On November 26h I started The Android Experiment:
Given my known addiction for All-Things-Apple and my fairly open bias when it comes to Android with all of its attributed iPhone killer potential, I decided to give Android a fair chance to win my heart.
I handed my iPhone to my wife for her to store it in a secret place and force myself to solely use the Motorola Milestone.
The setup
The Milestone is the European version of the US market’s Motorola Droid and is known as a flagship Android based smart phone. It ships with the latest version 2.1 2.0 of Google’s mobile phone operating system and I got it bundled with a Vodafone flat data tariff.
I believe from the hardware & services perspective it would be fair to say that I’ve chosen a leading Android setup for my experiment, thus making sure that in case of a failure nobody blames the device or mobile operator.
Preface
Many reviews have been published about Motorola’s device, the Android 2.1 software in general and how both play together. While most of them acknowledge the somewhat ugly clunky overall user experience delivered by the hard- and the software, they generally tend to be positive.
For whatever weird reason the tech news scene tends to grant everything coming out of Google with premature praise.
I’m not going to add another full-blown review of the Motorola Milestone, if you’re looking for one, a Google search will reveal many great articles.
Why I learned to hate Android
Instead, here is my official list, why Android does not work at all for me, why I believe it will not kill the iPhone anytime nsoon and why in fact I totally disagree with most of the hype that comes along with Android as a perfect smart phone platform.
Disclaimer: I consider myself pretty tech-savvy. There might be solutions, workarounds, tweaks and updates available for some of the issues, that I have not been able to find. However, I don’t consider it to be a consumer’s primary task to fix a flawed smart phone OS, so I gave up after four weeks of trying to workaround the many annoyances I’ve found in Android 2.1.
Should you be aware of anything that relates to my points and could help others, feel free to submit via the comments!
And now to the list
1. Initial Setup
It sounds almost unbelievable but unfortunately it’s true: Possibly the most serious bug kicked in right after I unboxed the Milestone and switched it on for the first time.
As part of the setup wizard you’re forced to configure a Gmail account. Android expects your phone to have Internet connectivity at that stage.
Now, here’s the deal: Possibly you’ve password protected your WiFi network and your mobile operator requires you to adjust Access Point Names (APNs) to use mobile data connectivity.
Hence, in the majority of the use cases Android will not be able to connect to the Internet while guiding you through the initial setup routine, simply because you haven’t had any chance to hook up to your WiFi network, yet, nor to configure the device for mobile Internet access.
Consequently the wizard fails and returns an error message complaining about a (quote) “unreliable data connection to Google servers”.
One could argue this should be no big deal, just skip the Gmail configuration part for now, set up WiFi connectivity and add the required account later. Well, quite obvious that’s what I thought, too, but I did not count in the single most annoying issue I’ve ever had with a smart phone:
2. Setting up and adding Gmail accounts regularly requires a hard reset!
Yes, you’ve read that right.
As outlined above I couldn’t set up Gmail connectivity via the setup wizard, so I went ahead and configured Vodafone APNs and connected the Milestone to my home WiFi network. Worked like a charm. Next firing up the Gmail app, entering my credentials and hitting the add account button.
After watching the progress bar for some three minutes, Android complains:
“Can’t establish a reliable data connection to the server. This could be a temporary problem or your SIM card may not be provisioned for data services.”
WTF?!
I’m 100% sure I set up everything correctly but let’s double check: Firing up Android’s browser and trying to surf the web works perfectly fine. Even using the Gmail web interface works like a charm. So data connectivity wise everything was fine. Maybe I’ve misspelled my Gmail credentials?
Back to the Gmail app, adding my account credentials (again) watching each character very carefully while I type… same problem. Android cannot establish a reliable data connection to the freaking Google servers.
Rebooting, double checking Internet connectivity and firewall settings of my home network, trying Gmail desktop apps on my Mac – you name it.
One hour and a half after switching on my first Android phone and I didn’t even get email going, gimme a break!
A Google search for the error message returns some stunning 211.000 results as of this writing. Thanks god – and for some reason sadly enough – I’m definitely not alone with this annoying behavior.
Turns out that the problem not only occurs during initial setup but users frequently report it when trying to add additional Gmail accounts after using the Android for a while.
But there is an official solution: Hard reset your Android phone!
I’m serious: Two years after this extremely serious issue has first been reported, an issue which effectively prevents you from getting push email and buying apps from the Android market, the only solution available to date is to hard reset Android – thus wiping all your data, eliminating everything you’ve configured and deleting all installed apps.
Even if there were no other issues with Android, this alone renders it entirely useless for anybody who requires reliable access to his or her email account.
I “solved” the initial setup problem by temporarily disabling security for my WiFi network completely, hard resetting the phone and thus allowing Android’s setup wizard to connect.
Two weeks later, I ran into the issue again, when I tried to add my Google Apps based yourdomain-email address to the Gmail application as a second account.
Certainly, I had to hard reset the Milestone, lost all of my data and had to go through the nightmare of manually restoring my important apps from a backup. All of this because I’d wanted to add a second email account.
3. No multi-language keyboard
Roughly 60% of my daily written conversations happen to be in English, the rest in German. For whatever reason Google does not deliver an on-screen keyboard that’s capable of supporting multiple languages.
This means that whenever I respond to a German email, tweet or Facebook post, I’ve got to go through settings, locale and switch the entire Android UI to German.
Now, if the next email happens to be from a US based friend, I gotta go through all that again.
To the contrary the iPhone allows me to configure as many simultaneous keyboard languages as I need, switch between them right from the keyboard while I type and they do not impact the UI language.
Because of the many other minor flaws with the Android’s on-screen keyboard, there are lots of keyboard alternatives available on the Android Market. None of those solve the problem that potentially any international customer will face.
It kind of speaks for itself anyway, that developers seem to see a vital business opportunity in improving exactly the piece of software that’s responsible for something as basic as text input. I never felt I had to look for a “better keyboard” on the iTunes App Store.
4. No central place for application updates
Having worked around the crappy implementation of setting up Gmail on an Android powered phone I moved forward to Android Market, looking for some great apps (and a better keyboard).
While the Android Market looks & feels a bit like websites of the late 80s, purchasing and installing apps worked fine for me. The shopping experience is not as pleasant as the iPhone App Store’s, but from a technical point of view it’s been pretty seamless. You do need to be a Google Checkout member to buy paid apps however.
When I read somewhere on a blog about major feature updates for some apps I had installed, I was starting to wonder how I could quickly download those.
The iPhone App Store provides a convenient view which lists all apps with available updates and allows you to do one-click updates or updating all at once.
I launched Android Market and searched for some similar functionality. By now you might already guess what: There is none.
In case you accidentally stumble upon an app you’ve got installed on Market again, it does let you know that there’s an update. But there’s no such thing as a central place for managing all application updates.
In light of the absence of yet another essential feature, another third party tries to fix Android and produced the strangely called aTrackDog app.
It’s one of the most popular apps on Android Market, so I guess many users would actually love to have a better handling of application updates build right into the OS.
(If you take a brief look at the aTrackDog website, you get an idea of how the Android Market feels…)
5. No good Twitter app
I’m pretty sure I’ll receive some flame responses for claiming that there’s nothing compared to what’s available for the iPhone when it comes to Twitter clients.
But those cannot hide away the fact, that iPhone Twitter clients are light years ahead of every single Twitter app for Android.
While most of the Android Twitter clients are entirely crap, there are two which frequently receive fantastic reviews: twidroid PRO and Seesmic.
I’ve tried both. If you’ve ever used Tweetie on an iPhone, you will hate the basic, unresponsive and complicated UI of twidroid PRO. Seesmic does a little bit better usability-wise but does not support multiple accounts.
These are essential for me, as I’m running my private @24z twitter account and the one for The Next Web Germany.
Twidroid recently added the ability to handle multiple accounts but lacks overall usability for quickly tweeting stuff.
None of them support the official Retweet function.
All of the prominent iPhone Twitter apps do all of the above perfectly fine and come with a beautiful user interface.
Seriously, anybody who states that there are better Twitter clients for Android as compared to those available for the iPhone is simply lying.
6. No easy way to take screenshots
This post lacks first hand images.
I would have loved to show you more, but unfortunately something as basic as taking screenshots requires you to install the Android SDK, configure a debug connection and run a command line tool on your computer! For those who don’t mind the hazzle, a good tutorial is available by another third party.
Remember: On the iPhone it’s pressing the Home and the Power button and you get a beautiful photo sitting right in your camera roll waiting to be shared.
I would have loved to show you some screens, but frankly didn’t want to spend another two hours of my time to set up screenshot capabilities just because Google decided to not give us a convenient way.
7. Just three home screens
When I first encountered this, I thought it’s me doing something wrong.
Why on earth should Android only provide three home screens given the Android Market and the potentially hundreds of fantastic apps I’d like to have neatly arranged on my mobile desktop.
Well, I don’t know why, but Android seriously limits the number of home screens to three, providing space for a maximum of 48 apps. One page to the left, one to the right, that’s it.
If you’re adding widgets to the home screen, this number gets even smaller.
It comes as no surprise that Android Market offers complete Home Screen replacements. The ones I tried all sucked heavily, caused frequent crashed and significant performance decreases.
8. Inability to install apps to the SD card
Many Android powered phones ship with SD card support which potentially allows you to upgrade to anything from 2GB to 64GB.
But: Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create. For most applications, we want a small file size to limit the download times. When it comes to 3D games though, we need a ton of space for all the high-res textures, audio, and video.
Have you seen all the awesome iPhone and iPod Touch games? Hardly any of them would ever make it onto an Android phone. It is not uncommon for popular titles to easily exceed 100 MB. For example, the game Myst takes up a whopping 727MB.
Having installed only Seesmic and Twidroid on my Milestone the amount of space left to install apps is already down at as little as 139MB.
Maybe that explains the three page home screen limit: You cannot install that many apps on an Android anyway.
(I am aware of hacks and workarounds that include rooting your device and will then allow you to transfer apps to the SD card, but as stated before, I don’t want to waste my time to make up for fundamental Android architecture flaws.)
9. Android’s fragmentation
Many have praised Android’s openness.
I’m generally a strong believer in openness but only if project owners have a clever strategy to prevent fragmentation. This is clearly even more important when we specifically talk mobile operating systems.
We already have a situation where Android is not like Android and I’ve seen many apps on the Android Market that do require not only a specific device but also a specific minor version of Android.
That raised the question of how to update the Milestone operating system itself. I am running on 2.1 which is considered the latest and greatest as of today, but what will happen if Google rolls out a major update?
Let’s see. We’ve got Settings > About phone > System updates. After confirming that normal data rates may apply I get:
“Unable to connect. The device is unable to connect to the server. Try again later.”
Thank you. By now, I don’t have to mention that checking for an update never worked so far. Not later. Not later than later. Simply never.
While this specific issue might be more Motorola’s fault than Google’s, frankly, I don’t care.
It’s Google’s freaking operating system and they should have imposed at least basic means of quality assurance to make sure that Android partners provide a consistent experience to consumers.
I’m not asking for simplicity, easy of use, a beautiful user interface, consistency in applications and all of the other stuff, the iPhone does right, but a working mobile operating system in key areas would be a good start.
10. Java exceptions
I have to admit that I did not experience many crashes. The once that did occur, though, were ugly.
Having installed some 25+ apps from Market, I regularly ran into Java exceptions not only in the downloaded apps but also in native Android apps. The only option given was to force quit those processes.
One particular case finally made me drop the Milestone entirely and beg my wife to hand back to me my iPhone 3GS: An unresolvable crash of Android’s email app.
I ultimately set up email to handle four IMAP accounts and Microsoft Exchange integration. It worked for almost two weeks. Then it crashed for no obvious reason. Checking memory consumption and clearing the cache for all Google applications (both of which I never ever had to perform on my iPhone), did not help.
I had to revert to the final solution and the only one, which seems to help with many Android issues: Hard resetting the phone. Losing all my data. Losing all my applications. Losing all my settings.
Well, this time it came in handy. The Milestone is now perfectly prepared to be sold on eBay.
I really think you have chosen the wrong telephone for this test, and your overall complaining about the android platform, is a bit strange. I think you really love your iphone and you really do not see the better future of the android platform.
PS i also prefer the iphone and i also have a HTC Hero.
Antonio, please more detail when say False. That doesn’t prove you’re right. It only proves you can type False. What is a “good” Twitter app? What multi-language keyboards are available? More proof of your claims.
3. I have used 3 different keyboards, all of then allow me to input my national characters (Portuguese) and at least one of then has different layouts for different languages (I uninstalled one of then so I can’t check that one)
4. Android Market?
But basically you’re analysis is not a impartial one, and it’s not even objective, you just want to make a point – *your* point – and trying to get a lot of hits by provoking some flames…
1. Don ‘t know how Europe does it, but not a problem in US. Sounds like a carrier issue.
2. Eh, what…Apparently you don’t look too hard.
3. Unlike Apple Google lets you replace everything, try BetterKeyboard.
4. This is a tough one, it’s hidden real well, under “My Downloads” in the market.
5. What are your complaints? Besides the UI? Twidroid supports native retweets, again it is hard to find…it’s in the settings. Imagine that.
