Android is not a very exciting OS. There are little to no snazzy effect (bouncing scroll?) to hooked and mesmerize you upon the design, and the consistent lag over any interaction with the device is a constant turn-off. At least for me. They might not be noticable for most of the users, but for any person who have looked and used an iOS device for a couple of minutes, you’ll see and feel the difference pretty much instantly.

Yet i’m an Android user. It started two years ago when i decided to buy a new handset, preferably smartphone to upgrade from my (increasingly dumb) Nokia 5200. At that time, i chose Samsung Galaxy Spica, an Android 2.1 (Eclair) device. Why? Well, at that time, i’m still (and still, now) a college student with only money from my parents to support my frivolous lifestyle. I’m not enough of a leech to ask for a $900 smartphone just to quench my thirst for awesome UI. I knew only one thing, at that time to guide my choice: i want to be in a platform for the future. And the option for me is touchscreen vs qwerty device. Blackberry vs Android/iPhone. Easy. I chose Android.

But at that time, although constantly using the device, i never felt any real love for the OS. The green android is cute enough, and it triggers some small attachment to the OS, but the device lags crazily. I need to constantly micro-manage the running apps just to make sure i can open the dialer and sms apps in time to prevent me from throwing up the phone in an output of rage. I bought a Nexus S a year after, and the lag improved, thanks for the much bigger RAM, but oddly the perception of lag’s still there. It’s still not as smooth as the iPhone. And i’m still constantly trying to cheat my Android phone with an iOS device. A loveless marriage.

And i’m still constantly trying to cheat my Android phone with an iOS device. A loveless marriage.

That’s why i was so excited for Jelly Bean after i saw the announcement. I don’t really care about new features that looked more and more like gimmicks (improved facelock, anyone?), or expected a complete new UI since i know Jelly Bean naturally will not be much different to Ice Cream Sandwich. Plus, from time to time i can just switch and flash MIUI on my Nexus S anyway if i feel bored over the UI.

“We did it guys, we’ve made Android as smooth as iOS”

The part of the announcement that made me trully excited was Project Butter. The announcement by the Android team is full of tech jargons and in-detailed explanation, but i know, just by the name itself, this must mean one thing: “We did it guys, we’ve made Android as smooth as iOS”. I know it’s a very embarassing thing for any Android fanboys to admit, but the only thing holding back Android from equaling the iPhone is this perceptive smoothness problem. Yes, there are other problems as well, but for end users who are looking for new phones, when they try both Android and iOS device at the store, assuming they got enough money, they will go for the iPhone. Project Butter, is the equivalent of Yahoo picking Marissa Mayer as the new CEO. It might or might not work; but it will pick interest and change the overall perception from people who already ran away from the OS due to the sentiment that it’s not as smooth as the iPhone.

So i wait. Not for the OTA update, but for people in XDA to port Jelly Bean from whatever device it got first to my Nexus S. I don’t have to do this, though. Having a google-approved handsets made me entitled for at least one to two OS Update without any fear of carriers or Samsung holding back the updates to mess it all up with their own creation (Touchwiz? blah). But i wait anyway, since i knew the port will come sooner than the updates. And it’s proven to be true, since i’ve been using it since two weeks ago, a week sooner than Google official OTA that’s only been out for two days or so.

So how is it? Well, let me just say this: if you have a Jelly Bean on the Nexus S, you’ll be stupid to replace them for any device with ICS. Even if devices like HTC One X or Galaxy S III is obviously better in terms of hardware. But the improvements in smoothness has made me feel like i’m holding a smartphone with dual core processor and 1GB RAM. The truth is it’s a two year old device. Yet it’s how big an improvement this .1 update has given me.

if you have a Jelly Bean on the Nexus S, you’ll be stupid to replace them for any device with ICS

Unfortunately i might be the luckiest of the bunch. Some Android devices will not see this update for months from now. Even if you bought a phone that just got released two to three weeks ago, chances are you’ll not see this update. This is due partly to Android’s own mistakes in previous versions, when Android was too raw for manufacturers to offer it in vanilla. Now that this has become a habit, Google need to do something about this one word that trully become a stupid cliche in every Android article: fragmentation. Any improvements, small or huge (like Jelly Bean) will be useless without speedy solution for this problem.

The Verge:

A developer who worked with the Sparrow team has divulged his work on a Windows version of the popular email client, and says that a beta was due sometime in the next few weeks — that is, until Sparrow was acquired by Google and ceased its development efforts earlier this week.

Another episode of the Sparrow saga. From the posted screenshoot in the article i will not personally use this, but it’s certainly interesting to imagine what will be the implication of Sparrow for Windows.

Another Interesting part is the fact that the developer of this app (Sparrow for Windows) is not an internal part of Sparrow team. He’s doing it for himself under the permission of Sparrow founder Dom Lecca.

My question is does he get fees or any kind of financial incentives for developing a version of Sparrow for Windows? If not, then this is another instance of spec work, where developers work just to get an approval from his/her clients. Like an entry exam. It’s not only unnecessary but also unethical.

