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Android 2.0 — Competition Against the iPhone and the Rest
GMGruman writes "Every few months, it seems, there is a new 'iPhone killer.' Android 2.0, in the guise of the Motorola Droid, is the latest such 'killer.' But what will it really take to beat or match the iPhone (single page), and does Android or any other mobile OS have the right stuff? There's a lot more to the answer than is usually discussed. This article takes a look at the strengths that may allow Droid and Android 2.0 to provide strong competition to devices like the iPhone and the Blackberry, as well as the obstacles it continues to face that could inhibit adoption."
Really. There will always be some number of viable devices competing. Each will appeal to some group that values its strengths over what the others have to offer. The only way iPhone can fail is to lose to several competitors, not just one. The iPhone isn't the market leader now. So how can one phone or O/S kill the iPhone or anything else?
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
I don't think it will be an iPhone killer. At best, it will slow Apple's growth to a significant degree. However, with it's exchange integration, etc, it could take a measurable chunk from Blackberry.
And, as a long-time Palm user, this will likely be the last nail in the coffin for Palm. I'd decided months ago that the replacement for my 700p was not likely to be another Palm, but nothing was really grabbing me. I was resigned to go to a crackberry. Now though, I may end up an early buyer of the Droid.
My wife will almost certainly get one, since she was on the edge of buying a GPS device.
I hope there's no single 'killer'. Diversity is a good thing, it gives choice and keeps competition driving things forward. It won't be too many years before pretty much all phones are smart phones, and there's a lot of room in the phone market for a lot of vendor's to exist and profit.
So here's to hoping we see a nice market share for iPhones's OS, Android, Maemo, WebOS, and Windows Mobile.
It comes down to carriers, and Verizon Wireless does have excellent coverage. I'm on an expired contract so I could have jumped to AT&T without any penalties, but the Droid has got what I've always wanted: a phone that's open enough to let me hack for fun, while also polished enough that I don't have to hack it just to make the basics work.
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is to market yourself as a 'iPhone killer'
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
The problem he's referring to is that the combined size of all your apps is 256MB on current phones, this isn't an individual app limit.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I hate to say it, but it just made no sense and backed up almost none of the opinions it presented.
You can't kill the iphone by trying to copy it. You have to:
1) Find a way to steal it's best customers in a way it can't keep up with.
2) Wait for it to get big, fat, and lazy.
Just copying the leader may get you investment dollars, but it won't get you market share.
Applications can store all of their data files and resources on your SD card. Many do already. It's just the executable code that has to be installed locally.
What all the Android fanbois don't know, or tell you, is that Android has a 256 MB app storage limit.
No. Please learn to read. That phone has 256MB for app storage. My G1 dev phone as 1.5GB for app storage (because I've only got a 2GB card in it, and I wanted some room for ringtones, etc.)
Google, just WTF where you thinking?
Considering it was Motorola that designed the Droid, why would you think that Google had anything to do with it?
This one is over 1 GB.
Apps can store data on the SD card.
Google Earth is over 10MB (I don't know the size, I just know I had to use wifi instead of 3G). Also, if you get any of the navigation programs like Navigon or TomTom, which contain all of the maps locally, you run into the problem. (People who frequently go into areas with bad 3G coverage may want an app that has map data locally -- otherwise no signal means no navigation.)
Proloquo2Go is 235MB. Add some user-generated content (which is what that app is for) and it would go over 256 easily.
There's a perfect xkcd for my sig but I'm too lazy to look it up. sudo someone go find it.
256MB is the total size of all apps that are allowed on the phone.
As far as apps that are larger than 256MB, besides the three or four GPS navigation apps that store all of the map data on the phone, Myst is 727MB. I'm sure there are a few others.
Navigon. 1.2GB
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
i think it's very amusing you refer to android fanbois, but fail to make reference to apple fanbois who are 10 times more rabid.
How is your opinion of apple users relevant to the discussion?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Applications can store all of their data files and resources on your SD card. Many do already. It's just the executable code that has to be installed locally.
So convenient!
... and then they built the supercollider.
Was your post written in English 2.0?
... and then they built the supercollider.
It's not a real problem.
Several options exists to install apps to the SD-card.
It's also possible for individual apps (like games) to store everything but the executable on the SD-card.
---- Sig. gone.
the 1 major thing that gave the Iphone such a major push forward. Marketing! *well image too but takes part of Marketing*
I think there is a little bit of clever code which sells those iphones. When you press and drag your finger on the application launcher the launcher exactly follows the movement of the finger. It does it too fast to measure a delay, and is accurate to the nearest pixel. Its a fantastic UI. It behaves more like a real world object than any UI I have seen anywhere.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This happened before, with Windows. Any platform that doesn't run the enormous legacy app base will have a hard time getting market share.
The situation is now even worse- there is an entity which controls the hardware (AT&T, not Apple!), far different from the free-for-all PC ecosystem.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Wouldn't their time be better spent showing off the product rather than badmouthing the competition?
Look who's talking. As SanDisk and Motorola dis Apple in their "iDon't" ad campaigns, Apple continues to dis Microsoft in the "Get a Mac" series. iDon't Care examines the badmouthing on both sides.
One problem killing the iPhone, is that most of the iPhone's weaknesses are one policy change away from disappearing.
Enough people want background apps? Well there they are.
Enough people want customizable lock screens? Alright, that's easy enough.
Enough people want shared file storage? There, done.
Enough people want post-hoc approval of apps, like Android? No problem, it'll save Apple time and money to boot.
Enough people want unsigned apps distributed outside the app store? Ok, here you go.
Enough people want Flash, or other browser plugins? Fine, Adobe has been clamoring to put Flash on iPhone since it's inception.
Enough people want root access? Fine, administration is their problem.
Apple keeps those measures of control because they help to protect their platform's image from incompetent or unscrupulous coders, and their negative impact on most users is relatively minor. If that balance ever shifts, either due to more competent coders (supposedly Flash 10.1 is heavily optimized) or more demanding users (with friends whose phones do some or all of the above), the rules can change in an instant.
"The worst tyrannies were the ones where a governance required its own logic on every embedded node." - Vernor Vinge
Even Nokia is abandoning Symbian for maemo http://maemo.nokia.com/
1) It forgets to mention the 1 major thing that gave the Iphone such a major push forward. Marketing!
Actually, I'd say the major thing that gave the iPhone such a major push was the fact that it was the best thing at the time. People seem to have forgotten the awful "smart" phones we had before Apple decided to shake things up. The iPhone may or may not still be the best thing around (I don't know), but it seems to me we probably would have no Android today without the fresh competition Apple provided.
So will Android devices overtake the iPhone? Well I sure hope so. It would be pretty sad indeed if Android wasn't able to gain any headway seeing as how it will be on multiple devices and multiple networks and there is only one iPhone on one network. Ultimately, I think Android will be considered a success, but I also think it won't have much impact on Apple.
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This is NOT an Android limit. It is a limit of the flash memory that the manufacturer decides to put in their phones. Moto decided to put just 512MB on their device, probably because that was the biggest size they could stack. Adding more would require a separate chip, like a Samsung MoviNAND (basically an SD card in IC package) that would take up more PCB room. But if they had laid down moviNAND they could have got 2G, 4G, 8G or maybe even more. There will be plenty of multi gigabyte Android devices out there in 2010.
There is no true competition in phones. If you want an iPhone you must go AT&T, if you want Android you currently will go T-Mobile, and so on.
Once all phones are available on all networks, you will be able to have a valid feature comparison. Until then, choices will always be a combination of (how great the phone is) + (how much the carrier sucks).
Every few months, it seems, there is a new 'iPhone killer.'
