Android is better | Hacker News Reader

Android is better

paulstamatiou.com

120 pointsPStamatiou40 comments

I must admit, after watching Stammy use his Android day-to-day and proofreading this post, I am more tempted to try to use an Android as my main device from a consumer perspective. The seamless Google integration really is the killer feature.

However, from a developer perspective, I'm still staunchly in the "I want to build on iOS" camp because of the Android fragmentation issue and because there still seems to be an overwhelming majority of consumer spend on the iOS app ecosystem compared to Android. The Google apps on iOS are really very nice (though admittedly not as nice as their Android counterparts), but the only Google app I really want at this point is a Calendar app. Syncing and manipulating Google Calendar events with the native iOS Calendar app is still pretty terrible.

I find it funny when developers don't make Android counter parts or do so in a half effort fashion and then complain that no one spends money on Android apps.

If I could get the same apps on Android as iOS, my Android app spending would easily triple if not more. It isn't a lack of funds that keeps me from buying more. If a dev didn't bother to make it for Android, then he can't complain that no one bought it.

The Google Play store is full of shovel ware right now. The fact that Android users spend less only reflects that. That isn't going to change until the offering changes.

There are instances of Android sales producing higher margins then iOS. I'm surprised more folks don't notice that too.

http://www.hatsproductions.com/blog/features/organ-trail-one...

I just bought a Nexus 4 as my second smartphone (the first being a Palm Pre 2). Android is nice in the sense that it's more open and you (I assume, at least, having never owned an iPhone) have more choices to use open-source software. There are other bits and pieces that I also like, like the the modular nature of the software (you can use a different launcher, etc.).

But I disagree with a lot of the pluses in this article. I find the back button eminently confusing. I can never reliably predict what will happen when I go back. Sometimes if I go back from within Firefox, it'll go to the last app I used and close Firefox. Other times it'll go to the last page, or to the home screen. Sometimes in my now-playing screen of PowerAmp back will go to the album list, other times to the home screen. I can never reliably predict where back will go.

The UI theme is also shockingly utilitarian. I've got one of the nicest screens ever produced, 320 ppi, in my hand, and I'm using it to render a #000000 background, #ffffff text, and the occasional solid blue line? Really? Maybe I just don't like the whole "flat UI" paradigm that's becoming the new hotness.

Things also get more difficult when you try to leave the Google ecosystem. There's no CalDAV or CardDAV sync built in (though it's available with flaky and inconsistent addons), and removing all of the Google branding (like the search box at top) doesn't seem to be possible. The Google apps, while functional for the most part, are all very inconsistent in their themeing and UI.

Overall I get the impression that Android will, just like Linux, be eternally "almost there". The version that fixes all the little niggles will be forever just over the horizon. Google's had six years and its unbelievable muscle to polish it, and it still feels kind of half-baked to me. Having come to Android straight from WebOS, I find myself missing the overall polish, consistency, and thoughtfulness that WebOS had. (Despite its own problems, of course.)

> Overall I get the impression that Android will, just like Linux, be eternally "almost there". The version that fixes all the little niggles will be forever just over the horizon.

Except in the opposite direction it seems. Android is very much already there for consumers, which this blog perfectly highlights. Your complaints, however, are centered around not normal consumers but power linux users.

Linux: Caters to power users, never quite there for consumers

Android: Caters to consumers, never quite there for Linux users

Also FYI it's quite easy to remove the search box from the home screen. You can either disable Google Search entirely, or you can just install one of the half a billion or so alternative launchers in the Play Store. You can even have it look like WebOS if you want: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gau.go.lau...

> Your complaints, however, are centered around not normal consumers but power linux users.

I don't think they are; unpredictable back button behavior and inconsistent/plain UI aren't Linuxy complaints.

> Also FYI it's quite easy to remove the search box from the home screen.

I couldn't figure it out. If you disable Google Search, the box doesn't work any more, but it stays on your home screen. It just becomes a blank useless box. Not the same as removing it.

tap and hold, drag to the trashcan that appears and drop. It's gone after that on my nexus 7 running 4.2.2

The back button is, or at least should be, entirely reliable. It brings you to where you were previously. Almost everyone else gets that.

If you open a link on an email, hitting back brings you back to the message.

Ok, I'll throw out an "iPhone is better" counterpoint and not to say that you are wrong, but perhaps to say that "is better" at this point is subjective between the two excellent platforms.

My wife and I just had twins and my father in law couldn't make it to see them for a couple days, but we both have iPhones so we just used FaceTime and he got to see his grandchildren the day they were born.

