5 Reasons to (Still) Consider Android Over the iPhone, iOS 5 | PCWorld
pcworld.com/article/230168/5_reasons_to_still...Posted Jun 13, 2011, 5:42 PM UTC
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And also Ice Cream Sandwich coming soon^tm . IOS 6 is another year at least and they're already having to play catch up.
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Have you used the Android default email program? Email! Been done for years! At least K-9 makes it tolerable but even that is way more complicated than necessary.
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What? I set up my email account and it just works. I don't understand this complicated you're finding.
Did you know that if you set up an iPhone on a corporate mail account without SSL you have to let the setup program fail 3 times before its done? Once to get access to the manual setup and twice because it refuses to believe I don't want SSL.
At least iPhone is better than blackberry. I can't even select pop3 even if I wanted to because the imap server resolves first and it just defaults to it on blackberry OS.
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I didn't realize that the iPhone wasn't capable of setting custom default apps. It's something that seems so obvious.
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it doesn't hurt too much since the stock apps all work pretty well
still prefer android's system though, choice is good
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It's annoying if you want to use another browser. Even when rooted, the default browser hacks doesn't work 100% reliably.
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The controversy of hardware choice vs fragmentation is astounding. Personally I the prefer the more laptop oriented approach where each vendor is releasing all sorts of specs and you can pick and chose.
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I think it becomes an issue when fragmentation starts affecting apps compatibility. For instance, Netflix and Plants vs Zombies not working on every handset, due to different specs. Those kinds of issues start affecting the overall experience of Android.
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What's preventing developers from making apps compatible on every device? Is it just in the way Android works? I mean there's thousands of different types of PCs and PC setups out there and yet programs on the PC don't have problems working on nearly every different type of setup.
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Yes but every game released for the pc always has a minumum nvidia/ati gpu requirement. If you get a PC with an intel gpu, you cant play games. If you get a budget pc with only 2GB RAM, you'll barely be able to run any modern memory intensive programs.
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There's several levels of problem. First, there are different OS versions and the older OS versions don't support APIs that the newer ones do. However some of the new APIs are very useful (if not essential) for making good games. So as a developer you have to choose - better game or more compatibility? Then the next problem is that the devices are just different so there is a lot more testing to do. You can position text to look perfect on an 480x800 device and then find it overlaps something else vital on the screen on a 320x480 device. With good coding practices you can mostly avoid this but it takes time to learn and even then you end up with problems slipping through, so there is a lot more work and more testing. In the end it can be easier just to limit your game to a minimum resolution, ruling out a whole lot of phones. This is not even to speak of the different GPUs and other hardware on each phone. The final problem is that some devices are actually buggy. Even though in theory they support some function when you actually try to do it they fail. For example cameras are particularly problematic. So you can make the right calls to invoke the camera and get the picture back and test it on the devices you can but on a bunch of other devices that you weren't expecting it will fail or return the wrong kind of picture. This kind of problem is really hard to deal with because there's no way to anticipate it (you physically can't test on hundreds of different devices) and when users encounter it they will slam you in the comments and reviews.
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OS X doesn't work on AMD processors (not without a bunch of hacks anyway). The only reason everything works with Windows is because Windows has a ridiculously large market share. Almost 90%. If Android ever gets to that point (I'd say 60%+ would be sufficient) we should start seeing a lot more of that.
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.. Sort of like how newer iPhone apps won't really run on older iPhones.
It does suck that Netflix had those issues, but I'm just saying it's not an Android specific problem.
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But Plants vs Zombies, for instance, will run on any iPhone; it ran happily enough on the original one on release. And the original iPhone has lower specs than any Android device from a major manufacturer (which shouldn't be a great surprise, as it predates the launch of Android to the public). Spotty support for Plants vs Zombies is not simply a specs issue. Of course, for many games, it is, but not this one.
I would guess that the most likely reason for it having trouble on certain devices is simply that Popcap didn't see it as worthwhile testing on less-common devices.
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It ran like shit on my old iPhone 3g, honestly.
I think the problem is that Popcap is traditionally a Flash shop. They're used to writing apps with potentially very shaky standards, trusting the virtual environment to be very consistent. Any desktop or web developer can tell you there's "right" ways to do things to guarantee a program will work everywhere.
If you do things the "right" way, you have a lot less to worry about.
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I'd accuse hasty development with weak coding standards over fragmentation. The world seemed to do pretty damn well with hundreds of different types of PCs with dozens of different resolutions. I guarantee you android fragmentation can't be any worse than the render fragmentation that is the web-world.
I deal with that on a daily basis. Netflix, Popcap and co just want to have their cake (get into this rising new market) and eat it too (significantly lower cost of entry).
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Yet netflix works on windows 7 no matter whether it be a dell quad core with 1080p rez or an HP single core laptop with 800p rez.
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Meh, desktop is better than laptop. User serviceable parts and everything is standard sized. There are folks that custom build laptops, but they're not terrible popular. That's the way I want Android to become, though. Built with parts we pick and can assemble. That'd rule.
Anyway, to Apple's credit, their hardware does end up in Android typically (3GS -> OG Droid, 4 -> Galaxy S) and it does very well relative to others' hardware both in sales and performance, hence it's not like one can claim to be limited by using their hardware since it's demonstrably non-lacking. The fact that everything made for the platform rotates around running native code against that platform is what's responsible for the excellent frame-rate and graphical acuity in games, multiple-point-release-upgrade-per-year cycle, and lagless UI.
It's a tradeoff, really - not something one should find particularly "astounding" either way. It's just two different ways to get something done.
