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A comment on An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4.

Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by fossuser on Friday January 04, 2013 @05:38AM (#5007066)
Interesting - I switched from android to the iPhone 5 recently (after having the N1, NS and Galaxy Nexus). I thought this was the first iPhone that finally had the necessary hardware (LTE being required after the galaxy).

The main things I miss are better google voice integration on the nexus phones (the ability to use the web interface for texting is something I can't give up). I also used to not pay for texting this way and could actually afford to have a smart phone because of it since Tmobile has a $30 no contract 100min/unlimited data plan for unsubsidized phones.

I also needed some sort of google talk app which I finally found with the $5 version of the verbs app. A bunch of people I communicate with are on android and use google chat instead of facebook chat or imessage.

The current iPhone does some things much better. The biggest thing is battery life which is at least twice as good as any nexus phone I've used (probably even more). The difference in battery is really incredible. The new native Facebook iOS app is also great to use. The iPhone hardware is also subjectively much nicer, it both looks and feels a lot better to me - makes me wish Google had partnered with Nokia.

Really though they're both pretty equivalent at the point.

Edit: Almost forgot, the critical feature of android was turn by turn navigation which apple finally came out with in iOS6. Now that google's released their maps app as well the core differences that mattered are gone.

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by blinkingled on Friday January 04, 2013 @06:31AM (#5007180)
Battery life in Android land is a matter of choosing the right handset. I don't believe the iPhone holds a candle to my Note 2 or the RAZR Maxx if you actually use the phone heavily. Plus replaceable/extended batteries are another option.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by driverdan on Friday January 04, 2013 @10:04AM (#5007883)
The Note 2 is a tablet that also happens to make calls. Compare it to the iPad Mini. The Nexus 4's battery is not removable.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by wting on Friday January 04, 2013 @01:54PM (#5009097)
Can the iPad Mini make phone calls? Can it fit in my pocket? The Mini's surface is 23 in^2 larger.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by blinkingled on Friday January 04, 2013 @11:39AM (#5008367)
Most people buy the Note 2 as a phone though. But the point is you can still choose - big hands, like big screen get a Note 2. Want something smaller - get Razr Maxx HD or S3 mini with extra battery. All I am saying is that battery life isn't an issue on Android any longer. Even with the smaller non-removable battery phones, with little tweaks you can get battery life very similar to what the iPhone 4/4S have offered (don't know about iPhone 5).
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by djt on Friday January 04, 2013 @06:52AM (#5007234)
Comparing the iPhone to a Note 2 is probably unfair as those things are HUGE!
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by mtgx on Friday January 04, 2013 @07:12AM (#5007283)
Exactly - it uses a much bigger power-drawing screen, too.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by blinkingled on Friday January 04, 2013 @06:57AM (#5007247)
I guess any Android phone is now a days. The Razr is smaller of the two. But I think the point still stands due to replaceable batteries on phones like the S3 mini.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by fossuser on Friday January 04, 2013 @11:43AM (#5008389)
I'm sure it is variable by handset, but I had no interest in any android phone apart from the Nexus line.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by gallamine on Friday January 04, 2013 @08:33AM (#5007491)
Do you find you have problems with MMS and Google Voice? Last I checked, it was unsupported and text messages with pictures or video just went to /dev/null without any notifications to either party. That was a no-go for me.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by dannyr on Friday January 04, 2013 @09:54AM (#5007829)
My main # now is Google Voice. For the past 4 years, there was just 2 instances that I needed MMS.

What's frustrating though is the inability of Google Voice to receive SMS from short codes. Craigslist and Paypal also don't verify accounts with a Google Voice number.

