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An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

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Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#301

Post by drivebyacct2 »

taligent wrote: post #35
knightni wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree - widgets are enormously important to me, and were the deciding factor in my choosing an android phone. I'm quite forgetful, and I have a tendency to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others. Widgets allow me to display important information on my home screen that will be shown to me every time I look at the phone . This means that I can have a list of (for example) upcoming birthdays on my phone that…

Upcoming birthdays and other calendar events appear on my iPhone in the lock/notification screen so no different to Android in that respect. And as of iOS6 it automatically syncs birthdays with Facebook.

And those things only work in cases where Apple has made special agreements. It's going to look silly when Facebook and Twitter are no longer things and iOS rushed to integrate them instead of just opening an API to enable it.

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#302

Post by drivebyacct2 »

cheald wrote: post #263
ebiester wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I Just changed to Android yesterday. The first thing I missed was the polish of the iOS. I looked up how to switch applications and all I got was "10 best task switcher apps." I don't have time to evaluate three, much less ten task switcher apps! All I've been able to find is if you hold down the main button and then scroll to task manager, you can get to one. I like customization, but Apple's defaults were better fo…

You should just be able to hold ("long-press") the "home" button to pull up your task list. (I don't think that "double-click this button on a platform with no concept of double-clicking" counts as well conceived, personally.)

Of course it's not, it's this entitled iOS mentality of "I learned it and it makes sense now so it's intuitive and everything else isn't."

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#303

Post by vacri »

enraged_camel wrote: post #289
vacri wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say the cockpit couldn't have improvement, I said could you imagine running one with a smartphone interface. It's really not appropriate for the situation. Your other example seems to willfully ignore that features are stripped out of mobile OSs for the cause of simplicity, not because they're 'catching up'. Yes, for things that are solely within programs themselves you have a point, but we're talking about…

>>Yes, for things that are solely within programs themselves you have a point, but we're talking about the operating system here. I don't think the distinction really matters. In this context, you can think of an operating system as a "master app" that has escalated privileges for things such as root-level access to system functions and the hardware. >> I mean sure, your program might be the ants pants, but what happ…

Can you really not think of any situation where a person might want to enter data while being able to see another document? Not even a coder looking at a reference guide?

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#304

Post by drivebyacct2 »

robmcm wrote: post #96
w1ntermute wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate the bouncing scroll - yet another example of Apple's idiotic focus on skeuomorphism. I like to scroll up when I'm at the top of a list, or down when I'm at the bottom, while reading an article or whatever. If that bouncing scroll thing existed in Android, the page would move as a result. That's not a problem with the highlight.

We all know that Android would have this if it wasn't for patents. You can't scroll without the page moving... so I don't understand your point. Plus if you are scrolling slowly and reading as you go, having a litte bit of background show (part of the effect) is little difference from showing a flash of colour.

No. Not at all, the Android mechanism for end-of-list is literally much less jarring. It's a subtle fade up of color that clearly indicates that you're at the bottom without having the damn thing jump around the screen.

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#305

Post by orangecat »

robmcm wrote: post #169
w1ntermute wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still think the iPhone 4 & Yes, I can. It's complete bullshit. All the arguments for why the iPhone 4 form factor was the best are now being used to claim that the iPhone 5 is the best by a lot of the same people. That just goes to show that you can manipulate that argument to work with whatever screen size you want.

I don't think anyone is saying the iPhone 5 is easier to use in one hand than the iPhone 4. The argument that a smaller screen, allows for a smaller surface area, that is easier to navigate is obvious. 3.5 is easier to use than 4 which is easier than 5. People may say a 4 inch screen is better in general (because the forgive ergonomics for real estate), but not in ergonomics alone.

The argument that a smaller screen, allows for a smaller surface area, that is easier to navigate is obvious.

That's not obvious at all. Larger screens can allow for larger touch targets, and by showing more content they can reduce the need for "navigation" in the first place.

