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maybe it's just because I switched from tmobile to att... sort of a wash :-P
The DROID is not the iPhone killer. It lacks the full experience of ownership that the iPhone offers the user. Even with all the complaints about AT&T's service, it still has a very low churn rate and is gaining and retaining customers. That speaks big for the iPhone and AT&T. Customers don't seem to care that AT&T has spotty coverage or that the latest pile of challengers have a few features that the iPhone doesn't. They want the iPhone. Period. So far the DROID seen to have fallen flat and, as with the Pre, if the device doesn't do well on the launch the outlook isn't very good.
Most customers aren't geeks. They want the device to work for them. They don't want to work for the device. The iPhone does. They don't care about open or closed app stores. They just want the apps when that want it. The iPhone delivers with more choice than the competition. It redefined the mobile phone industry and made the mobile phone usable unlike any other before it.
The Droid is certainly an impressive evolution of the Android market. But, compared to the iPhone and probably even the Palm Pre, it still comes off a bit half baked. No doubt, Android is wreaking havoc on Windows Mobile, but there has been no impact on the iPhone to date.
Can you show me those numbers, I would really like to see how much of that gap the Droid has closed and then you can show me how much of that gap Android 2.0 has closed. I will be waiting right here for both reports. I can't wait to see them so I can legitimize your post, otherwise it's all wishful thinking on your part. And lets me honest, thats all your post is, pure wishful thinking. Fact is, neither has closed the gap on the iPhone at this point. Hell, there are allot of other gaps the Droid and Android had better worry about before they go after the iPhone. Still waiting...
It is a difficult position to be in, being the industry leader. You need to truly innovate while everyone else can copy your ideas. It is no surprise that the competitors are going to narrow the gap on features. Apple has a strategic advantage though because they can leverage their mindshare, itunes and a huge lead in app development.
As far as the progress that Apple has made I gotta say, it is quiet pitiful. My 1st gen iPhone is really not much better than it was at release. They have taken their sweet time implementing basic features and there are still features that I consider to be necessary. Honestly as a developer myself I would be embarrassed at the tacked on "notification" system of the iPhone if I was an Apple developer.
Yes there are some nifty things that it does that the BB did not do but reality is I need the IPhone to work as a phone more than I need it to only work as a toy.
IMHO, Apple always had a better, smoother experience. One way it managed this was with very tight control of hardware and software.
On the other hand, if you didn't want specifically the configuration that Apple offered your were out of luck. In this case, lets say you think a physical keyboard is necessary; a larger screen; a smaller screen; longer battery life; lower price; etcetera. Windows was more open than Apple. From a hardware viewpoint this'll be true with Android/Apple as well. On top of that Apple's restrictive app store approval process may keep the quality up, but in the end is suspect it'll bite Apple.
In other words, notice that the iPhone is just a frame for a software experience. That's the smartphone right there. Customize it by adding 3rd party software.
Also, while comparing to the PC, consider that iPhones are made by a company in Asia and Apple is bringing a second builder online in 2010. Apple can bring 20 builders online if necessary, to make 90% of the world's smartphones if need be. Apple is in the Microsoft position already, doing the IP and farming out the building.
Also notice that the iPhone gained marketshare faster than the DOS PC. The match you're forcasting is already over.
If I want a physical keyboard, I will chose another phone over the iPhone. If I want a phone that can swap a dead battery for a fresh one right then and there, I'll chose another phone over the iPhone. It's about choice and Apple doesn't give me a choice.
Only a small minority of the market want a phone that does more than just talk and text, most people just want a plain cellphone, and Apple doesn't have a phone for that.
The battery is EXCELLENT; and this metal detector app is freaking cool, hehe.
I also love that Android Market has an automatic option after downloading an app if you don't like it, to "Uninstall and Refund".
How long has Android been around? And how far has it come? Still in it's infancy, but yet it can kick Apple's butt.
This is going to be interesting.
luv my Droid.
BTW - www.techmeme.com - WTF are you talking about - loads and reads perfectly and instantaneously..but again thanks for spreading false information. Oh, and camera has already had an auto-focus fix that's based on a timer and will be permanently fixed on Dec 11 - over the air. Wake up dude, and stop posing as a subject matter expert, bashing droid falsely and prematurely and making the iphone cult salvate...if you're going to review, you really should try to be fair and subjective or don't do it. iphone users don't need anymore brainwashing. Cool phone, network sucks...has some better features than Droid (depending on who you ask), and has some worse. Droid has some better features, and some worse. how complicated...not.
That said, I agree with all the other things you said.
Here is my .02 cents on this iPhone v/s Android
1. No UI standards to do things in a certain way (Probably Thumbs Up for people like you because you need to be challenged, not so for most regular people)
2. Different Screen Resolutions, different input methods, may or may not have all features, different customization by vendor (Probably another Thumbs Up for You).
3. I am not exactly sure about h/w connectors or dock but I presume they are all different (Now that probably pisses you off)
4. All those different Phone dimensions for all these various form factors means limited cases, headphones, harware intergration etc.
Between iPhone 1st generation and the 3rd generation leaving aside the network (2G v/s 3G) the dock stayed the same, the screen stayed the same and minus the headphone issue with the 1st generation and the GPS/Compass in 3GS there were few changes externally to the device. I am generalizing and not being very specific.
The thing is that for the people who build cases, FM tuners, car chargers etc. a lot of them work across the board and across most of the iPODs. The amount of R&D involved with making changes year over year is at a bare minimum. The changes to the iPhone are fairly predictable. Now look at the Android situation and how many of these companies are going to try and get into designing and building all the diversity of the iPOD/iPhone marketplace ? Also how many choices are you going to get ?
The ecosystem for the iPhone/iPod is huge, it includes the Music store, the Videos, the Apps and all these third parties building stuff. It is the sum of these that will make the iPhone attractive, geeks like you will still drool over Android.
But the cool thing about Android is that its got a series of hardware makers lined up, each one upping the ante. Apple has only one big fat, sumptuous egg to drop to fall flat. It does help Apple keep the plan easy to follow, but it is also a potential vulnerability. The AppStore mitigates the risk to some degree but Androids marketplace will close the gap over time.
I don't understand why companies set themselves up for a fall. The Droid is arguably the best Android phone out there. Why position it as an iPhone killer? Is it not sufficient to be the best Android phone??
I get to choose from over 100,000 iPhone Apps, and you get to choose from a few thousand Droid apps.
I hope it works out well for you.
I get to choose from over 100,000 iPhone Apps, and you get to choose from a few thousand Droid apps.
I hope it works out well for you.
First, the iPhone interface is something that people have to learn. I was jailbreaking a friend's iPhone and had only briefly played with friends' iPhones before over drinks. A lot of the gestures on the iPhone take practice to execute well, especially if you're switching between using the iPhone as a phone and get skin oil on the screen (or make up for women). Remember that if you've never seen a garbage can before, the trash can on the Mac will be a mystery. You should really be looking at the learning curve of virgin smartphone users, not migration malaise from devotees of another smart phone. The average bears who are fed up with AT&T or the iPhone will give DROID more than 24 hours to learn the interface. Most people I know with iPhones don't know how to really use them well and they've had their iPhones for years.
Second, you're comparing the software launch of a baby to a mature product. That's not how you judge whether a product has failed or not. Remember the iPhone had that sucky web app and no SDK? Did it fail as a product? It was a just drawback.
Third, is the battery door criticism the same from the majority of people using the DROID? Maybe you got a lemon. Maybe you're holding the DROID or rubbing it the wrong way in your pocket, etc.
Fourth, I don't think HD YouTube streaming is a make it or break it feature for most of the non-geek world. Heck, I don't think it's the #1 feature for the geek world, either. I mean, seriously. YouTube HD isn't a critical app for anyone professionally on mobile devices.
Out of your critique, the point that seems the strongest to me is the keyboard. I'm not sure I'm ready to give up a physical keyboard yet.
What none of the reviews of the DROID (or the Cliq) seem to cover is how well they sync with Macs vs. PCs. I've been a BlackBerry person for years because I received them free and with free data plans from jobs (I haven't heard of any other smartphone except the horrible Treo achieving this status). Although there are geek features that I'm addicted to (auto-text entries is one of the few the other smartphones all lack), its the horrible/non-existent Mac syncing that has been a thorn for me for years. Even with the Mac BlackBerry Desktop Manager finally released and patched, syncing is the thing most likely to drive me from the BlackBerry platform, rather than a camera, a browser, or YouTube HD.
Recently, while waiting for H1N1 vaccines, i noticed the crowd, almost all the parents who had an iPhone handed it over to their kids to play games and kill the time waiting. If kids can figure out the UI, I do not think it needs lots of explanation.
My observation of young children and technology, is that regardless of complexity they find their way pretty well through graphical user interfaces. Kids figure this stuff out easily because they grow up with it starting at an incredibly early age.
Is the Droid's UI as refined as the iPhone's? Absolutely not.
Is it so complicated that no one can sort it out? My parents* were playing around with my phone and they figured it out without any problems.
*Older folks who don't work with technology on a daily basis are my barometer for UI complexity. My parents are smart people, but they didn't grow up with any of this, and they don't use it on a daily basis. It's not intuitive to them.
There's a whole other argument you could make about UI that focuses too much on the beginner experience to the detriment of frequent users.
My phone? Treo 755p.
on my HTC Magic.
And our enterprise uses iphones extensively. They sync with Exchange/WebDav/Sharepoint/Gmail beautifully, Email, calendar, contacts push works well, central management is easy, plans are comparable to BB plans, and they come with remote wipe capabilities which is critical for us to protect confidential data. Works well for us.
Android has great potential as an operating system but it does not have the polish and UI experience that the iPhone and Palm webOS do. The HTC sense UI is better and I am very excited to see what the Rachel UI from Sony will bring.
I also want to point out one thing that many of you may have missed in the recording, at the end we give a comparison of price of the different plans.
When it comes down to cost per month, the Droid is very expensive compared to the Palm Pre or the Sprint HTC hero. Sprint has done a ton over the past few years to build out their network and in most cases if you don't have Sprint you roam over onto Verizon for free (with the everything plans) which essentially gives you the same network. So if you have the same network, Sprint is the better choice as it will cost you almost half of what a Verizon plan will.
The Droid is an interesting Phone, but I think if you want an Android Phone on Verizon, I would go with the Droid Eris rather than the Motorola.
I think you're missing something else that a developer should be looking at.
