Android!

[Quinton]

I'm not so much amazed about the relative iOS vs Android growth (and iOS is certainly still chugging along, actually a bit ahead in the US, sounds like), as about just the overall Android growth.  The scale of this thing has been blowing my mind since late 2009 when Droid launched on VZW and things really started moving.

[Quinton]

Reviews for the N4 and N10 from the usual suspects:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/02/nexus-4-review/

http://updates.gizmodo.com/post/34831233868/google-nexus-4-review-yes-you-want-this-phone-by

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/2/3589280/google-nexus-4-review

http://boingboing.net/2012/11/02/nexus-7-a-perfect-low-cost.html

http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/2/3589170/google-nexus-10-review

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/02/review-googles-android-os-might-be-better-suited-for-tablets-and-the-nexus-10-is-a-shining-example/

[JWIV]

The N10 looks insanely awesome - especially with the ability to do profiles so I can create my daughter her own setup on the same device.  Definitely going to be setting aside some of the end of year bonus for one.

[Quinton]

I'm a big 10" tablet hater (once it's that big, I prefer a laptop), but the display is pretty impressive stuff.  The N7 will also be getting multi user support when it gets the 4.2 update (shouldn't be long after the N4 and N10 start shipping).

[NowhereMan]

I was really kind of hoping for a 4.3" option for the next Nexus (the whole multiple manufacturer rumour gave me hope on that) but the N4 does look pretty sweet. Poor battery life gives me pause for thought though, coupled with the large screen and no LTE I'm not really sure about it. My N1 has easily lasted me over 2 years but I don't really think I want to be going for an upgrade that could be feeling very dated in a year from now if LTE actually picks up in the UK. That said if the battery proves to be better performing than is being reported right now (although the reviews seem to differ, some of those posted said it's got a poor life and one at least said it's got a good battery life) I might finally have something to upgrade to as the N1 really is starting to show its age in terms of responsiveness, etc.

[Quinton]

Battery life, as always on smart phones, will vary depending on usage, applications installed (especially stuff doing syncing, using gps in the background, etc), and network conditions.  I've been getting a bit over  2 days of use out of one charge on my Nexus 4, which is not quite as good as I saw on the Galaxy Nexus (usually 2.5+), but is reasonable.  I'm a relatively light user that syncs two different google email/calendar/contacts accounts.

HSPA+ 42 should give you better throughput than the HSPA+ 7 the Nexus One supports, but yeah, if you want maximum speed (and lowest latency -- a seldom discussed feature of LTE is much lower latencies than UMTS), holding out for a LTE-capable device may be the way to go. 

[Zetor]

Battery life is the biggest thing that makes me sad about modern smartphones. I'm not sure if it's the omgshiny touchscreen, the crazy CPU, the overhead of running what are basically java apps in a sandbox (instead of native code), or whatever.

My HTC Desire (= Nexus One) can go for 2-3 days with one charge if I'm really frugal about using it and don't use any kind of sync. Back in 2007, my Nokia E51 could go for two WEEKS with the same usage, and I'm sure it had a much smaller/weaker battery than the powerhouses available today. Sure, it had a tiny screen with no touchscreen stuff, but it still had a flash-capable browser, its own app store with plenty of apps, it could run C-64 and SNES emulators at full speed, etc etc.

[Quinton]

If you disable data, you should be able to get 1-2 weeks standby on a modern smartphone (seen that both on N1 and on later devices -- the power cost to keep more ram powered up in standby has not grown much, and unless you have a dual lte/cdma radio configuration, your baseline standby for the radio remains 3-5mA at the battery on modern UMTS networks).  The main pain point is if you want no background data but you do want to be able to easily fire up the browser or whatnot when the screen is on, there's not much in the way of user interface for that kind of usage pattern.

For standby power consumption, active data connection (even if mostly idle) is the largest impact on battery life.

For active use, the display and backlight tend to dominate (though heavy network or gps use will add up fast too), and today's large displays take a lot more power to illuminate and refresh than the smaller displays of yore.  Though we also now have multi-core CPUs and fairly power GPUs, so you can definitely run down your battery even quicker if you fire up software that really pushes that.

I do miss the crazy standby time of my old Nokia 8290 -- tiny tiny candybar phone that did a solid week, but then these days I use email/web/im on my phone far more than making phone calls.

