So, somewhere in the middle of the night (at least for me) Samsung and Google held a joint event, in which they announced both the new Nexus phone, the Galaxy Nexus, and Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. While the Galaxy Nexus is a pretty impressive phone, what we got to see from Ice Cream Sandwich surely didn’t drop too many jaws.
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus’ specification and design had already leaked well before the event, so there was little to reveal for Samsung. The display is the most interesting aspect of the device – a beautiful 4.65″ Super AMOLED+ 1280×720 display. You may think this makes the device far too large – but thanks to its thin bezel and the fact that the display’s height accounts for most of the size increase the phone itself isn’t larger than current Android devices with 4.3″ or 4.5″ displays.
For the rest, the Galaxy Nexus sports a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor, which I actually find a little on the slow side for what is supposed to be the flagship Android device. I’m assuming the relatively slow processor (compared to the 1.5Ghz processors which are popping up all over the Android ecosystem) has been chosen to not stress the battery too much. That large display needs juice, after all.
The Galaxy Nexus will be available starting November, all over the world. In true Nexus programme tradition, it will be the first Android phone to ship with the newest Android release – in this case, Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.
Ice Cream Sandwich is clearly not a revolutionary release in terms of features. There is some cool new stuff in there – like a Windows Phone 7-like People App (basically a 1:1 copy of WP7’s People Hub), and the facial recognition login technology – but that’s not the focus here. No, the focus is streamlining and prettifying.
Virtually all of Android is getting a visual overhaul, with a completely new visual style – sharp, minimalistic, and surely with a firm dash of Metro (hey, no complaints from me, Metro is awesome). Google said they don’t want Android to adopt the fake wooden planks and brushed metal nonsense of ‘some other mobile operating systems’ – and I couldn’t agree more. iOS’ Microsoft BOB-like My First Operating System-like approach to application design needs to die a slow and horrible death, and I’m happy Google is following in Microsoft’s footsteps, away from that silly style.
Ice Cream Sandwich also introduces a new font, Roboto, which is the default font all throughout Android 4.0. It’s designed for high-density displays, and, as always with anything that isn’t ZOMGHELVETICAGGNRFFRRRR, the font hipsters are hating on it like crazy. Of course, had Apple used this font, it would’ve been awesome and beautifully elegant and understated and magical (how’s that Comic Sans rip-off Marker Felt that’s infesting iOS working out for ya?). Alas, I like it, I think it looks nice. It’s certainly not as beautiful as Metro’s excellent Segoe-based typography, but then again – nothing is.
Other than just a visual overhaul, user interface behaviour is also being overhauled to make the process of using Android. It’s a little difficult to explain, but when watching the demonstration, it became clear several tasks were just easier and faster to accomplish due to redesigned UI behaviours, different widget placements, and tighter integration. I especially like how the swipe-to-side gesture is now the universal delete/kill/close gesture (tasks in the task manager, tabs in the browser, etc.).
As far as release dates and updates go, Google said any Gingerbread device should be able to run Ice Cream Sandwich as well, but as usual, it will all depend on the device makers and carriers (and ROM builders, of course). There’s no release yet, and thus no source code – there is, however, the SDK.
Any link to the video of the event?
Thx.
Edited 2011-10-19 18:41 UTC
http://phandroid.com/2011/10/19/watch-the-entire-galaxy-nexus-and-a…
http://youtu.be/Ts5WBm0tXzI
We’re still waiting for the source code to be released…
I have an Android phone currently but when I finally upgrade it will probably be something else since no one in the market is currently offering any options that are truly open. That being the case I might as well opt for the choice that has best chance of at least seeing regular updates…
–bornagainpenguin
Edited 2011-10-19 18:55 UTC
they stated that the source for the honeycomb version would not be released and that source code release would happen when phone/tablet branches where fully merged in Icecream Sandwitch.. am I missing something that justifies all the grief over a temporary and planned absence of source release?
I think the source will be released very soon. I think they will hold of releasing it until the flagship phone is available.
It would be kind of embarrassing if ICS was available (unofficially) on the S, SII, Atrix, and all the other phones released within the last year before the flagship phone even hit the shelves.
