First of all, i just have to say, i am so suprised, that few of my friends in India have no idea about the Gphone. This goes to say about the marketing power of Apple. So, for their reference, here are few links that might help understanding this post better.
1. Android OS - http://www.android.com , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Android
2. G1 - HTC Dream - http://www.htc.com/www/product/dream/overview.html
Anyways, now to the real post.
I recently bought the HTC dream (Gphone, T mobile G1) from the Singtel shop. It is amazingly responsive and i love the phone already.
I had a sony Ericson k700i for the last 3.5 years and badly wanted to update the phone. Initially wanted to buy the Apple iphone, but it is way to expensive for me to afford. And quite frankly there are too many iPhones already. Whereever i see, there is an iPhone. To accept the fact, nowadays iPhone is making me sick.
For people who dont know, Linux is a brilliant OS. I have been using Linux in the past semester and really loved it. The stability and reliability is way too awesome. You gotta use linux to see it. And i learnt that the Android OS is a linux based platform. Started doing a bit of research and understood the power of Android. Then decided to buy this phone. The following is the analysis i did before i decided to buy the Gphone.
iPhone:
Plus:
1. looks - Amazing looks. No other words necessary
2. Apps - iPhone came to the market first, and so obviously there are tonnes of good apps available.
3. Usability - Brand Apple. That says it all. when people say, "It just works", yes it does work like magic.
Minus:
1. pretty wide and very slim - difficult to hold while making phone calls.
2. No full qwerty key board and the soft keyboard sucks big time.
3. No multi tasking.
4. No background tasks allowed.
5. No copy and paste.
6. Basically no flexibility, exactly like Mac.
Android:
Plus:
1. Google Android - Complete linux based OS. The OS is too good, they are even considering to run that in the computer. It is that powerful and customizable.
2. The OS was built from the basic linux kernel. A bottom-up approach. So it has all that u need and it is amazingly fast.
3. Multi tasking - Press and hold the home button for two seconds and you will get a similar pop-up like u get when u hold Alt+Tab in your computer
4. User interface - Quite comparable to that of the iPhone and it is about to get a lot better
5. Apps - It is an open platform, unlike Apple. So the opportunities are limitless. There is already an exponential growth in the Android Market and they have also allowed payable apps. So watchout Apple. In one year, Android Market will overtake the Apple App store.
Minus:
1. Nothing really. Even if there is any, Google will release an update and you are done. GPhone initially didnt have the soft keyboard. But they released a Cupcake update and voila, the new android has the soft keyboard as well. And even though HTC dream was released before this update hit the markets, you can just go to your phone settings and click update and that is it. Google wont charge you for any updates, now or in the future. This is the power of Open source. Actually this should be a plus.
HTC dream - Hardware:
Plus:
1. Full qwerty key board - Makes mails and chats whole lot easier.
2. Rollar ball - There is a small rollar ball, actually an idea stolen from the Blackberry. But it is amazing. It is just so easy to use.
3. the phone is not as wide as the iphone. So a lot easier to handle.
4. I like that new mechanism while opening the keyboard. There is a subtle twist.
Minus:
1. The design - For gods sake, who the hell designed the hardware in HTC? Why did they add that "Leno Chin"? Compared to the iPhone this doesnt even stand a chance. See this video to understand why they did this horrible design.
2. Because of this design, it is quite difficult to simply slide in your pant pocket.
3. Not so slim as an iphone.
6 comments:
Okay Dodge this...
iPhone:
Plus:
There is nothin' much to say.. the first million ppl who bought in just 3 days might know..
if you call it as "Marketing", i dont think thre wud b million morons to run aftr it includin me :P
Minus:
Well i can say a lot..
* no A2DP profile for wireless audio streaming..
* no front end camera for video conferencing..
* cannot remove de battery though it works great..
* no real gps integration bt still it can satisfy wid a-gps
ur view's:
* wide+slim = hard to handle = leprosy hands may b
* full querty keys = true, unless ur hand is like a giant
* no multi-tasking = well its a tradeoff for crashing OS :P though it can b multitasked..
* background task = it was resolved using "Push" technology
* copy paste = apple never does wat others can do.. so left it to 3rd parties and it works gr8 and almost all features :)
fexibility ?? well its a mobile phone and ya its a micro mac in design.
gPhone:
It is a gud attempt to rip of iPhone's magic.. bt still not even close :( 10 years back ppl were sayin linux ("Open source") is gona lead OS world.. jus think abt its market share now.. im not sayin its bad bt its quite sad to compare :( if ur arguing it for firefox, well its just an application.. it can ave developers all round de world without integration code problem.. whereas if it comes to OS ..pls forget it! btw apple has a license and thts y we had to hack de iphone.. android is open and it doesn even give u a thril to hack nor tweak.. jus google to know the power of hackers vs developers :) i ask u one qs.. if u develope an app will u give it for free or atleast tag it a certain amount?? thts wat apple did.. it says if u wana sell ur app or contribute free .. its de developers choice.. more choices more interests for developers..infact there are startups just to create apps for iphone :P
Plus:
* Its free :)
* It is stable.. lol its a mobile so better be :P
* I am not able to think for a 3rd bullet so this is it..
Minus:
* people have u seen the phone in real ?? omg! its de fuked up design ever in de history of htc.. was it so mean to google?? i mean it sucks big time..
Personally i wont use it in public and get embarased with calls.. kids might think it as nintendo DS :P hope in future thy ave decent models.
