Price per GB of Built In Storage. (8GB 3G for only $99 vs. Nexus One - $179 with a 4GB card vs. 16GB 3GS - $199)
Syncs very well with Mac Address Book and iCal (Outlook on the PC)
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.)
Allows developers to write native 3rd party apps. (Aren't Android apps Java based?)
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps.
App Store offers more apps to choose from than Android Market and thus offers more choice.
When a call interrupts your music, then the music will automatically resume when the call is completed.
iTunes integration. Rate songs on your phone and those ratings are updated on your computer next time you sync. Same with play counts; last time played; etc.
Sync bookmarks with Safari.
Synchronize over the air with MobileMe. (I'm not a subscriber myself, but the idea of this does impress me.)
Synchronize photo albums with iPhoto. (Does Android sync with Picasa? That would be very cool.)
Virtual keyboard in landscape and portrait. (Eliminates moving mechanical parts which by extension reduces wear and tear. Palm Pre would be near perfect if not for the physical keyboard.)
Built in battery. (Increases internal space available for other components like accelerometer; magnetometer; WiFi, cellular, GPS, and bluetooth radios; camera; etc.)
Mac OSX under the hood with intuitive and uncluttered GUI on top.
Limited hardware number of hardware configurations. (Is the great "Android fragmentation" continuing?)
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.) -> Core OS doesn't implement multitouch, applications have multitouch
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps. -> The same with Android market
When a call interrupts your music, then the music will automatically resume when the call is completed. -> Android even resumes 3rd party music apps like Pandora or Spotify
Virtual keyboard in landscape and portrait. (Eliminates moving mechanical parts which by extension reduces wear and tear. Palm Pre would be near perfect if not for the physical keyboard.) -> The same with Android
Built in battery. (Increases internal space available for other components like accelerometer; magnetometer; WiFi, cellular, GPS, and bluetooth radios; camera; etc.) -> Droid and N1 are examples that having removable battery doesn't implies less internal space available or thicker devices
Syncs very well with Mac Address Book and iCal (Outlook on the PC)
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.)
Allows developers to write native 3rd party apps. (Aren't Android apps Java based?)
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps.
- You can synchronize your Contacts/Tasks/etc with online Google services
- Multi-touch has the full support in the current SDK, but... For me it seems to be legal issue, not hardware/software
- Google provides both SDK (for java based applications) and NDK (for native applications)
- Android developers share the same 70% of revenue. In addition, they pay $25 once for access to Android market, instead of paying $100 every year as iPhone developers do
Android developers share the same 70% of revenue. In addition, they pay $25 once for access to Android market, instead of paying $100 every year as iPhone developers do
but you have a much larger market ... with Android ... not every app works on every phone since things like resolution and OS version are scattershot at best
Just to clarify an earlier point - when installing an app on an Android device, the binary must be installed to the device's built-in memory but resource files can be placed on SD cards.
I believe the iPhone is the top selling phone. That indicates some sort of supremacy. The iPhone also dominates mind share, developer support etc. Nokia and RIM selling more total phones (many of which are free/ not even smart phones in Nokias case) doesn't give them a smartphone supremacy.
Nokia doesn't sell phones for free, the operators provide them free with a contract, and the operator pays Nokia for the phone. Big difference.
Just to clarify an earlier point - when installing an app on an Android device, the binary must be installed to the device's built-in memory but resource files can be placed on SD cards.
Dont you have to root the device for this capability?
Nexus One is shaping up to be a cool device, but id rather own it on Verizon than T-Mobile.
Verizon had better offer cheaper plans for people not buying it on contract...otherwise there would be no point to spend more money.
Today's Google "press event" was very bad showmanship. If the phone is as good as their presentation skills, the phone will not be very good/user friendly. They might have good developers but they do not have the people to make it a great phone. They do not have Jonathan Ive or Steve Jobs.
$530 is hella expensive. Would buy it for no more then $300. I mean you can find a GS for like $450 unlocked (Last I looked was a while ago so it could be even cheaper now), and this thing (Nexus One) is not much different from GS. I know that it will be available online for like $400 in couple of months (depending on demand of course), but I guess I did not expect it to be this expensive at launch.
