Can anyone speak to how well switching one iPhone to a Nexus would work in this type of senario?
Sample size: public transport users and eatery-goers...
Semi-related: I've dropped a pocketknife blade first on a Nokia E71. There's the tiniest scuff on the screen, that's it. (And it's still in active use. Remains the best phone with a keyboard ever built.)
Wish I could get my phone updated without rooting it. My friend's iPhone 4 (released June 2010) is now patched up to worked with group messages fine, but my EVO 3D (released June 2011) that's a year younger won't get any updates. Android fragmentation graphic info: http://cdn2.techanalyzer.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Andr...
http://itechbook.net/why-installous-is-showing-terminated-er...
That said, I wasn't really impressed by any of the other points the article makes. It starts out by saying 'Android on the Nexus 4 is better in almost every aspect', but besides the sharing thing it doesn't make a case for anything else. Some half-hearted observation that 'sometimes it even appears like rendering is smoother on the Nexus 4' and 'not all Android applications look like crap anymore' and that's about it. Oh and of course you can 'customize everything' and here you have 4 examples of the most ugly homescreens I have ever seen on a mobile phone.
Hardly a clear-cut case of 'better in almost every aspect'. Looks like it's more a matter of preference than an objective evaluation on which of the 2 platforms is 'better'.
Good grief, you speak of personlisation like it's a bug and not a feature. I personally hate the iOS window-dressing. You have this sleek-looking bit of hardware, but the OS looks plastic and Fisher-Price, with safe and chunky buttons to give to your kid with no sharp edges. The way you speak, it sounds like you would deny me my preference for something different because you think it's ugly. What about those who don't think the default skins look good? Why isn't it a good feature that we can customise the way things look?
I really don't understand the Apple-spawned fanboy cult that considers personalisation to be a bad thing - especially since they once had a successful marketing campaign based around personalising your hardware with the coloured macs.
I always find it amusing how fans of customizability seem to over-estimate the importance of dicking around with something the vast majority of people primarily use as a tool, a useful utility. If the defaults work well (which seems to be the case for iOS, even toddlers appear to be able to use it), that's already much, much better than something that sucks by default but can be customized to suck less.
That said, if you really care about customizability, you can always jailbreak your iPhone and do whatever you like, lots of customizations possible on jailbroken iPhones. Or just buy an Android phone if customizability is high on your list of priority features. Again, this is more about personal preference than anything else.
On a side note: Years ago when I was just starting to use Linux, I spent weeks customizing every aspect of the look & feel of the user interface. After a while I always got bored with what I had and started to get irritated by the various usability issues my customizations had introduced, so I started over. I went from FVWM to fluxbox, to Gnome, to KDE, back to Gnome, to XFCE and then back to Gnome again. The last time I switched to Gnome I stopped caring about customizations and simply stuck with the defaults, I had more interesting and important things going on in my life to spend time on, instead of wasting my time trying to be smarter than the people who designed the user interfaces I was using. I bought my first Mac running OS X and just used it the way Apple designed it, and never looked back. Since then I lost intereset in customizing my computers and phones altogether, realizing it's more like a hobby than actually making anything 'better', because 9 out of 10 times, you're only making things worse.
" the Apple-spawned fanboy cult"
This is a completely meaningless phrase. It's easy to accuse people of this and impossible to prove. Furthermore when you say something along the lines of "you're just a fanboy of company X" the other guy can just come back and say "well you're a fanboy of company Y" and then everyone sounds ridiculous.
But to your point, I personally like the Apple design and I think that too much customization really can make a beautifully designed piece of hardware look like crap. That said, I also understand that other people either really love customizing their phones and/or have awful taste and that's fine and for them, iOS isn't the best choice. Whatevs. It happens. The thing is, you can't please all the people all the time so I'd say it's a great thing that Apple limits what you can do to personalize the phone. That's one thing that attracts people like me to it. Luckily they're not the only game in town so for the others you have choices.
You're really taking this as a direct insult it seems. I wish you wouldn't have made that fanboy crack because you did have a decent point in there under all the anger.
I don't spend my time changing my desktop items. I don't customise my chrome borders, fiddle with rainmeter, etc. I don't even change my desktop background from the first one I got years and years ago. This may not be a very "hacker" attitude, but for me I just want function by default.
Personalisation is never a bad thing, but having a worse default is. Not wanting to faff with your display to get something acceptable is entirely within reason. In each case it is a choice, and the ability to personalise your screen is very much a subjective benefit.
I looked up how to switch applications and all I got was "10 best task switcher apps." I don't have time to evaluate three, much less ten task switcher apps! All I've been able to find is if you hold down the main button and then scroll to task manager, you can get to one.
I like customization, but Apple's defaults were better for me, at least. You say Fisher-Price, I say well conceived and 1960's Braun.
Things I still miss:
I still miss that android apps can download in the background so for example when I wake up I the morning any new podcasts I'm subscribed to are already on the phone. Contrast to iOS6 where I have to remember to manually run the app. Which generally means I only run it just as I'm about to get in the car. I then sit in my entry way for 2-6 minutes waiting for my podcast app to download
I miss that apps can register for more events and act on them. For example any app can register to get an event when a new photo is saved. It can then upload, in the background, that photo. That means I can install one Flickr app, one g+ app and one fb app and the photos get uploaded to all 3 services no matter which app I use to take the photo. Contrast to ios6 where either every photo app has to have built in uploading options for every service I could possibly want. Or, I have to manually run the specific app for each service.
I miss auto app updating. I don't have as many apps as most of my friends on my iPhone but it seems like every day or every other day there's a number on the app store bugging me to update stuff. having to manually update is a distraction, chore, and annoyance I don't need.
Of course I miss being able to choose various default apps. I want Camera+ to be my default camera. I want Google maps to be my default maps. I want gmail to be my default mail app. I want a different apps to be my default music player and video player. I want chrome to be my default browser.
I miss being able to customize my desktop and lock screen. Not just adding widgets but changing it to use other apps. See http://slidescreenhome.com as one example.
I miss geeky things like being able to run an ssh tunnel in one app and use that tunnel in another app.
That said I'm still on iPhone. There's still plenty of things I like about iPhone over Android. I don't see myself switching back for at least a few more generations.
For example, you can set your home address in Downcast or Instapaper so that when you leave or arrive, those apps will fetch new content without you having to open the app. Downcast will even download the podcasts in the background.
Now, this requires you to move outside the fence, so it's not time based. But I had a decent system where I had my work and home address in Downcast and I set it to fetch whenever I leave or arrive. My regular commute meant that I was always triggering the geo fence.
The trade-off is to have background downloading on all the time, which is something I hated about android in the 4 years I used it. Background processes were always killing my battery and it was never obvious what was running.
I think the sane compromise that I wish apple would make is to allow for more permanent background tasks to run, but only when externally powered.
So it's come to this on HN...
But surely, what really is missing on iOS is the whole intent/sharing system. It's just painful to try to interact between several apps on my iPad.
Btw. One of the more beautiful homescreens is: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tsf.shell
Or widgets: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.levelup.be...
Those are things that i simply can't get on iOS and i'm used to it. I want that on my mobile.
A cluttered, unusable homescreen (is a ridiculous 3D cylinder of icons really an option?) and a weather widget where most of the text is unreadable.
I personally don't want anything like that. I would rather Apple just allow widgets in the notifications section and have live icons.
