10 things I would like to see in Gingerbread (next Version of Android)

No, I haven’t stopped blogging and I don’t plan to close my blog.
Yes, I will try to blog regularly, but may be less frequently.
No, I didn’t blog for sometime ‘cos I was lazy or ‘cos of lack of subjects.
Yes, I couldn’t blog for long ‘cos of my hectic schedule (not work overload) even when there are lots of things in pipeline, I wanted to write about.
With that said, here is my next blog...

10 things I would like to see in Gingerbread

Since the iPhone 4 buzz is slowly settling down, I see a lot of talk about the next version of Android, code named Gingerbread in tech circles. After reading most of the articles and the rumors, the only thing I am sure about the next release of Android OS is that its code name is Gingerbread. You heard it right, that’s about it and everything else is just speculations and rumors. Out of these, the most prominent speculations are,
1. Minimum hardware requirements of the Gingerbread are a 1 GHz CPU & 512 MB of RAM. (2GHz is more like a rumored rumor, if you know what I mean)
2. A completely revamped mind blowing GUI.
3. Support for bigger displays with higher resolutions around 1280 x 760.
4. Release date is mid of Q4 2010, mostly Oct 15th or 16th.

And some of the “really-not-sure” rumors are,
1. Gingerbread is targeted for high end hardware and therefore the devices might be costly.
2. GUI will be similar to current Gallery App.

I couldn’t find any rumors about any OS level changes or support for any new hardware. You might have noticed that I haven’t specified a version number. Some argue that Gingerbread will be 3.0. Some others say its going to be 2.3 since it’ll be a continuation of Froyo (Android 2.2).

What I want to see in Gingerbread is listed below (both new and fixes to current features)
(Note: This is also a “review after 3 months' use of Google Nexus One” too)
1. A revamped Gallery App or at least a faster, smother, bug fixed version. Yeah, you haven’t read wrong. I know the current galley app is one of the best & most hyped (in terms of look & feel) in Android, but it has lots of problems namely,

• It simply won’t show images downloaded through some third party apps.
• Sluggish at times, especially when deleting images. It takes some time for the next image to load and when I navigate to next one, it get stuck in between.
• When selecting and deleting multiple images, it behaves strangely - it shows random images and has to be closed and reopened.
• Sometimes, it just won’t show any images and simply displays the message “Loading new albums”

2. A new UI as given in the speculations sections. A mobile device is mostly about its look and feel and a new UI will be a great boost to Android. I would like to see more glossy icons with lots of reflections without affecting its speed. But if they want to make it like gallery with all the above stated problems, I say no to that.
3. Wireless syncing and ability to join adhoc Wi-Fi networks. It would be nice if a PC can recognize the phone when its near and if we can use an explorer/browser to sync/transfer files.
4. A better Wi-Fi stack – the current stack is not perfect.

• Occasionally it won’t connect automatically to pre-configured hot spots, saying its disabled.
• Sometimes, it won’t scan even if the user issues an explicit scan command.
• Now my work around to the above problems is to turn off & on the Wi-Fi, but I want this issue to be fixed.
• More configurations can be exposed to user.

5. A new music player. Its not that the current one doesn’t serve its purpose, but there is a lot of space for improvement, like a good equalizer or wireless syncing option etc.
6. Support for more video formats and resolutions.
7. All Google Apps directly from Google and not from third parties. E.g. GTasks, Google Docs etc
8. Ability for more ‘screens/desktops’. Now Android supports a total of 5 screens. It would be nice if it gives the option to configure the number of screens.
9. Offline Google maps. I don’t want the whole Google maps stored locally in my phone. But an offline mode will be great which can buffer recently navigated areas.
10. And finally, a phone application/software straight from Google - like iTunes, may be a browser based one, which can do the following things,

• Browse the android phone & SD card
• Convert videos to any android phone specific formats
• Wireless syncing for music, videos, files etc

I came up with this list after being the owner of Google Nexus One for around 3months. Hope to see these features and a lot more in Gingerbread.

My New Toy – Google Nexus One

One thing I really hate about society is ‘others’ telling me what I should do. This applies for everything; I hate others forcing their ideas on me about what I should do with my life or ‘expecting’ me to do stuff in the way they think is the only option, or telling me to ‘follow the crowd’. This is precisely the reason why I hate Apple and its products and that’s why I chose to go with Google Nexus One over Apple iPhone.
I totally agree that iPhone is a trend-setter and it set the standards for the smart phone market. But that doesn’t give them the right to tell people what they should do with their phone. I used to follow iPhone and its evolution closely. Every time I look at one, I wish I had one, but I couldn’t cope up with the idea of enjoying a ‘walled garden’. More than that, I would prefer suicide to being tied up with one carrier for 2 years. I was ready to pay the premium to get an unlocked device, but that won’t free me from Apple telling me how I should use my phone. So I decided to wait for the right device to come by.
Then came Android mobile OS from Google and I was very happy to see something promising coming up. For one of my (masters) subjects last semester, I worked on an android based project. We used HTC Dream and Hero for our projects and needless to say, I was really amazed with HTC Hero. But I didn’t feel it was better than iPhone.