The subsidised cost of $180 is a bit high as well. I would pay no more then 150 if I was generous, most likely 120-130 if I was going with a two year plan. Over that time ($80/ mo) all $530 can be paid off and then some, no matter the cost really so in theory it should be free, but I could see t-mobile not wanting to risk losing the $ if people cancel.
I like the device and what it brings, turn by turn directions, 3d backgrounds, fairly fast and well built (from what I could tell from Engadget and other sources). I would like to see it in person. At the same time, iPhone 4g will most likely match Nexus's features (apple bought that mapping service a little while ago) especially in terms of color/ 3d background which is long overdue. Bigger / oled screen would be nice, especially 16:9, but honesly can be forgone if it would add too much to the cost. I am quite happy with the current display to tell the truth.
The press event, if it becomes an annual thing, could be very good for the android platform and a way to unify all the manufacturers and developers to create a real, integrated ecosystem to rival apple's.
Incidentally, I think that 'multitouch,' while nice, is over-rated. I don't think it will be a continued source of competitive advantage for Apple.
Pinch to zoom for me is not replaceable. It is the best way to mobile surf, IMO. However, I do agree that it's competitive advantage isn't very high, and most would jump ship for a similar experience at less cost.
Best place to get one of these copycat devices after the next iPhone update: ebay.
Lol! What a never was this is going to be in even a few days with the tablet announcement and in a few months with the new iphone... It's the ipod killer wars all over again, with those making the largest proclamations of ipod killing (see microsoft), and here iphone killing, making the biggest fools of themselves in the end.
I don’t know. I won’t have the same problem as the G1 did but it seems shortsighted to me. ... Can you store apps on the SD cards or is it still just the support files? I hope you’re not confusing the 512MB RAM with the 512MB on-board NAND.
Android apps are interpreted "Dalvik" applications, essentially a clean room clone of Java. For some reason or the other, Google has limited the ability to only encrypt "apps", the interpreted code, to reside on the onboard storage. Android doesn't have the ability, outside of a hack maybe, to provide encryption for applications that would reside on the SD card. Just like WebOS or any platform that has interpreted code as its app platform, having applications' "source code" freely available to competition or piracy doesn't sound like a nice one for developers. So, some type of encryption has to be employed.
512 MB of main memory is pretty sweet though. Apply really needs to have than for the next iPhone. It'll allow them to do multitasking reasonably well without harming the user experience with slow downs and power drains. They'll probably need to develop an API for 3rd part app multitasking to suspend code execution and to automate app closure based on some longest-unused-first-closed policy though.
Quote:
I thought they’d up it last time around. It’ll be 3 years with the same LCD tech and resolution. I don’t see how they could possibly hold out for another year so i think AMLOED and higher resolution is a shoe in.
I'm hoping for 960x640 on a 4" screen by the time I upgrade.
AMOLED screens are bleh. What tradeoff do you want? Vibrant colors and deep blacks indoors or useable screen outdoors? Basically, useable screen outdoors for a "superphone" should trump any benefit in color quality indoors. So, I think Apple is more than fine if they go with an LED backlight screen. Or at least until OLED screens are usable in direct sunlight.
Quote:
I forgot about the maps app. I had to test it to see if pinch and zoom is something I do often in Maps, and I do. I take it for granted. It’s too useful and elegant not to.
Keyboard. Keyboard. Keyboard. Multitouch on the keyboard is part of the reason the iPhone keyboard rivals hardware based thumb-boards in terms of typing speed.
And eventually, two finger and three gestures (rotates, pinches and swipes) will enter the iPhone UI vocabulary instead of just reserved for accessibility modes. A 2 finger swipe right to left can mean go back, left to right can mean go forward. A 3 finger pinch could mean expose of open apps. A 3 finger swipe could mean switching between open applications. I have been waiting for Apple to start doing this for awhile.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the mythical tablet UI in terms of multi-touch gestures too and whether there will be a common touch language.
curious, i checked the Droid and Nexus specs to see if the same apps will work on both.
