Android: General Chat

[darrenm]

The party is almost over for the Android pirates as Google is about to implement a licencing system which will put an end to sharing download apps.

It depends on how devs set it up.

It allows the possibility to kill piracy, but only if the devs use some pretty draconian market settings (which good recommend doing against) that will render your app useless if there's no net connection available.

It also has the potential to limit the number of installs on a per-device basis, so you can specify an app can only be installed on one device, so if you get a new phone you'll need to rebuy it, you can't just transfer it over with your google account like you can now (but again, that's something google advise against).

It's something that developers will quickly learn what the market has an appetite for, too severe restrictions and you'll find apps rated down and abandoned in droves.

Oh, and it's also trivial to bypass, it just involves removing the market from your phone, so piracy will still be an option, just an inconvenient one.

The one thing that I am concerned at though is the ability to force an app update, you can mandate that anyone running the app HAS TO use the latest version, so you could make an awesome pay app, and then down the line throw ads into it too and anyone using it will HAVE to update to the ad version if they want to use it.

That's the beauty of an open ecosystem though. As you say, people will leave apps with severe restrictions in droves and developers will find a happy medium where customers won't feel like they're persecuted and still be able to exercise some level of control.

[CVByrne]

Which is better ADW or Helix launcher?

I'm using adw at the moment but hear helix can save a lot of battery life

[TheDon]

Launcher pro.

[CVByrne]

I'm reading lots of good things about adw and really like it so far. What is launcher pro do better?

Also will the latest version work on 1.6?

[TheDon]

Smoother, more updates, less FCs, and if you buy the plus version you get replacements for the sense widgets, bookmarks and people are in now, with the rest coming soon.

Forgot you're on an x10, launcher pro is still 2.1+ only.

I just wish you could theme the dock on sense then I wouldn't need a 3rd party launcher, in it's current state it's pretty useless. Huge phone button, useless + that does exactly the same as long pressing the screen, and so much wasted space. Give me a dock with phone, messages, email and apps so I can save some real estate on the screen.

[CVByrne]

Yeah slowly getting to me this 1.6 lark. Such good hardware on the x10 too, need custom rom but boot loader hadn't been hacked by the xda lads yet.

Adw is an improvement on the x10 home screen anyway as I don't use time scape as I'm not on any of that facebook stuff.

[CVByrne]

I like having nothing but a big background on my home screen with only a few essential icons there like dialer, messages, internet, camera and google chat. Everything else should be on a different screen. The notification bar is very small on the x10 which is very good imo.

[CVByrne]

Have you seen the spec for the galaxy s2 ? Release is rumoured as early next year.

2ghz cpu, 4.3 inch 1280x720 res screen.

Mother of god, this will be my next phone.

[TheDon]

Yeah, the desire HD is rumoured to have similar specs, but with a 1.5ghz dual core processor instead. Things are certainly looking awesome for the future of android handsets.

Sadly my next phone won't be till 2012, damn 24month contracts. But it's going to be a beast whatever it is with the way phones are advancing now. Although I'm probably going to be tempted to buy a new handset in 12months.

[CVByrne]

Yeah I'm on an 18month contract I signed in April, but here in Ireland we have less choice with the operators, like no Evo here at all, Galaxy S only in Carphonewarehouse. So my next phone is going to have to be fully out of my own pocket, but I'm so sold on Android and the future that a 4.3inch screen with awesome hardware backing it up seems like the ideal mobile internet platform to me. It'll be worth the sizable cost considering how much I use it.

How can Apple compete with this handset war? If Google get 3.0 right it could be curtains for the iPhone in 2012

[TheDon]

Google will get 3.0 right, they headhunted the guy behind palm's webOS UI, so it going to be a huge step forward in terms of usability.

I can see android 3.0 as being a massive advance over what we have now completely negating the need for custom launchers and oem addons like sense.

The sheer pace of development of phones for android is scary, because the manufacturers know that there's really only going to be a couple of flagship android devices, the ones that people will go for as standard, so they have to drive innovation as much as possible to make sure they make one of those handsets. Anything a competitor comes out with to beat them, they have to answer.

The one obvious issue that brings though is in fragmentation. Something that's already a minor issue, could get far worse.

When you have so many different hardware setups you have to look at where you're going to develop for. Do you make games for the ultra high end bleeding edge, or lowest common denominator to become as mass market as possible? We're going to have to see multiple versions of games to take advantage of multiple hardware versions. Games with graphics settings ala pc could be in line in the future.