Is there a market for Android apps ....and how big is it ?
In the near-term, it appears that the market is fairly small.
I'm an iPhone developer, and I would love to be the first to write a nice, iPhone quality twitter app for the Droid. But the tools just aren't there. It'd take me 10x as long as a similar iPhone app. For now, I'll just keep saying the platform has potential...
The "tools ARE there", and there's no way on Earth you can reasonably back up the claim that it would take 10x longer
sheesh..!
http://dev.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/op...
My favorite line is: "The specific API provided by Android is similar to the J2ME JSR239 OpenGL ES API. However, it may not be identical, so watch out for deviations." Deviations? Like you just didn't implement a couple options someplace, but you can't remember exactly where? I could go digging through forums and find out what the differences are, but it _sounds_ like a mess.
In place of that single page, Apple provides a 62 page PDF, with specific information about the graphics chips and a detailed breakdown of what is and isn't possible/recommended:
http://devworld.apple.com/iphone/library/docume...
That's pretty much my reasoning for the previous comment about the docs. I write graphically intensive iPhone apps, and I found that page in the Android docs truly terrible. The rest of the docs, especially the parts about application lifecycle, etc... seem much nicer.
Reference is here: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/...
"ApiDemos" is here: http://dev.android.com/guide/samples/ApiDemos/i... (ApiDemos is a single project, with source, demonstrating comprehensive usage of the myriad of Android SDK features, including many for openGL)
However, it is fait accompli. Many OpenGL games are succeeding in the Android Market already
1) you blamed the Droid for "making you feel stupid" because how to zoom wasn't obvious/intuitive and that "iPhone never had this problem." Maybe someone showed you how the multi-touch worked before you attempted to use it to zoom - but if you hadn't already had that knowledge, it would really more obvious or intutive. I know a number of first-time iPhone users who couldn't figure out how to zoom in on a web page until someone showed them the multi-touch strokes. The Droid method is different - and may or may not be better - but it's not "less intuitive" for someone who hasn't already learned the iPhone method.
2) You contrast Apple's fanfare with Verizon's lack of promotion. But Verizon's counterpart is not Apple - it's AT&T. Shouldn't you be comparing Apple's fanfare with Motorola/Google? - and Verizon with AT&T?
3) You say the Droid/Version provides much better phone service than iPhone/AT&T but then seem to dismiss that as not important. For a lot of people, a cell phone should first be - a cell phone. iPhone is great as a pocket computer/internet device that - oh yea, also lets you make phone calls... but for those whose primary purpose for having a cell phone is to make phone calls - and oh yea, some app/net access would be nice, too... iPhone may not be as good a choice.
Do me a favor, make a list of things where the iPhone and Palm Pre fall flat and put it next to your list here and see what comes out on top.
Besides, you're comparing something that has been around for years (the iPhone) to something that was released two days ago.
Saying that the Droid will fail because there's no Twitter app that you like as much as Tweetie on the iPhone is a tad strange...
I for one am a happy iPhone user since 1.5 years but can't wait until the Milestone (Droid's name in Europe) will be available here so I can use that, too. Got a Magic a while ago and really like Android, can see myself not renewing my iPhone contract next year because of the Milestone.
BTW - this page seems to refresh every couple of seconds. Reading the comments from top to bottom is very difficult today. :-(
But me... I love the little guy :)
Your points about twitter and facebook are important too, because these are such huge apps. Twidroid does suck a fat one, but I recommend "twidgit" instead - it's just a widget that runs on your android desktop that works quite well and looks 100x better than Twidroid. It lacks search and user profile lookup but otherwise it's solid.
Facebook app is definitely lacking too, although for the most part it does everything I want it to.
A phone needs to work well as a phone. If we are going by that standard, then iPhone is a huge FAIL. Yes, the battery door on the Droid may fall of but at least I will be able to switch the battery and make a call in an emergency situation.
The whole battery argument is kinda silly in light of all the solutions that are available for the iPhone. Get an Incase external battery for the iPhone. It charges the battery and acts as a protective case for the phone. I own one and keep it with me in case I need it. There are many such devices available for the iPhone. Just think how many batteries the DROID will use over it's lifetime.
Im certainly no Droid sympathizer and I agree right now iPhone wins. HOWEVER, Windows Mobile started 10 years ago, Symbian nearly 15 years, Palm nearly 15years, so Android at less than 5 is certainly impressive. I wouldnt discount this OS. There is no doubt that Apple will not be the dominant world player. The "one closed device" system Apple is hell bent on maintaining may give them the lions share of the USA smart phone market, but worldwide? Thats where Android will win out in the long run.
Thanks for the review. What do you think? Will Android be able to beat out Symbian worldwide?
.02
Symbian will be dominant for quite a while though, many the s60 phones are not sold as smart phone but are just (nearly) free phones with the providers and there are plenty of people that just want a phone to make phone calls and nothing more
I did warn you on Twitter about the apps. Facebook and Twitter apps (and Tumblr) cannot remotely compare to the iPhone apps, and I'm not sure why that is. I do think it will get better as Droids gain in popularity because developers and designers will go where the money is.
I did not have a smartphone before (was on Verizon because AT&T does not have adequate coverage in the country where I am on the weekends) so I am REALLY enjoying my Droid. However, the little apps I love on my iPod (Tweetie vs. Twitroid) make me miss it only when I am tweeting. I've already used the voice turn-by-turn GPS feature on my Droid to find a place I'd never been before in Kansas City and it was sweeeeet!!! I think I will use it a ton.
To compare the Droid now, with a phone that's been out a long time and now has so many apps for it, is tough... give the Droid time and I think we will see a lot of people using iPhones and Droids. I have several products that will require mobile versions, and I plan to make them for both iPhone and Android but not Blackberry. I agree that these Android phones, if done well, will put the screws to Blackberry moreso than Apple.
I would not rush to switch if I already have an iPhone, but if I wasn't on AT&T and didn't have an iPhone, I'd definitely consider the Droid next. I really like mine and see a WHOLE lot of possibility for voice-navigated apps, or apps that give you feedback while you interact with them (akin to a robot.)
Either way you look at it, DROID is a good thing. It will bring the most "heat" in the Apple / iPhone camp, which means good stuff for us, consumers!
...and I bet that Apple will revise their AppStore policy :)
my expectations are balanced.
as a verizon customer, this succeeds as a product as it is much better than any other phone thay they offer.
and no verizon customer should leave just to experience the iphone. the iphone might be great but not so great to sacrifice quality of the network. so fo all of us verizon peeps, its a great upgrade!
now look ahead 2-6 months and think about how many android 2.0 software issues will be fixed. how many bugs will be squashed? i'm sure quite a bit form the pattern of software releases i've seen from google.
hardware wise... i've played wth the moto droid and really like it. it's my kind if phone. i dont like too slick and sexy curvy shiny phones that are too light and slip out of my hand. i like some ruggedness.
not sure about this battery cover issue but that will suck if its the case on mine. the keyboard felt kind of weird but i'm not accustomed to any type of keyboard besides the numpad so anything is good to me (and many others who are coming from dumbphones). but i can grok how the keyboard is not as enjoyable as some others for the obvius reasons that its not large and deep and layout is boxy. but others have said that you get used to it and it becomes a non-issue.
multi-touch might be coming to the browser. sounds like a legal issue?
Seems to me the only advantage most people would find useful is the network, but that isn't reason enough to switch for most of us.
And, most importantly, the Droid lacks magic. Dammit, if you want to beat the iPhone, you MUST have a little magic in your device.
Can you see Droid usurping Blackberry's hold on mobile devices?
good. And yes, because I live in a major city, coverage isn't
necessarily an issue for me, which is why I have an iPhone.
I'm just tired of the Droid/iPhone comparisons, because I think they
are misguided.
BluRay vs DVD, the differences aren't THAT much better to switch.
Also, how much thinking do we REALLY want our phones to require? Seems
the droid is trying too hard to be a netbook replacement.
On a different note, everything points to the Android OS getting more and more features/apps on it. I think the Android will catch the Iphone due to ITERATIONs. What is the expression in the valley Robert? Deploy technology quick and then iterate, again and again and again. The Iphone only updates every few years but the Android, due to so many manufacturers backing it, has the POTENTIAL to get better as one manufacturer after another integrates new hardware/software features into it. I think it is just a matter of TIME before the Android catches up.
Having said that, we need to go back to discussing the OS/system integration. These devices are about the APPS now. I want network coverage 1st and then, depending on the user, # of apps or good voice quality. I prefer voice quality...
Every phone with Android won't deliver the same experience that the Iphone will with their App store. Don't forget that KEY component of the discussion Robert. SOOOOO many people with hundreds of $$$ spent on Iphone Applications. I think VZ is just pushing hard with smartphones to try and force Apple over to their network on decent financial terms. If they do that watch AT&T stock price drop like a rock. Just my 2 cents.
Dan
@BetterBizIdeas
They'd do better to ramp the software more often, however, and not hold back new features for the next hardware release.
I think the Android will catch the Iphone due to ITERATIONs.[...] Deploy technology quick and then iterate, again and again and again. The Iphone only updates every few years but the Android, due to so many manufacturers backing it, has the POTENTIAL to get better as one manufacturer after another integrates new hardware/software features into it. I think it is just a matter of TIME before the Android catches up.
End of Quote
Well, like, because having many manufacturers in the boat really made Windows Mobile stand out as THE superior OS for phones, right?
C'mon guys, gimme a break here!
Let me set this straight:
We're not talking about some two-guys-software-shop pairing up with their-neighbors-garage-workshop on building a kick-ass phone here, we're talking about Google teaming up with Motorola!
So we have a company, that has many more software-engineers as well as much more money on their hands than Apple, (Google, that is) teaming up with a company that has a history of more than a decade in building mobile-phones -- some of which were amazing products that set standards (e.g. the original RAZR).
These two companies have had the opportunity to observe the iPhone for over two years now. They had the opportunity to study what made people want and long for, but also despise of the iPhone for TWO (in Googles case more like three) FRIGGIN YEARS NOW!
And the best they come up with is:
- a UI that still lacks polish in many areas and
- an inferior web-browser
in a device that features
- a battery door that happens to not always stay in place,
- a camera with inferior focus capabilities and an overall inferior picture quality,
- a dissatisfying hardware keyboard, that is crammed because some dude had the glorious idea that when you have a gorgeous 3.7" touch screen you really need a 4 way control thingy sitting beside it, usurping a considerate amount of the already quite scarce resource "space".
