3 ms·

i switched to a nexus one/android recently for a few weeks. the experience made me really appreciate the importance of the intangibles involved in hardware desi

by Harj 16y ago

i switched to a nexus one/android recently for a few weeks. the experience made me really appreciate the importance of the intangibles involved in hardware design. if i had to break down the iphone and nexus/android into a comparison of features the latter would have dominated for me. the native gmail search, beautiful google voice integration (i make a lot of international calls home which are super cheap on Goog Voice), turn by turn car navigation, reliable and good voice recognition, instant set up via my google account - each of those individually is a killer feature for me. these new voice actions again sound killer. yet i still found myself yearning for my iphone and i eventually made the switch back. not because there was any one feature i desperately missed but because the overall experience of using it just felt so good. scrolling was flawless. the touchscreen always accurate. switching between apps incredibly smooth. all of these little things added up to a whole greater than sum of its parts (features). you have to presume google spent a long time testing and developing the nexus and android yet it still lags behind the iphone on the intangibles. clearly getting these things right must be a non-trivial process and i'd come to take them for granted after becoming accustomed to the iphone. i won't make that mistake again.

dschobel 16y ago
I switched from the iphone to android and I agree with your assessment. Android's UX is good, iPhone's is great. I have high hopes for Android 3.0 (Gingerbread, due in Q4) which is allegedly going to be a major UI revamp. In the mean time I'll enjoy my flash, portable hotspot, tethering and non-ATT carrier :)
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  I'm always suspicious of "I switched from Brand X to Brand Y and Brand X was better for reasons I can't fully articulate as they are almost subconcious". It seems obvious that people moving from one thing to another are going to be affected by small differences that someone coming to it fresh wouldn't be bothered by. The fact that everyone knows Apple has better UI only adds to this, but you can find the same thing in a thousand different Windows to Mac, Windows to Linux, Gnome to KDE or vice versa stories. Some people will get quite irate about how crappy the new UI is, even (somewhat tellingly) if it's a Mac or iPhone that they're moving to after becoming accustomed to something else.
  - dschobel 16y ago
    I'll quantify it for you. It takes me more clicks and presses to do the same things on android vs iphone.
elblanco 16y ago
I guess it all comes down to "what do you want to do?" Do you want to be able to do "stuff" with your phone -- anything? Or do you want to look/feel good while doing some smaller subset of "stuff"? Ultimately, when improving things, you hit the law of diminishing returns. You can spend twice as much effort making something 5% better than you did getting it to a 90% solution. It's like stereo equipment. A pretty ok system is like $200-300. One that's 10% better is $2000. 5% better than that and it's $20,000. And yeah, most people will agree that the $20,000 system sounds better, even non-audiophiles. I don't think the Android UI will ever be as good as Apple's. Nobody is. But "good enough" is a reasonable target. Google can either expend the energy polishing the hell out of minor interface quibbles, or they can expand the universe of the things they can do. A device that can do one thing, awesomely, is simply not as attractive as a device that can do 100 things at the 90% "good enough" level.
- Timothee 16y ago
  I guess it all comes down to "what do you want to do?" Do you want to be able to do "stuff" with your phone -- anything? Or do you want to look/feel good while doing some smaller subset of "stuff"? A device that can do one thing, awesomely, is simply not as attractive as a device that can do 100 things at the 90% "good enough" level. Are you comparing it to the iPhone here? Yes, the iPhone has some limitations but it's nowhere near your 100:1 ratio. Actually, there isn't that many limitations honestly. No you don't have turn-by-turn navigation out of the box, but it's available. MobileMe is supposed to offer some of the integration with a Google account. Sure, you have things like plugging to iTunes, and limitations due to the App Store, but your comment sounds like "an iPhone is pretty and works very well but is very limited, while an Android phone is not as polished but the sky is the limit in terms of what can be done with it". It's simply not true. Also, regarding "look/feel good", it sounds like you feel that the iPhone is still a status symbol. I think the iPhone is past being a fashion accessory that make people turn around. edit: one can argue that you're trading some freedom for some polish. Basing your argument on what the various phones can do and can not do doesn't work for me.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    > Are you comparing it to the iPhone here? Yes, the iPhone has some limitations but it's nowhere near your 100:1 ratio. Don't get too hung up on the ratio. > Actually, there isn't that many limitations honestly. Followed by a list of limitations and caveats. Actually, I'd argue the opposite, the iPhone can currently do many things that an Android can't do...things that I'd really like to do, like play Katamari Damacy (lest you think I'm trivializing, I have a serious soft spot for that game)...I think it's not hard to make a compelling case that in terms of software availability and general quality, the iPhone trumps the Android hands down at present. However, I think that it's also easy to argue a few other related points, the Android phones are simply shipping with a better out-of-the-box user experience in terms of capability. Sure one can purchase a variety of add ons and pay for some subscription services and eventually bring the two phones to parity at a cost. But that doesn't exactly disagree with that point then does it? And while there are certainly more apps in the iPhone store at present, the Android Market really is the domain of hobbyists more so than the iPhone app store. This is good and bad, in the Android marketplace, I think it's possible to find more hobbyist style apps at $0 that provide pretty good add-on functionality for the phone for no cost whatsoever. Like the tri-corder app which really is quite cool and has no equivalent on the iPhone. The difference between market opportunity and buyer habit between the two stores is often brought up here on HN. I think the Android platform draws its strength from this in many ways. However, it has a downside in that the equivalent apps on the iPhone, ones that you have to pay some nominal fee for, really do tend to be of a higher production quality than the Android. And that's normal, professional paid software just tends to be of a higher production quality than hobbyist derived software. Perhaps in there's not much difference in functionality, but if I make money on my iPhone apps, I can afford to hire a graphic artist instead of using much maligned "developer art". >Also, regarding "look/feel good", it sounds like you feel that the iPhone is still a status symbol. Not at all, I'm simply saying exactly what I'm saying. If you'll allow me to make a very labored analogy: A Honda Civic and a Mini Cooper (bear with me, I'm trying to use functionally equivalent cars) perform about the same, but you'll look better in the Mini. However, the backseats in the Mini kind of suck, so I can't really use it for four adults as well as a Civic, and because it looks nicer I probably don't want to load a bunch of mulch or yard equipment in the trunk of my Mini. And the operating costs of the Mini are higher than a Civic, it's less reliable, harder to find qualified technicians, has more specific fuel requirements, more expensive to do body work on and takes longer to find parts, whatever etc. But (and this is a big but for all the Mini owners of the world) you'll look better while sitting in traffic and the key fob is really cool. The Mini is no more a status symbol than the Civic is in the same way an iPhone is no more a status symbol than an Android phone is. You just get what you want and that's that. The relative capabilities of the two platforms in terms of software availability is the one area the comparison of iPhone:Android::Mac:Windows falls down. There simply is more and better software available for the iPhone, it's just that it doesn't ship on the device. The stuff that ships with an Android phone simply makes it a more capable phone from the time it's first powered on. And in some cases, there simply isn't an equivalent functionality available for the iPhone (and likely isn't going to be one due to Apple's strategic policies).
yellowbkpk 16y ago
It's interesting that you say that because I have the exact opposite experience: I've been an iPhone user since the day after the first generation came out and after I got a 3G, I noticed that it would slow down sometimes, scrolling was a pain (the scrolling itself was quick, but when it finished the scroll filling in the newly-invalidated area took forever), voice calls dropped, the physical case was falling apart (mostly because I bought it used that way), and I really disliked switching apps so often. When I got my Nexus One with Froyo, almost all of that went away: scrolling is immediate and smooth, voice calls sound much better (and I'm on AT&T!), the case is much more solid and not splitting, switching between apps is much smoother (I don't know how I lived without the "universal back button"), GMail/Calendar integration, etc. Oh, and the day I received it in the mail I plugged it into my (Ubuntu) laptop and created a camera app that takes pictures using the volume buttons on the side, uploaded it to my phone, and use it all the time.

