New OS's in the future? - Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General

New OS's in the future? - Windows Mobile Development and Hacking General

Everyone LOVES the iphone.
Even though this is a Windows Mobile forum, we all jump at the chance to have swish finger swipey things running on our phones!
Then when someone comes up with bull threads e.g - I FOUND A STRAY DOG WITH A CIRCUIT BOARD LINKED INTO ITS BRAIN RUNNING IPHONE OS AND PS3 CUSTOM SOFTWARE - etc
......everyone gets excited.
I think the Macishness is leaking into our sacred place and confusing our sensitive minds lol.
I am condeming but I am also running that S2U2 on me Ameo.
Doesnt do anything, but looks like iphone and people love it.
I have never really liked apple...............I found that it was for the girls and guys in our offices who have too much cash. Or people who are not really tech savy, and they are just following the fashion. Unless you started image manipulation before PC's caught up with the MACS and now you are stuck using them.
This has been bred into me from years on a Windows OS. I have seen Apple Macs as restricted fashionable PC's. BUT THINGS ARE CHANGING!
I love the swipey flowing BULLCropola as much as the next person.
I think this is where BIG THINGS things will start to happen for us Windows Mobile users, previously there has never been a huge deal of choice for us in regards to which OS we run on our devices. If we wanted full control of our hardware we needed Win OS. Now days, my Symbian Series 60 Nokia N95 (now hacked to newest firmware etc) is (IMHO) a better "touchless" environment than any Win Mo 6 Standard device I have seen (apart from the lack of querty)
I can do everything on this device that I used to do on my old Smartphone but much faster and easier.
The only things I need my win mo ameo for are for work really. I need VGA out, higher res screen (real VGA mode) so I can use monitor properly. I need USB host for mouse and keyboard and that is it really. When it comes to surfing the net, its obviously much nicer to have a large screen but in terms of the ~OS's ability to handle my usage, Symbian, Apple LG etc are really doing a good job.
For the first time in YEARS and YEARS! I am now looking at other OS's for my next device as well as Win Mo 6/7/8 etc.
My prediction?
In a few years, the XDA brand in this amazing forums name will be a throw back to the past. In the same way that it highlights O2's XDA brand as the devices we all had first, in the future it will highlight the fact that we all started off with only 1 OS - Microsfot Pocket PC 2000!
I wonder how many of us are using/carrying more than 1 device now that runs a different OS? Sony's Nokia's LG's etc......
I am sure there has been a poll recently.........

Well! You are expressing your view on behalf of everyone- which seems inappropriate.
I hate iphone- it's a layman's device as is nokia(Symbain OS).
Programmatically & by all means I personally feel WM's versatility to be the best OS.

Nokia's at not that bad. However most of them are marketed to a different market so they are not really the best to compare.
The Iphone is a piece of kit for fashionistas who are more interested in a phone that looks good rather than anything else. It's general backward technology is lame. Edge? Really? Why?
My almost 3 year old Hermes has more tech in it than the 1 year old --aside perhaps the screen. And its software is a current as the Iphone and can be had for less. Go figure.
And let's not even get into third party apps....
So I guess your guess is more like a rant.

Android seems like a good future platform, you'd have the moddability of WM with the end user experience of in iPhone. Perfect!

duplicate post

Meh
It seems to me that All the Os's are heading in the same direction, technologically and socially.
Camera's
Storage
Fast data connections
Good Screen and Speakers
Input ability.
I find that using my N95 reminds me of my first smartphone.
I am a member of www.symbian-freak.co.uk and the community there reminds me of Win mobile like 8 years ago.
There is a programming language for the S60 called Python which seems very popular and easy to work with, Nokia has a online application signing at present. Due to the rapidly growing number of users I feel that app signing will change in the future for them. At present I have to personally sign any application that I want to run that is not a commercial release.
Now this reminds me of my first SPV canary when we had to disable the certificate checking to allow unauthorised access. It is really REALLY similar, as is the huge list of applications that grows daily, just like when I used to spend all my time here and on www.modaco.com years ago.
Maybe my comparison to the Iphone was a bad one, and I do apologise for making a statement like "everyone loves Iphone" but its the feedback I get from anyone who plays with Safari on the touch or the iphone, no one can say it is hard to use or aggrevating, especially when you compare the same mobile experience with IE or Opera on Mobile 5 or 6.
Web browsing on my V21. N95 is also phenomenal and has full flash lite 3 support.
All the OS's have different stregnths and weaknesses.
I would NEVER have purchased a NOKIA device 2 years ago. I would have laughed.
However, the S60 V3 platform is BIG there are HUGE numbers of users all hacking and developing just like us here. It is now hacked and modable (all security has been disabled), V4 will be a touch screen environment and all the coders and users will be moving over to these new devices and taking experience with them.
I have apps that do many things that maybe the majority of windows mobile users would not believe. I would not have believed it my self really. I have all the streaming apps that I need, I got core player which is as good as if not better than the win mo flavor I got all the Wifi apps, games, god knows what else. There are so many people developing for the devices.
Its the same for the Iphone. Saying that it is a "laymans" device and that it is not as versatile is not the experience that I have had. Once the device is Jailbroken there are many many many apps available and the list is growing every day. There are Multitudes developing and RE'ing the OS...
I think that a lot of the windows mobile users are not aware of the versatility of other OS's and what people are doing right now.
Yeah, I wouldnt buy one(Iphone) for £300 and take on a contract BUT many people would not have bought an original Windows Smartphone running 2000 for probably the same price!
The Iphone is an amazing bit of tech. It is so thin, so light, the battery is great and the screen is great. Yeah, It has EDGE but how long till 3/4g iphones?
I dont think its prudent to compare the tech as it has been packed so well that surely the technology is heading where Win mobile devices are?
I now use my Nokia FAR more than my Ameo but there are things that I have to do on my ameo as the N95 wont do Host USB etc.
As our communities grow larger from year to year, and as more markets become open to these devices we are going to have SO many people "reverse engineering" and "hacking"
I am guessing that there will be more and more killer apps, maybe we will be switching Os's to run these?
Maybe the Hard core users and exploiters will be moving between these devices and moving the OS's between the devices.
Just like "AKSD" says, having modability is very important.
Iphone has thousands of users added to its list every day. The user base is big and growing.
I suppose I was thinking in Cukoo land, expecting things to converge to the point that people are swapping OS's etc especially as Apple etc would not be happy for people to go from device to device but....lol I had a vision....
thinking again, with the open flavor google android......maybe it will be slightly different, maybe different groups of users and developers will all be modding android for their platorms
Just my thoughts.....

Its not so much the operating system on the iphone that is impressive. I happen to have a ipod touch which basically is the same as the iphone but without the phone features. The OS on the iphone is plain and rather boring. What I can do with the HTC touch is worlds more than what most people can do with their iphones. What is impressive with the iphone is the screen. The screen size is bigger than most PDA phones, the ease of use that comes with the screen is impressive. To this day, not one other PDA or phone manufacture has even thought of using the iphone screen on Windows mobile phone. I actually enjoy browsing the net on my ipod touch alot more than any browser I have installed on the Touch (eg. Skyfire, Opera, Piscel, or PIE). Why? Because the screen and the way it flows on the ipod or iphone. Not to mention the fact that the screen happens to be about and inch and a half bigger than most Windows mobile phones. Apple didnt really make a operating system that was better but rather put an operating system on a phone that can handle operations better. I have many friends with iphones that are hacked and their third party software is slowly catching up no where near what WM has. You have to start with the hardware first.

Related

Hope Someone Can Answer This : Why?

an iPod Touch/iPhone can play 3d games, utilise the g-sensor and run smoothly - for example racing games. Tilt the iPhone, the car turns.
Why can't our phones run these sort of games? Or is it just the case they haven't yet been produced?
From what I'm aware a Diamond is more powerful than an iPhone therefore these games "shouldn't" be a problem?
Shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong, just kinda thought there should be iPhone-esque software for these phones now.

I am right with you, i keep thinking the same thing.

Because Apple has crazy fanboys and they provided a simple infrastructure to facilitate payment and downloading (appstore). They also gimped the iphone out of the box so as to pretty much require people to sign up for the appstore if they actually want to use it, ensuring that they have the user base they need for it.
Now the iphone has several million users - how many Diamonds do you think are sold? Windows mobile itself is bigger, but the capabilities of the phones running it vary too much that profiting from making advanced games is as feasible.

I have wondered about this as well. I think the problem is 3 fold
Firstly, the Diamond has 3d and graphics performance issues for sure. Sometimes my Diamond will slow down terribly when running some simple animations. I have read that HTC are notorious for providing poor graphics drivers and this could be part of the reason.
Secondly, I actually dont think Windows Mobile is capable of doing what the iPhone UI is capable of in terms of interactive gaming.
Thirdly, Apple provide your at home developers a great business model to go out and develop great games and apps for the phone. Plus with the Appstore they know that if they develop something good, people will see it - there is only one place to get apps from - and the developer will make money.
For me, the iPhone is not the right phone, but I would love Windows Mobile and HTC to be able to do what the iPhone and Apple can do.