6. No there isn’t an easy way to take screenshots. I’m not quite sure why a standard user would want to.
7. Three home screens on plain Android. HTC sense has 7. And you can put more there than a single icon.
8. True, unless the app supports it, like twidroid does. One true valid complaint.
9. What are you talking about? Again carrier specific. Blame them.
10. Never had that issue, never had to hard reset.
You admit you are an Apple fanboi, please go back to being Apples sheep.
HTC Eris has SEVEN (7) home screens.
My colleauges have HTC Hero here in the UK and HTC polished that version of Android to perfection, they have never had any of your problems. They are totally pleased with it, it’s smooth, 7 desktops, customizable and never had any problems with it and it just works.
HTC Eris has SEVEN (7) home screens.
Maybe you should learn a little bit about the difference between building a UI for the iphone and android before flaming certain apps Mr. know-it-all.
Appreciate any feedback, though yours is not particularly solid. :)
You’re obviously biased against Android and/or had bad luck with your particular device and/or carrier and/or setup. Here’s my experience after 1 month of usage on the points you mentioned.
1. Initial Setup – TRUE
2. Setting up and adding Gmail accounts regularly requires a hard reset! – FALSE
3. No multi-language keyboard – FALSE
4. No central place for application updates – FALSE
5. No good Twitter app – FALSE
6. No easy way to take screenshots – I didn’t test that
7. Just three home screens – TRUE
8. Inability to install apps to the SD card – I didn’t test that
9. Android’s fragmentation – FALSE
10. Java exceptions – FALSE
Antonia, I second that.
As it seems nobody wants to buy the Milestone on eBay anyway, so I still got it in my hands. Anything that helps with any of my points might make me keep it (if only as a reference to try apps and not as a production phone).
I’m specifically interested in:
3. Which multi-language keyboard app did you find that allows instantaneous switching of just the keyboard’s language?
4. Where in Android is this hidden? (I assume you’re not using one of the many third party apps, as I did find those, too, but was asking for Android’s own feature to centrally handle app updates. So where is it?)
Looking forward to your tips!
I have the Motorola Droid. When an app is available for update it tells me in the notification bar at the top (the same bar that contains the running apps, time etc.).
I thought it was a pretty cool feature. You might have missed it since you expected to have to look for updates or maybe that capability does not exist with your carrier.
Well, I wasn’t expecting to have to explain the meaning of FALSE, but… it means that I had the opposite experience of the one the author has, supposing the author was telling the TRUE.
Nevertheless, I’m not making any claim, the author is, so I don’t have to prove what I’m not doing.
And I’m not in the mood for flames also…
Excellent comment, Andy and I agree completely.
This is very similar to the point-by-point reply I sent to my friend who asked me to reply to this. Surprised you’re on Android 2.1 when it hasn’t been released yet – the Droid/Milestone was 2.0 – maybe running pre-release beta software is the cause of your problems?
Point 1, all Androids are sold with unlimited data plans, so you should be connected from the get-go – but in any case you can go back in later and set it up.
Point 2, “Two years after this extremely serious issue has first been
reported” – it’s only since the release of the Droid/Milestone last month that Android can do this multi-account stuff, so there are some exaggerations going on ere. I’m not aware of this issue.
Point 3, a dealbreaker – really? At home do you plug-and-play physical QWERTY/QWERTZ keyboards? Or do you use keyboard shortcuts? All keyboards have all accents anyway. You’re right that you can go to Market and replace it if you want to. You can’t do that with iPhone, because Apple doesn’t let you replace core functionality.
Point 4, you must know by now you can do the two-click option: Android Market – Downloads. Sure there isn’t an “install all updates” icon, that’s because Android has per-application permission-based security, asking you at install time if you give permission for various functions. You can’t do this with iPhone – you have to trust Apple’s black-box testing process of a binary executable, instead of the operating system enforcing it.
Point 5, iPhone can’t run apps in background or simultaneously, so it can’t notify you of twitter updates unless it’s running in real time.
Point 6 is true. Although of course you could write an app to run in background that listened to keypresses. You couldn’t do this on iPhone, of course – no background apps, and only one app running at a time.
Point 7. Damn you have the iCancer bad ;) You don’t need to put apps on home screens – ones that you don’t are listed alphabetically by icon under the menu. You need it for widgets, which are excellent background processing indicators of various stuff such as facebook or twitter updates, and entirely absent from iPhone.
Point 8: install the app in core memory, and download the data onto the SD card. You’ll need to for the graphics you can show on your Droid/Milestone, with more than 2.5x the pixels of your iPhone 3GS :)
Point 9: as an Android dev, it’s easy to develop for multiple clients. You can develop specifically for Droid/Milestone, but you don’t need to – if not specified, it automatically upscales 320×480 designs.
Point 10: when iPhone crashes, it just kills the app, no message, nothing, and pretends nothing went wrong. At least Android puts its hands up to it :)
Andy, thanks for the time you took to respond to the article. Your comment is the most valuable so far. It’s good to finally get some real arguments from the other end of the spectrum!
“Google doesn’t care.”
Citation? Where did you get this info? I would LOVE to see a quote from google stating “You get to run 1.6 forever, we don’t care.”
You won’t be able to cite this so called information because it doesn’t exist. Please stop spreading false info.
Brilliant.
If you find an app in the “Marketplace” that requires Android 2.0 how do you upgrade your Droid Eris to use that app?
Meredith you stupid twat, MJ was referring to internal Flash. It appears you don’t know what that is. It’s memory. Google it and learn a bit more about technology. : )
You seem to think it’s ok that Google’s phone config problems are “beacuse you’re in Europe”. Good thing you aren’t anywhere close to product strategy at a global company. You’d be kissing off the largest consumer market in the world.
Honestly, reading through the comments, it’s clear that either most of you didn’t read the original FA, or your comprehension skills are minimal. The author clearly noted that he wasn’t willing to WASTE TIME tweaking settings and downloading additional applications to accomplish what the iPhone does BY DEFAULT. If you want to live in the cage of nerd OCD, go ahead, but at least realize that all your productivity gains are lost by sitting on your ass all day CUSTOMIZING your precious G-Phone to do something that you don’t need it to do (like changing EQ on a song while you are listening to it on a MOBILE DEVICE!) or just because you want to have a neat animated background.
There is a reason that iPhones have sold more than 4 times what the g-Phones sold in the same time period of their introduction to market. It’s because they work! Go back to your Linux desktops.
ARGH. Must I be the proofreader for this excuse of a blog entry? Yes, I guess I must. You are confusing the hell out of people even MORE now that you mention different Android OS versions. In one place it says 2.0 and in other places it STILL says 2.1.
Do you not even read your own writing?
adding Gmail accounts does not in anyway require a hard reset. THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF MULTI-LANGUAGE KEYBOARDS. There is a central place for updating apps. All you have to do is go to the app store and go to downloads and it shows any and all updates available. There are tons of great twitter apps, although I must admit the best one is the one that comes on HTC droids (Peep) I don’t know about you but I have atleast 5 home screens. I also have installed about 300 applications or more from my sd card using the Astro app and my computer.
You’re a twat.
One word for you Mr. tech savvy
MORON
I actually just tried to accomplish what I do with my iPhone 3GS almost daily: Handling multiple email accounts, responding to German and English friends, staying in touch via Twitter, taking care that my apps are up to date.
Not too much hoop jumping, I think.
The problem is, the overall lack of love for detail in Android makes it a crappy user experience to use this thing.
I’ll start by saying I use a Blackberry Bold – and it does some things the iPhone dreams about doing well one day – but I have seen some potential in Android.
I’d like to encourage you to try Sony Xperia X10 or any of the HTC phones.
Don’t forget the KEY selling point for Android – customization. Unfortunately Motorola did not do a good job and more or less went with base Android.
Sony and HTC have done a commendable job with customizing Android.
Sticking with the Sony Xperia X10 – they introduce some very good social networking ideas. These include the infinity button which essential grabs your contacts details from all social networks and presents them to you as a contact option.
Offical Xperia Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPw-yKyxAuU
That looks VERY VERY good to me.
Why would you want to make a simple thing so complicated? You were jumping through hoops to make this thing fail.
+1 to Ralph for best response ever.
and someone actually got paid for this “article”?
OMG
It is clear that the iPhone is the slick, smooth working, easy device that everybody will love. This is probably because Steve Jobs sees the bigger picture :)
In my experience android sucks, unless you’re a tech nerd seeking a challenge.
All android phones I’ve touched don’t even scroll nearly as smoothly as the iPhone! Now this may seem trivial to most nerds, but its at the base of the complete usage experience.
I think people who choose anything else than iPhone at this point in time are simply missing out.
Joe, thanks for the hint! Never actually tried that menu but did so a second ago. It does not indicate a single available update for my downloads though aTrackDog shows many.
But I guess that’s what is supposed to deliver the functionality I’m asking for. Maybe it works in one of the future Android updates (which I still don’t know when and how to get for my Milestone, due to the major fragmentation problem with Android).
Brendan, thanks for the tip.
I also noticed that some apps now allow you to transfer the app binary to the SD card, so developers start to implement their workarounds. Quite obviously as every developer does it in a different way, this further adds on the inconsistent, crappy end user experience, that’s my main concern with Android.
I still criticize Google’s decision to force devs to do these kind of technical workarounds which for mainstream consumers are difficult to understand, handle and a pain-in-the-neck.
In the android market, hit the menu button and there is an option in the middle called Downloads. This takes you to all the apps you currently have installed on the system or have purchased.
Also to reconnect to your google account, If you go to the settings menu and try to sync your gmail and contacts it will then try to query the server, realizing that you do not have your information put in, it will then ask you for your credentials.
(I’m not sure if this is a case from setup or not)
Also I’m not sure if it is a case with being in Germany and your carrier or not, but setting up an android phone in the U.S., edge was setup for use on my phone immediately, I was in the car when I first set up my G1.
As far as I know, you can only have 1 Gmail account tied to your phone, and any additional need to be added to the email app.
Brendan, thanks for the hint, though
“Lastly, I believe you can use Astro file manager to manually install apps onto the SD card. Connect your phone to your computer, transfer the file and use Astro to install the file.”
doesn’t sound exactly consumer friendly to me. Explain THAT to my mother. She’s an extremely happy iPhone user. :)
Thanks Donna, very well appreciated.
4. Android Market>Menu>My Downloads? Doesn’t that automatically tell you an update is available?
It always worked for me. Don’t know if that’s the case here but I read aTrackDog sometimes shows updates where there aren’t any. People also downloaded them and it broke their apps – which again doesn’t speak for android.
ad home screens: I used an iPhone for a while and found more than 4 home screens incredibly annoying. but if you want to have more than 48 apps/icons on your android screens (plus widgets) you can use folders.
ad updates: You get notified of system updates just like app-updates. the connection problem is a bit weird though.
ad usability: as I just said I used an iPhone for a while and I (being an android user) didn’t like the user experience AT ALL! (except for the picture management) I guess once you get accustomed to the way each platform works you rather stick to that than learn a new environment. and as you said: you haven’t tried the menu up to now…
ad twitter: twidroid does offer a quick tweet option: it’s called widget. but I have to admit I didn’t like twidroid much.
ad language: true. but since English and German letters aren’t that much of a difference it doesn’t affect me.
still: thanks for the article!
htc hero…7 home screens..i think the OS is close to perfect..the only problem I have with the hero is that it does get laggy quite often which does sometimes piss me off..still i prefer it to the iphone..nd i very much agree to the 1st of 2nd comment..u pick the wrong phone to test out android…try the hero and tell me how much u love android(aside from the lagginess ofcourse..)..
One more point:
Google’s Android is only some two years old. Given the many clever minds working at Google, why on earth do they come up with a mobile OS that (quote) “gets laggy quite often which does sometimes piss you off”?
One of the points that Ralf makes is that the Android market is fragmented. Your comment about him using “the wrong phone to test out android” just proves his point. The experience varies across hardware.
htc hero…7 home screens..i think the OS is close to perfect..the only problem I have with the hero is that it does get laggy quite often which does sometimes piss me off..still i prefer it to the iphone..nd i very much agree to the 1st of 2nd comment..u pick the wrong phone to test out android…try the hero and tell me how much u love android(aside from the lagginess ofcourse..).
I’ve had my Droid (Milestone) for 2 months now and am quite pleased with it. I don’t see a need for more home screens as you mentioned – if I use an app less than once a month, I don’t see a need for it to be put in a new place when the rest of the apps are conveniently located alphabetically within a drag of the finger. I guess its really what you’re used to.
