UPDATE:
Hello HaD readers,
Sorry for the delay in updating this. I was on probation while the editors worked with Jason to figure out some things.
Clearly, for my recent debut article, I didn’t research Android OS well enough. After reading each of your comments, I realize that the article fell short of HaD’s and its readers standards for high-quality writing and reporting. Every point I made in the article were problems I noticed in my experience with Android, but I should have done more research on others’ experiences and the capabilities of each version of the OS. To each reader, I am sorry and will do better by you in future posts.
Poor Google. Despite its numerous capabilities with smartphones spread across a variety of carriers, Android still struggles to garner the prestige and positive perceptions of iOS 4. Sales continue to rise, but at the end of the day, the average person is still left lusting for an iPhone. Well, here are 10 features that should be added to Android 3.0 that could change the tide.
1. A no-brainer task manager.
Google says Android doesn’t need a task manager, that it closes programs efficiently without any user-intervention, substandard apps often suck memory dry. Because of this, Android users are forced to download complicated task-managers, each with its own odd UI, and weigh which one works the best. Google, please fess up to the problem and put something in there a computer novice could use. Something with big buttons would be nice.
2. Stable Multitasking
Speaking of crashes, multitasking on Android is a mess. A little optimization here wouldn’t hurt. Better yet, while this may run counter-productive to us power-users, why not release a lite version of Android 3.0 that doesn’t support multitasking? Not every user needs it and lower-end phones would appreciate it
3. Swype
Google, your Android keyboard sucks. That’s why the fine folks at Swype Inc developed their product. Sure, some of the newer Android phones like the Droid X are releasing with it built in, but it would be a boon for the OS to come packaged with this software.
4. IR- sender support
On the hardware side of things, an IR-sender support is a “duh.” Imagine a next generation of remotes running on Android. Better yet, how would you like to control your lights and home-entertainment center with your phone without the sometimes-complicated mess of configuring through a network?
5. Universal pinch-to-zoom
Some apps have it. Some apps don’t. C’mon, this should be standard by now.
6. Folders
Google, you copied iOS’s homescreen UI, why not do it again? Many of users have outgrown their limited pages and would like a way to add some organization to their mobile lives.
7. SD-Card support for app-storage
If users are going to download a ton of apps from the Android Market, they need somewhere to put them. Users with rooted phones can already do this, but expandable storage should be standard in app-filled world with insatiable memory lust.
8. Built-in syncing
If the Android is going to succeed as a user-friendly platform, it needs to make it easy for people to add their music, photos, and video to their phones. It’s simple Google. Develop some web-based software and launch it as a beta. You do it for everything else…
9. Standardized UI for all apps
I’m all for artistic interpretation, but the reason so many functional apps get low scores is because they work differently than the rest of the OS. Once again, do what Apple did and come up with better UI guidelines.
10. Better market
Why can’t I queue downloads from the web? That would be awesome. How about a better way to navigate the store from my laptop? Despite the thousands of apps the Android Market hosts, it is stuck with the same problems as Apple’s iOS4. More importantly than any of the above, Google needs to innovate here. Change the way mobile markets work Google and you could win this war.
Photo courtesy [quinn.anya]
@EE: People are complaining because of the gross inaccuracies of this article, maybe you should read the comments.
This is one of the worst articles I have ever read. This person has never owned an android phone never mind touched one.
As I see, you don’t know too much about Android. And as I see you like to revile Google.
Some people told you how we got it already for a few points. For the 10th:
We have Appbrain app, what you can use to browse the apps, and set it to install to your phone from your laptop.
Would be a nice post, if only Apple users would read it, but now you get it from the android users : )
lol…. This is funny. Apple and AT&T is paying people to publish all sorts of sh|t. Really, dude, your either getting paid or someone spiked your Apple juice.
Apple has “jumped the shark”.
@EE
you just don’t get it do you?
you think we all love android because were developers don’t you?
well your wrong
android is better than the iphone because google made a device without limitations with everything you need plus some in a package that any carrier can pick up and use and produce a line of phones that can do anything they wish and yet be able to run stable and use tens of thousands of limitless apps
there are over 65 android phones out there … there is a phone that can do anything you want and be in almost any price range you please in any carrier you can think of and they all merge under one giant android roof with unlimited potential
any one can pick up an android phone and use it apple has no corner on that market
How about bringing out power and serial lines on some sort of standard port?
