An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus S | Hacker News Reader

An iPhone Lover’s Take On The Nexus S

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I wrote about this when the N1 came out; what it came down to was that fit and finish were significant issues (why won't apps move aside when re-arranging them on the screen?), but for me, the dealbreaker was that you really can't take advantage of Android without buying into the whole Google ecosystem, and I'd recently opted out of the Google ecosystem.

I use my phone as an extension of my computer, not a portal into the cloud, so the metaphor was never a good fit for me. I certainly think that there were plenty of good things about the N1 and Froyo (although I hated that stupid trackball, the notifications and maps on Froyo were enormously better then their equivalents on iOS), and if you're not already locked into a way of interacting with your phone, that there's not a lot of functional daylight between vanilla Android and iOS at this point.

I am curious to see what WP7 turns into. They have some wiggle room and may just surprise.

EDIT: On the off chance anybody's interested:

http://homonculus.net/tags/phones.html

Well, that's actually true for all major smartphones - Android is an extension of Google's cloud, iPhone is an extension of your PC's iTunes, BlackBerry is an extension of your corporate BES/Outlook server etc.

Android, while incomplete, is the model which all others will have to switch to eventually. I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011.

The interesting thing about Android (the Nexus lines in particular) is that it is the only major OS that gives you the option of using it without any attachments through ASOP. CyanogenMod and others let you use Android without any google things, something which none of the others will let you do.

"I mean, imagine using iTunes v15 on your PC as your personal email/contacts/media hub in 2016. Seems pretty ridiculous to me. In fact, it seems ridiculous to me in 2011."

No argument here. And I think you're right about the convergence -- holdouts like me will just have to learn to cope. All I want is someone to sell me the service, not rely on data mining and ad impressions.

Well, there are options out there now. If you want an unattached smartphone, a Nexus S with CyanogenMod will get you a great smartphone with a modern OS and no googly attachments.

OTOH, if you're distrustful of Google's ad model, you can get a blackberry and sign up for a hosted BES, which will give you all the benefits corp users have for like $10/month.

Having said that, I still prefer the build quality of the Nexus One (HTC-built) a bit more than the Nexus S (Samsung-built). Like the Windows Phone model I used (a Samsung Focus), the Nexus S feels a bit too plastic-y for my taste.

Yes. This. I'd buy a Nexus S in a heartbeat if it felt anything like the Nexus One. I have a hard time rationalizing intangibles like this, but something about a phone is deeply personal (always on you, handles communication, etc), and the aesthetics matter.

Polyester underwear, anyone?

I had a Captivate for a while and loved the build. Very solid, it just was light. I don't tend to conflate weight with quality.

The obvious come-from-behing strategy for Windows phones: Look at how is market leader (Apple) is beating everyone else (RIM/Android) and emulate their success. I think they're trying to do this: use tighter control over the platform to ensure superior UI/UX and seamless integration with their desktop products. If Microsoft can pull this off, they will take a big bite out of the 2nd/3rd place competitors and threaten Apple. If they can't, Windows Phone 7 will be an also-ran like Zune.

Microsoft probably loves the leeway that Apple's position gives them right now to act the way they love to act.

Microsoft needs competition to create awesome products. Without it they don't ever seem to have any direction.

Sort of a large-scale corporate procrastination.

This is why the iPhone still dominates the market more than any other Android phone does.

"Sure, I’m more accustomed to the iPhone, but I could switch [to the Nexus S] anytime I wanted to. But that’s the thing, I don’t want to. The iPhone experience is still overall a better one in my mind. It’s that simple."

One question : If you had bought an Android phone before your iPhone and you were accustomed and comfortable with it, do you think you would say the same thing ?

Yes.

I've been playing with a g1 for quite some time (got it in september). Did a bit of development with it (nothing I'd ever release to the public, unfortunately). I did get quite a bit used to it. I had it rooted and was running android 2.2 on it, which was rather fast.

Then, I got an iphone 4 for christmas and holy shit, this is a much better experience. My only complaint about the iphone is that the bar you swipe to unlock the phone is lower than what I'm used to. Low enough that if I'm not looking at the phone, I'll still have my thumb high enough to miss the bar completely.

G1? That would be like iPhone 1G prototype! The phone was too weak hardware wise. The difference between newer Android phones like the Galaxy S or G2 and iPhone has greatly narrowed to the point where it is mostly an individual preference / needs for specific features that dictate if you will buy one or the other.

the g1, in terms of processor speed, was probably on par with as much as the iphone 3g.

