Thoughts on the Incredible from an iPhone user

snookiesnoo

Well-known member
Apr 28, 2010
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I've had all three iPhones. I'm a longtime Apple guy. Bought my 1st Mac in 1984. I have had about every handheld you can think of either through work or as a personal purchase.

I picked up an HTC Incredible yesterday. It's really a good phone. I think it's a keeper. Couple observations.
-I can actually make a receive cell calls at our new house with Verizon which I can't do with AT&T. Thats kind of an important "feature" of any phone....
-Android is much improved and the fastest and smoothest on this phone of any phone I have seen yet. I can detect a tiny amount of lag when scrolling apps but if I wasn't used to the iPhones super smooth scrolling I probably would not have noticed.
-Many of the apps I use on the iPhone are also available on Android. Most in fact.
-This phone has 768MB of memory in rom for installing apps. Enough for now.
-The Android user interface is not as simple and well thought out as the iPhone but its not really an issue. Lots of things take more steps to accomplish and its a busier interface than the iPhone but its' pretty hard to beat Apple's UI design. Google could do a lot more here with pretty much everything they do as UI is not their strong point.
-The HTC add-ons are really nice. I thought of them as gimmicks until I saw them. Their on screen keyboard is much better than stock Android which I find almost unusable. Still prefer the iPhone keyboard though.
-Plenty of ways to sync with the Mac including wirelessly. I wish Apple would implement this. Pretty silly to have to connect to your computer via a cable to sync these days.
-Voice quality is better, louder and clearer. Whether this is phone, Verizon, or CDMA I don't know. The ringer is much louder too which is good because I often don't hear my iPhone ringing when driving.
-I thought of haptic feedback as a gimmick too but its actually kind of useful.
-The screen is really nice except for outdoors where it washes out badly.
-I want to be able to tether my iPad to this phone. Verizon only offers a cable connect which will not work. PDANET does not work with the iPad. So I have to wait for someone to root the phone so i can use it as a wireless access point. I don't think that will take long at all, probably a few days.
-More Google apps on this phone that are not on the iPhone and mapping is better. I expect the Google Apps and location based services are going to be a key differentiator between this and iPhone as Google has pretty obviously decided to limit what they will give Apple.

I would not have considered this phone if it weren't for iPad which goes everywhere with me and does everything the iPhone does but better and faster. The new iPhone is not far away and will be excellent but I'm tired of waiting for it to show up on Verizon. The Incredible attracted a lot of interest from iPhone users at work who are also sick of AT&T. We travel from Phoenix to New York a lot and AT&T reception in NYC is pretty much useless.
 
That post's not biased. I love iPhones as much as I love Incredibles, but I will admit I'm still liking the iPhone a little bit more than Android phones right now. The Incredible has tethering and much better customization, while the iPhone has the app store and an incredibly intuitive UI. Each has its strong points, I suppose. It's a matter of personal preference. This is no place for fanboys, btw, since I know this will get very heated very fast. So whoever posts next, keep that in mind. :p I honestly think if the iPhone came to Verizon, we'd see so many switchers – from other carriers and from other VZW phones. Again, though, people have their preferences and prejudices.
 
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Thanks for the comments. I too have had all three iPhones and some Berries in-between.

Couple points I differ with. The iPhone's UI downfall is the lack of widgets, especially on the homescreen. With a glance at my DI's homescreen, I can see the weather and my calendar, with the iPhone I would have to launch each item via tapping on an icon. Always hated that with the iPhone.

I am syncing wirelessly my contacts and calendar. Snow Leopard makes it easy to do. iCal and Address Book both have preference settings to add Google Contacts and Google Calendar. Snow Leopard only syncs once an hour, but that is fixed by simply editing the GoogleContactsSyncAgent.plist file... the default setting is <integer>3600</integer>... 3600 seconds (1 hour) ... I just took out the 6 to make the value 300, which is every five minutes. You can make it whatever you want.

My 2 cents.
 
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If you jailbreak your iPhone, though, there is a lot of potential available to mod the lock screen (which can show the time, date, weather, etc. like SlideScreen). Some people ruin it, though. Gotta be conservative.

I'll agree with you that in the fact that I too was disappointed that I had to open a separate app to see the weather.

And if I ever go back to the iPhone, assuming it comes to Verizon, I'm going to keep trying to slide down the top taskbar when a text comes in. Haha, damn.
 
If you jailbreak your iPhone, though, there is a lot of potential available to mod the lock screen (which can show the time, date, weather, etc. like SlideScreen). Some people ruin it, though. Gotta be conservative.

I'll agree with you that in the fact that I too was disappointed that I had to open a separate app to see the weather.

And if I ever go back to the iPhone, assuming it comes to Verizon, I'm going to keep trying to slide down the top taskbar when a text comes in. Haha, damn.

I dont consider jailbreaking or rooting when comparing the two phones. But it sure does make each phone much more fun... and flexible!
 
Jailbreaking iPhone 3.1.3 is no easy task and I would only do it to get tethering to my iPad. With AT&T's poor 3G coverage there isn't much point in it for me. Improvements in functionality to the iPhone OS have eliminated the need for jail breaking iPhone for a lot of people.

Not everyone likes or wants widgets. I don't for the most part. They get in my way and use up resources. I have no interest in all the social networking stuff.