The device doesn’t support AT commands on the other hand it would not be all that difficult to write an app that takes AT and keeps the state and uses the internal api to do what´s required.
With serial I could easily use the phone as a bicycle computer, bar-code scanner, data-logger or anything else involving a microprocessor. With USB as my only option everything becomes more complicated.
Awful, poorly researched post here. Android has had folders all along – way before iOS. Also, look around and you’ll find plenty of good articles on why Android doesn’t need task killers at all. Your multitasking comments are just dumb. Apps on SD cards already exists in 2.2.
Oh, agree the Market needs improving though…
This post has been updated now. Sorry for the delay.
What’s EXACTLY wrong with Android folders?
this article is pure trash. You read old articles and add your own opinion while having absolutely no experience with either phone. how can you say something is unstable if you havent even used it. Sales do not translate to a better product, it relates to advertising and fanboism. ALL of these features are already in android in a better form or in development …. yes even the ir support with googletv.
This is an extremely poor article, I have trouble believing that this has actually appeared on HaD.
I have been an avid reader for about 5 years, as such I have been watching the slow descent into a run of the mill craplog.
This website started out as unique, it would show real hacks on hardware written by people who could write well and knew what they were talking about, maybe even the odd tutorial on fairly advanced electronics. We have now reached a situation where idiots have taken over. Articles are poorly written, badly researched and not are not even on the subject of hacking.
This is my first comment on this blog but I’m afraid it will certainly be my last.
Goodbye Hack a Day
Android’s homescreen a iOS homescreen UI copy? LOL
The iphone is just copied the wii, while google actually improved upon that and provided many more and innovative features.
now i know one thing for sure. this site “hackaday” says only crap.
what were you guys smoking anyways…
Just install cyanogen and have done with it
I sold my iPhone to get a HTC hero and never regret that day! As for allthe android slander.android was created in 1992 when the iPhone wasn’t even a twinkle in its fathers eye! Next time u write something like this actually get an up to date device to compare with the latest iPhone os idiot!
Helo Jacob:
I very rarely post comments and submissions to Hack-A-Day however after reading your article, I felt that this required my voice be heard.
Your article against Android are quite disturbing, giving myself and a lot of others here that you have not used an android phone for very long or you got ahold of some display model and only for a rare moment.
Before I address each of your points, I want you to know that I am basing this off of my Samsung Moment which I have been using for 5 months now and it has provided me with flawless service. I feel that the applications are plentiful and bring necessary expandability to the Android platform without the hassle of other phone OSes (I’m looking at you, Palm!). I believe that the Android OS is worth a lot more credit than you are giving it and that this article should be rewritten or at least investigated more thoroughly.
1. A no-brainer task manager.
You point out that you feel that Android users are “forced” to download “complicated task-managers, each with its own odd UI” in order to find the best one that works for them. I installed Advanced Task Manager after a brief Google Search. I downloaded it and without reading a single scrap of documentation was able to figure out that if I click on “Kill Selected Tasks”, it did just that. If I wanted to exclude something, all I had to do was clear the item’s checkbox and it was instantly added to a “ignore” list. I fail to see how a user can get more “no-brainer” than that. It. Just. Works.
2. Stable Multitasking
I can not agree with your statement. I am able to run many applications on my phone, a lot of them concurrently. As an example, I can browse web pages, play music and switch between the browser and ConnectBot (SSH client) with no lag to either my SSH session, my browser downloads or my music. I have to say that for a phone that does multitasking, this is the most responsive phone I’ve used even when I beat the heck out of it running multiple processes. I have yet to have to force close an application and have not needed to resort to pulling out the battery because of instability due to applications or multitasking.
3. Swype
Again, I can not agree. I am a part of their beta and after being showed the Swype application on a friend’s Droid, I tried it on mine. The application was inaccurate at best and did not impress me at all. Since the Moment has a physical keyboard, I quickly uninstalled it and went back to using the hardware keyboard. What minimal typing I do with the on-screen keyboard is best handled by the predictive text and although it’s not “perfect”, it makes do.
4. IR- sender support
I do agree with you on this however there are very few phones that currently support IR. Most phones that have been made in the last few years only use an IR pickup for a proximity sensor. The last great phone to have a decent IR-Sender was the Handspring Visor (there may be others) with a dedicated springboard module equipped with an IR LED for sending pulses to appliances. While this was a neat idea, it generally ended up being more of a novelty. I do agree with some of the commenters about using an IR transceiver on some handhelds to exchange contacts. This was a simple process and usually took less than a minute to align, send and validate receipt of the data. But as you pointed out, this is a hardware design issue not an issue with the Android OS.
