yikes.. the iOS experience

[gorcorps]

There are several options outside of iTunes that work fine, I just installed share pod, free & it works great.

http://www.getsharepod.com/

Which is super if you only want to sync media, but most iPhone users will want to sync calendars, tasks and contacts. Is there a non-iTunes alternative for that? Cuz that would be fantastic.

 

[QueBert]

slight corrections:
Angry Birds - Angry Birds
Flight Control - Flight Director
Plants Vs Zombies - Robo Defense or retro defense

TowerBloxx and realRacing i haven't played so i can't comment. the former looks like tons of fun though

Angry Birds is still beta, it will be out soon and the beta is good, but right now I cannot buy the full game on my Droid.
While not bad, Flight Director isn't as good as Flight Control
PVZ is about 100 times better than Robo Defense, Robo Defense is more like Field Runners on the iOS. But Field Runners is like 4,600 times better.

I own both platforms, and gaming on an Android is very shitty right now, there are a few good games. But overall it's not good, and will take a year or more to catch up at this point.

 

[SAWYER]

Yeah gaming on ios is leaps and bounds ahead of android

 

[slackerinabox]

Android performance is strange. It's very fast in the sense that applications open quickly enough (most nearly instantly). Switching between windows, loading websites etc. is also extremely quick. However some animations and scrolling are choppy for no particular reason. Sometimes when bringing up the virtual keyboard, it appears in the wrong size first, then it's repositioned and re-scaled correctly. This all happens within a fraction of a second, but it's still noticeable. That's just one of many examples of this behavior. For example, why is scrolling between home screens super-smooth, unless I use the track pad? Why is scrolling through SMS-messages choppy, while Email and the Gallery scroll completely fluidly and smoothly? This makes the whole OS feel slower than it really is.

It's kind of like XP vs Vista/Win7. Moving and resizing windows, opening and closing windows etc. is actually faster in XP, but because it's not hardware accelerated or double-buffered, you get lots of visual strangeness like clipping, tearing, partially updated windows, hall of mirrors effects etc.

Android has however almost never crashed for me. Maybe all the constant tweaking, those unofficial experimental ROMs etc. explain your frequent crashes? I'm on the official 2.2 ROM from HTC, with just a few system applications installed. I do have a task killer, but I've only used it a few times to check CPU and memory usage. Never had to use it to actually kill tasks.

That's been my experience as well, and my droid (now on stock froyo, not by choice.. grr auto updates that kill root), is stable enough for me to still be an android fanboy. I see great great great potential and really think android 4.x will kick iOS 4.x. I just remember i0S being sluggish and that's obviously no longer the case.

Apple also seems to implement (stolen) ideas better - cut and paste for example works flawlessly on her touch while selecting text is a major chore on my droid. In fact, I still don't know how to cut and paste across all apps on the droid.

I know my droid's hardware is dated so I can't fault it, I'm just kinda in awe of iOS. WM7 also looks pretty slick, I just hope it's not all surface gloss (VISTA!!!) and functions as well as it looks in demos. I hated my Samsung Omnia beyond words so let's hope MS and its partners kick one out of the park, I really love my ZUNE HD aside from the lame app situation (7 apps? Really?!)

 

[QueBert]

That's been my experience as well, and my droid (now on stock froyo, not by choice.. grr auto updates that kill root), is stable enough for me to still be an android fanboy. I see great great great potential and really think android 4.x will kick iOS 4.x. I just remember i0S being sluggish and that's obviously no longer the case.

Apple also seems to implement (stolen) ideas better - cut and paste for example works flawlessly on her touch while selecting text is a major chore on my droid. In fact, I still don't know how to cut and paste across all apps on the droid.

I know my droid's hardware is dated so I can't fault it, I'm just kinda in awe of iOS. WM7 also looks pretty slick, I just hope it's not all surface gloss (VISTA!!!) and functions as well as it looks in demos. I hated my Samsung Omnia beyond words so let's hope MS and its partners kick one out of the park, I really love my ZUNE HD aside from the lame app situation (7 apps? Really?!)

Microsoft added a game to the Zune HD app store semi recently, not sure if you're including that in your 7. If not, it's 8 now

 

[vshah]

i think cut and paste is better on iOS. on android it seems there are still some areas where it isn't enabled. I think that, other than text input boxes, its up to the app developer to enable it while on iOS it is available everywhere. correct me if i am wrong...

