4 ms·

An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus S

31 points by Bud 16y ago

solipsist 16y ago
This is why the iPhone still dominates the market more than any other Android phone does. "Sure, I’m more accustomed to the iPhone, but I could switch [to the Nexus S] anytime I wanted to. But that’s the thing, I don’t want to. The iPhone experience is still overall a better one in my mind. It’s that simple."
- niclupien 16y ago
  One question : If you had bought an Android phone before your iPhone and you were accustomed and comfortable with it, do you think you would say the same thing ?
  - solipsist 16y ago
    That's a good question, although I'm not sure it would have worked the same way for me if I had started with an Android phone. In my area, iPhones have become so popular that everywhere you look there are at least a dozen people sitting in cafes or walking down the street with them in their hands. Androids are becoming pretty common themselves, although it seems as if the audience associated with them (which is a little more tech savvy) is less likely to be showing them off in public or using them in the same places iPhone users do. As a result, unless I was a really strong advocate for Android phones or somehow despised iPhones, I think that I would eventually try and switch to the iPhone out of conformity and curiosity. Even if I was completely comfortable with the Android phone I had at the time, the peer pressure and the hype associated with the iPhone would most likely cause me to reconsider. This doesn't seem to happen as much the other way, which is probably due to the impression Android phones have on people and the fact that most iPhone users wouldn't be good Android users in the first place even if they hadn't become accustomed to the iPhone.
  - younata 16y ago
    Yes. I've been playing with a g1 for quite some time (got it in september). Did a bit of development with it (nothing I'd ever release to the public, unfortunately). I did get quite a bit used to it. I had it rooted and was running android 2.2 on it, which was rather fast. Then, I got an iphone 4 for christmas and holy shit, this is a much better experience. My only complaint about the iphone is that the bar you swipe to unlock the phone is lower than what I'm used to. Low enough that if I'm not looking at the phone, I'll still have my thumb high enough to miss the bar completely.
    - blinkingled 16y ago
      G1? That would be like iPhone 1G prototype! The phone was too weak hardware wise. The difference between newer Android phones like the Galaxy S or G2 and iPhone has greatly narrowed to the point where it is mostly an individual preference / needs for specific features that dictate if you will buy one or the other.
      - younata 16y ago
        the g1, in terms of processor speed, was probably on par with as much as the iphone 3g. I've played with the droid x, and other than the screen size, didn't really see that much of a difference between it and the g1. Edit: After a quick browse of wikipedia, the g1, on paper, looks to be faster than the iphone 3g.
        blinkingled 16y ago
        Your G1 is probably not everyone else's G1 ;) Seriously - no difference between Droid X and G1 - you might want to rethink about that!
        younata 16y ago
        Ok, maybe I was wrong.
  - cheald 16y ago
    My first smartphone was the Nexus One. Using iPhones infuriates me, because from my perspective, the iPhone "does it wrong". There are a lot of little Android things that I know and expect, and it rubs me really raw when they aren't there. The iPhone has much prettier transitions and smoother scrolling, and that's about it, as far as I'm concerned. In literally every other way, I prefer my Nexus One. I know, intellectually, that the way the iPhone does things works (after all, other people have no issue with it), but from my perspective, it's less usable than my Android phone. The first device you really use is naturally going to set expectations for you, and it's difficult to get past that comfort when another device does things differently. The iPhone is not a better Android phone than my Nexus one, and Siegler's Nexus S is not a better iPhone than his iPhone.
stcredzero 16y ago
The obvious come-from-behing strategy for Windows phones: Look at how is market leader (Apple) is beating everyone else (RIM/Android) and emulate their success. I think they're trying to do this: use tighter control over the platform to ensure superior UI/UX and seamless integration with their desktop products. If Microsoft can pull this off, they will take a big bite out of the 2nd/3rd place competitors and threaten Apple. If they can't, Windows Phone 7 will be an also-ran like Zune.
- johns 16y ago
  Microsoft probably loves the leeway that Apple's position gives them right now to act the way they love to act.
  - jtchang 16y ago
    Microsoft needs competition to create awesome products. Without it they don't ever seem to have any direction.
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Sort of a large-scale corporate procrastination.
ericb 16y ago
Does anyone else think Android phone desktops look vaguely like Windows 3.1?
- martythemaniak 16y ago
  Yeah, like totally! I fondly remember downloading and arranging the widgets on my windows 3.1, and the cool parallax-effect when you scroll through the 5 home screens.
- ericb 16y ago
  I meant the icons and lack of gloss, but clearly I have touched a nerve.
oasisbob 16y ago
Having said that, I still prefer the build quality of the Nexus One (HTC-built) a bit more than the Nexus S (Samsung-built). Like the Windows Phone model I used (a Samsung Focus), the Nexus S feels a bit too plastic-y for my taste. Yes. This. I'd buy a Nexus S in a heartbeat if it felt anything like the Nexus One. I have a hard time rationalizing intangibles like this, but something about a phone is deeply personal (always on you, handles communication, etc), and the aesthetics matter. Polyester underwear, anyone?
- pkulak 16y ago
  I had a Captivate for a while and loved the build. Very solid, it just was light. I don't tend to conflate weight with quality.
