

An Android User’s Take On Yesterday’s iPhone News - jordanmessina
http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/08/an-android-users-take-on-yesterdays-iphone-news/

======
rimantas

      But I expected to walk out of San Francisco’s Moscone
      Center yesterday longing for the next iPhone despite my
      current allegiance to Android. That didn’t happen.
    

It did not happen, because it simply couldn't. After reading the article I
cannot imagine _what_ could Apple offer to satisfy him it apart from shipping
iPhone 4 with Android OS.

Really, if you dismiss all the good points as not so important, what's left?
Rainbows and ponies?

He prefers Android, that's OK but Apple just cannot satisfy him then, no
matter what they do. That's OK too, that's why we have a choice.

~~~
drivebyacct
Apple saying their going to stop ruling the AppStore like a dictatorship and
introducing an open-protocol voice chat that they could champion? It would
definitely get a second look from me.

A higher density screen that is only slightly better than current Android
phones, a lack luster multitasking architechture, video chat that ONLY works
with other iPhone 4 users... not "game changing" in my opinion.

Facetime is the one that just bugs me. What is Jobs thinking? Why would you
not call it iChat and allow it to work with desktop-iChat? Even then it would
still be a joke. With Qik, any Android phone, or more important any phone
period has the ability to communicate with other Qik users regardless of their
phone. How does he expect Facetime to take off? Apple spearheading an open
video chat platform would be ... cool. I still am not sure I would jump to the
word "revolutionary".

Or is it just a sale gimmick?

~~~
masklinn
> video chat that ONLY works with other iPhone 4 users...

Built on open formats and which they clearly said they were going to submit as
an open protocol.

> Why would you not call it iChat and allow it to work with desktop-iChat?

because it's apparently not an IM application, and Skype will have to take
care of that part.

> With Qik, any Android phone, or more important any phone period has the
> ability to communicate with other Qik users regardless of their phone.

Uh not really, unless they've fixed the 20s lag (each way). And it's not like
Qik can't update their iPhone client. You know, the one which already exists.

~~~
drivebyacct
Feel free to ignore my criticism's of Facetime. I feel completely ignorant.

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples_biggest_news_vid...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/apples_biggest_news_video_calling_as_open_standard.php)

Thanks for the heads up.

------
pcestrada
I think a big advantage that the iPhone has over Android is that Apple is able
to synchronize hardware and software development since it exists within the
same company. I imagine Google works with handset vendors but there must be
inherent inefficiencies in communicating across multiple companies. Apple can
maintain a yearly drumbeat of putting out a polished product where the
software and hardware dovetail nicely.

~~~
drivebyacct
I don't understand why that's an advantage? It's just another of Apple's
control vices. The hardware of the phone functions independently of the
software and vice versa. Maybe for things like fragmentation or updates it
makes sense, but I don't really see Google putting on the brakes because they
don't make the hardware. Ironically that's the very thing leading to the so
called "fragmentation problem".

~~~
jsz0
A good example is upgrading the quality of the iPhone video recording and
simultaneously releasing iMovie to go with it. So you get a hardware upgrade
and a much more practical way of using the hardware. For many people syncing
videos off the phone and editing them on a PC (especially Windows) is just too
much of a hassle. Android phones have had video this quality of video
recording for months but don't have anything like iMovie which might make the
hardware capabilities less appealing to someone. Another example is the front
facing camera which you can presently get in the Sprint Evo. How many Android
apps support switching camera sources? They're relying on Qik for video chat
which has experienced major problems since the Evo's release. Who's
accountable for that? Not Google, Not HTC, not even Sprint. They just throw
the stuff out there and hope it works right. Hardware has to be accessible to
people via software or it's just a geek fetish.

~~~
nooneelse
But in the land of pure unbundledness and light, the upcoming hardware
improvements would have been made known to all simultaneously, and more than
one group could have been making software for it. Possibly giving you more
choice on the first day the hardware was available. So the thinking goes.

------
edster
I have to say that I'll be very disappointed if the iPhone 4 comes with only
256MB of RAM. You would think the iPad experience would have taught them that
256MB is not enough RAM to accommodate the significantly increased amount of
RAM needed to back the higher resolution display. It's a world of difference
between my 3GS and the iPad, where the iPad can't seem to keep more than one
page in memory at a time. It's really annoying.

