Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 04:19

Seems too good to be true...

Seiki 50 inch 4k LED TV for $1100

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 11 Jun 2013 04:43

Air-Drop is a nice addition. All the rest of the stuff seems to be ideas borrowed from Android (and visuals too!). I love it how analcysts are going gaga over quick-settings in drop-down menu. Sammy's TouchWiz was the first to implement that (aeons ago I should add) even before it came to vanilla Android. One of the few things Sammy got right in TouchWiz.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 11 Jun 2013 04:50

Poor Steve Jobs. He must be crying looking at what this clown Bawarchi is doing to his beloved company.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 11 Jun 2013 04:55

How is this Bawarchi's fault? And it is not that the new style looks bad. They just look like they are catching up with others because they refused to change it for so long. You can blame Forstall mian for that.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 05:07

^^^blaming forstall for this is like blaming papermaster for antennagate.

Bawarchi is doing the best he can but he is not equipped to run a company like FruitCo. FruitCo during all its successful periods was pretty much a 1 man driven company whose success depended on the instinct of that one man. That man is dead now. Regular injineering companies are not like that. Tomorrow if Larry page or Ballmer get their 72, chacha or Mickey won't collapse or experience a major shift in their products. FruitCo is not a regular injineering company as I had mentioned before. Their whole company culture and product design process was fundamentally designed around the Mahdi. True, they have good talent in design, sw and HW but they have no precedence in empowering these talent. They have always depended on the Mahdi to make go/no-go product design decisions. Bawarchi is a superb corporate officer which also means he lacks the Mahdi's product instincts. That is the problem for FruitCo - they need a CEO who is a leader and has great product instinct. And they don't have any individual right now who fits that bill.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 11 Jun 2013 08:04

The reason I am disappoint is because they truly had an opportunity to get things right.

1. Seems they wanted to do proper multi tasking and task switching. Finally they decided "ah f*ck it!" and borrowed it pixel for pixel from webos. Even Mathias Duarte had the decency to implement task switching in android in a visually different way than WebOS even though he was the guy who implemented the card-based task switching in webOS in the first place.

2. They wanted quick settings. So instead of Swipe from above as in android, their idea? Swipe from below! Why not another quick settings app that you can customize which settings you want or quick settings as default "pinned" app in app multitasking? There are hundreds of ways to do quick settings!

3. Looks like they learned nothing from Vista's "lets slather everything with transparency" debacle. If you make stuff transparent, the stuff below it shows up smudged. The stuff above it looks Fugly. I even remember the long discussions about this when Vista got released. You can see the transparency F-ugliness in all its glory in the quick settings. As a meta question: Why on earth does someone want transparency in quick settings?! So that you can see the smudged icons below? Makes no sense to me!

4. Calendar looks like google calendar. Safari multiple tab switching looks like google chrome. That is not the only way to switch tabs, I liked the way mobile firefox switches tabs. Weather widget looks like HTC sense. "Moments" in photos like G+ photos highlights. Mailbox like Gmail app on iOS.

5. There is a back gesture which plays the same role as back button in Android or WP, except it is a gesture that most users wont discover.

Seems someone just said "F'it! Copy everything that works". They didnt even notice that their default lock screen wallpaper looks like Jellybean default lock screen wallpaper! But even after copying the best features, it looks like a mishmash of incoherency. This matters more for iOS because users cannot change its look and feel and are stuck with it.

The only thing I genuinely liked was Safari UI.

Otherwise, I liked all the other products. MacPro is really a nice design. Mac air, if it gets 12 hours of battery life will cause people to switch to Mac air and iPad. I can see myself living with MacAir and iPad to do all my tasks. Take Mac air for work, use iPad to relax. Now if they only allowed some kind of remote desktop from iPad to Macair, it would be awesome. Their cloud-based iWork suite looks surprisingly well polished.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Jun 2013 08:42

to me the new UI looks like android. except that the real android looks better than ios7 now.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 08:47

The other problem with transparency apart from the fugliness is the extra overhead the compositing causes on the GPU even today. All this glassy interface crap only sounds good on paper or in tricks. For more glanceable interfaces such as on mobile one needs opacity, sharp lines and clear typography, not TFTA textures of grainy leather and 3D icons with bulging curves.

I wonder if in iOS7 one can bounce off an app card off the bottom in the card view in order to quit the app instead of directly swiping - then FruitCo has copied the WebOS card view 500% end-to-end!