I do, however, agree with the multiple updates for apps. The phone does notify you for updates on the market once every day, but a single-update solution would be nice. Although updating individual apps gives you a bit more control.
Lastly, I believe you can use Astro file manager to manually install apps onto the SD card. Connect your phone to your computer, transfer the file and use Astro to install the file.
I think this one has to do with HTC providing devices with outdated hardware
Ahhhhh, finally someone commented what I was thinking. Kudos to you “tech-savvy” author for immediately invalidating everything you wrote in this entire “article”…
Hello Ralf,
I’m a little on the opposite end of the spectrum on the iPhone vs Android debate, although most of my reasons for switching from iPhone were carrier based (which may not seem like a plausible argument for this post, but when only one brand of iPhone is available on only one carrier, you have to take the service into account, and AT&T dropped WAY too many calls for me to consider it viable).
Anyway, I would like to address a few points from your article, if I could. I own the Motorola Droid, and have been by and large happy with it since I got it back in November. I’m by no means a fan boy for either camp, and I have no bias against either device (I think they are both fantastic phones). Here are some of my impressions from your article. Since the list format seems to be popular in the comments, I’ll go ahead and do the same…
1) I cannot really address this point. Being in America, the Droid’s carrier (Verizon Wireless) ensures your phone is connected to their network before initialization takes place. The setup was flawless for me for this reason.
2) I did some research on this topic (I also never encountered this). It looks like most of the people reporting this happening are in the European Market. I’m not absolutely sure why this is.
3) I’m starting to find a theme in these first three.. Lack of love for the foreign markets. It’s a shame and inexcusable, but nothing that cannot be fixed by diligent firmware updates (let’s hope someone at Google is reading this right now). However, the hardware keyboard does have support for foreign characters. Just hold the key with the accent down (for an umlaut, hold down the ‘o’ key, for example). Maybe not the fastest means of typing, but it works without changing the system language and can save you time in the long run. I use the hardware keyboard, so I have not looked for a software alternative.
4) This isn’t true. The phone regularly checks for updates (It looks to me like once every 6 hours or whenever you open the Market, but I am not sure) and will notify you in the task bar when updates to applications are available. To see your downloaded apps, in the Market app, click the ‘Menu’ button and click the ‘Downloads’ button. Any installed apps with updates will also appear in this list.
5) I 100% agree with you on this one, but the iPhone has been around a bit longer than Android. We’ll see more elegant Twitter apps as developers begin to devote attention to Android.
As an aside, developing apps for Android is actually far cheaper* and relatively painless compared to iPhone. This coming from a developer who would much rather work in Java than Objective-C, so I do have some bias here.
*You can develop Android apps on any platform that supports Eclipse. You MUST own a Mac to do any iPhone development. Very annoying.
6) I haven’t looked into this myself, but why would your average user want to do this?
7) I agree here, and Google acknowledges this as an issue as well (the next firmware update is expanding the number of home screens). Where Android shines over iPhone here is the presence of the Widgets. I would have LOVED to see these on iPhone. Plus, Android stores all of your applications in a dock (with unlimited room for apps). The iPhone can only store apps on its home screen, which means it needs more real estate than Android does.
8) This is true to a point. I’ve seen developers work around this like so:
- Provide the app on the Marketplace
- When the app is downloaded and ran for the first time, data can then be downloaded for the application and stored straight on the SD card.
In short, the application itself MUST be on the device memory, but it can read data from removable storage.
9) Fragmentation has been a buzzword going around iPhone fanboydom since the Droid was released. The problem here I believe is more on the developers than the OS.
Being that there are many different Android devices out there and only one iPhone, developers have to take into account hardware variance between phones when developing for the Android platform. The problem is that (especially with graphical applications) people can be too narrowly focused on one set of hardware and code with that hardware in mind. As an example, this can kill layouts, because when objects are placed in a graphical layout hardcoded to a specific resolution, that application will not look correct on a device with a different resolution. Providing relative positions on the screen is one way to thwart this problem, and many developers are successful in writing apps that target many Android devices successfully.
The API versions are there to prevent fragmentation: You cannot download an app from the marketplace with an API level greater than that of your phone’s. I’ve not seen any instances where developers *had* to specifically target hardware to make their apps run (this doesn’t necessarily make me right; just my experience).
10) I’m hoping this isn’t (again) a regional thing. I’ve not had to force quit any *system* applications, but at least the Android notifies you when something went wrong. I’ve had iPhone apps throw exceptions as well; the only difference is that they do not notify the user of what happened, they just send you right back to the home screen, forcing you to question the events leading up to your program closing. I guess one could argue it’s better to make the end user think it was something THEY did to return to the main screen, right? :)
Like I said, I try to stay unbiased and think that both phones are great, but they also both have flaws. Loving or hating a device eventually comes down to which flaws you are willing to work around until the developers swoop in to resolve them. Remember that it took three years for the iPhone to send/receive MMS. :)
I don’t get it… if you want to replicate the exact same experience on Android than your iPhone, then don’t even bother to buy anything else than an iPhone in the first place :p
I own an Android device and I agree with most of these “details”, mostly software glitches who may be fixed in future revisions. But the phone works “good enough” for me and I bet will work “good enough” for most people (2 twitters accounts, 4 imap, exchange support and in need of multiple keyboards is uncommon, as you implies in your title). And that’s the big picture here… to provide a cheap working mobile OS to prevent any company to dominate the mobile internet, not to create the ultimate device.
I hope the nexus one will show the way. Because I think you will never see the upcoming new iPhone at 530$ unlocked (if the rumored Nexus price is true).
There is of course a grain of truth to some of your swipes at Android. However, there are also problems. I have a trusty G1 which I admittedly did root a few months ago.
But there’s a few points to consider. You cannot download password-protected (e.g. commercial) podcasts from your iPhone. You have to do it through iTunes and sync. Not good if you’re on the road. A third party developer could easily add this to the iPhone, but Apple will brook no competition for podcasting (talk to the developer of Podcaster).
There are other annoyances on the iPhone that no one talks about. Lack of a reflowing browser. If you zoom in on some columns and the text is too small, you’re out of luck. Rotate the phone and hope it helps. All too often Safari doesn’t do a good job here. The Android browser reflows the text nicely as you zoom.
How about the much vaunted music player. Listening to music and want to change your EQ settings? Press Home, find and press Settings, press Music, press equalizer, change. Now press home and press music, then press Now Playing to get back to your music!! Whose brilliant idea was it to put settings for apps in a separate application you get to by going back to the home screen?!
Listen to streaming radio apps while trying to do something else. Nope, won’t work. How about getting a facebook notification while doing something else? Nope, can’t do that, either.
I will be the first to admit the Android OS has its rough edges that need smoothing out. However, it is also flexible and customizable in ways that the iPhone is not. As long as you are happy doing only what Apple allows you to do, in the way they insist you do it, you are fine. Try to step outside their box and do things YOUR way, and you’re hosed.
Like in real life, sometimes freedom is messy and complicated. Narrowing ones choices certainly simplifies things, but that’s not freedom. Android is about freedom and making the device truly YOURS. Apple’s iPhone will always be Apple’s iPhone. If you are happy in your cage, stay there.
How can you do a test without you iphone side by side? Plus, who is tech savvy and needs to setup a Gmail account? My MyTouch has been awesome, T-mobile 3g service fast and reliable all over Chicago. Something my iPhone using friends cannot say.
It is easy to set up the iPhone to run on T-Mobile.
Nag nag nag. Go back to your iPhone.
I had a 1st gen iphone and a 3G. I now, have a Mytouch 3G. I’ll just say that the UI of the iphone and apps is top notch. There is no comparison. But what killed the iphone experinece for me was AT&T and the inability to multitask. This may not be on you “Top three” list of smart phone “gotta do’s” but for me it is.
#7 – You can organize apps into named folders on your home screen. Having more than three home screens is bad UI, IMO.
I have never run into problems with #8 or #9. But I have only needed a handful of apps, and don’t care to play 3D games on my phone.
I think your review should have started with your expectations… like you expect smartphones to organize apps like an iPhone and play games found on an iPhone. I have other expectations, and Android meets all of them.
Never had an iphone but have used one, although the UI is probably the slickest currently available, i’ve been put off by the people that own them, the unoriginality of the people that own them and more importantly the dated design of the phone. The next iphone will probably see off all challengers when released but for now i applaud all OS designers for giving apple food for thought and a run for their money, if it weren’t for the competition iphone users wouldn’t have a wish list of their own. Apple have smartly allowed app developers to fill in all the blanks they left out of their own OS. Android will catch up but lets hope it’s before apple make their next ground breaking step to towards mobile domination. To summarise:- well done nokia with their maemo OS, well done palm with their Pre OS, well done android with your various OS attempts, all offer something fresh to the user but alas none are currently as complete as the iphone. No doubt all of the above will bring us something amazing in 2010, i can’t wait, let battle commence. Ps i think i’ll try the new nexus one from google when it comes out.
there are so many errors in this “report,”first being the droid and milestone shipped with 2.0, shortly thereafter updated to 2.0.1. proof you’re not as “tech-savvy” as you believe. again proving, apple is for those who want to be controlled. remember the 1984 commercial for macintosh, it was a warning.
Agreed.
Many comments point me to trying an HTC Hero. But hey, didn’t Android start out as an initiative to improve the smart phone world by providing a beautiful, open, easy-to-use platform for the entire handheld industry?
Seems as if its primary mission is already doomed.
Ralf, thanks for taking the time to write your article in the first place. :) Having arguments from both camps (when kept civil, of course) helps spur competition which should ultimately end up greatly improving both platforms.
The one thing that nobody can argue is that neither Apple or Google are standing still from a development standpoint. I’m thinking 2010 is going to be a fantastic year for smartphone developers.
Now hopefully the Nexus One doesn’t hamper Android development in the long run (yes, it can), and the Nokia suit doesn’t have an impact on Apple’s innovation for the 4th gen iPhone. I guess we’ll have to wait and see on those points.
Updates are automated. Duh. You’re notified every few days automatically, or you can click “Market” “Downloads”.
I have the Droid Eris and I have a 3.5 mm port, and a multi-touch screen. You should not complain about insufficient Flash as even the Iphone does not have Flash for their camera (additionally most Android phones have larger megapixel cameras than the Iphone). Application updates come up in your Android notification toolbar for each application if there is one. If you click on that it will take you to the Market and prompt you to update the application.
I was reading though this article and the many comments and I have to say I am disappointed in all the “Iphone Fanboys” who agree with this article completely. If you take the time to read any of the comments you would see that 8/10 or 9/10 of Ralf’s problems with his phone were only present because he did not know how to properly use the phone, was in Europe, or didn’t take the time to get to used it:
1. It might be that you were using this phone in Europe, but in the United States with the Droid or HTC Droid Eris, Verizon requires you to purchase 3G internet connectivity so you are always connected to the internet, so the initial setup wouldn’t give you a problem
2. Setting up my Gmail account and 2 Yahoo email account on my HTC Droid Eris, I never once had to hard reset my phone. I didn’t even have to hard reset, in fact I configured everything in the car ride back to my house from the Verizon store. Again, maybe because you are in Europe or maybe its because you are using the Milestone as opposed to the actual Droid.
3. I have never had to use another language keyboard on my phone but by simply browsing the Android Market with the search term “Keyboard” there are too many applications to even count – after getting to the 30s I stopped counting.
4. You are notified of application updates in the notification toolbar. Upon clicking on the update, you will be brought to the Android Market, and prompted to update that particular application. Additionally you can check if there are any updates for any applications you have downloaded by going to the Android Market – Downloads and viewing any and all applications you have downloaded.
5. I particularly enjoy the Peep application that came with my phone, but Twitdroid is great as it allows you to almost “right click” on any tweet and you are given the option to message, open any links, reply, retweet, if it is part of a conversation view the entire conversation or even message that particular person. There are many twitter applications in the Market, you just have to go through them until you find one you particularly like (which could prove difficult as there are so many options).
6. Screen shots – I have never wanted or needed to do such a thing and I don’t think the usual phone user would ever need to do such a thing – BUT if you need to – simply type in screen shot into the Market and you come up with tons of applications that allow you to do such a thing.
7. The Droid may only have three home screens, but my HTC Droid Eris has 7. However, even with 7 screens, I only use 4!
8. I do not know why you would need to install any of your applications to the SD Card. The applications save any and all important information onto the SD Card and the phone remembers what applications you have downloaded because it syncs with your Gmail account. If you ever need to get a new phone or reset your phone completely, the important information is saved on the SD Card and you can easily just reinstall the applications.
9. I have never had a problem where I could not download an application. My HTC Droid Eris is running Android 1.5 and will soon be updated to the newer version of Android but I have never had any problems with the such.
