alanzeino:

An iOS Developer reviews Android 4.0

Having observed from afar the development of Android since it came onto my radar (sometime around 2.0), I have felt compelled to purchase various models of Android devices from time-to-time in fulfillment of mere curiosity and overall, to test the waters with…

I think the fact that iphone users can’t fathom to understand how a button works is ridiculous. Maybe for your impressive rhetoric you’d be believable, but the thing is … its just a button. A button that takes you back. Hypothetically I’m a new user picking up a Galaxy Nexus/Nexus. I see the buttons a home button, a back button, see how they work and I’m on my way. I open the browser, browse some pages, go back in history simple as that. I open the market, download a game, open via the market, play the game, press back to see the market and to rate it, and navigate to find more apps, and so on and so forth. Really simple. A back button that takes me where I navigated previously. Navigated. Period. I automatically understand that it simply does that, take me back, regardless of where, its where I came from. Doesn’t matter, just takes me back, why isn’t that simple?? I think that’s ridiculously simple, it even adds to functionality, no need to use the multi-task option to switch through just two apps or just open the app from app-drawer of a homescreen again. Its just press back. duh. why not? so simple. 

I was a hard core apple fan. Like seriously hard core. I LOVED the apps and games and stuff. But that was all just fun and games, with a phone. It was up until the when the iPhone 4 came out that i realized i did not need Apple. it lacked the functionality that a mobile computer in-your-pocket advertisement and hype would assume. it lacked what multitasking really is, it lacked compatibility with systems, it was horrible with sync (still is), and so many countless things. You see, back then and still, the users that need smart phones, are the users that need functionality and ability to do things that they can do with a computer with the benefit of mobility and at true ease. The by far iPhone does NOT do that to the extent that Android does. And it still does not. 

The reason i converted when the iphone4 came out was because of the following. I dropped my 3GS and it shattered like serious waste of money. I moved on to a temporary phone my sister in law had let me keep so i can hold out to upgrade to the iphone 4. And when it came out, the iPhone4 was the most successful phone ever, and the most improved upon updated phone released by Apple ever. But, I would have been sold if it were not for my temporary phone. I was using the G1. Yes, the first iteration of android. It had 4 main buttons. And horrible design, and just garbage color. It was a hefty change for a hardcore dedicated Apple fan. In fact, I personally turned my blackberry and sidekick fans into iPhone fans. I was the preacher type. But when I had a week with that android device, making my first google account, seeing my contacts never having to get lost ever again, seeing how simple multitasking works, seeing how notifications are just plain kick ass, and widgets oh dear god widgets. I was able to turn off wifi sooo easily. no battery death in the middle of the day from forgetting to go in the settings every time. In fact i ceased from ever needing to go into the settings regardless. it was like the control panel in xp, never needed to touch it. But all that was great and all, but i was seriously going to lack in app’s. And that was a big problem. but then something happened. i found certain particular apps, and certain particular functions that entirely changed that face of what I thought Android to be. Android was amazing. I realized it wasn’t apps that I really needed (though I really did need the games), it was functionality. My phone was an actual smart phone, it proved itself as smart, non lacking in capabillity. I was able to write essays on my phone on the train to school with ease between research on a browser and 2 other apps, while texting. I was able to download free music, yes free music, and yes people like free music. I was able to sync without a problem. I was able to SYNC without a PROBLEM. It took me literally 5 minutes to take care of new files, WHILE using other functions of the phone. It was ingenious. It was actually making a change to how I do things in the real world. And that was just the beginning of the possibilities. Have you have heard of tasker? or locale? It’s ridiculous at the things you can do and **without even touching your phone. I mean I was able to do things that really benefited me. 

So given the environment that i was forced into when my 3GS broke, I still holded out for the iphone4. And when it came out, i upgraded, had it for almost that first month before i returned it. It was like i saw the light. It mattered that i could do things that actually counted, not things that became nonobjective, and time wasting. The iPhone wasn’t a smartphone for smart people, it was a smartphone or less smarter people or just a toy that can call people. And I mean that without offense. 

You see. What dawned on me was that the iPhone required the users lifestyle to adhere to the system of the iPhone. Why? Why should anyone ever do that? for the sake of games? And a gigantic app store filled with useless things. I realized that what I need, and what the world needs, is a Phone that conforms and adhere’s to YOUR system. That you should be in control. And that is what I became…a user in full control of his device, and tasks, and life…no distractions. Android was a true example of what smart mobile computing is. I understood that. You should to.

So I returned my iPhone4, moved to Sprint with unlimited 4G, bought an Evo, and never looked back. I mean I do play around with my buddies iPhone’s just to look for improvement, but can’t find much. When they play with my phones, they become baffled at what I can do, or they just lash out in complete utter conviction to Apple. Or they just love that “fluidity” that android, i do admit, majorly lacks. Except with ICS. ICS was the improvement of fluid design that it needed. And it remains so. To begin your disagreement with Android based on your flat insight into how android works sprinkled with plain conformity to the only other example that you know is actually pretty stupid in and of it self. You must be a critique of how the system works in whole. And to be honest, Android is King of functionality. 

If you so intelligently speak for iOS, and you find a single button “unfathomably impossible to decipher” unlike the multiples millions more Android users in the world, then what does that say about iOS and its users. That less functionality is better? That iOS really is for dumber people? So far, it doesn’t stop me from thinking it, nor anyone else. 

So lastly, for example, why i choose android above all else to this day is because of this: when i pull up to my friends drive way, my SGS2 senses it, turns on wifi, texts him to open the door, syncs and launches my football app, and sets itself to vibrate, ALL without ever leaving my pocket. Believe it, Android is way ahead.