700,000+ per day
There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day.
Awesome news but who’s winning? Short answer: the device/OS that works best for you.
Nuance, do right by my beloved Vlingo!
T.C. Sottek writing for The Verge:
With the acquisition, Nuance says it aims to create natural language interfaces for a variety of devices, including tablets, cars, televisions, navigation devices, music players, and PCs — and since Siri already uses Nuance’s technology, the company stands to make money nearly everywhere voice recognition is used.
The future is bright for voice recognition. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this acquisition as Vlingo is one of my favorite apps on Android.
Source Nuance acquiring Vlingo to accelerate voice recognition software development
Here’s to the Developers
Great job by New Relic, my choice in server monitoring.
Refuse to Lose
It is comical how much of a competition it is for iOS zealots to be #1. I’ve read I’ve still never seen a single person using one in the wild, so I don’t think it’s helping Samsung sell tablets, which is a perfectly fine metric for measuring growth [/sarcasm], and, oh, one of my favorites was how Apple won simply because people are “copying” them. You can Google the past few years and see many of these arguments change. It seems the common thing to do now is dissuade readers into believing the stats don’t matter because You cannot compare Android to an iPhone. That’s comparing an operating system to a hardware device, like we’re not smart enough to know it means “Android-based Smartphones vs iPhone”. It is all an interesting game of checkers. There seems to be a thread flowing through all of these common posts: losing matters. (more…)
The Galaxy Nexus Exceeds My Expectations
Joshua Topolsky writing for The Verge:
The Galaxy Nexus exceeded (and continues to exceed) my expectations as a smartphone. It’s an extremely capable and surprisingly fun piece of gadgetry to have in your pocket, and as a first-rung Google phone, it will likely reap the benefits of the company’s innovations long before other handsets do.
Source The Verge
Why Browser Competition Matters
Everyone benefits from an up-to-date browser.
Today we are sharing our plan to automatically upgrade Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer available for their PC. This is an important step in helping to move the Web forward. We will start in January for customers in Australia and Brazil who have turned on automatic updating via Windows Update. Similar to our release of IE9 earlier this year, we will take a measured approach, scaling up over time.
Source IE to Start Automatic Upgrades across Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7
Acer shrinking product portfolio by two-thirds in 2012
Of course, Acer also makes 42 models of netbooks split across three families, a pair of Chromebooks, and countless tablets, desktops, monitors, projectors, smartphones, and more. So, while two-thirds sounds like a dramatic swing of the axe, Acer will still offer plenty of choice as the company restructures itself around profits and away from the “cheap” grab for marketshare that had been its approach under Acer’s former CEO Gianfranco Lanci.
Great move. I’d like to see more companies do this [hello Samsung].
Source The Verge
2011 Worst Launch Ever Award: Verizon w/ the Galaxy Nexus
Verizon blew this one. Google should NEVER promise Nexus exclusivity to Verizon or anyone else ever again.
That’s all.
Yesterday and Today
Yes…just Flash for mobile but this is how the announcement today comes off to someone who has vehemently defended Flash for Android on blogs, YouTube (here, here, here, and here), etc.
Oh well…doubling down on HTML5 now.
Most Ridiculous Article Award: Apple’s Relentless Push Forward
@daringfireball quoted this:
At a time when most current Android devices — even the ones that will be sold over the holiday shopping season — wont ever have the option to install Android 4.0, Apple is specifically pushing the iOS install base forward. Apple wants all iOS users on iOS 5, not just the ones who buy a brand new device.
I find this post utterly ridiculous. First, he’s speculating and seriously putting himself on a ledge with such a large accusation regarding which devices will get Ice Cream Sandwich [Android 4.0]. Then he goes on to say “Apple wants all iOS users on iOS 5, not just the ones who buy a brand new device.” This is where my ridiculous meter goes off the charts.
There are five versions of the iPhone. Two of those five are getting iOS 5. Now I’m not arguing whether a 3Gs or 3G should get iOS 5 but clearly he’s under a fruit flavored, Kool-aid induced high. Apple in no way wants all iOS users on iOS 5 without them buying an iPhone 4 or 4s [ie – latest hardware]. Furthermore, iOS 5 isn’t the exact same on the 4 and 4s, namely regarding Siri [which could be any number of reasons why it isn’t on the 4]. Let’s return to the article.
iOS 5 is a major turning point for the entire iOS ecosystem. Although Apple has always made it relatively easy — and most often free — to upgrade iOS, users will now be notified of available upgrades and be able to quickly install them right on the device. The 25 million downloads of iOS 5 in the first week of its release will pale in comparison to future upgrades when users won’t even have to plug their device into a computer.
If this is the case, Android has been on this focus for years. Tit-for-tat isn’t my goal in this post but this paragraph seems to be the crux of his statement: OTA updates are the measuring stick of Apple’s relentless focus.
From the sidelines it may look like Android and Windows Phone 7 are quickly catching up — and they are making tremendous strides in the right direction — but the iOS platform is much further ahead than most people realize, and iOS 5 shows that Apple is pushing faster and looking further into the future than ever before.