10. I am lucky, I have never had any application crash. I have close to 15 applications on my phone currently and I tend to close many of them out with a Task Killer to save battery, but even with all of them running at the same time I have never had a problem…
Additionally, your complaint about the SD Card I find to be quite funny seeing as the Iphone doesn’t even have an SD Card…. I think you are trying too hard to find flaws in the Android system to prove your point -THAT YOU LOVE APPLE
iPhone is a Hardware + software experience.
http://nyagurak.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-vs-apple_31.html
Good read, though you’re argument is based on one key assumption, which I believe is wrong: Do not compare the desktop pc world with the mobile world.
Microsoft did a good job for the desktop. That’s why after all they still lead. Fragmentation, choice etc. is fantastic and required for desktop computers.
It is not for smart phones. That’s exactly why Windows Mobile failed. Poor end user experience. Leaving too much up to the device vendors. Android is just a maybe better Windows Mobile that pretends to be open.
Fragmentation is already here due to the variety of hardware out there, the variety of UI front ends being pushed and the variety of capabilities of machine.
Simple case. Archos 5 versus HTC Hero. Go on, tell me there’s no fragmentation there.
CUSTOMIZATION! Motorola didn’t do much to Droid compared to HTC and Sony.
First few points are carrier specific.
The others can be addressed by Hardware (e.g. Memory for Apps)
Or how manufacturer customizes the phone, (e.g. home screens)
Fragmentation – You could argue that Windows is Fragmented.
Apple had a headstart… remember when Apple had 20,000 Apps just a year ago.
SDK release dates are irrelevant. Apple sold 10 millions phones without a single third party native app. Great number of apps comes with great number of device. Even a successful device with the worst SDK in the world would drove a lot of developers.
Hi Wes,
I have to admit that I did not sell my Motorola Milestone, yet. I do like the multi-tasking aspect, too. The Milestone has a fantastic screen and I’ll to the least use it for a while for playing back pod- and video casts.
As I’ve stated earlier, the lack of multi-tasking is the only thing I really do not like about the iPhone and I hope it’ll be gone with iPhone OS 4.0.
Of course, there are other multi-tasking smart phone platforms out there. I’ve ordered the Nokia N900. From what I’ve seen so far, usability-wise it appears miles ahead of Android and it does a good job when it comes to running tasks in parallel.
I’m pretty confident that Google will bring a better experience to the Nexus One compared to what Google allows its “partners” to do on their hardware. It’s quite obvious, that Google will do their everything to provide the absolute best experience on their own hardware.
I can already see the Droid, Milestone, G1, you-name-it users complain like hell, because their specific hardware vendor might delay Android updates and fixes, while Google starts to solely focus on their own hardware platform. (At the end: Why should Google even care about how Motorola does? Once the Nexus One is out there, Google becomes a competitor to all other hardware vendors that jumped on the Android bandwagon.)
Android might be open in terms of its source code. It does, however, lock customers into device manufacturers.
I’d love to have the 2.0.1 update that is supposed to fix a weird auto-focus bug in Android. Unfortunately, Motorola makes no statement whatsoever whether or when it will be available. From a consumer’s point of view, Android’s pretended openness doesn’t have any visible advantage, besides it’s built-in nature to foster fragmentation.
Google will try to lock customers in. Of course they will, after all they are a business that makes money by selling data about their users and customers. And they will do much better if they control the endpoint.
With the homescreens you can get aHome and select as many as you want. It’s in the Android Market. It’s a nifty little app that can do more, I like you’re reply as the iPhone was not good for me and I have now the Droid Eris to maintain my contacts, school email and google calender hooked up with classmates so we can all be better organized.
i agree totatlly with you!
In the case of Android, the hardware DOES make all the difference in the world. I’ve had a Samsung Moment, HTC Hero and a MyTouch — there is no question that the hardware vendor makes a huge difference as does the carrier restrictions. So far, my favorite Android phone was the HTC Hero. I actually preferred it to my iPhone 3G (I’m an Apple guy at heart, too). I love the customization that is possible.
I definitely agree, though, that you picked the wrong phone to test the Android OS with. Nearly ALL of the complains you mention above were not an issue for me on ANY of the 3 Android phones I’ve purchased.
The only gripe above that I can say I 100% agree with is your comments on Twitter clients. I really miss Tweetdeck from my iPhone. And let’s face it — the name “Twidroid” sounds like you’ve got your phone lodged up your rear end.
Okay, so I’ve got a dev1 (the original unlocked developer phone) and an iPhone 3Gs. It’s been very tough trying to adapt to the iPhone since there are so many things I like doing which the dev1 does so much better.
The hardware and minor implementation changes that the manufacturers are responsible for tend to change the complete experience.
1&2. As a stock 1.6 user, I could only set up one gmail account – and I’ve never had problems with that. It can be skipped during the initial setup – which could NOT be done for the iPhone. If you’re not connected, you’ve got a brick to deal with.
I’ve NEVER had a problem where I needed to do a hard reset – there IS one exception and that was when I tried flashing my phone with a copy of Android I’d built, but that’s a whole different story.
3. No multilingual Keyboard – given I’ve never had cause to complain about this though.
4. Go to the Market, have a look at your apps (under downloaded) and it’ll let you know if there are any updates provided you’re on a data connection.
5. I prefer Tweetdeck too, but that’s an app that’s had time to mature on the iPhone platform.
6. I had no idea this was possible on the iPhone – thanks :)
7. I’ve got 5 on mine (yep… I dumped in a new ROM, but the Hero comes with 5 or 7 or something as a default).
8. There IS code that allows for installation on the SD card and there are plans for getting this released according to Google.
9. This is probably where the iPhone scores so much higher. Android will probably not be able to handle the sheer speed of the iPhone because they’re trying to cater to so many different combinations of hardware with so many different manufacturers.
10. Java exceptions I’ve seen on my phone when I tried to crash the phone. I put an app on the phone to see what would happen when an exception happened. Come to think of it, how do I get an app on my iPhone without having it being put through Apple’s web site?
All in all, the iPhone’s a great gadget, but as a phone, I think I’ll stick with my (very slow) dev1.
First of all he is stupid. You get setup with your internet account when you purchase the phone or activate it through the provider. I have never once encountered any of the problems that he has. He is looking for reasons not to love this amazing OS.
If you activate your Android properly with the provider then you will have internet access thus allowing you to sign i n to your Google account. It is my understanding that the iPhone is proprietary as well as far as the apps, etc,.. You need an Apple account to buy apps as well.
Also if Ralph would have actually put a minute into the phone to learn how it works then he would’ve saw the central update location in Market –> Downloads. It shows all installed apps at one point or another and whether you still have them installed and which need updates. Not really rocket science to figure it out.
Do a little Due Diligence before trashing such an amazing product next time ya Fanboy!
None of this article can be taken seriously as you seem to lack the intelligence to determine the version of the Android OS your phone is running. There is no phone on the market running Android 2.1 yet. The Motorola website, and your phone itself say firmware version 2.0.
If your Milestone has been rooted and a homebrew Nexus One ROM is running on it, then all issues can be assumed to be the fault of the ROM cooker.
I personally am glad that you’ve stopped using the Milestone and are passing it on to someone who can figure it out.
Pretty flawless description of why Android won’t do it for me either. There are some serious teething issues that more than two years (remember, remember the 5th November 2007) after initial announcement, Google seem unable to resolve.
But software can be fixed – whether it will be fixed is a different question. The UI is still very disjointed and poor and the UX suffers as a result. Even the Nexus – a much faster machine – still has a very poor UX.
Bigger question is why the hardware sets released so far have been so poor. Hardware lacking 3.5mm ports, multi-touch screens, processors incapable of running the OS at a decent lick, desperately insufficient internal Flash – nearly every handset has at least one of these issues.
The OS fragmentation is not serious now but it becoming an issue already. Yes, you can install apps from anywhere but where do you go then for your updates- they’re not automated. Not that you can install many apps at once anyway.
To be honest, it’s disappointing.
None of this article can be taken seriously as you seem to lack the intelligence to determine the version of the Android OS your phone is running. There is no phone on the market running Android 2.1 yet. The Motorola website, and your phone itself say firmware version 2.0.
If your Milestone has been rooted and a homebrew Nexus One ROM is running on it, then all issues can be assumed to be the fault of the ROM cooker.
In reality, it seems as that you’ve not ever held the phone, just heard things and searched for issues other people have had. There are things that you’ve said that are obviously misinformed.
I personally am glad that you’ve stopped using the Milestone and are passing it on to someone who can figure it out. You’re just another Apple fanboy.
BigHeat,
I like your feedback so much that I take the time to respond to the paragraphs individually:
“You consider yourself “pretty tech-savvy,” but you can’t figure out how to get updates for your Android Market apps? It is one of three huge buttons on the main landing page – labeled “Downloads.” Good grief.”
Yeah, you’re right. The ugly design of the Android Market does not indicate available updates the obvious way, but thanks to many of the comments here, I finally found out. Not so much an indication of tech-savvyness either way, but a good point for the total lack of a usability focus all around Android.
By the way: The Milestone does not show any updates for the apps, though many are available. Another Android bug, I guess.
“The Market looks “like websites of the late 80s”? You have got to be kidding me. Linking to aTrackDog for a sample experience? That is horribly misleading and, frankly, disappointing even for a piece of biased slam writing.”
It’s not just Android Market that looks ugly and feels like software from the late 80s. Unfortunately, it’s 70%+ of all apps. Android Market and aTrackDog are just two prominent examples of how less Google and Android devs seem to care about a pleasant UI.
“You mention twice (once in the article and once in a comment) that Android is two years old. The G1 was launched at the end of Oct of 2008. That’s just over a year by most calendars.”
Let me kindly suggest that you do your homework. I’m aware of the G1 launch. After all T-Mobile is a German company. :) However, I was referring to the two years that went into the development of Android as a mobile operating system. This dates back to November 2007. If you need more details, here’s a link to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
“That is not to say I don’t agree with some points – data service at initial device load, limited home screens (that is changing on most devices, though), installing to SD card, and performance on some devices. The OS is just a year old, though – are you equally critical of other platforms or do you have different standards at different times?”
It’s two years old. It’s done by Google. It’s intend is to become an open, beautiful, brilliant de facto standard for smart phones.
And as of today, it largely fails in some key areas.
“In the end, you are an exception to millions who have happily embraced Android – many even leaving Apple’s beloved device. Some are technically-minded (mainly early adopters), but Android is settling into mainstream use.”
Could you link to any resource that discusses mainstream consumers use of Android powered phones? I don’t know a single mainstream user on an Android phone.
“There is no such thing as an iPhone killer any more than the iPhone has killed Symbian or RIM or even Windows Mobile. What these devices do is change the (massive) market over time (years). Android is a worthy alternative to anything on the market – even the exalted iPhone. No single device or platform is for everyone, no matter what Jobs tells you.”
As long as Apple sets a benchmark for an entire industry, I’m fine. Handset manufacturers weren’t able to provide mainstream consumers with great usability for almost a decade. Apple has raised the bar.
Android is already on the Windows Mobile path. Yes, it’s open. Sadly, this seems to be the only difference.
What a hater. Show me a phone that does all you are complaining about without root. NONE. Show me a phone thats does all you are complaining about with root. Android phones. I and everyone knows you either love IPhone, most likely or a Windows based phone. Windows, terrible and very laggy and ugly. IPhone. One application at a time.
You consider yourself “pretty tech-savvy,” but you can’t figure out how to get updates for your Android Market apps? It is one of three huge buttons on the main landing page – labeled “Downloads.” Good grief.
The Market looks “like websites of the late 80s”? You have got to be kidding me. Linking to aTrackDog for a sample experience? That is horribly misleading and, frankly, disappointing even for a piece of biased slam writing.
You mention twice (once in the article and once in a comment) that Android is two years old. The G1 was launched at the end of Oct of 2008. That’s just over a year by most calendars.
That is not to say I don’t agree with some points – data service at initial device load, limited home screens (that is changing on most devices, though), installing to SD card, and performance on some devices. The OS is just a year old, though – are you equally critical of other platforms or do you have different standards at different times?
In the end, you are an exception to millions who have happily embraced Android – many even leaving Apple’s beloved device. Some are technically-minded (mainly early adopters), but Android is settling into mainstream use.
There is no such thing as an iPhone killer any more than the iPhone has killed Symbian or RIM or even Windows Mobile. What these devices do is change the (massive) market over time (years). Android is a worthy alternative to anything on the market – even the exalted iPhone. No single device or platform is for everyone, no matter what Jobs tells you.
I’ll start off by saying that I’m sorry your experience was poor. As far as the android vs. iphone discussion, I happen to prefer the android; mostly for the multi tasking capabilities. I do agree that the iphone UI is more “slick”, but I find android to be more functional for me and my usage. Then again, I am one of those folks that prefers form over function, as well as one of those folks that uses desktop Linux. (as a side note one of my main reasons for choosing android over the iphone is that with my preferred desktop the android device is 100% compatible; not so with the iphone). Below are my thoughts and comments on each of your points.
