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Will Google ever go for Perfect with Android?

E

exwifeusesiphone

Well-Known Member
I got my new Galaxy S3 a few weeks ago, and by far it's the best Android phone I've used. It runs circles around the Droid X, some of Samsung's little augmentations are helpful (such as SmartStay and the voice-activated camera.)

It sounds to me like Jelly Bean will go a long way to removing any lag from Android phones, with a number of optimizations. This is the largest strike against Android casual users have. "Why isn't it as smooth as an iPhone?" Obviously Google has listened.

Still...I feel like I'm just back with a much faster version of my Droid X already. I am constantly disappointed with Google's lack of attention to detail. Why is it that Apple seems to be the only tech company that can create a nearly perfect (admittedly, within Apple's parameters) mobile phone? Partly this is the nature of Android - it runs on just about anything, so hardware and the manufacturer's tweaks matter a LOT. Still, there are lots of little things that just show a lack of attention to detail. Here are a few of my issues that I see, and I haven't included ones that are manufacturer specific:

1) Google Play Music. I love the service, and the fact that's it free, but after two weeks of use, I am already experiencing lag when opening, content information and album art not displaying. I have a huge library, nearly 15,000 songs, and this is part of it - but if you have a 20,000 song limit, why was your software not designed to handle that much data? Also, on my Droid X, when unplugging the headphone jack, it would always play for 3-5 seconds afterwards until the software caught up. This wasn't the case for the first two weeks with my Galaxy S3, but now it's happening again.

My solution was to clear the cache and uninstall the latest update. It's now back to being smooth again and loading everything correctly. That seems to have solved the headphone issue as well.

2) Why not limit users choices more? Why is every app and its brother allowed to change wallpaper? This is one of those things that confuse the heck out of new users - even on a stock device you could have 3 wallpaper choices - the manufacturer's, Gallery, and any other image viewer you've installed. NO. SIMPLIFY. That's another complaint I hear often about Android in general "Why do I have 10,000 choices to do something with this file?" Personally, I don't mind that, but I can see why it's mind-numbing to some people.

3) There seems to be a Wifi wakelock bug that can drain people's battery. I think I solved it by having my phone demand a static IP per some post on XDA, but, again, here's an attention to detail issue. Is this Google's or Samsung's fault? Not sure here...

4) Google Maps voice. It was fine, until I tried to change it to British. I changed it back, but now it randomly switches between the stock map voice (the human sounding one), a horrible British synthesized voice and the American synthesized voice while navigating. Against, just poor quality control and lack of attention to detail.

5) Car mode. Google has an app, and includes a car mode in Android. Yet Samsung was allowed to get away with not including the app, and in fact, there is no way to get into car mode other than with a third-party app. Samsung somehow doesn't allow you to use Bluetooth with a stereo cable plugged into the headphone jack, making car mode semi-useless anyway for those of us with non ADCP Bluetooth car receivers. Why was Samsung allowed to get away with destroying a great Android feature?

6) S-Voice. Google is bringing out a major innovation called Google Now, which, by all accounts, is a thousand times better than Siri. Why didn't Google stop Samsung from releasing S-Voice, which is obviously incomplete, knowing they were working on something far better that would replace it?

Don't get me wrong, I do love our ability to customize and Android's openness. But at some point Google is going to start losing market share, rather than gaining it, until they become as perfectionist as Apple AND adopt Microsoft's model for Windows: you can do whatever you want with the hardware, but YOU DO NOT TOUCH THE CORE OS. Now Microsoft had no problem with manufacturer bloatware, and that, while annoying, was largely fine. We could all live with that. We could live with that on Android too. But we need to eliminate the fragmentation, we need to eliminate the disjunctions between user experiences, and we need to make Android the smooth powerhouse it was meant to be.
 
Its very rare for a phone to be perfect for everyone. Apple users look at Android phones and think, why couldn't Apple do it like that quite often as well.

That being said, I think Google is striving at a lot faster pace to improve on its OS. It's funny you should mention Project Butter, my friend with an iPhone is admittedly jealous of Android phones for the first time, after I had shown him my GNex with JB. And he is actually one who's usage is well served by iOS and Apple.

