All Things Android - Apps, Phones, Tablets - Discussion

I think Zune also used Helvetica Neue. It's a VERY fashionable font right now. I didn't think of iOS at all with that font choice.

If Apple wanted an exclusive font, they could have used one of their own creation, like the Ford logo. They didn't. They chose one particular variety of one of the most popular sans-serif fonts in the world.

EDIT: Also, Apple isn't even currently using Helvetica Neue Ultra Light in iOS 7. They're using Helvetica Neue. Why aren't you accusing iOS 7 of copying Zune's font choice, if tech companies get to lay rights to varieties of Helvetica?

As for Gaussian blur used to distinguish foreground from background, wasn't that used in Windows Vista and Windows 7 before it was used in iOS 7?

I guess I'm just annoyed that in the era of the Note Pro 3 and Note Pro 12.2--the diametric opposite of Apple's approach to mobile--that every detail of every Samsung product STILL gets picked over to see if a font, if a visual effect, etc, is similar to something Apple has done, Even when Apple wasn't the first or only and even when Apple has no IP rights in the font or visual effect at issue. What do you want...Samsung to make a list of every font, every color scheme, every visual effect that Apple has ever used, and never use anything on that list?

 

Because Zune used Segoe UI Light. Microsoft custom made a sans-serif font just for mobile applications, and for high-density display applications... and that was Segoe UI Light. It is the primary font used in Windows Phone 8. Just like certain parts of Windows 7 and most all Metro parts of Windows 8.

No, I just want originality. That's not too much to ask. As for font choices, I'm not impressed. I do like the ring UI though.

I'm not being as critical as you think I am. I'm just asking for something completely original. Something Samsung's UI isn't, IMO. It's got potential for a beginning interface, though. It's the initial UI that draws criticism, the second iteration that draws critique, and the third that draws maturity. It's the design process. There is UI/UX other than anything Apple has ever introduced with iOS, ever. There is still much to be done with mobile. It's just that Samsung still has yet to really pull a genuinely original design out of their portfolio (except for the barf you might call TouchWiz). I think if they persist with this UI stream, they have potential... but every time I've expected something from Samsung, they've let me down.

But again, that's my opinion.

 

Yeah, because THIS:



is clearly a rip-off of THIS:

That's because you're acting like Apple owns a font that it doesn't own. Also, there's a LOT more to Milk Music than the font used in the song name. My review didn't even mention font choices, because that hadn't even occurred to me as something people would consider as a primary criticism of the music service or the app.

"Samsung has never done anything original with Android, other than their Android skin."

 

I've been a One subscriber for the last 18 months or so. I listen to it daily, and I got tired of hearing ads for runescape (or whatever the heck it was) every 5 minutes. My issue is that is doesn't allow unlimited skips which makes no sense to me when I'm paying for it. It's like ads on Hulu + subscriptions. That's why I switched to that v1.7 version a while back. I've been using whatever the latest version is on the Play Store lately, and while it works fine on wifi, it takes 10 minutes to load a song on LTE (if it loads at all). I never had this problem on v1.7 and my connection is perfectly fine with other streaming apps/speedtest/etc.

So, I want to try another .apk to see if my loading issues go away and to remove the skip limit.

And I highly doubt Pandora pays for each play of a song that's what commercial licenses are for

 

Okay, got you, glad you're a Pandora One subscriber, I apologize for the earlier tone. But I've never heard a single ad after subscribing...I'm using the standard Android app (and the desktop browser on my PC). Are you sure you're logged in to your One account?

The skip limit is a condition of Pandora's license with the record companies, not just a feature of the app itself. So I doubt it'll be easy to circumvent.

 

I meant that I signed up to get away from ads. I don't have that problem any more. My problem is the skips. And unlimited skips is an option somehow because i have it on my v1.7 version. I guess I'll just stick to that one until I can research another one later

 

thanks. that seemed to have worked.

 

Le sigh.

I guess UI/UX Design classes and 3 cognitive psyc classes are lying to me.

But you're almost making this personal or something... I'm not trying to make you angry or anything. Just speaking my opinion.

 

You see, your degree is completely useless.
Not that going to lectures makes you a pro of a sudden.

 

I apologize for my tone. Work stress unrelated to this forum, sorry about that.

