Android Tablet Thread: Defend Your Other Purchase

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Android Tablet Thread: Defend Your Other Purchase

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I didn't see it mentioned in the other thread, but Google has started pushing ICS to all US Wifi Xooms, it's no longer in the test phase. The LTE one is expected after Verizon finishes testing.

Google has also posted the ICS binaries for the Xoom (both versions) on their code page.

http://code.google.com/android/nexus/drivers.html

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 06:03

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:19

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Trump posted:

There was something in the last thread about WiFi in ICS and how it doesn't support ad hoc networks. I'm a moron so I need to have this spelled out.

Does this mean I can't use my Galaxy S 2 as a WiFi hotspot for my Prime? (if the signal can penetrate the armor ofcourse)

ICS uses wifi direct which is like an enhanced ad-hoc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

Basically, ad-hoc with discovery.

quote:

Wi-Fi Direct essentially embeds a software access point ("Soft AP"), into any device that wishes to support Direct.[4] The soft AP provides a version of Wi-Fi Protected Setup with its push-button or PIN-based setup.

So, you are going to see more and more stuff support wifi direct in the future.

Keep in mind, I don't think that's the same as the wireless hotspot functionality included in devices. The hotspot functionality included in Android is an actual wifi AP and not using ad-hoc.

For example, on my galaxy nexus, there's Wifi direct under the Wifi menu, but there's a whole separate spot for tethering and creating a wireless hotspot and I'm pretty sure that doesn't use wifi direct.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2012 17:19

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Ferg posted:

Glad they fixed the typing speed issue. I've noticed it's totally fine on my Galaxy Nexus but I didn't want to get my hopes up and see it still sucking on my tablet. I can't believe that one made it out of Google's QA department.

You're assuming they QA'd Honeycomb.

I think as long as it built and didn't brick devices they were happy.

That's said, I'm expecting ICS on my Xoom to behave exactly like ICS on my Galaxy Nexus performance wise (which has been great), there's no real reason why it shouldn't even though the SoC is slighty slower. I can't even say "oh my phone has a lower resolution so I have to lower my expectations for the tablet" since they are only 80 pixels different.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jan 20, 2012

# ¿ Jan 20, 2012 05:55

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

wandler20 posted:

I sent my Xoom off to Verizon to get the 4g upgrade today (put that off far too long). Any chance they will put ICS on it for me? Also, what's the average turnaround on the upgrade?

Ha, you are me. I just got my fedex box today.

When my coworker sent his in, he dropped it off EOD Friday and had it back 9am Weds morning and that was during the rush. So, the turnaround should be pretty quick.

I don't think you'll have ICS on it. It's done but is going through Verizon testing right now. You can always root and install it yourself (you can download the binary directly from google's code page) but I doubt it will be very long now.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2012 22:07

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

SamBishop posted:

Did Verizon add any bloat, or did they just get the option to sell a system with a 3G/4G radio inside?

The later. We're pretty much probably only waiting for for Verizon to clear google to push the update after they do their testing. Google is the source of updates for both the wifi and 3G/4G. As I mentioned previously, Google has posted the update binary for both versions under their page for reference devices.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2012 08:49

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I did a factory wipe of my Xoom before I sent it in for the LTE upgrade.

I got it back yesterday and the amount of setup I did to get back up and running was measured in the time it took me to turn it on and enter my wifi password and google account credentials. That was it. It started redownloading all my apps and no further intervention was required by me. The thing just works out of the box.

If I wanted to I could go hog wild and flash different ROMs and try out different kernels and other customizations, but I don't have to and I haven't really wanted to in the nearly year ownership of it.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jan 28, 2012

# ¿ Jan 28, 2012 19:34

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

My issue with HTML5 video is because it's usually associated with mobile, it becomes a prime target for "lets charge for this because mobile is some sort of special flower that we feel can't have access for free like PCs."

For example. I like to watch each week's Zero Punctuation on my Xoom. However, The Escapist views mobile access as a "premium" feature and the HTML5 video stream is behind a paywall. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with that and I can just watch it in flash as I would on a PC.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2012 21:44

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I know Barnes and Noble added in support for magazines awhile ago in the Nook app.

# ¿ Jan 29, 2012 22:38

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Vagrancy posted:

Rumor mill says Samsung will announce a 11.6 inch Galaxy Tab at MWC next month

That's....odd.

