Motorola Droid An “iPhone Killer”? Please…

Gee… this sorta’ feels like deja-vu. Seems, not too long ago, I was talkin’ about the “iPhone Killer” Palm Pre. We all know how that turned out. But tonight, curiosity got the best of me and I headed down to the mall to the Verizon Wireless store to check out the Motorola Droid myself. I wanted to check it out also because it had the new Android OS on it.

Let me start out by saying I wasn’t impressed… not at least compared to any version iPhone, including the 2G. Let’s start by talkin’ about what it’s got. It’s got a 550 MHz something processor, not too impressive compared to the iPhone 3GS’s 600 MHz, but I still think 550 MHz is fast. It comes with a microSD 16GB card for it’s hard drive space, which considering it’s being sold for the same price as the iPhone 3GS 16GB, that’s not bad. You can swap the 16GB microSD card for a 32GB microSD card, which outta’ run you about $100, so you can in a sense turn it into a 32GB phone for about $300 total, the price of an iPhone 3GS 32GB. So although I hate messing with “removable storage” in smartphones (all those days with Pocket PC SD cards), this is ok for the Droid. Another good thing is the screen, it’s nice and big and doesn’t contain too much crap on the front of it.

Everything else about it falls short compared to iPhones, for two reasons… the phone (hardware) itself and the OS (software) itself. The phone… I like the screen size of it, it makes pretty good use of real estate, and doesn’t look too ugly, but you realize that everything goes down-hill from there, compared to an iPhone. It has pointed corners, so it don’t feel right in your hand. Fact, I’m positive you’d stab it into your skin by accident a few times and would curse the **** thing. It don’t feel anywhere as cheap as the Google G1, but it does feel cheap… the Palm Pre feels more solid if that tells you anything (and I thought the Palm Pre felt cheap compared to iPhones).

They were smart by hiding those stupid “D pads” that are found on all Google Android phones in the actual slide out keyboard, but that’s another problem with the device… the keyboard. Well the fact that is has a keyboard is a problem. The fact that the keyboard slides out via landscape mode makes typing on it a lot easier than a Palm Pre or Blackberry, but it’s still a slow pain. But the fact that it’s a landscape keyboard, where the phone’s screen normally is portrait is a problem right there. When your doing things on your phone, in portrait mode (like you do on an iPhone, Palm Pre, Blackberry, ect), and you need to type in an address, because you slide out the keyboard from the side, you have to then use the phone in landscape mode in order to type **** in. Then, when you close up the keyboard, you gotta’ rotate it to use it back in portrait. Although the keyboard is easier to use than the Palm Pre, I’d rather have a Palm Pre style keyboard that slides down and out from the bottom.

I can’t stress how much of a horrible solution that is. I mean, why would you want to use a device with your only form of entry, the keyboard (yes, there is no on screen keyboard) hidden from you? I mean, I can pretty much tell you mostly everyone will use the phone with the keyboard out, in landscape mode, the entire time. That’s a horrible solution because you can then no longer use it with one hand.

Other issues with hardware… the “d pad” was really hard to use, and I tried repeatedly. Problem was that you can push in the center as an action, like “clicking” for a link, or move it down to navigate down. But it’s so flat that you have to focus really hard on not clicking center when you want to move up, or not clicking down when you want to click center. It’s a horrible experience and a horrible little pad. But, Motorola was smart because the Google Android OS seems to require all phones to have a d pad, so Motorola said (I assume) “Fine, we’ll put in on the keyboard and make it as minimal as possible”. So that’s why it works so horrible, because it’s really thrown in there and not meant to be used.

The device has buttons placed all over the device in a stupid, “customer must have buttons” method… but that seems to be required for all Google Android phones (****, all phones in general, besides iPhone). So as far as buttons, it’s the best Google Android phone I’ve seen so far to minimize button placement.

Software now… the new Android OS. Let me just tell you… for being two years old and with clear inspiration on how to do an OS right (the iPhone OS), the Android OS is a real piece of crap. I mean it. How is it that this Motorola Droid phone has more memory and CPU power than the original iPhone 2G and have a new refined OS and still have horrible scrolling visual effects? I mean, this phone has close to the power of the iPhone 3GS but doesn’t have a smooth frame rate between “swapping” through home screens? You swap the home screen, similar to the iPhone in visual effect (the page moves left or right) and it’s choppy. All this processing and visual power and you can’t even get something as smooth as the first generation iPhone 2G, running the first iPhone OS 1.0 version? I expected that from the Google G1 (the first Google Android phone) and the Android OS, when it was at version 1.0, but not this… I can’t stress enough of much of a failure that is in my books.

