iPhone or Droid Incredible? In other words, is AT&T really so bad? - Page 10

I certainly can't touchtype on my iPhone :) But I prefer it to Grafiti 2, that abomination Palm replaced original Grafiti with, after some patent squabble. And it's far sight better than the Droid keyboard, a mean joke played on Android users. Haven't tried newer Android keyboards.

 

I do wish the iPhone could get Swype: that sounds handy. And looking forward to integrated voice recognition in some future iOS. That is useful once in a while.

Android will soon be acceptable in modern society: Angry Birds is being released for it.

http://www.droid-life.com/2010/08/31/angry-birds-for-android-coming-this-friday-sign-up-now/

 

Really, any phone on which I can play Angry Birds is OK in my book  :)

I think Geodefense is getting an Android release too.

Dang!  I haven't touched iTunes to do any synching in a long while (not since v8.0.x and not for a whole year at least), but updating my old iPod Touch 2G to iOS4 and then loading it w/ a revamped media library (partly because the old iTunes 8.0.x setup got hosed and partly because the iPod Touch is going to my kid now) is taking forever, especially the latter part.

 

How is it possible that iTunes only managed to load ~12GB of music files (w/ another ~15GB of music + DC movie files to go) after some 2 hours of "synching" from scratch???  Is this a problem w/ iTunes 9.x?  Problem w/ running iOS4 on the old iPod Touch 2G?

 

I checked Win XP's task manager, and I see CPU usage time of ~1hr22min eaten by iTunes all between the iOS4 update (that didn't go thru a big backup) and the ~12GB of media files loading (and whatever other weirdness might be going on behind the scenes).  That's just nuts.

 

Seriously, I do not recall iTunes ever being *THAT* sluggish for loading/synching stuff before -- couldn't even imagine it getting this bad.

 

And running Firefox w/ iTunes doing its evil business in the background on my aging PC definitely is no picnic.  Actually, maybe Firefox is partially to blame here -- it does seem much more sluggish that IE6 and also quite a bit more sluggish than IE8.  OTOH, I wonder if my most recent update of McAfee is to blame as well (for sluggish file transfers).

 

Wow!  Still can't believe iTunes is taking sooooo long to load our music library onto the iPod Touch...

 

_Man_

The last time I had such a slow sync was on a USB 1.0 system.

Are you only syncing what you think you're syncing? Do you have movies or books or photos that's taking lots of space?

Can't be of much help otherwise. I've heard that iTunes in windows just doesn't perform very well at times.

No, my system is not normally *THAT* slow copying files over USB -- usually takes ~4min to copy ~2GB of photo files off moderate speed flash cards using my USB flash reader when the PC is not busy.

 

I suspect Firefox was partly to blame -- maybe Firefox was using up enough I/O to slow iTunes' file transfers down to a crawl.  Using a web browser does tend to slow down file copies in general although I would've thought it shouldn't be quite so bad for one-way transfers from my 2nd (data-only) drive out to the USB connection (to the iPod Touch).

 

I do wonder though what iTunes is so busy doing -- it's not very responsive in general and especially bad when it's doing something like importing media or synching.

 

Still, it also reportedly takes ~10min to "download" a ~1GB movie digital copy file (from my BD collection's DC discs).  I guess if 1GB takes 10min, then 12GB would take 2 hours, so that's not so far off.

 

Pretty nutty though for a complete ~27-28GB media library reload to take so long -- I didn't keep further time (as I walked away from the computer for a while at some point), but it probably ended up taking 5-6 hours total.

 

_Man_

That seems quite slow. Is there anything else on the USB hub that might be taking bandwidth? Check your Activity Monitor to make sure CPU isn't being hogged by something else.

Open: awesome for carriers. Mixed value for consumers.

