David Ruddock
Contributing since June, 2010
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3358articles
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About David Ruddock
David is the former Editor-in-Chief of Android Police and now the EIC of Esper.io. He's been an Android user since the early days - his first smartphone was a Google Nexus One! David graduated from the University of California, Davis where he received his bachelor's degree, and also attended the Pepperdine University School of Law.
Latest Articles
This weekend, I watched a clip of The Verge’s podcast featuring one of Google’s product managers for the Pixel 4, Isaac Reynolds, discussing the decision to omit 4K 60FPS (and 4K 24FPS) video recording from the phone. In and of itself, I don’t think it’s a very interesting topic, and I don’t believe anyone thinks Google made the “right” call in excluding it. But Reynolds’ answer regarding that decision hinges on an argument Google has abused for years: 80% of people will never use this feature.
I'm not even sure how many functional Nexus 6Ps are still out there, but Google apparently really wants anyone hanging on to its last Nexus phone to upgrade a Pixel 4. In fact, they're offering you a sweet twenty-six Washingtons if you box it up and send it to them in the mail. Just look at this very compelling advertisement, it's true!
Google announced earlier this week that it would purchase Fitbit, the ailing manufacturer of fitness-focused wearables and smartwatches, for $2.1 billion. As tech acquisitions go, this one was small: Google valued Fitbit at a price equivalent to that of budget TV manufacturer Vizio back in 2016, a company whose value exists largely in its retail distribution network.
I've been using the Pixel 4 XL for the better part of a day now. I could tell you about that experience, what it's been like, and how the phone's handled. Those kinds of articles are generally what you expect alongside a smartphone launch. But the more I use the phone, the more I realize that, like so many smartphones, the Pixel 4 XL is basically just a phone. Most phones are so much more similar than they are different in 2019, and those differences that do remain are becoming vanishingly small. Many of them also center on questions that I simply can't answer yet — questions that speak to how mature, how grown up Google's smartphone division has become. And I think that's a much more important discussion to have now, even as yesterday's launch hype still looms large over this phone.
We've got our hands on a whole bunch of Pixel 4s after Google's launch event in New York City, and we're already snapping away with what will certainly prove to be the company's most capable camera(s) yet.
Yesterday, I posted (and shared via Android Police's official Twitter account) that Android Police will no longer be accepting any access from Andy Rubin's startup Essential. That means no more press conferences, briefings, embargoes, or review devices. This came in light of Rubin's announcement of the company's new phone, apparently called GEM.
Today, Microsoft announced a bunch of new Surface products — and they all look very, very good (and some of them look very weird). Perhaps the least sexy, but most utilitarian, of them was the new Surface Laptop 3. But in one fell swoop, Microsoft proved that it had both the platform and the vision to build a professional-grade laptop that Google could only dream to. And it was in that moment I knew, whatever the next Pixelbook will be (and we have a pretty good idea), it will be a disappointment.
TiVo's fallen a long way since the heady days of the early 2000s, when its DVRs were cutting-edge technology in the early era of digital TV. With its stock now trading for under a tenth of what it did at the company's height, TiVo's new CEO hopes to pin the company's future on... a Android TV dongle. Given that a slew of such dongles are likely on the way (including Dish Network's AirTV Mini) and cheap Android TV boxes are already available, TiVo's play to stand out seems to be its own branded and customized version of the Android TV interface bundled with access to its DVR service.
Google announced a new "unlimited" plan for its Fi cellular service this morning, and on paper, it's an improvement in most ways over the company's current pricing model for heavy duty users. Data caps have been increased to 22GB before throttling, while pricing for individuals has been lowered to $70 per month (previously, Fi maxed out at $80/mo for individual users). The catch is that it's $70 per month, full stop — Fi's dynamic data pricing doesn't apply to unlimited subscribers. For those who want to stick with Fi's old dynamic model, they'll still be limited to 15GB per month before throttling may occur, and enjoy the same per-gigabyte pricing they always have. The new unlimited plan is something you'll have to opt into... and it really just feels like every other carrier plan in America.
