It seems like a very general term for any online social service. From wikipedia:
Originally Posted by
A social network service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging.
Here's a pretty interesting (albeit wordless) preview of many built-in Tab apps/widgets. There's a size comparison with the Galaxy S and iPad at the start.
Here's one thing that I love that Samsung has done with the Tab:
Instead of trying to build a competitive eco-system from the ground up, they have made smart choices with existing software (perhaps even influencing them) and pre-loaded them on the device. They have combined Android apps (navigation,earth,browser,etc), Zinio, Kobo app and market, ThinkFree office, Swype, Need For Speed shift, Layar, 7digital market, some newspaper service, and possibly others, to provide a very nice out-of-box experience for purchasers, without wasting resources trying to do it all (ahem, nokia). Specialization, man! It's such a simple thing, but it should really have a large effect on the value of the product and the resounding warmth of its reception (which should, in turn, help sales).
Of course they have filled in the missing gaps with their own software, which is prudent. The market value of these apps would probably increase the the cost by $20-$30, but I'm sure Samsung have done deals with developers for volume distribution.
They should pre-load it with the $0.99 angry birds when it comes to North America! The thing will sell out in a hurry: imagine casual users trying this in the store? Instant addiction.
They mention that the battery is not user replaceable, and must be taken to a service center to be replaced. This is one of the few negatives of this device, in my opinion, if true.
This is *somewhat* related: Samsung has just opened the code for the Epic 4G. This is encouraging, and suggests that the source for the Tab will be released as well.
Time to inject a little controversy (though not necessarily in these parts). Part rant, part argument.
I'm of the belief that different resolutions are not exactly a hindrance to development. Desktop OSs with resizable windows have been doing this for years. However of late, the media scene has been flooded reports that have praised Apples singular resolution and aspect as a brilliant anti-fragmentation measure, and raised concerns that Android devices have different resolutions and this will 'fragment' the market. I should note that not all articles are like this, but a great many.
I think it's nonsense. In fact there have been efforts to make Android resolution agnostic, as is seen in the official APIs. Which actually keep the market from becoming disjoined: apps will work well across phones and tablets. Reports are that 'phone' apps running on the Tab, generally resize gracefully, and not via image scaling. Here's an article that seems to mirror my understanding: http://www.androidguys.com/2010/01/2...sizes-history/
A hidden bonus of apps that gracefully resize, are the potential for multi-pane viewing for true multitasking (eg. screen split in half), or even traditional windows.
Of course, to take 'full' advantage of a higher resolution an app may have a different display when the resolution increases pas a certain limit (eg. a scroll pane that becomes visible with greater than 800px width).
Not to mention that the blogosphere seems to equate UI with OS. Le sigh..
But what do you think? Do you think the Tabs higher resolution with 'fragment' the market and slow development? What are your thoughts on the subject?
I'm of the belief that different resolutions are not exactly a hindrance to development.
They can be, depending on how good or bad your toolkit is.
Originally Posted by
Desktop OSs with resizable windows have been doing this for years.
Desktop OSes usually also have displays much larger than the windows of most applications, and UIs that do (somewhat) resize when shrunk/grown.
You'll notice that the problem today is a constraint on the maximum resolution of displays, and then you'll see the solutions of the mobile world impact desktop computing (DPI-sensitive interface scaling.)
Originally Posted by
However of late, the media scene has been flooded reports that have praised Apples singular resolution and aspect as a brilliant anti-fragmentation measure, and raised concerns that Android devices have different resolutions and this will 'fragment' the market. I should note that not all articles are like this, but a great many.
Apple is bringing the advantage that video game consoles have, namely that a given line of hardware is the same from the software's perspective across all devices. All iPhone 4 devices have the same minimum internal memory, same display, same communications features, etc.
The "disjoint" nature comes from the wildly different hardware subsets, over which Google has no control. Froyo being made to run on everything from weak ARMv6 chips from 3 years ago to bleeding edge Cortex A9 chips, with various and sundry additional hardware makes for a confusing array of devices.
I will agree that it has no real impact in the long run, so long as the hardware companies focus on delivering performance. People who make these predictions are basing it on the abysmal spread of Windows Mobile devices, which had a confusingly large array of devices with strange screen shapes, some being touchscreen and some not, and a UI toolkit that completely failed to scale with screen size.
Originally Posted by
Of course, to take 'full' advantage of a higher resolution an app may have a different display when the resolution increases pas a certain limit (eg. a scroll pane that becomes visible with greater than 800px width).
There are tools in place in most OSes now that you can specify the DPI of your screen and widgets will shrink/grow appropriately. So you end up with huge UI elements in the exact same spot regardless of screen resolution. I don't think anything makes use of it (see the iPad doing silly stretching of app windows.)
If anything, the Tab's higher resolution will force Google to get resolution independent UI rendering working 100%, just as I hope MeeGo tablets and phones force the same for Linux. There's no reason to be stuck to bitmapped UI elements these days, on any OS.
