it's all garbage.
Honestly, email is the biggest load of garbage I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. Yet, we rely on it, every single day, on our smartphones and computers, to communicated with colleagues and coworkers, bosses and subordinates.
There is a better way, but that's completely irrelevant, since the entire market is so ingrained in this concept of email that it's no longer worthy of any discussion. So put away your high hopes of a wave-like interface for communication. Email is horrible, and it's not going anywhere. With email being so prevelant, it's impossible to keep up. Users get bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands of new messages every day, many are never deleted, instead left to waste in the enterprise server's inbox, unopened, unread, unloved, and irrelevant.
Aside from the growing problems of users inboxes being too bloated with unread messages, you have costs on costs on costs.
What's nice is that Microsoft has made it pretty easy, buy Windows Server, buy Exchange, voila, a nice, simple, easy solution. works, add your users, give them mailboxes, and set quotas based on how many people you have, and how much disk space there is on the server. done.
Cost: 1xServer, 1xOS, 1xExchange.
If you want to add mobile access, tick a box to enable Activesync, voila, now iPhone, Android and (last but not least) Windows Phone (formerly Windows Mobile) can now obtain any and all Exchange content. What's more, they can enjoy instant delivery with push notifications. Users can access their Exchange calendar, contacts, email and more, all sync'd with the server, and to their enterprise outlook. ... Wonderful!
Cost: whatever you want to spend on a mobile phone.
Now let's add... let's say, 5 blackberry users. We want full integration of the system, so BES is the way to go. and let's say, just for kicks, that the server we previously purchased is powerful enough to run BES along side Exchange, etc. So no new hardware here, besides the phones. Well, That's great, the Blackberry users have full exchange sync and can access their stuff.
Cost: BES (not cheap, look it up) plus a licence for every blackberry device, and, obviously, the phones.
.... okayyy, what the...
so it's going to cost me how much to just get blackberries working? okay, what if we go hosted?
Well, no server cost, no cost for base exchange or BES, so that's good right?
I have to pay an amount for every email account, but that's okay, I suppose, and for every email account I have access to it from iPhone, Android and Windows Phone, as expected.... but what about blackberry, I have to pay DOUBLE for BES ACCESS? are you joking?
just to have a blackberry?
I'm sorry, but I will continue to rage hard about this, Blackberry isn't special, their system isn't significantly better than Android, or Windows Phone. this is unjust, and the market is realizing that.
I've never really been on the "RIM is dying!" train, but I think I'll have to jump, because with this, as an IT professional, I would never suggest for any organization to buy into this. avoid it at all costs. Unless a company REQUIRES blackberry for some SPECIFIC reason, that no other platform and fulfill, there is no reason to buy it, or use it.
Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Android. Show all posts
Monday, April 9, 2012
Saturday, December 10, 2011
First, there was the Nexus One, manufactured by HTC, which set the bar for Android powered phones. Then, the Nexus S, which barely moved the bar at all, and everyone ignored in terms of innovation (which is to say the only new features in the Nexus S were all but neglected by other manufacturers, nobody implimented them); now, there's the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. They're not even HIDING the fact that samsung made this version, and it is raising the bar again.
Allow me to elaborate. The Google Nexus One, was all but unknown to be manufactured by HTC, you actually have to look it up to find the information. of course, the phone was only so popular, considering you could pretty much only buy it, unlocked, from google (a smart move, if I do say so myself). At the time at which the Nexus One hit the market, Android was primarily running Donut (v.1.6) on phones like the HTC Hero. a 500Mhz BEAST with a WHOPPING 256MB of RAM... The Nexus One raised the bar and said no more to these pathetic clock speeds and measly amounts of RAM... THIS is what Android should run on! A 1Ghz Snapdragon processor with 512MB of RAM! Twice as powerful as almost everything else on the market at the time, the flagship Google phone paved the way (and the specifications) for a multitude of variants, including the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Desire, and Motorola's Droid 2. There were also new sensors introduced and a whole pile of great stuff that really defined a new standard, that almost all manufacturers followed from thre on out, until recently.
The Galaxy S brought nothing new to the tabe. Well, that's unnecessarily harsh, it had NFC. The Galaxy S is the first major Android phone to include NFC. Despite this, the majority of the Galaxy S's hardware was nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy S, from where it borrowed a portion of its name; with the obvious technical exception of NFC, which the Galaxy S was missing. They were both manufactured by Samsung, so the phones are practically identical. What's hilarious to me is that the Nexus One defined the standard by which the Galaxy S was based on, and the Nexus S was based on that. So you end up with a phone that's identical in almost every way.
To be fair, probably the biggest consumer-oriented change with the Nexus S was the move to internal NAND style memory, as opposed to the SDHC, External style found in the Nexus One. This memory is faster and more efficient than using an external SDHC card, with the obvious downside of not being able to be upgraded, and if something goes horribly wrong, anything saved on your phone, while that data may still be intact, is impossible to retrieve without special hardware.