I am an Objective-C developer and I love the SDKs on the iPhone, but I am just so tired of Apple's bullshit regarding using our devices the way we want to. I'm tired of waiting for them to enable basic features like phone number black/whitelists.
My next device will be a Nexus. Then I can run apps in the background other than music, share data between apps, sideload apps from third parties, run a mobile terminal, run mobile scripting languages, and basically be free to use my hardware as I'd like.
Keep in mind that's a basic feature for you, not necessarily for all. I wouldn't use it, so I'd prefer Apple to work on X/Y/Z feature instead. Feature priority is hard to work out at the best of times, because no matter what gets picked someone will be disappointed.
For those who want more information on that, http://oleb.net/blog/2012/10/remote-view-controllers-in-ios-... (note: it's a 3-part series).
As far as I understand, it doesn't provide for an application "register[ing] itself to handler certain data and events", which would probably be an extension to UIActivityView and UIActivity[0]. Remove View Controllers provide two features of interest, one of which could work with UIActivity for sharing:
* An application or framework providing views to an other one (said view could be invoked by a UIActivity of some sort, so that the Facebook application would provide a "Share on Facebook" remote view and the corresponding activity, a sharing application would invoke the activity view, then display the correct remote view upon selection by the user)
* Isolated cross-process communication between the embedding application and the embedded view, which allows different security settings (and thus things like JIT-ed UIWebView, or more simply a twitter remote viewcontroller being able to use the data the Twitter app has access to without leaking it to third parties)
[0] http://oleb.net/blog/2012/09/the-state-of-sharing-in-ios-6/
Agreed. I really don't like the look of most Android customisations. I think default Android is pretty gorgeous, though.
My homescreen currently looks like this - http://i1.minus.com/iidfIgCTZsXEX.png
The only thing I've added is the widget: everything else is stock. I'm very happy with the way it looks.
Hopefully, there has been some serious work done on iOS 7 and it'll probably address most of the OP's concerns.
However, I do hope they introduce none of these customization shenanigans. I don't care for widgets (nor do I want another icon or thing I cannot remove from my homescreen). If the base OS is sufficiently good UI-wise, there is no reason ever to need to customize its looks besides the wallpaper (e.g. OS X).
This means that I can have a list of (for example) upcoming birthdays on my phone that I see over and over again, enough that I will eventually see the reminder at a point when I am in a position to do something about it. Alarms are useless by comparison, because I will inevitably be busy with something else when they go off. Calendars/todo apps are equally useless to me, because they require me to remember to open up an app all the time.
I realise my use case is relatively niche, but I imagine there's a lot of different niche users out there that benefit from customisability.
I take it you share Jobs' opinion on clothes? Same jeans, sneakers, turtleneck every day. Hey, it's perfectly functional, why would anyone want to vary things or look different? I mean, everyone has the same use-case, right?
Ha, sorry, reminds me of that Samsung commercial. We're going to get that in the next one.. right?
Things change.
I assume he made that kind of statements because previously his opinion of android was the buggy and extreme unresponsive early builds.
I was very impressed with the overall experience. If I wasn't so used to iOS, I could easily see myself using Android on a Nexus 4. But in the end, I walked away with the opposite impression; I saw no compelling reason to switch to Android and have decided iOS is still the mobile OS for me. Unlike the author, I do not really consider myself a power user. The customizability of Android is really enticing, but at the end of the day I find myself preferring the design/philosophy of iOS. But it really just comes down to personal preference.
After using an iPhone for so long, I became annoyed at the small design/interface differences present in the Nexus 4 (e.g. no physical home button). At times I found it difficult to use the Nexus 4 because of it's greater width. The iPhone width is optimal for my hand size and pocket size. Also, in my opinion as an app developer, the iOS app ecosystem still seems a lot stronger than Android. Browsing the Play Store was a little boring to me. Yes, most popular apps have both iOS and Android versions, but many developers still target iOS first and Android second. Until there's a reason for that to change I think iOS still has the edge in "killer" apps.
That being said, I agree that there are a lot of nice things in Android that I would love to see implemented in iOS.
The main things I miss are better google voice integration on the nexus phones (the ability to use the web interface for texting is something I can't give up). I also used to not pay for texting this way and could actually afford to have a smart phone because of it since Tmobile has a $30 no contract 100min/unlimited data plan for unsubsidized phones.
I also needed some sort of google talk app which I finally found with the $5 version of the verbs app. A bunch of people I communicate with are on android and use google chat instead of facebook chat or imessage.
The current iPhone does some things much better. The biggest thing is battery life which is at least twice as good as any nexus phone I've used (probably even more). The difference in battery is really incredible. The new native Facebook iOS app is also great to use. The iPhone hardware is also subjectively much nicer, it both looks and feels a lot better to me - makes me wish Google had partnered with Nokia.
Really though they're both pretty equivalent at the point.
Edit: Almost forgot, the critical feature of android was turn by turn navigation which apple finally came out with in iOS6. Now that google's released their maps app as well the core differences that mattered are gone.
Google Now is amazing. iOS fluidity still has no equal. Google play automatic app updates are convenient. iOS apps polish is extraordinary. Windows Phone tiles are fantastic. BB contact integration is a thing of beauty...etc.
Now on an HTC One X, which I like more than the iPhone. It doesn't have any of the quality issues of the GNexus.
I've been using the iPhone for a while before switching to a Nexus 4, and honestly there is nothing that feels more fluid on iOS than on a Nexus 4 running jelly bean 4.2.1.
I first had an iPhone when it came out, then moved to a BlackBerry (weird, I know), and now I'm considering staying with Android, at least for daily use. I still have to stick to the BlackBerry as it's the only phone on the market that provides international roaming at affordable prices, very good battery life (+replaceable, I have my own arsenal and can go for weeks travelling without charging the phone) and a very good keyboard, which is good when you spend your time writing awkwardly long emails.
Android, since ICS, seems to be mature enough for most users. It's snappy (its multitasking, background apps and toggles mean you can do things faster than in an iPhone), does good resource managing and has a very good integration across the whole system. And, as some people have said, it's no longer ugly!
1. Toggling settings can be difficult. In Android, you have a pull-up/pull-down menu right from the home screen where you can just turn things on/off, like Bluetooth, sounds, WiFi, etc. In iOS, you go to the Settings app and scroll through the text labels and go through one or two more screens before achieving the same thing. And this, despite Apple's marketed UI simplicity.
2. The thing can't even send files over Bluetooth. How is that not possible in 2013?
3. Boring old homescreen from way back 2007, which displays an amalgamation of all the apps installed on my phone, not the apps I use the most.
Of course, whichever phone you end up buying is nothing more than a personal preference. However, I just think that saying Android is better than iOS has become more of a fact than an opinion these days.
I think Google can still work on the default look, but I find Android to be very "clean" and quick to work with. Android feels much more like a real operating system. iOS is so restricted and there are many work tasks that I cannot do (e.g. mailing a dropbox file to someone).
Google Now is also amazingly good. And the fact that mail search actually works is a "small" bonus :P
Samsung has also implemented some cool features in the SGS3, like that the screen stays on as long as you look at it. They are just much worse at marketing it. Can you imagine how much Apple would have hyped a similar feature?
Android's back button used to be incredibly inconsistent and hard to predict, but now there's a fairly well established standard for this, which is supported by the API (http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html).
There was even a full-length Google IO session on it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwGHJJYBs0Q).
