Tried Android again and was burned again

[Snakespy]

I've had the Droid Razr for about 6 months and have never seen any stuttering whatsoever. Guess it just depends on the phone. Has a real nice big screen too.

[Nabby]

It's now been 1 week with the Galaxy Nexus even though I do like the phone there are some issues.

1) I don't get Downcast, my all time favorite podcast app is not on Android. BeyondPod is ok and I bought the license for it but not as good as Downcast in my opinion.

2) My biggest gripe is the way this device handles bluetooth. The iPhone has separate volume profiles for different bluetooth devices and this device only has 1. I have a small bluetooth speaker at home and my car has bluetooth streaming. I kept my iPhone at full blast in the car and at about 50% on my bluetooth speaker so I had to make a universal adjustment. Also, I've had a few issues while playing music/podcasts and trying to answer a call or execute a voice command, this function is the pits on the Galaxy Nexus. As flawed as siri is she at least worked in my car.

3) The ability to easily manipulate the music app that is currently running without needing to unlock the phone is not entirely gone but not as clean of an implementation. Also, sometimes it just plain doesn't work. IOS you double tap the home button and play/pause/forward/back pop up for music manipulation.

4) Easy access to camera without needing to unlock the phone was nice on IOS. I think there is an app solution for this on android but I haven't really looked too hard for one.

5) Visual voicemail was tricky to setup, I basically set it up so when I don't answer my phone it forwards to my google voice voicemail and it works great. Still more tweaking than the average consumer would like.

7) App management in general is a bit more work but nothing terribly bad.

8) Backup and Restore. iCloud changed the game in this respect, I can simply tell my phone to restore from iCloud and pretty much every aspect of my phone is restored with little to no fuss, this includes app and folder placement. There is no such solution for Android, if there is I have yet to see it. Also, requiring someone to root for this purpose seems extremely silly. I just tried to erase and restore my Nexus 7 tablet and it didn't restore jack. I also bought Mybackup Pro which is a paid app and now am stuck with something useless, online storage is only through them and they charge extra monthly fees if you want more then 100MB storage.

Things I like:

1) Freedom to change any aspect of the phone or tablet I don't like. From keyboard to browser to mail client.

2) Widgets are a nice touch. I have a few of them now and they make looking stuff up like my appointments that day the weather and stock.

3) I have come to like the gmail client now that I have used it for a while and dolphin is an awesome browser that allows plugins.

4) Massive screen for viewing videos or using RDP.

5) Tight integration with google services which I use daily is great.


I feel I can make a decent conclusion of the people each platform will attract. Those of us in the know at least. I say “in the know” because the average user only cares about the basic functionality and app selection these days. Those of us that know the pros and cons tend to be a bit pickier.

Android user: Those of us that like to tweak things to no end and make sure everything works for me and only me. If I want to use the default apps that my device came with then great. If I don’t want to the that then I have options.

Where Android truly sucks: Simple backup and recovery.

Apple user: They like safe and tight integration of everything they have. Not a whole lot of tweaking here just accept what you get and roll with it.

Where IOS truly sucks: Customization

Where I sit? I can safely say I dabble in both camps at this point and see why someone would like one over the other.

[flutie98]

Nabby,

Titanium Backup Pro is THE android backup software. Yes you need root, but honestly its a requirement on android to get the full use of the device.

[Geforce255]

I dunno about you, but I will NEVER use any mobile device that is not powered by Android. Had a Galaxy Tab10.1 and liked it, but the lack of memory expansion bugged me. So I sold it and got the Tab7.7 and I am liking what I see so far, Superamoled plus expandable mem slot ftw. Using Honeycomb 3.2 right now, waiting for Icecreamsandwich.

I agree on Android being the only mobility OS I will use. Windows 8? Not a chance.

Anyway, I also had a Galaxy 10.1 with 4G from Verizon. While I liked the tablet, the battery life was awful. If I turned of 4G it was okay, but that kind of killed the point. Swapped it out for a Xyboard and am much happier. I will say that I saw a decrease in battery life after the ICS update. I never ran ICS on the Galaxy. Did they finally release it?

[Geforce255]

I don't think you have to customize everything or even load customized ROMs to be happy with Android... I'm still on stock and am happy for the most part...

It depends on the phone, though. I had a Droid 2 that I was very happy with at stock, then upgraded to a Droid 3 and hated it. Why? Motorola put out the 2 as virtually plain vanilla, where the 3 got the MotoBlur treatment. My current phone is a Razr, that has some MotoBlur garbage, but not enough to make rooting it worth the hassle.

[Nabby]

Nabby,

Titanium Backup Pro is THE android backup software. Yes you need root, but honestly its a requirement on android to get the full use of the device.

This is like all the people that say you have to jailbreak your iphone to get full use of it. It shouldn't be a requirement for anyone to do this. Am I totally against it? Not at all but the average consumer should not have to worry about this type of stuff. This is why backup and recovery is leaps and bounds ahead on IOS then it is on Android.

[kpxgq]

Android user: Those of us that like to tweak things to no end and make sure everything works for me and only me. If I want to use the default apps that my device came with then great. If I don’t want to the that then I have options.

Where Android truly sucks: Simple backup and recovery.

Apple user: They like safe and tight integration of everything they have. Not a whole lot of tweaking here just accept what you get and roll with it.