Considering the UI and overall UX work, that should have already been done in the first place, but apparently has been omitted:
How are you expecting FAST iteration fixing these flaws, if even the "slow" initial didn't?
I can't stress this point enough: They! Had! Two! Years!
Device-wise:
Well it's hardware so iterations take a lot more time...
So "ship early" is about the dumbest thing you can do here.
It's more like "make sure you actually do ship, but take the time to reconsider your design first, because changing it midst production costs you an awful lot of money".
(Another) Dan
You are right about Nokia and device marketshare. Particularly international.
Just having fun Robert :)
Nice article
Dan
@BetterBizIdeas
@tdhurts yes it does lack Magic but unfortunately iphone did raise that bar by quit a high standard. I'm thinking iphone, palm pre and droid will have a great battle for us all to enjoy each model upgrade. There is room for all the love. Love brings passion which will bring growth
I'm still not convinced I'm gonna stay with droid
But a few things inspire me about the droid so I'm going to stay with it for a bit
-open app model
-twidroid isn't as nice as tweetie2 but it runs in the background which is sweet. I'm guessing we will see more twitter apps soon for android
-I like foursquare on android better than iphone version
-maps on droid is better and faster than iphone
-googlevoice is dreamy
-vzw network is dreamier
-created by my friends andy rubin and rich miner. And I like using my friends products ;)
I give it time, and Android as an OS will overcome the iPhone OS by leaps and bounds.
I agree that Apple will always provide a friendly solution that will work for two groups. People that are very affluent and people who are desperate for others to think they are very affluent.
My guess is that within a year there will be a free Android phone my guess is that within NEVER there will be a free IPhone.
As for developers. I remember when 1 out of 3 developers I met were Mac developers. I don't think I've met a Mac developer in at least 5 years.
I think the IPhone snobs (not all IPhone users are snobs) are defensive and making up names like Droidtard because they don't like the idea of the masses having cool apps too. And gawd forbid these masses have some better apps (like the metal detector app).
So yes I still feel good about the droid. I will be getting one (well three - one for myself, one for my wife, and one for my daughter) when my current contract ends in two weeks.
-I must be a tard since I got a Droid....and like it.
Only the battery cover is a hardware problem, the rest (loosing sound problem and camera focus) are purely sw.
The iPhone is nice phone but it does not suit my needs and wishes the Droid (milestone in my case) on the other hand have all I'm looking for....
The only person with his head buried deep is you.
there are few developers that cut down their investments in Android development, not leaving, as they find it difficult to get visibility in the Android market, however the Apple Store sees more developers leaving the platform.
An interesting read for you "Respected developers begin fleeing from App Store platform" (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2009/11/respe... )
Guess what will happen if Apple ever rejects an game from Gameloft that costed ten of thousands man hours to develop, do you thing they will stay developing not knowing if their investment is even allowed?
In any case Apple itself is proof that you don't need large (game) developer support to survive.
"each service provider will have to stay on top of it on their own."; it's called competition and that's a good thing, it drives inovation and as ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL will broaden market appeal.
"Android is open so they are free to alter their own code as they wish to fit their needs", Beats being dependent on one company (and having to wait 2 years or more for copy-paste, mms or multitasking)
"... And actually, they care more about profits than they do market share, how do you think they are one of the most profitable computer makers in the industry yet only control 9% of the market" Correct, and that's why the iPhone will loose market share just like it did in the PC business.
Here in Spain it's already started the only iPhone provider stopped promoting the iPhone, it's promoting the Pre and Android instead
btw Apple has less than 7.5% of the (global) market
Where i work (extremely well known tech company), the Droids are flooding in, and many iPhone users are either envious, or they are in rabid froth. Sorry to say, but the competition is having its effect, and there are more Android phones to come
You attempt to slam someone for their *cheap* buying habits.. You sound increasingly like a spoiled brat. I wonder where you actually get your money
iPhones don't piss me off. iPhone owners spewing vitriol do, though. The Droid is just a phone. Its a good phone, like most Android phones, and if the commercials hurt your feelings, well, get a tissue and grow up
we only discussing phones , not religion or the future of mankind. Sure you can be a fanboy but seriously, relax.
it sounds like you are foaming at the mouth , lol
Just wait until you get out of a big city or the Valley, visit some realatives and all Verizon has is a 1RT connection that varies between 24 and 56K dialup. It'll make EDGE look like a speed demon. And don't believe the Verizon (broadband) coverage maps. If you call & bitch enough, they might put you thru to a tower tech, they'll give you the real scoop. Just spent 3 days on 1RT and I wasn't exactly out in the unpopulated boonies. Maps & specs are nice but am waiting for real reports from the real world :-)
Will the Droid even work with 1RT?
Also, can the Droid do simultaneous voice/data? I sure can't on my phone (tethered). When a call comes in it drops the data connection.
Rural - When the iPhone first came out I know there were areas where it was hard to get a connection but it was still better than the Verizon connections I was getting here in MN. Until the last few months I wasn't even able to get a 1RT connection. But, as mentioned, connections and what type are soooo location specific.
The Droid could turn out to be just "the phone for geeks in a largish city" :-)
1.) I'm a geek.
2.) Android 2.0
3.) Verizon's network.
I'd take an iPhone in a second over the Droid....if it was on Verizon.
As for the Iphone, it is a MISERABLE fail when it comes to voice quality. That fault likes with Apple. It is still a phone....yes, the "value-add" has shifted to data and other services but it needs to do the basic function of VOICE, no? When will someone get Ericsson type of RF into these smartphones? Who do you think has the best voice quality these days? I remember some of the Ericsson and Nokia models back in the 90s SMOKING these smartphones on voice quality. It has degraded to a point of shame....
I had a Motorola Q for the longest time and was on Verizon. My fiancee was on AT&T and had a Q as well. She didn't like the blackberry....which, to be blunt, surprises me. Today we are on a family plan for AT&T with me having a Blackberry Bold (I NEED a horizontal pad, which the Iphone didn't have back then-I've got large fingers and even the horizontal Iphone is a challenge for me.) My fiancee has migrated to an Iphone. She LOVES the thing but the voice quality is lacking. The apps are nothing short of UNBELIEVABLE on the thing.
I've been debating on what I'll do in the future. We're stuck on AT&T for 1.5 years so I've got time to think about it :) If the Iphone ends up on Verizon's network I might consider getting that. We'll try out the two networks and then pick a winner for us.
And then we have this damn Sprint 4G network going live in Dallas, where I am at :) Nov 11th kickoff party.... I probably won't have coverage but I'll be looking into it. 100 mb is worth looking into :)
Dan
@BetterBizIdeas
I get what you mean by the Win 3.1 analogy. My question is really this: since most of the flaws can be fixed via the magic of software and through the expedience of the market, is it still to early for us commoners to bet on the device due to its hardware? Others have not reported the 'back door' issue.. I'd be in the majority who would go in for a 2-year contract, but with the very first hardware version -- sometimes its better to wait for 1.1. Is the lack of haptic zoom 'multitouch' a hardware limitation?
People are speculating it's some kind of (lame) agreement between Google and Apple. Engadget analyzed Apple's patents on multitouch and concluded that Google should have no problem implementing this feature in Android. So it is really annoying they disabled it, but chances are good that a hack will come out soon to enable it, and perhaps, hopefully, Google will release an update to enable it. It is a really annoying drawback in the browser for me, multitouch is the thing I miss the most from the iPhone.
Now this is what Apple has - platform + marketing + user experience. And that's a killer combination. IMO only google has power to beat it, if they would want it. But I don't see they are "aggressive enough" - Android seems to be their hobby project for geeks. And I don't understand why...
I can't say a lot about Mac development in the old days, but I highly doubt MS had to offer developers anything comparable to the NeXT toolchain, which -- in fact -- was used quite often in business, so you should count it into the comparison.
Back then, MS won over NeXT, so I wouldn't pound too much on the "platform for developers" argument.
So that makes it all marketing for '95...
Today, Apple has the NeXT toolchain -- Interface Builder and Cocoa(Touch) are the successors of NeXT Interface Builder and NeXTStep -- and this toolset has improved a lot since then.
I guess that's why there are over 100,000 titles on the AppStore -- despite the fact that virtually no-one used the Objective-C language and "the whole world" speaks Java.
These 100k+ Apps -- in turn -- make for great marketing.
So yes, Apple _really_ has both now.
And while they have a neat platform for developers, that's not why people actually get an iPhone:
They do so because of the overall UX and hardware design -- or the hype, Apples ubiquitous marketing has built around it.
For now, I'm left wondering whether the Droid will be of interest to more people on the enterprise level, as opposed to the bleeding edge where you've been ensconced for so many years. Chris Brogan described the easy sync with Google Apps and his @chrisbrogan.com email accounts. If Google is successful in pitching its productivity suite to large organizations, Android devices might be a viable alternative to the Outlook-BlackBerry ecosystem that dominates corporate America. In that scenario, it's Microsoft and RIM that need to be on the lookout, not the folks in Cupertino.
One point of curiousity: is there a Google Wave app or front end for the Droid yet? I've been playing around with it on my iPhone now. It's sluggish but stable. I'm curious about whether that part of the OS will be built out as a distributed collaboration point of access.
Archos displays 800x480 medium density on a much larger 2x larger screen. You get the full width of all websites with no zooming in needed.
Any app, including twidroid look much better on Archos much larger screen simply because you get 2x more information on the screen. And the Archos is not too big to fit in a pocket, it's smaller than most wallets and passports.
Archos costs $249 with no contracts needed, just WiFi or 3G through bluetooth tethering.
Archos supports USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard input for Android, also when outputting Android in 720p to a HDTV using HDMI. I can easilly type this comment using my Archos and a full sized pocketable foldable bluetooth keyboard, while nobody not even geeks care to type such long blog comments using any touch screen (resistive or capacitative) or any droid-like tiny thumb keyboards. Those thumb keyboards are only good for short sms or twitter type messages while standing.
iphone, droid, palm do NOT support Youtube HD 1280x720 2mbit/s playback. (what are you talking about??) Archos supports real Youtube HD support on a HDTV through HDMI output see http://archosfans.com/2009/11/03/archos-5-inter...
multitouch is a useless gimmick but can easily be added to Android (probably some sort of US-only legal matter because Apple wants to own IP to be the only one to use multitouch or something, but Google shouldn't have to respect that completely idiotic claim (apple never invented anything)).
droid is just one of 50+ Android phones coming out in the next few weeks. It doesn't matter that Verizon wants to sell this overpriced phone (which costs $150 to manufacture) with a $2839 to $3799 contract same ridiculous total cost of ownership for the iphone.
