As a contrast, the Kindle Fire didn’t even come with a connection cable (just a charger). I guess Amazon is backing up/hosting media in the cloud for me, no idea about backups of apps/settings. If I had more data on it I cared about, I’d be worried.

Definitely an interesting “tell” on the intended usage for the devices.

It’s blindingly obvious that this sort of feature should be part of iMessages as an extension of iCloud. I hope it gets here soon.

Awesome to see Google using the Share Icon in the Android Market app.

Here we have two screenshots from the built-in iOS settings screens. In this one, you see a Back button and a Save button in the toolbar. Clicking Save will apply changes, while clicking Back will act as a Cancel button.

In this example you see the same button layout, but a different UI interaction. Here the button in the upper right will clear the field. As there is no Save button, changes are automatically applied by hitting the Back button (there is no Cancel option).

So on one screen we have the Back arrow acting as Save and in the other it acts as Cancel.

That’s exactly the kind of thing that iOS fans make fun of Android about.

This past week I’ve completely revamped how I store images on the iPhone. The new workflow is:

1. Photos are imported to my Mac (stored in Lightroom, backed up to multiple locations).
2. Photos are deleted from camera roll.
3. Photos are exported from Lightroom into a year-dated folder.
4. Photos are sync’ed from that folder back my iPhone.

There are several significant benefits of this process:

• The photos take up way less space! Your iPhone screen is small. You don’t need to be toting around 5 megapixel images (or 8, in the case of the iPhone 4S) with you for viewing on the small screen.
• Since they are smaller, you can fit more photos on your phone. I am now carrying around 6500+ digital photos, dating back to 2005 (I’ll add in 1999-2004 sometime soon).
• The processed images can contain your keyword tags, which can be useful for finding them on your phone (3rd party app, for now).
• The images are sharpened a little on export, so they look better.
• The camera roll, and camera app are more snappy.
• I can easily sync these images to my iPad as well, which is fantastic for sharing photos.

Before: 1200+ photos using 4+ GB of space
After: 6500+ photos using 1.5 GB of space

No brainer.

I know the timing is interesting here since iOS 5 just introduced iCloud photo syncing features, including the photo roll. Those features will work great for most people, however it doesn’t look like Lightroom is ready/able to participate in that particular reindeer game (I wonder what this means for Adobe Carousel), and that’s my photo library of choice. WiFi sync between the Mac and iDevices should be good enough for now, though I can’t pull the images from the iPhone into Lightroom unless it’s plugged in.

Last month I made some account changes and added some family members to my plan. I discovered that my unlimited data plan was converted to a 2GB plan and I could no longer enable the HotSpot via Plan Features.

I was able to get this fixed with a 5 minute phone call (spoke to a great rep), but it showed me a change in how Verizon is handling the HotSpot feature.

It appears that if you want to turn on the HotSpot feature with one of Verizon’s new data plans, this is now a plan change instead of enabling/disabling an add-on. Pricing is the same, but you change from a plan without HotSpot to one with.

Besides feeling like a much heavier change, plan changes have sometimes brought with them other implications (extending contracts, etc.). I don’t recall reading about this and unless I’d had my plan accidentally changed, I’d never have known about it either.

I worked around this by making the check for touch vs. non-touch browsers also test for a BlackBerry user agent string; then lumping all BlackBerry devices into the non-touch bucket (you’ll get “click” and like it). This is a bit broad, but for my simple use case it was a fine trade-off.

Feel free to post other solutions in the comments…

• Both the Newton and webOS were considered to be good technology, with users that liked them.
• Both had new CEOs (Steve Jobs for Apple, Leo Apotheker for HP) come in who hadn’t been in charge when the products were created/acquired.
• Both CEOs decided to basically kill off the product lines and make fundamental changes in their company’s direction.

I am not trying to compare Apotheker and Jobs as CEOs or HP and Apple as companies. I’m merely noting the similarities in these specific situations (and intentionally ignoring the other obvious differences between the larger picture issues between the companies).

1. Google creates, tests and releases a system update.
2. Handset manufacturers take the system update and apply their vendo-specific tweaks to it (MotoBlur, HTC Sense, etc.), then test it on their various devices.
3. Carriers then test the update, certify it, and push it out to the handsets.

Mix in the fact that the average Android handset manufacturer seems to release 5-10 devices over a 12-24 month period and you can start to imagine the logistics involved in this process. We can clearly see an ecosystem that simply cannot properly provide long-term support for system updates to Android handsets (as it currently exists). It’s not due to malice, it’s just not practical.

I’ve been using a Droid 2 (R2-D2) with Android 2.2.x (Froyo) for about 5 months now¹. The R2-D2 part is of particular note here, because while I have an Android device that is one of the most widely adopted handsets, it also means I have a different system OS than the stock Droid 2. While the stock Droid 2 received a system update last fall, the Droid 2 (R2-D2) has not received any updates since it was released.

So What? Or perhaps better phrased, why does this matter?

