Samsung lied in its latest Galaxy Note video
Samsung Mobile USA put up a video this week showing several tasks that supposedly the iPhone can’t do but can be easily done on a big ass 5-inch Galaxy note with a stylus. A STYLUS! How 1994.
Of course, when Tap Magazine found out about it, they went to work on rebutting every point in the video by doing everything it said the iPhone can’t do, on an iPhone. Including shooting and editing the video.
Android fans wouldn't understand this reasoning
M.G. Siegler
I hate Android for the same reason that Severus Snape hates Harry Potter — the very sight reminds me of something so beautiful, that was taken from me. Except it’s worse. It’s as if Harry Potter has grown up to become Voldemort.
Samsung could show off Tizen-based phone at MWC in February
I can’t believe I forgot about Tizen, the MeeGo offshoot that Intel and Samsung had been working on since September after Nokia practically abandoned MeeGo to join the Windows phone camp. This is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in my earlier blog post.
Looks like Tizen is far enough in its development that Samsung is said to be ready to show it at Mobile World Congress next month in Barcelona.
Given that Samsung has been delivering phones that have become hits among consumers, it’s only a matter of convincing them that these Tizen phones are as good if not better than its Android offerings.
Though Tizen right now looks like a poor copy of Android, things could change between now and launch time.
An important factor in delivering a mobile platform is the support of third party developers working on the most important apps for consumers. Right now, apps and web services are still the primary draw cards for smartphone platforms and if Samsung can convince developers to create the right apps for Tizen, consumers could be ready to pick up.
It’s never the number of apps available on a platform but which apps, games, and services are available. At the moment, social network services as well as photography apps are the major draw cards to smartphones in addition to productivity and games.
Put the right apps and payment system in a platform’s application store, and consumers will be tempted. Of course, this is if the phones and the operating system themselves are solid enough. Nokia’s N9 with MeeGo and Microsoft’s Windows Phone have the hardware and operating systems all set but neither have managed to convince developers of the most persuasive apps and web services to adopt their respective platforms.
Not having killer apps would kill a platform. All platform vendors know this and it’s something they have to deliver to ensure consumer adoption.
Why Android Tablets Failed
Jason Hiner for Tech Republic:
If we look at actually tablet usage, the numbers get really ugly for Android. Recent reports (like this one from ComScore) that track web traffic from tablets show that the iPad accounts for 95% of tablet traffic in the U.S. and 88% globally. That means that either Android tablet sales to paying customers are much lower than previously reported or the people who buy Android tablets aren’t using them very much, or a combination of the two. Whatever the details are, it’s an ugly scenario that means Android tablets have almost no traction in the market.
Samsung could be a threat to Google
Today’s Monday Note by Jean Louis Gassée sparked an interesting thought and possibility that Samsung is gaining a serious upper hand in the Android world and could use it as leverage against Google. Now why would Samsung do that?
At this point, Samsung probably wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the relationship with Google, after all, it’s selling tons of Android phones across the world and has become the number one smartphone maker on the planet because of it. Samsung owes a lot of that to Google.
On the other hand, it’s exactly this position that may allow Samsung to put pressure on Google. Samsung is large enough to dwarf its closest competitors and enough of an influence to pull off two of the three Nexus phones, the pinnacle and showcase of Android.
Holo or Bust
Holo is the name of the new interface for Android, introduced in version 3 (Honeycomb) and refined in version 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Apparently Google wants this made widely available across every Android device running ICS because since debuting in 2008, the interface for Android devices had been a mixed bag.
Every manufacturer pushes its own look, its own style, over the stock Android interface. Motorola has its Motoblur skin, HTC had Sense UI, SonyEricsson has Timescape, Samsung with its TouchWiz and so on.
Naturally every Android partner wants to have its own signature look to differentiate itself from its competitors aside from hardware specifications, designs, and features. What this brings about however is inconsistency across brands, although for the majority of consumers it might not matter too much. After all, how many people go through multiple Android devices in such a short time right?