Mixed value? Don't buy it! Android users have that choice, you know. Hard to understand how someone stuck on AT&T and allowed to pick between exactly one form factor likes throwing rocks at another glass house. I think the worst part of the entire enterprise is the way Fascinate owners are denied Google maps and Navigation. It's one of the true killer apps on the Android platform

All,

 

Regardless of your enthusiasm (or disdain) for either the iPhone or your favorite Android phone, to me the educated consumer, they all look like crappy net/overall offerings and are not worth the $$$, IMHO.  AT&T sucks in the NYC metro area, period, so I'd be much better off just getting another reasonably priced iPod Touch and rely on wifi instead, if I want another small iOS device, and not get locked up to a crappy contract for 2 years that also requires paying for a data package (that offers spotty 3G access here).  That plus I just don't trust the iPhone's battery to last long enough over time since I have no desire to upgrade/switch phones every 1.5 year or so.  And oh yeah, I'd still need a physical keyboard anyway, if I want to type anything on the thing anyway -- I'd probably settle for a good, improved version of Graffiti or similar (w/ a smart dictionary as aid perhaps), but I guess there's no chance of that for the forseeable future.

 

To me, Verizon's the only real option for cell phone service here in the NYC metro area, and none of their offerings are compelling enough to also get locked up for 2 years paying their higher priced data package, especially since my job is paying for my Blackberry Tour on Verizon anyway.  And to be honest, I'm rarely far from a desktop or laptop w/ either hard-line or wifi access anyway, if I need something better.  They keep begging me to re-up my main phone (on our family share plan), and I just keep telling them I can wait (and pick up a cheap, used, replacement, non-smart phone or a battery whenever), steer clear of their data plans, and stay month-to-month indefinitely.  Maybe if they got it right and offered one w/ a keyboard like Sprint's Epic 4G perhaps -- that plus more reasonable pricing on their data plans.

 

And in my case anyway, what probably makes more sense would be to wait for the iPad 2G and whatever Android tablet competition next spring or so and see where things stand then -- I could hope for Verizon to wise up soon enough, but I get that feeling it could be the ice age again by then.  Right now, looks like I won't even need to get a laptop replacement anyway since I just inherited a laptop from work as well.

 

Yeah, no idea what gives, but iTunes doing file transfers (whether for synching to iPod Touch via USB or "downloading" a movie digital copy w/out USB) definitely seems excessively sluggish.  And CPU usage (according to XP's task manager) does seem to skyrocket during the transfers.  I wonder if some of that isn't also caused by McAfee's realtime virus scanning.  Of course, I am running somewhat of a dinosaur for a PC here (on a hyperthreaded 2.8Ghz Pentium 4), but iTunes 4.7 (from ~5 years ago) was never all that responsive or "fast" on this machine either -- and neither was iTunes 8.x on my old laptop w/ somewhat comparable horsepower.

 

I'm just trying to figure out how much of the sluggishness is strictly due to (recent versions? of) iTunes, especially since I've never noticed it being this bad for file transfers before.  Then again, I haven't tried loading nearly 30GB of media files from scratch to an iPod anything nor tried any digital copies before this.

 

I guess the other possibility is my PC might be stuck w/ some sort of malware that McAfee (and Microsoft's malware removal tool) keeps missing.  But if it is, it doesn't seem to be impacting anything else in an appreciable manner.  Firefox does seem kinda slow (compared to IE anyway), but I didn't notice the same slowness whenever I fire up IE8 on occasion.  I noticed that the plugin-container.exe process seems to be the occasional hog that really drags on Firefox at times, but Firefox just seems to render everything in slow-motion anyway -- I certainly would not want to use it to place last minute bids on eBay for instance.

 

_Man_

Edited by ManW_TheUncool - 9/7/10 at 11:42pm

Actually Man, the Droid 2 on Verizon has a slide out keyboard like the Epic 4G.  Not that you're interested 

 

And actually. I've been with Sprint for 6 years in the Metro NY/NJ area ad commute to the city twice a week.  I don't have any issues with service anywhere I go, and in areas where there is no Sprint service, I roam on the Verizon network gratis (this is actually rare for me anyway).  All this for practically half the price of Verizon.

