- Why does the phone crash when I try to pair with my bluetooth headset?

- Why do all eleventy-billion of my contacts show up in the dialer instead of the relatively small handful who've got phone numbers?

- Why the *@#$% doesn't this thing have a proper headphone jack?

- How do I sync music between my computer and my G1?

- How about podcasts?

- How do I play videos on this thing?

- When I mark a contact as a "favorite", how do I change which phone number gets dialed from the favorite screen?

- Why don't I get autocompletion when I use the hardware keyboard?

- Why does the system freeze for about a second when I rotate it?

- Why do about 25% of the apps I have not work with the soft keyboard?

- Why do another 25% not work in horizontal mode?

- Where's the PDF reader?

- Why can't I read Google documents on this thing?

Shall I continue?

Because the Dialer app is listing all of your contacts, because it serves as both the Dialer and the Contacts app all rolled into one.

- Why the @#$% doesn't this thing have a proper headphone jack?

Yell at HTC, not Android.

- How do I sync music between my computer and my G1?

Plug the included USB cable into your PC. Android will pop up a notification allowing you to choose if you want to mount the internal SD card as a drive on the host machine. Use Finder/Nautilus/Explorer to copy music to the drive, or Google for the proper file that tells the PC that your G1's SD card is actually a music device so that your music apps will sync with it.

Arguably, the G1 should do this for you, but what if you put your camera's SD card into the G1? It wouldn't know the difference, but you wouldn't want it to label the SD card as a music player without you asking it to...

- How about podcasts?

Get a podcast app, or see above?

- How do I play videos on this thing?

Use the included YouTube app, or download a file-manager app (I recommend the Linda File Manager) and click on the video from the file manager. Yes, Android should include this type of app out of the box.

- When I mark a contact as a "favorite", how do I change which phone number gets dialed from the favorite screen?

Open the contact, long-press on the desired number, and select Make Default Number.

- Why don't I get autocompletion when I use the hardware keyboard?

Because, arguably, most people using a real keyboard don't generally need/want auto-completion? Also because with the physical keyboard, there's no keyboard "app" being used in the first place, which is what provides the auto-completion you speak of.

- Why does the system freeze for about a second when I rotate it?

Because of the way Android handles apps. When the screen rotates, Android sends the "Stop" signal to the current activity, resets the framebuffer, and then sends the "restart" signal to the activity, more-or-less forcing the activity to save and load its state and rebuild the UI. This allows Android and the application to pick up new resources or new UI layouts based on the new conditions of the phone (new resolution, keyboard availability, etc). See my previous comment on this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=699223

- Why do about 25% of the apps I have not work with the soft keyboard?

Most likely because developers did some funky business under the expectation that the user would be using Android 1.0 and/or the G1's hardware keyboard. Please yell at developers to update their applications.

- Why do another 25% not work in horizontal mode?

Once again, developers can specify that applications only run in certain orientations, which can be useful in certain apps (eg, Solitaire really can't play well in portrait mode). Yell at the developers to knock it off if you disagree.

- Where's the PDF reader?

I believe there's one on the Market.

- Why can't I read Google documents on this thing?

I'm not sure why Google overlooked a native app for Docs, but they worked relatively well through the browser, last time I tried. There are also several "Office" apps on the Market, if you're interested...

Shall I continue?

I'd be happy to answer, refute, or agree with more complaints if you can keep them civil.

For example: yell at the hardware manufacturer instead of the software developer; yell at the app developers; if you need that functionality, go buy a 3rd party app; it's slow because of OS implementation details; it doesn't work as you'd expect it because of implementation details; Google's own apps work relatively well.

Users don't care about why something is slow or broken (from their perspective). They shouldn't have to care. They don't want to go find an app in the Market for basic functionality, and they don't want to write a Perl script, either. Apple gets this. I hope Google and their partners will some day.

Users don't want answers to these questions. The list of questions you replied to was a rhetorical way of saying this: the iPhone user experience is far superior.

This cuts both ways. An iPhone user doesn't care why Apple rejects good apps from the app store. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't vibrate when someone uses his name in a tweet or pings him on IRC or talks to him via GTalk. An iPhone user doesn't care why his phone can't turn its ringer off during appointments, and set it to "ultra loud" when he is in his house.

Sure, Apple has technical explanations for all these things, but it doesn't make them go away.

It is all a matter, right now, of trading one set of problems for another. "Is iTunes sync worth not having Google Voice?", and so on.

Nobody is claiming Android is perfect, but it is important the keep in mind that Apple is not either.

This whole "Apple is perfect" thing is a straw man that I've seen many times before. The argument isn't that Apple's perfect. The argument's that Apple is really, really, really good, and that its competitors' products aren't as polished as its own products. Android's advantages, as you highlight here, are certainly appealing to some people, but not to mass consumers, who care more about smooth than they do about extensible.