I've played with the droid x, and other than the screen size, didn't really see that much of a difference between it and the g1.

Edit: After a quick browse of wikipedia, the g1, on paper, looks to be faster than the iphone 3g.

Your G1 is probably not everyone else's G1 ;) Seriously - no difference between Droid X and G1 - you might want to rethink about that!

Ok, maybe I was wrong.

That's a good question, although I'm not sure it would have worked the same way for me if I had started with an Android phone. In my area, iPhones have become so popular that everywhere you look there are at least a dozen people sitting in cafes or walking down the street with them in their hands. Androids are becoming pretty common themselves, although it seems as if the audience associated with them (which is a little more tech savvy) is less likely to be showing them off in public or using them in the same places iPhone users do. As a result, unless I was a really strong advocate for Android phones or somehow despised iPhones, I think that I would eventually try and switch to the iPhone out of conformity and curiosity. Even if I was completely comfortable with the Android phone I had at the time, the peer pressure and the hype associated with the iPhone would most likely cause me to reconsider. This doesn't seem to happen as much the other way, which is probably due to the impression Android phones have on people and the fact that most iPhone users wouldn't be good Android users in the first place even if they hadn't become accustomed to the iPhone.

My first smartphone was the Nexus One. Using iPhones infuriates me, because from my perspective, the iPhone "does it wrong". There are a lot of little Android things that I know and expect, and it rubs me really raw when they aren't there. The iPhone has much prettier transitions and smoother scrolling, and that's about it, as far as I'm concerned. In literally every other way, I prefer my Nexus One. I know, intellectually, that the way the iPhone does things works (after all, other people have no issue with it), but from my perspective, it's less usable than my Android phone.

The first device you really use is naturally going to set expectations for you, and it's difficult to get past that comfort when another device does things differently. The iPhone is not a better Android phone than my Nexus one, and Siegler's Nexus S is not a better iPhone than his iPhone.

Does anyone else think Android phone desktops look vaguely like Windows 3.1?

Yeah, like totally! I fondly remember downloading and arranging the widgets on my windows 3.1, and the cool parallax-effect when you scroll through the 5 home screens.

I meant the icons and lack of gloss, but clearly I have touched a nerve.

i consider stuff that lacks GPU acceleration to be so unbelievably retarded that I question the core competence of the engineers and company behind it. android and flash have been the two biggest offenders recently. I despise adobe (well, for lots of reasons besides this as well) and am starting to hate google. (is flash fixed yet BTW?)

>A couple of the apps I use the most on my iPhone: Twitter and Foursquare, still lack to polish of their iOS counterparts.

Twitter's Android app is crap, and strangely mine is locked so I'll have to root to remove it. Twidroyd, however, works well.

Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon MP3 are "built-in" apps in many Android images (e.g. Nexus One 2.2), at most allowing you to uninstall updates to them.

It's a major irritation, really. Google needs to stop that nonsense.

On Nexus S/Android 2.3, you can completely uninstall Facebook and Twitter.

This is fantastic to hear.

Google sent out phones to both Gruber and Siegler. What were they thinking? Neither are fair actors, and neither have any credibility outside of the core Apple base.

They are lost causes. There is no value in courting them: Let the product diminish their relevance, which is exactly what has already happened.

Siegler's review pretends that he gave it a fair shake, yet like all Apple reviews it only notes where Android fails, in his opinion, relative to the iPhone. Where, for instance, is any comment on the superior Android notification system (which to me is a dealbreaker of the iPhone), the power of widgets, the granular app permissions, etc.

As much as he doth protest, his conclusion was predetermined. There is no scenario where he would consider it a superior device.

While true, I don't necessarily think that the opinion should be discounted.

I have been looking to buy a Nexus S this week, I went to Best Buy, $530 in hand, but I vowed to play with it first. The demo unit was not good. Google have let themselves fall behind, particuarly that the GPU still isn't accelerating graphics (leading to a jerky experience) and little things being to irritate (double-tap to zoom in Browser results in a jerky 3 fps zoom, whereas the iPhone does it wonderfully). It all adds up to say "I'm not ready yet." Unfortunately, Android hasn't been ready yet for a long time.

They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys. All the apps from Google are great. The technical underpinnings are great. The UX is pretty poor; the only win over iOS are widgets and notifications. It blows my mind that Apple hasn't emulated those yet. Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does.