The iPhone has v-sync, so the 3d graphics are drawn smoothly with no tearing and sadly win mo just does not. At least that is what my mate said who is a games developer. The power is there but you just can't get it to the wheels! This just makes it fundamentally unappealing to a lot of developers.

yeah totally agree, i love the diamond, but i've been using windows mobile for years now, and each new model HAS generally got better and better. however the iPhone is just something else.. for people who aren't nerds and into mucking around iwth their phone etc, i could never recommend a windows mobile over an iPhone. its just so much more polished compared to the diamond.
i'm an AMD fan too, godamnit why do i always have to back the underdog

Yes, even though i have a diamond and have had great fun tweaking it, i still can't help but envy the iPhone users for their graphically superior games and video playback prowess .
Another explanation would be that iPhone games are developed solely for... u guessed it, iPhones! ...whereas WinMo games have to be developed to run across many different devices, with (or lack of) accelerometers, touch screens etc. Therefore, to achieve this interoperability / compatibility across the many different devices, compromises have to be made.
That said, there are still gd games for our beloved devices, my favourite being PDAMill, whom develop aesthetically pleasing games with intuitive controls, and they're cheap too.

Nudge.
So all in all, will it become possible? And what's vsync? Portable to diamonds?

I think V sync is something to do with the way images are drawn to the screen, and it is just not implemented in win mo, I don't know if it could be written into the drivers or of it is a hardware thing, but then I don't actually have a clue what I'm talking about! Can anyone confirm this?

vsync actually makes bad performance even worse since it forces the back buffer to wait until right after a screen refresh before it copies its data to the frame buffer.
it's great if the device is capable of rendering an FPS that is higher than the refresh rate, but in the diamond case it's just another fps thief

if you want games like iphone get an ipod touch. The diamond never advertised gaming as a capability. Think of it this way: The iphone is like a mac with mediocre hardware but also comes with a mid range video card. The diamond/touch pro are like PC's with raging motherboard/cpu/ram combo, but bottom entry level video card. You can get a lot done with the PC, but the fun factor lies in the mac.
Go buy virtual pool mobile, it runs great and it's very fun. Its the best pool video game ive ever seen actually.

Simple reason
The reason to me is simple: Apple cares about user experience. Just look at win mobile contacts, or explorer. Do you think this software is made for 2008-2009 hardware? Now look at iphone's ones... Seriously, Microsoft has the power to make good things for mobile users, but they released win mo 6.1 one year ago, which is mainly the same OS that existed in 2003.
Silly we when we buy pocketpc running on windows mobile.

Just to revive a dead thread for quite a good reason..
I've seen a few videos on Youtube and also a few write ups on the wonderful Tinterweb in relation to Windows Mobile devices running and successfully playing iPhone games through emulation.
Is this just simple hear-say or fake ? I've been thinking for a long time about focusing simply on making the graphical capabilities of the diamond better through customising the graphics drivers. That's the main flaw for me.
According to a few posts the graphics card has 64MB dedicated memory.. is this right?
If so, these things SHOULD be capable of running bloody good games but the drivers are just nowhere near good enough. I did hear about changing to ATI drivers - is this right? If so, where can I find the info on this cause I would like to maybe bash at hybrid-combining the drivers and modifying them a bit as to allow maybe a bit more fluid graphics. If you check one of my other posts on the Diamond, I've been complaining about split-graphics. It's really getting on my nerves as I'd rather just see a full picture move around my screen fluidly. None of this "split it up" rubbish.
Cheers

Driver dev
This seems to be a good thread with most/all of the available drivers posted.

well I have been enjoying copy + paste and fully working GPS on my Diamond ever since
now why hasn't Apple offered this so far?
I guess each company chooses their own battles

glumetu said:
well I have been enjoying copy + paste and fully working GPS on my Diamond ever since
now why hasn't Apple offered this so far?
I guess each company chooses their own battles
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hrrm.. In the new 3.0 SDK update for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch which will be released soon there is copy and paste + redo.. in a very stylish and functional way.
And there will be mms + almost every single function that the iPhone was lacking before + some more.. many, many new stuff for improved gaming, new OS improvements etc.
I watched the presentation on the apple website..

Shoddy_me said:
Hrrm.. In the new 3.0 SDK update for iPhone 3G and iPod Touch which will be released soon there is copy and paste + redo.. in a very stylish and functional way.
And there will be mms + almost every single function that the iPhone was lacking before + some more.. many, many new stuff for improved gaming, new OS improvements etc.
I watched the presentation on the apple website..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stuff that should have been released last year. The only reason Apple is releasing it when they are is because people's 2 year contracts are starting to expire, and Apple wants to try and persuade them from leaving by finally giving them features they've been demanding from day 1.
Honestly, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I knew Apple would do that.

Heres my question:
Smart phones and windows mobile operating system have been around for something like, oh, 15 years now. Why is it some EMO company like Apple releases a phone (badly I might add) and it becomes THE Benchmark for mobile devices? Its just purely unbelievable to me that so many people obsess over "well the iphone can do this, and it can do that.. I want my ______ to do what the iphone does..." If you like the turd and all its glory so much, why don't you just buy one and get it over with??

the iphone is so easy to use, thats why so many people bought one. when everyone has something, it becomes the norm to judge other things by. think of the model t from ford

Model T?
Confused.com. Is that the foreign (for me) Focus? lol
Anyways, I've looked about and the ATI drivers have given me the power boost I'm happy with. However - My images are still split on the screen.
Still trying to get this fixed...

Jumping ship to the new iPhone?

You don't have to read this, you can just vote.
Ok, we have all heard about OS 3.0.
Faster, multi - tasking, A2DP, other bluetooth improvements such as file transfer, MMS, video capture, onboard video editing software included, etc..
The new iPhone to be released end of June is also going to have a few hardware changes. Have heard that it is 16 to 32 gb, that there is a 5mp autofocus camera with a quality lens on back, and a 3mp on the front (compared to our VGA), thinner (of course, pretty much a guarantee), possible bigger and sharper screen, etc...
It seems to me as if Apple has really (unlike MS) done what a company should...analyze the competition (primarily Android but also webOS and RIM), and redesign and improve their product accordingly. They have gotten rid of pretty muh all of the stupid annoyances, made it faster and smaller, and given developers much more access to different system level things for their apps, along with about a million other changes and improvements that you can and probably have read about. I am also really thinking that they will have good integration with things such as facebook, gmail, and outlook.
I really think there will be no question and that it truly will be the #1 device really without any competition. The only competition I can see is maybe something such as the HTC Magic that is thinner, has a larger, higher res screen, and comes stock with unbranded Android 1.5 (such as some of the HTC line up we have seen).
I just DESPERATELY hope that Apple isn't so stupid and naiive as to not put on MORE BUTTONS! Buttons are always better...always having to quit what you're doing and go back to the home screen to do ANYTHING would drive me insane...I love texting on my HD, then pulling up the phone and calling someone, sticking it on speaker, then going back to texting...that's not too much to ask I don't think.
So vote!
As for what I'm doing. I am jumping ship to the new iPhone. If I find it doesn't satisfy me, I will sell it and get the best Android handset I can find. Hopefully something like the Magic, but thinner, having a bigger, more high res screen, and comes stock with unbranded Android 1.5. If no new non - keyboard Anroid handsets are out by that time...Magic it is! (if it is ever released)

im gonna have to see the official specs and the actual device before i decide anything,if what is mentioned is true then perhaps. but im looking more at the Palm Pre than the iPhone, we will see

Ok, firstly MS is doing something about it, they are working on two new OSs at the moment, secondly its not MS that makes the phone, this is the problem and the holy grail with WM phones, firstly its a problem because MS has no say what hardware is used with its OS, this means like its desktop cousin it needs to support many things well and i believe to an extent it achieves this, but it doesnt excel at any of them. Its the holy grail because with the Iphone, you get 1 phone, 1 set of gear, 1 design for every possible usage, with WM devices you get exactly what you want because you have the choice to choose different phones, different specs and design for your needs.
Im leaving out Android here for 1 reason, it sucks, no no hear me out, apple has a HUGH following with its iPods which translate in to potential iPhone sales, android has a "bunch of Hippies" style of following, they are not classy, they are not even that good but its an alternative to the evil of Microsoft and ties of Apple which makes then appeal to others and thats fair enough, its a market as good as any.
But here is the reason ill be sticking with my Microsoft Windows Mobile based PDA, it works, it works fairly quick, it looks as good as an iPhone and i can install pretty much anything i want on it. Weres Tomtom for android or the Iphone? where is memory Map? where is the ease of use when syncing with Outlook? wheres Igo8? core player? world card mobile? the various language programs? all my security and tracking programs, the million and 1 apps available on the net, free or paid that have a propper support base if it all goes wrong, data retrivel?
some of those i use every day, i use many others every day, and yes there may be alternatives for some, but unless i can get them ALL working on one of the other two devices ill not change because i need them all and thats as simple as it gets.
With a desktop OS you can dual boot or virtual PC it, an thats fine if thats your thng, but you cant do that at the moment on the PDA and even if you could i doubt i would because its a hassle i can do without, WM works and works well enough and im sure its only going to get better.

And what will be the screen resolution of new iPhone?
Current iPhone is a no go for me - with such low screen resolution reading eBooks and surfing the internet is really, really bad.

Waiting eagerly for the new iPhone so definitely jumping ship...
I've got a Mac and syncing is nearly impossible. I've tried all sort of apps but none worked perfectly. I really need to sync address book and calendar and I've had enough of transferring mp3 files one by one, artwork not working etc etc.
the mp3 function is very important for me and the iPhone is perfect for that.
only problem I've got is I don't like the iPhone's current design. It's so 2 years ago. Hopefully they'll come up with a nice sleek design.

