Shawn Blanc Reviews the Galaxy Nexus

Shawn Blanc, who has used an iPhone for 4 years, used a Galaxy Nexus as his primary phone for the past week. Some of his findings didn’t really surprise me.

Regarding the screen that is so large you could serve a lunch on it:

This gives the Galaxy Nexus an aura that makes me wonder if it’s supposed to be a tablet that makes phone calls or a phone that you need two hands to use. I realize that’s a goofy and exaggerated statement, but I exaggerate it to make a point I am serious about: the phone is simply too big.

If this were my full-time phone, I’d be sad.

And 4G LTE’s effect on battery life:

Earlier this week I spent some time driving around Kansas City in order to field test the turn-by-turn navigation, the LTE network, and the battery life. At 11:30 AM I started out and the battery of the Nexus was at 43-percent. After 25 minutes the battery had drained down to 33-percent even though it was plugged into a car charger.

Think about that. If you’re on a road trip and want to use the 4G LTE network to provide you with driving directions, your drive had better be shorter than 4 hours because even when plugged into a car charger, the battery will not last.

Shawn poses a great question, which nerds should pick up on: Who is fighting for the users?

…the Galaxy Nexus seems more like a phone that its makers can brag about making rather than a device that its users would brag about owning. It has all sorts of features that seem great on posters and billboards and board meeting reports, but none of those features enhance the actual user experience.

And regarding the difference between Android and iOS:

Android has options for just about everything. But, in spite of all its options and ability to customize, I didn’t find Android to be more powerful than iOS. Of all the options and choices that I was given by Android, there was nothing in Android that I could not also accomplish on iOS. In fact, the options and choices usually got in my way.

Moreover, of the millions of users on Android, how many exercise this freedom of choice that is a part of the Android OS?

This has always seemed to be the crux of the whole Android/iOS debate to me. Android seems great for nerds who love to tinker, or who have a hard time ceding any control over anything. iOS is far more simplistic in that Apple tends to make the decision that will make most people happy, not just the vocal minority.

I’d even go so far as to say even iOS offers far more things than the average user will ever discover. But the absence of discovering these little features will not interfere with the normal usage of the device.

Android should be reserved for those who know what they are getting into. If someone I know needs a recommendation for what smart phone to get, I would not recommend Android to them.

To those who want to use Android, I say go for it. I don’t think that choice is wrong — there are many fine things about the Android OS and many things it does differently and better than iOS.

[…]

Moreover, there was nothing on Android that made me feel more empowered compared to using my iPhone.

Sure, there are bits of the Android OS that I like and appreciate, but never once was I wowed or delighted. Which is unfortunate, because those are important elements when you are using a device day in and day out every day of the year.

iOS and the devices it runs on often get teased for being described as “magical”. Guess what? Magic wows and delights. People enjoy magic. After years of using iOS, it still holds me in childlike wonderment.

Third-Parties

Back in May, I wrote some thoughts about what looked like the beginning of Twitter pushing third-party clients like Twitterrific and Tweetbot out of the service.

Recently, Business Insider interviewed Paul Haddad, the coding-half of Tweetbot maker Tapbots. I thought the following was worth mentioning:

BI: How has dealing with Twitter been, by the way? They still being awkward to developers about making clients, etc?

PH: It’s been much better over the last few months. I’m not sure they were ever harassing folks, I think it was just really bad communication. But regardless they’ve been really helpful over the last few months. The dev relations group in particular is great, I’m always pestering them with questions and bug reports.

There’s still a view out there that they are actively against third parties and I just don’t think that’s the case.

I find that to be incredibly reassuring that Twitter won’t pigeon-hole us into their single (crappy) experience.

Santa Uses the iPhone 4S

I love the new iPhone 4S ad for Christmas.

The Death Knell of IE6

Microsoft:

Everyone benefits from an up-to-date browser.

Today we are sharing our plan to automatically upgrade Windows customers to the latest version of Internet Explorer available for their PC. This is an important step in helping to move the Web forward.

[…]

The Web overall is better – and safer – when more people run the most up-to-date browser. Our goal is to make sure that Windows customers have the most up-to-date and safest browsing experience possible, with the best protections against malicious software such as malware.

I cannot tell you how great of a move this is on Microsoft’s part. IE6 is the bane of the Internet, and I know so many people who use it because they don’t know there have been three new versions since. IE9 isn’t fully standards-compliant, but it is a great step in the right direction. And IE10 looks promising.

Chrome auto-updates, Firefox is going there. Apple already pushes new versions of Safari via Software Update, though the user must still choose to install it. For the fast pace of the Internet, auto-updating is the right thing to do for home users (my only gripe is the user is often not told what is new).

It seems Microsoft finally took notice they were shipping a terrible browser, and ever since they have been on the frontline to kill the zombie that is IE6.

[via Zeldman]

Three Quick iMessage Tips

Lex Friedman at Macworld shares three iMessage tips that everyone with iOS 5 should go do right now.

Explore Apple's Grand Central Retail Store

Apple's page for its brand new store in Grand Central Station has a neat trick for owners of the iPhone 4/4S, 4th Generation iPod touch, and iPad 2. Tap View More Photos then tap the one labeled 360. You can then move your device around in front of you and look around the store. I found it works best on the iPad 2.

Stephen M. Hackett's Kindle Fire Review

SMH:

Look, here’s the thing: the Kindle Fire sucks unless you are earlobe-deep in Amazon’s ecosystem. Even then, the hardware and software aren’t stellar. It’s cheaply made with a small screen and a heavy chassis. The software is laggy and crashes at times. The weird UI means apps are never where you left them.

[…]

This thing isn’t an iPad killer. Hell, it isn’t even a Generic Android Tablet killer.

Slow Down

In tune with the previous post, my local, friendly arch-nemesis of mobile operating systems, Ryan Minert, is also fed up with the overwhelming deluge of Android handsets:

Manufuacturers need to slow down and space out their launches to no more than 3 per year to give their current devices a chance to grab market hold.

[…]

People tend to buy what their friends/family already have, so if devices stayed as “new” for longer, carriers and manufacturers would make more money, rather than discounting the device mere weeks after launch.

This is why Apple limits choice, folks. Some may argue that Apple is too severe in their limits (Ryan makes that assertion), but it’s obvious that fewer choices are better in the long haul.

Let's Go Buy an Android Phone

Sebastiaan de With helps you pick an Android phone in the US with his helpful guide.

Happy hunting.

Branding

This morning Ben Brooks pushed a new design of his site, The Brooks Review. One of the most significant changes he did was to drop any form of logo or branding from the site.

He, of course, addresses this:

I just like the site without a logo weighing down the top, right or wrong, it’s really that simple.

I think it is a bold move, and definitely not something many of us would do. But think about it — the old logo is what the design was built around, and what better branding could you have than to have the design stand on its own?