"I’ve never met an on-screen keyboard I didn’t hate. Android is no exception."
Swype. In beta now, but I got in on the beta, and man, does it make on-screen entry a lot better than any other on-screen keyboard I've used.
Switching to Android
31–40 of 62 posts
Re: Switching to Android
#32Am I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
I can't get over the fact that every single iPhone app icon has the exact same cookie cutter shine to it. It's already starting to look dated--very trendy for 2005.
Re: Switching to Android
#33"I’ve never met an on-screen keyboard I didn’t hate. Android is no exception." Swype. In beta now, but I got in on the beta, and man, does it make on-screen entry a lot better than any other on-screen keyboard I've used.
Very interesting... (http://www.swypeinc.com/)
Requires touch-typing ability, as you hide a large amount of the display as you swype, but easily stands to be much more efficient than repeated jabbing, but it doesn't prevent specific, accurate input. I quite hope this takes over, it's a great idea.
Re: Switching to Android
#34If I might go off on a tangent about one of his points I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately… “Speech recognition is actually useful. Big surprise here. I can tweet, search the web etc. with minor edits to my dictated text” For those who don’t know Android has a built in Voice Recognition API so any application can easily put use it for input while Apple has steadfastly refused to include this feature because “i…
My (admittedly shallow) knowledge on Android's speech recognition is that it's being done server side. In other words, I suspect the reason Apple's not doing native voice recognition on the iPhone is that they don't have the processing power (either on the phone or their servers) to do so.
Re: Switching to Android
#35Am I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
I would call that screenshot "tacky" rather than "beautiful". It's a jumble of mismatched UI elements.
Re: Switching to Android
#36Am I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
The iPhone UI looks dated compared to this? http://bit.ly/cdfQkM
Oh sweet mother of interface chaos. That screenshot doesn't even come close to the interface clutter I get on my Android when running a few apps. While backgrounding is nice, I wish developers would resist the urge of throwing an icon in that top dock-thingy for every single process running.
Re: Switching to Android
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
My compliant about the voice features in Android isn't just accuracy but also speed. It's just too slow. I can type much faster than it can do speech-to-text. If it does mess something up going back to edit on Android is a bit clunky (nothing like the magnifying glass feature on iPhone) which slows me down even more. Apple has their Voice Control feature and bought Siri so I would imagine they're working on something…
I agree, the voice speed is too slow, and it sends the data back to google for analysis each time, rather than doing it on the phone, which means if you are anywhere with less than stellar reception, or if you have limited data, it can become instantly useless. If you could download the maps for you local area, and do vocal direction searches on it, or search your phone without having to be connected to the internet,…
Google gestures sounds awful lot like iOS Spotlight - it too indexes apps, contacts, calendar and contents of some applications. Instead of full screen drawing it gives you the default keyboard. Swipe right on home screen to access it.
Re: Switching to Android
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
(Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application) I don't think this capability of android is recognized for the amount of power it provides both the developer and the user. It's often said that things like the dialer or contact list can be changed out if the user doesn't like the default one, but that level of integration isn't just at the app level, it's at all the system services. If Android did…
Actually, replacement Input Methods are more common than the ringtone things, in my experience. It's also an area where you see a fair amount of innovation taking place on Android -- there are IMEs like Better Keyboard or Smart Keyboard Pro (which I use personally) but there are also people experimenting with things like Swype. Android really lowers the bar for creative people developing new ways of interacting with…
Most definitely true.
I think things like ringtone customizers get slightly more mindshare, at least in the circles I've been following, because people are used to doing that on other phones -- it's rare, so far, to be able to customize input methods on most phone models, so that's not something people commonly look for. When I've told people they can get a different keyboard for Android, they've been surprised.
Re: Switching to Android
#39Am I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
Static bits of the Android UI do like pretty nice. The article hits on an extremely good point that I haven't heard enough (but strongly feel myself): Android's UI is just nowhere near as smooth as the iPhone's. "Clunky" is the exact right word. Scrolling on the iPhone is perfect - you can tell Jobs obsessed over making it zero-lag, perfectly smooth. That makes the whole UI -feel- better. And for a lot of users - me…
On Friday I discovered a simple thing that shows 'clunkiness' on the Android.
Basically... from the home screen drum your fingers across the screen. If you've drummed them from left to right it will interpret the multiple finger input as a single swipe from left to right and it will move the screen to the right. Drum from right to left and it will read that as a swipe to the left and will move the screen to the left.
This differs from the iPhone 3 & 4 (which I also have on my desk). On the iPhone a drum of fingers isn't interpreted as a swipe... only an actual continuous movement from one side to another would be considered a swipe. On the iPhone the first finger is counted as the input, and the others are ignored as noise. So whatever app was under the first finger of your drumming would open up.
This is a very minor thing, but it does show that the Android is misinterpreting and not handling touch input very well. The iPhone correctly determines that a drum is not a swipe, and the Android does not.
I don't have deep knowledge of how either the Android or iPhone handle gestures, so I can't comment on the internals.
As to whether it matters... well I'm using an Android and love it more than I did my iPhone. So I would argue it doesn't matter to me (I value cloud + choice above the polish). But I also wouldn't defend the Android against charges of clunkiness because it's pretty visible throughout the system.
Re: Switching to Android
#40Am I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
Is the weather/frost covering important UI elements a default/manufacturer/carrier feature or something that's installed?
It's part of HTCs Sense weather/clock widget. You can disable the snow/rain/sun lensflare effects in the settings for the widget.