When scrolling, I notice that the font hinting seems to break down. This makes the text very "juddery". It looks like the fonts shrink and grow and they scroll. This is very disorienting when reading.
In this example I've noticed that once I've stopped scrolled the page, the fonts are hinted differently.
I've enlarged the examples (without interpolation) so you can see them a bit more clearly.
To give you a good idea of what's happening, I've magnified the letter "e" (again, without interpolation). You can quite clearly see what happens to the font.
I can understand why the font hinting changes as the scrolling occurs - but why does it change even after scrolling has finished?
All screenshots taken on an N7100 running 4.1.2 with the latest version of Chrome for Android. The Galaxy Note II has a fairly standard resoltion of 1280×720, giving it 267 PPI - that shouldn't cause any problems.
So, I ranted and raved on my blog and in the press. Samsung wouldn't respond to me - either through customer support or through their PR team. Nice way to treat a paying customer, guys!
There is an OTA update for the Galaxy Note II - taking it to 4.1.2. Sadly this isn't yet being pushed out via all UK carriers (including O2, who I work for).
As far as I can tell, the update does fix the bug. I've only been trying it for an hour - but it seems that copying no longer crashes the device.
There are a bunch of other minor changes which you can see in this video.
So, this is the fairly quick and simple way to upgrade your GN2.
Get The Firmware
The site SamFirmware lists just about every available firmware for Samsung devices.
Caution! you have no way of knowing what that file does. It does not come from an official source. If it makes your phone explode, or fills it with state sponsored malware - that's just too bad.
I mean, would it kill Samsung to list their official firmwares on their site?
Stick the file on your phone
I used my microSD card. The file is over 1GB, so make sure you have plenty of room.
Upgrade
The easiest way to install ROMs on your phone is to use Mobile Odin. It's an Android app which takes care of all the hard work for you. Run it, point it at the update file, and off it goes. Costs less than £4 which is very reasonable.
Choose "Open File" and select the zip.
The app will ask you a few questions and then start the upgrade.
Pace up and down nervously
The whole process takes less than five minutes. But there's always a risk with something like this that it will spontaneously combust.
All being well, the phone will spring back to like with an upgraded OS and a clipboard that doesn't crash the entire phone.
I still don't understand why Samsung insist on treating their customers this way - but at least the issue is now fixed.
So, time to put the Samsung Galaxy Note II through its paces. I've had the phone for a couple of months and been really pleased with it. But I sensed that I hadn't really used it in anger. I decided to spend the whole day trying to do my work only using the GN2. And, to make the challenge more exciting - no recharges!
Let's kick things off!
To help with my blogging, I used the official WordPress for Android app. It's pretty good, but a bit fiddly to add photos and formatting. Good if you're posting a quick update or just a single media item.
First thing's first, I knocked on the power saving mode. I didn't want the battery to conk out half way through the day. I attached to WiFi and made sure the radio was in GSM mode - no need for 3G. As I wasn't going to be playing videos or 3D games, I was quite happy to dial the CPU down.
I'd already killed or uninstalled the crap-ware which Samsung shovels on to their phones - so I didn't have many background processes running.
One thing I will say about the GN2 is that it is as stable as any phone I've ever used. Mine has been running solidly for over a month without being restarted. It's still just as smooth and fast as when I first turned it on.
For all the typing I do in my day-to-day work, nothing beats SwiftKey. Its predictive text is uncanny - making typing spectacularly efficient. I wish I had it for my desktop.
I often need to SSH into Linux boxes to fiddle with them. Enter ConnectBot - a rock solid SSH program. Works well over 3G and even copes with 2G. I can even set up shortcuts on my homescreen for specific servers.
Before I knew it, I'd been working for an hour and a half. Time to check the battery stats.
Ten percent gone. I didn't have the screen on constantly, but I was using it more than usual. Conservatively, that's 15 hours of battery life when using the phone fairly solidly.
