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Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

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Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#21

> 1. Phone storage vs. SD card storage. Why? Because power users like to be able to move their data around as they wish. For the typical "mother," they aren't filling up the 8GB internal that's included. The 16GB SD card (or larger) is just gravy. > 2. The epic list of applications (ELOP) Not sure what you mean... all apps are installed and available in the app locker? In the market place app list, they are organized…

With respect to 1, 8GB is exceptionally generous for "internal" storage. Most phones, especially towards the low end, might not exceed 1GB or even 512MB.

Even phones with a large internal storage (say, the Nexus S) will only have a small amount partitioned for Android's "internal" storage. Of my 16GB internal storage, 15GB is treated as being an external SD card and 1GB as internal storage.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#22
post #9

The OP raises some valid points (agree with them or not). > 1. Phone storage vs. SD card storage As much as people much like expandable storage it is, by definition, more complicated. There are currently two simple models: 1. All internal (the Apple model); and 2. All external (the digital camera model, even though some do have up to 1-2GB of internal storage). Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're sudd…

> Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're suddenly asking your users to make decisions about things they probably don't care about or that they do care about in ways you can't predict. Will they want this app on internal or external storage? What about this music?

Except it's not. Android doesn't give the user any options, with one exception that almost nobody ever needs to worry about. See my comment at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2327424

>> 2. The epic list of applications (ELOP) >I find this a little strange too. If someone installs something, it appears at the top level in iOS. On Android, mainly due to manufacturer customization, you have less "home pages" for your apps (and they're generally filled with crud you need to remove). Making your newly downloaded app harder to find is a little odd.

This boggles my mind. What is so hard about pressing a button on home screen and then finding the application in a sorted list of icons? If it's something you'll be using often, you can put it directly on a homescreen, but otherwise, how is it hard to find? Just because it's different from iOS doesn't mean it's hard; it just isn't what you're used to.

Edit: Further on this note, iOS allows you to group app icons into subfolders on your home screen. How is that any easier than having a single sorted list for finding everything installed on your phone, other than the fact that you were the one to define those folders? How is that any different than being the one to define what's on your home screens?

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#23

> 1. Phone storage vs. SD card storage. Why? Because power users like to be able to move their data around as they wish. For the typical "mother," they aren't filling up the 8GB internal that's included. The 16GB SD card (or larger) is just gravy. > 2. The epic list of applications (ELOP) Not sure what you mean... all apps are installed and available in the app locker? In the market place app list, they are organized…

Okay, this is just nonsense. I'm a power user, more or less, and I have an HTC Incredible that I've been using for a few months. Here's my take: 1: When I plug in my phone to my computer, I have to mount two separate drives and then hunt for the file I'm looking for. Where's my music? Is it in "My Documents" or "MP3" on the phone storage? How about "data" or "documents" or "My Music" on the card? The whole thing is a…

1: It's funny you mention data and documents, the fact that Android even allows you get documents on your phone and then edit them in whatever app of your choice is quite a feat. I have a friend who is a Grad student/TA at a tech school. They all got iPads and he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to edit word documents on the thing. Took him 5 minutes on Android. For music, I use mostly cloud services like Pandora and Slacker, so not too familiar with how the music is stored.

2: You don't know where the app locker is? It's the main button on every home screen. Once you take 5 seconds and figure that out, you will never have that issue again. Not knowing the name is probably a moot problem that happens in a very infrequent cases. Getting it on one of the home screens has the same usability as the iPhone... hold and drag. I prefer to have clean home screens with the 20% of the apps I use 80% of the time. The other 80% are in the locker for the infrequent use.

3: Not sure, is that really the issue? Sure it would be nice, I agree. But to discount an OS cause you have to drag an app onto a home screen of your choice?

4: I have used Android (Droid X) for about 8 months now. I'm not consistently switching phones, so I learned my phone in a day and I was set. When I use a friends phone like a Galaxy or an Incredible, the main points of the interface are the same. Sure there may be a few different buttons here and there.. but it doesn't take more than a minute to figure out what they do.

5: It's a different line of thinking, for sure.

Like I mentioned once, its a moot argument. You don't like Android? Fine, get an iPhone. Some of us like the customizability of the OS. I like that different phone manufacturers have slightly different concepts of what makes the OS the most functional. Because at the end of the day each iteration will better future phone models as they learn what the market likes more. Instead of what one companies design team likes better.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#24
post #9

The OP raises some valid points (agree with them or not). > 1. Phone storage vs. SD card storage As much as people much like expandable storage it is, by definition, more complicated. There are currently two simple models: 1. All internal (the Apple model); and 2. All external (the digital camera model, even though some do have up to 1-2GB of internal storage). Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're sudd…

> Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're suddenly asking your users to make decisions about things they probably don't care about or that they do care about in ways you can't predict. Will they want this app on internal or external storage? What about this music? Except it's not. Android doesn't give the user any options, with one exception that almost nobody ever needs to worry about. See my comment at…

" ... finding the application in a sorted list of icons?"

1. The list can be very long. As far as I can tell, there's no scroll bar indicator or even a alphabet marker.

2. It's sorted by alphabet, not by install time, so it requires you remember the name of the application. If the name is different than in the market, you're really in trouble.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#25
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just a nit to pick: > Android has 4 buttons Android does not define the number of buttons. My Android phone has three buttons. The Motorola Xoom tablet running Honeycomb (Android 3.0) has 0 of those buttons. It has only power and volume, I believe.

And how is that not a worse problem?

Depends what you expect.

