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I'm sick to death of Android

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Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#71

Post by twelvechairs »

ilamont wrote: post #16

iOS (iPod and iPad2) and Android user (Samsung Exhibit II) here. The OP brings up many valid concerns, and asks, as a consumer, how much is one willing to tolerate this? My answer: A very long time, as long as Android phones and plans continue to smoke iPhone on price and provide an "almost iOS" experience. The Exhibit II has Android 2.3.5 installed. T-Mobile charges US$30 per month for 100 minutes of talk, unlimited…

I've found the android phone and apple tablet is a good combination.

The ipad is good for things I want comfort for (reading, web-browsing, etc.) and they are reasonably price competitive (assuming you get the wifi only version, not a plan), but the android phone is much more versitile (if sometimes annoying to use) and generally cheaper than a tie-in iphone plan.

Plus then you get to use applications for either OS.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#72

Post by boxein »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #40
makecheck wrote: post #5

I had an Android phone for roughly a year, after having a not-smart flip-phone for about 7 years! And even though I found real value in my old phone for 7 years, I tossed the Android for an iPhone 4S almost as soon as the new iPhone came out. When I first bought the Android phone (HTC Hero) I thought it was amazing. It really had some neat features, and there were things the iPhone couldn't do (like totally change th…

Two things: Say what you will about Apple, but they keep the crap off your phone. Carriers can't put a damn thing on there that you don't want. True, but they do a damn fine job of keeping things off: iPad 3G video downscaled, blocked over AT&T network: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipad-3g-video... AT&T and Apple Admit Deal to Block VoIP on iPhone: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/17066…

> (Granted, Google's complicit to the carrier's requests here too -- however, I'm still perfectly able to install anything I want on my phone.)

This is not a valid argument for the average Android user, since they would have to root their device first. Jailbreaking an iPhone would also allow you to install anything you like.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#73

Post by zmmmmm »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #20

Do phones really /need/ to be updated to new OS versions? I recently upgraded to a Galaxy Nexus, and while ICS is pretty nice, I honestly think I could have lived with Froyo or Gingerbread for another couple years. (as an aside, as of last month, a good 45% of desktop web users were on Windows XP, an OS version that hasn't received any major updates since 2008: http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-sh…

Yes, it's interesting to me how (as with so many things), Apple frames the debate in which other things are judged. iOS screen resolution way lower than other phones? Doesn't matter. Retina display arrives -> screen resolution is everything, major selling point! iOS has no built in voice recognition? Doesn't matter. Siri - major selling point, when is Google going to respond?! And the same with the OS updates; if Apple wasn't delivering updates so well, would we even have this question at all?

I have a feeling it is primarily a geek obsession and for all the ranting of geeks it isn't going to make much difference. Android will always have the latest and greatest and simultaneously the oldest and cruftiest stuff going around, and by and large consumers won't care because all of them play Angry Birds.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#74

Post by fpgeek »

wladimir wrote: post #56
inoop wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik, the way permissions work on Android is that each application is its own user, and each permission is a group. If you have a rooted device, you can simply log in and remove the user from the group to un-grant that permission. I doubt it will help you though, because it will most likely cause some function somewhere to throw an exception which will in turn cause the app to crash.

Thanks. I doubt it will help you though, because it will most likely cause some function somewhere to throw an exception which will in turn cause the app to crash. That's why I blame the Android platform and not just the apps. If Android made it clear from the start that permissions are optional, and that requests for them can be rejected, applications would be written to cope with that. It would also force developer…

You're absolutely right. Not having a distinction between required permissions (e.g. a music player is pretty useless without the permission to read the SD card) and optional ones (e.g. a Twitter app can attach your location to your tweets if you want it to, but it doesn't have to) is the biggest problem with Android's permissions system.

Ironically, it is more of a social problem than a technical one. If people were expected to gracefully handle the exceptions thrown when permissions are denied, we'd be 80% of the way there, I think.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#75

Post by CrazedGeek »

boxein wrote: post #72
CrazedGeek wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: Say what you will about Apple, but they keep the crap off your phone. Carriers can't put a damn thing on there that you don't want. True, but they do a damn fine job of keeping things off: iPad 3G video downscaled, blocked over AT&T network: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/ipad-3g-video... AT&T and Apple Admit Deal to Block VoIP on iPhone: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/17066…

> (Granted, Google's complicit to the carrier's requests here too -- however, I'm still perfectly able to install anything I want on my phone.) This is not a valid argument for the average Android user, since they would have to root their device first. Jailbreaking an iPhone would also allow you to install anything you like.

You don't have to root a device to install anything, you just have to enable "Unknown sources" (Android will prompt you to enable it when you try to install an APK). A non-negligible amount of people do this -- it's how the Amazon Appstore works on everything (save for the Kindle Fire): http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&ref=mas_gs...

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#76

Post by [deleted] »

fpgeek wrote: post #65
ugh wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t matter. They don’t care. It’s not the reason why they support old hardware. That’s a bullshit argument.

