Posts by os2baba

Wait what?

They studied 17,260 apps over a year from Google Play Store and *other download sites*, and used dynamic analysis on a subset of around 9,000 apps. Out of 3 million+ apps. And then concluded from that incredibly small sample that 89% of apps in *the play store* slurp screens?

Don't get the hue and cry

I'm not sure what the big deal is. The researcher is more likely to get a heart attack from eating at McDonalds than from Google. I turn off location by default not because of my tinfoil hat but because it drains battery like nothing else. I only enable it when I need it. And most of the time, when I enable it, it's on the GPS setting not on High Accuracy.

You can turn off Location History on your device and see all the apps that are requesting location services. I wasn't aware that denying location services from the app from settings would not prevent the app from getting location from Google Play Services. If that's the case, then it should be easily fixable by Google - by denying location from any app to which you have specifically denied access to location. If Google stops this end run, then I personally have no problem with Play Services itself using location.

All this shows is web usage statistics from a single company measuring it. It makes total sense for countries like India where the phone is very often the only means of connecting to the internet where looking at mobile web statistics may well be the actual usage pattern. And it also makes sense that in those countries, the iPhone is going to be at the losing end drastically because of price.

But it makes no sense to conflate web usage with phone sales in developed nations. It never failed to amaze me that many of my iPhone toting friends used their tiny 3.5" devices to surf the web when they had a PC in front of them. In spite of excellent 5" screens on my Android devices, I always preferred to use my 27" monitors for browsing. With multiple tabs and large real estate and quick navigation and better keyboard (not withstanding the excellent SwiftKey), it always seemed idiotic to me.

I dumped my iPhone (much better hardware) for the G1 and since then have always purchased flagship Android phones sometimes more expensive than the iPhones (Note 2). I'm not an outlier - as the IDG report shows.

What do anti-virus companies consider as malware?

46% of malware is on the Play Store? I say Bullshit! I have never seen a single anti-virus company ever produce a list of apps that it considers are malware. Or even a a category of apps. They just look at permissions and if an app is asking for permission for the Contacts list or SMS, it's automatically malware. From time to time, I download these snake-oil software and in 5 years, they haven't found a single malware on my phone.

I do take care though. I never download software from any warez site. These days I turn off unknown sources, until I download from a reputable source like Mozilla, XDA or FDroid. And if the author on the Play Store is unknown, and the permissions look suspicious, I don't download the app unless the author gets back to me with the reasons for the permissions.

I don't think adding line by line permissions is going to work. It will just get irritating and people will simply turn it off en-mass like UAC.

This is NOT a Masterkey exploit

The presence of two resource files with the same name does not make it a Masterkey exploit, not even a "harmless" vulnerability. The reason CynanogenMod patch flags it is because it's a rather blunt patch. It flags any APK containing two files with the same name. It's a false positive (which is better than not catching a genuine exploit), but this is not a vulnerability. Jay Freeman has an excellent article on this if you want to spend the time reading it. It explains the flaw in great detail and the fix. http://www.saurik.com/id/17

This would be like Adobe making all photographers or web designers who use Photoshop sell it only via an Adobe store and giving them a 30% cut. Yet another reason to stop using Apple products. Over the years, I have turned from an Apple fan to slowly removing all Apple devices from my house and it's crap like this that's done it. What's happened to them?

The Nexus One was destined for failure in the US

The Nexus One would never have sold in the US.

For the phone to sell well, it should

1. The sorry Math skills of most Americans means that they will look at the $300 extra they would have to pay up front and forget about any savings in a no-contract plan.

2. The savings in a no-contract plan AFAIK is only available through T-Mobile and it's not much of a savings.

3. The flexibility of changing carriers doesn't work in the US with a different Nexus One for different carriers. Even between the 2 GSM carriers, the 3G bands are different.

Add to that,

4. The inability to touch and play with the phone before making an expensive purchase with a hefty ETF makes it a boneheaded move from Google.

5. The early #G connectivity problems did Google and T-Mobile no favors.

6. Google's naive assumption that they could do support on the cheap for an expensive device that people have paid for. And to top it all, do a piss poor job of it.

There is only one reason remaining to buy a N1 - Future OS releases will be fastest on the N1 and are not tied to either manufacturer UIs (Sense/Motoblur etc.) or carriers.

It's a great phone, but the newer HTC devices even more so. How many people are going to choose a Nexus One over the Incredible or the EVO now? Maybe a N2 with a keyboard with beefier specs.