Android flaws in tablets
I began to write this article several times, but each time it came out differently than planned. At first, I just wanted to dilute the identical, like twins, announcements and tablet reviews on Android 3.x and tell about the general negative impressions based on working with three different tablets on Honeycomb (not counting the two on Android 2.x). Then the idea did not seem so attractive: reviews of the shortcomings of a gadget tend to go into a “highly intellectual” discussion of the form “fool himself, everything works for me”. I did not like the subsequent versions of the article as a potential invitation to holivar, which any Google criticism is perceived, and I hate holivars. In the end, I made up my mind, as I suddenly formulated what exactly I don’t like about Android.
With reviews of tablets, we generally have some kind of trouble. It's like a carbon copy: listing tactical and technical characteristics, marketing slogans, visual inspection and a couple of advantages / disadvantages, especially strongly striking. This is understandable: given the average lifetime of today's gadgets, the browser has a maximum of half an hour before the next product. But daily use and embedding of the tablet in your own entertainment or working cycle has nothing to do with the number of cores in Tegra and their clock frequency. And even the current bugs have nothing in common (the next firmware will fix this bug and introduce two new ones), so I will try to draw your attention to a short list of * system * flaws of tablets on the Android 3.x operating system, inherent in the entire hardware and software system, and not specific implementation of any one. I repeat, the assessment of deficiencies is purely personal. The positive qualities of Android are brought to the consumer thousands of times in all possible ways; I know dozens of people who do not have a single problem in using phones and tablets, and I don’t suffer much from shortcomings. However, I am curious as to how the community will share my findings.
The first hints of alarm bells start with technical support. Rather, its complete absence. As a class. Not that it was needed as air, but believe me, questions may arise even among super cool users. One could never really hope for gadget manufacturers, there is nothing new here, but Google, for its part, practically ignores the question of minimum support for Android users. Of course, the main complaint is addressed to tablet makers, although the official knowledge base, solutions and patches, howtos, FAQs and everything else that must accompany such a complex software product, like a mobile operating system, must still come from Google. Today, Google offers users only a cursory description of the interface and standard applications, and a vague and poorly moderated forum, and only a few people have seen any living representatives of technical support (as, indeed, any other Google project). Yes, the network can probably find the answer to any question, only this is the merit of enthusiasts and handicraftsmen, and it’s not easy to follow such a breakthrough, and even on different resources and different degrees of reliability. I would like Google to take support seriously, not relying heavily on vendors.
The second serious flaw begins to be felt on the Market. The app is terribly slow. The Internet is still littered with user complaints: The market opens and is looking for an extremely long time Craftsmen (again, not officially Google) offered a way out: periodically “delete” the Market from the tablet. The real deletion of course does not happen, since Android will not allow to remove the standard embedded application, but something is cleared somewhere, some caches are deleted, and the brakes disappear. Although the main problem with the Market is not in this, and not even in garbage or malware - the favorite press stories. The main problem is the mess with the supported versions: it is never clear which version of Android is designed for the application. You buy a puzzle for a child, but that one unfolds only on 1/4 of the screen, or it does not start, or hangs. Amateurs are forced to keep up-to-date lists of applications working on 3.x tablets (again, unofficially, in the billion dollar industry already, damn it!).
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The claim again only indirectly concerns Google: for its part, it theoretically supports filtering applications for different versions. On the other hand, it gives developers complete freedom in describing the properties of the application, so they include, without thinking, all existing versions, screen resolutions, all access rights, everything to the maximum!
An amazing thing: the zoo of gadgets on Android is rightly called one of the biggest shortcomings of the eco-system, and at the same time, Google with unbearable ease allows you to create a software zoo! The market urgently needs mandatory certification programs (no censorship, no!) With minimal verification of the application’s Manifest with reality. The mess with the resolution or, even worse, the required access rights (I have seen many trivial utilities and games that supposedly require access to telephony, the network, external media, GPS, personal data and everything else that fantasy can reach) is inadmissible nonsense these days .
A little deviating from my own intention to talk only about global shortcomings, I’ll briefly dwell on the specific disadvantages of iron in existing tablets, since they are almost identical in hardware.
Video With all its cores and gigahertz, Tegra 2 shuts up on a high profile 720p video. The hardware bug is promised to be fixed in Tegra 3 (as if today's tablet owners are warming it). The solution is to transcode the video to a lower bitrate, but these are additional gestures, plus consumers should be aware that the proud line “hardware supports HD” is not 100% true.
