.
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion, feel free to disagree, but structure and debate please.
I cringed at the title.
alias_neo said:
It's a nice opinion, but do you develop applications yourself?
Here's my opinion, as consumer, an Engineer and an App developer;
Mobile phones aren't about browsing, frankly, I could care less about web on my phone. Putting everything on the web would be a night mare. Further, no scripting language is going to run as fast as native code, yes most Android apps are written in Java, but are then compiled into DBC (Dalvik Byte Code), yes, this runs on a VM (Dalvik-VM), but it's a highly optimised one. Next, we have the NDK, developers can currently write native applications compiled directly into machine code and ran natively on the hardware, again, this can not be replicated in web scripting languages, nor will the speed be matched.
Further, integrating web technologies would rely on an abstraction layer that allowed the web languages to talk to the hardware, guess what, this won't be written in web technologies, and will be written in native.
Mobiles are powerful pocket computers, but they can't be expected to have internet access all the time. Yes, web apps can be stored locally, but shifting completely to the cloud doesn't work everywhere.
Finally, my thought on Chrome OS, I would never use it personally, it's a late entry into a dying breed of desktop computing, worse yet, it's aimed almost entirely at the casual desktop user. Web browsing, desktop publishing, it's the netbook of the 20-teens(2013+).
Firefox lost my interest as my number one browser when they said screw the companies that need test cycles in order to deploy our latest browsers by switching to rapid release cycles of poor quality updates, that came and went faster than any company get put it through their test process. Firefox OS for phone has no interest from me. Ubuntu OS also isn't quite the "full OS" they claimed it to be, in fact, the dev preview wasn't even Ubuntu and was a hypervisor on top of Cyanogenmod (Android).
Shifting to cloud based services is inevitable, but to have entirely web based OSs such as the ChromeOS is ridiculous currently.
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion, feel free to disagree, but structure and debate please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
agree :good:
hebbe said:
agree :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
nosebleed
Sent from my C6603 using xda app-developers app
alias_neo said:
It's a nice opinion, but do you develop applications yourself?
Here's my opinion, as consumer, an Engineer and an App developer;
Mobile phones aren't about browsing, frankly, I could care less about web on my phone. Putting everything on the web would be a night mare. Further, no scripting language is going to run as fast as native code, yes most Android apps are written in Java, but are then compiled into DBC (Dalvik Byte Code), yes, this runs on a VM (Dalvik-VM), but it's a highly optimised one. Next, we have the NDK, developers can currently write native applications compiled directly into machine code and ran natively on the hardware, again, this can not be replicated in web scripting languages, nor will the speed be matched.
Further, integrating web technologies would rely on an abstraction layer that allowed the web languages to talk to the hardware, guess what, this won't be written in web technologies, and will be written in native.
Mobiles are powerful pocket computers, but they can't be expected to have internet access all the time. Yes, web apps can be stored locally, but shifting completely to the cloud doesn't work everywhere.
Finally, my thought on Chrome OS, I would never use it personally, it's a late entry into a dying breed of desktop computing, worse yet, it's aimed almost entirely at the casual desktop user. Web browsing, desktop publishing, it's the netbook of the 20-teens(2013+).
Firefox lost my interest as my number one browser when they said screw the companies that need test cycles in order to deploy our latest browsers by switching to rapid release cycles of poor quality updates, that came and went faster than any company get put it through their test process. Firefox OS for phone has no interest from me. Ubuntu OS also isn't quite the "full OS" they claimed it to be, in fact, the dev preview wasn't even Ubuntu and was a hypervisor on top of Cyanogenmod (Android).
Shifting to cloud based services is inevitable, but to have entirely web based OSs such as the ChromeOS is ridiculous currently.
DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion, feel free to disagree, but structure and debate please.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Very good points. I mean why would they kill something which is already working well. Think what happened to Windows 8, it turned out to be
sort of like Vista. Companies need to innovate, but usually it doesn't go as what they desire, but understanding the perception of the user
is not a straight forward task.
