
Android for all and the new Nexus 5 - hnalien
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/android-for-all-and-new-nexus-5.html
======
bsimpson
I'm sad that the Galaxy Nexus isn't supported. My phone has increasingly been
running out of RAM lately for reasons I don't understand - hearing Google
boast about how KitKat has been optimized for memory had me hoping that it
would support more than just the latest-greatest.

~~~
danellis
What?? The whole point of getting a Nexus device is that, unlike a carrier
phone, it's not supposed to get left behind by updates!

~~~
reustle
The Galaxy Nexus came out at the end of 2011. It can only handle the latest OS
for so long...

~~~
pwthornton
This is in stark contrast to iOS, which runs on a phone released in June 2010.

~~~
CamperBob2
Even my iPhone 5 feels as laggy as the original 2G iPhone did, now that I've
updated to iOS 7. I wish I could hit the undo button on that 'upgrade.'

~~~
esusatyo
Really? My iPhone 5 and my friend's iPhone 4 feels as fast as ever in iOS 7.

My iPad however, has jaggy animations when opening multitasking interface.

~~~
myko
Weird, the iPhone 4 test devices in my office on iOS 7 are sluggish to the
point of unusable. I guess they get used in a different manner than a normal
user since they are test devices, but still, I'm shocked to hear an iPhone 4
being called 'fast', even with iOS 6 - I would say extremely slow with 7.

------
eigenvector
Here's the Android release notes:

[http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html](http://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html)

Highlights:

* WebView is now based on Chromium * KSM and zRAM integrated into stock kernel * Public SMS framework * Printing framework * Storage access framework

~~~
klausa
>WebView is now based on Chromium

Does that mean that there will no more be stock 'Browser' app? I refuse to use
Chrome on Android because of brain-dead, non-disablable 'font-boosting' that
makes (among many others) Hacker News absolutely unusable.

If that means that the same engine is the only one officially supported on 4.4
forwards, then that's really sad and unfortunate.

~~~
Symmetry
Well, there's always Firefox and a whole bunch of other browsers if you don't
like Chrome.

~~~
binaryatrocity
If your not using Firefox on Android, your browser woes are your own fault :D
<3 Mozilla

~~~
hbbio
Apart from Mozilla love, what are the good reasons to use Firefox on Android?

I tried it, found it slower and less responsive than Chrome. But as this is a
completely biased feeling, I'd love to know more.

~~~
Spittie
Those are mine:

* Firefox Sync. As I use Firefox on my desktop, it's nice to keep them synched.

* Addons. I know this might sound stupid on a phone, but having lastpass autofill your passwords on-the-go is awesome.

* Interface. I really like the Firefox Mobile UI, but I hate the Chrome (Tablet, I browse on a Nexus 7) Mobile UI. Chrome get really bad with 3 or 4 tabs, making it really hard to switch tabs, and really easy to close tabs by mistake.

* Smoothness. I find that Firefox is way better/faster than Chrome on my Nexus 7 (This might be because I run Nightly, but I've compared it to Chrome Beta too). Especially, try to open 2 or 3 pages with a video, Chrome just become unusable for 5/10 seconds for me.

* Memory usage. I have a 2012 Nexus 7, and it has "only" 1gb of ram. It seems that if I open more than 5 tabs, Chrome just love dropping old tabs them out of memory. I've yet to have Firefox drop a tab, even with 10 or more tabs open. (It does drop them if I leave it in background and open something memory-intensive, like a game, but that's expected).

~~~
zachlatta
Having LastPass auto-fill passwords on my phone is indeed awesome. Scrolling
feels a little weird on my Nexus 4 though.

~~~
laggyluke
Are you always signed into LastPass on your phone?

I've got a (simple) screen lock password + full encryption, but I'm still a
bit paranoid to keep LastPass signed in. Instead, I have to type my 20+
character passphrase each time I have to use LastPass on my phone, which is
frustrating, but not as frustrating as losing all my accounts together with my
phone.

------
Spoom
_Behind the polish on the screen is the power under the hood. Take the Phone
app, which for most people hasn’t really changed since the days of flip
phones. Now, we’re making calling easier than ever, by helping you search
across your contacts, nearby places, or even Google Apps accounts (like your
company’s directory), directly from within the app._

Is that marketing speak for, "We're moving the Phone app into Google Play
Services"?

