Google's Nexus One compared to Apple's iPhone, Motorola Droid - Page 2

Oh, you are back, wonderful.

And the supposed iPhone 4 won't do essentially the same thing? New hardware and capabilities that may differentiate it from other iPhones in the wild? That's no different than multiple flavors of Android.

And the app store? cmon. Everyone knows the vast majority of the apps are garbage. At least with android you can change the e-mail client, and browser, and hell- you can even download an app to make android look and act like an iPhone if you're too dumb to use a real smartphone.

Do you think apple apps are some mystical thing? it's just code. And that can be fairly easily ported over to another platform. Google can inspire developers far easier than apple. And just consider the freedom they'll have over apple's "our way or the highway" approach.

And something that doesn't require iTunes- thank jeebus. I rather not have a cellphone at all than load that POS software on my machine.

iPhone marketshare has nowhere to go but down unless they get on another carrier. Even then, it'll peak for a short while and then get chewed away at. Enjoy yourselves, macbots, this is as good as it's going to get.

It's completely different. Newer iPhone models have built upon a standardized feature set, improving performance and adding a few new capabilities. But the GUI, screen, and other essential items remain standardized so that almost any app written today will work on the 1st generation iPhone.

With Android, developers have a hard time creating apps that work properly across the CURRENT variations of phones, not to mention the variations that would emerge in the coming years. This is precisely the problem that Apple has avoided by locking down the iPhone and preventing mobile carriers and rogue developers from screwing up what they worked so hard to perfect.


Riiiiight. And that's why Apple and developers are making a killing on the App Store. The quality of apps available for the iPhone is light years beyond the shit selection of mobile apps that existed previously, or even currently, from competing platforms. And there is little need to replace the iPhone's basic apps since they're so well crafted to begin with. Is the iPhone's calendar lacking in features? Sure, maybe. But the ease of use and level of integration and synchronization between apps and with desktop software provides an overall user experience that is unparalleled and a key reason behind the iPhone's overwhelming success.



Yeah, which is why so many competitors have been so successful in copying the iPhone so far... This comment would be merely shortsighted and wrong if it were uttered two years ago. But to say that Apple isn't doing anything special in today's environment just smacks of stupidity. Who's writing your talking points? Steve Balmer?


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Kinda like you saying that carriers (probably) paid them to write the articles?

Lets not make a conspiracy where there isn't one okay? Given the plethora of fanboys for any given technology product nobody needs to be paying anyone anything to have a negative 'article' appear somewhere on the net.

WTF, who thought that Nexus video was worth releasing. It was like it was being filmed by a 4 year old on crack. Tripod people. The phone was moving, the camera was moving, it was rarely in focus. Was that filmed with a flashlight under the covers in your bed? I really wanted to check it out, but I couldn't get through it.

iTunes - it's function has outgrown it's name. Even on the mac, it's a big bloated POS. Why am I going to iTUNES to sync, when I've got iSync? Why am I going to iTunes to manage applications, movies, and TV shows? I want iTunes to be small light and fast and do music, not syncing, not movies, not purchases, not browse an online store. Just manage and play my music and when iSync asks for the music, point to it. How hard is that? iTunes has turned into the sort of counterintuitive crud that apple used to be really good at avoiding. It's the palm desktop all over again.

Sheldon

Why can't everyone just get along? How about this: they DON'T market it as an iPhone-killer and let the consumers decide whether to buy it or not. Stop getting caught up in the market-share game like the PC makers and start making great products with great integration. Apple seems to be the only one following this strategy, however. Too many phone makers decided to skimp on software R&D to please their shareholders, I guess.

If you could watch that boring thing, you have more patience than me. Watching a guy flick his finger didn't tell me much of anything.

freediverx,

I wonder if he gets good 3g coverage under the bridge? The name alone says he only wants to annoy.

If I were into shopping for new phone now, I'd consider it gladly. It looks good to me. Zooming is awkward, but if phone supports flash (I missed that part), that would more than compensate for ugly zooming. I guess it boils down to one's browsing habits, but much as this one is concerned, I did have number of web searches that ended with that ugly missing plug-in screen so flash support definitely bothers me.

