Meet our newest Lab Tech, Wyatt!

First up is Apkudo’s newest Lab Technician, Wyatt Kund! We sat Wyatt down and asked him a few questions. Then we made him wear this sweet Lab coat, which he now rocks on a daily. Looking good, Wyatt. Looking good.

1) What is your earliest computing or internet memory?

Probably watching my older brother playing video games.

2) What was your favorite NES game?

Megaman 2. I can still play that game for hours.

3) If you could be any superhero, who would you be?

Batman, sorry Mom and Dad.

4) What excites you most about the future of technology?

Miniaturization. In my pocket I have a computer more powerful than a supercomputer that would have taken up a warehouse just a few decades ago. That’s amazing! How long before a computer as powerful as the one at CERN is in my pocket, what doors could it open up? I can’t say for sure, but I can’t wait to find out.

5) Do you sleep with your socks on?

WHAT!? NO! Do people do that?

Editor’s note: Yes. Yes they do. 

6) What software or websites couldn’t you live without?

Google. I have a lot of inane questions, and they seem to have all the answers.

7) If you could have a beer with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

I would have to say Carl Sagan. He’s been a hero of mine ever since I watched Cosmos. The way he talked about everything completely changed my perspective on the world. It’s a shame he left us so soon, and the opportunity to pick his brain would be priceless to me.

8) Do you want fries with that?

Yes, but I probably won’t eat them. I always intend to, but rarely have the room.

9) If you could go on an all expense paid vacation to anywhere, where would you go and why?

Hawaii. Just once I’d like to see clear blue water. I’ve gotten so used to the color of the bay that I think all the pictures of clean water is some sort of complex hoax.

10) Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?

No brainer, 100 duck sized horses. A horse- sized duck just seems too dangerous.

Wyatt’s love for CyanogenMod and inquisitive nature about how Android works immediately set him apart. Once he expressed his love for Magic: The Gathering, well, he all but locked up the position. Please help us in welcoming Wyatt to the Apkudo team!

Okay, okay. I will give you the benefit of the doubt. Tis possible that some of you hackers know your stuff just as much as I do. And if not, let me be your guiding voice to deciphering our device mystery. Only together can we meet the challenge of device discovery. Now my friends, I must say farewell – for there is much work to be done and Apkudo never rests. Never!

Here’s a reminder of how to play:

• Take a look at the photo below and try to guess what the mystery device is.
• Post your answers in the comments section below. Each person to get it right will be entered into a drawing to win a free Apkudo t-shirt (they’re pretty badass).
• When posting your answer, be sure to include your Twitter address so we can get in touch with you. No Twitter address? That’s cool – just check back to the blog to see if you won.
• All answers must be submitted within 5 days of the post, and only one answer per person will be accepted.

Name That Device Part 4

Best of luck to you all!

When Ben Rogers started here a few months ago he quickly learned the ins-and-outs of the Device Analytics lab and was eager to get his hands on everything in the App Analytics lab, too. The guy is like a sponge (earning him the nickname Sponge BRog) and we soon saw the need to bring him on full-time.

Ben “Sponge BRog” Rogers

Ben is Apkudo’s newest Lab Technician, performing analysis on all of our Device and App Analytics phones and tablets. We sat him down and grilled him like a…sponge? Sorry. We asked him 10 Questions. Here are his answers.

1) What made you want to get into computer science and engineering?
I like this field because you can see history changing before your eyes. It sort of allows you to see the future before anyone else. Oh…And I like all the “sciency” stuff.

2) Favorite Nintendo game of all time.

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start…..it’s a toss up between Contra and Metal Gear.

3) What do you do for fun?

Other than work at Apkudo? I sound boring but here goes: I like to workout. P90x is awesome, but now I’m doing the Spartacus 2.0 workouts again. I couldn’t live without running, I’ve been doing it for over 16 years now (mostly from my problems). I would consider myself a ‘runner’. I’ll let you in on a secret that runners keep. A sock makes for great TP…so if you see a runner with only one sock, you know what happened. I like to read, but don’t do enough of it. I like to read all kinds of content from science to sci-fi, politics to religion, and everything in between. The last book I read was The Walking Dead Vol. 1.