I will be honest, if you take the position that Apple's phones are perfect (or nearly so), you may want to consider switching to one... Cause from where I am sitting, its far from perfect. Personal opinion will always play a large roll, and if you find yourself consistently jealous of how the iPhone experience compares to Android, then it may be the right choice for you, even if you feel like you are a loyal android user.
 
(sorry, i did not read the big long post... i just am answering the title) :P

if the target ever stood still.. then yes.. there could be a perfect phone.

but with tech advancing so rapidly..
newer, faster, better.. software and hardware.

how can anything stand still long enough to be perfected?

so.. NO, there will never be a perfect android.
 
A better question would be: With total control of both hardware and software, why can't Apple make things perfect?
 
Just get rid of the -&%%*##@ carrier and manufacturer bloatware, and disallow manufacturer "skins" so we all get pure Android OS and I'll be happy. 4.x is more than good enough to make skins totally unnecessary.
 
You should never get so locked into a brand that you're still using it long past when it best served your purposes.
I have no problem with Apple products or their users.
I understand why so many people use them.

It is always a wise choice to purchase and use what works best for your lifestyle and needs.:)
 
Google now is awesome. I can ask it to give me directions to my university by bus and it tells me when I need to be at the bus stop, what bus to take, what transfers to take, and what time I'll be there in real time.

Circles around siri
 
Android and technology in general is a evolution within itself, thus can never really be an seen as a final, ideal product. Such 'supposed' perfection implies eventual stagnation and not something you want within any field.
 
Just to follow-up, I'm totally pro-Android, but I think it could be better. I always end up getting the Google Android groups results and occasionally run across an actual Google employee responding to an issue. I don't know what the Apple "feedback" system is like at all...Maybe if we all just get in there and participate more, Google might fix stupid issues like these.

Honestly, I don't know what having an iPhone is like. I know the old iPod Touch is pretty excellent for what it does. I actually am convincing my gf to get the iPhone 5 when her upgrade comes. She is actually more anti-Apple than I am but I want to try spending a year with some Apple stuff, to see if I like it, and she can have my GSiii.

I've been a techie all my life, but I'm just getting to the point where I don't want to screw with things anymore. What I'm afraid of though is that I just won't be able to manipulate files and so on with iOS stuff. I do not like when I don't have access to a file system and I think intra-app file sharing is still a real problem on iPhones...I'm very old school that way.
 
Here's a minor user interface issue that was present in Cupcake and still present in Jelly Bean. It's not a big deal, but it's also stupid to not fix.

Go to the Play Store settings. Then tap to set a password for purchases. You'll see a dialogue box pop up to enter a password. The dialogue box will be in focus. Nothing else will be in focus. But does an onscreen keyboard pop up automatically, even though clearly you're supposed to be inputting text? Nope. Not until you actually tap inside the text box.

If you have tapped something that definitely focuses on a text box, the logic should go as follows: "Is there a hard keyboard that's slid out? No? Then automatically pop up the touchscreen keyboard."

The logic should not be as follows: "The user is focused on a dialogue box that requires typing. Let's wait until she actually taps into the dialogue box before popping up a touchscreen keyboard."

In the attached screenshots, I show the five steps involved to set a password in Google Play (formerly Android Market). Steps 2 and 4 basically should not exist.
 

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Rxpert83 said:
Google now is awesome. I can ask it to give me directions to my university by bus and it tells me when I need to be at the bus stop, what bus to take, what transfers to take, and what time I'll be there in real time.

Circles around siri
Click to expand...

is google now just a simple .apk

if so could you upload the apk so i could install it on my phone

on topic: apple is only smooth cause it doesn't have to take into account 100 different hardware and software. of course it is going to be stable and smooth but i like android for its choices and freedom.
 
I think what your missing here [on Google stopping Samsung] is that Google doesn't really have a lot of control over what other manufacturers do with Android. Its sort of like Windows and the other PC OEM's. Retail bought Windows is very clean, and very fast. But often when buying a pre-built through an OEM, it is much more cluttered with crapware and unnecessary utilities. As long the OEM doesn't break their contract with Microsoft, they can do whatever they want with OEM Windows installs.

