So there are a number of Android-based tablets on the horizon. These are presumably envisioned as intermediate devices to fill a niche between the smartphone and laptop, similar to the iPad. I'm not starting a thread to debate whether this niche exists, or the design of any specific device, but rather on how well Android and its apps can adapt to being used across multiple devices by the same user.
For me, when I try to envision a tablet in my life, I find it difficult to think of things that it could do but my phone (a Nexus One) can't. I think the point is a tablet doesn't really do new things, but it does them slightly better because of a larger screen. The thing is, I will likely want to switch back and forth between my phone and tablet depending on my real-world context, and I will generally want the state of those applications to stay in sync.
Take reading an ebook, for example. I will still want to read on my phone sometimes, when I just have a minute to spare and don't have the tablet with me, but when I sit down to a more lengthy reading session, I want the tablet to remember where I am in the book. This should be automatic. Similarly, any games I play should have my progress saved, and my bookmarks/history/etc should be synced too. The simple fact is, the additional value of a tablet seems so small, that if I have to put up another non-synced device in my life, it won't even be worth bothering. I'll just keep using the smaller screen of my phone.
Now, of course there are already things that DO sync. Email, calendar, contacts, etc. But those are distinct things with custom implementations specific to that type of data. Certainly every app developer could add a web service that syncs their app data, but why make everyone do that individually. Does anyone know of any plans to create a generalized Android app sync solution? (let me know if there's something out there and I missed it) This seems like something google would want to build at the OS level, but I haven't heard of anything like it.
Thoughts?
I just came across this post after running up against this problem in the real world. Just received my Notion Ink Adam and quickly started looking for a solution to sync things like my eBook placement and game save-state between my Nexus One and the tablet. Titanium Media Sync looked promising but as the product description indicates, it is only capable of one-way synchronization. This means you would have to manually run the sync task each time you started using one device or the other. Perhaps something that could be achieved with tasker and some scripting, but that's more management overhead than anyone would want.
I wish I was better at software development cause this is not a solution that could be tackled with the app inventor.
This is going to be a big shakeup for awhile... SugarSync, Dropbox, Bump, Hoccer, Titanium, Listables/BlueMuze (my apps), Amazon cloud sync, Google Books -- there are 100 solutions coming from different directions and for different puposes.
Then there will be video (which is even more insanely competitive) as everyone trys various DRM, cloud hosting and streaming. Then you have the carriers sitting in the middle putting data caps on stuff wondering if they can get a slice of the pie. Roku, SlingBox, Tivo, Boxee, TimeWarner, Viacom, NBC-Comcast, Verizion, Cablevision, ATT, Apple, --- SO MANY companies in this market.
This is partly why I created my apps, so that people could send data without the cloud sync ideology/methodology forced on them. But that's sort of tangential to the conversation, and specific for types of media as you said above.
Anyways, I think the competition will be good mostly. But we'll have to be careful to reward those who dont try to restrict usage arbitrarily. And be sure to punish those that stand in the way.
Also with regards to programming sync oneself, beware that it's one of those things that's deceptively simple sounding until you try and work out the actual code/details of how to do it.
We need this now more than ever!
Any new products out there that can help me synch my Captivate with my Color Nook?
Seraph321 said:
I find it difficult to think of things that it could do but my phone (a Nexus One) can't. Thoughts?
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I can't agree with you more. I came to the same conclusion when I was looking at tablets.
However there are certain things I don't use right now because my battery temp will exceed 103°F when I'm using them (music apps, navigation, etc.) Phone is overclocked to 844 MHz so that obviously plays into the battery life, but if I had a tablet I could use those apps on the tablet to conserve my phone battery; currently my phone battery won't last more than a day :^(
There's also the possibility that because tablets would be more powerful than my MyTouch 3G Slide that I could scale back my phone CPU and use certain things on the tablet.
I'm holding off on tablets right now, I want to see where they go with the capabilities first before I jump on board.
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You said "I'm holding off on tablets right now". If you want to get your feet wet on the cheap, pick up a Color Nook of Craigslist. I've bought 2 now for $170 each.
At that price, who cares where the tablet market goes. When something comes along you like better, buy it, and give the Color Nook to someone as a gift.
