Blinkered & Biased Fans

I make no secret of the fact that I am a gadget lover.  In my time I've owned various mobile phones, games consoles, TVs, etc. and all manner of peripherals for my computers.

I'm not a slave to Apple, Google, Microsoft or any other company for that matter (I was once a huge Sony fan, but I'm growing out of that!), so when it comes to choosing a new gadget,  I buy what best suits my needs. Not to fit in with society!

For example, when I was looking to buy my first MP3 player, I wanted a device that would play any file I threw at it. At the time, I had ripped all my CDs to my PC using Windows Media Player so they were all in WMA format. A friend had a nice player that had a huge capacity, and would play most audio file formats. The problems with his device were the physical size and the price. Eventually I bought a 2nd Generation iPod Nano, and whilst I have found many faults with iPods (such as it groups music by Artist and not Album Artist or both!), I believe it was the correct purchase. I now have a 160GB iPod Classic that carries all my music. I had to re-convert most of it, but that was a small price to pay.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I watched the news last Friday when the iPad was released in the UK (28th May 2010), and I struggle to understand why someone would queue all night just to be the first person to buy this device. I've played with one (we have one at work) and I'd quite like one, but not for the stupid amount of money Apple are asking, for even their most basic model. I even heard a report that a 17 year old boy who was at the front of the queue, refused £500 to give his place up to someone else. For that he could have got a much better model or even ordered one with that money and kept what he'd saved for other things. Add to that that someone was so desperate to be the first to buy an iPad they'd pay £500 extra! Crazy! I just don't get what makes people act this way!

Today, I then discovered this post on iphonealley.com. I read through this post - which discusses areas Android do wrong compared to iPhone - and found myself shacking my head at almost every point that was raised.

The author talks about Android experiences/reviews and says that practically everyone reacts the same - "It's nice, but something is just not quite right.". This actually makes no sense. What you've got here is people who are familiar with the way the iPhone works! If someone who had never used an iPhone before was given one of the latest Android 2.1 devices (I can agree that before this Android was bad!), they wouldn't react the same way. They may even say this about the iPhone when seeing one for the first time afterwards. This doesn't mean that the iPhone is or isn't better!

The author went on to complain about the lack of the "screen bounce" feature (or similar) on Android devices that can be found on the iPhone. What a joke! Its a nice extra, but hardly a point to compare the OSes on! He goes on to say that some developers have used this ability in clever ways (i.e. to refresh the screen contents) which I agree is brilliant! Now this I'd like to have on Android!

Next the author moves on to physical buttons. Towards the end of this section he discussed the requirement for a trackball on Android devices which does the same as the touch screen. I don't use mine, and I wish it didn't have it. However, I never accidentally use it. I believe its inclusion is there to interest Blackberry users. Before this though, he talks about the "menu" button on Android. Personally, I think this is the correct way to do it and again I never knock it accidentally. I never struggled to use it this way, in fact it felt more natural to me. Of the 7 buttons on my HTC Desire, I'd keep the Volume Up/Down buttons, the Menu button, the Search button, the Home button and obviously the Power button. This means I'd lose the Back button and the trackball. One nice thing that iPhone does here is allow you to activate the phone via any button, unlike Androids use of only the power button.

Here are a couple of points I agree with the author on. Firstly the OS and UI. The fact that you can only buy two iPhones right now (3G or 3GS) is a bonus because the OS runs on them all. With Android, each phone may not support the latest OS release, but Google are working on this. The UI is another thing altogether. I like some features of HTC's Sense UI, but I wish I could choose which bits I keep and which I returned to the default for the OS. This is one reason I'll be running a custom OS! Finally, MultiTouch. Yes, not all Android phones have it, and on those that do, it doesn't work as well as the iPhones implementation. Again though, Google are working on it, but it should have been better a few releases back!

Now we move on to one of the main benefits of keeping with Apple for all mobile devices... iTunes. Its not a great piece of software. Its not a great media player. The iTunes store is what makes this so good. I now buy most of my music from here, choosing only to buy my most favourite artists on CD still. To listen to my music, I won't be using my Android device. I have an iPod for that. I will be using it for video that I convert from various sources. This is a pain to do with iTunes. I convert using Handbrake, but then to put them on my iPhone I need to import them in to iTunes and then enter the information about them so they appear correctly. There may be other better solutions, but to put them on my Android, I just drag and drop, then watch and delete. Job done!

If I wanted to put music on my Android there are several software solutions that allow me to do so with iTunes (kind of) like this one.

Finally, he moves on to what he calls iEnvy. Unfortunately, this really exists, but its not about owning an Apple device or having an Apple logo on it. It's to do with the perceived superiority of the Apple devices. Its no secret that Apple's hardware is amongst the best looking hardware out there but they are overpriced.

I will be looking at the new iPhone to see what it brings to the table, as I will be looking at future Android devices. Neither is perfect. Both have their floors. I just wish people would give a true account of what they like/dislike rather than being biased towards a single companies products!

Neil