The rule is, in English, you can make a noun possessive by adding "'s" to the end.
Let me emphasize one part: that's the rule to make A NOUN possessive. "It" is a pronoun, not a noun! The rule doesn't apply any more than it applies to a verb or an adjective.
Hence you don't have stuff like "you's", "he's", "she's", "we's", or "I's", and you also don't have "it's".
Yes, I misunderstood his point entirely. On reading my response again I also realize that my examples come off as a not so subtle insult, and which is not what I meant.
I think that was the expectation a few generations ago, once TVs were in most people's homes, but it didn't happen. I recall seeing a headline for a study a couple of years ago that said that regional accents were actually getting stronger.
Now if only the Google maps (mobile version) devs would read this. On Android anyway, no matter how much you zoom the text labels on things like street and highway numbers will not enlarge.
5 years ago that wasn't the case.
Type `ho`, stop there, and it will suggest your home location (if you have it set). Continue typing and it will serve up results that have `home` somewhere in the name.
Its typical Google, I can imagine an engineer going 'hmm, this way if they want to go to their actual home location, they can just tap on it, and if they continue typing, they can quickly find home depot!" not realizing this blatantly violates the Principle of Least Astonishment.
You see the same with Android 7.0 in the pulldown quicksettings: if you haven't fully pulled down the quicksettings, a tap on Wi-Fi turns it off. But if you pull it down completely, a tap suddenly opens a network selection menu, despite the icon giving no indication it will do something different. This again, violates POLA. Its purely a power user feature (how often is a normal person gonna be on a Wi-Fi network that isn't already set..?). Even worse is that some icons (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) act in this 'dual' way, yet some others keep working the same (Torch, Orientation Lock).
Obviously Torch and Orientation Lock don't really have any options beside on/off so they shouldn't have a menu.. its just that, from an UX perspective, its better if all your buttons act in a homogenous way, especially if they look the same!
These are all typical examples of Google being a company with engineering in its DNA, whereas Apple is a company that breathes design.
What astonishes me is how much GMaps doesn't learn. Every time I use the map to go to a place by car, my way back is back home. But it doesn't suggest it by default, and doesn't even get the hint when I type "home"...
To me, this is how IA will look. It knows you perfectly from a Bayesian perspective, but some product manager decided that the bayesian suggestion is the only place that won't be suggested to you...
Same for distance. There may be a restaurant called "The Place To Be" next to you, but it will ask for anything named "Place" within 1000km...
Off topic but does anyone else feel that Google Maps (and in general Maps) have just regressed in quality? In particular, while using directions. The most common problem I face on my iPhone (and I've heard the same from people using Android) is - compass orientation. It's so predictably bad that I have now started moving the opposite direction which the compass suggests. I'm more right than wrong when I do so. This wasn't the case 5 years ago on my iPhone4 when Google and Apple worked together to create the Maps application. I wonder if it has got to do with the same event.
I've used multiple phones across continents but yet tend to suffer from the exact same problem. Strange!
This is not the app's fault. The compass sometimes needs to be re-calibrated and that involves waving your phone around. The app should prompt you to do so if it thinks the calibration is off though...
Sure, but I think the font should be (to some extent) scaled proportionally to the map area or perhaps some other way of making the text larger. A typical use case for me is zooming in on a highway to see what exit number a particular ramp is. Today that info is basically unreadable on either platform.
On the other hand, I don't want to see giant a 'D' over where I live because on a far out zoom level it happens to say 'UNITED KINGDOM', and someone wanted to zoom in to see the font.
No Android 7 on my Nexus 5 might just be what pushes me to iOS. I've gone from being an Android evangelist to being an Android apologist ("Yeah, battery life sucks. Google has failed to fix it after X years") to now being, frankly, pissed off that my expensive phone is going to be left behind.
This. Battery life on my Nexus 6P is just fine, at least equal to my friends with their iPhone 6 Pluses. My Note 4 also had solid battery life before that. For the most part, modern Android phones are much better than their predecessors in terms of battery. The UX is also quite nice as well.
The iPhone SE is similarly priced and iOS devices receive updates for more than 3 years. iPhone 5 for instance got and runs fine iOS 9, 4 years after release.
If the updates would contain only security measures - but they don't. So I rather have an "insecure" device instead accepting an update that makes me want to throw the previously satisfactory device into the wall.[1]
But this is also not an option on iOS, because of the apps support and you have to update eventually.
