Google Announces Android 'M' Developer Preview, Android Pay and Free Unlimited Photo Storage

[SactoGuy18]

I wonder what will Google use as the code name for Android M. My guess: Marshmallow.

And it will not be a full version number change, either. My guess is Version 5.2 or 5.3, since there are not significant "under the hood" changes like it was with Android 5.0 (Lollipop).

 

[Tech198]

Android Pay ?? Seriously ....

Surly Google could have come up better than that.

But then again, how many words can u rime with "Pay" and still mean something meaningful

So, this would mean we now have multiple choice at checkouts

A virtual account number seems good though, but only if Google did it right.

 

[Oletros]

I added the numbers to make it easier to answer your question.



It was at step 4.

See Google let Trevor know that they know who likes bananas.

The fact that Bob's information wasn't directly handed over to Trevor doesn't mean that it wasn't sold.

The only difference between how you and Google define "sell" is the number of times Trevor has to pay.

So, the fact is that information is never shown to advertisers, Trevor name doesn't even have place in the equation but you still say that information is sold to other companies.

And I thought that creationists have great inventive, but you win them bending the terms

 

[coolfactor]

Apple just needs to suck it up on cloud pricing. They are embarrassingly stingy when it comes to cloud storage. And if they're going to continue to sell 16GB devices then they need to offer more and cheaper cloud offerings.

$0.99 a month for 20GB? How is that stingy? $11.88 a year! People spend more than that on gourmet coffees in 3 days!

 

[DerekAndonian]

I feel like the bigger story is the name not having a sweet attached to it.

It will when it officially gets here. Lollipop was known as "Android L" at this point last year...

 

[Kajje]

I don't mind to swipe the plastic for additional perks and services however...

Today my iCloud (and iTunes) account is connected to my iPhone, 2 iPads, 2 iMacs and a Macbook Air.

Having bought the better part of 1 TB of premium, high priced silicon on portable iDevices the past years, I'd appreciate Apple giving me some love back in the form of iCloud storage credit.

 

[4jasontv]

So, the fact is that information is never shown to advertisers, Trevor name doesn't even have place in the equation but you still say that information is sold to other companies.

And I thought that creationists have great inventive, but you win them bending the terms

Trevor is half of the equation. If Trevor doesn't exist then Google doesn't have a customer and Bob doesn't have a phone to use. Why is that even being discussed? Of course Trevor is a factor here. He paid Google for access to Bob.

Simply put, if Google profits off their knowledge of Bob via a transaction with Trevor then yes, Google sold Bob to Trevor. Just because the only thing Trevor received was a promise that Bob would be informed about Trevor's company doesn't mean Trevor didn't buy Bob, it just means Trevor is bad at negotiating with Google. Regardless of what Trevor got out of the deal, it doesn't take Google of the hook for what they did. They sold the information they had about Bob to Trevor.

Google makes and sells mailing lists the same way Coke makes and sells soda.

When Coke sells you a drink they don't give you the recipe, they give you a prepared mixture of sugar water. Why? So they can sell you another one the next time your thirsty.

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$0.99 a month for 20GB? How is that stingy? $11.88 a year! People spend more than that on gourmet coffees in 3 days!

That is a completely valid point. Can you help me understand a related issue?

Why do they offer 5 GB for free per account and not per device attached to the account? It seems like it would make more sense to charge $0.99 a year for 5 GB just to disconnect any notion that buying a device gets you something free.

 

[Lictor]

They SAY that's how they use it. Of course, you are taking their word for it. In addition, they reserve the right to change the terms of service at any time.

Yes, this is the risk... But they're not that good at collecting user data... For instance, Google cannot even figure out anymore in what country I live - Google Search most of the time gives me results in the USA even though I don't live there.

I don't know how good is the ads targeting in gmail or the like, since I never see ads. I have adblock and ads are blocked anyway at my ISP level (my ISP is in a fight with Google over bandwidth use and they put an option to kill their ads right from the Internet box as a leverage). But I receive a lot of emails and back when I still saw ads, they were very poorly targeted, sometimes even worse than TV.

I think Facebook is way better than Google at this game, especially since they partnered with coupon companies from the physical world - they're now pretty good at matching what you do on Facebook and what you shop in your supermarket for instance. And Facebook has access to much more structured informations than Google.

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The only difference between how you and Google define "sell" is the number of times Trevor has to pay.

"Sell" is not the right word. Google rents user information, it doesn't sell them. You will have to pay every single time you want to use user information.

