Technology Android

[masta247]

Yeah, NEC make some of the best displays and it's an entirely different league, much more expensive too. Samsung in general keeps high quality for mainstream goods typical standards, although every device is prone to potential issues.
But they invest more in quality control than any other big electronics company and more than any company in the world in R&D.

There were issues with a bug that caused some S4s to brick during ROM installation or on restarts, but it was fixed with a patch in one of the first OTA updates this summer. So if you wanted to safely install a custom ROM, you had to install the OTA update (it flashed updated motherboard drivers) and then flash a rom if you wanted to.

So far I'm hearing the Note 3 is doing pretty great as far as quality goes too.

 

[Casey]

Coonie, this might interest you.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013...blet-pictured-in-kitkat-promotional-material/

 

[Casey]

After a solid play with 4.4, I think this is the most significant release yet. The integration of messaging and Hangouts, and almost total separation of all core apps from the framework (thanks to Google Play Services) effectively means the end of fragmentation. And the new Launcher with fully integrated Google Now - if this becomes part of the core set of Google apps that must be included with every Android phone, you can say goodbye to crap like the horrendously designed TouchWiz.

Remember - OEM's that are part of the OHA (basically all your well known manufacturers) have agreed to ship the core set of Google apps with every phone. If they don't, then they aren't compatible and they don't get access to the Play Store. This is why Amazon could not partner with a well known OEM for their devices, because they aren't compatible. The Kindle family is manufactured by some no-name company. Who says the core set of Google apps that ship with Android can't include a Launcher? This is a pretty genius move, to be fair.

I feel that Sundar Pichai is ruthless in a good way. Andy Rubin's approach was needed for his vision and to get Android to where it is today. Now Pichai is running the show in a totally different style, and I dig what he's doing.

 

[dilla]

Coonie, this might interest you.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013...blet-pictured-in-kitkat-promotional-material/

I would skeet everywhere. 8 can only be better than 7. Still hoping it'll be enough. I'll shell out $250 for a 16GB model. I doubt it'll be that cheap, though. Has to stay competitive with the old Mini Apple has for $299.

 

[masta247]

Coonie, this might interest you.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013...blet-pictured-in-kitkat-promotional-material/

Awesome. I love it. I'd totally get it. It'd replace my 2012 Nexus 7. I'm really hoping this is real deal. I love the bezels - if it's 8 inch it looks like it's almost the size of a 7 inch tablet, but with bigger screen.

 

[S O F I]

send me your email addys for the aviate invite.

 

[ARon]

Personally I'm not a fan of the new launcher. Integrating core apps into the launcher ruins customization for me.

 

[Casey]

Bought my Nexus 5 yesterday. Love it.

 

[Casey]

Looks like the most important thing in KitKat is the debut of ART to replace Dalvik. You have to manually enable it right now in 4.4's developer settings, but wow - people are saying it cuts loading time of all apps noticeably (because there's no code to be translated, it's all native) and that it removes all instance of microstutter/micro-lag, even on older hardware. Impressive, and a long time coming.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...-in-secret-for-over-2-years-debuts-in-kitkat/

 

[ARon]

I was going to talk to Masta about that in here, it's very very important. I'm thinking 5.0 which I assume will be the next version of Android will have ART and only ART, they're introducing it now to get devs up on it and ready for the switch

 

[Casey]

I was going to talk to Masta about that in here, it's very very important. I'm thinking 5.0 which I assume will be the next version of Android will have ART and only ART, they're introducing it now to get devs up on it and ready for the switch

Yep, seems like it's headed in that direction. I just enabled it on my Nexus 5, it took about 5 minutes to reboot and retranslate the 160+ apps I have installed into using the new runtime, but it definitely seems snappier when opening apps, and the N5 was already very fast.

 

[dilla]

This is what Android needs to be doing. Getting the OS to run as quickly and smoothly as it would if it were running the OS native.

I tried this Aviate thing SOFI invited me to. It's alright. Maybe I'm too used to the old way, where I had a bunch of empty screens, but it's nice to see it all organized by category.

The location feature reminded me of a feature Android had a few months ago, but seems to be gone now. The "Local" app, where I could find restaurants, bars, stores, etc. by just having it search the local area for me was a really neat tool. Where have they put it now?

 

[masta247]

It seems like ART is not as awesome as it sounds (it sounds just too perfect), but it does seem to help. Android needs core redesign. Google are doing everything they can to move around it. But still all those steps help. Seems like 4.1 and 4.4 help it the most, and it's the biggest performance improvement since the UI smoothness of Jelly Bean. They're going to work on ART and it'll get better with time, which will help performance but I don't think it'll remove the "UI lag" issue Android has. This alone won't make it iOS/WP-like smooth. It'll mostly help with launch times and loadings, especially for apps.

 

[dilla]

Here is an article on ART
http://androidcommunity.com/android...mean-big-things-for-little-hardware-20131106/

 

[dilla]

Also, those of you that run CM, they took out the OC feature in the Settings, right? Have any of you still resorted to a program like SetCPU or do you just leave it the way it is?

 

[ARon]

I think they're just trying to make Android as native as possible, even though it's ran through java. Dalvik and JIT are ok, ART is the new progression. I used some apps with it and it feels real snappy. i want to try some other third party apps with it though, i'm hoping they all update in a timely fashion

 

[dilla]

 

[masta247]

I'm waiting for 4.4 for my Nexus 7. Seems like a long wait somehow. Meanwhile, a beta ROM is already available for the Galaxy S4 and HTC promised to update all HTC Ones within 3 months. Google said the rollout will be coming "in a few weeks" and "it might take 2 weeks since the rollout starts" to get it. There's never been such a short time differences between Google Nexus devices and OEM flagships with updates.

 

[dilla]

I thought the N7s and 10s and 4s were all having the updates rolled out the day the N5 was released, earlier this week? The 2012 N7 got 4.3 the day the 2013 N7 was released, right?

 

[THEV1LL4N]

Looks like the most important thing in KitKat is the debut of ART to replace Dalvik. You have to manually enable it right now in 4.4's developer settings, but wow - people are saying it cuts loading time of all apps noticeably (because there's no code to be translated, it's all native) and that it removes all instance of microstutter/micro-lag, even on older hardware. Impressive, and a long time coming.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/1...-in-secret-for-over-2-years-debuts-in-kitkat/

I was just about to make a post about ART.
http://www.androidheadlines.com/2013/11/google-looking-replace-dalvik-art-heres-care.html