 

[slackerinabox]

Microsoft added a game to the Zune HD app store semi recently, not sure if you're including that in your 7. If not, it's 8 now

Wow! I'll have to download that one extra app.. One day I pray to have more apps than my fingers can count

 

[trmiv]

You do realize how far gaming has come on NEW Android hardware, right? It doesn't make much sense to critique Android as a whole based on your gaming experience on an old device.

There are quite a few threads on gaming on Android that you might want to check out.

Capable yes, but where are the games? I'm not even talking about first person shooters and racing games with impressive graphics, I don't even like those on touchscreen devices. I'm talking about fun pick up and play games like Flight Control, Harbor Master, Plants vs Zombies, Pocket God, Doodle Jump (which is on Android, but not supported nearly as well by the dev as the iOS version, and costs way too much). My device is fully capable of playing games like that, but except for the Angry Birds demo, they aren't there. The highest rated game like that is Robo Defense, which sucks. The only reason it's rated so high is because it had little competition. OpenFeint is a step in the right direction, hopefully more follow soon.

 

[rudeguy]

Capable yes, but where are the games? I'm not even talking about first person shooters and racing games with impressive graphics, I don't even like those on touchscreen devices. I'm talking about fun pick up and play games like Flight Control, Harbor Master, Plants vs Zombies, Pocket God, Doodle Jump (which is on Android, but not supported nearly as well by the dev as the iOS version, and costs way too much). My device is fully capable of playing games like that, but except for the Angry Birds demo, they aren't there. The highest rated game like that is Robo Defense, which sucks. The only reason it's rated so high is because it had little competition. OpenFeint is a step in the right direction, hopefully more follow soon.

Dude...I play robo defense every day! Its my time killer at lunch.

So your complaint is that there aren't enough decent time waster games? I will agree with that. I did buy Slider (or whatever its called). I made it through 5 levels before I decided I would rather flash my phone back to stock and figure out a way to uninstall the lag fix than fry my brain playing that game.

 

[MrX8503]

Dude...I play robo defense every day! Its my time killer at lunch.

So your complaint is that there aren't enough decent time waster games? I will agree with that. I did buy Slider (or whatever its called). I made it through 5 levels before I decided I would rather flash my phone back to stock and figure out a way to uninstall the lag fix than fry my brain playing that game.

You should try playing fieldrunners on iOS. Its like 200x better. Aside from that, there are like 20 other tower defense games on iOS that are better than robodefense.

Maybe a user doesn't need all of these tower defense games, but while Android has 1 decent one, iOS has 1 amazing one and 20 good ones.

 

[trmiv]

See I couldn't get into robo defense. I like tower defense games, but that one just feels cheesy to me.

I want the good, quality time waster games that are the bread and butter of iOS. On my iPod I had stuff like Grand Theft Auto and some first person shooters, but I rarely, rarely played them after I bought them. If I want an involved gaming experience like that I'll go home and play my Xbox or Wii. I found I wasted my money on them. But the $.99 to $1.99 time wasters I played all the time. Easy to play on the shitter (pardon my french, lol), waiting for food to come at a restaurant, etc. I also loved Words With Friends and Chess With Friends. There are also a bunch of really fun pinball games on iOS that save the state when you shut them down so they can be pick up and play as well. Stuff like that is what these devices are perfect for, I just hope more and more stuff like Angry Birds starts coming this way.

 

[AMDZen]

Which is super if you only want to sync media, but most iPhone users will want to sync calendars, tasks and contacts. Is there a non-iTunes alternative for that? Cuz that would be fantastic.

i-Funbox

 

[Doboji]

You can't really compare a iPhone 4 to a Droid 1... you should and could compare it to a Galaxy S, a Droid X and the EVO.

There's no way the iPhone 4 is any faster than the aforementioned devices.. Sure you CAN overbloat the Android phones and make them slow... you can't do that on the iPhone4... the iPhone 4 experience never changes. Because you're not allowed to change it. I fail to see how thats an advantage for anyone other than my mother...

 

[cheezy321]

You can't really compare a iPhone 4 to a Droid 1... you should and could compare it to a Galaxy S, a Droid X and the EVO.

There's no way the iPhone 4 is any faster than the aforementioned devices.. Sure you CAN overbloat the Android phones and make them slow... you can't do that on the iPhone4... the iPhone 4 experience never changes. Because you're not allowed to change it. I fail to see how thats an advantage for anyone other than my mother...

