Ex-Sun man Bray takes on paranoid Android role at Google

XML co-inventor and languages expert Tim Bray has taken a job at Google just a month after he left Sun Microsystems Oracle. "As of this morning I work for Google. The title is 'Developer Advocate'. The focus is Android. Fun is expected," he wrote in a blog post titled "Now A No-Evil Zone". Bray, who is among a growing list of …

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Posted Monday 15th March 2010 12:53 GMT

Anonymous Coward

Wow.

This guy sounds like an absolute dick!

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 14:22 GMT

Samuel Pickard

Hmm I must be a dick too.

What is the problem - I've just read it and I agree with him. Have I missed something?

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 23:57 GMT

Ian Michael Gumby

He's just saying what his keepers want to hear.

Sorry but he's working for the evil empire.

He hates the 'Disney' er controlled view on life.

iPhone == phone for masses.

Google goo phone == Do what you want so we can record more information about who you really are....

The more we know the better the world will be.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 12:53 GMT

Anonymous Coward

New Evil Empire

Just wait until Tim sees the evil tracking server.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 13:26 GMT

Andy 97

Awesome air guitar et-al Bill & Ted

Another middle aged man acting like a spoiled kid.

Just what the IT industry needs.

I can't wait to see how this turns out, it's as if Apple is paying him as well to completely screw Google-up too.

Paris, because it's been too long without her and she knows acting like a complete buffoon in public won't do you any harm.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 13:55 GMT

MinionZero

Google's latest Borg drone loves Google, wow, who would have guessed. :(

Pot calling Kettle on line one... Pot says Apple is evil, Kettle loves Google...

@"The iPhone vision of the mobile internet's future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. "

What as opposed to the Goggle's vision of the future, i.e.

The Google vision of the mobile internet's future records controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes no limits on who Google records knowing what and who says what."

They are both corporate control freaks in their own way, its just Google approved drone mindset is filled with double speak to fool drones into failing to see the road to hell is paved with good intentions. :(

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 13:55 GMT

Ralph 5

Unconstrained freedom?

So Tim likes the iPhone's hardware and software, but won't use it because Apple constrains our 'freedom'? I suppose the comment is well intentioned, but freedom is a complex thing. In a dull, mechanical sense, we are 'free' to do anything we like - but isn't so simple when all things (especially the freedom and rights of others) are taken into account. In that sense, Google is constrained by the same responsibilities as Apple, e.g. they will work against the 'freedom' of criminals trying to exploit Android users' private information.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." - George Bernard Shaw

"There are two freedoms - the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where he is free to do what he ought." - Charles Kingsley

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 13:56 GMT

Anonymous Coward

I'm no apple fanboi

and I wanted to like Android, but I just can't.

I recently got a go on a HTC Hero, and then also ran it on my Eeepc (both v1.6 and v2.0) and it didn't just work... in fact it didn't work at all on either of the devices.

I couldn't enter a text message on the mobile(it wouldn't let me select the message entry field), and although it was easy enough to get the Wifi to connect on the laptop, the browser steadfastly refused to connect to anything. On top of that the interface was glacial in it's response to button presses and gestures. When swiping over to another home screen, it took a good 4 or 5 seconds to slide the screen across. I'd slit my wrists if I had to suffer that kind of sluggishness for any great length of time.

The ease of use is definitely there for the iPhone (in my very brief encounter at a cell phone store), but I don't like the Apple restrictions.

I guess I'm stuck with Windows Mobile as the only Mobile O/S that is both snappy and open. Which I don't like saying because I'm no fan of M$ either.

Posted Tuesday 16th March 2010 20:58 GMT

Law

seriously?!

"I recently got a go on a HTC Hero" ... "in fact it didn't work at all"

Huh?? Were you playing with a damaged phone?? Recently my wife's hero screen stopped responding to touch middle and top of the screen... that's the only time I've seen touch not work

"I couldn't enter a text message on the mobile(it wouldn't let me select the message entry field)"

Again, never had this problem, even with the initial "laggy" software the hero shipped with.

"On top of that the interface was glacial in it's response to button presses and gestures. When swiping over to another home screen, it took a good 4 or 5 seconds to slide the screen across. I'd slit my wrists if I had to suffer that kind of sluggishness for any great length of time."

Me too - and yet, here I stand today. The initial software had lag issues, update the phone and it's instant, as instant as the iPhone. I know, there have been 2 hero's and 1 iPhone 3g in my house - and I always keep them all updated.

If you still have lag issues - use task killer to see what's running - it's still a phone, resources are still limited, you can't expect it to be doing 20 things and still be speedy at responding to you.

You would have the same thing on winmo, and even the iPhone if they enabled background apps... try it, jailbreak an iphone and run multiple apps in the background - it's not a pleasant experience.

You can't judge an OS on on a single badly executed attempt at playing with one... besides, you were really judging an early laggy Sense UI, not Android itself with the Hero.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 13:56 GMT

Eponymous Cowherd

The flip side of freedom

The problem with the "Freedom" of the Android Market (when compared to the App Store) is that the decent apps get lost amongst the total and complete dross that makes up 99% of new apps released to the Market.

The problem is caused by a handful of developers who release crap app after crap app, and then re-release them (without change) so they constantly reappear in the "most recent" list.

Anyone with an Android phone will know *exactly* what I'm talking about, and who these developers are.

It wouldn't be so bad if the Market offered facilities to filter out the problem developers, but unfortunately no such feature exists.

So, you have two extremes. the App Store controlled with an anally retentive zeal which bans many a useful application, and the Android Market free-for-all where the useful apps do exist but are outnumbered 100 to 1 by utter shite.

Personally I'd prefer a halfway house between the two. More control than Google, but less than Apple and where the control is based on quality rather than some arbitrary list of Commandments (thou shalt not use thy Private Frameworks, etc).

If I had to choose between the two as they are now, I'd probably go with Android. The plethora of crud is intensely annoying but, generally, there really *is* an app for most things that Apple ban (including some very useful wireless tools).

I have both an HTC Magic (Android) and an iPhone 3G, so the comparison is from real experience.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 15:29 GMT

Anonymous Coward

How is that substantially different than the apps on the app store

The vast majority of iphone apps are crap as well, so what's the difference?

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 14:43 GMT

Joel Fiser

Don't mess with Flash - or pay the price

Jobs has mad a HUGE mis-calculation.

AAPL stock down 1.5% so far today. The beginning of a loooong slide.

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 15:29 GMT

Ralph 5

Interpretation?

Google is down about 3% at the moment - so did they make the same mistake? Or is it a mistake to interpret meaning from the vagaries of the stock-market?

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 21:27 GMT

Joel Fiser

Apple's idiotic stance on Flash

No. Google is down because of concerns over dropping out of China.

But, in fairness, you're right. One day doesn't prove anything in the market.

BTW - AAPL now down 2.1%

Still, Apple's decision to piss off the most creative Developers in the World - Flashers - is going to cost AAPL dearly. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Posted Monday 15th March 2010 23:57 GMT

Anonymous Coward