An iOS fans journey into the world of Android

[BerG]

NOTE: This thread is the genuine thoughts and feelings of a long time iOS user switching to Android for the first time. It is here to help other iOS users if they are considering switching to Android. The editing will be crap. It will just be my thoughts, jotted down as they come. This is not an anti-Android thread. I have sold my iPhone, so it is in my best interest to fall in love with Android.



I've done it.

After four years of iOS, the lure of Android was too much.

Frankly I was bored of iOS. What do I have to look forward to in iOS5? A decent notification system. Well my iPhone is jailbroken, so I've had a decent notification system for years. I'm sick of fart apps, and childrens games which dominate the App Stores Top 20. For my first two years of owning an iPhone, I checked the top 20 every day. But now the innovation has ended. Everything has been made. I havn't checked the top 20 in months.

It was time for change.

So I just unboxed my Samsung Galaxy S2.

My immediate reaction?

Unbelievably, disappointment. This thing is 'tinny'. Its extremely light, and extremely plastic. After carrying a very heavy, very solid feeling iPhone for so long, this feels like a toy which is going to break. The back cover is a piece of plastic about 0.00001mm thick which you must click off with your fingernail to install the battery. While clicking it back in, it felt like all the little tabs were breaking off. I cant believe I spent so much money on this toy. I should have waited for the new iPhone to come out, so I could compare. Damn it.

But anyway, this thread is about the OS, not the phone. I'm sure the Galaxy will grow on me once I learn its true power.


My first thoughts upon turning on the phone was that there was a lot of 'colour', and variation. On the dull iOS, I always knew where to look, and what I was supposed to do. I can immediately see why older people, or not so tech savvy people prefer the very easy to use iOS. Android is going to take some learning. The default keyboard is absolutely terrible. I keep hitting the wrong button. The animations are ugly. Double tapping the space bar does not leave a full stop and a space like I am used to. There is no autocorrect!!? I open the web browser. It feels clunky. It scrolls too fast. There is no rotation animation (probably due to Apple patents, I know). Never the less, its not visually satisfying. The GetSome website looks fantastic on the big screen. There are flash advertisements! Great! But flash does look pretty cool. Typing in another web address on the crappy keyboard frustrates me, so I give up and go to my computer to start this review. Going back to the home screen, closing things seems to 'lag'. Wtf? I have one of the fastest phones in the world.

After 10 minutes, my impression is poor. But I know I havn't even begun. More to come.

[Zarkov]

I wish I were young and tech savvy like you Berg.

Then maybe I would buy one.

[BerG]

Not only must you be tech savvy, but also a 'phat dude', like me.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

I haven't been impressed by android either, the home page is a bit confusing, and the keyboards not that great either. From my experience I would prefer iOS over android.

I know you can change the default keyboard, but I'm the kind of person who would rather have a phone that just works great, instead of spending lots of time customizing it. Saying that, that's the advantage of android, and it would be great for people to like to do a lot of customization.

[solman]

I look forward to more installments Berg.... I've been a fan of iOS for quite some time and when work FORCED me onto the silly windows mobile 6.5 phone I lost my iPhone to my wife (and she will not give it back), I've only had a couple of plays with Android and neither of them were long enough to give a fair review of the system (which I'm sure is very good) but my immediate thoughts were... they are just trying to emulate the iPhone...

Please disprove this theory and convince me that getting an android when I secure my new job is the right move (without bagging Apple's marketing and profits)

[Spigalau]

Berg - enable swype

[BerG]

So when you buy a powerful phone you want to see what it can do, with a graphically intensive game. So I started looking through the market. I have already downloaded "Smart Keyboard", so am now typing with speed. The first thing I noticed was every game has a long list of what phones it is compatible with. So you have to make sure this app will work with your phone. This is a major inconvenience to iOS, where all apps work with everything (almost). I then scroll down to the reviews. Most of these seem to consist of: "DOESNT WORK WITH HTC HERO". "DOESNT WORK WITH MOTOROLA ATRIX". "DONT SAY THAT IT WORKS WITH SAMSUNG GALAXY WHEN IT DOESNT". So rather than actual reviews of the product, just whinging about what phones dont work. Its quite bizarre.

