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Why I'm going back to iOS
- Thread starter pmontanarella
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You all are quick to dismiss my recent comment but no one here disputes the statements made that show Android as an inferior platform. I even listed examples.
Yup
Plus I've watched many videos, I don't think I need to own one in order to make some sort of judgment.
So you watch videos of people telling you their opinions, play around with an android phone for a couple minutes and agree with their opinions. Nothing was based on your own personal experience with the phone. Otherwise, you wouldn't have brought up that ridiculous "fisher price" comment regarding the messaging interface earlier in this thread.
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I made my own opinions...
Stock Android 4.2 is almost there. I think it needs a bit of a makeover and a better user experience, but the features and customization are all there. Google Now is one of the coolest things I've seen on a smartphone.
Imessage and the likes are bound to have problems, even whatsapp have hes days too
No doubt, but only one side continues to claim everything "just works."
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What would you like it to have in regards to makeover? I'm curious, especially since iOS offers very little in terms of UI aesthetics. And it hasn't changed much in years.
First off, the lockscreen widget implementation is horribly confusing. There is no alignment in Settings, a lot looks like a glitzy Tron rip-off, there is no central place for customization, the responsiveness and physics are lacking (scrolling motions are wonky), the animations feel like cheap iOS animations, there's less polish and details, etc. I really don't like the Tron interface, lol. They should model everything after Google Now.
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I have, weren't you listening? I bet if I combined all the usage I've had with Android it'd be several hours.
-Lock screen widgets. Okay. Let us know when Apple does this better. (Note: The lock screen widgets aren't exactly the 4.2 feature I'm dying to have, but it's nice to have the option, and it'll get better as developers find better ways to implement them).
-No alignment in Settings? What do you mean?
-Responsiveness? The folks over at XDA forums have been testing screen response time. People are getting extremely low PRS; anywhere from .10 - .50. How responsive is iOS? I genuinely don't know. Either way, just exactly how much more responsive does it need to get? Nitpicking, much? And have you used 4.2? To even infer the responsiveness of it is "lacking" is patently inaccurate and creating a problem that simply doesn't exist. Physics and scrolling motions are lacking? Personally, I find iOS scrolls things way too slowly, especially if I'm trying to reach the bottom of a page quickly. In Android, you can give it a good flick and it'll scroll more, or you can flick slower to scroll less. Better, if you ask me.
-The animations are cheap iOS knockoffs? So you want Android to be "polished" and more iOS like in terms of UI experience, but you'll knock it for trying to be the same? Let's try to be fair.
-Less polish and detail? I suppose this can go either way. I find both UI's animations are fine and honestly, utterly unimportant to real overall experience. I personally love the off-screen analog animation of Android.
-Regarding the tron-glow... I suppose there's nothing can be said about that. If this is such a deal breaker to you, I don't expect you'll ever enjoy Android. Again, personally, I love it. Something about it feels futuristic and sleek. Kind of like Tron.
Well I switched to Android. As far as it just works, it just doesn't! I had my 4 for more than 2 years and put up with horrible reception the whole time blaming AT&T. Reception with galaxy is perfect. I agree the App Store is more together but they have failed miserably with maps. Google maps and navigation is amazing on android. How apple gets away with the new maps app is mind boggling! I waited for the iPad 3 only to have it last 7 months before being discontinued. Apple is slipping, glad I'm getting away from it. Android isn't perfect, finding a decent podcasting app is almost impossible and then u have to buy another app to just play back at faster speeds and then it still is buggy as hell.
A five minute test run of the phone on a display kiosk is hardly enough to make an informed opinion about anything. Sadly, this is pretty much where the market has gone, so all of these kiosks have settings to try and wow you. Have you seen the iPhone 5 with its brightest automatically set to high to look all uber vibrant and bright? You might be able to make some quick decisions about the size and weight of a phone (unless it has some giant anti-theft device frankensteined to the back of it), but opinions about an OS after five minutes of use? I am going to say no.
As en example, I was fighting WP8 interface all day for the first two days I started using the Lumia 920. Why? because it was different from what I was used to on a daily basis. I had to return the Lumia 9 days later (for unrelated reasons - I wanted another color and has difficulty pulling up my account at the Windows store) and am back on my 4S/GNex. I especially miss the web browsing. Man I had to put my 4S down because it was painful pinching, zooming, and panning around that screen.
I'm pretty sure you just read other peoples's opinion about the lock screen since there's no way you've used Android 4.2.
