I got my invite to Google Music last night.
I will be experimenting with it and follow up with a review in a few days.
If people are looking for invites to it, email me at photography@brentbraaten.com and as soon as the service starts letting users send out invites (like they've done in the past) I'll send out invites in the order I receive them.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
My thoughts on the Android Location Data Issue
There has been a lot of uproar lately about the location data collection/transmission issues with Android and iPhones.
Android does ask you to 'opt in' to the collection when you first setup the phone, and you're given the luxury of saying no which is a good thing. There is even appears to be the ability to turn it off if necessary by go into the location & security settings and turn off the 'use wireless networks' box. I have to give Google credit where it's due, they give us the option to 'opt out'.
I do still have an issue with the situation though, when you 'opt out' of the data collection some apps stop functioning properly. I've so far ran into two examples, Beautiful Widgets and Settings Profiles.
When I opted out of the data collection option Beautiful Widgets stopped being able to detect my location for the current weather information. The automated rule I have setup to put my phone into silent mode whenever I get near my church stopped functioning as well. Google Maps of course still functions normally.
I realize part of the blame here lays in the hands of the app developers and how they choose to setup their apps to get their gps data. I also though feel it's a little underhanded of Google to have the phones setup so that part of their functionality doesn't work unless we opt into the data collection option.
My personal opinion is the data collection option should be a separate toggle from the location settings toggles. Part of the phone's basic functionality shouldn't be disabled if we don't opt into their data collection.
Android does ask you to 'opt in' to the collection when you first setup the phone, and you're given the luxury of saying no which is a good thing. There is even appears to be the ability to turn it off if necessary by go into the location & security settings and turn off the 'use wireless networks' box. I have to give Google credit where it's due, they give us the option to 'opt out'.
I do still have an issue with the situation though, when you 'opt out' of the data collection some apps stop functioning properly. I've so far ran into two examples, Beautiful Widgets and Settings Profiles.
When I opted out of the data collection option Beautiful Widgets stopped being able to detect my location for the current weather information. The automated rule I have setup to put my phone into silent mode whenever I get near my church stopped functioning as well. Google Maps of course still functions normally.
I realize part of the blame here lays in the hands of the app developers and how they choose to setup their apps to get their gps data. I also though feel it's a little underhanded of Google to have the phones setup so that part of their functionality doesn't work unless we opt into the data collection option.
My personal opinion is the data collection option should be a separate toggle from the location settings toggles. Part of the phone's basic functionality shouldn't be disabled if we don't opt into their data collection.
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