Android 3.0 Honeycomb more akin to Tablet PC than iPad - Page 7

How? Cloud2phone is service specific. In this case, Google enables it for the Android Market webstore. There are other cloud2device functions like Chrome2Phone which enables transferring navigation instructions or webpage URLs. But again, that's run through Google servers.

For somebody to abuse this functionality, they would have to have installed an app on the phone that opens up a portal that would receive a Cloud2Device messaging intent. Then they'd have to develop a service that uses C2DM to push malware to your phone. But if they've already got your phone, why would they go through the trouble of installing an app that would let them download malware later?

Wow! Google is a genius! How in the hell did they put productivity into their OS? Oh that's right, wasn't it Eric Schmidt who said, "We have enough information about our users that we can actually tell them what to do next." (No wonder their OS is called Android. And they like to accuse Apple of being controlling.) I suppose if they know all of that, you can just set your tablet down and let it work for you? Cool! Soon enough Google won't need any actual users! /sarcasm


What exactly do you need to plug into a tablet? And what peripheral are you going to carry around with you to connect to the tablet? I think the point of using a tablet is lost on you, if you need to start plugging things into it.

My printer and keyboard are both wireless -- no need for plugs or ports.

Your post is quite odd. You slam Android and then claim to want some of its most popular features. But then claim that Apple should resort to selectively enabling the feature. So basically, you think Jobs should decide which widgets you should get? That's your solution?

As for this claim that widgets drain the batteries....that's totally bogus. A simple look at any Android device's Battery Use page, would tell you that widgets use negligible amounts of power. I've got 10 widgets running on my home screens (Beautiful widgets clock, Google News and Weather, Facebook, Google Places, Power control bar, Google Scoreboard, Catch.com, Epicurious, Google Calendar, Android Market). Out of all those, only one shows up as having consumed any significant amount of battery today: 6% for Google News and Weather. And I used that on each of my half hour bus rides and I set it for a very high refresh interval and set it to pick up images too. DED has no clue what he's talking about on this point. He might have some credibility if he actually picked up an Android device once in a while.

I think it's a matter of time before Apple gives in on this one. I'll love to see the backpedalling on AI and from DED then. "Widgets don't use much battery. And they are so much easier to use. Why would you want to find and open an app anyway?"

I really don't get people who can't see the value in somebody else's innovations.

Nor do I get the criticism here....so Google didn't make Android like the iPad (and it seems that Honeycomb is the direction the rest of Android is heading) and that's bad? But they made older versions of Android like the iPhone and that's bad too? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, I guess. (Though I disagree that Android is like the iPhone.....but Apple fans pretty much think anything touchscreen with icons ripped off the iphone....so...).

Good for you. Mine aren't. Why should I have to buy a new printer and keyboard just to facilitate a new tablet in the home?

And how do you plan on hooking up that iPad to a television/projector/monitor when you get away from your Mac?

Android 3.0 Honeycomb-ed with access points for Google to spy on you.
So that Google can tailor ads just for you!!
Just wait till WebM then we'll know the King of the Castle "ALL MINE.. ALL MINE!"
And like good droges you'll love it!

PS
Daniel -- Dan should be called
"Dan Dare" after the best comic hero EVER and a great visionary author (?) that was the first Steve Jobs if only in imagination!

I really have to laugh.
A few years ago, there were videos of Bin Ladden in the mountains of Afganistan, along with videos of his men carrying a Mac laptop. Even they know what to depend on. Not a cheap Dell, Lenovo, Asus, Panasonic, Vaio, Gateway or an HP. Must be Apple's product placement people!

If Android does it, it's no big deal. If Apple does it, it's magical. Is that how this works?

If it's no big deal, why can't Apple (which does widgets on the desktop) bring it to iOS?



Really? So a developer can write and submit a widget for iOS?

Equivalent function is bogus. It's either a widget or its not. Please point me to an app that has an 'equivalent function'. Find me app that display and lets you peruse service content without opening the app. I'd like to see this 'equivalent function' of yours.

I already had a bluetooth keyboard. (But you can buy a USB adapter for the dock connecter and plug a USB keyboard to it, if that's how you roll.)

In all honesty, I did buy a new printer that was compatible with iOS, however, buying the new printer was cheaper than replacing the ink in my old printer.

New HP Printer - $69,
Ink for old Cannon Printer - $100+

LOL



Well if I need to hook it to an external display, then I'll use a cable for that.

Harvard Business School?
Yale?
Goldman Sachs?
New York Stock Exchange?

