Hmmm... Nexus 7 vs iPad 1, Ipad 1 won..

[slackerinabox]

Have a nexus 7 that I absolutely bring with me everywhere (my wife has an iPad 2 but I never use her stuff) - thought it was the bees knees until my mother in law gave me her old iPad 1 after she upgraded... Yesterday I decided to use my cable company's app on the iPad instead of the Nexus and found a slew of features that aren't on the android version (more research shows that certain devices have certain features gimped, shocked that the nexus was included on the gimped list) - live tv, watch stuff from the dvr, etc. I then compared a few other apps from the lowly ipad 1 and the nexus 7 and apps on the nexus 7 looked decidedly more old school (like blown up cellphone apps) while the ipad versions were slick, multimedia heavy and almost info-tainment kiosk like.

Also, my nexus 7 is terrible on standby when it comes to battery life - If I leave the battery at 80% at say 10 pm it'll almost certainly be at 18% by the morning. Under heavy use I'd say the battery life is similar, but my nexus surely needs to be closer to a charger.
My question is -why hasn't android caught up when it comes to tablet optimized apps and basic things like battery life, if we're all so certain that it's the greater operating system? Isn't the "icons on grid" criticism of iOS moot when the actual apps are just better on iOS (I don't stare at my desktop, do you?)? happy galaxy nexus and nexus 7 owner who's happy because I'm cheap (if the iphone was cheaper I'd own that), and I thought ICS/Jelly bean was supposed to be when tablets became a priority not an afterthought on android.

 

[JD50]

Your thread title is misleading. It's common knowledge that iOS has more tablet optimized apps than Android, but so far I haven't used any apps on my nexus 7 that I feel are missing anything. You're talking about iOS vs. Android on tablets, not the nexus 7 vs the iPad 1.

Also, you might want to check your battery stats and see what's going on with your nexus 7, draining like that overnight is not normal.

 

[kevinsbane]

Have a nexus 7 that I absolutely bring with me everywhere (my wife has an iPad 2 but I never use her stuff) - thought it was the bees knees until my mother in law gave me her old iPad 1 after she upgraded... Yesterday I decided to use my cable company's app on the iPad instead of the Nexus and found a slew of features that aren't on the android version (more research shows that certain devices have certain features gimped, shocked that the nexus was included on the gimped list) - live tv, watch stuff from the dvr, etc. I then compared a few other apps from the lowly ipad 1 and the nexus 7 and apps on the nexus 7 looked decidedly more old school (like blown up cellphone apps) while the ipad versions were slick, multimedia heavy and almost info-tainment kiosk like.

Also, my nexus 7 is terrible on standby when it comes to battery life - If I leave the battery at 80% at say 10 pm it'll almost certainly be at 18% by the morning. Under heavy use I'd say the battery life is similar, but my nexus surely needs to be closer to a charger.
My question is -why hasn't android caught up when it comes to tablet optimized apps and basic things like battery life, if we're all so certain that it's the greater operating system? Isn't the "icons on grid" criticism of iOS moot when the actual apps are just better on iOS (I don't stare at my desktop, do you?)? happy galaxy nexus and nexus 7 owner who's happy because I'm cheap (if the iphone was cheaper I'd own that), and I thought ICS/Jelly bean was supposed to be when tablets became a priority not an afterthought on android.

I think you might have something wrong with your Nexus 7, or you have been running some sort of program that's draining your power. My Nexus 7 certainly doesn't have the kind of battery issues that yours has...

 

[slackerinabox]

I think you might have something wrong with your Nexus 7, or you have been running some sort of program that's draining your power. My Nexus 7 certainly doesn't have the kind of battery issues that yours has...

I think it's google now and automatic updates - often when I turn it back on in the morning I see tons of notifications. I'm going to experiment a bit with disabling wifi on sleep and just shutting the gps off (never use it), maybe that will help (I love the size and love that at $199 I don't mind carrying it around crowded subways).

