Well after waiting a few years, I am finally going to make the move and get some new technology. This forum has been great for some useful info, even not gun related.

 

So, Droid or iPhone?

 

Most needed features for me and my business: Good camera, ease of file transfer between phone and PC(pics, PDFs, contact lists), text, may add credit card reader for point of sale transactions.

 

I am on the Verizon network, and will most likely stay with them for some reason.

 

Would love to hear about your experiences, good or bad with either.

To me, the iphone has always been a gimmick... The new phone 4s is implementing technology that other phones have had for years. The new droids are really nice, but bulky, and expensive. However, the new droids coming out are dual core, and 4g, no point in buying an iPhone until they come out with something similar, your buying old tech if your buying an iPhone.

besides making calls, what exactly do you want to do with it? play with both at a store and decide yourself. also, check out the available apps for stuff you want to do.

EVO works quite well

Prepare yourself to be disappointed.

 

I made the change in June. My previous phone would hold a charge for about a week of normal use. New droid phone

I'm lucky if it lasts a day. Previous phone good service anywhere even in the middle of the Arizona desert. New phone I have

to go outside my house to even have a chance of making a call and its not like I'm out in the sticks, my town has 22,000 people in it.

 

Yeah some of the "apps" are useful but most are just a waste of time.

Hymn, try this.

 

Turn off 4G, WiFi, and Bluetooth if not using. Phone lasts me all day.

 

On Sprint, worked in the dessert.

buy an iphone....the new ones are dual core, I was a skeptic and recently got one. I can't beleive i wated so long.

I have a HTC Thunderbolt and like it, but the battery life could be better.

 

It helps to turn off 4g, wireless, and bluetooth, but it still is a power hog.

 

On the plus side, it has a removable battery, which is one thing I worry about with the iphone. If my battery fries from being charged too many times its an easy fix, iphone not so much.

I-phone...you will be thankful. good battery life and it charges very, very fast too.

While I am not an Apple Fan I would say go for the iPhone. My wife is a technophobe and she has taken to her iPhone 3GS amazingly well and is always downloading applications. For my phone I have a BlackBerry (I wouldn't recommend these any more) and also an iPad.

 

Android devices are good, however iPhone is just a lot less hassle unless you like playing around with gadgets a lot.

 

TheWombat

The iphone doesn't have any expandable memory, which is a downfall in my book.

The iphone doesn't have any expandable memory, which is a downfall in my book.

just curious...why do you need expandable memory on a phone? what do you use the extra memory for?

I too am not an Apple "fanboy," but have had the Verizon iPhone since it was released in Feb. I could not be happier with it. I would consider myself a very heavy user, on it very often, and the battery still lasts at least two days. This is with multiple apps open without closing, and wifi on. I however am disappointed they are not on the 4g LTE network with the 4s, I guess we will have to wait until the iPhone 5. I know plenty of people say Droids are better, and I am not bashing them as I think they are good phones too, just from my personal experience I have been very pleased with the iPhone.

just curious...why do you need expandable memory on a phone? what do you use the extra memory for?

 

Music, etc.

Music, etc.

you should look into apps that will stream your entire music library as long as you have an internet connection. I know apple is about to release itunes match, but there are other apps out there that will do the job. It will free up your memory for other things besides your entire music collection.

Jailbroken iPhone.

Thanks for all the info everyone.

 

At this point, I am leaning towards the iPhone 4s. I was an apple hater, but reliabilty is key for my uses. The wife got me an iPod touch last April(OK), and I got her a iPad2 in May(impressive). They both still work.

 

Will decide this week.

 

Do both types of phones sync with PC the same way? (transfer files etc.)

Thanks for all the info everyone.

 

At this point, I am leaning towards the iPhone 4s. I was an apple hater, but reliabilty is key for my uses. The wife got me an iPod touch last April(OK), and I got her a iPad2 in May(impressive). They both still work.

 

Will decide this week.

 

Do both types of phones sync with PC the same way? (transfer files etc.)

Droids will inherently sync better with any PC and offer a ton of options and versatility. Iphones can be a PITA when it comes to syncing since you have to use apple software.