I download my game, and get a notification when its done. I go into the game, and it says 'Downloading' with a very slow moving progress bar at the bottom. I thought it had already downloaded? Oh well. I close out, so it can download in the background. Android has great multitasking right? I go back in an hour later, and the progress bar starts again. So it seems I have to stay in the app to let it download. I cant be bothered, so as of yet I have not played a game on the galaxy.

Texting. I'm sick of having to go into messages app to text. iOS has the incredible BiteSMS, with quickreply and quick compose. Surely there are hundreds of apps that do this in the market. There is. I download 'chompsms' (made by Bitesms). I go into quick compose settings so I can set how I want to open it. There are only two options: long press search button or something else. I have neither a search button or the other thing. Chompsms is useless to me. On iOS, these types of things were controlled by activator. I could set whatever I liked to open my quick compose. Swipe the status bar left to right? Right to left? Down? Hold the status bar? Hold the home button? Hold the power button? Hit volume up then tap the HUD? Shake the phone? Draw a diagonal line on the screen? Anything.

There must be an activator for Android. I do a google search. Hundreds of others have asked the same question and...there isnt. Why the hell not? No one seems to know. Probably because if there was one activator for Android, there would be dozens, and none would be compatible with each other. This is a major benefit of iOS. Because the jailbreaking community is reasonably small, MOST jailbreak apps are compatible with activator (as well as activator being able to open any App Store app).

Despite android being known as more customizable, lack of activator makes this major aspect far less customizable than iOS.

Ive discovered live wallpapers. Very nice, something I couldnt really do on iOS (I could, but there wasn't nice updating weather live wallpapers etc). However, so far this is the only benefit android is giving me over iOS, along with a LOT of negatives.

I spend a lot of time outside in the bright sun. The super AMOLED screen looks absolutely supurb, I can see it in all lighting conditions.

My live wallpaper has drained 15% more battery, I disable it.

I hop in the car. Thats what I need, a car dock! My Belkin Tunebase Direct has served me well with the iPhone. I dock it, it charges, and I listen to music/phonecalls over bluetooth. There are no wires. I HATE wires.




There must be something similar for Galaxy 2.

There isnt.

The nearest I can find is a windscreen attachment which simply holds the phone. I still need to attach a god damn cable. My customized android phone is not so customizable any more. I cant get the dock I want for it. With an iPhone, it may look exactly the same as everyones else iPhone, but frankly I dont care. At least I can dock it how I like. If I want a speaker dock that is shaped like a female beach vollyball players butt cheeks there probably is one for iPhone, but there isnt one for a Galaxy 2.

I set the alarm for the next morning. The mechanism for setting the alarm isnt as intuitive as the iOS number pickers. I realise these little things are really bugging me. The phone app looks very cheap. This is Android, I can probably get a nice theme for it. I'll look later.






I would have thought Android would be growing on me by now. At this stage, I'll be ditching the Galaxy 2 as soon as the new iPhone (and jailbreak) comes out. I actually feel a bit sick at the money I feel I've wasted.

[BerG]

I'm finding the physical back button very handy. It frees up screen real estate, and gets you out of tricky situations. Android wins here.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

I download the Schwarzenegger Soundboard on my HTC Windows Phone.

My life is complete.



Berg, your car is pretty flash. My car doesn't even have bluetooth, I bet your car transforms into a robot.

[mycoolcar]

Bergs car also looks to be one of those new ones without a steering wheel.

[Zarkov]

It has air conditioning too.

Good thing Berg is young and tech savvy.

[toofast]

You are pretty much listing the issues associated with developing an OS for specific hardware, vs developing for people to run on their own hardware.

[solman]

so is there someone on here that has
A) gone from iPhone with iOS4 (or even 3.2) to andriod and truly enjoyed it....
B) gone from Andriod to iPhone and hated it (for genuine reasons not just cause everyone loves to hate apple)

[BerG]

You are pretty much listing the issues associated with developing an OS for specific hardware, vs developing for people to run on their own hardware.

All things that people like Solman need to know before ditching iOS. I never thought about things such as having to trawl through the Android Market just to find apps that are compatible with your phone. I didn't think about things like lack of compatible accessories.

Everybody raves on about how superior Android is to iOS. As someone who had never owned an Android phone, I didn't feel qualified to be defending iOS. But I believed you, and thought it was time to make the switch.

Frankly, I'm yet to see the benefits.


It just goes to show... always trust Spacemonkey.

