So I have tried Android and iOS now.

[bearxor]

Wasting the screen real estate... from what? More icons?

Yes, basically. If I drop an email widget on my GNex, it needs to be 4x3 to be useful. Then I have my weather widget, which is 4x1. So thats one screen that launches two apps. So what do I do with my gmail account that I check as often as my work email? Do I drop a second 4x3 on another screen? Now I have two screens and can launch 7 apps. So now if I'm swiping back and forth to get to different things, what's wrong with just launching tapping an icon?

Not knocking it, if it works great for you then great, it just doesn't work great for everyone.

iOS makes life in email significantly easier for me, because the unified inbox is awesome.

 

[vi edit]

I've got the most recent version of Slacker (just updated this weekend actually) and there are no lock screen options. There's nothing in the settings menu for it.

And for the song info, that's over bluetooth, not an apple dock. I BT stream all of my music.

 

[Anubis]

humm not sure why you dont have them. my buddy with a bionic has them
im rooted
he is not rooted

he said his showed up with ICS

 

[gar655]

Last time I heard, it was 700k for iOS and 650k for Android. That seems almost a meaningless difference.

Take all the porn apps off the android store and it drops to about 112. ;-)

 

[slightlyhuman]

i've had several variants of both.

right now i'm on a galaxy nexus with a nexus 4 on the way.

i had an iphone5 right before the Gnex. the Gnex beats the ip5 in every way. the screen is SO small on the ip5. it's not a bad product but apple really neuters every one of their products with the amount of control they desire.

i had a captivate running JB before th Gnex/ip5 and it was alright, it held up for old tech. imo, having a phone that's highly supported(google phones) seems to be the best, most satisfying experience i've had with a phone so far.

 

[VashHT]

I've got the most recent version of Slacker (just updated this weekend actually) and there are no lock screen options. There's nothing in the settings menu for it.

And for the song info, that's over bluetooth, not an apple dock. I BT stream all of my music.

I don't think touchwiz supports lockscreen music controls at all, it just expects you to use the notification shade to control your music. At least that's what I remember from using the GS3.

 

[foghorn67]

Does the Note 2 not have the task button? It looks like 2 cascading windows.
Can't picture it now.

 

[Red Storm]

Yes, basically. If I drop an email widget on my GNex, it needs to be 4x3 to be useful. Then I have my weather widget, which is 4x1. So thats one screen that launches two apps. So what do I do with my gmail account that I check as often as my work email? Do I drop a second 4x3 on another screen? Now I have two screens and can launch 7 apps. So now if I'm swiping back and forth to get to different things, what's wrong with just launching tapping an icon?

Not knocking it, if it works great for you then great, it just doesn't work great for everyone.

iOS makes life in email significantly easier for me, because the unified inbox is awesome.

I put the email widget on one screen, and the Gmail widget on another. I like being able to scroll through my list of emails and selecting one or composing a new message without having to launch the app first. It also lets me search my inbox without having to launch the app, I can just do it from right there. On another screen I have Google Voice, which lets me do the same thing. To me this looks and functions better than a grid of icons ever would, which is always there in the app drawer if need be.

Another example is the bookmarks widget for Chrome.I can immediately go to whatever website I want from my homescreen, I don't have to launch the browser first then open up bookmarks or start typing. And because it's a scrollable list I can view/access all my bookmarks on that same screen.

Yet another example is any kind of calendar/agenda widget that let's you see what you've got scheduled, again without having to launch an app or pull down the notification bar.

This is just basic stuff, not even getting into the really neat things like gesture shortcuts and whatnot. I guess the point is that iOS doesn't really have a homescreen, you just have an always open app drawer. Android let's you negate needing to tap on an app icon for every little thing by putting that information right there on your homescreen. If iOS is your preference then great. :thumbsup:

I personally do not like the unified inbox, as I like to keep work and personal emails separate, but there are apps that let you combine them on Android.