5. Universal pinch-to-zoom
This is a feature that I could personally not care about. The Moment’s display is bright and the text is good enough that the only time I have issues reading the text is in the browser. A simple zoom in (or double tap on the screen) magnifies that portion of the page I’m looking at. I don’t think this is as big of a deal as you make it out to be. Some developers (not the Android OS) choose to use Pinch to Zoom, some choose their own methods, and some do not use any zoom features.
6. Folders
Again, as many users here point out, this is already in Android and has been since its inception. I personally don’t use folders (if I have to click more than three times to get to an app, it frustrates me) as ADWHome sets up five “screens” (by default) that I have all the relevant icons set out where I want them and in a particular order. On one screen, I have ConnectBot, SSH, iJetty, and a widget that displays the phone’s IP address and other “Network apps”. In another screen, I have Facebook, Handcent SMS, Gmail, Google Talk, and my “social” applications. ADWHome can be configured to allow you several home screens, it’s just up to the user how many they want. If I don’t have an app icon visible, clicking the Application List icon gives me all applications sorted aplhabetically.
7. SD-Card support for app-storage
I will agree with you here, however this was identified when Android 1.1 rolled out and they started working on it then. We will soon see Android 2.2 and in some instances, people already have it and are using Install to SD with no issues. This is something that will require Developer adoption as from what I understand, there is something that has to be set up in the package as to whether or not it goes to phone, SD, or either.
8. Built-in syncing
My contacts are synched with Google Email. Any contact I add in my Gmail application on the desktop shows up in my phone a few moments later. If I add a contact on my phone, it shows up in Gmail. If I plug in my phone to my laptop, I get a window that pops up displaying the contents of the SD card. I drag my music directory into the “music” directory on the SD card and it copies. That’s about as simple as you can get. You don’t need a dedicated synching app as just like item #1, it just works.
9. Standardized UI for all apps
There is a standardized UI however this is not something that Android has control over as developers for individual applications choose whether or not to implement their own UI or use the system’s UI. This is just like on a PC or a Mac computer. If the developers elect to create a custom UI for their application, then they can do so, otherwise the standardized UI is available.
10. Better market
I’m not too familliar with what you mean by this. The App store has not caused any problems. I queue up stuff to download and I leave it. In about two or three minutes, I get notifications that my updated apps are installed. Again, as other commenters have indicated, this is being worked on and will be out in the next major Android release.
Generally speaking, I believe that your article is a bit late in writing, as it sounds like you’re trying to write a review however your targets are way off, and you are blaming Android for faults that are not the fault of the OS itself. In some points, you have found fault with things that are known issues, have been known for a while, and are actively being worked on by Google and the developer community at-large to be improved upon (ex: Item #7).
I would suggest that in the future, if you are going to do a review, please take the time to research and study what you are reviewing. Simply stating “I don’t like this” is not good enough when you don’t provide any evidence to back the claim up like with Item #10. Why is navigating the App Store from your laptop so important? What could Google “innovate” on here? Making points about very well known issues and citing old information tends to result in a loss of credibility. Also, blaming the platform OS for the decisions of application developers in an article about the platform is very misguided and tends to further damage credibility.
I also very much dislike your comparison of Android to Apple’s iOS primarily because your tone of writing has come off as if you are blaming Android for not being Apple. Apple and Android are two completely different platforms with a following that has very different goals in place. I think that your statement that “…the average person is still left lusting for an iPhone.” I know several people with iPhones that can’t wait to get rid of them however none of my Android user friends would even consider giving up their Android phone for an iPhone. Ars Technica has published an article that most of the users that are getting the iPhone 4 were those that were upgrading from older versions, not as many new users as expected.
I really tried to like your article however it comes off as an unprofessional, minimally-researched note more than a fully fleshed out article and generally has insulted a lot of die-hard Hack-A-Day readers. This first impression is evident throughout most of these comments and while I may not support some of the opinions expressed here, I’m not inclined to disagree with the general concensus. When I read that Hack-a-Day was going to be introducing more software articles, I was leary but optimistic however this article has left a bad mark on Hack-A-Day’s generally positive history.
