iPhone vs Android

[Daredevil]

Since we have both Android and Apple iPhone fanboys here, I thought a nice thread to fight it out is a necessary

I start this with this article

Apple iPhone 5: Why this Samsung user isn't switching from Android

As Apple was mid-way through announcing the new iPhone, I was certain that chief executive Tim Cook had something surprising up his metaphorical sleeve. He'd announced that the iPhone 5 would be taller, lighter, thinner and faster – but none of that was news to an Apple fan who had seen the leaks online. The press conference, inexplicably, moved on to talk about a new version of iTunes and new iPods – surely, as the world's interest waned, Cook was about to say "There's one last thing I didn't mention about the iPhone 5." The wow-factor was inevitable.

But nothing came. The iPhone, when I got one in my hands, was indeed the best Apple has ever made – perfectly weighted, its black colour the perfect matte with the ideal texture. By making the screen half an inch bigger, Apple has added an extra row of icons, meaning the all-important apps are now easier to get to from a homescreen. The original iPhone was a brilliant idea and the iPhone 5 is a peerless refinement of that idea.

And yet since the first iPhone in 2007, technology has moved on. Better ideas have evolved. While the iPhone still undoubtedly offers a superb and easy experience for users, I look at how I now use my Android Samsung Galaxy S3 and, now that the app selection has caught up, I simply couldn't do everything I now need.

On my main homescreen is a widget that shows my emails, with the most recent ones immediately obvious and a button to start writing a new one. Apple won't permit widgets, maybe it breaks up the view or saps their battery. It would take me longer to keep track of those emails if I had an iPhone, constantly flicking in and out of an app, or checking the details of the notification centre.

If I scroll over to my second homescreen, there's a second widget for another inbox, and then over on a third are widgets for Facebook and Twitter. A forth has news, weather, British Airways and Starbucks, to name a few. Underneath all of these, all the time, are the persistent apps for phone, contacts, messaging and Google Chrome. Google does not compel me to keep a 'Stocks' app. Apple is so sure you hold shares that it won't let you delete it.

Let's not pretend that any of this is earth-shattering – both the S3 and the iPhone 5 are great phones, and both of them are, well, just phones. But the S3 lets me send files simply by touching it to another phone; if I look up a contact and pick up the phone to put it to my ear, it knows I want to call that person. Best of all, if I am looking at the phone it (mostly) detects I'm looking at it and keeps the screen on. All of this is clever; Apple has no answers on these fronts. All this is before we talk about Apple's risible new Maps product, introduced well before it was ready and inflicted on customers without providing an alternative. So far, too, Apple hasn't even apologised or tried to explain. Perhaps consumers will now jailbreak their phones to install an older iOS.

The S3 does not, I concede, feel as solid as the iPhone. But I've dropped it more often than I'd like and the screen is not broken, or even scratched. The S3's huge screen looks glorious; so does the iPhone's smaller version. I like the larger version.

Ultimately, unexcitingly, it's down to personal preference. Under every Apple story published on this website and others commenters ask "how much did Apple pay you to write this advert". Yet the traffic such stories get demonstrates overwhelming interest from readers.

None of this is worth sending death threats over – Android phones, I think, offer a slate of features that far exceeds that available to iPhone users. If you've got an iPhone, upgrading to the 5 will make your life marginally better (unless you want to use Maps). Especially if you're due an upgrade, it's an easy and inexpensive move. But if you're willing to go through the trauma of switching, if you're not too wedded to iTunes for your music, then Android is probably cheaper and probably better in the end. Apple deserves every one of its many millions of pre-orders – but its fans can't reasonably pretend it is the only option for smart people.

 

[Aayush]

iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Drop Test - YouTube

 

[Daredevil]

Review: Apple maps app vs Google Maps app

Fremont: Apple's new maps app came out the day I started a 2,243-mile road trip through four states. As complaints about it trickled in and Apple's CEO apologised, I was left wondering whether people were using the same app I was.

Although it's not flawless or as good as Google's maps app on Android phones, Apple's new offering on the iPhone got me where I needed to go - for the most part. I know many people will disagree with me, but I even find it an improvement over the old app on iPhones because I now get voice navigation and automatic re-routing.

I've used Google's Android app since it was released three years ago. I don't own a car, but I travel a lot. The app has proven crucial in getting me to unfamiliar territories in New England and various Southern states from Arizona to South Carolina.