- because it serves as both the Dialer and the Contacts app all rolled into one.

Is this a good idea? When I'm in my Dialer, presumably I only want to call people. Surely the system should sense context (likewise, if I'm in the email app, it should show contacts for whom I have no email!).

- or Google for the proper file that tells the PC that your G1's SD card is actually a music device

Basic, fundamental functionality should not involve Googling for anything.

- Open the contact, long-press on the desired number, and select Make Default Number.

Invisible and undiscoverable except by accident - this is a UI failure. The fact that this is not displayed implies to the user that it cannot be changed. At least show which number it dials (e.g. on iphone it's "mobile", "home", etc).

- Because of the way Android handles apps. When the screen rotates...

Not a good enough excuse I don't think. Yeah, that's the way Android works, but it's still a huge UI failure that snaps users out of the experience and takes away from the fit-and-finish of the software significantly. Note that iPhone can do this transition smoothly, and applications can still pick up new resources, UI layouts, etc.

... at the end of the day there are a few rules of thumb I think:

- Users care far more about the fit and finish of your software than they do about its strict functionality - i.e. you can get away with lacking functionality, but nobody will forgive you for poor UX.

- Users don't really care if "there's an app for that" when it comes to what they consider to be basic functionality. Include the basic goodies (PDF reader for example, music sync software for example) with the box or your users will walk, regardless of how much you point at the app store.

This is the gist of the article I think. Android is a capable platform, but so far nobody has gone over with a fine toothed comb like Apple has and gotten rid of all of the little annoying bits.

-My iPhone would not rotate when I was rotating my phone, I had to do it 2-3 times or exit safari and restart in the landscape orientation for it to switch. At other time the orientation changed but the width was not changed.

-I'm not a big fan of reboot so every 2 or 3 days safari would just start to crash on page load with no reason. Only solved by a reboot.

-On the reboot front, once I made everyone at home change there time. Since my phone is taking it's time from the cell provider and this as always worked correctly on my many Motorola phones, I told everybody they were 10 minutes forward. The day after, at work I saw the time on a friends iPhone and it was also 10 minutes forward. This made no sense, we have the same provider. It was probably more than a week since my last reboot. Android may have the same problem, I don't know.

-OS 3 gave us the search but before that remembering on which page some of the less used apps were was just a pain. I still don't like this way of organizing, but I lack a better solution.

-Talk about obscure way of doing some action on the iPhone. As an example, have you taken a screenshot? The way to do it appeared to you how?

-I think the HTC magic has too many buttons, but the iPhone lacks some. Even after a year of using my iPhone, I still sometimes closed the application with the home button while I was just trying to back off one level. In fact the back button on the Android and the way application stack themselves is really superior.

The iPhone 3Gs finally has a camera. Come on the 3G was not even able to read bar codes (except with red laser, doing image correction and enhancement)

After 2 weeks without my iPhone what I miss the most is the vibration/ringer switch. This is a great feature.

The one feature that keeps me from going back on the Android is the notifications "pull down"

One last thing, latitude on Android is awesome;-)

There is a "dialer" app that shows the phone pad. There is a contacts app tha shows all your contacts. While the device has phone functionality, it actually does a lot more, and showing all your contacts, and all the methods to contact them, actually makes sense when you have multiple methods (voice, SMS, IM, email) available. The contacts list even shows you if someone is currently on IM.

[Open the contact, long-press on the desired number, and select Make Default Number is] Invisible and undiscoverable except by accident - this is a UI failure. The fact that this is not displayed implies to the user that it cannot be changed.

Just like the long hold on the icons on the iphone so you can move them around and rearrange them (and then they shake?) is invisible and undiscoverable except by accident. It took me forever to find out how to do this on my iPod touch.

Say I know Jeff sent me a website to look at. I can't remember whether this was via SMS or email.

* On iPhone, I had to open SMS, find messages, close SMS, open email.

* On Android, I just find Jeff's entry in people and look at everything he sent me - SMS, email, and calls.

We need a vendor to come in and "iPhone-ify" the experience. Smooth out the rough edges and finish the "full package" (e.g. music/podcast sync out of the box). I haven't looked into the Hero enough to know if they're it...

Using this device is like the death of a thousand cuts. None are even remotely fatal, but over time there's just a mounting list of little annoyances. Everything's 95%; nothing Just Works. I stopped using Linux on the desktop because I didn't want to have to be a sysadmin on my personal hardware; having to monkey with my phone is even less my idea of a good time.

