Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick I fucking hate my Android phone

The BBQ Pit
81

I’m an iPerson, but can’t argue with the enthusiasm of the Droiders and Consumer Reports seems to have a hard-on for the iPhone, even to the point of not reccomending for a few years (through it does now) while their reviewers come their pants over the Samsung Galaxy 4 and the Motorola(?) razor.

My only experience with Droid was with a Acer droid tablet my wife got conned into buying for me for Christmas after I explicitly said I wanted an iPad. She lovingly bought it for me, God Bless her because it played flash unlike the iPad and was cheaper. I tried my hardest to get thing to do the things I needed to do, I just have not time for “kernels” and the flash sucked for video games and I couldn’t figure out how to do powerpoints off of it, blah blah blah. It did a good job on the web but I quickly lost patience.

Sadly, my company gave me an iPad a year later and the Droid tab is sadly gathering dust in a corner, $300 down the shitter.

Besides being intuitive, the major advantage to me of using Apple products is the ecosystem, I have aiMac, an iPhone and and an iPad and they all synch together.
Of the 3 ironically enough I find the iPad to be the most annoying. It’s nice for checking emails and browsing the web, but there’s way too many “gotchas” when using it for work, such as downloading and viewing files. It is actually not a very good device for videogames, either–just too big and bulky where a platform controller is so much more user friendy . . .

I do want to buy a new laptop and would love a Mac Air but they are so pricy and I’m actually taking a close look at the various pad-laptop Windows laptops on the marker (GOD FORBID!)

To me, the iPhone and iMac are brilliant… The iPad is more of a highly functional but at crucial times limited tech fashion accessory more than anything else.

82

Oh, the kernel! Am I glad you brought up the kernel! That thing is the bane of my existence. Thank goodness IOS doesn’t have a kernel. If I ever make the switch, it will definitely be over all the work I have to put into the kernel.

83

Wait, what? Of course it does.

84

Poe’s law even works for this kind of religious debate

85

Android phones kick ass or suck ass – depending which one you have.

In some cases it’s like comparing the iPhone with the iPhone2, 3, 4, 4s or 5.

Some are underpowered pieces of shit, but when you buy a proper one, they are usually pretty good. Some people prefer the iPhone, others the Droids.
The iPhone is a good and reliable phone – no argument, but saying that it has no problems is also far from the truth.

Personally I use the Sony Xperia S2 for the past 16months with our hassle and am very happy with it, so is my wife.

My other phone is a Samsung Galaxy S3 mini, it is not as powerful as the Sony and not as user-friendly as the Sony, but for the most part I’m still happy with it.

The main reasons why I prefer the Sony over the Samsung phone:

**Power button location: **Sony on top, Samsung on the side
Power Supply: Both phones have a Micro USB connector – with the Sony I can use any car charger, external battery supply, USB cable, USB Cable with 5V power source etc…… and it charges. However, Samsung is more fuzzy and is more selective with the source/ cable etc.
**Interface: **The interface in the Sony feels more intuitive to me
**Camera: **Sony, better pictures, better handling of the pictures

Some while ago, some brainwashed Apple fan boy was raving on about what his NEW iPhone5 could do and how shitty androids are was surprised that my 7 month old Sony could do tasks as well as his brand new iPhone - some better, some the same and some not as good. His end statement, was that mine was not an Apple product and that’s why it was not as good :smack:

In my opinion it just comes down to what you prefer and what phone it is.

86

I had a few more more pluses and minuses to log between my Galaxy S4 and the iPhone 4S/5.