The Galaxy Nexus has the same level of innovation that it is bringing to the market, as the Nexus One did. The Galaxy Nexus stands as a new standard for Android; it's a dual-core, 1.2Ghz System with 1GB of RAM. The phone also has all the usual sensors, aGPS, Gyro, Compass, light sensors, capactive multitouch, etc. and the same communication functions as the previous Nexus: NFC, Bluetooth, Wifi and Cellular. Though, it's notable that the Galaxy Nexus has an upgraded Wireless chip, capable of 802.11a/b/g/n - this indicates a dual-band chip (both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, also a feature yet unseen in cellphone technologies). This has already spurred a whole line of new phones from every major manufacturer; from HTC: Sensation, Evo 3D, Amaze, etc. from Samsung: Galaxy S II and S II X. from Motorola: Atrix, Droid Razr, Droid 3, etc.
To put it briefly, I am not, and have never been a huge fan of the Nexus S. It was more popular than the Nexus One based on two merits: it was more widely available, many carriers actually sell the Nexus S in-store on contacts, making it faster and easier to get ahold of one than ever; the Nexus One, 9 times out of 10, you had to buy at full cost, no contract, from Google directly. Secondly, the Nexus S came out much later into Android's development, as a much more mature ( and much more popular ) platform, it was easy for the Nexus S to become as popular as it has become; despite not bringing much new to the table.
Allow me to elaborate. The Google Nexus One, was all but unknown to be manufactured by HTC, you actually have to look it up to find the information. of course, the phone was only so popular, considering you could pretty much only buy it, unlocked, from google (a smart move, if I do say so myself). At the time at which the Nexus One hit the market, Android was primarily running Donut (v.1.6) on phones like the HTC Hero. a 500Mhz BEAST with a WHOPPING 256MB of RAM... The Nexus One raised the bar and said no more to these pathetic clock speeds and measly amounts of RAM... THIS is what Android should run on! A 1Ghz Snapdragon processor with 512MB of RAM! Twice as powerful as almost everything else on the market at the time, the flagship Google phone paved the way (and the specifications) for a multitude of variants, including the Samsung Galaxy S, HTC Desire, and Motorola's Droid 2. There were also new sensors introduced and a whole pile of great stuff that really defined a new standard, that almost all manufacturers followed from thre on out, until recently.
The Galaxy S brought nothing new to the tabe. Well, that's unnecessarily harsh, it had NFC. The Galaxy S is the first major Android phone to include NFC. Despite this, the majority of the Galaxy S's hardware was nearly identical to the Samsung Galaxy S, from where it borrowed a portion of its name; with the obvious technical exception of NFC, which the Galaxy S was missing. They were both manufactured by Samsung, so the phones are practically identical. What's hilarious to me is that the Nexus One defined the standard by which the Galaxy S was based on, and the Nexus S was based on that. So you end up with a phone that's identical in almost every way.
To be fair, probably the biggest consumer-oriented change with the Nexus S was the move to internal NAND style memory, as opposed to the SDHC, External style found in the Nexus One. This memory is faster and more efficient than using an external SDHC card, with the obvious downside of not being able to be upgraded, and if something goes horribly wrong, anything saved on your phone, while that data may still be intact, is impossible to retrieve without special hardware.
The Galaxy Nexus has the same level of innovation that it is bringing to the market, as the Nexus One did. The Galaxy Nexus stands as a new standard for Android; it's a dual-core, 1.2Ghz System with 1GB of RAM. The phone also has all the usual sensors, aGPS, Gyro, Compass, light sensors, capactive multitouch, etc. and the same communication functions as the previous Nexus: NFC, Bluetooth, Wifi and Cellular. Though, it's notable that the Galaxy Nexus has an upgraded Wireless chip, capable of 802.11a/b/g/n - this indicates a dual-band chip (both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, also a feature yet unseen in cellphone technologies). This has already spurred a whole line of new phones from every major manufacturer; from HTC: Sensation, Evo 3D, Amaze, etc. from Samsung: Galaxy S II and S II X. from Motorola: Atrix, Droid Razr, Droid 3, etc.
To put it briefly, I am not, and have never been a huge fan of the Nexus S. It was more popular than the Nexus One based on two merits: it was more widely available, many carriers actually sell the Nexus S in-store on contacts, making it faster and easier to get ahold of one than ever; the Nexus One, 9 times out of 10, you had to buy at full cost, no contract, from Google directly. Secondly, the Nexus S came out much later into Android's development, as a much more mature ( and much more popular ) platform, it was easy for the Nexus S to become as popular as it has become; despite not bringing much new to the table.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
New celly
So the other day I decided to get myself an upgrade from my old Moto Milestone. I moved on up to the HTC Desire HD.
While there are other phones on the market in canada that are also very good, or even better (ergo, Moto Atrix), I'm not big on locked bootloaders. I am however, big on HTC Sense. I've only read all the great things about it.
Using my phone for only a few days, Sense is great. But I'm looking at the community seeing much room for improvement, since my carrier is historically bad for updates and there's a mostly stock 2.3.3 update floating around the community... So within a week, I switch my phone Eng S-Off and went ahead with the flashing, I couldn't be happier. It's amazing the amount of battery life improvements that google made, software side, between 2.2 and 2.3 simply amazing.
