Best Android Phone

[5co77ie]

What I'm pointing out is that MacFanboys™ all think Jobs was the man - he wasn't he was more a marketeer

[eFestivals]

You totally understate the way the iPhone changed the way everyone designs their Phones...

You totally understate the way the iPad practically created the tablet market...

You totally understate the way the Mac book air and the devices above changed the demands people have on battery life and size and impact of the form on their laptops...

And you totally miss just how much Jobs drove that...

Not at all.

Apple got there first, sure. But without Apple and Jobs, someone else would have got there soon enough.

In fact, they were beaten to it with tablets. What there wasn't for those early tablets was the demand, because no one could see much point to them. It took apps on the iPhone to create that demand, but apps were nothing new either (tho the way they were done and marketed was).

And people always had that desire for battery life and a light weight from a laptop - but it was something that could only happen when battery technology (which was naff all to do with Apple, yet again) reached the right point, exactly as was needed with touchscreens (which have of course been around for 15+ years).

The difference with what Apple did wasn't in the making of such things but in the marketing of them. Apple finally became the 'cool' that the fashionistas who'd always used Apples wanted them to be.

If Apple hadn't have become embedded in the 'creative industries' as it did - by luck - in the early eighties then none of this would have ever happened.

[eFestivals]

Talent is nothing without direction...

absolutely true.

And the fact is that his direction was off as much as it was spot on. He took the wrong path HUGELY at least twice in his career.

He was a visionary - but a vision is only any good if it's realistically achievable. I'd say that Apple got lucky with the timing of his re-appointment (a re-appointment made in desperation, not because they really believed he'd achieve for Apple what he did), in that technology had finally got the point where any vision he had was achievable in practice.

He failed to innovate with the Mac and the early Apple OS - and saw Microshit fly past as a result. He took a very wrong path with NeXT (tho got lucky with it in some applications, but with nothing that couldn't have happened via another direction). And the iMac rode off the back of an out-of-date perception of Windows being difficult for non-techies along with the consumer take-up of the 'net.

The problem now for Apple is that it's fashion-ability is so strongly linked to Jobs. The launch the other day was a flat squib, and that's probably their future.

[lharris92]

don't go for a htc desire s - the signal cuts out regularly and the only way to get it back is to reset the phone.

o2 will be having to sort this one out

[eFestivals]

You keep trying to reduce it down to being just fashion... Its not fashion, its about products that people want to use! Fantastic form and function...

They might have function, but so do the alternatives.

Apple's lead is primarily down to fashion and nothing else. Yes, people want to use them - but primarily because they've been told they're cool if they do.

[eFestivals]

Sit down and play with a iPad and a Xoom and tell me its just fashion

stand outside an Apple store on any launch day and see all the people queued up to buy something they have no idea about for how it functions.

[jump]

Three things jump to mind...

1. Yes... the world does contain fan boys... They operate outside of any logic But joking aside, they are fan boys and trusting for a reason. Past success.. Anyway the people queueing outside on product launch day don't make up the bulk of sales.

2. Most those people would of see the keynote video posted to the apple store website to see exactly how its function kind of destroys your point.

3. If you don't like it you can take it back to a Apple store within 14 days for a full refund. So its win / win really. I took back my first iPad 2 because it had a production fault and there wasn't any questions, just the refund.

Apples customer service is great.

Edited October 6, 2011 by jump

[eFestivals]

Yes... the world does contain fan boys... They operate outside of any logic

and these fan boys help drive the fashion aspect of the products.

[kaosmark2]

I've been delighted with my Android gizmos so far. Tablet + phone. They do the job I want them to, quickly, without any problems. I can play around with them happily, and I'm not locked into the same hardware (or even software) for ever if I want to keep my data. And they were cheaper too. A shiny white cover isn't everything.

[Kowalski]

The only people being fanboys in this thread are the new breed of anti-Apple fanboys as they are now known, who now weirdly are the more vocal whenever there is any news of Apple. Everytime there is a new product a whole plethora of anti-Apple fanboys come out and bore the rest of us to tears.

Anti-Apple fanboys. You know who you are.

[5co77ie]

Bloody hell... Just us the Android keyboard and compare it to the Apple keyboard and tell me its just fashion

[eFestivals]

The only people being fanboys in this thread are the new breed of anti-Apple fanboys as they are now known, who now weirdly are the more vocal whenever there is any news of Apple. Everytime there is a new product a whole plethora of anti-Apple fanboys come out and bore the rest of us to tears.

Anti-Apple fanboys. You know who you are.

From where I'm sat, I'm really only commenting on Jobs' doings somewhere else than the RIP thread where they'd be inappropriate.

