31–40 of 76 posts
Why does everyone think Droid is the only hope? Nokia's Maemo-based N900 looks promising as well. Their latest Symbian/series60 phones (e.g. E71, E75) are also pretty decent nowadays, although I would compare those to Blackberry rather than the iPhone.
I haven't tried the Pre myself, but if jwz's experiences aren't unique (most likely), it's really a shame. The specs don't look so bad- is it webOS dragging it down? It looks like Motorola's Droid is the best hope at this point to drive some innovatin' by competing at the level of the iPhone. Or is there another contender I've missed? Is the HTC Hero/G2 worth looking at?
Turns out they haven't, they've just got really low standards as to what's good enough to ship. Really sad, I was hoping they'd be able to offer some strong competition for Apple.
It's too bad, I thought the Pre's card metaphor, along with its pervasive notifications and multi-input open-API contact/message/lifestream datastore was the best hope yet for a great multitasking handheld. The Verizon Droid is the only hope for an iPhone competitor at this point. It looks like it fixes all the hardware issues with the previous devices: * shipping the latest virgin Google build — no carrier or manufa…
Oh come on. It's easy to piss on stuff that could be better, but Android is actually a fine platform to develop for, and plenty of applications are showing up. Sure, not as many as iPhone, yet, but there are some pretty cool ones out there. And it's not "the only hope" - there will be more Android phones out, and the whole thing will only continue to improve.
If I make an iPhone app, then it'll work for every person with an iPhone and every person with an iPod touch. The same's not true for Android, which is why developers are reporting failures with the applications they're designing for it.
I've never used Android, unfortunately—can't find people with the phone to irritate/mug—but I'd imagine it's good, and I like that Google's released an OS with some focus on being good, because cell phone companies showed in the last decade that they don't give a damn about good when left to their own devices. Where I don't have faith in it, though, is in its attempt to make a developer haven that the iPhone doesn't offer. It seems that there're integral problems to its developer experience that won't fix themselves easily.
Why does everyone think Droid is the only hope? Nokia's Maemo-based N900 looks promising as well. Their latest Symbian/series60 phones (e.g. E71, E75) are also pretty decent nowadays, although I would compare those to Blackberry rather than the iPhone.
N900 is a great platform, free as everyone is asking. The point is that is not for US because of the subsiding US people is looking to have. 700$ is the same price of an iPhone, the two are on the same league (more or less depending on the feature) but it seems that the marketing of 199$ + n hundreds $ in 2 years contract wins. The only reason I can imagine (not being in US) for this being reasonable is that there is…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh come on. It's easy to piss on stuff that could be better, but Android is actually a fine platform to develop for, and plenty of applications are showing up. Sure, not as many as iPhone, yet, but there are some pretty cool ones out there. And it's not "the only hope" - there will be more Android phones out, and the whole thing will only continue to improve.
Fake Steve Jobs illustrated the biggest Android problem: When your operating system is designed to be modified for each individual phone, and each phone runs a modified version of the system, then you can't reliably develop for it in the way you can for the iPhone. If I make an iPhone app, then it'll work for every person with an iPhone and every person with an iPod touch. The same's not true for Android, which is wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh come on. It's easy to piss on stuff that could be better, but Android is actually a fine platform to develop for, and plenty of applications are showing up. Sure, not as many as iPhone, yet, but there are some pretty cool ones out there. And it's not "the only hope" - there will be more Android phones out, and the whole thing will only continue to improve.
Fake Steve Jobs illustrated the biggest Android problem: When your operating system is designed to be modified for each individual phone, and each phone runs a modified version of the system, then you can't reliably develop for it in the way you can for the iPhone. If I make an iPhone app, then it'll work for every person with an iPhone and every person with an iPod touch. The same's not true for Android, which is wh…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
N900 is a great platform, free as everyone is asking. The point is that is not for US because of the subsiding US people is looking to have. 700$ is the same price of an iPhone, the two are on the same league (more or less depending on the feature) but it seems that the marketing of 199$ + n hundreds $ in 2 years contract wins. The only reason I can imagine (not being in US) for this being reasonable is that there is…
Yes, I agree totally that S60 as a programming platform is horrible. I hope Nokia has learned the lesson with Maemo. Because it's based on a Linux distribution which is not that far from your standard desktop Linux, maybe they just aren't able screw that up too badly. To Nokia's credit they are not the open software development freedom-haters that Apple and maybe Palm now too have become.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fake Steve Jobs illustrated the biggest Android problem: When your operating system is designed to be modified for each individual phone, and each phone runs a modified version of the system, then you can't reliably develop for it in the way you can for the iPhone. If I make an iPhone app, then it'll work for every person with an iPhone and every person with an iPod touch. The same's not true for Android, which is wh…
On the other hand, it shouldn't be too hard really. People have been developing desktop apps for myriad resolutions for years.
I shouldn't have to point out the level of build in the iPhone apps gallery. Those applications are gorgeous. Better than most PC apps, I'd argue, in their compactness and elegance. Developers have an edge on the iPhone because there's an established design standard, and there's an established screen size. So they can spend as long as they need fiddling to make their app perfect within those confines. On Android, that's not possible.
To use an unnecessary metaphor, iPhone apps are haiku and Android apps are open verse. On the one hand, it's nice not to have limits, but on the other, you find it's much easier to make something beautiful when you're given set restraints with which to riff on.
Absolutely agreed on the lag. My fiancee has the Pre and the experience has been going downhill from day 1, worse and worse each day. The lag is absolutely unbearable and one thing jwz forgot to mention is the shit battery life ( She just uses her work old blackberry now with like a 5 day battery life. It gets the job done. I can't agree on jwz's Android opinion based on some random baseless rumors. I have an Android…
The performance on this new one is better in every way:
2 Day battery life (up from 1/2 day)
Many cards run at once with much less lag
The slider actually feels solid