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cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,156
I keep hearing this. But.... most android phones need to get rooted to install custom firmware, and is unsupported by the vendor.

If you're going to go down that path, why not just jailbreak your iphone and have nicer hardware?

What does that have to do with tinkering though? There is a lot to tinker with on stock Android.
 

gatortpk

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2003
372
41
Melbourne, FL
Its actually funny you mention this. I just had to do a simple power + home reset on my iPhone 4s cause the camera app kept crashing on its activation. I've had strange things like that happen to me with Android too. I don't really find one more stable then the other compared to vanilla Android. I can't speak for skinned android.

(I thought you were trying to say "I just had to do a simple power and home button reset (force shut down and restart) on my iPhone 4s to stop causing the camera app to crash when activating". I think you meant to say, "I just had to do a simple power and home button reset (force power off and restart) on my iPhone 4s because the camera app kept crashing on its activation.") :) (I need work on reading as if people are talking rather than typing)

Anyhow, did you try to do a regular/proper restart? (Hold the power button down, slide to power off, and then turn on?) If you did that, and it didn't fix the Camera App, then that would be really interesting. It would mean that cutting the power, rather than a proper shut down on iOS devices, causes some more work done on restart to fix any possible corruption?
 

TheBigKing

macrumors 65816
Jul 27, 2010
1,093
98
PR
just sold my nexus and get back a 4s 32gb damm many prob with the gnex wifi drops all time has extenden battery and never got 5 hours of screen time looking to get a note but i don't know if i will like it
 

gatortpk

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2003
372
41
Melbourne, FL
What does that have to do with tinkering though? There is a lot to tinker with on stock Android.

I find new ways to tinker with an iPhone everyday (almost everyday to be more accurate). Mostly from other people's iPhones, and seeing something I didn't know could be done on their phone, then I do the same if I like it on mine. (I don't know anyone with Jailbroken iPhones, but it's pretty easy to do, but I know a few people with rooted Androids, and it really bothers me when I get asked dozens of questions on how to do this. I've spent 40+ hours researching how to root several different Android based Phones, and they're all different!)
 

SurferMan

macrumors 65816
May 14, 2010
1,267
51
South FL
I never cared for Android before, but the newer phones changed my opinion. Always had iphones for years, and we still have a 3GS/4/4S ... but I bought my i777 GS2 in Nov and had no inkling to go back to iphone only, I love this phone and the way I have it setup right now and that's w/o flashing a custom Rom yet (keep meaning to lol). No issues, phone is fast, smooth, great battery life, and love the size with the 4.3" screen.
 

gatortpk

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2003
372
41
Melbourne, FL
just sold my nexus and get back a 4s 32gb damm many prob with the gnex wifi drops all time has extenden battery and never got 5 hours of screen time looking to get a note but i don't know if i will like it

What?

(I understood that you sold your Nexus, and got another iPhone 4S with 32GB of storage. I think you're saying you had problems with the Nexus and couldn't get 5 hours of operating time (backlight on) with an extended battery. What's a "gnex"? And I'm hopping you were talking about the Wifi dropping on the Nexus. And of course the iPhone doesn't have a extended battery (without an extra case), so I assume you were talking about the Nexus there. Also, are you saying you don't know if you'll like the iPhone 4S or getting a note, or looking at the screen? And on what device, depending on the answer to the last question?)

I figured out what a "gnex" is! You're talking about a Google Nexus, which does have an extended battery option! Though, I have no idea which "Google Nexus" you're talking about.
 

cynics

macrumors G4
Jan 8, 2012
11,959
2,156
(I thought you were trying to say "I just had to do a simple power and home button reset (force shut down and restart) on my iPhone 4s to stop causing the camera app to crash when activating". I think you meant to say, "I just had to do a simple power and home button reset (force power off and restart) on my iPhone 4s because the camera app kept crashing on its activation.") :) (I need work on reading as if people are talking rather than typing)

Anyhow, did you try to do a regular/proper restart? (Hold the power button down, slide to power off, and then turn on?) If you did that, and it didn't fix the Camera App, then that would be really interesting. It would mean that cutting the power, rather than a proper shut down on iOS devices, causes some more work done on restart to fix any possible corruption?