ergo98 16y ago
Google sent out phones to both Gruber and Siegler. What were they thinking? Neither are fair actors, and neither have any credibility outside of the core Apple base. They are lost causes. There is no value in courting them: Let the product diminish their relevance, which is exactly what has already happened. Siegler's review pretends that he gave it a fair shake, yet like all Apple reviews it only notes where Android fails, in his opinion, relative to the iPhone. Where, for instance, is any comment on the superior Android notification system (which to me is a dealbreaker of the iPhone), the power of widgets, the granular app permissions, etc. As much as he doth protest, his conclusion was predetermined. There is no scenario where he would consider it a superior device.
- Lewisham 16y ago
  While true, I don't necessarily think that the opinion should be discounted. I have been looking to buy a Nexus S this week, I went to Best Buy, $530 in hand, but I vowed to play with it first. The demo unit was not good. Google have let themselves fall behind, particuarly that the GPU still isn't accelerating graphics (leading to a jerky experience) and little things being to irritate (double-tap to zoom in Browser results in a jerky 3 fps zoom, whereas the iPhone does it wonderfully). It all adds up to say "I'm not ready yet." Unfortunately, Android hasn't been ready yet for a long time. They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys. All the apps from Google are great. The technical underpinnings are great. The UX is pretty poor; the only win over iOS are widgets and notifications. It blows my mind that Apple hasn't emulated those yet. Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    "They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys." The two complaints you just aired are engineering complaints -- GPU usage by the core UI, and as a related complaint that the zoom speed of the browser isn't great (which again is GPU usage -- on the iPhone it is simply zooming in on a surface skin). If I had to compare minor interface lag against the completely broken notification system on the iPhone, the latter absolutely eclipses the former. If you want to call one "not ready", I would say broken fundamental functionality is quite a bit higher on the complaint scale. Or at least it should be...yet we always hear about minor scroll stuttering. Just as is the case with the iTunes dependency (no thanks), and previously the complete lack of reasonable multitasking. Those egregious usage issues, however, always take a backseat to frivolous "you will never notice it when you actually use the device in real practice" trivialities. Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does. Wrong on all counts.
mcantelon 16y ago
>A couple of the apps I use the most on my iPhone: Twitter and Foursquare, still lack to polish of their iOS counterparts. Twitter's Android app is crap, and strangely mine is locked so I'll have to root to remove it. Twidroyd, however, works well.
- ergo98 16y ago
  Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon MP3 are "built-in" apps in many Android images (e.g. Nexus One 2.2), at most allowing you to uninstall updates to them. It's a major irritation, really. Google needs to stop that nonsense.
  - dannyr 16y ago
    On Nexus S/Android 2.3, you can completely uninstall Facebook and Twitter.
    - ergo98 16y ago
      This is fantastic to hear.
mcantelon 16y ago
>A couple of the apps I use the most on my iPhone: Twitter and Foursquare, still lack to polish of their iOS counterparts. Twitter's Android app is crap, and strangely mine is locked so I'll have to root to remove it. Twidroyd, however, works well.
jfb 16y ago
I wrote about this when the N1 came out; what it came down to was that fit and finish were significant issues (why won't apps move aside when re-arranging them on the screen?), but for me, the dealbreaker was that you really can't take advantage of Android without buying into the whole Google ecosystem, and I'd recently opted out of the Google ecosystem. I use my phone as an extension of my computer, not a portal into the cloud, so the metaphor was never a good fit for me. I certainly think that there were plenty of good things about the N1 and Froyo (although I hated that stupid trackball, the notifications and maps on Froyo were enormously better then their equivalents on iOS), and if you're not already locked into a way of interacting with your phone, that there's not a lot of functional daylight between vanilla Android and iOS at this point. I am curious to see what WP7 turns into. They have some wiggle room and may just surprise. EDIT: On the off chance anybody's interested: http://homonculus.net/tags/phones.html http://homonculus.net/tags/phones.html
- martythemaniak 16y ago
  Well, that's actually true for all major smartphones - Android is an extension of Google's cloud, iPhone is an extension of your PC's iTunes, BlackBerry is an extension of your corporate BES/Outlook server etc. Android, while incomplete, is the model which all others will have to switch to eventually. I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011. The interesting thing about Android (the Nexus lines in particular) is that it is the only major OS that gives you the option of using it without any attachments through ASOP. CyanogenMod and others let you use Android without any google things, something which none of the others will let you do.
  - jfb 16y ago
    "I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011." No argument here. And I think you're right about the convergence -- holdouts like me will just have to learn to cope. All I want is someone to sell me the service, not rely on data mining and ad impressions.
nazgulnarsil 16y ago
i consider stuff that lacks GPU acceleration to be so unbelievably retarded that I question the core competence of the engineers and company behind it. android and flash have been the two biggest offenders recently. I despise adobe (well, for lots of reasons besides this as well) and am starting to hate google. (is flash fixed yet BTW?)