Not the easiest thing to find (although it is specifically mentioned in the guide that comes in the box) - but it's a dramatic improvement in quality. I mean really, really good quality.
You can switch between them if you hit Menu but there doesn't seem to be a way to switch defaults (as of 1.5 on the Hero at least).
I have no doubt that Android will be a very solid mobile platform, with some good phone offerings. But not having a focussed market and vertical strategy will cause the platform to remain "flaky" in terms of user experience. In the mobile market, owning and controlling the complete stack of hardware, firmware, software and API helps. I think Android is still a year away from being a real threat and needs 1 or 2 more "killer" devices that can generate a cult following like the iphone did. Remember. Cult following doesnt work if geeks are the only ones following (Remember Betamax?). Unless the 15 yr old school girl and the 55 yr old grandma both use it equally well, its not a cult device.
Just my $0.02
you just need the spectrum of carriers and manufacturers, in the aggregrate, all pushing devices into a wider variety of markets.. It will not be long before there are many 10's of millions more phones out there than Apple has
Remember, Google can cut all the big players a bit of ad revenue, subsidizing the carrier and manufacturing costs. Neither Apple or MS can compete with this effectively
And yes, i was already concerned about motorolas build quality and i am glad that you pointed this out cause all the other reviewers told me how good it is.
whether it will be the droid or any htc, my next phone will be Android cause the momentum of the Android dev community is just huge.
hell, Robert i was already counting down the days until getting back to europe and get one.... but thanks a lot for this review which made up my mind. i totally trust your judgement on this.
1.) The Verizon guy didn't buy it. I went to 4 different stores yesterday and 3 of 4 salespeople I met, wanted the phone, Bad. The 4th guy had it. So perhaps that is not a good reason?
2.) I found the zoom button right away. So maybe it is you? :D
3.) The Droid is not a blackberry. The blackberry shall remain the mecca of the keyboard.
4.) The apps could be better, my guess is that they will be. Over time.
5.) The Droid is worse because it doesn't display techmeme well? I am a very non geeky person (very), so not asking this in a sarcastic manner.
6.) I didn't find the UI too complex. Yes, there could be improvements but I am pretty sure they will come quickly.
Also about the browser comparison, I just tried the site http://www.techmeme.com on my new droid, and it rendered perfectly :)
I can't add to the Android criticism - it definitely got better since the G1 (Android v1) but I can imagine it still being pretty geeky. My impression was always that technically, Android is very capable but they haven't spent time on making it pretty.
You can sea, on the start screen already, that Palm Pre & iPhone have the prettier operating systems. And we all know that prettier in operating systems most of the time also means more easy to use.
http://www.guysfromqueens.com/?p=765
http://www.guysfromqueens.com/?p=765
I wouldn't even put the PalmPre in the comparison because I don't think it has a big enough following to get the apps developed for it, but Google certainly does, and maybe one of the other handsets coming out will be a better match for the Android OS than Motorola's phone?
Am I out to lunch here?
Oh, and BTW thanks for writing this. I was going to open a Verizon account to get one (and to have reception in HMB, where ATT is total #fail.) Might wait for the next Verizon phone running Android
I was excited about the Droid's capabilities, and that it's on Verizon. But when I tried it at the store (lots of hoopla, balloons and T shirts at this one), I opted for the Droid "lite," the Eris, instead. Didn't need or like the Droid's keyboard or the weight of it.
Brought it home, worked on it for the entire day, couldn't find a user's guide anywhere, and gave up. Returned it the next day.
I use the Razr on Verizon for a simple, reliable phone, and the iPod Touch w/ Verizon's MiFi for everything else. It's a lot of hardware to carry, but fortunately, I have a large purse! Waiting for iPhone on Verizon and then I'll be totally happy.
It will be interesting to see how the Droid evolves. I have an iPod touch and find that, with tons of apps, the ability to organize the applications to easily find them is frustrating. Does the droid have a means of improved organization other than up/down/right/left?
Thanks for the comprehensive review! I'm on Verizon and have a Blackberry that I love - but am anxious to check out the droid.
Doug
I use a Razr phone on Verizon for reliability, and an iPod Touch with the Verizon MiFi for everything else. It's a lot of hardware to carry, but until the iPhone comes to Verizon, it works just fine.
Either ignorance or an outright lie.
Android puts App Updates in the Notification bar. I rely on this with my app, and use it often to update those that i've downloaded
Still, I think that one should not look at the Droid only as a product. The hardware glitches will be taken care of, easily (I assume).
But it's the ecosystem for carriers-developers-handset manufacturers-service providers that is disruptive, because it is open-source, low-cost and because it is Google-driven (and Google impact on mobile is a lot more radical and extensive than a single handset or app store).
....btw, I drove 200miles yest at the sound of the Droid navigator. Perfection is the word.
1. I don't agree with those who say that it isn't fare to compare it to iPhone because iPhone is mature. iPhone came into a market with plenty of mature competitors and it blew them away. If Droid were truly awesome, it would have done the same.
2. I think you are wrong in some of your assumptions about "normal people" and the reactions they have to this product. I think most of these normal people are still buying cheap, crappy devices that execute one killer function well. Currently, that one function is texting. This is why tons of people bought the Sidekick. It was cheap and was great for texting. I think you are right that the next wave of killer functionality is web browsing, twitter and facebook. However, the normal people still don't care about those apps - these are features not for the common man, but for the tech elite.
One other thought...
I am a loyal iPhone user, but the launch of Droid has had a curious effect on me. It has gotten me interested in iPhone alternatives; perhaps not the Droid but at least it has me looking elsewhere. The HTC brand is now on my radar, and *gasp* I'm even looking at Windows Mobile 7 and the possibilities of it being awesome on an HTC HD2. Oh how it pains me to say this.
Next year will be veery interesting, and I predict that Windows Mobile 7 will be a force of its own, Microsoft is being very quiet about its next mobile OS, Apple needs to raise its game next year in a very big way.
AND techmeme is rendering just fine on my Droid. Content on the left - menu on the right. Page loads up in the window so you can see everything without scrolling left to right. A double-tap brings the content right into frame - but thanks to the resolution, in landscape view you can easily read everything without even zooming in. I LOVE that about the Droid - and my browsing experience (apart from the occasional kamikaze rapid-scroll) has been fantastic.
Did you tell Dave Winer that it looks a lot like Windows 3.1? . . . Good story - now tell us WHY you think that, because I definitely do not see it. (Yes, I owned a Windows 3.1 machine back in the day.)
HD YouTube clips appeal to me when I want to go full screen on my 24" iMac. I can't say I care much on my phone - especially when I want clips to come through quickly. That the option to go HD isn't there IS unfortunate - but a major fail? You're reaching.
The zoom on photos was hidden? You mean hidden in plain sight? It was on screen with a plus or minus sign and a magnifying glass icon. Why didn't you see it? Because you weren't thinking "different". You've been trained to do the pinch-to-zoom technique (very nice method, but damn hard to do if you only have one hand to use your phone, for instance) - and you weren't considering other methods. That's a negative on you, not the device. (I do still hold out hope that Google will enable multitouch in their UI - Android 2.0 does have support for it.)
Finally, you know as well as anyone that as the adoption rate for Android ramps up - companies like Facebook will put more time and resources into robust apps for the platform. And that's part of the excitement for the Droid, other Android phones, and Google products in general: They're in a perpetual state of growth and maturation. Even when you think they're great, they get better. It's like Christmas every time there's an update.
The nature of your criticisms make me wonder how much you get paid to suck, Robert Scoble. I removed your name-dropping, link-baiting crap from my RSS feeds long ago, and if it weren't for Techmeme, I wouldn't have read this biased mess.
My 3G is safe from hitting the tech-trash heap for a little while longer.
multiple screens complex???? WTF?? You can add screens to Iphone...
http://www.techmeme.com/ sends reads browser info to show display... Android allows you to change your browser information to display it properly...
Facebook works fine on the droid... the browser redirects it to the touch site... Same crap... Twitroid rocks compared to twitterific on iphone.
Multitouch is a nice to have.... not a necessity.. Yes android is deficient. Android out of the box is not a multimedia phone.. But to compare it to windows 3.1 is juvenile... It might not be the iphone killer, but you can't deny that the openness of the platform will surpass iphone.
Google Integration alone will cinch for most business users... The android is the Iphone for Men
One note is that I thought I would like a keyboard, but realized that it is dead weight, the compromise of providing a flat enough keyboard leads to one that is useless. Especially since the voice recognition works so well.
what's your experience and thoughts on Droid vs. iPhone battery life. that beautiful screen and those background apps on Droid must be draining, and as they say, "there's no Moore's Law of battery life..."
also it's interesting that the US Droid includes Google Maps Navigation but not pinch-zoom multi-touch, and the Euro-equivalent Milestone includes the opposite; pinch-zoom but not Navigation. Navigation might be explained by map licensing issues, but pinch-zoom... any insight into that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAkCbMB_f90
If you want to compare the relative market success of Windows vs. Mac to Droid vs iPhone... then the more apt analogy is to say that iPhone has the market clout of Win 3.1 vs. the challenger brands of Droid and Mac.
My biggest annoyance w/ Android (which remains in Eclair, I believe) is that even though they're non-modal, notifications steal focus when they come in.
Oh, and the multitasking really needs UI work. Requiring 3rd party task-killers is just plain bad.
I prefer webOS's Home->swipe up method better, but since Android already uses the long-press on the Home button to bring up a task-switcher, ideally I'd like to be able to either drag the app icon from the switcher box outside (a la how the OS X Dock works for removal), or dragging to an "X", or being able to long press on the icon and choosing to kill the process.
Aaron: as ProfessionalGun touches upon, it's moreso battery-life issues than performance problems per se. Some apps don't behave in the most power-efficient way...
1) you blamed the Droid for "making you feel stupid" because how to zoom wasn't obvious/intuitive and that "iPhone never had this problem." You're used to the multi-touch approach - but are you sure the iPhone multi-touch is really "more intuitive" or is it just that you already knew about it? I know a number of first-time iPhone users who couldn't figure out how to zoom in on a web page until someone showed them the multi-touch strokes. The Droid method is different - and may or may not be better - but it ma not be "less intuitive" for someone who didn't already know the iPhone method.
