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Honeycomb vs iOS

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faith4more

Member
We have an ipad vs Xoom thread. How about a Honeycomb vs iOS thread. Really the battle of the OS is where the war will be fought.

When the ipad 2 was announced and I still had not received my Xoom I must admit I had a few doubts about Xoom purchase. The aesthetics of ipad2 look really nice especially the thin profile. Xoom is more powerful in many ways but ipad 2 has some great design appeal no doubt. But there is another thread for Ipad vs Xoom so lets keep this one to just the OS discussion.

After some tech addiction soul searching for me what this really comes down to is difference between Os's. Hardware is important but if you don't like the OS hardware means nothing. Apple can put out whatever hardware they want. But I don't like the os and I despise being closed into to itunes.

I had an ipad 1 which I sold and after having my Xoom for a few days this is my conclusion. Honeycomb wins hands down over iOS from my perspective and I am not a droid fanboy. In fact this is my first droid device.

The Google integration is really nice over looking some omissions like Google voice that I am sure they will bring to Honeycomb soon. So many things to like in Honeycomb. One surprise for me has been the Voice search and the operations you can do via voice commands. For example send email to """"" and if person is address book pulls them up ready to email. iOS does not handle voice commands anywhere near as well as honeycomb. Honeycomb actually does it in a way that is useful because of the deep integration.

As far as elegance goes which iOS is known for Google delivers even better. Very fluid and well thought out with fantastic graphical interface.

Some ios vs honeycomb discussion revolves around fact not many Droid tablet apps now but that should change quickly. The wave of honeycomb devices is on the way. Large base of Android developers already will make it quicker for Droid tablets than it was for Droid phones to get Apps. I think a short amount of patience is required here but won't be long.
 
Google Voice is not just a Honeycomb thing. I have been doing Google Voice on my EVO since last year. It is a pretty neat feature. I have a Nook Color with Honeycomb and 32gb iPod Touch (3rd Gen) and I have to agree, Honeycomb is a much better OS to work with. The more I use it, the more I am impressed. Hopefully Moto can get a WiFi Xoom out soon.
 
I like android much better than iOS. But I am tinkerer. I like to flash my phone with new roms, put new widgets, use tasker to automate.

It can be VERY frustrating to have my phone crash, force close etc. My friends joke with me when I'm trying to show something off and my phone just freezes.

On the one hand I think honeycomb is much more useful. On the other, I already KNOW that iOS works well and has all the app support I need.

The main things I want to do are

1-read newspaper/internet stories. FLIPBOARD is my absolute favorite app for this. Magazines work well too.

2- Read and organize PDF files with annotations and in a searchable format for my work. iAnnotate works great

3-Read books (not sure how i'll feel about 1.6lbs and the skinny portrait mode)

4- Video chat with family. I've seen facetime and its much better quality than google chat though its less compatible (only macs)

I feel that if I was asking this question in 2012, the answer would be super clear, Android will have caught up with applications and the hardware will have become a little sleeker with lower prices.

Now, its almost a little bit of a leap of faith that Google will come through and developers will make high quality apps very soon.
 
faith4more said:
We have an ipad vs Xoom thread. How about a Honeycomb vs iOS thread. Really the battle of the OS is where the war will be fought.

When the ipad 2 was announced and I still had not received my Xoom I must admit I had a few doubts about Xoom purchase. The aesthetics of ipad2 look really nice especially the thin profile. Xoom is more powerful in many ways but ipad 2 has some great design appeal no doubt. But there is another thread for Ipad vs Xoom so lets keep this one to just the OS discussion.

After some tech addiction soul searching for me what this really comes down to is difference between Os's. Hardware is important but if you don't like the OS hardware means nothing. Apple can put out whatever hardware they want. But I don't like the os and I despise being closed into to itunes.

I had an ipad 1 which I sold and after having my Xoom for a few days this is my conclusion. Honeycomb wins hands down over iOS from my perspective and I am not a droid fanboy. In fact this is my first droid device.