Rchard said:
Very good points. I mean why would they kill something which is already working well. Think what happened to Windows 8, it turned out to be
sort of like Vista. Companies need to innovate, but usually it doesn't go as what they desire, but understanding the perception of the user
is not a straight forward task.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is too mature to be killed, it would be like google want to commit suicide... And if i remember well there is a few more corp is involved in android like htc, samsung, sony, huawei , and a few others, and spooks as well , we probably don't know. Android is a perfect spying platform and more then half of the devices on internet constantly. Who would kill that info net??
IOS will die before android, until then it will continue to thrive just like Window OS on your laptop or desktop.
too bad for Apple, they never stay in the lead.
My pov as an marketer,
You cant pull something out of the market when its doing so well at this time or later. Maybe when android becomes crap then yes.
Currently android OS is dominating the global market share. Do you really think they would stop jewing money when they can still jew more? Thats completely suicidal. Android came a long way since it was launched and surpassing iOS or came to being recognized by everyone around the globe.
You know we're in 2013 and everything in business is about money money money, Android OS is definitely one of their major income.
Android will die, but not so soon. maybe a few more years till consumers are tired of it, or when something better takes over the market. How google will keep updating android is unknown, whether android 5.0 will come or not remains unknown, but one thing im sure of is that android wont die that early.
LitoNi said:
My pov as an marketer,
You cant pull something out of the market when its doing so well at this time or later. Maybe when android becomes crap then yes.
Currently android OS is dominating the global market share. Do you really think they would stop jewing money when they can still jew more? Thats completely suicidal. Android came a long way since it was launched and surpassing iOS or came to being recognized by everyone around the globe.
You know we're in 2013 and everything in business is about money money money, Android OS is definitely one of their major income.
Android will die, but not so soon. maybe a few more years till consumers are tired of it, or when something better takes over the market. How google will keep updating android is unknown, whether android 5.0 will come or not remains unknown, but one thing im sure of is that android wont die that early.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jewing?? Really?
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Gez77 said:
nosebleed
Sent from my C6603 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
what does that mean
are you boring?
sahinz said:
are you boring?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks
I love Mozilla, but from what I've read it doesn't seem like there is really any point to Firefox OS.
Other than flaming me, could you please list some specifics as to why it's beneficial?
I've talked to a lot of people in person about it and they all seem to talk about potential to grow like Android. The main problem I see with this is that whereas Android filled an obvious gap in the market, Firefox OS is trying to carve a niche in now heavily fortified waters. The fact that Windows Mobile both says they'll be happy for 1% of the market, buys off Nokia and pays off devs to port apps, it should be a pretty clear sign this will be a major challenge for Mozilla when a company with a scrooge mcduck tower of cash is piling money on the issue and still getting limited results.
For the record, I'm going to install it on my of my old devices just to play around with it but in the meantime if anyone could pose a good argument for Firefox OS then I'd all ears. It'd be nice to know the time I'll spend setting it up is worth more than just curiosity and Mozilla sympathy.
Or just flame me and call me a noob
in my opinion, we definitely need firefox os. if it will be of any advantage for your user experience, is heavily dependent of its success. but it's the only smartphone os, that uses a really open approach. since most apps are shortcuts for browsing to a certain web page on your smartphone, basing the whole os on a browsing engine makes a lot of sense. and it makes lots of things easier for devs.
It seems promising to have a fully custoimizable and open source OS for low end phones. FOS could extend the lifetime of many phones which is a nice perspective instead of throwing away functional hardware.
FirefoxOS is:
Customisable, free
Hardware UN-requiring
This means that low end phones can use the fos because they don't need powerful hardware, and poorer people in countries like Brazil or Ghana can use modern phones for little price. It's not really meant for our newer phones high-end.
defender of the Open Web
Most important is that Firefox OS seems to be the most tangible defence to keep our Open Web environment from becoming closed. With Firefox OS, the millions of new users from Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Central / South America who are now just starting to buy low cost smart-phones will enjoy using, coding and Creating in Java and HTML 5, and be free to ignore 5.1 with its restrictions such as DRM.
