Then it made sense: You’re just another zombie AAPL fanboy.

I’m looking for REAL reviews, with FACTS, not more Jobs-worship.

you dont review the android phones as much as your prejudice against anything not apple.

ive had a iphone infact i got a second one given to me yet they are tucked away in the kitchen drawer. what you fail to see from behind your iphone is that android phones can multitask, yes with a android you actually can do two things at the same time. and furthermore i dont have someone sitting on my shoulder deleting things on my phone that isnt in their mind “politically correct” anymore. and just the fact that i have to wipe my iphone to be able to get that music my brother made to get it with me home is a jawbreaker. and only syncing with “my itunes” is silly. start by looking at the things objectively when reviewing and not from inside your “hating all things not apple” and you propable will find things alot sunnier in life.

i have all 3. phone phanatic. and i love the droid but it’s too stinkin big. they don’t show you that in the commercials. and I got 2 iphones and 3 hero’s off of gsmallover.com for the fam and so far i love them all. iphone definately over the hero though, don’t like the feel of the hero and the iphone is super practical and honestly i’ve had over 20 phones and still the only one i can see coming close is the htc hd2. but so far i like all 3.

I love my techy toys and sharing info / playing with new ideas on boards like this, so I just wanted to introduce myself and say hi!!

I’m REALLY looking forward to being able to customize the interface and sounds on the device!! those restrictions drove me nuts on iphone!

If you haven’t already, check out http://www.Motorola-Droid.org it’s an awesome fans site for Droid owners.

So what’s my point? My point is I think Google may be going in a different direction with Android then other companies are going with their mobile OS. I think Google is focusing more on the developers then anything else. In the future I would expect to see many websites of different developers on the internet with pages dedicated to the apps and widgets they’ve developed, with little 3D bar codes on them that you scan with your phone’s camera that link you to their app in the Android Market (how’s that for mass app management).

In the article he’s guessing about what Google’s intentions are instead of dealing with the facts…

he goes on to give credit to WEBOS over Android.. I own a PRE .. and I can tell you WebOS does not multitask better than Android.. the only thing that Web Os does is closing apps easier.. (which is also a curse because you cant have an app run in the background unless you have a card open) .but every otehr aspect of multitasking android handles better.. Widgets right from your homescreen.. 3rd party utility apps that integrate with the OS … Apps for WEBOS are almost like the Iphone .. standalone apps..

That something is the included slider keyboard. Even if the tactile feel of the thing is utter crap, it’s easier for me to manipulate than a smooth screen such as the iPhone for writing emails and texting.

The bonus of having the entire screen available for viewing as one types cannot be overlooked either.

The issue of platform fragmentation is of course a major strike against the Android OS, but the proof is in the pudding I suppose.

There is no difference in the app garbage percentage.

I had a testdevice of the Palm Pre, and while it is a very nice smartphone and WebOS is an interesting OS with a lot of potential and style, i don’t think the notification system is any better than Androids. In fact android manages multiple notifications much better with the shade conept. And HTC Sense UI is up to par with the WebOS PIM apps. I just can’t see the Palm app market explode anyime soon, and that’s one of the most important criteria nowadays. So we have to see whether WebOS will ever unfold it’s potential to the fullest.

Also Android is a webcentric OS and was there before WebOS, so you can’t only compare ChromeOS to WebOS (and claim that Palm beat Google in this area time-to-market wise).

I can’t see the big difference between a Blackberry Bold and the HTC Hero (other than the blackberry os getting really old by now). Both devices seem to be carefully crafted, and Android as an OS which does a great job of giving the User all functionality he needs. Just take a look at the much wider homescreen configuration options in example. Therefore i really don’t understand how you could see “passion” for nearly all other competitors, and no passion for Android at all from Google. Sounds too biased for me…

