Tech Thirst
Another day, another Apple columnist (or Apple apologist, rather) talking about Android and “open” and completely missing the point. It’s laughable at first just to think about someone who clearly misunderstands the concept of open source to critique it. Yet, once again, TechCrunch – one of the most important blogs in technology, mind you – chooses to find the worst person for the job. I’ve talked about Android and it’s open nature quite a bit on this blog – in fact, maybe a bit too much. Today I’m about to ride that train for the third time. MG Seigler, Apple columnist over at TechCrunch decided to talk about Android once again. Yes, an Apple columnist wrote a whole article on Android and it’s negative affects on both Google and the rest of the tech world. It had a few very misleading points that I wanted to go over. Read more
The Other, Other Side Of Open
Is the Galaxy Nexus Simple, Beautiful, & Beyond Smart?
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus: the third iteration in the Nexus line, and the sixth Google device to hit the market. While the Nexus One aimed to revolutionize the market – which it did – the Nexus S, along with Gingerbread, was a very evolutionary step towards the improvement of Android. The Xoom, coupled with Honeycomb, created some disturbance as it felt unfinished, rushed, and simply not a good sign of what was to come if this transition to an “easy to use” Android continued on the same path. And now, we have the Galaxy Nexus carrying the weight of introducing possibly the most drastic change Android has ever seen. Android 4.0 doesn’t look anything like Gingerbread and it would even be stretch to say that it looks like Honeycomb. I tried to keep my hopes low because of the disappointment I felt with Honeycomb, but it was tough to stay grounded after hearing so much about this device. So, the moment I got this phone in my hands I began hunting to see if Google reached their goal: making a mobile OS and device that are simple, beautiful, and beyond smart. Read more
Siri “Alternatives”
I find it funny how the Android community works sometimes. First, everyone got steamed because Apple released Siri into the wild, a voice-based interface to use your mobile phone. Immediately, the community raged and claimed that “we did it first” because of Android’s voice commands. Once it was realized that it wasn’t really command-based it was a natural language interface, a ton of people on my Google+ laughed and said “who wants to talk to their phone?” And, lo and behold, not even a week later the Android community began it’s search for the “Siri for Android”. First came Iris, a cheap imitation that was boasted to have been made in 8 hours. Hurray! But, unfortunately (and quite obviously) it couldn’t even do a quarter of what Siri could do. Then we claimed that Vlingo, probably the best voice-command interface in Android, was our answer to Siri. Followed by many other apps. Ugh. Sorry, guys – but Apple beat Android to the punch on this one, and we shouldn’t laugh at it, rage about it, or deny it. Read more
