I've been watching the liveblog from Verge. So far...

- Nexus 7 tablet, 1280x800 screen, front-facing camera (but not back-facing). WiFi. GPS. $199 or $249 depending on storage.

- Nexus Q home theater doodad. It's somewhat like an AppleTV, in that it can drive video and audio, with your phone/tablet as the UI. It also has a two-channel amp to drive speakers. Costs $299. The built-in amp is an intriguing feature, though. You can pair this with some bookshelf speakers and get a fairly discrete solution. They also play NFC games to let me visit your house and pair with your system without having to muck about with all the security settings.

- Android 4.1. Lots of new stuff here. The high points seem to be a ton of engineering to get a higher frame rate and buttery-smooth animation. They also seriously souped up the notification system, rolled out a predictive keyboard (similar to SwiftKey), along with offline voice recognition, and a fancy Siri competitor. They also added a location-prediction gizmo that will sort out that you're about to head to work and might say that your meeting got canceled and you've got time for your usual gym visit.

- Google+ got fancier and more integrated with other Google things. In particular, they're trying to kill Evite, with integration into Google Calendar. They even have "party mode" so all the pictures taken by anybody at an event gets dumped into the same online gallery.

- They're talking about Glasses now. Looks swank, but I still don't see myself walking around with a video-camera thing on my head, and I'd be hesitant to have a real conversation with somebody wearing one. Some things just don't want to be recorded. On the other hand, there's something to be said for having that sort of cyborg integration of the Internet without having to futz with your phone.


And... for $1500, U.S.-based devs who attended Google I/O can buy an initial prototype. Every attendee gets goodie bag with a Galaxy Nexus (GSM/HSPA edition), a Nexus 7 tablet, and the Nexus Q home theater thingie.

At $300 it's somewhat like the price of 3 AppleTVs but potentially without the functionality of 1. This device isn't a GoogleTV, which is just about the strangest thing I could possibly imagine here.

I'm not sure who Google thinks they'll be marketing this paper-weight sphere to. I expect it will no longer be available by this time next year.

What it adds, over a GoogleTV, is an integrated amp. If you want to do a Sonos-style whole home audio solution, this lets you do it with fewer boxes. At $150, it would be competitive. At $300, I don't think so.

Even at $99, I don't think anyone in the market for a Sonos would be buying this. A random box with a tiny amp and WiFi doesn't a Sonos replacement make.

$300 is too much, but I think Google has the best chance of being left standing as the multi-dimensional tug-of-war between content providers, ISPs, and hardware manufacturers gets more heated. The current situation where you access dozens of different content silos with dozens of different applications on many different devices is not consumer-friendly, and I think people are going to demand something better. Customers want to view streaming media, local content, and live broadcast television on the same device with the same interface. The original GoogleTV tried and failed to make this happen, so It looks to me like Google's trying to get another bite at the apple with this thing. I don't know if this device will make it happen, but it shows they're committed to making it happen, and there's definitely room for a company not named Apple to succeed.

I do like the looks of Jelly Bean, though. For an x.1 release, it seems to pack a lot of punch.

The Nexus tablet isn't for me since we have a couple of CM9 Touchpads, but I think it'll sell pretty well at that price point. I wholeheartedly endorse the Nexus concept of Google getting more hands-on when it comes to hardware and pushing specific devices instead of just writing the OS and hoping the end result works.

I see the G+ events thing as a sneaky way to suck people into using G+, and I bet it'll work for a lot of them. So many people have Google profiles but haven't joined G+, and the workflow of responding to an event and then viewing pictures from the event would probably be compelling enough for a lot of those folks to join, even if they aren't the kind of people who are going to post a lot of status updates.

Glasses... Well, I think society has warmed to that level of connectedness in recent years, but I think it's a bit much for me.

I've just ordered myself a Nexus 7 tablet, given that I do some iOS development, it is long past the point that I should have taken some time to see what it is like on the other side of the wall.

I've only ever played with Android devices for a few* minutes at a time until now.

At that price it is into impulse buy territory for a lot of people. I suspect they'll sell quite a few of them. Whether the people will buy them will actually make use of them or ever buy another Android tablet is another question entirely...

* just long enough time to find places/times where the lags started being noticeable...

I don't think Google's chances in TV are as good as Apple's and Microsoft's are now or ever were. And the only reason they even have an inkling of a chance is because it seems that Apple and MS have been all but disinterested in doing anything significant in that space.

The XBOX 360 is already the most widely used box for media streaming, yet MS barely pushes that aspect of the device.

AppleTV has been a hobby not because of its slow adoption, but because Apple have not put significant resources into developing nor maintaining it. I'll give you one word which will lay down the hammer: Apps.

If Apple opens iOS on AppleTV to its full suite of Apps and the app store, not only will that all but assure Google will never make it in TV, it will leave MS, Nintendo and Sony shaking in their boots. Honestly, if those three have not had AppleTV on their radar as a threat for some time, I'd really have to question their sanity.

I just read Engadget's run-down of the Google orb thing and it sounds as dumb-ass as I first anticipated. They say it can't play local content. All the press images show a bunch of huge cables sticking out the back - what's that about, analog video? 6 f*cking wires. Nice!

And the major point they're making, which is that it can play content from the cloud using an Android device as nothing but a remote can already be had with pretty much every other device on the market today, including an assortment of Roku boxes starting at $50.

Just another example of Google throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks - no focus, no attention to detail no basis in reality. Reminds me of their glasses actually.

Yes, IOS apps will be great for all those people that love standing a foot away from their touchscreen TVs. 0_o

That's right, because developers won't see the potential in adopting whatever new APIs Apple releases to support additional input methods/devices. And of course they won't see the potential for controlling the on-screen action from an iPhone or iPad or iPod. No one would ever think of that. It's not like that hasn't been a pretty standard control mechanism for a few years and that Nintendo would possibly take the idea for their next console.

That's not what you said, though. You said if they open it to the full suite of apps, that would be the final straw. As it is, though, IOS has no widely available facility for input other than by touch, and virtually all apps rely on touch input. If they opened up IOS apps for AppleTV today, it would be totally irrelevant.

You're being a little unfair on the cabling issue. Those 4 big chunky cables are speaker cables, it has a builtin amp. And they've opted for decent bannana plug sockets rather than those nasty clip things.

Ok, speaker cables makes some sense. They don't however look like speaker cables, nor do they look like any banana plugs I've ever seen. I've never heard of a device with a built-in amp coming with speaker cables in the box either, mostly because speaker placement is going to vary a great deal.

Bitt, sorry you misinterpreted what I wrote. I thought it was pretty obvious in mentioning the store that developers would be able to take advantage of developing specifically for the AppleTV. Most games wouldn't require that much work to port over to the AppleTV platform with alternative input - or using another iOS device for a controller.

Who said it came with the cables in the box ? It doesn't.

The cables are and option extra:

https://play.google.com/store/devices/de...3FfY2FibGVzIl0.

as are a pair of bookshelf speakers:

https://play.google.com/store/devices/de...3BlYWtlcnMiXQ..

