Anti Android on Bombcast

I love Android mainly because I hate Itunes. And the Iphone is way too expensive, let's not forget that. Not to mention they make you buy a new one just to get voice recognition.

Would you like them to lie? I am forced to use Crackberry for work and hate every minute of it. Were I allowed to choose - despite my dislike of the Apple culture - what is the point for going with the second best platform?

Windows Metro platform? Give me a fucking break. Ha!

Hey guys, I bought this Acer laptop for $300, what a ripoff, Windows sucks!

I'm going to buy a $1300 Apple laptop, Apple is the best.

@SeriouslyNow said:

Android is awesome. I'm not here to sway public opinion but having used both extensively I have to say that Apple does things wrong in so many ways and people just don't know any better.

what am i missing then as an open minded iOS user about to buy a new phone. im not a apple fanboy or anything weird like that but i have loved owning my 3GS for the last 3 years and love iOS. i love how clean and simple it looks and the selection of apps on the apps store means i always have something new play play on my lunch.

but im open to change and would love to know what i would gain from the switch to HTC nexus android phone.

I have never had a problem with Android. Never, EVER. I had two Android phones, they're great.

Also, stop being obsessed about what the staff likes/dislikes.

Nope, android sucks.

If i where to either buy a iOS or a Android phone, i would pick Android. I already have way too many iOS devices, i really don't need another one.

I can't speak to the quality and user-experience of Android since I only got my first smart phone, the iPhone 4S, last year for the first time. From what I gather, there are a series of gradations to Android's OS:es, and the cream of the crop isn't that far off from being comparable to iOS insofar as consistency. Better yet, the Android ecosystem has only grown to even greater proportions the last couple of months, and remains on a high wave of growth, with the recent release of Instagram, hopefully, among many others to come.

Pfft android is fine. What you have to do is root your phone/tablet as soon as you get it to get all the bloatware off of it. I rooted my evo and it runs much stabler and faster since I got all that sprint garbage off of it. That's the main problem with android, each manufacturer/phone company is allowed to do whatever they want to the devices so they add unnecessary layers/bloatware that cripples performance. IOS, being unified under Apple, is always in lockstep under multiple devices.

Want a good Android experience without rooting? Buy a Nexus phone. It's not hard. 
 
Android is great, iOS is great. I use both every day. 
 

@efman

I can't speak to the quality and user-experience of Android since I only got my first smart phone, the iPhone 4S, last year for the first time. From what I gather, there are a series of gradations to Android's OS:es, and the cream of the crop isn't that far off from being comparable to iOS insofar as consistency. Better yet, the Android ecosystem has only grown to even greater proportions the last couple of months, and remains on a high wave of growth, with the recent release of Instagram, hopefully, among many others to come.

I've used iOS and Android and I have no problem with the way Android works. I think you need to make sure you have a hi-spec phone as i've seen it run like crap on some of the freebie hand sets. It's great on my Galaxy 2.

It's not as user friendly as iOS i agree but once you've spent the time setting it up the way you like stuff like Twitter, FB, email and the web are all pretty much the same experience.

@LiquidPrince said:

@Phatmac said:

Yeah Android sucks. This is coming from an Android user that doesn't have enough money to get an Iphone. There is a reason why people shit on Android. It just isn't user friendly at all. Inexpensive yes, but still sucks compared to the competition.

You should probably try some of the higher end Androids. They shit on all things iOS and Windows phone. Galaxy Nexus or upcoming Galaxy S3. For example of iPhone and Windows phone shittyness, why can't I just drag and drop movies into a folder and watch without conversion? I watch 720P MKV episodes of whatever on my phone and it takes 20 seconds to transfer. No bullshit conversion required ala iTunes.

true dat.

If you know how to use your phone android is way better than iOS and older windows phones (I have not used latest so I dont know). I guess some casual users may like closed system like ios and so on but as person that likes to have phone with funcions I need android is great.

Android is like building your own PC in that you need to do research and some leg work to get it to do what you want it to. You can't expect to buy any old phone and not have a bunch of bloatware on it, you need to make sure there's a custom ROM and an unlocked bootlader around so that you can get the most out of the phone (or you can opt for the nexus or the nexus s). If you're not willing to do that, you're better off with Win of iOS because they are more likely to work right out of the box. The advantage, which to me is more important than working out of the box are twofold:

I get a phone that I have complete control over (flash works, I have access to the root directory structure, and I can optimize/tweak how I see fit). I'm not told how I'm allowed to consume my media. I'm not told what I can and cannot do to the hardware.