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#306

Post by CountSessine »

lallysingh wrote: post #290
slykat wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've switched between the two platforms a bit - I had an iphone 3G, a few android phones, and switched back to iOS with iPhone 5. I really like Android but there were a few deal killers: 1) Battery life - pretty much the reason I switched back to iPhone. It doesn't matter how great the software is - if I can't turn on the phone it's useless. I don't know how many times I would be racing to meet friends at night, hopi…

I've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi. I had an iPhone 3G. I despised the thing. It just made me wait all the time for everything I wanted to do. It was probably the slowest iPhone ever made (bad RAM decisions), but after I left, I'm happy never…

I've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi.

The fact that you still have to turn off GPS and wifi to get 3 days battery life with a 3500mAh battery sort of proves the original point.

Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want.

That's funny because in Canada, iTunes is the only realistic way to buy digital music on a smartphone. On Android I really missed Sound-hounding a song, and then clicking on the link to buy it in iTunes instantly.

My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.

I don't have 4G, but a friend has an iPhone 5 and even though he's always on 4G he gets great battery life. YMMV.

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#307

Post by yareally »

shinratdr wrote: post #286
yareally wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever change the theme from the default for the widget? The default is exceptionally bad and mimics the one from HTC Sense (also extremely ugly). Example of it not looking so ugly: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24904191/Screenshot_2012-03-04-21-5...

Not bad, but I still prefer the consistency Notification Centre widgets provide. Swiping down from the top and swiping to the side are pretty equivalent actions IMO.

Yeah, if you're comparing those two things, I'd agree it's about the same difficulty to access either. Normally, I just look at my lockscreen though if i want the weather (https://dl.dropbox.com/u/24904191/2013-01-05%2000.45.21.png). I'm using Cyanogen 10 in that screen shot before lockscreen widgets, so that wouldn't be found on stock Android, but I assume there's some sort of lockscreen widget for 4.2 that can do something similar.

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#308

Post by ghshephard »

nathanstitt wrote: post #297
slykat wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've switched between the two platforms a bit - I had an iphone 3G, a few android phones, and switched back to iOS with iPhone 5. I really like Android but there were a few deal killers: 1) Battery life - pretty much the reason I switched back to iPhone. It doesn't matter how great the software is - if I can't turn on the phone it's useless. I don't know how many times I would be racing to meet friends at night, hopi…

Yup, that's my list as well. Android users will tell you that battery life is not an issue anymore but that hasn't been my experience at all. I think that it's a case of you can get good battery life as long as you don't take full advantage of most of the Android features. In particular GPS based apps are horrible on Android, most of them seem to poll constantly. The article talks up the app data sharing, but I haven…

As a diehard iPhone User (Original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4s, 5) - I'd like to point out that the iPhone isn't without it's "GPS Battery sin" also. 90% of the time when my battery goes crashing to zero (while simultaneously heating up the chassis), it's some crappy (or even quality) Application sucking on the GPS in the background without me wanting it to. DarkSky (Weather App) has been a bad culprit recently, but there have been a host of them.

My single most desired feature of the iPhone that I know I will never, ever, get - is a list of how much power each app has used in the last 1/2/4/12/24 hours. I understand that data is available through xcode telemetry, but Having to search for purple icons throughout the environment, reboot your iPhone, switch into Airplane mode - just to get full control over your battery gets old after a while...

Re: An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4

#310

Post by chimeracoder »

bjustin wrote: post #158
thefreeman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, do you actively use the power control widget? Turning off wi-fi and GPS when you aren't using them can help a lot with battery life. Also, if you are using CyanogenMod (or many other custom builds) you can change the performance settings on your cpu governer, etc., to improve it further.

That's silly. I don't have to manually turn off wi-fi or GPS for my iPhone to last about two days, why should I have to on an Android phone? Automatic management would be fine, but having to think about it is not. Even using cell-towers-only coarse location to set them when I'm at home or work could be OK.

> I don't have to manually turn off wi-fi or GPS for my iPhone to last about two days, why should I have to on an Android phone?

Because an Android phone doesn't assume you have unlimited data and automatically turn Wifi off periodically, thereby downloading things over the cell network.

I've gotten burned this way on the iPhone; luckily I opted for the larger data plan.

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