Galaxy S4 > iPhone:

App widgets. I really like this feature of Android. To have readouts of a clock, weather, sports scores and possibly news headlines visible at a glance without opening up an app is very handy, and showcases the much better multi-tasking on Android vs. iOS. And oh, yeah…

True multi-tasking between apps. It is potentially a battery drain, but I like to have the option of multi-tasking apps that run in the background unless I kill it, versus not having the option at all. The ability to carry 1 or 2 extra fully-charged batteries that I can swap in at any time also makes this a big win.

iPhone > Galaxy S4:

Charging and Audio Accesories. A lot of really nice accessories, like docks and car stereo adapters, only exist for iOS devices. Both of my cars are equipped with cords that can charge my iPhone 4S while simultaneously using it as a digital audio device, allowing me to browse playlists, albums, etc., using the car’s stereo controls (Which includes steering wheel mounted controls). No such adapters exist for the Galaxy S4, so I have to use a 12V cigarette port charging cable and an auxiliary input audio patch cable to plug into the headphone jack of my phone, using my phone’s controls to select music. The sound quality is not as good, and I don’t care for fiddling with the phone while driving, so my ability to change my music selection requires a passenger or for me to pull over.
Bottom Line:

The hardware and OS geek in me loves all the pluses of the more open and more flexible Android setup, but the three big core uses I have for my phone have wins on the Apple side that just about balance things out.

The S4 has a larger display, supports multi-tasking apps and app widgets, battery swapping, external storage, I can use it as a USB drive. With the widgets and the larger screen, my S4’s UI is (to me) much sexier and comfortable to use than the iPhone’s “square trays of square icons” filling up swipe screen after swipe screen. And instead of “race you to see who can open up a calendar appointment first”, I’d use a benchmark of “race you to see who can tell me the score of the Mets game going on right now first” or “Is it supposed to rain today or not?”, where the widgets are like a turbo booster.

On the other hand, my Big Three Functional Areas Of Use come out with the iPhone ahead:

1 - Using it as a camera (detailed review already given). In theory this could be fixed for the S4 with a firmware or other software update.

2 - Using it as a one-device media player in my pocket. The S4 should win this based on the external storage, but the accessory angle tips this in favor of the iPhone and the fact that I use the music aspect far more than the video aspect of my phone (i.e., a 64 GB iPhone can store all my music + a few videos is a 99% coverage solution). This could also be fixed with some third-party work, it’s not a problem with the phone itself, but clearly the market here skews strongly for Apple for whatever reason (probably because not all Android phones would “work the same” in terms of accessories, but all iOS devices would).

3 - Using it to communicate with my family. As long as they’re all still on iOS devices, let’s face it, it’s easier when everything is in the same ecosystem. In particular, “Find My Friends” as a free built-in service is something I used a fair amount, and now I’m severed from my family and friends set in that regard, as they aren’t going to use Google Latitude or something just for me.

I’m hoping the S4 or some other Android phone can close the gap in #1 and #2 by the time I upgrade again, the better to match up with the rumored 4.8" screen iPhone “XL” for next summer/fall. I will take a closer look at the HTC and Sony offerings in that light when that happens.

87

I use Camera FV-5 on my Android device and it has tap-to-spot-meter and a separate tap-to-focus. I use the convenient tap-to-spot-metering feature all the time. Love it, love it, love it, and I understand your gripes.

88

Oh thank goodness. (I’m generally better about knowing which side of Poe’s law I’m on - sorry about that.)

89

Sweet, I will check this out tonight for sure!

90

OK, I couldn’t wait, I downloaded FV-5 and played with it while waiting on line for a Starbucks discount iced coffee drink just now.

Thanks a lot for that tip! FV-5’s “manual controls” for spot-focus and AE-Lock are pretty much what I was looking for. So far I haven’t gotten tap-to-set-exposure to work on my S4 (only tap-to-focus works), and already while playing with the flash and AE controls I’ve had to close and restart the app to get it to take pictures again (the shutter button stopped responding), but just being able to find the right light level/white balance and locking it is a huge step forward. Plus it supports saving an edited photo in full original resolution or maximum cropped resolution, which I was shocked to find was not a universal feature among Android camera apps (even popular ones).

Unfortunately it’s still not the one-app solution that Camera+ provides on the iPhone, but it effectively gives me what I need when combined with Aviary for post-processing (cropping, blur-focus effect, text labeling, sliding warmth, brightness or color saturation adjustments, and sometimes adding frame edging or color/BW filters). It also seems to lacks a Panorama stitch, which works very well on the built-in iPhone app.