I guess I just don't understand why you would criticize a company who is leading the way in being the anti-Apple hardware-design-wise (like I said, the Note flagships are the most unlike-Apple mobile devices I can think of) and software-wise (Magazine UX, split-screen multitasking, TouchWiz) and talk about them like they're totally aping Apple ("It screams iOS7 to me. 100%...I just want originality. That's not too much to ask") because their new music app, which is laid out completely unlike iOS7's music app, uses a variety of Helvetica that Apple used in a few previous iOS versions. It came off as brand-bashing to me because the typeface, at most, was the only thing similar between a new Galaxy phone playing Milk Music and a new iPhone playing iTunes Radio.

 

I should have started with the way it works... which mimics iTunes radio in a cognitive structure. Samsung has just laid it out differently, and using Helvetica Neue Ultra Light was really odd, to me, because it's really not a font used outside of Apple devices (there was actually 1000x more use of Helvetica Neue Ultra Light in the iOS 7 betas). It stands out to me as a serious design choice by Apple trying to nail the ultra light "airy" UI/UX, and it was in direct response to, not Samsung or Android, but Microsoft with their use of Segoe UI Light. And then Google went with Roboto Thin. I feel like Apple would have went all the way, except for the accessibility issues of light fonts not being easy enough to see. I feel Google found the right balance of Roboto and Roboto Thin.

I'm kind of a font snob, sorry.

But yea, from a purely design standpoint they are pretty different.

My criticisms are all on Samsung's designers, and it's very, VERY, obvious that the team that put together Milk Music was in no way connected to the TouchWiz UI/UX team. That shows a really large disconnect between the software teams, because they need to be working that design language into their normal UI/UX, not because of Apple, but to just clean up TouchWiz (which is a mess). Samsung has functionality in the bag... they just need design. BADLY.

 

O rly?



I'm getting you this T-Shirt...you can wear it during your rugby matches:

 

I would wear that every day, every where. Once you see this stuff, you can't unsee it. It's just one of those things. Now that I've taken those classes, I see this stuff everywhere and it's not by choice... I just can't filter it out. Fonts and kerning are two of my pet peeves.

 

Oh, HAL!

Do you yell "Did you modify your makefile to include crosscompile toolchain path?" to people on the street?

 

Poor HAL. He is a fontist.

What is your favorite font by the way?

 

Can you explain what you mean by that? And is the cognitive structure that iTunes Radio and Milk Music share not a cognitive structure found in previous streaming radio services like Pandora or Slacker?

 

linaro arm-eabi-4.7.x!!!!!!!!

Segoe WP. Replace "Metro" with Segoe WP and this is exactly why I like it. The only physical thing I can liken that font to is the Nissan Maxima's interior design language circa 2002-2003. Clean, open, airy, contrasting, and functional. That interior was designed in California after the designers studied the ocean waves on the beach.

I'll see if I can get you a flow chart. That's the best way I know how to explain it.

 

Time to slow down for a second, mobile deficient coming through!

My wife has had a Huawei Ascend P6 (with a bunch of China Unicom crap on it) since the end of October, but we're both kind've Android stupid and there's clearly a lot we're not doing right with it. I feel like the right first step would be to get some kind of modified firmware that bypasses the China Unicom crap and allows it to access the Play store among other things, but since it's on China's equivalent of a contract I'm not sure if that would work.

Although the reviews I've read all list 8GB of storage, I think hers only has 4GB - Chinese carriers only subsidize a limited subset of phones and we weren't buying anything nice without a subsidy, so we got the best phone available at the price point. Note that I'm not sure of this, because I have only put about 40 seconds into the question and that didn't involve looking at the packaging, wherever she put it.

So on with the questions:

- We're putting a 16GB MicroSD card in there when it arrives in a couple days. Is it possible to run apps from the SD card? What about setting the SD card as the default storage location for things like photos?
- Based on experience with contract phones from other countries, would installing a vanilla or modded version of Android work without breaking the contract? Is it even possible to do that in the first place? If so, what version/s do people recommend.
- How do we go about managing the phone via PC, or is there any degree of that available. I'm thinking storage of photos and transfer of media primarily, but the more power the better.
- Is there any way to go about finding and killing bloatware on an Android device? Is that something you would want to do anyway?
- Finally, her painstaking work on Plants vs. Zombies 2 went to crap about a month ago - the game runs its loading bar and then craps out and sits in the processes tab (if you open it from there, it does the same thing; if you kill it and run it again, it does the same thing). Is there a way to fix/reinstall the app without losing the save game data?