31 points by Bud 16y ago

This is why the iPhone still dominates the market more than any other Android phone does. "Sure, I’m more accustomed to the iPhone, but I could switch [to the Nexus S] anytime I wanted to. But that’s the thing, I don’t want to. The iPhone experience is still overall a better one in my mind. It’s that simple."

niclupien 16y ago
One question : If you had bought an Android phone before your iPhone and you were accustomed and comfortable with it, do you think you would say the same thing ?
- solipsist 16y ago
  That's a good question, although I'm not sure it would have worked the same way for me if I had started with an Android phone. In my area, iPhones have become so popular that everywhere you look there are at least a dozen people sitting in cafes or walking down the street with them in their hands. Androids are becoming pretty common themselves, although it seems as if the audience associated with them (which is a little more tech savvy) is less likely to be showing them off in public or using them in the same places iPhone users do. As a result, unless I was a really strong advocate for Android phones or somehow despised iPhones, I think that I would eventually try and switch to the iPhone out of conformity and curiosity. Even if I was completely comfortable with the Android phone I had at the time, the peer pressure and the hype associated with the iPhone would most likely cause me to reconsider. This doesn't seem to happen as much the other way, which is probably due to the impression Android phones have on people and the fact that most iPhone users wouldn't be good Android users in the first place even if they hadn't become accustomed to the iPhone.
- younata 16y ago
  Yes. I've been playing with a g1 for quite some time (got it in september). Did a bit of development with it (nothing I'd ever release to the public, unfortunately). I did get quite a bit used to it. I had it rooted and was running android 2.2 on it, which was rather fast. Then, I got an iphone 4 for christmas and holy shit, this is a much better experience. My only complaint about the iphone is that the bar you swipe to unlock the phone is lower than what I'm used to. Low enough that if I'm not looking at the phone, I'll still have my thumb high enough to miss the bar completely.
  - blinkingled 16y ago
    G1? That would be like iPhone 1G prototype! The phone was too weak hardware wise. The difference between newer Android phones like the Galaxy S or G2 and iPhone has greatly narrowed to the point where it is mostly an individual preference / needs for specific features that dictate if you will buy one or the other.
    - younata 16y ago
      the g1, in terms of processor speed, was probably on par with as much as the iphone 3g. I've played with the droid x, and other than the screen size, didn't really see that much of a difference between it and the g1. Edit: After a quick browse of wikipedia, the g1, on paper, looks to be faster than the iphone 3g.
      - blinkingled 16y ago
        Your G1 is probably not everyone else's G1 ;) Seriously - no difference between Droid X and G1 - you might want to rethink about that!
        younata 16y ago
        Ok, maybe I was wrong.
- cheald 16y ago
  My first smartphone was the Nexus One. Using iPhones infuriates me, because from my perspective, the iPhone "does it wrong". There are a lot of little Android things that I know and expect, and it rubs me really raw when they aren't there. The iPhone has much prettier transitions and smoother scrolling, and that's about it, as far as I'm concerned. In literally every other way, I prefer my Nexus One. I know, intellectually, that the way the iPhone does things works (after all, other people have no issue with it), but from my perspective, it's less usable than my Android phone. The first device you really use is naturally going to set expectations for you, and it's difficult to get past that comfort when another device does things differently. The iPhone is not a better Android phone than my Nexus one, and Siegler's Nexus S is not a better iPhone than his iPhone.

