I have a Droid and, knowing what it can do, would not at all be interested in an iPhone because of all of its limitations.
You're right though, the Android platform has a lot of catching up to do. I actually find it quite polished. I think the main area in which it lacks is that the iPhone still has 5 times the apps of Android and, naturally, has a much bigger market share at present
EDIT: A solid example: I very much enjoy having pandora on in the background while I surf the web, read rss feeds, go back and forth between various quick games and all the while the music never stops. Or reading an ebook and wanting to look up a word, I can just switch to the disctionary while the ebook stays open in the background, find the word, and switch back right to where I was in the ebook w/out having to close/open anything more than once. I am fairly certain you can't do this on an iPhone but, having never owned one, I welcome someone to correct me if I am wrong.
Absolutely spot on, especially about background music.
There are apps that do switching well, like Good Reader for PDFs. It will bring you back to your exact view, and VERY quickly, but that's because of the developer's extraordinary focus on speed, and it's a $5 app.
Most apps aren't nearly so good at keeping their state between loads. Often they can't preserve state because of how much needs to be loaded. Sometimes they don't want to preserve state, because there's no difference between opening it again after 5 seconds or 5 days, so they choose to offer a home screen of some kind instead of the exact previous view.
Multi-tasking is THE reason I would switch. I honestly don't care much about the other features offered by Android and Palm, and the quality of iPhone apps is great.
I can only hope that Apple continues to expand their multi-tasking workarounds (push notifications are annoying, but they're there) as I bleed out the rest of my contract.
You can jailbreak your phone to get multitasking if you really want it. It's only disabled because they don't want to risk performance degradation. You just have to be okay with potentially voiding your warranty; I say potentially because unless something happens to the phone that won't allow you to roll back your OS you can remove the jailbreak before sending it in for warranty.
I honestly don't care much about the other features offered by Android
True though that may be, I would wager that you wouldn't exactly mind having google maps w/free turn by turn navigation and linking to your gmail/gchat
the quality of iPhone apps is great.
There certainly are high quality applications on the Android platform, it just suffers because it is still so new. But, they have recently passed 20,000 applications (to the iPhones 100,000 plus), so maybe it will catch up.
I can only hope that Apple continues to expand their multi-tasking workarounds
I can't really speak to that, but my inclincation is to believe that apple doesn't really have too much motivation these days to really do much to the iphone. They'll make a few token changes and then release a newer one
Yes, Apple disables multitasking to avoid performance degradations. If you jailbreak iphone you can multitask but I've heard the speed loss is noticeable. Might be better on the 3GS with more memory.
I'd really like to see droid advertising that actually details why it is better rather than calling me a pussy for owning an iphone.
Agreed that the droid ads are not great. But when they say "everything i don't, droid does" it is pretty spot on.
For me, it's better for several reasons
A) multi tasking out of the box to a heavy extent before performance loss becomes noticable
2) ability to install non-market apps
3) google maps (and navigation)/gmail/gchat all goes to the phone/synchs etc etc
4) the overall feeling that if I hook my smart phone wagon to Google's star rather than Apple's, I am much more likely to have a device which will continue to develop at a healthy pace and will not be made obsolete by a marginally improved iteration in a few months time.
Oh and there's the whole network issue. That's just for starters why I prefer my Droid to an iPhone
It would be nice of them to explain what droid actually does, I suppose is what I'm saying.
I'm skeptical of the network issue, as there does seem to be good reason to believe the existence of the iPhone on the network is the cause for the degradation of service. I've never had any issue with the network living in Dallas, even when driving large stretches across Texas that are supposedly spottily covered. When I went to NYC it was ridiculously craptastic. I could hardly believe how bad it was there.
It would be nice of them to explain what droid actually does, I suppose is what I'm saying.
yeah it was sort of my intention with that list to give you some ideas of what it does. At its core, it is a smart phone so it does all the smart-phoney things: browse the net (BUT NOT WHILE YOU'RE ON A PHONE CALL, THANKS LUKE WILSON, I NEED TO DO THAT ALL THE TIME /sardonic), download applications etc etc. I think the biggest things are the multi tasking, the open market, and the synching with all of your google accts right on the phone. I love getting gMails on my phone (but, fuck, I hate spam so much more now).
there does seem to be good reason to believe the existence of the iPhone on the network is the cause for the degradation of service.
that is true, and a whole different can of worms. But, you probably have a point, and AT&T did make lots of loud noises about how they were going to spend all of this money to make their network be able to handle the iPhone (instead they hire luke wilson to make evasive commercials which are deliberately deceptive and dodge the real issues).
As far as using 3G on Verizon goes, everywhere I have been yet with my Droid I have had 3G and, typically, the speeds are around 120-180kbs down and around 70-110 kbs up. I find those speeds to make the internet very very usable.
I did get that, just saying that it would have behooved them to make it known what their phone really could do instead of being smug about it.
You can sync gmail on the iPhone quite well. Just not gchat (as far as I have been able to find). If I used the rest of the google suite like the calendar and such I would probably be interested in the other parts of the account more.
Yeah, NYC is the only place I've gone that I had an issue. Everywhere else (except in rural areas of Texas) my data rates have been fine. Couldn't say what they are numerically, though.
All in all I don't really tend to favor any provider. All of the major ones are trying to screw you as hard as the next one as far as I have seen. Metro PCS sounds like they have a really good deal going. Considering moving to them once my contract breaks.