I don't have to use a phone by the company that made Justin Long or the old elitist asshole commercials. Unfortunately, this for me is the bigger reason. It makes no sense, I feel like apple may even be making a better product. I just can't bring myself to buy a product from the company that initially used anti-intellectualism in their marketing, and then morphed it into a ubiquitous pseudo-intellectualism.

I'm currently using a Nexus S and Transformer Prime. They required some work to get them the way I want them, but they're fast, they're pretty, they have widgets and live wallpapers, and I can use whatever music service I want to put whatever music I like onto my phone.

I'm currently using a Nexus S and Transformer Prime. They required some work to get them the way I want them, but they're fast, they're pretty, they have widgets and live wallpapers, and I can use whatever music service I want to put whatever music I like onto my phone.

Who gives a shit?

I love android...but even I have to admit it's only great if you root the phone or you pick up a stock android phone. What those manufacturers do to those phones is downright criminal.

Android is a giant steaming pile of shit dropped by Google.

@Sooty:

I feel like I got the Prime because of my unreasonable hatred of all things Apple. I watched them falsely accuse PC users of various things over two decades and just can't bring myself to buy anything Apple. Hell, my hatred is so ridiculous that I actually own a ZuneHD. Wait, that needs repeating: I own a Zune... Therefore, my opinion may be unfairly skewed against Windows as well as Apple.

Despite my unreasonable tendencies, I feel the purchase of the Prime was a good move for me. Before getting it, I made sure they had what I needed. I'm a student (have been for way too long) and their PDF annotation apps on android tablets work just fine for taking notes in class. It actually makes reading scientific papers a joy. I can read the paper on my tablet, annotate it, and have it organized in a folder structure the way I want. ICS runs really well on it too. And the speed with which Asus releases updates is refreshing.

@Bigby: Will, Norm and Garry hate it just as much. :)

iOS all the way. But then again, I've got other Apple hardware to work in tandem with my phone (iPad 2, Macbook Pro).

@Brunchies: Quality >>>>> Freedom. :P

Personally, I wouldn't sacrifice a quality usability experience for power, freedom, or dumb ass gimmicks.

Don't buy a cheap Android phone if you want to get into Android. Buy a phone that has been out for a while, and see enough pricecuts to become cheap. When you buy a cheap "economic" phone, like from Huawei, you're going to end up with bad hardware and Chinese spy software, you're going to have bad reception where other phones lose maybe a bar or two.
 
And you'd get into WP7 if MS gave the stuff away too. I know I would.

My rooted Android phone with a custom rom is pretty awesome.

Oh and price wise, I've always found the data plan to be the expensive part, not the phone.

I've had an android phone for two years now, and I fucking hate it. It's slow as shit, crashes a lot, and I've had to factory reset it twice. I've messed around with newer models and I still don't like them.

I think what a lot of Android lovers forget is that most people don't care about features or hardware specs. They care about the user experience, including how well the phone performs, how fast the UI is, etc. In that respect Android has catching up to do compared to iOS and especially compared to WP7. I'll probably end up getting an Android phone in the fall due to school necessities (i.e. most medical and drug database software is not available on WP7 and I will never get an iphone unless I have absolutely no other option) but I would probably prefer sticking to WP7 or WP8 (when it's released in the fall).

I thought everyone on Giantbomb was competent enough with technology to cope with Android's slightly clumsy interface and to appreciate its better specs:$ ratio.

@psylah said:

Who gave Jeff a baby?! I'm kidding this picture is really adorable.

I don't hate Android but it has some technical issues that spans hardware and software. These issues are things not found on other platforms. Denying these problems and issues exist is not the way advance or promote the platform.

@eroticfishcake said:

There's a lot of love for Android at Tested. I have one myself and I have no qualms with it. Then again at the very most my phone is a high tech watch since the only text messages I get are from my network provider.

I'm the same, contracts tie you down and pay as you go would rule if the providers didn't charge out of the ass for a text that costed them 0.00009 cents to send off.

