Android.....my first thoughts...!

Reality Bites

Reality Bites

Reality Bites

Soldato
Joined
28 Jul 2003
Posts
5,802
Location
South Wales
I had my new X10 delivered yesterday which is my first touch screen phone and my first view of Android.

The device isn't bad...I think they could have made it better with multi touch and a flash camera rather than an LED but overall, it'a a nice device.

I'm struggling to get my head round android and am seriously considering changing it for an Iphone instead. Half the apps I would want (sky sports scrore centre, Iplayer etc) aren't available and the majority of the apps in the store are either buggy and/or have the potential of viruses etc.

Am I missing the point?
 
gumbald said:
So you bought an Android phone wanting iPhone apps?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it sounds a little like you didn't do the research with what you were after. Generally people go with the Android phones because they don't want to get an iPhone.

Also the X10 is about as far away as you can get from the Android experience and still have an Android phone. I personally wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot barge pole.
 
Reality Bites said:
I'm struggling to get my head round android and am seriously considering changing it for an Iphone instead. Half the apps I would want (sky sports scrore centre, Iplayer etc) aren't available and the majority of the apps in the store are either buggy and/or have the potential of viruses etc.
Click to expand...

Iplayer is already available for Android, its called "Beebplayer"

Don't know about Sky sport stuff, but sure there alternative apps that do the same thing.

As for viruses, not sure what you're going on about.

SteveOBHave said:
Also the X10 is about as far away as you can get from the Android experience and still have an Android phone. I personally wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot barge pole.
Click to expand...

+1

I would have gone with the HTC Desire... or well,dim sum you win, dim sum you lose.
 
I get all my iPhone scores from LiveScore. I believe there's also an Android app, but it's available on livescore.com regardless.

I'm not sure if there's any viruses on that though.
 
Reality Bites said:
I had my new X10 delivered yesterday which is my first touch screen phone and my first view of Android.

The device isn't bad...I think they could have made it better with multi touch and a flash camera rather than an LED but overall, it'a a nice device.

I'm struggling to get my head round android and am seriously considering changing it for an Iphone instead. Half the apps I would want (sky sports scrore centre, Iplayer etc) aren't available and the majority of the apps in the store are either buggy and/or have the potential of viruses etc.

Am I missing the point?
Click to expand...

I thought that after using an Iphone for the last 2 years. Decent Apps are thin on the ground but things will only get better. I managed to find my key apps in the store which actually work better than the Iphone.

Compared with the Iphone the phone does need some tinkering to get it working. 5 days on I wouldn't want to go back now. I went with the Desire after to playing with the X10. I wasn't overly impressed with the screen, touch screen and build quality.
 
Android apps are built in sandboxes. They cannot access any of your data or other applications like the phone/contacts unless you grant it permission. Viruses would be tough to make on Android. Malware might get through if you aren't careful though.

iPhone does a bunch of things really well like having a really well thought out UI and has really good app support from both individuals and organisations. However there are some things it cannot do, and some things it will never do.

Multitasking, open source, free speech, permitting the replacement and improvement ("duplicating") of built-in functions, a vendor that doesn't want it to be illegal for you to hack the phone (in the USA it IS illegal if you circumvent encryption), value for money hardware.

Also, look up Google Scoreboard and see if that fits your needs.
 
Its an important difference in Apple vs Android

Apple screens all apps in the app store, this means viruses are very unlikely, but they also control exactly what you can and can't have, if they don't like an app, you can't have it.

Android on the other hand doesn't do this, release an app to the market and its there straight away. A virus is still unlikely but not impossible. The major advantage being that if someone makes a great app, but it cuts into Googles profits, it is still released via the market.

I think that a real push needs to be made to get Android developers (myself included) to make their apps better, less buggy and with nice UIs
 
gumbald said:
So you bought an Android phone wanting iPhone apps?
Click to expand...

No, I bought an android phone because I believe the hardware is a better all round package than the iphone. I also made an assumption that such a growing market would have the larger business apps officially written for it. Yes, you can get versions of sky sports centre but you have to have one which is for a certain sport, not everything that the sky one offers. There are developers which have written apps which are similar to apple versions but may be buggy and crash. I assumed android was futher on that it actually is.

Richdog said:
Eh? The majority are buggy or have the potential of viruses? According to...?
Click to expand...

Pretty much any user review you read against 80% + of the apps in the market.

Janesy B said:
The X10 is also running an Ancient version of Android. I'm on 2.1 with Android and the X10 is on 1.6 :eek:
Click to expand...

This has been discussed so many times it's boring. Version 1.6 on the x10 has been customised by sony. What does Version 2.1 offer that the sony 1.6 doesn't? Also, there's an update due soon to the later version anyway.
 
Reality Bites said:
Pretty much any user review you read against 80% + of the apps in the market.
Click to expand...

Yeh and take them a big pinch of salt;)....wouldnt surprise me if most of those reviews are from people who dont know how to install or run the app. I remember when i had my Magic...there was an app that was rated pretty badly...cant remember the name of it but i installed it and it ran perfectly well on my device.
 
Janesy B said:
The X10 is also running an Ancient version of Android. I'm on 2.1 with Android and the X10 is on 1.6 :eek:
Click to expand...

SE have stated it will be getting a update to Android 2.1 shortly.

It also runs the same Kernel verison (2.6.29) as a Android 2.1 phone.
 
Last edited:
Reality Bites said:
This has been discussed so many times it's boring. Version 1.6 on the x10 has been customised by sony. What does Version 2.1 offer that the sony 1.6 doesn't? Also, there's an update due soon to the later version anyway.
Click to expand...

The amount of colours the screen can display for a start. 1.6 is limited to 65k colours.

2.0.1/2.1 benefits (shamelessly pilfered from wikipedia)

* Optimized hardware speed
* Support for more screen sizes and resolutions
* Revamped UI
* New browser UI and HTML5 support
* New contact lists
* Better white/black ratio for backgrounds
* Improved Google Maps 3.1.2
* Microsoft Exchange support
* Built in flash support for Camera
* Digital Zoom
* MotionEvent class enhanced to track multi-touch events[40]
* Improved virtual keyboard
* Bluetooth 2.1
* Live Wallpapers

The application list is growing and more and more big names are jumping on board. As for poor user reviews on applications, they're some fantastic applications that get bad reviews (such as the SNES/NES/Genesis Emulators) because people can't work out how to use them and put bad reviews against them.

Android would benefit from unification and stricter controls on the marketplace.
 
Last edited:
I've got a couple of weeks to play and make my mind up. I guess upgrades are available in 9 months anyway, so I could take a look at the new Iphone when it's released.
 
It's true that android doesnt really have official apps from the top dogs but they are still decent. Give it time ;)

As for football scroes you can use Fotmob.
 
Spawn said:
Yeh and take them a big pinch of salt;)....wouldnt surprise me if most of those reviews are from people who dont know how to install or run the app. I remember when i had my Magic...there was an app that was rated pretty badly...cant remember the name of it but i installed it and it ran perfectly well on my device.
Click to expand...

Defiantly a big pinch of salt required. I've had 1* ratings on my app from people not using an HTC Hero, despite the description clearly stating it only works on the HTC Hero.

Users are stupid!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom