5 ms·

Why I became an Android fanboy

31 points by edw519 16y ago

heresy 16y ago
I like Android's openness and the freedom to hack it. I'm just concerned that Google may be too accepting of poor moves from hardware and network partners just to gain market share and penetration. HTC's Sense UI is a mild example of this, but I've seen what Vodafone does to phones in the name of branding and it sucks. Disabling half of the phone's hardware capabilities for arbitrary PHB reasons, polluting the phone unboxing experience with their crapware apps all over the place. Apple didn't stand for that, and I'm glad they didn't. I hope Google will have the balls not to, either, because Android is starting to grow on me and may be on my next phone, even though I'm still in the Apple camp.
- buro9 16y ago
  This only relates to this one device, but I have a Nexus One on Vodafone and was pleasantly surprised to find Vodafone didn't mess with it in any way... it's virgin android. Lovely. Of course, they may revert to their old tricks on future models. Just don't let it hold you up getting one now.
  - smokinn 16y ago
    That's because it's a "Google experience" phone. Any phone that has the Google logo on it can't be messed with in any way. Vodafone couldn't mess with it if they wanted to since Google wouldn't let them sell it if they did.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Then Google needs to back up "Google experience" with some customer service. Otherwise, that term will mean "nifty device, bad service" forever.
      - Tichy 16y ago
        I don't see why another company couldn't do the service part, and it could still be the "Google Experience".
        stcredzero 16y ago
        There's chicken & egg problems here that Google is in a better position to overcome. If no one buys a "Google experience" phone because the customer service is bad, then there isn't going to be a big enough market to make a 3rd party company profitable.
        Tichy 16y ago
        Usually when I buy something I speculate on there being no customer service experience at all. My N1 works fine, no need to get in touch with Google.
    - enjo 16y ago
      My HTC Incredible has a google logo on the back...
- gxs 16y ago
  I had a moto droid and now have an htc incredible. The droid is a "google experience" phone and the incredible runs HTC's sense UI. What exactly do you hate about the sense UI? Granted it's only my opinion, but I'm quite fond of the sense UI. On a phone as powerful as the incredible it runs smoothly and genuinely adds to the Droid's generic feel experience.
  - heresy 16y ago
    I don't have any technical objections to it, but there is value to having a consistent experience across the platform. Right now, the difference probably is not that great between Sense and stock, but I'm sure HTC sees Sense as a competitive differentiator, and there-in lies the danger. I'm sure it will be tempting to keep tweaking it, until at some point you could hardly tell the phone was an Android device, and non-HTC apps looked wildly out of place. If I have any misconceptions please correct them, this is just my take from reading what information there is out there on it, I don't have a Sense device.
jcl 16y ago
A link to the article itself (instead of the blog): http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005011-264.html?tag=mncol;title http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005011-264.html?tag=mnco...
stcredzero 16y ago
First, the browser. Web pages load fast. Even with a Wi-Fi connection, the Ion and iPhone 3G just didn't have the processing horsepower to fetch the bits and parse HTML well. The Desire was the first mobile phone I've used that felt like a member of the broadband era, not the dial-up era. Not a fair comparison. The iPhone 3GS would be a better comparison in this case. He's essentially giving the iPhone a 1 generation handicap.
- dabeeeenster 16y ago
  I've got a Desire and it renders pages about 30/40% faster than a 3GS. And that's before the Froyo update which is alleged to have 2 to 3x speed increase due to JIT goodness...
  - Daishiman 16y ago
    I doubt JIT will do anything to speed it up, since it's likely that the browser component is 100% native code.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kacy 16y ago
Maybe it's just me, but his article pretty much made me want to keep my iPhone 3GS. There are only a few things that would make me want to switch at this point. Even some of his pros are cons to me. Pros: - Share button - Exchange support - Back and Menu buttons - Native Google apps - No iTunes - Voice Control - Keyboard with a comma - Status bar - Replacing cursor Cons: - Application availability - UI is clumsy and/or incoherent - Painful browser zooming - Copy/Paste is unpleasant - Typing is just better on the iPhone
jokermatt999 16y ago
