iPhone 4 and iOS vs. Android on Verizon - Page 2

Let me digress by noting hat is not a Verizon phone so it shouldnt be in this comparison the OP first mentioned.. I dont think they are making a CDMA version yet. Moving on...

Thats cool idea and its been around as long as Sci-Fi the question is how feasible it will be. This has always been the ideal tech of the future that never really happens because getting a fullsized device tends to be cheaper and faster.

But this does happen. We do use phones to do plenty of interneting these days. Even laptops, one too slow and too expensive are now the norm for a person buying a computer in many countries, even if they arent going to use as a portable device.

I wonder how the user experience will be. A successful product is technically being able to do something, but doing it well enough that satisfies the user. That said, I think Apple will be watching this closely. If this catches on they are in a fantastic position with OS X as it runs the same Darwin OS on Mac OS and iOS. Adding the drivers and the Mac UI to a pocketable device will be a cakewalk compared to the start from scratch effort Moto would have to use. Add to a potential future option of multiverse App Store apps that you buy once for the Mac/iPhone/Touch/iPad.

Another Hater, or maybe it's the same one. Give it a break.

This article is absolutely pathetic. Just the droid? No droid2, no droid x? Only one droid phone is on android 2.2? Another lie. Incredible. With an iphone4 and a droid x in my home, the iphone sure looks pretty, but the droid x does what I couldn't even begin to on the iphone. It's pretty doubtful this guy's ever been in a verizon store let alone used an android phone.
1. No ridiculous syncing.
2. Voice activated commands
3. Flash websites
4. Free ringtones
5. Better Google apps
6. Widgets
7. Better notifications
8. Download apps from any source you like
9. No need for a computer to download updates.
10. Expandable storage
11. Much easier to use your phone as a portable hard drive
12. Free turn by turn voice navigation
13. Built in FM radio
14. I can replace the battery myself if needed

I thought I read Q2, you may be right though. In any case, the article is forward looking, but stops at one month glossing over the announced products. There are four of them. Let's not pretend they aren't there. Maybe a follow up article, huh.

vaporware?

"Galaxy Tab, an oversized "tweener" smartphone-like device lacking mobile connectivity apart from WiFi"... Oh really?

Had this moron ever even used/seen the device, it would have been blatantly apparent that ALL Samsung Galaxy Tabs feature both WiFi B/G/N as well as cellular connective as standard.

Absolutely Pathetic!

CES introduces tons of products, many of which never materialize or show up months later in a far less exciting form, after competitors have delivered a full real cycle of products.

Palm Folio?
Palm Pre?
Windows Phone 7?
HP Windows Slate PC?
Lots of PlaysForSure stuff?
Google Nexus One (nearly CES)

So yes, vaporware. Wait till it arrives. The iPhone 4 is not an unknown product touting features that might not work well in practice. Apple doesn't have a history of launching things that are nothing near what it originally hyped. The company typically announces a product and has it shipping immediately or within a couple months, and it gets more features revealed at launch, not less.

And come on, Android fans talk about the next release of the OS like it's already here, while waiting for the release from 6 months ago to make it to their phone.

I personally don't think it's a great feature to have your phone go obsolete every quarter, and then never get updated. I expect a phone to last me a year, at least. Remember when everyone bawled about annual new iPods? and how we had to get a new iPhone every year? This idea that everyone is going to repurchase a new Android phone every 3 months just because there's a new crop of them isn't sustainable. Nobody but fanboys is going to do that. Most people will have an Android phone from a year ago running software that's just as old.

Google still says only half of the Android users actively hitting Android Market are running 2.2 from last summer. The rest are on even older versions (so of which are still being sold!)

I'm also not convinced that "4G" LTE service in a few markets at unknown cost to battery life and at significantly higher fees is really going to be a killer feature that sucks people toward more expensive Android phones. Just because the iPhone created enormous draw for more expensive smartphone contracts on EDGE and later 3G service (while also providing WiFi service for really fast data), doesn't mean that knockoff phones that can't run popular apps will draw people to moderately faster data service that's even more expensive (and not faster than WiFi).

Do you really think this is going to keep going until we have Android 3.5 paired with 5G LTE+ and 6" screens selling $500 monthly data contracts that deliver 50Mbps service? Because things don't all grow linearly like that. At some point, people are going to resist paying more for slightly faster data plans when nothing else is really better. The iPhone added a lot of value to having a data plan. Past 10Mbps, there's not going to be the exact same progression of cost/benefit to simply jumping the Mbps and data contract prices. Most people don't even have 10Mbps service to their homes in the US. 2Mbps broadband is considered adequate in this country!

