Android: General Chat

[CVByrne]

I still gave it 5 stars.

[darrenm]

I know, cheers

[mykeyb]

While the kids are off I have been dropping them at my moms for the day on a Tuesday. Google Now popped up this morning with travel details and did I want to add this destination. Now there is nothing in my calendar about this so Google Now has decided that this could be a re-occuring event of its on bat.

How cool is that.

[CVByrne]

Google now is just amazing. This one took me forever to figure out.

On my Nexus 7 Google now was showing me directions to and naming a bar I had lunch in on Friday. Given I don't have Google now on my phone I was a bit baffled. Thinking how could Google know unless they are tracing my credit card.

Then I realised I accidentally turned on wifi for a brief second and then off again. This must have registered with Google and it knew I was in that bar. So on my nexus 7 it had directions to there from my house. Google know it's my house as my Nexus 7 is there so long.

Amazing. Pity traffic notices are useless when living in central London. Nobody uses cars.

[Stevo985]

Going back to Poweramp, in the process of transferring all my music (which I've finally done now, hoorah!) I realised when a song plays and you don't have any album art, you can just long press where the album art would be and it searches the net for it and downloads it for you.

Really small thing, but thought that was really cool. So whereas before I had dozens and dozens of albums without album art, I've now got pretty much every album complete with artwork. And I did it all over breakfast this morning (about 20 minutes)

As I said, only a small thing really, and other music players probably do it, but I thought it was brilliant, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to do that on my iPhone!

[Stevo985]

Do any WMP users know how I can just sort by Album? I couldn't bloody figure that out last night. When I click to sort by album, it groups stuff by album, but sorts by artist. Which is ok in some cases, but then for any compilation albums it splits it all out by artist.

Only a small niggle, but quite frustrating as that's how I prefer to browse.

(sorry I realise this is off topic but we were discussing WMP on the last page and didn't think this was worth a new thread)

[Eames]

Going back to Poweramp, in the process of transferring all my music (which I've finally done now, hoorah!) I realised when a song plays and you don't have any album art, you can just long press where the album art would be and it searches the net for it and downloads it for you.

Really small thing, but thought that was really cool. So whereas before I had dozens and dozens of albums without album art, I've now got pretty much every album complete with artwork. And I did it all over breakfast this morning (about 20 minutes)

As I said, only a small thing really, and other music players probably do it, but I thought it was brilliant, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to do that on my iPhone!

You wouldnt have needed to since you would have probably bought most of your music via iTunes.

The Amazon MP3 store is pretty good FWIW

[Stevo985]

Going back to Poweramp, in the process of transferring all my music (which I've finally done now, hoorah!) I realised when a song plays and you don't have any album art, you can just long press where the album art would be and it searches the net for it and downloads it for you.

Really small thing, but thought that was really cool. So whereas before I had dozens and dozens of albums without album art, I've now got pretty much every album complete with artwork. And I did it all over breakfast this morning (about 20 minutes)

As I said, only a small thing really, and other music players probably do it, but I thought it was brilliant, and I certainly wouldn't have been able to do that on my iPhone!

You wouldnt have needed to since you would have probably bought most of your music via iTunes.

Well any stuff I'd bought from iTunes or ripped via iTunes did have album artwork.

But any music I'd gotten from friends' computers or the small handful of tracks I'd... acquired... itunes doesn't let you automatically search for the artwork.

You can google the artwork yourself and attach it to each individual album, but it's a hell of a lot more time consuming than this was.

[mykeyb]

Had a play around last night with the NFC Tags (I got the 4 coloured Xperia ones for about £8.00)

Works quite well - each one when scanned comes as either home, car, office or bedroom and you can assign certain actions to occur when its scanned.

Having a look on the play store there are nfc programs which will work with Tasker which I would assume would offer far higher levels of customisation to each tag. I will have a play tonight using that to see.

[Tegis]

My first app. Very simple to start off with but I have big plans:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.reallyusefulapps.whataracquet

Installed, blown away, 5 stars

[limpid]

Limpid your comments on windows 8 is speculation at this stage. People don't know what Microsoft has planned. I would be shocked if they closed up like apple. They would be gifting Google and Chrome OS a large number of users and more importantly oems. Someone will switch sides.

Microsoft fears Google so much they wouldn't dare close up windows. RT may be closed, but Pro will always be open imo.

Really? It might be speculation, but it's informed speculation.

Valve head—and one-time Microsoft employee—Gabe Newell has branded Windows 8 "a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space" at videogame conference Casual Connect in Seattle. The Valve boss continued, saying that in the fallout from Windows 8, "we'll lose some of the top-tier PC/OEMs, who will exit the market. I think margins will be destroyed for a bunch of people." Newell criticised Windows 8 while talking about the future of the gaming industry, and you can read everything he said at VentureBeat.

He argued that one of the last remaining things keeping people away from Linux was the lack of games. Valve is working to bring Left 4 Dead 2 and other Steam titles to Linux in a move that Newell describes as "a hedging strategy." If his predictions about Windows 8 come true, he says "it will be good to have alternatives to hedge against that eventuality."

