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You can do this kind-of on the iPhone. Some apps support the geo fence wake-up thing that lets them update subscriptions.

For example, you can set your home address in Downcast or Instapaper so that when you leave or arrive, those apps will fetch new content without you having to open the app. Downcast will even download the podcasts in the background.

Now, this requires you to move outside the fence, so it's not time based. But I had a decent system where I had my work and home address in Downcast and I set it to fetch whenever I leave or arrive. My regular commute meant that I was always triggering the geo fence.

wouldn't this be the same as initiating the download as you prepare to leave the house? you'll still have to wait the 2-6 minutes for the podcast

Sure, but my way means that I get in my car and my podcasts are refreshed, or at least they are when I hit the first set of lights.

I'm a very casual podcast listener. I pull up the stock iOS podcast app, hit the podcast I want to listen to, and it streams (plays) while downloading. On non-wifi it takes maybe 4 seconds to start.

Is this unusual? Do other apps make you wait for the whole 'cast to download? Is it a per-podcast thing?

This assumes that you're somewhere with wifi (or 3/4G, I suppose). I do a good chunk of my iPhone media consumption during my commute via the subway - there's no internet underground, so everything needs to be pre-downloaded.

The downside of auto-downloading is that your tablet/phone will run out of battery much faster than on iOS. iOS has stand by times of weeks (31 days?), which is wonderful. My nexus 7 runs dry after days, arguably because of the apps I use, or because the OS allows them. I'm unsure which I prefer, though I'd like to be able to configure a trade-off between the two myself..

Simple fix: permissions.

> [Podcast App] would like to run in the background. You can change this at any time. Allow/Deny?

Or perhaps being a bit more specific:

> [Podcast App] would like to sync nightly. Allow/Deny/Charging Only?

Or only allow downloading in background when connected to a charger.

+1 I use BeyondPod as my Podcast manager and its set to only download when charging, on WiFi and at 7am. No background processing otherwise. I've used BeyondPod for so long that I don't even realize effective it is until reading all these comments. I have over 40 podcasts that are updated. I listen to them on flights, walking, downtime..etc.

There is a setting to turn off background wifi when not plugged in; that should solve your problem on the nexus 7.

I don't have a problem with plugging my device in every few days.

Perhaps I'm just trained from the bad old NiCd days to keep unused stuff on the charger.

For podcasts, I use Instacast and that definitely downloads in the background, but I believe the app just can't be in suspend state. As long as a bunch of apps have not been opened after instacast, it should download everything fone.

The trade-off is to have background downloading on all the time, which is something I hated about android in the 4 years I used it. Background processes were always killing my battery and it was never obvious what was running.

I think the sane compromise that I wish apple would make is to allow for more permanent background tasks to run, but only when externally powered.

As long as a bunch of apps have not been opened after instacast, it should download everything fone.

See, for me that uncertainty is a killer. I want my podcasts downloaded in the morning. I don't want to have to check before I go to bed that the app is still in memory, that's mad.

There are Android apps that abuse their background abilities, but the vast majority work just fine and don't kill your battery.

I don't think it's a matter of other apps not running after you suspend Instacast. All apps have a limited amount of time to complete something like a download task while backgrounded.

In Downcast, I have set my home as a geo fence, and tell it to fetch new podcasts whenever I leave or arrive.

Downcast is allowed to subscribe to this geofence and wake itself up to fetch new podcasts, all without me opening the app at all. The only catch is if the downloads take more than 15 minutes, they get paused until I open the app again.

You sure make a good case for Android being vastly more capable. After that litany, I'm really curious what are the "plenty of things I like about iPhone over Android". Why are you sticking with the iPhone despite your compelling list of Android advantages? I ask as someone who has used iPhone but not Android, is keenly aware of iOS limitations, but likes the hardware.

I've switched between the two platforms a bit - I had an iphone 3G, a few android phones, and switched back to iOS with iPhone 5. I really like Android but there were a few deal killers:

1) Battery life - pretty much the reason I switched back to iPhone. It doesn't matter how great the software is - if I can't turn on the phone it's useless. I don't know how many times I would be racing to meet friends at night, hoping I would reach them in time before my phone completely died. I spent an unforgivable about of my time tinkering with settings to extend battery using widgets (toggling data, location services, turning down brightness to the point it was barely viewable, etc.). My last phone was a Galaxy Nexus and almost everyone on my team had one. Guess how many people had 4G on? No one - the phone died in hours with it on.