And without realizing it, I see that I wrote a book. I’ll get off my soapbox now.
tl;dr Do better research, Write better articles, Put effort and backup with facts = WIN. This article = weak attempt.
FIRESTORM_v1
I must say this being your first article for the company i think you should back up and leave now before you decide to continue treading your opinion all over
Anyone else want to call for the immediate termination of this poster? Seriously, it’s your first (or maybe just your only) post and you flamebait the Android OS using information that’s a year and a half out of date. Come on.
HAD is supposed to be a blog about people actually HACKING things, not complaining about a piece of technology they don’t own, haven’t used, and have no clue as to how it operates.
@Jacob Nahin, seriously? saying anything should “Mimic Apple” is like saying the US economy should go from a Free Market system to Blatant Tyrannical Socialism. You’re talking about moving from a completely open platform to one that censors just about everything. Not only that, but when they eventually do release functionality (MMS anyone?), it’s about a year late and a few hundred million dollars short.
I’m perfectly happy with my Incredible. I monitor my tasks quite often (as a few of them enjoy sneaking into the background), and as far as UI goes, the HTC Sense is great. Sure it has its quirks, but no one is perfect.
The Marketplace is amazing. I just search and I’ll usually find what I’m looking for.
Multitasking is a breeze: I’ve run Youtube, Facebook, AIM, and heaven only knows what else and I never crashed. The only crashing issues that I’ve had is usually with third party, or poorly developed apps. Or if I have about thirty programs running in the background and 15MB of the 512MB free . . . but then again, how does your desktop feel if you try to run Crysis, HL2, and Folding@HOME at the same time? Yeah, it’ll crash too, no matter how much ram you have.
You’ve said you’re a “Techie,” but everything in the post screams “I have absolutely no clue what I’m talking about!” Case in point: “As for a standardized UI and some standardized features, the article was aimed at how Google can increase marketshare, appealing to a wider base of customers. I know a lot of people here love open platforms and the freedom to develop whatever and however you want, but standardization has a place. Consumers do not want to learn a whole new menu system for each application. Some developers do have an eye for design. Some do not, and when said developers release an app, it throws consumers off. That is why a standardized UI for applications makes sense.”
What is a standardized UI? Give me one instance of a program that has a standardized UI with the operating system that runs it. Sure, it may share the same or similar graphical style, however the UI is the UI is the UI. It is specifically up to the developer to create, if he/she so desires. You may see the same UI in a specific software suite, such as the MS Office, or Adobe CS packages, however, the UI for Firefox 4.0 (beta) is drastically different than that of 3.5. IE 8 is much different than IE 7, which was slightly different than IE 6.
What about the jump from OS 9 to OS 10? Not only are we talking about a complete change in functionality, but of the US as well. Windows XP to Windows Vista was a huge leap visually, however there were certain issues that were neglected. And there’s still the amazingly strange jump from Office 2k3 to Office 2k7, which took on a complete paradigm shift for how the UI functions.
As far as an “OTA Sync” feature for “Music, pictures, and video?” Three words: Pandora, Flickr, Youtube. Ok, you can thrown in Facebook and Picasa, as well. You have to realize, there are already perfectly viable apps available (two of which Google already owns: Picasa and YouTube). I recently uploaded about 140+ Images to my Flickr and Picasa accounts last weekend. Over the Air. Using only 3G. I’ve uploaded videos through YouTube. And if you want to _Import_ Music, Images, Videos, well, I just plug my phone into my laptop and drag and drop: It shows up as a flash drive when I tell it to. Yeah, it’s that easy.
From the consumer point of view, android is amazing. I’ve got my mom on the LG Ally and she loves it, though she still hasn’t been able to figure out everything. She’s actually texting now, taking loads of pictures, and all on the Vanilla 2.1 with whatever minor tweaks LG put in there. It wasn’t hard to see why it would appeal to someone who doesn’t know much about that sort of thing: it’s easy to use, there’s loads of documentation (for those willing to read it) and the platform is ever improving, with major updates rolling out every few months, instead of waiting for the next iteration of the iPhone OS, or iOS, or whatever Father Jobs is calling it theses days.
Sorry for the long rant, but, as a true techie, a technical consultant, and actual Computer Engineer, I took offense at this post and I’m not sure I’m going to read HAD again if it’s going to become an OP-ED blog . . .