4) You’re stranded on a deserted island. This magical island lets you choose one restaurant at it that you’ll have to eat at for the rest of time. What do you choose?

Very tough question because I LOVE food (good thing I like to workout). I should say a buffet for the variety, but I don’t know any buffet’s that are that good. So, it would have to be a Top Tier Steakhouse, but I don’t know any. Ruths Chris is the best one that came to my mind. Also, it has to serve a full range of alcoholic beverages.

5) Marry/F**K/Kill: Captain Hook, Cruella de Vil, Ursula.

Marry: Captain Hook
F**K: Cruella de Vil
Kill: Ursula

Captain Hook could take me around the world with many exciting adventures.
Cruella de vil: I like puppies, but Ursula was an ugly octopus woman.
Unless it’s the hot Ursula…then everything changes.

6) Best advice you’ve ever received.

Just Do It

7) What song do you want played at your funeral?

I don’t care what is played at my funeral, I won’t be here to enjoy it. But it should be something fun or something that my friends and loved ones want to hear…Maybe just the chorus from Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Good Bye.

8) What website could you not live without?

Google.com–it seems to be the launching pad for everything I do online. Lame, I know, but what am I supposed to say, Bing?

9) If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

It’s between time travel or super human intelligence. If Super Human Intelligence would result in me figuring out time travel (among other things) I would pick that…then I could be a super intelligent time traveling genius!

10) Do you have any hidden talents?

If I tell you they won’t be hidden anymore. But, no. Sadly.

And there you have it!
Thanks to Ben for answering all our crazy questions and welcome to Apkudo!

Friend of Apkudo Daniel Box, Quality Assurance Manager over at Mubaloo, recently completed the intense task of creating an Android testing MindMap. As you can see, there’s a lot to take into account when testing an Android app or website. Have a look below and if you’d like to download it yourself, check it out here.

Android Testing MindMap by Daniel Box

Many thanks to Dan for including us in the MindMap. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @dnlkbox!

However, the caveat of the affordable tablet not being Google certified predominantly means it doesn’t have access to Google’s content services, instead, relying on Amazon’s own offerings. Although Amazon’s application store is nothing to sneeze at, its 31,000 apps (March 2012) is a small handful compared to Android’s share of almost 500,000 apps.  It boiled down to this: purchase a cheaper tablet without some of the Google apps and features, or kiss a bunch more hard earned benjamins goodbye for one with the whole Google experience.

But then, why can’t we have both?

Google answers and fills this void with the recently released Nexus 7; a light, affordable and well-built, tablet sporting the latest Android 4.1.1 ‘Jelly Bean’ OS. Announced at Google I/O 2012, the Nexus 7 aims to place a Google Certified Android tablet into more hands, all while maintaining good user experience through the harmony of leading edge hardware and thorough software.

Although released at different time frames (Q4 ’11 for the Kindle and Q3 ’12 for the Nexus), both tablets target a similar market given their likeness in form factor and price point. With both the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 in our labs we put them through the ringer by performing the entire Apkudo Device Analytics suite on both tablets and characterizing their respective user experiences. If you’ve got a Kindle Fire and you’re wondering how the Nexus 7 stacks up against it, look no further.

Display

The Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 sport pretty extrinsically similar displays. Both are IPS. Both feature Corning scratch-resistance glass. Both span 7”. Both can render 16 million colors. Both support multi-touch. However, that’s about where abundance of similarities ends. To start, the Nexus 7 has a significantly wider viewing angle. Placed within a sealed, light absorbing box, the Nexus 7 loses 50% lux at a 45 degree angle as opposed to viewing it straight on. Now, this might seem like a lot, but it’s one of the best results we’ve seen, and significantly better than the Kindle Fire’s loss of almost 90% lux given the same setup.