Copied from below: I like that different phone manufacturers have slightly different concepts of what makes the OS the most functional. Because at the end of the day each iteration will better future phone models as they learn what the market likes more. Instead of what one companies design team likes better.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#26
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just a nit to pick: > Android has 4 buttons Android does not define the number of buttons. My Android phone has three buttons. The Motorola Xoom tablet running Honeycomb (Android 3.0) has 0 of those buttons. It has only power and volume, I believe.

And how is that not a worse problem?

Flexibility in an OS to handle a variety of hardware is not a problem at all. In fact, it's a very good thing. Google is letting manufacturers with experience decide the best way to add buttons - or not add buttons - to their devices. Android devices without physical buttons will likely have software equivalents. To most customers, there isn't much difference between a hard and a soft button.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. I got the Optimus V - dirt cheap and only has 256 mb of internal memory. So, obviously this isn't representative of "modern" phones, but I'm not convinced that better hardware is a good solution to a potential design flaw. Case in point, this phone recently went on sale at Best Buy and Target and has been sold out in every store in my city. There's a lot of new Android users that will be dealing with this pr…

Wow. I didn't know they made any with that little internal memory. Get the app "app2sd," get a 32gb SD card for ~$30, roll around in the money you saved from not getting a 32GB iPhone. ;p But seriously, that is a flaw to license the OS out to manufacturers without making them abide to some level of minimum spec.

Yeah, I got that installed. Unfortunately, there's still quite a few apps that only install to the internal memory. I hope that will change over time.

" roll around in the money you saved from not getting a 32GB iPhone."

That's exactly what I'm doing! For all my aggravations, the phone is still great. I only paid $140 for it (contract free!) and the savings from the virgin mobile prepaid plan will pay for the phone shortly.

As for a minimum spec, I'm a little torn. If Google had imposed a minimum spec, then I wouldn't be having this problem - because I wouldn't have bought the phone and wouldn't be telling my friends what a great deal it was.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, this is just nonsense. I'm a power user, more or less, and I have an HTC Incredible that I've been using for a few months. Here's my take: 1: When I plug in my phone to my computer, I have to mount two separate drives and then hunt for the file I'm looking for. Where's my music? Is it in "My Documents" or "MP3" on the phone storage? How about "data" or "documents" or "My Music" on the card? The whole thing is a…

1: It's funny you mention data and documents, the fact that Android even allows you get documents on your phone and then edit them in whatever app of your choice is quite a feat. I have a friend who is a Grad student/TA at a tech school. They all got iPads and he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to edit word documents on the thing. Took him 5 minutes on Android. For music, I use mostly cloud services like…

I don't want an iPhone. I like my Android phone a lot, it's just a big pain in the ass sometimes, mostly due to a lack of attention to detail in the design.

You've sidestepped #1 entirely, so I'll leave that be.

#2, I have over 100 apps, most of which came with the phone and/or are components of other things. It's like your grandma's Windows desktop in there. It's not much of a pain to get things more usable on the home panes, it's just a UX headache that doesn't need to exist.

And as for inconsistency, the original article was talking about inconsistency among different apps, not phones/UIs.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1: It's funny you mention data and documents, the fact that Android even allows you get documents on your phone and then edit them in whatever app of your choice is quite a feat. I have a friend who is a Grad student/TA at a tech school. They all got iPads and he couldn't for the life of him figure out how to edit word documents on the thing. Took him 5 minutes on Android. For music, I use mostly cloud services like…

I don't want an iPhone. I like my Android phone a lot, it's just a big pain in the ass sometimes, mostly due to a lack of attention to detail in the design. You've sidestepped #1 entirely, so I'll leave that be. #2, I have over 100 apps, most of which came with the phone and/or are components of other things. It's like your grandma's Windows desktop in there. It's not much of a pain to get things more usable on the h…

I didn't "sidestep" anything. I specifically said I do not store music on my Android so I have no familiarity with it. It isn't sidestepping, its addressing my lack of familiarity with the matter. I mentioned the documents as an aside because its a good problem to have "I can't find my documents" vs "I can't even get documents on the damn thing."

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification on the inconsistency. A lot of people are talking about hardware inconsistency, so that is what I went with. For app inconsistency, I guess I don't use enough apps to notice a problem. The majority of the time I can open a brand new app and guess what will happen if I hit the menu button (a menu pops up), the home screen (I go to my android home), the back button (I go back in the interface), or the search button (if its an app that has some sort of searchability, then I can search). There are indeed cases where that doesnt work, but meh.

Re: Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for clarifying for me! Correct. All of the more recent "power" Android phones even tend to have 8GB internal. I wonder what phone OP was using... I just checked my Droid X: 1 GB (of 16 GB) used on SD card, 2 GB (of 8G B) used on the internal.

OP here. I got the Optimus V - dirt cheap and only has 256 mb of internal memory. So, obviously this isn't representative of "modern" phones, but I'm not convinced that better hardware is a good solution to a potential design flaw. Case in point, this phone recently went on sale at Best Buy and Target and has been sold out in every store in my city. There's a lot of new Android users that will be dealing with this pr…

What version of Android does it run? I have a similar budget phone (ZTE Blade) and this was an issue under 2.1 (I would get warnings about being low on space) but I haven't even thought about it since I went to 2.2 a while ago. I believe most larger apps install themselves automatically to the SD card now? Enough do it that it doesn't bother me anyway.

I actually have no idea how much internal space my phone has, which I take as evidence that it's not an issue for me. Google tells me it's got a shockingly small sounding 150MB of internal of memory.

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