AP Photo

Google brought to the phone the spoken-aloud, turn-by-turn directions once limited to GPS navigational devices from Garmin, TomTom and others. Make a wrong turn, and the app automatically updates with new directions. Best of all, it's always been free.

Until last month, Google was also behind the free, main maps app on iPhones.

But that one didn't have voice navigation or automatic re-routing. Driving with it meant swiping through pages of on-screen directions. A friend missed a train in May as we overlooked a step and went the wrong way on a highway, ending up back where we came from. A drive from Ann Arbor to Lansing, Michigan, took 17 steps, each with its own page. After Step 9, I had to pull into a rest stop to memorize subsequent steps and avoid an accident.

Apple wanted voice directions, too, and figured the only way to get it was to build its own maps app and bump Google from its perch as the default offering. It partnered with TomTom and shipped the iPhone 5 with the new app. A software update out September 19 made it available on the iPhone 4S and the cellular versions of the latest two iPad models.

I updated an iPhone 4S in a hotel room in Grand Rapids, Michigan, that night and was immediately impressed. It was a nice touch to have turn-by-turn directions narrated by Siri, the familiar female voice from Apple's virtual-assistant feature.

Then I started hearing the complaints.

I agree with many of them. The Apple app didn't show as many businesses and landmarks as Google's. Some appeared in the wrong location or were mislabelled. The Apple app didn't offer public transit directions, something crucial for New Yorkers like me. A friend I was visiting toward the end of the two-week trip immediately complained that the app looked different as she pulled it out for the first time.

Head to head, the Google app for Android, which I used on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a Galaxy S III, outperformed Apple's version in many respects:

- Google's app typically told me about turns a second or two quicker. Sometimes, I didn't hear from Siri until I got to the intersection, two lanes away from where I needed to be to make a right turn.

- I got better navigation on private roads with Google. At a shopping mall, Google guided me along the right driveways to get to JC Penney, while Apple got me to the general vicinity. Google also got me to the front door of my hotel in Ann Arbor, while Apple got me to the entrance of a complex that included other hotels, a gas station and retail stores.

- In Akron, Ohio, Siri had me turn left to get on a highway, while Google's app properly instructed me to take a ramp on the left. In Indianapolis, Google knew about a service road alongside Michigan Road, while Siri assumed I was on the main road and would have had me crash into a Chinese restaurant. In Charleston, West Virginia, Siri told me to head northeast, as if I had a compass, while Google just told me to turn left.

- Besides public transit directions, Google offered options for avoiding tolls or highways while driving. It allowed me to choose continuous satellite images instead of animated maps, while Apple's app offered them only for route overviews, not for live navigation.

- While Siri's voice sounds much more human than the one Google used in its early mapping apps, Google now has a voice that makes Siri sound robotic by comparison. Google also was more sparing with words, which was good as long as I didn't get lost for lack of detail.

That said, Apple's map offers 3D views. That may sound like a gimmick, but it presents the map in a way that mirrors what you're seeing through the windshield. On Apple's map, the direction you're going is on top in the regular view or toward the back in 3D. Outside of big cities, Google often has north on top, which can be confusing when driving east or south.

Apple's maps are also more pleasant to view. Instructions such as "turn right onto Pearl St." are in white against a green background, similar to the signs you see on highways. Street names at intersections are in a green rectangle, similar to actual street signs at corners. Unlike Google's, Apple's app showed me the distance and time remaining and an estimated time of arrival all at once, though I would have appreciated larger text.

Apple's app was mostly dead-on in getting me to my destination. The one big miss was when it had a winery I was looking for about a half-mile east of its actual location. I went to another instead.

But Google has made mistakes, too. It told me to turn left to get to a lighthouse along the Straits of Mackinac connecting two Great Lakes, even as the road sign in front of me pointed to the right. Then again, Apple's app didn't even find that lighthouse in a search.

Both apps gave me other questionable directions, even though they got me there, which was what mattered most. At one point, Google had me on a curvy one-lane residential street with little visibility, even though a faster, safer road ran parallel to it. Apple's directions to a roadside tourist trap had me take an exit four miles to the south, only to return four miles north on smaller roads.

Bottom line is no app is perfect. After all the complaints about Apple's app, I downloaded a 99-cent iPhone app called MotionX GPS Drive. It got good reviews and offered more features than either Apple or Google. But it tried to lead me off the wrong exit in Ohio. Plus, all the extra features diverted my eyes to the settings menu when I should've been paying attention to trucks and, ahem, police cars around me.

