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My Very Own Protocol Droid

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Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#41

Post by dagw »

jrajav wrote: post #33
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

> there's no file manager Is there one on Android?

I don't know if phones ship with one by default or not, but there are several in the app store. Personally I really like ES File Explorer, since it also lets me browse smb shares.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#42

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #26
myko wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I thought was awesome recently, had a business trip, Google Now knew about my flight information and popped up a notification telling me when to leave to be at the airport an hour early - even offered to navigate!

Any idea on how it knew? An entry you'd made in your calendar? Scanning your e-mail?

I believe it scans your gmail for things like flights and package deliveries.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#43

Post by MattSayar »

whichdan wrote: post #21

"With Android (and T-Mobile) I killed my contract. Now I pay just $30/month. For $30/month I have unlimited texts, unlimited data, free tethering, and 100 minutes of talk" Anyone else have experience doing this? My monthly bill for an iPhone with AT&T is $76.40 which includes 300MB of data, 1000 messages, and a whopping 450 minutes (I do have ~2700 rollover minutes though). I don't feel strongly about Android vs iPho…

I use this plan as well. I've never gone higher than 70 minutes, and the coverage and speed blow my previous Virgin Mobile service out of the water. I believe Virgin Mobile uses Sprint's towers.

I broke my Nexus 4 recently, and I'm waiting for a new one in the mail (with a case this time). I hope Google/LG isn't still having trouble meeting demand.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#44

Post by hdra »

jrajav wrote: post #33
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

> there's no file manager Is there one on Android?

Depend on your phone model. Mine came with free version of a file browser with some functions (batch files operation, etc) disabled, with IAP to unlock those functions.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#45

Post by Spoom »

thejetset wrote: post #36
jrajav wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there's no file manager Is there one on Android?

Generally not by default, but that can vary by manufacturer. You can just download one of the many available from the Play Store.

Anecdotally my Droid Razr came with one.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#46

Post by Irregardless »

jrajav wrote: post #33
Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

> there's no file manager Is there one on Android?

Default will depend on which phone you get, but there's no shortage of great free ones in the market (Astro and ES File Explorer, for example).

Also, Android phones work just like a USB drive if you want to drag and drop files then access them from another computer later. You can store anything you want and create your own folders, unlike the iPhone where you can only sync certain media types through iTunes. That's what I was referring to with the file manager thing, but I'm not sure how to say that succinctly...

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#47

Post by neya »

At first I thought this guy really built his own protocol or something. But upon reading, it seems like it's just a rant about his experience with Android.

Disclosure: I'm an Android fanboy (4 HTC phones! 1 iPhone)

The sad part is, this is a heavily opinionated article fully about his own experience and it doesn't actually explain why Android is better than iOS yet. For example, he talks about integration issues with his car as an argument over his iPhone, which is just his own opinion. It would have been really great if he had pitched as to why Android is REALLY better than the iPhone. He doesn't talk about the actual reasons why Android is superior -

1) Choice of various Filemanagers

2) Better Bluetooth connectivity between other phones

3) No need for the memory hogging iTunes garbage

4) Better navigation and integrated Maps support

5) Choices between browsers and functionality (Some browsers even enable Flash even if your handset doesnt support it!)

6) Excellent Notifications menu and ease of access to important stuff

7) Better App. management (Move to memory card, etc) and true multi-tasking, install Apps outside of Market

8) Freedom to do whatever you want with the phone - Install any ROM you like, Root it, connect it to other electronic peripherals, etc.

This is just a short list, and I'm not sure if some of the features are now available on iDevices, but the last time I checked, they weren't..

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#48

Post by M4v3R »

parfe wrote: post #7

> Twenty years of using Macs conditioned me to think, “well, that’s the Apple way.” It’s such a small price to pay for such a user-friendly device. Another Stockholm-syndrome patient cured! I recently took over a prototype project targeting the Mac. XCode is garbage. OS X itself actively works against improving your workflow. It's Apple's way or, well Apple's way. iOS is built to keep the user in a padded cell (aka W…

> XCode is garbage

Once in a while I see an argument like this and I wonder - does this guy really do mobile development? For the better part of last year I was into Android development, in Eclipse. If XCode is garbage, I don't know what Eclipse is. Resource-hogging, buggy monster with seven heads with shit on them, probably. I could list annoyances of Eclipse that got me for hours. On the other hand, in last month I jumped in to iOS development. And XCode was a breeze. Sure, it has its own gotchas, but many of them either have fixes or workarounds, and the start/build speed is just fantastic, compared to slow Eclipse and Android emulator.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#49

Post by lukeschlather »

Irregardless wrote: post #28

There's no doubt Apple is playing catch-up with Android these days. Siri was their only real innovation in the last 3 iPhones, and Google leapfrogged it within months. Meanwhile, Apple is still trying to implement a decent notification system, their auto-correct is garbage, there's no file manager, you can't set a default browser (or default anything, for that matter), there are no widgets, no app shortcuts, no custo…

Calling Siri innovation is revisionist history. Google had voice search nearly a year when Apple launched Siri. Also, Apple bought Siri, they didn't invent it.

Based on the interactions I've had with Siri/Google search (I have an Android) there haven't really been any innovations in the space since Google introduced voice search. It's useful, but imperfect.

Re: My Very Own Protocol Droid

#50

Post by jjsz »

A good tip for new Android users now that I feel obligated to evangelize Android a bit:

Get cyanogenmod [0] and cyandelta [1]. First off your get:

Android 4.2.2/3 and

the swipable lockscreen widgets,

the alternative top right swipe to access the notification toggles,

the new 360/panorama camera,

and updating is simple since cyandelta runs a scrip where it downloads a delta file of the next cyanogenmod and automagically updates it in 2 minutes with the push of one button-- no need to manually update the zip file.

Another great thing is Android ADB [2] and how quickly it is to get up and running on a new Android device / Android ROM. iOS' Cloud sync is slow when syncing contacts. I remember I was testing between Paranoid Android [3] and it's expandable notifications [4]/ hybrid mode [5], Omega[6] with it's standard TouchWiz two apps at once feature (multiview) [7] and all the other TouchWiz features (gestures and popup browser--which I didn't really use), and Super Nexus [8] with it's pure vanilla Android experience on my I9300 (Samsung Galaxy S3) before sticking to CM and Android will sync my Google Contacts and Gmail first and fast.

Google Now is great by being proactive like the author said but he forgot to mention sports tracking for those who like sports.

Other than pushing apps from the market to the phone while you're at your PC, the chrome to phone extension [9], and the share feature [10] he nailed this list.

EDIT: Forgot about setting apps to default. On paper Android seems better but it's still a matter of polished skuemorphism and flat UI / extra MB added from HTC Sense, BLUR or TouchWiz. The low file footprint on iOS compared to these added slow layers make up the difference so I understand if you don't want to switch.

[0] http://get.cm [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cyandelta&... [2] http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adb.html [3] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?s=bbf7229560d... [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=V... [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... [6] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1663656 [7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... [8] http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2076672 [9] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-chrome-to-p... & https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and... [10] http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/21699/android-killer-...

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