 

Sorry Man-Fai but you are completely wrong IMO on both the battery and keyboard issues.  My iPhone4 goes for days without charging most of the time with casual use and all day with continuous use.  If you need more than that get a Mophie.  And I have zero desire for a physical keyboard any more, I can type 80% as fast with two thumbs on the iPhone than I can with a full 104 key keyboard.

 

You are probably mostly right about AT&T in parts of NYC, but it's gotten a lot better, and has been absolutely fine on the west side to midtown every time I've been there for the last year.

 

Can't help you on answers for iTunes on a PC.  Gave that up years ago.

 

 

 

Previously, I had a 6-yr old flip-phone, an iPod nano, and a Palm PDA, and a point-and-shoot camera. Four gadgets and chargers and juggling pockets to carry the right ones for the right needs when I left the house. Multiple disconnected calendars. Multiple, disconnected address books and email lists.

 

Now: one iPhone. Everything is unified. Single calendar, address book, email list. Always have music and podcasts with me. Always have a quality snapshot camera. Always have some games to idle with, and web access, and maps. Can even do some "business" for my Toastmasters club or work if I need. It's amazing. And better.

 

So, you have that with a work-provided BB. Imagine life without your work phone. Would you still not want a smartphone, be it BB, iPhone, or Android? (Maybe not. Many people don't value this stuff like I do :)

A little update on the Fascinate:  while it does not come pre-installed like it does on other Android phones, you can download Google Maps from the Marketplace which will in turn install Google Navigation.  So it's ultimately a Google vs Bing default search engine issue.  You can sideload Google search, but you have to somehow disable Bing from doing the same.  Looks like you will have to root the phone to change this behavior.  Or learn to live with Bing.  But if you do, the terrorists win.

 

 

 

You're right.  Forgot about the Droid 2, but IIRC, it's a bit lacking in other areas while offering a keyboard.

 

Isn't Sprint ready to go belly-up yet?  I guess I might consider it several years ago when they were still a reasonably strong competitor next to Verizon and AT&T, but nowadays, I rarely ever hear their name mentioned anymore.  Not really interested in signing up w/ a company that's running so far behind the leaders in marketshare and such.
 

Maybe the iPhone 4 is much improved for battery life, but you haven't owned yours for that long yet, no?  I'm not sure which iPhones my sister and brother-in-law use, but they're both under 2-yo AFAIK (because their contracts are not up yet), and battery life sucks for them -- they plan to go back to using simple, non-smart phones w/ Verizon.  My iPod Touch 2G also ain't exactly the knee's bees for battery life.  It's fine enough just for listening to some music during my short commutes, etc. although I seriously doubt that I ever got anywhere close to 30-plus hours of music playback on it.  Much like my old iPod 4G, it was never close to the rated battery life -- I got maybe 1/2 that at best.  And now that I've given my iPod Touch 2G to my son, he runs the battery down w/ just a couple hours or so of Angry Birds or similar.  And near as I can tell, none of the iPhones do noticeably better, if at all, than the iPod Touches for battery life.
 

As I pointed out in the past, part of the problem is there's no simple way to replace the battery, and if you need to recharge daily, that's gonna kill the battery pretty quickly -- they're usually rated for 400-500 recharge cycles, so daily recharge would not last much more than 1-to-1.5 year.

 

The battery on my BB Tour typically lasts me 2 days -- occasionally less -- but I can always replace the battery (or add another) if needed, just like any other phone out there.  Can't do that w/ the iPhone.

