And so, the tradition of creating custom firmware has reached Russia. Of course, local programmers know the needs of the market and average users better, so the product is primarily intended for residents of the post-Soviet space. What is Yandex.Kit, what are the main features of this innovation and where does the whales - we will try to explain in this article.
Of course, on the basis Kita lies AOSP otherwise it could not be. It's amazing why in Yandex only now they decided to take this step, because both companies have been competing with each other for a long time, the Russian search engine cosplays all Western innovations in every possible way, but I could not decide on the firmware for the most popular operating system. Creators Yandex.Kit emphasize that the search engine processes more than 250 million requests from Russian users every day, which means that it is thoroughly aware of all the needs and characteristics of the local audience.
In addition, Keith understands Russian much better than his competitors. First, the built-in keyboard knows what cases are and how to put them into practice. Thus, the input of words and the output of prompts take into account this feature. The keyboard also displays Cyrillic and Latin at the same time. Secondly, they are not alien to Keith and different forms names inherent in our speech, so it will be more difficult to get confused in the address book, the latter, by the way, is endless. True, why do you need so many contacts, the developers do not explain, but the marketing move is not bad. Another feature of the address book is the integration with Yandex.Directory, this allows you to search for organization phones directly in the application. Interaction with the service will also allow you to identify some unknown incoming numbers. Data will be downloaded from the cloud, which means that a timely Internet connection will be required.
And, of course, all available in vanilla Android "e services (or almost all) are replaced by their Yandex analogues. On the one hand, this is good, since these analogues are more in line with the needs of the market (as, in fact, it was stated), but their quality in places is very different from the originals, which, in fact, is bad. Let's start with Yandex.Maps- all applications using geolocation will be attached to them (all subject to Yandex). Another important point is voice recognition technology. Yandex.SpeechKit. There should be no complaints here, because the native language. Will it be in Yandex.Kite? Unlikely, because Yandex has its own app market. Will it be possible to get access to a normal market? Most likely, yes, but there is a high probability that you will have to hack something.
Also in favor of the absence Google Play says the fact that Yandex.Kite there will be no list of applications, instead they will be sent straight to the homescreen, which means that the developers are counting on the fact that you will not have many applications. In such a situation, access to a normal market can be blocked so that there are many temptations to install good applications did not have. By the way, this will also fail for the reason that there will be negligible memory on smartphones, especially on a more budgetary one.
Used as a homescreen in the firmware Yandex.Shell. According to the developers, the new home screen completely redesigned and refurbished to suit all needs. As a result, users should get an "ergonomically intuitive interface". It looks like a carousel, but the screenshots do not inspire much confidence. Maybe this solution will look more mature on the device.
In addition, the developers announced moderate power consumption of smartphones on Yandex.Kite and extended run time. And all by minimizing the number of processes simultaneously running on the device. It looks something like this: developers sacrifice multitasking to extend the device's operating time. However, you can save on iron.
It is not clear why such an emphasis is placed on the convenience of switching from an old smartphone to a device on whale. If in the case of normal Android EVERYTHING can be backed up and moved from one smartphone to another, developers from Yandex boast that " Yandex.Moving will help to transfer the most important thing - contacts from the address book. installed applications, call lists, text messages?
Install Yandex.Kit Smartphone will not be available separately. At least that's what the creators of the firmware say. At the same time, everyone can sign up as a tester and receive the necessary files. To do this, you need to roll a letter about who you are, why you need Whale and what experience do you have with testing new firmware. Anyone interested is asked to write here: kit [email protected]. It is clear that after some time Yandex.Kit will appear somewhere XDA: members of the forum there simply cannot but be interested in such a phenomenon.
Smartphones that make it easy
You can see this slogan on the page Yandex.Kit dedicated to smartphones on whale: Huawei Honor 3 Yandex And Explay Flame. Sales of these devices will begin in the spring of 2014, and users first of all should expect "embedded applications and technologies that help millions of people every day" and 50 bonus gigabytes on Yandex.Disk. Concerning specifications, then they are as follows: Huawei Honor 3 Yandex will be equipped with a 4.7-inch display with a resolution of 1280x720 and a pixel density of 312 PPI, a Hisilicon K3V2E quad-core processor at 1.5 GHz, 2 GB of RAM, 8 GB of memory with microSD support up to 32 GB, a 13 MP main camera and a 1 .3 MP, 2150 mAh battery and operating system Android 4.2.2. Concerning Explay Flame, then it will be simpler: a 4.5-inch display with a resolution of 960x540 (pixel density is not indicated, as it is negligible), a 1.3 GHz MTK 6582M quad-core processor, 8 and 2 MP cameras, 1 GB of RAM, 4 GB of memory , 1700 mAh battery, Android 4.2 OS. Prices are not yet known, but more information will appear on MWC 2014 already in a week.
Well, the whale here, most likely, symbolizes power.
Operating system for smartphones and tablets, developed on the basis of open source code Android. A former member of the Yandex.Kit development team announced the closure of the Rusbase project. The information was confirmed by an employee of the partner company.
According to the same source, the Kita development team has disbanded and its members are scattered around other projects. In addition, part of the developers of "Kit" left the company. In April of this year, the team that worked on the design of Yandex.Kit posted on Facebook page entry "Farewell, Yandex".
The basis of the team working on the project were employees of the St. Petersburg company SPB Software acquired by Yandex in 2011. The studio specialized in complex software products for mobile platforms, including alternate shell SPB Shell for Android.