Manufactured by HTC and software & marketing by Google, Nexus one has its brand value, to start with. Even though I did know about Nexus One’s existence for quite some time, I never really focussed my attention towards it. One reason is that its Google’s first ‘physical’ device. They’ve only been to the software before and no matter how good they are at what they do, I believe in thinking twice before investing in technology.
It took me around 2-3 days to finish reading almost all the articles out there about nexus one. By the time I finished, I knew that this is the phone for me. Some of the features of Nexus One which did the trick are,

Business Model – Simple and elegant. Only one place to buy – Google store and one price around the world. I know people will disagree with me on this as Google themselves declared this is not a good model as customers like to see and feel the device before buying. But I love this model, I really do.

Not tied with any carrier - As I pointed out early, I hate going to a carrier’s shop (especially Singtel) and waiting in the long queue. Once you get to the sales person, they treat you like pathetic losers. Also you have to sign in for a 2 year contract and you are adding 2 miserable years to your life. I strongly believe that phones shouldn’t be tied to any carriers and it’s a strong violation of customer rights. Telecom industry in Singapore (and US?) has much to learn from their Indian counterparts.

Device is ‘Open’ - You can do whatever the hell you want with it, literally. You can manage the storage device in your own way. I do manual syncing of songs and my data and Nexus One actually allows that.

Integrated Apps - Since Nexus One comes straight from Google, all of its services like Gmail, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Sky, Gtalk, Google Calendar etc are fully integrated and we can expect full and free lifelong support.

And some of the other ‘much-talked-about’ features (as compared to iPhone) are multi-tasking, bigger & higher resolution (800 x 480) AMOLED display (which is stunning), light-weight, faster processor (1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon, 512MB RAM & flash), 5 megapixel camera, upcoming flash support etc
I got the phone around one week back and I have to admit, it’s changing the way I used to do certain things and I love the experience. It’s really powerful and extremely user friendly. Besides the contact syncing problem I faced (yeah, it’s all in the cloud), it took me zero time to get fully ‘Nexus-ed’.
Even though it is one awesome device, there are many things I would like to see in the future software upgrades. I will be posting a review blog soon about my comments and experience with Nexus One.
Now I believe iPhone has met its match. It happened around 6 months before and a lot of new android based devices are coming out, all of which are one step ahead of iPhone. In China, android devices already outnumber iPhones. All these remind me of the old Apple vs. Microsoft war in the PC market which Apple lost miserably. Let’s wait and see whether history repeats, which is something I am betting on.
More links on Google vs. Apple
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-vs-apple/
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/04/the-dogs-of-war-apple-vs-google-vs-microsoft/

Google: The real Skynet?

I wouldn’t be surprised if one day I hear Google has taken over the world or is going to be the ‘Skynet’ or the ‘Supreme Chancellor Palpatine’ of earth. I have heard stories about identity thefts or conspiracy theories like the CIA tapping personal information like bank accounts, phone records and not to mention the number of movies on this theme. Till recently I believed this is possible only for a high profile security agency or for an expert hacker. Only till I saw Google dashboard.
I read about Google Dashboard in a technical article two days back. It says “I already knew that I use a ton of Google services and they know a lot about me, so seeing it all in one place was more entertaining than scary”. I too didn’t expect it to be this scary. When visited the page, I felt like discovering me all over again and found out many thing which I never noticed doing before. Dashboard contain all the information about my Google account, Gmail account, Blogger account, calendar, contacts, docs, finance, social networking, latitude, search/web history, wave and the list goes on and on. Any person who can log in to my Google dashboard can easily get to know me, even more than I know about myself, like my account details , my schedule, my contacts, the documents I was working on, my financial portfolio, my friends, my location and even I do daily in the internet.

Video about Google Dashboard

I also knew that Google ‘knew’ many things about me. But seeing all of it in one location is scary. I know people who store confidential data like their bank account numbers, passwords etc in their Gmail account because they ‘know’ it’s safe and globally accessible. But, all one need is a simple password for your Google account and the consequences can be disastrous. The extra level of protection offered by Google is asking your password, one more time.
On the positive side (for Google lovers), dashboard is one big help. There is now a single place where you can manage all your Google accounts with easiness. Also, it provides a simple solution to find out what we are doing in the internet.
No matter whether you think this is a boon or a curse, it really made me think how much personal information I can safely put in the internet, if I am concerned about my privacy.
Links
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/transparency-choice-and-control-now.html
http://www.google.com/dashboard