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Anyway, to Apple's credit, their hardware does end up in Android typically (3GS -> OG Droid, 4 -> Galaxy S)
While both of these were very similar in many ways, neither were the same thing. The Droid uses the OMAP3, while the iPhone 3GS uses a Samsung chip with the same ARM core and a faster GPU of the same series (535 vs 530). There was quite a bit of confusion about this at the time, driven by the belief that the OMAP3 was the only A8 user. The A4 in the iPhone 4 is almost the same thing as the Hummingbird in the Galaxy S, but has a slower GPU (535 vs 540). Neither the A4 nor the earlier Samsung chip (now sometimes referred to as an A3) were ever used in any other hardware, and indeed the only other user of the SGX535 seems to be Intel, for certain Atoms with integrated GPU.
The SoCs used in the original and 3G iPhone were entirely commodity and were used all over the place. The one used in the iPad 2 and apparently in the next iPhone also appears to be non-commodity, though Sony will be using something rather similar in the NGP.
The fact that everything made for the platform rotates around running native code against that platform is what's responsible for the UI snappiness, excellent frame-rate and graphical acuity in games, multiple-point-release-upgrade-per-year cycle, and lagless UI.
While you could possibly argue to an extent that native code is helpful in UI snappiness (poorly-implemented Android software can block the UI thread with garbage collection, for instance), Android games are generally written using native code, just like iPhone ones; many cross-platform games share the bulk of their code, with ObjC/UIKit or Dalvik/Android wrappers respectively only where required. Any OpenGL-using game will generally use it natively on both platforms, for instance.
Multiple releases per year is almost certainly down largely to Apple's control over the release channel; Google can't do that because it has no real way to force manufacturers or carriers to pass on releases, and it's not in those parties' short-term interests to do so.
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Good stuff, thanks!
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Well yeah since all the vendors one level up the supply chain are the same - intel, arm, qualcom - obviously the hardware will overlap.
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Choice is always bad, it is well known in Marketing that too much choice confuses the consumer and actually leads to fewer sales. Its the reason supermarkets limit the number brands on their shelves and electronic stores don't carry the same versions of products found in competing stores. This is likely one of the reasons Apple Macbooks sell so well.
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Umm, have you ever looked at a supermarket shelf? Counted how many varieties of margarine, yoghurt, cheese, anything else? Have you ever glanced out the window at the road and noticed all the different cars going past? I find it fascinating how far Apple has managed to propagate the choice == bad myth when there is so much evidence that overwhelmingly, people are different and want choice. Choice is certainly inconvenient if you are a technology superpower and you want to minimize your costs. But lack of choice is hardly a feature for the consumer.
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I don't have the time to find it, but there was an article right here on reddit that says the very opposite. Choice = bad for consumers.
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Choice without meaningful differentiation is bad - for example, you wouldn't catch a supermarket selling 10 different bananas, each with a spectrum of ethical growth criteria, and a variety of regions of origin. If you're going to sell two products, there needs to be a clear and meaningful choice for the consumer to make.
However, your entire argument is ridiculous. If all choice was bad, supermarkets wouldn't exist in the first place since you could get sufficient food to perform the functional role of nutrition from a local grocery store.
The important thing is to offer a consumer a choice between two, clearly differentiated products with the minimal number of complex trade offs (i.e. better screen or faster processor or faster internet?). With smartphones, this would ideally be in the form of the brand a user is loyal to, a simple hierarchy of product quality within each brand and maybe additional premium models with higher quality cameras or 3D displays.
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The upside of choice if done done right is that it captures a much more vast customer base. This is likely one of the reasons android is outselling apple.
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you guys are both looking at it wrong. It's not a matter of Apple vs. Android, or Macbooks vs. PC. These are all individual hardware vendors that compete against each other to get the sale. In many ways, someone like HTC is much more concerned with Samsung or Motorola, then they are with Apple.
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Yeah, those Apple Macbooks have really outsold Windows PCs.
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The best part of Android is the different price points. $25 a month for unlimited data, text, and 300 minutes? Yes please.
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Well, for the next couple months, at least. Once we're down to Verizon and AT&T, it'll go up.
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I wouldnt be pushing the voice commands argument too much..it aint all that. (not that any voice recognition system has ever lived up to expectations?)
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I find the voice recognition bundled with the FlexT9 keyboard is amazing.
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I find the ability to set default apparently to be huge, something android users may take for granted.
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Please, someone tell me: why is iMessages considered "unique"? How is it different from GTalk, e.g.?
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Fuck at&t fuck the RIAA?
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They missed one major one (in my opinion): Not locked into iTunes to manage your media.
This will most likely always be an issue with iDevices.
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Yes. When you connect it to the computer it essentially acts like a flash drive. You can put the music anywhere you want and have the media player look in that folder.
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I know! Revolutionary feature.
I still curse my iPhone 3G that I owned for a couple of months. When I wanted to manually add one podcast (yes one (1) file) from a computer that I wasn't synced with, it gave me the option to resync with this computer (thereby deleting everything on the phone) or cancelling.
I cancelled, wiped the phone, sold it on ebay for more than I paid for it, and bought an LG Optimus V on Virgin Mobile. I'm now paying less than I was, now have data and a much better phone.
I don't hate iPhones, I hate the limits Apple forces on them.
And you don't have to necessarily do it with a physical connection. There are multiple apps that allow you to do so wirelessly as well as some that you can just stream your music from your home computer to your Android device without having to store it on your microSD card.
You can also use something like DoubleTwist to get a managed library experience. Personally this is what I prefer. My files have all this wonderful meta-data that allow me to sync more intelligently than hunting through hundreds of folders and manually copying data back and forth. I especially like to sync just my recently added albums so I always have something new to listen to.