I think the author is quite wrong in thinking that Android will have hardware
parity in 4 months. For one, Apple has probably consumed all available supply
for the display hardware. Not to mention the disconnect the author himself
pointed out between software and hardware. Vendors are finalizing now the
hardware that will be shipping in 4 months. It will be months before
comparable hardware is spec'ed out, and 8-12 before it starts shipping. the
900 pixel OLED screens most Android handsets have is nowhere near comparable
to the 900 pixel IPS LCD display.

~~~
ergo98
>I have to say that I'll be very disappointed if the iPhone 4 comes with only
256MB of RAM

Be disappointed. They built the A4 SoC with 256MB of RAM, and that's what
they're delivering.

>I think the author is quite wrong in thinking that Android will have hardware
parity in 4 months

I would say that there is already hardware parity. An Evo 4G and a iPhone 4
have middling differences -- is 960 vertical pixels really that much huger
than 800? No -- though the former has double the RAM. The Evo doesn't have the
DPI, though it's humorous how important that suddenly has become (whereas
previously the iPad was "gooorrrrrgeous" with it's very low DPI).

>the 900 pixel OLED screens most Android handsets have is nowhere near
comparable to the 900 pixel IPS LCD display

You know it's weird how when Apple does something, suddenly it's considered
superior. I keep reading people hilariously holding up IPS as some sort of
ultra-tech compared to "inexpensive" OLED. It, of course, is absolutely wrong.

The iPhone's 800:1 contrast is _terrible_ , but that's what you get with LCD.
All IPS adds to the plate is better off-axis viewing (not that it really
matters), but that's a non-problem with OLED.

I'll take a SuperAMOLED any day of the week. It beats LCD on virtually every
metric.

Apple does make the most of what they do have though. See that Android prior
to 2.2 had horrific banding in the Gallery app because it did ridiculous
processing of the color bands, completely undermining the massive colour
capabilities of the AMOLED screen.

~~~
refulgentis
Few quick notes while I'm sitting in class:

\- 960 is 20% bigger than 800, and that's not accounting for the fact that the
screen is much smaller, which makes a big difference in DPI.

\- the argument that the iPad didn't have as good a DPI as an Evo and people
didn't complain then is a straw man. The iPhone 4's display is clearer more
impressive, numerous media outlets have said it's the best display they've
ever seen.

\- Have you tried using an OLED screen? You can't read it at all in sunlight.
I know LCDs aren't amazing, but I can at least see what's on the screen and
interact with it. maybe I don't know enough about newer OLED technology
though, I haven't had a chance to play with an Evo

\- That's the problem with Android, or maybe their development team: they
simply don't have the resources or smarts to focus on specific features of the
OS. They couldn't get the color band processing right on a first-party device
until 6 months after launch!

~~~
ergo98
>the argument that the iPad didn't have as good a DPI as an Evo and people
didn't complain then is a straw man.

The iPad display was widely regarded as gorgeous, and suitable for a great
eReader where DPI really matters most. It has 130DPI, and is meant to be used
at the same sort of distances as a smart phone.

So why didn't a "retina" (honest - gag) display matter for the iPad? Is the
iPad junk now?

In reality the 960x640 display was necessitated by the very limited
adaptability of iPhone applications to varying screen densities. They couldn't
just pixel double if they went to 800x480, for instance, but their hand was
pretty much forced to double each axis.

All I'm pointing out is that the sudden demand for pixel density rings a bit
hollow.

>Have you tried using an OLED screen? You can't read it at all in sunlight.

The Evo actually uses an LCD.

And yes, I use an AMOLED every day. It is _horrible_ in the sun, and the car
dock is almost a joke because it is essentially unusable. That's why Samsung
(who makes many of the parts for the iPad and iPhone, as a side note) made
SuperAMOLED coming on the Galaxy S, among other models. It solves the
visibility in the sun issue, although it's quite a bit more expensive of a
part than going with an old school LCD.

~~~
edster
The SuperAMOLED display is supposed to mitigate the sun factor, so it will be
interesting to see how it works. I'm sure Apple has evaluated that tech, but
chooses not to use it for some reason whether it's cost, availability or
simply the fact that it's not yet good enough.

Personally, when I use the iPhone in bed with my glasses off and I surf or
watch something, I see pixels. I can't wait to see how the new screen
performs.

