Android First Impressions
mlindgren.ca
mlindgren.ca
though on the other hand, I hate, no. HATE, the fact that $CARRIER$ can tell me what application I have to have installed on my phone without any ability of uninstalling them.
Android is not all sunshine. I might post more comments as I continue reading the article.
If you don't like the OS the way they provide it, then wipe it and use Cyanogen or some other ROM that is set up exactly how you like it.
Cyanogen may not work on every Android phones, but there are still a lot more phones out there that can run Cyanogen than can run iOS.
Don't get me wrong: I do like the slightly increased openness of Android, but that just stems from the fact that the OS provides more hooks to hook your app into - it's not more open in the sense that there's less control inflicted upon you on what you may or may not do with the device you legally own.
The fact that HTC and other vendors are sloppier in securing their phones (remember the discussions about Motorola's e-fuse?) doesn't make these phones more "open" in the "freedom" sense.
It just means that it's easier to exploit them to install a different OS.
Now the Android OS of course is open source, but what good is that if there's no device available that actually allows you to officially install your own build? This also means that my earlier comments are about the phones, not the OS itself.
Alternately, the OpenMoko FreeRunner is a "truly free" phone, and has its own distribution of Android available in which you have total control of the entire hardware and software stack.
But I totally agree, this declared "openness" is bullshit. The situation with Android ROMs right now is almost identical to the situation with Windows Mobile and nobody would claim that is open.
Before I customize it, how do I get/build a fully functional current vanilla version? By fully functional I mean all of the things normally needed/expected by default (like the app store for instance).
Does each carrier post source to their builds so I can modify what the phone came with?
There are many developers on this site. Have ANY of you built Android from source and used that on your phone? How did it work out?
T-Mobile and my local carrier Cincinnati Bell are both happy to recommend and "sell"/refer you to a Nexus One. CBW even has a couple N1's on display in their premiere display case, and a rep even asked me about what ROM I used on my N1, and said he used CyanogenMod on his.
Does each carrier post source to their builds so I can modify what the phone came with?
The carriers aren't the ones writing the software; you'd have to talk with HTC, Motorola, Samsung about that. Some carriers make specific requests, like Sprint putting their NASCAR app on, or Verizon's exclusive Skype app, but that's an app, not Android.
Have ANY of you built Android from source and used that on your phone? How did it work out?
I've had multiple attempts over the past couple years to build my own Android ROM, most recently with Cyanogen's mass of repos on Github, but either I wasn't looking in the right spot, or there wasn't enough documentation for me to figure out how to build it all on my own, so I failed on that aspect.
However, MoDaCo forum has the concept of "kitchens" where you can customize what features you want to include/exclude from various ROMs, and allows you to generate "your own" ROM that you can then flash to your phone, and I personally find this extremely attractive, even if I don't use it for myself because I like what the "vanilla" Cyanogen build includes.
All that said, you do however have multiple valid points, and I don't disagree with you on any of them.
The downsides are that you might lose your warranty and that stuff breaks a little bit here and there (at least on my SLCD Desirefor which sending mail via Gmail stopped working and which crashes here and then - the usual little things)
But it's trivially done and generally works well.
Functionality overall improved. Verizon releases a version that requires additional cash for a few simple things (like tethering) that using 2.2 allowed stock.
Some android apps developed problems updating. The cause was some apps were not appearing as valid/runnable for 2.2 in the market.
That ought to go well with the IT folks at the office.
Edit: Sorry, my bad, it is still there. The Cyanogenmod wallpapers section grew up in size and somehow I missed that the last wallpaper is still there.
To pay $500 for a phone, versus the $100 subsidized price, is a silly move—especially if you're planning to upgrade every 2-3 years.
I say this because the service from the carriers still costs the same regardless of how you obtained the handset, and in some cases you may be paying even _more_ for service if you don't have a contract.
(Of course, I'm speaking with the US/Canadian carriers in mind. I know things are better outside of North America.)
T-Mobile's non-contract plans are $20 less per month, so over 2 years you save $480.
I've got a few contract-only perks here in Canada on Rogers, such as the 6GB data plan add-on for $30/mo, and an "Employee Purchase Program" discounted voice service at $17/mo.
I don't think you can get non-contract data plans for under $30, and that only buys you 250MB/month, and voice plans start at around $25-30/month.
I may be able to set up a similarly-priced plan up here, but I would lose out on many of the important features (tethering, visual voice mail, larger data caps, free evening/weekend calling, etc.)
Since the initial N1 model used the Tmobile 3G bands, it made a perfect match, and a great deal for anyone willing to do the math.