1. Initial setup – If I had to guess, I would say this is unique to the European market. Not that that is an excuse, I just have not encountered it in the sates.
2. Gmail accounts –I have not encountered this issue, but then again I have not attempted to use multiple Gmail accounts in that way. (I forward all my accounts to a single account). If this is a common problem I can say that I am surprised that it has not been addressed.
3. No Multi-Language keyboard- While you are correct that this is the platforms native behavior, a quick search on the market for “German keyboard” led me to a free application called AnySoftKeyboard. I just installed it, and it has on the fly language switching just as you described (supports more than just German and English). Perhaps you should try it.
4. Centralized updates – as was pointed out in a previous post, this is located in the market under My Downloads”. I have never had issue with this application not giving me updates, but I have also never used aTrackDog. From the description of the app, it looks like it is searching software repos other that than the standard market which may explain the discrepancy. My one gripe about the market is that I wish there were an option to “Update All”.
5. Twitter – Having never user the iphone for twitter I have no comments about those apps. However, I have tested several for android and find Seesmic to be the best. You are correct that there is no support for multiple accounts, but it does support the retweet function (long press on the message you want to interact with and retweet is one of the options).
6. Screen Shots – Yep, no easy way for this. However, I have never found a need for it, but then again I’m not reviewing for a blog post.
7. Just 3 Home screens – Again correct. But I am a little confused by this one. The home screens are designed to give you quick access to your favorite apps, folders, contacts and widgets. The application drawer at the bottom is just one huge home screen that holds every app installed. The home screens are more of a desktop metaphor. You don’t put every application installed on your computer (Mac, PC or Linux) on your desktop do you?
8. No SD install – True. However, this often sounds like a bigger deal than it is. The rule is that the executable binary cannot be installed on the SD card. There is no rule against the app installing data files onto the SD card. The “high-res textures, audio, and video” can all be stored there. As for you only having 139MB of space left after only installing 2 apps, I find that hard to believe. My android phone came with 512MB of ROM (I assume the Milestone came with at least that much) and after installing 30 applications I still have 230MB left.
9. Fragmentation – I have read about this repeatedly, but I have yet to encounter this myself. Of course I am only on 1.6 which may explain things, but over the last month most of my apps have received updates to be 2.1 compatible. I also understood the market to be “smart”, as in it would not display apps that were not available for your version. (I could be wrong here). The majority of the issues I see reported have to do with phones that do not have the default Android build i.e. SenseUI and MotoBlur. I see this as a problem for the maintainers of those builds not Google or Android itself. (This, by the way, is why I chose a phone with the “with Google” stamp).
10. Java Exceptions – about once a day I get a message stating the such and such app is not responding do I want to force quit or wait. 99% of the time I select wait and within seconds the application resumes. This is my single biggest gripe about my device. I have never had to do a hard reset for any reason, and have only HAD to turn the phone off once do to application that I downloaded that poorly written. (However I occasionally turn it off when I feel its acting “wonky”.) My current uptime is 282 hours.
most of youre issues are things that never bothered me (i dont use twitter, never needed to make screenshots, dont need a german keyboard)
1. Initial Setup
i have plenty of open wifi’s around here, so havent ran into this myself
one thing that i do find annoying is that the password for wifi has to be typed in hexadecimal (on the computer i can typ it in ascii)
2. Setting up and adding Gmail accounts regularly requires a hard reset!
actually you can also change your password on the computer, android will say that it cant login, and you can enter ure user and pass again (thus also another username)
but i agree that this sucks
4. No central place for application updates
no idea if this is htc-sense specific, but in my android market i can go to downloads, and there it is
6. No easy way to take screenshots
to quote apple, “theres an app for that!”
but i agree, should be built in (even though i never really need to make screenshots)
7. Just three home screens
really? cause i have 7…
probably because i have a htc hero, with the htc sense UI
I really think you should try an HTC android phone, will please you alot more
Zzzzzz.
You are clearly another boring Apple zealot, making your “thoughts” on Andriod null and void.
Obviously anything without a shiny fruit and rounded corners on it is too advanced for your dull, entry level, locked down and frankly rather mainstream tastes and sensibilities.
Android is better without you as a user.
I agree with some of the comments immediately above mine.
This is what makes android important to me that the iphone “CAN NOT” do.
1) Multitask – I want to listen to Pandora, check my email, send a text message, surf the web, you name it, I can essentially do it all through multitasking… This does include surfing the web and talking to someone at the same time (WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYONE WANT TO TALK TO SOMEONE AND SURF THE WEB AT THE SAME TIME), but whatever… not only can I do that, but I can check email, queue a text message, look at my contact list to provide a phone number, open an application to provide information or whatever, all while I am talking on the phone.
2) Customize my OS
I can add any kind of wallpaper to my app, I can organize apps into folders on my desktop, contacts into folders on my desktop, have the opportunity of constant running widgets and everything in the way of customizing things for ease of use for myself.
3) The Cloud
Having all my information through google does a vastly superior job of keeping the information I am worried about losing on the cloud. I dont have to worry about anything happening to my phone and possibly losing my information.
4) Google Integrated Search
Having this has been a godsend. Being able to use indexing search on my phone has made getting to apps, information, or to the web even easier. This feature is one I absolutely love, and is also one of the features I love about the start menu in Vista/Win7
5) Google Navigation
Do I really need to say anything more about this? An integrated navigation app for my phone that does not cost me anything, uses Google’s reliable maps, and has streetview capabilities. Really this is the hottest selling point in my opinion.
6) Providing my own ringtone
Granted this is not a native android function, but RingDroid gives you the opportunity to edit mp3s into ringtones. Fantastic app
There are numerous other things I enjoy about my phone, but these are the highlights.
This is all capable on the G1 (which is the phone I currently have)
Now I have some complaints in accordance with things you’ve mentioned. The UI is not as sexy as the iphone, but the customization does counter this a bit. Screenshots would be nice to be able to do without rooting the phone.
last but not least, and not mentioned….
Multitouch (damn patents).
You could have searched for a better keyboard on the iphone app store but would’nt find any. The reason? It looks too much as the real iphone keyboard ^^
I agree some points but they are details and are going to be fixed. But yes, there is a lot of work to do. Android is totally not perfect (I’m an android developer and fan ^^)
I think in most parts what was failing you was the handset and not so much the software and since i’ve had to deal with getting handsets from abroad without the data settings plugged in already, that does seem to butcher the initial setup.
I had the HTC Magic for a few weeks and had no problems whatsoever, but I also have the 3GS and setting up email on it couldn’t have been easier. But i think all your points are validated.
David, thanks for your feedback.
If it would be a European carrier issue, that wouldn’t make it better. We’re not talking about some fresh startup trying to conquer the mobile world here. It’s Google aiming to deliver a perfect mobile operating system.
At least Apple launched successfully in 65+ countries. We’ve got evidence, that it is in fact doable. :)
The 211.000 results of the Google search I linked to in the article do in fact point to a problem that many Android users ran into all over the world.
And one, that has not been addressed since two years.
Dave, love your comment!
and I just want to add that the iphone is a good phone but it’s 100% focus on design and UI. All the rest is crappy ^^
Remains to be seen. I fear that we will see “Google Experience” certified Android phones soon, with the Nexus One as a start, fragmenting the Android world even more – at the cost of continuing to deliver apps that largely fail with respect to usability.
I guess we all have our different wants. I have no need to take screenshots or use multiple keyboards but if that’s a need, I can understand why you would be frustrated by Android.
As for me, while driving I frequently plug in and listen to music via my 16g SD card while using Google Maps’ turn-by-turn navigation. The navigation gives me a visual map at all times and then break into the music with voice commands such as “turn left at the next street”. Incidentally I love having removable/upgradeable storage (aka SD card support). Will the iPhone do that? If so, I would consider an iPhone. If not, that’s MY dealbreaker.
Also it does appear that much of what you’ve described is a European carrier issue that isn’t happening in the States. I have a G1 that I’ve been very happy with. The initial setup connection worked flawlessly via T-Mobile.
It seems to me that you need little more time on android before making such statements, it took me a while to figure out where everything was at. I agree that the iphone is more redefined, but i think 3rd generation android phones will be the phone everyone wants.
Sorry for getting the Android version wrong. Entirely my fault and corrected in the article.
I tried to update to 2.0.1, however, Android yielded an error message and could not connect to the update servers.
I guess Motorola has to operate those, not Google, or? A direct result of the fragmented design of the entire Android initiative.
So many of my friends are forced to live with Android 1.6 and cannot even upgrade to 2.0. Google doesn’t care. They locked them in and are happy with it.
I am a fan of Android but I also see what Ralf is talking about. Even if he is a die-hard iPhone and Apple fanboy, the article is well-written and discusses what I fear for Android: It’s not user-friendly enough for Joe Public.
Ralf is not a tech Luddite and his points match what Martin Bryant wrote about in an article 3 months ago and my reply at the time (http://thenextweb.com/2009/09/29/confused-android/#comment-130604) reflects what I am hearing.
Thanks for giving up your iPhone and giving us this report, Ralf. ~ Donna
Thanks for the reply … I think. :-P
I believe there is one area where you are being misled: aTrackDog. It’s a neat utility, but it is not Google and is not associated with the Android Market. It is a community tool that will track any version that is found on any other aTrackDog user’s phone (and uploaded). Just stick with the “Downloads” link in the Market for the real, official updates. If one is not listed there, it is not officially available. I have had zero cases where a developer announces a release (via Twitter) and it is not really available in the Market Downloads section. aTrackDog is cool and all (I have it), but it is not for the mainstream consumer.
As for mainstream users, I see them quite a bit in the U.S. – teens through adults, all walks of life, all sorts of places. I have seen countless G1s, MyTouch 3Gs (Magic), and Droids “in the wild.” As for links, there are several to be found talking about the sales of Android devices. Worldwide those figures are in the millions: 1 million for the G1 in the first six months (and still selling), anticipated 1 million of the Droid / Milestone by year’s end, plus the various versions of the Hero and Magic. I’m surprised that you would need “proof” that those numbers would not constitute mainstream adoption.
I won’t talk about app quality because I don’t know what apps you used. Sure, some apps are horrid – any app store gets that. I have several that are brilliant – games, utilities, and productivity.
I take a bit of exception to your suggestion that I do my homework about Android’s age. I would have to check your other work to determine how you qualify the age of products (esp the iPhone), but I seriously doubt you include development time in the way you have in this article and comments. Feel free to post links if you have them showing consistency to the contrary. (Duke Nukem Forever does not count.) :-D
No matter how you personally feel about the Android platform, it is marketable and improving. Windows Mobile, Symbian, and RIM have the real catching up to do. (Kind of sad that I didn’t even need to mention Palm in that sentence.)
this is so the contacts and settings are properly backed up… apple makes you do the same if you want contacts and settings properly backed up…..
you can just skip the gmail setup, but GOOGLE market won’t work, or any other google app.
same as iPhone.
What will changing the hardware do? None of the problems Ralf encountered are hardware related. They are all software problems.
Ralf, your article inspired me…
http://nyagurak.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-vs-apple_31.html
By the way I hope Android remains fragmented = Windows!!!
Are people forgetting that the Android SDK was released in November 2007, six months before the iPhone SDK?
Jan 2007 – iPhone v1 revealed
Jun 2007 – Apple tells everyone to make Web apps
Nov 2007 – Android revealed and SDK revealed
…
Jan 2008 – selected companies receive iPhone SDK
Jun 2008 – iPhone SDK goes public, iPhone 3G released
…
Jun 2009 – iPhone 3GS released
So, Apple had a headstart?
Dalitso, am I missing an argument in your comment, or is it just the kind of statement I’m so much used to from Linux guys trying to argue that Linux could have won the desktop os war if we all would live in a better world? :) Take it easy and a Happy New Year!
The best thing about Android is that its NOT the iPhone OS.
Oh yea, and the best thing about my android hardware is that it doesn’t look like an iphone.
oh, one more thing… if you want a phone that feels more like a computer, get Android. If you want a gadget that feels like its designed by some company in cupertino and shields you from the real world of computing, get an iphone.
Folks, I’m going to attend a wonderful New Years Eve party, soon.
I very much appreciate the time you take to comment on my article and I read every single comment. I will, however, not be able to respond for the rest of the day, as I’ll party along, but I’ll definitely get back to you tomorrow.
So keep on posting, it’s very much appreciated.
I also thought I could not leave so many Android fanboys disappointed, so here are a few points that I actually like:
1. Background processes
The number one thing I like, maybe even love, about Android is the ability for apps to run in the background. Though I hate how the many notifications convolute the status bar, the general ability for apps to run in the background is fantastic – and really missing from the iPhone.
Even the Apple Push Notifications recently introduced do not make up for the lack of true multi-tasking.
Apple’s primary reason given for not supporting background processes – battery consumption – remains valid, though: Once the Milestone runs a multitude of apps in the background, the battery drains within 3-4 hours.
