Wow... seeing iOS 6 and Android 4.1 did something for me....

[throys]

The nexus s came out in 2010. They had to update the 3gs because they still sell it. They stopped making the nexus s a while ago.

the point I was trying to get at is that I found an old ipod touch and gave it to my daughter and I was surprise that I could update to iOS 5 and get some of the new stuff like imessage etc.
Android is fragmented and with so much different manufactures competing like samsung and HTC to be the best android smartphone makers, the android consumers will get left behind all the time as a 1 year android device will get obsolete and probably wont see an update on that phone especially if that device is tied with an network operator.
Its not about android fanboys and aple fanboys, but I can still keep my iphone 4S for another good 1-2 years without feeling like my device is old and left behind when it comes to software updates.

 

[bosco500]

I've been getting bored with IOS, this thread convinced me to go out and buy an HTC One X and give the 4S to the wife. After about a week, I can honestly say that I will be glad when the new Iphone comes out so I can get one. The android is a beautiful OS, but when it comes to useability, the Iphone blows it away (at least for me). I am a heavy business user. Multiple exchange accounts, lots of editing spreadsheets, docs, etc... The android seems to be "broke". It won't play .mov files, the email displays horribly, apps are crashing for no reason, the cell service goes in and out on a normal basis, and the battery just plain sucks. Now this thing has a kick ass screen, so that is probably where the battery juice is going. But the apps crashing and things just "not working" I can't deal with. I'm sure there are apps to take care of my issues, but I don't have the time or patience for something that doesn't work out of the box. That is what I like about the Iphone, it works out of the box and has a great interface. Sure it's plain and boring, but it gets the job done and allows me to complete my work and keep my business running.

The android is a great phone, just not for me.

 

[faroZ06]

Google is in the ADVERTISING business. Make sure you give google lots of info to sell to advertisers.

They're in both advertising and search, and any info given out would not be anything personal. It's just mass statistics, so there's no reason to get worried. Have you noticed that all links on Google and YouTube actually go through a Google URL that redirects you to the destination?

I think Siri and the Google equivalent are both useless. When I tried Siri, I thought it was pretty nice, but I never saw any real use for that sort of thing.

 

[bitsoda]

Android Needs More Time in the Oven

Apple's iOS is certainly trending downward in terms of usability for me, but this Fall I plan to buy the new iPhone and the purported iPad "mini" anyways since I still feel that Android has kinks it needs to work out before I make the switch. For example -- and this is one of many little UI nitpicks -- app icon sizes are not uniform in 4.1. Something as insignificant like that shouldn't bother me, but it does. Hopefully by 2014 (when my contract expires) Android 6.0 will be in a class by itself.

 

[blackhand1001]

I've been getting bored with IOS, this thread convinced me to go out and buy an HTC One X and give the 4S to the wife. After about a week, I can honestly say that I will be glad when the new Iphone comes out so I can get one. The android is a beautiful OS, but when it comes to useability, the Iphone blows it away (at least for me). I am a heavy business user. Multiple exchange accounts, lots of editing spreadsheets, docs, etc... The android seems to be "broke". It won't play .mov files, the email displays horribly, apps are crashing for no reason, the cell service goes in and out on a normal basis, and the battery just plain sucks. Now this thing has a kick ass screen, so that is probably where the battery juice is going. But the apps crashing and things just "not working" I can't deal with. I'm sure there are apps to take care of my issues, but I don't have the time or patience for something that doesn't work out of the box. That is what I like about the Iphone, it works out of the box and has a great interface. Sure it's plain and boring, but it gets the job done and allows me to complete my work and keep my business running.

The android is a great phone, just not for me.

Buy a phone that isn't saddled with htc sense the most bloated manufacturer skin there is right now.

 

[bitsoda]

Start at 3:15 for the fun part!