I love Android as much as Symbian. As in, not at all.

@Bell_End said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

Android is awesome. I'm not here to sway public opinion but having used both extensively I have to say that Apple does things wrong in so many ways and people just don't know any better.

what am i missing then as an open minded iOS user about to buy a new phone. im not a apple fanboy or anything weird like that but i have loved owning my 3GS for the last 3 years and love iOS. i love how clean and simple it looks and the selection of apps on the apps store means i always have something new play play on my lunch.

but im open to change and would love to know what i would gain from the switch to HTC nexus android phone.

Andoid has clean and simple options. Pre ICS you could use MIUI. And now ICS, which is clean and to the point and yet also rather extensible and quite stylish.

Also, Nexus is Samsung. HTC is the new One series (with One-X being the flagship).

This is my single core phone (not my phone but the exact same model) running Android ICS 4.0.3. It's an older video. I'm now running ICS 4.0.4 in a more recent build but you'll get an idea of what Android can achieve with even modest hardware.

@SeriouslyNow said:

Andoid has clean and simple options. Pre ICS you could use MIUI. And now ICS, which is clean and to the point and yet also rather extensible and quite stylish.

You can only use ROMs like MIUI and Cyanogen if your phone is supported by them which a lot of them aren't

@Zidd said:

@SeriouslyNow said:

Andoid has clean and simple options. Pre ICS you could use MIUI. And now ICS, which is clean and to the point and yet also rather extensible and quite stylish.

You can only use ROMs like MIUI and Cyanogen if your phone is supported by them which a lot of them aren't

My phone isn't supported by MIUI or ICS and yet I have both. Amazing how that works eh?

The Nexus phones running ICS are the only Android phones you should be looking at. Stock Android, minimal to no bloatware, and OS updates straight from Google. Stock ICS is fantastic and if app developers stick to Google's UI guidelines I think a lot of the usability issues would disappear.

Any other Android phones are bullshit and aren't really a fair comparison to iPhone and WP7. Outdated versions of the OS with manufacturer skins plastered over the top, bloatware out the ying-yang, and slow, if any, updates since they have to get molested by the manufacturers and carriers first.

I was perfectly happy with my Droid Incredible until I discovered CyanogenMod. CM introduced me to stock Android and I'll never use anything else. Now I've got a Galaxy Nexus and it blows the doors off every other smartphone we've got in the office (Android, iPhone, Blackberry).

Well i got nothing to add for my apple hate and a vote to support Rorie in his.

Although i guess that is a bit too broad.

I have a shitty Android phone, but I don't blame Android for it being shitty. Platform is fine for what I need it for.

@Bane said:

The Nexus phones running ICS are the only Android phones you should be looking at. Stock Android, minimal to no bloatware, and OS updates straight from Google. Stock ICS is fantastic and if app developers stick to Google's UI guidelines I think a lot of the usability issues would disappear.

Any other Android phones are bullshit and aren't really a fair comparison to iPhone and WP7. Outdated versions of the OS with manufacturer skins plastered over the top, bloatware out the ying-yang, and slow, if any, updates since they have to get molested by the manufacturers and carriers first.

I was perfectly happy with my Droid Incredible until I discovered CyanogenMod. CM introduced me to stock Android and I'll never use anything else. Now I've got a Galaxy Nexus and it blows the doors off every other smartphone we've got in the office (Android, iPhone, Blackberry).

+1

Though I am pretty interested in getting the HTC One-X. I think Tegra 3 really has some legs in the phone space and there are already roms which fix the supposed lag issues in SENSE 4. Still, I'd probably go with a stock ICS on that phone too because SENSE doesn't add anything I want or need. Oh and one last thing, ICS doesn't need to be from Google at all. Google happily supplies the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) to a variety of chipset vendors (it's how I got ICS on my phone) with a ton of optimisations already in place for the specific chipsets/screen/touchpanels each phone uses. Android is open source done right. Google have impressed me no end with Android, even with Gingerbread too.