2. DoggCatcher
DoggCatcher is a podcast subscription application. I love it. It handles podcast better than the iTunes/iPod implementation on the iPhone. It’s sad that Apple as of today did not allow any third party podcast app into the App Store.
That’s almost it. As nobody on eBay seems to want an Android phone (I’m sorry, just kidding here, to keep the discussion alive), I’ll have some more time to maybe find out more. I’ll let you know.
A Happy New Year to all of you, the Androids fans, the iPhone OS fans and all our readers who wonder, how things sometimes get so emotional, when it comes to at-the-end-of-the-day just boring smart phone platform discussions.
dav5ph, thanks for your feedback!
(1) We do have true data flats here in Germany and I’m signed up for one. It’s an Android bug that’s known since two years, but not addressed, yet. See here: http://www.google.com/search?q=can%27t+establish+a+reliable+connection+android .
(2) Lucky you. Thousands of Android users around the globe do experience this annoying issue and hate having to hard reset their phones every now and then.
(3) I know how to access alternative characters. I’d need to switch the language (dictionary, etc.) on the fly. That’s something Android is missing entirely.
(4) Partially. There seems to be a place in Android Market. It’s just not working on the Milestone. Maybe just (another) Android bug or a bug of the specific fragmented version of Android that Motorola put on the Milestone. Don’t know. All I know is, it’s not working for me and I hate it.
I think the iPhone UI is becoming TACKY. The Android OS lacks a lot of these nice animations but honestly, put some time into your home screens, app management, and you are gonna love the phone. Its not that intuitive, and it is frustrating, only bc it deters so many people-but I love it. It takes a week or so to learn the ins and outs of, so Maybe you need to be a “tech nerd” to appreciate it – but Android has more customizability than the iPhone EVER WILL and it is bound to improve (I’m talking about Android 3.0 and up).
I am using the Droid on Verizon and have never run into most of these problems.
(1) If your phone has been activated, than why wouldnt the initial setup work properly? You dont have a data plan?
(2) Have added several google accounts, never had this problem.
(3) HOLD DOWN ON KEYS TO BRING UP ALTKEYS. There are also many input replacements for the Android available on the Market, apps that integrate with the OS!
(4) You were proven wrong about this above?
Etc. Your other complaints are whatever. System updates work on my phone, app updates, everything, you know works. You complain about the home screen because you want to put each application there LIKe the iPhone. And thats cool, but not what Android was designed for.
You have to have a google email address to use Android? I had thought about getting one of those that use Android but that is the killer for me. Don’t have one and never will, period. Hold on, iPhone, here I come.
Thanks for the article. I might have mistakenly acquired one of those. Still though, I wonder, knowing google wants to control all information, can we be sure some spyware isn’t built into the software made by google?
1) Initial Setup: Not android’s fault. Vodafone should give you a device with their proper APNs already setup and the phone ready for use.
2) Again, not Android’s fault. If this is only happening in the milestone in Europe that it has something to do with the rom motorola built for that phone. I have never had/seen that problem on an Android phone.
3) Long-press on a letter and you will get extra characters. IMO, this problem was more of an excuse to say the iPhone was better.
4) On this one, I agree with half of the title says, not with the problem. I wish there was a computer/web interface to do this, just like you do with the iPhone/iTunes. But once you think about it, what for? You can do everything within the phone. The Market informs you about updates, and lets you do updates. It doesn’t have a button that says “Update All”, true, but everything else is false.
Also, aTrackDog is NOT a very good app to substitute or to check for updates, it tracks app versions from every phone and if a developer is working on a beta/alpha version, aTrackDog will know this and notify all users that theres an updated available, when in fact its not true… just stick with the market and its updates notifications which work very good, since it runs on the background, oh wait, and iPhone can’t do background processes.
5) Twidroid Pro is really good, and it does support the official rewet function. They are not as “pretty” as iPhone’s twitter apps, but again, no Android’s fault. Quickly tweeting stuff? Its only a step away…
6) True, but give it a break, when did the iPhone got this feature working? Before 2.x you had to jailbreak in order to get it working…
Also, I FIND THIS AS AN EXCUSE OF SHOWING US PROVE THAT YOU REALLY HAD THE PHONE AND HAD THESE ISSUES…
7) Yes, ok versions 2.1 forward will have 5, but… who needs them when you have a drawer listing all your apps in alphabetical order? In the iPhone you rely on the home screen, here, you only have your most used apps and WIDGETS (does iPhone have widgets?)… Who needs to have the 20 fart apps showing in the home screen anyways? Oh, almost forgot, you can ALSO create FOLDERS and put apps within them, how cool is that? You can create a folder for all your games and have it all neatly organized…. to do that with an iPhone you need to jailbreak….
8) True, but first iPhone apps have more overhead and need heavier graphics. Android have ways to better optimize graphics, and still look great, some developers just don’t use it. As far as capacity, well, first, this is not Android’s fault and just manufacturers. Second, some developers have games that get downloaded and only weight 2-3mb, then the first time it loads it downloads more resources to the SD Card… The user can just increase the phone capacity by changing the SD Card… do that with an iPhone, you just need to get another phone…
9) Yes, Android’s fragmentation is a HUGE problem, but this is not a reason why you DON’T like Android, this is more of a problem for us developers, it does needs to be addressed, and there are ways for us developers to solve this problem in our apps, I have an app that runs on absolutely every phone out there. In the meantime, keep being a robot and letting Apple control your phone…. One thing I say to everyone is that Apple controls absolutely every app you can install in your phone, why? Its my phone, I paid a BUNCH of money to use it whatever the hell I want to, why would I want them to control me?… On Android, if someone removes the app from the market, you always can install from the sdcard, from the browser, from an alternate market… again, do that with an iPhone.
10) Again, another lame excuse. First, its an issue with a certain app. Second, the iPhone reboots randomly without notifying you that there was an error… Yes, I come from an iPhone 3G before moving to Android and it was a pain in the butt.
The iPhone got slow, really slow, randomly rebooted, COULDN’T run more than one app, for that you need to jailbreak…
Android is slow? Yes and no, on some phones it can get slow, but again, this is not Android’s fault. Some manufacturers need to keep up with the hardware, Android is a VERY powerful operating system that lets you do many things, including running multiple apps… even though you might say your iPhone doesn’t have that problem, well, I used to, with a iPhone that only ran ONE app at a time, and it got slow… so I still think Android does a pretty good job at this.
I forgot to add….. fanboi.
Wow. I’m not a programmer, just a heavy PDA user, former huge Palm fan. I left AT&T years ago and wouldn’t go back for love or money, so the iphone is not an option for me. I have several friends with iphones and admired it (“oooh, Preetties!”) until I saw one fall and bust all to hell from 3 feet onto a wood floor. Ouch. Wasn’t so preettie after that. I ordered the Motorola Droid two days before it shipped and have been nothing but impressed. I’ve had no issues. At all. It’s rock solid and no hassle. A welcome change from the Palm OS. I am a US user and wonder if a number of your issues aren’t related more to your carrier than the phone. But, hey, if you love your iphone, why fight it? Stick with what you enjoy. Life has enough hassles without having to put up with hateful hardware.
Everybody has commented on most everything already, so i’ll keep mine short and sweet.
Android Fragmentation is not a problem. If it was, windows wouldn’t be doing nearly so well.
Let me explain it as such. As users buy android phones (and they are buying them, alot of them) they will provide the demand for apps. Now developers A, B and C, don’t want to develop apps for android because the “fragmentation” makes it difficult. Developers X, Y, and Z, see that there is a demand for apps without the competition you see on the iphone, so they spend a little bit of extra effort and make apps that work on multiple android phones.
How do i Know this is happening? Flurry says that application development for android has tripled in the last quarter. In 4 months time the number of android apps doubled from 10,000 to 20,000. It is predicted that by the end of 2010 that there will be 150 – 200 thousand apps available for android.
Fragmentation is not a problem. Fragmentation is just a buzz word that iphone fanbois latched onto to try and put down android. Fragmentation is actually called platform diversity, and it is a very good thing. Its what allows different groups to have different types of phones. Teens get the plasticy looking affordable phones for texting. Geeks like myself take the powerfully spec’d droid. Platform diversity gives people options, and options have proven time and time again to be a good thing.
The biggest reason that the android system is better than evil “Apple Empire” is because of choice. Consumers want options. With android there are at least 3 different service providers in the US(Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon) and you have several handsets to pick from with each provider. So if don’t like the droid or Verizon then you can pick something else. With the iphone there is no choice at all. If apple does not give the consumer more choices then the iphone will eventually loose out. The apple os may be slightly more advanced than the android os but just wait and see. I personaly think andriod phones will be better than the iphone in the near future.
Wow, 90 comments and counting, this is fantastic!
Thanks for all the great feedback. Seems as if Android has got quite a fanbase out there, too. Not exactly a very polite one, but one that is passionate about the product. That’s always a good thing!
When I discussed the article with somebody on tonight’s party – a Palm Pre user – he asked me one question that I really liked:
What would we all have said, if Android would have come from Microsoft?
Honestly, we would have blamed and flamed Redmond to death. For all the UI ugliness, where Apple proved that one can do so much better on a mobile device. For the overall slow performance, where the iPhone 3GS (same processor as the Motorola) proves that it can be done right. For the many apps required to work around such basic stuff as a keyboard that supports international users.
Now, Android comes from Google. So we have to love it. We have to fight for it. We turn shortcommings and implementation flaws after more than two years of development into something we’re proud of – because it pretends openness.
Ask yourself: What would YOU have said about Android when it came out of Microsoft. You don’t need to post your honest answer here. :)
2010 will be an interesting year and we’ll see whether Android will go mainstream or whether maybe Nokia comes up with something really good.
With that said, I’d like to thank everybody for the contributions and look forward to how Android might evolve, though I predict that Google will mainly enhance the special Nexus One version of Android and leave the fragmented user base of all other Android devices in the hands of the device vendors.
They might decide to keep you on version 1.6 for a long time. Good luck! :)
Empty buckets make a lot of noise pple, please refrain from attempting to show this iZealot that there is life outside of the jail, it just makes him think that he has an audience.
The one question I have about all this talk about Android’s openness providing choice is as a consumer (not a developer) why do I give a hoot? From a consumer stand point I want choice in apps. The openness of the platform is NOT a marketing point for the consumer. 200,000 apps IS.
Shawn, if you’re happy with 320 MB of RAM and that’s all you need, you don’t have to worry at all: Android is perfect for you. No need to go through the article.
Raf says:
“Given my known addiction for All-Things-Apple and my fairly open bias when it comes to Android”
… and this is where I stopped reading. I’m surprised most of you are even taking this guy seriously.
There are Android haters just as much as there are iPhone haters and people only hate when you start to infringe on their success.
But really Ralf, you sound like a bitter ex-wife. Maybe if you ease up on the sting factor and actually validate your reasoning, your article would be easier to digest.
BTW, I own a Samsung Behold II with Android 1.5 and 320 MB of RAM. Never had any of the aforementioned problems that you detailed.
As opposed to iPhones 256MB RAM? I’d be happy with 320MB.
Once again, this is TRUE that android is not perfect and still need a lot of work !
But OMG stop telling those stupid things about fragmentation !! I’m sorry but if you really ant to develop an app that works on every android phone, ANY SINGLE ONE, you just have to work something like 2h more to make it !!
This is really not a big deal and absolutely FALSE and WRONG, there is no fragmentation.
The only thing is that developer have to handle it, but this is fairly normal no ?
If you’re comparing like with like, sure. But 256MB of RAM goes a long way in a system that originally shipped to handle 128 MB.
320 in a Java-alike environment, not so much.
@Ralf, in all fairness to you, your article clear states that its tailored to only you. However from reading some of your articles on here its clear that you love all things apple that when I saw your post about the experiment I could only see one outcome and you delivered. What was the point of your experiment anyhow, if the iphone does exactly what you need from a device for your day to day activities what’s the point in looking at alternatives?
Stop the Java bash, it’s not 1995 anymore. There’s 96Mb of ram in the G1, and surprise, the phone is actually usable.
I thought Android was based on Linux??? 128MB of RAM is plenty for Linux system.
From the main screen of the MARKET, hit the menu button and you can see all your downloads…
Thanks for the article, Ralf. I find myself disagreeing with much of what you’ve written, but I appreciate different perspectives. With that in mind, you commented:
—
One thing I don’t get is, that many Android fanboys point out that there is no issue with fragmentation in the Android world at all while *at the same time* hinting me it’s all up to me choosing the wrong hardware for my tests.
That seems to be a straight forward proof for the already existing fragmentation and the disadvantages it puts on consumers.
—
It depends on how you look at it. Sure, you could call it “fragmentation.” But at the same time, it’s an advantage. Don’t like what Motorola is doing? Look at HTC. Or Sony. Or any one of the handful of other manufacturers producing Android devices. Call it fragmentation if you want. I call it choice.