2) You contrast Apple's fanfare with Verizon's lack of promotion. But Verizon's counterpart is not Apple - it's AT&T. Shouldn't you be comparing Apple's fanfare with Motorola/Google? - and Verizon with AT&T? Maybe Motorola and/or Google should have stepped up to the plate a little more...
3) You say the Droid/Version provides much better phone service than iPhone/AT&T but then seem to dismiss that as not important. For a lot of people, a cell phone should first be - a cell phone. iPhone is great as a pocket computer/internet device that - oh yea, it also lets you make phone calls... but for those whose primary purpose for having a cell phone is to make phone calls - and oh yea, some app/net access would be nice, too... iPhone may not be as good a choice. (Here in SF I'm getting pretty fed up with the increasing dropped calls my iPhone is giving me - and find myself wishing I had a better cell phone...)
I really did not like anything about the design of this this very unlovable phone, especially the flimsy keyboard. The iPhone is so well-designed, that I would not be suprised to see it display in MoMA one day. In comparison, the Droid's design is amateurish. You say some have called it "industrial". I call it plain ugly.
FYI - Your pie is burning in the oven, mr. ladyman.
Apps have to be approved -android wins
Customization without having to jailbreak - android wins
Google integration - android wins
Copy and paste from all apps -android wins
Intuitive interface - apple wins
Browser. Well multitouch rocks. The android browser is ok. Not the best. I use dolphin a 3rd party which gives me a firefox feel with gestures. Iphone stock wins
Long click. Android
Battery life - depends on usage. I have push enabled on 3g for my cliq running gmail twitdroid and google voice and with moderate web I get 10 hours. I have read that the 3gs iphone with 1/2 hour sync does about 12 hours. So this is very subjective. I won't have my droid until tomorrow and supposedly it is better than the cliq.
Having the option for a second battery -android wins
Apps as of now iphone wins because I lovev my itouch for reading kindle books, I'm sure they will release droid client
Mulitmedia - iphone wins. Yes it is more of a media phone out of the box but there are 3rd party apps for droid that are fine
Camera - iphone wins compared to droid but the hero and the cliq cameras rock. So this depends on hardware. I'm sure motorola will fix this.
2 different animals competing in the same space.
This was written on an android device
I'm getting my first android phone tomorrow (HTC Magic). I'd like to get a DROID, but they aren't available here it Aus, and I need a phone now :(
All the reasons you listed for developers liking Android are the reasons that I will never ever get an iPhone. I believe iPhones are still ahead in most regards, but will lose in the end.
Android is developing at such a rapid rate that its going to take a mamoth iPhone release to stop it in its track. ( you see what i just did there, reverse the comparison and things suddenly change).
So here sis a heading you can start working on now for future release:
"Can the iPhone ever reclaim its top spot from the Android Army?( iPhone 4 vs Android 3.0 )"
If you had zoomed out one step on the Android browser, it should have brought it back up to the top. If you had zoomed in just a bit on the iPhone, it should have caused it to drop down.
On Safari, when you are right on the border of the minimum width, it tends to get very jumpy. As individual words in the content area wrap due to width constraints, the menu bar will fall down and jump back up a lot.
iPhone has it's advantages for simplifying the OS, but it all depends on preference, and some OS or hardware will not cut it for some.
Much of what I've read about the iPhone hasn't impressed me, and yes, I like a physical keyboard, and I avoid AT&T like the plague.
My smartphone upgrade choices seem to be either a new Blackberry, or an Android based phone. Many people have warmed me off of Windows based phones.
I shall keep my ears and eyes open.
One small point; there is no Facebook app for the Palm Pre and the Twitter apps are fairly rudimentary at this stage. Still, I really like my Palm Pre (after having had an iPhone 2G and 3G.)
And I have to agree, Droid is sooo ugly!
i'm currently using the blackberry storm with Verizon and like it, but i'm am looking at the droid.
i'm a visiting nurse in the inner city of boston and i can't afford dropped calls re: the health of my patients. i like having the internet to look up medical information and droid seems to respond better than the storm. there are sites via medical/drug companies that have great teaching videos for patients but how they project on a small screen and the visual acuity of my patients, this where i can see apple succeeding, but on a better network.
also VZ has a great mobile insurance plan that replaces your mobile right away if your mobile is damage, lost or stolen, for a visiting nurse that is crucial selling point, and i get vip treatment at VZ.
please apple make my cycle of apple products complete by coming over to Verizon, and rule mobile universe .
**********Boycott Apple iphones till they become more network wide********
The end.
One thing that puzzles me is the constant harping on AT&T. I guess I'm lucky, but I have NO problems with dropped calls or poor quality on my iPhone (I got the original in Sept. 2007 and now have a 3GS). I came from Verizon and my reception/quality/network availability are at least equal to Verizon's.
I know there are differences based on where you are, but it seems to be drastic based on comments I see.
The Droid is a phone designed by engineers for engineers. The iPhone's position is safe and secure.
The facebook app annoys me, it's missing a good deal of functionality.
I've only had problems logging into the facebook site. I tried it because the app sucks so much. My banking sites work fine though. So out of two sites that needed logging in, one worked and one didn't.
iDon't use twitter.
iDon't care about how well Droid was marketed and how much demand there is for it. That doesn't have anything to do with how much I enjoy my phone.
The out of the box experience isn't as simple as the iPhone but the majority of functions are two finger presses away and very easy to learn.
Haven't tested out youtube videos yet.
I'm not missing multitouch (universal) support. It was really simple for me to learn how to zoom in and out for any program. I pressed the screen and a zoom button popped up. It didn't seem "hidden" to me.
The camera interface does suck. I liked the one for my non-smartphone better. It never crashed on me though; I just don't like the interface.
I'm sure that even the author knows that the title is grealy exaggerated. It gets people's attention as it got mine.
oh another point just how many apps did the iphone have when it came out??? hmmm.
This screen is incredible! The sound is sweet! Very very fast and not difficult to navigate at all! I'm coming from a dumbphone so have been forced to use horrendous phone software for years. I am like millions of others. All of us dumbphone users must look at Android 2.0 with shock and awe. I'm serious man.... this is a quantum leap. Obviously, I am speaking beyond your iPhone comparison since I am not an iPhone user (not an option on verizon and would never downgrade my service for a sexy phone when i can just have the iPod Touch).
And you have a right to compare the Motorola Droid to the iPhone since the ad campagin started the jabs against Apple... which I think was a brilliant brilliant marketing strategy despite getting some crude negative reviews that point out how the Droid is not an iPhone Killer (not that the ad campaign ever said it was but the angle is naturally picked up by journalists/bloggers). Any press is good press i think when it comes to new phones. It's hard to stand out when so many are equally crappy and don't come close to the iPhone. The Droid has been a hot trending topic for a solid week. Total success as far as marketing goes.
Robert, I won't try to make the Droid sound better than the iPhone. We both know that in some ways it is and in some ways it is not. Neither of us need to emphasize the pros and cons in order to be excited about new competition in the smart phone arena. Both Android and some of these new phones from Motorola and HTC are very cool and worthy competitors that many many people will be happy to own for a while, especially those of us that are not iPhone users or even blackberry users.
Regarding the battery cover.... I have the opposite effect on mine. It is very hard to remove the battery cover both without the battery and with the battery inserted. I cannot imagine the problem you described happening on mine unless something breaks. I would have yours looked at and maybe get a replacement cover or phone. It could be a potential recall issue unless its just a case of lemon devices.
Cheers,
Sull
Today, the tech markets are COMPLETELY different. The desktop computer market of the 80’s and 90’s was an enterprise market where the MIS drones were driven to purchase computers through well established relationships with the likes of IBM sales reps. Later, Microsoft happily took the baton handoff and catered to that market well. The home consumer market was a complete after thought in any real terms. The things that Apple did well, MIS drones don't care about, like user experience and design, etc. And MIS departments would happily purchase cobbled together boxes of beige computing crap (read: Wintel / Dell) because their constant troubles and crashes kept them in their dreary jobs.
Today, thanks primarily to the Internet, technology markets (and especially the mobile phone market) are largely consumer driven. Consumers have a completely different set of priorities. They decide what products they like; they don’t have an MIS manager shove a Blackberry or crap Windows box on them and force them to use it. And because they don’t have an MIS manager on hand to help them, the devices need to be easy to use, polished, fun and JUST WORK. These are things that Apple excels at when it comes to digital gadgets.
Apple is (and always has been, frankly) a consumer company, driven by the notion of empowering individuals with information tools. This is it’s time to shine. Consumers want something that works. Not a cobbled together beige box solution like the Motorola/Android/Google mutant offspring called Droid. Consumers only settled for less in their past with their crappy Windows boxes because they didn’t have a choice and didn’t know better. Today they do know better and that is why they are NOT buying Pre’s, NOT buying BB Storms, and won’t be buying Droid’s either. They are going to buy iPhones because iPhones delight the consumer on every possible level: from product design to user experience to branding. And the latter asset is a weapon that Apple wields with such force that practically no one will have a chance of catching up. Consumers globally love the Apple brand and want to be associated with it. Droid? Android? Google? Well, maybe the geeky dorks who read this blog proudly brandish those logos. But the real people who make up 99% of the human race LOVE the Apple logo and those Apple commercials with their shiny colors and up-beat pop tunes.
In a consumer market, it is NEVER good to be loved by the geeks. It means your product will surely fail in the broader marketplace. Android just has too much developer lust around it. It will go nowhere. And fast.
My impression is that people are drawn to Android/Droid because it is open, customizable, free from the 'shackles' of Apple - more of an embrace of a mix between ideology and superior tech specs.
Geeks like us talk about which is the better platform - iPhone, Android, Palm, Windows Mobile.
Everyone else, though, doesn't care about the platform - they buy phones, not platforms. I find it hard to imagine the average person pondering on what platform they like, and then go into see what phones support which platforms. It takes a lot of research to figure out what phones support Windows Mobile 6.5 or Andriod 2.0. It's kinda like researching which video card is better than the other - if you're not on top of it, you're going to get lost easily.
With iPhone and the Palm Pre, the choice is rather simple. I want an iPhone - I can pick one up without having to research which makers and models support iPhone OS and so forth.
