

Things that Irritate me About Android OS - 4 weeks in - gallamine
http://gallamine.com/post/3876525929/things-that-irritate-me-about-android-os

======
ZeroGravitas
I say something similar every time someone reviews Ubuntu, but if these are
the "problems" (on a $100 dollar no-contract phone!) then Ubuntu/Android has
arrived.

I think about half of the issues are valid problems, and some are fixed in
later devices e.g.

* Google's moving away from mountable USB storage to MTP system, the Nexus S has no removable storage,

* the newer Android versions have a recently installed tab in the ELOP though Google would probably prefer you to use search

* moving things to the home pages is much smoother in Honeycomb

* menu actions are more obvious in Honeycomb

but some are just stuff you have to, and will, get used to like not closing
apps.

Coincidentally I just blanked an old iPhone for my son to use and the number
one annoyance for me was installing an app and being dumped out of the app
store each time rather than them installing in the background in parallel. I
can see how this might help people who have never installed an app before, but
it was certainly an "annoyance" for me as I tried to fill the phone with apps.
In general after a few days I found the Android experience better, but
certainly at first coming from an iPhone it was like using a mouse with my
left hand.

------
ffumarola
> 1\. Phone storage vs. SD card storage.

Why? Because power users like to be able to move their data around as they
wish. For the typical "mother," they aren't filling up the 8GB internal that's
included. The 16GB SD card (or larger) is just gravy.

> 2\. The epic list of applications (ELOP)

Not sure what you mean... all apps are installed and available in the app
locker? In the market place app list, they are organized by install/update
date (I believe that is default).

> 3\. I have to manually move apps from the ELOP to the home pane where I want
> them.

I think I get it... you don't like customization.

> 4\. Inconsistent interaction

Huh?

> 5\. If I have the power to run multiple apps, then give me the power to
> close them.

The apps aren't really "running" in the background. This isn't a pc like
you're used to. It actually degrades performance and battery life to use task
killers. The Android Developer site has a good article on this.

~~~
ghiculescu
> For the typical "mother," they aren't filling up the 8GB internal that's
> included.

My mother (why the quotation marks?) loves recording videos and wouldn't dream
of removing them from her phone/SD, even if she imported them to her computer.
Filling 8GB is very doable. She'd be thoroughly confused once she did so.

Giving power users the option of moving things around is OK, but the phone
shouldn't report that it's out of space unless all the storage mechanisms
(internal and SD and anything else) are actually full, as opposed to;

> Today my phone said I was out of space, but it turns out I have plenty of
> space, but just not in the right place.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
The 8GB in his example is internal memory, used only by the phone to store the
Android system image and application packages. All user data, including
videos, are stored on the SD card, external memory. The vast majority of users
will never install enough applications to fill internal memory, hence the OP's
point is relatively moot.

I assume the author probably bought a dirt cheap Android device that doesn't
actually have a decent amount of internal memory; my original G1 for instance
only had 512M of internal memory, and installing some big apps or games could
quickly fill that up. Modern, powerful Android phones can have 4G or more of
internal memory for installed programs, which most users will never have a
problem with.

Granted, I'm not saying this still isn't confusing, but for most people it
should be a non-issue because the only thing they'll care about is filling the
SD card.

~~~
ffumarola
Thanks for clarifying for me!

Correct. All of the more recent "power" Android phones even tend to have 8GB
internal.

I wonder what phone OP was using... I just checked my Droid X: 1 GB (of 16 GB)
used on SD card, 2 GB (of 8G B) used on the internal.

~~~
gallamine
OP here. I got the Optimus V - dirt cheap and only has 256 mb of internal
memory. So, obviously this isn't representative of "modern" phones, but I'm
not convinced that better hardware is a good solution to a potential design
flaw.

Case in point, this phone recently went on sale at Best Buy and Target and has
been sold out in _every_ store in my city. There's a lot of new Android users
that will be dealing with this problem.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
What version of Android does it run? I have a similar budget phone (ZTE Blade)
and this was an issue under 2.1 (I would get warnings about being low on
space) but I haven't even thought about it since I went to 2.2 a while ago. I
believe most larger apps install themselves automatically to the SD card now?
Enough do it that it doesn't bother me anyway.

I actually have no idea how much internal space my phone has, which I take as
evidence that it's not an issue for me. Google tells me it's got a shockingly
small sounding 150MB of internal of memory.

~~~
vetinari
Blade has 512 MB of internal memory, but it is partitioned into /system, /data
and /cache. Both system and data are somewhere around 235 MB each and cache is
the rest.

Android doesn't help that it warns you when you are below 10% of free /data.
On Blade, it is still 23 MB.

Just out of curiosity, what are you using for 2.2 on Blade? AFAIK, the
official version is still 2.1.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I'm very happily using MoDaCo custom Froyo rom:

[http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-roms-rom-
customi...](http://android.modaco.com/content/zte-blade-roms-rom-
customisation/324786/oled-tft-09-feb-r12-modaco-custom-froyo-rom-download-
online-kitchen/)

~~~
vetinari
Thanks, I will have a look at it.

------
rbranson
The SD card issue might be confusing, but it would be even more confusing if
it installed apps on the SD card by default. Switching SD cards and having
apps die and/or disappear would he quite confusing. I don't know if there is a
feasible way to unify removable and non-removable storage. It kind of explains
why the iOS devices don't have removable storage.

