Google IO 2013 thread

[OBLAMA2009]

so they didnt update nexus 4 or nexus7? this has to be the most suck google i/o evar. what kinds of stuff did they give out?

 

[bearxor]

Didn't figure Google needed an updated N7 anyway. It's fine hardware wise against the iPad mini, and its main selling point is price. Plus, waiting 5 months for them til the fall isn't a huge loss.

And honestly I can't see a giant need for a massive N5 upgrade or any desperately needed upgrades in the fall. The N10 is a perfectly fine device. We'll have to see what Apple launches in the fall.

Anyway, here's a good question. Is the N5 worth waiting for?

I agree with you about the N7/N10. An update just wasn't necessary right now.

I'd expect a Nexus 4 successor this year to pack at least a S600 chip, but possibly a S800.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I don't know why but I'm so focused on long term. I guess no phone is really long term anyway. I'm just scared this is a one time run with the S4, and most likely is. It's an acknowledgement of Samsung's popularity and acknowledges the N4's shortcomings (LTE, removable storage, removable battery, camera, etc.) I expect Google to beef up these things in the N5. If I were to jump ship to this, I'd hate for people to drop this phone the minute the next Nexus debuts in less than 6 months.

TBH though I think its ok to wait til Nov and re-evaluate. By then the next Nexus could be a huge hit or even then the S4 is still a powerhouse to get.

 

[Red Storm]

So Hangouts is now showing up in the Play Store, but it just launches Talk for me. This is on an HTC One.

Edit: Never mind, I downloaded it through the web and it updated Talk, I now have Hangouts.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I'd hate for people to drop this phone the minute the next Nexus debuts in less than 6 months.

I know you are used to Nexus development, but even without Google's help Galaxies usually have pretty good third party support due to the huge popularity of the device. Heck the S1 still gets new ROMs today.

If anything I think this announcement means the S4 is the first non-Nexus that you can feel has a future after you buy it.

 

[cronos]

Yeah there's no way this thing would be priced at the Nexus 4 level.

Why would it be priced any lower than the regular GS4? AT&T is selling the GS4 for $640, so this special Google version with $10 more is actually a pretty good deal.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Why would it be priced any lower than the regular GS4? AT&T is selling the GS4 for $640, so this special Google version with $10 more is actually a pretty good deal.

except the GS4 32gb is $669 at AT&T... but I guess microSD is awesome for that reason

 

[cronos]

except the GS4 32gb is $669 at AT&T... but I guess microSD is awesome for that reason

I guess I didn't look at the capacity. So it *is* cheaper than the AT&T version then (by $20). Well this is great!

 

[Eruditass]

so they didnt update nexus 4 or nexus7? this has to be the most suck google i/o evar.

They've added some pretty sweet software features for free across various products, which I'd much rather have than some updated hardware.

 

[VashHT]

So has anyone been looking around the new music app yet? I'm wondering if there is a way to tell the difference between music that you permanently own and the stuff you add to your library from the subscription service.

 

[Aikouka]

The only negative about the S4 announcement that I can think of is the fact that T-Mobile is the only US cellular company that reduces your price if you pay for your phone outright. In other words, if you buy an AT&T S4 16GB, you pay $199.99, but you pay $649.99 for the Nexus variant. What makes it bad is that you pay the same price per month.

Also, this is sort of off-topic, but $650 seems higher than I expected. I always heard that Apple had the highest unsubsidized prices, which caused carriers to have to pay quite a premium to be able to sell the phone since they pay that subsidy to Apple. $650 is the same price as the unsubsidized 16GB iPhone 5, so that surprised me a bit.

EDIT:

I looked at AT&T's website, and their SGS4 16GB is $640 off-contract. So, there isn't much of a premium there.

 

[lopri]

For the nexus 7 v2 I'd like to see higher overall quality (too many to list) than just a faster SOC. I think everyone is a little too hung up on the SOC. iPad mini does well with a shitty SOC.


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[Aikouka]

Oh, and I was disappointed to see a photo of the Google Maps thing saying that I could preview it today, but I went to http://maps.google.com/preview , and you have to sign up for the preview. So, I probably won't be able to preview it today.

 

[A5]

Oh, and I was disappointed to see a photo of the Google Maps thing saying that I could preview it today, but I went to http://maps.google.com/preview , and you have to sign up for the preview. So, I probably won't be able to preview it today.

They were pretty explicit about saying the people "in the room" would be able to see it sooner.

For the person asking about the free stuff, they all got Chromebook Pixels.

 

[bearxor]

The only negative about the S4 announcement that I can think of is the fact that T-Mobile is the only US cellular company that reduces your price if you pay for your phone outright. In other words, if you buy an AT&T S4 16GB, you pay $199.99, but you pay $649.99 for the Nexus variant. What makes it bad is that you pay the same price per month.

Also, this is sort of off-topic, but $650 seems higher than I expected. I always heard that Apple had the highest unsubsidized prices, which caused carriers to have to pay quite a premium to be able to sell the phone since they pay that subsidy to Apple. $650 is the same price as the unsubsidized 16GB iPhone 5, so that surprised me a bit.

EDIT:

I looked at AT&T's website, and their SGS4 16GB is $640 off-contract. So, there isn't much of a premium there.

You've been reading too many of those sensationalist "subsidized pricing is evil" threads.

Smartphones have been in the 600-700 range since I can remember, in 2001.

