Nexus 6

It was logical when Motorola was bought by Google that they would be heavily influenced (both entities) by design, and the pinnacle of that would be in the Nexus line. Rumors of the Nexus line being replaced seem to be on hold for now; we don’t see anything other than Nexus devices, and maybe Sudar Pichai is a bit busy and doesn’t have time to review this just yet.

 

It is indeed a pity that Googlerola as a corporate entity seems short-lived, as Motorola were then re-sold (to Lenovo), but the reasons seem fairly sound.

 

But enter the king and the fruits of this (brief) affair - the Nexus 6.

 

Google tends to use the Nexus line as a platform to explore their new ideas, and the overriding idea here seems to be expansive real estate. This device is big.

 

Its very well made; battery life seems decent for a screen this size, and its a pleasure to hold in the hand. Lollipop is a great update, and Material design is actually quite pleasing to the eye. I can say that the gap between iOS and Android is narrowing incredibly quickly. The differences between the two are starting to distill into how flexible, and crucially, predictable you want the experience to be. Android, as you’d expect, is like a teenager wanting to be flexible, free and able to change their look as they see fit, while iOS feels more like a 33 year old hipster trying to stay cool.

 

Both have their place, and I haven’t yet decided which of the two I prefer more. Thats why, as I have done for the last 5 years or so, I’ll carry both. And if you’re wondering which platform to have in your car, have both - buy a head unit from Parrot.

Q4 2014 review - reality

I had mentioned previously that I was quite excited about the new technology we were going to see in Q4 2014. While we’re not through Q4, enough has happened that its worth summarising things thus far.

 

• The successors to the Moto X and G were released; other than bigger screens, very little else has changed. Understandable, but slightly underwhelming. The Moto360 broke out too, and its distinguishing feature is that its round, and needs to be charged every evening. Hmmm. Again, underwhelming. Am I the only one who doesn’t really get this smart watch category ?
• The Nexus 6, which looks like its being made by Motorola, hasn’t broken cover yet - but its tipped to be even bigger. Yikes!
• The new iPad’s haven’t broken ground, but the iPhone 6’s have, and all the rumours were basically correct. Bravo to Apple on the Apple Watch, rumours of which have been floating but no leaks until release date, which is very impressive. Not as impressive as the watch itself, IMHO. I don’t see the point. It will be the best of a pointless category.
• We had the iOS 8 reboot; and boy oh boy, are we still rebooting. It feels like a series of Microsoft Windows updates. Unreliable, buggy and borked several peoples devices (at least, 8.0.1 did)
• We’re still waiting for Intel to hurry up and release those Broadwell chips. Come on guys, lets hustle a bit. The buzz around the 14nm production process had better yield some damn good results in terms of battery life.

 

Overall, thoroughly underwhelming.

Q4 2014

The last quarter of 2014 (which we’re effectively heading into now) should be interesting from a technology perspective! Its weird, but you get the sense that manufacturers keep all their thunder for Q3/Q4 in order to capitalise on the Thanksgiving/December rush. I would have expected them to shift it earlier to let the market settle and allow smart buyers to plan (these things cumulatively are not cheap after all). But living in the US, I can now see that most of it is catering to the impulsive (and generally misinformed public), and no human impulse is quite so strong as the good feeling you get from perceived savings from a sale - even if its completely artificial. I am expecting to see;

• a follow up to the Moto X and Moto G, both really solid handsets which seem to indicate to me, along with the Moto360 smart watch at least, that Motorola’s mobility division got its groove back (before Google decided to flog them off to Lenovo - lets hope this wasn’t a few hit wonder rush). I doubt I’ll order either (simply because there is nothing wrong with the ones I have), but if you’re looking for a solid Android device, these are pretty awesome; well priced, decent specs and solid build quality! Also relatively unmolested from the manufacturer
• a Nexus 6 running the rebooted Android L. Loads of rumours, no facts. So not going to speculate
• the iPad Air 2, the iPad Mini with Retina 2 and two versions of the iPhone. Again, too many rumours so not going to speculate. To be honest, Apple’s announcements have become pretty stale in this arena and frankly uninspiring. I’m not expecting this to change with this slew; faster, more RAM (maybe) and bigger. Not inspiring
• an Apple Watch - for such a giant in the personal consumer electronics space to not have a wearable is insane; these rumours have been running for more than a year now, and given that all of their rivals have launched, the Cupertino behemoth would be insane to not deliver something to the market - but its going to have to be rather special for me to consider it (thats not to say it won’t sell millions; it will even if its garbage, because it’ll be the “best garbage you’ve ever seen”)
• reboots of the OS X and iOS for computing and mobile devices respectively
• Mass production of Broadwell-based Intel processors. Its time for a new notebook for me (run through the 3 year cycle), and its requiring all of my restraint to wait for the new processor architecture to hit Apple’s devices. Broadwell-based Retina 13” Pro, here we come. While I like the profile of an Air, it just simply does’t have the juice I would like, even though it only gets booted up when not at the office - and with the new architecture, it should comfortably whip the Air for battery life compared to what I’m using now