Where IOS truly sucks: Customization

gotta disagree with both statements as someone who uses an galaxy nexus and iphone4 daily.

on android, you can use titanium backup and it will pretty much back up everything as well as on iOS... furthermore if you dont mind rooting, then you can use NANDROID backup and it will create a 100% perfect backup of your phone with one touch.

on iphone, if you dont mind jailbreak, you can customize it pretty much as well as (or even more) any android device. cydia makes it insanely easy to customize your iphone and be a power user on iOS

[Nabby]

gotta disagree with both statements as someone who uses an galaxy nexus and iphone4 daily.

on android, you can use titanium backup and it will pretty much back up everything as well as on iOS... furthermore if you dont mind rooting, then you can use NANDROID backup and it will create a 100% perfect backup of your phone with one touch.

on iphone, if you dont mind jailbreak, you can customize it pretty much as well as (or even more) any android device. cydia makes it insanely easy to customize your iphone and be a power user on iOS

Sorry to bring this thread back to life but since I've been using the Galaxy Nexus for a while now, I feel I should chime in and say that I'm switching back to iPhone. As mentioned in my previous comparison, the things I do most day in and day out the iPhone just does better. What will I miss the most? Siftkey 3 keyboard, worth every penny spent on this third party keyboard. If you're not using it on your android device it is a shame. What I will miss the least? All the crappy music widgets that don't seem to work right for me, I'm looking at you pandora, spotify, and podcaster.

Also, I gave up on using voice commands on the Galaxy Nexus. If I have to check the phone to make sure it typed my text message properly or the music/podcast is not automatically paused when trying to execute a voice command then it is more or less useless.

As for the reply above, I was under the impression that titanium backup required root access, at least that is what the app says in the play store. If I am mistaken then that is a nice solution for people. In my comparison I just wanted to express my out of the box experience without rooting the device to attain full functionality.

[vertices]

The iPhone5 absolutely rocks. I love mine. Holding a Galaxy S3 in 1 hand and the iPhone5 in another, the S3 just feels like a toy. This iPhone is so flippin fast, and I love iOS6. Even if the maps need some work. It's awesome now as well that I have the holy trinity of MacBook/iPad/iPhone. Toss in the AirPlay/AirPrint and Apple TV and damn that is a fine combination. Stoked.


Edit~ And yes Titanium Backup requires root.

[Nabby]

The iPhone5 absolutely rocks. I love mine. Holding a Galaxy S3 in 1 hand and the iPhone5 in another, the S3 just feels like a toy. This iPhone is so flippin fast, and I love iOS6. Even if the maps need some work. It's awesome now as well that I have the holy trinity of MacBook/iPad/iPhone. Toss in the AirPlay/AirPrint and Apple TV and damn that is a fine combination. Stoked.


Edit~ And yes Titanium Backup requires root.

Congrats, we are officially apples ***** :-P. I agree with you that the iPhone 5 is a damn fine demonstration of great engineering. It isn't 4.65 inches like my galaxy nexus but everything works and works well. I'm thrilled to have my Bluetooth profiles back and Downcast is still the best podcast app out there. I know it's the simple things but it is what I use daily. The built in maps needs work but does anyone remember the google maps app in the first iPhone? It was terrible so it will take time to hammer out some bugs and expand the map details. I don't use maps that often so it doesn't impact me all that much. Also, as much as Siri gets made fun of it actually works well for me. As I mentioned before, I gave up on voice commands on the galaxy nexus.

I do miss swiftkey 3 but I'll live.

[vertices]

So for shits and giggles I rooted my Galaxy 10.1 tab and installed Jelly Bean 4.1.1 on it. It still absolutely sucks compared to my iPad3. It's an improvement sure, but it's no iOS. Video still sucks, it still stutters here and there. Personally I think anyone who thinks Jelly Bean is a real alternative to iOS has a much lower threshold for performance than myself, and a much greater willingness to accept minor issues.

With Apple, it really is true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept doesn't even exist on the Android side.

[Nabby]

So for shits and giggles I rooted my Galaxy 10.1 tab and installed Jelly Bean 4.1.1 on it. It still absolutely sucks compared to my iPad3. It's an improvement sure, but it's no iOS. Video still sucks, it still stutters here and there. Personally I think anyone who thinks Jelly Bean is a real alternative to iOS has a much lower threshold for performance than myself, and a much greater willingness to accept minor issues.

With Apple, it really is true that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept doesn't even exist on the Android side.

I agree with you on that. It happens when you have full control of the experience, ie hardware and software, as Apple does. As I mentioned before there are some areas that IOS falls short but there aren't enough for me to stick with Android for the long haul. The only thing I would like is to be able to change the default app on IOS for certain functions, keyboard and browser are the two things I would change on the iPhone at this point.

[LiquidCrash]

I'm glad I read this thread. I've been getting the "grass is greener" itch since my upgrade came up. I've had an iPhone 4 the last couple of years and was starting to wonder what the other side offered (RAZR MAXX HD and GSIII), but seems like iPhone 5 is the way to go. I think I'll get my mom on the iPhone train as well, she's been having problems with her Android phone locking up the past few months (Droid Pro from a couple of years back, refurb).

[OpStar]

Nexus 4 > any iPhone.

[LiquidCrash]

Nexus 4 > any iPhone.

Nexus 4 hasn't even been released, lol. Even if it was better, I've already bought into the iOS ecosystem. It would have to be *much* better.