I'm really trying to figure out what the extra inch of screen real estate is really going to give someone.

That just must be the smallest that they can produce a 2560�1600 panel.

# ¿ Jan 30, 2012 20:23

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

ChrisAsmadi posted:

If I connect a USB Mass Storage Drive to my Xoom WiFi via a USB Female-Female adapter, will the OS actually recognize it? Or will I need an additional app for it? Or will it outright not work?

You need an OTG cable. Just a female to female adapter won't do it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_On-The-Go

Amazon has gotten better about labeling those kinds of cables on their website.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=usb+otg&x=0&y=0

I THINK once you have that, drives will be recognized automatically (I'm not 100% sure though.) I do know it will allow for transfer of photos or attaching USB devices like mice, keyboards, or game controllers.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 05:31

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Xoom LTE is getting an update push starting today, but it's not ICS yet. It's a data connectivity maintenance update right now.

I have a suspicion that the Xoom LTE is going to end up going straight to 4.0.4 at the end of Feb like the Galaxy Nexus.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2012 17:43

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The Angry Spaniard posted:

I just noticed the developer settings on my Prime. Is there any point in turning forced GPU rendering for 2d apps? I only find the twitter clients to be kinda sluggish when it comes to UI lag.

It can improve performance of some things. It can also cause some apps to misbehave.

Devs can turn on the acceleration with a flag in their app and if they were built right they should all accelerate fine. That checkbox ignores the flag and just forces them to accelerate.

However, you can get graphical glitches (or crashing) on some apps if it is forced on.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2012 19:27

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Asus doesn't have any carrier agreements in the US, so I doubt it will be sold on contract.

Honestly, I doubt it will be sold at all in the US and will probably just be a variant for overseas.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2012 20:20

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Yeah, the new Tab 2 has the Exynos. Honestly though, that's a pretty significant upgrade over the Tegra 2.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2012 21:10

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The Xoom LTE upgrades are ending March 31st, I would expect the ICS upgrade to come after that.

There has been evidence that ONLY LTE upgraded Xooms are going to get the update moving forward, so it would make sense for them to delay the push until all the upgrades are done.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 16:49

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

golgo13sf posted:

What possible reason could Motorola have for doing this. This is a serious question btw.

Not motorola, google.

Both the Wifi and LTE Xoom are GEDs and get their updates directly from google. I'm guessing they don't want to maintain a separate code branch for the 3g only Xoom.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 17:15

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Rastor posted:

Google isn't going to dump support for people who didn't opt for the LTE upgrade. They may be "rename Android Market to Play Store" stupid but they aren't THAT stupid.

Maybe, but prior to the removal of Toro and Stingray images from Google code page (when they removed CDMA devices) only LTE upgraded Xooms would work with AOSP complied code.

I believe that is still the case on the custom ROM scene. Any AOSP derived ROM for Stingray only works on 4g upgraded Xooms.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 19:40

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

golgo13sf posted:

Are you guys seriously just that beaten down that you can't muster up any outrage anymore?

Why should there be outrage? There have been 9 months send your Xoom into Motorola to get it upgraded to LTE and it's a quick 4 day turnaround to get it back. If you haven't done that, I doubt you are very interested in the ICS upgrade too.

ThermoPhysical posted:

So the only XOOM officially supported by Google is the wifi version because of the whole CDMA thing?

No, it's the same situation as the Galaxy Nexus and Verizon. Google officially supports the LTE Xoom, they just can't distributed the images on their code site due to the CDMA bits necessary.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 20:06

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Rastor posted:

This argument is loving stupid. There is NO loving WAY some Xooms are going to keep getting updates and others aren't (other than the fact of Verizon devices getting updates later than Wifi devices).

We will see. The only thing we have to go on at this point is AOSP builds are not compatible with non-upgraded Xooms. In order for them to support the 3G only Xooms, Google will have to change the code to fix that prior to the release of ICS. It may happen, but to currently available information we just know that AOSP builds don't work with non-LTE upgraded Xooms so it's not a huge leap to make. As far as Google is concerned, there's one model of Verizon Xoom and it has LTE.

golgo13sf posted:

Really? I'm not trolling here, I am trying to figure this attitude out.