The fragmentation is a concern, for market size (for apps), though it will sill be massively larger than for Apple. The appstore deficiency is a greater concern - google need to buy a startup for this, they suck at UI.
The Oracle suit does scare me though. Why invest sweat equity if it might all be washed away? That's the idea, I guess.
Regardless of what happens to this particular platform, the hardware is just about there, so something fantastic will soon be here.
reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dafec/android_first...
Not sure I agree with the "They suck at UI" comment. Most of the rest of the Android UI is really well designed. The Market Place app needs improvement though yes.
I bet that UI came with the the Android acquisition. Though gmail is very good. All of their other good examples of UI's that I can think of also come from acquisitions: it's an opportunity. Google is great at engineering.
And, I've been impressed with the iPhone 4's physical and software shininess (and yes, I'm willing to not hold it that way), so much so I was leaning in the iPhone direction for the next round of phone, assuming they did a deal with Verizon (big if), but this now has me reminded of the sucky elements: namely, no Google Voice, bad notifications, and the potential to get hurt, rather than helped, by OS updates.
I've tried more than once to escape the iPhone for the less-locked-down Android, and every time I've gone crawling back. I tried the original Droid and had a lot of stability problems (in retrospect, probably a bad hardware sample), and I just spent a week and a half with the Droid Incredible (with the Froyo update), including the long Labor Day weekend... at the conclusion of which I went down to AT&T last night and had my iPhone 3GS reactivated, then returned the Incredible to Verizon this morning.
I could write a long treatise on the pros and cons of both platforms, but what it comes down to is that Android still has too many rough edges not to annoy me, and I'd rather eat the restocking fee and activation charges than spend most of the next two years carrying a phone that annoys me every time I use it. Living in Apple's walled city can be expensive, annoying, and sometimes feels like living in Duloc -- but the trains run on time and the mail generally gets delivered properly. It's not always perfect in reality and Apple sometimes does stupid things with UI (hello, vertical buttons in iTunes 10), but it's usually a very smooth experience and I can't deny Apple does a better job of sweating the small stuff than their competitors. I think that's part of why they have so many rabidly loyal customers. Yes, they're very good at marketing, but in my experience their products do a good job of backing up the marketing ("magical" adjectives on the iPad excepted, perhaps).
I do miss the Droid Incredible's high-res screen, which is why I'll probably buy an iPhone 4 soon. I don't even care that it's on AT&T -- a week and a half of running around Akron and Cleveland running into Verizon dead zones where my iPhone always worked has led me to the conclusion that AT&T isn't all that bad.
>The battery life (which used to be great, much better than a buddy's Evo) is terrible as a result. Google really needs to reign it in.
I've actually had the exact opposite experience, it's super snappy now and the battery seems to last a full 40-50% longer. I've noticed in some forums that people seem to be having either your experience or mine. Strange that would happen on a fixed target, unless there's some differences in the guts of different revs of the Incredibles.
I'd recommend getting rid of any task management software/killers as well.
I think this 'issue' is here to stay. With Android's widgets, there's no way I can fit everything I use daily on one home screen.
It's definitely a double edged sword on Android... some apps that use background services can turn into real battery hogs.
On the other hand, I've never seen an app on Android that sucked down battery life, and if it did, I'd uninstall it just like any other buggy app. I've never bought into the whole "background services drain battery life" line that Apple popularized.
Android also has the lovely screen showing which apps are burning the battery. In my experience, an _overwhelming_ fraction of power use is by the screen and the radio. (And by games running in the foreground, but that's to be expected.)
Yes, that's a red herring.
But there is indeed a real problem with the "real" multitasking that android implements: Responsiveness. This is one area that they absolutely need to work on urgently.
On the iPhone everything is near instant, or if you have to wait then there is clear indication that the phone is doing something.
On Android we get the familiar (but unwelcome) choppyness that we know from Desktop Operating Systems. Button presses will not always be recognized immediately (or sometimes not at all). Page transitions are not always smooth, often they are choppy or do outright freeze in the middle. It is very often not obvious that you have to wait; i.e. a button press will cause the UI to freeze momentarily but without giving you any feedback that your press was actually registered.
And ofcourse the unpredictable delays when opening or switching apps. A multi-second delay before opening the phonebook or dialer is simply unacceptable for a phone.
This description actually makes it sound worse than it is. Despite these problems I'm quite happy with my Samsung Galaxy overall. But they need to work on this stuff if they want the perception of android as "slow" and "choppy" to change. Because that's the first thing you notice when playing around with an android device in the store.
Perhaps I should just have left the reference out altogether. Imho it's a serious problem that needs to be addressed regardless of the state on other platforms.
Tell that to my 3G with iOS4. It'd be more appropriate to say "nothing is near instant."