Should I buy an Android phone?

[Lorizael]

My carrier, Sprint, is releasing a modified version of the HTC Hero this October and it looks like a pretty snazzy phone. I mostly want it because the ability to look through the camera and see information from wikipedia makes me feel like I'm living in the future.

But seriously, what does Android have that other smartphones OSes don't? Should I want this phone? Should I want another phone?

[Asher]

Android is pretty good, I've been using one for work on and off for 5 months or so and developed an app for it.

It's more "open" than the iPhone, there's far less rules.

What it has is its openness. There's something like 40 or 50 different cell phones running Android to be released within a year, all implementing it slightly differently. There's fewer apps for it than the iPhone, but it's growing quickly.

I think you'll like it. I almost got one instead of the iPhone 3GS, but the CPU on the HTC Dream was too slow for me.

[DanS]

I like the hardware on the Motorola Cliq, and may get that. The camera and the slider keyboard appeal to me. That said, the siren call of the iPhone is doing its work. Part of the decision might be price for the phone and monthly charges and network coverage. It would be nice to have something that works well both in the boonies and in the city. As I understand, some cities in AT&T's network are experiencing iPhone overload.

Also, I use Google Voice. They might finally get a good Google Voice app on the iPhone, but I guess it sticks in my craw that Apple/AT&T are holding up the app due to business considerations. What's it any of Apple's/AT&T's business what apps I use on the phone, so long as the uses are legal and non-abusive?

[Asher]

I actually played with a Cliq 2 days ago (Motorola SVP was speaking and brought some). Feels surprisingly solid, and MOTOBLUR is surprisingly cool...

[DanS]

When you say solid, do you mean that it was heavy, or that it seemed to be of good construction.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If you use Google Voice, Dan, get an Android, WebOS (Palm Pre), or Blackberry phone

[Asher]

Good construction. Very average weight. No more than the iPhone.

[Asher]

Speaking of WebOS, I had a 30 minute conference call with Palm today and they pissed me the **** off. You would not believe how ****ing stupid their app process is.

I will rant later, I got to send off my angry email to them then go home.

[snoopy369]

Stupider than Apple's??

[Asher]

You have no idea how stupid it is.

First off, ALL app versions must be below 1.0. We submitted our app as 1.0, it got rejected. YOU CAN'T HAVE 1.0 APPS IN THE PALM STORE. < 1.0.0 apps only! If the store is in beta, YOUR APP MUST BE IN BETA.

Second of all, the "app submission process" involves you emailing your app to appsubmissions@palm.com! They took a week to reply to us, and they had to call us and have a chat before they even looked at it to tell us things that were undocumented but are mandatory for approval.

Third of all, there's NO localized apps on the store. You submit an English one AND the French one, not one app with localized strings to support both!

You NEED to "use one emerging technology in an innovative way" to get approved! (we use GPS to find nearby businesses)

They'll ONLY release 20 apps max a week, and THEY schedule when apps will be released to fit with their "promotions and themes". We've no say in its release date!

It's ridiculous.

They rushed so much **** it's not funny. Their bilingual support is a joke. If you put the phone in French mode, it looks okay until you notice that they literally STOPPED translating about halfway down the app catalog category list, which would mightily piss off the French users (they're offended by English being 'forced' on them). They also have in their Canadian store apps that are functionally useless in Canada (eg, Pandora). They didn't seem to know about that.

[snoopy369]

At least when Apple is just arbitrary and capricious, they're an organized sort of arbitrary and capricious ...

[DanS]

I just want to know why they think that their customers and partners will put up with this ridiculousness when there are open options freely available. Time to point the gun at the foot.

[Asher]

We're actually quite pissed about it. Our executives have called their friends at Bell (who are Palm's partners in Canada) who say they'll talk to Palm about it. Now it's entering the politicking stage.

[snoopy369]

I just want to know why they think that their customers and partners will put up with this ridiculousness when there are open options freely available. Time to point the gun at the foot.

In Apple's case, the general concept (Apple approving apps) is a good idea. Although some people may prefer an internet-style open platform [Android], many prefer a platform where the applications are approved first, so they can be sure they work properly (don't cause their phone to crash), are of reasonable quality, etc. Apple's made some mistakes [and still is making them], but the general concept is not bad; and it's no different from the XBox/PS3 experience in that sense [except MS/Sony have more experience with the approval process, and don't have to face issues like people wanting to make a game that is a PS3 competitor on their PS3].

[-Jrabbit]

I'm in the market for a smartphone as well. My natural inclination is to get an iPhone (since I use a MBP), but I'm not happy with the AT&T affiliation. Sadly, I can't wait until that comes to its inevitable end. I'm currently on a very basic T-Mobile phone (no camera, 12-key). They recently "upgraded" their tower software so that unused phones are pushed offline (because their infrastructure is too pathetic for basic bandwidth needs). It takes 3 rings for the phone to "wake up" so I can answer it (and drops calls if in flip-to-answer mode), and this is not acceptable.

My usage is not excessive, but the business side is critical. I record conversations for later transcription on a digital recorder (since no phones let you record calls live), and it would be great to have an audio out for that purpose. It would be nice to use my phone instead the laptop via wifi to stay online (Poly, Facebook, email, news feeds) while I'm watching TV in the evenings. Synch with my home/office comp would obviously be great; I know little about that side of implementations. (I use the Entourage client from Office 2004/Mac, on os10.4.) And I'd like an all-in-one fee structure -- but not for $90/month (currently paying 50).

I'd welcome input on this, if only to narrow down my research to 2-3 items.

[Lorizael]

Sprint has the cheapest smartphone plans, starting at $70/month.

[-Jrabbit]

I will never own another Sprint product.

