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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nexus 7/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 6 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

Nexus 7 edit

Nexus 7 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 06:53, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because...it is complete, well-written and stable enough to be considered worthy of FA distinction. To give a bit of background information, the article was primarily developed by myself in the middle of last year, before being listed as a GA article in August. My editing skill was put through its paces during the article's follow-up peer review by Nikkimaria. I encourage, welcome, and would appreciate any comment or input during this FAC process. Regards --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 06:53, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments The Nexus 7 has been a landmark device and caused me to convert from iOS to Android, and it's good to see such a fine article on it. I have the following comments and suggestions:

  • As an initial comment, I (and some other editors) have been critical of earlier FA nominations of newish electronic devices on the grounds that there was likely to be significantly more coverage of the device and it wasn't yet possible to evaluate it in context. Given that the Nexus 7 is reportedly going to be replaced soon and has attracted acres of high-quality coverage, that doesn't seem a problem here at all.
  • "and built by an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partner" - can 'original equipment manufacturer' be translated into layman's language?
  • "Incorporating built-in Wi-Fi and near field communication (NFC) connectivity" - a version which connects through mobile phone networks is now available: [2] (as noted later in the article)
  • "Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt confirmed that a Google-designed tablet" - does 'confirmed' mean that there had been speculation prior to this interview?
  • "Google would have stronger competition against Apple Inc., the designer of the popular iPad tablet" - I think that you can drop the 'inc' given that 'Apple' is the common name
  • Why did Google select Asus for this project? Did Asus and other companies have to put in a bid, or did Google hand pick them due to their track record?
  • Andy Rubin said, "I don’t think there would have been any other partner that could move that fast." TechnoBuffulo interpreted this to mean that Google thought Asus was the only company that could move quickly enough. But this came after Asus's "top executives met Google’s top executives at CES to talk about opportunities and how they saw the future market." I cannot find the thinking behind the selection, but, no bidding was involved. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 01:20, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK. I've read that Google hand picked LG to develop the Nexus 4 phone as they really liked LG's most recent type of phone and believed that it was the leader in screen design, so it's likely that something like this took place here as well. Nick-D (talk) 03:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "while Google sent seven engineers to Asus' headquarters" - where's this located?
  • "Having employees working near Google's offices allowed the engineering team to have a 24-hour development cycle" - why was this the case? (presumably this is related to the point above)
  • Why did co-locating staff near Google's headquarters allow this? Couldn't a shift system in wherever Asus is based have achieved the same thing? (I presume the issue is that it allowed one shift in the US and another shift in East Asia to alternate). Nick-D (talk) 03:19, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe because Google was the lead designer of the tablet, and that having Asus engineers on site sped up the design process? I'm not aware of any rationale behind this arrangement. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 04:48, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Because Asus is based in Asia and Google is based in the US, both companies were able to work on the device during their normal business hours because of the time zone difference between the 2 locations. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 17:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "he also noted that both tablets were being sold at thin profit margins" - it might be worth noting here why Google runs the Nexus program (eg, to push hardware developers and to showcase what its operating system can do, rather than to make much money from the Nexus devices themselves)
  • "The stock market reacted positively to the announcement, as shares of Google increased by 0.8 percent to US$569.37 that afternoon" - the reference doesn't say that this was in response to the announcement, and it's hardly a major fluctuation so attributing it to this event is probably a bit difficult.
  • "The Nexus 7 would be progressively released to a number of selected markets during the following several months." - not referenced, and tense reads a bit odd oddly
  • "cards that it predicts they will want" - who they 'they' is here isn't clear (is it the user or Google?)
  • "a rubbery, leathery texture intended to improve grip and comfort holding the device" - 'improve' relative to what? (how about 'help users to grip and hold the device', or similar?)
  • "which would negatively impact sound quality" - how about "which would harm sound quality"? ('negatively impact' is pretty ugly, though I'm guilty of using it!)
  • "Asus changed the device's design" - was this a change made during the development of the device, or relative to an earlier device?
  • "a mobile industry analyst estimated that the device most likely sold" - can you name who this analyst is to help readers evaluate how much faith to place on their views?
  • "Nexus 7 owned 8% of the global Android tablet market share" - can products really "own" market share? How about "Localytics reported that the Nexus 7 accounted for 8% of the global Android tablet market share" or similar? Nick-D (talk) 11:44, 17 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments have now been addressed. Nick-D (talk) 10:18, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

The writing could do with a workout.

