Google just announced a new version of their Android operating system, “Ice Cream Sandwich”, and the first phone that will run it, the Galaxy Nexus. Those of you who don’t care about stuff like this can just laugh at the stupidity of those names. The rest of you can read more after the break.
The Kos empire’s new gadget blog has an overview of the new features of Android ICS, as well as an interview with Matias Duarte, Google’s lead designer. This phone will launch exclusively on Verizon in the US.
The phone has a screen that’s bigger than iPhone but has almost the same pixel density as the iPhone’s Retina display. Voice recognition isn’t as well integrated as Siri, but will be faster since it occurs on the phone (rather than being sent to a cloud server for processing). The camera takes pictures instantly — it appears to be faster than the iPhone 4S, and the sample pictures looked just as good as iPhone. Google has done a major overhaul of the look and feel of Android. It’s a lot less clunky looking than previous versions, and it’s clear that people like Duarte are pushing down Android’s nerd quotient and adding a serious focus on usability.
Speaking of usability, the problem with Android is that every device maker fucks it up in their own special way. The Galaxy Nexus is a Google developer phone, so it runs Android the way that Google wants it to run, and it doesn’t have pre-installed Motorola, Samsung or HTC crapware. Unlike those hardware makers, Google also issues updates to its older Nexus devices. Put that all together, and the Galaxy Nexus could be a compelling alternative to iPhone. There is no better mobile mapping application than Google Maps on Android, which has free turn-by-turn navigation, and Gmail just keeps getting better. Those two apps are a huge part of what makes a smartphone a compelling investment.
The big question with this device is battery life. Not only is the screen huge, it also runs on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. Every LTE phone has battery issues, apparently because the first generation LTE radios in those devices are inefficient. There’s no indication that the Galaxy Nexus has a newer radio, because like all the other first generation LTE phones, it’s going to have a thick hump to accommodate its LTE chipset.
I’m in the market for a new phone and this is the only phone that I might choose instead of an iPhone. Though Google recently bought Motorola, yesterday’s launch of Moto’s new Droid Razr showed that Motorola hadn’t cleared it’s old Moto turds from its corporate colon. It will probably be around this time next year before Google’s influence causes that company to deliver phones unburdened by skins and other garbage that make the phone slower, and cause updates to be delayed. Until then, it’s this phone or the iPhone, if you want to avoid the crap that Samsung, Motorola and HTC pack into their phones in a pointless effort to make them better than the stock Google experience.
arguingwithsignposts
Um,
VZW has their own special way of fucking up phones, tyvm. I recall a conversation with a VZW worker re: a bluetooth phone that they had handicapped because they were concerned with bluetooth security on their network. This was a while back, but the Droid 2 has a lot of VZW crap on it too.
mistermix
@arguingwithsignposts: Yeah, supposedly the Nexus phones won’t have pre-installed crapware mandated by Verizon. I don’t know about other limitations, but I share your skepticism.
MikeBoyScout
No?
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@arguingwithsignposts:
However, part of the contract to sell a Google Experience phones — the Nexus series — has been to NOT overly restrict or handicap the phones in those ways. The Nexus series started as the phone for Android developers, and points like ease-of-hacking has always been a quiet hallmark. Indeed, part of the reason you get faster updates on them is because Verizon doesn’t have a say in when the update goes out; its direct from Google.
In short, I’m not as worried about Verizon mucking around with this phone as I am with others in their line-up.
gonzone
Since this is a Google developer phone, it will NOT have any carrier modifications. Google will assume responsibility for updates, etc. instead of the carrier.
I’m not pleased that Verizon is the carrier. I use Credo, which is a Sprint lease. Hmm … maybe I can just swap the chips from my current phone? Anyone?
RosiesDad
I’ve been using a Droid X since switching to Verizon from AT&T last summer. It does most of what I want a phone to do and you are correct–the Google Nav is fantastic–better than the built in GPS in my wife’s Lexus and about as good as what is in my new Acura. I got the phone because my buddy–a self proclaimed computer geek/hacker–said that Android was more hackable and therefore more customizable than the iPhone. And so the new phones were promptly rooted and apps such as Wireless Tether (which allows the phone to run as a WiFi hotspot supporting up to 5 mobile devices without paying Verizon $20/month) were added.
