The Droid fails as a product when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone | Hacker News Reader

The Droid fails as a product when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone

scobleizer.com

20 pointscastway34 comments

Pretty much every reason that he gives against the droid makes me want it more. Hairdressers have iPhones. I'm a geek, I want a geeky phone. "a phone an engineer could love" sounds good to me.

So the best (3rd party) twitter app on Android isn't as good as the best (3rd party) twitter app on iPhone? Well wait a bit, there will be more apps.

Don't care. There are multiple phones running Android, unlike the Palm Pre and iPhone.

There are multiple models of iPhone too. It's fair to compare the latest, top-of-the-range flagship model to its counterpart. Right now, Droid is that for Android.

Sure, the Android ecosystem is probably going to get richer than Apple can allow for iPhone, but right now, that's the comparison.

I think he's talking about the different manufacturers and brands behind Android. Think of Android's business model as a loose coupled architecture, with the creation of hardware and software as separate components. This is the same strategy Microsoft took with Windows - they didn't make Windows hardware, and hardware manufacturers didn't succeed in making their own OS to compete with Windows. Apple, on the other hand, is in business of consumer devices end to end - responsible for creating both the high-level hardware, the OS, and some of the software.

He's wrong about the lack of HD Youtube videos. It's not on by default; you have to enable it in the menu, but the functionality is there.

I'm not sure what he means by "AS A PRODUCT." If it had failed in the areas he praised but succeeded in the areas he slams would it still have failed? Is this just a list of cons?

I think his problem with websites was a simple matter of screen size. On my Android phone, the right navigation wraps, because there's no room for it otherwise. On the much bigger screen of my Archos 5 media player (Android also), it displays fine -- it looks like it does on my desktop.

Turn the text size down, and things are fine on both.

Also, what does Twidroid Pro not do that anything on the iPhone does? I can post photoblog entries to Twitter and Posterous right from the home screen and I can go into the app to see messages from people I follow. I get a background notification when someone direct messages me or says my name. It also supports multiple accounts and multiple providers.

I am not sure what more anyone could want.

I think he just like to whine.

I think he does just like to whine, but I remember Gruber linking to this piece a while ago that mentions twidroid: http://notes.torrez.org/2009/08/android-software-day-3.html

Summary: a bit clunky, options that should be disabled/omitted are enabled, slightly buggy. Lots of little cuts, rather than missing features. Things may well have improved since then; I don't use twidroid.

Sounds like his main complaint is that there's no Apple logo on the back.

Read the comment from thomas marban about developing software on Android, who explains why the Android SDK means apps have worse UI.

Why does he have to scream so much?

Sounds like an Apple fanboy to me, I love my Droid.

What's your experience regarding battery life?

So far, looks pretty good. Yesterday was heavy with browsing and used about half the battery, so I would say that it is as advertised.

No complaints, better than my previous Blackberry Tour (9630)

what's your take on the "battery cover" thing the author mentioned? how much BS did he put in his article there, or could it be true?

I don't see it as in issue. If you are looking for an apparently batteryless device, maybe this is of concern to you. The salesman at the store used two hands to get it off, and I would not have even thought about this without this blog post.

Never had an issue with it, the phone seems very sturdy and the battery cover doesn't have any trouble on my unit. Also, the haptic response is amazing, never seen anything like it. The camera IMO is fine for what I need, I'm sure they'll fix the focus issue soon. My only major gripe is the keyboard, it's usable, but the numbers are quite tedious to type in, so I usually revert back to the on-screen keyboard (which is great, especially the prediction) when I need to type a long string of numbers.

Sounds like a droid fanboy to me.

So far oomkiller has not fabricated "facts" in favor of his argument.

Well, first off, you don't fabricate facts, that would just be lies. You can tell by the title that he set off to write an article about how the droid is bad. Not a comparison, basically just a rant about where it sucks. I'm sure I could just as easily write the same kind of article about the iPhone or definitely the Pre. What makes it even worse is that many of the issues stated in this article are nonexistent at best. First, the YouTube HD issue, no problems here. Then, the build quality issue, again, no problems here. Feel free to review my other comments for my quick review of the Droid.

FWIW, my comment is meant to be positive towards you and negative towards Scoble. You are not a fanboi because your review doesn't say something like, "I tried viewing my website on the iPhone, but dropped the iPhone and the screen cracked. When I view my site on the Android phone, my screen doesn't crack." Scoble's does.

Haha, Sorry, I misinterpreted your comment :)

Most of the gripes seem to be software problems that should be fixable in short time.

I wonder about the browser: aren't there browsers that are common to all Android phones? Or does each Android phone need a customized browser?

It's the same browser as the other phones have. It's also the same rendering engine that the iPhone's browser has. (But there is no Apple logo on it, so clearly it's inferior!)

And another thing (just got back from downtown having my wife drive so i could "navigate")--he does not mention the turn-by-turn navigation provided by the android, out of the box, no charge. Or the separate but related functionality of plotting your route on google maps and have it pinpoint your location within 6 meters (maybe better).

Oh, and the surprise at the end of the journey when doing the navigation by home is that it showed a street view of my home as we turned into the driveway. I did not expect that.

I don't know, but don't think the iPhone has that for free, but I could be mistaken.

"My first reaction was “boy is the screen beautiful but boy am I overwhelmed by the complexity.” What do I mean by that? the iPhone has a far simpler UI. You can only drag it one direction, left and right. On the Droid you can drag the UI left and right and up and down. This introduces a LOT more complexity."

I laughed my ass out because this guy is stupid idiot posting his idiotic ideas on idiot's blog! For instance, if I could drag mouse in Windows only left and right would it make the over all Windows UI better and much easier to use ? Would it make Microsoft a better company ? Of course not.

There's no need to ridicule the writer for his opinion.

There's a big difference between a moving a mouse in 2d space with a device moving on a 2d surface and navigating in menus. A better comparison is navigating in a 3D game vs a 2D (platform) game. The latter is easier for most people.

I will say it again, this Scobler guy is moron and complete idiot! He proves this with every post he makes. Somehow the idiotism he posts makes his blog even more popular, so I conclude that ppl who read him are in same coherent "state of mind".

Looks like you will make -4 on this post, but you are so right. He actually convinced his staff to work for him for free, all because he has a lot of Twitter followers. The world is a sad (but amusing) place.

Well, I got one Saturday, and tried his techmeme test, and it works fine on my droid. ESPN works fine, other sites work fine.

I appreciate his input, but to call it a failure is really begging the headline.

Now I don't have an iPhone, so I can't compare, but the screen is astonishing, and the verizion service has always been better, so I think it is a great product.

His bit about a lack of pretty applications should be the cue for every software entrepreneur to start salivating. Miss the iPhone app-craze boat? Now's your second chance...

Says who? Well Mr. Scoble, we already won the server farms, and it just a matter of several years until Desktops, Mobile Phone and Netbooks would all be running Open Source Operating Systems.

Signed -- Open Source Fanboy

I agree that he's completely missing the point. Of course the iPhone is a far more polished product.

However, it is a far more locked down platform than Android.

This is the reason I bought my Samsung Galaxy, though it is sluggish, and crashy. That's the current tradeoff you have to make if you operate a more open platform. In future, I hope the pain will subside.

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