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Tuesday 28 December 2010

Video: New Android Music App [ 28-12-2010 17:15 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: XDA-Devs Translation by: Paul Smith

Android has certainly come along way since that first handset, the G1, debuted all those years ago. One thing that has remained stubbornly poor though is the inbuilt music app that ships with Android. Most Android users start looking for a replacement right away and that's fine, after all that's part of the beauty of Android.

Wouldn't it be nice though if Google just shipped something half decent though? Well back at the Google I/O event earlier this year we caught a glimpse of a rather snazzy looking music app that had all sorts of great features like allowing you to browse your PC music library straight from the handset.

Some expected that new improved app to show up in Gingerbread, but alas it was not to be. However, a new Android music player has leaked out, albeit sans those spiffy wireless access features we saw at I/O, but it's still causing some excitement and the current thinking is that it might ship with Android 3.0 (Honeycomb).

There are some nice aesthetic changes that help to make the app a bit more appealling over the current offering. You might notice in the video below that there is a menu button present in the app at the top right hand corner. That would seem to indicate a move away from the reliance on the hardware buttons of the handset to access such options.

Check out the videos below and if you are feel like you might want to check out the action more directly you can download the apk here. Be warned though, it's not a release product and it is buggy.

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Japanese Paper Says PlayStation Phone On Sale Come Spring [ 28-12-2010 17:11 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Yahoo! Translation by: Paul Smith

PlayStation phone fever has been ramping up over the past month or so with more and more leaked pictures, and various comments and hints dropped by all manner of people. Adding to the hotpot of evidence that the device is very much real and most definitely on its way is Japanese paper Asahi Shimbun, which is saying that the device will be hitting the shops come Spring 2011.

That ties neatly in with previous information that suggests the device will be paraded in front of interested onlookers at MWC and that it will be available to buy sometime in April or so. Until then it's everyone's least favourite game ... the waiting game.

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Angry Birds Dev On Android Fagmentation: It Doesn't Matter [ 28-12-2010 16:55 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: IntoMobile Translation by: Paul Smith

Android may be getting better with each iteration, but fragmentation still remaisn near the top of the list when it comes to listing the platform's faults. Weighing into the debate is Peter Vasterbacka, one of the devs behind uber popular time sync 'Angry Birds'.
Vasterbacka's line is essentially that whilst fragmentation is present in Android it isn't much of a problem, at least not from a dev's perspective. Commenting on critical comments made by Steve Jobs about Andrid fragmentation Vasterbacka said:

Fragmentation on the device side is not a huge problem, but Steve is absolutely right when he says that there are more challenges for developers when working with Android. But that’s fine, developers will figure out how to work any given ecosystem and as long as it doesn’t cause physical pain, it’s ok;-)

Vasterbacka did have a lot of praise for Apple though, saying that they have gotten many things correct with regards to iOS and the App Store. He affirmed that iOS is still the numero uno platform for devs. Android is another platform at the top of the game, but, according to Vasterbacka, it's becoming more and more complex, has too many networks with their fingers in the pie and isn't a friendly place if you want to charge for your app.

As for the other players in the space Vasterbacka summed it up with one word, calling them 'interesting'. In other words they simply don't matter right now in terms of making money or selling content.

Besides Apple and Google, it will be interesting to see how long it will take for Nokia to get their act together. MeeGo is clearly the future there, remains to be seen how big and how soon. HP-Palm webOS is a really cool OS and has been a pleasure developing for that one, but the volume is irrelevant for the time being. Everything else is more or less “interesting” right now, ie no real business to be had, at least not yet.

For now at least Android and iOS are the only shows in town it seems.

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Android Switching To Ext4 [ 28-12-2010 16:36 ]

Author: Irina Turina Source: Ars Technica Translation by: Paul Smith

With the release of Gingerbread, Android 2.3, the OS is getting a new file system ... zzzzzz. Ok I know that sounds highly boring and completely uninteresting, but bear with me.

File systems aren't exactly the sort of tech news that gets most people salivating with desire, I understand that, but this is a pretty big change on the cards for Android. At the moment Android uses a system called YAFFS, which stands for 'Yet Another Flash File System'. With Gingerbread the system will be changing to Ext4. So why is that important?

Well YAFFS uses a single threaded approach to storing files. Now that's all very well and good for simpler phones and other relatively simple flash memory based electronics, but with Android smartphones starting to appear that have dual core processors it would end up creating a 'bottle-neck'. Some may wonder whether higher performance levels in this department are really needed on a smartphone, after all you're hardly going to be handling large amounts of data ...

... oh wait. With camera sensors traversing upwards of 12 MP and HD video playback a norm the data usage is certainly ramping up. That means that better performance from the file system is most definitely something you want.

It's not just speed though because Android, based on Linux as it is, also sufferes from occassional data loss resulting from files that are in use, but not permanently stored. The new file system should do away with that loss.

All in all it's a good thing, you may not immediately notice the difference, hell you may not even care about the difference, but it's definitely a good thing.

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