That does seem to have been the pattern. release to manufacturers, get product on shelves, wait, release to community.
In terms of this round’s flagship handset, it does look nice. A slide out keyboard would have sealed the deal for me but very slick bit of kit otherwise.
No phones running 4.0 have been released yet. Hence, no source code for 4.0 has been released yet.
Once the Nexus Prime hits store shelves and is in customer hands, then you can complain about lack of access to the source for Android 4.0.
Or, add some whipped cream to the crow you’ll be eating. One or the other.
I’ll reserve judgement until the end of November 2011.
AOSP Source code availability
http://groups.google.com/group/android-building/msg/c73c14f9b0dcd15…
Edited 2011-10-19 22:56 UTC
What is really nice about this phone is the penta band support meaning unlike the Nexus One for example there is no need for an AT&T version and a T-Mobile version.
“Galaxy Nexus sports a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor, which I actually find a little on the slow side for what is supposed to be the flagship Android device”
One really ought to know better than fall into the clock frequency trap.
Most of the 1.5Ghz devices are older generation chips clocked higher to compensate for weaker capability…
Besides with hardware accellerated GUI, and garbage collection with multicore support. I guess Android 4 will feel snappier even on slower processors. Besides, ower clock frequencys usually improves battery life.
Exactly. All things equal the Mhz mean something, but without equality it is just one indicator in a set that includes cache sizes, memory bandwidth/connection, SOC generation and extra chips.
For example the nexus one and the nexus S have the clockspeed, but the S has more cache etc and is therefor a lot faster.
my favorite font is Arial!
sorry but: fuck you M$! I have beautiful typeface on Atari ST while you have … I do not even to think about it (C:\ …) and you ruin it!
and: yes; Apple have “magical” stuff because someone there think about *usability* all the time!
I think this is a very misinformed opinion. First, Ars has shown that the 1.5 Ghz Galaxy S II is virtually identical in terms of performance to it’s 1.2 Ghz cousin. Second, there are numerous benchmarks (again Ars, which I know you respect has some) that show that the iPhone 4S (which is 800 Mhz) CPU beats the Samsung II S by a wide margin in browser tests, graphics, etc.
This new CPU may or may not be the same as the Galaxy II S but it should be given the benefit of the doubt, especially in the context of ICS which improves a number of areas.
Who would have though Google would make a janky clone of Microsoft product. At least they could have improved it; instead it (appears) like a substandard copy.
It does not appear ready for prime time.
Apple did introduce this font. It’s called Helvetica. This is basically Helvetica with some small changes. I am not a font purist so I think it’s fine personally.
Merker Felt is way nicer then Comic Sans; put them side by side and it looks very different. Put Roboto beside Helvetica and their impossible to tell apart (for me at least).
The other thing your missing is that the UI is now GPU accelerated which should make a big difference in the usual Android stuttering (though reports suggest it has not gone away).
Apple created Helvetica? Lolwut?
Is it rude to laugh at someone for their ignorance? Appears more than not seem to think so 🙁
You know everyone else knows Helvetica wasn’t created by Apple. He may have been trying to say that Helvetica was very very popular on Macs, more so than say, Windows where Arial was the poor substitute.
It’s ok, I am used to Thom. It’s part of his charm. 😉
Helvetica was popular before the Mac even existed.
Also: I see no problem with other OSs than iOS using Helvetica. It’s everywhere in print, I see no problem (aside from boredom maybe) with it being everywhere in digital as well.
Every time I use iMac I feel the fonts are not clear and as cryspy, they are bit blur as compared to my Ubuntu/Kubuntu laptop. On Windows fonts look good too. Ubuntu fonts look super cryspy and good. I have failed to understand why iMac fonts don’t look that good, specially when Mac fonts and mac desktop is so popular and why nobody complains about it.
Here’s the trick : OS X just positions characters like in a written text, without caring about the characteristics of the underlying screen. Since computer screens have a finite resolution, this results in many details of the font falling between two pixels, and thus being rendered as blur.
