

Google, Samsung unveil Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Galaxy Nexus - AhtiK
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-20122278-94/google-samsung-unveil-ice-cream-sandwich-powered-galaxy-nexus/

======
flyosity
From the review at This Is My Next:

"The subtle, pervasive lag that has characterized the Android UI since its
inception is still there."

You have got to be kidding me. How is it that Android still doesn't map a
user's finger movements with nearly 1:1 accuracy on the screen? Pinch, zoom
and flick response times on the iPhone have been superior to Android for
years, even with significantly less powerful hardware (compare a 3GS response
speed to a Nexus S and it's painfully different).

Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if
letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your
keyboard. That's what using Android is like for me, someone who has owned an
iPhone since 2007. When I use my friends' Android phones, _any_ of them,
especially in the browser, it boggles my mind how laggy everything is. When
will this actually be addressed?

~~~
CoffeeDregs
>Imagine if your mouse cursor couldn't keep up with your hand movements, or if

>letters didn't appear on the screen until a moment after you pressed your
keyboard.

<eyes-closed> <imagining/> </eyes-closed>

Even in my imagination, Android installed base is still growing at nearly 2X
of that of the iPhone. Apparently, most people don't care for whatever you're
saying they should care about. I have experienced the lag you mention, but I
have a big, lovely screen on my Galaxy S [which is one of the reasons I
upgraded from my iPhone 3GS], so I'm okay with it. My wife (a realtor) has
never mentioned lag as an issue.

I don't mean to be rude, but we hear so often that Android fanboys use the
silliest things as justifications for the shortcomings of Android [and they
do!]. At the same time, Apple fanboys trumpet the silliest of things as
justifications for the superiority of iOS [witness the many
apologies/rationalizations after the 4S announcement]. You're trumpeting a
silly thing.

~~~
chugger
Android is growing fast because its on every crappy free/buy one get one
smartphones that are basically used as a glorified feature phone, NOT because
its good.

~~~
vetinari
Many iPhones are used as feature phones too. Their owners want to show off,
but use it just for calling and maybe texting.

------
psychotik
9 releases in 3 years -- anyone else think that's too much? I'm a mobile
developer and just keeping up with Google/Apple updates is a huge task. It's
almost come to a point where they ignore serviceability of products and just
keep churning out new ones, expecting the eco system to keep up. And given
Google's 'excellent' QA, my code is full of runtime-conditional checking to
enable/disable features based on the user's version. Since users are slow to
upgrade (carriers slow to push updates), the test matrix just keeps growing
and keeps getting more complex.

Each SDK introduces new permissions, so now your app doesn't auto-update
anymore. Which means you have a bunch of different versions of your app
floating around, without converging. (I can write a whole essay about how
their permissions stuff is broken - see iOS' model for a non-broken
alternative).

There is a reason Honeycomb adoption is abysmal - developers haven't gotten
around to customizing their apps for it, which in turn results in lower sales
of Honeycomb devices. And keeping up this pace isn't going to make it easier.

Am I just being unreasonable here, or do others feel some of this pain too?

~~~
jarek
I thought Honeycomb was a tablet-only release. It will necessarily have a
lower market share than universal/phone Android releases.

~~~
psychotik
Sure, but API concepts introduced in Honeycomb are (hopefully) being
propagated through v4.0 and beyond. So apps have to catch up when they move to
v4.0. There was a big push to get apps to build UIs which work on phone and
tablets, which not many developers adopted because of immense number of bugs
in their Compat Libraries. v4.0 is just going to make it worse -- my users are
still running 2.2/2.3, so I can't abandon them. And I refuse to maintain
multiple code branches.

If you know the details and spend a few minutes thinking about what's involved
in making stuff 'just work', you'll realize how painful it is. Google's
solution is to let devs release multiple APKs per platform - that is it's own
maintenance nightmare (bugs/servicing, testing, dev environments, etc).