~~~
kcorbitt
Some background on how this fits into a wider trend:
[http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-
on-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-
controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/)

And the discussion, much of which involves explaining why this tendency is
maybe not as sinister as the Ars article implies:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6582494)

------
JoseVigil
The story behind the scene to my eyes is Google removing out of the box apps
from Android to leave it PLAY dependent 100% if possible %200. This means that
no other store like Amazon will be able to create a second store based on
Android with a fresh environment out of the box. Google says is due to
modularity I say due to market strategy. As a clear example (apart from the
clear explanation of the article, great article BTW) a feature released today
on KiKat 4.4 is that WebView is based on Chromium, this means the sole purpose
of only Google using WebView. If I where Amazon I would be reconsidering
having to develop all again for future releases or today make a fair deal with
Google.

However this is not bad news at all for startups like myself because of two
things.

1) Google will spend about a year or two on refactoring Android to fully cope
with PLAY dependence allowing some spare "time" for third party ideas on
features that can advance outside Google internal teams.

2) Third party developer a are now in equal position to compete with Google
applications to win terrain into Android future tiny out of the box. Basically
on future ex-activated apps like mail for example.

~~~
keeperofdakeys
I suspect the webview was updated because of two related reasons, first they
didn't want to maintain a separate webkit, and second because Chromium/Chrome
have switched to Blink (a fork of webkit). Also, being Chromium this should be
directly in the ASOP sources, so it's still separate from Chrome.

------
csomar
I had a terrible experience with the Nexus S. I bought it a couple years ago
(which seems to be a vety long time in Google terms) and right now it's
totally unusable. It's very slow, the battery is sucked up in less than an
hour when on wifi, some apps can't work, the play store is a mess and I can go
on and on.

I experienced the nexus 4 a little bit and though it's a great phone I'm
afraid the next OS updates are going to ruin it just like it happened to the
poor Nexus S.

My next phone is going to be an iPhone as I had a rather pleasant experience
on the iPad.

~~~
corresation
>which seems to be a very long time in Google terms

To be fair, that was during the iPhone 4 period.

The iPhone has since gone to the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, and then iPhone 5s. Many
users report an absolutely miserable experience with iOS 7 (and even 6) on the
iPhone 4.

The mobile industry has moved very, very quickly, and devices are a magnitude
more powerful+ than just a couple of years ago. As a developer with an
interest in mobile, I've gone through literally seven different smartphone
devices in the past three years.

~~~
X-Istence
My colleague has an iPhone 4, iOS 7 works on it beautifully for him. My iPhone
4S has also not had any issues with iOS 7...

~~~
matwood
Interesting since my iPhone 4 has slowed the a crawl with iOS7. Nearly
unusable now.

~~~
rsynnott
Have you upgraded to 7.0.3? This seems to help a lot. Also, you may want to
try enabling reduced motion in the accessibility settings.

------
kiallmacinnes
Well.. that was probably the most impulsive buy I've made in a long time...
Shame on Google Play for not crashing this time around!

------
acconrad
Okay I thought the camera on my Nexus 4 would kick ass but it sucks compared
to an iPhone. The only way I'm going to purchase this 5 is if it has iPhone-
esque camera quality.

~~~
nodata
Definitely agree.

------
nmeofthestate
In a moment of madness I managed to easily buy a Nexus 5 on the UK Play store.
Last year it was months after N4 release until I was able to grab one. I don't
normally splurge on consumer goods but in this case, the camera looks like a
step up, and more battery life can't be bad.

