9 ms·
Switching to Android
- starnix17 16y agoOther then the fact that he says iTunes music is DRM'd (I don't think it is any more), I'd say this is a pretty fair review of the Android ecosystem. Edit: This is completely irrelevant, but Chad Fowler looks way different with shorter hair.
- jolan 16y ago> he says iTunes music is DRM'd (I don't think it is any more) No more DRM but they do stamp info about you into the metadata so you can be tracked down if you happen to share the files. Amazon doesn't do this.
- danudey 16y agoIt's true, but I'm willing to have my files uniquely tagged. I bought them to listen to, not to share. If someone gets my laptop, they'll have all that info anyway.
- starnix17 16y agoAh, I didn't know this! I guess the files aren't technically looked down, but that's technically DRM. I don't have a problem with it, but I wish they let users know the first time they download something off of iTunes or something. You think the record companies would want iTunes users to know that their name is tied to their music as a scare tactic or something.
- booticon 16y agoThe last album I purchased from Amazon MP3 has "Amazon.com Song ID: " in the comments field of the ID3 tag.
- troystribling 16y agoI have had an iPod since 2005 and have never purchased music from iTunes. You can purchase or rip music from anywhere and put it on any Apple device. eMusic and Amazon have been the main online music stores I have used. Many people seem to assume that Apple devices can only purchase music from Apple music stores but this has never been the case.
- buro9 16y ago> You can purchase or rip music from anywhere and put it on any Apple device. Unless it's in FLAC format.
- antichaos 16y agoI prefer iPhone 4's form-factor, yet I use Nexus One as my primary phone because of its seamless integration of google voice, free turn-by-turn navigation system, and built-in support for tethering.
- rimantas 16y agoiPhone has tethering built in since iPhone OS 3. Works very well over there with no AT&T in sight.
- axod 16y agoCan you get the iPhone to act as a wifi hotspot though or is it via USB?
- daskrachen 16y agoIt is bluetooth or USB only. I guess wifi would eat too much battery
- axod 16y agoWifi is much more useful though, I can plug my Nexus One in so battery isn't an issue, then use any device that knows about wifi - Nintendo DS, etc etc
- joubert 16y agoAT&T now has a tethering data plan for iPhone.
- rimantas 16y agoInteresting how did I manage to miss that piece of news. Was everyone so fed up with waiting?
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- TomOfTTB 16y agoIf I might go off on a tangent about one of his points I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately… “Speech recognition is actually useful. Big surprise here. I can tweet, search the web etc. with minor edits to my dictated text” For those who don’t know Android has a built in Voice Recognition API so any application can easily put use it for input while Apple has steadfastly refused to include this feature because “it doesn’t work well” (Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application). This, to me, is a sign of what will cause Apple’s lead to crumble. Apple’s one real weakness is they demand perfection but some things just can’t achieve that. As has been pointed out by several HN featured articles Voice Recognition may never be perfect. But it’s still useful. It can still hit 90%+ efficiency much of the time and for many applications that’s enough.
- albemuth 16y agoNot being a native speaker I sometimes feel silly using it, but there's also the feeling of "thank god I didn't have to type that"
- thwarted 16y ago(Dragon has an app but you can’t integrate that into an application) I don't think this capability of android is recognized for the amount of power it provides both the developer and the user. It's often said that things like the dialer or contact list can be changed out if the user doesn't like the default one, but that level of integration isn't just at the app level, it's at all the system services. If Android didn't provide voice recognition out of the box, it would be entirely possible to replace or augment the default input method with one as a third-party app install. There's nothing special about this from a user standpoint. This is actually quite common on android, the most frequent example being replacement ringtone apps (which is odd because it's not that hard to use any random file as a ringtone as it is (make a directory named notifications on the sdcard and put the files in there, they show up in the sound selection dialog), they are mostly just better interfaces, although there are a few that have serious value adds, like recording a new ringtone live and editing it). I found a keyboard app called "Better Keyboard" that I consider to be truly better than the default keyboard functionality provided.
- srgseg 16y agoAm I the only one that finds the Android UI (esp with HTC Sense) way better looking than the iPhone UI? I think this is beautiful: http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco-htc-sense-screen-2-21-10.png http://www.androidspin.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/modaco... The iPhone UI looks dated to me.
