Tried Android and feel it doesn’t measure up to the iPhone? TechCrunch would have you think it’s just because you didn’t try it long enough. It’s not the phone, you see. It’s you. And that’s bull.
Fair enough, it’s easy to go from something you know very well and be irritated that something else doesn’t work in the same way, in the way you think it “should” work. One thing I especially appreciated about Om Malik’s Nexus One review was that he lived with the thing as his primary phone. He spent time really getting to know it.
I might do the same with Android myself. And I’m somewhat hesitant to write against the TechCrunch “it’s you” argument as I’m still living with the Nexus One and trying to get to know it better. Then again, I already know enough to blow holes in that argument.
Look here:
Those are my most three most recent smartphones. My primary phone is that iPhone on the left, a 3G version from when they came out in July 2008. On the left, the Nexus One from Google that I was given when I covered the Nexus One launch this week.
That one in the middle? That’s my Windows Mobile 6.1 device from 2007. Previously, I’d used Windows Mobile devices going back to 2004 (see Swapping My Treo 700W For The UTStarcom XV6700). Smartphones aren’t new to me. In fact, when the iPhone came out, I thought it was a joke. I had a phone that was faster than what the iPhone first offered, had a flash and a pull-out keyboard, which I thought was super important. I mocked the iPhone (see No 3G, No Keyboard, No iPhone — Thank You Very Much).
When the 3G version of the iPhone finally came out, I bought one for my wife, fully expecting I’d continue using Windows Mobile and mocking iPhone users. After all, my Windows Mobile phone could still do all the iPhone could plus doubled as a modem.
But after literally an hour or less of playing with my wife’s iPhone, I knew my Windows Mobile days were over. Any time I might save with a physical keyboard was totally wasted on the number of menus I had to go through to do anything on the Windows Mobile phone compared to the iPhone. On the iPhone, everything was easy, intuitive, time saving. And I soon learned that I didn’t need an physical keyboard. In fact, the last time I tried one was when I tested the Android T-Mobile G1. I hated not being able to do on-screen typing.
So now let’s shift to what Jason Kincaid in TechCrunch says today:
Imagine if you took a longtime Windows user and sat them in front of a Mac for a couple days. They’d probably complain about superficial things like the change in mouse acceleration and the “unintuitive” button placement (the Close button is on the opposite side of the window). It’s not until a week or two after you start using a Mac as your primary computer that you overcome these issues and begin to fully grasp some of the benefits it offers. No, it may not be for you, but there’s really no way you can tell for sure without taking the plunge and using one as your primary computer. It’s the same way with Android.
Look, I was a long-time Windows (Mobile) user. I was sat in front of Mac (iPhone) for a couple of days. Actually, an hour. I complained about nothing. I knew what to do very fast. So why shouldn’t that be the case for me going from the iPhone to Android?
Jason also wrote:
A week or so later, it clicked. When I want an option that isn’t already visible, I hit the dedicated ‘Menu’ button just beneath the screen. Need to jump to a previous screen in an app or the web browser? Hit the dedicated ‘Back’ button. In some ways, these are actually better than the soft buttons located in iPhone apps, because they’re always in the same place. It also saves some screen real estate.
Again, I didn’t need a week for the iPhone to “click” with me. It clicked almost immediately. And I think that’s the key driver to its popularity. Michael Arrington, when I was on the Gillmor Gang with him earlier this week (video will be posted here later), asked what was the killer app for the iPhone and for Android. I didn’t think there was one for many people, not one “I gotta have this phone because it runs….” type of thing. I thought the killer app of the iPhone was the user interface.
Look, the iPhone did not invent the smartphone. The iPhone, when it emerged, was well behind many smartphones in terms of its capabilities. The App Store? Please. Windows Mobile had plenty of “apps for that.” The problem with Windows Mobile apps was that you had to hunt them down. They weren’t organized in a nice, vetted location. They were scattered all over the web.
But the iPhone blew people away — and to me, it did so because it made a pocket computer that’s also a phone intuitive to use, just as Palm did for PDAs.
Android’s not as intuitive. I’m sorry. I wish it were, if only because I tend to dislike Apple so much because of its closed, controlling nature that I’d like a different phone to use. But right now, I wouldn’t abandon my iPhone for Android. For me, Android remains like some type of weird evolution of Windows Mobile, where you have to constantly go to menu options to get stuff done whereas the iPhone presents what you need when you need it.
Using Tweetie on the iPhone and want to write a tweet? With the iPhone, the compose button is right there at the top of the screen:
But for Android, you have to go down to the bottom and push the menu button.
After you’ve pushed the Android’s menu button, then you have to further pick the Compose button:
While you’re still trying to get the compose window, over on the iPhone, you’re already writing. (NOTE: Per comments below, this is the case with Seemic on Android, not with Twitdroid, where the UI is much nicer. But also see the comments about how my reactions to Androids aren’t based on just this one application).
Finally, after two clicks, you finally get the compose window and can do your tweet, as shown below. But also below, I’ll address something else that Jason raises, how handy it is that Android has a “Back” button always in the same place:
On Android, in the Seemic Twitter app, you can go back by either using the applications Cancel button or using Android’s dedicated “Back” button that I’m pointing to at the bottom. On the iPhone, you’ve got to guess — the Cancel button in the top left will let you do it.
But you know, you guess once or twice, and then you know. I rarely struggle trying to understand how to use my iPhone apps even though they might not have some dedicated buttons in all the “same” places. I think that’s in part because I’m usually only shown buttons I actually need. Also, how many apps do you really use, where you have that much trouble learning how to do things? And don’t forget — on Android apps, the menu options you get after pushing the menu button aren’t all the same nor in the same place.
How about email. I email a lot on my phone. Let’s do some email:
On the iPhone, I push one button down in the lower right, and boom, I’m writing email. On Android, I have to push the menu button at the very bottom. After I do that, then I have to push a second button to start writing.
