Instead of upgrading to the iPhone 4, I decided to get a Nexus One from Google. I’ve had it about a week so far and I’m happy with it.. Some friends and colleagues have asked for my impressions, so here is a brain-dump of the highlights so far:
- Speech recognition is actually useful. Big surprise here. I can tweet, search the web etc. with minor edits to my dictated text
- I can write applications and put them on my own phone easily at no cost
- The API is (for my brain) much more straightforward than working with Cocoa. Maybe it’s the years of experience but I also strongly prefer working with Java over Objective-C
- I don’t miss the iTunes store. I was worried about that, but Amazon’s mp3 purchasing service is just as convenient (and you get mp3s instead of DRM’d media by default)
- The UI is clunkier and uglier than even the first iPhone
- I’m not finding myself missing any significant apps. There are some minor ones I wish I had but I don’t but it’s no big deal
- Wifi tethering (Android 2.2) is a good thing
- I’ve never met an on-screen keyboard I didn’t hate. Android is no exception.
- Kelly has an iPhone 4. We are traveling together. Everyone, everywhere asks her “Is that the new iPhone?”. Nobody anywhere asks me about my phone. (Actually one person did yesterday but I think she felt sorry for me not having a phone as fancy as Kelly’s)
- I thought the idea of widgets on the home screens would be faddy and lame (like it is in most cases on desktop OSes). It’s actually pretty useful.
- The Android message bus architecture makes some really neat system-level things possible from 3rd party apps. For example, I have a little app called Handcent SMS which improves on the built-in SMS functionality of the phone. As far as I know this sort of thing isn’t possible on the iPhone and i appreciate it as a user and as a developer.
- I had a Google IO phone a year ago and the Android ecosystem was barren in contrast to what I’m seeing today. That’s a huge change in only one year
- I can now differentiate my ring tone from that of everyone else around me in a public place :)
- I don’t know of a good way to download video to the phone. I like to watch television shows and movies on my phone while traveling on airplanes. iTunes makes that trivial for the iPhone. Fortunately I have an iPad, but it’s always nice to have a backup.
- The Kindle app is a wonderful thing. Just like it is everywhere else. Now to sell my actual Kindle. Anyone want to buy a first generation Kindle?
- I see Java exceptions more often than I would expect (java.net.UnknownHostException, for example). It’s kind of embarrassing when it happens, but being a Java developer myself I’ve actually found it to be much more useful than the app just crashing. Sometimes the exception class thrown gives me a clue to help diagnose the problem. That makes me feel smart. I don’t think my parents would appreciate this feature.
- The background/multitasking stuff is nice.
- It reminds me of switching to desktop Linux. Linux is usually uglier and less usable than its commercial rivals. Android is similarly ugly and slightly less usable. I also find Linux more exciting. You can get deep into its guts. You can customize it to your heart’s content. You can program it to the limit of your capabilities (as opposed to the limit of its EULA). And it’s weird, in both a good and a bad way. Unlike switching to desktop Linux, I’m often finding myself saying: “Oh, nice. I wish the iPhone had that.”
All that being said, I love my iPad and if I didn’t have it I might not have been able to so easily let go of the last remaining Apple mobile device I had available to me. If anyone wants to send me an Android tablet I’d gladly evaluate and review it.
July 11th, 2010 at 08:52 PM
I just switched to a droid incredible from an iphone 3G and having a very similar experience to you. The phone seems super fast and Verizon (compared to ATT) is actually keeping their side of the bargain.
You’re comment about comparing it to linux is really spot on. Where on my iPhone, when it first came, the most customization I really did was downloading a bunch of apps. With Android, I feel like I’ve spent 90% of my time so far with it, tweaking the settings, the widgets, the notifications, etc. Not that that’s a bad thing, as a developer, I love being able to make everything just so. For an average user, though, I think Android has a long way to go to being out of the box great and useful.
July 11th, 2010 at 09:28 PM
”...you get mp3s instead of DRM’d media by default” – there hasn’t been DRM’d music in the iTunes store in a long time.
July 11th, 2010 at 09:28 PM
Thanks for your thoughts, much appreciated. One thing to correct maybe: iTunes Store music nowadays isn’t DRM’d either, unlike what you make it sound. The restrictions applied are entirely in iTunes itself, the song files themselves are unrestricted.
regards apeiros
July 11th, 2010 at 09:30 PM
Just a nit: iTunes hasn’t had DRM’d music for a few years now…
July 11th, 2010 at 10:09 PM
Thanks for the drm clarification
July 12th, 2010 at 12:33 AM
All the things that are wrong with the Android which you’ve listed are the reason I’m not switching!