The Apple products are good, and suit some people better than the alternatives do. But lots of people buy them without knowing what the alternatives are, just on the basis of the fashionable press (and the mouth-to-mouth that comes off the back of that) that Apple gets that isn't necessarily related to their sales or innovation (which much like with Microsoft, often isn't their own innovation).

There's a whole heap of history - of Apple's, and many other companies - where the marketing drives the success far more than anything about the actual product. Apple are merely the ones that are currently benefiting hugely by that fact.

[eFestivals]

I tend to find most people who knock Apple products with reasoning such as marketing / fashion haven't actually spent very long using them.

- and of course the same is true in reverse, that the people buying Apple products often haven't tried the alternatives to know if they suit them better.

How good the products may or may not be ceases to have much relevance once the marketing hype gets to the level that Apple have achieved - it takes on a life of its own simply from the marketing. Yes, some of that hype is related to how good their products might be in relation to the alternatives, but not all of it.

[5co77ie]

I tend to find most people who knock Apple products with reasoning such as marketing / fashion haven't actually spent very long using them.

Edited October 6, 2011 by 5co77ie

[t8yman]

Ive been accused of being an apple fanboy many times. I wouldnt touch a mac. but my iphone, ipod and ipad2 are fucking fantastic. my ipod plugs into my car and I can control it via the i-drive thingy on my center console. i couldnt do that with any other mp3 player afaik.

the anti apple fanboys are often funnier to read than the real fanbois.

the vast majority of my mates who didnt have iphones and then get one - say they honestly cant imagine using anything else ever again. my mum can work one, and so can my 7 year old son.

[eFestivals]

my ipod plugs into my car and I can control it via the i-drive thingy on my center console. i couldnt do that with any other mp3 player afaik.

my Android phone, & my Sony player.

Oh dear.

my mum can work one, and so can my 7 year old son.

any smartphone that anyone can't operate is wasting its time.

The fact that more 'other' phones sell than Apples gets to prove that all of those other phones manage no worse.

[5co77ie]

This email is doing the round, which shows that Apple wins on aesthetics every time, even if they didn't do anything first :

and

[eFestivals]

if the iPhone is so good, I wonder why I've just seen Alan Sugar on TV bigging up its success and features ... while saying it's not great to use as a phone.

[t8yman]

my Android phone, & my Sony player.

Oh dear.

any smartphone that anyone can't operate is wasting its time.

The fact that more 'other' phones sell than Apples gets to prove that all of those other phones manage no worse.

[5co77ie]

Let's not forget who really started the iphone ball rolling:

http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2006/06060330startrek.html

[eFestivals]

The iPhone 4 had an issue with the location of the antenna... Corrected with the iPhone 4S by having two of them...

You can't defend the indefensible so I won't

I took it as him talking in more general terms than a specific issue for a specific version of iPhone.

[eFestivals]

One of the big problems with "3G" and smartphones in general is they are not very smart in detecting when the 3G network is giving really poor signal and swapping over to the 2G network during calls and out of calls. Its even more evident to Orange users of any smartphone when it keeps jumping between Orange / T-Mobile / 2G / 3G ... I have just left Orange because of this...

I've got poor reception at home (jumps in & out of 3G all the time) despite living fairly centrally in a large-ish city, and have always been on Orange - and I can't say I've ever noticed anything like that happening, either on my old Nokia E61i or the 'Barcelona from Orange' android phone I'm using now. Are you sure that's not a problem that's unique to iPhones?

But anyway .... while I can't be sure what Sugar was getting at, any smartphone I've used hasn't been that smart about making phone calls. It seems that their ability to make calls easily has been sacrificed in favour of other functions, which is daft when the vast majority of people will always use them primarily as phones or for texting despite the uptake of other uses.

[eFestivals]

Nope, know people on Blackberry and Android, same issue...

If its jumping in & out of 3G then that's the problem... It jumps out of 3G because reception is poor... Goes into 2G... and then jumps out of a perfectly reasonable 2G connection back into a shite 3G one, to realise its shite to jump back in...

But if it's doing this and it's not causing any problems - and it isn't - then it's not a problem.

You've said that problem was so bad it caused you to leave Orange - so it clearly pans out as a big issue on the phone you're using but not all phones.

Presumably it's only better with your new provider because you're getting a better signal in the places where you most use your phone, but the underlying problem remains on the phone and you'll encounter it again when you're in particular places.

[Ed209]

that, and the price

and how they upgraded ipods so that any old docking station/speakers that a punter might have weren't compatible anymore

and a few other reasons

[the_hedge]

Everyone I know who has an Iphone loves it. Some buy them beacuse it's fashionable, some people have a play and make an informed choice. That fact that everyone I know who has one loves it just proves that the functionality must be pretty good to make people rave about them.

50% of what an Andrioid phone can do is wasted on the majority of phone users, the functionality of the iphone is what drives the love for them.