They look like perfectly normal banana plug sockets to me.



I really like the design of the Nexus Q and the volume control built into the top of it is clever (the whole top rotates). I doubt it can do half of what I do with my Squeezeboxes though, understandably.

I'm surprised it doesn't have a set of RCA/phono sockets for analogue lineout, but then if it did Bruno would be even more upset by the number of cables

Now we know why it is so cheap, Google are selling it cost !

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/28/3122811/nexus-7-manufacturing-cost-design-time

"When it gets sold through the Play store," says Rubin, "there's no margin, it just basically gets (sold) through."

Sounds like a plan. Last time I looked Google were making a tiny amount of ads and services for each Android device (and making more on iOS devices).

When asked if he thinks this cost structure will make life difficult for other Android manufacturers to sell tablets, Rubin insisted there is "plenty of room left for Android tablet innovation."

Yeah, right. Not only have they screwed their partners, they've also screwed their own hardware arm, Motorola.

In terms of who's screwing whom, it's hard to point fingers accurately.

It's easier to argue that Microsoft is screwing its partners, since they've been doing business with Microsoft forever under the assumption that Microsoft wasn't going to go into business against them.

With 7" tablets, the gorilla in the room is Amazon's Kindle Fire. Google clearly had to hit the same price point as the Kindle Fire, and they appear to be pursuing a similar strategy, not unlike the classic shaving kit model ("give away the handles, sell the blades"). Without market share numbers, it's hard to say how much the other vendors are hurting, but I seem to recall that Amazon is leading the market with Barnes & Noble not too far behind. If the future of the 7" tablet market is all about media consumption on at-cost or subsidized devices, then this is simply Google acknowledging reality.

Also, part of what seems to be going on here is a "share the love" approach. The original Nexus phone was made by HTC. The next two by Samsung. The closest thing to a 10" tablet Nexus would be the Motorola tablet (or perhaps the Samsung they gave away at last year's Google I/O). Then this 7" tablet by Acer.

The new Google tablet is by ASUS. Not sure why they didn't go elsewhere, but...

WRT to Kindle and Nook performance, take a look at this article from author Andrew Hyde: http://andrewhy.de/amazons-markup-of-digital-delivery-to-indie-authors-is-129000/

Sampling only his one title, Nook accounts for around 1% of sales. The article is mostly about how Amazon rips off authors however, not a study on market share.

The Kindle fire sells so well (relatively speaking) because it's a Kindle, not because it's an Android tablet. I don't think Google is going to sell many of these Nexus tablets by comparison, so I don't expect it to be any kind of challenger in terms of sales or market penetration.

Anyway, I've read through pretty much all the coverage of this Google event and I'm left with: "so what?" - all completely boring and irrelevant. It's either geek pipe-dream BS (Glasses) or something we've already seen in much better form from someone else. Android keeps getting better, but like iOS it's progressing an an insanely slow pace. They're still trying to do core/fundamental work Apple had accomplished prior to the iPhone release in 2007.

About the only thing I want to see from Google right now is what they've done with the IP/people they acquired from SageTV. The current GoogleTV products aren't at all interesting, so I'm eager to see if SageTV's PVR expertise is ever going to make it into something new. I can't think of another reason for the acquisition honestly.

I finally found a nice clean bulleted list of what Google Q is/does.



So yes, it's like an AppleTV without all the functionality and three times the price. It's also like a Squeezebox without all the functionality and the same price. ANd it's like a Roku streaming box at six times the price. But it has a 25 watt amplifier and doesn't work with standard HDMI cables and may have difficulties with standard banana plugs and speaker cable.

Google need to add a chicken with its head cut off to their logo. I think that best embodies their broad strategy.

The market is in dire need of a better media playback device after being continually let down by existing products, but this is far from it.

Here's a review of the Nexus 7 with fancy charts.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6054/google-nexus-7-mini-review

Wait, it actually says ASUS on the tablet? So this isn't a Google tablet at all, it's just another ASUS tablet being sold at a low price exclusively on the Google online store. No one is going to care about this thing.

My Nexus One says "htc" on the back. What's the big deal?

It's no big deal, I think that's my point. The situation here isn't at all like Apple (or others) designing 100% of their product and having it contract manufactured. Google are just putting the Nexus name on someone else's design. This product, apart from its retail price, doesn't have anything non-commodity about it. It could have been built by anyone. Which will also piss off other OEMs if it weren't going to be restricted to Google's online store. I'm sure the guys at Motorola, which Google acquired, are scratching their heads.

My Nexus One said HTC on the back, and my Galaxy Nexus says Samsung on the back. Google has always allowed the manufacture of their Nexus devices to have their name on it as well.

At this point it feels like you're just looking for things to rant about with Google/Android.

Personally, I care to know a bit about what I'm speeding my money on. Someone shopping for a tablet might want to know it's an ASUS tablet. Google is a reseller. This isn't a Google tablet any more than any other ASUS tablet is "by Google." If anyone doesn't care about that, I suppose that's fine for them too.

Google have been acquiring companies at a steady rate for years. They have enough people in house right now to do all this stuff on their own. I've already mentioned SageTV. This is the stuff I want to see. Every time I hear about a new "Google Product" I never actually see a Google product at all.

The orb thing looks like it's finally in this space, but it's also destined for the dustbin. An opinion which I'm surprised is starting to be echoed by a lot of others as well, even long-time Google fans.

Tons of electronics manufacturers outsource both manufacture and design. It just that most of them don't tell you that. One that springs to mind is this little company called "Twisted Melon" that sells a USB IR transceiver.

Isn't the Motorola acquisition pretty recent? In other word too recent for Motorola to have created a table for them, other then a re-spun Xoom.

Prior to this did Asus, or any other OEM mfg, have an equivalent tablet? Granted, I don't think there is anything unique about this table that can't be replicated by others. It is likely the the next version is already in process at Motorola.

Another example: iPhone, manufactured by Foxconn, not Apple. Apple might have done the design, but they don't build them. Apple also doesn't allow the manufacture to put its name on the device, unlike Google.

I'm also willing to bet that Google has a lot of input on the design of the Nexus products, not just leaving it to the manufacture to make all the design decisions.

Apple comes up with many of the processes being used by Foxconn. Apple designs pretty much down to the last details of every product, including custom screws as it's been reported. Foxconn are a contract manufacturer, an off-site plant as far as Apple are concerned. But that's getting away from the point now and not the issue I had with this tablet.

The issue here is that the product in question is an ASUS tablet and is labeled as such. Google isn't even using ASUS as an ODM here, which is what I find strange as hell. They could have gone to a number of places to build/assemble a Google tablet designed by Motorola people or designed by an ODM. Hell, they could have branded this tablet as their own. They're not rebadging this design beyond the "Nexus" monicker. These Nexus products do insignificant volume and do very little to build the Android brand. They also don't make Google any money when they're selling them at wholesale/cost.

If they were reference platforms then you'd think they'd be called such. As it stands it just all seems very confused and, as many are pointing out, a big "F you!" to other Android licensees.

