Hey guys,
I'm gonna be eligible to upgrade to a better smart phonesoon and am trying to decide if I should get a Samsung Galaxy S IIi, or wait for the iPhone 5 to come out. Does anyone here have experience with both Android phones and iPhones to give an opinion on which way they'd recommend going?
I'm self-employed. The phone will be a lynch pin for my business, so I want to choose wisely. Thanks for any feedback!
I've been hooked on Android and I love it, I have an ipod touch which is very similar to what an iphone is and I would go Android anyday. btw I have the droid Razr
Just curious; what is it about Androids you like better? :)
Functionality, you can do more on android as far as I know.
If you don't want Apple telling you what you can and can't do, go Android. If it's business and you need reliable and less fragile, go Blackberry. I don't even care if I catch heat for recommending BB. I've got a torch 9850, it's touchscreen and I don't have to piss myself if I drop it. It's not as cutting edge as an iPhone 4s or a droid Razr or a Galaxy IIIs, but it gets it done every time. Just sayin.
You might as well post: pen 15e or Pepsi, Ps3 or xbox 360 lol.. each phone has it good and bad points. So to answer your question I think either or, if you like apple products than get the iPhone, if you hate apple products than get the android. They both do the same stuff in my opinion.
Personally I've had every iPhone and currently I use s 4s and like it (jailbroken of course), and I own 3 apple computers (2 macbook pros and a desktop) and an iPad so having them all mess together with iCloud works well.
88turbo and Foe nailed it. I've had 2 Blackberry phones and am currently using an HTC Inspire (basically, AT&T's Thunderbolt), and the wife has a Samsung Galaxy II.
With that said, the Droid system has been excellent, although at times I wish my telefono had a little more meat and taters in the processor and ram departments.
I'm also tough on phones, and an otterbox is now mandated for every phone I'll carry, per the wife. lol
(in short, f*ck an apple)
My last phone was a Blackberry 8830 and now I have a BB 9650. I like the instant notifications I get of waiting messages, but don't like the tiny screen, lack of apps, or ability to custize Blackberries. From what I've read here, it sounds like going with an Android would be in my best interest. I've been researching Samsung's Galaxy S3 and it's looking pretty good to me. :)
There you go then.
Android.....but the iphone is a great phone and pretty good OS. The android OS can be hooked to a cheap pos phone or a quality phone. Kinda like the PC world. Cheap py computer verse quality business unit.
Travis
That's where I am at, in agreement with turbotrav. My phone is a lower end unit, but for no more than I do with it, it works. In short, I don't need a corvette just to run to the store to get a gallon of milk and a bottle of pop..lol.
Mine is about like a mildly built Thunderbird, fast, but has it's quirks. Just like me....
Adroid just for the simple ease of rooting
I've got an iPhone 4S and love it. I've also got an Android tablet and love it too.
The big thing on the iphone for me is the retina screen. It is truly the finest quality screen I've ever seen. The pixels are so small you can't tell you're looking at a computer screen (no aliasing). This forum shows up in Safari with no magnification and you can actually read the text on that tiny screen, thanks to the tiny pixels.
That being said, there are things I like about my android tablet as well, tho some of these things are manufacturer dependent. For example I love the fact that I can connect it to my computer and transfer files to and from it without using iTunes. I hate iTunes. It is an abomination of a program. How a company that brags about being easy to use ever came up with such a counterintuitive program I will never understand. What's so f*cking difficult about drag & drop, Apple? I don't want to "sync", I just want to add a f*cking song (or ringtone, or photo, or video) to my phone without jumping through hoops.
I also like the Android app store (more free stuff than Apple's store). And I like that I don't have to buy my memory from Apple. The difference between a 16GB and 32GB iPhone is a hundred bucks, but I can buy a 32GB micro SD card for my tablet for under $20. This, again, is manufacturer specific - some phones/tablets may not have upgradeable memory.
As for Blackberry: That ship is sinking. RIM has done too little, far too late, to save the company. I predict RIM will be tits up inside of two years and the company's patents and intellectual property will all be bought up by other companies. Current BB owners will be left in the cold. Which is a shame, because my first smart phone was a Blackberry, and I briefly loved it (before becoming infuriated with its constant crashes, lack of useful apps, and lack of support from RIM (IE no OS updates). I ended up hating that phone so much I shot it. Literally. I took it to the rifle range with me before deer season, walked the 100 yards to the target area, set the phone up, walked back to the shooting area, and let fly at it with my .30-06. It actually shiznit the bed (the trackpad stopped working) months before deer season, and I switched it for a cheap-ass phone just to ride out my contract, but I hated it so much I hung onto it with the sole intention of shooting it. Never before was talking out my anger on an inanimate object so satisfying...