On Windows and some Linux distro, on the other hand, text is rendered so that every boundary of the font falls on a pixel boundary. Thus, there is no blur, and everything feels more crisp. As a counterpart, the rendering deviates a bit from the original.
If you are used to one of these ways of rendering text, you’ll think that it looks fine and that the other that looks awful. In reality, it’s only a matter of design choices : do you want text on a screen to be as close to the original as possible (which the strong DTP community of the Mac will probably agree with, even though the difference is almost negligible in the end) ? Or do you want it to look crisp and well-defined ?
For more on that subject : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html
Edited 2011-10-21 06:59 UTC
Your view is a bit black and white. While Mac OS stay more true to original font shapes than Windows, it’s not like the they disregards the pixel grid completely either.
It is also worth mentioning that Mac is much more able to render fonts without extra hinting information much much better than Windows. Windows fonts also tend to look bad at big sizes (they tend to look pixelated at bigger sizes).
The new font technology in Windows 7 and forward (used in IE9) seem to combine the best of both worlds, following the pixel-grid fairly strictly at small sizes and being allowing for more “blurry†rendering at big sizes to make it look smooth.
When I see people arguing about fonts and typography as if the exact shape of a character was the single most important thing in this word, I sometimes think that alien intelligence is not so far away from me as I’ve always thought.
I mean, humans only recognize word shape anyway when reading large amounts of text, so I don’t understand why fonts matter so much beyond some obvious concerns like character size, spacing of characters and paragraphs, or use of sans serif fonts on computer screens.
The shape of words are put together of letters, thus, the shapes of the letters influence the shapes of words. Font designers as quickly as they can test their fonts with words and body text when designing.
Of course, sometimes it’s simply about style. Arial is quite readable, but really ugly (some argue that it is more readable in body text than Helvetica, since it has more variation in it’s letters.)
If you want to know more about typography I highly recommend the movie Helvetica. (It’s about a lot more than only Helvetica.)
Like you mention: how the font is set it important as well. Badly set Georgia will look bad, and but a well set horrible font will usually look horrible as well.
Edited 2011-10-20 20:27 UTC
I don’t believe that typography, as a whole, is irrelevant and unimportant. As said before, I agree that some aspects of it as important. I just don’t understand some other parts like, say, what’s so great about Helvetica and what’s so bad about Arial. I use both interchangeably depending on what I have at hand, and don’t see the difference.
When readability changes significantly (like, say, when the holes in the “e” and the “a” are barely distinguishable and characters width looks random), I see a difference between fonts. But most of the the time font design discussions just feel like people are nitpicking a lot about nothing significant. Maybe taste plays a role, but I don’t understand where there’s even room for taste in good font design : in common 12pt text, you only have a few dozens square dots at hand, readability puts strong criterion on how you must use them, so what room is left for change ? Cannot font design only affect large text, such as that of ads and logos ?
One day, I found a book about typography at my local book shop and thought “well, maybe I’ll finally understand ?”. But reading the first few pages, where they described an overloaded page of an old version of Apple’s website as the paramount of graphic design, I just had to stop and put the book back on the shelf. They couldn’t be serious. There’s nothing elegant about a bunch of tightly packed rounded boxes fulled with ads, where one must chase real content in order to find it.
I’ll try watching that movie, maybe it will do !
Edited 2011-10-21 07:35 UTC
Small changes can have a big influence on readability. While body text with decorative bold details is horrible to read (try reading a novel in Curlz MT), small details can make difference in how easy they are to read. Times New Roman and Adobe Minion are very similar typefaces, but Minion is much easier to read. (Unfair to compare them though, Times is a little less readable because it is slightly narrow, and the reason it it is more narrow is to save space.) Some type families actually have different fonts optically optimized for different sizes.
Arial and Helvetica at 10 pixel (without sub pixel rendering) probably looks more or less the same. However, at 10 pixels with sub pixel I think there can be a bit of a difference, especially the bold versions. Will most people consciously be able to tell the difference? Probably not, but I think they will feel it.
A more important point though is that mobile screens have such a high resolution density that they are beginning to rival magazines. (They got higher res than newspapers a while ago.) Combine this with sub-pixel rendering and you actually have a resolution that is rivaling printed magazines.