[Zetor]

I keep data connectivity off 100% of the time since 3G in Hungary is crazy expensive and LTE is pretty much pie-in-the-sky territory. I also keep wifi/gps/etc off and only turn it on for a minute or two when I need 'em. I also make sure background data is disabled and use a task killer religiously (mostly because some HTC Sense apps - such as the browser - are crappy and won't shut down gracefully). According to the settings tool, 'cell standby' and 'phone idle' together account for ~70% of my battery usage.

I haven't been able to get more than 4-5 days before the phone needed to be charged even with light usage (unless "disabling data" means airplane mode or something :p). OTOH I think the HTC Desire has a dual GSM/CDMA antenna, maybe that also counts?

[Quinton]

Yeah -- you're managing it about as aggressively as you can without dropping into airplane mode (which obviously would impact your ability to receive phone calls, etc).  Sounds like you've found the effective limit of the radio and battery on that device given your network conditions (poor cell coverage will result in worse battery life as the radio will transmit at a higher power to stay in touch with the tower).   

[calapine]

Battery life is the biggest thing that makes me sad about modern smartphones. I'm not sure if it's the omgshiny touchscreen, the crazy CPU, the overhead of running what are basically java apps in a sandbox (instead of native code), or whatever.

My HTC Desire (= Nexus One) can go for 2-3 days with one charge if I'm really frugal about using it and don't use any kind of sync. Back in 2007, my Nokia E51 could go for two WEEKS with the same usage, and I'm sure it had a much smaller/weaker battery than the powerhouses available today. Sure, it had a tiny screen with no touchscreen stuff, but it still had a flash-capable browser, its own app store with plenty of apps, it could run C-64 and SNES emulators at full speed, etc etc.

I am pretty sure its the display. 3 days doesn't sound bad. I have a HTC Desire HD and and need to recharge every night if I use it for for surfing or as radio.

[apocrypha]

I started to get a lot more battery life out of my phone (and now tablet) once I began being a lot more conservative with display brightness.

My first instinct was to run at 100% brightness all the time but I've realised that's really not necessary. In fact I rarely have the Nexus 7 above 50% now.

[Tebonas]

I was really looking forward to that Nexus 4. Sadly the price point buying it outside of the Google Play Store (which isn't available for hardware here) is 200 to 250 Euros higher, which makes me stick with my Iphone 4s and quite sad. From all I read this would be an amazing piece of hardware to have.

[eldaec]

You can always wait about 2 months and watch it get discounted.

There is always a bigger phone.

[Tebonas]

Yeah, but then I would like to have that phone I presume.

Paying an almost 50% markup because Google doesn't get the same deal working for Austria they have no problem whatsoever for Germany. That sits wrong with me.

[calapine]

Yeah, but then I would like to have that phone I presume.

Paying an almost 50% markup because Google doesn't get the same deal working for Austria they have no problem whatsoever for Germany. That sits wrong with me.

I draw your attention to this article: http://derstandard.at/1350260264152/Nexus-4-Viel-Aerger-ueber-Preispolitik-von-LG

Short summary: LG inflates the prices when selling to retailers so that mobile-phone service providers can lure customers with artificial 'discounts' if they sign up for binding 24 month contracts...

On a side note, I had to wait 3(!) months when ordering my (then brand-new) Desire HD. Mandated prices and waiting times. We are becoming like the ex-DDR with stories of people waiting years for their Trabbi.

[Quinton]

I was really looking forward to that Nexus 4. Sadly the price point buying it outside of the Google Play Store (which isn't available for hardware here) is 200 to 250 Euros higher, which makes me stick with my Iphone 4s and quite sad. From all I read this would be an amazing piece of hardware to have.

I wish we were offering it for all markets in the Play Store.   Local (per-country) certification and sales channels for mobile phones remain a mess.  Not sure exactly what the hangup is (and probably would not be able to discuss it if I did), but I'm bummed that we're not doing a better job here.  I'll grumble at some product managers and bizdev folks when I next bump into them, if that's any consolation.

[Tebonas]

Thank you, really appreciated. What I don't get is we pay an arm and a leg for that whole EU thing, but when it would benefit us (like having the certification for one EU country being applicable to all of Europe) it lets us down.

[eldaec]

Even in the play store Google charge what the market will bear country by country.

Either that or they are getting a really bad deal on pounds to dollar forex.

It isn't driven by regulator certification either, same thing applies to the tablets.

 Also AFAIK nothing stops you  buying in another EU country and bringing it home. Google will insist on price gouging only if you have them deliver direct.