Representatives of "Yandex" deny the fact of closing the project:
“We launched Yandex.Kit on February 19, 2014. Last year, we agreed to pre-install Yandex.Kita on Explay, Huawei, Smarto, DEXP devices, - the Yandex press service reported, - Now this product is not actively developed, including due to opposition from Google. At the moment, as far as we know, some Smarto and DEXP tablets are still on sale on Yandex.Kit.”
In February of this year, Yandex filed an application with the Federal Antimonopoly Service demanding that Google be checked for violations of Russian antitrust laws. Yandex believes that Google violates the principle of free competition in the Android smartphone market, as it puts pressure on manufacturers who want to use their own firmware options. In mid-April, the FAS granted Google's request to postpone the consideration of the case - it is expected that the next meeting of the commission on this issue will be held in the second half of May. Yandex's statement was supported by the FairSearch alliance (includes Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle and others), which back in 2013 called on the European Antimonopoly Commission to consider a proposal to separate the operating Android system from Google.
In April this year, the European Commission sent an official complaint to the search giant - the document claims that Google is using its dominant position in the Internet search market in the European Economic Area (EEA) to promote its own services for the sale of goods and services. If Google's guilt is proven, the corporation faces a fine of 10% of its annual revenue (about $6 billion).
For Yandex, the value of Kit was to replace all pre-installed services from Google with the corresponding Yandex services (maps, browser, calendar, etc.). Google Play is replaced by "Yandex.Store", and Yandex.SpeechKit is used instead of Google Voice. The company was in need of its own mobile OS, as a sharp increase in sales of Android smartphones in the Russian market in 2012 began to threaten the dominance of the company's services in the CIS markets and Yandex's search revenue. In 2010, Android occupied a share of 11% in Russia, in 2011 the share increased to 29%, and in 2012 - already up to 58% (data from J'son & Partners Consulting). In 2014, Android was installed on 86% of all smartphones in Russia.
For smartphone manufacturers, Yandex.Kit was distributed free of charge, but this did not have much impact on the market position. Analysts believe that Yandex.Kit failed to get users interested.
Android device owners are increasingly choosing to search for information on Google. According to a survey by Morgan Stanley, 51% of Android smartphone users prefer search from Google, and only 41% from Yandex. According to Liveinternet.ru, Yandex is the most popular search engine on the Russian Internet. But Liveinternet.ru also registers a drop in the share of Yandex: over the year it decreased by 2.8 percentage points to 58.9% (as of the end of January 2015), while the share of Google increased by 5.9 percentage points over the same period. P. up to 32.8%.
Tablets and smartphones with Yandex.Kit pre-installed are still available for purchase in Yandex.Market. Also available for download is an interface for smartphones "Yandex.Shell", based on SPB Shell. A source close to the company told Rusbase that the Erica project continues to exist inside Yandex, which implies an even deeper modification of Android. It is no longer led by the former SPB Software team, but by Tigran Khudaverdyan, head of mobile and software products at Yandex.
At the end of 2014, Yandex earned 50.767 billion rubles. Net profit amounted to 17.02 billion rubles. Most of the income (90.2%) was brought by contextual advertising services.
Anton Nekhaenko and Elina Asfaganova worked on the material.
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Yandex.Kit is a launcher from the Android firmware of the same name, created by the famous Russian company. This decision is intended for those who like the "Kit" interface, but they do not need to install the firmware itself. In fact, we have before us a somewhat revised and rethought version of the very popular Yandex.Shell graphical shell. Working with this launcher has become even more comfortable and pleasant than with its "progenitor", and besides, it has received a modern "material" interface, which even the most demanding users will surely like.
Among the useful functions that this shell provides, we can highlight the provision quick access To proprietary applications Yandex, a very stylish lock screen with support for a variety of unlock mechanisms, is very interesting design shutter, ergonomic input screen phone number, a set of "signature" clock widgets, weather and more. In addition, the application has a large library of beautiful wallpapers in high resolution. The undoubted advantage of Yandex.Kit can also be considered the fact that it works quite quickly even on devices with relatively weak hardware. You can download and use this launcher for free.
Convenient and intuitive interface that makes it easier and more enjoyable to work with the device on Android based. It takes very little time to set up the screens. The interface can automatically distribute widgets and programs across the screens. Useful and necessary widgets can be placed on one screen - you only need one glance to keep abreast of current city events, weather and traffic conditions.
The Yandex.Shell address book contains phone numbers of organizations. Just enter a query - like "restaurant" - and the built-in search will show the phone number and address of a nearby restaurant. If you get a call from an unfamiliar number, then Shell will check the presence of this number in the database. And if this number belongs to an organization, then you will see its name in the call log.
Improvements over Y.Shell:
T9 search appeared in the dialer. This is good. But! In such an implementation, the dialer window would not hurt to be combined with the Journal. And make the dialer keyboard collapsible.
In the Journal, finally, a display of the SIM cards from / to which the call was made (relevant for two-sim cards)
In the lower bar you can create folders
Deteriorations:
Missing App Drawer
Remained unchanged:
Never made a transparent status bar
The position of the Yandex team on this launcher:
1) this version of the shell is "clicked" from the whale beta, and outside the official versions of the whale is not supported and will not be supported.
2) we read bug reports and wishes, but we should not expect at least some kind of reaction from us, because see point 1.
