blue_sector
Lurker
Rhetorical question. Not really expecting an answer.
About three weeks ago, I ditched my iPhone4 and bought a GS3. So I'm still an Android newbie but I've played with the phone enough that I think I'm somewhat qualified to draw some comparisons between iOS and Android, at least as it pertains to phones. Some things I think iOS does better, other things I think Android gets right. There are plenty of threads on this topic so I won't rehash it except for one issue: dependability. A phone that's not dependable is not terribly useful.
About two days after getting the GS3, I woke one morning to find that the battery had drained overnight. The culprit was the 'gallery' app. Consensus from various web forums seems to be that 'gallery' has a bug that causes it to go apeshit if it tries to sync pictures and the user either does not have a Picassa account or the app cannot reach Picassa's site. One might hope that as a highly-visible app (it's a built-in app, after all!) the test team would have explored that scenario but apparently not. Anyway, the workaround was apparently to disable picture syncing.
For the next 2-3 weeks, battery drain was still an issue but was mostly manageable. Standby battery drain would hover between 1-3% per hour depending on signal strength. I played with Juice Defender and while it did generally reduce standby battery drain, there were a number of posts in this forum and others that insisted that properly-configured Android hasn't needed these types of apps since the v2.x days. So I removed JD. With my usage patterns, I could get by easily by charging once a day.
Fast forward to yesterday evening. Went to bed with the battery at about 90%. All running tasks were killed (old habit). This morning battery was at 42% and the GPS was in use. One of the culprits this time appears to have been The Weather Channel app. TWC didn't show up in the task list but GSam's App Sucker showed TWC with 10.5 hours of GPS time and the GPS icon was *still* active. I admit that my phone's settings had the 'use gps for location services' box checked but...Jesus. Why would TWC app suddenly decide that it needs a constant fix on my location, especially when the app isn't running (at least not in the task list)?
I know some people are going to say "Turn off GPS when you're not using it" or "Disable location services" or "Turn off data syncing" or "Set your brightness to 1%". We've all seen those thread posts. But if you have to disable the features that make your phone a flagship-class phone, is it really a flagship-class phone?
In the 2+ years that I owned an iPhone, I *never* turned it on just to make sure a rogue app hasn't drained the battery. I wouldn't even bother taking the charger on overnight trips. With the GS3, I find myself checking the battery level at least twice a day and I wouldn't dare leave town without a charger.
So back to my original topic...dependability. A smartphone must be dependable in order to be useful. After 3 weeks, I'm not sure I trust my GS3. I like the hardware. But in three weeks of ownership I've had two different high-profile apps go apeshit and drain the battery in the background. How many more apps are prone to going crazy?
</rant>
About three weeks ago, I ditched my iPhone4 and bought a GS3. So I'm still an Android newbie but I've played with the phone enough that I think I'm somewhat qualified to draw some comparisons between iOS and Android, at least as it pertains to phones. Some things I think iOS does better, other things I think Android gets right. There are plenty of threads on this topic so I won't rehash it except for one issue: dependability. A phone that's not dependable is not terribly useful.
About two days after getting the GS3, I woke one morning to find that the battery had drained overnight. The culprit was the 'gallery' app. Consensus from various web forums seems to be that 'gallery' has a bug that causes it to go apeshit if it tries to sync pictures and the user either does not have a Picassa account or the app cannot reach Picassa's site. One might hope that as a highly-visible app (it's a built-in app, after all!) the test team would have explored that scenario but apparently not. Anyway, the workaround was apparently to disable picture syncing.
For the next 2-3 weeks, battery drain was still an issue but was mostly manageable. Standby battery drain would hover between 1-3% per hour depending on signal strength. I played with Juice Defender and while it did generally reduce standby battery drain, there were a number of posts in this forum and others that insisted that properly-configured Android hasn't needed these types of apps since the v2.x days. So I removed JD. With my usage patterns, I could get by easily by charging once a day.
Fast forward to yesterday evening. Went to bed with the battery at about 90%. All running tasks were killed (old habit). This morning battery was at 42% and the GPS was in use. One of the culprits this time appears to have been The Weather Channel app. TWC didn't show up in the task list but GSam's App Sucker showed TWC with 10.5 hours of GPS time and the GPS icon was *still* active. I admit that my phone's settings had the 'use gps for location services' box checked but...Jesus. Why would TWC app suddenly decide that it needs a constant fix on my location, especially when the app isn't running (at least not in the task list)?
I know some people are going to say "Turn off GPS when you're not using it" or "Disable location services" or "Turn off data syncing" or "Set your brightness to 1%". We've all seen those thread posts. But if you have to disable the features that make your phone a flagship-class phone, is it really a flagship-class phone?
In the 2+ years that I owned an iPhone, I *never* turned it on just to make sure a rogue app hasn't drained the battery. I wouldn't even bother taking the charger on overnight trips. With the GS3, I find myself checking the battery level at least twice a day and I wouldn't dare leave town without a charger.
So back to my original topic...dependability. A smartphone must be dependable in order to be useful. After 3 weeks, I'm not sure I trust my GS3. I like the hardware. But in three weeks of ownership I've had two different high-profile apps go apeshit and drain the battery in the background. How many more apps are prone to going crazy?
</rant>