Google announced almost a year ago they were acquiring Motorola - plenty of time to create a new tablet

Bitt: contract manufacturing isn't the issue. It's the fact this is just some other tablet that's the issue. The novelty, from Google's perspective, is that it's being sold pretty much at cost. But who will win the race to the bottom? Samsung? ASUS? ACER? I'm sure they'll love people comparing their other products to the price of the Nexus. The consumer? Not likely when the tablet is abandoned in a few months.

Look at the other Nexus products. Who has a bonafide long-term stake in them? Google? Samsung? Google doesn't have proper customer support. They don't have a sales channel. Samsung, ASUS, HTC or the flavor of the month aren't' going to give a rat's ass because they know they probably won't be picked for the follow-on device. There's no upgrade path, no continuity, no stability.

IMO, Google is wasting bucket loads of cash running in circles instead of concentrating on core strengths.

Announcement of a merger doesn't mean the companies magically merge that day. The actual merger date is May 22, 2012, so just a little over a month ago. Nowhere near enough time to have a tablet designed and ready to hit the shelves.

There are pretty strict regulations for pending mergers, requiring the two separate companies to still remain separate. When Compaq and HP announced the intent to merge, some people left both companies to form a new independent company. This new single company drew up all the merger plans, which products would be kept, etc. It all had to remain highly confidential, and Compaq and HP still had to carry on as normal. Once the merger was official, that separate company was also merged in and the plans were announced. Action on those plans took a few months to fully take effect.

Indeed. And who's to say they even want to work so tightly with them? It's pretty clear that they mostly bought it for patent defense. Anything else is mostly icing. Personally, I'm one of those pie in the sky optimists who wants them to turn all those disgustingly awful Motorola set top boxes into Google TVs (if they have enough power). Sadly, I'm also a pessimist who thinks that will never happen.


As for the announcements here, I think the Nexus 7 is a huge deal. No, I don't think it'll make a huge dent in the Kindle Fire, but it'll make enough of one. Think of all the people out there with a family member who knows tech. Are any of them going to get advised that a Kindle Fire is a better deal than the Nexus 7? Is anyone here?

The great thing is that someone could, with no problems at all, simply move from a Fire to a Nexus 7. They can then install the Amazon App Store, and have access to everything they had on their Fire PLUS the much bigger Android Play store, PLUS have all the great Google proprietary apps that they're missing so greatly. My wife hates the email experience on her Fire. This would eliminate that problem.

I think the Nexus 7 is going to be a huge deal, as long as Google can get enough word out.


But that's kind of where my praise of this set of announcements ends. The rest was kind of blah, and there is no chance that the Nexus Q will sell enough to stick around long. That thing is a failure right out of the gate (wow, I sounded like Bruno there!). But it's okay, I feel like every company gets their own "iPod HiFi" (there, I'm back).

Other than that, I wasn't blown away by the other announcements. I really don't think we're quite "there" yet when it comes to those usage scenarios they were showing off, like when they showed how your phone would know your meeting has been cancelled so you could go for your usual workout. These kind of "features" assume two things: that the signals are there/reliable enough (always updated and in the correct format), and that you have a life that can be predicted like this. My schedule is so erratic that my phone wouldn't have a damn clue what to tell me. I'd end up sitting at my computer in the morning, having my phone warn me about traffic on a road I didn't plan to drive on that day.

I was hoping we'd see a stronger competitor to Siri. What happened to Majel?


Ah well, at least that Glass video was pretty rad...

I was going to say that they didn't buy that part of Motorola, but it turns out that they moved the set-top box (and cable modem) division into Motorola Mobility before Google bought them.

That seems weird to me.

I think Google's Nexus phone/tablet approach of partnering with manufacturers, co-branding the devices, but ultimately having it sold as a Google product first and foremost is a great idea, and is in keeping with Google's A/B testing philosophy. You try one manufacturer, then the next one, etc. and see what works. The manufacturers are forced to compete for your business, which leads to better products. I've read that Apple does this on some level with some of their suppliers -- though Foxconn has pretty much become the go-to facility, many other suppliers and manufacturers have worked to gain Apple's business in Shenzhen. Obviously the end result is an Apple-branded product with no Foxconn logo on it, and, yes, Apple does micromanage the design details more than Google has with the Nexus phones, but ultimately, I think the approaches have more similarities than they do major differences.

Re: the Nexus Q, one interesting point I heard on NPR today that I don't think has gotten a lot of mention is that the device is going to be assembled in the U.S. with U.S. labor, which explains why it's so expensive relative to comparable devices. It's an interesting decision, and should help root out how many people will put their money where their mouth is when it comes to being against cheap foreign labor (my guess is it won't be that many.)

I think people know that Android == Google, and that HTC, Samsung, Motorola, etc. are all just people who make "Android phones" (the recent Moto acquisition notwithstanding -- still not sure exactly how that will play out long-term.) The manufacturers have tried to differentiate with UIs and whatnot, but it's all part of the Google mothership, and I think there's broad recognition of that. Maybe an individual manufacturer won't like that deal, but ultimately I think it works for both parties, and there's nothing really to be gained by Google in scratching off the Asus name, or by Asus in minimizing the Google branding.

I don't really get the Nexus Q either. I guess I see two different things that would be better.

1) Something for $50 or less that does what the Nexus Q does, minus the speaker amp. At that point, you've got a useful toy at an impulse-buy price that you can connect to any TV and get something vaguely useful.

2) The full GoogleTV experience wired into a fancy Japanese home theater receiver. Much as I like my Pioneer Elite SC-25, their attempt at a UI is comical. It's only modestly improved in their newer receivers.

As it is, the Nexus Q slots into the funny space populated by compact audiophile all-in-one products like, say, the Arcam Solo Mini. Assuming that the amp in the Nexus Q is any good, it might even be competitive in this oddball audiophile category.

I haven't read anything to suggest that the Nexus Q approaches audiophile quality in any way. Certainly the fact it has an integrated 25w amp helps push it firmly away from that category.

Like many things Google has tried over the years, it's a solution in search of a problem, and even the designers don't understand what it is - read the interviews. They talk about what it can be, but right now it's a paper weight.

The blowup of the amp stage shows a small TI chip and some capacitors. I can't read the part number but it could be something like this (here's TI's press release from last year).

This certainly isn't sold as an audiophile part, but until the audiophile measurement dudes start beating it up, we won't know for sure. Class D amps are often surprisingly good.

They're big fat inductors (you need these on class D output otherwise you'll be radiating a lot).

I don't get it either; the defence for the price appears to be "we're competing with Sonos", but to be honest just having a 12+12W amp internal does not make you a Sonos competitor. Being able to stream from multiple local and remote sources and have drop-dead simple networking would make you more like Sonos.

