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Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

blog.louisgray.com

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Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#41

Post by QE2 »

credo wrote: post #35
nnutter wrote: post #4

Something along the lines of, "Choice only matters if your choice is one of the choices," applies. Apple wasn't offering him his choice so he bought an Android. Yet he still acknowledges that the iPhone 4 may be a better phone. His four main points are: openness, momentum, cloud, and capability. Android is definitely more open than iOS but Android's power depends on non-open software/services (Google). Android defini…

>>Android definitely has momentum but at their current rate it will still take years to match the iPhone's share of the market. If/when the iPhone is available on Verizon,T-Mobile and Sprint (besides AT&T), Android's momentum is going to drastically slow down. The revenue issue and Google/carrier policies that cause fragmentation (e.g. only 27.3% of Android owners could run the official Twitter app when it launched)…

>If/when the iPhone is available on Verizon,T-Mobile and Sprint (besides AT&T), Android's momentum is going to drastically slow down.

Good luck with that.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#42

Post by GBKS »

nnutter wrote: post #4

Something along the lines of, "Choice only matters if your choice is one of the choices," applies. Apple wasn't offering him his choice so he bought an Android. Yet he still acknowledges that the iPhone 4 may be a better phone. His four main points are: openness, momentum, cloud, and capability. Android is definitely more open than iOS but Android's power depends on non-open software/services (Google). Android defini…

I think it's great that some people are switching phones due to subjectively perceived advantages. "Openness" is one of those issues that gets brought up all the time and it's really more of a personal preference than a "hard feature" that makes one thing better than the other.

To me, this means that we have now two got options on the market and it's up to people to choose. I hated how one-sided the market was for a few years, where AT&T had an amazing phone that was so much better than everything else. At least now, there's a competitor that's gaining ground. Let's hope this is is good for everybody.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#43

Post by jsz0 »

ErrantX wrote: post #15

The one thing that still keeps me from Android is that the iPhone, in my experience (and I have used both extensively), is a better phone. As in for actual calls and texts :) I predominately use my phone for that (calls, texts, email, internet) and apps are only a minor benefit (I use them infrequently). At some time in the next 2 or 3 years I will change to an Android handset - the OS is improving no end and once th…

I agree though I can't really cite any exact examples besides the dialer software on my HTC Android phone is very clunky. Little things like putting the mute/speaker button stupidly close to the End Call button causes me a lot of grief. There's no easy way to conference in another call and juggling multiple calls with someone on hold is very clunky too. I usually just end up hanging up on people by accident.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#44

Post by joeyo »

ThomPete wrote: post #37
trjordan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: This is for my experience only: - Tethering. I fly frequently, so sitting in the airport with a free wifi connection is nice. - Navigation. Nav is just that much nicer than directions. - GVoice integration. I'm a big fan free texts and transcribed voicemails. - Cost. My total bill, including insurance, is $75/month, with 5 numbers of unlimited calls. I probably make 600-800 minutes worth of calls/month. I…

Tethering is on the iPhone.

Tethering on Android doesn't require an additional plan.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#45

Post by thwarted »

GBKS wrote: post #42
nnutter wrote: post #4

Something along the lines of, "Choice only matters if your choice is one of the choices," applies. Apple wasn't offering him his choice so he bought an Android. Yet he still acknowledges that the iPhone 4 may be a better phone. His four main points are: openness, momentum, cloud, and capability. Android is definitely more open than iOS but Android's power depends on non-open software/services (Google). Android defini…

I think it's great that some people are switching phones due to subjectively perceived advantages. "Openness" is one of those issues that gets brought up all the time and it's really more of a personal preference than a "hard feature" that makes one thing better than the other. To me, this means that we have now two got options on the market and it's up to people to choose. I hated how one-sided the market was for a…

"Openness" is one of those issues that gets brought up all the time and it's really more of a personal preference than a "hard feature" that makes one thing better than the other.

Most "features" are personal preference, that's how features get created/deployed, because someone somewhere decided it would be a good thing to build into the device.

Choosing based on openness is a risk management technique. While it's unlikely that Apple is going to go out of business or stop supporting the iPhone and many people change phone hardware every six months anyway, if something does happen the more open platform is one that has a greater chance of getting continued support for. On closed platforms, you often can't get continued support for love or money after its been EOL'ed.