 

[4jasontv]

"Sell" is not the right word. Google rents user information, it doesn't sell them. You will have to pay every single time you want to use user information.

I'm not sure rent is the right word either. Google pimps user information?

 

[Ubuntu]

I appreciate all companies copy each other but this is pretty crazy:

• Individual app permissions (similar to how an iOS app must ask the user for permission to use their camera etc)
• Android Pay - enough said
• Doze - the OS reduces the energy consumption of apps in the background based on what they're doing, much like how iOS has done (despite it being lamented as not being real multitasking)
• A photo apps dedicated to cloud photo libraries - my question is how are they making money on it? Is it an advert/user data approach?

I just find it remarkable how it seems that Apple and Google are both heading to the same destination. Apple has copied Google a lot in order to open up iOS, and google has copied Apple a lot in order to add some restraints to Android.

Pretty interesting stuff, it's a great time to be a smartphone user.

 

[Michael CM1]

And why this news is on Macrumors site!!!? )

As much as I can't stand most of Google, it's pretty relevant if maybe you own an Android-based phone and iPad or vice versa. Android Pay (and S Pay) is going to help make Apple Pay accepted more places just because of increased consumer demand. If you look at the comments, it's obvious that plenty of Apple users want to use the photo storage.

 

[Gaspode67]

Simply put, if Google profits off their knowledge of Bob via a transaction with Trevor then yes, Google sold Bob to Trevor.

Complete garbage. What Google have sold is access to a target market, exactly as adverts on TV or in newspapers and magazines are sold. TV companies, publishers, et al do tons of market research in order to sell their advertising space to companies based on the profiles of the viewer/reader. Google (And Apple too with iAds) are no different. They offer to advertisers space that matches the demographic that best suits their products.

 

[PixieScott]

Why are people so bitter over Google? It's unlikely Google hoodwinked you into forking out money for something since most of their products are free.

If it's advertising that is bothering you then I guess you give up TVs,newspapers and oh Apple devices as well because iAd isn't just a fancy name for a feature but yes that's right for ADVERTISEMENTS. Also just like newspapers have ads contribute majorly to their bottomline does not make them a 'people-as-a-product' industry. Since a large chunk of internet is ad supported I guess 2/3rds of the internet too subscribe to the 'people-as-a-product' party line. Even Spotify Free largely survives on ads but by the logic of some they are an advertisement company and not in the technology/music industry.

Google doesn't sell your data. Your data is encrypted to them and anonymized to bidders. Infact they don't even see specific profiles. It goes something like this - Target ads to people in UK who search for cars and are likely 18-24. Do you feel your privacy was compromised with that? Do you know that credit card companies track your purchases to improve their fraud detection system like Gmail does for email to counter spam? If you plan on being paranoid then you might want to hide your money under your pillow since banks could go down too

What maybe you take an issue with is being tracked for advertising? Welcome to the internet. All ad networks do it, some just do it better while some do it intrusively ( looking at you Facebook ) . iAd tracks as well and you can opt out ( here https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074 ) of it just like you can opt out of Google so not sure what your grievance is really?

What do you really want Google to do ? They offer services for free. No one is forced to use them. The trade off them being free is you get ads. There is no free lunch. If ads bother you, you could change to Bing because there won't be ads right?...oh. You could use Yahoo Mail because no ads ..? If your concern is NSA and if you think you are any safer being on Apple then you simply need education.

I'm glad at least posters here are level headed to realize that both these companies are duking it out for their self interests but its the consumers benefiting most from the increased competition. We've already seen what happens when a company is given a free reign ( Windows,Internet Explorer..). Why do people get worked up over who invented what first? It matters to no one apart from some people who feeling a sense of accomplishment on winning an internet argument. Just enjoy the ride whichever roller coaster you are on.

Coming back to the IO, it was pretty lackluster. Highlight being Now on tap which is Google's attempt at wrestling back control of their mobile destiny. I find it one of those features that would come in handy. All the other stuff didn't seem headline worthy either they were expected, polishes or not fancy.

 

[vincebio]

Googlerumors

Well done macrumors, sorry Googlerumors, a full size article.

whats happened to this site?

very poor.

 

[the-msa]

Exactly! They all copy each other. However apart from on tap, nothing sounded that interesting to me, maybe because I already have it all on ios. It didn't entice me to pick up any android devices.

I hope WWDC is more interesting.

btw, did anyone yelled "evil apple, all they do is copy google" when they copied 3rd party keyboards, share screen integration, widgets or icloud drive?

