Do these work out of the box?

[mtroxel]

I network computers for a living, have had Droid phones for 3 years now, and find that I could recomend them to clients. I have had a Nexus 7 tablet for a week now, and have upgraded it to Android 4.2.

What I find is that if I go to some sites with Chrome, I see the "Duplicate Headers" error. I see forum posts a year old with this complaint so its not something Google is going to fix. I don't get that error on my Razr browser. So I download Firefox. It also has trouble connecting to the same sites, and in fact no matter what site I go to it shuts down in a minute or less.

No flash, can't watch videos much of anywhere.

Can these things work without a bunch of flashing/rooting kind of work? I don't want to do stuff that my Joe Average user is way too intimidated to do. Then I can't recomend it to others.

Can these tablets just work out of the box?

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

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[cyanogen-man]

If your looking for flash content forget it. The Google chrome browser for android isn't the same. Unlike the chrome for Linux distros where the flash player is baked in. Blame adobe they killed flash delopment. They couldn't get apple to bite for flash player, so they threw a fit and stopped mobile development. There is a flash player for android ,but it's pulled from the market and requires a side load. Fire fox doesn't support flash either. Try dolphin or sky fire and find a flash .apk and simply side load it. No root required

INSPIRE AOKP ICE COLD SANDWICH ROM

 

[Suntan]

The Firefox Beta (in the play store) works on 4.2, it also still works with flash.

Yup, have to sideload flash if you want it. But lack of flash out of the gate is no different than any other comparable tablet on the market. At least a person has the option to add flash if they want.

I too do not know what this "duplicate headers" thing is, I've never seen it.

-Suntan

 

[Unicorn Rancher]

No flash, can't watch videos much of anywhere.

Can these things work without a bunch of flashing/rooting kind of work? I don't want to do stuff that my Joe Average user is way too intimidated to do. Then I can't recomend it to others.

Can these tablets just work out of the box?

Apple doesn't have flash either.

 

[mtroxel]

Yea I know Flash is on the way out...been hearing that for 2 years, yet many websites still won't display content w/o it.
Thanks for the tip on Firefox Beta. That does solve my "Duplicate Headers received from server" in Chrome.
I think what I'm hearing is you have to do some tweaking to make these work right. Fine for me, but I'm not sure I'd unleash this on my average user.

 

[natehoy]

Yea I know Flash is on the way out...been hearing that for 2 years, yet many websites still won't display content w/o it.
Thanks for the tip on Firefox Beta. That does solve my "Duplicate Headers received from server" in Chrome.
I think what I'm hearing is you have to do some tweaking to make these work right. Fine for me, but I'm not sure I'd unleash this on my average user.

As to flash, it's not only on the way out, it's technically "out". Adobe intentionally pulled it from the mobile markets where it used to exist, and we have to "sideload" it from other sources now. The current version is Flash 11, and if Flash 12 ever comes out and starts becoming the minimum required version to access web sites, you're out of luck. Web designers really need to start moving to HTML5, and it would also be nice if they'd stop assuming that "all mobile devices want Flash except iOS", because frankly I'd rather get the HTML5 version of the site in almost all cases.

Yes, it works, but on a decreasing number of browsers and eventually on a decreasing number of sites, and there's no guarantee that anyone is still testing it, and you know for sure that Adobe isn't fixing security vulnerabilities or anything any more.


As far as giving this to an average user, well, with a few caveats, it should be fine. One of those caveats is the understanding that anything with the word "Nexus" in it is really designed to be a developer device for devs to test out their applications on new operating system versions before the updates are unleashed out to the rest of the world. Most non-Nexus devices will get these updates weeks or months later, if ever.

So if you're going to unleash these on a user not willing to be the guinea pig for new operating system releases, I'd ask them to wait at least a couple of weeks after they initially see the upgrade notification, and don't jump on it immediately. Or recommend something without "Nexus" in the name which will tend to be running an older, more vetted out, and less feature-rich operating system.

Now that Google is starting to market Nexus devices to the general public, they'll need to add a setting or something that implements a 6-week delay before prompting the user to install the latest OS. That should give developers (the actual intended audience for Nexus) plenty of time to get things right.

As to Chrome, I'd have to say that it's been an all-around disappointment to me on the mobile platform. Thankfully, there's Firefox - and a big bonus is that I can sync my bookmarks, usernames, etc between my various desktops and my various Android devices, which is pretty sweet.

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

...

 

[natehoy]

Just because websites still use it doesn't mean anything. Adobe quit supporting it (That's the people who matter to this issue). So you want Android to keep developing Flash? I'm not sure what needs to be tweaked to make them work right? You are just going to start recommending your clients use computers from 3 years ago? Never upgrade their systems?

You're not trying to troll are you?

Why jump to a troll accusation? Huh?

He makes an excellent point. I'm by no means a big fan of Flash, but the fact remains that a great number of sites still use it.

Adobe pulled support for mobile Flash. Desktop Flash is still (unfortunately) pretty prevalent, so there's little incentive for web developers to redevelop their sites in HTML5 or just make good HTML web sites unless they start caring about their mobile web sites (and let's be honest with ourselves here, anyone who cares about mobile web up until recently really cared about supporting iOS - hence the very prevalent workaround of signature detection and redirect to an HTML5 site if iOS is detected, and the Flash site in all other cases, with maybe a crude stripped-down "Mobile" version of the site if it was mobile and not iOS).