Which of the above are you associated with?
Rush in?
Microsoft sat on the tablet for years, kid. Now, everyone's rushing in to the tablet market and can't hack it.
Rush in?
Who owns the iPod market?
Rush in?
Remember RIM?

Kid, your 2 cents isn't worth 2 cents, go back and get your High School Equivalency Degree before you come back here.

Sure we can! Witness this thread!!


You're either assuming that iOS 4.2 is the final release or that 5.x (6.x, etc.) won't bring anything new? PS: not a record for grammatical, spelling and syntax errors/per word of post, but you get honorable mention.


No sugar, but plenty of salt. And of course DED never cherry-picks which facts he includes and which he doesn't. But I've learned to auto-correct for his slant and always read his articles.

Similarly, there was a movie reviewer some time back, Rex Reed, whose tastes ran very counter to mine, so he was still useful as a guide, i.e., if he disliked something intensely for certain reasons, I knew I probably would.


That much of your post is true. Bad DED!!


Hardly. With over 2 billion people on the net, the surface has barely been scratched.


Nothing will ever be "stabilized"in the tech world - the "delta" (rate of technological change) is only curving upward by the day. iPads and Droidcombs will look as quaint in 10 years as the original Mac does today.

Like, hey, wasn't there this other new Google thing called "Chrome OS"? Totally gonna change the computing paradigm? Haven't heard a word about it in months.


Given the problems of fragmentation and "forking" etc., I like Apple's chances to maintain a firm hold on the profitable part of these markets, whatever their user share.


Win Phone 7 is hardly a copy. They're late, they're getting later and may fail, but it is a fresher approach than any we've seen from them in a while.


Big time. Could be the Achilles heel here.


Ya'think?!?

It will be fanboys against fandroids

Its not the battery issue why widgets will never be on the iPad, its the data they consume. Most iPad owners are on a capped data plan which they'll definitely go over plus how can widgets on wifi only iPad a gets its updates if there's no constant data connection?

Well that 's a sure thing, since the iPad will debut with iOS 4.x. Apple has yet to say ANYTHING about iOS 5. So, all of Android's gee-whiz features may not be anything unique.



If iOS "borrows" any features from anywhere, it'll be from Mac OS X, not Android. It's too bad most Android fans don't understand that Apple also makes a full desktop OS from which iOS was born. All features that iOS gets, come from or will come from Mac OS X, not copied or "borrowed" from Android. Apple will implement features from Mac OS X as they see fit.

All of Android's so called "firsts" are nothing new to Apple. Sorry.


Two things here, having a larger user base doesn't automatically equate to more developers that produce decent work. Those developers go to where the money is and time and time again, it has been shown that iOS users are more willing to pay for apps.

Also, what makes you think Android phones aren't selling well because EVERYONE needs a phone and they're subsidized? Those two things alone draw a long, heavy line between that market and the tablet market. Not everyone NEEDS a tablet, and those who may want one may not want to pay for another service contract to get one at a subsidized price.

And at full price it is going to be very hard for other manufacturers to match Apple's price. More than any other manufacturer Apple has the economies of scale on its side. After the release of iPad 2, Apple could very well keep a 16GB WiFi iPad 1 around to sell for $399, as they do with the iPhone and still make a decent profit.

There were touch screen phones before the iPhone, just not as easy to use. The current form factor of touch screen phones is would've happened with or without Apple. Stop crying about everyone copying it. I don't see anybody crying how Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, and even Apple copied Phillips form factor for flat panel TVs/monitors.

Android has no chance with Honeycomb or the following version because tablet game is different. In smartphone, Android can stuff carriers' channel with POS and let carriers distribute them, but for tablet they can't do that. Tablet is not considered as important as phone so people eager to throw money for 2nd data plan, so they must be distributed via retail store. Galaxy Tab tried but it's too late; iPad is everywhere with agressive pricing, and "failed quite smoothly" with 16% return rate.

Ahh... Interesting!

Does Android have any Push Notifications used in the system.

If not, there is a potentially huge advantage for iOS if Apple decides to implement an Honeycomb-style widget system.

A very robust PNS system is already in place and used by iOS for system apps such as mail, messaging, etc.

Not all the PNS capabilities are currently available to developers...

But, it would not be too difficult for Apple to allow third-party services such as Twitter, YouTube, etc. to post notifications to an aggregator PNS server.

Apple already provides this capability on its servers for developer's apps.

