Apple iPhone4 and iOS4.0 - Thread

No, I'm waffling back towards the Evo. Or just waiting two months to see what else has cropped up.

I was at the Sprint store again today because my replacement phone is buggy. So, while the guy was looking at it, I was talking to the girl behind the counter who has the Evo and loves it. That's what gets me. When they love it.

I'm still not 100% sure I want to ask Sprint to raise my monthly bill by $10 bucks for a phone that can do pretty much what the phone I already have can do. Because that's pretty much what I'd be doing. But, its between the EVO and sticking with my current one. I do like some of the footage I've seen from the phone.
 
I played with the Evo, Incredible and X. One thing I can say about the EVO is the battery life is THAT BAD. A friend of mine just got back from New York with his EVO and he said using it during the day to look up stuff in the city, the battery off of a full charge didn't last more than 3 hours. He's now trying to find a second battery solution.

The X I have not heard any stats on yet. My GF just ordered one but it has not come in.

If I were to get a phone, it would be the incredible. Same speed as the EVO, same resolution.

That said, I have to say, I am still not impressed with the droid UI. It's not as responsive as the iPhone still even with the HTC sense stuff. We compared ALL the phones and it was clear the iPhone was a winner by far. Second, the cameras in these phones are just NOT as nice as the iPhone camera. I tested them personally and the quality of the iPhone pictures for video AND stills was superior. The reason this is important to me is because I feel having a good camera on the phone for video is necessary if you need to document anything, like an accident, and don't have a better camera with you.

The best thing to do is get time with the phone and play with all of them. The battery life on my iPhone is so good, I had to show people the usage statistics. I got 16 hours out of is yesterday and late last night while using GPS, bluetooth and WiFi while STRONGLY using the web browser and song detection software (soundhound). NO other phone I have had could take this much use.

I will say this, while I don't like the large screens of the EVO and X, because I keep my phone in my pocket and they are HUGE, they are much easier to type on. Much! And of course, with android, you can use the slide type as well.
 
I played with the Evo, Incredible and X. One thing I can say about the EVO is the battery life is THAT BAD. A friend of mine just got back from New York with his EVO and he said using it during the day to look up stuff in the city, the battery off of a full charge didn't last more than 3 hours. He's now trying to find a second battery solution.

Thanks for the input.

It's not ideal but replacement batteries for the EVO are cheap. I just located 2 batteries and a charger on EBAY for less than $10 bucks. But, it's not ideal. I've got a Palm Pre and I picked up a second battery for $5 bucks. It's handy but I'd rather my phone just last for an entire day without worry. I keep hearing great things about the EVO but before I make a decision, I'd like to make sure I'm not jumping one sinking ship to climb aboard another one.

I think that there isn't a question about how much better the touch response is with the iPhone as compared to the other lines of touch phones. They've been at this for longer. But, I think the gap is certainly narrowed. What I can't stomach is the extra cost for the iPhone monthly plans. The plans cost considerably more with AT&T. I'd rather not pay an extra $30-$40 dollars a month. But that doesn't seem to be a sticking point with many people.
 
Mine is not that extreme where I am in differences in plans, however, depending on which carrier you are right. I looked at the verizon prices and it's only like $10 less I believe. However, I am using the original data plan as you can grandfather in if you've had that already. For what I have on the new plan it would be more. (And where AT&T really gets more expensive is text messages. So stupid).

True about batteries, I've been down that route before (my first RAZR was horrible) so I don't miss that. Of course, iPhone has to get it right since you'd have to use an add on pack to get more life (and some people are talking about an add on pack for the EVO as well).

I am sure iPhone won't reign supreme in touch for much longer. Nor will they with display technology since they don't actually make the display, it is made by LG.

I just want a phone that complements my life, not complicate it. When the iPhone came out, it was the best solution. Since I am app invested into the iPhone by probably $100 or more, I don't want to lose those apps (also, I am an iPhone developer too, which I like doing).

Phones are like cameras. You aren't going to know if you like it till you test the hell out of it in ways that are important to YOU since most people only test what THEY care about.
 
I don't even want a phone that 'complements my life.' I'm content with one that reliably makes phone calls...
 
Just got an HTC Aria. Got it for Android testing, cause it's a kind of mid-range phone. But man this thing is friggin sweet. UI is snappy, and navigation is pretty intuitive.

But most of all the voice recognition changes everything for me. It's so accurate, I've been using it all day for text messages, emails, search, everything. Works almost flawlessly. This is a HUGE deal in my opinion, as the number one barrier I see to smart phones is the tiny keyboards. Typing is not hard, but it can be time consuming and tedious.

Love love love this little phone so far. Really surprised at how nice it is.
 
Gotta say, after only two days, this HTC Aria Android phone absolutely destroys my iPhone in every category. Cleaner calls, about 10X faster browser rendering, UI is INSTANT, completely configurable with some cool widgets for email, text, etc screens, just really amazed with this little sucker. It is a lesser phone, so has an MDPI screen, but in every other way it just kills my iPhone. I wonder how I got along with such a hobbled device this long :)

HTC is really on top of things with Android. Got to hand it to them.

And best of all I just plugged my SIM in and everything worked. No need to change up my unlimited plan or anything. And the iPhone still works perfectly well as an iPod touch without the SIM card. So all good for testing app development.

I am no longer Apple's *****! Now I am Google's *****...
 
Last edited:
The important thing is that you're somebody's *****.

Hahaha!

