An open letter - questioning my switch to Android...

[CarbonOak]

I know when we got our iPhones - my wife was confused for a while (it was her first smartphone) but for me coming from a BB it was a huge step up compared to what I was used to with the BB. I'm finding this step (from iPhone to X) is more of a sideways (different things to get used to) step than a huge leap forward like it was from BB to iPhone.

Agreed. Going from a BB to either an iPhone or an Android is definitely a step up, but between the two, it's a sideways step, each with their advantages and disadvantages.

I like customization, the ability to do whatever I want, the myriad of choices. That's why Android suits me much better than iPhone. I said on another forum, with Android, you make the phone yours with whatever app and look you want, no restrictions. You are not limited by what one company wants your experience to be.

I hope you'll find everything that you need in Android. Plus Froyo's coming out soon and that'll smooth a few things over and bring additional support and fixes.

 

[gvillager]

- My wife needs to stay on Outlook for her business. A $40 option is not what I want to do, nice that it's there, though. I just think this is a glaring oversight.

I use Google Apps for your domain. The standard edition is free. It's a great service and my only regret is not switching sooner.

 

[.46caliber]

I'm not looking for or expecting to get any sort of empathy, that's not what this is. It's a vent I guess. It seems like I have several minor issues with this device that when combined make me question my decision to switch to Android. It feels like I have to find a workaround for everything. I understand the phone, I understand the "openness" of Android, the customization, etc.

I am not an Apple guy, I dislike Macs quite a bit and I'm an Art Director, but liked my iPhone (switched due to AT&T coverage). For me, a smartphone is a tool and should fit seamlessly into my life so i don't have to think about it. I find myself trying to just get the X to a place that it did the things my iPhone just DID, like full Outlook sync without paying, not having to find apps to do something that causes me to have to do something else in something else or there will be conflicts, use 3G (!!!), etc. It's just a pain and far more involved than it needs to be for a device that Motorola said is a "consumer device". I'm a technically savvy guy so I can only imagine what the avg user would experience, like my wife who HATES this phone.

I know this is a first Android device for a lot of people and I can't be the only one who is disappointed or frustrated and just about ready to bail. For me to suck this all up hoping it will get better is as dishonest as the iPhone 4 users saying that the antenna thing is no big deal. No one likes to feel like they mad the wrong choice, much less all the BS and money that comes along with it.

Thanks.

Eric

Best piece of advice I think any of us can offer is give it time. Even if you got your X midnight of the 15th, you haven't had your device a week.

Give it some time and learn. Read these forums, follow the blogs, and talk with other Android users. I know two guys that dumped iPhones for Android and love it, one got the Aria one came to VZW for the X. I know another that's switching next month to a Captivate.

Put the iPhone out of your head, and really give it a shot. There is a learning curve any time you switch platforms. I was very frustrated when I first switched from Windows to Linux (Kubuntu 9.10 and now 10.04). I'm glad I stuck it out. I still run both OS's on different machines, but I love the stability.

 

[duffyanneal]

I'm a newb as well. I had been using iPhones since the first gen with a 6 month break with a BB Curve. I have also used WinMo devices as well as a Treo. Overall I really like the X and Android. I love the ability to customize so many aspects of the OS, and I particularly like the way notifications are handled. With that said here's a few things that really strike me as annoyances that added together really make the decision to stay with Android much more difficult.

1. Unified inbox. BB has this nailed and iPhone really caught up in the last two revs of the OS. One stop shopping for email. The Android is a hodge podge of really poor email clients. I use Gmail for personal use and Outlook Exchange for work. The built in Exchange client is very basic and would get the job done for simple email. I'm out in the field quite often and I need complete access to my emails. This includes server side searching of my messages which you can't do with the stock client. Turns out Touchdown is a really nice email app that gets the job done. Only problem is that it costs $20 and it doesn't do POP or IMAP! So now I'm out of pocket $20 to get the same functionality as a stock iPhone, and I still have to use two email apps to get the same functionality as the single iPhone app. Is this supposed to be better? I was slightly confused when I looked at the unified inbox only to find out Gmail wasn't there. Great, I guess Google's definition of unified isn't quite the same as mine.

2. What's up with the inability of Android to scale images in certain applications? If that sounds vague I apologize. What I mean by that is in several instances I have run into issues where I can't zoom in/out of images. I have to look at them in full size and pan around. The stock Gmail client as well as K9 does this with email embedded with images, one of my favorite apps Evernote does this as well. It's extremely annoying to try to look up notes that I have embedded pictures.

3. Cut and paste support is sporadic at best. I remember so many people chastising Apple when they finally released cut and paste support. You know what...they really deserved the criticism. Funny, I don't hear too many people complaining about Android's implementation which is juvenile at best.

4. Double tap for zooming in and out in the browser doesn't work very well. The way that the iPhone does it is much more intelligent. Also the lack of folders support was a fantastic discovery for me and my 154 bookmarks. That's after I realized that Android doesn't support book mark syncing with their own products.

There are other little things that really need to be polished as well. Please don't get me wrong I really like Android, the DX, and I'm going to stick with it, but these are a few of the things that really strike me as barriers to making Android the best mobile OS. Sorry for the rant.