I don’t know about you, but for me, having to push twice to do something doesn’t make the phone twice as good. It makes it twice as annoying — and I don’t need a lot of “livability” time to understand this. Moreover, with the Nexus One, you can’t even have the type of time Jason’s talking about to understand it. You can’t touch it at all. It sold online only. You can, of course, return it if not happy within 14 days. That’s a nice policy and provides plenty of time for living with it.
As for browsing, which is one of the most important things I do on my iPhone, there’s no contest. Without multi-touch, without the ability to pinch and zoom in or flick and zoom out, the Android just feels clunky. Worse, I keep hitting that damn magnifying glass at the bottom of the phone (it’s the fourth one over on the right, at the bottom) thinking it’s a zoom button. You know, because a magnifying glass is an icon often used to represent zooming. But it’s not. It’s a search button. I know, search is often represented by a magnifying glass, too. And I know, I just need to get used to the Android. And get used to needing to tap some place on the page I’m viewing that doesn’t have a link to get the real zoom in and zoom out buttons to appear. Then keep pressing on them to do things that are far easier on the iPhone.
There’s a lot I do like about Android. The built-in voice recognition gets better and better. I’ve done about 20 searches this evening by only speaking into the phone, and the accuracy has been amazing. FYI, as I joke, I cursed into my Nexus One. I discovered it will recognize curse words and replace them with ####!
The screen is beautiful. I love that there’s a removable battery plus removable storage (and even better when you can actually install apps on that storage). The trackball, which I found useless to worse in some instances (who knows where it puts you on the screen sometimes — it has a mind of its own) was actually awesome when using Street View on the Nexus One. Turn-by-turn navigation. Well, as long as I trust the accuracy of Google Maps, maybe I won’t need a new GPS.
Multitasking sounds great but in reality, I’ve yet to see it that useful. I had multitasking in Windows Mobile, and it was nice to toggle between different apps quickly. If there’s a fast toggle with Android, I’ve yet to stumble upon it. If I hold the home button down long, I will get a list of recently accessed apps. But that doesn’t seem to be the toggle between running apps that I was expecting. For the most part, so far, that’s not a killer for me over the iPhone.
Someone asked me if I’d recommend the Nexus One right now. My advice would be to wait until it appears for Verizon, if you really want the Nexus One because you don’t want or need a physical keyboard. I was a long-time Verizon subscriber, and the broadband network was awesome even years ago. I still use Verizon to access the web when traveling with my USB card. It consistently gets me connected in places where my iPhone often won’t.
And T-Mobile? I’ve never used them (in the US, that is — I did use them in the UK). But they seem to have a much less robust 3G network. Right now, if it seems better to AT&T users (and remember, all the world does NOT live in San Francisco, New York or attends CES), that’s because it’s not overloaded with all those data-hungry iPhones out there. But the data hungry Android users will come, and I suspect T-Mobile will encounter AT&T like problems. I’m not sure I’d want to commit two years to T-Mobile. Nor would I want to buy a Nexus One now that becomes a 2G-only brick if you shift to AT&T and which won’t work on Verizon at all.
Would I recommend the Nexus One it over the iPhone? It depends on who you are and what you need to do. For someone new to smartphones, I still think the iPhone would be the way to go. For a more power user, the Android (in particular the Nexus One) is pretty awesome. Certainly if you did get the Nexus One or any of the newer Android phones (say 1.5 and above), you’ve got an excellent phone. You shouldn’t feel a need to defend it against the iPhone.
I know Android will only get better. I hope it does. And I plan to write more about the Nexus One in particular, highlighting some of the things I do like. But this “you’ve got to learn” it stuff. If that’s the defense of Android, then it has already lost — at least this version.
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Very nice, Danny. These are all the same reasons that I will be clinging to my iPhone for a long time into the future. I *wanted* Android to be better, but it just isn’t . Not yet.
I’m the anti-Apple fanboy. I’m the kind of guy who will buy something just because it’s marginally better and outside the realm of mass popularity.
I know that things will evolve and everything will change, but for now. the 3GS is just better. I love it, and I’ll stick with it.
You said it better than I did about what annoys me about Droid and my Google Nexus One when compared with my iPhone.
Have you checked out Palm’s webOS? It seems to getting dismissed out of hand around the web in general, but I think it’s serious competition here.
Just a few things with regards to points you make, Android vs iPhone:
* No Menu button, but the app menu is always in the same spot. Just swipe your thumb down from the upper left corner of the screen – very Mac-like
* webOS kind of splits the difference with the bottom-of-screen command buttons, offering a row of buttons that appears when actions are available and gets out of the way when not needed.
* No Back button, but you swipe your thumb right-to-left across the bottom of the device.
* No Home button, but you swipe up from the bottom of the device. Once to see all running apps, again to summon the launcher.
* Multitasking on webOS is actually intuitive and useful, with the card UI. It’s always there and takes only simple twitch gestures to access.
* Pinch/zoom gestures are subtly different and more useful on webOS than iPhone, IMO. On webOS, you can pin a finger on something interesting and move a second away from the point of interest to zoom. On iPhone, you need to move both fingers away from the point of interest and try to keep it centered.
So far, I think the iPhone’s got a smoother, snappier UI – but I’d say webOS has a more usable UI over both iPhone and Android
Given the big changes in the market right now, both in handsets and carriers, I think any kind of commitment anywhere is a bad idea. 2 years with AT&T sounds just as bad as 2 years with T-Mobile, as you describe. I’ve tried Android handsets, although not the Nexus One yet, and know that with time, they would make sense to me. The iPhone family I know well, having used an iPhone for nearly 18 months, and an iPod Touch well before that. I expect that Android’s current progress is not caught up with Apple, but given their newness, its exceptional on its own that the two are being held for direct competition. I wonder what the situation will be for both in 2 years. Today, Google seems to be making updates faster, even if Apple has a monstrous lead in apps.
Good post Danny – Even though the Android negatives just keep piling up the Apple haters & open system advocates so desperate to have an alternative just keep coming up with bogus reasons why Android is the cats meow.
What really surprises me is that potential competitors (Google, HTC, Motorola, etc) have had so much time to study the iPhone (and its ecosystem) and they still can’t come up with something that measures up.