The Mad Technologist
As others have said, the Android isn’t a geek phone. If you want a geek phone, try the N900; it actually has most of those features, apart from multi-touch.
WTF? are you serius about this post? i really thing you never had an android device around you! VALIDITY GUYS VALIDITY!
do you even own an android phone? most of your wish list already exists.
This article is a joke right? Right?
your site does not support swype by the way.
and you’re behind t e curve, ios4 is persona non grata now. saw the tinyeatchptofuctions video yet?
is this web running on an apple server? backspCe and swype and nothing works propetly in the editor,and this is e t e the inly only sitr site so retarded.
This is a fail article. Obviously this person is a hater apple fanboy who hasn’t done any research before writing this article. Jobs said himself that android is older than “iOS”. Not much copying of any sort has been done on both sides. From no way does android’s homescreen look like the iOS screen. If anything, iOS is behind. Android was first with wallpapers. Did apple copy that? Anyone could say that. Please don’t straightforward put stuff that comes to your mind on this site, and do some research.
And the android keyboard is beast. (2.2)
Article fail. I feel like this was written by a 14 year old girl who played with a 3G Slide for 5 minutes at a kiosk. Folders? Apps2SD? Multitasking? lol
I NEVER post at hackaday before. For the past couple of years I visit hackaday everyday, since Im always interested in the interesting posts done by team hackaday, always unbiased and well researched.
Its the first time a post upset me. its poor material.
Obviously, Jacob is either of the following:
1. Doesnt have an Android phone. Only used it at some shop/a friend has it
2. Has an android phone but stuck on stock.
3. Apple Fanboy
4. All of the above
I find the post very immature and offensive specially that part when he commented that the keyboard “sucks”. I cringed also on those parts where he said “No-brainer” since I had always believed smart phones are targeted to be used by smart people. No point for dimwits to use smart phones, all they will do is whine and complain. Like what this post is all about.
Mr Jacob, I hope your next post will have some improvement over this.
Looks like someone didn’t do their research. This article is full of fail.
and one last thing, Jacob, if you’ll be the one who will be “reviewing” android and you DID own one before I dont feel that you even went to the point of having 2.1, as per one of your comments here:
“As for the inaccuracies, I will admit, I haven’t had a chance to play with Froyo. My experience is with everything up to 2.1.”
http://hackaday.com/2010/07/10/top-10-features-wed-like-to-see-in-android-3-0/comment-page-5/#comment-157351
Because if you did, then you wouldnt have made the suggestions on your article (see 1,2,6-10) since you have used it as a daily driver like the rest of us who actually do.
If this is the best you can do, then the best of luck.
Two down, One to go, what will the last guy bring us, installing a firewall on windows7 :)
I originally skipped on commenting on this one this morning because I was immediately thinking “where the heck is the HAD article addressing the iPhone?” It doesn’t matter. After re-reading the post and many of the comments, I wasn’t having a bad day. It really was just that much of a bloated piece of uninformed crap. I know you are always gonna have a bit of a peeing contest on your hands when there are so many knowledgeable individuals around, but really Caleb and the others, you guys kinda fed him to the wolves if you didn’t fact check any of it. I’m not really mad at the new guy, and I’ll certainly read more of the articles if they are interesting but also, and more importantly let this also be a lesson to the new guy and how you shouldn’t come out with guns blazing without re-checking everything and not reviewing something you have not actually played with yet. I think all parties could learn something from this and I hope we can all move on. This article was extremely uninformed and pretty “partisan” and I would agree with some of the other posters that if I was a meaner person, I would scream “RAT” Apple is going all out these days. I have locked horns with several of these grass-roots forum pastas and have the names of three separate marketing firms that I have personally witnessed performing on Apple’s behalf in the most innocuous of places so everyone here gets the gist.
I personally like the design of the iphone, but wish it was a 1) usable phone 2) had REAL multitasking and 3) had an open source market of some sort. All of these things make it far more likely for me to buy one to put in the bathroom for wifi toilet surfing. Also no FLASH makes it more likely that it will go right in the toilet. I have a tungsten E2 that does ten times more things than this does in native format most of the time on a crappy processor and a non stolen OS that allows third party apps from a decade ago. So yeah, where is our flying car and smartphone that can do true multitasking and actually hold a call like it does music?
HAD should do us all a favor and just erase this whole article like it never happened.