One nit to pick: some Android phones do have the pinch-to-zoom enabled in the default browser. I know for a fact that my Droid does, and I believe the Nexus One has it as well.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  'strue (N1 here) but it does not work all that well. you can also zoom by double-tap or by using a pair of +/- buttons at the bottom of the screen, and I often find myself zooming accidentally by hitting the latter. As a matter of fact I'd say the browser is one of the weaker aspects of the phone. I hope they improve this soon; I'm not sure what impact Android 2.2 will have, but my understanding is that it's only out to developers this week, rather than the general public for a while yet.
  - warfangle 16y ago
    I really, really like the double-tap functionality in the browser. It's great for reading articles and HN. I don't know why he griped about the animation for it - I find it one of the key features of the browser, and would miss it desperately if I used any other phone. I do wish there was an option to disable the +/- buttons from appearing, though - with pinch and double-tap, I never need them..
    - technomancy 16y ago
      > I do wish there was an option to disable the +/- buttons from appearing, though - with pinch and double-tap, I never need them. Agreed. CyanogenMod makes this easy, but it should be added to the stock OS.
  - enjo 16y ago
    Have you tried it on the incredible? Pinch-to-zoom works perfectly on my phone.
- gcb 16y ago
  N1 here. but you still get the +- buttons using screen. sucks.
timcederman 16y ago
I'll tell you why I'm not an Android fanboy - the confusing UI and inconsistent hardware. Nothing made this more clear when I was trying to use my wife's Nexus One for turn-by-turn navigation in LA on the weekend. Hidden menus were very frustrating, and the clunky keyboard implementation meant I tried for voice recognition. Firstly, it sends voice recognition to Google (what! Voice recognition on the iPhone blows the Android experience out of the water due to this alone), but we need the navigation immediately (as we realised en-route we needed to stop somewhere else). Then the Android just hangs and gets stuck on some "please wait" screen. I have never seen an iPhone get stuck randomly unless it's a hard crash. Then I needed to figure out how to 'reset' the map app -- another exercise in frustration. Ultimately it proved easier to use my iPhone and read the directions out myself. It basically sums up every experience I've had with Android - frought with frustration and unnecessary problems.
- timcederman 16y ago
  The downvoting in this thread is interesting - it's not like the frustrations being aired are overly harsh or unfair. I think it's fine to air contrary viewpoints, surely.
  - anatta 16y ago
    You are most likely being downvoted for muddling the object(s) of your criticism. The Google navigation app runs on Android but so do other navigation apps. You've made a set error in your logic confusing the subset for the superset. A fair criticism would be to try different apps, weigh them out and present a measured response based on that analysis or specify that you're criticizing Google's app specifically and constraining the boundaries to that app and not the platform it runs on.
gcb 16y ago
one more to the "what's bad" multitasking is arcane and weird. you never know when you app will be on the back, runing on it's own state. or when it will be killed for memory and the previous state restored. this is mainly a pain with the Aldiko ebook reader he mentions on the article and Opera. put both of those applications on the background, and go do stuff. if you didn't used much memory, you get the last book open on Aldiko and opera with the tabs. if you did used more memory, the OS still show those apps as open (if you hold the home key) but changing to them will give you initial states. no more open tabs in opera. no more the current book open on aldiko. you even get the loading screen again of opera mini. And since i installed a process killer, that shows what really is running --hint, it's not what the long-press-on-home-button tells you, i keep seeing (and killing) the mp3 store. I have NEVER clicked the mp3 store icon. it does not show up as a battery user on the battery use list. but it's always running... what gives? but all and all, i like it. android is the PC revolution happening on the mobile market. Just like the mainframe lease is done today, the mobile abusive billing will be soon.
- natrius 16y ago
  The Aldiko and Opera issues you mention are bugs in those programs, not in Android. They aren't properly saving their states.
  - gcb 16y ago
    Let's try another one then. 1. open gtalk. (this one should be coded correctly, right?) and type anything. do not send. 2. long press home. 3. go to another app. let's say, browser. 4. long press home. 5 select gtalk. awesome! your text is there. awaiting you to send it. now, repeat step 1 to 3. but this time also open google maps, and google earth... and let's say google navigator (you are tring to confirm where something is) now proceed with steps 4 and 5. oh no! your text is not there anymore! did the guys that coded google talk do not know how to use their own OS? or you just took your information out of nowhere?
    - natrius 16y ago
      I consider that a bug. From what I've heard, Android makes handling app switching straightforward to handle from the programmer's perspective.