Danny,
As to touch gestures in the browser, you might try the Dolphin Browser, free from the android marketplace. Pinch to zoom and other gestures seem to work very well.
Bang on, Danny, certainly lines up with my experiences today watching non-geek friends get to grips with both for the first time (both stepping up from moto rzrs – so a good lab test).
Personally I carry an ipod touch for content consumption and a BBerry for content publishing (still feel like i need the keyboard, definitely need the robust exchange integration), so i’m really hoping a new device will “do everything” and get me down to carrying one thing. Was hoping the droid would be it (realized the non-keyboard nexus wouldn’t) but with Android right now i find lots of “logical smarts” but not enough “fuzzy intuitiveness”. Basically, it’s still too geeky.
Having said all that, i’m sure they will get there. And probably quite soon. it’s a really exciting time.
Also – agree with Louise above, locking into 2 years with current carrier models is a tough call. breakng contracts to stay on top of latest innovations that get licensed exclusively to other networks will be prohibatvely expensive. But it looks like Goog are going to blow that model to smitherines soon anyway (i.e. buy the phone, then chose a network – which is how it should be)
I’m an ex-iPhone user who now has a Droid. There are things that the iPhone does much better than Android does and the reverse is also true. However, to pick on a single application to prove your point that iPhone UI is better than Android UI is a bit silly, especially when you’re picking a highly polished, 3rd or 4th generation twitter application on the iPhone to compare it to a shitty Seesmic implementation on Android. I completely agree with you that iPhone applications are, on the whole, much more polished, but there can be huge advantages to having a dedicated back button and context menu for every app. It’s just up to the app developer to use them wisely, and that only takes time and iterations.
What’s really stupid, and something that I’m surprised no one has brought up yet, is why Motorola and HTC decided to make the Android dedicated buttons touch-sensitive buttons rather than actual buttons. Touch sensitive buttons are nice when they need to change, but as they are, it’s annoyingly easy to accidentally touch and go to the home screen or a search bar when you’re just holding the phone.
Victor, I didn’t pick a single application. I picked three: one for twittering, one for email and one for browsing. The latter two are highly used by many people, I’d say — especially browsing. In all of them, so far, Android doesn’t measure up as easy to use. Not impossible to use. Not bad to use. Actually pretty good to use. But the iPhone is still better. It’s a case of good versus better to me, rather than awful versus better, if that makes sense.
As for Seesmic specifically, OK — I can go back to the app that I used before Tweetie, Twitterific. It still had one touch writing, if I recall — and it wasn’t that mature of an app.
I’ve seen this in other apps, too — that to do things, you often have to hit the menu button. That’s very, very Windows Mobile-esque. That there’s a menu options, so you program to use it. I suspect that this is part of how the app developers are reacting to the platform. There’s a menu options, I’d better tap into that button versus with the iPhone, you’ve got one dedicated button that pretty much is useless to the apps. So they don’t use it and think smarter (I’d say).
But I’m not a programmer, and I sure as heck can’t speak for how app development is done on the iPhone versus Android with any expertise. I can only say how I see things as an end user.
One reason why more Blackberries are sold than iPhones is because Blackberry users have a choice of whether to have a physical keyboard or not. Blackberry users have choice on how to interface with a Blackberry. For alot of people, not having a physical keyboard is a non-starter. Ultimately, giving customers a choice is a big factor in making a product successful. One of the reason why Macs are like 10% of the market is that users either have to accept what Jobs give to them or they can take a hike. With Windows, you can have a $300 netbook or a tricked out gaming monster, and everything in between. The big push for Android is just starting out, and with multiple OS flavors, physical configurations, UI’s, multiple manufacturers, users have choices. They chose Android over iPhone.
I saw your comment there and saw “Twitter” and “Email”. Then I searched and didn’t find any occurrences of either “gmail” or “twidroid”. On Android, Gmail is truly great and Twidroid is pretty good (one-click-post, no prob) and getting better with a refresh every week which is something that’s tough via the Apple store. These absences seem weird to me in the context of this piece, since those are the leading apps in each of those two spaces. What am I missing?
Tim, I think history shows that the major reason Macs are 10% is computing was driven by “business computing” (until recently) and the desktop business computer market was handed to Microsoft on a golden platter by IBM. There was no way any computer company (no matter their leader or business philosophy) was going to take a major percentage of the overall computer market once Microsoft was entrenched. As a side note, I’m sure Apple/Jobs are just fine with the 10% of computers since it’s the most profitable 10%. Eventually, they might also be happy with 10% of the overall worldwide phone market if it’s the top 10%. I think they’ll probably end up with a greater share than though.
Using Tweetie on the iPhone and want to write a tweet? With the iPhone, the compose button is right there at the top of the screen:
But for Android, you have to go down to the bottom and push the menu button.
You realise this is a criticism of the Seesmic Twitter app’s UI, not Android itself, right?
An interesting read, but to echo some other comments, you are criticising Seesmic rather than Android. Seesmic is pretty new app. Try Twidroid, its pretty mature and is very good and has single touch ‘compose’.
If your point is that Android relies on the app developer to make sensible design choices, whereas the iphone doesn’t, I’m not sure that is right. Not being an iphone developer or user, I don’t know. Are there any iphone apps with bad ui’s? Bad design choices?
James, see my earlier comment about how apps seem to be written generally to overdepend on the menu button.
Tim, I run Gmail through the Email app. I have a Gmail acct thru my own domain. I don’t believe the Gmail client can handle that. Twitdroid is a good example. I have that on my Android 1.5 phone and it does have one touch composing. Maybe I should switch back: ) But these are just some examples where Android simply feels more awkward than the iPhone. And I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. But I wanted to actually show some examples to counter the main notion. That anyone who finds Android awkward just needs a week of getting used to it. Again, I didn’t need a week to get used to the iPhone. Why would that argument makes sense for Android?
Yeah, checked. The Gmail app can’t handle Gmail thru Google Apps.