Wifi The driver of the wireless network in Android is frankly raw. In 3.1, it seems a bit better, but still connections to the access point can be very long, and some APs can connect to the tablet at all for the third time. This is extremely annoying, because the tablet turns on for the “instant” Internet in 95% of cases (surprisingly, such a trifle can create a huge negative user experience!). I really hope that in the future version they will pay close attention to WiFi.
Long time life . This is certainly a plus, but the payback for powerful batteries is special chargers that can provide current up to 2A. Just wonder how many people are suddenly surprised at the impossibility of charging the tablet from USB! 9-10 hours of uninterrupted work are compensated by the need to take a separate charge on the road and for nothing more suitable charging (or even buy the same for the car), and I will not say which is more convenient: 4-5 hours sticking out USB connector, or 8-10 hours and a dedicated charger. Just keep that in mind.
I have long tried to find a generalization of the shortcomings of Android. Well, you can not strain the lack of technical support (for the first time, or something) or slowing down applications. And then it was somehow formulated by itself: “Google-style”. The release style of an unfinished beta product, aimed at the more savvy early adopters, to the completion of development and running-in of early versions. Is free? Beta? So what more do you want? First, figure it out yourself. Secondly, we will repair / add sometime next time, if hands reach ...
In general, I am not personally impressed with the beta-roll-out style of millions of consumers (this is forgivably a poor startup, and not a wealthy corporation with tens of thousands of employees), but I rather liked “Release Early Release Often” from Google. But if the early releases of mail, browser and social networks can be welcomed, especially since Google does update them frequently and carefully, then this style is completely unacceptable with regard to hardware .
In my opinion, Google did not take into account the fact that hardware (tablets) will be sold as ordinary consumer products. And like ordinary consumer products, they are made really disregarding: here the slot of memory cards does not work, it slows down, it falls there. And this is not Chinese Sun-vyn in the Shenzhen basement, but the world's fucking brands, the top of the industry! And with “don't be afraid, let's fix it!” There was a bobble too: the Google chain -> producer -> consumer turned out to be much more difficult to release a new version of the service on our own servers. Manufacturers do not hurry. And if they are in a hurry, then release and sell a new tablet, without any desire to upgrade and maintain the old ones (who then will buy a new one?). I do not think that consumers themselves will agree to lay out for new tablets for $ 500-800 with the same ease with which they install new versions of Google Chrome.
I, as an old gadget, will theoretically fit a tablet of any degree of dampness: I can, via USB debug, and install a shell in general. But in the consumer electronics market there is no place for devices that need to be finished with geeks. And since I really love Android, both by itself and as a competitive alternative, I really want it to grow up soon. Let's hope for ICS and tighter Google policies with manufacturers.
With reviews of tablets, we generally have some kind of trouble. It's like a carbon copy: listing tactical and technical characteristics, marketing slogans, visual inspection and a couple of advantages / disadvantages, especially strongly striking. This is understandable: given the average lifetime of today's gadgets, the browser has a maximum of half an hour before the next product. But daily use and embedding of the tablet in your own entertainment or working cycle has nothing to do with the number of cores in Tegra and their clock frequency. And even the current bugs have nothing in common (the next firmware will fix this bug and introduce two new ones), so I will try to draw your attention to a short list of * system * flaws of tablets on the Android 3.x operating system, inherent in the entire hardware and software system, and not specific implementation of any one. I repeat, the assessment of deficiencies is purely personal. The positive qualities of Android are brought to the consumer thousands of times in all possible ways; I know dozens of people who do not have a single problem in using phones and tablets, and I don’t suffer much from shortcomings. However, I am curious as to how the community will share my findings.
Technical support
The first hints of alarm bells start with technical support. Rather, its complete absence. As a class. Not that it was needed as air, but believe me, questions may arise even among super cool users. One could never really hope for gadget manufacturers, there is nothing new here, but Google, for its part, practically ignores the question of minimum support for Android users. Of course, the main complaint is addressed to tablet makers, although the official knowledge base, solutions and patches, howtos, FAQs and everything else that must accompany such a complex software product, like a mobile operating system, must still come from Google. Today, Google offers users only a cursory description of the interface and standard applications, and a vague and poorly moderated forum, and only a few people have seen any living representatives of technical support (as, indeed, any other Google project). Yes, the network can probably find the answer to any question, only this is the merit of enthusiasts and handicraftsmen, and it’s not easy to follow such a breakthrough, and even on different resources and different degrees of reliability. I would like Google to take support seriously, not relying heavily on vendors.
