Sundar Pichai Says Google Will Be 'More Opinionated' About Nexus Design (theverge.com) 115
Jacob Kastrenakes, reporting for The Verge: Google intends to take more control over the Nexus line going forward. During an interview at the Code Conference today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that his company would "be more opinionated about the design of the phones," particularly where Google sees a need to "push the devices forward." That sounds like he could be referring to Google's desire to highlight new technologies with its Nexus devices. [...] But what Pichai focused on during the interview was software. We're used to getting stock Android on Nexus phones, but Pichai says that could change. "You'll see us hopefully add more features on top of Android on Nexus phones," he said. "There's a lot of software innovation to be had."
Re: Could we stop using "Going forward"? (Score:5, Funny)
I'll reach out to them and see what they say.
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I appreciate your stewardship of this matter.
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I'll jump on the call with you.
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I'd prefer to talk about this offline.
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Going forward, I will not use "Going forward" in sentences. Also, going forward, I will not post such silly stuff.
Odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No. The whole POINT [sic] of the Nexus line has been to provide a platform that Google controls. Now Google is going to exert more control.
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THen what's your alternative.... Every company wants 'their' software on the phone that you can't remove. How else will they get your data and usage.... er um I mean how else will they add value.
With my nexus, I rooted it and use no google accounts. I run my own email server, I contact sync to my own server, I host my calendar on my own server, I side load any applications I need without using google playstore. I'm sure they are drooling at the mouth to get some unremovable software on that phone
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I kind of doubt they're overly concerned about a few individuals like you that go to such lengths to avoid using their stuff. Remember that they only want your info in order to target ads at you - that you actually click on. I assume you're also using an ad-blocker, so you're kind of beside the point to Google and the like.
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On the other hand, if say and LG G4 could be made to take full advantage of it's OIS-equipped camera under stock Android, that'd be really nice. So if Google's talking about making it easier for OEM's to limit their customizations to things that really take advantage of their hardware innovations and stop trying to out-flashy the competition's UI, you'd end up with an Android that's more 'standard' (i.e. that customers could switch to painlessly), gets regular security updates (and even OS updates), but ca
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I had a Galaxy Nexus for a couple of years, and virtually everything I hated about it most were things Google was either known to have advocated or something their execs handwaved away as non-issues (battery life in particular was terrible.)
That's a really unfortunate phone on which to base your opinion of Nexus.
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To be fair, all android phones from the Galaxy Nexus era had lousy battery life. Only recently has the hardware - and the OS - gotten to the point that it's possible to build an Android phone with good battery life. The Galaxy Nexus had other problems - like a way too short OS upgrade path. Mine also stopped charging altogether at one point...
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I'm not aware of any "preferred customizations" in Android on Nexus devices beyond the included Google apps. Are there any in particular you were referring to? What is stock Android is pretty much entirely determined by Google anyway, and they've been pretty good about keeping their improvements pushed out to AOSP.
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As long as it's "near stock".
I've loved moto X 2014. The addition of an improved camera app, motion controls (both accelerameter and proximity) were nice additions beyond stock that I liked.
As long as they keep it simple, I'm OK.
Be more opinionated about your damn software (Score:5, Interesting)
How about fixing that stunningly lame cut and paste half effort? How about letting phone screen rotate all four directions and don't lock the home screen to vertical? How about doing a million little fit and finish things to make Android better instead of butting your head into the business of phone builders?
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Err no thanks. What you see as "fit and finish" many other people see as worthless features which add nothing. Rotate the home screen, a screen which has preset fixed locations for objects of various dimensions? No thanks. Rotating in all directions? Quite frankly if you need to hold your phone upside down then something on the phone is misdesigned. The rotations are fixed by design to give you a consistent button location, none of this is that button volume up or down when I press the "top" whatever top me
Re:Be more opinionated about your damn software (Score:5, Insightful)
At the end of the day, my phone sometimes doesn't have quite enough juice to use just before I fall asleep. So I need to plug it in to use it while lying down in bed. The charge port is on the bottom of the phone so I either need to have the cord stabbing me in the chest holding the phone right side up, or if I flip the phone 180 degrees, the home screen is upside down.
So, in this situation, what is misdesigned?
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Battery life or a location of the charging port for what is an ordinary use case.
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Why should I need to right side up my phone when I pick it up?
I usually don't need the volume, and I seem to be able to figure it out when the phone is sideways (which does swap), the control buttons are software now, so that doesn't matter.
My comfortable hold puts my pinky over the charging port, so it's a total nuisance when charging.
