Rod wrote: > I originally asked whether there was any important functionality that Android-based phones lacked compared to the competition, and whether they struggled with any file formats. I then added that this appeared to me to be an issue of available apps and requested confirmation or otherwise of this assumption - the inference I intended was that I assumed that any such issues would not be a function of the operating systems themselves but rather a function of what apps had been written and what they could do. > Rather than actually address the questions posters responded with clumsy sarcasm, recast the questions in terms of their pet hobbyhorses and wandered off into moral philosophy. Closest we got was some facts about techniques for extending battery life, which is important and relevant, but I still don't know how Android compares in this area to the competition. > Rod >
Fair enough, Rod. Drifting off the subject... >From what I know of those with iPhones (I don't have one, I've got a Samsung Galaxy S2)) , when we compare phones there's little different in the way of applications and thus general, everyday user functionality. I think, as Ken commented, there can be circumstances in which something is only available for iOS (MIMS, as Ken mentioned). The friends who have iPhone 4's have complained about battery life but in many ways this is the consequence of these devices have such a large range of capabilities (web browsing, applications for games and sites, taking photos, listening to music or watching movies etc). For examle, the S2 really needs something like Juice Defender to improve it's battery life, which is not great when compared to my Nokia N95. I can get more than 24 hours if I stop all the automatic synching and endless search for wireless networks. My N95 would give me a couple of days. I would imagine it would come down to whether there was a specific capability you wanted or needed. For example, my Nokia N8 took the best photos and video of any mobile phone out there. There is daylight between it and the next on the list...take your choice. Given your comment in relation to hardware/OS v applications, I'm not aware of any statistics in relation to people jailbreaking their iPhones but my understanding is that people do so because of the limitations of the OS as installed. People also mod Android phones (eg. Cyanogen mods) to provide options which don't exist with the stock install. I've not explored this in any detail so am of no use :) My experience of the browser on stock iPhones is that it's pretty much dreadful. Highly inflexible and difficult to navigate. My theory about the rise of apps in the iOS world is that the dreadful browser on the iPhone has meant that you really do need a separate app to make accessing information or services an imperative. On my Android phone I have a few different browsers (Tor, Firefox, stock, Dolphin and Opera mini) which generally all work well, but on ocassions each has something or does something better than one of the others. For instance, the Blogger app is not as good as using a browser (eg. Firefox) which has been set to 'desktop' mode. Similary, the Google+ app is quite good but it doesn't render .gif's if someone has used them as part of a post. I know this is not a particulary technical reply, but I hope it helps all the same. Regards, Patrick -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
