

An Android user tries out the iPhone - usaar333
http://aaronstaley.blogspot.com/2010/06/android-user-tries-out-iphone-for.html

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potatolicious
> _"The iPhone dominates in UI performance"_

This is compared with a iPhone 3G, which already has somewhat pokey UI
performance compared to the 3GS. On Tuesday we will likely see an even faster
CPU running the same codebase. Apple is moving the goalpost for UI performance
seemingly faster than Google can keep up.

It is IMHO one of the main failings of Android - the UI is pokey in places
where it will significantly and negatively affect adoption rates and user
behavior. Scrolling is a pain on a Nexus One (haven't tried Froyo though,
so...)

~~~
masklinn
> This is compared with a iPhone 3G

But it's comparing with a HTC Hero. While a year younger than the 3G, it's
still not a "modern" android phone (not that your argument is completely wrong
as it does seem, from the reviews I read on e.g. the N1 or the Incredible,
that this impression of UI slowness/unresponsiveness is still there)

> It is IMHO one of the main failings of Android - the UI is pokey in places
> where it will significantly and negatively affect adoption rates and user
> behavior.

I think a bigger issue is the interface's customizability, leading to HTC
shipping its own Sense UI rather than working on improving the "main" Android
UI (by folding their improvements upstream)

~~~
timtadh
I have not noticed any slowness on the Droid however ... ?

~~~
enjo
My HTC Incredible is every bit as fast as my 3GS (which is to say, no
noticeable lag or slowdown what-so-ever).

~~~
masklinn
Which says a lot considering it has twice the RAM and 66% more CPU power...
(though it has nearly 4 times the surface)

~~~
nailer
Keep in mind things get even faster with 2.2's JIT.

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dieterrams
This is actually a pretty good comparison, and I can get behind his critique
of the iPhone's mail app.

It's worth noting, though, that several of his major issues with the iPhone
will disappear with OS 4.0, such as undesired screen rotation and lack of app
switching (though only for 3GS or newer phones). The mail app will also get
improvements like conversations, though I don't know how good its
implementation is compared to Android's. I wasn't particularly impressed by
it.

~~~
masklinn
> This is actually a pretty good comparison, and I can get behind his critique
> of the iPhone's mail app.

Likewise. On the other hand, I find interesting that (I think) he compared the
iPhone's mail application with Android's GMail application. I was under the
impression that Android's own mail application (for everything other than
GMail) was less than stellar, but that it would be a better comparison basis
(general-purpose MUA)

> The mail app will also get improvements like conversations

I was under the impression that it would only provide threaded view (much like
Mail.app's own), which is a far cry from GMail-type conversation views. A nice
improvement for e.g. mailing lists, but not the same thing as GMail's convos.

~~~
dieterrams
You're right, I should have said threads, and yes, they're a far cry from
GMail conversations. I actually don't understand why conversations aren't more
widely implemented. Is it particularly difficult to determine which messages
belong to the same conversation?

You're also right that he compared iPhone Mail to Android GMail, which offers
a better experience than standard Android mail. On the other hand, the iPhone
Mail interface doesn't get any better if you use MobileMe. Using MobileMe
would have given him the equivalent of Where's my Droid?, though.

~~~
masklinn
> Is it particularly difficult to determine which messages belong to the same
> conversation?

Probably, the outbox might have a different structure than the inbox, and lack
some kinds of IDs.

> On the other hand, the iPhone Mail interface doesn't get any better if you
> use MobileMe.

Absolutely (well I think you get push support, but that's about it), and I
think this here is a core difference between Apple and Google: with Google,
the Service (Gmail) is given a seat front and center (its own MUA) because
it's what Google "sells", whereas with Apple the service (MobileMe) is really
nothing more than a perk, it doesn't have any kind of primary status on the
device, and it's not expected that it be the main service for users of the
device.

~~~
rbanffy
> Probably, the outbox might have a different structure than the inbox, and
> lack some kinds of IDs.

It should be trivial to associate the messages the mail client sends to the
messages it gets from a server. If nothing else, you have the full original
message.

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axod
I just moved from iPhone to Android. The only thing I can't do is scroll an
_element_ in the browser. For example a DIV element with overflow:auto. On the
iPhone, you just use 2 fingers to scroll it. On Android it seems to be
impossible to scroll. Which means certain websites are a bit broken.

