Friday, August 31, 2012

The most annoying flaw of the Galaxy nexus

Don't get me wrong. I love my Nexus phone. Android jellybean is great, performance is great, Google voice and Google now rule, however there's one annoying flaw.
One of the reasons I got this phone was its form factor. The 'no buttons' concept and smooth, curved design really appealed to me. But being a long fingered man, I tend to hit the 'home' button a lot when typing on he space bar.
This is quite annoying, as you need to reactivate the app. This even happened twice when typing this post...
Well, no one's perfect.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

In vacation... Notes about devices.

Having the need to be connected even during vacation, I took an iPad (3rd gen) alongside my new galaxy nexus phone.
After using those two devices for a while, here are some insights:

  • Android has caught up with iOS. Jelly bean, google voice, google now and other touches (app swapping, the software buttons, a great, huge screen) make my wife's iPhone 4s seem old. 
  • Even the form factor of the nexus (and the new s3 as well), the curved shapes, the soft buttons - make apple's device look old. Apple better come up with a killer iPhone 5, otherwise they're in trouble.
  • Considering the fact that the next nexus device is also around the corner (rumored November), things seem interesting in the mobile market. 
  • I've finally understood the difference between the iPad 2 and the new iPad. I knew that the new screen is great, but only after moving from 2 to new, and working on the new for a while, you get to understand the meaning of a large retina screen. Everything looks analog. You can't see pixels. Amazing. 
  • I've played with the new galaxy note tablet, and though it's amazing fast, it's still no iPad. But android devices are catching up. Can't wait for a retina-like jellybean powered tablet. 
  • If the next MacBook air has retina, I'm in.
  • Still no word from iTunes store about my app - submitted 8 days ago. Waiting sucks. 

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

What to do with Google plus...

I stumbled onto a recent article in techcrunch, saying that Google+ is stopping new acquisitions into its product. Could it be the beginning of the end?
Google+ is actually a cool product. Looks great, has improved a lot over its 15 month life, but still doesn't seem to move people away from Facebook.
Maybe functionality and cool mobile UX is not enough? Though Facebook's UX sucks, both in website and especially mobile, what good is it if you can't find pictures of your girlfriend's friend wearing a thong in Thailand?
It's like Google has created the coolest theme park, but no one showed up, and those who came to the premiere out of curiosity, didn't come back. One of the main failures during the launch was the fact that I was unable to import all my Facebook connections in one click. That meant I had to start building my whole network from scratch - Why the hell would I wanna do that? (Or, even worse, build the network from my gmail, which had irrelevant connections, family and a lot of spam suggestions).
Another big reason might be because g+ is all dudes. That's actually a great article, saying that G+ was designed by, and for, Googlers, and Facebook was designed by, and for, college students (Looking to score...).

Now tell me, for real - Which network would you prefer?

Short update:
gmail just added hangouts to its chat dialog. Once again (Like in the good ol' buzz days), + is coming through the back door. Considering that gmail has ~400 million users, Google might already HAVE a social network. Sort of.