Corner Geeks 34: Asus Vivo Tab 8 & Nokia XL

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ASUS VivoTab Note 8

ASUS VivoTab Note 8

  • ASUS website
  • As an alternative to the Surface Pro 3 more for drawing stuff due to stylus
  • 8″ screen (1280×800)
  • iPad mini sized but full Windows 8.1
  • US$250 (32GB)
  • Charges via micro USB
  • No full USB port:
    • only has 1 micro USB port
    • requires USB OTG cable (similar to phones) to provide full USB port
  • Atom processor can be a bit slow (not as bad as previous netbooks) but good value for full fledge device

Nokia XL

  • Specs on GSM Arena on  Nokia XL
  • Nokia website: Nokia XL
  • Low end Android with a custom skin including Nokia software (e.g offline Here maps)
  • Plasticky but nice

Corner Geeks 32: The Intel Party and iBattz Experience

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IntelParty

Intel Android Devices

  • 80+ Intel Android Devices
  • Intel XDK: Design, debug, build, and deploy HTML5 web and hybrid apps across multiple app stores, and form factor devices.
  • Free hoodie + Acer Iconia Tab 8
  • Android NDK: Toolset that allows you to implement parts of your app using native-code languages such as C and C++.

iBattz

BattStationOptimus07

Corner Geeks 31: The Post I/O Experience Part 5 – Android Wear

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Android WearAndroid Wear

  • Android wear UI is not customizable
  • Pairs with Android phone via Bluetooth (requires Android 4.3+)
  • 1 day battery life
  • Notifications appear on watch
    • Swipe left to dismiss
    • Swipe right to take further action (e.g. open in phone)
    • Reply with voice (only for certain apps)
    • Requires 2 hands
  • Availability (in certain locations):
  • Samsung Gear live (vs the G Watch)
    • smaller screen (1.63″ Super AMOLED vs 1.65” IPS LCD)
    • higher resolution (320×320 vs 280×280)
    • smaller battery (300 mAh vs 400mAh)
    • extra Heart Rate Sensor (common sensors: Compass, Accelerometer, Gyroscope)
    • has a Bluetooth / Wi-Fi antenna
    • cheaper in US (US$199 vs US$229) (Australia: $1 more expensive, AUD$250 vs AUD$249)
  • LG G watch

Corner Geeks 30: The Post I/O Experience Part 4 – Chromecast, Chrome OS, Cardboard

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Cardboard

Chromecast

Chrome OS

Cardboard

Corner Geeks 29: The Post I/O Experience Part 3 – Android L, Android TV, Google Fit, Android Auto

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Android L Developer Preview

Android L

Android TV

  • Android TV Website
  • Google Content (movies & music) on the big screen using voice commands
  • Game focused: has hardware game controllers, similar to Ouya
  • Controlled using swipes with Android wear or voice commands on an regular Android device
  • Can cast screen/content from Android devices to Android TV using Google Cast
  • Play Store available to install apps

Google Fit

Android Auto

  • Android Auto Website
  • In-board car dashboard powered by your Android device
  • “Dumb” dashboard monitored, all powered by external Android device
  • Google’s response to Apple’s CarPlay

Corner Geeks 28: The Post I/O Experience Part 2 – Polymer

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Polymer logo

Polymer

  • Polymer Project website
  • Polymer Elements
    • Polymer Core elements: a set of utility elements including general-purpose UI elements (such as icons, layout elements, and toolbars), as well as non-UI elements providing features like AJAX, signalling and storage.
      Docs | Demos
    • Paper Elements: Polymer’s paper elements collection implements material design for the web. They’re a set of highly visual, highly interactive elements that include things like controls, layouts, hero transitions, and scrolling effects.
      Docs | Demos
  • Polymer Designer: Designer is a drag and drop tool for prototyping apps using Polymer. Save your experiments as Github gists.

Corner Geeks 27: The Post I/O Experience Part 1 – Goodies, Android One and Material Design

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Android One

Watch the Google I/O 2014 Keynote on YouTube

Goodie count

Android One

  • Reference hardware for OEMs
  • High quality affordable smartphones
  • Stock Android & Automatic Updates from Google
  • 4.5″ Android device, dual SIM, FM radio, micro SD card slot
  • Under US$100

Material Design

Material Design

Corner Geeks 26: The Pre I/O Experience

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Google IO 2014

Links

Corner Geeks 25: The Windows Phone Experience

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Windows Phone Live Tiles

  • Lumia 520 for AUD$176
    • Specs don’t really matter because it’s a pretty good experience
    • 512MB RAM which limits some heavier apps but still a pretty smooth experience. Much better than cheap Android phones
  • Good Polish unlike Android back in the day that had a lot of rough edges
    • In between iOS and Android but closer to iOS
    • Find my phone
    • Sky Drive Integration
      • Save Photos automatically
        • can’t seem to enable only on WiFi so may be hazardous to your 3G data
        • doesn’t upload screenshots
      • Office Documents synced in the cloud
    • Office
      • Can create and edit Word and Excel files offline
      • Can view Powerpoint files
        Windows Phone - Office - vlookup
    • Bluetooth transfer data migration
    • Consolidated settings (like iOS) but also and in app
    • Glove usage! (probably a Lumia feature)
  • Good Features
    • People Hub
      • Combines all social streams (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) into one stream
        Windows Phone - People Hub - social stream
      • Like Twitter lists but for all social networks supported
        Windows Phone - People Hub - groups
      • Photo Stream of all updates with photos
    • Bluetooth image sharing!
    • Has Android like intents/sharing of data to other apps. E.g. from photo app, can share photo to apps like WhatsApp / Email / any app that supports receiving images
  • Gripes
    • App selection still small. No official Dropbox app, no instagram
    • Search page is not a web page. E.g. Search in browser address bar brings you out of the browser to the search page, and clicking a link in the search page goes back into the browser
    • Sharing Intents inconsistent
      • But doesn’t seem to work for all things… Can share photo (.jpg file) from camera to WhatsApp but cannot share screenshot (.png file)  to WhatsApp. Can’t share URL to WhatsApp.
      • Perhaps more of a non-mature app ecosystem rather than Windows Phone fault. App developers need to program their apps right
    • Notifications could be better
      • If app is a Live Tile, then you can see the notification number
      • If app is not a Live Tile, there is no easy way to know what app caused the notification (iOS has it best with badges)
    • No quick toggles
      • Have to go into settings to turn things on and off similar to iOS (e.g. enable/disable data / WiFi)
      • Hard to toggle vibrate
    • Can’t disable screen rotation. Less sensitive than Android which is good.
    • No file explorer or file system like Android
    • No auto-sign in like Android for Google sites
      Windows Phone - no auto sign-in
    • Switching apps shows “Resuming…” quite a bit. More to do with how Windows Phone handles apps. Could be due to limited memory of 512MB and may not occur with higher end devices with more RAM
    • No Bluetooth tethering (available in iOS and Android)

Links

 

Windows Phone - Me app  Windows Phone - opening unrecognized files