Posts by os2baba 20 publicly visible posts • joined 11 May 2010
I'm not sure what the big deal is. The researcher is more likely to get a heart attack from eating at McDonalds than from Google. I turn off location by default not because of my tinfoil hat but because it drains battery like nothing else. I only enable it when I need it. And most of the time, when I enable it, it's on the GPS setting not on High Accuracy.
You can turn off Location History on your device and see all the apps that are requesting location services. I wasn't aware that denying location services from the app from settings would not prevent the app from getting location from Google Play Services. If that's the case, then it should be easily fixable by Google - by denying location from any app to which you have specifically denied access to location. If Google stops this end run, then I personally have no problem with Play Services itself using location.
All this shows is web usage statistics from a single company measuring it. It makes total sense for countries like India where the phone is very often the only means of connecting to the internet where looking at mobile web statistics may well be the actual usage pattern. And it also makes sense that in those countries, the iPhone is going to be at the losing end drastically because of price.
But it makes no sense to conflate web usage with phone sales in developed nations. It never failed to amaze me that many of my iPhone toting friends used their tiny 3.5" devices to surf the web when they had a PC in front of them. In spite of excellent 5" screens on my Android devices, I always preferred to use my 27" monitors for browsing. With multiple tabs and large real estate and quick navigation and better keyboard (not withstanding the excellent SwiftKey), it always seemed idiotic to me.
I dumped my iPhone (much better hardware) for the G1 and since then have always purchased flagship Android phones sometimes more expensive than the iPhones (Note 2). I'm not an outlier - as the IDG report shows.
And I doubt that you would be wrong. But just because half of the Android marketshare is low end, doesn't mean that it's high end marketshare is low. In fact, just as in this article, Business Insider ran an article last year with a similar headline - belied by real numbers. Take a look at the graph at https://plus.google.com/+EricRichardson/posts/3tsBbXNv4nt
The thing is that Android is for everyone. Even on high end phones, Android phones outsell iPhones. Even in the US, the bastion of Apple, Android phones outsell iPhones. Basically Android outsells iOS in every price category and range.
And you think that Google didn't fix Bouncer to prevent the app from getting into the Play Store in the first place? And you think they didn't fix "Verify Apps" which runs on your phone? And which is delivered via Google Play Services all the way back to GB devices?
This is exactly the kind of bugs that Google can fix with Bouncer and Verify Apps.
These are the widgets on my phone.
Google Keep. Very convenient as a widget.
Google Play Music. When I start playing it, it also goes on my lockscreen and notification shade.
Google Now.
Weather and Calendar. When I click on the time, it opens the timer/stopwatch app. When I click on the weather, it opens the detailed weather for the next 7 days
Time widget for the UK office.
Google Search widget
Agenda widget which shows me appointments for the month. With an option to add meetings and to go to settings to change it's look and behavior.
Direct dial widgets for my wife and kids and friends.
Direct contact widgets so I can select the mode of communication (phone, email, text)
So no. iOS doesn't have widgets. And iOS 8 will not have widgets either. After not having a notification shade for many versions, now everything has been shoved down into one area. Simply because they don't want to admit that they are copying yet another feature from Android.
While this is mostly true, two outstanding exceptions in my experience have been the Mitsubishi U52 VCR in the 90s and TiVo in the early Aughties. To date none of the TV interfaces can match the TiVo experience from a decade ago. I haven't used a TiVo in years, but I hope it has only improved and not taken a dive.
But the public keys don't have to be exchanged over SMSes. Right? So if exchanged in an encrypted secure file in an email with the password of the attachment spoken over the phone or depending on how critical the conversation is, exchanged using sneaker-net, wouldn't that work? I know the link talks about exchanging the public keys using SMS. But I'd imagine that you would be able to substitute public keys of certain folks manually. Or at least shouldn't be difficult to implement.
46% of malware is on the Play Store? I say Bullshit! I have never seen a single anti-virus company ever produce a list of apps that it considers are malware. Or even a a category of apps. They just look at permissions and if an app is asking for permission for the Contacts list or SMS, it's automatically malware. From time to time, I download these snake-oil software and in 5 years, they haven't found a single malware on my phone.
