[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Well, we've all got to feel high-and-mighty about something now, don't we?

Going by your comments, I suppose so.

[starman]

T-Mobile has the S4 for $0 down and $25/mo. Tempted.

[Phileas]

Far as I am concerned, all the non-Nexus devices come with the trade-off of putting up with the manufacturer's and network's crap, which can get annoying, fast.

A Nexus, you buy and then connect it to whatever, wherever, network you want. Updates automatically appear, data gets synched across the google ecosystem. In any ways it just works, the way Apple just works.

Samsung isn't the Apple of the Android world, far from it. If anybody deserves that crown it would be, struggling, HTC. The ONE is a beautiful piece of kit, on par with the iPhone in design and built quality. I'll be getting one the second they get on sale here in Canada.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Going by your comments, I suppose so.

Oh, I do. My phone could totally beat up your phone in a cage match.

Originally Posted by starman 

T-Mobile has the S4 for $0 down and $25/mo. Tempted.

Do it. You can always switch back to your iPhone whenever you want since T-Mobile uses SIM cards.

[Shaddim]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

Far as I am concerned, all the non-Nexus devices come with the trade-off of putting up with the manufacturer's and network's crap, which can get annoying, fast.

A Nexus, you buy and then connect it to whatever, wherever, network you want. Updates automatically appear, data gets synched across the google ecosystem. In any ways it just works, the way Apple just works.

Samsung isn't the Apple of the Android world, far from it. If anybody deserves that crown it would be, struggling, HTC. The ONE is a beautiful piece of kit, on par with the iPhone in design and built quality. I'll be getting one the second they get on sale here in Canada.

I used one for a week and it went back, the battery life wasn't very good and often times it wouldn't last the entire day. Otherwise it was a nice phone, if you like HTC Sense (I don't) or are willing to root it (if I'd kept it I would have).

Originally Posted by starman 

T-Mobile has the S4 for $0 down and $25/mo. Tempted.

It's a great phone, as long as you remove the bloatware. My personal combo is an iPhone 5 (for calls and texts) and a rooted Note 2 (for everything else). The latter makes an awesome mini-tab, though I really want to try some of the larger "phablets" coming out, something in the 6.5-7" area.

[starman]

Turns out the $25/month was ON TOP OF the plan, min. was $50/mo. making it $75/mo.

I'm not giving up my iPhone, this is more for testing, development, and curiosity so there's no way I'm paying that.

Went to BB, they don't sell unlocked phones in the store.

Meh.

[starman]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Do it. You can always switch back to your iPhone whenever you want since T-Mobile uses SIM cards.

They use different sim card types. Was going to get the S4 at BB and swap them when I needed to. Double Meh.

EDIT: Found SIM adapters

[shifuimam]

That sucks. You might consider getting an S3 if you just want something to play with - they can be found on eBay for $250 or so.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Phileas 

Samsung isn't the Apple of the Android world, far from it. If anybody deserves that crown it would be, struggling, HTC. The ONE is a beautiful piece of kit, on par with the iPhone in design and built quality.

I agree.

[subego]

I've always liked HTC.

[starman]

I took a look at the HTC. No 4G/LTE?

EDIT: Bad product page. NM.

[shifuimam]

I personally think HTC has kind of gone down the tubes. My Evo 4G was a definite disappointment.

My comparison between Apple and Samsung is more in regards to popularity, marketing, and general consumer acceptance. Samsung had a big hand in increasing the popularity of Android.

[subego]

I've heard the One is really nice though.

[shifuimam]

I looked at it. It's not a bad piece of hardware, but the lack of a replaceable battery kills it for me.

[subego]

I feel that.

The battery on my iPhone is by far its biggest flaw.

[shifuimam]

Also once in awhile you might really need to do a hard reboot, and pulling the battery is a pretty reliable way to do that.

I saw dozens of iPhones at my Apple Store that were simply frozen, and the customer didn't know the magic button combination to force a hard reboot. Removing the battery makes a lot more sense than having to know button combos, IMO.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Sweetie, go back into your hovel of bitterness and despair. Nobody cares.

I'd really like you to address what I said instead of resorting to lazy condescension.

[shifuimam]

Troll somewhere else. Nobody gives a shit.

This isn't about you and your desire to spread your misery on everyone else.

[subego]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Also once in awhile you might really need to do a hard reboot, and pulling the battery is a pretty reliable way to do that.

Also nice if it takes a dip.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Troll somewhere else. Nobody gives a shit.

This isn't about you and your desire to spread your misery on everyone else.

It'd be nice if you address what I said instead of trying to read into my posts.

[shifuimam]

The only thing "walled garden" about the Chromecast is that, at the moment, Google is using an approval process for what applications can support it. It's also a brand-new device, so passing judgement on it at this point is a little short-sighted.

Apple's approach is far more limiting than Google's in this regard (e.g. with the AppleTV), and you know it. Your comment was nothing but a really shitty attempt at trolling.

Hence, go elsewhere with your pedantry; nobody cares.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

The only thing "walled garden" about the Chromecast is that, at the moment, Google is using an approval process for what applications can support it. It's also a brand-new device, so passing judgement on it at this point is a little short-sighted.