You characterize the fact that they went super high resolution to accommodate
existing apps as a bad thing? How many other companies would have chosen the
cheap and easy way out? I say most. This is one example of Apple's focus on
the consumer that separates it from the competition.

~~~
ergo98
>I'm sure Apple has evaluated that tech, but chooses not to use it for some
reason

The reason is almost certainly limited supply. If you want to sell millions
upon millions of a device, and the premium part has limited supply, you simply
don't use the premium part. The less obvious reason is that OLEDs simply don't
come with that high of a density, so Apple would have had to increase the
screen size or go with a lower resolution which, as mentioned in the following
point, they didn't want to do (and it isn't to achieve some bogus "retina"
quality).

>You characterize the fact that they went super high resolution to accommodate
existing apps as a bad thing?

It's bad in that its covering a mistake. The iPhone SDK should have had
density-independent pixels from the outset -- geez we've known about this
problem for years -- but it didn't. It was remarkably shortsighted, and still
they merely duct tape it.

>How many other companies would have chosen the cheap and easy way out?

Apple chose the easy way out, so not really sure what you're saying there.
They went with a basic LCD display so I doubt the cost is all that great.

~~~
gaiusparx
> In reality the 960x640 display was necessitated by the very limited
> adaptability of iPhone applications to varying screen densities. They
> couldn't just pixel double if they went to 800x480, for instance, but their
> hand was pretty much forced to double each axis. > It's bad in that its
> covering a mistake. The iPhone SDK should have had density-independent
> pixels from the outset -- geez we've known about this problem for years --
> but it didn't. It was remarkably shortsighted, and still they merely duct
> tape it.

Clearly shows you know nuts about the iPhone SDK.

~~~
ergo98
Sure would be mighty good of you to clear this up for us then. I look forward
to it.

I know enough about the iPhone SDK to know it is very physical pixel-centric.
Contrast this to the Android SDK that is very pixel agnostic (which is how it
isn't a big deal that one device has 854x480 and another has 480x320. The
former simply looks better. Just as it isn't a big deal if aspect ratios
significantly change, whereas in iPhone world developers had to rush to make
iPad specific apps, just as now they'll have to make iPhone 4 variants if they
don't want simple pixel doubling.

Nonetheless, I look forward to your clarification.

~~~
gaiusparx
iPhone SDK doc: "In iPhone OS there is a distinction between the coordinates
you specify in your drawing code and the pixels of the underlying device. When
using native drawing technologies such as Quartz, UIKit, and Core Animation,
you specify coordinate values using a logical coordinate space, which measures
distances in points. This logical coordinate system is decoupled from the
device coordinate space used by the system frameworks to manage the pixels on
the screen."

I am not familiar with Android SDK. Do you mean you can write one UI code that
runs on all Android devices irregardless of their screen resolution? Such as
on Nexus one and a tablet running Android?

------
ben1040
This about sums up my opinion of iPhone 4. My N1 is still a wonderful phone
and for the features I use, I still don't think I'd want to trade it (back) in
for an iPhone just yet.

I think the key phrase there is "for the features I use," however. If I were
younger and cared more about video chat, I might be wanting to seriously hop
on this phone.

I still think that since Android 2.1 was released the momentum in terms of
software development is still in Android's favor, while Apple's last
development cycle seems to be all about making a seriously slick looking piece
of hardware.

~~~
batiudrami
Well, in Australia we've had video chat over 3G for about 6 years now.
Everyone has a 3G phone (it's standard) and everyone can use video chat. The
thing is, people don't. I've never once received a video call apart from when
we all first got them and there was novelty in calling a guy who was sitting 2
metres away from you.

Video chat is awkward because it means your contact is on speakerphone so
everyone can hear you, and I don't really need to see who I'm talking to
anyway.

~~~
geocar
> Video chat is awkward because it means your contact is on speakerphone so
> everyone can hear you,

About that: You can use an earpiece.

~~~
batiudrami
I assume you can do this with other phones too, though I've never tried it.
The video call quality you get over 3G is fairly poor too - iPhone's
implementation seems to have much better quality based on the promo videos.
However, it still has some major flaws - only to other iPhones (for the
moment) and only when you're on Wifi - that requires quite a bit of
coordination to make sure the person on the other end is ready for your call.

I honestly don't see this catching on - the trend I see is away from actual
human interaction (SMS, Facebook updates and IM) rather than towards it.

------
martythemaniak
One pretty disappointing thing from my perspective was no-iTunes related
announcements. Using iTunes as your generalized device sync hub is terrible
and Apple hasn't given any hints on what it plans to do about it.

The cloud sync stuff Google showed off was impressive and that's their
strength. Apple has a lot of catching up to do and they need to get to it
pretty soon.