I thought "ach why not", but bought it at least partly out of surprise that
the online store was working :)

------
neel8986
First major smartphone which included India as one of the first few countries
to be released. Nexus 5 will have a huge impact on high end market in budget
conscious indians.

Selling at 28k where HTC one, note3 and Lumia 1025 are being sold at around
50k!. If distribution channel is properly organized it will just blow away the
likes of samsung,nokia and HTC

------
HorizonXP
Already bought the Nexus 5. My GNex is really showing it's age, and it'll be
nice to have a device with the new OS to develop and debug apps with.

~~~
rogerbinns
My GNex is still doing just fine! The recent 4.x dot releases have been a bit
shabby, but fundamentally things work (bluetooth cough cough). I guess being
stuck with a 4.3 device for testing will be ok. I do most of my Android dev
and testing on the first gen Galaxy Tab 10.1 which is stuck on Android 4.0,
and my consumption/games on a Nexus 10 which Google will no doubt abandon
soon.

Doing dev and debug on a device I don't actually use has been effective. My
most productive features have been having the device in a dock, and using wifi
adb so I don't have to bother with cables.

------
wuliwong
Engadget says no Verizon support. Is this true? I thought they had Verizon's
LTE bands listed but I'm not very familiar with all this stuff.

~~~
beowulfey
They have one of Verizon's LTE bands but it's more likely that Verizon will
block the phone. Their networks run on a whitelist.

------
undoware
...anyone else seeing 'out of stock' for all configurations and models?

Yep, definitely another high-grade Google Play user experience....

~~~
corresation
_Hugely_ anticipated and closely watched release, and thirty minutes later
you're complaining that they're sold out?

Come on.

I knew it was coming and got in early, finding it the most enjoyable Nexus
purchase yet -- available in many markets the day it is announced, the Play
store didn't crash and functioned speedily, and it will ship in days? I'd say
it was a fantastic user experience.

~~~
aroch
Hugely anticipated only in the tech world...No one else really gives a shit --
as seen by the Nexus 4 sales numbers after more than year (3mil units)

~~~
corresation
That's fascinating, but how is that relevant? Yes, this device was wanted by a
lot of people, many of whom were going to storm the gates. Evidenced by the
fact that it sold out. If it makes you feel better trying to niche the sales
of Nexus devices, good for you, but I see absolutely no point in your comment.

~~~
aroch
You make it sound like they blew through a massive stock of them because of
demand. More than likely they blew through Google's standard, lackluster
supply which is hardly surprising. Google's ability to properly sell physical
hardware is abysmal

~~~
dasil003
What do you mean by "properly" sell physical hardware? They are a services
company, and their interest is in the overall Android ecosystem. If you ask me
they are doing a decent job of toeing the line between shipping a good
reference implementation and a big Microsoftian middle finger to the OEMs that
butter their bread.

------
fidotron
I'm disappointed with the current lack of details around this. For example,
it's unclear if the rumoured Dalvik improvements made it in. The omission of
GN support is slightly galling too, although with the variants of that in the
wild it may be too complicated to deploy.

That said, a couple of things in the API, especially the storage framework,
could be really good. That may provide a way forward to get apps working with
the cloud or self hosted servers with a common API, which would be a great
development.

Cyanogenmod usage may get a big spike when they get on to Kitkat, and that
might be just what the Android ecosystem needs.

~~~
saamm
As a GNex owner, I'm a bit upset with the fact that there won't be official
support for 4.4 on my phone. Supposedly, this choice is due to TI not
supporting the chip anymore.

------
makmanalp
I almost choked when I was watching the video and I thought I saw Stallman on
second 11:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ0XTJqFLIE#t=11](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQ0XTJqFLIE#t=11)

------
beauzero
Google keeps rolling more and more up under them. I can understand the "good"
argument...it rids the platform of fragmentation.