Speaking of the interaction design itself, there are basically 2 ways to do the card view for task switching that I have seen till date, one is what Android/WP/iOS7 uses - Android one has a vertical alignment for the interaction but uses the same principles ofcourse (after all Matthias Duarte designed the WebOS card view):

and one which BB10 uses and Maemo6/Symbian used:

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 10:28

Anal-e-cyst: "If Steve Jobs were alive, he would strangle Tim Cook"

negi · Post by **negi** » 11 Jun 2013 11:18

Seriously I am not going to upgrade to iOS7 (by the way is that possible ? ). I mean unless it has better power management and extends my battery life I have nothing else to look forward to.

Also can we launch video on youtube and have it play in background while I type a SMS ?

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 11 Jun 2013 11:21

rbullah, that seiki tv with 4k should be no use, as no broadcast to match the resolution. nah?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 11 Jun 2013 11:25

if you are referring to ultra HD TVs, then japan , taiwan, singapore and soko will likely move to it first. coastal parts of cheen might follow to show ==.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 11:28

SaiK wrote:rbullah, that seiki tv with 4k should be no use, as no broadcast to match the resolution. nah?

Not for TV use saar, more for use with FruitCo's new trashcan Mac Pro.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 11:29

negi wrote: Also can we launch video on youtube and have it play in background while I type a SMS ?

Why would you play a video in background when you can't see it?

negi · Post by **negi** » 11 Jun 2013 12:05

^ Arrey baba I use youtube as music jukebox; one is more likely to find a song there than some shady website on the web. Leave the why part question is , is it possible on new iOS7 or even newer versions of Android or Win Mobile ?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 12:14

^^^Sammy GSIII, IV already have it no? But its not part of stock Android.

listentoyoutube ka naam nahin suna kya? Nowadays I just use GB's mix radio for my desi song jukebox need.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 11 Jun 2013 12:19

Raja Bose wrote:Anal-e-cyst: "If Steve Jobs were alive, he would strangle Tim Cook"

That's because Pandora is dhoti shivering. ITunes radio will effectively kill it. Why would you use Pandora now?

The basic reason why they did iTunes radio is the same as what forced them to do 7 inch iPad. Basically users were listening to songs rather than owning them. I think iTunes radio is a good idea. You randomly listen to songs and then buy those you like. I wish they had better integration with pandora though, instead of trying to kill it.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 12:20

For them to kill Pandora they need to put iTunes Radio on all platforms and also push it into cars thru their iOS in Car initiative.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 11 Jun 2013 12:26

They have iTunes radio for iOS and for Mac and PC through iTunes. Already if you are an iTunes user, fruitco knows your listening preferences and can personalize. Pandora is now effectively out of iOS. What remains is android and things like roku. Their market is halved, if not cut more.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 12:36

If it was back in the heydeys of iPod sure it would be a slam dunk. But not anymore. And for it to really take off they have to capture mobile where being iOS onlee won't help. Pandora got its huge user base mainly becoz of its personalization features so it has significant stickiness amongst its paid (& free) user base. I wouldn't expect Pandora to dhoti shibber just yet...perhaps in the future which we will have to see, but not yet. Mean-e-while I can enjoy my free ad-free Pandora.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 11 Jun 2013 20:18

Anujan wrote:

A crypto-nerd need not even be hit with it. Just show it. They have low threshold for pain but high threshold for pleasure

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 11 Jun 2013 20:29

Had a chance to use HPs discontinued tablet. If that is web os like and appl copied then I say it is retrograde.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 20:56

^^^HP touchpad is the only webOS tablet out there in the world. Marten mullah and I purchased ours for $99.- during the firesale.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 21:19

pandyan wrote:any insight into what ios in car is? everybody and their cousins are already offering iphone/ipod/ipad integration for the past couple of years in cars. What is new?

iOS in car is basically the evolution of FruitCo's iPod Out feature, where the UI of an iOS app is remotely sent to the car's head unit and you can control the app from the head unit instead of touching your iPhunwa while driving. Its basically a competitor to something like MirrorLink which is currently trickling out in products and does the same though the security/authentication model for iOS in car is unclear. Some differences are that iOS in car works with iDevices onlee and requires FruitCo's proprietary HW interface to be installed in the car along with a FruitCo supplied DRM ASIC (about ~$5-7 in BOM cost which is huge from a car manufacturer's perspective) - MirrorLink requires a standard USB or WiFi interface. So every time the HW interface gets changed by FruitCo without warning, car manufacturers get KLPD'ed for few tens of millions of dollars in re-design and certification effort.

Currently iOS in car has ~10 auto manufacturers on board, MirrorLink has all the automotive manufacturers on board (including all the iOS in car partners, except Volvo). In terms of voice integration, iOS in car obviously has Siri hardwired whereas MirrorLink allows the use of Google Now, S-Voice, TellMe etc. through the head unit. Currently head units ship with 2 HW interfaces - one for iOS and one for MirrorLink. So basically, iOS in car and MirrorLink together cover the entire mobile and automotive market - one is platform proprietary, one is a platform agnostic standard.

