A Note on Android...
So for the past week I've been making use of the new HTC One provided to me by my office. I also have an iPhone 5 I use as my personal device. I am wishing I'd purchased an HTC One as my personal device instead of the iPhone 5 after just a week.
Let me start with the only two (or three) things iOS has going over Android at this point...
Lumping together two different features, I must say that iMessage and Facetime are two features that need to find comparable features in Android. iMessage allows delivery confirmation and, if the user allows, read receipts. I always allow read receipts because I want people to know I've read their message. iMessages are controlled through Apple, not the carrier and therefore don't count toward texting limits, if you have any on your account. Facetime allows you to use the phone number of your contact to call them on a video call and talk, as you might imagine, face to face. While that functionality is provided in some capacity with Skype, you still have to pay for it in many instances and through a different phone number or contact type.
Both iMessage and Facetime make carriers twitchy. iMessages run through Apple's servers and don't count toward your text messaging limit (if you have one). Facetime can use up Data and eat up bandwidth, which could make the money, but over use might slow down network speeds in an area if it's not being used over WiFi. In fact, for a while AT&T wouldn't allow Facetime over their network data - it was WiFi only.
The next item that Apple has an advantage with is waking up the screen to display a notification when a new email or text is received (also based on user preferences so you can turn off and on alert messages). Android doesn't appear to have any such option that I've been able to find. When I get an alert, I have to wake it up and check the notification center to see what I received and see if it's something I need to attend to right away.
Now let's talk about everything else...
Android has surpassed iOS on many levels at this point. The biggest difference between iOS and Android from a visual perspective is the use of widgets on your various screens. These widgets can do anything from give you the date, time and temperature to a breakdown of running processes on your device and what's eating the most CPU power. It might not seem like much, but it's a wicked time saver. Just having you calendar up on your home screen makes a huge difference in your need to jump into different applications to get information. Adding your mail box helps keep you informed on what you really need to read and what can wait without having to launch the mail app to see what those damn little red badges mean.
Because I am able to setup my home screen to provide me with information I like to have quick access to, my interface looks much cleaner than my iPhone home screen with all the little red badges that don't give me any real information.
Yes, there is Notification Center on iOS, but it's clearly not designed well. Everything is too broken up into sections, which makes the list scroll forever when you don't check on things for a day.
The Sense 5 Interface isn't horrible like many of the Android Interfaces I've seen on other manufacturers phones (I'm looking at you, Samsung Galaxy S4), and I'm not certain how important it is to jump over to 4.3 when the phone is currently at 4.2.2.
The one thing I will say between my Nexus 7 and the HTC is that the HTC Mail App is a pile of dung. A horrid, steaming, liquid mess of dung.
Both Apple and Microsoft have missed the boat on virtual keyboards - right now the only game in town on that is Android and that's only because they allow 3rd party keyboards to be installed. Google Keyboard is great, but it's not as good as SwiftKey.
If Apple and Windows Phone (and Windows 8) want to stay competitive in the virtual keyboard arena, they will need to start opening up their API's for third party Keyboards.
Anyway, that's what I have to say on the subject for now. Thank you for tolerating my segue into Android over iOS when this is supposed to be my adventures jumping from Mac to Windows.
I'm beginning to fear that I'm about ready to ditch Apple entirely at this point.
Let me start with the only two (or three) things iOS has going over Android at this point...
Lumping together two different features, I must say that iMessage and Facetime are two features that need to find comparable features in Android. iMessage allows delivery confirmation and, if the user allows, read receipts. I always allow read receipts because I want people to know I've read their message. iMessages are controlled through Apple, not the carrier and therefore don't count toward texting limits, if you have any on your account. Facetime allows you to use the phone number of your contact to call them on a video call and talk, as you might imagine, face to face. While that functionality is provided in some capacity with Skype, you still have to pay for it in many instances and through a different phone number or contact type.
Both iMessage and Facetime make carriers twitchy. iMessages run through Apple's servers and don't count toward your text messaging limit (if you have one). Facetime can use up Data and eat up bandwidth, which could make the money, but over use might slow down network speeds in an area if it's not being used over WiFi. In fact, for a while AT&T wouldn't allow Facetime over their network data - it was WiFi only.
The next item that Apple has an advantage with is waking up the screen to display a notification when a new email or text is received (also based on user preferences so you can turn off and on alert messages). Android doesn't appear to have any such option that I've been able to find. When I get an alert, I have to wake it up and check the notification center to see what I received and see if it's something I need to attend to right away.
Now let's talk about everything else...
Android has surpassed iOS on many levels at this point. The biggest difference between iOS and Android from a visual perspective is the use of widgets on your various screens. These widgets can do anything from give you the date, time and temperature to a breakdown of running processes on your device and what's eating the most CPU power. It might not seem like much, but it's a wicked time saver. Just having you calendar up on your home screen makes a huge difference in your need to jump into different applications to get information. Adding your mail box helps keep you informed on what you really need to read and what can wait without having to launch the mail app to see what those damn little red badges mean.
Because I am able to setup my home screen to provide me with information I like to have quick access to, my interface looks much cleaner than my iPhone home screen with all the little red badges that don't give me any real information.
Yes, there is Notification Center on iOS, but it's clearly not designed well. Everything is too broken up into sections, which makes the list scroll forever when you don't check on things for a day.
The Sense 5 Interface isn't horrible like many of the Android Interfaces I've seen on other manufacturers phones (I'm looking at you, Samsung Galaxy S4), and I'm not certain how important it is to jump over to 4.3 when the phone is currently at 4.2.2.
The one thing I will say between my Nexus 7 and the HTC is that the HTC Mail App is a pile of dung. A horrid, steaming, liquid mess of dung.
Both Apple and Microsoft have missed the boat on virtual keyboards - right now the only game in town on that is Android and that's only because they allow 3rd party keyboards to be installed. Google Keyboard is great, but it's not as good as SwiftKey.
If Apple and Windows Phone (and Windows 8) want to stay competitive in the virtual keyboard arena, they will need to start opening up their API's for third party Keyboards.
Anyway, that's what I have to say on the subject for now. Thank you for tolerating my segue into Android over iOS when this is supposed to be my adventures jumping from Mac to Windows.
I'm beginning to fear that I'm about ready to ditch Apple entirely at this point.
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