From iPhone 5 to Note 2

[spinedoc77]

Because, given there are other ways to "save" a site for reading later (reading lists, bookmarks, simply copying the url and pasting into a note, or your browser history), having a ridiculous number of tabs open only uses up resources unnecessarily.

It's not an "advancement" thing....its simply a way to conserve resources and make the phone more efficient. As I said - many OTHER, very simple ways to save a site for reading later.

All the things you mention take an extra step or 3. I do this also, I open multiple tabs to be able to read them later on, it's much easier to just open a tab for later than to do any of the stuff you mention. It sounds like you are making excuses for Safari, which IMO sucks. But by the same token I LOVE iCab browser and it's only on iOS, it blows away any Android browser by far, unfortunately the dev doesn't have any plans to make it for Android.

As for conserving resources, if I can run more than 8 tabs without slowing down my phone then why do I need to conserve anything? Well, maybe iOS does, I'm certainly no stranger to how awful it is for using multiple tabs and graphics heavy webpages.

----------

\ Next you will tell me I could just use pen and paper, like I often had to do when the iPhone lacked copy and paste.

It's a defiency plain and simple.



Michael

Lol, you mean you don't want to "conserve resources" by using a pen and paper?!?!?

 

[streetfoldsfive]

If battery life is really important, and you use your phone a lot like I do, I would forget the Nexus 4. I started with it and was constantly stressing over running out of battery. I never do that with my Note 2--and I carry a spare battery to boot. I also thought the camera and back speaker volume were sub-par. Nothing on the N4 was "great" in my opinion. It was a good phone, mind you, but nothing that was stellar. Perhaps the build quality and look--but the back glass on mine cracked so that went out the window fast.

I actually like what Samsung has added to android. A lot of good stuff there. I am not running stock rom though: I run CleanROM ACE. It has all the benefits of Touchwiz but with a lot more that was not on my AT&T Note 2 (tethering, editing the notification toggles, etc.).

But if I didn't like it I could run a rom that was much more android generic.




Michael

Wanted to ditch the iphoen 5 for the stock android excperience that I have grown to love more and more by the day. However due to verizon being the devil I could not get a nexus 4 so opted for the Note II which I was always interested in. Now I loved everything about the phone including the S-pen and most of the touchwiz features. However, I hate the nature/Cartoon look of touchwiz. Nova Launcher, WidgetLocker, Jellybean gallery, jellybean Icon pack and keyboard pack have made my life complete You can even use Nova to hide bloat ware from your app tray. The look and feel and functionality of stock but with touchwiz features. Keep the note as it is better than the Nexus 4 in most aspects. If you need any assistance I would be glad to help

 

[bmac4]

Wanted to ditch the iphoen 5 for the stock android excperience that I have grown to love more and more by the day. However due to verizon being the devil I could not get a nexus 4 so opted for the Note II which I was always interested in. Now I loved everything about the phone including the S-pen and most of the touchwiz features. However, I hate the nature/Cartoon look of touchwiz. Nova Launcher, WidgetLocker, Jellybean gallery, jellybean Icon pack and keyboard pack have made my life complete You can even use Nova to hide bloat ware from your app tray. The look and feel and functionality of stock but with touchwiz features. Keep the note as it is better than the Nexus 4 in most aspects. If you need any assistance I would be glad to help

Yea I am in kind of the same boat. I love stock Android, but my note 2 is awesome. What messaging app are using? I am using Handcent, but I am not at all a fan of the way it looks. I like the features it offers, but the app just looks blurry and not HD, and none of the themes seem to help. I really really hate the stock messaging app though. I would love to have the stock android messaging app, but I don't think that is an option.

 

[streetfoldsfive]

Yea I am in kind of the same boat. I love stock Android, but my note 2 is awesome. What messaging app are using? I am using Handcent, but I am not at all a fan of the way it looks. I like the features it offers, but the app just looks blurry and not HD, and none of the themes seem to help. I really really hate the stock messaging app though. I would love to have the stock android messaging app, but I don't think that is an option.

Sadly I use the stock messaging app with the Stock android Jellybean keyboard. The messaging app is truely one of the flaws. Hopefully I get around to rooting it soon and flashing a Stock android ROM.

 

[bmac4]

Sadly I use the stock messaging app with the Stock android Jellybean keyboard. The messaging app is truely one of the flaws. Hopefully I get around to rooting it soon and flashing a Stock android ROM.

Yea that the stock one is just terrible.

Also have you figured out a way to have misspelled words underlined?

 

[macrem]

What is not to like?
[*]Absurd 8-tab limitation.

I never noticed, but it makes sense to save battery life.

Locked in as default browser meaning, once again, no choice. That alone is a negative.

This point is not about the browser itself

No way to get a desktop version of a site (unless the site provides that option). Many times I had to switch to another browser because the mobile site didn't allow what I needed to do. Thanks, Safari.