It doesn't mean all apps follow the standard, especially those naievely ported from iOS. Even some Google apps don't always meet expectations. But the convention is mostly there now and just needs more adoption.
Agreed. Amusingly, the only apps that I ever complain about (whether for the back button or for general styling and functionality) are the ones that are clearly half-baked ports of iOS apps.
No wonder it looks terrible and doesn't seem to work properly - you're following all the best practices for the wrong operating system!
Few days ago I saw a friend of mine unlock her phone using facial recognition. I was amazed. She was surprised at my amazement. I feel lots of iPhone users have similar moments when they see their friends with android use "magical" looking features the iPhone is slow to adopt.
This Apple disease spreads elsewhere. I had to enter my username and password on their developer site, and some web developer at Apple had gone to great lengths to prevent you from pasting your password into the password field. (I don't know that password - it is stored in a password management program.)
I can't for the life of me understand why the Apple faithful put up with this nonsense.
For the latter Android has the concept of multiple users but only on tablets. It isn't that useful as you can't for example create limited access guest accounts, only full blown ones. And software can't be made accessible the new users unless they create a google account in order to access the play store, even if already installed. It also turned off face recognition for me.
The one thing Android did get right (but not perfect) is having a central account manager. Any service can add itself - for example the Github and Dropbox apps do. Any app (with permissions) can request access to accounts that require user interaction to confirm. However the app does not get a password, but instead a token that has to be periodically renewed.
Is there any way to quickly toggle between different languages?
You can also enable a language-cycling button which will appear left of the space-bar if you so please.
Both are definitely quick enough for my fancy.
Is that something people like so much? Whenever I've used an iOS device, it annoyed me. I much prefer the highlight in Android.
It used to be in Android until Apple made it a 1 billion dollar lawsuit and banned everyone else in the universe from implementing it.
Those bouncing lists. 1 billion dollar. And Apple is not a patent-troll. No siree.
Because if it's the first then it is just a hypocritical position. And if it's the second then maybe you don't understand the math. Size of lawsuit = Price per patent * Number of infringing devices.
It's because the number of devices sold is so large that it ends up being such a large lawsuit.
As a device Nexus 4 itself is not much better than previous - Galaxy Nexus. Display itself is much worse on Nexus 4 than it was on Galaxy Nexus.
After giving back Nexus 4 I thougth I'd try out living with Galaxy Nexus, which until now was my phone in the drawer. And, actually, though I was an iphonee for 4 years, Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.2.1 is an awesome device.
Back button is something you miss dramatically on iphone after a detour to androidland. Sharing feature, Google Now, tiny things. I do not give a damn about configurability. There is a lot of stuff that I'd welcome into android world from ios, but other than that - I'm satisfied.
Such migration would be unthinkable a year ago. 4.2.x, though not that much different from 4.1.x, is mature.
No cables. No sync. No fucking iTunes. No computer required. Just internet. Done.
If you feel old-fashioned, you can also just copy files to your device as a standard MTP or mass-storage device using USB-cables, or copy to SD-cards.
As long as the music files are properly tagged you should have everything auto-discovered on the device.
Also I noticed some mistakes with generic album titles, such as "Unknown Album" - selecting an artist, then their album titled "Unknown" would usually play all the titles that don't have an album title, even the ones by entirely different artists.
That being said, it beats iTunes by miles.
Sounds promising. Thanks for the info.
In 2008: "Why I switched from BlackBerry to iPhone" In 2009: "Why I switched from iPhone to give webOS a shot" In 2010: "Why I switched to Windows Phone from iOS" In 2011: "Why I switched to Android from iPhone" In 2012: "Why I switched from X to X because it doesn't even matter anymore"
I get that it gives perspective on the differences between platforms and devices, but these pieces can only be so narrow because it's only one person's perspective.
Everyone's needs are different; some people love customization and hacking their phone. Others get it to just conform to the majority. Some even get it because it's free.
Platforms evolve with different visions. The beauty of the era we are in is the fact that services like Amazon Cloud Player, Dropbox and Spotify let you be on whatever platform you wish without losing your "services".
Am I the only one who doesn't care what OS they use as long as texting/podcasting/web browsing/music is available?
The iPhone feels great in my hands because it's so small and the battery seems to be lasting for ages. I don't even feel like it's that old because it still has the latest OS and apps.
I'm enjoying the iPhone for now but I think it's mainly due to getting bored with the Galaxy. The Galaxy is due an upgrade in November and I think at that point I'll get a Nexus.
Edit: HTC Dream was used for 3 years roughly, from Android 1.1 until 4.0 ROM's started coming out.
The two things which keep me from moving to Android are: 1) My ~$500 or so in purchased applications. Vendors should allow a one-time return of purchased apps on one platform to get them for the other, or just give both iOS and Android licenses for the same price if there's a way to prove the phone belongs to the same human. Admittedly 99% of what I really care about is free or <$100 total (Kindle, 1Password, Facebook, web, email, ssh pretty much cover my use).
2) Lack of hardware platform security features on most Android devices (semi-supported on the S3, apparently, but I'd only ever buy a Nexus device). If Google developed a Nexus 4+, 7+, 10+ with apple or blackberry level hw security, I'd probably switch, particularly if there were a way for an enterprise to essentially replicate the Google Apps management of devices with a simple self-hosted server (i.e. root of trust being enterprise, vs. Google or Apple).
I had an Iphone 3 once i liked it very much. Now i have a lowly ZTE Aqua with Android 4.0.3 and i'm very satisfied. Tried an Iphone 5 at a store and Ipad's and found the UI, boring.
In my opinion, Apple's "chromed" UI is getting old and would really love something more fresh, either on iOS and OSX.
Just like they got their thumbs surgically altered when the 5 came out, no doubt you will be getting all your pockets resized if Apple increases the iPhone width.
The iPhone 5 compromises to make the screen bigger, but only by a little.
I don't think I could use a 4" device like a Nexus 4 (I have a Nexus S which was a good size), on my commute where I need to hold onto a handle of the train, underground with one hand, smartphone in other.
I care more about my phone's abilities than I do about what people think of me when I'm holding it up to my ear. (Which only happens maybe once a week for me, anyway.)
What's frustrating though is the inability of Google Voice to receive SMS from short codes. Craigslist and Paypal also don't verify accounts with a Google Voice number.
Also, if you are using CyanogenMod (or many other custom builds) you can change the performance settings on your cpu governer, etc., to improve it further.
[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6425/google-nexus-4-and-nexus-...
I understand if you'd prefer to not to mess with your phone and use the default install, but if you feel like getting your hands dirty g300.modaco.com is the place for alternate ROMS.
Best £70 (PAYG, but I guess there is still some operator subsidy in that price) I spent on a phone.
As a side note — do you too suffer of touch sensitivity problems? I feel it isn't as snappy as I'd like it to be, and there seems to be no workaround for it. Mostly around the corners, when typing on the keyboard, it might miss some keys and I have to press harder.
But I have stupid fingers, so, go figure.
It goes a bit further, because the "network stack" made by RIM is quite comprehensive, including some tweaks to the way they push information to devices, using operator infrastructure (I believe, I might be wrong here) resulting in a very battery-efficient system.