31 points by edw519 16y ago

I like Android's openness and the freedom to hack it. I'm just concerned that Google may be too accepting of poor moves from hardware and network partners just to gain market share and penetration. HTC's Sense UI is a mild example of this, but I've seen what Vodafone does to phones in the name of branding and it sucks. Disabling half of the phone's hardware capabilities for arbitrary PHB reasons, polluting the phone unboxing experience with their crapware apps all over the place. Apple didn't stand for that, and I'm glad they didn't. I hope Google will have the balls not to, either, because Android is starting to grow on me and may be on my next phone, even though I'm still in the Apple camp.

buro9 16y ago
This only relates to this one device, but I have a Nexus One on Vodafone and was pleasantly surprised to find Vodafone didn't mess with it in any way... it's virgin android. Lovely. Of course, they may revert to their old tricks on future models. Just don't let it hold you up getting one now.
- smokinn 16y ago
  That's because it's a "Google experience" phone. Any phone that has the Google logo on it can't be messed with in any way. Vodafone couldn't mess with it if they wanted to since Google wouldn't let them sell it if they did.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Then Google needs to back up "Google experience" with some customer service. Otherwise, that term will mean "nifty device, bad service" forever.
    - Tichy 16y ago
      I don't see why another company couldn't do the service part, and it could still be the "Google Experience".
      - stcredzero 16y ago
        There's chicken & egg problems here that Google is in a better position to overcome. If no one buys a "Google experience" phone because the customer service is bad, then there isn't going to be a big enough market to make a 3rd party company profitable.
        Tichy 16y ago
        Usually when I buy something I speculate on there being no customer service experience at all. My N1 works fine, no need to get in touch with Google.
  - enjo 16y ago
    My HTC Incredible has a google logo on the back...
gxs 16y ago
I had a moto droid and now have an htc incredible. The droid is a "google experience" phone and the incredible runs HTC's sense UI. What exactly do you hate about the sense UI? Granted it's only my opinion, but I'm quite fond of the sense UI. On a phone as powerful as the incredible it runs smoothly and genuinely adds to the Droid's generic feel experience.
- heresy 16y ago
  I don't have any technical objections to it, but there is value to having a consistent experience across the platform. Right now, the difference probably is not that great between Sense and stock, but I'm sure HTC sees Sense as a competitive differentiator, and there-in lies the danger. I'm sure it will be tempting to keep tweaking it, until at some point you could hardly tell the phone was an Android device, and non-HTC apps looked wildly out of place. If I have any misconceptions please correct them, this is just my take from reading what information there is out there on it, I don't have a Sense device.

jcl 16y ago

A link to the article itself (instead of the blog): http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005011-264.html?tag=mncol;title http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20005011-264.html?tag=mnco...

stcredzero 16y ago

First, the browser. Web pages load fast. Even with a Wi-Fi connection, the Ion and iPhone 3G just didn't have the processing horsepower to fetch the bits and parse HTML well. The Desire was the first mobile phone I've used that felt like a member of the broadband era, not the dial-up era. Not a fair comparison. The iPhone 3GS would be a better comparison in this case. He's essentially giving the iPhone a 1 generation handicap.

dabeeeenster 16y ago
I've got a Desire and it renders pages about 30/40% faster than a 3GS. And that's before the Froyo update which is alleged to have 2 to 3x speed increase due to JIT goodness...
- Daishiman 16y ago
  I doubt JIT will do anything to speed it up, since it's likely that the browser component is 100% native code.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kacy 16y ago

Maybe it's just me, but his article pretty much made me want to keep my iPhone 3GS. There are only a few things that would make me want to switch at this point. Even some of his pros are cons to me. Pros: - Share button - Exchange support - Back and Menu buttons - Native Google apps - No iTunes - Voice Control - Keyboard with a comma - Status bar - Replacing cursor Cons: - Application availability - UI is clumsy and/or incoherent - Painful browser zooming - Copy/Paste is unpleasant - Typing is just better on the iPhone

jokermatt999 16y ago

One nit to pick: some Android phones do have the pinch-to-zoom enabled in the default browser. I know for a fact that my Droid does, and I believe the Nexus One has it as well.