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by FireBeyond on Friday January 04, 2013 @12:49PM (#5008756)
Perhaps so, but you can't deny that for wider adoption, Google Voice needs to do something about both Short Codes and MMS. Lack of MMS is a dealbreaker for a lot of people, and "text it to my email address", as I explain to friends, is like a paradigm shifting without a clutch (with apologies to Dilbert).
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by fossuser on Friday January 04, 2013 @11:42AM (#5008384)
Yeah that short code thing sucks - still have to use my non google voice number for that.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by fossuser on Friday January 04, 2013 @11:41AM (#5008379)
MMS isn't supported and still silently fails (which is annoying). I just tell people to 'text my email addresss' which works, or to use something else (like facebook/snapchat).
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by parfe on Friday January 04, 2013 @01:34PM (#5008978)
If someone attempts to send your Google voice number an MMS you will receive a notification about the message and the image will be sent to your email address.

http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/first-steps-towa...

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by bhaile on Friday January 04, 2013 @02:10PM (#5009175)
Only if the MMS is from a Sprint customer. "Google Voice users are now able to receive pictures and other multimedia messages from Sprint subscribers."

When I get MMS from AT&T or Verizon, then I don't get anything but from Sprint customers, I get the notification and its in my gmail account right away. Probably due to the integration with Sprint and Google Voice. http://www.google.com/googlevoice/sprint/.

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by parfe on Friday January 04, 2013 @03:02PM (#5009517)
I've received MMS from a MetroPCS user. I can't find an updated list of providers that google voice supports. The blog post announcing sprint mms support was in October 2011.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by inklesspen on Saturday January 05, 2013 @02:47PM (#5013762)
MetroPCS uses the Sprint network.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by drivebyacct2 on Friday January 04, 2013 @10:39PM (#5011445)
I'm glad that my Google Voice number doesn't accept MMS. What a silly invention. If you must use MMS, my email address works more than fine.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by thefreeman on Friday January 04, 2013 @06:53AM (#5007239)
Curious, do you actively use the power control widget? Turning off wi-fi and GPS when you aren't using them can help a lot with battery life.

Also, if you are using CyanogenMod (or many other custom builds) you can change the performance settings on your cpu governer, etc., to improve it further.

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by bjustin on Friday January 04, 2013 @10:24AM (#5007970)
That's silly. I don't have to manually turn off wi-fi or GPS for my iPhone to last about two days, why should I have to on an Android phone? Automatic management would be fine, but having to think about it is not. Even using cell-towers-only coarse location to set them when I'm at home or work could be OK.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by chimeracoder on Saturday January 05, 2013 @01:06AM (#5011843)
> I don't have to manually turn off wi-fi or GPS for my iPhone to last about two days, why should I have to on an Android phone?

Because an Android phone doesn't assume you have unlimited data and automatically turn Wifi off periodically, thereby downloading things over the cell network.

I've gotten burned this way on the iPhone; luckily I opted for the larger data plan.

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by beznogim on Friday January 04, 2013 @07:58AM (#5007389)
Chances are, there is a ketnel wakelock held by a device driver and preventing the phone from sleeping. This is a common issue with poorly written drivers (even Nexus 7 3g suffers from it). Properly functioning Android phone should be managing its radios automatically.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by greenmountin on Friday January 04, 2013 @10:26AM (#5007984)
I bought the Nexus 4 and couldn't believe how little runtime I was getting. Even paid $5 for juice defender to turn off wifi / automatic downloading. It's the screen. Went back to my iPhone 4. Sites should really do a better job of reporting battery life, although I guess I should have guessed from the Anandtech table [1]. Gave it to my brother to jailbreak and underclock, to see if it could be saved.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/6425/google-nexus-4-and-nexus-...

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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by warfangle on Friday January 04, 2013 @08:00AM (#5007394)
My cheapo android phone from Virgin had an app installed by default (ICS) that lets you automate power control. My phone goes from 100% to 60% about twice as fast as 60% to 0%, because once it hits 60% it automatically dims the screen (unless you force it bright). And if you ever watch power consumption, by and far it's the screen that uses the most.
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Re:An iPhone lover’s confession: I switched to the Nexus 4 by fossuser on Friday January 04, 2013 @11:41AM (#5008375)
While I definitely believe that would help - on the iPhone I don't have to turn anything off (and I typically don't want to).
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