Right now, the Web, Free and Open as we know it seems to be dying! Here's what Danny Obrien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote on October 2 (link to full article after the quote):-
… where you cannot cut and paste text; where your browser can’t “Save As…” an image; where the “allowed” uses of saved files are monitored beyond the browser; where JavaScript is sealed away in opaque tombs; and maybe even where we can no longer effectively “View Source” on some sites, is a very different Web from the one we have today. It’s a Web where user agents—browsers—must navigate a nest of enforced duties every time they visit a page.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/lowering-your-standards
I think why people should bother with B2G/Firefox OS is because it's not as complicated as Android - Android has a bunch of stuff that most of the time people won't even bother using so that's one benefit with B2G... Apart from the fact that it's not very hardware dependent, it's also simple and fast and aims at open source which Android seems to be lacking nowadays...
Because no Google there..
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Because we like to evolve, have choices and detest monopoly (imagineyou turning into an android ;p)
Becouse is extra
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No google, is the point!
I would love to see FireFox as an mobile /tablet platform, because it has given middleware which can run webapps. which i feel is far better than any other achievement unlike any other platform where middleware are heavy sometimes VM's to run app in UI. Firefox gives ability to run apps with PC like standards(HTML5, CSS3) etc.
i personally tested and best thing is there search is quite competing with google search for Android. try one .
Lot of other competeres try making webapps as there UI framework but fais may be because there inexperience, i am hoping Firefox with there vast knowledge can create a ecosystem where mobile ui/ PC ui will became synonyms. in that case nothing except a good webkit will solve all issues. till then we can wait.
~Amit
amorley said:
I love Mozilla, but from what I've read it doesn't seem like there is really any point to Firefox OS.
Other than flaming me, could you please list some specifics as to why it's beneficial?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In 2002 and 2003, the world was saying the same thing about Mozilla's browser. What's the point? IE 6 was pretty amazing (seriously!) when it came out and most Web developers I talked to were happy to have one target client. That sentiment was very different after 2005 when Firefox demonstrated to the world that the Web was stagnating. Most Web developers changed their tunes and started demanding Microsoft release newer versions with modern capabilities and erase IE 6 from the face of the Earth.
Mozilla is a non-profit dedicated to pushing the boundaries of what's possible with Web technology while putting users at the center of their computing experience. We are here with no other agenda. We're not trying to sell ads. We're not trying to sell hardware. We're not trying to grow subscribers. We're trying to put users in more control and to expand the possibilities for the best operating system ever created -- the Web.
That's enough reason for me.
- Asa
(15 year Mozilla veteran)
As a developer I love it because I don't need to code twice (at best) if I want my app to work on multiple devices, screen sizes, OSs, future OSs, etc. The WEB is the platform so my app can easily intercomunicate with other webapps regardless of their underlying technology, because the WEB has standards. This will result in better and rich apps with better and rich services WITHOUT being enslaved by any platform/SDK specifics.
FirefoxOS is the next common-sense step on mobile technology and I'm pretty sure we are going to see Boot2Webkit, Boot2Blink, from the other companies... and if we don't, we will see more companies following the same fate as Nokia, Microsoft...
amorley said:
I love Mozilla, but from what I've read it doesn't seem like there is really any point to Firefox OS.
Other than flaming me, could you please list some specifics as to why it's beneficial?
I've talked to a lot of people in person about it and they all seem to talk about potential to grow like Android. The main problem I see with this is that whereas Android filled an obvious gap in the market, Firefox OS is trying to carve a niche in now heavily fortified waters. The fact that Windows Mobile both says they'll be happy for 1% of the market, buys off Nokia and pays off devs to port apps, it should be a pretty clear sign this will be a major challenge for Mozilla when a company with a scrooge mcduck tower of cash is piling money on the issue and still getting limited results.
For the record, I'm going to install it on my of my old devices just to play around with it but in the meantime if anyone could pose a good argument for Firefox OS then I'd all ears. It'd be nice to know the time I'll spend setting it up is worth more than just curiosity and Mozilla sympathy.
