Android in the News - Week in Review 12-12-14

[dgstorm]

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Welcome to our third Android in the News - Week in Review for the week ending December 12th, 2014. It's been a busy week in the forums, and we have several really big threads to discuss. From your favorite future phone idea to the thinly edged Oppo R5, the topics have been wide and colorful.

Here are the topics that hit the big four this week:

• Android s Best Phone of Next Year 2015 Poll Android Forum at DroidForums.net
• Motorola Droid Turbo Soak Test Invites Hitting Inboxes Android 5 or just Maintenance Android Forum at DroidForums.net
• Samsung Galaxy S6 Will Have High End Specs According to Latest Leak Android Forum at DroidForums.net
• Oppo R5 Pushes the Envelope on Thin Android Forum at DroidForums.net

It's our privilege to bring you guys the news each day, and we are having a great deal of fun with these news brief videos to cap off your week. Make sure to join in the conversations so you can be included in on the fun too. Thanks for watching, and please let us know how we are doing!

 

[DrumsOfGrohl]

I agree with you guys (and @wicked) about the super thin phone. I'm all in favor of making headphone jacks obsolete. Getting rid of cords is IMO something that the technological world could develop more.

WTBS, I'm not the biggest fan of bluetooth, mostly because (especially with music) you lose a lot of quality and I hate having to connect pair up devices when ever I use them. I know that you can leave your devices connected with some devices, but its a huge drain on your battery life to leave bluetooth running.
Its a great technology, and I'm grateful that we have it, but we need to improve it or invent something else.

Oh... and awesome video guys

 

[FoxKat]

I agree with you guys (and @wicked)I'm all in favor of making headphone jacks obsolete. Getting rid of cords is IMO something that the technological world could develop more.

WTBS, I'm not the biggest fan of bluetooth, mostly because (especially with music) you lose a lot of quality and I hate having to connect pair up devices when ever I use them. I know that you can leave your devices connected with some devices, but its a huge drain on your battery life to leave bluetooth running.

You don't need to leave Bluetooth running to preserve your pairings. I'm not totally getting that reasoning.

 

[DrumsOfGrohl]

You don't need to leave Bluetooth running to preserve your pairings. I'm not totally getting that reasoning.

no, but if you don't leave bluetooth running, you have to turn it on, and wait for it to connect, every time you use it. Its just a lot (obviously I'm #firstworldproblems here) of steps and precious seconds that shouldn't need to done: Turn on the bluetooth device (i.e. speakers), turn on the bluetooth on your mobile device, wait for them to connect. Not to mention having to pair them, if you're using a different set of headphones/speakers. Its not terrible (at all), but I feel like it could use some improvement.

 

[FoxKat]

The problem is, if it's not on, then how would it know to connect? There's a "cart before the horse" issue there. Any system that requires wireless conection has to know when to connect, and the way to know can be any one or more of several different triggers. Proximity to a wireless location - whether it be a WIFI or Bluetooth device in proximity, or simply a specific location such as work, home, etc., , a specific time and/or day, receiving a signal on that wireless system indicating that a device wants to connect (which requires that the radio be on and listening), a NFC tag, other hardware trigger such as a docking station, etc. can all be triggers.

If you're looking for a system that can somehow know intuitively that you want to use your bluetooth speaker, but not have to keep the Bluetooth service running to be looking for it, then there must be SOMETHING that tells the device you want Bluetooth to turn on and connect to the awaiting device...there must be some other form of trigger in order to activate the radio and connect. Any form of trigger except perhaps a hardware one, will in fact use power. For instance, a NFC tag to turn on Bluetooth will require NFC to be running, and even though it's a very low power device it will still use battery power. Even a timer-based trigger or a proximity/geography-based trigger would require power (to run the background timer service or the geographical location device/service, such as GPS). On the other hand, a hardware trigger such as a USB port connection or a magnetic sensor would use virtually no power as they would be more like switches that are closed when the proper situation arises, such as plugging into the car USB port, or putting the phone onto your desktop dock that has strategically placed magnets (as was the Droid 2 and Droid RAZR MAXX on their custom Motorola Dock Stations).

I am trying to think outside the box here, but I see no other way to have a device intuitively turn on and connect to Bluetooth besides the ones mentioned. If I'm missing something, please feel free to add/embellish/correct/debunk.