 

[samcraig]

So you would be ok with Windows Pay?

Are you suggesting I shouldn't be? Why should/would I care if Microsoft creates a "Windows Pay"?

 

[jlwarlow]

I'm guessing this is only in the US for now It's not available in the UK yet.

I guess it just took a while for the App store to release it. I downloaded it this morning on my 5s.

I'm impressed, simple interface and uploads my photos (all less than 16 mega-pixel) for free!

Hopefully Apple with change the iCloud pricing at WWDC, with Google Photos, Flickr and others offering more competitive pricing, Apple need to do something!

 

[diamond.g]

It's also a shame that the carriers in the states always want a piece of the pie and probably won't enable this on most Android smartphones in the U.S. in favor of their own initiatives. Similar to Google Wallet. :-/

Google bought SoftCard (Formerly ISIS) so this shouldn't be an issue anymore. Plus they have that whole HCE thing going for them.

 

[MacMulti]

To imitate success, one has to innovate by copying the name too...

 

[4jasontv]

Complete garbage. What Google have sold is access to a target market, exactly as adverts on TV or in newspapers and magazines are sold. TV companies, publishers, et al do tons of market research in order to sell their advertising space to companies based on the profiles of the viewer/reader. Google (And Apple too with iAds) are no different. They offer to advertisers space that matches the demographic that best suits their products.

They don't do market research. They literally* read your mail, tap your phone, and follow your car. The very things that make them for efficient and accurate are what make them disturbing and distasteful.

*I didn't actually need to use this word to make my point, but I doubt there has ever been a time its more accurate.

 

[Gaspode67]

They don't do market research. They literally* read your mail, tap your phone, and follow your car. The very things that make them for efficient and accurate are what make them disturbing and distasteful.

*I didn't actually need to use this word to make my point, but I doubt there has ever been a time its more accurate.

Nice attempt to side-step the point I made, but you've failed. My point was that Google and Apple sell advertising space, not as you claimed, selling "Bob to Trevor" in the example given. Both companies use similar methods to learn about the users and their preferences, so that they can sell advertising space a competitive rates to companies. They don't give out information about a User to a company wanting to advertise.

They sell targeted advertising space.

 

[numlock]

$0.99 a month for 20GB? How is that stingy? $11.88 a year! People spend more than that on gourmet coffees in 3 days!

they are not in a vacuum though. one could argue that even getting a single KB of storage somewhere for free is good value.

 

[uid15]

Why would I trust Google, the nosey, prying company, with my personal photos? Additionally, they are known to start new projects for fun, and then abandon them 6 months later (the rule, rather than the exception), and so I am risking my photos disappearing... so tell me again... why should I trust Google, when Flickr - a known quantity who give you 1TB free, are in business, and have been for many years without issues?

 

[Oletros]

Trevor is half of the equation. If Trevor doesn't exist then Google doesn't have a customer and Bob doesn't have a phone to use. Why is that even being discussed? Of course Trevor is a factor here. He paid Google for access to Bob.

Trevor doesn't have access to Bob, if you disagree, please link to any source stating that Trevor has access to Bob.

Simply put, if Google profits off their knowledge of Bob via a transaction with Trevor then yes, Google sold Bob to Trevor.

Very funny bending of fact, Google is not selling Bob.

Just because the only thing Trevor received was a promise that Bob would be informed about Trevor's company doesn't mean Trevor didn't buy Bob,

Yes, it means exactly that

it just means Trevor is bad at negotiating with Google. Regardless of what Trevor got out of the deal, it doesn't take Google of the hook for what they did. They sold the information they had about Bob to Trevor.

No, they don't sell any information. If you don't agree, please link us to any source sating that any type of information is sold

Google makes and sells mailing lists the same way Coke makes and sells soda.

Google don't sell any mail list, if you disagree you can link to any source stating that they sell that

When Coke sells you a drink they don't give you the recipe, they give you a prepared mixture of sugar water. Why? So they can sell you another one the next time your thirsty.

Yes, this is exactly what Google does, they sell AD SPACE, nothing more, nothing les. And they can sell again and again because they don't sell, give or share any information to the ad companies

 

[thekeyring]

it is ridiculous how much apple charges for icloud whether it be for backup or for photos. just give everyone at least 1tb free.

That's the thing. If one of the problems Photos solves is the lack of space on your device, why do they give you less storage than even the 8gb iPhones?