You also mention spacing: this is not something the designer set’s each time the use a typeface. All fonts come with pre-defined spacing. The actual spacing of letters (kerning) is a big part of what makes a typeface feel the way it does.
Some blog posts discussing Arial and Helvetica
http://ilovetypography.com/2007/10/06/arial-versus-helvetica/
http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html
Sounds like a bad book. Our interaction design teacher used an older Apple site as example for absolutely horrid (90s) design only yesterday, so I don’t think that is a common view. Thinking with Type (by Ellen Lupton) is a good and easy-to-read if you want to get a basic understanding of typography.
To be fair… I think his point was that the new font Apple introduced (not created, but started using), Helvetica Neue, is nothing more than some minor tuning to the original Helvetica font (rounded corners are a bit more round, some minor width adjustments, etc.). Likewise, Roboto is nothing more than some different minor adjustments (the curve of e and g are extended a bit etc.)
Just saying there is certainly nothing special about Roboto – it IS Helvetica, or close enough that a non-expert would not notice much difference. So it Helvetica Neue for that matter.
Non-experts probably won’t tell the difference between Georgia and Times New Roman. Does that mean that Georgia is just a tweak of Times?
Are design differences in products that users cannot consciously tell apart merely tweaks? If that is true, why bother with details in a product at all?
Fair enough… Yes, it is more or less a tweak – but it is an extensive tweak. Virtually everything about Georgia is different from Times in a small but noticable way (almost all characters are slightly differenct, the curves are different, the default spacing and sizing are different, etc.)
On the other hand Roboto and Helvetica differ greatly in a very small handful of details. However, for the most part they are virtually indistinguishable (in lower case at least).
I don’t want to get into a style war over fonts though – I’m not a font designer and I certainly don’t mean to belittle the process in any way (and I do understand that in font design a very tiny change generates a very large impact).
My point was simply that yes, Roboto is a new font – but it isn’t anymore of a new font then Helvetica Neue was when it was introduced. They were both “new”, and just because one of the had Helvetica in the name doesn’t make it less so.
I don’t understand why Helvetica is treated as the big bang or primogenitor of sans serif fonts, it’s not like it doesn’t have precursors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grotesque_%28typeface%29
Yeah… Especially Akzidenz Grotesk (1896) is almost 1:1 with Helvetica. Surely not more or less so than Robota is to Helvetica.
No, of course not, I am just saying they introduced it – way back – in their OS 🙂
So now nobody else is allowed to introduce something similar? This pissing contest is childish.
Oh, I see. Perhaps they should sue Google fast?
The apple beating the SGS2 probably has nothing to do with pushing less pixels than said android device?
I’m hoping that this phone won’t be released before it’s really finished; it would suck if Galaxy Nexus owners were put in the unfortunate role of being beta testers for ICS, as Xoom owners were for honeycomb.
However, assuming they don’t have any serious issues out of the gate, this is going to be the phone to get if you hate all the bloatware that vendors keep putting on top of Android. Personally, I’m tired of these vendors f**king with the stock OS, and it’s nice to FINALLY have a Google dev phone on Verizon (hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, but everyone is pretty positive it’s coming); now I’ll be able to enjoy ‘vanilla’ without having to root the phone and try about a dozen different custom ROMs before finding one that’s stable, and I’ll be able to install updates as soon as Google releases them, instead of having to wait 6 months for the vendors to feed it to me.
There’s been a lot of talk about the Galaxy Nexus as compared to the Galaxy II and Razr, but since the Nexus won’t be infected with either Touchwiz or Motoblur, it wins hands down, IMO.
if you get a phone that is supported: cyanogenmod is a fairly light layer over AOSP. really it is just ADW (right now, not sure what they are going to do with ICS) instead of the Stock launcher (not that i can tell the difference between ADW and AOSP, personally).
I am definitely going to try to get this phone if I can.