Hey, Ryan. Have you ever designed a piece of electronic equipment? Believe it or not, there are constraints and trade-offs that have to be made during the design process. Keep in mind that a handheld device is powered by a battery, and is not a desktop system that has an unlimited power source. Many of the features that people would like to see in a handheld are battery eaters (yes, including multitasking!). And since a smartphone is a PHONE, it’s pretty important to maximize battery life in order to have the phone available when you need it. I know. If the battery is replaceable, what’s the problem? How many people do you know that carry extra phone batteries around with them? The point is that not all ideas and wishes people have are realistic to implement in a smartphone.

sorry for my english

(i.e. is there a patent on “pinch to zoom” or “multitouch keyboard input”?)

http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/04/some-more-perspective-on-the-droid-and-multitouch/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2339661,00.asp

If you seriously have not reviewed it, here is a tinyurl link to US Patent 7,479,94 http://tinyurl.com/ahyoy3

…the winner is…the iPhone…

…well a shock victory there readers/listeners/viewers…

lol :0 :p

If HTC does something wonderful with Sense UI, that’s proprietary, and doesn’t benefit a Moto device one bit, never mind some other companies proprietary set top box, tablet, or netbook layers.

So again, every approach has pros and cons.

@Anonymous: I was referring to the platform, not every device on it. Google could get locked out of an OPhone but a month later drop the Nexus Two with even more free-as-in-Google services. If Apple locked them out of the iPhone, pre-Android, that would have been a huge problem with regards to their foothold on the mobile web.

@Ratnok: I’m of the mind set that for users, the UI is the application and whether Palm ultimately succeeds or not with webOS, last year they provided a few really smart UI concepts that pushed forward smartphones in general again. That’s a good thing for all of us.

No one platform needs to fail for the others to succeed. Quite the opposite. Before the iPhone the smartphone space was like the browser space before Firefox. Complacent. Apple’s success has been a boon to lovers of all smartphone platforms because it’s forced everyone else to up their game. Hopefully Palm and Android and the rest are doing the same now. As many of them have to be competitive as possible for consumers to win.

Sure the “geek” crowd are fine with it. Heaven help Google, or whoever is providing support, if the masses start to adopt it. And what’s the point of they don’t?

Unlike Apple on the iPhone Google can be locked out of Android. It’s the manufacturer/carrier who decides if they want Google services on their Android phone.

Just look at OPhone for example. Google got no control about that type of Androids. http://www.ophonesdn.com/

Well as long as it’s not in Europe, I’ll stick to iPhone.

I disagree that palm is “dead as a doornail”

in the course of 6 months, palm has launched a new operating system, released at least 10 OTA updates (3 fairly major), 2 devices running webOS, brought an app store starting with ~15 apps out of beta with 1000 applications (thanks for the confirmation stc14), and brought the pre to a few countries with more on the way (confirmed verizon in the U.S.).

And, they have done all of this while in bad financial standings and with a very small employee base.

Yes, I will admit, they are throttling the potential of the operating system with an unactivated GPU sitting in the Pre, but they have in the latest update (1.3.5) they lade foundations for this.

Finally, (sorry for dragging this out (: ) they are going to present at CES in a few days. Although we don’t know whether they will unveil webOS 2.0, a Pre 2, or merely more carriers, I have high hopes for them. After all, last year at CES, everyone expected a little show, maybe with a refresh of PalmOS, but Palm shocked everyone, unveiling the Pre, and the unique and clean “Deck of Cards” WebOS.

I personally feel that with WebOS being new, iPhone a marginally unchanged behemoth (with rivals slowly catching up), and Android maturing and spreading, that we won’t have a very clear view of what is to come in the smartphone world until this time next year. This year feels much more like a beginning of change.

You said it, brother. Android is where the apps are at.

It will appear on all kinds of devices; ARM-based phones are just the beginning. And since all their apps are a Java deviant, porting an existing application is a piece of cake (they ported Quake in no time). Not to mention the iPhone development is so locked down it’s a wonder so many apps have been created. As Ankush Shah mentioned above, Google has some licensing issues of its own, but c’mon… development on Android is 100% free, and it’s an open source JVM that runs on Linux for cryin out loud!! It’s the most ideal development environment EVER!