Well, duh. Every new product generates hype, and to trend-conscious techies, the most obvious hype is that it's the "killer" of whatever product is already trendy. And, as you may have noticed, most new products these days are cell phones.
But have you ever heard of the latest blivet killer actually killing off the blivet? You have not. Market shifts don't happen that way. This "killer" meme is content-free marketing noise.
It is, however, the Mona Lisa of user experience and that is a huge reason it's attracted both people who have never used a smartphone before and those who had been using WinMo and Blackberries.
Android based phones will battle it out with WinMo for space in the non-vendor-specific OS market. RIM will continue to have their loyal holdouts but I suspect both the iPhone and Android will eat into their pie. Nokia will go its own way with Maemo and Symbian.
Also:
1 - Verizon's marketing for the DROID was utter crap. The vast majority of people don't care about "open," in fact I suspect Verizon hates it. People have to be told -why- they should get that phone. Geeks already know that shit. I don't because the N900 is coming and Maemo is more open than (and is an actual Linux distro compared to) Android. Also, CDMA.
2 - Google Navigation is not exclusive to the Droid, between TomTom's app and Google, it could lose that. Also, if the lack of a keyboard was -any- hindrance at all it sure didn't show. Anyone who -wanted- a keyboard would be looking for alternatives anyway.
Android won't fail, but it won't reach anywhere near the popularity of the iPhone. The experience is just too slick for the majority of people, and the rest probably don't care. Or like me, they see something that's slightly better.
Why is the iPhone not dominant in the land they term "Asia"?
Well actually it is.
In Japan, the iPhone is now #1 in market share for smartphones.
In China, they actually don't sell it at all (which is why they say it doesn't register in "Asia") but they will be shortly as they have partnered with a Chinese company to sell the iPhone. We know there is demand there as there have always been a lot of unlocked iPhones heading into China. And it has one of the better handheld input mechanism for chinese characters I have seen.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Look, there is nothing special about the Iphone OS any more.
Neither the hardware or or the OS is the significant factor, as both platforms have achieved rough parity.
The Apple APP store defines the difference these days.
With 90,000 apps (75,000 of which are redundant "Crapps") it has the clear lead in developer mind share, monitization infrastructure, and deployment.
When someone writes a wrapper for these App store Apps that allows them to run on Android, its game over for this particular advantage.
Apple is entrenched and the clear leader. But lets face it, the hardware has no particular advantage any more, and the User Interface is pretty much Windows 3.1 looking with a desk top full of random icons with no organization.
Its not Apples fault. The iPhone OS was never designed with all of those app in mind. If/When Apple re-works the interface, with categorization of apps, (folders if you will) they can maintain the lead.
But Android has the advantage of youth, and none of the baggage of middle age.
Still, its the Apps. Android doesn't need as many apps to make it a complete user tool, because so much is bundled, but they still need more than currently exist.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
From the information in your link, this is not quite true. Android doesn't allow apps to be installed to an SD card. This means that in the Droid, there is a 256MB limit. However, other Android devices have much more ROM, allowing more space for apps.
Any single Android app can only be 256MB in size, and if any app uses that allowance, it's the only one you can install on the phone.
Bullshit. Maybe if you pulled your head out of Steve Jobs ass, it might improve your reading comprehension.
Also, read carefully: Android has a 256MB limit for total app storage.
No. YOU read carefully:
Android has no such limit. That particular phone has 256MB for total app storage. It is not an Android limit, regardless of how much you might want it to be.
The G1 would have been more successful if it wasn't tied to T-Mobile.
I knew a lot of people--non-techies by the way--that wanted it, but T-Mobile doesn't cover where we live.
T-Mobile is great if you live in a major city (I think, I've never had them), but rather crappy if you don't.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Data, like Proloquo2Go's media files and user-generated content, can go on the SD card. Only the executable needs to be in the phone's internal memory.
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The hardware is definitely there. The API stack will come later.
I'm curious as to why you think that's such a problem. I'm sure that some people are going to hate the limit on that, however, I doubt that most people will even notice. Even the much hated ITMS only sold a small hand full of songs to the majority of iPod owners being far too few to represent a meaningful lock in.
That's nothing compared to the fact that there isn't any android phone with 3d acceleration.
False. The G1 has 3D acceleration and supports OpenGL ES. Here's a video of a demo program you can download from the Android Market.
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Android 2.0 (eclair) lets you store apps on the SD card. The Droid is not limited to 256MB app storage.
I have an iPod touch and and HTC Magic ( T-Mobuile version - myTOuch).
The real difference is the design of the UI and the functionality of they UI and the smoothness of the UI interaction with the hardware. The Android needs to come with better UI widgets. Maybe there are better ones, but even Google's own apps suffer from lousy design use widgets. Not just lousily implemented functionality, but also look. I have seen way better from Google than what I see in 1.6.
Android 1.6 reminds of the linux distros from a few years ago and to some extent even now. The UI has a noticeable lag in 90% of the circumstances and often does not provide feedback that there may be activity in the app. The on-screen keyboard is too cramped and successful key-hit recognition is way lower than on the Touch/iPhone ( and I actually prefer the on-screen keyboard over a physical keyboard.)
The browser is pretty much useless on the Android as compared to Safari.
I haven't seen an advantage of being able to run multiple applications on the Android. after more than 4 or 5 apps running, it gets even more laggy. The iPod touch has never asked me if I should force quit an app or wait because it takes to long to get to the home screen, when quiting an app ( I always try to quit apps now ( but how to is not always apparent) - otherwise one has to frequently use very popular utilities like Taskman or TasKiller).
In general I like Google and use many of their apps on the net and on the PC. But the Android has left me underwhelmed.
i rest my case.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
MobileSafari uses Google for search results, and there are a lot of mobile searches being generated by iPhone users. Google is eroding marketshare everywhere else. If I'm Apple, I'm not scared of Google. If I'm any manufacturer representing another platform (Nokia, for example), I'm terrified.
myst, tomtom gps, i'm sure there are tons of others.
Spoken like a review from a windowshopper.
Look, there is nothing special about the Iphone OS any more.
That just isn't true. Android 2.0 is pretty attractive on the surface, but it's still plagued with UI and usability kinks that have yet to be worked out. Multi-touch still isn't quite right, nor is it fluid. Android's interaction on the desktop is much better than most of its competitors, but it still lags behind the iTunes experience. There are plenty of advantages to the iPhone platform, including the iPhone OS.
When someone writes a wrapper for these App store Apps that allows them to run on Android, its game over for this particular advantage.
That's what they said about Linux and Windows in 1996. Easier said than done. We're still waiting.
But lets face it, the hardware has no particular advantage any more
The pile of hardware components was never the advantage to begin with. The devil's in the details. It'd be a trivial effort to out-spec the iPhone's hardware, but that doesn't get you anywhere on its own. Look at the terrible state of video playback at the time on smartphones even with the same muscle as the first generation iPhone.
Whether you love the iPhone or hate it, it's indisputable that it was a kick in the pants for everyone else. Now they're actually trying to make good products, and competitors are addressing their failings and adapting what they can from Apple's lead. That's how it should have worked, even if the iPhone never existed, but it just didn't. Even Windows Mobile, while still painful to use, is at least easier to look at these days.
But Android has the advantage of youth, and none of the baggage of middle age.
Drama much? The iPhone is "middle-aged"? What does that make RIM/Blackberry? A pensioner?
