Android!

[luckton]

CyanogenMod 9 (the first version to implement ICS) up and running on Nexus S

It's coming...it's COMING!   

[TripleDES]

The Google Maps update today turned the ugly as shit Places UI to something professional looking. I hope that trend continues on other Google apps. You hear me, Quinton? 

[Quinton]

An official update for Nexus S will ship as well.

I'm more looking forward to CM9 to cover devices by manufacturers who are slower to upgrade.

TripleDES - the UX team plans to continue to make the platform and apps look and feel nicer.  I think the overhaul of GMail and Calendar in ICS are good examples of this.

[KallDrexx]

Gmail and google groups UI changes make me rage.

[MuffinMan]

Gmail's UI changed? Mine has looked the same for a long time.

[Draegan]

It just got changed a week or two ago.  It's terrible.

[rattran]

Other stuff split off into Serious Business. It was there, or politics.

[TripleDES]

Hurrrrr, there's an OTA that fixes the volume bug issue on the GNex, and Google's drip feeding it at a fucking slow rate to everyone, instead of getting the damn devices fixed ASAP! 

[Quinton]

OTAs *always* roll out to a small group (canary), then increasingly larger groups.  Because sometimes there are bugs that don't get caught that come with new changes or a process issue turns up with OTAs.  It's far better to catch these when a small number of devices get the update and never come back online than slam an update out to an entire population and only then discover that there was an issue.

[Ingmar]

OTAs *always* roll out to a small group (canary), then increasingly larger groups.  Because sometimes there are bugs that don't get caught that come with new changes or a process issue turns up with OTAs.  It's far better to catch these when a small number of devices get the update and never come back online than slam an update out to an entire population and only then discover that there was an issue.

Yeah I am perfectly fine with my phone not being subject to Bethesda's patching process, personally.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Strange, apparently the husband's phone prompted him for an OS update yesterday morning but mine hasn't asked me to do an update yet, and when I check for system updates, it says it's all current.  We both have Samsung Droids, so I would have figured they'd get prompted to update at the same-ish time.  Mine's still on 2.2.1, if that matters. *shrug*

[01101010]

Strange, apparently the husband's phone prompted him for an OS update yesterday morning but mine hasn't asked me to do an update yet, and when I check for system updates, it says it's all current.  We both have Samsung Droids, so I would have figured they'd get prompted to update at the same-ish time.  Mine's still on 2.2.1, if that matters. *shrug*

I still don't fully understand why I can root my phone and in essence kill any chance Verizon will take my phone back, but can place any custom stable ROM on it that is at least 4 versions above what the OTAs dump out. If a bunch of kids can create a workable stable ROM within a few month of getting the source code and have it work on the device, then what the hell is keeping HTC, Samsung, and the like from not staying ahead? Not being an ass, I really am quite curious.

That said, 2 days before the source for ICS was released, some programmers for my device had a bootable ICS ROM just from the SDK dump files. Alpha testing from ICS is a week or two away and I hear CM9 is out for some devices already. I can't wait to give it a whirl.

[Quinton]

The difference between "well it worked for me!!!" and "it doesn't break anything for 99+% of existing users" is pretty huge. 

Also, even ignoring time to test and validate changes -- including checking against power or stability regressions, etc, there's carrier certification which has to happen for every update.

Of course OEMs heavily customizing the system make it harder on themselves for picking up updates too.

[luckton]

Strange, apparently the husband's phone prompted him for an OS update yesterday morning but mine hasn't asked me to do an update yet, and when I check for system updates, it says it's all current.  We both have Samsung Droids, so I would have figured they'd get prompted to update at the same-ish time.  Mine's still on 2.2.1, if that matters. *shrug*

I'm amazed Samsung's actually blessing you with an O/S update.  Historically, Samsung handles O/S updates a bit differently...

"Oh, that Gingerbread came out just a week after our newest 'droid phone?  Fuck those people, go start building a new phone."