Because of this, RIM is responsible of negotiating with carriers across different countries, and this result, somehow, in the ability to sign up for sub-100$ / month roaming plans (in fact, it's 55$/month on roaming, pro rata, for me in Spain with a major carrier). Of course, it depends on your home carrier, some want you to keep paying an expensive price per megabyte —around 14$/MB when travelling outside the EU— and then some others let you use roaming as long as you're on BIS (so, no tethering), for a variable amount, or even included in the price for large enterprise plans. It varies depending on each operator and country. On the UK for example, MVNO giffgaff includes a small amount of complimentary roaming data, even for PAYG users.
On a side note, that also means you can tether to a BlackBerry PlayBook while roaming, which is fantastic. I have found roaming to be a bit slow-ish (around the speeds of EDGE even under HSPA), but for email and some random browsing, like reading the news while waiting for a flight on some random country, it is definitely worth it.
(And yes, the PlayBook sucks, someone thought it was a brilliant idea to just release and sell a device with a half-finished operating system — but it does the job.)
I chose to install Widgetsoid - it places a couple of toggles directly into the notification drawer. I never got Airplane Mode to work, though.
I used Bluetooth for sending files for years with many of my older phones, and I find that ability still comes in handy from time to time.
Also, the Xbox 360 controller doesn't use Bluetooth, although the PS3 and the Wiimote controllers both use Bluetooth.
> The thing can't even send files over Bluetooth.
> How is that not possible in 2013?
Many times I wanted to send a picture, contact or a document to someone standing right next to me and couldn't do it because they had an iPhone (or Windows Phone). This is especially pleasant when you're roaming and it's a bigger file.
I imagine there are enough facts here that made someone like Apple or Google think it's a bad idea. I expect someone in the Samsung marketing department came up with this idea.
I think the way you have to see it is that you don't really think about the feature. Sometimes you are reading something and notice the screen isn't dimmed. Sometimes when you're reading the screen dims and you have to touch the screen to have it not go into lock mode.
Having used it in practice for a few weeks I can say it's a great feature. I would expect it to show up on iOS and the core Android distribution.
And no, of course if you're going to use your screen as a flashlight, it's not going to detect your eyes and stay on. If you're not willing to go to the marginal effort of activating a flashlight app, what mechanism do you propose they use to have the phone detect when you're using it as a flashlight-by-screen?
Instead I have to kick it to FileExplorer and send it from there. It's not ideal but its also not Apple's fault.
Have you seriously never used it before ?
Or am I missing something ?
Facial recognition doesn't work for everyone nor everywhere. As you put it it's "magical" and when the next guy unlocks your phone with it's face it's also part of the magic.
It reminds me a lot of the same discussion was done for the Bump app, where just bumping two devices together transferred your contact infos. Magic. Except it might not be your contacts but the ones of some random guys bumping roughly at the same time at the next table, or a few kilometers from you. It was part of the magic too. It still worked out 90% of the time, but that's not a feature I'd feel stupid not to have when better, simpler and more reliable ways were available.
Android has really good basic things. I personally don't think shiny magical features are what's to be the most envied.
She did point out quirks like if her hair isn't brushed it may not work etc. It could well be that the technology isn't polished enough for Apple's standard but I know when I see an Android user use it, I walk away impressed and questioning why my iPhone can't do that.
I'd really prefer for a different unlock method all together. I'd like my phone to be locked in case its lost/stolen, but I'd like it unlock faster. It's be fine wearing a Bluetooth-enabled accessory (ring,tie pin, device secured to the shoes/belt/pants/wallet in some fashion) that would bypass the lock because I'm with-in a given radius to the device.
I am using iSync on the Nexus 4 to sync to my iTunes. But it's not quite the same. And the nexus doesn't have star ratings, just thumbs up or down.
I use star ratings to delete music from library. 1 star = delete.
For the record, I have had two android phones. The first got cyanogenmod put on it, not for UI (though it was prettier than stock), but because I was having reception problems and the carrier was dragging feet in upgrading their image (one of the good things about iOS, this one). The second phone runs stock carrier UI, which I haven't changed.
I didn't take the insult personally for me, but it does annoy the living shit out of me when some people say that others should be personally limited because of aesthetic opinion. There does seem to be this form of opinion that because Apple does design really well, that any design choice made is perfect, therefore the default position is 'apple is right and you are wrong', despite apple making some design blunders along the way.
See, for me that uncertainty is a killer. I want my podcasts downloaded in the morning. I don't want to have to check before I go to bed that the app is still in memory, that's mad.
There are Android apps that abuse their background abilities, but the vast majority work just fine and don't kill your battery.
In Downcast, I have set my home as a geo fence, and tell it to fetch new podcasts whenever I leave or arrive.
Downcast is allowed to subscribe to this geofence and wake itself up to fetch new podcasts, all without me opening the app at all. The only catch is if the downloads take more than 15 minutes, they get paused until I open the app again.
I like how iOS and OS X force us into one particular set of minimalistic UI. I despise skeuomorphism and I'm eager to see it go away on iOS. But I realize others may want to customize their OS, and for that they have to be grateful to have alternatives, namely Windows/Unix and Android/WP.
To me, the most impressive is its battery life. I've gone through too many Android phones with poor battery life. The (snapdragon) One X is the only Android phone with acceptable battery life to me. So it's either iPhone or One X. Everything else dies on me at some point in the afternoon/evening.
IMO in that sense iOS already has an equivalent feature. Just don't lock when the user is clearly doing something. Just like how you don't have to shake the mouse to wake your computer while watching a video anymore, most video playback programs/plugins poll the system properly and force it to stay awake.
I don't know if you need to go as far as activating the camera to see if you're still there. What if your lock frequency is set to a minute or two? Wouldn't activating the camera every minute have some affect on battery life?
As the guy said HTC don't do a good job of communicating these features, the advert shows a guy falling asleep and as he shuts his eyes the phone locks...
I have never actually had this problem though generally I can read a screen full of text before the phone locks. My scrolling will reset the lock timeout. Videos and games stop the phone from locking.
Because an Android phone doesn't assume you have unlimited data and automatically turn Wifi off periodically, thereby downloading things over the cell network.
I've gotten burned this way on the iPhone; luckily I opted for the larger data plan.
These days most Android-phones have a "overflow" effect when reaching the end of a list. Specifically designed to avoid lawsuits.
> [Podcast App] would like to run in the background. You can change this at any time. Allow/Deny?
Or perhaps being a bit more specific:
> [Podcast App] would like to sync nightly. Allow/Deny/Charging Only?
Perhaps I'm just trained from the bad old NiCd days to keep unused stuff on the charger.
> Mailing a Dropbox file directly is only hard on iOS because Dropbox makes it that way. If they offered a "send file" option <<in addition to their already existing "send link" option>> it would be one step like Android.
I'm well aware of the send link option. FileExplorer allows me to do what OP is referring to in iOS, sending the file directly to the other person via e-mail. In Android, this is a single step you can perform within the Dropbox app. There is no technical limitation stopping Dropbox from offering that feature on iOS, they just choose not to for some reason.
Blame poor marketing.
The older stuff, which is encrypted (m4p), can't be played. However, you can just remove the DRM using any of the available DRM removers, with no loss (they are just removing the encryption, not transcoding).
But you can pay a little more and Apple will provide non-DRM versions.
Is this unusual? Do other apps make you wait for the whole 'cast to download? Is it a per-podcast thing?
That someone can build a 1 billion dollar beast on top of that, what any decent software engineer can do in a matter of days, just makes it so much worse.
Some people have a rather mellow attitude to it all and simply say "Don't hate the player, hate the game". I proclaim the right to hate the game and anyone who plays it. Apple should have some pride and a sense of dignity. Apple should be better than this.