Yeah, I am running CM7.1 and love it. Problem is, CM6/7 were hell on my battery, so it took them over a year to finally put out something that I was happy with. I probably could’ve installed a different kernel, but I am not quite that hardcore
Thing about these Nexus phones is that it really allows those of us who don’t really get sexually aroused by endlessly screwing with our phones to enjoy stock, while still getting all the latest updates, without going through all the bullshit. Sure, they’ll probably stop updating it eventually, but I’m hoping we’ll be able to stay current for at least a year or more.
An ever ‘purer’ version of AOSP is oxygen (http://forum.oxygen.im). It’s hailed as the cleanest and most stable version of Android by its users.
That’s what I was thinking before buying Nexus One. After it took Google more than half a year to release 2.3 for it, I’m not so sure any more. Let see if 4.0 will be released for Nexus One. Apparently it should be compatible (probably quite slow)
If I remember correctly, Nexus S had problems with self rebooting 2.3 systems. So updating Nexus One that don’t have most of the hardware that 2.3 was developed to support would perhaps not have been such a good idea until they had solved the problems.
I would also guess that they needed to develop other drivers for Nexus One than for Nexus S. Nexus phones usually gets updated if its technically possible.
As i remember Gingerbread was released in the middle of December and Gingerbread became available for the Nexus One on 22nd of February (you can check in the xda forums) … SO your “more than half a year” is just not true.
You note the phone as “pretty impressive,†but then say ICS “didn’t drop too many jaws.†So what’s so impressive about the phone/what makes it stand out from other recent phones? Just the display? Which is just a bit larger and, finally, approaches the iPhone’s pixel density? I actually find the long overdue ICS more “impressive†than the phone.
From http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/in-depth-hands-on-video-galaxy-nex… I find ICS really interesting. Cannot wait to see how new APIs look like. NFC is particularly cool (-.
One other useful feature is network usage tracking. I have 15GB limit, so no worries about going over that limit, but still it is good to know who uses how much.
Edited 2011-10-19 22:44 UTC
3G Watchdog has provided this feature (tracking data usage) for many years now. We first installed it on my wife’s LG Eve running Android 1.5 (now running 2.2).
There are other apps that do this as well (my Xperia Pro came with one from Sony; and the Rogers My Account app shows data usage from their end of things).
That being said, the new built-in data usage tracker breaks down the usage per-app, which is a nice feature. Then you can compare how the background syncs compare to manual data usage, and see which apps are sucking up the bandwidth.
MIUI (Android based) ROMs also have built-in data usage tracking and alerts.
Of course some expected to get iCloud-like integration or Siri equivalent, or more stylish/less colorful UI design, but that can for now be covered by third party apps/skins/addon google services.
The look and feel resembles Honeycomb (plus some polish and a lot of under the hood work), which is by no means bad.
Btw. Rubin also said that ICS is going to be open source a few weeks after phone(s) are released.
Other good news is, they claim to designed workarounds for all known Apple patents for the SGNexus and ICS (we’ll see if Apple continues with the legal rampage if that’s true).
Edited 2011-10-19 21:35 UTC
The “legal rampage” doesn’t include the Galaxy Nexus, focusing on the Galaxy Tab and some of the older Galaxy phones. That rampage isn’t going to stop just because the Galaxy Nexus has been released.
This may prevent future rampages, though.
.. biased (but that was not surprising, was it?)
Review of the Android 4 font Roboto
http://typographica.org/2011/on-typography/roboto-typeface-is-a-fou…
Good to know you hardly bother to even glance over the texts you reply to, while posting your usual repetitive fillers.
http://flyosity.com/iphone/androids-touch-responsiveness-is-terribl…
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/10/19/samsung.galaxy.nexus….
What’s it like to be so insecure in your choice of smart phone that you need to take every opportunity to badmouth the competition?
Maybe it’s because the specs of the phone where already known, but 1.2GHz dual core is already here in other phones, and the camera have to prove itself. The display is the interesting bit, and this is Samsung so display will be good.
On the other hand I found Android 4.0 quite interesting. Really polished and smooth. And that’s only the UI. On the technical side they have a lot of new stuff. Direct WiFi, Android Beam, much better browser (capable of using the two cores), more integration APIs, new settings, face unlock, built-in picture editor, hardware accelerated UI, almost real-time speech recognition. And they haven’t said anything about low level details related to Davlik or OS improvements. I’m expecting this Android version ported to Intel CPUs and with a faster JIT. The tech details said they have better “mouse” handling, so I expect it running on laptops and netbooks one of this days.