The way Apple is abusing the patent system is reason enough to boycott them.
I have seriously resisted the iPhone since day one. I have used Apple products since 1988 and, with very few exceptions, have had excellent luck with every Apple product.
But there is a problem.
Built into the Apple ecosystem is obsolescence. Just about every one of their products have a 3-4 year "lifespan". That means, it will run a current OS for that amount of time, then it's EOLed. Of course it still works afterward, but it can't be updated beyond a certain OS.
So...I have a 3.5-year-old 24" iMac at home. It can run the latest Mac OS (Mountain Lion/10.8, out tomorrow). But that's likely to be the last one and then...down to the basp00get it goes. And a new iMac will be purchased to replace it.
I have a 2.5-year-old 15" MacBook Pro. That's my work/production computer. Still running 10.6 on it. It's going to be EOL in a few years. At that point I'll likely shell out another $1500+ for a newer laptop.
I had an iPad (1G), gave that to the folks. Getting a new iPad soon for work/web production/tax write-off purposes.
It just seems that, no matter what upgrades I do (memory, HD, etc.) the Apple device will eventually be unusable for the software or tasks that I do.
And of course, Apple relies upon that. Moreso than any other computer company, including Microsoft.
Is it evil? I don't know...personally I've never had issues that people have brought up here.
(BTW, iTunes for Mac is a TOTALLY different experience than iTunes for Windows. It never gets in your way. Really.)
So I already have to play the upgrade game with my home computer, work computer, and tablet.
Do I really want to add a phone to that also? Keeping in mind that a 2-year contract with the cell company goes along with that. I'd be stuck with that phone for 2 years unless I break the contract (read: fork out big bucks again). I can try a used iPhone, but...yeah, that probably will result in a huge mistake somewhere along the line.
It's a tough call. I've been a big, BIG fan of Sony Ericsson phones for the last decade and each of them have held up very well, performed great, and didn't make me buy accessories every time I upgraded. Plus I bought them outright, switched SIMs, and called it a day. But the latest one (U8/Vivaz Pro) has been disappointing as far as the Symbian OS. It's technically a smartphone but Symbian is dead, now owned by Nokia...I can't add any apps to the phone. Web surfing is painful. It's frustrating. Sony and Ericsson have now split, and while the new Sony phones are nice, I really don't desire having the Android OS as the only option. For the same price (or, actually, LESS) I can get an iPhone that's more usable for production purposes, and fits nicely into the Apple system I already have.
I've messed around with Android and it's decent enough for most things. I'm just not as comfortable with it, plus I feel the apps that will help me the most lie more in Apple's direction.
All signs point to me getting an iPhone. It's probably inevitable. But I feel like I'm losing some of my freedom along the way.
There is a special corner in hell reserved solely for telecommunications companies.
I agree with Erics statement. Beyond The iphone, the computers cannot be repaired unless u fork over ARM and leg. Apple charges $300 cores. So almost no used parts or refurbished unless Steve says so.
That reason alone I won't buy Apple computers. IPhone or iPad I could maybe possibly buy.
Travis
I forgot to reply to your question in my response, sorry about that LOL.
Are you accepting credit cards as a POP or replacing a standalone credit card machine?
If so, Square is the way to go...it's for iOS or Android:
https://squareup.com/card-reader
Also, you might want to spend some time perusing the app stores for Apple and Android to see what you'll need.
There is amazing parity between the stores for a lot of things. But one necessary app might make or break your decision. (Or game. LOL)
Last, there's a great way to get bonus perks that you might be able to use for your business.
I purchase iTunes gift cards at our regional grocery chain (Giant Eagle). For every $50 spent at the grocery store, 10ยข is accumulated to redeem on gasoline at their gas pumps.
I've earned $2 off/gallon sometimes. Makes for a sweet fill-up with the Mountaineer.
And then I use the iTunes card for the app store or music or the Apple TV, or whatever.
I have no credit card linked to iTunes so that, if the account were to get hacked, the most anyone would get is $30 or so, and not my credit card info.
You might also be able to earn frequent-flyer miles or bonus miles this way too.
Just something to consider. Every penny counts when you own your own business.
Overall my experiences with apple have been good.