~~~
anigbrowl
I thought Google's solution was to move past that and have ICS run on
everything, degrading higher-end functionality gracefully within the OS if it
finds itself running on less capable hardware.

~~~
psychotik
This isn't about hardware, it's about software. Confused?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes. 4.0 is meant to run on all Android devices, so why would you be
abandoning your users if you start developing for it?

------
CoffeeDregs
I am not a gadget guy. Having lived in Silicon Valley for 15 years, I've
always had the laptop that was state of the art two years ago. Mobile phones
never mattered. But I gotta say that what Google is doing with Android is
positively exciting (sure, there are issues, but they're pushing the boundary
forward so quickly that the issues fall away in the rear view mirror). I had
an iPhone 3GS and now have a Galaxy I phone, and I'm dying to upgrade to the
Galaxy Nexus.

Oh crap. I may be a fan boy. And I may be a gadget guy... Stupid technology
and its awesomeness.... <insert Homer Simpson drool sound>

------
nextparadigms
I can't believe how much stuff they managed to change and add in this version.
It's like Android starting over and being made for the year 2011 and beyond.

I'm also really excited about that camera. _Instant_ photo capturing, and the
video recording looked incredible. Hopefully it works as well as advertised,
too, when launched.

------
hospadam
It looks like Google has really improved the overall look and feel of the UI.
It feels equal parts, Android, iPhone, and Metro.

But.

Does the fact they're moving from hardware buttons -> software buttons mean
that current handsets are left out of the upgrade process? If so - I think
it's a huge mistake. They didn't seem to cover it in the meeting... hopefully
current Android owners won't be completely left out of the upgrade...

~~~
darrenkopp
Doubt it. There's no reason why hardware buttons that do the exact same thing
as onscreen ones wouldn't work.

~~~
davux
They don't match though. Search = (search?), Menu = App Switcher?

I'm sure it won't block upgrades, but it's definitely at least a little bit
awkward. I'm also wondering what apps will look like with the menu button--is
there a 4th added onscreen? Then how does the hardware/software button mapping
work?

~~~
jsight
The search button was optional before ICS, and will likely continue to be.

The menu button will likely be handled similarly to Honeycomb (it will appear
for legacy apps, and disappear for modern apps).

As far as I know, manufacturers are still allowed to include hardware buttons
for now, thus old phones can still be upgraded. I expect they will phase this
out eventually though, thanks to the flexibility that purely soft buttons can
offer. The honeycomb buttons really do work better than the ones on previous
phones (fewer inadvertant taps, easier to tap when wanted, etc).

------
tdoggette
I'm especially excited by how much they're stealing from WebOS. The app
switching and the flicking out of notifications look neato.

~~~
cpeterso
Matias Duarte, the Director of Android User Experience (staring with
Honeycomb), was Palm's VP Human Interface and User Experience for webOS.

------
0x12
For a second there I read that as a smartphone powered by icecream between two
slices of bread.

I was roughly halfway towards either peltier elements or Stirling engines,
when I realized hat Ice Cream Sandwich is probably one of those silly names
that people feel they have to give to their software.

~~~
thwarted
Really? It's a dessert name, just like the other Android releases.
[http://www.google.com/search?q=ice+cream+sandwich&tbm=is...](http://www.google.com/search?q=ice+cream+sandwich&tbm=isch)

This is like those HN comments that ask who rms is.

~~~
0x12
Just between you and me, I'm not a native English speaker, had never even
heard of a dessert called Ice Cream Sandwich and only belatedly realized it
was a piece of software.

If they'd simply call it Android version x.xx there would be no problem at
all.

The only other arena where I recall come across such silly names is when
people name their horses.

Who RMS is is important enough for me to remember, I couldn't care less what
each android release is named because (1) I don't have an android phone and
(2) I don't develop for Android.

Saying that it is just a dessert name and that I'm supposed to realize that is
the same as telling you that you should have known that Grießbrei is a dessert
too (and that one at least roughly translates). There is no equivalent to Ice
Cream Sandwich in any other language that I'm aware of.

------
camdykeman
I've got to say, I've had high hope for ICS, both as a user and developer but
this OS looks extremely disappointing.

From a user perspective, the interface is super cluttered. Its like Windows,
just a screen full of icons and battery-eating widgets.

[http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/galaxy-nexus-android-
ice-...](http://thisismynext.com/2011/10/18/galaxy-nexus-android-ice-cream-
sandwich-pictures-video-hands-on/)

Check the video out on the link. Watch how long it takes him just to find the
camera for the demonstration--at first he doesnt even know which way to go.
Its just too much for a phone if you ask me. Even with its oversized screen
the Nexus looked crowded. Its not a tablet--less is more.

Furthermore, as a developer I dont like this descision to keep apps running
even when you side-swipe them out of the 'active-app' list. Google reps claim
that Android can handle resources well enough that we never need to worry
about completely closing any app but if you ask me that sounds suspect. If
resources are that plentiful and the OS is still completely open-source then
its only a matter of time until this is exploited and the phone starts to lag.
And if something does go wrong in an app I apparently can't kill it? I just
see a number of problems down the road.

Very disappointed.