I am still using the original Nexus One from a couple of years back. It's an amazing phone and I've loved using it the whole time. Only problem was the storage space but a micro-SD card helped with that. I've used it for music, internet, listening to my Bombcast. It's easy to transfer photos, and music. I'm not big on gaming on these devices just cause they feel too small though. I still prefer a Nintendo or Sony gaming device. I later bought a Asus Transformer and equally happy with it. Only issue was waiting so long for Netflix. So yeah I love my android devices. But I must agree if you go for android you can't get one of the cheap ones. Also, I've never rooted my phone but I think the next droid I get will get rooted.

I don't hate iOS. I think it's great and the touch screens on the iPhones and iPad are very snappy. But I get bored using it. I did teach my mom about using email and internet on it though and would recommend it for those with parents that are older and have never used a computer and are scared of trying one. I ended up buying an iPod Touch but it sees less action than my phone and tablet. It's just what I prefer. I think work will be getting me an iPhone soon though since we are abandoning Blackberry (hate it).

@Sgykah said:

I'm currently using a Nexus S and Transformer Prime. They required some work to get them the way I want them, but they're fast, they're pretty, they have widgets and live wallpapers, and I can use whatever music service I want to put whatever music I like onto my phone.

I had the first Transformer. I'd honestly rather have no tablet than an Android tablet ever again. There's just so many good iPad apps that Android either doesn't have or has a bad alternative of.   I don't feel app starved on my Android phone but the tablets...ugh. Horrible experience, blown up phone app galore.

Whatever, Android is great if you know what you are doing, all it takes is a little google fu and not being an idiot.

I don't blame them. I have an Android phone and I'm counting down the days for my Sprint contract to expire so I can jump to Verizon and the next iPhone.

As a Android user I really like it but.. it's lacks the fluidity of iOS. I do, however, like the fact that I can customize it however I want (i modify firmware myself before flashing the phone) but for my girlfriend I would buy IOS and or Windows phone, they're just easier to use. Android is a geek phone - some like it, some don't.

As a former owner of an Android phone, I totally get the hate. I grew to absolutely hate it to be honest. Both Win7 & iOS have there faults but are actually a pleasure to use. Android just want fun to use and got in the way all to often.

Tested folks have shat on it many many times in podcasts, though I'm sick of their endless Apple talk. To be fair since they were sold their podcast have discussed some great alternative topics.

@Ben_H said:

@Sooty said:

@Sgykah said:

I'm currently using a Nexus S and Transformer Prime. They required some work to get them the way I want them, but they're fast, they're pretty, they have widgets and live wallpapers, and I can use whatever music service I want to put whatever music I like onto my phone.

I had the first Transformer. I'd honestly rather have no tablet than an Android tablet ever again. There's just so many good iPad apps that Android either doesn't have or has a bad alternative of. I don't feel app starved on my Android phone but the tablets...ugh. Horrible experience, blown up phone app galore.

I sold my Android tablet and bought an iPad. I had a Xoom, which was fine hardware wise (it wasn't slow by any means), but the tablet Android experience is abysmal. Literally the only things it has going for it is Flash and more file compatibility (which Flash doesn't even matter because most sites have HTML5 versions of videos now anyway). 99% of the tablet apps are garbage in that they either don't work well or are phone apps upscaled (half the time they don't even redo textures properly so you get grainy textures or even textures that don't fit correctly). The only games I've ever felt were well done on Android for tablets from all of those I owned were World of Goo, Osmos, and Sentinel 3 (which actually had a lot of UI goof ups, buttons not lining up and whatnot). The Android version of GTA3 is insanely unstable and looks worse compared to the iPad version and has serious graphical glitches. From a user experience standpoint, the iPad is so much better than any Android tablet on just about every level. Sure you can't customize it as much, but everything works so smoothly and the quality of applications is significantly higher. I thought iPads were garbage until I actually got to use one for a few hours, then I realized that how it does things is so much better than Android. There's no jank in any way, no wonkiness with the web browser (I'm comparing Safari compared to stock Android browser, Dolphin Browser, Opera Mobile, and Skyfire), and so many little ways it makes apps work well together (My favourite example is when I listen to the Bombcast streamed from the GB website while playing a game, not only does the game sense that I have a podcast playing so it mutes the music, but I can also pause the podcast from the little popup menu on the bottom of the screen accessed with a 4 finger swipe without having to switch back to Safari. The device can sense which app the media is coming from and you can pause it without having to access the app.), and allows you to switch between apps so quickly.