Another area where we often see shortcomings is the color temperature of displays. Device displays (both phones and tablets) often appear as though they were lit up by a solid blast of UV lighting, completely ruining the experience of anything projected onto the display. The Kindle Fire does reasonably well here, clocking in at 7600K; slightly high, but not enough to be causing any detrimental color tints. However, the Nexus 7 really brings it home with an average temperature of 6800K (a widely accepted ideal is 6500K), producing colors that appear pleasantly neutral without any noticeable tints.

Figure 1: Kindle Fire

Tablets are a great way to display photos and such due to their combination of good portability and a relatively large screen. As you’ll see in Figure 1, despite the Kindle Fires’ display’s ability to support 16 million colors, its photo gallery proves to be the weakest link as significant banding is evident. This might cause nice images to appear choppy, especially if there’s a nice gradual gradient – a sunset, for example.

Figure 2: Nexus 7

On the other hand, the Nexus 7 performs significantly better. We can still spot small amounts of banding particularly near the dark end of the spectrum in Figure 2, so it’s not perfect, but definitively smoother. Does this make or break a device? Not entirely, but these small things all add up to shape the user experience. Not only is good hardware important, but the software needs to be able to utilize it – kinda like having a roaring V8, but then an electronic speed limiter stuck at 30mph.

Touch Screen

Not all touch screens are created equal, and the digitizers used in the Kindle and Nexus are no exception. Although both demonstrate very good touch accuracy throughout the touch panel, the Kindle excels at edge tracking where the Nexus 7 experiences some slightly abnormal traits. Where a trailing edge is concerned on the Nexus 7, touch points develop a tendency to stick along the edge like a meniscus. Although not a deal breaker by a large margin, it is in stark contrast to the Kindle which tracks straight and true all the way to the edge, resulting in a higher R-squared value that corresponds to the straight-line relationship between each point and its line of best fit. So what does this all mean? Basically, the Kindle Fire will detect your finger with better pin-point accuracy than the Nexus 7… just.

Figure 3: Nexus 7

Figure 4: Kindle Fire

Both devices claim to support multi-touch – the ability to recognize the presence of two or more points of contact with the surface. While technically correct, they do support more than 1 simultaneous touch, the Kindle only supports 2 touches. The Nexus 7 on the other hand maxes out at 10 detectable touches (we tried 11 points with an extra hand, but alas, 10 it is). Besides the limitation of 2 touch points, the other characteristic that really hurts the Kindle is the loss of all points upon a 3^rd point present on the screen. While you might not actually USE three points too often, the accidental presence of a 3^rd point is not unheard of, especially when you’re hammering away at a favorite game.

Audio

Audio analysis is also performed, with the Nexus 7 outclassing the Kindle Fire in almost every aspect. One way of determining the accuracy of audio reproduction is by measuring the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), that is, the amount of unwanted overtones (harmonics) arising from the playback of a particular note. At a fundamental frequency of 1kHz measuring  harmonics up to 20Khz, THD on the Nexus 7 is low enough to be largely unnoticeable throughout low, medium and high volumes. Things aren’t quite as smooth for the Kindle, with up to 18% THD at lower volume levels. Noticeable amounts are around 1% to 5%.

Another way of determining audio quality is by measuring the amount of background noise compared to the intended signal – that is, the ratio between everything you want to hear, against everything that you don’t. The difference between the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire at average volume settings of 50% is night and day. Positioned as a media device, the Nexus 7 doesn’t disappoint, producing a clean signal with a high SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio) of 91.5dB. On the other hand, the Kindle Fire disappoints slightly, with significantly poorer performance. As seen below, the Nexus 7 produces an extremely clean signal, whereas the Kindle appears very messy. End result? You’ll hear clearer sound and less hissing on the Nexus 7.