Same with Android but to a more extreme level since its a completely open OS. OEM's can add and remove features however they please on the version of Android they distribute with the phone. Google really has no say on any device except their own Nexus devices which run the OS as Google intends it to be.
 
Android is open source. Anybody can do anything they want with it.(see: custom ROMs, Kindle Fire, etc) If you don't want to deal with carrier and manufacturer BS get a Nexus. The only vote we get is with the wallet.
 
S-Voice is terrible.

My friend recently got her's on Friday (she works for Verizon) and said, "Hi Galaxy" about a dozen times or so before it spoke back. I launched Google Now, said "Hey Google", and asked it the weather all under 15 seconds.
 
Gmash said:
Android is open source. Anybody can do anything they want with it.(see: custom ROMs, Kindle Fire, etc) If you don't want to deal with carrier and manufacturer BS get a Nexus. The only vote we get is with the wallet.
Click to expand...

Nexus are made by OEM partners, not google themselves. Google is only just getting into the hardware side this year. Even MS are moving into the hardware side now. Google and MS are doing so because they're finally cluing into the fact that letting corner cutting foreign OEMs that use cheap quality is an obstacle to competing with Apple's reputation for making reliable hardware. In 2011 and 2010 iPhones and Blackberries were sent for malfunction and defect warranty repairs far less often than than every other OEM on the market. And that's by percentage not total units. That study was done by Gartner for those of you who love to nitpick about sources. (on that note, find it yourself, I'm not a Google secretary )

If I didn't loathe itunes so much or the staleness of iOS, I'd own an iPhone just for sheer reliability reasons. But you can be sure I will never own another PC laptop. After a series of broken down Asus, Toshiba, and HP laptops, I got off my wallet and shelled out for a Macbook which has been trouble free for almost as long as 3 PC laptops combined. ymmv I'm sure, but that doesn't change the fact that the average pc laptop has a higher failure rate than Macbook.

Bottom line: I prefer Android to iOS, and I also happen to prefer Windows 7 to Mac OS Lion. But it's not good for Google or MS to sell a great OS but then to rely on subpar OEM partners to carry it.

I know it's going to take Google at least a year though to work out the bugs of being new to hardware. Once they do I'll be tickled pink to buy a phone straight from the maker of the OS. The same goes for MS's new windows 8 tablets. The Xbox ended up being a fine product after they got over the initial hiccups so I know they're capable of putting out a good piece of hardware. From what I've seen so far the upcoming Surface tablet blows the doors off any of the current completely underwhelming android tablets (nexus 7 included).
 
I have had a few friends switch to iPhone and they LOVE them. On the other hand, they weren't using many of the features of android and iPhone is a little more "simplified" in that aspect. I think iPhones are great for people who don't *want* to customize every little thing.

It's hard to compare apple and android. iPhone gives an update and all the pones get it around the same time, android phones are just getting updates while some new phones are coming out with new software. What I think should probably happen is that google and a phone carrier should enter into some sort of contract saying they will get the newest google update out in a timely manner so that most android phones will be on the same version of android at any given time. I literally just updated to ICS yesterday and there are already phones out with JB on them.

Also, some people have a bad taste in their mouth with android because they promise an update to the newer software and don't follow through, my mom had this happen and they kept delaying the update for her phone and finally announced it wouldn't get the update ever.

I've been exploring ICS since last night and it does seem like android is finally looking a bit more polished which was one thing apple always had over android. Back when I had my hero I remember thinking how plain the pop-up (toast) notifications were.
 
There is no such thing as perfect. There is only the user experience that you most enjoy. Android takes more work to become smooth or sultry looking, but it's worth it in the end. I'll take that over the closed system of iOS.
 
AppsRUs said:
S-Voice is terrible.

My friend recently got her's on Friday (she works for Verizon) and said, "Hi Galaxy" about a dozen times or so before it spoke back. I launched Google Now, said "Hey Google", and asked it the weather all under 15 seconds.
Click to expand...

If you live in the UK you have problems. Set To UK English (the language invented by us) no response. Set to US English it works, very irritating.
 
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