~~~
barake
It is pretty rad. I had to swap out my Nexus One a while back and upon logging
in to my new device all my contacts, applications and even wallpapers were
downloaded automatically. There were a few hiccups like missing custom
ringtones but overall the syncing works as advertised.

~~~
martythemaniak
I was also pretty impressed with the upgrades. Froyo was 44mb, installed in
about 5 mins and kept all settings/data.

Contrast that with the iPhone update I did from 3.1.2 to 3.1.3 - first a huge
300+ MB download, then erasing the device, then overwriting everything and
finally syncing back countless gigs of data. ugh.

------
mark_l_watson
Good article.

I do wish that my Droid had a video camera on the same side of the phone as
the screen for video Skype, but that will probably be in a later release.

------
ergo98
A balanced read.

One surprising thing about the iPhone (and about the iPad) is that it still
only comes with 256MB of RAM. They seem to accomplish a heck of a lot with
that, yet still that is very constricted once you start talking about
multitasking and the like.

It is a pretty major update, but really the Giz leaks among others did take
some steam out of it. It isn't as big of news simply because it isn't news -
we long knew about it.

~~~
illumin8
I've heard this 256MB limit that you see on all the smartphones now is because
the ARM A8 architecture they are based on only has 256MB of RAM on the die. I
think this is the biggest limitation that these devices have right now. I love
my iPad, but it kills me to have the occasional "crash to desktop" just
because Safari ran out of memory.

My prediction - next year we'll see A9 based smartphones/tablets with
512MB-1GB of RAM and these memory starvation issues will be a thing of the
past. It certainly doesn't bode well in the short term for early adopters
though.

The post PC era is upon us - too bad the hardware (and software) is still in
it's infancy.

~~~
drivebyacct
You act as if "first movers" ever don't get screwed by Apple. I understand
that technology is constantly evolving and that by time I buy a phone, a
better one is being produced, but I _can't_ shake the feeling that Apple
schedules their releases and features in ways that maximize their revenue. I
suppose I can't really blame them for that. It just makes the whole thing seem
less "magical" the way some act like Apple is just the most innovative and new
company in the whole wide world.

Also, I still can't help but laugh at this moniker of the "post PC era". The
rest of us are still doing real work in Windows, Mac, Linux and the
smartphone/tablets are accessories.

~~~
illumin8
Did you read what I wrote? I get screwed every time my iPad crashes to desktop
because Safari ran out of memory. It's still a great device though and the out
of memory situation is rare, so I keep using it.

~~~
drivebyacct
I don't know why you feel that my post is in anyway attacking you or the
scenario that you've repeated.

------
drivebyacct
It's beautiful hardware and beautiful software. I'll take functionality any
day though.

This is the divide. I have two geeky friends. One is OCD and well dressed. He
likes things to work smoothly and look good. He is _very_ happy with his
iPhone and is excited to upgrade. My other friend is like me, he loves to hack
and is a fan of Google's services.

Google needs to put Matias Duarte to work. Gallery3D is beautiful, there's no
reason those GUI elements couldn't be more standard/accessible to the avg dev.

~~~
potatolicious
> _"He likes things to work smoothly and look good. He is very happy with his
> iPhone and is excited to upgrade. My other friend is like me, he loves to
> hack and is a fan of Google's services."_

Can we not have both? I don't buy the dichotomy that a hacker-friendly device
must be jerky and ugly. IMHO what Android lacks is integration - the odd
fusion of hardware and software that Apple seems uniquely able to pull off.
With the exception of the Nexus One (for probably obvious reasons), every
Android phone I've used feels very discretely disconnected between software
and hardware.

~~~
drivebyacct
Oh I didn't mean to imply that we can't have both. I completely hope that
Matias (the UI/UX guy from Palm that everyone juices over) can come in and
beautify android.

------
torpor
Just wait until the Creative Labs Zii EGG device gets released and updated a
revision or two .. this thing kicks ass and has had all the key features of
iPhone 4 already - HD video, front-facing camera, etc. Okay, its not a phone
(yet) but it sure does have the chance to steal a bit of thunder .. c'mon
Creative, release it already!