- nlh 16y agoStatic bits of the Android UI do like pretty nice. The article hits on an extremely good point that I haven't heard enough (but strongly feel myself): Android's UI is just nowhere near as smooth as the iPhone's. "Clunky" is the exact right word. Scrolling on the iPhone is perfect - you can tell Jobs obsessed over making it zero-lag, perfectly smooth. That makes the whole UI -feel- better. And for a lot of users - me included - that's a big deal. Everytime I pick up an Android phone to play with it - hoping they've fixed this - my immediate impression is "wow...this doesn't scroll as well, doesn't move as smoothly, and feels like an ancient UI." It is - quite literally - like Windows XP vs. Mac OSX. I think if they figure out a way to NAIL the UI in Android, that will close the gap significantly....
- usaar333 16y agoI agree scrolling was an issue in the past. However, using android 2.1 + JIT (sort of a pre-froyo) on an htc hero, I find scrolling almost on par with the iPhone. I imagine Nexus One's with Froyo are near-perfect.
- mberning 16y agoNope, still not close. The 2.2 update did make a difference, but it is still far from perfect.
- buro9 16y agoOn Friday I discovered a simple thing that shows 'clunkiness' on the Android. Basically... from the home screen drum your fingers across the screen. If you've drummed them from left to right it will interpret the multiple finger input as a single swipe from left to right and it will move the screen to the right. Drum from right to left and it will read that as a swipe to the left and will move the screen to the left. This differs from the iPhone 3 & 4 (which I also have on my desk). On the iPhone a drum of fingers isn't interpreted as a swipe... only an actual continuous movement from one side to another would be considered a swipe. On the iPhone the first finger is counted as the input, and the others are ignored as noise. So whatever app was under the first finger of your drumming would open up. This is a very minor thing, but it does show that the Android is misinterpreting and not handling touch input very well. The iPhone correctly determines that a drum is not a swipe, and the Android does not. I don't have deep knowledge of how either the Android or iPhone handle gestures, so I can't comment on the internals. As to whether it matters... well I'm using an Android and love it more than I did my iPhone. So I would argue it doesn't matter to me (I value cloud + choice above the polish). But I also wouldn't defend the Android against charges of clunkiness because it's pretty visible throughout the system.
- samaparicio 16y agoWhen we rounded up a few small business people, the things they pointed out that they liked best about Android and iPhone were even more basic than Chad Fowler's report http://www.ringio.com/2010/06/29/iphone-vs-android-getting-over-the-hype/ http://www.ringio.com/2010/06/29/iphone-vs-android-getting-o...
- jkincaid 16y agoIf you don't like the stock Android keyboard (or even if you do) I'd highly recommend trying out Swype. It's pretty damn impressive. Not perfect, but it's definitely a strong alternative.
- lambda 16y ago"I’ve never met an on-screen keyboard I didn’t hate. Android is no exception." Swype. In beta now, but I got in on the beta, and man, does it make on-screen entry a lot better than any other on-screen keyboard I've used.
- Groxx 16y agoVery interesting... (http://www.swypeinc.com/ http://www.swypeinc.com/) Requires touch-typing ability, as you hide a large amount of the display as you swype, but easily stands to be much more efficient than repeated jabbing, but it doesn't prevent specific, accurate input. I quite hope this takes over, it's a great idea.
- kleiba 16y agoHmm, that looks a bit like Shapewriter for the iPhone.
- rodh257 16y agoits awesome. Samsung Galaxy S comes bundled with it, made the move from keyboard to touch screen bearable.
- joubert 16y agoDude, iTunes music has been DRM-free for more than a year now.
- jokermatt999 16y agoAmazon has double the bit rate though. That may not matter to some people, but I'm not going to spend money on 128kps songs. I'm no audiophile, but there is a difference at that low of a bitrate.
- joubert 16y agoAre Amazon music files in AAC or in MP3 format? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#AAC.27s_improvements_over_MP3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding#AAC.27s_i...
- mattparcher 16y agoAs of April 2007, DRM-free iTunes songs are 256kbps AAC. Amazon MP3 is 320kbps MP3. Audio file formats are a highly-debated and subjective matter, but the consensus seems to be that “AAC is higher quality at the same bit rate, so you can use a smaller file to achieve the same quality as MP3” [1]. (Originally DRM-free songs on iTunes cost extra, but now they are the default.) [1] http://www.planetofsoundonline.com/articles/compression1.html http://www.planetofsoundonline.com/articles/compression1.htm...
- jokermatt999 16y agoNews to me, thank you. I skimmed Wikipedia to double check my figures, but I misread it. In either case, I still prefer MP3 to AAC (though converting is trivial).