Friends and family in the market for a smart phone sometimes ask me if they should get an iPhone or Android. Usually my answer is based on how adventuresome they are with technology. For those who want a safe, seamless experience, I tell them they would probably be happier with the iPhone, where Steve has carefully curated the experience. (See Virginia Heffernan's The Death of the Open Web in today's New York Times where she likens the iPod to the suburbs - safer and more planned than the cities or the open Web.)
On the other hand, if people are willing to put up with the more "urban" environment of a system where anyone is free to get software from wherever they please, I recommend the Android. Since Android programs are free to do more things, the overall experience is less smooth, such as when a program running in the background temporarily slows things down, but in return you get a wider range of content and applications, sort of like going to Italy instead of the Italian Pavilion at EPCOT.
With the recent release of the 2.2 upgrade, the Android has pulled ahead, both in terms of smoothness of operation and additional functionality. The background tasks seem to have been tamed, and the new release offers several new features:
- Tethering. You can use the 3G connection on the Android to give Internet access to your laptop via USB or WiFi. In the WiFi mode the Android functions as a miniature hotspot for up to eight other devices at once.
- Flash. (Search for "Flash 10.1" in the Marketplace.) It's just Beta and has a few problems such a privacy settings page that returns "Access denied" but try out Getty Images Moodstream. If you want to use hbo.com or Hulu you first need to change the user agent string to "desktop" - see instructions here. The performance is not so great and navigation doesn't always work. Maybe Steve was right.
- New home screen with dedicated shortcuts for phone and browser.
- Improved Exchange support.
- Camera controls for flash, zoom, focus, exposure, white balance and geo-tagging.
- Voice dialing over Bluetooth (finally!)
The 2.2 update is being rolled out gradually. If you can't wait for Google to send it to you, you can find instructions here. Be sure to follow them exactly. It's worth doing just to see the little Androids in skateboards.
The Palm Pre Plus (Verizon) is worth consideration too, especially with built-in wi-fi (which you can use for your iTouch, iPad, or anything else that uses wi-fi). Recently reduced to $30. http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/palm-pre-plus-verizon/4505-6452_7-33941250.html
Posted by: Sally | 23 May 2010 at 02:45 PM
Really, the feature I'm waiting for with bated breath is none of the above -- it's the remote intents. My understanding is that the cloud will be able to send "intents" to the phone: not just messages, but the ability to activate apps on the phone with those messages. Tricky to get right (especially in terms of security), but if they do get it right, the potential is really quite fabulous: it could provide a level of integration that the iPhone currently can barely dream about.
The simple example I saw was the ability to look up a route in the more-powerful desktop Google Maps, and just squirt it right over to the phone for navigating: basic, but gets the idea across...
Posted by: Jducoeur | 23 May 2010 at 09:40 PM
The Android Cloud to Device Messaging Framework is included in this release. In Vic Gundotra's talk he used the example you gave of sending directions from Google Maps to the phone.
Posted by: Christopher Herot | 23 May 2010 at 10:31 PM
They aren't trying to beat the iPhone right now. They are just announcing a platform; it's ok if it is a little dweeby and not that impressive of a video. It's just trying to give developers an idea of what the SDK is capable of. These devices aren't going to be coming out for a year so I think it's a little premature to right them off today because of a lousy dev video.
Posted by: google android developer | 27 September 2010 at 02:56 AM