I have to admit, I have an iPhone, and I have had a G1, recently lost at an airport... yeah sure, they turned it in, and for the last month, a G2, Mytouch3G tmobile. The Mytouch actually does considerably more than the iphone, and I enjoy using it that much more. I dont give a rats ass what Leo "paid for by apple" Laporte has to sy about it, The Android phone wins, hands down. I can scan business cards right into my address book, google maps, NON DRM (thats enough by itself to switch) music, it plays more video formats, yada yada yada... I like it, nuff said.... Oh, did I forget to mention the microsdhc slot? I can add what I want, memory wise....
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
You are right. But just because Motorola designed the phone, doesn't mean google had nothing to do with it. I imagine that google would be heavily involved in the technical process, making recommendations, improving the experience, etc. Especially considering this is the first device to have Android 2.0, as well as real GPS navigation.
This is as much a google device as it is Motorola.
well, first of all dumass, the 32A has that limit, the 32B is actually lower. The amount of available memory is irrelevant as the size of the average app is what, 128k ? lolz Well, I don't even think about it anyway as I have app2sd which now gives me... hmm lets see... 16gb... ok iPhone, try that.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
I think it's the jiggle. Many of the interface responses are as if you're sliding things around on jello. It's cute, but I think it's also the key to the convincing physicality-- you don't notice little errors in tracking because you expect small deviations from your motion. If the code realizes it made a mistake, it can just smoothly jiggle itself to where it should have been. Definitely clever.
As a hardware and OS platform the Droid is far more appealing than my current iPhone.
But from what I've seen of the user experience so far, it's a no go. I've been spoiled on OS X on the desktop for years, and now on my phone. As much as I want to like the Droid and wish my iPhone had a slideout keyboard, I'm sticking with Apple for the time being.
It's a testament to just how good Apple is at user interface design that Microsoft and Google with all their resources can't hold a candle to it.
In the past, I have asserted that social popularity trumps technical superiority. Beta was superior to VHS and yet VHS won. Why? It was more popular... some would argue that it was more popular because porn was not allowed on Beta. Whatever the case, VHS was more popular and so it won.
iPhone is ridiculously popular. I don't care to go into why it is popular, but I will say I don't fully understand it because I tend to measure things by a different set of metrics than non-nerds. Whatever the cause of its popularity, iPhone will not be toppled as "king" of whatever market it rules with attack/smear ads and it won't be toppled by technical superiority or versatility. It might be toppled by convenience if that were possible and it would have to be convenient to leave it behind and/or migrate from it.
iPhone isn't just a phone. It's a hand-held computer with software applications that people use. In the past, moving from one phone to another was a matter of exporting data and importing that same data into the next phone. iPhone has applications for which there may not be equals on other phones. iPhone has applications that many have spent significant amounts of money on and people aren't willing to dump things like that so easily.
Another means of entrenchment iPhone enjoys is the connection it has with a person's identity. In much the same way people build self esteem rooting for their favorite teams in sports, the iPhone enjoys a strong fan base.
Microsoft calls what they have "critical mass." Microsoft isn't getting toppled because they have critical mass. Other reasons don't play into the current state of Microsoft nearly as much as that. People are not happy with Microsoft, but not unhappy enough to move to something else.
iPhone has not achieved critical mass, but many of the factors that contribute to the state of critical mass are present in iPhone and it is certainly moving in that direction.
Still, the iPhone doesn't rule in the way the hype and attention would seem to suggest. A recent trip through an airport showed me that Blackberry outnumbers iPhone 10 to 1. That's just an estimate I pulled out of my ass, but it's probably not far off. iPhone is limited by its exclusivity to AT&T (in the U.S.) and many people aren't interested enough in iPhone to change their carrier, but since the odds are that their non-AT&T carrier will carry an iPhone competitor, people are more inclined to give those competitors a try. Provided that the alternatives are good enough to capture an audience the way iPhone has (and that's not likely in my opinion) the iPhone's primary weakness can be exploited successfully.
To be clear, the primary weakness of the iPhone is its exclusivity to AT&T. It limits its growth potential and its flexibility. There are other factors contributing to its weaknesses, but its close ties with and influence under AT&T are at the very least holding it back and quite likely to be the most significant factor that will lead to its death.
You are right. But just because Motorola designed the phone, doesn't mean google had nothing to do with it...This is as much a google device as it is Motorola.
And here you've summarized the problem without stating it.
The iPhone is one company's product: Apple. Really it's one person's phone: Steve's.
And that is why it'll be better: because Steve will fire anyone who makes a phone less than he wants.
Google will enable a superior phone. Moto will fail to deliver. But I hope that someone else delivers. I really dislike the iPhone closed platform.
Having four or five different OS's - iPhone, Android, Maemo, WinMobile etc mean the cost of application testing is to quadruple, and the cost development about the same too. Or application will be restricted to smaller part of the market. Big software developers can sustain multiplatform development more easily, but for small/independent developers that's a problem. One of the biggest strength of the iPhone app market is that there is only one current device and application have to be tested only for one device. Android phones could be Java compatible (that's still remain to be seen), but native android code (now legitimized by NDK) will hardly be transferable between devices.
I'm still waiting for the iPhone to catch up to my now-3-year-old Samsung i760 running Windows Mobile 6.1.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What about Google Navigation?
There's an app for that. Or more precisely, there's over 500 apps for that, I couldn't be arsed counting after the 4th page of them. Some of these are made by very trusted names in the business, like TomTom.
Voice recognition?
That one's built in, but there's apps for that too...
What about what the Iphone lacks like... a KEYBOARD.
No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
The only thing they didn't compare was App stores *seriously if someone says over 100,000 apps again I will strangle you with strangulation.ipa*
100,000 apps. Seriously, it's *that* important.
So convenient!
1) It's already been told that's _NOT_ an Android issue but a particular phone issue.
2) If you only have 256 MB of storage space on the phone what else would you suggest people to do? Sure slap 64 GB in there and you'd get plenty of space, but also raise the price of the phone a lot.
3) Atleast the phones _HAVE_ memory card slots, the iPhone does not.
So with 10 GB of the latest episodes of some series and 20 GB of music how much space do you have on your 32 GB iPhone for apps?
Though without jailbreaking it I assume it won't play much of the media files anyway unless you convert them first ..
Its not Apples fault. The iPhone OS was never designed with all of those app in mind. If/When Apple re-works the interface, with categorization of apps, (folders if you will) they can maintain the lead.
You mean the free categorisation of apps into separate sections on the home screen? You mean, like, swiping your finger and getting a new home screen with new apps on it? You mean like it already supports and has done since years ago?
With 90,000 apps (75,000 of which are redundant "Crapps") it has the clear lead in developer mind share, monitization infrastructure, and deployment.
I doubt this assertion for several reasons. While the number of applications appears to be impressive, it is hard to compare the number of iPhones available in the Apps Store with the number of apps available to the WinMo and Blackberry platforms because both have multiple apps stores between the offical platform stores, sites like handango and crackberry, and independent vendors who sell their own software.
As for the app store, it is nothing special. Handango has been doing the same thing for multiple platforms since 1999. All Apple did was take similar functionality and add it to iTunes. Its nothing special.
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Two months ago I got myself an Android phone. It does everything I expected it to do. And more. Around me there are several people using iPhones and, so far, I have not seen anything on the iPhone that matters to me and which I really miss. I actually like the couple of extra buttons on my phone. My criticism to Android is that it is almost too good and that I can and will do parts of my work while commuting on a crowded bus.
If there is a difference, it's in the details. One of which is Apple's marketing campaign.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
You mean the free categorisation of apps into separate sections on the home screen?
Not at all. A bigger heap is still a heap. Cutter that expands to fill multiple desktops is still clutter.
I mean the categorizing apps by function, as well as by any other category the user wants.