The other comparison would be the Rio Receiver

- Linux based (same as Q)
- Made in the americas (ok, Mexico) (kinda same as Q)
- Only streams content (same as Q)
- Great quality audio out (I actually think the Burr-Brown 1716's in the Rio are likely better sounding than the Q, but I can't prove that)
- 10-12W class D speaker amp built in (same as Q)

Of course, the Rio was launched over 10 years ago and only cost $249. You also didn't need a smartphone/tablet to control it, as it had a screen and a remote (and a volume control on the box!)

Hmm.

Sonos is pretty niche, but Google isn't likely to sell even a fraction of the same volume with their Q. Which incidentally is already ripping off the name of Ceton's streaming PVR. Not to mention a new Motorola handset coming out soonish.

In any case, Sonos is a fully baked product with years of development behind it. Google don't have the talent in house to do anything even remotely similar in quality over the course of a few years, let alone a few months. If they were serious about music devices and streaming, they'd just acquire Sonos.

While it's expected that we don't understand Google, what's laughable is that Google doesn't understand Google.

David Pogue on Google Q: Baffling

Apart from its lacking features, which we already knew, the clusterfuck that is their software design is just icing on the cake.

You can rotate the top of the Q's sphere to control the volume. But that is the only physical control it has.

While city dwellers and unlimited data plan people probably don’t care I’m pretty stoked about the offline Google maps.

While NavFree worked OK it has some issues. Like sometimes telling me to perform a U-turn on a highway and then after that do a second U-turn. It’s good I have a little bit of a brain or I’d be stuck doing endless U-turns at the Michigan/Ohio border on I-75. Not the safest, or for that matter even a legal thing to do.

Yeah, that was actually available as a "labs" feature in previous releases of maps, but the UI for it is improved now that it's a proper advertised feature. Good to not be burning up my data connection, GPS, and display all at the same time, which often uses battery faster than it can charge in my car.

While I haven’t tried the new offline maps yet it looks like you can download as much area was you want. The with labs version you could only download 10 square miles (or something very small) at a time. Not so hot for a 500 mile road trip. Or if you get lost.

Is the new offline feature out now? It will let me download an area the size of the metro area here but not 500 miles or anything.

Yeah, it's still limited, just not as limited. I can get the Pittsburgh region, but not as far out as where the in-laws live. You can create multiple offline areas to work around that, but it gets a bit silly if you want to get, say, the whole east coast or whatever (though that might use up quite a bit of storage space.)

The largest area I can cache takes 80MB. I can view the cached area offline but I can't do a lookup in it unless I have a signal.

Really, wow I was hoping for better than that. I know Google Maps has a lot of detail and probably all of that would take a lot of space but it seems like they could allow you to select the level of detail you want to download. Not allowing you to set a course without signal is pretty weak.

Are the maps still tile-based? That's useless for interactive maps, especially for offline use. Are there any vector-based mapping solutions available, like TomTom?

Maps has been vector-based since 2010 or so. 80mb seems reasonable for vector data for a moderately-sized metro area with points of interest, etc.

80mb is good if it will last you for an entire day's driving around. I keep a full NA TomTom install on my iPhone that takes up over 1GB.

While Google has vector data on the back end, the mapping solutions I've seen for iOS using their data had been using graphics tiles which needed to be fetches a few at a time from a live network connection. Yuck.

I'll take well designed, detailed raster based maps any day over poorly designed, sparsely detailed vector maps.

I really like the flexibility of being able to pre-cache areas that I know I'll be in a lot to reduce data use while driving, but I also find myself navigating with the satellite layer enabled from time to time, which does use quite a bit of data, and which you can't really pre-cache since the data volume is quite large (and varies depending on what zoom level you're at.) I think Maps hits the sweet spot here -- if you want more detail, you can get it, but the vector-based road map layer is enough to do just about everything. Wouldn't be bad to add the ability to select cached areas state-by-state or county-by-county instead of just using rectangles, but that's really a minor quibble.

One doesn't have anything to do with the other. This is all about presentation layer and where the data is rasterized. Google's database isn't made up of millions of bitmaps, that's just what's served to the presentation layer so the app/browser doesn't have to perform the rendering.

Just in case: I'm talking about maps and map data used to display the streets and calculate routing, not pretty photographs of trees and buildings, including, but not limited to satellite imagery.

The point I was making is that having the source data on the device and the ability to rasterize within the app gives you the ability to zoom and obtain more detail without hitting the net. A potential sacrifice in CPU/GPU performance for the rendering, but a savings in network access. Should come out ahead since bitmaps take up a lot of bandwidth and the platforms usually have CPU/GPU to spare.

My point in response was just that GMaps has had the best of both worlds for a couple of years now, and now that it can pre-cache the vector maps, it's even more useful.

I understand all that (I actually make mapping sites and apps for a living at the moment).

My point was that given the choice of having a crappy map delivery in vector form, as opposed to a good map in raster, that I would take the raster every time. i.e. that the quality of the map itself is far, far more important to me than how it is delivered.

Got that. I was replying to Andy. The functionality you're describing however is likely specific to the maps app on Android, right?



Understood as well. I was talking about the same back-end data from the same provider expressed in two different ways, not making a distinction between providers with different level of detail/quality.

From a usability perspective, the consumer can only see what's rendered in their app, and having the map data within the app itself when you don't have a network connection, is always going to trump having only some pre-rendered bitmaps.

There are plenty of useless map apps in the App Store using pre-rendered bitmaps. I said map and not nav on purpose, because these guys don't have enough data to provide routing. Which itself is OK as long as that's the kind of app you're looking for, which I was at the time.

For me, I want good street-level detail in a mapping app and a navigating app, with the ability to alter the presented detail level by zooming and/or other preferences. In iOS, the built-in maps app didn't offer that without a data connection - and it was slow, and of course wasn't a turn-by-turn based navigation app at all. And I wasn't able to find that in another non-nav local-based app either. So in the end I use Tom Tom's app for both purposes.

I just might be doing it wrong too but if not yeah it's pretty pointless.

I may be totally wrong, but I'm pretty sure that if you have a data connection when you start your route, your route will be cached on the phone and you won't simply lose it if you go through a dead spot. The problem is that you probably need a data connection if you make a wrong turn and need course correction. But in a case like that, you'd need to cache a good deal of data if you were doing a 500 mile trip and needed all possible detours along the way. Chances are, in those cases, that at some point you'll be able to get signal back somewhere and correct your course anyway.

Frankly I don't find the feature all that useful for that reason. I find it cool, and hope that they'll let you download more info in the future, but until you can I don't see a lot of use for it, which is why I enabled it in labs ages ago but never used it. The way I see it, it's designed to give you cached info of a single place, like a city where you're going to have a data connection all the time anyway. I guess it would be better for things like touring small towns on vacation where they aren't blanketed with a data connection.


I have no idea what the experience is like on iOS, but all I can do is reiterate what Tony said: Google moved to vector mapping in their Maps app on Android (looks like it was around the end of 2010, so not quite two years ago), and I could have sworn that it wasn't long afterwards that the same thing came to the iOS version, but my research seems to tell me that it never did, which is odd. The performance increase when they made the switch was tremendous. The zooming was much more fluid and fast.