Clearly they are not.
Secondly what a software engineer can do in a matter of days is a ridiculous and pointless measure of anything. I could build Google's original search engine once I knew exactly how it worked. It's the "how it works" part that is novel.
Thirdly you completely fail at understanding the maths here. The only reason it is a billion dollar idea is because Samsung sells so many devices.
The USPTO disagrees: http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/10/patent-office-tentatively...
"In a non-final Office action the USPTO has declared all 20 claims of Apple's rubber-banding patent (U.S. Patent No, 7,469,381 invalid [for prior art and obviousness]... A finding of anticipation is a determination that there was no inventive step at all."
http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-steps-towa...
When I get MMS from AT&T or Verizon, then I don't get anything but from Sprint customers, I get the notification and its in my gmail account right away. Probably due to the integration with Sprint and Google Voice. http://www.google.com/googlevoice/sprint/.
GN is clearly inferior in build quality to an iPhone, but you have to be a bit of a snob to call it "garbage". It's solid hardware.
It's only inferior in visible quality (I've dropped it a lot and it barely has a scratch on it), but I'm okay with that because it costs half as much as an iPhone, which I think is very significant.
You can get a top-of-the-line smartphone for $300. That's amazing.
Not sure why you think this. It is mid range phone by every benchmark (e.g. no LTE, battery life, screen quality) and it gets destroyed by the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 in every performance benchmark.
I've dropped mine (which does not have a case) from chest-height onto brick, down a flight of stairs onto tile, and onto the road while biking at a moderate speed (maybe 15-20 km/h). It has some dents on the side but the screen is totally fine. I rather doubt the iPhone would survive the same.
We're living in a post Siri, post Maps world. Apple is not concerned if software works before they decide to ship it.
The VP in charge of iOS Software Engineering was publicly fired over Siri and Maps.
Pretty sure they do care.
Nice completely inaccurate rant. Oh yeah, and Google Music matches at 320Kbps.
I actually have a Google Music account that I use in addition to iTunes Match, so I'm actually one of the few here not bullshitting my knowledge on the topic. For the record, I would trade a basically unnoticeable quality boost for an extra 5000 tracks of space any day.
You also conveniently avoided the fact that to use the less functional Google Music web client to actually DO anything, you have to upload all your music first via the shitty uploader. Which still gives you no way of managing uploading except managing a list of folders by hand.
Whereas with iTunes Match, I can download an album, clean the tags in iTunes while it's matching, and it'll be available on my phone in seconds. With the 25000 song storage space I don't need to do any managing. It all fits with plenty of breathing room.
Nice completely inaccurate reply, though. Next time try downloading iTunes next time instead of assuming it's 4x the size it actually is. Which speaks volumes as to your level of knowledge on the topic BTW.
Oh, and of course there is this: http://cl.ly/image/2P3u2C04062V
So to even use Google Music in this far off, backwards land of Canada I have to maintain a separate Google account for that purpose that is set to United States.
Apple treats Canada like a first class citizen, typically the second or 3rd launch market. Google frequently forgets we even exist and took literally years to allow people to sell apps here, and they STILL haven't brought Google Music over. Meanwhile iTunes Match has been active in something to the tune of 50 countries for almost a year now, with matching available from day one.
I'm sorry you live in Canada, and I'll concede that 25K>20K.
What the hell else do you want me to say? I'll still take a wireless sync and app install system every single day of the week over iTunes.
iTunes does this once, when you add the music, and the only reason Google Music doesn't do this is because you can only add music so slowly that it has plenty of time to process each track.
You think Google Music doesn't need to index? I don't even know what to say to that.
> consuming tons of memory, locking out my MP3 player if I plug it into a different machine and doesn't require large client updates.
Clearly you haven't used an iOS device or iTunes in years. None of this is true anymore, and hasn't been since the days of the iPod. Great job though.
> I'm sorry you live in Canada
I'm sorry Google failed geography class. Living in Canada is awesome.
> What the hell else do you want me to say?
Something accurate or based in the last 5 years? Apparently that's out of your purview though.
> I'll still take a wireless sync and app install system every single day of the week over iTunes.
Jesus, iTunes is nowhere close to that bad. You really are living in 2007 aren't you? The backup and restore system iTunes offers so thoroughly trounces anything Android has to offer, it's worth it for that alone.
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/attachments/droid-news/5101...
(I don't think that "double-click this button on a platform with no concept of double-clicking" counts as well conceived, personally.)
Newer Android releases have a dedicated onscreen button for this, while older releases have a press and hold on the home button menu with the 6 most recent applications.
You can't scroll without the page moving... so I don't understand your point.
Plus if you are scrolling slowly and reading as you go, having a litte bit of background show (part of the effect) is little difference from showing a flash of colour.
No, we don't. Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. Now that there is a viable alternative that people are used to, I don't think bouncing would be used if the patent were to be invalidated tomorrow.
The only reason to use the bounceback early on was because (a) no alternatives had been developed yet and bounceback was adequate, and (b) it appeased all the early adopter Apple fanbois.
> Plus if you are scrolling slowly and reading as you go, having a litte bit of background show (part of the effect) is little difference from showing a flash of colour.
You completely missed my point. It has nothing to do with scrolling while reading. It only has to do with when I'm at the top or bottom of a page/list.
If that is the case, what is the diference between scrolling and nothing moves but you get a flash of color, vs some text moves and you see a bit of the background.
I fail to see how it has anything at all to do with skeuomorphism. What object exists in real life that is comparable to a bounce back scrolling list ?
You'll also need to install the 'Ultimate Clock Widget' app from here - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=in.vineetsiroh....
Enjoy!
It's more limited, in that it will download all purchases made on any other device (or iTunes) connected to the same account, but it seems like very few people are aware of it.
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2012/02/share-with-in...
I've also never really understood the toddler argument for 'well-designed'. 'Simple', sure, but not 'well-designed'. We don't consider this for any other thing we do - board games aren't considered poorly designed if a toddler can't play them; music isn't considered poorly put together if it's not in thirds, which young kids are drawn to; food isn't considered poor just because a toddler won't eat it, and neither are the utensils to prepare it considered shoddy because a toddler can't use them easily. 'Simple' and 'well-designed' can co-exist, but 'simple' does not mean 'well-designed'.
I also don't really understand your last paragraph - again, you see to be arguing against customisation because you don't enjoy it, despite other people doing it to have fun. Besides, OS UI designers do so for a generic optimal use-case, and can't possibly satisfy all. Even if it's true that 9 times out of 10 you're making it worse, 10% is still a lot of people to satisfy.
Well often they are, especially in a complex piece of software like a phone OS. Customizability requires trade-offs which may affect usability or performance. More often than not, software that allows skinning looks butt-ugly in the default setting and integrates poorly with the rest of the system (think Java desktop applications etc).
Anyway, you still seem to assume I hate customization just because I have no need for it, while my original comment was about one thing, and one thing only: that customization isn't actually a very strong argument to compare mobile OS'es on, primarily because better defaults always beat customizability (and IMO, looking past the homescreen, taking all aspects of the OS and ecosystem into account, iOS is still miles ahead of Android in that regard), but also because it isn't all that interesting to (I assume) most smartphone users.
>> I've also never really understood the toddler argument for 'well-designed'. 'Simple', sure, but not 'well-designed'.