The day wouldn't be complete without reading and writing too much email! The GN2's Outlook email client is really poor. It flickers horribly, scrolling is jerky, and it doesn't do server-side searching very well (which, to be fair, may be our IT setup).
That said, the landscape mode is really useful. It also has "Do Not Disturb" hours - so I don't get any work email alerts after 1700 or before 0900.
Come lunchtime and I'd been using the phone for a couple of voice calls - weird, I know! I'd spent around 45 minutes talking on the phone - it's pretty clear that has a big impact on the battery.
But, still, two-thirds of the battery left. Nice!
For getting files on and off remote machines, I used Turbo Client - FTP/SCP. Not the greatest interface in the world, but very fast at shifting files to and from my GN2.
Samsung gives every purchaser of the GN2 48GB of free DropBox space. That meant I was able to access all my work documents from The Clown.
Editing them was a bit trickier. Reading and writing Word Documents is a bit of a chore - even with Office Suite Pro 6. Luckily, I don't have to work with Excel spreadsheets. It was tolerable, but not especially pleasant..
I couldn't get on to the work Intranet (although I suppose I could have installed a VPN if I was desperate) but I was able to access some internal tools like Yammer and chat with the team on IRC.
I got to the end of the day, with all my emails answered, files edited, and phone calls made. But how did the phone do?
A full eight hour day with - as you can see - the phone in fairly constant use. With 50% battery to spare I could do another full day without a recharge!
Caveats
The day wasn't without problems - some are Samsung's problem, some are mine.
I couldn't find a decent code editor. Luckily I could get away with a day without slinging code. I tried DroidEdit which some people rave about, but I didn't get on with.
Flipping back and forth between the web and email is a bit of a pain, and I found copying and pasting to be a hit-and-miss affair. It mostly worked, but occasionally seemed to skip a character which I could have sworn I selected.
I was able to get the split-screen functionality working - but it really is of limited use.
For watching a video and reading the web it's fine.
For anything else, not so good.
Once the keyboard is open, it obliterates half the screen - so is useless in that scenario.
Chrome as a browser is excellent - it coped well with every page I threw at it. A few web pages which weren't optimised for touch were tricky to use. Those that rely on hovering a mouse over a link to reveal a menu didn't work so well.
Samsung's software is fairly crappy. I had to replace their atrocious "TouchWiz" interface with HoloLauncher which is far less cartoony.
Worse than that, the Samsung software is terribly unstable. On first boot, I was constantly plagued by their CloudAgent crashing.
In the end, I disabled 27 pieces of pre-installed rubbish which Samsung had unilaterally decided their customer would want. All of which seemed to run in the background sucking up RAM and battery life.
I also killed some default Google processes - such as their movie service and Google Plus.
The much vaunted "S-Pen" is pretty useless. It's very sensitive, which makes drawing a pain as it thinks the pen is on the screen when it's hovering a few centimetres above. Worst of all, the pen can be used to navigate on screen but doesn't work on the physical buttons below the screen. That's incredibly annoying if you're trying to navigate solely with the S-Pen and then have to switch to your fingers to pull up a menu or go back a page.
In terms of hardware, the Galaxy Note 2 is second to none. For battery life alone, it beats all other devices. The screen is gorgeous - going back to a Galaxy Nexus or, worse, an iPhone is painful. It's like surfing the web while looking through a postage stamp.
What lets down Samsung again and again is their software. TouchWiz is slow and ugly, their default services crash repeatedly, the bloatware is poorly thought through (why do I need multiple app stores with duplicate content?), and their custom user interface is replete with poorly translated English. And don't get me started on the abomination which is Kies - their half-arsed media manager which doesn't work in Linux.
Samsung - please stop trying to write software! Your hardware is excellent and compliments Android perfectly.
Despite Samsung's best efforts, the Galaxy Note 2 is a superb device. The screen is big enough to type on comfortably for long periods, the battery is a real work horse, and the app ecosystem is strong enough to cope with a wide variety of tasks.