It's not at all troll-ish to say "I still want Flash to access sites that use it and refuse to upgrade."

If a workaround exists, we'll continue to use it, free from needing to live under bridges, thank you ever so much.

But, of course, the clock is ticking on those workarounds, so it's a good idea to either start calling those webmasters and warning them that they are about to lose your patronage, or finding web sites that actually do value mobile traffic and can provide similar services and switch.

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

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[mtroxel]

You are just going to start recommending your clients use computers from 3 years ago? Never upgrade their systems?

I'm thinking of swapping this (can return it in 14 days) for an iPad and see if that's easier for the non-geek.

You're not trying to troll are you?

Wow! I don't know where that comes from. I'm just trying to figure this all out.

Or recommend something without "Nexus" in the name which will tend to be running an older, more vetted out, and less feature-rich operating system.

I didn't know this tends to get the lastest updates. So any droid tablet is likely to be more stable than a Nexus?

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

Re: Do these

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[mtroxel]

All I am saying is that I assumed I could go where I wanted to go with the built-in browser and see what I want to see just as I can on my laptop. Whatever else you've accused me of saying, I didn't say. And now you're all confirming that its not that simple.

How my questions have offended people...I'm really not sure.

 

[anon(1024093)]

I don't think you've offended people (plural).

As for tablets for the masses - stay aware that any 'droid based tablet is either isn't supported any more than the Nexus devices are (for flash) or it won't be in an upgrade or two. If that's a primary concern, you may want to check out the Micro$quish units.

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

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[anon4843263]

In a word... YES

Works for me just fine. Love the device just fine for all of two days using it.

I can't really comment on the flash issues... Can someone provide me with an example of how it (Flash) does not work?

 

[mtroxel]

Click this link on your Nexus.

McCain: Susan Rice never declared she was wrong on Libya ? Anderson Cooper 360 - CNN.com Blogs

Flash hasn't been my only issue. I'm on my third browser...Firefox Beta seems to work for me now. After using countless computers and my 3 Droid phones where I could go and do anything I wanted to, it has seemed I've had to do more research just to get this going than anything else I've owned. Makes it hard for me to recommend it to my users, some of whom barely know how to cut and paste (I kid you not).

Maybe I just don't get tablet computing. Maybe I should just stay on a laptop.

 

[natehoy]

I didn't know this tends to get the lastest updates. So any droid tablet is likely to be more stable than a Nexus?

Well, yes, but maybe for a reason you'll eventually come to dislike. I typed a long diatribe on this, but it boils down to the fact that Android devices currently fall into two flavors. Nexus, where Google throws you the updates still bleeding from the last code review, and Other, where manufacturers use Android in any way they please, update it when they feel like doing so, build carrier-specific versions that mean even more versions to maintain, and generally give up on devices after a fairly brief period.

So if you don't like code that wasn't released as much as it escaped leaving a bloody trail of broken users in its wake, you probably want a non-Google-branded Android phone as things stand today. A year from now, you'll probably be jonesing for an update to even something that's really out of date (ICS for my Thunderbolt, pretty please?), but the phone will be rock-solid stable (2.3.4 Gingerbread is very mature and well-vetted-out code by now).

Google could solve this by something as simple as a developer setting "Update Delay Days" on Nexus devices. If set to 0, the device does what it does today - pulls releases directly from the OTA servers the instant they are available. If set to some other value, the device ignores all updates less than that number of days old. Ship the device with the setting at 45, so developers have a month and a half to get their applications up to snuff. People who want the latest set it to zero and deal with the consequences. People who want MOST of their applications to work but might be tolerant of a few lazy developers could set it to 15 or so. Corporate users or people who really value stability might set it to 90 or even 180 to give plenty of time for any problems to arise and be resolved. If an app hasn't been updated a half a year after the new version of Android came out, it's been abandoned.

 

[bigtroutz]

I would add that not only is Google an offender of the peace, so are just WAY TOO MANY App developers.

Nobody in the Windows PC market would sit still for apps without a Close App button, run background processes (eg Ad serving, Syncing, etc) that can not be disabled in settings, reopen without a command to do so whenever the app feels like it, and in general act as if the OS was it's own version of the wild wild west. And yet that is commonplace in Android development.

 

[natehoy]

Nobody in the Windows PC market would sit still for apps without a Close App button, run background processes (eg Ad serving, Syncing, etc) that can not be disabled in settings, reopen without a command to do so whenever the app feels like it, and in general act as if the OS was it's own version of the wild wild west.

I degunk Windows PCs for friends. I charge one six-pack of interesting beer for each degunkification. I have dozens and dozens of 6-bangers over the years given by grateful friends that says otherwise. From Internet Explorer toolbars to malware, the Android universe has NOTHING on the PC universe in terms of spamware, malware, adware, and general junkware.

There are a lot of app developers, though. And there are a lot of apps, and many of them use ad services because if you want something for free and the developer wants butter-and-egg money, ads will be involved. Thankfully, the ones that use ad services outside the app and gunk up the notification area with their spam are few, far between, and ask for pretty ridiculous permissions. A little judicious review of permissions is very much called for. As is a habit, if you aren't an experienced user, of leaving the third-party apps permission OFF (the equivalent of not jailbreaking your iOS product) so you only install apps from the Play Store. The Play Store is not 100% safe, but it's reasonably safe as long as you look at apps with a healthy skepticism and review permissions before installing.