I'd say 'simple' is almost the penultimate goal of UI design, especially when you are talking about something as complex as a mobile phone. Today everyone takes for granted that even your granny can use a smartphone, but you only have to go back to Windows Mobile to appreciate how much the iPhone has done for smartphone usability. Android users can only be thankful for that because they are profiting from these advancements just as well.
>> We don't consider this for any other thing we do - board games aren't considered poorly designed if a toddler can't play them [..]
I think this is a bit silly, because most board games are intended to be hard, otherwise there wouldn't be any point in playing and winning them. I fail to see the relevance of the other examples. My impression is that you are thinking about 'well-designed' in terms of aesthetics, while I'm thinking about usability and ergonomics. In that context, well-designed is almost a synonym of 'simple' and 'easy to use'. Kids can now operate a smartphone and do things that my parents would have been dumbfounded if they had to do them on a regular PC, yet my mom is perfectly able to find, install and run applications on her iPad, and use it for everything she previously hated to use her PC for. To me, that means we've made progress in terms of usability.
>> I also don't really understand your last paragraph - again, you see to be arguing against customisation because you don't enjoy it
That's a strange way of reading what I wrote, because I what I was saying is that I actually used to enjoy customization until I lost interest in it and found out it almost always makes things worse, not better.
I've run out of time for big swathes, sorry, but I had to comment on this. 'simple' is not the ideal goal of UI design. 'appropriate' is. You want a UI that is best appropriate for the situation. Sometimes this will indeed be simple. Other times it will not be. As an extreme example, could you imagine a cockpit with a single hardware button and a small grid of soft dials?
A more moderate example is that to do serious business work, people still need desktop environments - tablets do not cut it. Mobile OSs are too simple for most serious business work - they don't have an appropriate UI.
I'd argue the fact that the iPhone case market is so huge is evidence that most users love customization.
penultimate = second most important ("next to last")
* Yes, you can, for now. There are no guarantees this will happen with future versions of iOS.
* If you jailbreak you are forever a fugitive. You can never again just update, you have to wait and make sure it doesn't kill your setup. You can end up losing your warranty, be refused tech support, etc.
* Finally, from a philosophical standpoint, it is absolutely absurd that I should ever have to break something I have paid for to take full ownership of it. I'm OK with the default being locked down, but be like android and give me the checkbox to open up the rest of the world to me (Android devices are certainly not perfect on this front, though).
I agree with the rest of your points. I also have a similar story, but instead of going to OS X, I just started installing Ubuntu and using the defaults without customization. And that's the way I primarily use my devices. I just think it's ridiculous we're even having this discussion about whether people should have full ownership of devices they've paid for.
But the important part is that a customizable environment works for both parties: those who support and those who oppose customization.
However, I despise such things. I've analyzed that I wouldn't stand using Android for those reasons, and that I'm better off with iOS.
I go with Apple's motto: "there's an app for that".
I guess my point was more about the statement that there's no need for customization if the OS is well-designed - to my mind, there may be no need for customization for many (or perhaps even a majority) of users, but there is for some. An OS that tried to serve all niche needs without allowing customization would likely be a confused mess - and yet, for those users, having their niche need served can be extremely important.
Because you have the option of using widgets, you despise Android?
And as of iOS6 it automatically syncs birthdays with Facebook.
Actually, if you buy a phone on contract, you didn't pay the full price and aren't entitled to the same rights as someone who paid the full $650+tax sticker price and gets it SIM-unlocked.
However the "on a contract" bit is frequently misrepresented I think: when you get a device on contract, in most cases you are being loaned the cost of the device. You have zero recourse to simply return the device when you decide you don't want it any more. There is little to no difference between buying a phone "outright" on a credit card, or getting it "on contract" with your carrier.
[..]
>> If you jailbreak you are forever a fugitive. You can never again just update, you have to wait and make sure it doesn't kill your setup. You can end up losing your warranty, be refused tech support, etc
Well, in a sense that's an inherent risk of customizability, a tradeoff you have to make. Home screen customizations are probably perfectly safe on stock Android, but I'm not sure how more intrusive modifications will affect updating Android phones that are heavily skinned by the manufacturer (ie: most of them). Maybe I'm wrong, but I suppose you can forget about applying major updates to a Samsung TouchWiz or HTC Sense phone without either undoing or screwing up all your customizations, or in the worst case even bricking your phone to the point it needs a factory reset. If customization was at the top of my feature list, I wouldn't risk anything but a stock Android device.
>> Finally, from a philosophical standpoint, it is absolutely absurd that I should ever have to break something I have paid for to take full ownership of it.
From a philosophical point of view you can have all kinds of opinions, assertions and beliefs about anything. In reality, what you are calling absurd applies to a very significant majority of products you can buy in stores. You can tune your car, but don't expect the dealer to fix it under warranty. You can modify the OS on your desktop computer, but don't expect Microsoft or Apple to supply patches to the problems you may introduce, or even make sure stock patches don't break your setup. You can make most electronic devices do things they were never designed for, but the risk of breaking them is all on you.
Here on HN, we take customizing hardware and software for granted and think it's only natural to modify it to make it better suit our needs, but I don't think a whole lot of people around here think the same about modifying (for example) their furniture, their clothes, their kitchen appliances, etc. But I'm pretty sure their are lots of people on other websites talking about exactly those kinds of things, people who wouldn't even think about customizing their mobile phone or PC. I realize this is getting a little tangential, but the point here is that if you really want to, you can modify almost anything, but almost always the risk is on you, whether you like it (from a philosophical standpoint or otherwise) or not. I don't see what makes mobile phones so special that you should expect the manufacturer to provide you with the tools to modify them, especially when there are alternatives that allow it out of the box. No-one forces you to use an iPhone ;-)
What? No, it's an inherent risk of customizability that requires violating the companies ToS to achieve.
You really are suggesting that the 'inherent risk' of any kind of customizability is about the same, regardless of whether the vendor intends to support it as a feature, or intends to _prohibit you_ from doing it and does everything they can to prevent it? Really?
If the lock screen gets/has that functionality, I'm not sure what the real difference between that and a widget is - except that mine displays on the home screen while yours displays on the lock screen.
- 12 Days App remains constant, no outward transition to other app, 12DA is last in tray, normal application switch over/switch back as seen with Facebook auth etc leaves app as 'used' in tray. - Remote views seem to be getting called as downloads are instantly in store apps on that device, not globally on all devices that can pull them, writing off a trick with the 'download content' settings. - Not web views as capable of accessing local stored credential for itunes account, unless apple has begun exposing that in some specific and bizarre way.
Wish I hadn't been sick, my plan was to watch the processes to see if they were running something like the mail composition one, or whether it was getting done like the Facebook one.
Maybe I'm missing the point of your comment.
If the vendor does not implement something like that, it should still be available as a third-party software. It doesn't need to be a security problem using a system like permissions. If they had a reasonable system there would be multiple options for blacklists.
I'm not irritated that they choose to implement feature X over feature Y, I am irritated because there's no way to implement feature Y at all without their most holy consent.
Something like a blacklist is simple and useful, why can't we have it? Why can't we have mobile interpreters for our scripting languages? Why can't we have apps that download articles while we sleep, without us babysitting the phone to make sure they are open, and add them to a reading list?
It's a small computer. It's ridiculous to restrict it as it is.
Example of it not looking so ugly: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24904191/Screenshot_2012-03-04-21-5...