~~~
gallamine
Good point. I hadn't considered that. For my use though, I'm not convinced
that having removable storage is all that useful.

------
cletus
The OP raises some valid points (agree with them or not).

> 1\. Phone storage vs. SD card storage

As much as people much like expandable storage it is, by definition, more
complicated. There are currently two simple models:

1\. All internal (the Apple model); and

2\. All external (the digital camera model, even though some do have up to
1-2GB of internal storage).

Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're suddenly asking your users
to make decisions about things they probably don't care about or that they do
care about in ways you can't predict. Will they want this app on internal or
external storage? What about this music?

All external works for digital cameras because the OS (firmware, etc) is in
the camera. The photos and videos go on the card. You don't lose functionality
when you take out the card (apart from edge cases like saving profiles on
certain high end DSLRs).

This is why I believe iDevices will _never_ have an SD card slot. Or, if they
do, it will only be for very limited use, much like the Camera Connection Kit
on the iPad.

> 2\. The epic list of applications (ELOP)

I find this a little strange too. If someone installs something, it appears at
the top level in iOS. On Android, mainly due to manufacturer customization,
you have less "home pages" for your apps (and they're generally filled with
crud you need to remove). Making your newly downloaded app harder to find is a
little odd.

> 4\. Inconsistent interaction

This is like the one/two button mouse argument. iDevices have one button, the
home button (as well as volume and, on the iPad, a mute/orientation lock
switch). In part for this reason, iOS apps are extremely consistent.

Android has 4 buttons: back, home, menu, search. IMHO at least 2 of them are
unnecessary. App developers use them in completely inconsistent ways, which
tends to frustrate the user.

The way I describe iOS (and Apple in general) is that they make the right
choices for most users most of the time. Nothing will ever make everyone
happy. The uncomfortable truth is that this is really the best thing to do for
the market as a whole.

Many tech-savvy people chafe against what they see as choices being taken away
from them (which they are) but they're also under the illusion that a) they
need these choices and b) having these choices, by definition, is better.
Neither is true. You may like these extra choices but that doesn't mean that
they're good or that you _need_ them.

Again, we can make a Windows/Mac comparison. Windows apps are horribly
inconsistent. Mac apps are almost completely consistent. That makes learning
new Mac apps much, much faster for experienced Mac users. By the same token,
put a Mac user in front of Windows or a Windows user in front of a Mac and
both will flounder (I don't buy the argument that Macs are _inherently_
easier; it still comes down to what you're used to). The learning curve is
definitely gentler on Macs however. Same for iOS (vs Android).

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
> Having a mix is like having two hard drives. You're suddenly asking your
> users to make decisions about things they probably don't care about or that
> they do care about in ways you can't predict. Will they want this app on
> internal or external storage? What about this music?

Except it's not. Android doesn't give the user any options, with one exception
that almost nobody ever needs to worry about. See my comment at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2327424>

>> 2\. The epic list of applications (ELOP) >I find this a little strange too.
If someone installs something, it appears at the top level in iOS. On Android,
mainly due to manufacturer customization, you have less "home pages" for your
apps (and they're generally filled with crud you need to remove). Making your
newly downloaded app harder to find is a little odd.

This boggles my mind. What is so hard about pressing a button on home screen
and then finding the application in a _sorted_ list of icons? If it's
something you'll be using often, you can put it directly on a homescreen, but
otherwise, how is it hard to find? Just because it's different from iOS
doesn't mean it's hard; it just isn't what you're used to.

Edit: Further on this note, iOS allows you to group app icons into subfolders
on your home screen. How is that any easier than having a single sorted list
for finding everything installed on your phone, other than the fact that you
were the one to define those folders? How is that any different than being the
one to define what's on your home screens?

~~~
gallamine
" ... finding the application in a sorted list of icons?"

1\. The list can be _very_ long. As far as I can tell, there's no scroll bar
indicator or even a alphabet marker.

2\. It's sorted by alphabet, not by install time, so it requires you remember
the name of the application. If the name is different than in the market,
you're really in trouble.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
> 1\. The list can be very long. As far as I can tell, there's no scroll bar
> indicator or even a alphabet marker.

That is a completely valid insight. Either solution would definitely make it
easier to scroll to the correct area of the list.

> 2\. It's sorted by alphabet, not by install time, so it requires you
> remember the name of the application. If the name is different than in the
> market, you're really in trouble.

I would imagine that for anything not just-installed, having the list sorted
by install time would be a nightmare. I have no idea what the relative order
of installation would be for any of my apps. As for the name, I would hope
that application authors wouldn't be so daft as to have the package's name be
different that the actual launcher's title, although I wouldn't put it past
somebody to do that.