[Tebonas]

I wish!

LG themself is gouging every distributor except Google, claiming dealers margins, distribution, logistics and personnel costs. Google itself has nothing to do with the price gouging (which only happens outside of the Google Store). I suspect the national phone providers might have their hand in this so they can still sell subsidized phones with their phone service subscriptions.

Also, you can't buy from the Google Store of another country, so I can't buy it in another EU country and bring it home.

[calapine]

Apple lands a patent for a rectangle with rounded corners

Yesterday Apple was awarded patent D670,286, which is a design patent pertaining to the iPad’s “ornamental” design. In a sense it’s a patent for a rectangle with rounded edges covering a “portable display device.” Before everyone screams foul, it remains to be seen if it will be worth anything to Apple.

I don't like Apple...

[Tebonas]

That is beyond ridiculous. I'm speechless. Whats wrong with your patent system? We all know whats wrong with Apple, they are evil assholes. But why do they let them do this. There must be a list of prior art as thick as a phonebook.

[Krakrok]

1400 year old prior art! Woo hoo!

http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=1924

[Trippy]

That's a pen-based tablet, though

[Rendakor]

After doing some browsing, I think I want the Asus Transformer Infinity; seems to be the top of the line Android tablet out there that's got an SD card slot. Anyone have a compelling reason why I should go with something else? The Nexus 10 looks nice but no expandable memory is kind of a deal breaker.

Also, where's the best place to buy a tablet? A quick glance around the internet showed Amazon the cheapest, but I only know of a handful of sites to even check.

[naum]

After a trip to Las Vegas last weekend where lady fortune smiled upon me in my table sessions, plunked down $199 for a Google Nexus 7 (16GB). Plan on tinkering with some android programming projects...

Surprisingly, I really am becoming quite enamored with it, and while not as polished as iOS in many aspects, has some advantages:

* Google apps work much nicer
* 7" form factor more conducive to travel and PIM usage

Downside is the aggregate app quality inferior and games are MIA, compared to iOS presently.

Yes, I composed this here post on the aforementioned device.

Oh, purchased at the nearby wal-mart.

[MuffinMan]

Not sure if the Nexus 4 sold out in 10 minutes or if it's technical problems. Had it in my cart but it wouldn't let me check out. Now it's back to "coming soon."

[NowhereMan]

Probably the former, it sold out in like 20 minutes in the UK and Australia and everywhere else it's come on sale. Not sure if Google really massively underestimated demand or were seriously going for 'Nexus sells out in 20 minutes!' headlines. On the one hand my impulse purchase brain feels horribly let down but it might be worth seeing how battery life gets on with software updates.

[MuffinMan]

It started bouncing in and out of stock. My order seemed to have went through, we'll see.

[calapine]

Apple Now Owns the Page Turn

If you want to know just how broken the patent system is, just look at patent D670,713, filed by Apple and approved this week by the United States Patent Office.

This design patent, titled, “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,” gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application.

I am not sure how to comment this...

"Fuck Apple!" maybe?

[Segoris]

"fuck apple" was long before the patents on rounded squares and page turning....this is "I hope Apple (and the patent system which allows this) all receive a dozen porcupines up their asses"

[Tale]

I hate animated page turns anyway. I read on Kindle apps on various platforms because their page turn is unobtrusive.

[eldaec]

Apple Now Owns the Page Turn

If you want to know just how broken the patent system is, just look at patent D670,713, filed by Apple and approved this week by the United States Patent Office.

This design patent, titled, “Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface,” gives Apple the exclusive rights to the page turn in an e-reader application.

I am not sure how to comment this...

"Fuck Apple!" maybe?

One thing I really fail to understand is how these things are passing the test of 'must not be on sale' as part of the novel requirement.

You can't patent something you have already sold/revealed to the public. At least in theory.

[Xuri]

Unless random comments I read on Slashdot are incorrect, this is a design-patent, so others can still make page-turning animations, but they need to look different from Apple's version of it.

Still fucked up, though. However, vote for me in the Emperor-King of the World-election, and I promise to fix the broken patent and copyright systems! Also, free ponies for everyone.

[Quinton]

One thing I really fail to understand is how these things are passing the test of 'must not be on sale' as part of the novel requirement.

You can't patent something you have already sold/revealed to the public. At least in theory.

In the US you can file up to one year after public disclosure.  In (almost all of) the rest of the world you must file before disclosure.