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Posts tagged Android

Goofball Jones: iPhone 4 vs. All Those Android Phones

I was looking at getting the iPhone 4. I currently don’t have any phone, but I do have the iPad and I love it….so naturally I would think that going with an iPhone would be a logical choice as I can use many of the apps I have on the iPad with the iPhone. 

But I also listen to people like Leo Laporte. He LOVES Android phones and talks about them all the time. So I looked into possibly getting an Android and this is what I found:

1. There is no “Android Phone”. With the iPhone you don’t really have to make any choices, it’s the iPhone. You get it, you use it. The only real choice is to either get the 16gig or the 32gig. You get the iPhone, you run the latest iOS on it.

Not so with Android. There is no one Android phone. So…do you go with the Nexus One? The Incredible? The Droid X? The Evo? The Eris? They are all different…some have different cameras, some have bigger displays. Some even have different UI’s….which brings us to #2.

2. Several different UI’s on Android. With the iPhone you have iOS…that’s it. Now some may say that it lacks customization and it doesn’t give users a choice, but on the Android you see where this becomes a quagmire. Some of the Android phones run Android 2.2, some run Android 2.1. Some don’t even run those versions. So when you get an Android you may or may not be running the latest software. You may or may not be able to run certain apps because you don’t have that certain OS version that it may need. And we’re not talking about older phones that may not be able to run certain applications like older iPhones do. Where’s Android 2.2 on the Evo? That’s a brand new phone, isn’t it? Why is it up to the phone company and manufacturer to insure the OS is upgraded?

Why do some phones have a different UI than other Android phones? Get an Evo and you get this pretty Sense UI on it. Have a buddy that has a Droid X? Sorry pal, your Android phone doesn’t run this. But wait, I thought it was all Android? Why do some Android phones run some things but others can’t? I want a Droid X with Android 2.2 and the Sense UI on it…do I have to jailbreak the damn thing just to do this? I thought this was all an open free-for-all system.  

To be fair though, there may be some confusion with the new iPhone 4 and the older iPhones. Some new games may need the gyroscope only found in the iPhone 4 for instance…but I think the API is that you can still run those games on the older iPhones, just not with the same level of control. In my opinion it’s still not as confusing as the myriad of different options that you get with Android…which is both a blessing to some and a curse to others. To me it’s a curse. I’ve always found that less options breed more creativity in me. I know that sounds paradoxical, but it works for me. 

Source goofballjones

Google’s Andy Rubin Talks Open Systems and Androids

So Andy Rubin, Vice President of Engineering at Google has been quoted in the popular NY Time Tech blog, Bits, as saying:

“I’d be happy if that happened and someone wrote about it,” Mr. Rubin said. “With openness comes less secrets.” - Andy Rubin, Bits.

Rubin is of course referring to the recent 4th gen iPhone prototype that was lost and then posted about on Gizmodo. 

To which I wondered, really? Would I want that? Would I really want a fully open system running on my iPad, iPhone, or even Mac for that matter. If I were running a company and had a product that I had been working and developing for months (or years for that matter), would I want it to be leaked without my knowledge? Let’s see. 

The Macintosh environment has always been a closed system and for the most part, it has done very well as a closed system. Sure, there was the dark period of the 90’s, but hey, we can put the blame there on mismanagement. 

If the iPad/iPhone were a fully open system I am afraid that the inevitable problem would be that of stability and quality. If open systems were the end all be all of all tech products then why doesn’t everyone use a Linux machine? That’s a fully open system. Anyone can develop for it. It’s free. And yet, adoption numbers by “regular people” has been relatively low. Sure, geeks love it, but what about the other 98% of the population? 

An open system would cause confusion. Apple’s closed system has given us the future and so far it has worked out. Apple has lived (and almost died) on their closed system. The first time around, they lost that battle to Microsoft. This time around they have developed a mobile system that is so familiar to the lay person that they are poised to take full control of the mobile market. That familiarity comes from the closed system that they have so patiently developed since the first iPod was released. I personally like the current way that Apple runs things. 

As far as Rubin not minding a prototype Android being found and then written about, I have this to say. You wouldn’t mind because no one would give a damn about your prototype Andoid phone. Do you seriously think a prototype Android phone would garner as much media attention like the prototype iPhone did? I don’t think so. Your open system might dominate based on just sheer quantity of handsets running your OS, but you could never compare to the cohesive nature of Apple’s closed system. 

Swipe, tap and pinch your way through the best apps on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Random Apple musings also included.

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