Because it is an inferior experience on a smartphone

Bookmark syncing that is not reliable across all my Apple devices. It also duplicates bookmarks randomly. Fail. No such issues with Chrome.

I'm syncing across two iOS devices & three desktops & have never experienced a single issue

No faster than Chrome on my Note 2... slower than Dolphin. On my macs Safari is slower than Chrome and I choose to use Chrome. Ergo, not being able to make Safari the default browser on iOS is a HUGE fail.

I also choose Chrome on other devices, but on Macs/iOS, Safari is more feature rich than Chrome & overall faster. Chrome & Safari have the same Webkit rendering engine. In practice, I don't see any performance differences to write home about, but the Safari UI looks nicer (IMO) & there are more interesting features.

Safari on iOS is essentially married to iOS. Updates to Safari come with iOS updates. WTF?? Fail.

That way, you get optimal performance & integration with the OS & Apple could have a point release mainly for Safari, which all supported iOS users can get immediately. I don't see a problem.

Size. Even on a "huge" iPhone 5 browsing with Safari is like browsing on a watch. Fail.

Safari has full screen browsing, you can't get any bigger than that.

I could go on, but that is off the top of my head.

You mentioned screen size in a browser comparison, etc. so it seems like you're already grasping for straws with this list.

Doesn't matter anyway since the average iOS fan thinks if Apple forces it on you it must be "best." Till Apple changes what is "best" (maps anyone?).

I use various Android, Linux & Apple devices & choose the best tool for the job. For instance, when I need a webapp server, I choose Linux. Desktop, I also like Linux but overall prefer OS X. If tomorrow there is a really cool pc laptop that's better, I'll get it. My first smartphone was an Android device & as mentioned I have a Nexus 7. I mainly program in Java (have not tried Objective C) so maybe I should promote Android foremost, but I'm just being honest.

 

[mib1800]

I
Safari has full screen browsing, you can't get any bigger than that.

You mentioned screen size in a browser comparison, etc. so it seems like you're already grasping for straws with this list.

imo, the BIGGEST fail of iOS safari is that there is no text reflow/font size setting.

In the Galaxy browser (not sure about aosp), you can set a font size that matches your reading comfort. I just double-tap and it will zoom in and reflow text to fit the width of the screen using your specified font size. This makes surfing the web so much better. Simple and elegant.

on the iOS safari, when you double-tap to zoom, it just fits the column without adjustment. Most of the time the text is too small to read comfortably. Then you have to finger pinch to resize which causes the need to side-scroll to read. This is a complete fail in user experience.

 

[macrem]

imo, the BIGGEST fail of iOS safari is that there is no text reflow/font size setting.

In the Galaxy browser (not sure about aosp), you can set a font size that matches your reading comfort. I just double-tap and it will zoom in and reflow text to fit the width of the screen using your specified font size. This makes surfing the web so much better. Simple and elegant.

on the iOS safari, when you double-tap to zoom, it just fits the column without adjustment. Most of the time the text is too small to read comfortably. Then you have to finger pinch to resize which causes the need to side-scroll to read. This is a complete fail in user experience.

Thanks, TIL ;-) Just installed Opera on my Nexus 7 to try (it's not reflowing with Chrome either) & it's indeed a nice feature.

Edit: not sure how it is on Galaxy browser. On Opera after using it a little more I am finding that it's jerky & there are bugs. For instance, if I zoomed in, then zoom out a little, the text "unflows" or the table does not shrink leaving an empty space. I think that'd be a no-go for Safari on iOS until better polished. If working smoothly, IMO it would be a nice feature!

 

[Oohara]

I never noticed, but it makes sense to save battery life.

Not cool. Please don't deny me a useful function in order to save battery life. I can babysit my own battery if needed, thanks.

In any case, the way tabs work in general on Chrome is the biggest reason why I choose this browser over Safari. I love being able to do a Google search, then open several search results on new tabs to compare them, and be able to swipe between them without that extra tap to come out to the multi page view on Safari. Also I prefer the all-tabs view on Chrome, which lets you see all of them at once and be able to close those you want with a side-swipe.

Because it is an inferior experience on a smartphone

This is far from always true - because so many mobile versions of sites are terrible. For instance one of the major newspapers where I live has a mobile version that is so badly designed that you can't help but constantly open the wrong articles, and besides the mobile version has only about half the content available. I would never use this site on my iP4S with Safari, but with Chrome it's at least doable because I can choose the desktop version.

Also, on the Note 2 and ~5 inch screen phones in general, desktop versions of sites are mostly fine to use as they are. In fact on the Note 2, mobile versions often become very awkward due to the large screen.

Safari has full screen browsing, you can't get any bigger than that.