Market
The second serious flaw begins to be felt on the Market. The app is terribly slow. The Internet is still littered with user complaints: The market opens and is looking for an extremely long time Craftsmen (again, not officially Google) offered a way out: periodically “delete” the Market from the tablet. The real deletion of course does not happen, since Android will not allow to remove the standard embedded application, but something is cleared somewhere, some caches are deleted, and the brakes disappear. Although the main problem with the Market is not in this, and not even in garbage or malware - the favorite press stories. The main problem is the mess with the supported versions: it is never clear which version of Android is designed for the application. You buy a puzzle for a child, but that one unfolds only on 1/4 of the screen, or it does not start, or hangs. Amateurs are forced to keep up-to-date lists of applications working on 3.x tablets (again, unofficially, in the billion dollar industry already, damn it!).
')
The claim again only indirectly concerns Google: for its part, it theoretically supports filtering applications for different versions. On the other hand, it gives developers complete freedom in describing the properties of the application, so they include, without thinking, all existing versions, screen resolutions, all access rights, everything to the maximum!
An amazing thing: the zoo of gadgets on Android is rightly called one of the biggest shortcomings of the eco-system, and at the same time, Google with unbearable ease allows you to create a software zoo! The market urgently needs mandatory certification programs (no censorship, no!) With minimal verification of the application’s Manifest with reality. The mess with the resolution or, even worse, the required access rights (I have seen many trivial utilities and games that supposedly require access to telephony, the network, external media, GPS, personal data and everything else that fantasy can reach) is inadmissible nonsense these days .
Iron
A little deviating from my own intention to talk only about global shortcomings, I’ll briefly dwell on the specific disadvantages of iron in existing tablets, since they are almost identical in hardware.
Video With all its cores and gigahertz, Tegra 2 shuts up on a high profile 720p video. The hardware bug is promised to be fixed in Tegra 3 (as if today's tablet owners are warming it). The solution is to transcode the video to a lower bitrate, but these are additional gestures, plus consumers should be aware that the proud line “hardware supports HD” is not 100% true.
Wifi The driver of the wireless network in Android is frankly raw. In 3.1, it seems a bit better, but still connections to the access point can be very long, and some APs can connect to the tablet at all for the third time. This is extremely annoying, because the tablet turns on for the “instant” Internet in 95% of cases (surprisingly, such a trifle can create a huge negative user experience!). I really hope that in the future version they will pay close attention to WiFi.
Long time life . This is certainly a plus, but the payback for powerful batteries is special chargers that can provide current up to 2A. Just wonder how many people are suddenly surprised at the impossibility of charging the tablet from USB! 9-10 hours of uninterrupted work are compensated by the need to take a separate charge on the road and for nothing more suitable charging (or even buy the same for the car), and I will not say which is more convenient: 4-5 hours sticking out USB connector, or 8-10 hours and a dedicated charger. Just keep that in mind.
Google style
I have long tried to find a generalization of the shortcomings of Android. Well, you can not strain the lack of technical support (for the first time, or something) or slowing down applications. And then it was somehow formulated by itself: “Google-style”. The release style of an unfinished beta product, aimed at the more savvy early adopters, to the completion of development and running-in of early versions. Is free? Beta? So what more do you want? First, figure it out yourself. Secondly, we will repair / add sometime next time, if hands reach ...
In general, I am not personally impressed with the beta-roll-out style of millions of consumers (this is forgivably a poor startup, and not a wealthy corporation with tens of thousands of employees), but I rather liked “Release Early Release Often” from Google. But if the early releases of mail, browser and social networks can be welcomed, especially since Google does update them frequently and carefully, then this style is completely unacceptable with regard to hardware .
In my opinion, Google did not take into account the fact that hardware (tablets) will be sold as ordinary consumer products. And like ordinary consumer products, they are made really disregarding: here the slot of memory cards does not work, it slows down, it falls there. And this is not Chinese Sun-vyn in the Shenzhen basement, but the world's fucking brands, the top of the industry! And with “don't be afraid, let's fix it!” There was a bobble too: the Google chain -> producer -> consumer turned out to be much more difficult to release a new version of the service on our own servers. Manufacturers do not hurry. And if they are in a hurry, then release and sell a new tablet, without any desire to upgrade and maintain the old ones (who then will buy a new one?). I do not think that consumers themselves will agree to lay out for new tablets for $ 500-800 with the same ease with which they install new versions of Google Chrome.
I, as an old gadget, will theoretically fit a tablet of any degree of dampness: I can, via USB debug, and install a shell in general. But in the consumer electronics market there is no place for devices that need to be finished with geeks. And since I really love Android, both by itself and as a competitive alternative, I really want it to grow up soon. Let's hope for ICS and tighter Google policies with manufacturers.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/131297/
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