It seems to be that there is a clash in value systems. To me, openness is very valuable but that seems to be dismissed rather quickly by Apple fans. But fair’s fair. Apple fans seem to be very taken by the “user experience” which I find valuable but don’t assign near the same weight to it.
—
Ultimately the only thing the much acclaimed openness of Android seems to cause is to lock consumers back into device manufacturers hands.
Google delivers the initial Android package but then leaves it up to the device vendors when they apply fixes, updates etc. or if they do so at all.
—
My Motorola Droid is running 2.0.1. Motorola has the software. Do you believe the reason your Milestone is stuck at 2.0 is because of Google? Of course not, you’ve already noted that this is a manufacturer issue. Yet at the same time you’ve described this as Google locking in customers? Maybe you won’t agree that there freedom until someone customers install their own images – which is being done. Legally.
Another point is your issue with keyboards. I don’t use my Droid in a multi-language environment so I’ll admit I don’t fully understand the issue (or don’t understand why you dismiss the ability to, for example, pull up an ‘o’ with umlaut by long-pressing the ‘o’ key). But I do understand that when Apple sees an app that competes with something they’re doing, they don’t allow it. In the Android marketplace, there’s numerous keyboards that replace Google’s offering.
This dovetails in to one final comment you made:
—
What would we all have said, if Android would have come from Microsoft?
—
I wouldn’t have been interested. Microsoft doesn’t do open. You’ve called Android a more successful Windows Mobile. What you’re missing is that Android is something very different. Windows Mobile still has a gatekeeper; Microsoft. And while Google is certainly leading Android, nobody has to follow them if Google goes in an unpopular direction. And if they leave Google’s lead, they can take Android with them.
I should also note that this oversight is probably why you’ve discounted the link between personal computing and mobile computing. Microsoft didn’t win because they did a good job on the desktop. I’ve never owned a Mac but I realized a long time ago that the Mac was, in many ways, superior to the wintel platform. But it didn’t matter. Commodity markets are really difficult to compete against and Microsoft rode the commodity hardware wave. Android is bringing the commodity market to mobile computing. There’s no guarantee of success but I find the possibility very exciting.
Not at all.
WinMobile is shite compared to Android and easier to develop for.
One thing I don’t get is, that many Android fanboys point out that there is no issue with fragmentation in the Android world at all while *at the same time* hinting me it’s all up to me choosing the wrong hardware for my tests.
That seems to be a straight forward proof for the already existing fragmentation and the disadvantages it puts on consumers.
Ultimately the only thing the much acclaimed openness of Android seems to cause is to lock consumers back into device manufacturers hands.
Google delivers the initial Android package but then leaves it up to the device vendors when they apply fixes, updates etc. or if they do so at all.
We’ve seen this before. It is called Windows Mobile. Same model. Same problem zones.
You, sir, are a moron and should not be allowed to write about technology more complicated than a fork.
First I would like to say, Ralf you did a fantastic job writing this article. I am a proclaimed “i” fanboi but I am making the switch to the Nexus One this week (God Willing). My reason: multi-tasking. I hate not being able to run applications in the background. I want to have twitter and facebook running in the background so i can get notifications. I want Google syncing. I have an iPhone (my second) and just about everyone else in my family does as well and we all love it. It’s extremely user friendly and has everything most people would want in a phone.
The lack of multi-tasking is the deal breaker for me. Check out my website when you get a chance for coverage on the Nexus One and my experience in the switch from the iPhone to the Nexus. http://www.geeksage.com
Thanks again for the great post, hopefully my Android experience will be a little more pleasant than yours :)
Have a happy New Year!
repost to subscribe to comments ….
You make some solid points but you’re problems with android mostly come from your lack of technical knowledge. Android as a platform may be to smart for you.
@ Paul
Yes, the syncing is seamless. And unlike Android, the iPhone provides hardware encryption. Android does not comply with stricter security policies, while the iPhone does.
This article should be called ‘Why my Android Phione is not my iPhone’
Seems to me you’ve spent 5 minutes with this phone before writing the article.
1. Initial Setup – TRUE, this is a silly thing and they should fix that.
2. Setting up and adding Gmail accounts regularly requires a hard reset! – FALSE, I’ve not had to ever do a hard reset after changing my settings.
3. No multi-language keyboard – FALSE, just the default one doesn’t have it.
4. No central place for application updates – FALSE, the Google market has updates under the Downloads setction, plus the notifier alerts tell you almost as soon as one becomes available. Android application updates come good and fast and often, given there’s no wait for approval.
5. No good Twitter app – Twitdroid had native retweets the DAY it became available. It is full featured, what doesn’t it do?
6. No easy way to take screenshots – TRUE, this is something basic that requires quite some effort to get around.
7. Just three home screens – TRUE, but the home screens are not meant to be used the same as the iPhone, all your apps are in the slider, and the desktop is more for widgets and the odd app, or are you one of those users who needs an icon for EVERYTHING on your computers destop too?
8. Inability to install apps to the SD card: FALSE, I’m running off SD right now, admittedly on my G1 with Cyanogen, but it can be done off the base load. There’s apps for that.
9. Android’s fragmentation – FALSE: If google roll out an update for Android OS then your phone’s manufacturer should push the update OTA. Your phone has nothing to do with google other than they provided the base fo the OS, and Google are not responsible for the ‘experience’. This is why HTC released their Sense UI etc, as they saw the defaul UI was lacking. It’s a phone OS, not an ‘experience’…
10. Java exceptions – FALSE, can’t say I’ve ever seen this other than stuff I’ve written…
You want this to be the iPhone, it isn’t.
It’s not yet as clean an experience, that is true,
And we all know the iPhone is perfect.
Android is a Phone OS with the ability to do more, the iPhone platform is an enahanced Media Player with phone capabilities. It’s a thing of beauty, but lets talk about how it actually performs as a phone? or how well it runs more than one app concurrently?
All in all a interesting, yet seriously flawed article, you probably should have looked a little harder before huitting that submit button
I have been using the Verizon Droid since the day it was released and have experienced none of the problems that you report. The competing device for a Verizon user is not the iphone, but the Blackberry, and I immediately gave my new Blackberry Tour to my teenage son. The best Droid feature is seamless syncing with my Microsoft Exchange server, which I don’t believe either RIM or Apple provides. Overall the Droid has been an excellent device with a somewhat immature operating system that will likely improve with time.
I think like another person said that you used the wrong phone. My set up of the Android system was flawless. As with any program, there can be flaws that get updated. Such as, I have the Droid Eris and this phone is not getting updated to the 2.0 platform until the first quarter (Jan-Mar). They are going to have numerous fixes for the OS so I have high hopes for this platform. I also prefer Android over the iPhone due to the fact I’m not banned from playing, manipulating any other music or video file just so it can play on the iPhone’s OS. This is by far a much better Smart Phone then the iPhone for this reason, for many people. I personally don’t like having to be forced to use a companies products especially if their products stink and are not even worth the download. This is a good phone to stay organized with and in functions well. It will soon be as fast as the iPhone and then faster, so Apple has some work to do to compete. Only time will tell of course, but next time do try with another phone as well as some makers make their phones differently, such as Motorola and HTC. HTC has the UI that has to be compatible with the Android OS and for this reason it can cause conflicts, conflicts which they are aware of and are fixing. So as for me I love the Android OS!!
(1) Not an issue with the OS, probably not with hardware either. I know I setup my G1 before I left the store. Did you manage to purchase this device without a data plan? I was uplinked via 3G and actually setup one of my Google Hosted domain Email addresses. Out of the box, and a “non-standard” at that…
(2) Never had the system lock when adding a GMail account (and I have several). Of course I found the included mail app not to my liking after 3 days and switched to K9 for my extra emails…
(3) I’ve seen several “International” keyboard apps available in the Market. If the phone wasn’t “shipped” with one out of the box, I would have to ask is the secondary language you’re using a common thing in the area that provider covers? And I have yet to see any characters in German that do not have proper alternatives available, so that argument is a bit weak, IMO.
(4) As has been said before, Market. It tracks and shows. And it’s notified you of available updates since 1.5 shipped. Original G1 units shipped with 1.0 and you had to manually check for updates, but it still had a centralized place that showed you all of your installed apps.
(5) Can’t argue much with this, but I also want a Twitter App that just does twitter. Lately I’ve been using Twidgit, which is primarily a widgit but is simple and straightforward.
(6) There is an application available for that. If you expect that to be an “included” feature then you’re going to like no phone on the market, probably forever. That’s not an “essential function” for this type of device.
(7) Can’t fault you there, Android does only have 3 screens by default. This is configurable by the carrier who setup the software for whatever hardware platform they selected, so it’s your dislike of their choice to stay with the default. Oh, and there are Home replacement applications that allow you more screens… just FYI.
(8) My G1 now does Apps from SD, so Android is capable of it, but again it’s the carrier who chose not to have this setup or write the necessary apps/interface to manage it.
(9) So should I blame Microsoft for Vista being a flaming pile of excrement when Dell sells it to me on a PC with only 512mb RAM? Should I blame Ford when I get crappy tires from Firestone? Should nVidia answer when ASUS sells me a faulty video card? OTA (Over-The-Air) updates are (at least from TMobile here) are something I don’t have to check for, the carrier pushes them out as the network allows. Usually takes a reported 2 weeks or so for all users to be updated from postings to various websites and such.
(10) Never had a hard crash of my phone that wasn’t me abusing my phone.
Honestly, you’re comparing a 3rd party Hardware Platform (Moto Droid) with a 3rd Party OS (Android) to something that’s First Party in both cases (Apple). Your arguments are very shallow, some to the point of me asking “Where’s your helmet and can I help you on to the Short Bus?”. As has been stated above you come off as a complete apple fanboy and didn’t bother making a serious effort to really test the device.
as some clearly stated, most of point you made are not true. being able to comment and answer just those easy questions with ready answers is a blessing i must say.
anyway, there is one point i wanted to make. about your introduction stating that “why on earth everything that comes out from google gets so much praise?” i’d say this is applicable to Apple as well. and we can see that when apple will launch iSlate or whatever it will be called. nothing stunning and what’s more important new. yet apple fanboys will get totally wet :]
So, purely from a non-geek simple minded consumer POV, if you are in the US, yes, get a Droid/Milstone. If you are outside of the US, forget about it? I just want something that works out of the box…..
So, purely from a non-geek simple minded consumer POV, if you are in the US, yes, get a Droid/Milstone. If you are outside of the US, forget about it? I just want something that works out of the box…..!
You suck!!! And your review sucks too! It has nothing to do with milestone or android. You simply don’t understand what you are writing about!!!
get a Nokia N900. I abandones Nokia a year ago for Android and then the iPhone 3gs, but this Maemo/Linux device just blows away everything else.
In the case of three screens, have you ever heard of folders?
You never once thought to create folders on your desktop and place your app shortcuts inside them, in an organized manner like you would on a computer? This didn’t even cross your mind even though the option is right there when you press on the desktop?
And it’s three screens by DEFAULT. You can change it.
Tech savy, you apparently are not.
Have fun with your iPhone. You deserve each other.
Hi, I recently purchased a HTC Tattoo and I have to say that I really like Google Andriod it is by far the best mobile os I have tested. The endless supply of awesome apps makes every day with my phone an new experience.Sorry for my wall of text I just wanted to give you my experience with the android os. Have a awesome day and thanks for a superb blog.
I own the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G. I think it's a great phone and I love the Android platform. That being said, I agree that there are many problems that need to be fixed. Thankfully Google is giving people the opportunity to get in on the action. If I have a problem with an iPhone app I have to go through all sorts of hell to get something done about it. I can let the developer know and I can let Apple know, but in the end there's not a whole ton I can do. If I have an issue with an Android app I can just make my own. I have the power to change what I want when I want, and I think that's pretty awesome. I think you need to give Android a little more of a chance, or at least stop comparing it to the iPhone. There are a lot of people trying to compare the two, but in reality they are too different to be compared. They target different groups of people and though they have some of the same functionality goals, they have completely different goals overall.
And on a random note, I would think that somebody who's so “tech-savvy” would be able to run a spell check or at least think to read through something before they posted it. You may want to take notice of that in the future.
“Android expects your phone to have Internet connectivity at that stage”
Don't you read what Android designer says, don't watch ads or info i web? It's phone 'powered' by network – done to act with mobile services. …
WOW! & you say “you consider yourself a TECH savvy”? all of your problems you described where so simple to set up. Your Iphone does not make you a TECH expert everything is done for you, as it is known for “Iphone for dummies” As for the wifi not working with the droid? because you have a password or whatever you have stated for the reason being why it wouldn’t set up really made me laugh. you are no expert in this area stick to your easy to do phone…
Android does not lock customers into manufacturers, manufacturers lock customers into manufacturers! Saying Google will focus on the N1 version of android, rather that their competitor's versions is plain wrong- it's the same OS, just manufacturer's place their own skin over the top. Yes there are phones out there still on 1.6, but that is because the manufacturers haven't updated their own 'flavour' of android. There is nothing stopping them from updating their overlays to what you refer to as 'Googles version'.