I'm pretty confident the community will make a tablet more than worth owning. Even without the source code the xoom has been pretty handy. But from the first day of ownership I was wondering why it wasn't built in to have the phone and tab sync up. Even something more basic like chrome to phone for the phone to tab would be nice.
Just thinking out loud mostly.
My favorite tab sync mod,
Grab Google voice and grooveIP and have texts and voice calls come to the tab at the same time as the phone.
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Great topic! As a developer and Droid X owner, I've been debating about getting a tablet, but my tablet would be an iPad so I can cross-platform develop.
Still, a very valid issue as to iPhone/iPad or Droid/Xoom synching. Haven't given it much thought, but the OP brings up some valid points.
If you have an e-book, grocery list manager and any other number of apps, *physical* synching would be a PITA in my opinion. I think some cloud-based solution like DropBox would be the best solution.
How this gets implemented is surely open to debate.
I haven't tried it yet but there's an app on the market called SyncIt Beta:
https://market.android.com/details?id=jug6ernaut.net.syncit
It's supposed to be able to sync your app data across multiple devices.
^ Shift Faced
I am sorry for bringing back a dead thread, however this is still something i am in looking for. I have a nexus S and a toshiba thrive tablet. As opposed to cloud based or something along those apps, i think an even easier solutions would be a device direct streaming type service so to speak. Have the devices communicate directly with each other over wifi or bluetooth. I mean to be perfectly honest, if i use it on the road, my phone is with me anyway so bluetooth is perfectly acceptable. and when i am at home, both are connected to wifi even if they aren't close enough for bluetooth. That would remedy the need of a cloud based service, and the issue of data privacy. As long as the data gets synced locally to the device, i should be able to break the sync and still continue to operate, then when the 2 devices are reconnected to each other they can just update the changes. I am not a developer, so i apologize if these requests seem monumental. However i was going to make the change to webOS because it natively had support for these features, which were immensely helpful. Until webOS sort of fell off the grid obviously (even though it was never really on it to begin with)
Try "Tablet Talk" the paid app is really worth it, it allows users to communicate from tablet to phones.
It's well worth the money
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Old thread. New Idea.
I came across this thread while searching for a solution to my problem. Thought it appropriate to post here.
Does anyone know of any virtual assistant apps or anything of that sort that will sync with other versions of the app on other devices?
For example, I have two android devices. I want to be able to talk to one and set a reminder at the house, and have the reminder come to a different device i have on me elsewhere.
So far the only way I can come up with to do this is to set a reminder through Google Calendar but was wondering if there was any other less clunky alternatives.
So I have a note ii and a precedent. Here is a list of things id like to do
Sync my note ii audio a2dp out to play ober the precedent
Sync alert and alarm awnsers n dismissals across devices as well as read emails
Power off device remotley [power on?]
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Just stop their skinning effort and just start releasing stock roms? I think even they can agree that they have 100% failed in this effort. But they know the hardward is decent (better screen VS... and how about a bit of light below those buttons).
But is there a buisiness model that they need to keep hold of? Are they worried about loss of revenue in their own market place? (heck, if they had stock, and add their marketplace... people might actually use it.
Just curious.
because they never had official permission from Google.
Android is open source. The Google Market however is not. Viewsonic has already turned over support to someone else at this point so don't expect anything new. For what it is its great. If your looking to the future buy something else. If the screen hadnt been so horrible I would still have mine.
I just don't get this nonsense. I get why companies are screwing this all up but what I don't get is why we all continue to allow this. The Android update process is broken and there have been a flood of articles on the net talking about the subject. Not one that I have read has come even close to the right solution. Really testing what little faith I have left in the human race. Why so dramatic? Because we have been using the model for our Windows PC for years and yet in somebody's great wisdom chose what we have here and now. Cmon!
Could you imagine getting your Windows PC updates from Time Warner Cable? What a disaster that would be right? What do you think would happen with our PC updates? Exactly what we are dealing with right now on Android. I just don't see what the problem is. Google develops and distributes the OS and updates directly to the end user. The phone manufacturer supplies the appropriate drivers on their website and the carrier keeps their greasy mitts off my phone. Win win for everyone.