by Harj 16y ago

dschobel 16y ago

I switched from the iphone to android and I agree with your assessment. Android's UX is good, iPhone's is great. I have high hopes for Android 3.0 (Gingerbread, due in Q4) which is allegedly going to be a major UI revamp. In the mean time I'll enjoy my flash, portable hotspot, tethering and non-ATT carrier :)

ZeroGravitas 16y ago
I'm always suspicious of "I switched from Brand X to Brand Y and Brand X was better for reasons I can't fully articulate as they are almost subconcious". It seems obvious that people moving from one thing to another are going to be affected by small differences that someone coming to it fresh wouldn't be bothered by. The fact that everyone knows Apple has better UI only adds to this, but you can find the same thing in a thousand different Windows to Mac, Windows to Linux, Gnome to KDE or vice versa stories. Some people will get quite irate about how crappy the new UI is, even (somewhat tellingly) if it's a Mac or iPhone that they're moving to after becoming accustomed to something else.
- dschobel 16y ago
  I'll quantify it for you. It takes me more clicks and presses to do the same things on android vs iphone.

elblanco 16y ago

I guess it all comes down to "what do you want to do?" Do you want to be able to do "stuff" with your phone -- anything? Or do you want to look/feel good while doing some smaller subset of "stuff"? Ultimately, when improving things, you hit the law of diminishing returns. You can spend twice as much effort making something 5% better than you did getting it to a 90% solution. It's like stereo equipment. A pretty ok system is like $200-300. One that's 10% better is $2000. 5% better than that and it's $20,000. And yeah, most people will agree that the $20,000 system sounds better, even non-audiophiles. I don't think the Android UI will ever be as good as Apple's. Nobody is. But "good enough" is a reasonable target. Google can either expend the energy polishing the hell out of minor interface quibbles, or they can expand the universe of the things they can do. A device that can do one thing, awesomely, is simply not as attractive as a device that can do 100 things at the 90% "good enough" level.