Correct, Maps on iOS powered by Google remain bitmap based, and lack turn by turn navigation. At the announcement of these features, Google stated they would be coming to iOS as well. Two major OS revisions later, and it never materialized. I've not found a verifiable reason either, speculation goes both ways. Some say Apple blocked it, while others say Google withheld it when the two sides couldn't agree on some privacy and other data handling issues. Even at the event back in June, Google said their new stuff was headed to iOS at some point.

Doesn't matter now for the built in maps, since iOS 6 will have Apple provided maps from the companies they acquired. Vector based for all iOS 6 devices, and driving directions for people with newer hardware.

Why just newer hardware? Android has had it since 2009. Surely it's not a horsepower issue.

Apple hasn't given a reason that I'm aware of. For those who have older hardware, plenty of other navigation apps will still work.

I wonder why Google just never released a standalone maps program for iOS if they were serious about delivering vector and navigation to the platform. They have plenty of other iOS applications.

It seems highly likely, to me at least, that their deal with Apple to supply mapping data for iOS also included a clause to stop them doing their own app.

Dedicated GPS navigation systems use "preloaded maps", and have lots of detail including 3D buildings etc.. all in just a few GB of flash for entire continents.

Same deal for "proper" GPS navigation software for Android --> the marketplace has several, including what appears to be a very good one based on TomTom maps (preloaded, of course).

Cheers

Apple is a software and hardware company, and have been using both to differentiate new products for as long as they've been around. It's something I can accept for the most part, but there are plenty of times where some of the decisions leave me feeling burned.

Thankfully, third party apps are generally better than Apple-supplied apps. Apple's built-in iOS apps actually kind of suck, especially considering they've barely changed in 5 years. The issue is in deep system integration. Apple's apps have it and most third party ones don't/can't.

And I think everyone would be happy if Apple came out with their own mapping application, and Google released their full mapping application. But the problem for me would still be that you wouldn't get to choose which one is your default app.

Bingo Matt! iOS has needed a default app API forever. Microsoft was mandated by governments to make this painless in Windows. IMO, iOS is getting to the point where to a developer, it's practically a monopoly. You can possibly make a living doing mobile apps for some other platform exclusively, but striking out iOS is a huge (potential) loss to the bottom line.

That said, I'm not sure the default app thing will have as much of an appreciable impact for maps. I can't even think of a single time I've ever been directed to the maps app via another app, unlike with mail, safari, photos/camera roll, phone, messages, etc.

Even if they have a monopoly (which I don't see), they don't have to add defaults. Microsoft didn't have to either because they were a monopoly. They were forced to because they abused their monopoly power to gain an unfair advantage in a new market.

I would agree though, it would be nice to be able to change defaults.

Yes, you are right about creating a route and you will be OK if you stay on track. However if you make a wrong turn and keep going (reminds me of a Bruce Springsteen song) you will need a data connection to get back on track. Or if you get to your destination and then want to go somewhere (maybe to a restaurant) you need a data connection again. However for me I have a phone that isn’t a phone. I have a Samsung wifi 5.0. It’s an android machine with no phone or data connection other than wifi (and no monthly bills). When traveling I use my Verizon MiFi (an internet connection that isn’t a phone either) but since this is also my home IPS I often don’t take it with me. So being able to have a totally “off the grid” GPS navigation system is a big deal for me.

With the maps you actually need deeper integration for defaults. You really need to be able to change the tile source that is used for the maps in the Apple apps.

i.e. you need to be able to swap out the map tiles within Find My Friends, iPhoto and Find My iPhone with another source

And of course that is never going to happen

I'm just praying that Apple have something up their sleeves to make their maps actually usable before launch. I'm not hopeful though.

I'd publish examples of how bad their maps are, but I suspect the NDA forbids me from doing so.

AFAIK, Apple don't actually own any map data and have not acquired any map data companies. The companies they've acquired have, to my knowledge, all been focused on map presentation technologies.

IMO, letting Nokia acquire Navteq and TomTom acquire Teleatlas were two huge mistakes for both Google and Apple.

That is my understanding too. Part of the problem with the iOS 6 maps is just down to presentation, which they at least could fix. Though I fear that they won't, I think someone at Apple thinks maps with not a lot of info on them are somehow better than those with more info

On the data side I guess I'm holding out the hope that they can merge in some data from OSM or some other source. Bing is notable in that in the UK it uses NavTeq, but it clearly doesn't use just NavTeq (unless NavTeq have a lot of detail that TomTom choose not to surface in their own apps).

Or in th UK maybe they could do a deal to get the Ordnance Survey vector data.

But I suspect that is wishful thinking for version 1.0 at least.

And unfortunately even if they did manage to do all of that, there would still be no StreetView

Holy crap, a 7" screen makes for a pretty small tablet. Isn't this only a few mm larger than some of the Samsung phones?

Maybe it's being spokesmodeled by Bob Bobson.

For me, I think a 7" tablet might be just The Right Size(tm).

Anything phone sized is too small, requiring my reading glasses to use the darned thing. And anything as monstrous as the iPad is simply to bulky for easy portability. Or so I think.

The $250 (16GB) Nexus tablet does have my interest, but I'll start with the Galaxy Nexus phone (with reading glasses) and work my way up from there perhaps.

Mine's on pre-order. Should be turning up any day now. I'll let you know how I get on with it.

Rumor has it Apple will to the 8" thing sometime later this year. I say it's 60-40 at this point given the evidence - they've scrapped far-along plans too many times to count over the years. That will probably be a more reasonable size than 7" for tapping and dragging around the screen.

I'm still a phone + notebook person though. Or simply take the phone and deal with the tradeoffs.

Me too, at present. Especially when the 10" tablet things feel (despite being lighter) nearly as bulky as the netbook and yet lack a physical keyboard.

That's where I think there's room for a more reasonable tablet size -- I mean, if they're going to omit the keyboard, then at least make the danged thing small enough to more easily tote around!

Cheers

Bruno, what are you using for mobile data access -- which provider/plan etc.. and how much data does your device typically log over a monthly billing period?

Thanks.

I don't have mobile data plan. I don't leave wifi zones long enough to warrant paying a fixed amount per month ($80+) and no one has anything remotely interesting in PAYG data in this area. I used to have a $15/mo iPad plan, but that long ago stopped working on the iPhone and the Bell techs couldn't explain to me why that was.

On my street I get coverage from almost top to bottom with access to multiple neighbor's access points. Set up the same way with other friends, then I use free ones where I can and also some premium ones I have access to because of certain memberships, etc.

This is the problem with measuring screen size only by the diagonal measurement. Worked fine when everything was the same aspect ratio, but even the various 7 inch Android tablets aren't holding to the same ratio.

This is a good illustration, including the rumored smaller iPad. Even if the iPad was 7 inch instead of 7.85, it'd still have more screen area due to the 4:3 form factor.

http://yfrog.com/z/h36j2np

Ultimately it comes down to the size of tap targets. Browsing on the Fire is a PITA with web buttons/links, due to the device telling web servers it runs at a desktop resolution. Phones get around this a little by telling sites they run a pretty small resolution. I wonder what the Nexus 7 does.