My iPhone bit the dust, so I've been using a G1 that Google graciously gave me for free. I really want to like it! After just a couple days with it, though, I'm nearly ready to plunk down cash for a new iPhone. Google's seriously got a problem if they can't even get me to use their platform at the price free (actually, I'll save $200 if I stick with Android, so it's even worse).

(You also mentioned Xorg.conf. I have not had one of those for years.)

When did you stop using Linux? I have had either a laptop or desktop with Linux installed (Ubuntu, Gentoo and DSL) since 2003/4 and spend just as much time customizing it as my Mac or Windows installations. I actually save time in the long run, because of the magic of apt-get.

Everbody gives this logic, but I've installed Linux on plenty for non-techies, and they have no problems--at least, not more than they would have had.

(One of my laptops, for the life of me, would not hook up to an external monitor. That's it.)

So I carried and used the ADP1 every day for two months (plus about a month during late March/early April before I switched back to my iPhone 2G with a cracked screen.)

yes, the ADP1 is running (the official) cupcake release.

Within 24 hours of arriving back home, I went out an bought an iPhone 3GS.

The usability of the combination of Android+HTC's Dream is pure crap. Its functional, sure, but its not usable.

I too stopped using linux on the desktop (I've converted the company to Apple over the last 2 years.) apt-get can screw you, too.

We do use linux on two production webservers, and we ship a ton (no really, at least 2,000 lbs) of FreeBSD on various hardware every month.

Customers don't want to get into the nitty gritty on anything. A stock iPhone "just works" (syncing, videos, etc) without needing anything extra. It's hard to overvalue this.

Second, people love to do feature-by-feature comparisons. I liken this to having a choice between 1) a sandwich and 2) the same ingredients in a blender.

"Oh, the nutritional value is the same! It's easier to eat!" The value of "taste" (literal and figurative) is completely lost -- I don't know how to explain it aside from that. We don't want our food in liquid form, even though the results may be the same. Yet the blender vendor continues to be confused about why people don't want his "identical" (superior?) product.

And that's assuming the products are identical but packaged differently. Dozens of annoyances like "just install this, just tweak that" turn into "Just add salt, just microwave it, just use this spice and my blended concoction will be great!".

Depends on what you're trying to do. Syncing with my iPhone required plugging in a cable and doing a manual sync. Syncing with Android doesn't really exist: it's just always up to date, and doesn't need syncing.

The default Android video player could support more formats out of the box could be better. Then again, there are about 50 useful, everyday things I can do with Android that I couldn't with my iPhone - see my contacts on the map, not lose data when closing apps, publically stream video direct from my phone to the web, copy files to the device.

Also iPhone Safari crashed constantly when reading large engadget articles on every iPhone firmware from 1.01 to 3.00. Android's browser is far more reliable.

(But thanks for answering the other questions. I am glad I am not the only person who likes Android :)

They don't address the core need that the consumer has, which is a whole product that just works. Apple, at the moment, is doing a far better job.

I get Google Docs just fine. Google for "Google Docs", tap the first result, and there they all are.

I sync my music with a Perl script that looks at my xmms2 playlist and copies the music in there to the phone. (Not possible with the iPhone, BTW.)

What you consider major flaws are things I have never had a problem with. I do have a few contacts with no phone numbers, but I can also tap them to chat with them via GTalk. (A green light appears next to their name when they are online. Cool!)

Nothing is perfect, nor will it ever be. With the iPhone, you are stuck with whatever Apple says you are stuck with. With Android, you are stuck with whatever you decide not to write.

BTW, one complaint: I wish I had the Kindle app for this phone.

Some other things:

The iPhone is just as bad with respect to proprietary connectors. If you don't have an Offical Apple Cable, you can't even charge your phone. With the HTC devices, you just plug in a standard mini-USB cable. Tradeoff.

For some reason I don't think this is exactly what Gruber had in mind when he said, "The goal should be to make a phone that is better than the iPhone. Better."

I think a lot of people design systems for imaginary users that don't actually exist. I try to make stuff that works for me, because then at least it works for one person.

(I assume "normal people" use some sort of GUI for this. If you are using Amarok, for example, it's a simple matter of drag-n-dropping your playlist to the icon that says "Android Phone".)

Usability testing should trump hunches. I polled my room mates (small poll, but still 4 > 1), none of us have a music library small enough to fit on an iPhone and none of us want all of our music/videos/photos on our mobile device for a variety of reasons. Drag and drop in iTunes is preferable for us.

And I have an iPhone, I've had it wiped out by iTunes. I'd rather have drag and drop like a normal file system from Explorer.

"Normal people", by which I mean myself, want to plug in their iPhone and have all of their stuff synced without ever clicking any button. Drag-n-drop is nice, but even that's more of a hassle than I care to bother with.

If syncing is on by default, having to turn it on doesn't sound like "ever clicking any button".