This I'll give safari, but on ~5 inch screen phones I really don't need full screen browsing because that nav banner takes up so little of the screen anyway.

 

[Tinmania]

I never noticed, but it makes sense to save battery life.

Sure. Meanwhile my unused iPhone is sitting here completely turned off. Not using any battery power. At all. Yet, amazingly, every tab will be there when I turn it back on. Chrome will have a dozen or so. Handicapped Safari will have 8 or less. All without using any power. It's auto-magical!

Everything else was just making excuses for Safari (and iOS), when others manage to leapfrog it in features and usability. Even on iOS. I prefer and use Chrome on my iPad. But not when I encounter a link. Insulting. My next tablet will not be running on iOS if that doesn't change in iOS 7 (and it had better offer a lot more than that).

I had forgotten about not being able to re-size text, which desktop Safari manages to do without issue. Not mobile Safari. Still rocking to the same tune since 2007....




Michael

 

[jrswizzle]

Sure. Meanwhile my unused iPhone is sitting here completely turned off. Not using any battery power. At all. Yet, amazingly, every tab will be there when I turn it back on. Chrome will have a dozen or so. Handicapped Safari will have 8 or less. All without using any power. It's auto-magical!

Everything else was just making excuses for Safari (and iOS), when others manage to leapfrog it in features and usability. Even on iOS. I prefer and use Chrome on my iPad. But not when I encounter a link. Insulting. My next tablet will not be running on iOS if that doesn't change in iOS 7 (and it had better offer a lot more than that).

I had forgotten about not being able to re-size text, which desktop Safari manages to do without issue. Not mobile Safari. Still rocking to the same tune since 2007....




Michael

Relatively simple workaround for that, though I'm sure you'll complain about having to "workaround" this as well, given simply adding a website to your reading list is too cumbersome to handle....

Really much ado about nothing....to save memory the iPhone won't let Safari cache more than 8 tabs....that cache is still there taking up space when the phone is turned back on because its not "running" anything, simply taking up memory space.

The fact that people feel the need to have dozens of tabs open, make a MASSIVE deal that Safari can't, ignoring all the other ways (very simple ways, I might add) that one can save web pages for a later time, AND use something like having 10 tabs open at once as some feature of the future really makes me laugh....

To be quite honest, I can have unlimited tabs "open" readily available to me using iCloud tabs....open a bunch of tabs on my iMac and they are all right there to click and read....

This is really a case of not wanting to change because you don't like the iPhone and iOS in the first place and simply want to whine and moan some more....

I just find it so funny that one could be "insulted" by a piece of technology....

 

[Stuntman06]

Because it is an inferior experience on a smartphone.

Mobile web sites sometimes lack funtionality that the full site has. For this reason, the full web site provides a superior experience than the mobile one for some sites. It is nice to have the option of viewing the full web site for these instances.

 

[bmac4]

So I am still happy I got the note 2 and did not hold out for the S4. While I think Samsung did what they needed to. I still think the note 2 is one of the best phones you can buy. The note 2 can handle anything you can throw at it without a hitch. Sure the S4 is a great upgrade for S3 owners, but I don't think k it will pull us note 2 owners away.

 

[mobilebuddha]

I haven't really heard people complain about the notification light..

I believe there's an app that can change the notification color based on what kind of notification it is. So you can set a color for regular SMS, a color for whatsapp/wechat/etc, a color for email, etc etc.

So w/o even swiping on your phone, you know what you have (to a degree of course). Why wouldn't you want that?

But it doesn't always go back the same level....

You are browsing and you click the back button....it goes back to the previous webpage. Or you are checking an email and hit back and it goes back to the previous page. There are some apps where the back button simply goes back to the last app you were in before, not back in the app. There are some times where the back button takes you back to the home screen and no where else....it is inconsistent and aside from slightly more convenient placement (though the point is moot on say an iPhone5 because you can reach each corner of the screen), doesn't add anything back buttons in apps don't add.....

After using an N4 for a while, I'm very confused as to why the notification light and soft back button are so popular.....the keyboard thing I understand....those other two still baffle me. If my N4 vibrated with any force (I don't ever even hear or feel it even when its sitting right next to me), I'd turn off the notification light all together...

 

[jrswizzle]

I haven't really heard people complain about the notification light..

I believe there's an app that can change the notification color based on what kind of notification it is. So you can set a color for regular SMS, a color for whatsapp/wechat/etc, a color for email, etc etc.

So w/o even swiping on your phone, you know what you have (to a degree of course). Why wouldn't you want that?

Because 9 times out of 10 its an email....and I check it regardless of what it is....

The app is Light Flow by the way - or at the least, that's the one I use.

 

[daneoni]

But it is not in my opinion

Fixed.

 

[bmac4]

Fixed.

What?

