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The Nexus 7: Google ships a tabletThe Nexus 7: Google ships a tabletPosted Jul 31, 2012 20:05 UTC (Tue) by denials (subscriber, #3413)Parent article: The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Presumably Google's intended client with respect to video calls is not Skype, but Google Talk and/or Google+ Hangouts. If you're going to judge a device by how well it runs proprietary software, you might as well try the software and services designed and implemented by the company that commissioned the tablet and built its (quasi) free operating system. I think the kids these days call it an ecosystem, although in my day you would refer to it as a stack...
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The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Jul 31, 2012 22:03 UTC (Tue) by ernstp (subscriber, #13694) [Link]
My first thought also!
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 0:26 UTC (Wed) by aryonoco (subscriber, #55563) [Link]
Fully agreed.
While Google Talk is proprietary itself, it at least is built on open standards (XMPP) and interoperates nicely with free software desktop clients like Pidgin.
And while it might not satisfy our editor's second requirement (free of government interception), it does at least satisfy the first one, i.e., it just work; something that cannot be said about the Skype.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 2, 2012 16:53 UTC (Thu) by thedevil (subscriber, #32913) [Link]
I thought that Google Talk on Android was just an IM platform? I have a Gingerbread phone, and I don't see how to use the Talk app for voice calls, let alone video. Do you know something I don't?
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 2, 2012 20:32 UTC (Thu) by spacehunt (subscriber, #1037) [Link]
Google Talk with video first appeared in 2.3.4.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 7, 2012 3:25 UTC (Tue) by ghane (subscriber, #1805) [Link]
> Do you know something I don't?
Yes, yes, I do! <Cue rubbing of hands and evil chuckle>
(I have waited years for this, as you can see :-)
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 4:17 UTC (Wed) by jcm (subscriber, #18262) [Link]
It works well for Google Hangouts. I've used it to test them. I'm torn toward getting my mom one of these tablets in the end, because it's something I can give her with the words "to see your son any time, do this" and she'll actually be able to video conference without lots of hassle. Important if you live 3,000+ miles away and visit once a year...
But on the N7. I'm not as impressed as I had hoped to be, as followers of mine on G+ already know. It won't talk ActiveSync properly to our (Open Source, Zimbra) mail server at work, though older Google Android versions work fine, as does Jelly Bean on my Galaxy Nexus phone. Hopefully, that's a fixable bug. For now, that makes it a deal breaker for daily use because I need to have the office in every moment of my life ;) Beyond that, the switch to Chrome seems to have killed decent flash support. I'll ignore any "but but but HTML5!" comments. The world still runs on flash, and the lack of decent support is something Google and Adobe should just figure out. I'm a consumer, I don't want an excuse about why these things don't just work.
Overall, the N7 is pretty polished. There are some issues with Jelly Bean that will hopefully be resolved in an update. It's still not an iPad, but it's getting incrementally closer to that user experience.
Jon.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 5:07 UTC (Wed) by aryonoco (subscriber, #55563) [Link]
It's not the switch to Chrome that has killed Flash on JellyBean. It's Adobe discontinuing their mobile Flash development. According to Adobe, Flash will not work and will not be supported on any version of Android past ICS.
On my Galaxy Nexus, I still have the old 'Browser' as well as Chrome, and Flash doesn't work since the update to JellyBean.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 16:41 UTC (Wed) by Beolach (subscriber, #77384) [Link]
I thought Adobe had said they were killing their support for Flash in Linux, because only Android mattered? Now they're killing support for Android, too?
Both seem like really stupid moves to me... it's only going to lead to less market share for Flash. Which I'm actually OK with, but I'm surprised Adobe is...
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 2, 2012 5:45 UTC (Thu) by aryonoco (subscriber, #55563) [Link]
Adobe is dramatically scaling back development of Flash, and as part of it they have discontinued development of both Flash on Linux (other than through Chrome) and Flash Mobile.
Adobe is in the business of selling development tools. They can see, as well as anyone else, that the writing is on the wall and Flash's days are numbered, so instead of committing resources to a sinking ship, they are gracefully putting Flash to rest and making themselves ready for the next big thing (which right now seems to be HTML5).
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 3, 2012 19:03 UTC (Fri) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]
I say good riddance to Flash. The time when Google needed it to differentiate from iPhone is long past. Now it seems flash is mainly used to power game sites for kids. Hopefully good riddance to that in favor of HTML 5. Thankfully, the era of flash menus is now a fading, painful memory. 99% of the Flash I see these days is ads, animated in exquisitely bad taste.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 5, 2012 14:46 UTC (Sun) by juliank (subscriber, #45896) [Link]
Flash still works for me in Jelly Bean on my Galaxy Nexus. Entering fullscreen by long pressing things is broken, but it works otherwise.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 17:50 UTC (Wed) by sblack (subscriber, #81076) [Link]
Google's real Skype competitor isn't Google Talk, or Hangouts -- after so many years, computer-to-computer calling is still a niche utility. For VoIP to finally take over, it needs backward compatibility (incoming and outgoing) with landline phones.
The real Skype competition is Google Voice, but they still have not enabled any VoIP functionality except through the official gmail website. One hopes it's only a matter of time, but there's no real evidence that this is coming any time soon.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 2, 2012 8:30 UTC (Thu) by justincormack (subscriber, #70439) [Link]
Google voice is only available in the US, so is not a serious competitor to anything. There is no sign of this changing, so I suspect voice will be canned eventually...
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 3, 2012 19:05 UTC (Fri) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]
And Canada.
The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet Posted Aug 1, 2012 20:48 UTC (Wed) by geuder (subscriber, #62854) [Link]
> If you're going to judge a device by how well it runs proprietary software, you might as well try the software and services designed and implemented by the company
The only reason to use proprietory software is that it can do something that free software cannot. Whether I like it or not Skype falls into that category. I can reach 10s of people I might want to call (some for free because they might be on Skype themselves and the rest for very competitive international phone rates)
With GoogleTalk I know nobody I could reach, I believe calling to the POTS is not even available here in this country (or their marketing is bad enough that I have missed it).
So whether it fits into anybody's ecosystem or not Skype is unfortunately useful (for me). About GoogleTalk I couldn't care less.
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