Battery life has always been an issue–you need to consciously shut functions down if you are going to be away from a charger for more than 8 hours. Also, Verizon makes a regular habit of sending OTA (over the air) updates to the phone which would lock up some of the apps that it is running as a rooted device. I inadvertently allowed an OTA update to install Gingerbread and then had to spend a few hours learned how to restore the phone back to the older OS so it could be re-rooted. There are now rooted versions of Gingerbread available but I haven’t bothered installing and the phone regularly asks me if I want to install the new OS that it automatically downloaded some weeks ago.
My major complaint about the phone is that it does not integrate media nearly as elegantly as the iPhone, especially with my Macs. OTOH, there is a reasonable free media playing app (DoubleTwist), a good $5 podcast app (DoggCatcher) and the phone does shoot relatively good pictures and video.
I’m still on the fence about switching back to iPhone when I qualify for upgrade next August but by then, iPhone5 will be on the market and who knows what Google will have coming out of the Motorola pipeline to compete. 10 months is a lifetime with this stuff and for my needs, all of these phones probably do way more than I need them to.
RosiesDad
@gonzone: Credo says that their network will only support the phones they sell. They won’t support unlocked versions of anything else (including iPhone).
Keith
While my winphone has at&t apps preinstalled, no carrier is allowed to modify the UI itself. Make fun of its market share if you want, but it is still a great phone.
el donaldo
I’m also in the market for a new phone on Verizon, and, yep, it’s the Nexus or it’s the iPhone. So I’m getting the iPhone. Goodbye, Palm.
mistermix
@Keith: I won’t make fun of it – Microsoft is doing a good job from what I’ve seen.
@RosiesDad: Yeah, I use Double Twist, which is OK. Supposedly the ICS music player is improved (don’t know about “better” yet), but it’s telling that Google didn’t demo it at last night’s event.
Pigs & Spiders
Even if all else were equal (and I don’t think it is) I’d be choosing the iPhone over the Nexus on the pixel density alone. Once you get to that “Retina display” level, it’s really hard to go back to something less than that on a device you spend A LOT of time staring at a foot from your face.
RSA
So if my new phone freezes up, I won’t be surprised.
This is the flip side to having all the opportunities for improvement in an open system. I have seen some good stuff–for example, on some Android phones it’s possible to confirm that you’re turning it on by swiping your finger or thumb anywhere across the screen, rather than moving a slider, which means that you can do it eyes-free. But bad stuff can easily creep in, too.
Yevgraf
I’m not a tech geek, but like my HTC ok. It was a little tougher to set up than an iPhone, I hear, and the only issue I have (besides the autocorrect on spelling) is that its not synchronizing up to MS exchange – its only taking the download. I gotta talk to our IT dork.
mistermix
@Pigs & Spiders: In case my post wasn’t clear, the pixel density for the Nexus and the iPhone 4S are almost the same (316 vs 326). Other phones are in the low to mid 200 range. So the screen is no longer the issue that it once was.
rageahol
if you dont like the crapware UIs, you don’t have to deal with them. root your phone and install cyanogenmod.
that’s pretty much why you get an android phone in the first place, because it’s easy to hack.
dan
I have a pay-as-you-go phone. What kind of monthly bill would I be looking at if I got this phone? Or some other Android phone?
Or an iphone?
daveX99
As a satisfied user of both an HTC Android (not sure which deliciously named OS is running currently) AND Ubuntu 11.04 (‘Natty Narwhal’), I’d say that the dumber the name the better the OS.
noodler
I’ve been happy with the Motorola Photon 4G android (the “MoPho”).
daveNYC
Huh, I’ve got a cracked screen on my 3GS, so I’ll probably getting the 4S (the ‘S’ stands for ‘same’). My cell is not only my only phone, but it’s also my only partable music player, and it’s the main way I check my web mail, so all in all I’m far more interested in stability than the ability to customize the thing.
Now a tablet OTOH, that I could see going with Android. I just wish someone would start making foreign language learning apps for them that don’t suck balls.
It’d also be nice if they had better code names for the releases. Froyo was kind of cute, but Ice Cream Sandwich? I liked Intel’s old system of using river names.
superking
I would dispute both of these assertions. I have an HTC 4G something-or-other on Sprint, so maybe my phone is filled with the crapware you mention, but I find Google Maps on my Android to be annoying and less efficient to use than than the google maps program on my old Blackberry. It’s also more annoying to use than google maps on the iPhone. Maps, regardless of the operating system, offers free turn-by-turn directions, so I don’t see how that is a particular feature of the Android system. With my android phone, it has a tendency to alter the view of the map with a random tap of the screen, i.e. it goes from a straight overhead view to a 3/4 view or it will turn the compass and upset the normal North/South directions. This pisses me off and is not easily correctable–I basically have to exit the program entirely and restart it.
