What's wrong with Google Android
by Raphael Haase
From now on, I am going to write mostly in English, also in this blog.
First of all, let me state my experience with android.
Back in February, at the Mobile Word Congress 2010, Google gave me a Nexus One for free. I decided that I really wanted to try out Android and was quite impressed by some features. Android appeared interesting to me because
- It supported extensive syncing of phone contacts with other networks.
- Google services were easier to set up.
- Apps could do more on the phone.
- The Nexus One was faster than my iPhone 3G.
So for the last half year, I have been using only my Nexus One to really be able to try it out. Sometime ago, I installed the latest release, Android 2.2, also called Froyo. It was actually a bit faster than its predecessor, but did not solve many problems. Instead, it introduced new ones.
Now I know why Android was a very wrong decision all along.
Android failed me in so many ways:
- Battery life time: You either have to turn all the cool features off completely (3G, GPS etc.) or suffer very short battery life. iOS allows you to turn it on and then it intelligently manages it so that these features still do not kill your battery that fast.
- No push notifications: Technically, Google says Android can do push too. But Facebook still does not implement it. I do not know a single application that can do push notifications. And I do not want Facebook to query the server every 15 mins just to emulate that because Google can’t get it right. iOS can do it. Facebook on iOS uses it. It works like a charm.
- Multi touch: Oh yes. Some devices can do multi touch. Like my Nexus One. In theory. Only some preinstalled apps use it. All these trolls on the Internet keep repeating that Android does multi touch. To my definition, it does not. Most apps do not use it. Because the idiotic device fragmentation prohibits it. Many devices do not support it at all and it seems like the screens work differently on different devices. Apparently, Android leaves the task of determining what device it is and how to handle it properly to the programmer. Great. Epic fail, Android. That’s embarrassing. Multi touch is completely useless that way.
- Playing music: Complicated, painful, do not want to do it. I know some guys with an Android device. I asked them how they played their music. “I still have a 2 year old iPod nano.” Oh right. So to be able to play music and videos, I again have to carry around a second device, because Google can’t get it right? No way. So I tried Doubletwist. Nice try. But it supports only half the features on the Mac like on Windows. Sync is slow, because the Nexus One uses Micro SD cards, which are inherently slow. Yeah right, trolls. Being able to exchange one slow micro SD card with another one is really a great advancement from Apple’s inability to exchange the integrated memory. The one of the iPhone is at least fast enough.
- Streaming music: Tried out everything: Grooveshark, mog.com, last.fm. Nothing works properly. It always stops after a minutes, because my phone registered with another cell base station. Does not work in the subway. Does not work with many people around. Fails when switching between WiFi at home/university and 3G outside. Fails even when walking more than 500 m. Epic fail, again. Music streaming on the phone is totally not practical. It needs a few more years until someone can do a proper data soft handover between WiFi, the cellular network and different base stations.
- WiFi unreliable: Android seems to try to connect to WiFi base stations a couple of times and then permanently give up. Both at my base station at home in Germany and in Hong Kong at the university, Android has given up permanently on ever connecting to the base stations again. I would have to manually ask it to try again.
- Missing apps:
- MindMeister
- any other proper mind mapping apps.
- Productivity apps for OmniFocus, Things etc.
- Proper Games.
- Public transportation apps (I know the “Öffi” app for Munich / Germany. But that does not count, because it does not work properly. For Hong Kong, there is an official one on the iPhone and not one in the Android Market.)
- Not properly working apps:
- Facebook: Can’t retrieve my friends list. Can’t write messages.
- Evernote: Crashes often. No offline caching.
- Rebtel: Can’t choose contacts when using search
- DoubleTwist: No proper browsing through songs.
- Adobe Reader, PDF to go etc. Some do not display pictures, others are slow.
- Fring: Unusable. Nothings works.
- Nimbuzz: Just as bad as Fring.
- Many bugs in Android (Froyo, FRF91):
- Random crashes. No obvious reason for them. Happens very often to me. Required a reboot.
- Phone stops suddenly vibrating completely. E.g. touching buttons does not create a vibration response any more without visible reason.
- eduroam authentication does not work.
- Bluetooth and WiFi block each other. Seems like you can’t use both.
- Bluetooth connection to headset arbitrarily drops.
- Crashes when making phone calls. Could be related to Android’s immature implementation of multi tasking. Sometimes BeyondPod might the cause. BeyondPod is the best rated podcast app in the store. So it should not be bad, but maybe it still is, thanks to the lack of control on Android.
- Sometimes, the other side could not hear me when calling. Restarting the phone helped.
To sum it up: Android is so much work in progress. It’s an interesting nerd tool. I will part ways with Android. I really have had enough of it.
If you like wasting your whole day with a phone that does not work or if you like nice marketing texts from Verizon Wireless and friends of what their Android phone in theory can do, but in practice fails to deliver completely, then go ahead with Android.
If you like a phone that is expensive and restricts you in some ways, but is stable and solidly delivers what it promised, a phone that actually allows you to use the features in practice, do not get an Android phone. Get a phone that works.
Update: More from TechCrunch on the very same matter.
Update 2: TechCrunch talks about yet another important aspect that I, being a techie, have completely overlooked: Carriers are diminishing the Android experience even more by pre installing bad software on phones and locking down nice features entirely (tethering, installing apps from any source vs. the carrier’s own app stores).
Update 3: Verizon is now even limiting your search engine choice to Microsoft Bing on Google Android phones! TechCrunch says: “Generally, Android is now about as open as iOS. Think about them Apples.”
I figured than rather going with the “Hurr Hurr u suck cuz u hate android and lovez teh fruitz” response that this would probably provoke in a lesser person, i would write an intelligent rebuttal to your argument.