I chose a very stock rom to maintain HTC Sense and all the features in sense. I especially love Locations, where you can browse maps, offline. Which is amazing.
With this new knowlege, of flashing on HTC, I'm starting to take an interest in Android as a platform. I'm probably going to try to pick up some Java coding manuals, and get started on some apps. What I was hoping to ask, if I could, is if anyone wants to see an app that does not yet exist. The simpler the better. Has to be for Android. I'm looking for start-up projects to get me started learning the coding so that I can learn how, while producing something useful.
When posting please include your device, so I know what platforms I should expect to make the app work on.
I'll try to post again soon if I get some good ideas.
While there are other phones on the market in canada that are also very good, or even better (ergo, Moto Atrix), I'm not big on locked bootloaders. I am however, big on HTC Sense. I've only read all the great things about it.
Using my phone for only a few days, Sense is great. But I'm looking at the community seeing much room for improvement, since my carrier is historically bad for updates and there's a mostly stock 2.3.3 update floating around the community... So within a week, I switch my phone Eng S-Off and went ahead with the flashing, I couldn't be happier. It's amazing the amount of battery life improvements that google made, software side, between 2.2 and 2.3 simply amazing.
I chose a very stock rom to maintain HTC Sense and all the features in sense. I especially love Locations, where you can browse maps, offline. Which is amazing.
With this new knowlege, of flashing on HTC, I'm starting to take an interest in Android as a platform. I'm probably going to try to pick up some Java coding manuals, and get started on some apps. What I was hoping to ask, if I could, is if anyone wants to see an app that does not yet exist. The simpler the better. Has to be for Android. I'm looking for start-up projects to get me started learning the coding so that I can learn how, while producing something useful.
When posting please include your device, so I know what platforms I should expect to make the app work on.
I'll try to post again soon if I get some good ideas.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
HTC EVO 3D
I just came across this little tidbit
http://youtu.be/JSuD45mRl_o
now, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the supposed "3D" technologies, but one outcry I keep hearing is how horrid they are for straining your eyes. Having products on the market, like 3D Televisions, and the Nintendo 3DS is bad enough, but they want to take something you use, all day, every day, and make it 3D? talk about eye strain.
Prescription glasses time.
I'm sorry HTC, but if you produce this, I will NEVER BUY IT.
as a side note, could you guys POSSIBLY, put out a newest generation cellphone (no 3D please), that has a dual-core 1+Ghz CPU and MORE THAN 512MB RAM, running android 2.2 or newer, that has a keyboard? possibly? please?
My moto milestone is getting dated.
http://youtu.be/JSuD45mRl_o
now, I have a lot of mixed feelings about the supposed "3D" technologies, but one outcry I keep hearing is how horrid they are for straining your eyes. Having products on the market, like 3D Televisions, and the Nintendo 3DS is bad enough, but they want to take something you use, all day, every day, and make it 3D? talk about eye strain.
Prescription glasses time.
I'm sorry HTC, but if you produce this, I will NEVER BUY IT.
as a side note, could you guys POSSIBLY, put out a newest generation cellphone (no 3D please), that has a dual-core 1+Ghz CPU and MORE THAN 512MB RAM, running android 2.2 or newer, that has a keyboard? possibly? please?
My moto milestone is getting dated.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Android
Dear Google,
I love your android operating system, but I have one, very serious, very important suggestion.
Not to assume I know any way to implement what I'm suggesting, or if it's even possible. Not at all. Nor would I suggest that Android is not the best mobile OS I've ever seen; I would never do such a thing.
In fact, Android is so good, that I'm already planning my next-new phone purchase, and limiting myself only to Androids. I've thoroughly enjoyed the system and will continue to do so.
Finally, before I get to my point, I'd like to say that I know you don't control the app community, you merely facilitate it, which is fine! We appreciate the centralized distribution of apps. It's great in fact, simply wonderful, that even someone programming Java out of their basement can put out something simple and entertaining.
My suggestion is: make application permissions variable. 90% of the time, 90% of permissions are not necessary. Prime example, why does an application like slice it (I've been picking on them) require GPS? If I put my phone into "airplane" mode, I'm sure the app will function just fine, without GPS or network access. Obviously some applications will simply fail if they don't, like Google Maps. This is why I would recommend to give the control back to the users. Rather than have it setup where you either accept whatever permissions they're requesting of you, or don't use the application, you can still install/use an application and deny it access to something like, your phone book, text messaging, phone ID, GPS and network location services, SD Card access, etc.
I don't believe it would be difficult to do, and you could even have it default to whatever permissions the application requests... maybe add a "change allowed permissions" type feature to the bottom of the market page when you go to install a new application.
I think all consumers understand that if you want to do geotagging on your facebook photos, you'll need to give the facebook for android application permission to read GPS, access the internet, and permission to use the camera. I think we get that.
As I'm sure you'll be ignoring our cries again, I'm sure this is all just wasted breath.
Some flexability would be nice though.
