Android for all and the new Nexus 5
googleblog.blogspot.com
googleblog.blogspot.com
But to be fair it was released with 4.0 and got 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 - 3 major releases and more minor ones. So yeah I think I'll give them a pass and hope CM team will have 4.4 for the GNex sometime down the line.
Also no news on the integration of French startup they bought - forgot the name, but they had a native code converter for Android apps which helps further with low RAM low power devices - hoping that they release it to the Play Store (DroidBooster?).
> But to be fair it was released with 4.0 and got 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 - 3 major releases and more minor ones
It only received one major update: ICS to Jellybean. If google calls all of 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 "Jellybean", getting updates from one version of Jellybean to another can hardly be called "major".
This is different from how Google did things back in the Gingerbread era, where these incremental updates were version 2.3.3, 2.3.4 etc.
But just because Google changed numbering scheme for Jelly Bean doesn't change that these were indeed minor updates. Almost nothing changed in the OS.
The Galaxy Nexus is the first and only Nexus device so far (sans the pointless Nexus Q) to only receive one major upgrade. That's less than most consumer-devices receive.
That's an insult to each and every buyer of that phone. I doubt you'll see them lining up for a new "Nexus" anytime soon.
I am not sure people will agree with that. Even if Google called all 4.{1,2,3} releases JellyBean they did introduce significant new features in every version. Take a look - http://www.android.com/about/jelly-bean/ . 4.2 brought new camera with PhotoSphere HDR etc, full Braille accessibility services, stock browser HTML5 Video support and better performance and Gesture Keyboard. 4.3 brought Restricted User Profiles, OpenGL ES 3.0, Bluetooth LE/AVRCP etc. Not more of the same IMHO. (Now some of these required HW support not available on the GNex but still the point is it will work well at least another year on 4.3 giving it a 3 yr lifespan - not bad for that piece of crap hardware - it uses a TI SoC and TI isn't in that business anymore.)
Up until two months ago a 4 year old device was still running the latest version of iOS. Why is Google unable to do the same?
iOS might have everyone on the same version, but features are pruned for older hardware. As if getting through one software revision wasn't difficult enough through manufacturers and carriers to a magnitude of devices...
users who are determined can still get the latest version of android on whatever phone they please.
Google seems to be encouraging the opposite:
"A new API, ActivityManager.isLowRamDevice(), lets you tune your app's behavior to match the device's memory configuration. You can modify or disable large-memory features as needed, depending on the use-cases you want to support on entry-level devices.”
It's because each OEM would have to obtain, merge and release a new Android image for each of their old phones that have the specs to run the new Android. And the images originate from chip makers (because Android needs kernel and probably some userspace support for a particular chipset). And same merging and releasing process applies for the chip makers as well.
I would suppose that all OEMs and chip makers are currently busy porting the new Android for their new phones that will be out in the spring or the summer.
For Apple, the backporting process is linear rather than NM.
Based on history, it seems that some* chip makers and OEMs are willing to port a new Android to their previous-generation devices sometimes.
My iPad however, has jaggy animations when opening multitasking interface.
The iPhone 5 runs very well on iOS 7. The iPhone 4S runs fine, but not quite as smooth. The iPhone 4 is a bit slow, and I highly recommend anyone with an older iOS device to turn off the animations and other effects. It makes for a smoother experience.
7 months difference doesn't seem that stark.
That said, I feel like the Galaxy Nexus should be more than capable of running a release specifically created to handle lower end devices, let alone a flagship not even 2 years old.
Android's Problem is fragmentation, and it wouldn't help at all to just backport some functions to older devices, because then developers coulnd't be sure about tthe availability of any API.
By contrast, my Galaxy Nexus has become slower and slower with each upgrade. With the last update, my keyboard started to crash... I was really looking forward to the 4.4, hoping things would improve.
And yes, I use two phones and most of the time have both with me... GN is no longer used as a camera though.
You get this on the 4S, yes, just not on the iPhone 4 or the iPad 2/3.