Take a look at the menu system of any modern linux distribution. If you are a windows user you will be shocked to learn that the category structure is simple, well organized, and automatically maintained, but still allows users to customize it.
I'm not talking about the graphical layout on the screen. There many ways you can arrange things on the screen IF, and ONLY IF you have some meta data to deal with in the first place. Otherwise its just a heap.
I'm talking about organizing applications into groups so that you can find them when your collection of apps exceeds more than just a few.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_uGeBM7SoqcQ/SQrgc9tDmNI/AAAAAAAAEQU/gtmLj_XA99c/s1600-h/kmenu.png
My iPhone has 9 pages. It takes forever to find something, and searching does not help if you don't remember the name of a seldom used app.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
However, other Android devices have much more ROM, allowing more space for apps.
Yeah, store your downloaded apps on ROM, that for sure will work ;)
ROM doesn't mean "device software memory" although I guess in todays times I can see how people may think so :D
But yeah, flash RAM.
Not at all. A bigger heap is still a heap. Cutter that expands to fill multiple desktops is still clutter.
Except that it's not a heap, it's a stack of lists, the screens contain ordered applications, not randomly jumbled ones, and they do not have to be full before you move onto the next one. Users typically have a screen per category of apps, though it would be *really* nice to get smart folders as well as just folders here.
True there are alternative sources for apps on other platforms, including the possibility of "side loading" them on memory, or from your computer. You can often buy these on company web sites of the developer.
Of course you have to find them somehow, and Google can be your friend in this. I suspect not one in 10 Blackberry users has ever heard of handango.
But you do bring up another aspect of the problem. As long as Apple insists on maintaining total control there is an avenue for competition by other platforms by simply being less controlling and making it easier.
We don't need Either of the STEVEs permission to install software on our computers, unless that computer fits in your pocket.
So there is CLEARLY an opportunity there for Android to make some inroad. But I suspect its largely squandered at this point because the absurd prices at Handango and the obscurity of these sites. If the apps are either too expensive or hard to find, Joe Android user will sooner or later succumb to the All In One Place shopping mentality of the App store and just buy the next iPhone.
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Ask to look at any friend's non-jail broken phone.
Page thru the apps. They are a mess. You can't find anything. You are looking at little pictures but nothing sinks in.
Give your phone to any 5 year old and two minutes later it will look just like that friends phone.
It takes time to figure out how to arrange them by function, so you can find them. Then you end up searching all over for the ones you use frequently. So you put the frequent ones all in one screen and page all over looking for the one you need every other day instead of every day.
Whats wrong with structured lists of apps? Especially when apps can appear on more than one list, and can come with some built in suggested lists as well as the users list structure.
I can't seriously believe any intelligent person would argue for the status quo here. The current method is unworkable beyond a couple screens.
Mark my words, when Apple's next iPhone OS 4.0 comes out you WILL find lists and menus, and you WILL remember this slashdot thread and you may even recall how you scoffed.
Somehow when Apple does it, the fanboys fall in line, but if anyone else suggests the very same thing its like disparaging Islam, and the Apple Jihadists come out of the wood work.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Of course, it could not have anything to do with the fact that few would want to be "partners" that have to build&bet their businesses on someone else's proprietary quicksand (nor is Symbian going open for a reason as well), so the article wouldn't have been complete without unwarranted stabs at all things FLOSS and Linux (conveniently sweeping under the rug the fact that Android actually is both).
Oh well...
What all the Android fanbois don't know, or tell you, is that Android has a 256 MB app storage limit. While Apple limits you to 2 GB for your maximum app size download. Google, just WTF where you thinking?
This doesn't seem to be an Android limitation - it is a limitation caused by the flash configuration that Motorola have used. On Android, the apps are just stored as individual files in the /data/app directory; other than the size of the filesystem that contains this directory, I can't see there being any limitation. Also, there are several methods of storing apps on the sdcard. For example, the CyanogenMod firmware does this as standard.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
So ... if i have a 1st gen phone with Android 1.x i can now upgrade-it to 2.0 with just a mouse click ? And will i be able to upgrade-it to Android 3.0 when it comes out ?
If not - thank you - i will keep my iPhone and get new features and functionality for free.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
I bought the original Razr when it just came into market. It was a great phone. Beautifully designed, sleek and stylish even by today's standards.
I had one for a few years also. It was everything everyone claims Apple products are - style with little substance.
As you noted, the software was ghastly. But frankly I had issues with the hardware alone as well.
The buttons, were the worst I ever had on the phone as far as being easy to type. I was always missing numbers with those damn slanted keys with hardly any feedback as to where you were.
But the worst sin, was making a flip phone with BUTTONS ON THE SIDE. This totally eliminated the advantage of the clamshell where you couldn't accidentally hit buttons. I hung up on people pulling the phone from my pocket and often slightly changed settings getting it out.
It did feel good in the hand when talking or just holding it but like I said they had issues with both hardware and software.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The other poster beat me to it with the link I was basing my statement from (or close enough based on the same survey), but you can see the iPhone is doing quite well in Japan. It turns out they like good UI as well, and if you'd ever seen the character input gui, well it's pretty good even compared to what they are used to.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Android is open source. Just remove the limit in the code and reinstall, if you really need more than 256 megs. Problem solved.
There is no size limit in the code. The size limit is from the fact that Motorola only put that much flash in the phone.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
It behaves more like a real world object than any UI I have seen anywhere.
Yeah, I can see that.
Hey, you look nice, let's have sex.
- Fuck you, go away!
Hey, this app look nice, let's install it.
- Fuck you, go away!
I think the iPhone is Apple business as usual: ..."-ideas.
* Great user-interface as long as you like the defaults, if not you're screwed.
* Plenty of "wouldn't it be great if they user could
And then the usual:
* Controlled environment.
* Limited amount of options.
* Vendor lock-in.
* High prices (phone + plan for the time = excessive $$$)
If you have some issue with the UI, want support for more services or codecs, want to have an alternative application for doing the same thing, then you are screwed.
Like the iPhoto galleries on a real mac, looks nice but you can't export them to anything except MobileMe. Want remote desktop? Get MobileMe. Don't really fancy iTunes with no plugins? Well you're kinda screwed (Songbird isn't a viable alternative imho.) Want to play DivX on your phone? .. Got friends using MSN? Suck to be you!
And that's why I dislike Apple so much. If they where more open with things and just focused on innovation without being total asses they would had been nice.
When someone writes a wrapper for these App store Apps that allows them to run on Android, its game over for this particular advantage.
Like that's ever going to happen. You have no idea how many frameworks and other components you'd have to get in line to replicate the default libraries on the iPhone.
And as for "nothing special" anymore, well there are tens of thousands of developers who disagree with you, along with countless accessory makers that sell product in just about any store in the world that works with the iPhone (and as it happens, iPods too). Your hand waving is not so vigorous as to dismiss this very large advantage.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Its very simple to come up with a Iphone killer.
Open developemet platform that costs nothing to develope in (IE dosen't require a Apple computer or money to get development liceneses) and a open application store that is available across carriers and phones.
Both of thse are available through the Android and will kill off the Iphone. Not this year, or next year but as the platform for the OS and development takes off the Iphones controled app store that is only available on the Iphone will get killed off, and the Android will take over in popularity. Apple had their chance and they dropped the ball, and Google wont make the same mistakes.
TruePunk | Games
I don't know much about Symbian, I've got the impression it was nice but kinda simple for todays environment?
In regard of Maemo I don't know much either but I've seen images of the N900 and looked at the wikipedia entry. Though since it looks more like a debian desktop and then with some proprietary Nokia things it makes me wonder how suited it actually is as a phone?
