Android Thread

[Surfer_Pretty_Rosa]

Cool, thanks.

Question for HTC Desire owners: Just how bad is the battery life? I've heard something like 6 hours! That won't even get me through the day...

[Fatal Exception]

Cool, thanks.

Question for HTC Desire owners: Just how bad is the battery life? I've heard something like 6 hours! That won't even get me through the day...

About 2 days with normal usage.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Knowing barely anything about either phone (although I have played around on friends' iPhones quite a bit), which of the two (HTC/iPhone) is the better purchase? Probably a lame question that's too broad to answer, but say you didn't have a phone today and you wanted one tomorrow, which would you go out and buy? Bias aside, if possible. Is it a matter of opinion, or is one phone simply better than the other?

[Donk]

Depends what you want really. You want closed standards, a walled garden, and not being able to do what you want with your phone, get the iPhone. Otherwise, get a Nexus One, Desire, or Samsung Galaxy S.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

A walled garden? Not being able to do what you want? Eh? Can you elaborate on that please?

[Fatal Exception]

A walled garden? Not being able to do what you want? Eh? Can you elaborate on that please?

Things you can't do on an iPhone that you can do on Android:
1) Run any type of App you want without Jailbreaking / Rooting. This includes apps not on the marketplace
2) Get apps that do ANYTHING. Apple will block apps for many reasons, including doing the same thing as theirs, containing adult content, just because they feel like it or any number of reasons. Android has emulators on the marketplace
3) Run Flash content. See the point above.
4) Sync audio / video with software that isn't iTunes. And use any format you want
5) Let you replace or customise pretty much everything if you want.
6) Upgrade your own damn flash memory for a fraction of the price.


etc...

To be honest though, most iPhone users don't care abve the above, they're too busy being distracted by pretty colours and flashing lights.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Okay, thanks. I was already leaning towards the HTC (that's the Android, right?), despite not knowing much about it. Looks like I'll be picking one up hopefully in the next few months.

[Mogster]

A walled garden? Not being able to do what you want? Eh? Can you elaborate on that please?

That would be the "bias" you asked people to avoid.

Apple are certainly more restrictive over iOS than Google are with Android, but I can't say I've ever been stopped from doing anything I wanted with my 3GS, since iOS 4 finally allowed for multitasking at least. Apple don't allow for third party mp3 player apps for instance, but the built in iPod app is awesome. Similarly the software keyboard is probably the best of its type on any smartphone. Mobile Safari is a great web browser too, although it doesn't have Flash support obviously.

Personally I'm not a big fan of the Galaxy S, but both the Desire and the iPhone 4 are rather lovely. Choosing between them really comes down to whether you prefer iOS or Android, which isn't easy. If mobile gaming is really important to you, then the iPhone 4 is much better supported in this area, but Android has its widgets, built in free navigation software and Flash support. You also have to use iTunes if you go for an iPhone, which might be an issue if you happen to hate it.

Essentially though, both phones are awesome. I'd find it very hard to choose one over the other if I was buying a phone now, and Android's come a long way since this time last year. I can certainly see myself switching to an Android phone next year, unless the iPhone 5 turns out to be something really special.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Thanks Mog, that's pretty much made up my mind for the Desire. Now I just need to get a job .

[Mogster]

Things you can't do on an iPhone that you can do on Android:
1) Run any type of App you want without Jailbreaking / Rooting. This includes apps not on the marketplace

Quite true, although the iPhone App Store has loads more apps than the Android one to start with. Most Android users defend this by saying that most of the App Store apps are garbage anyway, which is also true, and both stores have pretty much everything most users could ask for. However, no amount of freedom will give Android users as much choice in quality gaming.

2) Get apps that do ANYTHING. Apple will block apps for many reasons, including doing the same thing as theirs, containing adult content, just because they feel like it or any number of reasons. Android has emulators on the marketplace

Also true, sort of, but like I said above they do at least do a good job with the apps they build into the OS. Safari, the iPod app and the iOS software keyboard are all superb, and while choice is obviously a good thing, I can't see anyone buying an iPhone and being disappointed with these.

3) Run Flash content. See the point above.

I have yet to run into a situation where I've actually needed this on my 3GS though. Again I don't think that having this is a bad thing by any means, but I don't see it as a big deal.

4) Sync audio / video with software that isn't iTunes. And use any format you want

This is a big deal though. I'm already pretty much committed to iTunes now thanks to my iPhone, but I wouldn't have had to have made the switch without it.

5) Let you replace or customise pretty much everything if you want.

I might be wrong here, but surely you have to root your phone before you can do this? I don't think you can just wipe off Sense from a Desire for instance. You might as well say you can replace or customise anything on an iPhone if you jailbreak.

6) Upgrade your own damn flash memory for a fraction of the price.

Internal ROM tends to be better for apps than an SD card though, and not all apps can be run from an SD card anyway. Even on an Android phone, I'd rather have more ROM than less, given the option. Again though, I'd be lying if I said an SD card slot on the iPhone wouldn't be welcome.

To be honest though, most iPhone users don't care abve the above, they're too busy being distracted by pretty colours and flashing lights.

And that's just silly. iOS is a pretty minimalist OS after all, and I'm sure Android's animated backgrounds are actually really useful.

