This is more of a rambling, but I did a 30 day challenge with using an impressive Android phone (Galaxy Note) after being on iOS for the better part of 4 years, started on the 3G right up to the 4S.
After deciding that I would not be upgrading to the iPhone 5 as it really doesnt offer anything that the 4S doesnt already have and the screen bump is marginal at best, I decided to purchase a New (second hand) Galaxy Note.
After one month of 24/7 use, I must say that the Note is a fantastic device, with its 5.3 screen and amazing colours, I was blown away. Having the stock OS that came with all the Samsung Note apps and other cool stuff, it was great. After Rooting and Flashing a custom OS (CM9), it was ok, but lost a lot of what made a Note a Note.
I did like the widgets, although after 30 days, I found I was only using a weather widget and a MP3 player widget. I loved being able to tweak everything to my liking and killing services I didnt want or ever intend on using.
I didnt like the battery life, I found it highly unpredictable. Usual routine is unplug the phone at 6AM, leave for work get to work (already at 96-98% did nothing on it), lay the phone on my desk, by 10AM my battery is about 76-80% (GPS: Disabled, Sync: Enabled, Wifi: on and connected, screen brightness about 60%) While my 4s by 10 AM would be between 95-98% with the same amount of usage.
Pros:
Widgets
Tweaking (Tasker is awesome)
Custom roms
Changing default apps to handle tasks
NFC (Mostly for around the house, telling it to go into a power save mode if it was laying on an NFC card on my table.)
Those little shortcut, capacitive buttons on the bottom of every android. Very, Very handy.
Cons:
Micro-Managing everything in order to preserve memory and battery
The lack of apps that are on iOS, simple killer apps like GoodReader, sure there are over half a million apps in Play, but quality of Play apps vs. iOS apps, Apple dominates here.
Battery, it sucked, no matter how many service I killed and prevented from starting up, it sucked.
Sound, there seemed to be buffering issues with MP3s and sounds would skip at times after a days use (fixed by increasing the buffer size)
No easy, reliable way to sync iTunes and android (iSyncr and Double Twist were ok, but hate it or love it iTunes is an amazing organizer of playlist, play counts/last played and ratings)
App fragmentation, its still there and it blows. Its not so much an issue with the larger publisher, but the indies are lacking.
App stagnation, some apps remain on older versions while iOS gets update after update. Example Order & Chaos, last updated on May 16th 2012, iOS version has been updated many times since.
Keyboards, of all the choices in keyboards, none seem to match the predictability and auto correctiveness of iOS. Swype was fun though. Swiftkey was the closest to iOS.
Im sure there are more that Ive left out, but these are the big ones.
Ill give quick pro/con on the iPhone
Pro:
It really does just work
Battery life is fantastic, here it is 11:15 and the battery is at 85% while downloading apps
App consistency, its consistent and Apps work right out of the box
The keyboard, its silly, but it works great.
Camera Performance is second to none for a phone.
Cons:
Stale OS. Conceptually, it hasnt changes since 2.0 on the outside its still very static and very limited.
No Widgets, tiles or anything to help you keep up at just a glance. You have to open apps to see anything. Theres an app for this and for that, but no tiles/widgets to see whats the latest happening.
The Lack of any customization. Why cant there be a toggle somewhere deeply layered inside that says I know what Im doing, give me root access? Even if getting into it means swipe up, up, swipe down , swipe down, left ,right, left, right, home, power, home
Lack of buttons.
Lack of shortcuts to do simple tasks or toggles; Id like to shut off wifi without going into sub menus.
No profiles. I love having profiles in CM9, the ability to quickly change all my volumes and services based on a profile. A sleep profile, in my case, would shut off every sound but turn on vibrate for phone calls only. A loud profile would put all my volume to.
All in all, theyre both great Phone OSs and they both have their great features and their very annoying features. The simplicity of iOS really is great, but sometimes you just want more. The complexity of Android is great, but sometimes you dont need all that micromanagement. I found myself managing memory quite a lot and killing tasks left and right.
In Conclusion: I am looking at the iPhone 5, I think I'll be getting it sometime after I sell this Galaxy Note. I consider myself very much a tech savvy person, but Android is more work than I care for from a phone.