Android, like Windows, delivers basic functionality. Apple delivers an experience. Which is why the spec wars are dying and people are buying more Macs rather than just being pushed toward the biggest MHz and MB.

Your post could have been great. But it's not. Next time read the title of the article...

Too bad. Your post is weak and a waste of everyones time.

You're basing that on all the trolls who really have nothing else to do with their lives?

Maybe if you're read the article you'd realize you are confusing the 2010 lineup with the 2011 listing of Verizon phones. The phones listed are Mot Droid X, 2 Global, Pro and Samsung Fascinate, the best Android phones you can get on Verizon, and newer than the iPhone 4, but not better.

Of your list of features:

1. No ridiculous syncing. (A lot of people obviously prefer iTunes and automatic backup)
2. Voice activated commands (This was specifically mentioned in the article)
3. Flash websites (This was specifically mentioned in the article)
4. Free ringtones (iPhone users can create free ringtones)
5. Better Google apps (This was specifically mentioned in the article: Nav, Lat. and Voice, etc)
6. Widgets (This is subjective, but is mentioned in other AI articles linked)
7. Better notifications (This is mentioned in other AI articles linked)
8. Download apps from any source you like (This is specifically noted, but is also a potential flaw both in terms of security and in the fact that it splinters cohesive Android market power)
9. No need for a computer to download updates. (This is subjective, and also a flaw. Also, if you can't get your updates for 6 months (or are streamed a buggy release), you're in worse shape than being able to load them via USB on day 1)
10. Expandable storage (This is mentioned in other AI articles linked, but also a flaw because you can't install as many apps and big, sophisticated Android apps are less common due to the problems of copying apps from SD cards to RAM. This is clearly a major Android flaw)
11. Much easier to use your phone as a portable hard drive (This is fantasy talk)
12. Free turn by turn voice navigation (This is specifically mentioned in the article, although Verizon doesn't bundle this on all phones that get Bing instead)
13. Built in FM radio (This is mentioned in other AI articles linked, but apparently not a big draw)
14. I can replace the battery myself if needed (You can also replace an iPhone battery, you just don't have to charge it as often or replace it as often, nor must you reboot your iPhone just to extend battery range. You get an external dock connector pack or case)

This article is 50% worthwhile. It does an excellent job describing the advantages that the iPhone has over Android but does an astonishingly terrible job describing the advantages of Android. This sentence compresses a page's worth of advantages into two lines: "Google also offers some features that are unique to Android, including voice recognition for search and text input, free turn-by-turn GPS via Maps Navigation (if Verizon doesn't take the app off to replace it with its own service), and integrated support for its other services, such as Latitude friend tracking and Google Voice (which are separate downloads for iOS devices)." Those features brushed over by the article are some of the best reasons to use Android. Google Maps navigation is to current navigation software what the iPhone was to smartphones in 2007. Voice recognition adds exceptional functionality through an app called Voice Search which allows verbal commands for calls, text messages, e-mail, internet searches, maps, and navigation from one straightforward window. Watch this short video if you're unfamiliar http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGbYV...eature=related . I think it's fairly impressive.

It's true that on Android models are not consistent in their software implementations or hardware quality, but to completely ignore major features available across the board strikes me less as biased comparison and more as desperate malice.

I know a lot of people with Android phones. They generally fall into two camps - (i) Apple hates and (ii) "I would have liked an iPhone but the iPhone contracts are too expensive".

A long feature comparison is totally moot. Price is what attracts people to Android. For many people, it's "good enough".

Maybe you didn't read the article. It was a long feature comparison from beginning to end (some features excluded).

First, welcome to the forum.
Second, if you go back through some of the threads here you will notice that we will have discussed at length the fact that the majority of consumers don't care about spec lists. We (as geeks) like them, but that is as far as it goes.
I'm sure other members with more time on their hands will take the effort to add rebuttal to each of your concerns listed above.
EDIT: Oh, I see that has already been done.

Interesting that you are making number 8 a "feature". To me it is a feature that I can find all apps in one place. So, too, it is a boon to iOS developers who don't have to worry about hosting and monetizing -- they have a simple business model that is obviously serving their purposes very well as many have declared their intention to develop for iOS only.

I have several free turn-by-turn voice navigation apps. You just have to look around. Check out the Navmii series of apps. I have UK & Ireland, and Netherlands free. I think some countries may be 4 bucks or so. No one says you have to buy the TomTom app -- TomTom is just trying to recoup for not being able to sell their hardware, because a dedicated satnav device is no longer needed.