Taken from No!SPEC Campaign:

Why is spec work unethical?

The designer in essence works free of charge and with an often falsely advertised, overinflated promise for future employment; or is given other insufficient forms of compensation.

As a result the client/employer will often employ other designers using similar unprincipled tactics to change and/or resell the creative work as their own. This also promotes the practice of designers ridiculously undercharging themselves in the hopes of “outbidding” any potential rivals, devaluing both their skills and those of the graphics industry in the process.

I’d be pretty pissed if i’m doing a spec work for the sake of idealism and find out that i’ve been left behind.

The real issue is the sudden vulnerability we feel now that one of our theories about independent app development has failed

Rian van der Merwe’s made a thoughtful response to Sparrow acquisition by Google. I agree with the sentiment, and the whole article is a must read. But i have another take on this whole kerfuffle.

For me personally the reason why Sparrow acquisition is so annoyingly saddening, is the fact that the company is so honest about the nature of the acquisition. This is different to most recent big acquisitions of reputable companies that we’ve seen. When we see instagram got acquired by Facebook, for example, they promised they will still run and maintain the apps even though the whole company now works for facebook.

At that time i knew that this statement does not make sense since logically the pressure and priorities being put to the instagram team would be so different after they got acquired. They’d need to put Facebook first. And to maintain, promote and add features to instagram, hypothetically fueling its growth, just doesn’t play well to Facebook interest. So at the end the app will die a slow painful death anyway.

But they said they will, so while some people will definetely leave, most users don’t have problems using Instagram with the features that it has right now. That is until a better, much hungrier companies arrived with a new app in this area.

For Sparrow, they are being so upfront and say there will be no feature updates. I’d imagine if they go with the usual marketing speak and instead say they will keep maintaining Sparrow, without any specific details about what “maintaining” means, some users will leave, but the majority will still use the app. After all it’s normal to see an app go dormant. Some (power) users will complaint, of course, but there will be no huge backlash such as people asking for their money back like what happened now, i’d assume.

On the other hand, it is true that Instagram and Sparrow are not the same kind of apps. They have two completely different business model. If Instagram slowly march onto its death, we pay nothing for it. But Sparrow is a paid app, so the argument that this is a philosophical surprise to believer of paid apps is true. But for me this is not enough of an explanation. There’s a bigger question about the value of feature updates that needs to be adressed here.

In the past, when we pay for an application, we pay for the features currently baked on the application, with an entitlement for bug fix and security updates. We must pay for new features and innovation in a whole new update to the software. We call this, upgrade.

But in this day of App Store, suddenly we feel entitled for feature updates after we pay $10 for an app that we bought a long time ago. This is not only illogical in my amateurish blogger business mind, but also change the hypothetical role that developers play. From the scientist that churned out invention after invention, to a slave worker whose work is to maintain his old invention. I don’t know. I have more thoughts on this but i don’t think placing them here would be right. It’s for another day. I just want to say that putting huge pressure on Sparrow because they would not add new features after we pay a one time fee does not make sense. What we ought to demand is security updates & that’s it.

The Verge:

While the sell-out may be welcomed as good news by Google marketing execs, it’s one more blow to customers eagerly seeking the device — major retailers including GameStop, Staples, and Sam’s Club all sold out of the Nexus 7 on its first day of widespread availability last Friday

More good news for the Nexus 7. After a (surprisingly?) good review from resident Techcrunch Apple fanboy MG Siegler, now it’s apparently sold out on its own official store as well as conventional brick & mortar store.

I’m not sure about the use of “Coming Soon” as a marketing statement though. Customer might wonder what has happened to the device, and stocks being sold out might not be the first thing that come to their mind. They might be, in my opinion, better off using “Sold out, stocks coming soon” or increase the predicted shipping time like Apple does when they’re overwhelmed with orders. Increase the hype, why don’t you?

Also, what is up with those screen problems?

Gizmodo is hosting an online Q & A session with the designer of OUYA game console, and he’s got some really interesting answer, especially regarding the size of the main console:

Q: With digital distribution media becoming more and more popular, do you think the standard tower like shape that is used by the current generation of consoles will continue to be used?

A: I don’t know what others are doing in the future, but we have made a deliberate attempt to go away from current shapes…our console is quite small, around the size of a Rubik’s cube, and so it will easily fit anywhere in a room, or be easy to throw in a backpack.

Let me repeat and emphasize that sentence again. The OUYA will be around the size of a Rubik’s cube. Wow. I don’t know if this was widely known already, but i personally tought the size of this thing would be like a gamecube! To know it’s a very small sized console is very cool indeed, and they should’ve emphasized this more in their marketing material.

Or maybe there’s a reason they don’t want this to be emphasized, just in case?

Gizmodo:

The iPad suffered cracks and screen scratched when dropped, and ended up with audio damage after being dunked in water. The Nexus 7? Sure, it ended up with some scuffs, but everything remained intact and functional after all three tests.

Very interesting. But nothing surprising since one’s using aluminium and the other’s plastic.