Linked by the_randymon on Tue 29th Jan 2013 01:23 UTC
"Samsung's recent Android 4.1.2 upgrade for the Galaxy Note 10.1 adds power and flexibility to the company's unique offering of Android multiwindowing features. With this update, the Galaxy Note 10.1 can run up to 16 multiwindow-enabled Android apps at once, Windows/Mac-like, on a single screen. Apps endowed with Samsung's multiwindow technology are usable in three viewing modes: full screen, dual view, and cascade view." There are already some complaining this represents a dangerous fork of Android. I thinks it's a step in the right direction.
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RE[12]: Comment by Laurence
by some1 on Thu 31st Jan 2013 22:24
in reply to "RE[11]: Comment by Laurence"
Member since:2010-10-05
I know I'm nitpicking here, but that might actually cause more work for developers as they'd have to rewrite any code that didn't expect app sizes to change mid-execution (ie at the moment you can expect screen size to be static. but now they'd have to write app so that it dynamically changes the layout while the app is running).
Very good point. Size can already change dynamically due to screen orientation change though, so may be it's possible to piggyback on that. But I'm sure there are many subtle issues the real implementation will have to deal with.
I don't think Samsung phones are the best for the money
Samsung makes a lot more than phones. And I've never said they are the best.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
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Why does Google get so much credit in the technology industry? Why, despite the company's many obvious failings, do many geeks and enthusiasts still hold a somewhat positive view on the all-knowing technology giant? A specific talk at Google I/O this week provides the answer.
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Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/29/13 21:06 UTC
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 04/24/13 22:24 UTC
They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.More Features »
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2007-03-26
With the greatest of respect, you really didn't make that point clear at all.
You kept talking about Google and Android but never once mentioned any of Google's apps, so the context of your complaint seemed to be about Android itself rather than Google's apps on Android.
In all honesty, I probably wouldn't have argued with you had I realised this
I know I'm nitpicking here, but that might actually cause more work for developers as they'd have to rewrite any code that didn't expect app sizes to change mid-execution (ie at the moment you can expect screen size to be static. but now they'd have to write the app so that it dynamically changes the layout while the app is running).
Also, in the SDK itself, I'd have expected the tile size functions to be different to the screen size functions, so there might potentially be a huge can of worms in implementing such a 'minor' feature:
* apps wanting to support tiling properly would have to be compiled to support the new tile-size APIs
* those APIs will only be available in the latest SDKs
* thus apps would have to be compiled against the latest version of Android
* and thus all of the older devices running older versions of Android are now incompatible.
Obviously there's a cleaner way to go about this and I'm interested in how Samsung have worked around this issue. But now that I think about the technical complications a bit more, it may not be as simple for developers as it originally seems.
(though I'm not trying to argue that this is a reason for such features not to be implemented!)
I think that is more a matter of opinion. I don't think Samsung phones are the best for the money and while I'll agree that TouchWiz has slowly (and I mean at a snails pace) improved with time, I think it's still a massive devolution of the quality in vanilla Android.
That's just my opinion though