Geeks like to have the latest and greatest. We want the new, the better, the shiny. I certainly fall into that camp. However, I don’t really feel like I’m missing anything by not having Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). My 2.2 device does the things I need it to do, apps work, it’s stable… I actually don’t have any particular desire to upgrade to 2.3. Consumers are not terribly hurt (currently) by not being able to update their Android OS.

And that is the crux of the problem.

The lack of OS updates to active devices is creating a huge burden on the Android app ecosystem.

Developers have to support too many OS versions and devices. The testing matrix involved in supporting multiple OS versions, multiple vendor-specific extensions, multiple hardware configurations (differences in physical screen size and resolution, with or without a hardware keyboard, BlackBerry style keyboard vs. slide-out landscape keyboard, etc.). How to you optimize for user experience across that many variants? How do you effectively test your apps across them all?

This burden is heavy on the entire ecosystem. As it increases, it hinders the ecosystem’s ability to move forward until it eventually grinds to a halt. Stuck, unable to move under it’s own bloat. That is when it becomes a problem for consumers.

Smartphones in the post iPhone era are still in their infancy. This is a time in their evolution where they need to be nimble, able to quickly change and adapt, to constantly improve. The fragmentation of the Android platform is becoming a devastating impediment to that progress.

I experienced this on a small scale with my WordPress plugins and themes. Trying to maintain backwards compatibility was too much effort. It was taking longer to thoroughly test the new versions on various WP versions than it was to code, package and release them. It was hampering my ability to release. I eventually gave up backward compatibility as a feature and now test them exclusively on the latest release of WordPress as a matter of policy.

In stark contrast to the problems Android is seeing, Apple is cruising along nicely. They continue to push forward with their OS features and developer tools while fully supporting the last 2-3 hardware devices at the same time. Their 3rd party developers need only to buy one new device a year and the developer community is constantly keeping an eye out for when they can drop support for older OS versions. The result of this is twofold. Developers are able to invest their time building features and less on OS version and device testing, and the smaller device testing matrix means that both Apple upgrades and 3rd party apps are better tested on all of the iOS devices.

It’s clear to me which of these options is more attractive as a developer. If things go on as they are, it will become clear to consumers as well. The problem? I like choice. Though I plan to make the move to an iPhone 5 this summer, I don’t want my hardware options to be perpetually limited to Apple’s whims. I want Android to be competitive with iOS, but the current state of core OS + vendor extensions + carrier testing + developer burden won’t be able keep up. Something’s gotta give.

1. With a brief interruption to go back to a BlackBerry. This didn’t take due to battery life issues on the BlackBerry with OS 6. [back]

1. Go sign up for a Verizon account today and purchase the cheapest phone they have, without a subsidy.
2. Don’t use the cheap phone.
3. Get online at 3AM US/Eastern (Midnight US/Pacific) on Feb 3rd, and order your iPhone 4 (with the 2-year contract subsidy).
4. After receiving your iPhone 4, return the cheap phone you purchased for a full refund.

There you have it.

I’m going to wait for the iPhone 5. So far I’ve always skipped one generation of iPhone¹ and even for me it seems a bit extreme buy a phone that will be replaced in less than 6 months.

1. I had the original, skipped the 3G, had the 3GS and am currently skipping the 4G. [back]

@alexkingorg it’s the whole concept of new vs unread. I knew to open mail for new mail. Unread is a meaningless number.

BlackBerry, Android and Palm all have a notification system that allows the user to know when new email has arrived. The notification remains present until you launch the mail app.

On iOS, there is a “meaningless number” tacked on to the mail icon. Why couldn’t this be replaced (or augmented) by a “new” indicator that would get cleared next time you launched the mail app?

For example, if the unread count badge is red it could indicate the arrival of new emails since you last looked at Mail. It’s your key to go take action.

Once you switch to Mail after the arrival of new mail (red icon), the icon would revert to grey.

Simple, meaningful, useful.

And while we’re at it, some sort of LED indicator light on the device would be great so that you know you should take a look to see what needs your attention. I don’t want my phone vibrating several hundred times a day with the arrival of each new email, but I would like to have it tip me off when there is something that I should look at.

Platform Strengths

The iPhone, Android and BlackBerry each have a distinct set of strengths.

The iPhone oozes polish. It’s apparent in the hardware, the OS and the apps. It has a fantastic camera. It is, as a friend says, a very good pants computer. The camera and music capabilities of the iPhone are obvious strengths, but the gap between the iPhone and everything else in these areas is staggering. Every other manufacturer is chasing Apple and making their phones more and more iPhone-like. I hope you like what Apple is doing, because they are leaving a trail of followers in their wake.

Android is a great choice if you like free apps (or a backwards “trial” system that lets you buy, try, then refund). It has tight integration with Google’s services, a carrier-supported mobile hot spot feature, and a variety of hardware options. It also has very good background processing; I like getting to my car and finding that my podcasts already been downloaded and are ready for me. The ability to display the weather and daily agenda on the home screen via widgets is very useful as well.

The traditional BlackBerry is the best of the three platforms for communication activities. Once you learn to properly utilize the hardware keys and shortcuts, it is way faster to navigate and use for these activities than an Android device or an iPhone (even though the latter two have far more powerful hardware). It also has good background processing with weather and other data apps that update themselves. And the profile settings for notifications combined with the magnet in the holster are something I miss while on other platforms.