Why are Windows Mobile Apps falling behind IPhone ones?
One of the things that has always interest me when making such a decision is: What do developers think? How do they view developing for iPhone versus for winmo platform?
To gain insight into the thinking of developers, including some rather big names in winmo application development, you guys might want to read these extremely interesting threads:
http://www.4winmobile.com/forums/ed...s-mobile-apps-falling-behind-iphone-ones.html
and
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=6481405#post6481405

dazza9075 said:
Ok, firstly MS is doing something about it, they are working on two new OSs at the moment, secondly its not MS that makes the phone, this is the problem and the holy grail with WM phones, firstly its a problem because MS has no say what hardware is used with its OS, this means like its desktop cousin it needs to support many things well and i believe to an extent it achieves this, but it doesnt excel at any of them. Its the holy grail because with the Iphone, you get 1 phone, 1 set of gear, 1 design for every possible usage, with WM devices you get exactly what you want because you have the choice to choose different phones, different specs and design for your needs.
Im leaving out Android here for 1 reason, it sucks, no no hear me out, apple has a HUGH following with its iPods which translate in to potential iPhone sales, android has a "bunch of Hippies" style of following, they are not classy, they are not even that good but its an alternative to the evil of Microsoft and ties of Apple which makes then appeal to others and thats fair enough, its a market as good as any.
But here is the reason ill be sticking with my Microsoft Windows Mobile based PDA, it works, it works fairly quick, it looks as good as an iPhone and i can install pretty much anything i want on it. Weres Tomtom for android or the Iphone? where is memory Map? where is the ease of use when syncing with Outlook? wheres Igo8? core player? world card mobile? the various language programs? all my security and tracking programs, the million and 1 apps available on the net, free or paid that have a propper support base if it all goes wrong, data retrivel?
some of those i use every day, i use many others every day, and yes there may be alternatives for some, but unless i can get them ALL working on one of the other two devices ill not change because i need them all and thats as simple as it gets.
With a desktop OS you can dual boot or virtual PC it, an thats fine if thats your thng, but you cant do that at the moment on the PDA and even if you could i doubt i would because its a hassle i can do without, WM works and works well enough and im sure its only going to get better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. We all know MS is doing something about it. But we also all know that virtually all MS products suck. We also all know that MS is SLOOOW...therefore (like I said), by the time winmo 7 is released, it will already be behind. It will be released around 3rd quarter 2010...that's ridiculous. Another year from now Android will no longer be so new, and Apple will have put out something entirely new as they know ppl will be getting tired of iPhone by then. Not to mention what RIM and Nokia will be doing.
2. Where is the basis that Android sucks? It is faster than WM, that much is for sure. It is also more customizable. It is more modern. 3rd party app support does not make an OS good or bad....your argument that they suck cuz they don't have apps is no good to me. Sure it can make or break the success of the OS but...that's got nothing to do with the OS itself. Android has a LOT on WM and WM has...virtually nothing on Android. It looks ancient, it runs ancient, and it's that simple. I think we can all agree on that last line there.
3. "android has a "bunch of Hippies" style of following, they are not classy, they are not even that good"
- Gotta admit that you really lost me there.
4. Windows Mobile is in fact rather slow, even on good hardware with good drivers.
5. Windows Mobile crashes all the time even fresh after a hard reset, no apps installed, on an official ROM (just like the desktop Windows!)
6. iPhone has better syncing solutions that ActiveSync and Outlook.
7. Just FYI to all reading this...I am a Windows user and have been for years (all my life). I am not an outsider looking in and criticizing Windows w/o due reason and experience. I recently installed OSX86 on my PC however and...it truly is really nice. MS sucks. Bottom line, and there is really no avoiding it.
8. All OS's have pro's and cons. There are just as many if not more arguments against all your arguments for Windows Mobile. My point is simply that the new iPhone truly is a lot better than any Windows Mobile device running the latest WM 6.5.
MrYdude said:
And what will be the screen resolution of new iPhone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No kidding. Couldn't agree more. Coming from a Touch HD and having looked at a lot of friends iPhones...their screens look terrible when reading text (altho they do have 16 million colors compared to our 65,000. Side note: Android also has 16 million colors).
Sadly though I have read that they plan not to change the resolution in order to keep all apps usable. I reallly hope not.

It's true, MS does not have any influence on the phone hardware.
However, an operating system's success is not about hardware potential or software potential or about a combination of both: it's about a tangible offer of potentially attractive software which can be easily obtained via a single entry point, i.e. an APP STORE. That's currently the BIGGEST drawback of the WM platform. I love the customization part of WM but it took me ages to get there. Many users won't take that road and therefore go for the iphone.
There's also a lock-in effect to this -> More users to an OS platform means that developing for that platform gets attractive, thus attracting developers and making the apps offer even more powerful. That in turn increases the chances of attracting new users to the platform, etc.
Honestly, considering all this, do you really a 50 megapixel camera or a nVidia Geforce 8800 GTX in your phone ?? What about all the already hidden potential in your phones which never gets explored because developers and users do not get a realistic chance to discover all of its limitations ?

I'm pretty sure that the new iPhone does not support multi-tasking, you're still stuck to doing one thing at a time. I believe Apples official unofficial stand on it is that they spent way too much time and money on their failed push notifications, and they're not going to allow multi-tasking. (Apple does not like to say it's wrong...and if they would release multi-tasking, I'm sure they'll call it something else, and put a patent on it for no reason).

You know what...
I just love the WM and WM based devices.
They have ALL i need
They are fully customizable and have fully multitasking support.
With iPhone, you will get what it is, and you will get stucked with iTunes and online store
Many iPhone apps (though looks amazing) are not so usable
I just need functionality much more then a great user interface
Peace all

Well i won't go for the Iphone i have my HD and i'm stuck on it to change something that good you need to buy something "special" and from the looks of it the new Iphone will be a bit better than the last one so why do i give a great amount of money to switch to something "a bit" better.Let's see Palm Pre and other Android devices now the market will be devided not only for WM an Iphone but Android and Palm OS also so i won't hurry to go for the new stuff as you can never know which one is better until you try them for at lesat 4-6 months maybe even more....so let's wait and see "newer" is not the same as "better" .

andes83 said:
Well i won't go for the Iphone i have my HD and i'm stuck on it to change something that good you need to buy something "special" and from the looks of it the new Iphone will be a bit better than the last one so why do i give a great amount of money to switch to something "a bit" better.Let's see Palm Pre and other Android devices now the market will be devided not only for WM an Iphone but Android and Palm OS also so i won't hurry to go for the new stuff as you can never know which one is better until you try them for at lesat 4-6 months maybe even more....so let's wait and see "newer" is not the same as "better" .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I really think it is going to be more than "a bit better".
As you saw there are hundreds of features and fixes in the new OS, plus new hardware changes such has considerably better CPU, double the RAM, better camera, thinner etc..

iori said:
You know what...
I just love the WM and WM based devices.
They have ALL i need
They are fully customizable and have fully multitasking support.
With iPhone, you will get what it is, and you will get stucked with iTunes and online store
Many iPhone apps (though looks amazing) are not so usable
I just need functionality much more then a great user interface
Peace all
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iori,
There are lots of misconceptions about iPhone, so I don't blame you for having incomplete or wrong information.
iPhone is extremley customizable too, and you too can have multitasking once jailbroken. Therefore, you do not get what it is - you get what you want it to be. You don't get stucked with iTunes and online store. You get the benefit but you can also get things outside iTune and online store.
Whoever gives you the idea that the iPhone aplls are not useable does not know what he is talking about. When app store was first available, many low quality applications did get listed. Not anymore. Whether you're an advanced IT network adminstrator, sales executives, finance director, web site marketer, shipping agent, there are really nice applications for you. Trust me on this one. Don't just anyhow believe people who tells you that iPhone is just a toy and winmo is for corporate use. iPhone can be as corporate as you want it to be.
Cheers.

Anyway, iPhone is still quite poor on the GPS domain.
6 or 7 apps (park lane, radar, around me, traffic, etc) to do all that my iGO can natively do... and still no turn-by-turn soft buyable on the iPhone.
I want a real all in one, and neither the actual iPhone or the next one won't be a real one. My friends who own an iphone have all get a specific GPS, and well, everything's said...

Roupette said:
Anyway, iPhone is still quite poor on the GPS domain.
6 or 7 apps (park lane, radar, around me, traffic, etc) to do all that my iGO can natively do... and still no turn-by-turn soft buyable on the iPhone.
I want a real all in one, and neither the actual iPhone or the next one won't be a real one. My friends who own an iphone have all get a specific GPS, and well, everything's said...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, that's tue still. If you're in US, there is an application called G-Map, which on the surface looks quite decent, but nothing outside US yet. However, this is expected to change with Firmware 3.0. The reason why there was none in the past was because Apple did not allow any such application, thanks to their stupid policy. Respectable company like Tom Tom would of course refuse to release it into the "underground" cydia store. With the policy change by Apple, TomTom is expected there soon.
I'm all for having everything in one device too, and GPS has been a sore point for me. The other sore point is the fixed battery, but that I can accept because iPHone's battery life is not bad.