  • The word "Google" is used excessively on occasion. For eg: "sent a design team to Googleplex, Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, while Google sent seven engineers to Asus' headquarters in Taiwan. Having employees working near Google's offices allowed the engineering team to have a 24-hour development cycle, but Shih needed to later add 40 people to the project to meet Google's requests." (use a ctrl+F and highlight-all to catch these)
  • Similarly for Asus in paras 2 and 3 in the first section.
  • "Gmail, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google+, Google Wallet and Google Currents"—is it necessary to mention so many by name? If yes, I suggest changing the first bit to "The Nexus 7 comes with many Google applications by default..." and removing the multiple Googles afterwards.
  • "The Nexus 7 comes with many applications by default"—question of tense. A few years from now, when this device is old and museum-worthy, will this article continue to use the present tense? Is there any way to write this article so that it doesn't need to be rewritten when the device is no longer produced?
  • Should be left alone for now, until, let's say, at the end of December this year, when it will be changed to past tense. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "GameStop, Sam's Club, Adorama, Staples, B&H Photo Video, and Kmart"—couldn't they be replaced with "several retailers"?
  • "cut by US$20 to US$149 and US$179" → "cut by $20 to $149 and $179" looks much more elegant and readable. Since no other kind of dollar is used in the article, can this changed be made throughout the article? (maybe the first one can remain US$) Better check with the relevant MoS first though.
  • "A second version of the Nexus 7 will reportedly be launched in July 2013."—will this have its own article, or will this one see significant changes?
  • "The Nexus 7 would be progressively released.." that's a weird sentence, because it reads as though it hasn't been released in Portugal and India yet.
  • The infobox is looong. I think a lot of that —info should be moved to a table in a new Specifications section at the bottom of the article. The infobox is intended to give basic info about the article's subject, which is usually expanded upon elsewhere in the article. It is not meant for an exhaustive listing of the product's specs.
  • I think it is meant to be a detailed list. Not everything is listed there though. Besides, gadget articles don't have their own specs list, unlike aircraft articles. Some example is iPad (3rd generation). --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Excessive detail—as mentioned before about the preloaded apps and names of retailers, a few details appear excessive to me. These can either be removed to moved to a footnotes section so that they don't get in the way of the main article's readability and distract the reader's attention:
  • "would receive a US$25 credit..."—can the rest simply be "to spend on Google Play, and several freebies, including a free movie, book and magazines."
  • People's designations needn't be so descriptive, especially when the designation doesn't add much to the reader's understanding: "head of UK and Nordic markets", "Former manager of the Google Android division", "Director of Product Management for Android". Often just a "senior executive" will suffice.
  • I've removed "head of UK and Nordic markets" but retained the other titles because they establish a connection to the subject, which is a Google-designed Android product. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 07:36, 23 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and releases in France, Germany, and Spain"—are so many territories needed in the lead?
  • Overlinking: there's a lot of blue here. Pre-order, pre-installed, profit margins, mass production. Please review throughout.

I've copyedited the lead to illustrate what I was pointing out above—simplifying the text, cutting overlinking and trimming details. I hope it can be done for the rest of the article too.122.172.22.100 (talk) 15:11, 18 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. This is a fairly well-written article, and it does quite a good job of balancing tech specs with readable content. A few nitpicks to attend to: --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:10, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • "However, he also noted that both tablets were being sold at thin profit margins, primarily due to their respective ties to content services," Comma at the end of this paragraph. Is this sentence unfinished, or should that be a period?
  • "Nexus devices have an unlockable bootloader, allowing users from the outset to further develop the OS and "root" the device, or gain legitimate privileged control in Android's subsystem." This is very different from the iPhone, and from Apple's overall philosophy. Perhaps it would be worth elaborating on this point? At the moment this just reads like a bunch of technical gobbledegook.
  • I cannot explain it further with my limited knowledge.
  • That's why we use sources. Surely there must be at least one review which comments on this, or perhaps a press document from Google which explains how it fits into their marketing strategy. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "With Jelly Bean, Google significantly reduced latency (lag), one negative aspect of Android compared to Apple's iOS operating system, by employing "vsync timing" and triple buffering, improving touch responsiveness, and programming the display to run at 60 frames per second; this initiative was called "Project Butter"." This is a very long sentence, to the extent that it becomes confusing to try to take it all in at once. I would suggest splitting it into two smaller sentences—or even three, if you're feeling like a saucy salamander.
  • "One of the most highly touted features of Jelly Bean was Google Now, an intelligent personal assistant similar to Apple's Siri." Surely there must have been comparisons drawn between the two assistants. Which is regarded as the superior robot? I suppose the answer could be placed either here or in the Reception section, but I don't see it yet.
  • That's outside the scope of this article I think, and would present undue weight to the function. --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 01:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This response is not consistent with the existing structure of the article. Google Now already has an entire paragraph to itself, and the entire article has dozens of comparisons between Android and iOS. If this one comparison is outside the scope of the article, then why is that content not outside the scope of the article? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:44, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the device most likely sold between 4.5–4.6 million units in 2012." My understanding is that, when used like this, the ndash should be read as "to", which does not make sense grammatically here. I suggest cutting "between".
  • When considering the openness of the Android OS, I would imagine that one component of the platform's success (or failure) would be the formation (or not) of a community of third-party developers. Perhaps I've missed it, but I don't see any discussion of this point. Do people actually make use of the bootloader and kernel access?
  • Yes, but these functions are primarily for developers. There is a community of third-party developers out there, but it's not widely discussed. I have talked about this with the sentence "Software-development community Xda-Developers was among the first to release a custom ROM and kernel for the tablet." --Sp33dyphil ©hatontributions 01:28, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate comment -- With no consensus to promote after more than 6 weeks at FAC, I think it's time to archive this nom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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