Also, the fact that they’re building a custom JVM AND a custom distribution of Linux may be the reason for the slow development that the author complains about, but I trust that Android’s UI design will soon improve. I also think that Android will end up running faster and lighter than iPhone OS, since Google is paying so much attention to optimization.

I don’t know why the author has so much love for webOS when mobile networks are still so unbearably slow. I wonder if the author realizes that webOS is just Linux with a beefed up Javascript API.

Also, you happen to be wrong. As of new years eve, and at this current time, (having checked my own palm pre) there are exactly 1000 applications in the Palm Pre App Catalog in the United States.

Anyway, this was a very good review of android and google as a whole Rene. I was delighted to see the insight and fair thoughts when judging not only android, but also the iPhone and other major platforms.

Very well done.

This basically makes my Magic a brick anyways without the apps support and need to use a lot of third party apps

Even if 60% of Android’s apps are useless(which is nothing more than Palm fanboy hopes and dreams) and even if all of Palm’s apps are incredible, that still means that there are more than 10 times as many useful apps on Android than Palm. That’s the reason the HTC Hero sells more units than the Palm Pre on Sprint (well that and the Pre’s crappy keyboard), and Palm’s offerings keep dropping in price. You can hope all you want for Palm, it’s a lost cause.

Don’t even mention Blackberry’s app store. Not only is it woefully overshadowed by Android and Apple, but most of it’s apps won’t run as intended on the Storm. The Storm is the only TRUE smartphone Blackberry has (my opinion). The rest are very powerful business messaging phones and little else. The screen size of the other Blackberrys makes them not even in the same league as the iPhone and Android phones, and their UI’s are horrendous- hence the need for the creation of the Storm.

WebOS & Blackberry are well ahead of Android. Which is sad, because I really thought Google might do something special.

It’s just a mobile platform for the Linux desktop crowd

The review said: “I don’t really get the feeling Ballmer cares about Windows Mobile”. This is very true. Windows Mobile has been left derelict for years. WinMo version 6.5 still runs on the same kernel as WinMo 5 did back in 2004. No updates. The kernel is not optimized for any of the new ARM processors, such as Snapdragon. The Snapdragon’s 720p HD video decoding is disabled on all WinMo phones, because Windows Mobile doesn’t recognize it. The old apps with stylus interfaces don’t work with new capacitive screen phones. Even Excel can’t be used effectively on a capacitive device.

Windows Mobile is what you’d call a derelict operating system. It was first abandoned by Microsoft, and now the software developers have abandoned it (its Marketplace store is not expanding).

And you think Android is mediocre?

I agree. I think EVERYONE should borrow some UI flair from Palm. I love the font, the rounded edges, the gray background.

On my G1 I actually have a ROM that has turned my phone into a Pre-Android hybrid. It’s beautiful

enjoy your Stockholm syndrome

So no other company takes your info when you sign up for an email? An online service? Hell..iTunes takes your credit card info just to get into the iTunes Store. So my point is…why is everyone hopping on Google?

@Rene

I think this portion of the Round Robin should’ve been done after the Jan 5 announcement. Because if they are actually going to make the Nexus One the average for which developers and manufacturers start from (since nothing has actually been confirmed yet) then all those thoughts could be settled. For once I agree with you…there seems to be too many thoughts of what Android is. Yet, this only applies to the “with Google” phones. Sense UI and MotoBlur offers enough additions to raise it up to a great experience.

I await N1 because the icons and widgets are finally looking more mature and professional (I hate the kiddy white stock widgets). They’re adding flair to it. I just really want the N1 to be the bar for everyone to start from.

Palm is the one Apple needs to borrow from

That said, there is a lot to love about the Android OS. We all know that Apple isn’t shy about “borrowing” UI elements and other tech they can get away with. I just hope they “borrow” the right elements from Android for iPhone OS 4.0!

I think I’m gonna ban google from my life, especially now that they’re taking info about my life and storing it all. lol. As soon as I find a viable search and email alternative, consider it done.