I'm not sure; I just think that people severely overstate widgets and customisation as main reasons for getting an Android when the majority of people most likely don't even realise said features exist.
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Will Android L keep you on Android?
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I'm not sure; I just think that people severely overstate widgets and customisation as main reasons for getting an Android when the majority of people most likely don't even realise said features exist.
Nah not for me. Android L didn't even bring that many feature features I felt. Plus I think the new code language, metal etc will push gaming and apps on the iPhone to a whole new level. Oh and touch I.D being used now for 3rd party apps will again make life much more easier.
Android L visually looks nice as well , but for me it seems often IOS developers spend more time changing the look of the UI to suit the ui of IOS. Were android apps stay completely different so visually it won't look consistent I'm guessing.
I'm also a bit unhappy they didn't take google now to the next level and make an actual assistant like siri.
Likewise the quick reply doesn't seem as good as it is on the new IOS 8.
I felt they couldn't have released tonnes of new features for android but seemed yo have focused more on a visual overhaul.
Android L visually looks nice as well , but for me it seems often IOS developers spend more time changing the look of the UI to suit the ui of IOS. Were android apps stay completely different so visually it won't look consistent I'm guessing.
I'm also a bit unhappy they didn't take google now to the next level and make an actual assistant like siri.
Likewise the quick reply doesn't seem as good as it is on the new IOS 8.
I felt they couldn't have released tonnes of new features for android but seemed yo have focused more on a visual overhaul.
I agree about new features. I think Google had to improve the design/UX + speed/jank/battery/ with ART. And that was more the focus this time around. Actually, it's been the focus since 4.1. And probably has been worked on for 3 years.
The thing is , google making an overhaul on the design is a bit useless when you think k about it. Pure android is probably used by less that ten percent of the premium android market. So them overhauling pure android is a bit of a useless thing to rave about and spend all the raving on.
Considering most people will be buying Samsung's , lg's, HTC's etc who slap their own custom ui, the majority won't get to see the benefits.
At least if they brought over a nice amount of features, google now imporvments etc the majority will get to see the improvement of android L. Instead most people won't even notice the different between KitKat and android L.
It must also be noted I have a nexus 5 and no iPhone ( haven't had one since the iPhone 4 first came out) and I'm interested to see how it is. But I just think with IOS 8, apple have finally caught up in many ways and surpassed android in some ways. Of course your never going to get the same customisabily you have with android but apple opening up the cross sharing of information between apps will improve the ability of iOS 8 apps. Metal etc touch ID APIs, improvements in
Imessage, notifications done right, continuity etc IOS8 smashed it.
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There are many things about Android L that they didnt talk about so we dont know what else is coming. If there is a list or article more detailed someplace, that would be nice but they focused their I/O more on their gear nd other new additions like things in the car and watches and some changes in the OS while not mentioning a lot of other things. We do know there is over 5000 APIs but only know a fraction of them.
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I believe they are going to bring pure android to all devices in the near future. I read that but cant recall where.
**EDIT...its HERE All new phones in 2015 may have it.
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It would be nice if google would force all OEM's to use stock android. Really would improve fragmentation. But, android silver and android one will probably will just be a small minority like the nexus lineup. So, nope, pure google not on every screen
I hear you on the sentiment that not many people actually use stock android due to oem's
but fwiw I will only buy stock android, so I am excited personally
but fwiw I will only buy stock android, so I am excited personally
It would be nice if google would force all OEM's to use stock android. Really would improve fragmentation. But, android silver and android one will probably will just be a small minority like the nexus lineup. So, nope, pure google not on every screen
According to the link i posted....that is the plan.
The Android ROMs produced by OEMs will see a major overhaul as well. Will things be thrown out and certain pieces rewritten? Sure, but the backbone of their software will still come from the AOSP source code.
Androids app store would need to be comparable to Apples app store, and I dont see that happening anytime soon. Too many great apps I missed last time I jumped ship over to Android. Though I love the hardware on some Android sets, software is equally as important. With the bigger screens coming on iPhone and other new features, the incentive is less than it has been in the past.
I sometimes wonder, however, if making all OEMs default to vanilla android would cause actually wind up hurting the OEMs. It eliminates one way in which OEMs can compete with each other if all of them are the same.
While I believe the Silver project is a good thing, a lot of the non-enthusiast users would probably prefer touchwiz and its shiny interface to vanilla android.