Apple's approach is far more limiting than Google's in this regard (e.g. with the AppleTV), and you know it. Your comment was nothing but a really shitty attempt at trolling.

Apple places NO limits whatsoever on what apps can use an AppleTV for AirPlay (apart from having to run on 10.7 or greater, or on iOS devices). Any developer is free to support custom screens via AirPlay, and if a developer does not, the app will STILL be available through AirPlay screen mirroring. If my device/Mac can display it, it's on AppleTV.

[shifuimam]

I meant the apps available on the device. Sorry I wasn't more specific on that.

[Spheric Harlot]

The Chromecast works as a stand-alone on your TV?

[subego]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Apple places NO limits whatsoever on what apps can use an AppleTV for AirPlay (apart from having to run on 10.7 or greater, or on iOS devices). Any developer is free to support custom screens via AirPlay, and if a developer does not, the app will STILL be available through AirPlay screen mirroring. If my device/Mac can display it, it's on AppleTV.

The models are different. AirPlay has the mobile device do the heavy lifting. Chromecast does the heavy lifting itself.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The Chromecast works as a stand-alone on your TV?

No, but neither can the the AppleTV. You have to have a source of content, unless something changed and you can put content on the device itself and play without needing a network connection.

[Laminar]

I have to have ethernet and optical audio out for my setup though, I can't imagine using such restricted hardware.

[starman]

I just discovered Android's speech-to-text API which I've wished hard would work on iOS. I wrote an app in about 5 minutes that takes my speech and converts it to text. Perfectly.

Wow.

[shifuimam]

Yeah, and the Google voice search is seriously A+.

I'm a little averse to trying any Android app development myself. I haaaaate Java.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

I have to have ethernet and optical audio out for my setup though, I can't imagine using such restricted hardware.

I'm sure, sweetheart. Scuttle along now.

[starman]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Yeah, and the Google voice search is seriously A+.

I'm a little averse to trying any Android app development myself. I haaaaate Java.

Java blows. I hate it. Hate, hate, stabby hate.

[shifuimam]

I have very little experience with it.

It seems really bloated and complicated. I'm not a real programmer, so I like languages that are really easy to learn and use - ColdFusion, Lua, Perl, and C# are all languages I actually like working with.

C++ makes me want to tear my hair out and feed it to my dog. I also looked at Objective C once to see if it might be worth trying my hand and writing some OS 9 apps, and it looked....terrible.

That said, do you have any experience developing Android apps without Java? I know that the Mono framework was ported to Android so you can use C# to write Android apps, but I haven't gotten any further than reading about it in passing.

[starman]

No, just Java. I only started Android development very recently, and the last time I touched Java was 10+ years ago.

Objective C isn't bad. Its memory management is a nightmare - every time you think you have a handle on it (no pun intended) something throws you a curve ball. I really grew to love Obj. C but part of that may be how slick Xcode has become.

[shifuimam]

I just did a quick overview of how the code looks, Hello World, etc., and it scared me away. I've gotten very spoiled by C#. Because it uses the .NET framework, it has a LOT of functionality built in that you have to write libraries for by hand in older languages.

I'd like to TRY objective C at some point, mostly because I really do want to make some nice, modern OS 9 apps (particularly stuff that uses web APIs - it seems like it shouldn't be all that hard to write something that just uses a stream of data from the Internet, like a SimpleNote client application). I don't use OS X enough to have a reason to write any apps for it.

Edit:

http://xamarin.com/monoforandroid

You might take a look at how this works. C# is a freaking dream to work with. I hated programming, even as a hobby, before I started using C#.

[starman]

I never could wrap my head around C#. At the time I was so engrossed in C++ that I didn't see the need to do what I considered to be a "sidegrade" - just toss out one language for another for no good reason.

I will say, Java development does NOT look appetizing. Even for someone like me who's been doing this for 30 years, I just look at an Android app and go "ewwwwww!". Again, I might have been spoiled by Xcode, and to a lesser extent, Visual Studio.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by starman 

I just discovered Android's speech-to-text API which I've wished hard would work on iOS. I wrote an app in about 5 minutes that takes my speech and converts it to text. Perfectly.

Wow.

Works astonishingly well, no? I dictate 90% of my emails and texts these days, just because I can.

[Phileas]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

I used one for a week and it went back, the battery life wasn't very good and often times it wouldn't last the entire day. Otherwise it was a nice phone, if you like HTC Sense (I don't) or are willing to root it (if I'd kept it I would have).

I am talking about the Nexus version, sold by google. I am really not interested in anything else.
From the reviews I've read, the battery life is comparable to the LG Nexus 4, which I am currently using. Not as good as the iPhone but ok for my needs.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by starman 

I never could wrap my head around C#. At the time I was so engrossed in C++ that I didn't see the need to do what I considered to be a "sidegrade" - just toss out one language for another for no good reason.

I will say, Java development does NOT look appetizing. Even for someone like me who's been doing this for 30 years, I just look at an Android app and go "ewwwwww!". Again, I might have been spoiled by Xcode, and to a lesser extent, Visual Studio.

