Why the OnePlus 2 missed the flagship killing mark

The OnePlus 2 was arguably the most hyped and anticipated phone of 2015, and rightly so. The original OnePlus One shook up the market and showed that a budget phone could also compete with the more expensive flagships.

The OnePlus 2 promised to build upon that idea by adding more features that consumers wanted while still keeping a low, competitive price. Unfortunately, there is more competition in the budget flagship space this year than there was last year, and that is something that OnePlus should have accounted for.

On paper, the OnePlus 2 absolutely screams high end! Its blazing fast Snapdragon 810 processor, 4GB of RAM, 5.5″ full-HD display, metal build, 13 megapixel camera, 3300mAh battery, fingerprint scanner, 64GB of storage, and even USB Type-C. Everything there says that this is a phone meant to challenge the flagships brought buy big brands like Samsung, Apple, and LG.

That should be it. Case closed. OnePlus killed the big name flagships with a phone that delivers all the features consumers want at a price that will cause their wallets to sigh with relief. Unfortunately, it is not the big features and super specs that OnePlus messed up on, instead it was the small things that no one even thought they could overlook.

If you have not guessed by now, I am talking about OnePlus’ decision to nix NFC on their latest flagship. I can already hear the defense for this decision from people saying “I do not even use NFC” or “NFC is not important in a flagship”.

If Android was stopping right now at Lollipop and no future versions were coming out, I would probably agree with them. Right now, NFC is not widely used in Android devices and removing it is probably not going to cause any difference at first. However, the problem comes when we talk about future-proofing.

It seemed that OnePlus wanted to future-proof the 2 to that it would be able to compete in the market for a long time with phones that will be debuting next year. However, their device will be far behind current flagships when Android M drops in just a few months. Android M comes with Android Pay which focuses on making mobile payments easier, safer, and faster. Of course, to take advantage of Android Pay, you need a phone with NFC to use it at merchants that accept mobile payments.

All I can wonder is why would OnePlus remove a feature that even the most budget Android phones can squeeze in? They put a fingerprint scanner on the OnePlus 2 but decided that an NFC chip was going to put them over budget? With native fingerprint recognition in Android M coupled with mobile payments from Android Pay, NFC seems like a no-brainer to include in this “flagship killer.”

I worry that someone will purchase and OnePlus 2, see their friends using touchless payments, try to do the same, and realize that they bought basically the only Android phone out there that does not have NFC. This is a dangerous move for OnePlus, especially at this time in the game.

When I first heard the OnePlus 2 did not come with NFC, I was surprised and confused, but I knew the backs were replaceable and assumed that there would be a back option that would add NFC. However, OnePlus has since said that this is also not possible. I have to wonder what went through OnePlus’ head when they decided to give consumers no way to add NFC.

OnePlus promised consumers a phone that would deliver on all fronts and create the ultimate budget flagship, and they almost did it. Future-proofing was spot on with USB Type-C, but it crumbles to bits when NFC was removed. Mobile payments are becoming more normal everyday and will only continue to gain traction. By removing such an average piece of hardware, OnePlus has put themselves in a strange situation.

The OnePlus 2 is an amazing phone and would probably be on most people’s buy list with the spec-to-price ratio; however, for people who keep their phones for 1 year or more, the lack of NFC will become frustrating since every other flagship out there comes equipped with it.

The day after OnePlus’ announcement, Motorola surprised many by releasing its new Moto X Pure Edition at a $399 price point. This is a phone that directly competes with OnePlus and outshines them on several fronts (did I mention it actually has NFC?). The Moto X is also available without dealing with an invite system. Check out a discussion about which manufacturer created the better flagship by our own Josh Noriega.

While the OnePlus 2 stands out as a powerful flagship with a low price, I worry that they may be overshadowed by Motorola which may have offered the better budget phone this year.

Do you think the OnePlus 2 missed the mark or do you support their decision? Tell us your thoughts down in the comments!

The post Why the OnePlus 2 missed the flagship killing mark appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Epic App Battles of Android: Google Play vs. Amazon Prime

In today’s Epic App Battles of Android, we examine two of the biggest names in Android.

In the green corner, we have Google Play Music, launched in 2011, with over 500m downloads and a user rating of 3.9.

In the orange corner, we have Amazon Prime Music, launched in 2014, with over 50m downloads and a user rating of 3.7

Who will come out on top in the epic battle of titans?

Round 1: App design

Google Play Music uses Android’s material design. And why wouldn’t it? It’s Google after all. That, of course, makes for a very familiar and easy to use interface. When you first open the app, you’ll be greeted by the same interface found on their web portal. This makes it very easy to transition from the app to the web portal and vice versa. The color scheme is very light and clean.

