Samsung and Google Delay Android Handset Launch in Wake of Steve Jobs' Death

[soyesenene]

does anyone realize

it just seems to be an excuse, they now know what the specs of the 4S are so they have gone back to the drawing board to try to make it better...

I heart

 

[ConceptVBS]

it just seems to be an excuse, they now know what the specs of the 4S are so they have gone back to the drawing board to try to make it better...

I heart

You cant go back to the drawing board updates all the specs, hire new manufacturing equipment, make new contracts, organize new shift schedules, PR stuff, etc, etc, all in around 2 weeks time.

The Nexus is rumored to be launching in around 2 weeks post the original date. Definitely before November.

Steve Jobs wont be proud of people like yourself who dont show sportmanship at all and accuse others of something that they are clearly not.

It's already clear from some of the leaks on the interweb that the OS and the phone is complete.

Not to mention the announcement for the Oct 11th date was before Apple officially announced its launch date of the iPhone 4s.

 

[KnightWRX]

You cant go back to the drawing board updates all the specs, hire new manufacturing equipment, make new contracts, organize new shift schedules, PR stuff, etc, etc, all in around 2 weeks time.

Anyway, what would they have to update ? Their specs already match or exceed the iPhone 4S. It's not like Apple has just unleashed a whopper of a phone here, it's pretty much par for the course for phones announced and released around spring and summer 2011.

 

[Oletros]

it just seems to be an excuse, they now know what the specs of the 4S are so they have gone back to the drawing board to try to make it better...

I heart

And exactly which specs that the SGSII or the SGSII HD has to be redraw to make it better?

 

[MorphingDragon]

Specs are important. Without specs, there is no user experience. Try driving iOS on a 16 mhz 16 bit chip with no FPU and a graphics processor capable of taking bits in memory and pushing them out to RAMDAC for conversion into an analog stream.

I hope your assembly isn't too rusty...

Apple knows this. They know a dual-core processor and updated GPU will give them freedom to up the experience without introducing lagging or loading times. They know that faster network speeds makes consuming online content more fluid. They know a better camera takes better pictures and bring us that much closer to analog photography quality.

They push the specs as much as the next guy (Core i7! Thunderbolt 10 Gbps both ways! A5 Dual-Core CPU! F/2.4 thingamagig in our camera!) and know that the computing experience is 2 folds : Software and Hardware. If either sad isn't up to par, the experience suffers.

So it's really disingenious of posters here to keep claiming specs don't matter. They do. And this time, while Apple is touting their latest and greatest, everyone can see they barely caught up to the market of 3 months ago. As we move forward, the Android OEMs are already shipping faster and better stuff and Google is getting ready to use that hardware in much update software (have you even seen the ICS preview ? God I want widgets on iOS!

Never said "specs" weren't an integral part of a platform, however they aren't as important or the end-be-all as marketers or some enthusiats would have you believe. You should know quite well all the negative side effects of the spec race most OEMs participate in, you have to deal with them as a Sys-Admin.

Can't vouch for my Assembly, but I'm helping develop Garbage Collection for JStar, which must count for something.

 

[voonyx]

Only Apple fanboys would be complaining and looking for a conspiracy theory when the competition shows respect for Steve.

Only android fanboys would register on an apple centric site to bash apple users.

 

[jacobj]

A touching gesture that deserves admiration.

 

[KnightWRX]

You should know quite well all the negative side effects of the spec race most OEMs participate in, you have to deal with them as a Sys-Admin.

We upgrade based on LTS and lifecycle management, we don't upgrade based on a new device coming out to market.

But for mobile phones, I like the spec race. The faster the specs increase, the more freedom the software guys have to put in demanding stuff. I can really see the day approaching where the "Atrix Concept" becomes widespread. No more need for laptops/desktops/set-top boxes. Either a bunch of dumb docks around the house where you insert your phone or even wireless transmition from the phone to your dumb output devices (TV, monitor, etc..) will be all that is required to run full desktop/TV/mobile experiences.

All from 1 single device.

 

[hchung]

By context you mean even more specs. Gotcha

Specs are important, the entirety of specs like you put it. 1 spec alone means nothing, you need to know the whole package to make an informed decision.

Exactly. (I didn't say specs don't matter.)