 

RE: keyboard use, I don't know about you, but there is zero chance that thumb typing can come close in speed-plus-accuracy to typing on a full size, regular keyboard that has decent tactile feedback -- I'm not talking about anything fancy there, just your avg Dell keyboard would do.  And doing it on the small 4" screen w/ essentially zero tactile feedback is at least another order of magnitude worse.  You're probably the only person I've ever heard say that thumb typing on the iPhone (or iPod Touch) or similar is all that close at all to using a regular keyboard -- I could see that if you just hunt and peck on a regular keyboard, but if you're actually typing, then there's just no comparison at all.

 

RE: AT&T service, my boss and some coworkers also use AT&T now, and service is spotty for them as usual.  You said service is good in NJ, but even my coworkers' NJ Transit commute along the the North Corridor line remains spotty -- one would think AT&T would make service along a commuter line like that (which also hosts the main Amtrak line) spotless by now, but nope.  AT&T also seems to have a pretty big hole (for 3G service and relatively weak signal in general) in our part of the office building too despite having nothing nearby (as we overlook St Paul's Chapel and the City Hall area) and being 1/2 block from Ground Zero.  My nearest coworker's BB Bold's battery was typically lasting just 1 day (unlike 2 days for me), so I suggested trying to keep his BB's 3G capability turned off unless he's actually using it because I heard that spotty 3G service can cause the BB to drain battery just constantly searching for 3G, and lo and behold, he now gets much better battery life.

 

And I often see people w/ other services get little to no signal in various places when my Verizon phone gets enough signal to either make a call or at least give me indication that I just need to find a slightly better spot nearby.  Yes, it's all anecdotal, but there's more than enough of that to be convincing, IMO.  Heck, even during the regional blackout back in the summer of 2003, my Verizon phone worked fine (as we all made our exodus home from work that eventful afternoon) while everyone else's non-Verizon phone got nothing.

 

The iPhone would not suffice for the PIM stuff near as I can tell since I probably cannot synch it w/ my work PIM.  It also would not do for work emails either because of that, not that I'd really want to use it to write any emails -- tried that on the iPod Touch and gave up.  And the camera part also would not suffice (for still photos anyway) -- none of the built-in cameras on phones are satisfying enough to be anything more than a mere novelty, and I'd still be carrying some sort of real camera w/ me, whether a good compact or far preferably a DSLR.  You feel strongly about your 300-plus PPI screen res, and I feel strongly about camera quality -- there is no such thing as quality in a phone camera AFAIK,  and the iPhone's camera doesn't even do any WB (according to the Samsung/Sprint Epic review http://gizmodo.com/5613501/sprint-epic-4g-review-the-best-4g-phone).

 

No, of course, I'm not saying I would never want an iPhone or a good Android phone verbatim.  But they're all compromises that also come w/ plenty of additional baggages (mainly in connection w/ their service providers it seems), and they are not inexpensive either considering the final out-of-pocket costs.  At the end of the day (w/ all things considered), they are all first and foremost for-fun toys and do not really make regular, everyday life stuff all that much easier/better, if at all.  Heck, the fact that RIM's offerings are still so very relevant despite falling way behind on the whizzbang "wow" and "fun" factors (or even simply including a decent web browser while a couple pretty good 3rd party alternatives exist) says a whole lot about what really matters.  I don't want convergence at great expense to everything else that matters.  What good is having email writing capability, if writing the emails are such a pain because the capability is actually very lacking (w/out a physical keyboard for instance)?  Even for music playback, which was one thing I valued, I'm starting to find my BB Tour to be satisfying enough -- honestly, the music playback ergo of the iPod Touch (and iPhone) falls well behind the traditional iPod w/ click wheel anyway, so the gap ain't that big anyhow.

 

Afterall, it's not like I can replace my desktop/laptop, phone *and* home entertainment system w/ an iPhone (the way some people try to completely replace their landline w/ cell phone).   If I want a smartphone in large part so I can check/respond to emails (and type a post or three on HTF), I'm gonna need a physical keyboard.  But of course, none of that extra stuff would be any good if I can't consistently get a good signal (or have enough battery power) when I actually need it...