When you first open the app you are greeted by some automatically generated playlists. This is a feature that they brought in from their Songza acquisition last year. Songza’s streaming service, of course, still exists. In fact, it went head to head with Spotify earlier in the week. Even though it lost the battle, it’s automatic playlist feature is pretty cool and it really helps Google Play find you some music to listen to quickly.

Right below the playlists are the recently listened to stations. This is handy if you have a station that you really liked.

Rating: 8.9

Amazon Prime Music also follows Google’s material design language, but the app differentiates itself from Google Play by using a darker theme. Personally I prefer the darker design language of Amazon Prime. However, it’s not quite as functional as Google Play’s UI. I found that finding something to listen to was marginally harder to do, than it was on Google Play. It wasn’t difficult by any means, just not as easy.

There were a few elements, where Prime Music took the lead. I loved the music level animation that would play on both the now playing screen and the station selector. It not only let you know which station you’re listening too, but it looks cool in the process. Google Play has a similar animation UI, but it only shows in the song list. The category bar above the music selection also made it easier to jump to something particular that I was searching for. Of course, I already mentioned that I also liked the darker UI better.

While there are some elements of Prime Music’s design that I like better than Google Play. I don’t think that they outweigh Google’s functional interface. In the end, I’d rather be able to find something to listen to quickly.

Rating: 8.3

Round 1:

Google Play – 8.9

Amazon Prime – 8.3

Round 2: Features

Both Google Play Music and Amazon Prime Music, come to the table with very similar features. I’ll be focusing on what features distinguish them from each other.

Google Play Music comes to the table with some pretty strong features. One of it’s strongest features is its enormous catalog. I was able to find the most obscure music that I knew of. I even found a relatively unknown Salvadoran band called R.E.D.D.. They are very well known in El Salvador, but not so much in the rest of the world. Every song and every artist I looked for I found. To me, that is a huge benefit of a streaming music app.

Another nice feature of the paid app was that when you listen to a song that has a music video on Youtube, there will be the option to watch the music video. This is more of a novelty than anything, as I usually listen to music while I am otherwise occupied with another task. This makes it difficult to enjoy this feature. It’s more of a cool feature to show your friends. Also, the video doesn’t open up in the native Youtube app, where you could cast it to your TV. It instead opens in a player within the app. To be fair, you can still open the video in the Youtube app, but it’s not intuitive.

Chromecast support is another feature that you’ll find on Google Play. If you want to play your music on your television, you can with the Chromecast. Technically if you have Youtube on your TV or other streaming device, you can open the video in the Youtube app and cast the music video to other non-Chromcast devices. Amazon Prime won’t let you cast anything, even to the Fire TV.

Another feature that Google Play has that Amazon Prime does not is the ability to filter explicit results from radio stations. As a father of 3 children, this is especially important to me.

What we like about Google Play Music

• Music Catalog
• Chromecast support
• Explicit music filter

What could be better

• UI theming
• Cheaper price

Rating: 9.0

Amazon Prime Music also has a cool and unique feature. That feature is X-Ray Lyrics. Amazon prime will stream lyrics along with the song in the now playing page. The lyrics will also highlight and scroll to keep up with the song. So if you like to sing along to your music. This is an awesome feature. Unfortunately, this is really the only feature that sets it apart from Google Play. That being said, they both share a ton of features like offline streaming and the ability to purchase songs and albums that you want to purchase. That’s because before they were streaming radio services, they were music stores. So if you cancel your subscriptions, you’ll still be able to listen to and download your purchases.

What we like about Amazon Prime Music

• X-Ray Lyrics
• Darker UI

What could be better

• Free ad-supported version
• Casting support

Rating: 7.9

Round 2:

Google Play – 9.0

Amazon Prime – 7.9

Round 3: Price

Google Play Music has both paid and free versions.

The free version is essentially Songza with Google’s UI. You get unlimited ad-supported music streaming with 6 skips per hour. Chromecast support is included.

The paid subscription will give you offline play, unlimited skips, and no ads. You can watch music videos for many of the songs, as well as play specific songs and albums. It costs $9.99 per month.

Rating: 7.0

Amazon Prime Music has no free version. If you want to use their service, it’ll cost you $99 per year. Of course, that also comes with free 2-day shipping on many of the items they sell on their website, unlimited Video streaming, and free eBooks.

Rating: 8.7

Round 3:

Google Play – 7.5

Amazon Prime – 8.7

Summary

Google emerged from the fight as the victor. Amazon Prime is the leader in value, because of the lower price and multiple other benefits.  Unfotunately as this comparison is geared towards music streaming only, Amazon is unable to compete with Google’s massive catelog, and superior features. What do you think? Do you agree with our ratings? Let us know in the comments below.

Final Score

Google Play – 25.4

Amazon Prime – 24.9

The post Epic App Battles of Android: Google Play vs. Amazon Prime appeared first on AndroidGuys.