Also, there's already a rotate lock feature, doesn't seem like the option for four direction rotation would make anybody's life worse, and some people's better, and it would
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They don't lock the home screen to portrait mode anymore. It took them forever, but that complaint is no longer valid. As for allowing full rotation, they do that where it is appropriate, i.e. on tablets. Phones have a natural top and bottom and there is no sense confusing the user by allowing them to use the phone upside down.
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As for allowing full rotation, they do that where it is appropriate, i.e. on tablets. Phones have a natural top and bottom and there is no sense confusing the user by allowing them to use the phone upside down.
Brain damaged thinking. My phone has no natural top and bottom, and even if it did I do not see how being able to use it "upside down" is a drawback. Single word description of this design attitude: "patronizing".
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Really, your phone doesn't have a natural top and bottom? So how does that work? Is there both a speaker and microphone on both ends so that you can talk on the phone in any orientation? Sounds pretty unique, I've never heard of a device with that feature.
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1) I don't always use my phone for talking
2) The mic and speakers work quite well from either end, in fact speakerphone works fine too
You're just dredging the bottom of the barrel for arguments that random restrictions make sense for everybody. Speak for yourself.
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1) No one does, but it's obviously a use case that needs to be taken into account.
2) My phone doesn't work well as a phone when it's upside down. I'm guessing this is a use case that they have no interest in taking into account.
Install the app "Set Rotation" and be done with it. There's no reason to expect Android to meet every obscure need you have right out of the box.
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Correction: "Set Orientation" is the app name, not "Set Rotation".
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This isn't about android meeting my needs. This is about android not imposing pointless, ill-considered restrictions. Sheesh. At one time Google was known as a place where smart people gathered. No longer, now it is well on the way to establishing a reputation as a home for dull, patronizing people.
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There's no way you actually made that comment unaware of how patronizing and condescending you sound, right?
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Ahem. In what way is your comment not patronizing and condescending? You are the one trying to impose your view of how I should use my device.
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I was not whining about how patronizing others are, so I have no need to defend my own supposed patronizing attitude.
Anyway, I'm not trying to impose anything on you. As I already pointed out there is a trivial solution to your problem by installing a very simple app. I know that apps works because I have used it in the past for the same use case you described. I understand the desire in some situations to be able to use your phone in the upside down orientation, it's just silly to expect Google to support
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I was not whining about how patronizing others are
Yes you were. Mirror. Self.
Google employee much?
More data hoovered up? (Score:1)
Feature list (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Replaceable battery
2) Lifetime AOSP support
3) No Binary Blobs
4) FM Radio
5) MicroSD
6) Wireless charging
7) Ara
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1) Why? There are already powerbanks
2) Not a possibility. After a while the hardware just can't take it anymore
3) Not in their control
4) Meh
5) Meh
6) I'll give you that
7) It's coming
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Is this some 2008 era issue with battery life you have, or are you one of the 5 people in the world who actually don't replace their phones every few years anyway?
Not to be snide but the general case for the overwhelming majority of people is that they don't end up with dead batteries before replacing the device.
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Oh, I forgot, I'm supposed to throw $500 in the landfill every couple of years.
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Yes that seems to be the message.
Nevermind that I have 2 laptops in the house that are 7+ years old that run beautifully with a new battery installed in each.
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Actually my phone cost more than my most recent laptop purchase.
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Not anymore, the tech is stabilizing.
But yeah, for a while, it was like the 90s with computers.
Now you can get a decent phone for $150, bonus, SD card and available battery.
Since you're not committed to brand new tech ($150 gets two year old lower high end, or higher medium end) you shouldn't ever spend $500.
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While I agree not everything should last forever, it should still be the goal, at least until the things we get are perfectly recyclable.
I just purchased a Nexus 6p. I was upgrading from an HTC One M7 GPE. I did not want to get a new phone, but the battery life of my HTC one had dropped to the point where it was barely usable. It went from lasting all day without a charge to needing multiple charges per day. The HTC One is the first phone I've owned that I had to retire because it failed. My wife had o
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The phones I've had with quick charge don't last 2 years on the battery.
Still, I'll take the slimness and the pain of a warranty replace over changeable battery.
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(1) I have a 3 year old Nexus 4 that needs charging twice a day. Otherwise a perfectly good phone. Deciding whether to buy one of the replacement battery kits off ebay to crack open the case to extend life by another 18 months.
(2) Cyanogenmod says otherwise. No reason not to officially support Marshmallow on Nexus 4 or 'N' on Nexus 5 via AOSP except Google expect you to buy a new phone every 2 years.
