Ulukai on 9/11/2009 at 17:53
I knew someone would mention that sooner or later :rolleyes:
Only if you've Jailbroken your phone and only if you've installed SSH. And only if you're stupid enough to leave the default password intact, I might add.
If you're savvy enough to Jailbreak your iPhone, I haven't got much sympathy with anyone who leaves the virtual spare key under the doormat by not changing a default password.
SubJeff on 9/11/2009 at 19:24
Maybe I do have expectations, and credit to Apple really since their 3yr old product is still desirable in this fast moving market.
I still want something better and was hoping the Droid would be it. I was hoping the Hero would be it too.
How's the mp3 player on Droid RBJ? Reviews don't rate it highly. I really want an Android app phone but I'd much perfer a good all rounder.
heywood on 9/11/2009 at 23:08
But it's really not a 3 year old product. We're now on the third product in the iPhone line, and feature-wise there's no comparing the current product the original. In fact, to me the iPhone is only just finally becoming desirable.
When it first came out, it was kind of a toyphone with no substance behind the slick interface. It didn't really have any smartphone features except a decent browser. No push email, calender & contact synching, or document readers besides PDF. And no 3rd party apps to fill those voids. Slow GSM modem. No removable or expandable memory. No multi-tasking. Crippled bluetooth. No copy & paste. Even some basic consumer features were missing, like voice dialing, MMS, GPS, audio & video recording. The 3G model was huge improvement last year, but it was still missing some seriously fundamental features that have only recently arrived. Like whoever heard of a camera phone without MMS? Or any phone without voice dialing?
There's still a few more things I'd like to see (OBEX, Flash, multi-tasking, etc.) but it's finally getting to the point where it's becoming a serious alternative for both business and personal use. My contract isn't up until March. Perhaps we'll see more Android phones before then, hopefully supporting multi-touch and Flash. But if not, I'm finally ready to jump on the iPhone bandwagon.
Fafhrd on 10/11/2009 at 04:05
The thing that's great about Android powered phones over the iPhone is that a lot of the functionality that heywood listed gets added in with firmware updates instead of full hardware revisions. For example: A big selling point for the iPhone 3GS was that it could record video. The G1 didn't have video when it launched, but Google added video recording into the 1.5 firmware, and every Android device got it.
And the mostly open nature of Android makes it comparatively easy to jailbreak and get root access to most Android devices, which can be used to add even more functionality. I've got a G1, and I'm running a custom firmware that has multitouch in the browser (the maps app is Google proprietary, so no one's been able to enable multitouch in there), bluetooth file transfer, USB network tethering, applications install to the SD card, Exchange support, FLAC support in the music player, and a handful of other things that aren't in 'official' builds.
And it's only a matter of time for Google to update the AOSP with a 2.0 branch and the hackers to go to work porting that back to the G1, and I'll have a phone that's functionally identical to the Droid (bar some hardware differences. And really, only 22mhz difference between the Moto Droid's processor and the G1. Same amount of ROM, and I can't seem to find anything about how much RAM on the Droid). I really want that new (
http://www.google.com/mobile/navigation/#p=default) Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0. That alone would push Android significantly over the iPhone, in my estimation.
Oh, and Doom was ported to Android by some random hacker MONTHS before Carmack got around to getting it on the iPhone. No multiplayer, but I can install any WAD I want to on it.
thefonz on 10/11/2009 at 06:41
To provide a moderate update; there is no way in hell now I'm going to get an iphone. While the contract situation might be competitive next year when Orange and Vodafone enter the market, the fact that yesterday on the train every motherfucker had one annoyed me and if theres one thing i hate its being a sheep.
Plus I cannot remember the last time I saw someone use the damn brick as an actual phone!
Android sounds really interesting and HTC seem to do nice things with their phones - do we know when Android 2 is released? Its a shame Nokia wont enter that open source software arena as I love their phones but Symbian is utter shite.
Fafhrd on 10/11/2009 at 07:49
Android 2.0 is on the Motorola Droid and HTC Droid Eris already (Stateside, anyway. Don't know about other territories).
It's just taking Google a bit to get around to releasing the source so that older devices (like the G1/Dream, Hero, and MyTouch/Magic) can have it. I think this is because they're treating 2.0 as sort of a massive relaunch of the platform, so they want to push the devices that were built around 2.0 first.
N'Al on 10/11/2009 at 09:55
Quote Posted by thefonz
To provide a moderate update; there is no way in hell now I'm going to get an iphone. While the contract situation might be competitive next year when Orange and Vodafone enter the market, the fact that yesterday on the train every motherfucker had one annoyed me and if theres one thing i hate its being a sheep.
Plus I cannot remember the last time I saw someone use the damn brick as an actual phone!
Damn, I
so should've gone to that TTLG meet last weekend; I would've whipped mine out right in front of your eyes and proceeded to play with it by touching it all over!
...and the phone.
DarkForge on 10/11/2009 at 12:24
Quote Posted by Enchantermon
That said, I don't get the attraction of all of the bells and whistles either. My phone can call, take notes, and has a calender and alarm. And calculator (which I almost never use). That's all I use on it. I don't text (the plan with texting was too expensive, anyway), and I have an iPod nano as my mp3 player, reducing pocket bulge. I don't really need Google Maps, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, TTLG, etc, etc. on my phone. But being able to make calls whenever I need to is quite convenient, especially in a large city where everyone trusts everyone else as far as they can throw them.
But of course, it's not a necessity. If you can get along without a cell phone, more power to you. I got along without one for quite a while.
I am inclined to agree. I remember when people used to buy a mobile to make actual phone calls; all the add-ons such as cameras and Internet and GPS and built-in kettles and the likes just seem more like trivial gimmicks to me as opposed to vital additions. (I should point out that I have no social life whatsoever, so I am pretty biased!) I did carry around an old phone that used to be my sister's, purely to use for emergency calls home and so forth. Barely used it to be honest but it did come in handy from time to time, so I do appreciate the usefulness of having one.
Of course, it went unused for so long that apparently at some point the network deactivated the SIM Card, and to date I haven't been arsed to call them and try to get it back up and running. So back to Square One, I guess.
SubJeff on 10/11/2009 at 12:40
Seems to me that people not interested in phones with extra functions shouldn't be bothering with this thread then.
Totally get you on the sheep thing fonz. And I've played with iphones. Meh.
DarkForge on 10/11/2009 at 12:48
You're probably right. I've no idea how I got here.