1, im sorry but your statment about everything MS produces are rubbish, is in fact rubbish, i cant comment what you do with your PC / Mobile but i rarely have system crashes, on my mobile i cant even remember the last time i was forced to do a hard reset, on my desktop im using one of the most stable OSs ive ever used and its BETA! I do agree it takes them time to produce the software and i do agree that in the past SOME of their projects are flakey but not all.
"2. Where is the basis that Android sucks?"
You miss the point of an OS here, if nothing good works on an OS NO ONE will use it, its that simple, If i cant use the programs i need then that OS is useless to me, it may have a place in the linux following groups who challenge everything MS and claim to be better than everything else but in the real world if i cant use what i want to use its useless. MS also has a massive software base including various distribution sites, some free some not, everything is cated for. Android looks no better than my WM device with Touch flo, its no quicker, i know this because i have both of them sitting in front of me.
Because something is more modern doesnt make it good, take the Pentium 4 over Pentium 3 as an example. but i agree android IS more customizable
"Android has a LOT on WM and WM has...virtually nothing on Android"
Really? a LOT is a big statement that i bet you cant quantify with factual information and not hand back subjective reviews and "feelings" about things.
"It looks ancient,"
The core OS does yes, but tell me, is android not a Shell over a command line? i believe it is, So technically the core OS on android looks crap too but thats just nit picking!
"it runs ancient"
that makes no sence, only and new programs work on it fine, quick and responsive so what makes an OS ancient?
3. "android has a "bunch of Hippies" style of following, they are not classy, they are not even that good"
- Gotta admit that you really lost me there.
Ah yes i was refering to Linux and its intresting cult of followers but i retract that statement as it was below the belt.
"4. Windows Mobile is in fact rather slow, even on good hardware with good drivers."
nope, it isnt to me, graphics wise its slow compared to hardware excelerated devices, whats bizzar is that the phone can still pump out ok graphics on its CPU and still multi task, if qualcomm released graphics drivers for many of the 7xxx based chipsets i think you will find a near perfect device. but even without that it works....just!
"5. Windows Mobile crashes all the time even fresh after a hard reset, no apps installed, on an official ROM (just like the desktop Windows!)"
I really cant comment, since WM2002 ive not had that on a multitude of different devices. and Windows doesnt do that either, perhaps the common denominator here is the user.
"6. iPhone has better syncing solutions that ActiveSync and Outlook."
quantify please?
"7. Just FYI to all reading this...I am a Windows user and have been for years (all my life). I am not an outsider looking in and criticizing Windows w/o due reason and experience. I recently installed OSX86 on my PC however and...it truly is really nice"
I too have used Linux, OSX and all the different versions of Windows and they have there places i do agree that in different markets different OS's suit different people. but tell me which one of those is the best for all markets all be it perhaps not as good as the other OS's designed for those markets?
"MS sucks. "
you lose all credibility with that statment attact a spacific product if you choose but to say Apple sucks or MS sucks is crazy and wrong.
"Bottom line, and there is really no avoiding it.
8. All OS's have pro's and cons. There are just as many if not more arguments against all your arguments for Windows Mobile. My point is simply that the new iPhone truly is a lot better than any Windows Mobile device running the latest WM 6.5."
You started off well there, but lost it at the end, PROVE to me that the new OS is better on the Iphone? without using speculation and subjective views an opinions.
I believe MS will be increasing the colour depth on the new devices but i doubt it will make any significate difference, except in its speed. what the WM based devices need is some new tech that uses resistive screens without the 70% (about that) loss of light, that in turn would increase battery life. Dont say capacitive screens, a stylus can be very useful, but definitely a combination of the two somehow.

there are 3 killers for me with the iphone
1. no gps (it has a chip but nothing other than gimmickey apps for it)
2. resolution too small
3. no multi tasking - if I can't listen to mp3's while driving on my bluetooth stereo whilst having TomTom tell me where to go its no good.
Now we know that the new iPhone is gonna ship with TomTom but unless they sort the other 2 issues I wont even be looking at it, let alone ditching my beloved HD.

lancemate said:
there are 3 killers for me with the iphone
1. no gps (it has a chip but nothing other than gimmickey apps for it)
2. resolution too small
3. no multi tasking - if I can't listen to mp3's while driving on my bluetooth stereo whilst having TomTom tell me where to go its no good.
Now we know that the new iPhone is gonna ship with TomTom but unless they sort the other 2 issues I wont even be looking at it, let alone ditching my beloved HD.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi Lancemate,
How do we know that the new iPhone is gonna ship with Tom Tom? I must have missed that information somewhere.
I'm too disappointed with Steve Jobs for not providing multitasking. So, looks like we still have to jailbreak to get that.
HD's resolution is very nice. No doubt about it. Although vast majority of the applications (phone, weather, music player for example) would not really miss this. Web surfing is in my mind a leading exception, as it would be nice to be able to clearly read the font without zooming in. It is for me a compromise, although an acceptable one for myself. I guess one has to take everything into account (multitouch vs resistive, number of applications available, speed, smoothness, stability, user interface, etc) and decide for oneself if such a compromise is worth it.

its all over the internet mate and has been for a while
example
http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._0_app_highlights_tomtom_gps_line_6_more.html

lancemate said:
its all over the internet mate and has been for a while
example
http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._0_app_highlights_tomtom_gps_line_6_more.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm aware Tom Tom and Navigon will be available, but as separate purchase rather than being shipped with the phone. Guess I misunderstood what you said. Thanks anyway.

Is the Androind OS and the N1 overrated? I think it is!

FIRST: the intention of this post it not to flame. These is just my point of view and I would love to hear some other people’s point of view.
This is just an observation from a real cell phone junkie who is coming from WinMo and iPhone to android and is a bit disappointed.
It just feels like the Android platform is overrated and half baked. While it has its “Google apps” advantage, most of the other parts of it are seriously lacking.
Coming from an iPhone(which I hated because of apple’s dictatorship and because it feels like a dumbphone) and the HD2, which is a brilliant device with a very capable OS which has stability issues and lack of new useful apps development, I wanted to try something new with Android. It should have been the prefect mix between openness and development of new useful apps (which WinMo lacks). So far I have been nothing but disappointed.
Some of the issue I noticed and why I think Android is really overrated are:
- Very low end apps. Most of them are poorly designed and unstable. There are a few good apps but none from the major players.
- BUGGY apps!!! One of the reason WinMo was failing is because of cross device support for apps. Apps that would work on one device would not work on another because of different hardware chipsets. I was sure that Google would see this is a point of failure and will make sure this won’t happen with Android. WRONG: almost every app I downloaded has bugs and is not working properly with the N1 and if you just read the comments for the various apps you see the horror. So many people complain about FC’s and instability of the apps. This means that Google simply failed in this area and there is no real cross device support. Each app needs to be tweaked to work on each hardware set to get it right. This is going to be a huge point of failure for the platform.
- Crippled copy and paste. Seriously? You can’t copy and paste from everywhere in version 2.1??? didn’t they learn from apple?
- No built in Tethering. Again this is OS version 2.1 and there is no tethering option unless you root you phone.
- Feels sluggish at time: even on a 1Ghz processor the phone does feel sluggish at time (and yes I close my apps with task manager). Some say it is because the RAM was not fully utilized in this OS. Why have Google released a phone that suppose to have 512MB RAM with only half active? Didn’t they think it would cause bad experience?
- Very poor multimedia support: and I mean VERY poor. Even the built in YouTube Video player will not rescale the video to show on the entire screen if the video was not encoded specifically to the N1 resolution, not to mention other video apps who will NEVER show videos at full screen as they were designed for lower resolutions. There is really no way to watch DIVX or XVID and everything needs to be converted. There are dozens of media players on the market and NONE can do either tasks! And yxflash, the only player that can supposedly play DIVX is doing such a poor job it is a joke. WinMo has ONE player that beats all dozens on the android market. I read somewhere it isrelated to the SDK being very limited in Multimedia. I find it hard to believe that Google is trying to compete with apple witch such a poor Multimedia support. I even purchased OrbLive and the picture quality is extremely poor because they were forced to use the only codec that Android can support for streaming which is 3gp and has very poor quality.
- No big brand name apps: Skype, Sling and many other big brands are simply not there. I know you can use Fring as an alternative (or Nimbuzz) but both are very buggy and have delay when using skype calling. You also can’t turn off the screen when you use the VOIP apps as it is causing the sound to break.
- VPN: very poor support. I can’t get the connection to stay connected while it works just fine on the HD2 and iPhone. The latest software update from Google completely broke VPN support and now it won’t connect at all.
- There is no real way to backup all you apps AND settings of the apps unless you have rooted your phone. If you want to upgrade your ROM or change ROM’s you need to reinstall everything (unless you are rooted and then you can backup your apps settings as well). This is something that should be implemented out of the box. WinMo has exactly the same problem.
- Failure in the gaming area. There are maybe 20 good games on the Market that actually use OpenGL 3d. other games look like they are from the mid 90s. I was hoping to see better games on Android than on WinMo. I guess I was wrong here as well.
I wanted to like Android, I really did, and maybe it will get better with time, however currently it has exactly the issues as WinMo phones has (buggy apps mainly, some OS slowdowns ) and if Google is not going to address these issues they will find themselves in the same position as Microsoft is finding itself now.
For now I’ll have to go back using my HD2 and just wait until Android gets a little better and more usable for me. I just really don’t understand people hate WinMo so much if Android is not much better (at least from my consumer standpoint).
Thanks for reading.

Number one reason and the only one I need to hate WinMo is Internet Exploder. It's broken badly. They had better fix this in 7 or they are done. The fact that you have to use a third party browser to do anything useful is total BS.
I think for most people, who don't want to think to hard, Iphone OS is probably a better choice. The interface is dead simple and there are a ton of apps. Most people won't realize that they are being fenced in.

The majority of your rambling is about apps. I don't think anyone overrates Android's app catalog. Everyone knows it's much smaller than the iPhone's.
It's not overrated in the way that people tend to praise it, which is openness and customization.

I agree on IE but like the fact that you can chose various browsers.