The US and European markets are radically different in how they operate and advertise. The US tends to advertise phones as being "Only $10 upfront!" whereas the UK tends to advertise as "Only £20 per month!"
With a range of subsidies, price plans, discounts which only last a few months, and multi-year contracts, it can be very confusing to try and work out the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
So, here's the way I look at it.
I recently bought the Samsung Galaxy Note II. I think it's the first phone I've purchased with my own money since starting in the mobile industry - so I was fairly keen to work this out correctly.
I'll be looking at O2 (I work for Telefonica, these thoughts are my own, etc) although other telcos offer the same basic pricing strategy. This just looks at the cost for hardware and a contract. It doesn't take into account that companies also make some money selling apps and music tied to their phones.
With the Galaxy Note II the costs (today) are (for unlimited calls & texts + 1GB data)
£245 for the phone + £26 per month for 24 months = £874 TCO
Or, if you'd rather have a lower upfront cost £129.99 + £31*24 = £874
As you can see, the TCO is exactly the same. You save on the initial cost, but pay extra every month. Depending on your finances one may be preferable to the other.
Make the upfront cost cheaper still. £100 + £36*24 = £964
Bang! That's where the first hit comes. Save £30 up front, pay an extra £90 overall!
Want the phone for free? £Free + £41*24 = £984.
A "free" phone ends up costing you £110 more.
For an 18 month contract, the price jumps again. £199.99 + £56*18 = £1,208
£Free + £72*18 = £1,296
Gulp! That's pretty much $2,000 for a top of the line Android phone. Telcos want you to stay with them - a short contract bumps the price considerably. If you carried on paying the monthly amount for a further 6 months and decided to keep the same phone - you'd end up paying double the cost of taking out a 24 month contract with an upfront phone cost.
Ok, but do those pricing schemes mean that you are paying over the odds?
The handset only price from O2 is £480 (it's cheaper from third party websites).
The SIM only price is £20 per month (for 12 months) for the same tariff (unlimited calls & texts + 1GB data).
£480 + £20*12 = £720
That's a considerable saving over taking out a contract! And you're only tied in for a year. Then you can change tariff or phone.
Of course, we need to compare over the same time period. £480 + £20*24 = £960
There, it seems, it's slightly more expensive over two years - about £3.60 per month to get the flexibility of changing both phone and contract. Of course, if you don't need billions of minutes and texts, you can drop the costs considerably.
A 300 minute plan (because who talks on their phone anymore?!) with unlimited texts and 100MB or 500MB of data will cost £13.50 or £16.50.
£480 + £13.50*24 = £804
£480 + £16.50*24 = £876
If you need a top line calls/text/data package, it just about makes financial sense to take out a contract. If you favour flexibility, or want to save money, it's usually as cheap to buy the phone and contract separately.
The price range for a top end phone on an top end contract over 24 months is £874 to £1,296 ($1,400 - $2,100). You can end up paying £422 extra ($680) for exactly the same phone and contract.
That's roughly a staggering 40% APR! If you were to borrow the £874 at the start of the contract, you'd have to find a really dodgy loan company to give you rates that high. Short term low value loans at the moment range from 5% to 10% at most reputable financial institutions.
If you don't use all your minutes and data allowance, the worst case scenario premium is £492 (that's £1296 - £804). An "interest rate" of 50% per year.
The "real" cost of a smartphone depends entirely on how financially astute you are - and if you can afford the upfront cost. If not, prepare to pay the price.
I'm not a graphic designer. I find it hard to get into the mindset of excellence through beauty.
I understand user flow, interactions, happy paths, delighting the user, humane design, and so on - but when it comes to the art of making something look nice I'm all at sea. I understand that, as Aral Balkan so perfectly puts it, design is not veneer - but that doesn't stop my confusion.
This is a failing of mine - one which I'm trying to rectify - but recently I've had the sneaking suspicion that some designers may have a touch of "Emperor's New Clothes" about them.