Thanks for wrinting this post Danny. It’s not always fun to read posts calling me out, but it does help identify things that I didn’t do a good job explaining or proving. I’m going to try addressing some of your concerns below.
First off, I fully agree that the iPhone is easier to pick up than Android for your average consumer. I’d be far more comfortable handing an iPhone to my less tech-savvy friends than an Android device, because it really is more intuitive. On the other hand, I think Android has some things to offer to the people who can make it over that intital hump. I guess I’d compare it to the difference between a bike with training wheels and without them. One is safe for everyone, the other gives you a bit more freedom. (Please don’t take this as a shot against people using iPhones — I used one for years and am not trying to liken them to children. I just can’t think of a better analogy off the top of my head). In any case, your conclusion makes it sound like you share a similar sentiment.
The point of my post wasn’t really to address which OS was more intuitive — I was trying to point out that there are benefits Android offers that may not be apparent until after you’ve gotten used to the phone. For me, those benefits outweigh any learning curve. Most of the reviews I’ve seen from longtime iPhone users don’t get that far. In fact, parts of your post sort of fall into the same trap. You’re calling out UI issues that you get used to within a few days. Nothing really underscores this for me more than your comparison of the Email applications. In my mind, the Gmail app on Android blows the iPhone’s Email app out of the water. I’m not the only person who feels that way (see Fred Wilson’s post from yesterday).
Sure, you may have to hit the Menu button to access the ‘Compose’ option. You say this makes executing an action twice as annoying. I guess that might be true at first, but I’ve found that it becomes second nature. You just get used to it. My thumb may have to jump an extra half inch to access that menu, but I really don’t have to think about it any more. I probably wouldn’t have made this UI choice myself, but ultimately it just isn’t that hard to work around. The speed and features of the Gmail app are more than enough to overcome this for me.
Regarding your point about Tweetie vs. Sessmic: you’re totally right. I don’t think the Seesmic app holds a candle to Tweetie yet. The navigation options should be at the bottom of the screen (as they are on Tweetie), where they’re close to my thumbs. The Compose option is stuck under Menu, likely because that’s how Gmail works and Seesmic is trying to maintain consistency, but I still wish it was always visible. I like Tweetie better.
To your point about not being able to try the phone out, I don’t think anyone can really figure out if a phone is right for them in the store. Perhaps they can tell if the form factor is alright or if the phone’s UI is so confusing that they could never possibly understand it, but I think the 2-4 week take home period is pretty key. Which is what the Nexus One offers.
As for browsing, I agree with most of your points. Multi-touch would be nice, but that’s apparently being held up with patent issues so we have to deal without it. The soft zoom buttons offered are okay, and the double tap usually get the job done. But I certainly wish I had multitouch. It’s one of those gripes that I alluded to in my original post that make Android far from perfect, but those pros (awesome Gmail, multitasking, etc.) outweigh them.
As to your issue with the magnifying glass, that’s actually a standard icon for search in the entire Mac ecosystem. If you look at your iPhone and try to access a search function, you’ll see that it has a magnifying glass icon on it. The same is true for Mac OS X, where the magnifying glass is used for Spotlight search. Android is far from the first to use this, and Google probably adopted it to make Mac/iPhone users feel a bit more comfortable with the OS.
Anyway, I think your post is right about a lot of things. The iPhone is more intutive and polished. But i still think that Android has more to over once you get used to it.
Dang, quite a few typos in that. “More to offer” should be the last line. That’s what I get for writing a comment at 2 AM and not running spell check, ugh.
Don’t use Seesmic, it’s easy.
For Android you must to use Twittandroid, TwitteRide or Swift.
In this twitter’s clients you can write in one step, like iPhone.
Three things (from the perspective of a former WM user who was an early Android adopter and who has briefly tried out the iPhone):
1. I seem to recall getting to grips with my G1 instantly – hardly any learning curve at all. I am aware though that it is easy to forget small teething problems that one got over very quickly. There may well have been some for me and I suspect if there were some for Danny with his iPhone, he has since forgotten as he claims he was sold on it in an hour.
2. I think I would find having to go back to the home screen every time I wanted to launch a new app (as I believe you have to do with the iPhone) a lot more annoying than having to click a menu button to find a compose button. The latter as Jason points out becomes second nature and indeed has a benefit in that it increases screen real estate. Who’s to say having the compose button in one-click is more of a benefit than that? I will tell you who – the developer, which leads nicely to my next point.
3. The Twidroid app actually has its compose button on-screen. It’s up to the developer which options they want on screen vs those they want to hide away under a menu. It is understandable that Danny picked an app that underscores his point but I think it is important to note that this is not something that the OS imposes in any way. How can it then be faulted for it? I mean since when is having a menu a bad thing?
By the way, I find it incredible that Danny suggests that multi-tasking is not a big deal and yet multi-touch is. Personally I think double tapping to zoom is a more natural gesture than pinching – but I totally admit that this is a preference thing. Multi-tasking on the other hand is a deal breaker as far as I’m concerned. How can being able to switch seamlessly between apps not be an option in this day and age of computing? Oh and please don’t get me started on apps not running in the background.
Where Android shines for me is in the integration to Google.
If you’re not a Google user – then Android devices tend to be more of a puzzle than pleasure to use.
After struggling to integrate Gmail to my iPhone using IMAP (slow and laggy on my 3GS) and then the rarely working 100% Google Sync (perhaps the worst performing “beta” ever from Google) I made the leap to Android.
Android shines in the integration to Gmail (and related items such as calendar and contacts). The use of Google Voice is (for those of us carrying two or more mobile phones) just great — no more having to contact people when I add a phone to my arsenal.