The Weather widget is hell of a lot of themes and is quite awesome, the animations on opening etc. They did redesign it recently and it looks just nice. I get that "looks nice" is very subjective but i don't see your point. I can read all texts perfectly fine on the phone.
Another point is: I couldn't live without a calendar widget anymore. It's too nice to have the agenda for the next days right on your homescreen.
I would have thought if you are already scrolling and reading, the slight decrease in distance when you hit the bottom would be less distracting than a total change in behavior.
1) Battery life - pretty much the reason I switched back to iPhone. It doesn't matter how great the software is - if I can't turn on the phone it's useless. I don't know how many times I would be racing to meet friends at night, hoping I would reach them in time before my phone completely died. I spent an unforgivable about of my time tinkering with settings to extend battery using widgets (toggling data, location services, turning down brightness to the point it was barely viewable, etc.). My last phone was a Galaxy Nexus and almost everyone on my team had one. Guess how many people had 4G on? No one - the phone died in hours with it on.
A close friend, who is a diehard Android fan, keeps a stock of 3 charged batteries on him at all times (he has a separate charger). All of this was just too much of a hassle for me to justify. I haven't had a single day where my phone has died before I've gone home with my iPhone; it lasts a full day with my normal usage.
2) OS upgrades - I was debating between the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 for my last phone purchase. Besides battery issues, a major con was that I knew the S3 would probably never be updated. Some of my favorite Android features are recent updates (Google Now) and it'd be painful to know that I probably miss out on new features for the 2 years of my phone contract. If the phone you want is a Nexus, this won't be that much of an issue, but that severely limits your device options. And it still somewhat applies to Nexus phones - the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is 3 OS updates behind due to Verizon's approval process.
3) UI/design - There is still a lack of UI/design consistency across the Android ecosystem. It means that the learning curve for the ecosystem is still higher than iOS and sometimes things don't behave the way you expect. Anyone who uses a combination Maps, Nav, and the back button heavily will feel this. I find that the Google Maps iOS app is significantly more consistent than the Android version (although less powerful). This is a consistent theme with iOS vs. Android - better UI but less power.
4) Camera - The camera is one of my most frequently used applications and Galaxy Nexus camera was pretty bad; Google sacrificed camera quality for shutter speed. There are a few Android phones with great cameras (S3) but they are not part of the Nexus line (see #2)
5) App polish - There is still a gap in the quality of applications on the two ecosystems. This is due to many developing on iOS first and Apple's review process. This is a minor complaint since the gap is narrowing and I expect this advantage to be gone by the end of 2013.
6) Maintenance & Depreciation - Have a cracked screen? Good luck finding a shop that will replace your phone model at a decent rate. Screen replacement on my Galaxy Nexus was $100+ while you can easily get your iPhone screen replaced for $30. Depreciation is a "feature" many don't think about, but it's nice to know that I can sell my phone for a decent rate if I switch back to Android (http://priceonomics.com/phones/)
I'm still a big fan of Android and will probably switch back when there's a Nexus phone released with a solid battery & camera.
It really is fairly straightforward to unlock the bootloader and update the ROM yourself, though. It would certainly be nicer if you didn't have to, but it's definitely an advantage of the Nexus devices that there's always good community support for this.
It also lets me use 4G wireless tethering on my unlimited data Verizon plan -- for that reason alone I'm not even a little tempted to switch to an iPhone. Really, the huge difference in camera quality is the only thing I'm jealous of.
Sent from a Starbucks where the internet is down. :)
And to go on that reasoning, it should be just as easy to jailbreak an iPhone to allow tethering as well.
Regardless, my point was not that iPhones have a better feature set than Android (this isn't the case) but rather to outline a few deal breakers that made me migrate back to iOS.
Android users will tell you that battery life is not an issue anymore but that hasn't been my experience at all. I think that it's a case of you can get good battery life as long as you don't take full advantage of most of the Android features. In particular GPS based apps are horrible on Android, most of them seem to poll constantly.
The article talks up the app data sharing, but I haven't found many apps that take advantage of it. Sorry, it just feels kinda gimmicky to me.
My single most desired feature of the iPhone that I know I will never, ever, get - is a list of how much power each app has used in the last 1/2/4/12/24 hours. I understand that data is available through xcode telemetry, but Having to search for purple icons throughout the environment, reboot your iPhone, switch into Airplane mode - just to get full control over your battery gets old after a while...
I had an iPhone 3G. I despised the thing. It just made me wait all the time for everything I wanted to do. It was probably the slowest iPhone ever made (bad RAM decisions), but after I left, I'm happy never to go back. Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want.
My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.
The fact that you still have to turn off GPS and wifi to get 3 days battery life with a 3500mAh battery sort of proves the original point.
Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want.
That's funny because in Canada, iTunes is the only realistic way to buy digital music on a smartphone. On Android I really missed Sound-hounding a song, and then clicking on the link to buy it in iTunes instantly.
My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.
I don't have 4G, but a friend has an iPhone 5 and even though he's always on 4G he gets great battery life. YMMV.
I like checking out new apps and games in particular. My impression is that more games are released first on iOS and then later Android (or not at all).
Others have complained that the average quality of apps on iOS seem to be higher than the average on Android. That's changing but it was certainly true a year ago. It's less true now.
The UX on iOS is still superior IMO to Android. I guess that's far more subjective. Some people like the back button on Android. I hate it since it's impossible to know where it's going to go.
http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/18/ux-things-i-hate-abo...
Apparently they've been working on fixing that
http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html
but they require apps to do the right thing (insert fake history so pressing back in one screen always takes you to the same screen). That means there will always be apps that don't follow the rules. iOS doesn't have this issue because it doesn't have a back button.
That's just one example. There's more on that page. The Android team says they are 1/3rd the way there. Not sure how many versions until they are all the way there but I'm definitely looking forward to it.
There's a few issues I'm not sure will ever get fixed. The virtual (home/back/task) buttons really get in the way on games. Playing a game, at least an action game, my fingers slide all over the place. With the current iPhone design it's very unlikely to press the home button by accident but not so on Android (or at least not so for me). I'm sure some players have no problems.
There's a huge accessory market for iOS. Battery cases, Camera cases (lenses), stereos, 20x the case styles. I really wish Google would define some kind of standard for Android docks. iPhone5 broke all of this but I'm sure the market is catching up quick. Of course this is a fragmentation issue for Android but I'm sure someone creative could come up with a solution.
I'm sure there's a few others but that's the few that popped into my head.
Otter Box seems to be one of the most popular that I see, and it is definitely made to offer some protection.
Second of all, the reason desktop environments are still preferred for "serious business work" is because of their features, not their UI. I work for a business-to-business software company that has been around for over 25 years, and our product is on version 9. We recently released an iOS app. It is being adopted slowly, but not because of its interface. The interface on it is actually very, very clean and effective. The problem is that we have not yet had the time to port all the features on the desktop version to the iOS version. Therefore it is not used for "serious" work... yet.
Your other example seems to willfully ignore that features are stripped out of mobile OSs for the cause of simplicity, not because they're 'catching up'. Yes, for things that are solely within programs themselves you have a point, but we're talking about the operating system here. Quickly switch between windows? No. Have more than one thing visible at a time? No. Default input mode allows for quick entry of data? No. I mean sure, your program might be the ants pants, but what happens when the user needs to enter data while viewing another document?
I don't think the distinction really matters. In this context, you can think of an operating system as a "master app" that has escalated privileges for things such as root-level access to system functions and the hardware.