On a phone I would want a tightly integrated experience (something like the KDE desktop environment but even more so) and not "oh and you can launch this app to do that, and this one for this, and ..." I would also prefer tight small useful apps for doing simple tasks fast.
Will the N900 provide that "Efficient communicator which get tasks done gadget" or will it rather be a desktop computer in your palm?
For computer tasks I'd rather use my computer.
Yeah, haven't used the iPhone but I don't see why I would really need a small crammed physial keyboard. I doubt I would pull it out and it will just take up extra space/volume in the device. Most likely make it cost more to.
No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
2 reasons why a touchscreen keyboard is unsuitable for me:
1. no tactile feedback. I'm afraid I like to be able to feel the keys before I press them so I know my finger is in the right place.
2. I want to be able to see what's on the screen without a virtual keyboard covering it up.
I'll admit that (1) might be something that I would learn to do without if I used an iPhone all the time, but no amount of practice is going to prevent (2) from being a problem - I get an 80x25 terminal window on my phone, which I use for doing things like remotely administering servers; reducing the visible area of that terminal to 3 or 4 lines so that I can fit a keyboard on the screen would make it very unusable. Sure, most people aren't using their phones for administering servers, but this is a major reason for me buying a smartphone since it means I can avoid carrying a laptop around most of the time.
When will you iPhone fanboys get it into your head that a single design of device *never* suits everyone - just because you find a design choice to be ok doesn't mean that everyone else will. Choice is good.
100,000 apps. Seriously, it's *that* important.
I imagine that Symbian has well over 100,000 apps. Most of them are utter shit. Raw numbers are meaningless - if there were 100,000 _good_ apps then that would be something worth shouting about, but that's not the case.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Despite Apple's insane press coverage and a Silicon Valley-centric view of reporters, the iPhone is still only 1/6 of the market in smartphones. A spectacular success for a newcomer, but not market domination. Even iPod, Apple's most successful product, has less than 1/4 market share. Apple has never managed to dominate a market. At best, they hit a peak at 15-20% and then slowly decline. In the end, there are only so many people willing to pay $500-$900 for an iPhone (and that's what it costs, whether it's hidden in subscription fees or paid up front).
Android, on the other hand, has the potential for some really low-cost devices ($100-$200), and its greater openness both towards carries and towards applications mean that it will likely overtake the iPhone in a couple of years.
Of course, the iPhone won't be "killed", just like the Mac won't be killed. Apple's market share dropped from an all-time high of 15% to a couple of percent and now is back at 3-4% worldwide, but it never disappeared.
Many companies have tried to beat the iPod but none of them got it quite right.
With Apple having produced iPods and the iPhone with the same OS it's pretty hard for anyone else to produce anything with such a large user base.
Alternatively:
1. Realise Apple aren't more or less "evil" than Google
2. Buy an iPhone
3. Enjoy using it
Haha, it's always easy to look back and say "that wasn't revolutionary".
Look back at the first plane and you think, that looks simple, it wasn't that hard. Look back at the bicycle or many other things.
You probably haven't had a long history of using lousy Windows and Symbian smartphones, what Apple have produced is pretty revolutionary in terms of usability.
Firstly Windows Mobile and Symbian are menu driven, little fiddly pop up menus with key shortcuts. Awful usability!
The iPhone is responsive, Windows Mobile and Symbian phones tend to pause or slow down, they're clunky and with a Windows Mobile touch screen phone there's often a reset button for when it locks up!
The fact that nobody else has done what Apple have done just shows that other mobile makers aren't interested in writing software, they're just OEMs who want to slap on WinMo, Symbian, Android and write a few drivers/boot code. Then people wonder why the devices are suboptimal.
We are nerds, we don't talk to people but like tech gadgets.
2. I want to be able to see what's on the screen without a virtual keyboard covering it up.
I'm fascinated that this is so often quoted as a downside of the iPhone... The entire reason that there's a virtual keyboard there is because that area that *was* hardware keyboard now gets to be screen, and actually useful when you're not typing.
the formidable marketing machine that apple uses to promote its products to the unwashed masses. Without this, Android will remain a geek's toy.
I imagine that Symbian has well over 100,000 apps. Most of them are utter shit. Raw numbers are meaningless - if there were 100,000 _good_ apps then that would be something worth shouting about, but that's not the case.
I'm fairly certain you're dead wrong about the count of symbian apps, but we have no nice convenient way to count, so we're out of luck on that part. But you're right about the fact that *good* apps is something to shout about, not apps in general. That's why what impresses me about the iPhone ecosystem is that people actually *use* apps.
When was the last time you saw a symbian phone with more than 2 3rd party apps on it? I'm not sure I ever have done. On the other hand, when was the last time you saw an iPhone (not brand new) that didn't have pages of apps installed?
Shame Steve's such a twat and has such poor taste in phones.
The original iPhone was behind the curve on hardware, ahead on software.
The 3GS has caught up on hardware, but it still lacks features some users consider essential - hardware keyboard being one.
Meanwhile the other platforms have at least caught up on software, and have the very strong advantage that the users can decide which software to install.
The iPhone will start to lose market share unless Apple step back from their excessively restrictie practices.
Yeah, I was a bit annoyed that there was only 60 MB of space remaining on my T-Mobile Pulse, but it isn't really a problem. Most apps are only a few hundred kB, and to be honest there aren't that many good apps in the market, at least ones that still support Android 1.5.
At least in the sense that iTunes would run on Wine. Actually this is the reason I am still hesitating about buying iPhone. :-)
On the other hand, Android usability still suck as of yesterday. I went to a shop the very salesguy there spent 5 minutes to figure out how to get a widget back on the screen of an Android phone. Can it be worse? (I know it can
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
The thing is, there's room in the market for devices with comparable specifications, identical software, and differentiated primarily by whether or not they have a physical keyboard.
Some users prefer keyboards. Some don't. It is possible to meet both sets of preferences. HTC manage it, Nokia manage it, Motorola manage it, Sony Ericsson manage it.
While there is demand for devices with keyboards, the manufacturers will continue to meet that demand. I'm confused that you seem to think otherwise.
As the devices get more complex and capable, I expect the input options to increase. There's a reason even netbooks come with hardware keyboards, why laptops have existed for decades and still have them, why you can buy a keyboard to go with your games console.
Keyboards wont necessarily be around forever, but losing half your screen real-estate to badly mimic one isn't an attractive option to a sizeable number of users.
Some of these are made by very trusted names in the business, like TomTom.
Is it true that receiving a call will force the TomTom app to close, losing your navigation, and that when you re-open it you have to re-enter your destination?
Multitasking would be useful.
The 100k apps are a massive factor, but I personally taunt any iPhone fanboy that quotes, "there's an app for that" at me. Because frankly, sometimes, there isn't.
Sometimes because the hardware wont support it, sometimes because Apple refuse to allow it.
Flash, anybody?
The iPhone is a very nice device, and ideal for many phone users, and has had a very positive effect on the smartphone market. It's also over-hyped, over-marketed and I don't want one.
Apple sucks
You do realise that Android comes with a 'market' application built in, that provides a wide selection of free and to-buy applications that can be downloaded to the device?
Oh, and that you don't have to use a PC (Windows, Mac or otherwise) to do this, or to update the OS, or to find and install applications that aren't on the market?
And that nobody prevents applications appearing in the market because they may impact on the profitability of the device manufacturer?
Apple has the apps at the moment, but it's a transitory advantage at best.
I can't believe that no-one here seems to have pointed out the elephant in the room - price. The iPhone is a really nice gadget, but it costs a fortune.
The Palm Pre is also a really nice gadget, with numerous cool features (at least one of which is that it's not controlled by Apple). But, in the UK at least, it's being launched for the exact same price as the iPhone! Are Palm completely batshit insane?