I think this Android version is really good every way you look at it. We have to wait and see if it’s buggy or solid. But I’m sure Google will take care of any problem in the next months, and for Google IO 2012 we will have a rock solid 4.1.
Of course naysayers will say it’s all wrong and ugly and slow. But that’s expected.
And this guy Mathias, he is good!
Has horrible visual default colours. So dark and cold compared to the email and calendar programmes which are so alive and comfy.
The phone on the other hand is hot.
I actually use dark themes on my phone. It saves the battery quite a bit, and if I need to look at my screen in the dark for a quick moment I don’t accidentally blind myself.
However this is all my own personal taste and opinion. To each his own.
Interesting. I wonder if that’s part of the reason for the dark theme. That giant display must suck a lot of power.
I’m sure it is, and the displays do suck a lot of power.
The pixels of the Samsung displays don’t use power if they are displaying black, so to maximize battery life, use a lot of black.
The display on my Captivate regularly uses 50% of the battery with cell standby coming in second with 20%. That’s a pretty big gap.
Good grief, version 4.0 and still no pulldown notification menu power control for WiFI, bluetooth, screen timeout, and airplane mode? This is the single biggest missing feature on vanilla Android. Thank goodness for custom ROMs.
Quick Settings – it is in the Market, and doesn’t require custom ROMS, or money.
It’s there, pull down and tap on the little icon to the right just like in Honeycomb (where there’s no pulldown however).
I guess they just didn’t showcase that. I did see the icon so I’m assuming it’s the same as in Honeycomb.
my galaxy s2 had all this out of the box.
The “font hipsters†you are talking about are really font designers and graphic designers with knowledge of fonts. Many designers have criticized iPhone for using Helvetica as well, citing among other thing legibility issues.
Marker Felt isn’t really a Comic Sans anymore than any grotesk font is a ripoff Helvetica… not that that’s a consolation to the horrible skeuomorphic stuff that Apple puts out.
And with regards to Segoe UI? Yes, it looks awesome, no doubt. That is because it is ripped off Frutiger. Why couldn’t they just have bought or licensed Frutiger? The Metro interface itself though is an original creation, and a brilliant one at that.
My first impression of Roboto is good, and at the very least it looks a hell lot better than the Droid fonts which where simply way to expressive for an far reaching thing as being system font. It will be very interesting to actually see it on a phone. Although it has clearly been influenced from other fonts, I can’t see it being more a ripff off Helvetica than Helvetica itself is an ripoff Akzidenz-Grotesk. I also don’t see a problem doing a font inspired by another one provided that you make your different enough so it has it’s own expression.
So it began with Andoid being *awesome* because it was open source and what not and it was made by Google. Then came the announcement about Blackberry’s QNX and suddenly that was king.
And now it’s Windows Phone and everything they do is undeniably the best.
Ok dude you’re right.
As for the Nexus; it’s not a good phone. It’s ugly ugly ugly and there much better alternatives, the new Razr for example.
PS: what’s up with the screens of these phones are they going to approach tablet size one day ?
?
He is sad because he thinks you praise too much various mobile operating system and unfairly forgot to mention iOS’s big merits.
The only “merit” I can think of is the fact they take stuff invented by others and used in countless other products for years, polish them to death and present them as their own inventions to the unwashed gullible masses. Then, they proceed to sue the crap out of their competitors using patents on rectangles.
There is the market share and ecosystem that goes with it, and nicety of buying a phone that has cut out the carriers from messing with the software.
No I’m saying it’s not black or white like he paints it out to be most of the times, depending on the flavour of the month.
Each system has it’s own merits.
First and foremost iOS and Android have much more experience in the mobile space.
iOS is more suited for everyday folk, Android offers far more alternatives, both in terms of hardware and software and it gives the ability to tech savvy users to tweak it according to their liking. Windows falls somewhere in the middle in my opinion.