I think that Android platform is maturing nicely. I haven't checked on gossips regarding next iPhone, but if it turns out to be just another evolutionary step (more megapixel camera and such minor improvements), I can see Android platform actually overtaking iPhone feature wise before iPhone 5 comes out.

Luckily I just got my iPhone 2 months ago so I'm more than at peace for the next 2 years, I presume. By then, a lot of things will be clearer regarding all mobile platform developments.

I think this sounds better

That makes perfect sense. A single, incremental HW and OS foundation change equates to multiple HW versions with multiple interfaace sizes and types, using disparate HW types all coming out at the same time and using varying OS updates with even more discrepancies on updatablity and UIs.

The 2010 4th generation iPhone with iPhone OS v4.0 will still play all the games that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation iPhones will. Its pretty damn simple since its linear, not fragmented OSes from a quickly spidering HW platform from multiple vendors with multiple device I/O types.

Here is a simple test to know which one has a broken system. Can all iPhones get the same iPhone v3.0 OS? Yes. Did they all get access to the OS update the same day? Yes. Do all Android phones have access to v2.0? No, at least not officially and without some major caveats. Did all Android phones that have access to v2.0 the same day? Not even close. Do phone functions like multi-touch and input methods work identically across all models? I wish. Can I pick up any Android phone and know exactly how it works from using a different model? Hell no.

I guess things like this are a bit relative.

My colleague had 3G, gave it to his girlfriend and got 3Gs for him. He's happy about generally smoother operation and more storage... but that is about it.

We both agree on following things:

Camera is improvement but still not good enough, so sort of pointless improvement... for us; he just purchased my old P&S camera from me, and likewise I've purchased new P&S to have around regardless my 3Gs.

Voice control is good idea but for us it doesn't work. We had new law regarding mobile phone use in cars and NZ police is very proactive regarding that at present, but voice calling simply does not work reliably enough in noisy environments such as car is.

It still is brilliant phone, I just wonder if Apple is not holding back a bit regarding it's development - keeping good ideas for later, when/if competition catch up. We'll see.

I keep the brghtness at about half on my iPhone. Anything more is too much.

It's even more critical to be careful with brightness settings on large displays (like 24-inches), otherwise you'll be setting yourself up for headaches and eyestrain. Computer displays aren't like TVs. You sit far from TVs, bu you need to be up close to a computer display.

Apps alone are not enough. Windows Mobile had huge library of apps, likewise PalmOS. I had couple of Tungstens and Treos in my house and I can tell many apps were really good and useful. iPhone was way behind when they introduced Apps store and they also didn't reach today's numbers overnight, however simple fact that someone else had more software available at the time didn't slow them much. Will Android repeat same success story, remains to be seen... but if they do, they will not be the first one. It happened before. It will happen again.


Hm... thinking of it, I can't recall of a single Windows user I know who would not replace iTunes with WMP or something else for syncing iPhone/iPod... if they only could. It might be just my specific surrounding, but I believe that is very common among Windows users. I don't know what sort of media player capabilities new Android has, but if/when they do get good media playing software and option to sync phone with different desktop media programs, I can see that becoming big deal.


But what if that is holding back future development of iPhone - like Windows legacy support..? How many good ideas have Apple engineers deserted simply because they could not apply them to older iPhones? Sooner or later, Apple will have to turn the page and scrap older devices - there is only that much you can do within compatibility boundaries.


I agree with you on that - killer remarks are not coming from Google or Apple but from sensation-seeking article writers. Term is really wearing thin by now.

itunes for windows. biggest POS ever.

I dunno why all the people complain about android fragmentation. Yes it is hard to keep everyone on the latest version, when you don't get updates every time you sinc your music library to the PC, like iTunes. But people who know about updates will update and those who don't know or don't care will get a new OS through a phone upgrade.

Anyway I think that Nexus One is fast and snappy on the pics and video, only what is up with the browser crashing every time they try to load the site on the video. It would go away and reappear? I am sure that this will compete well with Droid, as far as iPhone, I think it can compete well with the current gen (3GS) but not so much with whatever apple cooks up early 2010, which I predict will mean biggerr/higher res screen, faster processor, built in FM transmitter and radio, better camera and more memory. Maybe even mobile safari update to speed it up or even offer flash (though that is unlikely).

