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I'm sick to death of Android

zdnet.com

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Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#81

Post by BlackShirt »

nextparadigms wrote: post #17

One other thing, if Android/Google execs read this: for the love of God go ahead and admit that there is a need for tablet apps . It's the first step in solving the problem - admitting you have a problem. As long as you have the attitude that phone apps work "just as well" on tablets, developers will have the exact same attitude and will not care as much. It also "helps" that you don't really want to emphasize tablet…

> _So I don't know what you have to do, pay each developer, hold a $100 million contest for Android tablet apps, reject their apps if they don't also make a tablet version within 6 months - whatever_

One thing they can do is promote good apps, not the way they're currently doing it (e.g. Staff picks, Top developer), but with something like the Apple's approval system, but not to the extreme of "the app is either approved or denied". I was thinking more like the dev can pay a fee to get his app reviewed (UI, performance, ...etc) and when "approved", it gets a symbol (check mark, star, whatever) and put on a category of "approved" apps. This will probably encourage more devs to work more on their apps to get them promoted.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#82

Post by rbritton »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #36
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…

> 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?

There's sort of a naming scheme: http://blog.intercom.io/whats-in-a-name/

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#83

Post by gcb »

inoop wrote: post #47
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…

So what about WP7? Both as a user and as a developer I was completely frustrated with Android, so I went out and got myself a Lumia 800. Here in Europe you pay about $525 for this device (off contract), and the 710 and 610 are about $330 and $260 respectively. An HTC radar goes for $380.

valid point. i'm actually considering a WP phone recently.

i had to switch to android when nokia made me a sucker with the lousy E70 right before the N9, making me hate them so much to the point of never buying from them again.

now android just did the same with the lousy Nexus one. i simply can't see myself buying another android.

that leaves me with windows phone for now, mostly for the benefit of doubt they still have... IF we still care about phones in a while. big IF there. i strongly feel that phones as we use today will soon be the devices of the unwashed mases of late adopters

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#84

Post by frio »

nextparadigms wrote: post #17

One other thing, if Android/Google execs read this: for the love of God go ahead and admit that there is a need for tablet apps . It's the first step in solving the problem - admitting you have a problem. As long as you have the attitude that phone apps work "just as well" on tablets, developers will have the exact same attitude and will not care as much. It also "helps" that you don't really want to emphasize tablet…

I strongly agree. I've been averse to owning a tablet for a while; generally, I prefer to have a laptop: if I want to do work on it, I can. I've recently tried a different approach: use the laptop (/tablet, now) for all my entertainment needs, and my desktop for work (in order to encourage myself to do more/better work on my desktop).

So, to facilitate that, I grabbed a cheap HP TouchPad, and flashed the (admittedly still reasonably raw) CM9 ICS build onto it. ICS itself is pleasant: the notifications system is great, the multitasking is easily on par with WebOS, and the action bar is a good step forward. The screen wasn't so great, but I knew that going in; most of the "real" Android tablets have beautiful hardware.

The state of the apps, however, is shocking. Even Facebook and Twitter haven't bothered to build tablet apps. I believe Google is somewhat stuck between a rock and a hard place here, however, and it boils down to an argument I've often thought entirely facetious - fragmentation. While they introduced decent APIs in ICS for making apps that work well on both phones and tablets, the vast majority of phone hardware out there is still running Gingerbread or older. Meaning that developers can't use those new ICS APIs, because their apps will no longer run on most user's devices.

I don't know how Google can address that easily, but I'd wager it proves to be a significant impediment to those trying to target Android tablets: either they do the whole thing manually in Gingerbread, or fork their codebase into an ICS version, and a Gingerbread version. Neither is an overly pleasant solution.