Gmail, meanwhile, suffers from some of the same problems. Namely, if I open an email and then accidentally tap in the wrong place, I can delete that email (or archive it) with no good way of getting it back. I have found the most efficient way of getting them back is to get on my PC, log in to gmail, and then dig through the trash folder.
The biggest problem with Android is that it’s just a fussy, fidgety operating system. Accidental touches of the screen cause me untold problems. One more than one occasion, for example, it has completely reset my screen customizations. I don’t even know how it does that. And then we have four independent buttons (home, menu, back, and search) on every phone that can interrupt whatever you are trying to do.
Android blows.
mistermix
@superking: Turn-by-turn navigation, which means that the maps software switches into a simpler “driving” screen and announces each turn with a voice as you drive, is only available on Google Maps for Android. There are other free options for iPhone (e.g. Mapquest) but they’re not as nice as Google Maps for free on Android.
The rest sounds like there’s something wrong with your touchscreen.
Judas Escargot
@superking:
I have one of the Sprint/HTC 4G phones, and it does indeed have the ‘crapware’ (I think HTC calls it “Sense”). But I’m one of those weirdos who actually likes the HTC add-ons.
I’m more irritated that Sprint tacks on an additional $10 per 4G phone, when their 4G network is pretty much non-existing. This phone has not once ever tasted a 4G signal: I eventually gave up and just shut that function off permanently, to extend the battery life.
jehrler
Accuracy is really, really important in doing voice commands/recognition. When it works only 80% of the time, while that seems good, it is bad enough that it becomes much less an essential, widespread feature and more single purpose like.
The beauty of Siri is how accurate and flexible it is. I have got to believe that is driven in large measure by the Nuance/Apple AI magic going on in the server.
I find it hard to believe that phone based recognition in any near term phone would ever have the power or sophistication to be as useful/wide ranging as Siri.
In fact, my take on the announcement was that the voice recognition would not be done on the phone but rather that it would still be done on the servers it’s just that the results would not have to wait until the user was completed. If so, that is something that Apple/Nuance could roll out as well with either server or server and phone updates (assuming that it can be made to work without sacrificing accuracy).
And, for turn by turn, although it is not free, the Motion X GPS Drive app is a first rate turn by turn app on the iPhone.
Daveboy
@Judas Escargot: You said it buddy. I pay the 10 bucks too and there’s literally never been a 4G signal on my phone. And it’s not for lack of trying: I have Sprint’s 4g coverage map, and I used that thing like a pirate uses a treasure map: I’ve got into the highlighted areas of Super 4G Coverage and haven’t gotten jack squat.
me
It’s a shame about the locked bootloader (and the Verizon exclusivity) in the RAZR becuase it looks sweet.
RareSanity
As an Android fan myself, I have to admit that I am quite disappointed with ICS.
Not for me personally, but for the operating system as a whole. I a software engineer, I am quite comfortable, with a command line and writing new OSes to my phone, no big deal. However, Google has really done a terrible job on Android, for the user that has absolutely no intention of doing these things.
One could say that the openness of Android, is what allows for all of the customized firmware builds that are available. But the flip side of that is, if Google was doing a better job with Android, would all of these custom firmwares even be needed?
I’ll never get an iPhone, because I can’t imagine, not being able to choose whatever level of customization I would like to use, on something I pay $500+ for (I always buy phones off-contract).
But for the average smartphone user, I can see why the iPhone and even WP7 appeals to them. Sometimes, too many options, can be intimidating and/or confusing. Google has got to do better. Maybe they need two different modes of operation, “simple” and “advanced”, but they have got to figure out a way to make it more appealing to non-geeks.
This point, is what is going to allow Microsoft, to continue to hang around in the smartphone space. They understand that.
@superking:
In your inbox press the menu button, then press “labels”. It will take you to the same view of all of your “folders”, just like the website.
(btw, this is a perfect example of what I’m talking about)
tBone
@mistermix:
Have you tried Amazon’s CloudPlayer? Pretty slick as long as you don’t mind dedicating a day or four to uploading your music (depending on the size of your collection). Haven’t uploaded my collection to Google Music yet, but I’d like to give that a try too.
