Google Announces the Nexus 7"

[yvanleterrible]

Okay, SD cards are out. But there's a USB port. Can it be used for a portable hard drive or is it just for charging?

Then there are portable hotspots, tethering to a cell phone, wireless hard drives like the Goflex Satellite that allows streaming.
Also, many devices like cameras are showing up that have direct wifi connection. I find my wb850f very practical away from home. I can access it to download pictures easily, although quite slowly, but wireless is the way now...

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

Okay, SD cards are out. But there's a USB port. Can it be used for a portable hard drive or is it just for charging?

Initial reports suggest that, although the Nexus support "USB On the Go", and will work with things like a mouse or a keyboard, it doesn't support USB mass storage devices. The truth of that will emerge when the product gets into customer hands.

On many other tablets, USB-OTG does support mass storage devices.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The topic under discussion is the Google Nexus 7, not the merits of different service providers.

Mea culpa, I should not have mentioned their name. I did not want to glorify one specific provider (there are others), just to give a specific example.

As for the interpretation of the topic under the discussion, I believe that it became apparent that Google's offering has broader implications on Android tablet world in general, from SD card slots, internet connectivity that will be needed for various uses and I don't know what else. OT tendencies are to be expected.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Why are you forced to use home screen in portrait mode and landscape is not available?

http://www.zdnet.com/nexus-7-with-je...ne-7000000321/

The Nexus 7 home screen, the first thing that new buyers see, is restricted to work in portrait orientation. Google has decided that the 7-inch form factor of the Nexus 7 is better operated like phones, in portrait. Having used 7-inch Android tablets with earlier versions of the OS, I think that's a mistake.

I also noticed in demos and early reviews appearing that in Jelly Bean on the Nexus 7 Google has dropped the tablet interface of Honeycomb and ICS, and gone with a large phone interface.

[HarryT]

I disagree as well. Landscape mode works very well for the home screens on my 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 with ICS.

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

Why are you forced to use home screen in portrait mode and landscape is not available?

Wow, that would be irritating. How odd that they wouldn't let the user choose which orientation they prefer.

I use landscape mode almost exclusively on my 7" tablet, for both apps and the home screen. Reading apps are the only ones that I view in portrait mode.

[afv011]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Wow, that would be irritating. How odd that they wouldn't let the user choose which orientation they prefer.

I use landscape mode almost exclusively on my 7" tablet, for both apps and the home screen. Reading apps are the only ones that I view in portrait mode.

The beauty of Android is that there are plenty of Home App replacements (I use Apex myself), and those offer multiple configuration options, including locking and unlocking the rotation of the home screen.

[=X=]

Originally Posted by DreamWriter

Wow, that would be irritating. How odd that they wouldn't let the user choose which orientation they prefer.

Well the word from Google is that everybody that has the Nexus 7" is using a beta release of JellyBean(4.1) and is for developers not the public.

The final release will have more features and improved stability. I'd imagine if enough folks calmer up about not liking the home screen locked in portrait mode they might add landscape mode by the time the product is released.

Personally I almost exclusively use portrait mode on my 7" tablet. I only use the landscape mode when a app forces on me. (usually games)

=X=

[ScotiaBurrell]

A Google spokesperson confirms to me that 10-inch tablets will retain their landscape orientation and bottom-right notification setup even after the 4.1 upgrade. So, yes, the way Jelly Bean looks on a tablet will depend on the tablet's size; the OS adapts itself to the device in order to deliver (what Google sees as) the optimal user experience for that particular screen size.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/mobil...-tablet-layout

[carld]

Slightly off topic, and I haven't read the entire thread, but are there any plans for a larger tablet? I'm happy with my Fire, but wouldn't mind a 10-inch tablet for some things.

[tubemonkey]

No card slot, home screen limited to portrait mode, and running on a phone interface. Great! More reasons not to get this tablet. Are there workarounds? Sure, but some will require root:

When the Google Nexus 7 tablet was revealed at Google I/O just days back, many were disappointed to see Google’s flagship Android 4.1 JellyBean tablet running the phone interface for portions of the OS, rather than the tablet-optimized interface seen on all Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich tablets. Luckily, this can be fixed with a quick hack, provided your device is rooted.

[ScotiaBurrell]

No card slot, home screen limited to portrait mode, and running on a phone interface.

Google is providing 'optimal' user experience. Like 'other' tablet company does.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by =X=

Well the word from Google is that everybody that has the Nexus 7" is using a beta release of JellyBean(4.1) and is for developers not the public.

The final release will have more features and improved stability. I'd imagine if enough folks calmer up about not liking the home screen locked in portrait mode they might add landscape mode by the time the product is released.

Not too likely, really. Many devs have their own ideas about how things should be done, and deliberately restricting the included features that would allow one to easily get away from that vision is quite common (for example, look at Ubuntu and GNOME with their switch away from a proper desktop to Unity and Shell 3 interfaces over in the Linux world, and all the hollow justifications made to support the changes not even leaving the option to use computers the way they've been used for the last 25 years or so).

If it's not just an oversight (which, sadly, I doubt), the odds of it changing are incredibly low, thus forcing users to find UI replacements to be able to use the device in a way the average user would expect to be able to.

[SeaKing]

Quote:
Originally Posted by =X=
Well the word from Google is that everybody that has the Nexus 7" is using a beta release of JellyBean(4.1) and is for developers not the public.

The final release will have more features and improved stability. I'd imagine if enough folks calmer up about not liking the home screen locked in portrait mode they might add landscape mode by the time the product is released.

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

Not too likely, really. Many devs have their own ideas about how things should be done, and deliberately restricting the included features that would allow one to easily get away from that vision is quite common (for example, look at Ubuntu and GNOME with their switch away from a proper desktop to Unity and Shell 3 interfaces over in the Linux world, and all the hollow justifications made to support the changes not even leaving the option to use computers the way they've been used for the last 25 years or so).

If it's not just an oversight (which, sadly, I doubt), the odds of it changing are incredibly low, thus forcing users to find UI replacements to be able to use the device in a way the average user would expect to be able to.

Never underestimate the FORCE of the "Schedule" and meeting requirements set by Marketing.

In my own business, it had to do with the weather, the approaching front, the rising water, the coming of day or night, or the missing hikers, the lost stallion and mare. Sometimes which way the wind was whipping the fire.

In the old days, it was the pressures of life and death in combat.

If you have read about the two unarmed (no ammunition) fighter planes that went to force down Flight 93, you will see the interchange from the commander to his then trainee student in the other plane when she didn't get off the runway fast enough for him.
"Why the hell aren't you up here?"

The planes had had no time to rearm, and later that Commander said "I will take the cockpit" The young female Lieutenant said "I will take the tail." The planes were unarmed, and they would have to crash into their targets on Flight 93 without ejecting first to make sure they didn't miss.

The point is that sometimes You gotta GO when you gotta go and you are not "totally" ready.

(It turned out that the passengers on Flight 93 also acted, and did it before the fighters got there so that at least 2 lives were spared.)

[The Terminator]

I've been browsing the Nexus 7 sub forum on XDA and it looks like they might be shipping REALLY soon, someone phoned to cancel one of their tablet orders and the call rep said that it can't be done as they have begun the shipping/processing stage .


Waiting very patiently impatiently for the shipment email.