Posted: December 28th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Apps, hardware, Lifestyle | Tags: a1, acer, backflip, calgary, CES, Google, htc, legend, LG, mips, motorola, nexus one, nvidia, passion, pixel, prada 3, qi, qualcomm, Saygus, snapdragon, tegra, tensilica, vphone | Comments Off
I’ll be at CES for Betanews again this year, and in addition to BN reporting and lending a hand on the Plan8 Podcast, I’ll be singling out Android goodies in my usual fashion. To simultaneously whet your appetitie for next week, and help me remember the booths to visit, here are some of the Android drops I’ll be looking for in the miles of floorspace at CES:
- Notion Ink Android Tablet (with Pixel Qi “transflective” display and nvidia Tegra GPU)
- Snapdragon-powered (1GHz) Devices (Passion/Nexus One/more)
- Qualcomm’s newest mobile chipsets
- LG Prada 3 or other devices from LG
- MIPS/ Tensilica System-on-a-Chip for Android-powered audio devices
- Rumored Dell Android Tablet, pretty much anything Android from Dell
- Saygus Vphone - the CES Innovation award-winning 2-way video phone running Android
- A ton more devices from HTC (Legend? All those from that supposed leaked roadmap) and Motorola (Backflip, Calgary, etc?)
- Nvidia Tegra 2
- More platform-defining apps, possibly from Google…but not necessarily.
Posted: December 12th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Apps | Tags: 1.6, 2.0, accessibility, Android, app, blog, donut, doyon, droid, eclair, feed, Google, hero, htc, icevox, motorola, olpc, read, reader, rss, speak, speech, stephanie, talkback, talking, text, text to speech, to, tts, xo-1 | Comments Off
When we first saw Android 1.6 (donut) long long ago, we heard about the accessibility features afforded by the text-to-speech engine made by SVOX. By default, your donut device doesn’t have the speech libraries loaded, and you have to add them yourself. Eclair-based devices such as the Motorola Droid, however, come with the speech function fully loaded and ready to rock.
To turn it on, go to Menu> settings > accessibility, click on the “accessibility” checkbox, and then click on the “TalkBack” checkbox. A warning box pops up telling you that it will read things such as credit card numbers aloud and that it “may be able to collect the data you type, ” so be careful..
When you have TalkBack turned on, all it really does is verbally tell you where you are, such as the home screen, sub-menus or URLs. It also reads pop-up messages and warnings, but that’s the limit of it.
But I started thinking the other day that maybe TalkBack could come in handy if I could highlight text and have it read aloud, sort of like what you can do on many Kindle books, and what you can do with Speech in OS X. Since I have to edit other people’s documents for work, I’m always using speech. I even have a macro set up to highlight all text in this one field and automatically launch the voice reader. So yeah, I thought it would be cool to have TalkBack read my Google News or Techmeme headlines to me as I’m driving or walking the dog or something.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found a solution that doesn’t require the installation of another application. I try to highlight and copy text with menu-e on the Droid, which then copies my selection to the clipboard. But then I have no access to the clipboard to read my selection.
So what the hell…I downloaded Talking RSS Reader by Google Engineer Stephanie Doyon, which integrates with Google Reader. It doesn’t use the nice built-in Android reader voice, but the Linux text-to-speech voice which I now equate with the dumb smiley face on the OLPC “Speak” program. I got my niece an XO-1 for Christmas last year, and she spent quite a lot of time playing with the Speak app, making it just go “fhfhahfhfhehehehehnfmsisisisioep” and such…over and over and over.
This is the guy I picture reading my RSS feeds in Talking RSS Reader. Or more accurately, I picture him reading every single bit of text in every article in my feed in order. When you use this app, half of the time it’s going to be saying things like “image link, image link, image link, image link, image link” and other such useless info that I don’t want to hear. It’s the worst in blogs because it reads all the usernames, link names, comments, and stuff. Talking RSS reader is free and alright, but it’s better for reading the full text of articles in sequential order rather than just reading headlines. I want something that will just speak all the headlines to me in a clear voice, and have speech recognition so I can say something like “read that one!” and it will stop its listing and drill down into the article I chose. That kind of app would be awesome for commuters, and I guess I have to continue my search.
