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Mobile OSs Android is better - How I fell in love with Android and how you can too (blog post)
- Thread starter ChazUK
- Start date
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Replace iphone (ios) with android in your sentence. Oh and the bold is opinion.
of course, bold is opinion, YOUR opinion.
http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/10-reasons-android-beats-ios-7-6C10339298
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu1TjIcGEC0
http://blog.laptopmag.com/10-ways-android-beats-ios-7
All nerd crap and I see all these cool things but I don't see any mention of apps.
I wish I went for the nexus4 when I bought my iphone 5. I really miss android and I see more and more pro's going for android now.
I am convinced now that android is better than ios.
I am convinced now that android is better than ios.
I personally use both the iPhone 5 and GS4 (came from a Nexus 4 -> HTC One -> GS4).
Love both - there are things about iOS that are better and things about Android that are better. Neither is perfect and to say one OS is OBJECTIVELY better than the other is ludicrous.
Kudos to this Paul guy for figuring out what works for him. But I still go back to my iPhone after having used Android and like it.
Call me crazy, but Android just doesn't excite me like it seems to excite many people. Then again, both my smartphones are tools I use to do things I need to do. Perhaps then it's my use case that's to blame for the lack of difference I see in the two.
Anyways - continue the bickering
Love both - there are things about iOS that are better and things about Android that are better. Neither is perfect and to say one OS is OBJECTIVELY better than the other is ludicrous.
Kudos to this Paul guy for figuring out what works for him. But I still go back to my iPhone after having used Android and like it.
Call me crazy, but Android just doesn't excite me like it seems to excite many people. Then again, both my smartphones are tools I use to do things I need to do. Perhaps then it's my use case that's to blame for the lack of difference I see in the two.
Anyways - continue the bickering
Amen to that. Best of both worlds. I need my phone to be more functional for work, as it is with me all day on my person. I like the ipad for my at home on the couch consumption device because it is smooth, simple, and excellent at gaming and media.
BY NOAH KRAVITZ
THE MATURATION OF ANDROID
Funny thing happened while I wasnt reviewing smartphones on a daily basis: Android got really good.
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you chuckling at me. I hear you there on the left, with the, Weve been telling you this for years, Krav, but you were too busy burying your nose in your iPhone to hear us, you Apple Sheep! And I hear you over there on the right, with your, Sure, Noah. Werent you just talking about how great Windows Phone is? That didnt last long, now did it? Youll be back, black-on-slate iPhone 5 in hand.
And youre both right. For years I wanted nothing to do with Android. I said it was ugly. I said it wasnt intuitive enough. I said it made me deal with too many options and redundant menus when all I really wanted was an easy workflow for the half-dozen tasks I most often perform on my phone. More recently I put down my iPhone in favor of a Windows Phone 7 device. I lauded Microsofts bold, then-new, then-called Metro design language and Live Tiles novel compromise between iOS static home screen icons and Androids endless parade of visually inconsistent widgets.
But that was then, and this is now. And in between the two I gave up Windows Phone because it lacked a few things I really wanted on my phone, including video chat and a solid Sonos controller app. Then my iPhone 4′s Home button broke and I wasnt so keen to shell out to get it fixed. That was sometime around April of this year, and while in part I didnt want to spend a dime on any phone knowing that iPhone 5 was just a few months off, there was something else at play, too. Despite my being in a bit of a gadget-burnout lull, I was curious to see what was going on in the non-Apple corners of the mobile universe. Specifically, I wanted to get my hands back on that sexy new One S Android phone that HTC PR had teased me with earlier in the year.
One S isnt the flagship of HTCs 2012 lineup, but its sleek design and matte black finish really caught my attention. The matte black is a byproduct of the microarc oxidization process the Taiwanese company subjects the One S to during production, and it yields a surface thats stronger than steel, subtly textured, and cool in a stealthy kind of way. HTC PR was kind enough to lend me an unlocked One S, and once I popped my SIM into it, it was bye-bye iPhone. One S offered a larger display, better camera, and thinner/lighter body as compared to my iPhone (though to be fair, my iPhone 4 was already a generation old). The phone also featured HTCs Sense platform, a deep customization of stock Android that retains compatibility with Googles Play Store and its many apps, while making just about everything else on the device look nothing like a non-HTC droid.
My time with One S taught me two things:
1. I could get along just fine with an Android, and not iOS, device in my pocket all day.
2. As much as I adored the first generation iPhones industrial design, I abhored the 4/4S and that silly glass back panel. What a joy it was to wield a sleek, metal-backed phone for a change!