I'd love a smartphone, but I'm not paying in excess of 700UKP for one. Get them under 100UKP, no contract crap, then maybe they'll take off. Maybe I'm unusual in that I don't need or want 30UKP worth of calls every month, but I doubt it.
Is it true that receiving a call will force the TomTom app to close, losing your navigation, and that when you re-open it you have to re-enter your destination?
No it's not. The iPhone does not allow two third party apps to be resident in memory at the same time... But, it's a requirement for all apps to write their state to flash as they exit, and start again in an appropriate state. TomTom for example will start instantly on the map page you left off from with all your navigation information available. To the user, they essentially get multitasking, but without the app actually running when it's backgrounded.
The 100k apps are a massive factor, but I personally taunt any iPhone fanboy that quotes, "there's an app for that" at me. Because frankly, sometimes, there isn't.
True, the only reason the response was "there's an app for that" in this case was because there was, and the parent was trying to assert that the iPhone couldn't do these things, which was, well, false.
Flash, anybody?
Why would I want slow and crappy flash when I have access to 50,000 random games through the app store, and all the good streaming video sites make video available in higher-quality-than-the-flash-version h264 videos for the iPhone.
The iPhone is a very nice device, and ideal for many phone users, and has had a very positive effect on the smartphone market. It's also over-hyped, over-marketed and I don't want one.
Yet you've demonstrated that you don't actually know the first thing about it. You've mad assumptions based on FUD you've seen on slashdot, and then assumed that because apple is good at marketing it *must* be a bad device.
It is not a bad device. You quoted me stating that it is a very nice device, so I'm very confused that you think I've assumed it's a bad device.
It is a very nice device, but that doesn't stop it being over-hyped or over-marketed. And having used one more than once, I still don't want one.
I want Flash support because I use websites that have embedded flash in them. Not all of them use it for streaming video, and none of them use it for games.
However, Flash was only an example of the type of application that you can't use on the iPhone because Apple wont let you.
Apple
Wont
Let
You
Clearly you're happy with that. I'm not.
I have been using a Nokia N79 for a few weeks now and I have to say I have yet to find a mobile-computing task it can't do..
Google maps works well with the internal GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth both work flawlessly, I can use it as a mobile 3G hotspot through JoikuSpot, the browser is Webkit based and pretty good (not the best but loads better than Opera Mini on my last phone!)
Its light, easy to use, seems reliable and doesnt suck battery life. Good enough for me... Only obvious downside is it doesnt have the app ecosystem that iPhone has, theres plenty out there but perhaps not the same level of overall polish (although being able to install any app I liike, any way I like, is a massive plus compared to the Apple App Store's rules and regulations.)
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
What about what the Iphone lacks like... a KEYBOARD.
No one gives a shit except geeks who've never actually tried an iPhone keyboard for more than 4 seconds, and hence haven't discovered you can type faster on it than with a physical one.
Not trying to flame you. Honestly curious. How does the IPhone handle multiple languages? Is there any automatic language selection for the text correction?
I write email, and IM in 3 different languages. Every day. Having a keyboard helps a lot in these situations. People in the US don't write in multiple languages much? Well, in Europe there is a massive expat work force that does that all the time.
The market is still not fully mature with 40% of Americans owning Smartphones but over the next year or two there will be many more people replacing their current smart phones than entering the smart phone market. Those unsatisfied with their current offering are the ones most likely to move to something new. Therefore, it seems the Android is much more likely to kill off market share from everyone except iPhone. Since most smartphone manufacturers need to use someone else's software (I mean the # of manufacturers since they only have 23% market share between them), I suspect this means Window Mobile.
This is of course a US View and the market is much more open in most of the World. The key to maintaining market share is customer satisfaction. How many sidekicks would be sold now even if T-Mobile had them up for sale?
Source of data
NON DRM (thats enough by itself to switch) music
So you claim to have had an iPhone - but you're still perpetuating the myth that iPhone/iPod/iTunes somehow forces you to use DRM music? Did you ever take the iPhone out of its box?
Lets get this straight: iTunes/iPod/iPhone work perfectly well with DRM-free music. You can import any unprotected MP3 or AAC file into iTunes; iTunes can rip CDs to unprotected AAC or MP3 and these files sync and play seamlessly on iPod/iPhone.
In other news, although you can't easily copy tracks back off an iPod/phone, the desktop iTunes software stores your music library as regular files, clearly named, numbered and arranged in folders, with an easily interpreted XML file containing the metadata.
The only DRM or "lock in" comes if you choose to purchase your music from the iTunes store (and I believe that even that offers a DRM-free option now - can't say for sure because despite using iTunes and iPod, the only thing I ever bought from ITMS was an iPod Touch firmware upgrade).
Oh - and the same goes for video, too: of course, using "unofficial" software to rip DVDs means that some poor movie exec will go without his daily line and you'll go straight to hell - but iTunes/iPod won't stop you playing the result.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Not trying to flame you. Honestly curious. How does the IPhone handle multiple languages? Is there any automatic language selection for the text correction?
You can specify (a) the type of keyboard you want to type on (including handwriting recognition for chinese and japanese), (b) a list of languages that you want it to accept words in. My experience of people here in Belgium is that it works fine at least if you have it set to English, Dutch and French, I can't imagine that you'll find many languages that overlap much more than that... Perhaps German and Dutch.
I write email, and IM in 3 different languages. Every day. Having a keyboard helps a lot in these situations. People in the US don't write in multiple languages much? Well, in Europe there is a massive expat work force that does that all the time.
Yep, I am one of those expats. One of the really nice things is that a non-hardware keyboard can be reconfigured to someone else's layout in an instant.
Regarding the whole "Can you hear me now?" marketing... I find it especially telling that Verizon put the mute on the guy when the market started getting annoyed with him. It pretty much showed they pay attention to the market. What they don't do is let the manufacturers drive them. Palm basically screwed them with a bunch of bad Treo's of the 700 series - I've gone through 6 of them. And I got a free upgrade to a 650 when my Kyocera 6035 died. That 650p lasted nearly 4.5 years.
"Is it true that receiving a call will force the TomTom app to close, losing your navigation, and that when you re-open it you have to re-enter your destination?"
If so, that's not a multitasking problem (Judging by how slow Navigon is, I definitely would NOT want TomTom hogging CPU time while I'm trying to talk on the phone), it's a poor programming problem. Just make sure you save the destination when it's typed in, and then you'll always be able to restore it when you restart.
I'm really hoping Google Navigation a) comes out on the iPhone and b) puts the existing navigation companies to shame.
From the article:
"not to mention the fact that Palm and Microsoft have yet to give up on their respective WebOS and Windows Mobile visions."
When I saw that, I almost stopped reading completely. Yet to give up? WebOS? Palm just released the Linux-based WebOS a few ( 5) months ago! Why would anyone expect them to already "give up"???
"The first is that Android has taken four versions over two years to reach the same ballpark as the iPhone; WebOS did it in a dot-one upgrade a few months after its release."
There, that is more like it.
"the mobile equivalent of desktop Linux: just a plaything for open source community."
Desktop Linux is only a plaything?? Yeesh.
It seems to me that every article about an iphone or ipod "killer" is written by Apple fanboys or enthusiasts. I normally see it as an attempt to keep talking about Apple products even when people want to talk about something else.
My take on Android 2.0? What is clear to me is that Android (as a software platform) has the fastest evolution rate among all smartphone platforms (given its release rate), and that this new Droid and the Xperia Rachel will address one of the IMO biggest limitations of my G1: screen size, and resolution.