I didn't try that figured it would be just as easy to reset it....
 

4sFanatic

macrumors regular
Jan 26, 2012
172
0
I know a lot of people think the Samsung Galaxy Note is a rediculous size.



barry, if you can just remember that ridiculous does NOT have an "e" in it, you will never spell it wrong again.
It's not a typo, it's not knowing, and u are not knowing.

And yes, my jb 4s is great, but i want/need a bigger screen, I'll try a sgs3 when it comes out.
 

LoganT

macrumors 68020
Jan 9, 2007
2,382
134
I do, but only for the nexus ones.

If they put the nexus on AT&T, I might have some trouble deciding.
 

BiggAW

macrumors 68030
Jun 19, 2010
2,563
176
Connecticut
I keep hearing this. But.... most android phones need to get rooted to install custom firmware, and is unsupported by the vendor.

If you're going to go down that path, why not just jailbreak your iphone and have nicer hardware?

It's two different things. Its easier and safer to get root level access and customizability on the iPhone, but you can go way farther with Android, like cooking a custom theme in a the mod kitchen and installing highly customized ROMs.
 

TheBigKing

macrumors 65816
Jul 27, 2010
1,093
98
PR
What?

(I understood that you sold your Nexus, and got another iPhone 4S with 32GB of storage. I think you're saying you had problems with the Nexus and couldn't get 5 hours of operating time (backlight on) with an extended battery. What's a "gnex"? And I'm hopping you were talking about the Wifi dropping on the Nexus. And of course the iPhone doesn't have a extended battery (without an extra case), so I assume you were talking about the Nexus there. Also, are you saying you don't know if you'll like the iPhone 4S or getting a note, or looking at the screen? And on what device, depending on the answer to the last question?)

I figured out what a "gnex" is! You're talking about a Google Nexus, which does have an extended battery option! Though, I have no idea which "Google Nexus" you're talking about.

gnex = galaxy nexus i sold it and get a 4s the galaxy nexus give me problems bad wifi bad battery life i love the screen on the galaxy nexus but not good battery life i buy for it a samsung original battery 2000 mah and never get 5 hours on screen time try many kernels and roms and the same last week sold it and get a iphone 4s now i am looking to get a galaxy note
 

gatortpk

macrumors 6502
Nov 25, 2003
372
41
Melbourne, FL
gnex = galaxy nexus i sold it and get a 4s the galaxy nexus give me problems bad wifi bad battery life i love the screen on the galaxy nexus but not good battery life i buy for it a samsung original battery 2000 mah and never get 5 hours on screen time try many kernels and roms and the same last week sold it and get a iphone 4s now i am looking to get a galaxy note

Thanks for the clarification! I didn't even think of a "Galaxy Note" when you said note, I suppose because I didn't even think of "Galaxy Nexus" either. (2000 mah, that's 2000 mAh (right?), or 2 Ah, or 2000 mili-ampere-hour. "mah", sounded like meh, as in eh, or "don't care", or "whatever".)

It's actually hard to type that stuff because of the AutoCorrect that exists the same on Mac OS X Lion, as it does on smart phones! Though on the iPhone I find it indispensable because every other word I expect to get corrected, so I can type really fast on the screen, but I don't like it on a real keyboard because I type perfectly really fast anyway, and I have to reverse correct the intentional incorrectness of things like "mah" (until the second time, it AutoCorrected to "may" because the "h" and "y" are close together) . So this is why I have trouble reading posts sometimes, I don't expect old fashioned texting style of writing, and I never texted back when it was punching numbers.

You say you never get 5 hours of screen time no matter which kernels and ROMs you tried? I know of people who keep flashing their ROMs, but different kernels? (I know what those are, and their evolution since the 1970's that was used on all computers, electronic devices, etc.)