@carbuncle you never should erase history no matter how bad it is … HaD needs to find a better android dever than jacob and redo this thing and admit there mistake
Here is a fun activity. Lets rewrite the article for him. What features does everyone want / need. Whether its app based or not, what are you really really wanting that your phone doesn’t have.
My main one is better App security management. I love that the App has to declare what its doing, I just wish I could pick and choose. For instance I have avoided some games because they want to know my location. I didn’t install it because I didn’t think it needed it. It would be better if I could just tell that app, no you can’t access that, let me play my game!
MSN messenger that supports MPOP (multiple points of presence). I really want to be able to sign on to MSN at my work and on my phone without the two fightin
.Net or Silverlight support. Now that we are getting flash, lets get silverlight and .net on this thing!
A little about me. I’m a MS Silverlight developer and EE. I love my Moto Droid 2.1 and can’t wait for 2.2. I’m not real big into linux but love that my phone “just works”. I had a storm previous to this phone and have never looked back. Go Android!
Finally, HAD should take this as a complement that we demand excellence. You have set the bar high, make sure your hires can reach it.
Failed article is a fail.
Whoever wrote this has to be a troll. I never saw an article on Android so inaccurate and off unless it has been written by an Apple fanboy.
Seriously? This is the most impressive piece of fan boy horse shit I’ve read in a long time. Both operating systems have their pros and cons but to put zero research into an article is simply embarassing.
1 is nonsense as you can end each application through the settings – applications menu.
2 and 3 are purely subjective and as android is *OPEN* you can replace/hack the default keyboard in mere seconds.
4 While I would like this feature, I can’t see how it’s a DUH! feature. It’s obvious this will be integrated with the release of Google TV and similar.
5 makes zero sense as not all applications need pinch to zoom. Would p2z really be necessary in the calendar application or the music application? No. Also where is iOS’s p2z on the home screen? Oh its missing….
6 Now this is my favorite part, android has had folders since 1.5. That’s right, before iOS 3.
7 Froyo supports this perfectly, nuff said.
8 I agree with this point, a better *MEDIA* syncing experience is necessary. However application and data syncing even after a factory reset is perfect at the moment, I simply sign into my google account and everything is restored.
9 Please don’t restrict Android like iOS, we like originality and uniqueness. Demanding system wide standardization pretty much gives up on any significant advancements in the future.
10 This day in age no-one needs to queue downloads. If you’re using a connection which needs to queue sub 1mb downloads then Android vs iOS is the least of your worries. Admittedly I would like a way to access the marketplace on my laptop.
All in all, there was zero subjectivity in this article. Even on the areas that any Android user would agree to, the attitude used is that of an iOS fan boy. Poor show hackaday.
Jesus, I wish people would actually learn to use Android before writing these articles. Multitasking works flawlessly, its called holding down the home button. There is a task manager in Android, its under Applications in the settings. You can manually kill the app of your choosing. Of the many UI’s Android does rip off, iOS isn’t one of them. How can you rip off a grid of icons? The Android screen includes live widgets, wallpaper customization, and a notification bar. All features that were not included in iOS when Android debuted. The rest of the features you noted are ALL already present in Android 2.2, so I’m pretty sure they’ll be in 3.0. Did you even bother to look at the updated feature list?
This is amazing, out of the 130+ comments about how terrible this post was, mine was removed? How does that work exactly?
Love this new direction for HaD.
This article reeks of fanboism. Author should be ridiculed for such uninformed, biased, and overall poorly researched post. In the future I’d think twice before accepting their submissions. It reflects badly on the whole site.
Mr Nahin has expressed his opinion, many Apple i phone haters have expressed theirs-frankly folks with far to much time on their hands- brilliant minds differ but I for one thank HAD for having this well intentioned and extremely informative discussion. My dad used to tell me that opinions are like rectums everyone has one…
Please, make an adjustable font size…..
I can’t get my vendor to play fair. I can’t even get the kernel source code.
Then google puts up another road block, the apache license. This means I can’t compile my own Android for my device because I don’t have access to a bunch of libraries they use to make android work on my device.
Great!
So what do I want?
GPL2 or 3. GPl3 would be best because it could stop the impending and current tivoization of the android environment.
Android should be open and vendors should open their device for us. Stop limiting us by subjecting us to the shit you stole in the first place.
Give me the source!