Other than that my dream wish list for upgrading to a new phone would be:
Oh, and I need to still get root on it one way or another....
Maybe the iPhone will be a more consistent experience than Android, but it will also be limited in its diversity of hardware, which is an advantage for Google when it comes to market dominance of the Android platform. We've all seen this before with Mac vs Windows on the desktop, just this time it it is happening on mobile devices.
Go Illini!!!
Everything I have read says that eclair does not support storing apps to the sd card. You have a link for that?
Go Illini!!!
Yeah, I worry about the later stuff you mention, even if the things is open and you can get any app and so on it doesn't matter unless someone actually develops it =P
I think the whole situation is somewhat absurb since Apple actually didn't got the applications part at all themselves. The SDK crap with CSS- and javascript applications sound like total shit compared to what could had been there. I guess they have a better solution now or is everything made using that?
It was rather all the complaints and people forcing better stuff into the iPhone which made it better, not Apple.
But well, those people should just had developed for something more developer-friendly.
Guess market recognition and nowadays size of the market is what saved them.
Regarding the OSes as I said I don't know much about Symbian, something more lightweight sounds like a good idea to me so it doesn't have to be a bad thing I guess. Things like QNX, maybe the Risc OS or something similar to AmigaOS and such would had been sweet to (though modified and up to date of course ..), but well, capable enough get the work done but still not bloated like fuck.
> But what will it really take to beat or match the iPhone
.if you jailbreak it. Unfortunately, however, most people who own the iPhone don't really use it as much more than a status symbol. Sure they'll put a few apps on there, but they're not using it for much beyond what most of the other smartphones could do.
.except for me. I chose a Lenovo Thinkpad because personally I'm not a huge fan of Apple Inc. and the Thinkpad I customized was more powerful for a better price. Soon people at work began to snicker, and I was in the out group again.
.there's a very large number of people who won't buy it because it's not made by Apple. Possibly enough to prevent anything from "killing" the iPhone.
An apple logo. seriously, that's it.
Being an iPhone owner myself, I must admit -- it's a pretty great device. .
As soon as I gained employment at my current job (which is a design job), I fit right in instantly because I had an iPhone and so did everyone else at work. Things went amiss quickly however, as the new Macbook Pro came out and everyone that had an iPhone got one of those. .
Yes, the iPhone is nice, but even if something nicer comes out. .
While it's true that Android phones support OpenGL ES, currently the iPhone is much better at taking advantage of it. Almost all current Android handsets (I think the Sholes / Droid is the unique exception in this) do not have floating point support on-chip. That combined with the iPhone running native code compared with Android running interpreted bytecode means that the iPhone completely beats the crap out of current Android handsets when it comes to 3d performance.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Android phone (HTC Hero) but it doesn't have the grunt of an iPhone.
I agree, it would be nice if the iPhone/touch does it. Sometimes I do get lost in trying to find one of he 60 or so apps I currently have. Other than my first screen with most frequent apps, i tend to search for them, but I do know all the games are in the last 2 screens.
But then my Android phone does not do any categorization out of the box either, as far as I can see.
I'm fascinated that this is so often quoted as a downside of the iPhone... The entire reason that there's a virtual keyboard there is because that area that *was* hardware keyboard now gets to be screen, and actually useful when you're not typing.
My phone has a screen that is about the same size as the iPhone's, plus a physical keyboard. The space taken up by the keyboard is not useful as screen space since it is hidden behind the screen when not in use. Well, I guess you could use that space for a second screen in a Nintendo-DS style, but it doesn't sound especially useful to me and would cripple the battery life.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
When was the last time you saw a symbian phone with more than 2 3rd party apps on it?
When I had a Symbian phone, I did have more than 2 3rd party apps on it, and they did get used. But most of the apps were infuriatingly shit, and that extends to the built in stuff as well as the third party stuff too. Conversely, my Android phone does have a lot of apps on it which are pretty good and do get used.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw an iPhone (not brand new) that didn't have pages of apps installed?
I'm not sure that pages of apps necessarily means the apps are good or well used. It might mean that the owner has been trying lots of apps out to see which are the best and hasn't bothered to delete the ones they've given up on. My desktop computer doesn't have "pages and pages of apps", I'm not sure why I should expect to have more useful apps on my phone than my desktop. FWIW, my phone has just over 3 pages of apps on it (which I don't count as "pages and pages"), and this includes some of the stock apps that I don't use but can't delete, and a few apps I've given up on and not bothered to delete.
From a quick look through my apps, I use about 21 apps:
Alarm Clock, AndNav2, Astrid, Barcode scanner, Browser, Calendar, ConnectBot, Contacts, Dialer, Email, Google Maps, Google Skymap, Market, Messaging, Mileage, Music, MyTracks, OI Safe, Sipdroid, Spare Parts and TideApp
Its a reasonable list, but it certainly isn't "pages and pages". Of course, in addition to that list, I have Debian installed on the phone, which has a few bits and pieces I use on occasion. I'd venture that if someone has over 50 apps installed, they probably don't use most of them.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
It's part of the Android's feeble attempt at piracy prevention. Apps are only allowed to be installed on the internal memory - not the SD card.
...and this is only apples 3rd(?) try at the iPhone before getting it right? Wait till Android 3.0 comes out and see how the 2 compare.
That combined with the iPhone running native code compared with Android running interpreted bytecode means that the iPhone completely beats the crap out of current Android handsets when it comes to 3d performance.
Android doesn't only run interpreted bytecode: the NDK allows you to write performance-critical code in C/C++. That's why there are usable emulators, ports like GLES Quake, and the Neocore demo I linked earlier.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
And that nobody prevents applications appearing in the market because they may impact on the profitability of the device manufacturer?
That "nobody" is apparently the telephone carrier - if you want tethering or VoIP over wireless instead of 3G or... well anything the carrier dislikes.
http://phandroid.com/2009/04/02/tethering-apps-are-back-not-with-t-mobile/
Not trying to flame you. Honestly curious. How does the IPhone handle multiple languages?
There is builtin support for many languages, and all the strings are stored in separate files, as on mac os x. You can change language and most apps will change immediately as well.
I have never seen funny things like on my wife's android, such as "Hai un appuntamento il 31 ottobre, donnerstag" which means "you got a date on the 31rst of october, thursday", but the text is in italian except for the name of the day of the week, which is in German. This is really poor.
Is there any automatic language selection for the text correction?
Not automatic, but you can enable more keyboards. I have an italian, a german, and an english keyboard. text correction depends on the keyboard you are using and there is an on-screen icon you can tap to change keyboard - and thus text correction dictionary.
Roberto
Dave Schroeder is that you?
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
So how is this any different from what we have today?
I mean, say Android is deployed on every smartphone in the world that isn't an iPhone. Some are large and fragile, some are gold-plated, some with touchscreens, some without, some with keyboards, et cetera et cetera. To do this, every manufacturer and carrier needs to write custom firmware, apps, and UI elements to work with their handsets, on top of Android, ... so let's just say they did, and they work just fine, and here we are.
How does that in any way constitute a threat to the iPhone?
Here's another scenario: Let's take every computer in the world, from the toughest HP rig to the crappiest mini-ATX, and make them all run the same OS. Let's call this rival OS something suitably generic, like, "windows". By sheer numbers alone, it will totally crush Apple and their puny OS X! Except not.
What magic sauce does Android promise that will counteract the crushing weight of a zillion competing handsets and their chump code monkeys clamoring to distinguish themselves with blingy but utterly unusable interfaces?
I'd really like to know.