Some people are so dense.

 

[AMDZen]

You can't really compare a iPhone 4 to a Droid 1... you should and could compare it to a Galaxy S, a Droid X and the EVO.

There's no way the iPhone 4 is any faster than the aforementioned devices.. Sure you CAN overbloat the Android phones and make them slow... you can't do that on the iPhone4... the iPhone 4 experience never changes. Because you're not allowed to change it. I fail to see how thats an advantage for anyone other than my mother...

Not allowed? You sound like your in kindergarten. Does your momma not let you cross the street either?

Some of us make our own rules, actually scratch that - nearly everyone jailbreaks who care about such things.

 

[zsdersw]

I shouldn't have to jailbreak my phone to install an app (or listen to music) not given the blessing of the phone manufacturer's CEO (or found in the phone manufacturer's media store).

 

[Pliablemoose]

I shouldn't have to jailbreak my phone to install an app (or listen to music) not given the blessing of the phone manufacturer's CEO (or found in the phone manufacturer's media store).

Um, under what circumstances does iTunes not allow you to add music to it and your iDevice? I just put 1K songs into iTunes, and I've yet to purchase a single song from Apple.

 

[MrX8503]

You can't really compare a iPhone 4 to a Droid 1... you should and could compare it to a Galaxy S, a Droid X and the EVO.

There's no way the iPhone 4 is any faster than the aforementioned devices.. Sure you CAN overbloat the Android phones and make them slow... you can't do that on the iPhone4... the iPhone 4 experience never changes. Because you're not allowed to change it. I fail to see how thats an advantage for anyone other than my mother...

Uh....You're information is a bit off.

GPU Speed:
1. GalaxyS
2. iPhone4
3. DroidX
4. EVO

CPU Speed:
1. Galaxy S
2. DroidX
3. iPhone4
4. EVO

The iPhone4's hardware is pretty powerful, couple that with a rock solid OS that has been baking in the oven for years and you got a super fast device that has outpaced every Android device to date.

 

[cheezy321]

I shouldn't have to jailbreak my phone to install an app (or listen to music) not given the blessing of the phone manufacturer's CEO (or found in the phone manufacturer's media store).

keep grasping at straws. The apple haters in this thread are so dense

 

[foghorn67]

keep grasping at straws. The apple haters in this thread are so dense

Easy with the insults.

 

[zsdersw]

Um, under what circumstances does iTunes not allow you to add music to it and your iDevice? I just put 1K songs into iTunes, and I've yet to purchase a single song from Apple.

Why should I have to use iTunes?

 

[zsdersw]

keep grasping at straws. The apple haters in this thread are so dense

Why does it bother you so much that there are people who hate Apple?

 

[MrX8503]

Why should I have to use iTunes?

Not being able to use something else other than iTunes is a draw back. The advantage though IMO is its capabilities of syncing. I haven't seen a better implementation of syncing yet.

I think my favorite is its integration with iPhoto. I can manage and organize my photos using geotags, events, albums, face detection, etc and all of this is mirrored right to my iPhone. The iPhone supports all of these features from iPhoto.

Then of course there's music, contacts, calendars, apps, books, notes. All of these items can be synched in one shot.

 

[zsdersw]

Not being able to use something else other than iTunes is a draw back. The advantage though IMO is its capabilities of syncing. I haven't seen a better implementation of syncing yet.

I think my favorite is its integration with iPhoto. I can manage and organize my photos using geotags, events, albums, face detection, etc and all of this is mirrored right to my iPhone. The iPhone supports all of these features from iPhoto.

Then of course there's music, contacts, calendars, apps, books, notes. All of these items can be synched in one shot.

In a closed ecosystem everything had better work perfectly.

I'm of the belief, though, that a closed ecosystem is not required for things to work perfectly.

 

[MrX8503]

In a closed ecosystem everything had better work perfectly.

I'm of the belief, though, that a closed ecosystem is not required for things to work perfectly.

Well, thats what I'm saying, its closed, but at least it works. I can just hook up my iPhone and it auto syncs.

Manage/organize my photos and apps through a desktop interface. Its pretty convenient so I'm willing to put up with a closed system.

When I had my EVO, alot of that information isn't centralized rather you have to use a lot of different services to get the same effect.