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I'm sick to death of Android

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Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#121

Post by fpgeek »

gcb wrote: post #90
CrazedGeek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Someone has already covered tethering, so I'll just emphasize there are plenty of other useful things you can get by enabling "Unknown sources" without rooting: other app stores (Amazon [noted upthread], GetJar, MiKandi, ...) often with their own exclusives, software under development (Swype Beta, Mozilla's Aurora and Nightly, ...) and so on.

Separately, if you managed to buy a Thunderbolt from AT&T you have much bigger problems than getting tethering working. The Thunderbolt is a Verizon-specific CDMA/LTE phone that doesn't support any of AT&T's networks (AT&T's LTE is on a different band).

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#122

Post by rbarooah »

creamyhorror wrote: post #120
rbarooah wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of your bad experience was caused by 'Apple' and how much was because you jailbroke your device?

Most Apple, I guess? The jailbreaking prevented OS updates, but the inability to sync and battery life were most likely due to the device itself. In the first place, I want to be able to install programs from wherever I like (which was why I needed to jailbreak - to install an important app which had no official iOS release at the time), so having to jailbreak for that capability is still a drawback (or 'failing') of…

Not being able to update may well have limited you from getting battery related bug-fixes, and jailbreaking is notorious for allowing power-inefficient mods or apps to run - indeed that's the reason many people choose to do it.

I guess my point is that you knew in advance that the device wouldn't do what you wanted, so it's not really surprising that you didn't have a great experience and I think it's hard to blame that on Apple.

Personally I think that anyone who would need to Jailbreak an iPhone would have their needs better served with a good Android phone. In this regard they are simply aimed at different customers.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#123

Post by acuozzo »

rbarooah wrote: post #105
Osiris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't owned an iPhone, so I've kept myself content by keeping CyanogenMod ROMs on my phones just to keep them updated. I do think Apple's iron grip on certain parts of the OS is a problem though. For example, I really dislike the iOS virtual keyboard. All caps all the time? Really? I love that in Android there are dozens of replacement keyboards I can use if I want. Unfortunately, I don't think Apple will ever lo…

What do you mean by 'all caps all the time'?

> What do you mean by 'all caps all the time'?

I think (he|she)'s referring to the displayed case of the graphemes on the US iPhone's on-screen keyboard; that is, all letters are always displayed in upper-case, regardless of the state of the ``shift'' key.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#124

Post by rbarooah »

acuozzo wrote: post #123
rbarooah wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by 'all caps all the time'?

> What do you mean by 'all caps all the time'? I think (he|she)'s referring to the displayed case of the graphemes on the US iPhone's on-screen keyboard; that is, all letters are always displayed in upper-case, regardless of the state of the ``shift'' key.

Fair enough.

I guess the trade off is against having a massive visual change every time you tap shift that could draw your eye away from the cursor position in the middle of typing.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#125

Post by alexro »

twelvechairs wrote: post #71
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.

And, if I get it correctly, that way you can tether the iPad via the android where there is no wifi?

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#126

Post by [deleted] »

rbarooah wrote: post #105
Osiris wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't owned an iPhone, so I've kept myself content by keeping CyanogenMod ROMs on my phones just to keep them updated. I do think Apple's iron grip on certain parts of the OS is a problem though. For example, I really dislike the iOS virtual keyboard. All caps all the time? Really? I love that in Android there are dozens of replacement keyboards I can use if I want. Unfortunately, I don't think Apple will ever lo…

What do you mean by 'all caps all the time'?

[deleted]

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#127

Post by frio »

j_col wrote: post #107
frio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Given that webOS has some fantastic tablet apps, why on Earth remove it from the Touchpad and install ICS which has a lot less tablet apps? I see people doing this all of the time, and frankly it confuses me because they just by-pass the best feature of the Touchpad: webOS.

I should clarify that: I agree that WebOS is an amazing OS. I had a great time using it. I really liked the Enyo framework, and most of the apps were well optimised for tablet. Despite that, the app ecosystem as it stands is dying, and I wanted to see what things were like on the other side of the fence. Installing Android was straightforward (I'm going to develop a nervous tick with relation to the iPad in a few months, no doubt).

Note that you don't remove WebOS when you flash Android onto a Touchpad; it sets itself up to dualboot :).

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#128

Post by frio »

kalleboo wrote: post #118
frio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They actually have a compatibility package[1] to let apps use the new tablet layout classes on Android versions back to 1.6. Developers have no excuse. [1] http://developer.android.com/sdk/compatibility-library.html

I wasn't aware of that; thankyou for the link.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#129

Post by nextparadigms »

rogerbinns wrote: post #95
fpgeek wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll strongly second point 2. As far as I can tell, the biggest issue with ICS upgrades seems to be the amount and sheer complexity of the low-level changes (new GPU driver framework, move to 3.x kernel, new memory allocator, ...). I also think Google made this a lot worse by not being more open with ICS development. If Google had been more open with the kernel and drivers along the way, I think ICS upgrades could ha…

It took almost 12 months between the Gingerbread/2.3 release and my phone actually getting updated. It has a vanilla Google interface, manufactured by HTC and a small amount of crap/carrierware. They can't do the simple 2.2 to 2.3 upgrade in a reasonable amount of time where none of your reasons apply. Put in perspective - it took about 12 minutes after finding out about a new iOS release and having it on my device,…

Yes, for some phones it takes a lot longer or some never get an update. But I think the discussion here was about how fast can an ICS update come? Gingerbread updates and Froyo updates started rolling out about 2 months after they were released. It took 4 months for ICS to upgrade from 2.3, but about 2 months for Honeycomb tablets. Plus there's the whole issue that manufacturers wanted to renew their skins as well.

Re: I'm sick to death of Android

#130

Post by j_col »

frio wrote: post #127
j_col wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that webOS has some fantastic tablet apps, why on Earth remove it from the Touchpad and install ICS which has a lot less tablet apps? I see people doing this all of the time, and frankly it confuses me because they just by-pass the best feature of the Touchpad: webOS.

I should clarify that: I agree that WebOS is an amazing OS. I had a great time using it. I really liked the Enyo framework, and most of the apps were well optimised for tablet. Despite that, the app ecosystem as it stands is dying, and I wanted to see what things were like on the other side of the fence. Installing Android was straightforward (I'm going to develop a nervous tick with relation to the iPad in a few mon…

I know it's dual boot, but I also know a lot of people who just bought a cheep Touchpad to install Android, and never booted into webOS. Many never even gave it a chance, and hence are missing out on arguable a better tablet experience than ICS (it certainly has more tablet-optimized apps).

As for the webOS ecosystem dying, I'm willing to wait and see what happens with Open webOS later this year before I agree with you there. It's certainly in a lull with no new hardware on the way, but once Open webOS hits that issue is no longer relevant as I can install it on any existing hardware that supports Android.

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