I posted this because I think its the best solution. Its better than what we have now that's for sure. What I'm hoping to get out of this post is that you either agree with me or you have a better solution we can all get behind and push for. I know the Windows way isn't perfect and some things will have to be done differently but we don't need to be concerned with all the details. In other words for Example.....Dear Verizon, Samsung, Google. This is how we want out updates. Just get it done and deal with it.
Full Disclosure: Yeah I'm posting this because I'm pretty heated this hasn't been seriously addressed yet. I'm heated more people aren't pushing for more of a Windows update process. I'm heated because I bought a Galaxy Nexus this time around to avoid this and still getting screwed. I'm heated because All my phones have greater potential and we are proving it here at XDA everyday.
One more thought. We really shouldn't be buying our hardware from the carriers either. All any of them have proven so far is that they can run a pretty stable dumb pipe. Every other venture has failed. Like Vcast. I just dont trust them with what may soon replace my wallet among many other things. It could very well be our most personal possessions in these times and they control every aspect we allow them to. It needs to stop. What do you think? Do you want the windows way? Or do you have a better idea?
Long term there are definitely some issues that need to be fixed with Android.
Bloatware is one of the things that annoys me, and judging from the reviews left on Google Play, it annoys everybody. I'm fine with them preinstalling crap on my phone even though I don't like it, PC OEMs have been doing this for years. But it should be completely uninstallable without root.
For OS updates I see no reason why minor versions (ex: 2.3.6 to 2.3.7) can't be distributed from Google to all phones. These updates shouldn't affect drivers and would be similar to Windows Updates. But more people are concerned with major version updates which can't be done this way as they involve driver and/or kernel updates.
Google has a very hands off policy when it comes to Android it seems. OEMs are given a lot of freedom and Google doesn't do much to help them bring updates quickly. This hands off approach may have been a good business model in the early days of Android when Google just wanted to get it out there by any means possible, but I think they need to be more involved now. They should allow OEMs in on development earlier by giving them access to early builds of the next version similar to how Microsoft does. The reason PC OEMs get the newest version on their systems so quickly is because OEMs and hardware manufacturers get to use betas even before the public can. This model may not work on Android, but I really think Google needs to reassess their stance on Android, its not 2009 anymore.
This sort of issues with android is holding back...a lot of companies like presonus (pro audio) dont even bother with developing controlling software for their hardware on android...
Its a shame because we have some very capable hardware but ať least with apple **** they do the work once and it works...
If they were to make applications and have to deal with different hardware and screen resolutions they wouldnt have time to do their job..
A shame that oné day i might have to buy an iPad because of them
the long and short of it is no, at the moment they cant. Windows works because it is a modular kernel which allows for drivers to be installed and therefore easy customisations to be made. Linux is a monolithic kernel which means it needs all drivers for all configurations of hardware in it and then it uses the ones it needs. Android uses the linux kernel so it is difficult to support all the different kinds of hardware on phones in one kernel without it getting huge and hard to manage.
That is before you get to the need to have basebands/amss working with the kernel to provide mobile phone connection and hardware management. You also need bootloaders, recovery consoles etc to work on every phone. Only once those components are in place can you start to talk about keeping the android system up to date on top of those.
Google can't do it all unless they start over and make tools that are compatible with all kinds of hardware.
The easiest way is probably to make a google certification requirement that all manufacturers must support phones through 2-3 major update cycles. That does mean the end of cheap phones and lots of different and smaller niche products though.
Personally I think that the new hardware requirements for ICS are going to mean the end of ldpi and maybe even mdpi android phones as well as anything without a gpu, less than 512mb of ram and a 1ghz or so cpu. Maybe once the hardware becomes a bit more uniform, it will start to get easier to keep up to date too.
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My mother ordered a used (Warehouse Deals) 3rd-gen 8.9", to arrive Monday. I've been reading up a bit and if it's not already updated, at the very least I'll try and save the bootloader from being irrevocably ruined and install TWRP. Fingers crossed.
Assuming the above goes through, beyond that, I'm not sure what to do. It's not my device, so I don't want to spend too much time swapping between ROMS...that in mind, I'm hoping to glean info from you guys who've been running various stuff for weeks/months/years.
