back to article Google teases hush-hush Android event on July 24

Google on Wednesday began sending out somewhat cryptic email invites to a press event on July 24 that could herald big news for mobile device fans. The plain, unassuming notices gave no indication as to what the event might be about. "Please join us for breakfast with Sundar Pichai" was all they said. But Pichai, of course, …

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  1. Big-nosed Pengie
    Headmaster

    "Invites" is a verb.

    The word you're looking for is "invitations".

    1. stuartnz

      Re: "Invites" is a verb.

      An obscure little tome calling itself the OED begs to differ:

      "invite, n. view full entry 1615

      ...The act of inviting; an invitation...."

      1. Jordan Davenport

        Re: "Invites" is a verb.

        To be entirely fair, the usage of the word "invite" as a noun synonymous with "invitation" is informal. It is an accepted usage of the word, but it's informal.

        That said, honestly, who really cares? The purpose of language is to express ideas, and that goal was accomplished nevertheless with only a minimal amount of ambiguity.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Maybe

      They will announce that Android is going to address the issue of malware the operating system is susceptible to?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Maybe

        Unlikely, as it's clearly not Google's problem. Googles store is secure, and the OS as it ships is secure. If people want to tinker and want to shoplift elsewhere, that's their lookout.

        All this Malware FUD is doing (and lets be clear, it is unfounded FUD), is pushing Google to close the sideloading feature.

        when it gets removed (ala OtherOS), you only have sites like this to blame.

        1. hplasm
          Devil

          Re: Maybe

          when it gets removed (ala OtherOS), you only have AC twats like this to blame.

          FTFY

  2. PaulR79
    Happy

    Oh Google you shouldn't have..

    A birthday treat for me? Why thank you, Google.

  3. Jordan Davenport

    I know this probably is not the case, but...

    It would be interesting if Google were announcing the merger of Android with Chromium OS, perhaps throwing Dalvik into the latter. That said, as much as they've emphasized/hyped security on Chrome OS, I don't see that happening right now, particularly in the wake of the recent crypto snafu.

  4. Khaptain Silver badge
    Pirate

    Carefull

    This actually be the announcement of the official PRISM version. It's ths one in which you must first ask for clearance from our USA "friends" who then authorise or not your calls/application usage.....

    On the other hand the article mentioned, Android has not been updated for at least 5 months... That really is an eternity to wait for "not a lot at all". From ICS to JB there was a severe lacking of "newness", "originality", "usefull"..

    I think that the OS in itself can't really stretch out much further now, Android and IOS have come a long way, they are already very mature : what we need is seem cool hardware. It would be nice to see bendy phones, fold-out phones that can work at A7, A6, A5, A4 sizes, "long" battery lives, quick recharges ( 15 minutes from empty to full).

    The OS revolution is mature we need to concentrate our efforts elsewhere. ( The last thing that we want is what has happened to Windows, Linux - TIFKAM, Unity etc are dying attempts at adding something new)..... To be fair various Linux distros let us choose alternatives....

  5. Martin Budden Silver badge
    Megaphone

    4G Googlephone please!

    It's ridiculous that we *still* can't buy a native Android phone with LTE support. And even if I did buy a Nexus 4 and hack it to unlock the LTE chip, it won't work in the right frequency anyway (1800MHz in Oz). C'mon, Google, get your act together!!!

    1. Jordan Davenport

      Re: 4G Googlephone please!

      At least in the US, there are now the "Google Play editions" of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One. They're not Nexus-branded, but they ship with vanilla Android and are promised to receive updates as regularly as the Nexus-branded devices straight from Google. They're almost twice the price of the Nexus 4 though.

      The HTC One apparently only supports LTE on 700MHz and AWS, but the S 4 supports it on 700MHz, 850MHz, AWS, and 1900 MHz .

      1. Martin Budden Silver badge

        Re: 4G Googlephone please!

        Thanks Jordan. I've heard that those phones will also be released with vanilla Android in Australia in the coming months, but unfortunately I don't see the magical 1800MHz mentioned in your post, so we're still screwed unless the manufacturers decide to put a different chip in phones being shipped to Oz.... which seems very unlikely to me.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 4G Googlephone please!

      S4 or HTC One google edition.

      As for hacking the Nexus 4 to get LTE, firstly it lacks the required amplifier circuit. Secondly it doesn't have the necessary clearance to be run with LTE. It was tested as a 3G device by the relevant safety authorities and if you then hack it then you have no idea if the device is interfering with other equipment or frying your brain when you make a call.