anigbrowl 16y ago
'strue (N1 here) but it does not work all that well. you can also zoom by double-tap or by using a pair of +/- buttons at the bottom of the screen, and I often find myself zooming accidentally by hitting the latter. As a matter of fact I'd say the browser is one of the weaker aspects of the phone. I hope they improve this soon; I'm not sure what impact Android 2.2 will have, but my understanding is that it's only out to developers this week, rather than the general public for a while yet.
- warfangle 16y ago
  I really, really like the double-tap functionality in the browser. It's great for reading articles and HN. I don't know why he griped about the animation for it - I find it one of the key features of the browser, and would miss it desperately if I used any other phone. I do wish there was an option to disable the +/- buttons from appearing, though - with pinch and double-tap, I never need them..
  - technomancy 16y ago
    > I do wish there was an option to disable the +/- buttons from appearing, though - with pinch and double-tap, I never need them. Agreed. CyanogenMod makes this easy, but it should be added to the stock OS.
- enjo 16y ago
  Have you tried it on the incredible? Pinch-to-zoom works perfectly on my phone.
gcb 16y ago
N1 here. but you still get the +- buttons using screen. sucks.

timcederman 16y ago

I'll tell you why I'm not an Android fanboy - the confusing UI and inconsistent hardware. Nothing made this more clear when I was trying to use my wife's Nexus One for turn-by-turn navigation in LA on the weekend. Hidden menus were very frustrating, and the clunky keyboard implementation meant I tried for voice recognition. Firstly, it sends voice recognition to Google (what! Voice recognition on the iPhone blows the Android experience out of the water due to this alone), but we need the navigation immediately (as we realised en-route we needed to stop somewhere else). Then the Android just hangs and gets stuck on some "please wait" screen. I have never seen an iPhone get stuck randomly unless it's a hard crash. Then I needed to figure out how to 'reset' the map app -- another exercise in frustration. Ultimately it proved easier to use my iPhone and read the directions out myself. It basically sums up every experience I've had with Android - frought with frustration and unnecessary problems.

timcederman 16y ago
The downvoting in this thread is interesting - it's not like the frustrations being aired are overly harsh or unfair. I think it's fine to air contrary viewpoints, surely.
- anatta 16y ago
  You are most likely being downvoted for muddling the object(s) of your criticism. The Google navigation app runs on Android but so do other navigation apps. You've made a set error in your logic confusing the subset for the superset. A fair criticism would be to try different apps, weigh them out and present a measured response based on that analysis or specify that you're criticizing Google's app specifically and constraining the boundaries to that app and not the platform it runs on.

gcb 16y ago

one more to the "what's bad" multitasking is arcane and weird. you never know when you app will be on the back, runing on it's own state. or when it will be killed for memory and the previous state restored. this is mainly a pain with the Aldiko ebook reader he mentions on the article and Opera. put both of those applications on the background, and go do stuff. if you didn't used much memory, you get the last book open on Aldiko and opera with the tabs. if you did used more memory, the OS still show those apps as open (if you hold the home key) but changing to them will give you initial states. no more open tabs in opera. no more the current book open on aldiko. you even get the loading screen again of opera mini. And since i installed a process killer, that shows what really is running --hint, it's not what the long-press-on-home-button tells you, i keep seeing (and killing) the mp3 store. I have NEVER clicked the mp3 store icon. it does not show up as a battery user on the battery use list. but it's always running... what gives? but all and all, i like it. android is the PC revolution happening on the mobile market. Just like the mainframe lease is done today, the mobile abusive billing will be soon.

natrius 16y ago
The Aldiko and Opera issues you mention are bugs in those programs, not in Android. They aren't properly saving their states.
- gcb 16y ago
  Let's try another one then. 1. open gtalk. (this one should be coded correctly, right?) and type anything. do not send. 2. long press home. 3. go to another app. let's say, browser. 4. long press home. 5 select gtalk. awesome! your text is there. awaiting you to send it. now, repeat step 1 to 3. but this time also open google maps, and google earth... and let's say google navigator (you are tring to confirm where something is) now proceed with steps 4 and 5. oh no! your text is not there anymore! did the guys that coded google talk do not know how to use their own OS? or you just took your information out of nowhere?
  - natrius 16y ago
    I consider that a bug. From what I've heard, Android makes handling app switching straightforward to handle from the programmer's perspective.