EDIT: But it is true subsidies have increased. When I sold phone in the late ninties/early 2000's, subsidies were a flat amount. Like on Sprint it was $150, regardless of the device. So a $300 dumbphone costs you $150 and a $650 smartphone cost you $500. Subsidies have increased to bring the cost of the devices on contract down, but the price of the devices themselves hasn't increased.

 

[Red Storm]

The only negative about the S4 announcement that I can think of is the fact that T-Mobile is the only US cellular company that reduces your price if you pay for your phone outright. In other words, if you buy an AT&T S4 16GB, you pay $199.99, but you pay $649.99 for the Nexus variant. What makes it bad is that you pay the same price per month.

Also, this is sort of off-topic, but $650 seems higher than I expected. I always heard that Apple had the highest unsubsidized prices, which caused carriers to have to pay quite a premium to be able to sell the phone since they pay that subsidy to Apple. $650 is the same price as the unsubsidized 16GB iPhone 5, so that surprised me a bit.

EDIT:

I looked at AT&T's website, and their SGS4 16GB is $640 off-contract. So, there isn't much of a premium there.

They don't lower your bill. If you buy the phone outright that simply means you aren't financing the phone, so you obviously wouldn't have to pay the extra monthly amount for the loan. The plan price does not change.

 

[Phokus]

The only negative about the S4 announcement that I can think of is the fact that T-Mobile is the only US cellular company that reduces your price if you pay for your phone outright. In other words, if you buy an AT&T S4 16GB, you pay $199.99, but you pay $649.99 for the Nexus variant. What makes it bad is that you pay the same price per month.

Also, this is sort of off-topic, but $650 seems higher than I expected. I always heard that Apple had the highest unsubsidized prices, which caused carriers to have to pay quite a premium to be able to sell the phone since they pay that subsidy to Apple. $650 is the same price as the unsubsidized 16GB iPhone 5, so that surprised me a bit.

EDIT:

I looked at AT&T's website, and their SGS4 16GB is $640 off-contract. So, there isn't much of a premium there.

I pay about $38 a month using straight talk's prepaid service. I save much more money than someone paying for verzion/At&T and buying a subsidized phone. This would be perfect for someone like me.

 

[lopri]

That's the key thing here. S4 owners can choose. I'm positive it goes both ways, meaning if you wanted to you could flash TW onto the units that will sell in G store.

That's what I'm thinking, too.

Makes you wonder what happened to supposedly (according to some pundits) strained relationship between Samsung and Android/Google.





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[Red Storm]

Okay so Hangouts is definitely still in beta I'd say. The contact list is really bad. I have no way of knowing whether is someone is currently logged in or away or signed out entirely.

I know they just launched it a few hours ago but I was expecting a better product out the gates. Currently I'd say it's a regression from Google Talk.

 

[ChronoReverse]

They said something about taking away the concept of online and having you just send like with SMS. No sure I agree with that but a deliberate design decision apparently.

 

[Red Storm]

They said something about taking away the concept of online and having you just send like with SMS. No sure I agree with that but a deliberate design decision apparently.

Yeah I remember them saying that, but actually using it I can definitely say it's a clear regression. It's important to know if people are online, away, etc.

 

[ChronoReverse]

I still don't understand why they didn't at least merge it with SMS on Android. It would've been spectacular.

For now I'll just use it and give it a chance since it's the way they'll be doing it.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

That's the key thing here. S4 owners can choose. I'm positive it goes both ways, meaning if you wanted to you could flash TW onto the units that will sell in G store.

Well the question is how will this new S4 be marketed? Is it still as S4 as a regular S4 is? What about Samsung gimmicks like eye tracking, etc? How much of that will be left? The current AOSP camera forever sucks balls. Can it suppport 4 fps (or however fast the S4 shoots) shooting? Can it support SD cards? I remember CyanogenMod had to add an option to save to sdcard for SGS2 users to use CM 10.1/Android 4.2.2 properly. How will el-Goog address this for the S4? What about things like battery life? Will it get the awesome battery the S4 gets?

Clearly Samsung wouldn't its S4 shat on, so the Google S4 has to live up to the S4 name. Or they could branch it off entirely and move away from the S4 name as much as possible. Either way, even if Google screws up and launches a dud, the $649 price makes it a small drop in the water in terms of # of users, and shouldn't tarnish the S4's reputation.

I'd love for an S4 user to choose between TW or AOSP, but in reality I don't think it's that simple because too many features are a product of the software.

Yeah I remember them saying that, but actually using it I can definitely say it's a clear regression. It's important to know if people are online, away, etc.

Perhaps, but that's pretty much how all mobile messengers are. Furthermore, if you're constantly updating online/offline status, you end up eating quite a bit of battery life. Google Talk causes a lot of wakelocks and I think that has to do with the online status syncing through the People app and what not. Meanwhile, apps like Kik and Whatsapp and even Facebook Messenger have minimal wakelocks.

 

[Red Storm]

Thing is Hangouts does not show as much info as What's App, and I was expecting it to at least match them.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

I agree with you about the N7/N10. An update just wasn't necessary right now.

I'd expect a Nexus 4 successor this year to pack at least a S600 chip, but possibly a S800.

at l ghz, the nexus 7 is noticeably slower than most new phones, it definitely needed a refresh. the lack of a nexus 4 refresh is disappointing too, but understandable. it just wouldnt make sense with stuff like gs4 out at this point. they should call that new gs4 the gs4 nexusripoff for the price theyre charging. this has to be the worst google i/o ever, like christmas without presents....maybe they shoulda have google i/o two months from now when they actually had some sheet to announce