Timothee 16y ago
I guess it all comes down to "what do you want to do?" Do you want to be able to do "stuff" with your phone -- anything? Or do you want to look/feel good while doing some smaller subset of "stuff"? A device that can do one thing, awesomely, is simply not as attractive as a device that can do 100 things at the 90% "good enough" level. Are you comparing it to the iPhone here? Yes, the iPhone has some limitations but it's nowhere near your 100:1 ratio. Actually, there isn't that many limitations honestly. No you don't have turn-by-turn navigation out of the box, but it's available. MobileMe is supposed to offer some of the integration with a Google account. Sure, you have things like plugging to iTunes, and limitations due to the App Store, but your comment sounds like "an iPhone is pretty and works very well but is very limited, while an Android phone is not as polished but the sky is the limit in terms of what can be done with it". It's simply not true. Also, regarding "look/feel good", it sounds like you feel that the iPhone is still a status symbol. I think the iPhone is past being a fashion accessory that make people turn around. edit: one can argue that you're trading some freedom for some polish. Basing your argument on what the various phones can do and can not do doesn't work for me.
- elblanco 16y ago
  > Are you comparing it to the iPhone here? Yes, the iPhone has some limitations but it's nowhere near your 100:1 ratio. Don't get too hung up on the ratio. > Actually, there isn't that many limitations honestly. Followed by a list of limitations and caveats. Actually, I'd argue the opposite, the iPhone can currently do many things that an Android can't do...things that I'd really like to do, like play Katamari Damacy (lest you think I'm trivializing, I have a serious soft spot for that game)...I think it's not hard to make a compelling case that in terms of software availability and general quality, the iPhone trumps the Android hands down at present. However, I think that it's also easy to argue a few other related points, the Android phones are simply shipping with a better out-of-the-box user experience in terms of capability. Sure one can purchase a variety of add ons and pay for some subscription services and eventually bring the two phones to parity at a cost. But that doesn't exactly disagree with that point then does it? And while there are certainly more apps in the iPhone store at present, the Android Market really is the domain of hobbyists more so than the iPhone app store. This is good and bad, in the Android marketplace, I think it's possible to find more hobbyist style apps at $0 that provide pretty good add-on functionality for the phone for no cost whatsoever. Like the tri-corder app which really is quite cool and has no equivalent on the iPhone. The difference between market opportunity and buyer habit between the two stores is often brought up here on HN. I think the Android platform draws its strength from this in many ways. However, it has a downside in that the equivalent apps on the iPhone, ones that you have to pay some nominal fee for, really do tend to be of a higher production quality than the Android. And that's normal, professional paid software just tends to be of a higher production quality than hobbyist derived software. Perhaps in there's not much difference in functionality, but if I make money on my iPhone apps, I can afford to hire a graphic artist instead of using much maligned "developer art". >Also, regarding "look/feel good", it sounds like you feel that the iPhone is still a status symbol. Not at all, I'm simply saying exactly what I'm saying. If you'll allow me to make a very labored analogy: A Honda Civic and a Mini Cooper (bear with me, I'm trying to use functionally equivalent cars) perform about the same, but you'll look better in the Mini. However, the backseats in the Mini kind of suck, so I can't really use it for four adults as well as a Civic, and because it looks nicer I probably don't want to load a bunch of mulch or yard equipment in the trunk of my Mini. And the operating costs of the Mini are higher than a Civic, it's less reliable, harder to find qualified technicians, has more specific fuel requirements, more expensive to do body work on and takes longer to find parts, whatever etc. But (and this is a big but for all the Mini owners of the world) you'll look better while sitting in traffic and the key fob is really cool. The Mini is no more a status symbol than the Civic is in the same way an iPhone is no more a status symbol than an Android phone is. You just get what you want and that's that. The relative capabilities of the two platforms in terms of software availability is the one area the comparison of iPhone:Android::Mac:Windows falls down. There simply is more and better software available for the iPhone, it's just that it doesn't ship on the device. The stuff that ships with an Android phone simply makes it a more capable phone from the time it's first powered on. And in some cases, there simply isn't an equivalent functionality available for the iPhone (and likely isn't going to be one due to Apple's strategic policies).

yellowbkpk 16y ago

It's interesting that you say that because I have the exact opposite experience: I've been an iPhone user since the day after the first generation came out and after I got a 3G, I noticed that it would slow down sometimes, scrolling was a pain (the scrolling itself was quick, but when it finished the scroll filling in the newly-invalidated area took forever), voice calls dropped, the physical case was falling apart (mostly because I bought it used that way), and I really disliked switching apps so often. When I got my Nexus One with Froyo, almost all of that went away: scrolling is immediate and smooth, voice calls sound much better (and I'm on AT&T!), the case is much more solid and not splitting, switching between apps is much smoother (I don't know how I lived without the "universal back button"), GMail/Calendar integration, etc. Oh, and the day I received it in the mail I plugged it into my (Ubuntu) laptop and created a camera app that takes pictures using the volume buttons on the side, uploaded it to my phone, and use it all the time.