@Hackaaaaaaaaaaaa
it is open just because you are to lazy to get the library or visit ANY forum with them all nicely packaged for you
just about ANY android phone has a developer mode and google gives you a shit load of code examples a ton of tutorials and full out programming videos … be grateful that google lets you use it at all
i have done it its not hard at all
hell you can get android on a live disk
if you still wanna be lazy about it buy a damn google dev phone
sitting back and complaining about every little thing to a group of people who odiously love android will get you NO WARE
Android has had folders since 1.0 – since it launched!
What on earth is the author of this article on?? Sort this crap out.
Are you trollin’?
1. A no-brainer task manager.
This is fixed already in 2.x. Applications remain memory-resident until more resources are needed, at which point Android intelligently kills the oldest-running or most-consuming non-active application. “Task killers” were popular with Android 1.x, but are discouraged in the 2.x documentation. And you have the option of Force-Quitting anything anyway.
2. Stable Multitasking
I agree about application stability. I’ve had problems with some specific applications crashing in the background (mostly IM apps). I haven’t noticed any slow-down with multitasking, but my Nexus One can handle a lot anyway, so I don’t know about lesser phones.
3. Swype
I tried Swype and it was way too weird for me. I like the Android keyboard the way it is. But this is definitely a preference thing. However, any user can install it if they want it, so I don’t see the point of building it in.
4. IR- sender support
I agree, that would be cool. But I also think this is more of a hardware limitation.
5. Universal pinch-to-zoom
This is available in the API since 2.1, so that’s just up to the developers.
6. Folders
Um, folders have been available since Android 1.0.
7. SD-Card support for app-storage
This is available since 2.2, although it’s up to the developer to enable it for their application, so applications that haven’t been updated since Froyo are not copyable.
8. Built-in syncing
New in 2.2 was Web Sync, which works really nicely for applications. I recently rooted my phone which requires a factory restore. As soon as I put in my Google Account login when setting up my phone again, all my applications were downloaded and installed automatically (although not preferences / saved games), I didn’t even have to sync it with my computer. It already syncs contacts and calendars since at least 2.0. The only thing missing is an iTunes-like application for music. DoubleTwist more or less fills in that gap, but I personally prefer dragging the audio files onto the SD card so I don’t use it. But it’s there.
9. Standardized UI for all apps
I definitely agree with this one.
10. Better market
I’m not sure what he means by “why can’t I queue downloads from the web?”, you can definitely download as many apps as you want at the same time. I agree with other points about usability.
Wow, please actually check your “facts” before you publish an article. I own an iphone, android, and webos phones and so much of this article is off.
I’m not just talking about the android “facts” either.
Dear Jacob, since you can’t seem to take a hint, this is where you swallow your pride and revise the article or you submit a revised article for publication.
Because frankly, you just look silly and the 100+ comments here pretty brazingly call you out on it.
Next time, try using the damn OS you’re critiquing. You sound like a Mac fanboy laughing about Win7 without even trying it.
Noob.
Proxy HTTP/HTTPS !
My PSP has, why android’s not ??
what i want to know is why can my dumbphone samsung impression let me type by writing, but not the smartphone with android?
plus i cant use anything but my finger on the touchscreen. then, if my finger goes dry i have to find some way to humidify it so i can use the damn phone. samsung impression has amoled and the touchscreen u can write on with anything, although the one in my android phone is probably more accurate. and when i find a small, fast ROM, i will put it on there, because most of them are big and slow, booting takes forever. at least i can OC to somewhere over 700mhz, not that it seems to make a difference. if i OC to somewhere above 800 i do notice a difference, immediate freeze lol. i need to get a new one with 1 or 2ghz but not if there is no flash player dammit and i need a keyboard because how the fuck am i supposed to play games without a keyboard? (Quake/Kwaak for example)
Stable multitasking.. i think its the applications that don’t support multitasking. i can run IHeartRadio in the background and read a PDF file or browse the web or text or whatever i want with no problems, and on a crappy old mytouch3g at that.. and those should be pretty cpu/ram intensive so idk what ur problem is there.
sd card support for app storage: Apps2SD. idk if it comes with standard android, but you do have to enable it first in settings, along with installing apps from unknown sources, but that is CyanogenMod, which it really sounds like you should try, with all those problems. IR, i would love to have an IR emitter in my phone. damn i know the first thing i would see on HaD is a TV-B-gone app for Android lol, THEN the universal remote. Chaos would ensue.
folders: i would have said :File Manager/File Explorer. you shouldn’t have to download a fucking file manager, it should come with android. another thing that a dumbphone the samsung impression has that the more expensive android smartphone does not.