 

_Man_

 

Let me re-ask, because I still didn't quite get the simple yes/no answer I was hoping for :) Are you saying you have no interest in having a smartphone for general personal use (and don't use your BB for that, or would gladly give it up)? Or are you saying (to be a bit hyperbolic), "I'd never buy one of those crap automobiles, given their attendant limitations, needing fuel every week and so on. Granted, I do have a work-provided car." :)
 

 

I'm not trying to persuade you to buy an iPhone, or any other "smartphone". It's I'm curious about a guy that seems to need a smartphone for work but simultaneously disdains them for personal use. It's curious to me :)

 

Some more thoughts in the quote since breaking up a quotes is a PITA with Huddler.

 

The battery on the 3GS sucked.  The combination of the A4 chip and improved battery on the iPhone 4 is remarkable and I don't think any other smart phone comes close to outlasting it, and good on them if they do.

Yes Dave, these are awesome, awesome toys.  But as toys go, a very productive toy:

 

Not only do I have almost full Exchange sync (so far, Activesync doesn't do tasks and notes, but that's an MS thing), it's pushed form the server.  But okay, you have a BB for that.

 

I can remote desktop into any of my company machines.  Just yesterday, I got an urgent email for a report from the Director of Production as I was driving home.  Rather than keep her waiting, and rather than doubling back to the office, I pulled over, remoted in, and emailed the report off in about as long as it would have taken if I were actually at my desk.  I check on servers remotely all the time.

 

If I get attachments, I can view them quite easily, using pinch and zoom to make my way around the pdf or excel spreadsheet or whatnot.  I find this to be a huge advantage over Blackberry (also an advantage -- 4.3" screen).

 

If I'm troubleshooting a computer at someone's desk, I use the phone to Google solutions.  Very, very handy.  Very, very productive.

 

My assistant now has an Evo, so we are starting to video conference via Fring when I'm in NJ and he's in NY.  We've mostly just been testing, but I'm positive it will come in handy.  Instead of trying to picture what he's describing me, he can just point the front facing camera and show me what he's looking at. 

 

During my bi-weekly train commute, I watch the TV shows that my wife isn't into. I saw all eight episodes of Pillars of the Earth on the train and during downtime waiting for the train.  I watch Fringe.  I watch Bones.  It alleviates the boredom of the commute, and I don't have to buy newspapers of magazines to occupy my time.  When I'm commuting by car, I listen to podcasts because I hate sitting through radio commercials, and most of the shows are blather.  In both instances, those 7 hours a week are made much better by my phone.

 

We went over to my sister's house in Pennington on Sunday, and the next day, we drove to New Hope PA.  I used Google Maps to find restaurants and ice cream parlors.  I navigated back to our parking spot with Google Maps.  And the pictures.  I took tons of pictures of my daughters and then uploaded some of them to Facebook almost in real time.  Now my mother in law can see pics and vids of her sweeties that aren't months old because I was too lazy to unload the media off the old point and shoot.  My mother in law loves my phone, but she doesn't know it.  It's the reason I'm on Facebook in the first place, and instead of a batch of 20 pictures in random chronological order covering the span of four months, she can see her babies day by day instead of quarter by quarter.

 

Of course, we used Google Navigation to direct us home.  I surfed the net most of the way (FYI, my wife is the driver in the family) as the Evo played music that was occasionally interrupted by a turn command.  Took a couple of pictures of the girls sleeping adorably in the backseat and shot 'em up to Facebook.  All whilst traveling at 80 mph (my wife likes to drive fast).

     

 

So yeah, it's a great toy.  I agree with you on that, Man.  But as for your contention that it does "not really make regular, everyday life stuff all that much easier/better, if at all", I have to totally disagree.