 

[JD50]

I think it's google now and automatic updates - often when I turn it back on in the morning I see tons of notifications. I'm going to experiment a bit with disabling wifi on sleep and just shutting the gps off (never use it), maybe that will help (I love the size and love that at $199 I don't mind carrying it around crowded subways).

You can also try using the better battery stats app. There's probably something that's stopping your nexus 7 from going into a deep sleep.

 

[slackerinabox]

Your thread title is misleading. It's common knowledge that iOS has more tablet optimized apps than Android, but so far I haven't used any apps on my nexus 7 that I feel are missing anything. You're talking about iOS vs. Android on tablets, not the nexus 7 vs the iPad 1.

Also, you might want to check your battery stats and see what's going on with your nexus 7, draining like that overnight is not normal.

But how can we claim that a platform is superior when the actual applications are inferior? And multimedia apps seem to be where android suffers - for example, my wife's lowly iPhone 4 is significantly faster opening and playing content across any service that uses drm (rhapsody, netflix, hulu plus, etc.) compared to my galaxy nexus. Is there any plan on android to unify authentication to allow beefier media content?

 

[slackerinabox]

You can also try using the better battery stats app. There's probably something that's stopping your nexus 7 from going into a deep sleep.

Will give it a try - according to the internal battery thingie NOW is taking up a majority of my battery life currently

 

[kevinsbane]

I think it's google now and automatic updates - often when I turn it back on in the morning I see tons of notifications. I'm going to experiment a bit with disabling wifi on sleep and just shutting the gps off (never use it), maybe that will help (I love the size and love that at $199 I don't mind carrying it around crowded subways).

Possibly if you have a LOT of updates. Personally, I still have Google Now enabled and GPS on, but I get none of those problems. Updates also shouldn't take that long to do, so it's really weird. Try pulling up the battery screen from the menus; it'll tell you exactly what is eating up how much battery. I find that, by far, my screen takes up the most power - often 80-90% of my power use is from the screen. So if something else is eating power, it'll show up pretty obviously.

 

[Bateluer]

Possibly if you have a LOT of updates. Personally, I still have Google Now enabled and GPS on, but I get none of those problems. Updates also shouldn't take that long to do, so it's really weird. Try pulling up the battery screen from the menus; it'll tell you exactly what is eating up how much battery. I find that, by far, my screen takes up the most power - often 80-90% of my power use is from the screen. So if something else is eating power, it'll show up pretty obviously.

Same for me. Using all those things, and the Nexus 7 lasts a good 10-12 days if I don't go pick it up and play with it every day.

 

[slackerinabox]

Same for me. Using all those things, and the Nexus 7 lasts a good 10-12 days if I don't go pick it up and play with it every day.

10 - 12 days? That's incredible, do you disable wifi when in sleep? Or do you do a full shut down?

 

[Bateluer]

10 - 12 days? That's incredible, do you disable wifi when in sleep? Or do you do a full shut down?

No, WiFi stays on 24/7 and I never turn the tablet off. That 10-12 day metric is with me pretty much leaving it alone though, aside from downloading app updates every other day.

From what I gather from on Nexus 7 owners, this is actually pretty typical of a normal functioning N7.

 

[grkM3]

Why would you keep WiFi on during sleep?

 

[Capt Caveman]

Why would you keep WiFi on during sleep?

Why would I want to turn it off? I leave it on 24/7 on all of my devices. My Nexus 10 is down maybe 5% over the course of a night.

 

[bigrash]

Why would you keep WiFi on during sleep?

Yeah I leave my wifi on at all times. Why not?

 

[skyking]

No, WiFi stays on 24/7 and I never turn the tablet off. That 10-12 day metric is with me pretty much leaving it alone though, aside from downloading app updates every other day.

From what I gather from on Nexus 7 owners, this is actually pretty typical of a normal functioning N7.

I see that too with my wife's N7.

 

[Chrono]

I used my Mom's ipad2 for a bit and that thing blew me away in terms of battery life/stand by time. OS/app refinement was way better too than the Android line of tablets. My solution now is... don't even bother with tablets though since I pretty much just use my note 2 for everything now. I have an Asus eeepad transformer and boy does that thing lag and suck for everything.