July 12th, 2010 at 01:48 AM
doubleTwist is the app of choice for syncing music, video and podcasts between your desktop and droid. Currently free.
July 12th, 2010 at 01:57 AM
Chad – I was in the same boat. I didn’t want to upgrade to the iPhone 4.. no more paying for another AT&T device for me, (and couldn’t really – I would have to pay full price the way my contract was) – so I kept the 3GS for dev purposes and now a Nexus One is my primary. I got it unlocked and picked up a SIM from t-mobile so I’m only paying $60/mon for unlimited data. I think if you buy from Google they force you to get a certain plan (pricier).
Best part for me is tethering in froyo, as you’ve mentioned. I use it daily on the Caltrain to work and it’s great. Not too shabby at 1.2mbps. Likewise I also use the Kindle app a ton while commuting.
July 12th, 2010 at 01:58 AM
Re keyboard.. No disagreement, but I’d strongly recommend giving swype a try. Very nice and fast; I’m a total convert.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:13 AM
I use ShapeWriter as my keyboard. Love it!
July 12th, 2010 at 02:16 AM
iTunes music doesn’t have DRM anymore but they do stamp identifying information into the metadata so you can be tracked if you share the files. Amazon does not do this.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:32 AM
Try Swype for your keyboard, makes on screen keyboards somewhat bearable. Loses the speech recognition (feature coming soon) though.
I wonder what your impressions of the UI would be for HTC sense / Samsung TouchWiz etc?
July 12th, 2010 at 02:44 AM
To copy video files to your Android phone, just plug the phone into your PC. There will be an option in the notification pulldown on the phone to mount the SD card as USB storage on your computer. Select that. After the SD card is successfully mounted as an external drive, just dump the video files anywhere you’d like on the SD card. After you remount the SD card, you should see the video’s in the “Gallery” app (it may take a minute or two for them to show up). You can also do this with music or pictures.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:59 AM
Nice to read a hype-free report of a switch. I like it how you shared the good and the bad. In conversations with small business people, some of the things we found out about iphone vs android were even more basic than your own findings.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:59 AM
I am surprised by your decision to go with a Nexus One since, in comparison to all the Android based phones that have been released since then, the Nexus One seems a little outdated.
I have been putting off buying one for both development/personal usage since Canadian phone companies are way behind on Android devices. After reading the article I am wondering if getting a Nexus directly from Google is the best option.
Any advice?
July 12th, 2010 at 03:03 AM
“I’ve never met an on-screen keyboard I didn’t hate. Android is no exception.”
Did you have a chance to try the Swype beta? I’m pretty happy with Swype.
July 12th, 2010 at 03:35 AM
Nexus One is a great phone. It also gets google’s OS updates before all the other phones.
Swype is a great keyboard. Best one I’ve had a chance to type.
July 12th, 2010 at 05:38 AM
Does wifi from your Nexus work for iPad use? I really would miss the Blackberry Bluetooth voice dialing—unless Nexus One has it now??
July 12th, 2010 at 06:36 AM
Having read your post I still do not understand why you prefer the Nexus over iPhone4. Or maybe I do… Ugliness and usability seems to not be important at all to you while it means everything for me! Most, if not all, of your other remarks can easily be addressed with a trivial jailbreak, which unleashes the full power of the iPhone (and yes, there is a jailbreak for iOS4 but not for iPhone4 as of today but there will be very soon (as soon Apple has released it 4.0.1 update)). Didn’t you jailbreak yours? I though every developer did…
July 12th, 2010 at 08:16 AM
Interesting article. But what about battery duration? Switching from blackberry (one week before recharging) to the iPhone (every other day) was a big drawback. The nexus one seems to be even worse(every day). The galaxy s from samsung seems to be an alternative but uses still android 2.1.
July 12th, 2010 at 08:45 AM
Actually, Chad you will be surprised at being able to develop apps that have a better looking and functioning UI than iphone apps.
July 12th, 2010 at 09:20 AM
i like your list of pros and cons. good to read a positive but non-fanboy review in this ‘emotional war’ we are seeing lately :)
we built an app called decaf, for managing and monitoring amazon ec2 account. we also started an iphone version, but it proves a difficult and is a lot less fun to develop. but on top of that we just can’t do the things we need, even with the new ‘background processes’ of iOS 4.
and about the battery, i think it is actually much better than it ever was. i use another monitoring tool we developed ourselves, to check about 6 hosts every 2 minutes. with a couple email accounts and constant gtalk i can get to the end of the day pretty ok.
in the end iOS will see the features of Android we need for apps like this. but around the same time the UI of Android will also have improved again. it will be interesting to see how this competition will benefit us all :)
July 12th, 2010 at 09:44 AM
I don’t know, you seem to make an excellent case for the common non-geek to buy an iPhone. Most of your downsides for the Android phone are deal breakers for most regular users. Clunky UI, ugly and slightly less usable, no easy TV shows or movies, Java Exceptions displayed to the end user, and missing apps.
