iPhone or 'Andriod' mobile

MrYorke

Hi

just wondering if i should wait forthe iPhone 4g to come out or buy one of the new mobiles using 'Android'?

I currently use a BBerry Curve 8900. I have my business emails 'pushed' to the mobile. I also use the calender but have found the screen too small for my liking hence the move to something bigger.

I also like to play games (during my lunchbreaks) and like the idea of the many games available on the iPhone. Will this happen with 'Android' mobiles?

I have had a look at alot of the apps on the iPhone and could use many of them. Just need to know if the 'Android' phones will ever compete or will it take a couple of years.

Cheers

MrYorke

Darksun

Well, one thing you have to remember is that Android is a platform that many different phones run, and some are better than others.

In terms of Apps, Android is an open platform, whereas iPhone is restricted, Apple get to decide what Apps can be released for their phone. So in theory this means that long term there will be greater availability on Android, however my knowledge of development on both these platforms is pretty limited, so it may be that the iPhone is simpler and more attractive to developers. I can imagine this is the case since you only have to guarantee your software will run on one handset, rather than the variety of handsets that run Android, each of which may have their own quirks and flaws to be accounted for.

Marty_J

I would definitely wait to see what Apple come up with.

BillScarab

There are far more apps available for the iPhone currently than for Android, about 140000-15000 compared to 20000-30000. So if there are particular types of apps you're likely to want or need find out if they are available first. Also although there are a lot of apps for the iPhone I would imagine that some have effectively been superceded by other apps so aren't that useful.

Personally I like Android and my next phone will probably be an Android one. Some of the latest ones such as the Google Nexus One, HTC Desire, Motorola Milestone and HTC legend are superb phones that are as good or better than the current iPhone. It will be interesting to see what Apple do next now they are starting to get some proper competition.

Out of all the phones currently available I would go for the HTC Legend.

Hammer_Slammer

MrYorke wrote: »

Hi

just wondering if i should wait forthe iPhone 4g to come out or buy one of the new mobiles using 'Android'?

I currently use a BBerry Curve 8900. I have my business emails 'pushed' to the mobile. I also use the calender but have found the screen too small for my liking hence the move to something bigger.

I also like to play games (during my lunchbreaks) and like the idea of the many games available on the iPhone. Will this happen with 'Android' mobiles?

I have had a look at alot of the apps on the iPhone and could use many of them. Just need to know if the 'Android' phones will ever compete or will it take a couple of years.

Cheers

MrYorke

Iphone :cool: For games theres no contest.

BillScarab

You say there's no contest, but there are a shade under 5000 games out on Android now. that should be enough to keep most people happy even if 80% of them are useless. I don't know how many iPhone games there are but how many are actually worth playing?

The latest figures for Android are that there are 38000 apps now so although it is still a long way behind the iPhone it's doing well and the amount released per month is ramping up as well.

bbuckle

One thing to bear in mind is that getting your works email (and appointments, global address book) pushed to your android phone is likely to cost you some money (I'm assuming it's exchange server).

I've tried the free apps that claim to do this, but with little success.

However, the paid for app that I do use is very good indeed ($19.99).

I have no idea what the situation is with the iPhone regarding push email for exchange server.


EDIT: A quick search shows that the ability to synch with exchange server is built in to the iPhone.

Google Sky Maps alone is worth the price of my Samsung Galaxy Portal, but the really big negative, for me, is the onscreen keyboard which is not as good as the iPhone jobby. I hear that the update to Android 2.1 will improve this. I hope so.

Marty_J

BillScarab wrote: »

You say there's no contest, but there are a shade under 5000 games out on Android now. that should be enough to keep most people happy even if 80% of them are useless. I don't know how many iPhone games there are but how many are actually worth playing?

The iPhone and iPod Touch took 19% of the portable gaming market in the US last year, so someone must think there are quite a few games worth playing.

BillScarab

I think I phrased it badly Marty. The point I was trying to make is that the iPhone may have a lot more games available for it than Android at the moment but numbers don't tell the whole story. It's the number of good worthwhile games that count.

As I said there are now approx. 5000 games out for Android even if only 10% are any good that's stil 500 games. There may be 5000 good games for the iPhone but you're never going to play them all. The key thing with any platform is having a enough good games available and Android must be there or close to being there already. The iPhone obviously is in that position already.

bob_man_uk

I would go for the iphone, the only problem i have is the sheer price of it, mac's in general hold their value quite well and the iphone is no exception.

the only problem ive got with the iphone is the closed nature of apple, dont get me wrong i love the fact apple can weed out the crappy apps that do exactly the same thing as most advert ridden web pages. however at the same time i hate the fact there is no flash support. it makes the overall web experience very... bland to say the least.

you could always jailbreak your iphone, giving you access to cydia... and the other app installer, making a lot of things more accessible, like changing layouts/look of things etc. but tbh unless you like to tweak things a lot its not really worth it.

android: ive had very little exposure to, i like the fact its an open source system and has been ported to many devices, apps are as others have said, gathering in numbers and the devices themselves are pretty good spec.

if cost wasnt an issue i would go for an iphone, cost being an issue, i would choose an android phone (£160 from tmobile on payg)

but can i throw another device in the works?

how about windows mobile devices? have you considdered any of these for what you need, afaik push mail with exchange is seamless and works perfectly. ive never had it work with an iphone

viscione

how about some of the new nokia phones!!! a lot better than I phone me thinks