6 ms·

Android First Impressions

52 points by elblanco 16y ago

pilif 16y ago
"Most of all, I love that neither Apple nor any other company can tell me what I can and cannot install on my phone." though on the other hand, I hate, no. HATE, the fact that $CARRIER$ can tell me what application I have to have installed on my phone without any ability of uninstalling them. Android is not all sunshine. I might post more comments as I continue reading the article.
- generalk 16y ago
  People that felt this way should have purchased the Nexus One from Google while they were generally available. If more folks had, it might have validated the carrier-less model of selling phones.
  - sfennell 16y ago
    My biggest issue with buying an unsubsidized phone is that I would still be paying the carrier a premium for subsidizing a phone purchase (to my understanding) without actually getting that benefit. (I guess there are other carriers, I have not actually bothered to look) In the end I just seem to be loosing about $400 or so since my phone bill remains the same, but I have to spend more to buy the phone.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
      Actually, as another poster already pointed out, with TMobile you don't have to pay the carrier a premium. They have a set of plans (called "Even More Plus") that are unsubsidized and are cheaper monthly. Since the initial N1 model used the Tmobile 3G bands, it made a perfect match, and a great deal for anyone willing to do the math.
  - pilif 16y ago
    I did buy a N1 (gray import even). Too bad it has its hardware flaws: The touchscreen is really bad (choppy, inaccurate) and the button on my wired headset started working only rarely after two weeks of usage (sometimes the press isn't recognized, sometimes as "jump back" - and sometimes it even recognizes button presses even if there's no button on the headset).
    - generalk 16y ago
      Yeah. I've also got an N1, and the hardware flaws suck. The touchscreen is my biggest complaint, having previously used an iPhone. That said, I'm extremely pleased with it overall, and the lack of a carrier telling me what I can and can't do with it is surprisingly awesome.
  - liscio 16y ago
    It's hard for any company to try and work against the carrier-subsidized pricing of handsets. As long as carriers are supplying the access, this will continue to be the case. To pay $500 for a phone, versus the $100 subsidized price, is a silly move—especially if you're planning to upgrade every 2-3 years. I say this because the service from the carriers still costs the same regardless of how you obtained the handset, and in some cases you may be paying even _more_ for service if you don't have a contract. (Of course, I'm speaking with the US/Canadian carriers in mind. I know things are better outside of North America.)
    - orangecat 16y ago
      I say this because the service from the carriers still costs the same regardless of how you obtained the handset T-Mobile's non-contract plans are $20 less per month, so over 2 years you save $480.
      - liscio 16y ago
        Are all the features accessible in non-contract plans? I've got a few contract-only perks here in Canada on Rogers, such as the 6GB data plan add-on for $30/mo, and an "Employee Purchase Program" discounted voice service at $17/mo. I don't think you can get non-contract data plans for under $30, and that only buys you 250MB/month, and voice plans start at around $25-30/month. I may be able to set up a similarly-priced plan up here, but I would lose out on many of the important features (tethering, visual voice mail, larger data caps, free evening/weekend calling, etc.)
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
- bobbyi 16y ago
  That's only true if you use the distribution provided by your carrier. If you don't like the OS the way they provide it, then wipe it and use Cyanogen or some other ROM that is set up exactly how you like it. Cyanogen may not work on every Android phones, but there are still a lot more phones out there that can run Cyanogen than can run iOS.