There’s also other areas where I’ve enjoyed the Android experience:
- Notifications are not as obtrusive on Android
- Background applications seem to actually work (iow not many hung battery sucking tasks)
- Web browsing (while not equal to iPhone it’s not bad and certainly far superior in my view than to BlackBerry)
- Being able to chose from more than one carrier
- Being able to chose from “unapproved” apps like Google Voice
Danny,
Ever considered using a Blackberry? (Storm – If touch is the preference)
I know that the bundled OS browser does suck, but it does have an excellent intuitive User Interface
I too agree with many here that a non-stock application (twitter) shouldn’t have been picked up for comparison.Do concur on the Email/Browsing app, since this is something bundled with OS
There are certain things that can be controlled by the OS Developer SDK; however when it comes to User Interface, at best you see only the User Interface guideline document.
I’m sorta with you on this.
It’s the same reason I don’t use Macs. After about an hour of trying to use one as my primary computer, I’ve set it on fire and thrown it off a building, and gone back to Linux or Windows to get some actual productive work done.
Weak! The crux of your argument is to point out two applications with poorly designed UI. Weak at best.
Danny, Great review. Thanks so much. I was “burned” by the first android phone, the G1, had a horrible experience. Still recovering.
Yes, T-Mobile service sucks. My wife switched from t-mobile to AT&T is so much happier, and AT&T is not that great either, but so much better than T-mobile.
Small note/correction on the phones pic.
“My primary phone is that iPhone on the right, a 3G version from”
I think that should be “left” instead of “right”
> Yeah, checked. The Gmail app can’t handle Gmail thru Google Apps.
I think you should try that again. My own domain is hosted on GAFYD. The GMail app on my Android phone has multiple accounts configured, both my gmail.com account and my personal domain. It works.
While I’m inclined to agree, for now, I’d have to suggest that we should all be aware that things change/improve in the tech arena all the time.
Also, there’s another direction people may be arriving from when they consider buying an android…. which may not have the same comparative issues as an apple user would find.
Three things that make Android (Droid more than N1 right now) infinitely better than the iPhone:
1. The network.
2. If you don’t like the email app, the browser, or any other core application, you can write your own with your own interface. Google will not prevent you from installing it or even publishing it for profit. Whereas Apple prevents you from installing it on the phone that you bought and supposedly own.
3. Native Google Voice.
Yes the iPhone is simpler and more intuitive. Its much easier to achieve this when you present your audience with no options. When everything is chosen for you, what can lead to confusion or raise questions? So yes, some things take an extra press…but with it comes customization that simply cannot be found on an iPhone.
At the same time, many things take longer to execute on an iPhone, like toggling your wifi or quickly checking your email in the middle of using another app.
It all comes with tradeoffs. I’ll take options over a dumbed down OS anyday.
Do this. Go to vacation, rent a car, put your Droid (or N1) on your dashboard and start Google navigation. Press Home button and start Pandora at the same time running in the background. Alternatively, start some internet radio station (I am not from US so I listen to my home country radio station over internet). Go back to Google navigation (it is in your notification area one click away). Drive. Enjoy the music. There is no apparently for that. Except on Android.
And I bet Seesmic guys will add that compose button on the top so you can start talking about Android itself, not individual Android apps. Android apps and their UI will catch up, but Android itself is by far superior than iPhones OS. Individual apps are still not (e.g. Tweetie on iPhones is better than Seesmic on Android. But nothing in Android prevents Tweetie to release exactly the same looking apparently as on iPhones.
Fairly good points, but I feel yyou compared the wrong apps. TwiDroid is a way more developed Android app with that all needed compose button (note, i have used Seesmic with not a problem). I do agree that Android’s stock email app isn’t the best. But fot GOOGLE users (IE I use gmail, gcal, gdocs, glife whatever) Android just syncs WAYYYYY better than iPhone (note, now for anyone with yahoo email Android does an absolutely horrendous job).
The big issue with ATT, in my opinion, is the price. Sprint and TMobile both have better monthly plans. Granted Verizon has the best network, but for many people with either A. not the best credit or B. not high incomes android may be the best option.
iphone fanboys make me want to puke.
Mark – Please don’t do it in public, if you can help it. And please try not to get any on your droidy fanfoby friends
Jason, I love your writing generally, and I thought you definitely had a valid point. It can be hard to grab something for a few minutes and say oh, it doesn’t work like this other thing I know, it sucks. I’ve gone through that time and again. I just felt I had a unique experience going from Windows Mobile to the iPhone, where I didn’t need transition time at all.
I totally agree on the training wheels front. I had a friend who I wanted to get into a smartphone earlier this year. I looked around at the options. In the end, the iPhone was the safe, easy solution for him.
I’m glad the Gmail app is so great. But I don’t use Gmail. Or to be clear, I used Gmail — the version that Google offers through the Google Apps program. But the Gmail app on Google’s own Nexus One phone can’t handle that. So whatever goodness it has for me and other Google Apps users, I don’t know it. But I do know that the two major activities I use my iPhone are browsing and email. On email, they’re both about equally good. On browsing, I just don’t see how much more it’s going to take for me to get use to the Nexus One making me push those damn little zoom buttons to focus in and out. I know the patent issues are hobbling them on this. I hope they find a way around it.
Ideatagger, yeah, you’d think multitasking would be a bigger deal. I guess maybe because cell phone screens are so small, I’m not thinking multitasking. Here’s an example. I wanted to tweet and article yesterday. So I had to copy the URL from the browser (which is a pain compared to the iPhone). Then I had to go to bit.ly, shrinking it, then switch over to Seesmic. Now with multitasking, I dunno, on a computer I’d have two windows open and flip between them. On my Android, it’s open one app, then go to the other app. On the iPhone, it’s the same thing. I’m just not encountering a case so far where it felt things work as you’d think they should. I’ll play with it more. The best example was listening to music and working on something else. But I can do that on the iPhone already.
Wayne, where Android doesn’t shine is also its integration with Google. I’ll do a longer look at this in the future — but the phone really wants you to have a Google Account. You have to have one. And it wants you to use Latitude. And it wants you to share your search history, which is then stored in your Google Account. And there are plenty of people nervous enough about Google to not want their phone suggesting it should do all this tracking. And this is from someone who spends huge amounts of time debunking stupid Google conspiracy theories. If it struck me that way, I just wonder how it will feel to others over time.