I have 64GB of storage on my iPad, 32 on my iPod Touch -- no matter how many hundreds of apps and dozens of movies and books and thousands of songs and photos I put on them, I can't fill them up half way. 16GB is plenty on my Phone. I have a three and a half year old iPhone Classic, and with thousands of photos and songs, I still can't fill its storage up.

And the battery's still going strong after 3.5 years. Again, funny you should make a replaceable battery a "feature". Most normal people consider it a feature not to have to mess with this kind of thing, especially when the hardware is of such quality that it is a rare iPhone that needs to have it replaced. The iPhone'll get, what, five years-old, and someone else in the family will be clamoring for it; or you can still resell it unlocked for a couple hundred bucks.

Download what kind of updates? App updates are done on the phone over the air. You get a constant notification of how many of your hundreds of apps have updates available. The App Store app shows you exactly which ones. You can update them individually, or everything in one go. Touch the update button once, it instantly downloads and updates apps in the background. My data such as contacts, calendar, bookmarks, etc. all happens automatically over the air, not even aware of it. How is that "ridiculous"?

For the OS, I am glad it takes care to do things a little differently -- makes a backup of data, checks all the sync prefs, transfers all the apps bought over the air onto your computer, then installs and checks the OS update. Happens several times a year -- about the only time I ever sync my device to my computer. How ridiculous is that? How often does an Android user upgrade the OS on his phone?

11. That is debatable. I have loads of free apps that connect my iOS devices to any computer wirelessly via IP or VNC etc. Then there are all the great internet services such as Dropbox. Instant syncing with folders on my Mac's desktop. I share through Dropbox, since people love to diss MobileMe; but MobileMe's iDisk is a great storage and syncing service, too. Very simple and seamless. Then there is the photo kit cable -- gives you a USB or card reader dongle for the thirty-pin connector. Someone complained about proprietary cables (not true -- a number of manufacturers make them) -- but the truth is, all kinds of open and standard things can be done from and made for that one port: charger, sync'er, usb, video-out, storage card slots, credit card readers, diabetes blood testers, you name it. It's only up to the imagination of developers now.

You might get better Google apps, but there are better iOS apps than Google apps -- ask any self-respecting developer. There are apps for voice activation also (maybe not for search using Google, but it's not always a great idea to speak searches out loud ). Plus, I use Dragon Voice for note dictation.

Notifications have been fine -- I have apps that push stuff through all the time, a little notice pops up over the screen, and they have customized sounds associated with them.

You might notice that all these "clever" things that you and others list and tout for Android, really have to be listed and touted for Android. No-one has to say a thing for iOS, just try it out and see what great and imaginative apps developers have the ability to make for iOS. Most of the things you list are particular hardware features (not available in every Android phone), or particular apps, or customizations added by the carrier. There is nothing particularly inherent to Android that you can't say about iOS or some great app you can find in the app store.

Android's OS is fragmented more than Apple's iOS simply because Android offers the consumer more choice and variety than Apple.

There are only 4 different models of the iPhone compared to dozens if not hundreds of different Android models. Should I expect my original iPhone to run iOS 4? Should I expect my iPhone 4 to run iOS 7 when it comes out? If I buy a cheaper low end Android device, should I expext it to receive the same updates with the same expediancy as someone who paid a premium for a high end Android device?

If you want the latest and greatest, pay for the latest and greatest. Want the newest Android OS as soon as it becomes available? Buy a Google Nexus device, or learn how to root your phone (it's possible and even easy on Android). Otherwise, you'll have to wait until the manufacturer adapts the OS to it's custom UI (such as HTC's Sense or Motorola's Blur). Don't like that? Buy an iPhone. Apple doesn't allow customization beyond changing the wallpaper or choosing the case. Don't like that? Buy an Android. See something else better 3 months after you bought your latest iPhone or Android? Stop crying about fragmentation and sell your old phone and buy it. You should probably also consider not locking yourself into long term contracts.

As i read this I hear this song (Paula Cole-Where have all the cowboys gone) playing in my mind with the words, "Where have all the Androids gone?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPR108kwNo4

Also why would any one in his right mind take pride in owning a phone developed by an advertising agency?

Why would any one want to spend hard earned money at cellular data rates to have sleazy advertising delivered to their pocket?

Did they not get enough of that with over the air TV in the last century?