What’s with the ringtone and DRM comments? Been able to make your own ringtones on iTunes forever and DRM is a thing of the past for music.
I have a BlackBerry for work and I hate the thing with a passion. The typing autocorrection is nowhere near as good as iOS, there are hardly any apps for it, the carrier defines when you get OS updates, you have to pull the battery to forcibly reboot it, it takes 15 min to reboot, what apps are available are expensive and not worth the high prices, Storm/Storm2 are horrible touch phones.
Work is testing an HTC EVO against an iPhone 4 on Exchange Server 2010. If Android is not Enterprise Ready, it will mean iPhones or BlackBerry’s for us. Of course, going to wait and see what our users decide before upgrading to BlackBerry Server 5. Already know when they have a chance to play with an iPhone they will like it better, that Retina IPS display will knock their socks off, just need a privacy filter for it. Next will be iPads with iWork after iOS 4 in Nov.
July 12th, 2010 at 12:13 PM
As a developer, you consider this LESS usable? <boggle>
July 12th, 2010 at 01:27 PM
Good post, I agree with pretty much all of your points, having recently switched from an iPhone to a HTC Desire.
I’ve found Missing Sync to be an invaluable piece of software that helps me sync stuff that I always used to sync with iTunes: http://www.markspace.com/products/missing-sync-family.html
Also, have you tried the swype beta? It’s the first on-screen keyboard I’ve tried that’s just totally awesome.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:16 PM
Thanks for the comparison.
In regards to the UI being clunky, try LauncherPro Beta (my favorite) or ADW Launcher. Both will give you an amazingly fast and smooth experience.
July 12th, 2010 at 02:56 PM
Try getting the “Launcher Pro” app. It is a slightly different UI than the main google one, but it’s also so useful.
Double click your home button for example and it zooms out to show you all your “desktops”, no scrolling side to side, get to any screen in three clicks.
It has a “mini dashboard” of your main icons, make a call, text, contact list…. (it’s customizable)
Those 5 icons are on every screen so there’s no scrolling side to side to get to your phone call button.
I’m sure there’s more. Try playing with “widgets” twitter for example has an always open display of the latest tweets you can put right on a desktop. It’s quite nice. To add it, (i think you need the twitter app installed) you’ve got to hold a finger down on the desktop.
There’s tonnes of great stuff on the android that takes time to “grow into”. I’m lucky to have someone who pops by and shows me a neat new thing every once in a while. Actually our whole office is converting to android one at a time – so we’re all discovering cool stuff all the time.
July 12th, 2010 at 03:30 PM
Thanks for this review. It helped me to consider more the viability of switching to Android. I have been thinking a lot about switching to either the HTC Evo or the Droid X recently. I have been on iPhone for a while, and I am growing to despise the AT&T service quality as it actually seems to be deteriorating. And the EULA and App Store submission policies have me supremely frustrated, made most noticeable to me at first by the Google Voice application rejection, and again their caprice has been magnified when the allowed the submission of nudity in the Ulysses graphic novel after first rejecting it with no changes. People’s livelihood have been hurt and thwarted by their somewhat arbitrary (and inconsistently implemented) policies. I’m ready to move to something more predictable, open and free.
July 12th, 2010 at 06:30 PM
Chris, not sure re; the Nexus One and your needs. The main thing that drove me to it was that I knew I was likely to get quick OS/feature updates on the Nexus One and I wanted it primarily as a nerdy hacking device vs. a slick consumer product.
July 12th, 2010 at 06:34 PM
Alex, running Launcher Pro now thanks to your comment. Very nice!
July 12th, 2010 at 06:34 PM
Oh and thanks to RJ for the same advice :)
July 12th, 2010 at 06:40 PM
Michael C, no I don’t find that part to be less usable. That part was about Android being more exciting.
July 12th, 2010 at 06:46 PM
I came to the nexus one from a blackberry so the “clunky” ui has never seemed particularly difficult to me nor did it need a lot of tweaking to get immediate use. A lot if iPhone users have cited this clunky ui as a problem with android but I’ve not seen many specific complaints. care to elaborate on what’s worse about the ui compared to ipone?