Edited by Hanson - 9/8/10 at 5:15pm

Just a quick note on battery life -- 5-6 hours from a full charge to empty isn't good any way you slice it.  But smartphone battery life has been steadily declining as the number of tasks it can do and the quality of execution.  My solution has been spare chargers and spare batteries.  In the past, extra batteries were expensive -- I remember paying $45 for an extra Treo 650 battery.  But the Evo has two things going for it -- first, it uses the same battery as the Hero, Incredible, and Touch Pro 2.  Second, there are numerous sources of cheap aftermarket batteries you can purchase off of Ebay.  So I bought a battery and charger for under $12 shipped.  This inexpensive option has rendered the battery issue moot for me, since I can now get through the day by charging the phone when I can, and then fall back on the spare if I neglect to do so.  I also have to luxury of using the phone non-stop during the weekend by charging one battery as I'm draining the other.  I know the iPhone 4 has better battery life than any Android phone, and Google has to create better optimizations to increase talk and standby time.  But for $12, I only have to charge the phone when I go to bed.

I'm always intrigued by those that do "real" corporate work with their phones. I do work email with my iPhone but ... Our resident Mac nut was instructed by IT to never again connect to the network nor the exchange server with his iPad. And the sense is there will soon be a formal policy banning all iPhones from the network and for email. But I work in a conservative industry.

 

 

No such thing as a simple answer when trying to respond using this Huddler software.

 

But obviously, I have interest in using a *good* smartphone that's *not* overly burdened by all sorts of compromises or I wouldn't bother to be in this part of HTF.   And IMHO, that's more or less what we have now w/ all these devices, which is the gist of what I was trying to say.
 

Wrong analogy -- or perhaps, wrong implicit assumptions/constraints.

 

Basically, most of those crap cars sport a nice (and/or cool) name, but stall regularly and can't go above the 2nd gear most times, so I couldn't really go much of anywhere w/ them anyway even though they may have some mix of nice features like power steering, 4-wheel drive, etc. and a nice A/V system w/ BD player and 20" HDTV built-in, but yet, certain other important things like windshield wipers, seat belts that actually work, anti-lock brakes, etc. are missing and possibly not installable/upgradeable for the most part.   Meanwhile, I still gotta pay for a fulltime, full coverage insurance policy at a huge premium anyhow just because... nevermind that the car will likely just sit in my garage most of the time and is only good for circling the local neighborhood showing it off in 2nd gear and maybe picking up some groceries from a local store that's actually w/in a healthy 10min walk from home.

 

And oh yeah, when I go to work, I'm just better off sticking w/ our town's readily accessible, fast, efficient, prompt and clean, mass transit -- ok, one can dream here in the NYC area, no?   -- and using company-paid car service and car rental (w/ no-frills, yet smooth riding, cars that at least get the main job of getting safely and comfortably from point A to point B done quite well and in a timely manner) now and then as needed.  And yeah, if I actually needed a car for everyday personal use and couldn't get anything done w/out one, then sure, I'd get one, but it'll probably be the no-frills variety considering how the crappy tricked-out ones actually perform where it matters most.

 

And actually, I do own a decent bicycle, fold-up shopping cart, etc. just like I own a basic cell phone too, and adding texting and email services for personal use (vs work use) wouldn't necessarily require going to a full blown PDA-type smartphone that comes w/ the requisite data plan charges anyway.  Also, I could be better off w/ a moped in the city too -- greater fuel efficiency, easier parking, no requirement for high cost insurance coverage, etc. -- kinda like a wifi-capable device that's not tied to some premium priced cell phone data plan.  Like I said, too bad the iPod Touch still wouldn't be good for typing emails and such though.  But unfortunately, seems that Verizon's even decided to charge some sort of "insurance coverage" (ie. low-end data plan) for their so-called 3G multimedia phones regardless of whether you use their 3G service for anything at all, eg. phones like the current incarnations of the LG Chocolate or enV semi-smart phones or even the essentially basic phones that just happen to have 3G capability and a minimal mobile browser, crappy camera and MP3 playback:

 

http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=4406

 

Now, please explain to me why anyone should get one of these so-called 3G multimedia phones from Verizon and be forced to pay $10+taxes/fees for a data plan they probably won't use (at least not for anything that needs 3G at all on such phones anyway)??  That's basically the kind of phone I've used forever before they all got updated to 3G -- and before I got a BB Tour from work.  It's pretty ridiculous, no?

