My father was a loyal blackberry user for many years, but I think RIM (now Blackberry) kind of missed their opportunity to join the ranks of the "new" generation of smart phones. Maybe not, depending on how their reboot goes, but I expect it'll be tough to grab users away from the big two, and it also has smaller OS' to contend with (Firefox OS, Chrome OS, Symbian, Windows Phone 8, etc)
That being said, I hope they do well. More choices and more variation in the market is always the best thing for consumers and innovation.
We were "loyal" to Nokia for many years and we had several diffierent models from Nokia past years. But it was (still is pretty) good years ago!
Might be something to do with the location. We didn't/don't have much RIM/Blackberries here.
1. Software updates are aweful. To get the newest android on the galaxy I have to use one of the worst programs ever(samsung kies). That is of course when/if the update even comes out at all. All iphones get the latest software.(unless your on like a 3g)
2. All applications work with every iphone. I can go on the app store and there is no guarantee that the app I download will work with my phone. The hardware is so diverse that no app seems to work on everything.
3. As someone pointed out, back ups on android stink.
4. Battery life. My GS3 has a removable battery but it doesn't have the option to turn off lte and the power saver doesn't do much good. I cant get even half a day with this phone and thats not even with me on it very much.
5. Bloatware. Touchwiz/whatever your phone uses, carrier crap that cant be removed,ect.
6. I use lots of apps on both my ipad and my galaxy. The same apps will crash way more on Android.(Pulse especially)
7. Apps aren't as nice on android. Spotify on my ipad and spotify on my nexus look like 2 different programs. The iOS version is way better. This isn't the only app like this, I'm not sure why the android versions are uglier/less feature rich.
8. No visual voice mail built in. ATT has an app to make up for this but its not as seamless as on iOS.
Ahh..... I'll answer to these some day, but not now.
this would make a good Lounge topic on it's own - since we have deviated away from @rridgely original point of discussion. (as these things usually do)
and it would be interesting to see any difference between genders with battery life.
Might have deviated a tiny bit . . . lively, though.
On the subject of batteries, this Blackberry has a removable one. I don't know enough about the OS to know why, but sometimes it runs down in half a day, sometimes gets 2 or 3 days. I can't find an easy way to find and shut off the running processes. Calling each one up and closing it seems to work, but boy howdy thats slow.
on my iphone5 i have LTE and wifi turned off, bluetooth on for the car kit, screen brightness about 2/3 up.
making about a dozen calls a day, typically no more than 5 minutes each, no more than 20 SMS/day. in other words, a light user.
it would go down by 10-15%.
last time i used it on a plane(back in my iphone4 days) i was able to watch a full length movie (Hot Fuzz), an episode of Fawlty Towers and a few episodes of IT Crowd before it went into single digits.
playing games or anything for that matter where the screen is always on, tends to drain it to the point you can almost see the battery percentage go down.
but really the battery life is no biggie, it's never to far from a charger, either at the PC or in the car.
i seem to recall they improved the battery life with the iphone5 over the 4.
I generally shut off my radios when I'm not using my phone but I still usually charge it every evening, even when it only drops to ~88% after a day of use.
I like both the OSes, if I had to choose. It would be Android, only ICS or JB though. I really hated GB with a passion, I am a big modder, and I like that the OS is open source. It also has a huge community on how to make the OS better and faster. I think iOS is more stable and runs apps/games better, but the OS was made to run only on certain hardware.
I didn't have an issue with GB until I got a taste of ICS.
It's like night/day between them, and Jelly Bean only made it tastier.
They're extremely different systems though, and not enough people are aware of that.
For anyone wondering, Android until Gingerbread (2.3.x) was exclusively phone-centric. Honeycomb (3.x) was a tablet OS. ICS (4.0.x) basically merged the two into a single system (to vastly oversimplify) and improved the framework overall. Think of it like the difference between XP and 7, or perhaps 98 and XP (skipping the unloved middle child between each)
My poor Thunderbolt finally got to ICS in Feb (update promised "by the end of August 2012...") so I've been waiting for the kernel source to be released so I can get a stock experience on my bolt (or something close-to) like I had with Thundershed
that's a tiny little bug-bear with me with Android.
those stupid names they give their OS's.
a potential buyer in the shop trying to decide between Ice Cream, Jelly Bean, Gingerbread, blueberry-cupcakes, goldilocks or seven-stupid-drawfs isn't going to know which is the latest.
(I guess they'll have to wait till the baseball cap wearing salesman comes over and says "Dude, can I help you?")
it must be a great think-tank, brain-storm meeting they have when deciding the next name.
The latest is the one whose name starts with the letter further on in the alphabet.
Rumors are that the next iteration (4.3 is allegedly still JB, but 5.0 should be differnet) will be "Key Lime Pie," although I don't think it has been confirmed in any sort of official statement.
Ok, time to 'fess up a bit. I mostly use only 3 apps on this phone. The phone, of course, the weather app, and something called Blackberry Traffic. Have tinkered around with the others, but not much, don't know much about them, don't actually need them.
Traffic came free w/ the phone. I travel a bit and it is very handy. It gives turn by turn voice directions and shows a good bit of information about your itinerary. Won't get you lost.
Is there an equivalent software for the Android OS, that is, one with voice directions?
Sorry to impose, but I have checked around a bit, and it is difficult to get trust-able answers.
I would trust whatever you guys say.
I know about the iPhone's equivalent, it seems quite good.
Android has a bunch of navigation options. It comes with google maps which does turn by turn directions. You can also use tomtom, garmin, ect.(Not free) There are tons of other free options too, I think one of the most popular right now is called Waze which has social functions(traffic, closed roads, ect)
Yeah turn by turn means it talks. I actually bought tomtom the other day for $20(it was on sale normally about $50).
The plus side is that it downloads the maps and doesn't require you to constantly stream data which saves data usage, and it works when there isn't a cell signal. The app is ok, I still use my stand alone unit but I'm sure it will get better and it was a good price.
I own an Asus Transformer Tablet (Jelly Bean operating system), the ipad3, blackberry playbook, along with an iphone 4s, 7 ipod touch gen 4, 1 ipod touch gen 5 and a an iphone 4. all the apple products are jailbroken, and that makes them awesome. Having given them all a fair shake (and ive had blackberries in the past too) i like apple best. fluid, smooth, clear, its just the best out there all in all. Once you jailbreak, its absolutely awesome.
Having said that, lots of cool apps/features that you can get with android, and definitely has some advantages over stock apple products. If you aren't into jailbreaking and want cool features, android has a lot to offer. I also like some of the bigger screens.
For battery life i have a new trent power battery which charges the iphone up to 6 times, so never am without power. Also have a mophie juicepack battery case for my phones. Waiting for the new iphone to come out to upgrade again, hoping it isn't too long for a jailbreak as they add so much to a phone. Too bad apple has such a closed garden.
Those blackberry phones are looking pretty tasty too, but as it is I'm wrangling for a windows tablet and can only get so many toys a year.....