App support is dreadful compared to the Iphone but you have to look at the sales figures in ITMS vs. Market; $ = incentive. Yes right now it's apples and oranges but when someone is researching what device to buy and what carrier to swear allegiance to for 2 years, there are certain variables considered.
Take a heavy facebook user. The iphone fbook app is solid. Yes it has issues, but compared to the android solution, there is no contest. The fact that you have to use m.facebook.com when linking from your notifications panel in android is quite unacceptable (just one of many issues people have brought up). Pandora on the iphone is also quite a bit better than on android.
I disagree in regards to your comment about the phone being snappy. I have my old iphone 3g and my nexus 1 sitting side by side and real world feel says that the n1 wins in performance.
For me there are two things I wish were present with the nexus one/androidOS that are present on the iphone.
1 - app support. That is targeting android.
2 - the keyboard. For some reason I can type far more accurately and with greater speed on the iphone than on my n1. Not a deal breaker at all
You bring up tethering. There is no native tethering on the iphone without jailbreaking or paying for an app (pdanet) for the official stateside carrier (att). Your nexus one has the ability to install pdanet and you can tether all you want at a small price. Of course, you can root your phone and suddenly this ask is satisfied; just like jailbreaking and updating your carrier file.
If you want to talk about setbacks; how about the lack of MMS for the first gen iphones while the 3g/3gs both have this. No reason whatsoever to not include the functionality in the 2g other than slow deprecation of support for the phone...that just sucks.
There are plenty of solid games in Market for your device. I had to watch a video "50 android games" to be made aware of quite a few of these tiles.
For me, nothing you wrote kept me from migrating back to android after spending a year with an iphone (g1->iphone->n1; the entire time I had the iphone I missed my g1) But I am not the target audience device manufs are going after...almost nobody here is.
All your points are valid and are what the atypical customer thinks about, cares about and bases their monetary decisions on.
Good post

deprecate said:
App support is dreadful compared to the Iphone but you have to look at the sales figures in ITMS vs. Market; $ = incentive. Yes right now it's apples and oranges but when someone is researching what device to buy and what carrier to swear allegiance to for 2 years, there are certain variables considered.
Take a heavy facebook user. The iphone fbook app is solid. Yes it has issues, but compared to the android solution, there is no contest. The fact that you have to use m.facebook.com when linking from your notifications panel in android is quite unacceptable (just one of many issues people have brought up). Pandora on the iphone is also quite a bit better than on android.
I disagree in regards to your comment about the phone being snappy. I have my old iphone 3g and my nexus 1 sitting side by side and real world feel says that the n1 wins in performance.
For me there are two things I wish were present with the nexus one/androidOS that are present on the iphone.
1 - app support. That is targeting android.
2 - the keyboard. For some reason I can type far more accurately and with greater speed on the iphone than on my n1. Not a deal breaker at all
You bring up tethering. There is no native tethering on the iphone without jailbreaking or paying for an app (pdanet) for the official stateside carrier (att). Your nexus one has the ability to install pdanet and you can tether all you want at a small price. Of course, you can root your phone and suddenly this ask is satisfied; just like jailbreaking and updating your carrier file.
If you want to talk about setbacks; how about the lack of MMS for the first gen iphones while the 3g/3gs both have this. No reason whatsoever to not include the functionality in the 2g other than slow deprecation of support for the phone...that just sucks.
There are plenty of solid games in Market for your device. I had to watch a video "50 android games" to be made aware of quite a few of these tiles.
For me, nothing you wrote kept me from migrating back to android after spending a year with an iphone (g1->iphone->n1; the entire time I had the iphone I missed my g1) But I am not the target audience device manufs are going after...almost nobody here is.
All your points are valid and are what the atypical customer thinks about, cares about and bases their monetary decisions on.
Good post
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for all the replies.
However please keep in mind that in my original post, i was hardly making any comparison to the iPhone and at the end of my post i stated that i am going back to the HD2 . The iPhone is the last platform i am going back to, even with all the apps. i Just cant keep with the Apple / Jailbreakers game and all the limitations.
You do have native tethering on the iPhone, only it is disabled because at&t does not want you to have it. in other countries it works out of the box. no Jailbreak needed.
I agree that market share = incentive for developers however i am a bit worried that with the current state of the SDK, we will see the same old issues with cross device support for apps, and this is exactly where WinMo failed and the iPhone won (because there is only one device to support (chipset wise), so far)
If only the apps that are in the market now would work better, my point of view will be much different.
I want to use Skype, OK there is no real skype app so i tried to use Fring...DELAY on the call. unusable. I tried to use Nimbuzz, it is better but you cant turn off the screen so the battery dies fast.
I want to watch a movie > need to convert.
I want to watch live TV > there is still not a single app that can actually do this. ORB's app is really bad at the current version.
I want to tether > need to root (i am ok with this) but wireless tether never connected to my laptop. unusable. Wired tether worked fine.
I did watch the 50 best games on Android Video and the are in par with WinMo's games and so far WinMo is giving better usability. but the OS is not so stable hehe...
I guess there is no perfect phone.
Overall is the lack of actual functionally is what killed it for me. I hope it will get better in the future and then i can give it another try

as you said, there is no perfect phone. but give it a little time, android is only a year old after all. i for one have little to no problems with FCs from any of the apps i'm using, so it also depends on what you like to do with your phone.
my main issue atm. is the lack of good bluetooth enabled voice dialing (and lack of any voice dialing at all for non-english users).
and the pet peeve would be the missing framework for the trackball colors.
other than that i'm really enjoiying the relative openess of the platform, and having cyanogen as a developer

Tether without root with PDAnet. This program works great.

Looks like the OP need's to have a read over yonder
There's also been a great deal of talk in the development forum regarding new openGL support in 2.0.
App space has been limited in android and thats a factor, but this is being resolved and we will start to see more 'pretty' applications, but I would argue that android has just as many useful and good applications as the iPhone.

The ONLY windows mobile device that I would trade my Nexus One for is an HD2. It'd be a tough decision though. My touch pro 2 was fun from a customization stand point because I seemed to flash a new rom at least once every couple of days. However, it was painful to use, it was slow, required frequent restarts, work-arounds galore, etc etc. Android may have some bugs, but I have far less trouble with day to day use with my Nexus than I did with my TP2. The hardware power of the HD2 would probably alleviate the thing that killed the TP2 for me and that was the annoying speed (or lack thereof).
Iphone OS is boring, but it works reliably. Safari mobile on my Ipod touch is a great browsing experience (nexus is better though, simply due to the power).
The only major problem I have with Android 2.1 on my nexus is its lack of full exchange support. However, if I really cared that much about it I would drop the $20 to get Touchdown and be done with it. Oh, and I would really love it if a full version of Epocrates made its way to android sometime soon.
This is of course for my uses, and in my experience. Therefore, I am just adding my opinion to the bunch...

Firstly, how can you say the N1 is laggy? Seriously? Especially compared to a WinMo device, and even the iPhone 3GS. The N1 is hands down the fastest smart phone I have ever used, whether it be my own personally owned smart phone, or one I was testing for work. Most actions are instant or near instant in their result, and the only time I find myself waiting at all is when data transfer from the network is involved, and it does that faster on my N1 than any other phone I have tried! Actually, I can load some websites faster than my computer, and I am not talking about sites that use flash either.
Secondly, yes a 1 year old OS platform does not have the same level of app support that a 4 year old platform has(iPhone/iTouch) or a decade old platform (WM). However, it is an open source platform that is growing quickly. While not all 15K apps are perfect for every device, this is true of the WM platform and the iPhone platform. There are plenty of great apps, that don't reqiure root.
Thirdly, the Android OS supports the same media playback functions as the iPhone OS... and actually can handle more in some regards. The N1 will have native flash support someday(hopefully very soon), where as Apple has picked a fight with Adobe, and likely never will have flash support. To say the Android OS, and the N1 falls short in multi-media compared to the iPhone is ignorant, to say the least. WM does support more formats, but at the same time that is a result of a OS in developement a lot longer than Android, as well the current Android OS can support Divx, et al, but companies like CorePlayer do not want to make an app until this support is in the SDK natively, and CorePlayer has pointed out they are working closely with Google, and it looks as though Android 2.5(Froyo).
Fourthly, as someone that sells cell phones for a living, the Android OS is the best smart phone OS for me to sell to consumers by a long ways. It is much more functional than the BB OS, yet maintains the ease of use. iPhone OS lacks most of the top smart phone functions, and WinMo is too slow and buggy. While 3rd party apps are not perfect, this is true of any platform, and at least with Android it will force close instead of freeze the phone. As well, the apps that are quality work very well and blow most other stuff out of the water, ie CameraFX. I have yet to have a customer complain that a free app wasn't working right... nor complain that the phones were buggy.

I was someone that came from winmo.
Android is much more polished than wimo, but it's barebones out of the box.
Winmo is much more packed with utilities out of the box, but lacks the polish of android.
That has alot to do with the timeframes of when these things derived. Android thrives on the "there's an app for that!" ecosystem.
Up until winmo (6.1?) there was no place to just get a quick app, so MS had to implement more things to give a better out of box experience. Too bad they lacked cleanliness.

Yes, Android has bugs and Yes, Market is poor compared to iPhone. But if you sum things up, I think Android wins. And Nexus wins as well, since I has the best hardware on the market today (or one of the best) 1Ghz CPU + AMOLED display + big resolution

Sorry, double post.

- There is no real way to backup all you apps AND settings of the apps unless you have rooted your phone. If you want to upgrade your ROM or change ROM’s you need to reinstall everything (unless you are rooted and then you can backup your apps settings as well). This is something that should be implemented out of the box. WinMo has exactly the same problem.
Give the market a closer look, and download MyBackup - it does indeed backup apps and settings, along with other things like bookmarks, contacts, the usual. This is the only point I could point out from your post without having to go into extensive detail ._.

