Based on Bitt's photo, it looks like the N1 is certainly much better than my iPhone, yet still has a way to go. Of course, doing macro properly requires moving the lens farther away from the sensor (cool example shots), and that requires space, which is in short supply in these cameraphones...

FWIW, I didn't try really hard to get a great shot. Here's one where I steadied my hand.

FYI: http://googlenexusoneboard.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-software-update-for-nexus-one.html


Very nice update for all Nexus one users. Google has finally added multi-touch actions (namely pinch zooming) to a number of its apps people were complaining regularly about.

Hopefully it fixes some other random bugs, too.

Nuts. It won't let me do a manual update yet.

I've given this phone some random thought over the past little while and I keep coming back to the same place. I think Google really need to release something tied more closely to their existing brand. They really need to release the definitive Google phone to put Android on the map. The general public can be confused if the branding message is mixed and that's happening with these products. Lots of device brands, including now the Nexus One, plus the OS brand. This needs to be solidified, at least with the portions Google has control over. Their "Google" brand isn't doing nearly as much as it could to help this product along.

I agree. They need to have a little stronger control over the OS, too. There's some impetus to not fracture it too much so that the App Market will still work, but Android on one phone should be nearly identical to Android on another phone. Right now, it's not too far off, but I can certainly envision a fracturing.

If this were MY OS, I know one change I would make. If someone wants to deviate significantly in their OS distribution and handset capabilities they'd be prevented from using the Android name in any way shape or form, as well as anything to tie the product to Google or the Android OS in any other way. In other words, feel free to use the OS as a basis for your "Feature Phone" but make sure the general public doesn't know it's Android under the hood.

Now if you want to make a real Android-branded handset, a real GOOGLE branded handset, now here's what you have to do. It's spelled out in concrete. No deviation whatsoever. Google innovates here and as the handset manufacturer you follow blindly or fuck off.

Google has the money and brand where they could have done this without any other handset manufacturers at all. Maybe they would even have been more successful at this point, forgetting the whole multi-brand thing and just keeping "Android" for both the OS and phone hardware. Or some other brand, which I'm sure they could have hired someone to come up with. Just keeping it singular is the main point.

Thanks, Caleb. I was going to wait for the OTA just to be safe, but I got tired of waiting. I also started to be unsure about how I would get it, since I'm not on T-Mobile and Google was coordinating with them on the updates.

The manual update was pretty easy. And it fixed my number one bug, the launcher crashes. Yay!

And maybe it's just me, but I find the pinch gesture incredibly awkward.

I agree, though I still think it's a good zoom method. I never felt it was essential, though. Still, it's nice that they're starting to put it into their phones. It's funny, because with my rooted G1, I actually have pinch to zoom. It was funny to have it before Nexus One and Droid owners.

Also, I don't think you need to worry about not getting the updates, Bitt. I had my G1 on AT&T for a year, but before I rooted it I did get OTA updates. I have no idea how they're pushing them out and how they knew that my phone was theirs. IMEI?

I assume that the phone goes and checks occasionally to see if there's an update available. I also assume that the source they check determines if an upgrade is available based on some UID.

I don't know who controls the source, though. I would assume Google, but I could be wrong. I also don't know their algorithm for the order of the phones. It's possible that it's random. It's possible that they just allow the first x phones every y minutes, or some other timed first-come-first-served method. It's possible that they're picking specific UIDs. Since T-Mobile doesn't know my UID, and I didn't get it first, I kinda assumed I'd be last, or at least random. I waited a day or so, checking occasionally, and it still didn't offer it. So I just bit the bullet and did it manually.

I'm sure the reason they stage it is to not kill T-Mobile's network with all the phones getting the update all at once. (Though it's like 11MB, so it's not like a huge amount of data.) As such, they should check the source, and if it's not a T-Mobile IP, allow the upgrade. What do they care if it kills AT&T's network?

Can you update these things over USB? THen they could put up a download link on an appropriate page before the OTA update goes live.

Probably. The manual procedure was to download a zip file onto the root of the SD card, then reboot while holding the trackball in, which puts it in a recovery mode, then select some options to get it to install the upgrade. No reason you couldn't download the file and put it on the phone via USB. I'm sure there's a magic incantation to get the phone to automatically do all the recovery mode stuff, too.