My father in law is a pastor and isn't the most technically literate person in the world, but since FaceTime is easy to use and there is no app to install, it was a seamless experience.

In that moment, iPhone was better.

The flipside to this is that Skype is becoming pretty ubiquitous, to the point that even tech-illiterate folk can use it...

In my experience, Skype is far more well known than FaceTime, it's just that it never occurs to people that Skype exists on their phone. Once you tell them that, a lightbulb goes off in their head and suddenly they're much less interested in FaceTime.

Until they see how fucking terrible Skype video quality is compared to FaceTime? Oh and you need to know someone wants to call in advancve, and open Skype, so its what, a phone call then a skype call?

The likes of Skype and Google Hangouts are the equivalent of a POS chev or ford. Sure everybody knows them, and a good deal use them, but not because they choose to. Because they have to.

While true, I happen to have both kinds of devices (updated, not old), and we found the Facetime experience MUCH less pixelated and less jumpy than the Skype experience over the same network, back-to-back. In further tests, the Google Hangouts and other Google video offerings were just as pixelated as our Skype calls. Skype is a solution, but here is was case where we could objectively say one approach was better.

On the other hand, I did find that Skype over 3G was conclusively better-sounding than the regular AT&T voice stuff...when it did not lag out with weird chirps.

Is Facetime easier to use than hangouts video chat? How does it accomplish that?

It's 2013. Do we still need these kinds of posts? Pick the phone/platform that suits you better. Apple, Samsung and Google are already spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising. You don't need to help them.

> Pick the phone/platform that suits you better.

It's nice to have a good idea of what suits you before picking. This post is helpful in that regard.

I don't feel like it does. It's just pure advertising. It's not an unbiased review. It's also no substitute for someone trying out the platforms for themselves and making their own decision (which is what I'd advocate.)

I found this quite useful since he mentioned useful apps I hadn't heard of and some OS features I wasn't aware of. And I really doubt that many iPhone users are aware of many of these things.

Why is it biased? What makes a review unbiased to you?

Paul spent weeks evaluating the platform which not many people are able to do so they resort to other people's experiences.

This is why Yelp, The Verge, Engadget are popular. Not everybody can try things out because of the risk that it might be a waste of time.

Do I really have to explain why something titled "X is better" is biased? I thought the HN crowd was a bit smarter than that.

I understand why review sites are useful. I'm not advocating they disappear, but I do not think personal blog posts which are highly biased are useful. Especially in 2013 when these platforms have been around for years and years now.

I don't understand what your concept of "bias" is. A review on a review site is a person taking the device out for a test run, and seeing how it works. This personal blog post is a guy taking a device out for a test run, and seeing how it works.

It would be biased if he worked for Google, or if, at any point, he expressed a disproportionate favour for Android without backing it up. But he didn't. Why is it biased?

I switched just recently from being and iOS user for years. I really enjoy Android more, but this is completely a personal preference and I can make usage arguments for either operating system. iOS isn't bad by any means, and the simplicity is really nice under most circumstances.

Android has way more flexibility and the interface seems way more logical to me. I feel like I can get more from my device and accomplish tasks quicker.

Either way, it's silly to make this a "phone war" deal, since I think they just appeal to different types of users.

Strange. I recently switched to Android after 4-5 years on iOS. I miss iOS' "logicalness" and singularity - there was one place for a setting and it was logically placed. In Android, there seems to be sometimes as many as five places to change the same setting, and often you have cascading settings that are overridden by just one app while it is running.

It's quite frustrating, just to pick one, to figure out where to go when you want to change your wallpaper. Settings -> Display -> Wallpaper. Weird - maybe it's just me but "Display" is not associated with "Wallpaper" in my head. "Display" means things like screen resolution, which device I want the display beamed to, etc. Android is riddled with "not quite wrong but takes a second to remember" things like this.

I told my wife yesterday, "I didn't think it was possible that someone, in 2013, would develop a phone that was worse at event notifications than the iPhone but they've done it with Android!"

For reference, I've only been on Android for about six weeks at this point. I did two weeks with the HTC One, returned that (camera was not to my liking), and went w/ the S4. I like the display size on the S4. I imagine that, if nothing else changes, in two years I will switch back to an iPhone provided that the screen size is the same or bigger.

To me, iOS is better. I miss it.

I like the way apps work in android better than iOS they seem to have more freedom to work (things like Tasker being able to work with multiple apps, and Google Play Music able to run in the background and sync without me having to open the app every once in a while) .