The 2:10 mark of this video clearly illustrates why I prefer Siri. Though a bit slower, Siri actually formats the data in a much nicer, easier to read way. Notice how Google Now just shows the final score and some low res team icons, while Siri shows you the inning break down for the game along with high res team art. The same applies for weather, other sports (NFL, NBA, NHL, etc), movies, and restaurants. Also, not only does each category get its own custom style, but each sport is treated to the same care. NBA scores are lit up in faux scoreboard bulbs -- that is awesome. Presentation and formatting has got to count for something.

 

[Sh4wN]

Buy a phone that isn't saddled with htc sense the most bloated manufacturer skin there is right now.

When did you last use Sense?
It's significantly better than the previous versions, even the big review sites admitted that Sense may even be useful to some. And why in hell should apps be crashing more constantly on Sense than on any other Android skin?

 

[Cybbe]

TAlso, not only does each category get its own custom style, but each sport is treated to the same care. NBA scores are lit up in faux scoreboard bulbs -- that is awesome. Presentation and formatting has got to count for something.

Google simply has much more data, and sports scores illustrate Apple's problem. They have to partner in order to get data, and so most sport search is designed from scratch. Google's search is powered by it search engine (which already includes customized results for things such as sport results), as well as its knowledge graph. I cannot see Apple competing with that for the foreseeable future. Getting results matter more than how nice it looks.

 

[CrAkD]

They're in both advertising and search, and any info given out would not be anything personal. It's just mass statistics, so there's no reason to get worried. Have you noticed that all links on Google and YouTube actually go through a Google URL that redirects you to the destination?

Big difference. Google makes 95% of its profit from advertising. They strive to make the most money they can from advertising. apple strives to make the best products. Google created Android and Google plus just to push their advertising revenue. Android of course a direct copy of iPhone and Google+ a direct copy of facebook to push the all import ad revenue.

Now I'm glad Apple has competition which will help them push and innovate rather then sit on their asses I would much rather stick with iOS then switch to google.

 

[D-Dave]

You think Imessage is simply saving people text messages??? It sends and recieves imessages INSTANTLY and can send pictures ultra fast it allows the viewing of sent and recieved and other customizations like that

Only problem with iMessage is that it only works with other Apple devices...lots of my friends and lots of customers use different smartphones. So even though I do have an iPhone I still use whatsapp instead of iMessage because the userbase within my contacts is far far wider...

 

[phillytim]

I'm a computer geek for work, and should naturally have gravitated into Android being a power-hungry user--but I went iPhone 3 years ago and have yet to be enticed to move over to the Android platform, regardless of how close to Apple's superior hardware/software platform Google comes to putting out hardware & attempts to eliminate fragmentation with reasonable Android version upgrades to it.

I don't get why a phone needs all these crazy screen-jumbled, battery-hungry widgets & live-wallpapers. I don't get why a mobile device OS needs to be infinitely tweakable, which usually always means widespread trouble in the hands of blindly-dabbling mainstream/non-techy users.

Frankly, as a matter of fact, don't we all really just do one thing at a time anyways? And how many times do you Android users really multi-task your gadget to its limits per day/week/etc. such as watching a movie while emailing your honey as you have your boss WebEx'd in? Good grief! Will you even have enough battery power to complete all that????!!!! They make laptops & computers for those to suit heavy multitasking needs.

Sure, some may believe that a 4" or 5" screen is a better experience, that's fine.

But Android just seems like a platform that is susceptible to far more trouble & needless over-usage than it's worth.

It really is annoying that a lot of people forget that smartphones are meant to be phones first and foremost, with data communications as a by-product. Android is by far NOT a holy crusade. Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, etc.....really comes down to GUI ease-of-use & personal preference for most users.

iOS is a mature platform, time-tested and developed with efficiency, which is what you want your mission-critical phone OS to be--'it just works' without a bunch of needed tweaks and cludges. And there's NOTHING wrong with that. Everyone bitches about bloat--do you really want iOS bloated into a slow-moving monster for essentially a bunch of bells and whistles full of security holes?

