Android Phone Fans |
- Nexus 5 press images leak… again; could we see a Monday unveiling?
- Motorola wants to tell Moto X owners a story, starts with Motorola Spotlight Player app update
- 40% of BBM’s 5-star reviews could have been bought
- Alcatel ONE TOUCH POP 7 leaks, shows colorful, thin Android tablet
| Nexus 5 press images leak… again; could we see a Monday unveiling? Posted: 26 Oct 2013 04:23 PM PDT We’ve seen the Nexus 5 leaked every which way since Timbuktu. Hell, even Google themselves gave us a look at an official image of the device. That particular episode was a mistake, of course — all traces of the device were quickly wiped away from the servers just moments later. But, as we all know, nothing is ever truly deleted on the internet, so it’s still swirling about for all the world to see. Now, leakster extraordinaire @evleaks has gotten a press shot of their own, with the device shown in all its charcoal-black glory. Not much has changed since we last saw the Nexus 5, but another appearance of the handset through @evleaks suggests we could be close to an official launch. How close, exactly, is tough to say, but there are a few theories still swirling about. Some folks are still clinging to the October 28th unveiling after many other rumored dates have come and gone. It’s a Monday, and this timing gives that particular date more strong legs than we could hope for at this point. And if all else fails, “end of October” is still a possibility — even if that means interrupting the trick-or-treat activity to drop some breaking news. The only thing we’re still scratching our head about is the fact that there has yet to be an event scheduled — at least, not to our knowledge, anyway. Perhaps Google decided that an event wasn’t necessary, and instead decided to do everything online. We’d hope that’s not the case, though, because we’d love to be able to get our hands on this bad boy as soon as possible. The Nexus 5 is rumored to be a 5-inch handset with 1080p HD resolution, a Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel rear camera with a 1.2 megapixel front camera, Android 4.4 (stock, of course), and more. As we were treated to with the Nexus 4, we’re expecting two different storage configurations (16GB and 32GB, most likely), neither of which would come with a microSD card slot if Google’s recent handset and tablet launches are anything to go by. We’re expecting Google to price this thing around $300 – $350, as the software giant is interested in getting these things into as many folks’ hands as possible more than turning a profit on hardware alone. We’ll have to play the waiting game for a while yet, but it feels like we’re quite close to getting the treat we all deserve (unless the folks at KitKat and Google are interested in tricking us some more, of course). [via @evleaks] |
| Motorola wants to tell Moto X owners a story, starts with Motorola Spotlight Player app update Posted: 26 Oct 2013 02:23 PM PDT
Motorola wants to tell Moto X owners a story in a unique way. Today, Moto added another piece to their cryptic Windy Day puzzle by updating the Motorola Spotlight Player found on all Moto X devices. Motorola says they love stories and love technology. Pairing their software engineers with with award-winning directors, they were able to come up with a unique storytelling platform for mobile. The Motorola Spotlight Player uses advanced 3D graphics, thanks to the Moto X’s Adreno 320 GPU, to deliver rich and interactive stories in real-time.   To get started, you’ll want to visit the Motorola Spotlight Player on Google Play and download the latest update. The update adds functionality to the previously hidden application. There’s now a 1×1 widget that you can install on your home screen. Upon tapping on the widget, you’re greeted with the screens above which give you a little more insight into Moto’s storytelling platform. If you don’t want in on the upcoming fun, you can choose to disable content being pushed to your Moto X from there as well. That’s about it for now. Spotlight should get interesting in just a few more days when Windy Day launches. We’ll keep an eye out on October 29th and keep you posted. |
| 40% of BBM’s 5-star reviews could have been bought Posted: 26 Oct 2013 11:39 AM PDT