Venu, never used a Blackberry. When I see people on them, I feel like I’m watching a web users on AOL. They seem so old-fashioned and un-smartphone like. And yet, they’re selling really well apparently. So I should play.
Doug, I’ve said this like three times now, including in the actual review. I’ll do it once more. Then if you or anyone says “you only looked at one app. You’ve only looked at two apps,” I’ll write you off as Android fanboys who didn’t read the article.
1) Jason argued that you needed time to fully appreciate Android. That was his main point. My main point was that I needed little time to “get used” to the iPhone coming from Windows Mobile. So if Android was a more intuitive operating system (and overall smartphone environment), I shouldn’t need so much time. And yet, apparently I and others do, as Jason argued. To me, that makes the point that the iPhone is more intuitive.
2) To try and go the extra mile, I showed screenshots from two apps, one of them which is the NATIVE email app as part of the phone. I also explained issues with the browsing experince. Email and browsing are huge parts of my smartphone experience. I think they are huge parts of anyone. So saying “you only talked about browsing” is like saying I felt a TV wasn’t very good because it had a bad picture, and you’re saying, “you didn’t mention the sound.” It’s a TV. The picture had better be awesome. I also was giving a few examples of awkwardness I’ve found over all. Top of my head, copy and paste is awkward. Trying to go directly into some text to edit it is a huge pain compared to the press and hold option on the iPhone. And you really need a good implementation, because when the voice recognition does a 90% accuracy of what you said, losing so much time editing it because of bad edit select makes you wish you hadn’t wasted playing with the voice recognition at all.
Victor, the G1 is so far removed from the Nexus One (and probably the Droid) not to mention Android 1.5 phones as not to be funny. Definitely look again at Android if you need and alternative. Don’t let that G1 experience make you think that’s how things are now.
DGentry, I’ll look again. I think it’s complicated by the fact that I have a Google Account that’s also in the name of my hosted account. It sure would be a lot easier if Google wouldn’t ask for a Google Account name for hosted accounts but instead acted like it understood there were some. It’s the same with with the standard email app. They can’t autoconfigure a Google hosted account. You have to do it manually — on your Google phone, that’s disappointing.
RosarioM, if the network is the problem, that doesn’t make the Android better. That makes Verizon better (and I agree). But point taken. Sadly, we have to make some of our decisions based on the network that hosts these devices.
As for “write your own interface,” um — seriously? You think the owner of a phone, if they don’t like the way it works, should write their own programs for it? I don’t think most people are programmers who are capable of this. But I appreciate deeply that Android is not limiting what can go on the phone in the way the iPhone does (at least in general — I think there’s still some filtering that happens in the Android market itself).
As for native Google Voice, I don’t use GV. Playing with it. Agreed — if you love this, having an Android phone probably makes a lot of sense.
Deathwish238, I’ve just never found it that slow to switch between one app to check my email on my iPhone. I mean, I’ll be rollerblading and looking at tweets on my phone, then switch to email, then to my browser, then back to tweets.
Jake, I own a dedicated GPS. So when I go on vacation, I put that GPS on the window, then for music, I turn on the radio. And it all works fine.
But yes, the GPS on Android is much better. I said that in my write up. And I know first hand how useful it is to have a GPS with you all the time. I use the iPhone version often when I’m traveling. I’m pretty sure if I really wanted to have music playing, I can have iTunes playing the many songs i have on the iPhone already without having to go to Pandora to prove how I can have music and GPS as the same time on the same phone.
Mark, I’m not an iPhone fanboy. Perhaps you missed me explaining I’m no fan of Apple when you rushed to the comment field to post your DroidBoy rebuttal.
Seriously, I’m not looking for knee-jerk fanboy reactions from either “side.” I am interested in thoughtful comments — and I really appreciate many of them I’ve received. Again to Jason, I really get the point he was making in his original article. I had an opposite gut reaction over the time to adjust idea that I wanted to share. And I’ll say again. It’s not Android=bad and iPhone=good. It’s more — for me — that Android=very good and iPhone=excellent for the things I typically do.
Ah, so Gmail can deal with my hosted account. Here’s the deal, and why I don’t feel so stupid.
See, the Gmail app says to enter your Google account name. A hosted account is NOT a Google Account. Your email address in a hosted account does not also just magically work as a Google Account name. But I tried entering my email address on the hosted account, then the password for that, which then worked. Which is great — but you’d think Google would explain that better.
And really first impressions? I’m not a fan of Gmail’s conversation view. So the Gmail app mainly seems different from the main email app by showing conversation views. So I’m not that blown away by it or the fact that even in the Gmail app, you have to Menu to then get to a Compose window. But I’ll try it more — and I totally get some people love conversation view.
Seesmic is shit, get Twidroid instead.
Danny, there should be a Share (this page) option in your browser. I say ’should’ because I’m on a different Android build to yours. When you click it, you get to choose which app you want to use to share the page – e.g. Facebook, Twidroid, ReadItLater, Beelicious (a delicious interface app) etc. If I choose Twidroid, it opens up in the Compose view and the url is automatically shortened.
The Share option is hidden behind a menu though so you might not like it
But seriously, that is one option that I think should be on-screen.
Wrt the iPhone, Android’s weakest point is text editing. Highlighting text by word and phrase is so hard it’s hardly worth it. And copy/paste is inconsistent across various text boxes. I use both the Droid and iPhone and pretty much go to the Droid for everything except text editing, it’s just worlds better on the iPhone.
Danny’s point about multitasking, though, is a bit silly. What’s the equivalent of running Twidroid, Greader, Task manager, Google Nav in the background and getting notified in real-time in the notification bar? And also, if we’re nitpicking about number of screen taps, Where’s this screenshot? I’m in Twidroid, I go to the browser, done now want to go back to Twidroid: press “back” – one tap. I’m in Tweetie, then to Safari, now want to go tweet again: press home button, press Tweetie – two taps.
If you’re going to base half your article’s space on arguing screen taps but don’t include the above use scenario, what are you doing?