Periodically, if any notification exists for a device, all notifications are pushed to the device.

Presently, what happens at the device is limited to an alarm, a badge, a popup message (any or all).

The apps are responsible for recognizing that a Push Notification has occurred and then to download the data (messages) and taking the appropriate action -- the next time the app is opened.

If Apple were to supply a set of widgets and a widget-data-retriever (or let developers do the same) -- then this would be superior to the Honeycomb implementation:

-- notifications would appear as they occur, rather than on preset poll intervals
-- the power drain would be significantly less
-- fewer connections and less bandwidth would be used

what's hard to understand? my point is Apple iOS and the iPad prioritize simplicity of use, limiting its possible uses as a trade off ("curated"). whereas Android Honeycomb prioritizes maximizing possibilities of use, making it more complicated to use as a trade off ("open").

take your own pick. but most consumers are not techies and so will choose simplicity. i'm a hobbyist myself, but after 25 years of fiddling with computers i've gotten tired messing with it all and want the damn things to "just work." after a 1000 or so tweaks, the thrill of bells and whistles is gone.

so i see widgets - if done well - as UI simplifiers, and think iPad should have them. and i expect Apple would indeed do them well. there is only a short list of things that would clearly benefit from widget aggregation as opposed to a dedicated app - communication services, location services, connectivity services ... what else? maybe a few more ...

likewise with not needing a computer sync. i see that as consistent with the fundamental simplification concept of the iPad.

of course, "widgets" first appeared with Apple's Tiger OS in 2005. not the same capabilities as we are talking about, but certainly the precursor of the idea (i wish Apple would stop confining them to Dashboard). MS copied them blatantly as "gadgets" in Vista. Google didn't even bother to change that name for Android's improved version. Whereas MS calls them "tiles" for WP7. but it's not like Apple has no right to use the concept.

If you had read my post objectively, you would have understood that it is no big deal from a technological standpoint.

I used the developer example to illustrate that there is no difficult programming being done.

Certainly Apple does not currently allow this.

Also, Apple, currently, has no equivalent to what Honeycomb Widgets offer.

There could be several reasons for this -- but I don't believe it is related to the difficulty.

In a later post I describe how Apple or a third-party developer could use expanded PNS (Push Notification services) to deliver an equivalent, if not superior, implementation.

I think Apple should consider this for some uses of the iPad and iPhone.

well, there might be hope even now. if Apple were going to provide its own group of widgets for iPad2 (you would be able to select what notifications/services/info to push/aggregate for a given kind of widget in its app settings), there would be no hint of that in the 4.3 OS beta. it would be something that got unveiled as a surprise at the launch announcement, like iBooks was. i'm sure the launch event is coming sometime this month ... so we'll know soon.

I think you would only be annoying yourself.

This one article is paying this months bills for AI. Keep the Android fans focus and there's money to be made on an Apple lover site! I still swoon over how ironic that really is.

Daniel, you did your job well with this one. I found it an enjoyable read, and you get the hits. Top notch!

So I'm guessing you don't own an iPad. Once you set it up, you can buy anything you want and it downloads directly to the iPad. Your computer will never know about it unless you sync. You can set it up and never sync it. Just keep downloading away....

Well I can't bank Apple's money either... but I can see developers moving, in time, to a platform that has biggest userbase.

I like to annoy only people that mean something to me, good or bad... so can't see a point in annoying that dude.

But I am tempted with Asus Transformer, maybe even Asus Slider. On paper they look almost perfect.

Google around for Nook Color Honeycomb.

Apparently current (alpha? beta?) release of Honeycomb is already hacked on Nook Colour, which is very modest in terms of processing power.

Honeycomb might be recommending dual-core, for HD multimedia, Flash, whatnot... but requirement it isn't.

Trust Fund Babies have money too. Nothing to do with brains. Usually the contrary.

Members of his family (or a girlfriend) asking him for Honeycomb tablet?

Yeah, Apple can copy Android, like most of their supposedly "innovative" features are copied from competitors.


There is very little that's original in OS X either.


But Android phones are selling very well.


There is currently one supported Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab. Its manufacturing costs are lower than the iPad's, but its price is higher and it's staying higher. Apparently, Samsung can get away with charging a premium... because the Tab simply does more.

But I do... because as more and more lemmings jump over the Apple cliff, Apple dominates the market more and more with their expensive and limited products. I want to live in an Apple dominated world about as much as I want to live in a Microsoft dominated world--both companies make products that suck (albeit in different ways).

