Friday, August 27, 2010

Droided...

I almost ordered an iPhone 4 the night my beloved iPhone 3G died. But fate shone down on me and a spare Droid at the office was found and I'm glad I never placed that order. I've been using an unlocked Motorola Milestone for the last few days and my suspicions have been confirmed.

I recently blogged for Macadamian about 'iPhone vs Android vs Windows Phone 7 from a development managers point of view', and, well, now I can at least do the Android vs iPhone comparison from a user's perspective.

First impressions so far:

UI - it's good - not great. Reminds me still of an early 2000s BMW. They look good, but... you certainly don't go 'oooooohhhhh' like you do when an <insert Italian car manufacturer here> drives by.

User Experience Consistency - Submitting an application to Apple and following their UI guidlines might be as enjoyable as getting teeth pulled, but it works, iPhone apps are usually consistently usable. By contrast, the user experience from a droid application to another just isn't as polished compared to the iPhone. Once again it works - but this time it reminds me of sitting down in a corvette. WTF are the grand am radio controls doing in here??? Seriously sometimes things just feel out of place.

Creativity/Out of the box thinking - a side effect of not having a dictator-like grip on the UI/UX... well everything to do with getting your application to market, is there is a positive side effect. Some of the application have some pretty neat and intuitive ways to get about them, and they don't necessarily follow all the rules. For example, I really like the use of press and hold menu's. They just make sense. Apple - do more of this.

Overall I like it. It sync's beautifully with gmail and Google Enterprise (duh!) it really would have been tragic had it not. It's not as sexy as the iPhone, but being a creative enginmaneer that likes functionality that works beautifully, I will sacrifice some sex appeal for practicality and versatility. Will I switch? Not for a Milestone, the slide out keyboard sucks but I am seriously thinking about a Samsung Galaxy. Yup - Droid you've won me over, for now. Bring on the WP7.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

The Love is Lost...

I've lost my love... my iPhone is dead. That's right dead. I'm not the first to post about their beloved iPhone coming to it's premature end by kissing asphalt.


But it's not all that bad. I've been falling out of love with my old 3G for a while now. I have to say that Apple deciding to support the 3G with iOS4.0 was a huge mistake. The OS was unresponsive, slow, bulky and offered very few reasons to upgrade for the 3G audience and resulted in a crowd of my colleagues and friends complaining of how their 'old' (1,2 year old) phones were crap. The performance was so bad that answering a phone call would take 2-3 rings for 'answer' to be acknowledged. To make it worse the speaker was going and I could only use it with a headset or in speakerphone mode.

But my iPhone was a beloved device. The iPhone changed the Smart Phone landscape in Canada (and I believe North America) popularizing the use of data and creating a change of lifestyle of information when you want it. Not just email like the RIM BlackBerry did, but the good stuff - the web. That intoxicating content streamed everywhere and anywhere you wanted. Who needs to choose a restaurant - pick a location, we'll read reviews when we get there and decide. But will my lifestyle be re-enabled with another iPhone 4? Should I?

This brings me to why I don't want the iPhone 4. Yup I said it. I love the iPhone, but I don't want the iPhone 4. Yeah it's nice looking, has a great screen and is very quick and slick. Yeah it's another bigger better sexier iPhone. But I'm a software engineer. I create software for a living and creating software for the iPhone, to me at least, seems like trying to print a book with an old mechanical press - it can produce beautiful work, but damn it's a pain in the ass to get there. Having built applications on Google's Android or the upcoming Windows Phone 7 - those two get my bet - I can quickly create a personal application to facilitate anything I want to create.

The only questions left is: Can I wait until MS comes to market? I'd love to. The metro OS is sexy, the collaborative Office tools are compelling. But I might just need to settle with an Android phone for now. Oh the choices - let the journey of choice begin, but sorry Apple - you are not included on my wishlist.