[MuffinMan]

Strange, apparently the husband's phone prompted him for an OS update yesterday morning but mine hasn't asked me to do an update yet, and when I check for system updates, it says it's all current.  We both have Samsung Droids, so I would have figured they'd get prompted to update at the same-ish time.  Mine's still on 2.2.1, if that matters. *shrug*

Check to see if you can download the update manually onto your sd card. That's how I updated my Epic, was tired of waiting for it OTA.

[01101010]

The difference between "well it worked for me!!!" and "it doesn't break anything for 99+% of existing users" is pretty huge. 

Also, even ignoring time to test and validate changes -- including checking against power or stability regressions, etc, there's carrier certification which has to happen for every update.

Of course OEMs heavily customizing the system make it harder on themselves for picking up updates too.

I understand your points. I just think there is a disconnect between the development teams. CM releases a ton of nightlies that a whole lot of rooters are more than glad to lap up (me included) which should give a testing basis to be used by the official OTA development teams. Now granted, HTC (since I own an INC2, that is my only real basis) seems to hitch their devices to the Sense platform and CM is decidedly AOSP, but all I am sayin is that there is a community willing to test stability.

Then again... it may limit choice. Meh...

[Quinton]

CM is actually a pretty good distance from AOSP in some regards, which is awesome -- they experiment with features that we aren't prioritizing, or are more niche, or whatever.  Since the code base is actually quite divergent in a number of ways, that the same patch might work in CM does not guarantee that it will (or won't) work in the mainline codebase, etc.

I think we could get some value out of external beta tests, and in the past we've had engineers work with the CM guys who are often excited to test more experimental kernel changes, etc, but there are some operational complexities around doing that, among them that we have a lot more control over what our internal test population does and how much data we can gather from them -- there's a lot of useful telemetry we can pick up in internal testing that would likely be problematic in external tests.

[Yegolev]

Just based on my work experience, you don't want to go changing anything without a compelling reason.  People who already signed a contract and are complaining about something is not always compelling, but it depends on how many and how loudly.  A change, ideally, will initiate testing for all functions and applications which are even remotely affected and are supported by the company.  That takes resources.

[Salamok]

Do any other Austinites have horrible experiences with google navigation when they venture up to Round Rock?  The results are kind of funny actually but odd in that navigation has been flawless all over Austin for me but both times I used it to go somewhere in RR I ended up in weird locations.

[schild]

Do any other Austinites have horrible experiences with google navigation when they venture up to Round Rock?  The results are kind of funny actually but odd in that navigation has been flawless all over Austin for me but both times I used it to go somewhere in RR I ended up in weird locations.

I've had some mild problems in Pflugerville, but not Round Rock.

[ffc]

Verizon is blocking discussing Google Wallet's inclusion on Galaxy Nexus.  I find this strange because I thought the point of the Nexus line was to treat carriers as dumb pipes (e.g., the Nexus line has no Carrier IQ).  I wonder if the Galaxy Nexus that runs on T-Mobile will have the same restriction issues.

[Tale]

"Google is celebrating 10 billion apps downloaded from the Android Market with 10 apps for 10 cents each for the next 10 days."

• SoundHound ∞ for $0.10 (normally $4.67)
• Asphalt 6: Adrenaline HD for $0.10 (normally $6.55)
• Minecraft – Pocket Edition for $0.10 (normally $6.59)
• SwiftKey X Keyboard for $0.10 (normally $3.80)
• Endomondo Sports Tracker PRO for $0.10 (normally $3.95)
• Great Little War Game for $0.10 (normally $2.83)
• SketchBook Mobile for $0.10 (normally $1.86)
• Fieldrunners HD for $0.10 (normally $2.80)
• Color & Draw for kids:phone ed for $0.10 (normally $0.93)
• Paper Camera for $0.10 (normally $1.81)

[fuser]

Take my money 

[TripleDES]

Verizon is blocking discussing Google Wallet's inclusion on Galaxy Nexus.  I find this strange because I thought the point of the Nexus line was to treat carriers as dumb pipes (e.g., the Nexus line has no Carrier IQ).  I wonder if the Galaxy Nexus that runs on T-Mobile will have the same restriction issues.