Edit: Also, you can't call Android "Open Source" but then tell manufacturers they can't add bloatware. Isn't that oxymoronic?
Google needed to utilize Motorola when they had them and produce their own phone with a unique brand. A Google Phone would be in their best interest in my opinion. I'm not talking about the Nexus phones either because I always felt like they were half assed and crippled in some form.
Well again, Nexus phones were always pretty much meant for develepers and why they never got the best of things and were never advertised.
I dont get why people dont understand that as it has been mentioned a thousand times. They really improved things on the N5 though and i assume why they are coming out with the Silver line to be an upper tier of their phone.
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A stricter guideline imposed by Google wouldn't necessarily mean the end of first party OEM features. For example, just look at what Motorolla did with active notifications and the "always on" feature in the Moto X; the skin is essentially vanilla but the implementation of these features is OEM-specific.
Did you read any other part of the message I posted? The Nexus line was the least significant part of the post and you turned it into the main point to ramble on about.
Oh was there a significant part?
Google acquired Motorola for their patents...which they kept after they sold them off so fast. The Silver will be their Google flagship brand.
Except that all the design changes are done by adding APIs so all app developers can take advantage of all those new features in the new design. Any user with a device on Android L will be able to get all that new stuff in apps regardless of their device or skin.
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Not at all. They can do whatever they want to Android, but if they want Google Play Services then Google gets a say in those modifications.
Yea I know but I don't think android developers are as proactive compared to iOS developers when it comes to implementing design language , or at least that is what I have found using my nexus 5.
And my comment was more about the whole package of android L. It looks like a beautiful system but its a shame probably 99 percent of people's android phones either won't get android l for ages , and when they do it will be a in the form if the awful touchwizz etc.
I had a note 3 which I sold around 3 months ago, and even then it still didn't have kit kat on it!! They really need to find a way to make updates get to other phones faster like apple. God knows what the adoption rate is for kit kat. Never mind what it will be like with android L
How is it not already? Just because a developer chose one platform over another doesnt mean one is better than the other. I imagine an alternative would exist.
I found that I also miss some apps that are available on Android, but not on iOS. I'm not just talking about just apps that use Android features not available on iOS (widgets and launchers). What bugs me are apps that are cripped on one platform compared to another (going both ways). It's annoying if I'm using my iPad Mini and then have to switch to my GS3 when using one app and then switching back when I want to use another app.
Kitkat is at 17.9% yea... I was surprised when I read that as well.
https://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
Jelly bean and kitkat now have about a 75% market share of android devices.
See people really do make too big of a deal about the whole "fragmentation" thing. When the vast majority of Android phones on the market are running the two latest versions of the OS the issue is really minimal. Yeah some OEMs are slow on updates but the way Android haters talk you'd think most Android phones still run Gingerbread.
I completely agree. Fragmentation is also further minimised by most GApps being in the play store now and Google services being updatable.
The whole "fragmentation" issue is FUD spread by Apple in order to discredit Android as a viable option.
The funny thing is though, if you look at the distribution of Windows and OS X (prior to it being made free), you saw a very similar version distribution as you see with Android. For decades developers have been able to successfully develop applications despite the vast fragmentation of both hardware and software on Windows and to a lesser degree, OS X.
Windows developers have been able to target a multitude machines with different screen sizes and resolutions, differing amounts of RAM, CPUs, graphics cards and versions of Windows. Then Apple decides to develop iOS for a handful of devices and suddenly this "fragmentation" is an insurmountable issue for developers.
Sorry, but this is just rubbish. Developers have been targeting "fragmented" digital ecosystems long before Apple decided this was a terrible idea, and they will continue to do it long into the future.
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This is almost certainly because you made the mistake than many iOS people do when they switch to Android - they look for the exact same applications on Google Play as they downloaded from the App Store. Many times you are better off looking for an equivalent but original Android app which serves the same purpose.
For some categories of Apps, iOS is better, for some Android is better. For other types of Apps, there may not even be any apps available (Eg. emulators on App Store).
Very good point. And the reason it's Apple pushing this FUD is of course because it's good for their business because, conveniently, most of the competition uses Android on their hardware while Apple uses their own OS. Convince customers that any device running an OS not developed by the hardware maker is bad and you have a bunch of misinformed customers lining up to buy your "better" products. Nevermind the fact that iOS is just as fragmented anyway. Case in point - the iPhone 4 got iOS 6 and iOS 7 but Siri and a bunch of other big features were pulled.