I guess people use kernels and ROMs interchangeably when it comes to Android based phones? I think all modern Android based phones used a variation of the Linux kernel version 2.6.3x. (Though Android version 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich finally uses Linus kernel version 3.0.1! Wow, Linux finally escaped version 2.6.x?)
 

cdcrowell

macrumors 6502
Jun 24, 2010
267
43
nashville,tn
I came from 2 Android phones (Hero and Evo 4G) so I can certainly say no. I have 30GB of music in my iTunes, and I absolutely love having all of that music with me in my pocket. I was not about to start managing music manually on an Android, and doubletwist did not work well as a substitute. Plus the music players on those devices left a lot to be desired. The phone also just "works". I was flashing new ROMs onto my Android device every other week, because the stock ROMs were crap, and they always had bugs that crashed my phone. :rolleyes: I didn't really care for the larger size of the phone. I wear XL gloves yet I couldn't comfortably navigate the phone with one hand.

I had 4G on the Evo but I never used it... having it on killed my battery life, and I almost always had WiFi available. 3G sufficed for the few times I didn't. One of my friends has a S2 that has LTE, and the speeds are impressive. He also has to carry his phone charger with him all the time ;)

this is my response exactly.never left home with out a charger .and i will never go back
 

Invincibilizer

macrumors 6502a
Aug 18, 2011
769
2
I have a HUGE want for an Android Phone.

Using my friend's Evo3D the other day showed me just how much iOS was lacking
 

MonkeyBrainz

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2012
194
0
I have a HUGE want for an Android Phone.

Using my friend's Evo3D the other day showed me just how much iOS was lacking

Until you start using it on a daily basis...

I'm not going back to the Android OS.

You should take a gander at the Android Marketplace. It's scary in there.

Also what, to you, is lacking from iOS? The only positive thing about Android to me is you can use it far more easily as a storage medium for files than the iPhone.
 

chrono1081

macrumors G3
Jan 26, 2008
8,725
5,202
Isla Nublar
I'm all too familiar with Android, and it makes me not want an Android phone at all.

They have potential (the base OS is pretty good, although I still prefer iOS), but the fragmentation is atrocious*. Not to mention the horrible reskinning jobs the OEM's do to it.

*Before anyone says "I don't see fragmentation" I want to say that the end user really won't know much about it. Its the developers that see it and have the headaches from it.
 

Invincibilizer

macrumors 6502a
Aug 18, 2011
769
2
Until you start using it on a daily basis...

I'm not going back to the Android OS.

You should take a gander at the Android Marketplace. It's scary in there.

Also what, to you, is lacking from iOS? The only positive thing about Android to me is you can use it far more easily as a storage medium for files than the iPhone.


Android Market is lacking but I have an iPod touch to experience iTunes app store apps. The whole interface of the Evo was amazing and the fact that it was on 4.0 makes me drool. iPhone has always had the slide to unlock and 4x4 icons, I just need something new, WP7 is too simple, tiles aren't going to cut it, 4.0 is the perfect OS for me.
 

FredTheDeadHead

macrumors member
Jul 2, 2011
41
0
SoCal
Most of my friends have iPhones, but a few are Fandroids.

Occasionally, I do see a feature or a app that make me want to look more closely at the Android stuff.

But almost always, very soon I hear gripes about short battery life, hangs and slow response times, flaky apps, various security holes, etc... Not all of the flaws apply to all Android phones. There also doesn't seem to be a single Android phone that bests the iPhone, overall. They best it by a feature or two, but then lack something else. I am still very, very happy with my iPhone.

The claim of Androids 'openness' is very subjective. It isn't as open as many Fandroids claim.

It does seem like Google is 'trying to get it together' and improve Android, but many of the phone makers are seriously not playing along.
 

rjohnstone

macrumors 68040
Dec 28, 2007
3,905
4,498
PHX, AZ.
*Before anyone says "I don't see fragmentation" I want to say that the end user really won't know much about it. Its the developers that see it and have the headaches from it.
I'll beg to differ on that statement.
There are 3 SDK's devs need to worry about.
2.3.x, 3.x and 4.x. Anything older is really a waste of time as that usr base is disappearing fast.
It's like asking an iOS dev to continue to write apps for 2.x.