Great post on why the Nexus One isn’t the next big thing/iPhone replacement. I echo the other commenter’s thoughts that I WANT Android to be better, but it still isn’t there. I as well came from the Windows Mobile world. I mocked the iPhone when it didn’t have 3G, but as soon as the iPhone 3G came out I did switch over and have become a WinMo hater ever since. While I have much disdain for the closed nature of Apple’s mobile OS you have to admit it is better than Windows Mobile (despite recent improvements). I am just hoping that Android comes around soon. I think in another year it might be there, but not yet.
In addition, Google’s phone “store” is anything but revolutionary. You have been able to buy unlocked phones since forever in specialty stores. You just pay the un-subsidized price, just as with the Google store.
“One reason why more Blackberries are sold than iPhones is because Blackberry users have a choice of whether to have a physical keyboard or not.”
I think one of the reasons there are more Blackberries than iPhones is because corporate IT departments do not want to support iPhones. I was recently given a Blackberry Curve for work and I’m really not liking the keyboard. The keys are so tiny it’s easy for me to hit multiple keys at once. On my iPhone even if I do hit a wrong key in a word it often gives me the word I’m trying to type, I hit space and keep moving. The other reason is that corporate decision makers have decided on the Blackberry and they don’t want to have to think about swapping to another platform. They’ve gotten comfortable with the Blackberry and if anyone else wants to use something that’s more user friendly, well that’s too bad. Companies have money tied up in Blackberries and it’s easier to recycle them to another user than to update their equipment. Again, I’ve experienced this first hand because I’ve got a hand me down Blackberry. So, I carry two phones now, my company Blackberry and my personal iPhone. Luckily my bluetooth headset will pair to both of them and I can take calls on either phone. Although I can not switch between calls on the two different phones. I pray for the day Apple comes out with a dual SIM phone (no not that butcher job on YouTube) and my company decides to wake up and support the iPhone.
@Danny Sullivan
I use the Gmail app for my Google Apps for your Domain account. It was set up that way automatically when I signed into the phone with my Google Acccount. Works great.
Thanks Danny for this realistic review of the Nexus One. You could have just posted the screenshots of trying to do things as that has won my support to continue with my iPhone 2G for at least another year.
You mentioned having to go to bit.ly to shorten the URL for Seesmic on Android. I’ve only used Twidroid for my Twitter app on my Android phones (G1, now Nexus One), but Twidroid auto-shortens URLs for you, saving you a step. I don’t know why Seesmic doesn’t do this.
If you aren’t a GV user like I am (I only give that number out unless people need/want to send me MMS messages, the only real flaw with GV right now), then I can see how it isn’t a selling point for an Android phone. But, for people like me, who use our GV number as our primary number, well Apple’s stern refusal to allow an official GV app on the iPhone (“waaaaa! it changes how something looks!”… coupled with the fact that the iPhone is on AT&T– who I will NEVER do business with again)… well, that sort of does the same thing for us with the iPhone. It’s a deal breaker for us if we can’t use our GV account in the way we’d want to– and are able to do on other phones (and not just Android phones, Blackberry phones, as well)– through an official GV app.
I’m actually a hardcore Mac fan. I love how Apple does a lot of things. But with the iPhone and, quite honestly, the iPhone fanbois, I get tired of it. And you’ll always hear the iPhone fanbois saying shit like “mutimedia and games are better on the iPhone!” and I reply with things like “get an iPod/Zune/etc. or DSi/PSP” as well as “how’s that non-replaceable battery? How about that non-upgradable memory? How’s AT&T’s shitty service (granted, a lot of people complain about T-Mobile, too, but where I live and travel, service hasn’t been an issue, where when I was on AT&T I couldn’t get service inside my house)?”
It’s not the iPhone I hate, it’s the fanbois and AT&T. Otherwise I would have had an iPhone a long time ago. But, since I have been using Android for a year, well, I like it. And Android 2.1, with FaceBook integration, Picasa web integration, GV integration, etc. and the sheer sexiness of the Nexus One all make me glad I have and love my Nexus One.
Personally I think the iPhone has a pretty good future and the primary reasons for this are because of platform stability. The iPhone has evolved steadily since 1.0 to the current 3.0 and I’m pretty sure they won’t stand still with 4.0 and beyond with the complementary hardware to match. Upgrading to the next version is as easy as getting another phone popping in a sim card and synching. Android is fractured all over with no clear and easy path to upgrade from one device to another. G1 users know this pain. I’m looking forward to the next version knowing the upgrade will be easy and the experience the same with additional features and enhanced performance.
I really liked the Droid mainly because of the multitasking but cannot STAND the camera ! Even though it is higher megapixel and has a flash, it takes terrible grainy, dark pictures and is very slow compared to the iPhone. I wish they would improve the camera software because it is beginning to look like megapixels isn’t everything WHEN it comes to phone cameras. The gmail app on the Droid is also subpar. My main gripe is the terrible camera. iPhone’s camera is still way better.
“Android is fractured all over with no clear and easy path to upgrade from one device to another. G1 users know this pain. I’m looking forward to the next version knowing the upgrade will be easy and the experience the same with additional features and enhanced performance.”
Um, G1 users can upgrade easily. As long as their contacts are synced to their Google account. I upgraded with no problem.
Danny,
I came here through TechMeme because I saw Jason’s article on TechCrunch. The quality of comments here is great, and so is your ongoing participation with the discussion.
To beleager the deceased horse, I think you should compare the best-in-class third party Twitter apps. I don’t even have an Android phone yet but from being on Twitter and reading blogs and tech coverage, I know that Twidroid is considered the best by most people. The two apps a commenter mentioned look promising as well.
A point I don’t think you’ve really addressed that I think Jason brought up in his original post isn’t whether the iPhone is pretty darn intuitive for the basics for most people or going from a feature phone or pre-iPhone era smartphone is easy.
I think Jason’s point is that a lot of tech reviewers love their iPhones and they need more than a few days of regular, main-phone usage to unlearn their trained & instinctual responses to a gestured-based GUI.