The sad thing, like post things is this world (especially cameras) is that I do actually really like things on both the iPhone and the Android. Each does have some awesome strengths. Hopefully they will continue to try and one up one another and we get to be the winners.
 
So... Mark... your iPhone was a 3G? or 3Gs? Definitely not a 4, right? And your experience with Android, would that mean that in the "should I get an iPhone 4 or Evo 4G" debate, you'd say "get the Evo"?
 
That's a pretty decent comparison, but I disagree on two of his points. First, Apple doesn't restrict your multi-tasking, they give you five or so different models to choose from. It's up to the developer to decide which is best and the WHOLE point of this freedom is to pick one that preserves battery life. If you are playing a video game, you don't want it to run in the background, you but you want it to stay in memory so you can go back to it, maybe after a call or so. As a developer, I can chose whatever I want. The same thing is with the notification system as well. They want to keep you from draining your battery for little gain. At the same time, you can have your apps work in the background if needed, like audio apps, and that works great.

Second problem is his battery life. EVERYONE I know who has an EVO has problems with the battery. Many of them cannot go a full day on a charge if they are actually using their phone. I am sure it depends on what you have on, like bluetooth and wifi, and he didn't seem to really exercise that OR the GPS usage. I know the GPS kills the battery on the EVO even faster. I don't have that problem with my iPhone.

That said, he hit the nail on the head with investment. I agree with him that if you are not invested in one or the other, there is more freedom on the droid platform. There are things I love on it that I wish Apple had implemented and I am sure they won't. One of my favorite things is the multi-colored LED letting you know what notifications you have waiting. That said, the screen on my iPhone will ensure I will NEVER go back to a lower rez screen. In fact, I now look forward to this density of screen making it to computers because it is THAT nice to read on. And the camera is THAT much better. (If only it had manual controls!) :)

But, I say again, if you have an Apple store and a Sprint store near you, go try each of them out. It's the only way to know for sure because interface wise, they feel VERY different.

(And the biggest thing I agree on in that article is the badges on the iphone AND OSX are a pain in the neck if you have a lot of different programs that use them. The notification system, while ugly, on the Android is a lot nicer to me.
 
Gotta say, after only two days, this HTC Aria Android phone absolutely destroys my iPhone in every category. ... but in every other way it just kills my iPhone. I wonder how I got along with such a hobbled device this long :)
I guess I forgot to mention this but -- when I got my wife an iPhone 3Gs and had to borrow it for a minute, that was *exactly* the feeling I had as compared to my Blackberry Storm. The iPhone just obliterated the Storm. It was completely embarrassing as to how much better the iPhone 3Gs was. So that's why I started looking at the iPhone 4. But if you're saying the HTC is as superior to the 3Gs, as the 3Gs is to the Storm, then that's really something...
 
Remember, the 10 ton elephant in the corner is how many applications support either phone and how well.
Naw, the 10-ton elephant is whether it does what you want. If you're buying it to make phone calls, and you can't, that's a pretty hefty elephant, regardless of whether there's an app for recipes or fandango! :D

Besides, last count it was like 200k+ for iPhone, 70k+ for Android; seventy thousand is still a lot.

Total number of apps is, to me, like arguing about total number of pixels on your HD camera. Might make some people feel good to say they've got bragging rights to the most number of pixels, but I'm more concerned with how the images turn out. If the thing will make phone calls, has a flashlight, gets on the web, and has turn-by-turn GPS navigation, and some manner of video and still camera and a schedule-keeper, that's all it really needs.

Things like the GH1 hack have got me totally back looking at Android. Just found a page where they give a tutorial on tethering an Android to your laptop, for free. The way Vitaliy has turned the GH1 world upside down, portends very well for open-source development. I think open is the way to go -- at least for how I work.
 
I guess I forgot to mention this but -- when I got my wife an iPhone 3Gs and had to borrow it for a minute, that was *exactly* the feeling I had as compared to my Blackberry Storm. The iPhone just obliterated the Storm. It was completely embarrassing as to how much better the iPhone 3Gs was. So that's why I started looking at the iPhone 4. But if you're saying the HTC is as superior to the 3Gs, as the 3Gs is to the Storm, then that's really something...

I had the 3G. But even comparing it to my friend's iPhone 4, the speed was still greater on the HTC. Esp things like browser rendering on the same wi-fi connection. On my wi-fi at home, web pages are almost instant on the HTC. Also I think they have made a lot UI decisions at HTC that are far superior to the decisions they made at Apple. Little things like how notifications work, configurability of screens, your ability to quickly access things like email and txt messages in multiple ways. I think the UI decisions have also made working on the HTC a better experience.

I'm sure the video camera on the iPhone 4 is better, but I never really use it for quality video so don't care. And as I said, the iPhone 4 screen is better than mine, because the Aria is a mid-level resolution device.

As for apps, well I think most apps for both phones are useless. Like 90% of them. But I also think Android is going to be the dominant phone and possibly even embedded platform in the not too distant future. So as I said before I got this mainly as a development device, but it just turned out to be such a pleasure to use, I switched over.
 
So... Mark... your iPhone was a 3G? or 3Gs? Definitely not a 4, right? And your experience with Android, would that mean that in the "should I get an iPhone 4 or Evo 4G" debate, you'd say "get the Evo"?

I do think it's important to remember I am talking about HTC's Android implementation. They are way on the ball, so I think the EVO would be at least as good as the iPhone 4. I think at that point you would be dealing with choices in features.
 
Back
Top