Posts by RyokuMas 1913 publicly visible posts • joined 29 Oct 2009
I can't help but suppress a chuckle watching people getting all tribal over phones - it's kind of the same as watching two children arguing who has the better version of a particular toy because of what colour theirs is.
It's pretty pointless comparing Android to iPhone as the two are on completely different strategies: Apple are trying to get you to buy into a brand, and a premium brand at that. However, I've yet to hear anyone outside of my technical circles saying that they're looking at a new Android phone - it's the handset that they're bothered about, it just happens to run Android.
Apple are in considerable need of some innovation to keep the brand fresh, while a lot of Android is slowly being devoured from within by Google and suffering from (comparatively) massive problems with malware and piracy. The mobile scene is due for a shake-up - maybe Samsung has the financial muscle and brand loyalty to get their Tizen project off the ground... definitely interesting times.
... so there's no way I'm using one of these - getting sacked for revealing corporate secrets really isn't on my agenda.
It's not like I could even claim I did it unwittingly - even non-techs are pretty clued up on just how much spyware is likely to be in anything powered by Google.
"All it needs is Mac OS and all 15 versions of Linux and - hey presto! A machine to satisfy most of The Reg's Commentardiat..."
Nah, if it's still got Windows on it, the usual Google shillssuspects will still be howling and ranting against it like some kind of hate preacher...
Thanks to Xamarin and Monogame, porting my games cross-platform between mobile devices is a breeze - sure, there's a bit of mucking about around a few device-specific issues (eg: app lifecycle handling), but the vast bulk of the code can just be switched across and works straight off the bat.
"In a small corner of the IT industry, Microsoft is toasting a success of sorts: its relatively unloved Surface tablet is gaining customers and has unseated Google's Nexus slabs in the popularity stakes in the UK."
At risk of sounding like one of the knee-jerk "because it's Microsoft" brigade, and unlike the Windows Phones that said brigade seem to be incapable of seeing, I have only ever seen two Surfaces in the wild. And one of those belonged to a mate who was given it by his workplace for appraisal purposes.
But I do see Android tabs every morning on the tube into work... so where the hack has this data come from?
"Perhaps the marketers can get together with insurance companies and make certain that we’re all being watched and evaluated at every moment of every day using the Internet of Stuff?"
Why not? I mean, Google are doing their level best to ensure they are doing just that to everyone on the internet as we know it right now...
"We started with the most important thing [to us]: safety tracking. They have sensors that remove blind spots constantly transmit their location via GPS, and they can detect objects nearby stores out to a distance of more than two football fields in all directions, which [when combined with the head-up displays] is especially helpful on busy streets with lots of intersections. for displaying advertising, along with profiling where you go."
Call me a tinfoil hatter, but what's the possibility that this version was deliberately released early by the publishers? Piggy-back a bitcoin miner onto the back and release to torrents under a pseudonym, and if people complain? well they should have bought the legit version in the first place.
"So they found many (I bet probably most) messaging/email apps had no on device / SD card encryption, but singled out Outlook, I assume because it makes good press to have a dig at Microsoft who some still see as the bad guys rather than any Android developer (those that aren't writing one of the millions of malware apps out there)."
Yeah, I'm surprised that the normal Google shills suspects haven't jumped all over this... maybe it's because even they realise that a security issue in how an app stores emails is nowhere near as bad as deliberately scanning your personal emails,
When you consider what else is out there, it's refreshing to see such focus on a single player game...
... even if it is yet another first person shooter...
Well, considering the 90+ percent piracy rate on Android, even for games and apps that cost a dollar or less, it strikes me that most Android users are willing to jump through hoops and muck about with lots of things in order to cheat the developer out of their earnings get free stuff. And with the majority of smartphone users being from a non-tech background, I'd imagine it's relatively easy to manipulate someone into making their phone insecure: "Get [Game X] for FREE! Follow these simple instructions!" sort of thing...
And I see what you did there AC, you ignored the timeframes and platforms I specified. The contrast I was drawing was between the most popular desktop OS prior to mobile devices becoming widely used, and the most popular mobile OS at the present time.
Of course, if you want to do a direct comparison, then you will have to compare Android to Windows Phone. Both have the same sandboxing and uninstall capacity you describe, but by default, Windows Phone apps come from the Microsoft store, which enforces stringent certification checks - I know, because I have a number of apps published, and on my first couple, I spent some time addressing where I had failed some of these checks. Compared to my first Android apps, which required a grand total of my paying Google $25 and uploading them... until I read this, I wasn't even aware that Google's store was curated.
Prior to smartphones/tablets, Windows was the biggest and most insecure platform - so it got targeted.
Nowadays, steadily more people are turning to mobile devices. On these devices, Android has the greatest OS market share. It is also inherently the most insecure out-of-the-box, by it's "open" nature. The fact that compared to the app stores of other, "walled garden" mobile operating systems, Google's security checks for new apps are very lax only makes matters worse.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" - you want an open OS, expect to be targeted by miscreants. Simples!
With Google trying increasing to take control of what was originally a great open-source idea (see here and here), all I can say is "Good luck, Samsung!"
Moreover, if Samsung can up their game with their app store, they might just pull it off. After all, to the average buyer on the street, Android is not a brand (like, say, iPhone) - Samsung is.
Now, let's see if they can get Monogame running on Tizen...
Nice truncation of the fact that that's the tablet market, there. Similarly, the oh-so-subtle introduction of Windows Phone, to try and shift the focus, despite the actual article being about the Surface.
To give credit where it's due, I've only ever seen a couple of Surfaces in the wild.
But Windows Phones - I'd suggest getting on the London Underground, any weekday.
Or does Google glass have realtime filters to remove things that the Googleborg doesn't want you to see?
"Xamarin at $999/year/developer/platform is a bit pricey, no?"
Depends what you're after. If you're an indie wanting to experiment, you can start off with, just Android (for example) for $299 for a year's support. And "support" is the key word here - from the Xamarin site FAQ:
"What happens when my Xamarin subscription expires?
Your apps will continue to run even after your subscription has expired. Your Xamarin license is perpetual. If you choose not to renew your subscription, you will no longer have access to new releases and support, and we will be very sad.."
... in other words, you can still build and deploy apps, you just lose updates and support. In fact, their support team recently helped me fix a problem I had that prevented me doing just that, even though my licence had expired!
On the other hand, if you're looking for business use, think about how much it would cost to employ specialists for (say) both and Objective C specialist team for iOS and a Java specialist team for Android. You'll soon recoup the $999 out of a salary you don't have to pay since you'll need fewer developers to maintain a single code base...
"Your name is perfectly appropriate, Elmer FUD"
... but his statement is also accurate - at least in my experience. I have nothing against Linux, but given the nightmares I've had with most of the open source tools I've tried in past, there's no way I'm voluntarily wiping my dev box without absolute certainty that it won't end up only being useful as a doorstop.
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