Droids will inherently sync better with any PC and offer a ton of options and versatility. Iphones can be a PITA when it comes to syncing since you have to use apple software.

 

iOS 5 is going to change how iPhones sync. The new software will allow for iPhones to sync remotely without plugging it in (which is a huge PITA, agreed), though there will be a maximum distance I believe. iOS 5 is really going to improve and upgrade the software, utilizing more of the hardware. This is, from what I've read, the most comprehensive update to the iOS yet, and the added features and streamlining of current features seems pretty awesome. Also, coming with the new software will be iCloud... finally.

So, then the real question is when does iOS5 come out? Hopefully "soon" means soon.

you should look into apps that will stream your entire music library as long as you have an internet connection. I know apple is about to release itunes match, but there are other apps out there that will do the job. It will free up your memory for other things besides your entire music collection.

 

I'm actually trying Audiogalaxy now. There's just something I like about it being on the phone. It's fast, safe, etc.

Im in the same boat right now (execept Im on AT&T), but Im leaning heavily towards an android phone. Mostly because im not a big fan of apple products, and that I never have, and never will use iTunes (and I have a shitload of music on my computer that was :cough cough: not obtained through iTunes)

If you are on Verizon, wait till after tuesday before making a decision when they reveal their new phones.

The current iteration of iTunes is so... well, ancient. Apple knows this, as does the rest of the market. The trend, in regards to most all tech, is streaming-- something like Spotify, which is the company making waves these days. Streaming music, movies, TV shows, games, etc. My advice is to consider the possibilities moving forward instead of looking at what is in the market today.

I am a HEAVY smartphone user. I use it for ten emails accounts while on the road I use it for tech work in the field, while traveling etc I was on the palm treo680 platform and prior to that a sprint nextel blackberry and migrated to the iPhone. I dont play games with it.

 

Web surfing sucks with the browser. No flash.

 

Their op system is such that you cannot MASS delete emails. WTF?!? Lame.

 

I have been on a the iphone since gen one and now on a 3GS since it was released. It WAS jailbroken non tethered

 

It is now running 4.3.5 firmware. It will be my LAST iPhone. iTunes sucks. My iPhones speaker just up and stopped working recently. Nothing will cure it. Oh and it's been in a defender case from day one. Apple support for replacement sucks their 'genius's' are far from it.

 

So between being locked to iTunes and only THEIR apps. Their sucky support and monopoly type practices. Crappy email handling. Etc I'm done.

 

Samsung galaxy sii.

 

Ymmv

Lets see, I have to support the stupid things for work, and I have both an iphone 3gs (getting a 4s), and a samsung galaxy S. Both on AT&T.

 

Here's my take on what sucks and rules about both platforms, as well as what in this thread is misinformation.

 

Android (note, I haven't gotten to play a lot with post 2.3 installs):

 

RULES

-There are more serious technical apps available for it, simply because google permits it. So as an IT tool, it is more useful.

-Getting files onto and off the device is vastly easier.

-micro SDHC slots are awesome if you have to tote around a lot of mobile data.

-Over the air updates for small

-bigger screens.

-flash in the browser makes it more complete.

-integration with google mail and calendar.

-if you root it, you can customize the heck out of it.

-google finally made the marketplace searchable in reasonable ways that make it cease to look like a joke. They went from having a service that made it look like google had no idea what the word search meant to something usable.

-support for video on web pages (it's much less painful than the iphone's version, although iphone gets by by being the 800lb gorilla).

 

SUCKS

-the bigger screens don't have higher resolutions.

-flash in the browser kills your battery QUICKLY.

-flash in the browser subjects you to lots of flash ads, which are not necessarily friendly with the screen constraints of a mobile device sized browser.

-email integration with any other calendar, and some email is pretty broken in the base OS.

-Battery life, it's poorly managed.

-no out of the box backup. If you thought repopulating your addres book oby hand on a regular phone was fun, wait till you ahve to recover an android device by hand.

-if you root it, you can configure it in a way that you are on your own, like, nobody else bothered to screw up your device in the exact same way, so good luck with getting help.