The problem is not "No use case", it's "No use case in the US". The world outside is far more advance than the US in this case. In Japan, using your mobile as a cash card is already very common. Look beyond your borders, these are not US only models.

Oh, I know about the world outside this USA bubble. And I've spent weeks at a time in Japan and have many friends who live there.... which brings me back to mobiles as a cash card. As much as it hits the news out here and we think of it as cool innovation in Japanese cell phones, I haven't seen a single person use one. Nor has any native person I've spoken to.

The most popular NFC payment system I've seen has been Suica. It's the green one with the cute penguin. There's a cooperation between them and docomo to bring it to cell phones, and while it has been on the market for a half decade, it doesn't seem to have the widespread adoption us Americans seem to think. I expect this to change eventually with the July release of Mobile Suica for Android.... if there were that many Android phones being sold in Japan.

I'll have to try it out with my Nexus S next time I'm there, since I can't try Google Wallet here. (Damn you, Google for not supporting your phones)

 

[RBR2]

Exactly. (I didn't say specs don't matter.)



Oh, I know about the world outside this USA bubble. And I've spent weeks at a time in Japan and have many friends who live there.... which brings me back to mobiles as a cash card. As much as it hits the news out here and we think of it as cool innovation in Japanese cell phones, I haven't seen a single person use one. Nor has any native person I've spoken to.

The most popular NFC payment system I've seen has been Suica. It's the green one with the cute penguin. There's a cooperation between them and docomo to bring it to cell phones, and while it has been on the market for a half decade, it doesn't seem to have the widespread adoption us Americans seem to think. I expect this to change eventually with the July release of Mobile Suica for Android.... if there were that many Android phones being sold in Japan.

I'll have to try it out with my Nexus S next time I'm there, since I can't try Google Wallet here. (Damn you, Google for not supporting your phones)

Agreed. The U.S. market simply is not prepared to support the NFC system at this time. There is a lot of work to be done by the banks, merchants and security people before it can be widely implemented in the U.S.

People sometimes forget that there is a difference between deploying a technology in the U.S. and some other countries because of, among other issues, scale issues. There were several interesting technologies implemented in Finland, such as pointing your phone at a vending machine and pushing a button to purchase a soda or whatever. Finland only has a small number of banks doing business and a population of something around 5 million people...a bit smaller than metropolitan Houston. Fun as that technology may have been, it was a precursor to more advanced technologies capable of widespread adoption.

Cheers

 

[samcraig]

Marketing is Marketing. And specs matter when they are marketed to matter.

This is why people have 18 megapixel cameras when they are only sharing photos via facebook.

It's why people have quad core computers so they can surf facebook and do their annual taxes.

It's why they have 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio TV when they human eye can't perceive anywhere NEAR such a ratio.

Apple markets the experience over specs. Android tends to favor specs. Both approaches can and do work. If they didn't - Apple wouldn't be as successful and neither would Android. And lest you think Android ISN'T successful - I'd suggest you take a deep breath, swallow - and admit that Android devices sell enough to warrant them the word successful.

 

[RBR2]

Marketing is Marketing. And specs matter when they are marketed to matter.

This is why people have 18 megapixel cameras when they are only sharing photos via facebook.

It's why people have quad core computers so they can surf facebook and do their annual taxes.

It's why they have 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio TV when they human eye can't perceive anywhere NEAR such a ratio.

Apple markets the experience over specs. Android tends to favor specs. Both approaches can and do work. If they didn't - Apple wouldn't be as successful and neither would Android. And lest you think Android ISN'T successful - I'd suggest you take a deep breath, swallow - and admit that Android devices sell enough to warrant them the word successful.

Sure, Android devices are a major segment of the cell phone market. They have a track record of either adopting or allowing others to adopt new technologies rather quickly, sometimes before they are sufficiently mature to either matter or work right on a consistent basis. The subject under discussion is not particularly relevant at this moment because it has not been widely implemented. It may be sometime soon, but we shall see.

On the matter of marketing, it is possible to market specs or various and sundry aspects of the user experience even when they may not matter, but sooner or later the market catches on and realizes what matters and what does not.