  - pilif 16y ago
    This isn't that much different from jailbreaking your iphone and using Cydia though. Both techniques rely on exploiting flaws of the security framework put in place by $VENDOR. Don't get me wrong: I do like the slightly increased openness of Android, but that just stems from the fact that the OS provides more hooks to hook your app into - it's not more open in the sense that there's less control inflicted upon you on what you may or may not do with the device you legally own.
    - sl956 16y ago
      That is not totally true: there is a fundamental difference between a closed source OS purposefully locked by its maker, and an open source OS tentatively locked by a mere distributor. On almost every Android phone, you can just flash the entire OS and replace it with a plain vanilla one or your own custom build. Try that with an iPhone...
      - pilif 16y ago
        well. On older iPhones with known issues in the bootloader, you could in theory also replace the apple OS with something completely different (remember the Android on iPhone 3G videos earlier this year?). The fact that HTC and other vendors are sloppier in securing their phones (remember the discussions about Motorola's e-fuse?) doesn't make these phones more "open" in the "freedom" sense. It just means that it's easier to exploit them to install a different OS. Now the Android OS of course is open source, but what good is that if there's no device available that actually allows you to officially install your own build? This also means that my earlier comments are about the phones, not the OS itself.
- brownleej 16y ago
  Apparently the author agrees with you, because he complains about "how sluggish some manufacturers are to release critical operating system updates for their devices." I'm curious to know how he reconciles that with the comment that you have quoted.
10ren 16y ago
The RAM/CPU specs are close to my netbook. I'm surprised that JIT compilation isn't standard for a Java-related language, it's pretty old now. The fragmentation is a concern, for market size (for apps), though it will sill be massively larger than for Apple. The appstore deficiency is a greater concern - google need to buy a startup for this, they suck at UI. The Oracle suit does scare me though. Why invest sweat equity if it might all be washed away? That's the idea, I guess. Regardless of what happens to this particular platform, the hardware is just about there, so something fantastic will soon be here. reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dafec/android_first_impressions_from_an_exiphone/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dafec/android_first...
- mike-cardwell 16y ago
  The latest version of Android (Froyo) supports JIT. Not sure I agree with the "They suck at UI" comment. Most of the rest of the Android UI is really well designed. The Market Place app needs improvement though yes.
  - 10ren 16y ago
    Thanks, I'm surprised it wasn't in the first version. I bet that UI came with the the Android acquisition. Though gmail is very good. All of their other good examples of UI's that I can think of also come from acquisitions: it's an opportunity. Google is great at engineering.
    - mike-cardwell 16y ago
      The UI has improved dramatically since the first Android phone came out, ie post-aquisition. I'm assuming the people responsible for the Market Place app are the same people responsible for the general UI but I could be wrong.
      - buster 16y ago
        I think the next release will be the big major release android finally needed. Android 2.2 offered the JIT (which really is a HUGE difference!) and overall i think that Android is pretty much feature complete. Apart from the UI which lacks behind the polish of the iPhone. Development of Android 3.0 concentrates on the UI, Google even aquired some UI designer of WebOS (which is said to have a really nice UI). Also, i think Android 3.0 focuses on UI scalability in general, which might mean that we will see this UI in most phones/tablets/TVs/whatever in the mid-term, fighting the fragmentation :)