 

[s44]

Yet another example is any kind of calendar/agenda widget that let's you see what you've got scheduled, again without having to launch an app or pull down the notification bar.

This x100

Btw, you should turn off auto-placing of apps on the home screen (it's in the Play Store settings). Place 'em yourself if you want them outside the drawer.

 

[Aikouka]

3) Controlling active apps seems somewhat more clunky to me. Holding down home brings up some things that are running...but not all. Ending them from there doesn't *really* end them. They are still running in the back ground and you need to go into a nested app management menu and force close them. Which I've had to to *far* more often than I've ever had to on iOS.

I think that's my biggest problem with Android. Open multi-tasking can be great, but there's just not enough control. Honestly, why do 90% of the apps even need to run in the background? You should be able to disable an app from running in the background and force it to only be able to save its state.

I think that is what partly leads to...

5) Battery life is worse than iOS. Simply put my old iPhone 4 was a battery sipper. In similar use my Note e is down almost 15% at any given time to what my Iphone was at...and that's with the massive battery it has. At idle Android is much more inefficient and hungry. Maybe it has somethign to do with that massive list of options and check boxes to flip through.

I've definitely never been impressed with my ASUS TF300's battery life. My iPad can sit untethered to the wall and have no trouble keeping a charge, but that's definitely not the case with the TF300, and it has the dock attachment that should increase its battery life!

 

[s44]

I've definitely never been impressed with my ASUS TF300's battery life. My iPad can sit untethered to the wall and have no trouble keeping a charge, but that's definitely not the case with the TF300, and it has the dock attachment that should increase its battery life!

If you, you know, actually use the two, the Asus wins by a mile.

 

[cronos]

iOS makes life in email significantly easier for me, because the unified inbox is awesome.

I'm curious why you think 'unified inbox' is an exclusive iOS feature. Unless I misunderstood your statement.

 

[lopri]

I think that's my biggest problem with Android. Open multi-tasking can be great, but there's just not enough control. Honestly, why do 90% of the apps even need to run in the background? You should be able to disable an app from running in the background and force it to only be able to save its state.

Here is what you may want to read. Android categorize 6 types of apps for memory management purposes.

How the low memory killer works

• FOREGROUND_APP: This is the application currently on the screen, and running
• VISIBLE_APP: This is an application that is open, and running in the background because it's still doing something
• SECONDARY_SERVER: This is a process (a service that an application needs) that is alive and ready in case it's needed to do something
• HIDDEN_APP: This again is a process, that sits idle (but still alive) in case it's needed by an app that's alive and running
• CONTENT_PROVIDER: This is apps that provide data (content) to the system. HTC Facebook Sync? That's a CONTENT_PROVIDER. So are things like the Android Market, or Fring. If they are alive, they can refresh and provide the content they are supposed to at the set interval. If you kill them, they can't of course.
• EMPTY_APP: I call these "ghosts." They are apps that you have opened, but are done with them. Android uses a unique style of handling memory management. When an activity is ended, instead of killing it off Android keeps the application in memory so that opening them again is a faster process. Theses "ghost" apps use no battery or CPU time, they just fill RAM that would be otherwise empty. When this memory is needed by a different application or process, the RAM is flushed and made available for the new app. To satisfy the geekier people (like myself) Android does this by keeping a list of recently used apps, with the oldest apps in the list given the lowest priority -- they are killed first if RAM is needed elsewhere. This is a perfect way to handle 'ghost' processes, so there's no need to touch this part

All devices come with default values. You can have more control over them, but you need root access. Once you have root access to your device you can use an app like this. But it's really not necessary, IMO, unless your device has really low amount of memory. (i.e. <256MB)

 

[TuxDave]

I personally do not like the unified inbox, as I like to keep work and personal emails separate, but there are apps that let you combine them on Android.

You can do both. All your various email inbox is sorted into separate inboxes OR you can go select the "all inboxes" to have it all combined into one giant list. So you can do it either way with the default mail app.