[Xenolightning]

Out of the box, iOS is better. Agreed, and this is from a person that hates Apple

To get true enjoyment out of your Android phone you are best trawling the xda related forum. An experiencing custom roms. The rom cooking community for Android is AMAZING, and they produce unspeakable results. The advantage of Android comes over time, the more you learn about the phone, the software, and having a look into the communities for tweaks/hacks/updates is where Android destroys its competition.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1204

Check it out, have a play, come back with more results

[zolteg]

Out of the box, iOS is better. Agreed, and this is from a person that hates Apple

To get true enjoyment out of your Android phone you are best trawling the xda related forum. An experiencing custom roms. The rom cooking community for Android is AMAZING, and they produce unspeakable results. The advantage of Android comes over time, the more you learn about the phone, the software, and having a look into the communities for tweaks/hacks/updates is where Android destroys its competition.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1204

Check it out, have a play, come back with more results

And this is what fucks the market up.  it's fine trawling for custom roms & searching for the right app for your phone if that's what rings your bell, you're technically literate and you have hours to spare.

Most people looking for a cellphone aren't in that space, and this is where iOS nails it.  

It. Just. Works.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an apple fanboi, but if I could get a Nokia handset that's as clear to read, easy to use and as effective as my iPhone, I'd buy it.  Unfortunately, Apple is to mobile phones now what Nokia was to them in the early 2000's, and Motorola was in the mid '90s.  State of the art.  Android's never gonna bust that, 'cos it's too divided.

[Greaver]

I had an Iphone before and its simplicity is its power, but after going android I couldn't go back.

At first I was slightly disheartened but once you've had it a week and started to screw with things iOS seems far too locked down.

Won't ever go back to iOS unless Android really drops the ball and gets filled with shit.

[BerG]

Out of the box, iOS is better. Agreed, and this is from a person that hates Apple

To get true enjoyment out of your Android phone you are best trawling the xda related forum. An experiencing custom roms. The rom cooking community for Android is AMAZING, and they produce unspeakable results. The advantage of Android comes over time, the more you learn about the phone, the software, and having a look into the communities for tweaks/hacks/updates is where Android destroys its competition.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1204

Check it out, have a play, come back with more results

Looks good. I'm liking how they say it makes the phone faster. It just seems sluggish at the moment.

[Xenolightning]

Won't ever go back to iOS unless Android really drops the ball and gets filled with shit.

Agree. There's no way to tell if it will, but it may, so may iOS. So its always good to have options.
 

Looks good. I'm liking how they say it makes the phone faster. It just seems sluggish at the moment.

Yea the standard Samsung TouchWiz UX is terrible. There's a lot better options out there. If you can get MIUI for the SGS2 I'd recommend trying that. Its a compromise to the iOS look and feel, and it has a lot of standard kernel optimizations. After that, if you use iTunes for your music look into doubleTwist. Supposedly it can sync with iTunes including all your playlists etc..

Another few gem's I've found are:
Touchdown - Commercial MS Exchange email support. Really awesome app and I use it for work all the time.
My Account - Sync's with your vodafone account so you can check you remaining unpaid balance, data, minutes, txts etc...

It really depends on what you want to do with your phone. Asking people is the best way to get the best app's

[Menial]

so is there someone on here that has
A) gone from iPhone with iOS4 (or even 3.2) to andriod and truly enjoyed it....
B) gone from Andriod to iPhone and hated it (for genuine reasons not just cause everyone loves to hate apple)

Hey guy.

Had iphone; got drunk, lost iphone [in 'Hush Hush' lulz I' so cool], bought android (HTC), use iphone at work for app stuff.


ios sucks.  Well integrated software/hardware but such a constrained user experience.  Good for simpletons, old people, or hipsters though _b

Come at me bro, come at me.

[Speakman]

@Berg: I went from Symbian to Android, and there was a bit of a learning curve. Once you learn the ins and outs of your specific phone and Android itself, you'll be away flying and will probably never look back.

If you miss some of your favourite iOS apps, have a quick google. often there are Android versions, or clones of the iOS one that will function similar.

Asking people is the best way to get the best app's

there is also an Android Apps thread around here somewhere with some pretty good reccomendations.

[Emrico1]

Good for simpletons, old people, or hipsters.

That's their new marketing campaign isn't it?

An iOS fans journey into the world of Android

[Bell]

Berg the hipster

[Zarkov]

I think I am all of those things.

Maybe not the first one.

[Emrico1]

More just the first two