 

So overall, an exciting time!

Using Republic Wireless

I love the theory of using WiFi as a de facto bearer for voice telephony, with seamless integration and handover to a macro network. The promise of a voice telephony service that utilises WiFi locally, and cellular as a macro network service, is appealing; combined with seamless handover between the mediums and it sounds utopian. Costs should be lower, but more importantly, call quality and reliability should be higher; the carrier could offer SLA’s on calls made on a WiFi bearer, introduce features like HD voice and network core call recording relatively easily and make use of the ever increasing pool of latent capacity on networks, broadband or otherwise.

 

These sound like enterprise features. It sounds like this category is begging to be made. But until someone steps up to the challenge, we have to work with what is in-market right now; that is consumer-grade, and appeals to cost as the primary driver. And that is where Republic Wireless plays.

 

Its been hard to separate the three interwoven threads of the service; there is the Sprint-provided cellular service, the Moto G handset and the Republic Wireless MVNO service. Lets try though.

 

Moto G - This is an awesome device for its price point. The hardware is not the most top end, and it noticeably struggles if you push it even vaguely. The battery life is pretty decent (looks like I could get almost two days out of it), the screen is pretty good quality and overall it feels great in the hand. Other than those points, its a relatively new version of Android (4.4.2), and you can make it look, feel and behave exactly as you see fit.

 

Republic Wireless MVNO - The service experience of using Republic has been pretty awesome. I haven’t once resorted to phoning (good thing, because there is no number to phone), and the entire order and fulfilment process was carried out seamlessly, efficiently and electronically, including porting in a phone number from another carrier. I was kept constantly informed as per the order progress and status, as well as delivery. The user portal is mostly functional (giving you a list of in/out calls, and a bearer breakdown), but could do with some more functionality (like setting your forwards, being able to playback your voicemail, etc). It works though. I changed service plans from WiFi-only to WiFi and cellular in a matter of minutes through their pre-loaded application, a process that normally would require a phone call and three forms. Handover between WiFi and cellular is actually pretty good, and kudos to Republic for not loading the phone with tons of bloat. Its almost completely untouched.

  

Sprint - This is the least tested part of my experience thus far with Republic; but its also most evidently the annoying part. When on cellular, call setup times are long, call quality is not great, and successful call setup is average to poor. When using the phone this weekend, 2 out of 3 call setups in a mall failed. When the same recipient was called from another cellular service (AT&T) the call setup time was near instant (and they’re not on the same network) and all were successfully terminated / answered. I cannot comment on coverage, as I haven’t left San Francisco with it yet. Its not fair to comment on the data side of the service, as I chose the 3G service and not the fancy 4G service (rant : why do US carriers neglect or not bother with their 3G services and instead go full tilt with LTE deployment). Its also entirely possible that Republic chose a choked cellular data service to keep the price low. I therefore cannot comment on the data side.

 

From a costing perspective, this is available for easily half of T-Mobile’s rates, which themselves are, at minimum, 30% cheaper than “mainstream” options (AT&T and Verizon). If I was a consumer, and wanted cellular service, this would be a pretty easy de facto choice; save easily $50 per month, and support an exciting challenger (although it looks like the area is starting to hop up; check out FreedomPop). As a relatively heavy business user however, this doesn’t work as my primary option. Its let down by Sprint’s network. Pity.