As well, to add to my last post, there is multi-phone support with the apps and the Android OS... if this wasn't so, why would the Moto apps work on the Nexus One? While an app written for Android 1.0/1.5/1.6 might not work on 2.1 perfectly, this does not change the fact an app written with the 2.1 SDK will work on any phone running 2.1(actually, SDK 2.0+ will work with any 2.0+ phone, minus live wallpapers.)
But that is to be expected, just as an app written for iPhone OS 1.0 won't work properly with 3.1.3, or WM5.0 apps won't work with WM6.5 properly.

Isn't this a pointless debate.
It like like trying to debate good vs evil, butter vs margarine, pro-choice vs pro-life?
He seems to have come up with his own very logical, sound reasons why and why not android is over rated. There are countless arguments for both sides and I've read all 15 post of this. Android like the iPhone OS like Windows, like symbian all have their strong and weak points. No perfect phone OS out there. But rather whiny and complain of this and that maybe improve it, like some of the really great developers here which advances Android OS and make it great for all of us users.
In the end do I care if you move to Window mobile...not really. Hope you are happy. Move on. Have a nice life.

amen sir

this thread is only worthy of a one line reply. ...

Well... Having never used a WinMo device. I can't argue that side of things... I owned a Blackberry (NEVER again!!!!), and I own an iPod Touch. Sure, the iTouch isn't the phone, but they're certainly one in the same. My iTouch is jailbroken btw.
With that said, I've never owned a better overall device than the N1. Don't get me wrong, it has its quirks and issues. But man, this thing IS my Media Player, my GPS, my overall entertainment "finder" (Where/Places/Aloqa), Grocery Lists, Forum browser (I'd say I'm 50/50 with Phone and PC while surfing web and forums now).
Sure, the apps could use some work... But, with quality devices being placed on the market, the apps WILL follow. Realize that the main reason the apps market isn't bigger, is because of the strangle-hold that Apple currently has on the market. Many Devs have invested into Apple development and have customers there. It's hard to talk them into changing their ways. In time, they'll sure move over to Android though.
With that said, the apps I get... Work for me. Just the basics: Handcent, Meebo, Car Home, Where/Places, "OurGroceries", Mixzing (Still not my ideal choice, but it gets the job done for now... And yes, I've tried Meridian, nemoPlayer, Stock, and TuneWiki), "Listen", and so on.
Yes, I've deleted as many apps as I still have on my phone (Many more than listed above)... But I've stuck with some that get the job done. If I could ask for only 2 other apps, it'd be Mint.com and Audible.com... Otherwise, I can be content in knowing I have my ideal communication device, with some GPS goodness, and it plays through my car speakers wirelessly.
So no... I don't consider it overrated, but rather too young. It'll mature in time.

Windows fanboy has committed a crime

Right I want to be honest here and admit to my crime. I have been the biggest winmo fan for as many years as I can remember. In fact since the Compaq Ipaq first product. Prior to that I was a dedicated Psion fan from the Psion Organiser 2 so I have been round the block a bit. I have also owned probably more than 100 devices! I have always purchased the next best device on the first day you could get it paying over the odds. I think you get the picture.
Now people in my office are Mac fans and I have listened to them bleating on about their IPhones and have spent my life making fun of their choice of toy smartphones. At first it was easy with all the silly faults the IPhone clearly had. Crap camera, No cut and paste, No MMS, No video, No Exchange email
Recently my wife has gone over the the dark side against my advice. I have spent years telling her just how crap the IPhone is because I love(d) winmo but.............
After days of playing with my wifes IPhone 3gs I realised just how wrong I possibly was. Yes there was faults still with the OS but frankly they were much less than I thought. I started comparing it to my clunky, totally unreliable, buggy and frankly pathetically over responsive screen of my Touch HD2 and had to decide to buy myself and IPhone an give it a try (I mean I could always go back couldnt I) so.........
I went out and purchased an IPhone 3gs last week and I am sorry to say that it is simply head shoulders, body and tail better than any windows device I have ever tried.
I have spent the last week chuckling to myself about how stupid and ignorant I have been and how lucky I am to have made the move. The IPhone is awesome. Its operating system is unflappable and never crashes or falters or slows down.
The apps (and there is a ridiculously massive choice) just work flawlessly. Some of the things I thought were faults are not so bad (background apps not working) and although it would be nice if it had a camera as good as the HD2 (it doesn't), I wouldnt sell my Iphone for any windows device. In fact I cannot believe anyone wouldnt feel exactly the same if they tried one.
I know its a cop out having enjoyed installing new roms etc for years but seriously I urge every one of you to try one. You may feel just like me if you do. It would take something special to get me back to windows mobile and HTC should be ashamed of themselves for releasing the HD2 with so many bugs. Having had so many HTC devices I feel a little betrayed that they didnt get this one right and it made me switch to the DARK SIDE!!!
For me I doubt there is ever any going back now. I am writing this just so other can experience the pure OS and hardware pleasure that is the IPhone.

I have had iPhone 3g and still own a 3gs along with a blackstone and a leo.
You are right about the fast & stable system of the iphone os & its hard to decide to leave the iphone once you fell in love with it (Thats why i still have the 3gs, cant decide )
The problem lies within the operating system and not the device. Its the Microsoft windows which is the culprit and not the htc device. Have you ever used a mac. It is way more faster, stable & safe than the Windows PC even mac having lower specs as compared to windows pc.
HD2 has great specs but the same damn system running behind it.
I wonder if there is a way to run iphone os on htc hd2 ?????
I've read somewhere on the net that people had tried to run mac os on windows pc with success. Have my fingers crossed.
Best of luck with your 3gs

Hm...i have to wonder if you seriously played / configured / flashed your HD2 or if you just judge by the stock rom experience?
With an up to date 6.5.3 rom, i don't see any problems with the HD2. You praise the iphone OS, yet compared to WM, there is hardly any accessible OS. The iPhone is a grid of shortcuts that each launch a program. Nothing else to do there, nothing much to tweak, to setup. It's perfect for your wife i am sure, but you as a former WM user,... are you sure you will not get bored? The greatest pleasure of my HD2 is flashing new roms and trying new tweaks, hacks and themes. I can personalize it more than any iPhone user could personalize their iPhone! That's what makes it great. In terms of performance, again, an up to date WM6.5.3 rom does neither lag nor run slow in any way. On top of that you have a screen with a vastly higher resolution. I would not want to downgrade from WVGA any longer.
Bottom line: Yes the iPhone has lots of apps, no they are not all useful, and yes you can do similar things on WM. It just requires more knowledge and work, which us XDA users do have, i think!

i have both the 3gs and HD2 .. both are great but the 3gs has the EDGE-
/T

Yes I agree but the hardware is some part of the problem. I had a HTC Touch Pro2 previous the the HD2 and could type perfectly on the screen without using the hardware keyboard. Switching to the Touch HD2 I expected it to be great with the new capacitive screen but it wasnt. Despite various patches and having the knowledge to be able to try various roms I still couldnt get it to type reliably at a decent speed. It was just rubbish. That was the same Winmo version I had on my Touch Pro2!
I agree the form factor on a HD2 is great but spoiled by some dodgy hardware and s**te software in hindsight. The Iphone OS is great and it makes me wonder if I have been as wrong about Macs as I have about Iphones. I am going to have a play on the Mac in our office now!

Yes in fact I tried about 5 different roms. I did also try ones with 6.5.3 but they were no better. I also tried two different HD2's as I purchased a second on a contract for my wife then sold it and purchased her the Iphone.
I know what you mean about getting bored and I also agree about the grid. Its a shame you cant organise it better but they are tiny faults I feel to the incredible ownership experience. Its early days having it only a week but my HD2 was driving me mad at this point. I found myself verbally complimenting the Iphone while I was out in the garden listing to music today. I know I must be going a bit mad but I am deleriously delighted about the Iphone so far.

stuartforrest said:
Yes I agree but the hardware is some part of the problem. I had a HTC Touch Pro2 previous the the HD2 and could type perfectly on the screen without using the hardware keyboard. Switching to the Touch HD2 I expected it to be great with the new capacitive screen but it wasnt. Despite various patches and having the knowledge to be able to try various roms I still couldnt get it to type reliably at a decent speed. It was just rubbish. That was the same Winmo version I had on my Touch Pro2!
I agree the form factor on a HD2 is great but spoiled by some dodgy hardware and s**te software in hindsight. The Iphone OS is great and it makes me wonder if I have been as wrong about Macs as I have about Iphones. I am going to have a play on the Mac in our office now!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
did steve jobs need to create 4 screen names to say the same thing?

Yawn. Good for you. Whatever.
So how is this a general HD2 thread? Please let this drivel die now, rather than later when it turns into a slanging match, because that is clearly what the OP intends.
Have fun kids.

and in fact I have to say that when my iphone arrived I was still very unsure if I had done the right thing but once you play with one for a few days its then you realise. There are little things everywhere that make you smile. Type a url that is longer than the box and the font reduces to fit it on screen, try selecting something and the magnifying glass pops up to make it easy etc etc. The list goes on and on and I expect that Apple will keep adding to rom's. Microsoft have done next to nothing with theirs in ten years!