Wearhaus Arc: Is the world ready for ‘social headphones’?

Almost exactly a year ago, I received an email about “the world’s first social headphones.” The main feature of the Wearhaus Arc was their ability to wirelessly connect with other Arcs nearby, letting users broadcast (or listen in to) each other’s tunes. Owners of the Arc would be able to create impromptu silent discos, or hyper-local radio stations with just one media player. At a romantic level, I liked the idea. I imagined all the conversations they could start, or connections they might spark, so I wrote about them, suggesting the technology might be better as a “feature” that other brands could license. Despite my reservations, Wearhaus went on to run not one, but two successful rounds of crowdfunding for its bespoke headphones. That product is finally here, and about to go on sale. I’ve at last had a chance to try it. Has it changed my mind?

First, a bit of history. Arc is the brainchild of two ex-Berkeley engineering “dropouts”: Richie Zeng and Nelson Zhang. The duo had never developed a commercial product before, let alone designed a pair of headphones. But, unperturbed by such details, they went ahead anyway, under the brand name “Wearhaus.” In another bold move, the duo didn’t take to Kickstarter or Indiegogo to fund their project; they did it themselves via their own website. Despite the lack of experience, and the unconventional (and untrusted?) crowdfunding platform, the duo reached their $75,000 goal, and development of Arc began.

Fast-forward to today, and on my desk are two final production units: one black, one white. The finished product looks much better than the prototype. The materials and build quality seem improved. The fit is more comfortable, and gesture-based playback controls have been added. More importantly, the never-before-demoed social features are here (hence the two pairs, to test them).

That’s the first thing I do. I connect the black pair to my phone via Bluetooth; the white set I just switch on. I play music through the first pair, and then double-tap on the earcup of the second. A short moment later, and the music plays through both, in near-perfect sync, and at apparently the same quality. Zeng tells me it works by daisy-chaining the Bluetooth connection, with up to six sets theoretically being able to connect, and with no degradation in audio from the host set.

A future software update will increase the number of possible connections to 63. The delay between headsets is about 100ms, but could go as low as 10 or 20. To be fair, exact synchronization isn’t essential, unlike with video applications. I have to admit, it’s kinda fun, and it’s not hard to imagine how, with enough users, it could be a great music-discovery tool, or at the very least, an enabler for random social encounters.

The whole process is also refreshingly simple. The “broadcaster” sets up their “station” via the Wearhaus Arc app, and the listener just needs to double-tap the right side of their headphones. If you were in a room full of broadcasters, you can use the app to browse them all, and settle on whatever strikes your fancy. It’s whether you’re likely to find yourself near even one other set that’s the question.

As a standalone product, Arc’s audio quality is typical of other $200 headphones. There’s a slight EQ bump on the lower end, but it’s barely noticeable. Higher frequencies are perhaps a teensy bit less clear than they could be, but are certainly livelier than much of the competition at this cost. There’s also a good amount of dynamic range (drums and vocals punch through as they should) for an on-ear headphone. For the price point, the Arc is a pleasing set to listen through, even if you don’t care about the social features.

If I have any gripes, it’s with the rigid design. The Arc doesn’t fold, and while the earcups adjust, the whole set is fairly rigid. This isn’t uncommon, but the Arc definitely feels a little stiffer than most when putting them on or off, compared to something lighter, like AIAIAI’s TMA-2. There’s no indication the plastic would crack, but it feels possible, if given enough abuse. I also have a love/hate relationship with the multicolor LED trim detail. In the app, you can set the LED to any color you like (or a combo of three), and it looks pretty fancy. The flip side of that, and this might be just me, is that I ended up turning it off a lot of the time, especially at night, as I felt a little self-conscious.

Now that I’ve seen the Arc in all its social glory, what’s changed? In some ways, not a lot. I still find something whimsical about the idea of a “social” headphone. It’s an idea I really want to catch on. I also still think it’d be much better as a platform, a technology other manufacturers could implement into their products so that buyers could choose the headphones they want. The concept is cool, but for it to achieve any level of public adoption, being stuck with one brand probably isn’t enough. Fortunately, the Wearhaus Arc headphones are good enough that if you like how they look, it’s a decent product for the price anyway. Wearhaus has shipped the Arc to all the early backers, which means about 3,000 pairs exist in the wild, but the team tells me it’s in talks with retailers right now to help boost that number.

If you’re interested in spreading the social vibe, you can pre-order a pair through the Wearhaus website.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Comments

Source: Wearhaus

Android and adult content: from skirting the Play Store, to VR and double standards

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If you’re interested in a spot of sex and violence, which mobile platform should you choose? Does it actually make much of a difference? Is there more adult content in the Play Store than there is in the App Store? What about violent games or other kinds of content that might be considered adult? What’s the most moral platform of them all? Let’s dive in and see what we can find.