We're getting lost discussing platforms and losing sight of the average consumer, who really could care less what platform it runs on, or whether some developer complains that their app never got approved.
That's what the average consumer will latch onto. It's going to be fun to see what these companies come up with!
The onscreen keyboard is almost as bad as the physical.
Multimedia is awful on the Droid.
And while some phones will obviously ship with more storage in the future-that doesn't help the people who just bought Droids and are unable to even download any apps bigger than that tiny space. Even my launch day iPhone can hold more stuff.
High quality playback and brilliant screen: The Droid by Motorola has a brilliant 3.7 inch screen with noticeably high resolution and crisp colors: 854x480 pixels with 16M colors. The YouTube App on Android 2.0 plays videos in HQ automatically when you are on wifi, bringing the best possible YouTube watching experience to a mobile device. And if you are out of wifi range, you can still watch videos in HQ by selecting "Menu -> More -> Watch in high quality."
As for your web browser not displaying correctly, I am unsure what 2.0 did to the Droid, but on my G1 I can go to menu > more > settings > uncheck auto-fit pages and that problem was fixed.
If you really want multi-touch you can root your phone. I've had multi touch on my G1 for a year now.
Amazing to have options isn't it? You call yourself a tech-blogger...
this also speaks to the issue of the app market place comparisons that really dont matter as much as some try to argue. if you remove all the duplicate apps and then remove all the low quality apps and then remove all the apps that are no more useful than a website is and then remove all the apps that are too niche and suddenly you are left with the core, popular, useful, quality apps that most to all users give a shit about... And the number comparisons across all mobile app market places will soon be very comparable. If you remove the entertainment/games which many people are not buying a smartphone for... then it becomes even more noticable how silly this argument is. Sure games are cool but really.... look at the userbase of adults and figure out how important mobile gaming is to them. Go ahead and do that research. Games are gravy.
Android is going to be one of the most pervasive mobile OSs out their... do you really think developers are going to ignore this? No way. Over the next year, their will be much focus on developing for Android so all this hoopla about 100k apple approved apps is very Moot! Those who put so much weight on this are those who really are not interested in seeing Android succeed and are clinging on to anything to point out the current shortfalls to date and ignoring the near future and reality of this worthy competitor to apple mobile products.
i don't understand why apple customers feel threatened by competition when that very competition makes all products strive to be better.
i'm disappointed in this blog post by robert scoble for the short-sightedness that it bellows. robert, you love technology and are one of the kings of early adopting geeks. and you have a right to post initial out-of-the-box thoughts and it's probably beneficial... so you may know this but what i hope to see is some follow-up thoughts that are more fair and balanced taking into consideration more variables... some of which i mention here.
cheers.
not an excuse, just the reality of how MOST people use their phone. MOST people will not have dozens or hundreds of apps concurrently installed. Be realistic! Look at blackberry users. Remind yourself of how many people still use dumb feature phones who will make a jump to a smart phone but wont have the mindset to use more than a small subset of apps.
point is, the 256mb internal space is not a product failing especially once apps leverage the sd card accordingly. more is better but i just dont think it will matter much taking both the sd card and cloud storage into consideration.
"But since all the Droid fans have been building this thing up to be the iPhone killer, they are not willing admit this thing can'st stand in the shadow of the iPhone."
i dont think android fans really started this iphone killer shit. their is no such thing as an iphone killer. the hotness of this headline is created by bloggers and journalists looking for traffic.
the ad campaign jabbed at apple and i like that aggressiveness since it completely succeeded in getting buzz and the viral effect. thats what they are paid to do and they did a great job (now have many more at&t and apple bashing commercials for holiday season). apple does it to microsoft all the time. part of the game. but what android fans called this an iphone killer? not the bloggers i have read... not even the android focused bloggers. the people worth reading have been very fair and balanced and mention all the shortcomings that you yourself talk about. you just happen to be one who fell into the iphone killer meme and are offended because you are emotionally attached to a piece of hardware and brand (thats another topic, maybe for a health related blog).
"Android is creating a mess for itself and this thing will become so fragmented its not funny."
dont be concerned. it'll all be fine. it's ok. really, it is.
"bla bla bla i'm an apple fan boy bla bla bla jesus phone is my friend bla bla must protect steve bla bla must defend my beloved apple bla bla...."
no comment.
kettle...black...
Keep burring your head in the sand.
No. Android's value for the handset makers comes from two sources: the ability to specialize and focus on handset design, and the Google brand itself.
It makes very little sense for handset designers to attempt any significant modification to Android because 1.) why do what other people are doing for free (application development) 2.) why compete against a company that specializes software development 3.) why risk Google leveraging their brand against you because you've made undesirable modifications to Android that Google perceives as a risk to its brand?
There will not be any "fragmentation of the OS." Instead of modified Android builds rolling out on handsets, you'll see carrier based Android App packages, and those will marketed alongside the handset.
PRE-REQUISITE:
1. Rooted your phone
2. You created the FAT32 / EXT2 combo partitions
NOTE:
I used Paragon partition Manager 10 ($40) for the easy way but you can do it a bit harder way for free on your phone itself without a PC by following http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?...
INSTRUCTION:
1. Download the LucidRem Modified Update Below to the MicroSD on the FAT32 portion (Assuming you've already created a Fat32 / Ext 2 partition on your microSD) and rename it "update"
JFv1.5 = http://files.lucidrem.us/_fd.php?fil...REM/upda...
OTA Radio if your phone doesn't already have this radio version (to check on your phone its under settings > About phone > Baseband version) = http://files.lucidrem.us/_fd.php?fil..._22_19_2...
2. Flash your G1 (At this point I performed a Clean Wipe right before flashing but its your choice)
3. After flashing and the phone boots up open the terminal app on the phone and type in the following commands:
su
Press Enter
lucid app
Press Enter
lucid data
Press Enter
lucid dalvik
Press Enter
4. Reboot your G1 and your done.
*In your storage settings your phone internal memory should be from 70-74 MB.The apps will automatically go to your SD when you DL them.
LucidREM please don't be mad that i linked your modified update.zip in my thread and Thank you.
Yea, this is user friendly alright. Lets be real, this app is only for geeks, not the common user. If this is Androids answer to installing over 256MB of Apps, they have a long long way to go.
I could hand the iPhone to my mom and she wouldnt know WTF to do with it. Sorry your analogy sucks
How is that a failing of Android? Are you arguing that it should _ignore_ web standards?
sure the battery door is there, but at least you can replace the battery, and not have to go to an apple store or set an appointment when your battery starts dieing.
GUI will change, updates will be released, android will flood the market. Apple will return to what it does best, a niche product for the technologically docile.
Apple FORCES you to use iTunes to import your already bought music via iTunes to a Apple iPhone and its DRM'd which means Droid cant import it.
I DONT like to be forced, do you?
:D
Looks like designing to make the user feel smart and empowered is just as important as designing for utility.
I opened it in IE and it looked the same as my droid.
I agree about facebook app, but if I go there with droids browser it shows everything I need, and just today there was a new facebook about out there, haven't tried that yet.
the bottom line. The droid UI can be changed to anything you want, any way you want. if you cant find something you like,you can make it. how is that not better in literally every way, than the iphone and... the pre? surely your joking.
However, the moral of the story of the bra was, dont install the rubber cover backwards (the author admits as much at the end). In the instance of just one of your criticisms, dont multi-gesture when theres a button and then blame it on the phone. it might be the phone's fault for not delivering multi-touch, and their solution may not be as good as multi-touch, but youre the one who tried to zoom incorrectly.
Nobody seriously believes that Apple will be complacent about the success the iPhone has had to date. In just a couple of short years since the original Phone, Apple have responded to consumer demands in terms of price, capability, developers and more without having any serious competition barking at their heels to motivate them to do so. Now that serious competition is arriving in the form of Android, Pre and others it's going to get even more interesting.
The global market at stake is even larger than even the laptop/desktop market. Hopefully we'll see much more choice from a variety of manufacturers and not be subjected to a market dominating so-called standard such as Microsoft managed to build in the PC market. The pie is huge. Even a relatively small slice is a massive market opportunity. Let's just hope that nobody (Apple, Google or anybody else) gets too dominant a share and kills competitiveness and innovation as we move into the future.
here is an interesting read about the subject: http://draconiansam.wordpress.com/
I know you are a social media tycoon, so I suppose you value the twitter app over call quality, but FAIL?
Additionally, almost every criticism you have is addressable, even after the phone is delpoyed. Better Apps are comming, mult-touch will also follow, the camera can recieve firmware, the browser will improve, and who the F cares about in store signage?
These are fixable items on an open platform on the best network with a phone that MULTI-TASKS.
Granted the form of the phone is something a ggek or engineer is apt to like more than the common man, but who is your audience anyway? It ain't my mom!
but i don't like conceding the that Design is one that would appeal ONLY to Geeks or Engineers.
This is a fallacy. Imagine a Mercenary using the Droid over the lovely, curvy iPhone. Granted, I don't like Blackwater types either, so let's go with an agent of the Secret Service. Or some dude at an NFL game.
I wouldn't necessarily make this point, but Verizon and Motorola are obviously including this angle in their marketing (making a play for the tough guy.. even the iTough Guys..)
I have a G1, my co-worker has a Droid, and another has an iPhone 3gs.. next to the Droid, the iPhone looks like an egg (maybe its the powder-blue skin..) And he does NOT look cool or stylish when he has to shut down his browser in order to chat (he even tries to hide this at lunch)
The iPhone has three major features, the Phone , iPod and the Internet and they work very well. The Phone might can be argued as less superior because of AT&T but as long as I'm connected and can do what my heart so ever please, I'm set.
The keyboard is nothing to knock, physical vs software/virtual , because I've used both physical and virtual and I would never use a physical keyboard phone again.
The iPhone is a consumer device that does everything a consumer would like and that is what makes it successful.
Your second issue with zooming is a bit of a learning curve, yes, but it is very easy and fairly precise. Simply double tap on the area you wish to zoom in to. No need to search for anything in the corner.
Regarding your web page issue, none noted here. Everything is in the perfect spot on the page.
Regarding the camera, I admit this is an area that needs a little work. It takes amazing outdoor pictures and adequate indoor pictures (not sure why we would care if it wasn't quite up to our digital camera that cost us as much as the phone that just so happens to include one) and I have never had a single crash. Perhaps the phone didn't like the subject you were photographing?