-The hardware. Not that there isn't good hardware out there, but it is a crap shoot. My samsung has AWESOME 3g circuitry. Some don't . My samsung has the worst wi-fi radio in it in any device I have ever handled. It litterally has lost signal sitting on a table not being touched line of sight of my router less than 30 feet away. It IS BAD. about 15 other wireless devices in the house get 75% signal or better, the samsung topped out at 30%.

-The OS. No, nothing is wrong with android other than the fact that EVERY SINGLE VERSION to date has had some horrible bug that impacts a major subsystem that makes smart phones actually USEFUL. It's simply not really done yet.

-The OS. There are a mess of versions out there. A large number with some deficiencies and incompatibilities and of course varying feature sets. Which one does your phone have? Will it ever get an update?

-The manufacturers. They skin the damn OS. So even if you have a "good" version of the OS on your phone, you may not be able to access the features actually fixed in that version.

-The carriers. Apple tells the carriers to kiss their a**. The android ecology has to kiss the carriers' asses. SO you have an increasing trend to lock down side loading of apps and such. This kills some of the biggest pluses of the platform.

-Viruses.

 

 

Iphone:

 

RULES

-email and calendaring. The BEST active sync implementation outside of an MS OS period. Works solidly with IMAP, POP, activesync, and plays nice with gmail and google calendar.

-screen resolution/pixel density. It matters if you actually use the thing a lot and have good eyes. (if you have older eyes, the lower res android phones, especially the higher contrast AMOLED screens might work better for you).

-more carefully audited app store submissions.

-more apps... LOTS more apps.

-better touch screen. Apple has been beating the competition with the precision of their capacitive touch screens, especailly at the edge of the screen. I haven't played with many of the very latest andorid offerings, but even up to the droid bionic, its still better.

-thinner and smaller.

-CONSISTENT hardware that is generally very good.

-CONSISTENT availability of OS upgrades for your hardware.

-battery life, at least relative to other smartphones.

-3rd party support and integration of the device.

-Apple has been giving more thought to security form the start, we'll see if they stay ahead.

-out of the box backup can save your a**.

 

SUCKS

-god help you if you need to roll out a custom in house app.

-god help you if you try to deal with itunes as a developer for a large institution or business that will ahve multiple teams developing multiple apps on the platform.

-you MUST use the itunes store.

-you MUST use itunes on the desktop (at least until ios 5).

-No flash.

-when something is less than stellar with the hardware, you have to skip that generation, or suck it up.

-LOTS of apps. Lots of crap, me too knock off apps. It's getting annoying wading through them to get to the good/useful stuff. It's becoming almost as unusable as marketplace used to be.

 

 

Blackberry:

 

RULES

-nothing, now that cheap android and iOS devices are available.

-worry, not nothing. If you are in bankign or pharma and need to monitor your employees' phones for compliance auditing, BES spies on more facets of use better than anything else by a wide margin.

 

SUCKS

-lack of developer support

-lack of apps

-crappy support of anything but IMAP or BES.

-the fact that BES is about $3200 for the first user, and never gets below about $32 per user.

-Out of the box cionfigurations to pocket dial 911. That's totally awesome when you give one of these to a less than savvy user, let me tell you.

-everything blackberry.

 

 

Windows:

 

I haven't had anything with os later than 6.5, so I'll refrain from commenting.

 

 

Some of the things I listed might not be entirely clear.

 

3rd party support. I'm not talking about cases and stupid crap. I'm talking about serious infrastructure. One example is large area wi-fi networks. There's a mechanism out there that permits you to have a persistant login over hundreds of networked acces points and not have to log in for each one, or even when you leave and come back. This has worked seamlessly with iphones since sometime mid lifecycle of the 3g. IT is STILL broken in andorid despite lots of pressure on google to fix it. If it is ever fixed, will it be fixed for your hardware? There's also been a push to higer bit SSL certs in the industry for security reasons. Both platforms had problems with this when we adopted them. Apple had a fix in les than 90 days. Android STILL tells you that the certificates are invalid and are forgeries right up to gingerbread tables we have. For, many businesses, exchange is a must for mail and calendaring. The Android implementation for active sync sucks, like not all mail shoiwng up, not all deletes actually occuring, new mail not showing up as new when it should, old mail still looking like new mail when it shouldn't, porr support for folders, etc. Apples is pretty solid, if not 100% feature complete (i.e. no task syncing and some other stuff, we'll see if now that ios5 has taskas, it gets task synching), what is there works, and works without hassle or drama. Also, activesyn can force PINs, lock a device, or wipe a device. My samsung? Tell it to wipe, it SAYS it does. But hard power cycle it, and the phone is usable just fine. The apple is literally bricked, and rebricks itself after booting until you tell it not ot.