Try not to turn into Apple.
Thanks.
Bye.
I love your android operating system, but I have one, very serious, very important suggestion.
Not to assume I know any way to implement what I'm suggesting, or if it's even possible. Not at all. Nor would I suggest that Android is not the best mobile OS I've ever seen; I would never do such a thing.
In fact, Android is so good, that I'm already planning my next-new phone purchase, and limiting myself only to Androids. I've thoroughly enjoyed the system and will continue to do so.
Finally, before I get to my point, I'd like to say that I know you don't control the app community, you merely facilitate it, which is fine! We appreciate the centralized distribution of apps. It's great in fact, simply wonderful, that even someone programming Java out of their basement can put out something simple and entertaining.
My suggestion is: make application permissions variable. 90% of the time, 90% of permissions are not necessary. Prime example, why does an application like slice it (I've been picking on them) require GPS? If I put my phone into "airplane" mode, I'm sure the app will function just fine, without GPS or network access. Obviously some applications will simply fail if they don't, like Google Maps. This is why I would recommend to give the control back to the users. Rather than have it setup where you either accept whatever permissions they're requesting of you, or don't use the application, you can still install/use an application and deny it access to something like, your phone book, text messaging, phone ID, GPS and network location services, SD Card access, etc.
I don't believe it would be difficult to do, and you could even have it default to whatever permissions the application requests... maybe add a "change allowed permissions" type feature to the bottom of the market page when you go to install a new application.
I think all consumers understand that if you want to do geotagging on your facebook photos, you'll need to give the facebook for android application permission to read GPS, access the internet, and permission to use the camera. I think we get that.
As I'm sure you'll be ignoring our cries again, I'm sure this is all just wasted breath.
Some flexability would be nice though.
Try not to turn into Apple.
Thanks.
Bye.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Your apps are spying on you.
big surprise.
Remember TextPlus4 that you installed? yep, now ad agencies have your phone's unique ID, location, and sometimes even your gender and age... who knows what else? your contact list?
This article comes as no surprise to me.
I have beef with Apple and Google wiping their hands of the responsibility by having applications require to disclose what permissions they're asking for, because honestly, if you want to use an application, the stuff it doesn't tell you it's doing, doesn't really matter, right?
wrong.
My beef with this is that they're putting the focus on the consumers giving permissions that the software is requesting. A lot of users don't even know what these permissions are, or what they include. "Location" ... okay, so if I turn on GPS, and open that app, are they going to know the address of the house I'm sitting in? Or if I've recently "closed" the application (and it's still running a service in the background), and get in my car and activate my GPS for navigation, are they going to know where I am then? and where I'm going?
The biggest complaint I have with the permissions isn't just that noone seems to understand them, it's that there's no options. You either grant all permissions, or don't. by declining, you're also opt-ing out of using the application.
How about this: The application requests permissions and you choose what permissions it should have access to. For example. If I go to install the game Slice It (which I believe is available on both iPhone and Android), and it requests (these are the actual permissions requested on Android) Your Location (both network and GPS), Network Communication (Full Inet access, Network state, Wifi state), Storage (SD Card access), Phone calls (read phone state and identity), System tools (retrieve running apps, change wifi state).
Why does it need all that?
Do I want Slice It to know where I am? not really. Do I get a choice? not if I want to use the application. Why does it need to know my identity and phone state? does the application want to know if I'm on a call while playing the game? Doubtful.
Do you think that if I asked the developer why they wanted all these permissions, that they would give me a straight answer? Probably not. Additionally, there's no way to revoke permissions other than to remove the application. This is my biggest gripe... Do you really believe that an application, such as Slice It would NOT WORK if there was no location data and no network access? I'm guessing it would, I can put my phone into airplane mode (all radios off) and start up the game, and it would likely run fine.
I get some of the permissions, they make sense, like SD card access to save games and stuff, and Network access to download levels without the need to update the whole application in the market, etc... but I should have the capability of granting or revoking those as I see fit.
The permissions shouldn't be "these are the permissions it wants, is that ok?" it should be that the permissions requested by the application are granted individually, rather than as a group.
But hell, what the hell do I know? I'm just a paranoid consumer right?
Remember TextPlus4 that you installed? yep, now ad agencies have your phone's unique ID, location, and sometimes even your gender and age... who knows what else? your contact list?
This article comes as no surprise to me.
I have beef with Apple and Google wiping their hands of the responsibility by having applications require to disclose what permissions they're asking for, because honestly, if you want to use an application, the stuff it doesn't tell you it's doing, doesn't really matter, right?
wrong.
My beef with this is that they're putting the focus on the consumers giving permissions that the software is requesting. A lot of users don't even know what these permissions are, or what they include. "Location" ... okay, so if I turn on GPS, and open that app, are they going to know the address of the house I'm sitting in? Or if I've recently "closed" the application (and it's still running a service in the background), and get in my car and activate my GPS for navigation, are they going to know where I am then? and where I'm going?
The biggest complaint I have with the permissions isn't just that noone seems to understand them, it's that there's no options. You either grant all permissions, or don't. by declining, you're also opt-ing out of using the application.