After deciding that I would not be upgrading to the iPhone 5 as it really doesnt offer anything that the 4S doesnt already have and the screen bump is marginal at best, I decided to purchase a New (second hand) Galaxy Note.
After one month of 24/7 use, I must say that the Note is a fantastic device, with its 5.3 screen and amazing colours, I was blown away. Having the stock OS that came with all the Samsung Note apps and other cool stuff, it was great. After Rooting and Flashing a custom OS (CM9), it was ok, but lost a lot of what made a Note a Note.
I did like the widgets, although after 30 days, I found I was only using a weather widget and a MP3 player widget. I loved being able to tweak everything to my liking and killing services I didnt want or ever intend on using.
I didnt like the battery life, I found it highly unpredictable. Usual routine is unplug the phone at 6AM, leave for work get to work (already at 96-98% did nothing on it), lay the phone on my desk, by 10AM my battery is about 76-80% (GPS: Disabled, Sync: Enabled, Wifi: on and connected, screen brightness about 60%) While my 4s by 10 AM would be between 95-98% with the same amount of usage.
Pros:
Widgets
Tweaking (Tasker is awesome)
Custom roms
Changing default apps to handle tasks
NFC (Mostly for around the house, telling it to go into a power save mode if it was laying on an NFC card on my table.)
Those little shortcut, capacitive buttons on the bottom of every android. Very, Very handy.
Cons:
Micro-Managing everything in order to preserve memory and battery
The lack of apps that are on iOS, simple killer apps like GoodReader, sure there are over half a million apps in Play, but quality of Play apps vs. iOS apps, Apple dominates here.
Battery, it sucked, no matter how many service I killed and prevented from starting up, it sucked.
Sound, there seemed to be buffering issues with MP3s and sounds would skip at times after a days use (fixed by increasing the buffer size)
No easy, reliable way to sync iTunes and android (iSyncr and Double Twist were ok, but hate it or love it iTunes is an amazing organizer of playlist, play counts/last played and ratings)
App fragmentation, its still there and it blows. Its not so much an issue with the larger publisher, but the indies are lacking.
App stagnation, some apps remain on older versions while iOS gets update after update. Example Order & Chaos, last updated on May 16th 2012, iOS version has been updated many times since.
Keyboards, of all the choices in keyboards, none seem to match the predictability and auto correctiveness of iOS. Swype was fun though. Swiftkey was the closest to iOS.
Im sure there are more that Ive left out, but these are the big ones.
Ill give quick pro/con on the iPhone
Pro:
It really does just work
Battery life is fantastic, here it is 11:15 and the battery is at 85% while downloading apps
App consistency, its consistent and Apps work right out of the box
The keyboard, its silly, but it works great.
Camera Performance is second to none for a phone.
Cons:
Stale OS. Conceptually, it hasnt changes since 2.0 on the outside its still very static and very limited.
No Widgets, tiles or anything to help you keep up at just a glance. You have to open apps to see anything. Theres an app for this and for that, but no tiles/widgets to see whats the latest happening.
The Lack of any customization. Why cant there be a toggle somewhere deeply layered inside that says I know what Im doing, give me root access? Even if getting into it means swipe up, up, swipe down , swipe down, left ,right, left, right, home, power, home
Lack of buttons.
Lack of shortcuts to do simple tasks or toggles; Id like to shut off wifi without going into sub menus.
No profiles. I love having profiles in CM9, the ability to quickly change all my volumes and services based on a profile. A sleep profile, in my case, would shut off every sound but turn on vibrate for phone calls only. A loud profile would put all my volume to.
All in all, theyre both great Phone OSs and they both have their great features and their very annoying features. The simplicity of iOS really is great, but sometimes you just want more. The complexity of Android is great, but sometimes you dont need all that micromanagement. I found myself managing memory quite a lot and killing tasks left and right.
In Conclusion: I am looking at the iPhone 5, I think I'll be getting it sometime after I sell this Galaxy Note. I consider myself very much a tech savvy person, but Android is more work than I care for from a phone.
