Google Partners With HTC For Latest Nexus Tablet 74
Rambo Tribble writes The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is partnering with HTC for its upcoming 9-inch Nexus tablet. Shunning larger manufacturers like Samsung, speculation is that Google is trying to mitigate the effects of market dominance by one firm. When asked for comment, a Google spokesperson only responded, "There's room for many partners to do well and to innovate with Android."
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google Nexus products so far:
1 by HTC
3 by Samsung
2 by LG
2 by Asus
This is hardly a new thing.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
This. From the beginning, Google expressed its intention to spread around the Nexus partners so that several companies would get the experience and sales boost. They want a healthy, open platform with lots of innovation. This is how you beat Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
"They want a healthy, open platform with lots of innovation. "
Then why do they allow cellphone carriers to bake in their crap to the point that you cant delete it. Fricking AT&T installs so much damn crap on the HTC ONE M8 that is baked into the rom that it's disgusting, coupled with the craptastic HTC Sense that is also forced upon you and you have a Worse experience for the end user.
Re: (Score:2)
Open platform. They don't dictate how the phones get software. I'm sure they would prefer to let the market decide that bloatware is bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure they would prefer to let the market decide that bloatware is bad.
Because that worked oh so well with Windows PCs.
Let the Android Market decide (Score:3)
I'm sure they would prefer to let the market decide that bloatware is bad.
Then why doesn't Google let the Android Market decide by including a line in the CDD stating that if you include X, Y, or Z your phones won't get Google Play Store? Google already does that for certain variants of multi-window mode because Google wants to enforce an all maximized all the time use model even if your 10" tablet is as big as two Nexus 7s or four Nexus 5s.
Re: (Score:2)
I DARE AT&T to not carry android phones.
And please tell me how Apple does not allow AT&T to bake in their crapware yet sold 22 million phones this past week. Yeah they flopped so bad by not allowing the carriers to add in crapware. Oh wait, they are one of the worlds most popular phones.
Google can certianly tell them, "go to hell, pure android with nothing baked in", and AT&T and Verizon will say... thank you mistress, may we have another.
What else are they going to sell? Windows phones and
Re: (Score:2)
And please tell me how Apple does not allow AT&T to bake in their crapware yet sold 22 million phones this past week. Yeah they flopped so bad by not allowing the carriers to add in crapware. Oh wait, they are one of the worlds most popular phones.
AT&T (Cingular then) originally did so as a competitive move against Verizon. Those terms came with an exclusive, which they were not willing to sacrifice. If you'll recall, VZW was given the offer first, and refused it, valuing their crapware (etc) more than the iPhone exclusive.
Regardless, Google has been attaching more strings to their apps. As I understand it, there MUST be an option to disable/hide all of that crapware. While a phone could be released as an AOSP phone, it would not have (and co
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The Nexus 7 sold well for Asus. If HTC makes an updated 7" tablet I think it would sell well.
Re: (Score:2)
I have several 10" tablets. I have one 7" tablet. The 7" tablet is about perfect. It's the Nexus 7. The issue with the Nexus 7 is the poor camera and lack of flash. The problem with the 10" tablet is the weight.
Re: (Score:2)
I like my Nexus 10. I could never see myself owning a 7" tablet. What would I use it for? It would only be 1.5" larger than my phone anyway.
I can see why iPhone owners like the 7" tablet - it definitely fills a niche of still being portable but being much more functional than a phone. However, I think the solution to that is to just make the phone bigger since I carry it in a belt case anyway, and it doesn't hurt that I have long fingers.
I think the 10" tablet is also a potential replacement for a lapto
Ecch ... (Score:2)
I hope to hell it's the standard Android ecosystem (which it should be if it's a Nexus branded one).
HTC's desktop software is complete crap from what I've been able to see of it with my phone.
Re:Ecch ... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
were graciously allowed to pollute the pure Android experience with some of their own crap
you can disable any android app from running ever and from showing up in the launcher, even if it's delivered as part of the firmware. it's annoying to get a new phone with all that stuff loaded, but it's not the end of the world anymore.
on the contrary, nexus devices will never have the customized UI elements that you see on every other non-nexus android device. android device manufacturers need to figure it out. let google make the software. they are pretty good at it. you focus on building awesome hardwa
Re: (Score:2)
...you focus on building awesome hardware. delivering an android phone with slightly different UI elements isn't going to differentiate you from your competitor.
Problem is that the hardware isn't really all that different. Look at phones and tablets - they're converging to pretty much the same look - thin mostly-black slabs, with rounded edges and big touch screen. Most platforms have the same sensors (accelerometers, GPS, etc.), similar screens, etc. That's not enough differentiation.