At first, I was inclined to dismiss it as coincidence. However, since she had linked to the app, I decided to maybe have a look, and the pattern was instantly noticeable. I quickly wrote up a blog post with some additional data which pointed out that as many as 40% of BlackBerry’s 5+ star ratings could have come from nefarious means. The post was ready to go live, but I wanted to wait and talk it out with Rob. The accusations are huge, and I wanted his opinion. We talked it out, and decided to hold on until I could get some more damning evidence. More than just a meme Unfortunately, other blogs caught whiff of it and hit publish. Unfortunate not because we weren’t the ones to break the news (well, that too) but because I had written a bit of Javascript code that I had injected via the Chrome browser’s inspector to look at as large a number of comments as possible, and the reason I had delayed the post was to improve the script a bit more to get an even larger data set. The problem is most blogs seem to be focusing on one particular comment that is being repeated as the proof of possible fake downloads and reviews. A lot of other reviews have come in from users filling up the Google Play page, making it impossible to separate the sarcastic comments and the potentially fake ones. The issue that I noticed was that there were a multitude of other questionable reviews in there, that mentioned the “smoothness” and “user friendliness” of the app, and thanked BlackBerry. From my experience as a developer, I found it difficult to fathom that so many users actually wrote such detailed praise. Clearly someone was sending out a bunch of mails to people telling them to write something that contained these buzzwords, and probably had a larger order than they ever dealt with hence leading to a lot of people writing the exact same thing. That’s why I built the script to find reviews containing the words “user friendly”, “smooth”, and “thank” (for either thank you BlackBerry or thanks BlackBerry), the most repeated phrases. That’s when things started becoming even more suspicious: out of 213 4+ star written reviews, 5 mentioned all the three keywords, an additional four mentioning both “user friendly” and “smooth”, 43 mentioning “smooth”, 6 saying “user friendly” and 37 saying “thanks”. That is about 45% of BBM’s 4+ star reviews that I checked. For 5 star reviews from the sample set, that percentage is even higher at 53%. It still could be a coincidence, so I decided to have a look at one of the most popular apps in the category: Whatsapp. For a 167 4+ star reviews of Whatsapp that I had a look at, less than 13% mentioned the key phrases, with no review mentioning them together. The difference is just staggering. My belief was that potentially 40% of BBM’s 5-star reviews (which numbered over 60,000 at the time) were questionable. I would have loved to have gotten a lot more data to back up my claim, but it’s not possible right now. You can, however, see the raw data of the reviews I scanned (for both Whatsapp and BBM), visit this Google Drive document. Who stands to benefit? When I reached out for comment, all I got was the statement they’re sharing with everyone (despite me explicitly meaning I’m writing about my suspicions about that 40% number):
That’s expected since it’s just the PR-team working to handle the shit-storm. Obviously, they’re not going to come out and say “yup, we did it”. However, it’s difficult to imagine who would be behind such a large and coordinated effort if not them, or at least someone working on their behalf.
The business of buying and selling reviews and downloads Coincidentally, I received a mail from someone offering me to purchase downloads and reviews for an app I have uploaded to the Play Store. Here is the offer I received (emphasis is mine):
After the incident, I tried to reach back to the sender trying to get a quote on a larger volume and, more importantly, a few examples of the Google+ profiles that would be used to share the app. I haven’t received a response, but if I have to make a guess whoever performed this for BlackBerry, would probably have paid a much smaller amount per review considering most seemed to be coming from Asian countries. This isn’t the first time large corporations are potentially employing such questionable tactics: back in 2010 there was something very suspicious about a poll for Wall Street Journal readers asking who makes the best mobile operating system. And just this past week, the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung and two marketing companies for employing people that “highlighted the shortcoming’s of competitors” and performed a “disinfection of negative news surrounding Samsung” on various forums. Unfortunately, with a petty fine for the three companies adding up to just a little over half a million dollars, it hardly does scares off future infringements. Gaming the system, and why it needs to be stopped Let’s get this very clear to anyone out there thinking this is a Google Play Store problem: developers have been looking at ways to cheat their way to the top of any app distribution channel from the very beginning. Here’s a post from TechCrunch talking about a similar issue back in 2009 for iOS apps. That issue was much easier to digest that the “download bots” on the App Store that helped free apps reach the top of the charts. I know somebody personally who used such a tactic, and