 

 

Security. Like I stated above, apple seems to be being more security conscious in many regards. At the OS level, they are more paranoid, and more proactive about keeping up with current standards. On the application side of things, they at least appear to be more strict about it, but they may just be better at keeping problems quiet. It's hard to say.

 

So which is better? It's hard to say, as it depends on what you do and what you need. IS it for business? DO you need to deploy custom software to field techs or something similar? Then you need android, not locked down. DO you NEED to be synching with your exchange server at work? Then you need iOS or windows phone. Do you want or need wireless WAN connectivity where you are going? iOS will probably work out better for you. There are critical issues that can make one clearly superior to the other despite any bundled drawbacks.

 

 

Things in this thread that are just blatantly wrong:

 

-"you can't bulk delete email on iOS". WRONG. yes, yes you can. Hit edit when in the email app in a folder. You cna tag all the pieces of email you want and then hit delete. You can also just swipe delete, which is pretty fast ( ia actually find it faster).

 

-"Droids will inherently sync better with any PC." Trust me, I have to deal with this every day. They DO NOT sync better. From a "palm pilot" perspective, they don't really need to sync, and are geared towards being an independent device. Form the "I want to dock it and have my contacts and calendar update", android is nearly useless. Itunes has been much improved in this regard. In terms of I want to put my 3000 songs on the device, yes, android is simpler and easier as it more or less looks like a USB mass storage device.

 

-"It is now running 4.3.5 firmware. It will be my LAST iPhone. iTunes sucks. My iPhones speaker just up and stopped working recently. Nothing will cure it. Oh and it's been in a defender case from day one. Apple support for replacement sucks their 'genius's' are far from it." Yes, itunes the software sucks. Beyond that, phones get old. Your android phone won't be magically durable where your iphone was not. Apple's support is actually pretty good if you don't jailbreak it right up until the day you aren't covered. Then they will tell you to go scratch. I have tried to get support on my samsung phone. If no customer support is better than "bad" customer support, then you should be happy.

 

 

From my practical experience, battry life and radio are really the end all be all on a mobile device. Everything else is a zero sum game. My iphone 3GS after about 28 months of service, The battery lasts about 28 hours instead of 34+. I get email refreshed every 15 minutes, check email probably 30+ times a day, play probably 30-40 minutes of games, do probably 20-30 minutes of browsing. With my andorid device, if I turn on wi-fi, I get between 3.5 and 6 hours do to the crappy radio constantly trying to reconnect. If I leave it on 3g, and have mail sync every 15 minutes, It lasts maybe 8 hours. GPS kicks both their asses, but apple lasts longer and locks quciker.

 

The iphone is for me, a more usable device.

Hymn, try this.

 

Turn off 4G, WiFi, and Bluetooth if not using. Phone lasts me all day.

 

On Sprint, worked in the dessert.

 

 

Exactly, turn off sattelite except when you need it, wifi and disable auto-updates and synchs, mine lasts days now.

Thanks again everyone,

 

Raz-0, holy crap.... You rock, thanks

 

Deciding this week, but leaning even harder towards the iPhone 4s. as long as i-Tunes doesn't freeze my laptop anymore I should be OK

 

 

Things in this thread that are just blatantly wrong:

 

-"you can't bulk delete email on iOS". WRONG. yes, yes you can. Hit edit when in the email app in a folder. You cna tag all the pieces of email you want and then hit delete. You can also just swipe delete, which is pretty fast ( ia actually find it faster).

