All Articles Tagged iphone vs android

Verizon’s Motorola DROID, launched November 6, 2009, wasted no time taking it to Apple’s iPhone 3GS, starting with a pre-emptive iDon’t TV commercial that mixed unflattering fact and fiction to appeal to geeks and general consumers alike. Many have now hailed it as the best competition to the iPhone to date, and the first flagship device to match it. Are they right?

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Did Verizon and Motorola forget to include a few things in their iDon’t attack ads, like iDon’t render web pages as slowly or badly, iDon’t arbitrarily restrict the amount of apps users can install to 256MB, iDon’t fail to implement multi-touch, and iDon’t have a worse user experience.

We can’t blame them, of course. They were focusing on the iPhone’s weaknesses, as the geekier among us (nitpickers included!) would have to admit, and not the Droid’s. It was their ad, and fair enough.

However, for those considering the Droid vs. an iPhone, we should lay all the cards on the table. Sure the iPhone lacks a physical keyboard (that irks some users, pleases others), doesn’t have Google Maps Navigation (yet), doesn’t match all the specs, and has issues with App Store approvals (though that doesn’t effect most users). But what about the Droid?

(And no, we don’t mean that horrible devil-red eye graphic that’s kind of the opposite of “not evil” and makes that incessant “DRRROOOOOOIIDDD” chime pretty much indistinguishable from “REDRUM!”)

First, in the perfunctory Browser Battles, it turns out the almost two month old iPhone 3.1 Safari is still king of the mobile mountain, according to MobileCrunch:

On the popular web-standards test known as Acid3, the iPhone scores a 100/100 while the Droid caps out at 93/100. [...] Once you’ve grown accustomed to pinch-zooming, the level of accuracy provided by tap-zooming alone simply doesn’t cut it. [...] The iPhone browser is also considerably faster, with page loads completing anywhere from 15-30% more quickly with both handsets on WiFi.

Second, we all know the Android Market doesn’t have as many apps as the App Store, but maybe that’s a good thing since Android 2.0 still doesn’t fix its app space limitation, leaving Droid with a paltry 256MB for apps according to AndroidandMe.com:

Google does not support installing apps to the SD card (and likely never will), so developers are limited in what they can create. [...] For most applications, we want a small file size to limit the download times. When it comes to 3D games though, we need a ton of space for all the high-res textures, audio, and video. [...] Have you seen all the awesome iPhone and iPod Touch games? Hardly any of them would fit on an Android phone.

This problem, of course, also plagues the Palm webOS and BlackBerry platforms. NokiaExpert and ZDNet’s Matt Miller’s been told it’s a security issue, but does that matter to end users when iPhone’s can go up to (almost) 32GB?

Third, if you’re a fan of the iPhone and iPod touch’s (and Magic Mouse’s!) multi-touch, don’t think the Droid will have your fingers covered. According to Engadget:

As you have probably heard (or guessed), there’s no multitouch on this device. That’s clearly an issue with Android 2.0 and choices that Google is making about user interface

Fourth, the user interface, while definitely an improvement — and maybe even a refreshing change for some — still doesn’t rise to level of usability as the iPhone. Like MobileCrunch (and every other review we’ve seen), we’ve given our iPhones to toddlers and they’ve been able to use them well.

That’s still Apple’s killer app. And that’s likely why, even after going all in on Droid and throwing BlackBerry under the bus (even canceling their BOGO!), Verizon still wants the iPhone…

[Thanks to Tom for the app limit tip!]

More big news for Android — and no, not just HTC finally going 3.5mm with the headphone jacks — but Sony Ericsson’s new “Rachel” Android device and it’s UI.

Hot on the heels of the HTC Hero’s Sense UI, it’s again showing the power and flexibility of Google’s other OS.

Is that model, separating hardware and software development, finally going to pay off in the mobile space? And, ironically, will it be Google rather than Microsoft who realizes it first?

[Android Central via BGR]

Once again validating Dieter’s iPhone 3GS vs. Palm Pre web rendering smackdown, MacRumors reports on Medialets‘ latest Sunspider Javascript tests pitting the iPhone 3GS against the iPhone 3G (both on 3.0 and 2.2.1), Palm Pre, and Google Android G1.

As MacRumors points out, not only is iPhone 3GS’ clear, current speed advantage impressive, but the 3x improvement iPhone 3.0 gives the iPhone 3G is most impressive as well.

Bill Gates’ “power of software” indeed…

Zara from M0bileChic sent in this video, comparing the Apple iPhone against the BlackBerry Storm and Google Android G1. It’s fun, it’s fair, and we can’t let the CrackBerry.com commenters get the last word in so let her — and us — know what you think.

And if you’re hungry for more smartphone vs. smartphone action, check out our last Smartphone Experts Round Robin, where we looked not only at our own iPhone 3G and the Android G1, but the BlackBerry Bold, Palm Treo Pro, and HTC Fuze.

Apple decides which apps get approved for the iPhone/iPod touch App Store, provides little to no transparency on the process, prevents certain things like turn-by-turn GPS outright in the SDK agreement, and — though they’ve yet to use them — maintains black lists for GPS and malware that could remove any LocationServices or entire applications from iPhones everywhere. For this, and more, Apple has earned quite a bit of criticism — and rightly so in many cases.

