So someone campare OS's! Apple has a robust and predictable OS. But Android has flash and widgets and my HTC Incredible has never had an issue. The notifications are awesome on android but are there ways to make the iphone do something like that? So far what I have seen have not been impressive.
How about objective conversation like that. Like adults, not loyal fanboys who want their toy to win.
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.
I agree but I am not even considering that phone. It will never even be close android or apple. They are too late as the iphone is. Real techys know and non techys are realizing how good android is.
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.
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.)
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 ...).
original droid runs 2.2, supplied by an OTA update. it actually made things worse, but the chart is still dead wrong.
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.
Front facing cameras are available on Android devices on other US carriers, including Sprint's HTC EVO Shift 4G and Samsung Epic 4G.
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. :-)
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.
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.
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
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.
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... 13. Built in FM radio
14. I can replace the battery myself if needed
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...
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.
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).
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.
The maximum theoretical throughput listed in Wikipedia for anything is nowhere near close to actual throughput. So rather than listing the theoretical speeds that people don't actually see, it's reporting the speeds users commonly get. CDMA Rev A in most places in general conditions offers about 1Mbps throughput. Google it.
Similarly, while AT&T promises 7.2Mpbs, it doesn't really deliver that. The WiMAX numbers presented are not the theoretical max either, but rather the mean numbers reported by users. Saying CDMA offers the same speed at WiMAX would not be accurate or honest. Neither would be saying that AT&T's network is exactly 2X as fast as Verizon. Even if you think Wikipedia says it.
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.
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 ...).
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.
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.
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.
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 ding the OS for it because the buggy apps on Android are able to have a much bigger impact on performance and battery life due to the way the OS handles them (or fails to) depending on how the user exits (or thinks they did). In your hands or mine it is a minor problem, in my wifes or parents it can be a big deal.
FWIW, I think iOS has much better multitasking for a phone/pocket device because it allows what is useful and does kill what the user does not need. They could do even better with it. IMHO, when you hit the wake sleep button to turn off the screen, the phone should intelligently shut down processes that a non interacting user does not need, scale down the processor speed etc. That would go a long way to increasing battery life. Keep playing music and give me audio alerts etc. but no need to download new map data , the latest tweets, facebook updates etc. It can simply note that there is data to pull, and more efficiently pull it in one batch when the user turns the phone back on. Apple is part way there, Android could and should copy a lot of this from Apple and take it several steps further.
Android's management of memory and storage is barely out of the stone age IMHO. You can finally store apps beyond the base memory (that gave me nightmares of the old DOS 640k/himem BS!) but there are still issues. I do however expect that situation to improve fairly rapidly. On the flip side, Apple's refusal to let you access the file system without a jailbreak, and the inability to copy files on and off like a USB flash drive is pretty stupid and limiting. I am not sure they will ever give in.
Comments
12. Free turn by turn voice navigation
Not a pre-installed application, but MapQuest has voice turn-by-turn navigation and is free.
So someone campare OS's! Apple has a robust and predictable OS. But Android has flash and widgets and my HTC Incredible has never had an issue. The notifications are awesome on android but are there ways to make the iphone do something like that? So far what I have seen have not been impressive.
How about objective conversation like that. Like adults, not loyal fanboys who want their toy to win.
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.
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
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.
I agree but I am not even considering that phone. It will never even be close android or apple. They are too late as the iphone is. Real techys know and non techys are realizing how good android is.
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.
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.)
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 ...).
original droid runs 2.2, supplied by an OTA update. it actually made things worse, but the chart is still dead wrong.
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.
Front facing cameras are available on Android devices on other US carriers, including Sprint's HTC EVO Shift 4G and Samsung Epic 4G.
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. :-)
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.
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.
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
OTA update is pretty slow here it takes 6-8 months to download it. I hope it's faster for you.
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
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... 13. Built in FM radio
14. I can replace the battery myself if needed
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...
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.
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).
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
+++ QFT
Welcome!
The maximum theoretical throughput listed in Wikipedia for anything is nowhere near close to actual throughput. So rather than listing the theoretical speeds that people don't actually see, it's reporting the speeds users commonly get. CDMA Rev A in most places in general conditions offers about 1Mbps throughput. Google it.
Similarly, while AT&T promises 7.2Mpbs, it doesn't really deliver that. The WiMAX numbers presented are not the theoretical max either, but rather the mean numbers reported by users. Saying CDMA offers the same speed at WiMAX would not be accurate or honest. Neither would be saying that AT&T's network is exactly 2X as fast as Verizon. Even if you think Wikipedia says it.
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?
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 ...).
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.
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.
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.
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 ding the OS for it because the buggy apps on Android are able to have a much bigger impact on performance and battery life due to the way the OS handles them (or fails to) depending on how the user exits (or thinks they did). In your hands or mine it is a minor problem, in my wifes or parents it can be a big deal.
FWIW, I think iOS has much better multitasking for a phone/pocket device because it allows what is useful and does kill what the user does not need. They could do even better with it. IMHO, when you hit the wake sleep button to turn off the screen, the phone should intelligently shut down processes that a non interacting user does not need, scale down the processor speed etc. That would go a long way to increasing battery life. Keep playing music and give me audio alerts etc. but no need to download new map data , the latest tweets, facebook updates etc. It can simply note that there is data to pull, and more efficiently pull it in one batch when the user turns the phone back on. Apple is part way there, Android could and should copy a lot of this from Apple and take it several steps further.
Android's management of memory and storage is barely out of the stone age IMHO. You can finally store apps beyond the base memory (that gave me nightmares of the old DOS 640k/himem BS!) but there are still issues. I do however expect that situation to improve fairly rapidly. On the flip side, Apple's refusal to let you access the file system without a jailbreak, and the inability to copy files on and off like a USB flash drive is pretty stupid and limiting. I am not sure they will ever give in.