On the Android part I sync my music with Banshee ;)

This article isn't about Apple's doing everything perfectly, it's saying that there are a lot of things they do incredibly well that Android sucks at, and it's saying that it wishes Android would make itself less sucky at those things. That's what this conversation's focusing on, not "Does Android do some things better than the iPhone?". We know the answer to that is yes and it's foolish to argue it.

People write for the iPhone because of the imagined mass market (which brought the cost of every useful app down to 99 cents), and people write for Android because they are programmers and it's cooler. The end result is lots of apps in both cases.

Remember, you are not a Google or Apple shareholder, so all you should care about availability of good apps. Both phones both have the same good apps, with a slight edge towards Android (because of more capabilities).

What do you plan to run your software geek nirvana on, anyway? If noone buys the platform, what happens 3 years from now?

As a meta-question: What do you think would've happened to linux and it's desktop if solaris' or even windows server licensing terms were more reasonable at the outset? If Mr Shuttleworth decided his money was better spent feeding children on his home continent rather than making Debian look nicer? Think about it...

But that's not even the point, really. From the perspective of the cell phone manufacturers, eliminating or reducing the expense of developing an OS is good for their bottom line. As long as Android is "good enough" for most users, I foresee it continuing to be used.

The argument over applications is one-sided. Apple's doing a shit job. But people still write more applications for it, because Apple offers a better product than Google does. Not a better development environment. Not a better marketplace (though that one's debatable). A better product.

If I had to determine, based on previous personal observations, which was more likely to exist, iTunes users or perl script users, I would have to conclude that you are imaginary.

My wife syncs music her G1 using Windows Media Player, because she's used it for years and likes it.

People who use Linux plug in their phone and Banshee syncs to it.

I don't think iPhone does WMP or Banshee. Sure, it's made by Apple, but my wife doesn't really care: she just want's it to work with her computer, without having to change all her software.

Videos, there is an application called "Video Player" that actually, well, plays videos.

I picked up an HTC Hero (More or less the G3, but I don't think out in the US yet) yesterday. The way it's going, I think I may love this phone more than my child.

Most of your problems are gone with this generation. It even has a standard headphone jack.

Android is catching up, fast.

Tip: make sure you get a Class 6 SDHC card if you're going to use a lot of apps at once.

Contacts -> Menu -> Display Group -> Contacts with phone numbers

I had no trouble finding a video app in the app store that worked fine.

A good PDF viewer is RepliGo Reader. It's $8 US, but no available in some Android Markets (such as Canada).

I used the phone for talk, lots of web browsing, podcasts, and music, mostly. The music transfer is lacking ... I just do file copies. YouTube works fine, haven' tried transferring videos.

When talking about Linux on the desktop, I'm not talking about the kernel, per se. Mostly, I'm talking about the user experience as informed by GNOME, KDE, and other Linux/Unix desktop environments, which have not been particular successes; Android's UX is a bit like GNOME on a phone, even if it doesn't use GTK widgets. This is to say that most of the applications are pale copies of standard applications on other mobile platforms, and that the UX is generally clunky.

When it does come to the kernel, I'm mostly talking about the difficulty of having an operating system that's designed to support a large variety of hardware. Perhaps I've gotten lemons, but the Android phones I've used seem to have a tentative relationship with their network interfaces.

I would actually welcome a platform that isn't an iPhone clone; that's why I got interested in Android in the first place. Android doesn't need to behave exactly like an iPhone to be a success in my book. It just needs to adhere to the same general level of quality control: things look good, they work right, the interface is intuitive, the hardware is speedy, third-party apps work 90% of the time. I don't care if the interface metaphors or hardware form factor is completely different. It just needs to not suck.

The battery life is a lot better than my old Windows Mobile phone, but I have not gotten anywhere near running low yet, so I can't really comment. My impression is that heavy use does not really run the battery down that quickly.

Performance really depends on what you have in the background. K9 totally kills it for me, because my IMAP server sucks. Google Sky Map and the Market sometimes lag for me. Google Reader can also be very slow. Otherwise, everything is good. I have a task manager installed, but since I stopped using K9, I have not needed it.

It is not a flawless experience, of course, but so much works incredibly well that I don't really care. Google does care about the details (changing colors, syncing contacts), and the third-party apps are really cool. (I forgot to mention Locale above; it's awesome! I never forget to turn my ringer on at home.)

So battery is not as good, but the notifications are always timely, since they work in background and latitude keeps my position updated, those are probably the culprit for shorter battery life.

That's exactly why iPhone is superior (so far): it is not about what, it is about how

Please explain in detail what you mean.

Update: I do not say that Android phones are economy class and iPhone is private jet. The point of the above is to explain what I meant by difference between what and how.