 

1) I believe you can run from MicroSD, though adunno how fast/slow it is.
2) Running a modded Android shouldn't void the warranty, I've shipped Samsung phones to them with custom ROMs, they've never complained about it. I would say it depends on your phone.
3) Are you talking about just drag/drop inside Windows? You can do it that way.
4) Unless you are pretty much rooted, you can't modify stock firmware/images much.
5) dunno about saved games.

 

Flashing any sort of custom ROM absolutely voids the warranty.
You will sometimes get away with it but you should assume that your warranty is gone when you flash a handset.

That's separate to the contract though, it generally has nothing to do with what ROM you have on your handset.

 

Well what if you flash the stock ROM and firmware back on?

 

Motorola's got a smartwatch. Round face and (unlike Samsung's Gear watches) looks like a traditional watch. From what little I've seen, it looks like it's mainly a portal for Google Now on your wrist.



I personally like the ultra-modern look of the Galaxy Gear Fit more, but still, the Moto 360 is a pretty gorgeous design.

 

Depending on the handset, there can still be signs you've been messing with it.
Not to mention, you won't necessarily be able to flash back to stock so you can't bank on that getting you out of jail.

That's why you should treat flashing as losing your warranty.
If you're not willing to lose it, then don't mess with it.

 

Holy Smokes! I'd definitely wear that. Seriously!!

 

Android Wear is looking good. Having a standard platform for all these wearable devices that are coming out is just what Google needed. From what I've seen so far, the Motorola 360 is one of the only smartwatches I would even consider wearing.

 

Not all Android wear is created equal. I would never wear a Samsung Gear. Looks like a movies prop from the 80's.

The 360 actually looks like a high end watch, which is why I like its design so much.

 

I was referring to the Android Wear platform, not Android smartwatches in general. Having a standardized platform will make interfacing with Android handsets much more smooth and will most likely remove compatibility restrictions (ie: Samsung Galaxy Gear).

Agreed on the design, though. Aesthetically, the Moto360 is far nicer than most competitors on the market now. I think part of that is likely because it's not trying to cram too much into one package. It doesn't seem to have a camera, for instance, and I doubt it has a powerful processor.

 

...

Oh.

Well, that too.

 

I think it's by far the best of the traditionally-shaped watches, leaving the Pebble, Galaxy Gear, Gear Neo, etc in the dust. But my favorite is still the back-to-the-drawing-board design of the Gear Fit:

Spoiler

Also, between a smartwatch that was about notifications and fitness tracking, versus a smartwatch that was about notifications and Google Now, I'd personally take the former. I tried Google Now for a month or so and it never gave me anything useful or insightful, just local weather and minor variations on recent Google searches.

 

And the gear fit is the design I dislike the most. Android Wear is an interesting offshoot. But I would want more functionality. I wouldn't use it for exercise or pedometrics. What I would love to see are control widgets available on the smart gear. Such as, I can be playing music on my device with Poweramp, and be able to play/pause or select a different song, etc. thru Android Wear.

 

Good gravy! How is that not an iPhone knockoff?

On second thought, mods you'd better delete this post.

There are persons in OT who cherish gold-colored smartphones and we wouldn't want them to get any funny ideas...

 

I'm sorry, but that looks NOTHING like an iPhone.

On a second thought, the HTC One 2014 is looking great. It's going to be a tough fight between the Z2 and the One.

 

Forgot about the M8 today, thanks for reminding me. I really wanted to like it and I'd probably be getting it if they had improved the rear camera. I don't like the quality of picture on my gf's M7 and since all they did was add that depth lense, it kinda kills it for me.

 

It's gold. That'll be enough for Apple to sue over.

 

I preordered a dev edition One


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

That HTC is hideous. That's a prime example of how NOT to do a gold color. Looks like it was a pastel white and some wannabe hipster spilled their Starbucks coffee on it.

 

So, I have a verizon google nexus (SCH-i515) phone which is rooted with the bootloader unlocked.