There has been little attention to WinMo, and I myself have dismissed it, but some recent phones don't look half bad, so looking forward to MS coming back into the market as well.

Its not just the software updates, it the lack of all Android devices within a set time frame getting the same update at the same time AND the lack of consistency between HW types, UIs and the way different HW and areas of the OS interact differently despite providing the same essential functionality as other features.

For instance, the lack of multi-touch in the included apps for the Droid, but available in 3rd-party apps and the EU version of the device. Also, the way the virtual keyboard in the Droid inputs data differently than the HW keyboard. (those two may have changes with the v2.0.1 update) Also, the fact that the HTC G1 cannot get Android v2.0 without a hack that it wasnt available at the same time as the other devices.

None of that is user friendly and easy for the average consumer to understand which may explain why the Droid ads seem to be focusing on a young, insecure, male demographic.

You either don't know what you are talking about, trolling, or both.

1st you don't get what Google fragmentation is about or how google branches, vendor branches, and varying hardware are the cause of a serious fragmentation problem.

The iPhone is hardly "lax on features". It has far more than any version of Android and implements them better.

Apple has treated the iPhone as a tool to make money? Well I would hope Apple treats all of its products as a means to make money. That is the business they are in after all. Are you naive enough to believe Google doesn't do the same? Of course they do it by collecting as much of your personal information as possible, without your permission, and monetize it. Also by ads to eyeballs. I'l take Apples approach of making the best possible product any day.

The iPhone is hardly locked down. Certainly not any more than any other smartphone. You have to hack all of them for end users to modify them and thats as it should be.

How you think Apple has abandoned their current products and users is beyond me but then I don't much care how you came up with that foolish statement.

Competition is good so i am glad Android is around. The Pre, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile are hardly competition. But Android has some show stopper issues.

1st you can only use 256MB of space for apps. Yes thats it. Hard to believe but thats the case in 2009. You can hack Android and supposedly run apps on a card but thats theoretical. So until this is fixed, and don'y expect it anytime soon, Android users will not be able to run apps like iPhone users and many versions of apps that are on the iPhone will have severely limited Android versions. Thats already happening and software vendors are not happy about it. Several high profile software developers have already announced they are abandoning Android to focus on the iPhone because Android is just not worth their time and trouble.

Android is slow. Dog slow. You can't even scroll the home screen without lag.

The onscreen keyboard is near unusable.

Multi-touch, where it exists, is a pale imitation of the iPhones.

Handling of various media and syncing is awful unless you only want core Google apps.

The UI needs lots of work in many places.

If Android was as good as the iPhone I would consider it but it's not even close.

Exactly.

There, fixed that for you.

Because its not just the OS and most people aren't even referring to the OS when they talk about fragmentation. They are talking about apps.

But lets take the OS first. There are various versions of the OS with added functionality, on different hardware. They run on different carriers and the carriers themselves ahave to test all updates too.

Thats a pain in the ass but much more importantly are apps. Developers will have to push out a version of their apps for each of these different possibilities write and test them, and work with the hardware manufactures and carriers to write and test. That is a heck of a lot of trouble and is one of the reasons why Windows Mobile apps have not done well. That and Windows Mobile has always sucked as an OS.

What are all these multi-touch gesture-recognition devices using projected capacitance displays that filled the market long before the iPhone? If that were the case then youd think FingerWorks would have been able to get a lot more money for their IP.

Supposed iPhone 4? Are you doubting there will be one?

The 3 versions for the iPhone OS are in no way comparative to what is happening with Android fragmentation. You obviously have difficulty reading and retaining what has been posted in this thread so far.

iPhone usage is growing every single day..

Your other comments are so childish and ignorant they are not worth commenting on.

Hi, professional Android developer here...

Fragmentation on Android is overstated. You've got to remember that everything runs through the Dalvik VM. This abstracts the hardware from the developer. It's possible for Google and the manufacturers to change a lot of the OS (including UI) without affecting third party apps. It's a smart system.