The Last Advertising Agency on Earth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERGrSQoY5fs


The Art of Deception - Subliminal Advertising
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyQjr1YL0zg

Not sure if it is just me, but there seems to be an awful lot more inane, insulting and rude comments being made on AI recently.

Does anyone think that it is time to remove those contributors whose input is so detrimental to the enjoyment of the site by the vast majority? (Many of them seem to be new to the site).

I'm more than happy to have both sides of the argument put down for discussion, I just want that to be a pleasure, not a painful blowing of insults.

So, did you? Please provide a link to your work on this topic, showing a fair comparison (whatever this is)?

Thanks and cheers,

j.

Then why are two of the Android phones in the comparison table not on Verizon?

(Then again, I knew the author of this blog entry long before clicking on the link.)

That's not true, many of them are paid to come here and post, although, I guess that makes them shills and not trolls.

Not a pre-installed application, but MapQuest has voice turn-by-turn navigation and is free.

Seems like you already know the answers. Apple's iOS4 badly lags Android in notifications and widgets/icons. The only semi-useful icon is the calendar which shows the day. iOS5 needs to catch up to 2010 and allow things like weather apps showing you a snapshot of the weather right on the home scren either in a dynamic icon or a widget. The notifications need to be massively re-written as well. When watching a video, I do not want a giant window to pop up in front to show me I received a text, and it should not require user input to go away. WTF? The ability to set different sounds for email, SMS, and app notifications, especially by user and by app is lacking, and Apple does not offer much flexibility. Forexample, it would be nice to be able to disable sounds from 11:00 pm to 6:00 AM except for certain numbers and email addresses. RIM still does this better than anyone else, but iOS is the worst.

Apple destroys any Android phone I have tried when it comes to battery life and resource management. There are various buggy apps on Android that will chew up CPU and use data unnecessarily when the phone is asleep and in your pocket, rapidly draining the battery. An educated user can spot this stuff and manage it. An iPhone user does not have too.

iPhone apps tend to be a bit higher quality, but you also have to pay for more of them. Many are free and add supported, but many are $0.99-$4.99 and some of these are still add supported as well. Most Android apps are free and add supported, though there are some decent paid apps.

Apple's exchange support and through that, gmail support, is pretty good, especially with managing multiple exchange accounts. On an Android phone you will probably end up shelling out $20 for the touchdown mail app, although the limitations without it vary between manufacturers and carriers.

Flash. I hate it but there are times I want it. Personally I think it should be off by default but available for the user to turn on when needed, and when a charger is handy.

Overall flexibility, I would actually give the edge to a jailbroken iphone. It can do anything Android can and some things you can not do on most android phones. Many Android phones are now harder to root and customize beyond what they want to allow. There are some pretty big walls around most of the android gardens, although the garden is bigger so many users don't relize they are captive. If you have an Android device where you can put on your own OS build you have the ultimate flexibility, but that is a rather rare situation with todays hardware and certainly not an opption for the non techy crowd.

Have you heard of iAds? Apple is an advertising agency too, and plenty of the apps on my iPhone show ads. I would prefer they not be there, but the alternative is I would have less choice of apps and pay more for the ones I do have. I a not sure that grass is greener.

And raise you millions over millions of regular users who frankly could care less about "open", "rooting" or any of the other feckless activities tecky's are prone to and for which the Android phones are such lovely melty pocket candy.

And I happen to like Android (just not in Google's hand TVM), both as concept and in it's latest hardware incarnations.

original droid runs 2.2, supplied by an OTA update. it actually made things worse, but the chart is still dead wrong.

Yes it was obviosly another DED piece from the title, but while biased and containing several factual errors, it was not as bad as some of his other recent pieces (of ...).

I forgot to mention the updates.

Android has the capability to receive OTA updates, patches, incremental updates etc.

Any fix to iOS requires a 500 mb download over USB. Want to change a couple lines of code to make the signal bars look bigger? 500mb. Security patch to fix the jailbreakme.com bug? Another 500 mb. This is not horrible (but still bad) if you are in the US, at home with a good broadband connection, but if you are on the road, or in many countries with slower internet connections, it can be a huge problem. The updates from 4.0 to 4.21 should be available in small chunks from the App Store and accessible over the air. They did not change enough to make a full OS install necessary, and that is why I see more and more people not upgrading their IOS anymore. If you feer fragmentation, this is causing fragmentation on the user side.

The Evo Shift 4G does not have a front camera. The Evo, however, does, as shown in your comparison chart.

This article is a bit premature, I would say. Yes, the iPhone 4 is coming next month, but it's not too far off that we start to see the likes of dual core Android phones on V.