July 12th, 2010 at 07:34 PM
How much are you selling the 1st gen Kindle for? I’m in the market for one and have no problem being behind the new gadget curve.
July 12th, 2010 at 08:04 PM
I attempted to make a similar move to a Nexus One from an iPhone 3G but didn’t cope so well. Your point comparing it to Linux is very good, the UI is primitive making the UX poor, I found the keyboard awful and nearly unusable. The music player (and yes I tried many of the other options, including doubletwist) was limited, no gapless playback for example, something I took for granted ever since I got my first iPod.
And don’t even get me started on the most important thing, the games.
So in the end I got an iPhone 4.
July 12th, 2010 at 08:07 PM
Oh. And I got a load of dust under the screen. Not good.
July 12th, 2010 at 09:44 PM
“And don’t even get me started on the most important thing, the games.” heh
July 12th, 2010 at 09:45 PM
“How much are you selling the 1st gen Kindle for? I’m in the market for one and have no problem being behind the new gadget curve.”
I’m not sure what it’s worth now. Maybe $75?
July 12th, 2010 at 10:14 PM
The good thing about doubletwist is that the Pc/Mac client will automatically convert your videos to h.264 from almost any format, which most android devices have a hardware decoder for and can play w/o killing the battery. Even iTunes doesn’t do that for you.
July 12th, 2010 at 10:23 PM
Trying doubleTwist now. Thanks for the tips!
July 12th, 2010 at 10:33 PM
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder (I find the iPhone UI blurry and outdated – “hello 2007, your interface is calling!”—though I agree on hating the default Android fireworks wallpaper), but most people I’ve talked to, Apple or Android fanboys, think that the Android pull-down notification shade blasts the iPhone’s annoying “stop-everything-and-act!” notification system out of the water.
How do you download video to your phone? Just download it and then play the download—you don’t even need to connect to a desktop computer. Of course, you can also watch streaming video over Flash, if you have 3G or a WiFi connection while you’re away.
For a real treat, though, trying hooking up your N1 to a pair of good speakers or high-end headphones, and play, say, the Marcus Miller “Pluck” MP3 that came bundled with your phone. I’m not an audio expert, but the sound seems far better than the iPod, especially in the lower frequency ranges. I’m planning to buy a 32 gig micro SD card and retire my iPod (can’t see any point in charging two devices).
If you like eye candy, try the Cubed music player (“3” in the Android market). That’s what the iPod/iPhone/iPad music UI might look like in a few years.
I haven’t seen any Java exceptions yet (in two months), but I’m not a heavy app downloader: I prefer the web for most things.
July 13th, 2010 at 06:01 AM
Swype is a very nice keyboard, but it’s not available from the Android Market. Try SlideIt, which uses the same idea but can be installed from the Android Market. It’s really a great way to type, and what convinced me that I could do without hardware QWERTY on my phone. (I have the Xperia X10 now).
July 13th, 2010 at 01:10 PM
Nice review. If you’d purchased a more recent Android phone (Nexus is quite outdated), some of your problems with Android would have vanished. I have a HTC Desire where several of your reported Android problems just not happen.
July 14th, 2010 at 01:48 AM
I don’t understand when people say the Android UI is “clunky”. I don’t think it’s clunky. OK, the box isn’t quite as smooth as an iPhone. So what. It feels nice in my hand. The icons are pretty. It’s spritely. Text is clear at small sizes. Colors are bright. Customization ability is nice. Market is more open than the iStore. Haptic feedback is cool. I’ve been Apple only since 1986 but I had no plans to get an iPhone. I love my Droid.
July 15th, 2010 at 03:20 PM
Thanks for the unbiased review. I think this has made me go android for my next phone, I have an Iphone 3, but I find it a little bit too trndy for my taste.
August 5th, 2010 at 07:10 AM
So, what’s your desktop platform if your iPad is your last Apple product and you have not yet switched to Linux? Windows is an inhospitable Ruby/Rails environment, isn’t it?
August 6th, 2010 at 06:51 PM
Pablo, I’m still running a mixture of Mac OS and Windows (for client work). I didn’t mean to say the iPad is the last Apple product I’ll own. I’ll probably buy another Mac laptop as my next computer.
August 9th, 2010 at 09:04 AM
“I don’t know of a good way to download video to the phone. ” Just put them into sdcard and install a copy of video player like RockPlayer from Market, it is a good candidate of yet another “Oh, nice. I wish the iPhone had that.”