Droid: 854x480 resolution, 16:9 aspect
Nexus: 800x480 resolution, 15:9 (5:3) aspect
close but no cigar. the Droid might simply "pillar box" a Nexus app in theory, but no way Nexus can play a Droid app without downscaling it by 1/16 and letterboxed (or cutting off the edges? i don't think so.)
There is a lot of FUD going around here regarding fragmentation. Do you have to buy new desktop apps every time you upgrade your monitor? It's the same with Android. You code to the API not to the device. My app (form based), works just fine between 1.1, 1.5, 1.6. I don't have a 2.0 device, but it works fine on 2.0 in the emulator. I had to modify it slightly for each version (and by slightly, I mean a couple of hours worth of effort), but the *same* app works on each version. And I don't have a bunch of if-else calls in my code for different versions. If I were to use any newer APIs (like say 3D in 2.1) I would have to gracefully degrade my app on earlier versions. No different than coding for the magnetometer in the 3GS which is not present in the 3G.
I can understand that it will take a while before non-developers realize that fragmentation is mostly just wishful thinking on the part of Apple fanboys, but I seriously question the qualification of developers who can't figure out how to code around different versions. Certainly apps that primarily need a certain hardware or API that was delivered in a later release will only work on that release. But it shouldn't be the case for every app. It's just a matter of how critical is the new functionality to your app. If it's just a part of your app (say using speech), then you gracefully degrade. If it's important, the app is targeted only for that release. eg. Google Earth can only work well with a device with 3D chip so it will only work well in a NexusOne and will only be available in those type of devices (and presumably will not show up in the Market for other devices). But the majority of the apps (if coded reasonably well) will work just fine across versions. Every time a new version is released, many apps are updated. And although I don't have the Droid, all the Droid capable apps work just fine on my G1. There aren't different versions for the G1 and different ones for the Droid.
Comments
I guess I need to be more specific. Buying this e-advertising company was Apple reacting to Google's move.
Either that or Apple see the bigger picture here. I mean they can afford to just do nothing with it but i hope that isn't the case.
The leverage is with Apple and i reckon they know exactly what to do next.
In what manner is the iPhone currently supreme?
It has:
Price per GB of Built In Storage. (8GB 3G for only $99 vs. Nexus One - $179 with a 4GB card vs. 16GB 3GS - $199)
Syncs very well with Mac Address Book and iCal (Outlook on the PC)
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.)
Allows developers to write native 3rd party apps. (Aren't Android apps Java based?)
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps.
App Store offers more apps to choose from than Android Market and thus offers more choice.
When a call interrupts your music, then the music will automatically resume when the call is completed.
iTunes integration. Rate songs on your phone and those ratings are updated on your computer next time you sync. Same with play counts; last time played; etc.
Sync bookmarks with Safari.
Synchronize over the air with MobileMe. (I'm not a subscriber myself, but the idea of this does impress me.)
Synchronize photo albums with iPhoto. (Does Android sync with Picasa? That would be very cool.)
Virtual keyboard in landscape and portrait. (Eliminates moving mechanical parts which by extension reduces wear and tear. Palm Pre would be near perfect if not for the physical keyboard.)
Built in battery. (Increases internal space available for other components like accelerometer; magnetometer; WiFi, cellular, GPS, and bluetooth radios; camera; etc.)
Mac OSX under the hood with intuitive and uncluttered GUI on top.
Limited hardware number of hardware configurations. (Is the great "Android fragmentation" continuing?)
It has:
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.) -> Core OS doesn't implement multitouch, applications have multitouch
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps. -> The same with Android market
When a call interrupts your music, then the music will automatically resume when the call is completed. -> Android even resumes 3rd party music apps like Pandora or Spotify
Virtual keyboard in landscape and portrait. (Eliminates moving mechanical parts which by extension reduces wear and tear. Palm Pre would be near perfect if not for the physical keyboard.) -> The same with Android
Built in battery. (Increases internal space available for other components like accelerometer; magnetometer; WiFi, cellular, GPS, and bluetooth radios; camera; etc.) -> Droid and N1 are examples that having removable battery doesn't implies less internal space available or thicker devices
It has:
Syncs very well with Mac Address Book and iCal (Outlook on the PC)
Multi-touch with responsive gestures. (Nexus One lacks multi-touch completely.)