Republic Wireless

I had all but forgotten about Republic Wireless, until upcoming travel plans made me realise that I needed to be able to reliably make WiFi calls. So I hopped onto their web site and ordered their entry level phone, a Motorola G. Guess what arrived today :-)

 

More comments about the experience, service and device next week. Now its the fun of setting up a new Android device.

Moto-X

I ordered a Moto-X from Motorola directly last week, and it arrived. Man, what an awesome device! Nice to hold, so far good battery life, and amazing data throughput on T-Mobile's network. The T-Mobile edition of this device is carrier unlocked (tested by putting in my South African Cell-C SIM), so thats a huge win.

 

I really think this is now the Android device of desire; its devoid of that manufacturer-inspired modification of Android that other manufacturers (ala HTC and Samsung) do, which means those devices lag behind in the software upgrade cycle, and it is sanctioned by the owner of Android. Battery life so far is great, the "Ok, Google now" feature is pretty neat (although like its competitors, I wonder how much it'll get used), and the passive notifications that seem to be all the rage are pretty good (although frankly Samsung beat them to it).

 

Most important, it feels amazing in the hand, and audio quality is clear and unencumbered, which is what you'd expect from an old-school manufacturer like Motorola. Now if only it supported such a diverse range of LTE bands as the iPhone 5S does, it would be truly unbeatable. Oh well, lets wait until tomorrow when that behemoth hits.

Xoom running Honeycomb 3.1

I've managed to hack Honeycomb 3.1 onto the Motorola Xoom I am evaluating. The highlights that are outlined are all implemented, and to summarise;

• its faster
• screen transitions are smoother
• Adobe Flash seems to have less impact on the device
• Stock system widgets are now resizeable - duh!
• Most importantly, the e-mail client now actually deletes mail from IMAP servers

 

Its an incremental upgrade and should have been called 3.02. But hey, marketing.

Motorola Xoom review

There are notoriously few decent Android tablets around, and the first tablet-

optimised version called Honeycomb, running on the Motorola Xoom, was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011.

 

I lusted after it immediately, but actual release was only in April 2011. To make matters more complicated, the tablet was launched in partnership with Verizon, which meant a US-centric launch plan. I managed to acquire one, and have spent two weeks with it. I also ordered the Portfolio case, an official accessory.

 

Pro's for the Xoom;

• It doesn't run iOS
• It can multi-task
• It runs a tablet-specific operating system
• Its CPU is dual-core
• It can run for 8 hours continuously

 

Con's however outweigh the pro's;

• There are so few Honeycomb-optimised apps that its not worth buying specifically
• The official case will damage the device over time, and forces you to have it open when charging
• The power button is at the back - very silly place for a power button
• The few apps that do exist require you to be in the US to buy them - pretty useless if you don't live in the US or UK
• Its heavy
• Its expensive

 

Its disappointing, but on the weight of the device (literally) and the lack of optimised applications, I'd have to say that Google missed several really good tricks here. The software is severely buggy (e.g. the e-mail client can't delete mail from an IMAP server), and the lack of a decent app ecosystem makes this a dead duck.

 

In comparison to an Apple iPad (the original), the decision to go with this device was marginal; with the iPad2, you'd have to be an idiot.

Goodbye Milestone, hello opportunity!

So if you remember, I bought a Motorola Milestone from Expansys, and after quite a lot of irritation, decided it was time to go. So I put it on Bidorbuy, Gumtree and Vottle, and managed to sell it for R3500. So, a R1000 hit for a phone that I had used for six months, and managed to learn about Android and what I didn't want in a phone. Not bad school fees.

 

In the meantime, I've borrowed a friend's Apple iPhone 3G, and lets see how that goes!

Android 2.1

Given my unhappiness with Android 2.01, I was surprised at how boring the upgrade would be. I connected about 3 weeks back (on a Windows machine), did the 2.1 upgrade, and realised not much had changed.

Oh well, it seemed pretty important at the time. Now, not so sure. It does bring a lot of stability to the device, at the cost of the occasional reboot. Progress!

Android 2.01

After voicing my irritation, I upgraded to Android 2.0.1, which is essentially a set of bug fixes for Android 2.0. Hooray. Only 2 months after the Droid.

I have also used market-enabler after rooting my device to make it more useful and let me see all the apps - paid and otherwise.

Now there is the news that the bootloader is signed; this means no custom firmware; sigh. This made the press.