Re: the revamped Android UI, I’m still not feeling it. I really like the aesthetics of WebOS, which Duarte also worked on, but so far he hasn’t managed to deuglify Android much, and in some cases has made it worse, IMO.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“Huh, I’ve got a cracked screen on my 3GS, so I’ll probably getting the 4S (the ‘S’ stands for ‘same’)”
You can fix the cracked screen with a kit, like this one:
http://www.amazon.com/iPhone-3gS-Screen-Repair-Kit/dp/B002XT355S
They run for about $20. Go for the ones with the screen already installed on a replacement frame so you’re not having to mess around with heat guns to melt the glue holding the screen to the frame.
Plenty of YouTube videos on how to do it. You should repair the screen even if you’re going to buy a 4S so you can sell the 3GS for more money.
Martin
Two points:
1) Android apparently still runs like ass.
Honestly, that’s beyond unacceptable that the primary interface for the device is still this fucked up four versions in. The whole point of touch is the illusion that you are physically moving the screen. Break that illusion, and you break the interface.
2) Siri isn’t voice recognition. It’s what happens after the voice recognition is done. It seems more accurate than Androids voice recognition (even though it’s often using exactly the same Nuance product) because of that layer. Further, it can do more (and will do vastly more as Apple keeps developing it) because of that layer. Metaphorically, Siri is akin to the introduction of the mouse on the Apple Lisa. It’s that big of a interface shift, and we’re that early on in this arc. Apple is betting the farm on this, and the realistic implication of this technology maturing is a shift in consumer expectations for phones/computers from what we have now to ‘computers that do stuff for us’ – because honest-to-God that’s what Siri does. Ask it to ‘remind me to water the plants when I get home’ and that’s exactly what it will do using the GPS on the phone because it knows where ‘home’ is, and it’ll beep and vibrate when you get near your house. It doesn’t care if you instead say ‘remind me when I get home to water the plants’ or ‘when I get home, remind me to water the plants’. Same result. You’ll be able to ask it to ‘reserve a table at Mortons tomorrow at 6’ and it’ll do that through OpenTable. It’ll know that the ‘table … Mortons’ construction refers to a restaurant reservation, it’ll know what service to invoke to perform that action, it’ll know that ‘6’ refers to 6PM, it knows what tomorrow means, and it it knows where you are so it’ll pick the nearest Mortons, your favorite Mortons (maybe the one by your office) if you’ve established a pattern with it, or it’ll ask you to pick between the two nearest if it isn’t sure. It’s capable of doing that now, it’s just that Apple hasn’t re-hooked the OpenTable service back in.
Apple is betting everything on getting the public to demand that kind of thing from all of their consumer devices. They want our expectations for computing to change and they plan on delivering on it. This is seriously cool shit.
tom a.
Google has always had the worst marketing of any big hi-tech company. Considering how much money they have and how innovative they’ve been in their short life-span, it’s odd how they’ve completely dropped the ball on the marketing aspect of their business. They don’t necessarily need it for every product, but so many of their products see short lives because they’re not market well or not marketed at all.
Martin
@tBone:
We’ll see if Google can work out a service like Apple’s upcoming iTunes Match. That’s really a brilliant solution to the problem. For those that don’t know, it’s $25 per year, and iTunes will scan your local music collection and find matching tracks in the iTunes store. If it finds a match, it assumes you have the rights to the song and unlocks it from the store so you can stream/download it. No need to upload. What’s nice is that because it doesn’t care how you got the song (they should call it BitTorrent Amnesty), and because it’s pulling from the source that the labels provide, you get pretty high quality, no DRM, with all metadata accurately filled in, album art, etc., and virtually no uploading cost. Well worth $25. It’ll match 7500 songs for that price. I don’t know if you can pay more to get more songs matched, or if a year out you can match an additional 7500 songs or whatever.
He’s raised a very good overarching point about UI design though – and its one that iOS violates quite badly at times:
If he holds true to this Android is going to make some seriously good progress. And Apple needs to get their shit together because he’s right – it looks juvenile.
RareSanity
@tom a.:
To be fair, Google doesn’t “market” Android, because it does not sell Android.
The marketing is supposed to come from the manufacturers and the wireless carriers. But, you’re right, they are all doing a horrible job.
The whole “Android thing” exploded after Verizon/Motorola did the initial “DROID” marketing campaign. There hasn’t been anything like it since.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Why is it that hardware people are more enamored with software fluff than software companies are?
RareSanity
@Martin:
I think that I read somewhere that there were licensing issues with Google doing that. That’s why they wanted to open their own music store, but not enough of the labels would sign on.