I'm going to pick on two examples. I don't think the people behind them are bad or wrong - I just don't understand how their eyes and brains work :-)
My first attempt at turning one of my 2x comps into a 1x version was to just decrease the image size in Photoshop. That was naive. Some elements don’t scale well when simply downsized; they require special attention.
Here is the image in question (used with kind permission):
(Click for full sized)
I know I'm not a designer - but I simply can't see any difference here. Ok, one button is orange - but that's it. There's nothing here which screams "terrible design!" at me. I'm looking and don't understand what "special attention" either would need. Were that to be presented to me as a user, I'd know where to click and not be distracted by inappropriate design.
As a product manager, I'd ship either.
I've deliberately removed the naming on the screenshots - can you tell which contains the elements which "don't scale well"?
To better understand this, I've created an animation to show the difference between the two screenshots. This simply flips between the two images, there are no fades or anything else.
Ok... Now I see some differences. On one, the buttons are slightly larger, the colours slightly more nuanced, the shading is subtly different. If I zoom to an extreme level, the font on "ebay" in slightly smoother.
I get that there is a strong need for design. I understand the need for a clear and unambiguous environment. The desire for beauty is strong with some people - and I appreciate that.
But here's the thing. That design is going to be held around 50cm from the user's eyes, drawn on a screen which is caked in sweat and grime, which is reflecting the ambient light in the room, and is - in all likelihood - cracked.
Worrying about the exact scaling of a button, and the nuances of shadowing is what we in computer science would call "premature optimisation".
How Soon Is Now?
If a developer comes to you and says she can shave 5ms of every transaction, you have to decide whether this is a suitable use of her time, and whether it will cause problems later on.
For example, if this transaction is 5ms per user - it's unlikely to be noticed. If it's a back end process used millions of times, that optimisation may be worth it.
If rewriting that code to make it more efficient comes at the expense of readability and reliability, a call has to be made on where you want to make sacrifices.
Finally, if it will take her 3 weeks to make the optimisation - how long will it take to recoup that investment?
With design, it's no different. Will users notice that images aren't a bespoke designed for their platform? Will they care? Will you have to create an entirely new workflow to generate images specific to one platform? How will you manage image assets - especially when they need to be updated?
In fairness, Jack realises that this is a step too far and says:
Perhaps it isn't worth optimizing for 1x. [...] you're spending a lot of time catering to small group of users. The crudely downsized version isn’t pixel-perfect, but it’s still usable.
Again, I'm not trying to mock Jack or any other designers. I'm just trying to understand what drives the innate desire to be "pixel-perfect".
Ultimately, the question I'm asking is - does this even matter?
For You Blue
There is a (possibly apocryphal) story about Google engineers trying to think like designers.
Google is stuffed full of people who just love to experiment on its users. For instance, Google Mail uses a very slightly different blue for links than the main search page. Its engineers wondered: would that change the ratio of clickthroughs? Is there an "ideal" blue that encourages clicks? To find out, incoming users were randomly assigned between 40 different shades of links – from blue-with-green-ish to blue-with-blue-ish. The Guardian, Wednesday 8 July 2009 18.00 BST
Here we have - supposedly - a quantifiable metric for how design impacts performance. If you have billions of interactions, and you can see a statistically significant uptake between designs, then maybe it is worth worrying about every last pixel.
In today's "ship it and see" environment, we may not have the luxury of thorough testing before launch. Even after launch, there are hundreds of large changes and features which could improve usability before we start to worry about whether #2A5DB0 beats #2A5DB1
Crazy or Misunderstood
Musically, I'm tone deaf. I just can't tell one note from another. That sucks.
Graphic design wise, it appears that I'm equally out of luck.
I know that most developers are not like their users. I am deeply aware that while I'll happily use a website in Lynx, many users need and appreciate beautiful design.
I'm I the crazy one? Is there such an apparent difference between the above screenshots that I should go out and buy a guide dog now?
Does determining the exact shading on a hyperlink sound like a good use of resources when compared to all of Google's other problems?
My brain doesn't work like that of a designer - I know that. But should I even try to think like them?