> because then developers coulnd't be sure about tthe availability of any API.
iOS 7 running on the iPhone 4 has the same APIs as on the 5S; it just doesn't have all the UI features (notably, the blurring stuff).
Contrast that with Android, where developers are still targeting Gingerbread and are unable to take advantage of any of the bug fixes in ICS, JB or KK.
That would be reasonable if Google wasn't touting 4.4 as something that can run on devices with half the memory that the GNex has. In the past people have always made hardware excuses for why Google stopped supporting Nexus devices, but this time it's crystal clear: they just can't be bothered. 2 years is the lifespan of a Nexus.
Hopefully they get it working for the Galaxy Nexus somehow, mine has been a crapshoot for memory recently with Chrome just randomly restarting at times.
That's a bit odd, though, as 4.0 works almost perfectly on my Galaxy S, and 4.3 runs "okay". The smaller memory footprint should make 4.4 work great in theory, but it might not be a memory issue at all.
Here are the images Google has supplied for this device in the past:
https://developers.google.com/android/nexus/images#takju
Leaving it out of Google's announcement feels a lot like an implicit deprecation to me.
Well, I'm a little bit disappointed, I hoped to have the update too.
[1] http://www.redmondpie.com/galaxy-nexus-pulled-from-google-pl...
So it seems it may not be just OEM's fault, if their component suppliers won't support their components for longer either, although I guess you could make an argument for OEM's making their own drivers for everything, or Google trying to introduce another layer of abstraction for hardware, and upgrade everything themselves.
Im aware of the torrent of weak excuses why this wont happen, save it.
God bless CyanogenMod.
http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html
Highlights:
* WebView is now based on Chromium * KSM and zRAM integrated into stock kernel * Public SMS framework * Printing framework * Storage access framework
Does that mean that there will no more be stock 'Browser' app? I refuse to use Chrome on Android because of brain-dead, non-disablable 'font-boosting' that makes (among many others) Hacker News absolutely unusable.
If that means that the same engine is the only one officially supported on 4.4 forwards, then that's really sad and unfortunate.
First, it removes my paragraph separation when I post. Second, when you go back to the topic list, it repositions the view at the top of the list again.
The third is that when viewing articles, it doesn't use the Chrome rendering engine, so JavaScript demos suffer greatly and I have to relaunch the article in Chrome to see most of the correctly. It sounds like that last point of contention, Google may have just fixed for me.
Personally, I like all the changes that I read about today.
I'd also like to point out that Chrome as the default webview is a natural fit with the direction Google is taking Android. For some time now on Nexus tablets, there has been no Android browser, only Chrome. Also, you can now save "web apps" as applications, not just as bookmarked links. I think it is only natural that by the time Android 5 is released, you might even be able to install Chrome packaged apps just as you do with regular APK applications.
Android and Chrome are merging, and ChromeCast, a lightweight Android kernel that only runs Chrome, is the proving ground.
I tried it, found it slower and less responsive than Chrome. But as this is a completely biased feeling, I'd love to know more.
* Firefox Sync. As I use Firefox on my desktop, it's nice to keep them synched.
* Addons. I know this might sound stupid on a phone, but having lastpass autofill your passwords on-the-go is awesome.
* Interface. I really like the Firefox Mobile UI, but I hate the Chrome (Tablet, I browse on a Nexus 7) Mobile UI. Chrome get really bad with 3 or 4 tabs, making it really hard to switch tabs, and really easy to close tabs by mistake.
* Smoothness. I find that Firefox is way better/faster than Chrome on my Nexus 7 (This might be because I run Nightly, but I've compared it to Chrome Beta too). Especially, try to open 2 or 3 pages with a video, Chrome just become unusable for 5/10 seconds for me.
* Memory usage. I have a 2012 Nexus 7, and it has "only" 1gb of ram. It seems that if I open more than 5 tabs, Chrome just love dropping old tabs them out of memory. I've yet to have Firefox drop a tab, even with 10 or more tabs open. (It does drop them if I leave it in background and open something memory-intensive, like a game, but that's expected).