Yes, and this is why my "grunty" iPhone often lags while doing complex tasks, like turning pages in a book app. Or switching from landscape to portrait mode. I'll take ANY android phone over my 3G iPhone, any day of the week. Sure, it's a great music player and the phone quality is decent when it's not dropping calls, but it's not the "do what you want to do" platform and never will be. It's more of a 'do what we want you to do' sort of phone.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
http://www.simplehelp.net/2009/09/28/how-to-partition-your-androids-sd-card-to-install-apps-on-it/ - I've not tried this but it sure looks simple enough.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
Well said. For some reason a lot of people on Slashdot don't seem to understand the need for polish and quality. That's exactly what Apple delivers in their products, and it's *hard* to do, which is why most of their competitors fail to do it. Attention to the small details matters to the end user.
Google, just WTF where you thinking?
Uhm, 256 MB should be enough for everyone? perhaps?
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
With out being overly obvious, you realize this is a 2-3mb app with 1.2 gigs of map data? You realize Android apps have access to a SD card? Just my Google listen (podcasts) has nearly 2G of data alone stored on my SD card.
How is it that Apple fanboys and so many /.ers are missing the big picture and main point? Do we need to review computing history to establish the fact that openness wins? That open source software running on a multitude of hardware platforms is a winning hand? Do we not understand why Linux is a success?
The Android O/S has already been made to run on a variety of smartphones and laptops and even full servers. Android is even being used on discreet single purpose devices like music players. And with the smartphone we are witnessing a disruptive platform, a full blown computer in a "new" smaller format. More people are going to be buying these computer devices than "regular" computers. For many it will even displace the need for a "regular" computer. The rate of adoption amongst a variety of devices is greater for Android now than it was for Linux at this chronological stage.
Openness wins. Apple will be in a battle it cannot win. What we're seeing is somewhat analogous to the PC and mini-computers and mainframes. Apple might as well be trying to sell DEC/VAX servers. But an even more disruptive event is taking place... The separation of the phone device from the network service providers who will now have to compete on service. It's coming to this... Do you want to change to a more competitive phone network offering? Click here on your open systems device which we support.
The iPhone is a single form factor premium product that has a pretty small market share and is defended by aggressive fanboys. Why would anybody focus on killing it, and why would anybody care?
The real targets for Android are Symbian, Blackberry, and WinMo. Is Android better than them? I think pretty clearly yes.
The only thing they didn't compare was App stores *seriously if someone says over 100,000 apps again I will strangle you with strangulation.ipa*
100,000 apps. Seriously, it's *that* important.
The problem with iPhone's app store is that most of those 100,000 apps are crap. And some of the good ones that people really want were refused by Apple.
Lack of a gatekeeper is a big advantage to me.
I know I should have posted a link before, but it was pretty prevalent on Google and someone already posted another link in response to a question... here you go.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The market of course shifts week by week, but it appears the iPhone is still #2 (and that's the 32GB model, the 16GB model is also on the list at #9):
Japanese phone market
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With out being overly obvious, you realize this is a 2-3mb app with 1.2 gigs of map data? You realize Android apps have access to a SD card? Just my Google listen (podcasts) has nearly 2G of data alone stored on my SD card.
I still don't see the point of that SD card, though. Why would I want to replace my computer's memory? Do people often switch harddisks arround in their PC? I just want to have enough storage, and I want to use it the way I want. Just give me 16 GB for apps and everything else.
It's part of the Android's feeble attempt at piracy prevention. Apps are only allowed to be installed on the internal memory - not the SD card.
So why does Motorola make a phone with a huge SD card and very little internal memory? Why even have an SD card at all, when you could just as easily have had tons of internal memory?
3) Atleast the phones _HAVE_ memory card slots, the iPhone does not.
So with 10 GB of the latest episodes of some series and 20 GB of music how much space do you have on your 32 GB iPhone for apps?
So I have to swap memory cards every time I want to do something? I just want a machine with plenty of internal memory.
I've heard there's also a version of Android that removes the prohibition on installing apps on the SD card.
Actually, I'd say the major thing that gave the iPhone such a major push was the fact that it was the best thing at the time. People seem to have forgotten the awful "smart" phones we had before Apple decided to shake things up. The iPhone may or may not still be the best thing around (I don't know), but it seems to me we probably would have no Android today without the fresh competition Apple provided.
That's exactly it. I never saw the point in smart phones until the iPhone arrived. And so far, it looks like the iPhone is still the best device on the market. Motorola Droid would be cool if it was available, which it unfortunately isn't.
I've heard there's also a version of Android that removes the prohibition on installing apps on the SD card.
Yes, CyanogenMod does it out of the box - I have my phone set up to install apps on the Debian partition of my SDHC card.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
That's sales for July. This is not the same as marketshare.
Sales is marketshare.
And I also provided a second link with current data, which shows it at number 2 (though really more since another iPhone is in the number 9 slot).
I wouldn't go throwing stones when you have not even finished building your glass house...
It's really a shame eight year olds like yourself don't have to pass some kind of test to post here, it would keep the quality up to where it used to be. Even your insults are pathetic. Next time I'll just ignore requests for a link so it'll just be another bumbling ignorant fool like yoruself, and why bother to help someone who hasn't figured out how to use Google yet?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You can enable apps2sd with a hacked kernel, it is beyound me why Google does not enable it per default.
The same goes for various tethering options, USB tethering works on newer phones unless the carries wants it to be removed, yet OSX does not provide proper RNDIS drivers for the plug and play Android has to work, neither does anyone else (hello there is a market out there)
and the fix for this Wifi tethering is only available on hacked kernels for Android devices.
Android is excellent, but those small things are really weaknesses on the operating system integrated into most devices.
Hello google, a simple APPS2SD and Swap2SD settings button would go miles for most users (you even can issue a fair warning there)
and Wifi Tethering (Hello HTC, there are Mac Users out there, who would love to get Tethering working without hacking your phones)
No unfortunatly it is true, the main issue here is that the stock android phones not the dev phones lock you down into usermode and
Storing the apps on the SD card is not an option on those, Apps2sd can be obtained, but you have to hack your kernel open (root it) to enable it.
Why it works on the G1 out of the box is because the phone is rooted out of the box, but the G1 has other limits, the Ram is measly compared to the newer phones.
The IPhone indeed was years ahead of everyone else. Which is sad considering how much time the others had to do something useful. Well Microsoft and Nokia laughed first, but I cannot see them laughing anymore.
As for Android, I have a newly HTC Hero, and I think Android is getting where the iPhone is, in some parts it is better (openness of applications) in some parts it is slightly worse (handling of the settings part and generally too many buttons to press)
But at least on the Android side the gap is very narrow already.
I think Apple in a years time will have a harder time to convince people to buy their expensive phone/contracts over the cheaper competition doing the same mostly.
We run slowly into the same situation we had on the PC side in the mid 80s and again Apples attude prevents a bigger success.
This is indeed googles biggest weakness, while it is way better than winmo, I see the same problem plaguing android as usually Microsoft does, for heavens sake Google get a designer, some of the screens look so bland that you feel yourself brought back to the VT220 era.
The other thing is that some things while it is getting better are inconsistent as hell.
(Not as bad as winmo though) but if you want to run against the iPhone you have to do one hell of a job regarding user interfaces.
While everything is ok on the desktop and apps side, things become nasty if you have to diver deeper!
T-Mobile [...] I'm still not sure if they get decent coverage where I live.
There's a map for that ;-) (The commercial alludes to AT&T, but I've read anecdotes elsewhere that T-Mobile's U.S. coverage is even spottier.)
But at least Verizon's iDon't commercial implies that it plans to offer an Android-based phone that allows open development: "iDon't allow open development. [...] Everything iDon't, Droid does."