In the mean time, its been announced that the Droid will be updated to Android 2.1, albeit with unconfirmed details. Its amazing how badly an old-school manufacturer gets it so wrong so consistently.

Should have bought a Nexus One.

Motorola is usless, but Google is downright naughty

Maybe Motorola should have shut down its mobile division.

While it has produced some great Android devices, tech support for them outside the US has been non-existant. While US consumers have the Droid, EU customers have the Milestone; one is CDMA-based, the other GSM-based, but the insides are technically the same.

But, US consumers have a device running 2.01, and us EU customers have 2.0 ? Shades of Nokia, Motorola. Shame on you! Customers love the hardware, but not the rubbish software support. And going to a stupid Facebook page for updates is extremely poor.

And in addition, Google, you are naughty, naughty, naughty. You forced me to root my phone in order to install market-enabler, which allows me to buy apps from anywhere on the market. So I got the main app I was looking for.

Annoying!

Motorola Milestone

Motorola released a device called the Droid, exclusive to Verizon Wireless in the US. A short while later, they announced the Milestone, a non-Verizon-locked phone.

I ordered one, and have been playing around with it for a week (not long, but long enough).

So, some thoughts.

1. The initial thought is that all smart phones will come this way
   
   • the day of the monolithic phone OS and majority built-in apps is over
   • the phone OS will do very little, but will provide a platform
   • your functionality will come from apps that you download (free or paid)
   • your phone stability might be compromised, as could your information depending on the trust worthiness of the app provider
2. Its not better than my Nokia E75 in many respects, but there is the promise and hope of improvement in the very active Android Market, which is teeming with tons of apps (both rubbish and useful)
   
   • It doesn't allow you send/receive business cards via SMS or e-mail
   • You can't send a file to it via Bluetooth (or receive one)
   • You can't change the sort order from First Name, Last Name for contacts
   • You can't adjust the sync frequency for syncing to the various Google services (e.g. Contacts, Calendar, Mail) and corporate services other than, at most, 1 hour. Weekday/weekend, 4 hour and other options would be nice.
   • Battery life is just as rubbish - 1.5 days, maximum
     
     • But not bad considering its a much bigger screen
   • etc, etc
3. Its fast, and the on-screen keyboard isn't bad - I haven't yet had to resort to the physical keyboard
4. The IMAP and corporate syncing (read Exchange) support is superlative
5. It multi-tasks!
6. Android OS is still immature, and rough around the edges - that's why a manufacturer like HTC spends time and money developing their own UI

All points to a device that requires some polish, both from an OS and app provider perspective. Sounds positive! So what are the negatives ?

1. Come on Motorola, where is Android 2.1 ? Its been out now for at least a week, and this Milestone of mine is still running 2.0. Hell, I'd even be happy with 2.01
2. Come on Google, I thought you were all about "not doing evil" ? Why can I not buy paid applications from the Android Market ? Its only available in some countries.
   
   • There is a way to get around this; use market-enabler, which requires you to hack your phone, which I can't do yet because the phone is still so relatively new

Overall, I'm happy with the device. Should I have waited for the Nexus One ? Nah, I like a keyboard on my devices. I'll pass.

Lets hope Motorola and Google get their act together.

Mobile phone talk

As you might remember, a while ago I bought a Nokia E75.

In summary, its a rubbish device. It irritates me to no end, in spite of re-flashing it to not be a Vodacom-branded device. I updated firmware to 201.12.01, but this promised firmware update that solves all evils still doesn't fundamentally solve the major gripes; bad build quality, lethargic responsiveness and frequent "pauses".

Enough is enough.

So what I've decided to do is to go with the dreaded "two phone" model. I've gotten a Blackberry Bold 9000 to play with, and if I like it, I'll buy the updated 9700. This device will be used as the primary calling and e-mail device; something that Blackberry is apparently excellent at.

But its boring. And I (probably) won't learn anything. So I've also ordered a Motorola Milestone, otherwise known as the Droid in the US market. It looks hot!

• Runs Android
• Made by an old-school phone manufacturer who can't fail
• Has a keyboard
• Has a very cool multimedia docking station
• Is relatively cheap in ZA from Expansys

I know, two phones is dorky. But lets see how it goes. Anything beats my E75.