I think the biggest reason Apple still supports old hardware is they're still selling it (see: iPhone 3GS and now iPad 2). That being said, it is interesting how Apple's support of old hardware is the dual of Google's. Google does a bad job of getting OS updates to older hardware, but they do an impressively good job of supporting their applications on older hardware and OSes. Outside of the deliberate exception of t…

[deleted]

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#77

Post by fpgeek »

creamyhorror wrote: post #67
latch wrote: post #18

Smartphones are a commodity. I hate my Samsung Galaxy. It destroyed the Samsung and Android brands for me. When it's time for me to get a new phone, I'll definitely pick an alternative (probably an iPhone). Doesn't matter if there's a Galaxy 5 running Android 6 by then. Same thing played out with US vs Japanese car manufacturers. People have lasting memories when they feel that they spent money on an inferior product…

I hate my iPhone 3GS, because after my PC died I couldn't sync it any more without losing my media, couldn't update the OS because I had jailbroken it (never installed pirated apps either), and because the battery life is horrible on 3G - it heats up, drops a few percentage points in a few minutes, and I often have to power off the phone. I told myself I was running off to Android where I wouldn't have to deal with a…

I'd say there are two key things to pay attention to:

1. Does the device have an officially unlockable bootloader?

Many Android devices do (e.g. Nexus devices, most HTC devices, most Sony Ericsson phones (though that may change as they are absorbed into Sony, the Asus Transformer Prime, ...), some do not (most Motorola phones, Sony's Android tablets and Google TV devices, etc.) and then there are some in the middle (they're relatively easy to unlock, but the unlock isn't official - e.g. most Samsung and LG devices).

2. Is the device getting an official version of ICS?

As I and others have noted elsewhere in this thread, ICS is a technically demanding upgrade (particularly at the kernel and driver level). If your device has gotten or is getting official ICS, then any custom ICS ROMs will have an official kernel (with source) and a full set of third-party drivers to build on, which is big leg up on devices that don't have that.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#78

Post by damian2000 »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #59
damian2000 wrote: post #8

If you want an update just root it download the update. People who are wanting the latest greatest incremental release are usually a bit techie anyway, so its not that hard is it?

I'm pretty techie and I can't do it for my Galaxy Tab GT-P1000. At least 10 minuets of searching Google has failed to show me how.

Fair enough - I thought the ability was widely available - seems not. I've only owned one android device - a method of rooting it came out about a month after it was released (a Huawai 7" tablet)

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#79

Post by iscrewyou »

mark_integerdsv wrote: post #70

I think we have yet another example of someone just not getting it. The OP repeatedly laments the fate of people less technically minded than himself, how hideous the experience must be for them if someone do clued up is having such a terrible time... The fact is that those users to whom he is referring exist in a realm of blissful ignorance. I wonder what proportion Android users out there even know what ICS is. I'm…

You are right. I work in cellphones. When I say the words Ice Cream Sandwich, they laugh. Same goes for the previous versions of android. When they hold the Galaxy Nexus, they want it. Same goes with the iPhones. It's what the device does and how it looks let's an average customer decide, not the technical mumbo jumbo. And the price.

Leave this guy alone with his rant.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#80

Post by Someone »

chubot wrote: post #60
JoshTriplett wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iOS (iPod and iPad2) and Android user (Samsung Exhibit II) here. When I first read your post, I thought you intended this as a snarky remark about the ongoing lawsuits, until I looked it up and found that Samsung really does have a phone named the "Exhibit II". Why do phone manufacturers in particular have such poor taste in naming, and keep picking names with no obvious naming scheme or consistency?

I would be very curious to know the history of this phenomenon (product naming, and in particular electronic product naming). It seems like Sony electronics in the 80's followed this pattern. It was always like the Trinitron DX-3095 and the DX-2085. Cell phones also follow this throwaway name pattern. I guess there are brands like the RAZR and Droid, but the individual models have throwaway names. Where do those numb…

I do not see why you think "Exhibit II" on the one hand and "DX-3095" and the "DX-2085" follow the same naming pattern.

To me, the first looks like a marketing name, and the second like one that only makes sense to the manufacturer. I am assuming that the numbers do have meaning here.

Marketing names may or may not be intended to be short-lived. Sometimes, they just become short-lived, either because of how they behave in the market (see: Edsel), of internal politics (a new brand manager steps in; (s)he cannot claim the previous manager did a fine job, so something must change), or due to short-term profit hunting ("device named 'X' sells well! Let's make a low-budget one and sell even more!"-"But we would have to cut quality to make it cheaper"-"Yeah so?")

There also seems to be this notion "if consumers are confused, they will pick a brand at random. The more brands there are, the easier they get confused. I will make lots of brands, so that they will get confused, and pick a random brand. Since I have so many brands, chances are they will pick mine.". That approach leads to short-lived brand names.

As to that DX-3095 naming scheme: chances are that it was taken directly from the manufacturer's internal tracking system. The first digit might indicate the factory or the PCB version, or whatever, the second the quality of the tube, etc. That may or may not give useful information to customers.

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