If you're getting "bored" with your operating system, then you're probably spending way much too time belaboring it in the first place!!!!!!! It should just work, and the APPS are where you really should spend your time anyways!

And in-house solutions like iMessages won't really matter much anyways, as cell providers come out with new ways to charge us extra money for extra forced services (such as unlimited texting & unlimited talk minutes) that many of us don't really want or need. So we'll all be able to text another one way or another whether we like it or not.

 

[MozMan68]

Only problem with iMessage is that it only works with other Apple devices...lots of my friends and lots of customers use different smartphones. So even though I do have an iPhone I still use whatsapp instead of iMessage because the userbase within my contacts is far far wider...

Are you serious? This was by far one of the most ingenious moves by Apple to "encourage" people to move to their platform.

From the iPhone, iMessage is integrated with the texting feature, so it doesn't really matter who you are "texting" or what phone they use. If they have an iPhone, goes through as iMessage. If not, a normal text.

With iOS 6 they have now linked all of that with iPads, Apple computers, iTouches, etc.

Yet another reason to buy iPhones for my family...and for companies to utilize iPhones/Apple as their main devices.

 

[Dlanod]

Love iOS but the iPhone screen is way too small for me. I hope the next iPhone increases width and not just height. So for me, an Apple fan, I use an S3 just for the hardware.

 

[faroZ06]

Big difference. Google makes 95% of its profit from advertising. They strive to make the most money they can from advertising. apple strives to make the best products. Google created Android and Google plus just to push their advertising revenue. Android of course a direct copy of iPhone and Google+ a direct copy of facebook to push the all import ad revenue.

Now I'm glad Apple has competition which will help them push and innovate rather then sit on their **** I would much rather stick with iOS then switch to google.

Wait, are you talking about money they make from the Google Ads service or money they make from other ads on their sites? Anyway, doesn't matter.

Google did not create Android from the start, though. They bought it in 2005. And I would also stick with iOS even if the Android phones had some killer features because of the integration with my PC (unless, of course, Android also started working well with PCs). The iPhone's features are already more than I really care for.

----------

Presentation and formatting has got to count for something.

It surely does, but it's not a difficult fix for Google if they choose to make their formatting better.

----------

I'm curious (as a programmer myself) what functions of iOS 6, specifically, are hindering me or holding me back? I'd honestly like to know.

As a hacker (not the malicious kind, the kind who hacks his own stuff), I need Terminal sometimes. Of course, as a hacker, I just jailbroke it then installed Terminal, so I'm perfectly satisfied now.

 

[bitsoda]

Google simply has much more data, and sports scores illustrate Apple's problem. They have to partner in order to get data, and so most sport search is designed from scratch. Google's search is powered by it search engine (which already includes customized results for things such as sport results), as well as its knowledge graph. I cannot see Apple competing with that for the foreseeable future. Getting results matter more than how nice it looks.

I agree. Information rules. What I was pointing out was that Google Now actually offers less information in that one baseball box score example by omitting the inning-by-inning run total. In that case, Apple provided more information, and superior formatting. For many other cases, Google Now is more useful that Siri for the reason you mentioned, but when Apple partners up with Yahoo, Yelp, IMDB, etc, they create a much better experience for those categories.

 

[dethmaShine]

I have unlimited SMS messages, but even if I didn't and I cared about saving on text messages, I could just use Google Voice to text.

So... a Camera app with a few novelty filters make an entire OS better?

Photostream is a good idea, but hardly a dealbreaker.

So basically you are allowed to say that Android is better because of navigation and couple more features. But somebody else cannot say otherwise with reasonable arguments because you don't agree with it? No wonder, it was easy to see where this thread was going with that OP.

On another note, I can list a number o features that have kept me on iOS instead of Android. To each it's own? Or the choice only belongs o android folks?