Newell's low opinion of Microsoft's next major operating system has been known for some time. When Michael Larabel of Phoronix visited Valve's Bellevue, WA, campus in April of this year to learn about the company's efforts to port Steam to Linux, he reported that Newell's "negativity for Windows 8 and the future of Microsoft was stunning."

Newell is not a disinterested third party. Valve makes money from the commission it takes on Steam sales. Windows 8, with its built-in Windows Store, challenges that revenue source. Features such as Xbox LIVE integration could make the Windows Store and Windows 8 a more appealing platform for gamers and developers alike than Steam.

However, the other aspect of the Store—the closed and controlled nature—also concerns him. He attributed Valve's success to the PC's open nature, saying that the company "wouldn't exist" without either the PC or "the openness of the platform." That openness is under threat, though. Newell argues that there is a "strong temptation" to close the platform, because the platform's developers "look at what they can accomplish when they limit the competitors’ access to the platform, and they say 'That's really exciting.'"

You claiming Microsoft fears Google shows a complete lack of understanding the Microsoft mindset. You should speak to some of their staff.

[The_Rev]

Gabe has a very vested interest in Steam though, especially as he is turning it into an app store as opposed to a games store. Windows 8 and the built in app store is a direct threat to his business so he is going to speak out against it. Take his comments with a pinch of salt.

[villa89]

Gabe has a very vested interest in Steam though, especially as he is turning it into an app store as opposed to a games store. Windows 8 and the built in app store is a direct threat to his business so he is going to speak out against it. Take his comments with a pinch of salt.

This. Makes sense for microsoft to try and have their own "app/game" store for things that run on windows. Cut out the middleman (Valve) and take the profits themselves. Gabe's just interested in protecting the cash cow that is Steam, which is fair enough. Although I feel steam going bust would be suitable punishment for Vavle for the delay in releasing Half Life 3.

[CVByrne]

Interesting how Samsung defence has started. It could be a good defence if they have more old tech devices to play. They are essentially going after the fact Apple never invents stuff, they merge ideas already out there into a new polished and slick device. They wait till the tech has reached the stage where it can become a popular consumer product and then make it.

If Samsung did enough homework they can be show apple copied most of the stuff they have patents for. I can't see any damages awarded for the patents.

I still laugh that Samsung have a patent on playing an mp3 whie doing another task on your phone. Proof that all these patents are a joke.

[Stevo985]

I've found something annoying about Poweramp. It doesn't seem to be able to handle Playlists correctly.

I'm off on my hols as mentioned prevoously tonight, so I made a massive playlist yesterday of over 200 songs on WMP. When I added the playlist to my phone in .WPL format, it came up as 141 songs on my phone.

So I cleared it and tried it again in .m3u format and it came up as 164 songs.

Tried it again in .WPL format and again had some random number well short of the full amount.

When I opened the exact same playlist file in the stock music player on the Galaxy S3, all the songs were there.

So yeah, bit weird and can't figure out how to fix it in Poweramp. All the songs that are on the playlist are on the phone, so it's not a massive deal, I can still play the music. A chunk of them just don't appear in the playlist.

[mykeyb]

Latest rumour is that the Microsoft Surface Tablet will be out in October for a price point of 199 dollars. Thats going to piss off an awful lot of OEMs.

[darrenm]

Not to mention that no-one will buy it so it will be a completely pointless exercise.

Unless, of course, they leave the bootloader open and use some standard chips inside. Then people will buy it to hack AOKP/CM on there.

[darrenm]

I've found something annoying about Poweramp. It doesn't seem to be able to handle Playlists correctly.

I'm off on my hols as mentioned prevoously tonight, so I made a massive playlist yesterday of over 200 songs on WMP. When I added the playlist to my phone in .WPL format, it came up as 141 songs on my phone.

So I cleared it and tried it again in .m3u format and it came up as 164 songs.

Tried it again in .WPL format and again had some random number well short of the full amount.

When I opened the exact same playlist file in the stock music player on the Galaxy S3, all the songs were there.

So yeah, bit weird and can't figure out how to fix it in Poweramp. All the songs that are on the playlist are on the phone, so it's not a massive deal, I can still play the music. A chunk of them just don't appear in the playlist.

Why Poweramp? Just for the EQ? Try sideloading Play Music 4.3 http://www.mediafire.com/?946dat81ujuqpnq

[Stevo985]

I have no allegiance to Poweramp. It's just the music player I used after someone recommended it on here. I really like it and had bigged it up a couple of pages back so just thought I'd mention that there was a drawback.

I'll have a look at Play Music, thanks.

(Stuck with WMP by the way. But there's a couple of little things that really annoy me about it! I'll probably figure it out eventually )

[CVByrne]

Not to mention that no-one will buy it so it will be a completely pointless exercise.

Unless, of course, they leave the bootloader open and use some standard chips inside. Then people will buy it to hack AOKP/CM on there.

The anti Microsoft brigade. Look the devices are not going to be widely available. They are trying to not piss off the OEMs too much by pushing the surface hard and getting it in as many stores as possible.

Also I think windows tablets and hybrids will sell very well. Windows is about 100 times better than iOS or Android on a large device. x86 ones will sell the best imv.

But they will sell. Well.