It would be helpful to those on the fence if you could mention those things, so they can determine if those things are important to their decision.
I’m speaking in context of the discussion.
Either way, I reinforce the idea with where I place my dollars. If I were facing anxiety issues when purchasing a given device, due to too many choices, I may consider an alternative OS; but I can safely say that isn’t the case. In my experiences, it’s usually a counter-point some individuals raise in order to push the idea that the market is over-saturated with Android devices. Again, though, trends show that Android OS is proliferating quite nicely, so for the time being, the idea holds little weight.
The most obvious things that occur to me are a micro-sd card slot and a replaceable battery.
An excellent talk and sums up my feeling about today’s curse of ‘always being plugged in’; too many superfluous options that don’t quite integrate. It’s precisely why I feel Apple is the way to go. despite the knee-jerk hate, they have mastered the art and science of balance—Much more signal to noise ratio amongst their products. They have built a solid backbone of software and hardware.
Apple’s wonderful iOS and its three (count them, only three) solid hardware devices: iPod, iPad, iPhone, are implemented and balanced in a way that is worth the cost of loosing some amount of “tinker freedom” for me.
Quality control and solid design, sometimes to a fault, but nonetheless — damn fine quality and design. Very little room for disappointment, unless you truly do enjoy always (and perhaps unconsciously) comparing “features” between a thousand products by 100 different manufactures. Then more power to you.
I feel about Apple, in much the same way I feel about Pixar. Not so much about smug or pretentious attitudes from the company or their “audience”, but integrity across their products and well deserved. I’ll take me summa that.
I’m not saying Android isn’t solid and wonderful, but give me intuitive, balanced implementation over bolted on “features” across 100 different manufactures any day. (YMMV)
That said, we can fucking speak to our phones and ask it to search Google images for monkeys—and in seconds—Thousands and thousands of monkeys!
Since I’m very happy with the iPhone and do not want to switch back, I’m only going to list the PROs for the EVO vs. the iPhone:
PROS:
The screen size of the EVO is fantastic.
Android PROS:
I was able to use a different alert tone for each individual email account I had running through the phone (in my case, 3) so I would know what account it was for before looking at it. iPhone will allow different tone for email vs. text and even individual contacts’ text, but not for different email accounts.
Being able to adjust volume for different functions with the press of a button (via a free app). I had three different profiles (home, work, and sleep) that would change the volume for me. I could easily set ringer, alerts, and media volume at low while leaving alarm on high.
Creating my own ringtones was easy and cheap (free) since Android rings tones could be MP3s, you just had to edit it down yourself (and they did have free apps for that).
Widgets - being able to more fully customize my home screen(s).
The main thing though that I miss: push notification for Gmail which is not offered (yet?) for the iPhone. I currently have it set to check every 15 minutes and I can manually check whenever I want, but the Android phones would be near instant (push). They do have push for Exchange.
These are all very subjective items and definitely not deal breakers for me as I really do feel that the iPhone is a better phone in almost every other way. There might be a few others that I’m forgetting, but these are the ones that stick out almost 6 months after making the switch.
Missed the edit window:
Honestly - those things never even occurred to me. I have a 16gb capacity on my phone and I’ll never come close to filling that up. I had an 8gb SD card on the EVO and barely filled that.
A replaceable battery might be nice for a year or so down the road when the current one stops holding a charge, but I’ve never needed a second battery for the iPhone and I leave wifi on all day and use it as I would any other smart phone. On the EVO, I couldn’t use 4g or wifi and I would still sometimes need to charge around mid-day (3-4pm) with what I could consider normal usage.
And the non-proprietary charging cord - Android phones use a standard mini-SD. With iPhones, you have to use Apple’s more expensive connector, or a third-party knockoff of varying quality.
The inability to change the battery in the iPhone is a deal breaker for me.
My colleague’s phone stopped working. She couldn’t figure out why, so she called AppleCare and ultimately brought it to the Apple Store, which sent it out for additional diagnostics. She got the phone back about 3 days later. Turned out the battery was bad. That’s all it was. The battery. And for this she had no phone for 5 days, not to mention having to pay $85 for the replacement battery because her phone was out of warranty. To be fair, she could have chosen to use a loaner phone from Apple while hers was out of commission, but that would have cost her an additional $30.
Through my colleague’s travails, I was able to side-step a frustrating pitfall. I’m an Apple guy. All my computer’s are Macs, so I’m no knee-jerk Apple hater, although I still haven’t figured out what to do with my iPad, but until or unless Apple decides to make the battery bay in the iPhone accessible to end-users, I’ll never own one, at least not as my primary phone.
Don’t get me wrong, the battery issue is not the only thing I find less than optimally appealing in the iPhone but, as I said, that’s what makes it a deal breaker for me.
ETA: This is the same reason I would never own the Droid Razr.
NitPick: I think most if not all are micro-USB. My T-Mobile G1, the 1st Android phone, was mini, but all the ones I’ve seen since are micro.
It will be micro from now on. The EU agreed last year with the major manufacturers to make it a standard, as I believe so has China, so I can see it becoming universal. Manufacturers with their own interface have to supply (or it might just be “make available”) an adaptor.