Catching up? Wow. Even the passionate comments on @tipb aren’t that blind, well…at least not all of them. I’d love to see him break this paragraph down in a separate post showing where Android, specifically, is behind iOS. Each have different features but Android is absolutely not behind iOS, considering this post is about Android 4 [Ice Cream Sandwich].
Recent iPhone commercials have touted; “If you don’t have an iPhone… well, you don’t have an iPhone”. That’s been true since the iPhone was first launched in 2007 and here we are in 2011 with all other mobile platforms still playing from behind. The speed, efficiency, and innovation iOS 5 enables for developers — both 3rd party and Apple’s own software teams — will only widen the gap in 2012.
So the leading smartphone operating system, Android, is playing from behind? Speed [assuming he means hardware] is a win for iOS. It is definitely smooth but it bogs down just like Android. Efficiency is a major win for Android: widgets, quick access to settings, etc. iOS takes more clicks to do similar tasks Android can do in a widget or a with a quick setting. Innovation is subjective. It depends on who you’re asking but I’d give it to Android w/ NFC, cloud features from jump, and the numerous upgrades just announced.
Overall, I utterly disagree with this post. I don’t care to rant too often but this one deserved it. I do my best to call it like I see it and am not blinded by my choice of Android as my mobile OS but enough is enough from Camp Apple. Let’s get real and be objective with our views here people! [I say that after a rant; lol]
HTC, I want a divorce!
[fair warning, this is a rant]
Since Summer 2010 I have been rocking an HTC Evo after leaving my iPhone 4 upgrade with AT&T. I went with the Evo 4G and loved it, even bought my brother, wife, and employee one. Sense is an excellent “overlay” for Android and I missed a ton of the issues many people talked about with Android looking ugly, not being smooth, etc. It is a really nice addition but I do have issues with it. My main issue is the battery and it has moving away from the Evo product line but let’s start with a lighter topic first: updates.
Apple, prove HTML5 is ready!
I LOVE online video. It is amazing to see major events published through a player I’ve built. With the increase of online video and the push to HTML5, I’m still waiting to see HTML5 video used for a high quality, live broadcast.
Since Apple “fully supports” two platforms [see video below], prove HTML5 video is ready by using it for your live event on October 4, 2011. I want to see HTML5 video succeed and who better to do it than the, supposed, leader of the HTML5 movement.
Apple, it is time to prove the 1st platform is fully ready.
Claim Chowder: Cross-compilers Produce Sub-standard Apps
@TiPB reporting on an email from Jobs to a developer:
We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.
@TiPB – Steve Jobs says cross-compilers (like Flash CS5) make sub-standard apps
And let us not forget:
Our motivation is simple – we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform to our developers, and we want them to stand directly on the shoulders of this platform and create the best apps the world has ever seen.
Apple – Thoughts on Flash
But after one day on the App Store:
Just yesterday Machinarium launched in the iPad app store and it has taken a meteoric rise up the charts to number one. This Flash game has been around for a while on the web and it has gotten a massive amount of praise. Now thanks to the Adobe AIR, the folks at Amanita Design were able to publish their Flash game to iOS.
LeeBrimelow.com – Top Paid App for the iPad is Built with Flash
This is only one game but there are plenty of other examples of great apps built with Flash not just running but performing well on iOS hardware and doing well in the App Store.
I love the taste of claim chowder on Friday evenings. 😀 As Lee stated, this story will not get the positive press it deserves; even though the same people love to blog the negative about Steve Apple vs Flash. Tsk tsk.
Adobe Flash Media Server 4.5 Released
This is awesome news! FMS 4.5 brings a TON of features enabling CDNs and content producers to provide iOS support for live, including DVR, and a slough of other things. Just check the notes here:
Key New Features inside Flash Media Server 4.5
– Same Source Video delivery to Apple Devices and Adobe Flash (single workflows to reach both platforms)
– On Demand video packaging / segmenting for HTTP video delivery (no need to pre-package your content)
– Set-level F4M Manifests and Variant M3u8 playlist support
– Simple and robust content protection workflows for HTTP streaming (as easy as saying on or off)
– Live PVR/DVR support for Apple Devices and Adobe Flash with Disk Management (don’t miss that special moment in live)
– Support for Studio-approved DRM with Adobe Flash Access 3 (robust DRM that exceeds your requirements on Desktop and Android)
– Multicast SSM and ASM, with Multicast re-broadcast
– SIP Device support for communication
– P2P support in Flash Media Interactive Server
Sweet stuff! Read more about it and to all of the CDNs…stop upgrading so slow. Get this puppy in production asap!
My Startup Story: Lessons Learned from Ngame.tv
At any point in your history, as a designer or developer, you have thought of a cool idea. This idea would be awesome if you could only get it out there but you never end up doing it or you do it and it fails. What could you do or could you have done to make sure your startup was successful?
Well, I’ve been down this path a few times and I’m going to share my most recent story in the hopes of helping someone avoid mistakes I’ve made or have witnessed in my startup attempts. As a point of reference, I’m going to use my most recent startup involvement: Ngame.tv*. Presently, I’m no longer with Ngame but my learning experience was vast!