To be fair to Android Chrome, it also does Sync if you login with your Google Account. It doesn't handle passwords very well though. I also like how Chrome handles clicks on links - so if the link is too small, or if you're hitting two links at the same time, then it shows you a magnified view of the area you've hit, a feature that's very useful on a mobile phone (not so much on a tablet).
But Firefox did improve by leaps and bounds and has unique features that no other mobile browser currently has, like Addons (AdBlock FTW).
I've got a (simple) screen lock password + full encryption, but I'm still a bit paranoid to keep LastPass signed in. Instead, I have to type my 20+ character passphrase each time I have to use LastPass on my phone, which is frustrating, but not as frustrating as losing all my accounts together with my phone.
Firefox for Android also runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and later. Chrome only supports Android 4.0 (ICS) and later.
And yes, I do realize that advertising pays for many of the services that I use. It's just that the advertising arms race always makes it more and more intrusive until it's unbearable; I just cannot put up with them. Those services that I value and which offer a subscription plan instead of ads I subscribe to (like LWN). Sadly there's not a lot of content that you can actually choose to pay for rather than receiving via ads, so I just use an ad blocker and move on.
I had problems using Firefox on a stock Android Nexus 4 (bugs with selecting text and freezing when scrolling) but it's been a flawless experience after switching to Cyanogen. I'm at a loss to explain the difference.
I'm too lazy for this shit. If there's no popular, working, desktop-class browser available for this platform, then, sincerely, fuck this shit, my next phone is iPhone, thank you very much.
Once that list gets shorter, it's slated for inclusion in Webkit, though. It's a useful feature if it works consistently. Prevents needless scrolling from side-to-side on tiny screens. (It's a lot less useful on my 21" Android Slate, however)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rnl8m9ioi9ric5v/2013-10-31%2020.04... - latest chrome beta (release looks absolutely identical) https://www.dropbox.com/s/867wrehnqsiu3oc/2013-10-31%2020.04... - CM10.1.3 stock browser
WebView is the UI class for displaying webpages as a native Android view. The Browser app contains much more than the WebView class itself.
https://devsite.googleplex.com/chrome-developer-tools/docs/r...
I clicked on that link and got a page that says "moma: inside google. Single Sign On" and asks for a Google login, password, and OTP. It also appears to display a random image; I wonder if that random image is used as part of the authentication process, perhaps as an authenticator that this is a valid Google login page (perhaps something you can verify with your OTP device).
And there's no need to negotiate/buy access to secure elements, or get involved with TSMs etc -- as long as the issuer looks after its own security.
This is going to blow NFC wide open :)
Prototype works, but lets just say it needs a lot more work. Not sure whether to continue with, for anything like this to have any adoption by retailers the entire Bitcoin community needs to get behind one standard. That is the Bitcoin Payment Protocol[2] which is incompatible with my approach. The Bitcoin Payment Protocol will with the new Android 4.4 changes.
1. https://bitplastic.com/ 2. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/BIP_0070
2013 definitely seems to be the year of memory compression.
This sounds remarkably similar to the M7. This functionality of Android 4.4 requires hardware support, which initially is only provided by the Nexus 5. It allows for continuous sensor measurements, only waking the application processor when it delivers a batch of them.
Is that marketing speak for, "We're moving the Phone app into Google Play Services"?
And the discussion, much of which involves explaining why this tendency is maybe not as sinister as the Ars article implies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582494
However this is not bad news at all for startups like myself because of two things.
1) Google will spend about a year or two on refactoring Android to fully cope with PLAY dependence allowing some spare "time" for third party ideas on features that can advance outside Google internal teams.
2) Third party developer a are now in equal position to compete with Google applications to win terrain into Android future tiny out of the box. Basically on future ex-activated apps like mail for example.
I experienced the nexus 4 a little bit and though it's a great phone I'm afraid the next OS updates are going to ruin it just like it happened to the poor Nexus S.
My next phone is going to be an iPhone as I had a rather pleasant experience on the iPad.
