Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 11th Dec 2012 23:09 UTC
So, last night, Windows Phone 8 got its first update - specifically for the HTC 8X. In this day and age, where iOS is the gold standard and shows the industry how it ought to be done, and Android is the exact opposite, Windows Phone 7 was a bit of an in-between - every phone got every update, but the staggered rollout was slow and frustrating, often due to carrier meddling. How will Windows Phone 8 fare?
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Member since:2008-06-03
"On June 27, 2012 at the Google I/O conference, it was announced that the Nexus S would be one of the first devices to receive an upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, along with the Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Nexus, began on July 26, 2012."
Was there any small-print in that announcement for Galaxy Nexus owners? From what I've read, it took a long time for Verizon Galaxy Nexus owners in the US to get 4.1, and it's possible some folk haven't even got it yet. Same could be said for owners of the device in many countries. My unit wouldn't be up-to-date if I didn't manually flash the firmware back to Google's stock factory image. Not sure if this was the fault of Google, Samsung or the carriers of various nations, but it still stunk.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2005-11-29
"The fairy tale, because that's what it really is, a fairytale, that Nexus devices get updates on day #1 is getting old.
Fairy tale, huh? From Wikipedia (and common knowledge to Nexus owners, of course), emphasis mine: "
You can emphasize anything you want, it doesn't inherently make you right. Because you're not.
Some Nexus device owners on some carriers faced an extraordinarily long wait to get their update. Saying that Nexus devices in and of themselves are guaranteed #1 day tickets to the latest Android is disingenuous.
Even more annoying, is the notion that you seemed compelled to respond to my comment with one of your own, despite not having yourself done the proper research. Please, don't do that.
Member since:2005-06-29
The problem with your position is that you lay the blame on Google, or on the Android platform itself, for the delay. Any delay on receiving updates is purely the fault of the carriers, and that will happen, and has happened, irrespective of the platform. It was even worse for BlackBerry owners several years ago; AT&T BB users were left in the cold most of the time when it came to BB OS updates, while Verizon and Sprint users got timely support.
It seems as if you are the one being disingenuous for not acknowledging that.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 22:06 UTC
"The first killer app was VisiCalc. This early spreadsheet turned the Apple II from a hobbyist toy to a business computer. VisiCalc came with room for improvement, though. In addition, a new architecture and operating system, the Intel-based IBM PC and MS-DOS, also needed a spreadsheet to be taken seriously. That spreadsheet, released in early 1983, would be Lotus 1-2-3, and it would change the world. It became the PC's killer app, and the world would never be the same. On May 14, IBM quietly announced the end of the road for 1-2-3, along with Lotus Organizer and the Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Lotus 1-2-3's day is done." Impressive 30 year run.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:45 UTC
"There's a disconnect between how Apple CEO Tim Cook sees his company's tax strategies and how some members of the US Senate view it. That became clearer than ever today after Cook and two other Apple executives testified before Congress, explaining why they're holding most of their international income in Irish subsidiaries like Apple Operations International, which declare no tax residency anywhere in the world. AOI hasn't filed a tax return anywhere in the world for the last five years, yet it earned $30 billion in income from 2009 to 2012, according to a Senate report released yesterday." Just because something is legal, doesn't mean it's just. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and many more - these companies might not be breaking any laws, but it's obvious to anyone that what they are doing is scummy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 15:53 UTC
The new WebKit Opera for Android has been released. "Opera 14 for Android is built on top of Chromium 26, with a total overhaul of the UI in native code, making it fit well with the latest Android design guidelines. Go get the build from Google Play or point your browser to m.opera.com, and give it a spin!"
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour 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."More News »
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Member since:
2005-06-29
Fairy tale, huh? From Wikipedia (and common knowledge to Nexus owners, of course), emphasis mine:
"On June 27, 2012 at the Google I/O conference, it was announced that the Nexus S would be one of the first devices to receive an upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, along with the Motorola Xoom and Galaxy Nexus, began on July 26, 2012."
I finally gave up waiting for WP7.8 and went back to my Nexus S 4G. This is a phone that is well over a year old and yet received the Jelly Bean update soon after it was gold. My best friend's HTC One X, on the other hand, is still waiting several months later.
While my Nexus won't be getting 4.2 officially, my contract runs out right around the time the Galaxy Note 2 will likely drop in price. That device is already my chosen upgrade path so I'm set for a couple of years yet. And if I do want to get a taste of 4.2, there's always CyanogenMod. I'm also going to hang on to the phone to play around with Firefox OS builds.
As much as I enjoyed using Windows Phone, between the lack of updates and fixes for my old phone and Sprint's flippant attitude towards the platform, I had no choice but to leave it behind for the foreseeable future.