There isn't a Galaxy Nexus version yet to begin with, anyway.

The current way to get it onto the phone is rooting it and replacing a system APK, before you can install the Wallet APK itself.

I really do want it on my phone, but Google's too damn tightlipped about it. I've a Galaxy Nexus and I'm in Europe, so I'm doubly screwed. There's apparently plans for expansion into Europe for 2012, but it'll probably another limited roll-out, near the end of the year or something.

[MahrinSkel]

Okay, I'm officially pissed off, I *think* at Verizon: I can't download email attachments anymore, this was how I moved files between my phone and PC when attaching the cable was too much of a PITA (most often, an eBook I was in the middle of when I suddenly needed to leave the house).  Not sure exactly when it quit working, but the GMail app no longer even lets me try to download the attachments, and if I log in through the browser the download fails every time.

I have a workaround going through Google Docs, but I'm annoyed as fuck that somebody decided they wanted to break my phone.  If it turns out that it broke attachments on my laptop when I'm tethered, I'm going to be really fucking annoyed.  If they break Google Docs, I'm rooting the damned thing and writing my own VPN/Proxy.

--Dave

[01101010]

Okay, I'm officially pissed off, I *think* at Verizon: I can't download email attachments anymore, this was how I moved files between my phone and PC when attaching the cable was too much of a PITA (most often, an eBook I was in the middle of when I suddenly needed to leave the house).  Not sure exactly when it quit working, but the GMail app no longer even lets me try to download the attachments, and if I log in through the browser the download fails every time.

I have a workaround going through Google Docs, but I'm annoyed as fuck that somebody decided they wanted to break my phone.  If it turns out that it broke attachments on my laptop when I'm tethered, I'm going to be really fucking annoyed.  If they break Google Docs, I'm rooting the damned thing and writing my own VPN/Proxy.

--Dave

I tend to move all my files from phone to pc and vice-versa with dropbox.

[Nerf]

I tend to move all my files from phone to pc and vice-versa with dropbox.

This, dropbox is just too fucking easy.  Especially for saving images I find while surfing.  Long press->share->dropbox->bam!

[MahrinSkel]

How easy is it to log into dropbox from a computer without installing anything?  I tend to use any of 5 different computers, only one of which is really mine (the other 4 belong to the wife or kids).  I need to do something better than emailing to myself, anyway, since I'm about to add a tablet to the mix.  I was just seriously annoyed when I thought I had sent myself a book to read while the car was being worked on, and instead had to watch 3 hours of Fox News.

--Dave

[01101010]

How easy is it to log into dropbox from a computer without installing anything?  I tend to use any of 5 different computers, only one of which is really mine (the other 4 belong to the wife or kids).  I need to do something better than emailing to myself, anyway, since I'm about to add a tablet to the mix.  I was just seriously annoyed when I thought I had sent myself a book to read while the car was being worked on, and instead had to watch 3 hours of Fox News.

--Dave

I use the web interface at work if I want to use it. Home, I installed the app.

[MuffinMan]

The dropbox web interface works great. It even works with IE6 on my work computer which completely amazes me.

[Segoris]

Finally! Galaxy Nexus releases in the U.S. on vzw tomorrow, $299 w/ 2yr contract. Online sales start tonight at 1a.m. eastern

[Tale]

I have so many fucking apps now. Been getting mostly all 10 per day in the 10 top apps for 10 cents for 10 days sale on Android Market.

[Draegan]

God damn $300 is a hefty price for the Nexus and a contract.

I want one, but I can't justify it right now.

[01101010]

Yeah hell with that price point. Figure it will be $150 by Spring.

[MuffinMan]

I'd jump at it if I could only pay for data and not minutes but I'm limited to 7"+ tablets for that I guess.