>> I mean sure, your program might be the ants pants, but what happens when the user needs to enter data while viewing another document?
This soon won't even be an issue, because the data will not have to be manually transferred between documents by a human user.
Fair enough.
> battery life
Benchmarks never demonstrate typical use cases, which is especially true for battery life. Unless all you do is load web pages for hours on end at fixed intervals. Personally, I have better things to do with my time. Based on what I've witnessed with my Nexus 4 and iPhone 5s in my family, battery life is very comparible.
> screen quality
When compared to the iPhone 5, the Nexus 4 has better blacks, better contrast ratio, but poorer whites. Color reproduction could be calibrated better, but hey, this is just a mid range phone, right?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review/6
> gets destroyed by the iPhone 5 and Galaxy S3 in every performance benchmark.
Geekbench measures CPU performance, and the quad core Krait bests both the Galaxy S3 (quad core Exynos) and the iPhone 5 (dual core "Swift").
Galaxy S3: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1488418
iPhone 5: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1488555
Nexus 4: http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/1488266
In fact, the quad core Krait is arguably the best CPU you can find in a smartphone, performance wise. The only existing (ARM-based) CPU that is better is the Exynos 5250 found in the Nexus 10 (dual core A15).
The GPU is the Adreno 320, which absolutely wrecks the Mali GPU in the Galaxy S3. It still isn't as good as the PowerVR SGX543MP3 found in the iPhone 5, but calling it a mid range GPU is laughable.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6440/google-nexus-4-review/3
Seriously. You have no idea what you're talking about.
This thread was about Galaxy Nexus, not Nexus 4. Pot, meet kettle.
My Galaxy Nexus has 4G and has excellent battery life. The AMOLED screen is also, of course, gorgeous.
He was talking about the Galaxy Nexus, which does have LTE.
> battery life
That's a function of the functionality - I'd rather be able to synchronize my reading lists in the background and forgo a bit of the battery life. I rarely use more than half of my Galaxy Nexus's battery on a given day, so that's fine for me.
> screen quality
No idea where you're getting this from. Both screens are fine, but the Galaxy Nexus's screen size is the major difference.
I have big hands. I loved the original Xbox controller before they shrank it. I love bigger phones. I find the iPhone 4 and earlier too damn small for me.
The Apple commercials with someone hand showing that it is "perfect size" are simply laughable. Lets have someone with small, medium, and large hands film that commercial and you will see how ridiculous the concept of "perfect size" is.
There are actual limits to width that have to be take into consideration. Just because you might have a hand large enough for a nexus, does not mean every human, or even adult male for that matter shares that trait. And you're guaranteed less women share that trait.
Perhaps you have large hands, and loved the original XBox controller, but you would be in a minority.
Yes, I can. It's complete bullshit. All the arguments for why the iPhone 4 form factor was the best are now being used to claim that the iPhone 5 is the best by a lot of the same people. That just goes to show that you can manipulate that argument to work with whatever screen size you want.
The argument that a smaller screen, allows for a smaller surface area, that is easier to navigate is obvious.
3.5 is easier to use than 4 which is easier than 5.
People may say a 4 inch screen is better in general (because the forgive ergonomics for real estate), but not in ergonomics alone.
That's not obvious at all. Larger screens can allow for larger touch targets, and by showing more content they can reduce the need for "navigation" in the first place.
Citation needed.
The danger is that changes to screen size aren't always reflected by the software, so you may have a small screen that scales down, or a large screen with wasted real estate. See the host of apps that haven't update for the iPhone 5 screen yet!!!
I'll acknowledge that many times you have to fiddle a bit to make sure that your Android view works well on a variety of screens, but usually you can target between 3 and 4 layouts and have a usable UI for all devices from 10" tablets all the way down to small feature phones.
The thing is though I don't really miss it when I don't have it, it's just a nice extra when it's available so it's never been a convincing reason for me to consider Android. TBH I find LockInfo to look nicer as well.
Android widgets always felt really inconsistent to me, however I've never used CyanogenMod and I do like the look of that screenshot. Clean, consistent, and most of all not gigantic and flashy.
They have a built in updater for their ROMs since Cyanogen 9 (4.0) so no more having to download from a website. Delta updates may have been merged in recently, but have not had time to stay on top of their changes. Killer feature for me though has always been switching music tracks with the volume buttons (like how Blackberry would do it by hold pressing the volume button). I never knew how much I missed it until trying to run one day without it. It's a pretty trivial thing to add to the AOSP source though (add maybe 50 lines total to a few Java files in the framework base) and wished Google would do it. I can only assume there must be some sort of patent/licensing reason as to why they don't.
You're right about wasted space and stock devices have yet to really find a good way to use it. I don't really like how Google implemented lockscreen widgets in 4.2 if you tried them out yet. They're either full out maximized (by pulling them down and thus no easier than unlocking the device) or they're minimal. Someone will probably mod them to be more customized in the community I would guess. I'm still using 4.1.2 on my Galaxy Nexus just for stability since CM 10.1 (4.2.1) is still in early development.
Random question, but how is the post-jailbreak modding community for iphone? I mean I could look it up, but I'm guessing you have some first hand observations.
Pretty good, you would be surprised. I've always been of the opinion that even the iPhone jailbreak community is better organized than anyone who hasn't tried it in person realizes. Via tweaks like DreamBoard you can customize anything and everything. Even total overhauls like turning it into an Android style or WP8 style device. It's pretty remarkable.
It's worth getting ahold of a 4S and jailbreaking to check it out firsthand if possible. The impression I get from Android users is that they feel iOS is completely impossible to customize in any real way. IMO installing total overhauls is actually easier assuming you're past the jailbreak process, which also tends to be simpler than rooting (although obviously that depends on the specific Android device you're trying to root).
You're correct about the average Android user assuming that there's nothing you can really mod with an iOS device. The fact they assume that is sort of odd to a point, given how many in the Android community readily accept and mod phones without a complete source tree by Samsung, HTC and others in a similar fashion by reversing the dalvik byte code into Smali.
I definitely have to throw together a video demonstrating various jailbreak tweaks. If I still had my 4S I would do it right now, but I'm waiting on the iOS 6.1 release to jailbreak my iPhone 5. I'll be sure to send you a link if you're still interested.
> The fact they assume that is sort of odd to a point, given how many in the Android community readily accept and mod phones without a complete source tree by Samsung, HTC and others in a similar fashion by reversing the dalvik byte code into Smali.
No doubt, I was astounded at how much I had to figure out and how many attempts I had to make to root an EVO 3D for a friend. And this was after someone had already made a handy tool for the process and spent months developing it.
All that just to take it past the awful stock HTC ROM Rogers left it on and to peel out the crapware. Jailbreaking, by contrast couldn't be simpler. However you can get away with a fair bit more on an unrooted Android device than you can with stock iOS so in reality it's just a tradeoff.
It's nice to see the phone market becoming a Windows/OS X/Linux situation though, where the differences aren't so drastic and what you use basically comes down to personal preference instead of any blatant advantages. Every time I have a chance to play around with a more recent Android device the experience has become better.
My first Android phone was an HTC, I know where you're coming from with that. Was not the easiest thing to deal with for rooting. Nexus devices are thankfully a bit easier since you don't have to deal with working an exploit to get the bootloader unlocked and root. I pretty much vowed to avoid anything Non-Nexus in the future for that reason and a few others.