 

Anyway, I'm still waiting for a truly good PDA/smartphone (that's not crippled somehow by the service provider) to give me compelling reason to pay the price for one.  None of these are it so far, IMHO.

 

 

Yeah, quoting w/ this software is a PITA indeed.  I couldn't even easily keep the stuff you wrote in this quote because the software can't handle nested quotes.

 

Anyway, like I said, from where I stand, the iPod Touch is just about as useful/good as the iPhone w/out being saddled w/ spotty AT&T service and the requisite cost of their service plan.  Sure, it's missing the phone features, but I'd rather not have to pay for AT&T's spotty service just to be able to make calls or use their data service whenever/wherever I just happen to get a good signal from them.  I've done it for so long, and I wouldn't have minded keeping it up w/ a better non-smart phone for phone calls anyway -- as I also mentioned much earlier, none of these PDA-type phones are all that good as actual phones anyway although the BBs are usually the better ones for actual phone uses.

 

Likewise, the cameras on all these phones are basically crap quality and not worth mentioning as a real selling point -- mentioning them would be sorta like me mentioning to you how great the front display on that LG VX8360 is vs the fact the iPhone only has 1 display.   I don't have any problem whatsoever carrying a compact digicam w/ me anywhere I'd go w/ my phone.  In fact, I even carry my DSLR kit w/ me almost everywhere I go -- and FWIW, Sam's like that also AFAIK, so I doubt he cares about the crappy camera on these smartphones either.   Actually, I find that the only thing those phone cameras are good for is the occasional, quick, impromptu, just-for-fun video clips, but you don't (or at least shouldn't) need a premium PDA/smartphone for that though.

 

RE: the work use PIM/email stuff, in truth, as I'm sure you're already aware, something like the BB is basically mandated to be the only option by many companies anyway.  To say that you should be able to get the iPhone to work w/ so-so's corporate setup (maybe w/ some bit of accommodation from the infrastructure end) is probably more like saying you could just root the iPhone to get some of the missing features that come standard w/ a non-crippled Android phone.  Just as the average consumer will not do that, neither will the average company that pays for these things go for that either.  In fact, I remember asking my business unit's plan manager whether they'd let me just pay the ~$50 difference for a BB Tour over the old, featureless, BB Curve if I cannot get approval for the higher priced device, but they wouldn't allow that even if I forgo any ownership of the device (and basically just pay the $50 for usage only).  They also wouldn't allow me to just buy one on my own and switch it to the company's account/plan (for them to pay the monthly service), etc. -- I think they used to allow that, but stopped doing that a couple years back.

 

Corporate policies can often be very tight and unyielding w/ such things, and anything klugey at all is bound to be frowned upon.

 

 

But yes,  I do agree that ultimately how these scenarios actually play out for each potential user will really depend on the situation and individual preferences and requirements.

 

For instance, I'm not doubting anecdotes that one can get good, reliable service from AT&T in many other regions far away from the NYC metro area, but that isn't situation that I and many others live-and-work in.  Some of you frequent the NYC metro area for work and/or otherwise, but you apparently don't experience quite the same unreliability of AT&T (or certain other carriers) here probably because you just don't spend that much time here for it to become a real issue.

 

Likewise for talk about certain features like the built-in camera, lack of physical keyboard being a minor issue, etc.