(3) Of course it is. They decide which hardware their OEM partner puts in a Nexus device. If necessary they c
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FM radio is location dependant, but here it is awesome thanks.
No dataplan needed, quality often better than the internet streaming from same stations, works with the dumbphone too.
Checking out another stations takes a few milliseconds too.
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1) Why? There are already powerbanks
- So you can restore the phone to 100% charge without having to plug it in for a couple of hours. It is annoying to use a phone while it is plugged in. Even worse if you are trying to use it while it is tethered to one of those "power banks". Carry a couple of extra batteries with you and replace them as needed, and you never have to plug in. It's convenient.
- So you can easily replace the battery when it is old and will no longer hold a charge. Batteries are cheap. New phones are expensive.
- So yo
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I am hopeful for Ara... personally I will fill the thing with batteries and call it a day. But yes soon you may be able to have you list... Well, except 2 & 3.
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8) A pony.
No seriously some of those things on that list interest very few nerds, let alone members of the general public.
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Don't put words in other people's mouths, I would love all of those features but I live in this place called reality.
I challenge you this. Tomorrow wake up and walk down the street in your city. Stop every single person in the street with an Android phone and ask them if they feel AOSP is an important feature they want in their smartphone. You can stop after 100 people. If you find more than 1 person who says yes then send me your paypal address and I'll buy you a Marsbar.
Hell if it's 5% of the people who w
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1) Replaceable battery
Yes.
2) Lifetime AOSP support
Unreasonable. As CPUs get faster and standard memory gets larger you will run out of performance and space for the new OS over time. You can not run Windows XP on an old 286 much less Windows 7,8,or 10. Lifetime is a long time, I would like to see at least 5 years.
3) No Binary Blobs
Not practical. Too many hardware providers do not want to make sure that they can legally open source their drivers. They may be using a tool kit that does may not be open sourced
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Okay, a slight exaggeration then. But there's little technical reason a 3 year old quad core phone with 2GB RAM and supporting OGLES 3 shouldn't receive OS updates, but is now stuck on 5.1.1.
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"Okay, a slight exaggeration then."
What are you a freaking hamster? 3 years or even 5 years is very very very far from a "lifetime".
I have a 10 year old PC that works just fine but I would not expect a smartphone to last 10 years because if the lack of expandability. It is not easy to add ram to an SOC or a new GPU.
The real problem is when the SOC makers decide to not support that device any longer. That is what happened to my Nexus 7 and 10.
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A human lifetime, no. The lifetime of a phone being maximum 5-10 years of wear and tear before it's thrown away with a broken screen or faulty USB port.
'when the SOC makers decide to not support that device any longer' - exactly my point about reducing or eliminating binary blobs. e.g. by supporting the reverse engineering efforts of freedreno and nouveau for Snapdragon and Tegra hardware or providing resources to the replicant project. If Google were truly serious about the GPL underpinnings of the Linux k
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"exactly my point about reducing or eliminating binary blobs. e.g. by supporting the reverse engineering efforts of freedreno and nouveau for Snapdragon and Tegra hardware"
Just not going to happen. It makes no real business sense. Google does not want to write the actual driver code for SOCs that is for the SOC makers to do.
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It's technically possible to replace a broken screen, depending on design. That's also why broken shit should be shipped to Africa (contrary to what propaganda from the Basel network says)
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Okay, a slight exaggeration then. But there's little technical reason a 3 year old quad core phone with 2GB RAM and supporting OGLES 3 shouldn't receive OS updates, but is now stuck on 5.1.1.
Especially considering that the Nexus 5X has the same amount of RAM... and an Android N Preview image.
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I've bought 3 Galaxy S4 phones (1 for me, 2 for other members of my household) in the past year, even though these phones are already a couple years old. They work great. The carrier updated them to Android 5.0.1, and if I get some other project out of the way I'll try installing CyanogenMod on one to see how that works out. For ~$100, I don't see how you can get a better deal on a phone: they're well-built, have great screens, excellent Otterbox cases available, and still pretty speedy.
But of course, at
God help us all (Score:3)
Looking at the inconsistent mess that is Google software, good help us all, then.
Will they stop going backwards? (Score:5, Interesting)
The linked article does feel like a fluff piece, lacking anything worth remembering.