 

[cheezy321]

10 - 12 days? That's incredible, do you disable wifi when in sleep? Or do you do a full shut down?

That's only incredible if you have never owned an iPad. I have a 2 year old iPad 2 and I have to charge it MAYBE 2x a month.

 

[ponyo]

User error or malfunctioning tablet and it's Android fault? iOS is popular with non techies for a reason.

 

[Red Storm]

That's only incredible if you have never owned an iPad. I have a 2 year old iPad 2 and I have to charge it MAYBE 2x a month.

Do you do anything with it? We have an iPad 2 that's used to watch NBA League Pass once a day plus some misc web browsing every now and then and I have to charge that thing twice a week.

 

[cheezy321]

Do you do anything with it? We have an iPad 2 that's used to watch NBA League Pass once a day plus some misc web browsing every now and then and I have to charge that thing twice a week.

I use it to stream pandora while im taking a shower, bring it on business meetings and surf the web ~5-10 mins every other day. I rarely ever stream video and I am sure thats why you have to charge yours more often.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Even on Android's best day, I find iOS to have superior standby battery life. It's crazy how I can leave my iPad unplugged over night and lose not even 1% battery life. While my Android phones and tablets I've used will drain 1 to 2% battery life an hour in standby (and I don't use widgets because it seems to make it worse).

And yeah, developers seem to love iOS more. I have the DirecTV app on my iPad and Android tablets. My Android tablets just get the crappy looking phone UI blown up. And I can't watch live TV on Android. On my iPad, I have live TV, and lots of in app widgets I can add to customize my channel views, see more details on specific channels, just a ton more features on the iOS version. I hate to part with my iPad because it's such an awesome companion for my DirecTV, while the Android version is such a joke.

I'm used to this unfortunately. I really hope developers will wise up and start giving more love to their Android tablets. The momentum is on Android's side and is the area with the most growth. So it's starting to get inexcusable to continue accepting phone apps on tablets or significant lack of features compared to iOS.

 

[Ravynmagi]

PS. I wouldn't trade a Nexus 7 for an iPad 1 though. That 256MB of RAM on the iPad 1 really sucks for web browsing. Everytime I changed tabs it seemed like the page would have to re-download because it couldn't keep it in memory.

 

[ControlD]

Do you do anything with it? We have an iPad 2 that's used to watch NBA League Pass once a day plus some misc web browsing every now and then and I have to charge that thing twice a week.

That sounds more normal to me. My iPad 3 gets charged 2-3 times a week. I would say my iPad 1 was about the same. Now that my daughter has the original iPad it pretty much needs to be charged at least every other day.

 

[ponyo]

Even on Android's best day, I find iOS to have superior standby battery life. It's crazy how I can leave my iPad unplugged over night and lose not even 1% battery life. While my Android phones and tablets I've used will drain 1 to 2% battery life an hour in standby (and I don't use widgets because it seems to make it worse).

And yeah, developers seem to love iOS more. I have the DirecTV app on my iPad and Android tablets. My Android tablets just get the crappy looking phone UI blown up. And I can't watch live TV on Android. On my iPad, I have live TV, and lots of in app widgets I can add to customize my channel views, see more details on specific channels, just a ton more features on the iOS version. I hate to part with my iPad because it's such an awesome companion for my DirecTV, while the Android version is such a joke.

I'm used to this unfortunately. I really hope developers will wise up and start giving more love to their Android tablets. The momentum is on Android's side and is the area with the most growth. So it's starting to get inexcusable to continue accepting phone apps on tablets or significant lack of features compared to iOS.

You definitely can watch live TV on Android. There might not be official app for what you're looking for but it's there. Use what you like.

 

[BladeVenom]

But how can we claim that a platform is superior when the actual applications are inferior?

Apple did it for decades.

There was always a lot more software written for Microsoft's OS than for Apple's, but that didn't stop Apple from claiming their platform was superior.