I do remember seeing FV-5 on a few lists of recommended Android camera apps, but ranked below FXCamera, Vignette, ZoomFX or other apps that seem to be prized largely for their effect filters, which is not what I’m usually after (and when I am, I want them to be scalably applied like in Camera+ and not full-on/full-off). ZoomFX seems to be the most consistently highest rated app, but it doesn’t even allow freehand photo cropping, without which it boggles my mind as to how it can be considered a good app at all by so many people. I could live with its only supporting fixed print formats like 4x6 or 1x4 if I could choose orientation (horizontal vs. vertical) and slide it around the picture to select the crop area, but I couldn’t even do that with the app. I deleted it.

I guess what I value in a camera app isn’t what most people are looking for.

And who knows, maybe Tap Tap Tap will finally port Camera+ to Android in the next 16-18 months. (Don’t get me started on how there are 1 or 2 apps on Google Play that call themselves “Camera+” but are unrelated to the iOS app.)

91

I have a Nexus 4 and i’ve occasionally experienced the ‘disappearing photo’ thing. They aren’t actually gone they just dont show up in gallery. Restart the phone and they show up.

92

I’ve had that happen too, on my Galaxy S1, but not on my S2. I didn’t think it was what the OP meant because they aren’t really gone, and they reappear after a reboot. Annoying, sure… but it seemed to be resolved in my newer phone, so I thought that bug had been squashed.

93

The clock is always visible on an iPhone, unless you are using an app.

And from any screen you can pull down from the clock and get the Notification Screen, which is fully customizable (in Settings) to display weather, stocks, or information from most any other app, including Twitter & Facebook, that you want to set to display there.

94

Oops I should have clarified; tap-to-spot-meter is more like press-and-hold-to-spot-meter.

Try putting your thumb on the screen somewhere and press that area for a few seconds and it should spot meter that area. Then you can drag around the little cross-hairs to spot meter somewhere else.

95

Also for FV-5 I recommend using the back button on your Android to close the app before turning off your screen because if you leave FV-5 in the foreground running even with the screen off that will drain your phone’s battery and possibly make it really hot. It’s not the best UI but it’s very, very functional. And I’ve had some stability issues too but it’s the best on Android and if Camera+ seems awesome and I can’t wait for a port.

96

I think it did…I had heard some negative things when the first update was released, so I avoided it. Based on the extensive posts I found at XDA regarding how to allow installation of non-market apps, quite a few people must have skipped it.

Good advice…thank you!

Sounds reasonable enough…and Titanium Backup is one of the main reasons I rooted, so I’m good there. :slight_smile:

97

Yes, it’s software fixable - just use a camera app that allows you turn off auto-focus. The true “straight dope” on auto-focus on almost all phone cameras is that it’s only for closeups of about a foot or two away. Everything farther away, which is almost everything you’ll usually be shooting, will always be in perfect focus even with auto-focus completely turned off. With auto-focus on, it will unnecessarily delay almost every single shot you take. For the relatively rare occasions when you take a close up of something, those are usually the type of “staged” shot where you’re not in a hurry, not taking multiple consecutive shots, and can take a second to turn auto-focus back on, or otherwise manually focus, if you have that capability.

Just turn off the auto-focus and take some test shots, you might just be surprised how unnecessary it usually is on a phone camera.

I mentioned it upthread, but the Android app called ***SDrescan ***should take care of having to reboot your phone to get your “missing” pictures. Much quicker and easier - just click on the app icon once, and done. Couple it with the photo gallery app called QuickPic, and it should solve and/or alleviate these issues.

98

No, I mean photos either completely -disappeared- (not ‘ended up in some other folder’, which is inexcusable by itself, I mean poof gone’) or they ended up corrupted (nice little triangle with an exclamation mark where my photo used to be). I suspect there was something going on when I ‘exit all active applications’ due to memory problems…which wouldn’t have been a problem if the phone wasn’t constantly running into…you guessed it, memory problems which froze or crashed the phone.