The OS itself just feels like junk. It feels like a Pocket PC’s OS. The way you open apps is also bad. I mean, it’s like the Google G1, not much as changed… and that’s the problem, not much as changed. I like the Palm Pre OS much better for handling opening and managing apps (of course, nether can hold a candle to the iPhone OS). The Palm Pre OS, although not as good as the iPhone, was enjoyable to use. The new Android OS isn’t enjoyable. As you see from one of the screen shots below, I loaded up theneocell.com. Funny how the browser is loading the theme reserved only for mobile Safari. Browsing web sites and interacting with links was a joke. The Palm Pre even handled loading sites much better.

Just to show the quality of the apps, from both Google and Motorola… the music player, included in a screen shot below, doesn’t even have a way (I checked) to play by genre. Are you kidding me?? That’s the only way I play my music is by genre, so they clearly don’t care about us, the consumer… they simply care about getting people’s money.

In all, I was really disappointed in the “Droid”. I ain’t gonna’ look down on anybody who gets a Droid, if I were on Verizon, the Droid would be my choice of phone… and I’d choose it over any Blackberry on the market, and I’d choose it over any phone offered by T-Mobile… so in short, the two best phones besides iPhones would be the Palm Pre and Motorola Droid

Would I rather have the Motorola Droid or Palm Pre? Well the Android market has a measely 10,000 apps compared to iTunes 100,000 apps… but Android’s 10,000 apps is so much larger than Palm’s App Catalog of only 300 (all these numbers are current by the way). The Palm Pre is a much more solid device, more solid OS, but it’s hardware specs (CPU, RAM, hard drive) are much weaker than the Droid and without those apps… if I had to choose the Pre or Droid, my choice would be for the Droid.

What are my thoughts on Droid’s impact? I think it’s horrible compared to the iPhone in every way, but I think the Droid’s gonna’ be a hit. Verizon’s network doesn’t suffer the amount of data AT&T suffers from all the iPhone users (us iPhone users are bogging down all of AT&T’s network, causing dropped calls and slow 3G connections for all customers, especially in metropolitan areas such as Tampa, Fl.). So, people are gonna’ see “great” reviews for the Motorola Droid and even greater review’s for Verizon’s network (which has virtually no one on it to bog it down). So I have a feeling, unlike any other “iPhone Killers” of the past, that this device will be different. I think, although it’s clearly inferior to any iPhone, a large number of people will flawk to it… until, however, a new iPhone is released next year that regains that attention and sets the record straight of just how far ahead iPhones are from any other phones.

But I’d love to end up wrong and have this be just another over-hyped “iPhone Killer”. We’ll have to see.

Peace, J

Avoid Invisibleshield Sharp Corners

I’m here to tell you all how to remove those sharp tiny little corners and wrinkles that form in your full body Invisibleshield. In an earlier post, I just applied a full body Invisibleshield on top of the new gold and wood plating of my new iPhone 3GS.

Problem with full body protector shields are the very tiny little wrinkles and corners that raise up. Sure, they’re very tiny and hardly noticeable, but when you feel your iPhone in your hand, it scratches and scrapes against you. That beautifully smooth, silky feel of your iPhone goes away. It’s replace with a rough, unpleasant feel. You just wanna’ poke and push at the corners each time you pick up your phone.

But there’s a way to remove those tiny little “nubs”. First, give your shield protector a few days (a week even) to fully cure to make sure all edges fully work themselves down naturally, but also spend some time trying to work them down by rubbing the edges against a table or other hard, flat surfaces. Then, get some nail clippers (the smaller the better) and simply snip those tiny little nubs off.

And… that’s it. Just take some nail clippers and very carefully clip those horrible little nubs off. No matter how professional of a job you, or someone else does for you, you will have sharp edges on the back of your iPhone, but now you know how to take care of it. Feel free’ta share your experience with Invisibleshield or other shield protectors.