Same for me, although there is some slowdown compared to iOS 7. I am extremely impressed with the longevity of Apple phones in general, and my 5 in particular.
depends on what your definition of 'fine' is. I also use an iPhone 4S with iOS 9, and looked at how fast iOS 9 runs on iPhone 6S and iOS 8 on a friend's iPhone 4S. I don't think I'd call it anywhere close to fine.
I'm numb to the slow response times, but the crashing applications make me want to ditch this for a 50% cheaper android phone which runs faster, and doesn't have planned obsolescence[0] (the link talks about planned obsolescence in iPhone 4S and iOS 9 )
Now I'm okay with most of the stuff apple does with it's walled ecosystem, and appreciate some, but this is going directly against a consumer.
I agree. Especially considering the fact that it's possible to revert to iOS 6 with iPhone 4S. That's what "fine" looks like. I don't want to blame Apple, but iOS works fantastically bad on old devices, and hard to impossible downgrade doesn't add much love either. I bought iPhone at the time because it was responsive and Android was laggy. Guess it's reversed now.
> wait, can I get some more info about this? I assumed to cannot go back to old releases. Or are you talking about jailbreaking?
You have to jailbreak current OS, then you can downgrade to iOS 6. It'll be jailbroken, but it's just enabled ssh, you can use it without installing Cydia and everything should work as normal. It could be done only with iPhone 4S or iPad 2 and only if current iOS is jailbroken (at least that was the case year ago, I was able to downgrade from iOS 8 to iOS 6 on iPhone 4S). Keyword to Google: OdysseusOTA. Officially there's indeed no way to downgrade, only using vulnerabilities.
Yeah, seriously. I've got an old iPad 2 and while I don't expect it to run like a (whatever the current iPad is called) the thing has been relegated to e-reader duty as even opening more than one tab in Safari causes it to lag and freeze up.
I've always spoken well of Apple's software update record but it comes with a nasty flipside in my experience: unlike an old x86 PC or Android device, once you update the OS, you're generally stuck. No downgrading and certainly no "slimmed down" builds or alternate OSes to breathe new life into physically intact but not-current hardware.
The Nexus 5 (16gb - $349, 32gb - $399) was released nearly three years ago for a fraction of the price of the comparable iPhone at the time (iPhone 5s: 16gb - $649, 32gb - $749). I think you got a hell of a deal. Upgrade to the 5x for another $350 be happy with another few years of support. Or wait for the new Nexus phones to come out this fall...
The only thing I'd add here is that unfortunately the Nexus 5x is not an upgrade over the 5 in terms of performance. It might even be a downgrade (I own both). Because the 5x uses a 64-bit arch, it uses more RAM than the 5x (and both only have 2GB). Also, the SD808 (2GHz) cores in the 5x are hardly a step up from the SD800 (2.2GHz) cores. The only real upgrade the 5x gives you is the camera.
> Best new features for me are fingerprint sensor, USB-C and and quick charge.
For me, USB-C is the worst part. Nobody else ever has a charger I can use, and when I plug into anything other than the wall adapter that came with the phone, it's always "charging slowly."
I guess, but I prefer the wireless charging of the Nexus 5 to the USB-C connector of the 5x. Of course it would be nice to have both. Hopefully this year's versions bring back the wireless charging.
I was really disappointed since the Nexus 5. I'm not sure why Qi charging was removed. Quick charging doesn't replace being able to just put your phone down to charge.
The Nexus 5X has no wireless inductive charging. My nice little Yootech charger sitting on my desk is useless with my wife's 5X. Those cool "charging tables" at Starbucks and other such places are suddenly useless, as well.
Also, 5X uses the USB-C connector, so you have to update all your cables and adapters on your desk and in your car. A real pain. When you're out in the world and need a charge-up, you'd better be carrying a USB-C cable, because no one else will have one.
I consider the 5X a side-grade and not of any particular value if you already have a 5. The 6P is at least a larger handset with a larger battery so it's got that going for it.
The good folks at Anker make thumb-size adapters that graft onto a USB-mini connector and turn it into a USB-C. These are easy to carry around and cost all of $5.99 on Amazon. Takes most of the hassle out of traveling in a mini-world.
You do have to remember to collect them when you're done, but the penalty for forgetting every now and then is not ruinous.
Wireless charging is so much slower than wired. I played around with it with my old S4 (same launch year as the Nexus 5) via a receiver you could throw in the case. USB-C (easy connections and more reliability) plus fast charging make wireless charging seem like a quaint idea that couldn't catch on. Don't get me wrong, it'll come around eventually, but it's not really there yet. Once it's faster and a single standard, then we can talk.