Fast forward a few months and a number of circumstances conspired to make me pick up the phone well, send a few IMs in search of some phones and tablets to review for FutureSmarter. The first three devices I borrowed? Samsungs Galaxy S3 and Note 2 phones and the Google Nexus 7 tablet (made by Asus). All three devices had already been on the market for several months, but I hadnt spent any significant time with any of them; none at all, really, save for a quick pawing of Nexus 7 on the Google I/O show floor.
A week with this power trio has also taught me a few things:
1. Android isnt Android. Android is Android and Sense (HTC) and TouchWiz (Samsung) and whatever Amazon, LG, and all the others are calling their customized, forked, reskinned versions of Googles source code.*
2. Android 4.2 has some serious potential. Project Butter and Google Now and all that stuff really works (most of the time). It remains to be seen if the novelty will wear off, but Cards are really cool and between Multiple Users and the latest implementation of Notifications, that $199 Nexus 7 Nvidia lent me has a few serious legs up on that $329 iPad mini thats selling like hotcakes.**
3. I was wrong to fear giant screens so long as theyre attached to thin, light bodies. That One S I carried for awhile has a 4.3″ display, which is already larger than the 4″ screen on the latest iPhone. But 4.3″ is now considered small or at least relatively compact. Nexus 7? 4.7″ Galaxy S3? 4.8″ HTCs new Droid DNA for Verizon? 5″ Note 2? Five point five inch display. 5.5″! Crikey! No wonder Samsung hired a Note 2*hand model*who goes 68″ and 250 lbs.
And theres one more thing. A few months with Android, coupled with continued use of my own iPad and a few minutes here and there fondling other peoples iPhone 5s, has taught me something about software design. And this is kind of shocking to me:
Android might just be leading the way right now when it comes to user experience on mobile devices. Once upon a time iOS was*it: Beautiful, simple,*intuitive* and leading-edge all at once. Now Im not so sure. iPhones are still the most intuitive smartphones on the planet for a first time user to pick up and get comfortable with, but the ease-of-use advantage over competitors aint what it once was.
But perhaps more importantly, the core Android 4 experience (in all its HTC, Samsung, et al flavors) keeps striking me as more useful than iOS 6. Much has been written about Apples so-called skeuomorphism problem, so Ill just mention that Im not a big fan of Game Centers design and leave it at that.
Dont get me wrong, there are plenty of iOS developers pushing the envelope on a daily basis. Paper by FiftyThree and LetterPress are two well-known examples of very good, very Apple-esque iOS design (read: Simple, Minimal, Elegant). But the core iOS 6 experience feels really stagnant to me right now, while Android feels fresher and, importantly, friendlier than ever before. Switching back and forth between the Android 4.2 and iOS 6 versions of apps like Sonos and Spotify, I find myself noticing Google-friendly features missing on the Apple versions. And a friend recently pointed out to me the growing adoption of Action Overflow buttons in iOS versions of popular apps (again, see LetterPress).
Like I said, Ive had my head under a virtual rock for the past few months, so maybe you read all of this elsewhere ages ago. And maybe youve already mentally composed a comment that takes my arguments apart point by point (If so, Dear Lord please post it below!) And like I said, just as the novelty of Windows Phone 7 wore off under the weight of an underdeveloped ecosystem, so too might the cool factor of Cards and Google Now. If it does, I can always switch back to iOS or give WinPhone 8 a serious whirl (I already am, actually More on that soon).
But until now, Im kinda geeked on messing about with Android. And I havent even rooted anything yet.
THE MATURATION OF ANDROID
Funny thing happened while I wasnt reviewing smartphones on a daily basis: Android got really good.
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you chuckling at me. I hear you there on the left, with the, Weve been telling you this for years, Krav, but you were too busy burying your nose in your iPhone to hear us, you Apple Sheep! And I hear you over there on the right, with your, Sure, Noah. Werent you just talking about how great Windows Phone is? That didnt last long, now did it? Youll be back, black-on-slate iPhone 5 in hand.
And youre both right. For years I wanted nothing to do with Android. I said it was ugly. I said it wasnt intuitive enough. I said it made me deal with too many options and redundant menus when all I really wanted was an easy workflow for the half-dozen tasks I most often perform on my phone. More recently I put down my iPhone in favor of a Windows Phone 7 device. I lauded Microsofts bold, then-new, then-called Metro design language and Live Tiles novel compromise between iOS static home screen icons and Androids endless parade of visually inconsistent widgets.
But that was then, and this is now. And in between the two I gave up Windows Phone because it lacked a few things I really wanted on my phone, including video chat and a solid Sonos controller app. Then my iPhone 4′s Home button broke and I wasnt so keen to shell out to get it fixed. That was sometime around April of this year, and while in part I didnt want to spend a dime on any phone knowing that iPhone 5 was just a few months off, there was something else at play, too. Despite my being in a bit of a gadget-burnout lull, I was curious to see what was going on in the non-Apple corners of the mobile universe. Specifically, I wanted to get my hands back on that sexy new One S Android phone that HTC PR had teased me with earlier in the year.