You asked why all Xoom owner's aren't outraged. I have nothing to be outraged about. I wasn't wronged. If it turns out that ICS requires the LTE upgrade, it's unfortunate for those who didn't upgrade during the free period. I'm sure motorola will probably still upgrade your Xoom for you for a nominal fee though.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Mar 8, 2012

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 21:02

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Don Lapre posted:

Has anyone torn apart a LTE and an EVDO xoom and seen what they actually do?

They install a hardware module daughter card. Technically, when the upgrade occurs, your Xoom goes from being an MZ600 to an MZ602.

I slightly misspoke before, there is a Team EOS 4.0 AOSP rom out now for the MZ600. It's important to note though that the EOS rom for the MZ600 and MZ602 are completely separate. They are not cross compatible. Unless something changes, two different ROM images will be needed for the MZ600 and MZ602 for ICS. Google DIDN'T have both available when they had the Stingray code posted prior to pulling the CDMA devices so it is unclear that they will be supporting MZ600 going forward.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2012 21:14

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Craptacular! posted:

Best Buy sells a "Xoom Family Edition" with lower power hardware that physically looks like the same Xoom and hasn't been getting Honeycomb updates. I doubt it will get ICS.

Point being, there's more SKUs of Xoom than you realize.

Xoom Family Edition has the rollout slated for Q2.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2012 00:22

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Dell has an ultrabook out now and it looks pretty drat nice actually.

http://www.dell.com/html/global/xps13/xps-13-ultrabook.html?c=us&l=en&s=bsd

# ¿ Mar 12, 2012 23:41

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

It was easily Tegra 2's largest shortcoming, which is surprising considering it's an NVIDIA part.

NVIDIA had some really bad fab issues with the Tegra2 which kept delaying it. The chip was nearly a year late making it's way into products. Had it launched on time (and NVIDIA kept supporting it with well made drivers) it would probably be fondly remembered right now. As it stands though, it was a 9 months late to market, NVIDIA told the dev community to piss off as far as drivers go, and Tegra 3 started sampling not long after the first Tegra 2 products hit the store shelves.

It really would have been a powerhouse against the OMAP3s and early Snapdragons, too bad it was so late. I mean, they showed the drat chip off at CES 2010 and it was late 1st quarter of 2011 before any products came out.

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 24, 2012

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 21:58

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Did they not learn from their mistakes? Kal-El (Tegra 3) was first shown a year ago, and you can still count the number of Tegra 3 products with wide availability on one hand.

The situation with Tegra 3 is still better than tegra 2 by at least 6 months even if it still isn't ideal.

The big difference is, NVIDIA was saying in 2010 that products with tegra 2 will be out by later summer that year and they never materialized.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2012 22:39

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I'm not sure anything revolutionary is going to happen with the headphone jack anytime soon since many people are switching to bluetooth anyways.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2012 15:21

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Verizon has finally approved IMM76K to go out for the LTE Xoom.

http://www.droid-life.com/2012/06/01/ice-cream-sandwich-for-the-xoom-lte-on-verizon-approved/

# ¿ Jun 1, 2012 19:01

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I'm happy now my Xoom LTE is on ICS. The rollout started yesterday, but I didn't feel like waiting so I grabbed the update and manually installed it using an OTA cable.

The update went without incident, but I decided to do a factory reset after it was updated just to ensure that all apps would behave properly.

In general, it's like having a new device. Everything operates much smoother and snappier than on Honeycomb and it's nice having the same OS on my phone and tablet for once.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2012 17:10

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

After seeing some of the hands on stuff, I think I may pre-order one this week. I've been digging the 7" form factor more and more and it would be nice to have something lighter than my Xoom.

The video on Droid Life is interesting, especially the way the notification shade works. It's not 100% phone UI as the shade is concentrated in the center and not the full width of the device. I've also seen picture sin landscape where the back, home and app switching buttons are centered at the bottom rather than being off to one side.

I'm ASSUMING this is going to be the standard UI for 4.1 and not just some special layout for 7" models. Won't know for sure until the Xoom update is pushed out.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2012 21:14

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Google did mention that "other parties" had access to the PDK, so I can only assume Asus is one of them since they made this device. No one is going to have it for about two weeks, so we may hear something before the Nexus 7 starts shipping.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2012 21:20

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

It's entirely possible that Google doesn't see the utility in devices much larger than the 7" form factor for Android. It's obvious that they've geared this device and Jelly Bean towards portrait orientation rather than landscape orientation. By crafting the UI to be closer to the phone form factor, they are trying to push manufacturers toward portrait and smaller devices.

