5 ms·

- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers? Because the Dialer app is

- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers? Because the Dialer app is listing all of your contacts, because it serves as both the Dialer and the Contacts app all rolled into one. - Why the @#$% doesn't this thing have a proper headphone jack? Yell at HTC, not Android. - How do I sync music between my computer and my G1? Plug the included USB cable into your PC. Android will pop up a notification allowing you to choose if you want to mount the internal SD card as a drive on the host machine. Use Finder/Nautilus/Explorer to copy music to the drive, or Google for the proper file that tells the PC that your G1's SD card is actually a music device so that your music apps will sync with it. Arguably, the G1 should do this for you, but what if you put your camera's SD card into the G1? It wouldn't know the difference, but you wouldn't want it to label the SD card as a music player without you asking it to... - How about podcasts? Get a podcast app, or see above? - How do I play videos on this thing? Use the included YouTube app, or download a file-manager app (I recommend the Linda File Manager) and click on the video from the file manager. Yes, Android should include this type of app out of the box. - When I mark a contact as a "favorite", how do I change which phone number gets dialed from the favorite screen? Open the contact, long-press on the desired number, and select Make Default Number. - Why don't I get autocompletion when I use the hardware keyboard? Because, arguably, most people using a real keyboard don't generally need/want auto-completion? Also because with the physical keyboard, there's no keyboard "app" being used in the first place, which is what provides the auto-completion you speak of. - Why does the system freeze for about a second when I rotate it? Because of the way Android handles apps. When the screen rotates, Android sends the "Stop" signal to the current activity, resets the framebuffer, and then sends the "restart" signal to the activity, more-or-less forcing the activity to save and load its state and rebuild the UI. This allows Android and the application to pick up new resources or new UI layouts based on the new conditions of the phone (new resolution, keyboard availability, etc). See my previous comment on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699223 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699223 - Why do about 25% of the apps I have not work with the soft keyboard? Most likely because developers did some funky business under the expectation that the user would be using Android 1.0 and/or the G1's hardware keyboard. Please yell at developers to update their applications. - Why do another 25% not work in horizontal mode? Once again, developers can specify that applications only run in certain orientations, which can be useful in certain apps (eg, Solitaire really can't play well in portrait mode). Yell at the developers to knock it off if you disagree. - Where's the PDF reader? I believe there's one on the Market. - Why can't I read Google documents on this thing? I'm not sure why Google overlooked a native app for Docs, but they worked relatively well through the browser, last time I tried. There are also several "Office" apps on the Market, if you're interested... Shall I continue? I'd be happy to answer, refute, or agree with more complaints if you can keep them civil.

mrshoe 17y ago
I'm not a huge fan of the iPhone's closed nature, but I think most of what you said above could be considered arguments in favor of it. For example: yell at the hardware manufacturer instead of the software developer; yell at the app developers; if you need that functionality, go buy a 3rd party app; it's slow because of OS implementation details; it doesn't work as you'd expect it because of implementation details; Google's own apps work relatively well. Users don't care about why something is slow or broken (from their perspective). They shouldn't have to care. They don't want to go find an app in the Market for basic functionality, and they don't want to write a Perl script, either. Apple gets this. I hope Google and their partners will some day. Users don't want answers to these questions. The list of questions you replied to was a rhetorical way of saying this: the iPhone user experience is far superior.
- jrockway 17y ago
  Users don't care about why something is slow or broken (from their perspective). This cuts both ways. An iPhone user doesn't care why Apple rejects good apps from the app store. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't vibrate when someone uses his name in a tweet or pings him on IRC or talks to him via GTalk. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't turn its ringer off during appointments, and set it to "ultra loud" when he is in his house. Sure, Apple has technical explanations for all these things, but it doesn't make them go away. It is all a matter, right now, of trading one set of problems for another. "Is iTunes sync worth not having Google Voice?", and so on. Nobody is claiming Android is perfect, but it is important the keep in mind that Apple is not either.
  - unalone 17y ago
    Nobody thinks Apple is perfect. The people John Gruber named are all people who are huge in the Apple world but quit the iPhone in protest. John Gruber himself blasts Apple harder and more accurately than most Apple critics. This whole "Apple is perfect" thing is a straw man that I've seen many times before. The argument isn't that Apple's perfect. The argument's that Apple is really, really, really good, and that its competitors' products aren't as polished as its own products. Android's advantages, as you highlight here, are certainly appealing to some people, but not to mass consumers, who care more about smooth than they do about extensible.

mrshoe 17y ago

I'm not a huge fan of the iPhone's closed nature, but I think most of what you said above could be considered arguments in favor of it. For example: yell at the hardware manufacturer instead of the software developer; yell at the app developers; if you need that functionality, go buy a 3rd party app; it's slow because of OS implementation details; it doesn't work as you'd expect it because of implementation details; Google's own apps work relatively well. Users don't care about why something is slow or broken (from their perspective). They shouldn't have to care. They don't want to go find an app in the Market for basic functionality, and they don't want to write a Perl script, either. Apple gets this. I hope Google and their partners will some day. Users don't want answers to these questions. The list of questions you replied to was a rhetorical way of saying this: the iPhone user experience is far superior.

jrockway 17y ago
Users don't care about why something is slow or broken (from their perspective). This cuts both ways. An iPhone user doesn't care why Apple rejects good apps from the app store. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't vibrate when someone uses his name in a tweet or pings him on IRC or talks to him via GTalk. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't turn its ringer off during appointments, and set it to "ultra loud" when he is in his house. Sure, Apple has technical explanations for all these things, but it doesn't make them go away. It is all a matter, right now, of trading one set of problems for another. "Is iTunes sync worth not having Google Voice?", and so on. Nobody is claiming Android is perfect, but it is important the keep in mind that Apple is not either.
- unalone 17y ago
  Nobody thinks Apple is perfect. The people John Gruber named are all people who are huge in the Apple world but quit the iPhone in protest. John Gruber himself blasts Apple harder and more accurately than most Apple critics. This whole "Apple is perfect" thing is a straw man that I've seen many times before. The argument isn't that Apple's perfect. The argument's that Apple is really, really, really good, and that its competitors' products aren't as polished as its own products. Android's advantages, as you highlight here, are certainly appealing to some people, but not to mass consumers, who care more about smooth than they do about extensible.