A recent example is the release of 95 MB/s write speed SDHC/SDXC cards. They are rather pointless at this time as the overwhelming number of cameras using the SD format cards have proven not to be capable of writing at speeds in excess of 28 MB/s no matter what card is installed in them. In truth a 30 MB/s or 45 MB/s card that costs less will equal the performance of the 95 MB/s card in the real world at the moment, although it certainly does suggest that the card manufacturers are getting prepared for some new camera bodies that should be capable of writing to the media at greater speeds than the present generation of bodies.

 

[KingCrimson]

An example of how clueless Android marketing can be, that new Droid Bionic ad with the woman vs robot fighting and you see some mention of specs? Who is that ad aimed at - horny teenage males? They can't afford a smartphone anyways!

 

[SPUY767]

Everybody will brag when they do have the highest specs. That's a no brainer.

The difference lies in why you have those specs in the first place. Was it just so you can brag? Or does it actually make the product better?

As an engineer and gadget enthusiast, i've learned that specs are meaningless without context. I've learned that having a 1.3 megapixel phone on my Motorola v710 is worthless when the sensor size is minuscule, and the optics are garbage. I've learned that my mom's Casio 7 megapixel digicam is crap compared to my Fuji F31fd 6 megapixel camera because the Fuji's pixel density is lower.
I know my 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4 is pretty much going to get it's butt kicked by a Core Solo clocked at 2 Ghz. And I know that stopped caring about my mouse's dpi somewhere around 900, as long as the sampling rate is over 2500. And I also know that even running OSX 10.5 and the same universal apps on both a PPC and Intel Mac, the Intel Mac is worthless without at least 2GB of RAM while the PPC will be decent at 1GB because usage of the swapfile incurs a heavier penalty on the Intel compared to the PPC.

Feasibility involves making a decision as to whether or not it's worth it.

LTE versus battery life: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/124550/20110318/htc-thunderbolt-review-battery-life.htm
When chipsets improve, Apple will use LTE.

OLED : pixel density, screen door problem, power consumption issues, and color gamut problems (even with the RGBW grid, the W isn't real white because of the way white LEDs are made, and the adding of one more element to the stripe causes other distortions.)
Here's more about the pentile RGBG grid.
http://androidforums.com/android-lo...lcd-vs-qhd-vs-retina-display.html#post2769351

1GB of RAM? : Sure, Apple could add 1GB of ram if they wanted to. But if your platform already performs well on 256megs, it's not like it's a must have. Besides, RAM requires power, so adding more drops standby time. Since the OS kicks sleeping apps out of memory when you're out of memory, and the developers are encouraged to save state to disk, most people wouldn't be able to notice if they came across an iOS device with 1GB of memory.

NFC: No use case most people would care about. I have a NFC phone. The only thing I've done with NFC was turn it off since discovered that the "unknown tag ID" message I kept getting from Google Tags was my credit card. Google Wallet doesn't even support my Nexus S. When Apple thinks of a mindblowingly awesome use case, we'll see NFC on an iPhone.

And so on. Memory cards are harder to explain, but trust me, there's a lot of little details and compromises from the obvious solutions. Even Android has problems with these things.

Most people don't care about specs, they care about experience. The only reason spec wars exist is so that clerks in Verizon store can tell a customer that phone x is better than phone y because it has 7.3 megawidgets vs 6.2 megawidgets. I'll pit pictures taken on my old D40 against pictures taken by a 14 megapixel point and shoot any day.

 

[samcraig]

but sooner or later the market catches on and realizes what matters and what does not.

But not always or you wouldn't keep seeing people upgrading their digital cameras and computers to "powers" that already exceed their needs for usage. Tech savvy customers who do research will always know what the specs mean or don't mean to the bottom line. A lot of the general population get "sold"

 

[MorphingDragon]

We upgrade based on LTS and lifecycle management, we don't upgrade based on a new device coming out to market.

Not always an option for Accounting or Law practitioners.

 

[deV14nt]

The idea of how important experience is reminds me of how great Super AMOLED Plus looks compared to LCDs, even at the older 800x480 resolution. Looks so good, you spring for the big one. That feeling of holding something that looks so amazing in your hand is a great part of the experience, at least to me.

Another is web browsing experience. Certainly better with a bigger, more vivid, higher contrast screen. Better with smoother performance when zooming and panning. Better with complete rendering of webpages, with no gaps. Definitely some important specs involved there, but it's just a better experience.