How about this: The application requests permissions and you choose what permissions it should have access to. For example. If I go to install the game Slice It (which I believe is available on both iPhone and Android), and it requests (these are the actual permissions requested on Android) Your Location (both network and GPS), Network Communication (Full Inet access, Network state, Wifi state), Storage (SD Card access), Phone calls (read phone state and identity), System tools (retrieve running apps, change wifi state).
Why does it need all that?
Do I want Slice It to know where I am? not really. Do I get a choice? not if I want to use the application. Why does it need to know my identity and phone state? does the application want to know if I'm on a call while playing the game? Doubtful.
Do you think that if I asked the developer why they wanted all these permissions, that they would give me a straight answer? Probably not. Additionally, there's no way to revoke permissions other than to remove the application. This is my biggest gripe... Do you really believe that an application, such as Slice It would NOT WORK if there was no location data and no network access? I'm guessing it would, I can put my phone into airplane mode (all radios off) and start up the game, and it would likely run fine.
I get some of the permissions, they make sense, like SD card access to save games and stuff, and Network access to download levels without the need to update the whole application in the market, etc... but I should have the capability of granting or revoking those as I see fit.
The permissions shouldn't be "these are the permissions it wants, is that ok?" it should be that the permissions requested by the application are granted individually, rather than as a group.
But hell, what the hell do I know? I'm just a paranoid consumer right?
Friday, July 30, 2010
Another post about Android
I was reading an Android Spin Article about Why Android will win the mobile wars and I got the thinking of so many things as to why or why not this could be true.
They have an excellent point in regard to devices. While there's only one iPhone (only one current model), there's around 15-20 Android devices on the market at any given time. Though iPhone is more user-oriented rather than developer-oriented, and Android vice-versa, I believe, in the end, it will be Android's developer-oriented approach that will cause developers to CREATE a more user-friendly approach.
Though there are a lot of Android devices around sporting similar technical specs (3.7-4 inch screen, 1Ghz chip, 512 or so of RAM, MicroSD expansion, Android 2.1), aka the Nexus One oriented model, there are phones out there with varying features, more than just the size of the screen, the look of the buttons, and the resolution of the camera. Some have hardware keyboards, like the Motorola Milestone (my device) or the backflip.
As we slowly prepare for the next-gen of android operating systems and associated hardware (rumors of a dual-core 1.5Ghz snapdragon chip in the mix), we're quickly approaching cellphones that are more powerful than some people's home computers. Of course the two are not directly comparible, since desktops use the CISC x86 instruction set and cellphones use a RISC, ARM archetecture (mostly).
These so-called "cellphone wars" are heating up, and the iPhone, while a powerful device, since it is only ONE device against so many, is looking at a very tough battle to stay relevant, as time goes on. Blackberry has their niche business market, and Windows Mobile... well, I'm pretty sure that most Winmo users have been looking for something *not apple* and *not blackberry* to move to for a while, and that may account for some of this Android love. I know that's what pushed me to it.
They have an excellent point in regard to devices. While there's only one iPhone (only one current model), there's around 15-20 Android devices on the market at any given time. Though iPhone is more user-oriented rather than developer-oriented, and Android vice-versa, I believe, in the end, it will be Android's developer-oriented approach that will cause developers to CREATE a more user-friendly approach.
Though there are a lot of Android devices around sporting similar technical specs (3.7-4 inch screen, 1Ghz chip, 512 or so of RAM, MicroSD expansion, Android 2.1), aka the Nexus One oriented model, there are phones out there with varying features, more than just the size of the screen, the look of the buttons, and the resolution of the camera. Some have hardware keyboards, like the Motorola Milestone (my device) or the backflip.
As we slowly prepare for the next-gen of android operating systems and associated hardware (rumors of a dual-core 1.5Ghz snapdragon chip in the mix), we're quickly approaching cellphones that are more powerful than some people's home computers. Of course the two are not directly comparible, since desktops use the CISC x86 instruction set and cellphones use a RISC, ARM archetecture (mostly).
These so-called "cellphone wars" are heating up, and the iPhone, while a powerful device, since it is only ONE device against so many, is looking at a very tough battle to stay relevant, as time goes on. Blackberry has their niche business market, and Windows Mobile... well, I'm pretty sure that most Winmo users have been looking for something *not apple* and *not blackberry* to move to for a while, and that may account for some of this Android love. I know that's what pushed me to it.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
TELUS APP for Android
Just a quick note.
I try to orient my blog for the world but this one is canada-specific, though everyone should enjoy the amounts of fail in this one.
I'm a Telus Mobility subscriber, and they call a lot of their self-service options My Telus or some such non-sense. With that said, they released their second Android app onto the market in the past week... the first was a music application (to buy music wirelessly).
This second app is for 'direct access to mytelus' The app, seems to be a launcher for an application or website that does not yet exist. so currently this app does nothing but load a page that says "coming soon"
... why telus? WHY? why not make an announcement online and wait to release the application in whole, or when the service is ready?
