Well I've had my Note 2 for a couple of months now and really love the hardware side of it. Android not so much, although there are things about Android that I'm wildly excited about it seems that there is more stuff that I'm kind of disappointed in, simple difficulties which shouldn't exist.
Now my issues may with the Samsung touchwiz, I really don't know as my only experience with vanilla android was a 2 week stint with a nexus 7. I'm curious if I'm doing anything wrong, or if anyone has any solutions to what are really just annoying foibles which make.
My main issues are with the navigation and with google now. Navigation is kind of meh, the biggest issue is it isn't great at guidance. For example forks in highways, New Jersey is probably the king of overlapping and very confusing highways. My iphone at first was kind of bad at guidance, but VERYquickly it became rock solid, and I enjoyed mostly that at those weird highway junctions where you might have 3 or 4 forks in the highway the iphone seemed to be flawless at telling me which lane to stay in, etc. With google it really stinks at this, it won't even tell me to stay in a particular lane or on one side or the other, not know which highway I have to eventually end up on I have to scroll to the next direction screen, taking my eyes off the screen while meanwhile a hummer is 3 inches from my back bumper and the guy in the Honda civic with the fart can is trying to cut me off, you see my issue. I've had other issues as well, but overall it just seems when I really need the navi to kick in it's not very effective.
As for Google Now, it's terrible IMO. The way it shoves a google search down your throat is insanely bad. I can say "call Mario" and 90% of the time I get a google search for Nintendo Mario, maybe 1/10 times it will actually pull up my contact, but right under it is, you guessed it, a google search for Super Mario. I can say "call Joe Smith" and it literally searches "call Joe Smith" on google. Saying navigate to x location is a little better, but is also wonky at times. I miss iOS where Siri would just dial the number directly, or go right to navigation.
Navigation is also wonky when I'm on a call. With iOS when in navigation if I get a call the navigation gets muted, but still continues to silently navigate. With Android the navigation keeps blaring out of the phone speaker, or if I'm on a Bluetooth call it continues to speak in the Bluetooth speaker speaking right over the persons voice who I'm on a call with, that's terrible. It should know enough to mute itself while I'm on a call, I've had some embarrassing moments when having meetings in my car when suddenly the navigation starts blaring out commands.
Before I forget, don't get me started on group messaging. It doesn't work with the stock messaging app, from what I understand Google fixed this in 4.2.2, but I will have to wait 50 or 60 years to get Samsung to maybe release 4.2.2, and I don't plan on rooting and don't see why I should have to. I have tried both GoSMS and Handcent, I really really like Handcent, but it still doesn't get group messaging right at all, it lets me receive group messages so far, but when I reply it doesn't go back to the entire group. I have activated the group messaging settings in Handcent and goSMS.
Well enough of my aimless rambling, but I was just curious if anyone else experienced these annoyances and missed the areas iOS was rock solid in. And if part of this is user error I'd love to have someone tell me how to improve them.
PS. Overall I'm liking Android better overall and find myself doing some very cool things which help my work flow quite a bit. But there is just some obvious stuff that makes you wonder whos feedback Google is listening to when tweaking their OS.
Now my issues may with the Samsung touchwiz, I really don't know as my only experience with vanilla android was a 2 week stint with a nexus 7. I'm curious if I'm doing anything wrong, or if anyone has any solutions to what are really just annoying foibles which make.
My main issues are with the navigation and with google now. Navigation is kind of meh, the biggest issue is it isn't great at guidance. For example forks in highways, New Jersey is probably the king of overlapping and very confusing highways. My iphone at first was kind of bad at guidance, but VERYquickly it became rock solid, and I enjoyed mostly that at those weird highway junctions where you might have 3 or 4 forks in the highway the iphone seemed to be flawless at telling me which lane to stay in, etc. With google it really stinks at this, it won't even tell me to stay in a particular lane or on one side or the other, not know which highway I have to eventually end up on I have to scroll to the next direction screen, taking my eyes off the screen while meanwhile a hummer is 3 inches from my back bumper and the guy in the Honda civic with the fart can is trying to cut me off, you see my issue. I've had other issues as well, but overall it just seems when I really need the navi to kick in it's not very effective.
As for Google Now, it's terrible IMO. The way it shoves a google search down your throat is insanely bad. I can say "call Mario" and 90% of the time I get a google search for Nintendo Mario, maybe 1/10 times it will actually pull up my contact, but right under it is, you guessed it, a google search for Super Mario. I can say "call Joe Smith" and it literally searches "call Joe Smith" on google. Saying navigate to x location is a little better, but is also wonky at times. I miss iOS where Siri would just dial the number directly, or go right to navigation.
Navigation is also wonky when I'm on a call. With iOS when in navigation if I get a call the navigation gets muted, but still continues to silently navigate. With Android the navigation keeps blaring out of the phone speaker, or if I'm on a Bluetooth call it continues to speak in the Bluetooth speaker speaking right over the persons voice who I'm on a call with, that's terrible. It should know enough to mute itself while I'm on a call, I've had some embarrassing moments when having meetings in my car when suddenly the navigation starts blaring out commands.
Before I forget, don't get me started on group messaging. It doesn't work with the stock messaging app, from what I understand Google fixed this in 4.2.2, but I will have to wait 50 or 60 years to get Samsung to maybe release 4.2.2, and I don't plan on rooting and don't see why I should have to. I have tried both GoSMS and Handcent, I really really like Handcent, but it still doesn't get group messaging right at all, it lets me receive group messages so far, but when I reply it doesn't go back to the entire group. I have activated the group messaging settings in Handcent and goSMS.
Well enough of my aimless rambling, but I was just curious if anyone else experienced these annoyances and missed the areas iOS was rock solid in. And if part of this is user error I'd love to have someone tell me how to improve them.
PS. Overall I'm liking Android better overall and find myself doing some very cool things which help my work flow quite a bit. But there is just some obvious stuff that makes you wonder whos feedback Google is listening to when tweaking their OS.
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