The time of Christmas is obviously upon us. Programmers and bloggers all over the world are putting down their text editors, meaning there's no news for us to report on (unless you want to talk about yet another set of rumours about the Apple tablet). Still, I couldn't let this day go by without a story.
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Member since:2009-09-14
I love my shiny new HTC HD2 even with the 24 month contract with Vodafone I had to sign.
I never thought I'd say this but WinMo 6.5* is actually very good. Maybe it's the HTC Sense UI covering the worst.....
*Our house is a 100% OSX, Linux, BeOS home. Well it was until I bought the HD2 anyway!
Member since:2008-07-15
So does that make you a Hero worshipper? Sorry, couldn't resist. And yeah, I cheated too except in my case it was an iPhone in my pocket with the Kobo Ebook reader app open. Nothing like a good book to distract me and yet still make it look like I'm paying attention to everyone. 
Member since:2006-01-01
The Hero isn't perfect but comes close to perfect and here are some of the flaws:
- 'Sometimes' things can get sluggish like when you scroll - the scrolling can be a bit sticky due to not enough power I believe. Also when you pinch and zoom, the animation is not smooth.
- 288 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM where 192.4 is available as RAM according to a particular program I am using. My phone hovers around 30-60MB RAM however its sweet point is about 50 which is ok but if you try to "actually" use the phone as a PDA, you will quickly go down to sub 30MB which is very disappointing. This is my very first smart phone and I didn't know what is enough but ever since I forked out $AU700, I figured out. I just had to have a smart phone and didn't want to get an iPhone.
- Internal hard disk is not big enough. What were they thinking? Also the RAM is nothing special. Next phone I get will have at least 512MB of available RAM.
- You cannot transfer files via bluetooth. This is fixed with Android 2.0 I think.
I believe HTC is releasing Android 2.0 or 2.1 Sense UI ROM and hopefully the sluggishness will be addressed and perhaps it will give up more RAM. 5-10 MB more would be nice.
I read rooting the phone fixes bluetooth and lets you install programs on SD card which is nice.
Edited 2009-12-25 20:29 UTC
Google added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance."According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow."During its Keynote today, Google announced new features coming to its flagship search function - you know, that thing we all started using Google for. VP Amit Singhal spent some time discussing what Google's search functionality will eventually morph into. Google's strategy is summarized by three words: answer, converse, and anticipate. Singhal explained that many of the pieces of these upcoming changes can already be seen in products that Google has recently introduced - namely, Google Knowledge Graph and Google Now, with perhaps a splash of Google Glass, too." I hold on to my hat every time Google changes Search. It's such a vital product in my daily life."Wired has obtained a copy of a cease and desist letter sent by Google to Microsoft today, demanding Microsoft immediately remove the YouTube app from its Windows Phone Store and disable existing copies on consumers' devices by May 22. The YouTube app for Windows Phone - developed by Microsoft not Google - strips out ads and allows downloading, both violations of YouTube's terms of service." Incredibly petty. Just come up with a solution, you bunch of kids.
Member since:
2006-01-01
I love HTC Hero!!
Edited 2009-12-24 22:05 UTC