“You know, there’s a porn store for Android. You can download nothing but porn. You can download porn, your kids can download porn. That’s a place we don’t want to go – so we’re not going to go there.”

You can probably guess who said that back in 2010. According to TechCrunch he followed it up with an email to a customer which said, “…we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and Android phone.”

Those comments were partly prompted by the revelation that Apple had rejected an app from a cartoonist, who went on to win a Pulitzer Prize, because it ridiculed public figures. A decision Jobs tried to reverse after it came to public attention and raised questions about Apple’s policies.

Is the Play Store rife with adult content?

Looking beyond his hyperbole, there’s no doubt that Apple was much heavier-handed in rejecting apps from the App Store for a wide range of offenses against morality than Google was back in 2010. But that has definitely changed. Google did some Play Store spring cleaning last year and changed the Developer Content Policy. Sexually explicit material now tops the list of no-no’s, with violence in second place.

Rife with porn? Not really.

Do a search for porn in the Play Store today and you get Dailymotion, Hola, Firefox, uTorrent, and Netflix in the top row of results. The only vaguely pornographic-looking apps are some 3D virtual bikini model simulator and an app that scrapes “fitness” videos from YouTube. You’re still not going to find porn in the App Store either. You’ll find plenty of pseudo porn, like bikini model apps in both, but Google definitely appears more relaxed on the whole than Apple does.

In the interests of being thorough we searched the Windows Store and BlackBerry App World too. There’s no porn on Microsoft’s beat, and BlackBerry just highlights apps to hide your photos and browsing alongside the surprising Sex Fantasies for Women, but there’s nothing you’d describe as porn.

Who uses apps for porn anyway?

The whole point is surely rendered moot by the fact that everybody uses the browser for porn. If Jobs was serious about keeping porn off the iPhone, he’d have had to block porn sites in Safari. According to Pornhub’s insights for 2014, most traffic came from Android devices (49.9%), compared to 40.5% from iOS, 2.6% from Windows, and 1.4% from BlackBerry.

Pornhub

Considering that Android’s market share was up nearer 80% for the year, IDC says 81.5%. That actually means iOS users are watching proportionally a lot more porn. But, those results are skewed because iPhone ownership is higher in the States and that’s where Pornhub gets most of its traffic.

What about violence and other adult content?

You can find marijuana related apps on both platforms, although Eaze, which actually allows you to order medical marijuana in California, seems to have been rejected on iOS.

There are plenty of violent games on Android and iOS. Play Carmageddon on your phone today and it’s hard to imagine it was ever banned. Back in the day the morally outraged brigade got all hot and bothered about the fact you score points for mowing down pedestrians. It doesn’t really get much more morally questionable than GTA, but you’ll find near enough the complete series in both stores.

Postal has been heavily criticized for its violence

It was a safe bet that Postal was never going to be released on iOS, but some people were surprised when Google rejected it due to “gratuitous violence”. Particularly when the Amazon Appstore allowed it. That brings us neatly to a major difference between Android and iOS.

Venturing outside the Play Store

If you’re really looking for adult apps, you can find them much easier on Android devices, you just have to look outside the Play Store. Tap that box to install from “Unknown sources” and you can sideload as much filth as you want. Mikandi [NSFW link] is bidding to be “The World’s Largest Adult App Store” and it’s packed with adult Android apps and games. It made a point of welcoming developers rejected by Google or Apple.

Mikandi promises an app store that treats you like an adult.

Safety and security, and even legality, should always be a concern when browsing the seedier side, so you can imagine there’s a real business opportunity here if someone can develop a safe-to-use adult app store that’s not packed with malware.

What about virtual reality?

It’s not what it looks like.

You’ll also find VR porn pioneers on Android. Head to BaDoink [NSFW link] and you can access porn videos made for Gear VR, Cardboard, and Oculus Rift headsets. They are so keen to get people onboard that they’re giving away free cardboard VR headsets. If virtual reality is set to kick off a porn revolution, Google might not approve, but it looks like it’s going to be easier to get your VR porn fix on Android than on any other platform.

Google’s Cardboard does work with the iPhone now, but you aren’t going to find any easily accessible VR porn. Will people be willing to jailbreak to get it, assuming someone does develop an iOS app? Or will it be enticing enough to persuade them to jump ship to Android?

Oh, the hypocrisy

It’s still not really clear why Apple or Google feel the need to censor apps and games in the way that they do, when you can find tons of sexually explicit and incredibly violent movies, books, and music in the Play Store or iTunes. Why be moral police about apps, but not other content? Maybe it has something to do with interactivity, or the lack of an official body handing out age ratings. There’s no precedent for them to follow with apps, so they’re making it up as they go along, hence the bizarrely mixed results.

In any case, if adult content is important to you, Android is still the best choice, and it looks set to remain so for the foreseeable future.