Thord D. Hedengren

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Tag: Android

  • The real problem with gaming on Android

    Prune developer Joel McDonald, in a comment to Polygon:

    In fact, from a developer’s perspective, Android has been the most pleasing experience of any of the platforms I’ve released on, not to mention that the players have been great,” he continued. “But as a dev you’ve also got to take the platform’s particularities into account. One thing I knew going into it was that the ‘unpaid install’ rate would likely be around 95 percent and this is exactly what I’ve observed. In a lot of cases the smart thing to do is to convert your premium game to be free-to-play on Android, but that just didn’t make sense for Prune, nor was it something that I was personally interested in.

    Emphasis mine. The Polygon piece, written by Ben Kuchera, is about switching from Android to iOS because the games launch faster there. While true, the more pressing matter at hand is the piracy, and the fact that this will lead to more crappy/greedy free-to-play business models. This means that there are no premium, pay once and play, games to pirate, but also none to enjoy. From a gamer’s perspective, this can’t be a good thing.

  • 87 percent of Android devices are vulnerable

    ZDNet, writing about Android vulnerabilities:

    Nearly 90 percent of Android devices are exposed to at least one critical vulnerability, because of Android handset makers’ failure to deliver patches, according to research from the UK’s University of Cambridge.

    Security is one of the reasons I stay clear of Android (snoopy business models is another one). If you want to know more, check out AndroidVulnerabilities.org, made by the researchers. There, Android devices are compared and graded accordingly.

  • Marshall London

    The Marshall brand is on a lot of things these days, including headphones. While headphones makes sense, a smartphone might not, and yet there’s now a $600 Android thing called Marshall London. But despite the dual headphone connectors, and the Marshall branding obviously, you don’t get much bang for the buck. Gizmodo sums it up nicely:

    Under the hood, the phone’s core specs are barely respectable compared to a top-of-the-line handset. It’s got a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display, which is going to feel pretty tiny and low-res compared to today’s 5-inch=plus QHD displays. It’s got 2GB of RAM, 16GB of on-board storage, plus a Micro-SD slot. It’ll run Android Lollipop at launch, which is great! But that Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chipset is a few years old, and might drag compared to a new flagship. We don’t know much about the 8 megapixel camera, but it’s lower resolution than the most up-to-date phones. It’s a low-spec handset, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean bad.

    I see no reason what so ever to consider the Marshall London, unless you’re a die hard Marshall fan that wants to match it with your t-shirt and headphones. In which case I’ll just remind you that unless you actually hook up your guitar to a Marshall amp, a product line with pedigree and quality, you’re basically buying a look. I guess that’s fine too.

  • Cheap Android tablets aren't secure at all

    Bluebox tested sub-$99 Android tablets, and – shocker! – found them to be security nightmares.

    Bluebox Labs purchased over a dozen of these Black Friday “bargain” Android tablets from big name retailers like Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Kmart, Kohl’s and Staples, and reviewed each of them for security. What we found was shocking: most of the devices ship with vulnerabilities and security misconfigurations; a few even include security backdoors. What seemed like great bargains turned out to be big security concerns. Unfortunately, unsuspecting consumers who purchase and use these devices will be putting their mobile data & passwords at risk.

  • Nokia N1

    Nokia, who sold their device business to Microsoft, has announced a new device. The Nokia N1 is an Android 5.0 tablet that’s trying to channel the iPad mini. It’s almost ridiculously close to Apple’s device, and so is the imagery on the product website. On the flipside, this also means that the N1 might be the best looking Android tablet thus far.

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  • Google's new Nexus lineup

    Google's new Nexus lineup

    Big day for Google lovers. The company officially launched Android 5.0 Lollipop, with something they call Material Design, really a visual overhaul, and a slew of other things. In the words of Dan Seifert of The Verge:

    In addition to a visual overhaul, Lollipop brings over 5,000 new APIs for developers to tap into and lets multiple different Android devices with various form factors work better together. Google says that things such as songs, photos, apps, and recent searches can be seamlessly synced across various Android devices. Lollipop also includes new notification controls to limit alerts during meetings and other times, a new battery saver mode that can eke out 90 more minutes of life between charges, multiple user accounts, guest user modes, and new ways to secure your device via trusted Bluetooth connections. Many of these features have been implemented by various Android device makers on their own smartphones and tablets for some time, but Google is now making sure they are part of the core Android experience.

    Sounds good, right? It probably is, but I’ll have to get back to you with a proper verdict.

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  • The Amazon Fire Phone Is About The Future

    I haven’t played with nor seen Amazon’s smartphone, the Fire Phone. It’ll probably not even be available in my neck of the woods, much like the Kindle Fire tablets. It matters little for this piece though.