---
Apparently the touch sensitive controls of the new 2014 Lexus IS are pretty good.

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Jun 2013 21:19

Who uses webOS anymore on Touchpad, hainji ? I'm terrified to log into it myself and always boot Cyanogenmod instead, because I'm afraid I no longer remember how to navigate or shut down the thing when I'm done

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 21:19

Marten wrote:Malik, 32GB was 150.

Hum to chote wale ki baat kar rahe thay sarkar.

Suraj wrote:Who uses webOS anymore on Touchpad, hainji ? I'm terrified to log into it myself and always boot Cyanogenmod instead, because I'm afraid I no longer remember how to navigate or shut down the thing when I'm done

All such HW regardless of OS will usually shutdown with a long press of the power button becoz that action is programmed into the MCU which monitors the power button and not just at OS level - nahin to rehne do charging pe sasure ko!

Suraj · Post by **Suraj** » 11 Jun 2013 21:23

But I'm a silly con valley injineer, Bose bhai. I'm supposed to be able to shut it down elegantly. Problem solved though - I gave my TeePee to my dad, and that's how he shuts it down sometimes. In fact I did not tell him about webos and once he accidently booted into it and frantically messaged me about some strange software running on the tablet

I told him to hold the button down until it restarted, and then pick Cyanogenmod.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 11 Jun 2013 21:33

The Asus nexus 7 was pretty good for my kid.. and suddenly she hit the camera button, and everything froze! the side power button kept depressed for 10 seconds did not help.. not sure, what kind of loop the system got itself into!?.

Then finally, plugged in the charger unit.. then did the same, it worked. So, my guess is that the logic that detects low battery should be having a deadlock with power button.

nachiket · Post by **nachiket** » 11 Jun 2013 21:39

Thanks Marten. So the 822 doesn't have problems with 3G in India. Good.

But 3.65Mbps being faster than 94% of India makes me

about the state of mobile internet in India.

negi · Post by **negi** » 11 Jun 2013 22:14

Well someone wrote a nice article sometime back on this; India's IT prowess is due to some sane minds who got their act together GOI has a ghanta contribution to it and it shows in pathetic quality of internet connectivity in our country.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 11 Jun 2013 22:31

Somehow I can never get myself to spring for anything other than iOS devices till now - iPhone and two iPods - which have very intuitive interface. I think gizmo guru Rb made this point before - it is very responsive.Without good responsiveness however intuitive an interface it is all for naught. One can perform multi-touch actions pretty fast a laggy response with queued signals is a recipe for disaster.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 11 Jun 2013 22:38

Responsiveness is part of intuitiveness just like engineering is part of UX.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 11 Jun 2013 22:43

from system engineering perspective, responsiveness should be the core of engineering design and architecture..again depending on UX data on frequency, payload, messaging system, sync/async, multiprocessing/threading, etc.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 11 Jun 2013 22:56

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Jun 2013 01:20

Tracing iOS 7's influences: Apple remixes almost everyone in the industry

Sir Jani should stick to industrial design and buggering Bono.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Jun 2013 07:07

FruitCo was not late - actually they were the 1st to do this. In fact MirrorLink was invented after auto manufacturers got tired of getting buggered by FruitCo and demanded something platform agnostic with standard HW interface and better integration/control in terms of SW.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Jun 2013 00:22

Google Glass teardown

The parts are essentially smartphone parts except the display. Its an interesting read for people who like to tinker with electronics. Culprit for low battery life complaints seems to be running a OMAP4 with Android on a 570mAh battery.

(clicky for zoomed in view)

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 13 Jun 2013 01:04

Raja Bose wrote:Responsiveness is part of intuitiveness just like engineering is part of UX.

You should copy right this.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 13 Jun 2013 01:51

^^^It is my copyright

I use it (paraphrased) as a tag line in one of my presentations to impressionable injineerng grad students. Trying to change the whole outlook of treating injineering as something which is divorced from the end-user experience, one small batch at a time.

Even from numerous statements on this dhaaga it is clear that the average injineering abdul thinks user experience and design is something to be tacked on and is just essentially making something pretty (like putting lipstick on a pig). That misconception has to be corrected. JEEEHAAARDDDD!!!!!

Zynda · Post by **Zynda** » 13 Jun 2013 13:16

I understand computer manufacturers pricing laptops in India equivalent to USD but I don't understand why we get a lower configed laptop/component for same price? Even if it priced $50 more, its understandable but the price difference is more like in the range of $200-$250 compared to a similar config laptop in massa!