extension 16y ago
How is iOS's multitasking less legitimate than Android's? As far as I can tell, they are essentially the same thing.
- starnix17 16y ago
  I believe the fast app switching is more or less the same, but Android lets developers write services that can do anything in the background, isn't iOS limited to just audio or VOIP? For example, I can't write an app to download new tweets every hour or something like that. It's definitely a double edged sword on Android... some apps that use background services can turn into real battery hogs.
  - generalk 16y ago
    Generally correct: iOS offers a few more services than just audio and VOIP, but it is a fixed list. On the other hand, I've never seen an app on Android that sucked down battery life, and if it did, I'd uninstall it just like any other buggy app. I've never bought into the whole "background services drain battery life" line that Apple popularized.
    - starnix17 16y ago
      Yeah, it's really not much of a problem. Especially now that Google is working on their own push notification service there really shouldn't be a need for that many background services.
    - ekidd 16y ago
      To be fair, the reason that Android background apps don't drain the battery is because Google put a _huge_ amount of engineering into power management (witness the lkml flamewars about "wakelocks" as they try to merge this code back upstream). Android also has the lovely screen showing which apps are burning the battery. In my experience, an _overwhelming_ fraction of power use is by the screen and the radio. (And by games running in the foreground, but that's to be expected.)
    - moe 16y ago
ecuzzillo 16y ago
I've been pissed off at my HTC incredible not being updated with Froyo, and being UI-ily inconsistent (why when I hit the Home button when I'm already at the Home screen does it proceed to give me a zoomed-out view of all my desktops? Why do I even have multiple desktops on a phone?), and being excessively carrier-branded, and Google lost the not-evil designation with the net neutrality thing. And, I've been impressed with the iPhone 4's physical and software shininess (and yes, I'm willing to not hold it that way), so much so I was leaning in the iPhone direction for the next round of phone, assuming they did a deal with Verizon (big if), but this now has me reminded of the sucky elements: namely, no Google Voice, bad notifications, and the potential to get hurt, rather than helped, by OS updates.
- gierach 16y ago
  Like you, I was eagerly anticipating the Froyo upgrade for my Incredible. However, after receiving the update, I am actually looking for ways to go back to 2.1. I haven't noticed any visual improvements, in fact the Sense UI seems more sluggish. Also, HTC and Verizon jammed in a ton of uninstallable software with Froyo. I now have Skype Mobile, Amazon MP3, My Verizon Mobile, some "Stocks" app, City ID (which continues from 2.1) and a bunch more that you can't remove and it all randomly starts running when I'm not looking. The battery life (which used to be great, much better than a buddy's Evo) is terrible as a result. Google really needs to reign it in.
  - elblanco 16y ago
    >in fact the Sense UI seems more sluggish >The battery life (which used to be great, much better than a buddy's Evo) is terrible as a result. Google really needs to reign it in. I've actually had the exact opposite experience, it's super snappy now and the battery seems to last a full 40-50% longer. I've noticed in some forums that people seem to be having either your experience or mine. Strange that would happen on a fixed target, unless there's some differences in the guts of different revs of the Incredibles.
    - gierach 16y ago
White_N_Nerdy 16y ago
I am so lucky. I work at home surrounded by computers, so I really don't need a smart-phone because I'm at home most of the time. When I do leave my house, I take my LG Chocolate with me and we have a Garmin in the car for GPS. Ahhh, simplicity.