I was only trying to let others know my experience. I have been a member on here for years and contributing so this is no flash in the pan posting. Anyway think what you like. I have been totally honest but you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink!

stuartforrest said:
I was only trying to let others know my experience. I have been a member on here for years and contributing so this is no flash in the pan posting. Anyway think what you like. I have been totally honest but you can lead a horse to water but not make it drink!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not getting into it mate. Say whatever you like.

my local prison has an excellent reputation for good food, brilliant sporting facilities and cable tv in every cell, but I'm not moving in!

johncmolyneux said:
I'm not getting into it mate. Say whatever you like.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, let's be perfectly honest here : there is not a single Windows Mobile device on the market that can match and the general responsiveness, consistency and easy of use of an iPhone 3GS. Nor the consistent UI experience or simplicity - sure, Windows Mobile may have more options and abilities to tweak and mess with, but to dismiss the iPhone would be a stupid thing to do.
It's got very nice hardware, with and extremely well written OS underneath - it lakcs things yes, but what it does have, it usually out performs that of Windows Mobile, avaliable on the market today, and for many people iPhone 3GS would be a much better choice than any Windows Mobile phone, there's no getting around that whether you like it or not. As much as I dislike the saying, "it just works". It's something that you can apply far more easily to an iPhone than a WinMo device.
Still though, it's not fore everyone, and I'm quite happy to have a device with an inconsistent UI, spats of Lag and random freezes, as long as it does it's job as a phone. Am I satisfied with my HTC HD2? Not really. Would I be more satisfied with the experience of an iPhone. Probably. Would I buy one? Hell no

I know it's a difficult one but then typing my reply and watching the screen scroll around while I type is just class.
I felt exactly the same for a while. I am not totally trying to put down the HD2. I have spent weeks telling everyone in my office that it was an IPhone but without all the faults but I was wrong. Actually it's like an Iphone but with a really poor os. The screen isn't as good on the iPhone but it just used more cleverly. The lack of background apps is just stupid on the iPhone but mostly its just great.

Just out of interest I also purchased a motorola milestone (droid) expecting android to be good but frankly it was truly awful. Windows mobile was a breath of fresh air after using that horror for a single day!

Closing this as relevant points now made.
WB

Windows phone vs Android

A little off-topic guys.
Christmas is coming and telephone operators are throwing really very "nasty" offers. I have a choice to get Samsung Galaxy S2 or Nokia Lumia 800 for 0€. Inspite of really nice SG2 phone I'm so tempted to get to Microsoft camp and get a taste of Mango. Damn it's hard to decide.
The only big drawback of Nokia phone I find is missing option of usb mass storage. So dumb! What they were thinking off?
SG2 only drawback is that it's already getting old, and yeah, it's Android
Nokia Lumia 800
Samsung Galaxy S2
Your choice?

Keep the Hero
If I need to choose betwein those 2, the android one, but I would not pick either.

Thanks for your opinion. I would pick Galaxy Nexus, but unfortunately it is out of my budget.

whitealien said:
Thanks for your opinion. I would pick Galaxy Nexus, but unfortunately it is out of my budget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is the one I want, not that any pocket in any pants I got is big enough for it. The hero hardly fits and no not really a handbag person... And yes I am tiny.. so I got tiny pants
---------- Post added at 09:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:52 PM ----------
Just want to add something. How I think on getting new stuff. If I want something new. I want to make sure it is the thing that I want. And not a thing that is maybe cheaper but not the thing that I want. In this case that is an android phone that runs 2.3 I do not want that. I want to start with 4.0. But some say the GPS on the Nexus is crap. Not that I know of. but I will see what I will get in like 4 months or so. Happy with this device.

I would pick android. Think of what has made ur hero last this long. It is because you can tweak and customize it and upgrade to newer os versions even though it's old.
sent with love from me to you

LOL you shouldn't have to think about that really IMHO.. The lumia is plainly UGLY and windows phone is CRAP.. the sgs2 all the way. Android hands down mate, plus the sgs2 beats the lumia specs wise too. It's a win win situation.

Tenpin said:
LOL you shouldn't have to think about that really IMHO.. The lumia is plainly UGLY and windows phone is CRAP.. the sgs2 all the way. Android hands down mate, plus the sgs2 beats the lumia specs wise too. It's a win win situation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dude the lumia is absolutely GORGEOUS! It's so pretty I am genuinely considering dealing with all the poor specs just to wrap my unworthy hands around it.

I just can't give a serieus answer, isn't it obvious which one to choose? SGS II is better in every way and believe me when windows phone 8.0 comes out you are going to be so sorry for choosing the lumia instead of the SGS II, in the future you can update the SGS II with and without a custom rom to android 4.0 and up. There aint much to think about just saying..

Lumia is a nice phone and Mango has sorted much of the issues with wp 7, though on long run (2 yrs) i'm considering if i'd be happy with it. kinda in the same spot looking what to get, but i'm between Sensation and incredible S (affordable) on the android front and Lumia and Titan on the wp7 front.

I would pick Samsung Galaxy S2 ... just because i don't like the interface of a Windows Phone . The OS is ugly as hell, I was in a store last week looking at some phones and I almost puked after 30 seconds of looking at Windows Phones but I recovered while looking at the Home Screen of my HTC Hero. Android's interface is great and by far the best... but that's my opinion and everyone likes different things.

Stick to Android alot more customizable
Even though m getting a sensation still wanna learn more abt Android, n my hero is probably the best testing ground
Sent from my Hero using xda premium

The sgs2 is an awesome phone, but have you considered the new Sony erricson? The arc s.. it's in your budget and with a whopping 1.4ghz processor and impressive looks in comparison to the sgs2 you can't go wrong
Sent from my Hero using xda premium

I would go for SGS2 as it is still among the best android phone available atm.
Plus, there is plenty of development interest going on for SGS2, with lot's of flashing around so you won't be bored for a long time.
It still has got the best available specs for hardwarewise.
It does not have the Arc's dreaded housing crack problem.
It does not have the HTC's Sensation and like models of dust under the screen as faced by some users.
The only thing you may miss is there's no Sense.
Or..if not
Just grab the one that has got the highest resale value.
Sell it off when it's new to finance your purchase of your dream phone (a Galaxy Nexus perhaps?).

Don't dismiss WP7 until you've tried it. I think windows phone has got a bad reputation from previous versions but after using WP7 on a HTC Mozart I think that it is incredible. It is so unique and I only know one other person who has one. For me, I think I'm going towards WP7

There is serious reason I want to quit Android camp.
The problem with android is that it is too open. There is a limit with providing good SDK and allowing to make apps based only on it or allowing to do whatever you want and making crapload of ****. Android programmer base is so dumb, they don't know anything about performance or battery optimization or background task handling. Android market is blunt loaded with web page scrappers, wrappers and xml parsers. To make a some mobile web page wrapper takes me 5 min and some don't even have any shame to ask money for that. Majority of Android app devs are just amateurs, weekend java programmers or ex web developers with no any clue what mobile platform is and that there is some limit in available RAM, processing power, storage and etc.
Android market maybe is a lot bigger than windows market, but when you look at quality then we come down to the same number or even worse.
Sorry for rant, but 2 years ago I put big fate in Android and Google which totally failed me by providing competitive mobile platform. Android, even with ICS 4.0 today is still 2 years behind iOS and now also WM7. They need 2 dual core most powerful CPUs in a world to accomplish the same task what WM7 can do with single core and half RAM and even then they fail.
Oh well .....

iOS vs Android vs Window Phone
This is a major problem these days. I was thinking to get a new phone these days to...so i spent a lot of time in reading about the new features the platforms have to offer and it seems that there are lot of tiny parts in every os that make every day use to be more exciting and easy.
I will start to make a comparison on every os on what is has or what's missing
1.Windows Phone
-it's snappy
-interesting interface
-facebook and tweeter integrated
-easy to use
-microsoft servers with 30 GB space to store media
-no OTA updates
-no usb storage (you need a program to do that)
-limited hardware (this is because microsoft made a decision on this part)
-multitasking is not in real time
-the number of app is limited (~35k)
-not open sourced...so if your phone gets old, it's harder to make some custom roms
2.Android
-snappy but sometimes laggy
-usb storage
-full customization of the screens
-real time multitasking
-since 4.0 we have a better browsing experience
-lot's of app
-easy to make a rom or flash one
-Google apps (Maps + navigation = damn i'm in love )
-the new gen of phones get big screens and that's very stupid (as lira said...it can't fit in the pocket and i fully agree)
-i hate the part when a new version of android appears and it takes months to get an updated phone
-in some roms we have to much apps from the developer (take htc for example)
-i think the system needs better and better hardware so you can get a better experience
3.iOs
-snappy
-the os with the biggets number of apps
-very easy to use
-every new version can be installed after it appears (if your phone can handle it)
-since we talk about iOs we talk about iphone and on thing that i like is that is has a 3.5 screen
-it has siri and it's fun and useful
-good browsing
-no usb storage...but i heard that you don't need iTunes if you need to transfer a document or things like that (not sure there)
-no customization on the screen, just icons of the programs that you have
-no OTA updates
-can't make a custom rom
@ every rom - maybe i missed some stuff
@whitealien -> not into nokia (WP7.5) since it has stupid limitation and to much social stuff (i don't use facebook or things like that)
-SGS II is a good phone, lot's of people use it and want it and since i know some friends that had an iPhone and now have a SGS II and are more pleased with it
-sometimes i think why buy a phone and not a tablet, that's better thank a phone from more points : starting from gaming and finishing with watching movies.
The choice is your...i'm tempted to get a new phone and change the platform to see new things but i realize that android gets new and new features every day.
I think that it's better to wait for the release of the SGS III and the new qualcomm S4 chips or tegra III on phones [but why need these chips when you can do your every day use with a dual core phone without any problems??]
@ all: - Why not a HTC phone?
Stefan

stefpaul said:
@ all: - Why not a HTC phone?
Stefan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
always a HTC phone if android,i've dropped my hero from the first floor of my house it was fine,it went tumbling down the stairs twice n still survived,it was thrown against a wall by a friend when we were drunk n it survived damn this thing has been hardcore,i manhandle my phone like **** n it survives xD my frnds galaxy s2 fell from his pocket while sitting on a chair and display got fked xD