Talking RSS reader crashed on me quite a few times when I was playing with it, but it didn’t ever throw up an error message. The app just silently closed, which I guess is kind of less annoying, but still bad. I won’t uninstall this yet, as I intend to use it in the car, but it’s really not quite what I had in mind.
Posted: October 27th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, api, camera, developer, eclair, g1, Google, htc, html5, LG, Mobile, motoblur, motorola, OS, screen, sholes, t-mobile, touch, touchscreen, update, verizon | 1 Comment »
Today, Android SDK Tech lead Xavier Ducrohet announced Android 2.0 support in the SDK, which unveils some of the big capabilities in the latest version of Android, expected to hit the market soon on at least one of Verizon’s upcoming “Droid” devices. In the developer video posted today, for instance, all the new features were shown off on a device connected to the Verizon network, and the release notes say it will be deployable in November.
The keyword with Eclair is interoperability.
Motorola recently launched its custom Android build with a UI called MotoBLUR, the central function of which is the ability to integrate with a user’s many social web services from a single interface. The new APIs included in Eclair give this communicative function to all developers. So with the new Account Manager API, developers can centrally store account credentials on the device, the Contacts application can now sync and aggregate contact data from multiple accounts, and the Sync Adaptors API provides full two-way contact sync with ANY backend.
To provide a single, unified face for this data, the Quick Contact function has been added. By clicking on a contact’s picture, a user can pull up a menu of all the different ways to reach that contact…Gmail, Email, IM, Phone, and the various Social networks. It’s like the existent “live folder” concept for contacts, but brought together under the standard contact list, or in any app the developer chooses.
Android 2.0 also updates the Bluetooth API so apps can now access Bluetooth controls to discover, connect and share information with nearby devices, which unlocks the ability to make peer-to-peer and proximity-based applications.
The built-in Android browser has been updated with a refreshed UI with an actionable address bar, bookmarks sorted by thumbnail, double-tap zoom command, and HTML5 support, which opens up Application cache, client-side SQL databases, geolocation API support, and fullscreen video tag support.
The camera app has again been tweaked, but this time it includes digital zoom (with macro mode), built-in color effects (posterize, solarize, etc) and built-in flash support.
It even adds Exchange Support and includes Multi-touch support for the soft keyboard.
Throw this out there with the upcoming availability of Verizon Droids, the Sony Racheal, and whatever else is coming out, and we’ve got a really huge quarter for Android. I’m gonna start doing video blogs soon, it just takes a bit longer to write and record them.
Posted: October 24th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Google | Tags: alliance, Android, cookies, foundation, Google, handset, htc, linux, monetization, motorola, nokia, open, open source, operating system, samsung, symbian, uiq, user data | No Comments »
GigaOM struck gold with a video of Symbian’s Lee Williams criticizing Google for poisoning the well with its Android business model. It’s an absolute must-watch.
Here’s the meat of it, taken as a direct quote:
“First and foremost, the goal of a Google system would be to create a situation where you have information about the user and the use of…those cloud apps that are proprietary to Google. Secondarily, it would be to cookie them, so you get that unique identifier association with the data you’ve collected on the individual’s habits and routines, etc, so you can target apps toward them, so you can build more intelligent cloud-based apps for them and so forth. At the end of the day, what is the motivation for any other company in an Android ecosystem when in fact the consumers are being taken right away from them just in some of these simple concepts?”
“Android is building almost the perfect storm of fragmentation in a large marketplace, I don’t know how many different UIs are shipping and how many people claim to own them across the 18 devices in development. More than that, they continue to do the revenue share deals with the operators and leverage the benefit of these cookied consumers…how many different UIs and closed APIs you’re gonna end up with in that scenario becomes a very big question on how do you sustain and return on investments in that type of environment?”
“I don’t hate Android at all, I think it’s a great initiative. But what I think Google should do is come be a member of the Symbian Foundation and join a truly open ecosystem where anybody can come and sit on a council seat and determine the future of that system, instead of advertising that they have one and going in their own direction.”