One of my favourite scenes from The Office television show is when clueless boss Michael Scott drives into Lake Scranton because he was blindly following GPS directions.

There will be mistakes, but it beats driving in a new place with nothing. You just need to use your common sense.

Apple's app is far better than the one Google had when it first came out in late 2009. In apologising for an app he says "fell short" of Apple's own expectations, CEO Tim Cook says the company will keep working to improve it.

It's true Apple's app falls short of what Google now offers for Android, but if all you have is an iPhone or an iPad, Apple's new app will get you there just fine.

Clinging to the old, voiceless app is like hanging on to your cassette tapes while the world has moved on to CDs and digital downloads. I can't imagine driving without hearing voices.

 

[LurkerBaba]

iOS is a piece of shyt ! Totally hate it !

 

[Singh]

iOS is beautiful. It comes totally prepared out of the box. Android otoh has all the stupid skins on top of it, and then to make it any usable lot of tinkering is required.

 

[Known_Unknown]

^^Yea, iOS is so amazing that I can't download anything from the internet unless it is from the App Store. I also can't transfer any files from my computer to my iPhone unless I have installed iTunes.

And wait, if I'm stupid enough to have the totally crazy idea of wanting to use my iPhone 4 accessories with my iPhone 5, I have to buy a special $30 adapter from Apple just to do this!

 

[Singh]

^^Yea, iOS is so amazing that I can't download anything from the internet unless it is from the App Store.

You can't install apps, and this is a good thing.

And instead of taking hours to configure android, you can spend 3 minutes to jailbreak your iOS, if you are so inclined.

I also can't transfer any files from my computer to my iPhone unless I have installed iTunes.

What kind of files ? and there are apps for that.

And wait, if I'm stupid enough to have the totally crazy idea of wanting to use my iPhone 4 accessories with my iPhone 5, I have to buy a special $30 adapter from Apple just to do this!

But you get more functionality.

 

[Known_Unknown]

You can't install apps, and this is a good thing.

And instead of taking hours to configure android, you can spend 3 minutes to jailbreak your iOS, if you are so inclined.

How is inability to access alternative app stores a good thing? It may definitely be an excellent thing for Apple to have a stranglehold on apps, but is sucks from the user point of view! Would it have been a good thing for Microsoft to force all Windows users to download applications only from MS websites? It's unthinkable!

Forget apps, even downloaded music files or videos or documents are inaccessible! The iPhone's file system totally restricts users from even normal, simple tasks that shouldn't be difficult at all to do!

And the iOS has to be jailbroken to get the same functionality as Android-so it's not exactly perfect, is it? Not to mention that jailbreaking voids the warranty.

What kind of files ? and there are apps for that.

All files. Any files...I can't transfer any video, music or document files from the phone to my computer or vice versa unless I install iTunes. The iPhone cannot be used as a simple disk drive unlike Android phones.

But you get more functionality.

What more functionality? The adapter does not allow me to transfer video from the iPhone 5 to any iPhone 4 accessory either. Why couldn't Apple go with an open standard like the micro-USB or MHL? No, they have to do things differently because they are control freaks-they want to totally control every little thing that their users do.

They are going to lose this battle with Android exactly like they lost with Microsoft. Just like Steve Jobs obsessively focussed on controlling the Mac OS while Bill Gates countered with opening up Windows so that an entire ecosystem of thousands of companies thrived and created the PC industry leaving Mac OS behind in the dust. Apple seems to never learn from its mistakes.

So enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[Apollyon]

wait for Lumia 920, :evil::evil:
btw S3 is the shitiest looking Android, HTC One X is anytime better than S3

 

[LurkerBaba]

^
The new Nexus phone will be out end of this month

 

[Daredevil]

 

[Daredevil]

 

[Apollyon]

Windows 8 (or i say RT)

 

[tharikiran]

I use a iPhone 4 and I have used an android before purchasing the iPhone.
These are my observations.The iPhone is a closed ecosystem.The interface is good or the interface of the apps built for it are good.
Something as simple as Bluetooth to send photos or music or anything to my friends phones doesn't work.When I need it, it's not there.
That's unacceptable to me.Whatever, reasons apple gives, its bull crap.There is no folder concept.You cannot just plug it in to your friend's system to download music
from his/her system.But we can do this in a basic android phone. In fact a basic android can do more things than an iPhone. There is no FM radio in an iPhone.
I don't want to access FM radio through an app.It's like they designed it to milk the customer for internet usage so that carrier benefits.