Why do people buy iPhones or Androids? It's all about the apps, the community, the experience, making a fashion statement. Pretty much everything other than hardware. The hard
Re: (Score:2)
i don't know about you, but the functionality and performance of the hardware matter to me, not just the fashion statement.
thinner, lighter.
higher res / higher quality display.
better sound.
longer battery life.
port configurations (HDMI, SD card).
antenna performance.
durability / waterproofing.
screen sizes.
there's a list of some really very obvious ways that companies can differentiate based on hardware. i'm guessing if i could come up with that list, a hardware engineer could increase that by 100x.
don't belie
Disabled software still takes up space (Score:2)
you can disable any android app from running ever and from showing up in the launcher
But without rooting, you can't recover the gigabytes occupied by this preinstalled bloatware that you could otherwise have been using to store music and e-books.
CDMA2000 in the United States (Score:2)
Then please, please stop buying branded phones from operators.
Good luck getting any service that way if the only cellular carriers with a usable signal in your area are CDMA2000 carriers like Verizon and Sprint. I'm under the impression that they won't just sell you a CSIM for an unbranded CDMA2000 phone.
Re:Ecch ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny. OK, not really.
I specifically mean the HTC Sync Manager software. In my personal experience with it ... it's a pile of crap.
I would hate for that to spill into a Nexus tablet, because it might prevent me from owning one when my current Nexus 7 gets a little long in the tooth.
Re: (Score:2)
I have an M7, and I've never heard of such a thing.
Re: (Score:2)
In theory, for putting music on my phone.
In practice, never again.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Ecch ... (Score:2)
I prefer Bittorrent Sync over my local Wifi.
Create a share on your desktop, add some files to it, add the share to the phone, let it sync.
The beauty is if your music collection is less than your phone's available storage, simply adding music to your collection will add it to your phone if you set up your collection as a share.
You can set it up to work over the internet, but I don't do that.
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the tip, though, I was not aware of Bittorrent Sync!
Playlists and MTP (Score:2)
Don't people just drag MP3's from their computer to their phone in Windows Explorer? I don't understand the need for music transferring software.
If you want to transfer only the subset of your MP3 collection contained in a specific set of playlists, then you may need software to construct the copy job, even if it's just a shell script that parses the m3u files. And until very recently, you needed to install software to connect an Android 4.x phone to a PC because some operating systems didn't come with MTP automounting.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Actually the Android implementation is rather good. Samsung tried to do their own thing which had some issues, but then switched to the stock driver and now all is well.
The system works well not just with computers but also with things like car head units and printers. You can plug in and print directly from your phone just like a camera. No special extra expensive iPrinter required.
I'll take it over the abomination that is iTunes any day.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Bingo. I wish there were a way to fish out the ADB and Fastboot stuff, and leave the Sync Manager app out of the equation, since I never use it I don't need syncing of anything to and from the desktop. My contacts/mail/calendar/reminders are synced to Exchange. My apps are backed up via Titanium Backup encrypted [1], and tossed onto Dropbox. My music winds up coming from Amazon's service. Photos get tossed onto a cloud service. If I want to use the phone as a physical copy mechanism, I can, with PGP/
This has been known ... (Score:2)
... for quite some time now. WSJ posting it doesn't suddenly make it news.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This was going to be my comment. nvidia flubbed weeks ago, this article adds absolutely nothing to the story.
That's assuming it was a story to begin with, which it's not. It's not even about a product... there's no product yet! It's about an agreement between to companies two possibly make something at some future date. Why would anyone other than a hedgefund manager care about this?
Sonic the Hedgefund Manager (Score:2)
Why would anyone other than a hedgefund manager care about this?
Because it may influence whether Sega decides to port Sonic the Hedgefund Manager to Android or keep it console-only.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually this tablet is expected to be officially announced -and available- within weeks.
Re:Tegra based! (Score:4, Informative)
HTC isn't Chinese. It is Taiwanese.
I'm looking forward to seeing their tablet, as I have had generally good luck with their products overall.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Taiwan is China. China is the '"People's" republic of verbosity in the land that people including geography and history call china and is known a china'
In capitalist China, Communist China invades you.
Re: (Score:1)
Taiwan is Formosa. China is the mainland. The two, to most Americans (I can't speak for other nations' general attitudes) are not the same.