Peace, J

The Original iPhones Were Crazy Expensive

I’m watchin’ the keynote video of Steve Jobs, when he introduced the iPhone for the first time to the world. Haha, funny, back then it wasn’t “the iPhone” but just “iPhone”. As in, “Here’s one of the great things about iPhone…”. I guess back then, they were referring to iPhones like people do to “Apple” or “Macintosh” or “Windows” or “Microsoft”. Of course you wouldn’t call Windows “the Windows” or OS X as “the OS X”, as in, “The Windows is better than the OS X.”. But, iPhones being an object, you add “the” to it, like you would with a Ford Mustang. “Let’s take the Mustang out…”, but not “Let’s take Mustang out…”, as a Mustang is an object, but Ford, isn’t. “Ford’s stock is dropping…” and not “The Ford’s stock is dropping…”. So people at Apple were looking at iPhones more as an idea, dream, entity or whatever… rather than looking at it like the rest of the world, as an object (a phone). So it’s funny to hear him incorrectly say “iPhone” instead of “iPhones” or “the iPhone” or “an iPhone”.

But my main point was on price… can you believe what they used to cost?? Signing up for a two year contract, a 4 GB iPhone would cost $499… and an 8GB iPhone would cost $599! Again, this is AFTER signing a two year contract! Holy s…

When I look back at myself, shelling out $299 for a 32GB 3GS iPhone after signing a two year contract, I feel… well, blessed to be able to get a device such as this for the price I got. Paying $499 for a 4GB iPhone seems so crazy. But then I think back on it… buying a 4GB iPod and a smart phone back in 2007 did cost $499, so I guess it wasn’t such a bad move… for people who had money and probably didn’t have real life **** to worry about.

What’s really funny is, if you ever see someone who has the tell tail silver-metal backing of a 2G iPhone, and you happen to strike up a friendly conversation and they tell you that they have a 4 or 8 GB and their the original owner, just know how much money they threw down for their iPhone. I used to look at people with pitty, like “4GB? That sucks…” and feel sorry for them, telling them things to make them feel better, like “Most people don’t even use that much space on their iPhones anyways.” or something. Now, if their the original owner, I’m just gonna’ look at their either rich (or money stupid) *** and be like “I gotta’… *sniff*32GB 3GS here…”.

Peace, J

Necell 3GS: Why I Still Won’t Use SBSettings

So now that I’ve got the Neocell 3GS and I’m able to run jailbroken applications with ease, such as Backgrounder., you’d think I’d now use SBSettings since I have twice the CPU power and twice the memory for my iPhone 3GS 32GB, right? Wrong. Here’s why…

SBSettings is a great little jailbroken app, for those of you who don’t know, that allows you to swipe across the top of your phone to turn off and on very important things, such as your wifi, bluetooth, adjust your brightness, ect. But the problem is that SBSettings has to run in the background 24/7 of your iPhone, whether your using it at the moment or not. As I’ve said before, SBSettings will slow your system down. But this was for 2G and 3G iPhones, which for any’a y’all that didn’t know, are the same exact speed (everything, but internet of course). I’m a public advocate, I guess you could say, for keeping your jailbroken speed as close to non-jailbroken devices. So I tell any and everyone I know not to use SBSettings because of the impact it has on your speed.

But now a select few, including myself, have iPhone 3GS’s. Twice the memory, twice the processor power, yada yada yada… Does this mean “Yay, me gets SBSettings now…” and everything’s fine and dandy? Freak no. It’ll just slow down some of the speed advantage you have of your 3GS. Now, unless you wanted to buy a 3GS just to run apps like these, regardless if your 3GS is slower than other 3GS’s… fine. But I know the majority of you out there rockin’ a 3GS got it for the speed, among other things. SBSettings will, of course, eat into your speed.

And here’s another reason not to get SBSettings, or Bossprefs for that matter… being able to turn wifi on or off don’t work. Nope… didn’t work for the Neocell 2G, and it doesn’t work for the Neocell 3GS. I mean, for me, that’s the whole point of using SBSettings or Bossprefs is to turn bluetooth and wifi off. If I can’t turn off wifi from either app and have to go into the settings section of the Neocell to turn wifi off, I might as well turn bluetooth on or off while I’m there. I mean that’s the point of the apps, so for me, functionality of the apps is straight up broke.

So should you use SBSettings? It’s your choice… but if it ain’t good enough for the Neocell 3GS, how are you dissin’ your own 3GS and saying it’s good enough for you? (And if you’ve got a 2G or 3G iPhone, it’s not even a choice because you will become sluggish). Don’t make your 3GS be like the crappy stick figure below…

Peace, J