Yes, old hardware will always fare poorly when running operating systems that are generations ahead. Try running Windows 7 on a 286... Nexus 4 and I'm loving it. I anticipate no issues moving between 4.3 and 4.4.
Oh, and I suspect your battery is torched. my wi-fi only nexus s reports on average a solid day of battery with moderate/heavy use.
To be fair, that was during the iPhone 4 period.
The iPhone has since gone to the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, and then iPhone 5s. Many users report an absolutely miserable experience with iOS 7 (and even 6) on the iPhone 4.
The mobile industry has moved very, very quickly, and devices are a magnitude more powerful+ than just a couple of years ago. As a developer with an interest in mobile, I've gone through literally seven different smartphone devices in the past three years.
It removes the 'fly in' 'fly out' animations for opening folders or apps, and greatly improves performance.
Same for the iPad mini.
I thought "ach why not", but bought it at least partly out of surprise that the online store was working :)
Selling at 28k where HTC one, note3 and Lumia 1025 are being sold at around 50k!. If distribution channel is properly organized it will just blow away the likes of samsung,nokia and HTC
Doing dev and debug on a device I don't actually use has been effective. My most productive features have been having the device in a dock, and using wifi adb so I don't have to bother with cables.
Yep, definitely another high-grade Google Play user experience....
Come on.
I knew it was coming and got in early, finding it the most enjoyable Nexus purchase yet -- available in many markets the day it is announced, the Play store didn't crash and functioned speedily, and it will ship in days? I'd say it was a fantastic user experience.
If Google does what they traditionally do they will be going through batches, with small delays between. With each batch the estimated delivery time will increase -- managers will meet and get agreements by vendors -- and supplies will reappear.
That said, a couple of things in the API, especially the storage framework, could be really good. That may provide a way forward to get apps working with the cloud or self hosted servers with a common API, which would be a great development.
Cyanogenmod usage may get a big spike when they get on to Kitkat, and that might be just what the Android ecosystem needs.
...but Android is slowly becoming less open. Scares me a little. Why shouldn't it?
Are you an developer at an OEM? I'm just not sure why this would worry you. It sure beats not getting timely updates for core pieces because of silly carriers.
I'm confused, PDFs, games and movies already are full screen on previous android versions.
Edit: More comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648976 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648664 but not seeing links, feels like hearsay.
senior VP of Android Sundar Pichai told us that "the Nexus 5 will not be on Verizon."
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/31/5051304/google-nexus-5-wo...
Already appears to be down.
What's the point of having google.com/nexus/5, when people are going to be purchasing it from the play store (splitting traffic, rather than sending it all to the store)?
Edit: www.google.com/nexus/5 is live now.
How about a real battery test, where you simulate someone reading HN or reddit, opening gifs, images, web pages with crappy flash video. I'm tired of the same 3 hours of useful battery life I've had since the HTC evo. Maybe I'm just bitter because my galaxy nexus has around 8 hours of idle time if I have 4G on (this after doing a clean wipe not 1 month ago).
https://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html#44-...
This is a huge step forward for the development of HTML5 hybrid apps if it allows us to debug our app's embedded webviw. Good riddance console.log(*) debugging.
32gb black was available when only the 16gb white was available previously.
Also note that mine is a Google Play Dev Account, which may or not affect availability.
Or is it for the billion people who buy a phone from now on?
I just bought a n5 to upgrade. I love the keyboard, but I also want a more modern device.
> Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet.
Oh, wait, their "all" means "U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Korea", ie 10 out of 200ish countries in the world.
If I wanted to waste half my screen on a keyboard I'd buy an iPhone.
Also, site's down I think, but apparently there's a new camera, haven't heard of much else
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What's your reasoning here? You don't develop on it, you develop on a computer. As a developer I don't particularly want to be testing on a really powerful device as most of my customers won't have that power available to them. I want to test on a few screen sizes running average hardware.
Developers shouldn't need a specific device to feel like a special snowflake, if you ask me, they are by default.