…I stripped out the part where he calls Apple greedy and Google evil. That was a bit of a “sweeps week” comment, but Williams’ comment is nonetheless very interesting because he’s cutting Google down for building an open ecosystem that has a closed monetization scheme.
Then, talking about his relationship with handset makers like Samsung, HTC and Motorola, Williams said companies have come to him and said “…One of the issues I’ve got is that Google is taking my interface with my consumers away.”
Let’s see if I have this right…Google gives you the open source framework and shares the revenue and all it costs you is the user’s behavioral data? And in exchange, users get high-quality services for free?
What’s the problem, exactly?
I’m sure my view is oversimplifying it, and my knowledge of Symbian’s inner workings is poor. However, I do know that it’s very easy for a nonprofit organization to vilify a group that is working for profit as “greedy” or “evil,” especially when their customers are the exact same companies.
I guess that’s why he extended the invitation to join the foundation instead of a big old fuck off.
Posted: October 20th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: alex, Android, att, barnes, Barnes & Noble, book, e ink, e paper, e-book, e-reader, electrophoretic, Google, irex, kindle, noble, nook, plastic logic, reader, sony, spring design, sprint, touch, touchscreen, vizplex | No Comments »
Never mind that bullshit about the Spring Design “Alex” yesterday. Total patent troll “prior art” move. The Barnes and Noble Nook is real and it’s making me drool.
I’m a Kindle 2 owner and fan. I love how easy it is to read, I love how thin and light it is, I love the free connection to Sprint’s “Now Network” (I wish you could add more quotes around a phrase to increase the sarcasm/attitude/cynicism) . Obviously, I’m also extremely focused on the Android operating system, ecosystem, and lifestyle. So nook really excites me.
I was tempted to rush out my first Android Bakery video podcast to talk about the nook. But I held off.
nook eReader - Android power
There’s no shortage of news about nook right now. I wrote about it on Betanews earlier today, saying that it somehow managed to combine the spirit of two most “walled garden” tech devices (iphone and kindle) to make a new, uber desirable device.
But the thing is, we don’t know where it fits in the Android family. I contacted B&N this afternoon to see if they could get me in touch with a developer who could explain, just how much of an Android device the nook really is, but I haven’t heard back from them yet. That’s how excited I am. I’m posting a story before I even have any useful info. Just check back, I’ll have something good.
Posted: October 15th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2.0, Android, att, cupcake, donut, eclair, Eric Schmidt, g1, Google, motorola, rumor, t-mobile, verizon | No Comments »
If there’s one thing that Android Bakery is about, it’s giant foam pastries being dropped on Google’s lawn, and apparently the customary giant eclair has made its grand debut.
I’m going to make two predictions, one a longshot, one more logical.
Here are the factors adding up:
1.) Verizon’s Getting an Android phone (and we now know Eric Schmidt’s boner for Verizon)
2.) At the Google earnings call late in the day today, Eric Schmidt says, “Android adoption is about to explode.”
3.) …on the same day the giant Eclair lands?
Prediction one (longshot) Verizon is getting the first Android 2.0 phone.
I mean, they only released the Donut SDK last month…and we first heard about that in May. BUT if you remember, as I’m sure you do, they showed off all the Donut features at Google I/O not even one month after the big foam Cupcake dropped and all our G1s updated.
It’s too early in Android’s lifespan to be able to predict these kind of trends, but dropping a comically huge representation of the OS’s codename is about as obvious a hint as you could hope to receive. Something with Eclair is going to happen very soon.
What sucks is that we don’t know anything about Eclair, really. So that leads me to my second, and probably more likely prediction:
Verizon and AT&T will be getting their Android phones at the same time as Sprint and T-Mobile gets their new devices, summarily “exploding” the OS onto all United States carriers with four new devices…then after the five minutes of pants-pooping is over, and tons of new Android users are born, we’ll get to see an early build of Eclair to tease the new users with sick new upcoming features.