First of all, most of the negative criticisms here have just been fixed by updates from google. Second of all, when the iphone started, (2g) it also had a numbe of lackingfeatures which other phones had at the time like 3g capability, forwarding message etc. Which were fixedby an update… so its a matter of choice actually.. a lot of iphoj lovers love it becsuse of its simplicity and quality build apps… however, if you want customizability its really android… so its really a matter of choice
You state you are tech savvy but in reality your position on many of these proposed “issues” only shows a glaring ignorance. I have the Milestone and have had none of the problems you claim exist.
Maybe a major flaw in your argument arises as you constantly compare this OS and phone to an iPhone which it is not and in contrast and iPhone or Blackberry is not an Android. The ability to offer devices that meet the needs of others is what drives economic change.
If you don’t like the Android platform then go get another phone and quit whining. And when you write an article, do your homework before you start spouting off rubbish.
Why does a user have to research? On the iPhone, you dragged an icon to the right, and now you have a new home screen. Why does it have to be more difficult than that?
Wow are you a tool!
only 3 homescreens! Did you even try to alter that default setting up to the available 9! DID YOU READ THAT YOU TOOL 9 (NINE) homescreens!
You never researched any of this did you? You can admit it since just reading your worthless drivel shows you didn’t do any sort of research!
Maybe my Grandmother can come over and teach you how to use an Android phone…she didn’t have to do a hard reset to set up her Gmail.
It’s so sad people like you consider themselves tech-savvy
Throwing in my two cents on the Android vs Apple experience, I have to side with the author on this one having owned a Nexus One. It was sold a month after using it and being so disappointed with the experience. I’ve also owned BlackBerries and WinMob smartphones, all which have had issues. I’m not an Apple fanboy either. I purchased an iPhone 4 (£499 / $800) and returned it after a week of using it since I was experiencing the antenna issue. I couldn’t in my right mind fathom paying so much for a phone whose primary function (making phone calls) was so crippled.
I can only comment on the issues that affected me and will try to explain WHY these features are important. Fanboys here seem to be defending their mobile OS to the teeth without understanding its actual shortcomings. In order to make Android better, you have to find its weaknesses and improve on them if they have merit.
3) This is the biggest issue of all. It seems like the Android fanboys don’t understand that it isn’t the keyboard layout. Yes, Android has accents. Yes, the layout isn’t THAT big of an issue, AZERTY vs QWERTY vs QZERTY only have a few main characters switched. However, the issue is the dictionary.
I use English, French, and Japanese (work reasons) and having the keyboard switch on the fly is critical. On the iPhone, you can set up your phone in one language, but quickly switch languages while within the message. This ability is in EVERY stock app, from Notes to SMS to email. Just like the author, having to switch system languages to reply to one email in French and another in English is painful on Android. I can’t stress this ability enough.
Even on the personal side of things, most of my friends are bi or trilingual and sending a mixed English/French message is painful. It’s a breeze on the iPhone. I won’t even get into the pains of Japanese on Android.
4) The Android Market is very poorly laid out. The web site looks like they took a developer, gave him a few days, and said, “Look, just get all of the apps broken into tabs, Featured, Top Free, and Top Paid and get it all up there.” This might be nice for developers but for the end-user looking to find apps, the marketing of this is rather poor. This lack of attention to detail also prevents developers from wanting to take a risk in the Android market. It all looks too minimalist to be a contender to the iTunes Store, which just blows away anything Android Market related. Yes, I’m talking about both the iTunes installed on the computer and the one built into the iPhone.
6) Not being able to take screenshots easily is cumbersome. For work, we often have to test our web interfaces on mobile devices, and as such, we have Android and iPhone SDKs installed on our work computers. On the iPhone, just push the home and power buttons, connect via USB and use Image Capture (built into Mac OS X) and send the screenshots to clients for verification. We can do this on the SDK but our testing requirements force us to check on the actual devices, and this is a pain on Android.
Perhaps to an end user, this functionality isn’t critical. But again, it’s one more thing that adds to the list.
8) I understand *why* Google did this, since they want to discourage people from copying apps from one phone to another. I believe it is their way of limiting, or at least hindering piracy. However, this does affect the number of apps that can be put on the phone and severely limits the options for developers. On an iPhone, we’re guaranteed to have all users on at least 8 GB of space, so making 100-200 MB apps isn’t an issue. It is in Android.
Regardless of if it is the fault of the manufacturers, Android phones are crippled in this sense, since most of the cheap manufacturers for Android phones will give it the bare minimum, severely reducing the viability of the platform.
9) This fragmentation has caused us to stay away from Android apps altogether and when we do need to make a piece of software for a client, we just ensure it works via web interface using jqTouch, which seems to work with any Android device > 1.6. The distribution of Android versions is similar to that of iOS, but the fragmentation of devices is what is the dealbreaker. 480×800? 240×320? Processor speed? Touchscreen? Accelerometer? Trackball support? GPS?
Building apps to adapt to various screen sizes, checking for all of these features,
On the iPhone, we know that >90% is on an iPhone 3G or better, which has, as a *minimum*, 428 Mhz, 128 RAM, 8 GB storage, GPS, camera, touchscreen, and 480×320 resolution. We can plan for that far more effectively than the hundreds of combinations of Android.
From the user’s standpoint, Android devices almost never get updates. I have friends still stuck on 1.6 with their Samsungs and Motorolas. This is the primary reason I got a Nexus One, knowing that being a stock install, it would most likely get updates. HTC seems to be offering updates for their newer models, albeit several months after 2.2 was made available.
At the end of the day, I went back to an iPhone 3GS which is my primary phone. I miss the beautiful iPhone 4 resolution, which hands down, was the most beautiful mobile phone screen I’ve used. I’m glad I got returned it and can only hope the iPhone 5 will fix the antenna issue with a REAL hardware fix, not some lame “software update” and more reality distortion fields from Jobs.
However, I’m also glad I got rid of my Nexus One, which also had a very nice screen. It had a cheaper feel to it, but the UI was just terrible. While Android copied many of the items from the iPhone, it looks like it’s trying too hard to NOT look like an iPhone as well. It reminds me of a stock version of Ubuntu Linux 9.04 (which comes with an ugly orange colorset, big overly padded buttons, and a default background that looks like a shitstain) which takes many features from Windows and Mac but does a lot of them very poorly and just lacks polish.
Ref: http://blog.emobilez.com/2009/01/25/download-ubuntu-904-jaunty-jackalope-alpha-3/
I really hope Android will get better, inevitably it will, but these issues have prevented me from staying on that platform. Apple has failed miserably with the iPhone 4 for me as well and so for the time being, I’m stuck on an older iPhone 3GS which as of today, is still the most compelling platform for me.
Please pull this blog. It isn’t even relevant any more. since 2.2 all of the issues have been fixed. not to mention the hardware is superbly better.
I have a Nexus and a Samsung Galaxy S and the options are endless.
Ever since rooting the phone and adding Caynogen to the phone its been flawless.
I”m no stranger to Iphones, I’ve jailbroken and have all ready ditched my 3GS and Ipoo4(thats right i said poo).
Pull your head out of your narrow minded asses and see what This Diamond in the (not so) Rough is all about.
I have yet to find a app that i really wanted on Iphone that I cant find on Android.
I realize this is a very old inaccurate blog….but seriously pull this down!
iphone and mac can go fuck themselves
Android (and even BlackBerry) are superior to the iphone for one simple reason – freedom
the freedom to install any app u like without having to go thru itunes bullshit.
f jailbreaking, i want to install whatever i want on my device
iphone FAIL
RK, I am aware of the technical details of both, the Java based Android SDK and the Objective-C based iPhone SDK.
You are right in that it seems to be much more difficult to build appealing, user-friendly and “sexy” UIs with the Android SDK.
Apple has a specific track-record in providing devs with the best tools to enhance the end user experience.
Ultimately that’s one of the points I make why I believe Android is not ready for prime-time.
The consumer market never bought into Linux on the desktop, though Linux is for free, in many aspects technologically more advanced than Windows and overall a fairly secure desktop OS. Why do consumers still pay for Windows?
It’s all about usability and how easy I get my tasks done.
Android might have solid underpinnings that impress us geeks but it’s not at all ready for mainstream.
Question: If what you’re saying is true, why doesn’t Google enable devs to build fantastic mobile apps but leaves them with an SDK that produces one crappy UI after another?
Watching the Nexus One videos I have not seen that much that would make a difference compared to the Milestone…
I completely agree with Rob Seller. U better throw ur phone n get a HTC hero n test Android in it
Nope. :) Anything you want to contribute related to your experience with Android?
Couldn’t agree more. I didn’t even mention scrolling, but you are right: Most of the apps on Android do a pretty bad job when it comes to something so natural as scrolling through lists, compared to what we are used from desktops, iPods and iPhones.
I also did not mention the missing support for playing back audible.com content. Maybe audible’s fault but then again, why didn’t the Google folks think ahead and integrated wisely. I’d love to hear my audio books on a mobile device. I can’t on an Android as of now. (Android fans might recommend to apply another hack and workaround audible’s DRM and then convert to mp3. Repeat: Consumers should not be responsible for fixing consumer operating system’s flaws.)
I don’t like being stuck using APPLE for everything when I have to manually do everything. Doesn’t really seem worth my time. The touch screen on my Eris is perfection and I enjoy moving it about and it does so flawlessly. I truly believe the author really went all out to make Android look terrible. In hindsight, more people I know professionally and socially dislike the iPhone due to it’s inability to be customizable.
I might get my hands on a Hero next week and will come back in the comments.
But: Why do you think the OS is “close to perfection”. Would love to get some solid arguments for your point. Considering that smart phones are consumer electronics, which part of the consumer/end user experience that Android delivers, is particularly perfect as of today?
Left aside technical details that mostly impress geeks and clever inner workings: Which part of what Android delivers, does helps mainstream consumers that the iPhone does wrong (assuming, the iPhone OS is not perfect in your opinion)?
Looking very much forward to better understand this!
Thanks for the article, Ralf. I find myself disagreeing with much of what you’ve written, but I appreciate different perspectives. With that in mind, you commented:
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One thing I don’t get is, that many Android fanboys point out that there is no issue with fragmentation in the Android world at all while *at the same time* hinting me it’s all up to me choosing the wrong hardware for my tests.
That seems to be a straight forward proof for the already existing fragmentation and the disadvantages it puts on consumers.
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It depends on how you look at it. Sure, you could call it “fragmentation.” But at the same time, it’s an advantage. Don’t like what Motorola is doing? Look at HTC. Or Sony. Or any one of the handful of other manufacturers producing Android devices. Call it fragmentation if you want. I call it choice.
It seems to be that there is a clash in value systems. To me, openness is very valuable but that seems to be dismissed rather quickly by Apple fans. But fair’s fair. Apple fans seem to be very taken by the “user experience” which I find valuable but don’t assign near the same weight to it.
—
Ultimately the only thing the much acclaimed openness of Android seems to cause is to lock consumers back into device manufacturers hands.
Google delivers the initial Android package but then leaves it up to the device vendors when they apply fixes, updates etc. or if they do so at all.
—
My Motorola Droid is running 2.0.1. Motorola has the software. Do you believe the reason your Milestone is stuck at 2.0 is because of Google? Of course not, you’ve already noted that this is a manufacturer issue. Yet at the same time you’ve described this as Google locking in customers? Maybe you won’t agree that there freedom until someone customers install their own images – which is being done. Legally.
Another point is your issue with keyboards. I don’t use my Droid in a multi-language environment so I’ll admit I don’t fully understand the issue (or don’t understand why you dismiss the ability to, for example, pull up an ‘o’ with umlaut by long-pressing the ‘o’ key). But I do understand that when Apple sees an app that competes with something they’re doing, they don’t allow it. In the Android marketplace, there’s numerous keyboards that replace Google’s offering.
This dovetails in to one final comment you made:
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What would we all have said, if Android would have come from Microsoft?
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I wouldn’t have been interested. Microsoft doesn’t do open. You’ve called Android a more successful Windows Mobile. What you’re missing is that Android is something very different. Windows Mobile still has a gatekeeper; Microsoft. And while Google is certainly leading Android, nobody has to follow them if Google goes in an unpopular direction. And if they leave Google’s lead, they can take Android with them.
I should also note that this oversight is probably why you’ve discounted the link between personal computing and mobile computing. Microsoft didn’t win because they did a good job on the desktop. I’ve never owned a Mac but I realized a long time ago that the Mac was, in many ways, superior to the wintel platform. But it didn’t matter. Commodity markets are really difficult to compete against and Microsoft rode the commodity hardware wave. Android is bringing the commodity market to mobile computing. There’s no guarantee of success but I find the possibility very exciting.