Taiwan was where Chiang Kai Shek fled when Mao & Company chased him off the mainland. He set up shop there, and the US government (and its allies) backed the new Taiwanese government (which was just the old mainland government, incompletely overthrown). It wasn't until very recently that the chill between the US and the PRC began to ease, and mostly it was due to eco
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you knew anything about Taiwan, you would know why that is a silly statement. You may want to start by looking up the official name of Taiwan, which is Republic of China.
Re: (Score:2)
Are French and German people both European? Are North and South Koreans both Korean people?
Well, DPRK != ROK, yet they are both Koreans. The fact is that both the mainland and taiwanese people consider Taiwanese people as Chinese people. You may want to consider that 'Chinese' is a bigger term than just PRC.
Re: (Score:3)
While they certainly have more in common than say "New Mexico" and "Mexico," the existence of "China" in both of their names doesn't make them the same thing.
I'm fairly certain the people of Taiwan consider Taiwan a different place than China -- enough so that they have the whole Taiwan name and all.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm fairly certain the people of Taiwan consider Taiwan a different place than China -- enough so that they have the whole Taiwan name and all.
Actually It's a moving target over 40 years or so...
From the end of WWII the occupiers of Taiwan (basically the retreating/invading Chiang Kai-shek govt) pretty much considered themselves the exiled government of mainland china, thus calling themselves the Republic of China. The ground started significantly changing in 1971 when after UN resolution 2758 passed, mainland china (aka the People's RoC) was able to reclaim their UN seat which. Eventually, the notion that the RoC (aka Taiwan) was a different
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. Neat.
Up next, Hong Kong :)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks. Neat.
Up next, Hong Kong :)
Back in 1997, most of the people of hong kong went relatively peacefully into the Chinese fold (or just simply left before it happened like my grandparents)...
On the other hand, you might think of the people in southern Taiwan as kind of like a mix of US southerners and Texans...
Even if Taiwan is eventually ceded back to China, some of them will likely still hold a N/S civil war grudge for a few generations, and other will continue to claim some right to secede into a lone star state (mostly in an appropria
Re: (Score:2)
New Mexico and Mexico are not the same thing, but they are both in the Americas. North and South Korea are not the same thing, yet both people are Koreans.
So how is that possible, if they have their own name too?
Please ask any Taiwanese person about this, and you will hear the same thing. Taiwanese people consider themselves Chinese. You can try all you want to claim
Re: (Score:2)
HTC isn't a generic Chinese OEM. They have their own line of phones, and some of them [htc.com] are quite popular.
Re:Tegra based! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I've had great luck with the 2013 N7 as well. No bloatware, rooted, has a utility that does a TRIM command every so often, and I can SSH into it if I need a file I'm working on. It is a nice medium size for reading.
The Android sites also show that Android L is working on the N7, so it should be supported in the next OS rev.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly the same experience.
I do hope they don't drop the 7.
A 9" screen is not nearly as portable, or as convenient.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting, that. I've heard a lot of people make similar claims, but the three units I have myself (development purposes) work fine. However, some guys I work with recently started using the N7 2013 as base for a university automation project, and have gotten hundreds of them. Apparently, dozens of their units were dead on arrival, and of those that work out-of-the-box a significant number of them randomly just die. Less than a year after the start of the project, near to a third of the units is dead.
I ha
Support full productivity (Score:1)
I'm an Apple fan, but I'd like to see competition so that multiple sides of the competition will strive more for the consumers' benefits.
market dominance? (Score:2)
Shunning larger manufacturers like Samsung, speculation is that Google is trying to mitigate the effects of market dominance by one firm.
yes, because the nexus line has been such an amazing market success? on the contrary, the nexus lines have sold in relatively low numbers, and very thin profit margins. and AFAICT, that's by design. stock is always extremely limited at launch, and advertising is non-existent.
this is more of a desperation move by HTC. samsung is eating their (and everyone else's) lunch. try something, anything to get a name for themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
The Nexus line markets to a very specific demographic, which is often asked by muggles what gear they would recommend. If HTC designs a decent Nexus device, it can greatly increase sales of their non-Nexus devices.
Skynet Foil Hat (Score:1)
At first I read it as "Google Partners with LHC", and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
10"? (Score:2)
But I don't want a small 9" tablet, I want at least 10" or an 11" Nexus tablet. with small bezels (at least as small as my current Xoom Wifi)..
At the moment there isn't a great 10" tablet which is just as simple looking but rugged quality. I would like the back to be of the same rubbery kind as the nexus 5, that has a soft feel, and even with a bit of sweaty palms still stays in your hands.. And no hardware buttons other than on/off switch on the back (like the xoom) and a volume control..