I'm curious why you think 'unified inbox' is an exclusive iOS feature. Unless I misunderstood your statement.

What does the default Android mail app do in regards to multiple email accounts?

 

[XenIneX]

Gridception[...]

All I see is a large amount of wasted screen space.

A tablet, moreso than a smartphone, is just begging for home screen customization to make better use of all that resolution.

I see the home screen for roughly seven seconds at a shot. I get in, find the next app, and get out; I don't hang out there. A tablet, to me, is a serial kiosk. (A smartphone, on the other hand, is a swiss army knife. I could see the argument for customization there -- though it doesn't work for me.)

That looks horrendous. I know you were trying to go for the "neat" look, but this totally fails imho.

I wasn't trying to go for any "look". Looks don't factor in to it; it's a purely functional layout.

The problem with having all your apps into folders is you can easily forget where you put something. Even the most accurate of folder names and the most OCD end user cannot overcome a dizzying array of folders when trying to find a specific app, particularly ones you may not use very often.

If you can't manage a 1-deep folder tree... well, I have no words.

And I do want that stupid Newstand app off the screen.

Agreed. But, I don't want it enough to increase the complexity of the layout.

Widgets.

Waste of time (for me). Quite literally.

I'm pretty sure I've sunk more than a hundred hours over the years on my Android devices into trying to come up with a "productive" widget arrangement. I've come to the conclusion that they do nothing for me that notifications can't do better, and with far less effort. In the time it takes to swipe a over to a calendar or email or whatever widget, I can just open the damned app from a home-screen shortcut and look at it.

As a result, my Android launchers have all been pared down to a single screen containing a handful of functional essentials: browser, messaging, mapping, notes. Maybe a clock, if I really feel the need to fill space, with the weather in the notification bar.

 

[Red Storm]

What does the default Android mail app do in regards to multiple email accounts?

Unlike iOS, Android isn't tied down to "defaults". Another advantage.

 

[TuxDave]

Unlike iOS, Android isn't tied down to "defaults". Another advantage.

Well you could use the Sparrow email client on iOS (which I recommend because it's awesome). So I don't really see your point besides not answering the question.

 

[Red Storm]

Well you could use the Sparrow email client on iOS (which I recommend because it's awesome). So I don't really see your point besides not answering the question.

But you can't set it as the default, to take over the default functions that trigger email.

Hence my point that your question about the default email client is thinking of it from an iOS view point, and avoiding Android's main advantage. You can choose what email app acts as the system wide default email app. So a unified inbox is not an iOS exclusive.

Waste of time (for me). Quite literally.

I'm pretty sure I've sunk more than a hundred hours over the years on my Android devices into trying to come up with a "productive" widget arrangement. I've come to the conclusion that they do nothing for me that notifications can't do better, and with far less effort. In the time it takes to swipe a over to a calendar or email or whatever widget, I can just open the damned app from a home-screen shortcut and look at it.

As a result, my Android launchers have all been pared down to a single screen containing a handful of functional essentials: browser, messaging, mapping, notes. Maybe a clock, if I really feel the need to fill space, with the weather in the notification bar.

Why waste time having to open an app, when I can just look at my screen and see what I need?

 

[notposting]

I much prefer the WP approach to mailboxes--you can combine different mailboxes as you see fit. While my wife was in school and working I had her email on my phone so I could let her know when anything important came in. I could combine my email accounts in one linked inbox, and her accounts into another linked inbox.

As for apps, in general I haven't had any problems with finding what I need in WP(7, fwiw). But I mostly just browse the web (and like IE9 for that matter), stay in touch with email/text/messaging (integrated FB and MSN, have jiTalk for gchat), have an app for GV texting pinned to start screen with push enabled, the integrated MS Office and Skydrive works like a charm, app for accessing our WHS remotely, weather and Key Ring pinned, multiple shared calendars from different people, and with my ancient Zune Pass (with 10 song credits included) the Bing Music search works awesome in the car.