[Fatal Exception]

I believe on 2.2 you can turn Sense off. You can also replace the whole home screen and app launcher if you really want to. You can replace the SMS app, the E-mail app, the music player (there are a few iPod clone ones) etc... Pretty much everything can be replaced.

I've not noticed SD card apps taking londer to load everything is almost instant on 2.2 Most of your space will be taken up with pictures, music and video though.

The widgets are the best thing about Android's UI.

[Lex-Man]

Has anyone pointed out that Oracle has sued Google over their use of Java and IP related stuff. Could be an interesting future for Android.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... id-sdk.ars

[Mogster]

I believe on 2.2 you can turn Sense off. You can also replace the whole home screen and app launcher if you really want to.

If true, that's awesome.

You can replace the SMS app, the E-mail app, the music player (there are a few iPod clone ones) etc... Pretty much everything can be replaced.

You can't delete the iPhone Mail app, but there are a number of alternatives on the App Store. I actually just use the Gmail web app for my Gmail account, and mBox Mail for my Hotmail one. There are a couple of third party web browsers available too, but they're both a bit naff. Ultimately though this is a matter of principle more than anything else. The iPhone has a very good music player, software keyboard and web browser built in, and the SMS app seems fine to me. I'd like there to be alternatives for the sake of competition, but I probably wouldn't use them.

I've not noticed SD card apps taking londer to load everything is almost instant on 2.2 Most of your space will be taken up with pictures, music and video though.

2.2 sped pretty much everything up, so I guess speed's probably not much of an issue any more. I've got a 16GB 3GS though, and only half of that's taken up by music. The rest is all apps, and I've had to go on a deleting spree recently to free up some space. Most of my big apps are games I don't play though.

The widgets are the best thing about Android's UI.

No arguments there. Apple really should add them to iOS when version 5 comes around.

[Fatal Exception]

Has anyone pointed out that Oracle has sued Google over their use of Java and IP related stuff. Could be an interesting future for Android.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... id-sdk.ars

Oracle are dicks, their patents (which they aquired by buying Sun) are so annoyingly generic. They sued MS and they settled out of court for a few billion. I imagine the same thing will happen. Then they will move onto the next sucker.

[Donk]

Has anyone pointed out that Oracle has sued Google over their use of Java and IP related stuff. Could be an interesting future for Android.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... id-sdk.ars

Either Google will win, or Google will settle. Oracle are dicks for strawberry floating over the Java and OpenSolaris communities however, and I have no sympathy for them.

[Fatal Exception]

I just installed Chrome to Phone. It's actually pretty useful

[TheTurnipKing]

Has anyone pointed out that Oracle has sued Google over their use of Java and IP related stuff. Could be an interesting future for Android.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... id-sdk.ars

The funny thing is, I don't think they're actually using "Java" as such. The language is very similar, but it doesn't compile into Java, and I don't believe it claims to either. In response to the complaints though, Google have introduced a C/C++ option into the toolchain, so the effects it should have on Android are negligable

I don't think Oracle has a terribly strong case.

[Grumpy David]

Similarly the software keyboard is probably the best of its type on any smartphone.

What's so great about the iPhone's keyboard (genuine question)? Android has the swiftkey app which besides being a really cool way to type a message is also a very fast method (I think it beat the text world record by 5 seconds) and clever (the predictive software gets better at predicting the correct words the more you use it, yes it is the start of Cybernet).

And you just know if Android didn't have flash support but iPhone did it would be seen as a big deal to Apple fans...

[Mogster]

Similarly the software keyboard is probably the best of its type on any smartphone.

What's so great about the iPhone's keyboard (genuine question)? Android has the swiftkey app which besides being a really cool way to type a message is also a very fast method (I think it beat the text world record by 5 seconds) and clever (the predictive software gets better at predicting the correct words the more you use it, yes it is the start of Cybernet).

And you just know if Android didn't have flash support but iPhone did it would be seen as a big deal to Apple fans...

I was thinking of Swype just after I wrote that.

I haven't had a chance to try Sype, but I love the iPhone's keyboard, and it seems to be pretty highly regarded as "traditional" touch keyboards go. The Sense keyboard is pretty nice too mind, but I don't find it quite as intuitive as the iOS one, although I guess I might think the opposite if I'd been using that as long as I have the iOS one. Either way, iOS has a very good software keyboard. It also has excellent predictive auto-correction, which in my experience has managed to decipher almost completely mistyped words into the words I was intending. Obviously it occasionally makes some bizarre mistakes too, but as it tells you what it thinks you mean in advance you can cancel the correction very quickly. Thanks to that and the keyboard itself, I can type on an iPhone almost as fast as I can type on a full PC keyboard.

As for the Flash thing, I don't doubt that there'd be Apple fans lauding it as the most important thing ever if things were the other way round. All I'm saying is that I personally haven't missed it on the iPhone, and I very much doubt I'd ever use it on an Android phone, except to simply try it out. There aren't any Flash heavy sites I frequent while on the move, and the video sites I use have seamless alternatives for iPhone viewing. I imagine I'd feel a bit differently about the lack of Flash on the iPad if I had one, but on a phone I see it as something nice to have, rather than something necessary.

[TheTurnipKing]

It'd be nice to have the option of Flash on iPhone, as it is an option on Android.

As for the keyboard, there's not much difference, but once again, its nice that android will let you use different software keyboards.

It really does boil down to a matter of choice, though it is perhaps telling that Androids default state is so close to iOS. Its a very solid setup.