Screen size/resolution is moot since Android apps can support multiple resolutions in one app if the dev chooses to do so.
It's the lazy devs that are limiting their own exposure.

Just like iOS, you have devices running or limited to one of the major OS versions.

iOS is just as "fragmented" in the OS sense. You still have 1st gen and 3G iPhones stuck on 3.x and other users who chose to remain on 4.x or are unaware that 5.x even exists.
Yes, they are out there. My father-in-law is but one example of this type of person. He bought an iPhone 3GS and he never updated it since the day he bought it... ever.
He simply used it for the phone, email and maps capabilities.
I've run into many people who are still running 4.x on their iPhone 4.
 

chrono1081

macrumors G3
Jan 26, 2008
8,725
5,202
Isla Nublar
I'll beg to differ on that statement.
There are 3 SDK's devs need to worry about.
2.3.x, 3.x and 4.x. Anything older is really a waste of time as that usr base is disappearing fast.
It's like asking an iOS dev to continue to write apps for 2.x.

Screen size/resolution is moot since Android apps can support multiple resolutions in one app if the dev chooses to do so.
It's the lazy devs that are limiting their own exposure.

Just like iOS, you have devices running or limited to one of the major OS versions.

iOS is just as "fragmented" in the OS sense. You still have 1st gen and 3G iPhones stuck on 3.x and other users who chose to remain on 4.x or are unaware that 5.x even exists.
Yes, they are out there. My father-in-law is but one example of this type of person. He bought an iPhone 3GS and he never updated it since the day he bought it... ever.
He simply used it for the phone, email and maps capabilities.
I've run into many people who are still running 4.x on their iPhone 4.

You must not make games.

Comparing Android to iOS versions doesn't really work. Apples hardware (to a certain extent) guarantees upgrades to the OS. Manufacturers of handsets running Android do not. This is one of the things Google is attempting to fix but hasn't yet.

There is also the enormous amounts of handsets Android runs on. For a standard app, this may not matter but for games, it matters a great deal since frame rate needs to remain above 30fps.

There is no real minimum hardware requirement for an OEM to adhere to for their phone to run Android (again, this is supposed to be addressed in the future according to Google itself) so crap phones can (and do) run Android but a game running on it could potentially run terrible.
 

Savor

Suspended
Jun 18, 2010
3,742
918
I'll beg to differ on that statement.
There are 3 SDK's devs need to worry about.
2.3.x, 3.x and 4.x. Anything older is really a waste of time as that usr base is disappearing fast.
It's like asking an iOS dev to continue to write apps for 2.x.

Screen size/resolution is moot since Android apps can support multiple resolutions in one app if the dev chooses to do so.
It's the lazy devs that are limiting their own exposure.

Just like iOS, you have devices running or limited to one of the major OS versions.

iOS is just as "fragmented" in the OS sense. You still have 1st gen and 3G iPhones stuck on 3.x and other users who chose to remain on 4.x or are unaware that 5.x even exists.
Yes, they are out there. My father-in-law is but one example of this type of person. He bought an iPhone 3GS and he never updated it since the day he bought it... ever.
He simply used it for the phone, email and maps capabilities.
I've run into many people who are still running 4.x on their iPhone 4.
That is by choice or simply being unaware. Ignorance is bliss. There is a difference between that and simply NOT being able to update at all.
 

JMies419

macrumors 6502
Aug 24, 2006
340
0
I have a HUGE want for an Android Phone.

Using my friend's Evo3D the other day showed me just how much iOS was lacking

The only thing iOS is lacking is all the force closes that are experienced on Android devices. I had a google nexus and could not get through the day with the keyboard trying to force close when sending a text. THE KEYBOARD. I am not even going to mention the different apps that I had installed, and the amazon app store...yikes.
 

MonkeyBrainz

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2012
194
0
The only thing iOS is lacking is all the force closes that are experienced on Android devices. I had a google nexus and could not get through the day with the keyboard trying to force close when sending a text. THE KEYBOARD. I am not even going to mention the different apps that I had installed, and the amazon app store...yikes.

I full-heartedly do not miss my keyboard crashing.
 
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