This whole thing is failing so hard that it's hard for me to understand much else.
I try to orient my blog for the world but this one is canada-specific, though everyone should enjoy the amounts of fail in this one.
I'm a Telus Mobility subscriber, and they call a lot of their self-service options My Telus or some such non-sense. With that said, they released their second Android app onto the market in the past week... the first was a music application (to buy music wirelessly).
This second app is for 'direct access to mytelus' The app, seems to be a launcher for an application or website that does not yet exist. so currently this app does nothing but load a page that says "coming soon"
... why telus? WHY? why not make an announcement online and wait to release the application in whole, or when the service is ready?
This whole thing is failing so hard that it's hard for me to understand much else.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Audio Codecs
@nickromyn is someone I follow on Twitter, today, he posted a question about Android and it's capabilities regarding ALAC, the Apple Lossless Audio Codec.
Though Nick is an avid MAC user, he's not completely hopeless when it comes to PCs and related technologies. He's not a complete Apple Fanboy, in the sense that he'll give credit where it's due. Where most Apple Fanboys won't even recognize that a product has any merits that may be in any way shape or form better than their beloved apple product (link NSFW, language).
His message was focused around managing playlists/media using a centralized system (like iTunes), which I'm not sure is universal on all Android based devices.
Before I get to my main point, I'll go over this first: I have the Motorola Milestone, which has the capability of using the motorola media center software, which will do a lot of that; additionally, I'm sure that there's more than a few apps that will do it, if google hasn't made something that will interface with the device already... I'd also be fairly certain HTC has put something out to go along with the Sense media player too, so there's that.
My main point is on Audio Codecs. Since Nick pointed out support for ALAC specifically, I have a few points to make about the matter that I'd like to go over now.
First of all, as far as Lossless audio codecs go, I would never use ALAC, because FLAC exists. FLAC, or Free Loss-less Audio Codec, is an open source developed, lossless codec freely available to anyone, or any developer, to include in their device or project. Most media players have picked up support for this relatively obscure format, and are fully supporting it. Additionally, FLAC support has been incorporated into Andoroid's core system, so the native media player can use FLAC files transparently. ON TOP OF THAT, if you're adamant about using ALAC, there's applications in the market that WILL play ALAC format files.
My second point is file size. I don't care what compressor you use, if you're doing lossless encoding, that's going to take up a lot of space. Additionally, the sound renderer (aka sound card) on your portable device will NEVER be able to render all the detail in a lossless file, and even if it could, the quality lost on the connectors, headphones, integrated amplifier, etc, plus crosstalk and static, you might as well have saved the time and space, and not used lossless.
Which brings me to my next point: "lossy" audio codecs.
MP3, or MPEG-1, Layer 3, is a fantastic format, widely adopted by almost everyone and everything for every purpose you could imagine sound being used for. It renders a fair quality representation of the original media and maintains a low processing overhead, plus reasonable size constraints for the quality rendered.
That being said, it's ancient. MP3 players can date back to the early 90's. and in regard to computers, that's like king tut.
other, better, and more versatile formats have been created. The movement started in 2000, with Vorbis and OGG, A format I still love. It's an entirely open source format (similar to FLAC in concept, just, lossy), but it never caught on. The open source community couldn't compete with the thousands of "MP3" players on the market that simply did not support OGG/Vorbis.
A few years later, MPEG teamed up with ISO and IEC to create AAC, or Advanced Audio Codec, rendering higher quality audio at the same bit-rates as MP3. in direct comparison, there is no down-side to AAC over MP3. What they needed now, was a way to get it into our hearts, minds and "MP3" players.
Being that it was the next major format to be blessed by the MPEG, getting implimentation wasn't entirely difficult. It was slow at first, and the success of AAC relies heavily on it's sister codec for video, AVC (Advanced Video Codec), better known as m4v. Combining AVC and AAC produced the ever-familiar mp4 files, which are multimedia files. Almost every modern cellphone will natively record (and decode) mp4.
And the hard work was done. With cellphones quickly replacing both digital cameras and MP3 players, plus having built-in, usually dedicated (on chip) decoding of AAC and AVC, the MPEG and partners have paved the way for wide-scale implementation of .m4a files.
... now if we could only get people to start USING them. ha.
but honestly, in the race for audio codecs, you're not going to find something better than AAC by any significant margin, anytime soon... and definitely not something you can decode on the fly using an integrated dedicated decoder chip (which significantly reduces power consumption, and therefore reduces overall power drain, which therefore increases battery life).
If you're really determined to use ALAC or FLAC on your android powered device, you're more than welcome to burn the batteries and do it, but you probably wouldn't notice much, if any difference over the m4a version of the file... except of course, with your battery life ;)
To note, I believe most AAC decoder chips will also handle MP3, so fear not, using your trusty old MP3s won't drain your battery dry either... they just might not sound as good as their m4a equivalents.
Though Nick is an avid MAC user, he's not completely hopeless when it comes to PCs and related technologies. He's not a complete Apple Fanboy, in the sense that he'll give credit where it's due. Where most Apple Fanboys won't even recognize that a product has any merits that may be in any way shape or form better than their beloved apple product (link NSFW, language).