Is that $25 a year for the iTunesMatch, or a one-time fee?
tBone
@Martin:
I don’t think Google has any interest in paying the licensing that would be necessary to launch their own Match-like service, but I suppose the labels might force it on them as a condition of launching their rumored music store.
iTunes Match will do up to 25,000 songs, not 7,500, btw. If they get the matching algorithm working well it will be a really cool service.
It’s an annual fee. Considering it’s basically a pirate amnesty program as Martin said, it’s not a bad deal.
The Raven
Well, see, Google management seems to believe in the magic of the market. Really. They seem to think that providing a marketplace would be enough to unleash creativity. And that’s not true, it turns out. Oh, there’s some good stuff for Android. But the overall result hasn’t been anything of near as high quality as iOS. And–people don’t want to pay for it. Where are developers going to put their best efforts? In the Android market, where some huge fraction of the phones haven’t been updated by the telcos, so that they are constantly writing to older phones, for people who don’t want to pay? Or in the iOS market, where Apple pushes very hard to support the best user experience and keep the iOS devices up to date?
tBone
@Martin:
keith G
Battery life? I bought a few inexpensive replacement batteries? An extra is always with me.
Lurker
@dan:
I’m wondering about this, too. I’d so get an iPhone 4S if I could make it work with my AT&T Pay-as-you-Go setup ($0.10/minute, $5/month for 10MB data). However, it does not look like my pay-as-you-go plan will work with the iPhone at this time.
I’ll probably end up going with last year’s Nexus (the Google Nexus S). It takes a full-size SIM card and — as far as I know — does not require any special iPhone data plan. I hope the Nexus S goes on sale when the Galaxy Nexus comes out.
Arclite
@Daveboy:
Sounds like a class action lawsuit in the making…
RareSanity
@The Raven:
In their defense, Google has started to be a little more proactive in regards to this. At last year’s I/O developer conference, Google basically had representatives from all the major manufacturers in a room. The press release said that the manufacturers and Google were going to be working together, more closely, to insure that updates are rolled-out in a timely manor.
What really happened (most likely), was Google told all of the manufacturers, that if they don’t get their shit together and update phones, Google was going to cut them off from access to the Google branded apps. Which, along with Gmail, Maps, and Navigation, includes the big one, the Android Market.
The press release also said that manufacturers are committing to supporting their phones with updates for at least 18 months, after introduction.
Android’s current structure, is both a blessing and a curse. I get multiple handset and tablets, with multiple manufacturers, at multiple price points. This should be a good thing. However, the downside is, fragmentation is inevitable.
The Other Chuck
I own a Samsung Fascinate from Verizon. Verizon is *uniquely* skilled at taking a good Android phone and absolutely fucking it up. For starters, it removes Google as the search provider, and uses Bing. It’s dead last in Samsung’s glacial update schedule, because they have to re-break the update to continue crippling it with Bing.
Then there’s the Verizon crapware that wants to nickel and dime you with monthly fees for services that are patently inferior to free equivalents.
I finally got sick of it and installed CyanogenMod 7 on it, which itself is quite an adventure (the Fascinate isn’t locked down, but it’s so alien it may as well be). While it’s more responsive in general and I have Google search back, it also has stability problems. Just yesterday, it seemed to be getting kind of warm in my pocket, and I discovered it was stuck in a boot loop. Had to do a battery pull to fix it.
RareSanity
@The Other Chuck:
Au contraire, mon frère…
My former device the T-Mobile Vibrant is the caboose on the Samsung update train. That device has STILL not received an official Gingerbread (2.3) update, the Fascinate has.
Martin
@Lurker:
The full-size SIM can be swapped out/cut down to create the micro SIM. It just has more plastic around it. They’re functionally identical.
And there is no special iPhone data plan on any carrier in the US. All smartphone data plans are identical as far as I’ve found (and I’ve looked pretty far). That’s AT&T, Verizon, Sprint.
Lurker
@Martin:
I hope you’re right. From what I’ve read, an iPhone 4 cannot be used on a pay-as-you-go data plan from AT&T without jailbreaking it. I’m hoping I can make a no-contract iPhone 4S work with a pay-as-you-go plan. If I have to jailbreak it to make it work, I’ll skip the hassle and settle for a Nexus S.
JR in WV
@Yevgraf:
Hey! He’s only a dork if his advice doesn’t help.
Else he’s a geek/nerd! Let’s keep track of positive/negative nyms here!
JR: retired geek