I can take your same argument and claim that iOS is not ready yet for a long time and there are no signs that it will ever be. You focus on the few things that it doesn't do and claim it's not ready. Let me do the same thing with the disclaimer that it is wrong -

The iOS browser doesn't adjust text to the screen like the Android browser does. The notification system is horrid. There are no OTA updates leaving many people who don't use iTunes running old versions of software. The UI is not flexible at all - widgets simplify so many things. Sync is pathetic on iOS - on Android picasa photos, contacts, apps and settings are there in the cloud and all I need to do is sign in to my google account and everything is right there. Has Auto Correct been added to iOS keyboard yet? There is no chance for things such as Swype on iOS. There is no back button. Etc. Thus iOS is not ready yet.

Well sure, if you want to take it that way :)

I just meant "Does this OS feel like it is fully baked?" and it sort of doesn't, because the jerkiness makes you feel like you're interacting with an OS, not a physical item. You have to sit and think a little bit about how your finger movement is going to translate. Graphical acceleration ala iOS and WP7 means you don't have to do that. Notifications, sync, etc etc are all features built on top of that UX foundation, and that's where I (and I think, consumers in general) feel that is the first hurdle you have to overcome. Everything else is gravy.

But I do agree about Swype... that's awesome.

This is still a really terrible argument. The Nexus S I have is far, far smoother and responsive than an iphone 3gs and you saw no "half baked" comments about the previous iphones.

Not to mention that you don't have to think at all about how your finger will translate: despite a bit of chop occasionally, it still ends up exactly where it should, just like all the previous iphones.

As far as I can tell, android is getting a lot of criticism for no reason other than iphones are popular. It's ridiculous, both the nexus s and iphone 4 are extremely advanced, amazing pieces of technology and people argue over some minute perceived jitter or other non-objective observation. From this, they jump to over the top criticism like "half baked," "inferior device," and "second rate."

Your Lamborghini sure is half baked compared to my Ferrari. Consumers will never like Lamborghini until they fix the feel of the steering wheel material!

What specifically is "horrid" about the notification system? You don't say.

Here's my take on notifications on the iPhone: They work fine. If I get a text message, I get a (configurable) pop-up to tell me, and a (configurable) sound. If I get email, I get a (configurable) sound and a badge on the Mail icon; just right. If I get an IM from any of four different IM systems, I get a (configurable) pop-up and a (configurable) sound.

What's broken about this?

Moving on, what's "pathetic" about Sync? I can individually configure every possible element of what I sync and don't sync, independently on every device I use, and it works fine. If I want to put them in the cloud, I can do that, too. What's broken about this?

Auto correct? Ok, now it's becoming clear. You've never actually used iOS, have you?

iOS notifications being less than elegant /nearly useless is a well known, well accepted fact. If it works for you that just means you choose to either ignore the issues or have a vastly different usage pattern. Google up to understand what you are missing :)

Sync - I can upload my photos to Picasa, install and configure apps, create contacts right on my phone without going anywhere the computer - but that's not the difference. The difference comes when I need to switch phones or restore after an update - piece of cake in case of Android. All of the above is automagically installed after I sign in to the phone - even the apps and their settings. Can you do anything with iOS if there was no computer/iTunes involved? Can you wirelessly sync music/videos/photos - is there AirSync for iOS available?

I can look around for iPhone users and find many of them running the same version of the iOS the device was shipped with. Not so with Android's OTA mechanism. Android is light years ahead of iOS when it comes to always connected devices that require least use of the computer.

I stopped using iOS devices since I sold my iPod touch which ran iOS 4. I was referring to Autocorrect and predictive text options on the virtual keyboard itself - on Android as I type 'Ha' for example - I get Happy | Hat | Hay as the options to tap on the top to complete the word. If I then misspell it to say 'Haty' I then get autocorrect to 'Bath' in the center. As far as I know the iOS keyboard doesn't work like this and it really felt a backward step when I tried. Plus I got Swype Bud! (pun intended).

Ability to Voice Input everywhere is yet another thing I missed on iOS. Also the way back button works on Android. Also the multitasking is real and full-throttle on Android with no silly limitations. iOS really does feel like a step or two backwards to me in most departments.

I agree. And while a little jerkiness in scrolling (which is only occasional I would add) is purely cosmetic, the missing features you quoted are anything but cosmetic.

Not to mention that my Desire HD has no jerkiness in scrolling or anywhere else that I've noticed.