His message was focused around managing playlists/media using a centralized system (like iTunes), which I'm not sure is universal on all Android based devices.
Before I get to my main point, I'll go over this first: I have the Motorola Milestone, which has the capability of using the motorola media center software, which will do a lot of that; additionally, I'm sure that there's more than a few apps that will do it, if google hasn't made something that will interface with the device already... I'd also be fairly certain HTC has put something out to go along with the Sense media player too, so there's that.
My main point is on Audio Codecs. Since Nick pointed out support for ALAC specifically, I have a few points to make about the matter that I'd like to go over now.
First of all, as far as Lossless audio codecs go, I would never use ALAC, because FLAC exists. FLAC, or Free Loss-less Audio Codec, is an open source developed, lossless codec freely available to anyone, or any developer, to include in their device or project. Most media players have picked up support for this relatively obscure format, and are fully supporting it. Additionally, FLAC support has been incorporated into Andoroid's core system, so the native media player can use FLAC files transparently. ON TOP OF THAT, if you're adamant about using ALAC, there's applications in the market that WILL play ALAC format files.
My second point is file size. I don't care what compressor you use, if you're doing lossless encoding, that's going to take up a lot of space. Additionally, the sound renderer (aka sound card) on your portable device will NEVER be able to render all the detail in a lossless file, and even if it could, the quality lost on the connectors, headphones, integrated amplifier, etc, plus crosstalk and static, you might as well have saved the time and space, and not used lossless.
Which brings me to my next point: "lossy" audio codecs.
MP3, or MPEG-1, Layer 3, is a fantastic format, widely adopted by almost everyone and everything for every purpose you could imagine sound being used for. It renders a fair quality representation of the original media and maintains a low processing overhead, plus reasonable size constraints for the quality rendered.
That being said, it's ancient. MP3 players can date back to the early 90's. and in regard to computers, that's like king tut.
other, better, and more versatile formats have been created. The movement started in 2000, with Vorbis and OGG, A format I still love. It's an entirely open source format (similar to FLAC in concept, just, lossy), but it never caught on. The open source community couldn't compete with the thousands of "MP3" players on the market that simply did not support OGG/Vorbis.
A few years later, MPEG teamed up with ISO and IEC to create AAC, or Advanced Audio Codec, rendering higher quality audio at the same bit-rates as MP3. in direct comparison, there is no down-side to AAC over MP3. What they needed now, was a way to get it into our hearts, minds and "MP3" players.
Being that it was the next major format to be blessed by the MPEG, getting implimentation wasn't entirely difficult. It was slow at first, and the success of AAC relies heavily on it's sister codec for video, AVC (Advanced Video Codec), better known as m4v. Combining AVC and AAC produced the ever-familiar mp4 files, which are multimedia files. Almost every modern cellphone will natively record (and decode) mp4.
And the hard work was done. With cellphones quickly replacing both digital cameras and MP3 players, plus having built-in, usually dedicated (on chip) decoding of AAC and AVC, the MPEG and partners have paved the way for wide-scale implementation of .m4a files.
... now if we could only get people to start USING them. ha.
but honestly, in the race for audio codecs, you're not going to find something better than AAC by any significant margin, anytime soon... and definitely not something you can decode on the fly using an integrated dedicated decoder chip (which significantly reduces power consumption, and therefore reduces overall power drain, which therefore increases battery life).
If you're really determined to use ALAC or FLAC on your android powered device, you're more than welcome to burn the batteries and do it, but you probably wouldn't notice much, if any difference over the m4a version of the file... except of course, with your battery life ;)
To note, I believe most AAC decoder chips will also handle MP3, so fear not, using your trusty old MP3s won't drain your battery dry either... they just might not sound as good as their m4a equivalents.
Monday, June 21, 2010
It's been a while.
I know it's been a while since my last update, I've been thoroughly enjoying android and there isn't much I can say that's poor about it.
I've been intensely invested into mechanics, and therefore, I don't have much productive content to add here. I will say that I've taken a new job that's more technically oriented. Hopefully I can find new and interesting ways to do the same job that everyone else is doing, but faster.
I'm hoping that learning the systems involved in the new job, and all the contributing technologies will cause me to be able to modularize the information I learn and generate some new posts for everyone with some (hopefully) useful information.
There are some points about android where I think they can improve, however, they're actively upgrading the operating system so I don't have a lot of room to complain.
My main point of complaint is that, as a Motorola Milestone owner, I miss out on HTC's Sense home screen... I don't even have the option of buying it to use. Keep this in mind when comparing Android phones. Go check out your local cellular stores and compare a non-HTC Android phone, like the milestone, to an HTC phone, like the Hero, Legend, Desire... etc. Particularly note the unlock and home screens. also check out the media player and examine the differences.
I'm sure that if I rooted my phone, I could probably install a hacked version of sense, however, that's not what I'd prefer to do. All the features I would get from rooting my phone, I either already have, or don't really care to have (besides using hacked software, which is probably illegal anyways).