Obviously there are issues to take into consideration (CPU speed, RAM, screen size, API changes) but it's no harder than programming for Windows. And look how many apps there are for Windows.

Obviously I still own an iPhone though.

1) Why do you still own an iPhone?

2) Why do you developer Java for Android and not C for the iPhone? Do you find it more profitable?

3) Do you plan on moving to the NDK?

4) What limitations do you have on accessing the HW using DVM over NDK or iPhone SDK?

We're not saying that fragmentation is necessarily a fatal problem or an insurmountable problem. But its certainly a challenge and limitation for developers. That will limit the number of developers who will want to deal with it.

The main point is that developers do not have to deal with fragmentation on the iPhone at all.

With comments like, to make android look and act like an iPhone if you're too dumb to use a real smartphone... really sum up this poster. The pessimistic and irrational individual that has been calling the iPhone a failure since it was first announced and keeps assuming hell be right eventually. Which is true, eventually he will be. I can see him sitting at a street light saying Now! every few seconds trying to guess when it will change and then grinning broadly when that change ultimately arrives as if there is a sense of clairvoyance or logic in his guess work.

Media playing capabilities. No other phone comes close. Also, I've been pretty underwhelmed by the Android phones so far. I'm not a big fan of HTC phones as they always feel so cheap and plastic. The Nexus One is getting closer though, especially with the OLED screen.


I do what my boss tells me to do. But we work with Android rather than iPhone because it's open source and we're free to do as we please. It's a much better fit for the kind of applications that we're developing.


We've already been messing around at the lower layers. Nothing serious, just a bit of experimenting. It's surprising just how much of Android is open source. Much more of the source code is available than, say, Nokia's Maemo platform. We'll probably stick with the SDK unless there's a specific reason to use the NDK though.


Well, I think the total lack of decent games for Android tells you the whole story. Hence, the need for the NDK.

Yes, they do.

Different CPU speeds, different amounts of RAM, different capabilities, different OS versions...

It's not as bad but it does exist. And it'll only get worse.

Apple will only accept apps into the app store that run on OS 3.0. Developers don't even have the choice of different OS versions.

Different cpu speeds, different amounts of RAM largely effect the speed of how the device can run an app, but developers don't have to make any major changes.

It won't be that bad because most people will move on a purchase the newest iPhone.

Why dont they come close? They have access to more codecs and less restrictions to resolution constraints. If the OS and SDK/NDK are so good Id think that a viable app would be easy to make with it being so open.


Cant argue with that. What types of apps are they that, Im assuming, wont get App Store approved?


There are lot of apps that simply dont work as well on the Android as they do on the iPhone. Sure, they do the same thing, but simply not as well from what Ive personally tried. From what Ive read its because iPhone developers get easy access to frameworks and foundations that Android devs simply dont(didnt) have to or its simply too difficult to utilize.



That isnt even close to Android. If I had you develop an app for the iPhone and Touch from this year forward you know itll have at least v3.0 and with a Cortex A8, 256MB RAM and PowerVR SGX on a 320x480 3.5 display. Pretty simple. How many Android phones came out this the last 6 months? How many different ARM CPUs are there, with varying RAM and NAND making apps with large files problematic without offloading files to an SD card, if there is one. How many OS versions are for Android on new phones being sold in stores right now?

Android has barely gotten off the ground and they are already splintering. I dont think theyll have the same problem as Linux since there will be mobile vendors controlling each splinter to a degree but its looking good for long term growth without a more solid and structured foundation for linear growth. Which can come from a vendor despite what others do with Android but so far we havent seen it.

No-one has come up with a viable alternative to iTunes, IMO. Double-twist looks interesting but, as one of the other posters said, it's a pain to have to move your collection from one music manager to another. Even when you do, very few music players handle AAC files as well as iTunes.

What someone int he Android community needs to do is come up with a decent on-device media player backed up with a decent computer-side music manager and make it simple to import your existing iTunes collection with the meta-data intact. It sounds simply but it obviously isn't.


Top secret, I'm afraid. We do work for enterprise customers mainly.


So you're cutting 1st and 2nd gen devices out of the equation? Remember that the 3G is still on sale. That's a lot of potential sales lost.