But being able to simply set my phone on my desk and keep it fully charged is a convenience I won't soon give up. I now buy phones with that in mind.
In theory, plugging in a cable isn't time consuming, but in practice, I only actually keep my phone charged during the day if I have a wireless charger nearby.
FWIW, I've deliberately kept my Nexus 5 on Android 4.4.4 and it runs as well as the first day I bought it 2.5 years ago. Multi-day battery life, no compatibility issues (because no OS updates), all the latest apps still run on it, etc. Not to mention it was an affordable phone even when it was brand new. Very happy with it overall; I can easily see it lasting me another few years.
There has to be some nasty security vulnerabilities lurking on that phone. There have been a lot of security patches to Android over the past 2.5 years to fix various exploits. I'm sure it does run great, but I would personally be uncomfortable missing out on so many security fixes.
I don't pay a lot of attention to the Android OS, but I do recall there was a nasty exploit discovered about a year ago (called Stagefright) where a specially-crafted text message with a picture or image can cause malicious code to be run on the phone the moment the phone receives the message.
I have an Android ADP1 --- one of the original development phones, the HTC Dream with the custom paint job. It's got 192MB of RAM and a single-core 528MB ARM11. It ran Cupcake, aka Android 1.5 (although I've since upgraded it to,
If you ignore the hilarious security bugs --- like the fact that, as shipped, they forgot to disconnect the keyboard from a root shell, so that if you typed 'reboot' into an email hilarious things happened --- it actually runs rather well; it's smooth and perfectly satisfactory to use.
...holy crap Cupcake would run well on a modern phone.
Unfortunately its https library uses some obsolete crypto technique --- TLS 2? --- and as a result it can't connect to anything on the internet, not even to fetch updates from the App Market (not the Play Store!). I can't even log in to Google.
I did have Gingerbread on it at one point but it was very unhappy.
I found a partial Debian port but there's still not really enough RAM for that. I wonder if there's a NetBSD port...
Yeah, I also tried Cyanogenmod Eclair and Froyo on it, but it was an excelent way to waste a lot of time watching things happen in slow motion. So I flashed it back to Donut and few weeks later got another phone, that ran Froyo properly.
I didn't know that the App Market doesn't work anymore - about 18 months back, my brother was still using it (as a backup phone, obviously).
Classic "don't fix it if it ain't broken". How have you manage to disable the System update annoyance ?
Shitty Lollipop made me sell the Nexus 5 last year with its bad battery life and memory leak (and they still didn't fix the mobile radio wakelock), but when downgrading to 4.4 it was next to impossible to block the notification. I remember methods used at time just caused the Google Play Services to hold the wakelock, since the update checker became a part of it.
That phone was eons better than my 5x, and cheaper. Only got rid of it due to physical damage.
I'm really not impressed with the Nexus 5x at all compared to every other Nexus phone Ive had (2 others), both from a price and general performance perspective.
The alternative is the iOS update process, which has the result of non-techies complaining that their iPhone 4 is now slow after the update, and the techies they know pleading with them not to update even though the number gets bigger.
Another alternative would be to keep releasing security updates. If open source projects can manage more than three years support, it's not out of the question for Google to do it, at least for the major versions.
I'm using a Galaxy Note 3 with CyanogenMod 12.1 (Lollipop) and I get each month's security updates. So it appears as though Google does release security updates for existing major versions.
iOS 6 got an update for goto fail even after iOS 7 was out, but that's the only time they've done it I think. I think in that case it could have been because they still had in-warranty devices that didn't support iOS 7
Unfortunately this also forces me away from the Nexus family. I just can't handle the size of the Nexus 6 - being a fairly petite female a large phone is just unwieldy. I'm not sure the phone developers ever take physical size into consideration. If anyone can recommend a small replacement phone that supports running the original Android OS instead of a OEMified mess?
The Nexus 5x should be great for you. It's a 5-inch screen and may have a couple more years of new Android versions left in it. Or better yet, wait for the new Nexus phones set to be released this year. Should add another year of Android support from Google.
Nexus 5X is listed at Google support site ( https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/4457705#nexus_device... ) to have "No guaranteed Android version updates after September 2017". You might want to wait for the new Nexus according to rumours will release in September.
Between the volatile battery life and Android OEMs almost entirely abandoning the non-phablet market, I'm about ready to move to iOS as well.
I still think Android's UX blows iOS out of the water these days, but the best UX in the world doesn't help me if the phone is dead, or too big to use one-handed on the go.
Indeed. The Nexus 5 was not expensive relative to the iOS devices he is consider getting. 3 years worth of updates was just about worth the device's price.