Every time I was up for a upgrade with AT&T I always bought the latest iPhone and sold our oldest iphone on ebay. So far that has worked for me. I upgrade to iPhone 4 for $199, gave wife the 3gs and sold her iPhone 3G for $350 December 2010. Than this year i upgraded to the 4s ($169 at radioshack lol at christmas time), sold the 3GS 16GB iPhone last January for $260. So when the iPhone 5 comes out, I'll give the wife my 4s and sell her iPhone 4 on ebay and I'll more than likely get $200+ for that one. So yeah its an upgrade game and if you don't mind playing musical phones every 2 years and keeping your plan the same than I think its a win win, wife doesn't care.. restore from iTunes she back.
The iPad (1G) made me mad but than again it did run slow with 5.1.1 so going to iOS 6 with the iPad1 was gonna be rough. My macbook late 2008 doesn't owe me a dime, we use the out of it and it works perfectly.. actually even better since I put a SSD in it. My 17" macbook pro mid 2009 runs great too, also with SSD and 8 GB ram, I hope to use the 17" for the next 3 years. My hackintosh runs circles around most computers (i7, over clocked to 4Ghz, dual boots to win7, awesome video card, I've ran many VMs with parallels simultaneously and this thing is rock solid)
So for $19.99 i'll be going to mountain lion tomorrow and upgrading all three to the latest OS.. can't beat it with a stick.
First of all I am not tech savy at all, but I do have a Iphone 4s (my 1st smart phone) and really like it. A couple of guys at work have the droids and they seem pretty nice too, but I do prefer the screen and the operation of my phone better.
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated. - Stevecutus of AppleBorg
An iPhone is not a smartphone. Apple calls it one for marketing, people call it one because they don't know any better. iPhone is an overbuilt glorified feature phone. A phone made for people who couldn't be bothered to figure out or learn to operate a real smartphone, the blissfully ignorant and the steadfastly inept (most of Apple's customer base). Real smartphones: Android, Blackberry, older Symbian phones (Nokia), Windows phone, older Windows mobile phones (barely). There are things my old Nextel i870 could do that an iPhone cannot. A Nextel, I'm totally serious. There's no app for freedom of use, either. Jailbreak: should you really have to? Should you have to give up your warranty to be able to use the device the way YOU want to? And the iPhone's feature phone status is purely by choice on Apple's part.
The hardware isn't even the problem, the hardware is actually really good, it's the software and the corporate attitude.
Wow, I really don't care if my phone is an smartphone, feature phone, megaphone, or what. I like my iphone. It calls people! I can get on the internet! I have a ebay and a craigslist app to look at cars! Works well for me. I guess I'm "steadfastly inept"...or maybe "blissfully ignorant"? Mostly I just could care less if it says Apple or Samsung or what as long as it does the above few things.
It seems to me like they're all good phones. :)
Apple makes products for their select fanbase. You can't upgrade their products without going through them, you pay and arm and a leg for good products but like Eric said they only have a certain life span. The Android phones alos have a lifespan to them, but it is considerably larger. I have had every generation of ipod, and for it's purposes it was very useful. I bought the Motorola Razr a week after release and I absolutely love it. With an Otter Box it is still thinner than almost any phone that doesn't have a case. I can do anything I want on it, and I have the option to upgrade my SD card which already gives me 32gb of memory. I use it for music at work and in the car. I use it for youtube, ebay and most of my internet browsing. Plus I know that it will still be a very useful phone til my upgrade and even after that point. I am very rough on electronics and especially being a welder and having it in my pocket, this thing takes a hell of a beating and still works great. I'm not say an iPhone is horrible, but dealing witht he limitations because of their own software and compatability with Apple products only I will choose and Android any day. Also fixing/ replacing an android phone is alot easier. My iPod Touch had a bad digitizer screen and 2 years later Apple still sends me the wrong replacement part even with all of the info of the device. I gave up and my Razr has a better playback for music anyway.
I don't get the Apple hate (ok - I hate iTunes!). Android in practice isn't exactly "open" to the user. Just the OEMs. Whom in turn lock it down like a promiscuous daughter. That root/OTA update song and dance I did with my Droid X was painfully not what I perceive as "open". My Razr does what I want, how I want, and when I want, but isn't a simple process and involves several apps (most of which require root).
If you want a rock solid SMARTPHONE inside and out get the iPhone.