52 points by elblanco 16y ago

pilif 16y ago

"Most of all, I love that neither Apple nor any other company can tell me what I can and cannot install on my phone." though on the other hand, I hate, no. HATE, the fact that $CARRIER$ can tell me what application I have to have installed on my phone without any ability of uninstalling them. Android is not all sunshine. I might post more comments as I continue reading the article.

generalk 16y ago
People that felt this way should have purchased the Nexus One from Google while they were generally available. If more folks had, it might have validated the carrier-less model of selling phones.
- sfennell 16y ago
  My biggest issue with buying an unsubsidized phone is that I would still be paying the carrier a premium for subsidizing a phone purchase (to my understanding) without actually getting that benefit. (I guess there are other carriers, I have not actually bothered to look) In the end I just seem to be loosing about $400 or so since my phone bill remains the same, but I have to spend more to buy the phone.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - theBobMcCormick 16y ago
    Actually, as another poster already pointed out, with TMobile you don't have to pay the carrier a premium. They have a set of plans (called "Even More Plus") that are unsubsidized and are cheaper monthly. Since the initial N1 model used the Tmobile 3G bands, it made a perfect match, and a great deal for anyone willing to do the math.
- pilif 16y ago
  I did buy a N1 (gray import even). Too bad it has its hardware flaws: The touchscreen is really bad (choppy, inaccurate) and the button on my wired headset started working only rarely after two weeks of usage (sometimes the press isn't recognized, sometimes as "jump back" - and sometimes it even recognizes button presses even if there's no button on the headset).
  - generalk 16y ago
    Yeah. I've also got an N1, and the hardware flaws suck. The touchscreen is my biggest complaint, having previously used an iPhone. That said, I'm extremely pleased with it overall, and the lack of a carrier telling me what I can and can't do with it is surprisingly awesome.
- liscio 16y ago
  It's hard for any company to try and work against the carrier-subsidized pricing of handsets. As long as carriers are supplying the access, this will continue to be the case. To pay $500 for a phone, versus the $100 subsidized price, is a silly move—especially if you're planning to upgrade every 2-3 years. I say this because the service from the carriers still costs the same regardless of how you obtained the handset, and in some cases you may be paying even _more_ for service if you don't have a contract. (Of course, I'm speaking with the US/Canadian carriers in mind. I know things are better outside of North America.)
  - orangecat 16y ago
    I say this because the service from the carriers still costs the same regardless of how you obtained the handset T-Mobile's non-contract plans are $20 less per month, so over 2 years you save $480.
    - liscio 16y ago
      Are all the features accessible in non-contract plans? I've got a few contract-only perks here in Canada on Rogers, such as the 6GB data plan add-on for $30/mo, and an "Employee Purchase Program" discounted voice service at $17/mo. I don't think you can get non-contract data plans for under $30, and that only buys you 250MB/month, and voice plans start at around $25-30/month. I may be able to set up a similarly-priced plan up here, but I would lose out on many of the important features (tethering, visual voice mail, larger data caps, free evening/weekend calling, etc.)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
bobbyi 16y ago
That's only true if you use the distribution provided by your carrier. If you don't like the OS the way they provide it, then wipe it and use Cyanogen or some other ROM that is set up exactly how you like it. Cyanogen may not work on every Android phones, but there are still a lot more phones out there that can run Cyanogen than can run iOS.
- pilif 16y ago
  This isn't that much different from jailbreaking your iphone and using Cydia though. Both techniques rely on exploiting flaws of the security framework put in place by $VENDOR. Don't get me wrong: I do like the slightly increased openness of Android, but that just stems from the fact that the OS provides more hooks to hook your app into - it's not more open in the sense that there's less control inflicted upon you on what you may or may not do with the device you legally own.
  - sl956 16y ago
    That is not totally true: there is a fundamental difference between a closed source OS purposefully locked by its maker, and an open source OS tentatively locked by a mere distributor. On almost every Android phone, you can just flash the entire OS and replace it with a plain vanilla one or your own custom build. Try that with an iPhone...
    - pilif 16y ago
      well. On older iPhones with known issues in the bootloader, you could in theory also replace the apple OS with something completely different (remember the Android on iPhone 3G videos earlier this year?). The fact that HTC and other vendors are sloppier in securing their phones (remember the discussions about Motorola's e-fuse?) doesn't make these phones more "open" in the "freedom" sense. It just means that it's easier to exploit them to install a different OS. Now the Android OS of course is open source, but what good is that if there's no device available that actually allows you to officially install your own build? This also means that my earlier comments are about the phones, not the OS itself.
brownleej 16y ago
Apparently the author agrees with you, because he complains about "how sluggish some manufacturers are to release critical operating system updates for their devices." I'm curious to know how he reconciles that with the comment that you have quoted.

10ren 16y ago

The RAM/CPU specs are close to my netbook. I'm surprised that JIT compilation isn't standard for a Java-related language, it's pretty old now. The fragmentation is a concern, for market size (for apps), though it will sill be massively larger than for Apple. The appstore deficiency is a greater concern - google need to buy a startup for this, they suck at UI. The Oracle suit does scare me though. Why invest sweat equity if it might all be washed away? That's the idea, I guess. Regardless of what happens to this particular platform, the hardware is just about there, so something fantastic will soon be here. reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dafec/android_first_impressions_from_an_exiphone/ http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dafec/android_first...