As for your settings maybe you just aren't thinking about the android way, for changing the wallpaper you should probably be pressing the menu button on the home screen much like you would right click on the desktop in Windows.

Maybe it's just me, but I think changing wall papers on Android is much more simple than iOS. Actually, all you need to do is just long press a blank area and change the wallpaper.

It's simple, basic shortcuts like this that are the reason I like Android. It does take some getting used to, though, if you're coming from iOS (I made the move back in 2010).

And how do you discover a simple basic shortcut like that?

Yea, I get that there's a whole "Microsoft vs. Linux" thing about iOS vs. Android (I'm dating myself at this point). The difference, for me, is that I don't want to 'learn' my phone. I want to play, surf, chat, and talk - that's it. I'm perhaps different than most here on this site specifically in that regard. I enjoy learning the OS of a computer, but I could care less about spending brain cells learning 500 shortcuts for things that "you need to know" because the OS was so clunky.

> I told my wife yesterday, "I didn't think it was possible that someone, in 2013, would develop a phone that was worse at event notifications than the iPhone but they've done it with Android!"

How are Android's notifications worse than the iPhone's? Android's notifications have consistently been regarded as superior. There's a reason Apple straight up copied Android's notifications, Google got this oh so very right.

Android's event notifications are far worse - there are times when an alarm goes off, I touch the screen, my "unlock" screen shows, and then I'm taken to my home screen. I'm left wondering, "Wait - what just caused the alarm to go off?" There's no notice outside of the alarm. When I look at the notifications page (swipe down from top), there is nothing. The only way I can find what my appointment/event was is to navigate to my calendar. That's way worse!

By "alarm" do you mean calendar notification or alarm clock alarm? Because alarm clocks don't require unlocking to see what they are, it sounds like you may be dismissing them before looking at them.

Calendar notifications are in the notification tray until you dismiss them

I don't know what other "event" notifications you are talking about. Also note that a lot of this is up to whatever app you are using and not Android itself.

By "alarm" do you mean calendar notification or alarm clock alarm?

Calendar

Calendar notifications are in the notification tray until you dismiss them

I wish. See my post for description of what happens 2-3x per week on my Galaxy S4. I'm using the built-in calendar.

Oh, try using Google Calendar instead: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

(or whatever other calendar program you want - there's really no need to stick with the built-in if you don't like it)

I recently switched to Android for a few weeks. I got a Nexus 4 for development and decided I'd move over to learn as much as I could about using Android. I really liked it but I switched back to iOS for a few reasons:

1. After PRISM I don't like having all my information with Google. I'm willing to give up privacy to a point but giving it all to one company worries me and I trust Apple more as their business doesn't involve using/selling my information.

2. As an iOS dev I've been using iOS 7 for the past couple of months and it is really nice. It took a little while to adjust to the new UI but I really like it and they seem to be doing some Google Now style stuff with the notification centre which was one of the big Android selling points for me.

3. The fact that Android is so flexible and open is very useful and there are some great apps available. But I've found that iOS I just a little slicker. iOS runs just a little smoother. Comparing identical apps on each platform (Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter etc.) the iOS ones are just a little smoother and nicer to use. This is one of the big things I've noticed. iOS may have some tradeoffs but it is just a lot nicer to use.

Great review! I've been playing with the new Nexus 7 for last two weeks and it's the best tablet I've used so far. Android is killing it.

Looking forward to Moto X becoming available at Play store.

Everything is better. Everything is worse. Just pick something that works for you but don't expect you will magically change everyone's mind with your wit.

Great choice of Hacker News app in the second picture :)

I used Android from 2010 till 2013 and recently switched to iPhone. iOS is just notch above in terms of performance, over all design and finish. Android is good but software updates suck. And apps on iOS are much better designed (both visual and UX).

Lastly, all the google apps work on iOS so I don't feel I'm missing anything.

Great article! Not only do I like Android better, but you can save a lot too. It's a win-win.

What I hated about Android was that almost every app wanted access to my private information. Unlike iOS, on Android, you have to grant permission at install-time, and afaik there is no way to deny certain permissions selectively. Other than that, I like it a lot, it has come a long way, and it certainly looks nicer than the mess that is iOS 7.

And more apps than you probably realize demand the ability (which you probably explicitly permitted) to listen, store and retrieve everything that is said within a sufficient proximity to it (which is pretty big.) You gotta wonder which of those apps are security state Trojan horses.

If you carry an Android phone with even Google Search on it you are carrying a wire that is not ever under your control and is hot at any or all times.

Is this true with iOS?

I'm wondering why he forgot Tasker :s

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