Or just flame me and call me a noob
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Because Mozilla is helping build a internet the world needs and has been for years. Mozilla is also the most privacy focused company making software and has won awards backing that.
I've been trying hard to get our teams to develop for it but there doesn't seem to be much enthusiasm for it in China...
I have the Mozilla Flame phone and currently it's stable version is Firefox OS 2.0 and honestly, the improvements they've made make FFOS more unique and beneficial for the user. It's almost up to scratch, just a one or two releases and the features will be there. The speed already is there.
to be free from the grasps of a company who spys on your every move
As a user since version 1.0 on a ZTE Open, I have to say that I don't see a single compelling reason for an end-user to buy a FFXOS device, other than possibly price (debatable: many Android handsets fall into nearly the same price point, and the Lumia 520 is basically the same price as the ZTE Open C and better in every possible regard).
I get that it is an incredibly important vision that Mozilla have for the future of HTML5 and apps, but that matters most on the back end for developers and those who provide apps and services. I also understand that Mozilla have made great efforts to ensure that Open WebAPI is as painless as possible for developers to use, and that using very few lines of code, you can write powerful solutions. These are all fantastic things, and the web and technology in general stand to benefit massively from this.
However, from a purely end-user point of view, I find the UI/UX to be lagging severely behind every other platform, not to mention the relatively poor functionality of the stock apps. They do nothing other platforms don't do better.
The performance is abysmal, even on the Flame, and the battery life fluctuates wildly and does not impress me at all given my usage pattern.
I've filed endless amounts of suggestions for expansion and improvements to UI/UX and 99% of the time am met with blind reticence.
The feel I get is not that this is a platform for everyone by everyone, but a platform for a very small subset of the population (which if you analyze what the platform ships with stock and how they market it, Mozilla seems to have no idea who this population is) controlled by a team with a death-grip on it, fingers in their ears, blindfolds on, chanting "This is perfect, this is perfect, you don't know what you're talking about!".
People's tepid response to the platform and its slow adoption rate should stand as testimony to the fact that the platform is far from perfect.
****, the keyboard STILL sucks complete ass even on v2.2 nightly. Something as fundamental as the primary ****ing input method still isn't even done half-assed correct, so what do you think the rest of the experience is like?
Such a frustrating platform... I really wanted this to be the Phoenix that takes the principles and ideals of webOS from the ashes and sets the world of technology on fire, but it looks more like a poof of smoke at this point.
I'll continue daily-driving the Flame, I'll continue filing bugs and suggestions, and I'll likely continue to pull my hair out in frustration. Hopefully at some point all of my frustration will amount to something positive and I'll be able to whole-heartedly endorse this platform to other end-users and evangelize for it. Currently, that is not even a remote possibility.
Because we should be more principled and not support companies that pay no tax.
I wonder how many people are actually using FFOS as their only phone.
I have a ZTE Open, I am downloading and compiling FFOS builds once every few weeks, hack around just for fun.
But I have an Android for my daily use.
Hello,
I would like to know if anyone can test two apps, the only two really important to me.
Opera for android: apkpure.com/opera-with-free-vpn
ProtonMail: apkpure.com/protonmail-encrypte
I have not yet buy the phone, I would just like to know if the app works really well.
I do not want android phone or apple, I do not like the interface of these 2, too geek, not at all pro.
Can someone try to install these 2 app on his 950? And tell me if it works well?
Do you have tips for installing apk on Windows phone?
Can you please try to install those apps for us and make a small tutorial ?
The Lumia 950 and 950 XL are Windows powered phones. They don't run Android. Windows 10 Mobile has no notion of what an apk file is. It has it's own package.
Despite an excellent phone (if you don't care about apps, beside the select popular ones, and open to Microsoft ecosystem of the time), I would advice not getting it. The ecosystem is gone.