On another note I hated the Nexus 5 and that LCD screen always felt washed out!
I liked the screen for not being overly saturated like the others! And boy was that phone fast. Every once in a while when I try my Nexus 5 it feels faster than my 6P, for some reason.
N5 is very fast for that price, but camera sucks and plastic frame beaks easily. Not to mention how fragile are side buttons... And screen is quite hard to repair!
Not sure if I agree with the screen being hard to repair/replace.
I decided to do it a few months back and all it really took was taking all of the parts out, gluing the screen to the frame and putting the parts back in. Had I bought a screen with a frame, all I would've needed to do was transplant the parts from the old frame to the new one. Not difficult at all.
Heh, I just upgraded my Nexus 5 to Android 6 this week.
Been in 4.4 for ages, after testing the awful battery life of Android 5 and going back.
I find the battery life in 6 be about the same as 4.4, after installing xposed framework and Amplify & Greenify modules.
Besides a change in colors from dark to white, and the new lock screen notifications that I'm still thinking about disabling, I don't see a lot in actual improvements using Android 6.
There will definitely be some XDA fix for that. The Nexus 5 has by far the largest developer community. I agree about how it's become much harder to promote Android these days and I can't see myself getting another device after my G4.
But the update experience on flagships (except if you count the Nexus 6P) is absolutely terrible. I had an Android excursion: Nexus 4 -> Moto X 2013 -> Moto X 2014. Motorola was known at the time for quick updates. This meant in practice that they pushed out an extremely buggy Android 5.0 quickly, and then waited half a year to push out a release with fixes. On the Moto X 2013 I had to wait more than a year (!) for Lollipop, although at the time of release the phone was only released a year ago.
tl;dr Android updates on non-Nexus flagships are terrible. Updates are typically months late and stop after 12 or 18 months.
> But the update experience on flagships (except if you count the Nexus 6P) is absolutely terrible.
I don't really agree. I have always got regular security updates on my Samsung flagship phones. Yeah I will have to wait ~6 months for Nougat but that's hardly of any concern. There is no feature in Nougat that I don't already have from Samsung. The only thing you have to care about is the monthly security patches and Samsung has been one of the fastest to issue those every month.
Battery life sucks on Android flagship phones because they are running so many peripherals and the devs don't bother with aggressive power management. That is not Android's fault.
Witness the $200 phones that get spectacular battery life on stock Android primarily because they aren't running hardware that mostly goes unused and are unburdened by poorly designed launchers written by enterprisey Java devs.
> $200 phones that get spectacular battery life on stock Android because they ... are unburdened by poorly designed launchers written by enterprisey Java devs.
Are you saying that there are launchers / home screens that are _better_ than stock android in some dimension? I'm interested to hear more.
Much as I like iOS (as a normal user, not a dev nor power-user), you'll be surprised how poor battery life is.
Coming from Jolla, with a huge battery life, I was really disappointed that iOS can't make it an entire day without recharging. Even with bluetooth and gps mostly off.
I saw this coming and the rumors of the headphone-less iPhone 7 so I took the plunge on the 6S. I miss quite a few Android features but the experience is still pretty darn good.
I suspected that this was the case with Proximity, but the delay still served its purpose for me. I haven't played it in a while, so maybe I'll give it a whirl again.
Thanks for putting together such a fun little game!
Thanks! The game is almost 12 years old now, which still feels weird to think about. I did have high ambitions to make it like the next timeless game (like chess), including making it a bit less tactical and more strategic, but my own ego and life got in the way and it kinda withered on the vine from me not keeping it updated, making a proper multiplayer version, not making it cross-platform enough, etc.
I even turned down a request from the Puzzle Pirates guys to include it as a minigame in their game (that was a mistake), and OmgPop almost paid me to make a version for their website (shortly before they made Draw Something and got bought by Zynga), but I was too busy trying to finish my degree at the time.
I've been tempted to start an open source version to get some help developing it, but I started getting more into board game design lately and I've been programming less and less in my spare time. Kinda hoping I get a reputation in the board game world and then get a board game version of Proximity published (it's an abstract, so it's a harder sell to publishers).
Anyway, I'm glad you enjoyed the game. Hopefully someday I'll put out a newer version of it.
While we're on the subject, when you say "isn't the term suppose to be", you actually need to say "isn't the term supposed to be". I've noticed that people have started pronouncing this wrong (they now say "suppoes" rather than "suppozed") and that's spread into the written form.
Similarly, people are also replacing the correct "used to" with "use to".
"it's" = "it is"