~~~
zzzmarcus
I did not know you could do that on the iPhone! Thanks for the tip. It should
probably be a lot more obvious, there aren't even scroll bars on overflow:auto
divs.

~~~
axod
Agreed. It's not all that obvious... I think I just _tried_ using 2 fingers to
scroll and it worked. Unfortunately not the case (yet anyway) on Android :(

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snitko
On Ubuntu 10.04 iPhone sync is supported out of the box by Rhythmbox, so this
is no more an issue.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Note that out-of-the-box here refers to Ubuntu, not the iPhone, as I believe
it still needs to be initially synced with Mac or Windows before use with
Ubuntu.

------
pilif
There are two reasons I switched back to my iPhone after three weeks of having
fun with the Nexus one:

1) the iphones touch screen. I don't care that much about the smoothness of
the scrolling, but I _really_ care about the ability of the touch screen to
accurately track my finger position. While the N1 often is /good enough/,
sometimes it fails badly and recognizes taps miles away from my finger. This
is really bad when trying to type.

2) this might be an issue of my specific device, but sometimes I have a really
bad hissing noise in my headphones. I'm constantly listening to Podcasts and
Audiobooks and I can't live with that. HTC has some knowledgebase entry about
this one and recommends to periodically shut the device down, remove the
battery while holding the power-off button, and then reversing the steps.
This, of course, isn't something I'm willing to live with.

So in the end it's build-quality that kills an otherwise superior phone for
me. Too bad.

I hope Google rev's the hardware and we get a N2 that fixes these issues.
Seing all the trouble with manufacturers not updating the OSes, I'd rather
stay with a "Google Experience" phone as that more or less guarantees updates,
so no Desire or Droid or whatever for me.

~~~
mitchellhislop
One small point, "Google Experience" refers to the OS installed, not who the
device is made by. The Desire and Droid are both Google Experience devices-
Those are the only devices that get access to all the Google API's and apps.

Also, updates being slow are more often than not the fault of the carrier, not
the manufacturer.

~~~
drivebyacct
That's not true. Non-"Google Experience" have plenty of access to all of the
Android Google APIs, etc. If they didn't no apps that used Google Maps,
Navigation, etc would work. The Google APIs are something that 3rd party apps
rely on. Google restricting their availability would literally destroy the
Market in one fell swoop.

The only thing that changes is whether or not they can print "Google" on the
phone.

~~~
mitchellhislop
Not true. There are 2 different versions of every android release-the "google"
version and the non-google version. They have different capability. We just
havent seen a major device launch without the google version.

As an android dev, you learn not to rely on google api's for things. Much like
twitter devs have learned not to trust the platform

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aaronbrethorst
wait 9 more hours. really.

~~~
tuacker
To spare someone else the confusion I just had for a moment: Aaron talks about
the WWDC Keynote that kicks off in a few hours

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kennu
Not a very useful comparison at this time, since iOS 4 is about to change the
email, multitasking etc. very soon.

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wglb
Ah, no comparison of video resolution.

~~~
masklinn
They're the same. Nice try, no sugar.

------
confuzatron
Scrolling in the browser is indeed a little smoother on the iPod Touch
compared to my HTC Desire.

But on the Touch, when you scroll past a certain point nothing is rendered
except a 'transparent area' style chequerboard. You then need to wait for the
browser to re-render the page. By contrast, the Android phone always renders
the page, so you can scroll to a particular point by looking at the page as it
scrolls past.

Given this implementation I'm not surprised that scrolling is smoother on the
Touch.

Perhaps this limitation is Touch-specific and doesn't apply to the latest
iPhone.

Re: autorotation - I much prefer the hysteresis algorithm used by Android when
screenflipping - I can use it when lying on my side, because the screen
doesn't flip until I've 'fully' turned the phone on its side. The Touch flips
after less rotation.

~~~
masklinn
> But on the Touch, when you scroll past a certain point nothing is rendered
> except a 'transparent area' style chequerboard.

It's likely an issue of RAM starving, is your Touch a first or second
generation? (they have a quarter of the Desire's RAM, even the third-gen has
only half the RAM)

~~~
confuzatron
It's a 2nd generation Touch. I've used a 3GS, but I just can't remember if it
behaves the same way.

~~~
ROFISH
Since the 3GS (and 3rd generation iPod Touch) has both more RAM and a faster
processor, you don't see checkerboards much. You still see them a lot if you
scroll while the page is loading.

An example, I just did: take a big, long, complicated page with lots of
Javascript (say engadget.com, the regular non-mobile version) and wait until
Safari is 100% done loading. You can scroll at skimming speed and I only saw
the checkerboards once. But if you scroll like a madman trying to get to
something near the bottom, it'll still checkerboard and make you wait for the
roughly 500 milliseconds to render.

------
drivebyacct
What an unfair review. Compare like units. My Droid (especially now that it is
running Froyo) has literally none of these problems. There is no lag between
launching applications and when you replace the terrible stock launcher with
LauncherPro, it really gives great performance. I have no shuddering and I
also have Flash in my browser. Works reasonably well, especially when using
'On Demand' mode.

Reviewing Android on the ram/cpu starved Hero doesn't really give Android a
chance to shine.

~~~
sambeau
I thought this was very fair, balanced and interesting. He was comparing an
old Android with an old iPhone.

Hopefully someone this balanced will do a fair comparison of the iPhone 4G
when it comes out to one of the new Android phones hyped up after Google I/O.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I agree that balanced reviews like this are needed but it would be even better
if they compared more than one phone. On the Android side there are obviously
a bunch with different manufacturers and target demographics, but even on the
Apple side I believe that the 3GS will continue to be sold as a cheaper
alternative to the 4G (or HD or whatever the new model is called).