Support for the OS has been terminated from Microsoft (including security update end of last month). The phone got almost 4 years of support. It is a very old phone. Support of apps are being terminated if they are not already. In addition, the battery probably needs to be changed, and finding a good one (and not a cheap one or old production one), due to the very low popularity of the device, will be difficult. A poor or old battery results in fluctuating power delivery, mixed with the phone design flaw of not being able to manage this issue properly, leads to strange behaviors including random restarts and crashes.
The only web browser you have on this phone, are all using Edge web browser engine. And sadly, a growing number of sites are not fairing well, because the version of Edge on the phone is now old (much older than Edge on full Windows 10 on PCs), and already the web browser has a very small percentage of usage, and even that is being scrapped to be replaced with a new Edge that Microsoft is working on, which is based on Chromium engine. Keep in mind that "Windows 10 Mobile" is not "Windows 10". They are 2 different OSs. To be clear, the only similarities are some underground kernel level components, APIs, and the fact that they can run UWP apps, the name, but that is about it. It cannot run Windows executable files (*.exe). They are none with VPN. You can setup VPN on the phone if you want, which you'll need to toggle on/off when needed.
For Mail, your options is the Windows 10 Mail app which comes with it.
As for Maps, it is the same one as Windows 10, which hasn't been updated since Windows 10 Mobile was discontinued. It features old maps that are over 1 year old, possibly more depending on your region.
never buy apple or public star android
This is so bad, the 950xl have a better performance , a largely better screen quality and a largely better sound than the others Lumia or Google phones , for half price than a pixel 3 or a Lumia 8.1 ...
Microsoft was very good on hardware , specially the screen quality.
Google and Apple are billionnaires, who *insert at will* all users datas on their phones... Totally lose their minds about internet freedom place and give all datas to governement who *insert at will* people with stupid and non human laws and taxes.
You cant imagine what is it buying an Android or a Apple phone interface for me.
Hope Microsoft Will reborn and take advantage of all good skilled developers , instead of making some big browser without an well and easy dev console.
The last question is :
Is OPERA MINI old xapp file will be different than edge browser , and can it be Install with a tool ?
mayapi said:
This is so bad, the 950xl have a better performance
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Click to collapse
Hmm no. That is not true (or I am not sure I follow you). In fact, a Snapdragon (and yes that has shocked me) 670 (the one in the Pixel 3a, as example) is actually a bit faster than the Snapdragon 810 in the Lumia 950 XL. Qualcomm managed to really push performance forward over the years (~4 years). And in addition, the newer Qualcomm chips are much harder to throttle than the 810, due to their much reduced power consumption under load. While Microsoft brought some PC innovation like heatpipes to the Lumia 950 XL making it the few phones on the market with the 810 that could actually record 4K continuously without skipping after 30sec or so (due to throttling), it is still can throttle if you can take a lot of pictures in a row with little pause (due to the post processing on images) and other extended demanding tasks. So yes, at the time of release it as great, today, it is really not, sadly.
a largely better screen quality and a largely better sound than the others Lumia or Google phones , for half price than a pixel 3 or a Lumia 8.1 ...
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Click to collapse
At the time of release, sure. However, today and since a few years ago (and longer for some) many phone manufactures, add some color preference adjustment like the Lumia series has, so you can adjust things somewhat. I have to say, that one thing surprised is that both iPhones and Android powered phone still doesn't have automatic contrast adjustment to make the screen more visible to read under the sunlight. It only relies on the screen being able to be bright enough. That said, Microsoft doesn't make screens. OLED is made by 2 main manufactures in the world: LG and Samsung. For mass production product, these are essentially your only choices as a phone manufacture.
Microsoft was very good on hardware , specially the screen quality.
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Click to collapse
Yes they were, same as Nokia. And we can see that skill continue today with the Surface line systems and the XBox One S and X model (which where made by the Surface team, contrary to the first release model of the XBox One).
Sadly, while they had amazing hardware, the software was lacking, and developer support was already dying when Windows Phone 7 was released.