That's a decent strategy, especially given that Mobilicity (and probably also Wind?) doesn't have coverage in your area.

They all cover me here, but I'm going to use the device on Telus for the first two months until my contract is finally over with. Two choices for data: $10/month for "flex data" (MBs), or $35/month for a heavier duty version (GBs).

I think the "$10/month" flex plan is good for about 500MB at a $30 cost, so it may be the right one. We'll see.

Either way, Telus shares HSPA+ with Bell (and vice-versa), so DSL-speed data is available under that plan just about anywhere I'm likely to go inside of Canada.

Yeah, there's a pricing anomaly in those plans, which makes the "$10/month" flex data plan the better of the two:

$10 for up to 100MB
+$10 for the next 150MB
+$10 for the next 250MB
+$0.02 per MB after that ($20/GB).

Expensive compared with wireline data, but probably okay depending on how much the phone uses with a typical set of apps.

Cheers

The other plan looks better for use as a near replacement for wireline:

$35 for up to 1GB
+$10 for the next 1GB
+$15 for the next 2GB
+$15 for the next 3GB
+$0.02 per MB after that ($20/GB).

MMm.. or maybe a non-flex plan:

$35 for up to 2GB
+very expensive after that.

or

$60 for up to 6GB (definitely not for me)
+very expensive after that.

If you go with one of the <1GB plans, make sure you set up your phone to avoid doing background downloads over the phone network. There are all kinds of apps that would happily consume your bandwidth, if you let them. Luckily, the biggest things, like app updates, have a "WiFi only" switch.

I forgot to mention that for voice I'm with Speakout Wireless (7-11) which operates on the Rogers network. Prices used to be quite a bit better than they are now, but it still makes the most sense for me. I can get by on $100 for about year. Air time credit lasts a year and any top-up amount will roll remaining credit for another year.

I do wish the iPhone has two sim slots, so that I could more easily shop for data elsewhere without having to give up this PAYG. I didn't have much luck with the dual sim adapter I tried last year.

Impressive. Seems like Google has patched up a lot of the rough spots of Android. Might take a second evaluation pass at it myself soon.

I carry a Ken Onion Leek at all times. This is the reason.

My Nexus 7 is coming tomorrow via UPS. Ken Onion is standing by....

It's a funny video. But it's also extremely telling of Google's retail business acumen.

You know what's also funny? All the pundits saying they didn't think it was possible to make a good tablet for $200. Why's that funny? Because Apple has been doing it for a few years now. They just don't SELL it for $200 to you or me.

You see, to stay in business selling a tablet at $200, it better cost you no more than $100 to make it.

Not quiet $200 Bruno, but yes Apple are at least making a profit on the hardware, and not just on selling content:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/18/new-ipad-cost_n_1358678.html

http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnat...mpact-size.html

Another positive review of the Nexus 7, from a journalist I trust to not grade on a curve.

I love Andy I, but if his review of the Amazon Fire wasn't grading on a curve then I don't know what is

Hilarious! Thanks for the link, Tom!

I've had my Galaxy Nexus with Jelly Bean on it for a few days now, and it's simply excellent. If the tablet is even half as good it's going to be a very popular device.

Cheers

I'm certainly looking forward to playing with mine when it arrives, even as a confirmed iOS fan

No sign of it yet though

I'm seriously considering selling my Galaxy Tab 10.1 to pick up a Nexus 7. I find that I don't carry the Tab around as much as I thought I would, and it sits on my night stand most of the time.

The only concern I have is that comics won't display as well on a 7" screen. It's just a little too small for the text. I could always have it fit the width in landscape and scan up and down the page, but that's a little less ergonomic. I'll have to think about it...

I think Google is in a really good place here overall. They're attacking a part of the market where there's not really any competition (the Fire is a joke compared to this thing), their price point is unbeatable for what you get, and Jelly Bean is a big improvement. It'll be interesting to see what happens here, and whether Google has a hit on their hands.

The challenge is that you can only buy this thing on Google's Play store. Amazon's front page can push millions of Kindle Fires, but I'm not so sure Google will be able to do the same...

Just following up on this now. For the time being, I decided to upgrade my Telus plan to a $45+HST "loyalty" offer with 1GB of monthly data included, and $0.05/MB for overages. I expect that to be enough for what I have in mind.

(The plan also includes zillions of voice minutes, enough long-distance credit to more than handle my call volume, unlimited texting (finally), voicemail, callerID display, etc..).

Mobilicity is also having a "sale" right now: their most expensive ($55) "unlimited everything" plan is only $30+HST monthly for the next 12 months for new sign-ups. I'd have grabbed that instead if I didn't still have 2 months to go on my existing Telus contract.

Now back to the Nexus 7 Lovefest!

Cheers

The Nexus 7 certainly seems like a very solid device. However if the smaller iPad is real and it is beginning to feel like it is and Apple can hit $249, then I can really see that killing long term mass market sales for the Nexus.

I had to go back and look at his Fire review. I think he was pretty honest about the weak points between the Fire and iPad. He did (IMHO properly) call the Fire a pure media consumption device instead of a full fledged tablet which I think is fair. Though with the rising capabilities of all these devices, the lines between categories are very blurry now.

It will be interesting to see if the Nexus 7 actually spurs more Android developers to write proper tablet apps. There are some fantastic iPad only apps that are near desktop quality in what you can get done with them.

As much as gaming has improved on Android, it has a LONG way to go. IMO, that's the single missing piece. All the other big apps are there, pretty much, but gaming is still a big issue.

Of course, I say that for the market. I still haven't seen any games of any depth, but I guess it's getting there. Are there any games out there with an actual story?

Seriously, the Nexus 7 seems a tiny bit smaller than some of the Android phones out there...

I'm not sure why you're harping on this size thing. We get it, you think it's small. What's your point?

Or am I poking fun at how large some of the newer phones are? I just thought I'd share that ludicrous image, I don't really care how big or small the tablet is.

My one concern about it is the available space being limited to 16G onboard. When I got the new iPad, I upgraded from an original with 32G to 64G because I kept running out of space. I suppose that can be overcome by swapping out flash drives, but still annoying.

Yeah, I get it, but why is it a "ludicrous" image?

Because the guy looks like he has a GIANT hand - didn't you check out that Penny Arcade comic linked?

He does ?

Looks like a normal hand to me. He does have pretty large cheeks, but I can't necessarily fault either of Apple or Google for that.

The Nexus 7 lacks a removable flash media option. And it does seem the 8GB is one way they kept the cost down to $199 to start.

Can't you use a miniUSB flash, or barring that a USB to miniUSB adapter with a regular flash drive?

I'm not sure. Maybe once the others are done trolling about hand sizes, they can chime in

This has already been covered a couple of weeks ago. I thought I'd read it in at least one other review as well.

USB flash? NO.

http://www.androidtapp.com/tag/nexus-7-usb-drive/

Plus it would be quite the ugly hack. Do any Android devices support externally-connected flash memory (SD, microSD) as a transparent extension of their on-board storage? I didn't think any did.

