(no subject)
Well, I got a nice Motorola Droid to see whether I like it better than the iPhone. I'm one of those crazy individuals who believes that technology should just work...as advertised, which unfortunately seems to be far too high a standard in the world of shoddy stuff. The iPhone mostly does this. However, I was a bit peeved at the non inclusion of Google Voice on the iPhone, which is something I use a lot and like. And so this became a toss up with several pros and cons to both products.
IPhone
Pro
Ease of sync to Macs
Ease of use
Look and feel
Apps store has lots of great stuff and is easy to use/purchase from
Can use "find my iPhone" to find where I misplace the thing
Has just about everything I like to do with a phone/PDA
Cons
AT&T
Apps store can arbitrarily deny useful apps
I don't like the lack of physical keyboard
S L O W (see AT&T, plus kinda slow OS)
crappy camera
Droid
Pro
Verizon with cheaper data plan
Ease of sync to Google which syncs to Macs
Google Voice
Ease of Use
Real keyboard
MUCH faster
More open platform so no central control over apps
Cons
Possibility of malware because of no central control over apps
Bug in how they handle self signed SSL certificates
bleeding edge software/hardware
When I walked into the Verizon store and decided to buy the Droid, the guy activated it and handed it to me to enter my gmail address. Because I have Google Voice, and because I sync my mac stuff with Google for contacts and calendar and stuff, it instantaneously downloaded all of my contacts and calendar information, including the calendars I subscribe to on Google. By the time the sales weasel said "let's switch your old contacts over" it was finished. I said "no need" and showed him that it was full of all of my contacts. He boggled at that and I got to gloat. It took literally seconds. By the time I got into the car some of my email was set up (more on that later) and I was downloading apps from the "Market."
One of the apps I downloaded was for facebook, and it went out and checked my contacts against the facebook contacts, merging information and adding pictures to the phone's contacts. The iPhone also has one of those, but again, not nearly as fast. I downloaded a twitter client, a LJ client, solitaire, meebo for IMs, a bluetooth file transfer program that I haven't figured out how to work yet, a call list blocker that uses wildcards so I can block all 800, 866, 888 etc., Google Sky Map (which I'm told kinda sucks by real astronomers), My Verizon, and of course Google Voice. I want Scrabble and some of the other cute apps I have on the iPhone, but I figure those or better will come along.
Now for the possible deal breaker. Self-signed SSL certificates are not handled properly at all. You are given a choice of SSL, or SSL - accept all certificates. I tried the second one for my self-signed mail server. No good. Would not connect. So, I searched for a work around, finally enlisting help from someone far more technical, who found me an article that showed how you could upload certs to your Droid as trusted. There was no trusted list you could just add domains to unfortunately. So I tried this, uploading my cert. When I told the Droid to use it, it asked me for an extraction password. Huh? I thought that was a server side issue, not a client side one. I posted to the android code forum and one person gave me a possible password which I used but no go.
I can get to the site through the browser, which asks whether I wish to proceed anyway, but not through the mail client. I downloaded another mail client to see if that handled things better, but it blew up immediately before I could even try to configure it.
And so, that's where it is. I still haven't decided which I like better, the Droid or the iPhone, but I do know that I can't use the Droid for everything I want to do unless they fix this "enhancement" (which they named it on the forum. To me, it's a BUG, as the SSL - accept all certificates option does not work the way it is supposed, AND they're asking for an extraction password that they shouldn't.
More on how it fits into day to day life later.
EDIT: Seems that the Droid won't stay connected to my 2008 Prius. The only way to get it to work was to repair it every time I start the car. This is not acceptable.
IPhone
Pro
Ease of sync to Macs
Ease of use
Look and feel
Apps store has lots of great stuff and is easy to use/purchase from
Can use "find my iPhone" to find where I misplace the thing
Has just about everything I like to do with a phone/PDA
Cons
AT&T
Apps store can arbitrarily deny useful apps
I don't like the lack of physical keyboard
S L O W (see AT&T, plus kinda slow OS)
crappy camera
Droid
Pro
Verizon with cheaper data plan
Ease of sync to Google which syncs to Macs
Google Voice
Ease of Use
Real keyboard
MUCH faster
More open platform so no central control over apps
Cons
Possibility of malware because of no central control over apps
Bug in how they handle self signed SSL certificates
bleeding edge software/hardware
When I walked into the Verizon store and decided to buy the Droid, the guy activated it and handed it to me to enter my gmail address. Because I have Google Voice, and because I sync my mac stuff with Google for contacts and calendar and stuff, it instantaneously downloaded all of my contacts and calendar information, including the calendars I subscribe to on Google. By the time the sales weasel said "let's switch your old contacts over" it was finished. I said "no need" and showed him that it was full of all of my contacts. He boggled at that and I got to gloat. It took literally seconds. By the time I got into the car some of my email was set up (more on that later) and I was downloading apps from the "Market."
One of the apps I downloaded was for facebook, and it went out and checked my contacts against the facebook contacts, merging information and adding pictures to the phone's contacts. The iPhone also has one of those, but again, not nearly as fast. I downloaded a twitter client, a LJ client, solitaire, meebo for IMs, a bluetooth file transfer program that I haven't figured out how to work yet, a call list blocker that uses wildcards so I can block all 800, 866, 888 etc., Google Sky Map (which I'm told kinda sucks by real astronomers), My Verizon, and of course Google Voice. I want Scrabble and some of the other cute apps I have on the iPhone, but I figure those or better will come along.
Now for the possible deal breaker. Self-signed SSL certificates are not handled properly at all. You are given a choice of SSL, or SSL - accept all certificates. I tried the second one for my self-signed mail server. No good. Would not connect. So, I searched for a work around, finally enlisting help from someone far more technical, who found me an article that showed how you could upload certs to your Droid as trusted. There was no trusted list you could just add domains to unfortunately. So I tried this, uploading my cert. When I told the Droid to use it, it asked me for an extraction password. Huh? I thought that was a server side issue, not a client side one. I posted to the android code forum and one person gave me a possible password which I used but no go.
I can get to the site through the browser, which asks whether I wish to proceed anyway, but not through the mail client. I downloaded another mail client to see if that handled things better, but it blew up immediately before I could even try to configure it.
And so, that's where it is. I still haven't decided which I like better, the Droid or the iPhone, but I do know that I can't use the Droid for everything I want to do unless they fix this "enhancement" (which they named it on the forum. To me, it's a BUG, as the SSL - accept all certificates option does not work the way it is supposed, AND they're asking for an extraction password that they shouldn't.
More on how it fits into day to day life later.
EDIT: Seems that the Droid won't stay connected to my 2008 Prius. The only way to get it to work was to repair it every time I start the car. This is not acceptable.