So to put it simply:
- How decent is FireOS in general? How much of a pain is it to get gapps and Play Store running properly these days? What kind of app compatibility can I expect in general from non-Marketplace apps?
- How does CM11/KitKat compare to Amazon's flavor, in terms of performance and compatibility?
- How does CM12.1/Lollipop perform on this hardware? I used it on for a while on my phone and was...less than impressed; CM13 turned out to work far better. But then, my phone is old and had middling hardware at best when released, so I suppose it's unfair to prejudge based on that.
I appreciate any and all insights offered. Looking forward to having something "new" to play around with, if only a bit.
An executive order has been signed by Trump banning Huawei in the US...
Also Qualcomm (QCOM) may have to apply for US export licenses to continue supplying technology to Huawei.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/15/tech/trump-executive-order-telecom-security/index.html
Why worry about Huawei when Google, facebook and the countries intelligence are already spying.
I think the problem lies with 5G, Huawei are trying the set up the infrastructure for 5G across Asia, Europe and the US amongst over areas. Which means that they'll have a back door to almost everything connected to 5G.
5G will connect to everything, even LED lights in your home which basically gives them a 3D view of every area 5G covers. Whoever has access to it will know where you are nearly all the time.
The timing makes it obvious the steps against Huawei is derivative of the US trade war with China rather than concerns over spying.
warea said:
The timing makes it obvious the steps against Huawei is derivative of the US trade war with China rather than concerns over spying.
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I wonder if it makes sense to care about that. Huawei prices are dropping and people try to sell there used phones. A good moment to buy something like that.
Am I totally wrong in thinking that Trump will probably not stop xda developers from developing updates for Huawei phones? If so I do not care about Huaweis updates or wether they include Gapps
But sadly XDA is not able to develop updates for Huawei beacause of locked bootloader etc, so what you are trying to say is......?
EnormoDerClown said:
But sadly XDA is not able to develop updates for Huawei beacause of locked bootloader etc, so what you are trying to say is......?
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I do not own a huawei phone (yet) and am still investigating about existing roms. Is there really no easy way to unlock bootloader for huawei devices in general? That would definitely stop me from buying huawei.
BTW: of you quote me I see your post faster
daniu said:
I do not own a huawei phone (yet) and am still investigating about existing roms. Is there really no easy way to unlock bootloader for huawei devices in general? That would definitely stop me from buying huawei.
BTW: of you quote me I see your post faster
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No there is no easy way, even no way at all at the moment.
I am quite relaxed at the moment, for existing phones there will still be support, future phones could be a HUGE problem. But to be honest, A LOT switch their phones after 2 years or even before, so most people will not be touched by this ban who are currently owning this awesome phone.
I don't think Huawei spies. Even if they did, are they the only big players who do it?
US already spies on their citizens and on the world - Edward Snowden told the world and now he's not allowed back into his country. Facebook also sells your data if you remember that Cambridge Analytica drama.
Do people just forget what's happened?
Agree, i am total sure that Apple has a file with my data and i didn´t even touched an apple device in my life
that doesn´t make spying good, but i also think huawei is not doing more/less than the rest
EnormoDerClown said:
No there is no easy way, even no way at all at the moment.
I am quite relaxed at the moment, for existing phones there will still be support, future phones could be a HUGE problem. But to be honest, A LOT switch their phones after 2 years or even before, so most people will not be touched by this ban who are currently owning this awesome phone.
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this is not my attitude towards phones. Mine is rather: use the device until warranty is over (or a bit earlier) then root and install a custom rom and use the phone until it is really dead. Unfortunately it seems like that did not take too long on my Asus Zenfone selfie ...
I also use phones quite long, but really a lot people get a new one every year or every two years by contract. The same people which are now selling their phones because of panic^^
if you plan on using custom rom/modification huawei is not suitable for you, it is just not possible. maybe the android ban will change something, but nobody can say that, you will have to wait to see what will happen.
Since no one else has said it on this thread let me be the first, Trump is an idiot, when he's gone the whole world will be better for it. He can't even honor D-day survivors without making it all about him, the ultimate draft dodger.