Flash Player. i tried to install and it was like sorry we only give Flash to nexus fucking one.
how the fuck am i watching fucking youtube if i don’t have fucking flash player?
my guess would be direct streamed mp4? idk.
but i’m ready to move on to a faster phone, and put a small, fast OS on the mytouch because it is a slow cpu and needs a small rom. gonna buy an HTCHD2 even though it has winblowbile. thats why who im buying it from doesnt want it. just hoping for a port. all i really use the phone for is reading PDF files and using the iheartradio app because its the first radio app that doesnt suck.
i just read michaels post stating that SD card support for app-storage has been available since 2.2, i have had it since 1.6..
pinch-zoom.. im not sure if i want to downgrade to 1.6 for a faster phone, because what if adobe reader doesn’t support pinch-zoom in 1.6 since i never had pinch-zoom til 2.1, then.. oh yeah then i wont have so much trouble when part of my hand touches the edge of the screen as i try to scroll down, because there will be no multitouch. i think i just might downgrade to 1.6 for that mytouch, if i fucking can anymore since that goddamn hero rom fucked the shit out of my phone. how about a total-phone reset option that completely wipes every form of storage in the device, and you have to hook it up to a usb cable and start from scratch because someone built a shit rom that’s slow as fuck and once you finally get a different rom back on, it’s not as good as it was before that hero rom and its the internal storage, not the sd card that needs wiping. phone feels like a piece of shit now.
@Don orez “My dad used to tell me that opinions are like rectums everyone has one…”
original saying end with “every one has THEM” since there is opinionS instead of single opinion
Poor review.
Disagree with most stuff here:
-Task managers for android eat up cycles like nobody’s business. Seriously, they’re useless, it really does auto-kill shit pretty well, Autokiller is nice for tweaking the settings it uses for that, and a built in version would be nice, but only for the poweruser. The main drawback of not having a task manager is thousands of idiots downloading the crapy ones on the market and killing their battery life.
-The rumor is there are high minimum recommended specs for 3.0, I really don’t think running Pandora and Frozen Bubble at the same time is a huge deal for phones which are going to all be beefier than 1 GHz…
-Swype isn’t free, and Google footing the bill for infinite licenses seems somewhat unlikely. Sense’s default soft keyboard is actually pretty damn good, I’ve never had any problems with it at least, and some people don’t like Swype-style keyboards.
So, anyway, improve the stock keyboard, yes, this is part of a slew of UI improvements that are necessary to get stock android up to the quality of its skinned versions (Sense>Blur>Touchwiz>anything else>stock), also including tweaks to the notification bar, settings menus, live wallpaper support, etc. But buying Swype and bundling it in or the like would be a stupid cop-out for this.
-Could’ve sworn there was already a linux driver out there for IR sender support. The first page of Google has 2.
-Pinch-to-zoom should get a good standardized API, including integration in text-only Views but it shouldn’t be forced upon all developers in all situations, no.
-I certainly wouldn’t mind folders, but I think that they should be looking more at GDE for modifications of the homescreen experience than at IOS. Play with the desktop metaphor a bit, copying here seems naive to me.
-App SD storage was a feature in 2.2 in case you missed the memo, that is part of why people with rooted phones have it, because people with rooted phones (are there non-rooted Nexus Ones?) can get 2.2.
My HTC Hero, a 576 Mhz phone that launched over a year ago has native a2sd support now. Seems a bit weird to request a feature from their last release.
-Built in synching is just another thing that manufacturers implement that Google needs to pick up on so we have standardization without all of the manufacturer-variants. HTC Sync is pretty good and comes with a good deal of the android phones on the market. No clue about other options. But again, the focus should be on picking up the shit that manufacturers felt they had to fix to sell their devices.
-Fuck your UI guidelines.
-I’m for market improvements, but first and foremost amongst them needs to be better filtering. If you go and try to browse themes, or have certain searches, you’ll get results including 1000 skins for BetterKeyboard or some shit. Laptop browsing should have first-party support, but there are a couple sites out there that mirror the android market, complete with QR codes to link you to apps, and they work damn well.
One of the worst articles on Hack A Day ever. Please keep your site free of articles like this. It’s partially wrong, opinionated and useless!