stcredzero 16y ago

The obvious come-from-behing strategy for Windows phones: Look at how is market leader (Apple) is beating everyone else (RIM/Android) and emulate their success. I think they're trying to do this: use tighter control over the platform to ensure superior UI/UX and seamless integration with their desktop products. If Microsoft can pull this off, they will take a big bite out of the 2nd/3rd place competitors and threaten Apple. If they can't, Windows Phone 7 will be an also-ran like Zune.

johns 16y ago
Microsoft probably loves the leeway that Apple's position gives them right now to act the way they love to act.
- jtchang 16y ago
  Microsoft needs competition to create awesome products. Without it they don't ever seem to have any direction.
  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Sort of a large-scale corporate procrastination.

ericb 16y ago

Does anyone else think Android phone desktops look vaguely like Windows 3.1?

martythemaniak 16y ago
Yeah, like totally! I fondly remember downloading and arranging the widgets on my windows 3.1, and the cool parallax-effect when you scroll through the 5 home screens.
ericb 16y ago
I meant the icons and lack of gloss, but clearly I have touched a nerve.

oasisbob 16y ago

Having said that, I still prefer the build quality of the Nexus One (HTC-built) a bit more than the Nexus S (Samsung-built). Like the Windows Phone model I used (a Samsung Focus), the Nexus S feels a bit too plastic-y for my taste. Yes. This. I'd buy a Nexus S in a heartbeat if it felt anything like the Nexus One. I have a hard time rationalizing intangibles like this, but something about a phone is deeply personal (always on you, handles communication, etc), and the aesthetics matter. Polyester underwear, anyone?

pkulak 16y ago
I had a Captivate for a while and loved the build. Very solid, it just was light. I don't tend to conflate weight with quality.

ergo98 16y ago

Google sent out phones to both Gruber and Siegler. What were they thinking? Neither are fair actors, and neither have any credibility outside of the core Apple base. They are lost causes. There is no value in courting them: Let the product diminish their relevance, which is exactly what has already happened. Siegler's review pretends that he gave it a fair shake, yet like all Apple reviews it only notes where Android fails, in his opinion, relative to the iPhone. Where, for instance, is any comment on the superior Android notification system (which to me is a dealbreaker of the iPhone), the power of widgets, the granular app permissions, etc. As much as he doth protest, his conclusion was predetermined. There is no scenario where he would consider it a superior device.