But there's no desktop firmware loader for use with a USB connection? The manual update sounds easy, but definitely what I call geek oriented. Not something a typical consumer will ever do.

The OTA automatic update is probably the easiest for someone who doesn't want to get their hands involved in any of it.

I don't think I received any desktop software at all, though it did come with a USB cable. I haven't actually hooked it up to a computer, so I don't know what it does. (To be fair, I have seldom ever hooked a smartphone or PDA up to a computer. I'd far rather it be standalone and sync over the network in the background. So there might be desktop software that I just don't know about.)

What I was implying about the magic incantation was that there's no reason that there's no reason there couldn't be an Android application that did it for you.

Of course, the problem is that there's then no reason for people to not just download it directly using the phone, which is what I did.

I was just looking to find out if there was an alternative to waiting for your turn in the queue to download the update. Offering a download online makes it a free-for-all with generally enough bandwidth to serve all your customers at once. There are probably the in-between geeks who will do a manual install but may not necessarily want to bother with the magic bits.

For the average customer, the OTA is the best idea because it will just happen on its own sweet time without them having to make a conscious decision to go download, then update/sync.

Question for Nexus One owners here. I'm looking for someone who bought theirs unlocked (for the $529 price).

First, do you have it on T-Mobile? Second, were you able to keep your current plan and not be forced into their plan?

I'm looking into getting the Nexus One, because lately I simply can't bear the abysmal performance of the G1. It's truly awful. However, it will be extremely difficult to justify the price of the unlocked phone to myself (and more importantly, my wife). The problem with the subsidized phone, though, is that the plan sucks. Well, it's decent, but isn't the plan for me. I'm one of the few people on the planet, it seems, who despises text messaging, for example, but I run a business that puts me on my phone a lot. I switched to T-Mobile from AT&T entirely because I could get a plan with unlimited voice and text (and no texts) for a decent price ($80, which I think is pretty good).

I've heard that you're pretty much stuck with the plan that comes with the subsidized phone, which sucks. I need more than 500 minutes (this is my only phone, after all). I'm going to try to justify the more expensive phone, which I'm sure I could just order and stick my SIM card into, but it'll be difficult.

So yeah, my question was: if you bought your phone without the contract, were you able to just keep on like nothing changed?

Yes, although it wanted me to switch from the G1 data plan to the Android data plan, which was an extra 4 or 5 bucks. However, I was paying 4 or 5 bucks for like 25 text messages (or whatever the smallest was); I just disallowed T-Mobile to forward SMS to me, canceled the text plan and ended up owing an extra 4 cents per month.

I was able to order a bare SIM from T-Mobile without telling them what I was putting it in and have it work, if that mens anything to you.

Another big nail in the Nexus' coffin?

The screen sucks

At this point, is there any Android product that isn't, at best, a beta (or pre-production-class) product?

The screen most definitely does not suck. It's just not perfect.

Also, I pulled up the Sunset on Mars NASA photograph (http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/117989main_image_feature_347_ys_full.jpg) in the browser and it had zero banding. When I saved it and opened it in the gallery app it had banding when displayed. Not sure what's up with that.

And just to round you out so that you hate everything, here's a cute puppy picture.

Oh noes!!1!!1!!!111

I know that what I'm looking for in a smartphone is perfect color rendition.

I'll take the 2.5x higher resolution (over the iPhone) any day of the week.

Hm. I'm seeing the same thing with a quick colorbars image I created. In the Gallery app, it's got clear banding. In the image viewer built into the ASTRO file manager, it does not.

Must be a bug in the Gallery application.

Am I retarded or is there really no way to zoom with Astro?

No idea. I just created a 480x800 image.

I emailed Dr. Raymond M. Soneira (article author) to inquire about how the images were displayed on the device.

One commenter on the article says that he thinks the Gallery app is doing some odd compression to make the images load faster, resulting in these issues. I'm hoping Gizmodo will read these responses and correct their article, because if this is the case, then it's simply not a true story. They're comparing apps, not screens.

I like Gizmodo for their variety of tech tid-bits, but I'm finding their 'reporting' to be alarmist and misinformed a lot of the time.

I sent an email to the author of the original article asking him to retract his conclusion.

That said, even if it were true: seriously, who gives a crap? Is someone out there doing color calibration with his smartphone?

I find that, or that same sort of pervasive negative attitude, to be common amongst most of the Gawker Media sites.