This looks like someone looking for their minute in the limelight bashing what would otherwise be an amazing new addition to the smartphone market.
You hear that, its the tide of change... deal with it!
My joke is, the Droid is like working out with nautilus. Sure you're in the gym and maybe you even breaking a sweat but it really doesn't count as working out. Blackberry is like working out with free weights. Lean, mean and efficient.
Multi touch enabled stateside:
http://www.guysfromqueens.com/?p=765
The very same link you posted about the bra problem had an update saying that it was actual operator error (in the form of a incorrectly installed case) that created the keyboard problem.
The android marketplace is definitely not fully matured as of yet so naturally the apps are less developed but more on this later.
Full disclosure here:
I am a somewhat geeky engineer so I probably am just as biased as your article in my analysis but I have spent a fairly large amount of time reading criticisms and information pertaining to all 3 of these phones plus a few in relatively good depth.
Hardware: I have had some time now to abuse and use my droid and considering I had a starcom released G'zone at one point to put up with the outdoor activity centered abuse I deliver to most mobiles I honestly can't understand how you are dissatisfied with the exterior. The battery cover issue I have yet to experience so I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it is more operator error or perhaps defective. As for the actual Processing hardware there is little to be annoyed with. The software runs very smoothly on nearly all pages even multitasking many windows at once which I noticed you failed to address here. The battery life seems to have come under fire but once again a bit of light research (similiar to the multi touch disabling) solves that via a task manager app. Furthermore there is an onboard taks manager which allows direct management as well as an onboard battery browser which shows which apps are eating how much of the battery.
Apps: While there is definitely a bit of a void in apps compared to apple I hate the idea of paying developers for software when it could all just be open source and free. While this may have been balked at several years ago the popularity of mozilla firefox and it's enormous library of free open source addons pays homage to the success of non-commercial products.
Bundled software: While the UI is quite complex and overwhelming I felt google did an excellent job syncing gmail functions with the phone. The majority of reviews I have read generally complain about the lack of an apple like itunes sync, I feel that the sync is there, it just doesn't automatically scan you to match the online service you have chosen, instead it assumes google (probably b/c you bought a google made product) and proceeds accordingly. I did notice a gaping hole in the comparison concerning the free turn by turn nav which is bundled with the droid. That alone is easily worth the $200 for me personally.
While I appreciate a critical point of view on this phone (I spent days searching for weak points before purchasing a droid) it would be nice to be able to find real criticisms that can't be fixed by a simple google search. The fundamental problem in the aesthetics of the phone (both hardware and software) that most reviews seem to ignore is that there is no "ideal phone" for anyone b/c of the existence of markets. The droid is not a phone designed for the same market as the iphone and as a result it doesn't behave as a copycat of the iphone but rather as it's own platform and product. This platform is modeled very differently from apple's when you consider that google has had than almost diametrically opposed approach to products and services as apple. While Apple DOES do an amazing marketing job it typically allows this one skill to override all other aspects of the services or products it offers culminating in an online music store which wants $1 for every music track or $5 for every app of a $200 charge for a replacement battery at the "apple store" for any of its units. While this may work in the short term (huge aesthetic consumer basis) in the long term it is suicide for the simple reason that hardcore consumers define a market. I have not personally had an android based phone prior to this but I have followed the development of the OS since it's inception b/c of the promise of open source it offered. Googlemaps nav was done at a HUGE cost to google however it will now draw legions of consumers to it's products simply based on the fact that there is no subscription fee. Allowing the open source development of apps does the exact same thing; why hire dev. teams to oversee every app at huge expense to the consumer when you can just motivate the consumer to do the work for you. While this is a system that doesn't fit into the simple marketing plans apple excels at it ultimately nets you the entire market or at least a very large share of it as evidenced by the PC industry.
While the droid and indeed android is not for everyone at the moment due to complexity and lack of a idiotproof interface/app process it demonstrates the same essential ideals (open source software, true customization, admin levle functionality and access) which apple failed to grasp in the mid 1980's when microsoft was able to begin building it's way to more than 10 times the market share in computers. I am quite sure in 2-5 years spinoffs of this phone and its OS (android) will be out which will be catered to the less tech savvy typical iphone user (don't tell them that though since they THINK they are tech savvy for buying an iphone) which will begin tearing sales away from iphones. In the meantime I am ecstatic that I am able to buy and play with the equivalent of a poweruser level windows NT workstation in the phone industry
(read NOT windows 3.1) from a company which doesn't believe in license fees when the industry standard is a more locked than ever apple macbook which charges per installation to support it's own content filtering. Aesthetics are FAR from everything for everyone.
There are several things I feel like you're missing though. I'll keep this short.
1. Multitouch is enabled in the kernel, but they software isn't taking advantage of it just yet. Why? I have no idea, but I have a custom ROM on my G1, and Loccy's browser (which supports multitouch) and I still use the onscreen Zoom keys because I usually don't want to use two hands to browse a web page. That's just me, but hey, I can see a lot of people agreeing with that.
2. Try PicSay Pro. It's a few bucks from the Market and is an outstanding image manipulation app. I've also been using Adobe's new Photoshop app, which is pretty amazing for the low, low cost of nothing.
As far as things I agree with -
1. The camera does suck and I'm not convinced it's the hardware as much as the software, because it's sucks on ALL Android phones equally. It's the shutter speed. No matter how hard I try, I can't take a clear photo of a moving object. This is a problem with a lot of mobile devices, but it's worse on the Android phones I've used.
2. The physical keyboard on the Droid is sub-par. I'm a G1 owner, and I've been spoiled. The G1 keyboard may not be perfect, but it's the best I've used so far.
So I think you were off base with a couple of points, but on spot with a few others.
You should mention multitasking, though. That's the biggest strong point of the Android platform. Sure, Palm does it best, but Android is still doing what the iPhone has NEVER done, and that's a plus. I don't know about you, but I love being able to receive Tweets and IMs while I'm browsing the web or texting. It's great.
And, you aren't entirely correct, as others have pointed out here long before your comment. Highest quality youtube is DEFAULT when you are wireless, and NOT when you are 3G. This is arguably a reasonable position to take, in terms of feature design. If you had real journalistic instincts you might have tried to find out if Verizon requested this (not sure if you've claimed these instincts, but you do seem to try to come off as a bit of a tech journalist)
iPhone and Pre are nice but so lacking....
I won't be visiting your blog again.
Android rocks, don't get me wrong. I am constantly wrestling with using my G1 or my iPhone as my primary phone. It seems I switch back every few months. Then find reasons to hop back onto the other. If I could find an Android powered phone that looked as good as the iPhone, that performed as well, and if the app experience was just as good (or better?) I'd switch in a heartbeat.
Again, excellent review. Glad somebody had the guts to say what they were really thinking about it.
Then the rest of the industry caught up and eclipsed them by light years.
The same will happen here. Apple's(JOBS) business model was successful in the beginning , but ultimately fatally flawed. The iphone will go the way of the macintosh. and in a few years people like you will still be spewing the superiority of the iphone in spite of it's single digit market-share.
Fear not, apple users will still be "different" and "creative" due to the fact that they choose to use a platform that has little compatiblity or incentives for software developers.
For what it's worth, I love my Droid and I don't think it's better or worse than an iPhone, just different.
How about google maps with turn by turn? HUGE!!!! Thats an awesome feature.
Who cares about facebook and twitter apps? I know people are obsessed with those "time-wasters", but some of us actually want a smartphone that does what a smart phone is SUPPOSED to do.
I guess what I'm saying is, I'm tired of smug iphone users, who think that there will never be another design worthy of competing with it. I'm not an iphone hater. My personal opinion is ITS OKAY FOR THERE TO BE MORE THAN ONE AWESOME PHONE ON THE MARKET.I enjoy the pros and cons of each. It lets the consumer choose a product that fits their needs.
Don't hate, appreciate.
If I want iPhone apps I use my iPod. This way the battery is used up there rather then on my phone! BTW your description of how the browser works is not reproducible.
To start with the issue of the battery case, I am guessing your hardware is broken out of the box, I bought two, one for me, one for my wife and the battery case is snug as a bug. The idea of the battery in and of itself is actually appealing to me. I was sick to death of my iPod Touch battery dieing out at every conference or event I attended. If I want I can now carry a back up, but frankly the battery life on this product seems amazing. I also appreciate the fact that I can upgrade this phone from 16 GB of memory to 32 GB by buying a chip instead of a new piece of hardware altogether.
In regards to some of the apps, inparticularly facebook, lets keep in mind, the iPhone facebook app was essentially crap until the 3.0 version came out. Android developers needed a reason and a cause to make a really slick facebook app. In my opinion now they have it.
Is Droid perfect? Nope. Will it be the iPhone killer? Nope, and I am so sick of the "killer" idea anyway. But Droid provides the best alternative on the best network for mobile hand held devices.
That must mean you think it's great since Linux is used all over. Even Hollywood uses it to render movies. But that is another discussion.
I think superiority of one phone over another is based on your location and the service you have. Where I live, anything with AT&T is going to suck since it isn't available. I a bigger city, you may get better service with them and the IPhone would be the best choice for you. For me, a different phone is the best phone for me and I will consider it the better phone than the IPhone. You have your opinion and are welcome to it. I have mine. I get tired of people trying to ram their opinion down my throat with a pompous attitude. I have seen that a lot in this discussion from both sides. Unfortunately, I usually hear it more from the Apple crowd than any other.
I have heard the issues with dropped calls from a number of sources. Personally, if I was trying to do business with someone and my calls kept dropping, I would be looking for another service. And if I was on the other end of those dropped calls, I'd end up telling the person that I would be looking elsewhere if they can't even stay connected to me.
I'm sure that the IPhone will get an even better reputation than it has now, when it gets on a service that is more reliable everywhere than it is with AT&T. I am not an Apple lover and can get into a discussion why I'm not. But that is for a different venue. I am not "settling" for what is available either. I'm not crazy about the IPhone. I don't take it seriously as a business phone. Probably because of the advertising. It may be a great one but it is advertised more like an over-inflated IPod touch than a serious phone.
I may eventually end up getting an Android based phone. But not until it has been out a little longer. For now, I will just continue to use my BB because it does what I need it to do.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/12/facebook-app...
Personally, I would have kept my G1 when I made the move over to AT&T if I was able to use 3g with that phone. I have an iPhone and it works...even jailbroken and fully customized I still prefer and miss quite a bit from the Android camp.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/12/facebook-app...