Oh, how much misinformation in a single piece.

"They need to stop hiring engineers and start hiring UX guys."

The two complaints you just aired are engineering complaints -- GPU usage by the core UI, and as a related complaint that the zoom speed of the browser isn't great (which again is GPU usage -- on the iPhone it is simply zooming in on a surface skin).

If I had to compare minor interface lag against the completely broken notification system on the iPhone, the latter absolutely eclipses the former. If you want to call one "not ready", I would say broken fundamental functionality is quite a bit higher on the complaint scale. Or at least it should be...yet we always hear about minor scroll stuttering.

Just as is the case with the iTunes dependency (no thanks), and previously the complete lack of reasonable multitasking.

Those egregious usage issues, however, always take a backseat to frivolous "you will never notice it when you actually use the device in real practice" trivialities.

Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does.

Wrong on all counts.

  If I had to compare minor interface lag against the
  completely broken notification system on the iPhone,
  the latter absolutely eclipses the former.

How is notification system on iPhone „completely broken“? I am asking, because even if my needs for notification are very basic, but what iOS offers match them perfectly, so it is not by any means broken. If it was completely broken, it would not work at all, right?

No there is no such thing as „minor interface lag“. If you notice a lag is not minor any more: it is one of the most irritating aspect of any UI. And UI stands for user interface: that means the thing you interact with every time you are using the device. That's why you always hear about „minor scroll stuttering“: because it is not minor.

Complaining about iTunes dependency, but silent about Google services dependency?

  Wrong on all count.

Indeed.

If you notice a lag is not minor any more: it is one of the most irritating aspect of any UI.

The people who complain about minor, incidental interface lag are the people who don't use Android. To people who use it day to day it just doesn't matter. It really doesn't.

But please, tell me again what's important to some iPhone users who don't use Android, repeat talking points, and live with a system missing basic functionality.

Complaining about iTunes dependency, but silent about Google services dependency?

Actually I'm complaining about the archaic, Windows Mobile like "Hook it up to a real computer" nonsense. Again, there is nothing good about that.

  To people who use it day to day it just doesn't matter.
  It really doesn't.

You saying so does not make it so. Invest some time in learning about usability, especially touch screen interfaces.

Says some boring internet goblin that has almost certainly never touched an Android device, much less in any real world situation. You're another bore with your tired talking points pushing forward the iPhone religion.

Get a grip.

Be careful here. They're engineering fixes, but the complaints are due to UX, and UX guys wouldn't have let those problems leave the lab. The GPU acceleration issue[1] has been open a long time, and a Google dev even said they think about it often and discount it. That's the problem: they're working on issues they think are important/interesting with their engineering hats, which isn't what users are asking for.

[1]: http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914

They're engineering fixes, but the complaints are due to UX, and UX guys wouldn't have let those problems leave the lab.

The lack of GPU usage is an engineering and time restriction: Android is available on many devices, not all of which have GPUs supporting two surfaces at once. Android made a completely reasonable compromise of not using the GPU for the surface which in practice works perfectly fine. With enough time and engineering effort they could, and should, create divergent codepaths for higher-end and lower-end devices, which is exactly what they are doing with Honeycomb.

I have no doubt they'll resolve it as the platform matures and the hardware base improves. It just isn't as important of an issue as many seem to believe it is: Again, I use Android as my primary smartphone device. Minor interface stuttering just isn't a big issue, or any issue at all for that matter.

What I did have a problem with was games that, due to GC pauses, stuttered (a problem that kills it as a gaming platform pre-2.3). That has been largely resolved in 2.3 with the concurrent GC (which also improves the base UI).

Aren’t we talking here about very personal reviews? Stuttering may not be an issue for you but it is an issue for me. It’s a dealbreaker for me.

It's a dealbreaker for very many people. The guy just does not know or simply chooses to ignore UX matters, otherwise he would know what's important and what's not.

I just want to make clear that I disagree with you. I don’t know how many people care about UI stuttering but I suspect that there aren’t many. I care about it but I feel very much like part of a minority.

I just wanted to make clear that different people have different priorities.

I know that you don't know. If you would know, you would not call that number "minority".

“Windows Phone 7 is providing a better UX than Android on version 1, and it doesn't strongly emulate iOS like Android does.

Wrong on all counts.”

Could you elaborate? I think that Windows Phone 7 has an absolutely stellar UI that’s at least aesthetically but I also think in other respects unlike Android or iOS.

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