Android Software advances in the near future?

[X-Nemesis]

So considering that phone's have reached a saturation point regarding hardware to some extend and now we are entering into a stage of software advancements to meet up with the already great hardware we have. What kind of new technologies would you like to see in upcoming Android releases and phones?

Personally I'd like to see more of what the Moto-X is doing with touchless control.

 

[B. Diddy]

Health/fitness interface. If Google gets the glucose-reading contact lens right, then it'll revolutionize diabetes care (as well as other medical fields).

 

[UJ95x]

I'd like to see Samsung's multi-window come to other phones. I think some ROM developers managed to make it work. Might have been Omni

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[ryanr509]

Anything to do with battery technology or power saving.

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[garublador]

Anything to do with battery technology or power saving.

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I agree with this. Adding features while extending battery life rather than reducing it, like what the Moto X and iPhone 5S have done, are what OEMs should be focusing on.

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[UJ95x]

I agree with this. Adding features while extending battery life rather than reducing it, like what the Moto X and iPhone 5S have done, are what OEMs should be focusing on.

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The iPhone 5S doesn't have very good battery life. In most tests I saw, it did worse than the 5, and it added a couple of things

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[garublador]

The iPhone 5S doesn't have very good battery life. In most tests I saw, it did worse than the 5, and it added a couple of things

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Convenient that you couldn't find them to post for everyone to see. Here's the first two from Google. They both show the 5S as having a better battery life with normal usage.

Apple iPhone 5s battery life test completed: beats Galaxy S4 and Nexus 5, but far from perfect
iPhone 5S – Performance and battery life

Stuff like 100% call time, 100% internet usage or 100% video watching aren't horribly useful tests because they only test one part of how someone might use a phone.

My point is the extra monitoring you get form the X8 and M7 add features while increasing battery life . Those same sensors are now on more, are adding functionality and are taking less battery than before. I think we should see more of that. Other aspects, like more power hungry processors or larger screens might also negatively affect battery life (but also increase performance in some areas), but those are not the types of advancements I'm talking about.

 

[UJ95x]

Convenient that you couldn't find them to post for everyone to see. Here's the first two from Google. They both show the 5S as having a better battery life with normal usage.

Apple iPhone 5s battery life test completed: beats Galaxy S4 and Nexus 5, but far from perfect
iPhone 5S – Performance and battery life

Stuff like 100% call time, 100% internet usage or 100% video watching aren't horribly useful tests because they only test one part of how someone might use a phone.

My point is the extra monitoring you get form the X8 and M7 add features while increasing battery life . Those same sensors are now on more, are adding functionality and are taking less battery than before. I think we should see more of that. Other aspects, like more power hungry processors or larger screens might also negatively affect battery life (but also increase performance in some areas), but those are not the types of advancements I'm talking about.

From one of the links you gave:

"Unfortunately the iPhone 5S is still not on a par with the Android big boys. The Samsung Galaxy S4 outlasts it by some margin and the removable cover offers the ability to switch batteries if you're really desperate and very well organised."

I think that proves my point. And again, those are benchmarks; real world usage is far different. From my experience, the iPhone 5 battery is great when idle, but doesn't fare well with screen time. I can get about twice as much screen time on my S4 than my sister does on her iPhone 5, both on auto brightness. And I get that over a longer period of time...

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[B. Diddy]

Convenient that you couldn't find them to post for everyone to see.

I really really really don't think anyone is trying to pull a fast one on anyone here.

Here's a review that showed battery life for the 5S to be worse than the 5 using a web browsing benchmark, but better in other respects: AnandTech | The iPhone 5s Review. So it isn't a completely clearcut improvement, although the best indicator is always real world use.

