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Just a question for you all

carmendiva

carmendiva

Android Expert
Hopefully this won't get moved...it does technically have to do with Droids lol. Just a question i have

Can Android only be used to describe an OS or can it be referred to as both hardware and OS. I say it can be used to describe both hardware and OS. He(and the iphone fanatics from the site) say it's solely can be used to describe software. So to them it is unfair to compare Android to an iphone because "Android is not a phone but an os"


But I believe it can be used for both hardware and software b/c All Droid Phones are "phones on Verizon that use Android"(OG Droid, Eris, Incredible, X, 2/r2-d2 and Pro)......But Droid is a brand Verizon uses to differentiate its product from it's competitors.

sprint now has it's Evo Line with the Original evo and now the shift
T-mobile has it's Mytouch line with the 3g, headphone, fender, slide, and 4g
Samsung Has the Galaxy S and within the Galaxy S each phone is branded with it's own name....But at the end of the day, captivate or not. It's still a Galaxy S phone.

At the end of the day, Mytouch, Evo and Droids are android phones.

Which brings me to my point...At&t. At&t currently has no branding over there android selection(aside from the Captivate). They refer to their phones simply as Android phone

So am I wrong for saying that Android is both for hardware or software?

Isn't Blackberry both hardware and software?(just thought of this one)

I originally used the comparison of chocolate chip cookies lol. I said that lots of companies have chocolate chip cookies they sell but they might call their chocolate chip cookies a different name...But they are still chocolate chip cookies

You take away the Droid Branding(Droid X for example) woulnd't it just simply be an android phone?

Now I could be wrong and sometimes I am and I have no problem admitting when I am wrong(i don't take these smartphones battles and debates seriously) but i was curious and wanted to see if anyone had an opinion about this.
 
Android is an operating system, not a phone.

Whether you are correct in generically referring to a phone as an "Android phone" depends on what you're talking about.

I frequently refer to "Android phones" because, in an embedded device with limited options, the OS encompasses a lot of the phone. So if I'm talking about an app available for Android, or if I'm talking about a feature of the OS, or a way that Android handles something, I'll refer to "Android phones" because it applies to all phones.

If you're referring to a camera, or a screen, or a form factor, or any of the hardware bits, you should refer to the phone model since it changes based on model.

I think it's entirely appropriate to compare "Android" to "iOS" when you're talking about software features, if you want to compare hardware you should compare to specific models - on either side, since "iPhone" actually has 4 different hardware models. So you could compare the Droid X hardware to the iPhone 4 hardware.

If you want to settle the whiners, just refer to iOS and Android, instead of iPhone and Android.
 
Okay see I was wrong :)
I like being wrong sometimes...it allows me to learn something i didnt originally know

Thank you!
 
danlaw777 said:
I kind of disagree with you....i Have a Droid X....that makes my phone a droid with android software.....
Click to expand...

The term Droid is licensed from Lucasfilms and refers to Verizon's line of higher end Android phones. As such I would tend to disagree with you. My phone isn't a Droid with Android software. It's a Verizon Wireless Android phone manufactured by Motorola known as the Droid X.

Of course I guess it really doesn't matter as it would still be an awesome phone had they named it nearly anything else...
 
Blackberry isn't hardware. It's a phone brand. The Blackberry Torch is hardware. The iPhone isn't hardware either - the iPhone 4 is.
 
i always make the correction. ill say something like 'oh i love my android device' and they say oh you have a droid? and i say no i have XXX phone that runs android. i feel like they are different. maybe im just being picky.
 
I think the confusion is that people use the word "droid" as a shortened version of "Android," so "droid" sometimes refers to the whole operating system as opposed to the few phones that are actually called DROIDs. But that's just my view of the issue =)
 
carmendiva said:
Can Android only be used to describe an OS or can it be referred to as both hardware and OS.
Click to expand...
Technically it's just the OS. The specific phone will have its own name but people do use the word "Android" to mean "Android device(s)". Consider the context (what one should always do in any conversation) rather than fixate on semantics.

carmendiva said:
So to them it is unfair to compare Android to an iphone because "Android is not a phone but an os"
Click to expand...
That's a ridiculous claim. For such people, change "iPhone" to "iOS". Fixed. :rolleyes: "iPhone" isn't a specific phone anyway. It's a line of phones. "iPhone 4", however, is a phone. Again, don't get bogged down by the semantics.
 
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