Also, Michael Arrington commented on the article I linked to above, saying he’s seen a new Android device that’ll “blow everyone away.” (I could have the quote wrong, but that’s the gist of it.) I’m hoping it’s Rachael from Sony Ericsson, because that looks really hot. But hell, it could be something even better.
All of this, combined with the daily media coverage making the “duh!” prediction that Android is on its way to market domination make it a very good time to be an Android early adopter, and everyone who’s going through the 528MHz generation right now has my personal permission to refer to himself as an “O.G.”
…or something less dorky.
Posted: September 26th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Lifestyle | Tags: Android, app, boycott, cyanogen, FOSS, Google, htc, market, mod, motoblur, motorola, open source, protest, rom, XDA | 3 Comments »
I’m coming from a casual/moderate open source user’s perspective with a question:
Are all serious FOSS advocates high strung ninnies?
In my career as a journalist, I’ve encountered more haywire open source reactionaries than I’d like to deal with, and I’ve really begun to regard the whole group as a bunch of paranoid freaks.
There’s this ideology that turns into a stouthearted set of beliefs that gets in the way of logical discourse. I liken it to political radicals who call everyone who isn’t throwing molotov cocktails at the police a “fascist sympathizer.”
What am I talking about here? If you’re an Android fan, you know Cyanogen. It’s a modded Android ROM which has basically been feeding the public all of Google’s software updates before Google has had a chance to officially release them to the public. Google has finally issued a cease and desist warning to Cyanogen’s developer –also going by the moniker Cyanogen– that he has to cut it out because he’s distributing stuff not included in the open source licensing. As Google said yesterday in its blog, “Unauthorized distribution of this software harms us just like it would any other business, even if it’s done with the best of intentions.”
Suddenly the open source reactionaries cry foul and mobilize a boycott of Android. To quote Phandroid’s article yesterday: “Google is basically moving the modding community from doing their work in the light to doing their work in the dark. Forget about getting ROMs on XDA-DEVS… Android builds are about to become torrents and warez.”
*sigh*
Can we please be civilized? I mean, you shouldn’t be surprised, Android has never been purely open source. Since it was first released last October, it has been a kind of hybrid licensing structure. There is the public development branch under the Apache 2.0 license and then stuff which is considered Google’s intellectual property which must be licensed out… I don’t know how minute the stuff that must be licensed is, and judging by the confusion of the community, the two may be too closely interwoven for many to discern where one ends and the other begins.
One commenter wrote: “The phones that are running Cyanogen’s ROMs ALREADY HAD THE GOOGLE APPS.”
However true this may have been in the past, in this case it is abundantly clear what the problem is. Cyanogen included the updated Android Market in his mod, which is fundamentally different from the app already on everybody’s phones, clearly crossing the line. In other words, the C&D is about Cyanogen distributing a closed-source app and not modding the Android platform.
What the community is getting upset over is that just because Google releases a free Android app, it does not mean it’s Free and Open Source. I’ve seen this throughout the message board commentary over the last few days. People assume that because YouTube, Gmail, Google Sync are not FOSS, that Android is now completely ruined.
The modding community is pissed because they now think this means they have access to basically none of Google’s awesome services, and HTC Sense and Motorola’s MOTOBLUR are illegal, and now they’re all abandoning the platform as tainted by corporate greed.
Now, I don’t know the ins and outs of the licensing structure, but it’s obvious that this reaction was way out of hand. I suggest we all sit down, pull the black bandannas off our faces and turn the talk about boycotts and protests into talk about what can and cannot be done with Android.
We don’t need Cyanogen to be a martyr for an insurrection.
Posted: September 15th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Android, Apps, Google | Tags: 9/11, abortion, Android, app, Bankruptcy, browser, cancer, fast, fast flip, flip, Google, Health Insurance, iphone, jobs, news, pandora, roger federer, Sarah Palin, store, twitter, WAP, web apps, webkit, Yankees | No Comments »
Note: I originally wrote this here, but I got assigned the same topic at Betanews, so in my haste, I submitted this same blog post (although edited and re-tooled to omit four letter words and tone down a bit of the personal spin) to Betanews this morning. I hope you don’t feel cheated. I’ll do another one tonight.