 

[Cybbe]

Yeah and that's not surprising, but the curated experience isn't very scaleable. And Google can always customize the generic results they display for certain type of requests, while keeping the power of the Knowledge Graph for everything else.

Google (and Bing's) recent efforts in search are pretty impressive, and while WolframAlpha serve some of the same role, I'm not sure if it is as comprehensive.

http://arstechnica.com/information-...oogles-knowledge-graph-and-microsofts-satori/

 

[blackhand1001]

When did you last use Sense?
It's significantly better than the previous versions, even the big review sites admitted that Sense may even be useful to some. And why in hell should apps be crashing more constantly on Sense than on any other Android skin?

Its still uses a ton of memory even in version 4.0. The new touchwiz and motoblur are a lot lighter. However aosp is still by far the best. I liked sense around version 1.0 but it just kept getting more bloated. HTC could keep the functionality of it and make it much closer to aosp. I'd like to see them put the sense that's on the one v onto the one x. The one V's sense 4.0 is toned down compared to the others as it has less ram. If they put that onto the one x the multitasking issue would be probably be fixed.

 

[tech4all]

I don't get why a phone needs all these crazy screen-jumbled, battery-hungry widgets & live-wallpapers. I don't get why a mobile device OS needs to be infinitely tweakable, which usually always means widespread trouble in the hands of blindly-dabbling mainstream/non-techy users.

Some people like to tweak their stuff. Some people like to be handed something and work with that.

Tweaking gives the device some personality. Heck even iPhone users jail break their phones to do just that.

I don't get why a phone needs all these crazy screen-jumbled, battery-hungry widgets

Some widgets are very useful. For example the widget that IDs a song you hear. That has come in VERY handy for me. And I doubt it has a significant impact on battery life.

 

[kockgunner]

4.1 and the larger screens has gotten me more tempted, but UI wise, Android still irks me. The settings page is one example. The things are just listed with large line-height and separated by grey lines. The back button on the top left looks misplaced and the arrow seems too close to the icon. Also the physics of scrolling feels off to me.

Android is cool and customizable, but I think I'm the type of user who wants a friendlier interface, not a dark cool looking one and I am past the stage of tweaking things for fun. I just want to do something on my phone, and move on with my life.

 

[TheRainKing]

What changes has Apple made in iOS 6 that make iOS visually unappealing? I don't see any such changes.

Care to elaborate on why you think it's ugly?

The colour scheme is inconsistent. Some apps have silver bars at the top and bottom, others have black. Whats the point? The new music player app looks pretty horrible as well and doesn't match the feel of the iPhone IMO.

And then to top things off, they have made the App store and iTunes store more complicated and harder to navigate.

 

[NT1440]

The colour scheme is inconsistent. Some apps have silver bars at the top and bottom, others have black.

Those will conform to the open app after launch....(blue, red, whatever)

 

[TheRainKing]

Compare these two screenshots.

iOS 5 on the left and iOS 6 on the right.

Look at the buttons along the bottom. Notice how in iOS 5 you can't distinguish the different buttons (i.e. you don't see any edges), all you see is the icon and the text below. It looks neat and stylish. Then you look over at iOS 6 and they have these lines separating each of the buttons and it looks tacky. Who's bright idea was that?

 

[nuckinfutz]

Prefer the iOS 6 layout personally

 

[cynics]

Big difference. Google makes 95% of its profit from advertising. They strive to make the most money they can from advertising. apple strives to make the best products. Google created Android and Google plus just to push their advertising revenue. Android of course a direct copy of iPhone and Google+ a direct copy of facebook to push the all import ad revenue.

Now I'm glad Apple has competition which will help them push and innovate rather then sit on their asses I would much rather stick with iOS then switch to google.

Actually Google purchased Android back in 2005 (pre iOS), Android Inc was founded in 2003. Amazing how good Google is at "copying" things before they were created.