 

[mobilebuddha]

I guess I've been in situations where even checking the phone for something seemed rude. But since I always put my phone on the table when I'm meeting, having a particular glow would give me an extremely discreet signal. I've found it useful.

Because 9 times out of 10 its an email....and I check it regardless of what it is....

The app is Light Flow by the way - or at the least, that's the one I use.

 

[Tinmania]

Relatively simple workaround for that, though I'm sure you'll complain about having to "workaround" this as well, given simply adding a website to your reading list is too cumbersome to handle....

Really much ado about nothing....to save memory the iPhone won't let Safari cache more than 8 tabs....that cache is still there taking up space when the phone is turned back on because its not "running" anything, simply taking up memory space.

The fact that people feel the need to have dozens of tabs open, make a MASSIVE deal that Safari can't, ignoring all the other ways (very simple ways, I might add) that one can save web pages for a later time, AND use something like having 10 tabs open at once as some feature of the future really makes me laugh....

To be quite honest, I can have unlimited tabs "open" readily available to me using iCloud tabs....open a bunch of tabs on my iMac and they are all right there to click and read....

This is really a case of not wanting to change because you don't like the iPhone and iOS in the first place and simply want to whine and moan some more....

I just find it so funny that one could be "insulted" by a piece of technology....

Work-arounds for one thing, and the classic "you are doing it wrong for" for another. Arrogance aside that is just silly.

The memory nonsense? Ridiculous. The original iPhone had one eighth the amount of RAM and a fraction of the processing power in the iPhone 5. If the iPhone 5 can only handle 8 tabs the original iPhone should have (barely) been able to handle 1. Then there is this: The iPad 2 has half the memory of the iPhone 5 and yet its Safari can have 4 times the number of open tabs. Let's stop with the absurd "memory" claims.

An "open" tab need only be a string in a plist or other file.

As for this being a non-issue? I agree with the author of "10 Reasons You Should Switch To Chrome For IPad," who listed this first:

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-chrome-for-ipad/


Michael

 

[jrswizzle]

I guess I've been in situations where even checking the phone for something seemed rude. But since I always put my phone on the table when I'm meeting, having a particular glow would give me an extremely discreet signal. I've found it useful.

Ehh, I guess for those times where checking the phone isn't a option (meetings and such) I simply don't look at my phone period lol....

I know people love this notification light....it just seems like a relatively small issue.....I wouldn't care one way or another if Apple implemented one, so why not let em.

As long as they don't get crazy with all the gimmicky features. Another forum go-er here had the brilliant idea of letting the Apple glow much like the MacBooks do....I could definitely get behind that if done correctly.

 

[bmac4]

Ehh, I guess for those times where checking the phone isn't a option (meetings and such) I simply don't look at my phone period lol....

I know people love this notification light....it just seems like a relatively small issue.....I wouldn't care one way or another if Apple implemented one, so why not let em.

As long as they don't get crazy with all the gimmicky features. Another forum go-er here had the brilliant idea of letting the Apple glow much like the MacBooks do....I could definitely get behind that if done correctly.

Yea I think Apple could do some kind of notification light without hurting anything. If they do start adding some new feature which I think they should. They will need to boost that battery a bit. I mean 1440 for a battery is just way to small for today's smart phones. The only problem with that is Apple may have made the phone too thin to be able to do that until battery technology can catch up.

 

[jrswizzle]

Yea I think Apple could do some kind of notification light without hurting anything. If they do start adding some new feature which I think they should. They will need to boost that battery a bit. I mean 1440 for a battery is just way to small for today's smart phones. The only problem with that is Apple may have made the phone too thin to be able to do that until battery technology can catch up.

Given there are few smartphones out there with battery life comparable to the iPhone (and they are all much larger), I'd say Apple can figure it out.....

Heck, simply moving to an IGZO display (which is likely this year) will give them a ton of battery savings to play with.

 

[bmac4]

Given there are few smartphones out there with battery life comparable to the iPhone (and they are all much larger), I'd say Apple can figure it out.....

Heck, simply moving to an IGZO display (which is likely this year) will give them a ton of battery savings to play with.

I am sure they can figure it out, but I don't think they will ever go thicker again with the iphone. With that being said if they add things like NFC, notification light, or some kind of Apple widget thing you are talking about some battery drain even in standby. I think the IGZO screen could help, but then adding the features could pull it back down again. Like I said Apple is smart with this kind of thing, but these are reasons I don't think we will see anything like these festures in the iphone this year maybe not even next year. I know the battery technology is growing all the time but I don't see a great change in the coming year.

 

[TheBigKing]

I trade my iphone 5 for a brand new gnote 2 really good phone

 

[bmac4]

I trade my iphone 5 for a brand new gnote 2 really good phone

Yep I would say best android phone you can get your hands on today. Even the phones like the S4 and HTC one are not better.