Call me crazy, but aren’t Web apps just a kind of reversion back to the “Mobile Web” that was so furiously chastised when the full Web browsing experience came to smartphones?
I understand that our modern Web Apps are being rendered by a “desktop browser” engine, and not some junky WAP browser circa 2002, but I can’t help but feel that an application designed specifically for a mobile phone’s browser is the same goddamn thing as a Web site stripped down to Mobile Web size.
Google debuted the Fast Flip lab last night and it has thus far been received with moderate acclaim. The improved ad coverage and revenue sharing with publishers has been widely cited as a step forward. But what is Fast Flip and why would I give a single shit about it?
Well, it’s another news aggregator. It takes the top 30 headlining stories and arranges them as if you were reading a magazine with one story per page. You should care because a major aspect of this lab is the mobile component that allows Android and iPhone users to leaf through articles with a swipe of the finger. But really, that’s just about all there is to it.
Fast Flip Web App front page
The main page frankly looks like ass, and the text is too small by default; so when I go to look at “Sci/Tech” headlines, I keep accidentally hitting “Entertainment” and having to look at TMZ or something equally inane for a second.
There’s also a search field which lets you look for subjects of interest to you by keyword. One cool thing is that the search field has a built-in X button, so you can erase former searches or typos with a single button smash. That will come in pretty handy when trying to type in someone’s name and it autocompletes it as something else. My buddy from high school yesterday was trying to type in Swiss tennis player “Roger Federer” and it kept auto-correcting it to “Roger Desertes.”
I don’t know when “desertes” became something people really need to type either…but I blame them for Federer’s loss at the U.S. Open.
Once you’re in your chosen category, it’s pretty cool. You swipe your finger from right to left to flip to the next page overview. If the article looks interesting to you, you tap on it and an abstract pops up which asks if you want to view the full article, zoom in, or close the abstract.
abstract popup
You’re also given the option to “like” a story, adds a smiley face to the upper right hand corner and logs it into a profile for stories it will suggest later, sort of like when you give certain songs the thumbs up in Pandora and then you hear them 900 times a day. If you’re logged into your Gmail/Google account, you can also hit “email” and it’ll send a screenshot of the article to whatever email address you input.
Taking a hearty cue from Twitter, Fast Flip also has a trending topics category based on most commonly searched terms. Last night, there were some kinda fucked up ones in there, so I’m pulling it up right now and seeing what the trends are in Googleland.
Just as I expected…people are searching for Health Insurance, Bankruptcy, jobs, 9/11, cancer, abortion, Yankees, and Sarah Palin.
It’s all the depressing stuff the news is good for.
But the point here, albeit a rather blunt one, is that Web apps like Fast Flip, no matter how good, lack the hard key action of dedicated applications. All your controls are situated within the browser window, and if I hit “menu,” which is typically the master control switch for Android apps, I just get the browser’s controls, nothing specifically tailored to Google Fast Flip, or any Web App, for that matter.
Web Apps still feel like a hollow shell to me.
Posted: September 10th, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, cliq, dext, DroidLive, g1, glass, Google, hero, htc, iphone, listen, morrison, motoblur, motorola, palm, pandora, reasons, rosie, screen, slider, t-mobile, touch, why buy | 2 Comments »
AndroidGuys is a solid site.
Amid the hue and cry of today’s Motorola Android news, they’ve made a post saying “We want to hear what you think of the Motorola Cliq and MOTOBLUR.”
Well, I’ll tell you what attracts me to the Cliq in order of importance:
1.) Glass Screen–the G1′s screen is just too sticky. Glass has just enough friction to feel good, and it totally enhances the touch experience, not to mention adds stability to the entire unit.
2.) Boosted RAM–even though it’s only a minor bump, it’s totally something that will make a noticeable difference in day to day use.
3.) Solid Chassis– This is the only thing I consistently favor about the iPhone, and if this is anywhere in that neighborhood, the Cliq will have improved on all my biggest complaints about the G1.
4.) 3.5mm headphone jack–Self explanatory: I use the MP3 player, DroidLive, Listen, and now Pandora and I DESPISE the usb headset. I will dedicate a rant to this in the near future.