Yeah, I went from doing no application development since early college (web development is a completely different thing and doesn't count in this regard) to using C# to write some utilities for Windows, and it changed my entire perspective on programming. C++ was just too complex for me. If you've been using it for decades, however, I can see why C# would seem pointless, especially since the .NET framework is Windows-only (officially; I understand Mono for OS X is pretty mature).

[BLAZE_MkIV]

C++ is a strange beast when you compare it to C# and Java. Its C roots and self imposed restrictions means you can still get very close to the HW if you need to. Bit bashing in C# is a nightmare. To this day it still has one major advantage of Java, .Net. It's non trivial to decompile the binary. With Java and .Net it takes less that 20 minutes.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

No, but neither can the the AppleTV. You have to have a source of content, unless something changed and you can put content on the device itself and play without needing a network connection.

You do not need another Apple device running to use the AppleTV.

You can rent movies directly from iTunes, you can Directly access YouTube, NBA, and all channels Apple has added to the AppleTV. You can access your entire media library through iTunes Match regardless of whether you have machines running or nearby.

It is a completely different approach, with a much more versatile streaming portfolio. Calling it "limited" in comparison to Chromecast seems like a desperate attempt to bash it to make the Chromecast look good, even though they're different products.

Wasn't the AppleTV available yet in its current form when you worked for Apple? Or did you just manage to ignore it when doing the ASTO?

[shifuimam]

My point is that the AppleTV still requires some kind of active connection to use it. You don't have to have an Apple device, but you DO need a network connection. You asked if Chromecast works stand-alone. No, it doesn't, but neither does the AppleTV. The only devices that you can genuinely say work as a standalone product are those that can store and play media directly on the device, without the need for a network connection and/or other hardware.

The Chromecast isn't even directly competing with the AppleTV - Google TV is a much better direct comparison, and the Google TV is certainly more capable than ATV - you can sideload Android apps, the remote is more functional, and ours is the Sony model with built in Blu-Ray.

Calling the Chromecast limited is just as short-sighted as calling the ATV or GTV limited.

It's a pocketable wireless HDMI device. Trying to make it out to be a piece of crap is just pitiable attempt to make it look bad, I'm guessing out of irritation that Apple didn't think of it first.

ATV has more I/O options. True. ATV also requires a separate power cable and, at the very least, an HDMI cable. When I'm traveling, I want to travel light. Bringing along a Chromecast, which I can use with nothing else but my cell phone, is a hell of a lot nicer than what we've been doing, which is bringing a 12' HDMI cable and a DisplayPort-to-HDMI dongle in order to watch Netflix on the hotel TV.

Trying to say the Chromecast is a shitty device because it's not like the ATV is just stupid and trollish. It's a flipping $35 wireless HDMI dongle. That's awesome, no matter how hard you want to believe it isn't.

[shifuimam]

Originally Posted by BLAZE_MkIV 

C++ is a strange beast when you compare it to C# and Java. Its C roots and self imposed restrictions means you can still get very close to the HW if you need to. Bit bashing in C# is a nightmare. To this day it still has one major advantage of Java, .Net. It's non trivial to decompile the binary. With Java and .Net it takes less that 20 minutes.

They both have their places (C# and C++ that is). C++ is much leaner when writing large applications. C#, on the other hand, makes it very fast and simple to write one-off applications, utilities, and small projects.

If I was a real programmer, I'm sure I'd use C++ a lot more. I'm just a wannabe, though.

[starman]

Anyone want a KitKat?

Android KitKat

[starman]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

Trying to say the Chromecast is a shitty device because it's not like the ATV is just stupid and trollish. It's a flipping $35 wireless HDMI dongle. That's awesome, no matter how hard you want to believe it isn't.

It's not trollish. Chromecast is SEVERELY limited. If it came out of the box with Plex support, THEN I'd be thinking differently about it.

EDIT: And if/when it does have that support, then I'll probably get one.

[Shaddim]

Kitkat? I'd prefer Krispy Kreme.

[shifuimam]

Hold on - the Chromecast JUST came out. Plex is already working on an update to their application to support it.

It didn't come with Plex support out-of-the-box, but that doesn't mean that it's not ever going to support Plex. Not only that, but until the native Android and iOS Plex app supports it, you can stream from the Plex web interface to it.

I wouldn't call it severely limited. It's still in its infancy. I'm already pretty glad we picked up one.

Coming into a thread about Android just to do a drive by "this sucks and I can't possibly imagine using something so limited" is trolling. Nobody's forcing anyone here to buy one. Its existence still has validity, even if someone here doesn't have any interest in buying it.

[shifuimam]

I totally thought that KitKat page was a joke. Are they serious?

[starman]

Originally Posted by shifuimam 

I totally thought that KitKat page was a joke. Are they serious?

Very.

BRANDdroid

[shifuimam]

That's terrible.

Of course, we were trying to think up a "K" dessert the other day - came up emptyhanded. I guess they had no choice...

[starman]

Key Lime Pie