Ballmer monkey'ing around and screening "developers developers developers" doesn't do **** to grow developer interest in Windows when you have nothing to deliver, not to mention (at least based on leaks and rumors) complete miss management on many aspect of the company at the time. Including but not limited to different teams discourage to help other teams, have teams re-invent the wheel for something that already exists in the company, missing out on huge market opportunities, ignoring competitors despite internal alerts being raised, upper management and CEO being disconnected from reality in their own bubble, treating the company like it is the 90's while we are well into the 2000's. making the Windows Phone team fight for survival internally since day 1, lacking resources and internal political power to do their job. Forcing Microsoft employees and developers to use their own frameworks and solutions which many are rushed out, and as a result poorly done and clunky to work with, just to have a "Microsoft solution" of something that already exists in the market and has been there for years being polished and took all its time to develop correctly and be optimized. Not to mention that Microsoft never put actual effort in selling Windows phones, with 0 advertisement, and 0 bonuses of any kind to cellphone store and providers while both Apple and pretty much all Android manufactures, gave substantial returns to sales staff and companies to promote and push their device. This has greatly helped Samsung and Apple, and look where they are now.... Anyway, I am going on a tangent.
Returning back, all this has changed. Of course, it isn't a next day thing. Company culture, especially of the size of Microsoft, takes a long time to change, but results shows. When now, today, you have Windows 10 on ARM, not even officially launched, just soft lunched, with expensive, limited quantity, primarily US only, ARMed based systems, fraction of the current Windows 10 Mobile user base, has more developer excitement for then Windows Phone as a whole, shows how things turned. Heck, no one used to care about icons being changed in Windows 10 and Office, now it is all the rage. An extreme soft launch OS, already has big player interest without the company throwing any money at developers. Just on top of my head you have: Firefox, Chrome, Chromium, (and of course, the new Chromium Edge), and full VLC on Windows 10 on ARM or is in the active works.
Microsoft has changed, they are open, they actually listen, actually do serious actions to promote developers interest, knows where it can and can't compete and goes its own way, and let competition take its course, allow Microsoft employees to use whatever is available outside of the company to make great software and great experiences for the user.
So yes, I am sure that if they try again (not yet, however, later), things can be different. But there is still a lot of work to be done for the company. They still need to continue to work on their image, and shows that time have indeed changed for the company.
Google and Apple are billionnaires, who all users datas on their phones... Totally lose their minds about internet freedom place and give all datas to governement who people with stupid and non human laws and taxes.
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Click to collapse
Hmmm... Do I go in Microsoft dark history? If I do, you'll probably hate the company as much as Google and Apple, if not more. Company direction have changed. If we go by today, Apple has been much more protective of user personal data than Microsoft (and of course Google). Their business model is selling services (and one can say accessories too, based on their financial reports). That is their focus. Microsoft is complicated, because they touch a multitude of products and services, and you have products and service that crosses each other. For example, Microsoft does sell your user data if you use Bing, and Microsoft/Bing advertisement platform (which Windows 8/10 made apps can use).
However, if it is a question of trust, or "least evil" from your perspective:
You can limit what Google get from you if you have an Android device. Nothing stops you from installing Microsoft excellent and well reviewed Launcher to replace the Google's launcher, if you use Pixel device, or don't like the manufacture of the device one. You can also use the many great apps from Microsoft on Android including Edge web browser. The only thing that will touch Google is if you use Google Pay feature (which I don't think it is actually a deal braker) and Google Play Store (you could use alternative stores technically, but let's assume you want the best security mixed with a large store where you are sure to find everything at their latest versions as they are released). Same for using Cortana instead of Google Assistance.
Mix that Android phone with Windows 10 "Your Phone" feature, and you are set with a similar/better experience that what Windows 10 Mobile users used to get (MS pulled the plug on this).
You cant imagine what is it buying an Android or Apple phone interface for me.
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Click to collapse
First, let's stay professional, please.
Second, I can perfectly relate, (as I am looking at my Lumia 950 XL that I am actually using as main device), this is not helped that Windows Phone 7, 8 and Windows 10 Mobile had many features that was ahead of their time. But with Android Q on the way, and with "Your Phone" (at least if you are part of Windows 10 Insider program, not sure how it is on the official release version as of the moment of writing), feature parity with Windows 10 Mobile, and has it's own benefits and feature set that Windows 10 Mobile didn't have.