mike-cardwell 16y ago
The latest version of Android (Froyo) supports JIT. Not sure I agree with the "They suck at UI" comment. Most of the rest of the Android UI is really well designed. The Market Place app needs improvement though yes.
- 10ren 16y ago
  Thanks, I'm surprised it wasn't in the first version. I bet that UI came with the the Android acquisition. Though gmail is very good. All of their other good examples of UI's that I can think of also come from acquisitions: it's an opportunity. Google is great at engineering.
  - mike-cardwell 16y ago
    The UI has improved dramatically since the first Android phone came out, ie post-aquisition. I'm assuming the people responsible for the Market Place app are the same people responsible for the general UI but I could be wrong.
    - buster 16y ago
      I think the next release will be the big major release android finally needed. Android 2.2 offered the JIT (which really is a HUGE difference!) and overall i think that Android is pretty much feature complete. Apart from the UI which lacks behind the polish of the iPhone. Development of Android 3.0 concentrates on the UI, Google even aquired some UI designer of WebOS (which is said to have a really nice UI). Also, i think Android 3.0 focuses on UI scalability in general, which might mean that we will see this UI in most phones/tablets/TVs/whatever in the mid-term, fighting the fragmentation :)

extension 16y ago

How is iOS's multitasking less legitimate than Android's? As far as I can tell, they are essentially the same thing.

starnix17 16y ago
I believe the fast app switching is more or less the same, but Android lets developers write services that can do anything in the background, isn't iOS limited to just audio or VOIP? For example, I can't write an app to download new tweets every hour or something like that. It's definitely a double edged sword on Android... some apps that use background services can turn into real battery hogs.
- generalk 16y ago
  Generally correct: iOS offers a few more services than just audio and VOIP, but it is a fixed list. On the other hand, I've never seen an app on Android that sucked down battery life, and if it did, I'd uninstall it just like any other buggy app. I've never bought into the whole "background services drain battery life" line that Apple popularized.
  - starnix17 16y ago
    Yeah, it's really not much of a problem. Especially now that Google is working on their own push notification service there really shouldn't be a need for that many background services.
  - ekidd 16y ago
    To be fair, the reason that Android background apps don't drain the battery is because Google put a _huge_ amount of engineering into power management (witness the lkml flamewars about "wakelocks" as they try to merge this code back upstream). Android also has the lovely screen showing which apps are burning the battery. In my experience, an _overwhelming_ fraction of power use is by the screen and the radio. (And by games running in the foreground, but that's to be expected.)
  - moe 16y ago

ecuzzillo 16y ago

I've been pissed off at my HTC incredible not being updated with Froyo, and being UI-ily inconsistent (why when I hit the Home button when I'm already at the Home screen does it proceed to give me a zoomed-out view of all my desktops? Why do I even have multiple desktops on a phone?), and being excessively carrier-branded, and Google lost the not-evil designation with the net neutrality thing. And, I've been impressed with the iPhone 4's physical and software shininess (and yes, I'm willing to not hold it that way), so much so I was leaning in the iPhone direction for the next round of phone, assuming they did a deal with Verizon (big if), but this now has me reminded of the sucky elements: namely, no Google Voice, bad notifications, and the potential to get hurt, rather than helped, by OS updates.

gierach 16y ago
Like you, I was eagerly anticipating the Froyo upgrade for my Incredible. However, after receiving the update, I am actually looking for ways to go back to 2.1. I haven't noticed any visual improvements, in fact the Sense UI seems more sluggish. Also, HTC and Verizon jammed in a ton of uninstallable software with Froyo. I now have Skype Mobile, Amazon MP3, My Verizon Mobile, some "Stocks" app, City ID (which continues from 2.1) and a bunch more that you can't remove and it all randomly starts running when I'm not looking. The battery life (which used to be great, much better than a buddy's Evo) is terrible as a result. Google really needs to reign it in.
- elblanco 16y ago
  >in fact the Sense UI seems more sluggish >The battery life (which used to be great, much better than a buddy's Evo) is terrible as a result. Google really needs to reign it in. I've actually had the exact opposite experience, it's super snappy now and the battery seems to last a full 40-50% longer. I've noticed in some forums that people seem to be having either your experience or mine. Strange that would happen on a fixed target, unless there's some differences in the guts of different revs of the Incredibles.
  - gierach 16y ago

White_N_Nerdy 16y ago

I am so lucky. I work at home surrounded by computers, so I really don't need a smart-phone because I'm at home most of the time. When I do leave my house, I take my LG Chocolate with me and we have a Garmin in the car for GPS. Ahhh, simplicity.