There is a push notification system for Android: http://code.google.com/android/c2dm/ (for devs!).

I do own an iPad. I am aware you can download apps to any device, iOS or Android, from the device itself. We know that. It's always been there.

Google have just added the ability to view the Market on any browser and it's automatically pushed to the phone. Not everyone needs it. Not everyone will want it. It's just a feature which is a nice addition which might be use to some people, so the author omitted that because it could be... positive about something non-Apple?

As other has said, there is cloud2Phone but is now widely used

Well, that may "formally" be the case, but it's also clear that Google exercises great discretion in applying them, as the Skyhook lawsuit makes clear.

Yeah, I did some searching and found that capability.

Apparently it is rather new and/or incomplete -- and is not part of the Android "package".

I'm not clear if Goggle uses this, or something else, to provide Push Notifications for its mobile Gmail, calendar, contacts, etc. apps.

Also, there is some confusion as to how/if Twitter, FaceBook and others provide PNS to Android.


Given:

-- what sites/apps currently support Push Notifications to the iPhone
-- that APNS is an integral part of the base iOS system (and has been for a while)

Assuming:

-- that APNS is as good or better than the Google or Microsoft WP7 implementations

1) there is no particular difficulty from a technology/programming standpoint to write an iOS app to Recognize the Push Notifications, and Pull the associated data (emails, contacts, Tweets, etc.) for "real-time" display in a widget-like format.

2) to do this well, however, it needs to be done by the iOS system itself, with a system app that is always active (to handle the Push and Pull). This would be similar to how the iOS mail or messaging apps currently work,

As I see it Apple could use the APNS and provide:
-- an aggregator app on an iDevice to handle all Push Notifications for the device
-- a processor app to Pull any additional data (e.g. 1st line or 2 of an email) if necessary
-- a distributor app to distribute these notifications to various widgets (if present)
-- the widgets themselves to display a list of recent Pushed/Pulled summaries
-- access to the target client app (mail, twitter, etc.)
------ to do additional Pulls (if necessary) for the complete content of the selected message
------ to format, manage and display the detail content

I believe that this could be implemented by providing "new" iOS "system" apps on top of the existing Push/Pull construct -- done in such a way that existing 3rd-party apps need not be rewritten,

It is worth noting, that because of built-in content-length limits. it is very easy to handle things like Tweets, and Text messages -- the content fits within the Push payload, and requires no corresponding Pull for the complete content (contacts, email, calendar).

Skyhook suit doesn't have anything to do with TCS, but with "with Google" name for the phone

Not much. Luckily there are a bunch of videos showing it in action.

Yap, I think you're totally correct. The only thing you have forgotten is that widgets are not only for online data, but for local applications or thing that doesn't need data pulling but this doesn't change anything of your arguments.

It has to do with Google not certifying phones as "Android compatible" unless they use Google's location services, not Skyhook's.

Yeah...

A stand-alone Widget, pretty much looks like a stand-alone app.

iOS has 2 sources of Notifications that an app (or a widget) can receive:
-- A Push Notification that originates external to the device and arrives through the cloud
-- A Local notification that originates in another app on the same device

So, the Aggregator/Distributor app in my prior post could gather the Cloud Push Notifications for all Apps/Widgets within itself (for efficiency purposes), then distribute them to individual widgets through Local Push Notifications.

There is no explicit need for the target app/widget to be active or not.

Presently, iOS does not have an Active Widget setup -- likely for reasons of battery and performance.

This could easily change in the next generation of hardware.


For the record, Apple's main system apps: mail, contacts, calendar -- get push notifications and act on them whithout activating the app.

3.0 will be a nice tablet OS, and if you people think Apple hasn't taken notice, guess again. They have. They might tell you Android is crap, but when they speak to you, they are selling you something. Salesmen tend to favor the product they're selling after all.

All the crying here about how bad 3.0 will be and blah blah blah, you people just don't get it. If you had ANY sense, you would see 3.0 for what it is: A better future for YOU as Apple steps it up constantly to try and remain the best.

Why are impartial Apple customers so hard to find? You WANT everyone else to fail while being too stupid to realize what it means for yourself. A'DOY

We need to find a way to convert bias into energy, because this article contains enough of it to power the US for a few years.

More like a PC than an iPad? Seriously? It's like the he took a look at a screenshot of Android 3.0 and said "Hey, that black bar at the bottom kinda looks like a Windows task bar... and those widgets are like windows! ZOMG Honeycomb = Windows!"