    Amazon showing off the Firefly feature
    Amazon showing off the Firefly feature

    The tech media seem puzzled about Amazon’s decision to ”fork Android” (read Ben Evans’ piece on this if you’re interested) and go head to head with Apple, Google, and to a lesser extent, Microsoft. There are some interesting features in the Fire Phone, including the 3D UI, Firefly and Mayday, and the Buy button, and then there’s Amazon’s Prime service too. The general consensus is that the Fire Phone is an expensive yet underpowered high-end smartphone with Amazon’s limited app store, tailored for Amazon services. The question this beckons is who’d want this?

    It’s a valid question, with an obvious yet complicated answer: Amazon’s customers wants this. The answer is obvious because if you do all your shopping at Amazon, if you use Prime, then the Fire Phone’s for you. On paper that might make sense, but in reality smartphones are personal devices and I doubt a lot of us want to be defined by where we buy adult diapers.

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  • The Smartphone, Dumbphone, Tablet Thing

    The Smartphone, Dumbphone, Tablet Thing

    There are those who dream about not having to carry around a smartphone. That’s obviously easy enough, just get a feature phone, or dumbphone if you will, and use it. Thing is, these people don’t want to give up the functionality of a smartphone. For that they have the tablet instead, a device that in many ways mirrors that of a smartphone. “Why should I have to carry both?” they tend to complain.

    Why indeed.

    The Nexus 7 and a dumbphone picked up in France while snowboarding.
    The Nexus 7 and a dumbphone picked up in France while snowboarding

    The idea is this. By replacing the smartphone with a dumbphone, you cancel out all worries about battery life (any dumbphone worth its name can work for days, weeks even, without charge) and the fact that you’re carrying an expensive piece of glass-encased machinery that could easily be lost. Dumbphones are cheap and accessible, and they do one thing well (being phones), thus they’re superior at their prime function, or so the reasoning goes.

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  • Surfplattan går om laptopen i Sverige

    Skiftet i Sverige har skett tidigare än i många delar av världen. IDC har även släppt siffror för den globala marknaden. Där är prognosen att plattan går om bärbara under 2013 med en försäljningsökning på 58,7 procent till 229,3 miljoner enheter. Enligt IDC går plattorna om hela pc-försäljningen 2015. Siffrorna visar också att det är de mindre plattorna, på under 8 tum som säljs mest, och småplattornas andel av marknaden kommer att öka ännu mer framöver.

    Från Plattans svenska segertåg. Ingen är väl förvånad va? Dessvärre är det nog en hel del budgetplattor som inte kommer användas i någon större utsträckning med i statistiken, men allt eftersom generationerna av framför allt Android rullar på så förändras förstås läget.

  • Then And Now

    Bill Gates thinks that iPad and Android tablet owners are frustrated. It’s primarily the lack of keyboard and Microsoft Office that’re to blame, the Microsoft chairman thinks. And thus there’s a bright future for the Surface line, because that’s essentially a laptop with tablet form factor, and that’s what consumers really want.

    Bill Gates obviously lives in an alternate reality, in which Windows 8 is a success and people really just want to use Windows with their greasy fingers.

    I’m afraid that’s not the case in the real world. The reboot of Windows 8 should be evidence enough of that.

    Surface Pro, pretty in pink
    The Microsoft Surface Pro, pretty in pink

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  • These iOS and Android articles are awesome

    I can’t exactly say that I’m reading everything that ends up on The Verge, but I do find that it is a great site overall. If you like truly in-depth reviews, this is the place to look, but what really sets them apart is posts like the Android and iOS visual histories. Great content and lots of images, detailing how these two platforms have evolved over the years. Now if they would just get that whole text column left, text column right thing under control, I’d like them even more!

  • On the iPad 2


    Well, unfortunately not on it as in using it, that’ll have to wait until March 11th (if possible, otherwise March 25th). I do have some thought about the iPad 2 though, based on the Stevenote (welcome back Steve) two days ago. (more…)

  • Hur orkar de? #ipad2 #android

    När Apple kläcker ur sig saker som iPad 2 – tunn och snygg med bra batteritid – så undrar jag hur tillverkarna av Android-plattorna orkar? De är ju inte ikapp originalpaddan än…

  • Nu kan du twittra via SMS även i Sverige

    Det här var trevligt. Om du är så old school att du föredrar SMS framför Twitter-appar, eller helt enkelt inte uppgraderat dig till en modern mobiltelefon ännu, så kan du nu twittra via SMS i Sverige. Tidigare har man kunnat lösa det via externa tjänster (jag körde alla mina tweets via Jaiku back in the day), men nu har Twitter och mobiloperatörerna bevisligen kommit överens.

    Twitter tar inte betalt för att du twittrar via SMS, men det gör däremot mobiloperatörerna, SMS kostar som vanligt alltså. Så tänk dig för. (more…)

  • Ulf Lundells hundra bästa

    Jocke har samlat Ulf Lundells hundra bästa före 00-talet i en monsterpost, med tillhörande Spotify-länkar. Passar så klart bra när nämnda musiksensation även finns till iPhone och iPod touch via AppStore (och till Android, glöm inte det), inte sant?