while it cost them quite a bit while starting out, they made a killing over the longer term. The issue I have with such practices is that it’s already incredibly difficult for an indie-developer to get noticed and succeed. When these developers fail to earn what they would liked to from their work, they might shy away from future projects and that, in turn, hurts the entire ecosystem. However, it gets worse when larger companies behave like this, and I would rate it close to anti-competitive behavior. While BBM has a sizeable contingent of loyal fans, a higher rating for the app could be the deciding factor for a lot of people over other competitors. It’s not easy to predict how much the like of WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, etc would lose as a result of this (unlikely to be a large amount individually due to the competitiveness of the segment) it is clear that, if the allegations are true, they BlackBerry has benefited. After all, they’re claiming to have seen the app downloaded 10 million times in 24 hours. The punishments that could be dished out This is probably what I have been thinking about the most: how could Google punish perpetrators, once confirmed, that it makes a company think twice about such strategies? The extreme answer is probably banning them from the Play Store entirely. However, this might not be an easy step for them to take, with potential legal ramifications. A more likely one is that they could bring to the Play Store from their bread-and-butter: penalties in search results. Search is a very important source of new users for apps, and also where developers benefit the most from inflated download counts, reviews and ratings. By penalizing their ranking for a significant portion of time, the loss suffered by the developer could be significantly more than the gains. Google might also need to work on a spam filter for reviews. Yelp, for example, only publishes about three-quarters of the reviews in an effort to combat phoney-reviews. I know Google Play has a “mark as spam” option, but at this scale, reviews need to be blocked right from the beginning. At a larger scale, the FTC would need to step in and impose fines, like the ones Samsung faced. These are rare particularly since they’re often done through other marketing companies, with even more complications when comments are coming from users on the other side of the globe. This is what has allowed most companies to astroturf without any consequences. If this starts becoming standard practice (and it very well could) then matters could become really bad. For instance, there were reports that 20% of Yelp reviews were fraudulent, and New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman began an investigation that saw 19 companies fined $350,000 for astroturfing. Honestly, at about $20,000 per company, I don’t think it’s going to stop anyone. Conclusion and Poll I am not a fan of BlackBerry, and was particularly not happy with the way they went about releasing BBM, though I have stated before that I respect what they have done for the industry in the early-to-mid 2000s. If BlackBerry did indeed use such tactics (which would help increase their visibility on Play Store as well as convert more users who are on the fence about installing the app), then I would personally say that BlackBerry has reached its lowest. And considering everything they’ve gone through the last couple of years, that’s saying something. In the entire mess, it’s difficult to put a number as to what BBM’s true rating would have been (my approximation was in the mid-3-point-somethings). Even without what happened, I believe they would have done a decent enough job to be called a success, and the response would have been nowhere near the negative one that Facebook Home got. If you did download the app, do let us know the rating that you gave (or would give). |
| Alcatel ONE TOUCH POP 7 leaks, shows colorful, thin Android tablet Posted: 26 Oct 2013 06:57 AM PDT When it comes to Android devices, Alcatel generally isn’t a brand name that most are familiar with here in the good ole USA. Established in 2004, as a joint venture between Alcatel-Lucent of France and TCL Communication of China, this manufacturer has been pushing budget friendly Android phones and tablets in recent times. At CES 2013, Alcatel unveiled the world’s thinnest smartphone, the Alcatel ONE TOUCH Idol Ultra and recently announced the T-Mobile branded ONE TOUCH Fierce and ONE TOUCH Evolve. Today, thanks to famed insider @evleaks, we’re seeing the Alcatel ONE TOUCH POP 7 tablet. As we can see, Alcaltel will continue their trend of ultra thin Android devices. The POP 7 aims to be a colorful tablet, giving consumers the choices of at least yellow, hot pink, light blue, and red. Source: @evleaks |
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