No matter what you do, I recommend you buy protection for your phone. It's become painfully clear to me how many people drop mobile devices; so protecting your phone, either with a hardshell or soft shell case, is necessary. I use the hardshell Otterbox case for my Milestone, however I know many phones have silicone skins that are also good at absorbing shocks. Choose what you're most comfortable with, because if the case drives you crazy, you're just going to eventually remove it, and then it will just be a costly lump of waste in a corner somewhere.
I wouldn't normally care too much about software versions, however, there are some devices still sporting very old versions of Android (eg, the HTC Hero, at least until recently)... where you'll only get Android 1.5 or 1.6. Normally I say, whatever works, go with that, however, I've had a chance to use an HTC Hero with droid 1.5, and I have to say, that the changes are significant. Do your best to ensure the version of android on the device you buy is at least 2.0 or 2.1 (Eclair); if you don't have at least version 2.0, pinch to zoom and other significant features, will not be available on your device until an upgrade is issued for it.
My last comment on the Milestone is that the network access is incredible. As far as broadband goes, it's meager at best, however, for a cellphone, the access speeds are incredible. The droid (aka Milestone) is using full HSPA on the network I'm attached to in my area. The speeds are so similar to the speed I expect from using the phone on wifi, that there's not a significant enough difference between the two to warrant switching over to the wifi for any reason almost ever. The only time I activate the wifi on my cell is to do updates to the apps on my device (where I'll be downloading several megabytes in a short period of time), and even that is merely to conserve 3G usage on my data plan, since my carrier charges per MB, and allots only so many MB per month for data access.
Android is fantastic; if you're looking for a new smartphone, droid is the way to go. with the thousands of apps in the market, you're sure to find something to suit your gaming, entertainment, and productivity needs... Additionally, the system is fast, with lots of integrated features; the base OS is so good, in fact, that I tend to use the defaults for many things, since it suits me just fine. You are capable of manipulating almost every facet of the device functionality, if you're so inclined.
I've been intensely invested into mechanics, and therefore, I don't have much productive content to add here. I will say that I've taken a new job that's more technically oriented. Hopefully I can find new and interesting ways to do the same job that everyone else is doing, but faster.
I'm hoping that learning the systems involved in the new job, and all the contributing technologies will cause me to be able to modularize the information I learn and generate some new posts for everyone with some (hopefully) useful information.
There are some points about android where I think they can improve, however, they're actively upgrading the operating system so I don't have a lot of room to complain.
My main point of complaint is that, as a Motorola Milestone owner, I miss out on HTC's Sense home screen... I don't even have the option of buying it to use. Keep this in mind when comparing Android phones. Go check out your local cellular stores and compare a non-HTC Android phone, like the milestone, to an HTC phone, like the Hero, Legend, Desire... etc. Particularly note the unlock and home screens. also check out the media player and examine the differences.
I'm sure that if I rooted my phone, I could probably install a hacked version of sense, however, that's not what I'd prefer to do. All the features I would get from rooting my phone, I either already have, or don't really care to have (besides using hacked software, which is probably illegal anyways).
No matter what you do, I recommend you buy protection for your phone. It's become painfully clear to me how many people drop mobile devices; so protecting your phone, either with a hardshell or soft shell case, is necessary. I use the hardshell Otterbox case for my Milestone, however I know many phones have silicone skins that are also good at absorbing shocks. Choose what you're most comfortable with, because if the case drives you crazy, you're just going to eventually remove it, and then it will just be a costly lump of waste in a corner somewhere.
I wouldn't normally care too much about software versions, however, there are some devices still sporting very old versions of Android (eg, the HTC Hero, at least until recently)... where you'll only get Android 1.5 or 1.6. Normally I say, whatever works, go with that, however, I've had a chance to use an HTC Hero with droid 1.5, and I have to say, that the changes are significant. Do your best to ensure the version of android on the device you buy is at least 2.0 or 2.1 (Eclair); if you don't have at least version 2.0, pinch to zoom and other significant features, will not be available on your device until an upgrade is issued for it.
My last comment on the Milestone is that the network access is incredible. As far as broadband goes, it's meager at best, however, for a cellphone, the access speeds are incredible. The droid (aka Milestone) is using full HSPA on the network I'm attached to in my area. The speeds are so similar to the speed I expect from using the phone on wifi, that there's not a significant enough difference between the two to warrant switching over to the wifi for any reason almost ever. The only time I activate the wifi on my cell is to do updates to the apps on my device (where I'll be downloading several megabytes in a short period of time), and even that is merely to conserve 3G usage on my data plan, since my carrier charges per MB, and allots only so many MB per month for data access.
Android is fantastic; if you're looking for a new smartphone, droid is the way to go. with the thousands of apps in the market, you're sure to find something to suit your gaming, entertainment, and productivity needs... Additionally, the system is fast, with lots of integrated features; the base OS is so good, in fact, that I tend to use the defaults for many things, since it suits me just fine. You are capable of manipulating almost every facet of the device functionality, if you're so inclined.
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