I imagine some of the other stuff can be accomplished by jailbreaking, but these two are easily done with the standard iPhone.
Push Notifications through Google Sync:
You set up google sync and you can have your emails automatically updated to your phone as soon as you get them. (My phone is usually next to me. So, I even turned off email notifications on my computer and rely on my phone’s beep.)
I love google services and I love my iPhone. I’m glad they work together as well as they do. Some of the interaction isn’t as seamless as it is on Android. But, it’s still very good.
Creating a ringtone with iTunes:
Basically, you select a snippet of the MP3 (or whatever audio format) that you want to use as a ringtone. Export it to the proper format. And, then change the file extension. Super easy.
Brilliant!!
Thank you! 
This was my number one lament about being on the iPhone so this makes me very happy.
I’ll play around with the ring tone thing later, but thanks for that too!
I have a Droid X that I was originally very happy with when I got it a year and a half ago and now I kind of hate. Here’s why I hate it:
-
While it was initially very stable, it’s become pretty flaky. I blame the last couple of system updates, although that’s just a theory. It now locks up and/or acts weird with increasing regularity, forcing reboots or battery removal to restore it to semi-normal operation.
-
With one of the system updates, you no longer have the option to simply swipe to unlock, you have to also use a PIN or pattern. Requiring two steps to unlock the screen is dumb. However, if I disable the screen lock, it is universally disabled so that when the phone rings, I’ll hang up or answer it in my pocket.
-
The GPS is horrible. It takes forever to find a signal, and drains the battery like a vampire the whole time it is on. And while I adore Google Maps and Google Navigation, the phone can be a little dumb about knowing how to turn on the GPS and get me back to the page I was on.
So, while I love the customizability of the Android OS, at the end of the day the two functions I use by far the most (making phone calls and GPS) are now really subpar. I’m thinking I’ll switch over to an iPhone when my contract ends.
Giraffe, I think there may be something wonky with either your phone or system. I have the Droid X as well. I’ve had it for 15 months and have gone through 2 system updates.
Your points
-
Stability - My phone never locks up or freezes, and I almost never reboot it.
-
Swipe to unlock - Works fine on my phone. I don’t have a pin, and don’t have to draw a pattern. (My wife has to draw a pattern to unlock her Incredible, however)
-
GPS Signal lock - I have noticed that the phone does take between 5 and 10 seconds to get a signal lock now. Before my first update it was seemingly instantaneous. Somewhat annoying, but not too bad.
I’d contact Verizon if I were you. They may have you perform a simple reset of the system.
By the way, what version number of Android are you currently running?
This is a tricky one. I didn’t have to swipe+pattern to unlock after the update, but only because my old setting was grandfathered in. Once I turned security on while playing with settings, the old setting was no longer available. (Confirmed via Internet.) So if you like it how it is, don’t ever turn on the security stuff.
I would kill for 5-10 seconds. Mine is closer to 30-120 seconds. Mrs. Giraffe also has a Droid X and hers is far worse, sometimes never finding a signal at all.
2.3.3. In checking this, my phone informs me there’s a new system update available. History tells me this will make things worse, but I’ll probably install it anyway.
More APple tasty goodness: Applecare Plus -covers breakage and water immersion. Finally.
Although it will be interesting to see how many people drop their phones int he toilet or accidentally run them over with a truck around the time the newer models are coming out so they can resell the brand new(ish) replacement phone they pay $49 for for $3-700 and use the cash to buy a new phone.
I predict it will be more than one.
Giraffe, FWIW, I have a Droid X, almost exactly as old as yours, and could have written your post word for word through your first complaint. But I can and do just swipe to unlock, and am up-to-date on updates. I don’t use the GPS, so can’t comment.
But yeah, it’s gotten sluggish and touchy.
Joe
I’m running Android 4.03 and swipe to unlock.
I hated that when I had an iPhone. The first thing I’ve always done with Android phones was get a spare battery. Now I’m using an extended battery that lasts longer so I don’t need an extra. With a custom ROM that can tweak voltage settings and shut down one processor when it’s not needed, I still have 75% battery left after 12 hours of normal use.
I strongly prefer Android, among other reasons for the much greater variety of hardware and the greater flexibility to modify the home screen and UI.
I own a Galaxy Note which has a big 5.3 inch screen and comes with a stylus (aka S-pen). I have had it for a few months and frankly that initial phase of wonder at a new gizmo still hasn’t worn off. It’s just about the best gadget I have ever owned.
While I use it as my everyday phone, my dominant use is really media consumption and the Note is absolutely stellar in that regard. It’s great for any kind of reading, watching videos, gaming and maps (GPS locks are lightning quick too). I like the S-pen also and I use it quite often to jot down quick notes, annotate images and the like. It’s also great as a controller for some games especially World of Goo.
In fact gaming has been the use which has surprised me the most. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Vita has a similar-sized screen. It’s a great size for portable gaming, not just for viewing but for comfortable two-handed holding. And the quality and selections of Android games has improved dramatically in the last year. I have been playing some great games; the aforementioned World of Goo, Osmos HD, Air Attack HD, Riptide, Sentinel 3 all of which look absolutely great on the Note.
.
It’s funny how this is the reverse of what was always said in the Mac v.PC wars.