...but Android is slowly becoming less open. Scares me a little. Why shouldn't
it?

~~~
gtaylor
The "open" part of this is being blown up a bit out of proportion, I think.
Nothing stops other OEMs from replacing the Play apps (the closed part of
this) with their own.

Are you an developer at an OEM? I'm just not sure why this would worry you. It
sure beats not getting timely updates for core pieces because of silly
carriers.

------
Aardwolf
"the book you're reading, the game you're playing, or the movie you're
watching"

I'm confused, PDFs, games and movies already are full screen on previous
android versions.

~~~
MikeKusold
On my N7, reading replaces the action bar with faded out dots. I'm assuming
that in 4.4 the action bar disappears now too. I've read that you swipe from
an edge to make it reappear. I'm interested to see how edge swipe heavy apps
(Kindle) will handle it.

------
ciferkey
For all, unless you are on Verizon.

~~~
drhayes9
The phone supports CDMA..? I'm on Verizon and really want this phone
(eventually). Are you seeing that it doesn't work with Verizon somewhere
specifically?

Edit: More comments here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648976](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648976)
and here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648664](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6648664)
but not seeing links, feels like hearsay.

~~~
ciferkey

        senior VP of Android Sundar Pichai told us that "the Nexus 5 will not be on Verizon."
    

My bad. I should have included a source first.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/31/5051304/google-
nexus-5-wo...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/31/5051304/google-nexus-5-wont-
work-on-verizon)

------
canistr
Nexus 5 site: [https://www.google.com/nexus/5](https://www.google.com/nexus/5)

Already appears to be down.

~~~
mercuryrising
[https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_5_bla...](https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_5_black_16gb)

What's the point of having google.com/nexus/5, when people are going to be
purchasing it from the play store (splitting traffic, rather than sending it
all to the store)?

Edit: www.google.com/nexus/5 is live now.

~~~
badman_ting
Well, people like to learn about things before buying. It strikes me as
prudent.

------
taurath
Its too bad the focus isn't on battery life. "7 hours" internet time on wifi,
when you're on airplane mode. And they refresh the same page every 40 seconds.

How about a real battery test, where you simulate someone reading HN or
reddit, opening gifs, images, web pages with crappy flash video. I'm tired of
the same 3 hours of useful battery life I've had since the HTC evo. Maybe I'm
just bitter because my galaxy nexus has around 8 hours of idle time if I have
4G on (this after doing a clean wipe not 1 month ago).

------
aaronetz
Finally, true full screen support! That was my main gripe with Android VS iOS.
Personally I find the navigation bar very hindering in games, where I have to
be careful not to touch it (not to mention the wasted screen space). My young
kids keep touching the navigation buttons by mistake, making using
drawing/music apps a very frustrating experience for them. I hope that various
app developers will catch up quickly with this feature.

------
Everlag
Holy crap, scrypt is now in android as a default method of key stretching for
whole disk encryption! That makes it way of a legitimate option and I'm really
happy to see a memory hard algorithm being adopted in such a large area!

[https://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html#44-...](https://developer.android.com/about/versions/kitkat.html#44-crytpo)

------
jaxytee
This: " In addition, the new Chromium WebView supports remote debugging using
Chrome DevTools. For example, you can use Chrome DevTools on your development
machine to inspect, debug, and analyze your WebView content live on a mobile
device."

This is a huge step forward for the development of HTML5 hybrid apps if it
allows us to debug our app's embedded webviw. Good riddance console.log(*)
debugging.

------
mscottmcbee
I love this as a stark juxtaposition to the Apple "Hold a grand event to
announce new OS and phone dates"

------
orbitingpluto
Just a tip: Make sure you are logged into your Google account. Until I logged
in it was showing as "Out of Stock".

32gb black was available when only the 16gb white was available previously.

Also note that mine is a Google Play Dev Account, which may or not affect
availability.

------
spindritf
Wait, wait, does that mean that I can expect some version (possibly not
entirely official) of Android 4.4 to run on my old HTC Desire Z? A snappier
Android on a device with a keyboard would be great.