For that matter...I haven't run into anyone from here in the real world for a comparison like this (which helps my cause ), but anytime I have run into a "we need to look something up" whether maps, info, etc the iOS and Android users are usually still poking around for an app

The voice commands/searches work very well also and leave most people looking rather amazed

Hopefully Verizon gets a nice Lumia with the improved camera at some point.

edit: I think iOS and Android still have a lead for sure in that if you have a specific need for a certain app and it isn't available on WP, that is a dealkiller which is understandable.

 

[TuxDave]

But you can't set it as the default, to take over the default functions that trigger email.

Hence my point that your question about the default email client is thinking of it from an iOS view point, and avoiding Android's main advantage.

Yes, that's true. iOS services that call on other services usually call on the other iOS built in services but for me email is mostly operated in an island (I rarely write an email that starts from an email address in a web browser for instance).

So unless you just don't know what the default app does, I think I can imply the answer from your response. It's just another app that is recommended to replace for new Android users (like the keyboard? I heard the default keyboard stopped sucking lately). I have my opinions on good default apps vs having to swap in app replacements. It's not for me and the replacement has to be exceptional for me to do it. (and I have tried many: new browsers, new mapping software even before the iOS6 map mess, several to do lists). The only one that sorta stuck was Sparrow and Waze up until iOS6.

 

[cronos]

What does the default Android mail app do in regards to multiple email accounts?

You were not the one making the statement so I'll let it slide that you didn't answer the question

Regarding your question, I'm pretty sure the native mail client supports unified inbox. To be honest though, I don't really know because I never use it. The client I do use (Enhanced Email) however, does support it. It's called 'combined inbox'

 

[TuxDave]

You were not the one making the statement so I'll let it slide that you didn't answer the question

Regarding your question, I'm pretty sure the native mail client supports unified inbox. To be honest though, I don't really know because I never use it. The client I do use (Enhanced Email) however, does support it. It's called 'combined inbox'

Heh, thanks for the leeway. I, too, was curious why it was quoted as an iOS exclusive but on a different angle. My mom is tossing the idea of getting a smartphone and so if she does end up going Android, it would be nice to be able to give advice on what to do. I doubt she'll ever learn how to swype but stuff like email is important to her (she has a business and personal email).

 

[WelshBloke]

I was implying you would download the official Facebook app to try it out so you can compare and contrast if you were really curious about the difference. But you don't have to.

Just found out that you can do it on tinfoil just not in the news feed. If I'm in a time line i can swipe through the photos without leaving it, if I'm in my news feed it just shows three photos from the album.

Shows how much I use it I guess.

 

[XenIneX]

Why waste time having to open an app, when I can just look at my screen and see what I need?

Because swiping to a widget isn't any faster than tapping an app. Because the app has a better UI, with more context. Because anything that would need the immediate gratification of a widget already offers a notification. Because I don't feel like losing another hour of my life to configuring yet another permutation of a calendar widget, only to find that it still doesn't quite fill my needs.

 

[pm]

You were not the one making the statement so I'll let it slide that you didn't answer the question

Regarding your question, I'm pretty sure the native mail client supports unified inbox. To be honest though, I don't really know because I never use it. The client I do use (Enhanced Email) however, does support it. It's called 'combined inbox'

On the Nexus 4 with the native email app that it comes with, it looks and behaves just like the iOS version with regards to multiple email accounts. You can choose one account or others, or as many as you want together, and then color code emails from the them, or just have them all look the same. It's more or less the same on the two platforms, although if I objectively look at the apps, the iOS one is maybe slightly better than the Jelly Bean one in terms of features (server-side search is one). But they are equivalent enough to call it a draw.

And, for what it's worth, I generally find that the battery life of my iOS devices (iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPad) is substantially better than the battery life of my Android devices (Asus Transformer, Nexus 4).