5.) Keyboard–it may not be as powerful as the HTCHero*, but it’s the second ‘droid phone on T-Mobile with a keyboard.
6.) Exclusive UI—Not that I particularly have a need for social networking 24 hours a day, but I am interested in the UI design since it’s been compared to HTC’s Rosie/SenseUI, which I totally dig.
Naturally, I want to handle it before I decide to buy it…but it’s beginning to look like this is what I’ll be picking up in the fall.
It’s not a phone to die for by any stretch, but it certainly would be an improvement over the G1, aside from the move from a trackball to a D-pad, which would only take a matter of time to get used to.
Posted: August 31st, 2009 | Author: TimConneally | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, android market, app, checkout, criticism, games, gaming, Google, iphone, itunes, labs, larva, larva labs, market, paypal, PC, store, techcrunch | 4 Comments »
Read this article and then hit “Back.” I’ll wait.
….
Welcome back. I know that is just the stupidest way to start a blog entry, but you’ll have to forgive me, I was a bit irked at that article. It is supposed to be a suggestion to Google, I guess, because it does end on a favorable note. But seriously, there was one thing that upset me about it:
Larva’s Matt Hall attributes this poor performance in part to Android’s shoddy App purchase flow. Unlike the iPhone’s integrated App Store, Android Market doesn’t have screenshots of apps, forces you into the browser at times, makes you use Google Checkout, has some unintuitive navigation issues, and a handful of other problems. These issues are widely known — you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the purchase process is as smooth as it is on the iPhone — but they’ve been around for quite a while.
What’s wrong with Google Checkout? It has improved a ton in the three years it’s existed, and comparing a fully functional multi-way transaction system with a simple dedicated merchant site is just silly. You can tie in Google Checkout with your Adsense/Adwords account, you can use it to sell shit online. iTunes is just a money hole..real tough to get right in six years.
Furthermore, the Android Market does not really exist anywhere that’s visible on a non-phone platform. Yeah, there’s the site, but that’s not at all what the market really looks like. The iPhone app store has iTunes, which extends the App Store’s sphere of influence into the desktop OS realm.
Also…I don’t know if you’ve ever spent a great deal of time shopping for apps directly on an iPhone, but if you pick up your iPhone or iPod right now and look at an app’s dedicated site…just pick one at random, it doesn’t matter.
Okay, what’s missing from the first page that is FRONT AND CENTER in the Android Market?
User reviews.
And you wonder why this developer sold more in the iTunes App Store? People are sold by the description and the screenshots. They have to click over to another page to read user reviews. The Android Market, meanwhile has user reviews right up front…however nescient they may be. Developers have to deal with the idiot masses right out of the gate, people who wouldn’t know open source from a third degree burn.
Actual front page review of Larva Labs’ Retro Defence: “Good, but not worth $5.00″
Look around elsewhere. Notice that customer reviews are almost always put at the bottom or on other pages? No wonder you’re not selling as much as you could.
And as for “unintuitive navigation features” that this guy is talking about, I have no idea. I’ve never found myself wildly floundering for direction in the Android Market. Games and Productivity apps are separate. You can see them by popularity or by date uploaded…click on the one you want to look at and then click “buy” then hit “ok.” It’s not fucking celtic runes, get over it.
I absolutely agree that the Android Market is not perfect. The first thing I’d change is the white on black color scheme*. No sites designed for consumption on a phone should do that, it makes the screen reflective and harder to read (see: Mirror app.) I also agree that screenshots are needed to entice buyers.
But criticizing it for Google Checkout is completely dumb. iTunes is not a bank, PayPal is not a bank, so they’re all about equally vulnerable. I won’t even get started about basing an assessment of the Android Market’s prosperity on the FIFTH PLACE company. You can’t base ANYTHING on that. At least if we contacted the top seller, you could set a ceiling. Come on.
You can’t tell me how long a race lasted by the fifth and twelfth place contestants. You can’t even tell me if it was good.
Black-on-White Android Market
*According to CNet today,
this is already in the works.