What I don't like about Android was it used to hang a lot.But I believe, high end Android phones are not that buggy or hang that much.
Android has improved a lot from where it started. The UI has improved a lot.My next phone will be a high end Android.I am attracted to Nokia 920 too. I absolutely love the windows interface and font style. But then again, we can't use it like an Android it seems. It too is a closed ecosystem.

The iPhone doesn't hang much.Once in a blue moon.Because, memory management was always a priority in iPhone. If I am not wrong it still does not support true multi tasking and may never will.And to an extent I agree with their arguments on memory management. The reason Android's hang, is not being able to handle memory properly.But I guess this is being sorted out or has been sorted out with ICS version.

I miss widgets and don't understand as to why Apple doesn't implement it.

 

[Aayush]

Android app store is Bullcrap..

 

[Singh]

I use a iPhone 4 and I have used an android before purchasing the iPhone.
These are my observations.The iPhone is a closed ecosystem.The interface is good or the interface of the apps built for it are good.
Something as simple as Bluetooth to send photos or music or anything to my friends phones doesn't work.When I need it, it's not there.
That's unacceptable to me.Whatever, reasons apple gives, its bull crap.There is no folder concept.You cannot just plug it in to your friend's system to download music
from his/her system.But we can do this in a basic android phone. In fact a basic android can do more things than an iPhone. There is no FM radio in an iPhone.
I don't want to access FM radio through an app.It's like they designed it to milk the customer for internet usage so that carrier benefits.

What I don't like about Android was it used to hang a lot.But I believe, high end Android phones are not that buggy or hang that much.
Android has improved a lot from where it started. The UI has improved a lot.My next phone will be a high end Android.I am attracted to Nokia 920 too. I absolutely love the windows interface and font style. But then again, we can't use it like an Android it seems. It too is a closed ecosystem.

The iPhone doesn't hang much.Once in a blue moon.Because, memory management was always a priority in iPhone. If I am not wrong it still does not support true multi tasking and may never will.And to an extent I agree with their arguments on memory management. The reason Android's hang, is not being able to handle memory properly.But I guess this is being sorted out or has been sorted out with ICS version.

I miss widgets and don't understand as to why Apple doesn't implement it.

For a tech challanged individual this is what I understand.

Android and iOS are both based on Linux. Android aped iOS operating system, put up java vm on top of it. iOS is based on objective C ergo it is machine language based and therefore a closed system. Android is based on java ergo it can be adopted for virtually any system, but everything has to go through the compiler/decompiler(?).
As a result iOS will always be faster, and require less resources, Android will always be slower, and require more resources.

What Google did was evil imho.

 

[sob]

As a layman the way I understand is that Android is going to grow much faster than iOS.

the reason is very simple, due to the cheaper smartphones running on Android, a whole new generation is growing up with exposure to android. Apple products are generally with people in the mid twenties and onwards due to the cost angle involved. When these young kids in the 12-20 year range grow up and start earning they would be more comfortable with android and a very small percentage would try out iOS.

 

[Singh]

As a layman the way I understand is that Android is going to grow much faster than iOS.

the reason is very simple, due to the cheaper smartphones running on Android, a whole new generation is growing up with exposure to android. Apple products are generally with people in the mid twenties and onwards due to the cost angle involved. When these young kids in the 12-20 year range grow up and start earning they would be more comfortable with android and a very small percentage would try out iOS.

^ This would be true in India, not in the States where people usually have an Apple product. Android is used by 'geeks' mostly.

 

[sob]

Sir, this is where the population numbers are going to play a big role.

For me personally Apple products were an aspirational product, but now for mobiles it is no longer. Last week I finally switched over from a Blackberry to Galaxy Note II

 

[Daredevil]

People are slowly realising the power of Android and disadvantage of apple products. More and more people will adopt android based mobiles because they can do more and compatible with other devices for sharing files, music, movies etc. Apple products are designed in such a way that they milk you for each and everything. And fast pace development of Android is is giving apple run for their money. It's only a matter of time that apple will feel the pinch from Android. And with windows also coming with some decent stuff, it will become that much more harder for apple.

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