A close friend, who is a diehard Android fan, keeps a stock of 3 charged batteries on him at all times (he has a separate charger). All of this was just too much of a hassle for me to justify. I haven't had a single day where my phone has died before I've gone home with my iPhone; it lasts a full day with my normal usage.

2) OS upgrades - I was debating between the Galaxy S3 and the iPhone 5 for my last phone purchase. Besides battery issues, a major con was that I knew the S3 would probably never be updated. Some of my favorite Android features are recent updates (Google Now) and it'd be painful to know that I probably miss out on new features for the 2 years of my phone contract. If the phone you want is a Nexus, this won't be that much of an issue, but that severely limits your device options. And it still somewhat applies to Nexus phones - the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is 3 OS updates behind due to Verizon's approval process.

3) UI/design - There is still a lack of UI/design consistency across the Android ecosystem. It means that the learning curve for the ecosystem is still higher than iOS and sometimes things don't behave the way you expect. Anyone who uses a combination Maps, Nav, and the back button heavily will feel this. I find that the Google Maps iOS app is significantly more consistent than the Android version (although less powerful). This is a consistent theme with iOS vs. Android - better UI but less power.

4) Camera - The camera is one of my most frequently used applications and Galaxy Nexus camera was pretty bad; Google sacrificed camera quality for shutter speed. There are a few Android phones with great cameras (S3) but they are not part of the Nexus line (see #2)

5) App polish - There is still a gap in the quality of applications on the two ecosystems. This is due to many developing on iOS first and Apple's review process. This is a minor complaint since the gap is narrowing and I expect this advantage to be gone by the end of 2013.

6) Maintenance & Depreciation - Have a cracked screen? Good luck finding a shop that will replace your phone model at a decent rate. Screen replacement on my Galaxy Nexus was $100+ while you can easily get your iPhone screen replaced for $30. Depreciation is a "feature" many don't think about, but it's nice to know that I can sell my phone for a decent rate if I switch back to Android (http://priceonomics.com/phones/)

I'm still a big fan of Android and will probably switch back when there's a Nexus phone released with a solid battery & camera.

>And it still somewhat applies to Nexus phones - the Verizon Galaxy Nexus is 3 OS updates behind due to Verizon's approval process.

It really is fairly straightforward to unlock the bootloader and update the ROM yourself, though. It would certainly be nicer if you didn't have to, but it's definitely an advantage of the Nexus devices that there's always good community support for this.

It also lets me use 4G wireless tethering on my unlimited data Verizon plan -- for that reason alone I'm not even a little tempted to switch to an iPhone. Really, the huge difference in camera quality is the only thing I'm jealous of.

Sent from a Starbucks where the internet is down. :)

Its probably not that straightforward for the non-techie crowd; at the end of the day these devices are built for the general population and not just hackers.

And to go on that reasoning, it should be just as easy to jailbreak an iPhone to allow tethering as well.

Regardless, my point was not that iPhones have a better feature set than Android (this isn't the case) but rather to outline a few deal breakers that made me migrate back to iOS.

I've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi.

I had an iPhone 3G. I despised the thing. It just made me wait all the time for everything I wanted to do. It was probably the slowest iPhone ever made (bad RAM decisions), but after I left, I'm happy never to go back. Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want.

My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.

I've got a GSM Galaxy Nexus. I picked up a 3.5 Amp-Hr battery on amazon, and the phone lasts 3-4 days on a charge now. It's a massive quality-of-life improvement. The only things I switch on/off are GPS and wifi.

The fact that you still have to turn off GPS and wifi to get 3 days battery life with a 3500mAh battery sort of proves the original point.

Most importantly, I can avoid the iTunes ecosystem now. I can stream my music on my work linux box, off my phone, or any other device I want.

That's funny because in Canada, iTunes is the only realistic way to buy digital music on a smartphone. On Android I really missed Sound-hounding a song, and then clicking on the link to buy it in iTunes instantly.