      You're not allowed to modify low level functionality in phones, even the OpenMoko "open" handset had binary drivers for the phone section.

  6. ratfox
    Trollface

    Something new

    Maybe it's a smart watch?

  7. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Meh

    Place your bets...

    - They've finally sorted out privacy and permissions?

    - Multitasking works properly instead of randomly choosing an app to be killed (usually the web browser)?

    - Battery life sorted out?

    - Proper CalDAV/CardDAV support via Bluetooth, SMS, and e-mail?

    - International keymap support via Bluetooth instead of just US English?

    Or...

    - Unveiling the next Nexus shiny?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Place your bets...

      Is the choice of app to kill (the OOM killer thingy) really random? I thought it picked the one using the highest amount of memory- usually the webbrowser since the people who write them seem incapable of memory frugality.

      1. Dan 55 Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Place your bets...

        So how come Symbian didn't have this problem? I could open the web browser at 8am, use it for a bit, leave it for the rest of the day, come back to it at 8pm, and it'd still be there unchanged.

        You can hardly accuse Nokia of being generous with RAM so something's up with the multitasking on Android.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Place your bets...

          100% native code on Symbian.

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: Place your bets...

            ... or Java... or Python...

            Session restore for the browser doesn't count.

        2. Irongut

          Re: Place your bets...

          I'v had the same 5 or more tabs open in Chrome for the last couple of months on my S3. Even after a reboot. So what's the problem?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Place your bets...

            @Irongut

            He cheapskated on his purchase and bought a budget Android device with limited memory and wonders why it keeps closing the background memory.

            If he had spent more, he wouldn't have that problem. Personally it's nice to have the range of Android devices, from £80 to £600, but you would have to be an idiot to think the performance is the same across the board. You get what you pay for.

            1. Dan 55 Silver badge
              Gimp

              Re: Place your bets...

              My current device has 1Gb of RAM, 32Gb of storage, and a dual core CPU running at 1.5Ghz. Tasks are regularly killed. (Edit: Just because it appears in the launcher doesn't mean it's still running in the background, that's just a screenshot. The task may have been killed and unloaded from memory and is restarted when selected, and it's up to the app to restore its previous running state.)

              My previous N8 had 256Mb of RAM and 16.5Gb of storage, and a single core CPU running at 680Mhz. Tasks were very rarely killed.

              As I said, Android's not really that good at multitasking. I don't deny the selection of apps and the hackability of Android is very good.

  8. Crisp
    Boffin

    Assembled in USA

    This really caught my eye. Is this a business decision? Or an attempt to avoid all the flak that Apple received over their device manufacturers slave-like labour conditions?

    1. Mark .

      Re: Assembled in USA

      I wonder if it's a response to Apple now marketing "Designed in California" - I hate that this sort of advertising is done, but if one company starts it, it's hard for the rest not to join in (especially as Android, and Windows too come to that of course, are also designed in the USA).

      Hopefully Google'll have the sense to keep the advertising to the USA. Who knows what idiot thought it a good idea to put the "Designed in California" adverts to a British audience. To a US audience, the advert is advocating protectionism. To a British audience, it's telling me I should prefer a device designed by Americans over one designed by Koreans...

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Assembled in USA

      " Is this a business decision? Or an attempt to avoid all the flak ...."

      Both.

      The economics of Far East assembly have been heavily eroded by labour inflation in China and the falling (relative) cost of labour int he US. You may recall the labour assembly content of (IIRC) an iPhone was only around $3 anyway. So the premium for on shore assembly isn't that high, perhaps $2-3 net of transport costs. Because most of the semiconductors and screens will still be sourced from Asian specialists they've been careful to use the term "assembled" rather than "made". Time to market and supply chain length don't favour Asian assembly - you still need the bits from Taiwan, mind you, but if you assemble in China then you're shipping the bits a further thousand miles the wrong way and then back again, with all the further costs and risks of longer supply chains and repeated modal changes.

      Then there's the ethical and social issues. Offshoring is now a very dirty word, given the largely jobless recovery in the US, and the increased polarisation between the 1%'ers and an army of blue collar "have nots". What better way to promote a US brand like Motorola, and to contrast with Apple?

  9. stephajn

    Android 4.3....

    .....now with Google Glass integration and all the same creepiness as the Glass platform!!!

  10. airbrush

    with the death of symbian all the os choices are american and feeding data to prism, so which os exactly is a private person to use??

    1. Down not across

      @airbrush "which os exactly is a private person to use??"

      Sailfish

      https://sailfishos.org

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