

Video And Screenshots Of Android 3.0′s Surprise Appearance - vdondeti
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/12/07/video-and-screenshots-of-the-motopad-with-android-3-0/

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jlgosse
The best things I take away from this video:

1\. The new Google Maps is coming out in the next few days for Android phones
and it looks SLICK. Pure vector graphics when looking at standard map views,
which will greatly reduce bandwidth.

2\. The gmail app in 3.0 looks slick, perhaps even slicker than the Mail app
for iPad.

3\. It seems as though we're going to be able to have one binary for both
phones and tablets, and the device will automatically detect which device it
is and work accordingly.

~~~
naner
_Pure vector graphics when looking at standard map views, which will greatly
reduce bandwidth._

That doesn't come free, though. Don't vector graphics calculations require
more CPU/GPU power and likewise consume more battery?

~~~
dagw
Possibly, but not necessarily. Bandwidth also uses batteries and GPUs are
getting more and more power efficient. Anyway the ability to download and
store the maps for a weeks trip before leaving home more than makes up for any
minor loss in battery life.

~~~
jlgosse
I think you're both right. The reduced use of raw bandwidth is going to be a
huge battery saver alone. If you're allowed to download trip data BEFORE
leaving on a trip, this will also save a lot of battery, especially if you're
in areas with poor 3G coverage.

Basically, we may be heading to a time where we can rely solely on our Android
phones for GPS navigation.

~~~
dagw
_especially if you're in areas with poor 3G coverage._

It's not just poor coverage that is a problem. If, like me, you live in a
small country up off in the corner of the civilized world, then half the times
when you've travelled far enough to actually need your GPS you will have
wandered across some national border. Trying to download maps over 3G in such
a situation will basically lead to a phone bill that will require you to re-
mortgage your house to pay off.

~~~
codeglomeration
You know you can disable data transfer for roaming right?

~~~
darklajid
Which leads again to the "I'm lost and my phone cannot help me without data
connectivity" problem that vector based maps could solve. Hence his praise for
the feature: In his case this is not just a matter of 3G availability in terms
of technical coverage, it's whether 3G is affordable as well.

Both could be solved with "preloading" the phone. So - I dare to say that he
knows how to disable that and that's completely unrelated. He doesn't even
want to need data roaming to have Google Maps available. You misread the
intention of his post.

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revorad
The video is worth a watch. The part where he tilts the 2D map into a 3D
perspective is awesome. Apparently, they are using vectors instead of tiled
images which allows them to now do touch rotations and other cool stuff.

~~~
rimantas
Alas, lag when scrolling/panning/rotating is still noticeable.

~~~
Synaesthesia
That was my immediate first impression, but remember it's rendering vectors,
and they're in 3D!

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akgerber
Their vector implementation of Maps will making it a lot more usable, if you
can cache a whole route's worth of map data beforehand: -no worrying about
getting lost right outside data coverage -people without data plans can
precache data while still on Wifi (smartphones without a data plan aren't that
common among normals as far as I know, though it'd be bad news for GPS
companies if it comes out for the iPod Touch any time soon)

~~~
Hoff
With iOS, screen shots can be used to hack this. (To take a screen shot,
position the display, and momentarily and simultaneously click both buttons.
The screen shots are loaded into the Photo library.)

~~~
protomyth
I find that works pretty well when you need to go on a rural route with poor
3G. I did that on my last cross SD run and basically had a pretty cheap road
map. The fun of it is that you can do it with the wi-fi version also.

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martingordon
A few silly observations:

1\. They bested Apple at their own game: it has no hardware buttons. Rubin
even mentions that the single iPad button can get disorienting at times.

2\. The thing costs $10,000! So much for the Apple tax. Let's start
complaining about the Google tax!

~~~
gregpilling
In regards to 2 - I would bet that the tablet in his hands cost far in excess
of $100,000 not $10,000 - or even higher, depending on how you account for
engineering time. The raw materials won't cost that much, but building one-off
prototypes is horribly expensive. Luckily they will amortize that cost over a
million units or more so the cost of the first one is mostly irrelevant.

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equark
From that video it seems like Android still has performance issues compared to
the iOS. The scrolling looked choppy and had a noticeable lag. Presumably this
can be fixed, but I am always surprised that some phones still can't master
smooth, no-lag scrolling, given that it is provably doable.

It's also amazing how much they copied from iOS. Almost everything about that
Android tablet is a blatant copy of the iPad. Look at the Gmail app, for
instance.

In the 80s Microsoft got big by commoditizing Apple's innovations and it looks
like Google is going to do the same in mobile. As a consumer I'm not
complaining, but Steve Jobs must be going crazy.

~~~
dannyr
Wait, you are accusing Google of copying the Gmail app from the IPad?

You know G in Gmail stands for Google right?

~~~
kyleslattery
No. Equark is accusing them of stealing the ideas from the Mail app from the
iPad.

~~~
dannyr
Two-pane email browsing was been around for more than a decade. It was used by
Outlook and in other email clients as well.

~~~
drats
No. It was invented by Steve Jobs shortly after he designed the wheel.

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eddieplan9
3:57 (talking about whether the map would also run on "other people's
operating system")

 _Have a group of engineers, they can only do so much._

I have feeling that the Maps app on iOS will not be updated for a long long
time after Honeycomb. Apple was wise to look into building their own map app,
just like it was wise to purchase Final Cut.

~~~
jokermatt999
It seems like it would be against Google's best interest to give their
excellent Maps app to iOS anyway. Free, built in GPS navigation was definitely
a selling point for me when I bought an Android phone.

~~~
protomyth
The problem for Google is that they want iOS to use Google's stuff or else
Apple might be prone to pick someone else and that could cascade into not
having Google as default for anything on the phone / devices. Google makes its
money on advertising not the OS.

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zitterbewegung
I'm guessing that the dual core chip on this android device might be a
derivative of the NVIDIA Tegra. Although this wouldn't make sence that the GPU
is off the die?

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km3k
I wonder how well the caching will work. I currently use MapDroyd (
<http://www.mapdroyd.com/> ) for cached vector maps. Maybe now I can just use
Google Maps and not need a second maps app installed for when I lose my data
connection.

~~~
Estragon
I've downloaded MapDroyd for an upcoming trip to Australia. is there a way to
get it to provide turn-by-turn directions, or even to show a map of a
particular address? I can get it to show me a map of my current location, but
haven't figured out street addresses, yet.