As a Xoom owner, I know portrait is a PITA. The thing is too long for it. Landscape is a much more natural way to hold the device, but it requires two hands for things like reading. This, you can simply palm in portrait and scroll/turn page with your thumb. It seems like a conscious decision to go to this form factor after seeing the success of the Fire and Nook Color/Tablet, leaving the 10" market to the iPad and Microsoft tablets.

It may be a perfectly valid way to go to since they don't want to push devs to develop tablet specific UIs for apps. They are probably going to focus more on intelligent DPI scaling in portrait rather than explicit landscape tablet geared apps.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 01:19

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

I just pulled the trigger on a 16gb Nexus 7. It will be interesting to compare/contrast with my Xoom (especially after it gets Jelly Bean) and I'm just liking the form factor too much to say no.

Also, I really like the fact that the Nexus 7 uses USB charging. One charger to rule them all!

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 01:33

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Maker Of Shoes posted:

It'll probably charge slow as piss but it is a nice addition.

I'm a goon that drinks nothing but Mountain Dew. My piss is very slow.

Well, it's only a 4300 mAh battery. So, it really shouldn't take much longer than a Razr MAXX to charge, (possibly less if the USB charger bundled with it is really high amperage.) This is opposed to the 6500 mAh battery in the Xoom.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 01:43

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

dnbrwn posted:

Do you know if there's a way to upload your own content to the Nexus 7? It seemed to me that it was cloud only...

It should mount as an MTP device like every other post ICS android device.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2012 18:27

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

So, iFixit tore apart a Nexus 7

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus-7-Teardown/9623

This one statement has me scratching my head as I haven't seen it mentioned ANYWHERE else.

quote:

Initially, the Nexus 7 was criticized for its lack of HDMI output. However, the included micro USB-to-HDMI cable solves that problem.

The Verge said that the Nexus 7 didn't support MHL, but it sounds like maybe it's not a hardware issue and just not enabled in that build of JB?

bull3964 fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jul 3, 2012

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 15:00

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

potentiometer posted:

Hah, I just noticed Google billed my CC on the 29th for my N7 preorder, had to go back into gmail and confirm that it was indeed a device that dinged the CC. Anyhow in big red font across the top of the reciept it says "You've made a purchase on Google Play. You will not be charged until your order has shipped" Anybody else see'n any action?

This freaking nookie(CM9) is making me crazy, on a good day I can open two tabs without crashing the browser and grinding to a halt. Any kind 'a luck and i'll be posting about what a great little tablet google makes in a day or two!

Are you sure it's not just a hold on your account? I've had it in the "Pending Charges" of my Amex account since a minute or two after I ordered.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 16:15

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The new Macbook Pro has the issue as well.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/25/retina_display_image_retention_reported_by_new_macbook_pro_owners.html

Some sort of image persistence is going to be unavoidable on IPS displays. We'll just have to see how bad it really is on the shipping units.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 22:36

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

dissss posted:

Is this specific to very high dpi displays? I definitely haven't seen any image retention on my ips desktop monitors or television.

From what I understand, it can get exasperated by heat. So, it's likely not so much the DPI, but the compact packaging we have going on with these gadgets.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2012 23:20

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

The OS is aware of both the resolution and screen size, so it's able to calculate DPI.

So, 1280x800 at 10.1 in gets a different layout than 1280x800 at 7 in which is a different layout still from 1280x720 at 4.65 in.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2012 17:38

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

Matias Duarte talks a bit on tablet specific applications with his interview on The Verge. The tablet app part starts around 5:10 in.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/29/3126644/matias-duarte-on-android-4-1-jelly-bean-and-the-nexus-7

The long and the short of it is, he doesn't want tablet specific apps. He wants apps to use dynamic layout elements such that they respond appropriately to the DPI of the device.

The current Google+ is a good example of this. A 10.1" tablet, 7" tablet, and 4.65" phone are all going to have different layouts even though they have the same screen resolution.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 04:16

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 20:19

bull3964: Nov 18, 2000; DO YOU HEAR THAT? THAT'S THE SOUND OF ME PATTING MYSELF ON THE BACK.

randyest posted:

Are there any non-google app examples of this working well?

Awful app, Netflix, HBO Go, Kindle, Nook, Flixter, and IMDB are a few that come to mind off the bat.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2012 04:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Android Tablet Thread: Defend Your Other Purchase

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