Figure 5: Nexus 7

Figure 6: Kindle Fire

Volume levels are also much better on the Nexus 7. Through the headphone jack, the Nexus 7 offers peak-to-peak amplitudes that are up to twice as high as the Kindle Fire (950mV vs 1900mV). Peaking at over 90dB at 3ft, the external speaker on the Nexus 7 tells a similar tale with an approximate 20dB gain over the Kindle Fire. Let’s face it. You buy a tablet to consume different types of media. These results are important because a high and clear output volume ensures the clarity of sounds during various media file playback so you can hear and enjoy them better.

Browser

We also performed a few quick browser tests to demonstrate some performance differences. Besides various standard benchmarks freely available, a speed test is also performed to determine the overall speed at which the device and default browser open up a list of top 25 webpages. As a testament to the overall speed of Jelly Bean and the Quad+1 core Tegra 3 processor, the Nexus 7 powers through each test and benchmark with significantly better results than the Kindle.

Conclusion

Combining leading edge hardware and supporting software in an affordable package makes the Nexus 7 the true winner amongst Android tablets. At the same price point as the popular Kindle Fire, the Nexus 7 increases performance in many aspects such as display, audio, touch screen and browser performance, giving it the cost and user experience advantage to compete with more expensive offerings. The inclusion of stock Android on the Nexus 7 presents users with a raw, unadulterated experience without compromising access to Google services, enabling it to reach a market otherwise unavailable to the Kindle Fire.

All in all, the Nexus 7 is an outstanding device that encompasses and builds upon many of the defining aspects of the Kindle Fire that made it the runaway success that it was.

-Ben Tseng
Director, Device Analytics

We wanted to get to know Deej on a deep, spiritual level so we asked him 10 Questions (it was actually 11, but he refused to answer “Who Farted?!”). Here we go!

1) What made you want to be an engineer?
I got a TI-83 calculator in sixth grade and started messing around with TI-BASIC. That was my introduction to programming, and I just haven’t stopped since.

2) Favorite video game of all time.
I’m going to break the rules and pick three games here. They would be Megaman X through X3 on the SNES. Every once in a while I’ll play through each in a row. Those games never get old. I’m going to break the rules again and plug my favorite freeware game, Spelunky. I think everyone should play that game, its amazing.

3) What do you do for fun?
I write games (that I never finish). I also play the guitar and make music with real instruments and trackers (I’ve got a lot to learn about trackers).

4) You’re stranded on a deserted island. You can have one book, one movie, and watch one TV show for the rest of your life. What are they and why did you pick them?
I think I’d bring Don Quixote (it’s quite a long book). For a television show, I’d bring Star Trek: The Next Generation. I could watch every episode of that show again and again. Although, I have been meaning to watch The Wire… (I hear its good.) I could pick a classic cinema masterpiece here, but f**k it, I’d take Total Recall. Its got Arnold Schwarzenegger and it’s just a goofy sci-fi action movie that I could watch over and over again.

5) Marry/F**K/Kill: Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Gutenberg, Benjamin Franklin.
This is an easy question. I’d have to marry Ben Franklin because he seems like a fun guy (I’d just ignore his love of French women). I suppose I’d kill Leonardo simply because every picture I’ve ever seen of him depicts him as an old man. And then I guess I’ll f**k Gutenberg. Moveable type is pretty sexy…

6) Best advice you’ve ever gotten.
I cannot think of any good advice I’ve received in the last 23 years of my life. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t listen anyways.

7) Best compliment you’ve ever received.
“You’re not that ugly.”

8) What website could you not live without?
If I didn’t have Stack Overflow I couldn’t do my job (don’t tell anyone).

9) If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
I would want to be able to stop time. I could stop time and get a full night of sleep. I could stop time and have breakfast in the morning. I could stop time and flee from my enemies. The list goes on and on.

10) What’s your biggest pet peeve?
When people chew with their mouth open. I probably do it and don’t realize it, but it still irritates me.