One S isnt the flagship of HTCs 2012 lineup, but its sleek design and matte black finish really caught my attention. The matte black is a byproduct of the microarc oxidization process the Taiwanese company subjects the One S to during production, and it yields a surface thats stronger than steel, subtly textured, and cool in a stealthy kind of way. HTC PR was kind enough to lend me an unlocked One S, and once I popped my SIM into it, it was bye-bye iPhone. One S offered a larger display, better camera, and thinner/lighter body as compared to my iPhone (though to be fair, my iPhone 4 was already a generation old). The phone also featured HTCs Sense platform, a deep customization of stock Android that retains compatibility with Googles Play Store and its many apps, while making just about everything else on the device look nothing like a non-HTC droid.
My time with One S taught me two things:
1. I could get along just fine with an Android, and not iOS, device in my pocket all day.
2. As much as I adored the first generation iPhones industrial design, I abhored the 4/4S and that silly glass back panel. What a joy it was to wield a sleek, metal-backed phone for a change!
Fast forward a few months and a number of circumstances conspired to make me pick up the phone well, send a few IMs in search of some phones and tablets to review for FutureSmarter. The first three devices I borrowed? Samsungs Galaxy S3 and Note 2 phones and the Google Nexus 7 tablet (made by Asus). All three devices had already been on the market for several months, but I hadnt spent any significant time with any of them; none at all, really, save for a quick pawing of Nexus 7 on the Google I/O show floor.
A week with this power trio has also taught me a few things:
1. Android isnt Android. Android is Android and Sense (HTC) and TouchWiz (Samsung) and whatever Amazon, LG, and all the others are calling their customized, forked, reskinned versions of Googles source code.*
2. Android 4.2 has some serious potential. Project Butter and Google Now and all that stuff really works (most of the time). It remains to be seen if the novelty will wear off, but Cards are really cool and between Multiple Users and the latest implementation of Notifications, that $199 Nexus 7 Nvidia lent me has a few serious legs up on that $329 iPad mini thats selling like hotcakes.**
3. I was wrong to fear giant screens so long as theyre attached to thin, light bodies. That One S I carried for awhile has a 4.3″ display, which is already larger than the 4″ screen on the latest iPhone. But 4.3″ is now considered small or at least relatively compact. Nexus 7? 4.7″ Galaxy S3? 4.8″ HTCs new Droid DNA for Verizon? 5″ Note 2? Five point five inch display. 5.5″! Crikey! No wonder Samsung hired a Note 2*hand model*who goes 68″ and 250 lbs.
And theres one more thing. A few months with Android, coupled with continued use of my own iPad and a few minutes here and there fondling other peoples iPhone 5s, has taught me something about software design. And this is kind of shocking to me:
Android might just be leading the way right now when it comes to user experience on mobile devices. Once upon a time iOS was*it: Beautiful, simple,*intuitive* and leading-edge all at once. Now Im not so sure. iPhones are still the most intuitive smartphones on the planet for a first time user to pick up and get comfortable with, but the ease-of-use advantage over competitors aint what it once was.
But perhaps more importantly, the core Android 4 experience (in all its HTC, Samsung, et al flavors) keeps striking me as more useful than iOS 6. Much has been written about Apples so-called skeuomorphism problem, so Ill just mention that Im not a big fan of Game Centers design and leave it at that.
Dont get me wrong, there are plenty of iOS developers pushing the envelope on a daily basis. Paper by FiftyThree and LetterPress are two well-known examples of very good, very Apple-esque iOS design (read: Simple, Minimal, Elegant). But the core iOS 6 experience feels really stagnant to me right now, while Android feels fresher and, importantly, friendlier than ever before. Switching back and forth between the Android 4.2 and iOS 6 versions of apps like Sonos and Spotify, I find myself noticing Google-friendly features missing on the Apple versions. And a friend recently pointed out to me the growing adoption of Action Overflow buttons in iOS versions of popular apps (again, see LetterPress).
Like I said, Ive had my head under a virtual rock for the past few months, so maybe you read all of this elsewhere ages ago. And maybe youve already mentally composed a comment that takes my arguments apart point by point (If so, Dear Lord please post it below!) And like I said, just as the novelty of Windows Phone 7 wore off under the weight of an underdeveloped ecosystem, so too might the cool factor of Cards and Google Now. If it does, I can always switch back to iOS or give WinPhone 8 a serious whirl (I already am, actually More on that soon).
But until now, Im kinda geeked on messing about with Android. And I havent even rooted anything yet.