Personally, I would have kept my G1 when I made the move over to AT&T if I was able to use 3g with that phone. I have an iPhone and it works...even jailbroken and fully customized I still prefer and miss quite a bit from the Android camp.
You can view youtube in higher res.. You just have to select it in the options..
If you want multi touch to view your photos there is an app you could download..
The battery door does fall off which is def a failure in design.
And they really need to work on the Facebook UI..
The battery door: hadn't heard this anywhere else, have had no problems with mine, and if he thinks Apple is somehow better for not having a replaceable battery, i think that's crazy. The fact that he thinks it's more important to have a "smooth" back of the phone than to be able to replace your battery makes me distrust his priorities immediately.
The browser: unlike with the iphone, if you don't like the google browser you can just download another one. There are a couple that are supposed to be quite good.
youtube in HD: hit the menu button, then the High Quality button. Doesn't sound that hard to me... (hardly a "Major fail")
Facebook: I'm sure a better app will come out. And also "Most people will see this and say Droid sucks"? I'd like to see that backed up. Somehow, i'm guessing facebook is not most people's #1 priority from their phone.
Twitter: I just don't give a shit.
Keyboard: I love it, it's made me sooo much happier than i was typing on the ipod-touch. "Yes, people gripe about not having a physical keyboard, but no keyboard makes the device a simpler and better-thought-out product." You know what's a simple product? A normal phone. If you want that, get it. If you want a phone that does a lot of shit, it's not going to be as simple. Deal with it.
No multitouch: He's absolutely right. The droid in Europe has multitouch, but google turned it off in the US at apple's request. You can hack it, but I totally agree, that's just bad.
Camera: I think the software is somewhat poor, but again, you can always just get a better camera app. Not something you can do if you dislike the iphone camera (which of course, doesn't have a flash).
Anyway, he keeps mentioning that engineers love this phone. I certainly do. I'm happy to have a little extra complexity in exchange for a lot more customizability, extensibility, and power. However, I agree that for people who don't want to make that trade (and i don't hold it against them), the iphone is a better product. I'm not one of those people who says the Droid is "better" than the iphone. They're just different products, and are good for different people. If your dad is worried about having a particularly complicated device, he should get the iphone. If he wants to have a phone that he can do the most with, he should get a droid.
One more note on this review: He cherry-picks the best features from the Pre and the iPhone, and then says that makes the Droid bad. This is, obviously, not a fair comparison. If he wanted to do a real comparison, he should have picked one or the other. Also, the fact that developers prefer it is really important - when they say that they are able to push apps faster, and they can do it free, that's going to mean that in the future, new apps will come out first for the droid, and only later (if at all) for the iphone. He makes no mention of the fact that apps can control almost every part of the droid experience - they can change the text-messaging, the phone, the camera, the keyboard, the settings, and on and on, none of which iphone apps can do.
and one final gripe: "The battery door on the back proves my point." Who the fuck is this guy? Does he actually think that picking this one very questionable item "proves [his] point" that it's poorly engineered? He should think a little harder about what "proof" entails.
Awesome features of the droid:
complete app access to the abilities of the phone.
huge awesome screen
better power-management abilities (actually important to me)
much better network
physical keyboard
google voice
voice search
awesome navigation system (with voice search)
always having a menu button, not just a single "home" button (context-specific). Also the constantly-present "back" and "search" buttons.
replaceable battery.
Removable sd-card storage that can also act as a 16gb (or 32) flash drive, because you can put any file you feel like on the phone by mounting it as a drive.
I am curious to see you backup your claim regarding "handset makers", who apparently feel they can make MORE money by putting out BROKEN PHONES that won't run most apps in the market
You still didn't address the second part of my response, guess that means you don't have an excuse. Well done.
And I agree with the 256MB thing. It worries me that the in-phone memory is the only place to store apps (though the apps can then draw on the SD memory as well, as meme points out below). It's a complicated situation, because if you store apps on the removable memory, then when you switch out SD cards, you'll lose the use of the apps. So, if I had one SD card that I stored a bunch of movies on, and one that I stored a bunch of music on (something you of course couldn't do on Apple), then I might run into problems if my apps were stored on the SD card. That said, you should be able to choose where you want any given app to live.
You may be right that Apple can store apps on the full storage device, that would make sense, since it doesn't have removable storage. However, it really doesn't matter, since there are only 4 or 5 apps (of apple's choice) that can run in the background in the first place.
And FYI, i tire of this conversation, so you will likely not see another post on this from me. Of course, feel free to continue on your own. It looks like you have no problems "translating" my side of the conversation without me.
the iPhone has 256MB of RAM. This is not the same as "app memory" you keep trotting out. Applications installed onto the iPhone must all be packed into the same "app memory", which leads to very large application installations.
After this, the CPU must push the app into RAM, which is the same on iPhones and the typical android device.
If you look at many games on a PC, you'll see that executables are often quite small, and game data is loaded from elsewhere on the drive. This is analagous to small footprint in Android app memory, with data downloaded to the SD. This is exactly what i'm doing with my next game. Game data often dwarfs the needs of executable code, in terms of storage.
The G1 has 8GB, which i work with, the Droid has 16GB on its SD. Obviously i won't use but a fraction of this. I'm not concerned. You keep trying to speak for Android developers, but you've got it wrong, sir.
As a developer, however, i am hesitant to deal with Apple's app-rejection process, buy up all their hardware and pay for more expensive dev licenses, and shudder at the thought of refunds being possible 90 days out from point-of-purchase.
It seems to me that what really drives your preference here is twitter. I find this hard to relate to, as I've really never understood the whole twitter fad (or maybe it's here to stay, hard to tell sometimes). For what it's worth, I have a coworker who's returning the droid for the same reason. So if twitter is the most important thing about your phone (and it seems that it is at least one of the most important things), I think it's clear that you have a better experience on the iPhone, and by all means, that makes it the product for you. Especially if hard-to-click twitter links are more important to you than dropped calls (not judging, just hard for me to understand).
It just bugged me that from my perspective, this review didn't seem like it was an actually fair assessment of one phone vs. another, and as such, it was a departure from the other reviews i've read. It seems to me that when a reviewer honestly tries to look at the advantages and disadvantages of the droid vs. the iphone, they come to the conclusion that each one has more strengths than weaknesses, but each has some of both. In your review, you seemed like you wanted to get the droid's strengths out of the way early (while ignoring many of them), and then focus entirely on its weaknesses. You gave the iphone a pass on everything, and just used palm as a stand-in wherever the iphone was weak, but you still wanted to go after the droid. I think that's why (as you mentioned in your next post) many of your commenters thought you weren't fair to the droid. I'm one of them. (Though note that I'm not one of those who says that the "droid completely beats the iPhone". I'll leave that up to each person's preference.)
And I'm guessing you're going to drop the droid soon (if you haven't already), but if for some reason you have a change-of-heart, I would recommend bringing it back to the store, and asking for one without a bummy battery case. Sounds like you just got a bad piece of hardware.
Yes there is. It's next to the space bar on the left. . Sounds like you really spent some time with the phone.
It turns out that the Motorola version of the Android does have 4 rows of keys, dedicated number and "@" keys.
The CLIQ requires you to press alt to get the "@" and alt-number to get the number.
It also has the issue of the back falling off, the bad scrolling, the poorly designed desktop, and the fact that it by default goes to some weird website instead of the home page you set it to.
Costco stumbled on this one, and so did I for trusting them without looking. Let the buyer beware, not all 'droids are the same, and it's probably better to wait for them to settle into commodity mode.
too bad you can't be sued, or forced to take an IQ test
really disappointed in you, especially when i saw tweetards mindlessly RT'ing this drivel.
The physical keyboard on the Droid is much easier for me to use than the software keyboards on the Droid/Touch. There is no comparison. I think that the users who complain about the keyboard are comparing it to a blackberry.
I also think the notification system on the Droid is much better than the iPhone. The indicator LED has significant benefit which is rarely mentioned.
The things I don't like are the lack of bluetooth voice dialing, and the fact that the Android 2.0 is buggy. If Google/Moto fix these two issues I will be very happy with the device.
For me, the ability to hold an call is about 100x more important than pinch to zoom.
I haven't had any problems with the battery door on my phone. I appreciate the replaceable battery, memory card, and standard micro-USB interface for charging and data communications.
and 1499.00 for a laptop that for the most part all I will do with is store pictures and music and browse the web on... My $228.00 netbook with Windows 7 is just fine thanks. as for engineering every phone I have ever bought something broke on eventually, trackballs, battery doors, screens, keyboards.... friggin buy insurance, and in the end you will buy another device in 18 months to 2 years anyway and who the hell knows what platform it will be on probably WinDroiMacAva instaled by the Obama office of technical superiority.
Oh and as for Motorola phones, I have a 5 year old razor that still works flawlessly wich is more than I can say for the drawer full of treo's, samsungs, stack of LG's, and assorted nokia dungpiles.
By the device that makes you feel good. I wanted a 220.00 Nav portable for travelling. I got a great Navigation device instead called a Droid and it includes a browser and a whole bunch of cool stuff.....
I have been a verizon customer for about as long as i can remember primarily for the service. i've never owned an iphone but i do have the ipod touch.
i recently purchased the Droid and love it. Yes, there are some things i like better on my touch, but overall i think the droid is pretty amazing.
There are a few things i wanted to comment on considering your review.
1) I have not had any problems with the battery cover. actually, i have a heck of a time getting it off.
2) you don't have to use the physical keyboard if you don't want to. it has an optical keyboard as well when horizontal.
3) I have had no problems with the web browser. maybe it's certain sites, but the ones i frequent work fine.
4) You Tube. There is a function to change the picture quality. you can view videos in HD.
5) i agree with you on the facebook and twitter apps. they need to improve them.
6) My understanding is the camera had some issues at release, but are working correctly now and a permanent fix update is due out in a couple weeks.
7) i know that many of the apps available on the Droid are not as good or they don't have as many options, but considering that apple has been at this for quite some time it should be expected. i believe that you will see an increase in quality apps for the droid in the near future.
Thank you again,
Spencer Campbell
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/04/motorola-dro...
Of course the iPhone has more mature apps, it's been out longer. Verizon didn't advertise the release? Seriously? Have you turned on a tv recently?
The camera date-focus bug fixed itself, and will be patched on the 11th reportedly. The droid is not perfect, but it is a great product IMO.