[CVByrne]

I think there needs to be two sets of Android phones, high end 3.0 and low end 2.2 so that it doesn't become too fragmented.

The high end games will have tablets and 4inch+ high end phones all running on 3.0 so I'm sure that's where a lot of the games developers will gravitate.

The lower end phones running 2.2 will be rivals for the outdated iPhone. So they'll need a lot of those simple gimmick games. I have a feeling that's how it'll breakdown next year.

The problem is the technology advances need to slow down, if you buy a HTC phone today it'll be out dated in 2/3 months when they release the next phone. So when we're on 4.3 inch 2ghz phones is there any need at all to make a faster phone? No, I think next year will see the slowing of the hardware advances and more focus on lowering weight and increasing batterylife, innovative new screens etc..

Exciting times ahead, though tablets don't interest me I'm a huge lover of the netbook once you get beyond phone size I want a keyboard. I love my Samsung NC10 I'm typing on now. Though I hope the IBM vs Apple plays out again and their company loses out big time in market share, no less than they deserve.

[briggaman]

Locale is a must have for Android phones.

Also Rockplayer is very handy as it can play any type of video file under the sun.

Astro file manager is good to have too.

I'm not big into my games other than Snes emulator snesoid, you can then play all the classic nintendo games, which is all you need really.

Plenty of useful widgets to get too like brightness widget, auto rotate widget, 2G/3G widget. I like a kill all tasks widget too.

Thanks for that. I will let him know that these are good ones to get.

Any others that yourself or other people on here would suggest getting?

[limpid]

newsrob, guardian anywhere, handcent SMS, barcode scanner, dropbox, sky remote, snesoid, backup to sms, layar

and swype, but you'll need to read this thread for that.

[TOTTI-THE-GOD]

Ok i am a complete new comer to the whole Android phone thing , i saw someone mention a Samsung Galaxy S , are they really as good or better than the i-phone ? I am currently using a Sony Ericsson Vivaz which i loved at the time , the camera was excellent and the fact it recorded in HD made it even better , but other than this i am finding this phone pretty awful to use it has a mind of its own something that i was able to use when i first had it now randomly doesnt work , its like it tries to think for itself . Is the Samsung Galaxy S worth looking into further ?

Also could someone tell me more about 4G and if or when its released would the Samsung use it ?

[The_Rev]

4g is like, one better than 3g. It's only available in Americaland, so unless you live there then you dont need to worry about it. It's not even that widespread in the USA, you cant get 4g in Los Angeles or Chicago!

Oh, and I know there are a thousand tech blogs out there, but I found this post mortem of the Nexus One an interesting read.

[CVByrne]

Ok android is simply the best platform now. This year the power has shifted from apple to google.

The galaxy s is probably the best all round phone you can get for android at the moment. The hardware on the phones is better than the iphone 4 and it's cheaper. The 4inch screen is a delight. If you really use the camera a lot it may be worth getting the phone I have. Xperia x10 it's behind on the software updates but has a gorgeous 4 inch screen and an excellent 8.1mp camera.

Have a look in the other thread, android and apple discussion for a bit of debate on the two platforms. But my advice is if you are deciding for the first time to get a smartphone get an android. My friends are switching over from the iphone to android on the back of the impression my phone had on them.

[TOTTI-THE-GOD]

Cheers for the help , i liked the look of the Xperia phone typically it came out after i had my Vivaz , the Vivaz is not that bad a phone, just cause we are now no longer allowed to get onto most internet sites now at my work ( villatalk being one of the few ) , i am using my Vivaz which to be honest isnt the most user friendly phone for the internet . Thanks for the info though

[CVByrne]

I'm on my x10 now, writing this message with swype. I personally love the x10 and as a first android phone the late software updates are fine as it's my first experience with a smartphone. The hardware on the x10 is top notch, the camera is awesome and it looks amazing, looks slick.

Also an update just came out a week ago which has fixed a few of the little bugs there were. So it's up to you, latest software get the samsung, best camera and look get x10.

I've always liked sony because of how consistently good their cameras are. I use camera a lot.

[TheDon]

Personally I wouldn't touch the x10 because of the software version.

1.6 is rapidly becoming unsupported by a fair amount of apps. I'd much rather get a phone you KNOW is going to get updated fairly quickly, both the Samsung galaxy s and the Htc desire have 2.2 rolling out this weekend, whilst the x10 remains on 1.6 with no sign of even a 2.1 update and the only rumoured date for it being October. By then 3.0 will be close to hitting AOSP.

A smartphone lives or dies by it's applications, and the x10 is choking to death on 1.6.