What if Apple went further, however. They sell officially unlocked iPhones in several regions, like Hong Kong. They also have a program that grants developers tethering abilities for testing. What if, one day, people with unlocked or developer iPhones woke up to find the Paid section of the App Store gone. What would the community reaction be? What should it be?

Google, whose “don’t be evil” motto has been downgraded by management in recent years, is lauded for the openness of their Android Market (even though they’re known to have a kill switch of their ownl — to do otherwise would be irresponsible), yet our friends over at Android Central woke to find themselves in just such a situation this week. Paid apps. Gone.

We’re told it’s because of piracy concerns, that Google thinks developer units of the G1 make it easier for people to steal paid apps. Jeffdc5 on Twitter let us know developer G1 handsets could store apps on the SD memory card in addition to the on-device memory of the regular units, which could make them more pirate-able. However, we’ve seen that the iPhone — with no external memory — can have apps pirated as well, so is that readon enough? It smacks of the same “treat your customers as thieves” thinking that created DRM music, Microsoft Genuine Advantage, Sony rootkits, and Adobe invading our boot sectors…

Apple has already removed DRM from iTunes music, and has now removed product keys from boxed versions of iLife 09 and iWork 09 as well. It seems to be working out none too badly for them.

Openness is definitely A Good Thing. Maybe trust in your user base should be as well?

Our pal Casey over at Android Central, launching off the latest ruminations of GigaOm Malik, on the relative advantages and disadvantages of open source vs. proprietary software models, as straw-man’d into the current tech darlings from Google and Apple: the Android and the iPhone, says:

We can’t deny that the iPhone is wildly successful in spite of (or because of?) their closed, proprietary nature. It’s essentially the dilemma that iPhone users have been trying to find the balance to–the iPhone’s closed nature creates a clean, seamless and synergetic user experience but it often comes at the expense of the freedom of choice. You have to trust Apple enough to play nice and take a leap of faith with the direction of the iPhone.

And the GigaOm-ster sums up:

The reality is that openness is just an attribute -– it’s not an outcome, and customers buy outcomes. They want the entire solution and they want it to work predictability. Only a tiny minority actually cares about how or why it works. It’s little wonder, then, that the two device families that have won the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of consumers, developers and service providers alike (i.e., BlackBerry and iPhone) are the most deeply integrated from a hardware, software and service layer perspective.

Our take? Depends on your baggage. Are you coming at it as a philosophically determined developer or tech pundit who wants to tinker, toggle, and/or get all Stallman/Jobs on it? Or are you the mom of such an individual, someone who thinks FOSS is what you use to clean between your teeth and OS X must be on late night cable for pre-verts? They just want the most basic real-world functionality to work (i.e. make calls, show off baby pics, and play the latest episode of Murder She Wrote (heh)).

Personally, I’ll take the best of both, thank you very much. Let them continue to propel each other ever-forward to the benefit of consumers like us. (And like the Androids, bless their trackball+touchscreen+keyboarded little central robotic cores!)

Apple is set to announce their Q1 results at 5pm EST (2pm PST) and TiPb will bring you any and all iPhone related news that comes of it. In the meantime, analysts are saying that regardless of how well (or poorly?) the iPhone did during the holiday quarter, it did better than the Android G1. Quotes Apple Insider:

Based on polls of recent cellphone buyers, the analyst firm believes T-Mobile USA may have sold upwards of 300,000 of its touchscreen G1 handsets from launch in late October through to the end of 2008. In contrast, even Morgan Stanley’s prediction of about 1.75 million iPhone 3G units sold through AT&T is about 5.9 times greater than what T-Mobile is believed to have managed.

(Note: That’s the US T-Mobile, not the German T-Mobile which is busy boosting iPhone sales with heavy discounts.) Are the analysts right? Is this comparing international Apples to domestic Oranges… er… G1s? We’ll have to wait in see. Regardless of what the iPhone sells, Bullish Cross (via Daring Fireball) reminds us:

Apple’s use of subscription-based accounting for iPhone revenue has significantly hurt its share price — casual investors who are only looking at Apple’s GAAP results don’t realize how much revenue they’ve deferred.

The Reviews of the Android G1 Phone on T-Mobile are out and the verdicts are generally as follows: Partly Cloudy¹, but forecasting big things to come. We’re not going to try to hit every point just yet, but there’s one point where this “Sidekick for Grownups” has what appears to be a real advantage over everybody else: dead-simple cloud setup.

So compared to the iPhone, just how good is the setup on the G1? The answer is: Depends on whether or not you’re a Gmail type of person.

Yeah, “depends” isn’t exactly a clear answer, so follow us after the break for a bit more on whether the G1 is PIM Push Paradise compared to MobileMe’s Mechanized Movement of information.

(¹Sorry, could help myself with that pun)

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Sure, on the surface Google’s Android seems more like a shot through the heart of Windows Mobile — or the head of Palm’s Linux-based OS 2.0 aspirations — but while those platforms enjoy their own historical and market share, it’s Apple’s iPhone that has all the mind share of late. That means, despite Google’s CEO being on the Apple Board of Directors, Google’s Maps, Search, and other services having a prominent place on both devices, and — let’s face it — Google’s full on tech-crush for the iPhone — no one is going to hesitate to pit the two systems head-to-head. Including us!

So, what advantages does each one have? What drawbacks? Here they are, in our opinion: the top five iPhone vs. Android Wins and Losses… after the break!

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