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Wow, After seeing Android am I ever happy with my iPhone!

S

snverhallen

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 17, 2007
566
0
I was just watching the Android walkthroughs, and boy is it pretty ugly. The icons look super old, the UI looks clunky; and it just doesn't seem to have the iPhone UI smoothness. And the actual phone is quite an eye-sore as well.

What about you?

Walkthrough link

snverhallen
 
wow! the iphones UI must really be ahead of its time. the UI on the Android is bad. it reminds me of a windows mobile phone.
 
wow.

It may not be 100% menu navigation but damn it looked confusing to me.

And why does the photo viewer go immediatly to a cropping feature when you select a photo? Id imagine most ppl looking at their photos want to SEE them by default, not edit them.
 
The thing I notice most is the 3D-style icons. That's sure looks more advanced than a square icon, but I don't think it's better here.

With a small screen size, I think that the square icons of the iPhone are much better at conveying more information in a small space than Android's little "acutal item" icons. The problem is, the "actual items" need space between them so you can figure out what you're looking at. And you need more space to make a good border than a plain box needs to make a good border.

I feel like 3D icons work better on larger screens, but for a small screen I think the "square box" thing Apple has going on is much easier to use.
 
neesh0 said:
but apple is gonna be ahead of the curve
Click to expand...

Which is why I actually love Android.

Just look at things like Cut-n-Paste or video recording on the iPhone. Apple just really isn't worried about adding features like these because they're still selling the phones as fast as they can make them. Why SHOULD they work on stuff like that?

So I really hope Android does well. Apple did an amazing job over the last 2 years. Just making the iPhone work at all was a huge task. But if no one else challenges them I know they'll slow down and stop innovating at the same pace they have been.

Google will make sure Apple keeps working hard. I'm looking forward to it.
 
Small White Car said:
Which is why I actually love Android.

Just look at things like Cut-n-Paste or video recording on the iPhone. Apple just really isn't worried about adding features like these because they're still selling the phones as fast as they can make them. Why SHOULD they work on stuff like that?

So I really hope Android does well. Apple did an amazing job over the last 2 years. Just making the iPhone work at all was a huge task. But if no one else challenges them I know they'll slow down and stop innovating at the same pace they have been.

Google will make sure Apple keeps working hard. I'm looking forward to it.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Good competition can only make the iPhone better.

snverhallen
 
i do like the dropdown home menu though...looks like a great idea to steal....i mean implement (thank you open source) into an iphone firmware. Great way to hide some icons.
 
Agreed Android looks fugly in comparison to the iPhone, but I guess that the better Android gets, the better the iPhone will get so it is all good.
 
I have to say, automatic syncing to gmail would actually be pretty awesome. It took me easily 4 hours to load all of my contacts into my iphone contacts list
 
I was hoping that Android would be more promising than it's turned out to be. It is a bit sub-standard when compared to the iPhone's interface (or any Apple interface, for that matter). I expect better from Google.
 
sotaroca said:
I have to say, automatic syncing to gmail would actually be pretty awesome. It took me easily 4 hours to load all of my contacts into my iphone contacts list
Click to expand...

Have you tried nuevasync.com? Syncs gmail calendar and contacts with iPhone for free. I'm a big fan.
 
I agree it looks more like WinMo than iPhone, but I'd buy this if I wasn't already on AT&T with my iPhone. I especially like the MobileMe-like functionality without (I'm assuming) the $99/year price. Street view in Maps looks handy, too. Not a T-Mobile fan. Also, I think Microsoft should be more scared of this than Apple.

Hopefully, Apple will feel enough of a challenge from this platform to continue innovating.
 
Clete2 said:
I was hoping that Android would be more promising than it's turned out to be. It is a bit sub-standard when compared to the iPhone's interface (or any Apple interface, for that matter). I expect better from Google.
Click to expand...

Google, from a UI standpoint, has never been about sleek. Look at the corny drawings they do on their logo for holidays, etc. Simplistic and cutesy is more their m.o. Google's forte is the results they offer. Gmail may not be sleek, but it's a heck of a lot faster and more reliable than MobileMe's web interface.

I would assume that Android follows this premise...cutesy simplistic interface, married with overall speed and reliability. I would also assume that people will be modding the crap out of the interface.
 
mcdj said:
Google, from a UI standpoint, has never been about sleek. Look at the corny drawings they do on their logo for holidays, etc. Simplistic and cutesy is more their m.o. Google's forte is the results they offer. Gmail may not be sleek, but it's a heck of a lot faster and more reliable than MobileMe's web interface.

I would assume that Android follows this premise...cutesy simplistic interface, married with overall speed and reliability. I would also assume that people will be modding the crap out of the interface.
Click to expand...

Yes, Google certainly does go for simplicity. I like the GMail interface. At the time it was implemented, it was certainly innovative. I like Google's designs in general, but that video of Android is certainly lacking.
 
sotaroca said:
I have to say, automatic syncing to gmail would actually be pretty awesome. It took me easily 4 hours to load all of my contacts into my iphone contacts list
Click to expand...

I hate to break it to you, but plaxo could have done that for free, in a matter of seconds. My contacts are synced between my work PC, home PC, home Mac and Gmail instantly with plaxo.
 
slicecom said:
I hate to break it to you, but plaxo could have done that for free, in a matter of seconds. My contacts are synced between my work PC, home PC, home Mac and Gmail instantly with plaxo.
Click to expand...

I also use Plaxo. I used to use the Premium so that my WinMo phone was live-synced over the air, too. However, a glitch a couple of weeks ago wiped all my calendar events and all my contacts have internal duplications. For example, any given contact will have four "home" phone numbers (all the same, of course), so I've been working on getting those cleaned up.

Overall, though, Plaxo is great for keeping stuff in sync. Just watch out for the bugs.
 
bluenoise said:
I also use Plaxo. I used to use the Premium so that my WinMo phone was live-synced over the air, too. However, a glitch a couple of weeks ago wiped all my calendar events and all my contacts have internal duplications. For example, any given contact will have four "home" phone numbers (all the same, of course), so I've been working on getting those cleaned up.

Overall, though, Plaxo is great for keeping stuff in sync. Just watch out for the bugs.
Click to expand...

True, it's always a good idea to keep a local backup of your contacts and calendar events just in case. Personally I just copy my contacts from Address Book into a backup folder once a month or so.
 
Their isn't even a 3.5mm headphone jack on the G1 but rather some proprietary jack. Supposedly, an adapter will be coming out later. Yes, this phone is definitely a rough draft beta phone.
 
I agree the new android phone is ugly. However, it isn't really fair to call its OS clunky when the iPhone is just as bad. I sometimes wait 3 seconds for my iPhone to respond to screen taps.
 
They put on a direct connect to the Amazon MP3 service, but they didn't add a headphone jack to the phone.....OOOPS!
 
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