Yes, millions will flock to the iPhone simply because it's an iPhone, but competition has never been a bad thing. :-)

Notifications on Android, totally agree. I can't believe such a polished OS as iOS pops that stuff into your face no matter what. The only reason I can think that Apple would still allow that is because they are hard pressed coming up with an alternative that isn't yet taken by Android/WebOS.

Flash on Android is on-demand, you tap the flash portion of the screen to enable it. It's off by default.

App Management - you're right, some apps in the Market are buggy, but so are apps in the App Store. Just because they can run in the background on an Android device doesn't mean that you should ding the OS for it. Additionally, why does iOS win for resource management? It barely manages resources, opting instead to kill virtually any ability to multitask except for a few sanctioned threads. I'd say Android wins for resource management simply because it can manage resources. Proof of this would be that the latest iOS implementation basically copied Android with its freeze states and threaded multitasking. I'm sure the next version will be even more Android-like.

I've got Gingerbread on my Evo, a very early Alpha, and it is a beautiful thing to behold. My battery makes it through the day. On an EVO! :-) But I do agree, battery life should be something we speak of fondly, but alas, almost every device out there sucks the juice way too fast. It will be interesting to see what those dual core ones do.

OTA update is pretty slow here it takes 6-8 months to download it. I hope it's faster for you.

This is not CDMA vs GSM or Apple vs the rest of the crowd. In the full ownership cycle there is not a big difference in any of these smart devices, they are EXPENSIVE. What we are paying for here is a set of services with a chunk of hardware at the end of it. Much of the rest of the argument is nuance to many end users.

The expectation comes from the wireline world. We pick up the phone and it works. Mobility does not yet provide the same service level for communications that wireline can. For that matter wireline may actually be degrading.

We are extending those expectations of near perfection to both fixed and wireless data services. When the web page does not load who do we blame? When the email does not send who do we call?

Many of the readers of this forum are from the Apple side of the fence and "ai" is trying to provide a view from that side of the fence. Apple has done pretty well by many consumers who purchase their product and "ai" is trying to help them navigate this new space.

While some of the data in the tables needs to be updated; eg Droid X is a touch only phone no slide out keyboard..... and others that have already been pointed out. In general the article is good background for the audience.

It would be interesting to see all of the data points for all current shipping (past and future/announced would be cool) in some sort of massive table. I am not sure that all of the data is that important but it would be interesting.

What matters here in my mind is how does the mobile eco-system fit the needs, wants, and expectations of the end user? Raw bit rates, internal memory, processor specifications do not tell that story. They may be leading indicators. More megapixels is not the goal here folks!

What is worse carrier lock down, Apple system lockdown, or email traveling to Canada and back? Do you really care? Do you need to?

1. We want the phone system to work.
2. We want the battery to not go dead in a normal day.
3. We do not want to loose the data on our devices.
4. We want the features we purchased to function "as expected"
5. We want someone to help us when we have problems.
6. (Pick your favorite next 25 features, issues, etc...) The list is endless.

Mobility is here to stay! The way we communicate with each other is changing. The speed with which these technologies are moving is almost incomprehensible.

Lets try to make sense of this for each other.

Bob

Look, dump the bombast and start a blog, write an article and be done. Please stop letting your emotions get the best of you and please stop cluttering the forums with these baby squeals...

Apple delivers a ecosystem with a consistent experience. And cannot be compared with fractured systems. Imagine the situation that a over the air update broke completely and you have to rely om some esoteric tool by someone to backup the phone data so that if you are able to successfully bring the phone back up then you might be able to fix it back(it's not guaranteed to work for all).

+++ QFT

Welcome!

Where exactly is the data showing what the average "actual throughput" is?

I have a feeling there is no such data, and so the data listed is opinionated. If anything, the author should have listed what the theoretical throughput is, and allow users to go look for testimonials on the network themselves.

It's called slanting the news, and non-existent journalistic integrity, but that's getting about as American as apple pie these days, isn't it?

the chart highlights the iphone storage in green indicating that it is superior to the android phones, this ignores the fact that android phones, particularly on the high end all have card slots, 8gb in the phone with a 16 or 24 gig card == smoke the hell out of the iphone on storage.

deleted

Over the past few months, I've noticed this meme from some on this forum. I'll make it plain, stop trying to slander and show and prove "several factual errors". If you don't, I call FUD on you.

24 gig card?

Have you checked the price on 32 gig cards lately, by the way?

Apple should be green in this comparison unless you're trying to bend the truth.