Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SwellJoe | Hacker News Reader

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I'm pretty excited about Firefox OS, honestly. While I loved my first two Android phones (G1 dev phone, and Nexus One), I've hated my third (HTC Sensation). I can blame HTC Sense for some of the disappointment, but I think Android has become less stable over time. It restarts the desktop (dashboard, or whatever the "main" screen is called) regularly, maps crashes all the time, and sometimes the network just stops without warning or error. I've occasionally rebooted the phone to find I've missed hours worth of calls and text messages and Google Talk messages.

I'm also becoming frustrated with Google's evolution toward walled gardens, an end to privacy, and away from the open (and anonymous, when needed) web. Reader to Google+ is one indicator. CISPA is another. I consider Firefox a good foil against that evolution, and I've started switching back to Firefox for my primary browser. In time, Google will have less control over my online life, because the trust I once had toward Google is fading.

I don't believe Google really believes in "Don't Be Evil", anymore, and so I have to protect myself, and push back against Google's dominance. However small my efforts may be to GOOG's bottom line. (And I still hold GOOG stock. Ethically, I'm not sure where I stand on that.)

I can't speak for your experiences with the HTC Sensation, but my Samsung Galaxy S3 running Android 4.1.1 has been remarkably stable, especially compared to my previous phone, an HTC Legend running Android 2.2.

As for broader issues you raise about openness vs. the walled garden, I'm also excited to see alternatives like Firefox OS, Ubuntu Phone and so on take shape.

Indeed, with my SGS3 I feel like it's about the best phone I'm going to need for a while. I'm pretty happy to say that I'm totally satisfied with this phone and I think I will be for quite a while.

Seriously, it's so fast, so stable, and has all the things I want (solid camera, fast Web browsing, day long battery, etc) that I doubt I'll want anything else for maybe years.

I have a Note II running 4.1.1 and I experience the OP's "deluge of texts/notifications hours after the fact" issue. It's very frustrating to get pinged with 10+ notifications at once that came in over the past hours.

To be fair, it's wifi related, but to be more fair: every single iOS device gets texts and notifications from the identically same wifi network without any issue.

If it's anything like my work network, it's because you have ports blocked. Agreed that it's annoying that iOS has no such problems, but I'm guessing we have a minority problem.

I'd say you can and should blame HTC Sense, in the absence of current experience with Android. I have a Sensation as well, and also a G1, Nexus One, and of late a Galaxy Nexus. I also use a Motorola Defy and Optimus G with stock Android and a Nexus 7 tablet with the same (though different versions). The only devices I've ever had consistent problems with are those with carrier crapware (there was another before the Sensation but I can't recall what it was at the moment).

The last version of Android you used was 2.3 -- I don't think it's fair to compare that to anything current.

How do you figure the last version I used was 2.3? The Sensation I currently own has 4.0.

And, I actually really liked the Nexus and the G1. I hate my ICS-equipped current Android phone. The older versions of Android were great; it's the newer version that has disappointed me.

The newer version as fugged up by the vendor's extensions, you mean. I'm currently using the Nexus 4 - a proper successor to and much fairer comparison to the other vanilla Android devices you've had - and have experienced no problems with Android 4.2.

Got a Galaxy Nexus here, makes me wonder why people buy iPhones -- truly amazing device, am sorted for awhile here, zero need to get the latest & greatest from Google just yet (although $350 with Gorilla Glass is a pretty absurd deal).

What's the iPhone running these days factory unlocked? Gotta be at least $650 USD, no? I don't understand.

I went from a G1 through two non-google phones, and hated them both.. really like my Nexus 4 that I have now. I'm also frustrated with Google's actions as of late... and if they had an even higher end phone that the Peak, would probably order one.

How could like the G1? The capacitive screen was awful and the performance terrible, although the latter was due to lack of optimizations and JIT in the Android VM.

Now that Sundar Pichai is in charge of Android I've been looking at alternatives and Firefox OS looks very promising. I don't use that many apps on my phone anyway and would like to steer clear of some Google products.

>Now that Sundar Pichai is in charge of Android I've been looking at alternatives

Why does Pichai make you want to look at alternatives? just curious.

He's the fella who shutdown the Atlanta engineering office and killed the projects that were being developed there. Not a big fan.

Edit: He's also responsible for the CalDav fiasco.

It was a great little phone. I actually owned two of them (not because of breakage...a friend got a dev phone from Google for free and gave it to me, so I gave the original G1 I'd bought to a friend). I loved the keyboard, and miss it pretty regularly with touchscreen-only phones. Maybe that's why I didn't mind the touchscreen...a keyboard is better.

Funnily enough, the dev phone (the second G1 I owned) is still in use today. I gave it to a friend a few years ago when I got the Nexus One, and she is still using it and still loving it. She had never had a smart phone. When her phone died, I gave her the dev phone, because I was tired or her calling rather than texting (and because I'm nice like that). It's taken a lot of abuse, but it's still ticking, and is more reliable than the Nexus One I replaced it with (which died), and the Sensation 4G (which has several hardware problems, in addition to the software being more than a little quirky). I'm still really impressed by that old phone.

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