Lewisham 16y ago
While true, I don't necessarily think that the opinion should be discounted. I have been looking to buy a Nexus S this week, I went to Best Buy, $530 in hand, but I vowed to play with it first. The demo unit was not good. Google have let themselves fall behind, particuarly that the GPU still isn't accelerating graphics (leading to a jerky experience) and little things being to irritate (double-tap to zoom in Browser results in a jerky 3 fps zoom, whereas the iPhone does it wonderfully). It all adds up to say "I'm not ready yet." Unfortunately, Android hasn't been ready yet for a long time. They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys. All the apps from Google are great. The technical underpinnings are great. The UX is pretty poor; the only win over iOS are widgets and notifications. It blows my mind that Apple hasn't emulated those yet. Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does.
- ergo98 16y ago
  "They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys." The two complaints you just aired are engineering complaints -- GPU usage by the core UI, and as a related complaint that the zoom speed of the browser isn't great (which again is GPU usage -- on the iPhone it is simply zooming in on a surface skin). If I had to compare minor interface lag against the completely broken notification system on the iPhone, the latter absolutely eclipses the former. If you want to call one "not ready", I would say broken fundamental functionality is quite a bit higher on the complaint scale. Or at least it should be...yet we always hear about minor scroll stuttering. Just as is the case with the iTunes dependency (no thanks), and previously the complete lack of reasonable multitasking. Those egregious usage issues, however, always take a backseat to frivolous "you will never notice it when you actually use the device in real practice" trivialities. Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does. Wrong on all counts.

mcantelon 16y ago

>A couple of the apps I use the most on my iPhone: Twitter and Foursquare, still lack to polish of their iOS counterparts. Twitter's Android app is crap, and strangely mine is locked so I'll have to root to remove it. Twidroyd, however, works well.

ergo98 16y ago
Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon MP3 are "built-in" apps in many Android images (e.g. Nexus One 2.2), at most allowing you to uninstall updates to them. It's a major irritation, really. Google needs to stop that nonsense.
- dannyr 16y ago
  On Nexus S/Android 2.3, you can completely uninstall Facebook and Twitter.
  - ergo98 16y ago
    This is fantastic to hear.

mcantelon 16y ago

jfb 16y ago

I wrote about this when the N1 came out; what it came down to was that fit and finish were significant issues (why won't apps move aside when re-arranging them on the screen?), but for me, the dealbreaker was that you really can't take advantage of Android without buying into the whole Google ecosystem, and I'd recently opted out of the Google ecosystem. I use my phone as an extension of my computer, not a portal into the cloud, so the metaphor was never a good fit for me. I certainly think that there were plenty of good things about the N1 and Froyo (although I hated that stupid trackball, the notifications and maps on Froyo were enormously better then their equivalents on iOS), and if you're not already locked into a way of interacting with your phone, that there's not a lot of functional daylight between vanilla Android and iOS at this point. I am curious to see what WP7 turns into. They have some wiggle room and may just surprise. EDIT: On the off chance anybody's interested: http://homonculus.net/tags/phones.html http://homonculus.net/tags/phones.html

martythemaniak 16y ago
Well, that's actually true for all major smartphones - Android is an extension of Google's cloud, iPhone is an extension of your PC's iTunes, BlackBerry is an extension of your corporate BES/Outlook server etc. Android, while incomplete, is the model which all others will have to switch to eventually. I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011. The interesting thing about Android (the Nexus lines in particular) is that it is the only major OS that gives you the option of using it without any attachments through ASOP. CyanogenMod and others let you use Android without any google things, something which none of the others will let you do.
- jfb 16y ago
  "I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011." No argument here. And I think you're right about the convergence -- holdouts like me will just have to learn to cope. All I want is someone to sell me the service, not rely on data mining and ad impressions.

nazgulnarsil 16y ago

i consider stuff that lacks GPU acceleration to be so unbelievably retarded that I question the core competence of the engineers and company behind it. android and flash have been the two biggest offenders recently. I despise adobe (well, for lots of reasons besides this as well) and am starting to hate google. (is flash fixed yet BTW?)