My 4G Xoom dies really quickly with 4g on. it's kept me off of 4g as a technology for at least a year.

I don't have 4G, but a friend has an iPhone 5 and even though he's always on 4G he gets great battery life. YMMV.

Yup, that's my list as well.

Android users will tell you that battery life is not an issue anymore but that hasn't been my experience at all. I think that it's a case of you can get good battery life as long as you don't take full advantage of most of the Android features. In particular GPS based apps are horrible on Android, most of them seem to poll constantly.

The article talks up the app data sharing, but I haven't found many apps that take advantage of it. Sorry, it just feels kinda gimmicky to me.

As a diehard iPhone User (Original, 3G, 3GS, 4, 4s, 5) - I'd like to point out that the iPhone isn't without it's "GPS Battery sin" also. 90% of the time when my battery goes crashing to zero (while simultaneously heating up the chassis), it's some crappy (or even quality) Application sucking on the GPS in the background without me wanting it to. DarkSky (Weather App) has been a bad culprit recently, but there have been a host of them.

My single most desired feature of the iPhone that I know I will never, ever, get - is a list of how much power each app has used in the last 1/2/4/12/24 hours. I understand that data is available through xcode telemetry, but Having to search for purple icons throughout the environment, reboot your iPhone, switch into Airplane mode - just to get full control over your battery gets old after a while...

The closest I've seen, though I haven't really looked hard and it's not a full analysis, is Battery Doctor by Kingsoft, which shows current draw for apps, both active and inactive, and system. It's only good for hints, and if there's something better I'd like to know about it.

I'd say the number one thing that made me switch to iPhone a year ago and that keeps me there is that it still feels like most apps appear on iOS first.

I like checking out new apps and games in particular. My impression is that more games are released first on iOS and then later Android (or not at all).

Others have complained that the average quality of apps on iOS seem to be higher than the average on Android. That's changing but it was certainly true a year ago. It's less true now.

The UX on iOS is still superior IMO to Android. I guess that's far more subjective. Some people like the back button on Android. I hate it since it's impossible to know where it's going to go.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/09/18/ux-things-i-hate-abo...

Apparently they've been working on fixing that

http://developer.android.com/design/patterns/navigation.html

but they require apps to do the right thing (insert fake history so pressing back in one screen always takes you to the same screen). That means there will always be apps that don't follow the rules. iOS doesn't have this issue because it doesn't have a back button.

That's just one example. There's more on that page. The Android team says they are 1/3rd the way there. Not sure how many versions until they are all the way there but I'm definitely looking forward to it.

There's a few issues I'm not sure will ever get fixed. The virtual (home/back/task) buttons really get in the way on games. Playing a game, at least an action game, my fingers slide all over the place. With the current iPhone design it's very unlikely to press the home button by accident but not so on Android (or at least not so for me). I'm sure some players have no problems.

There's a huge accessory market for iOS. Battery cases, Camera cases (lenses), stereos, 20x the case styles. I really wish Google would define some kind of standard for Android docks. iPhone5 broke all of this but I'm sure the market is catching up quick. Of course this is a fragmentation issue for Android but I'm sure someone creative could come up with a solution.

I'm sure there's a few others but that's the few that popped into my head.

Android still feels too clunky for me and I dislike the flat UI without gradients, drop shadows, or rounded corners.

"I haven't read the article but..."

So it's come to this on HN...

No.. it was just stated instead of not.

I routinely read through the comments before I actually click on the link to the article. It's a quick indicator to the quality of the article and often, I learn more from the comments vs. the article itself.

I used to do the same thing until I realized how much it affected my interpretation of the article. It colored my thoughts, making me part of the hivemind. Now I read the article first, then wait a few seconds before looking at what other people think so I can better for my own opinion.

That's the problem with the HN:News iOS app - it shows the comments first and I've always believed it should show the article first.

Very much yes. I need more up votes to give. Why on earth are comments first, maybe comments first AFTER the first viewing, but not first time.

Reading through the comments before reading the article is different from posting your thoughts without reading the article.

Somewhere between 50-75% of the time I don't read the articles posted to HN. The comments are frequenty more interesting, and almost always have commenters that are more informed about the original topic.