Coming up for air

We were in the middle of Friday's (rather epic) podcast on the Nexus 5 and Android 4.4 KitKat when we reminded ourselves that just days earlier we'd been at the Samsung Developers Conference in San Francisco. So in the span of single work week we had an inaugural devcon from one of the biggest damn manufacturers of anything on the planet.

Then Halloween hit. It's kind of a thing when you have a couple young kids.

A day later, we had the announcement of a new (and pretty major, imho) version of Android. And we had the announcement and retail launch of the Nexus 5.

And the iPad Air went on sale last week, too. Not sure yet if I need to get one — I'll probably decide I do just as soon as it's not easily available. But the initial reviews have me wanting to see just how light and thin that thing is.

Oh, and I finally got Google Glass. So, yeah. Just a few things to wrap my mind around this week.

A few other things on my mind this fine morning:

Daylight Saving Time is over in the U.S. If you've got any of those old, manual clocks laying around, make sure you reset them. Alternatively: Move to Arizona.
Best parts of Google Glass for me thus far: My wife looking surprisingly interested. My kids repeating "OK, Glass" at random times.
A good take from our pal Russell Holly on the Nexus 5 launch. I agree that things were a bit jumbled, but I don't even want to know how many moving parts go into the announcement of a new operating system version and a new smartphone — to say nothing about trying to coordinate them. Was it all annoying from a media standpoint? Yeah — if only because there were so many ridiculous rumors and misinformation floating around. But whose fault was that, I ask?
I do, however, still believe folks deserve some kudos for the mechanical parts of the purchasing process finally working as they should. And I also agree that I probably should have been more vocal in past launches when Google Wallet failed miserably. But what the hell. I'm feeling all warm and fuzzy this week. So, kudos, folks.
Speaking of ridiculous rumors and misinformation, Andrew Martonik coined a great word this weekend — Baitsclusive. Sort of like Breaksclusive, only even more deliberate.
I love having proper screen recording built into KitKat.
I'm digging the larger icons all around. I never thought previous layouts used the available space all that well.
It'll be really interesting to see what the manufacturers do with all these new toys, especially Google Now as part of the launcher.
And because you now swipe over for Google Now, that makes me hate physical home buttons a little less. I can't help but wonder if the change was prompted (at least in part) by the million and millions of Samsung phones out there. It's also a good change on its own, though.
So much more Android 4.4 to explore, folks. Remember that you don't have to swallow it all at once. Chew slowly. Digest.

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