I have been looking around, but based on your guys experience, who has the best ROMs for this phone. It is on the 4.1.2 right now, but I am thinking of moving to kit kat and KLM etc as this would be my secondary playing around phone. I ask since even in Linux there are different variations and I ended up liking Linux MINT which is very close to windows and is updated frequently.



Thinking of updates, are there ROMs (nightly ROMs???) that would update themselves like from kit kat to key lime pie and beyond as Google release them and developers work on them? Or is it like moving from Windows 7 to windows 8 with brand new installations?

 

I have the Sprint version, I put on CM 10.1 with no hassles, runs much smoother than the stock Google image (has the issue with TRIM and overall lag issues).

 

Ok, will try that. I don't think that it should matter, though I can put the sprint PRL if it causes too much problems.

Any suggestions for good camera apps? I have a camera but don't seem to have a phone app.

 

TRIM issue? Is that specific to the Nexus or CM?

 

It's all Galaxy Nexus, something with the code in 4.2.2 and older stock ROMs. But the Verizon (toro) and Sprint (toroplus) versions don't get the OTA vanilla Android updates as fast as the GSM/LTE HSPA+ variant.

 

CNet and Marques Brownlee agree that the new camera is just as bad as the old, and the depth-sensing stuff doesn't actually improve the quality of the photos at all. The samples each provided looked terrible.

What I don't get is why they didn't shrink the bottom bezel when they moved from physical buttons to on-screen buttons. It's just got a big blank swath of bezel above the speaker and below the screen where the buttons used to be.

 

Don't think they hang out in this thread

On a related note, did I hear this right? They're actually making Brokefeed a thing that other Android users can inflict on themselves? Why? Windows Phone envy?

 

Because in Russia and the Middle East, gold is one of the most popular colors for ANYTHING. Cars, phones, even firearms. Gold is as popular there as grey or black are here. Here in the US, Apple is the only company who has advertised a gold (sorry, "champagne") phone, so everyone thinks it's some sort of Apple gimmick. But it's not, really, it's just that the US media started noticing gold phones by other manufacturers after the iPhone 5S (which may have been the first gold-colored phone in the US market). Samsung even made a post about this, highlighting gold models they sold before the iPhone 5S unveil.

Cult of Android - Samsung: We Made Gold Phones Before Apple Ever Did | Cult of Android

 

Interesting. So the TRIM issue is with the Stock Nexus ROM or CyanogenMod?

 

I was there just last year (and mind you, in the city with the most gold), and I never saw anyone with "gold" coloroured stuff.
Sure, maybe some Gazprom execs fancy such stuff, but I doubt any of them would buy HTC phones. Vertu is more their league. Apple close second.

 

I know it's the case in the Middle East; I thought I'd heard the same is true is Russia (and I've seen some photos of custom gold-painted cars), but I'll concede that I could be wrong there.

EDIT: I'm wondering if this had been percolating in the back of my brain (gold-colored Samsung phones for the Russian Olympic team) and got warped a bit (from "gold because they're going to win gold" to "gold because Russians like the color gold").

http://guardianlv.com/2013/09/samsung-galaxy-s4-gold-released-in-middle-east-market/

 

I beg to differ. In the middle east, those phones are real Gold. Here in the US of Imitation, we only have fake gold...a.k.a Champagne colored phones. My thing is, Samsung may have brought out phones in the past in a fools gold color. But obviously it didn't sell well enough for them to continue the trend. But low and behold, Apple brings out a gold-colored iPhone, and the other carriers fall into line offering the same thing.

And that is what bothers me! HTC is mimicking the iPhone's champagne color scheme in order to compete with it. It's pathetic. You compete with superior hardware and lower prices. Not painting your phone fools gold and waiving it about like a dodo-brain, screaming "Look! We got a gold phone too! Look! We got a gold phone too!"

 

That would certainly explain the "budget".

Ah, the US of A. Country of fake food, gold, and boobs!

My thought's exactly! It's not the first time some other company comes up with something good or bad, later shelves it due to bad sales and waits for Apple to release the exact same thing and make a hype about it.

Hey, there are bound to be fools who will fall for that. After all, the whole "white" fad did take off. Who knows, maybe fake gold/champagne is the new white!

 

We don't fall for the fake bewbies. We know they're fake, we just don't care!