* cant google think of a good logo for android??? its just a toilet sign for unisex robots :P i know its silly to compare logo's bt everythin matters wen u compare with the best!
* Multitouch - where is it ?? its not tht interactive with de user.. needs improvement.
* full qwerty keyboard?? well i hardly sensed those buttons :D no point makin de phone fat with keys sucked in..
* the speaker sucks as much as iphone.
* If you can make video's with atleas 3rd party ,, fair enof
* total disaster from htc and a disappointing release by google.
All my comments are based on updates till 10th march '09. So may be if android reaches great height in the future ,, then ya congrats :) im lookin forward frm iphone as well.. its good to know tht ppl have started competing with iphone. may b apple will soon show them the next level :)
jus ma 2 cents worth,
Naveen
(a poor iphone lover who hates apple(de company) but loves mac(de product).
Alright Naveen here is your reply,
1. If you wanna add the futures that apple doesnt approve, then you are officially jail-breaking the phone..whereby your warranty gets void...so it doesnt really matter, if developers are not as powerful as hackers...
2. Few million people bought the iphone because it was the first phone in the market. Check last years Time magazine. They did select iphone as the best gadget, but not a single good word about it. Because every damn critic is saying iphone has problems.
3. No multi tasking in iphone. After using the gphone for a week, i tried iphone. Every single time, i click the home button the app just vanishes. that sucks. And as you said, if u do jail break the phone, you can install it. But again, the OS becomes unstable and you loose your precious warranty, without which you cant even change the battery. that is sad.
4. You have to understand one thing. the OS being used in iphone is the mini version of leopard. Apple wont change the OS and thr is a serious hardware and size limitation. As they have completely downsized a full PC OS into mobile, multi tasking is not coming to iphones in the near future. That really sucks.
5. srsly, every person i know thinks the soft-keyboard is utter waste and so does every critic.
6. No copy paste in iphone. The reason for this is not as you said. The reason is, Apple doesnt allow back end applications. This will consume memory and if it does, your phone wont work this seemlessly as it does right now. So forget copy-paste in the near future.
7. Well, i agree, Mac design is just awesome. But watch out, Google is slowly catching up. If it is Microsoft vs Apple, then it is surely Apple. MSFT will never learn. But google is powerful. They have succesfully launched a phone competing iphone and the OS is rock solid.
8. Yes. Linux has been around for a while now. Even though it is powerful, it is not famous yet. But there is a difference now. Earlier there was noone to back linux. MSFT was literally uncontested. we all know how MSFT did it. But now, linux is backed by google. So again, watch out. Next few years are important for Linux. With cloud computing on the rise, anything can happen.
9. You cant think of a third plus for android? That really did hurt me. Srsly naveen, try using my phone for few weeks.
10. Disaster from HTC - prolly the only point i will agree in your comment !
But, i also have to say, Steve Jobs is the guy who can make impossible things happen. So let me wait until the next iphone update to say anything more than this
lolzz i jus saw ur post of ignorance :P
fine.. here goes ma reply..
1. Well jailbreaking or unlocking or hacking or wateva... apple has given its consumers a single button in itunes "restore" which will roll back nything into factory settings. unless u loose or bang or wash ur phone ur good to go with warranty.
2. Time already posted iphone as #1, duh.. wen ur on top u ave to face de critique.. wel i pointed my critiques as well.. wateva may b it was de best product of 2007 so i dont care wat it lacked or wat it should ave done .. it jus made sure as the best!
3 & 4. No multitasking ?? well dint i show u the process manager in my phone?? im sure u saw all the process which was running at that time ,,
5. well for de keypad it depends on de user.. if he/she feels uncomfortable thn it is..
6. Again i did show u de copy paste app.. Apple wont waste time in apps which wil b taken care by 3rd parties.. if ur talkin about memory? it runs open gl games without any shrink, so shifting jus a piece or even a huge text wudn b a problem i guess..
7. Google slowly catching up?? lolzz iphone was released in july 2007!! how slow u wana crawl ?? more over google's theme is always "simple" and powerful.. so dont expect nythin frm design part.
8. I can always wait.. onli time goes on.. unless u provide a professional support service or warranty or license ppl not gona buy ny crap..esp with OS .. u shd know how organizations work.. it jus plainly relies on support service. So i dont know how mny decades open source gona take to lead in OS.
9. Well im sorry if it hurts u. I never meant to hurt ny1. I did use ur mobile but al i can say is decent for a start but nothing so called "+" w.r.t. the other brands out thre.
10. U onli agree abt HTC's disaster.. lolzz.. r u okie with google's logo ?? its soo gay, i mean robotic gay :P im not kidding!
Naveen
1. Regarding the warranty, i am not very sure, if you can claim the warranty if u jailbreak the phone. But u hav been using the phone for a while now, so you cud be right.
2. You are running multiple apps, using unapproved apps. And you urself accepted that the phone crashes so much, if u run multiple tasks. FYI, i am running 6 apps minimum in my Gphone, ALL THE TIME.And during the last few days i have been using, it didnt crash once. That is wat i call stability.
3. regarding the google design, I would like to point out they are trying to emulate the same Minimalistic design, which is pretty much the apple design.
4. And regarding the android logo, I buy phone for the usability da. Not for the logo :)
@ naveen,
Have a look at this link, to know what features iPhone doesnt have..It seems to me, you are quite confused about its features, even after using it for a while..
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/16/poll-what-do-you-want-most-from-iphone-3-0-besides-copy-and-pas/
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