Or is it for the billion people who buy a phone from now on?

~~~
hahainternet
You shouldn't rely on it. 4.3 barely runs and modern opengl apps fail badly in
mysterious ways. It's not seeing much attention and it's basically dead these
days.

I just bought a n5 to upgrade. I love the keyboard, but I also want a more
modern device.

------
zokier
Android for all, except me:

> Sorry! Devices on Google Play is not available in your country yet.

Oh, wait, their "all" means "U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, France, Germany,
Spain, Italy, Japan and Korea", ie 10 out of 200ish countries in the world.

~~~
tjgq
It really bothers me that they disallow people altogether from seeing the page
just because they live in the wrong country (or happen to be passing by). The
web is not supposed to be like this.

~~~
binarycrusader
Some countries have specific laws that apply to the advertisement or listing
of products to users. I suspect that's part of the reasoning.

------
bad_user
I really hope the new version of Android fixes the bug in their Wifi-enabled
location service in version 4.3, as it's been draining the battery on my Nexus
4, with the only fix available being to disable it.

------
tlongren
5" screen is too big for me. Will probably stick with N4 for a while yet.

~~~
ins429
4: 133.9 x 68.7 x 9.1 mm 5: 137.84 x 69.17 x 8.59 mm just slightly but thinner

------
wowfat
Just purchased one thanks. It says dispatch 8th Nov. In uk. Moved from sg3

------
sirkneeland
The thing that concerns me the most is their deep linking from Google search
directly into native Android apps. The last thing the web needs is even more
of being silo'd off into closed apps.

------
MatthiasP
So it is now official that Nexus devices get 18 months of software support and
then it's game over? That's quite disappointing, even Samsung supports the
Galaxy SX line longer.

------
ambiate
I will be sticking with my Nexus 4. I do not utilize the camera too much.
KitKat will come to the Nexus 4 in time. The price is the really questionable
point.

~~~
Sargos
The Nexus 5 is just about the same physical size as the Nexus 4. The bezels
are much smaller to accommodate the screen.

------
alexc05
Hit refresh. I saw it sold out, then when I reloaded there was one in stock.
Also be sure to check the 16/32 & white/black permutations.

------
mgraczyk
I just bought one. I currently have a GS4, used to have a Nexus 4. Every day I
wish I had kept my Nexus 4. Now I can fix my mistake!

~~~
JTon
I'm with you. I fail to understand the hype behind the Galaxy series
smartphones. The only thing I like about them is they are most always equipped
with a beautiful display. Touchwiz is lack luster at best, and I'm unimpressed
with the materials design. Battery and reception have glaring issues as well,
at least in my anecdotal experience.

------
gantengx
Google partnered with LG to develop Nexus 5... So remind me again why did
Google bought Motorola for? ಠ_ಠ

------
Akujin
Still no qwerty slider. No thanks.

If I wanted to waste half my screen on a keyboard I'd buy an iPhone.

~~~
sblawrie
The beauty of the iPhone is that the keyboard goes away when you don't need
it. That's why qwerty sliders are obsolete - they're there whether or not you
want them.

------
drcube
I thought it was "Key Lime Pie"? Did Android get a corporate sponsor?

~~~
k-mcgrady
It was announced a couple of months ago. I don't think any money changed hands
it just a big marketing partnership. KitKat are producing millions of bars
with a special Android competition and Google are naming the OS KitKat.

------
wnevets
Has been less than a year since the 4. What is the major difference from the
4?

~~~
srin
It's 2 weeks from a year, hasn't that been about the same as the release cycle
for most flagship smartphones?

Also, site's down I think, but apparently there's a new camera, haven't heard
of much else

~~~
dman
1080p screen vs 720p, faster processor, wireless charging, opengl es 3.0
support.

~~~
corresation
Note that the Nexus 4 has both OpenGL ES 3.0 and wireless charging. Still
ordered a Nexus 5, but just wanted to note that.

------
kiallmacinnes
Well.. that was probably the most impulsive buy I've made in a long time...
Shame on Google Play for not crashing this time around!

------
Zoomla
I was hoping for waterproofed...