~~~
tullidil
I'd argue that an interface is only as cluttered as a user allows it to be.
Plenty of people I know own iPhones with similarly cluttered home screens. You
point out how the guy in the video takes a while to find the camera but I've
had that exact problem looking for it on friends' iPhones, and that's knowing
exactly what the icon looks like. Any interface can be made cluttered given a
bad enough user.

I'm not a developer, just a 4th year CS student who doesn't even own an
Android handset yet, but I do agree about how apps being kept running even
when side-swiped away is kind of troublesome. It would be nice of we were
offered some sort of option as to whether we'd like to permanently close it -
but that distinction and its effects are probably lost to a majority of
handset users, and is probably Google's justification.

~~~
camdykeman
You're right, any sloppy user can make a mess of the iPhone interface. But as
a mobile platform, the OS shouldnt promote sloppiness and with all its tabs
and panels and pages in addition to all the physical buttons already present.

The VM that Android runs on, as is pointed out in another comment, is designed
to kill off processes if it needs resources. Either way, its never been a
selling point of Android for me, personally.

~~~
tensor
I am under the impression that iOS works the same way in that it closes off
apps it doesn't need. The only difference is that it enforces a stronger save
state feature. Is this not correct?

------
itsmeritesh
4.6" seems a little big. But the face unlock feature seems really cool. I
hoped that the nexus would come with a quad core chip, but current config
doesn't look all that bad.

As a nexus one user, I am worried that the stock ICS may not support the
phone's hardware. The whole buttons things is a mess. Love Android!

------
eapen
Yay for LED.

But I am curious if Android still decides for me that I cannot take a picture
if my battery is less than 10%. I sure hope not... I prefer making the
decision myself.

------
Caballera
Be interesting to see how quickly ICS is adapted by the public at large. I
mean it'll be interesting to see how quickly Android 2.2 and 2.3 devices are
upgraded to Android 4.0.

~~~
bockris
Just my opinion, but most phones won't have the horsepower to run ICS and the
carriers are always loathe to spend manpower porting a new release to a old
phone when what they really want is for you to buy a new phone an re-up for
another 2 years.

------
jsz0
Is it my imagination or did the consistency they talked about involve the same
swiping action doing completely different things throughout the OS & apps?

~~~
eavc
The swiping action is a metaphor for moving things, and it seemed consistent
and intuitive.

You flick items away in some cases, you pull screens to rotate/pan them. This
is already implemented in some mods and is totally natural.

~~~
jsz0
Perhaps. I'd have to try it out.

My confusion stems from the contacts app. They swipe to get another 'page' of
the UI like switching between home-screens. If it was consistent with the
GMail app swiping on the individual contact should bring up more information
about the item not switch to another page?

------
chugger
It's really too bad carriers wont allow majority of Android users to upgrade
to ICS.

------
PostOnce
The top result when I google 'gingerbread' is the android SDK.

This headline is funny, and a little stupid. I wish more stuff was just
version numbers and not codenames. /endgripe

~~~
simon_weber
It's a lot easier to find meaningful search results for version names than
numbers.

------
ethank
4.6" screen? Do they not understand user experience at all? The arms race on
screen sizes is getting ridiculous. It's like having a paperback book in your
pocket. Why can't they increase pixel density but keep it in a dimension good
for one handed operation with normal sized thumbs?

~~~
tdoggette
It's the same size as the screen on the Nexus S, but the buttons are now just
a part of the screen, so the diagonal is bigger.

~~~
ethank
That doesn't address the question. The nexus S was and is a bear to use. Your
thumb can't cover the width of the screen and the usable arc in one finger
operation doesn't give you 100% coverage.

~~~
eren-tantekin
It's a matter of personal preference. Also depends on how big your hand is. I
am, for instance, not satisfied with my 4 inch screen and selling my Nexus S
to buy a 4.3 inch android.