Allows developers to write native 3rd party apps. (Aren't Android apps Java based?)
iPhone developers take home 70% of income generated from their apps.
- You can synchronize your Contacts/Tasks/etc with online Google services
- Multi-touch has the full support in the current SDK, but... For me it seems to be legal issue, not hardware/software
- Google provides both SDK (for java based applications) and NDK (for native applications)
- Android developers share the same 70% of revenue. In addition, they pay $25 once for access to Android market, instead of paying $100 every year as iPhone developers do
Android developers share the same 70% of revenue. In addition, they pay $25 once for access to Android market, instead of paying $100 every year as iPhone developers do
but you have a much larger market ... with Android ... not every app works on every phone since things like resolution and OS version are scattershot at best
How do you know this wasn't in the works for a while now?
How do we know it was? Also, the timing is suspicious.
I believe the iPhone is the top selling phone. That indicates some sort of supremacy. The iPhone also dominates mind share, developer support etc. Nokia and RIM selling more total phones (many of which are free/ not even smart phones in Nokias case) doesn't give them a smartphone supremacy.
Nokia doesn't sell phones for free, the operators provide them free with a contract, and the operator pays Nokia for the phone. Big difference.
Just to clarify an earlier point - when installing an app on an Android device, the binary must be installed to the device's built-in memory but resource files can be placed on SD cards.
Dont you have to root the device for this capability?
Nexus One is shaping up to be a cool device, but id rather own it on Verizon than T-Mobile.
Verizon had better offer cheaper plans for people not buying it on contract...otherwise there would be no point to spend more money.
The subsidised cost of $180 is a bit high as well. I would pay no more then 150 if I was generous, most likely 120-130 if I was going with a two year plan. Over that time ($80/ mo) all $530 can be paid off and then some, no matter the cost really so in theory it should be free, but I could see t-mobile not wanting to risk losing the $ if people cancel.
I like the device and what it brings, turn by turn directions, 3d backgrounds, fairly fast and well built (from what I could tell from Engadget and other sources). I would like to see it in person. At the same time, iPhone 4g will most likely match Nexus's features (apple bought that mapping service a little while ago) especially in terms of color/ 3d background which is long overdue. Bigger / oled screen would be nice, especially 16:9, but honesly can be forgone if it would add too much to the cost. I am quite happy with the current display to tell the truth.
The press event, if it becomes an annual thing, could be very good for the android platform and a way to unify all the manufacturers and developers to create a real, integrated ecosystem to rival apple's.
Incidentally, I think that 'multitouch,' while nice, is over-rated. I don't think it will be a continued source of competitive advantage for Apple.
Pinch to zoom for me is not replaceable. It is the best way to mobile surf, IMO. However, I do agree that it's competitive advantage isn't very high, and most would jump ship for a similar experience at less cost.
Nexus One = Epic fail.
Best place to get one of these copycat devices after the next iPhone update: ebay.
Lol! What a never was this is going to be in even a few days with the tablet announcement and in a few months with the new iphone... It's the ipod killer wars all over again, with those making the largest proclamations of ipod killing (see microsoft), and here iphone killing, making the biggest fools of themselves in the end.
I don’t know. I won’t have the same problem as the G1 did but it seems shortsighted to me. ... Can you store apps on the SD cards or is it still just the support files? I hope you’re not confusing the 512MB RAM with the 512MB on-board NAND.
Android apps are interpreted "Dalvik" applications, essentially a clean room clone of Java. For some reason or the other, Google has limited the ability to only encrypt "apps", the interpreted code, to reside on the onboard storage. Android doesn't have the ability, outside of a hack maybe, to provide encryption for applications that would reside on the SD card. Just like WebOS or any platform that has interpreted code as its app platform, having applications' "source code" freely available to competition or piracy doesn't sound like a nice one for developers. So, some type of encryption has to be employed.