[Lorizael]

Heh. The various biases we humans tend to accumulate are amusing.

[VetLegion]

I have bought my first Android phone, Samsung Galaxy, about a month ago.

I love it!

It's in constant need of upgrading (I'm on my fourth firmware) and there is no
over-the-air way to do it, you need to plug it into the PC.

There are minor glitches with both the phone hardware and the OS, but nothing
too serious. I decided for Galaxy because it is momentarily the thinnest Android
phone around. Very ergonomic to hold and use, though I sometimes miss the
physical keyboard.

I like what the applications can do with myriad sensors on the phone.
I've even downloaded the SDK and I'm thinking about developing something
for Android.

However, there are serious privacy issues. This device is essentially a "cloud" device.
While you don't have to, you are supposed to use it with a Google Account. It then
uploads your contacts to Google, synchronizes your Calendar with Google, fetches
your Google Mail for you. When you use GPS or network towers for positioning,
Google wants to know it so it could calculate traffic data and whatnot. You get
the point. It's not for the paranoid among us

[snoopy369]

I'm in the market for a smartphone as well. My natural inclination is to get an iPhone (since I use a MBP), but I'm not happy with the AT&T affiliation. Sadly, I can't wait until that comes to its inevitable end. I'm currently on a very basic T-Mobile phone (no camera, 12-key). They recently "upgraded" their tower software so that unused phones are pushed offline (because their infrastructure is too pathetic for basic bandwidth needs). It takes 3 rings for the phone to "wake up" so I can answer it (and drops calls if in flip-to-answer mode), and this is not acceptable.

My usage is not excessive, but the business side is critical. I record conversations for later transcription on a digital recorder (since no phones let you record calls live), and it would be great to have an audio out for that purpose. It would be nice to use my phone instead the laptop via wifi to stay online (Poly, Facebook, email, news feeds) while I'm watching TV in the evenings. Synch with my home/office comp would obviously be great; I know little about that side of implementations. (I use the Entourage client from Office 2004/Mac, on os10.4.) And I'd like an all-in-one fee structure -- but not for $90/month (currently paying 50).

I'd welcome input on this, if only to narrow down my research to 2-3 items.

I like the iPhone, though AT&T's coverage is not fantastic; I don't use it for business so I don't know from that point of view. It's quite good for playing games and taking notes and stuff, as long as you don't mind the lack of a physical keyboard.

Also, you could program an iPhone app in your spare time

If you want to try mine out sometime, get Ming to invite me over on an friday night when someone's coming that drives back towards the red line/city and I'd be more than happy to let you try it out [though not sure how useful being not at your actual house would be for network purposes]. Or get RAH to get one

[Asher]

Android app development is easier than iPhone app development.

Objective-C is perhaps the worst language I've ever seen.

[snoopy369]

It certainly is torturous... though I saw somewhere that someone or another managed to develop a .NET tool that could create iPhone apps, and would actually be approved by Apple. Not sure that passes my BS filter, but cool if that's the case.

There are some things in Objective C that I could grow to like, but some things are different just for the sake of being different, I think, and that's really annoying.

[SpencerH]

If you have a family using data then sprint is the cheapest (BY FAR the cheapest in my case which precluded us from staying with ATT). We all have Instincts now. They're OK and have some useful features but I'm looking forward to the next crop of smartphones.

[Asher]

It certainly is torturous... though I saw somewhere that someone or another managed to develop a .NET tool that could create iPhone apps, and would actually be approved by Apple. Not sure that passes my BS filter, but cool if that's the case.

Yes, Novell made that. There's also ones that translate HTML/CSS/JS to object-C iPhone apps.

They're all about a world of hurt though. If it ****s up -- and they do -- you're SOL. Good luck fixing that.

[snoopy369]

I can certainly see that... I've been slowly teaching myself it from a book, and there's a lot that seems sort of odd compared to .NET that probably wouldn't translate very well.

Why would you want to translate a webapp to an iPhone app? Just make it an iPhone sized webapp... unless you want to make the big bucks anyway, in which case you should just suck it up and learn it / pay someone to program it.

[Asher]

The CEO of one of the companies who make those products (PhoneGap) talked at the conference I was at. The idea was you write one webapp using their API and then it'll generate code for Blackberry, iPhone, and Android all at once.

The problem is they don't have native UI paradigms to the platform, so they look like ass. It's a tremendously stupid idea, but it's aimed at the douchebags who publish 4 worthless apps a week and hope to get money from the volume.

[snoopy369]

Seems like you should just make a webapp and ... publish it on the web. But then you can't rake in money for shitty programming I guess?

[Asher]

Seems like you should just make a webapp and ... publish it on the web. But then you can't rake in money for shitty programming I guess?

Yes, it's hard to sell webapps. Plus you don't get the exposure from the app stores.

Somebody asked him why he doesn't just run a Webkit window and then run the JS/CSS/HTML natively on the phone. The guy was a bit dumbfounded by that. Not sure why.

[snoopy369]

That brings an interesting point. I wonder if Apple/Palm/Blackberry could be brought to the table and convinced to allow webapps in their app stores [ie, programmed in HTML/CSS/JS]? You can write one webapp for a PC/Mac/Linux system after all and distribute it ...

[-Jrabbit]

It's interesting to note that both Asher and snoop have iPhones. I've played with them in the store (not recently)and found them pretty Apple-y (a good thing in my relatively low-tech world). And I'm man enough to admit that the cool factor counts for something with me.

Guess I'll check out the ATT coverage at my home as a starting point.

Re Android: I have a gmail account, but that's my trash/Facebook account, not used for business. Is there an easy way to route by other email accounts through gmail?

Also, how does iPhone connect to email? Never had to think about that before...