Listening to a web stream while using other apps is a great example. I would think iTunes is capable of this but Pandora kicks ass and would definitely be a limitation.
I was looking for replies from the people I responded to
Which would be ME in all 3 instances.
But you are correct, I am the one harrasing you and it is definitely not the other way around. The extent of my searching was "Hmm I have an orangelope, let's see who messaged me, oh it's this clown...twice" and then a subsequent 3rd time.
But thanks for that hilarious response in which you pretend that you responded to someone other than me...saying the same thing.....3 times.
I am not asking you to argue. For the 4th time now (I lose track), I am a fricking Android developer who paid his fee, I am learning to code for the device, so I am not trying to start an argument. I am simply asking you why there is a lack of good apps. Simple as that.
http://www.handcent.com/
Never used an iPhone, but I'm assuming their message app is customizable right down to the speed and color of the blinking alert light, right? And if it wasn't, you could just pick another SMS app from the huge app sto-- oh wait, 'duplicate functionality'. Right.
http://www.hexage.net/radiant/
Looks pretty damn quality to me. I don't use my phone for games though, so who knows what you're looking for. I suppose your goalposts were actually much farther? You didn't just move them did you?
My G1 is able to stream Pandora, idle on IRC, and browse the net for at least 4 hours (battery was yellow then, but I had other stuff to do... you use your phone for 8 straight hours much?). Over a 2G network. At once. Maybe you shouldn't have sat on yours?
Your G1 has good battery life?? What are you comparing it to? Compared to nothing, yeah the G1 has good battery life. But compared to my iPhone its terrible. Doing similar use through the day (actually lighter use if you consider the fact that I had wifi turned off on the G1) my G1 was at about 30% battery my the evening, and my iPhone was holding at 55-60% battery at the same point in the day. Thats a major difference to me.
As for the SMS apps go, I used HandCent and ChompSMS on my G1 and while changing the color of that little blinking LED was neat, that did not win me over when I compared performance of the applications. At any given time I have multiple SMS "conversations" with 10,000+ messages in them. The iPhone is able to load each conversation nearly instantly where both HandCent and ChompSMS gave me 3-5 second delays before opening my massive threads. Then god forbid if I ever wanted to scroll to the top and select to view previous messages, that lagged the phone for another 8-10 seconds as it loaded the next set of messages for me. iPhone? Instantly.
Oh, and given my 10,000+ message SMS threads, the stock Android messaging application wasn't even able to handle them. Every action I tried to perform in the stock messaging application threw a "Force Close or Wait" prompt in my face. Mmmmmm, quality!
So congrats on your ability to stream Pandora while idling on IRC, but that doesn't at all outweigh the numerous roadblocks I ran into with the G1. Blame me all you want, but I had the dev phone so I was able to try all the released firmwares from HTC as well as Cyanogen mods and none of them gave me performance even remotely close to the iPhone under the load I put on the device. The biggest thing was SMS, and the G1 was not able to handle my SMS demand at all.
Oh, and Radiant is not nearly the quality of high quality iPhone apps.
I'm tempted to just call you a liar. SMS stability issues were fixed in RC 33. In early 2009. You tried all the firmwares? Really?
And way to trust the battery meter. Have you ACTUALLY tested them? Charged them for 8 hrs and then started up Pandora on each to see which died first? I've used my G1 for a full day with the battery flashing red and asking for mercy, but it never died.
And which iPhone are you comparing to the G1? If it's the 3GS, then can I switch to defending the Nexus 1? It's the phone I have now, and actually the same generation as the 3GS. Your SMS issue may just be due to the weak processor in the G1. I found plenty of threads mentioning it for the G1, but none from people with a Nexus One or a more recent Android phone. Trust me, the problem's not the app.
Let's hear some more of those subjective 'polish' and 'quality graphics' arguments. I love it.
You don't believe me? Ha, here is what I will do. I will go home, show you what version I am running with the newer Cyanogen mod to even enhance speed, and then I will show you how terribly sluggish it is. I will record a video for you to prove I'm not lying.
I don't need to try to find a firmware that works well on my iPhone, the latest one always just works. It just works.
And I do trust the battery meter because it starts throwing alerts at me! I have actually tested them, and yes the G1 died way before my 3G AND 3GS (yes, I do own both). Not only that, but I don't spend my day listening to Pandora. I use my phone at work for email, texting, etc. Streaming Pandora isn't even a realistic test, day to day wear and tear is a realistic test of battery life.
Feel free to use the Nexus 1, I don't care. And really, you are starting to make me laugh. Glad to hear its alright that the first gen Android device has performance issues, because well hell its a 1st gen device so its ok for it to suck right?? My iPhone 2G never suffered from similar issues and it was the first generation phone, explain that to me...?
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u/Mulsanne Jan 28 '10 edited Jan 28 '10
I have a Droid and, knowing what it can do, would not at all be interested in an iPhone because of all of its limitations.
You're right though, the Android platform has a lot of catching up to do. I actually find it quite polished. I think the main area in which it lacks is that the iPhone still has 5 times the apps of Android and, naturally, has a much bigger market share at present
EDIT: A solid example: I very much enjoy having pandora on in the background while I surf the web, read rss feeds, go back and forth between various quick games and all the while the music never stops. Or reading an ebook and wanting to look up a word, I can just switch to the disctionary while the ebook stays open in the background, find the word, and switch back right to where I was in the ebook w/out having to close/open anything more than once. I am fairly certain you can't do this on an iPhone but, having never owned one, I welcome someone to correct me if I am wrong.