512 MB of main memory is pretty sweet though. Apply really needs to have than for the next iPhone. It'll allow them to do multitasking reasonably well without harming the user experience with slow downs and power drains. They'll probably need to develop an API for 3rd part app multitasking to suspend code execution and to automate app closure based on some longest-unused-first-closed policy though.
I thought they’d up it last time around. It’ll be 3 years with the same LCD tech and resolution. I don’t see how they could possibly hold out for another year so i think AMLOED and higher resolution is a shoe in.
I'm hoping for 960x640 on a 4" screen by the time I upgrade.
AMOLED screens are bleh. What tradeoff do you want? Vibrant colors and deep blacks indoors or useable screen outdoors? Basically, useable screen outdoors for a "superphone" should trump any benefit in color quality indoors. So, I think Apple is more than fine if they go with an LED backlight screen. Or at least until OLED screens are usable in direct sunlight.
I forgot about the maps app. I had to test it to see if pinch and zoom is something I do often in Maps, and I do. I take it for granted. It’s too useful and elegant not to.
Keyboard. Keyboard. Keyboard. Multitouch on the keyboard is part of the reason the iPhone keyboard rivals hardware based thumb-boards in terms of typing speed.
And eventually, two finger and three gestures (rotates, pinches and swipes) will enter the iPhone UI vocabulary instead of just reserved for accessibility modes. A 2 finger swipe right to left can mean go back, left to right can mean go forward. A 3 finger pinch could mean expose of open apps. A 3 finger swipe could mean switching between open applications. I have been waiting for Apple to start doing this for awhile.
It'll be interesting to see what they do with the mythical tablet UI in terms of multi-touch gestures too and whether there will be a common touch language.
curious, i checked the Droid and Nexus specs to see if the same apps will work on both.
Droid: 854x480 resolution, 16:9 aspect
Nexus: 800x480 resolution, 15:9 (5:3) aspect
close but no cigar. the Droid might simply "pillar box" a Nexus app in theory, but no way Nexus can play a Droid app without downscaling it by 1/16 and letterboxed (or cutting off the edges? i don't think so.)
There is a lot of FUD going around here regarding fragmentation. Do you have to buy new desktop apps every time you upgrade your monitor? It's the same with Android. You code to the API not to the device. My app (form based), works just fine between 1.1, 1.5, 1.6. I don't have a 2.0 device, but it works fine on 2.0 in the emulator. I had to modify it slightly for each version (and by slightly, I mean a couple of hours worth of effort), but the *same* app works on each version. And I don't have a bunch of if-else calls in my code for different versions. If I were to use any newer APIs (like say 3D in 2.1) I would have to gracefully degrade my app on earlier versions. No different than coding for the magnetometer in the 3GS which is not present in the 3G.
I can understand that it will take a while before non-developers realize that fragmentation is mostly just wishful thinking on the part of Apple fanboys, but I seriously question the qualification of developers who can't figure out how to code around different versions. Certainly apps that primarily need a certain hardware or API that was delivered in a later release will only work on that release. But it shouldn't be the case for every app. It's just a matter of how critical is the new functionality to your app. If it's just a part of your app (say using speech), then you gracefully degrade. If it's important, the app is targeted only for that release. eg. Google Earth can only work well with a device with 3D chip so it will only work well in a NexusOne and will only be available in those type of devices (and presumably will not show up in the Market for other devices). But the majority of the apps (if coded reasonably well) will work just fine across versions. Every time a new version is released, many apps are updated. And although I don't have the Droid, all the Droid capable apps work just fine on my G1. There aren't different versions for the G1 and different ones for the Droid.
Apple doesn't own ANY patent for multi-touch, I don't understand why everyone is acting as if that's a well known fact.
Like this one?
http://mashable.com/2009/01/26/apple...-touch-patent/