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Have you used a device with a fingerprint reader for any amount of time? I have - the iPhone 6S+ and the Note 4. With the Note 4 it kind of sucks because it's unreliable. With the iPhone, it's a game changer. I can unlock my phone so much more quickly and easily that Apple just basically removed a barrier to how often I pull my phone out to check something. For instance, I can reliably unlock it at a red light without having to glance at the screen, and open Shazam. The difference was so glaring that I basi
Re:Will they stop going backwards? (Score:4, Insightful)
It *is* an extra attack vector though, since there is now two ways to get into your phone (password and finger) rather than one. Super-convenient, admittedly, but a security gap nonetheless. There's a legal distinction that might cause an issue too - you can't be compelled to give over a password, but information *about* you like your fingerprint is fair game so you can be compelled to provide that.
In some ways fingerprints are terrible security tokens - you leave your token recorded on any surface you touch!
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My car Bluetooth is a trusted device,
I've simply stopped locking my phone where it's secure (home, car, work).
I'm not knocking the fingerprint, but where it's really needed I think it's obsolete. What I really wish Android had was a boot password (for encryption) and a separate lock.
So I could conveniently get my phone unlocked, but remote reboot, or reboot to make it secured.
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The Nexus 6P is kind of odd. Even though the spec says it's the same length as the 6, it actually feels longer and is even less comfortable in my pocket. Maybe because it doesn't taper like the 6, or maybe because it is 1mm longer but rounds down to the same length.
That said, the fingerprint reader is a mixed bag. It certainly doesn't categorically improve security. However, keep in mind that the screen lock and the boot process have the same passphrase. Once you only have to type your password every t
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From what I see it weakens security by opening a new attack vector.
No less secure than removing passwords and pin-codes altogether because they are so much of a pain to type in compared to just holding the home button for a second.
A scenario affecting people around the world.
I have a password requirement on my device but no fingerprint reader. If you find my phone the passcode is 0000.
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I was ready to order one too until I found out about the lack of Qi charging. I'll probably pick one up when they are cheap, just before the new model is announced. Sadly I think Google has given up on wireless charging, and most manufacturers seem to be copying the Apple inspired wanky metal case because fanboy journalists said plastic felt "cheap". That really is style over functionality.
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I've been living with wireless charging on my N5, and I absolutely love it! Aligning the phone when putting it down isn't that big of a deal, and is probably even easier if you don't buy a super cheap charger like I did.
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As a counter-point, I think wireless charging (as it currently stands today) is a completely meh feature.
It has plenty of potential, but right now you're paying ten times more than a reversible cable - for pretty much the same limitations and a slower charging time.
This article explains my meh'ness better tha [howtogeek.com]
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Sure, but the alternative to wireless charging is super-quick charging over the wire which also generates a lot of heat.
Have at least three models (Score:2)
The 5X is the current budget model and the 6P is the premium one, which is fine. But not everyone wants a phablet. Some of us want a high end phone in a smaller form factor - high end in both design and features. I think there's room for a third model in the line up - a 5P - that has pretty much the same spec as the 6P but smaller.
Samsung got that right with the S6 and built on it with the S7 - offering choices in size without skimping on specs for the smaller models (and reintroducing the SD slot). Trouble
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Would love a 5p, I dont want a phablet. I do want more CPU umph and can we get back qi charging :)
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QI charging is the reason I still have my Nexus 5. I really wish we were offered basically the same phone with a better battery and a better camera.
"Highlight new features"? (Score:2)
Please fix current devices (Score:2)
No I don't want any new crap, I just want the previous crap to work now and work better. There should be more focus on fixing bugs and not removing features already there.
innovation to be KEPT (Score:2)
"We're used to getting stock Android on Nexus phones, but Pichai says that could change. ...There's a lot of software innovation to be had."
There's a lot of innovation to be had and kept by Google apparently. The beauty of shipping the Nexus line with stock Android is that we can count on 100% the features to be available to other OEMs on the AOSP, key initials OS (open source, (and/or sans the payment of royalties to use associated features). That great time they decided to put the always on "Ok Google" only on the Nexus line and the (then Google's) Moto X, and relegating everyone else to restricted use in the Google app. Wanting to customize
Re: innovation to be KEPT (Score:2)
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I hope this isn't the beginning of the end (Score:2)
For me Nexus was owner friendly way towards unlock and flash a custom rom. they provide all the vendor binaries for download, and rooting is a click or two away.
I don't even install gapps because I'm googled out, frankly.
I've always suspected this nexus was too good to be true for much longer because since what's in it for them besides street cred. Yeah enhancements, I get it, but the moment they start getting 'more opinionated' this devolution, I fear, is simply a matter of time.
This sounds dangerous (Score:2)