The 8GB model is to prevent hemorrhaging money on the entry level product instead of simply losing money.

If a USB-stick doesn't work with a OTG adapter cable, then something's wrong, because people have used that exact setup with the Galaxy Nexus phone already -- the two devices are quite similar and run very similar software (Jelly Bean).

I'm sure somebody will "fix" it shortly if Google "broke" it.

Cheers

Oh.. and there's an App for that which might help.

Got my "it's shipped" email yesterday. Hopefully it'll be waiting for me at home later.

Perhaps it's because they use a proprietary connector, but the Galaxy Tab 10.1 has adapters for USB and SD, and I've used both of them to transfer new data to my Tab while on vacation. I brought along some media on the Tab, and some media on a couple 16GB thumb drives, and I was able to transfer it over. It wasn't the greatest experience though. Very clunky and VERY slow.

The storage space will be an issue for some people, and for those the 7 might not be a good option. For me, I would mostly use the device to stream Netflix, I get my music through rdio, I can throw photos on Picasa Web Albums (which automatically syncs to the device), and that's pretty much it for stuff I'd want to store locally. I've had my Tab for a year or so now and I have at least 8GB free.

I wonder if the MHL HDMI adapter I have for my Galaxy Nexus would work on the Nexus 7...

It might be worth having just to develop my own apps without the goofiness that iOS requires, even with the silly limit on storage space. Incidentally, I only have 3GB free, and that is with swapping stuff out - at least this way I can do a couple of trips before rotating content as opposed to trying to do it after every trip.

Roger, any thoughts on the Nexus 7 by now? Reviews I've read about it are all raving, but I'd like to hear some user experience as opposed to reviewers experience.

I picked up the Nexus 7 as a netbook replacement (because my netbook is rubbish), so it's largely doing coffee table duty in the living room. For this, something larger was probably more sensible, but at £200, it's a no-brainer to grab one and play with it.

Size-wise, it's almost exactly the same size as the original Kindle, which means that it's very portable, but not as portable as my Samsung S3. This means that I don't tend to take it places with me.

Performance and battery-wise, I'm pretty happy with it. Jelly Bean is as pretty and as smooth as advertised.

The screen is superb, but (as you'd expect) it's not great in sunlight, so I tend to take my Kindle on my commute, rather than the Nexus 7. It looks awesome when playing games, so I'll be looking for more games (also for the kids).

The lack of expandable storage (I got the 16GB one) is not a big deal for me -- I've loaded a couple of movies and some TED talks onto it. For music, I'll stick with either the empeg, or my iPod Shuffle.

The lack of 3G is more of a problem than I thought it would be, but that's due to the fact that the open WiFi in the office was broken last week, and that I can't get my S3 to tether over WiFi. At home, and when the office WiFi works, I don't think it'll be a problem.

The keyboard's OK, but not great, even after installing SwiftKey 3 Tablet. I might look for a Bluetooth keyboard for it, or I might just avoid too much typing on it.

The included calendar app is rubbish. I want to pinch zoom to move between month, week and day view, and it doesn't do that, which is actually really frustrating. Though, as discussed elsewhere, all Android calendar apps seem to suck in at least one dimension.

On balance, I'm happy with it, but I'm probably not a typical tablet user, so take this all with a pinch of salt. By which I mean that it's probably better than I think it is.

I bought my Nexus 7 mainly so I could have a proper play with Android, beyond the few minutes at a time of playing with other peoples phones. I am an iPhone and iPad owner.

The Nexus 7 is a good tablet and Android Jellybean is a good OS. Neither the hardware or the software however are as good as what Apple provides, in my opinion.

The Nexus 7 is amazingly well built and specced for the price, you'd happily imagine it cost 50% more than it did. It is fast and Android is now largely lag free (it still isn't a smooth as iOS, but it is a lot closer). The screen is good, but obviously a long way short of the iPad.

Some of the stuff that you can do on Android that you can't on iOS is great, the top one for me being widgets on the home screens.

There are problems though. The quality of apps available just doesn't compare to the iOS world, even where there is an app to match the iOS one, the quality almost always isn't as good.

The other problem for me is web browsing on sites with tightly packed links and buttons. The combination of the Nexus/Android/Chrome is just no where near as good as working out what you meant to click on as iOS. This is a pain in the arse on some sites, bbs forums in particular.

Because of this inaccurancy I repeatedly lock posts accidentally on another forum I admin. It has tightly packed links at the top of the page and time and again it picks the wrong link when I click.

Chrome has a loupe feature, where in some cases it decides that there are too many tap targets in an area and so when you tap it pops up a magnified view for you to click on. But when this loupe appears is pretty much random. I can click on the same tightly packed links 10 times in a row and about 2 times the loupe will appear.

iOS in comparison has an almost magical ability to work out which link you were fumbling for.

This isn't a problem of screen size by the way, the sites I've had problems with render at about the same physical size on the Nexus as they do on the iPhone.

One final problems is font rendering. Font rendering on Android generally seems a bit hit and miss. The fonts in the supplied books app are truly awful. Fonts in other apps are often slightly blurry or poorly aliased.

Chrome has further problems with fonts. It has a very odd idea of picking font sizes, with seemingly a random element thrown in ! You can be browsing a series of posts in a forum thread where the font size it picks for the body seems to change for every post

So in summary, good for the price. But if you can afford it and don't need the extra portability, get an iPad.

Though that said, Android does still have some fundamentally crappy stuff in it. The handling of indicating the end of lists being one of the most obvious.

Now I understand that they had to stop using rubber banding, because of Apple's patents. And the approach of the glow that they show instead could work ok (though will never feel as natural as the rubber banding), except that:

- some lists don't bother with the glow at all
- the glow isn't that visible even on the black theme
- the glow is all but in invisible on many lists in many apps (including Google's own apps/widgets)
- it rarely seems to be used at the top of lists
- IT DOESN'T OCCUR AT ALL IN CHROME* (there is never any indication that you have reached the end of a list or a page, it just stops dead)

* Chrome is my normal browser on Windows/OSX by the way, I love Chrome on the desktop

It does. This would be at least a $399 tablet at retail for anyone else. The value aspect is always going to be first and foremost when the people selling it are willing to do so in exchange for zero or negative income. Google is losing big bucks on this one when you factor in costs besides manufacturing.

As good as it is, I see a lot of hesitation in many reviews, including Andy's and Roger's. If this were selling for $400 I'm not sure that folks would be so restrained nor forgiving. It will be interesting to see what happens if Apple starts selling something near $200. I wonder if reviewers will be as forgiving because of the price.

You make a good point on the price, though it wouldn't be 50% more expensive if Google were trying to sell it for the normal market rate, just an extra 25-30% would do it I reckon. People at this end of the market don't have Apple sized profit margins remember

But that doesn't change the fact that the hardware is good and Android 4.1 is good to use. Note, in neither case did I say great. To me the iPad 3 is a great tablet and iOS is great to use.