Developers however, has had to make sure their apps work across multiple devices with multiple interfaces. Most of the time, this isn’t an issue but apparently some apps can experience glitches due to conflicts with the added skin.
Up to this point, only the Google sanctioned Nexus devices offer the pure unadulterated Android experience and interface. Those seeking to have this have been made to seek out Nexus devices which may not necessarily be available in their respective markets.
Now, Google looks to be taking a stand and trying to force partners to make the stock interface available on every device and those who are not willing to comply will have access to Android Market revoked. Quite a stance from Mountain View.
That’s not to say manufacturers all must abandon their own themes. All their standard variants can still be the default but Holo must be made available and usable by consumers should they choose to use it. In other words, stock interface will no longer be the domain of Nexus devices, which is great news.
Google released its latest numbers on Android distribution earlier this week and the numbers aren’t necessarily surprising.
Over 96% of Android devices are on Gingerbread or older. With 54% of Android devices running Gingerbread v 2.3.3 or newer, it may sound like a good news for Google but as it turns out, more than 40% are still on Froyo, or 2.2, or older, something from at least two years ago.
Android developers will therefore need to target v. 2.1 as the base OS for apps if they want to reach the largest potential user base, or 2.2 if they’re willing to cut 8.5% of devices still running Eclair.
The release of 4.0 back in October (which is really version 3 as far as handsets are concerned) means nothing to the greater Android installed base as it has not been made available for any Android phone aside from Galaxy Nexus. If you happen to have an Android phone from 2010, you may as well forget about 4.0 for a while as barely any of them will get it.
Corollary to what was discussed in my post on DailySocial the other day, there is simply no incentive yet for developers to target the latest version for the next quarter as handset manufacturers won’t have them distributed to their phones until then. That makes it five to six months since 4.0 was released.
API level is essentially the level of technological advancements that come with each version of Android. Version 2.1 has API level 7 while version 4.0.3 is on 15. That should give you some idea as to the limitations that developers will need to work with if they decide to target the older version.
On the other hand, since most devices won’t get 4.0 for some time, and that the majority are on 2.3.x, developers would be working with only two or three API levels behind. After all, levels 11-13 are reserved for tablets running Honeycomb (3.x).
Speaking of Android tablets, they make up only 3.3% of the active installed base in the last two weeks.
Clopen
Danny Sullivan’s piece on how Android isn’t really open as far as consumers are concerned.
Damning paragraph:
A big reason behind this mess is that Google doesn’t actually sell the Android operating system to consumers. If it did, it would probably care more about ensuring customers (because that’s what they would be) were covered from start to finish.
My expanded thoughts on this on DailySocial.
With "Open" Arms
Chris Ziegler of The Verge was finally able to clarify (via a source, presumably within Google) what Google means exactly when they give Android activation numbers. Essentially, it’s when you activate Google services on the device.
In other words, Kindle Fire, Nook, etc, don’t count as Android devices by this metric. Seems a bit odd, no? Android is an open ecosystem, but Google only counts you if use their services.
Sure, you can argue that Google has no way of knowing the numbers for those other Android devices, but they could at least acknowledge them. It’s weird that they don’t given the millions of units this would add overall ecosystem bottom line.
On the other hand, Google probably doesn’t like what players like Amazon are doing by forking Android. You usually don’t give your enemy a pat on the back.
Source: parislemon
Google Currents adds to interface inconsistencies across Google's mobile apps
Lo Min Ming, former UX designer intern at Google:
The reason why there are such differences in these Google apps is that the designers in each of these teams know that Android design is ugly. They all want to change the standard popup design. They want to change the icons. They want to tweak the style. Both the Currents and Google+ team clearly wanted a more flat look compared to the more 3D look of other apps.
I used to rant a lot about Google web services - Search vs Maps vs Gmail vs News, etc. But with the recent efforts to unify the look of these web services to use design language of Google+, they now look much better. More importantly, these web services have a more consistent feel to it.
Let’s hope that they do something across all their Android apps too.