If you must have Android (4G is awesome!), I tell all my friends to stick with top of the line phones from Samsung and Moto. Sometimes HTC. Go Nexus if your carrier supports it. Low end phones get next to no dev support. Some apps can be almost unusable. If you want root you are on your own (have fun!). Even my Droid X was all but abandoned by devs after a couple years. It was one of the reasons why I upgraded. I am hoping my Razr will last longer than two years in OEM support. By contrast the iPhone 3GS, released a year before the Droid X, is still receiving updates. :/
My Razr is leaps and bounds better than my Droid X. Which in turn was leaps and bounds better than my gawd awful Blackberry Storm (I shipped that POS to Turkey!). Which was a step backwards from my WinMo phone. Almost all phones are eclipsed by the next release.
You really can't go wrong these days. iOS. Android. WP7. Well... except for Blackberry. They deserve everything that is happening to them.
Good luck!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17058508
They patented the slide to unlock feature. It would be like Ford patenting the the ignition switch and key.
They also have a patent on rectangular devices with a wedge design. Which would be like Ford patenting rectangular vehicles with four wheels. Now I'm a huge Ford fan but one of the reasons they are producing great products today is because of the competition from Toyota, Honda, and so forth. If Ford had used a bunch of patents to stifle competition we as consumers would suffer because competition is what drives innovation forward.
To answer OP's question if you already have an Apple comp you might as well get an iPhone. The iPhone is a reliable phone and user friendly, it does however lack 4G (4G is amazing if you haven't tried it yet). I'm sure the iPhone5 will have it though. All of the top Android phones are great up to date phones. To me it is an easy choice but only you actually know what you like. Go to the store and play with some of the devices there. While you are there keep in mind that the way the display Android phones are, the phones UI is not permanent you can change them to however you like.
Best wishes with whichever you decide. :D
Just made the jump to Android (Ice Cream Sandwich), and I was wondering if since vBulletin (which our little corner of the interwebs is based on) has it's own Android app, we could have one also. Perhaps they have a App template just as they have a forum template. This is ChuckW's show, so I hope he's listening.
Actually ChuckW is a moderator. Eric, Baxo and myself are the admins. vBulletin does offer a mobile suite, but it is stupid expensive. The major mobile browsers (Safari, Chrome) render this site just fine (and will do even better in future as mobile screens become more high resolution - the 4S is 960X640, Samsung Galaxy SIII is 1280X720, vBulletin is optimized for 800X600), so buying the mobile version doesn't seem wise.
I use Mozilla on my HTC (Droid OS) and have no problems with this site or any other forum. There's always stuff like tapatalk and whatnot, too.
I'm sticking with my Palm Pre :)
I have a LG Vu Cu920 thats about 5 years old, just a feature phone, for me a phone is a device to text/call people, that's all i really need to do.
If it makes and receives phone calls reliably, doesn't eat batteries and doesn't simply fall apart from general use, I am happy. All of the other (features) are extraneous and can only serve to fatten the wallets of the phone companies, while at the same time, unnecessarily complicating my life. There was life before text messaging, skype, etc. I know this kinda makes me sound anti-technology, but since I make my living with technology, nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, I carefully choose which technologies I employ to maximum benefit with as little impact on my life as possible. If it ain't broke, don' fix it. ;)
Just an update...I did end up getting an iPhone 5 (32GB). Ordered it the first day possible and Apple delivered it about 11 days after the launch, shipped from China. Just tracking the package was something else LOL.
PLUSSES
Since I am already deeply entrenched into the Apple ecosystem, the iPhone was the most logical choice for me. I've had no problems adapting to it. It works just like the iPad. What really had me concerned was the call quality, as I hadn't really heard much about it either way. Fortunately it's been very, VERY solid (3 microphones help quite a bit), and the speakerphone option is also quite good. It seems to lock on to calls a LOT better than any of my past phones; haven't dropped one yet and I'm on AT&T, so that's saying quite a bit LOL. And I've got to say, this phone is F-A-S-T. Absolutely nothing is slow or sluggish. It does have 4G which is a great help for OTA web surfing. Not a lot of apps yet but I am spending more at the App Store than before. And no need to reboot after almost a month of constant use.
MINUSES
I'm still not a fan of the on-screen keyboard and hope to get an attachable physical keyboard as soon as they're available. But for now it's OK...just making a lot of corrections. I did not have any previous iPhones so I can't say I "notice" the larger screen but it is definitely a nice, decent-sized display. Still, it's noticeably smaller than the Android competition. I put my entire phone over the screen of my brother's current (old) Android phone, and there was a little room around the edge still! But the iPhone is not a huge, honking beast that's too big for a pocket either. I like the size.