It has to come down to what you plan on using the tablet for and whether it will work in the electronic environment that you have. I don't doubt that Apple makes a good tablet. But for the price, I can't imagine ever purchasing an Apple product because of the way they insist on running their business. It's not just an issue of flash, it's an issue of them insisting on running their business in a way so that they have complete control over how you consume media and use their hardware. They refuse to let flash function because it competes with their app store. That's less than not cool, that's anti-competitive behavior in my book (not the legal definition, my own). They've done the same thing with their tablets and microSD cards.

Comapre this with what I can do with my Prime and its keyboard dock: I've been able to use my tablet as a very small, very capable laptop replacement, as well as a tablet. It has USB functionality (powers external hard drive with the dock and everything), and I can easily expand the core tablet with a microSD and the tablet with the keyboard dock with a regular SD card. Apple does not allow this because it wouldn't ever make sense to buy their more expensive, higher capacity models. I can't support a company that tries to strong arm an entire protocol (what they're doing with SD pretty much).

Just as a final proof of concept as to why I prefer Android: I just fired up my music player for kicks: it's streaming music from a FreeNAS server I put together from old hard drives and a couple hundred dollars worth of PC hardware. There is no way you could get that kind of freedom from Apple products (but I digress). I fear that at some level Apple will try to inhibit me from using my music in this manner. I'm running Galaxy on Fire 2 (a game I plan to put together a review for on this site once I finish with an important upcoming test) and it's flawlessly running with the music in the background. I can switch flawlessly between the two.

It functions as exactly what I need, and I stay away from Apple. Despite what the cats on the bombcast say, I can't imagine a better product.

I moved from an Apple iPhone 3G to an HTC Inspire. It is the last Android I will buy. It isn't horrible. But, I miss the stability of the iOS. I also loved not having to have an app killer on my phone to keep unrelated apps from killing my damn battery all the time.

Yeah, I can't say that I'm too huge on Android. I've been rockin' the iPhone since the 3G. I currently have an iPhone 4 and am waiting to see what's next. The only "Android" device that I have is the Kindle Fire which... isn't super Androidy.

I've used Android on my last 3 phones, most recently my Galaxy Nexus. I've tried iOS, and hate it. Small screen, low resolution, no customization and I have to use iTunes? I'll pass. There's nothing on iPhone that my droid can't do, and often better. Sure, people may argue that you avoid fragmentation with iOs, but that's a lie, or at least an exaggeration. Heck, most networks have had 4G coverage for going on 2 years now, and Apple can't even release a 4G model. So, yeah- I'll put my GNex up against any iPhone any day of the week.

Most of the issues I see being brought up have to do with different approaches that each OS carries with it, not so much the hardware at all. With iOS you get the comfort of consistency across the platforms and their model keeps things structured. With Android you get the flexibility of customization and choices that some want out of their user experience. It is true that due to hardware manufacturers creating their own UI and apps for the different releases it has caused fragmentation and some phones take hits to their functionality and their stability but I think many that use the phones are willing to overlook or circumvent these problems with a custom ROM or just reverting to a stock vanilla Android ROM. There is no real reason one should not exist and the other should, both have brought a lot to the ecosystem of mobile devices and both have a lot to offer. I feel the animosity to any of the platforms, be it Android, iOS, Win7, Symbian, or what have you, is more detrimental to the evolution of mobile devices than the nitpicking of each of the OS's drawbacks and failings. In short, can't we all just get along?

Huh, iPhone 4 isn't exactly a small phone so I'm not sure if that is a tiny screen. Fragmentation is a serious problem on Android where I'm sure there are hardware and software combinations that are solid but I couldn't tell you what they are. As far as I know every iOS device is supported for 3 years where the only way you get fragmentation is if someone never syncs or hits the iTunes or App Store button.

Really though it feels like no one has gotten it right yet. Apple has a very nice platform but the "one configuration" is a strength and a weakness. Android on the other hand is anything goes but that also means support and quality varies from phone to phone, version to version, and even carrier to carrier. It would be nice to get a phone that is in the middle of both.

I've had the Thunderbolt for a little over a year, and I while I love widgets and what not.... I can't wait for the iphone 5. I'm over the shitty battery life, the os crashes, the chunkiness. Apple come bring me sweet relief.