Battery life time: I have used my Nexus One (henceforth refered to as the N1) for pretty much a 12 hour period withouth charging. This is with wifi and 3g on and gps on intermittently. First off have all of the “Cool features” on all the time is highly unnecessary. Do i need to have my gps on when I’m working from my basement? do i need wifi on when I’m on the road? I’d hardly think so. As a result i do what most intelligent people would do and turn … them .. off. Also did i mentioned i over clocked my N1 so that it technically still pulls more power.
Multi touch: No multi-touch? I have a nexus and the apps that can use it vary the “pre-installed” maps app to paint applications to various games. And the “idiotic fragmentation” you are referring to is what allows android to be run on various devices of different architectures, including ones with no touch screens. And if they wrote a single multi touch framework that did not work on all devices I’m pretty sure you’d have an issue with that too. The only reason why apple has no problem with multi-touch is because they have one set of devices, i.e. ipad, itouch, iphone. Of course they can perfect it. With only three types of architectures I’d be disappointed if they couldn’t. On the other hand I’d prefer being able to run an OS on multiple devices, even ones that didn’t ship with it, than to be restricted to 3. I prefer to expand my horizons beyond a small group of devices but then to each their own.
Playing music: Complicated? to quote someone i sent your article to, “lol”. Maybe you need to grow up a little how does a simple media player like the stock one confuse you. Even if it does you have a bunch of media players to choose from, even “simpler” ones. I have an iPod Touch so it is not as if i am speaking without experience. I am very familiar with the interface and i actually like it too, but i also like the freedom of being able to sync my music with more than one media players and i like the freedom the menu system gives me. If you find that complicated, i wonder how you even managed with the iPhone’s media player. Also have you actually tried syncing with a media player like winamp? It not only syncs painlessly it also sorts your music collection as well. Also Micro-SD cards are slow?I’m afraid I’ll have to insert another “lol” here. I assume you were using a Class 2 card because that’s the only way that a Micro-SD card can be slow. I don’t know what age you live in but in my present we have up to Class 16 cards which boast a minimum transfer speed of 16 MB/sec. The longer i read this article the more inexperience with basic technology you seem.
Streaming music: I have tried all of those applications under similar conditions with no issues. How in the world did yours manage to sop working after a few minutes. I know numerous people with android phones and no issues, heck even with my old G1 i had no problems. Walking outside between wifi locations also works for me. And you do realize that wifi has a range and that *gasp* you can actually exceed it by leaving the building. It is a phone with a tiny wifi antenna ….. don’t expect to go to the moon and still get wifi. And some skipping is to be expected when switching between networks. For goodness sake it has to disconnect from one to connect with the other.
WiFi unreliable: The issues you have described here is something i notice with corporate wifi networks on laptops, my iPod Touch and yes, my Nexus One. It does happen. I have not noticed it though on regular wifi networks. Do some testing with other networks and devices and I’m sure you’ll see the same.
Missing apps:
MindMeister (Don’t use can’t comment)
any other proper mind mapping apps.(Don’t use can’t comment)
Productivity apps for OmniFocus, Things etc. (Already wrote a lot. Not gonna even touch this one)
Proper Games. (Apparently Tom Clancy’s Hawks, Assassins Creed, Asphalt HD, Nova and a bunch of others don’t count as “proper games” oh well can’t please everyone)
Public transportation apps (Ummm …. Google maps …. works for me at least with public transportation systems)
Not properly working apps:
Facebook: Can’t retrieve my friends list. Can’t write messages. (What? When was the last time you used the app)
Evernote: Crashes often. No offline caching. (Don’t use can’t comment)
Rebtel: Can’t choose contacts when using search (Don’t use can’t comment)
DoubleTwist: No proper browsing through songs. (A million alternatives, was fine last i checked though)
Adobe Reader, PDF to go etc. Some do not display pictures, others are slow. (Adobe has released a mighty fine pdf viewer, might i suggest you look at it)
Fring: Unusable. Nothings works. (hmmm used it for a year on my g1, which is slower and underpowered than a N1 and no issues. Why not use the official skype)
Nimbuzz: Just as bad as Fring. (Don’t use can’t comment)
Many bugs in Android (Froyo, FRF91): Yeah i don’t really know what you did with your phone but mine has always run stable even before i rooted it, which technically is supposed to cause all hell to break loose.
In summary i think you should re-evaluate this article. A lot that was said was simply unfounded and in some cases just plain stupid. Yes android has it’s faults but so does every other man made system. Blowing them out of proportion to fit your preferred device however is plain wrong. Why i could even do the same for the iPhone 4 but that won’t help anyone. You may choose to ignore this and that would be fine too, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And this is mine.
- Juergen Mentor
@Juergen: Thanks for the comment.
I think there’s different definitions of user experience.
Most of what you said follows one principle: The user changing to the tool’s abilities vs. the tool changing towards the user’s abilities.
I believe that tools should be totally made for the user, so I only accept very little learning effort as being acceptable. That also implies that the tool has to be simple and therefore decide for me in a lot of cases.
*Not being able to control* many things in exchange for simplicity is a core feature of most Apple products. And as Apple actually seems to know what most users want to control and what they do not want to control, they are very popular (which you can see in their sales figures).
So, essentially, there is nothing really wrong with your arguments. The majority of users though will probably not want to have to know such a lot about the details of technology. Again, that’s why many people right now choose Apple products.
E.g.:
* The iPhone’s battery lasts longer without me switching features off. It manages it on its own and does that sufficiently well. It’s the best of both worlds and I like using location.
* I don’t need a fast microSD for the iPhone. It’s built in and there’s simply no need to ever exchange the card for me and many people.