A more realistic/pragmatic example is becoming dependent on a specific app and being able to install and use it (perhaps in an enterprise environment). If Apple decides to shutdown the app and not distribute it via iTunes, you're screwed (or you have to root the device, the ability or willingness to do so is also a risk management technique). With android, the device comes with the ability to install anything from anywhere, an app that no longer appears in the market is minor hiccup rather than insurmountable problem.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#46

Post by thwarted »

credo wrote: post #35
nnutter wrote: post #4

Something along the lines of, "Choice only matters if your choice is one of the choices," applies. Apple wasn't offering him his choice so he bought an Android. Yet he still acknowledges that the iPhone 4 may be a better phone. His four main points are: openness, momentum, cloud, and capability. Android is definitely more open than iOS but Android's power depends on non-open software/services (Google). Android defini…

>>Android definitely has momentum but at their current rate it will still take years to match the iPhone's share of the market. If/when the iPhone is available on Verizon,T-Mobile and Sprint (besides AT&T), Android's momentum is going to drastically slow down. The revenue issue and Google/carrier policies that cause fragmentation (e.g. only 27.3% of Android owners could run the official Twitter app when it launched)…

While this may be, history does not show that that's the case. Apple has always provided a more consistent environment to develop against than Microsoft did/could (because Apple controls the hardware), and there's always been both more developers and more software for Windows. One could play the quality card here, but all that matters is the quality of the apps that are used and that there is a demand for, not the average quality of all apps ever. No one cares if a Homer Simpson soundboard app is of low quality.

That the official twitter app couldn't run on 27.3% of Android owners most likely reflects more on the developers of the app than on the platform (or on the schedule the developers are working against). "Serious developers" for a platform ensure that their product sufficiently meets their target market (the "27.3% of android owners" number assumes that 100% of android owners even wanted to run the official twitter app, the way you've worded it). This is pretty straight forward to do with Android: acquire and test against all the popular devices out there. You can even run and compile against older versions of the SDK without issue. Sure, this is more work, but that's your target demographic and it's something that people have been doing for at least as long as Windows has been popular. It's not like twitter doesn't have the cash to do this.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#47

Post by lleger »

His fundamental argument is logically flawed on a very basic level. It's simply insane to think that an ecosystem that has been operating in a certain manner for its entire existence will suddenly change directions and begin operating in a massively different manner. It's not going to happen. Betting on a platform that may in the future become awesome instead of voting on a phone that you admittedly think might be the best phone on the market is as crazy as betting on a horse that looks like it has the potential to win instead of the horse that is winning. It just doesn't make any sense.

There are many legitimate reasons to switch from iPhone to Android. He hasn't convinced me this is one of them.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#48

Post by joeyo »

ThomPete wrote: post #13
barrkel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Count me in the opposite camp, then. I don't regret my Nexus One at all - it's far superior to iPhone for my use case.

In what perspective is it superior? I have a nexus one too I really fail to see what is better about it.

I typically use a Nexus one, but I recently had to use an iPhone 3G to do some car navigation. I have had a general preconceived notion that the iPhone has a superior UI to Android--probably due more to reading about it than to actually using the device--and I was shocked at how much clunkier the iPhone 3G felt as compared to the Nexus. Scrolling and zooming were slower, the GPS indicator of position felt significantly laggier than on the Nexus, and the screen was a lot less crisp and bright. And that's not even getting into the fact that the "car navigation" feature on Android is far superior than what the iPhone was capable of displaying. Everything felt so laggy that I rebooted the iPhone to give it a chance to reset itself to a good state (to no avail.)

Now obviously the Nexus one is about a year and a half newer than the iPhone 3G (July 11, 2008 vs January 5, 2010 according to Wikipedia), and it may be that the 3Gs is much more comparable, but the 3G was only discontinued in the past few months so there are a lot of them in the wild still. There is a perception that the iPhone is plain superior, period, but a lot of the iPhones actually in peoples's hands are really not.

Re: Why I Turned In My iPhone and Went Android

#50

Post by adbge »

trjordan wrote: post #24
ThomPete wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what perspective is it superior? I have a nexus one too I really fail to see what is better about it.

Disclaimer: This is for my experience only: - Tethering. I fly frequently, so sitting in the airport with a free wifi connection is nice. - Navigation. Nav is just that much nicer than directions. - GVoice integration. I'm a big fan free texts and transcribed voicemails. - Cost. My total bill, including insurance, is $75/month, with 5 numbers of unlimited calls. I probably make 600-800 minutes worth of calls/month. I…

> Webserver. I found a built-in webserver, so I can pull photos/etc. off my phone even if I don't have my USB. There are other ways to do this, but it suits me particularly well.

I had no idea this kind of functionality existed. As an iPhone owner, I'm envious.

I'm curious about your experience with Swype. I've read a little about it and I'm wondering: do you think Swype obsoletes the traditional advantage hardware keyboards have over software ones?

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