The way things are today, if I had to choose something other than iOS, I would prefer Windows over Andoid, even though I have more faith in Google in the long term.
In a line, stop being so biased in your articles every time you change your mind. You’re takings jabs at people like Gruber but at least they don’t portray themselves as being objective; what you’re doing is worse.
Edited 2011-10-20 11:08 UTC
When have I ever painted myself as objective? Seriously dude, when?
My opinion changes – of course it does. That’s because unlike most other bloggers, I have no undying eternal devotion to any one company, product, or technology. I think Microsoft is being a dick with their extortion campaign, but I’m open about the fact that WP7 = fcuking awesome. I think Apple is a despicable company and that iOS isn’t as holy and good as everyone makes it out be, but at the same time, I’m a very happy and satisfied iPad 2 owner. I dislike Google’s withholding of Honeycomb source code and their total inability to get device makers to put updates out there, but at the same time, I bought a Galaxy SII last week and I’m loving it, Android warts and all.
This kind of openness and honesty about the things I like and don’t like, without any “it is from Xyz and thus good/bad” is something you may not be familiar with, and thus, it may come across as strange. However, accusing *me* of black/white thinking is so utterly idiotic, I’m not sure if trolling or just really new here.
Look, I may flip-flop about when it comes to my dislikes and likes, but that’s because I’m a human being, and not dependant on getting free stuff from companies that make the products I’m supposed to write about. I buy this shit with my own money, and as such, you’ll see entirely different outcomes than with other large sites like Engadget that rely on early access gifts.
I think his point is you should be jaded and indifferent about covering technology, rather then enthusiastic, with each post the next iteration in a continuous experiment to find the correct formula for maximum unique pages views.
OSnews has been a staple in my website rotation for years because it is so objective and reasonable in it’s commentary. It will hand out praise for things that are good and criticism when things are bad, and it does this while letting things stand on their own merits.
So basically, Thom…you’ll say or do anything because you reserve the right to flip-flop at the time of your choosing?
How can anyone take what you say seriously?
I’m sorry…it’s very calculating on your part…and off-putting.
Edited 2011-10-20 16:00 UTC
In the face of changing circumstances or new evidence – why not? What kind of sense does it make to always believe the same thing, despite the world around you changing?
A good example: the iPad. When it was announced, I said I didn’t see the point in a giant iPod Touch – I added that it would probably sell well, but that I personally didn’t see the point and that the novelty would quickly wear off. Then, when I bought my own iPad 2, I stated in my review that I got it now, that I was wrong in my earlier assessment.
How on earth can that be a negative thing?
Okay…I agree with you on that point.
But one thing that still bothers me is your penchant to label companies, like Apple, as “despicable” yet you gleefully buy their products, thereby de-facto supporting them. Despicable is a very strong word and I don’t see a rationale for you spending your hard-earned money on a product from company you feel that way about.
For example, I feel Walmart is a despicable company. There is a huge Walmart relatively close to me. They have lower prices than other places and it would be convenient…but I don’t shop there because I feel they have unethical and detrimental business practices. Let’s be honest…Walmart doesn’t give a hoot about my business but I feel it would be hypocritical to patronize a company that I feel so negatively about. I have criticized Google here…I think they are self-righteous and have done questionable things…but I don’t think they are despicable or evil. In fact, they’ve done some good things too. I use Gmail and Google search and don’t have a problem with it.
You have said that you are hypocritical. My question is…where do you take a stand? I don’t think you help change or effect a company’s behavior by supporting its products.
Edited 2011-10-20 16:35 UTC
I would vote this up if I could.
Being able to change your mind in light of new information is a great ability. Far too many people avoid doing it either out of pride or fear of being viewed as flip-floppy.
marker felt was designed in 1992, comic sans in 1994. and i don’t think both are that similar anyway.
the use of marker felt in ios must be a reference to newton os which also used it (i think). but as ios is not designed for pen-use, i think it is kind of out of place on ios.
Edited 2011-10-20 10:52 UTC
correction – newton os uses apple casual:
http://www.identifont.com/show?K37
(the newton version was bitmapped)