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What's so fantastic about Android ?

TheL8Elvis said:
Hmm. I mostly agree. It is my understanding that android really doesn't accept much back in the way of community contributions or patches, so I think that that really limits the amount of 'better' you get out of being open source for most people.

Now, for the community that is using custom ROMs like CM, that opensource is much more important, and the cool changes do make it into that. I am definitely benefiting from that, running cm9 on my touchpad.
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It all basically boils down again to the walled garden argument. Some people like simplicity and "it just works". Others like to tinker and experiment without running into the garden walls. This doesnt mean I'm saying Apple is for 'dumb people'. I work on Linux all day, but run Windows at home - because at home I really can't give a **** about dealing with dependancy hell just cause I want to install a new game or special app.

Its the same thing for Windows vs Mac vs Linux, they're all with their own merits and demerits, but they just attract different audiences.

Like for custom roms, the fact that rooting can be done on android by literally just installing a market-app and pushing butan is really nice if you want to experiment with custom roms without too much hassle, but you can really make it as involved as you want. I havent flashed an iPhone yet, so I don't know how involved it is there.

Personally I flashed cause I love toying with writing jRuby apps on android and playing with the GPS api.
 
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Fishstick said:
It all basically boils down again to the walled garden argument. Some people like simplicity and "it just works". Others like to tinker and experiment without running into the garden walls.
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Would you agree that not being constrained by the walled garden and all the benefits that come with it only affect a few percent of android users, though ?

Or, I guess, conversely: that the vast majority ( > 95%) of android users would benefit from a walled garden.
 
ACtually, I think for the large majority of smartphone users, they don't care what OS is on their phone at all, just that they can do what they want to do. It's the techier geeks that make a distinction between os based on capabilities.
 
mikeyx said:
that segment is stupid.
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And yet that segment can walk into almost any shop selling electrical equipment and buy, for example, a speaker they can slot their iPhone into, or a case for it. The same is not true for those who choose Android phones (like me).
 
Lots of good points brought up already, but no one has mentioned the best thing...

In a few hardware generations, we'll be able to toss around constant Blade Runner references.
 
zooterkin said:
And yet that segment can walk into almost any shop selling electrical equipment and buy, for example, a speaker they can slot their iPhone into, or a case for it. The same is not true for those who choose Android phones (like me).
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Yeah, there's almost no point in shopping for smartphone accessories (sleeves, cradles, ..) in a brick & mortar store, unless you have an iPhone. They'll have two walls of accessories: 1.5 for iphone, and half for blackberries, and maybe some fit-all screen protectors.
 
Stomatopoda said:
Lots of good points brought up already, but no one has mentioned the best thing...

In a few hardware generations, we'll be able to toss around constant Blade Runner references.
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Androids dreaming of electric sheep? Can't we do that already?
 
What's fantastic about Android*? Well this weekend I had an experience that truly was fantastic as far as I am concerned. Was in a store and remembered that we needed new ink cartridges for the printer, so picked-up a multi-pack at £29.99. Was walking to the checkout and thought "Hang on a moment...", I whipped out my phone, clicked on the Amazon app, up pops the Amazon opening screen with a search box and a barcode button, clicked on the barcode button, barcode scanner pops-up, I scan the back of the pack, app looks it up and returns (all in one step) the pack with a list of best prices. One was for £20 including post and packaging, clicked on the "buy" button and placed the order, all in the space of about a minute. (The longest part was having to put in my password for Amazon but I'd rather have that security than not!)

This was the type of thing I was describing to city investors about 10 years when we were listing the company I was a director at, it's fantastic to see it all coming together.




*Would apply to most of today's smartphones no matter what the OS.
 
Darat said:
What's fantastic about Android*? Well this weekend I had an experience that truly was fantastic as far as I am concerned. Was in a store and remembered that we needed new ink cartridges for the printer, so picked-up a multi-pack at £29.99. Was walking to the checkout and thought "Hang on a moment...", I whipped out my phone, clicked on the Amazon app, up pops the Amazon opening screen with a search box and a barcode button, clicked on the barcode button, barcode scanner pops-up, I scan the back of the pack, app looks it up and returns (all in one step) the pack with a list of best prices. One was for £20 including post and packaging, clicked on the "buy" button and placed the order, all in the space of about a minute. (The longest part was having to put in my password for Amazon but I'd rather have that security than not!)

This was the type of thing I was describing to city investors about 10 years when we were listing the company I was a director at, it's fantastic to see it all coming together.




*Would apply to most of today's smartphones no matter what the OS.
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It's really quite amazing how far smartphones have come. For less than a third of the price of a desktop PC you can get a device that fits in your pocket, can browse the web, email, telephone, send texts, watch videos, read books, can be used for 2factor authentication, provide local info, take pictures, overlay web-info over a camera image...
 
What double standard?? :confused:

E: Oh i see now, someone posted this in the apple thread :rolleyes:. Gotta keep the battle going, huh?
 
Darat said:
Er this thread is about Android - I didn't think Apple had any devices that run Android OS do they?
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I mean seriously.

Back on topic. Did you know since the first day they started making them that all the manufacturers of Android tablets have sold over 4 times as many units as Apple sold of the new iPad in its first weekend? Way to go, Android. Fantastic!
 
kajata said:
I mean seriously.

Back on topic. Did you know since the first day they started making them that all the manufacturers of Android tablets have sold over 4 times as many units as Apple sold of the new iPad in its first weekend? Way to go, Android. Fantastic!
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From what I've seen there has only been one Android tablet that in any way was the equal of the iPad and that was the Galaxy 10.thingy. Most of them have been appalling in about every way you can imagine and the Android software they used was simply crap and shouldn't have ever left the development team never mind made it onto an end-user device! When it comes to tablets there is really only one provider at the moment that offers a fantastic tablet and that is Apple. But I think this is a tad off-topic for a thread about Android devices isn't it?
 
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