Should I Get A Nexus 7?

I recently responded to a question from a friend of mine who wanted to know about getting a Nexus 7 tablet. He already has an iPhone and thought the Nexus 7 looked nice, seemed to do what he needed from a tablet, and at $230 was a more attractive price than an iPad Mini ($100 more). He said he needs to read books, Nook textbooks and PDF textbooks, create documents in Word/Excel, stream videos and music, and web surfing.

My take

First of all, when comparing with iOS, the Nexus 7 running Android can have only one app can on screen at a time. There are handwritten note-taking apps available on Android in the Play Store and they work with a standard touchscreen stylus pen; but beware, not all apps are created equal.

My concern is would be around the quality of Android's note taking apps. The absolute best apps debut on iOS before eventually being ported to Android if they are not exclusive to iOS. For example:

The best handwriting and note-taking app I've seen is an iOS exclusive called Notability: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/notabili ... 93530?mt=8
Evernote's Penultimate is good too, but mainly because it syncs with Evernote. The handwriting engine on Penultimate is one of the nicer ones available but still not quite as nice as Notability. If handwriting notes is important, there are apps on Android that will get it done, but the best will be on iOS.

I already own an iOS device

For someone who already owns an iOS device, there is also the obvious lack of "native compatibility" between the tablet and an existing iOS device. Although an Android tablet would do everything needed in this case, if I were making this decision I would keep things iOS because of the simplicity of things like iMessage, Reminders, Airdrop, iCloud, and Photostream. Taking a picture from an iPhone and having it almost immediately available on your tablet is very handy. I have been in many sessions when I’ve been taking notes and added pictures to them from whiteboards, charts, etc…

Can cross-platform can be done?

There are several cloud-services like Dropbox, Skydrive, and Google+ Photo Backup available as Photostream or Airdrop substitutes. Google Hangouts can substitute iMessage and Google Docs can substitute for iCloud. Again though, generally apps available on iOS are better than their counterparts on Android – even some of Google’s own apps have seen better versions released on iOS than Android.

Are iOS apps are better?

Developers have said that the Android toolkit for developing apps is lacking in certain areas when compared to iOS tools. Apple has seemingly just put more effort into enabling developers to build quality apps. Apple also maintains application uniformity and holds developers to strict approval standards.

In the end it comes down to how important the apps are to your everyday use. For simplicity in the connectivity between devices, stay with the same OS. For people who are a little more tech savvy, using cross-platform apps may not be much of a hassle at all.

Watch YouTube TV!

YouTube has silently rolled out a new feature that can be accessed simply by going to YouTube.com/TV. This interface is intended to provide simple navigation for a big screen or TV. Using the keyboard to navigate up and down and shortcut keys like S for search and G for home, this interface is definitely slick looking, simple, and delivers just the content.

After going to youtube.com/tv users can also add a mobile device to serve as a remote. It feels more like a second screen to me, and this is where playlists, subscriptions, video info, and play queue creation takes place; leaving the big screen to display just the content. It is not limited to a TV and the interface can used on any display with access to YouTube.

First go to Login & Settings on Youtube.com/TV and choose the option to pair a device. A pairing code will be generated…

Then go to to Youtube.com/activate on the device and enter the code. Now you can select YouTube videos to watch on the “TV screen” that was just paired. There’s also a YouTube Remote app available for Android

The new Youtube.com/TV interface looks to replace YouTube.com/Leanback, a similar service/interface, while providing a more streamlined, minimalistic approach. From the looks of things, YouTube may be trying to convert the Leanback service to the TV service. Either way, this is a great way to watch YouTube.

Apple Removes YouTube App From iOS

The YouTube app on iOS has been one of the native apps since the iPhone first came out. That is no more. Starting with iOS6 Beta 4, YouTube is not included on the device.

According to Apple’s official statement, “our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.”

The YouTube app was created and kept up (or not kept up) by Apple, not Google. Users can still go to YouTube.com to watch videos and I have no doubt that the Google app will be far better than Apple’s version. This could turn out to be a good thing for iOS users who don’t have to live with a sub-par YouTube app that never gets updated and is outshined by the web version of YouTube.

Depending on what you believe, this could be more of Apple’s crusade to eliminate Google from the picture. Or it could be Google wanting to monetize their YouTube videos, which they can’t do through an app built by Apple. Either way, the iPhone seems to be just one step away from becoming an entirely Google free phone by default.

Got My Google Wave Invite Today!

I haven't personally been able to check out a whole lot about it, but you know me, I'm all for trying out something new. Especially when I have heard claims that it will "change email forever" and change the way we communicate online. So I applied for an invite a couple months ago and this morning I got an email inviting me to use it. Check it out: About Google Wave

I'm currently using Internet Explorer 8 and when I accessed the Wave site I was prompted that I had to install the Google Chrome Frame. I could either install the frame or use Chrome, Firefox, or Safari instead. Normally this wouldn't be an issue, but I'm using Windows 7 and the added functionality of IE with W7 (tab previews) is enough reason to use it over the others. So I tried to run the installer and it failed, I'm assuming it's because of my firewall at work so I'll just have to use Chrome instead.

Finally got signed in and this is what it looks like:

At this moment I have no idea what to do with it, and I'm assuming that will change once I have more contacts using it as well. So for now, I'm just going to play around a little and read up on the Google Wave website.

It says I have 6 invites. First come first served my friends, it says that the invites are not instant, but email me if you're interested and I might could hook it up!

Google Reveals ChromeOS

Google previewed Chrome OS, a new operating system based on Linux and the Chrome browser. It's very early on, as there's not even a beta available for it, but it seems pretty exciting. The OS runs within a Chrome browser. The idea is to provide an OS for people who just get on the internet, it boots up in about 10 seconds, has no file system, and no installing of apps. The OS can detect USB devices like external drives, or smartphones and uses a notepad which can create Google Docs documents. Web apps can be launched from persistent app panels and things like Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, and others can be minimized to "panels" and run in the background. Google is very up front in saying that Chrome OS is focused on very clear use for people who primarily use the web and they are not at all trying to "do everything".

Google has talked details on a launch but they say that "by this time next year" it will be available and it won't run on just any device – there are going to be some specific hardware requirements. For example, the biggest thing is that Chrome OS won't run on anything other than solid-state drives. This means you will have to have a "Chrome approved device" which is an interesting move by Google. But since the thing is open source, there can potentially be many different hacks that allow it to be installed on anything.

For more info, check out the coverage on Engadget.com:

Google's Chrome OS revealed -- with video!