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Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

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Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#131

Post by awj »

bad_user wrote: post #46
stcredzero wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm glad the author's mom found a smartphone she likes, but this isn't an Android problem. I'll be downvoted, but here goes: This shows the Linux heritage. All of Linux's problems on the desktop aren't really problems with Linux. It turns out that Android's problems aren't Android's either. Solved!

All of Linux's problems on the desktop aren't really problems with Linux. Errr, what?

He's referring to the finger pointing / blame shifting that seems to happen whenever someone starts criticizing desktop Linux. Any time this comes up people pop out of the woodwork to give the solutions, sometimes of staggering complexity, to the specific user experience problems cited.

The reality is that Linux-the-umbrella will be judged by any specific distro's user experience. People more familiar with the situation will know that in many cases bad experiences are caused by choices specific to distros or even the packages they bundle, but the true average user's perception is not that nuanced.

The same argument largely works for Android. In some ways worse because there is a certification process that allows you to use the Android name, but does very little to ensure someone didn't wreck the user experience with their customizations.

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#132

Post by hammock »

This is an open/closed debate, nothing more. The OP likes closed systems. "I’d love to see Google somehow mandate the stock Android experience on all phones." He is afraid to customized his stuff and just wants it to work out of the box. Well, that's what Apple is. Go do that. Android is a different model entirely, for a different segment of consumers than yourself.

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#133

Post by cft »

This is exactly the experience I had. I bought G1 the day it was released, then I bought Droid the day it was released. So yesterday I went to get Droid 3, and I did not buy it. Blur (Motorola's custom UI) makes the phone unusable. I absolutely need a phone with physical keyboard for ssh, so I am stuck. The bootloader is locked. I would actually PAY $50 extra to get a stock Android. Perhaps this is a business model idea for Motorola- charge extra for pure Android... I work for a company that has 10M+ users, and we have been making decisions whether focus on iOS or on Andorid app. Until recently, the thinking was that iOS will be reduced to 10% market share, much like Mac vs PC, so our long term focus should be Android. But recently, with the proliferation of custom bloatware on Android, and based on users' feedback, we are re-evaluating.

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#134

Post by jshen »

bcl wrote: post #89

I am a recent convert to Android from iOS and while I'm mostly happy with it I have to say that Android really is like a PC and iPhone is, well, like an Apple. Android takes alot more tweaking, settings aren't always easy to discover, apps run in the background without any obvious indication, etc. As for the battery, my Droid X2 drained it like crazy for the first day, but as I used it it got better. I don't know why…

Do you have gingerbread on your x2? If not, do you know when it will be released for your phone?

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#138

Post by anigbrowl »

So the problem here appears to be Verizon, not android. Also, the fact that the writer bought the phone in a store without trying it out first.

I lost my Nexus one recently* and when I got around to replacing it my wife also decided she wanted a smartphone instead of the Blackberry she had. So now I had to look into family line sharing plans etc. and thought I'd better go to the T-Mobile store, and that I might as well scope out the newer phones while I was at it. So even though I'm tech savvy and know Android phones very well, I spent a good 45 minutes asking questions and playing with the store models. At the end of all that I decided to just get another Nexus One for myself and the same model for Mrs Browl; 4g wasn't so important to me because I don't watch videos or do big downloads on my phone, likewise I didn't need beefy CPU because I don't want to play 3d games on such a tiny screen, and I decided to stick with a naked Android phone because I didn't want all the vendor crud. Also, you can get a Nexus One new in the box for $250 now and avoid a service contract.

* Which is part of why I've been a bit unsocial of late IRL, btw - I owe lunch to a few people!

When I got the phones I upgraded both to the latest version of Android but otherwise left my wife's phone unconfigured, and gave her only minimal 'tech support' - I was curious to see how she'd choose to customize it, and also to get a more objective look at how she'd react to Android and the Google ecosystem (she didn't have a gmail account prior to this). While she had quite different tastes from me in terms of how she organizes it and what sort of apps she likes, she's been entirely comfortable with it.

Her main complaint is the rather mediocre selection of apps in the Android marketplace (she likes apps more than I do); mine is the glitchiness in the stock browser. On the upside, our total monthly bill for both phones is under $100.

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#139

Post by r00fus »

ZoFreX wrote: post #69

Can we PLEASE stop repeating that "30-40%" return figure? Even the source article says it only applies to SOME Android phones, which isn't really that big of a surprise - some phones, like the Charge from the sounds of it, are genuinely crap. No decent source is claiming that Android phones are being returned en masse, however, in fact I have my own source on some information: Phones 4 U (high street store in the UK)…

The problem with this is that I can't honestly recommend my family members to go get Android phones... they can't afford legit iphones (they're all on family or prepaid) either.

I spent about 3-4 hours researching what Android phones were available to what carriers, and gave up with all the potential research I still had left to do on the dozen or so options.

The OHA (and ultimately Google) stand to blame here for not setting decent quality standards and caring for the Android brand... a lot of ground could be gained by having a meaningful certification process that takes into account actual usability.

Re: Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

#140

Post by cpeterso »

padrack wrote: post #2

I heard from a few friends at google that there are pretty intense discussions going on right now about what they can demand from their partners. They had to bend over backwards for the carriers and manufacturers at first because they were the new kid on a very crowded block. but now they are the market leader and should use that leverage to demand a certain standard for Android units.

> now they are the market leader and should use that leverage to demand a certain standard for Android units.

But there is little preventing a manufacturer or carrier from using the open-source (subset!) of Android to produce their own Android-compatible (but not "Google Experience") phones. The manufacturers and carriers actually have an incentive do so they can tout their "differentiated" phones.

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