OVERALL
The iPhone 5 is not the be-all, end-all of civilization like a lot of people seem to be claiming (IT'S JUST A FREAKING PHONE, PEOPLE!)—but it is a very solidly built phone. It does seem to exude quality. I'm very happy with it and would recommend it if it's in your lifestyle/budget.
My brother's current Android phone is getting long in the tooth. It's almost 2 years old and despite updating and rooting it, it continues to give him fits. Constant rebooting, remove/replace the battery, getting too hot, spontaneous shutdowns, etc. I think it's probably a battery issue, if I were to guess. He's eyeing something newer so I'm anxious to see if that solves his current problems, plus I'll get to play around with the newer hardware and OS. I did recently set up a newer Android phone for a client and it was also very fast, seemed to be pretty logical, and I saw no real usability issues. It wasn't "me" per se, but it was perfectly usable.
I think either way you're going to get a good phone, but with Android phones, you definitely get what you pay for. If you can spring for a name brand then it's going to perform much, much better. Avoid the lower end ones like the plague.
Anyway, just my humble observation.
I just got the Galaxy S3. I had iPhones for the last 4-5 years. I feel my 4G iPhone was easier to use. It's a phone primarily and a method to peep the web secondary. The Galaxy S3 absolutely eats battery power. It lasts barely 7 hours with moderate use. I don't play any games. Only calls, text and some web. However the screen is bigger than the entire iPhone almost. Just my 2 cents. I might go back to an iPhone.
Leon
I had a I phone 3G and now a 4S and have been a mac user since the mid 80's. Its a great device, and a great OS but that doesn't mean there aren't other good phones out there as well. I stick with Apple for the sync features and Icloud with all my mac devices...phone, laptop, tower etc......it just made sense for me. I know some android users who swear by there phones. To each their own, and whatever you are comfortable working with.
I like androids, have had one for about 4 or 5 years now.
I wish nokia would go android. I have loved every nokia I have ever touched, but refuse to use a microsoft based os again. I can do everything on my phone that I could do on a computer, with very few exceptions. That beaig said, one reason I dislike the iphone, is that although they have a strong fanbase, I don't feel they are near as adaptable. However, the apps seem to operate better on an iphone, and don't have quite as many bugs.
My honest feelings for my adroid, I can't take a piss without charging my phone. The newer programs have way to many user permissions for 3rd party apps, and severly drian batters whenever data is enabled on the phone. If I leave just my data connection (edge/3g) on constantly through out the day, my battery can be completely dead within 12 hours of no use. If I turn off the data (still receiving texts and calls), the phone is generally 89-90% by the the end of the day. Using heavier programs, such as netflix, my phone will actually discharge rather then charge while using it. Certain programs are not stable, and will crash for no reason constantly. The phone will also start to get slow and buggy after 2-3 days of little use and requires a restard.
When using the phone, I can completely discharge it within 1 hour depending on my settings. I think apple really has the edge here.
However, once you weed out good programs and apps, and get the must haves, I can do more on my phone then I could imagine. Another thing I love, is you can get a full qwerty keyboard on almost any style phone. However, I still long for a simple nokia brick that will go 6 days between charges, and always work, no matter what the cirspoogestances.
If I could get an old style nokia with a java enabled browser and limited apps, I would be perfectly happy. For now I deal with my $100 phone that I can do just about anything on, bit I have 4 chargers and use them religiously. I have one in my bdroom, one by the entrance, one by the tv, and one in my car, that I bring to work.
I would give up quite a few features for a decent battery life, although I severly overuse and abuse my phone, and it has held up well for the 13months I have used it for everything. I have dropped it 40ft off of a telephone pole onto pavement, drop kicked it down the stairs, and dropped it countless times, poppng the case and battery apart.
Yeah I'm the same way. My daughter is 6 and has my old iphone 4 that I set up for her as an ipod touch. So she can communicate over wifi with me and my wife through iMessage and facetime. This really comes in handy when she sleeps over my parents house or in-laws.
I usually get a new iPhone evey year and I trickle done the others and sell whats left and that usually covers the new phone. This year I got the 5, wife got the 4s that I had and my daughter got the 4. I sold the 3GS that my daughter was playing with for $180. I was going to sell the 4 but really wanted my kid to have facetime and the better camera/video on the 4 etc.. plus she reads in her room with the flashlight app at night so she uses the out of all the features..
I just wanted to thank you guys for all the great feedback. I bought a Galaxy Note 2 recently and can see why Android has so many fans here. I love this thing. Thanks again for your help guys.