I do take care though. I never download software from any warez site. These days I turn off unknown sources, until I download from a reputable source like Mozilla, XDA or FDroid. And if the author on the Play Store is unknown, and the permissions look suspicious, I don't download the app unless the author gets back to me with the reasons for the permissions.
I don't think adding line by line permissions is going to work. It will just get irritating and people will simply turn it off en-mass like UAC.
The presence of two resource files with the same name does not make it a Masterkey exploit, not even a "harmless" vulnerability. The reason CynanogenMod patch flags it is because it's a rather blunt patch. It flags any APK containing two files with the same name. It's a false positive (which is better than not catching a genuine exploit), but this is not a vulnerability. Jay Freeman has an excellent article on this if you want to spend the time reading it. It explains the flaw in great detail and the fix. http://www.saurik.com/id/17
I'm not familiar with the phone. What do you mean "no usb storage"? Since 4.0 (I think), Android uses MTP for mounting. It has the advantage of the phone and the PC both being able to use the storage simultaneously. It has the disadvantage of not being able to use folder tools like checking tree size etc. Are you saying that on the Xperia Z, you get neither the USB storage or MTP (both built into Windows)?
That's right, Apps can't be moved to SD anymore. A big mistake IMO and I find all of Google's reasons totally lame. This was a solution for a problem that never existed. But as often with Android, there are solutions. I use DirectoryBind (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1410262). Check it out.
I have no idea what problem you are having with Bluetooth. That's worked on every Android phone I have used from the G1 running Android 1.0. I believe you are right about the music only working with stereo bluetooth headsets, but I can't see much point in not listening to music through a stereo headset if you are using a headset at all. I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy S2, a Galaxy S3, a Nexus 4. All running Jelly Bean. And none of them have any bluetooth issues.
I use Google Voice. So have no idea what SMS validity timestamps are. Never used MMS. Never saw the need for it when I can use mail. I don't know anyone who's got a phone, but not an email address.
I have also never heard of GSM Video calls.
This would be like Adobe making all photographers or web designers who use Photoshop sell it only via an Adobe store and giving them a 30% cut. Yet another reason to stop using Apple products. Over the years, I have turned from an Apple fan to slowly removing all Apple devices from my house and it's crap like this that's done it. What's happened to them?
You don't have to reactivate OTA upgrades on Android. But you have to reactivate every iPhone that's sold and wiped. That would be the same for Android devices as well. But first of all the existing install base of Android phones is significantly smaller and the people will only just coming out of their G1 contracts.
It's turned off by default and you can turn it on for the videos you want to see. So it acts like FlashBlocker on Firefox. Best of both worlds. It's there when you need it and doesn't consume any resources when you don't. Once again - Choice, which is a dirty word for Apple.
The Nexus One would never have sold in the US.
For the phone to sell well, it should
1. The sorry Math skills of most Americans means that they will look at the $300 extra they would have to pay up front and forget about any savings in a no-contract plan.
2. The savings in a no-contract plan AFAIK is only available through T-Mobile and it's not much of a savings.
3. The flexibility of changing carriers doesn't work in the US with a different Nexus One for different carriers. Even between the 2 GSM carriers, the 3G bands are different.
Add to that,
4. The inability to touch and play with the phone before making an expensive purchase with a hefty ETF makes it a boneheaded move from Google.
5. The early #G connectivity problems did Google and T-Mobile no favors.
6. Google's naive assumption that they could do support on the cheap for an expensive device that people have paid for. And to top it all, do a piss poor job of it.
There is only one reason remaining to buy a N1 - Future OS releases will be fastest on the N1 and are not tied to either manufacturer UIs (Sense/Motoblur etc.) or carriers.
It's a great phone, but the newer HTC devices even more so. How many people are going to choose a Nexus One over the Incredible or the EVO now? Maybe a N2 with a keyboard with beefier specs.
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