The last question is :
Is OPERA MINI old xapp file will be different than edge browser , and can it be Install with a tool ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope. Any web browser found in the MS Store had to comply with the fact that they had to use the OS built-in web browser engine. The same policy applies for iOS devices, but not Android.
---------- Post added at 03:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:05 PM ----------
Personally, I am getting Pixel 3 or 3a soon (haven't yet decided. Not interested in the Pixel 4 ugly design).
Why?
-> Yes, it is Google and I don't like it, but I know I'll stick to Microsoft ecosystem for the most part.
-> Unlike Apple, I can switch to Microsoft ecosystem for the most part.
-> Google did demonstrate to me, that yes they do provide 3 years of support in both security and sofware update. I expect to get not only Android Q with the Pixel 3a, if go with it, but also Android R and S, beside the security updates and firmware updates.
-> Android has custom ROMs powered by a large and active community, so if there is anything, I can switch separating myself more from Google, and have, in some ways, extended device support.
-> Pixel 3/3a series has genuinely a better camera than the Lumia 950 XL, justifying the upgrade for me. The Lumia 950 XL did have a camera that was, in my opinion, 3 years ahead of the competition. While these days are over, it is nice to actually get an updated camera and not one equivalent, or worst a downgrade.
Toilet Paper said:
(...) -> Pixel 3/3a series has genuinely a better camera than the Lumia 950 XL, justifying the upgrade for me. (...)
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Click to collapse
Google Pixel 3a VS. Microsoft Lumia 950: Comparison
I would not be so sure that the equipment, ten times more expensive, is worth its price only because of the camera.
Lumia 950 is currently very cheap on the secondary market.
If someone does not have, I recommend that you buy this model for the pleasure of owning and using good equipment.
I am an enthusiast of the android, but I can also appreciate good solutions on a different platform.
ok google, please spy my apple
ze7zez said:
I would not be so sure that the equipment, ten times more expensive, is worth its price only because of the camera.
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Click to collapse
Buying a phone at the price of UHD TV is not a good argument for justify the fresh tech inside.
For this reason, i will never buy a phone that display a half of a tv for double price.
I think essentialy to Apple who let users think its a good opportunity to be usefull in buying a 4k display smartphone for the triple price of the 4K Tv, assumong it is less ressources... Less ressources ok but less cost also mister Cook ! :laugh:
mayapi said:
Hello,
I would like to know if anyone can test two apps, the only two really important to me.
Opera for android: apkpure.com/opera-with-free-vpn
ProtonMail: apkpure.com/protonmail-encrypte
I have not yet buy the phone, I would just like to know if the app works really well.
I do not want android phone or apple, I do not like the interface of these 2, too geek, not at all pro.
Can someone try to install these 2 app on his 950? And tell me if it works well?
Do you have tips for installing apk on Windows phone?
Can you please try to install those apps for us and make a small tutorial ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
BTW WIndows has a built-in VPN system. Android has it too, but I like Windows more.
MOD ACTION:
mayapi said:
ok google, please spy my apple
Buying a phone at the price of UHD TV is not a good argument for justify the fresh tech inside.
For this reason, i will never buy a phone that display a half of a tv for double price.
I think essentialy to Apple who let users think its a good opportunity to be usefull in buying a 4k display smartphone for the triple price of the 4K Tv, assumong it is less ressources... Less ressources ok but less cost also mister Cook ! :laugh:
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Click to collapse
I have edited your post since it is in violation of our forum rules. As a friendly reminder, here is an excerpt of those mentioned rules:
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2.5 All members are expected to read and adhere to the XDA rules.
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Please refrain from this kind of language and try to make a point in a reasonable and respectful manner.
As a new member I understand that you still have to adapt to this enviroment. I am sure you understand the point of my message.
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mrjuniork (Forum Moderator)