Thanks Steff for your opinion.
-no OTA updates
-no usb storage (you need a program to do that)
-limited hardware (this is because microsoft made a decision on this part)
-multitasking is not in real time
-the number of app is limited (~35k)
-not open sourced...so if your phone gets old, it's harder to make some custom roms
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I will a little argue with this. No OTA updates - there is updates and Nokia is taking it very serious. They just rolled one out on 7 dec.
- limited HW, you mean a little outdated? Thats true, only single core and 512RAM, but seems to be enough
- multitasking is not in real time - not entirely true, it depends how apps are programmed. They can work in bg if they are programmed to
- the number of app is limited (~35k) - are you serious , I never had more than 50 apps installed
- my very 1st smartphone was HTC Touch Polaris with WM6.5 so I know what closed source is
I found 5 major flaws in Lumia 800
1. only 16Gb integrated storage
2. no usb mass storage
3. no front camera (really, these days?)
4. no notification LEDS, not even one single led, lol.
5. Pentile Amoled display
And yeah SG2 is not perfect too. Build quality is so poor. Back cover is cheap and fragile. Have seen broken ones. Also whole construction is fragile, including big screen. Don't ever put it in your jeans back pocket or you will regret
@ all: - Why not a HTC phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, if they were not obsessed with huge phones, enormous screens, poor battery life, sad build style (all gray or black) and somehow over blunted Sense (comon, why there is weather animation everywhere, even in lockscreen) maybe I would go HTC. My 1st idea was to take HTC Radar, but at closer look I find it kinda too big for offered screen size (the bottom part is so long). White is cool so.

bharat_goku said:
always a HTC phone if android,i've dropped my hero from the first floor of my house it was fine,it went tumbling down the stairs twice n still survived,it was thrown against a wall by a friend when we were drunk n it survived damn this thing has been hardcore,i manhandle my phone like **** n it survives xD my frnds galaxy s2 fell from his pocket while sitting on a chair and display got fked xD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm htc for the reason that the android experience is more fun and not so common to most of the android phones:d, and it has some feature that make using android a special one
whitealien said:
Thanks Steff for your opinion.
I will a little argue with this. No OTA updates - there is updates and Nokia is taking it very serious. They just rolled one out on 7 dec.
- limited HW, you mean a little outdated? Thats true, only single core and 512RAM, but seems to be enough
- multitasking is not in real time - not entirely true, it depends how apps are programmed. They can work in bg if they are programmed to
- the number of app is limited (~35k) - are you serious , I never had more than 50 apps installed
- my very 1st smartphone was HTC Touch Polaris with WM6.5 so I know what closed source is
I found 5 major flaws in Lumia 800
1. only 16Gb integrated storage
2. no usb mass storage
3. no front camera (really, these days?)
4. no notification LEDS, not even one single led, lol.
5. Pentile Amoled display
And yeah SG2 is not perfect too. Build quality is so poor. Back cover is cheap and fragile. Have seen broken ones. Also whole construction is fragile, including big screen. Don't ever put it in your jeans back pocket or you will regret
Well, if they were not obsessed with huge phones, enormous screens, poor battery life, sad build style (all gray or black) and somehow over blunted Sense (comon, why there is weather animation everywhere, even in lockscreen) maybe I would go HTC. My 1st idea was to take HTC Radar, but at closer look I find it kinda too big for offered screen size (the bottom part is so long). White is cool so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
will argue to you because on the apps: the most important apps in the market are missing if you look close the first apps will appear on iOS first and after that on android and last WP... but it seems that they are starting to get in the same time on android with iOS...
I was thinking on a a HTC radar too but it's not so speedy... and from the part that hardware is old, this isn't a problem, it's a thing made by microsoft and it seems that apps work very well:d
I have a big problem with phones these days...the app that don't make me use them: HTC HUB, HTC LIKES, FACEBOOK INTEGRATION and stupid app that most people don't use))
And there comes a part in life when you don't want a custom rum, just a rom that is fast and responsive...
So the big question is: if i change from android to iOS or WP7...will i be happy than i was with android?

Stefan

stefpaul said:
Hmm htc for the reason that the android experience is more fun and not so common to most of the android phones:d, and it has some feature that make using android a special one
will argue to you because on the apps: the most important apps in the market are missing if you look close the first apps will appear on iOS first and after that on android and last WP... but it seems that they are starting to get in the same time on android with iOS...
I was thinking on a a HTC radar too but it's not so speedy... and from the part that hardware is old, this isn't a problem, it's a thing made by microsoft and it seems that apps work very well:d
I have a big problem with phones these days...the app that don't make me use them: HTC HUB, HTC LIKES, FACEBOOK INTEGRATION and stupid app that most people don't use))
And there comes a part in life when you don't want a custom rum, just a rom that is fast and responsive...
So the big question is: if i change from android to iOS or WP7...will i be happy than i was with android?

Stefan
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
<rant>
you will not be as happy if you leave android imho.
I'm surprised this is even a serious discussion.
Here are my personal reasons why I say that, after using ios and android devices full time professionally for a while and briefly dabbling in winphone7:
It's becoming increasingly accepted by unpartial reviewer and testers...
(except by:
those who have never used android for a useful length of time
or for those who are looking for very simple user experience without any interest in customization or for "power user" features
)
... that iOS is quite inferior to Android in many ways.
Apple notifications were almost useless until ios 5 and even now are only scratching the surface of what android notifications provide.
ios gives you app icons on your home screen. that's it. no widgets or spaces or custom layouts or sources of useful dynamic information (other htan completely USELESS counters on each icon showing outstanding notification events that have passed wihtout your knowledge because of how crappy iOS's notifications are).
ios gives you no customization other than crappy ordering control which is forgetful
I work wtih an ipad daily and it is a PAIN IN THE ASS - I have learned to hate iOS, specially for tablets or power users, but even for a phone os it is truly annoying and very limited.
windows phone is cool but also limiting, very very limiting, and has rather poor app support at the moment compared to either of the big ones.
there are several reasons why android has become the most popular mobile phone OS - and it isn't just because google gives it away for free.
It's also because Android is the only one that is fully customizable. windows phone is SORT of but not nearly as truly customizable as android.
IMHO the windows phone launcher fake app for android (in the market) is actually superior to the real windows phone device I was playing with because it supported android widgets. But if you want to try out windows phone 7, get that launcher - it truly does give you the winphone7 experience with all it's boring limitations.
the thing that's great about apple devices is the huge and still superior application/game support (if you spend the bucks or jailbreak it then install installous and cydia).
I used to say that iOS was better for little kids. but my little kids (2 and 5 at the time) used android tablets without ANY trouble at all. my little kids (now 3 and 6) use an iPAD without many issues either but do get confused when holding a finger too long on an icon and then out of hte blue they all start wiggling and next thing I know apps are being deleted by little fingers. Android turns out to be far more intuitive in this regard compared to iOS. sometimes dumbing down the OS can be taken to the point of making it more complex to understand. It's an either or situation here, but typically in other ways I do think iOS is easier for very very simplistic minds to accept. This should not be a benefit for anyone here however LoL.
the thing that makes android superior for adults is it's ability to be completely and easily customized for everyone who uses it. it's YOUR phone, use it how you like. don't let apple tell you that you can't sync on this computer wtih this itunes on this day in this weather - I swear to god it is nearly that flaky and limiting to use iOS devices. you have music on your phone and want to copy it to your friend's phone? nope. you want your frien'ds music? nope. not unless you're lugging your laptop around so you can copy the files to/from your itunes folder, NOT directly to/from the device.
also android has a free terminal emulator app in the market. it works perfectly and runs bash as well as my desktop. iOS runs somehting similar but makes it incredibly hard to get that sort of control, even after jailbreaking and installing tons of underground apps it is still a kludgy and unreliable bash prompt control system you get in ios which requires a separate terminal emulator to control it (even a term app on your same device will get you there, but that alone is pretty annoying to have to deal with since you first have to actually get your low level underlying linux type system working on the iOS device....)
maybe some of my iOS negative points are improved in ios 5 but it is still light years behind the flexibility that we are all imho owed by buying the device and buying a license to use the operating system in the first place. I OWN my files. I can put them on my phone or my friend's phone if I choose to.
I buy a mac or a windows computer and I can get at all parts of the OS and mess around with it completely. why can't I do that on an iPAD that costs 2 to 3 times as much as a similar android tablet which is a full linux-based computer right from the get go?
I have a lot of inside info and have watched the devices and OSes grow and change over the years. Historically, in many ways, the best os for smart phones was palm webOS. but the hardware/company were slow/moronic respectively (which is why my brother quit as VP of Engineering of PalmSource... check this link for an interview with him back when things were still early and exciting at palm's mobile operating system dev company: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/...w-Michael-Kelley-and-John-Cook-of-PalmSource/ )
Anyway - android is quite literally the only way to go for a mobile OS at this time if you dont' want to be tied down to a specific vendor/company of hardware and don't want to be given one user interface with one way to operate the phone.
Ever noticed now winphone7 uses only about 60% of your display for it's main UI? annoying, at best.
yes, they're quick, iOS and winmo7 devices. and yes every brand has good hardware (and bad in some cases). however htc android devices do reign supreme in popularity and market share for a good reason (as outlined above by me and others). but even stock android devices are way cool.
having worked with android tables/phones and ios tablets/phones I have decided very definitely that I will never buy an ios device. having worked with winphone7 for a short time I found it quite acceptable, like iOS. but extremely uninspiring and it's customizability is even worse than iOS's.
</rant>

Database Users

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