(for the record, I ended up drooling over/buying an iPad 3. The apps are much better)

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#85

Post by gcb »

Osiris wrote: post #7

The main benefit of Android, in my opinion, is the large selection of hardware. I like hardware keyboards, for example, and so I at least have some choice if I want it (unlike Apple). However, that diversity in hardware is also the biggest problem with the platform. Handset manufacturers seem to look at a device as a "sell and forget" sort of item. They make it, sell it, and then move on to the next project. It's too…

i like hardware keyboards. the ONLY one you can buy today is from motorola locked to verizon... great device option i have.

when i first bought my dreadful nexus one, the only newly launched keyboard option i had was the backflip! a brick was faster. it was already announced to be relegated to 1.5 forever, and 1.6 was launched before it was out. or something like that. older keyboard availables, G1, too slow, no support. droid. slow, no memory, no GSM.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#86

Post by rogerbinns »

yason wrote: post #66

It's the transition period from cellphones to computers. A cellphone doesn't need updates, it's a hard-coded brick that's released once and then it works until it gets broken. A computer is a platform, mostly made out of software and the freshness of the software platform is a key part of its nature: we've used to updating our linux and windows boxes for fifteen years. Now, smartphones are still a bit in between. The…

> A cellphone doesn't need updates,

Note that security holes have been found in the dumber phones such as specially crafted SMS messages that cause grief.

In the case of a highly connected device that has a web browser (eg a "smartphone") there are guaranteed to be many security holes. That is the biggest problem with Android non-updates. It is bad enough being behind on functionality updates, but being vulnerable is even worse.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#87

Post by aw3c2 »

sukuriant wrote: post #24

Am I the only one that's happy with their Android phone? Sure, I wish I could get cyangen mod on my phone, but oh well that I can't. I prefer the experience far over iOS and others. I like being able to change various aspects of my phone without jail breaking it. I like the user experience vastly more than iPhone's, primarily because of that back button. And, even on my old Motorola Droid, I never saw a "your phone c…

I am extremely happy with mine. HTC Sense adds a lot to the experience and I am glad they were allowed to do this.

I do not get why people feel entitled to OS updates on their phones (apart from security fixes of course). If the OS right now is not good enough for you, then why buy a phone with it?

On the other hand, I chose an Android phone because then I was free to use ROMs, root, and control the phone as I like, eg block internet access, adblock, control permissions, install random apps from random websites (no piracy...).

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#88

Post by gcb »

martey wrote: post #14
Osiris wrote: post #7

The main benefit of Android, in my opinion, is the large selection of hardware. I like hardware keyboards, for example, and so I at least have some choice if I want it (unlike Apple). However, that diversity in hardware is also the biggest problem with the platform. Handset manufacturers seem to look at a device as a "sell and forget" sort of item. They make it, sell it, and then move on to the next project. It's too…

" Or perhaps I'm being naive and there's something else that's holding up updates other than technical issues with drivers/hardware compatibility. " In the United States at least, mobile firmware updates are subject to the approval of mobile carriers. Most phones that are released in both the United States and Europe are updated in the latter region before the former. American carriers are also a primary reason why m…

this delay also happens to unlocked, bought directly from google, developer phones.

but i agree with your points. just saying that there's probably a third issue as well.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#89

Post by bni »

inoop wrote: post #54
wladimir wrote: post #44

I'm sick of Android's permissions system. As you can't reject individual permissions it suffers from permission creep. In their first versions, applications tended to request only permissions they really need. Then every update they request more and more, usually wildly different from the purpose of the application. For example, Google Maps requires "Allows the application to call phone numbers without your intervent…

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.

Is this really how Android app sandboxing works?

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#90

Post by gcb »

CrazedGeek wrote: post #75
boxein wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (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...

that's a blatant lie. stop spreading it.

to install anything useful to your phone you have to root it. e.g. try installing tethering or VPN apps when your operator image denies it.

also, all processes that involve rooting/flashing will involve one step that you remove the firmware locks from the device, allowing a thief to peek at your data at will even if the phone is password protected.

*downvoters, also contribute to the discussion saying how you enable tethering on, say, a thunderbolt bought from at&t. thank you.

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