Well, I've come from a background of writing apps for WinMo and Symbian. Android is still pretty easy in comparison. When writing for Android, I always assume a Qualcomm ARM11 520Mhz CPU, 192MB RAM and Android OS 1.6. That's going for the lowest common denominator. It's no different from what I'd do if I was writing an app for the iPhone - I'd code for the original iPhone running OS 3.0 where possible.

The only real difference between the two platforms is that I have to think about different screen resolutions when coding for Android.

O i see, so its kinda like symbian looking and feeling different on different phones. (Being a diff OS in a sense, tailored to phone and carrier) In that case fragmentation is a bad thing. If apps don't work across versions, there really isn't any point of having an integrated app store, and would be a pain in the ass to develop. Also the 20,000 apps number could be hella inflated if there are like 3 versions of the same app for different phones. Thanks for explaining what this was all about.

I'm sure they stopped selling the 8GB 3G and changed it to a 8GB 3GS.

Nope, you're wrong. They're still selling the 8GB 3G.

Yeah, it was just a rumor that stuck in the back of my mind.

AT&T gearing up to launch $99 8GB iPhone 3GS?

In Australia at least, you can buy:

iPhone 3G 8GB (also equivalent 8GB iPod Touch) - old tech
iPhone 3GS 16/32 GB (also equivalent 32/64 GB iPod Touch) - new tech

So are we reading these as similar to the Linux problem, or similar to the UI's in Japan problem? Japanese phones meaning they have never come together with a common browser, music engine, etc.... everything is tied to the phone UI wise.

Either way, it isn't good for mass adoption.

its so funny to see all these companys try to best apple and their mighty iphone!!
they are a bunch of cheap imitations that will all be killed off and rebranded but still with that stupid android!! its dumb how all these FOOLS on different carriers go out and buy the same shit
with a different body and name...iphone i only ONE!

Even the open source android has limitations imposed, those are bypassed with "rooting" the phone which is the equivalent of jail-braking the iphone. So that's one less argument in favor of the android OS. It's easy to hate the apple regarding the iphone but they have done an excellent job with a superior handset. They only have to focus on one handset and with yearly updates they keep distancing themselves for the competition.

The argument about apple not supplying sufficient support for older iphones doesn't fly either. I have a bunch of apps for working with winmo phones that simply don't work on vista and win7 but worked on xp. And once more android 2.1 and 2.2 phones hit the market, the same will be applied to 1.6 handsets.

Right now, Android as a platform simply can't produce an Iphone killer nor does it really seem to be their goal for the foreseeable future. Android is gasping for a stable market share, not dominance. On the hardware side of things, the gap between iphone updates gives others a chance to use tech improvements that weren't viable at the release of current iphone update, amoled screen cost reduction or a new cpu, for example.

On the other hand, the apple app store is by far superior to the android market both in app quantity and dev incentive for writing them. But let's not kid ourselves here. Nobody has 1000 apps installed. 30 productive and 30 entertainment apps is what makes the difference, the other 100000 could just as well be clones of the 30 and nobody would be any wiser. Despite it's inferiority, the android market is the app store's biggest competitor.

The android's goal to gain a chunk of the market has been achieved. But what it really does is ensure survival, it needs comptetive devices for further gains. On the other hand, the iphone's market share can't increase any further due to carrier contract limitations. Regardless if they switch to verizon or not. For the consumers, the termination fees and other "cutomer retention methods get in the way of switching carriers in order to get that new phone with another carrier.


From the android perspective, OHA members will need luck with a tech breakthrough that they can use yet apple can't implement it due to the breakthrough's "bad timing" within their yearly update cycle. And of course, the aforementioned 60 apps to go along with the phone.

As for the nexus one, it's success doesn't depend on the direct comparison to the iphone, it depends on beating other iphone competitors.

The next iphone will most likely be a 4g phone tied to contracts with verizon. In those terms, nexus one has already lost the battle. If the N1 indeed hits the market, it will be the best android phone on the market. From my perspective which is based on rejecting carriers that charge insane monthly fees, it just might be the perfect phone.