 

Yeah, I'd love to have a bigger screen than the BB Tour offers, but then again, ideally, I'd actually need something much bigger to do any real work outside of sending emails.  There's pretty much no real work I could realistically do outside of reading/responding to emails on a 3-4" screen.  Even a 10" netbook would be a real pain to use for the kind of work I do, but it'd be useable.  A 3-4" screen just would not cut it at all.  If I ever fire up VisualStudio 2010 on a 4" screen, all I'd probably see is 1/2 of the Solution Explorer and not much else.   4" is so small I can't even realistically use it w/ a basic text editor to do some coding, etc. -- remember, that 4" touchscreen on most of these devices has to work around the missing physical keyboard too, which comes w/ the 3" screen on a BB.  I guess I could possibly make a simple change to a small config file or something for a web service or maybe a nearly trivial script for a batch job or something, but I probably wouldn't be able to figure out what needs changing (using the miniscule 4" view) before getting into the editor to make a quick change, and wouldn't easily be able to tell whether the quick change did the job (again using the tiny 4" view).  The stuff I do just aren't designed to be accessible via such a tiny view -- and I honestly doubt most other people's work can realistically be done on those 4" touchscreens too outside of a few emails.

 

Anyhoo...

 

_Man_

Edited by ManW_TheUncool - 9/8/10 at 7:08pm

Gartner Says Android to Become No. 2 Worldwide Mobile Operating System in 2010

 

Current and future #1 isn't iOS.  Nor is it BB. 

 

It's Symbian!  Maybe not a big surprise for a lot of you.

 

Gartner is very bullish on Android as they originally pegged Android as the #2 OS by 2012.  They've revised it upward to the end of this year.

 

A lot of things can happen between now and 2015, but if you extrapolated another year, Android would be #1 by 2015.

 

Also, this pre-supposes that Gartner can tell the future.

What is Symbian? Is it software that drives the zillions of non-smartphones that are free with contract?

It's the Nokia OS for their smartphones.  Their marketshare is in the US is under 3% (iOS, BB, Android, WM, and Palm combine for 97% of the market), but I know that in Europe, Symbian is HUGE.  Huge enough that even though they have a minimum presence in the world's largest smartphone market, they're still the global leader by a lot.

 

http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2010/08/04/symbian-dwarfs-android-and-iphone-ships-298000-handsets-every-day/

 

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/09/comscore-android-grows-us-smartphone-market-share-as-all-others/2

The nokia that is getting killed by the iPhone and android? That nokia is going to rule the global roost? Huh.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703597204575482902836750116.html

This reminds me of my earlier comments about companies with big marketshare but poor profit margins. Perhaps we'll see how that works out for Nokia.

This is stuck to the back in the back of my mind, and I wanted to see again if you were serious about this value. I did a quick check last night: my iPhone drains about 5% in 9 hours in lock-mode, unused (overnight). A 40% drain would take about 72 hrs, or three days.

 

So is your "real-world" issue that you leave for your phone used for days at a time? Or that it actually drains 40% of the battery idling, an 8 hour day? Either you don't actually every use your Android phone or there's something woefully bad about Android's power management. (or you're using multitasking to run Folding@Home. Or you exaggerated for argument's sake :)

 

And I'm interpreting "turned off" as on, but screen-locked. If you in fact mean a 40% drain over an 8 hour day with the phone wholly powered off, then your phone is broken and should have it serviced and the battery replaced.

They can't.
 

Detailed and informative review of the various smartphone screens. Here's the summary if you don't want to read the whole article.

 

http://www.displaymate.com/Smartphone_ShootOut_1.htm

 

Seems like some people are more passionate about what they don't have and don't want then their own phone. 

 

I've had AT&T for 5 years.  Can't ever remember having a dropped call.  Maybe one a year?  Had an iPhone 3G for two years, full charge every night, battery was never an issue.  Just got an iPhone 4, love it.  I'm sure Verizon is great, I'm sure the Android is great, it's just not what I have.

I'm convinced it's a NY / SF problem. AT&T has the real problems in these two cities, which happen to be where all the tech industries and major media are located. So it's blown wholly out of proportion. Those of us in mid-size cities with normal cell coverage find AT&T's about the same of every other carrier.