LWN: Comments on "Android 2.3 and the Nexus S"

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

Trelane — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:09:50 +0000

Thanks! If all goes well these next few weeks, I hope to be waiting eagerly to get one as soon as it's released (the increase in kernel<->google collaboration is really making me happy). Plus with the new native stuff, it should hopefully make porting my apps suck a *little* less.

Cheers!

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

rusty — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 04:20:25 +0000

> Google's argument for soft buttons is that the UI can be rotated based
> on device orientation and the location of the buttons can become both
> difficult to reach and unintuitive in certain orientations. I agree with
> that.

I'm referring to the buttons printed on the bottom; they don't move :)

Without the tactile feedback of real buttons, the "hard to reach" and "unintuitive" effects are magnified.

> The one nice thing about hard buttons is that they seem to react even when
> the GUI is unresponsive. My HTC Magic is frequently unresponsive since the
> Froyo update.

Latest CyanogenMod works well for my Magic (32A, not 32B!).

Cheers,
Rusty.

Problems with sipdroid

job — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:04:37 +0000

I am a different person but let me add that while sipdroid speaks the protocol well, I've had lots of issues with speech quality. Perhaps interop problems with g722? Also, it does not integrate with the phone book (I can not add SIP URIs to contacts) and it does not show up in the call log correctly. My old Nokia did all that. Kind of a bummer. So I personally keep my fingers crossed that this is all fixed with official support in the 2.3 code dump.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

rfunk — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:59:41 +0000

Sipdroid doesn't work for you?

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

swetland — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:04:21 +0000

It's part of Android 2.3.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

rriggs — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 18:26:39 +0000

Google's argument for soft buttons is that the UI can be rotated based on device orientation and the location of the buttons can become both difficult to reach and unintuitive in certain orientations. I agree with that.

The one nice thing about hard buttons is that they seem to react even when the GUI is unresponsive. My HTC Magic is frequently unresponsive since the Froyo update.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

mchehab — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:04:43 +0000

The Nexus S page mentions that a SIP client is provided. This is part of Android 2.3, or is it a separate application that could be downloaded via Market application?

I never found a SIP application that works on Android with the SIP gateways I use.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

swetland — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 09:00:55 +0000

SGX540 clocked at 200MHz.

recording calls - ugly bug/lack of feature

jbh — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 06:38:28 +0000

According to your link, this is supported (in the API) since 1.6, but most models don't support it in hardware. The exception seems to be Samsung. The obvious (not necessarily correct) corollary is that 2.3 will not itself be better than 2.2, but that Nexus S will support it (since it's produced by Samsung).

jazzhand mode!

skierpage — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 06:24:39 +0000

android.hardware.touchscreen.multitouch.jazzhand ??

Oh, OK: "The application uses advanced multipoint multitouch capabilities on the device screen, for tracking five or more points fully independently."

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

rusty — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 01:05:09 +0000

Damn, the Nexus S has soft buttons; whenever I use the Nexus One I always hit them by accident (hitting home in Frozen Bubble is really annoying!).

Far prefer the HTC Magic's physical buttons.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

drag — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:37:47 +0000

Well since it's Hummingbird processor it's going to be a safe bet that it's a PowerVR SGX design.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

TRS-80 — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:13:32 +0000

Hmm, a dedicated GPU is listed as a feature. Which one isn't listed on the tech specs page, leaving open the question of whether there will be a free driver for it?

recording calls - ugly bug/lack of feature

arekm — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:56:51 +0000

Can phone calls be finally recorded in 2.3? That was and is biggest weakness of android platform as a phone platform. Was using nokia before and recording was easy.

It's a shame that google developers cannot deal with this bug (or ugly feature).

http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=2117
1333 people starred (aka want this fixed) so far.

ps. in my country recording phone calls is perfectly legal
ps2. there are recording apps but they use... microphone to record sound from phone own speaker (as you can imagine result is very, very bad)

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

karim — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:02:46 +0000

Makes sense. Thanks.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

swetland — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:00:22 +0000

I mean commercial launch of the phone -- Dec 16.

We continue to use Bionic as the Android libc.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

karim — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 20:50:21 +0000

Hello Brian,

Just wondering:
"Platform sources should ship at or shortly after commercial launch of Nexus S. Kernel git repository (2.6.35 + android + s5pc111/nexus-s) will be available at or shortly before launch."

Is today's release of the SDK/NDK considered "launch" or is the launch date you mention a different date? And, if so, what is that other date? (if not fixed, then expected).

Also, you mention libc/libm. Is that Bionic or is that glibc?

Thanks,

Karim Yaghmour

The Nexus S

robert_s — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 20:31:16 +0000

"Also announced is a new flagship phone: the Nexus S."

Must say I'm slightly surprised they didn't wait for/push for a Cortex A9 device this time round, seeing as they're wanting to be pushing at the frontiers of the market.

Android 2.3 and the Nexus S

swetland — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 19:34:22 +0000

The product site at http://www.google.com/nexus has more details on the Nexus S. Nexus S will ship with support for "fastboot oem unlock", allowing for reflashing of the system software "out of the box", like Nexus One.

Something that may interest this community is that the NDK (native development kit) for Gingerbread now supports native apps (intended to simplify mobile gaming ports, etc) -- providing: libc, libm, libz, opengl|ES, opensl|ES, input/events/sensors, app lifecycle management, etc. JNI is available to access various higher level Android APIs as necessary.

2.3 (platform 9) SDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.3.html
2.3 (revision 5) NDK: http://developer.android.com/sdk/ndk/index.html

Platform sources should ship at or shortly after commercial launch of Nexus S. Kernel git repository (2.6.35 + android + s5pc111/nexus-s) will be available at or shortly before launch.