The end of Android App Reviews
I know I’ve talked about getting an iPhone for a while, but I finally did go to the Apple Store last week and I picked up a 4S on Verizon.
- I wanted to get back on Verizon because I my friends with Verizon have coverage where I need it
- The features I like are finally available in iOS including Multitasking, wireless syncing, copy and paste
- It finally dawned on me that I could just get a bluetooth keyboard so I could still have a physical keyboard
- iMessage is pretty cool
- But the main reason I at least needed a new phone was because the Intercept just pretty much didn’t work. It would take 4-5 tries to actually unlock the phone. I didn’t have a fancy unlock screen, just the basic 2.2 unlock screen where you swipe from one side to the other.
Another feature which pushed me to the 4S over any previous version is something of key importance to travelers…the iPhone is dual band CDMA and GSM. The 2 US CDMA carriers are also quite willing to unlock the microSim. Sprint offers it unlocked from the get-go, and after 60 days Verizon should happily unlock it for me. Apparently the unlock might still be restricted so I couldn’t use the phone on AT&T or T-Mobile, but I don’t plan on doing that anyway.
I just got mine last week, having switched from a Blackberry Storm.
The United, Marriott and Starbucks apps are much better than their BBerry counterparts. Google maps is virtually instant-on, vs 10-30 seconds. Siri takes some getting used to.
Yeah, the iOS apps are much better in my opinion as well. I also have no qualms against installing them because they don’t magically open and drain battery like they did on android.
I miss landscape in many areas. I also need to work on customizing my home screen more and dumping everything else off elsewhere.
The biggest irk I have is the centralized settings. I’ll install an app and play around with it, then I need to go somewhere else entirely to adjust notifications and such. I miss settings in their respective app.
I mainly just use Siri to joke around. I don’t ask her too much serious stuff. I have 2 contacts in my phone book with the same first name. One is my friend, the other is dating a friend. My friend has the first last name alphabetically, but when I tell Siri to Call Bob it always calls the wrong Bob. I don’t even get a choice! And since there is no dedicated hang up button I have to wait for the End Call button to appear…which means Bob sees me as a missed call. Also Siri doesn’t like flight status. I can’t say “What is the status of Delta 123” but instead I have to say “Websearch Delta 123.” I understand Siri won’t book flights, but I want flight status.
I didn’t know about iMessage initially and thought I might run into trouble going from unlimited texting to 500 texts a month, but the people I high-volume text are mostly iPhone users. I just need to get a couple to upgrade to iOS 5 though.
Overall the iPhone is *much* faster at things like checking into foursquare (sorry, I don’t add people I don’t know to 4sq so I don’t accept many of the friend requests I get), checking my flight status, etc. The push notifications actually work for the Delta app (got my check in reminder today!) so I do admit I like the iPhone. I’m just not a fangirl.
…Find My Friends is actually a useful app when 1 person in a relationship travels and the other stays home. Easy way to avoid the “where in the world are you again even though I have access to your calendar” discussions.
@Steve – Google maps is great but for a frequent traveler I would have thought Google navigation would have been better. Siri is more of a novelty and not that useful at this point. Android has speaktoit assistant which does the same thing.
@Grace – The iPhone is a top tier handset where the samsung intercept is a mid-range so the iPhone is going to appear vastly superior. The iPhone doesn’t do multi-tasking, it just freezes the current program you are using and allows you to switch to another program. The only program that will run simultaneously with other apps are the audio apps. If that’s all you want than I guess that works. The iPhone has many more apps because it needs them to make up for the deficient browser. Ever notice that sites that use flash have apps? I personally like just going to the website and reading content on the site. My “old” Mytouch 4g handles that just fine where my iPad is 50/50 sometimes it crashes sometimes it doesn’t render properly. Lastly a lot of people are complaining about the battery life of the 4s which sucks because you can’t pull the battery and pop in a spare like on android when you don’t have time to charge. After I upgraded to iOS 5 my iPad’s battery life is not nearly as good as it was on iOS 4. Also my iPad is laggy now where it was fine before. I wish I could downgrade. My advice to you is to never upgrade past iOS 5 because it seems apple just want to sell the new shiny iDevices which is fine but not so good for people that keep their phones for a while. I had the 3g before and it was fine until I upgraded to iOS 4. My friend’s Nexus One is on the newest version of Android and does not lag at all and it’s a 2 year old phone! Did you look at other android devices? The Galaxy Nexus is going to be vastly superior to all current Android devices because it will be running stock Android which means you will get the updates as soon as Google releases them. The push notifications work on my phone for Contienntal. I think it’s just the lack of upgraded software on your intercept.