Those happen to be two parts of the experience that are very important to me. I think they're probably important to most people.

Of course, you're free to form your own opinions (good example at 6:30):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96_4uMsosdc

Maybe your idea of experience is different. Anyway, can't wait for the good news.

 

[KnightWRX]

Agreed. The U.S. market simply is not prepared to support the NFC system at this time. There is a lot of work to be done by the banks, merchants and security people before it can be widely implemented in the U.S.

And thank god people are laying the ground work for it to appear. If no one took the lead, we'd be faced with the eternal chicken and egg problem where banks, merchants and security people wouldn't put in the work because the devices wouldn't be there. And the devices would never come because of lack of support from banks, merchants and security people.

And then when Apple jumps into the bandwagon, they'll be the only ones to have done it right as some will claim here. Of course, everyone else worked hard to lay all the ground work.

Sure this is typical Apple, this is what they did with MP3 players, with Phones, with Tablets.

 

[voonyx]

And thank god people are laying the ground work for it to appear. If no one took the lead, we'd be faced with the eternal chicken and egg problem where banks, merchants and security people wouldn't put in the work because the devices wouldn't be there. And the devices would never come because of lack of support from banks, merchants and security people.

And then when Apple jumps into the bandwagon, they'll be the only ones to have done it right as some will claim here. Of course, everyone else worked hard to lay all the ground work.

Sure this is typical Apple, this is what they did with MP3 players, with Phones, with Tablets.

Nfc is never going to be popular. Its a gimmick. Apple knows this.

 

[Oletros]

Nfc is never going to be popular. Its a gimmick. Apple knows this.

And why it won't be popular?

 

[samcraig]

Nfc is never going to be popular. Its a gimmick. Apple knows this.

Actually there are many applications for NFC beyond payments which pretty much ensure NFC will - in the long term - be successful.

Apple is rarely first - and this will be no exception. They will wait until it's more widespread and then implement it with their own "touch" so to speak.

I don't say that as to intimate that Apple is behind the curve or will take credit (although they probably are and probably will) - I say that because if you look at their history - they take something and bring it to the next "level" of adoption.

Examples (only some) of NFC possibilities include inventory control, price checking, location based offers/social swarming, contact/photo/file exchange, medical charts via bracelets (for patients in the hospital and also for EMT responders) and so on....

It's not just about commerce...and that's why it will be heavily adopted.

 

[voonyx]

And why it won't be popular?

Because its a gimmick. Was that not just said? Maybe apple will throw it in their devices to appease the masses although I don't see it becoming a standard or norm. Samcraig makes good points about its application, however it still seems gimmicky to me.

 

[samcraig]

Because its a gimmick. Was that not just said? Maybe apple will throw it in their devices to appease the masses although I don't see it becoming a standard or norm. Samcraig makes good points about its application, however it still seems gimmicky to me.

NFC is no less gimmicky than voice applications. One is silent communication between devices and the other uses your voice - both can and will be used to achieve results which expedite an experience.

 

[voonyx]

NFC is no less gimmicky than voice applications. One is silent communication between devices and the other uses your voice - both can and will be used to achieve results which expedite an experience.

Voice applications are extremely gimmicky. Yes in theory they can expedite an experience but how many of us are going to speak out loud to our phones? And how many of us are going to run to buy the all new nfc medical bracelets? Its just a gimmick that'll be slow to be adopted and not anything that will catch on.

 

[samcraig]

Voice applications are extremely gimmicky. Yes in theory they can expedite an experience but how many of us are going to speak out loud to our phones? And how many of us are going to run to buy the all new nfc medical bracelets? Its just a gimmick that'll be slow to be adopted and not anything that will catch on.

Well we agree about voice apps.

As for NFC - I'm not as convinced. For one - you don't have to run out and get bracelets when you are admitted to a hospital - they are given to you.

And that's just one application. I firmly believe that at least on the corporate side - NFC will grow. Personal adoption might take longer.

But there are already hotels (for example) using NFC tags in their towels and robes to reduce theft.

NFCs are already in passports - and I am sure drivers licenses are all but a year or two away

ETA: Siri looks "fun" - but all the demos show a LOT of having to press the button to continue/etc. How practical is that. Sure it's less typing - but it's still a lot of manual tasking vs true voice integration. Maybe that will come. Maybe it won't.