Why does there need to be a center place for customization. That's what iOS does for settings and it's confusing.
Finally, if you're going to complain about polish in Android, you should talk about a feature that both platforms have. Otherwise you have no basis for comparison.
Well, reading your first paragraphs it is clear that you don't have used it for more than 30 seconds.
Keep trying, perhaps you won't sound like a troll when you actually have any real experience with Android.
Android in general. I got the Nexus 7 as I think iOS is stupidly limited on a tablet. I like it as a phone OS, but on a tablet it just seems underpowered. Turns out one of the reasons as to why I don't like iOS on a tablet, i.e. some iPad apps feel like underpowered, blown up iPhone apps (some definitely don't, and make good use of the additional processing power and screen size, it's a mixed bag), affects Android even more than it does iOS. Most of the apps I ran on the N7 were designed for a phone and were simply blown up to fit the larger screen, which worked in a few cases, but in others left an awkward looking mess with stretched assets, some parts of the app piling up on the left side of the screen and wonky looking pictures, which were obviously meant for a smaller screen, but were being stretched to fit the N7 screen. At least those apps tried, some just crammed everything into the upper left hand corner, or the very middle of the screen, and didn't even try to fit the screen.
As it is, even though I'm not a fan of iPads, I'd still rather have one over an Android tablet.
I found Android to be, overall, very, very disappointing. The N7 has a persistent lag which pervades everything you do on it. Scrolling is always jerky- in the browser, swiping between home screens, scrolling through lists etc. And that's in the better apps, the problem is even worse (for the most part) when it's an app that's been coded to cover the widest Android base possible, i.e. an app designed for 2.1+, or 2.2+. Those apps are just terrible, the lag and choppiness is abominable, even running in 4.2.
And for those who live in, or have interests in, a smaller market, Android is, the majority of the time, very poor in terms of app selection. I know I've missed a stack of apps for Australian sport, Australian tv, surfing and so on. Those apps that do exist are often really bad ports of the iPhone versions, which target the widest device base the developers possibly can, and are then very rarely optimised for newer devices or newer Android versions.
After that disappointment, I abandoned my plans to get a Galaxy S3 or what's now known as the Nexus 4 and got an iPhone 5. I'm also getting a Windows 8 Pro tablet when a few more are released here next year. All the powerful desktop software in the (Windows) world, plus Windows 8 touchscreen apps (whose numbers are quickly growing), plus having all the great iOS apps (which cover my interests) and great performance on the iPhone will offer me far more than Android can.
I have, and I agree, it blows. You have apps using different design languages, resulting in a visual mishmash. There's a stack of apps out there still using Froyo/Gingerbread assets, with only some using Holo. And then you have apps which throw everything out the window and use a completely different design language and different assets to the rest of the OS and other Android apps. There's very little consistency. Then, for example, you have apps which use the menu button to good effect and others which stick all their menu options onscreen, which is another point of inconsistency in itself, as some developers like to put these options at the top of the screen, while others place them at the bottom, ala most apps in iOS.
It's just a mess. It might (key word, might) clean up in a few years once developers stop catering for 2.X devices and 4.X becomes the new bottom, base level for development, but by then 5.X or 6.X will probably have been released with a set of changes to the UI, leaving Android in the same predicament it's in now. That's as long as Google's learnt their lesson and whether they can enforce a level of consistency amongst developers. Even then, it's entirely possible that 2.X will continue to live on in prepaid devices, meaning this problem could continue to persist for a while still.
From the Article you posted.
"Besides iMessage and FaceTime, the email service that is part of Apple's iCloud has also run into problems, including one September outage that affected over 1.1% of all users."
I know 1.1% seems like a WHOLE lot of users when it's almost half the entire amount of people that run the latest Version of Android
Source
http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
That's not even comparing when 4.2 comes out
which will be a handful of devices that actually get it.
It is, I have 4.2 on my N7 and the story is still the same. I wish I had the recording equipment to be able to produce a video showing the difference in smoothness and responsiveness between my N7 and my iPhone 5. The N7 is incredibly jerky in comparison.
I'm sorry, there is no jerkynes and lag in the Nexus 7. Even the The Verge page is now totally responsive in Chrome.
I suffer no jerkiness on my N7, the only time I did was when I had a custom ROM installed when I first got the tab. I for one don't mind is the different design styles in the apps as I think I would get boring if all the apps looked the same as in iOS.
how are people so defensive over the phone they own? I love reading unbiased reviews/opinions, but so many people in this thread try to "justify" their purchase by being rude and offensive.