Speaking to sources familiar with the companies' plans, Android Police has learned that Verizon has inked a partnership with Chinese smartphone manufacturer OnePlus. Those sources have indicated that, based on the timeline of past deals, Verizon intends to release a OnePlus smartphone for sale on its network in 2020. It was unclear exactly when or which smartphone (or phones) would be the first to arrive on the carrier, or if they would support Verizon's nascent 5G mmWave technology (which OnePlus has previously shunned).
Today, Apple will announce some new iPhones. Before the year is through, it will sell tens of millions of these phones worldwide, with each sale averaging a price any other smartphone maker could only dream of. Around a month from now, Google will offer its retort, in the form of the Pixel 4. The Pixel 4 will not be the source of any grand claims about sales figures, because Google will probably be lucky to even crack a million units before 2019 ends, if the Pixel 3's struggles are any sort of evidence.
Android Police has grown a lot in the nine-plus years I've been here, and this year will mark a decade the site itself has been around. It's hard to believe where we are now compared to then, having since launched APK Mirror, completely redesigned the site, and introduced a number of new faces on the team. People I hired years ago - like Corbin, Ryne, Scott, and Richard - are still "the new guys" in my mind, even though they're all people I've come to trust intrinsically to do the work we rely on here every day. And that work isn't shrinking - it's growing, a lot.
The 5G phones are finally coming fast and furious. For example, Samsung's newly-announced Galaxy A90 5G brings some of the best of Samsung's smartphone know-how and 5G at a much more palatable price point. There's just one little catch: it's probably not going to be compatible with the majority of 5G networks in the US. And it definitely won't be the last such 5G phone that doesn't end up in the US this year or next as a result.
LG's smartphone division is not in a good place. It hasn't been in a good place for the last five years, frankly, but 2019 has felt especially rough on Korea's number-two electronics giant. For the first time in a long time, most tech publications really don't even bother mentioning LG phones in the same breath as Samsung's. OnePlus, Google, Huawei, and even domestic Chinese manufacturers like Vivo and Oppo now command far more attention for their products and announcements. LG is increasingly an afterthought.
The Galaxy Note10+ is the biggest Galaxy Note Samsung's released yet (which tends to be the case every year), but I'll get straight to the point: it's quite possibly the one with the fewest differences from its smaller Galaxy S siblings, as well. Even size doesn't seem to be much of a differentiator anymore, as the six-month-old Galaxy S10+ is a scant few millimeters shorter and narrower than the mighty Note10+. This is where I've ended up after using the phone for a couple of weeks, and I just can't shake that comparison.
After a sit-down with members of Android's brand design team in the company's new Mountain View office last month, the headline of this post was essentially what I came away with. Android's visual branding is changing as part of the release of Android 10, but that's in and of itself only a tiny part of Android, and it's really not changing a lot.
The last dessert to grace the name of a version of Google's Android operating system will officially be pie. At a meeting in the Android team's new office in Mountain View last month, we sat down with some of the Googlers responsible for handling Android's biggest rebrand since, well, Android.
They weren’t letting cars in anymore — we’d have to take the crowded train, get off at the next station, and make our way to the hired driver. This was the greeting I received when I stepped off my flight in Hong Kong on a Monday night, as a fourth day of protests at the city’s international airport reached a breaking point. It was a little surreal. I walked past chanting (but exceedingly polite) protestors clad in black, most of their faces concealed by gas masks or bandanas, stocked with plenty of literature about their city and their concerns about its future.
As the company widely credited for inventing the Big Phone, Samsung has enjoyed years of dominance with its Galaxy Note line. But in 2019, the Note faces stiff competition from all sides: Apple, Huawei, OnePlus, and a growing cohort of Chinese phone manufacturers are all making big, powerful smartphones, and some of them are very, very good. Last week, I spent a morning with Samsung's newest take on its supersized smartphone formula, the Galaxy Note10 and Note10+.