Common Fate of Android Tablets, or a Quick 2013 Nexus 7 Review

I'm on my third Android tablet. Or fourth, but who's counting?

My first tablet was a Samsung Galaxy 5 bought in September 2012. This was mis-marketed as an MP3 player, which it did fine, but 5" was a great size for a handheld GPS device walking through cities, and fit easily into most pockets. It included an FM receiver, rear and front facing cameras, etc. I liked it. The big drawbacks were that it was too small for most reading or surfing activities, and it didn't have enough RAM to upgrade past Android 2.3.5. In December I managed to find the one place on Charles Ave where there was a drop-off between the sidewalk and the adjacent turf, stepped wrong, and fell, landing on my shoulder and on the Galaxy that had slipped out of my chest pocket. No Gorilla glass on this one.

I replaced it with a Nexus 10, decided that was too big, and replaced that immediately with a 2012 Nexus 7.

The Nexus 7 was overall fine, but the sound quality of the built-in speakers was terrible and produced insufficient volume to listen to podcasts or streaming radio from just a few feet away or with any background noise. The UI was sluggish. Touch a search area, and wait a few seconds before the keyboard appears. Type a key, and wait a few seconds before the character appears on the screen. No built-in FM receiver, but with TuneIn, this is not usually a big deal. Other than the speakers, the largest deficiency was the lack of a rear-facing camera.  Got QR Droid? You won't be using it on this thing. I also found 16 GB to be slightly restrictive, but of course there is AndFTP's sftp feature, and my home desktop runs an sftp server, so moving stuff back-and-forth was a breeze--a great improvement over plugging in the USB cable and hoping Linux decides to recognize the device. Anyhow, I get around 20Mb/s between my Nexus and desktop via 802.11 (and an Ethernet hop). The one time I had two droids downloading from the server concurrently I got 30Mb/s measured at the server. Not bad.

I liked the size of the Nexus 7: fairly easy to hand-carry, and I picked up a small messenger bag that can carry that and a few other things while I wander about listening to podcasts.

Friday I dropped my Nexus 7. Even though it was in a decent M-Edge cover, the screen cracked, and much of the screen no longer behaves as a touch screen. No Gorilla glass on this one, either.

So I picked up a 2013 Nexus 7. I have not had it long, but my initial impression is that Asus did a great job. The sound quality is okay, but importantly it can kick out enough volume to be easily heard from several feet away. The UI is more responsive than the older Nexus 7. The rear-facing camera is a great addition. 32 GB of flash memory is a big improvement over my past 16 GB--I won't have to juggle among movies on the device.

I'll probably write more about the 2013 Nexus 7 later.

Aside: the guy from the Office Depot (la oficina de la marihuana) really, really wanted to sell me a protection plan for the Nexus. He went so far as to tell me I'd probably want to replace the battery in a year or so. Despite my tendency to break things, I never buy protection plans, as they are usually pure profit for the seller.

We are Twitter's Twits, not their Customers

I've been disturbed by the invasive nature of many, many android apps. For example, here are the permissions requested by the Twitter app:

• Why does Twitter need my location? They don't.
• Why does Twitter need access to my accounts (note plural)? They don't. Why would I want to hand this over to them? That would be simply stupid.
• Why would my contacts want me to hand their information over to Twitter? The naive ones may not to think to care, but most would likely prefer that I did not.
• Why does Twitter need access to my Google service configuration? They don't. 

Clearly, we are not Twitter's customers, but rather Twitter's twits. Why use their app when you can simply log in to their service via browser?

Additionally, there are some ads that are simply blatant phishing attempts:

This is from the tunein app, which provides searches for radio stations and radio programs to stream. It's a nice service. It's ad-supported. The ad above, just above the highlighted Related tab, says I have one new message. So if I click that, where does it take me? Not to a message, or, rather, not to a message from anyone I could imagine listening to. It's a phishing ploy.

Buying MP3 Music: Amazon Cloud vs. Google Play

I just bought Tal Ben Ari's Sheelá on MP3 from Amazon. I've been buying most of my music lately from the Google Play Store, but strongly dislike the limited number of downloads they allow a purchaser. Purchasers do buy the MP3s, right? And, no, I don't care about any fine print since the e-mail receipt which Google sends clearly states that the track is purchased. Quote: You've purchased a track on Google Play. 

The reason I switched to Google from Amazon was that Amazon no longer supports Linux, and forces Linux customers to download songs one at a time. PITA for albums.

So I can purchase the MP3s from Amazon and then download them to my Android. I probably want them there anyhow, and, of course, backed up in the cloud. Then I can sftp them to my desktop machine. Amazon doesn't get in the way, and the Google bean counters don't get involved.

An issue that may have me reconsidering the above is that Google says they have Tal Ben Ari's Sheelá at 320 kb/s, whereas the Amazon MP3s vary from 203 kb/s to 230 kb/s.

Note to Android users: AndFTP is a wonderful app, allowing me to connect to my desktop at home and a server at work wirelessly.

Amusingly Unacceptable Android App

I decided to play around with an office app on the Android, and Kingsoft looked good with over 45k reviews and an average review of 4.6 The terms of use had one agreement with Google Analytics. The other is shown below:

I don't think I really need this app after all.

Kudos, 1 of 2

A couple days ago I couldn't transfer files between my desktop and Android because something dysfunctional called Samsung Kies was running on the Android, making it possible to see top level directories from my Mate box, but nothing below--it showed each directory as empty. It didn't really take so long to find the setting under Wireless and Network to disable Kies (USB is a networking technology, after all) but my first reaction was to fire up AndFTP on the Android, and it transfered the files quickly, painlessly, and wirelessly.

AndFTP is a great little sftp client for Android--I recommend it very highly.

Kies is software of no discernible value that Samsung stuck on the Galaxy 5, apparently so they can say they mucked with some of the software, or added "value."