1st world problems: Broke a promise to myself

Dannyalcatraz said:

touchscreens and I are not on the best of terms. And the smaller they are, the worse they treat me.

...

upgraded to an 16GB iPhone 4S for 99¢.

Click to expand...

I think you did yourself a bit of a disservice. The iPhone 4S is probably not the phone for you; there are Android phones that might serve you much better. You can get Android phones with physical buttons, so you don't have to rely on the touchscreen to answer calls. You can also get Android phones with screens that are almost 50% larger than an iPhone 4s.

If you're stuck with the 4s, though, I would suggest picking up a bluetooth device to let you answer the phone without needing to touch the screen. If you don't like earpieces, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Pebble smartwatch. I got one for Xmas and have been amazed with how useful the thing is.

Well, I didn't see any smartphones with physical buttons at 2...no...3 different Verizon locations, so if they do exist, they were not on my radar.

As for Android vs iPhone, I had an Android for 3 years- about as long as I've had my iPod Touch and iPad2. I kept running into situations where the Android environment wouldn't let me do what I wanted the way I wanted...sometimes, not at all.

For example, a buddy of mine and I went to a concert, and both took videos. His iPhone worked like my iPad: it let you send long movies by asking if you wanted to break them up into chunks. It was even an auto-prompt. In contrast, my phone simply wouldn't let me send them. The was no menu option. To send said large movies, I first had to download them to my computer.

Or, while visiting my favorite forums, my Android displayed all kinds of oddball behavior: on one site, the cursor jumped randomly. On another, it routinely placed the cursor "under" the virtual keyboard- even as a touch typist, I found this incredibly annoying.

I found these issues- and others- early in my Android ownership. I asked Verizon tech support about them in person, since they were happening pretty much always. They saw the issues but were unable to correct them, returning my phone with a shrug.

Now, I won't try to lie and say there are no issues with iOS devices. But, except for one (an issue with the Notes app), none has annoyed me the way the Android did.

At the very least, it will be child's play synching all of my mobile devices, now that they're all running iOS.

Besides that, I really don't want a bigger phone, I wanted smaller. The Android I had fit awkwardly in my pockets as it was, and the iPhone's belt mounted case is uncomfortable enough despite its smaller sized. A bigger phone was out of the question.

Even though that means I may have more issues with the touch screen- which, so far, has happily not been the case- I plan on using my iPhone as a phone first. All that other stuff? Primarily on the iPad or my iMac- the phone is an online device of last resort.

And while headphones don't bother me (I have at least a pair of them right now), I really haven't been all that impressed with the Bluetooth ones. Several of my associates have them, and often, conversations with them are...problematic. Odd acoustics, extraneous noise...why its happening, I can't say. But since the phones they're using are pretty state of the art, that almost has to be the weak link.

bear in mind, every iPhone comes with a wired headset that has a push button to answer the phone.

Problem solved. (unless Danny doesn't like the sound on that either).

Part of the Android problem (like mine) is that it was 3 years old. Android OS revs plenty fast and probably gets better. But the phone vendors/carriers do not update FW in any kind of useful fashion on Android devices.

So Danny was stuck running the crappy version of Android for 3 years.

Whereas, his iOS devices have been running the latest version all their life time. With the exception of iOS7, there was the additional perk that it did not change from device to device in any meaningful way. No learning curve as he upgraded.

I've gone through 3g -> 4 -> 5 in 2 year increments and there was ZERO learning gap/change thrash.

Whereas, now that I dumped my 3 year old DroidX for a Razr Maxx, it's obviously "better" but the OS has morphed so dang much because I couldn't upgrade OSes in a useful way during those 3 years to ease into Android's evolution.

At this point, I still can't get my new Android to notify me when I get new email. And I'm a software developer! I'm the guy who gets that stuff working on everybody else's phone.

Android's not for everybody, just as iOS isn't for everybody.


Given that Danny's already got iOS investment, I'd say he's probably just fine, even with that 4s. Just don't put iOS7 on it.

Haven't even looked that the earbuds it came with. But I infinitely prefer those to Bluetooth earpieces. Still, if I have to make a call... (If only Blackberry's weren't dying; if only smartphones had a slide out keypad; etc.)

And I bet, being new, my phone is running iOS7.

Haven't updated my iPad2, yet, though. More out of laziness than concerns about the new iOS. Why do you dislike iOS7?

Dannyalcatraz said:

This also means that you have to take off your gloves in cold weather just to answer the damn phone. The physical buttons on a basic phone handles that issue flawlessly.

Click to expand...

I use a very basic classical Samsung without touchscreen, but can't the physical buttons with gloves anyway. They are just too small, almost feels like threading a needle or maybe tieing one's shoestrings.

I hate Apple because of how they treat their customers ... which, admittedly, is because most of their customers are moronic fanboys but still. Anyhoo, I have a 4s and when I upgrade it will likely be to a 5s or whatever is newest at the time for one reason: Apple is the only company that makes a decent smartphone that isn't the size of a laptop. I don't want a massive phone. If I want a big screen I'll use my Thinkpad. Big phones suck hard and that's the only reason I left Android. Thing is, now Apple is going in the bigger is better direction thanks to Samsung actually posing a real threat. Lamez. So, so lamez.

Today's pain in the ass tech task: get mom's data from the microSD chip in her old LG to her new LG G2 (which has no microSD slot).

Apparently, Verizon is prevented by law now from transporting sensitive customer data from one device to another; the customer now has to move things like calendar data and pix themselves.

Except mom never synced her android with her Mac, so has no clue (ditto me) and so she's not set up to do so with a simple plugging in of her new phone.

Well, tried to do it last night, following all the little prompts. And the Android program that is supposed to do the task? Well, the Android phone won't even open it. It downloaded it, no problem, but it absolutely refuses to open the program.

That's like a PC refusing to run a Microsoft program.

Back to Verizon!

Me and my 10 dollar tracphone are laughing at you!

Dannyalcatraz said:

Well, I didn't see any smartphones with physical buttons at 2...no...3 different Verizon locations, so if they do exist, they were not on my radar.

Click to expand...

The ones I know of are the Rugby and the Terrain. Obviously, I'm on AT&T, though. I'm sure there are others, but I have no idea what Verizon has available. There's also the Pressy

I do completely agree with Janx, though. If you aren't a fan of Android, then none of these options are going to help much. Stick with the OS that works best for you. I will reiterate the Pebble as a good option for either platform, though.

Deset Gled said:

The ones I know of are the Rugby and the Terrain. Obviously, I'm on AT&T, though. I'm sure there are others, but I have no idea what Verizon has available. There's also the Pressy

I do completely agree with Janx, though. If you aren't a fan of Android, then none of these options are going to help much. Stick with the OS that works best for you. I will reiterate the Pebble as a good option for either platform, though.

Click to expand...

Didn't see any of those at Verizon.

The LG i had was my first smartphone, so I didn't really have a preference on mobile operating systems...until I compared it with my iPod Touch. The iPad2 I later acquired, plus my side-by-side experiences with iPhone users led me to dislike the Android environment.

And while I am finding the iPhone 4S more to my tastes than my old LG or mom's LG G2- which, BTW, Verizon was not much help with today- I still don't care for my iPhone. Still too much a tiny tablet, not enough a phone. Even its belt carry case is ridiculous- much bigger and harder to operate than the one for my iPod Touch- and made of uncomfortable hard plastics that gouge into my side. Yes, that's more down to the case maker, not Apple, but the sheer size if the iPhone makes certain design demands...

IOW, I really dislike smartphones.