I do sync iCal and calendar with Google already. I'm trying Missing Sync but it does not seem very stable on the incredible end of things. Also used Double Sync but I'm not sure they are working on it anymore.
 
I thought Apple was doing whatever they can to stop people from jailbreaking their phones and having some success (locking out of AppStore, no updates, etc.).

I like iPhones, but prefer the inherent openness and customizability of Androids. That was the determining factor for me, and would still be even if the iPhone were on Verizon. The app disparity is quickly becoming less of an issue.
 
IMHO, Iphones UI is the most BORING out there! A grid of plain jane icons, how exciting! And no multitasking right?
 
And if I ever go back to the iPhone, assuming it comes to Verizon, I'm going to keep trying to slide down the top taskbar when a text comes in. Haha, damn.

LOL. that IS the coolest thing, isn't it? whatever is happening *right now* is available with a quick swipe. I just love it. :)
 
Nice post snookie, it was good to hear your perspective coming from an iPhone . Same as you I'm a long time Mac Head and I got tired of waiting for the iPhone to come to Verizon too . Honestly as smart as I think Jobs is, I think it was a dumb move to stay tied to ATT for so long. Anyways I had a Storm and learned to despise it, but I'm extremely happy with the Incredible.
 
Having owned all 3 iPhone iterations and a few Android phones inbetween... I can say this:

Being able to make a call (thanks Verizon), have fast Gmail, and maps integration makes the whole platform extremely enticing. There is a lot of little things that make Android special, and a lot of little things that make you want to throw the phone. (The same can be said of the iPhone)

I'm sure some will be insulted by this, but the most recent cache of Android phones are the first ones to be decent competitors to the iPhone. This will be a good year with the Incredible and EVO 4g on the market.

Someone had to take the reigns on Android, and put a layer of polish on it. Thank you HTC! I hope they can keep fragmentation to a minimum and get the high quality 3rd party apps rolling in.
 
I doubt that the phone will be rooted within a few days. But the person that just did the Desire thinks the same hole might be there on the Incredible. If so he might be able to get it done very quick. But I would think you will be looking at a month or two.
 
Great post. I am too waiting for the VZW iPhone so i only got a 1 year contract for the DI. I'm coming from a Storm1. I'm glad to hear you generally like the device.
 
I'm sure some will be insulted by this, but the most recent cache of Android phones are the first ones to be decent competitors to the iPhone. This will be a good year with the Incredible and EVO 4g on the market.

I don't think you'll find much argument there. I'm coming to the Incredible from the iPhone 3G... I tried the Palm Pre (granted, not Android) & the Motorola Droid, but always returned to the iPhone due to the all around package being lacking.

Perhaps it's the hardware specs, perhaps it's the SenseUI, but just in my brief couple of hours of ownership with the Incredible, I am thinking more and more that I'll be consummating this new relationship by porting my number from AT&T very soon. With the exception of some small gotchas (which all phones have), this one really is great.
 
IMHO, Iphones UI is the most BORING out there! A grid of plain jane icons, how exciting! And no multitasking right?

I want a simple interface. I need the phone to get things done not to look at. iPhone has always multi-tasked the built in Apple apps. As of June it will multi-task other apps too. This was a design decision to keep up battery life and app stability. It will be nice to have multi-tasking but I never noticed it to be an issue anyway even with 1.8 GB of apps installed. The worst that would happen is if I was streaming internet radio it would be cut off if i did something else. One thing GSM has going for it is the ability to do data and voice at the same time. Comes in very handy when traveling, in airports, and other places when you are doing calls and other things at the same time. Because of the way Verizon implemented CDMA you can't do this. But no multi-tasking on the iPad sucks so it will be really nice to get the updated OS for that.
 
So anyway I ported my number over from AT&T today. The Incredible is great and I did not expect to switch so soon. At best i figured it was 50/50 that I would return the phone to Verizon and go back to the iPhone despite my issues with AT&T. Guess my 3GS will go up on eBay. Verizon is leaving a lot of money on the table not providing the ability to be a wi-fi hotspot with phones like this. Now I will have to wait for someone to root it so I can do it myself. This phone and my 64GB iPad are going to be a really nice combination.
 
I like the iPhone. For me, however, I really can't stand Apple as a company, and loathe Steve Jobs. It's not a hardware or software issue. I couldn't leave the openness of Android to have a Tyrant tell me how to use MY device. It is a nice device IMO, but it goes deeper than that for me. I don't want to be told what I can or cannot do with my personal property that much. It's like buying a nice wide screen TV, but Sony(or whoever) only allows PBS and Fox News to be brodcast to it. No thanks. It's Android's Open approach for me(not to mention I really like the form and functionality of it as well!).
 
-The screen is really nice except for outdoors where it washes out badly.

Snookie .... I have seen my friends iphone screen in daylight. I have never seen the Nexus One in person nor the Incredible. Can I ask your opinion as a iphone owner/user? How does the Incredible compare to the iphone in daylight? Same, worse, can not use in daylight? please help me with this one. I live in sunny San Diego, California. Where it is sunny most of the year. I would like to use the camera alot with this phone and would like to take pictures of my son at the zoo, parks, beach etc. Input would be appreciated !
 

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