Here's another test where the 5S outlasted the 5 by 3 minutes: http://www.forbes.com/sites/andyrobertson/2013/09/25/iphone-5c-5s-battery-test-4s-3g/

 

[ryanr509]

From my real world use of the 5s on AT&T it outlasted all my android phones by a wide margin in screen on time. On any android besides the note 2 & 3 and the droid maxx I haven't seen more than around 3 hours of screen on time with the gs4, nexus 4, gs3, droid RAZR

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[UJ95x]

From my real world use of the 5s on AT&T it outlasted all my android phones by a wide margin in screen on time. On any android besides the note 2 & 3 and the droid maxx I haven't seen more than around 3 hours of screen on time with the gs4, nexus 4, gs3, droid RAZR

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The GS3 and Nexus 4 didn't have very good battery life. The GS4 has great battery life. I've seen plenty of people get more than 5 hours and I've gotten 7 and 1/2 with auto brightness

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[abazigal]

The iPhone 5S doesn't have very good battery life. In most tests I saw, it did worse than the 5, and it added a couple of things

Posted via Android Central App

I think the iPhone 5s has decent battery life for the size of the battery inside the phone. Apple clearly had to cut some corners to make the phone as thin and light as it is, and the battery was probably the first to go.

All other things equal, if we could stick an A7 chip inside the S4, we would probably see significantly improved battery life as well.


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[garublador]

"Unfortunately the iPhone 5S is still not on a par with the Android big boys. The Samsung Galaxy S4 outlasts it by some margin and the removable cover offers the ability to switch batteries if you're really desperate and very well organised."

I think that proves my point.

No, the point is that the 5S has always on features that use certain sensors, yet uses less battery than the 5. It has nothing to do with how it performs with phones with larger form factors and batteries. You claimed that the 5S had worse battery life than the 5, but still have not supported that claim at all.

My point is that an "Ambassador" thought that coming in here, derailing a thread based on still unfounded claims, totally missing the point I was making (adding hardware that allows features to be added while also reducing battery consumption, just to say that "Android is better than iOS" was the best way to represent Android Central.

 

[B. Diddy]

No, the point is that the 5S has always on features that use certain sensors, yet uses less battery than the 5. It has nothing to do with how it performs with phones with larger form factors and batteries. You claimed that the 5S had worse battery life than the 5, but still have not supported that claim at all.

My point is that an "Ambassador" thought that coming in here, derailing a thread based on still unfounded claims, totally missing the point I was making (adding hardware that allows features to be added while also reducing battery consumption, just to say that "Android is better than iOS" was the best way to represent Android Central.

I don't believe UJ95x was trying to "derail" this thread. The claims are not entirely unfounded, as evidenced by the links I noted above--which don't necessarily say that the 5S is worse, but they do show that the 5S is really not much better than the 5.

The original question of this post was a very interesting one--what future advances of Android are in store? Shall we all return to that topic?

 

[Eclipse2K]

No, the point is that the 5S has always on features that use certain sensors, yet uses less battery than the 5. It has nothing to do with how it performs with phones with larger form factors and batteries. You claimed that the 5S had worse battery life than the 5, but still have not supported that claim at all.

My point is that an "Ambassador" thought that coming in here, derailing a thread based on still unfounded claims, totally missing the point I was making (adding hardware that allows features to be added while also reducing battery consumption, just to say that "Android is better than iOS" was the best way to represent Android Central.

As usual, whether he is correct or wrong on the surface, results may vary. I've seen people with the Droid Maxx claim they get worse battery life than the original Maxx when in my experience it was clearly improved. Same goes for any iPhone or Windows Phone variant.

One thing to note is we may be Ambassadors but that doesn't mean we know everything. I've found myself lost in several issues lately because each Android device is different in some way, shape or form. While this is good for choice its also bad for troubleshooting purposes.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[B. Diddy]

I'm looking forward to seeing more Android integration directly in car in-dash systems. I'm glad to see that Audi is working on that. Historically, it's all been about iPod or iPhone integration, which is obviously pretty limiting.

 

[VDub2174]

I'm looking forward to seeing more Android integration directly in car in-dash systems. I'm glad to see that Audi is working on that. Historically, it's all been about iPod or iPhone integration, which is obviously pretty limiting.

I'd like to see more Android device integration in cars as well