The Google integration is really nice over looking some omissions like Google voice that I am sure they will bring to Honeycomb soon. So many things to like in Honeycomb. One surprise for me has been the Voice search and the operations you can do via voice commands. For example send email to """"" and if person is address book pulls them up ready to email. iOS does not handle voice commands anywhere near as well as honeycomb. Honeycomb actually does it in a way that is useful because of the deep integration.

As far as elegance goes which iOS is known for Google delivers even better. Very fluid and well thought out with fantastic graphical interface.

Some ios vs honeycomb discussion revolves around fact not many Droid tablet apps now but that should change quickly. The wave of honeycomb devices is on the way. Large base of Android developers already will make it quicker for Droid tablets than it was for Droid phones to get Apps. I think a short amount of patience is required here but won't be long.
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iOS vs. Honeycomb won't matter to most people IMHO. #1 is price, #2 is name brand/recognition, #3 is market/availability of apps, #4 is OS.

Many of the most dedicated Android Fanboys on here that have been BEGGING for an Android tablet, the price of the Xoom caused them to balk. Price is king, especially in this economy. For the common new buyer in the tablet market next you can't overcome the "coolness" factor of "belonging" to the Apple PR machine. Getting a product that everyone else has is somewhat of a status symbol AND there is a trust that's there. Apple's products work, they have very little learning curve and people like them. For those that look a little deeper than that, they see 50,000+ apps for tablet vs. 10-20? That's a big deal. Finally, OS kicks in. While I agree with your assessment of the OS's, only those that come here and other forums will really seek that first in their decision making process.

I loves me some Honeycomb, but to the mainstream average Joe and Joetta to love it too, you'd better address #1-3 first, otherwise, it's just another failed attempt to dethrone Apple.
 
Am I'm going to say it, apps are overrated. You know there are many apps that are not "optimized" for the tablet that work great. Just look for them. Who cares that ios has 2 billion apps, when 40 thousand are drawing programs that do the same exact thing and I could keep going.
 
I am not worried about Honeycomb getting apps. I think it will happen faster than most think. When Droid came out alot of the same worries that there were no apps. Apple I think at the time had around 100,000 apps. That was touted as a differentiator for the iphone vs Droid phones. Did not take long for thousands of Apps to come out for Droid. One difference and advantage here is because of Droid phones there is a developer base. When Droid phones came on the scene there was no developer base. So things should move faster this round.

So apps will come.
 
The issue should never be about trying to dethrone or beat Apple. The real focus is to keep creating the most amazing devices for people.

In that sense I consider a Honeycomb tablet a far more amazing device than the iPad 2.
 
I don't think they need to compete as each OS has its own appeal to different users as they both have their own unique features, hardware and styles.
 
If Apple made thousands of apps for ios I'd be worried. Other people made all those apps and we're just going to have to try to convince them to port to Honeycomb instead of crying out "oh woe is Honeycomb! What are we ever going to do? What can be done? There is no hope."
For example, i discovered this cool app for ios called Spacetime (SpaceTime - Scientific computing in the palm of your hand). If you look at their site, they started out on palm and WinMo but turned all Apple Apple Apple. I posted a request on their forum (SpaceTime 4.0 • View topic - Android version?), others followed and they eventually announced that they are working on Android.
If you want to promote Android then you have to look for popular and/or good ios apps and politely try to convince them to bring them over. It is pointless to pick fights with iphone fans on internet forums.
 
I think for which one is better really depends on what a user would demand from it, coupled with which ecosystem a user had "bought into".

Of course a person who uses a media manager other than iTunes would not be able to use an iOS device (Which is dependent on iTunes for most of it's functionality). Conversely, someone who has spent years using iTunes wouldn't really enjoy any Android device.

But, the kicker will come down to which one has more hardware support, much like the Windows vs. Mac OS war. Windows won hands down, because you could buy commodity hardware, and run it. But, Apple never lost it's real spot, which was the niche, "elite" community.
 
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