Platform Outlook

The interesting thing to me is how each of these platforms is trending. The iPhone is continuing to blaze the trail. It is by far the best touch-screen device (iOS having been designed for the form factor from the ground up) and it’s continuing to incrementally improve.

Android is becoming Windows to Apple’s Mac. The hardware is more and more iPhone-like. The manufacturers and carriers are adding iPhone style UI touches on top of the base Android OS. But while it’s a very functional OS, it lacks a personality. There is an entirely different feeling using an Android device vs. an iOS device. It feels cobbled together.

The BlackBerry is the biggest mess of all. The traditional strengths of the BlackBerry platform are: a great keyboard, efficiencies for power users via hardware key shortcuts, apps with spartan interfaces that are built for speed. These things are being largely abandoned in favor of chasing after the touchscreen revolution. Their current devices are underpowered for the type of apps you see on the iPhone or Android and the developer tools don’t make it easy to create elegant apps. The hardware design favors big screens over the utility of the always there keyboard, but the apps are weak and the software platform generally isn’t ready for this type of hardware. The things that made BlackBerry different (and in many ways, better) are dropping out of the platform as it tries to play “me too” with the iPhone and Android.

The only way to create a great product is to say “this is our vision” and build around it with consistency and conviction. Why is Apple the only one doing this?²

1. Might go back to the Droid in a bit here. [back]
2. Palm was probably the runner-up in this position with a strong webOS user experience and set of platform tools. Unfortunately the hardware was abysmal. [back]

In Denver you can’t connect to the internet or make a call on AT&T if there is a ballgame downtown. On the other hand, while in Baltimore I experienced the fastest wireless speeds I’ve ever seen on the same AT&T iPhone.

I switched to Verizon from AT&T back in late 2009 and I’ve been pretty happy. Here are the big wins for me in Denver:

• Calls don’t drop. Period. I’ve had a single dropped call in a year and a half. I could predict exactly where on I-70 my AT&T calls would drop, on Verizon this just doesn’t happen.
• I can always make and receive a call.
• Calls sound better.
• I can always get data.

That’s the good news; but it’s not all roses.

• Data is slow, both the initial connection and the throughput.²
• Data is usually available, but I do drop out of 3G at times. Usually when I’m deeper in buildings or in weak coverage areas.
• Phone calls interrupt data. There is no simultaneous (theoretical) talking and surfing like on AT&T.
• CDMA is more power-hungry than GSM. I don’t know the technical details, but my GSM BlackBerrys typically get .5-1 day more battery than the equivalent CDMA device. I’ve experienced this on several occasions over the years as I’ve hopped from carrier to carrier and device to device.

If you’re trying to decide to make the move from AT&T for the iPhone, the question to ask is, “do I need to be able to reliably make and receive phone calls more than I need fast data?” If so, Verizon might be a good fit for you.

1. T-Mobile’s network has poor coverage in too many of my local areas, Sprint’s isn’t as good in rural areas I find myself in when traveling. [back]
2. This will likely get better with LTE, I’m guessing we’re at least a year from that being available on an iPhone. [back]

iPhone apps are beautiful and exhibit consistent user interface conventions while Android apps are functional, but lack elegance, polish and consistency.

The Truth

iPhone apps are beautiful and exhibit consistent user interface conventions while Android apps are functional, but lack elegance, polish and consistency.

The false promise of Android is that any day now, we’ll see those rough edges smoothed out and we’ll have nice polished, consistent apps with elegant interfaces like iPhone apps (but more open ).

It ain’t gonna happen. The apps on each platform are exactly what we should expect.

Apple rules the user experience on the iPhone with an iron fist, including the apps. They provide tools¹ and guidelines, and enforce them rigidly via app store rejections. There is a single, consistent iPhone interface, which is reinforced as the apps confirm to those conventions.

Conversely, the Android ecosystem is fragmented at its core. Each manufacturer starts with some version of Android, then changes the UI, the styling, the home screen, the keyboard, etc. until it’s their own unique flavor.

Compare the stock home screen for the Nexus S, the Samsung Galaxy and the Droid Incredible. They look like three totally different platforms. Different UI styling, different layouts, behaviors, etc.²

How can developers be expected to identify and follow consistent UI guidelines and patterns when the very basics of the OS user interface change from manufacturer to manufacturer and device to device?

Add in the different types of hardware (touchscreen only, slider keyboard, candybar with keyboard) and the different screen sizes and resolutions, and it’s amazing that Android apps work as well as they do.

This is a problem that is going to get worse with time, not better.³

1. iPhone dev tools launch and put you in interface builder. Android’s dev tools launch and show you a blank text file in Eclipse. Go figure… [back]
2. The Samsung Galaxy S home screen looks and acts like an iPhone home screen, and there is heavy iPhone-inspired visual styling throughout the interface in the phone. [back]
3. Unless Google drastically changes the way they work with their manufacturing partners, which would require significant changes to the “open” licensing of Android, or at least as it’s implemented in practice. [back]