The Nexus would be good (but not great) even if it did cost 50% more. And even if the Nexus did sell for 50% more the iPad 3 would still cost 66% more (in the UK at least).

I can't speak for others, but if I'd paid $400, I'd probably feel exactly the same as I do now. It's good (maybe not $400 good -- if I had that much money to play with I'd be looking at the larger tablets); I'm just not really a tablet person. I grabbed one because I thought I might cobble together some Android apps in my copious free time and, well, £200...

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: it could be epic, and I'd still be saying "meh".

That said, if I had $400, I still wouldn't buy the iPad, because -- basically -- I hate Apple.

And once more, where are your numbers on this one? From what I've read/heard, the device costs something like $150-170 to make. Assuming that the rest of the cost goes to Asus for their profits, it's just selling for cost.

Well, I say that, but neither of us really knows, do we? I'm just presuming that Google doesn't have a ton of cost sunk into each tablet. They don't have the huge advertising campaigns, for example.

DealExtreme is littered with 7" tablets for under $200. Not quite the Nexus 7, but it does give an indicator of true manufacturing costs + a small markup.

Heck, some of them are even under $100 and have ICS installed.

This is almost the entire reason why I got my first iPod touch. I was impressed with how seamless the web browsing experience was, because it was so good at working out which link I meant to click on.

I wonder how much of that is the OS software, versus how much of that is the resolution and sensitivity of the touchscreen?

The Nexus 7 has a much higher resolution screen than any of those, though, and that's likely to be a very significant cost.

There's a 16GB one there with a 720p IPS screen for $215.

It has more accessories included, as well as a micro-SD card slot, and that price includes shipping, but no GPS.

Again, not a Nexus 7, but it does give an indication of the manufacturing costs.

Hell, some of them might actually work when they arrive

(sorry, far to scarred by my DealExtreme disappointments to let that go unsaid)

Some of it is definitely clever software. I often end up tapping closer to the link I didn't want than I do to the link I did want on the web forum that was causing the Nexus so much trouble. Yet still in most cases Safari manages to pick the right link. I can only assume that it has some sort of heuristics with a memory that knows that I regularly click on the link to return to the forum index and rarely click on the link to lock or split topics.

Either that or there really are pixies in Apple's iOS devices

Whatever it is, the Nexus/Android/Chrome combination is missing that bit of magic. It is probably my biggest issue with the Nexus at the moment.

So it's a bug (selects the wrong link), but a happy bug (aka. "feature").

No, very much not a bug. It selects the right link, from a users point of view.

(I've never consciously noted any cases of this bit of magic* causing false positives)

* I freely admit by the way that I could be imagining the whole thing...

Yeah, but it's a 10" tablet. Not that there's anything wrong with a 10" tablet, but screens with higher pixel density are significantly more costly.

I'll keep my review short. I've only had the Nexus 7 since July 17th, but it has already caused me to wipe my iPad 2 and prep it for sale on eBay.

Pros: I like the size of the Nexus 7. For most of my uses (video on airplanes and news reading), this form factor makes more sense and is more portable. The battery life is at least as good as my iPad 2. The screen is superior to the iPad 2. Chrome on the Nexus 7 can keep more tabs in memory than Safari on iPad 2.

Cons: The home screen with stock launcher doesn't rotate to landscape view. The available accessories look terrible at this time. Only 16GB max memory onboard. I would have ordered at least 64GB if available.

If anyone comes across a Nexus 7 case similar to the official iPad 1 (preferred) or iPad 2 (acceptable) ones, please post it here. There are some that are close, but they're clearly adapted from some other similarly-sized tablet. Lots of them have a loop for a stylus, FFS.

I'm still debating if I'm going to pick one up to see where Android is at now. Still not likely to actually switch ecosystems/platforms, but I may find some use for it.

Andy's info here has been useful, along with the reviews from a few sources. If I were to switch, the 16GB upper limit at $249 would be a dealbreaker. But as a toy to play with, I'll probably just go with the 8GB $199 option.

Yeah, the Home screens on my GN don't rotate either. I believe the reason is that the owner (you) gets to place things on it the way you like, and auto-rotate might muck that up.

Dunno. The apps (mostly) all auto-rotate very well though.

If you plug an MHL adapter into the Galaxy Nexus, it will rotate the screen and keep everything in-place.

Third party launchers usually allow you to rotate the screen, but I can't say for certain if a stock launcher since 1.6 on the G1 ever did.

Most Android tablets up to this point seem to prefer landscape orientation. The inability for the Nexus 7 to operate like that is just a little strange to me. Not a deal-breaker.

EDIT: Here's a youtube video showing the Galaxy Nexus over MHL. You can see that the Nexus is just mirroring what's shown on the monitor.

In general, no, but a friend has a first-gen Moto Droid (Milestone), and when you slide out the landscape keyboard, it does rotate the launcher to landscape. That's the only time I've ever seen the stock launcher rotate, though.

I'm using Zeam Launcher now, but I ended up disabling the rotation. It just doesn't help much and made me occasionally miss an icon while it was rotating.

Do we know yet whether the MHL adapter will work on the 7? There was some weird statement from someone that said MHL support wasn't available in 4.x yet, which is clearly nonsense if the Galaxy Nexus supports it, unless it's something special that Samsung put in there.

Does anyone with a 7 have a MHL adapter to try out?

You're completely correct, Bitt. I had the G1 and it did the same thing.


I also dislike it. I use a replacement launcher (switched from Zeam to Apex Pro) and don't want the home screen to rotate.

.. and the March of the Penguins continues: Samsung Doubles Apple's Marketshare.

That's just one (biggest by far) vendor of Android smartphones.
Let's just hope Samsung doesn't reduce Jobs-less Apple completely down to "marginal status" in 5 years time -- competition here is great and needed.

Cheers

If anyone reading this thread is now frothing at the mouth for a Galaxy Nexus, I'm going to be selling mine. I will give anyone on this board a fair deal before I post to ebay later today, so let me know.

My Nexus is an original Yakju model from the UK launch-day and is currently running 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean). It's in pristine condition, has never been dropped, and I have a couple spare (third-party) batteries in addition to the OEM unit.

Nothing is wrong with the Nexus. I've been using my Galaxy S II with CM9 on it the past few days. It makes no sense to have two Android super-phones around, so the Nexus is getting the boot because it's easier to sell.

Thanks.

Mark, I have a lovely bridge for sale with original Samsung rivets - anyone interested?

Do you know what Apple doesn't do, and has never done? Channel stuffing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_stuffing

Let's revisit these numbers in three months and then again three months after that.

Another item of note... Apple's figures are official, announced in an earnings report/call that's governed by SEC reporting rules. Samsung's numbers are strictly out of thin air by IDC and as best as I can tell, based on nothing. In the US alone, for the umpteenth quarter in a row, every major service provider sold more iPhones than other brands - again, official numbers reported by each respective carrier. It's hard to imagine considering the iPhone costs more, sometimes much more.

Must be that time of the year to trot out 3 month battle victories when one side is in a lull and declare the full war nearly over.