 

 

U

Sorry but this is WRONG..you are incorrect .... THAT is NOT mass delete.... THAT is an individual delete...you wanna hand select hundreds of emails???? I dont...

 

Example.... YOU cannot purge your sent folder WITHOUT deleting the ENTIRE account.....

 

The OTHER in ITUNES is NOT stray files or admin stuff that the apple forums will tell you it is....it is EMAIL storage.... I send and receive GIGS of email monthly for work with attachments...and that starts eating up memory....sometimes to the tune of close to 2 gigs...the ONLY way to MASS delete/purge the email account it to delete it and set it up again...

 

Hey apple...how about a SELECT ALL then delete...or even a simple time frame delete feature for the sent folder.... So sorry NO MASS DELETE... :-)

 

 

-"It is now running 4.3.5 firmware. It will be my LAST iPhone. iTunes sucks. My iPhones speaker just up and stopped working recently. Nothing will cure it. Oh and it's been in a defender case from day one. Apple support for replacement sucks their 'genius's' are far from it."

 

Yes, itunes the software sucks. Beyond that, phones get old. Your android phone won't be magically durable where your iphone was not. Apple's support is actually pretty good if you don't jailbreak it right up until the day you aren't covered. Then they will tell you to go scratch. I have tried to get support on my samsung phone. If no customer support is better than "bad" customer support, then you should be happy.

 

 

From my practical experience, battry life and radio are really the end all be all on a mobile device. Everything else is a zero sum game. My iphone 3GS after about 28 months of service, The battery lasts about 28 hours instead of 34+. I get email refreshed every 15 minutes, check email probably 30+ times a day, play probably 30-40 minutes of games, do probably 20-30 minutes of browsing. With my andorid device, if I turn on wi-fi, I get between 3.5 and 6 hours do to the crappy radio constantly trying to reconnect. If I leave it on 3g, and have mail sync every 15 minutes, It lasts maybe 8 hours. GPS kicks both their asses, but apple lasts longer and locks quciker.

 

 

I am not quibbling with the battery life in fact mine is QUITE GOOD...that does not negate my other issue....I am NOT a noob and I do know hardware breaks down....BUT I am less than pleased with the stock answers that I get from the 'geniuses' as it pertains to material replacement....

 

 

I do agree that the radio and the battery are key....to my point..APPLE PROVIDE FOR A BATTERY I CAN CHANGE..... Even though mine operates fine..>AS LONG AS YOU ARE NOT ON 3g.....

 

We all have our likes and dislikes....my real world experience and opinion (not saying yours is not)... is that there is a better platform than the Iphone in its current form...

 

Apple missed the mark....and they can very well hit it....but it is ALL about the upgrade sale....

My Droid is garbage.. I have everything turned off except phone service and I charge it twice a day... Not halo at all

U

Sorry but this is WRONG..you are incorrect .... THAT is NOT mass delete.... THAT is an individual delete...you wanna hand select hundreds of emails???? I dont...

 

Example.... YOU cannot purge your sent folder WITHOUT deleting the ENTIRE account.....

 

That's not what I would refer to as mass delete. More like empty folder. Semantics though, I understand why it is a desirable feature. How are you getting that on android? I didn't see it on my device anyplace. 3rd party app?

 

Someone did a nice chart of some of what I am talking about with problems caused by the android OS revision lottery you play with devices.

 

http://theunderstatement.com/post/11982112928/android-orphans-visualizing-a-sad-history-of-support

 

The best version of android on the best piece of hardware is pretty nice at this point. It's a crap shoot trying to find it though as the marketing literature is often less than helpful at determining os revision. Then you have to factor in skinning and hiding of stuff by the handset manufacturer and carrier.

 

To also add ot my point, in previous version of android, they don't know about certain Thawte root certificates for SSL. So they pop up a securtity warning. If you want to avoid this, you have to set the device to accept all certs. Which is bad. So for gingerbread they fixed it. No, no, not by adding the thawte root cert, by eliminating your ability to accept all certs. LOTS of people are pissed by this.

 

Android as an OS is getting close to being ready for prime-time, I think they finally hammered out the app store. However, they need to wrangle the ecosystem and make it possible to get a more homogeneous experience across platforms.