In linguistics, there’s a term for words that seem similar and have similar etymologies in different languages — cognates. When you’re mastering a new language that’s similar to one you already know (such as Spanish and French), the cognates can help you learn vocabulary much more rapidly than a newcomer without a similar background.
A problem, though, is when you run into the faux amis/amigos falsos (false friends) that look and sound similar in both languages but mean very different things. For instance, in English we say “actually” to mean truthful or surprising. In Spanish actual means current or up to date and actuellment in French means currently or at the moment.
When learning a human language, these false friends can be just as frustrating as the cognates are helpful.
I think switching between an iPhone and an Android is going to be similar. You’re not jumping from Windows Mobile to the iPhone, which is so radically different (like German to Chinese) you have no pre-conceptions about gestures to let go of to appreciate the switch. With Android, there is. One thing I noticed with iPhones is that double-tapping in Safari tends to open links I don’t want, so pinching is more important. When I use Android phones, double tapping never makes that happen, so pinching in the browser isn’t as important.
I’ve played with both the iPhones and Droids of friends. Honestly, some things about the visual touching stuff is great and some of it drives me batty. I feel like a n00b when I try to take a photo of a friend with their iPhone and I can’t open the app, and when I do, I keep refocusing the picture by pressing on their face rather than tapping the correct icon.
One thing you haven’t touched on in your micro review is notifications. With my Curve, when I get a text message or email, the light on the unit blinks red. When I have my Curve on the table at a meeting and the screen is lit, I can see that I have a text. If I hand my Curve to a friend to use or see look up something, they might notice a sound or vibration when I receive a text message, but they don’t see anything else.
My friends with iPhones, on the other hand, hand me their phones and if I’m trying to take a photo or read a movie showtime, etc., I will see the text message and be able to read its contents and who it’s from. If I’m pinching or tapping, it’s very easy to make the notification go away. If two texts come in at the same time, it gets very confusing very fast.
As most civilian consumers with iPhones use texting features a lot, this seems like a major device feature that is worse than Android. It doesn’t seem as though there’s a native way to improve notifications without jailbreaking.
The Android OS, on the other hand, seems much more elegant and unobtrusive.
The lack of the obtrusiveness of the iPhone text notifications isn’t going to be appreciated necessarily in the first day or the first hour after unboxing when reviewers cover the iPhone — especially if they’re not using it for their main phones.
Amazing technophile bloggers like Robert Scoble for whom at times Twitter-Is-All probably would weigh Tweetie’s amazingness over native inferior with text message notifications, but the average consumer probably doesn’t care as much about Twitter as text message.
I would like to see you write a follow-up article after using your Nexus One as your main phone for two weeks as Jason suggests. He still thinks the iPhone is great, etc., etc. but maybe some of the points he’s making will sit better with you after you’ve gone through an immersion.
Will (and Gib), notifications aren’t a big deal to me. I kind of don’t want them. I don’t want my apps constantly going out and checking on stuff and flooding me with alerts. I want them to update when I damn well tell them to update
In part, I prefer that to preserve battery life. In part, that’s just me. When I want to know something, I check. For those who want constant notification, perhaps Android is a superior platform.
As for your issue about the taps to read something in Twitdroid and how that’s less taps than the iPhone. Well, the scenario for me tends to be like this. I’m in Tweetie. There’s a URL I want to read that’s been tweeted. I click on it. A new screen within Tweetie comes up with the story. I don’t need to tap out of Tweetie. Alternatively, I’m in Tweetie then decide I want to read something, but I have no back. Really no big deal to me. I hit home, tap Safari, I’m there. Yep, with Android that’s one tap of I was in my browser. And if I hold home, and if the browser was a recent running app, I save a little time, I suppose.
Dave, thanks for the thoughts on the Blackberry and corporate environments. That was really educational and useful to learn.
Brandon, Gmail App totally worked for me once I understood that my Gmail For Domains address was also a Google Account. Even though they aren’t, which is confusing
Sam, Apple was idiotic on Google Voice. Cost them among other things the support of someone like Michael Arrington. I say again what I said above. I don’t like the closed-minded approach Apple has. I really look forward to a better alternative to the iPhone. Android is getting there. Just for me, not quite. Clearly for many people, it already is — and has come far in a really short period of time.
Robert, intuitive to me means I don’t have to figure out how to use something. If that drives you crazy as a designer, well, meet your audience. That’s me. Some apps, I don’t have to think about. That’s intuitive to me, as a user of an app. Call it ironic or whatever you want. That’s what I think a designer should be aiming for, an app I don’t have to study to use.
On Seesmic, and to anyone else who wants to raise it, got the point. It’s a sucky app. As I also keep saying, email and browse still feel clunky, using the native apps. And you know, native apps are important. If I have so spend a lot of time tracking down something that’s improving a bad experience to what’s built into the phone, that’s time wasted. But again, overall, I simply find the Android to be a more clunky interface to what I get on the iPhone. It did not take me much time to adjust to the iPhone from Windows Mobile. It shouldn’t take that much time for anyone to adjust to Android from the iPhone. If you have to give it a week to really get it, I again think that’s a sign it’s not as smooth an operating system as it might be.
Gib, I totally agree, other aspects like text messaging and placing calls are also really important. Neither of these phones lives or dies, for the most part, on the ability to tweet.
I do expect to write more about the Nexus One. As I said, there are lots of really nice things to it, also.
Nice overall review. As someone who has worked in UI development in the past, I’ve learnt that everyone has their own opinion on how the UIs should work. You obviously have yours (mostly good, IMO).
While I am neutral to the iPhone vs Android discussions, I get a bit disappointed when I don’t see the Palm OS thrown in the mix when doing such comparisons. I know the it’s very limited in supplies, but I really hope more people discover how well it stacks up with the “big guys”.
Hi
Nice job…however there is one thing that you do not mention here. An android phone willl never be as easy to get used to as an Iphone. Why? Because it’s more complicated and you can do a lot to “design” your own phone…..
To me it is expected that the nexus takes a bit longer to get used to…..what about you?
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